On the final full day at Rio Chirripo (Thursday, February 21st), Phillip and I visited the hot springs again (read about our first visit). People kind of went off and did their own thing a bit that day, separating into a number of different groups depending on what they’d like to do. Phillip and I wanted a rest day. Although the walk up hill to the hot springs isn’t exactly restful (it’ll get your heart rate up), it helps make the springs more enjoyable when you get there, like you’ve earned your soak.

In the afternoon, at the final afternoon meeting/lecture, Dr. Graham got everyone together, walkers, fasters, and interns. He asked us each to describe a goal we’d like to reach within the next few months. After after each person spoke, he encouraged people who thought they could support that person in that goal to speak up and offer to help them/remind them of the goal they’d made over the next few months. Robbie kept a list of these goals and sent them out later over email (very helpful Robbie, thanks!)

I thought that it was a nice touch. It’ll keep everyone in contact with the new friends made at this event. Even now, weeks after the event, I think of these folks often. Some were staying to fast, I hope it went well for them.

That evening at dinner it was a buffet style “Pasta” night. There were mangoes and tomato/mango soup. The “Pasta” was really spiralized cucumber, along with your choice of tomatoes, marinara sauce, sun-dried tomato and mango dressing, and heart of palm (grated it looks like like Parmesan cheese).

Friday was devoted to the bus ride back to San Jose. In the afternoon we visited the farmers market (Victoire and Phillip are pictured on the right). It was an interesting experience, so many people, so much fruit, 20 bananas for a dollar. We bought way too much fruit to take on the plane, and ended up leaving some of it behind on Saturday with folks staying behind. The plane ride home seemed long, but getting back home to Santa Cruz was nice.

Overall the experience was wonderful, and key to our continuing on the diet since then. Back home, our friend David had bought us a case of bananas, a few days before our arrival. We transitioned directly into having banana smoothies for lunch the next day. They weren’t quite ripe enough though, and the first couple of days were a little rough because we just didn’t enjoy them as much as those we’d had in Costa Rica. Then, as they ripened, we realized, ‘aha!’ they just hadn’t been ripe enough yet. You’ve got to wait until there are numerous little brown spots on them. In addition, it helps if you don’t add too much water, the smoothie stays sweeter.

Breakfast was easy, we returned to juicing oranges every morning. We had missed our oranges while in Costa Rica. Our favorite organic farmer brings fantastic oranges to the farmer’s market at nearby Cabrillo college on Saturday mornings. Mmmm.

Dinner was more of a challenge. But thanks to seeing it done so many times in Costa Rica, we had some new ideas to try, and even some old ideas to try that no longer seemed so radical now that we’d seen it done. Still, we were hard-pressed to make dinner as easy to eat without those great mangoes to rely on. Later we learned that mangos also require some time to soften before you eat them.

I’ve been able to stay on 100% raw food since we returned (for a total stretch of 3 months now, my longest ever). I credit the 2 weeks of immersion in the techniques and lifestyle that I received in Costa Rica. It’s never felt so easy before. True there are some cravings still there that I feel occasionally (pumpkin pie anyone? fried potatoes?), but the longer I go without eating these things, the easier it gets and the less often the cravings come.

Because I ate 100% raw food during the week between Costa Rica and the Napa Valley marathon on March 2nd, I accomplished my goal of being all raw by the event, and experiencing what it’s like to run a marathon powered by fruit. I will write more about the marathon in my next post, until then, let me just say that I made it all the way to the end, and the fruit really helped.

These are before and after pictures, from the beginning of the Walking Tour to the marathon. Three weeks of focused eating, 100% raw food (the The 80/10/10 Diet way), lots of walking, lots of rest, and my body decided to take off another 5 to 7 pounds.

This weight loss occurred despite the fact that I was eating a pretty healthy diet already, and getting in a lot of running leading up to the trip to Costa Rica. My diet was about 85% raw food for 4-5 months, while I trained for the marathon. I couldn’t stay 100% on track with the diet for more than a week at a time until the Walking Tour.

Overall it has taken me two years of trying with raw food to get where I am at now. I’m three months completely on track, and I plan to continue. I haven’t weighed this little since I was 19 years old. I feel fantastic living this way, and can’t wait to see what’s next. Until we speak again, best wishes to you on life’s fantastic journey!

Here’s what I wrote:

I attended the festival in 2006 and loved it! It was a fabulous opportunity meet many new, interesting people. My partner and I were near the beginning of our path to raw food and it gave us quite a boost. We enjoyed listening to talks by a wide variety of folks with different viewpoints. Some great new viewpoints that I didn’t even expect to be exposed to were represented, such as Hiran Ratan, who came to speak about Sun Gazing.

I appreciated the opportunity to hear about things I hadn’t been aware of before, because I strongly feel that each person needs to find their own way in life. Different things work for different people, or even for ourselves, at different times in our lives, and we must be free to experiment. I tried Sun Gazing, for example, and although I ultimately decided not to pursue it (because it didn’t quite feel right for me at the time) I was glad of the chance to hear about it.

I’ve been struggling with raw food for 2 years, and for a long time I couldn’t stay on a 100% raw food diet for more than 4 days in a row. I’d start to feel weak and experience bouts of vertigo and nausea after workouts that made it too difficult to continue. Nevertheless, I’ve continued trying and within the last six months I finally found an approach that works well for me. Now I’m able to stay 100% raw for much longer than 4 days at a time. I’m 7 weeks into it so far right now, my longest stretch ever!

The approach that is working for me is to greatly increase the amount of fruit and greens I’m eating, and reduce the amount of fat. A lot of the raw food recipes I’ve seen rely on avocados, nuts, and seeds to provide calories and substance to the meal. However, dishes that contain large amounts of nuts don’t work well for me, so I ended up avoiding them altogether and just focusing on the salads and avocados. It took me a long time to realize that’s not enough calories with the way I exercise, and as such it was only be a matter of time on each stretch before I’d feel weak and dizzy.

I found a new approach last summer, when I read Dr. Douglas Graham’s book, The 80/10/10 Diet. Here was someone telling me why it’s okay to eat fruit instead of fat on a raw food diet for the calories I need. For me, reading his work was like having a light bulb go off in my head. A big “Aha!” And after trying it for the last 6 months, I can now say it really works better for me than anything I’ve tried so far. I wish I’d been exposed to the idea of eating more fruit back in 2006 at the festival.

I understand that Dr. Graham has yet to be invited to speak at a Raw Spirit Festival. I think it would be a boon to many folks to hear from him. He’s a fine educator, a thoughtful, sincere person, and has been proving the effectiveness of his approach by living it the last couple of decades. The level of health and fitness he has attained is enviable. I had an opportunity to meet him in February, at one of his events, The Walking Tour of Costa Rica, which I attended with my partner and about which I wrote numerous blog entries.

I hope the folks running the Raw Spirit Festival will find it possible to include Dr. Graham at the event this year, so that people can be exposed to the widest possible variety of approaches to the raw food diet. When I think back to the festival in 2006, there wasn’t anyone there that I remember who advocated eating like Dr. Graham does, and this meant a year-long delay before I found these ideas (while surfing the web one day).

When I attended the festival in 2006 and heard such wide ranging views, that included Sun Gazing, I felt confident that I was getting exposed to the state-of-the-art info on diet and health. To remain competitive and relevant, I hope the festival will continue to entertain as many viewpoints as possible, and let the attendees decide for themselves which approach to apply.

I wish I’d been there in 2007, and I hope to attend the festival again some day. To all that are headed out to Arizona this year, I hope you have a great time and enjoy the friendships and experiences you will have!

Best regards,

Van

I hope it helps influence the organizers of the event to invite him to speak. I hear he is willing and ready!

Phillip and Thomas took lots of pictures, and it was a great hike, but alas I didn’t feel like writing much when I returned in the evening, so, moving on to Tuesday…

On Tuesday. the group walked past Herradura, a little town up the road from the hot springs. These walked are getting tougher, we keep going further and higher. The group’s fitness level is improving to accommodate it.

I felt like I needed a rest day from running and/or walking hard, but Dr. Graham challenged Simon and I to run up a “little” hill on the side of the road on the way. Somebody’s driveway, apparently. Well that was some driveway. It took us a good 10 minutes or more to run up that very steep dirt road. Beautiful views though. So much for taking a “rest day”. We then had to run down so we could run up the road to catch up with the rest of the group.

Once we’d run back to the bottom of the hill, however, we stopped to talk to an older local man (or a “Tico”, as the locals call themselves in Costa Rica). I said “Beunos Dias”, which he took to mean I understood Spanish., and proceeded to tell me about his swollen thumb. I got the impression that he had stuck his hand somewhere and a spider or other insect had bitten it. But that’s just my best guess at what he said. The tropics are a bad place to put your hands or feet into places you haven’t looked into first. After a moment, he figured out I wasn’t completely understanding him and instead switched to trying to learn a little English. What a friendly guy!

The rest of the group were waiting for us at a bridge, where they’d probably been doing push ups, knowing them. Indeed they informed me when we arrived that were were behind on the push ups. No rest for the weary!

Celery tastes good with banana smoothie, incidentally, but not with an unripe pluot. This is something I learned when we got back for lunch on Tuesday. Between us, Phillip and I finished off 25 bananas worth of banana smoothie and individual bananas that day. That’s more like it!

Wednesday, February 20th was the last, long, hard walk of the trip. We walked up part of the Mt. Chirripo trail, used recently in the annual race up and back down the mountain that starts in nearby San Gerardo. We made it as high as about 5600 ft. in elevation (hike started at 4000), before we came down a connecting trail we could use to make the whole walk into a loop. We did pull ups at every soccer field we passed, and we stopped at every bridge to do push ups. Doug managed a total of 100 pull ups for the day by the time we were done.

I thought I would take a moment and thank the talented kitchen staff at the retreat, on the right. Pictured: Kevin, Lennie, Danielle, Stephanie, Thomas, and Robby. Victoire and Samara are not pictured, perhaps one of them is the one taking this picture with Thomas’s camera. They were all so helpful and the food so consistently good, it made it easy to eat raw food. Thank you all!

I’ve been asking Doug questions about how much to eat or drink during my upcoming marathon. I want to know to survive it on raw food. He guessed that I probably have about 1800 calories of glycogen store to start with at the beginning of the race. I will use about 2400 calories during the race, and I should try to replace the 600 - 800 calories difference.

He suggested raisin water. Soak a pound of raisins in a quart of water overnight. In the morning you’ll have a pint of water remaining, in addition to some well-hydrated raisins. The water will have absorbed about 3/4 of the sugar from the raisins. Use the water, without the raisins in it, during the race, taking a swallow of it every 1/4 or 1/2 mile.

This is in addition to the meal I will eat two and a half hours before the race. Those calories should be coming online before/during the run as well. If done right, apparently you need never hit the wall during the marathon. The key seems to be to consume simple sugars slowly enough that a lot of energy does not go towards digestion during the race. After the race I get to refuel (and eat those raisins.)

I really should be going 20 miles on a flat road, but it’s totally hilly out here, so there’s no chance of doing that. Instead I figure I need three and a half hour of sustained effort.

I got that this morning: the first two hours were spent walking uphill with my fellow walkers at a brisk pace, then half an hour of running/walking uphill on my own, and an hour running back down the hill. I ran up a road that eventually becomes a footpath where cars could go no further. I passed two interesting shacks which looked like temporary housing when out tending the farm. There was a spot by the river perfect for taking a quick dip in the water (refreshing!)

It felt great, it’s hard to believe all I had for breakfast was cantaloupe and watermelon at 7am, yet I could make it all the way to noon with that effort in between and feel fine. In fact, at certain times, the running felt nearly effortless. I had to slow down when running down at one point, because I was going so fast I placed myself at risk of spraining my ankle. That would be no good! After 3 hours had gone by though, some of the running started to feel like work, as I was getting tired.

I made it back with 15 minutes to spare before lunch, so I drank a lot of water and showered first. My need for food didn’t feel as urgent as I would have predicted, but those bananas at lunch were certainly satisfying once I reached them.

The driver arrived soon after breakfast and 9 people opted to go on the trip. We had a van that you could have squeezed 15 people into (including the driver), so we had a bit of extra room. It was similar to the bus we took from San Jose to the retreat back on February 10th, but narrower, and without a center isle.

Doug spoke with the driver, giving him directions about the trip we wanted to take, and asked the driver to wait for us at the beach, so that we could ride home in the same way. That would be much simpler than finding another taxi. The total cost ended being $120 U.S. Dollars, or 60,000 Colones.

On the way, we stopped at a fruit stand to pick up some lunch. I love grenadias, so I bought a dozen of those and around 16 bananas. They had watermelons there too, but I’d had those for breakfast already.

Phillip picked out some pluots and some small papayas. They also sold chilled coconut water in plastic bags. Phillip and I each had one of these, and drank those in the van, as you could just bite a hole in the corner of the bag and enjoy.

We ate the fruit after we had gotten to the beach and spent some time frolicking in the water. The sand was soft and muddier than we are used to in Santa Cruz. The waves were gentle (due I understand to a sandbar called “The Whale’s Tail” out a bit from the beach). The water was quite warm, and was easy to get into without slowing up at all to get used to it.

There were few rocks or shells to step on, although Thomas did step on one little spiny one, which he later gave to Phillip (who enjoys collecting shells). We enjoyed watching some “slugs with wings” that live at the water’s edge. They go in and out with the little waves and then burrow themselves into the sand to hide. Personally, I thought they were still too exposed and if I’d been a sea gull I could have had a great meal. No sea gulls here though.

I ate all of the grenadias, most of the bananas and half of one of Phillip’s papayas for lunch. That was satisfying, and defintely held me through to dinner, which wouldn’t be for another 6 hours.

We stayed at the beach for about 2 and a half hours overall. It had been hot and muggy, so we were glad once the van got moving, and again when the van got high enough into the mountains to cool off.

At the beach we’d been in the shade most of the time, to avoid being burned. The sun is hot due to Costa Rica being only 500 miles north of the equator. It’ll burn a gringo like me in no time, if I stay out too long. Frolicking the water, playing frisbee, and a short walk to look for shells with Phillip were my moments out of the shade. I was still a pretty pink when we got back. I think I might actually tan from this, it’s not that bad.

Back at the retreat, dinner was buffet style, with whole, cut up foods: romaine lettuce, pineapple, tomatoes, mango cheeks, heart of palm. It was delightful to be able to choose the ingredients that appealed and apply the provided mango and tree tomato dressing.

Tree tomatoes are tangy. You just use the inside, and not the skin too like you would with a regular tomato. These are tasty little guys, and I got to taste one by itself because Robbie was eating a whole bowl of them. He says they taste like candy to him.

Looking forward to another night of 9-10 hours of sleep. Adequate sunshine and rest are certainly two healthy lifestyle components in 80/10/10 that I enjoy practicing here. Tomorrow I’m going to talk about my long run.

Breakfast was all watermelon. I made a particular effort to eat slowly, taking a new piece only when Phillip did. That worked well until he was done, after which I had no crutch, and had to pay attention to my own eating speed. It seems if I eat the melon slowly enough and chew it well enough, I don’t get “melon belly”, that uncomfortable feeling of being overfull. Fortunately melon belly seems to pass in about 15 minutes.

The walk today was to the Blue Mountain waterfall. A long walk up past the village of Los Angeles. It was a pleasant swim there, the water was cold again, like yesterday’s swim at the “Ol’ Swimming Hole”, but very refreshing after such a long hike. It seemed to take ages to get back, and so bananas at lunch were highly welcomed.

When you “earn your fruit” by doing a lot of exercise, such as walking, it makes it that much more satisfying to eat meals. Certainly it makes it easier to enjoy plain foods. I noticed myself eating a lot of greens today, after previously wondering whether I even wanted them at lunch or not.

At Karen’s request (thanks for your comment, two posts ago), I’ve included a pictures of Dr. Graham playing ping pong with Stephanie (Faychesca is watching), and one of his wife Roz, with their daughter Faychesca at the table. Ironically, Stephanie is in both pictures (nice work Stef!) Faychesca is 3 years old and when she talks she’s absolutely adorable.

At dinner time, the papaya orange juice smoothie combination didn’t do much for me, but the soup was excellent. It was tomato, celery, and mango, garnished with a few half slices of tomato and small stalks of celery. Phillip found it particularly satisfying, because he’s been craving salty things rather than so much sweet fruit, and has been finding sweet fruit a little difficult to eat in large quantities.

The third course was spiralized cucumber, covered in a delicious sauce made from sun-dried tomatoes and red pepper. Time had been taken to creatively decorate it with slices of cucumber.

We discussed at the table for a while whether such a thing should be called “pasta”, since although that is what it reminds you of, it certainly isn’t going to weigh you down like a big pasta meal.

The only disadvantage to a delicious meal of tomatoes and celery, is that although these vegetables have a lot of minerals and vitamins, they are low on calories. Thus I find myself not getting enough calories from the meals. It helped a lot to add some mangos (I think I ate 4 of them), and at the end of the meal I felt satisfied.

After dinner a couple of folks decided to watch the movie “Chariots of Fire” in the common area, but Phillip and I opted to return to our room, read a while, and get to sleep early (8:30pm) in preparation for a full day tomorrow. We have a trip to the beach planned.

The walk today took us up the mountain past the Talamanca Retreat
center, where we swam briefly in the “Ol’ Swimming Hole”. That was
some considerably colder river water than we get a little further down
the river here at the Rio Chirripo Retreat. The last bit of trail to
the river was the most jungle-like walking we’ve done so far.

Lunch bananas were well-earned, and there was papaya as well. This
seemed to mix okay with the nectarines and grenadias (that we bought
back in San Isidro on the bus ride up to the retreat). I ate them all
together. I have given up the idea of storing snacks (like these
nectarines and grenadias), because the meals are so nourishing. I
don’t feel like I need snacks anymore. And certainly I don’t need the
energy diversion that more periods of digestion during the day would
bring. I’m quite comfortable with three solid meals a day eaten this
way.

So anyway, that fruit would have eventually gone bad if I hadn’t
incorporated it into one of our meals. They are quite flexible here
about what you can eat, as folks needs to be somewhat individual. I’m
confident that if I felt like I needed or desired some fruit or green
combination in particular at mealtime, they would try to accommodate
me. There are a number of people here who have particular food
sensitivities or requirements (like an allergy to pineapple, for
example) that they are happy to work around.

Afternoon talk with Dr. Graham was a fruit quiz game where we learned
about many more of the varieties of fruit found here in Costa Rica.
There are amazing number of different kinds of fruit in the world,
many of which we don’t see in the United States, because they have to
be picked ripe and are then too soft or fragile to. Or perhaps in
some cases it is because the demand for these unusual just fruits
isn’t there.

Dinner was special. They arranged tables for couples for Valentines
Day. What was served for dinner? Orange juice, tomato and pineapple
soup, and the final course, sun-dried, whole, red peppers stuffed with
mango, cucumber, and tomato chunks on a bed of lettuce with a
red-pepper, tomato and orange juice dressing poured over top.

Phillip and I and the other three couples on the walking tour enjoyed
special tables set up for us in the dining area, with candles and
special decor. They put in special effort to make it romantic for us.
Phillip and I agreed is was our best Valentine’s Day dinner together.

Breakfast was lots of watermelon. I didn’t try to mix it with
cantaloupe today (and they didn’t serve cantaloupe anyway), so I felt a
lot better. That was, until I ate too much watermelon too fast. That
made me feel pretty overfull for about 15 minutes until the feeling
passed. It’s so simple to eat just watermelon for breakfast,
if you eat slow and enjoy the company of the people around you
(i.e. don’t eat it fast like I did.)

We walked up to the hot springs today. A beautiful, but steep walk.
We were ready for a break by the time we arrived, and getting in the
water felt great. There is no sulfur smell to the water here like
other hot springs I’ve seen. Two rustically finished off pools,
provided a couple temperatures to choose from. Time passed
surprisingly quickly. We got back a little late for lunch, and we
were hungry.

Lunch: banana smoothies, as well as solid bananas, and “me-mei”, a
fruit that tastes a lot like sweet potatoes (or perhaps pumpkin pie
filling). Naturally there was lettuce as well, but I’m found today I
felt like waiting for dinner for a salad.

This afternoon I had a chance to ask Dr. Graham questions about
bananas, receiving tips on how many to buy and how to stage them. He
and his wife go through a case of 100 bananas (about 40 pounds), in
about 3 days. At any particular time they might have two to four
cases in the house in various stages of ripeness.

They use different parts of the house to ripen them, at speeds
necessary to insure a constant stream of ripe bananas. That many
bananas is a 6 to 12 day supply, which they will allow to dwindle in
numbers whenever they’re about to leave on a trip, and they need to
let the number drop to zero by the time they leave.

When the bananas get ahead of them, and too many are ripe at once,
they have an extra banana meal (it’s usually bananas for lunch, so
this means dinner too). Or, perhaps they invite someone over for a
workout and have banana smoothies together afterwards.

When they get ahead of the bananas, and have a shortage, they instead
may have whatever other fruits are in season. In fact, when
persimmons are in season, Doug said he might not even be eating
bananas at all, instead concentrating on persimmons.

Tonight’s dinner started with tomato/orange juice and mangos. Then
there was a big platter of cut vegetables and fruit (pineapple, mango,
papaya, cucumber, and chayote) for dipping in a personal bowl of
sun-dried tomato and red pepper sauce. Skewer sticks were provided,
and it was sort of like fondue, but all ingredients were raw and
remained uncooked. Tasty and light.

Sleeping 8pm to 6am felt pretty good. Everybody goes to bed early
here, because once it gets dark, it gets really dark, and there’s not
much to do on an evening like last night where the power was out.
Outages seem to happen for a few hours every few every day here.

The power came back on sometime between 2 am and 6am this morning. I
enjoyed being the first back into the main common room this morning,
but it was a bit cold. Stephanie came in and asked about the power,
and when I told her it was back on already she was surprised. She
said she had assumed it was still out, and didn’t even try it in her
room. Instead she got ready in the dark, and she chuckled at that.

This morning I can get back on the internet again. It was kind of
nice being forced off of it for a while when the connection wasn’t
working due to the power outage. It kept me feeling relaxed and calm.
Now when I go back on, I’m not planning to look at the yahoo news page
like I usually do. I don’t want to see the news in the outside world
right now, but I would like to see my email.

Breakfast was watermelon juice, watermelon, and cantaloupe. I think I
should have skipped the cantaloupe and not tried mixing it with
watermelon. I was feeling totally great until I did that. The
watermelon juice was delicious. They simply cut and blend the
watermelon, and run the juice through a strainer to remove the seeds.
Tasty. I can’t wait to make it at home.

Our walk was a longer one, and I think it was hotter and sunnier
today. We did the same loop as Monday, but added an extra loop
around the village of Los Angeles. That was quite a bit of extra
climb, but we saw a small soccer field, some extra river tributaries
(some of us decided to do push ups at each bridge, so I remember all
the bridges), and many more cute houses. This seems an idyllic place
to live.

There were a couple of cute, little dogs along the way, which of
course Phillip loves. I have to admit they were cute, and the dogs
around here don’t seem to bark much. Maybe they are really happy.

Lunch was banana smoothies, bananas, and lettuce again. Phillip is
really appreciating the banana smoothies at lunch time. It’s like two
bananas in a glass. Pretty easy to eat them that way. Oh, and there
was papaya too, which I really enjoyed. I love papaya, and it
mixes okay with bananas for me. Dr. Graham’s mother, Bea, sat across
from me and she asked if they would make some papaya smoothie for her.
I tasted some of that and liked it as much as the plain papayas. She
thought it didn’t have as much taste that way though.

Our lecture period after lunch with Dr. Graham was a good one. He
started it with a question and answer period, so he could learn about
us (due to the questions we asked.) And he read three more chapters
of the story he’s been writing, which is about walking in Costa Rica.
The story is a nice way to learn more about the local plant and animal
life, because he has filled the story with descriptions and
information.

Before the lecture, a most delightful thing happened - it began to
rain. It hasn’t rained since we arrived, and I was so excited I went
out to stand in the rain with my shirt off, letting the cool drops of
water land on my burnt shoulders. A delightful, cooling sensation.
Thomas came out there to stand in the rain with me and not long
thereafter Phillip walked up from the room. Steph got a picture of
the three of us in the rain.

At dinner they had rearranged the tables again. I asked about that.
They had noticed in the past that if they left the tables the same all
the time that people would tend to sit in the same place and interact
with the same people at every meal. This way gets everybody talking to
everybody else better.

At the other table I noticed that Robbie was asking Dr. Graham a lot
of questions. He is a very intelligent and passionate 19 year old,
who’s been on the raw food diet for over a year now to reduce his
dependence on insulin (Type I Diabetes). I understand he’s had a lot
of success so far. He eats A LOT of lettuce at dinner, a huge
bowlful, in addition to the mangos he’s eating.

Orange juice and mango smoothie. Much more orange juice this time.
Great for those of us who are missing our oranges. But our oranges
back at home are actually better. First time that had happened.

The rest of dinner was based around tomatoes and mangos and started
with a delicious soup. Tomato and mango blended together with little
chunks of mango in it. Phillip and I both loved it. The third course
was a cabbage and mango slaw on top of tomato halves in a bed of
lettuce. Nice combination and the cabbage made for a different taste
than the other parts of the meal.

After dinner folks watch a movie, The Peaceful Warrior. We’ve seen it
before, so I only watched a little. Instead I figured out how to use
a phone card and called my mother (it was her birthday, Happy
Birthday Mom!)

10 hours of sleep felt really good, and I think I’m pretty close to being adjusted to the time changes and the travel. Breakfast isn’t until 8 am and I am decidedly hungry already. At home I would normally have eaten something already. But here, I am going by scheduled eating times. So far that’s made me more hungry at mealtimes than I am at home, where I tend to satisfy the urge as soon as it appears. I like the way waiting makes the food taste, and now I want to eat just three times a day when we get home.

Ah, breakfast felt great. Cantaloupe and watermelon. Hanging around in the kitchen beforehand, I learned a new way to cut these fruits. You can cut them like I was already cutting kiwi fruit. Cut the ends off, place them on an end and cut the peeling off in strips down the sides. The watermelon is easier to do this with if you also cut it in half first (in a plane parallel to the cuts you made on the end.) Watermelon is an excellent thing to eat before going on a hike (think of this comment as foreshadowing…)

After breakfast, Thomas, one of the interns, asked me if I’d like to get a “before” picture taken, to compare with another one at the end. It should be interesting to see the difference. I expect to lose some weight, particularly water weight, from water my body might still be hoarding to dilute the toxins in me (perhaps from things like that rice and bean burrito we had Friday night