Well, at the time of writing this I’m back at home in the Pacific Northwest. Elani and my travel plans are generally fairly loose, but it’s fair to say that what plan there was, this wasn’t part of it. I’m not going to go into a ton of detail about it, since that’s this isn’t really the place, but will leave it at there was a health emergency in the family. I will also say that getting back from Malaysia on very short notice wasn’t particularly difficult and not really much more expensive then getting there was with plenty of advanced notice, so that’s a plus I suppose. As far as long we’ll be back for? Well…not sure. All can I really say is, that our default still going to be full time traveling, and this is an interruption to that, not a cessation of it.
But even though the first leg of our trip was significantly shorter then we intended, there’s to more to say about Kuala Lumpur (and Melaka, but I’ll leave that for another time). So let’s wind back the clock to a couple weeks ago. The first thing that you should know About Kuala Lumpur is that though the first word is spelled and said very close to the Koala (like the marsupial), they have nothing to do with each and there are no Koalas there (maybe in the zoo, but certainly not running wild). I wanted to get that out of the way because I still find that a little disappointing and I don’t want to get anyone’s hopes up. The next thing of note is that, being the political and financial center or Malaysia is a relatively recent turn of events (okay so Malaysia being an independent country is also fairly recent turn of events in all fairness) so the town has a very modern feel to it. Its skyline is dominated enormous skyscrapers full of roof top pools and gardens. The building we stayed in, which we picked for a being decently priced and having a good location, was 39 stories with a garden at the top ( and smaller gardens every 10 stories or so) and an infinity pool a couple stories down from that. Which was pretty cool, but looking around (from said infinity pool) it’s pretty easy to see that it was not by any stretch the tallest or fanciest building around.
View from our apartment – also only picture in this post where you can’t see the Petronas Towers.
I say that dump on where we were staying, it was great. I was actually quite fond of the view from our room on the 34th floor (called floor 33a, because the character for four is unlucky in Chinese). I mention it to point out that a building with 39 floors, multiple gardens, and a roof top pool, is pretty middle of the pack by the standards of downtown KL.
Infinity pool – oh yeah.
The other thing I think of as really characteristic of KL is the abundance of greenery in the middle of the city. Gardens on the sides or tops of building were actually quite common. But more than that there were quite a few large trees with wide canopies shading sidewalks, little corners of unpaved land that were packed full of dense foliage. Turns out having year round sun, heat, and rain causes plants to grow at a pretty alarming rate. Add in generous sprinkling of parks and public green spaces and the separation of nature and city doesn’t feel quite so stark as it does in many cities.
the concrete jungle meets the actual jungle
But let me get back to huge buildings for a moment. One of the truly spectacular additions to the skyline (I guess actually two of the additions to the skyline) is (are) the Petronas Towers. These buildings are one of the most beautiful buildings in a city full of beautiful buildings. They stand out in the cityscape not just because of their size, but because of their glorious architecture. But also kind of because of their size. They were after all the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 until 2004 (since then been supplanted twice now as the tallest city in Kuala Lumpur alone).
So Elani and I decided we really ought to take the tour of them. We didn’t last time we went to KL because it turns out you actually have to get your stuff together and get tickets several days in advance. But we did this time. And honestly …meh. One problem is that the one thing you don’t actually have a very good view of from the Petronas towers, is the Petronas towers. Another problem is that since it is such a popular tour you spend a good chunk of it lining up to get packed into an elevator, only to have just ten minutes at the next observation deck to keep the tour moving. It probably also didn’t help visibility was rather poor that day (most of our days in KL actually) thanks wild fire smoke blowing over from the island of Sumatra (sounds like the Indonesian government isn’t doing a great job on enforcing its restriction on land clearing fires, not that that’s how they would tell it).
View of one tower from the other
Long story short, if you find yourself in KL, do go to the square in front of the Petronas towers and strain your neck staring up at these triumphs of human ingenuity. But save your tour money and put it towards a cocktail and one of the several downtown rooftop bars that will afford you almost as good a view of the city and certainly a better view of the towers themselves while giving you chance to sit back and actually admire the view.
Well now that Elani and I traveling again it’s time for me to put back on my “very intermittent armature travel blogger hat”. So, our first stop is Kuala Lumpur (which like they locals, I’ll be calling KL). Why KL you ask? Well honestly because we wanted to go to Malacca and the way to get there is fly into KL and take a bus. And instead of sleeping off over 24 hrs travel spread over two days and immediately getting on a bus for another three hours, we decided to hang out in KL for a couple weeks.
Not that KL doesn’t have plenty to recommend it. It’s a huge modern city, where you can find truly excellent Malay, Indian, and Chinese food (along with tons of others) at basically any price point to care to spend. I usually prefer the fairly cheap variety eaten at a plastic table and on those little square plastic stools that are ubiquitous across all SE Asia. Also, you know it’s full stunning modern architectural marvels (I’m currently looking at the second tallest building in the world from the wind of our condo), and all the world class museums and cultural events that you can expect from a global capital – if you’re into that sort of thing.
But so far we haven’t really been hitting up that many of the big sights. Still relaxing after all the hassles of getting our live squared away so we can be traveling full time again. That, and getting used to being in a bustling metropolis after three years mostly trying to avoid crowsd while we hunkered down in Bellingham.
I’ll write more soon. And Elani is planning on writing regularly too. In an effort to make it so I don’t get behind on the blog again, I’m going to be only doing a quick pass at editing (so, sorry for that in advance) and a lot of my photos will go straight to my facebook and instagram. Say what you like about social media, they make posting photos extremely easy. Stay tuned, Elani’s got a break down of the KL street food so far coming in the next couple of days.
This is the second post I’ve written discussing the most memorable things from each of the countries Elani and I visited this year. If you haven’t read the first one yet, you should – click here.
Indonesia
We actually made two trips to Bali, Indonesia this year, one a four week stay at the end of June and into July, and another four weeks in September. Not staying for two months straight was a logistics decision about visas (if for some reason you want to know a little more about that, here it is). There’s a lot of reasons to love Bali. The people are warm and friendly, the scenery is amazing, the food is great, and the culture and spirituality are so deeply ingrained that the throngs of tourists haven’t done much to dim it. Notice I didn’t say lizards? Yeah, they’re not really a central draw of the place. But really, when I think back on this year, Ned always pops into my head. Ned is an Asian Water Monitor who lived in the garden of the BnB Elani and I stayed at in Ubud in September. It was a time where I was spending a fair amount of time at the computer learning to build a website and writing, so having a nice garden to work in was much appreciated. Ned – as I ended up naming him – would usually show up in the late morning when the sun started getting hot. At around 18 inches long from his nose to the tip of his tail, he wasn’t overly large by monitor lizard standards, but he was quite large for a lizard in general. He’d lope down the steps from wherever he’d been hiding, and crawl along the plants overhang the garden’s pond in an attempt to ferret out his favorite food, the little brown frogs that lived there. When he found one, he’d leap into the pond after it with reckless abandon, usually swimming off empty handed to find a nice shallow bit of water to sun himself in. He would spend most of the afternoons switching between foraging expeditions, lazing in the sun, and going for swims in the pond, and watching his antics was always a welcome distraction. Having a wily lizard frolicking around right outside my front porch may not have been the most profound or emblematic of my experiences in Bali, but it was certainly memorable.
Ned the Monitor Enjoying a Sunny Garden. Taken by Elani
Malaysia
For the last week of July and all of August, we were in Penang, Malaysia. We made the call to stay outside the center of Georgetown so we could rent a place with plenty of room and a full kitchen. Another benefit of the place we rented was that it was just a couple of blocks from a great local market. On our second day, our host took us there and showed us around, which was great not only because it would have been a bit hard to find on our own, but also because I think she made sure to show us the places that wouldn’t jack up the prices just because we were foreigners. In addition to stalls selling fruits, veggies, meat and dry goods, there were food stalls. We usually went about twice a week, ate breakfast at the food stalls, and came home with two or three grocery bags full of fresh veggies, chicken, eggs, fruits, and rice or noodles. The total cost never topped $20 US. Cheap grocers are great and all, but the memorable thing about markets were what a community center they were. People were always chatting with the shop owner or folks they just ran into there, groups were always sitting around the food court laughing and enjoying coffee or a bowl of noodles together. Places like this can be tricky for tourists. Sometimes it’s pretty clear the locals would rather the tourists stick to tourist places, but that was very much not the case here. The shop owners we frequented were cheerful and friendly, and it was pretty clear that we were more of an interesting change from the routine than a headache. Occasionally some of the locals who spoke a bit of English would say hi and ask what brought us to Penang, and once one of the old ladies who lived in the same building as our apartment insisted on buying us lunch. Many places aimed at tourists make you feel catered to, but not necessarily welcome, so going somewhere like the market that has no interest in catering to anyone but locals and being made to feel welcome there was a great experience.
Curry Mee from the Local Market Taken by Elani
Thailand
Okay, so the most memorable thing about Thailand was the elephants. But I’ve already gone on about them in some length, so I’m going to talk about number two for Thailand: leaf packets at the walking street. The walking streets were two of the streets in old town, and on a certain night, they would shut down to everything but pedestrian traffic and be lined with stalls selling food and all manner of goods. The best snack of all were the leaf packets, and the best leaf packets were made by a mysterious vendor, who Elani and I took to calling “Leaf Packet Man” for reasons that should be obvious. That fact that these were the clear winner is in no way a slight on the rest of the food there, there was great stuff to be had, but wow, leaf packets. I have no idea what the Thai name for them is, I don’t think I ever heard it and I believe the only signs were those saying the price, 10 Baht – that’s just over 30 cents US – for a skewer of three. They were little round, well, packets of folded leafs containing some combination of lime, chili peppers, peanuts, red onion, ginger, roasted coconut, and probably some other stuff I’m forgetting. I have no idea what type of leaves they were, but they had a mild slightly bitter taste not too far off from spinach, but with a tougher texture, though not unpleasantly so. Biting into them released little spikes of sweet, sour, spicy, nutty flavors as you hit each ingredient. Then as you chewed, they formed one glorious whole. When made by the expert “Leaf Packet Man,” each packet on the skewer had a slightly different makeup emphasizing a different flavor. To add to the mystique of the experience, “Leaf Packet Man” didn’t have an established spot, so finding his nondescript little booth meant required a far amount of searching and a little luck. But the reward was well worth it. Each one was a goddamned work of art, a symphony, wrapped in leaves – and you get three of them for the price of a candy bar. If I’m ever in Chang Mai again, the first thing I’m doing is heading to the walking streets, scouring them until I find “Leaf Packet Man’s” stall, and eating myself sick on them.
The Leaf Packet Assembly Area – an Artist’s Palette. Taken by Elani
Vietnam
That brings us to the last country this year – Vietnam. Elani and I flew into Ho Chi Minh City at the end of October and stayed in Vietnam until the end of January. The largest chuck of that time was spent in the Mui Ne, which is a sunny beach town full of tourists escaping the winter doldrums back home. Or, like me, there for the kiteboarding. Warm (but not hot) water and steady thermal winds make it an ideal location for it, one of the best in SE Asia. But I came for more than just kiting, I was also there because it’s the only spot in the region that offers kiteboarding instructor courses. The five days I spent learning to be a certified instructor are what really stands out about Vietnam. At 8 hours a day plus homework, it was fairly intense, and I learned a lot. Some about kiteboarding itself, but more about the equipment, teaching psychology, and how to instruct people safely and effectively. It also represents new opportunities for my future and a way to expose other people to something I love. I’m really excited to see where it takes me in the coming year.
Kiters on the Water in Mui Ne. Taken by Elani
So, what does next year have in store? I have no idea. Probably a bit less travel, but we are still heading back to Penang to catch Lunar New Years before heading home. After a year, it’s time to see friends and family and enjoy the beautiful summer we get in the Pacific Northwest before setting out again. But after some time at home, who knows….
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.
Big Air (at least by my standards) Taken by Elani
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.
In all my excitement about cured meat I may have forgot to mention the cheese – god, how could I have forgotten the cheese! Taken by Elani
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.
Watch out, that monkey is slow playing you! Taken by Elani
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.
Moroccan Mint Tea. Taken by Elani
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.
Villa Grounds. Taken by me
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.
Beer and Fischbrötchen (fish sandwich) on Rügen Taken by Elani
In ancient Japan (if not according to actual history, then according to me, right now, for the purposes of making this analogy), there came a point in a samurai’s education when he had developed a solid foundation in the martial arts and it was time to leave his home dojo (school) and seek wisdom from other sources. This is sort of where I find myself, not in martial arts, but in life in general and kiteboarding in particular. I’ve spent six years in the Pacific Northwest trying to fit in as much kiteboarding as possible around working a 9-to-5 job, my other hobbies, and just generally having a life. So I’ve managed to eke out a solid base of kiting skills, but it’s time to broaden and deepen my understanding. That is to say, to seek wisdom from other sources.
In kiteboarding, if you’re like me, most of the time you will be practicing on your own, outside of a formal lesson. This means your instructors are the wind and the water, and they have a slightly different style in every new location. To go back to the analogy, each beach is its own dojo. My philosophy is that when training at a new school, whether in kiteboarding, martial arts, or some other worthy endeavor, it is most valuable to focus on the core strengths of that style. This is especially valuable if you are only training there a short time, as you want to take as much valuable information as possible with you during your time there. So, with all that said, the lesson to learn while kiteboarding in Bahia Salinas is: big air.
Big Air (at least by my standards) Taken by Elani
That’s not to say that there are no other reasons to go there. The wind is constant and strong, the temperature is pleasant, and the views are great. But with strong gusty winds and plenty of chop, what is best to practice there, at least in my opinion, is improving your jumping technique.
If you’re considering making the trip down to Bahia Salinas to hone your skills, let me pass on what I learned about this locale. I was there for two weeks, from the last week of January to the first week of February. It was my first time there, so my first hand knowledge is all from that experience. All my other information is from talking to the instructors and fellow kiters on the beach or from the Internet.
Where are the launches?
All the launches that I’m aware for Bahia Salinas are on Playa Copal. It’s a section of sandy beach on the southern coast. There are three launch points, each one taken care of by a different resort/school. I was staying at Kiteboarding Costa Rica on the west end of Playa Copal so I used that one almost all the time. There’s public access and parking at this launch as well.
Setting out from the launch Taken by Elani
What are the conditions like?
The wind blows constantly. December through March is the peak season here. Expect winds around 20-35 knots, and be prepared for guests in the 40+ knot range if you’re here that time of year. Winds lighten up in the off season, but are still kitable most days. The wind can also get very gusty and variable at times. If winds are at the upper limit of your kite, it’s probably best to drop down a size so you have some bail out room if the wind picks up another 10 knots or so. The wind can get pretty “punchy” (quick hard gusts) at times, so be prepared to get jerked around in your harness and have a few jumps go higher than you were planning. While the wind speeds are all over the place, the direction is not. It’s pretty much always northeast, creating side on-shore conditions. With these conditions, if you can make decent progress upwind, you should have no problem returning to the same spot on the beach. Beginners may work their way down the beach and have to walk back up, but at least there’s no danger of being blown out to sea.
The water conditions are choppy, but with no real surf. If you make it to the center of the bay, you may see some four foot rolling waves, but closer to shore, these flatten out and it’s just small (less a foot or less) chop, mainly from the wind.
Kiteres on Bahia Salinas Taken by Elani
What is the beach like?
The beach at Playa Copal is flat and sandy with intermittent rocks and shells. Usually there is plenty of beach to launch from, but at high tide, the water can come right up to the bushes. If that happens, try heading to the farthest east of the three launch sites. It’s an easy walk from the other launches if you don’t mind getting your feet wet.
View of the rigging area from the water Taken by Elani
What facilities are there?
I believe there are three schools operating on Bahia Salinas. All offer rentals, lessons, and gear sales, and two of them are also resorts with rooms and restaurants.
The schools have places on the beach under shade to hang out, but no official changing or rest rooms. They also have someone around to help launch and land and set up kites and change out kites for those who are renting gear from them.
What to bring?
High wind kites are the name of the game here. A 9m and 7m would be my first choices – I’m 75kg and ride a twin tip. The smallest kite I had with me was a 9m and I was able to get out on it most days. But if I’d had a 7m with me, it would have been a better choice more often than not. If you have room for a third kite, I’d go with a 5m in peak season and a 12m in the off season. You’ll want a board that can handle a bit of chop.
A full wetsuit isn’t necessary, but a thin shorty or neoprene top might be nice, especially on overcast days. The sun is very intense in Costa Rica, so make sure you bring sun protection. Sun glasses, surfer hats, and long sleeve rash guards wouldn’t be a terrible idea. The sea floor is mostly sandy, I went barefoot without issue, but there are occasional rocks and shells so some folks may want to wear booties.
Me jumping with a view of Nicaragua across the bay Taken by Elani
What are the hazards?
There aren’t many rocks and the ones there are mostly visible. There’s a rocky reef that is mostly covered at high tide, but is fairly far from the beach and directly up wind, so you’re not likely to run into it accidentally. On the east end of the beach, there are a few submerged tree branches to watch out for.
There are no rescue boats in operation (and very little boat traffic in general), so you’re not likely to get a rescue if anything happens. Thanks to the shape of the bay, it would be extremely unlikely for you to get blow out to sea. But be aware that if you head a long way from shore and something happens, you could end up on some pretty remote stretches of beach a long walk from where you started.
The biggest danger is stingrays. The instructors say that stings are uncommon, but another kiter was stung while I was there (right through his neoprene boot). They like the flat sandy bottoms in shallow water, so if you stick to the deep water, you’ll have no troubles.
What to do when not kiting?
I don’t recommend coming here if you’re looking to party. The area is pretty rural. The kiting resorts all have their restaurants, of course. Where I stayed, the only other things in walking distance were one restaurant and a little local grocery. There are few more restaurants in the area if you have a car, and you can drive to the nearby town of La Cruz. La Cruz has a few more dinning and drinking options, but it’s not exactly a tourist destination (if you want to read about my experience exploring La Cruz, click here). The scenery is nice, the weather is warm, and there’s a far amount of wildlife to enjoy. If you’re looking for much more than that, this may not be the ideal destination for you. Also, if you are planning on working, or just surfing the web a lot, be aware the internet is pretty slow and unreliable. It’s okay for checking email, but don’t plan on streaming videos or anything like that. It’s a good place to spend your days honing your kiting skills and your evenings relaxing and catching up on some reading.
Elani and I spent October 2018 in Chang Mai, Thailand. The weather there is hot and occasionally rainy and the food (particularly the street food) is awesome and spicy. More about all that at some later date. For those of you reading along, I’m still writing about Costa Rica (back in March 2018, I know, I’m behind), but I wanted to write about an amazing experience we had before it fades too much from memory. Specifically, getting to hang out with some amazing elephants.
Elephant tourism is kind of a thing in Thailand. We did our research, and if you go, you definitely should as well, because there are lots of shady operations that treat the elephants poorly. We went with Patara Elephant Farm because they are one of several that are respected for their treatment of the elephants, plus if you wish you can have a go at riding, which sounded pretty awesome.
Around 8am, we got picked up in a van with a bunch of other tourists and driven to the farm in the hills surrounding the city. Our first elephant sighting was actually in the car as some of the locals were riding them along the road, much the same way you’d see folks riding their horses along the road in certain rural parts of the U.S. Then when we arrived, there were three elephants waiting to greet us. A family actually, a mother, father, and their 10 month old baby. We were encouraged by the guides to come say hi and feed them some sugar cane.
Mother and 10 month old baby elephant Taken by Elani
I’ve seen elephants at zoos, of course, but never so close and never without any kind of barrier in between us. The first thing I noticed is how huge elephants are. I know this may seem painfully obvious, but when you’re standing next to an animal roughly the size of a delivery truck, it is a hell of a thing. So I started off, like most folks did, by feeding the baby. At around 4 feet tall, he was more in the realm of animals I’d interacted with before. Oddly enough, though, he was the only elephant we were warned about, he was by the accounts of the trainers “a bit naughty” and would try to give you a kick if you stood next to his back legs and evidently would see you pushing on his forehead as an invitation for roughhousing. But he’d happily take pieces of sugar cane from you and mostly was good natured for us. Then it was time to try feeding the mom. She was much more calm and gentle than her son, and when she noticed you had a treat for her, she would calmly hold out her trunk and wait for you to hand her the pieces of cane before bringing it to her mouth and happily crunching away at it. The second thing I noticed, and really the more surprising and ultimately defining thing about them, was their quiet and calm presence. Their eyes were wise and soft and didn’t dart about like most mammals (including humans) but calmly and evenly surveyed their surroundings.
Then it was time to learn a little about the farm and its mission. Patara isn’t just a tour operator, they provide a home for 66 elephants, some of whom had owners that died or couldn’t take care of them anymore, some rescued from places like the circus, and a few young’uns born at the farm. It also provides a chance for some Thai to learn and practice elephant handing which has a long tradition in Thailand (elephants being used for logging and agriculture). Part of the tour was that we would be paired with an elephant and would be working with them for the day, which was a great way to get to know the elephant better and learn a little of what the tradition of working with elephants was like. Then we were given a traditional shirt to wear (the fabulous pink poncho you’ll see me in the photos – not my first choice of colors) and we walked off to meet our elephants.
Saying Hi to Bon Tong Taken by the Patara Crew
My elephant was a 30 year old female named Bon Tong (yeah, I’m probably not getting the spelling right), who was calm, if a little distractible, with beautiful gray eyes. She was also – I suspect this was the primary reason for her distractibility – the mother of a 2 year old elephant named Mah. She wasn’t an overly nervous mom, and more often than not “little” Mah was off playing with the other younger elephants, but I’m sure there was a bit of attention always on her. Elani, for better or worse, was assigned to one of more difficult customers, Hnung, a rambunctious 10 year old adolescent male.
Me with Bon Tong and Meh Taken by the Patara Crew
Hay Buddy That’s my Wife (Elani and Hnung) Taken by the Patara Crew
The first thing we did when meeting our elephants was to feed them. The trainers working with us gave everyone a basket of bananas (a favorite) and told us the command (Bon, in case you’re wondering) to have the elephants lift their trunks so we could feed them. While I was feeding Bon Tong, little Mah snuck up and stole bananas out of the basket. Oh well, Bon Tong didn’t seem to mind, I suppose sharing your bananas is just part of being a mom. Then we had a little time to take a few photos and have a wander around with our new buddies while they continued their lunch with a healthy ration of grass.
Feeding Bon Tong While Mah Seals from the Basket Taken by the Patara Crew
After a short break, it was time to learn to ride. This was I must say the most exciting and (as is frequently the case with the exciting bits) scariest part of the whole day. We were riding bareback, and the only thing the elephants wore was a rope around them just behind their front legs with a loop to hold on to. Getting up was the first challenge, the elephants obligingly bent up their front leg to make a step, but the rest was up to you (with a bit of help from the trainer). The top of the ear and the rope were pretty good hand holds, but getting on top of an 8 foot tall elephant requires a bit of skill (that I don’t have) to do gracefully. But I managed, and then the next challenge was getting seated. We were riding like the trainers, sitting on the top of the head or neck with our knees on the tops of their ears. I had one hand on the top of the head and the other grabbing the rope behind me, which all felt pretty solid until Bon Tong started moving. I had imaged that, with them being so large, sitting on an elephant would be pretty easy, and that was not the case. The head and neck are probably the part of an animal that move the most, especially when the head is also what that animal’s primary appendage is attached to.
Me Riding Bon Tong Taken by the Patara Crew
Elani Riding Hnung Taken by the Patara Crew
Elephants like to eat. In fact they spend about 18 hours day eating, which makes sense considering that they need to consume 10% of their considerable body weight a day. This means that on the 30 minute trek from the main farm to the river where we were headed, there would be some snacking. Not a problem as such, but as I mentioned, that means grabbing and tearing with the trunk and head and the head is what I’m sitting on. You can probably imaging that that makes for a bit of a rough ride. At one point, Bon Tong found a sugar cane that looked like a good snack and reached down, got a good grip, and gave it solid yank to pull it up. The problem for me was that she was already on a downhill slope so reaching down meant I was shifted forward, than she tucked her ears and pulled up and to the side with her whole head. So that meant that in rather quick succession, I had the surface I was perched on learned forward, my knee rests (tops of the ears) retracted, then tipped back and to the side. Somehow I managed not to come unseated. The whole event was surprising to say the least. Bon Tong was a bit better behaved after that, and we made it to the river without any other good opportunities for falling off.
After dismounting (the elephant kneels and bends its head forward and you slide forward and hop down) it was time for a rest for us and the elephants. I passed by Bon Tong on the way to the little lunch hut and she noticed me and reached out her trunk, so I put out my hand and she tapped lightly tapped me on the palm. I’m not sure exactly what it meant, but I think after a bit of stressful ride (her dealing with an inexperienced rider squirming around on the back of her neck and me dealing with being pitched around and almost off of an elephant distracted by snacking) she was saying, “we’re cool.”
Then us humans got our lunch and a chance to rest, and the elephants got a chance to play in the river and relax. After that, it was bath time. We all went down to the river and were given buckets and brushes, then it was time to get to work. I’m pretty sure this was the elephant’s favorite part. I scrubbed away with a stiff brush while the trainer helped by throwing buckets of water on Bon Tong. Like cleaning anything, with an elephant you start with the top, which meant a bit of climbing:
Like All Cleaning Start from the Top Taken by the Patara Crew
Then, of course, it was time for the sides:
A Clean Elephant is a Happy Elephant Taken by the Patara Crew
After a good scrubbing, it was time for the obligatory photo session. Was I surprised when after being lined up for a photo in front of an elephant that I got sprayed with water? Not really. But it is a cute photo, and all in all good clean fun – get it clean, because of the water? Har har har. Anyways, here’s the picture:
Well I’m Sure it’s Mostly Water Taken by the Patara Crew
After that, we had another short ride, and then it was time to say goodbye to our elephants. Everyone dismounted, there was a bit of time to chill out, and then the trainers hopped on (much more gracefully then I could manage, I must say) and rode off.
Getting to interact with elephants was a truly amazing experience. On the surface, just being around something that weighs roughly the same as two SUVs is pretty amazing. But what stuck with me the most was their calm, aware presences and how even after spending a few hours with them, it was clear that they have very deep and complex personalities, and the wise, knowing look that is unmistakable in their eyes. Getting to spend time with elephants was a truly remarkable experience and definitely one of the highlights of our trip so far.
Well, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s time to start looking into ways to start earning a bit of money while there’s still plenty of time to experiment, have fun, try new things, fail at new things, and try them again before I have to take any truly drastic measures like – gasp – getting a real job (shudder).
Brainstorming income ideas can get kind of overwhelming, there are so many possibilities, each with its pros and cons, and it’s far too easy to get into the trap of thinking I’m somehow setting the course for my life for years to come. So, how to sort through it all? Well, I’m going to start by following my own advice – choose a direction and not a goal, and see where that leads me. One that has been in the back of my mind for a while now is running a website. Well, that looks like a path forward right there. The next big fork was to buy an established website or build one from scratch. That one was actually pretty to decide; I have a lot of free time, and don’t want to spend a lot of money. So building then – right. All this transpired a few months ago, fast forward to today:
Well that wasn’t a full time job or anything, but it was kind of more work than I had anticipated. But hey, I learned a lot, had some fun, and it kept me out of Elani’s hair in the afternoons while she was actually doing paying work. So, how did I end up building a site that compiles quotes by women? Well, as often happens in life, I simply moved forward and ended up somewhere I didn’t really expect.
I started by looking over websites that had sold on one online clearing house and ran across a site making a tidily little profit by compiling generic inspirational quotes and selling ad space. I have no idea why that caught my attention, but it did enough to mention it to Elani. To which she asked, is there any sites like that showcasing woman authors? Not really, none that you can find without digging at any rate. And a quote site was something I was pretty sure I could make (turns out I was right). So we made a deal, Elani would find some awesome quotes and I’d build the platform to bring them to the world.
How’s it going? Well, it’s a little early to tell. We certainly haven’t made any money yet, but we didn’t expect to at this point. Building a website is not like building a baseball field – if you build it, they won’t necessarily come. That means that figuring out how to get folks there is going to be a great lesson.
I’d like to start this section of the blog with something I’ve been thinking about for a while now. This is something I started thinking about while I was still working, more than a year ago now, and have thought about now and again ever since. In short: Shifting my focus from setting goals to picking a direction to head in.
Goals are tricky things. There are certainly times with they can provide some focus and structure to life, and having goals is usually preferable to living a completely aimless life. So if it was a binary choice, I’d probably have to stick with goals. But goals have their drawbacks. You can either set easy goals, and never really push yourself, or you can set lofty goals that either often have to be abandoned or require sacrificing parts of your life you really shouldn’t be sacrificing. Both alternatives create a lot of stress and unhappiness – and looking around me (especially when I was working a nine to five back home in the USA), I saw a lot sadness caused by both choices, some of which was certainly my own. Another difficulty is that a goal is basically a directive from my past self. And there is really only one person I’m certain is stupider than I am – that’s past Geoff. So that’s the danger of goals: They can involve sacrificing something that current Geoff (you know, me), wants to achieves the plans of past Geoff (who, let’s face it, was a little slow to begin with) to achieve something that future Geoff may or may not want or even have any use for anymore. Yeah, it doesn’t actually sound that great when I say it like that, does it?
Fortunately, though, I think there may be another option. Rather than making rigid goals or floating at random waiting for something to happen, it’s possible to pick a direction. Finding a direction is about taking stock of who I am and what I need in my life in the present moment and heading towards that. It’s about finding flow and balance. It’s about letting go of any ambitions from past Geoff (who doesn’t really know what’s going on anyways) and trying to figure out what future Geoff may need (which is really impossible to tell, because he doesn’t exist yet).
Stepping away from a standard nine to five was definitely a great experiment in this philosophy. Maintaining that trajectory certainly could have paid off eventually. I was making enough money to buy anything I really wanted and could have still retired a bit early – which really did sound like something future Geoff would have wanted, maybe travel the world a bit, relax, not have most of my days dictated by the needs of others who may or may not of had my best interests at heart. But really, that was just projecting, that’s what current Geoff wanted, and when it was a goal to not work (or really to never work again), it made me ignore the balance I needed at that time. When I made the choice not to work, it was really about finding balance. I had grown the financial portion of my life, but let other aspects slip. I really love exploring new places, seeing the world, experiencing different ways of living. Waiting all year for two cherished weeks of travel wasn’t cutting it and won’t for the foreseeable future. So I made what is always a shrewd deal, trading what I had an excess of (money) for what I was in need of (time and freedom). And it’s been awesome! I’ve seen so much more of the world and I haven’t even been traveling for a full year yet. But it is time to shift directions just slightly, and start building back up the financial portion of my life. But unlike the last time I needed to build up that part of my life – right after college with exhausted savings and collage loans looming on the horizon – I’m in a position where I have enough time and money to relax, take my time, think, take risks, experiment, play, and learn. I don’t need a salary tomorrow, or really even in the next year or so. I just need to take stock of who I am and what I need and head in that direction.
Apparently, San Ramon, Costa Rica is called “The City of Poets and Presidents” because several Costa Rican poets and presidents were born there. While I was there, I didn’t see any poets or presidents, but I did see plenty of graffiti and drunken cowboys. To their credit, both were spectacular in their own rights.
So why did Elani and I end up there in the first place? Well, because I had a “good idea.” Basically, we had two options for getting from La Fortuna to Samara. We could take the shuttle bus, which would have cost a bit over $100, or take public transport, which would be about $20, the down side being that it was supposed to take a couple hours longer and we’d have to changes buses at San Ramon. So I figured we’d take the cheap bus, and turn the stop into a couple of nights in San Ramon and explore a new city. Win win, right? Well, not really. The public buses were slow and crowded, and on one leg we had to stand up during the bus ride for about 4 hours, not awesome. Also, the bus leaving San Ramon was actually stopping outside the city, and figuring out where it stopped was kind of an ordeal, one that involved our lovely AirBnB hostess making a lot of calls to the bus company on our behalf. On top of that, the one we were supposed to catch never showed up, and we ended waiting another couple of hours on top of the hour early we got there in the first place. Was it all worth saving $80 bucks? Not even close, that had to be the hardest I’ve ever worked for $80 in my life, and I had some pretty crap jobs before heading off to college. Long story short, if it’s a straight shot from one city to another, the public buses work well, but once you need to transfer, it’s probably best just to pony up the dough. Unless your time is really worth a lot less than your money, that is.
Anyways, back to the drunken cow boys and cowgirls. I’m not talking about a couple of dudes in big hats stumbling around after having a few too many, either; I’m talking about hundreds of people on horseback, riding around the city. They were actually about the first thing we saw on arriving, or really before arriving, since our bus had to stop and wait for the parade of equestrians to pass before pulling into the depot. This was around 3 in the afternoon, and they looked moderately tipsy at worst by then. Next, we grabbed a taxi to where we were staying and spent a couple hours relaxing before walking back into town. By this time, the number of riders had decreased but there were still enough to stretch out for two or three blocks and a lot of them were getting pretty hammered by this point. It looked like this for a couple of city blocks:
Now imagine this spreading out for three city blocks Taken by Elani
On top of that, the horse were pretty clearly getting a bit tired and stressed, and not all of them looked particularly inclined to go where the drunken humans on their backs were telling them to go. Fortunately, everything seemed more or less under control and the whole mob was being followed by some rather sober looking police officers on what looked to be rather calm and well trained horses, at least to my inexpert eyes. After getting tired of following the drunken mounted revelry and the smell of what I’ll generously assume was horse urine, we went off to find a place to eat and were lucky enough to run across a gastro pub (it had been awhile since I’d seen one of them) that specialized in pizza and micro brews. It was honestly one of the best meals we had in Costa Rica.
San Ramon’s finest making sure the cowboys and cowgirls to start too much trouble Taken by Elani
Well, I didn’t see any poets while I was in San Ramon (at least, as far as I could tell), but their graffiti was stunning. Well, I should really say street art, because this wasn’t the usual “so and so was here” or crudely drawn phalluses, there was some really good stuff, and lots of it. Here are a few of the best ones Elani and I were able to find and photograph:
Street art in San Ramon Taken by Elani
Street art in San Ramon Taken by Elani
Judging by the street art, there are some pretty potent narcotics available in San Ramon Taken by Elani
Sometimes you judge the graffiti – sometimes the graffiti judges you Taken by Elani
That pretty much covers it for San Ramon. The day we left was mostly spent waiting for a bus and then waiting to get off of the bus. After that, it was time to settle into our last real destination in Costa Rica, the cozy little beach town of Samara.
I want to wrap up the story of my time in La Fortuna, Costa Rica by writing about what I consider the high point of my time there – seeing Rio Celeste. Not that some face time with a sloth and soaking in the hot springs weren’t amazing experiences. But Rio Celeste is a true natural wonder and a river quite unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. Its waters are a brilliant opaque azure blue that looks extra stunning set against the lush green Costa Rican jungle it runs through. But a picture is worth a thousand words, so I’ll save a little trouble:
Rio Celeste running through the jungle Taken by Elani
To get there from La Fortuna takes an hour and a half by car. We rented one because the public transport there is not great and the tour operators are actually more expensive than the 50 USD it cost to rent a car for the day (no, it wasn’t anything fancy, Costa Rican car rentals are just really expensive). After parking and paying a guy $2 to park and/or watch our car (in all reality probably neither), we set off on a rather muddy path through the jungle. This part of the trip was quite nice in its own right, and had some rather picturesque, if small, residents. There were a couple of varieties of grass hopper that I didn’t find anywhere else. There was even one that had its legs stinking out to the side instead of up, as is the usual configuration:
A weird looking grasshopper Taken by Elani
A group of brightly colored grasshopper hatchlings Taken by Elani
There was a little lizard that, if I didn’t miss my mark, is a variety of anole, and whose camouflage was good but not good enough to fool this higher primate:
An anole trying very hard to be sneaky and mostly succeeding Taken by Elani
And this little guy, a stick insect hatchling, who hitched a ride on me until I spotted him and left him on the some of the nearby foliage after a brief photo shoot:
Stick insect hatchling Taken by Elani
On the roughly half hour hike to get to the river, Elani and I had caught a few glances of the river through the trees, then we came to the first clearing where we could get a close up view:
Me admiring the waters of Rio Celeste Taken by Elani
Really, the pictures don’t do it justice. In part, that’s because there are so many enhanced photos out there, but really seeing that deep solid impenetrable blue with my own eyes was quite spectacular. But even though they don’t really capture it, I’m still going to keep including pictures, because they do look awesome:
Panorama of Rio Celeste Taken by Elani
We continued to follow the trail upstream, crossing the river a few times on bridges that stated rather explicitly that they were for one person at a time. Seeing a sign like always makes my engineering training kick in and I have to wonder, what safety factor did they use? I figure those bridges have to be good for at least one and a half people at a time, probably two if their small. Oh well, I guess it’s not a long drop anyway. The bridges did give me a chance to stare down into the waters. At this point (it turns out we were getting quite close to the source), I could really only see a few inches below the surface, and on the rocks and branches on the sides that I could see, there was a strange colored bluish/greenish algae that was weirdly close to the color of corroding copper.
I’m sure this bridge will hold Taken by Elani
Continuing on, we came to what was the most remarkable (though I would say not the most stunningly beautiful) spot on the river. That was the place where it turns blue. That’s right, Reo Celeste is a normal looking clear river up to a certain point, but when a tributary flows into it, it turns that amazing milky blue. It’s not a gradual change either, there’s a sharp line in the river where the waters mix and all the sudden – boom, blue water. It’s pretty crazy. So what the hell is going on? Well, there are two explanations, and I like them both for different reasons, so I’ll relate them both. The first is that the main river contains aluminosilicate in suspension. The pH change at the mixing point causes the suspended particles to increase in size. The new larger sized particles now reflect blue spectrum light, giving the river its color. I summarized this off a surprisingly technical, though not well translated, sign in the park, so take it with a grain of salt. Or perhaps a particle of aluminosilicate might be more appropriate. The other explanation may lack a bit of scientific rigor, but it is rather poetic, a heck of a lot easier to remember, and does a nice job of catching the feeling of staring in wonder at those blue waters for the first time. It is that after painting the sky, Rio Celeste is where God dipped his paint brush. Well, either way, the spot where those rivers come together is where the magic or science or whatever happens. And it’s pretty amazing to see:
The mixing point where Rio Celeste turns blue Taken by Elani
But what is probably most amazing is that the point where the color shifts isn’t even the most scenic part. We back tracked our way down river and took a path leading to a long (and fairly slippery) stairway that leads to a platform overlooking the most ridiculously beautiful waterfall I’ve ever seen:
Rio Celeste waterfall Taken by Elani
Definitely one of those spectacles you just have to stand and stare at for a while. Unfortunately, even though those waters look cool and inviting, especially after a hike in 85 degree F heat, there is no swimming allowed in the park. Probably for the best really, not sure I really need to see a bunch of half naked tourists lining up to all get the perfect new profile picture. However, that’s not to say that Elani and I didn’t get a chance to take a dip. A couple miles from the park there is an overpass where you can pull over and head down to the water. In case you’re curious, the water doesn’t feel any different than normal water, but it has a slight metallic smell. The oddest thing about it was that you really couldn’t see more than a foot beneath the water and there were some rather larger boulders down there. But all in all, it was a great way to cool off and wrap up a day experiencing what is hands down the most amazing river I’ve ever seen (and swam in).
Elani enjoying a swim in Rio Celeste Taken by Geoff
