Things took on an air of strain up on the mountain. The missing hiker I was told about when I first arrived was believed to be dead. It was pretty surreal. News crews, rescue crews up and down the mountain path day and night. Even the family of the missing had turned up at the hostel next door. They closed off the National park but there was still hiking to be had. I still felt like shit though. I went down exploring a little bit and couldn’t go as far as I’d wanted. My bites were irritated and I felt naseuated from the heat. Walking back up to the hostel made me feel like Chevy Chase in Family Vacation when he leaves the rest of the Griswald family to find help when they are stranded in the desert.
I ended up sleeping most of the day. Got a little bit of poetry written (sketches really) Ate some fruit, drank coffee and water (fresh from the springs of course) and considered some serious dietary changes. Needed to lay off the cheese and milk products. They sure loved their dairy here in Costa Rica.
Word on the street was that it was snowing back in my home state of Texas. That was crazy to think about. Had some things to consider changing when I returned back to the United States. The couple who owned this hostel were quite an impressive pair. John the husband, was building his own Tilapia pond in the back. I went back there to help with laying down some cables and tubes. Super smart guy who looked like a leaner version of the dad from NBC’s “Alf” (Willie was his name I think). We talked a bit about ecology and the thought came to mind to send him a copy of Gary Snyder’s Turtle Island as a gift.
I went to bed that night considering a lot of things. I needed to stop being a womanizer. I needed to feel like a better person. I wanted to feel like I was a better person. It was hard to even talk to women anymore because I felt like such a shit. Didn’t have anything to sell about myself. I couldn’t pretend I was this altruistic saint. I had to embrace that bad part of myself and make no bones about who I was.
I fell asleep praying for the family of the missing hiker, and imagined that it must have been a terrible way to die up there, cold and alone, on the Nicaraugan side of the the peninsula. I was still alive though, and maybe there was still hope I could change.
Nuclear Polio Vaccination 
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