So Long Central

Tuesday, May 27th, 2008

Every chapter needs an ending. Most trips end with airports, ticket stubs, and tired travelers ready to go home. Unlike them, I feel I am home. No, not here in Central America, not even if I was on Utila – our Caribbean home, but in the world. This is where I feel the most comfortable.

When you are almost on the plane, everything you do feels rushed. Every destination is an unavoidable checkmark even for such a checkmark-hater such as me. I find myself barely opening my backpack anymore – clean underwear in my side pocket, dirty ones in the front one (a nice surprise for an unwelcome visitor), my toothbrush in a pouch nearest to the top. I need nothing else, I’m ready to change and brush for only a few more mornings, and then I have other things to worry about. I know that with the family visit will come questions and judgments we detest so much. I look in the mirror more often, if I can find one. I pick that zit on my forehead ’til it bleeds. I’m so nervous. I try not to think about it and, more importantly, not reveal to him that my stomach is all knots. Our lifestyle is our drug of choice, and we must deal with the side-effects.

Even though, sometimes, it’s nice to just stay cuddled up on the lower bunk at the hostel, it just doesn’t feel right so close to an end of a chapter. If we don’t go and see something, the day will be lost. Daydreaming, sleepwalking, we visit our last site – Volcan Poas. This chapter will end here, in Costa Rica. Feeding squirrels at a volcano crater. To my best knowledge, we will not be coming back to this corner of the world any time soon. But then again, what do I know?

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Costa Rica

Sunday, May 25th, 2008

Yesterday’s mud-floods left behind, the route was set for Costa Rica. It was a slow and uneventful border crossing into a magical land where almost everybody speaks English, all price tags are in US dollars, and being Israeli brings those prices down: The first hostel we saw in Monteverde was covered with a collage of handwritten recommendations in Hebrew. I asked the man at the desk, how much do the rooms cost.
-Eight dollars.
-Hmmm. The writing on the wall says different…
-Oh, five. I meant five.
The wall said nothing about the price.

Walking the narrow trails of the reserve and taking macro shots of beetles, caterpillars, and the occasional tarantula hawk wasp paralyzing its next prey so her larva will have something to eat after it hatches in the victim’s chest, I am here, but not here. My mind is elsewhere. Even as turquoise hummingbirds swirl around me, attracted to my bright red raincoat, fluttering with their wings so annoyingly fast it’s impossible to take a picture, my mind is bursting with preparations for the next leg of the trip – Africa.

( a few more Bugs and a Bird.. )

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Diarrhea Island

Friday, May 23rd, 2008

A kilometer walk, boat, cab, plane, cab, bus, cab, ferry, bus, and one more kilometer walk, totaling twelve hours and all I get is a lake, an Island, and a nasty déjà vu.

Flip back a few chapters, about two and a half years worth, and you’ll find me again on an island in the middle of a lake, and again sick to my stomach. At least this time I am not alone on top of a mountain with no medications and uncontrollably peeing blood for eight hours. Geri, a fellow divemaster and friend from our Caribbean home of Utila, and Shurik, are with me and sharing the pain. All three of us, weak and nauseous, limply dangle in those hammocks closest to the bathrooms, taking turns sprinting for the toilet and wandering which end of ourselves we’ll have to put in it first.

We spent so much time in the lavatories, it was all we saw on the volcanic island of Ometepe, but even there we found our share of exciting wildlife. Having spent some time getting better on a coffee growing farm, we eventually decided not to climb either of the two volcanoes and limited ourselves to a few hours walk through the adjacent properties in search of birds and small animals. It was a bit disappointing, but we decided not to force it. Besides, the view from the hammocks was not too bad either.

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Thursday, May 15th, 2008

Getting ready to make one more of our calenders – Marine Marvels of the Caribbean I would like your opinion on which images should be used.
All photos are ours and pre-post-processing.

1.
Gotcha! Three month I’ve been chasing Queen Angelfish on Utila, and at last I have its cute little neon blue mug on film!

( 25 of our best underwater pictures )

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Little Corn Islands

Wednesday, May 14th, 2008

So exhausted but still wound up. Last time I was in a plane of a similar size, we soared above the Nazca Lines in Peru banking ninety degrees for a better view. Now, in this 12-seater “crop-duster”, the co-pilot so young I would guess he doesn’t have his driver license yet, I shoo away unnerving thoughts about flying. We are not above the clouds but at eye level. I don’t remember the last time I looked a cloud in the eye. They look like powder mountains, and I fantasize about hiking these fluffy boulders without falling right through.

I am not tired, but my back aches, and my eyes are heavy. A night at a bus terminal and another at the airport would do that to you. Leaving Utila, we felt having a stable bed for three month was too much luxury, so now we must rough it out if we were to get back into the traveling mode once again. In actuality, it was more of an answer to bus scheduling and budget – there is no point in paying for taxis and accommodations, when having to show up to buy tickets at four in the morning will cause the same head and muscle ache as sleeping in the terminal.

Now the rest of the passengers are asleep, only I watch the clouds. I like the whole ones. Those with the faded and torn edges remind me of unfinished dreams – ghosts of what a dream could have been. A gust of wind awakens you, and the dream is snuffed before its time – a cloud in pieces. Dreams, I now begin to realize, are better had than talked about. The rest must have figured it out before me. I’m off to mend my clouds.

(  Nothing can put you to sleep like a mile’s walk in paradise… )

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Utila frame-by-frame

Sunday, May 11th, 2008

Now that we’ve left Utila Island, our life there seems nothing but an elaborate and wierd dream. Between the divemaster course, the nightlife, and all that came in between, I am left with only a longing to come back, even though it already feels like we had a whole start-to-finish life there. I used my own camera only to document the world below the surface, but our many friends were nice enough to share with us their snapshots. Maybe through them, to both me and you, our life on Utila will make some sense. These are nothing but snippets, but nonetheless, they are very representative of how we will always remember the island we without doubt plan to come back to some day.

in Treetanic bar – a fifteen-year acid-induced labor of love, the base of which is a huge mango tree. The whole place is hills, tunnels, and platforms, most of which are studded with elaborate glasswork ranging from tiny marbles to figurines to wine bottles. It is safe to assume that if the creator was not insane before, he surely was after

( Photoreport )

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Cool Creatures

Saturday, May 10th, 2008

King Crab