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Published: September 6th 2008
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Hello all -
Well, this is my last blog for the season. I'm sitting right now in the airport waiting for my flight to New York. Vomit. Basically, I was a moron and booked one flight from 12:30 to 5:00 pm and the other from 5:30 AM (AM!?!?!) to 8:30. Again, vomit. I've got a long night ahead of me here in Fort Lauderdale... and can you believe the closed all of the resturants (what I'm I supposed to eat? And I want coffee!). Anyway, so I've got all night to go on and on and on...
Last week I took sometime away from my monkey playground in the clouds and went to the beach... Dominical. It was entirely awesome. The roads aren't paved. The beach stretches forever in both directions. The forests and the palms come right down to the ocean front. There are huge waves and surfers come from all over to catch them.... it was very relaxing. Early on, I bought a sarong, and wore nothing but my bikini and that wrap around skirt. I sat on the beach and read. I sat in the shade of the palm trees and wrote. I suntanned. I burned
my armpits (sweat? Not very elegant, I know, but, well, that is the reality). I bought some beers at the local mart and drank them as the sun went down and surfers tried to do what they do out in the ocean. The second night, I sat on the beach while a storm came in, not a half mile down shore. It was pouring down there! And dark! But where I was, I looked out into blue ocean. It was always 80 to 90 degrees, and was sunny all day, but rained all night.
I ate most of my meals at a little place that sat right on the ocean front. It smelled of ocean, and I love that smell. There was a place, if I walked further down the road, that was so full of rotting coconuts that the air simply smelled heavily of coconut... and it was delicious.
The place was utterly crawling with hippies and surfers. People that have dread locks, make bracelets for a living, and never wear shoes. I wanted to fit in, minus the BO. (Well, ok, I won't make that joke, not all of them smell). Because it was just like
that... lazy, slow, hot, and completely wonderful. Honestly, there isn't much to tell, because there I really didn't do that much there.
I only went for two days. When I got back, I hit the trail again, hot in pursuit of monkeys. I've decided I'm a real expert at finding them... I find them most everyday.
On saturday, we decided to go out. Now, realize please, that we live up the mountain and far away from everything. First, in the dark with our sexy headlamps (which bugs constantly run into) we walked down the mountain (avoiding horseshit... its everywhere up there). This takes about 45 minutes. We then sat at the bar and had a drink. But THEN, the locals, including the amazing Maribel, invited us out to a dance at the next town. "Its not far," she said. So we decided to walk to that. ANOTHER 45 minutes down the hill, we come to a pretty good disco. I mean, really actually, the music was good. So the kids at cloudbridge got a drink, but no sooner had we sat down, but the locals decided this wasn't a good enough party for them. they wanted to go
further down the hill. We simply could not follow. How much time and distance could we possibly put between us and a good night's rest? So they left. I was sitting there with two boys. One didn't feel good, and the other was hungry, so we left pretty early, and super hiked back up the hill for about an hour and a half. Yuck.
The plus side of the whole thing was that I DID squeeze in some dancing, which always makes me happy. And plus, before the club music started, there was other, more formal kinds of dance. The DJ played salsa and meriengue (sp?), and I got to watch all the people dance. Latin people are much better trained in the art of dancing! All sorts of people, from their early teens, to people in their 30s or 40s were dancing on the floor. Most were pretty good. I wish I had been there with someone who knew what they were doing! But, like I said, we hit the road... and thus ended our cultural night hike.
the was the start of my last week there. I went out a few more times, and then wrapped
up what I was doing. On tuesday night, before I left, I had to give a presentation (!?!?!?). Amy, who works closely with the reserve, invited us all to her house. In total there was Amy and Tom (married, and from MN, who knew!), Jill and John (run a local hostel, married), the four of us volunteering from Cloudbridge, Eric Kang and his son Kash (Eric manages cloudbridge), and Maribel (the friendly local girl who wants to learn english). Amy made us Lasanga (again, sp?), and garlic bread, and rice krispy treats. Jill brought salad (greens!). And it was a feast! Mostly, among the volunteers, we were eating rice and beans at the Casa. And also a lot of pancakes. Or if we put a lot of sugar in the batter, we called them cookies. There was even a phase when Graham was putting rice and beans in pancakes (even with vanilla flavor) and cooking that up. Which was and interesting experiment, I have to say. He was very friendly in wanting to share it with everyone. I should also mention here that Graham enjoys putting granola in ramen. But I digress. Because the Amy and Tom feast was amazing,
and well appreciated by myself and all of the other volunteers. We all had a little whine and I ave a powerpoint presentation. I hoped they enjoyed it!
The next day I left and I was so sad! I had a really good time at the Reserve, with the monkeys and the volunteers, and all the other associated people. I especially want to thank Alexis, Graham, and Adrien for being such cool people to hang out with. I was really happy to share that place with you guys. To Eric, Tom, Amy, John, and Jill... you were just as cool! And I hope to see you again in the future.
I left for San Jose. I had one extra day before I left so yesterday, I decided to visit Volcan Poas... a nearby volcano. The forest surrounding it was amazing... high altitude cloud forest. All mossy and with stunted vegitation, its like a whole secret fairy world or something... and also very still and quiet... and completely encased in fog. So basically, I didn't see the volcano because there were to many clouds. To bad.
And now, here I am. Ready to go home.
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