travel
Yesterday I took a tour to Volcán Mombacho, the allegedly-dormant volcano that towers over Granada. The tour brochure suggested bringing walkable shoes, a jacket, mosquito repellent and water, advice that was soundly rejected by most of the rest of the tour group, to their later chagrin. But not by me.
travel
Here’s a handy tip for anyone traveling abroad: Do not read the US State Department Travel Advisory for the country you are visiting. Despite being considered by many to be one of the safest countries in the Americas, the State Department website has a laundry list of potential hazards,
travel
The alarm went off at 4:30 a.m. to start my long travel day to Nicaragua. Ordinarily, the only time I’m awake at that hour is to rush Hadas to the hospital, so I was a bit disoriented while getting breakfast and a shower. Luckily, one of us
travel
I realized today that the word for “pulp” in Spanish is “pulpa,” not “pulpo.” Thus, I’m pretty sure that yesterday I ordered a glass of orange juice “with extra octopus.” Delicious. Today was tour day, specifically the Outdoor Adventure Tour from Vallarta Adventures. Ziplining! Boating! Rapelling! Getting really wet!
travel
Someone turned on Christmas overnight. I woke up to lights and displays hung over the streets in the heart of Old Town, a giant Christmas tree-esque monstrosity near the main plaza, and today was apparently schoolchildren singing day, because I stumbled onto not one, but two school concerts on the
travel
I learned today that the proper way to buy tortillas is by the kilo. My previous forays into tortilla purchasing had always revolved around requesting a certain number of tortillas, but apparently waltzing into the tortilleria and ordering 10 tortillas is akin to walking into a McDonalds and ordering one
travel
I got a good night’s sleep despite the presence of a chirping gecko on the wall of my bedroom (I think it was trying to sell me car insurance). I woke up, had a breakfast of bananas, tortillas and 14 kilos of sugar, and set out for a morning
travel
Mexicans love their sugar. It’s everywhere. From the street vendors selling pastries and deep fried doughy confections, to the ingredient list of every food in the grocery store. Lunch meat? Check. Plain yogurt? Check. The word “Natural” in Spanish apparently means “Naturally, this food contains sugar.” This is not
travel
Well, here I am back in Mexico again. I’d sort of planned to go somewhere else this year, but the wanderlusties struck about two weeks ago and I found out that it was cheap to fly to Puerto Vallarta, so I grabbed a plane ticket and here I am.
travel
And so it ends. After 16 days in Mexico I head home tomorrow, Continental Airlines and a 6:15 a.m. taxi ride to the airport willing. It took me about a half hour tonight to figure out the proper protocol for calling a Mexican cell phone from Skype, and
travel
I’ve been holed up in the house with a cold the last two days (and by “holed up” I mean sitting in the sun on the terrace, sipping fresh squeezed orange juice and reading celebrity gossip on the Internet). Today, as I sat on the tiled patio, a hummingbird
travel
Well, I came down with a cold, so I didn’t really do much of anything today other than laundry. At night I wandered into town to eat some fajitas (delicious, made with some sort of chile pepper) and bought 10 mandarinas at the mercado to make orange juice. Here’