Costa Rica is so beautiful it makes me sick. And I’m not talking metaphorically. I have been to this delightfully colourful, clean, safe and wildlife-jam-packed country three times over the past three years; on each occasion I have been immediately felled by one affliction or another. This time it was a gang of microbes which took up residence in my GI tract, and which seem to have packed their bags for the trip home to Vancouver with me tonight. I guess that’s what happens when you decide to spend your 44th birthday in the place that National Geographic describes as one of the world’s most intense remaining regions of biodiversity. Seeing (and what’s more, hearing) the howler monkeys and scarlet macaws were potentially life-altering experiences but I could have done without the biodiversity in my guts.
I have to go pack now – and make sure I’m not importing any spiders, poison dart frogs, lizards or cockroaches along with the coffee and t-shirts – but I know some of you have been wondering when I’d be back on the grid. In a few days I’ll tell you a wonderful story of our adventures in the jungle battling the Evil Canadian and dealing with the exceptionally shoddy service at the Bosque del Cabo lodge (if you think no electricity or functioning appliances for lodging at luxury prices by any standards – never mind Central American – is to be expected here and just ‘part of the experience’, then you and I can agree to disagree). I will also share with you my newly attained insight into the dysfunctions of Latin American dressage politics (yes, that includes you, judges). Next week I’ll return to my Wednesday schedule, waxing poetic on the latest developments in the FEI (will Meydan keep bank rolling show jumping and endurance if HRH isn’t re-elected?), musing on the inevitable shenanigans closer to home (my crystal ball suggests DC will figure largely), and otherwise making lots of new friends. In the meantime, I hope you will enjoy the photos of our wonderful trip, below. That is, if our friends can get their generator started so that I can go back online – the power just went out. Costa Rica, Pura Vida!
What I did on my vacation.
No the diarrhea wasn’t THAT bad. Jungle hiking is a great way to counteract fluid retention.
Beer goes in, beer comes out through sweat glands.
Toucans don’t sweat.
The (mostly imported) jumping and dressage horses in Costa Rica have little in common with this hard-working little local.
