Meaning to Life

The conquistadors had a smattering of linguistics

After Cuba Peru was my next Latin American port of call. Peru had ingratiated itself with me from an early age for two reasons: Paddington bear arrived directly in the centre of London from Lima and because the country had a short, uncomplicated distinctive name without any of the predictable suffixes such as land, “ia” (and there are an almost insufferable amount of those by the way) or “guay”. In fact if you consider the matter closely “u” is a particularly rare country ending letter, so bravo to Peru for that piece of originality. The name itself was the Spanish conquistadors’ attempted transliteration of the Inca word for the name of the river Viru. The fact that the word came out with four letters and ending in “u” means that we can see those marauding conquistadors got something a little bit right as long as, of course, we steer clear of what they were actually doing in South America in the first place.

These attractions were not, may I swiftly add, the reasons why I ended up in Peru. It was the simple expedient fact that Peru would kindly let us in. Neither am I suggesting that countries are not in the habit of letting me in but this time around I was travelling with a Dominican friend and the countries that Dominican passport holders are allowed into by just turning up at the entrance way are few and far between. It was something I did know something about having researched the subject a few years previously and for those of you with an interest in that specialty group of Dominican passport holders the story can be found here.

Peru is a large country, in fact 19th largest in world order but I invite you to reflect on how tiddly it might be considered if it were transferred in absolute size to just for example, the surface of Jupiter. Please understand my intention here is not to belittle Peru, as such, but firstly to foster a sense of the enormity of our solar system and even greater enormityness beyond that. Anyway that that and any other that notwithstanding, Peru, for the time being, remains very sizable and therefore demands a selective travel plan.

Our geographic route started in Lima and ventured through several Andean towns in the order of Huancavelica, Huancayo, Ayacucho, Andahuaylas, Abancay and Cuzco with the ultimate goal being that bizarrely Incan fashioned hideaway of Machu Picchu. Such a hideaway indeed that it remained hidden right away from modern man until the American explorer Hiram Bingham trekked there in 1913.

Here follows a grid selection of photos of that trip and below that links to quite a lot of other photos taken on our Peruvian tour.

Lima   |   Scenic Peru   |   Huancavelica

Huancayo   |   Ayacucho   |   Andahuaylas

Abancay   |   Cuzco   |   Machu Picchu

Peru Adventure Home

Costa Rica’s Urban Conundrum

San José is a large capital city and is importantly the fulcrum of an even larger metropolitan area comprising also the separate cities of Alajuela, Heredia and Cartago, actually the capital of Costa Rica prior to 1823.

San José itself has the unremarkable reputation of being a rather tedious and ordinary urban city much like any other anywhere else in the world. However, in spite of the seemingly unspoken prerogative afforded to the motor car here in the downtown area, there are some redeeming features. For example there are some fairly sizable pedestrian thoroughfares, not an inconsiderable number of parks and various areas of other greenery scattered in and about. Considering Costa Rica’s very positive ecological stance it would be a travesty for the national agenda not to have some kind of an influence on its capital city.

At the west end of the city is the extensive La Sabana Park which was in fact the main aerodrome until international flight got very serious in our modern world and they created Juan Santamaria International Airport further to the west in Alajuela. The park is an ideal size for not being able to lose yourself but large enough to feel you have escaped from metropolitan life. At the weekend it is littered with various football (soccer) matches taking place: a clear reflection of the importance of football as the national sport. This however is not to the exclusion of baseball that also has a standing but based on numbers I saw in La Sabana Park football would win; actually “hands down”.

Of the other smaller parks dotted around, one morning I was fortunate enough to stumble across Parque Espana where a school group were practicing for a musical performance. Parque Espana lies a little to the north of the central area in Barrio Amon where the greenery of the park blends very nicely with some distinctively designed housing and hotel structures in the area.

I have also heard directly from the horse’s mouth (a member of a certain management project team here) that the city has some grand plans to make the city more “liveable”. The project focuses on a huge transportation renewal plan and the development of a modern urban transport system in the heart of the metropolitan area. Unfortunately this will take a lot of time and a lot of money and even more unfortunately it is at the dictate of the hands of an imminently changing government.

Meanwhile you can enjoy a current very liveable scene directly from Parque Espana.

Serendipitously travelling – a notch below the spiritual journey

I was happily minding my own business tucked away in this little corner of San José, actually very near the Vizquez Gonzalez Park on Avenida 14 and Calle 11 if you should be familiar with this city, when I had a serendipitous Skype chat with Peter “The Swede” that threw off numerous serendipitous by-products in a kind of serendipitous chain reaction. I was actually calling back to base camp in Boca Chica and discovered that Peter had turned up for his annual Dominican rest and recuperation. In good Viking tradition Peter does not hang about and upon learning where I was he immediately offered to run roughshod over (another of those Viking traditions) the formalities of a few hundred miles distance and a whole sea to make the same generous offer he made every year when we met up, “Dinner on me!”

A few days later there he was at the airport (Juan Santamaria International Airport, not actually in San José but in Alajuela one of the component parts of this extensive metropolitan area). I had no idea what, other than dinner, he had up his sleeve, although Vikings are indeed usually pictured without sleeves: I simply imagine it must have got terribly in the way of all the killing. I considered -in the knowledge of one of his other Viking traits (he liked messing about on boats)- it rare that he would be interested in San José (which with the gathering momentum of my geography for dummies has well established that we are most certainly not on any maritime coast here and don’t even have a small lake for a dinghy).

Fortunately for everyone, presumably including himself, Peter has given up the oldest Viking tradition of visiting foreign lands and simply taking, proven by the fact he immediately chalked up another free dinner for me as a payment for meeting him at the airport. On the journey to the airport I reflected on that fascinating world (that we can all enjoy at times) of the person with a little knowledge being way on top of the person without any knowledge; the stark simplicity of a world we can sometimes share with computers where there is an enormous difference between zero and one. From Peter’s viewpoint this was my town and my bus route. Though he did soon begin to see the error of that view when 40 minutes into the bus ride we were still seemingly some way off our target of downtown San José for what I had told him was a 25-minute journey.

Later that evening as I heartily consumed the first of my free dinner tickets (in deference to expediency I refrained from taking them both because it is just not possible to consume heartily twice at the same sitting) we talked of our relative situations and came up with an excellent travel plan of taking a journey together up to Costa Rica’s famously most active volcano Arenal and staying at La Fortuna about a three hour bus journey to the north west of San José.

A couple of days later with bags well and truly packed, and as we admittedly made rather a meal out of toast and coffee in our efforts to wake up before trotting off to the bus stop, we serendipitously learned that one of the other hostelers was just about to set off to the very same town of La Fortuna in his rental car to also visit the volcano.

Richard, the would-be doctor and temporarily resident artist, was at that moment waiting for his car to be delivered. Richard, without any Viking roots whatsoever, was unhesitating in offering us space in his Suzuki Alto, not usually one of their chief selling points but we really couldn’t ask him to upgrade just for our sakes and especially at such short notice, and we promptly sped off in the direction of La Fortuna. Speeding because that is what the San José traffic always does and with the aid of the absolutely indispensable GPS tracking device we could not only speed but keep on the right course that otherwise might have been perilous considering all the speeding that was going on.

In the great natural world of balanced energy (although how is it that the forces of destruction and construction are just so perversely asymmetrical?) for every serendipity I suppose there has to be an anti-serendipity and that came in the form of rainfall coinciding with our timed visit to La Fortuna. We had been warned that the non-appearance of the volcano was a common occurrence and we waited three days through a lot of rain and mist and the volcano barely even revealed its ankles.

As we careened around in our poncho protective gear we had our first experience of the world-renowned Costa Rican rain forest and were delighted to distinctly hear the volcano on one occasion as it belched out a deep rolling gaseous sound mixing perfectly into the swirling atmospheric mist. It was either the volcano or the as yet unseen Costa Rican Yeti but as far as we were concerned whichever it was it steadfastly remained completely and utterly out of sight!

Serendipitously travelling – a notch below the spiritual journey

Admiration from German and Japanese Industry Just-In-Time Experts

The motor car and bus dominate the transport scene here in San José. There is a quirky rickety little single railway track with a quirky two carriage train that slowly passes very near-by continually sounding its horn and quaintly tingling its bell in warning because there are no level crossings and I suppose also because it does run right in the middle of the street. If the trains were a frequent occurrence I would imagine it could become irritating but seeing as they are few and far between the fanfare of its passing adds another dynamic dimension to the local bustle and an almost romantic yesteryear dimension in contrast to the humdrum of the all-pervasive motor transport.

It seems to me that Cost Ricans are drastically different animals when they are behind the steering wheel. In the limited time I have been here they appear to be amiable, placid, polite and considerate when you meet them in person but I would not describe them that way if I were to judge their temperaments based on their car driving.

On the bigger scale I get the impression that they have completely given up on a concept of car and pedestrian integration. It seems to be starkly one or the other. Where the car roams they not only have thrown up their arms in surrender to its power but have arranged things to accentuate its dominance. Thankfully there are some extensive pedestrianised central thoroughfares where you can walk mostly oblivious to this other dualistic landscape.

The overriding objective seems to have been to speed the cars on their way as much as possible thereby encouraging drivers to believe even more in their right to priority. Most of the roads are one-way. Traffic lights hang up high often at difficult-to-see angles when you are not in a car seemingly intentionally denying the pedestrian the opportunity to anticipate whether a car is about to stop or start at junctions. Then the road surface seems to be maintained in surprisingly good slick-asphalted condition, at least here in the downtown district, in complete contrast to the poor pedestrian who has to negotiate over and around countless holes of every magnitude to get to wherever he or she might want to go on the sidewalk. Next come the gulleys separating the roads from the sidewalks. I suspect that this was not intentional but set up to handle the not infrequent torrential downpours but all the same adds to the sense of alienation between car and walker. On top of this there is very little on-street parking which certainly creates less of an eye sore but, my goodness, the greatest beneficiary is the motor driver who can whisk through the city just as fast as he likes with the only impediment to his progress being that of the traffic signals.

This whole observation came to my attention because of the surprisingly narrow margin of safety I noticed when trying to cross the road. I haven’t seen anybody injured yet, though at the same time I have yet to see a single old-aged, infirm or invalided person have a stab at such a challenge. It could be I haven’t seen it because none has ever made it to repeat the exercise!

If you put your foot on the road you have the sense that any hint of hesitation could be your undoing. You will be allowed time to cross but it is an interval that demands an efficiency level that even German and Japanese industry would admire. I brought the subject up with Geraldo the resident maintenance man, a man with dual US Costa Rican citizenship and he was quick to agree that it was a problem. Excusing it by being a gap in Costa Rican education but swiftly added it is notably worse in Mexico – “Dios Mio!”

Siesta destroyed by earthquake!

There is a sense when writing a blog that it is a kind of news report and if that is the case then the report should be of the moment. So here it is of the moment. Hot on the heels of this morning’s blog post and perhaps because of the energy drain of that little exercise in conjunction with the usually well rounded Costa Rican lunch I was lying on my bed having a very welcome siesta only to very soon have the odd sensation that the bed was shaking. I thought some fancy trick was being played on me: although wide awake I actually decided I was asleep. As the shaking intensified my thoughts jumped to this morning’s recollections of Tokyo and Kita-ku wondering if perhaps that was inducing this surreal experience. At the same time I had to acknowledge how my geography for dummies level of knowledge had failed me so badly recently and so could it after all be that Costa Rica has earthquakes and if so how strong do they get? I now decided I was awake and acted as if I was by leaping from the bed to stand in the door frame just in case I really was awake and just in case it really was an earthquake but just as the earthquake shook itself out.

So hot off the press is it that I cannot find data on the internet yet but the local residents inform me they think it was about 4.3 on the Richter scale and the TV reports that it was at precisely 15.20 (21.20 GMT) that a very strong (actually muy muy fuerte) quake was felt in the area . In respect of real live reporting I will take that figure as given and pass right over the fact that in the real world of news and science you have to readjust the figure up or down depending on where the epicentre was.

The San José about-to-be weather system

What is San Jose like then, do I hear you ask? Already you know about it being perfectly centrally located making it ideal as a capital city which it so appropriately is. You also know that it is up a bit. So now you are manifestly better informed than I was just a few weeks ago. The population is closing in on 350,000 which would put it at number 53 in a trans-USA list of cities, just ahead of Tampa in Florida and number 11 in a trans-Tokyo list of districts, known as wards or ku, actually precisely between Shinagawa-ku and Kita-ku (which is an extremely circuitous way of getting the under-mentioned put personally very favoured Kita-ku a rare mention).

Like any other large city it is centred on a thriving shopping area but the sanitised concrete shopping malls of further north in the hemisphere have yet to make their mark and nowhere is there a preponderance of towering buildings indicating anything like a financial centre. The roads are arranged in the manner of the North American grid system although the numbering and signposting are of quite a different order. I would put it down to being lulled in to a false sense of security by the presumed easy-to-follow grid system, although if you consider my not being able to catch a plane to its intended destination and not noticing that San José was several thousand feet above sea level might lead you to a different conclusion, but in the first few days I don’t recall ever having got so easily lost in a city before.

I think there were a number of other contributing factors which I will now list in my own defence, chiefly because I can. Firstly, most of the streets are lined with two storey buildings close to the sidewalks making it difficult to get a bearing on the horizon, the sun, as you will learn, is more often than not behind the clouds further diluting the bearing option, the roads are ostensibly in a grid system but their ever so gentle undulating nature can imperceptibly divert you from any kind of bearings that perhaps you thought you had especially from time to time when the grid system actually deviates from being a grid system, a grid system that does not ascend or descend in straight numerical order but depending on which side of the city you are in pairs of odd and even numbers and then most significantly of all an almost complete absence of street signs.

The people move amicably about, all seemingly without any problem as to their bearings, at regular northern hemispherical moderately bustle pace and in appearance they are clearly genetically dominated by their Spanish roots.

There are two features which perhaps define a city more than anything else, following its location: its weather and its transport arrangements.

You will perhaps recall me saying that this month sees the onset of “summer” well rather like in the British Isles one could say “Oh yeah?” There seem to be three weather environments; sunshine sometimes, rain fairly frequently and then that which imposes dominance: about-to-be. By this I mean it is about to rain or get sunny with the about-to-get sunny variant mostly flattering to deceive. The one almost faultless consistency is that it is far more likely to rain in the afternoon and evening than in the morning. Even though I was brought up in the notorious about-to-be and take-your-pick British Isles weather system I can say with certainty that the uncertainty of the about-to-be is more intense here. The extremely welcome and redeeming feature though is that the temperature comfortably allows shirtsleeve apparel whether it is sunny, raining or about-to-be: guess which one you get wettest with though?

Comments on the transport system will be arriving shortly.

San Jose, Costa Rica bustling with Spanish roots and about-to-be weather

Wherever the Spirit Takes Me!

Where I am has been quite fully explained but how and why rather less so. This could be considered relevant especially as I gave most friends and acquaintances the distinct impression that I was headed for Managua in Nicaragua.  I too had the distinct impression I was headed for Managua in Nicaragua. In fact my travel plans had hardly been less firm in that I even had an air ticket that clearly stated Managua in Nicaragua.

The crux of the matter was an admittedly tight 45 minute turn around to make the connecting flight in Fort Lauderdale after leaving Santo Domingo. It was so tight that the check-in assistant in Santo Domingo suggested I might like to take my roll-on case on to the flight with me – for some reason unknown to me she wouldn’t let me check the case all the way through to Managua. I hesitated on that point because I had to unfortunately throw out anything resembling a container with liquid in it including items I had recently replaced after having had to throw them out on leaving Lima airport a few weeks before.

Immediately I boarded the aircraft the flight attendant announced that all the rear overhead luggage spaces were full and invited any more passengers sitting to the rear to bring their baggage to the front for storage. “And where would you be travelling to, sir,” she chirpily asked as I handed her my case. “Managua,” I replied of course thinking that everybody knew that already. “Don’t worry then sir we will see that your case is checked right through to Managua for you,” she reassured me.  “Great, wonderful, perfect, that is what I wanted originally,” I more than chirpily extolled. Super spiritual omen I thought for this new journey of mine as I settled into my Spirit Airlines seat. About 10 minutes after take-off the same attendant had kindly remembered me and kindly came to inform me of a change. My case was now stored in the hold, would not be going through to Managua and I would have to pick it up in the regular way and pass through security. My chirpiness dissipated and I forgot the spiritual association for quite a while.

At Fort Lauderdale I ran everywhere it was possible to run between points and breathlessly asked the attendant at check in if I still had time for the Managua flight. “Not a lot,” she said but valiantly offered to give it a go. Unfortunately the next piece of “Spiritually” misplaced information added significantly to the unfortunate delay. The telephone assistant that I called in Florida prior to booking had informed me that a one-way ticket to Managua was fine; no onward travel documentary proof would be needed. Unfortunately the check-in assistant had doubts about this, went to check with her boss and then insisted I had to buy a return ticket. I thought that was the end of that; where the heck would I be able to buy such a ticket at this stage and in time? “Right here,” my new found angel said as my sinking spirits rose again. She also offered that I could purchase a fully refundable ticket just in case I wanted to change my plans afterwards (what a novel way to get around the bureaucratic nonsense of satisfying immigration requirements I thought, although I didn’t give it a lot of thought because I had this image in my head of a plane, my plane already taxiing down the runway).

With all the necessary tickets in one hand but also still the infernal case in the other because there was no way the case was going to make the flight unless it was with me, my new-found guiding angel had insisted. At this point I thought it was a done deal. I thought that once you were checked in they didn’t actually go without you barring extreme delay so I stopped sprinting while maintaining a rapid walking pace. I passed very swiftly through the remaining security checks to arrive at gate H6 and just couldn’t understand why the door was shut and not even lots of people milling about at the entrance like usual (I quickly adjusted to that in full recognition that nearly everybody, okay everybody, was already on board. The gate was shut stupid, because the plane was indeed about to taxi down that runway!) The sole remaining member of the ground staff calmly pointed out that once the connecting canopy was rolled back then that was it. “But there is my plane, all they have to do is open the door and I could jump the distance,” I pathetically whined. “Sorry, canopy back no can do!” she repeated.  Spirits had naturally spiraled in the downward direction but there was still some life in the optimistic standpoint. I was watching the plane and it did not move, not one inch. “What,” I offered, “if there is a delay for some reason then surely you could let me on, and you wouldn’t have to move anything if I jumped? “ “No sir, you don’t seem to understand, the canopy is BACK!” she re-repeated. Rather a nice personal case in point of actually NOT WANTING to understand, don’t you think?

I sauntered, perhaps it would be fairer to say more between a trudge and a saunter, back to the lady who had handled me at the check in. “Oh, but sir, you can get on the next flight,” she enthusiastically offered. I had to applaud her optimism but for the first time I was more informed than her, regarding flights at least. Spiritual flights to Managua were just a weekly event! “What else have you got then to offer, leaving Fort Lauderdale tomorrow in the Central or South America direction,” I asked. Now this was going to be stretching the limits of that geography for dummies course because we had no map just a list of names and doesn’t San Juan sound like San José to you? It was all in all quite chaotic because my dear angel kept interspersing with places on today’s list so from time to time she threw in Managua again and even Santo Domingo where she had forgotten I had just emerged from – I guessed that was just to keep the game of raising and lowering spirits going. She would mention a place and sometimes I would have to ask her or anybody around which country that might be in? Colombia came up a few times and I don’t like to admit that I was swayed by all the bad press that the country gets regarding its drug related problems –shame on me for toeing the mass media line on this occasion.

In the far from comprehensive list you will now know that I chose San José carefully separating it and myself from the capital of that American dependency not many miles from the Dominican Republic where I had just come from called Puerto Rico. As this was quite a spiritual journey then I guess those Colombian drug barons must have got wind of my decision. In the same way I had seen the plane taxiing down the runway I now saw them crying volubly into their beer lamenting the extraordinary spending wealth I would not be taking to Columbia, not to mention poor old Nicaragua. Somewhere out there I suppose I owe Columbia something and probably Nicaragua too!

Footnote: That’s the Spirit!

In full recognition of my value to their future and in response to my explanation that their misinformation had caused me to miss the flight by the skin of my teeth Spirit Airlines have quite honorably and fairly credited me with the US$110 that they charged for needing to rearrange my flight to you know where. I am now very much looking forward to knowing where the Spirit will take me next.

San José is Up!

It can be so much fun to discover how wrong you can be in spite of all kinds of hints and information lurking in your vicinity. Reflecting on my last entry I was so sure that I had emphatically answered the question as to where I physically was. But, there is, after all, nearly always another dimension whether you like it or not isn’t there? I had my whereabouts pinned accurately on the x and y coordinates, please do not be mistaken about me being mistaken about that, but what about the coordinate that goes upwards.

The first evening in San José I welcomely acknowledged the pleasant temperature for sleeping. There was even a comforting need for a very light bed cover on top of the sheet. I thought it might have been just an aberration. It was only after that marvellously energizing first walk in the beautiful sunshine on the day I decided to revive this old blog habit that I commented to Juan Carlos, the owner of the establishment I was staying at, about how surprising it was that the temperature, pleasant though it was, was distinctly not sweatily tropical. I really couldn’t understand it I explained to him. The physical geography for dummies course had taught me that as you get nearer to the equator the temperature rises. This was a temperature decidedly less confrontational than Santo Domingo or Fort Lauderdale and they were many miles to the north. What was going on? The world-travelled Juan Carlos cast a glance in the direction of the unmissable surrounding mountains saying, “That is because we are higher”. What a fun bombshell moment for me. The explosion was all the erroneous assumptions I had made and evidence that I had chosen to completely ignore. Honestly, I had seen the mountains just like anybody else but, rather like the natural instinct of the ego to think that the world begins with “me”, I had been thinking that wherever you start out from the starting point has to be pretty much close to sea level, surely! I had even come down to San José from a heck of a height in the aeroplane!  I had ignored the possibility that the mountains I had been observing could have been anywhere on that vertical z-axis. What a concept – I certainly hadn’t noticed it in any of Jim and Jim’s guidebooks  and I had obviously not yet taken in that altitude is just as variable as anything else from a recent lesson of pretty severe altitude sickness in the Andes.

Quite a brilliant concept though the perfect thermostat. Bit hot, go a little higher. Too cold, move down the slope a bit. Here we are at nearly 4,000 feet. Not high by Peruvian standards but certainly higher than anything in England and Wales. In my opinion the thermostat is adjusted about right: warm to hot in the day and cooler at night.  It might even be the perfect ambiental compromise for heat and mosquitoes: I haven’t seen or heard one of those yet.

I am told they have just two seasons here and although we are still in the northern hemisphere, as we enter November we shall be strangely welcoming summer and when the dry season turns to rainy in May the season reverts to winter. It does rain a lot but in general the downpours are usually short and sharp and in my experience nearly always in the late afternoon or evening. Enough of the dreary winter I say, though, roll on summer!

Would you have got the hint?
(You can click on the photos too, by the way)

Costa Rica is in a Panamanian-Nicaraguan Sandwich

Where am I (strictly as a physical entity that is)?

To try and put some kind of locational meaning to at least the start of this blog I have already offered the big San José hint. I have always liked maps and even used to prefer pouring over a world atlas rather than watch television sometimes, although it would be fair to say that the absence of television in the childhood family often gave the map quite a head start. However, Central America always looked just too intricate and imprecise not to mention just too far away to do much pouring over to be honest. No childhood store of information to draw on and zero preparation time before my arrival meant that my mental map reference still saw Central America as though some giant hand had grabbed the middle part of the Americas and squished pretty hard leaving Mexico and Colombia oozing out at either end and rather a crumpled mess in the middle.

I struck very lucky on the plane from Fort Lauderdale because my two co-sitters, Jim and also Jim, were like me arriving for the first time, but unlike me, had not only maps but several very useful and relevant guide books. Did you for example ever wonder why Costa Rica doesn’t send soldiers to help in Afghanistan? The simple answer is because they do not have an army! Sweet idea in itself isn’t it? I wonder if Mr Obama has considered that little option for his next party trick. Can the same man be awarded the same Nobel Prize two years in succession, I wonder? By the way, for the forseeable future and for the very same reason Costa Rica won’t be sending any sailors or airmen anywhere either.

As a kind of first step in a Central American geography for dummies guide I firmly noted that Costa Rica lies neatly sandwiched between Nicaragua (where I had thought I was going for the previous few weeks and perhaps is another story) to the north and Panama to the south. I did ponder over the idea that I had never heard of any association of military aggression with those two countries either and that in itself might be a big contributor to Costa Rica’s non-military stance. Funny old unheard of concept that would be wouldn’t it? You put your guns down and your neighbour considers doing the very same thing. What a wonderful idea it would be if we could get Panama and Nicaragua to copy Costa Rica and so on and so forth around the world with a welcome domino effect until Mr Obama’s peace prize is put in a museum to man’s past follies.

One further geographical observation was that this capital of San José is about as near plumb in the centre of the country as possible. That very definitely rings a well-tuned organizational and logic bell in my ear. The neat and tidy answer to the original question then is slap bang in the middle of Costa Rica.

A Bright New Sunshiny Blog

So, I was sauntering happily around downtown San José for the first time ever  -the San José that is the capital of Costa Rica that is, although a quick reference to how many San Josés there are, especially when you include all the little ones  sprinkled around, made me consider that as a collective perhaps it is not the first time ever but to put the record straight as far as big San Josés go it is-  on Saturday in the beautiful bright sunshine  and I thought that perhaps I could start a blog. After all I am not doing anything anyway and I even have experience: I wrote one back in the days when people, including me at the beginning, used to say “What is a blog?”

I do remember that if you start a blog then, just like your pet dog or cat or speckled salamander, you have to be prepared to look after it. If you don’t keep feeding it, it will perish and die. I also remember that apart from anything else, those who thankfully pitch up to read it do quickly remind you that nothing new has been added for some time, at least not in the time that they wanted to read something new anyway.

I suppose that was the first of the rules I was making a mental note of for myself. Secondly, I really don’t want to create one of those blogs that absolutely nobody reads so I thought a little gentle twisting of my mother’s arm and that will help me clamber over my second self-made rule. Finally, which is rather appropriate, there would have to be some recognition of an ending. Rather like a professional sportsman or entertainer -well, not in the least bit like them really but you will get my drift- I have to know when to put the pen (does one still refer to penmanship when it is all fingered out on a computer?) and camera down which I presume still to be the main tools in a blogman’s work kit.

I write in full recognition that everything is indeed RELATIVE but I guess that everything and anything I write will be “my” relative and if you do not like that you will just have to prepare your own blog or more helpfully and less effortlessly send in a few comments right here about your displeasure. For those of you who don’t know me then that starting point of relativity will inevitably be a comparison with how I have found things in my previous lives around the planet, mainly the United Kingdom, the Dominican Republic and Japan where I have been privileged to get most of my earthly perspectives from.

So without more ado I formally announce that a new blog has been born.

The way of the blog:

Old Exotic Caribbean Blog

Also now in Spanish – Significado de la Vida