A Year Abroad: The Most Memorable Thing in Every Country – Part 2

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….

January 24, 2019January 28, 2019

A Year Abroad: The Most Memorable Thing in Every Country – Part 1

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.

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.

Beer and Fischbrötchen (fish sandwich) on Rügen
Taken by Elani

Part 2 coming soon!

December 13, 2018

Chang Mai: Adventures with Elephants

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.

October 3, 2018October 3, 2018

A New Project: Website Design

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:

Athenaquotes.com

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.

August 15, 2018August 15, 2018

San Ramon: City of Poets and Presidents…or Graffiti and Drunken Cowboys?

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:

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.

August 10, 2018August 10, 2018

La Fortuna: Rio Celeste – Hands Down the Most Amazing River I’ve Ever Seen (and Swam In)

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:

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:

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:

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

July 31, 2018

La Fortuna: The Nature Reserve

After skipping ahead in time to discuss my current adventures with the “king of fruit” it’s time to get back to the story of my time in La Fortuna, Costa Rica. There are quite a few parks around the area, and Elani and I decided to check out Mirador el Silencio. It’s a private reserve just outside of town in the jungle at the base of Arenal Volcano. As one might expect, the views of the volcano were quite good, although of course the peak was covered in clouds. I think we saw the peak about twice in the two weeks we were there.

Arenal Volcano with its typical cloud cover
Taken by Elani

The trails in the reserve lead up to the remains of the lava flow from the 1992 eruption. The flow itself isn’t a flat slab of rock like some, but rather a boulder field slowly being reclaimed by vegetation. In a few more decades, I imagine the whole thing will look pretty much like the rest of the jungle at the base of the volcano, but now it’s an eerie mix of short, bright green shrubs poking out between jagged black rocks.

Lave fields from Arenal’s 1992 eruption
Taken by Elani

Of course, being a nature reserve, there was plenty of flora and fauna. The forested parts were filled with huge trees whose branches serve as hosts to ferns, bromeliads and a slew of other plant life. Closer to ground level, we spotted orchids and some wonderful looking berries that I didn’t recognize, but I think we can assume were either delicious or deadly poisonous. I decided the safe option was not to find out

Every tree is basically its own aerial garden
Taken by Elani

Delicious or deadly poison..hmm
Taken by Elani

As is typical for Costa Rica, the bird life was in fine form. We spotted several of these large black birds that look like some sort distant relative to turkeys. Even the parking lots had some great sights, with a colony of Montezuma Oropendolas and a couple of Keel Billed Toucans.

What I like to refer to as a “proto-turkey”
Taken by Elani

A Montezuma Oropendolas – try saying that three times fast
Taken by Elani

However, the most exciting wildlife sightings had to be the monkeys. They were much too high up to photograph, unfortunately. But we saw two species, the howler monkey which we’d definitely heard before but only seen once, and spider monkeys, in the only sighting we would ultimately have of them. The spider monkeys were by far the most impressive. A small group of about half a dozen went swinging through the treetops way above our heads. Spider monkeys are athletic and fearless even by monkey standards, and watching a group swinging through the treetops at speeds I’d be hard pressed to match sprinting on flat ground was something to behold. After all that, we hopped in our rental car and headed off to unwind with a relaxing dip in the hot springs before heading back to town for dinner. It was a great way to spend a day exploring.

July 30, 2018July 31, 2018

Durian: So What’s All The Fuss About Anyway?

At the time of writing this, Elani and I are one week into our five week stay in Penang, Malaysia. It’s a wonderful mashup of cultures and history, and I’m sure I’ll have a lot more to write about it, but for now I want to talk about durian. The “king of fruit,” as it’s often called, has to be one of the most famous and controversial in South East Asia, if not the whole world. Some value it as a delicacy and discuss the flavor and varieties with the same mystique as those who enjoy top self wines and whiskies. Others find the taste, texture, and particularly smell an affront to the senses – so much so that it is specifically banned from some hotels in the this part of the world. Malaysia is a particular hotspot for this contentious fruit: not only the fresh fruit, but also durian candy and ice cream are commonly available in shops and stalls around Penang. So with all the hype, we had to give it a try – I mean, how could we not. But how to even begin to figure out how to tell the “good” durian from the “bad”, not to mention all the stories of the overwhelming smell? If we brought one home and opened it up, would our apartment irrevocably smell of durian for weeks to come?

Looking over various tours in the Penang area on AirBnB, we found a tour to a local durian farm, including all you can eat durian. Well, if we’re going to do this, we figured we might as well do it right, so we booked the tour and paid a few extra bucks to get the “fancy” grade durian. Our hosts picked us up in Georgetown and drove us to their farm in the hills about 30 minutes drive outside of town. Once there, we met the other folks doing the tasting, a Chinese couple and their adult son, who seemed to be much more seasoned connoisseurs than us. The farm was a beautiful patch of jungle set high among the foot hills with a great view of the surrounding countryside and Indian Ocean beyond. Our host, Peh, and her parents and uncle showed us around their farm where they grew not only durian, but also banana, papaya, mangosteen, rambutan, and nutmeg, along with a variety of veggies for their own use. They showed off – with obvious pride – their durian trees, which included some large trees that were over a hundred years old and evidently produce the best fruits.

Durian fruit still on the tree
Taken by Elani

We started the tasting by sampling the rambutan and mangosteen, both of which were great, though I’d say the mangosteen were particularly tasty. This wasn’t Elani or my first time trying either of these, both of which are common not only here in Malaysia but also in Bali (where we were prior to flying here). Both are fairly uncommon in the states, and if you get the chance, I recommend them. Rambutans are quite similar to lychee, but with a slightly earthier taste. Before peeling off the skin, they look about as much like a tropical sea slug as a fruit. When ripe, mangosteens are round, about 2 inches in diameter, and glossy black. You have to break off the pithy outer shell to get at the multi-lobed, translucent white fruit inside. They are quite different from anything else I’ve had, quite sweet and tart, with very soft flesh and a floral, almost perfume-like smell. They’re very tasty, and as it turns out, a common pairing with durian. Then it was time to get down to business.

Rambutan (left), mangosteen, and tea
Taken by Elani

Unopened durian (and one jackfruit )
Taken by Elani

There are very few things in life that I’ve found really live up to their hype, and durian didn’t buck the trend on that count. I found the smell to be in no way overwhelming. A little stronger than most fruits, to be sure, and complex – an odd mix of floral sweetness, with funky notes similar to, but not quite like a combination of aged cheese and fresh garlic. So, a bit odd, but considering the rather florid comparisons to opens sewers or worse I’ve heard, really nothing to get all worked up about. And the taste? Again, complex. Trying to describe it really points out the insufficiency of the English language regarding taste. All I can really do is write down a list of things that you’ve probably tasted before and ask you to imagine eating them together, but I’m sure that that would taste nothing like durian in all reality. So maybe like a good strong brie, with jackfruit and a little garlic. No, that’s not quite it. How about a pear cheesecake with blue cheese, bourbon, and truffles? Yeah, that’s not it either really. Alright, this isn’t working, so suffice to say they are sweet, there are fruity notes, almost perfume-like notes, but also some really earthy funky notes like aged cheese, and a little something almost tingly and fermented tasting. Oh, and each one’s different. We got to try several varieties (they grow 10 on this farm alone) from younger and older trees, and all were different, with different notes coming through more or less. Then there’s the texture. The flesh is soft, sort of like a custard or soft cheese, but again there’s a lot of variety. Some patches were a bit firmer, more like lychee. Also, there’s a bit of a membrane around the outside of each section and again around the seeds at the center of each section, not tough, but firmer that the rest of it, and providing an interesting contrast.

Our host opening a durian
Taken by Elani

All in all, I think complexity is really the defining element in durian. The only thing that durian really tastes like is durian, and every durian tastes different. Like everything that’s an acquired taste (wine, beer, whisky, aged cheese, coffee), and durian is definitely an acquired taste, it’s complex and varied with a lot of pleasant tastes and just enough unpleasantness to keep it interesting. So if you focus on the unpleasant flavors, you’re not going to enjoy it. But if you’re willing to take it all in and appreciate the good and the bad, you’ll find a lot more of the former than the latter and at worst, it’s at least interesting. In a lot of ways, enjoying durian is traveling to a new city. You have to take it all in and enjoy everything. If I focused on the dreary high rise condos all over the suburbs, the painfully mediocre beer, or that time when I watched a rat screech and go tumbling off the eves of the building just in front of me into one of the open drainage ditches (that often have a slight raw sewage smell) next to the side walk, only to shake itself off and run under the door into the building it just came out of, I don’t know that I’d really have a very high opinion of Penang. But if I take that along with the amazing and inexpensive food, varied and rich culture, and depth of history that define Penang, it is a pretty great place to be – even if now I have to look both up AND down to avoid rats.

July 5, 2018

La Fortuna: Getting Around On Two Wheels

One of the major problems with Fortuna is that, other than going to restaurants and shops, there’s not that much to do in town, which means walking isn’t that great of an option for transport when sightseeing. That leaves three options: renting a car (which thanks to some shenanigans with rental agencies and insurance, starts at $50 a day), taking a cab (great for short distances), or renting a scooter. The latter is a bit more affordable for short trips, since it came in at $30 a day including a full tank of gas, and really, unless you’re a hardcore scooterist, you’re pretty likely run out of stamina before you run out of gas. During our time in Fortuna, Elani and I tried all three, but when it comes to the actual experience of traveling, the scooter was the most memorable.

Our first outing was a trip to one of the local waterfalls, then out to the free hot springs. We rented a scooter with an automatic transmission and 125cc of raw power. We were given reflective bandoliers and helmets that, let’s just say, would not have passed Department of Transportation standards, and off we went. Carrying two full size adults, a scooter that size didn’t accelerate or stop particularly well, but we got along well enough, and after a couple of trips around the block for kicks, it was off to the waterfall. After a long ride up a rather steep hill (during the steepest part, I had to completely open up the throttle to keep speed up), we made it to a park with a lovely little orchid garden and, of course, a rather stunning waterfall.

First view of Fortuna Falls
Taken by Elani

After going down WAY too many steps, we were treated to closer views of the waterfall and a chance to have a swim in the pools downstream.

Swimming downstream of the falls
Taken by Elani

Then it was off to the hot springs. I’ve already written about them here, but suffice to say it was a very relaxing time. The drive out there was a bit longer then I thought. A 10 minute car ride turned into a 15-20 scooter trip, but it was a nice day, so no biggy. On the way back however, it was twilight and it started raining. A 20 minute drive on a heavily loaded scooter on a major road, in dark and rain with no windshield (no idea why they thought that was a non-essential piece of equipment) was pretty much “exciting” enough to undo all the relaxing I had gotten in the hot springs, though on the plus side, it was the first time I’d felt too cold since I’d left the mountain town of Monteverde. But despite a bit of white knuckling it on the way back, it was quite lovely day of scootering.

I evidently hadn’t had enough, because a couple days later, I rented another little bike to keep myself amused while Elani was working. This one was a still a 125cc, but it was a proper little motorcycle with a manual transmission and everything. Still hardly a power house, but I did get it up to 80 kph (or 50 mph if you’re into that kind of thing) before I decided that was probably faster than is really necessary on a contraption like this. I decided to head out to the town of La Tigre, because it sounded cool. Lovely drive, but I was hoping for a bit more out a town named for one of the fiercer land predators on earth. Well, what’s in a name, anyway? The most excitement probably came for crossing a bridge. Here’s a picture of me by said bridge:

Me and my “trusty” steed
Taken by the dude at the roadside restaurant

Doesn’t look too bad, right? Well, the driving surface was a steel grid that shifted unnervingly and had a few slats missing. Not enough to drop a tire into, but with skinny little tires, I didn’t want to find out how much that would disrupt my path. But I crossed twice without incident and stopped for a snack at the restaurant where that picture was taken. I ordered a “cheese snack,” which turned out to just be two thick slices of cheese on two store bought tortillas, so not exactly fine dining. But hey, it was cheap, and the proprietor offered to take a picture of me with my trusty steed.

Well, it was nice to get a chance to try out the one the most popular local form of transport, and even with a few rough roads, nerve racking bridges, and rain storms, it left me having a few fond thoughts of my own poor neglected motorcycle patiently waiting for me back home.

July 3, 2018

La Fortuna: Soaking in the Hot Springs

One of the main tourist draws to La Fortuna is the abundance of thermal hot springs to soak in. There is a pretty wide range of development, luxury, and of course cost to choose from. Everything from a free trip down to the river by the bridge to $85 for a half day (and dinner of course) in carefully built and maintained pools at the high end luxury spas. We mostly stuck to the free hot spring, though we did spring for an evening at one of the fancier places just to see what all the fuss was about.

I’ll start with the fancy place. It was $70 for a half days with dinner. Drinks were not included, although to my surprise, they weren’t overcharging for them (though I think they could have been a bit more generous with the pours on the mixed drinks). We chose this place because it was supposed to have some of the best natural surroundings, and it didn’t disappoint. It was a few miles out of town and set into the jungle – they did a great job of landscaping and building the pools so that it fit nicely into the surroundings. I don’t remember how many pools it had, but there were plenty. They started at the top with a waterfall that was really too hot to spend more than a few minutes in and flowed through the rest of the resort with more pools in a wide variety of sizes, shapes and temperatures all the way down to unheated river water. So we spent the few hours trying out the different pools, getting a little too hot, then cooling off and going back again, with the cycle broken up by a trip to the poolside bar for drinks. After dinner (which I think I’d call fine, not mind-blowing), it was getting pretty dark and it was a good time to head to the farthest downstream pool, which was a great place to watch the fireflies buzzing around in the treetops. All in all, it was a great way to spend the evening. However, at the end of the day, the luxury and convenience of this place made it feel a bit canned. Everything was safe, secure, and taken care of. The people there were all tourists, the food was a bit “institutional,” the grounds themselves were too man-made. Basically the only thing that really felt local was the water. Which is why at the end of the day, I think I enjoyed going to the free hot springs quite a bit more.

The free hot springs in Fortuna are right before the big lines of huge resorts on your way into town. You park on the side of the road just after a bridge (usually giving the guys directing traffic and parking, probably unofficially, a couple of bucks) and wander down to the river. Once at the river you can either head to a number of little pools downstream or, like I usually ended up doing, head upstream under the bridge and find a comfortable spot to sit among the rocks. The water in the river wasn’t really hot, just warm, but considering that the air temperature was anything but cold in Fortuna, that was fine with me. Unlike the high end hot resort hot springs, this place has a nice mix of locals and travelers, and though it was crowded enough at times that you’d have a wait before you could snag one of the most choice spots, there was always somewhere decent to sit, and the scene was friendly and vibrant. However, the social scene wasn’t what made it stand out to me. There were two striking details that made this place completely different from any hot spring I’d been to either in Costa Rica or elsewhere. The first was that it was just a river, no walls or benches or any of the other niceties you’d expect to find a in even a semi-constructed hot spring. It was just rocks and sand, and it was up to you to find a comfy spot to sit. The second was that being a river, the water was flowing. I’ve never really felt anything quite like being in water flowing just a little cooler then body temperature, it is EXTREMELY relaxing. One of my favorite parts was finding a little rapid I could sit under and wedge myself against a rock so I could almost completely relax. It was pretty much like getting a whole body massage. The couple of time Elani and I were able to stay at the hot springs until twilight, we were rewarded with sightings of bats and fireflies in the darkening treetops.

While the resort hot springs were certainly nice in their way, when it came right down to it, the free hot springs had what I really look for when I’m traveling – the chance to experience something truly unique to the place I’m visiting.