I told a woman "you look so lovely." And lived!

I bought in advance that ticket to the opera even though I knew how busy the day would be with the tour to the volcano and the waterfalls.  If I didn't commit myself by spending the money, then chances were pretty good that I would decide to stay back in the room blaming the exhausted body. I am glad I know myself that well.

Not even thirty minutes to shower and change, and check for emails from stalkers!  I did.

I wore the only pair of trousers and the only shirt that I had brought with me on this trip.

Yes, trousers!  When I bought the ticket the previous afternoon, I asked the guy at the counter, "my shorts ok?"  He immediately responded "no shorts. Pants."

I pointed to my tshirt.  "Tshirt ok" he said.  Yet, I wore my shirt anyway.  I didn't want to be that much out of place.

Another selfie ... can you tell this was the bathroom mirror? ;)

I reached the theatre with only a few minutes to grab something to eat.  America to my rescue.  There was a McDonald's across from the plaza.  I ordered to go and ate sitting at the open plaza with all the other Ticos and tourists.  It was the best McDonald's experience I have ever had!

A police escort on a bike drove up to the theatre, followed by a SUV.  The high-powered couple, whoever that was, walked on the red carpet, while I, with the cheap ticket, was asked to take a side entrance to the gallery upstairs.

The theatre was fantastic. An old building.  The audience in the gallery had so many beautiful young and older women, and without male company.  If only more men at least pretended to like opera so that they can then get to know such attractive women :)

A woman walked into the row that was immediately in front of me.  About my age.  Followed by a young woman, about eighteen or nineteen.  The facial resemblance suggested she was the older one's daughter. They both looked absolutely beautiful.  Simple outfits. Not much of a made-up face or hair.  A casual elegance in their demeanor.  They took their seats two spaces to my right.

After a couple of minutes, I leaned over near the mother's seat.  "Do you speak English?" I asked her.

"Yes" she smiled.

I am convinced that when baby girls are born in Costa Rica, they don't cry after birth but they only smile.  And then they keep perfecting their smiles as they grow up.  If only I had been taught to smile when I was a kid; maybe that's what they did teach during the year of kindergarten that I skipped in order to be with grandmother!

"It looks like you are a mother/daughter" I told her.  "You two look so lovely."

The mother's smile became even wider.  The daughter also smiled a charmer. Had the lights not dimmed, I might have just about spent three hours watching nothing but their radiant and smiling faces.

"Oh, thank you" the mother said.

I retracted to my seat.

I could do what I did only because I am older and a tad experienced.  As a young boy, like most young boys, I showed my appreciation for girls by teasing them.  I wonder if young girls knew that when we boys teased them, we were really saying, "you are cool. I like you."  Later, as a teenager and into my youth, it was flirtation.  Now, finally, I can tell a middle-aged woman that she looks lovely, in a simple matter of fact manner.  Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts!

When I shared this with a friend--thank heavens for the internet--she noted that I know how to touch people's lives.  Another friend asked me how I knew it was ok to make that comment.  "I was sure the mother wouldn't misunderstand me" I wrote back to her."  Which is also why I did not tell two young women, who were by themselves, how gorgeous they looked.

To all those lovely ladies!

Girlfriends are expensive!

Roberto and Luis seemed to be helping each other out by taking photos.  Wondering whether they were hesitant to ask somebody else to click for them, I offered to take a photo of the two of them, with the volcano in the background.

"No. It's ok. We like photos alone" Roberto said while Luis chuckled.

After a few seconds, Roberto expanded on it. "We don't want people to mistake us. We don't want a photo of us on Facebook. Friends will make fun."

I couldn't help laughing at the way he phrased it.  They too laughed.

Women are way more confident than we men are.  As friends, they hold hands, pose cheek-to-cheek, dance together. All as friends.  No way is that immediately interpreted as being gay.  With us guys, in this part of the world, we are so careful about it.  Insecure. Paranoid.  When I travel in India, I am always amazed at boys and young men holding hands, with arms over each other's shoulders, ... I am sure I, too, walked around that way back then.  Practices are so cultural and contextual!

"Given that you are medical residents, and good looking young men, how come you are not traveling with women?" I asked them.

To quite an extent, talking like this with men at any age is easy.  No guy in his right mind will ever mistake such a question.  I would think that guys, straight and gay, at any age, would love to talk about the female of our species.  The females were mysterious to me when I was becoming aware of them many decades ago, and they continue to be a mystery even now.  My guess is that even women don't understand women.  Perhaps the purpose of life is a simple one--to understand women!

Roberto and Luis laughed at my question.  Then Roberto said "girlfriends are expensive.  They want gifts. Then they want marriage. And kids.  And then it will be a divorce. More money.  I want to travel first."

Lots of young men and young women--and middle-aged balding men too--traveling alone these days.  It has become possible to travel any which way we want anymore.  Life has changed a lot, for the better.  I stood for a while looking at the crater and taking photos when I heard the guide, Alberto, calling my name.  It was time to move on.

During the hike down from Poás

The following morning, I went to have breakfast at the hotel.  I missed the tasty and home-made breakfast at Andreas' and Connie's.  If Charlie Chaplin could eat a shoe when hungry, I certainly can devour old bread and drink horrible coffee.  Ok, that was an exaggeration!

Three women were having breakfast.  Two were more than a decade older than me, and the third was at least a decade younger than me.

"Did you have a good vacation?" I asked them.  It was clear from their bags that they were checking out.

They were indeed moving on to the next place on their schedule.

"Where are you from?" I asked them.  They were all from Hamburg, Germany.  And, of course, the question bounced back.

"From the United States. I moved from India a long time ago."

"Where in India?" asked the younger one.

"From the southern part. The city is called Chennai."

Out in the wild ...

"I love India" she said.  "My boyfriend is half-Indian.  He has family in ..."  She couldn't recall the name of the place.  "It is a place with Communist government."

It had to be Kerala or West Bengal.  And given the wanderers that Keralites are, the odds were not in favor of Bengal.

"Is it Kerala?" I asked and she was excited.  "Yes, that is the one."

"It is a pretty place.  Have you been there?"

"I would like to.  But, it seems like my boyfriend's family want him to marry an Indian woman, and I cannot pass of as an Indian" she laughed.

No way, indeed, for that slim, tall, blonde to pass of as an Indian.

"Wrap a sari around you, cover your hair, and get married" I joked.

"My eyes will give it away." She had a quick comeback.

I suppose it is to avoid complications like this that Roberto has decided against a girlfriend.

During the hike down from Poás

It seems like the German has found what she was looking for, but her journey hasn't ended.  Roberto is looking for other things in life.  We are all travelers in life looking for whatever we are searching for, and our paths intersect.  We share stories. We laugh. And we move on to the next intersection.  Sometimes with people from the previous intersection and other times by ourselves.

I remembered the intersection at Orosi Lodge.  When I returned to the room, I sent them an email:

Good morning, Andreas and Connie.
I miss your breakfast and coffee. Miss it bad. I have to wait to reach home to make myself something comparable :(
Thank you so much for your wonderful hospitality, and an absolutely friendly and welcoming nature. Tell your son I loved his sense of humor :)

When dying, only your memories are with you

The crater at Volcán Poás was magnificent.

And so humbling.  Feeble and powerless we humans are--with all our technology, we are no match for the natural forces.

There was a faint trace of sulphur in the winds.  We lucked out without rains and clouds.

I lucked out this entire trip.  I, like most humans, take the time to complain about the hassles, minor and major, but rarely ever pause to appreciate how much I have and how lucky I am.  So, let me tell you again: I am one incredibly lucky guy!

"I am in Costa Rica and looking at a volcanic crater" I reminded myself.

In a way, that reminder was also necessary given the number of American tourists all around me.  "Where is your group from?" I asked the woman standing next to me.  "Wisconsin" she said.  She was one of the parents along with a group of about twenty or so high school students.

I walked up to Roberto and Luis, who were from Mexico and part of the same package tour with me.  They are now doing their residency after medical school.

"Do you guys travel a lot?" I asked them.

This was Luis' first trip outside the country, and that too because of Roberto's stories.  It was consistent with their respective personalities--Roberto is a lot more outgoing and animated than is Luis.

"Even Mexicans with money don't travel much" Roberto said.  "They don't know how to travel."

Roberto is on to something at a much younger age.  With every trip, I seem to be learning more and more about how to travel.  If only I knew better when younger!  My life would have been so much easier if only I had any wisdom when I had all the energy and youthful enthusiasm.  Even the little bit of wisdom I have has come a huge price of baldness!

"Do you travel alone all the time?" Roberto asked.

"Ever since the divorce, yes."  I paused for a second to figure out how much I should let him into my world.  "I guess it will be better with company.  But ..."

We play the cards that we are dealt.  As an airline stewardess remarked during the flight back home, what other options do we have but to play those cards?

"My friends buy cars, or buy clothes, and that is what they like to do if they have money" Roberto continued.  If not for his occasional struggle to get the right English words, I bet he would be one proficient conversationalist.  I am sure he is quite a talker in Spanish.

I agreed.  I showed him the shorts that I was wearing--it is frayed in more than a couple of spots, with threads dangling, and more than one small hole.  "I don't care about this.  I try to save a little bit of money so that I can travel."

"Yes.  When you are lying nearing your death, you cannot take your car or house or clothes.  You have only your memories with you when dying" Roberto said.  El sentido de la vida es vivirla was what Roberto had later noted in his Facebook post.

Life is, indeed, about creating and sharing memories.  Some memories that we try hard to forget.  And some memories that are so wonderful that we worry we might forget them.

As I lay dying, I hope that the memories I cherish will be far greater than the ones that I will regret.

26 years. Yet, nobody can take the India out of me

I love walking around in cities.  It is the energy of the people selling, buying, walking, chatting, rushing, and whatever else.  The lights, the sound, the noise, the smell.  I can't quite explain it all, other than to shrug my shoulders and say je ne sais quoi.

After four days in the calm, peaceful, and rustic Orosi, I was all ready for San Jose.  I was about to step out after a quick lunch when the gods above opened the fire hose.  It came down hard.  And it kept pouring for an hour.  Finally, when it seemed to have eased up, I darted out with my camera in one pocket of my cargo shorts and my wallet in another.

An advantage of the hilly terrain is that once the rain stops, the water is all gone.  No big puddles at all.  For three hours, I walked.  With a ten-minute sitting down, which is the real story.  But, let me give you the long version.

I never walk around aimlessly though.  I had a plan--to take in the sights and everything else and end up at the Mercado Central.  I was equipped with a map.  It is just that I never strictly follow the plan but I improvise along the way.

I stopped to take photos of parks, monuments, and people.  What incredibly beautiful young men and women, and older men and women!  I wish I could have taken photos of the beautiful women and handsome men who rushed past me.

I stopped to explore the Teatro Nacional de Costa Rica.  I scanned the displays and found that there would be an opera performance the following evening. A premiere at that!  I got myself a cheap ticket in the nosebleed section.

A couple of minutes from there and I was in the thick of the shopping area.  I saw a sign with an Indian name, Surya, and selling a whole bunch of Indian stuff including the stick-on forehead dots. Imagine that!  An Indian fashion store in Costa Rica!

I resisted the temptation to walk into the store and find out whether the owner was an Indian or a Tica.

A few more minutes of walking, and now another store--this is Chandra.  What the heck, right?  It seemed like there was very little overlap between the merchandise in the two stores.  Plus, Chandra seemed way more upscale.

Let me remind you that this was all in San Jose in Costa Rica, not in California.

A few more steps and on the other side, yep, another store with a name that could be based on an Indian one:

What is going on? Did I miss a bunch of readings on the popularity of Indian stuff in Costa Rica?  Do young men and women dance to the Bollywood beats at the discos in town?  Has chicken tikka masala diffused into the Costa Rican culture too?

I had to walk into this Gangas store. The women working there didn't have any distinctly recognizable Indianness in them.  It was like a clothing store in India--bundles and rolls of cloth and people buying whatever they liked at lengths to suit their needs.  It looked so Indian.  Including this roll that said "chiffon print"

I certainly hadn't expected so much of India in the shopping area.  I was even more energized with this unexpected twist.  I entered Mercado Central.

The smell from the food stalls was not always pleasant.  I suppose too much of authentic food smell can be overwhelming to those not used to it.

A fruit stall got my attention.  As I neared it, I saw guavas.  My favorite green guava.  The ones that I buy when in India.

The guavas were being sliced.  Then into a plastic bag, with a little bit of lime squeezed into it, and a pinch of salt.

I started drooling.

As soon as those customers moved away, I said "uno guayaba, por favor."

She said something and I told her "no Espanol."

She picked up a guava, weighed it, washed it, and sliced it.  When she reached for the salt, I showed via hand gestures that I didn't want much.

After paying, I knew exactly where I wanted to sit down and enjoy the green guava that was in a plastic bag of freshly squeezed lime and salt.

I sat on a cement bench in the promenade right outside Chandra and slowly ate the guava. One small bite each time, one slice after another.  For a few minutes, I lost track of the fact that I was in Costa Rica, and was transported to those magical memories of years of green guavas in India.