edwards block

I arrived in New York as scheduled on Tuesday shortly before midnight.

I am staying at a hostel that has 624 beds, but fortunately, they aren’t all in one room. It’s one of the few places in New York that has rates that I am willing to pay, as even dumpy hotels rent for $150. The hostel is in Manhattan’s upper west side, near Central Park and Columbia University, so it is quite a handy location for playing tourist.

On Wednesday, after mastering the subway map and developing a rudimentary sense of direction, I wandered around Greenwich Village and along the Hudson River, and then in the evening satisfied one objective by dining at the first Indian restaurant I’ve seen in five months.

On Thursday, after sleeping unusually late, I wandered rather aimlessly once again, from Times Square to the United Nations via 42nd Steet, with little detours here and there to browse bookstores and search in futility for a potable pot of tea. In the afternoon, I met up with a hostel tour group to the Empire State Building. En route, they dragged me through such important cultural landmarks as the Trump Tower and toystore FAO Schwartz (the latter selling the most phallicly suggestive water cannon I have ever seen marketed to children), as well as quick passes through or by the Metropolitan Opera House, Tiffany’s (too late for beakfast), and a bunch of other buildings famous only for the brand named crap that they sell more ostentatiously than elsewhere.

Late in the day, we finally made it to the ESB, along with what appeared to be 1,367,479 other tourists. Things aren’t simple these days, and a visit to the top obsevation deck required a ride up one escalator, a queue to get through security, an examination by security that seemed more thorough than those required to board an aircraft, payment of $16, another queue for an elevator, a ride up to the 80th floor, where they photographed each visitor and then herded us through a maze until we reached another queue in order to board an elevator up to the 86th floor. Once on 86, we were deposited, naturally, in a gift shop, where most people seemed to be dutifully snapping up knicknacks.

The obsevation deck itself was as crowded as I imagine FAO Schwartz would be on Christmas eve. It is surrounded in Guantanamo-like sharpened aluminum bars that I imagine are to prevent democrats (as opposed to Democrats) from leaping to their deaths in despair for their rapidly deteriorating republic. Someone recently complained because I only post pictures of bugs, and not people, so here is a crowd to make up for the lack:

Here also is a shot of some old grizzled grump that managed to eke out a vague smile despite the atmosphere (the Chrysler building is illuminated, to the right):

I won’t bore you with the process for leaving the building, which was no less tortuous.

After that, I dined at an Irish pub near Times Square with one of my tour mates, where I paid $32 for a Shepherd’s Pie and a pint o’ Guinness.

On Friday, I spent a good part of the day sitting in Central Park reading, and then went to a Shakespeare in the Park performance of Romeo and Juliet in the evening (a bloodbath, as usual). Not only were the tickets free, but the seats are assigned in advance (hint to Bard on the Beach).

Today I am off to Brooklyn, which allegedly has vaguely Berkeley-esque qualities.

My overall plans are changing once again. As someone asked me to house-sit in Kitsilano for a month, I am taking the train to Toronto on Monday, where I will spend a week visiting Ben and Carol and take care of some business, and will fly to Vancouver on June 19. The house-sitting gig fell through after I made the arrangements, but as Eric is travelling at the same time, I will house-sit for him instead. Late in July, I will fly back to New York to resume my travels.

I am now back in San Jose again, after a few days in the cloud forests of Monteverde.

The Monteverde region is, I think, the best of Costa Rica. It is tropical, but rather temperate, and were I ever going to retire here with intended permanence, it would be a likely candidate for my new residence. It has several appealling characteristics: Cool and comfortable, fewer mosquitoes, and many varieties of interesting birds. As you travel on the bus from San Jose (a five hour journey on winding, cliffside gravel roads), you notice the gradual decrease in the use of residential razor wire and window bars the further you get, and in Monteverde, there is almost none of this, suggesting a lower degree of crime.

I was in Monteverde for two full days and spent most of the time hiking. There are a number of cloud forest reserves in the area, much of it created through private initiative, rather than government (including one that is funded through the contributions of schoolchildren around the world). On the first day, I hiked in the Santa Elena Reserve, a total of about 25km. The second day, I hiked in the Bosque Nuboso Reserve, another 15km or so. Today, my legs are stiff.

On this, my third trip to Costa Rica, I finally spotted not just one, but three of the Resplendant Quetzals that had eluded me on previous visits. This is a brightly-coloured bird with very long (two feet) tail covert feathers. I also managed to spot another bird that is very easy to hear – it has a call that sounds like an ear-splitting metallic ping followed by bell-like whistling or chiming noises – called the Three-wattled Bellbird. Other spottings included:

• Emerald Toucanet
• Violet Sabrewing
• Blue-crowned Motmot
• Gray-throated Leaftosser
• Black Guan
• American Swallow-tailed Kite
• Long-billed Starthroat
• Buff-throated Foliage Gleaner
• Slaty-backed Nightingale Thrush
• Yellow-faced Grassquit

I even managed some pictures (though not of high quality) of the Quetzals and Bellbird, but I won´t be able to post them until I am back in Puerto Viejo.

Hostels tend to have a reputation for being places to meet interesting people from around the world, often who are liberal in their worldviews. I suppose this is because one frequently meets a lot of Europeans. When one meets Americans, they are usually either of the progressive, justice-minded variety, or simply keep quiet.

On this occasion, however, there are a number of young Americans of noticeably different temperament. The first clue was the guy playing pool while wearing a t-shirt that says “Texans for Bush”. At first I thought this an adolescent colloquialism suggesting an erotic preference, but the presence of stripes and stars discouraged this theory. Then, I heard his friend, sitting at an internet terminal reading a letter from someone in Iraq, making jokes about the bombing of “ragheads”, and all doubt was removed. The hostel had been invaded by Republicans.

Don´t they know that there is a Holiday Inn just up the street? It´s even next to a Denny´s, that all-American repository of plasticised, greasy ptomaine. After much beer swilling, burping, and lewd stares at decent, probably anti-Bush European lasses, they took their mountain of beer cans to their room and played country music on a a guitar. Lucky me – my room was right next to theirs. Fortunately, they weren´t IN my room, or I might have had to head off to the Holiday Inn myself. I, mercifully, had three lads from the US in my room, but one was a Nebraska democrat (a slight improvement), and the others were foreign students from India and Korea. The disapprobation was unanimous.

Today at 5:00, I am departing for San Cristobal for a couple of days of meditation in another cool, mountain area. Perhaps a little spiritual disengagement will make me feel more charitable toward the suffering fools that would lead us all to fascist damnation. But I hope not.