Travel – Page 6 – Travel with Jane & Jeff

Around we go!

Tuesday, November 22, 2016

This morning we are up early, daypacks filled with sandwiches, cameras, and, of course, lots of extra warm clothing. Today we are going on a bus tour of Iceland’s Golden Circle. The Golden Circle is comprised of three of the country’s most famous natural wonders and you can see them all in a daylong circular (duh!) route. We board our bus, which is NOT a bus with ginormous tires (those are used for glacier tours), but a comfy tour bus and head out. This is a glacier bus ->

Our tour guide is a woman in probably her late 50’s; she is tiny and I suspect that she is actually an elf. An elf in a huge sweater and ski bib. She is prepared for the weather.

Let’s talk a minute about elves, trolls and the “hidden people.” These are very important beings in Icelandic lore and even today in the 21st century. Our guide, that little wisp of a woman, was filled to the brim with information, geological, historical and folkloric, and she told us a lot about the hidden people. The story goes that Adam and Eve had many children and that God would occasionally stop by to visit. (Maybe drop in for some wine and apple pie, I don’t know.) Anyway, one day Eve was very busy with housework was getting the kids cleaned up when she saw God coming up the walk. Knowing that there was no way she could get all the kids scrubbed up before God arrived, and she would have been so embarassed for him to see the children not perfectly presentable, that she told the unwashed kids to hide. God greeted Adam and Eve and commented on the beautiful children. “But this isn’t all of your children, is it?” “Yes.” Adam and Eve answered. Well, of course, God being God, he knew that wasn’t true and he told them so. As their punishment he told them the children they had hidden from his sight would be hidden forever. They became the hidden people. So, I figure the moral of this story is to have a huge honking tub that you can pitch all the kids into at once. And what kind of idiot lies to GOD to his face?

Our guide today, and our guide, Audher, on Sunday, told us that there had been surveys and such in Iceland to determine the percentage of the population that believes in the elves, trolls and hidden people. The number is HUGE – though Audher did point out that the question was phrased along the lines of “Do you deny the existance of the hidden people?” Not “Do you believe in the hidden people.” Audher said that she would not deny that they might exist…

This mythical culture is so much a part of country’s psyche that there is even a beautiful, jewelled and ornate gown on display in the National Museum. The dress was given to a human woman by an Elfen man in gratitude for her service to his wife as her midwife. I don’t remember all the details of the story, but the fact that the dress is on display in the National Museum is interesting, don’t you think?

So as we rode on the bus, looking out at the landscape, our tour guide (I’m very sorry I didn’t write her name down) regaled us not only with geographical and historical details but also with these wonderful folkloric stories.

Our first stop on the Golden Circle is Thingvellir National Park, which in 2004, was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Thingvellir is Iceland’s most important historical site, in fact, this is a very important site for all of the world’s democracy. It was here in 930 AD that the Vikings established Althing the world’s first democratic parliament! There are some ancient ruins marked – a flagpole shows where the Althing’s podium stood; there are a few remains of where those attending the parliament camped.

Thingvellir, once the Christians arrived, was also where men were hung and women drown for adulterous behavior.

But the reason I am so keen to see Thingvellir is that it is one of two places in the world that can be referred to as a “Rift Valley.” The first Rift Valley Jeff and I saw was in Kenya, and I had no idea of its significance. Our traveling companion, Tom, tells us that Thingvellir is where the American and the Eurasian tectonic plates are pulling away from one another.
Yes, it is where these two plates are pulling the continent apart! At a rate of 2 centimeters a year!

Our photos show a big, tall mountain on the left and a much lower wall on the right with a path down the middle. The mountain and the wall were originally one but the plates have pulled the earth apart and created the rift in the middle. To see the evidence of these tectonic plate shifts, to realize that this is how our continents were formed is just mind boggling.

Thingvellir: see the difference in the mountain heights on either side?

We walked down the rift, between what will be ages and ages from now the break between two continents, and took a lot of photos

including these sheep along the trail. These sheep were a lot more sure footed than Jeff. Tom, Jeff and I went up some icy wooden stairs to an overlook. At the top, a woman cautioned us to step to the left to avoid a very icy patch. Tom and I cautiously shuffled to the side; however Jeff moved forward and boom – landed right on his wrist. Ouch!! Sprained wrist…no biggie.

He composed this riddle right away:
Q: When you fall in Iceland, where do you land?
A: You land on the ice because it’s ICE-land!

We return to the bus and travel on. The landscape is interesting – there are deep long ravines through fields. Our guide tells us that the people, and even the animals, in this area know better than to walk through these fields, because sometimes there is a thin layer of soil over these ravines. The land here is very unstable.

Stop number two: Gullfoss or Golden Falls. This area is a unique and fascinating geological site. Gullfoss is a really dramatic double cascade waterfall that drops about 90 feet. But what is most interesting to me is the route of the water. It comes from an ancient glacier and travels underground, then appears above ground here and goes over the “fall” which is actually an ancient underwater sea cliff! This entire area was all underwater eons ago. Fascinating!

The falls are still flowing though a lot of the area has frozen – gigantic frozen icicles that are really a waterfall. Cool…and very cold!

Gullfoss is also our lunch stop; there is a restaurant, gift shop, etc., all ready for the heavy tourist traffic, and we can tell from the parking lot that they do get a lot of visitors. There is a very large glassed off banquet style room overlooking the falls. It is clearly setup for multiple incoming bus tours.

We sit in the smaller restaurant. Tom and Jeff have the organic lamb stew, a local dish. They say it is delicious. I have a homemade tomato soup which is very good and there are free refills on the soups. Despite the signage that stipulates “No outside food or drink.” I pull our sandwiches and my thermos of hot coffee from my backpack. Just let them try to take my pb&j!

Sitting in the warm restaurant we realize how tired we are – our late night watching the Northern Lights is catching up to us.

Back to the bus, we’re heading for stop number three, our final stop: Geysir. According to my guidebook, all spouting hot springs are named after Geysir. At one time, Great Geysir erupted on a semi-predictable schedule until it didn’t. It stopped. In efforts to make it erupt, tourists in the 1950s, threw rocks and trash down it. It would have served them right if it HAD erupted and spewed that trash all back on top of them. But it didn’t.

After two large earthquakes in Iceland in 2000, the Great Geysir roared back to life! It continues to erupt, but infrequently. We didn’t see it go off, but had a wonderful time watching the world’s most reliable geysir, (take that, Old Faithful!), Strokker. Stokker erupts every 3-7 minutes – and the billing was true – it was amazing that this geyser erupted time and again; and not always just one spewing, but we saw double and triple spoutings one right after the other. Imagine the amount of pressure needed to shoot hot water 45-90 feet into the air so constantly! Imagine also the amount if ice that this spewing water, steam and runoff create when they hit this cold air. We were super careful walking around.

We left the geyser area to walk by bubbling hot pots and steaming holes in the ground….back to the bus.

As we are driving back to Reykjavik, I notice a town sign for Laugarvatn. That’s the town with the Fontana Thermal baths that we enjoyed last night. Boy, that would feel good now…

Soon afterwards our bus pulled into what actually is our last stop on the tour. We are visiting the Fakasel Icelandic horse park.

Note that these are not Icelandic ponies, like I thought, but are really full grown horses. These horses were imported from Mongolia and are the only horses permitted to be imported/owned in Iceland which keeps the breed pure and prevents the importing of diseases to which they have no immunity. Obviously, being from Mongolia, the horses are well suited to the Icelandic climate. These horses are known for their smooth, distinctive gait; and they are way cute!

We wandered around the store for a little bit; I thought the bathroom doors were fun.

And then it really was time to head home.

Dinner in our hotel is a typical Jane and Jeff affair…the three of us meet in our room, boil some water in our hotpot and pour it into our cup of pasta (Tom), cup of curry noodles (Jeff) and cup of vegie soup (Jane)

We hang out for a little while talking about our day…and we make sandwiches for tomorrow when we are planning to explore Iceland’s Southern Coast…

In search of aurora

Monday, November 21, 2016

We have all day free until 6pm when we have scheduled a tour for ourselves.

We start our day, after a good night’s sleep, by driving back to old Reykjavic and having breakfast at Reykjavic Roasters. This is the only coffee roasting place in the city and we must give it a try!

The cafe is very small and we stand around awkwardly until a table for 2 leaves. We drag over a chair and are good. Jeff and I have coffee americano and porridge (steel cut oatmeal into which we stir homemade raspberry jam) and Tom has the same coffee, but with a croissant with cheese and jam. Ahhh…a nice local place, and coffee is delicious!

Fortified, we retrace part of yesterday’s walking tour. First, the knitting shop, where Jeff and Tom wait very patiently while I look at everything and eventually don’t buy anything! I’ll come back another time. We come upon a typical touristy store. Tom buys little tcotkes for friends, I get a T-shirt and Jeff buys a shot glass. Happily I’m carrying my backpack so we can shove everything in there along with extra scarves, rain pants, windproof jackets, etc. We are prepared today! Of course, as luck would have it, it is not windy at all or remotely as cold as yesterday.
We stop in a small gallery but don’t buy anything. We find a store with reasonably priced postcards (about 70 cents US) but the stamps are over $2 each! Some cards are going to get mailed once we get back to the States!

We know there is a sculpture park down by the harbor, but we aren’t sure exactly where and decide to walk that way, anyway. We walk and walk along the harbor…we are not seeing anything even remotely looking like sculpture so we turn around and headed for the grocery store. Tom is going to get a good dose of travelling frugally. Um, let me also explain that Iceland is VERY, VERY, VERY expensive! At the supermarket I get a small jar of peanut butter, rice cakes and 2 little restaurant sized packets of jam. Jeff picks up a 1/2 loaf of bread, some sliced roast beef, sliced lamb (packaged like lunchmeat), a small package of sliced cantaloupe, and some cheese. We add in 6 yogurts, 3 cup of noodle things, 4 instant oatmeals, and a bag of popcorn (a small bag of Lays potato chips is over $7, hence the popcorn). All totalled to $75! Much cheaper than eating out!!

Back at the hotel we get ready for tomorrow’s all day excursion. We all make sandwiches and get our snacks in one place – easy to grab and go in the morning.

And now,we get ready for our big night out. I put footwarmers in my socks and handwarmers in my gloves, put on my scarf, hat, coat, grab my swimsuit – yes, swimsuit!
Tonight is our big night! Tonight is the “Warm Baths and Cool Lights” tour. The tour bus picks us up at 6pm and we ride to Fontana thermal baths. On the way I look out the window so much I get a crick in my neck, I’m looking for the Aurora Borealis. All I see is grey clouds, or fog, making weird shapes and point that out to Jeff.

When we arrive at Fontana Geothermal Springs we are given very specific instructions about what to do. First, the minute you enter the dressing room you take off your shoes and socks and put them on shelves. Then you strip down to take a shower and wash – use the soap! Then you put on your swimsuit and wash again. Geothermal pools are this nation’s pride and joy. Volcanic heat keeps the temperature around 29 degrees C and most baths, like here at Fontana, have “hot-pots” – pools at 37-42 degrees C.
I did all the necessary abulations. When I walked outside, soaking wet to the pools, there was steam everywhere. Not only was it impossible to see where you were going but the walkway was all icy. “Jeff?” I called. “Over here” he and Tom called back. I slipped in that direction. “Jeff?” “Over here” they chorused back.
I felt like I was in a crazy version of “Marco! Polo!” Eventually we were reunited in the steamy water.

After an hour of soaking up the warm relaxing waters, we had to get out. Yikes! It’s cold out there! I kept as much of myself in the pools as I could. I used my hands to pull me flat through the water, eventually I did have to stand up and scurried for the locker room. The shower water that had been so warm before going into the pool now felt like icy daggers. Jump around, rinse swimsuit, dry off! Get dressed…tank top, long-sleeved t-shirt, sweater, coat, long underwear, cordoruy pants, rain pants, wool socks, hiking boots, hat, undergloves, mittens, scarf. Okay, now I can walk the 10 steps to the buffet. LOL

The buffet was really good! They had ginger carrot soup and vegan lasagne. Tom and Jeff had equally yummy food. There was a very nice selection. As we were eating, there seemed to be a scrum at the door with people coming and going. People with tripods going and not coming back right away…
Jeff got up to check it out. Remember those weird foggy type clouds I had seen, well THOSE are the start of the Aurora Borealis! Turns out that when it starts the human eye sees only grey, but the digital camers pick up the colors. We didn’t rush out because we knew our tour was going on to someplace with less light pollution.

One young couple did go out and return and the people they were with started clapping and cheering. They had become engaged under the Northern Lights! Obviously this had been planned by the young man as someone in the group started pulling little bottles of champagne out of a backpack. Very cool

We are so lucky because the sky is clear. The possibility scale (I forget the real word for it) is a 3. The scale is 1-9, so I think “3” isn’t great but our guide says its really good.

Pretty soon it’s about 10pm and we all climb back into the bus, drive about 20 minutes and pull off in the middle of nowhere.
Jeff and Tom get their tripods and cameras setup while I walk all around looking for my GoPro camera which, I think, fell out of my pocket when I got out of the bus. Bummer! Luckily I still have my Nikon. (I never did find my GoPro.)

Soon we start to see the misty clouds…electrons from the sun hitting the earth’s atmosphere and the fun begins! Everyone needs dark for the very long shutter times (10-15 seconds) but some folks, including Tom and Jeff, need to turn on their Iphone flashlights quickly, occasionally, to see or adjust settings. I act mostly as flashlight holder and helpful tripod adjuster. I got the ISO on my Nikon set to 3200 but can’t get the shutter to open long enough. My photos are just black backgrounds with weird green dots.

The cool photos you see here are Tom’s.

We are FREEZING!!! As bundled up as we are, we are cold, cold, cold. I start to jump around a little and think very longingly of that thermal pool!! Still, it is WAY too soon when the bus driver turns on the headlights. She isn’t very subtle. Haha. But it is an effective way to get everyone back on board because no one can take any photos with all the light. We climb in and about 45 minutes later arrive back at the Hilton.

It is after midnight and as we part, I remind Tom that we have to be in the lobby ready to roll at 9am. It is going to be a short night.

Come along tomorrow as we explore Iceland’s “Golden Circle.”

And we’re walkin’….

Disembarking the plane we cruise through immigration, and, since there isn’t even a Custom’s area, walk through to the airport proper. Easy peasy.
It is 6:30 a.m. here in Kevlavik and dark, dark, dark. We retrieve our luggage; much more luggage than we normally travel with because of our bulky winter clothes. This trip is definitely not a winner in the “light packer” award category!

We have reserved a car from “Nu”, an Iceland car rental place and we figure out where the shuttle guy will pick us up. When he arrives, he tells us that we’re early for our 8am rental. If he takes us to pick up our car now, it will cost us more money! Seriously? We make arrangements for him to come back for us and another couple before 8; Jeff, Tom and I, all in dire need of coffee, see a Dunkin Donuts right in the airport lobby. Too funny! We manhandle our luggage, claim a table and sit for the next hour sipping our very hot coffee.

Finally we get to the car rental place. You can have one driver and need to pay for additional drivers; we agree that Tom should be our second driver as he’s really looking forward to driving in a foreign country, and I make such a good backseat driver!

It is a 40 minute drive to the hotel in Reykjavik and we’re starting to get a little anxious because we have a walking tour of the city scheduled for 10am. Tom drives, in the dark, navigating approximately one million round-abouts and we arrive at the hotel about 9:45. Yikes! Naturally we are too early to check in, but we check our luggage, pull cameras, sweaters, hats and gloves out of backpacks and run back to the car. Thank goodness I printed the directions from the hotel to the tour meeting place before leaving Colorado!

As we drive through old Reykjavik we see the steeple of the gigantic church where we are to meet…but every street seems to be a one-way street in the wrong direction. Jeff is going to sneak up on it, I think.
Success! Jeff finds a parking spot and Tom runs to the little machine to get our permit. He is there several minutes and seems to be challenged. Just as Jeff starts up the hill to see if he can help, a woman passes by and tells him that you don’t have to pay for parking on Sunday. Good thing because the machine was in Icelandic and we never would have figured it out!

WOW! It is cold and windy! We are prepared for the weather, but all our good windproof stuff is still in our suitcases because we had to leave in such a rush. Brrrr…

The walking tour is wonderful! We start in the town’s main square, anchored by Hallgrimskirkja, an immense white concrete church with a 74.5 meter high towering steeple.

The church is visible from up to 20 kilometers away. There is an elevator to the top of the tower and the view is supposed to be spectacular. (We’ll come back later do that.)
In front of the church is a statue of Leifur Eiriksson, the first European to stumble across America.

Next, after a short stroll, we learn about Einar Jonsson, a famous Icelandic sculptor, and walk through his sculpture garden. Jonsson was afraid of the dark, and somewhat surprisingly many of his sculptures are dark themes;

He was also terrified of earthquakes which makes me wonder why he lived on the second floor of his house and why there are only a few tiny windows. He designed the house himself and you’d think that he would have lived on the lower floor and filled the building with windows!

Just so you know, Reykjavik is very hilly! VERY hilly.

There are many colorful houses in Reykjavic.

These bright houses are constructed of corrugated tin over wood. The tin needs to cure for two years before being painted, but once the curing has finished, people paint their houses bright, happy colors which gives the streets a friendly feel. And personally, I think the colors are to offset the gray winters.

Our guide, Audher, is great. A native Icelander she points out tiny figurines, like those little green Army men that kids play with, super hero action figures and even Bart Simpson’s head (!), on top of signposts, walls, and building awnings. She said that the figures simply appear overnight and no one knows who is doing it. Some of the figurines with movable parts have different poses on different days. They are very difficult to spot so we are looking for them the rest of the day. We stumbled upon this little wooden elf house in someone’s garden.

Funny little figurines are not the only interesting street things in Reykjavik as there is a LOT of street art. Apparently, graffiti was becoming a problem and the city took action by commissioning murals to be painted all over. Gorgeous and diverse, these street murals are very impressive. And some of them are too intricate to be nicely photographed – but that didn’t stop us from trying.

Because neither Audher nor her company, “I ‘heart’ Reykjavik” receives any compensations, free meals or such from any merchants she freely recommends and give her opinions about restaurants, etc. It is very windy and cold so our small group pops into a bookstore/coffeeshop (think Barnes and Noble, but not) to warm up and some folks do get hot drinks. I am hoping that my big toe will thaw….

And, we’re walkin’…
I am thrilled when Audher points out the “Icelandic Hand Knitting Association” store. Here Icelandic wool sweaters, hats, gloves, scarfs, blankets, etc., that are knitted by the locals are sold AND they sell yarn! Jeff, Tom and I make a note of the street corner so I can come back here.

Our tour started in the heart of old Reykjavik and we are heading for the harbor and the oldest part of the city. Audher tells us that before Iceland had a written language, there were “law speakers” or men who had memorized the country’s laws and would recite them for all to hear. As we near the end of our tour we come to the Prime Minister’s office.

We are speechless! It is an unassuming one-story building right off the street. There are no guards, no military presence at all. Audher tells us that there IS a camera. Yup, a single camera!

There is a large construction project going on right by the harbor…turns out that this area is very rich in artifacts and when this construction was started the excavators came upon a nearly intact Viking Long House. Naturally construction was immediately halted and the archeologists went to work. The long house was saved and is now reconstructed in the National Museum. Jeff mentioned how neat it must be to know that under this city is probably evidence of an ancient civilization.

Our tour ends on a hill overlooking the harbor. A 2 hour walking tour on little sleep and clothes that are NOT warm enough, we start walking back and realize that we’re starving. We don’t even get lost as we retract our steps and end up a Babalu, one of the restaurants Audher had mentioned.

The restaurant is small and cozy. Jeff and I have the vegetarian chili and Tom choose an egg and cheese panini. Everything was yummy!

Hot, spicy chili. Perfect for a cold day!

All three of us are surprised that we find our car easily and we head back to the Hilton. I’m not sure I will ever be warm again!

At the hotel we retrieve our luggage and get our rooms. We are so lucky! Our rooms are conveniently right next door to each other. And we have an incredible view! We say a brief goodbye and go into our rooms to unpack.

Remember, we got off the plane, waited an hour before getting our rental car, drove 40 minutes to Reykjavik and rushed off to a 2 hour walking tour….we are tired and cold, but mostly tired.
Finally, at 3:30 in the afternoon, I decided to lay down. Jeff and I slept for about 4 hours.

We weren’t up for navigating narrow little streets in the dark and didn’t know where to go for dinner, so the three of us decided to have dinner in the hotel. Our waiter was delightful, and when we asked how he learned to speak English, and he said “from the television!” Turns out he is dyslexic and could only learn English by listening.
(Tidbit: in Iceland school children are required not only to learn icelandic, but also either English or Norse.)

The first thing he brought to our table was bread and butter. “Butter on a rock,” he said, and that’s exactly what it was!

I asked him what the significance of the butter on the rock was and he said “It’s for the tourists” Hahaha! Our dinners were very good: I had vegan lasagna onto which was sprinkled parmesan cheese (oops) and it was delicious. Tom had fresh fish and chips and Jeff had a salad with smoked salmon.

Finally, it is time for bed (for real!) We have a fun day planned for tomorrow and hope you’ll come along…

Off we go!

You faithful readers of our traveling blogs (you know who you are) know that almost all of our trips start with our good friend Tom Delaney taking us to the airport, and this trip is no exception. But this time there is a big difference, when we got to DIA ((Denver International Airport), Tom parked the car, grabbed his suitcases and joined us!

About six weeks ago when the three of us were out to dinner together Tom was telling us about an Icelandic author he was enjoying reading. “I’ve always wanted to see the Northern Lights,” I sighed. “Wanna go to Iceland?” “Yes!” said Jeff. “YES!” said Tom. And there is the start of this adventure.

Naturally, being frugal travelers, we did some Internet researching and found a great deal on Travelzoo…airfare from Denver and their “Hot Springs and Northern Lights” tour. A four night trip (which is really 3 nights because they count the overnight flight as your first night) very reasonably priced. But, hey, if we’re going to Iceland we want to have more time than that, and we’ve added 3 more days to our itinerary.

So, that explains why I am sitting in coach but it does NOT explain why Jeff and Tom are in First class! Here’s the story on that…and you can chalk it up to good intentions gone awry.

Iceland Air invites coach passengers to bid on upgrades to first class. I called Iceland air and knew that four seats remained in “Saga” class. As a surprise for Jeff, Tom and I bid the exact same amount of money and I put in the three bids at the same time. The next day, I was thrilled to see “Upgrade approved” flash into my mailbox…but wait, there were only two! Tom and I had been upgraded, but not Jeff! Crap! This turns into a very long, convoluted tale which I will not relate here. Anyway! I gave my first class seat to Jeff – which was the point of the whole upgrade all along. At least we all enjoyed relaxing in the First Class lounge; something neither Jeff nor Tom had ever experienced. I have been so lucky to have done so several times because of the generosity of my wonderful friends, Eve and Leroy Measner. They are so generous and have shared their frequent flier points with me on several occassions.

Before we boarded and long before anyone else was at the gate, I made friends with the flight crew. They had heard my tale of woe. Right after we took off, and I was scrunched in row 12C, the head stewardess moved me into an exit row – so now, though I am in coach, I have an empty seat next to me and about 3 feet of legroom! (Much more legroom than any first class passenger) and I have a window which neither Tom nor Jeff have!

Apparently the crew has adopted me…they sneak me glass after glass of wine and a dish of caramel corn from the First class section. Jeff came back to give me a gin & tonic, but since by that time I had already had 2 glasses of wine, I drank the tonic and not the gin. After all, I WAS in an exit row! He also wanted to let me know he had had an elk tenderloin appetizer, sea bass entree with cilantro rice and sauteed zucchini and onions for dinner topped off with a wonderful chocolate mousse…. I am thrilled that he is having this experience.

This is about a 7-hour flight…and sleeping is a priority. Now if the crew would just stop waking me up to give me stuff – like this fancy bar of Icelandic chocolate!

After sleeping for a couple of hours, I sneak my way up to First Class. Jeff and Tom traded seats with someone because they are seated together and are both sound asleep. I slip behind the curtain to thank the stewardess and give her a thank you card and bag of Hershey’s kisses I had brought.

She is knitting and we get into a really fascinating discussion about Icelandic wool. The seafaring people in Iceland wear hats, gloves, etc knitted from Icelandic wool, because even if the wool gets wet it maintains its heat preserving properties. It feels very rough which may be how it sloughs off water. She tells me where to buy Icelandic wool yarn in Reykjavik..

We arrived in Reykjavik at 6:30am, which is 11:30 pm in Colorado. We are excited to be here!!

Since it is officially Sunday now, I’ll stop and continue tomorrow.

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Our hometown (maybe)

Our plan today is to visit San Ramon. We know we love this area but we really don’t know much about the town; and, frankly, our initial experiences last October didn’t impress us much. Granted we did not spend a lot of time there then, so today is important to us.

But first, breakfast! We have our delicious drip Costa Rican coffee, fruit salad (cut up the pineapple, cantaloupe and one of the watermelons) and more herb bread. Jeff and I look all over the kitchen for one of those thingies that you use to make juice, but couldn’t find one. That will be our quest today: find a juicer thingy for our big bag of juicing oranges.

We’re off. It only takes about 10 minutes to drive into town and, since it is Saturday, we are super lucky to find a parking spot on the street by the square. The plaza is busy with lots of people sitting and chatting, there is what looks like a kind of “troop” of boys and girls in uniforms with banners on sticks – maybe a boy/girl scout troop? We cross the street from the plaza to the sidewalk and are right in front of the Museo de San Ramon (Museum of San Ramon) and hearing music we walk in. There, in the center plaza, are dancers in bright costumes. Here is a photo.

We were originally drawn to San Ramon because the University of Costa Rica is here and the town has many cultural events. Looks like we stumbled onto one. As we left the museum (we stayed just for the one dance) I saw a list of events taking place all day today…very cool.

Jeff and I are not shoppers, but if you live here and need household stuff or personal stuff like sneakers, we want to see what is or is not available…so today we’ll go into a bunch of stores. We discover an Ace Hardware type of place that has everything from books (Treasure Island, Pride and Prejudice, Don Quixote, all in Spanish), to ginormous commercial restaurant pots. I could have fit inside one! We could buy a nice stainless steel grill for just under $1,000! It is here that I ask one of the clerks to teach me “We’re just looking, thank you.” That phrase came in very handy throughout the day!

Wandering on, we go into a shoe store, a fabric store, a couple of cooking stores and dah-tah! there is a juicer thingy. We spent the $1.10 and are on our walking way again.

There seems to be an abundance of Chino (Chinese) restaurants in San Ramon. We step inside one to look at the menu…looks like Chinese food equates to chop suey with salsa! We walk by what looks like a very nice sushi restaurant. There are more fried chicken and fries restaurants or little booth-like store fronts than you can imagine.

While in town, we also want to find the public library and the rec center. Jeff has a general idea of where the public library is located from a rudimentary map we found in the car. Remember, there are no street signs (or very few) or addresses so people navigate by “it is 500 meters north of thus and such.” We get lost so I stop to ask a car watcher where the public library is. “?Donde esta la biblioteca publica?” He says, “Libros?” (Books?). Yes. He gives us directions, and I think the blank and confused looks on our faces concern him – that isn’t at all the direction we thought it was. He gets up from his stool and walks us to…a book store! We thank him very much, give him a tip, wait until he is out of sight and then go back to the plaza (easily found because of the towering church and trees) to regroup and start again. Okay, we set out retracing the route, which unfortunately leads us past the car watcher guy again (at least we are on the other side of the street) and do find the public library – which is closed on the weekend. But now we at least know where it is.

Then we walk to the University of Costa Rica campus (we know where this is) and walk around there for a little bit (it is very small). Since it is Saturday there are no classes, but still many student-looking types are scurrying about. Leaving campus, we wander through a nice residential area to where the farmers market is held on Fridays and Saturdays. It has already closed for today which we expected; we’re just learning to navigate.

Now, the rec center. We walk and walk around the area we think it should be. If you had a drawing of our route it would look like concentric circles getting smaller and smaller and smaller. We’re hot and tired and my feet hurt. When in doubt, return to the plaza (main square), which we do. After sitting in the shade in the plaza for a little while, Jeff has a brilliant thought – let’s go back to the museum and surely someone there speaks some English. A great plan! Except the reception guy doesn’t speak English and my “gimnasio y piscina publica” (gym and public pool) doesn’t mean anything to him. I even mimed swimming (fun with charades) and no dice. Right then two guys came in – the reception guy was so happy to see them and no wonder. They were friends of his and spoke perfect English. We explained what we were looking for and learned it was two blocks down and three blocks over (he even knew enough not to give us directions in meters and landmarks!). It is a red building that takes up the whole block. Okay, not sure how we missed that – off we go. His directions were spot on and we had walked by this building at least three times! We thought it was a school. And, it too was closed.

Let’s see, we think we’ve done a good job of exploring and navigating. Our last stop is to find a supermercado (super market). It takes us a little while to hone in on one, mostly because everything looks familiar: was it this street or that street? Maybe it was a street over? Eventually, of course, we find one and pick up the few things you can’t get at the farmers market: paper towels, milk, coffee (which we could have gotten at the farmer’s market, but forgot), and some granola.
We carry our store purchases back to the truck, now we’re really are hot and tired but have had a very good and productive day.

But our adventure isn’t over yet. As we drive home we decide to stop at the soda near Magallenes. (Magallenes is the area where we are staying.) A soda is a type of tico restaurant. They serve basic food like: rice/beans, chicken and rice, black bean soup, there are sodas EVERYWHERE and they are very reasonably priced. You don’t usually see gringos at sodas. Our soda is open air, the kitchen in the back, a small counter with 5-6 bar stools, three little tables in the front (kind of in the gravel parking lot but not really.) I order and Jeff says the young woman taking our order had the same “deer in the headlights look” that I had. hahaha! But, we did get what we ordered and it was very tasty. I had “sopa negra” – black bean soup which came with 3 freshly made corn tortillas and rice; Jeff had “pollo y arroz” – chicken and rice which came with coleslaw. Yum!

So now we have accomplished the three important things we wanted to do on this trip: investigate Atenas, explore San Ramon more fully and eat at a soda. We think the town of San Ramon is a-ok. We’ll do another exploratory trip, on a weekday, to see how it is then, maybe Wednesday.

Home again we put away our groceries, and after our big lunch at the soda, Jeff takes a nap while I relax in the hammock for a while.

Dinner tonight is a large salad. We’re definitely eating well.

Tomorrow we are going to get in some touristy stuff..please join us!

Farmer’s market – JOY

First of all, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many hummingbirds in my life. These little flittery birds are everywhere – well, there are flowers everywhere and there is a hummingbird feeder by the front door. It is so neat to see them. The number of hummingbirds is second to the number of butterflies! Last night when we were visiting Norman and Annie, she and I saw a blue Morpho butterfly go by. She was very excited because blue Morpho’s are not commonly seem in this area. She said it was a sign that Jeff and I belong here. There are roughly a bazillon butterflies here at our casita.

We woke up this morning to birdsong – what a racket!! There are singing, chirping, squaking, and cooing birds in all the trees around us. We left the bedroom window open all night, what a great way to wake up.

We have an agenda for this trip to Costa Rica: check out Atenas as a possible town in which to relocate, and spend time in “our” town of San Ramon and experience a “soda”. We’ve gotta get up because today is an exploring day, and more importantly, a farmer’s market day!

After a quick breakfast of drip Costa Rican coffee and 1/2 of a Clif bar each, we hop in the car and head for Atenas.

Atenas is about 45 minutes (15 miles) from here. I know what you’re thinking…15 miles in 45 minutes? Seriously? Yup…the road, which is in good condition (i.e. paved) is VERY steep and windy. Amazingly we get to Atenas without getting lost!! Atenas, like nearby Grecia, is named after a Greek town. Atenas, of course, means “Athens” the capital of Greece. It is a nice little town and is said to have “the best climate in the world” as the temperature ranges between day and night are small and vary only by a few degrees all year round. The evening temps averages 19 Celsius (about 66 degrees F) to the average daytime high of about 26 degrees C or 78.8 F. This area is popular with ex-pats because of the nice climate, and other things, of course.

We find street parking a couple of blocks from the main square where we expect to find the market. No, it has been moved a bit out of town, but there is a free(!) bus that takes shoppers back and forth. The bus runs every hour and one just left. Talking with a young woman we learn that it isn’t far, maybe a mile and we talk about walking. An older lady joins the conversation (people here are so nice). Her English is better than the young woman’s and definitely better than my Spanish. She advises us not to walk as there is nothing between here and there, just the road, and we might get mugged. Always listen to the locals! We decide to drive to the market and are happy that we did…the road was good, but there really was nothing along the way – no sidewalk and there was one good steep hill. Parking at the farmer’s market was easy, well-organized and free. The market itself was in a huge empty metal building…well, actually a metal roof as there were no sides. It did have a concrete floor which made it easy to push the REAL grocery carts that were available.

Nirvana! We spent at least 90 minutes selecting our fruits and vegies. We splurged on two ready-made tamales and two little containers of rice pudding. I know this is weird, but here is a list and photo of what we purchased for about $18.
3 cucumbers, 3 gorgeous tomatoes, 4 ears of corn, 4 white potatos, 1 cantalope, 1 pineapple, 2 small watermelons, 1/2 kilo of green beans, 1 liter of delicious, creamy yogurt, 3 lbs of carrots, 2 heads of green leaf lettuce, 1 large head of broccoli,, 1 bunch of kale, 1 loaf of delicious homemade herb bread, 6-8 pound of juicing oranges, the tamales and rice pudding and a bunch of flowers.
If you take out the cost of the flowers, we spent about $16 for our food for the week!

There are farmer’s markets every week all year round. Nice, healthy fresh vegies…though I did just recently learn that Costa Rica ranks #1 in the world for pesticide use – including some that are banned in the US. Bummer.

We begin to unload our shopping cart into the cloth grocery sacks we always pack. There is NO WAY all of that is going to fit in these bags. Thank goodness we drove!! How would we even carry all this stuff on the bus?? We get it all packed away in the back of our borrowed 4-Runner and go back into Atenas proper.

We explore Atenas for most of the afternoon…nice clean town, friendly people, well-stocked stores. Unfortunately we don’t know anyone here and won’t have a chance to check out the residential areas.

Back to the car…we are ravenous. It has been a long time since that 1/2 Clif bar and coffee. Jeff rips off a hunk of herb bread and opens the yougurt while I unwrap and snarf down one of the tamales with a rice pudding chaser. Yum!

Time to head home. To get to Atenas you need to go through the town of Palmeras, and you guessed it! We got lost going through Palmeras. We thought “maybe we could just follow that bus.” Dumb idea! Time for Google maps…just as I got our geographical, electronic location on my phone, Jeff recognized a turn and we were back on track.

Safely home we unpack and relax.

Now, back to the promised answer to the burning question: “why are there lentils in Jeff’s suitcase?”
First of all, it was my suitcase and more importantly it had more than lentils in it . Before leaving Colorado, I put together two different, homemade dehydrated soup mixes and put the ingredients into baggies. This is something I’ve adopted doing whenever I know we’ll be arriving late somewhere or if we need food before going grocery shopping. That’s what I did last night, I made red lentil soup for dinner because we knew we would not buy any food until today. So, I’m happy the little customs guy asked if I had beans and not lentils! Actually, what I think he saw were my bags of roasted peanuts.

Tonight we finish last night’s red lentil soup and enjoy a fresh salad and yummy bread.

Tonight is also experimentation night. We brought our Chromecast device with us to see if it works in Costa Rica. Success! We can “cast” Netflix and Hoopla from our iPad to the TV. We don’t watch much television at all but do enjoy Netflix especially. Good to know for future reference. In our testing mode, I start up the disaster movie “2012” (you do know that I have a penchant for disaster movies, right?). Next thing we know we’ve sat through the entire movie and it is after midnight. We go to bed!!

Hasta manana

Do panthers eat snakes?

When the United States is on daylight saving time, Colorado and Costa Rica have the same time; so when I woke up at 7:15 this morning I was a little ticked. I wanted to sleep in; but when I looked out our hotel room window and saw the greenery and sun, all was good.

It didn’t take long for us to have our free breakfast and pack up. The hotel reception person called a cab to take us to the bus station in Alajuela where we will catch a bus to San Ramon. Annie and Norman will pick us up on the other end.

The bus station was about 5 minutes away and much more manageable for us than the first time we were in a Costa Rican bus station. Part of the difference is that I am more comfortable attempting to communicate in Spanish and this station is MUCH smaller than the big one in San Jose. We successfully buy our tickets and are given two slips of white paper (receipts) and two little foam pieces about an inch square with numbers 5 & 6 written on them.

We think we know which bus to get on – if it doesn’t say San Ramon, it should say Puntaneras (a larger city down the coast.) Haha! We need not have worried. A bus pulled in with both town names scolling along the top and a man walked up and down the sidewalk calling “San Ramon, Puntaneras…”
We put our suitcases under the bus (Travel tip: If you do this, be sure your suitcases are locked and watch when other people with luggage underneath get off so they don’t make off with your bag or that your bag gets left behind)
A man at the bus door started calling out numbers in Spanish and I was pleased, shocked and surprised when Jeff stepped forward when the guy said “cinco, seis” and handed him the little foam numbers. When you get on, you give the white receipt things to the driver and pick a seat. These buses are not fancy, but they are comfortable and our trip to San Ramon was relaxing.

Once we arrived it wasn’t long before Annie and Norman pulled up. It was WONDERFUL to see our friends again!! Norman introduced himself, which I thought was odd, and “hey, this is a new truck!” Annie gave me a quick look, “Yes, we just got it a few days ago and we have so much to tell you” and I recognized the “later” warning look in her eyes.

Ah, so nice to recognize the roads and sites, we turned to Magallenes, drove past Las Terraces, where we stayed last October, and then arrived at our casita. Annie and Norman’s house is right “next door” – which in Costa Rican translates as, open the barbed wire gate, walk through the jungle a little bit and when you get close to their house starting calling out the dogs’ names: “Here, Red! Come on, Canela! Here Menschie!” so they don’t attack when you come walking onto the property.

We carry our stuff into the house and they give us a quick tour and information we might need. We have also rented Kyle and Diane’s car, so there is a piece of paper with their mechanic’s name and phone numbers on it and a note that he speaks English. Sure hope we don’t need that!

Last month when Jeff was looking at Ana’s website (she is a realtor) he found the most wonderful house – even in our price range! Before we arrived in CR, he asked Annie if she could show it to us – she knows our plans are a couple of years out and we are going to rent – but she said yes. Turns out that property is on the OTHER side of our casita. So, we make plans to unpack, walk over to Norman and Annie’s house, have lunch and then walk to the property for sale.

While we are enjoying Annie’s Cuban black beans and bread, she tells us about the new car. In February, Norman and a friend were in a terrible car accident on the same ROAD FROM HELL that Jeff and I accidentally drove last fall. Norman’s brakes failed and because the road is gravel and super super steep, he had the choice of going off the cliff or driving into the mountain. He chose the mountain. The car had so much momentum it rolled 5 times ejecting Norman’s friend, rolled over him (he was badly injured but will be okay) and generally getting smashed to bits. It took 2 hours for the ambulance to arrive and when it did the driver said he could probably get down the road but would not be able to get back up. So good samaritans that had stopped and stayed to assist helped carry the two men up to the ambulance. Unbelievably, the tow truck driver had the same issue! Anyway, Norman had 5 broken ribs and a serious concussion – which explains why he introduced himself to me. Not good for a 78 year old man… but he is okay.

After lunch we walk up to the for sale house. The owners aren’t expecting us and we shout “Upe” (Anyone home?) as we walk down the drive (They don’t have a dog!). We are welcomed in and shown around; their son, a Southwest Airlines pilot, is visiting them for the first time and we all sit and have iced tea and chat. Jeff and I excuse ourselves to walk down to the river and waterfall which is pretty but not very watery. The high season in Costa Rica is the dry season and this one has, apparently been really dry.

We walk home after making plans to walk over to Annie and Norman’s to watch the sunset and have drinks. I brought Annie the bags of carob chips she asked me to bring her, and thought I was going to have to take them away. I was afraid she was going to make herself sick! Haha

Afterwards we borrow their flashlight to walk back through the jungle – there are BIG snakes in this area AND a panther in the neighborhood. Norman offers us a machete, but if I see either of those animals I know I’ll just drop dead and won’t have need for a defensive weapon! Jeff will be on his own!

Sunset here is about 5:45 so we entertain ourselves. I write, Jeff reads and we listen to all the night sounds. What a nice day. It was long but fun.

Time for bed. Hasta manana…

On our way!

Yippee! All packed and ready to go – our friend, Tom, arrived early to chauffer us to the airport. Apparently he slept later than he intended and still got to our house early. I’m sure he enjoyed watching us eat breakfast.

Our extra-legroom, exit row seats were nice and roomy and our flight to Atlanta was quick and uneventful. Though there is a train at the Atlanta airport we decided to walk to our international gate. It was a pretty long walk and felt good to get some exercise. Our layover was almost 3 hours, which gave us time for a non-snacky meal and we both settle on spaghetti. Very tasty.

The flight from Atlanta to San Jose was a blast. Our upgrade included free drinks and a sandwich (too bad we ate the spaghetti). We also had free movies, so I got to watch “San Andreas” again which gave me my disaster movie fix for the week. We make it a point to give small gifts, usually chocolates, to the flight crews when we’re flying. The flight attendants work hard and I’m sure most of their work is thankless. We bought two bags of fancy chocolates before leaving home. We don’t expect or want anything in return – just to show our appreciation. Well, good golly! This flight crew was so appreciative!! By the end of the flight each of them had come to personally thank us, they kept us plyed with booze and when we started saying “no, thank you” to that, they delivered coffee. I could feel the other premium seat people around us wondering…especially when Marvin brought us chocolate chip ice cream with REAL spoons from the first class area. At the end of the flight the head steward brought us a thank you card and we were hugged as we deplaned. All because of some kind words and a $5 bag of chocolates.

Jeff was correct, landing in San Jose felt like coming home; well, except for the tremendously long line at immigration. Then going through customs, where they x-ray your luggage, my bag got pulled off. What the heck? The examiner was saying something in English, but I couldn’t understand him. Then he said “Tienes frijoles?” Do you have beans?” Ah, no…I don’t have any beans. There are lentils in Jeff’s suitcase but I didn’t mention those – we think he got the suitcases mixed up. (More later on why there are lentils in Jeff’s suitcase.)

We have our routine…go to the ATM, go to the liquor store (best liquor prices in Costa Rica are at the airport!) and then walk outside to where the Holiday Inn Express shuttle stops.
At the liquor store we get three bottles of wine and a bottle of coconut rum for me. Not sure what I’m going to mix that with – maybe just ice.

As we walk out the airport we see the hotel van and get right on – no waiting at all. I’ve been a little annoyed about the hotel because, even though I am the highest member class (Spire Elite) I couldn’t book a free night with my points, so we have to pay for our room. Oh, well, now I have even more points. I asked the checkin clerk and she said that the hotel has been completely full – I had forgotten that it is high season!

All checked in and time for bed! See you manana

The Prelude

Hogar, dulce hogar, translates to Home, sweet home.

If you are a faithful reader of our blogs you know that Jeff and I are very frugal travelers – or maybe we are travelers because we are very frugal? Anyway, we often get our accomodations through sites like VRBO (vacation rentals by owner) or occassionally Airbnb. We are returning to Costa Rica this week and several weeks ago, on a lark, I wrote to our friends Annie and Norman in San Ramon, CR telling them we were planning to come down and we were going to stay in Atenas because we want to check out that area. I asked her if she knew anyone around who might have a place to rent and that we did not want to spend more than $150-175/night. (This is high season in Costa Rica)

Well, holy crow! Yes, she did! Annie’s neighbors are going on vacation and have very flexible dates. Okay then – we love San Ramon and it is within easy driving distance to Atenas. A couple of emails back and forth and Jeff and I will be staying at “Kyle and Diane’s” house for 7 days for only $500! AND, we’re renting their car for $150 instead of getting one from Budget for $350+. Yippee!

So, we have had this trip planned for several months and bought our airline tickets in January. Can you imagine my surprise when I printed our boarding passes to discover that we didn’t have seat assignments. Hmmm…obviously that’s not right. I started digging around on Delta’s flight info and discovered that not only did we not have seats, we were numbers 5 & 6 on the standby list. What?? Time for a little person-to-person. After a call to Delta and an extra $100 we have seat assignments. Supposedly there were only middle seats, one behind the other, left, but if I wanted to pay for 2 seats together they could put us in an exit row. Generally I would not even consider doing that, I mean, we already bought our tickets, but since both flights are 3 or more hours long and we do want to sit together, I spent the money.
So, LESSON TO BE LEARNED: if you buy airline tickets through Expedia or a similar site, call the airline right away for your seat assignment!
NOTE: Delta has the best customer service I’ve ever experienced.

As we drove to work this morning, Jeff said that he could feel stress melting away and that he felt like he “is going home to Costa Rica.” Hence, the blog title.

We left work early today because before we leave tomorrow I need to mow the lawn, we need to finish painting the kitchen (long story there) and PACK! It is also Jeff’s mom’s birthday so we need to work her into the mix…

Success! Everything has been accomplished, including an unexpected meeting with the “granite guy” (part of the long story) when he swung by the house.

Tomorrow we leave.

Miami sightseeing

Morning!
We are up before 9 so we can trot across the street to sign up for the tour. We will start with a city bus tour, have a couple hours in the middle of the day along a bay front for lunch and end with a 90 minute boat tour along “Millionaires Row” where we’ll see mansions of the rich and famous.

We grab a couple of things from the breakfast table in the hotel, and bring our luggage down to reception. Checkout isn’t until noon, but we’re getting on the tour at 9:45 and won’t be back until 3pm. The hotel doesn’t have a true ‘held luggage’ room, so we stack our bags along with Eve and Leroy’s in the hallway.

The tour is really fun. We start by driving through the Art Deco district and learn that there are over 900 Art Deco buildings within 1.5 kilometers. This is the largest concentration of this type of architecture in the world!

Our tour continues as we cross one of the seven bridges from Miami Beach to mainland Miami. Most of the jobs in this area are from the Port of Miami and Miami International Airport. Miami has the largest cruise ship terminal in the world, able to handle up to seven ships at one time! Figure roughly 3,000+ travelers per ship times 7 equals 21,000 tourists, so all together, 42,000 people with one half embarking and one half disembarking the ships all on the same day. Whew.

Miami, second in size only to Jacksonville, is the only city in the US that is bordered on two sides by national parks: the Everglades and Key Biscayne.

Our driver points out Rio de Miami (Miami River) where the indigenous people originally settled. Then we arrive at Calle Ocho (8th Street) -> home of Little Havana.

Little Havana today; real Havana tomorrow!

First stop is Cuban Tobacco Cigar Store where cigars are handrolled and packaged by just four employees. The owner is 86 years old and usually sits outside his cigar shop daily as his son now runs the business. The owner had a very successful tobacco operation in Cuba, but after the revolution in 1959, lost it all and went to prison. When he was released, he joined his family who had fled to Miami. Here he continues the family tradition and has passed that tradition to his children. It was very interesting and I’m looking forward to see how this small shop compares to what we will see in Cuba.

We walk next door to a souvenir shop for a free “cup” of Cuban coffee. It was only about a thimble sized amount but very tasty. Jeff and I walked around Little Havana briefly and came upon Domino Park where, big surprise, there were several tables of elderly men playing dominos.

It was great to see the social interaction of these elderly men.

Back to the bus we head for Coral Gables which is one of the most expensive and exclusive neighborhoods in the state. Coral Gables was designed by George Merrick as a two-part city: one side to be purely financial, the other residential; Merrick even designed in a swath of land to be left undeveloped between the two sections to further define the division giving a separation between work and family
In Coral Gables no two houses are alike and every house is built of coral rock. Amazing and beautiful houses!

The bus tour continued as we stop briefly at the Biltmore Hotel. You know the Biltmores? Loads of money, huge mansions? This was no different,

but during WWII the Biltmore Hotel was repurposed as a hospital for injured soldiers (queue Downton Abbey music here). In 1999 it was designated as a National Historical site.

Around lunchtime we arrive at the beachfront where there are waterside restaurants, including that all American favorite Bubba Gumps, a food court, shops, waterside charters for Millionaire’s Row and other sites and there is a promenade. We have 2-1/2 hours before our boat tour. Eve and Leroy opt for lunch at one of the waterside venues. Neither Jeff nor I are hungry so we decide to take a walk. It was gorgeous!

We walked for 90 minutes before turning back and saw people looking into the water ahead of us. There was a small buoy making its way along – buoys aren’t supposed to move. Then…up surfaced a large manatee!

Then a smaller one and another large one! I’ve never see a manatee before!!! And, naturally, there was no time to get my camera fired up. It was really exciting! The buoy, of course, is to warn boaters of the manatee’s presence.

Back in the shopping area, Jeff and I sit down at a table with an older woman from Cincinnati and talked with her for a little bit. Clearly, this trip to Florida to visit her sister for a week is her trip of a lifetime. We convince her to take one of the charter cruises – I hope she did. We leave her and go upstairs in the outdoor mall to find the restrooms and visit the food court. Hmmm…the food court offerings were not very good – I end up with a hot pretzel and Jeff got french fries which we share.

All aboard the boat! It is crowded as there is more than one group and my hopes of sitting topside are fading fast. When we do finally get up up to the top, there are Eve and Leroy with their arms spread saving the four front row chairs. Thank you, Thank you!

Everyone who wasn’t lucky enough to get a chair sat downstairs, which in one way would have been okay because it was a little chilly and more than a little windy where we were.

The boat tour went by too quickly, looking at the houses of the rich and famous: Sylvester Stallone, Will Smith, Brad Pitt with their yacht(s) moored in front was Naturally we took lots of photos and now don’t remember whose was whose, though Brad Pitt’s house had little kid’s toys in the backyard and a little boy was playing with a soccer ball at Jackie Chan’s.

After the tour, our driver took us back our hotel where we picked up our left luggage, retrieved Pokey and Gumby, and called for a cab.

This is the last known location (and photo) of Pokey and Gumby our our Cuba trip!

It is time to join our SmarTours group at the Marriott by the Miami airport. The cab ride to the Marriott is a flat fare, thank god, because the 40 or so minute drive took just over two hours! Lots of traffic. We arrived shortly before our mandatory orientation meeting.

At the meeting we met our fellow traveling companions for the first time; and we filled out our official Cuban visa information. OMG. I was overtaken by giggles at one point after our instructions were “X” out that box, to which someone asked “Can I just draw a line through it?” The answer was, “No, put an ‘X’ in it!” This could be a long couple of weeks… And, on top of that, if you make a mistake on your visa, you cannot correct it – no crossing out or writing over – if you make a mistake, you have to buy another, new visa for $150 and start over!
Okay, paperwork completed.

Our SmarTours guide is Stevyn Polk who announces that he has arranged for our wake up calls in the morning. Jeff and I head for our room, do a little suitcase/backpack rearranging to make sure we’ll be okay with the 44 pound weight limit and go to bed.

It’s been a long day and tomorrow we go to Cuba!