Puerto Viejo de Talamanca

I´ve been staying at Rocking J´s in Puerto Viejo. All the rumors about the amount of ganja here are true. I met Jay of Rocking J´s and also met Juppy of Juppy and Tino Adventures, who brought us to the Manzanillo reserve for a half-day hike. The Manzanillo reserve was absolutely beautiful. We blazed our own trail through the jungle behind our guide, who carried a machete. My 35mm camera has been taking the place of my digicam, but I´m suffering through growing pains. I keep forgetting to bring extra film and always run out of shots about halfway through whatever activity I happen to be doing. I haven´t been sleeping well since arriving at Puerto Viejo. I knew early on that I couldn´t stay here for too long. As much fun as the nightly drum-and-guitar bonfires are, I could see easily that this wasn´t a healthy environment for me. The people here feed off of each other into an endless cycle of peer pressure and giving in.

J of Rockíng J´s seemed like a sweet, albeit lonely man. I didn´t see a wedding ring on his finger, and he´s always got a J in his mouth. He´s a middle-aged ex-pat from the U.S. Though, I suppose running a hostel that kids can come to party at can´t be considered too bad of a life. He gets to hang out with girls in bikini´s all the time. And its different girls every week. His hostel also has an artistic flair to its design that I appreciate. Poems on the inside of the bathroom stalls instead of things like "I will love Eric forever."

I did meet a surprisingly sweet gentleman from North Carolina who has his own band - Forward All. I do have a weakness for tall blue-eyed Southern gentlemen. But all hope died when he admitted to having a knight-in-shining-armor complex. There´s something, he said, about girls who need to be saved. Barring drug addicts. I realized at that point that I was out of the running. As a girl who´s travelling Central America on her own and starting med school in the fall and stubborn to a fault, I´m the last person who needs to be saved. I don´t appeal to those in search of maidens in distress. Perhaps more so to those who enjoy challenges. After all, how attached can you get anyways to someone you meet on the road for 2 days? Even despite an easy-going personality and an utterly charming one-sided dimple?

What was once lost can never be found.

I´ve replaced my lost pen with one donated by the hostel I´m staying at. Too bad I can´t replace ipods as easily. Funny, when I had it on the trip, I never listened to it. Perhaps because I was too fascinated by the new landscape to want music intruding on my already busy thoughts. Now that I´ve had some time to get accustomed to the flora here, I have room for a soundtrack to accompany the remainder of my trip. But sadly, like all neglected companions, my ipod has left me for someone else.

I can´t help but wonder if all this loss is due to some karma debt I had racked up. It theoretically is just loss of material goods, but these material goods are a) expensive, and b) have a lot of personal value. Did I do something to anger God? Am I being punished somehow?

Since January, I´ve lost:
1) my mom´s diamond ring (still heartbroken about this one)
2) all my credit cards and ATM card
3) digital camera
4) ipod

Though, I like to think of 2, 3, and 4 as stolen as opposed to lost.

Since January, I´ve gained:
1) med school admission
2) a Philadelphia apartment lease (I move in 3 days after I get back!)
3) almost 10k in savings minus $300 for a new digicam and $300 for a new ipod
4) a snowboard
5) 10 pounds

2005 may quite possibly go down as the year of simultaneous loss and gain.

When I was in Quepos, I ran into a Kiwi whose name I can´t remember. He was telling me about the New Zealand aborigine people and how they´ve been hard to assimilate into the existing ecnomoy because they have a habit of wandering off on their own on a walkabout, without any sort of warning. And then show up nonchalantly a few months later. Culturally, this happens with enough pseudofrequency that it doesn´t go over too well with cubicles and employers. I think perhaps my own semi-yearly journeys are walkabouts as well. And I need them, just as the NZ aborigine needs them. I find strange comfort in being alone among strangers. Perhaps that´s why I liked NY so much. The crowds gave me space to think. To be leisurely with my own thoughts as I disappear into the hum. I could pretend not to hear someone over the rumbling of the subway.

Music makes my heart sing. Sometimes.

Music makes me feel a little sad sometimes. And a little alone. I woke up this morning with my internal ipod playing Iron and Wine's "Such Great Heights". I was a bit concerned that I still had music in my head even despite the absence of a physical ipod, but I think it should be okay. It's not like I'm hearing voices or anything.

I. Think that it's a sign that the freckles in our eyes are mirror images and when we kiss they're perfectly aligned. And I. Have to speculate that God himself did make us into corresponding shapes like puzzle pieces from the clay.

Lost in Translation

Setting: Talking to our middle-aged rather portly Costa Rican guide on our 25 km hike through the Osa peninsula.

Tiene buena forma!
What I meant to say: You're in good shape!
What I said instead: You have a good body.
Correct spanish: Esta en buena forma.

Setting: Talking to the hostel owner.
Tiene una cucaracha para mi sandwich?
What I meant to say: Do you have a spoon for my sandwich? (to spread the pb&j)
What I said instead: Do you have a cockroach for my sandwich?
Correct spanish: Tiene una cuchara para mi sandwich?

I'm back in San Jose staying an Tranquilo Backpackers (it gets the thumbs up from me. I personally hated Pangea). Arenal was a good place to go, and the bridges were pretty. Quite honestly, after Osa, everything seems a bit diluted. We also tried the hot springs at Baldi and realized that it was Spring Break Cancun central.

Tomorrow: Western Union to get my money. Bus to Puerto Viejo.