Eeuuuuuuu, now that's a bad eye!

Honest. I'd never hit her! But all of a sudden a vessel popped under the conjunctive and Eeeuuuuk! It's getting better ever day.

She's Makin' More Pots...

We've got this friend who likes dinosaurs...

On To Costa Rica

After a week in Guatemala and lighter by two wallets we flew to Costa Rica, rented a car and drove down to Sierpe, the sleepy little village where I had fished last November.  We caught the water taxi and slithered down 6 miles of jungle river where we had an exciting crossing of the bar into the Pacific and then boated on to Drake Bay where we spent 6 nights.  This area of Costa Rica is absolutely wild, it's a huge rain forest and Eco-travellers come to see the wildlife. We sure did!  Our first night there we took a frog tour and saw bunches of the famous little green, red-eyed tree frogs, not to mention other frogs, a snake, trap door spiders and a gawd awful Brazilian wandering spider which is extremely aggressive and if a it bites a man VERY BAD things happen to his very bad area. OUCH! (You can look it up! It's disgusting). Despite one of those hairy little beasts leaping to attack our guide, no one got bit and we returned safely to our little waterside hotel. On another hike we saw all four Costa Rican monkies, all sorts of birds, reptiles and mammals. We even were about to step out into a stream where it entered the ocean when our guide instantly cured us of that idea, by pointing out a 10-foot bull shark cruising out in front of us, inside of the breakers. It's a scary place.
Every other evening, about happy hour we were attacked my a nasty troop of white faced monkies that seemed to think they could join us and steal everything in sight while hissing and spitting and behaving like really bad 6th grade boys. It made for an interesting cocktail hour!

                                        Our Hotel

Our last day Mike and I were going to paddle some sit-on-top kayaks out to where we could catch some waves. It looked like fun but I wasn't sure if I got dumped, if I could clamber back on board, so Mike and I went about about 50 feet off the beach where I found I could indeed wrestle my wide body back on the kayak.  I practiced a few times then we came in to the beach for a while. Not long after we came in Sheryl (bless her soul) noticed that in the ocean, right where I had been floppin' around with Mike, there was now an 8-foot salt water crocodile prowling about. He seemed to be hoping to grab a wounded bird on the beach but it gave me the shivers to think just how juicy my fat arse must have looked to him.
It was a great trip...Thanks Mike and Patty.

                                 Night time is just scary!

                                   The famous little tree frog.

             One hairy scary bastard. The most deadly in the world!

                 That's the dorsal and tail fin of a bull shark!

                                      Mike and iguana

                       Yep, he was right outside our room!

                                        The Bad Boys

                                    Hey! It was a rain forest!

               This had been our swimming hole all week long!

Guatemala

                                We took a lot of pictures.

For years we have been hearing about the wonders of Guatemala from our friends the Stouts who were there in the Peace Corps a hundred years ago, and from Tyler and Meghan who spent a month there last summer studying Spanish.  Our good friends Mike and Patty Reeder had planned a week long vacation in Costa Rica so we decided that since we would be joining them in Central America we would stop off first for a week in Guatemala. Our first stop was Flores, a little island town that could have been Mediterranean from where we headed off to Tikal. Tyler had assured us it was spectacular and Wow! Was it ever! These are the best Mayan ruins in the world and we were truly impressed by their grandeur.

 

Mike and Patty

After Tikal we headed off to Antigua, a very charming city full of markets, restaurants and the local Guatemalans who live in the highlands, all seem to be around four feet tall and must dress in the most colorful garments in the world.

We had read about the colorful local market of Chichicastenango, so we hopped in a van and headed up into the highlands.  The market was a spectacular rainbow of Guatemalan weaving and handicrafts.  As we approached the crowded streets I reminded our group of how this looked like pick-pocket territory and we plunged right in.  Sheryl had buttoned her wallet into a front pocket. Mike zipped his into a front pocket.  Patty had her purse clutched to her chest and I stuck my hand into my pocket and held my wallet tightly.  The market was fabulous and we snapped photos, shopped and bulldozed our way through the tightly packed mass of humanity.  After about 45 minutes Sheryl shrieked, "My wallet's gone!"  Mike shouted, "mine too," and we were all just devastated by the thefts.  What could we do?  Quickly we realized, not a damned thing, we had been had.  It soon sunk in that we had better quickly cancel our cards and such which was difficult but with help from our friends the Pines, back in Oregon, we managed to get everything cancelled.  Thankfully they did not get our passports and no attempts were made with or cards so the real loss was the dollars in cash and the chaos it created in managing the money that Patty and I still had...so they stole our money, but not our trip.

  Patty quickly mastered all the Guatemalan musical instruments

         Lets see? Can you pick out which one is the tourist?

Marathoning

In 2011 Corvallis held it's first annual half marathon.  Sheryl's good buddy from college days, Debbie Vasallo did the race and it got Sheryl all fired up to try it this year.  She got a book on Marathoning for Mortals and began her daily regimen around Christmas. After a warm up Hangover Handicap on New Years morning with her good friend Patty Reeder, she trained on through the rainy winter.  The race this year was held on April 15th (her 65th Birthday)and she was joined by our son Tyler as well as both of our daughter-in-laws.  Her good friend from Klamath, Kathy Ward (who is a serious runner), joined in, and her regular training friend from Corvallis, Jane Casey. It was a beautiful day and she was supported by Andy, our two granddaughters and me on my bike as chief cheer leader. Things got tough around 10 miles but the grind was on and the entire troop finished together in the football stadium, completing an amazing event that made me VERY proud of that girl I married 42 years ago.