We have just completed our first week in Istanbul, Turkey with 4 nights on the Asian side, and 2 nights. We will next go on a photo tour of Western Turkey, before returning here to Istanbul to stay a couple months. This post is therefore just our first impressions of the city. We are doing […]
Amsterdam – Canals, Bikes, Sex… and Wind
We have just wrapped up four days in Amsterdam. We had expected the canals and sex shops, but were surprised just how many bicycles are in town. Cars (even taxis) are rather scarce, and almost everyone travels by bike. There are lots of bike rental shops for tourists (see “Mac Bike” above), so even visitors […]
Devil’s Nose and Ingapirca
Today was a fun day, organized by Cuenca Expats Magazine Travel Club. We met at Parque de la Madre in Cuenca at 6:15AM. After visiting Ingapirca and taking the Devil’s Nose train, we were returned to the same spot at 10PM tonight. Fortunately for us, that meeting location is only a 10 minute walk from […]
New Year’s Eve 2015 – Salinas
After greeting the New Year for the past three years (2013, 2014, 2015) in Cuenca, we decided to see what Salinas had to offer, on the coast of Ecuador. As always, in our trips around Ecuador and the rest of South America, the results were both what we expected, and full of surprises. The monigotes […]
Cartagena
Today marks the end of our Colombia travels, after spending the last five days in Cartagena. This city is the closest we have visited in Colombia to Cuenca in many ways. The total city population is roughly 900,000 compared to Cuenca’s 550,000, so a bit larger. The walled city, where we stayed, is known as […]
San Andres
We decided that a few days on the beach would be a nice way to relax, so we went to San Adres. Oddly, this island is 470 miles North of Colombia, yet only 140 miles East of Nicaragua. Looking on the map, you would think this would be a Nicaraguan island, but you would […]
Medellin 3 – Guatapé and Centro
Yesterday we hired a driver to take us to Guatapé, a small town outside Medellin that we had heard was quaint. Along the way, we visited other towns –Marinilla and Peñol, In short it was a LONG tour with 6 hours of driving, 1 hour of exploring the town. Though Evelyn liked the tour, I […]
Medellin 2 – Exotic Fruits Tour
Having lived in Cuenca and shopped at mercados weekly for the past two years, I wasn’t sure about wanting to take a tour of a Medellin mercado. However, we have loved most of the walking tours we have taken in various cities, and the reviews were good, so we decided to take the “Exotic Fruits […]
Medellin Festival of Lights
Cuenca has a few lights during Christmas on Plaza Otorongo and along the Rio Tomebamba. All those lights combined would not total as much as any single smaller park in Medellin — and every park of any size seems to be lit up! We took a “Festival of Lights” tour tonight to see the lights […]
Bogotá 2 – City Highlights
We left Bogotá this morning, enroute to Medellin. Yesterday, I posted about the street art of the city. Today, I will talk about the rest of our trip. Much of the time here has had overcast skies with occasional drizzle — never enough to pull out the umbrella, but enough to keep it cold. Late […]