Go-Go Gadget Pen

We spent most of the last week in a resort. It was a huge change from the places we visited in Belize and a far cry from the hotel in Tulum (El Crucero which was kind of a junk show). But, alas, traveling in the resort world is  not for me. We made the mistake of going to a sales presentation. They offered us money and food, then when we told them we didn{t want to buy into their b.s. pyramid scheme, they berated us and told us that we were dumb for not knowing how to invest money. Ha!

The most fun we’ve had has been taking dips in the cenotes and drinking with the local old dudes. Last night the locals in campeche were all trying to buy us cuaguamas, which are like half gallon sized beers. we had to tell the bartender that we didn’t want anymore and slip out when everyone was heated in conversation.  Campeche is a beautiful colonial town. It is quite picturesque with its brightly colored, freshly painted buildings. The people are super friendly. Last night we saw an awesome outdoor play about the spanish conquering of the mayans here in campeche. It was hilarious how they said over  and over how the mayans and the spanish had love in common and that’s how they live peacefully together today. Then the pirates came and they defeated them and lived happily ever after.

The cenotes are amazing underground water tunnels that you can swim, snorkel or dive through. They kind of freak me out because some have an unknown depth. UnKNOWN. That means way to deep. Mike coerced me to swim through this one and we went under stalagtite or stalagmites following only a loosely bound rope. Of course, he also finds the ones that noone else goes to, so we were the only ones there. Super. I had to talk myself down from hyperventillating. Some of them are like underwater pools, with lots of light, but others are dark. super dark. You can see fish pretty far beneath you, and you can tell the water is crystal clear. But if you let yourself get lost it what lies further beneath the fish you can see, you’re in trouble.  Next time, I want to use snorkeling gear.

We are going to explore campech´s culture and museums and beer halls (that have th eold school swinging doors) for two more days, then we are off to rio largartos and san felipe to see pink flamingos and crocodiles in a nature preserve. Hopefully we will evade rain and sickness for the home stretch of our trip.

Okay, so we did visit the jungle, but it’s not supposed to be raining like it does in the rainy season. Dana from Val’s backpacking hostel in Dangriga told us that this is how it rains when it’s the worst of the two weeks in the rainy season. The river is higher than it should be. It’s insane. I still really do enjoy the people here in Dangriga. The garufuna influence is quite interesting.

Dana is playing this really nice music called Umalalie. It sounds like a mis between caribbean and African music without drums. It’s is several Garafuna women singing in chorus. Dana is juts about the nicest, most caring person I have ever met. She is helpful, knowledgable, and familiar. When she knocks on the door, she opens it. Which may not sound like somehting that would be okay in the US, but with her, it’s more matronly, and really great.

We have been traveling for days with interrupted, choppy rest until yesterday when we finally are letting ourselves warm up to one place and relax. We went on an impromptu 12 hour tour yesterday. The host at the hotel wanted to take a trip to the local characoal ruins and to several waterfall spots for swimming, then to a local bad that serves infused rum.  We woke up at 630 am and Marcos piles 9 people in his pickup truck and we headed tot he market to buy some snacks to tide us over all day. I loved being in the bed of the pick up, but it was really hard being someone who gets car sick to bum around on the local dirt and “paved” roads of Belize. By paved they just mean some gravel has been mashed down into it. We are not too far from Guatamala, and if we were to do it all again, I think we’d check out Guatamala after San Ignacio. But, we only have a month, so we will stick to our original itinerary.

We had such an amazing day yesterday becoming chummy with the new people we met at the hotel, and the others that we picked up along the way. I think the one defining moment was whent he Mike (from Poland) and Leah (from LA) wanted to set up a group shot in front of the largest pyramid in Caracoal. At that point everyone was pretty well acquainted and enjoyed laughed at the comedy of setting up two cameras to auto-snap the photos. I even got a picture of the two dashing away form their cameras and into the shot.

We are focused on our honeymoon trip now. We know that we are landing in Cancun, then getting the heck out of dodge (el dodge?) as soon as we can, and heading to the Riviera Maya. We might go to Tulum first, and then head south south south after that until we hit Punta Gorda. We booked a room at Hickatee Cottages in Southern Belize. Despues, regresaremos a Yucatan.

Vamos a ir a Merida. Merida is the capital of Yucatan. It has a cathedral that was made with the stones from the pyramids. Which could only be more horrific if the Spanish made the Mayans rip apart their own pyramids and build the cathedral, which they would have if they were around. In Seville they built the cathedral on top of a mosque. And Pedro the cruel had Moorish workers build his version of a palace over Moorish palatial ruins. This is Alcazar in Seville.

The regional cuisine in the Yucatan is cochinita pibil and deer meat. Cochinita? is that guinea pig? You know Mike is going to try it no matter what it is. Pig ear tacos, horse meat burgers (southern Italy), all sorts of organs.

We don’t have anything else set in stone as we need to do some more research and we need to leave some time to just explore.

I’m going to the coast to join the Oregon Mycological Society on their Fall Foray. I have a little trepidation because it is in this bunk bed cabin church camp place. I am a newlywed and I’d really like to sleep next to my husband, but apparently the rooms are split up by sex. Ugh. The last time I slept in an all same sex place was a miserable train ride from San Sebastian to Madrid. I was upset because I had just left a bad place in my relationship and it felt like there was no hope. I slept next to women who were seemingly heartless and ignored my tears. I felt more alone than if I had been alone.

We’ll see how it goes. Right now Mike is making a hot chocolate concoction that we can hopefully use to warm our insides even though we are also not allowed to have alcohol there. We’re going to go hiking after I get off the computer and shower. Meeting time’s 4pm tonight. I can’t wait to at least learn more about macro identification and hammer some of the fungi terminology in my head. They are an interesting and older group for the most part. We should know them pretty well by the end of the weekend. I wonder if we’ll fit in or we’ll just be crazed.

Mike and I came to Seaside to get away. Dana is so wonderful for letting us stay at her beach house.

It was so foggy last night that I had to make mike drive. My eyes get really tired at night, especially because I was on the computer for several hours yesterday. But, Mike got us here safely. We ended up walking down to the water. It was 3 am and the fog was so thick that I couldn’t see Mike as he walked towards the water.

The dense fog swiftly enveloped the receding form of my lover. When I rediscovered him coming towards me, his image faded and reappeared several paces later. A nightmarish scene with a bittersweetness.

I sat on a log and watched him not see me. The low tide here is so far out from shore.

September 27, 2005

la vida italia

Wow, so now we’re in Sardinia. In St. Theresa. It’s a really cute port town. Hard to say not speaking the language and all, but I think I really like Italians. They’re so colorful and funny!

Our stay in Corsica with doug’s family was just breathtaking. His tanto Jean put us up in an apartment overlooking the Mediterranean for free. FREE. His friend owned the place and he had an empty room. And by room I mean a full kitchen BBQ, 3 bedrooms and porch/balcony bigger than my front yard. It was really a luxury condo type place. Then he took us out fishing sea urchin the second day. At noon or so we sat on the rocks on the beach and sipped the amazing red and rose wines from his vineyard. i watched this salty old guy of 81 raking up sea urchins into a bucket. Tanto Jean always wears the same camouflage pants and shirt, but this time he had on his wetsuit and wetsuit booties so he wouldn’t prick his feet with the spindly black things that poke out of live sea urchins. we later found out a splinter of these hurts like hell and is hard to remove with out a tweezer.

Tanto jean sat on his rock -out of his wet suit now– slicing open these sea urchins and scooping the juice and meat out with a piece of french bread. We all followed his lead. I have rarely had moments in my life where I felt so at peace with the world. the water felt nice on my flip flop clad feet and the wine buzz was just enough. I felt energized yet slow and just there soaking up the world. Tanto jean was worried that other like the German students staying at the resort would find his sea urchin spot, but they never followed us. no worry for tourists coming here. he presented us with a spot where we would grill some steak to have after the sea urchin snack. this spot was just a little into the woods right above the rocks we drank and ate on. he named this are “portland shores” for doug, mike and i because it hadn’t a name before and now he was able to share it with someone who felt more like family to him. he said a friend of a friend is his friend. an enemy of his friend is his enemy. This old world tanto jean lives in is odd to us, but we welcomed the appreciation of nature he had. thanks tanto jea! i hope we meet more of him. i’m not sure how many of him are left in this world.

September 12, 2005

dirt coats prague’s prettiness

I found free wifi finally, so here i am checking it out. I lost my socks for the 3rd time since traveling. no, seriously, we got laundry done and they lost my damn socks. the kicker is that the last socks i bought cost me like 30 bucks for 2 pairs!!! i needed good ones so i can walk a lot, you know? oh well. c’est la vie, as the french say. so we go back to France tomorrow. we’re taking a 12 hour train ride and going to Strausbourg to see mike’s family who speak very little English. should be fun. I speak a little french and people think I understand a lot more than I do, so maybe his uncle will talk to me and tell me stories I don’t quite get. I’ve been pretty surprised to see that hardly any people speak English in prague. Everyone always makes it seem like English is everywhere, but it’s not. Granted, mike and I like to travel in the locals areas, so that could be why. So, Prague is dirty and pieces of it are falling everywhere. the street fall apart when you walk on them. Running on cobblestone sucks. The parks are not taken care of. People start drinking at 9 or 10 am. Beer! Bars open before bakeries. Strange. I love the bread dumplings. They’re cheap and boiled. Boiled bread?!?! why didn’t i think of that? The Goulash rocks when it’s made right (not with ketchup).

People are really weirded out by us. I don’t know what’s so freaky about me, but they stare and stare like I’m a circus freak. this has been the case Everywhere!!!! Even Ireland. I speak that damn language. Or so I thought. They didn’t really understand me when I talked sometimes. It took awhile to adjust to their English too. Camping has been interesting and fun. We camped at one place with no toilet paper and horrible facilities, but a beautiful ocean view and another with a nice night sky view and hot showers!!! The private camp sites in France rock and are cheap. Virgin airways lost my sleeping bag and tent so i had to buy a new one. the tent is cool (except mike broke a pole and my sleeping bags sucks big ass. it’s tiny and sweaty. yuck!!! I love my backpack. It has been such a nice thing to have so comfy and all. What a sweet and thoughtful gift from the girls back home.

Next we’re heading for Corsica to meet up with doug, maybe meet his family. The Mediterranean!!! heat and sun and water!!! I can’t wait. God, I totally miss my friends. I can’t believe I’m not able to wine to everyone all the time. I feel every once in awhile like turning to someone and asking them to go shopping with me or something SOME people don’t have the patience of my girlie friends!!!! I miss you all sooo much.

August 25, 2005

baggage claim crap

http://www.virgin-atlantic.com/en/gb/passengerinformation/baggage/claims.jsp

Flight Details Flight & Date VS10 / 17AUG / EI163 / 18AUG
Routing JFK / LHR / DUB

leaving ireland soon

we love ireland. dublin was the least interesting, most nondescript place here…every other city has gotten more beautiful and interesting as we’ve moved on. We went to gALWAY, letterfrack, clifdon, and now cork city. there’s so much water here and the bog lands are very strange. we toured a national park and found out all this information about how they clear cut and burned the forest lands here and it has left this swampy effect on the remaining land, but buried underneath are logs and sometimes even petrified trees. It’s a crazy result of man’s encroachment on nature.

It’s crazy traveling with someone, finding out how well you know and don’t know them. We’ve met so many fun people. We both really enjoy smaller towns and cities, so we’re totally on the same page when it comes to the places we want to go. I love the seedy parts of town where i can meet and drink with the real people. I get a bit dizzied in the tourists parts where they throw so many options at you and make you spend way too much money! I Miss you all! Let me know news from home!!!

August 03, 2005

finally a travel entry

Wow, I’m on my road trip! half way through it actually. Time has been wiggling around in this weird way. My tummy knows when it’s time to eat and my eyes don’t open until I’m rested (or if I have to pee), but days days pass in one day. Or is it that several days encompass one day? Either way, I wake and sleep, and yes run! It’s been a few days since we got serious exercise, in Denver we stayed with Stephanie an dRob and got to run on stephanie’s old running path. How fun it was to hold babies and play with Kaatje. We also took a four hour walk that day. And we have been driving and NOT exercizing for the last 3 days. We might walk to the bar tonight. Yes, we will. That’s at least a half hour walk each way. My body doesn’t react well to not moving. On a nice note, I’ve lost four or five pounds since I put my scale away a week before I left PDX! Yay! I’ve been worse about eating since I had BBQ yesterday for lunch. We ate at this BBQ place in Kansas City and had an awesome sandwhich, so big that mike and i could split it and we were still full. Arthur Bryant’s BBQ. That book we got, Eat Your Way Across the USA has proved priceless because we”ve found some amazing places to eat off the beaten path ( like the Basque restaurant in Reno that Jnet used to go to for birthdays and stuff!).

I miss my friends so much. It’s hard to be so out of touch, especially when I’m usually so in touch. The next two stops are Cincinatti and NY.

June 15, 2005

Packing tips

Packing Tips :
~If you have a top-loading backpack make little lightweight bags out of old sheets/pillowcases to separate clothes into categories- it saves so much time when you are hunting for a certain item. You can label them for easy access, they’re lightweight, and it helps when you don’t want your dirty smelly clothes or grimy shoes touching clean stuff.
~Safety pins, duct tape wrapped around a pencil- not the whole roll (great for securing backpack straps for flights), a cable lock (try Magellans) for when you can’t be next to your bag/suitcase on the train, ziplock bags (for souvenirs and other stuff), a small paperbook book, a swiss army knife (don’t carry-on) a deck of cards,and a PEN.
~A little black dress… mine is knee-length tank, v-neck (just a little sexy), with a built-in bra. I got it at a j.crew outlet for $25!
~Cut out or copy pages from your guidebooks, don’t lug the heavy things around when you’ll only use some pages.
~Photocopy the first page of your passport and other important documents and keep them with emergency phone numbers complete with dial codes and info (credit card cancellation info, relatives in case of emergency, consulate). keep them separate from the originals.
~Sunglasses, a bandana, flip flops (ooh Reefs are the best) and your favorite hat.
~a journal- don’t risk forgetting that strange man with purple in a poncho and nothing else!

April 07, 2005

long, long short day

My day was so-so today. I’m not really sure how days should be when you’re getting ready to move to another country. I felt kind of numb today. I’m pissed that I’ve been “dieting” and exercising, and every time I lose a pound, I gain it back. I’d be so happy to get back to my weight from last year. I’m not really sure what I’m doing different. I’m excercising more. I guess it is the rich food that mike makes for me, but what do I do? I love that he cooks for me and he won’t cook lighter. He does sometimes, but I think he’s ethically opposed to it.

I feel drab. Haven’t written in a while