Ginger Is Not Coming, Kona

     I have always been saddened and touched whenever I hear any of those stories about a faithful dog who waits everyday for their master, who has died to come back home.  We have a similar sort of thing happening here with our dog Kona.

    For about a year, our neighbors had a young dog named Ginger.  When Kona first met Ginger, she was overjoyed with having another canine in the neighborhood.  Kona quickly learned that if she went outside, faced toward the neighbor’s house and barked, Ginger would come over, and they would sniff each other.  After about a minute, Kona had had enough, and would come back into the house, but still it was a very important part of Kona’s life.

    Sadly, six months or so, Ginger  was hit and killed by a car.   Ever since, Kona wants to go outside and every time she does, she stands, facing toward the neighbor’s house and barks and barks.  I wonder if Kona will ever realize that Ginger will not be coming over to see her.

    It becomes very frustrating that you cannot communicate everything to your pets, so that they will understand.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

It's Starting To Look Like Winter

     Of course things can always change, but right now the Robson Valley is starting to look like winter.  The pond has frozen over, there is a couple of inches of snow on the ground, and the mountains are blanketed with the white stuff.  So far we have escaped frigid temperatures, but the forecast is predicting  -21°C (-6°F) for this Saturday.  I am hoping we get a bit more snow on the ground for insulation, before that happens.

    These conditions do feel a lot closer to what used to be normal, than what we were experiencing last year, when we had a “green” Christmas, without snow on the ground.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: Stiffed By Taxi Man Jorge

          We hiked a bit further along and at the top of a hill, we could see below us the restaurant where we had told Jorge the taxi man, to pick us up.  We still had plenty of time before that was supposed to happen, but we thought we’d head down there anyway.   To get there, we followed a cow path, until we encountered a barbed wire fence with no gate, so we carefully climbed through the fence and into a newer pasture, toward the rear of the restaurant, only to find yet another barbed wire fence to cross.  Obviously, this was not a well-used tourist trail.

        Once down at the restaurant, we still had two hours to wait, so we decided to just walk down the road for an hour, then turn back.  By this time it was midday and the sun was fierce.  Down a hill we saw the fancy building with the volcanic river pools where we had taken a dip the night before.  Up a long hill, and down another, we spotted the hot spring pools where other tours swam.

        I spotted a woodpecker, similar to the pileated-variety we have in BC, but this one had yellow by its bill, a white spot over the eye, and no comb on its head.  It sat patiently in the tree while I dug my camera out, then flew away before I could take its picture.

        We were exhausted, so hiked back down the road to the restaurant, and arrived at a quarter to one.   We ordered some Cokes and waited for Jorge to come.  One o’clock, one fifteen, one thirty, one forty-five, and finally two o’clock, but no Jorge.

        After a further long wait, we finally realized Jorge wasn’t going to come to drive us back to La Fortuna, so we decided to hitchhike the 11 kilometers.  Fortunately, an Italian couple took pity on us and drove us back to our hotel.

        My back was pretty wrecked for the rest of the day, so we didn’t do anything except take some photos of the Arenal Volcano when the clouds lifted more than they had since our arrival.

        For supper I had a banana milkshake, rice, and shrimp, while my wife tried rice, chicken, and black bean soup (with an egg in it.)  She was not impressed with the soup.  

View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: "A Snake!"

      At the far end of the picnic area we came upon a gate, which we unhooked and entered a trail.  We began walking up the trail, which was just a bush road, carefully avoiding the cow paddies.  There was a total lack of signage, so we turned around and walked all the way back to the Park Keeper, to asked if that was the trail.  “Si,” was his answer, as best as we could interpret it.

    So again we walked up the trail, and to our dismay, found that it led to another cow pasture.  Fortunately, following the trail eventually led us to an actual jungle.  Once under the thick canopy of trees, we stopped to listen to the many varied songs of the tropical birds.  Look as we might, we were  never able to spot any of them.

    My wife made the big discovery of the day.   As we trekked down the trail, she suddenly exclaimed, “Snake!” and pointed to the low plants on the side of the road.  I noticed a little tail slip under some leaves, as my wife, in great haste, headed for the security of middle of the road and stayed there.  

    I carefully pried the leaves away to get a closer look at the little guy, and got quite a shock.  It was a Fer-de-lance, the most poisonous snake in South America (and I assume Costa Rica).  It was just a baby, about as thick as a pencil, and 10 inches long, but it had the obvious arrowhead-shaped head and the ochre-colored patterns. 

    I was happy we had run into just a baby Fer-de-lance, because they can grow up to seven feet long.  I took a photo, hoping the picture would turn out, but despite looking at that slide many, many, times, I have never been able to see the snake in it.  (I got the photo above from the internet.)

    Spotting the Fer-de-lance, certainly did have an effect on the rest of our hike.  My wife changed her hiking habits, and began staying on bare ground, the best she could, and rather than both of us walking side by side, I took the lead and she followed where I walked.

    After traveling through about 300 meters of jungle, we found ourselves in yet another pasture, but we were able to tell we were on the right trail, because we saw the second lake, whose size was more pond-like.  We quickly cancelled any thought of taking a swim, because, cows and swimming don’t mix well.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: A Disappointing Los Lagos Park

      The following day, was cloudy with a few sunny breaks, but they broke in a way that never allowed us to see the tip of the volcano.  The Hotel Ambugue Bureo, where we stayed was a bed and breakfast, and our breakfast consisted of Corn Flakes, juice, and fruit (watermelon, pineapple, carrots, and some kind of orange melon).

    After breakfast we donned our jungle gear (heavy duty pants with a lot of pockets, and the “gum” boots (“Wellington” or rubber boots), which I had lugged all the way from McBride).  We walked out to street to find a taxi that would take us to Los Lagos, a park featuring two lakes, that was mentioned in our guide book.  Our plan was to hike the jungle trail, maybe swim in one of the lakes, and then have the taxi bring us back to the hotel four hours later, from the restaurant at the trail’s end.

    We felt fortunate when we got a taxi, driven by a guy named Jorge, who said he would take us to Los Lagos, then pick us up at 1:00 at the restaurant for a fee of $12 CAD round trip.  As is often the case, when we got to Los Lagos, the reality didn’t quite live up to our expectations.   We forked out the $2 to get through a gate on the road and the little girl, who was the attendant wrote out a receipt and gave it to us, then unhooked the gate to allow the taxi to drive through.

    I had thought that we would be hiking to the lakes, but instead Jorge drove us down a rough “road” made up of two parallel concrete strips for the tires, with periodic speed bumps every 50 meters.  The speed bumps seemed pretty redundant considering the already bumpy concrete strips.  The “road” took us through a huge pasture complete with cows milling around, standing on the road (flashes came to me of every grazing lease in the many back valleys in the Robson Valley), to a grassy park beside one of the lakes.

    When we got out of the cab, we were dismayed, because the surroundings were nothing like the natural jungle we had expected.  Instead there were some picnic tables and shelters, a chapel, complete with Bible verses on signs nailed to the trees.  In the lake there were pedal-bike boats.  The only redeeming thing we found about the park were the big trees that had fortunately been spared by the developers, and the low clouds that gave the trees a primal feel.  We spotted some tropical birds, including a toucan-type bird with a large puke-colored green bill.

You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

A Stressful Drive Home

     Yesterday we had medical and dental appointments in Prince George, so we had to make the two and a half hour drive up in the early morning, then make the two and a half hour drive back home starting at 3:00.   The drive is always dangerous, with the curves and hills of the mountainous terrain.   Highway 16 also full of big logging and freight trucks racing to get where they are going, but once fall arrives and winter approaches, things get even worse, as shortened daylight, darkness, and inclement weather are added to the experience.

    I took the photo above of the interesting clouds as we began our drive home to McBride.  It was the highlight of our return trip, and I didn’t realize it then, that the clouds were an indicator of problems ahead.  As we proceeded, the clouds became thicker and darker.  Soon it began to rain.  Then the darkness intensified as night fell.

    Night driving has become very problematic.  The headlights of oncoming traffic have become much brighter, causing my eyes to pretty much blot out everything except the blinding headlights quickly advancing toward me.  All I could do was to watch the white line on the side of the highway, in order to tell me where I was on the highway.  Rain added to my stress, as each truck barreled toward me.  I often started to brake until the trucks got past me.

    As we got to the Robson Valley, we began to run into slush on Highway 16.  Fortunately, it wasn’t thick enough to cause the car to swerve, but it was an indication of even worse driving conditions that we will have to face once winter arrives.   

    I always thank my lucky stars every time we arrive back home safely.  We try to limit our trips to Prince George during the winter, but sometimes they can’t be avoided.

View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Inside A Hornet's Nest

     Remember the large hornet’s nest that was hanging on the edge of our carport?  The hornets had all left to burrow into the ground to over-winter, but I thought I would just keep the nest hanging there, because a friend had told me that if it remained, then next summer the hornets would not come there again, and build their nest somewhere else.

    However yesterday, when I walked onto the carport, I saw many little paper-like pieces of the nest all over the floor, and when I checked the nest I saw that two big holes had been made in it.  I assume it was a bird that was checking to see if there was anything to eat inside it.  With the nest ruined, I took it down and was going to put it on the compost pile.

    Before I did that, I started to rip it apart, and was a fascinated at the inner structure of the thing.  Inside there were four plater-like layers for the nesting cylinders of decreasing size, that were held together by a central stem.  It was an incredible nature-built piece of architecture.  It seemed like it would quite a feat to build such a thing in the dark, inside the nest, but I guess hornets have been perfecting their building for millions of years.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Weather To Match The Mood

     I am really affected by the weather.  My moods are elevated by sunshine and start to plummet with dark overcast.  This week is different, instead of me being influenced by the weather, it seems that the weather has been influenced by me.   I have been quite down because of the US election and the weather has come along to compliment my mood.   

    As you can see we have been getting a really thick overcast of dark clouds and showers.  After our long drought, it would be hypocritical to complain about getting precipitation, we certainly need it, but the gray clouds  aren’t very up lifting.  I guess I will just try to keep my focus on the need for rain. 

You can take a look at my paintings by going to:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: Trespassing To A Hot Springs

      After about an hour of lava watching at the Arenal Volcano, the group all packed back into the minivan to head to the hot springs.  The guide asked us if we would mind paying an extra dollar apiece, so we could go to a better hot springs.  Everyone was game, so that is where the minivan  headed.

    That the extra dollar was to pay off the guard at a fancy house and property.  The owners were away, and it seemed that the enterprising guard was doing a secret side-hustle; sneaking tourists onto the property and hot springs he was supposed to be guarding at night, for some extra cash.  

        Since it was all on the sly, we had sneak to the hot springs which was located on the large garden-like backyard behind the big house quietly, and using only a few flashlights.  It was very dark and we couldn’t really see much except what the flashlights illuminated in front of us, as we quietly followed the guard to the hot springs.

    The hot springs were wonderful.  A large pool had been dug out and dammed beside the thermal river that flowed from the volcano.  The water was about three feet deep and very warm, not hot.

    We stripped down into our swimming suits and carefully immersed ourselves into the hot springs.  Everyone turned out the flashlights, and enjoyed the soothing warm water in the darkness.  We watched the lightning bugs and listened to the hum of the crickets, frogs, and the warm volcanic waters flowing over the rocks.  As our eyes adjusted to the darkness we could make out the silhouette of the jungle around the small opening of the night sky.

        It was a wonderfully pleasurable and memorable experience.

        The photo was taken using “Night Vision” on the camera.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: Night Volcano Tour

 

    Before you jump to conclusions, I should explain that we didn’t see anything as spectacular as the photo above, but nevertheless, we had an interesting experience.

    We had a big adventure that night.  We met in front of our hotel at 7:00 for a night tour of Arenal Volcano.   Before the tour began, the leader told us that we were in for a secret treat:  We would also have a swim in a hot springs, so everyone ran to their rooms to grab their swimming suits.  

    The VW minivan drove us slowly down a very bad road, weaving back and forth to avoid the potholes.  It then began climbing up the slope of the volcano, until coming to a stop and unloading us.  We were all given flashlights and began walking further upslope for about 150 meters.  It was difficult to distinguish the mountain because cloud and darkness obscured it, but we could see red hot rock, crumbling as it rolled down the slope, breaking up, then rolling further, while making the sound of big clinkers.

    Off and on the clouds would blow away, and we could see the apex of the volcano, which displayed small showers of red specks of lava against the dark night.  Fortunately, there was no foul sulfur smell, something I had expected, probably because of the wind direction and some rain showers.  

    Several times we heard the “breath” of the volcano; low, short bursts of air.  Twice we heard explosions from deep inside the crater, but we couldn’t actually see anything.

    The Arenal Volcano did erupt in 1968, after being dormant for 400 years.  That later blast killed 86 people.

Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: Busing to La Fortuna

      Our bus trip from San Jose to La Fortuna was another punishing one for my back.  The bus was a rural bus, so it stopped every time it saw someone on the street flagging it down.  The countryside was mountainous, with a lot of agricultural crops being grown on the hillsides.  

    An ancient old man was sitting across the aisle from us.  He spoke only a bit of English, and he kept saying things to us, but it was very difficult to understand much of what he was said.  He kept repeating in a low halting manner, “I have no body.”(?), which left us flummoxed, but  I did understand it when he said, “Do you have whiskey?”

    During the last bit of our bus trip, it began turning very muggy, as we re-entered the moist country.  We were happy that we had hung our clothes to dry in our hotel room in San Jose, because, like in Manuel Antonio, those moist clothes would never dried out in La Fortuna.  

    La Fortuna is a town of 6,000 with Arenal, a beautifully cone-shaped active volcano, giving it character by jutting up behind it.  However, on the day we arrived, we couldn’t even tell in what direction the volcano was, because of the thick low  cloud cover.  We found Hotel Ambugue Bureo where our reservations had been made, to be a great place to stay; the best hotel we have had in Costa Rica.  It was new, neat, had attractive rooms with white walls with wooden trim.

    After checking in at 1:30, we took a nap for an hour and a half, then ventured out to explore.  We walked to a bridge over a beautifully clear tropical river.  Accompanying us on our short hike were two dogs from town, one of which attached itself to us at our hotel.

    We seemed to have had communication problems at the restaurant when we went to for supper.  We ordered “Gallo de Pollo” expecting something like rice and beans with a bit of chicken, but were served fried chicken, French fries, and cabbage slaw.  We thought we would order a fruit salad for dessert, expecting a big bowl of melon, pineapple, and cantaloupe, similar to what we saw some people eating a few days earlier, but what we received was two scoops of ice cream sitting in a slurry of Jello and canned fruit cocktail.  It tasted good, but certainly didn’t fit with the  expectations we had when we ordered it.

    Take a look at my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Pioneer Nights

     Every June, McBride sponsors “Pioneer Days” a celebration full of early settler activities.  Although, not exactly the same, over the last two nights, we have been unwillingly participating in an activity that seems very similar to those during the days of the pioneers.  

    The Robson Valley has been experiencing two days of very strong winds.  Periodically these strong winds have blown trees down across the power lines, causing electrical outages.  For two consecutive nights (strangely it hasn’t happened during the day) we have had to live without electricity, just like the pioneers.   On four hours on Wednesday, and three hours last night, we spent our evenings, sitting in the semi-darkness, illuminated only by candlelight (and a couple of battery-powered flashlights).  

    We often complain about how quickly time has been passing, it seems like every time we turn around the week has gone.  We certainly did feel the fast passing of time during the power outages; the time just crawled, and c r a w l e d, as we waited for the power to come back on. 

    The outages certainly make us realize how much we depend on electricity for our entertainment at night.  Fortunately, we eat our evening meals early, so that was not a problem last night (it was on Wednesday), but getting through the evening without television, the internet, and reading, sure is.  Luckily, we have a wood stove, so heating isn’t a problem, and we have gravity-feed water, so that also works when the power goes off, but living without our electronics is sure a drag.

    Whenever a tree causes a power outage, it takes a while for it to be corrected.  The crews that fix it are centered in Valemount, which is an hour away from McBride, so it always takes an hour just for them to get here, then they still have to take more time to fix the problem.

    The bright spots in the photo above, shows a burning candle on the coffee table, in the lower foreground, the fire burning in our wood stove (in fireplace mode) in the middle of the picture, and above that another burning candle on the mantle.  

    We will be very happy to have the wind quit for a while.

View my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: Planning Our Next Excursions

      After leaving the Gold Museum, we headed for the Tourist Information Center, which we found to be very helpful.  A guy wrote out a schedule for catching buses to Arenal and Monteverde, places where we planned to go, which saved us a lot of hassle.  We left the Center to then walk the four blocks to the InfoTur Center which he had told about.  

            The woman clerk at Infotur was a great, she helped us plan out the next four days, describing  the various hotels, and even making reservations for us at them, and we were also able to pay for the rooms there at the InfoTur Center, giving us vouchers for the rooms.  The service certainly relieved us of a lot of the insecurity we usually had during our normal practice of “flying by the seat of our pants” when we travel.  

    Before we left the woman at InfoTur told us to be sure to put our names in for the weekly draw, saying they give out some really nice prizes for tourists; things like free tours and wonderful souvenirs.  We filled out the stubs, and with our fingers crossed, dropped them into the box.

    Having been able to arrange for the next four days of our travel, we came upon the Serpentarium, a zoo for reptiles, which was strangely located on the upstairs floor of a downtown building.  It was full of all kinds of snakes, lizards, and tiny green and black poison-dart frogs.  Our main reason for going to the Serpentarium was to see if we could identify the big black and white snake we had seen in Manuel Antonio Park.  We couldn't positively identify the snake, but it looked mostly like a boa constrictor.

My painting can be seen at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Last Night's Winners & Losers

Here is a partial list, just off of the top of my head:

WINNERS-

    Trump & Family enterprises, Billionaires, The Heritage Foundation, Putin, Bigots, Christian Nationalists, Gun Nuts, Big Oil, authoritarian governments, sycophant Republicans, conspiracy theorist, White Supremacists, and global warming.

LOSERS-

    Planet Earth (and all of the life on it), science, women, liberal democracies (including the US), Ukraine, racial minorities, US National Parks and Refuges, US Justice System, US Constitution, Public Health, honesty, and compassion.

    

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

    He left the US and immigrated to Canada in 1973.  One of the main reasons for doing so was the results of the 1972 election, where the American public overwhelmingly voted to give Tricky Dick Nixon a second term, over  George McGovern, who was running as a peace candidate.   The author no longer trusted the American public to make the right political choices for him.  He is very happy to be a Canadian citizen.

View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992: The Pre-Columbian Gold Museum

  We had to get a 5:00 AM start the next morning to catch the 5:49 AM bus back to San Jose.  We lugged our baggage down to the bus stop shelter across from the little row of restaurants.  As we waited we talked to an Asian guy who had been to Costa Rica several times.  He gave us a list of budget hotels near the Arenal Volcano and the Monteverde Cloud Forest, both places we had planned to visit.  

Our trip back to San Jose seemed a lot quicker than coming, even though the time it took was the same.  This time there were no clouds obscuring the high country we traveled through, allowing us to see some of the coffee plantations.

San Jose was still as noisy, smelly of diesel, and chaotic as we had left it.  We carried the burden of our bags back to the Pension Costa Rica Inn and got a room before heading back out for breakfast.  My wife can’t think before breakfast, but she soon was refueled after a Big Mac.  I had Chicken Fajitas, and managed to squirt the hot sauce all over the shirt I had just gotten cleaned yesterday. 

After breakfast we headed down to the Gold Museum.  We were quite surprised at all the security measures we had to go through as we entered.  We walked through a powerful metal detector which went off when it detected my Swiss Army Knife, that I then had to check in.  No purses or cameras were allowed into the museum.

The first area we entered featured an art collection, which didn’t impressed me too much, although I did like some of the more contemporary paintings.  From there we entered the money collections, which certainly didn’t seem to justify all of the security we had to go through.

We then went into 3 Level of the Underground Bunker, and WOW!  It was really impressive.  I didn’t know so much Pre-Contact gold artifacts existed.  There were 1,600 gold objects.  We certainly didn’t see that much in Mexico.  There were gold collars, bracelets, ear tubes, beads, and frogs and birds with characteristic flattened feet and tails.  It was an extraordinarily dazzling display of gold.

        You can see my paintings at:  davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992, Some Junge Fauna

  Because it was so dark under the thick jungle canopy, I soon began opting for my binoculars, and just enjoying the things we saw in real time, rather than trying to take a photo using a telephoto lens, that I knew would turn out too dark.  The big thrill of the day was spotting a three-toed sloth hanging up in a tree.  They are such strange primate-looking creatures.  Sloths have very long claws and move so incredibly slow in every action they perform, making them seem very unworldly.

We saw a lot of tropical birds, including a flock of toucans.  There was a beautiful teal-colored hummingbird darting around, and a Woody Woodpecker-looking woodpecker with a red pointy head.  Along the edges of the trail we came upon a group of chicken-like or grouse-type birds, scratching around in the forest litter.

Insects were also on display.  We noticed a giant grasshopper (4-5” long).  When it took off to fly, it showed off red wings.  Orange, black and red, and yellow butterflies, fluttered through thick vegetation.

Hiking the trail was very taxing, because of the heat and humidity.  We finally turned around because my wife was feeling so dehydrated, so we again went to the beach to cool off.  There we met a couple from Ottawa, who told us that Mexico was three times more expensive than their guide book had said.  In comparison, they thought Costa Rica was cheap.  Our laundry cost us $6 US, and our cabin was $15 a night.  That night I had a delicious plate of rice and shrimp for supper.

    Below are some more photos of some other jungle critters I took that day.  I think that snake was above me.   I was happy to see that line of jungle ants all carrying bits of leaves, which I had always associated with jungles.

View my paintings: davidmarchant2.ca

Costa Rica 1992; A Botanical Paradise

      We started our second day at Manuel Antonio Park with a tasty breakfast of rice and beans, before we began trekking through the jungle.  It was a hike unlike I anything I had ever experienced.  It was akin to being in a botanical garden and a zoo, both at the same time.  The the trees totally filled the canopy, making the trail through the jungle was very dark.  It was a bit frustrating trying to take a photo because the light level was so low.  

    I took the photo below of the scariest looking tree I had ever seen.  Its whole trunk was surrounded by very long, serious-looking thorns.  I guess the tree didn’t want anything to climb it, and a suspect nothing did.  As I said, it was very dark in the thick jungle and getting a good photo was difficult.  

    The photo at the very bottom of the page shows an intrepid explorer,  pondering the jungle, before entering a trail.

    

View my paintings:  davidmarchant2.ca