And plasma death rays.. and stuff..
(both pictures of me and my tent in Los Chiles, Costa Rica)
Yay! I have more time!
I had to come back to the internet cafe, because I conviently managed to leave all of my money in my tent.. minus just enough change for the bus. So, I had to come back. Had to pay for the internet.
So, before, my camera´s ability to take pictures was very very limited (it automatically took one picture every time I turned it on) but now, I cant even rely on that.. the pictures all have this awesome tint of green that I cant do anything about (maybe I could with a picture editor, but Im not going to brother trying.) Its broken.
I am, however, going to try to bribe someone to take a digital picture of me when I get to Panama City and the Canal.
(the boat into Costa Rica. Notice the bike.)
Update:
Okay. So where Im staying right now is on a beach (more or less). My tent is actually on a palm-tree covered area just before the beach. Which lead me to a discovery.. palm trees shed their huge 100ib branches much more frequently than normal trees do. Their brances are kind of like leaves in that way. But just a lot bigger. And kind of dangerous. As I was eating dinner at a friend´s house near by, I watched a huge branch plummet from about 20 feet up and do an almost direct hit to my tent.. one of the poles is a little bent, but I was impressed. With all the crazy sub leaves on the main palm tree "leaf" that fell, its final velocity before it struck my tent was considerably less than what it could have been. Part of it also struck the ground, so that helped too. But.. my tent survived.. and I got to drag the leafbranchmonster over to where a firepile was and hack it up for firewood. Machette = 1, palmtreebranchdeath = 0.
When I arrived here in Puerto Limon, I had the knowledge from other friendly people that I met that Limon was realitvely dangerous. So, I passed through it quickly.. and then, after counting my money, and realizing that I have a long time to go before I could get more, I headed back in, and quickly waited in a long line for an ATM with my bike. And then.. quickly used the atm. And left. Not so quick. None of it was quick. Thats what I was trying to get across.
But um, I have noticed that my sence for dangerous places is being hightened. I noticed that I can read it in people, how the people hold themselves in the street... what the street looks like.. what people are doing.. After passing through certain parts of Limon, I felt very safe in certain parts, and in other parts I felt like it was not the best place to be. And after talking to these friends that Ive met and am staying with more or less, outside of Limon on the beach, I was right. It was cool, and I am happy.
After leaving Limon for a second time, I rode.. and was feeling progressivly more and more drained. After a few km, I realized that I had eaten very little that day, and decided that the first thing I was going to do was track down some dinner. So, I rode into the first bar-restaurant that I found (the only thing that I found), pulled up my bike, sat down, and asked for a menu.
Sitting next to me, was this shirtless, crazyteethed (trying to use a nice term), shaggy-haired black man. A thing about the Atlantic cost and the carribean in general, is that there are a lot of black people here. Im not going to pretend that I know a lot about the history of the place, but I know that the spaniards where the ones that "discovered" this new world and that the black race exsists in Central America because of the slaves that were brought over.
Anyways. I quickly learned that this black man´s name was Eddie. He addressed me immidiately in English, which was nice. And after about 15 seconds of talking with this person, I knew that I did not want to find another place to sleep that night.
Eddie (I dont have a picture.. I wish I did) is the father of four children, 2 of which live in his small home on the beach. His youngest son and his second youngest son lifare the ones living with him, his youngest son being 25 and having a wife and two kids (with a thrid on the way), and his second youngest son being ..older, and living in a room on his own. The two grandchildren, the son and daughter of his youngest son, each have their "own" rooms, the daughter sleeping with the grandfather and the son having a room to himself. The married couple (.. i dont actually know if theyre actually married) have their own room.
So, there are 6 rooms in the small, one floor cabin. The livingroom, which has the couple´s room on one side and the oldest son´s room on the other, and the kitchen, which has the grandson´s room on one side and the grandaughter/Eddies room on the other (confused yet?). And here, they live happier than many people Ive met in Costa Rica. In fact.. I would have to say all of the people Ive met.
My tent is currently outside of their house, on the beach, and I am allowed to use their shower and kitchen. Today, I went fishing with the grandkids and couple, in a dugout canoe, in a river that feeds into the ocean near here. They had slingshots.. and the father of the couple and the grandson were using them to shoot at birds.. until they killed one. A fairly large duck. Immidately the two of them both dove out and swam to the shore to where the duck was, picked it up, and brought it back. I asked, "What are you going to do with that?" They replied, "Eat him." And I thought it was fun and games.
Today, after sleeping long, hard and beautiful yet again.. I woke up at around 10. 10! Frickin awesome. I looked out through my tent door and the fly, and I saw beautiful sand and trees basked in the carribean sun. And I felt absolutly no urge to leave. I slowly dragged myself out of my tent, and pulled some clothes on.. and thought, for yet another time, "Bike travel is very difficult."
Theres been two phrases that seemed to keep coming back to me since I started travelling on bicycle.
The first one, that came to me more in the beginning of my trip, is, "Exsistance is a funny thing." I kept thinking about this, because, my life was(/is) changing so much, even from day to day. I was meeting new people, travelling different places, dealing with different circumstances and finding places to sleep on a day to day basis. But, through all the change, and all the crazy things I was seeing/experiencing/feeling, one thing stayed the same, me. In the sence, that Im the same person (although I believe I have changed some). But, Im still the same person that was living, as before, and the same person that was exsisting, dispite all the crazy worlds Ive been swimming through. Exsistance is funny.. because one person can exsist in a world (on this world) under so many different circumstances. There are so many different lives that are being lived.. you ge to meet so many of them while travelling.
Wow, holy rant. I guess Im in the writing kind of mood :D I have energy.
The second phrase is, "Bike travel is very difficult." The physical part of bike travel is managable, I can handle the physical part. But the part of this kind of travel that is so difficult is that I keep finding all these amazing people and places, and sometimes is so, so hard to pick up and leave. Eddie says if I want, I can stay with them for months. So hard to leave.
(what a very, very top-heavy bike continuously does. In a hostel in Granada, Nicaragua)
Anyways, continuing on with my story, this morning, as I was slowly putting my things together, packing up my tent, looking at the beautiful sun, white sand and relaxed atmosphere, Eddie came up to me. He said, "Why you goin and doin dat nonsense fo´? Its too late in the day to leave now. The sun is faar to hot (prounounced like Ho but with a t) and its far better fer you ta leave te next mornin. Bright n early. If ya leave no yo gunna git cook´d in th´ sun and youre not gunna make it very far and.. its no sense to leave t´day. Besides, the young´ns are gunna go fishing and they want you to come." He went on like that for about 5 minutes, before I finally told him that I definately did not want to leave. Him asking me to stay.. well, him telling me to stay was definatly enough to convince me to stay another day. And here I am.
Another interesting event that happened recently:
Last night, after I got home from using the internet, I went back to my tent to look for where I left my money. I noticed that I left my inner tent door open in my tired state, when I left. I started groping around to find my flashlight..
I still remember the brief almost-a-second feeling of confusion of the random sensation of something grasping my left thumb.
And I still remember the intense pain of the realization that followed, as I flailed and yelled something like "AAAANDTHATSACRABFUCKNGSHIT"... wow those fuckers are strong. He drew blood, and dispite the continued tenderness my thumb its healing nicely. In the passion I also conviently ripped his arm off, after which he nicely obliged and released me. (Mental note: crabs let go of you really fast if you rip their limbs off.) Im not cruel, it was self defence.
(he is a man that helped me find a place to stay, in Mayasa, Nicaragua)
(Also some people that helped me in Masaya. They bought me lunch, for no particular reason other than Im doing what Im doing... I also have their contact information, "If (I) ever need anything when (Im) here next, just call. Anything.")
(verybigtree)
(Michelle (yes you Michelle!), this Bull´s for you. ..But you have to come get him)
Here is one more story I want to include.. wow this is a long entry. Some of you have recieved this story already, in one form or another.
The climb of that volcano took me 2 days to complete. I left the sea-level sort of area around the middle of the day, from a town called San Miguel. I started climbing.. Im lazy. Here´s a version of the story Ive already written (sorry Kristy, I stole it).
It was getting dark, and there was a fairly intense storm going on all around me (and on me), and I had been steadily climbing this volcano on my bike for 4 or 5 hours. I was freezing. I was hungry. I had no food, and I was out of range of my planned destination for the night. It was too dark to ride, because there was no visability due to the intense rain. So.. I last-resorted it (heh.. resort) and went up to this hotel and asked if I could put up my tent under their outdoor roof. The reception called the manager.. as they were talking, some guests walked by. It turned out that they were there (here) on their honeymoon.. and they were paying $120US a night..!!!
The responce I usually recieve from hotels is basically, "Screw you, no you cant sleep here for free, but you can pay for a room." And.. something like this was what I was expecting from this luxury hotel I found way up in the mountains. But.. instead, they said, "Weve decided we´ll give you a bed instead. And dinner, for free." I just about pooed myself.
The next night, after managing to summit Volcan Poas, I was decending the first part of the volcano when.. pop! pop! Two more spokes went, following the ones that had already broke when I was climbing. My wheel quickly became near-unusable.
After riding many dangerous kilometeres in yet another storm, with a wheel that looked like a taco chip (not quite) and wet non-exsistant brakes, I arrived into a town big enough to have a bike shop.
Thats one thing about Costa Rica.. its normal here for people to have cars. There are not many bike shops around.
But, I fixed my wheel, and a really good friend here ended up helping me out.. I think Im going to have to continue this story next time. Holy blog.
(Ethne once asked me what the desersts look like here. This is what they look like (and what I have ridden through))
(And below.. thats me.)
