Two whole sand dollars and four Macaws...

Went Bejuco Beach today and found these glorious sand dollars, pinkie shells and purple and green shell. The beach seems to go on forever with hard packed sand and little inlets with mystical sand rivulets and hieroglyphics. I walked for an hour and could have gone on and on with very few people, few and far between, some surfers but mostly just me and the birds, the water and the sand, the sky, the clouds and the palm trees.

I try to explain about temperature and air, but for people who did not grow up in the enveloping warmth of tropical air, it doesn't settle in the bones and sit there for years, rearing its dissatisfied, gnarly head when it notices the bleeding cracks on your fingers in the cold, dry winter and the stooped posture of pain at the cold and the dismally hooded look on the street, walking around as though it didn't matter how you looked, just as long as you were warm... And so, I write for those of you who understand the succulence of warm air, the sound of birds and the lace of waves.

This afternoon I walked around Esterillo Oeste, a loud mass of American fat ladies, all painted blonde and drinking too much, but at the same time I heard the screeching ofthe cats which I realized finally were the sounds of tucans (sp?) or macaws. I spend a good 30 minutes trying to photograph them with my crappy camera bought in Kathmandu to replace the one with over 500 photos of my trek up to Everest Base Camp. There were four of them swooping and flitting around like angry cats, andwhen I discovered that they mate for life (gulp), I understood why they were shouting at each other so intensely! I never captured them in flight, but the brilliance of the red blue in their tails and bodies was spectacular; my heart went pit-a-pat just watching their flight, and NOT being able to capture their swoops on film made me respect them all the more.

Over and out.