Into the Wild

Written 9-4-08

I don´t know if you´ve ever heard the howl of a wild Howler monkey,
but it scares the shit out of me.

It starts out low, like someone gurgling water at the back of their throat. It rises slowly, as if someone has just slammed on their brakes on the road, it rises higher and higher, louder and louder, until you are damn sure that Godzilla has just killed 100 goats and is now sharing them with Chewbaca. The weird thing is that they´re only about a foot tall, but the noise they make shakes the trees all the way down to the roots. This all happens to be taking place in a tree about 50 yards away from me as I sit on my balcony in Manzanillo, Costa Rica.

The beach and the caribean waters that I have missed so much are a 3 minute walk away. When the water comes up to your shoulders, you can still see your toes. The beaches are completely empty, except a handfull of people that are half a mile away from where you happen to be sunning. It´s is absolutely beautiful. And let´s not forget the jungle. I tried to take some pictures, but they simply do not do it justice. Costa Rica wins the vote for greenest country. The single, small road that goes to Manzanillo, which I believe means Chamomile, is lined with the greenest of green, the palms, the banana trees, the explosion of color with every flower on every tree just takes my breath away.