The Brown Knowser

My parents never took me to Florida. As a kid, I think that would have been a great vacation but today, you couldn't pay me to go. And though I've been to that messed-up state a couple of times as an adult, my parents have never gone. I have such distain for Florida, these days, that I almost passed on this quirky-labelled can when I saw it on the shelf of my friendly neighbourhood LCBO. But my eyes also fell to the large-printed OJIPA and I had to look closer. Was this an orange-juice-infused IPA? The ingredients list says different: barley, wheat, and oats. But surely, there must be more to the contents? I mean, what about water, to start? Elsewhere on the label, I learned that this strong beer is also brewed with Comet and Eclipse hops, and is a "fresh squeezed delight." Did they simply not list all of the ingredients? I also learned that this ale is made by a brewery that I like, so I grabbed two cans and made my way to the cashier. At home, I'd determine if o...

I'm starting to believe that, yeah, caffeine is addictive. Almost a year ago, I swore off my favourite hot beverage because I felt that the ill after-effects of drinking it weren't worth it. I had developed a racing heart rate and started feeling exhausted after as little as two cups. So I went for many months in 2023 without touching coffee. DW, who is equally addicted to the stuff, continued to drink it at home and whenever we went for brunch, while I moved onto tea, something I used to drink at home, as a youngster, before I discovered the wonders of the roasted bean (I was about 13 when I had my first cup at a greasy spoon, just down the road from my high school). Last September, when DW and I were visiting Toronto , we ducked into a coffee shop in Cabbagetown, delightfully called Jet Fuel . The aromas were intoxicating so I caved, ordering an espresso. I hoped that the small cup, which is generally lower in caffeine because of the preparation process, would have little ef...

In just over a week, I'll be starting my final year of being in my 50s. Yet, these days, I feel much older. It's hard to believe that less than two years ago, DW and I were walking all over Portugal , climbing the stairs and steep streets of Porto and Lisbon , and hiking over a small mountain in the Douro Valley . We'd be tired at the end of the day but felt ready to do it all over again the next day. In 2021, I was in better shape. In 2022, I was on my spin bike almost every day and when I wasn't riding it, I'd be on my road bike, covering even more kilometres. So, yeah, I was pretty fit and feeling good. On our most recent trip, I was winded just climbing a single set of stairs. Hiking through cloud forests and through jungles, I was constantly out of breath, required many breaks, and was out of energy by lunchtime. Thankfully, we often had days in between our mountain treks, where we'd either be driving to our next destination—in which case, I was sittin...

There are lots of things that I will hold in my memories of Costa Rica: the landscapes, the people, the food, and the fact that you can't flush toilet paper. But one of the things that really comes to mind are the gorgeous sunsets that we witnessed. There are only a couple of times when DW and I didn't actually witness a sunset: our first two evenings, in La Fortuna, when the clouds covered Arenal Volcano and blocked out most of the sky; and our first night in Monteverde, when we were in the woods, participating, in a night tour. Every other evening in the full two weeks that we travelled the country, we saw a Costa Rican sunset. And they were spectacular, even when we were witnessing one from the pool area of our San José hotel. But when I think of Costa Rican sunset, only four places feature prominently in my mind: Monteverde, on our second evening, when the clouds were moving over the mountains but were light enough to let the sun penetrate them; Playa Santa Teresa, on our f...

Typically, when I find myself in the Caribbean (and by that, I mean the only other two Latin-American countries I've been to: Mexico and Cuba), I don't reach for beer. I'm usually at a resort and tend to opt for easy-to-drink cocktails, like a margarita or a Cuba libre (rum and coke), with the occasional piña colada thrown in. Cuba is where I discovered the mulata and made it my own when I returned home. But in Costa Rica, signs for its national beer, Imperial, were everywhere. And in the videos that I watched while researching my trip, people tended to go for this cerveza . Naturally, I'd have to try it. On our first full day in Costa Rica, we drove from San José to La Fortuna. It was a nearly three-hour trek that had us climbing up mountains and literally into clouds before we descended again and ended up in this popular volcanic town. Our first goal was to find a place to eat, and we quickly found Pollos La Familia, not far from the centre of the town. I ordered a p...

For those of you who know me not only for my blog but also for my presence on social media, you may have noticed that I've been a bit absent of late. Or maybe you haven't noticed at all. I've been reducing the amount of time that I spend on Mastodon and on Threads , and I've even given a rest to posting images on Instagram (mostly, because I feel that I've shared enough photos of Costa Rica and I haven't used my cameras since my return). I feel sort of burned out from the stream of information that comes not only from people I follow but mostly from the stream of people I don't follow, who simply show up in my timelines. In Mastodon, I've placed filters on subjects that I don't want to hear about: Elon Musk; Donald Trump, and Vladimir Putin, to name a few people that occupy too much space in my feeds. I also feel that I want to filter out Taylor Swift. Don't get me wrong: I don't equate Swift with the vermin that the other three people are....

DW and I had budgeted so that we'd be eating out most of the time that we were in Costa Rica. Some of our lodgings included breakfast, while others did not. But we were able to check out typical restaurants and small dining spots, called sodas, online before we left, and so we had an idea about how much each meal would cost. Our first lodging, just a short distance from the San José airport, included a light breakfast of warm croissants, fresh fruit, and a carafe of coffee. It was the perfect start to our first full day in the country and set us up for our trek to La Fortuna. Wherever possible, DW and I chose sodas for our meals, which were typically the least expensive of restaurants, charging between 4,000 and 5,000 colones ($10.50 to $14 CAD) per dish. We also preferred typical Costa Rican dishes, which gave us an authentic taste of the country and also tended to be less expensive than going with more North American-styled dishes, like burgers and pizza (though, I did have a f...

DW has said that birders would laugh at us while non-birders would simply laugh at us. Whenever we've gone for hikes, one or both of us would bring a camera. When we've seen birds, at Mud Lake or in the Gatineau Hills, we'd naturally capture them, or attempt to capture them, through our lenses. When we got into kayaking, we'd often see or hear birds that we don't normally see on trails. DW, with her Canon camera and zoon lens, would listen for these birds and try to photograph them, if possible. She's captured some amazing shots . Last year, we both downloaded a birding app, Merlin , so that we could identify the sounds we heard while hiking or kayaking. Merlin has been pretty accurate and has helped us identify so many birds. But still, we don't consider ourselves to be birders. When we left for Costa Rica, last month, we knew that this mountainous country was full of diverse wildlife, including myriad birds. We were excited to think that we'd see and h...

I'm not a fan of San Jose. When DW and I first arrived in Costa Rica, we landed in darkness. The only thing I could discern from the port side of our craft, from the window seat, was that we were landing on high ground, with some small valleys and more hills surrounding the Juan Santamaría International Airport. We were met outside the arrivals area by the owner of our hotel, who drove us through darkened streets. Once in our room, looking off the balcony, we could see only darkness, as there was only jungle before us. It was only after looking at Google Maps, to find our location, that I knew which direction we had headed from the airport. Basically, it was north, just northwest of the town of Alajuela, which itself is to the northwest of the greater San Jose area. Leaving Alajuela, we got onto a highway and headed north, and then west, to La Fortuna. On the route, we saw no urban buildup and, as soon as we reached the mountains, we were immersed in jungle. Our first taste of...

As some of you may know, I love coffee but it does not love me. A year ago, I had to give up my favourite hot beverage because it does terrible things to me; number one, being that it raises my heart rate to workout levels, even when I'm sitting down and relaxing. It sometimes gives me headaches and generally leaves me feeling jittery and without energy. Not good. When DW and I planned our trip to Costa Rica, we had coffee on our agenda. After all, it's one of the best producers of coffee. I knew that I wouldn't be able to drink coffee the way I had, in the past, but I was hoping that I'd get to enjoy a cup or two during our travels. I'd limit myself to a small cup in one sitting, making sure to add milk and sugar, which seemed to lessen the effects of my caffeine reaction. DW, on the other hand, was able to enjoy coffee every day. I had my very first cup in Monteverde, at our hotel, I started each morning with a single, small cup of coffee. The coffee was ex...

We left the Dominicalito region, on the Pacific, and headed back inland, up in the mountains, driving over one of the highest points in the country, making a rest stop where a sign told us that we were 3,100 metres above sea level. We stopped for lunch in a village, San Gerardo de Dota, at the bottom of a valley, where the road to get to it was so narrow, so winding, and so steep that I didn't think our RAV4 would be able to get back out, but where we had one of the most enchanting lunches of our vacation. Our ultimate destination was Copey de Dota, inside the Quetzal National Park. We booked cabins at a lodge that was popular for birders, not that we're birders. But we like to photograph birds and Costa Rica is a bird-watching paradise. And if you want to try to capture a glimpse of Costa Rica's rare, sacred bird of the Aztecs and Mayans, going to a national park named after them seemed like the place to go. After we settled into our cabins—our friends Katheleen and Jim...

They thought I was crazy. Already, at 6:30, the temperature was in the mid 20s and it was only going to get hotter as the morning continued. By noon, it would be in the 30s. But I was determined. In my backpack, I had a tripod, a 360-degree camera on a three-metre selfie stick, a D-SLR with a 24-70mm lens, spare batteries, an ND filter, and a water bottle. It seemed like a lot to carry, DW and our friends said, but I assured them that I've carried much more. I'd be fine. I'm not in as good a shape as I was when DW and I trekked around Portugal, in 2022.  I can't remember the last time I was on my spin bike and I'm less than two months post appendectomy. I'm carrying more weight on me, too. But I had a specific photo in mind and I was determined to get it.  The trailhead for the Nauyaca Waterfalls was about a 20-minute drive from our Airbnb, in the hills above Dominical. From there, it was a 3.3-kilometre hike, mostly uphill. And it was getting hotter. I moved th...