Nicaragua – San Juan Del Surr

As promised, here’s the video of Erin cliff jumping in Pico Bonito, Honduras:

 !Hola! Erin here, I want to let you all know I have been completely ripping on the glassy, if sometimes closed-out Nicaraguan waves.  We only go to the beach sometimes because it seems my little town and the surrounding surfing beaches have BLOWN UP.  Yes, the word has gotten out about this once humble corner of the world.  It is a lot like Costa Rica now.  The majority of businesses are owned by foreigners, funneling the money out of the country.  Huge swaths of virgin land have condominium developments.  It hurts my eyes.  The Nicas here have a hard time affording the inflated prices of goods, but they do find work more easily.  They work a ton!  The women usually do “women’s work”  which is cooking over wood burning stoves, hand washing tons of clothes, and cleaning.  Men work about 12 hour days, 6 days a week.  They are paid very little.  Despite the state of things here and the history of deploratory American intervention, they remain a culture full of smiles and warmth for us gringos.  Amazing.   Now, the town and waves are swarmed with gringos.

Dave and I have focused on learning Spanish here and have been blessed with great teachers.  They are all women and Dave constantly makes them giggle.  On our diplomas my name is Princesa Calzonitas Calientes (Princess Hot Pants) and his name is Senior Suave Guapito Rameriz (Mr. Smooth and Handsome Rameriz).  One day we visited the rodeo for an authentic Nica experience.  It was a chaotic, fun, and sad all at once.  We were the only gringos there.  The poor bulls.  We have loved living with the kids, talking long walks, enjoying the beautiful sunsets with fruity alcoholic drinks, reading and hanging out with the family. More to come soon with pictures….

Honduras

Pics of Honduras here:

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Ready for a long one?!

Getting from our hostel in Guatemala to our destination in La Ceiba, Honduras was a 10 hour adventure I will not forget. We woke up in the dark at 5:30am to pack our stuff sharing one flash light. The owner of the hotel, Chris, took us on his boat to meet up with a shuttle boat (the only one scheduled to leave to the port town is at 6:30am). Once arriving at the port town around 8am we were hustled to get in a mini van which took us to the border of Honduras. We crossed the border and found everything to be a notch down in the “shady” department. There were horribly impoverished children all over the border begging for change, sketchy looking people every where, and we couldn’t get any good info from people, the place was dirty, and we got a horrible exchange rate on our Guatemalan money. So, with bad tastes in our mouths we got on a school bus, which ended up being the local, and took us 2 hours to barely make any considerable distance. When we got our wits about us we switched to a mini bus that took us directly to a major town to then catch another 4 hour bus. For those of you who are well acquainted with Erin and me know that buses without bathrooms bring a great deal of anxiety to us. So the journey wasn’t easy. I was shocked to watch people throw their trash out the window of the bus in mid journey. This country is unbelievably dirty.

Once we were on our last bus to La Ceiba we were more at ease and in awe than we were stressed and upset. We marveled as we passed entire herds of cattle on the road. Early on we discovered the importance to Hondurans to honk their horn frequently and pass people while driving, even if there is a double yellow line on a sharp curve where there is no way they can see oncoming traffic. We finally made it to La Ceiba and took a taxi to our Spanish School to be placed with our host family. It was a long adventure in one day and little did we know what was ahead of us.

Our early experiences in La Ceiba continued to shade our conceptions of this country as dirty, hectic, poor, fascinating, cheap, and bubbling with activity. We arrived at our first host family and were quickly disappointed to find that it was nothing more than a hostel for gringos with small amounts of bad food. The American and Canadian there were very friendly but only interested in speaking English. The host family wasn’t around. We did discover, however, that the mall was quite close and we enjoyed going to their movie theater to relax to some American movies with Spanish subtitles. It’s quite cheap in La Ceiba, $0.75 to take a taxi anywhere, $1 a drink, and $2 to see a movie. Erin spoke with the owner of the school about our situation with the host family and he helped switch us into what would become the best and most rich experience of our trip to date. We were introduced to a family of 7 amazing people (grandmother: Berta, two daughters: Jenny and Ilsy, and their children: Humberto 12, Gretchin 10, Alexandra 6, and Valentina 4). Where are the men, you ask? That’s a great question. It’s surprisingly to see a lack of involvement from the fathers in their children’s lives. Machismo is every where in Central America, and while the women toil away cooking and cleaning and raising children some men work and others just loiter around and ogle at passing young women (Erin included). But our host family was the warmest and most compassionate family we have met so far, and they welcomed us into their small home with open arms. To give you a sense of their home there is one main room, a bathroom and small kitchen and two bedrooms for all 7 of them. We stayed in a little guest house outside, which was quite nice. We discovered early on how much fun the children were and how good the food was. The family was so patient with our Spanish and incredibly accommodating with every thing else. We found ourselves looking forward to coming home each afternoon for an amazing lunch and a chance to play with the children.

Our new family, combined with doing tremendously fun activities through the school each day, gave us an entirely new perspective of La Ceiba. We began to feel at home and sink into and embrace the culture a bit more. Our last night with the family was the birth day of Berta, the grandmother. We were honored to be invited and to meet their friends and family. We spent the evening drinking beers, eating Chinese food, and dancing to Reggaton. It was interesting to see the Honduran attitudes about trash apply to them as well. During the party people would just through their bottles and trash right on the lawn, including the family who lived there! We made such a strong connection with this family that by day 5, when we had to leave, we all went to the beach together by a nice hotel to play in the sand and have drinks for all of Saturday evening. We all surprised each other with good by gifts too. I can hardly describe how deeply we were touched by the kindness and generosity of this family. If we were every to return to Honduras, it would be to visit this amazing group of people. One of my most memorable parts of the night was piling all of us into a tiny hatchback taxi and saying goodbye by hugging the trunk and watching the waving and giggling kids speed away into the night. We were so sad to leave them behind.

 

School turned out to be a wonderful and rich experience. There is a strong and rich community there who warmly accepted us in. We each received 4 hours of private instruction a day. Since it was quite hot school started at 7:30am so that we would finish by the heat of the day. Apparently the winter is the rainy season here so we saw some impressive clouds and storms. A wonderful perk of the school was that they arranged activities for us. Since we were the only new people the week we arrived we were the only people to do the first couple of activities. Probably one of the best and richest experiences we had in the city was being fortunate enough to have Oscar, one of the teachers at the school, be our guide for all of the activities. He walked us through the town and park, showed us places to shop, taught us the culture, took us to an insect museum, escorted us to a Garifuna village and beach, and most importantly became our amazing friend. Seeing him became one of the highlights of the day, and we got along magically because we are all so goofy. We were all great for each other because we taught him English and he taught us Spanish.

When school finished at the end of the week we set up a lovely day trip to a small chain of islands a half hour by boat from shore called Cayos Cuchinos. It’s inhabited by Garifuna people, and we spent the day enjoying the view, their culture and the best snorkeling of my life. Although these islands were gorgeous and the coral reef was pristine, we were shocked to find that the Hondurans who lived here trashed their tiny islands, just like the mainland Hondurans. It’s shocking for us to imagine about one hundred people living on an island about 200 feet by 70 feet and they just chuck their trash on the ground. I could never wrap my head around this, and it tainted our view of Honduras.

Getting off the ferry to the island of Utila was a different experience than we were expecting. Standing before us was a wall of Europeans representing dive shops and every one was competing to get us to stay and dive with them. The amount of English spoken was a bit of a surprise. Erin and I, especially after trying so hard to immerse ourselves in Spanish, were shocked and put off by the English being spoken. Fortunately, we were able to drop our bags at our Spanish school, where we are continuing for another week. We really lucked out to have Oscar, a friend we made from our week in La Ceiba, come to the island too. Once the bags were gone we were able to walk the streets without being harassed by dive shops who were pimping themselves for new clients. We ended up staying with a dive shop, Cross Creek, that offers free accommodations and internet as well as a kitchen, a view of the lagoon, a café and restaurant on premises and the cheapest option to dive than any other country I’ve seen. We set up our room and were off to explore this strange new place.

 

 

The entrepreneur in foreigners always shows itself on islands in the form of dive shops. The owners and staff are almost always European, and so are the clientele. I thought I was hearing things at first, but realized that there are two kinds of English being spoken on this island, the first being that of foreigners, and the second is that of the locals. Apparently English Pirates settled the Bay Islands and a form of Olde English is spoken here. I can understand most of it, which sounds like a mix between broken English and Creole. The islanders have a local redneck feel to them, and love to race down the only street in town on motorcycles, golf carts, ATV’s and scooters. Utila’s big attraction is diving, and is meant for the budget traveler.

 

 

After walking back and forth on a 300 foot spit of road for 3 days we discovered that there is an intersection by the dock where we came in. After making our mandatory pina colada hunt in town, we were pointed to the Jade Seahorse, an eccentric bar/hotel/garden that seems to be a cross between Dr.Suess, Jackson Pollick and Gaudi. I was remarking with Erin that nothing about this trip has been exactly what we expected. So yet again, we get another lesson about the role of expectations in our life, and watching them play out in this adventure.

 

 

It wasn’t until the realization of the abominable sand flies did our attitude about this island start to change. We had committed ourselves to 5 days to study Spanish and get me Open Water Certified. Apparently the rooms we were staying at were built on top of a mangrove swamp where these flies, that come out during change in temperature and pressure, aka dusk, dawn and before it rains, would swarm and torture us. Here’s how they work: they are tiny little black flies that you can barely see, but feel a tiny sting to look down and see a black dot on you. At first it’s not that bad, you smoosh it and move on. However, about 36 to 48 hours later you are fiercely scratching at the a now visible bite where the little pest got you 2 days earlier. It being day 3 on the island, and having figured out where all of our bites where coming from, generated paranoia and disdain for this tourist attraction. We were officially over Utila. We were both interested in getting our Advanced Diver certification so we found a wonderful outfit, Captain Morgan’s, who put us up in a beautiful little hotel on a tiny island named Jewell Caye.

 

 

This tiny island has 600 people, 6 churches and 3 small restaurants, no sand flies, and no vehicles. Each morning the boat would pick us up and take us on our training dives. The outfit was much smaller and we loved the tiny and quiet island life. Besides suffering from a temperature life was much better. We saw amazing coral, plenty of beautiful fish, and were extremely lucky to see some octopus. We never encountered the elusive whale shark though. I ran into a little trouble clearing my ears during a night dive. The pressure build up hurt more than usual and my ear was aching all night.

 

 

The next day we completed the course and left back to the mainland. We got a ride to an incredible lodge in the jungle, aptly named “Jungle Lodge,” where were found ourselves in a new paradise, Pico Bonito National Park. The wild and beautiful river Congrejal tore through the jungle in the mountains. A wonderful hotel and adventure sport group built a lodge 20 minutes south of the ocean in the jungle. Our first night were the only ones there and got to jump off a 30’ drop into the river and enjoy dinner by candle light. The next morning I woke up with what felt like a cotton ball in my ear. Some thing was wrong. We decided to put off river rafting a day and go back into La Ceiba and go to the doctor. Going to a doctor in Hondurus was an interesting experience. We went to a private doctor who wrote up my info on a type writer. All of his equipment was dated, compared to the states, but did the job. He turned on some interesting vacuum machine and sucked the wax and infection right out of my ears. It wasn’t comfortable, but I could hear again! We spent half the day picking up prescriptions from farmacias and getting back to the Jungle Lodge. I was bummed that I spent half a day and a lot of money taking care of medical crap, but hey, hearing is important. We were happy to be back at the hotel, but cranky from the day’s doctor visit. We went of an incredible hike in the jungle to stretch out legs.

 

 

It was wonderful just to get some physical exercise. We realized how sick and tired of scuba diving we were because all you do is float around and afterwards you’re exhausted. So truly moving our bodies the old fashioned way felt like a breath of fresh air. The real fun came the next morning when we woke up in rain and met our guides for white water rafting. The day proved to be quite an adventure. We (erin, me and a new friend we met in Utila who ended up working at the lodge) started out by scrambling over rocks, swimming in the rapids and doing fun exercises with the guides testing our abilities to get out of emergency situations. I live for this stuff. Sadly, because of the ear infection, I couldn’t get my head wet, and I wasn’t able to do the insane rock jumping which Erin had to brave alone.

 

In the next post I’ll show the video of Erin jumping 40′!

 

The second half of the day was doing class 1 through 5 rapids on an amazingly beautiful and technical river. We were incredibly impressed with the abilities of our guide as well as his knack for finding animals such as tucans and a large boa constrictor.

 

The river rafting was immensely fun and a physical work out. We loved it. We heard that about a month ago an American died on the river. When we asked our guide we found he was the guide on that trip and it was the first time in their 15 years of operation that they lost someone. It was an amazing story and left us a bit anxious about the rest of our ride, but more impressed with the ferocity of the river. We found out later that day that they charter 11-12 day rafter adventures from the mountains west to the moskito coast. It sounded like the dream trip of a life time. Sadly, it was over our budget and we had to say good bye (but we were extremely tempted!). The next day we set out for a 7 hour bus ride to the capitol of Honduras, Tegucigalpa, where we spent the night and woke up early for 10 more hours of bus riding to finally arrive to San Juan Del Sur in Nicaragua.

Guatemala

See our Guatemala pics here:

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Guatemala was a 4 day whirlwind explosion back into a Spanish speaking world. After arriving the country by boat, we landed in the Garifuna port town called Livingston.

We were completely surprised by the amount of tourists milling about. It felt like culture shock. Of course we were targeted because we had our packs with us. Our first dilemma was the local bank not willing to exchange our Belize Dollars into Guatemalan Quetzales. So we had to do go to a local who ripped us off. So here we are, not in the best of moods or spirits, and we have all of our belongings in the middle of a crowded street on a hot day and we need to find a hotel. We actually ended up in a lovely hostel, where the owners had an adorable little girl who liked to chase their kitten.

 

The room wasn’t the best but it was $5 a night for both us. The accommodations here are as much as the food. We finally entered the part of Central America that was truly affordable for us. We had the best banana daquiri’s of our lives and went to bed early. Livingston is situated at the mouth of the Rio Dulce river, which opens up to the Carribean. We decided not to travel through most of Guatemala, but this area was not to be missed. The next morning we worked out getting picked up by the owner of the hotel we were told was amazing, Hotelito Perdito (The lost little hotel). We got an amazing 20 minute ride up the river through the jungle to their home. This area was like none other I have ever seen.

Dense jungle surrounds everything, and the only way to get around is by boat and kayak. There are smaller lagoons and rivers that branch off from the main one, but there are no roads, just old paths locals use to hike between villages.

We arrived at the hotel and were introduced to Chris (British) and Ashka (Polish). They built from scratch the entire place, including their home, 3 lofted cabanas, the amazing landscaping, and an incredible hangout space with an attached kitchen and dormitory loft above. They are eco friendly and the entire hotel runs on solar power. Ashka cooks up meals and makes snacks for a great price. Besides the mosquitos we were in paradise. Our first day we rented kayaks and went an hour up a side river to hike through the jungle, where we found a beautiful waterfall.

 

 

Of course we were the only ones there. The next day we spent over 5 hours kayaking in the rain through the lagoons and had lunch at an amazing Mayan village that works on environmental education for locals and tourists.

We learned of the many different Mayan cultures who live throughout the country, and we heard of the terrible violence and wars that have ripped through the areas. I’m amazed to have found the people and their culture so warm and open to us. It was an honor and a pleasure to speak with them (in Spanish, none of our first languages). We ended the day with a long row back to our hotel, but we stopped at natural hot springs along the way and bathed with the locals!

We really enjoyed the company of the people at the hotel, and every night we had family style dinners. On our last day we hired a friend and employee of the hotel to guide us on a 4 hour hike through the jungle back to Livingston. I was so hot and sweaty by the end I looked like I had gone swimming with my clothes on.

The jungle was incredible and we learned a ton about the Mayan cultures in the area. Maiz is a huge staple for them, and we encountered several locations on the trail where the store their corn between harvest and moving it to their villages. Each sack of corn weighs about 200 lbs. I have no idea how these people, way smaller than me, carry them along such difficult terrain.

On our last day we found it difficult to leave the new friends and family, the beauty of the area and the charm of the hotel, but Spanish school was calling to us and set off early the next day.

Belize

All kinds of pics here:

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Crossing the border to Belize was a new experience for us. We had a 5 hour bus ride after taking the ferry and parting ways with Jamie. The bus dropped us off at Chetemal, a border town with cheap tacos and not much else. We had a 3 hour layover there, so we checked our bags and wondered the town. Something was so incredibly different here. People barely seemed to notice us, as if we were almost invisible. Coming from towns where tourism is their main source of income to this place was like when all of a sudden the jack hammering outside stops and the new found silence is deafening. It was so refreshing. After one week in popular spots in Mexico, I grew weary of overly extroverted Mexican men welcoming us and offering us deals, only to find out when they didn’t get what they wanted they became passive aggressive and immature.

So here we are, finally getting on a bus to Belize. We stop at the border to get stamped and Erin is missing her temporary visa. The border cop extorted $20 from us as a “fee” and we were on our way. We crossed into Belize as the sun set shared a magnificent peach and pink sky as we headed down the dusky highway. It wasn’t long before we reached a bus terminal and filled the bus with about 25 loud, fun loving and boisterous people. If you are unfamiliar we Belize, it is an English speaking country with an amazing diversity of Mayan, Mesquito, Garifuna, and Creole people. We drove through the evening and ended up in Belize City. The streets were dirty and filled with people just hanging around. The atmosphere prickled with newness and I was exhilarated to be out of my element. Something was different here. The people were so unbelievably friendly. Everyone. I can barely get over the fact that just about everyone I pass says hello, welcomes me, makes eye contact and has me feel at home in such a foreign place. We woke up the following morning to the sounds of fisherman on the river behind our hostel. We walked through town with wide eyes eager to engage the locals. We had a delicious breakfast overlooking the town early activities…hanging out and drinking beer.

The next leg of our journey was finding a lodge in the jungle to enjoy a totally new atmosphere. We found a bus (an old US school bus) which quickly filled up past capacity. Young children came on to sell incense, gum, chips and pizza. There were more kids than adults, and the bus was just loaded with cuteness. Erin and I have officially fallen in love with this countries diversity, warmth and easy going attitude. Two hours later we’re dropped off on the side of the highway in front of a gravel road leading to a jungle lodge. When we get there it’s unlike everything else we have seen so far in the country. It’s completely well kempt and gorgeous, complete with plenty of American tourists. This place caters to wealthy Americans looking for a short and adventurous vacation in a different but English speaking atmosphere. Bingo. Sadly, the cost of every activity is prohibitively expensive. Tubing down a cave, something I had my heart set on, coast $95 per person. Each meal was over 4 times as much as we paid for one any where else. So we bunked it that night to save costs. We went for a walk feeling disappointed by our “in-authentic” resort stop off. We walked down the road to the Blue Hole national park where we had a wonderful conversation with the young man who worked there. We learned that there is a large cave in the park that went for over 2 miles underground to pop up some where else. We had brought a dinky flashlights for the walk home, so we braved the jungle to the entrance of the cave and went in. We could barely see, but we probably went in 200 yards. It was like no other experience. Just us and a large cave with occasional reflectors marking the way. It was an incredible experience to sit in the darkness and listen to droplets of water trickle down to the underground river.

When we came out we hiked 1.5 miles through the jungle with jaws dropped to the incredible vegetation and birds. We kept a swift pace to avoid the veroscious mosquitos. The evening at the jungle lodge turned out to be fantastic. We sat next to a wonderful family from San Diego and chatted them up for over 2 hours. I then found out the place had wireless so I got to relax with the locals and checked my email.

We learned about a large festival happening south the next day celebrating the freedom of ship wrecked African slaves starting their own community, Garifuna, 250 years ago. We decided to check it out, even though catching a bus would be unlikely due to them being filled up. All the hotels and hostels were full, but we didn’t want to miss this. We woke up and walked back to the Blue Hole national park to find a glorious underground cavern that collapsed to reveal a blue hole all to our selves. We realized we are getting really spoiled with all these magical places just for ourselves.

We walked back, picked up our clean laundry and hit the road. After about 15 minutes with our thumbs out, a warm couple in a pick up truck put us in the back and we were off through a spectacular ride through the jungle, rain, mountains, orange orchards, a bike race, and finally to Dangriga. They wouldn’t accept money for gas, just our appreciations. We walked around town in the heat of the day looking for accommodations. It wasn’t easy. After 7 places we got one of the last rooms in a hostel. We ended up in a room with no windows and a large fluorescent light. But we were in the heart of the party and couldn’t have been more pleased with ourselves to have found a place to crash. It seems as though the farther we go south the warmer and more pleasant the people become. We enjoyed coconut juice and ice cream while mingling with the locals and appreciating their company. A high light was having dinner in a nearby tiny joint where the cooks children and nephews played with Erin and me.

That night stayed up late in Dangriga watching all the Garifuna locals migrating to the city to party and dance through out the night. We slept decently in our no window, hot, smelly room, even though we were in the heart of the event and the bass of the music was rattling our walls. We woke up at 6am to watch the festival really begin by waiting on the bridge to see the re-enactment of the original Garifuna people arriving by banana boats.

The true high light of this entire trip so far was the arrival on Tobacco Caye. We hired a small boat to take us out to this tiny island that is only 200 x 100 yards long. The weather started out gloomy, but we were so incredibly relaxed to hang out in our beautiful cabana over the water. As the weather got nicer we mingled with the guests and locals, walked around the bar, and experienced their incredible snorkeling.

The small caye is surrounded by a barrier reef, which provides incredible snorkeling while being sheltered from the waves. We saw many barracuda, some so large we got pretty uncomfortable, manta rays, spotted eagle rays, skates, and tons of fish and beautiful coral. On our third morning we woke up to watch the sunset and did one last snorkel around the island before getting on a boat to a bus to a boat to a boat to end up in Livingston, Guatamala.

Mexico

 All kinds of pics here:

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I forgot to add this during my last post, and since it took an hour to upload it from an internet café in cozumel I feel that I must share it. It’s my mom and me running up the steps of the Philly Art Museum to the tunes of the lovely Erin.

We made it to Mexico. Immigrations accepted us. In fact, immigrations befriended us! I had a great conversation with the officer who let me into the country. Erin and I met up with her dad, Ed, in the airport and then headed to the center of Cancun. We woke up at “8” the next morning. Well, we thought it was, but really it was 6am, no wonder I was so tired. But we had a lovely time exploring the area. If you have never been to Cancun, think of Las Vegas in Spanish. It’s over the top and ridiculous and very VERY Americanized. We were glad to hop on a bus to Playa del Carman, where Ed randomly made an appointment with a realtor.

So we spent the afternoon looking at luxury apartments along the Yucatan Peninsula. We eventually meandered our way down to Tulum and after heckling with the taxi and various hotels, we finally found an affordable cabana. If you don’t know what a cabana is, it’s a bunch of sticks holding up palm leaves woven together. Ours has a bed covered by a mosquito net…very simple. We spent our first night among other back packers and fell asleep listening to the waves with a cool ocean breeze. I wasn’t complaining. We spent the next day wandering around town and collecting info about the area. The first lesson we learning in Mexico, is that you have to heckle for prices on everything. It seems as though everyone is out to make a buck and there are deals every where. Getting the opportunity to practice my new Spanish skills has been a total blast. I started teaching myself from a book two months ago. I was surprised to find myself understanding a lot more than I thought I would. Erin is much better and it’s been a blessing to have her as the communicator…at least for now while I get my chops up to speed.

The next day (Friday the 9th) we woke up early and got picked up and taken to the jungle to see a cenote called Dos Ojos. A cenote is a cave filled with water where part of it collapsed to reveal the caverns inside. We rode mountain bikes for a mile and a half to the cenote. I saw a huge tarantula crossing the road on the way.

I kinda messed up my bike seat in the beginning and the tour guide seemed to be really cranky for the rest of the day. So instead of giving us a tour he seemed to ignore us, which ended up being the best thing ever. We found out the next day that the guide told the bike rental shop that we weren’t allowed to ride bikes. How exciting to be in Mexico for only 2 days and already we are black listed! Anyways, here we were, snorkeling around this beautiful cave with little fish and a view of the jungle from the water. Because we got there so early we had the whole place to ourselves. All I can say is that if you ever get the chance to swim in one, do it! We borrowed the tour guides under water lamp and swam around to some scary dark parts. It was thrilling.

Afterwards we ended up back at our hotel, hard to call a bunch of huts a hotel, and enjoyed their gorgeous beach front property. We’re making a habit of enjoying happy hour and having dinner by the sea.

 

 

Tulum is quite beautiful but we struggled with the large amount of tourism and it being expensive as a result. We did, however, find sanctuary in the dirty town 2 miles inland where authentic Mexican cuisine was found at a fraction of the price. Soon Jamie arrived and it was an absolute pleasure to have him. Our first day we all rented bikes and rode to ancient Mayan ruins right on the beach.

The next day we took a guided tour of the Sian Ka’an Biosphere reserve where we zipped through the jungle and mangroves uncovering tons of amazing birds. We jumped in the chilly water and floated through the freshwater through a maze of mangrove canals. The next day we said our goodbye to Ed and hired a wonderful taxi driver, Ruben, to take us 40 minutes west to discover large Mayan ruins in Coba.

and to snorkel and high dive the underground cenotes.

 

On the way home we saw a little boy and girl playing catch with a crocodile by throwing bits of chicken on a string to it. I couldn’t get over how random and dangerous this was.

 

The next day we left for Cozumel where we were pleasantly surprised by how many wonderful locals lived on the island. There were a fair share of enormous cruise ships, but got along just great. The food and pina coladas felt excessive, but we managed to survive diving/snorkeling, renting a convertible buggy to tour the island, and all around relaxing in hammocks.

While eating lunch we got into an argument with a waiter in a restaurant for charging us for food he thought we ordered but didn’t it, which ultimately involved the police. At this point I really notice the difference between our cultures. We have been experiencing a lot of machismo, from aggressive men with passive aggressive tempers, who are funny and dynamic when you meet them but rather unpleasant when something doesn’t go their way. Overall the trip together was incredible. We all took the ferry back to Playa de Carmen and said fairwell.

An Update from Erin

Hello everyone, it’s me Erin, Dave’s girlfriend and co-founder of Traveling the Americas Adventure!  I think Dave has done such a wonderful job on the blog so far.  What a Mench.  Among other things I have been learning Yiddish from Evelyn and Hirsh, who are featured in the bocce video. My month on the East Coast has been very rich.  Every member of Dave’s family is so warm, unique, passionate, smart, generous and accepting.  I learned about the importance of rationalism from Dave’s dad, got in running shape with Dave’s mom, meditated with Dave’s other mom, got to be a farm girl and CHILL with Dave’s other mom, and ate amazing meals ALL THE TIME with all of his parents.  It was a blast meeting his extended family in NYC and having all his family on his mother’s side admire their family ring that Dave gave me.  Him and his family share many of my interests, so I got to really soak in the amazing green spaces of Philly.  We also got to go to a farm that Linda and Amy have a CSA at.  The mural arts tour by bicycle was totally inspiring.  Between the delicious and healthy meals were lots of walks, tours of gardens, and outdoor adventures.  I am very thankful for this month. 

Another highlight of the trip was seeing my friends, Pat, and her family as well as my college buddy, Elizabeth and her family.  What amazing people.  Pat’s compassion, love, candor, wisdom, spunk, and openness were delightful to be around.  Elizabeth is such a wonderful role model for me of a patient mother and loving wife.  Her baby girls are adorable.  Maya, her 2 year old is a new friend of mine.   

A couple of days ago I took a solo mission to a Zendo, a Zen Monastery, in Northern Pennsylvania.  I got to be really quiet and slow things down about 100 notches.  My mind was like a racehorse when I arrived!  The trees were glorious colors and the garden was producing Hercules carrots and beets (huge).  I spent the weekend with a priest and a Japanese student who were role models of dedication to practice.  Some gifts I came back with are a renewed awareness of impermanence, a more grounded practice of sitting, peace, and the understanding that there is a little bit of George Bush in everyone.  Also, I was told to always ask the question, “Why am I here?”  Not really to find an answer, but to live in the question. 

So now I am on the airplane, with my sweet patient love filling out the customs form to enter Mexico, writing to you and am so grateful for my life.

East Coast Part II

Well, Erin and I are in Mexico right now, and there’s lots to say…but I’m back logged with this blog so here’s what I got so far:

All kinds of pics here:

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Fairmount Park in Philly is the nation’s largest contiguous park. Valley Green is one of my most favorite spots in all of Fairmount Park. Tuesday morning we woke up and went for a beautiful bike ride through Mt. Airy to Valley Green and all along the river to the art museum and back. The ride must have been 25 miles, and my butt was feeling it.

We had a fantastic picnic lunch along the river. Erin and I discovered that we really like sardines.

 

 

We couldn’t help re-enacting the scene from Rocky where he ran up the steps of the Art Museum.

 

VIDEO UP STAIRS

 

The next day Erin and I drove to the lovely Leisure Village West retirement community to visit my grandparents. I love the quote they have on their entrance sign, “It’s the time of your life to have the time of your life.” We started our day by taking my grandpa to get his new hearing aide. While he was with the doctor Erin and I took my grandma around the neighborhood and shot some hoops (I wish I had the video of that). We then had lunch at a terrible diner where all the people working there looked so burnt out.

 

 

New Jersey is an interesting place. It’s a cross between exquisite farmland and beaches mixed with strip malls with no sidewalks, wide and expansive roads with jug handle turns and almost as many seniors as Florida. We all had a wonderful day together. We played bocce ball and looked at pictures of my 6^th grade graduation, when I was pre-pubescent and chubby.

 

 

We ended the night driving back to Philly for one of my great friend’s, Shaggy, 29^th Birth Day party at a bar across from Eastern State Penitentiary, where he works with 150 other people operating the state prison as a haunted house. There were almost 40 people out at the bar and I knew most of them. The highlight of the night was seeing his dad, Gil.

 

(Purple cause Erin is writing) Let me tell you about one exquisite (to use Linda’s adjective) highlight of our trip: KAYAKING on the Delaware. Dave’s Moms, Linda and Amy are gnarly kayaking fiends. They are the perfect people to take us on a Pennsylvania adventure. We launched onto the wide and beautiful Delaware, Amy and Dave in fancy touring kayaks, Linda and I in supafly squirrelly river boats. The day was crisp and glittery. The clouds were puffy and intriguing. It was very peaceful. We hit some little ripple rapids, which were SO FUN. One of my favorite parts was turning around and watching the other’s expressions of delight, fear and excitement all rolled into one. The trip took all day, where we caught up with each others adventures, ate a gourmet lunch on a pebble strewn island and ended up at a Thai restaurant in town, where we almost ate the waiter’s arm when he joked with us that he had forgotten our meals.

 

 

The following Monday we hopped on a train to New York City. Our good friends, Bryan and Navah, hosted us for the first two days. Their apartment was gorgeous and comfortable…we are so grateful to their warm reception. We dropped our bags off and took the metro to Central Park. We spent the better part of our first day in the city at the Central Park Zoo. Although small, it was quite enjoyable and well done. Strolling through their rainforest got us excited for our foreign adventures.

 

 

We walked back to our temporary apartment and we all had Afghani food and drinks.

The next day we decided to go to a contemporary art museum in Queens. Sadly, I didn’t check that the museum was open, which it wasn’t, so called up some good friends who picked us up and took us back to their glorious apartment in Astoria, where we sat on their roof for the entire day enjoying the view and the unseasonably warm weather

 

 

 

We then all headed to the city to meet up with Bryan and Navah to have some Thai food. We sped through our delicious dinner to catch a unique and incredible show in Times Square, “Fuerza Brutta.” I couldn’t tell you what it was about, but the entire audience had no seats and we were all forced into a room where we constantly moved around, dodged water, actors and Styrofoam and spent the better part of the evening craning our necks to watch beautiful aerial performances. The highlight was a 40’ x 60’ transparent stage full of water being lowered on top of us with performers doing the slip and slide above.

 

 

On Wed we were fortunate and Bryan took the day to hang with us. We randomly bumped into an old friend, Justin Cina, from Carnegie Mellon in a coffee shop in the moring. But the better part of the day was spent walking around the Chelsea galleries and snubbing our noses up to the hoity toity people there.

 

 

We went to a sake bar happy hour and had some delicious drinks before leaving to meet many of my extended cousins from the Stern Family. We met at a fun restaurant called Cowgirl, where we had a table for 12. My great friend Jenny met up with us too. It was an absolute blast to see some familiar faces (Hayley, Sondra, Jesse and fiance Melissa, Kirin and Alison, Jenny, Bryan and Navah.

 

 

That night we stayed at Kirin and Alison’s brand spankin new loft in the West Village. They did a wonderful job fixing it up, no shocker there since Alison is an architect and interior designer. We got some great time seeing them and even went out to the ritzy meat packing district to hob knob with the classy New Yorkers. It wasn’t really our scene, especially when we saw that bottles of Vodka sold for $375. The next day we got a lovely tour of the upper West and East side with Alison. We did a lot of walking, and by the time we were ready to leave NYC we felt as though we really got a wonderful sense of the city. We were ready to go.

 

 

We hopped on a bus to Providence to meet up with my old college friend Meghan Tibbitts. I don’t think I had seen Meghan for about 4 years, so it was a real treat to see her, and meet her sister, Sarah, and boyfriend, Carlos. Sadly, as soon as we arrived I got the flu. For the next three days I had a serious temperature and aches and chills. That didn’t stop us from catching up and having fun, but we were much more relaxed and low key than planned. The best part of the visit was making Halloween costumes. The girls were Batman and the boys were Robin.

 

 

That night we went out to Providence to see the sights and were surprised to not see a single person dressed up. It was a bizarre and surreal experience being sick, dressed as Robin, and walking around the center of a happening town as the only masked crusaders.

 

 

The next morning we carved pumpkins and went for a walk around their neighborhood. We watched lots of movies and enjoyed seeing Boston sweep Colorado. An extra special treat was having brunch with Joe Vona, a father of Erin’s friend Andrea. We even got to see some of his amazing art.

 

 

We than said our goodbyes and got on a train back down the mid Atlantic corridor. Erin split off to visit her college friend, Elizabeth, and I went to meet up with my mom for a fancy dinner at the White Dog Café. The next morning my mom and me drove up to New Jersey to see my grandparents so they could rematch us in a cut throat game of Bocce Ball.

 

 

We picked up Erin and headed back to Philly. Halloween is my favorite holiday. Creating a costume was tons of fun, and I’m psyched that I had one to wear when Erin and I headed out to Eastern State Penitentiary’s Haunted House, where many friends were working to scare the crap out of people. What an experience. One thing to note about the prison, which no longer holds actually prisoners, is because most went insane because of the lack of windows. The place is very creepy. After waiting in line for 40 minutes, where I got to pose with the security guards, we entered the haunted house.

 

 

They did such a wonderful job. There were strobe lights, fog machines, black lights, puppets, 150 actors, and lots of screaming and surprises. I had fun, especially dressed up. The best part was being with Zach and meeting his new puppy, Sophia.

 

 

For our last week in Philly we took some time apart. Erin went to a Zen center called Mt Equity in upstate PA. I got some great time in with my family and friends. An extra bonus was seeing a group of friends from elementary school. We caught up and played games all night. The next day I picked up Erin at the bus station and we finished all of our last minute preparations. We had our last round of goodbyes to every one. The next day we had a teary goodbye with my mom and Amy and got on a plane to Mexico!

Helping to Fight Crime

While waiting in line on Halloween, I posed with two guards at Eastern State Penetentory’s Haunted House: Terror Behind the Walls.

From West to East

You can see our pics from Oregon to Philly here:

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Wow, we sure have been busy little bees over here on the Eastern Seaboard.  If you’re wondering why your email subscription to our blog hasn’t been working, fear not!  We haven’t posted since our initial launch of the blog.  We haven’t had any time!  Since our last post we (Erin, her dad and myself) drove down to the southern west coast of Washington state to meet up with Erin’s mom, Judy.  We had a glorious time relaxing in our motel and eating good food.  It was quite an experience and opportunity to be sandwiched among so many Crowley’s.  I got a good look at where Erin gets all of her looks and attributes from.  Since I’ve been the camera man lately I like to play little jokes on Erin, like pointing the camera at her to take a pic but really I’m making a movie:

The next morning we celebrated Judy’s birthday and drove back to Portland.  Our last few days on the west coast were spent exploring Portland, cooking and eating, organizing our gear and Judy’s garage, and sight seeing.  On our last night we met up with some old friends and got to see some great neighborhoods of Portland. 

Giving Mike Friedman the sandwich!

The next morning we woke up at the butt crack of dawn and flew to Philly, where my dad and step-mom met up with us.  It was bizarre to leave the west, where it was unusually cold, to the east, where it was unseasonably hot (87 degrees!).  We loved the heat, welcoming the change from chilly and wet.  We planned this portion of the trip to time with my favorite time on the east coast…fall.  The leaves hadn’t changed colors yet, and they were just starting to turn.  We all had a blast making a feminine scarecrow who Erin named ChaCha.

We had a great time relaxing with my dad and Susan, going out to eat and seeing movies.  Later in the week my little brother Zach (previously seen in Burning Man pics) took us out to West Chester, where we stayed with Ellen (my ex-step mom, yeah, I know, it’s complicated) and her wonderful husband, Ron.  Oh, and not to forget Jake and Maggie, their incredibly friendly dogs.  This portion of the trip was EXTREMELY relaxing.  We got to see an amazing thunderstorm that brought in a cold front, allowing us to cuddle on the couch for days and work on crafty projects, like making a camera and laptop holder out of bubble wrap and duct tape.  We got to explore their new neighborhood (about an hour West of Philly).  Ellen and Erin found a huge caterpillar-like creature with strange white eggs in the back yard.

Ellen and Ron generously shared their car with us, complete with “Street Pilot” – the best GPS system I’ve ever seen.  We drove to West Philly and met up with some old friends (Melissa, Shaggy and Sophia – aka The Hazel House).  We crashed with them that night.  After our first week in Philly we met back up with my dad on a crisp Sat morning to go on a bicycle tour of Philly’s best murals led by the director of the Mural Arts Program, Jane Golden.  Sadly, I forgot to bring my camera for the tour, especially because we were 40 bikers strong with three police escorts.  The weather was perfect and we left completely inspired.  Towards the end of the tour we came across a poor neighborhood where MAP transformed an abandoned lot full of garbage to a beautiful two part mural and small park.  A light bulb went off in our heads…what a perfect project overlapping both of Erin’s and my interests.  Public art is not only about the art making process, but about community outreach, education to people of all ages, environmental activism and much more.  When the tour finished we said good bye to my dad and headed on the next leg of trip, to Washington DC.  The entire car ride down we were explosive with excitement about how we want to bring a mural project to our volunteering abroad. 

 

We ended up in Falls Church, VA where we met up with Erin’s family friends.  They were wonderfully hospitable and put us up for the night.  They were a lovely family with a passion for sports and Halloween.

The next morning we drove into DC and had a full day of walking around the mall and going to museums.  A highlight was the 3D IMAX at the National History Museum.

That night we ended up in Chevy Chase, MD with my wonderful Aunt Debbie, Uncle Jamie, and Cousin Adam.  We enjoyed the Cheese Cake Factory and a movie.  I rarely get to spend time with them, so it was a real treat to see them.

We spent the next day back at the mall, where we met up with my cousin Pam and saw a special exhibit on energy efficient housing called the Solar Decathlon.   The weather remained beautiful and we spent the entire day outside.  I got to enjoy some incredible food with Pam at the Native American Museum.  We said our good byes and headed back to Philly where we drove to the Hazel House for a wonderful dinner.  That night we ended up at my mom and Amy’s.

There’s way more to catch you up on, so give me a few days.  I hope this can tide you over.  In case you’re wondering, we leave the country for Mexico next Tuesday the 6th.  So get in those good bye phone calls if you’ve been meaning to get in touch with us.

Port Angeles, WA and South to Portland, OR

You can see our traveling pics from Washington to Oregon here:

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I have to say, I couldn’t have been happier with our decision to use Ed and Kathy’s home as a launch pad for our 10 days of adventure throughout the Olympic National Park. Originally we were going to do a 5 day back packing trip, but the cold and wet weather, along with the lure of delicious food, a warm bed and a hot tub made the decision a no-brainer.

Spaced between our hikes of the national park we spent the days exploring PA with Erin’s dad, Ed. He was an absolute pleasure to be around and was a fantastic tour guide. We went to the docks, the PA art garden installation, neighborhood walks with horses and ponies, out to eat, and all over the tiny town.

At the end of our stay we drove to a small beach town called Long Beach to meet up with Judy, Erin’s mom. We all spent the night together and enjoyed another DVD of Planet Earth. The next day we drove back to Portland, where we will be until Saturday, October 6^th.