Another Morning in Quanacaste

Another beautiful day. Sunshine. Warm.  I'm booked to do a mixed tour in the National Park an hour north of Liberia.  Some horse back riding, some hiking, some ziping through the tree tops and best of all lying about in the hotsprings.  This trip has been first a medical conference. I've so many cross cultural patients I'm interested in learning one language especially medically to understood better how they perceive their illness and relationship with the doctor through a second language.  My course and the experience of struggling to find words for symptons especially was fascinating.  Further it was certainly a break from the winter.  I wouldn't have gone to Norway for a medical conference this time of year with such alacrity. The weather here has been all I could ever hope for.  Then too it's been for healing as much as anything.  Physically I've not responded to my injuries and here I gave some time to my much abused body.  Exercise, relaxation, and massage have all done me well in recovery.  Then too the mental stress, quite overwhelming before I left. This time of year it's always that way and the pace continues till late spring so a break will make me better able to cope.  Were I in an English speaking country I'd be thinking and reading the news and watching the tv for latest developments. Here I'm struggling for the term for "soup' - sopa - and my mind has slowed in a sense returning to that time in childhood when fundamentals are of such importance.  Now I struggle with the meaning of life, focus on corruption in society, ask questions of my relationship with God, search for better understanding of my own life in totality, think about death.

Here though it's a bit like a nursing home.  The day revolves around meals and rest.  After scuba diving yesterday, excellent exercise and all round fun, I lay by the pool sun bathing reading "Impact" an excellent thriller by Douglas Preston.  He has been likened to Michael Creighton and that's certainly fair to Creighton's books like Congo.  I loved reading it.  I got red.  I took a dip in the pool to cool off.  Every once in a while my eyes strayed from the page to look at the utterly gorgeous women all about in the teeniest bikinis.  Definitely eye candy to compete with the flowers and exotic birds.  Worn out I got up and walked back to my room where I snacked on crackers and cream cheese.  I lay down and read some more, then had a nap.  I woke and showered and dressed vacating the room so the girls could make it up.  They are especially good at this cleaning business here.

That's when I drove into Liberia, went to church, had dinner then caught the rodeo on the way back to the Hilton.  Early to bed and now up to go out on another adventure. Not very intellectually demanding except in the search for words.

There's certainly a lot of giving thanks to God.  I return to Canada tomorrow and actually am missing Vancouver, my friends, my dog and cat, the boat and work.  It's just the right amount of time.  Longer and I'd ooze into this experience and never want to leave. I can see how tourists come for a season only to return and never leave.  It's got that attraction here. Friendly happy people and glorious glorious sunshine.