An eager audience at the weekly show Walking back to my hostel in Cusco alone a couple of nights ago, I saw a schoolgirl of around 11 or 12 years, still in her school uniform, pushing and cajoling her blind drunk father to get him home. He was teetering all over the road and pavement, […]
Accommodation While in Cuba, we stayed only in Casas Particulares, which as we mentioned before, are homes where the owners are able to rent out rooms to guests. These were far cheaper and more personal than hotels. The family there usually follows your lead as to whether to stay out of your way, or to […]
Che was a hero of mine in my teens, as he was to millions of others. I was riveted by castaneda’s biography of him, Companero, found The Motorcycle Diaries a fun and insightful read, and his Bolivian Diaries eery as they continued to the day before his assassination. However, visiting Cuba and seeing the plight of many Cubans, a […]
I’ve asked many of the Cubans we’ve met what the biggest Cuban sports are. Unlike pretty much all of the Spanish speaking world, football doesn’t get a look in. Number one is baseball. Second is boxing. Third, and I was told this by more than one person, so it was either a famous joke or […]
Alvaro, my second son seems to have developed an admiration for Che Guevara. As a part of this trip to Cuba, I have been sharing her history with the boys. A fascinating story, but given her proximity to Mexico, there are some marked differences. While in Mexico, the Maya are still alive and well, in Cuba […]
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 […]
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 […]
Tariq cleans up the 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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
Che was a hero of mine in my teens, as he was to millions of others. I was riveted by castaneda’s biography of him, Companero, found The Motorcycle Diaries a fun and insightful read, and his Bolivian Diaries eery as they continued to the day before his assassination. However, visiting Cuba and seeing the plight of many Cubans, a […]
Accommodation While in Cuba, we stayed only in Casas Particulares, which as we mentioned before, are homes where the owners are able to rent out rooms to guests. These were far cheaper and more personal than hotels. The family there usually follows your lead as to whether to stay out of your way, or to […]
As we looked into this adventure, it was great to see the stories of other families that have been down this road before. This road being the one where you take your child(ren) out with you and go for a mind-expanding trip around (bits of) the world. If you’re reading this blog thinking ‘what a […]
Bolivian Elvis the Salt Plains Guard Crosses and miniature shrines pepper the side of the road from La Paz to Uyuni here in Bolivia. Each was planted by the family of someone who died along this very straight road, usually killed by a lorry overtaking a car in the opposite direction and not bothering to […]
Accommodation While in Cuba, we stayed only in Casas Particulares, which as we mentioned before, are homes where the owners are able to rent out rooms to guests. These were far cheaper and more personal than hotels. The family there usually follows your lead as to whether to stay out of your way, or to […]
With two weeks in Buenos Aires, nowhere did I see the locals more alive than in the Bombonera, the stadium of the Boca Juniors, by some measures the world’s most successful football team. And nowhere have I seen more impassioned and sustained support for 90 minutes than in the game we watched them play against […]