the best of...

we have now been home for just over a week.  we are slowly unpacking boxes and moving back into our home.  the kids went back to school and i went back to work.  of course we got home just in time for the first big winter storm....including a couple snow days from school!

every traveler knows that when you arrive home you will be asked a typical set of questions.  'what was your favorite country, food, place?', 'what was the worst?', 'what the craziest thing you did, food you ate?', 'how was learning the language?' etc.

in part knowing this, todd had us all write down some of our best memories (and worst) to share with each other on thanksgiving (which was just a week before we came home).  so here it is....

our favorite places visited (in no order):

• salar de uyuni in bolivia
• the amazon jungle in bolivia
• machu picchu in peru
• cordillera blanca mountains in peru and specifically the refugio we stayed at
• the galapagos islands, all of the them but isla isabella was the favorite
• salento in colombia
• villa de leyva in colombia (on halloween)

our favorite people we met along the way:

• sandro (our guide in the bolivian amazon)
• carolina, becki, and elder (our language teachers in sucre, bolivia)
• juan carlos (our naturalist guide on the galapagos)
• the kids at casa lena
• eduardo and patricia (our farm hosts in northern ecuador)
• cristina and daniel (our farm hosts in colombia)

our favorite activities:

• snorkeling tunnels on isla isabella galapagos
• snorkeling leon dormido on isla san cristobal galapagos
• both festivals we lucked into seeing (pisac, peru and latacunga, ecuador)
• the bogota graffiti tour
• surfing in mancora, peru
• zip-lining in banos, ecuador
• playing and caring for the variety of animals at our farm stays
• hiking in the andes mountains in peru and ecuador 

things we will NOT miss:

• smoking!!  so many young european travelers smoke....ugh!
• cooking with crappy kitchen knives, pots, pans etc....
• putting toilet paper in the trash instead of the toilet (gross!)
• windy bus rides that make kids nauseous and vomit (fun!)
• being around smelly young hippy travelers who have an aversion to bathing
• not having any personal space....ever!

things we will miss:

• seeing new things and places
• meeting new people
• being all together as a family
• the street food
• the simplicity of just having what fits in a backpack

things we learned about ourselves:

• sometimes we parent better when we don't say anything
• walking is really good exercise
• lucy connects with kids who have special needs
• riley found he was pretty good at playing pool
• my sister/brother is super awesome
• we all love traveling and we travel really well together as a family
• we all love and miss home

there are many many other memories that we cherish which did not make this list, but this at least gives a bit of an overview.
i have one more post in mind to wrap up this whole adventure, sooooo....
hasta luego!

home sweet home

we touched down in the afternoon on friday december 2nd after two long days of travel.....starting in cartagena, colombia with a night in fort lauderdale, florida and finally ending in portland, oregon.  

my dad was there as we got off the plane for a couple quick hugs.....

and my mom was there to drive us all back to hood river.  we had her sit in the back with the kids and they were all wrapped in hugs the whole way home!

the kids were soooooo excited to see their grandparents and as exhausted as we were the hugs and love made us all giddy with energy!

our beautiful house was waiting for us and the kids ran around in unbridled excitement to be home!

the first thing we did was drink a big glass of water from the kitchen facet!  clean fresh and safe water from the tap is not something to be taken for granted!

the next thing we did (the adults that is) was have a delicious northwest seasonal ale! oh have i missed good beer!

we have the very very best friends in the whole world and there was beer in the fridge, wine on the counter, a basket of fruit, a vase of flowers, balloons and cards waiting for us and welcoming us home.

we loved our travels but home is good.  home is really good.  we love our community, and our friends and family. we love our home.  it feels really really good to be home sweet home.

the kids found themselves not sure what to do with separate rooms our first morning back....they ended up  snuggled together.

i have a couple more blog posts in mind. a sharing of the best and worst of our travels, and a reflection of the adventure in general.  
for now we are grateful to be home safe and sound.
hasta luego!

good-bye colombia!

we are now in the good ol' us of a.  we left cartagena this morning, flew to bogota and then onto fort lauderdale, florida.  we will fly home to oregon in the morning.

we said good-bye to colombia this morning (and really to south america and our whole adventure, but that is a much bigger post).  colombia, though was hard to say good-bye to.....it ended up being our favorite country and the country we hope to come back to someday.

we loved all the countries we visited but this one struck a cord somehow.  the people for starters were amazingly friendly and open.  not sure if it was the years of war, or the lack of tourism (and thus being so un-jaded with tourist), or if this is just the simple nature of colombians, but they are a wonderfully open, happy and beautiful people.  the people, as always, define a place and the colombians made this place special.

a colombian guy who was selling drinks on the walls of cartagena but graced us with a big smile and laugh....so typical of colombia!!

we will also, as always, miss the street food...... which in colombia is the arepa.   a corn meal pancake served in a variety of ways, but on the streets it is served warm with cheese....yum!

and the fruit! who can forget the fruit!!  so many mango smoothies and yet not nearly enough!!

in the end the kids think they would be happy in salento (and who can blame them, the coffee region is amazing), but i think i might go back to villa de leyva or guatape....with frequent visits to the coffee region, medellin and the caribbean coast of course! we loved loved loved colombia!

and so we say good-bye colombia......we will miss you soooooooo much!
hasta luego!

taganga and palomino

we spent our last week just chillin at the beach.  it was lovely.   our first couple days were in the small town of taganga.  this used to be a sleepy little fishing village but now has turned into a bit of a tourist town....though still has a sleepy village feel.

we mostly relaxed, floated in the waves and played in the sand.

lucy made a sand hammerhead shark

riley made a sand house replica of our home in hood river......the boy is ready to come home!

from taganga we traveled another couple hours up the coast to a town called palomino.  to call it a town might be a stretch as really it is just a few stores along the road. but if you walk down the beach access road there are several little resort like places.  this stretch of beach itself is long and quiet.  my guess is that in five years this place with be packed with tourist.

we stayed at a hostel called the dreamer which felt much more resort than hostel.  it had a pool, a pool table, a restaurant and a bar.

our days took on a nice rhythm.  we would eat breakfast at the buffet, then go play in the ocean for a few hours, then come back and relax in the pool.  during the afternoon heat we would read and rest.  in the afternoon we would go for a walks on the beach and then we spend a few last hours playing in the ocean again.  it felt like we were on vacation (an entirely different feeling from traveling!)

in the evenings we would play pool (the kids got an unexpected education on this trip that went beyond learning new language and culture.....one learns all sorts of things hanging out with 20 somethings in hostel bars!)

what a relaxing and restful few days! it was the perfect way to spend our last days in colombia.
hasta luego!

tayrona and santa marta

tayrona parque nacional natural was something i was really looking forward to.  it is a colombian national park stretching the caribbean coast. it is where the jungle meets the sea.  i had read numerous blogs describing it as paradise and who doesn't want to go to paradise!

we took a bus from santa marta to the park entrance.  from there it was to be a 2-3 hour hike into a place called cabo san juan where you are able to rent a tent and sleep for the night.  unfornunately there is no mid-range option.  you are either in the tents or you can stay in these gorgeous ecohabs that are $200-300pp per night......not in our budget!

so we set off.  i expected the hike to be hot and humid, which it was.  the beginning of the hike was pleasantly along a boardwalk with an orchestra of frogs serenading us as we walked.

there were a couple spots where we got peaks of beautiful coastline.

and then the hike became an entirely different animal!!   there are basically two seasons in this part of south america, the dry season and the rainy season.  currently it is the rainy season, which means that every afternoon there is an hour or so of rain.  the result being a great deal of mud! we had to slog through mid-shin deep mud for the second half of the hike....it was exhausting!  thankfully the kids thought it was some grand adventure and laughed the entire way!

eventually we finally made it to cabo san juan and got ourselves set up in a couple of tents.  it felt a little bit like we had arrived at a music festival.....minus the music.  we put on our suits and jumped immediately in the ocean to cool off.

within about an hour it started raining....i mean really really raining.   the kids and i actually stayed in the ocean in the rain for a good long while (which they were both absolutely delighted with!).  when we got of the water we ended up hunkering down in the restaurant area as the rain was not letting up.  we ran to our tent for some dry clothes, our bag of food and some playing cards. todd and i ordered a bottle of wine and we planned to wait it out!

it did not let up for several hours!  our bottle of wine was empty and we'd eaten most of our food. but the rain was still coming down!

and it was not just raining, it was a torrential downpour with crazy thunder and lightning (i am NOT a fan of thunderstorms!)

raining sideways!

needless to say our tent did not survive unscathed.  there were these egg carton type sleeping mats in each tent that basically ended up being sponges of water.

the kids are so so resilient. they both got in the tent and laid down on the wet mats, with no blankets, no pillows, no nothing, and they went to sleep.  no complaints.  i had a bottle of wine to help me get to sleep, but they just accepted that things were what they were and went to bed.   todd and i both commented that though they will complain or whine about stupid little things, when push comes to shove the kids can suck it up and deal with some pretty crazy shit!

in the morning we woke to that beautiful paradise we were promised.  it was really quite beautiful, no doubt.

we also saw they we weren't the only ones drinking their way into sleep the night before...

but after the night we had we were quite ready to go.  we had learned our lesson with the mud and decided that the cost of the horses to carry us out was worth every penny.

and so ended the chapter on tayrona.  both todd and i decided that even without the mud and thunderstorm factors we didn't feel the park was worth the effort.  certainly it is beautiful but sharing paradise with 150+ people is not my definition of paradise!!  not worth it!


we made our way back to our hostel in santa marta and couldn't be happier to be there!  santa marta itself doesn't have much to see.....and in fact we did not leave our hostel once.  partly because our hostel was fabulous!  it is called drop bear hostel (the name has some throw back meaning to australia as the owners are australian).  BUT as this is colombia, the hostel was converted from a mansion previously owned by a drug trafficker. it was built in the late 70s/early 80s so likely not a cocaine trafficker, more likely a marijuana trafficker.  anyway the place had a pool, a huge game room with a pool table and ping pong table, a movie area, a bar and a restaurant.  oh and air conditioning in our bedroom!  it was delightful!

yesterday was thanksgiving and although there was no turkey and mashed potatoes for us we were thankful for this adventurous little family and for the gift of the adventure itself....and for dry beds!!

we are less than a week away from coming home and we will spend our remaining days chillin at beach towns along the caribbean coast.  today we will make our way to the town of taganga for a couple nights.
hasta luego!

cartagena

my oh my is cartagena one postcard perfect place!  old town cartegena is street after street of colonial buildings painted bright colors with flowers dripping from balconies....truly magnificent!   home to the author of one of my favorite books, one hundred years of solitude, it is no wonder that gabriel garcia marquez's magical realism was inspired by this city.

it is also hella hot!  we strolled through old town in the morning hours from plaza to plaza and within mintues it seemed we were dripping with sweat (todd was quite literally soaked!).   by 10 am we were desperately searching for a museum with air conditioning...for example the palacio de la inquisicion.  maybe a bit macabre, but did i mention the air conditioning!

by evening the heat cooled a bit and everyone filled the streets again. we watched a spectacular sunset and later a fabulous dance group that performed in the plaza mayor.

the second day in cartagena it was overcast and raining.....what a wonderful break from the heat!!  we took advantage of the weather and checked out the massive old spanish fort just outside of old town called castillo de san felipe.

from the top of the castillo you can see old town cartegena straight ahead and then to the left you can see part of the new city....often called 'little miami'

that afternoon riley was determined to catch a fish off the city wall by the local method of just throwing in a line and hook (no rod).  i suppose he comes by this fishing thing naturally as my mother's family has been fishing the seas for generations and my father is an avid fisherman of the rivers.  he didn't catch anything but was thrilled by the nibbles.

our last day in cartagena we took a day trip out to playa blanca on the isla banu.......about an hour away from cartagena.  the kids really wanted some beach time and the beaches in cartagena are not particularly nice, but playa blanca is all white sandy beaches and green blue waters.  a beautiful stretch of caribbean coast!

being a tourist beach it was full of vendors, and the beach itself was packed by the end of the day!!  i got suckered into a foot massage and todd quickly followed suit.  i also enjoyed myself a coconut cocktail!

this guy makes pineapple and coconut cocktails out of his wheelbarrow

mostly we just relaxed in the water.  instead of a foot massage the kids opted to ride this 'banana' thing.

we were all deliciously exhausted by the time we boarded the bus back to cartagena.  the kids got a bit too much sun (bad parents!) but otherwise we had a spectacular day at the beach!

an amazing few days in an unforgettable city!!

today we left cartagena and traveled up the coast a few hours. we are now in the city of santa marta and will be exploring things around these parts for the next couple days.
hasta luego!