Welcome to the surfing village of Nosara, located on the Nicoya peninsula of Costa Rica- a designated Blue Zone. The Blue Zones are 5 areas around the world where researchers have discovered people live the longest. We are arriving in luxury on a Nature Air flight from San Jose but most folks fly into…
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After our stay at Iguana Lodge, (which we highly recommend) we moved further into the rain forest of the Osa Peninsula which is the only lowland rain forest left in Central America. Frank from the Lapa Rios Lodge picked us up in a fourby (Toyota Prado) and drove us 20 or 30 clicks further into the…
View MoreWelcome to “Pura Vida” ! Costa Ricans (Ticos) use this term to say hello, to say goodbye, to say everything’s great, to say everything’s cool. It means ‘ simple life’ or ‘ pure life’. Pura Vida is a lifestyle. When you see the phrase in the USA, you know where the marketeers stole it from….
View MoreWe spent 10 days in a vacation rental above old town Dubrovnik. https://www.tripadvisor.com/VacationRentalReview-g295371-d2144698-Apartment_Laura-Dubrovnik_Dubrovnik_Neretva_County_Dalmatia.html. We could get use to this view. The apartment had a large, three sectioned, floor-to-ceiling window that could fully open, creating an opening that took up 3/4s of the wall. We had chairs in front of the opening, coffee mugs in the…
View MoreA Room With a View…How important is a view to you? This is what we saw from our window or front door at each of the places we have stayed during our three month adventure. Life is good. We often make it hard. Surround yourself with beautiful Friends, Family, Art and be GRATEFUL for every…
View MoreA few weeks ago while we were driving to Bosnia, we noticed a big stone wall running from a mountain top to the sea and the water contained thousands of racks used to farm mussels and oysters. We made note and knew we had to do a day trip to see this region of Croatia…
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High above the old town of Dubrovnik, on Mount Syđ, are some sites worth seeing. To get to the top of Mount Syd, you can take cable car, drive, or hike up. The cable car can be crowded during peak times like cruise ships and sunset. The hiking trail was not too challenging for us…
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Douglas’ sister Kathryn, from San Francisco, flew into Dubrovnik for a week and knowing that she likes to stay active, we lined up kayaking, hiking, sailing, and shopping. Well, let’s back up just a bit. We took an early morning ferry from Hvar back to Split to pick up my sister who was arriving in…
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The island of Hvar has church bells and cicadas in the morning and nonstop partying at night. Get use to the thump-thump-thump of bass all night. Get lucky. We’re up all night till the sun, We’re up all night to get some. We’re up all night for good fun, We’re up all night to get…
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Split. Got it? Split is the second largest city in Croatia and its energy and traffic seems to funnel down into the harbor area on weekends. The harbor area is where the bus station is, where the train station is, where the ferry station is, where the cruise ships are, and finally, it is where the…
View MoreA half hour drive from Mostar is the Catholic pilgrimage town of Medugorje. In 1981 a group of 6 teenagers were hanging out on Križevac hill behind a church smoking (maybe drinking) and acting like teenagers when they claimed the Virgin Mary appeared and spoke to them. The Virgin’s message asked for peace in the world,…
View MoreWar. If you think you can see a clear cause, a clear result, and a clear set of engagement rules, then you are wearing one side’s blinders or the other side’s. In 2003, there was a documentary released called, The Fog of War, in which former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara is engaged in a discussion about…
View MoreWe arrived in Dubrovnik after 10pm and bleary-eyed, picked up our rental car, paid the extra money to be able to drive in Bosnia as well as Croatia, fired up the GPS on the phone and drove through the black night to our hotel. We need a few days of recovery time before we start…
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Our time in Marrakech is running out, or maybe our ability to withstand the medina/kasbah pressure is failing, or maybe the extremely hot, dry, bleached weather has broken us, regardless, its time for us to squeeze a few last things in and get moving again. We chatted with the owner of https://www.facebook.com/Zwinzwincafemarrakech/, a lovely and…
View MoreWe’ve been sharing the narrow streets of Marrakech with motorbikes, donkeys, bicycles, hawkers, and sometimes kids playing kickball. We’ve seen more Grannies on motorcycles than we’ve seen anywhere else in the world! After living in the medina for 5 days we are feeling a bit of culture shock. Are women still treated as second class citizens…
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