Time, tide and technology wait for no primate.

Fresh from a challenging experience getting a new cell phone (see Episode 21), our hero was recently made aware of a new electronic sign put up at the main entrance to Quepos (see picture to the left - taken with the new cell phone).

The top section of the sign displays advertising in full, explosive electronic splendor akin to that found at Yankee stadium and other important locations. The Quepos sign, of course, is on a somewhat smaller scale. When I snapped the picture, the sign was flashing something about Chicken Bros, one of Quepos' better known domesticated bird emporiums. Remember, Quepos and for that matter Costa Rica, would be a barren society without chicken.

Below the advertising section on the sign is a ticker-tape like banner proclaiming "Welcome to Quepos and Manuel Antonio" alternating with "Bienvenidos a Quepos y Manuel Antonio". We're bilingual here, amigos (thank God, but then I suppose I'd learn Spanish faster if we weren't).

Note the bridge next to the right of the sign. This is the final bridge before entering metropolitan downtown Quepos. It's also one of the last one-lane bridges on the road between Quepos and San Jose. Buses, trucks and cars vie for their turn to access this right of way. The bridge has no red/green light system to control traffic, so once one side starts moving, the other must wait until all the traffic from the opposite direction plays out. GG likes the juxtaposition of modern high tech versus the old ways as exemplified by the sign being next to the bridge. This is not the first time our hero has waxed melancholy at the "progress" being made in our infrastructure (see Episode 9).

So now it's official; Saturday, May 8, 2010 saw the inauguration of the first lady president of Costa Rica (eat your heart out Hillary).

La Presidenta took office with the usual fanfare and muchas fiestas about town (don't these diplomats ever get tired of the endless string of cocktail parties, lunches and receptions? - guess not; I'm jealous -wasn't invited).

La Senora said her government would take up the banner of ethics, transparency, the family, personal effort and "moral leadership." In short, the typical politician promising squeaky clean government and something for everyone.

Laura mildly surprised some by issuing, as one of her first decrees, a moratorium on open-pit mining. The key loser at this time is a Canadian company that was working on a project of 200 hectares (in Rio Linda that's 500 acres) near the Nicaraguan border to extract 700,000 ounces of gold (current market is about $1,200 per ounce making the deal worth $840 Million (!). Something tells me this decision will be revisited.

So one more Costa Rican one-lane bridge bites the dust, thanks to Oscar. The particular street where the bridge in question is located is probably the busiest in Quepos.

Of course, since official policy demands anonymity for street names in Quepos, we (I use the term "we" in a Royal fashion here) can call this boulevard anything we wish.

I personally thought it would be logical to call it Airport Road because it is, in fact, an extension of the road coming into town from Quepos International. In Brussels it would be the Ring Road, in Sarasota it would be Tamiami Trail. A friend here suggested we call it "Paseo Colon" de Quepos, in a similar fashion to the busiest street in San Jose. I like that.

So let it be written, so let it be done. Paseo Colon it is.

On Thursday, May 20 at around 4 PM, I was doing what is proper for many pensionados to do in the afternoon, taking a siesta. All of a sudden the bed jumped, the walls shook and the whole building did that well known Jello shimmy. It was the most intense tremor our hero had been subjected to in the one and a half years of residency in Quepos. The most serious shaking lasted about 10 seconds with another 10 seconds needed to fully play out the episode. I must say that some local English language newsletters reported the event lasted 2-3 minutes; not sure where they were but it was nowhere near that long in Quepos and I suspect the damage, which was virtually nonexistent, would have been much more prevalent had it been that long. For more on living on top of the Pacific Rim see Episode 17 and Episode 20.

About an hour after the earthquake, gg was sitting in a room in downtown Quepos exchanging random and mostly unoriginal ideas with a couple of other ROMEOS when we were subject to a downpour. Now, sometimes when it rains in the rainforest, it really rains. This was such a time. The double doors at the head of the room were open and after about 15 minutes we noticed a rather substantial amount of water moving across the floor toward us. The rain had flooded the street outside the building. Before the event was over about half the streets in Quepos were flooded with up to six inches of water. The large drainage ditches that line the streets here (some of them could swallow up a medium sized dog) just could not handle the flow. The town is also below sea level (some say Quepos is the only town in C.R. that is) making drainage even slower.