A perfect weekend day today, quite delightful. We left earlier in the morning than usual, since it is Saturday and market day, and as usual kept an eye out for the sloth that lives in a cluster of trees halfway between our shack and the main road. The GF spotted it at once, it was […]
Juice king
This afternoon my class was earlier than usual, at 1230, so we walked into town for an early lunch/ late breakfast, only to be stymied as all the places we wanted to eat at did not open till later, earliest around noon and the Caribbean speed of service made it unlikely I would be able […]
The mouse that roared
I work with many mice that roar. There is a particular type of person, loud and fighty and very macho (regardless of gender) and with intense favourites and hatreds, who seem to be particularly common in this line of work. I’m quite good at handling them usually, and most of them really like and even, […]
Unforced error
I went for my first class yesterday. I have to admit, I have my doubts about it. It is run by an American woman who is fluent in Spanish, but her style of teaching is very much of a unversity class, heavily dependent upon grammar terms and memorising conditions when one form is used or […]
To the volcano
At some point I should become all blase about volcanoes and volcanic activity since I’ve been fortunate to see so many, but not yet. This morning we left Monteverde. A van collected us, collected three other people (I’m afraid my luggage and the Gentleman Friend’s was very bulky indeed) and took us off through some […]
Three cities
In the morning, we walked across to the fish market, which I had read was the place to have lunch in the city. It was a short walk over very large but quiet roads along the glittering Pacific. The market itself – the wholesale market was being washed down, but along the front was a […]
Canal with a country around it
We are in Panama. As we got off the aeroplane and walked through the bridge to the airport, a fleet of black helicopters roared overhead, a suitable welcome to a very strange country. We are staying in the historic old town, Casco Viejo, a pleasant old place with coloureful ornamented buildings, though a great many […]
Jab
I returned to the flat from my class and we went off to Poblado with several missions in mind, but only one that we were reasonably confident of completing. In the event we managed all of them, hurrah. It took ages to get there as the traffic was terrible (we had hoped to save time […]
Long ago battle
Today is a public holiday in the middle of feria season so the soundstage came into its own last night. Not only that, there were street parties everywhere, including at least two directly outside our window. Over the course of the evening the sound swelled, the salsa from the stage and all the different types […]
Quiet neighbourhood
We are staying in Laureles, one of the two on the upper end of the scale, but the quieter, nicer one. Although there is a bar here, which was rather loud. I woke up early despite my tiredness and then went out to find myself breakfast and to look around a little, though I didn’t […]