We woke up today to visit the tea house and celestial seasonings. This was our last morning in Boulder and we packed our stuff in the car. Jimbo had already left for work and Nikki had waited for us to wake up before leaving to work too.We made and ate breakfast and let the dog out a couple of times before leaving and made our way to Celestial Seasonings.The celestial seasonings building was one story located off a main road behind some town houses. We found signs for the tour that turned out was...
That morning Jimbo made us a delicious egg omelet. My nose had stopped running and I noticed it was starting to dry out. I used my xylitol saline nasal spray to keep it clear and moisturized just in case. Although along the trip I was mostly having a hard time keeping it moisturized, as it kept drying out and I would blow out blood in the early mornings. I also made and drank my Echinacea blend tea I packed from Orlando, to keep my immune system running well.After breakfast and showering, we headed...
The drive from Estes Park to boulder took about an hour. About 30 minutes from Boulder we started noticing bicycle riders along the highway, that along with the landscape reminded me of Tuscany.Jimbo and a Nikki lived in a cottage style house they rented from the owners who also lived on the same property. It was 2 bedrooms with a large kitchen and good sized living room. The bedrooms shared a shower and had their own sink and toilet. All the rooms, bedrooms, living room and kitchen exited out into...
As the park ranger was showing us a map, she showed us a free snow shoe tour we could do. The ranger made a quick call and there were some spots that just opened up for us to take, with some more available. We needed to make it to the tour at 12:15 and it was getting close to 11.With only short time, we quickly decided to drive into town to rent snow shoes and pick up a quick bite to eat. The tour was for 2 hours and we would definitely need some food. The ranger pointed out a couple of rental stores...
The drive to rocky mountain national park was only about 10 minutes. The entrance fee in was $20, which included a weeks worth of reentry's. If you lived there and planned to visit frequently, you could purchase an annual $35 pass. We ate the $20 fee and saw it as going to a good cause.The drive in took us through winding roads up and into the mountains. There were a few parking areas with picnic tables and bathrooms. The road we were taking took us into a dead end with one of these picnic areas....
Since we got to bed very early the night before, we woke up at about 5am. We got ready and walked over to a shopping center about 5 minutes away for breakfast. The wind was still blowing hard and we were bundled up to handle the cold weather. We walked through an open snow filled field to the diner. The diner didn't open until 7 and we were about 15 minutes early, so just looked through some of the other shop windows until the diner opened and let us in.The owners were a friendly older couple, originally...
We flew into Denver today and drove over to Estes Park to spend the night. We rented a v6 4 wheel drive Toyota Highlander to help us get around in the snow. I think they upgraded us, because I was supposed to get a compact SUV, like a rav4. Hopefully we don't get charged but I think the employee at Alamo would have told us.The drive to Estes Park took about an hour. The highway out of the airport had 2 tolls that cost us $2 each. When we got to Estes Park it was about 20 degrees, very windy and...
At this point in my story I haven’t taken any pictures yet. You’ll have to go to the Capri part and stories afterward to see some.So the 3 hour trip to Napoli was somewhat uneventful. The car I was in was empty and there were no more than 3-4 passengers there at a time. It was a regional train, so stopped every 15-20 minutes at small towns and because of this my ticket only cost $10 Euro.About 30 minutes into the trip the train conductor came by to check tickets. He started asking me...
The line through immigration looked crowded but only took about 15 minutes to get through. I then searched for an ATM, since I brought no euros with me. The line to the ATM wasn’t that long, but took longer than immigration because of some Americans who didn’t seem to know how to work an ATM. Next I looked for the Leonardo Express train that takes you to the Roma Termini, where trains leave for all parts of Italy and even allow you to connect to parts of Europe and I’m guessing...
I spent 3 weeks, from September 16th to October 5th 2007, in Italy. The plan was to spend 5 days along the Amalfi Coast, 3-4 days in Rome, about 3 days in a Villa in Cortona (a small town in Tuscany), 5 days in Florence and the last day in Orvieto. Everything went pretty much according to plan and even though it was non-stop sightseeing, Italy still has much more exploring to do, even in the towns and cities we did visit.I flew out of Orlando on September 15th, taking a connecting flight in Philadelphia...
I spent the past week in San Francisco. The first 4 days, Saturday through Wednesday, I was attending the Web 2.0 Expo with 3 other coworkers. Afterwards Leala flew in Thursday morning and we did some siteseeing until that Sunday.The trip started the morning of Saturday April 14th. She drove me to the airport at 6am. My Orbitz printout said I was flying on United Airlines. So I stood online to check in. As I was standing on the line, I heard another passenger behind me ask a United worker about...
Today we ate lunch at Panang, went to Elis Island, met Janet and Grant at Pukk, followed by drinks at a beauty salon and ate swiss fudge cookies.More detail to come later....
Today we ate Dim Sum in China town, walked to the South Street Seaport, walked back to visit the Tenement Museum, walked back to the South Street Seaport for dinner, saw Avenue Q and met Lori and Grant in the East Village.More detail to come later...
Today we had a quick breakfast at a bagel shop, toured the MET, had a Korean Dinner and saw the off broadway show Alter Boys, followed by a quick dessert.More to come later....
Ernesto had finally passed over and the weather was starting to look good today. We spent most of the day walking around Central Park. Our main goal was to see a free Jazz band play at the northern part of the park.
We have been spending the week in NY. This is the first time we have traveled down together. We were originally coming here to attend her friends wedding in Barnegat, N.J., and decided to expand it to spend it in NYC.We arrived at Newark Airport at 10:30 AM, Saturday Sept 2. I have never entered through Newark Airport, so wasn't exactly sure how to get to the city. Grant mentioned a free shuttle to the PATH train that would take us into the city. Unfortunately we couldn't find the free...
After a couple hours of sleep, we headed to the local Sao Paulo airport and took our flight to Rio. We got a taxi through the airport and the drive spoke english and was telling us about some of the sites and how copacabana is a man made beach.The hostel we stayed at is called Rio Backpackers. It was at the top of a hill on a cobblestone street. When we got in a young man working there didn't seem to be expecting us. He didn't speak english, but was able to get us into our room anyway. Having only...
Today is the main reason we came to Brasil...for Kevin and Fe's wedding!! We woke up at about 10:30am. I had a hangover from the night before(or this morning to be more accurate). We were supposed to meet up with Carol for a tour of the market, but didn't have her number. And we missed the breakfast buffet again in the hotel. We decided to do a tour that we found in the Lonely Planet book and was probably similar to the one we somewhat got yesterday. We agreed that we would try using public transportation,.
We were finally able to get a hold of Fe and Kevin in the morning. It turns out they were robbed in their car while waiting at a red light yesterday. Their cell phone, plus other belongings were stolen from them and is why we couldn't get through to them. Our plan was to meet them after lunch for the tour. So we walked a few blocks to a mall and had some lunch there. We ate in the food court at this place that sold steaks and chicken meals. It probably took us about 15 mins to order because...
We arrived in Sao Paulo at about 8pm. Their time is 1 hour ahead of Orlando, since they are furthur east than us. I didn't realize until this trip that even Panama is further east than I thought and is in the same time zone as Orlando too. I used to think they were more in line with California, but if you look at a map, central america goes farther east the more south you travel.I exchanged some money at the airport. I didn't realize until later that they changed me about R$ 10. I wish I knew that,...
For my last full day in Cusco, I took a tour bus ride to the various sites in what is called the sacred valley. The sacred valley consists of the towns of Cusco, Chinchero, Urubamba, Ollantaytambo and Pisaq. Rita and Josh were supposed to join me today, but they were still feeling sick. So I went to Plaza de Armas by myself and met up with the tour bus at about 8:30 AM. It was a full size bus and probably about 3/4 full. The tour was a mixture of English and Spanish speaking tourists, and the tour...
The highlight of our trip finally arrived. Today we were to explore Machu Picchu. As I mentioned in my last entry, Josh and I were to meet Grant and some other people at the foot of the mountain that led up to Machu Picchu at 5am. I woke up at about 4:30 already ready to go. I waited for Josh for a few minutes and eventually went to their room. Unfortunately, the food poisoning had hit him and Rita really bad and he wasn't up to walking up the mountain. They were going to catch one of...
Aguas Calientes is a small town. It seems mainly made up of tourists and any locals who run shops and restaurants to serve them. Machu Picchu is just on the other side of one of the neighboring mountains, but cannot be seen from the town. Upon arrival by train, we checked into our hostel, which was only down the street. I was staying in my own room that was big enough to hold at least 5 people comfortably. Josh and Rita were in there own. After dropping our day packs off, we went to a tourist center....
This morning we took a train from Cusco to Aguas Calientes, also known as Machu Picchu Village. The train ride was about 3 hours. I slept some of the ride and enjoyed the scenery along the way. As we left the temperate forests of Cusco, we started into the more jungle like rain forest near Machu Picchu. Our train had to go through mountainous terrain and followed a river some of the route. It was impressive to see the mountains surrounded by clouds. Our train was like the ones you see in European...
Today we visited many of the ancient sites surrounding Cusco. We started out by taking a ride to the country side, where we were going on horseback to some of the sites. We were dropped off at the bottom of a hill, where the horses were kept in a barn. Then we took about a 15-20 minute walk with the horses up to the top of the hill. Then we each mounted one and followed our guide. The horses were very well trained and we didn't really have to know to ride a horse. I had taken horse back riding...
When I woke up in the morning I still wasn't sure what I was going to do. But it turned out Rita and Josh didn't go on the Trek either and we were able to decided the rest of the trip together. They had a Peru information book, I think Lonely Planet, and we were able to plan the rest of the trip. Our first task was to get a train ticket to Machu Pichu. We would go later that week and meet up with our friends who went on the Trek.These are some pictures of that day to get the tickets. We also...
That morning I was still feeling sick. I wasn't feeling as weak in the knees as I did in the middle of the night. We only had a couple of hours to catch our flight to Cusco, so I went to find a bottle of Gatorade and decided to drink only that and water the whole day.The flight to Cusco was ok and lasted only about an hour. When we flew into Cusco I was still feeling sick, but more to my stomach than anything else..At the airport we were picked up by an employee of the hotel we were staying at called...
The last day and night we spent touring the local spots around our hostel. We visited a museum where they had a mummy found frozen in a mountain, that dated back about 5 hundred years ago. They named her Juanita.For dinner that night I had a mixed meat platter of Alpaca, beef and Ostrich. As I was eating my meal I started feeling sick, so went into the bathroom thinking I would throw up. Nothing happened, but I didn't feel any better later that night. I ended up waking in the middle of the night...
We woke up at about 5am to watch the condors. We had to be out of the hotel and on the tour bus to catch them by 7am, when they wake up and feed every morning.
Here are some pictures taken during the 3 hours bus ride from Arequipa to Colca Canyon. I think we started late morning or early afternoon. Arequipa was at about an elevation of 2500m or 8200 ft and at our highest point on the way to Colca Canyon, we were at 15,000 feet and then went back to about 2500m. I can personally tell you that at 15,000 ft you can definitely tell there is a lack of oxygen. I had this fuzzy feeling in my brain as if I was dreaming the whole time. And every step felt...
We spent the next few days in Arequipa, Peru, the next populated city in Peru after Lima, with about 2 million people. We were up about 2500 meters at this point. We flew over alot of mountanous terrain between here and Lima. I didn't see much vegetation while flying over head and the same was the same on land. But the view was still amazing, even though it was hundreds of miles of rocky and desolate terrain.It was still morning when we landed. We were picked up by the hotel van. Our hotels...
Back in 2005 I went to Peru with a few friends from NY. We spent 2 weeks there and visited Lima, Arequipa and Cusco. We got to see condors, alpacas, some of the biggest canyons in the world and visit ancient ruins. We had friends from NY, California and Italy joining us on probably the most fun adventure I have ever been on.I took a flight from Orlando to Miami earlier in the day. I met up with Rita, her mother and Rita's boyfriend Josh, who were all flying in from NY. We all took the same flight...
