Costa Rica Animal Adventures

(image courtesy: Dirk Van der Made, wiki commons)

Today I took some time out to review a book of Costa Rican wildlife. There were lots of photographs, much better than I could take. I had no difficulty identifying the creatures I had seen.

The most notable and noisy species was the howler monkey.

I hiked Tuesday along a dry river bed full of stones on the property neighboring Abercam.

The river bed made the hike easier as few plants could push through the stones and the ground in the "green season" is heavy with moisture. I passed guava and lychee trees barren of fruit and then came across "signs of animal life" (poop) that didn't come from one of the neighborhood's free grazing cows.

I walked toward the sound of rushing water and heard rustling at the tops of some mangrove-like trees with curly dangling vines.

Soon, a male howler monkey made his loud warning call.

The first part of the call sounded to me like air rushing into a huge hoarse vaccuum or a frat boy with a 20 inch mouth belching into a megaphone.

The second part is a rythymic exhaling version of the first part that sounds a little more like what you'd associate with a monkey.

I could see the howlers clearly, though they were above me by about 20 ft.

The howlers make a third noise which I heard at a distance as I passed them in route to a twin waterfall - a more cordial howl to one another.

Birds that frequent the Abercam property include Costa Rica's national bird, the clay robin, chestnut mandible toucans, montezumas, yellow bellies, and hummingbirds.

The clay robins are as familiar here as red brested robins are in the United States. They are a powdery rust color all over and fight aggressively with one another.

Of course, I expected toucans to look like the bird on a box of breakfast cereal. All toucans do share expressive eyes, a similar mandible shape. and a like size.

The ones flying about Abercam have white, red, yellow, and black markings with brown and yellow bills.Their eyes are a light green.

Ironically, they're not big on "froot". They prefer eggs, small rodents, and young squirrels. Today, I caught a pair eyeing a male squirrel making a lovenest in a tall tree: future lunch!

They make two calls. One is a clicking sound that immitates the gecco.

By far, the most impressive vocalizer is the montezuma or pendulum bird. It's call is seven notes long.

The call flutters up a chromatic scale by half-steps. Two half-steps, pause, repeating the second note and another half-step, pause. This pattern repeats two more times until the bird holds the top note and slurs down all the way back to the first.

The montezuma also creates nests that hang like long baskets from trees. It's roughly the size of a hawk, and has a trim of bright yellow feathers on it's long black tail.

The yellow bellies, have, well, yellow bellies. They cackle and tumble over one another in midair like the parrots of Telegraph Hill.

The broad variety of hummingbirds here impressed me.

Most all of them have the same irridescent green somewhere on their bodies, like the red breasted hummingbirds in my backyard in San Francisco. But there are some with violet ears, some that are all green, and a peculiar species with a hooked bill designed for sipping liquid from inside the clawlike flowers of haliconia.

The species of butterflies are also amazing. The biggest ones I've seen are about the size of my hand and as fleet as bats.

In English, we distinguish between butterflies and moths based on whether we feel the creature is colorful or ugly. In Spanish, size is a the determining factor between mariposas and pollios.

I have not yet seen Costa Rica's national butterfly, the blue winged morphos, but I have seen a "postman" butterfly, a large yellow species, and a species with a long body that resembled a wasp with monarch-like wings in four sections.

I was initially concerned by the presence of two large wasps nests near the pool, but I soon learned this species of wasp principally eats mosquitos. Instead of buzzing around your soda and sandwhiches they cluster near their nests listlessly waiting for their prey.

Unlike these surprising wasps, not all the Costa Rica creatures are changing my mind about what constitues a pest.

Tonight, I got up for a glass of water and came back to a squarish orb spider about as big as my palm dragging a dust bunny across my headboard.

I stayed up for a while writing across the room. I made my bed and the spider regrouped, cowering beside my pillow.

The standoff finally ended when I threatened to trap it. First I tried to trap it under a bowl, but the spider jumped. Two feet high and three feet out!

I was startled, but I laughed too. For someone who has a dangerous level of fearlessness this spider was freaking me out.

I swaped the bowl out for a steam cover.

Then I figured, if I came at the spider from above and behind, it would stay low and move in the direction of the front door.

I guided it as far as the kitchen, trapped it, and set it free on the front porch to eat beatles another day.

Earlier this week, I found an unpleasantly fat tick. I saved it in a bag in case I came down with something.

Oddly, I was nauseaous, had a mean headache, and even some shortness of breath. But none of my symptoms corresponded with the tick diseases I'd read about in my guide books.

I'm guessing the overplus of prophylactics the SF travel health clinic introduced to my bloodstream have taken the wind out of any tick germs I got.

No scorpions or snakes so far.

Wayne says the scorpions at this altitude in Costa Rica can fit in a spoon and give a sting no worse than a bee. Still not anxious to experience that bite!

Snakes are detered from the property by the presence of over 300 minature bamboo plants around the perimeter. According to Tim, snakes get tangled in the dense sticks and turn back.

Everywhere I go, leaf-cutter ants are stripping some tree of its green.

They are fun to watch. Little bits of leaf marching single file over the forrest floor. Cute!

And people love the story of leaf-cutters. These ants survive by eating a unique fungus they create in their nests from moldering plant material.

Did I mention their queens live up to eight years! That's five years more than drag queen Pollo del Mar will reign as longest Miss Trannyshack.

However, the leaf-cutters are a nuissance to a well-manicured property. Geraldo, the gardener here, follows them and burns out their nests.

The ants seem to be worst on Wednesday.

That's Geraldo's full day off. The leaf-cutters seem to know.

Costa Rican Gay Resort Adventure - Abercam, La Fortuna

(image courtesy Abercam, La Fortuna)

Abercam La Fortuna doesn't have an address. "Grande Tapio Blanca, Circa de Cataracas" or "The Big White Wall on the Road to the Waterfall" is how the locals know it.

As you might expect from a gay resort, it is a discrete location. What goes on in the pool or on the grounds is visible only to other guests: the property is bordered by vacant lots on all three sides.

But Abercam is not so remote as to be unreachable.

A 15 minute taxi ride from the La Fortuna bus station costs $5. Local restaurants deliver.

Though proprietors Tim Abernathy ( the Aber syllable) and Wayne Campbell (the Cam syllable) keep a post office box in town, a mailman occassionally travels the steep twisting grade to deliver a care package with hard-to-find items from the states.

Presently, a Halloween party, for which there are already 20 guests, including a posse of deaf gay men from Alajuela, is demonstrating this challenge of living in Costa Rica. Halloween is a favorite gay holiday around the world, but the Ticos have no tradition of masquerade. There are no costume shops or spooky decorations.

"If you want something special it would be best to have it shipped 3 to 4 weeks in advance," Campbell says.

Whether there is a bowl of bite-sized Snickers or not, partygoers and long-distance bookings are unlikely to complain. Abernathy and Campbell have pulled together a suptuous environment dedicated to pagan pleasures.

Every inch of the property, which rolls over two acres from the Tapio Blanca to a dry ravine, is landscaped and maintained with native cultivars by a full-time gardener. Brown, yellow, orange and blue, butterflies are lured by the hibicsus and plumeria. Hummingbirds sip from the purple buds of Jamacian snake grass.

Along the clean brick paths, orchids are hung over driftwood braces. The scents of cinnamon trees and frangipani close around the visitor. Noni, guava, grapefruit, orange, and a half dozen other fruits are available for visitors to pick and eat in season.

The guest villas, each with a private balcony, are positioned to face active volcano Arenal. The property is legally as close as any resort can get to the lava-loaded giant.

"The nature that surrounds Costa Rica is alluring and can stimulate the senses on many levels," Abernathy observes, "The mist we have here and the exotic flowers lead to a heightened sense of yourself and others."

Another perk of it's location: the Abercam property is the lowest property on the hill that recieves it's tap water from the resovoir that feeds La Fortuna's famous 70 m waterfall.

"Crystal clear, pure and sweet. It's like drinking nature itself," Campbell asserts.

Originally from Florida, the pair began looking for a place to start a bed and breakfast in their mid-thirties. They explored the north of Georgia, parts of Dominica, and Guadalajara, Mexico before settling on Costa Rica.

Once they had made their choice they rented a car and drove every road in the country searching for locations. After a stint in Capos, they spied their current property and set out to develop it, opening just one year ago.

"We have met some very special people and made some wonderful new friends," Abernathy noted, "that's the best part of the resort for us."

As a means of saying thanks to the gay community for their support, the pair often offers discounts and special incentives. Be sure to ask about their current and future specials when making your reservation.

Local Bus Adventure - San Jose to La Fortuna

As I'd arrived near midnight in San Jose, the airline paid for a hotel room. It was only a shuttle ride away from the terminal. The time was midnight by my wristwatch.

I contented myself for an hour with showering up, translating Costa Rican television using Google, and eating Tico snacks from the vending machine.

I checked my email and discovered, in spite of my protests, I would be charged a 100 percent "no show" fee from Interbus. As one could not purchase a one way ticket with their service, I cancelled my return trip.

I could hardly believe I was charged $40 for a service I never recieved, due to problems beyond my control, without the option of rebooking.

If I was going to go to the trouble of using my poor Spanish to navigate through the local bus system, the "learning the way there" service Interbus could have provided me would not be worth my loyalty.

Their email response indicated my return trip refund would take, "up to two weeks for processing." Anyone who runs returns can tell you, a return takes only two minutes to process. How much time did they need? They'd already had $80 of my money for over a month.

When I woke up the next day, I was already too late for the Grey Line bus that stopped in front of the hotel.

My supposedly hardcore guidebook listed the bus terminals in San Jose as "dangerous." The front desk worker told me, "I live in San Jose and I won't go down there." The concierge also advised against it.

I went downtown anyway.

The eight square blocks on Calle 10 and Calle 12 between Parque Merced and the San Carlos bus terminal presented a less aspirational image than either the guidebook or the hotel employees. They were hardly treacherous, however.

There were some corregated tin buildings and chipped paint jobs. There was some rust and ground in dirt. The stores were small and crowded, but open and doing business.

Everyone was dressed well if not up-to-date. The Sodas were lit with ambient light and workers packed them during the lunch break. There was perhaps even less litter than there would be in any other city. I asked for directions twice and got good assistance.

Parts of industrial Oakland have felt far more menacing to me for their lack of purpose.

In fact, I felt more like a target at the airport and in the hotel than in San Jose downtown.

When I reached the sales window and told the bus driver I wanted a ticket to Fortuna, he told me the last direct bus for the day had already left. I pressed for another route and was directed to the San Carlos bus. I could catch a bus to Fortuna there.

These "busses" are in fact what U.S. citizens would call "coaches". The seats are high and well cushioned with storage compartments above and below.

I wasn't the only gringo on the bus. I did misplace my ticket, however, so when the driver came to take it, I stuck out. With a backpack and an overnight bag, I was not packed as lightly as the other passengers, either.

Just beyond San Jose and Alajuela, the urban valley escalated into young, undulating mountains. The roads twisted like switchbacks up and down hills. All the drivers navigated these at speeds approaching 60 km/hr.

We passed family sized coffee and banana plantations. No plot was larger than 10 acres. Signs offering regional tours were everywhere. The only livestock I saw was cattle. They were perched on the sides of steep hills, grazing unsupervised.

Though they did not have bathrooms, the coaches had front and back doors. Vendors occasionally boarded the busses at the front and sold snacks to passengers quickly, exiting at the back.

At our first small town, Naranjo, a retirement age man dispensed chips, peanuts, and agua frescas in sealed plastic bags. He complimented all the women who purchased from him. Three girls, who the vendor refered to as, "The Latinas," ordered the carrot flavor, chewed off a tip of the bag, and sucked up liquid through the tear.

We passed through Zarcero. On a long plaza, elevated from the road, bottom-heavy topiary archways opened to a small Catholic church. There were lots of signs announcing organic produce and an organic food delivery service located just north of the town center. Apparently, Zarcero is the center of the nations organic agriculture movement.

The first movie theater I saw (showing "G.I. Joe") was in Ciudad Quesada, popularly known as San Carlos, where the bus disembarked. I immediately got in line to board the La Fortuna local which left 15 minutes later.

I handed the driver a 5000 note, equivalent to $10, and he had difficulty making change. "Fortuna," he said, pleadingly, as though I'd done something extravagant.

The fare was 150 Colones or about $.25.

I sat down with my overnight bag in my lap as did the gringo sitting beside me.

On this bus, the locals boarded last prefering to stand. Quite a few rode without paying. One woman at the back of the bus made a cross sign her chest as the bus transmission choked into ignition. She had on a wooden rosary and a horseshoe shaped gold and diamond watch.

I'd begun to notice there were a lot more watches in Costa Rica than in the US. Also, everyone had a good cell phone. No one wore hats or sunglasses. In fact, it's illegal to wear a hat and sunglasses in public buildings and banks here - it's considered a disguise.

Like an ordinary city bus, the driver stopped this bus whenever a passenger pulled one of the cords over the windows. Not frequently, but at odd places, someone hopped off. We once stopped at a pasture and another time at a private school. The driver seemed to know who was going where.

One stop consisted of an two apartments atop two orange plate glass window stores, like one would expect to find in San Francisco. The easternmost shop was a small gym with a half-dozen machines and free weights. The westernmost shop was newly painted and for lease. This structure was bordered on either end by papaya plantations.

Approaching La Fortuna, I noticed a change in humidity. Dense clouds hung over constantly errupting Arenal.

The air wasn't particularly sulphurous, perhaps owing to the precipitaion and all the greenery.

But for the palms, the broad variety of trees was totally unknown to me. I was about the enter the rainforest.

My Airline Adventure Part 2

above: a bag of chips and a bag of sugared peanuts was all there was to eat after midnight at the Holiday Inn Express.

Traveling by plane is one of my first memories. Was I even old enough to walk? Perhaps my Dad carried me to the cockpit (which was open) and let the pilot pin a plastic pair of wings on my t-shirt. Mom played solitaire. I saw things I was just learning to identify by name - clouds, mountains, water.

When we flew over a city at night my Mom would say, "The Lights of Los Angeles," "The Lights of Honolulu," as though each city was famous for the adoption of electricity.

I also remember our flights in the early 1980s. The flight attendants were still called, "stewards," and "stewardesses." Days after the end of a labor strike, my family traveled to Hawaii.

The jet was a DC-10, wide bodied aircraft with lounges on board up a narrow, ten-rung spiral staircase.

They would inexplicably publicized as "dangerous" by the news media though statistically they were no more prone to failure than narrow bodied jets.

The planes were, however, expensive to fly.The modest protests by the otherwise powerful and well regarded airline industry seem suspicious in retrospect.

The flight attendants and maintenance workers would soon buy one of the airlines. The airline would be assailed by corporate raiders until the communal operation went bankrupt.

These were the beginnings what is now resolutely an anti-consumer, anti-worker industry.

Are consumers so easily placated by low fares? It costs about the same travel to four cities in Europe in 2010 as it did to travel to Brussels alone in 1980. Where are those rising fuel costs? That weaker dollar?

For their part, workers seem happy to keep their jobs and senority in the company. The benefits of this are less evident as retirement age approaches.

The basic thrill of flying, that motivates both of these parties, hasn't changed. Clouds, mountains, water. The sense of being "above" is powerful.

But there must be a reason, unrelated to front line workers and consumers, that the industry is weighed down by horror stories.

Every year it seems an airline is going broke, bankrupt, merging. From a business standpoint it seems as though business is never good.

It's not all those long gone packets of playing cards. Or the continuing absence of peanuts and pretzels (which would still be worth their weight, from a liability standpoint, as alcohol absorbers.)

What if it is really related to fuel and labor? What if it is old airplanes? Worn parts? Dangerous mechanical conditions?

Aren't all of these items a small part of the bottom line? A part of the bottom line consumers would pay a little bit extra for?

Do we need an expose on the price of access to airport terminals? On the salaries of top airline executives? Is this business even motivated by bad publicity anymore?

Personally, I would cheerfully accept an amount in the mid-six figure range to be an top airline executive. I would probably save lives, jobs, money, and be popular with consumers.

If I'm deemed unqualified, I'm sure airline executives in Latin American or Southeast Asian countries would happily accept a million a year, regardless of the benefit package, for the chance to transform an increasingly ugly U.S. industry.

Airline Adventure Part 1

I insisted on the shortest possible schedule to get me from San Francisco to La Fortuna.

The entire journey was to take me 20 hours.

I arrived at the airport a few hours prior to my 23:30 flight and read quietly. The leg to Miami went as scheduled arriving at 8:00 local time.

That's when the complications began.

Our 10:20 flight was bumped back to 10:40 and then 11am. We boarded sometime around 11:15.

The pilot spoke on the intercom. There would be a 30 minute delay. The jet was mising a part that needed to be replaced.

I don't know much about jets. I do know they have many parts. Since an active jet contains the lives of about 300 people, every jet part would seem essential.

So, when a second 30 minute delay was announced, I groaned but took a nap. Let the maintenance people do their business!

I awoke to the plane being evacuated. We returned to the airport and waited for another hour.

Finally, the flight was cancelled.

Two airline workers announced a new gate number. We rushed to the gate imagining each of us would be able to board the flight.

There was room for about seven. On standby.

Everyone else was ticketed for a flight that was to leave at 7pm, almost 12 hours after our arrival time at MIA.

24 consecutive hours of internet access at the Miami airport costs $8. That's about 1/4 of what I pay at home.

No one can convince me that, just because Miami has an airport, their Internet service is 600 percent more valuable than the Starbucks Wi-fi service less than a mile away. Certainly, their price structure anticipating the kind of business that evolves from 12 hour delays.

These markups seem hellbent on enhancing, rather than relieving, the misery of any journey, exploiting travelers in the process.

I purchased a days worth of access. I tried to staunch my losses.

I emailed the bus company that was to carry me to La Fortuna. It was one hour before my bus was to depart. I wouldn't be able to make it.

They replied that they could not schedule me for the next day as they were booked and that they would charge me a 100 percent no show fee. A forty dollar loss.

I emailed the couple whose resort I would be staying at. I emailed my roommates. I updated my Facebook with a picture of myself arriving smiling in Miami. "That was eight hours ago."

I approached the customer care center for the airline. They secured me a room for the night once I reached San Jose. A useful development.

Less impressively, they offered me a ten dollar meal voucher. At home, I've been able to make 10 dollars worth of food nutritiously last a week. In MIA, however, the only vegetarian meal I could purchase for ten dollars consisted of a 6" "personal" pizza, a bag of BBQ chips, and an orange soda.

I was happier than most.

The outgoing flight that lucky seven were booked on was also having mechanical problems.

After about an hour, it was taken out of service. The gate and the plane changed. That flight, originally scheduled for 13:00 finally left at 17:00.

By then, my 19:00 flight was bumped back to 19:30. Another mechanical problem. The passengers began to revolt.

A tall, frat boy type who was traveling to Costa Rica for a long weekend became the leader of the discontented, memorizing sob stories and deploying them whenever a figure of authority appeared.

I spoke to a couple from Milwaukee who were celebrating their anniversary.

"The last time we tried to celebrate our anniversary I got sick and it ruined everything, " the wife said, "I was hoping this would be different."

Another woman asked me to help her find the bus schedule online. She was nearly in tears. She hoped to be out of the country by midnight as the next day was be the first annniversary of her daughter's death.

There were quite a few older people who did not pack enough of their medications for an eleven hour layover.

Every one had a special day planned. A busy day planned. And everyone was paying long distance charges in a scramble to reschedule bookings.

If I multiply my losses times 300, I come up with a figure of about 50K. Would the airline accept that kind of one-day loss?

It was clear that the staff was doing everything in their power to cope with the distress. Airline policies did not leave them many options.

I was personally reluctant to fly an airline that grounded three planes leaving for the same destination on the same day due to mechanical difficulties.

I asked on two separate occassions to be placed on a flight to Houston, knowing that is the other common transfer point for Costa Rica.

The second man who dealt with me insinuated that I had planted a bomb on the flight when I expressed concern regarding the safety of outgoing Miami aircraft.

"What reason do you have to believe the plane will come apart over the Gulf of Mexico?"

The plane did finally board, with all engines running, at about 20:00. I arrived in San Jose two and a half hours later.

I did not make La Fortuna until 16:00 the next day.

Reviving Frequency Hopper

For the next four months, I'm reviving Frequency Hopper, the travel blog I began in 2006 to commemorate a Transatlantic cruise I took with my mother.

Presently, I'm traveling to Costa Rica, Panama, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Missouri, and Colorado.

My first stop is Abercam La Fortuna, a resort exclusively for gay men located in the heart of Costa Rica, as close to the active Arenal Volcano as is legally possible. I will live there for close to two months.

Unlike Delta Magnet Blog, which I've nurtured during roughly that same period, Frequency Hopper will lean more toward the plain spoken.

Travel has an implicit reward which adjectives detract from. It's an altered state without drugs or sleeplessness.

For the purposes of clarity, all times will be stated on a 24 hour clock.

Formal Night Pics

These are the photos from our first formal night on board the Jewel of the Seas

Mom and me with the captain at his pre-dinner reception

Awww. Mother and son. Kind of like an upscale Olin Mills....

And this is the picture my roommate says "ought to snag me a husband"; see how sincere I look in a tuxedo?

Asia de Cuba photo

The grainy camera phone pic taken of Stefan, Troy and Mom at Asia de Cuba in the St. Martin's Lane Hotel, London.

Ossipee, New Hampshire

My Uncle Ralph picked us up at the pier when our ship arrived on Monday. We stopped off for Dunkin' Donuts and to see my cousin Ellen and her husband before treking to Ossipee, New Hampshire.

My uncle's place in New Hampshire overlooks Dan Hole Pond, named for a fur trapper who was popular with the local First American population.

That night we ate at Whittier House, a student union style bar decorated with old license plates, beer cans, and pewter beer steins. We sat in the screened in back porch which had a stone coy pond in the center.

Mom and I were both pleased to get into full sized beds. I could (and can still) feel the ocean. Mom swears she can't feel it, but I believe she's too exited being on land again to try.

Sunday, Mom and Uncle Ralph went shopping and then watched football all day. I wrote all morning and then planted bulbs in the front yard. There was a quick shower that soaked me - our only rain the entire trip!

Mom won a one dollar bet with her brother on the Broncos/Patriots game. She's says she's going to frame it and put it on her Bronco altar at home.

Monday, we stopped in to see my cousin Stephen on the way back and got to Logan for our flights.

And that's it! We're home!

Home Again

Mom and I both arrived safely at our respective homes last night at about 8pm.

I called her today. She said she was happy to be home but missed the chocolates on her pillow.

Anyway, I still have pictures to post including New Hampshire, dinner at Asia de Cuba, and formal night (I have to scan these, so it may be a few days)

Service Highlights

The cruise staff conducted themselves far beyond our modest expectations of good service - especially our dining room waiter Yatin from India and our assistant waiter Olga from Lithuania.

Even though he manages dozens of tables, Yatin found time every night to seat my mother himself. Olga discovered early on that we enjoyed hot tea with our meals and layed out a tea service every night for us.

While the cruise line provides everyone with generic envelopes in which to place cash for tipping, we picked out some handsome watercolor greeting cards in which to enclose a gratuity with our handwritten thanks.

Final Sea Day!

We dock and disembark in Boston on Saturday. Once there, we rendevous with my uncle and his family for a weekend in the New Hampshire woods. Then Monday we fly home.

Today on the Atlantic, the cloudless sunny weather persists. Mom went to a towel folding demonstration this morning and I read my book by the pool in the Solarium where I took a dip in the saltwater pool. We're looking forward to watching the sunset from our nightly stakeout in the Champagne bar (one diet Coke one regular Coke, the bartender calls it "the usual").

The Grand Buffet

Our final food event of the cruise took place at midnight.

700 man hours went into preparing all the foods and sculptures for this incredible display that took up most of the 1000 seat dining room.

Highlights included:
-gryphon, dolphin, swan, and mermaid ice sculptures.
- a verdigris green statue of liberty made entirely of chocolate.
- cheese wheels carved to resemble American coins,
- animals made from cut fruit.
- caviar and salmon in mass quantities.
- seven layer cakes in seven flavors.

Mom grabbed some salmon, cheese, and crackers. I got some fruit and a wedge of white chocolate black forest cake. The best part of the buffet? We got to take our portions back to our stateroom for all night munching.

Halifax and the Evangeline Trail

Our kilted guide Ken toured us through the Anapolis Valley where French Catholic settlers, known as the Acadians, first settled.
They built clay dikes to permit the high Bay of Fundy tides to flood the area, leaving mineral rich silt for farming when they rolled out.

The British forced their expulsion from the land in the mid 1700s. Longfellow's narrative poem "Evangeline" popularized the cause of the Acadians internationally. In the last century, Queen Elizabeth dedicated the histroic park at Grand Pre to the memory of thier tragic exile.

We ate in the small college town of Wolfville. Mom and I tried out the "national obsession" Tim Horton's coffee shop. I had a few sips of the brew - my tounge grew fur and my ears began ringing. Later, we journeyed to a local apple orchard where I tasted a 400 year old cultivar, the German Gravestein. Most everyone else enjoyed a scoop of homemade ice cream.

When we passed back through the Anapolis Valley the tide was high and the clay dikes we'd photographed earlier in the day were now swollen marshlands. As a bonus, our coach took us to the star-shaped dry moat Citadel that looks over Halifax, guarded by soldiers in traditional costume.

St. John's Surprise

Our unreally perfect weather continued into St. John's, Newfoundland. Rough winds, however, chilled us at our first stop, Cape Spear.

This handsome stetch of coast, a lookout station during the second world war, still boasts a working lighthouse and status as a national park. Wild yellow lupins, thistle, milkweed, and black eyed susans bind the soil with their roots and prevent it from blowing away. The evergreens all bend in the direction the wind blows and lose their needles on the eastern side.

After a pass by the settlement of scenic Petty Harbor, we drove through downtown St. John and up Signal Hill.


We could see our cruise ship from this site that overlooked both the harbor and the Cape Spear lighthouse. I climbed the steps to the Marconi Turret where the first wireless transatlantic signal was exchanged.

Our guide Laura, a young Newfoundlander, though less steeped in history and fact than our other guides gave us the best demonstration of what it was like to live in the area as she joked with the driver and shared personal anecdotes.

The locals easily gave us our best welcome and our best send off of the cruise. At the pier, huge furry Newfoundland dogs, Canadian mounted police, actresses in Victorian dress and a Tv crew greeted us. As we departed, our friendly hosts lined the piers, cliffs and roads surrounding the inlet and waved to us until we passed from sight.

Sea Days

The transatlantic crossing, constituting the middle three days of our journey, ended today in St. John's, Newfoundland.

During our sea days:

- Mom played a sanctioned game of duplicate bridge
- I saw a French Caberet singer in the shipboard theater.
- Mom went to the daily Catholic mass held in the discoteque.
- I worked out in the gym. ("Why do these weights seem so heavy? Oh, KILOS!")
- Mom watched a cooking demonstration.
- I worked on my novel in several quiet corners.

We saw a several movies in the cinema including "The Devil Wears Prada," which seems to be the passenger favorite. We also both got treatments in the spa.

Lismore and Waterford

Our most rewarding of the journey, the shore excursion to Waterford took over nine hours. Our guide, Claire passed around a bottle of Potcin, or Irish moonshine, and a sod of dried peat or "turf" as exhibits to explain the way of life in the Irish Countryside. She graciously explained hurling, mandatory prayer in schools, Irish divorce (the couple must spend four year apart to make it legal), and many Irish aphorisms.

Mom wants to import "Tidy Town" and "Tidy Street" competitions to the U.S. We passed the all-Irish "Tidy Street" winner on our way through Lismore and took a stop at Lismore Castle which one can rent out for 2 grand per weekend with 12 friends.

Ultimately, we traveled to the Waterford Crystal Factory. In the last 30 years, the factory, which originally employed a team of about 70, expanded to 900. We saw at least two dozen active workers on the tour, pouring, molding, turning and shaping hot glass.

The three floor showroom was crowded both with crystal and with consumers. Both Mom and I made small purchases.

Cobh, Ireland

We arrived in Cobh, the second largest natural harbor in the world (Sydney is first, San Francisco is third) at dawn. This pic is a little shaken by ship motion. Cobh is one of two islands in Cork county that are connected by bridge to the town of Cork on the Irish mainland.

The first immigrants to be processed on Ellis Island originated from Cobh. Irish immigration to the United States is percieved in Ireland to be a century-long phenomena, tailing out in recently with a twelve year technology related boom.

Dublin Pics Part 3

A view of St. Patricks from the lawn. Near the gate is the well where St. Patrick performed baptisms.

Dublin Pics Part 2

St. Patrick's Cathedral