Wealth

A modern fable, copied from "We Love Costa Rica.com website":

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A vacationing American businessman was standing on the pier of a quaint coastalfishing village on the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. A small boat with just one fisherman pulled into the dock. Inside the small boatwas a large yellowfin tuna and a few other fish. The American complimented the Costa Rican on the quality of his fish.

"How long did it take you to catch them?" the American casually asked.

"Oh, a few hours," the Costa Rican replied.

"Why don't you stay out longer and catch more fish?" the American businessman then asked.

The Tico warmly replied, "With this I have plenty to support my family's needs."

The businessman then became serious, "But what do you do with the rest of your time?"

Responding with a smile, the Costa Rican fisherman answered, "I sleep late, play with my children, watch soccer games, and take siestas with my wife. Sometimes in the evenings I take a stroll into the village to see my friends, play the guitar, sing a few songs..."

The American businessman impatiently interrupted, "Look, I have an MBA from Harvard, and I can help you to be way more profitable. You can start by fishing several hours longer every day. You can then sell the extra fish you catch. With the extra money, you can buy a bigger boat. With the additional income that larger boat will bring, you can then buy a second boat, a third one, and so on, until you have an entire fleet of fishing boats. Then, instead of selling your catch to a middleman you'll be able to sell your fish directly to the processor, or maybe even open your own cannery. Eventually, you could control the product, processing and distribution. You could leave this tiny coastal village and move to San José, or possibly even LA or NewYork City, where you could even further expand your enterprise."

Having never thought of such things, the Costa Rican fisherman asked, "But how long will all this take?"

After a rapid mental calculation, the businessman pronounced, "Probably about15-20 years, maybe less if you work really hard."

"And then what, señor?" asked the fisherman.

"Why, that's the best part!" answered the businessman with a laugh. "When the time is right, you would sell your company stock to the public and become very rich. You would make millions!"

"Millions? Really? What would I do with all that money?" asked the fisherman indisbelief.

The businessman boasted, "Then you could happily retire with all the money you've made. You could move to a quaint coastal fishing village where you could sleep late, play with your grandchildren, watch soccer games, take siestas withyour wife, and stroll to the village in the evenings where you could play the guitarand sing with your friends all you want."

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I think the moral of the story written by goodness-knows-who is: Know what really matters in life, and you may find that it is already much closer than you think.

Grecia - Scott's editorial

We stayed this last week in the coffee-carpeted hills above the town of Grecia ("Greece") on the flanks of the mighty Poas Volcano, in the western central valley. Just over the ridge above us, the volcano is restless - hissing steam and blowing dust and ash several hundred feet in the air. Temperatures on the crater floor have risen to 369C. Above 264C, sulfur which coats the dust and ash, burns. Each morning, before the day's breezes disperse them, we taste the thin acrid smell of heavier-than-air sulfur dioxide, drifting down through the lush forest canopy from the summit - a smell of caged, blind wrath.

Grecia is a thriving and congested agricultural and market town just north of the highway (Interamericana). Due to its picturesque setting, nice climate and proximity to the main airport, this town appears to be a San Jose slick-suburb-in-training and is on the gringo radar screen. Some slickness has rubbed off - we saw our first low-profile tires here, we saw a Mazda Miata (total madness in a country of chin-deep potholes), a Hummer has been sighted (we did not see it personally; perhaps it has been shot since...) - you get the picture (think Upper Mission, Kelowna). Eyesores symptomatic of wealth and status disease, and the sad striving to be North American. Witness the transformative power of TV ads on people's behaviour - a nearly uniform effect to buy and consume goods and services, and to emulate those who buy and consume the most (United States of America). We are striving to avoid this commercial, status-climbing bustle for mental health.

View from our bed and breakfast - Mango Valley.

On a walk we encountered piles of stacked sawn volcanic rock (for geo-types: a lithic ash-fall tuff). These slabs are used for sidewalk pavers in town.

A wasp's nest; tucked into a vertical bank; about 8" across. We did not knock at the door.

Ever on the look out for wonders of natural erosion, we spied these gullies carved in volcanic clayey soil on the sides of a road, due to torrential rain and flashy runoff. Note the sculpted fluted channel - these are the same same pothole erosional shapes carved by steep mountain streams in rock. Nature as artist displays equal elegance in all media.

Note, the cut banks are commonly vertical; no set back; and yes - they do fail.

Agave cactus with flowering stalk over 20 feet high.