Costa Rica Update

Mom and I arrived finally, and safely after a delay in Houston. I am writing this from my cousin Jack´s computer. The keyboard is a bit different, so I struggled to get into my account for five minutes trying to find the @ symbol. One combination of buttons I pushed made the cursor arrow turn into a rainbow. That´s part of why this will be short. The other part is because every minute I spend here is a minute I am not sitting by the pool eating a(nother) mango.

For lunch today we went to "the melon man" and we bought scores of fresh fruit for about two dollars. I can have all the avacados I want.

Jack met us at the airport with his friend Abus, and we took a quick ride up long and narrow roads scattered with pedestrians, dogs and bicyclists to get to Villa Antigua where Mom and I are staying. The owner of Villa Antigua is Denis. Right now we are the only guests there. Denis told us to make ourselves at home because his house is our house. And it´s a nice house. Denis made us breakfast this morning, gallo pinto, and black coffee.

Denis has two dogs, and one of them has taken to following me around. He waited for me this morning at the door of my room, and even followed me to the bathroom. He laid by my feet during breakfast, not begging... just waiting. Yes, I´ve been here two days and already adopted a pet. His name is close to ¨"bobby" but I call him perrocito.

Last night Jack took us to his favorite hang out, Bar Amigo. There we met an amazing cast of characters including the owner, ¨"Weymouth Pete" and a man named Jerry who convinced me to go to the Festival de Cebolla which was going on down the street. We also met Jack´s next door neighbor who is about my age. David is originally from California and teaches English here. He came with us to the Festival later, and then to dinner and karaoke. At the Festival, which reminded me of the stalls and stalls outside of the temples in Japan, I lost myself in the smells and lights and music. I bought a CD of pan flute music. Read this as: I might have been drinking a little bit. We capped the night off back at Bar Amigo where Jack and Mom made me step dance for everyone. You know, because I don´t look Irish enough.

Oh! Did I mention, I also saw a horse tap dancing? It´s just something they do here apparently.

I could go on and on and on but I want to go back outside because David (who called in sick today) showed me some baby basilisks running down the river a little while ago and then he saw an big adult one, but I didn´t. And I won´t if I stay inside.