Vacation Diary #5

Saturday August 16th

Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica

We had a mini-adventure yesterday to Nauyaca Falls, about a 90 minute bus ride from Manuel Antonio.  It was a strenuous 6-mile hike, parts muddy, but all worth it to see the catarata, swim in the pools, and recline in shallow rapids for the ultimate hydro-therapy.

One thing I gotta work on: bringing valuables and fretting about them when I am trying to have fun.  I’m paranoid about stuff like that, maybe it is a musician thing.  I did not really need to bring a wallet and we only needed one pocket computer/surveillance device.  Plus everyone was there to have fun, not steal stuff.

The bus schedule was goofy so we ended up sore-assed and chilled at a bus stop for 3 three hours while the rain rattled the roof of the shelter. (I liked that but I came down with a cold).  We chatted with a college-aged couple from Vancouver BC.  Like a true old fart, I asked them if they knew of the band DOA.  I should have asked if they knew of local political figure Joe Keithley.  Nice people bouncing around to hostels, she is studying criminology, he is studying environmental studies.

At the bus stop I read Stay Fanatic ‘til my eyes hurt.  I love the book--I’m inhaling it.  If Rollins isn’t working, he’s probably listening to a new record right now.  He loops back to advocate for bands multiple times and drops current recs, lots of Aussie and Japanese artists.  One record that keeps coming up is by Empire, ex-Generation X players who made this singular work.  I also jumped forward to one of Bob Derwood Andrews’ atmospheric solo pedal steel records. The same guy who brought us the riff on “Dancing With Myself” is still making really cool music.

Night before last we watched The Man Who Would Be King, a movie my dad took me to when I was about five, based on a story by Rudyard Kipling. I’ve always had a soft spot for it because my dad probably needed to get out of the house and took me along,

The racial and cultural stereotypes are dated and uncool, but as a goofy buddy story, and a story of fatal flaws, it is good.  Plummer, Connery, and Caine all in one movie is something special. I’ve never read Kipling and the decades haven’t been kind to his imperialist world view but I think I’ll still check his stories out anyway. A lot of barrier-breakers don’t look good in the rearview mirror, but they make the world bigger somehow. Paul Bowles also gets a hard second look.