CRAB-AGEDDON 2019!

The Bay of Pigs.

Famous for scuba diving and, oh yeah, a botched CIA supported invasion of Cuba in the 60s.

The only real reminder of that was a museum that I was really interested in seeing in the town of Playa Giron.

A museum that was closed for the few days I was there because it is the 58th anniversary of the invasion on April 15 and they were spiffing it up!

So there were tanks and planes out front we could see.

(In fact there are a lot of places in Cuba where there are tanks and planes to see if you'd like to.

Also a lot of bloody uniforms, and hats supposedly worn by Che or Cienfuegos or Fidel himself!

What's interesting is some of these hats and other items look like they are brand new and have never been worn.

Maybe the guys didn't sweat much back in the 50s? In Cuba... where it's really hot and humid.)

So the fabulous Fabian and Hannah and I came to the Bay of Pigs to do some scuba diving and to snorkel a sink hole.

"The fabulous who?" you ask.

Well, Fabian and Hannah are two totally awesome German's I met while rock climbing in Vinales. They are some of the most fun folks I have ever met backpacking and I hope to see them again somewhere in this amazing world of ours. (Currently they are in Mexico working in a commune, adopting baby possums and playing in drum circles. :)

In a classic bit of traveling I had set up a climbing day for 9am on Monday, the day I returned my scooter. There's one Casa in Vinales that knows the rock climbing, so I stopped by there on Saturday to set up the climb. (One thing I learned about Cuba is you have to be 1 or 2 steps ahead of where you are currently at, planning for what you are doing in the future. Cause if you don't... odds are it won't work out how you planned...

which sometimes is just as it should be.)

So Monday rolls around, and I go to return my scooter at 8:30.

Well, it's Cuba.

It takes a little while to get it taken care of.

Then I had to book a bus ticket to leave the next day to head to the bay of pigs.

There's two options of places to book a bus ticket. Both of them were helping other people.

I waited patiently, but at this point it was 9:10, and I was late for climbing. So I asked if I could come back later,

she said If I was back by 3:30 or 4:00 I should be fine to book for tomorrow, but she can't reserve without making phone calls and collecting money.

Well that will work out. I'll come back...

So off to climbing. Meet my awesome guide, Yaroby, gear up in a shed full of quite a lot of rock climbing gear. All donated from travelers because officially climbing is not legal in Cuba. Even though there are hundreds of bolted sport climbing routes in the Vinales area and they have competitions and it is a favorite place to climb for people from all over the world. But for some reason the Cuban government doesn't see how it can make money?  Or maybe there is something else going on?

Then we pick up Fabian and Hannah from a random outdoorsy restaurant on someone's ranch.

Originally I was by myself, but they had called in last night around 9pm. (Right about the time I was writing in my journal how it would be really nice to meet some cool travel friends to travel with... I'm not kidding. It was at almost the exact same time.)

We spend the day climbing in this AWESOME almost cave.  It was really a crevase between the rocks of the Magote near town. Walls 30 meters tall (that's 99 feet for all us Americans. ).   It was shaded almost the entire day, but for about 15 minutes when the sun shot straight down on us. Fabian did all the leads, and I went up the routes afterwards. I was really happy with myself. As some of you know I used to rock climb all the time, but have drifted out of it and haven't been climbing in 10 years... 12 years... maybe more. Likely more.  It was SO FUN!  I was really happy how quickly the techniques came back. And sure, my forearm strength eventually gave out on the 4th of 5 routes. But it was awesome to be on the rock again.

Yep, I'm way up there!

Meanwhile making friends!

Afterwards we all sat on the guides porch. Talked about climbing, and they invited me for lunch... and as one of my travel guidelines (stolen from "the Beach") is to "Never refuse an invitation". I said yes and off we went...

which means I was not going to get back in time to get the bus ticket.

Which means I would likely stay another day in Vinales.

And that seems like the perfect plan. :)

We ate, we explored caves, walked into this hidden valley inside a Magote that was like Jurassic Park (minus the T-Rex). Though there were PIGS! One mama and 3 or 4 little ones that kept coming up to us as the night fell and we told stories in the dark. We were "attacked" by a strange insect that looks like a cicada with glowing eyes. We thought it was a lightning bug until it flew into my headlamp and landed on the ground next to us. Don't know what it is. But we made up stories about it.

A grand day with some great people.

Traveling done right...




 

So after that day and another exploring caves and riding in the rain, we rode a taxi collectivo to Havana... The car was a beat up old Cadillac with a Jesus gear shifter and eyelids on the lights.  It dropped us in some field next to the highway along with a bunch of other travelers on the south side of Havana. Somehow everyone ended up in other Taxis, cars and these classic old ford buses to get to where they are going. It's amazing that any of this works and that anyone gets paid. But it does... and I guess they do.

Bus Stop, Cuban Style

As our bus rolled down the 2 lane road along the east side of the bay of pigs I noted to Hannah that "It smells like death."

She said "The bus driver just said its the dead crabs on the bus tires."

Apparently the crabs live on the swamp side of the road, and in April they cross from the swamp to the sea to bathe...

then back across the road to get the naughty-naughty on.

Then BACK across the road to lay their eggs.

Then return to the swamp side to live out the rest of the year.

Two months later the babies cross.

And strangely the next month the BIG crabs cross to do the same thing.

It smells pretty bad, but when we got into Playa Giron, a one horse town if there ever was one, the smell had passed.

But the whole place felt like the apocalypse had come.

It was grey, overcast and there was almost NO ONE AROUND.

So Strange.

We even walked to the "resort" to check about diving and there was almost no one there.

Peeling paint on the "bungalows" (which are just cinder block buildings painted in bright colors").

They are building a lot more... but they are almost all empty.

As was the pool area and the lobby.

Well the next morning we go DIVE!

And man... it is GREAT DIVING!

And only $25/dive!

Hannah and I did 2. Fabian isn't certified (yet!) so he snorkeled. And of course there were other folks there...

almost all German or Swiss. (I'm noticing a pattern in Cuba. :)

I haven't gone diving in 4 1/2 years, so I was a little nervous to get a refresher and make sure it was all safe.

Talk about "riding a bike" It all came back really quickly. And the nice thing is, you just climb down a 4 rung ladder into the ocean with all your gear on, and start scuba diving right there. The reef wall is about 30 meters (100 feet) off the shore. So you don't even get in a boat.

You just take a bus... that smells like death cause it is running over crabs.

On the second dive we saw this HUGE soft coral the size of a person that looked like a giant Horn. It was bright purple and swaying in the current.

And also there as a shipwreck! Which you could swim through. So beautiful and amazing. I love it!

Back in town, we enjoy lunch, then rent bikes to ride the 19km to the flooded Cenote to go snorkeling. Because that is what one does.

The bikes were actually pretty good, brought by some random person the Casa owner called up. They cost 5CUC a day I think.

So we mount up, Fabian starts singing "Push it to the Limit" by Survivor (from the movie Scarface) and I laughed out loud. I sing that song regularly!

 

So we pushed it to the limit and rode north out of town.

Along the 2 lane road that few cars drive on.

Past the occasional smashed crab. Or maimed crab. Or crab flipped over cooking in the sun.

There were a number of them, but not toooo crazy.

We stopped to swim at a little beach resort cove. It was a pretty hot day, so it felt great.

And I took some pictures of the lines of dead crabs in the "yard" of the place. I figured I might as well get some pics to remember. I mean, dozens of dead crabs. It's pretty gross and weird.

RIDE ON!

So I put Survivor playing on my iPhone and we're riding free and fast. The road is flat and clear. It's a pretty great day!

Fabian and Hannah were about 100 meters in front of me.

This crab had crossed 3/4's of the road in front of me... safe from harm... good job Crab!

Then the little ass hole turns around and runs right back in front of my bike!

Not wanting to kill him I slammed on both breaks....

The bike stopped...

I did not.

I flew right over the handlebars going pretty fast. Cursing as I went and thinking "Protect your head!"

So I slammed into the ground hands first and rolled over... popping back up to my feet and stumbling back a few feet.

THEN THE PAIN HIT.

My wrists and palms were all cut up. My knee. My shoulder. My finger.

ANd my ribs...

The crab lived and wandered back into the grass.

Hannah and Fabian eventually rode back as I was bent over.

Now conveniently Hannah is a doctor!

So she checked my wrist (that was bruising pretty badly) and my ribs and said that she thinks its just bruised.

"Do you want to keep going? Or head back?"

Oh, if nothing is broken, we keep going. There is a Cenote to snorkel.

At this point you might say: "Craig. Why did you hit BOTH brakes??"

Great question. And it occured to me that the scooter that I'd ridden for 2 days, the back break is on the left hand... and on a bike the left brake is the FRONT brake.

So habit of two days.

Well, the sink hold wasn't much further. Maybe 3 or 4km.

I did NOT hit the brakes if a crab ran in front of the bike.

I did try to avoid them, but if they charged, I will say a few crabs might likely have crunched under the back tire. In fact I guarantee it. It was a nasty sound, but I'm not wiping out again.

We get to the Cenote around 4:45 or so. And the path in has crabs in the rocks all around us.

We get to the largest flooded Cenote in Cuba and jump in. We snorkel.

And collect trash, because there was a bit of trash around. Not India level of trash. But there was some ,and figured we would leave it better than we found it. With Fabian leading the charge to collect bottles and cans.

And on the far side of the Cenote, all along the rocks, coating the otherside in fact... were crabs.

I'm talking hundreds.

Probably thousands of crabs.

Lined up next to the edge of the cenote. I don't think they swim, so they just stop there... thwarted on their way to the sea.

We swam back into the darker passages of the Cenote. Where the water was only 3 feet wide. With this rock wall of crabs next to us. Climbing over each other. Squirming around. It's pretty creepy and gross. And really surreal.

Around 6 we figured it was time to head back. About 2 hours ride and the sun sets at 7:45.

We put shoes on and I notice we are the last people there besides the two people who had closed up the snack shop hours ago and were watching some Spanish language action flick on the tube tv.

As we walk out, we notice the path has quite a bit more crabs on it than on the way in...

Now the silly thing about the crabs is if they feel threatened (or want to be intimidating) they PUT THEIR HANDS UP IN THE AIR!

And they can't walk forward. So they walk sideways really slow, or stumble backwards like a strange child's wind up toy.

Now if YOU put YOUR HANDS UP IN THE AIR... they will respond in kind.

It's pretty hilarious.

So we started singing the Trance song "Put your hands up in the air!" and would put our hands up and the crabs would put their hands up and stumble back...

We reach the road, walk out onto it, and look left towards Playa Giron...

And the ENTIRE ROAD AS FAR AS YOU CAN SEE WAS COVERED IN THOUSANDS OF CRABS.

 

Look right... and the same sight.

Um....

Fabian asked the two workers how long the crabs would be there. An hour or two.

Manana. Tomorrow.

So that means we have to right up to 19km down a road covered in creepy, crawly, skittering crabs.

Yes it does.

Oh boy.

So we start... and when they are in mass, the crabs will slowly part if you ride slow and steady.

Sort of.

Because some of the little suckers would charge you. They would attack you.

They would try to claw the bike tires (with their wind up toy precision).

Sometimes they would grab hold and get rolled up and over and down.

Sometimes they would somehow make it THROUGH the spinning spokes of the bike tires safely...

and sometimes they wouldn't.

The CRUNCH of a crab under the tire happened quite a number of times.

It's a nasty sound.

More than one got hit by the pedals and rolled along.

Often I would just lift my feet up in the air and roll straight and hope I didn't hit any.

Seriously, WTF???

Now both Hannah and Fabian are vegetarians... and even they didn't like these crabs by the end of this.

I mean, they are really dumb. They attack bikes... and TRUCKS.

Every 10 or 15 minutes we would hear the sound of an oncoming truck or car or bus...

and here it would come...

SQUISH SQUISH SQUISH, CRUNCH CRUNCH CRUCH just obliterating crabs by the thousands.

And then we would race after it in the wake, trying to cover as much ground as possible before the tide of crabs closed on the road again.

One car creeped past us, everyone inside videotaping the silly gringos bike riding through the crabs.

It was pretty funny.

In truth I shot quite a lot of video too, because the whole thing seems out of this world.

In some sections of the road there were dead and maimed crabs everywhere. One with only one claw and no legs dragging itself across the road.

Others with broken legs.

Some we ran over... and they were fine.

Some crabs were eating their crushed or maimed kin.

And every once in awhile a turkey vulture would enjoy the dead crab buffet.

Now you might ask: do people eat them?

Nope. They are toxic to people. (The big ones next month aren't thought! So feast up!)

In fact these crabs have no natural predators in the area.

And even though they must die by the tens or hundreds of thousands.

Maybe even millions.

The locals say there are WAY more crabs now than 5 or 10 years ago.

Eventually they started to thin out, and then it was just the flattened crabs killed the day before or whenever.

So we could stop and take a breath.

And Fabian looked down and said "Did you notice what the red sand is?"

Because red sand lined both side of the road.

But on closer inspection it was clear it was not sand...

it was pulverized crab shells.

Kilometers of pulverized crab shells lining the side of the road.

Did they die yesterday?

Last week?

Last year?

Who knows?

The sun set before we reached town, and we watched it from this old reef coastline... surrounded by crabs crawling around the old rocks. It was lovely.

The crabs were hanging off the edge by the ocean. We contemplated what it must be like, to just live going back and forth across a road that wasn't always there (But likely has been since before the CIA tried to take the bay of Pigs.).

We did make it back in one piece... mostly.

There was a field in town, dotted with crabs about every 3 feet (1 meter). It reminded me of the shot from the Walking Dead where the zombie wanders through the

grass field. Only there were hundreds of these.

We rode to the beach and met with our diving friends.

We drank beer. Ate. And toasted one mans new grand child he just found out he was going to have.

Life goes on.

For us and for the crabs...

So the apocalypse we felt when we arrived wasn't for humans... it was for crabs.

And yet still they live and grow and spread....

Maybe someday they will spread beyond this little corner of the world...

CraigO

PS:  As I finished writing this, PUSH IT TO THE LIMIT just kicked on. I'm not kidding. :)

PPS:  It's almost 4 weeks later and my ribs still hurt a little bit. I've had it checked after I got back and it is just a bruise. I guess they take 4 weeks or more to heal so I'm right on track.

Everything else was good in like a week. Though it looks like I might have some small scars on my knee. Was it worth it?  Well, I'd double check the brakes before riding ANYTHING again. But otherwise, hell yeah!

VIVA VINALES!!!

Vinales.

A town. A national park. A landscape of fantastic Migotes. Limestone mountains, with trees and bushes on top. Hidden valleys. Caves. Underground Rivers. The cliff faces were so sheer and beautiful. The whole place was a magical wonderland. It was really cool (and as I've talked to people it is one of the main places people go when in Cuba). Which doesn't make it any less awesome.

The only other places I've seen landscape like this were in Vang Vien, Laos and Ha Long Bay, Vietnam.  (Southern China has them as well, or so I hear).  I had no idea Cuba would have them until I got there, and they were awesome.  Awesome to ride horses around, to hike, to climb, to sit and stare at at sunset.

 

To Get to Vinales I went to the Viazul bus station in Havana to buy a ticket the day before I was planning on leaving. A thing about Cuba... you have to be thinking one or two steps ahead of where you are in order to keep any sort of momentum or flow to your trip. Because buses get full, cabs leave early, there may be only 1 scooter for rent in an entire town. And it isn't like you book it on the internet. You have to do it old school style by showing up!  It was kind of awesome :)

So I go to the Viazul bus station and.... its closed for remodeling. No sign. No other information. Just people inside working. Keep in mind this is the PRIMARY BUS LINE that runs around the country. And this is their MAIN OFFICE in the capital city. Ahhhh Cuba. 

There was a helpful Taxi Collectivo (group taxi) dude outside that said you could go to the main terminal somewhere 3 km away, or he would do a collective taxi and take me there for 23CUC, which is basically the same price as the bus. I said sure, signed up. (You don't pay until you are there, so no scam. This is the way it is done). 

Since I was across from the zoo, I went to the zoo. Saw some animals. Spoke with a cool Cuban who used to work on a fishing boat all over the world. He had some amazing stories of searching for Diamonds in Africa and learning fishing in Northern Russia. Now he works with the animals including a 53 year old Chimpanzee who has 50 kids. 

The next day we head out, the Taxi shows up mostly on time. And inside is a dude that looks Jason Statham (I mean, EXACTLY like Jason Statham!) and some other folks. The Cuban music was BUMPING in the cab and we were off. This cab was a classic American car. So cool.

Just travelin with Jason Statham... no big deal.

We stopped at a (The afore mentioned) Cigar plantation on the way and learned how that all worked. Got to try one. It is one of those things you expect in countries like Cuba, that on the travels you end up being taken to additional coffee or tobacco plantations. They want you to buy something. Jason Statham bought 20 cigars.

In Vinales, the main town has tons of places to eat and drink. It is very tourist friendly. Which some may view as good and some as bad. I'm curious what it looked like 5 years ago. Or 10. Definitely 15. Because Cuban's used to not be able to advertise the rooms in their houses. They could rent out up to 2, but no ads. No Signs. Now pretty much everyone rents a room or two or 5. (The 2 room limit has changed).

I managed to book a sunset horseback ride. It was sort of weird, the guide basically didn't want to give me the full time, it was so strange. I paid for 3 hours, he wanted to end in two. ANd most of the time was spent at a... you guessed it,... coffee plantation!  Ugh. Here was a situation I wanted to just enjoy the ride, the valley and sunset. It was weird, he literally would not ride any further. Even though horse riders were coming from futher in the valley, he said he couldn't go further. I have no idea why. He spoke some English. My Spanish sucks (as will be mentioned repeatedly) and so....

I decided to enjoy it. I bought a Mojito sin Azucar. And sat and waited for the sunset. There were puppies and kittens (Heather  you would have loved it!). And a nice French gal and her guide who rode up. So we hung out. Took pictures. As you do.

 

After eating I headed to the live music bar on the square. There's only one. It's easy to find. It's 1CUC to enter. I enjoyed the music. Was grabbed by a Cuban man who used me as a wing man to dance with some tourist gals. Then a Cuban woman who looked to be around 55 or 60 grabbed me and started Dancing. Some Salsa, but really she was drunk as a skunk and was bootie dancing on me. She'd bend over and rub her butt all over me as her Daughters and sisters laughed and shot video. (she introduced me while bumping on me, just so it wasn't TOO weird. lol).  After the song (and in Cuba the songs are like 20 minutes long when they're live), she drug me to the bar, asked if I liked Cerveza. I said sure. She ordered two, and when I reached for one... she took them both! And told me to order myself one. I did. And of course paid for all 3.  $5CUC total!

The next day I woke up early and went to go rent a scooter. I was given advice in Havana, from some folks who were on their LAST day of the trip, that I should get there by 7:30, even though they don't open till 8:30.  I got there at 7:15. I was the only one who got a scooter and not until 10:45am. But I was chillin and just going with the flow, cause that is what you have to do in Cuba!

 

It was AWESOME! I rode out to a cave. the 2nd largest cave in the Americas. Mammoth Cave in Kentucky is the only bigger one I think. I almost had a solo tour, but a Cuban couple showed up last minute. And if you can believe it, the guy tried to break off formations THE ENTIRE TIME.  The guide did nothing. Literally nothing. Didn't even say anything.  And my lack of Spanish made it hard for me to do anything about it. (And to be honest, I was so shocked the guide didn't do anything that I just shook my head which did nothing useful). In the end he succeeded in breaking off a 6 inch piece of a curtain like thing.

Ride on.

To the gas station.

Strange thing about Cuba. Gas stations... few and far between. And the one in Vinales... had no gas today. Guess that happens. There's talk of building a bigger one. Maybe it'll happen someday. Maybe it won't.

So 25 km away I found a gas station.

How did I find it you ask?

I had been told before I left to get Maps.Me.  In fact every single traveler I met had maps.me.  It's an offline Google maps. And with GPS you can see right where you are at. It even has hiking trails on it. That's awesome!

I tried to get it... but since Apple is an American company, the app store does not work in Cuba.

Doh!

So I had a terrible tourist map, and had been given vague directions on which way to go and where it would be (and told that I had 1 liter of Gas, with which I could go... 20km? 30km?  The guy didn't really know. )

I found it. I put in 6 liters. Filled it up!

And RIDE!

One of my favorite things to do while traveling is to rent a scooter and go. You meet cool people. See things off the tourist track. It's a great way to explore an area.

On the way back I stopped at the LOS AQUATICOS Trail head. These are a few families that learned the healing power of water from a shamen hundreds of years ago or something like that. It sounds fascinating, but I didn't make it all the way there. 

The trail, which was paved with stones and hand carved steps, went up and down over the Mogote's. Gorgeous views of the valley abounded. The hike was mostly shaded since it was late afternoon. So I sat and enjoyed the breeze. Then I came to a junction... the sign to Los Aquaticos lay on the ground. Did it point along the ridge or down?

Looked like down. So I chose down.

(HE CHOSE DOWN!!! (To almost quote Labyrinth!)

Well down dropped me to the valley floor pretty quickly.

It was getting late ish so I figured I'd just walk along the valley floor till sunset.

Then I saw goats.

And then I saw a cliff face... with a cave entrance in it!!!

SWEET!!!

Waterproof headlamp on (yes, of course I have one in my backpack. As you should too :)

And I plunge into the slot in the rock.

It led back, split left and right...

left a dead end. Right leads deeper.

Maybe 2 feet wide.

Slippery mud.

It splits again, with only the left going anywhere....

50 meters back, I found a pool!!! With a wooden structure above it.

It wasn't huge, but it was awesome!!!

And the end of the cave. Or as far as I was going to dare go as I'd have to submerge myself to explore further and as much as I love to explore the unknown, I'm not that crazy.

So I head out and ... hear voices off to the right.

So I head back the way I came and out of sight.... and then I hear they are AMERICAN voices.

So I turn around and walk back and surprise a family, their Cuban guide family (who all spoke English) and the owner of the property.

I made friends and they told me about a BIGGER cave around the corner.

I asked if it was okay to explore (since it was on his property).

He smiled and off I went.

 

The cave was like a tunnel all the way through the Mogote. Maybe 30-50 feet tall, and pitch black until you came around a corner to see out the other side... and a BIGGER POOL!

So I did what everyone would do, right? I got down to my underwear and went into the pool. It was waist deep. I half swam around in it and eventually went back to the side I started on.

What lay beyond....?

I'll have to come back to find out.

On my way out of the cave, I enjoyed a song written by my friend and former Feet Firster, Brandon Miquelon called ROOTLESS TREE.  It's a song he wrote after a multiple month trip through Europe he went on a few years ago. In truth, this was one of the main songs of this entire trip. I love it. He captured the feeling of the traveler so well. So thank you Brandon for the song, if you are cool with it I'll share it with people on the email thread.

I headed out of the cave, up to the farmer's house. Where they offered me coffee and I sat and enjoyed the coming sunset with people who mostly spoke a different language, but it didn't matter. We shared a nice time, looking out at the valley, as the guide drove off in his 1952 Pristine condition car...

 

I've still got a smile on my face as I write this.

Awesome.

CraigO

I'M IN FRICKIN CUBA!!!!

OK in all honesty I am already back. To you say that Internet is spotty in Cuba is An understatement :-)



There are Wi-Fi cards that you can purchase, and they work… OK. Maybe. If there is a connection. As many of you know I actually prefer not having continuous Internet access when on a trip like this so for me it was actually kind of wonderful. People were at restaurants and cafés actually interacting with each other. They were walking around and seeing sites or experiencing the places they were at and the people they were with. I won’t say that the Internet is not in Cuba, and it is kind of hilarious to see people huddled in city parks with their phones out trying to get some sort of signal. This applies to Cubans as well as travelers.



Cuba! The music, the people, the beautiful scenery, the heat, The waterfalls, the crabs (but we will get to that in a future email).   It is not an easy place to get around in as information is often times in accurate or different depending on who you talk to. I showed up at the bus station in Havana to buy a ticket... and the station was being remodeled with no signs or info for where to go. Fortunately there are helpful taxi drivers everywhere and he was happy to set up a Taxi Collectivo (group taxi) to my destination, Vinales.
And it was great! Met some cool people and went to a cigar plantation on the way. And even smoked a cigar for the first time. When in Cuba!

And frankly it was nasty as hell.
It just sort of burns and makes me want to spot a lot. Supposedly this was a good cigar. I bought two cigars for 6CUC each (that is roughly $6). They would cost $150-$200 each in America.
Fear not! I’m not planning on becoming an officionado of cigars. But maybe some investor In the movie will love them and feel like a bad ass with his/her cigar :)

 


FAST FACTS:

Cuba has two currencies.
The Cuban National peso (CUP) which is 25 to $1USD. This is the currency used when you are not in tourist areas. If you are paying with this you are getting things for very cheap at the rate that Cubans pay.
The other is the Cuban Convertable Peso (CUC). Which is roughly worth $1USD.
This is what you use most often. And the notes look very similar so you have to pay attention to what you are paying with.

A quirk of coming to Cuba from America is that you have to bring all of your money in cash. American credit cards and ATM cards do not work here. It was a little worrisome at first but frankly if you are smart with your money and keep it hidden were locked away in your bag at your casa particular things are fine.  The rest of the world, in theory it works like it would at home :-) in Theory...

HAVANA!
This is where I began and where I will end. I had 3 nights. 2 1/2 days at the start and I could have done one less. It’s big and unique. The old American cars really are cool. People say it’s a time machine, and I didn’t feel it so much in Havana... but once I got outside of Havana....

TIME WARP

American cars from the 40s, 50s and 60s. Beautiful cars. Some in immaculate condition. Some not so much. Some with a lot of personal character and touches (like eye brows on a beat up old Cadillac). Horse carts. Bicycles. Motorcycles. Buildings of wood and straw and stone. It really is wonderfully bizarre and fantastic. I never got tired of seeing these bad ass cars driving in the nature.



THE HUSTLE

Compared to someplace like India where the tours are pretty continuous, Cuba was a lot less. Yes, people offered a menu or a mojito to buy. Good price. And there were occasional street hustlers who always started with “where are you from?”
“United States (Estados unidos)” I would say.
And they would respond with “ahhhhh! Cuba and United states are friends!” (They are?)
And I mean every tour had the same line!
Not kidding. In different cities. Same lines.

But in general it wasn’t too bad at all.

IS CUBA SAFE?
The answer is yes... mostly.
I had ZERO issues ... until my final "Cab" ride out. Which in the end turned out to be fine, but was a very strong reminder to be careful anywhere you go.
I use the term "cab" because once I got in I realized this was NOT an official cab. And my instincts told me to hop out, but for some reason I didn't. They asked if I had a mobile phone (which there is no reason to ask.)  I said NO. And then they actually took me to the airport. I had to pay them secretly so the cops wouldn't see. Maybe that was the whole scam all along, but I think if I'd said I had a mobile this story would have ended very differently...

That being said, in Cuba It was safe to walk down dark streets in Trinidad and there were no issues. Just the occasional person on their porch who would just look at me, ignore me, or occasional say Hi. And the ONLY time I felt sketched out was that final morning ride to the airport.  So, keep your travel wits about you if you go and be aware of touts or such, but crime really is VERY low there. And violent crime even more so.

So there will be a few more emails coming in the next week or two. I had some amazing adventures, with amazing people in amazing places. All part of the purpose of traveling afterall.  If you don't want to be on the list, just let me know. No worries, I can take you off.

Otherwise, hope you enjoy the reads and the ride!

Rock on
CraigO-- TRAVELS!

PS:  it's been WAY to long!  Way way way too long. It felt good to be back on the road. Really good.



 

VANCOUVER TIME

Hi Team!

So the trip has come to an end. (Okay, it ended a month ago now, and I've worked 24 of 28 days since I got back. So... weeeee! :) )

But the trip has come to an end in Vancouver, Canada.

All of us got of the Star Princess calm and cool and relaxed. Very different from the hectic-ness of getting on. So I'd say the Cruise served that purpose of relaxing and enjoyment. Which is always good.

I bid farewell to my family at the airport after a day of driving in traffic and seeing a bit of Stanley park. And chilling in the hotel room with my Dad playing Carcassonne on the iPad. Seems a fitting way to finish up. My brother and family saw "Suicide Squad" for the second time on the trip! I wanted to go but was too tired to make it through a late flick.

I was a little sad that the trip was over, but also grateful that it happened. So grateful. It's wonderful to see people I love a lot and get to do something awesome with them. I look forward to our next visit! I hope all of you get to take trips with people you love soon. :)

After they rolled away I headed into Vancouver for 2 days of "backpacking" at the end of the trip. I stayed in a bunk at hostel, met some nice folks. And shared stories of travel. It was fun to look at the cruise route on Google Earth and see all the details of where we went from above.

I rented a bike and rode around for 7 hours. Around Stanley Park, which is this enormous park, much like Golden Gate park in San Fran. There were so many people on the bike path it was almost like a demolition derby. People were racing around, with views of the bay and cruise ships and a dozen cargo vessels waiting to come in. I wrote in my journal, ate a burger and enjoyed the people watching. And there were a LOT of people. And, quite frankly, everyone was gorgeous, fit and looked healthy. I know I live in LA, but folks, Vancouver is giving LA a run for it's money. Maybe because it was sunny and everyone actually had an excuse to be outside. Maybe because the lifestyle there is walking, biking, hiking and generally being active. Maybe it's the Canadian diet (though I doubt it's much different than the USA. But I could be wrong!) Maybe everyone works out all the time because they don't do any work. (I doubt that's it. lol).  Anyway, it made for enjoyable people watching all around.

I rode all the way till sundown, which here was by 8:30pm, and dark by 9:00.  How far south we've come.

The next day I took the bus to the sea-bus (ferry) to North Vancouver and another bus to LYNN CANYON PARK.
A gorgeous bunch of temperate rain forest nestled near a neighborhood. There was a suspension bridge hundreds of feet over the river. Pathways through the towering trees. And people jumping off cliffs into pools of water. And signs EVERYWHERE that said:  Cliff Jumping Is Deadly.  This area has already claimed several lives. That your fear is smarter than you are. And yet the people were unfazed as they leapt of 20 foot cliffs. And 30 foot cliffs. And one crazy dude leaped of a cliff that was EASILY 60 feet tall, over a waterfall and into a pool. He had a cast on his arm. Not sure where he earned that.  Another guy dropped 25 feet off a bridge (not the suspension bridge) into a pool that couldn't have been 10 feet in diameter.  This shit was crazy. I love cliff jumping and swimming and pools with waterfalls, but this was insane...

... and some of it looked fun too. You could jump off the bridge into a pool, then slide over a couple of 10 foot or 15 foot waterfalls down to the bottom. But there are signs EVERYWHERE that say how dangerous it is. (Did I mention this?).

I grabbed lunch and went to the 30 foot lake section, where there were even more people jumping into a gorge. Sure the jumps were only 10, 15 up to 30 feet. But there was a plaque dedicated to a 17 year old who had died there in March. I pointed it out to a mom who was there and she said:  "Looks safe to me. You could die crossing the street.".

Good point, and that is a lot less fun.

So after surveying the jumps and the depths, I got on the 10 foot jump and hopped into the FREEZING COLD water!  Yikes!  That'll wake you up!
I eventually built up to a 20 foot jump into the deep part of the gorge. It was fun. Cold, goodness.

After that I hopped the bus to GROUSE MOUNTAIN for a cable car ride to the top. It's a pretty touristy area, but I figured a nice 3,000 foot view of Vancouver at sunset was a good finale to a great trip. I ate dinner and enjoyed the lights coming out.

The music playing at the restaurant was fun, and right before I headed down on the last tram, they played "Knocking On Heaven's door". It's a song that makes me think of my Mom because one of the patients at the hospital played it on the guitar when she was being treated. It was great to have her visit at the end of the trip. In truth, she visited a lot during this trip. In songs that were played in different places. In conversation. In feeling. The Alaska cruise was to have been my parents 35th wedding anniversary trip together... and as any of you who know me know, that trip didn't happen.

Well it did this year.

On what would have been their 50th anniversary, we took my Dad to Alaska.

:)




This is Craig Ouellette,
last member of the Nostromo (aka: Star Princess)
Signing off.

ALASKA CRUISIN!

I'm often asked: "A cruise? I wouldn't have pegged you for a cruise guy Craig?"
And I respond: "Yes! It's super fun. It's a very different kind of traveling than strapping a backpack on your back and getting off the plane at 2am in Morocco and thinking: where am I? But it's fun none-the-less!"

I think there is room for all sorts of travel in this world. Sometimes solo. Sometimes with friends or family. Sometimes cheap and nitty gritty. Sometimes a bit more luxurious. And that's one of the fun things about a cruise, is there is an endless amount of food and activity to do... or you can just sit on the deck and watch the world go by. (Of course it helps when it's not 50 degrees outside with a howling wind flying past, which happened on a number of our days, but hey, what can you do?)

And the answer is a lot.

There's magic shows. The magician on this ship, Ben Siedman was really good. I definitely recommend you check out his positive show that genuninely made me say "how the heck did he do that?" about a dozen times.

There's movies under the stars. Teen clubs for the teens (Lily made a lot of new friends). There's comedy. Dancing. There's nature talks. Gambling. Swimming pools. Hot tubs (that inexplicably close at 9pm... um, hello, Hot tubbin on the late night is something that is distinctly missing). Jazz bands. Cover bands. Game shows. Food...

Lot's of food. Buffets, snack bars, ice cream. And 4 course dinners every night, should you want them. (And we did. My Dad was thinking the buffet was the best choice until I got him down there for the 4 course meal and he happily changed his mind. :).  Who wouldn't? The food was actually really good. And you can eat as much as you want. Lobster... sure, give me some of that. Filet... you bet.  I ate a lot. We all did. Though I tried not to get tooooo carried away. Which for me means 5 meals a day instead of 6!

There's karaoke! of course!  And the "Voice of the Ocean" contest. Which is really a karaoke contest. I didn't really know how it worked, but figured I'd give it a shot on the 2nd night of the cruise. Room full of people singing karaoke standards to the 50+ crowd. Okay, 60+, it's a cruise after all. And I sign up, the last of the night. My song:  "Ice Ice Baby". Now, when I do this at The Falls where I host karaoke, I stick the mic in peoples faces and have them sing the refrain, which conveniently goes: "Ice Ice Baby". I looked at that crowd and thought: This is not going to work here. I'll try something different. So I just asked everyone to sing it all together...
It was so much fun.  The whole room was hoppin!

For the rest of the cruise people would come up to me and say "you're the ice ice baby guy!".

I actually got into the finals! Where you perform on the last night of the cruise in the main theater with a full band back up, horns and all. Which is super fun... except there's no ice ice baby! Nooooo!  I ended up doing "I Love Rock And Roll". It was a lot of fun. They had the big Voice chairs, with differernt entertainers as the judges. I didn't win, but I had a great time and met some really cool people in the process of the rehearsals. (yep, this shit's for real!).

GLACIER TIME

One of the highlights of an Alaskan cruise is seeing these HUGE tidewater glaciers tumbling blocks of ice into the sea.
One of the reasons we took the smaller boat trip in Seward was because the big, 950 foot long Star Princess, isn't likely to get as close and personal to the glacier.

Well....

We came through the foggy fjord towards Hubbard Glacier. You couldn't see much. It was pretty cold and wet outside, but you could get out of the rain by being in the front of the promenade deck. I was a little disapointed... but then we started to run through ice in the water. Ice bergs in fact.

Woah woah woah, hold on Craig. You were on a cruise ship going through water filled with ICE BERGS?!?!?!?

I thought the same thing.
And at that point the naturalist came on and said "Some of you might be thinking that this is not a good idea. Well, these aren't the same kind of ice bergs that sank the Titanic. These are broken up pieces of a glacier that have fallen into the water. The ice berg that sank the Titanic broke off the greenland ice sheet that is 1,000 feet tall or more. So the ice was sticking over 100 feet out of the water."  Essentially they hit a mountain all those years ago.  These were at most 10 feet out of the water.

Still, very cool, and as it got colder outside, the fog lifted and there was the Hubbard Glacier. 6 1/2 miles wilde. 300 feet tall. I think it's the 2nd largest tidewater glacier in North America... And we got within 1 1/2 miles of it maybe. I mean, the ship kept getting closer and closer. And then the captain pivoted the thing around to one side, then back around to the other... It was surreal to see this big ship turning like that.

And the Glacier was calving pieces off into the fjord. Huge pieces falling off on the flanks, crashing into the water. It's really a site to see, and frankly no words really will do it justice.

The next day we hit Glacier National Park, and had a similar foggy approach to the Margerie Glacier and the Grand Pacific Glacier.  Margerie is the young, active glacier. She's still growing, unlike most glaciers. And she dumped pieces off into the water that were the entire height of the glacier... which is 200+ feet. Huge chunks just dropping off with pops of thunder and crashes of water. It was impressive. Now, don't think they do this every 10 seconds. You might wait a few minutes, hear a pop, and look over to see chunks of ice (probably the size of house, but the scale is hard to capture). And sometimes the whole face for a hundred feet or more drops off. Margerie is 2 1/2 miles wide, and we were close enough to it that you couldn't see the whole things without turning your head. The ship pivoted again, swinging the butt even CLOSER to the glacier. It couldn't have been more than 1/2-3/4 a mile away. And there was a little, 40 foot long fishing boat cruising around between us and the glacier. That was cool for seeing the scale of it.

PORTS OF CALL

Part of cruising is going to the ports. And there are always shore excursions offered from the ship:  ziplining, town tours, train trips etc. They are usually quite expensive, and a savvy traveler can get almost the same trip for cheaper if you book directly in town. However, in Alaska, all the big tours are so popular and filled up, the cruise ships can't really up charge much. It's Alaska, it's expensive.

We hit Skagway, Juneau, and Ketchikan.  All small towns, even the captial of Juneau.  Skagway is 800 people. That day there were nearly 10,000 cruisers that came to town because there were four ships. This doesn't lead to much of a natural experience of life in these towns... oh wait, yes it does, because in the summer it is all about the cruise ships. That's the season. That's the money. Good or bad, it is what it is. However, in Skagway, once you walk off the main drag, it's pretty quiet. I went on a hike up a ridge that overlooked the harbor with all the ships. It was pretty cool, and pretty quiet too.

Juneau was rained in, so much so that our plans pretty much fell apart. So instead, Dad and I sat in the Skywalker lounge (on the 18th floor of the ship. Yep. 18.) and played Caracassonne on my iPad. It's fun. Playing board games on a rainy day with Dad. Sounds like a good day to me!

Ketchikan was spent searching for a totem pole for Dad. He wanted something authentic and carved in Alaska. And I didn't know this before the trip, but this is the only area in the world where people carve totem poles!  We found him one he liked and Myque and I got it for him.  Dad and I also walked around town and saw Creek Street, which is the old red light district. The houses are all on stilts over the water, so the bootleggers during prohibition could get the booze in and out without being caught!

All 5 of us went to a Lumberjack show. It was good cheesy fun. Chainsaw cutting. Axe throwing. Tree climbing. It's actually a professional sport! Though this was a show for entertainment and laughs.

Ketchikan is one of the rainiest places in the United States. And you know what kind of weather we had... no rain! Yep, we had rain all over this trip, but not here. That, is pretty lucky I'd say!


THE INSIDE PASSAGE

Part of this trip is in the Inside Passage. Which is a channel that runs behind the islands of the Alaska and British Columbian coast. It's fascinating because for most of the trip, you could barely feel the ship moving. Granted, it's HUGE. However, in the open ocean, you could feel it rocking back and forth. And at the dance club a couple nights it was so wild you could hardly stand in one place while dancing. The ship was dancing I guess!
But a lot of the trip the ship wasn't rocking at all. It was super calm and smooth. Pretty surreal.
On top of that, the passage is narrow. Super narrow. You can see land on both sides, and honstely, if they spun the ship sideways, I bet it would run aground on both shores. It's pretty wild to be slipping past little villages on a moving skyscraper. Standing on the top deck is awesome in those situations. There were times where one side was sunny, and the other was foggy as we cruised along.

As we headed south the temperature got warmer and warmer. From the 50's to the 70's by the time we reached the end.

So on the last night, we could stand outside at sunset (an actual sunset! Usually it was cloudy or hidden). And watch a towns lights slide by on the coast. A nice place to be with my dad.


DOING OUR OWN THING, TOGETHER

One thing that cruises allow for, is travel with people, but where you aren't tied to everyone. Given the different needs and desires of all of us, it worked out well.  We would grab most breakfasts together. And every dinner. (The 2 hour dinners were a highlight). But during the days, we might hang out or we might not. I know my brother needed to rest and chillax, and he and Rachel enjoyed doing that. Lily ran around with her new friends, and would join us here and there for celebrations and activities. Dad would read overlooking the ocean. I'd run around doing stuff all day and dance until 2 in the morning every night, cause hey, being on a cruise ship is like being at a feet first party!  (That's the DJ/Teambuilding company I work for, for those of you who don't know). I actually led the Cupid Shuffle and the Wobble multiple times with all the fun folks dancing.

I always enjoyed the times I got to spend with everyone, and truthfully wish it would've worked out to spend a bit more time with them. Either checking out the glaciers or what not. We did catch the comedy and magic shows on various nights, and that was really fun. And as mentioned, 2 hour dinners. Like every dinner was that long!  We celebrated Dad's bday for one of them. And Myque and Rachel's 11th anniversary at another. Both those events happen in the summer, so it's close enough! :)


CRUISIN CONCLUSION

This was a trip long planned and long looked forward to.   It took a heck of a lot of logistics to get right.  And compared to most of my trips was more expensive.  And it was totally worth it.

To be able to travel is always wonderful.
To be able to travel with my family, people I love very much, is priceless.

So much of this trip was nice times with them, chatting about whatever. Seeing sites. Eating food. Taking pictures of stunning scenery. Perhaps it doesn't seem like as exciting a travel update as other ones from the past, but it's wonderful in it's own ways. And every time I saw how happy my Dad was when he was showing off his totem pole, or seeing the glaciers, or drivin the RV, or skipping rocks -- I captured it in my heart, because that doesn't show up in a photograph.

CraigO

PS:  One more to come…

ROAD TRIPPIN!

So it's 12:30 at night and I'm looking out at the twilight in the sky thinking... this is so bizarre.

And then it's 4:00am and I'm getting up in the middle of the night, and oh, wait... it's dawn already.

It's funny. When we first got to Alaska, dark came that late and day started that early. But by 10 days later, the day was already 45 Minutes shorter. Time flies! One thing that happens when the sun doesn't set until 11pm, is we just kept going and going every day. When back in the lower 48, we would unlikely go past 8pm on a summer road trip. Here... shoot, let's keep driving. It's still daytime!  Makes you feel like you are getting a lot more done. (Of course, neither my Dad nor I are early morning risers, so we didn't get going till 9am... but heh! If you're burning the candle at both ends that'll wear you out. And that wasn't exactly the plan).

DENALI HIGHWAY

127 miles of... not much.  There were 3 road houses. Well, really 2. And no other signs of civilazation. No other roads and only one or two random houses out there. It was a rainy day, so we didn't see the distant Alaskan range, but we had beautiful scenery. A moose run next to us for 1/4 mile, and quiet...

except for the rattle, rattle rattle of the RV on the road.

We did see a bald eagle on a tree near our picnic spot. I took pics of it. Super excited. (I didn't realize we would see many many more bald eagles before the end of the trip. Still cool though!)

VALDEZ

So we headed to the metropolis of Valdez, Alaska. Pop: 4000.  In Alaska terms that's a pretty good sized berg. It's a fishing village, and the end of the Alaska Pipeline. My Dad was super excited to see it, and we drove alongside it for a few hundred miles to get to Valdez. (My Dad is a retired geophysicist). Back in the day you could just drive right in and check out the refinery and pumping stations, but after 9/11 you can't even get close to it, but we did get some pics from afar.

And, because my Dad, as awesome and willing to adventure as he is, doesn't have all the same interests that I do. We took a day where he went for a hike and enjoyed town and I went for a lake Kayak adventure with Icebergs, that involved eating lunch on a glacier and taking kayaks into a deep blue ice cave. What?!?!?!?  Yeah, it was really awesome. Totally surreal and amazing.  The first part was a misty, foggy lake, with ice bergs floating in it. Completely calm. No wind. No waves. Some of the ice bergs were covered in rocks, some were white-ice, and some were blue. Magical, mystical blue.  We crossed the lake, and reached the toe of the glacier. The Valdez Glacier is covered in rocks, broken apart from the sides of the mountains all around it. We climbed out of our kayaks and had a picnic lunch. Then walked around the glacier -- which pretty much felt like walking on a rocky slope. Except every once in awhile you could see the ice through the cracks. Or see a canyon of Ice going deeper into the glacier.  The fog and mist cleared up, giving us a view of the whole lake. And then we took the kayaks into the cave. It was about two kayak lengths deep, and you could touch the sides and ceiling. You had to either back in or back out. It was pretty surreal...

... and next week it will be gone. That's the amazing thing about exploring glaciers, is that they are constantly changing. The guides say from day to day there might be new or different ice bergs, different cave openings, different places to get off the kayaks. It's really cool.

Now, I know what you're thinking:  "Craig! You're on the toe of a glacier as huge pieces of ice break off into the water like I see on the disovery channel!"  And the answer is, not this glacier.  That's called calving (pronounced caav-ing). And we did see quite a bit of that, but not here.

And after a good day, Dad and I met up, grabbed dinner, where my Dad swiped a Valdez pint glass from a bar!  (Okay, he asked if he could have it and the waiter said, "well, we can't give it away, but I'm not looking". Lol!  So funny... Oh shit, I just called you out Dad! Sorry!  :)  What did I say, my Dad is clearly a rebel!

We caught the salmon hatchery action on the far side of the bay as well.  Millions. Maybe tens of millions of Salmon coming back to spawn at a hatchery. The water was a churning soup as they tried to figure out how to navigate the fish ladder into the hatchery. Salmon have such a weird life cycle: They swim out to sea for a couple years, then come home to where they were born, exhaust themselves swimming upstream. On top of that, they don't and CAN'T eat anything, so they lay eggs and then die in the streams and rivers. Later in the trip, in Ketchikan, there were hundreds of dead salmon in this stream. Just completing their life cycle.  And here at the hatchery, sea lions swam into the fray -- the Salmon would spread away from them, and always one got caught. The sea lion would beat it back and forth on the water and then bite it in half. Or maybe swallow it whole.  Anything left, the seagulls came and pecked at. Eyes, gills. The soft stuff.  Bears also come down to feed, though we didn't see any.

So what do you do after a day of fun in Valdez?  Dad read. And I hit the Karaoke bar!  Gotta do it up Alaska style.  Was a good time!


COOPER LANDING

After our Valdez adventures (Of which there were even more, but I can't make this thing 50 pages long), we headed back to Achorage to meet up with Myque, Rachel and Lily and head to Cooper Landing where we did a raft float recommended by my awesome Uncle Kevin who had been with his family 10 years or more ago.  It was no wild white water (if you want that you have to goto 6 mile creek), but the water was this strange milky pale blue, and the scenery was very pretty.

THE EXIT GLACIER

The next day was one of my favorite days with everyone from the whole trip.
After we got going in the morning, we drove to the Exit Glacier. Everyone was excited and in a good mood. We ate lunch in the RV in the parking lot, then all got ready to hike up to the toe of the glacier. About a mile plus each way.  We trekked through the woods on an easy trail. My niece was running ahead, and so excited to be out there. We all chatted as we walked, and switched up who we were with. I ended up catching up with Lily as we broke out of the woods and onto the scree in front of the glacier. (100 years ago we would have been on the glacier at the parking lot, but it has retreated a bit since then).

Lily was like a mountain goat. She was hiking up the rock slopes, climbing over boulder and cruising along. She and I got way ahead of everyone else and it was so much fun to be hiking and climbing with her. At one point she said "This is the most fun I've ever had!" and then she added "Well, this and the 21-pilots concert.". I love her.

Myque and Rachel caught up to us and we took pictures as the cold glacier wind blew off the surface. My Dad didn't make it all the way, but he made it way further than I expected. He got to an overlook up a steep slope. Not bad for a 75 year old adventurer!

Days like this remind me of how we used to all hike around Colorado. Going off trail into the woods. Or hiking alongside the Cataract Falls. Or Hanging Lake. Or any number of magical places. It was wonderful to share that day with them here.

TO THE DOGS

The dogs were barking wildly. about 50 of them.
All sled dogs, all ready to pull the dog-sled cart we were sitting in. The guides say the dogs are saying "Me! Me! Pick Me!", and you'd be hard pressed to disagree. Sled dogs are a fascinating breed of the animal. They live to pull a sled. We took a ride through the woods with 13 of them pulling us along at 10+ miles per hour. The mushers use these summer tourist visits to help train and keep their dogs exercised so they will be prepared for the dog sled races of the winter... the grand daddy of which is the 1,000 mile Ididarod.  The dogs are all pretty adorable. And Lily got to dress in all the mushers gear. The tour is a little cheesy, but it's really fun too. I mean, how serious can a visit with a bunch of barking dogs be? :)

Alaska is full of all sorts of people and activities, that seem similar to things you might do elsewhere, but are very unique in the end. Strange adventures. Wonderful sites. Welcoming people. It's quite nice.

This day ended with a massage chair at Myque and Rachel's apartment they rented in Seward. Why an apartment for a couple nights? Because the only hotel room left was $600! What?!?!  Plan ahead for Alaska in the summertime folks.


Whew! This is turning out to be quite the update!
I've actually been home for 3 1/2 weeks now, and it's nice to take the trip back to Alaska.
I was going to include photos, because I'm actually at home and in theory can. But for some reason, they aren't showing up as attachable! Maybe I'll have a Photo Album email I send at the end or something. But for now... WORDS!


SUNSHINE!!!

We had good weather for Exit glacier. In fact, whenever we would pay for an activity, we had sun. Otherwise it likely was raining.
Maybe it just knew!

We headed out on a glacier / whale / bay mini-cruise to Kenai Fjords National Park. I'd talked to multiple travelers who recommended it. In addition, Brendon had said one of his highlights of his cruise a few years ago was something similar. And since our cruise didn't offer it, we did it here.

And it was BEAUTIFUL!

The sun was out. The mountains shooting 5000-7000 feet out of the water. Snow capped. We had humpback whales surfacing nearby. And then there were the Orcas. 3 pods of them. All around the boat, maybe 200 feet out. They would jump out of the water, roll sideways, and crash back into the sea. They would swim on the surface and slap their fins back and forth (presumably to stun fish), and seemed to be having a good time. The Park Ranger who was talking on the boat said that Orca's have behavior that as far as the scientist who study them can tell... is just for fun. They like to play and be silly and have a good time. And they sure looked like they were.

The trip also stopped at glaciers. Everyone got quiet and you could hear the popping and cracking of ice. And here and there pieces would fall off into the water. It's hard to get a picture of, because by the time you hear it, it's already happening. It's one of those things, I feel like, where you either choose to enjoy the moment OR try to get a picture of it. Which is better? I'm not sure. Both have their pleasures. I think mixing up the two is a great way to experience things.


DENALI

So, we drive back up to the National Park. Now that everyone is here, we can do the visit.
And in Denali, that visit involves a bus ride. Because other than the first 15 miles or so of the one and only park road, you have to be on a park bus. This keeps traffic down, and frankly improves your chances of seeing animals. Caribou, check!  Bald eagles, check!  Moose, check (though no bulls, only cows. So none of the big crazy antlers), bear, check.  Bear eating 150 feet away, check. Bear walking towards the bus, check. Bear walking right up to the bus under my window, check.  Bear walking along the side of the bus, seeing it's reflection in the door, and running it's ass back down the road, check, check and check. Bear watching us from the middle of the road, check.  Bear taking a shit in the road and walking off into the grass, check and check.  Yep. the bear scared the shit out of itself.

There was another bear, hanging in the middle of the road, that just walked over and was eating 15 feet away. Couldn't care less that a big green school bus and a car were nearby.

And way way way in the distance, we saw a lone wolf trotting along a high grassy slope. The driver said that is VERY unusual now. Denali's wolves stay far away from the road. After all they have 6,000,000 acres to enjoy. And the single road is only 90 miles long.

We were lucky when it comes to wildlife.

And we were lucky when it comes to the mountain. Because Denali is usually hidden in clouds, In fact, only 1 in 3 days out of the summer is it visible. So if you see it, you beat the odds. Well, we saw it that first day driving up this way. And today, late in the afternoon, the Big One came out again. Completely clear. A giant slope of ice and rock 20,000 feet tall. And with the base being about 3,000 feet, it is the largest mountain Massif in the world from base to summit.  And seeing it in that long endless magic hour of the Alaskan summer was a fabulous finale to our road trip...

Next stop:  Cruisin!

I’M IN FRICKIN' ALASKA
Aug 21, 2016


Hi Team!

I'm in the great white north! (Actually more the great gray north, since there's lots of rain) but either way it's BEAUTIFUL!

(Okay, I'll be honest:  I'm actually back in Los Angeles after an amazing 3 week trip to Alaska and Vancouver. Due to the nature of this trip, there were only 2 internet cafe's I even saw. One of them was closed. And the other was on the last day. So I'm going to do my best to go back there as I write these to hopefully, give you a fun adventure read. :)

So Alaska.
The 49th state.
The largest state in the USA by a long shot. (Sorry Texas!)
Population: 740,000 (with 400,000 of that in Anchorage area).

All these goes to say that there is A LOT of open space in Alaska. I almost wrote "open road", and while there is a lot of that too, the roads don't cover much of the state by any means. The capital, Juneau, is only reachable by boat or plane. In fact there are a lot of places in Alaska only accessable by boat, plane or just plain walking.

So how did we see Alaska?
Behind the wheel of a 29 foot RV we dubbed the "Minnie Winnie" (Since it said Minnie Winnie in big letter on the side.)

That's right. This was a road trip extraordianire with my Dad for the first 5 days, and then with my Brother, Sister-in-Law and Niece joining us for the next five days. And then there was a 7 day cruise...

But lets start with the road trip.

My family grew up road tripping. My parents always took us on multi week road trips during the summer growing up. We'd head to the southwest USA, the east coast, the mountains of Colorado, to visit relatives in the midwest. The list goes on and on, and I thank them everyday for instilling in me the wunderlust I have to explore and travel. So, it seemed appropriate to do a 10 day roadtrip-cruise with my Dad for his 75th Birthday. It's been years in the coming, delayed for all the reason's one finds to delay a trip (money, schedules, etc etc). But we finally were able to put it all together and head to Alaska.

So, RV? You might ask. How was that?

The answer: Awesome.  It was so much fun! In Alaska you can literally park ANYWHERE that is not private property and doesn't have a sign expressly saying "no camping". Which means you can pull out at an overlook of Denali (as we did the first night) and just say "This is camp". Or pull off on a rocky edge of a wild glacier fed river and say "Now this is camp!".  Sure, you can stay at an RV park (good for pumping out the "black water" and "grey water" and refilling the fresh water), or an official campground. Or you can just park on the side of the road, wherever you feel like it.  It took a day or two to really understand this. To not feel strange or out of place just stopping and "camping" wherever we wanted. But once we did, it was great.

Was there enough space?
Our 29' RV was great for 2 people. Dad had the bed in the back. I had the loft over the drivers seat. It was like a fort! We had shower, microwave, stove, oven, fridge, freezer, table. Even a TV and DVD player (which we didn't turn on a single time!)

Gas Mileage? Cost?
Our RV cost about $240 / day after the extra collision waiver, some camp chairs and taxes.
To put it in perspective: A mini-van cost $200/day.
Hotels in Alaska are very hard to come by in the summer and quite expensive. So we would have had to plan every step ahead of time, and book early. And each room would be $150-$250 or more. And that's the cheap room. My brother had to search long and hard to find an apartment when we were in Seward because the only hotel room left in the city was $600!  What?!?!
So the RV was actually a pretty big money saver on top of being fun. Sure it only got 10mpg. And had a 55 gallon tank. But we lucked out that gas was in the $2.40-$2.90 range most of the time. (In previous years it could easily top $4.00/gal).
Anyway, you get it. RV = fun and money saver!  Both good things.


How is it to drive?
Not hard at all. We got it from "Great Alaskan Holidays", and they have a very thorough video showing you how to drive it, where to watch when turning etc. It took me about 2 hours before I felt really confident and was zipping up the road. It's big, but it's fun. If you need to get a snack just hop up and go to the fridge while you're cruising down the road.

LET'S HIT THE ROAD!

After a breakfast of eggs and Reindeer sausage in Anchorage, we picked up the Minnie, stocked up on food and headed north through Anchorage Rush Hour. Which consisted of a few multicatch stop lights and about a 2 mile back up with some construction.  Other than that 10-15 minute delay on the first day, and some construction stops on the 2-lane highways, we never sat in any traffic at all for 10 days. In fact, there were times we would drive 200 miles or more without a stoplight or stopsign.  In the lower 48, one of my favorite road signs is in Utah and it says "Next Services on I-70, 112 miles".  In Alaska, it is COMMON to have 125 miles between gas stations.

There's a lot of space up there.

And a lot of it is GORGEOUS.  7,000 foot mountains shooting straight up out of the ocean. Ridges and ridges of hills and mountains stretching to forever. 17 - 20,000 foot mountains towering over everything around them. In some ways there is so much amazing scenery that it feels like overload... in the best possible way.

And there is also some monotonous tree-lined highways too. I mean, there's a LOT of space. And some of it is a 2 lane road with trees on both sides. It felt a lot like North Carolina, only the trees were different. Hey, in a place that big not everything can be off the charts.

Some of my fondest memories of the trip are just driving through beautiful scenery with my dad, some tunes on the radio, talking about his "rebel" days of youth. (I'll leave those stories for us, but it was really fun to hear about a time when my dad was.... well, still a good kid, but doing some silly goofy stuff that kids do. )  Or sitting by a camp fire, next to the glacial river as the twilight faded from the sky (at 11:30pm or later). The two of us tending the fire, listening to the river rush past and looking up at that big Alaska sky. Skipping and collecting rocks on riverbanks, or glacier sides. Bringing a little bit of Alaska back home with us. Laughing about whatever caught our funny bone.

There are adventures to be told, and they will be, but for now I'll leave you with the simple pleasures and joys of spending time with loved ones in amazing places. I'm grateful every minute that we are able to share these times together.

Alaska...

I’M IN FRICKIN' ALASKA

Hi Team!

I'm in the great white north! (Actually more the great gray north, since there's lots of rain) but either way it's BEAUTIFUL!

(Okay, I'll be honest:  I'm actually back in Los Angeles after an amazing 3 week trip to Alaska and Vancouver. Due to the nature of this trip, there were only 2 internet cafe's I even saw. One of them was closed. And the other was on the last day. So I'm going to do my best to go back there as I write these to hopefully, give you a fun adventure read. :)

So Alaska.
The 49th state.
The largest state in the USA by a long shot. (Sorry Texas!)
Population: 740,000 (with 400,000 of that in Anchorage area).

All these goes to say that there is A LOT of open space in Alaska. I almost wrote "open road", and while there is a lot of that too, the roads don't cover much of the state by any means. The capital, Juneau, is only reachable by boat or plane. In fact there are a lot of places in Alaska only accessable by boat, plane or just plain walking.

So how did we see Alaska?
Behind the wheel of a 29 foot RV we dubbed the "Minnie Winnie" (Since it said Minnie Winnie in big letter on the side.)

That's right. This was a road trip extraordianire with my Dad for the first 5 days, and then with my Brother, Sister-in-Law and Niece joining us for the next five days. And then there was a 7 day cruise...

But lets start with the road trip.

My family grew up road tripping. My parents always took us on multi week road trips during the summer growing up. We'd head to the southwest USA, the east coast, the mountains of Colorado, to visit relatives in the midwest. The list goes on and on, and I thank them everyday for instilling in me the wunderlust I have to explore and travel. So, it seemed appropriate to do a 10 day roadtrip-cruise with my Dad for his 75th Birthday. It's been years in the coming, delayed for all the reason's one finds to delay a trip (money, schedules, etc etc). But we finally were able to put it all together and head to Alaska.

So, RV? You might ask. How was that?

The answer: Awesome.  It was so much fun! In Alaska you can literally park ANYWHERE that is not private property and doesn't have a sign expressly saying "no camping". Which means you can pull out at an overlook of Denali (as we did the first night) and just say "This is camp". Or pull off on a rocky edge of a wild glacier fed river and say "Now this is camp!".  Sure, you can stay at an RV park (good for pumping out the "black water" and "grey water" and refilling the fresh water), or an official campground. Or you can just park on the side of the road, wherever you feel like it.  It took a day or two to really understand this. To not feel strange or out of place just stopping and "camping" wherever we wanted. But once we did, it was great.

Was there enough space?
Our 29' RV was great for 2 people. Dad had the bed in the back. I had the loft over the drivers seat. It was like a fort! We had shower, microwave, stove, oven, fridge, freezer, table. Even a TV and DVD player (which we didn't turn on a single time!)

Gas Mileage? Cost?
Our RV cost about $240 / day after the extra collision waiver, some camp chairs and taxes.
To put it in perspective: A mini-van cost $200/day.
Hotels in Alaska are very hard to come by in the summer and quite expensive. So we would have had to plan every step ahead of time, and book early. And each room would be $150-$250 or more. And that's the cheap room. My brother had to search long and hard to find an apartment when we were in Seward because the only hotel room left in the city was $600!  What?!?!
So the RV was actually a pretty big money saver on top of being fun. Sure it only got 10mpg. And had a 55 gallon tank. But we lucked out that gas was in the $2.40-$2.90 range most of the time. (In previous years it could easily top $4.00/gal).
Anyway, you get it. RV = fun and money saver!  Both good things.


How is it to drive?
Not hard at all. We got it from "Great Alaskan Holidays", and they have a very thorough video showing you how to drive it, where to watch when turning etc. It took me about 2 hours before I felt really confident and was zipping up the road. It's big, but it's fun. If you need to get a snack just hop up and go to the fridge while you're cruising down the road.

LET'S HIT THE ROAD!

After a breakfast of eggs and Reindeer sausage in Anchorage, we picked up the Minnie, stocked up on food and headed north through Anchorage Rush Hour. Which consisted of a few multicatch stop lights and about a 2 mile back up with some construction.  Other than that 10-15 minute delay on the first day, and some construction stops on the 2-lane highways, we never sat in any traffic at all for 10 days. In fact, there were times we would drive 200 miles or more without a stoplight or stopsign.  In the lower 48, one of my favorite road signs is in Utah and it says "Next Services on I-70, 112 miles".  In Alaska, it is COMMON to have 125 miles between gas stations.

There's a lot of space up there.

And a lot of it is GORGEOUS.  7,000 foot mountains shooting straight up out of the ocean. Ridges and ridges of hills and mountains stretching to forever. 17 - 20,000 foot mountains towering over everything around them. In some ways there is so much amazing scenery that it feels like overload... in the best possible way.

And there is also some monotonous tree-lined highways too. I mean, there's a LOT of space. And some of it is a 2 lane road with trees on both sides. It felt a lot like North Carolina, only the trees were different. Hey, in a place that big not everything can be off the charts.

Some of my fondest memories of the trip are just driving through beautiful scenery with my dad, some tunes on the radio, talking about his "rebel" days of youth. (I'll leave those stories for us, but it was really fun to hear about a time when my dad was.... well, still a good kid, but doing some silly goofy stuff that kids do. )  Or sitting by a camp fire, next to the glacial river as the twilight faded from the sky (at 11:30pm or later). The two of us tending the fire, listening to the river rush past and looking up at that big Alaska sky. Skipping and collecting rocks on riverbanks, or glacier sides. Bringing a little bit of Alaska back home with us. Laughing about whatever caught our funny bone.

There are adventures to be told, and they will be, but for now I'll leave you with the simple pleasures and joys of spending time with loved ones in amazing places. I'm grateful every minute that we are able to share these times together.

Alaska...