in search of El Dorado

Beginning in the 1500s and continuing for some two hundred years, European explorers, Spanish conquistadores, and vagabonds of various stripes combed the jungles and mountains of the New World in search of the mythical city of El Dorado. Legends of the lost city made of gold and precious stones grew more elaborate with each retelling and found relic. The myth’s origins appear to trace their roots to what is now Colombia, where a so-called Golden King — a mythical tribal chieftain — was said to cover himself with gold dust before bathing in a sacred lake near present-day Bogota as an initiation rite. We did not travel anywhere near Bogota during our return trip to Colombia last month, but we did spend some time searching for our own El Dorado in Colombia’s Santa Marta Mountains.

all the waterfalls

As the crow flies, Bajos del Toro is quite close to San Jose — a mere 40 miles away. Late on a Friday afternoon, with rain exacerbating the traffic, navigating our way there proved a veritable nightmare. After spending an hour in bumper-to-bumper gridlock just to escape our neighborhood and another hour navigating back roads through hilly suburban settlements to avoid the freeway traffic, we made our way along one of the most hair-rising roads to be found in all of Costa Rica. First, came the soupy fog — the last thing one wants on a narrow, steep mountain road after nightfall. Then came a descent so precipitous that our brakes threatened to overheat; on the return trip a few days later, our car barely shuddered up the ascent, the tires struggling to find purchase on the rain-slicked, precipitously inclined asphalt. The trip was eminently worth the struggle in the end.

your mileage may vary

While we frequently plan our trips at the last minute out of necessity, there is a strong argument to be made for less planning in general — in fact, Geoffrey Morrison made just such an argument in the NY Times a couple of years ago. The potential upside of not planning out every minute detail of one’s travel is less stress and more opportunities for adventure, the argument goes. The downside to last-minute haphazard trip planning, it turns out, is that some of those adventures will be unanticipated and may be uncomfortable, leading to additional stress. There are two sides to this coin, as we learned during our recent trip to Colombia.

early returns

After a pair of flights that left at an unconscionable hour, we returned from Colombia early enough this morning to go out for Sunday brunch at our favorite local restaurant in San Jose — the final act of a two-week escape from both kids and adult responsibilities. Already, chores and looming work tasks are beginning to erode the reservoir of rest we have built up. We’ll get a few more days of relative peace and respite before the kids return to Costa Rica midweek. 

wet and wild holidays

It’s often the things one takes for granted that one misses the most when they are gone. Like power steering, for example. Never gave so much as half a thought to it until this month, when our recently acquired car decided to stop working as intended. The timing could not have been less propitious. With several holiday weekends on the horizon, we had planned to get out of San Jose and were excited for the opportunity to explore a bit of Costa Rica’s natural wonders after D’s return from South Asia.

cultural detour in south India

After an all-too-brief stop in Delhi, D headed back to the airport in the wee hours of the morning for yet another flight. Having visited the Himalayan foothills, it was time to head to the other end of the country. India is so vast that between the states of Himachal Pradesh in the north and Karnataka in the south D gained nearly an hour and a half of daylight! This was a most welcome development, the daylight hours at D’s disposal for sightseeing being quite minimal at the start of this trip.

old friends

D vowed not to make our road trip out West all about birds. His continued attempts to get S interested in this hobby notwithstanding, birding is simply not an interest we share. “Hiking and birding are incompatible,” quipped a recent NY Times travelogue, and given her choice S definitely prefers the former. The further D has fallen down the birding rabbit hole, the more resistant S has become to his obsession.

great American road trip

South Dakota markets itself as the Great American Road Trip — a bold claim, considering that road trip possibilities abound in our vast country. The state was barely on our travel radar before this month, but having spent the better part of the last week exploring Rapid City and its environs, we have to concur with this tagline. Simply put, South Dakota was a revelation.

desert in bloom

The most direct route from Los Angeles to Sedona follows I-10 due east toward Phoenix. The highway runs through Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley and skirts Joshua Tree National Park before carving a lonely swath of asphalt through the Sonoran Desert. We drove it in a state of near total sleep deprivation, having spent the previous 30 hours on planes and in mostly deserted airport terminals, and struggled to stay awake behind the wheel. Our kids passed out in their car seats almost as soon as we had strapped them in.

change of scenery

We had agonized for weeks about whether to leave the Philippines. Having made up our minds to go on authorized departure, we had only a few days to figure out where to resettle. We don’t own a house in the United States, so although we were happy to be heading home, the term for us was a bit of a misnomer.