Shedding layers

We have been gone over two weeks and I´m just now beginning to feel like the US is just another country, somewhere else and not how-IT-is. Certainly, since we left, I have felt "out" of the country but that´s a different thing. The US was still the center I was relating to. It finally occurred to me this evening when we were eating falafel tortas in a tiny, vegeterian restaurant here in San Cristobol that I have relocated myself outside that circle. It´s a great relief. Even the madness generating from Bush and his good old boy network has retreated into the background. I know it´s going on and that it does effect the whole world in a very negative way but for now I´m actually away from it.

I took hundreds of photos at the wild life refuge today and will try to post a few soon. It was very cool there. In a way it´s my version of church but it was also very sad. No matter how nice, life in a cage is a torture plus so many of the species represented are near extinction because of the ongoing human encrochment. I don´t know how that can be relieved in any meaningful way.

As for us, we´ve found the cheapest lodging yet, $8 a night at a campground about a mile out of town. It was a hidden paradise this afternoon. We´ll see how it goes tonight. Barking dogs and blaring music from the neighborhood may drive us out but íf not, we tucked in for a few days. We shall see.