Archive for August, 2011
Flying through Lima
We probably did not do Lima justice. 3 days. And this blog post is intentionally designed to reflect that:) A great hostel in a converted colonial house. The monastery with several tens of thousands of people buried in the catacombs below, and the square outside where Aida was mobbed by adoring schoolgirls (Passing thought – […]
Swims With Sea Lions
Yesterday I played with a sea lion in the ocean. He danced in front of me for a good few minutes, invited me to follow, then shot off faster than I could hope to swim. And it was definitely play. He swam around me, ducked in and out in a game of chase […]
Lazy Focas
Walking in the Galapagos, you cannot but be overwhelmed by the number of seals lazing around. In roads, on beaches, on steps, on boats, in fact anywhere where there was a flat or comfortable piece of ground that they could fit on. Except that we were abruptly corrected by every local. These are not seals […]
A day was too long in Guayaquil
Flying in over Quito, we wondered whether we’d made a mistake not to stop here. The view of the city nestling in the Andes on multiple levels, and the sudden dramatic drop from one to the next made us wish we’d scheduled a few days here. There are places that are best viewed from the […]
Our personal Costa Rica
Fantastic apartment in Alajuela. 4 beds that we could string together to make the widest bed known to man, and which the kids loved. Dinner in the hostel. Aida and her fat daddy moment. “It’s a shame”? No, “It’s a really big fat belly”. Chop chop chop. The owner’s mother who knew more about Palestine […]
(Surfing and) The global happiness revolution
3 Boys Surf pose Drive along any longish stretch of road in Costa Rica, as we just have going from the coast at Samara to the Manuel Antonio national park, and you will see a bunch of signs by the side of the road that say nothing more than CostaRicaHappy.com. This would seem even odder […]
Volunteering at the Children’s Eternal Rainforest
We have had a near daily education as to the etymological makeup of the word ‘rainforest’, and the critical 4 letter difference from the word ‘forest’. Today was no different, but fortunately the downpour came after our work was done. We took the children to Monteverde’s Children’s Eternal Rainforest (Bosque Eterno de los Niños). This […]
Us and the Nicaraguan contra affair
Costa Rica throws up some surprises every so often. This evening, we had dinner in a restaurant called ‘The Airplane’. Nothing odd about a restaurant called the airplane. Plenty odd, though, about a bar and nightclub which are housed inside a Fairchild C123 which looks to all intents and purposes like it crash landed into […]
Stalkers
Not sure who’s doing the stalking, but these ladies from Amsterdam joined us on a bus from Cienfuegos in Cuba, then on the same flight from Cuba to San Jose in Costa Rica, and two weeks later in the same hotel at the bar at the same time in Samara beach. Seemed too nice to […]
Coffee farmers in Monteverde
I have a confession to make. I am sitting in The Common Cup cafe in one of the world’s coffee growing hotspots in Monteverde, Costa Rica, where the owners grow and process their own coffee, and I have ordered a Mocha. Thousands of coffee growers are turning in their graves at the lack of sophistication […]
Sad to be leaving Cuba
Not sure what it was. The friendliness of her people? That there is a lot to do there and their aspirations were more fundemental than waiting for the next Apple release? The feeling that the revolution is never a distant memory? The endless banter in the street with people you’ve never met and would never […]