Saturday, May 12, 2007

Let The Journey Begin





I want to begin this blog by saying aside from my children traveling is my passion. What this means is a good portion of my blog will either about my children or about trips I have taken or will take in the future. I have traveled around the world and I enjoy seeing new places. I enjoy learning about different cultures, tasting new foods & traveling on the road less traveled.
Some of the places I have been are:

Morroco, Belgium, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Bahamas,
Grand Cayman, Holland, St. Johns, Saudi Arabia,
Costa Rica, St. Thomas, Canada, Dominican Republic & France

I have also traveled to many places in the US but I still have a long list of places I would like to go. I usually travel with my son who is just getting ready to turn 12. He is a great travel partner and enjoys adventure as much as I do. When he was very small and I was still married, we traveled as a family. After I divorced when he was 5 it was just him and I. We traveled alone, just the two of us. We love to spend that time together, no work, phone calls and no busy life to interrupt us. I look forward to this time all year long. In a few weeks we will be off to Ecuador to explore the Amazon Rain Forest and ride horses through the Andes Mountains. I can't wait!

Two years ago we visited what became our favorite destination so far, Costa Rica. We arrived in the capital city San Jose and rented a 4-wheel drive truck and set off to explore. The first day we were there it rained terribly. The roads were winding with no guard rails to stop you. If you were not careful you could accidentally drive off the side of a very steep cliff and plunge to your death landing on some little farm below. It took us several hours to reach our hotel and it was pitch black, as we were in the middle of nowhere. That night we could here a eerie high pitched sound of in the distance. I new that there was a volcano nearby but I could not see anything. The next morning I awoke to the sounds of what sound like dozens of birds chirping. I sounded like I was sleeping in the middle of a pet store. I went outside on my porch and I was amazed at the view. I could see the volcano, which couldn't have been more that a mile away. The sound I heard the night before was the volcano erupting. We spent two days in the area exploring. We spent one day enjoy the natural hot springs. The water was hot, like hot tub hot. You could sit under waterfalls of hot water and even slide down a slide into a hot pool it was beautiful. The next day we left for the rain forest. We spent 3 hours driving on dirt roads to get there. On the way there I was looking at my map and driving at the same time ( I know you are not supposed to do this but we were in the middle on nowhere and there were no other cars) and I drove off the side of the road and got stuck in a small (but deep) ditch and the side of the car became wedged against a dirt cliff. I tried to get out but I was stuck. The only people around were some farmers out in their field picking something. We walked down to this small town which consisted of a two small stores and a couple of houses. There we used our great hand gestures (since I didn't speak Spanish) to try to tell the shopkeeper that were were stuck. After a few minutes, he got what we were saying and he & his friend got their ATV and a rope & pulled our truck out.
They were very nice but I know they were thinking "those dumb Americans". We finally made it to the rain forest. I was in a small but pretty town. We spent the day hiking through the forest and boy did I get winded due to the altitude. We came back and took a night tour of the forest because that when all the creepies crawlies come out. We saw lots of funky (gigantic) bugs and bats flew around our heads. It was cool. Then were were off to the beach. This time there were roads. It took us about two hours to drive to our hotel by the beach. There we stayed at a beautiful hotel that was known as the "monkey hotel" for a good reason. In the morning, not only did we have a beautiful view of the ocean but we could look out from our balcony and see all kinds of monkeys (howler, Capuchin, and spider) jumping and playing. They had an open restaurant where you could watch the monkeys while you ate the best banana bread you have ever tasted. When we when to the ocean there were large waves and there were big iguanas sunning themselves on the beach. We found an area where you could swim and Youssef enjoyed the surf.The next day we went canopying. This is when you put yourself in a harness and hang from a cable as you go (what feels like) 60 mph. over the tops of the trees. Whose bright idea was this? It was fun but you go very fast and I was worried about falling or the cable breaking and that I would plunge to my death! Youssef had a blast!! I hit my head when I was coming to one of the platforms and it really scared me. Luckily I had on a hard hat. I rode with the guide on a few of the lies where you could not see the end (what a chicken!). Finally, I decided it was time to get off. I was able to climb down on the 8th platform (about half way). If I didn't leave then I would have to go on about 8 more zip lines. I opted to get off but let Youssef stay on. I wasn't afraid for him as I felt it was very safe. I was just scared as I am not a heights person. He stayed on an finished the whole thing. He is so brave! The next day we went white water rafting. We had never been before & I thought they would start us off easy but when we got to the location where we were going to drop the boat there were large rapids. After a short instructional session by our guides (paddle left, paddle right, back peddle, don't fall out of the boat (ha!) ) we were off. We climbed in and took off and within about 3 minutes we hit a rock and all the passengers on one side of the boat fell out except Youssef. I think he was holding on for dear life. We were able to rescue our passengers quickly but later on down river we saw a boat that had lost all of its passengers including the guides. They were all stranded on the side looking very wet and pitiful. We saw a "Jesus" lizard. They call them that because they can walk on water. How cool is that. I was sad that the trip had to come to an end. There was so much more we wanted to see. We long to go back some day.