Gandoca & Heading Back

We caught the morning bus to the end of the coastal road at Manzanillo yesterday. From there we walked into the Gandoca Reserve. The reserve stretches to the Panama border. I think the beaches there are about the nicest places I've ever been. This shot (click for full view) does not convey the real beauty of the spot I stood in while taking it. A 360 degree pano would do a little better. There are incredible rock forms getting pounded by surf in the direction where Shar is looking in the photo.

We're leaving Puerto Viejo Monday. We expect to be back home Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. Ciao!

I sat in with (left to right) Rani, (me in the background) Carlos & Junior last Friday at Parquecito.

Rolf had us over to his place for a barbecue at his place last Saturday. Before dinner I noticed a couple of chestnut mandibled (the largest, but not the most colorful, of the 3 toucan species seen here) in tree in the front yard a couple hundred feet away. Rolf got his scope out. I put our camera to the scope eyepiece and shot this before the second of the two flew away. People in the U.S. have forgotten what meat tastes like. Animals that spend a few years wandering around eating whatever is in season, taste much different than factory produced meat raised on feed (corn, fish meat & meal) that they never were evolved to eat. The night ended with Juana getting us up to dance Salsa & Tumba.

Rolf & Juana are spoiling us by putting us up in a 500 square foot room with 200 square of balcony added. We protested at first but now we love it. It's much different than our digs in San Blas where our shower consisted of a pail ladling out from a barrel of rainwater from the roof. Sharle says she may choose Asian tapas & all-you-can-eat sushi tonight.

Music

I played with ex-pat keyboard player/singer Jimmy & my rasta friend/conga player Lenny at Salza Brava the other night. Tonight I'm going to sit in at El Parquecito with Calypso master "Junior" Emilio Alvarez. It's a little intimidating, I've played with him several times before on previous trips, but I've also seen him tell people to sit down when he wasn't happy with what they were doing. It's an honor to play with him. I am not aware of any young people doing what he does. He's approaching 70 and tells me he has 24 children. (There's a picture of him with his youngest on a blog entry from last August.) I told him I try to steal some of his chops. He said to me "Keep trying, you'll get it!" When he gets going he seemingly throws in notes randomly in the middle of a solo playing rythm & melody at the same time. It's good & amazing, & he makes it work. He always plays with Rani--a quilongo player (sort of a wash tub bass, but with a wooden box instead of a wash tub). Rani's rythm & intonation are impeccable. I told him, I don't know how he does it. He said, "Mahn it jus' like de' trombone you see!" Tonight's percussionist will be bongo player, Carlos. The three of them are going to tour Spain this October. Last month they were in Mexico & reportedly made it on U.S. television.

Cahuita

We took the bus up to Cahuita yesterday & walked into the park until we found a little spot where could have a snack & swim. I took this photo there. (Click it for a full view.) Along the way we saw a troupe of howler monkeys and a two-toed sloth that three of the monkeys climbed right over as though he/she were not there.

Panama Petroglyphs

A couple weeks ago we visited El Valle in Panama. One of the attractions there are some petroglyphs on a rock overhang along a stream. I've found little info on the indigenous folks who made them. I stared at them for a while & decided I could discern no obvious meaning. I do have a hypothesis however: I suspect they may be a plan for a worm hole. The message may read something like "Okay the white people are here. If any one comes along and understands this, here's where we went."

Puerto Viejo

I've done a little editing, & additions to my last post if you want to check.
What I like about Puerto Viejo is some things never change here. I seem the same people year after year: the guy calling "patty patty" (pahtee, pahtee) from his bike with his cooler full of warm freshly made pattys--a spicy Carribean sort of empanada type thing, the old man selling coconuts on the park/beach front, the girl doing trencitas (hair braids) on the street, the guy selling fruit on the corner, the same guys sitting around from time to time. I recognize them & now they recognize me with a "hello" or "buenas." This place is also a magnet it seems for tall lanky European twenty-something blondes, who stroll the beach alone or in pairs by day, & sit in threes or fours at Chili Rojo, or E-Z Times at night, or sit with a Rasta who they are obviously buying dinner & whatever for.

We swim at Playa Negro (Black Beach). The water is calm but good for body surfing. Most tourists prefer Playa Cocles a little east of town with it's wide white sand beach. The ocean is rough there though, & there are rip currents--not good for swimming IMHO. Playa Negro is usually pretty empty, and less than a five minute bike-ride from our hotel. There are pictures of it in earlier years psot on this blog.

San Blas Reflections

Now that I have the time I'm gonna' do a little talk about San Blas.

The Booby (El Pato):
Within minutes of arriving on Uktuptupu we noticed this bird. When we had the chance we asked Alberto our Kuna guide/boat driver what the name of the bird was. He said he didn't know, but explained to us in Spanish (which I actually understood) about the story of the bird. the Kuna speak their own language to each other but many also speak Spanish. Alberto seemed intent on teaching me Kuna. Every time I spoke to him in my very limited Spanish he would tell me howto say it in Kuna. The next day I asked the 73 year old owner of the hotel, a Kuna named Juan Garcia, about the bird. He's one of the few Kuna who speak English. He didn't know the name of the bird either, but here's my recollection of what he told me in English:
"This bird every year he come and fly (making motions with his hands indicating a a flock of birds flying to the north) he no live here. He live somewhere. This bird (makes diving motion with his hand) in water. He eat fish. The fish big and (makes hand motion to throat) he choke. They find him in canoe and bring him here. My son-in-law take the fish out of bird and he stay. Every day he come to cocina (kitchen) and get three, four fish."

Around Ukuptupu the call the bird "el pato"--the duck.

BTW-Ukuptupu is an island of about 20 by 30 meters of sand ringed with stones. All the buildings are on piers surrounding the sand.

When we arrived at Rolf's in P.V. he looked at the picture on our camera and said it's a booby. He got his Birds of Costa Rica and decided it was a brown booby. Mystery solved.

Mariscos (Sea Food):
I believe the last itme I ate a lobster was over forty years ago on a vacation trip to Maine with my dad and it was somehow obligatory. On Uktuptupu meals were included with our stay. At our first day's lunch, which was conch, we were informed we'd be eating lobster for dinner. The lobster here are a different (clawless) species than those that live in the cold north, & they grow much faster. Richard, the young English gentleman who was one of our companions on the island, informed our hosts he didn't want lobster. Towards the end of that afternoon's excursion to Dog Island, Alberto said he was taking the canoe out to check other nearby Kuna canoes for fish. Shar & I asked if we could accompany him & he agreed. He went to three different boats around Dog Island calling out in Kuna, "Oohah Ooah" (Fish fish!). The canoes held catches of huge crabs & lobster but no fish. On the way back to Uktuptupu, he shouted to other canoes & islands we past, "Oohah Ooah." Folks just shook their heads. No fish. Richard was forced to eat lobster for dinner. During the meal Shar asked if he was allergic to shellfish. He replied no, he just understood that lobster was overfished & being depleted, and "I wanted to do the right thing--I didn't realize it was going to cause such a problem!" Shellfish appear to be plentiful here at present. I hope the fishery doesn't get overexploited. I'm currently reading Carl Safina's Voyage of the Turtle, which is an excellent overview of the current problems of ocean fisheries.