After leaving Vista Mar, we headed to Benao, a little surfer village recommended by our friends on Sago. We were surprised to be the only sailboat there. We were planning on surfing for a day or two and then moving on (but stayed over a week because we were having so much fun). The first night we arrived, everyone was settling down for the night, playing a game, and I was getting water to clean our dinner dishes. The bioluminescence was absolutely amazing. Looking down into the water was like a reflection of the sky—there were little bits of sparkling blue as far down as you could see. If you splashed the water, you created a tremendous sparkly blue wave. You could see the fish darting around well under water, trailing blue streaks behind them, and blue bubbles rising above them. Incredible!
We decided we needed to swim in this blue light up sea. When we jumped in, it looked like someone turned on a big blue/green light underwater. We got out the kayak, cannonballed off the back of the boat, dove off the back of the boat, and played games trying to see who could make the largest and longest wave of blue light up magnificence. It was so cool!
Later that night, I heard tapping on the hull. Then, I started hearing blowing noises. I went out to investigate and found a pod of dolphins happily playing in the small wake of our boat (caused by the wind, waves and current). They were playing just like we had earlier. I went back in and woke up Mark to come watch the dolphin gymnastics in a sparkly blue ocean. They were zipping all around our boat, then a lone dolphin swam quickly from behind the boat, seemingly charging us on the sugar scoop and then disappeared under our boat with a trail of blue bubbles. Dolphins are always fun to watch and make us happy. Blue sparkly water dolphins are magic!
The bioluminescent bay stayed with us for our visit to Benao, but the first night was by far the best. This will be definitely be one of the ‘remember when’ moments from this adventure!
A Post by Julie. (Enhanced by crew in blue italics- except Lucy who refused to participate)
So, the long overdue Day 2, (delayed due to some legal issues with which we were involved).
Saturday, of our Panama Canal Experience began around 8:00am. We thought we were leaving around noon, so when we saw the advisors showing up, we hurried to get ready for the day. Sadly, we ended up with a whole new crew of advisors. We loved Carlos on Day 1, so we were hoping to see him again today. Our new advisor arrived, (said one word, which we assume is his name) had some breakfast with us, and settled in to his seat in the rear of our cockpit snoozing and looking at his phone. We had about a 5 hour ride through the Gatun Lake, a crocodile infested lake which supplies all of the drinking water to Panama City. There were a few resorts along the banks, but mostly Panama Canal traffic—huge container ships, cruise ships, 2 other yachts and us.
The kids fixed lunch prior to our reaching the 1st lock. Soon after, we were told to get ready to raft up. No problem—should be a lot easier in daylight (or so we thought). However, the middle advisor decided to change the way we rafted up from the night before. Our advisor deferred to him, so we changed our lines all around and finally got rafted up. Now, the midship advisor wanted all of the captains to practice steering with his commands. Unfortunately, the advisor never was able to get the boats all in sync. We went to the right, to the left, right, left (when we were supposed to be going straight)…Instead of waiting for the lock to be ready and figuring out how to control our raft of boats, he directed our raft to tie up on the wall prior to going into the lock ON OUR SIDE. Julie was not very fond of this idea, and let our advisor know, (we think Mom woke him up from his YouTube trance) but to no avail. We ended up docking on the wall very quickly with a bang and a scrape. The advisors were not concerned in the least, (YouTube was still more important)but we took a chunk of fiberglass out of the back of our sugar scoop (which is at the back of our boat). Now, we understood what those big round fenders are for. The actual locking down was quite easy. Unfortunately, the lack of communication between us and the midship advisor did not get any better throughout the rest of the day.
For the second lock, we again rushed up to it before the lock was ready for us. Again, we docked on the wall ON OUR SIDE, and again we scraped and bumped against the wall prior to the lock. (Note: the normal process of locking is to stay in the middle of the chamber, never near a wall.) Again, locking down was easy.
Locks 2 and 3 are connected and as we were already in the middle, we just needed to move directly forward slowly. As we started moving from lock 2 to 3, we ended up going too fast, but the advisor kept telling us to keep going forward. The line handlers on the side of the canal were running to try to keep up with us as we swiftly headed towards the closed front door of the lock. We were going TOO fast—and now we were aiming for the wall ON OUR SIDE – again. Mark yelled to the advisors that we were going too fast, Julie also yelled we were going too fast and we were going to hit—in 10 feet, in 5 feet, and then bang. The advisor once again wasn’t worried about a thing. We scraped the wall going forward with our fenders squishing, sliding up, sliding down, and eventually tearing loose from the boat (with a very loud BANG) and bending our stanchion (the post that holds up our lifelines). Then, the advisor ordered the raft in reverse which sent our back corner fast and furious into the lock wall, causing a pretty big crack in the fiberglass along the waterline. Mom was yelling. She now has Panama Canal words that rival Dad’s engine work, bilge work, and head work words (This statement does not do the linguistic explosion justice. It was quite the spectacle. I (Mark) have never been prouder, Heidi’s ears are still recovering, Lucy is still annoyed by all of this (especially our re-telling, as she thinks we’re not being nice), and Sally is still in shock. Fenton was a bit shocked and began questioning all of his life’s decisions that led him to that point. Along with our advisors, a guy on the lock wall got quite the earful when he tried to tell Julie ‘don’t to worry about it, it’ll be fine’.). Again, locking down went fine…The advisors looked at the damage, shook their heads, and took selfies of themselves with a big cruise ship in the background (funny side note: the clientele of the cruise ship were largely European – and not to reinforce any stereotypes, but, there were a lot of guys in speedos and tighty-whiteys waving at us from their cabin balconies – it was quite the sight). Argh!
On the way out of the 3rd lock, we were greeted with the beautiful Pacific Ocean. We picked up our lost fenders, called our agent, and began the process of filing a formal complaint against the Panama Canal Authority. Our agent was amazing, showed up within a few hours of our incident, and helped prepare us for the process to follow. On Sunday, we had multiple visitors photographing our damage and taking statements. (While everybody was courteous and professional, they all told us we didn’t have a chance of ‘winning’ our case). We went to a court hearing on Monday morning. The process was amazingly efficient, professional, and quick. At the hearing, the advisors definitely showed their inadequacies and we came across well (at one point, the attorney for the Panama Canal Authority had to tell the advisers to stop talking, as they were making fools of themselves). Mark did a great job showing what happened. Our hope was that this group of advisors would not be able to lead another raft down the way we went down—bumping and scraping the whole way. We would find out the results in about a month…
So, it has now been a month. The decision was made. The advisors were at fault for their general incompetence. We were also at fault—not for anything we did or didn’t do, but for being a small boat that needs to be handlined through the Canal (vs the big ships that are pulled through the canal by large locomotives). Every boat like us has to sign a waiver saying that they accept this risk. We are now getting estimates for the work to be done and we will move on. The repair is really not large and we’ve done a temporary fix, but the fact that the advisors really didn’t care about the damage to our boat and didn’t listen to us made us feel the need to make sure something was done. We hope this decision will lead to better advisors for all.
Over the month of February, we had a great visit with family and friends back in the states. While we were originally planning to head west to French Polynesia and New Zealand, we have changed directions and are now heading northwest to Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Mexico. We plan to spend hurricane season in the Sea of Cortez and likely do a camping road trip through the western National Parks in the US and Canada during the hot months. We also will be doing much more research on Galapagos, French Polynesia, the Cook Islands, Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia. We still plan to go west and will spend some time figuring out what job opportunities await us in New Zealand and the best places to visit with Willie—our Portuguese Water Dog. Dogs are not so easy to bring through the South Pacific.
Now that the Panama Canal chapter is finally closed, we expect to be back up and running with our blog. The kids have lots of stories to tell of new friends, surfing, bioluminescence, and hopefully a hike or two in the not so distant future.
On January 25th, we started our journey through the Panama canal. This was exceptionally exciting for me for two reasons. First, I’d never been through a lock of any kind before, and while the Panama Canal’s locks are about the same size as the rest of my boat mates have through, they’re still really impressive feats of engineering. Secondly, it’s kinda cool to be in places that we read about in history. Sure, in school I learned that thousands of people worked on the canal (and died) and it took immense amounts of manpower to build, but it’s entirely different to be actually there, holding the lines, fighting the wind and current.
As part of our transit procedures, we were assigned an adviser who joined our boat before we rafted up with the other boats and went through the locks. I thought our adviser, Carlos, was hilarious and very helpful, and I’m glad we got to go through the first half with him. I’m even more glad that we kept his accident record at zero, because even though I wanted our transit to be exciting, I’d rather not spend it in the hospital.
Getting ready to go through the locks was about as much of an adventure as going through the locks themselves. We got to the entrance to them around 7pm, so it was already dark out. The canal had lights, but we had to raft up (attach ourselves) to another boat, which had yet another boat on its other side. The rafting difficulty was compounded by the fact that our advisers spoke primarily Spanish, the boat in the middle spoke primarily French, and we spoke primarily English. After the three of us were all connected, we headed into the first lock.
Since we had a boat on our port (left, facing the bow) side, we only needed to attach lines to side of the canal on our starboard (right, facing the bow) side. This was accomplished pretty simply; workers on the side of the canal threw lines that had a monkey’s fist (a knot that gives a line weight, so it can be thrown) at our boat, we caught them (after a try or two), attached them to our lines, which we held on to, and the worker pulled the line back to the side of the canal. Once they had our lines, they could walk with it alongside the lock until we were at the point where it was attached to the top of the lock. We worked in teams of two to pull in slack as we went up so that the boat farthest from us wouldn’t slam into the opposite wall.
Lucy and I were on the stern, and we had to continually pull the line in and secure it so that we’d stay relatively in the middle of the lock (i.e. not smashing into anything). In the locks, we were fighting the wind as we went up, which made pulling in really difficult. As we went on, we gained more experience and the locks got progressively easier.
The locks were successfully crossed after about two hours, and we had a scenic view of the ocean all the way at the bottom of the ocean. It was really cool seeing the drop off, knowing that we were just down there. I don’t think I’ll ever fully grasp engineering or physics, but I’m really grateful that it works so well.
We spent the night in the man-made Gatun Lake, on a floating plastic mooring thingy that clanked against us all night. Since I had the berth this week, I got a front-row seat to hearing the noise. Sufficient to say, I’m definitely looking forward to sleeping in the Pacific. Willie got to sleep inside last night, not for the noise but rather crocodiles. The lake is a common place for them, and while Willie is fierce, I’m sure he slept better inside.
That was our first day in the canal. Stay tuned for the (very exciting) part two soon!
Hi everyone! This is Lucy. I haven’t posted a blog in like forever, sorry about that! I wrote this about 2 weeks ago, but never posted it. We are near Colon now, getting ready to head through the canal on Friday!
Yesterday was a crazy and fun day! We biked from 9:30 until 5 pm. We biked through the streets, walked (us and the bikes) through beaches, saw a sloth and monkeys, biked through the jungle on a possibly bike path, went to the natural Piscina (pool), got down poured on, had a few reealllllly muddy falls, and so much more.
It was a nice morning in Bocas del toro, Panama, the sun was shining, the fruit stores were thriving, everyone said, “Hola!”, and it was going to be a perfect day for a bike ride. We got to the bike store with our good friends from Lasgair, and chose our bikes. While trying out the bikes, two of the bikes pedals fell off. Don’t worry, we got new bikes. ; ) The rest of the bikes were great! All of the bikes had back pedal breaks, and (probally the bigger reason) we haven’t biked for a bit over a year, so we needed to practice a bit before we left.
The streets we went through at first were small, but then they got bigger. Soon, there was a lot of traffic! We found out minutes later wen we came to a big construction site. Yikes, I thought as the big construction machines roared through. The construction workers told us to go on the playa (beach). So we ended up walking our bikes through the really soft beach till a park that came back to the road.
Soon the paths had lush jungle on one side and a bunch of palm trees on the other side. It was truly beautiful. I looked back at the rest of us and smiled. There were nine bikes in a line and Poppy, the youngest on Lasgair, was side saddling the back of her dad’s bike. It reminded of the scene from the Sound of music went there were all biking.
all of us biking
The path was level for a bit then it started getting hilly. We biked up this pretty steeped hill. Ah-h-h-h-h-h-h-hhhh I screamed, the bumpy road vibrating my whole bike, as I accelerated to like 100 mph. The hill was going by super quick. Even when I had the breaks all the way on it was still soooooo fast. I got to the bottom of the hill very soon.
“Wasn’t that so-oooo fun!” Sally yelled as she came down. I laughed and agreed. It was actually a lot of fun. It felt like the fastest I’ve gone since the Grenada buses! ;p
Slowly the path became more in the jungle. All of the bikes in front of me skidded to stops.
“What is it?” I asked.
Heidi pointed to the tree right in front of us. I looked up and oh my gosh, like 10 feet up, it was a sloth. It was like the cutest thing. It was just like hanging out. It slowly turned it’s head towards us looked at us then went back to sleep. The sloth kind of looked like a chubakka, ET, and a cute puppy mixed together. After watching it for a bit, we started on our ride again.
the sloth!
After biking more we came to a sandy road. Hopefully this is not too soft, I thought. Seconds later, it was like someone put the breaks on. I tried to start pedaling again, and this time, the bike went on a super sharp turn then turned the other way. I was not expecting that, I thought with a laugh. All ahead of me, I saw everyone walking their bikes and I decided that was better and faster then swerving back and forth. Every once in a while when the sand was not so soft people would go fast and say, “I am coming through on your left!” so they wouldn’t lose their momentum.
We stopped to look at surfers on a beach break. They were very good. The surfers rode the face the whole way. The waves were huge. We watched them for a bit then biked/walked our bikes to the next spot.
A beautiful beach and sandy spot was in front of us, and we were all ready to take a little break. We agreed it was a perfect place to have lunch. We brought fresh bread from the bakery, cheese, oranges, tomatoes, corn chips, and cookies. It was all delicious. We ate, some people swam, and mostly relaxed, so that when we started biking a little more than an hour later, we would be ready.
A perfect place for lunch!
The next part of the trail was crazy! There were pools of mud to go around, huge roots to go over, and multiple rivers to cross.
It was very bumpy!
A strange howling had started up just as Heidi passed a tree. I stopped and looked around, and about 15 feet above us were howler monkeys. They were swinging from tree to tree. I was pretty cool!
“Look! Theres some howler monkeys!” I told the other people behind me.
Howler monkeys!
“Whooooaaaaaa!” Fenton looked up and a just the wrong time. There was a huge thing of mud right there. His bike fell over, and left him in a huge puddle of mud. A whole side of him was covered in mud! It was very funny! He posed for a few pictures then washed off in the ocean.
We continued along with lots of laughing, bumping up and down, sometimes a few feet, and mainly having lots of fun. It started to rain minutes later. Heidi saw the sign for the piscina so Heidi, Fenton, and I stayed in one place while Mom told the others who were a bit ahead. We waited for a few minutes and no one came. The rain was getting louder. A whole group of howler monkey started howling then as well.
“This is a bit creepy.” I said as the tree stopped the rain less and less.
The others finally came back!
We stopped at the piscina then started back. We biked our way back to the rental place with not that much more excitement ; p
La piscina
We came back ten times dirtier, ten times more tired, but, ten times happier! What a day, I thought as we went back to our boat!
In my opinion, we spend too long wishing we could change the past, too long planning the future, and too little time living in the moment. So instead of writing about all of my plans for this new year or all of my favorite moments from last year, I want to share my day with you.
Today, January 2nd, (I doubt this will go up until much later), I woke up to the crackling of the VHF. Some of our boat friends were calling asking if dad wanted to go surfing with them. However, after three continuous days of paddling hard mixed with some boat jobs, he chose to take the morning easy. I got a pretty late start to the day, I was up and moving by 8:30 which is late for boat life. I blame the New Years party and fireworks until three in the morning the day before for the slow start.
Almost all of the food we share on this blog has been special to a certain spot but I’m sure you’re very well acquainted with my breakfast. Cheerios and a banana! Well, off brand cereal from a few countries ago, milk made from powder, and a fresh banana from the fruit market. Pretty great way to start the day.
Lucy and Sally went off to a friends boat to work on a super secret special event that I’m gonna let them tell about so Fenton and I played cards for a bit. We learned this game from other cruiser friends and we’ve been playing every morning ever since. I’d highly suggest the game, Poophead, Poohead, or S***head depending on who you ask. Google it!
After our daily few hands of cards we decided to put our suits on and attempt to set the windsurfer up all by ourselves. Actually, it was the other way around. Try to set up the windsurfer and then swimsuits which was a wet mess of fun. It took quite a bit and some helping hands from dad but eventually we got her up. Fenton hopped up on the windsurfer so I decided to get the paddle board which was held by three long strips of material held together by a large metal clip. I unhooked one of the three and it splashed into the deep blue sea. Actually, the 10 foot brown ocean. Dad and I looked for a good 15 minutes and decided to call it lost. I eventually got the paddle board into the water and splashed around for a bit. We took turns switching from the paddle board to windsurfer until we got tired and the the rain was really starting to pick up, it’s been raining all day long.
It was almost lunch time and we didn’t have anything planned or started so we decided to make some lunch. The idea started with enchiladas. We made the rice and a homemade enchilada sauce, collected the rest of the ingredients and started putting it all together. However, our tortillas from Grenada….? so about 5 countries ago, were a lil stiff. So we made enchilada lasagna! Very tasty.
The rest of the day was full of windsurfing. Back and forth switching and lots of falling and splashing. Lucy made a fantastic dinner later and we concluded the day with watching Mamma Mia!
Living the adventure day by day. 🙂
P.S. As we are slowly easing back into school, my assignment for today was to write up a blog post so, here it is.
After our month of Colombia, we were ready to get the move on. We found two very small weather windows, small breaks in the 40 knot winds and 20 foot seas. Our first short passage took about 6 hours. Not very long but the seas were still quite large leaving us with a salty sail.
We arrived in a small vacation town. This spot was home to amazing winds for windsurfing, kitesurfing, and overall any water sports. We spent the next there too, waiting for the seas to die down again.
When Poseidon calmed his inners we took off again. This passage took a little longer, we had two overnights so Lucy and I took our 10pm-1am shifts.
We finally made it to our destination of the small islands off the coast of Panama, the San Blas. These islands were some of the most beautiful and untouched places I’ve ever seen. Each island housed one family and about a hundred palm trees. The indigenous people made hand carved canoes, and came to visit your boat offerening fresh fruits, seafood, and artwork.
These people and islands are known for their gorgeous works called Molas. The molas are pieces of art that are hand sewn full of color and texture. They can take from two days up to half a year. They are all so unique and different, it makes it hard to choose!
We only spent two days in these islands, due to weather. However, we do want to head back before we, *drum roll please* CROSS THE PANAMA CANAL!!! We are heading to the Pacific ocean on the 25 of January and we couldn’t be more excited. Stay tuned to hear our adventures!
As we near the end of 2018, we have been thinking about all of our old friends whom we miss and love hearing from, the new friends we’ve made, all the new cultures we’ve experienced, and all the great places we’ve explored since the beginning of the year. We feel so lucky to be adventuring and learning all together as a family in our 36 x 22 feet of living space aboard our home S/V Love & Luck. Boat repairs and homeschooling have become normal life, with far fewer daily bumps. Wandering down interesting looking streets, buying bags of juice or ice cream or good smelling street food, finding a good museum or grocery store or market, and watching and talking to people dancing, creating a craft, or just hanging out in the streets in a new place fill our days. We love being on and under the water watching the fish, dolphins, waves, and stars and finding whatever excitement awaits us in the next port. We hope you too take the opportunity to follow your dreams and that, like us, they turn out even better than expected!
Our 2018 Country Highlights…
Bahamas—snorkeling galore, church in Staniel Cay, fun in George Town, Mark learning how to use the pole spear (and scaring, but not catching, a lot of fish)
Bahama’s Land and sea parkHiking outside of George Town
Dominican Republic—Fresh fruit, veggies, great food (especially the fried chicken), horseback riding, waterfall jumping, boat repairs, Easter at the beach
Waterfall Jumping in the Dominican Republic
Puerto Rico—Lucy’s birthday, Boy Scout National Jamboree, learning to windsurf (thanks Gert and Toni)
Windsurfing with Gert and Toni
USVI—Oma and Opa visit during some bumpy seas, swimming with the turtles in St. John
St. John, USVI
BVI—Soggy Dollar Bar, the Baths, the Caves, hearing Foxy sing his Irma songs
Saba—The road that couldn’t be built, the road that shouldn’t be built, the wet and wild dinghy ride into shore, the Mt. Scenery hike
The view 1/2 way up Mt. Scenery
Statia—the Quill hike, Chinese food, crazy dogs
Sally getting ready for the Mt. Quill hike
Guadeloupe—French baguettes and swimming lessons all day every day
Dominica—Heidi’s birthday, Sea Cat and the Boiling Lake Hike, volunteering at school
The Boiling Lake (a lake that litterally boils because of the geothermal energy (i.e. volcano) below it – very cool)
Martinique—Sally’s birthday, Mt. Pelee hike, volcano museum, more great French food
Grenada—all our family visiting, Fenton joining our crew, volunteering at Learn to Swim week, teaching weekly swim lessons, trivia night, volunteering at the Grenada SPCA, SCUBA certification, scout camp, the girls swimming with the Sailfish swim team for a Championship meet, Carriacou hiking and snorkeling and lion fish hunting and baby turtle saving
Swim Lessons
Sally, Heidi, Lucy, and Coach Mandy with the trophy
J’Ouvert
Beach Silliness
Bonaire—caught huge tuna enroute, SCUBA diving and new dive gear, cultural event in Rincon, flamingos, hiking through the National Park, windsurfing, cute tourist shopping and little cafes
Curacao—a long bus ride to the cute little Holland like village center, Venezuelan floating market, the crazy maze of customs and immigration (hours to get checked in and out)
Aruba—mall city, poolside afternoon with friends
Colombia—our first country to visit in South America, everyone sick with a stomach bug, great visit to Minca (backpacker central), Thanksgiving, Tayrona National Park jungle hiking and hostel camping, tubing, Cartegena Lighting of the Candles festival, Getsemani murals, walled city tour, San Felipe Castle Fortress and amazing street food
Panama—San Blas Islands: beautiful molas, fresh lobster, crabs and octopus; Portobelo for Christmas: attended the Church of the Black Christ, light parade, fireworks and fun
2018 Crew Highlights
Mark—our sailing expert, windsurfing teacher, physics professor, SCUBA enthusiast, fisherman extraordinaire, Mr. Fixit, and strategic analyst (new remote consulting career)
The pier in Grand Anse, Grenada
Julie—teacher, researcher, cook, cleaner, SCUBA certified, still learning the best places to stow things and constantly getting rid of our collection of unnecessary items still on the boat…
Fenton (17) —gap year adventurer, our technology expert (including cameras, computers, movie downloads, GoPros, cell phones, blog), fishing good luck charm, SCUBA enthusiast, windsurfer, lion fish hunter, comic relief, and expert sunscreen applier and bug spray applier
Heidi (15) —10th grader, media expert, representative Spanish speaker for all of our boat needs (thank you), only Grenada female 13-14 swimmer for the ‘big’ meet, photographer extraordinaire, stargazer, instagram addict (@heidizvannini), SCUBA girl
Lucy (13) —8th grader, chef of the sea, likes swimming off the boat, cleanest crew member who loves real showers, constantly embarrassed by the rest of us (OMG!), windsurfer, most interested sailor, most time spent on watch for all shifts, and SCUBA certified (who still prefers snorkeling though)
Sally (11) —6th grader, social butterfly who spends the most time of our crew on other kid boats, surfer girl, windsurfer, fish identifier, fish dissector/biologist, SCUBA girl, future vet who is missed by the puppies at the GSPCA, always has her head in a book
Bonaire
Willie (almost 4)—loves jumping in the water from the boat, going kayaking, playing monkey in the middle (in the water of course), hiking in new countries, sniffing lots of new smells, fearlessly guards our boat from anyone who ventures too close, merdog (aka sea turtle) spotter
Willie and Julie holding hands on a ruff passage
Future Plans
Our crew is not ready to give up this lifestyle quite yet – so we’ve decided to extend this adventure a little longer. We are going to keep heading west through the Panama Canal, planning on going through late January. Once we reach the Pacific, we are undecided as to which way we’ll go. We may head to New Zealand (an amazing, but long sail), we might head west to Hawaii and then back northeast to the Pacific northwest, or maybe, we’ll head north along the Pacific coast to Mexico and California… In the meantime, mom and dad are working online here and there to assure that the adventure can continue as long as its fun. We will be in Panama for Christmas, New Year, and most of January and February.
Happy Holidays from the Crew! We look forward to hearing from you!
Mark, Julie, Heidi, Lucy, Sally, Fenton and Willie
We’ve made some pretty good friends on this trip. We’ve been to numerous dinners, pot-lucks, sundowners, and family get-togethers. Recently, we went on our first ever overnight with a good boat friend family. We left the day after I got sick, so my stomach wasn’t 100% quite yet. We loaded into 2 taxis and the 10 of us made our way to Minca, a small town that is known to house many backpackers. The cab ride took approximately 45 minutes through some scary turns, hundreds of motorcycles, and near collisions. The scenery was gorgeous as usual and everything was green and growing.
After we got off at the “iglesia blanca” or white church, we waited for the man to show us to the house we were renting. He arrived and we were off. The walk was about 10 minutes but with all of our bags and not knowing where we were going it felt much longer.
The house was super comfortable, it had three bedrooms, a few nice couches, a full kitchen, and two adorable kitties that lived there. Willie, surprisingly, did very well with the cats and didn’t bother them at all. We set our stuff down into the rooms and right away hit the road. The wife of the man who led us to the house showed us a nice short cut that took us to town much faster. It included crossing a river that could get super strong after rain so she warned us not to take that path on the way back…if only we had listened. Haha just kidding, we took the road.
We scouted out a nice place for a super late breakfast/early lunch. This nice place included of what might be similar to a gas station but without the gas. Everyone who thought they could keep the food in them (aka everyone but me) found some good fried food. All fueled up, we started hiking/walking on a paved road, towards a waterfall spot that was supposedly an enjoyable spot about 45 minutes off the road. We kept walking and walking, passing many cute hostels and small restaurants.
At one point, my stomach decided that it was time to stop and I was quite close to stopping at a hostel and waiting for our group to come back. But! Mom had Advil in her First Aid kit and all was good, that stuff does wonders.
We finally made it to the spot. Lots of doggos spotted the scene, Willie again did great with them. I decided to take it easy and rest while everyone went swimming. Swimming is a stretch. It was apparently quite chilly and lots of ‘it’s cold it’s cold’ dancing was fun to watch. We stayed here for a bit which was very fun, I made friends with a puppy and attempted having a conversation with a lady who’s Spanish is probably better than English.
We wrapped up and headed towards home. We decided to stop at a smoothie/juice spot on the way back. I was brave enough to try one and after three days of not eating anything, it was the best thing ever. I had a passion fruit, ginger, and mango juice. The lil restaurant was super super cute and very photogenic with an amazing view.
The rest of our journey was not very eventful. Until the rain kicked in. It came down pretty hard and really fast. Thankfully, we made it home not too too long after the downpour and we had dry clothes waiting for us at home. Our group spent some down time drying off and preparing our next move.
Later, we headed out to find some dinner. We first stopped at a restaurant called The Lazy Cat for some drinks. Again, feeling confident I ordered a drink–and kept it down. Phew!
Once we were done there, we headed to a different restaurant for food. My dinner wasn’t super exciting, I played with a cat that liked to hang out under my chair. From what I heard, it looked like, and smelled, it was really good.
We went home, and went to bed. The next morning, Mom, Dad, Fenton, and the dad from the other boat, got up way early to go birdwatching. They saw a toucan!
The next day was pretty similar, we got up went back to The Lazy Cat for a breakfast smoothie, and started hiking to another waterfall. This one was a bit more like hiking, muddy trails, and at some points, pretty steep. Again, I wasn’t feeling up to swim so I watched a lot of tourists plus our group splash and play. What I really enjoyed about this spot, was the hammock that they had. It was a huge hammock that went out over the cliff. Nice and relaxing, right?
We made our way back down the hill and into town. We stopped for lunch at a Greek spot and still not feeling comfortable with putting solids in my body, watched everyone eat. Soon after, the dads ran back to the house to grab our stuff, check out of the house, and then head to the bus to head home.
We made it back to Santa Marta and rested until bedtime. Super awesome, quick trip with some good friends.
Till next time,
Heidi
P.S. My stomach felt much better two days after and I was eating like normal–thank goodness.
On a Monday morning we were all eating breakfast and thinking about leaving on Tuesday, the next day, but we were indecisive. The weather wasn’t looking good: ten ft seas with up to forty knots of wind 🙁 Dad finally put on the breaks and said we were NOT going. So now we’re here for another week—not so bad. The next day we did school and then went to the pool. It was very fun and all of us went down the slide at least twice! Me and Heidi, Lucy, Fenton, and I went down together. Fenton says it was very nutty! We all had a blast!
That night we had a discussion on what we were going to do. The options were:
Stay home and explore town more
Go on the Lost City Trek
Go to Minca again
Go to Cartagena
So we voted and Minca got out, the Lost City trek got out and that left going to Cartagena or staying home in Santa Marta. We didn’t know who would take care of Willie. That was our main downside!
The next morning we went to a talk about the tours offered from Santa Marta. Mom asked Saskia, a boat friend on Pinut, if she would be willing to watch Willie for us. Of course she could sleep on our boat and make herself at home. She said yes, so it was arranged. That night we packed and got ready, it was a 4-6 hour bus ride so we brought entertainment (my kindle and an iPod). We went to bed excited for the big day.
We woke up and got dressed and left. I drank a little coffee while we waited for the bus! The bus arrived and we got in. We had heard that it takes a pit stop every 2 hours so we relaxed and enjoyed the view. The next two hours went pretty slowly. I decided to read my book. We stopped at the bathrooms in about half an hour. Nobody really needed to go so we stayed on the bus, we were with a lot of other people so we still had to stop. The bus got going again and we started to listen to music again.
I finished one book just as we got to another stop. This stop had a lot of snacks so we got off to take a look. They had mango drinks and a lot of chips! They also had the cutest tiny kitten—adorable! A women handed him or her to me and the little cat just purred! It was so cute! We ended up getting two cups of mangos, an orange soda, and some plantain chips. I drank the orange soda, Heidi and Fenton shared the mango cup, and so did mom and dad with a different one! We saved the plantain chips for a little bit later. I started to read another book. We had been in the bus for three hours! I started to really need to go to the bathroom. Luckily we stopped at a bathroom. We opened our plantain chips which were very yummy. I read for the last hour or so and we finally arrived.
We got off the bus and walked to our rental house that we had reserved the night before. Unfortunately, there was construction on the building next to it, and the owners said the apartment was not functioning right. So, we took a cab to Getsemani and found an apartment there. We ate lunch and headed towards our apartment. It was so nice—very modern, white, and with three rooms and a hammock.
We went out to dinner at a place called Demente where we danced on the roof! Lucy and I shared an artichoke pizza. It was very good! Fenton ate a pepperoni and pepper pizza, Heidi ordered spinach and gorgonzola, mom and dad got that too. The pizzas were all personal pizzas—so we tried lots of different kinds. Mom and dad also ordered a couple appetizers: crab dumplings and grilled octopus which we all shared. Very yummy!
After dinner we headed home. We saw fireworks from our balcony and the streets turned on their Christmas lights. There were swirls and bells in the light design. We filmed part of our Youtube video and then had a mini dance party 😉 ! Soon it was time for bed. I read for a little while and then Heidi came to come to sleep with me. Fenton got to sleep in the hammock!
We woke up pretty early and went to a breakfast restaurant. We ordered eggs with arepa and toast. It was very yummy. They also served it with hot chocolate! We went into town after breakfast and took a free walking tour. We spent a while looking for the man with the yellow umbrella!
Once we found Edgar, the walking tour guide, he told us to go sit down with the rest of the people on the English speaking tour. It was a little hard to understand him because he had an accent. The tour was great! He explained all about the history of Colombia. After the tour finished, we went to the chocolate museum. It was so cool— they had an upstairs little free museum and then you could go downstairs for free samples. They were so yummy! They also had this really yummy corn drink with lots of spices and milk (kind of like a chai latte)! We got some mango in a cup and went into the park to eat it! We stopped by the emerald museum. It was really cool and there were rows and rows of emerald jewelry for sale for about 1,000 USDs! It was crazy expensive!
We went back to our apartment and we had a lunch of leftovers and chips! The chips were delish! Dad fell asleep right away and I read my book in the hammock. We relaxed for a while until it was time for dinner. The day before, we had seen a stand with yummy looking burgers, so we decided to try them for dinner. We ordered two burgers which had a potato chips, ham, and about ten different sauces although it looked gross everyone said it was delicious, and I got a fried potato and beef ball with passion fruit juice! It was so delicious, we sat down to eat the burgers while Fenton, Heidi, and I got ice-cream pops! I got a Ferro Roche pop it was so yummy and good! Lucy got some passion fruit pineapple juice.
We walked to where there were supposed to be some lights. We didn’t see any lights but there was some really cool dancers. Just as the dancers got really fast and loud there was a lot of fireworks! They were so pretty and surprising! Then, all of a sudden the lights turned on there was so many of them! We walked a while until we got to where the mayor was speaking I got some cotton candy. We went into the Walled City and ordered some Ceviche with octopus and fish in it. Amazingly delicious!
When we finished, we started to head home. We saw more fireworks as we were walking home! Once we got to our apartment, we watched the lights and fireworks from our balcony. We got ready for bed and hit the sack.
The next morning we went out to explore Getsamani, the town we were in. There were really cool murals and more great street food for breakfast. We needed to go back to the apartment to check out and then head to fortress/castle. We walked a little over a mile to a massive fortress. We waited in line to get tickets to explore the old fortress! Thankfully, there were a lot of tunnels to go in to escape the blazing sun! In the tunnels, you could jump out and scare people because it was pitch black in some parts. We had lots of fun doing that.
Some people had said that the documentary was very interesting so we went to find it. The documentary was in Spanish so a lady that worked at the fortress put sub titles on for us! When the film finished, we had to get a cab back to the bus station. We squished into a cab and we were off!
We got in the bus and got ready for the next five hours…Luckily, it only took 4 hours to make it home!
