La Corrida

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There was bull riding and bull baiting Saturday night at the corrida and fiesta in the little town of Villareal, just up the road from Tamarindo. It's after midnight as I write this, we just got in from the airport and I'll have to explain all this loco-ness later on Monday.

I've been a little out of touch while in Costa Rica. Can anyone tell me what happened to the portal?

Temporarily Tamarindo: Adventure!

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What a day. I took something over 1,100 snaps. Three-quarters are junk but there are some gems in there. We took a boat ride up the Palo Seco estuary, enjoying the mangrove swamp environment and looking for wildlife. We went ashore at one point, searching for howler monkeys. viz., the chap above.

There is a big regional festival this weekend in the town of Santa Cruz, an indeterminate distance east of here over some muy malo roads. This is cattle country, Central American division, and there were close to 700 cowboys and girls in the horse parade. The horse traffic jam was as bad as going into New York through the Lincoln Tunnel on Monday morning. even if there was no toll. This rider took pity on his horse and offered to share his cerveza with it.

Returning after dark, there was a serious traffic accident on the dirt road back to Tamarindo. In the US the police would have moved it to the side and let traffic pass slowly. Here, la policia completely blocked the road. In the best of my weak Spanish I asked an officer how long the delay might be. Una hora, mas o menos. I got that. I asked if hay una otra ruta a Tamarindo. The policeman consulted with a colleague. Es muy complicado, he told me. Check.

Then a taxi driver carrying some Americans back to Tamarindo offered to let me follow him through the back roads around the blockage. Well, that would be great, but, um, you aren't taking us to the banditos headquarters, are you? No, he was just being helpful. We have a GPS with a Costa Rica map and, at one point, we were in a completely black, uncharted zone. But here we are, back at the condo, after one of the best meals we've had in a long time at Carolina's. More about that tomorrow, I hope.

It's 1 AM as I finish this. Downtown St. Louis 365 will go up when I regain consciousness.