This page contains diary entries and links about various trips I’ve made. The Dominica posts have had their timestamps adjusted to when I originally wrote them.
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Tai-Chi Policy 
I’ve finally started uploading the photos I took while in Dominica last year. The gallery is here.
This is only about a third of the photos I took, and I haven’t yet commented on them much. I’ll upload another third of the photos to flickr next month when I get more bandwidth allowed from them. In the meantime, I’ll comment on those photos and also try and find my journal of the trip and post that here.
Update: I’ve found the journal on my laptop. I’ll post it now, and edit the timestamps to when I wrote them, which will place them above this post
Dominica: Day 1:
Well, I got here finally, one day late, after skillfully being seperted from my luggage. Also, apparently a different cell-phone standard is used, cause mine won’t connect.
Dominica is much lusher than I imagined or expected, I knew that there was rain forest on it, but I didn’t realize that the entire island literally IS rain forest.
Driving here is exactly the same as in Australia: roads are one lane in width, with shoulders barely wide enough that two drivers can pass each other when they veer to the left at the last second. The difference is that it’s performed on mountaineous roads with Hairpin turns, and sometimes only a couple yards of visibility of the road ahead.
Dominica is poorer than I expected, corrugated sheet metal and plywood shacks and the like being the norm outside the main towns, with most of the buildings inside the towns being only slightly better than that. My lodging is pretty decent though, although traveling around will be just slightly more difficult than I was expecting(I’ve chosen not to rent a car after seeing the driving, I’ll get around by taxi or bus). Nearly all the population is a mixed creole-black, so tourists (which is myself and very few others during the off season) stick out like a sore thumb. Everyone I’ve met has been very friendly and helpful though, especially given my circumstances.
One thing that surprised me tonight was how early it got dark: I didn’t realize that in the tropics it gets dark earlier, but the sun set sometime after 6, and by 7:15 or so it was completely dark. When I was talking with the manager of itassi cottages, from her porch looking over the ocean we could see a distant thunderstorm over the ocean…very cool.
Dominica: Day 2
Today was much better than yesterday and the day before(how could it not be?). I went down to the village of Soufriere and stopped by Nature Island Dive for the first day of getting certified. I spent the first half of the day getting taught the basics of scuba diving on the patio area of the Nature Island Dive facility, and then the second half of the day trying out some of those basics in the ocean right out front. The beach right out in front (which is NOT the famous champaigne beach) is still close enough to champaigne that you can see bubbles coming out from the ground. The interesting things I saw while learning some of the diving basics included a seahorse, something called a something fan fish…which looked like your basic ground hugging/somewhat cameouflage fish, except when startled it spreads it’s fins, each a hemisphere, beautifully colored, with blues, greens, and purples. I did pretty well with most of the diving stuff, but had a bit of trouble with keeping my left ear equalized from the pressure…even now hours after the diving I still have some pain in my left ear, it will probably hurt until I get to about 5 feet deep or so, the place where I last got my left ear equalized to. Fortunately, the first thirty feet of diving are the hardest to deal with the pressure, relatively, so once I get down past that(if I do get down past that) I’ll have an easier time of it.
I can see why Dominica is considered both underappreciated and such a good diving spot. I’ve come across a couple other divers, and the diving is definitely very good, as would be any hiking or exploring throughout the island. However, there’s not much else. Restaurants are mostly too poor to offer a consistent menu (they’ll have a couple of items ready throughout the day, often times just one item)
Buildings in Dominica are a weird mix of old, 18th century buildings, and mostly either shacks thrown together, or buildings made of cinderblocks (these can actually be pretty nice).
The Buses here are pretty good, although they’re just privately owned little vans. However, next time I go to a place to dive, I’ll make sure to get lodging either at the dive place, or within easy walking distance.
Dominica: Day 3
Today was much better diving, I didn’t have any trouble with my ears. We went to a depth of about 40 feet(which sounds like a lot, but when you’re down there and look up, it’s nothing); the more interesting things I saw included a scorpion fish, a trumpet fish, and three moray eels, which in dominica are very beautifully colored black and yellow or white. My instructor also tried to point out a 3 or 4 foot fish in the distance that he said is really rare to see close to shore, but I didn’t get a look at it. I also completed all the written stuff for getting certified, and I’m pretty sure I’ve done most of the exercise tests also, which means the rest of the dives are pretty much completely for enjoyment(although I think they’ve got some depth requirements I’m supposed to meet…shouldn’t be a problem).
So far every day there’s been a couple of rainstorms every day, starting and stopping at random. Benefit of being in a rainforest.
Dominica: Day 4
Today I did 2 dives, both to forty feet. I saw some pufferfish, a nice sized crab hiding in a sponge, and a whole bunch of other cool marine life. When we were heading back to the dock, a pod of dolphins passed us. We started circling, and the dolphins were curious and friendly enough to circle around the boat for a bit. Also, the dolphins were scaring flying fish out of the water, so we’d see them glide a good ways, probably about 30 or 40 feet.
After the dive I went down to Scott’s Head and hiked up to the peak. I took some photos of the surroundings.
Dominica: Day 5
Today I did two dives, both to 60 feet, and then rented a kayak and went to snorkel at the semi-famous Champaigne. On one of the dives we found a nudibranch that I got to hold, it was about an inch and a half long, of the type commonly called a lettuce-head. The first dive was through an area by scott’s head where there’s a couple rocks collectively called swiss cheese. We swam through them, and got to see various things such as caribbean lobsters hiding inside them. The second dive was on a sea cliff also nearby Scott’s Head. Apparently the bay that Soufriere is located on goes down more than 2000 feet deep.
Champaigne is justifiably famous. There are spots where the bubbles are coming up from all over. It’s also bathwater warm due to the geological activity. When I first got to the beach, I went into the water and put on my fins and mask and snorkel. As soon as I did so, I was able to see that if I’d stepped two feet further I might have stood right on a young scorpion fish (of which I’ve seen I think 6 or 7 this trip). Champaigne, while it does have coral sporadically scattered about, almost looks man made, like some arranged aquarium exhibit: there’s interestingly shaped rock all around, mostly covered in brown algea due to the extremely warm water temperature, and fish of all colors are all around. The most interesting things I saw include the largest moray I’ve seen this trip(finding morays on all the dives is always one of the funner things to do, they stay well hidden. I’ve generally found 2-3 per dive) and also the smallest moray eel: a juvenile about the size of a pencil. The other fish that I saw there that seemed fairly unique to the location(or at least, that I didn’t see anywhere else) include some sort of flounder, and some pretty blue fish: They’re a deep navy blue, almost black, then they have bright neon blue spots, and yellow tails. I later found out that the spots are only on the juveniles, when they get any larger than a couple of inches the spots disappear.
Dominica: Day 6
Today was the last day here, of course. Since I can’t dive 24 hours before a flight, I went on a hike to the boiling lake, through a sulpheric vent called the valley of desolation. it was more than 6 hours of hiking there and back, almost no level ground (so all up or down stairs, some of which were quite steep), and we (there was 4 others, + the guide + me) reached a height of about 3500 feet. I took a ton of pictures, so I’ll let them speak for most of my day. I will say that after the entire hike I was quite tired, though.
One of the other most cool things I can remember seeing while diving was a really old bottle from several hundred years ago that was half in the coral. Pirate Rum!
The latest batch of photos from my trip to Dominica is up.
I just added another batch of photos to flickr from my Dominica trip. I’ll be organizing them in the next couple days.
Curacao: Day 1
Arrived at 8:30 local time (Curacao is Atlantic Standard Time, so we lost an hour traveling here) after the sun had already gone down. Even on the gangway though we could feel how wonderful the climate of the island is: warm, but with constant trade winds, and low humidity. While landing we could see some of the oil refineries which is the island’s primary industry. We also had an interesting conversation about the island and what features we should check out from someone returning home to Curacao after 15 years. He was a bit of a character, very talkative, scruffy looking, and at least a little creepy, but also quite friendly.
The airport was pleasantly modern and we were able to get through customs and everything quite easily, with no hassle.
Since it was dark outside, we couldn’t get a very good look at much while we were driving to our apartment, but the lack of light pollution really lets the stars and moon shine, even when you’re in a lit area. It’s amazingly refreshing being able to look up into the sky and see a full spread of stars. Also, the moon was close to full, and quite beautiful.
After a bit of adventure on Curacao’s roads (which are fortunately two-laned, but lack names or speed limits) we found our apartment. It’s in a gated compound which is beautifully lit at night with white and green lights, which suit the colors of the bungalows quite nicely. In the center of the area is a pool lit beautifully from below, and a little gazebo with a table where a handful of people sit and chat late until the night, including the security guard/manager who stays awake and on shift until 6 in the morning.
Our bungalow is a little two story building with an upper and a lower patio that are about 15 feet from a cliff overlooking the water, although in the dark there’s not much to see. The bungalow looks simple, modern, laid back, and quite recently built, also.
After flying all day and finally getting to our bungalow, we were starving, so we set off in search of some food. We had barely traveled down the road when we came across a Chinese food place, which was more than good enough. I believe this was the first Chinese food place I’ve ever seen with outdoor seating, but given the perfect climate, who would ever want to eat indoors? We ordered our food, and took it back to the table in our compound to eat it while listening to the mostly Dutch or Papiamento conversation. After eating, we both went to our beds and collapsed.
Perhaps the most amusing thing about the day was watching Anne go through a bit of culture shock of not being in America anymore. Her eyes were wide open all throughout the evening.
Curacao: Day 2
Woke up and checked the second floor patio to look at the view. Stunningly gorgeous, a classic Caribbean view. Took a shower and discovered the first little quirk of the trip — no hot water. Fortunately, the weather is warm enough here that a less than scalding shower isn’t the worst thing in the world.
After Anne took her shower we set out to go check out the local beach. As soon as we got out of the little housing compound we’re in we got our first view of the vegetation of the island, which is unique. The island is an incredible mix of lush and dry — there are cacti almost as frequently spaced as trees in your average forest, but between them is all sorts of bushes, grass, and scrub. Everything is crowded as tightly as any jungle or rainforest you’ve seen, but all are clearly dry climate plants. There are very few tall trees, but what trees there are seem to mostly be clumped together in little groves.
The beach is an incredibly picturesque little cove. In fact, a picture of it is the cover of Fodor’s entry on Curacao. Since we are on the western side of the island though, the sun hadn’t really warmed up the beach, so Anne and I decided to explore the island, presumably in search of a grocery store.
After an enjoyable hour of driving along the coast we did finally encounter a grocery store (really only about 20 minutes from our apartment if driven directly). Along the way we saw some beautiful green parrots, and some lizards (which looked like either large anoles or maybe small iguanas) a couple of which were a brilliant green hue. We also passed a wind farm along the coast, which must do quite well with the steady trade breezes. The entire time we drove with the windows down, and the breeze absolutely perfectly cancels the heat of the sun.
Once we had returned our groceries it was time to set off for Sunset divers. Since we didn’t have directions, we had to wing it, although we knew roughly where the place was located. While we were driving, we came to a gorgeous overlook of St. Marta’s bay. Absolutely beautiful. We asked some tourists at the location if they knew were Sunset divers was, and they were as confused and in the air as we were, although when we continued down the road it ended at Sunset resort not more than 30 seconds later.
We ate lunch in an open air restaurant at Sunset resort and enjoyed the view of the beach, and a host of lizards and birds. Then we proceeded to the dive shop. After about an hour of preparation we entered the water, and while Anne was working with the dive instructor I simply snorkeled around the little bay. In addition to quite a number of other tropical fish I saw a puffer fish and several scorpion fish, as camouflage and deadly as ever. Warning: shuffle your feet, or better yet, swim when in the tropics!
Once the class was done the divemaster decided to show the class around, and I accompanied them on the swim out to the reef. The coolest things I saw there were a foot long nudibranch, three huge schools of fish all together (I was in the middle of them while the students were a ways away), and a very large white, blue, green, and purple moray eel, which I pointed out to the class. When I noticed the moray eel I was actually looking at the cleaning shrimp, and only after admiring the cleaning shrimp did I realize that it was actually at work on a very large fish. It was a bit of a surprise. There’s a beautiful cleaning shrimp….ON A FIVE FOOT MORAY!
Anne seemed to do okay on the dive, although there were certainly some things she could improve on. Her attitude afterwards was very upbeat and determined though, so that was good.
We headed to our bungalow, went up to the second floor patio, and watched the sunset over the ocean while drinking strawberry zinfandel, then headed out to dinner. We ate at a beautiful resort called Kura Hulinda, (also open air) then headed back, typed these up, and went to sleep.
Curacao: Day 3
We woke up an hour earlier than we needed to today because sometime in the night my phone figured out which time zone it was in. We didn’t realize until we were getting ready to head out the door though, so we took the time to eat some breakfast, than headed out to Sunset.
Since we still had a bit of time before 10:00, Anne and I tried snorkeling a bit, trying to get her more comfortable with her mask. Then at 10:00, we met up with her instructor and started her open water dives. For some reason there was lots of waves today, which kicked up a lot of sand, and in some places reduced the visibility to less than a couple of feet. Out in the deeper water visibility was somewhat better, but still rarely better than 15 feet.
Anne did most of the exercises quite well, but panicked a couple of times with the mask removal and filling. She can clear her mask when it’s half full, but any more than that and she’s unable to clear it all the way before she starts to have trouble. She did do a full clear a couple of times, but when the instructor tried to signal she had done a good job she thought he meant to do it again, and she had trouble that time. Unfortunately, to add to her frustration, during her second dive she and the instructor brushed up against some fire coral — not too badly, but certainly enough to make things more difficult. I was actually holding onto the rope just inches away from the fire coral and didn’t even realize, until we got to the surface.
While the instructor tried to help Anne do the last mask clearing exercise she needed to get done, I went to the dive shop and got the vinegar, for when they got out. By this time Anne was getting too frustrated and flustered though, so we called it a day. Given that she was able to clear her mask halfway after removing it though, I think she’ll be able to do it fully, if not tomorrow then the next day.
I’m looking forward to the dives tomorrow, they’ll be boat dives, and should be the first times Anne gets to really enjoy diving just for the sake of diving, although the instructor might have her do the mask removal one more time — I hope she pulls it off, it’s the only thing she doesn’t have fully down.
After all the diving, we decided to head to Willemstad. The town is quite gorgeous, all pastels and old style architecture (or at least old style facades), and there’s a healthy amount of construction, which definitely gives the island a sense of prosperity. We wanted to do a couple things in Willemstad, but we completely mistimed our afternoon. We wandered around a bit in search of food (down all the wrong streets), found a bar that served food very slowly, then tried to go see a couple nearby things that were all closed. Still, walking around was pleasant, we got to see the floating market, and got a bit of a sense of the town, which should let us do some of the things we want to do next time.
On the way back to the car we ran into the guy we were sitting by on the airplane. He was surprisingly less creepy now that he’d cleaned himself up, and he was still very friendly. We said a quick hello, then went on our way, stopping at a restaurant recommended by Fodor’s to pick up some milkshakes made with home made ice-cream. Then we drove back, stopping for a little while at our local cove. For some reason the brakes became very unresponsive while I was driving back, but then when Anne drove after we stopped at the cove they worked fine again.
At the cove, I snorkeled for just a few minutes. There was a puffer, some interesting crabs, and schools of literally thousands of little two inch silver fish hiding in the cove. After a couple minutes, I came out of the water, and Anne and I watched the sun set through the cove.
Curacao: Day 4
Today was a lot of fun. Anne was really nervous about her first boat dive, but she jumped in the water with me and a dive master, and she did great. On our two dives we went down to about 60 feet each time, and she didn’t have any trouble. She seemed to really enjoy it. The second dive had the strongest current I’ve ever been in. In fact, the dive master claimed it was the strongest current he’d ever been in! I had to pull Anne along the entire first half of the dive, and then on the drift, fight to stay on course. Both dives were really gorgeous, although there weren’t many things that we saw that were very unique, a couple of moray eels and such, but nothing really special to see.
After the dives we went to the Hato caves. They’re pretty impressive, and it was cool to see the bats flying around it, and their colonies. Also nearby the caves are some cool prehistoric rubbings in the walls. At the caves we also took a walk through the little park. You could see iguanas sunning in the trees, and we saw a hummingbird in it’s nest.
We went to a restaurant for dinner, which was pretty good. Unfortunately, I choked during the meal, and so coughed up a decent amount of it. I guess I should take smaller bites, although I am at least chewing my food thoroughly.
One of the interesting things about the day was that the weather was rainy. What this means in Curacao is that it’s sunny, and you have a cloud come every so often that mists you with a light refreshing mist for about 3 minutes, and then it goes away and it’s sunny again. Sometimes the sun doesn’t even get blocked when it mists. The whole experience is very enjoyable — we in fact drove with the windows down while it was “raining”.
Curacao: Day 5
For some reason, today we messed up almost everything we could mess up. I was somewhat disappointed. We started out heading to Sunset to do our morning dives, but it had been overcast/rainy all night, and still was. Because of this, it was actually pretty cool. Anne was too cold to do a second dive, so she just went to the restaurant nearby and planned out a couple of our other days. On the second dive, I did see a frogfish, which was very cool. It was in a white/pinkish sponge, huddled up against the side of it. After I got back from the second dive we decided to head to Willemstad. We didn’t realize Willemstad would be closed on Sunday, so we parked, and then had to walk around for quite a while before we found a place to eat at — we wanted to eat at one of the places the guide book recommended.
Unfortunately, the place messed up our order, in two ways. We didn’t receive one of the dishes we ordered, and my entree was switched for another of Anne’s, so I didn’t get to try the dish I wanted to. The dessert I ordered (Crepes with ice cream, orange, and Curacao liqueur) was pretty good though. After we were done with lunch we wanted to go see the ostrich farm. Unfortunately, between the wandering around looking for lunch, and the incredibly slow serving of it, we weren’t finished until 3:45, and we didn’t get to the Ostrich farm until 4:40 (although we did get to see the Queen Emma bridge open), so we missed that too.
After we left the Ostrich farm, we went over to Mambo Beach, supposedly one of the more happening places on the island at night. We did get to that just fine. Given that it’s carnival, the place wasn’t what I expected. It was more of a spring break atmosphere than a Caribbean carnival type atmosphere. There was a DJ, a couple of beach bars, and a whole bunch of people partying. It was worth seeing, I guess, and I did enjoy lying back and watching the sunset with Anne. We did run into our guide from the Hato Caves, and the person who sat in front of us on the flight, so the guide book was right about this location being the happening place.
Curacao: Day 6
Today was fantastic. We woke up to a beautifully clear sky. Our first dive was Santa Cruz, where we saw garden eels, a spotted eagle ray, and a sharptail eel. After the first dive, we hung out at a sea cave called the blue room. The ceiling of the entrance of the cave is only about two feet over the water, and the floor is sandy about 30 feet below, so all the light gets filtered through the water, making everything a beautiful aqua color. There was also a little path you could climb up to cliff jump into the water from above the blue room’s entrance. It looks much higher when you jump it then from the boat. I was the only one in the group who did jump it, and I did it twice, diving the second time. I wrenched my shoulder a bit on the dive, but it was still fun.
Our second dive was at mushroom forest. The site has some very cool terrain, with all sorts of large coral mounds with the bottom eaten away, making them look like mushrooms. While the dive site was fantastic, about the best thing we saw on it was a beautiful peacock flounder.
Once we were done diving, we headed into Willemstad to try and do some shopping. Fortunately, today everything was open. We tried to go for lunch to the old market but mistook which building it was, so we went to the time out cafe. It was in a pleasant little square hidden away. Anne got a tuna sandwich and I got a beef stoba (stew) sandwich. We also again ran into the friendly native guy who sat behind us on the plane. We visited the synagogue in town, which is the oldest synagogue in the western hemisphere. It’s an incredibly beautiful building. The museum is also cool, there’s some incredibly elaborate pieces in it, as well as some incredibly ancient things. There’s a Torah dating from 1320 which was smuggled out of spain before the inquisition in the 1400s. Really cool stuff.
We spent the afternoon shopping, and got some clothes, for incredibly low prices. For $40, for instance, I was able to get 3 decently nice shirts (and not t-shirts). We wrapped up the day with drinks from Vienna Ice Cafe, and then a wonderful French dinner at the Bistro Le Clochard, which has an incredible view of the harbor, since it’s built into the fort that guards one side.
Curacao: Day 7
Today was another great day. On one of our dives today we saw squid, and on the other there was a large school of barracuda (which unfortunately Anne missed) and several mantis shrimp, which the dive master played with a bit. The second dive site was a pretty incredible location, with two coral cliff walls and a sandy bottom between the two.
We went to Jaanchi’s restaurant for lunch, and tried the iguana stew, along with barracuda, and wahoo. The restaurant has a huge flock of birds that frequents it, which was a real joy to watch. Afterwards we were going to go to Christoffel park, but it was a bit too late. We went instead to Boka Tabla, which is a definite site to see. It’s on the north side of the island, and the waves spectacularly crash against the island. Boka Tabla itself is a sea cave, but there are a couple other pretty neat grottoes and such carved out by the waves, including Boka Pistol, which was our favorite. Boka Pistol is a natural wedge in the rock which spouts the water into all different directions, turning even minor waves into spouts of water as high as perhaps 40 feet.
From Boka Tabla we headed to Piscadera Bay to check out one of the casinos. We went to the Marriott, which is supposed to have one of the bigger casinos, and it was pretty tiny. So we grabbed a couple of drinks and sat out on the beach and enjoyed the evening sky and the live jazz playing from Marriott’s beach bar.
Curacao: Day 8
We started out with two beautiful dives: Radio City and Sponge Forest, which we drift dived. There was a huge lobster, and a barracuda we got to see up close. In between the dives we stopped off at the blue room again. While snorkeling there I got to see four squid up close. They were pretty little, and let me swim alongside them for a good minute or two.
After the diving was over, we went to Christoffel park. It was too late to climb to Christoffel peak, but in retrospect, I’m glad we didn’t anyways. In Christoffel you get to drive around to various parking spots that have hiking trails, and some of the spots are on the next highest peaks near Christoffel, so we could see most of what we’d be able to see from up there.
There are lizards everywhere in Christoffel, and quite a few birds, too. The views are gorgeous, you get to see so far, and it almost all is unsettled. We did a couple short paths and attempted one of the longer paths, but about halfway through the path had become overgrown, so we had to come back. We were pretty tired by that point, so we declared ourselves done with Christoffel and headed out.
For dinner we did a barbecue, grabbing a couple pieces of meat from the grocery store that were already spiced up a bit, and they turned out to be quite good. We got to watch the sunset from our place, and then we watched a movie and headed to sleep.
Curacao: Day 9
Today’s dives were Long Beach and Harry’s Hole. Although both were beautiful sights, we unfortunately didn’t see anything too unique, apart from a huge crab that was quite camouflage: he had chosen a sponge to hide in that was the same color as the algae on his shell. Afterwards we went down to Playa (beach) Porto Mari and relaxed. I got to finish my book, Anne worked on hers and her tan, and I got in some snorkeling. The snorkeling was amazing. I found two octopuses hidden away in hidey holes. The first was rather tiny but still cool to see, the second had a head about the size of a cantelope, and you could see it all, plus a tentacle. In addition to the octopuses I saw two sharptail eels, which are also a pretty rare find. I was really psyched about finding the octopuses though, because seeing them is really hard in the daytime, and they were really well hidden. I was the only one on the beach who seemed to find them, and all the other snorkelers were asking me where to look. I modestly pointed the way.
After our grueling day at the beach, we decided to go relax at a restaurant called Blues, which has live jazz on Thursdays. It was a pretty cool little place, on a pier that juts out over the water, and the band plays in a loft over the bar, where everyone can see them. Caribbean jazz is pretty cool, definitely a slightly different flavor then what you get in Boston — it has a definite reggae twist to it.
Curacao: Day 10
Today we got to snorkel with dolphins! Definitely a cool thing to do. I wish we got to spend a bit more time in the water with them, but we did get to have a bit of fun with them. There was one that would leave the other people petting it whenever I dove underwater, and I got towed around a bit underwater before the trainer stopped me (no riding with the dolphins except for your one ride that she helps arrange). Our earlier dives were also pretty cool, we dove Porto Mari again and also Pelican Beach. As we entered the water in Porto Mari, a school of barracuda was right there, and they swam around near us for quite a while before departing. We also saw a juvenile filefish, which looks a little like a tiny seahorse without the tail, a school of surgeonfish, a school of half pikes (also called needle fish), a blenney, which is the tiniest little fish you have ever seen, and pokes out of it’s little hidey hole, and I saw a beautiful large blue scrolled filefish – a rare sight, and very beautiful. I tried to point it out to Anne, but we don’t have any sort of way to signal each other underwater except by touch or sight so it’s hard to point to some of the fish before they swim away.
We ate dinner tonight at a wonderful restaurant called Kontiki Beach. Each table is in it’s own little palm tree sort of gazebo with plants all around. It’s amazingly private, yet still outdoors.
Curacao: Day 11
What a great day! Our last dives of the trip were quite awesome. We did Santa Cruz and Mako’s mountain again. At Mako’s mountain we were searching for the nurse shark one group spotted yesterday, and for the frogfish we spotted a couple days ago. We didn’t find either, although the dive was still spectacular. At Santa Cruz, however, in addition to the garden eels we saw a little sea turtle, maybe two feet long, a juvenile filefish, a big yellow frogfish, and a very friendly remora. In between dives we went to the blue room again, and after the dives we went to Playa Knip.
Knip is a beautiful beach, white sand that just goes out into the water forever. I found another octopus, maybe even slightly larger than the last one, a school of 36 squid (they hung out long enough for me to count), and a school of the needlefish.
At the end of the day, we returned to our bungalow to watch the sunset, and we opened up all the doors and windows and sat around relaxing with the breezes.
Curacao: Day 12
Well, the vacation is over today. We packed, then spent a couple hours on Playa Lagun. I went and snorkeled, seeing some large squid, needlefish, and a huge lobster. While I was snorkeling I was also practicing my free-diving, going down to depths of about 30 feet. At 1:00, we took one last glance at Lagun and then left.
Miscellaneous details about Curacao:
The smell of Curacao is one of wood smoke, diesel fumes, and dry greenery, sort of an almost pine smell. It’s not usually very strong, just strong enough to give the Island a bit of flavor.
Driving on the island is liberating. There are very few rules beyond the dividing line, you just drive where you wish at the speed you wish. There’s no street names except for in Willemstad where you walk. Instead, you just follow the sign pointing to the location nearest where you plan to go.
Everyone we’ve encountered is incredibly friendly and helpful.
The island is dry, it’s picturesque desert meets tropical island.
There’s a lot of lizards, from little geckos to iguanas. Anne’s discovered she loves lizards, especially iguanas.
Everything on the island is some wonderful pastel color. Apparently after the governor decided to have Willemstad painted, everyone decided to paint everything else too. It looks awesome.
I went to New York, New York for the first time for the weekend recently. I knew the place was big, but I have to admit, knowing it and actually seeing how big it is are too different things. I think what’s the most amazing is how you can look straight down a street or avenue and see tall buildings as far as the eye can see.
Anne and I drove down on Saturday morning. There was still only buds on the trees, so I was glad to see leaves on trees once we hit Connecticut. I’d never driven that last stretch through Connecticut during the day (I have passed NY a couple of times at night) so I didn’t know what a beautiful drive it was. We were on CT-15, by the way, not 95.
Anne and I were in the times square area, and I was actually surprised by how small times square is. We later found out that one of the main buildings is empty, and the owner took home 21 million last year just for renting the wall for billboard space.
Once we got to times square, we met up with a couple of Anne’s friends who live in the city, then headed to our hotel to check in. We stayed in a hotel called “The Time” which was pretty decent, and very modern in style. When Anne and I walked in our first thought was how small the room was, but Anne’s friends immediately commented on how large the room was.
After walking around the city for awhile, we got some sushi, then grabbed discounted tickets to Spamalot for the evening. Spamalot was pretty funny (I especially liked: “This is the song that goes like this”, “You won’t succeed on Broadway if you haven’t got a Jew”, and “I’m all alone”) but it would have been funnier if I couldn’t quote most of holy grail right off the bat. Fortunately, most of the time, especially in the second act, they just start out with the scene from holy grail, and end up someplace else entirely.
Once Spamalot was over, we headed to Restaurant row and picked up some more food – Italian this time, then called it a night.
The next morning, I really wanted to see the city from a boat or something, and Anne really wanted to see Les Mis. I felt that we couldn’t really see just how big the city was unless we could see it from a somewhat outside perspective. Unfortunately, the concierge showed us the boat schedule, and there was just no way we would be able to take a boat tour and then get back in time to see the matinee showing of Les Mis, so we got the tickets and then headed down to se if there where any other tour boat operators. Along the way Anne suggested we could also do the helicopter tour, but that was an extra hundred dollars a person. Fortunately, when we got down to the harbor, we found out that the schedule for the tour boats had changed, and there was one we were just able to catch. This is where I took all my photos.
I highly recommend the tour boats. they really do give you a perspective of the city, and there’s all sorts of interesting things you learn. In addition to seeing the Statue of Liberty and upper and lower Manhattan(which are separated by the bedrock types which dictate what height buildings can be built on them) there’s such things like an amusing three story house you can see which, when first built, it was said it was going to, “cast a shadow over the rest of the city, plunging New York into a darkness it will never come out of” because of it’s height. You learn that the reason the Brooklyn Bridge (which, when it was built, was the tallest man made structure in North America) isn’t named the East River bridge anymore is because New York was in danger of losing it’s status as biggest city to Chicago, so it asked the third biggest city (Brooklyn) to merge. Brooklyn said no, but a couple days before the vote, New York proposed naming the bridge after Brooklyn, resulting in one of the closest votes in history, with only 70 or so people making the difference. The cities merged, and New York’s status as biggest city was guaranteed.
Anyhow, after the boat tour finished, we headed to the show. Les Mis was good, but I had thought it was going to be more about the French Revolution, and less just about the life of one man. Still, I enjoyed it. Then we got some dinner, and headed home.
We flew to Vegas, with a layover in Charlotte. It’s always really cool to see all of the terrain changing from plains to all the variety of terrain out west. When we landed, we checked into our hotel in Vegas (the Flamingo), and took a bit of a walk around. The Concierge managed to help us get tickets to the night’s show of Penn and Teller, and then we decided to hit a good restaurant while we were waiting, so in Caesar’s Palace we headed to the Mesa Grill. Caesar’s Palace definitely has an awesome theme to it, with very classic architecture and motifs inside (although the outside just bothers me – classical themes just don’t work as well on skyscrapers.)
Mesa Grill is fantastic. It’s Bobby Flay’s restaurant, and a southwestern style. Everything we had was absolutely delicious. Among the top two or three meals we’ve ever had. Absolutely all of the food was not only cooked to perfection, but had both a little zing, and a little twist to it. Our appetizer was duck in a blue corn pancake with chile and star anise sauce, and our side dishes both included tomales, Anne’s was infused with corn, and mine had wild rice. Delicious. for our main dishes, I got veal (which I normally could take or leave, but it was recommended) with a sugary horseradish sauce, and Anne had salmon with its own amazing sauces.
Penn and Teller were hilarious, mystifying, artistic, and thought provoking. Their entire show was sort of broken up into little skits, some of which were juggling sorts of tricks, some of which were magic tricks, some of which we’re mostly artistic. Penn’s dialogue really makes you think about some things at the same time it is quite amusing. The show had some hilarious concepts, such as a backwards sort of magic trick were everyone in the audience saw the secret except for the one blindfolded person. The act I probably enjoyed the most involved Teller transforming water into coins into fish, but the final trick was also pretty amazing: Penn and Teller divided the stage with a big yellow cloth, and shot bullets at each other that they caught in their teeth. What really made the trick though was that they went to practically every length you can imagine to really disprove every theory you could make about how they did the trick. They were very clear in making sure nothing crossed the yellow line, they got audience members in the military and police to verify they had real bullets and real guns, signing their names and drawing on both the bullets and the casings, showing those drawings to front row members, firing through pieces of glass so everyone could see they really shot the bullets, and getting the aforementioned audience members to verify that the guns had been fired, and that there were scorch marks on the bullets and such, and that the bullets had really crossed the line while the casings stayed on the same side. How the heck did they pull off that trick???
We spent today exploring the Casinos around the Flamingo and on the Northern side of the strip, after eating at Bellagio’s buffet, which was excellent in its variety of choices, but still buffet food. One of the first things we did was head to the top of the Eiffel tower in Paris. We got a spectacular view, and even watched one of the Bellagio fountain shows (to music from “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly”), but it was fairly chilly with the wind. We also watched a couple of other fountain shows throughout the day, and Anne played a bit of blackjack at the Venetian, quickly winning about $300 up from her initial bets.
In the evening, we went to see the Cirque du Soleil show, “O”, which is their water show. By far the coolest thing about the show in my opinion was the stage, and is constantly transforming. There’s all sorts of platforms underneath the water. At times you would see someone run across the surface of the water, and shortly after someone would high dive right into that section. My favorite part of the entire show was an hilarious section where the stage rose up and beached some divers, who flopped around exactly like a fish out of water. Shortly after that, the stage lowered again and they swam off, exactly like stranded fish do.
Once the show ended, we explored the town in search of sushi. For being the city that never sleeps, it was surprisingly difficult to find a sushi restaurant still open (we looked online and tried restaurants in Paris and Rio), but we finally found that Social House, in Treasure Island was still open. Social House had some decently tasty sushi, but the amusing part of the meal was our dessert. We ordered a dish that was freeze dried corn with vanilla ice cream, and had a description in the menu of “Trust us on this one.” It tasted exactly like Captain Crunch to me. When I mentioned as much to the waiter, he laughed and explained that the head chef had a thing for breakfast cereals, and liked attempting to replicate the flavors, and that it was actually meant to taste like corn puffs. Apparently one of the other deserts was made off of fruit loops.
On the way back from dinner, Anne’s feet were really sore from walking in heels all day, so she was walking barefoot on the stone (Vegas is a pretty clean city on the strip, so it wasn’t that bad). Since the stone was so cold, we decided to walk through Harrah’s, which was incredibly fortunate, because we stumbled upon the Piano Bar.
The Piano Bar is a bar with dueling pianos. Two pianists play music head to head, playing songs that are suggested if you put money on it, or else playing whatever they feel like – and oftentimes songs that everybody dislikes in order to get people to put money on better songs for them to play. They would oftentimes change the words to fit the circumstances in the bar, or to insult each other, but when they were singing a popular song, the entire bar would sing along. It was a ton of fun, and I highly recommend the dueling pianos as a place to relax and hang out at the end of a day in Vegas.
Today we decided to explore the southern half of the strip, the Luxor, Excalibur, MGM Grand, and such. We first started out by heading back to the Venetian and going to a grill there for lunch. As the Venetian’s upper shopping level is a maze (but beautiful) we ended up exploring this area, with its artificial canals and such quite a bit. We also had to pick up our tickets for our later Blue Man Group show. Once we had our tickets and full bellies, we went to the southern part of the strip, but then returned to the Venetian and its new sibling, the Palazzio. We decided to gamble a bit at the Palazzio, and I quickly made another $60 before the Blue Man Group show.
“Blue Man Group, Live at the Venetian”, was fabulous. I’d seen the Boston Blue Man Group show before, and “Live at the Venetian” had a lot of similar material, but much of it was expanded upon, and there were a couple new scenes too. I even got to participate in one scene, which was lots of fun, albeit brief. I loved the music the most: in addition to the three blue men, there’s four drummers, a keyboardist, guitarist, and bassist. Awesome.
Right across from the theater to Blue Man Group is a restaurant called David Burke, which serves a lot of modern and interesting dishes. Pretty tasty, but on the expensive side. Probably the most interesting dish we got included “Lobster foam” as one of its ingredients and flavors.
After the meal, we went back to gambling at the Palazzio, and won another $350. Not a bad Vegas trip. On the way back to the hotel, we also stopped by the Piano Bar again. at one point we put $2 on the pianists playing Piano Man, which caused a huge bidding war between Piano Man and Bohemian Rhapsody for the last song (they ended up playing both). Having a full bar sing along to a song is just tons of fun, and one of the musicians did the harmonica for Piano Man, also.
We spent most of today traveling to our ski location of Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We arrived during the evening at Teton Mountain Lodge, which is at the base of the Jackson Hole slopes, and wonderfully beautiful. The room is literally larger than Anne’s apartment, and has a wonderful kitchen and bathroom. Down the hall there’s an outdoor hot tub and pool, and the restaurant – The Cascade – is delicious. We had a wonderful meal of elk chops, and buffalo meatloaf. One of the things we noticed pretty quickly about the area, which is really cool, is that while the thermometer might be much lower than back east, the cold doesn’t get to you nearly as quickly, because the air is so dry.
Our first day of skiing! The snow here is a fantastic dry powder, and the mountain is huge. I love the main gondola lift, as it gives me a chance to rest my feet (I snowboard, and the lifts don’t normally do that). At the top of the gondola is a restaurant, and there’s a path where you can walk up to the top of the mountain, to ski down. One awesome thing about this mountain is that it’s so open: there are groomed paths, but they probably only cover about a third of the mountain, and pretty much the rest of the mountain is also ski-able. If you want to ski off an area, you just go. There’s few bushes or scrub, and the trees are fairly far apart, so you can ski wherever you want. Since the weather was so sunny and the view was so awesome, Anne and I decided to hike to the top. It was a real hike, and I was carrying Anne’s skis for her, as well as my snowboard. Unfortunately, near the very top of the mountain I dropped my snowboard when I tripped, and it slid down away from the path, and significantly down the mountain. I helped anne get her skis to the top, then hiked back down for my snowboard and back up to the top, this time through the 3 feet of powder, off the beaten path. Even worse was that after I took pictures at the top, I must have either dropped my camera or not put it properly in my pocket, because I didn’t have it once we got to the bottom of the mountain. Definitely the low point of the trip.
A second day of skiing. It’s snowing lightly today. I headed up the hiking trail to search for my camera, but didn’t have any success. That being the case, we headed into town after skiing to pick up some disposable cameras, boots for Anne, and dinner.
Jackson Hole is a fantastically western town. You can easily imagine people tying up their horses at any of the local shops, restaurants, or buildings. The elk antler arches are also awesome. For dinner we ate at the Cadillac grill, which was quite tasty, and I would definitely recommend the restaurant to anyone.
Snowmobiling in Yellowstone! I’ve been looking forward to this all trip. Unfortunately, we had to make do with disposable cameras for the pictures, but the day was still awesome. We had to wake up absurdly early for the trip, and even though I wore almost everything I had for insulation, I was still cold whenever we ramped the speed up into the 30-50 range. The views, however, were fantastic. We saw a whole variety of hot springs, including old faithful. Around the first one we saw was a herd of bison. At one point we also had to snowmobile through a herd of the bison. I literally could have reached out and touched them.
After the snowmobiling, we stopped in town again I bought a Stetson, and this time ate at the Silver Dollar bar. Anne got a delicious elk dish, and I got buffalo ribs, which were fantastic, and incredibly tender. They had been slow roasted for six hours, and the meat would literally just fall off of the bone.
Our last day today. We spent the day skiing again, on the foot of fresh powder that dropped (on the groomed trails this made a bit of a difference, but the rest of the trails are already just powder anyways).
Afterwards, we ate at the Cascade again, our favorite elk dish, and we got massages for our sore muscles at the Lodge’s spa.
Jackson Hole found my camera, with all my vacation pictures!
i just read your dominica:day 1 post.
i just hate being separated from my luggage!! but i love love love dominica ive been traveling around the world the past year and i loved it there, really. i am now getting ready to travel to Casablanca, going to stay in a 5 star hotel! at last! the past few months in asia ive been in 1 star hotels so im excited! enjoy your travels!