A giant cup of coffee that I can just refill and refill and refill as is my God-given American right, that’s what I’ve got right now … and I don’t have to pay extra for milk. My very own black gold.
Ah yes, wonderful to arrive into Newark yesterday afternoon to learn that we’ve won the war with Iraq. Whew! That must’ve been a close one. Glad we sqeaked by that one. Good to see the statues falling, don’t you think? Resonates with how safe I feel right now, probably as safe as we all feel, right?
Anyway, enough enoughing. To recap the last few days: we bused in from Panama to Golfito, then took the watertaxi to Puerto Jiménez, then a 2 hour ride in the back of a pick-up fixed with 2 benches in the back and a tarp overhead (reminds me of an Australian Outback kind-of thing, you know?) to what is commonly called the last frontier of Costa Rica, the southern Pacific coast of the Osa Peninsula. Nothing there, for the most part … no phone of electricity, just miles of black-sand beaches and jungle and an occasional leathery expat trying to set up a little cabina business in this jungle getaway … we stayed there for 2 days and just wandered the beach, as well as taking a formidable hike up the Rio Madrigal into the jungle … that is, until we heard the knee-rattling roar of a pack of Howler Monkeys, at which point we started back tracking.
Then back to Puerto Jiménez, where Maja and I planned on taking a small small plane to San Jose … and here our troubles began. The pilots were wishy-washy about flying due to the heavy storms over Golfito, which we needed to land in first because they had avoided doing so on the way over due to the same storms. After about an hours delay (mind you, we’re on a gravel runway in the middle of the jungle, for all intents and purposes), 12 of us (including pilots) board the little coffin with wings … landing in Golfito, ok, then more waiting … as its pouring on us, they rush us into the plane and we take off, onlt to fly through gray numbness that just kept getting darker and darker, rain pounding (literally pounding) the plane, they 2 small tico pilots can barely see over the dashboard, which we unfortunately had a clear view of … the GPS and other panel controls/lights kept going out, and we could see the concern and frantic gesticulations of the pilots trying to save their own lives … then the plane starts really rocking, quickly tipping left and right with such degree that your head actually snapps against your shoulder or the nearby window or fellow passenger … great drops in altitude … fishtailing, so much so that you look out the window and expect to see the tail of the plane out beside you … dead silence except for the repeated beeping of emergency status indicators from the cockpit … prayers and incantations all around, I’m sure … then, suddenly, though the edge of the clouds and into sunlight beauty and long-limbed vastness, and the nervous laughter and excited chatter begins … the captain looks back to check on us and you can see it on his face, the holy shit we actually made it expression you never want to see on the pilot of your aircraft …
More later on the comings and going of whatshisface …
