To the beach !

Parque Nacional Tayrona

Our place in the jungle - Manigua Tayrona Hostel

The beach from the
 jungle -
Playa Los Angeles

I am not sure where I heard about this beach/jungle/National Park but I am sure glad that we decided to visit for several days. We stayed at Manigua Tayrona Hostel and once again living with many young backpackers and other travelers. I like finding hostels with private rooms as the "vibe" is different than a hotel. Right now there are 7 people all on their phones in the dining room - planning their next trip or ???  I've been talking to a woman who is traveling 5 months from Norway, and the others are German, English, Italian and Colombian. We have hardly met anyone from the US during our 5 day stay.

walking into our hostel over
a bridge

This is all in the National Park area though one has to walk in daily to avail of the park beaches. We walked about 5 miles into "El Cabo" and then out again. Along the way were several beautiful beaches and we spent time at La Piscina which was a very calm cove where swimming was great. Some of the beaches have dangerous waves and undertow and swimming is forbidden. It was another very long day of up and down rocks with sunny beach walking in between. We were both quite tired at the end and I decided that we would do nothing the following day, but we ended up going to Playa Los Angeles as I felt fully recovered.

The environment of this hostel, the people who worked there and the food were excellent and a pleasant place to spend a "vacation" during our vacation.

 Cartagena

Leaving the Santa Marta area of Colombia we headed by bus to Cartagena in a small van of 11 people
for 4 1/2 hours which brought us right to our AirBnb in the center of the walled city. After a few days in this bustling city of African-Colombian people mixed with the Spanish-Colombian along the Caribbean Sea gives a feeling of "island" life. The city is very large, placed along the sea with high rise buildings in the newer part of town (we never went there). We spent most of our time in the walled city wandering the streets with beautiful, colorful buildings and interesting architecture. There are areas where no one ventured several years ago but now are revitalized with tourism growing moment by moment. There are large ships that dock in the harbor, evidenced by the large groups of tourists wandering around the city. We enjoyed, again, the free city tour which gave us a good background to the city.


Once again we came upon our favorite veg restaurants but also enjoyed having a kitchen of our own after weeks in hotels. As it is also very warm everyday, we are grateful to have an air conditioner in this apartment. We are happy that we came to Cartagena but it is our least favorite of the places we have visited so far in Colombia. I think that three days would been sufficient for our stay.

On our last day we decided to hire a taxi to take us to San Basilio de Palenque which is a small village a bit over one hour away. Below you will find the information I found on the web about this very unusual destination taking us back several hundred years.

Benkos Biohó

San Basilio de Palenque - the first free slave town in the Americas.  It is a small village nestled in the foothills of the Montes de Maria, a small mountain range to the south of Cartagena. It doesn’t appear in many guidebooks, and few tourists take the time to visit. However, this small settlement of some 4,000 people is one of the most important historical villages in the Americas and a UNESCO-declared ‘Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’ since 2005. 

Palenque was founded sometime in the 16th century by Benkos Biohó, a former African king from either the Democratic Republic of Congo or Angola, who was sold into slavery and escaped the slave port of Cartagena in 1599. He fled his captors into the swamps and went on to form an army of escaped slaves who conquered the area.

Recording studio for local band
famous for Champeta

Biohó also created an intelligence network, which helped to facilitate more escapes. Eventually in 1605 the governor of Cartagena offered him a peace treaty. It was finalized with inhabitants of Palenque in 1612 before being violated by the Spanish in 1619, when they captured Biohó in Cartagena. He was executed by hanging in 1621 on the basis that his image was likely to inspire dangerous subversion among the slave population. Today he is immortalized in an evocative statue in the main square with his right arm reaching towards Africa, broken chains hanging from his wrists. 

The village of Palenque grew slowly in the early days when it was a small group of escaped slaves living secretly in the mountains. However, in 1691 the Spanish Crown issued a Royal Decree officially freeing the Africans in San Basilio de Palenque from slavery. This made them the first free Africans in the Americas and Palenque the first free settlement.

Famous Featherweight
world champion boxer born in
Palenque - Antonio Cervantes
aka Kid Pambelé

These former slaves maintained many of their African oral and musical traditions, including the only Spanish-Bantú spoken on earth, known as Palenquero. Influenced by the Kikongo language of Angola and Congo, it is only spoken today by roughly half of Palenque's residents but is recognized as the only Spanish-based Creole language that exists in the world.

We witnessed all of the above in person through a guide that spoke some combination of Spanish along with his native language. They are living so very simply in adobe or concrete one story houses with dirt roads. The government would provide paving but they choose as a community to keep the roads the way they were. They also have their own police system (similar to the indigenous communities around San Cris in Chiapas). I am happy I discovered this place to visit which gives a completely different view of a small part of Colombia. (Really different!) They are very proud people and well known for their particular style of music, their actors and boxing champion.

So, friends, we are leaving the beach and off to Medellin tomorrow for a nice long stay in an Airbnb. Thanks again for traveling with us.

Colombia....the first few weeks

A view from Montserrate

Bogotá
It is always exciting for us to visit a new country - here we are for our first two weeks in Colombia.  My first impressions are that the people are VERY friendly and aim to please. They are really happy to have tourists again visiting their beautiful country after many years of unrest. Things are better they say, though we are often warned to be careful of petty crime - as we would be warned in any place in the world. The people are very proud of their country and the varied terrain as well as variety of lifestyles from city to small villages, jungle and beaches. We will experience many of these during our travels.

We arrived and met a nice driver who was happy to share the important things to do in Bogotá, the capital. He recommended that we go off to get vaccinations before our trip to the Tayrona National Park along the beach/jungle in the north of the country and so he drove us early the next morning to the bus station where the vaccinations were to be given. We arrived to discover that we are too old for them - only given up to 59 years old. We were advised to take thiamine (Vit. B1) and lots of mosquito repellant which we will do. 

Some of the many graffiti walls

We spent our first day with a walking tour of the city including much of the history of the country. We always enjoy these free tours as the guides are enthusiastic and knowledgeable and work for the donations that each of the guests provide. The following day we did the Graffiti tour, mostly through the Candelaria neighborhood and found again how much we appreciate learning about this art culture. Bogotá supports this art form by donating buildings and space to artists to put up their work.

Botero Museum

"Free man"   Museo de Oro

A visit to this city is not complete without visiting some of the many museums and we went to the Botero Museum including much of his work as well as his large collection of impressionist and other paintings from every famous artist that we know. Another day was spent at the Museo del Oro.

poco o poco up the mountain

I think the main highlight of this part of the trip was our long walk up Montserrate - over 1500 steps to 10,340 ft from the city which is at 8,660 ft. We walked "lento pero seguro" (slow but steady) and were tired but happy at the end that we can still do physical challenges.

With Maritza

On our last day we connected with a friend, Maritza who lived in the same house with us for several weeks in San Cristobal de las Casas, MX  - we stayed in touch via Facebook and WhatsApp.

We enjoyed many vegan friendly restaurants and found the food to be very good. We have tried arepas (like a pancake made with corn - some with cheese, some with fillings and some just plain).

Villa de Leyva

A view from our hotel

We had a little idea about Villa de Leyva from friends Susan and Mayer in SMA who had rave reviews and recommended the beautiful Maria Bonita Hotel which was probably the best that we have stayed at during our many travels in the world. The town is equally beautiful and kind of like a Disney set - all white buildings with balconies with flowers and clay roofs. There were many lovely shops and restaurants and activities to keep us busy. Coming from the large city it was nice to be in a small, very walkable pueblo. We found an excellent restaurant with many options for us so enjoyed 3 meals in 3 days - happily eating only one meal/day (besides breakfast and maybe a snack of an arepa!). The restaurant was Savia and we would recommend it highly to vegetarian/vegans and carnivores alike. A very varied menu.

Petroglyphs

Javier - tour guide

The highlight of this few days was our tour with Javier from Sachica, a traditional village with connections to the indigenous Muisca people. From Javier we learned much of the history and culture of these people. Our walk of over 3 hours took us up a mountain to see the river valley below where we would walk down into a cave with drawings remaining of these people. Javier is an historian and had much to share with us. We ended the walk at the sulfur thermal waterfall. We are always thrilled when we find an adventure tour and usually, as this one, we are surprised along the way because the information given in advance is not always clear to us - partly language and partly because it is hard to envision these places we know nothing about.

Aguas termales

Walking the Camino Real

Barichara
Now we are in the small village of Barichara, claimed to be "the prettiest village in Colombia". It is lovely but not sure it would stand as the prettiest of a whole country. It is smaller than Villa de Leyva and much more rustic. It is built high on a hill overlooking a deep canyon with several miradors. Once again there are good food options and we are in a lovely small hotel (Hotel Boutique Bocore) and in the low season which began after the new year, we are the only guests.

Ricardo's new friends

Again our adventure hike was the old indigenous Camino Real from Barichara to Guane - about 6 miles mostly downhill but carefully stepping as the whole route was large irregular stones. We walked one way and took a little bus back. We are now in a completely new climate zone with temperatures up into the 80's - my first day in a long time in short sleeves and we are headed to the coast where the temperatures will be warmer. Feels good after many cooler days. Of course we are remembering what it is like in the cold Northeast as we were there last year for the month of January. No complaining here!

Barichara

Barichara

Making paper from Fique (from agave plant)

drying the paper

Fique (from agave plant)

We spent our last day in Barichara walking up and down the streets and visiting the highlights - a paper making factory (Fundacion San Lorenzo de Barichara), the cemetery with interesting stones and markers, Parque de los Artistas (sculpture garden) and a Tuk Tuk ride around town to the various miradors, etc. Once again we found our very favorite restaurant - Shanti and we shall go back tonight. The owner after preparing and plating each dish says a short blessing before bringing each one to her guest. We felt the love!

Pineapple, ginger, mint at Shanti with
 uchuva fruit (small tart orange fruit)

All in all - very happy we chose this country to visit and we have another month of travels so will keep you posted as we make our way. Tomorrow we are off to the beach.

Thanks again for traveling with us.

Holidays in Ecuador

    

How lucky we are to be able to revisit favorite places in the world. We decided to go to Cuenca, Ecuador to spend the holidays with our Ecuadorean family - Yolanda, her parents and sister Marta. We had not been here for 5 years so it was time, especially as Papi is 95 and failing in health. It was good to see Mami doing well. It is a typical large family spread between Ecuador and the USA so there is always much to catch up on. It is a challenge but good for our comprehension as all speak only Spanish.

We arrived a few days before Christmas and had the chance to participate in the typical Cuenca holiday traditions which included this all day parade through the town - Pasada del niño viajero with families or groups dressed in their indigenous dress or other costumes. Many vehicles decorated and the end of the day has the baby Jesus coming into the main church in town, having traveled from church to church during the days before Christmas.

The holidays were spent with the family, going to Christmas eve mass and witnessing the blessing of each family's baby Jesus and then a late meal at home followed by a few gifts.

Tarabita over the river

Soon we were off to Baños de Ambato - a town that we visited twice before. We love it for its hot volcanic thermal waters. We spent our anniversary and left on New Years Eve back to Cuenca. During our time we did the various activities that are part of the very touristy town - la Ruta de las Cascades and La Casa de Arbol. Here I am putting many pictures rather than words for our memory. If you wonder why I write so much when we travel - it is for us. We just re-read our prior Ecuador trips to remind us of all the details that we experienced. Gives us a good idea of places we want to revisit.

Back in Cuenca for the new year. We could not leave the area, however, without visiting our favorite Parque Nacional Cajas - vistas, lakes, 12,000 ft altitude with various wonderful walks - we did the long walk around the Lago Toreadora.

Lago Toreadora, Cajas

Cojitambo

We visited the town of Azogues, a mountain town with ruins of the pre-Incas - the Canaris (Cojitambo). We passed on the opportunity for a "limpiaza" or cleaning but Mami took this chance to clear out any negative energy.

Drawing with Erika and Diego

Mami's negative energy
is gone!

And for our last and very special day we spent it at Yolanda's little house in the country where all the food we ate was grown there - veggie soup, beans, corn and fruit. I had the great opportunity to draw with two of the young 11 year old neighbor kids. One, Erika, we had met early on during this trip and have decided to sponsor her for school each year. She is very talented and already motivated to do well. Her mother works for the family from time to time. We promised to come back to visit for her graduation from HS before she goes on to University. We will stay in touch as even the kids with very minimal means have cell phones (same in Mexico). It was a memorable day for all, for sure.

with Erika and Diego

Many thanks to Yolanda for the amazing hospitality and spirit of love that you bring to all around you. And to our friends and family, thanks again for traveling with us on this South American vacation. See you soon from Colombia.

Ten days in silence...how to describe?

Thoughts from Ricardo

The meditation hall

Why does one want to take ten days in noble silence, eliminating all electronic devices and any news from the outside world? This is a big question that I have asked myself both before and after our Vipassana retreat experience.

Now that we have completed this experience I feel a special type of joy that is very hard for me to describe, however I will try my best. First of all I want to say that this is not a recommendation but my personal reflection. I have been what I call a "light meditator" for many years always trying to understand more about the quiet mind that would bring some added joy to what I already call a picture perfect life. I have always enjoyed this process but was very surprised when I put myself into this Vipassana situation sitting for 8 to 10 hours working on this technique that was developed 2500 years ago and taught by Buddha himself. This is not a light form of meditation like I practice at the Kadampa center in Chiapas but something very different.

I won’t get into the details of the 10 day practice but would like to say that I’m very happy and honored to have had the time and inclination to take on this challenge. Basically it’s like putting yourself in a jail setting with 100 plus other people in search of a deeper human experience. I know that when it was over and we had the chance to talk I discovered that I was present with the best of the best people in the middle of a forest and far from civilization and outside my usual comfort zone.

The goal was to deepen one’s abilities to love and foster compassion for all life. This is done by an understanding of detachment and the impermanence of the always changing life.

I don’t know if we would do it again but as we talk more about what happened we are entertaining the idea. Susan will write more details on her summary. Once again, thanks again for traveling with us.

And from Susan...

I loved my little room

Here we are after our 10 day Vipassana meditation retreat that took place in a little mountain village about 2 hours from Mexico City. It would not have mattered where in the world we would have done this as it was internal "travel". Having nice scenery for my circular walks around the property, however, did make for a beautiful visual experience for a short time each day.

I am not sure how to explain this experience but I have certain vivid thoughts that I want to capture for my own memory for I know that as time passes, I will forget the details that seem important to me today. Perhaps if I write again about this in 10 days or 2 months, the experience will have a different meaning so here goes.

Having little preparation from our various friends who had done this was good as we did not have preconceived ideas. We knew that we would turn in all our technology, writing pads, pens, etc. at the beginning and that we would be in separate quarters - men/women. There were approx. 40 men and 40 women along with the dedicated volunteer servers and support people who worked and meditated with us when not giving service. As "new" folks, we were not expected to do any of the chores to maintain this totally volunteer program. This is an important memory for me as the serving staff was always pleasant and seemingly happy to give to us. It was their form of "metta" service for others - a philosophy of this program.

Each day we arose at 4am (!!!) and began our meditation program at 4:30 going until 9:00 at night with breaks for meals at 6:30 am and 11:00 am and a fruit/tea at 5pm. A rest period for a bit of time after each meal for tending to ourselves (showers, rest, walking, thinking). All in all about 9-10 hours of sitting silently in the large meditation hall each day. There were many rules to follow related to time, silence, acknowledging each other when passing, etc. As a usual "rule follower" this was not a problem for me.

This style of Vipassana meditation is handed down from Buddha and follows a particular method for getting in touch with one's sensations to control the craving vs. aversion thoughts connecting to the subconscious of both this life and lives before. For me it was a bit of a stretch to understand it all but I will say that I was able be in the present moment for longer periods of time in meditation than I had ever been before. I personally enjoyed the long silence and in fact when we were able to begin talking on the 10th day I found myself very quickly uncomfortable and had quite a physical reaction feeling dizzy and overwhelmed and wishing to go back to the quiet. It took me a bit of time to ease back into the world of communication. Also (much to my surprise), I never missed my computer, facebook, kindle nor my writing or drawing pad. Makes me realize how much time I spend thinking something important will be in a machine waiting for me and how little of importance is there really is. My world became an inside world in the community of women washing their face or brushing their teeth at the communal sinks of our dorm of 20 rooms. Thankfully I had a private room as there were several with 3 people/room. There were 2 women and 2 men's dorms.

The dining hall. Women enter in front,
men on the right behind the trees.

Lessons along the way....
There was a woman on day 2 or 3 who began coughing in the dorm as well as the meditation hall. My immediate reaction was personal - what if I get sick too, and what if all the others do as well.  Soon I went from that thought to caring about this young woman who was clearly suffering. Since no one could talk to her I was trying to figure out what I might be able to do for her but there was really nothing I could do. After about 4-5 days her coughing seemed to subside. I really saw myself change from caring about myself to compassion for her. On day 10 when we were able to talk, she was the first person I talked to as we walked together outside the meditation hall. We quickly discovered a connection - she was born in Frankfurt, Germany, the place of birth of my father. It is not an easy task to explain in writing this powerful connection and change that I felt in myself but I want to remind myself as I hope to carry this with me always.

I realized how much I missed Ricardo and wanted to speak with him, mostly to know that he was OK. We were in the same meditation hall but on opposite sides of the room and not always able to see if he was there or not as the layout of the room made this difficult. After a few days even that became somewhat easier. We found a 5 second moment almost every night after the discourse on video when we walked out of the room at the same moment and quickly whispered "Are you OK? Yes. Are you OK? Yes!"

I realized how "what is, is" and that acceptance of the ever changing life around me is the only way to live. I think we have done a good job over the years at not being too attached to "things" but there is always more to realize.

The link to all of us during the ten days was powerful. I could feel the strength of the community during the meditation sessions and the need to communicate with each other on the last day. We all seemed to want each other to know that we had witnessed each other during the time in one way or another. As the elder to the group, I heard from several that they noticed my strong commitment and were happy to see me sitting in my spot by the wall every morning at 4:30. (I chose to sit in a chair alternating with sitting on cushions on the floor along a wall with support for my back). We always sat in the same place and I felt a strong connection to the woman who was directly in front of me all of the time. I knew which shoes were hers outside the room and was always happy when I saw them there when I arrived as I felt like she was "my" special person as our proximity was so close. We felt a kinship when we were finally able to talk. She lives not far from San Miguel so maybe we will see each other one day.

I began the time with a strong dislike of the voice of Goenka, the teacher of this program which is provided by loudspeaker at the beginning and end of each of the meditation sessions with instructions and chanting in Pali. The sound of the chanting was very disharmonious. By the end I was much more accepting of the sound but I never understood why it was necessary. Acceptance, however, does not mean that I liked it.

So all in all....I am glad I met this challenge in my life. Will I do it again? Not sure right now but would not say no. Would I recommend it? I think that it is something each person would have to decide for themselves - I would certainly think that some of my "peeps" would like the experience and others not.

I feel tremendously grateful for our lives and the luxury to have the time for our internal and external travel. As I write, we are getting packed and ready for our next two month travel to Ecuador and Colombia. Thank you for sharing your time with us as you read this post. We love you.

Meanderings in Tepotzlán, Toluca and Valle de Bravo

The pyramid is up there somewhere!

Tepotzlán
How lucky we are with an extra week in our lives to visit places around CDMX (Ciudad de Mexico or Mexico City). A one hour bus ride from the city brings us to this valley surrounded by mountains called Tepotzlán, a pueblo mágico. Somehow we managed to get 3 days of rain so missed the important pyramid above the town called El Tepozteco. We never even saw it from below as the mountains were covered in clouds most of the time.

This didn't stop us from enjoying walking around, having a decaf coffee here and there and favorite pastime was eating delicious vegan food in the stalls of the Mercado. We found several prehispanic vendors with a variety of options so that we had to go back each of our three days. Seems to be our street food week as we also found a vegan taco stand in Mexico City called Por Siempre Vegan Taqueria. Surely a place we will return to. We are making up for the many outdoor markets and stalls we have ignored in our 8+ years of Mexico travel, always passing them for not having items we would like.

This town was hit very hard by the earthquake in Sept, 2017 damaging the large church as well as many buildings in town. We visited the Ex-convento and the exhibit about the earthquake as well as a museum collection of prehispanic artifacts from the area.

Toluca
Here is Richard reporting....

Toluca, just two hours outside of Mexico City, was described to me as semi-modern and so it is. It is the capital of the state of Mexico and seems to have a thriving population. We met our dear friends there from San Miguel, Tomy and Maria Elena and our main reason to go was to visit Cosmovitral a place of great wonder and beauty. The incredible building was once a marketplace and now is covered with huge panels of stained glass telling the story of creation and the ongoing battle where good wins over evil. Inside the walls are gardens and each one is a jewel. It is a place I recommend as a once in a lifetime visit.

Maria Elena and Luz

Our friends have a cousin Luz living in Toluca who wanted to enhance our time, which she did to our  great appreciation. The first night she prepared a feast for us travelers made with her loving hands and catering to our individual dietary specialities. Together with the rest of her family we had a time to catch up and hear many stories of the cousins and their lives growing up in San Miguel. As no one spoke English, it was a chance to see how our Spanish comprehension has improved over the years. 

A view of Nevado de Toluca
from San Andres

The following day she took us all to see a view of Nevado de Toluca, a volcano covered in snow which we saw from the small village of San Andres. In my youth I would have liked to climb it but now it is a mountain to admire. Then we traveled to a another "Pueblo Magico" called Metepec where we climbed up the  stairs  to visit the church with a great view of the town below. We shared a delicious meal in town and we headed back to Toluca to say goodbye to our new friend Luz.  

overlooking Metepec

An important memory for all of us was our morning coffee in a little cafe called Huitzi Café which in Nahuatl (indigenous language) means colibri or hummingbird. We were entertained each morning by great music of the 60's. We are grateful to have M E and Tomy as our travel companions and look forward to our next trip.

Valle de Bravo

Our balcony in V de B

And now the very last leg of this trip before we go off technology for the next 10 days. We are in another Pueblo Magico - Valle de Bravo on the shores of a very large man made lake. Having only two nights before our 10 day Vipassana silent retreat, we are enthralled with this very beautiful town with much more to see and do than our two days will provide. Another place to return to (only 2 hours from CDMX). 

Once again we follow our usual search for the best vegan food and found it once again at a small spot run by two lovely ladies - Maria and Elina. They have only been here for one month so if your travels bring you to V de B, please visit them.

Today we went to Bridal Falls for a walk in the woods with the sound of waterfalls surrounding us. We took care of a few errands as we will not have the opportunity to do any extra "stuff" during the next days. FYI, we will be in separate quarters with no eye contact, nor communication with each other nor you....our friends and family. I will write my thoughts and comments on this experience later this month.  

At Bridal Falls