Meant to Swell a Scene or Two

This business of blogging daily requires a belief that my words are meaningful, even simply to myself.  The humdrum, the everyday occurences can happen even when traveling.  A traveler, a writer, a person, anyone has to work sometimes to find the nugget of beauty within the ordinary.

My verbal sparring opponent and I went for a walk to look at neighborhoods in Boquete, and wound up in a resort community that included a couple of labyrinths, a tennis court, an indoor pool, a golf course, a mini-golf course, two koi ponds, an amphitheatre, and a chichi neighborhood of multi-million dollar homes from which we were escorted out by a couple of security guards in a golf cart.  Apparently we were suspicious because we were on foot and taking photos, probably to case the residences for later robberies.  I'm sure we broke several other laws along our route through that community known as Valle Escondido (Hidden Valley).  We walked on cart paths that said "Golfers Only", we sampled basil and cilantro and oregano from the herb labyrinth, and we were tempted to pick bananas, but they were out of reach so we contented ourselves with devising schemes for harvesting them in plain sight of the security guards.

After leaving the resort, I fell prey to the relaxing song of the river, spending the rest of the afternoon vacating:  chatting with the other travelers in the hostel, watching sports on TV, and sending emails back and forth to my couchsurfing host in Costa Rica.  It looked for awhile as though my couch was falling through, and it has been trimmed back to a single day, but I'd like to check out the small town where it's located,  Puerto Jimenez, even if just to say that I made  it to Costa Rica.  There is a Crocodile Sanctuary there, so that should be interesting, and my host is involved in several conservation projects, so I'll be talking with her about the possibility of other Ashlanders coming down and getting involved.

The couchsurfing project sounds intriguing, bringing people from all over the world into your living room or spare bedroom.  I'm dipping my toe in to see what the water temperature is, but my friend Debbie says that she's had some great experiences with it, and never had a bad one.  The key seems to be vetting the potential surfers by reading their profiles, seeing what they have to say about themselves, and what others have to say about them, especially those who have already hosted them.  I have another potential host down in Panama City with whom I'll be talking today to see whether we can arrange some dates that work for the two of us (although it sounds as though I would be staying with an entire family there.)

I think that two surfing experiences will be enough to help me decide whether to recommend to my wife that we offer to host once I get back to Oregon.  It seems to be a way to get some of the flavor of travel without leaving home, which actually sounds very appealing to me right now.