Costa Rica part five
Thursday, Mar. 23, 2006 - 20:22

Monday, before sunset
hammock, Jacaranda

I want a kitten I decided last night when the lady here put her kitten Zsa Zsa in my arms and Zsa Zsa folded up her paws on my hand and went to sleep. I want a kitten!

Then today, I walked up and down our road many times, there�s this poor little kitten, Zsa Zsa�s size or smaller, alone on a porch, crying all day. I went to pet him and saw � I don�t know what distended bowels look like or even what they are but that�s what this kitten has and he�s going to die because he�s all alone. Every time I walked by, there the poor thing was, crying. While I was petting him he rolled over onto his back, trying to get me to fix his intestines and I can�t, and then he rolled off the porch and down into the swamp below the porch. There�s a big crab that lives under there, among other things. I got him out, put him on the porch, and walked away, he was crying. Jesus christ. The last time I walked by this afternoon he wasn�t there. And anything else I might have wanted to write right now�

[bedtime] Dogs: the gene for short legs must be dominant. There are many big long short-legged dogs. The dogs here all sit, all day. Or lie, more precisely. They all have either balls or teats.
Flesh-eating bacteria: conquered
Hair: clownish
Face: terribly irritated
Legs: covered in mosquito bites from that damn godforsaken jungle, thank god I got that anti-itch stuff for the flesh-eating bacteria
Tan: yes
Sunburn: as well
Number of books read: lost track
Number of injuries seen in Dominical: innumerable (black eyes, broken noses, broken arms, broken feet, bandaged legs)
Number of horses seen frolicking on Playa Negra today: five? six?
Number of dogs accompanying the lone horse on the street tonight: two
Dream last night: On a plane, San Jose to Amsterdam, landing, very treacherous. there�s a big screen display or big window at the front so we can see everything. We�re flying about 5 feet above the water. Helicopters and other planes are flying toward us, barely over us. People are scared. I accidentally kidnap a little girl but return her when we�re deboarding. Her mother thinks I�m weird. I get off the plane and am in a grocery store. My phone buzzes. It�s my mom, worried that I�m not going to have enough time to get to my connecting flight in Sioux Falls. I realize I don�t have my boarding pass anyway. I look at my phone � I have three text messages, two from one person, exactly the same, and one from Charis, which was like an email forward: �Close your eyes. Q: What is a wet vagina? A: A surfer�s burger.� It was either supposed to be funny or informative but I woke up without reading the rest, so I don�t know.

Tuesday, 8:00

Woke up this morning feeling like I was an enormous bear that could barely fit inside this room. I could feel the enormity of myself, my giant paws and giant head. It was weird because that�s really how I felt, I really felt huge.

It's our last night in Puerto Viejo.

Yesterday. Scene: cafe called Peace & Love, sandwich, coffee. Across the street a little store and above it a balcony like from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride, purple velvet curtain over the door, except a shirtless morbidly obese man and not a whore comes out to stand on the balcony.

I may or may not have a cockroach in my ear who may or may not be rotting and/or laying eggs in there. Maybe it�s just water, but it�s been in there for a week. Maybe I�m seriously going deaf.

Snorkeling today. It poured last night so the water wasn�t very clear. But it was fun. I was made an honorary member of a large school of fish, 100 or so, many different kinds. At first I was scared that they�d all attack me and rub their fish bodies on me, but they didn�t. So we swam around eating things from the coral, swimming to and fro, here and there, for like ten minutes until this stupid guy from Ottawa barged in and chased everyone away.

We snorkeled in a few different spots along the reef. There was no sun and for the first time in Costa Rica I got cold and started getting hypothermia. Then we ate fruit in the presence of monkeys. Then we walked through some jungle and saw many things. My favorite thing in Costa Rica is the leaf cutter ants. If I could do it all over again I�d become an expert on ants, or ducks.

The most interesting thing about traveling is the people you meet. When you leave for the next town, some of the people you wish you could have talked to more, and some of the people you�re glad to be away from.

I�m too tired to write right now, actually. I would really love to be asleep. Tomorrow to La Fortuna. Annoying family next door who I will not miss. But oh that mysterious Mexican.

Wednesday March 8
22:22 way past bedtime
La Fortuna

Today: breakfast in Puerto Viejo at Bread and Chocolate and right as we were finishing up Courtney showed up. It was nice to see her and talk to her about [terrible place which shall remain nameless]. She got sick there too. She�s getting her scuba certification.

Interbus to La Fortuna.

Volcano at dusk. Lava flows. Tourists are annoying. So is anyone who talks too much.

Hot springs � way nice, really nice.

Tomorrow caballo and I�m really tired right now. My hair and I are very happy to be in the mountains. This is where we�re from.

Thursday

Things are super. In a room with air conditioning and this thing called a TV. While my sister was in the shower I watched The Practice and it was terrible, it was so bad, and I know because I used to work in a law firm and maybe still do.

Oh and also things are super because I walked into a store full of notebooks and I love notebooks more than anything else. I bought two fantastic ones and have already started writing in one. Souvenirs, who needs them, but notebooks...

This morning horseback ride to a waterfall. My caballo was the ugliest thing I�ve ever seen, the ugliest horse I�ve ever ridden, and I�ve had to ride many ugly horses. Its head was bald � its face. It had ugly blue eyes. Yuck. Horses should be pretty! They should also go when you tell them to, and this one of course wouldn�t fucking go. I squeezed, I kicked, I clicked, I made kissy noises, but the stupid ugly bastard would only go when the guide twirled his rope behind it.

My sister got a pretty horse and the guide tried to kiss her. She told him no. But she might have been able to get us free horse rides on top-shelf horses.

Next time I go anywhere I�m not looking at any pictures beforehand. I�d never technically seen a rainforest but now I have and it looks like the pictures.

Tomorrow we�re going to Monteverde by horse.

I don�t know how I managed to be in Australia for ten weeks by myself. Yes I do. But what I mean is I�m getting sick of this.

Just washed my clothes � hopefully they�ll be dry by tomorrow � but before that man were they stinky. I am a person capable of generating large amounts of stink, despite my lack of central heating.

Toucans, dogs, vultures, other birds, a tree � not just a tree but an entire world � moss, bromeliads, vines, an entire world of plants living on this tree. And a little plant that would wilt when you touched it.

I need to figure out how to be in three places at once. I want to move back to my hometown for the summer, so much I could die. But summer in Seattle � that was so great, I�d love to do that again, and all the bands � of course I couldn�t leave. But summer in my college town is great too, so laid back, and if I do go back to school in the fall... I�m torn. Sitting here on a bed in Costa Rica I�m thinking about the beautiful possibility of a summer in my hometown and swimming and the 4th of July and mornings and nights and my dad is retiring. Or a summer in Seattle like my summer in Ballard and walking home in the middle of the night after seeing a band, looking up at the stars, the sunsets over the Olympics. Or college town, camping and rivers and roads and food.

!