Kronicle

2012-02-10T20:44:00.000-08:00

February 4-10, 2012

We drove from Hopkins to Belize City in about two and a half hour, turned in the rental car and took the water taxi to San Pedro on Ambergris Caye. We split up from the Thunens after our arrival in San Pedro since their hotel was in the northern part of the island and our accommodations were in the south.

If it hadn’t been for the disappointing room accommodation we got stuck with, the transition from the mainland to La Isla Bonita would have been a seamless one. But it was not to be. The ocean view studio condo should have been called “The Cave” (a very petit one at that). Its view of the ocean should have stated “a peek” from the front porch. But with the assistance of the property manager, we found a larger condo right on the beach closer to San Pedro. Things were looking up!

View from our porch.

Our last week in Belize was geared to relaxing and water sports. Mornings consisted of coffee in a beach chair, reading the paper and watching the docks come alive. On Tuesday the four of us met in town ready for a snorkeling expedition. We booked the trip with Aqua Scuba, who took us to Holchan Marine Reserve and Shark Ray Alley. Both were fabulous.

Sunrise

Early morning in San Pedro.

Since Holchan is a reserve, the sea life has no fear of humans. Curious fish swim right past you, albeit keeping an eye on us. We saw turtles, sting rays, pompano, nurse sharks, eel, tarpon and a variety of smaller tropical fish. We then headed off to Shark Ray Alley. As the boat approached the area, we already could see fish heading towards the boat, looking for a free meal. When the boat anchored, the crew started chumming, throwing out small bits of food and telling us it was time to jump into the water.

A nurse shark coming to dinner.

On a bike ride we took to Captain Morgan's.

An iguana doing a show for us.

Osprey parents watching after of the kids.

View from our next condo.

There were so many sharks, sting rays and skip jacks, that it was difficult to get in. I was the first one and initially was a bit hesitant of jumping in. But these fish were docile and were only interested in one thing - the little bits of chum being tossed at them. It was quite an unforgettable experience.

San Pedro is the quintessential tropical town, with small houses along cobblestone and sandy streets. The water is a clear turquoise with the barrier reef visible from most of the beaches. Aside from Australia, this is the longest barrier reef in the world. From our hotel, we can see a couple of cruising yachts at anchor.

Tuesday's fruit and vegetables brought by sailboats.

The main means of transportation on the island is the golf cart. They are everywhere and they can get annoying - particularly the motorized carts with gas engines. Otherwise, people ride bikes and walk.

Perhaps it’s because San Pedro is so dependent on the tourist trade that the people are nice, but we found the locals to be exceedingly good natured and always friendly. The hawkers always are ready to sell you their wares, but if you decline their offer, they smile, thank you and move on. They’re not pushy. I had lots of offers for exotic smoking tobaccos, even Cubans!

On the diving trip - Blinkie, the dive master.

On our last evening in San Pedro, the Thunens came into town via water taxi. We had a bottle of wine on our porch and then went to dinner at El Patio, a local restaurant. It turned out to be a superb last evening. Good food, good wine, good friends and a great way to end a successful Belize adventure.

Diane found a purse she couldn't resist.

Far right and far left were two of the place we stayed at.

Morning view from our porch.

Another view from the porch.

Local chick on palm tree.

2012-02-08T20:36:00.000-08:00

John and Diane walking downtown Hopkins - really!

February 2-4, 2012

NOTE: Since I changed the blog format to dynamic views, be sure to double-click on the image or verbiage to get the full story. You can also change the views yourself to the others that are available.

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After a hearty breakfast of eggs, bacon and toast, we left Tranquility Lodge for Hopkins, a small Garifuna beach town one and a half hours north (we had briefly stopped there on our way south).

After going to the hotel we had reservations at (and finding out that they had switched our accommodations from a large, upper floor, double suite ocean view place to a depressingly small set of rooms with a pool view), we bailed and found a far superior hotel right on the ocean for half the price! We were thrilled.

View from the upper deck of hotel room

Since the weather wasn't cooperating, set our sights on rum drinks and food. We had dinner at an authentic Garifuna restaurant. Our host, Stanley, told us about locally made bitters and asked if we wanted to a sample. Being wine makers, we were very curious. After having the tasty and authentic Garifuna cuisine, Stanley brought us a small plastic bottle of the bitters. It tasted earthy and herbaceous and definitely definitely contained copious amounts of alcohol. Stanley told us if we were interested we could find out more about the bitter from the guy who made it - he lived in town.

Miss Bertie's Library in Hopkins

The next day we stopped by the store that Stanley had told us of and looked for a tall black fellow - he's the one that purportedly made the potion. We spotted our man and asked if he was the one who made the bitters. He nodded. At first he didn't seem interested in talking. But soon he warmed to us and began telling us how it was made. It was definitely not the typical bitters we know as the ingredient in making drinks such as a Manhattan. The main ingredient of this bitters was derived from the root of a plant found deep in the jungle. The root is ground into a powder which is then used to prepare a strong herbal tea.

The final step in making the bitters is to add alcohol. Rum, gin, vodka or brandy is added to the tea to make the elixir potent - perhaps 30-35% alcohol. Our conclusion was that it would make a poor substitute for what we know as bitters. I'm pretty sure one wouldn't want to add this to a Manhattan. But, we did find out that one of its main uses was to make a man strong (a.k.a. a cure for erectile dysfunction). Apparently, it’s the generic jungle version of Viagra. Love potion number nine!!!

The following day we walked around town and met an American woman who had come to check out Hopkins ten years ago and decided to stay and create a bakery (we can attest to her baking skills). Later that evening we had a superb dinner at Chef Rob’s (a Dutch chef who I chatted with in Dutch for a few minutes).

An exquisite dinner at Chef Rob's

The baker showing off her freshly baked muffins.

If it hadn't been for the rough and windy weather, Hopkins would have been a really superb experience. As it was, we left with a favorable impression of the small town, but we wished we could have had a few hours at the pool or on the beach with some sun.

Don't you love the color scheme?

The following day we headed north towards Belize City, to turn in our rental car and get on the water taxi to La Isla Bonita (a.k.a. San Pedro, Ambergris).

2012-02-06T18:47:00.000-08:00

Our cabin at Tranquility Lodge

January 31- February 1, 2012

We left Placencia in the late morning and drove southward toward Punta Gorda. We had a reservation at a jungle lodge called “Tranquility Lodge” but other than reading their website, we had no idea what we were buying into.

The drive was an uneventful one, varying from wooded land made up of thin pine trees to dense-looking jungle. We got to our lodge and were greeted warmly by the owners, Suzanne and Lee. As they were showing us the cabanas we were immediately taken in with the serenity and the feel for the place.

It turns out that Suzanne and Lee were only one month into their tenure as the new owners of the Tranquility Lodge. They are from Canada (Edmonton, Alberta) as so many of the tourists in Belize seem to hail from. Our cabanas were rustic yet very comfortable with views of the dense jungle vegetation. Lee and Suzanne’s attentiveness and friendliness was unparalleled.

Arriving at Cyrila's

Our adventures in the area included a visit to Cyrila’s, a cacao farm and to Lubaantun, a unique Mayan site. The tour of the cacao farm was superb. Juan, our host and a cacao farmer, explained to us how the cacao is grown and farmed. Afterwards we sat down at a table as he began to explain the process of how the cacao pod is harvested and made into what we know as chocolate. We cut through the pod, tasted the raw, milky-white looking beans and husked the pod. The process then called for the beans to be roasted. To save time, Juan’s wife had roasted other beans for our tour. He showed us how to crack the casing of the bean and get to the heart of the matter - the cacao bean.

Juan showing us how to cut open the cacao husk

After we had cracked and assembled a respectable amount of cacao, we gathered all of our production and put it on a ground stone known as a metate. With a stone in hand, he showed us how you meticulously grind the beans into a grainy paste, over and over until it becomes a very fine paste. We each tried our hand at the grinding technique, but he admitted that his wife was really the best grinder. She began moving the rock to a rhythmic beat that soon turned the mashed cacao beans into a smooth paste. It was then ready to be poured on to a cookie sheet with the shape of small hearts. After placing the cookie sheet in a freezer for a few minutes, we all got a chocolate heart - all made from the fruits of our labor. Pretty neat.

What the cacao pod looks like inside

After the bean is roasted (L), then after we crack it (R)

Diane grinding the cacao on the metate

Juan's wife shows us how it's really done

After leaving Cyrila’s, we drove to the Mayan site of Lubaantun, unique because this group of Mayans did not use mortar in their construction techniques. Lubaantun, is nowhere as large as Tikal or Caracol. But it was interesting none-the-less and we were the only tourists at the site, since the road leading to it was a muddy and bumpy mess.

At the Lubaantun site

A spear head found at the site

This chiseled head is 1300 years old. The guard just handed it to me.

2012-02-05T15:03:00.000-08:00

Placencia

January 28-30, 2012

We picked up our car rental in San Ignacio and had an easy drive east to Balmopan. There we turned south on what’s called the Hummingbird Highway, on our way to Dangriga, Hopkins and our destination, Placencia.

The Hummingbird Highway was nice, though not what I would term spectacular. It was verdant and at times jungle-like with not too many potholes.

Our first stop was Dangriga, a town mostly made up of Garifuna folks. Garifunas are descendants of Arawak Indians and West Africans brought over to the Caribbean Islands during the slave trade. We made a couple of passes through the shanty town trying to find something of interest to entice us to stop and eat. But it all looked just a bit too derelict to tempt us in the door for lunch. So much for Garifuna culture. Lunch ended up being a stop at the ubiquitous Chinese grocery store for crackers, cheese, potato chips and beers.

On our way to Placencia, we made a brief diversion to Hopkins to verify that the hotel we reserved was what we expected. Satisfied with our choice, we continued south and arrived in Placencia late in the afternoon. Our room at the Seaspray was spartan and plain, but we figured we weren’t going to be in the room a lot anyway.

Placencia is at the very southern end of a long and narrow peninsula. It’s a low-keyed village with a mix of colorful, clapboard stilt cottages, a narrow street and a walkway that runs between houses, bars, restaurants and shops that sell everything from carved wooden parrots to shell necklaces.

The narrow walkway through town.

One of a number of shops along the walkway.

Beach front living

Dinner at the Rumfish

We got up early the following morning to go on an all day tour of Monkey River. We met our guide, Lenny, and followed him via the walkway to the town’s dock. After getting situated, Lenny throttled the boat to full speed and soon we were zipping across the water, first in an open bay and later in through narrow inlets lined with mangroves.

After a brief stop at Monkey River village to pick up a local guide, we were on our way up the jungle river. We encountered a variety of wild life, including crocodiles, a boa constrictor, large iguanas, bats, pelicans, ospreys, herons, egrets, ibis, and more. At the furthest point up the river, Lenny drove the boat onto the riverside. We got off and took a hike through the jungle mainly looking for Howler monkeys. The two guides called out and banged on lots of trees to locate the monkeys and eventually were successful in finding a family hanging out in the tree tops, munching on leaves.

Boarding the boat for Monkey River.

Three small bats on a tree.

A small, suspicious crocodile.

A Howler monkey swinging around the canopy.

Boarding to go home.

Armed with our cameras, we clicked away, always being sure not to stand directly under the monkeys - they like to make their presence known by pooping on those who stand below them. On our walk, our guide also showed us several plants and trees that are used in medicinal ways by shamans and local healers. There was even a tree that had bark that’s effective in treating impotence in men - he called the Viagra tree!

On the return to Placencia, we tried to find manatees in several spots, but it was to no avail. Our guide told us that the closest kin to a manatee is an elephant. I have no idea, but that’s probably worth checking in to.

In the evening, we were sitting around the hotel, when we heard the sounds of drums beating. One of the bars near us were hosting Garifuna drummers. It was an amazing display of talent. I’m not one to appreciate long, drawn out drummer solos. But this was different. Four drummers playing different types of drums all beating out a rhythm. It was electrifying to listen to them.

All in all it had been a pretty good, yet long day. Next on the agenda is further south to Punta Gorda.

2012-01-27T17:33:00.000-08:00

January 25, 2012

Today, Diane and I went off into different directions because I wanted to do a cave tour and she wanted to attend a conference that was being held at our hotel on Mayan medicines and healing. Later she’ll post a briefing on her experience at the conference, which sounded really interesting.

Meanwhile, my excursion with John and Linda, was to Actun Tunichil Muknal, (more commonly know as ATM). We were picked up at the hotel by Carlos, our tour guide. It was a long hour and a half bumpy drive to where we left the vehicle. We then hiked through the jungle for about forty-five minutes, traversing the same river three times.

We got to a picnic/staging area where we had lunch and left most of our belongings. The entrance to the cave was just a few steps from where we had lunch. To enter the cave, we slid off a big rock into the cool water and began to swim. Really!!!

The hour glass entrance to the cave - get ready to swim!

It’s only a short swim, though. Then it mostly consists of walking on rocks or wading in knee-deep water. We wore helmets with headlights attached to them. At one point we were in a spot where one needs to be in the water neck deep. You then squeeze your head through a narrow set of rocks. You accomplish the feat by turning your head forward, then downward and then out all the while moving forward. It was an odd maneuver, but when followed correctly, it got you past the narrow spot and deeper into the cave.

After a relatively easy forty minute trek into the cave we arrived at the main chamber where most of the pottery and human remains were found (there were also beautiful stalactites and stalagmites in the area). There is evidence that the cave was used by the Mayans to host ceremonies and rituals. Some skeletal remains appear to be sacrificial in nature. All these offerings were likely done to appease the underworld gods which were supposed to help the Mayans in times of droughts, famines and wars.

Some of the pottery in the cave

A skull

Stalactites and stalagmites

Heading out of the cave seemed quicker. The experience was unique and I’m glad to have had the opportunity to do it.

January 26, 2012

On Diane’s birthday, we took a trip to Tikal, the biggest Mayan site. It is in Guatemala, about two hours west of San Ignacio. We were picked up early in the morning by Anna, who essentially coordinated the trip for us, taking us through the Guatemalan border and hooking us up with our tour guide for Tikal. We also negotiated for a quick side trip to the small island town of Flores.

Tikal lies in a dense jungle and consists of over 3000 structures (most of which are still buried). In the three hours we were there, we only saw a fraction of it. When you walk up to these ruins from a jungle path, it has the feel of a George Lucas movie. In fact, our tour guide told us that the first Star Wars was partly filmed in Tikal.

There are several different types of structures in Tikal - alters, pyramids, temples and residences. In front of the temples they have stelas, a kind of a billboard that would commemorate a king. Other stelas that were elsewhere essentially reported events and other newsworthy items.

The inspected several of the structures. The main ones we saw were the second set of temples with an acropolis where the rulers were buried in tombs. The interesting part of the architecture of many of these buildings is that each ruler would build, rebuild or add on to an existing building, often making them higher and higher each time. The tallest of the temples (#4) in Tikal is 73 meters. We climbed to the highest part that’s open to the public and were rewarded with a panoramic view of the entire area.

It’s amazing all the excavation that needs to be done at each site. Every mound or hill that’s visible has a structure underneath it. And the more they dig, the more they need to maintain. So archeologists try to only unearth the structures that are deemed to have a special value.

One bit of interesting information that was imparted on us by one of the tour guides was that the Mayan culture was the first to develop the notion of zero. I did a little more research on that and it is believed by many to actually be the Olmec civilization that came with the concept first. The Olmecs preceded the Mayans in the area of Mexico that is now Chiapas - just southwest of Tikal.

After our visit to Tikal, we stopped for lunch and then took the detour to Flores. The small town is actually an island on Lake Peten Itza. There’s a small causeway that connects Flores to the mainland. Flores is a cute little town with colorful buildings, restaurants, gift shops and cobblestone streets. Lots of tuk-tuks (three-wheeled motorcycles with a bench seat in the rear) to move people around the area.

Cobblestone streets of Flores, Guatemala

This is the tuk-tuk

Sittin' at the dock of the bay....

The ride home was long, but the van was pretty comfortable and we got back to San Ignacio just after 6pm just in for a beer and Chinese food at Maxim’s.

January 27, 2012

They taste like chicken!

Today was our last full day in San Ignacio and we pretty much took it easy. We had lunch in town and on the way back Diane and I stopped by for a visit to the Iguana Project and Exhibit. It was an interesting tour, with lots of hands-on experience with fully mature iguanas and baby iguanas.

These are the fully grown ones. I've got Gomez and Diane has the lady.

One of the curious babies.

Too much of a good thing?

Instead of a hair piece, I think I could make this work!

My take away from it was that male iguanas live quite a sumptuous lifestyle. Males have two penises and are very busy during breeding season (Dec-Mar). They’ll mate with as many as six females per day. The bigger and stronger males get all the chicks. They get all spruced up during mating season, which includes getting a new colorful coat and dropping several pounds. It’s as if they go to the gym and the spa to get ready for the mating season. We got to hold fully grown males and females as well as baby iguanas. Needless to say, the tour was informative and fun.

Tomorrow morning we pick up our rental car and head south to Placencia.

2012-01-25T05:45:00.000-08:00

View from our hotel in Belize City

January 19 - Belize Arrival

After a very early morning flight from LAX to Houston, we boarded a direct flight to Belize. Another two hours in the air and we were touching down on the wet tarmac of Belize City International airport.

Stepping out of the plane into Belize air, the humidity didn’t feel too harsh. After winding our way through customs, we hailed a taxi, who took us downtown to our somewhat ramshackle yet comfortable hotel overlooking the Belize River. The rest of what we saw of the town had the same shanty-town character.

After getting settled into our rooms, we sat on Adirondack chairs on the hotel porch. There wasn’t much river boat traffic to see, but the Belize beer, Belikin, tasted mighty good in the warm weather. Dinner was next door at the Marlin Restaurant, where we had grouper, rice and beans and another Belikin to help down it all.

Little girl in front of us in bus

Jan 20 - Bus Trip to San Ignacio

We got up reasonably early and had breakfast next door at the Marlin (eggs and white bread toasted - my cholesterol will be going through the roof this trip. How effective is rum as a statin anyway?). We checked out and got a taxi to the bus station.

Maybe it was because it was Saturday, but when we arrived at the bus station things seemed orderly, low keyed and not very busy. We walked right up to our bus (an old converted U.S. school bus) and found some seats. As soon as the bus got moving, the driver kicked up the volume of the reggae music, making it virtually impossible to communicate. We were grooving’ mahn!

About two and a half hours later, after making dozens of stops and driving through a number of villages, we pulled into San Ignacio. The bus driver dropped us off near our hotel, but it was still a tough last few hundred yards because Cahal Pech Resort is at the top of the hill!

View
of San Ignacio from our hotel - Cahal Pech

After settling into to our room, we took a walk back into town and checked out the local Saturday market. It was a very typical Central American/Caribbean style open market with booths selling houseware items, clothes, fruits and vegetables. We bought papayas, bananas and a fake pair of Crocks.

Jan 21, 2012 - San Ignacio

We had a short excursion into town and its vicinity today, but our main attraction was a visit to the Cahal Pech ruins. Located just a few steps away from our hotel, we were pleasantly surprised with the experience in spite of it not being a major Mayan site.

Cahal Pech dates back to when Mayans began to occupy the site sometime between 1200 to 1000 B.C. In its peak, it probably had upwards of 20,000 people living in the surrounding area with as many as 34 structures. Although we were able to see a number of them, it was pretty obvious that many still remain to be dug out from the surrounding mounds of dirt.

January 22 - Caracol Mayan Site

We were picked up early in the morning by our driver, Eddie. We were soon headed out of town as Eddie explained to us what we would be doing and seeing during the day. The road started out paved, but after some driving gave way to dirt roads, lined with enormous holes, keeping our speed limit down to about 30mph. Eddie tried to avoid pot holes, but their sheer volume made the attempt a futile one. About two hours of relentless bumps through jungle terrain, we arrived at Caracol.

Mayans lived in this area as far back as 1200 B.C., a time known as the Early Classic Mayan period (the others being Classic and Late Classic). Eddie took us through the back area first, and was very knowledgeable of the vegetation surrounding the ruins. He showed us a local tree, the Ceiba, that grows very high. It’s like our Cottonwood tree. He showed us a palm that had leaves that looked like a fish tail, often used in roofing.

Eventually, we made it to a secondary set of structures that were pretty impressive. There were four structures built around a rectangular field, the tallest being around 50-70 feet. Built of limestone blocks, each had lots of different chambers, rooms and tombs. When you stop and think about how much work went into these buildings, it’s quite amazing how it was all accomplished without the aid of mechanization and computers.

Perhaps as amazing and labor intensive, however, is how these ruins were discovered and meticulously excavated. Most of the structures were underneath mounds of dirt and jungle vegetation when they were found. They required lots of careful digging, and often, reconstruction.

The main structures we eventually came to were even more impressive. Taller and bigger than the first ones we saw, we climbed to the very top and had a grand view of the surrounding area. Only the elites and priests were allowed up here. There were residential rooms, altars, terraces and tombs.

While we walked, Eddie also imparted on us the history of the Mayans who lived here and how they traded, communicated and battled with other settlements such as Tikal, the large Mayan settlement in what is now Guatemala.

The day ended with the return tour taking us to a large cave with a river running through it and then a swim in the Macal River. The road back seemed a little quicker but was at least as bumpy as on the way in. It was a long but interesting day.

Today we're off to visit a cave site known as ATM (Actun Tuniichil Muknai). It's a jungle hike to get there, crossing rivers and then going into the cave, which is waist water high. Should be fun!

Photo book of our 2011 Europe trip

2011-09-21T20:04:00.000-07:00

I just finished creating a Shutterfly Photo Book of our 2011 Europe trip. In case you're interested to check it out, here's the URL.

http://share.shutterfly.com/action/welcome?sid=8EbNXLVoycMLm&cid=SFLYOCWIDGET

Netherlands

2011-07-05T18:23:00.000-07:00

Kinderdijk

June 22 - To the Netherlands

It was a relatively quick drive from Gent, Belgium to ‘s-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands, a town in the south of the Netherlands. ‘s-Hertogenbosch lies in Braband, an area where my mom resided during part of WWII. The town has an old Gothic cathedral built in the 1500’s and a large and comfortable town square where we had lunch. Our hotel was just a little south, in the village of Oisterwijk, so after a brief visit we drove to our hotel and checked in.

Hotel De Leijhof

Hotel De Leijhof had stately setting with a lush green lawn, a beautiful fountain and rod iron gates - quite a majestic entrance. It turned out to be a very friendly, comfortable and convenient hotel. The village of Oisterwijk also was surprisingly nice, in that it a number of the shops and restaurants were by a park giving it a European “Mayberry“ affect.

But for us ‘s-Hertogenbosch area only served as a quick stop on our way north. So after a big breakfast, we headed north to Elst, to visit with Ton and Marleen. With Google directions we got pretty close to their house, but in the end we succumbed to getting a little help from them. But we were pretty darn close.

Ton was standing in front of their house when we arrived and directed us in. After a short visit at their house, we walked to a restaurant at a nearby park. The restaurant was in an old, classic house. We started out in the veranda, but it became cold and rainy. So we opted for the warmth of the inside dining room where we had an exquisite lunch accompanied with a Spanish Tempranillo.

Lunch with Marleen and Ton

We were soon on our way again - this time to meet up with Marteen and Maria. It was a greater challenge to find their house in Purmerand (just north of Amsterdam) because of all the irregular, narrow streets in their neighborhood. We knew we were within a stone’s throw from them, but we again had to resort to the phone to get the final directions. Maria ended up riding her bike to where we were - it was simpler than explaining it.

Though we had been to their new house, we had only seen it from the outside, after they had made an offer on it last year. We had an excellent reunion and that evening were treated to a delicious Indonesian dinner at their home.

Village of Monnickendam

Marteen, Maria and Diane in Edam

Joyce (Small) and Sebastian (Large)

A van Gogh bridge?

A cart of Edam cheese

Nicely maintained wooden double ender

The next day we had a busy day touring the villages of Monnickendam and Edam (near the more touristy village of Volendam), had croquets for lunch, stopped by a second-hand store called the Kringloopwwinkel, where we bought three small hand-made Iranian carpets for the paltry sum of seven Euros each. Diane and I were elated. We then dropped in to see Marteen and Maria’s newest grandson, Kick, at Hanne’s home.

Diane holding Kick

The following day was a busy one for Diane and I as we wanted to stop in Ede to check on my parent’s graves (which we did) before heading to Rotterdam to meet up with Meredith and Elliot. All went us planned.

The Dutch have an interesting way of dealing with graves - essentially, families rent a grave site in increments of ten years. If a plot is not renewed, the remains are dug up and placed in a common grave and the plot received a new “renter”. It makes a lot of sense when a space is at a premium. We paid the fees (about $1100) to keep mom, dad and oma where they are for another ten year period. Then Diane and I visited the grave, spruced it up a bit and took some photos.

June 24 - Rotterdam

We arrived at Meredith’s in the late afternoon. Their apartment is located in the heart of Rotterdam. As Elliot was still at school (he’s pursuing an MBA degree at Erasmus University), Meredith gave us a tour of the neighborhood. The central market, the St. Lawrence Cathedral, bars, restaurants, the historic harbor area, the Maas River, the architecturally interesting cube apartment complex and much more is all within walking distance from Meredith‘s place.

There were lots of bicyclists roaming the city streets. Here, however, bicyclists have their own dedicated paths that run adjacent to city streets. All these people on bikes and yet none wear helmets. Men in their suits riding to the office, mothers with toddlers in backseats and front seats (or sometimes on cargo bikes called a Bakfiets - check them out here http://bakfiets.nl/eng/

A Bakfiets

On one of the evenings, we went out to dinner at a small Italian restaurant where one of Meredith’s neighbors is a chef. We had not expected any special treatment. But it soon became evident as we were served the antipasto, that this was not going to be your average meal. We were served a huge plate of tasty, sun dried tomatoes, olives, slices of roasted eggplant, pickled onions, several cheeses and Italian meats. After seeing how much food it was, we immediately asked them to cut back on the main courses we had ordered (which they obliged). It turned out to be a splendid and delicious dinner and a wonderful evening. On the walk home, in spite of being pretty stuffed, we each managed to enjoy a scoop or two of ice cream at the local gelato hangout.

This is just the antipasto

There's more to eat?

We made some fun day trips while in Rotterdam. One was to the historical city of Delft, where the Delft blue porcelain originated and to the village of Kinderdijk. Although the weather was a bit wet, Delft was charming. With its canals, cathedrals, quaint bridges, a lively market and a picturesque town square, Delft is always a worthy visit. We sat in the town square, enjoying the scenery and had a cup of coffee - or was it a beer.

Delft canal

Meredith and Diane enjoying a fresh stroopwafel

Delft city hall

Kinderdijk is a short drive from Rotterdam. With its rows of quintessential Dutch windmills along canals, we strolled passed them and took in the lovely scenery. It’s a popular tourist attraction, so we weren’t the only ones with that idea - lots of others walked and bicycled along the trail to enjoy the sights of the windmills.

Kinderdijk windmills

Meredith had made an appointment in Utrecht at a bridal store to try on some wedding gowns. So on one of the days, with her friend Anel, the four of us drove there. Utrecht turned out to be a very pleasant city. With a deep canal running through it, Utrecht has a comfortable feel to it with restaurants, museums, sidewalk cafes, bars and shops. The canals in Utrecht have a lower level right next to the water where there are bars and small, private weekend retreats right next to the water. It seemed pretty unique.

Lower part of Utrecht canal

Birds eye view of Utrecht from the cathedral tower

Being that it was a warm day, there were plenty of people making use of the canal by canoeing and kayaking on it. Others were taking canal cruises on larger boats that provided lunch while further on, some brave kids were jumping in the murky water from their inflatable rafts.

After lunching on crokets, dark bread and aged cheese, we took a tour of St. Martin’s cathedral. Started as a small chapel in the 7th century, the building that stands today is of Gothic-design. There is a tall tower, the transept and the choir. In between the tower and the choir there’s a gap in the cathedral where a hurricane blew building apart. The only part open to us was the tower, which we proceeded to climb - all 465 steps of it. Great view from the top, though.

After a couple of more enjoyable days in Rotterdam with Meredith and Elliot, it was time for Diane and I to go home. Our flight was from Brussels. Since Meredith wanted to peruse through the second-hand market in Brussels for old keys, she and Anel accompanied us back to Brussels.

Only about a two hour drive, we dropped off the car and took the train into the city. We were at the Place du Jeu de Balle market in no time and soon were bargaining with a vendor for his stash of old keys. We were surprised to fin out that he wanted far more for his keys than an antique shop owner wanted down the street on Rue Blaes. So we headed back to the huge store and proceeded to buy his entire supply of old keys. The store, Stephantiek is the largest antique store I have seen. Check out the store at their web site - http://www.stefantiek.com/

Searching for the right keys

The four of us had lunch at a sidewalk café, near the Grand Place. Afterwards, we walked around the famous square while Meredith provided us with a few of its historical nuances. It was then time for Meredith and Anel to go to the train station and catch the train back to Rotterdam. Like we had done so many times before, we hugged each other tightly, this time parting in the middle of the Grand Place square in Brussels.

The Grand Place

With flight delays and route re-scheduling, the trip back home was a long one. But we got home safe and sound after a 27 hour trip. Another adventure had come to a close.

Gent, Belgium

2011-06-26T01:08:00.000-07:00

View of Gent from St. Michel's Bridge

June 19 - Gent, Belgium

After having a slight complication checking into the Gravensteen Hotel (they couldn’t find our reservation), we eventually got our room and settled in. Having endured our across-the-railroad-tracks hotel in Evreux, my intent had been to book us into a more comfortable three star hotel in the middle of the old city. Although the hotel was well situated, as it turned out our “suite” looked more like a thirty year old Hilton room with a view of the parking lot. So much for trying.

The medieval castle near our hotel

Luckily, Gent made up for our substandard hotel room in sheer beauty and history. Diane and I had been to Gent decades ago with my parents but we’d forgotten how lovely of a city it was. With the River Leie running through it, Gent is gem of a place. Steeped in history (literally dating back to the Stone Age), Gent offers many samples of old architecture. Starting right near our hotel, there is a medieval castle that looks like from the days of King Arthur.

St. Bavo cathedral

One of the cathedrals we visited, Saint Bavo, was originally build in 942 A.D. The original structure no longer exists, but parts of what we today was built around 1150 - Christopher Columbus’ adventures were yet over three centuries away!!!

We toured a number of the historical sights, including the harbor area (known as the Graslei), the main town square, St. Michael’s bridge, a huge, old cast iron cannon, a giant bell, the old fish market and more cathedrals. We found Gent to be very pedestrian friendly, with many intriguing views and cityscapes.

Since we were in Gent on Sunday afternoon and on a Monday, museums and markets were not an option - they were closed. That was unfortunate, since Gent some very interesting museums and has one of the biggest second hand markets in Europe.

In the late afternoon, we had a glass of wine near the Leie river, in Graslei and Korenlei area. It would have been better with sunshine, but still we marveled at Gent’s unique and beautiful architectural scenery. The old port area is one of the original ports in Europe that developed as a center of commerce and trade in the days of Charlemagne. It’s pretty easy to envision the old trading ships berthing along the quay and think of all the bee hive-like activity that would have been occurring each day.

Views of Graslei and Korenlei

Unfortunately, our stay was too short. Tuesday morning found us busily making our way through traffic out of Gent, heading for the Netherlands.

16th century building with six dancing devils atop of it.

From the outside the Marriott Hotel looks old. But inside....

Drill made of Belgian chocolates

Graffiti alley

Yummy bakery with great breads

Claude Monet's Gardens in Giverny

2011-06-21T14:23:00.000-07:00

Claude Monet

The lily pond

June 19 - Evreux to Giverny and Gent (Belgium)

Okay, just one more post for the evening. I was behind in posting due to not having internet access, so now's the time to catch up.

Finding our way to Giverny was a bit more challenging, but, with Diane being the top-notched navigator she is, we methodically found our way to the near-mythical village where Claude Monet had painted so many of his garden and pond scenes.

His house

Garden

Towards the pond

Giverny receives nearly one half million visitors per year - quite a lot for a postage-sized village. It felt like 300,000 of them were here with us today! A long line to get in to the museum. And once in, we found other hoards of people waiting to get in to his house, his gardens and the pond area. Luckily, everyone was respectful of each other and things worked out. Walking through Monet’s atelier and seeing all the paintings hanging on the walls from top to bottom was a powerful and emotional experience. I could only imagine what it would have been like in the early 1900‘s, when he was walking these paths and sitting down to paint a scene.

After finishing the tour of Monet’s house, we strolled through Giverny, had a light lunch with two cafes alonge (expressos with a bit of water added to them), and headed for Gent, Belgium.

The water lilies

A Monet model

Chartres and Evreux

2011-06-21T14:07:00.000-07:00

The Notre-Dame de Chartres

June 18 - Chartres and Evreux

The drive to Chartres was a quick one. Once there, we found a parking spot way underground (four levels down) at the Hotel de Ville (City Hall). All we really wanted to do was to have a quick tour of (yes, yet another) cathedral and the surrounding area.

The Notre-Dame de Chartres did not disappoint. With its two very different spires - one being Roman, the other uber-Gothic, the cathedral yields a very dramatic sight. Inside, too, it is quite amazing in its architecture, the sheer size and height, the ornamental Christian sculptures, the paintings, wood carvings, the marble floor - everywhere you look, there are works of art.

A wide pedestrian way and square in Chartres

After the cathedral and a quick tour around the old parts of the city, we found our way back to the parking garage and continued onward,

Evreux is a small town. For the first time, we had decided to go to a place without a hotel reservation. Big mistake. Evreux, it turns out, was having a music festival and its few hotels were booked. We ended up finding a room at the Grand de le Gare (in essence, that meant that it was a hotel located right across the street from the train station). Actually, it turned out to be okay.

We plunked our stuff down and went off to see what all the hoopla was about. Around town there were several different venues going on with people singing, playing piano, dancing and playing medieval instruments. We listened to several students doing their recital for a class in classical ragtime music. Really fun.

Cathedral in Evreux

The Hotel de Ville (city hall)

Evreux was nearly all destroyed in the WWII (the cathedral seems to have been kept in tact). So much of what we saw had been rebuilt. They did an excellent job of creating a warm atmosphere and utilizing the river to enhance the feel of the city. It was a very comfortable town and we definitely enjoyed our one night stay in Evreux.

Vendome

2011-06-21T13:31:00.000-07:00

View of Vendome from the castle

June 16 - Saumur to Vendome

After a breakfast of coffee, yogurt and muesli we drove east towards Tours and then northward. Here I must mention, that navigating in France is no simple task. Signs may display the name of a city at one point, then suddenly a round-about appears and the city you are heading for is no longer mentioned. We got used to keeping our eyes on Tout Directions.

We eventually made it to our destination, Vendome, in the heart of the Loir et Cher (not to be confused with the Loire River and valley). With its own wine appellation, there are lots of vineyards and wineries in the area. Vendome itself is very historic, dating back to a treaty that was signed here in 587 A.D. The remains of a castle still remain on the hill top overlooking Vendome. This very area was likely first inhabited by Celts and then Romans.

The Loir River

The cathedral in Vendome

Vendome itself is very quaint, with the Loir River running through it in several branches. The city’s architecture and design made good use of the river’s flow. On Friday mornings there’s a market held in the town center, with all the standard foods, wares and even clothes. It’s quite a lively event.

The Porto Entrance to Vendome

Vendome has a lively Saturday morning market that is held in a central building that was designed just for the purpose. The city bought a block of houses, razed them and built the central market building.

We took a drive to visit the small village of Troo. What made it worth the side trip were its troglodyte (cave) dwellings. We had never encountered these before. Apparently some date back to the twelfth century when quite a number of the population in France lived in these limestone caves.

Troglodyte dwellings in Troo

In Troo a number of these caves remain in use. There are homes, bars, restaurants and even B&B’s in these cave structures. We walked passed very neat little gardens with elegant entrances built to the cave dwellings - lots of glass and ventilation pipes. We checked into staying at a B&B, but it was full. Next time.

We drove back to hotel in Vendome and prepared for the next day's trip to Chartres and Evreux.

Saumur and The Loire Valley

2011-06-17T23:52:00.000-07:00

The Loire River and Saumur Castle in background

June 14 - Vannes to Saumur

Our drive eastward, from Vannes to Saumur was one of our longer ones, passing by the cities of Nantes and Angers. As we drove into Saumur across the Loire River we were greeted with a grand view of the city’s brooding castle and a medieval looking bridge.

Our hotel was situated in a small village next to Saumur. After getting settled into our room we went into Saumur and walked along the Loire River, touring the steep walls of the castle and its grounds. They provided a splendid view of the Loire Valley as well as the river itself.

Right next to the castle, also having a grand view, there was a small restaurant perched at the top of a knoll. We settled in for a refreshing beer. Life’s good.

As luck would have it, we found an open cave (winery) as we made our way down back into town. Helene, a young lady at the Caves de Grenelle, gave us a wonderfully informative tour of the winery. Although they made many different wines, this was their sparkling wines facility. Their regular (still) wines were made elsewhere.

Helene proceeded to take us into the cool and dark caves a hundred feet below the surface and showed us the process they utilize (methode traditionelle) to make the sparkling wines. Afterwards, we got a chance to taste their sparkling wines. Typically, the wines are made with Cabernet Franc, Chenin Blanc and Savignon Blanc grapes. Needless to say, there was not a bad one in the bunch.

The following day our plan was to drive to the Chenonceaux chateau, one of the more outstanding chateaus in the Loire Valley. The drive was longer and more convoluted than we had anticipated, but we finally made it.

The driveway

Our new home

One of the several bedrooms

A hall used for balls and banquets

Part of the kitchen

The Chenonceaux chateau is built across the River Cher grounds and gardens. As we walked through it, it struck me that there was an abundance of bedrooms - I concluded that it was perhaps due to all the women the chateau had in its history. It was here that Henry II kept a mistress (Diane), while he was married to one of the Medici ladies. After Henry died, Diane gave the chateau to Catherine Medici in exchange for another chateau. Appropriately, the castle the Diane garden and a Catherine garden.

Although you can tell these people led quite the opulent lives, it also had a gruesome aspect to it, evident with the early deaths of both Henry II and the Henry III. There was lots of scheming, intrigue and back stabbing. Life didn’t consist of only banquets, feasts and masquerade balls.

Vannes and Carnac

2011-06-15T14:01:00.000-07:00

The Vannes cathedral at night

June 12 - Vannes and Carnac

Yet another medieval walled city, Vannes was mentioned in our guide as a “must-see” city in southern Brittany. After getting settled in, we took a “wet” and quick tour of the walled area - superb! With its Gothic architecture, half-timbered buildings, the mote, the bridge, the cathedral of St.Pierre (which is both unique and dramatic), and the waterfront area (Port de Plaisance) where there is a yacht harbor was a pleasant area too. Vannes to me was pretty exceptional.

Near the wall in Vannes

The following day, we took a short drive to the port town of Carnac, where there is a huge number of alignements that were built by Neolithic people about 4000B.C. We first meandered through the touristy beach area, eventually getting into Trinity Sur Mer, a big yachting harbor with some big yachts.

Trinity Sur Mer harbor

After an espresso “alonge” (meaning that they add a little hot water to it), we drove to the area of the alignemetns. Our first glimpse of them didn’t impress us - they weren’t much to look at. But when we saw dozens of these stones all aligned and in order of height, it was quite a dramatic sight.

This give one an idea of the size of these rocks.

Different patterns, different sizes

They tend to be aligned from short to tall

Various patterns

These are called "Menhir"

The "Menhirs" are believed to be burial sites

There is no conclusive evidence that has determined what these people had in mind when they built these monuments. But most anthropologists believe that as these people became more settled, they became more ritualistic in their burial practices, therewith erecting stone blocks in commemoration of their dead. We visited several of the sights and were in awe.

We got back to Vannes late in the afternoon. After a rest and a glass of wine, we ventured back out to find a place for dinner (I think we’re back to being hunter-gatherers). We found a small restaurant (La Pomme de Terre Gourmande) with a Brittany-styled menu. Not a sole was in the restaurant as we ventured in. We got great service and had a wonderful meal for all of Eu 38, including wine!

A meat dish on top of potatoes - delicious!

After dinner we made one last walk around the walled city and headed back to our hotel. Tomorrow we are off to the Loire Valley.

Rennes - Capital of Brittany

2011-06-13T23:44:00.000-07:00

June 11 - Rennes

The drive south from Dinan to Rennes was a quick one. Meredith had an appointment to check out wedding gowns in Rennes and also it was the place she would leave us to return home to Rotterdam.

From my readings, Rennes did not have the flair of other cities. Yet once there, we really appreciated the layout and architecture of the city. It had broad boulevards as well as narrow cobble stoned streets with half-timbered buildings. Being the capital of Brittany, it has a grand palace of parliament, theaters and a majestic cathedral.

We walked to the Place des Lices, where there was a huge open market with vegetables, meats, fish, poultry, cheeses and lots of other stuff. We had samples of jams, cheese and salamis and grabbed a quick bite to eat. It was then time for Meredith's wedding gown appointment, so she and Diane trudged off while I went on to reconnoiter possibilities for dinner.

Garlic anyone?

A huge pot of chicken being cooked up at the market

A basket of salamis at the market

Diane and Meredith came back on an upbeat note - the gown designer had sketched some of his ideas and they had hit if off quite well. Meredith had tried on several wedding gowns and was excited at how close they came to what she liked. It definitely had been a successful adventure.

In the evening, we had what was our best meal of the trip. It was at Chez Paul, a local restaurant that I had spotted earlier. We took a chance - we were their only customers when we walked in. The waiter was friendly and helpful - he had lived in New Zealand and spoke good English. We each had delightful meals - duck, beef and fish capped off with a dessert of rhubarb tart and a heavy dark chocolate mousse. It was the perfect dinner to end our time together with Meredith.

The chef of Chez Paul - Paul

Rhubarb tart

In the morning, while Diane stayed back to nurse a sore foot, Meredith and I took one last walk around Rennes and stopped to see a beautiful city park. In spite of the damp weather conditions, we were impressed with Rennes medieval architecture, its majestic theater and parliament buildings and comfortable squares. We found it to be a very livable city, one we wouldn‘t mind returning to some time in the future.

Early in the afternoon we took Meredith to the train station. After she left, we drove to our next destination - Vannes.

Entrance to the gardens

Definitely the smallest elevator we've seen

Dinan, Saint Malo and Dinard

2011-06-12T23:57:00.000-07:00

Dinan's Port on the Rance river

June 10 - Dinan, Saint Malo and Dinard

Dinan is yet another walled medieval city, with steep cobblestone streets that lead to its port along the river Rance. Our hotel, Hotel de France was located just outside the wall near the train station.

We got registered at the hotel and lugged all our baggage up several flights of stairs. Once ready, we began our exploration of Dinan, passing through its gated towers and into a beautiful wide square. From there we weaved our way through narrow streets, lined with half-timbered buildings and started our descent towards the river. The streets were narrow, the buildings hung over the alley-width streets and the roof-tops protruded numerous “Mary Popins-like” chimneys.

The scene along the river would inspire any painter, but we just came to eat. We settled on one of the restaurants overlooking the river and ended up having a delicious meal and a great view of the river with a background of a modern bridge built with high Romanesque arches.

Entering St. Malo walled city

The next day we drove north to inspect Saint Malo and Dinard. St. Malo is along the Brittany coast and historically has been an important port town. A walled city, it has a fort on a small island that we could walk to during low tide, which we did. Our guide book mentioned that in WWII much of the city was destroyed but later rebuilt with such care to detail, that it is difficult to discern the new from the old. We never saw any evidence of the reconstruction.

After walking along three quarters of the ramparts of the old city wall, we descended back into the town, had lunch and got back on the road, heading for Dinard.

Looking towards St Malo from the fort

St Malo

We really enjoyed Dinard. It exuded a rich, nostalgic feel to it as we walked along the seaside promenade gawking at the imposing cliff-top mansions that line the area. The wealthy elite made Dinard their summer home in the late 1800’s. Apparently, they’ve moved on because many of the mansions now appear a bit disheveled.

After having a drink in the park near the beach, we headed home to Dinan.

A Dinard mansion as we walk along the beach promenade

Dinard promenade

Some of the old mansions

Mont Saint Michel

2011-06-11T15:18:00.000-07:00

Mont Saint Michel from the causeway

June 9 - Mont Saint Michel

After a breakfast of croissance, camembert cheese, ham and coffee, we got on the road. We had our first glimpse of Mont Saint Michel when it was twenty kilometers away - from afar it looked like a mysterious castle with sky-reaching turrets.

As we approached the abbey it became even more enigmatic looking (not withstanding the cheesy looking hotels, restaurants, stores and other sundry buildings at the base of the causeway that leads up to the abbey). Once inside, one does get a sense of history, though. The beginnings of the abbey dates back to the 8th century!

We walked up the twisting and narrow cobble-stoned streets until we got to the entrance of the abbey. The tour took us through the various tiers, where the monks worked and ate, and where they prayed. There were huge fire places and beautiful views of the water and the land down below. Little wonder that this was the only place in northern France not to fall to the English in the Hundred Years War.

After the abbey we drove to our next stop - the walled medieval city of Dinan.

Rouen and The Normandy Coast

2011-06-09T23:49:00.000-07:00

The Seine in Rouen and the Cathedral

June 4-6 - Brussels to Rouen, France

Meredith was at our hotel promptly at 10:45 a.m. And after a little hassle with the Europcar reservation, we were on our way from Brussels to Rouen.

We got to our hotel in Rouen after an easy four hour drive. Finding the hotel proved to be the most challenging since we didn’t have a local map of Rouen. A friendly taxi driver helped us out.

Rouen is one of the oldest cities in Normandy, dating back to 50B.C.! Built along the Seine, it has dramatic soaring spires and a number of ancient half-timber buildings that often lean or bulge in the middle. The Romans and the Vikings were here as were the Brits. When walking through the narrow cobblestone streets, one can well imagine a time when Joan of Arc wandered through them. At the end of one of the streets is where the English burned the 19 year old alive at the stake.

One of the more dramatic sights in Rouen is the Notre Dame Cathedral. Of Gothic design, the cathedral’s spire reach an amazing 151 meters into the air and can be seen from all around town. The cathedral took over three hundred years to build, having been started in 1201 and suffered much destruction a several times. Luckily for us, it was always rebuilt.

Half timber buildings

We had a grand time walking through all the narrow, medieval streets. By the end of the day, we all felt like we knew the geography of the city quite well. And that only meant one thing - it was time to move onward!

June 7 - Honfleur, Aromanches and D-Day Beaches

Honfleur Harbor

The next day we were off to the Normandy Coast beaches. It took us a couple of tries to get out of Rouen, but we eventually made it out of the city in the right direction.

Our first stop was Honfleur, a very picturesque harbor town at the mouth of the Seine River that dates back a thousand years. For several centuries, up until the 1400’s it was even ruled by the English. Even though in years past it may have been the home of explorers, pirates, merchants and fishermen, today it seems mostly a tourist town, still very quaint, but one mostly centered on restaurants and gift shops. We moved on after a lunch stop at one of the many restaurants along the quay.

Honfleur

From Honfleur we drove past a number of coastal villages and then D-Day landing areas such as Gold Beach and Juno Beach. After a couple of hours of driving we arrived at our hotel (Hotel Le Chanteclair), in Aromanches, one of the villages in an area known as Omaha Beach, where the U.S. forces landed in WWII. Right down the street from us you can see the remnants of the Mulberies - concrete docks used by the Allied forces that they had floated over from England. They sank the docks right off shore, which then enabled them to bring in the supplies needed for the Normandy invasion back in June 1944.

Omaha Beach

Although there is much more to see here, the one day we were here, we managed to see the Normandy American Military Cemetery and Memorial (and a great museum); Pointe du Hoc, the place where U.S. Army Rangers scaled up cliffs to overtake German defensive positions and is now a memorial; several of the German bunkers and gunnery emplacements that line the shores; the Batterie de Longues, which are the massive (152mm) German artillery guns that were capable of shooting a distance of up to 14 miles; on a lark, we decided to stop and see the German soldier’s cemetery, something we had not expected to see here. Germany actually maintains a number of cemeteries for their fallen soldiers.

A piece of the Mulberry docks

U.S. Cemetery

A view out of the German bunker

One of the 152mm guns

After visiting the WWII sights, we made a brief stop to the town of Bayeux, one of the few places to be spared from the bombing in the war, thus still having many of the old buildings and a beautiful cathedral.

Europe 2011

2011-06-04T16:50:00.000-07:00

Hotel de Ville

The Manneken Pis

June 2-4 - Shell Beach to Brussels (via Amsterdam’s Shiphol)

We had to get up at 4:30 a.m. to commence our latest journey to Europe. Woody, our visiting cat, knew something was up. He sat at a different spot on the couch and peered at us from around the armrest. Apparently, he deemed our movements, suspicious. After locking up the house and packing the car, we drove to Santa Barbara and caught the 7 o’clock airport shuttle to LAX. The trip had begun.

The KLM flight to Schiphol and then the connecting flight to Brussels were uneventful. From the airport we took the train to downtown Brussels and arrived at the Downtown BXL B&B on Rue du Marche au Charbon at 3 p.m. local time. We put our suitcases in the room and the first thing we did was to go out to have a Belgian beer at a local pub.

Our hotel room - long and narrow

In the evening, we walked to the Grand Place to scout out a restaurant we had read about. ’T Kelderke restaurant was right in the square with a great view of all what was happening around in the square. Diane had a spinach lasagna and I had a tasty beef stew. A dry white wine went well with the dinner.

The following day, after a splendid breakfast at our B&B, we headed off to the Marche aux Puces. Known as one of the better flea markets in Europe, we were very curious. On the way over, we found a street (Rue Blae) full of great antique stores.

The flea market was exceptional - an entire city block chock full of vintage clothes, china, silverware, rugs, paintings, African art, door locks, keys, wedding dresses, hats and lots more. After spending quite a while checking out the many fascinating items, we sat down at one of the bars at the edges of the market. We ordered one of the Belgian beers on tap while listened to a jazz trio playing such songs as “Route 66”, “Sentimental Journey” and an assortment of other easy-listening songs.

One of the antique stores

Grande Place

Dinner at ’T Kelderke restaurant

Why not tango at the plaza?

The rest of the day was spent sightseeing several cathedrals, parks, the Royal Palace and strolling along past the dozens of cozy sidewalk restaurants and drinking establishments around the city.

Among the things Belgium is best known for - chocolates, waffles, it houses the European headquarters for the EU, the Atomium, the Grand Place, big beers and the Manneken Pis, we managed to do only the latter three. It turned out that the Manneken Pis sculpture was just a short walk from our hotel. It’s a very small bronze sculpture (perhaps a foot in height) of a little boy peeing in to a fountain basin. It was made in the early 1600’s and is accompanied by numerous legends. It even has a counter part to it on the other side of town - Jeanneke Pis, a statue of a little girl urinating.

The Flea Market

Our impressions of Brussels was a favorable one - we found it to be a very walkable city with interesting things to explore for the weekend.

The Cathedral

Stained glass inside the cathedral

Belgium waffles

Hawaii 2011 - Poipu, Waikiki and the Big Island

2011-05-07T22:31:00.000-07:00

Waimea Canyon

We lamented leaving our comfortable Princeville condo - but not for long. We drove south and stopped for lunch at the quaint and historical town of Koloa. Popua Beach was only a few more miles down the road. We soon were settled into our room at the Sheraton, watching surfers and listening to the roar of the waves.

Erika makes friends with a stranger

View from our room

That evening we went to a luau at the Kilohana Plantation. It wasn’t cheap but it was a fabulous show. It wasn't just a bunch of young ladies in coconut shells over their breast doing a hula dance (not that there's anything wrong with that). Instead, the play told a story of families leaving Tahiti to cross the Pacific and sail to Hawaii. The finale was a dramatic fire-dance show. The luau included an open bar and a tasty buffet dinner - but no scotch. You have to wonder.

It's luau time!

Somewhere in there, there's a cooked pig

The next day we drove to Waimea Canyon, which in Hawaiian means “red water”. Our drive took us above 3500 feet of elevation and yielded dramatic views of the canyon at every turn. We didn’t see any red water, but we did see lots of red hard-packed dirt. At the top of the canyon we stopped for a cup of coffee and got a chuckle from watching chickens and roosters competing for bread scraps given by a group of picnickers. The competition was hilarious.

The red clay in Waimea Canyon

The following day, we were back in Oahu. Rich and I spent a few hours on the golf course while the ladies went to a Pacific Island Cultural Center. After golf, there was still time in the day to go for a short sail on the outrigger. That was a lot of fun. With four of us on the boat, she still made good headway.

Getting ready to go sailing

The crew on Kaneohe Bay

The next day, Diane, Erika and I took a walk along Waikiki and hiked up the side of Diamond Head from inside the crater. The view of Oahu from the top of Diamond Head was spectacular. But we all agreed - a few hours in Waikiki is all we needed.

Waikiki

At the top of Diamond Head

On our last day (26 April), Jill dropped us off at the airport. For Diane and Erika the Hawaii adventure was over - they were heading back to LA. For me it was continuing. I was headed for the Big Island for a couple of days to visit with friends Bob and Julie Bojorquez.

The Big Island

Bob was prompt in picking me up at Kona Airport. As we drove to his home in Kohala Ranch, we drove through fields of lava - some of it was very jagged in appearance while other fields were looked more like large squished black boulders. On the sides of the road, people had used small white rocks to write the names of people. Bob told me that friends of Iron Man race participants had created all those slogans to pump up the runner’s spirits.

Bob’s house lies in what used to be a huge ranch stretching from near the ocean to the top of the mountain. The house is situated near the mid-point and lies at about 2100 feet elevation. It offers expansive ocean views as well as views of three volcanoes (Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea and Hualalai). Pretty impressive sights.

Bob (aka Bojo) and I at a state beach near Havi

The expansive view from Bob's lanai

Activities were pretty much limited to the one full day I was there. Bob and I played tennis and afterwards visited the quaint towns of Havi and Kapaa and then went to a picturesque state beach park. In the evening the three of us went to the Hilton Resort at Waikoloa Village. That’s quite the resort - Disneyland on the ocean. It has trams and classic Chris Crafts motorboats to get around the property. There are displays of art works from Polynesia and other Pacific Islands spread throughout the resort. Of course there also are a variety of restaurants, bars and shops. Afterwards we had dinner at one of the nearby restaurants.

Statue of King Kamehameha in Kapaa

The next day I made plans to visit with Nancy Pisicchio, an old cruising friend who lives south of Kona Airport. It had been well over twenty years when Diane and I last saw Don and Nancy, when they moved from the boat to a macadamia nut farm on the Big Island.

Nancy holding up a macadamia nut

Kona Coffee

The farm

A macadamia nut with the husk

Bob dropped me off at the airport and Nancy came by and picked me up shortly afterwards. The farm she lives on consists of eleven lush acres of macadamia nut and coffee trees, and a sundry of fruit trees.

We had a lively chat about the old cruising days and then how she and Don settled in the Big Island. She spoke of her involvement in politics after she was told by a company that they had plans to put a road right through the middle of her farm to develop a 1200 acre parcel into a golf course and high-end homes. Nancy fought the already approved plan and got it negated. Afterwards she ran successfully for a seat on the county council. We also talked about the sad passing of her husband, Don.

After our brief meeting, Nancy dropped me off at the airport. The Hawaiian vacation was over.

Hawaii 2011

2011-04-22T01:12:00.000-07:00

Jill and Rich's outrigger

Oahu and Kauai

After an easy flight over from LA, Jill met us at the airport in Oahu and took us to her home in Kaneohe Bay. She and Rich in a lovely house live right on the water. They’ve made some beautiful upgrades to the house.

Waking up in the early morning offered a splendid sunrise view - their outrigger that’s berthed in front of the house made for the quintessential Hawaiian setting.

Hammock between two coconut trees

On one of the days, Jill, Diane and Erika went to the Hawaiian Cultural Center while Rich and I played golf at the Kahuku golf course, a small, nine-hole public golf course right on the ocean. Unfortunately, the spectacular setting didn’t appear to improve the marginality of my game.

So far so good....

After a couple of days at Jill’s, we took a twenty minute flight to Kauai. We picked up our rental car (a Ford Focus) and drove to Princeville, the northern part of the island. Located adjacent to the one-of-a-kind St.Regis hotel, our condo is right on the bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. From our living room we can watch boats, surfers, pods of whales playing and a chubby tabby cat perched along the bluff. He seems unperturbed with some chickens that meander past him. (Incidentally, chickens appear to be ubiquitous on Kauai. They’re on beaches, along the roads, parking lots and everywhere else we’ve been.)

On our condo's balcony

Diane and an inquisitive rooster

One of the more interesting places we visited was Limahuli Garden. Near Ke’e Beach, it is a beautifully restored garden that depicts traditional native plants and other plants that over the years were brought over from Polynesia. They’ve worked hard to re-create a natural Hawaiian habitat, by removing numerous alien trees to provide more sunlight and opportunity to promote the growth of native plants.

A view of the terraced Limahuli Garden

Part of the setting of the garden is the tiered rock walls that comprise the terracing for growing therewith naturally irrigating such plants as taro and sweet potato. They use the stream that runs from the mountains and divert it into small canals to irrigate. They then manage to return the water to the main stream down below.

At our condo, we’ve really enjoyed watching the sparrows and brightly colored Cardinals dropping in on us for scraps of bread and crackers. They’re pretty brazen, flying right on to the table we sit at and even fly into the living room given half a chance.

One of the curious and brazen cardinals

On one of the other days in Kauai we enjoyed a trip south to Lihu’e. From there we went inland to the Wailua falls. At first it looked like we would only be able to see them from afar - in of itself a beautiful sight since they drop over170 feet downward. But after a bit of investigation, we found a path to the top of the falls and hiked in. It was a rewarding sight indeed.

Tomorrow we check out of here and head to Poipu, where we'll stay for another couple of days.

A young fern shoot at Limahuli Garden

Queen's bath - a nice place for a dip

Erika and George

Panama to Costa Rica

2011-01-30T08:09:00.000-08:00

The following blog entry is a bit of a long one. We haven’t had access to the internet in over two weeks and are now in Golfito, Costa Rica. We’ve made a lot of stops between Panama and here. Hopefully, the photos will keep your interest as you peruse the notes.

January 13 - Isla Taboga and Contadore, Las Perlas (Panama)

We left the Balboa Yacht Club at noon, after refueling, getting gasoline for the outboard and another case of beer - we figured, hey, at fifty cents a can, it’s cheaper than bottled water!

It was amazing to see all the freighters anchored outside the harbor area - all probably waiting for their turn to go through the canal. I counted over thirty freighters and tankers! We motored amongst them towards Isla Taboga.

Taboga

It wasn’t long when we anchored at Taboga, a tranquil and rustic little harbor with a small community and an interesting beach spit. Isla Taboga has been inhabited since the early 1500’s when the Spaniard, Francisco Pizzaro kept his fleet of ships here so he could better plunder the riches of the Incas in South America. This reoccurring theme surfaces yet again and again. The Spaniards plunder the natives, after which the English and the Dutch pirates come around and attack the Spanish galleons and clean up!

We never even set foot on Taboga. In the morning, after coffee and breakfast, we headed off to the Archipelago de las Perlas, a group of islands, over thirty miles southeast. After getting under way, the breeze picked up and we had the pleasure of sailing the entire distance!!! Really unusual and definitely one of the most pleasant sails we had experienced. Along the way a few dolphins came to swim along side of us. We also had expected to see whales but spotted none.

Here I might add that today was Diane and my anniversary - 34 years! This has been an atypical year in which our small family unit has not been together for several annual events. By Thanksgiving, I had already left to go sailing. Then my birthday and Meredith’s came along after which Meredith and Elliot left for the Netherlands. In late December Diane came to Colombia, thus Diane and I celebrated Christmas and New Years together but apart from Meredith. And now our wedding anniversary and Diane’s upcoming birthday also will be spent apart. Well, it’s sure to make the reunions that much sweeter.

Back to sailing - we pulled into the harbor of Isla Contador just after 4pm. We found an available mooring and decided to pick it up, figuring that it was mainly used on weekends.

View of villas on Isla Contador

Contador is the most developed of the Perlas archipelago. We anchored on the south side, near a small airport and in front of several very nice waterfront homes. But here again, we only spent the evening there and in the morning left for more remote islands.

We motored a few miles south, anchoring just off of Isla Chapera and north of Isla Mogo Mogo. We had a splendid small white sandy beach all to ourselves. It’s exactly the stuff they make movies of - bent palm tress hanging over the sparkling water. Beyond the beach was a dense jungle. Supposedly, it was on this island that one of the Survivors series had been filmed.

The windless on deck

Dave and Barry playing in the sand (with the windless)

We’d been experiencing infrequent but pesky problems with the windless (when pulling up anchor). So Dave came up with the (exciting) notion of tearing the windless apart, and seeing if we could improve its performance. It turned out to be an afternoon-long task, in which we took it off the boat to the island, after taking all the grease from its innards, saving it in plastic cups, then bathing the gears in gasoline. We then repacked the thick, gooey grease, mixing 30 weight motor oil with it in order to fill the entire box with grease.

After bolting the windless back on deck, we tested hauling in the anchor chain - it worked like a charm. Another successful project completed.

Later that afternoon, we took the dinghy to a small rocky islet in between the two main islands. We snorkeled and spotted numerous varieties of small fish, including grouper, clown and parrot fish, skip jack, angel and trumpet fish, an eel and more. I saw one school of blue tang that numbered well into the hundreds. They’d swim off in one direction for a bit and suddenly, as if on cue, they’d all switch directions and swim (in unison) elsewhere. Beautiful!

January 15 - Isla Chapera to Isla del Rey

In the morning, I woke up before sunrise to the sound of gentle slapping surf on the beach, chirping birds and the aromatic scent of blossoms and other vegetation ashore. When I got up on deck, the sea was as smooth as glass. I easily could see the anchor chain on the ocean floor. Fish were jumping out of the water and large clown fish were swimming near the surface along the boat.

After coffee and breakfast we sailied to Isla del Rey, the largest island of the archipelago, about thirteen miles away. Although the plan had been to anchor at Isla Espiritu Santo, one of the smaller islands off of Isla del Rey, once we got there we opted to continue to Isla Canas, just two miles further south. I think that our expectations were becoming a bit jaded - if the anchorage was not absolutely pristine and idyllic, we’d move onwards until we found one.

We anchored off a small, palm-lined sandy beach that had an abandoned-looking structure on it with a tent inside of it. Odd. Some papaya trees were visible near the property. Yummy!!! Off in the distance we could see La Ensenada, a tiny fishing village on Isla del Rey.

As soon as we were settled in, we took the dinghy to the village. It consisted of a cluster of small houses along the beach with a boardwalk. Overall, it looked pretty tidy. Laundry hung everywhere. We encountered a tiny tienda (store) on our walk and a bare-looking bar. A couple of the older gents invited us in, so we stopped and had a beer with the locals. But the music was unbearably loud, so much so that we could talk. We soon said our good-byes and continued our walk along the boardwalk. Lots of kids riding their bicycles and a number of bored-looking adults watching the world go by.

The village

In the evening, the anchorage was perfectly peaceful except for the wild cries of parrots and the chirping of other birds and critters. The temperature was perfect - not too hot nor too cold, with a gentle breeze off the northeast. A few papayas found their way into our boat. Imagine that! Really, could it get any better?

January 16 - Isla Del Rey, Perlas

Today was a day of celebration on Lahaina Roads. After leaving our anchorage and skirting around a shoal, we headed out to open waters. As we’ve done so many times before, we put two fishing lines out. After just a few minutes we heard the shrill whirl of the fishing line and we knew that we had a solid strike. No sooner had Dave gone to reel it in, when the other pole got a strike. Barry began to reel that line in.

After a bit of work, both fish were on deck - two large mahi-mahis. Unfortunately, the larger of the two suddenly thrashed and flipped itself back into the sea, breaking the line and taking with it, the jig. Immediately, we tied a line to the remaining mahi-mahi, ensuring that that wouldn’t happen again.

Later, Dave put out another line and got another strike. This time it was a yellowtail tuna. Needless to say, our evening menu was starting look better and better!!! We had sushi a couple of hours later and for dinner we had a tasty combination platter of barbecued tuna steaks and mahi-mahi.

That afternoon we anchored in Cacique Bay, an open bay that offered good protection except from the south. A little weather was indeed coming from the south but we decided it wasn’t strong enough to worry about.

Rio Cacique flowed into the bay. We took the dinghy there hoping to make into the river, but the surf was breaking too high near the river’s entrance. We returned in the morning, hoping to get in then, but this time we were stymied by the low tide that had set in, and now there wasn’t enough water to make it in.

Instead, we picked up anchor and motored to Isla San Carlos, about 25 miles away. San Carlos is privately owned, the second largest of the Perlas and no one lives on the island. We arrived there just before two in the afternoon. After anchoring, we had more sushi and made a plans for the following day, when we would be heading back to the Panamanian mainland.

January 18 - Sailing to the Mainland

We got up at three in the morning and a half hour later were underway with a moonlit sky aglow. Coffee cups in hand, we rounded San Carlos and set a course for Punta Mala. Thirteen hours later, after a casual crossing, we pulled into Punta Benao or as the beach is referred to - Playa Venado. On the way over, we encountered a half a dozen ships, but we had expected to see many more, since this area was known as a major crossroad for freighters transiting the canal.

Playa Venado is a well known surf spot, and indeed, there were a number of surfers out riding waves. The anchorage was not protected from the south. So with a slight swell coming into the anchorage, we bobbed and rolled a bit, but not all that much. It was time for cocktails, dinner and an early bedtime.

The following day we took the dinghy to the beach and went for a walk to the surf spot. A couple of hotels and restaurants were there with mostly surfer clientele. We had lunch at one of the restaurants and watched the surfing action. Dave considered renting a board but later decided against it. We walked back towards the dinghy and stopped by a resort that catered to a higher end market than the surfer dudes. Although we weren’t welcomed much either, we were fortunate to see three brightly colored parrots flying freely in the trees on the property. Loudly squawking, as they flew from one tree to another, they were really an impressive sight.

Back on the boat, as we were having our evening spirits, we spotted a peculiar movement on the beach - four young women walking with a hoola-hoop wearing colorful, flowing material that they draped around themselves (and then proceeded to take off). Yep, they were stark naked. There was a photographer and an assistant with them. We surmised that it was a photo shoot for a magazine. A beautiful beach at sunset, an elegant sailing ketch at anchor and four young naked women. What a perfect combination for a photo shoot.

January 20 - Fishing 101

Since being on the Pacific, our luck with fishing has improved tremendously. We left Benao Cove heading for Naranja Bay at 6:30am. This is an area known for sport fishing so we immediately put out the lines. No sooner were they in when we got a strike. It must have been a large fish because in a matter of seconds the jig and line were gone.

A plate of sashimi for lunch

A few minutes later, however, the other reel wined. This time we had a more manageable strike. The sound of the reel when a fish strikes is at once intoxicating and tantalizing. Then comes the excitement and anticipation of the first glance at the fish as it breaks the surface and makes its initial appearance. The meeting takes place. Now it’s a matter of reeling it in and bringing it in on deck - not a trivial task.

I was in the process of pulling up fifteen pound tuna, when the fish darted under the stern of the boat. I made the mistake of following it with the pole and not keeping the tip of the pole up. The line suddenly went limp - the fish had managed to cut the line against the boat’s under belly. Alas! (Well, those aren’t the exact words that I muttered.)

Luckily Barry brought in another tuna, and sushi prevailed on the lunch menu, again. About twenty minutes after lunch, both reels screamed loudly, again announcing two more catches. Both were fifteen pound tunas. This time we didn’t put the lines back out. We had plenty of fish.

At 3:30pm we pulled into our anchorage - Ensenada Naranjo, a very pretty bay lined with palm trees, a small cove to the south and some huts. A very remote spot indeed.

In the morning we heard lots of birds and even a howler monkey. But we were too far to see them. We had a leisurely breakfast and pulled up anchor. Santa Catalina, our next anchorage, was about 32 miles away.

The currents can be quite strong in this area. A couple of days ago, the currents were assisting our progress and moving us through the water at nearly 8.5 knots (our overall boat speed). Today the currents are a hindrance to our progress, keeping us at an unimpressive 5 knots. We pulled into the Catalina channel at 3pm and anchored off of a white sandy beach at Isla Santa Catalina.

From Santa Catalina looking to the island

Diane and I had been to Santa Catalina two years ago. I noticed more shops, restaurants and hostels and found out that they were a result of a world surfing event that was held here in 2010. But otherwise, not much seems to have changed. We stayed another day to provision and took a bus to the nearest town (Sona) with a supermarket. It was a long ordeal but quite an adventure. We hitch-hiked and got a ride into town (two hours of driving and skirting huge pot holes). To get back we took the bus. I sat next to a plump lady who only afforded me a half cheek on the seat - the rest of my butt was in the isle. Thankfully, she got off midway.

January 23 - Santa Catalina to Ensenada Cativon

It was an easy thirteen miles to our next anchorage, a small and well protected bay - Ensenada Cativon. We went ashore, thinking that there was a village at the head of the bay, but all we found was an individual who wanted to know if we were interested in buying land - waterfront lot for $50 per square meter. We said no thanks and walked further around the bay and found a small waterfall where we took a dip - well, all we could really do was to sit in place and let the water fall on our backs. Refreshing.

We left for Isla Rancheria the next morning. Again only a brief distance, we were anchored just before noon. Isla Rancheria is right adjacent to Isla Coiba Both islands are part of the national park system. After a beer and a bite to eat, we snorkeled, finding lots of fish varieties including a large ray and an curious white-tipped shark about four feet long.

Isla Coiba has a long history. But the most interesting part is when it was a prison (late 1980’s). Apparently, the guards are the ones that at night locked themselves up, while the prisoners were free to roam the wild island. Some prisoners would try to escape by swimming or capturing a boat to the adjacent islands or to the mainland. At one time, a yacht had anchored offshore when some prisoners swam to it, murdered the crew on board and used the boat to escape the island. As far as we know, no remnants of prisoners are on the island.

From Rancheria looking to Isla Coiba

We left Isla Ranchera in the morning and set a course for Isla Secas. After about three hours of motoring we anchored in a small bay of Isla Cavada (the largest of the Secas) that had a rustic resort built of permanent round tents. One of the structures was on an islet that had a walk way during low tide but you’d need a boat to get to it during high tide. We wondered what kind of room service they provided.

Probably our biggest catch

In the late afternoon I watched one of these terrific nature scenes one gets to enjoy in places such as these. Dolphins were having a meal on a school of fish. That process was pushing the fish towards the surface, which in turn, was making a meal available to frigate birds, who would swoop down, and while not touching the water, would pick up a fish. Another type of bird, more like a small seagull, (one that could land on the water) also was working the same area. They’d dive right into the water and have their meal. It was like my own nature show - live!

We left Isla Cavada for our last stop in Panama, Isla Parida. Actually a cluster of small islands, Isla Parida’s northerly cove was very peaceful and protected. We spent the afternoon and evening there and pulled up anchor at daybreak - we had a long haul ahead of us to reach Golfito, Costa Rica.

After a windless day, we closed up on Golfito. Unfortunately, we didn’t make it by nightfall. We were lucky in that the channel proved to be pretty straightforward. We anchored and went to bed. Next morning we motored a mile or so down the bay and found the Fishhook Marina and were fortunate to get a slip. We were at our final destination - just like that. Our little sailing adventure suddenly was over. It had started on a whim and ended in a…well, it just sort of ended. But it had ended with all of us being good friends.

January 28 - Fishhook Marina, Golfito, Costa Rica

Lahaina Roads will be shipped from Golfito in February via a ship whose only cargo is yachts. The ship will take the boat to Ensenada where we plan to pick it up and sail it to a San Diego marina.

Looking down on Lahaina Roads

Transiting the Panama Canal

2011-01-11T14:00:00.000-08:00

January 6 - Transiting the Canal

We left Shelter Bay Marina at 1:30pm, as soon as Dracula, our agent, brought our clearance papers and our line handler, Rudy. We headed out of the marina for the “flats“ - an anchorage where we were to meet up with the canal advisor.

We got to the Flats and met up with a smaller sailboat, Carmen San Diego, who we will be “nesting” with (tied up to) as we transit the canal. At that point, Fernando, the ACP (Authority of Panama Canal) advisor, joined us.

We soon were moving towards the first lock

We knew from the advisor that we were going in to the locks behind a large freighter that was moving along the same corridor. The smaller sailboat, Carmen Sandiego, was behind us about a quarter of a mile.

When we got to the lock, the freighter was already getting situated. We did a 180 degree turn to pick up the smaller sailboat and side tie to it. We had to make sure that the ties were sufficiently strong to keep us together when the locks started to fill.

We moved into the first lock tied to Carmen Sandiego. The line handlers on the canal side (four of them) threw us a messenger line with a monkey fist. We caught the lines then attached them to our 7/8” heavy duty lines. The line handlers on the locks then pulled their messenger lines (and ours) back, and tied them on to bollards on the lock. By the time it was finished, we were situated in the middle of the lock, about 100 feet behind the freighter.

We heard a bell go off, after which we noticed the water starting to churn up around us - the lock was beginning to fill. From what I could tell, the water was filling the huge lock at a rate of about a foot each twelve seconds. Rudy and I manned the two lines on the bow, while we had another crew manning the two stern lines. As the boat rose in the lock, our job was to pick up the slack in the lines, thus keeping the boat centered - sounds easy but you had to pay attention because of the water forces at play. But about eight minutes later, the water settled - we had reached the top of the lock. All was good.

The freighter soon started her engines. We could see the wake from her props swirl the water around us. She moved ahead towards the next lock.

By the time the freighter got settled into the next lock, it was our time to move. The line handlers on shore took our lines off the bollards but attached their messenger lines to it and fed it to us. We pulled in our four lines right up to the messenger lines and held on to them as the shore crew walked forward with the boat to the next lock (in behind the freighter again).

That’s how it pretty much went for the three Gatun locks until the last one, when we could look back and see a panoramic view looking downward to where we had been. Pretty mesmerizing. We had climbed quite a ways.

At the completion of the third lock, we motored out and untied Carmen Sandiego from us. We then proceeded to the anchorage in Gatun Lake, where the pilot boat came and picked up our ACP advisor. After that we tied up to a huge buoy for the night. It was time for refreshments.

That night we dined on pork chops, salad, and couscous. Rudy, our line handler and guest was a fun guy. He spoke excellent English, knew a lot about the U.S. and knew more about American sports than I’ll ever know. All-in-all it had been a pretty exciting day.

In the night,, we had hoped to see crocodiles up close, but we only spotted a couple of them a hundred yards away from us. Howler monkeys were supposed to be around too, but with the building going on around us of the new canal locks, the monkeys weren’t to be found.

The following day, at 6:50am, the pilot boat delivered Fernando, our advisor, back to Lahaina Roads. We got the engine started and soon were on our way to Gamboa, a small town about 19 miles away.

Motoring through Lake Gatun was bucolic. The rainforest comes right along the banks of the lake. Once in a while, we encounter a freighter quietly skimming along the water steaming north. We spotted lots of birds but no croc sightings nor did we see the harpy eagle, an endangered Panama bird with a two meter wingspan that makes his home along the canal.

Now for just a spot of canal history - the French tried to build the canal in the late 1800’s to the early 1900’s but eventually gave up after losing over 20,000 people to malaria and yellow fever and bankrupting the company. Their design was based on the notion to build the canal at sea level without the use of locks. That type of design was much more difficult to build because of the need to dig very deep channels to get through the mountain passes.

When the U.S. took over the work (which is a whole other story), they decided to make use of the Gatun lake. Although that design required locks to reach the lake‘s 84 foot elevation (and another set of locks to get back down to sea level), it didn’t require nearly as much digging. The U.S. also took a very aggressive approach to controlling yellow fever and malaria.

As a result, the canal opened up in 1914. I think it was probably the last major project the U.S. government did that was completed under budget, earlier than expected and with no significant design or construction flaws - a pretty amazing feat.

Back to our transit - during the rest of the second day we passed through the Pedro Miguel lock and the two Miraflores locks. We went under the beautiful Puente del Centenario span bridge which is on the Gaillard Cut, a part of the canal that is on the Continental Divide.

We got out of the last Miraflores lock at 2pm. Shortly afterwards, we released Carmen Sandiego from our side after which a pilot boat showed up to pick our advisor, Fernando. We then motored to the Balboa Yacht Club and picked up a mooring. We were now in the Pacific Ocean and had successfully transited the Panama Canal.

From here, Diane and Kristi fly back home and we venture off to Golfito, Costa Rica. Stay tuned for the next adventure of Lahaina Roads and the Tres Amigos.

Cartagena to Panama

2011-01-05T08:04:00.000-08:00

Lahaina Roads at anchor in Cocos Bandera

December 25 - Cholon

We left Club Nautico in the morning and made our way to the fuel dock to top off the tanks in preparation for an overnight trip, this time to the San Blas Islands. Soon we were heading out through the lengthy channel to the open sea.

Cholon was a mere 15 miles or so southwest. The winds were from the starboard quarter, so we put up a headsail and hugged the coastline. A boat we knew from Club Nautico, Shiver, was ahead of us and also was going to spend a few days in Cholon.

We made our way into the bay with help of Pete, on the yacht Avitar and by following Shiver. But the only tricky part of the process was getting through a very narrow gap that led to the expansive bay, known as Baru.

Coming into to the bay at Cholon

That evening we went to a happy hour held on an old fishing boat owned by an expat, Robert, who also happed to own a home that overlooks the bay (there were plans for a potluck dinner at his house the following day - Christmas). We were warming up to this place quickly.

The following day, the potluck turned out to be a delicious and fun - turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, many side dishes and lots of tasty desserts. The view from Robert’s house was nothing less than spectacular. To one side, the entire bay of Baru was visible while the other side of the house offered up a view of another bay. We had a grand time eating and mixing with the other cruisers and several hours later, dinghied back to Lahaina Roads satiated and ready for an afternoon nap.

Christmas feast

The next morning was our overnight sail to the San Blas Islands, about 140 miles away.

December 27 - Isla Pinos, San Blas

After a brutal, at times frightening, overnight sail from Cholon, we are safely at anchor off of Isla Pinos, one of the more remote islands in the San Blas chain.

We left Cholon under sunny and warm conditions, motoring through the tiny pass as we made our way out to sea. Although the seas and winds were much like what we had encountered before, with seas from the quarter and winds from abaft, the ride wasn’t too bad. We even had cocktails and barbecued a pork loin for dinner.

That all changed later that evening. It started with a few sprinkles. Those sprinkles eventually blossomed into a storm, with high seas, winds above thirty knots and a spectacular (but scary) thunder and lightening show. Hollywood would have found it challenging to emulate.

At times we were right in the center of the lightening, with bright flashes continually exploding around us like powerful strobe lights. Lightening occurred so frequently and furiously that several seconds would elapse before nighttime darkness would return. In a way it was as if hundreds of photographers were snapping photos with super bright flash bulbs right in our faces. I had never ever experienced anything like it.

It’s one thing to sit at home and watch a lightning show but quite another thing to be on a sailboat at sea when your mast is the very tallest target around for lightning to strike. Dave and I discovered later that we both had been mulling the possibility of needing to abandon ship and what we’d have to do to prepare - getting the dinghy ready, the life raft in the water, essential gear and supplies etc. To us, it was unexplainable how we didn’t get zapped with a bolt of lightening. But somehow, we made it through the wicked cauldron and lived to talk about it.

In the morning the weather improved a little and soon we spotted Isla Pinos. The approach to the island was straightforward (that’s why Sir Francis Drake used it in 1571 to plan an attack on the town of Nombre de Dios). There was no perilous outer reef to navigate through to get to the island. We headed towards the south side of the island and found a spot in the lee of it. We anchored in twenty feet of water. It was noon - time for a beer and some shut eye.

The following morning we took the dinghy into the village. Diane and I had seen the typical Kuna village before and this was not much different from what we had experienced. But when it came to buying a mola, we encountered a new experience. Earlier, we had asked one of the women about purchasing molas and she had responded by showing us a few samples of what she had made. But when it came to buying, it apparent that she couldn’t just sell us a mola - the village chief would have to be involved.

Villagers laughing at Barry's funny accent

First we would have to get the approval of the chief. So someone went out to fetch him. He was out somewhere on the island. After about a half an hour, he returned, and in pretty good English, he said that he would get all the families to show their molas in the village square.

A few minutes later, women with their children started to appear with their molas, laying them all out on the ground for us to see. There really was no bargaining - prices were set but they were very fair. We ended up buying several molas and had a great time experiencing the custom.

The chief's home

No sooner had we gotten back to the boat, when the chief came paddling up in his dugout canoe - we had seen his house and now he wanted to see our boat. We invited him aboard and gave him the grand tour of Lahaina Roads. He was impressed with the two bathrooms we had aboard and liked our bar cabinet - Feliz Ano Nuevo, he said with a smile.

Dave and the village chief

We sent the chief off on his canoe a bit later and pulled up anchor. It had been a very interesting and eye-opening day on our first day in the Kuna Yalas. We headed passed the village through the reefs towards the next island, Ustupu.

December 29 - Ustupu and Onward

We navigated our way through the narrow pass between the Isla Pinos and the reef on the mainland and reached open water. At first it was a bit unnerving because the GPS and our Panama cruising book charts were different. The odd thing was that for the first time, it was the GPS that was wrong. A bit unsettling but it was something we had to get used to because all the GPS readings from here on seemed to be off by several hundred yards. (To clarify, the GPS lat/long readings were correct - the GPS chart overlay was the part that was incorrect.)

A short while into our motoring, we passed nearby the island of Manitupu, but decided to proceed to Achutupu (otherwise known as Dog Island). We were welcomed by the locals as we walked the island, but truly the welcome had an agenda - to sell us molas.

We walked onward and watched a basketball game that actually was pretty good. One of the locals told us that both teams were composed of family members that was a tradition. These players all played as they had been team members of a varsity high school basketball team.

Diane pondering her next mola acquisition

After watching the game for a while, we walked back towards where the women were showing off their molas - many had appeared and the selection was impressive. The molas are very colorful pieces of cloth consisting of several different layers of cloth. We bought several of them, some with patterns of birds, fish, fruit, the sun and moon and other more abstract forms.

We again pulled up anchor and headed for San Ignacio de Tupile. We passed by Ailigandi and Bahia Golondrina, seeing a couple of yachts anchored in the latter bay. After a couple of hours we anchored in front of San Ignacio, but not without the assistance of a local - there were lots of coral heads in the way of which we found a couple, by bouncing right into them. They were more difficult to see than normal due to all the rainfall that had occurred making the water murky and muddy. But finally we did get situated.

As soon as we anchored some young boys popped over in their canoes to check us out. They were very friendly and wanted to check us out. When we went to shore, we offered them a tow to shore, which they took us up on. They, as well as we, had a fun time.

San Ignacio de Tupile was a clean, well planned island, much different from Isla Pinos and others we had seen. The people seemed very happy, with lots of folks sitting outside of their thatched homes enjoying the late afternoon. In spite of our guide saying that there were cold beers and restaurants on the island, the only thing we found was a place to buy a case of warm beer. One lady offered to cook us a lobster meal, but it was bits of lobster with plantains - not really what we had in mind for dinner. But we did end up buying several molas from her, which seemed to make her extremely happy.

Kristi and Diane with a mola weaver

After a while (and a few more mola purchases) we returned to the boat, had our cocktails and prepared a meal of salad, pasta and pork chops accompanied with an Argentinean Malbec. A fine way to finish off the evening.

We got up in the morning and soon after coffee were pulling up anchor. Our initial objective was going to be Isla Tigre, but once we approached the island, we concluded that it was “just” another traditional island. This meant, no swimming around the boat because of the raw sewage emanating from the island and we were looking forward to white sandy beaches with swimming and snorkeling. We continued onward and set a course for the Cocos Bandero Cays, reportedly a group of extremely scenic islands, that lie within a protective outer barrier reef.

One thing I haven’t mentioned much about is the weather. Unfortunately, it hasn’t been optimal. The stormy weather we encountered on the way over to the San Blas Islands has mitigated but only to the extent that we aren’t being surrounded by bolts of lightening, the deafening sounds of thunder, all accompanied by torrential rains.

The skies are cloudy and at times it rains. In the distance there is a misty haze and the water is tainted with a muddy green color - run off from the land and turbulence from the ocean. Still, we’re making the best of it. At least nature isn’t pelting us with torrential rains.

We weaved our way through lots of corral reefs and tiny islands and finally came upon our new destination - Cocos Bandero Cays. We spotted a number of other yachts anchored at Green Island and east Cocos. We had been aiming for a couple of islands in the west Cocos.

Barry keeping an eye out for coral

We anchored at Orduptarboat after weaving our way past a couple of reefs. A little deeper than we typically like to anchor, the forty feet of depth forced us to lay out more chain than we liked to put out - it’s a lot of work hauling all that chain back in, in the morning!

The upshot of the deal was that we had the island to ourselves. In fact, we had the three surrounding islands to ourselves. We got the dinghy in the water and visited two of the islands, each so small that we walked around each of them in no time.

December 31 - Holandes Cays

The next morning, New Year’s Eve, we sailed to the Holandes Cays, four miles north, and found our way into a snug harbor behind a barrier reef and an a small, palm tree-lined island with white sandy beaches.

Later in the day we took the dinghy to BBQ island, an idyllic white-sandy beach island another half-mile away. We walked, snorkeled and swam around the area. Nothing to write home about in beauty and uniqueness - lots of dead coral and the visibility was marginal.

The crew at Cocos Banderas

The most memorable part of the Holandes Cays was the fact that it was there that we spent New Year’s Eve. Kristi cooked a fabulous (and very tasty) chicken dinner including sparkly and glittery looking palms on a toothpick to liven up the appearance of the meal. Dinner was delicious but, unfortunately, did not embolden us enough to stay up until midnight. The latest some of us stayed up was 10:30pm. Pretty pitiful.

In the morning, after our coffee, we pulled up anchor and headed northwest for Punta San Blas, a peninsula on the western edge of the Kuna Yala area. We passed by numerous islands including the Lemon Cays and El Porvenier. But when we got to the anchorage, we decided that the anchorage wasn’t as peaceful as the book may have led us to believe. We headed onwards.

Three hours later we sighted Miramar, a small village with a snug little harbor on a river. The entrance was treacherous - waves breaking on either side of us and no particular view of where to go once we made it through the pass. But as soon as we got into the tiny bay we turned to port into the river area and a few feet later, promptly ran aground.

Lahaina Roads at Miramar

With the assistance of some local folks standing nearby, we were coached away from the middle of the river, veering off to starboard. After revving the engine up in reverse for a few minutes, we got off the sandbar and ended up side-tying to an old island trader boat. Jose, an English speaking military fellow, was critical in helping us out. Fun stuff - definitely the stuff that makes great memories.

January 2 - Miramar to Portobelo

It was a bit of touch-and-go leaving our side-tie in Miramar but we made it out of the tight anchorage without a hitch. Getting through the pass with large breaking waves on either side of us was a bit exhilarating and got our heart rates up. The boat would lurch upwards into a steep swell, only to head straight down another one. But quickly we got out into open water and were on our way to Portobelo.

Four hours later we were entering Portobelo, after an exciting sail along the coastline. Entering Portobelo’s harbor was banal after experiencing Miramar. It was wide open - easy to understand why Columbus liked it so much when he sailed in here in 1502.

Coming in to Portobello

After anchoring, we took a walk into town walked passed an area that had experienced a landslide just recently. There was lots of mud, debris and the remains of household goods strewn around the area. We found out later that eight people had died when the side of the hill had given way.

Some of the devastation from the landslide

In the town we visited the Custom’s House and the Cathedral. But it was obvious that the town had seen better times. After being plundered and laid siege on by the likes of Morgan, Parker and Vernon, Portobelo had lost its luster along the way. What was left looked pretty shabby. A few pieces of the old forts still remain, but even parts of them are gone - some of the rock from the forts were used to build the Panama Canal.

On the way back to the dinghy, we stopped for lunch at one of the local restaurants and had a tasty chicken, rice and beans dish. We also found some cheap rum and wine at the local grocery store. What a productive day it had been!

December 3 - Portobello to Colon

Early the following morning, we headed out of the bay towards Colon, Panama. It was a sunny day with a mild breeze blowing out of the northeast. By noon we were at the entrance of the Colon harbor and headed for Shelter Bay Marina. A short time afterwards we were docked at the marina. We spotted several boats that we had encountered elsewhere including Cartagena and the ABC’s.

In essence, the process of checking in to Panama and transiting the Canal requires an agent. One pays an agent to do all your legwork and to coordinate setting up a schedule with the Canal Authorities to be admeasured for the transit. We needed four sets of heavy duty line, an advisor and one additional line handler (there were four of us excluding the skipper) to go through the canal. We’d have to feed them and provide a place to sleep for the line handler. The advisor would leave at the end of the day. A new one would join us the following day to see us through the rest of the transit.

Shelter Bay Marina is several grades up from Club Nautico in Cartagena. The docks are new and clean, it has a pool, Jacuzzi, a laundry facility, showers, bathrooms, a restaurant and a bar. It is situated at the edge of a national forest reserve that has hundreds of types of native birds, monkeys, sloths, crocodiles and other wild animals. Docking here isn’t going to be a hardship.

January 5 - Shelter Bay Marina

We’ve been at Shelter Bay for a couple of relaxing days. We’ve had the boat measured and we’re scheduled to transit the canal starting tomorrow afternoon. We’ll have two additional people on the boat - a canal advisor and one more line-handler (who is prepared to dive into the water should the need arise - that could get exciting since there are crocodiles and strong currents in the canal lake).

The transit takes two days coming from the Caribbean side, while only one day from the Pacific. And that’ll be the next report.

Cartagena, Colombia

2010-12-23T20:01:00.000-08:00

December 23 - Cartagena

We have now been in Cartagena for quite a while and we can happily report that we‘ve been enjoying the city but are ready to move on. Club Nautico has been fun, specially the happy hours.

We've enjoyed meeting all the members of the cruising community and, it sure has been rewarding to get lots of good information on Cartagena as well as places we are planning to visit.

Dave listening to Steve from Music play some tunes.

We’ve put a lot of footsteps in the city’s old quarter, so much so that we can pretty much find our way around all the tiny, circuitous streets. Among the sights and museums we visited were the Museu de Oro and the Museu Naval, which in spite of not having much English posted, were very enlightening. We also toured the huge and impressive fort of San Felipe de Barajas.

Fort San Felipe de Barajas

The history of this area goes back thousands of years. Some of the indigenous cultures actually thrived right up until the Spanish arrived living along the coastal areas. They were sailors, fishermen, farmers and goldsmith (the latter was probably their downfall when the Spanish found out). In the Museu de Oro we saw samples of what they were capable of making - they hammered out very intricate ornamental objects out of gold and platinum.

The colonial history of Cartagena goes back to 1533. That‘s when Pedro de Heredia founded the city. Apparently he waged a very successful campaign of plundering the Zenu Indians, including their “Mogote graves” after he found out that the graves often contained substantial amounts of gold.

The future of the young city looked pretty good. But due to its success, only thirty years into its youth, the city started getting attacked by pirates and the English. After a few of these invasions and raids, the Spanish got wise and began to build forts to protect the city. That idea resulted in all the fortifications we see today (not that they always were successful in keeping out the invaders).

Plaza Simon Bolivar

One last mention of the history of Cartagena is regarding a figure one often sees depicted here - Simon Bolivar. I don’t know much about him, but apparently he is viewed as a hero who led a number of the countries in South America to independence.

Enough history.

A few days ago, Dave and I picked up Diane and Kristi at the airport. It was almost midnight - way beyond our bed time. But it all went like clockwork. We’ve since showed the girls around the city.

Barry, on the other hand, has been seeing a very nice Colombian lady who he met here at Club Nautico. They’ve hit it off real well, such that we haven’t seen much of him since we’ve been here.

The weather has been warm and a bit humid. Thank goodness for the fans we have in the boat and for the shower that Dave set up on the aft deck. Each evening we all go back there (separately) and cool off and get refreshed. The people here say that this is the nice weather - the hot weather is in May through July!!! Ouch!

One thing that is quite evident here is that there are a number of people who desperately try to eek out a living anyway they can. There are the fruit vendors, the coffee vendors, juice vendors, sunglasses vendors, bracelet and necklace vendors, and so on. They all have their little niche. I don’t know how much they can hope to make in one day, but it can’t be much. One of the vendors I used a lot was the coffee vendor - they sell a tiny cup of strong, sweetened coffee for 200 pesos (about a dime). Very addicting indeed. But wow, how many cups must they need to sell each day to earn a living?

Tomorrow we are leaving Cartagena for an anchorage south of here called Cholon. We plan to spend Christmas there and then head off to the Kuna Yala Islands otherwise known as the San Blas Islands. I doubt that there will be any internet there, so we may not be in touch until we reach Portobelo, Panama. With that, the crew of Lahaina Roads extends all you who follow the blog happy holidays.

Local fisherman casting his net

We encountered this large iguana sunning himself in the park - he didn't move for us.

Colorful housing in the old walled city.

Friendly toucan at the Santa Clara Hotel

My new favorite actress - Lorena Rincon who we met at Lucy's.

Cartagena, Colombia

2010-12-12T09:13:00.000-08:00

December 8, 2010

Cartagena de Indias

Our stay in Santa Marta was short. Surely we missed opportunities to see some in unusual things, including the Tairona National Park, the Sierra Madre and a place they call the “lost city”, a Kogi Indian civilization that was discovered in the mid 1960‘s. It’s not getting there, though. A couple of backpackers we met had made the sojourn - it took them five days of dense jungle hiking and traversing rivers. Today, the Kogi Indians live in the Sierra Madre range. To read more about their interesting culture google them. Here’s an example of one of the readings I found - http://www.labyrinthina.com/kogi.htm

We had good winds out of Santa Marta and were fortunate to sail most of the way to Cartagena. But it was an uncomfortable sail with the seas coming from the quarter. The winds and seas were choppy and lumpy. The boat felt like a little cork bobbing in the water from one side to another. To even just sit, we had to hold on. But we were thankful just to be able to sail.

On a sailboat, the last few miles to a destination always seem to take forever. We could see the numerous high rise buildings of a Miami-like Cartagena as soon as the sun came up. But it took several more hours to make the approach and come though the long channel. The entrance of the bay still has the sentry forts from the old Spanish colonial days (circa 1500), protecting the city from Sir Francis Drake and his cronies.

Once inside the bay, getting situated at the Club Nautico marina is no simple matter. It’s Mediterranean-style berthing, with a twist. A swimmer needs to swim out and tie either your bow or stern lines to an underwater line. This is all happening while you squeeze the boat in between two other yachts. But in time, we got Lahaina Roads snuggled in between the boats, with her bow facing towards the dock.

Club Nautico marina has seen better days. The docks are in a state of disrepair, the showers are a make-shift set of stalls next to the office and the docks are full of booby traps - you really have to watch your step wherever you walk. Construction seems to be occurring but not at a frenetic pace. Like many other boats, we extended a plank from the dock parallel to the boat (like a diving board), to get on or off the boat. It’s fun and exciting.

At Club Nautico, happy hour starts in the late afternoon. Cruisers who are docked, as well as ones who are anchored, bring their drinks and trade stories on the cruising life, tips for getting things done in town and things to do in Cartagena. It's a fun and dynamic group. Composed of people of various ages, the people are from a number of countries with some being relatively new to cruising while others have been at it for many years.

On one of the days we took a walk to the old walled city. It is not something that can be seen in one day - it’s enormous. The wall itself is four miles long. We stopped for lunch and a very tasty beef steak, rice and beans (con cerveza) at a local restaurant for $4 each. I can see why expats may want to live here!

The buildings in the walled city are colorful, with a distinct Spanish colonial architecture. There are fortifications, sentry stations and canons in various areas. We found lots of markets selling tourist trinkets, local tasty treats, cold beers and Colombia’s famous stone, the emerald. It was a lively introduction to Cartagena.

On Saturday, Marty, who had sailed with us from Aruba, took a flight back home to California.

Aruba to Santa Marta, Colombia

2010-12-06T18:43:00.000-08:00

December 6

Yes, it's been a while since I blogged. We've been busy and it's been hard to find time to blog. In addition, it's been more work, since I write the blog and save the photos on my computer then have to transfer everything to the ship's computer. It is hooked up to a wi-fi antenna that's not available to my netbook.

Aruba to Santa Marta, Colombia

We were out of the marina by ten in the morning then motored to Barcadera Bay to clear customs and immigration. The exit process went quickly and soon we found ourselves in rough seas and perky winds - but fortunately, we were going with the weather and not against it. Santa Marta was nearly 300 miles away - a two-night trip.

For most of the day we sailed with a double-reefed main and a reefed jib. Even with little canvas up, Lahaina Roads often exceeded 9 knots. In the evening we took the main down and reefed the jib even more - we still were moving at over 6 knots. Coming from the quarter, the steep seas made things very lively below decks. It was hard to stand up much less do anything else such as cook. We managed a quick meal and went on one hour watches for the rest of the night. Sleeping, though, was impossible because of all the creaky noises down below decks.

The following day, tired as we were, we had a nice sail with the seas and the winds somewhat moderating. By evening the winds died down - we decided to motor since we wanted to make sure we got to Santa Marta during daylight the following day.

By mid-morning the following day, we were off the coast of Colombia - and it was pouring rain....again. The rain seems to follow us wherever we go. We continued to motor the rest of the way into Santa Marta Bay. Even without charts, it was a relatively easy harbor to enter. We located the marina and eventually got into a slip.

Colombia has a different entry procedure than all the other countries we visited. Here we needed an agent to clear us in. "Dino" did all the customs and immigration clearing, got the boat checked in and got our passports stamped. He was a nice young fellow who spoke reasonably good English. In comparison to the ABC islands where it was free to clear in or out, though, in Columbia the cost to enter was about $100.

The Santa Marta Marina has nice docks but it's not yet finished. As a result, we have no bathrooms and showers. Showers are on the dock with a hose or on the aft deck with a sun shower.

After getting settled, we took a walk along the waterfront and through town. Santa Marta, founded in 1525 by the Spanish, reportedly is the oldest city in the Americas. It has a small town atmosphere but has the hustle and bustle of a larger one. All along the shoreline there was a boardwalk. Lots of families enjoying the waterfront, which also was busy with food and beverage vendors.

The area has numerous near-naked statues of indigenous Colombian Indians - the Amerindians from the Tairona culture, Arhuacos and Koguis.

On one of the days we took a bus to the nearby fishing village of Caganga. It’s a fishing village, a backpackers hangout and offers a relaxed atmosphere. Lots of Colombians head for its beaches and waterfront restaurants. I ended up talking to a fellow from Croatia who lives there part time as a dive master. He invited me for a dive trip, which I ended up doing the following day.

We had dinner at a couple of different restaurants. None were memorable. Luckily, there were too expensive, either.

The dives I went were fun but nothing out of the ordinary except for the sighting of a giant moray eel. It must have been 5-7 inches in diameter. The dive master who I dove with had never seen one that large either. For the rest of the dive, we saw numerous types of fish, including a beautiful lion fish, which they're trying to eradicate. Also I saw a variety of hard and soft coral, tubular coral and a coral that looks like a bright purple volcano - very beautiful.

Some other comments about what we've noticed. Colombia seems like a very family oriented country. On the other hand, you see lots of very young girls (under 15) with babies. They're not carrying them around as babysitters, either. Also, lots of older men in their 40's and 50's with women that appear to be in their early 20's.

Fruit vendor

Regardless, we've really enjoyed our first stay in Colombia. Very friendly people, not many who speak a word of English. No mosquitoes and no flies like we had in the ABC's.

Tomorrow we are off to Cartagena, an overnight sail of about 130 miles.

Marty in class - Bargaining 101

Beats me! Soldering cell phones?

Cute little girl getting her hair done

At a local restaurant

Marty, hot after a new franchise opportunity

Spanish Waters, Curacao

2010-11-24T12:24:00.000-08:00

November 24 - Spanish Waters, Curacao

The sail from Bonaire to Curacao was all too familiar to us - it entailed motoring. But it’s somewhat understandable in that October and November are months of transition with weak or non-existent trade winds and squirly currents.

From Bonaire to Curacao is about 35 miles - an easy day sail. By mid-afternoon, we rounded the southern tip of Curacao and spotted the low-lying island of Little Curacao to our south. We headed up the western coast of Curacao to Spanish Waters, a well protected anchorage south of the capital city of Willemstadt.

With a tight and narrow entrance, Spanish Waters is easily navigable during daylight hours but certainly not at night. We located a spot among other vessels and dropped the hook. With a backdrop of a steep rocky hill, it was a very tropical setting. Time to have a beer and relax.

The following day we took the bus into Willemstadt. We found the customs building quite easily. But finding the immigration office seemed more like one of those rally games where you get little hints that get you closer to your objective. It took us nearly two hours to find immigration with lots of help from a friendly staff at a law office. But once there, our luck improved. We met a British fellow, Peter, who offered us a ride back to our anchorage and offered us lots of local tips. We finished up the day with a round of Heinekens at Mermaid’s.

While anchored in Spanish Waters we’ve had a number of rainy days. The squalls come and go quickly, sometimes raining so hard that we’ve had opportunities to go on deck and take showers. We’ve also had time to see a bit of Curacao. Willemstadt is a picturesque city made up of an older part, Punda, and the newer district across the Anna Bay known as Otrobanda. Connecting the two districts are two bridges - the Queen Emma Bridge, a pontoon pedestrian bridge that opens for shipping traffic, and the impressively high Queen Juliana Bridge for car traffic.

Queen Emma pontoon bridge

Small draw bridge

Although Punda’s architecture is quite fascinating being distinctly Dutch and unusual here in the Caribbean, the stores are touristy and mundane. Gucci, Benetton, Ralph Lauren and Calvin Klein are some of the headliners. But we did find a nice little bar that served very cold beer and Dutch crockets.

There’s a colorful street along one of the quays that’s home to the Floating market. Made up of Venezuelan fruit, vegetable and fish vendors, on one side they sell their goods while on the sea side, lie the small wooden boats that they live on. We also dropped in to visit the Maritime Museum, housed in an old 18th century building. But we decided to leave it for another day.

Otrobanda (which literally means “on the other side”), does indeed lie on the other side of the Punda neighborhood. We walked across the pontoon bridge and followed a walking path tour described in one of the guides. We walked through twisting little alleyways and passages and found interesting old structures, many in a decrepit state.

We ended up walking to another touristy area in Otrobanda that had a hotel-resort, more high-end retail stores, bars and a quay for a cruise ship. While there, we watched hundreds of pink tanned tourists pour off the ship for their two hours of shore leave. Didn’t look real fun to us. We had lunch at a local corner dive that had an unusual menu - you could order many of the dishes in several sizes, each with it’s own price. We ordered a plate of stew, salad and fried potatoes. Tasty.

One afternoon, we took the dinghy into a small bay near us to check out a snorkeling spot we had heard about. We walked across a narrow path to the ocean side and found a beach with some shacks next to a huge, anchored oil drilling platform. We found out from some people there that the snorkeling area we were looking for was just a hundred yards off shore.

It turned out to be a great spot with a sunken tugboat in shallow waters and many types of fish and coral, including bright yellow trumpet fish, Christmas Tree worms, soft tubular coral and much more sea life. We really enjoyed the snorkeling. On our return there were small sabots with young kids in them racing around the anchorage. It was a lot of fun watching the kids sail.

Grocery shopping is easy here. The grocery store sends a free bus to the dinghy dock at ten each morning. It waits for an hour at the store and brings you back. The store is a typical grocery store and has lots of local, American, Dutch and Indonesian foods.

Our current plan is to check out in the next day or so, head up the coast to Santa Cruz Bay and anchor there for a couple of days. From Santa Cruz we’ll head for Aruba and pick up Marty for our sail to Cartagena, four hundred miles away.

View of Punda from Otrobanda

Dock tied to boat?

Barry enjoying a cold beer and a Dutch crocket

Bonaire, Dutch Antilles

2010-11-15T11:37:00.000-08:00

November 15 - Kralendijk, Bonaire

After staying on the mooring, we moved to the Harbor Village Marina in Kralendijk. We decided to get a slip because it was going to be easier to make the necessary repairs. I think it was the right move. To repair the refrigeration, we ended up taking the entire unit out of the engine room (no menial task), and having a local repairman take it to his shop to solder the leaky pipe. Barry spent a number of hot and sticky hours in the engine room diagnosing the problem before the repairman came to get it. In the mean time, Dave replaced the entire battery charging system. Everything is now working beautifully.

Bonaire is a relatively tranquil island. Of the three ABC’s, it is the most environmental conscious island, having its entire surrounding waters designated as a marine park. I found it surprising to see (and hear) so much Dutch - but after all, it does have strong Dutch roots that persist even today.

Lots of people here speak four languages - Dutch, Spanish, English and Papiamento, the local Creole dialect that is a blend of Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Spanish, French and Arawak Indian. The history of Bonaire is pretty typical Caribbean. Settled by the Arawak Indians, the Spanish came along and promptly exterminated most of them. The Spanish were then in turn driven off (in this case by the Dutch) in the 1630’s. For a time, the slave trade prevailed as an integral part of commerce. But other forms of trade also grew in and around Fort Oranje, in Kralendijk.

Today, Bonaire has developed a strong eco-tourism industry, mostly attracting diving, fishing and bird-watching enthusiasts. It has over 200 bird species, 80 of which are indigenous, such as the flamingo and a yellow headed parakeet.

On one of the days here, we rented a four-wheel Suzuki jeep and ventured out to the Washington Slagbaai National Park in the northern part of the island. The park is home to flamingos, lizards, iguanas, goats, wild boar, donkeys. There are limestone caves and a number of dive spots that are accessible from the beach. The most fun we had was hand-feeding bread to groups of large lizards. From the car, we also hand-fed a friendly donkey who just walked straight up to us. We stopped at a dive spot to snorkel. But it wasn’t anything to write home about - some elk-horned coral, and typical tropical fish. As always, though, the water is warm and easy to get in to.

We’ve now fixed everything, are provisioned and ready for the next island - Curacao. Plans are to check out tomorrow and leave on Tuesday morning. Curacao is only 30 miles west of Bonaire, so it will be a short day sail. Stay tuned.

The rugged limestone shoreline of Washington Park.

Hee-Haw!!! A very friendly donkey that came up to the jeep to greet us and get a snack.

One of the many varieties of lizards.

A peak at the ocean the from the door of a restaurant at Washington Park.

Slave huts along the water. These are probably 5'x8', though I don't know how many slaves each would hold.

The crew at the Buenos Aires Restaurant with a cruise ship in the background.

Grenada to Bonaire

2010-11-11T07:15:00.000-08:00

November 6 - Prickly Bay, Grenada to Bonaire, Dutch Antilles

After the preparation for getting the boat back into the water was complete, the boat yard crew expertly moved us back in to Prickly Bay. It was good to be afloat in the bay again, feeling the gentle rocking motion of the sea instead of being high up in the air on the hard. Now all that was left to do was refueling and food provisioning.

Early Saturday morning, under a clear blue sky, Lahaina Roads was ready for a sail. We pulled up anchor and proceeded out of Prickly Bay into the Caribbean Sea. Soon we were under sail with a full mizzen and genoa, heading due west. Isla Blanquilla was about 160 miles west of us. If everything went as planned, we'd be there the following day before sunset.

The sail began as a classic downwind run, the boat yawing a little to port, then to starboard, while the autopilot worked feverishly to correct and keep the boat on a fairly straight course. We relaxed, popped a can of beer and enjoyed the ride. What could go wrong.

By the afternoon we first noticed that the refrigeration system was running unusually warm. After checking it out, it appeared that the compressor was malfunction. There went the cold beer!

As the evening drew near we had a cocktail, followed by a steak dinner with a small glass of Cabernet. As Barry put it, "We were living large."

One hour long watches started at 9pm, which gave each of us a two hour cat nap. We encountered some ship traffic throughout the evening, with one ship passing off our bow by just a half mile. A little too close for comfort. But the rest of the night was uneventful and warm with a starlit sky and a new moon.

Sunday morning, our second day out of Grenada, we decided to hoist the main. The Honda generator was busily topping off the ship's batteries, when it revved up and slowed down in an unusual manner. A burning odor began to come from below, soon followed by dense black smoke belching from the portside cockpit locker. Not a good sign!

Barry immediately went down below to check the engine room. After determining it was safe to open the engine room door, he discharged the fire extinguisher in the engine room, which fortunately contained the smoldering fire.

After the smoke cleared, it appeared that the battery charger had shorted out causing it to overheat, burning its plastic casing and the wood panel. We were lucky - any fire aboard is not a trivial matter. And fortunately, the rest of the afternoon didn't provide for any more adrenalin-filled events.

In the evening, we sat down to dinner and had pork chops, salad, mashed potatoes and gravy with a half bottle of Cabernet. Good food, good company and a spectacular setting. All in all, not a bad ending to an exciting day.

On the second night out, we decided to switch to 1 1/2 hour shifts, giving each of us three hours of sleep. By morning we all agreed that this was a better way to go - we were all well rested.

An occasional squall now was passing through. During one of the more intense squalls, we got out the soap and took a shower on deck. Needless to say, timing is everything - you don't want to be caught fully lathered and have the squall pass you by.

For once, fishing was good - that is to say, the fish were biting, for nothing came to the table. Dave was trolling with two lines, when suddenly one of the reels screamed in a high pitch alerting us of a hefty strike. Soon we spotted a big marlin jumping out of the water. It was not happy! Wow, that was something else! The marlin acrobatically jumped out of the water once more to fight for its release. It succeeded. I think we were all a bit relieved because it was too much fish for us to bring aboard; too much fish to try to eat. So it was best left in the ocean to have a chance to fight another day. And for us we'll leave it as the big one that got away. Pheewww!!!

We passed several island groups that would have been worth a stop. But with the problems we had encountered, we decided to forgo the stops and continue onward to Bonaire. By mid-day on Monday, we had passed the Los Roques group, while sometime at night we were along side of Aves de Barlovento and Aves de Sotavento. These would have been outstanding places to observe birds and hang out on the white sandy beaches. Our guidebook wrote of those islands having over 200 species of birds.

In the morning, Bonaire was off our starboard bow. When we approached the southern end, we were greeted by a large flock of flamingos flying by - strange seeing them over the ocean. They were very sleek looking birds, intent on finding something out there or so it seemed.

We rounded the southern end of Bonaire and motored to Kralendijk, the main town on Bonaire. There is no anchoring allowed in Bonaire since the entire island is a marine park. So we picked up one of the many available park moorings. We had arrived.

Caribbean Adventure - Part II

2010-11-02T14:20:00.000-07:00

Caribbean Adventure - Part II

November 2

Dave and I left Lahaina Roads in April of this year on the hard at the southern end of Grenada at the Spice Island Marina. The plan for the sequel to our Caribbean adventure is to sail westward to the Dutch Antilles, Colombia, the San Blas Islands, Panama (and through the Canal) and up the west coast of Costa Rica to Golfito. Barry, a friend of Dave’s from South Carolina, also is joining us.

The flight from LA to Miami went without a hitch. But as soon as I landed, I noticed that my flight from Miami to Grenada (via Barbados) had been cancelled. Not good, I thought. I went a couple of rounds with American Airlines agents, stood in various lines for long times and finally got some results They re-routed me through Puerto Rico to get to Grenada at about my original time and on the same flight as Dave and Barry. Nice.

The flights went as planned and all three of us arrived in Grenada on time. Even my bag was waiting for me - in spite of all the re-routing it went through. I deemed it a miracle.

By the time we got to the boatyard from the airport it was dark and nearly 10pm. After getting past the guard at the gate we started to look for the boat. It was an odd sensation meandering around all these boats sitting up high out of the water. When we had left Lahaina Roads there only had been a few boats. Now it seemed crowded.

Finally, we found the boat, climbed up the ladder and opened the hatch. A musty, damp and earthy smell permeated throughout the boat. Some things in the aft cabin were thoroughly wet. But for the rest of it, the boat looked pretty much as we had left her. We crashed and all had a good, yet steamy-hot, night’s rest.

In the morning, after coffee, we got to work drying the gear and clothes and got the sails out on deck. The rest of the day was spent getting the main and the sail bag on the boom, the same process with the mizzen, and getting the dodger in place. We called it a day and went for a beer at the conveniently located marina bar.

The next couple of days were spent on more tasks in preparation for being put back in the water. The boatyard was a beehive of activity, with owners arriving daily, preparing their boats, boatyard crews doing last minute repairs and painting the bottoms of boats and the sound of the tractor as it maneuvers the boats towards the crane, where the boat is placed in the water.

On Monday, since Barry had not been to Grenada, we decided to go to St. George, the capital of Grenada.. To get there, we made use of Grenada’s handy bus system. Comprised of nine-passenger vans, it’s efficient, inexpensive and frequent. The mini-buses have a driver and a helper, who’s job it is to locate possible riders and to take the money (although once he gets the money, he passes it on to the driver). The drawback to the mini-buses is the loud rap-reggae music that one must endure and the risky NASCAR driving techniques that are often employed by the drivers as they try to maneuver through the hectic traffic.

Be that as it may, we’ve used the services every day and found the mini-buses a great way to get around. St. George was far better than the first time Dave and I visited it (a Sunday - when nearly everything had been closed). On this day, it was bustling with people and activity. The adventure culminated with a large Carib draft beer at one of the local joints along the waterfront.

Tomorrow morning we're scheduled to be put back in the water. Another day of excitement.

To The Netherlands and Home

2010-07-21T10:26:00.000-07:00

July 11 - To The Hague, Netherlands then Home

I couldn’t leave the blog unfinished. So here’s the last installment….for now.

Very early in the morning we left for the airport to get on our (Easyjet) flight to Amsterdam. Everything went like clockwork until we got in the air and the pilot announced that a cockpit warning light detected a problem with one of the rear doors. We would have to return to Madrid and have it checked out. Darn.

We landed safely without any incidence. The door problem was corrected but some other issue surfaced preventing us from taking off. It too was resolved. But then the pilot reported that he was having problems getting another flight plan approved and it would be a little longer before we took off.

About two hours after returning to the Madrid we finally got back in the air. This time everything went smoothly. We arrived in Amsterdam an hour later. Schiphol is truly a world class airport. It has lots of good shops, restaurants, hotels and great ground connections by train and bus right at the airport.

We got train tickets and made it to The Hague in no time. We had reservations at a small hotel in Scheveningen, Hotel Corel. It was a big, stark change from the Hilton in Madrid. Small, two old twin mattresses, shag carpeting, a broken toilet seat and an (intrusive) view of apartments next door (and they to us, of course). This was a three star hotel? However, the breakfast next morning was superb and its proximity to the boardwalk area of Schevenigen was excellent.

Holland was getting ready for an epic World Cup soccer championship game against Spain. Fountains were spewing orange water and lots of people were walking around with orange clothes. Excitement was building. Incidentally, orange is the color of the Dutch royal family - the House of Oranje. But today, the color orange mostly symbolizes being Dutch.

We ended up just walking around visiting familiar spots, sipping coffee or beer at cafes and enjoying the sights for two days. After that we took the train to our friends Maarten and Maria in Amstelveen (near Amsterdam).

We stayed with them for another two days. We ate a special dish Maarten cooked up - pulpo (octopus). They had brought back from Spain after their son had spearfished it. Very tasty. We helped M&M plan their upcoming trip to California and went out to eat at the Blauw Indonesian restaurant in Amsterdam to have rijstavel, a very typical Indonesian dinner consisting of about twenty separately prepared dishes. Delicious.

In the morning, M&M took us to the airport to catch a KLM flight back to LAX. Vacation was over.

Aranda de Duero and back to Madrid

2010-07-11T11:16:00.000-07:00

Aranda de Duero and back to Madrid

We drove south to Aranda de Duero and checked into Hotel Julia, in the center of town. Aranda is not known for anything particular, though tourists do come here for the lamb roast, reportedly the best in Spain. Also, like Laguardia, it too had underground wine caves, of which we visited one. We just came here as a pit stop between Rioja and Madrid. But surprisingly, we liked the town.

Aranda has a nice river running through it and a city park abuts it. We settled into a spot in the park near the bar (which is right next to the kiddy playground). Young mothers can have a glass of wine while they watch their toddlers play. Very cultured.

The park truly exemplified Spanish family life. Families, eating, playing, fishing and otherwise enjoying the park. Several dads were walking around with their young toddlers. Diane spotted some young parents smoking around their babies at times blowing smoke near their faces. That kicked in Diane’s anti-smoking campaign. She marched over to the young parents and gently scolded them in Spanglish. They all reacted with surprise as if they hadn’t thought about the impact of the smoke to their babies. I think she did some good, at least making those parents think twice before blowing smoke into the faces of babies.

We drove back to Madrid the following day with a detour to a city that was at the center of Islam in medieval days - Guadalajara. We visited the Gothic Palacio del Infantado, a relatively plane looking palace from the outside with a beautiful façade courtyard. We had lunch near the palace, on a park bench, munching on a bagget, cheese, ham and fruit.

Later that afternoon we arrived back at Gys and Paloma’s pink villa in Madrid. Of the three kids, only Diego was left home - and he was off to the north of Spain in the morning for surf camp, Marina and Julia already were at their activity camps.

In the evening the five of us set off to a nearby Peruvian restaurant. We started off with a strong Peruvian drink, a Pisco Sour, made of egg white, limes, sugar and Pisco. That was followed by several exotic appetizers ranging from a ceviche, to a baked dish with potato and octopus. I was about full from the appetizers, when dinner arrived - for me, a lightly cooked fish with yet another type of potato (Peruvians have over a hundred types of potatoes). Luckily, a couple of good bottles of Rioja wine enabled me to consume the dinner too. It was a scrumptious meal. No room for dessert, though.

On our last day in Spain we stayed at the Madrid Airport Hilton, since our Easyjet flight to Amsterdam was an early one. The hotel décor was ultra-modern, nothing like the hotels we’d been staying at. But our room was roomy and comfortable, the pool, nice. In the evening at dinner, we watched Germany beat Uruguay 3-2, in what was a fun and exciting game to watch.

The Rioja Wine Region

2010-07-11T10:57:00.000-07:00

July 7 - Wine Tours in Rioja

On Wednesday, after a superb breakfast at our inn, we drove to the nearby town of Briones where the bodega Dinastia Vivanco has a wine museum. It’s an amazing museum, in that it details the entire history of wine, the process of wine making and all its related functions, such as the making of barrels, bottles, corks and even cork screws. It took us a full two hours to get through it (at a quick pace). Afterwards, we took a tour of the Vivanco Winery, which was good yet disappointing, in that it was all in Spanish.

When we got back to our winery/hotel, Jesus Puelles, the owner, was ready to give us a personal tour of the winery - in English. The Puelles winery dates back to the early 1800’s and, though not nearly as big as Vivanco, it’s impressive. They follow organic vineyard practices in growing their (mostly Tempranillo) grapes. They only use estate grown grapes in their wines and produce about 200,000 bottles a year.

Jesus told us that in Rioja, wineries typically produce a crianza, a reserve and grand reserve. Mostly all are made of Tempranillo. Other red varietals grown in Rioja are Grenache, Mazuela and Graciano. White varietals are Viura and Xarello.The Rioja DOC controls these types of wines by mandating them to be aged as follows: a crianza must be aged in oak for one year; a reserve must be aged in oak for two years and bottle aged for one year; and the grand reserve must be aged in oak for three years and bottle aged for an additional two years. A little different from what we do in California where the winery may tell the prospective buyer to age the wine for a year or two before opening the wine.

One of the ways Jesus sells his wine is through his wine club. Members pay as the wine is made. First they pay up front for the cost of a barrel, then pay for the grapes, lastly for the bottles. In the end, a member gets 300 bottles of wine for about $3 per bottle. Not a bad deal for a good quality wine. But you have to like Tempranillo.

Later that evening, we watched more world football (soccer) action - Spain against Germany. To us it seemed like a pretty even game, not many fouls, played in a very gentlemanly manner. In the second half, Spain got a break and from a corner kick, headed the ball in for a goal to win the game. It will now be Spain and the Netherlands - and we’ll be in the Netherlands for the title game!!!

After our two-day stay at Bodega Puelles, we reluctantly packed our suitcases and hit the road. We visited, Laguardia, an ancient walled city known for its many underground (cave) bodegas and spectacular views of the area and the Pyrenees. We only stayed for a short time.

Into the wine country

2010-07-11T10:38:00.000-07:00

July 5 - The Alonso del Yerro Winery and the Village of Silos

On our drive north of Madrid, we began to see many vineyards. Our first winery visit had been set up by Gys. He knew the owners, Alonso and Maria. Vinedos Alonso del Yerro http://www.vay.es/ is in a small town of Roa, west of Aranda de Duero and lies within what arguably is the premier wine region in Spain known as Ribera del Duero. It took some serious searching but after a couple of misguided turns we found it.

Maria was waiting by the house and greeted us. She spoke excellent English and showed us the vineyards, talked about their vineyard philosophy and then took us inside the winery. A couple of interesting things I noted from the tour: 1) they have had the soils of all their acreage analyzed and mapped then parceled into different vineyards from which they make their wines. Soils that were not that healthy, they had the soil amended to improve the grape quality. 2) they’ve named each vineyard parcel after one of their four children; 2) they adhere to organic farming techniques, don’t use pesticides and don’t irrigate; 3) one of the things that surprised me was that they fermented the must in huge 5000 liter vertical French oak barrels (they only have Tempranillo) .

After a while, Maria’s husband, Alonso, met us at the house. He spoke little English, so Maria interpreted much of the conversation, but also we practiced hard on our halting Spanish. Alonso background is the pharmaceutical business. He was the CEO of a family-owned company and in his mid-forties decided he needed a career change. In the late 90’s he quit the family business and bought an existing vineyard and started the AY winery.

He began by hiring top people - one of France’s best wine makers, a soil expert and later an enologist to help get things going. Needless to say, it’s not a winery run on a shoe-string. After the tour, Maria and Alonso invited us to lunch. We enjoyed a fabulous meal prepared by their chef on white linen table clothes served by one of their helpers in the dining room overlooking the vineyard. Each course was served with a different AY wine and culminated with their top wine, appropriately named Maria. Dessert was a delicate and rich chocolate ice cream served in a crystal bowl, followed by an espresso coffee, chocolates and more wine outside. Not a bad lifestyle, I thought.

After our visit with Maria and Alonso, we drove off to nearby Santo Domingo de Silos, a tiny village known for its Gregorian chants by monks from the Benedictine abbey. We stayed at an old inn, the Hotel Tres Coronas, which is situated in the town’s main plaza, across from the monastery.

This is another one of these ancient places. The Visigoths were here as far back as the 7th century. The courtyard of the cloister has a beautiful evergreen tree that we were told by two of the monks, was over 100 years old. Apparently, the cloister has an excellent Romanesque art collection, but we never had a chance to see it.

In the evening, at 7p.m. we went to the cathedral to listen to the monks chant. About thirty monks walked in, candles were lit and the chanting commenced. It was interesting but not as moving as we had anticipated. It went on for about 45 minutes, after which they formed a line and walked passed us on the way out.

The next morning, after breakfast, we drove north towards Burgos and then eastward to Logrono. Our destination that day was nearby. It was the micro village of Abalos, in the heart of Rioja wine country. We were staying at a hospederia, in this case, a winery/hotel. The Bodegas Puelles is a family run winery that has been around for nearly two centuries!

We knocked on the door after which an elderly Spanish lady stuck her head out of the window on the second floor. After some discussions (that we weren‘t all that clear of), she decided to let us in. She showed us all the available rooms and told us that we had our pick. She also showed us the pool, the Jacuzzi, sauna and breakfast room. We could get used to this place.

After settling in we took a drive around to find a place to eat. It was 4pm and everything was either closed or the tapas bar offered a selection of day-old sandwiches (that we would not have offered a dog). No open grocery stores either. Even the bodegas were not open. It was a very frustrating afternoon food hunt. But once back at the winery, our luck changed.

Anna, the bookkeeper at the winery, greeted us and took us into the winery’s tasting room. She spoke good English and offered us a taste of most of their wines. Afterwards, she told us that if we wanted, we could sit outside and have more of any of the wines. All we had to do was ask. Needless to say, we took her up on the offer and stayed put for the rest of the evening.

Madrid, Lozoya and Segovia

2010-07-06T01:32:00.000-07:00

June 30 - Madrid

Driving in to Madrid was wild. It certainly is the big city. A place of five million people (the city and its periphery), we immediately got into horrible traffic. Yet slowly but surely we managed to find our way to my cousin Gys’ home.

We knocked on the door of their pink villa and were greeted by Gys and the kids (Paloma was still at work). We had a fun reunion and settled in. Later on after Paloma got home from work, she cooked up a wonderful paella.

In the morning, Diane and I took the bus into Madrid (the subway metro was having a wildcat strike, so traffic was horrific and the bus was jam-packed with people). Driving the car in to Madrid would have been nuts.

Once in Madrid, we toured the Prado Museum, a huge world-class museum with art from medieval times (lots of scenes of the crucifixion) to paintings from the present. Naturally, the museum’s focus is on Spanish painters, including Spain’s best known painters Velasquez, El Greco and Goya. It took us the better part of the day to tour the museum.

The strangest thing happened to us when we were on our way back home. We were waiting for our bus, when another bus stopped and out walked a former colleague of mine from Cal Poly. He was in Madrid with his two sons to celebrate his grandfather’s 90’s birthday. In a city of millions, we wondered what the odds were of meeting someone from tiny SLO!

The next day we took the bus back in to Madrid to visit the Thyssen Museum, a more compact but impressive art museum with more of an international flare from medieval times to modern day. Dutch renaissance, French impressionists and modern art - it‘s all there. Afterwards, we walked through the older part of Madrid and saw the palace and Plaza de Mayor.

One evening, Gys took us to a superb wine store - Lavinia. A huge, high-end store with wines from around the world and prices from Eu 5 to Eu 13,000. A young lady took us around the store, showed us their selection of Spanish wines and told us all about the various regions. Needless to say, we stocked up on a variety of Spanish wines.

By staying with Gys, Paloma and kids Julia, Diego and Marina we not only got to experience family life in Madrid, but saw first hand the interactions of a blended Dutch-Spanish family. It was common to hear three languages spoken all at once (Spanish, Dutch and English). But when a discussion heated up, they usually resorted to the fast, loud staccato of Spanish.

Also of interest, like most of Spain, the family all seemed to be a bit sleep deprived, staying up really late at night and getting up relatively early in the morning (of course, this is summer).

July 2 - Off to the family mountain home in Lozoya

About an hour north of Madrid, Gys has a beautiful home in the mountains overlooking a lake in the village of Lozoya. We spent several days there relaxing in the cool and tranquil setting. We took some short side trips to the village of Rascafria, where there is an old monastery, played “folo” tennis (it’s played on a short court with a paddle and a special ball) and went on a mountain bike ride (just Gys and I) that went straight up the mountain. We ascended from around 2800 feet to just over 6000 feet. I required frequent breaks and ended up having to walk part of it. But I made it! Going down was fast and exhilarating.

July 2 - Side Trip to Segovia

To get to Segovia we took the narrow and windy mountain road from Lozoya. It only took about forty minutes. Our first sight was of the Roman aqueduct that spans the entrance to Segovia. Built in the 1st century, it’s over a mile long, made of granite rock with no mortar and was operational until just a few years ago. That’s not bad for something to be functional for two thousand years!!! The arches are exquisite. One cannot but marvel at the engineering feat of how they constructed the massive arches.

We then wound our way through the narrow streets to Plaza Mayor, peeking in at the ancient Gothic cathedral on the way to the Alcazar Castle. The castle was quite a sight and had a majestic view of the surrounding hills. Although it looked like something out of Disneyland, one of our tour books stated that it was used in the movie Camelot (with King Arthur and Sir Lancelot).

On a Sunday afternoon, the typical Spanish family goes out to eat. The feasting can last for hours. We drove to a huge, local restaurant and did our part. We sat on the veranda and feasted on some local dishes comprised of pork, lamb, salad and yes, wine. Very tasty and filling.

A couple of things I haven’t touched on. During our stay with Gys and Paloma, she prepared some very nice Spanish dishes for us. The first evening she prepared the quintessential Spanish dish - paella, prepared with a variety of sea food. Other dishes she made included a typical Spanish omelet made with eggs and potatoes; gazpacho, a cold, soup-like dish made with tomatoes, green and red peppers, onions and garlic; a rice dish, also eaten cold, made with white and wild rice, tuna, sardines, capers, olives and tomatoes.

The other thing is that we’ve been watching a lot of soccer - football to the rest of the world. Spain and the Netherlands have been doing well. In fact, there is a chance they could be in the playoffs. It’s been a lot of fun watching all the excitement.

The Windmills of Consuegra

2010-07-05T23:55:00.000-07:00

June 29 - Consuegra and on to Madrid

On leaving Toledo, we decided to double-back a few miles to the small town of Consuegra because we wanted to inspect the classic La Mancha windmills up close.

Winding through these hills one can really imagine Don Quixote riding past these windmills (here they’re called molinos de viento). We stopped at a tourist office housed in one of the mills. The two men working there were among the friendliest and most helpful people met at tourist offices in Spain. They told us all about the history of the windmills and even of the origin of the word Califonia. According to them, it came a Cervantes novel that described a place that he called California. To the Spanish, the far western part of the U.S. turned out to be very similar to the description by Cervantez, so the Spanish ended up calling what they saw California.

Getting back to the windmills in Consuegra, there was a medieval castle that sat atop of the hill where all the windmills were situated. We toured the small castle, which offered great panoramic views of the area. As we entered the castle, we could see that the perimeter walls were five meters thick! The castle itself was in the process of being restored but still offered unique insights on how the knights lived back in the 12th and 13th century. As in so many of these places we‘ve seen, again, it was the destructive Napoleonic forces that unleashed all the damage done to these old buildings.

In the end, we were glad we had made the effort to come to see where Don Quixote had ridden.