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Update: I’m Going to Malaysia!

I live a weird and somewhat extraordinary life. A couple of days ago I didn’t really have any intentions of going to Malaysia and didn’t even know that much about it (still don’t, really, but that’ll change soon one way or another). Now Elani and I will be traveling there in a little over a month and staying for a month and a half. So, what changed?

Well, I’ll start by saying I don’t like to plan too early – there’s a sweet spot to planning. If you wait too long, things book up and prices rise, but if you plan too early, you can miss out on some information that would change your decision, or preferences or goals may change. Basically, I’m a big proponent of waiting until that last minute before things get difficult. That may sound like me justifying being lazy, but “lazy” is usually just a derogatory term for efficiency, and I’ll certainly never apologize for being efficient.  Anyways, that sweet spot came for planning where to go after Bali, mainly because we need an exit ticket before arriving there.

Two of the top spots in Southeast Asia are Thailand and Vietnam, but the weather in general and the wind for kiting in particular aren’t great until later in the year. That meant it was time to use my favorite trick when I don’t know where I want to go –pull up the Google Flights map and see where’s cheap. It turns out that the cheapest flights out of Denpasar, Bali, other than to somewhere else in Indonesia, were to Malaysia. The next step was to check the US State Department’s website for travel restrictions and dangers (for would-be travelers out there, I recommend it as a starting place). Despite the fact that in East Malaysia (the section of the country on the island of Borneo, and definitely nowhere near where we’re going), there is a real danger of being kidnapped by pirates (I’m not being the least bit facetious about that, actual modern pirates are kidnapping tourists on Borneo for ransom – holy crap!), mainland Malaysia is actually quite safe. Visas to Malaysia are straight forward, with a generous 90 days given for tourist on entry. Okay, so a go on Malaysia then. A little more digging showed that though Kuala Lumpur is a little cheaper, Penang is a bit more chill, has more history, and is one of the best cities in Asia for street food. Sold!

At this point things were looking good, we just had to wade through some bureaucracy to get a 60 day visa to Indonesia and then after that we would fly out to Penang. It was a pretty good plan, but I was lamenting to Elani that that puts us in a non-kiteboarding spot for my birthday. Not a big deal, but it got us thinking, why bother with all the trouble of getting a 60 day visa? Instead, we could just do 30 days in Bali, head over to Malaysia for a while, then go back to Bali in time for my birthday. Boom, done, perfect plan. Sometimes you just need to step back and think about things differently.

So, that’s what we’re up to. First Bali, then to Malaysia, then back to Bali, and by that point, the weather will be starting to get nicer in Thailand and Vietnam. I love it when a plan comes together!

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Update from Germany: What I’m Up To and What’s Up Next

It’s been a little while since my last post – about a month, in fact – so it’s probably time I got everyone up to date on where I am and what I’m up to. Right now, I’m writing from Rügen, Germany, which is a lovely little island in the Baltic Sea situated in the northeast corner of Germany. It’s pretty much just vacation towns on the coast and farmland in the interior, but the atmosphere is relaxed, the natural beauty is abundant, and the beer and smoked fish sandwiches are excellent and plentiful. Honestly, I’ve thought on a few occasions during our stay that I could really see myself retiring here someday. It’s too slow paced for my life right now, but I have been enjoying my time here after being in Lisbon for a few weeks.

Beer and fischbrötchen (fish sandwich) on Rugen
Taken by Elani

Which brings me to what I’ve been up to since my last post from Tarifa, Spain – I’ll write more about it later, but to be brief, after heading out from Tarifa and a short stay in Malaga, Spain (it was supposed to be one night but turned into two because of a mix-up with bus tickets) it was off on an overnight bus trip to Lisbon, Portugal. Elani and I rented a place in a nice, modern area of town for three weeks. For about a week in the middle of this, I was off to an inn just outside the little town of Elvas (which is a couple of hours drive east from Lisbon, almost on the Spanish border) for an intensive training seminar on the Spanish school of classical fencing.  It was an amazing experience and a great way to get to spend time with the folks from my classical fencing school in Seattle and to get to know students and teachers from the classical fencing schools associated with it from across the country. During the time I was away, Elani stayed in Lisbon and had the chance to get a bit of work done and explore the city. After Lisbon, we flew out to Berlin, grabbed a rental car, and made the three hour drive to Rügen.

So, what’s next? Well, when we leave Rügen in a couple of days, we’re going to stay in Berlin for a little over a week. That being said, Elani and I both agree that if we’d known how much we would like it here, we would have just stayed the whole time. But Berlin is a nice city, and I am excited to get me some currywurst. From Berlin, we fly out to Sanur on the island of Bali, Indonesia. The plan is to stay there as long as our visa allows – and it looks like we should be able to get a 60 day visa without too much hassle. It’s going to mark a bit of a shift in this adventure, I think – Europe has been a lot of touristing and moving around every few weeks, and seeing lots of folks from back home. But Sanur is a smallish town, we’re going to be staying there a lot longer, and the plan is to adopt that model a lot more in the future. It’s a bit more of a sustainable pace and a bit easier on the pocketbook, to boot. After Bali, it’s a bit more undecided, but top contenders are Thailand and Vietnam. After that, who knows?

In the meantime, it’s time to get back to telling the story of our adventures in a little more depth, so back to Costa Rica for our move to the town of La Fortuna and our meeting with a good natured and slightly overfed sloth.

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Off to La Fortuna – Sorry, I Mean Fortuna

After our stay in the land of expats – Arenal – it was time to jump right back into a major tourist destination with La Fortuna, or just Fortuna, as it is pretty much always called, much like Nuevo Arenal is almost exclusively called Arenal. I was corrected for calling both Arenal and Fortuna by their full names, so Costa Ricans (or Ticos for short) seem to take not saying more words then is strictly necessary fairly seriously. There’s probably a good lesson for me there, I’m at a hundred words and I haven’t even told you much about the town yet. Alright, back on track.

Anyways, the most obvious feature of Fortuna is Arenal Volcano, usually half covered in clouds, which juts into the sky just a few miles outside town. Until relatively recently (2010, I believe) there were almost nightly displays of lava flowing down the sides of the volcano, which is really what built Fortuna up as a tourist destination. Since the flow suddenly stopped, tourism has taken a bit of a hit, and the town has a bit of a “not at capacity” feeling, but there is still plenty of natural beauty, thermal hot-springs, and adventure activities to keep folks coming.

I got a chance to have a little preview of Fortuna for an afternoon even before moving out of Arenal. A former coworker of mine was vacationing in Costa Rica, and I took the bus over to meet up with him while he was staying in Fortuna. With a couple of nice folks he met at his hostel, we went for a walk around Arenal National Park and then hung out at the natural hot springs. The park offered a few great views of the volcano and wild life (including my first, but not last, sighting of monkeys). Here’s a shot of me taken in front of the volcano:

Me at Arenal National Park

The hot springs were basically thermal vents feeding into a river, which is pretty awesome, I must say. Warm (but not really hot water) flowing over you is a pretty great way to relax.

It was only a couple of days later that Elani and I headed over to Fortuna from Arenal (the town, to be clear) for our two week stay here. We got a nice little place through AirBnB that was a few blocks outside of the main downtown, which has a nice little park and church at its center. As with most places in town there was a pretty great view of the volcano to be had there – when the clouds weren’t in the way:

Elani Posing on the fountain in the park in Fortuna
Taken by Geoff

The town itself wasn’t particularly large, but here there were plenty of decent places to eat, including an honest to goodness sushi joint, which was a nice change of pace. Not the best sushi I’ve ever eaten, but perfectly edible and they certainly didn’t skip on the portions:

Really why would you put sushi in anything except a boat?
Taken by Elani

After a few quiet days of chilling out and eating too much sushi it was time to get out and take in what Fortuna has to offer, starting with meeting a new fat little flower-eating friend.

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La Fortuna: Making Friends in High Places

Well, first of all, let me apologize for the joke in the title. It is very dumb and really should be beneath me, but clearly it’s not – I’m sorry. But that’s all in the past now, it’s time to move forward. Ahem, anyways, one of our first adventures out in Fortuna was to check out a “sloth experience” run by a local farmer. Basically, he found an abandoned baby sloth, fed it, gave it a place to stay in his garden, and now he’s got a permanent house guest.

So the experience started by learning a little about his farm and how to make juice out of sugar cane, and a sample of fresh sugar cane juice. Then we took a walk out to the garden and stood around awkwardly with several other tourists and our guide waiting for our star to make her entrance:

Badoke making her entrance
Taken by Elani

A little late but, you know she is a sloth after all. Her name is Badoke, which basically means chubby. Which may not be the kindest nickname, but it was fairly accurate. I guess life is pretty easy when all you have to do for your supper is hang around and be adorable. So, after a bit or waking up and a proper amount of scratching herself, it was time for breakfast. What else, flowers eagerly handed to her by her adoring fans. Here’s Elani feeding her one her favorites, avocado flowers:

Time to get some breakfast
Taken by Geoff

More eating and posing, she makes breakfast look good:

What doesn’t everyone look this good when they get up in the morning?
Taken by Elani
Mmm flower
Taken by Elani

And a bit of working the audience:

Making friends
Taken by a helpful person who’s name I’m afraid I didn’t get

The camera loves you, Badoke:

She calls that look “fluffy steel”
Taken by Elani

After 20 minutes or so of showing off for the tourists she made her way off to her favorite avocado tree to finish up breakfast – which I imagine rolls neatly into lunch – in peace. It was a pretty great experience. It wasn’t the last time we saw sloths in Fortuna, there were actually some wild ones living a few blocks from our apartment that our host kindly showed us, but it was certainly the closest look we got of one. Meeting a chubby new tree-climbing friend was definitely one the highlights of our stay here.

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Writers’ Block: That’s My Story and I’m Sticking to It

Me, extremely busy, on the beach in Tarifa
Taken by Elani

I’ve been a bit remiss in my self-imposed duties, I’m afraid, which is to say updating this blog. I’d love to say that it was because I’ve been kiting every day, but that’s not really it. I have been kiting to be sure, and doing plenty of exploring and even, in an out of character turn of events, quite a bit of socializing. But really I let myself get distracted, and fell out of the habit of writing a post or two over the week. Or wait – maybe I should blame it on writers’ block. That makes it sound more like I’m a serious writer, so I’ll go with that.

Not that I regret having a bit of a busy schedule over the last several weeks. Elani and I were able to convince a couple of our best friends to come visit us in quick succession (we actually dropped one off and picked the other up from the airport on the same day). Getting to share our globing trotting with a couple of our favorite people was awesome. While they were here, it was a great excuse to tourist around a bit more, well, a lot more. We’ve seen not only several amazing cities in southern Spain (Seville, Ronda, Vejar) but also day-tripped to two other countries – Gibraltar and Tangier, Morocco. Heck, Tangier marks a trip to a whole other continent for me, one closer to the goal of hitting all seven.

Long story short, a lot has happened since my last update. I seem to be making memories much faster than I can write them down, and I still need to tell the whole story of Costa Rica. So, be patient with me. I’m trying to get back in the saddle and get caught up. To start with, let me tell you about Nuevo Arenal, and drinking gin and tonics on the beach.

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Kiting and Drinking G&Ts in a Parking Lot

Some events really capture the feeling of a place. And I think one of the things that really captures the beach bum soul of Tarifa is sitting in a parking lot next to the beach and drinking gin and tonics after a session of kiting.

The day was great for kiting. The beach was a bit on the crowed side, because the wind had changed directions, meaning fewer of the launches worked well. But there was plenty of room once you were out in the water. The weather’s warming up here, but it’s still the Atlantic Ocean, so the water is nice and cold (wetsuits strongly recommended). The wind was good, and the waves were light, so it was a good day to head out and practice. Since she had finished work earlier than usual, Elani came along as well, not to kite but just to enjoy the sun and sand. We met up with a friend of ours who’s a consummate kiter and digital nomad from the UK.

After kiting, packing up our gear, and heading back to the cars, our bud offered to make up a round of gin and tonics (being British, of course she had the supplies on hand), and we sat around bullshitting and enjoying the last of the sun and the view of the evening light on the rocky hill just inland from the waves.  Walking back to the beach, the crowds of kiters had gone and all there was left was the view of the sunset and the Rock of Gibraltar poking through the mists in the distance.

View of the sunset and the Rock of Gibraltar poking through the mists
Taken by Elani
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Nuevo Arenal: Live the Life of a Retired Expat

Do you dream of retiring and moving somewhere warm and tropical, where people live a slower, more deliberate life? Well, come to Nuevo Arenal, and you can see what that looks like every time you walk by a bar or café. Now, you’ll find expats littered all over Costa Rica, but what make them stand out in Arenal (I’m going to save myself the trouble of writing Nuevo every time and just call it Arenal – like everyone else in the area) is that there’s not much else there. So what you have is a town that, if left to its own devices, would be a place for local farmers to buy groceries and supplies and for travelers to get a tank of gas and a bite to eat. But the weather is pleasant and the views of the lake and volcano (both also named Arenal) are decent, but not good enough to attract significant tourism – so a bunch of old gringos moved in and brought with them enough restaurants and shops to keep them happy.

A view of the hills at sunset behind some typical houses in Arenal
Taken by Elani

So, why did me and Elani end up there for 12 days? Because there’s kiteboarding in the area. Bet you didn’t see that coming. Also, it looked a like a nice place to chill and relax with enough restaurants and good enough Internet to keep us happy and Elani working. It was a good place to settle in for a few days and change gears from being in tourist mode in Monteverde to living at a more sustainable pace while traveling.

Getting there was pretty straight forward. We took a public bus to Tilaran (what, you’ve never heard of Tilaran?), the closest city to Arenal, and our AirBnB host offered to pick us up there, partly as an excuse to runs some errands. He was, as you probably could have guessed, a mostly retired ex-pat who owned an apartment building that was built by another old ex-pat, and rented mainly to other old ex-pats. It was a nice little apartment, nothing fancy, but with everything we needed to be comfortable for a couple of weeks.

The town itself was cute, with two main roads formed an “L” and had most of the shops bars and restaurants. At the end of one of the roads was a nice looking little church that overlooked the soccer fields – you know, exactly want you might expect from a pleasant Costa Rican town.

Arenal’s church and soccer fields.
Taken by Elani

It was pretty common to see views of Arenal Volcano from spots in the town – it didn’t have the commanding presence that it did in our next stop, La Fortuna but it was quite picturesque.

Arenal Volcano seen over over Neuvo Arenal.
Taken by Elani

In town, there honestly wasn’t a lot to do other then taking a walk, eating, and drinking. But those were pretty worthwhile activities, since the scenery was pleasant and sightings of keel billed toucans (for the uninitiated, those are the ones that look like Toucan Sam), vultures, and other birds were fairly common, and Arenal definitely punches above its weight with respect to the food scene. There were several good options for pizza (which is pretty much the second option you’ll find in Costa Rican after Costa Rican food), local, and American-ish. We had some admirable burgers and pasta at a place right next to the lake.

Lake view restaurant in Arenal
Taken by Elani

But the real standout restaurant was the “Gingerbread.” The chief was an American-trained Israeli chief with a gregarious attitude and a rather foul mouth. We ordered a 5 course chief’s menu and were by no means disappointed or underfed. The first two courses were a roast duck quesadilla and a wild mushroom cream with fresh bread. They were followed by a Greek salad, fish, and fillet minion. Which were then followed by a multi element desert with ice cream, cake, passion fruit seeds, and some things I’m sure I’m forgetting. Everything was great, but I think the first two courses were the winners.

Roast duck quesadilla and creamed wild mushrooms at The Gingerbread restaurant
Taken by Elani

I’m writing this a bit after the fact, so now that it’s been a couple months, I’d say the most memorable part was – not surprisingly – the kiting. On Lake Arenal, there’s really just the one launch. It’s run by a nice Brit who’s been running it for the last 19 years that it’s been a vacation spot of sailboarders and, more recently, kiters. It was probably still a bit more of a sailboarder spot then a kiter spot, but there wasn’t any of the silly rivalry that sometimes pops up between the two groups. Everyone was very friendly, so there was always someone to shoot the shit with on breaks between sessions or when waiting for the wind to pick up. Since I didn’t have a rental car, the trip out there was a bit of a slog on the public buses with all my gear. On top of that, there wasn’t really a stop where I needed to get off (which is fairly typical for Costa Rican buses) so on the return trip, I had to wait until the bus went by (which could vary quite a bit) and flag the driver down. Oh well – after a couple times, it was pretty much routine.

The conditions on Arenal aren’t perfect, and I can see why it hasn’t become one of the kiting meccas of the world. The launch was tricky, the wind is fairly gusty and variable, and the water is fairly choppy, but not choppy enough for wave riding. On the other hand, the wind was certainly a fair sight tamer than at Playa Copal  (a welcome change, I must say) and there was pretty much always enough of it. Also, the temperatures were warm enough to never even consider a wetsuit, the scenery had excellent views of Mount Arenal in the background, and as I mentioned, there was a nice contingent of friendly sail- and kiteboarders around. One particularly friendly sailboarder – Ted – was taking pictures between outings and was nice enough to send some of me along and let me use them here. This one does a great job of making me look awesome and showing off the views of the mountain:

Kiting on Lake Arenal
Taken by Ted the sailboarder
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First Day in Tarifa

Well, I’m getting a little tired of being out of sync between real time and what I’m writing about in the blog. To remedy that, I’m going to start writing little pieces as they come to mind (like this one), while still doing longer, more in-depth posts in order. As far as writing goes, some things are just easier to write while fresh, and others work better with a bit of reflection. Breaking the chronological order will help me achieve that. That means that I’ll still be writing about Costa Rica for a while, but right now I’m in Tarifa, Spain, and I’m going to write a little post about what’s happening now. Also, I’m going to be in Tarifa for 5 weeks, so hopefully I’ll get all caught up.

Elani and I have been here all of about a day, just enough time to get settled in the apartment we’re renting in the old town, go buy groceries, walk around the old town, and go out for coffee. The old town basically looks like a mash-up of a kitschy beach town and the Cairo set from “Raiders of the Lost Ark,” but populated with Spaniards. The building style is heavily influenced by the close proximity to Morocco – less than 20 km across the strait of Gibraltar – with densely packed two story buildings covered in white plaster inside and out and topped with red clay roofing tiles. The buildings are broken up by a maze of narrow cobblestone streets and narrower walkways lined with an interesting assortment of shops, cafes, restaurants and bars. The old town is surrounded by an old stone city wall that terminates at a castle next to a rocky coastline.

A narrow plant lined back alley in Tarifa
Taken by Elani
View of a breakwater from coast in Tarifa with Morocco in the background
Taken by Elani

Walking along the coast, you stroll past a modern port filled with a variety of boats ranging from small fishing vessels to the high speed ferries that jet off between Tarifa and Tangiers, Morocco – the rugged coastline of which is visible in the distance. After that, you arrive at the beach, which is flat and open, with white sand and brilliant blue water. The beach stretches miles up the coast and well outside the city, and both times I’ve been down there, it was lined with kiters as far as the eye could see. But lest you think this is some sort of tropical paradise, the temperatures this time of year are in the lower 60s (Fahrenheit) and there’s a constant strong breeze, so while I’m sure that throngs of sunbathers and swimmers fill the beach in warmer months, the beaches are fairly empty save for a few folks strolling along or taking pictures in windbreakers at this time of year.

The beach in Tarifa
Taken by Elani

So far, it looks like an amazing little town and I’m excited to get out and kite and do some more exploring! But now it’s time to sit down and start in on my taxes – which I’ve been procrastinating on because doing taxes is always terrible, and when faced with the option to “explore a foreign locale or do your taxes,” it’s been pretty hard to convince myself to chose the latter.

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An Update on My Plans

Temples in Bali, Indonesia 2015
Taken by Geoff

As I’m writing this, I’m in Samara, Costa Rica. There’s still a lot to write about my Costa Rican travels, but that doesn’t mean that travel plans aren’t being made in the meantime. As has been the plan for awhile now, the next stop for Elani and me is Tarifa, Spain (after a brief stop in Malaga, where our flight lands). After five weeks there, it’s off to Lisbon, Portugal for three weeks. During that time, I’m off to a seminar on classical Portuguese fencing with the folks from the classical fencing school I attended in Seattle and their affiliate schools, which I’m very excited about. Our last two weeks will be spent in Germany (exact location to be determined). That brings us to the end of June and of our visa in the EU, so where to after that?

Bali, Indonesia. It was where Elani and I spent our honeymoon, and it’s high on our list of places to spend more time. Also, we found a pretty good deal on flights from Berlin to Bali, and to seal the deal, that puts us there right at the peak of kiteboarding season.

It appears that it’s pretty easy for visitors to get a 60 day visa in Indonesia, so our plan is to stay there until that runs out. Bali is a small island and it’s getting to be time to hop around a bit less, so we’re going to use Sanur (a small beach suburb of the major city of Denpasar) as our home base.

That moves the big question mark out to the end of August, and at that time we’ll be setting out from a spot that’s nicely situated just south of mainland Asia and north of Australia, so there are a lot of possibilities for what’s next!

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Monteverde: Time at Home

I thought I’d end my series of Monteverde posts by writing a little bit about where Elani and I stayed for the last five days there. It was a little place we found on AirBnB called Cabinas la Montana. A wonderful local family had built three little cabins on their property, and it was somewhere on the spectrum between a bed and breakfast and a homestay. Usually, I’m not too invested in where I’m staying while traveling. It’s a place to sleep, maybe do a little writing or reading, and sometimes cook. Nowadays, it needs Internet and a workspace for Elani. As long as it has the stuff we need, I don’t think much more about it.  But this place ended up being one of my favorite parts of the trip.

The cabins were a bit out of town, about a half an hour walk or a $3 cab ride, and at the end of a full day, we pretty much always took the cab ride. It was set off from the road in a nice chunk of forest, with several paths to explore on the rare days when we had free time during daylight. It wasn’t quite the stunning lush greenery of the nature reserves, but it was fun to explore nonetheless. There was a pretty amazing ficus tree:

Me in front of a epic ficus tree
Taken by Elani

And hosts of leaf cutter ants making lines all through the forest as they carried leaves back to their hives:

Leaf cutter ants hard at work
Taken by Elani

The most impressive animal sightings we had were the birds. They had figured out that after breakfast, there would pretty much always be fresh fruit scraps added to the compost pile. That meant that we got great views of the little emerald toucans almost every day, and some motmots made an appearance one day as well:

An emerald toucan preparing to raid the compost pile
Take by Elani
A motmot waiting for scraps
Taken by Elani

But the things that really made our stay a memorable experience was the time spent with the other guests and our host family. The day started out at with breakfast, which was a great home cooked spread of coffee, fresh fruit, sausage, plantains, eggs, pancakes, and gallo pinto. Gallo pinto is a mix of beans and rice, and it’s in pretty much every Costa Rican breakfast. It’s usually just the sum of its parts, but Terri’s (the mother of the host family) gallo pinto was above and beyond, and I was excited to eat it every morning. This was also a great time to talk to the other guests, a Germany couple traveling with their 4-year-old and a nice middle-aged American couple. All of them were great folks, and it was fun to compare our adventures around the Monteverde area. Our host family was amazing. They did an excellent job of making staying there more like a homestay then a hotel, while still giving us a private cabin to retreat to at the end of the day (that’s a very nice feature if you’re an introvert like me). As I mentioned, Terri was the mother of the family. While everyone pitched in and were very helpful and friendly, Terri took on most of the running of the bed and breakfast, so she was the one me an Elani got to know best. She was also one of the most mom-ish moms I’ve ever met. Her daughter described her mothering as “extra”, which was said with a fair amount of teenage exasperation, but was apt none the less. She cooked a hearty breakfast every morning, put up with Elani’s limited and my even more limited Spanish, helped us navigate Costa Rican transportation, did a load of laundry and refused money for it, tried (unsuccessfully) to pay us for moving some computer files around for her, took a morning to teach us the secrets of cooking her amazing gello pinto, and was just generally kind and caring towards us. When we left, Elani said she almost teared up. I of course didn’t, why would you even think that (sniff).

Watching the sunset at a spot a short walk from our cabin
Taken by Elani