Short Tales from the Road

There's a cartoonist who is hard of hearing from Spain staying here at the Hotel Diana in San Jose where I've just returned from the jungle to do some more editing before I hit the Pacific Coast. He is constantly smoking a cigar and is now stocking the communal fridge with cans of beer... many cans of beer.

- The road from Rancho Margot to Monte Verde was washed out so I took a van to a boat, crossed Lake Arenal beneath the active volcano and then went on horseback some a long 30kms to a 4x4 jeep that took us back up into the mountains to the town of Santa Helena. My body is now just beginning to recover.

- When I arrived at Villa Verde Mountain Resort Lodge the group I was meeting was just leaving for a night walk into the jungle to see nocturnal animals in the mist which was almost rain. Just as the rain hit hard, one of the girls in our small group started to feel weak, fell to the ground and began to have a seizure. I'd seen this before, took charge and waited for the paramedics. We put her on a backboard and carried her through the dense wet jungle up to the waiting ambulance and I went with her to the doctors office where the seizure wore off. All ended well and she was up and at 'em the next day... a true trooper.

- Stayed three excellent nights at Rancho Margot just below the Arenal Volcano. They are completely 'off the grid', generating all of their power by a hydro turbine sourced from a natural spring and are just beginning to convert more than a ton of waste material into Methane gas using biodigestors. There's a complete garden, cows, horses, true free range chickens and it goes on and on. One of the coolest organic farms I've seen and maybe the very first Eco Dude Ranch.

- Threw myself off an 80 meter (253 feet) bridge with a bungee cord strapped to myself in perfect swan dive fashion. Judges gave me an 8.5, not bad for a man who is almost 40 years of age.

- Storms continue to pound on us here in Central America and as I topped the Continental Divide, the view of both the Atlantic and the Pacific was shrouded in fog. But the Monte Verde Cloud Forrest Reserve really was spectacularly beautiful.