My parents and I were originally planning on Yosemite this year, but with the wildfires, it seemed like that wasn’t an advisable destination. Instead, we went to Lake Tahoe and Redwoods, which was an area of California I hadn’t been to before and it was absolutely gorgeous!
One of the things I was most excited for in this region was the Donner Party Memorial. The Donner Party is one of those things I learned about as a child and have always been irrationally fascinated by. There’s a state park outside of Truckee, California with a few hiking trails, a monument, and a small museum about the incident. There wasn’t a lot to see, but it was a fun excursion. I thought it was a particularly bold choice to include cookbooks in the gift shop.
Our next stop was Redwood National Park, which was incredible! They are the tallest trees on Earth, and there’s something so magical about being dwarfed by nature. We did a few of the short hikes and then did a scenic drive through the park. I would highly recommend a visit. The time of year we went was perfect, too, since it was the fall and the leaves of many of the other trees had changed to a stunning golden color.
The drive between Redwoods and Tahoe was beautiful. We went on some of the smaller highways and through the mountains. We tried to go to Lassen Volcanic National Park as well, but it was pretty snowy and most of the park was closed down from both the weather and the wildfires. It was crazy to go from the beach to a snowy mountain road within a day of driving.
One of the more sobering parts of the trip was coming across areas that had just recently gone through wildfires. Wildfires are a harsh reality of living in the Western US, but I’ve been so fortunate to be relatively unaffected by them myself. We went through communities that were still dealing with the fallout and trying to clean up, like the one pictured above.
Our final destination was Lake Tahoe! My mom had always wanted to stay in the Ritz Carleton there, so we had a ~fancy~ end to the trip as we headed up into the ski resort where it’s located and treated ourselves to a spa day. The whole area around the lake is beautiful, and I understand why it’s such a popular vacation destination. Overall, a great family vacation to a region I’ve wanted to explore for a while!
I’ve wanted to go to Iceland for ages. It was starting to get popular while I was on study abroad, and living in Scandinavia made me particularly aware of it. So when Sam and I were looking for travel options for a week long trip, it was one of the first places that came to mind!
We drove the Ring Road in a week. Several people I talked to said that was too fast, which is dumb. Could I have spent more time there doing tours? Of course, it would have been fun. But it was super doable in a week, and no one day was too much driving. It’s such a small country compared to the United States. I don’t think we had a day over about 4 or 5 hours of driving, and it still felt like a relaxed experience.
We flew into Reykjavik and had a day of exploring and trying to recover from jet lag. I didn’t sleep well on the plane and spent the morning exhausted, but I still felt like we got a good initial sense of the city. It felt rather similar to Copenhagen, with nice pedestrian streets in the city center.
The next day was the Golden Circle and driving down to Vik! The Golden Circle is a famous tourist trail of attractions near Reykjavik, including Gulfoss, Thingvellir National Park, and Geysir, which is where the word geyser comes from. Around Geysir it started pouring rain. We lucked out overall on weather, but every so often we would get caught in a freak storm. Iceland is very unpredictable when it comes to weather. The locals often say if you don’t like the weather, wait five minutes.
We also visited Kerid Crater, which was a beautiful walk, and Seljalandsfoss, which is my favorite of the waterfalls we saw in Iceland! The trail goes behind the waterfall, which is a magical experience. From there, we made our way down to Vik on the southern coast.
Vik is well known for its black sand beaches and proximity to the glaciers! There are tons of things to do in this area, and if we’d had more time, I would have tried to spend more of it in this region. There’s a hike out to an abandoned plane that we passed but didn’t have enough time for, but I guess I’ll just have to come back!
The next day was a major highlight for me – we went hiking on a glacier! It was one of the best travel experiences of my entire life. We met up with our guide and got set up with helmets and crampons and ice axes. I’ll admit, I got concerned when they handed us the axes. This was listed as easy on the tour website, did I get myself in over my head? But no, it was easy to walk on the glacier, and I never felt unsafe. The only advice I have is to really be confident walking in the crampons. Some of the other people on our tour kept walking gingerly, and at that point it was less safe because they weren’t letting the spikes dig into the ice. This particular glacier rests on a volcano. The black veins of ash have helped protect it and mean that it is melting slower than some of the other glaciers in Iceland. Still, it is melting, and they showed us where it used to end a few years ago. Sad to see the results of human activity on such beautiful nature.
We also went to the glacier lagoon a few hours away. While we were there, we got to see seals! But the highlight of that area was called Glass Beach, which is an area where pieces of ice wash up along the beach and it is absolutely beautiful. From there, we headed a little farther east to our Airbnb. As soon as we got past Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon, there was a major drop off in the number of tourists! There were not many people out on the east coast, which is a shame, because it is gorgeous.
There weren’t many places to stop or specific sites once we got to the east coast. Instead, it’s just a stunning drive along the coast and through the fjords. We stayed at an Airbnb at a tiny town, where the nearest grocery store was nearly half an hour away, and it looked out over one of the fjords!
One of the strangest quirks about an Icelandic road trip were the one lane bridges. This is something I’d never really encountered before, but the south and east had lots of them. It was fine during the day but a little scary at night – I don’t love going over a bridge not knowing if there’s someone waiting on the other side to collide with me head on.
Our first real stop of the day was Dettifoss, which is decently far off the Ring Road itself. It’s the second most powerful waterfall in Europe, and it was very impressive! It’s part of the Diamond Circle in the north part of Iceland. We went there and to Lake Myvatn, but with more time, I would’ve liked to hit the whole loop. Our destination, though, was Lake Myvatn, which is packed with cool things to see!
We started at the Hverir geothermal area, which was gorgeous and had this orange soil around the geothermal features. We also went up to Viti Crater, which was very windy and very turquoise and we had to drive past a power station to get there. We also hiked up the Hverfjall Cinder Cone, which was a cool look out point. It was also very windy. We were lightly worried about being blown off the edge. The last stop of the day was the Dimmuborgir lava formations, which had a nice path that we could wander through for as long as we wanted. After getting dinner in the area, we drove on to our Airbnb in Laugar so we could get a head start on our next day.
On our next day, we started with our last official waterfall of the trip, Godafoss. Iceland has so many waterfalls that I was pretty selective on what we stopped for – I didn’t want us to get “waterfalled out” so to speak. Godafoss is a horseshoe-shaped waterfall and was definitely worthy of inclusion, the multiple lookout points gave us a great perspective on the landscape. It was still a fairly quick stop and we were on to Akureyri!
Akureyri is the second largest city in Iceland. We started with our COVID tests at a drive-through clinic. This was at an annoying time when the US was requiring COVID tests for all re-entry, but before they restricted it to one day before travel so we were able to do ours a few days in advance. Predictably, getting tested in Iceland was very efficient.
Our travel logistics done, we were able to explore the city, which was super fun. One interesting cultural quirk of Akureyri is their parking system. Most residents have clocks where they set it in the window with the time they parked, and the zones are all based on how many hours you can stay in any one space. As foreigners, we didn’t have a clock, so we just had to write our time on the back of a piece of paper. Sam tried an Icelandic hot dog and we stumbled on some sort of festival for high schoolers where they were all dressed up in team outfits like superheros and Pippi Longstocking.
We couldn’t stay forever, though, because our Airbnb was still about 2 and a half hours away. After a beautiful drive, we found ourselves on a farm. The host told us to be careful on the road, because “it can be sheeps on both sides,” which is our new favorite saying and applies to a surprising number of situations.
On our last full day in Iceland, I’d scheduled one more tour! We had a three hour drive to get to Thingvellir National Park so that we could get to our tour and snorkel in the Silfra Rift. Outside of the glacier tour, this was the other thing I’d been most excited about. The Silfra Rift is the place between the American and European continental plates, and you can swim through it and touch both continents at the same time, which is amazing. Our guide suited us up in a truly comical amount of neoprene, including neoprene lobster-claw-looking gloves, which was good because it was absolutely frigid water. He told us we should try taking a sip of the water and it froze my lips to the point where it was hard to get the snorkel resituated in my mouth. But almost freezing was 100% worth it, because it was gorgeous clear water and I had a magical time swimming through the place where the continents meet.
Overall, I couldn’t have asked for a better birthday trip! The only thing that could’ve made me happier is if we’d seen the Northern Lights – I have terrible luck when it comes to trying to spot them, every time I’ve been somewhere it would be theoretically possible, the sky is overcast. But I guess I’ll just have to travel back above the Arctic Circle, how terrible….
The Galápagos Islands are magical. I’ve known about their existence since biology class in my sophomore year of high school. We talked about evolution and Darwin and the finches, but nothing really prepared me for seeing sea lions lounging on the beach and watching the blue footed booby do its mating dance. The animal encounters were unreal!
We started on San Cristobal. Within twenty minutes of getting out of the airport, we had already seen marine iguanas and sea lions and blue footed boobies on the island. What’s really surprising is how used to people the animals are – it doesn’t phase them at all when you walk by, and most of them are just curious. That baby sea lion in the picture above came over and sniffed my leg as I tried to be as still as humanly possible. It was adorable! All of the Galápagos Islands are considered a national park, and are under strict protections. When we ferried between the islands, we would have our bags checked each time to make sure we weren’t transporting anything organic.
We snorkeled twice on San Cristobal. Once was at a beach, where we got in the water with sea lions. They’re so playful, swimming circles around us and twisting themselves around! It’s hard to believe they even have bones when they swim. They’re incredibly graceful under water, and then they get on land and sort of lumber around. The second time was at Kicker Rock. It’s sort of out in the middle of the ocean. We saw a whole pod of dolphins as we were going out there, which was amazing. Once we arrived, we swam around the rock and through this channel! There were less animals generally at Kicker Rock than other swims we did, but I did have this incredible moment where the sun’s rays were going through the water and I was swimming alongside a school of fish.
Our next island was Santa Cruz, which is known for the giant tortoises. We saw them both in a breeding center and in the wild, which is an incredible experience! The breeding center talked about how they actually raise them there for about the first twenty years of their lives. At that point, their shells haven’t fully hardened yet, and so they’re still vulnerable to predators, so the island takes care of them until they’re old enough to live on their own. We also saw a tortoise mausoleum for Lonesome George, who made headlines for being the last of his kind and being unable to breed and keep his species alive.
I also went kayaking for the first time on Santa Cruz! We went to a lagoon, and saw tortoises and even a ray leaping out of the water. Side note, didn’t know they could do that, and it was somewhat alarming. But kayaking was fun and super relaxing.
Our third and last island was Isabela. This was the source of our best bird encounters! I saw a flamingo in the wild for the first time, and we also went to a nesting site for the blue footed boobies. I even got to see them do their mating dance! It’s amazing to watch. The whole thing is focused on how blue their feet are, and they pick up their feet and shake them at potential mates. One also picked up a stick and started whistling. Their feet really are shockingly blue. It doesn’t look like something that should be possible in nature.
The place we snorkeled here had so many sea turtles, and we got to swim right next to them. We also saw quite a few reef sharks. They’re mostly very shy, and wanted to swim by us very quickly to get to their caves. I did get a video of one though!
We also went hiking into a volcano, the Sierra Negra. Once again I regretted my lack of hiking boots on this trip as I slipped through the mud. But it was so cool to go through the volcanic rock and see all of the rock formations down at the bottom. I got extremely sunburned on this day but it was still a great hike.
I didn’t want to go home at the end of our week there. I just wanted to stay and sit on the beach and watch sea lions sunbathe on rocks, but all good things must come to an end. If you’re going to Ecuador, be sure to visit the Galápagos!
Quito is a much larger city than I’d expected. It’s also as hilly as San Francisco, except it’s at 9,300 feet so going up those hills feels much more exhausting. Still, after Cotopaxi, it was actually a decrease in elevation for me!
I got the chance to explore it for a few days before and after my Galápagos tour, and I had a great time. Becca and I climbed to the top of the Basilica del Voto Nacional, which had some stunning views of the city, and we also went to this amazing chocolate place called Indemini Baez where they showed us the whole process and let us try cacao at various stages in the process. I left with a lighter wallet and a lot of artisanal bars of chocolate, which was a good trade!
We did a fantastic day trip to Papallacta, which are these hot springs up in the mountains. There were hardly any tourists; only locals, which is how you know it’s a good find. Our friends from our Galápagos tour found out about it and let Becca and I tag along, and it was an incredibly relaxing day toward the end of our trip.
We also went to the equator monuments! Yes, I know they’re touristy, and I don’t care. Honestly, I really enjoyed the fact that they had dueling monuments. The one in the picture above is the big fancy one, that the government funded and they spent a lot of money on. And they set it all up there, and then they used GPS to figure out that the equator wasn’t actually there. Oops.
So they created this second monument and museum, which is at the site of the “real” equator, and advertises that in a delightfully passive aggressive manner. They also have experiments where they show you the differences of water going down the drain on each side of the equator and other similar scientific effects. They also have a fairly campy museum about Ecuador and the different regions, and it has what is truly the worst taxidermy I have ever seen.
Quito was an unexpected delight. I was so focused on the other parts of my trip that I overlooked it a bit, but I have some great memories from my time there! There are of course many wonderful parts of Ecuador to visit, but Quito is worth exploring.
As I planned my international travel for the year, I looked for countries that were accepting proof of vaccines without requiring additional testing and where I could do lots of outdoor activities. It led me to Ecuador! This wasn’t initially the first place I was planning to go in South America, but it was absolutely incredible and makes me so excited to explore more of the continent.
I started my trip with four days at the Secret Garden Cotopaxi, which is a beautiful hostel near Cotopaxi National Park. They had amazing reviews online, and after spending time there, I can see why! It’s possible to book it as a shared dorm, but they also have hobbit houses that you can book. That’s what I went with, and the views were absolutely incredible. In the photo above, it’s a bit cloudy, but on a clear day it’s possible to see the full volcano from the bed.
They have a few included activities, like the waterfall hike above (the water was frigid!) and another hike that we didn’t do. Then they help set up other activities, like horseback riding through Cotopaxi National Park and a hike on Cotopaxi. The meals are all included as well and then there’s alcohol for purchase. We played a lot of drunk Uno and sat around the fire and had an amazing time.
Horseback riding was an adventure, mostly because I hadn’t been in over ten years and when our guide asked if we had experience, Brooke and Christine happily said yes. Let’s just say my horse wanted to go faster than I wanted to go for almost the entirety of the outing, but the scenery was absolutely stunning. Throughout the trip, I was impressed time and time again with Ecuador’s commitment to preserving their nature. I never saw a single piece of litter. Cotopaxi National Park was immaculate.
Our next day was our hike on Cotopaxi! We met other people who were hiking all the way to the top, which is a crazy endeavor that requires ice climbing and starting the ascent at midnight, but we just spent a few hours on the mountain. We started at 15,000 feet, which was already a higher elevation than I had ever been at, and hiked up to 16,000. The air was so thin up there. I should’ve brought hiking boots, as my sneakers were entirely inappropriate (especially for the descent), but live and learn. It was some of the coolest views I’ve ever seen. Truly, if you’re in Ecuador, I can’t recommend the Secret Garden Cotopaxi highly enough!
Chicago is one of my favorite places in the world. When Sam and I were looking at options to take advantage of the work-from-anywhere situation, that was on the top of the list. I’ve wanted to show him the city for a while, and so we booked a week here to work from our company’s Chicago office and spend some time exploring!
Anyone who knows me knows that I am weird about food, but Chicago is one of the few places where I actually plan out the bulk of the meals in advance instead of just wandering and finding restaurants. Obviously anyone visiting has to try Chicago-style pizza, so that’s Giordano’s or Lou Malnati’s or Gino’s. Personally, deep dish isn’t my favorite style of pizza, but I also happen to think that all of those places do incredible regular crust pizza as well. Then there’s Portillo’s, for hot dogs and Italian beef and, most importantly, their chocolate cake milkshake. Eataly does great food and is also fun to shop for groceries in. There are so many good restaurants and cafés and brunch places. This time, I met up with a friend at a place that had to-die-for gnocchi and a gelato flight, which was probably my top meal of the trip!
Chicago has stellar museums. I would always recommend the Field Museum and Shedd Aquarium, but the one that I made sure Sam saw was the Art Institute. Fun fact, it has the largest collection of impressionist art outside of the Louvre! It also has American Gothic, and Nighthawks, and a collection of miniatures, and beautiful stained glass. We got lucky this time and the Obama portraits were on tour there, so we got to see those up close.
Sam was shocked to find that The Bean is in fact, a large metal bean shaped sculpture! Millennium Park is always fun to wander through. I have two other recommendations I always make for first time visitors. The first is an architectural river tour. It’s a great way to see the city, and Chicago is a city known for the architecture! I’ve done the boat tours twice and learned a lot. Never call it the Willis Tower, though. It’s the Sears Tower. Always. The second recommendation I have is to go see Second City. They’re a great improv group, and a lot of SNL alumni started there. When I go, I always hope one of them will make it really famous and I’ll have gotten to see them early in their career. When Sam and I went, it was the first live show I’d been to since the beginning of COVID, and it was magical.
Depending on the season, try to go see a game at Wrigley! The tickets are a little more expensive now that they’ve broken the curse, but the stadium is super cool and historic. I’ve sat everywhere from the upper nosebleeds to right behind home plate, and it’s always been a fun afternoon experience.
We were there over the 4th of July, and got to walk along Lake Michigan as the fireworks went off. It was such a good week, and I’m already trying to figure out when I can go back!
After having to cancel our planned New York trip in 2020, Emmy and I were finally able to meet up in Denver for a long weekend! She grew up on the East Coast and hasn’t spent much time in the West, so it was a fun opportunity to show her the mountains. Up until very recently, she didn’t think tumbleweeds existed in real life, and was convinced they were just a prop in western movies.
We started at Garden of the Gods, which I had never visited either! It was a hot day but we brought water and wandered around. It was pretty busy while we were there. Personally, I’d recommend finding the higher trails that aren’t paved, as those had some cool views and felt a little bit less “on the beaten path.” There are some fun breweries near by in Colorado Springs too, so if you go in the morning, you can make a day of it.
The next day, we headed up to the top of Mount Evans! I told Emmy we were going to go to the top of a 14er and she asked me what that meant, because she lives at 14 feet of elevation. One big note here, the drive to Mount Evans requires reservations now. It didn’t use to, and 2021 was in fact the first year they started doing it. It took me a little longer than expected to get reservations because the system had a few technical difficulties at first, but once they got it sorted out, it was really easy – we just showed the ticket at the base of the mountain.
That view on the drive up is incredible! It’s a pretty limited window in the year when the weather is nice enough, and definitely watch the forecast when you go. We lucked out and had absolutely beautiful weather. Once you get up to the parking lot at the top, there’s a short walk to the actual summit, just so you get to feel as though you’ve accomplished something. One of my cousins reported that you can hike up to the top as well, and we saw lots of people mountain biking their way up to the summit, but our route was significantly easier.
We did accomplish Emmy’s two goals for the weekend, which were (1) seeing the blue demon horse at the Denver airport and (2) seeing a tumbleweed. The second one was only a tiny one on the side of the road as we went back to the airport, but it still counts!
The last few days of our Belize trip were spent on the islands. Belize, fun fact, has the second longest barrier reef in the world! It’s known for having fantastic snorkeling and diving. One of the best places (allegedly) is the Great Blue Hole, although I can’t speak to that because I’ve never been scuba diving. I had a lovely time snorkeling, and Caye Caulker was so welcoming!
Caye Caulker is one of the smaller islands. It’s just south of San Pedro and Ambergris Caye, which are known for having a more developed tourism industry. Caye Caulker is a little quieter and it felt a little more local. Honestly, part of that might have been that we were traveling in May 2021, and there were still lower numbers of tourists when we went, but I loved the feel of getting to know the coffee shop owners and tour guides.
We got there after a long drive back to the coast and an afternoon ferry ride, and immediately fell into that low-key island life. The cocktails were strong, the ocean was beautiful, and we had a great time exploring.
For our first full day, we headed out on the Wanderlust for a full day of snorkeling! There were three stops, and each of them was amazing in its own way. At the first, there was less sea life overall, but we got to see manatees! As you may remember, my first time snorkeling in December 2018 was in Florida to see the manatees. They are amazing, and we were able to see them up close in some of the clearest water I’ve ever seen.
From there, we went to Shark Ray Alley! This is a fairly famous snorkeling spot in Belize. Essentially, back in the day, fisherman used to clean off their fishing equipment there, which started attracting sharks. Now that it’s become a tourist attraction, some of the boats actually feed the sharks. Ours didn’t, but every time they see a boat, the sharks swarm. It was very alarming at first! I questioned whether I should get in the water, but after a few minutes, they settled back at the bottom of the ocean, and at that point, it felt like swimming with normal fish. The barracuda we saw under the boat was scarier, to be honest.
Our third stop was in the Hol Chan Marine Reserve. It’s beautifully preserved reefs, and we saw all kinds of fish and sea turtles.
Despite my multiple applications of sunscreen, I got sunburned so badly in Belize! I had three-quarter length tan lines from my rash guard for months afterward. It was rather painful for the next several days, so I was grateful that we spent the last part of our trip taking it easy.
The following morning, we went to get our COVID test to get back into the US. We all packed into a tiny building on the beach, Venmoed the clinic, and got our noses swabbed. Luckily, everyone on our trip tested negative!
Once we had all breathed a sigh of relief, we wandered around the island a little more and stumbled upon a beautiful beach. The nearby hotel focused a lot on the preservation of wildlife, and so we saw pelicans and stingrays and eels from the dock, along with tiny seahorses in a habitat made for them. I was grateful someone from the hotel was there to point them out, because I never would have spotted them on my own. They also feed the stingrays there, so there was a sign saying the stingrays would be in the area around 6 pm and they were absolutely right. One of the employees told me that the stingrays know to come there if they get trapped in a net or are having trouble, because the people of Caye Caulker help them there on that beach.
That part of the beach is also one of the most incredible places to see the sunset! The next day, we took the ferry to a taxi to the airport and began the process of going home, but that last night on Caye Caulker was a magnificent end to our trip to Belize. I would highly recommend it. There are few countries of that size that can offer such a diversity of experiences, from ancient ruins in the jungle to spotting a manatee in the wild, and it was a great re-introduction to travel as pandemic restrictions eased.
Before I go back to my irregular and unscheduled travel content, I’d like to say that I am incredibly thankful to everyone who worked on the vaccine, and I feel so lucky every day to live in a country where I was able to get a dose so quickly. Science is amazing, isn’t it?
As soon as I knew when I would be two weeks out from my second shot, I planned a trip. I mean, I went to see my parents first, but then I also met up with my college roommate in Belize for a week, which was incredible. I love flying, so I’m excited any time I get to be on a plane, and this one was an exceptionally beautiful flight. The second leg of my trip was from LAX to Belize City, and flew over the entire length of Mexico, which is stunning, and obviously I need to figure out a trip down there at some point soon. I also had to laugh, because in LAX I ordered a glass of wine and in a “screw it, I’m on vacation” moment, asked for a double pour and ended up with a truly enormous adult sippy cup of wine to consume on my layover. Needless to say I was pleasantly buzzed and very happy.
Riya and I booked a tour through Intrepid, who arranged our hotels, transit, and most of the activities we participated in, which was nice to have all of that handled. Our guide, Fidelio, was awesome. Our first night was on the outskirts of Belize City. Belize City is known as…. well, not the safest area in Belize, and everything I had read said not to stick around, as there aren’t many cultural attractions either. We ended up eating dinner in our hotel and I tried panades, which are a Belizean empanada and absolutely delicious.
The next day was packed with activities! We headed off to the Crooked Tree Lodge, which is in the middle of a bird sanctuary on the edge of a lagoon. Once we arrived, though, we had a quick temperature check and we were off again, on the way to visit Mayan ruins!
The Lamanai Archaeological Reserve is only accessible by boat, so we took a 90 minute boat ride down a river each way to get there. It was gorgeous. There were sections full of water lilies, birds soaring over perfect mirrored water, orchids growing out of trees, and a baby crocodile sunning itself on a log. We also passed a Mennonite community, and our guide talked about how they had moved to Belize and what an important role they play in the agricultural industry. One of the most interesting moments was when we passed a boat of young Mennonites who were using their phones – apparently, they’re the rebels in the community who want to use technology, and so they go hide out on the river to secretly use their phones away from the rest of their families!
Lamanai was amazing. We were nearly the only tourists there, unless you count the Mennonites, who apparently came there as a spot to have dates and picnics. What I was most surprised about was that we could climb the pyramids! I would have expected them to be off limits, but our guides at Lamanai and at later Mayan sites advised us that we could go anywhere and explore the entire site. We also spent time walking through the jungle and saw all kinds of plants, including oregano, rubber, turpentine, and allspice, which, honestly, I didn’t expect to see. When our guide had us smell and it reminded me of gingerbread cookies, it felt so out of place in a tropical location. A few other highlights of the jungle walk: a plant called horse balls, which were large green pods that produced a glue like substance, and a green and purple plant that they called Moses in a Boat, because they looked like little boats with white flowers inside.
The coolest land animal encounter was with howler monkeys! We saw them a few times (and never heard their distinctive howl) but this lime tree was the closest we got to them. There was a whole group and they sat eating comfortably while we took pictures and observed.
The next morning, we took a boat ride through the Crooked Tree lagoon. Our guide Fidelio is an avid birdwatcher, so it was great to be on the boat with him, because he was excited to explain all about the birds! We saw vultures, herons, hawks, kingfishers, and my personal favorite of the day, limpkins, who were the oddest looking birds we saw there.
From there, we headed to San Ignacio. Fidelio warned us that we could get slowed down on our way there – apparently, Belize was experiencing protests from the teachers due to potential wage cuts. He explained a bit about the political and economic situation there, and while we didn’t experience any of the protests first hand, it was helpful to have a bit more context of what was going on in the situation.
When we got to San Ignacio, we headed first to Cahal Pech, which were more Mayan ruins. Those were super close to where we were staying, so easily accessible to any traveler staying in town! Once again, we were the only tourists there, which meant we got to explore on our own.
The next day, Riya and I had arranged our own thing. We ended up on a private tour to the ATM Cave! ATM stands for Actun Tunichil Muknal, which is Mayan for the Cave of the Stone Sepulcher. It was absolutely amazing! So cool, and I believe it’s a totally unique experience. I’ve never come across anything else like it in all my travel research. There’s a short and fairly easy hike through the jungle with a few river crossings, and then you swim into the cave and climb over rocks and wade through it until finally, you climb up on a ledge into a giant cavern. And this is where it crosses from an ordinary cave adventure to something incredible. In the cavern, there are perfectly preserved pots and artifacts from Mayan rituals. The Mayans also used this cave to perform human sacrifices. The region experienced long periods of drought towards the end of their civilization there, and as things got more desperate, the prevailing theory is that they tried various human sacrifices to try to appease the gods that controlled rain. Our guide even let us hold one of the axes used for sacrifices in 950 AD. We weren’t allowed to take pictures due to previous bad tourist behavior – someone dropped a camera on a skull, which is appalling – but I cannot express enough how much I would recommend it if you’re in the region.
If this is something you are considering in Belize, I would direct you to this website, which I thought did a great job summarizing what it was actually like – navigating the various warnings and recommendations on tour sites and blogs is a bit difficult when all you want to know is how hard it legitimately is. I found it easier than I expected, given all the descriptions of it being an “Indiana Jones-style adventure.” Sure, it would have been easy to twist an ankle if we weren’t careful, but the swimming was easy and our guide was great about warning us and letting us know about the footholds for more difficult sections.
The following day, we were off to the islands! I’m breaking that up into another post, though, so stay tuned for the snorkeling pictures 🙂
When Sam and I went to Wendover, Nevada back in March 2020, we kept seeing signs that implored us to “Explore Elko.” As with many things, we started saying it ironically and then one day, it wasn’t ironic.
As fairly avid travelers pre-pandemic, we have often joked about being “somewhere, anywhere” even as we work at home and socialize at home and spend…. almost all our waking hours without even leaving this building. And so we planned a long weekend away to Elko.
Elko was charming! There are so many small towns in America that are struggling economically, and Elko felt like an exception to that rule. As it turns out, they’ve still got active gold mining, and as such, they’re doing pretty well. Every restaurant we ordered food from was locally owned and not a chain. We stopped by art galleries, too, and there were quite a few in the downtown area.
It is still Nevada, and it wouldn’t be a town in Nevada without several giant casinos! All of the ones we saw had a more old-school vibe, as opposed to Wendover that has more modern looking places. Or, of course, Vegas. Obviously. But the biggest shock was when we accidentally wandered into the “red light district” (really just a street with a couple legal brothels). I was sort of zoning out and looked up to see…. this.
I mean, I guess they really went for the alliteration.
If we’d been there in the summer, I would have loved to do some hiking on the Ruby Crest Trail! It looks stunning and seems, from all my research, to be a fairly undiscovered gem. But alas, it was rather cold and snowy, and we had a fairly chill weekend. We did wander along the trail next to the Humboldt River. We also saw a snow squall, which was a new experience for me. The phone alert system texted us both to tell us to stay inside, and sure enough, within 15-20 minutes it went from sunny to blizzard conditions.
Our Airbnb was absolutely amazing. We stayed up in this neighborhood with streets named after trees, and all of the houses were historic but well-kept. It was an easy walk into the city from there and our host was so great, giving us plenty of suggestions of places to go and giving us a quick tour of the new property she was working on.
Also, the drive out to Nevada is beautiful! The Bonneville Salt Flats are a great and easy day trip out from Salt Lake, and of course, we always love this view of the mountains over the lake.
It’s not exactly a hot take to say that the pandemic has changed travel. And I have desperately missed taking flights, and exploring new countries, and even the basic things like sitting in a restaurant or seeing the bottom half of a stranger’s face without worrying about whether they’re going to get me sick. But it has been a good push to spend time in places a little closer to home, places that I might not have considered as a travel destination when the whole world was open to me. Now that Sam and I are vaccinated, we’re exploring options for safe travel that are farther afield, but it’s nice to take the time to explore places like Elko every so often.
