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Sent: January 29, 2009 8:59:36 AM
Greetings, all
I've been gone in excess of two and a half weeks now.  Can't
say the prospect of returning home in barely 2 more weeks appeals, sorry
to say. (Yikes! Can it be only that far away? 'Fraid so.)
It's been pelting rain most nights, and occasionally during the day
as well. At times pelting is a complete understatement. Terms like tropical
rainstorm are hard to resist, yet they're just as inadequate.
Thoughts of deluges of Biblical or 4-Ever &
40 proportions spring to mind -- springs racing downhill to become
cascading waterfalls, more like.
That said, I'm constantly reminding myself what it was
like when I left Vancouver. Let me assure you that sloshing around here
beats slushing around there any day of the wintry week. Of course not
much beats spotting sloths in the wild.
(Here by the way is Boquete, Panama. Its near-daily drizzle
even has a name: 'bajareque'. Don't ask me what it means, though
'baja' does mean 'low', but it certainly does produce
some fabulously photogenic rainbows.)
I’m having a slothful day, as opposed
to a sloth-filled day. I can, however, now say that I’ve seen
sloths in wild: Five of them if you count one baby tenaciously clinging
to mommy as she advances up a tree trés slowly, even dare I say
it slothfully. (Guess I just did.)
Two were within Manuel Antonio Park in CR, on the Pacific side (where
I also shot these monkeys). I spotted #3
while kayaking through a mangrove swamp south of Quepos,
which is on the other side of the oversized (oversexed?)
hill from Man-Ant.
I shot #s 4 & 5, with my digital camera,
in Manzanillo, CR, not far from Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean side (maybe
20 clicks by rickety old bus on a rocky, deeply pot-holey, old road).
They'd be the previously enumerated mama-cub
combo.
I’ve an affinity for sloths. They move languidly, sparing much
effort, like me. They’re good swimmers, which I was once. They’re
also cute. Unlike me, however, they
don’t dump where they live (up trees in their case). 
Apparently they climb down and use the forest floor when necessary,
which is only every three days according to Rasta Ricky, a guide I had
in Manzanillo.
Evidently they also sleep for up to 18 hrs a day, which I’ve
been known to do, albeit only on occasion.
I’ve had long walks, up and down hills, though I have to admit
I ended up flagging a cab to help me surmount a comparatively short
distance on the massive one between Quepos and Manuel Antonio.
(Cost me $6.00 USD as well, but on that kind of hill, on these unkind,
as in pre-cured, knees, hey, it was well worth it.)
I went sea kayaking a couple of days, spent hours snorkeling a couple
of other times (including once at an amazing coral reef, in the Bocas
del Toro archipelago, that rivalled the outer cays of Belize) and yesterday
went white water rafting on the Chiriqui Viejo river.
It's got 73 separate rapids, 4 or 5 Class 3 rapids and a ditto for
the Class 4s. Believe you me, that’s an unpadded bundle of bumping
about -- hence the slothful day. I reckon my knees must be cured because
I’m walking around today, albeit very stiffly, as in slothfully.
Easily (albeit hardly, as in bloodily wicked hard) the worst thing
about the rafting trip was the hike down to the river itself. To call
the trail a path is to do a disservice to the word path (or the word
trail for that matter). 
It was steep and slippery, with no stairs or ropes and only your paddle
to steady you. That I fell on my rear end and skidded some distance
thereafter, scraping bloody the back of my left leg, almost put me off
rafting.
If I wasn’t a quarter of the way down it by then, I might have
climbed back up and demanded my money returned.  Definitely
wouldn’t be legal in Canada due to unsafe river access. Would
further say that any self-respecting sloth would have avoided it, except
for purpose of bowel evacuation.
I am about to go partway up one of the mountains that Boquete gaps – GAP being the name of the tour group I’m with as well as what ‘boquete’ means in Spanish.
Funnily enough I plan on taking a cab. I may walk back. Then again I may not. No point tempting fate, not after such a remarkable survival, is there?
Did you know that geckos chirp?
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PHANTACEA Mythos print publications that are still available for ordering
from the publisher
Final book in 'The Thrice-Cursed Godly Glories' trilogy, published in 2012
Suggested Price $25.00 CDN
'The 1000 Days of Disbelief' concludes, published in 2011; e-version published in 2011
Suggested Price $12.00 CDN
'The 1000 Days of Disbelief' commences, published in 2010; e-version published in 2011
Suggested Price $10.00 CDN
'The 1000 Days of Disbelief' continues, published in 2010; e-version published in 2011
Suggested Price $10.00 CDN
The first book in the 'Launch 1980' story sequence, published in 2009
Suggested Price $23.00 CDN
Book One in 'The Thrice-Cursed Godly Glories' trilogy, published in 2008; e-version published in 2011
Suggested Price $23.00 CDN
The thus far only PHANTACEA Mythos graphic novel, published in 1990
Price $10.00 CDN
The last (to date) PHANTACEA Mythos comic book, published in 1986
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Prices quoted do not include shipping or handling
Certified cheques or money orders only please
Information on PHANTACEA comic books still available on a while-supplies-last basis is here
Order by email
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One of the oddities of the hill or mount or mini-mountain between Manuel Antonio, the National Park, public beach and little commercial village on one side and Quepos (which was created by a multinational fruit growing and exporting concern, one that shall remain nameless, to be the terminus for a no longer existent railway) on the other side, is the dozen or more hotels, casinos and suchlike, built on either side of the main road.
Although the national park is brilliant -- containing among many other
highlights the best swimming beaches I've come across in Costa Rica
-- with an entrance fee of $10 USD it's also expensive. As for the public
beach, it's much too rough for pleasant swimming and reportedly not
rough enough for any decent surfing. 
The commercial village is no more special than Quepos, yet the whole
area betwixt and between is packed with places to eat, sleep, gamble
and, um, buy or sell human exotica. (Which may or may not include human
erotica but, to judge by the poster outside Man-Anthill's Sirena nightclub,
probably does.)
This aircraft, a bomber I believe, has as its
last resting place a restaurant with a spectacular view near the summit.
There's also a railway car, minus any visible tracks, just down the
Anthill somewhat.
It's not an easy hike by the way. And, as I learned to my expense,
the buses that go by won't stop on the upgrade.The taxis and collectivos
will, however. But they'll also charge you the full fare of $6.00 USD
for the entire route just to get to the hill's top.
The mouse-over reads: "The Avian Bar and Grill at the top of the hill between Quepos and Manuel Antonio National Park in Costa Rica, photo by Jim McPherson, 2009".
The mouse-over behind the other image in this row reads: "The Sirena Nightclub on Man-Anthill, photo by Jim McPherson, 2009". The reference is to the above, um, 'suchlike' statement. Double click it for a close-up of one the posters on the wall outside it.
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Once, when I was in Belize, I was walking to the main roadway from a farm complex whose bunkhouses had in part been converted by some ex-pats into an extra-revenue-generating, bed-and-breakfast place. It was well after dark, meaning it was probably around 7 pm, and we were on our way to dinner in town.
I didn't have a flashlight on but the person behind me did. Suddenly she shouts, with or without the nowadays seemingly obligatory OMG or variants: 'What's that?'.
What that was, in the view of someone who'd been in the area more than
a few times before, what I had just unseeingly but ever-so-luckily stepped
over top of, was a fer-de-lance.
Although only a baby, it was coiled and reared up like a cobra or some
such -- except fer-de-lances are, if possible, reputedly even more
venomous than cobras.
I don't know what variety of snake or viper the fellow in the plastic bottle pictured next cell over was; I don't even know if he, or she, was venomous. All the kid who was holding said bottle containing said howsoever-poisonous, but undeniably pretty-looking beastie could say when asked was 'serpente'. Unlike someone I was travelling with at the time, I did not express any regret that it was bottled.
Taken in the extremely quirky garden called El Explorador, up a mountainside, or a really, really steep hillside, bordering Boquete, Panama (above the flood zone discussed here), the mouse-over reads: "A still alive serpent of some sort contained in a plastic pop bottle, photo by Jim McPherson, 2009".
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With the exception
of the aforementioned venomous vipers and their
icky ilk, seeing critters in the wild is one of the treats of travelling
to such places as Costa Rica and Panama.
Sloths are great, monkeys not so much so, if only because they're so
relatively commonplace; and geckos ever less so, again because they're
nearly ubiquitous. (I've even seen them coming out of working air conditioners.)
They do chirp at each other as well, though natters or squall might
be better words for purposes onomatopoetic. I suspect it's a territorial
thing. Again though I have no way of knowing if that's it or it's something
else, a mating ritual perhaps. My gecko is even worse than my Spanish.
The mouse-over for the monkeys reads: "A pair of monkeys, part of a large group of same, cavorting just outside of Manuel Antonio Park in Costa Rica, photo by Jim McPherson, 2009".
The mouse-over for the geckos reads: "A pair of geckos chirping at each other as they warm up near a light fixture, photo by Jim McPherson, 2009". I took it at Veraneras Restaurant, Bar and Cabanas in Playa Blanca
(White Beach), Santa Clara, Panama, which becomes a disturbingly mindless,
but thankfully eminently avoidable, place come Sundays.
return to the monkeys image and text; return
to the geckos image and text; onwards |
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I did endure some
truly epical rainfall during the first couple of weeks of this wintry
escape. It didn't always rain at night either.
One morning while I was still in on the hill (mount?, mini-mountain?)
between Manuel Antonio and Quepos on the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica,
it was raining so hard I cancelled my scheduled sea kayaking excursion
in the National Park -- as if I wasn't going to get wet anyway!
By 10 a.m. it was still raining, so I didn't feel too bad about my
6 a.m. decision. I did learn my lesson, however. Despite the fact it
was raining even harder in Bocas del Toro, Panama, most of a couple
of weeks later, I decided to go snorkeling anyhow.
I was very glad I did so too -- because it had cleared up by 9 a.m.
And, as noted above, I thereafter experienced
perhaps the best snorkeling I had since my first time in the outer cays
of Belize, way back in 1996.
The mouse-over on the left reads: "Shot taken during a very early morning rainstorm at the Mono Azul, Costa Rica, by Jim McPherson, 2009".
The mouse-over on the right reads: "A somewhat distorted view of a rainbow spotted and shot in Boquete, Panama, by Jim McPherson 2009";
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Boquete, Panama, where I wrote the Slothful
Day email, suffered a devastating flood some months before I arrived.
I was told a couple of people died in it and that, immediately subsequently,
the township spent a great deal of money in an effort to re-route the
river that flooded.
While it wasn't the Chiriqui Viejo, which I rafted down the day before
I wrote this email, it's awfully clear what kind of damage floods can
do in not just these parts.
The brand new hotel on the left was only a couple
of months away from opening whereas the road on the right
had been there for years and years according to a fellow I spoke to
later on this day.
The mouse-over on the left reads: "A recently built hotel as it looks after the November 2008 flood in Boquete, photo by Jim McPherson, 2009".
The mouse-over on the right reads: "Remnants of a roadway as it looks after the November 2008 flood in Boquete, photo by Jim McPherson, 2009".
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As noted in the timps
lynx cell, I enjoy taking my photos, and once in a while not just
my photos either, and combining them into collages such as the example
to the left.
True, it's usually in order to illustrate characters or concepts contained
within what I've come to call the PHANTACEA Mythos.
True also, even though I do feature devil
dogs, a couple
of Santa
Claus
types and a certain sometimes sun-headed fellow by the name of Helios
in my stories, be they in comic book form or prose, I do not have any
3-headed demons or evidently deceased penguins that I can recall.
Still, seeing these discarded figures, most of which presumably once
graced carnival floats in Panama City, I couldn't resist the temptation
to put them together as never before.
For the record, the mouse-over behind the collage to the left
reads: "A collage entitled 'Fractured Floats from Panamanian Carnivals Past', photos and production by Jim McPherson, 2009".
The mouse-over behind the cut-out of the 3-headed demon to the right reads: "Remnants of 2-headed demon and a demon mask as cut off a dummy spotted in Panama El Viejo, photo and
production by Jim McPherson, 2009". Which said, technically, is sooth said.
NOTE: Strictly speaking, to the best of my knowledge at any rate, the full, really only 2-headed dummy that I decapitated with the hatchet-job assistance of PHOTOSHOP has never graced a carnival float in Panama City or anywhere else.
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