Monkeys are walking around in the trees outside our hotel room, making yelping noises. Pretty strange to see wild monkeys who are close enough to see you and be aware of your presence and also not care that you're watching them. The hammock on the porch of our hotel cabin has a pretty good view of them.
Then at breakfast there's another monkey (the one with the white face) about 20 feet away watching us eat. Kinda crazy - the brochures talk about the wild monkeys but I'm a sceptical person and at first assume it's hype to promote the area as tropical. Nope. There really are monkeys at the restaurants and hotels.
We relaxed after getting into Montezuma, talking on the porch - reading and walking around town to check things out. And by "Town" in Montezuma I mean about 20 stores and restaurants. We ate dinner at a kitchy ex-pat place that plays movies in English on a projector screen - brilliant fruit shakes. We're drinking a fruit shake with every meal, this is the way it works for Costa Ricans.
"Pura Vida" is this concept in Costa Rica - pure life. They greet each other by saying this. It's kinda like saying "ah, this is the good life." It also has some part of a pure - natural way of things.
So after spilling out of dinner we walked to the center of town and there was an impromptu rave that broke out in the street. Surreal, especially because of the ex-pat and hippy (think people with dreadlocks who couln't fight their way out of a hemp seed oil lined paper bag) influence. I think it was some beverage company promoting their drink - but whatever it was kinda cool. Old surfers and children and tourists and just a random group of probably 150 people all dancing to Bob Marley and some house music in the street having a good time.
Anyways, canopy tour and zip lines later today to waterfalls we can jump off.
I got this scooter from China, over the Internet. It's histerical. It came in a crate - well really a cardboard box - and I assembled it. Not very well mind you, because 100 km into the odometer (yeah, I don't think they realize we're tracking things in mph here in the US) the kludgy wiring of the electrical system started coming loose and it wouldn't run if I turned the handlebars left to right. Maybe I should blame the cheap-o wiring harness that came on it, or maybe I should blame my attempts to wheelie the scooter *much* to the delight of any nearby cars... both for the twisted looks I
wear on my face while trying to wheelie and for the overall rediculousness of watching a scooter wheelie. Yeah, the wheelies might have impacted the overall wire-attached-ness level. When it came in the box the engine was entirely ready to run. Oil included, just add gas. Except when I went to add gas to the tank the first time I heard something rattling around in the gas tank. I thought, "No, that can't possibly be something loose inside my gas tank, can it?" Sure enough, with a magnet I fished a screw out of the gas tank. I guess that somehow eclipsed the quality control process before leaving the factory in China. But all in all I have to admit that this is an 
astonishing amount of machinery and engineering and manufacturing and shipping to get this hunk-of-junk to my doorstep in California for $1000. And it's fun to ride. I'm probably going to put on my track gear and take this scooter to an empty parking lot soon and see if I can hang off it enough to drag knee, or if I can ghost ride it for a little before falling off and hopefully not breaking anything. It makes me laugh because I feel like a superlative cartoon character on it Like a power ranger or something. Hahahahahaha.
So at the track in December I did in fact punch a three by four inch hold in my engine case by jamming a rod through it. Which is pretty startling on a 2007 japaneese bike. It's amazing how pissed the track day organizers get when you dump oil all over their track. 
I caught a bus back to the airport and met up with Ethan and his brother Cleary, we were picked up by a couple Ethan knows - family friends. This couple Margarita and Ralph run an Eco Tour business in Costa Rica - they import 1000 students a year for Eco Tourism projects like trolling the beaches looking for turtles laying eggs (to prevent egg poaching - the eggs are sold in bars as afrodesiacs!). We stayed with Ralph and Margarita in a small town 30 minutes outside San Jose called Atenas (picture of Ethan in their pool). They took us into their home and fed us - amazing hospitality. They are growing their own coffee (picture here of coffee beans and coffee plant), growing fruit trees, buying up all the land around them on the mountainside - looking to build a sustainable life as much as possible. They have cows on a farm nearby, are planting fruit trees, and trade with other neighbors for chicken, eggs and dairy. They are starting to make cheese and wine, and within a few years hope to entirely self sustain - perhaps using barter with neighbors for healthcare (a doctor is moving near soon) and other goods and services.
