Tuesday morning back at the lovely La Condesa Resort in San Jose, I was up early enough to say good-bye to those in our travel group who were continuing on the trip extension. It was nice to be able to “close the loop” with them, yet familiar and comfortable to be back on my own. I spent the rest of Tuesday and all of Wednesday making use of an excellent wi-fi connection to update this website and do a ton of research and planning for the next legs of The Voyage. I was able to make some fabulous arrangements -- which I promise to share with you soon -- and I am very excited about what lies ahead. My friend Kay called yesterday morning to say that the weather in the US was terrible and that she would not be arriving in San Jose last night as planned but would arrive at noon today instead. Luckily, since all we had planned was to spend the night in San Jose and be beach bound mid-morning, picking her up at the airport and leaving two hours later wouldn’t be too bad in the scheme of things. 
Another highlight was taking an “artsy” photo of a little fishing boat that was stranded on the beach after low tide, then finding myself helping its owner get it back into the water. The tide was way out and it was a bit of a slog, but we prevailed and he sped off into the surf with a simple wave of thanks. This evening, Kay and I went into “town” and had a decent dinner at a little Argentine restaurant. I tried to save a few left-overs for the dogs, but the waitress threw them out by mistake... Bummer! On first impression, Jaco is pretty much just a tourist beach town. High rise condos and rental properties are going up everywhere, and I think Americans may outnumber locals. Prices are really high and the tourist hype is almost oppressive. I’ll reserve final judgement until after I’ve been here a little longer and gotten a better sense of the place, but my initial impression is not so great. Stand by!
After six days of pretty fast-paced travel, it was nice to be in one place for a long weekend. My folks and I made use of the beautiful -- but not particularly well run -- Casa Conde Mar’s facilities on Friday for a day of relaxation, hanging out and enjoying uninterrupted time together. Saturday was a different story, beginning with a “jungle canopy tour” which Mom and I did via a dozen “zip lines.” I’m sure you have all seen pictures of people zipping between tree stands hanging from wires, but I doubt you’ve seen anything like the Report of my mother doing it! Seeing the way she took to the process -- smiling like a fool the entire time -- is nothing short of astonishing. (If her friends thought she was crazy to go to Alaska in winter for the Iditarod, they will probably want to have her committed for doing this!) 
Tuesday morning we had some time at the Eco-Resort on the Sarapiqui River to wander around and stretch our legs. I took the opportunity to cross a very, very long foot bridge over the river which -- in my vast experience of foot bridges world-wide -- I would give pretty strong marks. Our main activity of the day was a two-hour boat ride on the river to view wildlife. With the group of 36 aboard a bus-like water craft, we cruised around and were not disappointed. We saw a number of birds, iguana, sloth and howler monkeys, and you can see some of them on the Photos page. We got back to the Eco-Resort in time for lunch and a little break before riding the bus to our next hotel, arriving early enough for a proper cocktail hour and dinner. 
I spent Friday pretty much just goofing around in San Jose. For one thing, there really isn’t much to it. People may fall in love with Costa Rica, but nobody falls in love with its capitol city. For another, I was looking forward to “exploring” Costa Rica with my folks and really didn’t want to do too much on my own and spoil the fun of “discovering it together.” Saturday morning, I packed up, checked out of my hotel and got a taxi to Heredia -- a “pseudo-suburb” of San Jose -- then checked into the La Condesa Hotel where I would begin the tour with my folks. After lunch, I spent a little time on-line and had a nice walk around the lovely grounds. In the evening I looked for the tour guide so I could bum a ride to the airport with him to meet my folks, but I found out he was already at the airport to meet the group which would be arriving en masse. So, I got a taxi to the airport and waited for my folks to emerge from the arrivals gate. Sure enough, more or less on time, my folks arrived and we met up with the rest of the group for our bus ride back to the hotel. It is a little odd for me to write that all I did in a day was basically “check out, taxi, check in, hang out, taxi, wait, bus...” but that is what some days are like on The Voyage! Anyway, it was pretty late by the time we all got settled in, so my folks and I had a night cap and called it a day. 
Phase Three of “The John Galt Line” through Central America started a little bit like “deja vu all over agin!” As usual, I got up, packed up and checked out, but then I woke up Parole who was sleeping in his cab in front of the hotel to be sure he got my business! With plenty of time to spare -- especially considering my experience of showing up at the TICA office only to wait for it to open -- I informed Parole of my need for coffee and we went to a local gas station for a cup. With that necessity handled, we drove the short distance to the TICA office and parted ways with Parole strongly encouraging me to return to Managua soon so that he can drive me all over the country on a grand tour. Um... Maybe. Anyway, in due course we loaded up the bus and did the first three hours to the border. On the Nicaraguan exit side, the scene was downright calm. There were a few money changers and peddlers, but the energy level was so low that it was really quite pleasant. 
Phase Two of “The John Galt Line” through Central America began a lot like Phase One. This time, my “get up, get packed, check out and go to the TICA Bus” routine started on Sunday in San Salvador at 3am! Ugh! As usual, though I had been told to arrive at the TICA office at 4am -- which I did -- I found the place was still closed and shuttered. No matter, I had a nice “chat” with the shotgun armed security guard who was thrilled that I wanted to take his picture. Sure enough, the office opened by about 4:30 and people started to arrive. Shortly after 5am we were all loaded up and on our four hour leg toward the San Salvador - Honduras border. 
Phase One of “The John Galt Line” through Central America began at 5am on Thursday in Tapachula when I got up, got packed and checked out of the Loma Real that had been my home for a nice few days. Arriving at the local bus station at the appointed time of 6am -- for my 7am bus -- I was not terribly surprised to find the station empty except for an armed security guard. I have gotten accustomed to “things coming together in due course” so I just had a seat and waited. Sure enough, a few other people began to arrive and, promptly at ten minutes to seven, the TICA Bus pulled in and a company-uniformed young man waved us over and began to check our tickets and load us up. I was having some of the usual difficulty discussing the details of my itinerary with him when a white woman walked up and began complaining loudly at him in Spanish about having gotten the same lack of useful information and poor service that Paulina and I had gotten from the “bitch” ticket agent. After a few minutes of back and forth -- with her mostly yelling and him mostly nodding -- he asked her if she spoke English. With a stunned and combative look on her face, she replied in English, “My Spanish is perfectly good! Why do you want me to speak English?” I suppressed my laugh and said to her, “It’s not for him, Ma’am. It’s for me. I need help with Spanish.” It took a moment for her to switch gears, the she said to me, “Oh, what’s the problem?” Thus went my introduction to Claire, a Belgian woman who has been traveling in Central and South America for most of a year. After a few minutes of her helpful translation, all was in order and we began our bus ride. 
A few days ago, I had a delightful -- as always -- conversation with an old friend, client and Voyage sponsor. Among the many topics, we talked about how I was planning to get to San Jose, Costa Rica in time to meet my folks there on the 18th. I described for him an insight I have gained so far on the Voyage regarding the relationship between factors like speed, safety, stress and economy. It strikes me as a somewhat complicated algorithm, but it goes something like this: The faster and farther I move, the more I feel the need to make “arrangements” in advance. I’ll admit that I’m not yet completely comfortable riding all night on a bus, arriving in some strange city and just “looking around” for a place to stay. It would be stressful any time, but it is especially so when one reads about the potential dangers that lurk in one’s destination. In order to be “safe”, I find myself going to the website for the Holiday Inn and picking “good” hotels, any of which, of course, are not the most economical to stay in. 
Tapachula was a very good choice as a place to spend a few days of “recovery” -- from my excellent but very difficult and exhausting time in Mexico City -- and “preparation” -- for my transit of Central America to Costa Rica. A city of about 300,000 people, it can best be described as a “cross-roads commercial city.” Depending on how you look at it, Tapachula is either the last substantial city as you head south out of Mexico or the first as you head north from Central American. Either way, it is a place where business people meet “in the middle” and tourists stop “along the way.” There is some opportunity for cultural exploration, but I honestly haven’t done much of it. For me, it has been a pleasant and serviceable little oasis. 
One of my favorite episodes from the original Star Trek series is entitled “A Piece of the Action” which has a plot that goes something like this: Kirk and the crew beam down to the planet Sigma Iotia II and find themselves in an Earth-like 1920s era gangster culture. The people dress, talk and act like gangsters, but the crew finds that the food tastes wrong, the smells are off and the feel of things is inaccurate. They come to discover that a hundred years earlier a Federation vessel had accidentally left a book about gangsters behind on the planet, and the imaginative and intelligent inhabitants had built their culture around what they read and saw in the book. They got the sound and look right from the words and pictures, but they did not -- could not -- get the right taste, smell and feel from the book. This episode of Star Trek came to mind recently because it is an allegory of how I have come to view Mexico. Don’t get me wrong, I mean no disrespect. I have grown quite fond of Mexico, especially the warm, friendly, hard working and good natured people. The way things are, though, has an aspect of “looks right, works wrong.” 
A few examples: In most of the hotels I have stayed in, there is a little receptacle by the door into which you put your card key when you enter the room. This activates the electricity, air, etc. The idea, of course, is that one should not waste energy when the room is empty. The problem is that ALL the electricity goes off, including the outlet into which the fancy clock radio is plugged. As a result, you have to reset the clock every time you re-enter the room. In two places so far, the outlet for the clock radio has been on the same circuit as the light switch, rendering it useless either as a clock at night or as an alarm in the morning. Unless, of course, you sleep with the lights on. Another example is that the ATM machines dispense very large bills, generally as large as possible to require the fewest bills to meet the amount of your withdrawal. The problem is that nobody -- including your hotel -- is readily willing or able to change them into smaller bills. As a result, you have to wait on a long line at the bank to change the big bills you just got from their ATM machine. The technology is in place and works as far as it goes, but the system breaks down in the context of the larger reality. My favorite example is in the Mexico City subway system where the hi-tech turnstiles accept little paper tickets with a magnetic stripe on them to speed you through and on your way. The problem is that the turnstiles accept only these paper tickets. You cannot use coins. Where do you get the paper tickets? Perhaps at an automated dispenser that accepts coins? No, because there are none. You have to wait in a line and buy the paper tickets from a person who tears them off a roll that is designed to be used in an automated dispenser! 
I have a lot of great media of the five days “Los Viajeros” have spent in Mexico City which I will soon edit into a Report. Meanwhile, here is a recap: After getting a much needed good night’s sleep on Friday night -- in our cool, quiet, mosquito-free room at the fabulous Gran Hotel -- we decided to make Saturday an “overview” day. So, after breakfast and a brief walk around Zocalo we got on the “Turibus” -- the typical red, double-decker, open air bus that most major cities have for tourists -- and had a four hour tour around the major highlights of the city. The many famous buildings and monuments were interesting, of course, but what was most amazing is the city’s sheer mass of humanity... and traffic! With over 20 million people -- and a comparable number of vehicles -- Mexico City is the world’s second most populous city. One is constantly surrounded by people and suffocated by exhaust, smog and pollution. At one point, when we got off the bus to take a break, Greg had no problem doing his usual routine of getting his picture taken with local girls. With his disarming smile and infectious positive energy, he always seems to bring out the “fun” in people. My role as “straight man” involves saying, “Lo siento, mi tio es muy loco!” which always clinches the deal. The Mexican people are very warm, friendly and happy, which is somehow in stark contrast to the very difficult living conditions of the city. 
This morning, we met up with Miguel and drove out of the city to see the famous pyramids at Teotehuican. We again had the benefit of Miguel’s vast knowledge, informative “esplain you everything” and wonderfully dry wit. Because we had both been feeling so badly as a result of Mexico City’s altitude, pollution, etc., we were initially unsure about our ability to climb the Sun Pyramid. Taking our time, however, we successfully scaled the structure and were rewarded with a wonderful vista. If you ever visit Mexico City, the pyramids are a “must.” Not only is it a very interesting archeological site, it is also a great escape from the oppressive conditions of the city. Upon our return to the hotel, we had a rest then went out to have our last dinner together and our last immersion into the insanity of Zocalo -- which was on overdrive due to “Day of the Dead” festivities! 