Entries this day: AM_poopypants About_Punta_Arenas Costa_Rica_with_Katt! Good_excuse_not_to_board Great_day Shawn's_day

AM poopypants

7:21am CST Saturday 30 July 2005

Last night I was sure I wanted to go down to Manuel Antonio and have fun where I had fun before, but right now I feel depressed and poopypants and I don't even want to leave the boat.

I'm just so fuckin' grrr. I don't know what to do or what I want to do.

About Punta Arenas

8:59pm JST Thursday 07 April 2005

(written before Pb. Before even pre-voyage materials were sent)

Punta Arenas doesn't seem to get much press. It's located in a bay on the west coast of Costa Rica, north of Quepos / Manuel Antonio, which Kathryn and I visited in 1998.

Costa Rica with Katt!

9:54am CST Saturday 30 July 2005

Katt rescued me from my room (bless her), and after walking for a while on the beach, where I 'helped' the guys who were cleaning the beach for what seems like preparation for a big event tonight, we walked around this little peninsula. We walked past what might be considered the shady area of town, because there was shade, and people with rather sharp knives were gutting fish among junk cars and corrugated metal sheds. On the water, boats floated next to non-flotatious boats (or at least not very modern boats) and flamingoes chilled in various cliques.

Near the end of the peninsula, we found a park that was just about completely overrun with plants. It featured a swimming pool, but the water was only about 18 inches deep, and quite dark. I enjoyed seeing trees growing completely beyong the tires that had protected them when they were little.

I would have found a way into the pool, but Katt was anti-interested in that. She left the park after not too long.

We continued walking, and at the end of the peninsula, we spent several minutes trying to get a photo of Francois flying toward the camera as I stood in the water. I wanted my arms to be at my sides so it wouldn't be apparent he had been thrown. This one is the best we got.

It was after this game that we met a motorcycle rider. He had stopped, possibly wondering wtf we were doing with this stuffed rabbit. I felt assured he wouldn't think I was a pansy with a bunny so much as a weird guy with a stuffed rabbit, cause I certainly wasn't taking pains to treat Francois as if he were delicate. He landed all over the rocks and asphalt and we laughed each time as I ran up the rocks (barefootedly, of course) to recover him if he wasn't within Katt's easy reach.

Afterward, I went up to talk to him. He's been riding around for some months and will sell it soon and go to Chile and live for a while. I wondered how he financed his adventure and he goes, "Ah.. I have income."

So Katt and I were wondering how he has money. She thinks network marketing, and I think something he built with his own blood sweat and tears, which could include network marketing.

11am CST Saturday 30 July 2005

Yo y Katorin estan en el taxi. Nosotros vamos al mono y jungla (el junglo?) y miemos un rio con muchos arbores. Que bueno!

12:05pm CST Saturday 30 July 2005

Just saw crocodiles under the bridge. I took a video of them. I wanted to have a thin long rope so I could lower Francois down to their level and see how big they were compared to him. They were basking by a river over which our highway passed. Lots of people were stopped in the area to scope out the crocs. Lots of traffic rumbled by, making for a relatively dangerous situation: there was no real guard between people on the narrow "sidewalk" (which basically amounted to a wide curb) and the highway traffic, that often included large 18-wheelers.

1:45pm CST Saturday 30 July 2005

A dog that could be named Rex, Katt next to a pretty big tree, me on the suspension brige.

Katt and I walked through this cloud forest area (called Rainforest Aerial Trams) and loved watching the leaf cutter ants. She created obstacles for them by putting a big leaf in their path. She wanted to know how long it would take for them to find their way across it. Basically they didn't before she got bored of waiting and removed the leaf.

I was amazed at the sheer length of their trails. They would travel for several meters each direction before disappearing into the jungle. We kept seeing them cross our trail and I wondered how many different colonies they represented. Was it the same ant-highway crossing our trail multiple times? And why can't these guys find leaves closer to their home? Surely they don't have to walk 20 meters in the jungle to find a leaf!

Hilariously, Katt complained that this is a "rainforest" but wan't raining, and it better rain cause she brought her umbrella.

Soon thereafter, it began to rain, and she was all happy with her umbrella, plus, the trees did an excellent job of dispersing the rain. Then it came time to go back across the small suspension bridge to go back across the river.

Her umbrella wouldn't fit between the lines! She had to fold it up to walk across, and she got soaked. Aww poooor Katt!

My watch also go soaked, and it now shows blank-o'clock.

We ate at a cafe, and Katt got alligator burger.

3:50pm CST Saturday 30 July 2005

Wow - time flies when we are sleeping in the back of the taxi.

Holy crap as we were paying, two guys began fighting on the street; I heard a bottle smash and heard yelling and the cart owner threw something and the other guy was handcuffed. I didn't get a picture.

Good excuse not to board

7 minutes before boarding limit CST Saturday 30 July 2005

We are next to the boat, but the gangplank is being *moved* so that we cannot get onto the boat! And the fish are going *mental* down next to the boat. There are hundreds of fish swimming around this floating sticks and crap next to the boat and the fish are just going *crazy*.

"Why did you miss the boarding limit?"

"There were no stairs!"

"Wah Wah Wah no stairs..."

Oh crap the door is closed now. I imagine we can get on at the other end. Damn this is pretty spooky! I see Shawn and Carissa now, so I'm even more sure we are not late. And wow the passengers don't have to be on for 30 more minutes!

Great day

6:35pm CST Saturday 30 July 2005

Katt and I had big fun today. I'm glad she came and cheerled me out of my slump; I felt all poopypants and didn't want to even leave my room this morning.

Shawn's day

Holy crap, Shawn and peeps (two taxis worth) ended up helping some guys who had an accident on their inaugural trip to Costa Rica.. all this crisis about having all their stuff in the world in this car and GET Teachers helped him get his stuff to the hotel and everything. Man. What a messed up situation. The wreck was a nightmare but no one died.

He got 3 seconds' view of the lake in the bottom of a crater. I don't know which volcano.

Katt goes, "oh, Shawn, I have a picture for you, and for some reason you look just like Keanu Reeves; I don't know why, but you do."

Shawn: "cause I've got my mouth wide open, and I don't appear to be thinking about anything?"

Here's Shawn and I enjoying some rather large corn chips.