Maybe 5 or so years ago, the mojito drink made its way into mainstream American bars and restaurants, ushering in a whole new cuisine to go with the drink.  We must have talented chefs in the US because Cuban food is delicious in America, but not in Cuba.  There is little variation available in Cuba–rice, black beans, cabbage salad, and fried chicken/fish/beef.  And no spices–not even salt and pepper.  I found Cuban food to be very bland, and after a week of eating the same thing, we had to break up the monotony and eat pizza at El Rapido, Cuba’s fast food chain.

As I mentioned in a previous post it was suffocatingly hot, I was delirious from the heat–making sightseeing and anything related to being outside unpleasant.  But we suffered through the heat, and walked around Havana, an ethnically diverse city and the largest city in the Caribbean at 2.5 million people.   Regardless of their dire straits, Cubans aren’t bothered by much, they live life to its fullest–dancing and celebrating where-ever and when-ever they can.  Grand buildings and colonial homes built during the height of Spanish rule can be seen as a reminder of the grandeur that was once Cuba.  These buildings, regardless of missing a ceiling or an exterior wall, are fully occupied.  It’s not uncommon for 3 generations of the same family to be living under one roof.  The houses crumbling, the vintage cars stalling, and the people really just living in the moment bring feelings of nostalgia for the past, despair for the present and hope for the future.

We side tripped out of Havana to Vinales, a three hour bus ride southwest.  It’s a small town with one main road, a main square with a church.  There are nearly as many tourists as town people, and most of the Cubans are in the tourist industry.  Groups of people meet you at the bus stop selling a room for the night.  Almost every house off the main road looks identical, and each has been converted into a casa particulare, a room for rent in a house occupied by a Cuban family.  Because there are very few hotels in Cuba, many tourists stay in casas particulares.  We stayed at Casa Rosa, complete with air conditioning to battle the heat.  During the day the temperature was in the 90’s and humid.  Probably the hottest place we’ve been–ever.

The ‘Vinales Tour’ the next day brought us to all the best sights in the area; starting with view point overlooking the valley, a primitive mural of evolution painted on the side of a rock, a visit to a cave, and my favorite, a visit with a local farmer.
The farmer we met ‘owns’ four hectareas of land which has been in the family for four generations.  The farmer is completely self-sustaining with his fields of potatoes, taro, corn, sugar cane, rice.  He also grows avocados, tangerines, oranges, mangos, and coffee beans (which is left out to dry for months, and is very, very  strong coffee).   Lastly, each farmer by law is required to grow a minimum amount of tobacco.  November to April is the only growing season for tabacco, the government buys the dried tobacco leaves for $600 dollars for 3 tons of tobacco (or something insane like that).  Since there is no private industry, the government owns everything, including the tabacco industry which is one of Cuba’s largest money generators.  So, it buys the tabacco from the farmers at a favorable price for itself, barely covering the cost of the labor for the farmers, and sells it’s Cuban cigars for huge profits.

Dolphins road along side the boat for a while, and off in the distance we saw a giant sailfish jump out of the water and spread its top fin.

We rented an amazing house with an endless pool on a cliff above Manzanillo beach with a view over Angelito beach.  It’s hard to imagine after a year of being on vacation that we would need a break from traveling, but a week without planning each day and the following week sounded perfect to us.

Oaxaca is known for its culinary traditions, and I wanted to learn more about it.  So I signed us up for two different classes.  Our first class was with Pilar at La Casa de los Sabores.  Before we started cooking we headed to Mercado Democracia to buy our fresh ingredients…mangos and watercress for our salad, yerbasanta leaves, corn husks, banana leaves, squash blossoms, huitlacoche, and corn masa to make tamales.

Going to the market is one of my favorite things.  I love to look at local fruits and vegetables, the cheeses and meats.  But going to the market with an expert like Pilar makes the experience even better.  It also makes it easier to taste foods you may normally not eat–after all if the chef is eating it, it can’t be that bad.  Pilar seemed pretty excited that chapuline/ grasshopper season had just started.  Grasshoppers are sold in a variety of sizes, but the baby ones are the freshest and taste the beat.  The grasshoppers are boiled then mixed in a salty concoction and eaten like any other snack, by the handful.  To me, it tasted like dried salted shrimp, kind of like smelly fish.

After our market experience, we headed back to the kitchen to get working on our menu–a fresh jicama/mango watercress salad, three types of tamales, spicy salsa, and a mango mousse.  There were eight of us in the class, and we worked as a group on each of the courses.  The tamales were chicken with black mole, bean with yerbasanta leaf, and squash blossom with huitlacoche (black fungus).  I love mushrooms, but I was weary of the corn fungus.  But mixed into our corn tamales, it was actually hard to detect much of a taste.

Lastly, we made spicy salsa with gusano worms crushed in for added flavor.  It turns out Mexicans have a long history of eating insects, mostly because they did not have many domesticated animals, so as an alternate source of protein they ate insects.  The gusano worm is the same worm found at the bottom of a bottle of Mezcal.  They are white, pinkish or red in color.  We ground up the worms in a mortar and pestle along with the rest of the ingredients for the salsa.  I can’t exactly describe the flavor of the worms–smokey?? But I didn’t like the flavor of the salsa.  Maybe it was because I knew there were worms in it.

I fully enjoyed learning to cook from Pilar, it was a great experience.  Somehow she had my secret list of things not to eat, and I tried them all.  When in Rome…

We marked this anniversary by taking a boat tour of the Isletas de Granada (little islands), and a nice, casual dinner at our hotel in Granada. 

We met back up with Hedda & Michael Hagen for the week, and Michael Hagen has been teaching us how to surf on Playa Amarillo.  Other than a few unused shelters built on the beach, Playa Amarillo is completely undeveloped–no boats, houses or restaurants.  The last two days the four of us have had the beach completely to ourselves.  Since I’m just a beginner surfer, I can’t speak for the quality of waves in Nicaragua, but a beautiful sandy, deserted beach anywhere in the world is a real jewel.

Since I’ve skied all my life, learning to surf seemed like it should be easy, but it’s not.  The toughest thing about surfing is not tiring yourself out while paddling out past the waves crashing down.  The waves keep breaking; even as I get past one, there’s another one and another one, as if they multiply.   As I try to dodge the white water, I’m kind of panicked, thinking “oh shit,” “oh shit”…if a wave crashes down on me, I’m thinking something way worse than “oh shit”…by the time I make it out past the waves breaking, I’m completely relieved and exhausted…while I wait for a set to roll in, I try to catch my breath…when the time is right, I try not to get frantic as I start paddling against the wave thinking, “hurry, hurry, paddle faster!”…as the wave takes me, “yeah, here we go!”…if I get to my feet, I’m elated thinking, that wasn’t so hard, along with “whoa, this is excellent!”.  If I didn’t make it to my feet, I’m holding my breath underwater wondering when I will be released from the grips of this mighty wave and wondering whether my surf board is going to knock me out.  It’s obviously going to take time to get it right–but it’s the right combination of challenging and rewarding to keep me going back for more. {above: Michael Hagen surfing.  Look closely and you can see a blur of orange under the wave.}

On a typical night between July and November a few turtles may come to nest, not thousands.  Our tour took us to Playa Camaronal beach where four species of sea turtles are known to nest: olive ridley, hawksbill, leatherback and black turtle.  Any sort of bright light will keep the turtles from coming ashore, so from 8pm to 9pm we combed the beach in complete darkness with out finding even one turtle.  Our group was starting to give up hope of seeing a turtle, but our guide persevered.  Finally, at 10pm, a teardrop shaped olive ridley turtle came ashore, and began her nesting ritual.

All turtles instinctively know where to lay their eggs–returning thousands of miles to the exact beach where they were born.  The olive ridley laboriously makes her way up the beach to lay her eggs.  She then uses her hind flippers to scoop out an appropriate sized hole for her eggs.  Once this is completed, any where from 100-130 ping pong-sized eggs are laid.  Again using her hind legs, she covers and neatly buries the eggs.  She then disappears back into the ocean.  The entire process lasts about one hour, and it’s pretty amazing to watch.

From Santa Catalina in Panama, it took us two days of buses to reach San Jose, Costa Rica where we met Mike, Rachel, Kyra and Aiden.  We drove from the airport out to the La Fortuna to tour around the Volcano Arenal for three days. In those three days, we went zip-lining above the canopy of the rainforest, horse back riding where we spotted toucans, sloths and snakes, and canyoning, repelling down cliffs and waterfalls.

It’s been a year and half since we’ve seen my brother and his family. Kyra and Aiden have grown up to be wonderful little kids with big hearts and a strong sense of adventure. They were fearless on all of our activities. They loved all of them equally, saying “it was awesome.” Really amazing for only being 7 and 5 years old.

It was a busy three days, but since then we’ve driven north to Playa Conchal where there is little to do, but sit by the pool enjoying refreshing strawberry daquiris. 

Today is the 4th of July and it’s nice to be here with family…it also makes me think about when my brother and I were kids…to celebrate independence day, we would light sparklers and race each other around the house as many times as we could before the sparklers would go out.  Maybe I’ll see if my brother is up for the challenge tonight…

With Michael and Hedda, Mike and I ended up in a highly enviable position for anyone who might surf.  Of course, we don’t but got to see first hand what it’s like to be at a prime surf location.  Santa Catalina is pretty rustic with no “real” hotels, and very few restaurants, but people come for the waves.  We spent 4 nights enjoying the unspoiled beaches.  Michael did some surfing, and even spent a day teaching Mike and I how to surf.  It was a blast– although not exactly as easy as Michael makes it look.

Aside from visiting the Panama Canal, there isn’t a whole lot to do in Panama City except catch up on newly released movies, eat fast food and visit the mall– and we did all of the above. 

Colombia wasn’t exactly what we thought it would be. No paramilitary guerillas, no drug trafficking and no kidnappings.  So we had to find other ways to amuse ourselves.  Luckily Cartagena has lots of good food, good music and good views.  It turned out to be a very relaxing place to spend our last week in South America.

 
Much of the old city is undergoing restoration.  New hotels, condos, private homes, etc. marks a sharp contrast between the old and the new.  Although it seems an obvious choice…I´m torn between the dirty charm of the old, and the prefect quaintness of the new.  Every run-down building tells the story of a past splendor when Cartagena was under colonial rule (from 1533-1811).

Our Galapagos Island trip was amazing.  There are animal species that are endemic to the islands, and for that reason makes the Galapagos special.  We stayed on board of a 100 ft. yacht with 13 other guests.  The weather was perfect.

Each day we visited a different island, snorkeled, and hiked on the island for a few hours.  On the island of Santa Fe we went in search of the land iguanas, in the mangroves of Santa Cruz we went to see the sea turtles, on Genovesa Island we saw the blue and red-footed boobie, the nazca boobie and the frigate birds.  The male frigate bird spends his time building a nest and inflates his red sack in an attempt to attract a mate.  During our hike one male frigate swooped down and pecked Mike on the head–probably mistaking his shiny dark hair for twigs that would be a good addition for his nest.  At Sullivan Bay on Santiago Island we walked on lava flow only 100 years old.  And we visited the giant tortoises on Santa Cruz.

My favorite part was snorkeling and watching all the underwater sea life.  We went swimming with the penguins, sea lions, tons of different fish and a white tipped shark, which we followed until it double backed on us!

The Galapagos penguins would swim around diving down, then come back up for air.  Once it stopped right in front of me, looked into my eyes pondering my existence, then instinct kicked in and off it went in chase of a meal.  Sad to say, though, they aren’t so skilled at catching fish.  Even with huge schools of fish, the penguins didn’t have much success– chasing the fish back and forth, back and forth, but missing each time.  I wonder if they go hungry most days.

Unlike the penguins, I did see a bird dive into the water, and with amazing accuracy catch a fish.  Pretty amazing to see what goes on below the surface of the water…the bird (sorry, I’m not sure what kind it was) dove down about 12 feet into a school of fish, there was a small commotion of water, and bang, it got a fish.  And as quickly as it dove into the water, it ascended nearly as fast out of the water.

The sea lions are also fun to snorkel with.  Slow as they are on land, underwater they jet past like a bullet, swimming circles around us.  They are also much larger than the penguins, so when they stop abruptly in the water to stare, it’s a little alarming.  Lucky for us though, the sea lions aren’t bothered with people snorkeling in their waters.

The traditional Ecuadorian women in Otavalo wear a lacey blouse, wool skirt cinched with a decorative woven belt, plait their hair in a woven band, wear a wool shawl around their shoulders or on their head. They didn’t wear fedoras and velour skirts like the women in Saquisili south of Quito, but they did wear gold necklaces. Oh, do they like these necklaces. We found a few vendors selling these necklaces, and the tables were crowded with Ecuadorian women looking to add to their collection. These multi-string necklaces of glass beads filled with gold are made from varying qualities. The color of the gold and the smaller the bead, the more expensive. The necklaces are said to last 15 years, I bought one so I in 15 years I´ll let you know if mine is still good…

Saturday night is cockfighting night in Otavalo. It’s quite an unusual spectacle, and although illegal in the States, it is still a very big part of Ecuadorian culture. About 100 people, mostly men, but a decent number of families crowded into a small stadium. We arrived early and saw some of the “pre-game” show, so to speak. The owners would proudly place their roosters on a big table to display them to the other contestants. They would be inspected, weighed and evaluated to determine who would fight who and what the odds would be. Eventually, when everything was set, the roosters touch beaks (seriously) and the fights began.  It wasn’t nearly as gruesome as we had feared.  The roosters do smack each other around, but spend most of the time tangled up, just like regular boxers.  Unfortunately for the roosters, they have these sort of spikes taped to their feet, so when one of them jumps up and kicks, thats usually when the knockout blow comes.  When a rooster goes down, the referee gives him the version of a 10 count by holding him up by his wings and seeing if he can stand on his own.  3 tries and he’s out.  Luckily we didn’t see any real carnage, mostly a few stunned and scraped up roosters and a few very angry owners since you have to put up $100 to enter and you double your money if you win.

We spent the afternoon piranha fishing, or more accurately, piranha feeding, as less than 10 seconds after the bait hit the water, it was devoured. Oddly enough, they didn’t seem to want anything to do with the people swimming a few yards away. Lucky for them, because these guys have some teeth on them. Christine proved to be the best fisherman in the group, reeling in 6. 2 were too small, but we had the other 4 for dinner.

These little guys were all over the rainforest.  Every once and a while we would find a line of ants stretching for hundreds of feet.  They would be carrying leaves back to their nest from the top of huge trees.  Thousands of them making this huge journey, over and over again.

Birds are quite a big deal in the Amazon. The are 1600 different kinds in Ecuador and there were 600 alone in the area of our lodge. Unfortunately for us, there are few things we are less into than spending the day looking for birds. One of them is getting up at 5AM to look for birds. The other is getting up at 5AM to look for birds, and there being no birds to look at. This was the case the first few mornings as it was overcast and not good for bird watching. Oddly enough, when it was too sunny, that wasn’t a good time for the birds either. We did get to climb this cool canopy bridge to not see any birds at 5AM though.

We quickly learned to adapt our expectations to our new environment. The Amazon rainforest is huge (2.1 million square miles), 40% of South America, and dense. So the wildlife that lives there has plenty of places to hide. We had to take notice of the small things. Sure it’s easy to spot an elephant. But finding a tiny insect or frog in the middle of the jungle is a lot harder. Our afternoon hikes were filled with learning about how the indigenous people in the jungle used the various types of plants and trees. We eventually did get to see some interesting birds…parrots, owls, toucans and vultures. We also saw a 3 toed sloth and a caiman, which is a South American crocodile. We just missed seeing an anaconda, and had to look jealously at another group’s pictures. Below is a tarantula that our guide found hiding in a tree.

The Saquisili market onThursday mornings is jammed packed with locals selling everything from fruits, vegetables, grains, household goods and domestic animals. It rained the night before and on Thursday morning making the area a muddy mess, and the animals all a bit gnarly. The addition of farm animals to the market made for an exciting morning. We spoke to a few animal sellers to see what the going rate for their animals would be…an 8 month old pig was about $100, a cow $300, and a 15 year old llama $80 dollars.

There’s no better afternoon snack than picarones– fried donuts with a little bit of anise, covered with molasses–made right on the spot.

The hat is so out of place that it works with the traditional Bolivian garments. The women wear tiered velveteen skirts with petiticoats underneath. The skirts are typically brightly colored in violets, reds, tangerines, and inky colors. In the south it seemed the perfered length is at the knee, worn with knee-hi socks, but further north, it’s longer, and worn with a hand -crochet cardigan. Also, every Bolivian woman must have a tapestry wrapped around her shoulders either carrying a grandchild or some other bundle on her back. Whether the skirt length is long or short, the bowler hat works for any occasion, even tending the sheep.

The local people who live on Lake Titicaca are pretty much all farmers–either terrace farmers on the land or they are farmers on the lake. Well, some of the people still actually fish, but much of the trout is now farm raised in small cages on the lake. Trout is on every menu of every restaurant in town, and it can be prepared one of 8 different ways. We stuck with the pan fried version with lime, rice and fries–so delicious for only 18 Bolivianos ($2.47), we ate it nearly every meal.