Tulum is uneventful, unless you consider shopping, yoga, food and beach time eventful. I try not to voice my opinion that I feel like I’m stuck in some alternate reality created for tourists, although I frequently fail. We leave for home at 3:45 am on Christmas Eve, filling up the gas tank on the wayContinue reading “How (not) to bribe a Mexican cop”
Category Archives: Travel
Leaving Cuba
We’re in the Havana airport catching our plane to Mexico, but it’s three minutes until the plane leaves and the airport hasn’t posted which gate to go to, or any other information whatsoever. But this seems to be normal. I wander around the airport asking at various (also unmarked) gates where people are headed. AtContinue reading “Leaving Cuba”
To Trinidad
We’re taking a taxi collectivo to Trinidad. We start out eight passengers crammed into a three-row taxi, me squashed in the back next to a large man at the driver’s request. The driver keeps texting someone as we hurtle down the mostly-empty highway, and I study the sticker he has plastered above his rearview mirror:Continue reading “To Trinidad”
The hiking tour
We decide to take the National Forest tour someone told us about, and tell our host. Specifically, I tell our host a bunch of strung-together words and he calls a taxi, which drops us off in a field with a sad and mangy horse surrounded by three men in cowboy hats and rubber mud boots.Continue reading “The hiking tour”
Viñales
We take a two-hour taxi to Viñales with a couple from New Zealand. We talk about politics nearly the whole time. Not necessarily by choice, but because when you’re an American traveling abroad and your country has just elected a guy that the rest of the world considers to be a dangerous lunatic, specifically theContinue reading “Viñales”
Arrival in Havana
We arrive in Havana slowly, lines moving through the exit metal detectors at a humid pace, lines at the currency exchange languid as well. We go to find a taxi to take us to the casa particulare Collin has managed to book in advance using Paypal and Air BnB. I brandish the address I’ve writtenContinue reading “Arrival in Havana”
Elevate the Vote Austin
I arrived in Austin, Texas, two days ago. Yesterday I attended an Erinn Lewis class at Sukha Yoga; I stumbled into one of her classes last year and decided she had to be the best yoga teacher I’d ever found. So I made sure to go back, listening to her tell stories interwoven with the intricateContinue reading “Elevate the Vote Austin”
My Own Private Iceland
Inwards from Route 1 at the town of Hveragerði, a mere 40 minutes from Reykjavik, I find the trailhead to the area’s famous hot river. The sign says Reykjadalur: 3 kilometers. Not so far, I can easily go up and back and continue along on my day of Iceland sightseeing. A steaming landscape of bubbling mud andContinue reading “My Own Private Iceland”
Sauvage, Das Paleo Restaurant
At the crossing of Christburger Straße and Winsstraße lives Sauvage, the world’s first paleo restaurant. I arrived 15 minutes early for my 6 pm reservation and studied the menu posted outside. I wanted it all. Wild duck rillettes, bone marrow, braised pork belly, grass-fed steak tartare, lakto-fermented veggies, raw quail egg. Yes. With bounty like this,Continue reading “Sauvage, Das Paleo Restaurant”
How to: Day trip Berlin-Szczecin
At this point in time, a round-trip excursion into Poland from Berlin will only put you back 29 euros, and here’s the weird part: the ticket is good for up to five people. There’s no cheaper option (that I found, anyway) for just one person, and the experience is somewhat confusing, so here’s how itContinue reading “How to: Day trip Berlin-Szczecin”
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