Wayne Newton General Hospital?

My annual disparaging review of St. Paul’s festive display. Nothing says ‘Jesus’ like aluminum scaffolding.

Incoming!

It’s a good thing that I’m technically homeless right now and taking assorted house-sitting gigs. My transience will make it more difficult for George Bush’s B1 bombers to find me.
Did you catch the news today? According to the Daily Mirror (as reported by the Globe and Mail), immediate-past-empire Prime Minister Tony Blair talked current-empire President [...]

Ah! Suburbia!

Yet another potential road-rage incident constructively redirected to a safe, textual outburst.

The War on Rodents?

I, Edward, defender of forests, eater of soy products, and catcher-releaser of bathtub spiders, have brutalized to the point of death one small, defenseless mouse.
I was coming home from school, about to put the key in the front door of my abode-of-the-week, when a small mouse ran past my foot. Before any thoughts could be [...]

Back to School!

Well, I am now in my second week of school. In some ways it’s like being back in high school, except for the absence of physical violence, insane faculty and puberty-driven angst. There are more than a few first year students who still haven’t left the high (or even junior high) school mindset behind, though [...]

To hell with philosophy, I may as well study veterinary medicine

Now that I am back in Vancouver, I need to find a home. Being the frugal sort, I’m looking for something fairly economical – the less I pay in rent, the less I’ll feel the need to earn money.
One thing I’ve noticed at this end of the socio-economic spectrum is that anyone with a cold, [...]

Sisyphus had it easy

Well, I had a great time in Costa Rica and Panama, and I’m very grateful to Colin & Roberto for being such generous hosts. Though I feel like I could have kept travelling indefinitely, I am glad to be home to see my friends, and start school next week.
As soon as I arrived home I [...]

Get your mitts off Canada, George

Well, here I am on my second last day in Costa Rica before I fly home, laying in the hammock and sipping tea, with light and pleasant thoughts rippling through my head, such as current US attempts to interfere in Canadian sovereignty.
Perhaps you’ve read of the request to extradite Marc Emery for mailing marijuana seeds [...]

Want to privatise Medicare?

For those of you Canadians who find the prospect of a privatised medical system in Canada appealling, check out the experience of my friend Garry Johnson in Hawaii, who recently had to go to emergency for a throat absess:
ER visit total: $145 user fees.
Family doctor visits and labs and medications: $111 user fees.
Specialist visit and [...]

Another day in paradise

On Tuesday I was out canoeing on the canals between 5:30 and 11:30. There were seven of us, plus our guide, Barbara Hartung.
Barbara is a great guide as she can name every bird, reptile, bug and plant found in the area (either that or she’s really a talented fraud who can whip off convincing sounding [...]

Sea Turtles

After a night in San Jose, I arrived in Tortuguero this afternoon. It is on the northern Caribbean coast and is surrounded in water, with no roads, so getting here involves two buses from San Jose followed by a one-hour canal trip in a long, low flat-bottomed boat. Along the way we saw several crocodiles.
The [...]

Back to Costa Rica

Yesterday morning, Ken very kindly drove me into town to catch the 08:30 bus, which saved me the hassle and expense of a crack-of-dawn taxi. Then, I spend a glorious eight hours traveling to San Jose. The ride was uneventful except for the part where we crossed the border.
First, we had to go through a [...]

Into the mountains

I arrived in David, Panama’s second largest city, on Thursday at 11:00am and took a taxi 30km up in to the mountains to the town of Boquete. My chosen accommodation, “Momentum Cabañas / B&B” turned out to be an ex-pat Vancouverite by the name of Ken.
Boquete was a welcome respite from the heat of the [...]

Damn Yankees!

Today I went on a day trip out to Pipeline Road with Ancon Expeditions, an eco-tour company. They picked me up at 6:40am, and had already picked up four others, who were visiting from Maryland. They were a couple with a 15 year old son, and the mother´s adult sister.
Pipeline Road is an old dirt [...]

Never mind the rip tides – try crossing the street

Downtown Panama City is a cacaphony of car and bus horns most of the time, but particularly during the afternoon rush hour. Taxi drivers all honk whenever they pass pedestrians, to try to generate business. Car drivers are constantly honking, to get people out of their way, to speed traffic flow, or just for the [...]

Scammed by capitalism once again

After the night at hotel-hole-in-the-wall, I moved to Bocas town. Things are pretty tight here as well (if this is off-season, I’d hate to be here in February), but I found a place that is central, has a large balcony overlooking the town, has a mosquito net and a fan that could propel a small [...]

Enough sitting around

On Friday morning, I caught the bus from Puerto Viejo to Sixaola, which is on the Panamanian border. After fighting off the “helpful” children, and then visiting Costa Rica customs, I walked across a rickety bridge spanning a large river. There are wet, wooden planks to walk on, with large gaps, so slipping is inadvisable.
On [...]

After Dark: Lizards and Botox

I rather enjoy sitting on the back patio at night, laying back in the hammock and staring up into the corrogated steel ceiling, watching the geckos go about their business.
A gecko is like a newt (not Gingrich). They are about three inches long from head to tail and are kind of a very light olive [...]

Next week: Deep water shark wrestling

A sunset in Costa Rica is an unspectacular affair: there are no long, drawn out scenes of flaming skies and a yellow globe sinking into the distant horizon (perhaps because we’re facing east). It takes about five minutes for light to become dark, like someone closed the shutters slowly. It’s dark by 6:30 or so, [...]

Oh, the stress!

Colin and Roberto live in a small house that sits about 60 feet from the high tide line (though there appears to be only about a six-inch difference between the low and hight tides), where they will stay while their permanent house is being built, just up the road.
Colin showed me another house in town [...]

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