world travel – Page 2 – Messy Suitcase Travel Blog

November 24, 2021December 1, 2021

Isla Vieques (Part 2)

The US Navy and Vieques

When Bob and I lived in Puerto Rico in the 1990s, the US Navy owned a large chunk of Vieques. It had bought 22,000 acres, or about two-thirds of the island, from the native inhabitants in the 1940s, and used 8,000 acres on the western end of the island as a naval ammunition depot until 2001, when the property was returned to the island. You can read the history here, including Vieques residents’ health effects from the Naval presence and protests to force the Navy to leave the island.

But long story short, despite negative effects, the long US Navy presence meant that huge swaths of the island were never developed. So today it is the Vieques National Wildlife Refuge, considered one of the most ecologically diverse refuges in the Caribbean and the largest wildlife refuge in the region.

https://www.fws.gov/refuge/Vieques/map.html

It has beautiful, undeveloped beaches and stellar snorkeling, and a few hiking trails. (Unfortunately, a large chunk of the land is not open to the public because of the danger from possible encounters with unexploded ordnance, which the Navy is slowly cleaning up.)

Beach Hopping & Snorkeling

Snorkeling and pristine beaches are the island’s main draws, and we came with our own gear, prepared to take advantage of both. With only 2½ days to explore, we could barely taste the multitude of beaches started with Chiva Beach (formerly the Naval Base’s Blue Beach), which had a bit of dried sargassum along its shoreline but was still lovely, with clear turquoise water and reefs just a short swim out. There were a number, but we did the best we could! The Vieques Insider website was a great resource for the best places to pull on our fins and masks and wade into the water.

Here are the highlights:

Chiva Beach: We passed a number of individual entrances to the beach, numbered, with parking for just one or two cars at each. We finally chose #10 and settled ourselves in the shade among the mangroves, when a huge iguana pooped spectacularly from a branch behind us. How often do you get to witness that? A little lizard also watched us curiously, and many majestic pelicans flew by.

I snorkeled there and saw some lovely coral and a multitude of undersea life. On my way back into shore, I found myself in the magical middle of an enormous school of dancing silverfish.

Caracas Beach: Caracas is a larger beach on a bay with lovely, calm water for swimming, and even parking, shelters, and even a bathroom, something the smaller beaches were lacking. There we relaxed on a concrete strip among the trees and watched the visiting horses wander around and forage in the garbage.

In fact, we ran into horses everywhere we went. Also, weirdly, a wild pig.

Esperanza Beach: Esperanza Beach, near the town by the same name on the south coast, is primarily a local hangout, a little grittier than the others because of the parking lot behind us in which men smoked weed and teens hung out, but we enjoyed its charms. Its most striking feature is a deserted concrete pier which provides an eerie, fascinating snorkel experience. You can dart between the coral-encrusted pylons and watch fish swimming in and out among old anchors and piles of thick rope abandoned on the seafloor below. I almost ran into huge purple jellyfish a couple of times. People claimed sea turtles hang out underneath the pier, but we weren’t lucky enough to see any. Kids jump off the pier into the water on weekends.

Black Sand Beach: We had to hike for six-tenths of a mile through lush woods to reach Black Sand Beach, though the GPS first took us down a long, incredibly bumpy, narrow dirt road to a cliff near the beach. Black Sand Beach is so named because it boasts volcanic sand, but we found it to be overhyped. The walk was lovely, but the beach itself was not a place where you would want to hang out, and the so-called “black sand” just made the area look dirty. However, the views of the sea crashing into the cliffs were spectacular. Here’s a video of the beach.

Pata Prieta Beach: Pata Prieta, not far from Chiva, offered some gorgeous snorkeling along the rocky east side of its cove. Among the vast quantity of sea life we encountered while swimming in shallow water above the coral reef, I saw a small barracuda and even an octopus! He was hiding in plain sight on the seafloor, camouflaged among the rocks and plants. I only recognized him because I had seen the documentary My Octopus Teacher on Netflix. He crept along as I watched him, before finally deciding to launch himself and swim away, shedding his rocky camouflage and revealing himself to be a translucent orange swimmer.

Bioluminescent Bay Tour

The highlight of our trip was the touristy experience everyone needs to have, a Bioluminescent Bay Tour. We went out in transparent double kayaks the first night to see the brightest bioluminescent bay in the world with Taino Aqua Adventures. Our guide, Kevin, took us out into Mosquito Bay in the darkness of a waxing moon under mercifully cloudy skies, and the water shimmered green, blue, or white (depending on your vision) with every stroke of the paddle. The water also sparkled underneath the boat as we moved through the inky water. It was magical!

But actually, it was science. Kevin explained that the luminescence in the bay is caused by a microorganism, the dinoflagellate Pyrodinium Bahamense, which glows whenever the water is disturbed, leaving a trail of neon blue.

Sorry, because of the darkness and the fact that our hands were busy paddling, we were not able to get any photos or video. You can see what it looks like on Taino Aqua Adventures’ website.

Photos courtesy of https://www.tainoaquaadventures.com/

We have so much more to share, but I think you are just going to need to visit Vieques yourself!

Here are some resources to get you started:

Vieques.com

Vieques Insider

Discover Puerto Rico

October 25, 2021October 30, 2021

Kayaking the Sabana River: Ecotourism in Puerto Rico

I adore kayaking, so I booked a Kayak Tour of the Sabana River, which is at the other end of the playa from our condo in Luquillo. We got so much more than we bargained for! For just $30 apiece, Bob and I found ourselves on a fascinating eco and historical tour offered by Ramon of Sun Capital Paddlesports. Ramon introduced us to the Sabana River Estuary of the Northeast Ecological Corridor, a breathlessly beautiful a protected natural area.

This is Ramon of **Sun Capital Paddlesports**

After a short but very thorough lesson on how to kayak, Ramon led us and just three other people, he on a stand-up paddleboard and us in two-person kayaks, as we navigated several branches of the river. He pulled out a map before we started and explained the history of the area, what used to be here, what had happened to it.

We learned that Luquillo was the first place Christopher Columbus saw when he discovered Puerto Rice in the 1400s. The Taino Indians were living here at the time, and he has discovered their petroglyphs upriver, toward El Yunque peak and the rain forest, evidence that they traveled in that direction to avoid the invading Spaniards.

Roman told us about a past sugar cane plantation, a cow farm, and then how this area because a protected corridor in 2013, after the community rose up against developers who wanted to build more resorts on Puerto Rico.

Northeast Ecological Corridor

The Northeast Ecological Corridor consists of almost 3,000 lush acres of land along the Atlantic Coast in the northeast corner of Puerto Rico. It is home to native red bats, which we saw flying around over our heads as we passed under a bridge.

I did a little digging into this protected area, and found this from Sierra Club Puerto Rico:

The Northeast Ecological Corridor is an incredibly biodiverse tract of land covering nearly 3,000 acres of lowland tropical forest, mangroves, wetlands, sandy beaches, seagrass beds, and coral reefs. The Corridor stretches over five miles of undeveloped beach, from Luquillo to Fajardo, and not only serves as a beloved “backyard” for thousands of locals, but also is one of only two sites in the Caribbean where endangered leatherback sea turtles come on land to nest. The largest of all turtles, leatherbacks lay their eggs on the Corridor’s beaches from March until July. A few months later, the babies hatch and crawl back to the sea.

Only a few years ago, the Northeast Ecological Corridor’s status as one of the last remaining tracts of undeveloped coastline in Puerto Rico was under threat. Resort developers wanted to buy up the land and build hotels, a plan that would have both social and environmental consequences.

Here’s a map of the corridor:

Endangered Leatherback Turtles

Perhaps its most important function is to host the nesting grounds of endangered leatherback turtles (tinglars, in Spanish), which grow to be up to seven feet long.

Photo provided by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Southeast Region

Ramon explained why the street lights along the coast in Luquillo are red – not just to reduce ambient light, as we had suspected, but to keep the turtles from going in the wrong direction after they lay their eggs. They look for the light of the moon reflected in the ocean, and white streetlights can confuse them. Isn’t that interesting?

The Sierra Club puts on a Leatherback Turtle Festival every spring to promote awareness of the gentle giants, attracting 25,000 people to Luquillo Beach with music, food trucks, activities, and turtle-themed crafts.

There’s also a local nonprofit called Tortugas del Sur that dedicates itself to helping these endangered creatures breed successfully during nesting season.

Other Creatures Along the River

We also passed this humongous iguana on the eco-tour, as well as the largest termite nest I have ever seen.

We also saw an osprey and a great blue heron, two majestic sea birds that I love, Unfortunately, they were in flight and my hands were occupied with paddles, so I couldn’t get their pictures.

Ramon made sure to take plenty of pictures of participants in the tour, the best souvenir imaginable.

Hats off to Ramon, who dedicates his life to taking care of this delicate region, taking groups on these tours to give them a fascinating experience and cultivate carrying about the Corridor and the turtles! Five Stars!

Want to join us on the kayaking journey? Watch Bob’s Youtube video!

October 21, 2021October 21, 2021

Beautiful, Isolated Playa San Miguel

Here’s an important Spanish word for you to learn if you’re going to read our blog while we’re in Puerto Rico: Playa. It means beach. Puerto Rico is covered with gorgeous beaches — the northern ones facing the Atlantic Ocean and the southern ones the calmer Caribbean Sea — and we want to visit as many as we can while we’re here! There are endless varieties of sand-and-sea to be found on the Isla Encanta, each one more beautiful than the last.

We pulled out Google Maps and saw that Playa San Miguel was just one exit or so east from our condo in Luquillo on Rte. 3. We packed up a cooler with drinks and snacks, grabbed our beach chairs, towels, and sunscreen, and headed out.

irst look at Playa San Miguel. Guau! (That’s “wow,” in Spanish

Rough Road

To get there we had to drive our low-hanging rental five miles down a dirt road that seemed fine at first … until we hit the puddles. Small ponds might better describe them. Then they became lakes. I help my breath as Bob slowly navigated the Corolla along the edge of each, praying we wouldn’t get stuck in the muck in the middle of nowhere. Where was Bob’s Toyota Tacoma when we needed it? (Back in a parking lot in Manchester, NH.)

Bob commented that when we lived in PR in the 90s, he bought his guagua (truck, specifically a Jeep Cherokee with a cow-catcher grill on the front that Puerto Ricans call a “rompamonte”) so we could easily navigate these types of roads, but back then, I was working so much that we never did. This is part of the reason we have returned. Same adventurous spirit, more time — but sadly, no guagua.

The long road traversed the La Reserva Natural Corredor Ecológico del Noreste, a nature reserve and a prime ecotourism destination.

Somehow we made it to an entrance to a beach, where we saw a sign that told us, essentially — don’t drive on the sand, pack our your litter and don’t mess with the sea turtles that nest here.

Learn about this nature reserve at http://www.corredorecologicodelnoreste.org/visiting-the-corridor

We parked at the edge of the road, walked through a break in the trees, and found … paradise.

An Empty Beach

The sand was golden, stretching for miles in both directions, and the beach was completely empty of humanity. Three pelicans flew over, followed by a snowy egret. Little birds scuttled along the sand. To our right, a large, low-hanging tree with fat round leaves provided the perfect shady spot for setting up our base camp, which we did.

Keeping It Clean

As I walked down to the ocean, I found a bit of litter wrapped up in the brown seaweed that had washed onto the sand with high tides. I picked up a paint can from the debris and began filling it with plastic cups, a mask, food wrappers, plastic forks, and more evidence of mankind. The disadvantage of an unmaintained beach is that it’s not cleaned regularly, and this debris was clear evidence of the litter that’s filling our oceans. I decided that one way to leave my mark on this island is to leave it cleaner than I found it. I filled another plastic bucket found with trash as well, and will bring trash bags next time.

Glorious Beach

But despite the litter, San Miguel Beach was perfect. The tide was rougher than in the bay where we are staying, waves crashing loudly onto the sand. I was wearing a bikini, which normally makes me nervous about bodysurfing, but no one was around, so who cared if the top or bottom got pushed down? We bodysurfed for a long time, laughing. It was amazing! I felt like a kid again. We were aware of a slight rip current, so we kept an eye on each other and made sure we didn’t go too deep.

Alas, lunchtime came too soon, and it was time to go hunting for food. Next time we will pack a lunch, because it’s not very appealing to drive this long, wet road twice.

We definitely plan to return to Playa San Miguel, many times. But not today. It poured last night, and our car would likely sink into one of the lakes on the dirt road and disappear.

We also need to learn more about this Ecological Reserve. We’ll keep you posted!

October 16, 2021October 16, 2021

Vacation in England, Part 2: London

London was a whirlwind of walking (averaging six miles a day), taking boat rides (on the Regent’s Canal, the Thames twice, and even a paddleboat on the Serpentine), running in Hyde Park, exploring markets (Camden Town was our favorite), and more.

Lisa enjoyed the theater on four occasions: Hamilton (excellent, again), Pretty Woman (okay but needing a little work), Back to the Future (surprisingly clever), and SIX (phenomenal).

We visited Greenwich and straddled the Prime Meridien.

We toured Tower Bridge.

We went to the top of the Walkie Talkie Building at sunset.

We embraced the iconic Madame Tussaud’s.

We climbed the Marble Arch Mound, and discovered a laser structure museum inside.

Lisa visited Kensington Palace.

We took a narrowboat ride on the Regent’s Canal.

We visited Camden Market.

We looked at art in the National Gallery.

We visited the Natural History Museum.

When we got back to Vermont, we literally collapsed from exhaustion.

We’ll be going back in April when we attend Aryk’s COVID-delayed graduation from Keele University. There’s still a lot left to see!

January 15, 2020January 15, 2020

Back in the Saddle Again

It’s hard to believe it has been seven months since we left Mexico. A brief summer interlude in Vermont getting one of our vacation homes ready to sell and settling our youngest child, Gavin, into Champlain College in Burlington turned into a much longer stretch in the USA when Bob’s mother, Jane, called us in August to say she had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer.

Enjoying a boat ride in Montreal during a weekend off working on the Vermont houses

So after spending the summer painting a house, tiling a kitchen, planting two gardens, refinishing a floor, staining two decks, replacing windows, and doing more tasks than I care to remember on both houses – punctuated, thank God, by a couple of long weekends in Montreal and Burlington and many visits to local craft breweries – we moved into Jane’s house in Mechanicsburg, PA, in October to care for her in her last months.

While living here, we kept busy. Lisa signed up for National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) in November and wrote a long-postponed book. Bob threw himself into the editing of his many videos from our time in Mexico for the Messy Suitcase YouTube channel. We both spent countless hours studying Spanish and practicing our instruments (Bob saxophone, Lisa guitar). We spent 9 days in Cancun in November, during a period when Jane was doing better and we needed a break.

The official winner’s certificate for Nanowrimo. Lisa wrote a YA fantasy novel called Elephant Rock.

We also spent time with some of Lisa’s family members around the winter holidays, and got to know Jane’s neighbors in her over-55 community. As her health deteriorated, we became quite attached to her regular visitors from Homeland Hospice, who became our family’s lifeline: her CNA (certified nursing assistant) Sherry, who came every day to bathe and dress her; her hospice nurse Hannah, who visited weekly; and our social worker Pam, who supported us all in too many ways to count.

Jane was able to lift a glass of champagne on New Year’s Eve. She passed away a week later.

Meanwhile, we cared for Jane and tried to keep her comfortable. We watched Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy with her. The kids came home for Christmas break and got to spend time with their grandmother. Bob’s sister Beth came to visit regularly.

And on Jan. 7, 2020, at the age of 89, Jane Greenawalt left us.

Now the funeral is over, the spawn are back at college, and we are officially empty nesters. Although Jane’s stuff still needs to be sorted and dispersed, and her condo needs to be fixed up to sell, we are deferring that till the summer.

It’s time for us to get back to our lives, at least for a while. So we are planning to return to Mexico later this month and spend the rest of winter and half of spring there. We’ll come back in late April, before Gavin’s school lets out for the summer, and spend some time in Vermont before returning to PA for the next round of heavy lifting.

This time we are headed for Mexico City! We are excited at the prospect of living in a big city, after spending the summer in rural Vermont and the fall in this Harrisburg suburb. We are currently deciding between several condos in a safe neighborhood – Condesa, Roma Norte or Polanco – near a huge park (a requirement for us as runners). We are also looking at language schools, because we plan to study Spanish every day, at least for the first month, the way we did in Tlaquepaque last year. It will only be for two hours a day this time, because Lisa is editing her book and we want time to enjoy the city.

We’ll keep you posted as things develop! Right now the plan is to leave Jan. 28 and drive our trusty Toyota Tacoma (with two cats on board; the third now lives with Gavin at school) slowly south, stopping in Cincinnati, Memphis and Austin on the way so we can see some friends and take some breaks from the road. We should arrive in CDMX (Ciudad de Mexico, Spanish for Mexico City) on Super Bowl Sunday.

Wish us luck! Hasta luego!

October 20, 2019November 12, 2019

On the Road to Mexico

How do you get 3 people, 3 cats, 3 musical instruments and multiple suitcases and bags to Mexico to start a new life? You drive. 37 HOURS.

October 8, 2019November 12, 2019

Messy Suitcase Video: Why Guadalajara?

Beto (Bob) is developing his video editing skills, and working on putting the many videos he has made over the past year of traveling in Europe and then Mexico up onto the Messy Suitcase YouTube Channel!

After toting his GoPro all over Mexico, and now Vermont, plus the drives back and forth, he’s just learning how to edit the footage, so please be patient, and feel to comment with words of encouragement. Each video will get better, and they will be packed with fascinating info and our illuminating comments and observations.

We’ll hope you’ll follow our the Messy Suitcase YouTube Channel, and ring the bell to be notified as we put more videos up. We are also open to new ideas!

Enjoy the video Why Guadalajara?

September 30, 2019November 15, 2019

Hike up Mount Philo

Bob and I just did our first almost 1-er in Burlington! (As opposed to the multiple 14ers Bob did back in Colorado.)

We hiked up Mt. Philo on a recent Sunday while visiting Burlington for Champlain College Family Weekend. Mt. Philo State Park, which sits atop 968-foot Mt. Philo about 13 miles south of Burlington, was created as Vermont’s first Vermont State Park in 1924. With 237 acres offering breathtaking views of the Lake Champlain Valley and New York’s Adirondack Mountains, the park is a favorite of local hikers, picnickers, and even college students.

The hike was short but steep and challenging. The view of the Vermont countryside and Lake Champlain from the top was spectacular. We also found inspirational poetry at the top …

… and we loved the message in the field below.

There are several camping sites at the top, as well as a group cabin, and we were surprised to see they were not in use. The best part was the Adirondack chairs that beckoned us to sit and enjoy the beautiful day and the view.

We met a couple of artists on our way down painting the view with watercolors.

Selfie of the day!

By Lisa Hamm-Greenawalt

September 25, 2019November 15, 2019

All Aboard the Green Mountain Flyer

Beto and I recently had the lucky opportunity to take a lovely, relaxing fall foliage ride on the Green Mountain Flyer, a scenic ride on a vintage train from Chester to Rockingham in southern Vermont. The train whistle blasted our eardrums to oblivion as the ancient train noisily announced its arrival at Chester Depot. The bright red engine was pulling about five dark green cars, each labeled Green Mountain Railroad.

Inside the Train

The fall foliage expedition on the Green Mountain Railroad was a free event sponsored by the OkemoValley Regional Chamber of Commerce, based in Ludlow, of which I am a
new member. We checked in with Diane, the organizer, and got into line while waiting for the refreshments to be loaded on the train. Finally, a young woman from the Chamber climbed up on the stairs and called out, “All Aboard!” and we boarded the train.

Bob and I grabbed a forward-facing seat in the first car, in an open booth with an enormous wood table and another double seat across from us. The windows were huge and the view was great, but after 20 minutes or so I got a hankering for some refreshment and set out to explore the train.

Discovering the Bar Car

I wobbled back on the jerkily moving train, holding on to seats for dear life to keep my feet under me, through three cars that featured plush leatherette high-backed bench seats facing each other. Just when I thought I was at the end, I found a car with a table covered with white paper bags, and a narrow hallway ahead on the right. I inched through, and discovered a sweet little bar car with about 20 seats (some occupied by Chamber staff) and a musician, Bill Brink, singing and playing guitar and kazoo. I hustled back get Beto, ordered us up a couple of surprisingly good glasses of Chardonnay, and we settled in to enjoy the rest of the ride in the Bar Car.

Directly in front of us was the bright red engine chugging away. The engineer would occasionally walk jauntily along the jerking engine and enter our car from the front. ()

I tried to digitally capture the roaming engineer and
musician Bill Brink, but you can see the jerking motion
of the train did not allow for quality pictures.

We relaxed with our wine, bag dinners provided by the Chamber (courtesy of Mr.
Darcy’s Restaurant) and enjoyed the ride.

What We Saw

We rode alongside a scenic, winding river, passing a stunning river gorge that was almost past before we could get the cameras out, and crossing a heavy red iron bridge.

River gorge photo taken from a moving train

Vermont is famous for its spectacular autumn foliage, but we are still about three weeks before peak colors, so the ride featured mostly green foliage, with occasional bursts of bright yellow, fiery orange or deep red in sections of trees that acted as a precursor of things to come. The shrubs along riverbeds seem to have gotten the memo early, though, and preened with deep burgundy and crusty golden leaves.

We passed a couple of covered bridges, a signature sight in Vermont that never loses its appeal. One’s identifying sign read, “Built in 2012,” a melancholy reminder of the devastating floods caused by Hurricane Irene that September that washed away or severely damaged many of these classic structures throughout the Green Mountain State.

We saw (and smelled) cows grazing in fields, and admired field after field of corn stalks. Lisa, a fellow CHamber member with a cow farm, told us those fields would be turned into mash for its farms to eat, but hers are grass-fed. (Beto plans to visit her farm this fall to serenade her cows on saxophone.)

Take a Ride Yourself!

If you‘re interested in taking a ride on the Green Mountain Flyer, you can learn more here. To learn more about the Okemo Valley, which offers so much more than its world-class ski mountain Okemo Mountain Resort, visit the Chamber’s website, yourplaceinvermont.com.

By Lisa Hamm-Greenawalt

August 2, 2019November 15, 2019

Two Days in Montreal – A Couple of Foodies Drinking Tequila – Part 2

Old Montreal and the Port

We enjoyed walking around Old Montreal, with its parks, old building, art galleries, shops with Canada-made items and Native American crafts, ice creameries, outdoor restaurants and friendly Canadians. At the bottom of the hill is a waterfront park with a busy bike trail, which we crossed to get to the bustling old port. There we boarded a Bateau Mouche (fly boat) for a 1½ hour tour of the Saint Lawrence River. Unfortunately, the acoustics were bad inside the boat and we couldn’t hear the bilingual tour guides information about Montreal. But the wine was decent and the views were excellent. Some of it was very industrial and reminded me of the Port of Hamburg.

Bateau Mouche selfie

View of the Montreal skyline from the boat

We embraced the tourism and spent a lot of time at the Old Port of Montreal, taking a 1.5-hour river tour on a Bateau Mouche (flyboat), and then taking a few turns in the Grand Roue (big ferris wheel).

Notre Dame Basilica

Of course, we had to visit the Roman Catholic Basilica of Notre Dame on the Old City, Montreal’s premier attraction, and it did not disappoint – except that Bob was annoyed that they charged an entrance fee, unlike any other of the more than 100 churches we have visited around Europe and Mexico. Still, the majestic space was amazing, and the free brochure explained what we were seeing. Around the central alter were four scenes from the Old Testament that foretold the birth of Christ.

Above the cross was a scene of God crowning Mary the Queen of the Heavens. The Priests lectern rose above the congregation on the left side, and the organ in the rear was enormous. We could have taken an earlier tour and touched the organ, or a later tour for a light show. It felt more like a tourist attraction than a church.

That’s the giant organ behind me

The plaza out front, with its buskers changing shifts every half-hour, offered a welcome surprise when we emerged from what felt like Rome to a woman singing a glorious Italian aria.

More Booze

We finished our visit at a liquor store, where we purchased a bottle of Wayne Gretzky Reisling (in case you’ve been wondering what Canada’s favorite son has been doing since he retired from hockey) and a Maple Cream Liquor.

Wayne Gretzky Reisling

We’ll Be Back

In the end, we only had time to partially explore a couple of neighborhoods in Montreal over less than 48 hours. We didn’t have time to go for a run, or a hike, or to ride a bike. We didn’t get to experience the subway system. So we plan to return for a longer visit next month with Aryk after we drop Lex off at college in Burlington.

Next time we will visit the Olympic Museum, the Science Museum, the neighborhoods of Le Plateau and Gay City, Mont Royal, and so much more.

So watch for more from Montreal!

By Lisa Hamm-Greenawalt