So, today marks one whole year of travel. To date, Elani and I have traveled to ten countries across four continents. A year ago, I wasn’t really sure what it would be like constantly changing locations, only staying in each place for a few weeks or months before packing up and moving on to somewhere new. Would we end up tired and homesick after a few months? Well, that hasn’t happened yet. The difficulties of being constantly on the move aren’t really all that bad, and they’re well worth it for the payoff of being able to see so much of the world. We have plans to head back home after another month of traveling, but unless things change drastically, it will be another stop (albiet a much longer one than the others) on our continuing journey. That’s not to say I’m disappointed to be heading home or anything like that. Not seeing friends and family for that long is a real drag. But there’s simply too much of the world left unexplored to make settling back down a permanent option.

The way I experience traveling has certainly changed over the past year. Until then, I had been away from home for a couple months at a time at most, and those times were usually separated by a year or more. Every time I’d get to travel, I was overwhelmed by the excitement of actually getting away from the daily grid and all the little changes from my everyday routine. But now that I’ve had time to get used to that – to abandon all but the most core thread of a regular routine – it allows me to put down the awe of the differences I focused on about each new place and just experience each place I find myself as it is. To feel its rhythms, all the sights, sounds, and smells that make it what it is. Each place I’ve traveled to is really such an immensely rich array of senses and memories that I’m not sure I could ever write them all down – especially considering the speed and which I seem to be getting blog posts done nowadays – but I wanted to give a little taste of each place I’ve visited over the last year. As such, I’d going to write about the one quick memory from each of the places I’ve been to, not necessarily the best thing that happened, or my favorite, or the most profound, but the one thing that seems to pop up every time I think back on my time in that country.

Costa Rica

Elani and I spent just over two months in Costa Rica, from the end of January 2018 to the beginning of April. There’s a lot to unpack there, from the wild life, to the natural beauty, or even just chilling at home, but one thing that pops straight into my head is being lofted way farther into the air than I had intended while kiteboarding on Bahia Salinas. This one probably comes to mind because of tactile nature of the experience. The first few times you send your kite high and spring into what would normally be a 2 meter jump right as a stiff gust hits and ending up around 5 or 6 meters in the air is a very memorable experience. The conditions on the Bahia Salinas ensured that I had a similar experience a number of time while I was there. The winds were wickedly gusty, and the surrounding countryside was hilly enough that out on the bay, the wind was just starting to get a bit of an updraft without having gotten turbulent yet. The first it happened, all I could remember the feeling of getting yanked up while still aloft, looking down and seeing the water much farther away than it was supposed to be and then putting all my focus on keeping the control bar in all the way so I didn’t drop. It went fine, although my landing was not exactly something to be proud of. After few incidents like this, I started to relax a bit and enjoy it. Being able to send myself into the air, with nothing more then wind power, to a height where water (and the seafloor visible under the clear blue water) were noticeably smaller than at ground level was pretty amazing. And the feeling of being yanked up and out of the water before drifting back down, sneaking a few peaks at the beautiful surroundings from my new vantage point before spotting my landing and (hopefully) riding out of it, then setting up and doing it all over again, is something that tends to be first and foremost when I think of Costa Rica.

Spain

From the beginning of April to the middle of May, Elani and I were staying in Spain. Most of that time was spent in Tarifa. After a couple of months where sampling the local cuisine frequently meant a huge plate of something with beans and rice, washed down by a fairly mediocre lager, cured meat and good booze was a welcome change of pace. Which brings me to my memory from Spain –  enjoying red wine and jamon iberico at a café. Jamon Iberico (which is to say ham from Iberia, the peninsula containing Spain and Portugal) is ham off a pig leg (of which you’ll see hanging in many a Spanish cafe) that has been cured for at least 18 months. The best grades (yeah there are different grades, it’s pretty serious stuff) are from pedigreed Iberian black pigs that live free range are fed a diet of acorns. It has a rich, complex, salty, earthy, almost nutty (maybe the acorns?) flavor that plays well off the robust dry red wines that are common in the area. Specifically, the café, I always think about is Hasta los Andares in Malaga. It’s not an overly pretentious place with most of its seating on the sidewalk and menus in the shape of ham hocks, but it specialized in cured meats and the house red was cheap and good. Also, they know exactly how to cut the jamon, leaving it a bit thick in the center and paper thin at the edges. The differing thicknesses emphases different aspects of the flavor and texture. If you’ve ever doubted that cured meat can reach the level of high art, eat a slice of well cut jamon iberico, and that should settle the matter once and for all.

Gibraltar

My time in Gibraltar was limited to two day trips I took during the time Elani and I stayed in Tarifa. It’s only a 30 minute drive from Tarifa, so we took some friends who were there visiting on trips there. So, what stands out? Well, the monkeys. The Barbary Apes, as they’re called, are the only monkeys on continental Europe, and like most monkeys who spend too much time around humans, they’re kind of dicks. Not that I blame them, it’s kind of our fault. There was no shortage of signs telling you to be careful of them and not to feed them. So when I saw my first Barbary ape and it was there half asleep and completely indifferent to the humans crowding around for a picture, I was a bit disappointed. But then it noticed a food container in an unattended stroller. A wild animal glint came into its eyes as it ran straight for it from 30 or so feet away, deftly opened it, and consumed all the fruit (a decent sized portion for a human, let alone 40 lbs worth of ape), cast aside the container and walked off like nothing had happened. That was the raw wild animal behavior I had been hoping for. Later I saw one notice a bag of chips in a guy’s pocket, leap onto him ignoring all the man’s protests and complete unafraid of this presumably not very bright human that was roughly 5 times its size and go bounding off with its pilfered lunch. Moral of the story, if you’re going somewhere and you get like a dozen signs and announcements saying not to bring food or the monkeys will steal it, you probably shouldn’t bring food, because the monkeys will steal it.

Morocco

My time in Morocco, and Africa in general, was limited to an afternoon, which would seem silly, except that Tangiers is just a hour ferry ride away from Tarifa, so you know, might as well. I hear good thing about Morocco, but I must say Tangiers, is a bit rough around the edges. It’s one of those places where you feel like people seem to view you more as a moneymaking opportunity than a fully formed human. But I was only there for an afternoon, so I’m sure experiences vary. What I do remember fondly was the mint tea. Mint with fresh orange blossoms, it had an amazing sweet perfume and calming flavor and hit the spot after a day of following our guide around and avoiding sales pitches.

Portugal

From mid May to the first week of June, we were in Portugal. Though of course there are many great reasons to visit (the food, architecture, history, just to name a few), the reason that brought us there was that I was attending a week long seminar on Spanish Classical Fencing. In attendance were folks from the Salle St. George (the Seattle based fencing school where I trained regularly for 7 years) along with students and teachers from several other affiliated schools from across the USA. The seminar was held in a villa just outside of Elvas, a little town straight east of Lisbon and almost on the Spanish boarder. The daily schedule basically consisted of getting up early to get breakfast in before 4 hours of training, then lunch, exploring the town, and then staying up too late drinking red wine and doing it all over again. It was great way to reconnect with my fencing buddies and meet friends from other schools, and of course improve my skills. With five fencing masters teaching (including the two that taught my teacher), the wealth of knowledge there was just astounding. Fencing is one of the things I dearly miss while traveling and getting a week of intensive training in a beautiful villa in the Portuguese countryside was something I count as one of the highlights not just of my time in Portugal, but of the year.

Germany

Our time in Germany was only the three weeks after Portugal, and we split it between Berlin and the Island of Rügen on the Baltic sea. Berlin is great and all, but what I really think back on with warm fuzzies from Germany is eating Fischbrötchen (smoked fish sandwiches) and washing it down with a glass of beer while enjoying the warm summer sun and the views of the Baltic Sea. There were several places to get Fischbrötchen, but Jurgen Kose was definitely THE place. They are a fish smoker and all the fish was smoked on site that day, and it was all awesome. It was located right on the beach in Blinz, which is one of the bigger and certainly the most touristy town on the island. Despite being surrounded by some pretty high end B and Bs, their prices were very reasonable (2-3 euro per Fischbrötchen) and the atmosphere was pretty casual. The sandwiches were very simple, just fish and fresh crusty bread and maybe a touch of pickled veg. Most of the fish was smoked, though there was lox and pickled herring as well. The winner for me was butter fish, which was light, flaky and just fatty enough. It picked up just a hint of smoky flavor, and was still soft and moist after the smoking. I had been out of beer country for a few months by this point, so German beers were a welcome treat, and a schwarzbier or pale made the perfect accompaniment to the Fischbrötchen. A cold beer, a hearty sandwich, and a beautiful view on a warm day was a simple wholesome pleasure, emblematic of some of my more favorite experiences traveling in Germany, and really stands out when I think about this leg of our trip.

Part 2 coming soon!