First:

Salman Rushdie, I love you. I have not enjoyed such an incalculably profound book as 'Fury' in a very long time. I promise, now, to read all your other books as soon as I possibly can. Please keep writing them.

Second:

So.... I just re-read that last journal entry and saw some paranoia breaking through between the lines.

Yikes.

But, these things happen, you know? What can you do? Life in the rainforest is pretty intense, and some lessons come hard. No matter. Someday soon I will no longer suffer the humiliations of this station. No, I will be long gone, like Speedy Gonzalez on amphetamines. The moment this class ends, a little cartoon puffcloud of dust is going to be all that's left of this skinny photographer. I'm countin' the days.

Anyway, I'm feeling a little more relaxed. Amazing what the beach can do for a person, really. Yes, now everything is fine. I can breathe again. And at La Selva Biological Station the clouds have parted and the stars are shining tonight like they haven't shone in a long time, reminding me once again of the raw, distracting power of a light in the darkness.

From stellar bodies swimming through the black velvet nothing of space to bioluminescent plankton bobbing in the tropical oceans, life is shining tonight. Glowing fungus on the rainforest floor buzz quietly, spreading a fluorescent-green photon carpet between the sticks and the dripping darkness. Beetles wander aimlessly, with perma-glow alien eyes, radiating light from their carapaces like remote-controlled LED flashlights on robot legs. The wild nightlife hums and quivers and flutters and glows.

I will watch it happen as I walk home in a couple of minutes. This day's long traveling has worn me out, and now it is time for bed.

Soon, photos and a couple of somewhat incriminating stories from Manuel Antonio, one of the most picturesque beach fronts I have visited in recent memory, and also one of the most corrupt.