Another stop at my life's merry go round

Atlanta's skyline from Buckhead -

photo by coka-koehler

When I arrived in Atlanta on Wednesday, I have been asked to stay here for at least 2-3 months, if not longer, and I agreed: Florida can wait for me a while.

Instead, in the nearest future, this vibrant, modern metropolis of South East USA will be my new - and old, as I lived here before, twice - temporary home.

Lenox Drive in Buckhead - a street by which I now live.

I won't live downtown, however, but uptown, in Buckhead, nicknamed Atlanta's Beverly Hills, as it is partially a very fashionable part of the city, full of mega-mansions hidden on large wooded lots on very quaint streets, but also of much more modest townhouses and condos on streets ranging from semi-quaint to busy, as Buckhead is also a shopping and entertainment district.

Of course I'll have to do my best to explore the big city lifestyle: its art scene, intellectual (and quasi intellectual) scene, social scene and - last but not least - the great outdoors.

Since yesterday I have been revisiting my previous memberships: my gym, my art, book, film, discussion and outdoor clubs and picked so far only one - or two - of each and - in addition - signed up as a volunteer with Atlanta Botanical Garden, Piedmont Park Conservancy and Atlanta Community Food Bank.

As I also retained some work commitments (part time, fortunately, no more than 20 hrs per week) I expect to be fairly busy.... and have tons of fun, while living in Atlanta again, for a while. :-)))

What not to wear

when flying with cats? Navy (or black).

Yesterday I packed my cats in their pet taxis and then dressed myself, to avoid cat hair on my navy clothes: navy pants (without pockets - what on earth was I thinking???), navy twinset, and mules - as they are easy to take off and on while getting through an airport scanner.

During the first part of the trip - Mayaguez to San Juan - I was still presentable - very friendly Cape Air guy loaded the cats on the plane for me, demanding only to see their health certificates before boarding - and we had those in order.

I always get health certificates for the cats from their veterinarian, within 10 days of their air trip, as prescribed, although it was the very first time someone actually wanted to see them.

In San Juan, already when checking my two, big, American cats as baggage on Delta (they have a pressurized and temperature controlled baggage compartment, where the pets can be checked in ... though at a price of $ 275 domestic or $550 international per container, no matter its size - but two cats could fly in one) I was asked to take the cats out and hold them while the carrier was inspected. Of course the cats got scared and released a month worth of their hair on my navy clothes.

Then, when going through the scanner I had to remove the other two cats (the small Purtorican ones) from their carrier and carry them through, holding my boarding pass and my ID at the same time. I must have looked pretty funny there: barefoot, one cat hanging under each arm, both scared from their wits, me holding boarding pass and ID in hand and wearing clothes covered by now in all colors of cat hair... sigh.

Then we had to wait for the carrier to go through the scanner... but at least cats did not try to run, but eagerly returned to carrier, relieved: it must have seem far less scary then hanging out there.

But a Delta person at the check counter told me that they had a case recently when a cat ran and lived hiding at the airport for two weeks before they managed to catch him and reunite him with his guardian. I did not even want to think what I would do if that happened to me...

During the flight the cats, that flew in the cabin, behaved like angels: slept mostly - the thing that cats do so well, turning their backs at all the curious kids who discovered them.

What to do with a car when leaving Puerto Rico?

The simplest answer would be to sell it, wouldn't it?

But what if it is the beginning of spring, when both the surfers and the snowbirds leave the island, many of them also planning to sell their cars?

What if it is the middle (I am being optimistic here) of a worldwide economic crisis, a severe credit crunch, AND the biggest glut of cars - new cars, used cars - imaginable?

What if I have been duped into overimproving the car mechanically (practically new everything, high performance, heat resistance etc., low mileage), so it drives like a brand new car, while the outside shows signs of the car being driven in Puerto Rico: a few scratches, a small dent, where someone must have bumped into me on a parking lot... and fled ?

How many thousands of dollars am I likely to lose if I sell this car in Puerto Rico?

And how many if I do not sell it?

What can I do with this car other than sell it?

I do not need it in the US, because I do have another car there. A tad older, true, and with more than twice the mileage, but always driven on US highways, performing well, all services performed on time and without a hint of a problem. I plan to keep my US car - in the US.

But what if I decide to move back to Europe at least for part of the year?

Due to the peculiarities of my country's pension legislation, when I live inside European Union, my European pension income more than doubles. Something to take into account when I am getting older and might soon not want - or be able to - work at all, right?

Since I have owned my PR car for over a year, I am entitled to import it to Europe duty free - so shipping (around $2000) would be my only expense plus adjusting the car to European regulations: asymetric instead of symetric beams, etc.

Of course, I would have to factor in the higher cost of living in Europe and the nonfinancial aspects: both positive, like living in a multicultural, multilingual surroundings, with a plethora of high culture at my fingertips, both old and new; easier access to less processed food, hormone free, antibiotics free... but also an emotional cost of being across the ocean from my only daughter, my practically only remaining close relative...

But if I spent winters in Florida and summers in Sweden, or France (I would prefer Italy, since I know it much better than France, and love it, but in Italy I would be taxed to death, due to the peculiarity of Swedish-Italian tax treaty), it might work, beautifully even... for a while, at least, since the question is: how many more years will I be able to effortlessly hop on a plane and fly over Atlantic twice a year... with cats? And how expensive might it become?

I do not really have time right now, in the moving rush, to factor all these aspects into a meaningful equation, so I guess I'll just have to leave the car here somewhere for a few months or so, until I make the decision what would be the least expensive way to get rid of a car in Puerto Rico. Sigh...

Traveling with cats and packing ... again!

I moved close to a hundred times - I think - overland and overseas - and yet it is the first time I'll move my stuff using USPS.

Because I am not taking any of the furniture this time (I am making a deal with my landlady for them, since it is far easier to rent a furnished condo that it is to rent an unfurnished one - overpriced that it is - in the current economic crisis ), few household goods (practically only cats' stuff: their toys, beds, to which they are accustomed, dishes, etc.) and not yet sure if I'll take a car - but that's another post.

I am taking cats - all four of them - and have found a way to fly them all myself, at once, to Atlanta (due to family's health issues I can't yet go to Florida as planned): on Delta and Cape Air, so I don't have to drive to San Juan.

OK, flying four cats costs me four times more than my own ticket (I wonder why: the two small ones will be stowed under my sit - in one container, small enough to fit there, yet large enough to allow them to nap huddling together - as they love to do anyway, while the two larger - and considerably older ones - will be sharing another, larger, container, being shipped as luggage in a pressurized, air conditioned compartment of the airplane) plus the added expense of four health certificates issued within 10 days of travel.

Here again: nobody asks me to bring a health certificate for myself, as if people could not spread infectious diseases, but cats, who spend all their time inside - save for the balcony - they are indoor cats - need to prove they are healthy!

Also, my two older cats are experienced international travelers and have their European "cat passports" - electronic chips with detailed information on them and their guardian - under the skins of their necks. The two Puertorican youngsters don't have those, yet - they are not going to Europe - at least not yet, so they need collars with identifying info instead, in case they somehow got lost somewhere.

This - long - weekend is all about packing. I found out that the USPS takes suitcases, provided they are locked - and it is a good thing, since with two containers of cats I can only take my computer with me as a carry on and no more than one suitcase as a checked luggage.

So most of my clothes and linens will fit in them. Books - except the huge, so called coffee-table editions - I plan to stuff all in large size flat rate boxes, thanks to advice from Jeff, who used them for heavy, yet small, tools, when he and Katrina moved here, and thanks to Miri, who mused recently about fitting a 50 pound of ceramic clay in each of them.

Larger shipping boxes I found at Home Depot, at prices lower than U-Haul on the mainland. There I also found stretch wrap and bubble wrap, but no packing popcorn and I decided to take my flat screen TV with me.

But supposedly Office Max has it, so off I go to Mayaguez Mall to look for it and also to look for locks to my suitcases. Perhaps Wall Mart? Or the stand where they make spare keys? (Office Max had packing peanuts, different kinds, different size bags, rather pricy, but.... A key making stand next to Wall Mart had a good selection of locks, including suitcase locks)

If I don't find it, an employee at Home Depot suggested that they have one and two inch wide foam panels, which I can cut to size to cushion my flat screen with - it looks like it might work, so I shall see.

Temptation

I haven't yet moved out of Puerto Rico - I am staying here till the end of this month - when an invitation to move here (photo of the village above) right away, practically yesterday, for at least three months if not a year, or longer, presented itself.

The village is pittoresque, located on one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, surrounded with majestic mountains - and volcanos, with a spring-like climate year round and inhabitated mostly by very friendly and humble people.

Unfortunately, due to endemic poverty, drugs and a history of violence in this country it is also very dangerous.

And, I wish I could, but can I ???

P.S. Do you know where this is? Hint: it is a tad south and more than a tad west of Puerto Rico.

Green day

It's St Patrick's day and the only green thing I had today was a green sallad for dinner: lettuce, sprouts, microgreens.

For lunch at work there was arroz con pollo - definitively not Irish, so I thought of cooking dinner for a change, but did not found in a PR grocery anything Irish. So green sallad it was. And a green tea. My Irish friends would laugh themselves silly.

But I was reminiscing Ireland today - I worked in Dublin two summers in a row some 15 years ago - on an all-European project. Our hosts seemed to love taking us on pub rounds around Dublin... and I had to hide the fact that I really do not like Guiness. :-((

Otherwise, I loved the green island, Dublin, following in the footsteps of Leopold Bloom, a character from James Joyce's Ulysses, who wanders through Dublin some 90 years earlier... Loved the pastoral countryside of east Ireland, too, all those brambles, leek soup, potatoes, cabbage, corn beef... :-)

Finally!

You can't imagine just HOW RELIEVED I feel to finally having been able to figure out the way to leave this island soon and without jeopardizing the work I have been doing here - thus without any qualms of conscience !


Will I miss this silvery sea?

No, I am moving to another seafront location - in southwest Florida.
So I won't miss the sea, or the tropical ambience or... the discomforts of living in Puerto Rico! ;-)

I have a new place arranged preliminarly - and - surpise, surprise: due to the recession and overbuilding it is now less expensive to live in Florida's cultural mecca - with its miles and miles of stunning beaches, opera, theatre, ballet, tons of art galleries, abundance of organic veggies at every corner and all the other stuff I could only dream of here - that it is to live in Puerto Rico!

I just need to fly to Florida one of the nearests weekends to finalize things there, so my new place will be waiting for me.

And I also need to figure out how to take some 5-6 suitcases and boxes of my belongings (how on earth have I accumulated so much stuff here, so fast???), 75 punds of books, a flat screen TV and 4 cats off the island with a minimum of trips ( I am hoping for no more than two), and ... how to sell a car in Puerto Rico, while I need it practically to the very last moment....
All the furniture and household goods will go to charity, so that's easy. I'll have them picked up!

Boy, am I glad!

New Hillary and the women's rights

When Hillary Clinton went to Asia as a first lady in 1995 she made a passionate speach for women's rights.
Now, when she went to Asia as a secretary of state, women's rights weren't nowhere on her agenda. They fell offer to climate change and the economic crisis.

Just two weeks before the International Women's Day, women, as always, are supposed to stand back to "more important" issues, as if sexism and scarcity of women's rights in most of the countries of the globe were nowhere in the same class as racism, as climate change, as economic crisis.

Shame on you, Hillary!

Ladies, do you still regret she was not elected president? She would have been the first woman president to abandon women! Not what we deserve!

But are they emancipated enough?

A friend from Sweden called me yesterday, seriously alarmed: her daughter was planning to move to Singapore.

I did not, at first, get the cause of her alarm. Singapore is a vibrant, interesting city. Yes, it is very expensive to live there as an expact, terribly hot, terribly humid and terribly overcrowded, like most cities in Asia, but it is sort of civilized (save for their penal code, with its crudely medieval punishments like caning etc.) and could be fun. So what's the problem?

Her daughter is single... and a corporate executive... a single (heterosexual)female corporate executive.

"Who is she going to date there?" her mother asked me.
"Will she ever have a chance to marry, perhaps have a child, if she lives there"???

Now I understood her concerns.

If her child was a guy, a single male corporate executive, there would be no problem.
He would have plenty of opportunities.
He could date Asian women, be they ambitious corporate executives (there is a growing number of them, there) or old-fashioned (= professionally unacomplished) gals.

Most cultures in Asia - like in Latin America - have that in common: their lack of emancipation. Even a veneer of emancipation, if exists, is still (?) very, very thin.

Not good places for truly emancipated and professionally accomplished women to have a work-life balance, I had to admit.

And no, my friend's concerns have nothing to do with race (at least I hope they don't).
They are all about culture, ingrained, badly traditional culture, defining women as subservient (though sometimes luxurious) appendages of men.

Are there Asian or Latin men emancipated enough to truly appreciate a professionally accomplished woman? Without - subconsciously - expecting her to serve him: put a dinner on the table, make sure that the house is clean, in short to manage the household in addition to managing her job? Instead of equally sharing the household management duties with her?Hmmm. Very, very few, I am afraid.

Such culture clashes are still happening even in Europe and in America, where emancipation often seems only skin deep, despite it being proclaimed for a lot longer than in other parts of the world, so long that it already should be the norm, should feel obvious to all concerned... but, sadly, it is not.

I still remember vividly my own failed attempt at forming a relationship with a cultivated (I thought), highly educated and worldly American. On the surface, we had lot in common: interests, world outlook, wanderlust... but not the level of emancipation.
I could hardly believe my ears, when he proposed... with a disclaimer: he would be the decider. He would give me every consideration, he said, but he would be the decider.
At first I thought it was a joke, so caveman it sounded, and I laughed, amused. But he was serious, a barbarian at heart, despite all his education and his polish of civilization and worldliness.

So what a chance my friend's highly emancipated daughter would have at any personal happiness living in a very nonemancipated culture???

Simrishamn

It's raining here again. How about paying a weekend visit to Simrishamn, a - largely medieval, well "conserved" small town in Southern Sweden?

Simrishamn is a fishing town, since early middle ages. (It was first mentioned as a municipality in XII century and as a town in XIV century).
These pictures were taken during an annual Herring Festival. Lot's of boats in the harbor - all on display, all preparing for the evening parade of boats.

Most of them very modern. And the buildings facing the harbor are also rather modern, though made to look like the traditional architecture of the region.

But already on the main street leading to the harbor most of the buildings are old, though very well maintained. The street is full of small restaurants and cafes, and - during the Herring Festival - overrun with tourists.

A bit higher up on the same street, close to the town square there is more small shops, boutiques, than eating establishments. Here the banner advertises an Ibsen play Miss Julie by a local theatre ensemble.

Still higher, a small side street leading from the town square is almost deserted.

These are the typical townhouses in a residential zone. Many of them are medieval - at least on the outside. They usually have charming small gardens with flowers and herbs at the back. Just like the one I had, only more established.

Scania (Skaane), where Simrishamn lies, is the breadbasket of Sweden. It is also well known for its gardens: herb gardens surrounding medieval churches, flower gardens surrounding noble mansions

Here, a quiet picnic square under an old oak (supposedly 700 hundred years old) and a nearby house in traditional style of wood crosses filled with plastered straw bales, more or less the same age as the oak.

I have been shaken

a little, first with my a bit terrifying private ordeal, and soon after, with the battles between Russia and Georgia, I haven't felt like blogging about Puerto Rico.
But the war is now supposedly over - thanks to Sarkozy? - so I'll return to PR topic tomorrow, I think.

Martinique ..... or Corsica?

Calvi, Corsica

It looks like it might soon become a lot easier to find your optimal expat retirement destination.

Yesterday I was testing an advisory tool - sorry, this one for Swedish nationals only - on the best country - to retire to, slanted heavily - since it is a Swedish tool - towards limiting the total tax burden, but taking into account health care, climate, culture and a few other factors.

I plugged in all requested - albeit general - parameters.... and was pointed to France as an optimal choice - by far.

Hmm, I thought, I really need that abundance of - yummy but so full of saturated fat - cheeses, which, living in France, I would not be able to resist, since stinky cheeses - accompanied by well aged wines - are one of my major culinary weaknesses.

Next I made a comparison with a few other EU countries, which are favorite European expat destinations, like Spain, Italy and Cyprus, but both tax and quality of health care factors weighted so heavily, that France won hands on in any of those comparisons.

Intrigued, I made - now outside the tool, as it does not include USA as a likely retirement destination for Europeans - a comparison between a retirement in Puerto Rico and one of the French islands in the Caribbean for a "typical" EU national who worked in the US long enough to be entitled to Medicare and Social Security, but retained his/her EU nationality.
Gustavia, St Bart

Even in pricey St Bart, which - being once a Swedish colony could be a "natural" choice for Swedes - such a hypothetical retiree would save money and gain access to better French health care.

And if the said retiree chose France proper, he/she would also improve dramatically his/her quality of life, through access to more diverse cultural opportunities, better food , etc.

An additional factor would be legal system based on Napoleonic code, which I consider superior to both British and US legal system... but I am biased, I studied law in continental Europe.

Martinique

So, if one likes islands - Corsica or Martinique?.... that might be !the question! ;-)

On the other hand, current issue of "Islands" magazine, lists three islands in, say extended Caribbean, on its list of 10 best islands in the world to live on: Beguia in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Eleuthera in Bahamas and Ambergis Caye in Belize. All of them English language dominant. None of them French. Perhaps a better choice for Americans?

Palawan, Philippines

P.S. But "Islands" magazines first, most spectacular and by far most budget friendly choice is Palawan in the Philippines, where a "typical 3 bdr, 2 ba house" rents for $400 a month!

Granada

Since we are on Granada's coast, let's make a short excursion up the mountains to Granada. Here are a few pictures of Granada from above.

I have to admit that the clean, color unified (predominantly white walls, red roofs) Granada - and other Spanish towns and villages - appeal to me a LOT more than the assault of exaggerated forms and colors of Puerto Rico.

(Of course it is likely due to my European cultural conditioning, but I can't help it. I DO try to enjoy visual cacophony to be more open minded... and I got this far that I intellectually understand it...but am still unable to emotionally appreciate it. )

Spanish towns and villages appear elegant, Puerto Rican appear visually cacophonic.
So let's enjoy the views of Granada, when we can.

Tomorrow we shall go visit Alhambra.

Places with a view: Almunecar, Granada's coast

In Almunecar , a very, very old (over 2000 years old) pueblo blanco on Andalusia’s coast in Spain, straight south of Granada, I lived on the 6th floor of a condo building on the eastern sea promenade called Playa de Velilla.

There the view was of the famed blue Mediterranean (sadly polluted, but the view did not reveal this shameful secret), a mostly stony beach with its fish restaurants and their open pits from which a tempting aroma of freshly caught, grilled sardines waffled all the way up, up, to my balcony.

On the beach there were tourists bathing and playing in season, and outside the tourist season retired expats from all over Europe, but mostly from Scandinavia (Sweden, Denmark, Norway) and from Germany and Great Britain - the cold weather and high cost of living countries - walking, exercising... by the colorful fishing boats and fishermen loading or unloading their nets and fish.

Between the beach and the condo there was a paseo , framed with tall, stately palm trees and full of all kind of open air eateries, where people sipped their hot chocolate and ate churros (Spanish doughnuts) or olive drizzled toasts with garlic and tomatoes for breakfast, or munching on an abundance of tapas all day - and night - long.

On the left side of the bay, in the background, there were slopes of Sierra de Grazalema and - behind them Sierra Nevada mountains, with some of their peaks covered in snow, while oranges and bougainvillea were in full bloom at the coast.

On the lower slopes, the view revealed two pueblos blancos, typical Andalusian white villages, oh, so picturesque with their narrow streets and their white houses climbing the slopes.

Between the villages and the sea there was also a carretera climbing up, up, like a serpent full of moving objects, with tunnels and dangerous curves. It was both exhilarating - and quite often scary - to watch the bravado of cars negotiating the carretera.

Ah, my places with a view … I do miss them all, would love to return to them all, but not yet, not yet. Right now there are still plenty of new places and new adventures awaiting. Or so I hope.

Ah, Savannah!.... or temptations

I have always loved Savannah - who would not? Its historic southern charms, its loveliness, its architectural and cultural wonders, its legendary gardens and its location on the crossroads of Georgia and South Carolina's golden coasts: Hilton Head to the north, The Golden Isles of Georgia to the south. Who could ask for anything more?

Yet, although I have often visited the area and looked for an interesting opportunity there all during this decade, I never found one.



Until now... when, immersed in the tropics and in ongoing and planned projects in both Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic, I was not looking for anything or anywhere else, a very tempting (=challenging in the most interesting way) opportunity to work on the Golden Coast out of Savannah found me.

Uff, what to do, what to do?

Daughter has been looking for a while for a second home in either Hilton Head or St.Mary's, since those places are both colorful, beachy and only a few hours drive - and less than one hour flight - distance from Atlanta, and she would gladly rather share my new digs in Savannah with me - had I decided to accept the tempting offer and relocate there, rather than buying a second home for herself... which, in turn would allow me to buy a second home in the tropics - most likely in the Dominican Republic, since it is far less crowded and far less pricy than Puerto Rico, yet far more cosmopolitan = far more fun.

I still have my (almost) entire library in a storage in Atlanta ( I only brought about 75 pounds of books so far to Puerto Rico), most of my beloved Arctic birch Finnish and Swedish furniture, all my crystals and china (including a humongous Finnish art glass dinner service consisting of about 150 pieces), all my silver, practically all of my paintings, etc. etc. .... in sum: practically all of the trappings of my non-minimalistic lifestyle!

In Puerto Rico and Dominican Republic I have some obligations, that could be taken care of if I just spent a few months a year there, say, during the coldest winter months, and otherwise devoted, on average, no more than 10 -15 hours a week (providing I was disciplined enough not to let myself being suckered into doing more) to them.

I have a (second) car in Puerto Rico and a few possessions: a brand new TV, a very comfy leather recliner, some other furniture, household goods and clothes.

Of course, I would take my cats with me, no matter the logistic difficulties of transporting them in high summer - hot! - month, but, otherwise, I could either dispose of my possessions by selling the car and giving the rest away, or store them in a cabin belonging to a friend, who visits PR only for a few months a year (lol, I have done it a few times before: in Spain, Sweden, Germany... and never returned to retrieve any of them when my plans changed, incuring a loss of no more than a couple of grands outlays each time... a small price for having an adventure).... a lot easier than shipping all of my non-minimalistic lifestyle to the tropics... and yet I think I should stay in the tropic for another year, or at least half a year, and try to postpone the Golden Coast opportunity.... but I am not sure...

I guess I'll explore both options a little more in detail for another week and have a "family" meeting with the "kids" the last weekend in June, when all "family" members will be present in Atlanta.
Any inputs from any of you?

Places with a view: Monteverde, Costa Rica

My rustic cabin in Monteverde, Costa Rica

In Costa Rica, my wooden, VERY RUSTIC cabin (built by a couple of inexperienced Quakers as their first abode there) in Monteverde, on the outskirts of a nature preserve, had two acres of land attached to it
with a fascinating, gone wild tropical garden in front and to the right of the cabin,

a path of candy-cane amaryllises,

and wandering blue irises suddenly and quite unexpectedly appearing behind the curve of a jungle road, framing a path to the front of the cabin;

On the back, the land was raising on both sides,

with a mini banana plantation on one side
and a remnants of a vegetable garden, now taken over by the jungle, on the other. In the middle there was a small patio - and a large concrete contraption on legs and with a roof, a pila, but I did not know then what it was or what it was to be used for. So, with a rain season approaching, I promptly... filled with soil and planted mesclune in it, seeing that it had a roof.

My Costarican housekeeper went speechless for a long while, when she went out with a bunch of rugs under her arm, to wash them in a pila (as they were too big to fit into the cabin's small electric washer)... and then burst laughing explaining to me what a pila is supposed to be used for. So I had to replant the mesclune before her next visit ... or live with dirty rugs.

I learned a lot of things from that young lady. I learned how to cook Costarican, where and how to shop, where and how to hang the laundry in the rainy season ( drapes, for example, are being hanged wet directly back on the window rods, while the rest of the laundry hangs on a long line spanned through the entire length of the cabin, from the front entry to the back exit and the wood stove in the "living room" is fired up to dry the clothes - not a bad idea!), etc, etc. She was a very conscientious and energetic worker. But I digress...

Behind the patio, there was a down slope and a clearing at the back of a cabin, allowing a view of the mountains,
of the rain- and cloud forests at the tops, coffee and dairy fincas on middle part of the slopes, and a glimpse of the Pacific down, down and away between the green, green slopes.

There, besides the view of mountains, the sea, the tropical flora, I could also observe some of the fascinating local fauna: butterflies huge and colorful like flowers, some so iridescent and blue like the ocean away, and the birds: funny-looking, “singing” brown colored bell-birds with their long “mustaches” ( I guess they are the only kind of bird with that type of an unusual “adornment”), and fabulously colorful mot-mots, with their tails swinging like a pendulum of an old fashioned clock, and - on a very rare occasion - even a very rare and very shy resplendent quetzal digesting a wild avocado.

The view of the birds I could enjoy most often at predawn, when howler and capuchin monkeys were feasting on my bananas, on the metal roof of my cabin, making such a racket, that it was impossible to sleep, so I usually got up, muttering some expletives addressed to the monkeys, drank my morning coffee outside or at the window (if it rained), and enjoyed the views and the birds, who liked particularly a stump of a broken of branch just outside my "dining room", to sit on and regurgitate their breakfast of wild avocados.
This little fellow (?) on the other hand decided to digest his breakfast on a stair step...

I was initially afraid that lack of sleep would affect my job performance, until I figured out that electricity and with it computers, Internet etc. usually went down early afternoon for a few hours, so I could take a leisurely stroll through the jungle to my cabin, take a little midday nap, a siesta, and return to the institute to work till the evening, when we anyway often had open lectures or musical performances for both tourists and the locals. I just had to remember to keep my headlamp with me at all time for that pretty scary - imagine all the snakes living there in the brush of impatiens - night stroll back to the cabin. But I digress again…