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 …

Will be flying very soon … Costa Ricky in 4 days.

So I get up at 6:30am, my skin hot but my inner coil icy, all weak and feeble … a cough cripples when you’re like that. So I go to the 24 supermarket to fetch some goods for the ill, basically preparing a Sick Basket … lozenges, tea, honey, thermometer (came out at 100.9), aspirin, what have you … fruit, too. And oatmeal. Whatever. So I buy and leave, try to start the car I just bought from Austin for 500 bucks, and it’s flooded … I sit there and a nice fellow comes over and offers a jump. I explain, and he sympathizes wiith me. I feel hopeful as he waves and drives off … I offer him a small smile.When it finally starts, I see an older woman who works at the Blimpie up the street from our office carrying too many bags to handle comfortably for such a long walk back to the sandwich shop. I offer her a ride, I guess because the niceness of the other fellow had rubbed off on me … she smiles and gets in, and immediately her perfume fills the car, a sickly smell, sweet, like old dirty flower-vase water and overripe oranges with cloves pierced into the rinds. I sped up. And got her there in record time.…

…and still the smell lingers. Sure as shit, she left something behind. Fucking kindness … just made me feel sicker.