Positives and Negatives
As many of you already know I am back in Costa Rica. This was going to be for a little over a month which under normal circumstances I would absolutely love. However, a short time ago I met someone that changed my perspective and now I am looking forward to getting back to Toronto. So much so, that I am willing to ride the undercarriage on the way back if there are no seats available. The Ticos I occasionally fly up there to work for me don't like the place due to suffering the cold there in the winter months. They don't believe me about the weather changing, so I have started referring to it as Hawaii Del Norte so they'll agree to more work in Canada.



So my project has had some setbacks which is annoying but other than that, life is good. My apartment is wonderful as ever and I have joined the gym under the office here so as not to let things go. I am going there every day and have decided to remove the dietary staple alcohol, from my regime for a week or so to help cut back the calories.

I left my credit card in an ATM machine one evening last week, which would normally have been a massively disturbing, given that the new one needs to be sent from the UK to Canada and I'm on the other side of the Americas. The following morning I went in to the bank with the ATM outside and told them about it and they returned me the card on seeing my Driving License. Disaster averted! Banks will not do this for you in the UK.

Yesterday I took a taxi home from the office, the taxis at the side of the building tend to be driven by sedate, somewhat confused old men, that drive you to random destinations they remember visiting as a child before the dementia set in. The taxis at the front seem to be driven by wannabe Ayrton Sennas. They cut the seatbelts out of the back of their cars, lower the suspension so that bumps larger than an ant dropping become impassable and mount disturbingly large fire extinguishers on the passenger side A pillar so as to guarantee facial disfiguration and death for the copilot when combined with the non-functioning inertia belt in the event of an accident.
I elected to use the clean and undented vehicle at the side. There were seatbelts in the back and the driver seemed quite a pleasant old chap. After a small nap, he took off in the direction of Santa Ana. He asked for directions which he ignored and took the wrong turn off of the autopista. After a detour through a small town in the countryside we ended up back on the right road. Apologising profusely, he stopped the meter at 5000 Colones and told me that I would not have to pay any more than that as he had made a mistake. If I hadn't been sat down, I would have fallen over. This is not the behavior of a regular taxi driver. He got me home and I paid him the 5000 he asked for and another 2000, because I didn't want him losing out for being decent. Besides there are far worse things than a taxi ride through Costa Rican countryside at night.

I discovered a flattened scorpion about 3 inches long just inside my front door the other day and wondered whether I had trodden on it on the way in the previous evening before banishing it from my thoughts and presumably into the dustpan of the maid a little later that day. Yesterday I decided to have a night in. While I was cooking this "Shadowy Thing" started darting about the kitchen. On closer inspection the thing revealed itself to be some amphetamine fueled grasshopper too fast to catch under a glass. A couple of squirts with the first household spray that came to hand, slowed and confused him enough to allow transportation out to the terrace. I had just resolved that Centro America has entirely too many creatures turned away from my cooking to watch a very un-flat scorpion trundling across my kitchen floor. This guy spent the night under an inverted glass before being carried to the terrace for his portrait and thence to the garden that he may continue to pursue whatever mischief he wants. If I found myself bitten by him, his next trip to the garden will be as a martyred warning to the rest of his phylum.