another side of the Caribbean

After a couple of nights in Cartagena, we headed east along the coastal highway. The Caribbean route took us through Barranquilla, best known for its massive, multicultural Carnival celebration and, of course, as the birthplace of Shakira. As we were a few months late for Carnival, we didn’t stop in Barranquilla, but rather continued on to Santa Marta, another coastal city, which serves as the jumping-off point for two eminently worthwhile destinations: Tayrona National Park and the Santa Marta Mountains. We visited both, starting with the former.

a peek behind the colorful curtain

It’s easy to be charmed by Cartagena; we certainly were during the 36 hours we spent there. Well-preserved colonial architecture, which earned the city a UNESCO World Heritage Site designation; incredible food scene and lively nightlife; vibrant street art and colorful buildings; narrow cobbled streets in the heart of the walled historic center filled with cute shops and cafes…the list of Cartagena’s modern-day attractions goes on and on. And yet, one has to be almost willfully blind not to see that the glitzy facade of this thriving tourist hub belies the ongoing daily struggles of a large percentage of the local population. Nowhere is this jarring dichotomy greater than in the neighborhood of Getsemani, which was transformed about a decade ago from one of the city’s poorest into one of its hippest.

the rarest of the rare

Over the last couple of years, we’ve seen several birds in the wild that are so rare or critically endangered that eBird masks reports of their whereabouts. This happened most recently with the great green macaws and yellow-naped parrots in Costa Rica, as well as with the black-and-chestnut eagle in Colombia. When D submits his checklists, a “Sensitive” tag pops up next to such species, indicating that while the bird will be added to D’s life list, his report will be kept out of the public domain. The ornithologists behind eBird are able to see the geo-tagged records and photos submitted by D and other birders, which advance the study of these endangered bird populations, while the “sensitive” filter ensures the birds’ protection from overzealous twitchers and poachers alike.

the Cartagena hustle

Our last post let the bird out of the bag, so to speak: presented with an opportunity to squeeze in one more week of leave before the kids returned from the States, we booked a last-minute trip to Colombia, reprising our travels last year. Our first — of what we hope will be many visits to this wonderful country — centered on central highlands and Colombia’s coffee axis. This time around, we started in Cartagena and explored the country’s northern coastline.

rarefied air

Last year was a banner year for D — the first real Big Year of his life. He logged nearly 750 bird species, 461 of them in Cost Rica. Amazingly, this year is shaping up to be even more special.

six and counting

Amidst all the end-of-school-year hoopla, the kids’ summer vacation trip to the States, and our own travels, our little girl turned six.

empty nestin’

By all accounts, the kids are having a fabulous summer break without us. Camp, strawberry picking, trips to Legoland and the theater, visits with cousins, and of course lots of quality time with their grandparents. Serving in Costa Rica, we’ve been able to see our parents a lot more often than during any of our previous overseas assignments, but our reunions are still too few and far between. This means that when the kids do spend time with their grandparents, the visits are turbo-charged, squeezing in months’ worth of activities and family bonding time into a few precious days before another long absence looms.

Meteora monasteries

In one of Pushkin’s most memorable and oft-quoted lines, the titular protagonist of his masterpiece Eugene Onegin “arrives from the ship to the ball.” This is how D felt, arriving in Thessaloniki after taking two consecutive red-eye flights and checking into our hotel mere hours before his friend’s wedding. Fighting jet lag, we made it to midnight, but once the wedding cake was cut and the dancing commenced, we begged off. S would’ve gladly hit the dance floor, but D was fading fast, and we made ambitious plans for the following day — our only day in Thessaloniki together.

slice of freedom

American holidays are a weird experience when one is living overseas. Especially if the holiday in question is a big deal back home, like the Fourth of July. Especially, when it falls on a random Tuesday and flies completely under the radar in one’s host country. No fireworks, flags, or other Americana festooning the streets. No family cookouts or parades. Just a day off in the middle of a busy stretch of work.

filling in the blanks

After spending 18 months exploring off-grid and visiting many off-the-beaten-path gems, we still get excited for every opportunity to revisit some of Costa Rica’s more well-known and popular destinations, such as Monteverde, Arenal, and Tortuguero. We first visited these places nearly two decades ago, and they played a key role in helping us fall in love with this beautiful country. It’s gratifying to see that despite the tourism explosion in the intervening years, they — unlike some other well-traveled destinations — have lost none of their charm.