We are on the Carribean side of Costa Rica, at a nature retreat called
Samasati, on 250 acres of rain forest. It was built four years ago,
and is now for sale: $2 million. It's a steal if you like the weather in
Panama, which is just to the south. Panama's weather , like Costa Rica's, is good for the skin and
requires no moisturizer. When you wash your hair, you don't need conditioner,
either. The makeup would run right off your face if you were foolish
enough to wear any. It's cheap to live here. One of our drivers told
me that an American is building a fancy house not far from the beach,
with special wood out of the rain forest, and the entire thing cost
$100,000.

Good place to retire.

There is no such thing as silence in the rain forest. Someone is awake
and speaking at all times of the day. At 6:30PM it's this bird that
sounds like the ones storybooks for children have. "Tweet, tweet,' he
says, "tweet, tweet, tweet." Right out of Fun with Dick and Jane.
Right in the middle of meditation. I meditate on the noise.

In midday the lizards sit in the middle of the paths, defying you to
cross. After the rain, it's the orange frogs (poisonous).

The first night we were here, there was a grasshopper on my bathroom
counter. Large and green, he showed no signs of leaving, so I ignored
him. Not much I could do about him anyway; he was here first.

Costa Rica itself seems very cheerful, although a native told me that
they have just had a new election, and he is waiting for the new
president to start fixing the roads. The new president will award a
paving contract to his friend's company. The friend then waits until
the roads get really full of potholes, almost impassible, and then he
begins fixing them, because he makes more money if the roads are bad. In
addition, the contractor gets a percentage up front, which my new
friend told me is a disincentive to do a good job. It's as if he got paid by
the pothole.

We do two yoga classes a day, one in the morning and one in the
evening.They are highly meditative; both teachers are very thoughtful and very
present. This morning David said the next few days would be difficult
for us, because we have now seen the jungle and will long for
amenities. He wished for a TV, a pizza, and the Diamondbacks. Outside of email, I
don't really miss amenities. As long as I can get somewhere for an
hour a day to connect, I'm happy. Yesterday when I checked email, one of my
daughters was on IM. It was as if she were in the next room.

This little laptop is the best machine I have ever had. He goes to
sleep at night with the push of a button , and comes on in the morning
without having to reboot. He has a digital camera built into him, so
he automatically takes pictures when I want him to and stores them on the
hard drive without any downloading. The software that accompanies him
lets me email photos, make take movies, make slide shows, and edit. And the
little guy only weighs two pounds. Of course he's a Sony; a
Picturebook. He weighs less than two pounds and has a 20gig hard drive
and 256 mb of RAM. The Japanese are so artful at miniaturizing.

The rain is hard and constant. Every now and then there is thunder.
The howler monkeys have not spoken yet this morning. However, during a break
between hard rains, I heard one bird say to the other "is it over
yet?" The other one answered "no," and then they both went back to sleep.

My good time comes from going to town, talking to the locals, and
reading email. We're on the Carribean side of Costa Rica, which is
much less developed and touristy. Only surfers and adventurers come here;
the Pacific side has the European influence and the four star hotels.
We have Rastafarians and wave seekers. Drugs and prostitutes.
Apparently I could rent a guy if I wanted to.

I like Max, the guy who built this place. Max is burned out and wants
to go on to something else, but he is a man who has lived in dozens of
countries, including Afghanistan before the Russians came in. He
thinks he will still use Costa Rica as a base and travel to places he has
never seen, like New Zealand. He likes living in Costa Rica, however,
because it is politically stable and a good place to do business.

Lucky for me it has been raining at night, hard enough to keep me awake,because it allows me to
write this journal. However, it has now rained so much that the road between
here and San Jose - the airport - is washed out. If you want to go to
the airport, you must take a bus to the washed out part, which is
about 30 meters, and then go by boat to the other side, where another bus
meets you. This takes some fancy planning. Max says that the road
often washes out during the rainy season. Once when he absolutely had
to go to San Jose, he paid a guy with a backhoe to carry him over the
washed out portions of road in the shovel of the backhoe. He thought
it was fun. It will be quite an adventure if we have to do it.
Namaste,

Francine