Costa Rican vibes

White Water rafting

I went rafting the other day and it was a gas! The trip lasted about one and a half hours and I loved it. There were 4 of us in our raft plus the river guide. We went down the Naranjo river which had a number of class 3 and 4 rapids. At one point everyone but me and the guide got dumped into the river. About 5 minutes later it was my turn. The other passengers besides me were a couple from Denmark and a cop from Brooklyn. Great company and a great time was had by all.

Finca Amanecer

It was actually difficult to leave the place because it is such a cool place. It is in a rainforest, there is beautiful scenery all over the place. The owner, Elena Ross is a fabulous, laidback, helpful, fun hostess. I will actually miss her. However tomorrow she is leaving for Bulgaria to do some spiritual dancing up in the mountains. She had a couple of people working there for their rent when I was there one of whom has since left (thank god) and the other one who is going run the place for a while when she is gone. The first one is:

LOONEY LARRY
Looney Larry is a real piece of work. He is a retired post office clerk. To know Larry is to know how they came up with the term "going postal" The guy is obviously slightly off his rocker. Ever know someone who just took one too many hits of acid. That is Larry. As I said he is a worker and nothing more the owner made that quite clear but apparently he has other ideas. Everything was fine until one time we were talking about massage and alternative health and stuff like that. Elena says that she does some massage and I said so did I. She seemed sort of stressed so I offered her one as she has a massage table. Well all of a sudden Larry gets real weird and he and Elena go into the kitchen to have a talk. It lasts quite a while with the upshot being that he tells her that she cannot receive or give a massage without having sex with the person. Sex was never either one of our goals but there it is. A day later he tells me that if we have sex he is going to chop my legs off with a machete. So it just went on like this until we both decided on detente. Well that´s Larry.

The CARMENATOR

Carmen is a young woman from Colorado. She is also a guide in Alaska. She is going to watch the place forElena for a while when Elena is gone. Her attitude is "I´m the Carmenator I can do anything" I love people with attitudes like that. She is always at work doing something. She doesn´t talk a lot she just lets her actions speak for her. When she goes about her work she does it with a competence and confidence that is a pleasure to watch.

MANAÑA

Tomorrow I continue heading south. I understand I have about 25 miles of dirt road ahead of me. I want to make it to a town named Dominical. I am not looking forward to it. But it is what it is. If I wanted everything to be the way it was at home I would have stayed at home. After Dominical I understand it paved all the to Panama City, so I guess that is not too much to put up with. So moving right along I am going to sign off and start drinking.
hasta la vista baby
Charlie