Phillip is fasting in Costa Rica, at Dr. Douglas Graham’s fasting retreat, and I am serving as an intern. We arrived in Costa Rica yesterday, tired of travel by the time we reached the hotel, and went to bed early. It took two plane rides (2 hours and 5 hours apiece) to make it here. We flew from San Jose, California to Phoenix, and from Phoenix to San Jose, Costa Rica.

We got up at 5:45am in Santa Cruz to get ready for this yesterday, and Stuart kindly took us over the hill to the airport. Once checked in for our flight, Phillip and I rested for a few minutes before going through security and consumed our orange juice breakfast (which heaven forbid they should allow us to take through, that could be some explosive OJ!) 84 oz. of shared OJ held us for hours, until the second flight, when we pulled out our bananas, dates, lettuce, and celery and munched down. People around us ate $7 sandwiches or $5 snack boxes, and there were no more small, expensive salads by the time they got back to us anyway.

This morning we awoke refreshed at our hotel and enjoyed papaya, pineapple, watermelon, and bananas for breakfast with a few other early arrivals. Well, Phillip doesn’t enjoy papaya, claims it smells like baby throw up, but I enjoy it. A lot. We we each ate copious amounts of the fruit we like and were grateful for it. The papaya is sooooo good here. Did I mention I like papaya already? A lot? I thought not.

Since we arrived early, Phillip, Rachel, Victoria, Jan, and I decided to take a van-sized taxi over to the Else Kientzler Botanical Garden this morning and have a look. The taxi driver didn’t speak English, but the friendly hotel staff helped us explain to him where we wanted to go (sadly, no one in this little group of 5 is all that good with Spanish). Along the way (a 40 minute drive) he stopped a couple of times to ask for directions. Apparently that’s the way it’s done here, the street signage is somewhat scarce.

The gardens were beautiful (you may click on these smaller images for a larger version of each). I got to feed my inner monkey, by crossing some rope bridges we found in the back of the gardens. Don’t tell my mother, but those bridges were 30 feet in the air which made it all the more exciting. Oh wait, hi Mom, um, I was in no danger at any time, kind of like tree climbing when I was a kid, and you knew all about that, right? (Hugs!)

While we were in the gardens, Jan had gone walking down the hill to look for interesting town-like things instead. He was thinking about lunch and came across a lovely orange orchard where he met the owner, who gave him a big bag of oranges for free. It made a great lunch for him, sitting in the sun and he brought us some too, a welcome and refreshing snack after an hour-long hike in the gardens.

Tonight’s dinner at the hotel included everyone that has arrived so far (mostly interns, as most of the fasters arrive tomorrow). Papaya, pineapple, and a huge salad of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers, and avocado slices. It was Phillip’s last meal for a while, as he’ll fast tomorrow, on the start of the New Year. Tonight we’ll be falling asleep to the sound of Costa Ricans setting off many noisy fireworks in celebration of the occasion. Good luck Phillip!

It all began with a gift from my friend Rupa, who gave me an electric orange reamer. The reamer has a straining basket to catch the pulp, but I enjoy throwing the pulp back in (except for those pithy white stems from the middle of the orange). It seems more like eating the whole orange. I try to drink it slowly, and chew the pulp a bit before swallowing the juice.

Each morning I drink water as soon as I arise, wait an hour or two until I’m hungry, and drink 40 oz. or more of fresh-squeezed, unpasteurized, organic orange juice. There were a few days I tried using oranges in a second meal, but I found a single citrus meal each day to be the best for me.

I used to occasionally go to Jamba Juice when in a hurry. But as I started drinking larger quantities, I would occasionally get headaches from drinking their juice. I suppose there were a few reasons for this:

• they don’t use a reamer like I do, so some of the skin of the orange is getting into the juice and I understand the skin contains toxic substances (to protect the orange from insects and birds)
• their oranges are not organic
• their juice doesn’t have as much pulp in it, so I imagine the sugar uptake to be quicker
• I was in a hurry and driving my car (my digestion is typically better when I only sit and eat and do nothing else)

Since I’m drinking so much, I tend to draw out my breakfast over 20 - 30 minutes. After each glass of OJ. I wait a little bit, trying to listen to how I feel, before I get another glass.

When you are in the mood to have a little variety in your OJ meal you can cut a couple of pomegranates in half and ream them just like the oranges into the rest of the juice (throw out the seeds). It gives a little different color and flavor to the juice. Or, blend a bit of nectarine or mango into your juice. I’ve also found that I can eat nectarines or mangos about 10-20 minutes after drinking the juice and they seem to combine well. Another favorite combination is dicing up kiwi fruit or strawberries in very small chunks and adding it to each glass. It makes for some enjoyable, chewy texture. The added kiwi fruit is a favorite of my son, Michael.

Orange juice can be left out on the counter all day. Other folks in the family drink it in quantity too, and it seems everyone would rather have it at room temperature than cold from the fridge. Nevertheless, if you know you are preparing OJ for tomorrow, put it in the fridge right away. Left out on the counter all day and then refrigerated overnight it doesn’t taste as good.

I used to need my OJ right away in the morning, but as I become better nourished, I find that I can wait longer and longer before drinking it. Occasionally I wait until noon, run several miles and then drink, and it’s a pretty phenomenal feeling.

As I transitioned to the 80/10/10 Diet, I had days where I binged on cooked food. I found that when I felt bad (clogged up, icky) the next morning, an all orange juice day was a nice idea. I would fast as long as I could in the morning, then drink only OJ all day as I got hungry. Sometimes I felt like eating a lot of greens later in the day on those days (or even bananas), so I would go ahead and not be too strict with myself. The effect of an OJ day is very cleansing, but I never needed to extend it beyond a day. The next day I usually feel more like myself again.

An electric orange reamer can be had cheaply, for less than $20. These days we juice so many oranges, that I splurged on a bigger, more sturdy model that cost $80. It was well worth it.

That surely cannot be all the secrets oranges have to offer. What are your experiences?

Do you hate illegal immigrants? No problem, get enough votes and you can limit their rights, perhaps even keep them from marrying residents of the state.

Are you a landlord and want to evict people different than you? No problem, you can amend those pesky equal rights clauses to allow landlords to be a little more discriminating.

What about dog lovers? Do you hate barking dogs? No problem, you can ban their owners from your town. Oh wait, dogs are pretty popular, certainly more popular than gay people, so better not try that. It pays to limit your hating to the traditional targets.

Well guess what, haters, your days are numbered. After a lot of work and expense last year, Proposition 8 supporters could only muster 52% of the vote. The longer this issue is discussed, the more people see and understand that gay relationships are substantially the same as straight ones. It will be hard to pull the wool over people’s eyes again in the next election.

This issue will be set right by a new proposition in 2010, one which allows gays to marry. But sadly, the damage done to our state constitution today will endure. No minority rights are really safe in California anymore.

Changing the state constitution may not be so easy, however. There are only two ways to amend the state constitution, and from what I can tell, Prop 8
should have been done as a “revision”, not an “amendment”. A revision requires a 2/3 vote of the legislature, or a constitutional convention, to start a ballot initiative that will change the state constitution. It’s not supposed to be so easy to make important changes, and Prop. 8 did not follow the proper process. Prop. 8 went with a signatures-only start, which is only appropriate for a minor change (ie. an amendment).

The California Supreme Court granted wide-ranging legal protection to our class this year, in clear legal wording that goes well beyond the single right that Proposition 8 addresses. Among other things, they said:

An individual’s sexual orientation — like a person’s race or gender — does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights.

The California Supreme Court will get a chance to rule on this amendment, and it’s likely they will consider the elimination of rights for a protected class to be a major change to the state constitution, i.e. what is legally referred to as a revision, which would have required a 2/3 vote of the State Legislature before it could even be considered for a public vote. In this way, the court can rule that Prop. 8 is invalid.

For example, what if Prop. 8 had said “Only marriage between a WHITE man and WHITE woman is recognized in the State of California”? Naturally, these days, everyone understands that would be absurd. But, the court will likely treat Prop. 8 the same way that they would treat an amendment that took marriage rights from couples based solely on race. Race = gender = sexual orientation… all are now classes of individuals protected from discrimination, according to the highest court in California. Removing rights based on race would certainly be seen as a major change in the state constitution, and so will removing rights based on sexual orientation. With the court on our side, we have already won, our opponents just can’t see it yet.

And keep in mind that Prop 8 had a much smaller margin of victory than Prop 22 did 8 years ago (it won by 66% back then), and a 10%+ change in public opinion in 8 years is really quite amazing and represents a fast-moving trend. Naturally we will not give up this fight, and if amending the state constitution is so simple, it’s just a matter of time before our young folks (bless ‘em), reverse this some day with a new inclusive, right-granting initiative.

The year 2008 will still stand out as a year of progress for us. Our enemies are hanging on desperately, but despite their efforts, many of us are married already, our community is energized once again, and they have only been able to prolong the inevitable by another couple of years, at best.

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.