I just got back from a long week in Costa Rica, mostly involved with moving the rest of our stuff from there to here in Panamá. It was a long week because it involved a lot of lifting and transporting boxes, from the beach at Tambór to San José. In the end, there were 78 boxes which weighed 934 kilos. In case anyone is interested, it cost USD 680 to ship that amount of stuff from San José to Panamá via DHL. It will be here in a few days. It was in fact a lot cheaper to do it that way than with a moving company in a truck.

The most disturbing thing about the trip was talking to people from the US on the ferry. I had to take the ferry a total of eight times during one week, and each time I met Americans who were visiting Costa Rica. Now, this is nothing new; I have met lots of Americans, Canadians, and Europeans from various countries on this same ferry, as the Nicoya peninsula is a popular destination for tourists. The difference this time was why these Americans were visiting Costa Rica. Without exception, they were looking for a place to live outside the US. Also without exception, after an initial bit of hesitation about the subjects, they wanted to talk. I got to hear various visions of the coming US apocalypse including economic crashes, housing price collapse, social and political chaos, continued employment difficulties, dirty bombs in densely populated urban areas, and various other less-than-comforting subjects.

Coincidentally, when I got back to San José for the last time I happened to find a reference to this book, Life: The Movie, in an article in Intervention Mag. To connect the dots, I didn't get the idea that anything was very urgent in any of these individuals plans, and I also got the idea that any of these various visions had been fed by the the media rather than by anyone's individual logic or conviction.

Talking about this later with a friend at the airport, I got to listen to a real story from the US. This was about an older couple (in their 60s) from Latin America who landed their jet at a US airport. They were subjected to full searches, including rectal and vaginal cavity probes, had all their belongings confiscated including their Learjet, and they were never told exactly why they were subjected to all these procedures. Needless to say, they won't be coming back to the US during this lifetime.