The Ramblings of an Aspiring Expat Traveling Nomad Wanderer
We rolled into Flagstaff to a Taco Tuesday party at Martine’s house. We found Lucia and Penelope already there visiting for soccer camp. Exciting to see cousins and their kin after too long absent.
We came to Tacna Yesterday. Today we went to Arica, Chile. They are a little over an hour apart. Between the two and pretty much everywhere around Tacna is a desert. It’s all empty adobe colored earth. No people or structures exist in the wastes. Tacna is some mish mash of border town and tourist trap for Chileans looking for a favorable exchange rate.… Read the rest
Jill and I went to see the movie Insurgent last night. Here, it is called Insurgente but it was in English with Spanish subtitles. That was kind of weird. We haven’t been to a movie theater since we were in Florida in October. Theaters are like sensory deprivation tanks. Encompassed by the movie’s sensations, I was transported back to the USA for a couple hours.… Read the rest
We leave here tomorrow, Medellin is a nice town. We haven’t done a lot. We ate at some restaurants. Mostly cheap and good vegetarian restaurants. In most of the places we’ve been vegetarian places have the best food. Someone who starts a vegetarian or vegan restaurant does so because they’ve got really good food to share with people. Medellin has twelve vegetarian restaurants that we know of.… Read the rest
Medellin is not what I expected. What did I expect? An exotic Miami in the mountains maybe. I just heard that the weather was always gorgeous and it was nice place. We arrived two days ago and the most memorable things have been rain, hail, good hummus, and trying to find the next destination. I’m writing this in a delightful coffee shop.… Read the rest
We switched from the Art Deco shabby hotel Aragon today for the cozier Hostel Casu. It was a good switch. We went to the Gold Museum for most of the day. We took a break for lunch at the fabulous Quinoa and Amarinth restaurant and both had the vegetarian meal of the day. Three courses are not too bad, but it has yet to top the Girasole restaurant in Cartagena.… Read the rest
I had an oatmeal breakfast with Jill. Then we walked over to the San Alberto Cafe for a coffee tasting with Coralie and Mikhail. We learned about Colombian coffee and the growing and harvesting process. We tried different tastes so we could identify the flavor of salty, sweet, bitter, and sour. That was easy. The hard part was doing the same with different smells. … Read the rest
We rode a bus for too long to get here. The bus goes west to go east in Costa Rica. We arrived at 3:30 AM. Then we realized it was now 4:30 AM because the time changed. Jill slept in a food court until the security guard roused her. We found our way to the other airport by city bus and then a taxi to our hostel.… Read the rest
Today I swam for a few hours this a morning and tried to surf this afternoon. The swimming was delightful. The surfing didn’t work out as well and I got a little burnt. Now Jill is working on a website and we are waiting to hear back from our host in Granada, Nicaragua. Tomorrow is our travel day to there. We leave here around 4 AM.… Read the rest
At 4 AM we bid a sleepy farewell to Antigua from the back seat of a tourist shuttle. We were squeezed out of our human can at the ticabus terminal in Guatemala City. Waiting on the bus Jill and I watched a young man playing with the radio and setting switches. I asked Jill if she thought that was our driver.… Read the rest