By Bob Corbett
It’s a rainy day and I won’t do much today, so I might catch up on a few thoughts running through my head.
I woke early, 4 AM, but after a full 8 hours of sleep. One of the list members wrote to ask why in the world I didn’t care for the nights, and also why I didn’t have pork as my meat now and again.
The nights: This is a very small town, just about 5 blocks square for the actual tourist section, and then some small simple housing areas with no commercial establishments. But it is an area extremely popular for tourists and most especially surfers. The tourists are overwhelming young, young, young, and there are lots of bars and clubs to serve them. The music is music I would simply detest. When I took my first place the day I arrived, Cabañas Mary, one of the most attractive things in the guide book was that it was the farthest cheap housing from the night life.
I’ve never in my life liked bars and clubs, almost never went to them. I never even made the transition to rock music in the slightest. The great POP music star of my lifetime is and remains Bing Crosby, even that Italian guy, Frank somebody who came after Bing is only so-so in my book. If it’s pop music I’ll take Big Band, Swing, ball room dancing music. What I really prefer is classical music and opera and some Dixieland (old fashioned) and jazz.
However, in a place like this I would love LOCAL music, compas, meringue and such. None offered. Techno loud seems to be the rage. No thanks, I’d rather stay home and read and sleep. Plus, on the other end, it is much cooler in the mornings as the first light is coming out, 5 AM, so I like to use that time for more vigorous exercise. Less taxing than when the sun is up.
I rarely eat any red meat. Much prefer fish and chicken, and given my constant battle with cholesterol levels, it is just as well.
Ah, the correspondent also suggested my hikes might be more than he would really relish were he here. I’ll grant, I go a bit overboard on those, but oh my goodness I love walking, and to be able to walk in such pretty places and such unique (for me) places, I can’t get enough. At home I try to exercise as many days as I can and set a minimum target of 4 miles of walking or 20 miles of biking or some combination of the two.
When I get home I will IMMEDIATELY up that ante to a minimum of 5 miles walking or 25 miles biking or a combination (with 1 mile walking = 5 miles or biking.) I think I need that level of exercise to keep me alive and well.
[Much later note: I ended up giving up that standard and retreated to my “par” of 4 miles walking, 20 miles biking or some combination. That fits my body better. However, since the Costa Rica trip I walk much more than I do bike.]
So, today I woke at 4, read a while in my awesome new book, and noticed it had been raining and was not about to clear up, but it had stopped raining about 5:30 AN. I quickly headed out, but not to the beach, the rain was definitely threatening. I just walked down the street two blocks to the sea wall here in Quepos. Now Quepos is a fun place to stay and convenient to the nice beach and rainforest, but Quepos is a truly ugly little town, run down and just not pleasant. But, there is a long levee sea wall leading to a harbor. I walked that and it was interesting. That took over an hour and racked up nearly three miles.
I went back home and met a Swiss man who had come to the cabañas last night. It began to simply teem rain and he was all set to go to the rainforest, but sat a while. He is at the end of a month long trip, leaving in just two days, and I asked him his favorite places. He had just one other in Costa Rica, and that is a town over on the Caribbean coast where I’d hadn’t planned to go at all, but after hearing him and then reading about it in my guide book, well, in a while, I might consider it...... However, this weekend that is a huge festival there, and that means days on end of loud music and I would hate it. I’ll hang in here a week or two to get the festival fully over then see....
He also recommend an in-land island in southern Nicaragua and that looks pretty interesting too.
I have options, but I’m in no hurry to leave. The woman at the book store two doors from me just put up the new stock she brought back from England. And she has nearly a dozen modest priced books I’d love to read, so no worry now about running out of books. She traded me 2-1 for one book already and says she really wants to trade with me since the one book, Mangoes, Bananas and Coconuts, which I traded her, she is reading and simply loving. Says she thinks I have books worth her getting for her own reading. I have two more to offer her now.
So, there we are. Lazy, lazy day. I had the beans-rice and eggs breakfast again today, and will just sit and read, walking around town a bit as weather permits to get my last mile or two in for walking.
Bob Corbett
ADDENDUM
Yesterday Larry Hillebrand, member of the travel list and classmate of mine from St. James grade school, wrote to ask if I could get more details about the airplane up on the mountain top being used in the tourist industry.
I just got back. No one there spoke any English save the youngest boy among the workers, and he knew absolutely nothing about the plane, and when he asked for me in Spanish, no worker did either.
The workers are constructing huge palm tree trunks to bolster the wooden roof cover over the place, which appears to be going to be made into a restaurant, but I can’t tell.
I do have some data and what I described before was wrong on several counts.
That’s it. Some of the fellows saw me on the ladder and they all came running and shouting, but roaring with laugher, wagging their fingers, no-no at me, and waiting until I got down and took the ladder away.
So, that's all I could find out so far.
Bob Corbett
Bob Corbett corbetre@webster.edu