Author

Travis

All About the Port in Porto

written by Travis

From San Sebastián, Spain we headed west to Porto, Portugal via an overnight train. This was our first experience with a night train so it was a mix of excitement and apprehension. The upside of night trains is you can hammer out a long travel leg while saving a night’s lodging. But the downfall is how much you have to be on guard about theft as professional thieves make a killing on them. Katie and I were put in adjacent male and female four-person carriages. This is another crappy part as you have to split up from your buddy and spend the night (7pm-5am) with a bunch of strangers who don’t speak your language and in both our cases, smelled horribly. While both of us didn’t sleep well (Katie was next to Smelly Melly and I was on valuables watch) we made it out without anything stolen. This might also be because I hid our valuables on a top shelf next to my bed and boobytrapped it with noise things and water. So if anyone tried to get in, there would have been a loud racket and water spilling on them (suckers!). And I know what you are thinking. I’m way too worried, but for me this was kind of fun as I felt like I let out my inner Goonies self with my homemade traps.

We arrived into Porto around 7am and headed to our hostel. This was our first dorm bed/non-private room experience. We never go this route not because we can’t rough it (see Amazon post) but instead because frankly, we are married and too old for that shit. BUT in this case the hostel, Yes! Porto, had the best reviews we’ve seen to date (4000+ averaging more than 9 out of 10). Most comments talked about how this was the best hostel they have ever stayed in. Cue us figuring we had to give it a whirl and we can happily say the reviews were accurate. The staff was exceptionally nice and helpful. The facility was new and spotless, they offered killer dinners ($10 for three course meals and all you can drink) and they had free walking tours. We also met some great other travelers who we spent time with during our days there. Winning on all fronts. I highly recommend staying there if you get a chance.

While in Porto we had to do a port wine tour. Luckily for us it was only $20 and packed full of good times with new friends. We visited three different wineries, sampled seven different port wines, learned about the history of the region and the wine and finished on a rooftop deck overlooking the river and the city seven or so hours later. We even managed to find some churros along the way (clearly i was happy with this):

The city itself is definitely worth visiting if you ever get the chance. There is a ton of history, it’s stunningly beautiful with a plethora of churches and old buildings and the wine scene is great. We will happily go back sometime down the road.

Train cabin in our overnight train

Made it to Porto bright and early!

São Bento Train Station

Our sweet hostel beds

Fancy electronic wrist bands to get around the hostel and unlock our lockers

Out and about on our walking tour

Remains of the castle wall

Porto views

Chillin

Views from the river where Port wine was shipped along

City views

Cute streets

Port boats

Great day seeing the sites

One of the MANY churches

The classic Port boats

A local artist who painted his grandpa

Convent doors

Where the castle wall met the city

City views

Rush hour

Streets of Porto

Barrel room

Ramos Pinto Winery

Trav trying to age himself in a large Porto barrel

Wine tour!

Great group of new friends

Port’ing it up

Me playing clean up hitter on everyone’s left over Ports

Classy!

I swear they told us to look for something…

Pics are way more important than paying attention

Sunset on the wine tour

Happy Hour post wine tour

Wine tour

Winery sign which is also a poster in Monica and Rachel’s apt in Friends.

Final sunset

“I need a Churro”-Trav, “Why”-Katie, “Ports are dessert wines..duh.”-Trav

November 25, 2016 0 comment

Spain

Celebrating in San Sebastián

written by Travis

Many people (especially foodies) have heard of San Sebastián but for those of you who haven’t, it is a beautiful city on the Northern coast of Spain famous for its food, wine and beaches. Obviously we love to eat, so this stop was a no brainer. The best part was that without realizing it, we booked our stay in the middle of their “Great Week” aka a week celebrating all things the city has to offer. Also, the city was awarded Europe’s “Capital of Culture” for 2016 (think city with the most amazing culture). So they threw out all the stops to ensure one hell of a spectacle.

Our couple of days included:

Fireworks every night
Free live music on multiple stages day and night (bands, singers, opera, symphonies, etc.)
Beer gardens (one with a pirate theme)
All types of marching bands constantly playing in the streets
Street performances
Food trucks (unfortunately most were crappy wannabe American food knock-offs including an Alaska Salmon one LOL)

There weren’t too many lodging choices so we ended up at the Aussie Pension (“pension” is just another way of saying private room hostel). The place was fine but minimal with the room consisting of just two twin beds and a shared bathroom down the hall. The true benefit was the location as it was in the heart of the old town above a busy restaurant and bar area.

Funny thing about the bar/restaurant scene is it made us look geriatric when it came to our routine. You see, Katie and I like to get up early then go to bed around 10pm. The hard thing about San Sebastián is that you can’t really find a breakfast or coffee place open before 9/10am, the city doesn’t feel alive until 11am/noon and then the bars stay open until 7am. So in other words, we might has well been watching Golden Girls compared to everyone else. I first learned this when I got up at 7:30am to go for a run and walked out of the door to be greeted by a couple dozen bar goers who were still working on their last drinks. Cue awkward stare down as they looked at me like I was an ex-girlfriend showing up to the party uninvited! And I looked at them like they were the modern Breakfast Club. As I continued my run through the streets I passed another couple hundred people all looking at me like I was offending them with my effort. It did make for great people watching though as I managed to see post bar courting, dry humping on public beaches and the always impressive guys with their head between their knees walking the fine line of not puking and trying to sleep.

The other shocking part about my early morning is what a disaster the city is! By day the city is immaculate; the type of place you take pictures of every corner. But what I saw at 7:30am before the cleaners did their thing was unlike any I have witnessed before. For background, I was in a fraternity and have seen the aftermath of hundreds of college parties. I thought I had seen it all, but the streets of San Sebastián in the morning might have topped the list. The air was a solid blend of piss and beer and the streets had a healthy layer of cans, plates, cups, bottles and shattered glass just about everywhere. You could literally feel the burn in your noise from the stale, musty air. But then magic happens every morning. Enter the street cleaners aka the brave and skilled souls who in two hours each morning turn that hellhole into a postcard. Here’s a breakdown of their playbook. First, they go down all streets and knock cans, glasses and bottles from the windows and ledges to the ground (cue shattered glass and clanking cans ALL morning). Then they grab big stuff and throw it in recycle bins. Afterwards, they bring through the street zambonis to suck up all the trash and debris. Once all the crap is gone they bring through sprayers to house down, disinfect and clean the stone streets. I even witnessed a worker painting the side of a building to cover up graffiti from the night prior. Two hours later, it was perfect. Seriously, it’s an art.

Okay, back to the city. Coming off of a month stretch of beaches, we didn’t spend much time on the sand but instead would wander around taking in the sights of Great Week and eating as much as we could. The main food to eat in San Sebastián is pintxos. Think finger food typically served on giant platters sitting on the bar tops in restaurants. You go into the bar/restaurant and find a couple dozen options laying in front of you and you just grab the ones you wanted. The better places would take anything you chose then heat it up before you ate it to ensure a better taste and that it won’t get you sick since many contained seafood, meats or cheeses. Most pintxos ran around $2.50-$3.50 each. The trap of pintxos though is that people often try to find cheaper ones ($1-$2 each) but they are not heated before eating so you never know how long it has been sitting out on the counter. Some are freshly made but some could have been sitting out for multiple hours. Food safety concerns aside, if you find good ones they bring an explosion of deliciousness to your taste buds. Our favorite spot was Bar Zeruko – it had a great selection. In addition to pintxos you can also find a large assortment of seafood and my favorite, paella, at local restaurants. So you really can’t go wrong with whatever you choose!

To help offset all the eating, we also rented bikes and cruised around the city. San Sebastián is probably the most bikeable city we have seen. There are wide bike lanes on almost all main roads here which made cruising around a breeze and helped us to work off all the pinxtos we devoured. Also, it’s a cheap activity as renting a bike only cost $10-$15.

If you are ever in Spain, this is a must-see city for the food and wine alone but as you can see by the pics below, the beaches, views and city are almost as impressive. Just a few pieces of advice. 1) Sleep in and stay out late. Don’t fight it like us. 2) Make sure you heat your pintxos. 3) If you drink Spanish cider be sure you realize it is SOUR cider and not sweet so try not to throw up. You’re welcome 🙂

Bridge by night

Bridge by day

One of their churches in the main square

Beach views

Beach time

Streets post cleaning

Riverwalk

Typical view of downtown streets covered in tourists

Date night!

Hot date

Two buddies on bikes

Eating all the Paella I can

Music in the park

Marching bands all over the place

This guy was awesome

Pintxos setup

Pintxos

Their creepy traditional dolls

November 24, 2016 0 comment

Croatia

Cruising up the Coast of Croatia

written by Travis

From Montenegro we headed noth to Croatia for our next adventure. I’ve wanted to go to Croatia for years so Katie put me in charge of planning our route, lodging, travel, etc. She has taken on the majority of our travel logistics from the beginning (weird) so this gave her a nice needed break plus gave me a chance to flex my chops at the helm. Obviously this meant it was going to be the best.trip.ever or a complete disaster.

Kicking off in Dubrovnik

Dubrovnik was our first stop and only an hour and a half drive along the Adriatic coast from where we stayed in Montenegro. The city is famous for its old town which sits within a giant castle wall. The city itself has been a destination for traders, merchants and travelers for centuries, but tourism has exploded in recent years with it being featured prominently in the hit TV show, Game of Thrones. The main city in the show, King’s Landing, has many different sets throughout Dubrovnik so watchers can now explore the real city and see all the GOT sights.

The other interesting thing about the city is the traces of the 1992 war where the city was bombed by Serbia and Montenegro military forces following the break up of Yugoslavia. One in three buildings were damaged in the attacks and many historical sites were destroyed and forced to be rebuilt. You can still see shelling marks on numerous buildings.

The city is absolutely stunning and gives you the feeling that you have stepped back in time. The medieval architecture, stone streets smoothed by generations of foot traffic, ancient churches, quaint shops and everything enclosed within the massive castle walls. We stayed in an AirBnB within the walls about 50 meters away from the famous Buza bar. Side note, the bar is pretty awesome. You have to walk through a small hole in the castle wall which takes you all the way through the wall then you will find the bar on the outside of the castle. It has great views of the water and you can have a drink while watching people dive off the cliffs. It’s a must if you are in Dubrovnik.

The only downfall to Dubrovnik was the walled city has become a massive tourist trap. Almost all streets are maximized for restaurant space so there are tables and chairs for dinning down almost every path. Combine this with the 10,000+ tourists who visit daily in August and you just have a giant state fair. It’s understandable though as the city really is worth seeing but makes it tough to get pictures and move around easily. To avoid this and the scorching heat (95 degrees when we were there), Katie and I approached our days a bit different. We would wake up really early and go explore, take pictures and get breakfast. Then we would go back to our place and do trip planning from late morning to late afternoon. Once it started to cool back down, we would head back out to explore more and grab dinner. While this wasn’t ideal it helped us avoid crowds and get awesome pictures. Best time to take them was around 6:30am which is after garbage pickup but before the tourists. It gave you empty streets (pictures below).

While in the city we also hiked up Mt. Srd. This is the hillside overlooking Dubrovnik which you can access either by an hour hike or a 4-minute cable car. While this might seem like a no brainer to use the cable car we chose to do the hike because it gave us a workout, saved $25 and got us up there before the tourists could ride the first cable car up at 9am since we started at 7am. Worked out well and was a great hike!

Last but not least we were able to meet up with friends, Lauren and Nick, from Seattle for a nice dinner. It was great seeing them and catching up as they too are on a massive world trip and had great advice for places we are headed.

Hanging out in Hvar

We took the ferry (www.krilo.hr) from Dubrovnik to Hvar. The ride was beautiful and only took about four hours. The island of Hvar is stunning and really a cool place to spend a few days. You can find people working on their tans on just about any surface they can find as there are no real sand beaches here. There usually is just smoothed rocks to lay on between the manicured stone paths and the stunning blue sea. Lots of lodging options can be found and we just went with a nice AirBnb right inside the main city (about 5-minute walk from the ferry drop off). All in all, not a lot to do here other than eat, drink and sunbathe so I will let the pictures below do the talking here.

Strolling through Split

Our final destination in Croatia was the coastal city of Split, just about an hour ferry ride from Hvar. We spent four nights here in a great Airbnb studio. By now we needed a break from the sunbathing life (I know, we are jerks) so it was good to be in a city with more things to see and do vs. just lay around. While the weather didn’t cooperate on two of the days, the other two we spent walking around the beautiful city streets, trying local dishes at restaurants like Fife and taking a long hike through the Śuma Marjan park. We tried to book a trip up to the Krka national park to see the waterfalls but between the late planning and weather, it stopped us from making it up there. I think this is why Katie is the better planner. I have a feeling that if she was in charge we would have ended up going there. So final conclusion as you all expected from the start: Katie was and still is the team captain and MVP.

Dubrovnik from on top of Mt. Srd

The picture everyone has to take while here

Main enterance into the old city

City enterance

Fountain as you come into the city walls

The main street in the city before everyone wakes up

The marina just outside the city

Katie being “fancy”

Exploring old town

More old town

Quaint city streets

Most store signs are lamps

Beautiful churches

Early morning city streets

Always great churches

City streets continued

Walk up to our AirBnB…ugh

Enterance to our AirBnb

Enterance to the famous Buza bar

Even the windows looked cool

Just another day at the office

Dinner with friend Lauren and Nick

Beautiful wife = happy life

Hvar

Sunset in Hvar

Early morning streets in Hvar

Hvar baller hotel

Hvar nightlife

More Hvar nightlife

No bad views here from wherever you decide to lay out

It’s like an all day postcard

Office view

How people get their tan on in Hvar

They put chairs anywhere they can in Hvar

Split is famous for its lavendar

Split

Split marina

Split Marina continued

Inner city views

Ice cream is like water here

We love croatia

This statue seemed so random and out of place

Split main tourist area

Split

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October 12, 2016 0 comment

Montenegro

Meeting up with Friends in Montenegro

written by Travis

For all of you reading this and thinking you too don’t know anything about Montenegro, is let me give you a little background. Montenegro was previously part of Yugoslavia until 2006 when it declared independence and has been a sovereign state ever since. It is located on the coast of the Adriatic Sea and borders the countries of Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Albania.

My obsession with Montenegro began eight years ago in Vietnam. This is where I met my bright eyed, wild and fun Serbian friend, Natasa, for the first time. She had made the spur of the moment choice while in Australia to travel through SE Asia with my other good friend Michelle after the two of them spent just a few short days together in a hostel. Then my last minute decision to fly to ‘nam to join in put us all on a six week crash course on getting to know each other. By the end of it, I had made a lifelong friend in Nat. After her world trip wrapped up she invited me to England, the next summer, to visit her and her sister as well as to their family’s vacation home in Montenegro. At the time I had no idea Montenegro was even a country let alone a place I should visit, but I obviously was on board for the adventure. Little did I know the small coastal country would soon forever hold a special place in my heart. I spent an entire week there with Natasa, her amazing sister Marina, their spicy (in the best way) cousin Ivana and my good friend Kate Gallacher from college. We beach hopped, clubbed, ate everything in sight and pretty much lived the dream for seven days.

Fast forward to present day when Natasa told us that her, Marina and her cousins would be on holiday once again in Montenegro around the time we’d be in close proximity on our trip. She invited Katie and I to spend a week with them and we obviously accepted. I was secretly a bit nervous to visit again as the first trip created such a high bar for the country. I figured a trip this many years later and with so many more countries under my belt, the same magic wouldn’t be there. Thank god I was dead wrong as the country, albeit different, is still just as amazing as when I last left it.

Ivana and Nat picked us up from the Dubrovnik airport in Croatia and drove us back across the border to the small town of Tivat where their family’s home is located. We flew into Dubrovnik due to the cost and without traffic it is only about an hour drive along the beautiful coastline. Huge bear hugs resulted after seeing them both for the first time in almost a decade and Katie getting to finally meet them for the first time. It’s crazy to think its been that long especially when we have kept in close touch for all these years. After the hug-fest was over we played speed catch up on our lives over our drive and then arrived back at their condo where we caught up with Marina and their cousin Filip, who I last saw when he was 11 years old (now 18).

Over the next couple of days, I reacquainted myself with the city and the beaches and was shocked to see they built a new 400 million dollar port just a couple of minutes walk from their place. As a whole Montenegro has changed a lot as the smaller, local pocket beaches are now much more touristy and busy but still just as beautiful. When I was there last I was pretty much the only blond haired, blue eyed person on the beach but now the area is full of tourists from all over the world. Many arrive on cruise ships coming in to port in Tivat and Kotor.

Some of the highlights of our time in Monte:

Frequenting Almara Beach Club (about a 30-minute drive from Tivat). They had the best beach chairs, music, people watching and water to plunge into.
Hitting up a couple of other beach spots to soak in the sun. In Monte it is very normal to be at the beach for 7-10 hours a day and many places take reservations for beach chairs so you can stroll in around 11am then hang out until 8pm when the sun goes down.
Making friends with an awesome French guy, Sebastian, and his mother and stepfather. They were so wonderful to spend time with and really helped make the week even better.
Being invited by Sebastian’s stepfather to have a night of food and drinks on the 105 foot, 15+ million dollar yacht he captains. Yes, I said 15+ million dollar yacht. Buuuuucket list. Most of the night consisted of Katie saying under her breath “Play it cool Trav. Play.It.Cool.” (As I spilled olive tapenade on my shirt a time or two).
Getting to play with a Seabob (underwater jet ski thingy you hold onto and it pulls you underwater at a crazy speed–up to 60mph). Sebastian brought it out to the Almara Beach Club a couple of times for us to use.
Walking through the walled city of Kotor and climbing to the top of it’s wall for some epic pictures (see below).
Seeing Nicky Romero (famous DJ) play at the Top Hill club for Natasa’s bday blowout. The club is appropriately named because its a huge open air venue sitting on top of a hill with capacity of over 5,000 people. We stayed out until around 4:30am which is about six hours past our usual bedtime #oldpeople
Driving around the Bay of Kotor to see all the amazing views and villages along the way.

Overall, the time in Monte was amazing and felt like a true vacation from our big trip. We could sort of go on auto-pilot and not have to plan anything, not worry about the language (Serbian), or know where we were going, etc. It was so much fun having a group of people to spend time with. While Katie and I are great together, having a group dynamic adds a lot of laughs and random adventures we wouldn’t get with just the two of us. Huge shout out to Marina, Natasa, Ivana and Filip for looking out for us and ensuring we had a killer time. Monte is seriously nothing without them and we are so lucky they are in our lives. Just hope we are able to repay the favor someday.

View of the marina in Tivat

Strolling through the marina

Views from our drive around the bay of Kotor

More bay views

Marina waterfront

Lots of cozy little restaurants like this throughout the marina

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Their coffees come with ice cream here. Winning!

Getting their tan on

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Me and the birthday girl!

New hotels in the marina

Ferry across the bay

bay of Kotor

Surprise birthday brunch for Natasa

Birthday brunch

Cocktails before the club

Nice little spread

Marina and Sebastian

Before the club

One of the best Serbs ever

Seb and the ladies

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Channeling my 12th man at the club

Night out at TopHill

Views around the bay

Climbing to the top of the wall in Kotor

Beautiful views sans the cruise ship

Sunset from the top

Look who I found!

Streets of Kotor

Driving around the Bay of Kotor

Bay of Kotor

Hike above Kotor

Amazingly empty street of Kotor

October 12, 2016 1 comment

Greece

Exploring the Ancient City of Athens

written by Travis

Our first stop in Greece had to be Athens. While it is the easiest to fly into, the city’s rich history spanning more than 3,400 years is something you can’t miss when traveling through Greece and Europe in general. While Athens is pictured in countless action movies and TV shows, many people forget it is one of the world’s oldest cities, widely considered the birthplace of democracy (sorry all of you who thought ‘merica was) and for thousands of years has been a hub for financial, political, industrial and economic power (sans the last few years). All of this gives the city a unique feeling and life to it we wanted to see for ourselves.

We stayed near the city center just a few minutes from the Omonia metro station. This allowed easy access from the airport and put us within walking distance of almost everything we wanted to see and do. We didn’t have a lot of time here (2.5 days) so we decided to make the most of it and cram as much sight seeing in as possible. First and foremost, we went to see the Acropolis i.e. what people usually picture when they think of Athens. Giant stone pillared buildings standing on top of a plateau overlooking the city. While it was a pretty epic sight, thank god we read reviews about how many people from cruise ships get funneled here. So we showed up before the place opened and were let in with the first two hundred or so people. With some quick walking, common sense and ninja-like skills, we managed to be in the first 50 or so to actually reach the top of the plateau where you get all the awesome pictures against the blue sky without all the people in the background. You may be thinking, this is silly and we should have slept in. Ha! Go ahead and try that and be stuck an hour later with a couple thousand honey boo-boos getting herded around like sheep by their cruise team leader moms. I almost want to start a blog like “People of Walmart” but instead call it “People of Cruise Ships.”

So I realize I’m coming across as a hater of people on cruise ships, so let me explain. I definitely don’t have any problem with cruise ships whatsoever. They are actually a pretty awesome concept and way to see places. Plus they are all you can eat which is a huge plus in my book. What I can’t stand is how much they fill up awesome destinations all at once and how a vast majority of people I’ve seen seem to just turn off all thinking and common sense when on an excursion. When people come on land they are literally walked around by people with signs held above their head. Full grown ass adults being treated like 4^th graders who are fully okay with it. To me, I just wonder why they don’t break off, go get pictures and do things away from the masses then meet back up when the boat is about to leave. It’s not like the one guide shuttling around 75 people is actually teaching them much and half the time is spent waiting for the rest of the group to catch up. Rant over and don’t judge me when in 20 years I’m that cruise ship guy.

Sorry, back to the post. After the Acropolis we spent some time in the Acropolis Museum. This is a definite must do in Athens. The place is really well put together, had tons of statues, art, and history to check out and best of all it is translated in English so you actually know what everything is. We were both shocked at how many pieces there were to see.

In addition to the main must-see tourist things, we walked around and checked out a few different city parks/squares and dove into the local Greek cuisine. Two things we learned. One, gyros are a gift from heaven. Two, there is no limit on how many you can have per day. Seriously, they are so damn good AND cost less than $3. This means you can always justify having two each time you order…at least I like to think so. For those of you who haven’t tasted a gyro, let me explain what it is. First, it is pronounced “euro” just like the currency. It is not a “ji-row.” To make, you first get a freshly baked warm pita bread and put a healthy dollop of tzatziki on it. Then you pile on freshly shaved meat (pork, chicken or lamb) and top it with tomatoes, some lettuce or cabbage, onions and French fries. Right before it gets wrapped up some spices are thrown on as well. At that point all you have left to do is devour it and pretend it doesn’t have any calories.

While I would have eaten gyros for every meal, we also ventured out and had one of the best meals of the entire trip. We looked on TripAdvisor and found that the 4^th highest ranked restaurant in the city, Karamanlidika, was not too far from us. With almost 2800 great reviews and an awesome price point ($8-$15 a dish) we had to give it a try. Let’s just say it blew us away. Each dish we had was impeccable. It was so good we actually went back the last night we were there to have more dishes. I highly recommend it to anyone going to Athens. If you do go, make sure you get the baklava for dessert. It was a love child between a cinnamon roll, a pecan pie and traditional plain baklava.

If you plan to make a stop in the city definitely don’t spend more than 2 days. While there is a lot to see, you can check most off in a day or two and still leave time to eat good food in between. So get in, see things and get out.

National Library of Greece

Exploring the city streets

Beautiful buildings like this can be found all over the city

Pictures from the Acropolis

Shattered Beauty. Three Days in Istanbul During a Terrorist Attack

written by Travis

Coming off a wonderful and (fairly) issue-free three months in South America, we were super excited to start the European leg of our worldwide trip in Istanbul, Turkey. While South America was a blast, countries seem to have more familiarities than differences, so we looked forward to the culture shock we love and seek out. For us, the beauty of traveling is the sensory overload. New sights, smells, sounds, tastes, etc. While it sometimes puts you on edge as you’re figuratively walking blind through a foreign place, it also makes you feel alive. It pushes us to learn, grow, adapt and experience. For us, this what it is all about. It’s about how we can better ourselves intellectually and emotionally so we can bring more to our relationship and relationships with others.

So when we arrived in Istanbul (even after 30+ hours of travel) we were on cloud nine. I think Katie might have skipped off the plane. Then our first hiccup. Our bags decided to ditch us and spend the night in Madrid. This was the first time we had a bag not make it to a destination and ironically, it was both of them. Many times we trade some clothes before a flight so if one bag doesn’t make it, we each still have clothes but this time we were both high and dry. Crappy part is the airline we flew, Pegasus, has only one flight a day between Madrid and Istanbul so our bags wouldn’t make it until at least 24 hours (at the earliest). Fast forward, it took them 36 hours to deliver them so we were in the same clothes for 30 hours of travel plus another day and a half i.e. we were the smelly kids for sure.

When we lost the bags we thought it would be the low point in Istanbul, but we were severely mistaken. What we didn’t realize is while we were at the Sabiha Gokcen international airport, Istanbul’s other international airport, Ataturk, was being attacked by three suicide bombers. We first heard of the attack while in the airport shuttle as the driver heard over the radio that a bomb went off at Ataturk but no additional details were given. Over the next couple days we learned it was actually three different explosions (one in arrivals, one in departures and the other in the car park). The devastating attacks resulted in 40 dead and more than 240 wounded.

Now this hit way too close to home for many reasons. First, we have never been so close to a terrorist attack. Second and probably the scariest, we actually tried extremely hard to fly into that airport. Ataturk is a quick 15-minute drive from our hotel whereas where we flew into is almost an hour drive. The only reason we ended up at that airport is the lower price of airfare there. Finally, we had no clue if the attacks were over and this is what the attackers specialize in, fear. Fear is their true weapon, not the actual bombs. 40 might be dead but millions now are paralyzed in fear. Millions more will choose to avoid Turkey which will cause billions of dollars in economic loss. The attack is the spark that lights the real terrorism fire.

Over the next couple of days, we almost felt like we were on house arrest in our hotel/neighborhood. Our hotel was right in the center of the most touristy area as it was walking distance from all the major sites. We could even see them from our rooftop terrace. The problem was, our hotel staff and even local restaurant owners we met told us to avoid the tourist places due to another possible attack. They told us they don’t allow their families to go there anymore and we stand out clearly as foreigners. This was devastating as the city is one of the most beautiful we have ever seen but we had to view it from afar. Part of me wanted to push through and go see places anyways to not let those bastards make me scared to live our lives, but the more logical part of me understood the risk clearly outweighed the benefits. Especially when the streets were all but empty of tourists. While normally there are close to 10,000 walking the streets in our neighborhood we saw less than 25 foreigners in the couple days we were there. Sure, we would have gotten great pictures and experiences but none of them would be worth the possibility of one of us being hurt or god forbid killed in a secondary attack.

Not to waste our time in the city, we did our best to enjoy the couple blocks around our hotel. We had wonderful meals and conversations with locals, enjoyed the world-renowned Turkish hospitality and took time to internalize all that was happening around us. It gave us a better perspective on what so many in the world deal with on a daily basis. In addition, we took a couple of hours to go buy an authentic Turkish rug. It involved looking at countless rugs, deciding on the regional style we liked, figuring out the size, texture, coloring, etc. They provided us with Turkish coffee and local beers too while enjoying the process. Overall, it was a really fun experience and we got a hell of an awesome rug to show for it being shipped back home.

Some people asked if we knew there was a travel advisory for Turkey so I want to touch on that. Yes, we read it. What many people don’t realize is the US government issues travel advisories and safety guidelines for numerous places around the world. We have learned from our travels that for the most part, you have to take them with a serious grain of salt. This is also why we usually read the advisories of other governments like the UK or Australia. US advisories tend to be a bit more dramatic and really paint the rest of the world a lot more harshly when ironically areas in the states are just as bad if not considerably worse than many places abroad. For example, when we traveled to Chilé the safety warning at the time started with words like “kidnapping, rape, violence, and death” and finished by saying that 13 Americans have been killed since 2009. I thought it was a bit ironic as Chicago alone has had 150+ homicides this year but you don’t see warnings up when you go to take a selfie with their iconic “bean”.

So we did our research and while Turkey had some issues most of it focused around attacks between the government and rebels (not tourist focused). Due to this we decided to still go but be cautious and only spend a few days in Istanbul and then the majority of our time in the country city of Cappadocia where there has never been any violence. This would allow us to see the country without taking on too much unnecessary risk. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out as expected. Also by the time of posting this blog there has also been a failed coup and another terrorist attack on a wedding just days ago. We wouldn’t even think of setting foot in Turkey now but obviously hindsight is 20/20 and we are still glad we got to see the country if even just a glimpse. People say travel is always worth “it” but to us “it” still has its limits.

hotel across the street from us

More view from our balcony

Blue Mosque

View from our balcony

More view from the balcony

Local spice shop

Local spice and cnady shop

Local spice and candy shop

Sampler of Turkish desserts from a local shop

Our new rug!

August 22, 2016 1 comment

Colombia

Closing Out South America in Cartagena

written by Travis

After more than three months in South America we finally arrived to our last destination there, the walled city of Cartagena. The absurdly beautiful city sits on the northern Caribbean coast of Colombia and makes you feel like you have stepped back in time. Every corner and street is a photo opp and you can’t seem to get enough of the feeling of walking through the ancient streets. The city was founded in 1533 and served for many years as a hub for the Spanish empire when it still ruled much of South America. The walls of the city and natural rock reef were constructed as the city continually was being plundered by pirates and other nations throughout the 1500s and 1600s for its gold. These walls now add to the allure of the city which bustles within, mostly focusing around tourism.

Our good friend, Sarah, was still with us so the three of us stayed in a great little hotel, Balcones de Alhelí, right in the center of the city within the walls. We spent each day walking around the city by ourselves or with a free walking tour, snapping countless pictures and trying to not pass out from the heat. We learned we could only do about two hours at a time walking around as anything more turned us into worthless sloths so we just would go back to the hotel or a restaurant to get some solid AC before starting again.

In addition to city exploring, we joined in on the festivities surrounding the finals of the COPA America soccer tournament (or fútbol as its referred to everywhere else in the world). It was really fun to be able to root for the U.S. soccer team down here and we were even more fortunate to have the U.S. play Colombia. Now THAT was an experience. Sarah, Katie, two other friends we met down here and myself were in a restaurant packed with Colombians and clearly the only ones routing for ‘merica. We learned quickly that their fans are 1000% more die hard than we ever will be. While we cheer and clap around shots on goal or scores, they cheer, blow horns and go bat shit crazy every time their team touches the ball. It was definitely an experience to see and frankly, Colombia winning probably saved us from getting a ton of shit post game. When we lost, we thought “oh well.” If they lost, we might have been beat up by even the five year olds who were just as die hard as their parents.

In addition to the activities within the city streets, we took a boat tour one day to a nearby island. It was a smooth operation as the company picked us up from our hotel, drove us to the boat launch, shuttled us to the island, provided a great buffet lunch and pool/beach lounge access, then shuttled us back in the same process later in the afternoon (about $40 USD/person). Was nice to get out of the beating heat in the city and just kick back on the sand.

To us, this city was the perfect ending to an unreal South America leg of our trip. We ended our three-month venture south with new memories, perspectives, friends and luckily no issues or food poisoning along the way. On to Europe for the next round!

Who left the gate open!?!?

Colorful streets of Cartagena

Almost every street looked like this

La Cevicheria –best meal of our time there

Door porn

The local theatre

Colors and doors galore

Door knockers representing profession of the male of the household

Another great door knocker

Sarah and Katie at sunset on the city wall

Sarah and I trying not to melt while walking the city wall at noon

So.many.cannons.

My hot wife and I with another sweet door

Obviously we had to see the chocolate museum!

One of our favorite streets

Door porn

City wall and clock tower

Candy row within the city walls. Each mendor had 20-30 diff types of treats

Beach crew on our island day trip

Anthony Bordain recommended this little gem for us

Amazing Peruvian ceviche

Best part of the wall is the sign saying no wifi aka talk to each other

More street views

Owner is 4th richest in Colombia and worth a billion or so. He owns Postobon

The pope visited this church

More beautiful street views

Door knocker representing royalty or government

View from our balcony

Outside area watching the Colombia futbol game

Sarah and Kate were college roomates and randomly ran into each other on the streets here

August 3, 2016 0 comment

Colombia

Catching Rays in Santa Marta

written by Travis

With the South America leg of our trip quickly coming to an end we reached Santa Marta which would be our second to last stop on the continent. Also, our first friend visiting from home, Sarah, would show up half way through our time in the city. Before she arrived we posted up at the Dreamer hostel, one of the top rated hostels in Colombia. It definitely lived up to its accolades as it was beautifully laid out with a giant pool/social area in the middle, had good food and (most important to us) a great and helpful staff which comes in clutch when you don’t speak the language.

With the beating heat of Colombia it was great to get some pool time in. We did laugh though as the hostel, like most, is geared to younger and usually single backpackers. At times it reminded us of Cancun spring break as the pool area was always filled with a dozen or so backpackers who were obviously trying to put out the vibe for each other. Might have actually worked if they all would have taken a break from checking their phones. At one point I counted 15 of the 17 people at or in the pool on their phones not talking to anyone. Who knows though, maybe they were just Tinder’ing each other instead.

The highlight of our days here was a day trip to Minca, a small town up in a coffee region about an hour away. The total day trip cost about $16 per person which included a driver for the day, visiting a series of waterfalls to swim in, a coffee plantation tour, time at a local lunch spot and hitting view points for pictures. A really nice German guy, Timo, joined us on the trip and helped with some rough translations as our guide only spoke Spanish. This came in extra helpful when at one point we got stopped by the military police and our guide started talking fast while making guns with his hands and virtually shooting them into the air. Luckily Timo translated and said the Governor would be in Minca today with heavily armed guards who might not let us into the city, so we could have to turn around. Obviously that all makes sense but when your guide starts shooting imaginary guns in the air while pulled over and talking in fast Spanish, for some odd reason it isn’t the first thing to come to mind.

The coffee plantation – La Victoria – was amazing. The operation is completely organic and sustainable and all the equipment they use is original from 124 years ago. Everything from transporting the beans from location to location, the power to process the beans through the machines, and the town’s electricity are all water and gravity powered. While they aren’t able to do the volume of the major coffee operations, they are able to produce their coffee much cheaper and in an organic and sustainable way. After learning about their operation and the beans, we then got to taste test (clearly the best part). During the taste test I also learned they sold fresh honey from the bees on the planation. Obviously my honey addiction forced me to buy 20oz of that pure delicious gold nectar. And who could resist when it was only $4! For all those wondering out there, yes we almost finished all 20oz of honey before we left the country 10 days later. Don’t judge because this honey bear don’t care.

Once our friend Sarah arrived, we upgraded from our hostel to one of the nicest hotels in the city. The room price was still very cheap compared to US standards ($150 a night split three ways) but the resort was really nice. There was a huge pool to soak in all day which backed up right to the local beach, they had a great free breakfast buffet, and even gave us access to the CrossFit gym next door to get in workouts (and yes we survived the workouts in Spanish in the insane heat).

Overall, the city wasn’t a standout in South America but it was a nice stop along the way. Most people only come here to access Tayrona National Park and while that was our original goal, we got rained out on the day we had it planned for and didn’t get another chance at it.

Dreamer hostel in Santa Marta

Amazing local coffee

Coffee fields

Coffee bean before roasting

Organizes beans by size

Original hydro-electric power equipment

Wash plant

Coffee roaster

Gravity coffee bean bag filler

Straight up organic Colombian coffee

Swimming in the waterfalls outside of Minca

When you favorite T-swift comes on you have to shake it off in the lobby

When you favorite T-swift song comes on you have to shake it off in the lobby

Poolside chillin

Traditional beach lunch: fried fish, plantains, coconut rice

Sunset from our room in Tamaca Beach Resort

August 3, 2016 0 comment

Colombia

Upping the Adventure in San Gil

written by Travis

Breaking away from the beaches and big cities of Colombia, we decided to spend a few days in the mountain town of San Gil. San Gil is located in northeastern Colombia about 300km from Bogota and is known for its access to great outdoor activities including whitewater rafting on the Rio Suarez (class 4/5 rapids), extreme downhill mountain biking and paragliding. Its motto is “La Tierra de Adventura” which translates to “The Land of Adventure.” Since we already checked off paragliding and figured we’d kill ourselves on mountain bikes, our focus was whitewater rafting.

Our first day we did a trekking tour going with a small outfit specializing in a trek package that allows you to do several things in 5-6 hours. During the trek you zipline across a jungle river, repel down rock faces, walk tight rope wires over the river and explore a massive cave. While this was an awesome way to be outside in the jungle, was fun at times, and the staff was extremely good, the overall activity was kind of a bust due to the size of the group. We ended up with a huge family (20 people) so most activities only took a few minutes and then you ended up waiting another 30 minutes for everyone else to finish. It would have been much more fun if the group was 6-8 people. In addition, none of the guides spoke English so we just sort of winged everything and hope we mimicked the person in front of us correctly. This got really interesting when one of the activities was walking deep through part of the cave with no lights. Without headlamps it was complete darkness i.e. you couldn’t see your hand if it was one centimeter in front of your face. The guide was yelling out warnings to the group in Spanish (like to watch you head for low ceiling, there is a drop off to the right, there is a huge rock sticking out from the left, etc). We literally would have been lost in the cave if it wasn’t for a really nice guy who spoke English and came over to translate so we wouldn’t get hurt. Gotta love the Colombian kindness!

Back to the real meat of this post, the rafting. We had heard from various tourists and reviews it was pretty epic and even the guides told us (after we rafted) that boats commonly flip due to the intense rapids. People talked of class 4 and 5 rapids so we figured even if they were embellishing that it would be a wild ride. The company we chose – Colombia Rafting Expeditions – is ranked as the #1 thing to do in San Gil and all their guides and instructions were in English so we knew we were in decent hands.

After a 40-minute drive from the city to the entry point in the river, we realized just how serious the company took it. They sat us through a 40-minute safety briefing and training of how to handle the river in and out of the raft. Then we practiced falling out into the river and pulling each other back in. Finally finished with letting us know there would be a “rescue kayak” next to us with a guide who would help save us if we fell in. While excited at that point, we had a much more serious feeling knowing what was possible in the rapids. (Sidenote: this wouldn’t be out of the ordinary back home but in our South America experience thus far, tour operators are pretty breezy when it comes to safety and instructions, so this was a nice change of pace!)

Our first rapid was a level 4 which threw us around pretty good and gave us a sense for what we would be in for. Once that was under our belt, we felt ready for more so we continued to attack each rapid set as hard as we could. After the first 5-6 sets of rapids we all got pretty cocky/confident in ourselves which might have been the downfall, because when we hit the seventh or so rapid set we hit a massive rock/water swell which flung the guide from his perch in the very back of the raft to straight in the middle. Everyone in the raft looked over and started laughing but I realized the guide was right where Katie was supposed to be. I grabbed him and moved him aside to see if he happened to be on top of her when I saw Katie bobbing in the water in the rapids about eight feet from the boat. At some point she must have been launched when we hit the swell of water. Cue me realizing the most important thing in my life is in the Suarez river…not cool. I quickly turned into a mix between a drill sergeant and an Olympic rower. I barked to the group that she was in the water and everyone snapped into action after I had already started trying to paddle the raft by myself to her. We rowed over and a few of the guys in front pulled her in just as we hit the bottom of the rapids and not surprisingly she had a huge smile on her face. I could have sworn she actually enjoyed getting thrown in.

From there we had only one other big incident when we hit a swell and the two guys in front of me flew out. I was able to grab one as he was half hanging out of the raft and chucked him back in, but the guy in front of him was launched pretty good. After getting him back in we had an issue-free rest of the trip. There were also a few calm parts of the river when we all jumped in and swam around for a bit before the next rapid set.

Afterwards we were treated to a nice lunch of chicken, fruit, beers and local candy. In the end, it was an awesome experience we won’t soon forget and a highly recommended activity if you are in Colombia.

Sidenote for Seattleites: There is a restaurant in San Gil called Gringo Mike’s which is owned by a Seattle guy and it has amazing food and prices. The menu skews more American than South American but the portions are gigantic and the food is made with really good ingredients. We found ourselves eating here multiple times as it was a nice change of pace to get foods we hadn’t had in months! Definitely worth checking out if you find yourself in San Gil.

Breakfast of champions

Drinks at Gringo Mike’s

Easily the worst “musician” we have ever heard

Sunset in Barichara

Someone is going to have a nice little surprize on their doorstep

Someone is going to have a nice little surprise on their doorstep

Barichara

Loved walking around Barichara just outside of San Gil

Beautiful quaint streets

About to walk the tight rope over the river bed

Ready to kick things off treking

Katie starting her repelling

Look at that form!

Small people fit in caves much easier than big people

See ya wifey!

Just hanging out with the Mrs.

Clearly she is faster than I am at this

A little before Katie went for a swim

Teamwork makes the dream work

Bottom’s Up!

Amazing rafting operation

August 3, 2016 0 comment

Colombia

Caribbean Vibes on San Andrés

written by Travis

800 km northwest of Colombia and 230 km off the coast of Nicuaragua lies the small island of San Andrés. This little known Colombian island in the Caribbean Sea is a gem in South America and provided us with a drastically different experience than any other destination thus far. Even though the island belongs to Colombia, given its location it has much more of a Carribean/Creole vibe than Latin. During our eight nights we enjoyed the laid back and rastafarian feel while sitting on white sand beaches and swimming in that daydream inducing turquoise water.

We had a great apartment ($55 a night) located on Sound Bay on the east (and less touristy) side of the island and right across the street from the beach. The beaches right there were virtually empty and it was a much more authentic local experience as we were almost always the only gringos around. The location was right on the bus line so we constantly hopped on the local bus catching 60 cent rides around the island. The only time we took other transportation was when we rented a golf cart on the last day and spent 5-6 hours mobbing around the island listening to Katie’s reggae inspired “Bookey Beach Mix” on our JAMBOX. The nice thing about doing it on our last day is we just took the cart right to the airport when it was time to fly out and left it in the parking lot (only on a small island would this be possible).

Highlights:

Boat tour to Johnny Cay and Acuario Cay (if you plan to go – Johnny Cay had great food and people watching but was pretty busy. Aquaria key was insanely packed with tourists. Definitely a trap there. Both should not be on your list if you want a relaxing beach experience. Only go to people watch and enjoy the crazy blue water.)
Riding beach cruisers to and swimming in the La Piscinita on the west side of the island. Great for seeing fish and snorkeling.
Long beach runs
Birthday drinks at Aqua Beach club which is a highly rated place about a mile north of where we stayed. They also were slick and gave you a buzzer button you could press every time you wanted another drink. Winning!

Lowlights:

Catching a 48-hour flu and being totally laid up for a few days. Good thing I had a great nurse to take care of me!
USA soccer team playing Colombia while there and losing 2-0.

Keeping this post short as pictures do most of the talking here: