Friday, August 3, 2012

Pura Vida: a Golden Birthday, big cats, and The Springs


We were in Costa Rica for Becky's Golden Birthday.  IE, she turned 29 on the 29th (don't worry, I'd never heard of that, either; but it's a thing).  We started the day by walking to a bridge some miles from the hotel.  I say we walked, but with the landscape down there it's really all hiking.


Becky and I wanted to find a local artist, a husband and wife team with a wood art shop just up the road from the  tree house hotel.  Of course, "just up the road" is relative.  It wasn't brutally hot compared to Miami, but we're not used to being under the sun for that long.  The sun and the bags we carried made us feel every step.

People kept stopping to offer us rides.  Much as in the US, some of the the locals are just being helpful.  Others offer you a free ride and then demand payment before they'll let you out.  A few want to drive you to a remote area and take everything you have.  We had been warned so we kept to walking.  There was plenty to see along the way.

Thursday, August 2, 2012

Pura Vida: Local Flavor

In an interview with Knight Arts, Miami poet Emma Trelles said "Anything can thrive down here. You could fling a tadpole into a gutter puddle and have a colony of frogs a week later. That kind of insistent life is inspiring."  This is true about Miami.  It's true in Costa Rica a hundred fold.

Geckos cover the streets of Miami, those little ones people up north buy at pet stores.  In Costa Rica, we saw these bad boys outside of a restaurant:  

That black triangle in the upper-left corner is the edge of the patio roof.

Iguanas like plaintains.