LKL’s Blog

Celebrate Arbor Day by joining the Arbor Day Foundation. For $10, you get to help fight deforestation as well as 10 trees to plant anywhere you like.

Happy Earth Day! I usually miss this day, only hearing about it after the fact, but this year I’m paying attention. In celebration of this day of environmental awareness, I thought I’d share a cool little gift idea - for a friend or even for yourself: Starter Kit for Change. This biodegradable box includes a handmade shopping bag, so that you can stop deciding betwen paper and plastic and go for reusable instead; a seedling to plant; an energy-efficient lightbulb; fair-trade cocoa; a journal made from treeless paper; and more treats to help you get started (or continue) on the path to environmental awareness. It’s $40, a portion of which gets donated to the international charity Action Against Hunger.

On 5 and 6 April 2008, the southern French city of Hyères hosted its annual flower festival with an open day event at SICA (Société d’intérêt collectif agricole) / Marché aux fleurs d’Hyères. 500 growers produce over 180 million flowers a year, making it the largest flower market in France and the fourth largest in Europe. With information booths, wine and flower tasting, and a flower parade, it was a fascinating look at this colorful aspect of the Hyérois community.
Photo Gallery: Hyères Flower Festival

I guess this is old news, but somehow it completely passed me by. 40% of the world’s oceans is covered in garbage - primarily plastic - concentrated in 5 enormous gyres, or vortexes. I can’t even wrap my head around the staggering amount of garbage this represents. There’s a stretch of land between Casablanca and Rabat, Morocco, that is just covered in plastic bags as far as the eye can see. It’s the place where Plastic Bags Go To Die, or so I thought. Apparently, it’s just a stopover on their way to join their brethren in the oceans.

Plastic bags are absolutely everywhere. In both Morocco and Costa Rica, they’re stacked high in shops, and it’s not uncommon to walk out of a store with $10 worth of groceries in 3 or 4 bags. Even though we bring bags with us, the baggers always seem to be trying to give us more bags, as if to make us feel we got our money’s worth. In the US, the “paper or plastic?” debate was never really resolved. Even our local natural foods store offerred both - though at least they were usually reused.

I don’t know. It’s not as if I have some amazing insights to share on this subject, but I just couldn’t bear to ignore it. Here’s more info, if you’re interested.

The Plastic Sea
Our Oceans Are Turning Into Plastic… Are We?
North Pacific Subtropical Gyre Garbage Map

Some of the most visible - and audible - wildlife here in Costa Rica are the howler monkeys. They travel through the trees, and their “howl” is far deeper and louder than their appearance suggests - sort of a cross between a growl and a moan. They tend to howl when they feel threatened or are unhappy, and one of the things that seems to make them unhappy is rain, which means they howl a lot. When several howl in unison, the sound can be pretty creepy - like something out of a horror movie. (more…)

Now that I live in Costa Rica, bugs are not just annoying, but downright disruptive. There are a few mosquitoes, but it’s the no-see-ums that are really bad. Since I don’t like chemicals, I’ve been trying out some natural remedies, and there are a few that work: Natural remedies for bug bites

We spent our last three days in El Paso, visiting different friends. With one of them, we drove just south of the border into Juárez, Mexico, where we saw a fantastic dinner show at Viva Mexico.* There was dancing, there was singing, there was amazing trick roping, and there was some very funny audience participation. We had a blast - it was definitely one of the highlights of our entire trip.

We also drove back into New Mexico to visit Carlsbad Caverns, which was astonishing. Most of our pictures didn’t come out, and the ones that did don’t begin to do it justice - you really have to see it for yourself.

*Restaurant Cantina Viva Mexico
Pueblito Mexicano, avenida Lincoln y Zempoala
Auza María Elena E.
C.P. 32310, Ciudad Juárez
Chihuahua, Mexico
Tel: (656) 629-0156

Taos was a very long drive, made longer by the snowy mountains we drove through, but the sky was clear and sunny (albeit cold) the next day. We stayed at American Artists Gallery House for two nights, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Our room was charming, breakfast was delicious, and the resident peacock flirted with us throughout our game of Scrabble on the patio.

We walked around the plaza, discovered a great little gallery/bookstore/cafe called Sustaining Cultures, and visited Taos Pueblo, despite the rather hefty entrance fee (including a surcharge for our camera).

The next morning, it took us a long time to drive up to Arches National Park, due to sleet and road construction, but then it cleared up for a couple of hours. We hiked to one arch, but on our way to another, it started raining and got very cold, so we headed back.

Our next stop was Kelly Place, a bed + breakfast and retreat center near Cortez, Colorado, where we enjoyed chatting with a hiking club from California. The next morning the weather wasn’t very nice, so we drove many miles out of our way to Four Corners to experience being in four different states at once, then drove back to Mesa Verde and got a great look at Cliff Palace.

In looking over our itinerary, we realized that we had just enough unallocated time to zip over to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon before heading east, so that’s what we did. We didn’t have time to hike down into it, but we did stop at several viewpoints, including a lookout tower. Then we drove through the Hopi Indian reservation, which was one of the things I had really wanted to see. I read part of The Book of the Hopi in college, and so when I realized during the planning stages that we’d be in that area, I insisted that we drive through it.

At Canyon de Chelly, we drove along the South Rim and hiked down to the White House Ruin, where we chatted with several Indians selling jewelry (and bought a necklace). That night we stayed at the only lodging within the monument, Thunderbird Lodge.