BENGARLAND!com

Selva Tica was amazing. We got there on a 2-hour tractor ride. The rain forest was unbelievably wet and dense… 8 meters of rain a year. The cloud forest near the Ecolodge doesn’t even compare. We also hiked up the mountain to eat lunch at Rara Avis, which is regarded as the first ecotourism site in the world. Here are the pics.

Pictures for this entry are now on my Flickr in the album Selva Tica, Costa Rica.

We took a class excursion to a local area up in the mountains that is known as “Amapala”. It’s not a real word, but is made up from the words “ama” (he loves) and “pala” (shovel)… because the guy who used to own the land (or something like that) always had his shovel with him. If I caught the back-story right.

There isn’t much exciting to report from Amapala. It was just a nice getaway, although I didn’t learn a whole lot that I haven’t learned before. The people who took care of us while we were there were extremely nice, and the woman was an amazing cook. Their youngest daughter, Melany (5), got a kick out of being with us.

At one point, we played a game of scrabble in which I insisted that “potatoes” and “tomatoes” could also be spelled “tomatos” and “potatos” although they are relatively uncommon spellings. I still haven’t found a dictionary that backs this up… anyone got an Oxford lying around? I don’t know why I think this is correct, because I definitely would never spell them without the “e” myself… but either I have read it somewhere before, or I have converted an old dream into reality somewhere along the line that makes me believe that in some location, or in some part of history, the e-less plural spellings were officially accepted as correct. Anyone?

[edit: apparently the “os” endings are common in Europe? I’m still searching…]

Also, I’m still of the belief that “ok” (lowercase) is an officially recognised spelling of “OK” or “okay”. And thus, can be used in Scrabble. I still haven’t found a source to back this up. Apparently “OK”, “O.K.”, and “okay” are legit words, but “ok” is not, according to my Scrabble companions. If I’m wrong, so are the authors of dozens of books I’ve read. Anyone?

Pictures for this entry are now on my Flickr in the album San Luis Valley, Costa Rica or more specifically with the “amapala” tag.