COSTA RICA - THE STORY BEGINS

Well Hi There. It's been a while. Little did I know that schlepping recording equipment and a computer into the remote jungles of the Osa Peninsula is an exercise in, well, schlepping. Without internet access until today (bless me, father, it's been nine days since my last blog entry), all that excess weight has just been more baggage.

I say more because the moment I walked into my little cabin with its front porch hammock in Drake Bay, Costa Rica, the unpacking began. Call it the inevitable airing of my hopelessly wrinkled self, she who is now one week and three days out of a most beloved job.

But who's counting.

Those first few days surrounded by the constant press of cicadas were other-worldly. I stumbled around as in a stupor and slept floating in sound, too tired to feel the claustrophobia (make that madness) that so many cicada-crazed residents feel. My best times were in the water, kayaking on placid seas and snorkeling among crayon-colored fish, and just cruising beneath a canopy on a small motor boat traveling the coast with a sweet, young captain picking up and delivering tourists.

I remember swimming in the Pacific at one point with an endless view of the dramatically verdant coast and thinking finally, finally, I had found "enough space". The feeling lasted for several hours; since then, it comes and goes with enough regularity that any small panic or worry over who I am, what I'm doing here and where I'm headed dissipates pretty quickly.

Yes, I have pictures,stories and sound! But that all takes time to produce and as much as I crave your company (and I do), I still find I'd rather spend it exploring than reporting.

At least today.

But tonight I may very well try my hand uploading and editing the first promised audio postcard: a dawn chorus of howler monkeys with live play-by-play by a woman who's in search of someone who is but who isn't NPR's Ketzel Levine.

Check back soon...