Wholehearted Living

I went to the very large branch of Banco Nacional not too far from Central Avenue which was packed with literally hundreds of people in long snaking queues. It wasn’t clear which queue was for which service so I asked an employee for guidance about changing cash. He looked around, shrugged his shoulders then suggested going to the bank’s small kiosk on Central Avenue.

On the way back I stopped to look around Mercado Central and to see what is on offer to eat. I take a seat and a chance at one of the many food counters and order a ‘special sopa’. This turned out to be a bowl of meat broth accompanied by a plate of unidentified stewed meat and vegetables… not quite a Sunday Dinner! 

I walk into the eatery at 6 pm and the restaurant is nearly empty. The waiter asks me if I have a reservation while looking at a virtually blank diary page. He manages to find me a table!

I headed for the Waterfall Trail which meandered off the main routes to the beaches. At just after 7 am the forest was still waking up and the animal noises were wondrous. As the sun rose, I progressed deeper into the forest and further away from other hikers, a quietude descended. By the time I reached the waterfall, the forest was like a church or temple, I stood in silent awe. 

The bus was 5-minutes late which was handy as I had misread the timetable. It’s an older type bus rather than a coach, and all the windows are open but it’s not uncomfortable. In fact, as we speed along the coast road with the Pacific Ocean in view, I feel a great sense of well being and gratitude. This is very different to the journey I experienced on the opposite journey just a few days ago!!!

Awake Early due to a bad tummy again but I managed to go back to sleep for a couple of hours

I’m not exempt from sickness, but I did have an online mentoring session arranged some time ago that I didn’t want to cancel.

The Health app on my cellphone tells me that I have just walked a little under 8 km. I have caught a lot of sun, maybe too much, and I am exhausted! I don’t know if I will move for the rest of the day!

Around 1 pm I went to El Hornito to get a large chicken sandwich to take away. I took a seat at a table for the ten minutes it would take to make my sandwich, during which short time, I became a major blood donor for mosquitoes… sometimes Loving Kindness is not enough… ahhhhhhh 

By Sunday evening there were lots of people, cars and bikes passing my latest accommodation, all heading to Uvita beach to watch the sunset. I took the opportunity just to relax… nowhere to be and nothing to do… mindfully ‘squandering’ my life.

At one point, a shoal of fish jumped unexpectedly from the water on one side of the sandbar towards the other beach, at least three of these scaly skinned vertebrates struck me in the bathing suit vicinity; I wonder if this is the origin of the Codpiece 🙂

Perhaps not very mindfully, impulsively even, I took a stroll to the sea shore and enjoyed a paddle on the near deserted beach.

I started to walk the route that takes 4 minutes in a car and 40 minutes on foot. I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. Google maps tells me the walk took 42 minutes, it felt a lot longer.I arrived at the Uvita Pirates Hostel just before 5pm. Literally on my last legs. I dumped my bags on a picnic table outside and took a seat; I couldn’t move any further just now.

At the southern end of the 1 km beach, there is a creek that runs into the sea. Strategically placed nearby are signs warning of crocodiles. Nearby where the beach meets the road there is a large sign warning of riptides in the area, and there are seeming ever present Tsunami evacuation signs!

Alarm not set, but awake at 06:55 woken by some sort of machine noise and vibration very nearby. So close that the wall behind my pillow quivered. I could cope with the noise but the vibration was too unpleasant to tolerate.

Before I checked out, I presented the owner with a broken toilet seat. I explained in my best Spanish and with some mime that the plastic seat had nearly caused me a concussion when it snapped and slipped sideways off the toilet. The owner expressed her concern and sent me on my way.

I stood in the shade of a closed shop doorway and booked a room at the Hotel Don Robert a few blocks away. Even last year, this would have terrified me! Travelling somewhere without booked accommodation, let alone arriving somewhere without a hotel booking would have kept me up at night, I would feel like I wasn’t in control. (PPS+R … protect, promote, satisfy and repeat!)

I’m really not sure where I want to go next, or what I want to do, so I have decided to travel to Puntarenas for at least one night before moving on – probably – south down the Pacific coast.

We were each given small torches and off we set with our guide. It did start to rain quite heavily but under the cover of the forest, not a lot was getting to the ground. The tour was great fun, an interesting diversion despite the weather. Not that I got to see too much during the tour, it is of course potluck which gritters you might spot. I did see a couple of tarantulas, an opossum, various birds trying to sleep in the trees, some different spiderwebs, caterpillars and bees. I enjoyed the walk, and I enjoyed the experience.

Zipline #6 was 800m long and you had to go down it in pairs. I was on my own, so I was paired up with Karin from Germany. I was behind Karin and had to put my legs around her waist, something I don’t normally do with strangers!

The Jeep isn’t a Jeep! It’s a compact mini-bus with 18 passengers and baggage!

But the First Principle of Transportation is Safe Arrival so I will put aside my expectation… for now at least. But it is clear from the comments of the other passengers that expectations were being challenged.

I was considering walking the lava trail inside the Arenal Volcano National Park but the tour company I contacted just wanted to sell a guided tour. In hindsight, I should just have gone by taxi. But hindsight is both a blessing and a curse.

I did eventually venture outside. The small town of La Fortuna has a compact and easily walkable centre. The town is very touristy with all types of travellers. So it’s all quite buzzy, and lots of locals speak more than a smattering of English. Since arriving in La Fortuna, I have noticed that Costa Rica is relatively expensive, possibly even more so than Bocas del Toro in Panama!

For all of my best plans and efforts to get to the airport on time, the flight departure time was delayed by one hour. Bang goes my already slim chance of catching my preferred direct bus to La Fortuna. Nevermind, I think there are indirect buses that will get me there eventually. I had only settled on La Fortuna yesterday as my first destination in Costa Rica because of the direct bus. I don’t have a hotel booked yet and I am not sure of my next destination.

I took a circular route back to Studio Coliving Hotel noticing quite a few – but not all – shops, banks and offices had been newly boarded up, as if a hurricane were forecast. Then I remembered the recent and ongoing protests all over Panama because of alleged government corruption in relation to recently granted licences for open cast copper mining. As I got closer to the hotel, the protestors gathering at Iglesia del Carmen Metro station were gaining in numbers and becoming more vocal.

Travelling with cabin size and weight baggage (under 10kg) is a liberating rather than limiting way to get around. In the past I would travel with at least one, and sometimes two bags, to check in as well as my cabin bag(s). Nowadays, I like to travel simply to simply travel. It is a lot easier, less complicated and much cheaper this way.

Around 1 pm the boat took us to a snorkelling spot near the ‘floating restaurant’ that we had visited earlier. Snorkels and masks were dispensed and we entered the water. What a disaster! There was hardly any corel here and people were swimming into each other. My mask didn’t fit well allowing a lot of water to enter and my snorkel’s mouthpiece was too small to ‘grasp’ as it were. Also, I felt, real or imagined, that the tide was pulling me away from the boat. I love snorkelling, under the right conditions it can be a very meditative experience, just drifting and being with my breath, but I am not a strong swimmer; so it was time for me to return to the boat. No one stayed in the water long and everyone was back on board after 15-minutes, which in itself says a lot.

It was now late afternoon by now and I took myself for a walk to the nearest public beach which was about 10-minutes away. It was nice enough but I would not be over keen to swim here. I returned to the Yellow House through a graveyard which always cheers me up as I remind myself “…and then you die”.

This regular online community meeting, along with ‘Sit-and-Share’ meetings (when I can make them), and a Bodhi College study group are very interesting and supportive. I am only just starting to appreciate how beneficial it is for my mental well-being; they help combat loneliness and aloneness. Also, in attending these different sessions, I am not just turning up for myself but I am turning up for the other attendees too… it’s a two-way street.

Once settled in my room, which includes a small kitchenette, I went to leave the hotel to stroll around the neighbourhood before it got dark. But when I got to reception the hotel was ‘closed’ and I was advised not to go outside. The ground floor windows had been boarded up, albeit in a temporary fashion. Apparently there are ongoing, sometimes violent, demonstrations happening all over Panama because the government has issued licences for open cast copper mining. Ordinary Panamanians are not happy about this and government officials are suspected of corruption. The hotel receptionist suggests leaving my walk for an hour or two until the current protest passes. From the hotel roof garden, I can see protestors gathering at the highway intersection and Riot Police standing in a side street.

I took a short walk to Crespo (airport neighborhood) looking to go to Cartagena old town . The problem was that you can’t pay on the bus, you need a transport card topped up with enough money for your journey. Despite asking, I couldn’t find where to buy a ticket. Some things are not meant to be.

When I first heard this poem I couldn’t agree with the final line. I thought that maybe you can stop handing on misery to our children, and teach them to do the same. Perhaps this is true, but the mere fact of ‘existence’ is misery whether we want to call it that or suffering, or unsatisfactoriness, or pain… whatever. There is no animal alive including humans who will not suffer. Suffering is Universal but there is no suffering in non-existence.

In recent years I am increasing drawn to the principles of Antinatalism, which I might explore in more detail on another day. For now it might be suffice to say that were I in a position to have more children, I would choose not to. 

I find it interesting to note that the Buddha left home shortly after his one and only son, Rahula, was born. Later, Rahula became a monk and as far as we know did not have children. The Buddha did not have grandchildren. There is no pain or suffering in non-existence

As the Buddha observed, life is difficult and then you die. I am grateful to be alive with a modicum of ‘good’ health… although it’s probably more accurate and better described as not having too much ‘bad’ health. 

The Buddha didn’t suddenly just “awaken” under the Bodhi tree, some of his important insights into the human condition happened even BEFORE he left home “while still young, a black-haired young man endowed with the blessings of youth in the first stage of life.” 

As I am waiting patiently, I notice the variety of wandering street vendors selling everything from bottles of water to mops and brooms. There seems to be an army of coffee trolleys on the move. I did notice one woman in the queue ahead of me buy a small coffee from one vendor only to tip it away almost instantly on tasting. Another coffee was purchased from a different vendor which seemed to be much more palatable. I can’t imagine how many mops and brooms get sold by wandering street to street in this way. Life seems very hard sometimes… well, all the time in reality. Unless we strive, we don’t survive. 

I walked out of Cartagena Airport to the main road and ordered an Uber ride to the main bus station on the other side of town. Sadly and frustratingly, this was another rip-off as the driver took a much longer route than necessary and nearly doubled the estimated fare. My complaint to Uber went nowhere. Not a good start to arrive in a country and be cheated twice in the first 30-minutes of arrival.

This wonderful open air museum is well worth a visit. We walked through the forest on a well defined path visiting the Arachnoid House before continuing to ‘The Tower’. The Tower is of metal construction and climbs above the tree line.  It was quite a hard, hot and sweaty climb for me but very much worth the effort. We then continued along a 1km path back close to the entrance and café. Here we met another two sailing companions visiting MUSA on this fine Sunday afternoon. It was now a little after 4 pm and the site closes at 5 pm. We had look at the Aquarium that contained some very large Amazonian fish. The Aquarium was next to a small pond with giant floating lilly leaves, and also nearby, was the House of Snakes. We returned to the entrance where our sailing buddies were waiting for us to go the the Parque Rio Negro to watch the sun go down.

I don’t agree with the Buddha, I quite like sensual pleasures. Particularly new sights, new sounds, new smells, new tastes, new tactile experiences, and some mind wanderimg fantasies.

As Human Beings we crave certainty along with security. People like a diagnosis… whether good or bad… a diagnosis enables a sense of certainty.

Just like my ‘self’, the Amazon River changes moment by moment. It is in a constant state of flow, changing it’s shape and direction. And just like my ‘self’, the river is impermanent; one day neither of us will exist in any shape or form.

When I was a young shipping clerk for Liner Shipping Agencies in Leadenhall Street in the City of London, I looked after ships coming from South America, including the Amazon Basin with transhipments to/from Belem, Manaus and even as far as Iquitos. I can vaguely recall a story about one of our Blue Star Line shipping containers being found somewhere in the jungle and no-one knew how it got there. When I was about 21 or thereabouts, I had an interview for the job of Head Office Representative in the Belem office. It was the type of company where it mattered which university you had attended. I never finished A-level studies let alone higher education. I didn’t get the job but I always remember that Belem has an Opera House. Maybe, I will come back one day and go to the opera.

Now we are underway, it is worth all of the hassle to just lay in my hammock watching the jungle go by. The boat from Iquitos to Santa Rosa/Tabatinga was fun but, to put it kindly, a rust bucket. This vessel from Tabatinga to Manaus is like a luxury liner in comparison! There is even onboard WiFi if you are prepared to pay for it.

The boat makes a stop somewhere after midnight but I am too tired to look. I wake up before 6 am. Some people are packing up to go. This part of the Amazon borders with Colombia. My new friend, Marina is French but speaks excellent Spanish and a smattering of Portugese, asks one of the crew what time we will get to Santa Rosa. He replies 12 o’clock. Both Marina and I were hoping to formally exist Peru in Santa Rosa and enter Brazil in Tabatinga in time to catch a boat to Manaus. My Yellow Fever vaccination is valid from today to I am allowed to enter Brazil. 

As the boat makes one of it’s many stops, nudging against the muddy riverside, a gangplank is dropped to eliminate the gap… and Bruce Springsteen can be heard from the bridge singing “…can’t start a fire without a spark”. This song always meant so much to me as a long-term nightshift worker, in fact, since the dawn of the smartphone it has been my ringtone.

I appreciate my good fortune. I don’t have much and I try not to suffer for what I don’t have. Someone once gave me a book called ‘Enjoy Every Sandwich” and that seems to be as good a purpose for life than any.

I explained to Luis my intention to take a slow boat to Santa Rosa (on the border with Colombia (Leticia) and Brazil (Tabatinga). He said he would send me the sailing schedule by WhatsApp, and he might even have a hammock that I would be welcome to take away. Luis also recommended the Amazon Bristo as a good place to eat… “down 8 blocks to the river then one and a half blocks to the left”.

When I was drinking alcoholically, maybe around my 21st birthday, I didn’t aspire or expect to live beyond the age of thirty. Although, I did stop drinking when I was 39 years old, I am still amazed that I doubled my own life expectancy to 60 and beyond. It makes me smile just thinking about it.

Without using more superlatives it is a wonderful experience and the Peruvian authorities seem to have done a good job in managing numbers and directing visitors around the site. BUT the individual points of interest are not signposted, so unless you know what you are doing it is likely that you will walk past something you wanted to see, even by a few metres, and you are not allowed to backtrack. I had mistakenly walked past the Temple of the Condor and tried to walk back, only to be told ‘no’. A very kind Spanish speaking man tried to help by telling the attendant that I had come nearly 10,000 km to see this sight, I just wanted to backtrack 50 paces but still the answer was ‘no’!

Having taken about 150 trains across Europe and Turkey in the spring from the Atlantic Ocean (Tralee, Ireland) to Lapland (Narvik, Norway) to the Mediterranean (Algeciras, Spain) to the Armenian/Iranian borders in Turkey (Kars/Kapikoy), so I was really looking forward to this special train journey.

In various Buddhist traditions, there are practices that cultivate and promote an awareness – or mindfulness – of death; not to make me afraid, but to increase my appreciation of life and to make me ask what is it that is really important… what matters most?

I took a very slow walk around San Pedro market. I wasn’t gasping for breath but I had to stop and stand still a couple of times. I must be honest in terms of my own physical and mental health that I have walked more in the last 2 days than I had in the previous 2-months.

The whole focus of the Buddha’s teachings was to bring the process of ‘rebirth’ to an end. The reason given for rebirth is ‘craving’ for sensuality and the ‘craving’ for continued existence. From my personal perspective, I am confident that this is my one and only life, and that’s enough for me. I have no expectation or desire to do this all over again.

It’s lovely to be travelling again, particularly somewhere that I’ve never visited before but it can also be quite tiring, so time for a much needed early night.

On arrival at Bogota there was a long queue to get through immigration but I made it out by 9pm. I went straight to the Health Centre on the 2nd floor to see if I could get a Yellow Fever vaccination but, as I half expected, the centre was closed.

“Seeing nothing in the end
but competition,
I felt discontent.
And then I saw
an arrow here,
so very hard to see,
embedded in the heart.”
~ Buddha