Sometimes You Feel Like A Nut

Posted on May 31, 2014 by Neko

I’ve always wanted to know what to do with a coconut. They literally litter the ground down here. So weren’t we luck when Trudy of Casa Orquideas, an American ex-pat who lives on an orchid and tropical plant farm in Costa Rica, showed us how to open one during a tour of her beautiful property.

Casa Orquideas near Golfito, Costa Rica

Trudy uses a rail spike to quickly split the husk of the coconut

Thanks to Trudy, I now know what to do with the brown ones. You have to shake it to hear for liquid inside to be sure it is good to eat.

First, remove the husk. This can be done in any number of ways. I use the trusty machete, third world wonder tool. You have to peel it off in slices.

This leaves you with the round brown nut we are all familiar with.

Then, using the back of the machete, give it a few good hard whacks on a line around the circumference, holding the coconut upright.

Soon, it will crack all way round and you can pluck the top right off.

Then, drink the delicious fresh coconut water inside. Who knew dogs were absolutely CRAZY about coconuts? Lucy will drink off a whole coconut and then seems to have renewed energy. She’ll even try to gnaw the white meat out of it.

You can pry out the white meat after drinking the water. Press a knife into it and pry pieces of it out.

If you are extra lucky and find a coconut that is sending up a new shoot, you will find a little round sponge-like object in it. This tastes like coconut but is soft and airy with a little crunch. I am surprised this thing has not found its way onto Manhattan menus yet.

I still don’t know what to do with the green ones, ok, maybe I do LOL

I think with those you only drink the milk inside. Locals chop the top off, add a straw and perhaps some rum and you have nature’s Solo cup.

A Side of Guatemala

Posted on April 30, 2014 by Neko

What do you do when you have extra time in El Salvador? You rent a mini van with a bunch of your pals and drive the 5 hours to Guatemala. (Note to all travelers in Central America, however long they say a trip will take, add 3 hours). You breeze through the boarder crossing, so easy a dog can do it.

Guatemala border crossing. I got in trouble for taking this photo, but I needed to get a shot of that dog.

Guatemala border crossing. I got in trouble by the authorities for taking this photo, but I needed to get a shot of that dog.

Then you hold your breath while driving across the El Salvador-Guatemala border bridge under repair.

No need to close the bridge, for repairs, just drive on through.

No need to close the bridge during repairs, just drive on through.

You are amazed at how huge and modern Guatemala City is.

Guatemala City

You rent an over the top house, party with your friends and of course order delicious Chinese food.

Beautiful home we rented just outside Antigua, Guatemala

Mike photo bombs Rob and Rose

Chinese dinner and they delivered! Travel fun with our friends Ken and Julie (Kia Ora), Paul and Janet (Talos IV), Rob and Rose (R&R Kedger) and Mike and Holly (Wanuskewin)

You hang on for dear life as you take the local bus into town. Minimum speed 70mph

The fast and the furious, I mean the bus ride into Antigua

You enjoy a beautiful day exploring the Spanish baroque style 16th-century buildings, churches, cobble-stoned streets and the many ruins throughout Antigua. Earthquakes have destroyed many structures, but they’ve done a wonderful job preserving the ruins and even incorporating them into functioning businesses.

design created with colored rice

Central Park

If you are Peter, you jump out from a dark corner of the catacombs and scare teenage kids on a field trip.

Catacombs under Santo Domingo

You renew your wedding vows…

Just kidding

But you do crash a wedding at Santo Domingo, which was an old monastery that they’ve repurposed into a museum and hotel. The old alter which was destroyed in an earthquake is now used for special events.

Fellow wedding crashers Mike and Holly

Take a 2 hour coffee break, because Peter and Mike found this woman who was a coffee guru.

Peter and Mike in coffee nirvana

You take a beautiful drive to Lake Atitlan. A bit too touristy but stunning countryside and the opportunity to see the colorfully dressed indigenous people.

Guatemalan countryside

Lake Atitlan

Traditional clothing worn everyday. And yes, the weather was cool enough for sweaters!!

The men dress in vibrant colors too.

Locals crossing at low tide

Indigenous ladies of Guatemala

You marvel at the vibrant and exuberant colors of the cemeteries. Families think of the afterlife as something to celebrate, so why not make the graveyards a cheerful place.

Graveyard looks like a small city

And you are so thankful you have the opportunity to explore another fascinating country.

It’s Not Always What it Seems

Posted on March 15, 2014 by Neko

Picture this: You and friends are sipping drinks at a table by a hotel pool on the beach. Several other tables are also filled with quietly chatting folks when a local guy walks up from the beach with a machete in one hand and a small sea turtle in the other. He flips the turtle onto its back and raises the machete.

What the what???

Mary cowers in terror, as several of us run over to tell the guy not to do this in front of everyone like this. You hate that endangered animals are eaten, but you wish at least they would do the butchering out back somewhere. But before you get to the guy he gently taps the machete against a growth on the underbelly of the turtle. It’s a barnacle. He knocks it off and then repeats it for a bunch of barnacles on this poor turtle.

Barnacle belly

By this time the turtle has stopped flapping for its life and is calm. He has either given up or knows somehow he is not in danger. The guy painstakingly knocks barnacles off the underside, shell, legs even the head of the turtle. It’s amazing what these guys can do with a machete. He even very gently pries one off its eyelid! By this time we realize he is not some turtle butcher with no social graces. He is a kind of Tortuga whisperer. When he has all the barnacles off, we all, including Lucy, follow him back to the ocean to watch the turtle swim away newly unencumbered by the little parasites.

Good luck buddy

The hero

The turtle hero has zero English and his Spanish is different and incomprehensible to us. So we are only able to communicate our wonder and appreciation for this bit of kindness in a world where people are often so indifferent to animal suffering with smiles and cheers.

Bienvenido a El Salvador

Posted on March 15, 2014 by Neko

Beautiful El Salvador

What a welcome we received upon our entrance to El Salvador. We had buddy boated down from Mexico with Kia Ora, Mermaid and Talos IV. We actually had great winds for part of the trip, so the 250nm journey went faster than anticipated, ending with us all anchored out in the ocean waiting for high tide to “cross the bar”. The entry into the harbor has a shifting sandbar with waves breaking over it, making it dangerous to cross without a knowledgeable pilot to guide you through the narrow opening.

August Pearl, Neko (top row) Kia Ora, Mermaid and Talos IV(bottom row)

Even in the opening there is often a cresting wave that causes a boat to surf on in. Surfing a 30,000 lb boat will make you a bit anxious. At the appointed time, we lined up with the other boats and nervously anticipated the crossing. When it was Neko’s turn we went full throttle towards the prescribed path and just as we braced ourselves for a wild ride down breaking waves, we heard the voice of our pilot over the radio welcoming us to El Salvador. Wow, that was a relief and, frankly, a bit of a let down. You don’t want to surf the boat, but you kind of want a little wave. Alas, in the long run I think it was better to have had the uneventful crossing.

Lucy ready for a new country

They don’t get a lot of tourists in El Salvador and even fewer boaters, so they were very welcoming and friendly. When we arrived we were greeted on the docks with smiles and cheers by immigration officials, the port captain, locals and rally members. (We have joined the very informal El Salvador Rally which begins in a few weeks. In the meantime we plan on exploring on our own and with our other boat pals.)

Welcome cocktail, this is my kind of place

They handed us welcome cocktails, snapped photos, helped with our lines and bombarded us with information. As you’ve read in previous posts, we normally have to drive or walk miles to officially check in/out of a country, here we only took a few steps to an air conditioned (ahhhh) office with ALL necessary personnel ready to stamp, stamp, stamp our way into El Salvador.

Peter waits his turn for the all in one check in

Apart from their love of official government stamps, El Salvador is really quite different from Mexico. Everything from the landscape (volcanoes and lush jungle), people (friendly, but a little more shy), food (not spicy) and even their Spanish is slightly different (tend to drop endings of words). Mexico was great, but we are ready for a change.

We’ve met great folks here and within our first week have been welcomed into their homes, experienced an early season lighting storm,

no not snow, heavy rain

No flash, only the lightening making the dark sky look like day

watched a turtle rescue (click here for turtle story), started volunteering at an English language school for children, run by a wonderful woman, Jan.

English language students

sampled several versions of pupusas, the quintessential El Salvadorian dish,

Pupusaria

made of thick corn and sometimes rice tortillas and then filled with any combo of cheese, beans, pork, veggies.

Pupusas are made of thick corn and sometimes rice flour tortillas and then filled with any combo of cheese, beans, pork, veggies and served with a side of curtido (pickled cabbage)

taken long beach walks along their wide and empty beaches,

Giant beach all to ourselves

had the boat’s generator removed for repair

Guys carrying generator

and took a dinghy ride down a pristine winding estuary to a remote restaurant which was merely a thatched platform over the river run by an adorable fisherman Memi and his family.

Our new pals Jan and Riza

Memi cleaning our lunch

Peter cleaning his lunch

The restaurant grilled us a delicious fish lunch over a charcoal fire right in the thatch-roofed hut. It was really only a platform on piles in the river with a few tables. The restroom was a bench in the mangroves across a rickety catwalk.

Don’t forget the toilet paper

The next day we spent running errands in the crazy city of San Salvador, made even crazier by a hotly contested presidential election. It was a close race, with both sides claiming victory and demanding recounts; all that was missing were hanging chads. It’s interesting to note they do not serve or sell alcohol the day before, of and after the election to try to mitigate tempers. (In the US, they’d be better off shutting down the internet). Sadly, this goes for visitors as well, so only cocktails on our boat (oh, how we suffer).

El Salvador's new president Sanchez Ceren

As of now Sanchez Ceren is the declared winner, who was one of five top guerrilla commanders during the 1979-1992 civil war and marks the first time Salvadorans have voted an actual former rebel commander to be president.

San Salvador, like all of El Salvador is a place of haves and have nots. You see everything from shacks on the outskirts of town to huge homes behind high walls and gates.

Private home outside the city

Private home in the city

Apparently there is a lot of gang violence here, although we never felt any danger, you can’t go 50 feet without seeing guards with machine guns posted outside every store, bank, home, even zipping down the road on a motorcycle.

At least they wear helmets with their guns

Please check your bags and guns

This is the capital and largest city in El Salvador, with almost 2.5 million people in the metro area. And it is very much a big city, people are busy and going about their business and it is an interesting change of pace to be somewhere where tourism isn’t the name of the game.

We love getting to know this vibrant country whether it is deep in the mangroves, in a small villages or in the big city. We are looking forward to seeing more.

Perfecting the siesta

They’ll Let You Drive Anything in Mexico

Posted on March 12, 2014 by Neko

Taxi Stop

When a microbus isn’t micro enough

Baja Buggie

Can’t even tell what the base car is

Anything goes if its VW-based

Real chop top

Chopped AND shortened

Note bottle opener under door handle

Downtown La Paz

VW Centipede

Just don’t try to park it anywhere

Adios Mexico

Posted on March 9, 2014 by Neko

After four fun filled months in Mexico, it’s time to go, but first…

Mexican Navy checks to see if we are legit

Truck ride to immigrations

We get our passports stamped

Back in the truck to the port captain

Port Captain’s office to clear out of the country

Lots of stamping and paperwork

Another visit from the Mexican Navy

Courtesy flag down

Our pals on Kia Ora head out

Other buddy boat, Talos IV heads out

Neko under sail

There goes Guatemala

Thanks Mexico, here we come El Salvador

Oaxaca This Way

Posted on March 4, 2014 by Neko

When we first pulled into the outlying parts of Oaxaca City, we thought, this is what we drove 6.5 hours to see? But as soon as we turned into the colonial downtown we knew right away we made the right decision.

Zócalo

We arrived late in the day, but after a spin around the Zócalo (the main square and center of town), a leisurely bite to eat and an evening of people watching, Oaxaca (wa-ha-ka) began to live up to its billing. Oaxaca evokes an old European city with a special Mexican touch. On this and most Sunday evenings the Zócalo is filled with live music, people dancing, families strolling and lovers embracing.

What we found so fascinating was that, even though this is an old city, full of churches, gorgeous old stone buildings, churches, cobble stoned streets, and did I mention churches, it not only preserves the historical but also celebrates the new.

Church of San Francisco

Bummed out Jesus

Templo de Santo Domingo de Guzman

The churches range from the highly baroque to the modestly simple and everything in between. Most of them are working churches and not museum pieces. But Santa Domingo’s former monastery now is home to the fascinating Museum of Oaxacan Cultures and Botanical Garden.

Museum of Oaxacan Cultures

Blue Tile Skull at
Museum of Oaxacan Cultures

view from Museum of Oaxacan Cultures across to Santa Domingo

Pipe Organ in the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption

hand embroidered shirts

Indigenous peoples sell their crafts on the streets and in the markets and along other streets you’ll find young artists selling their creations.

Art students selling their graphic tshirts

Young people freely show their passion towards each other as well as their political passions through physical protests and visual ones. The political graffiti is fascinating.

oil protest

Pedestrian only streets

It was just enjoyable walking through the city taking in the bright colors and finding delightful courtyards behind wooden doors. Impressive stone homes from the 1600s still

stand and house both historical and contemporary museums, art galleries, libraries and host film festivals. Click here to check out the cool doors of Oaxaca.

Museum of Contemporary Art

Public Library

What also is special about Oaxaca is the number of indigenous people who live here. We heard estimates that the many indigenous groups, the Zapotec and Mixtec people being the dominate ones, make up 1/3 of the population of Oaxaca, with many of them speaking their languages and not Spanish. The woman are tough cookies; strong and noble. One lady let me have it when I was taking a street shot outside the market place and she did not want to be a part of my tableau. You don’t have to speak Zapotecan to know she was pissed off. From then on, I asked for permission to take photos, even if it was of a piece of fruit. And they always said yes. Speaking of fruit, click here to read about the food.

Oaxaca Means Food

Posted on March 4, 2014 by Neko

This is a food town for sure, with corn, chocolate and mezcal being the cornerstones. Once again what is compelling about Oaxaca is the way they preserve and celebrate their traditions, but also welcome the modern take on them. And food is no exception, from the fantastic marketplaces and family restaurants, to today’s chefs putting new twists on locals dishes.

Comal (griddle) heating nopal (catus)

La Biznaga restaurant

Food vendors outside Juarez Market

Late night snacks.

Comida, is the main meal of the day. It includes sopa (soup) or ensalada, a main dish and postre (dessert). It is often accompanied by an agua fresca(fruit flavored water). That is the milky looking drink on the table.

One tradition is chapulines, baked and spiced grasshoppers. They sell them by the bagful in the marketplace, but we also saw them on restaurant menus. And yes, we did try them. We just sampled some from a street vendor. Peter’s was spicy and crunchy and mine tasted like a dill pickle and crunchy. Let’s just say we can check that off the list.

Who knew there were so many grasshopper?

Cautious, but I did it!

Unlike Lay’s Potato Chips, you CAN just eat one chapuline.

Chocolate comes in numerous forms from a beautifully crafted hot chocolate to the famous mole poblano. The complex sauces can be bought throughout the markets and of course ordered in restaurants. Many debate if there are 6 or 7 official types of moles, so Peter decided not to try just one and ordered a tasting that came with roasted pork in 6 different moles.

6 mole sampler

Mixing the hot chocolate

Hot and cold chocolate drinks are made with the same intensity as your coffee barista. They scoop steaming milk into ceramic pitchers and break in chunks of dark chocolate from solid bars and feverishly mix and froth with a traditional wooden dowel called molinillo (moh-lee-NEE-yoh)

One thing Oaxaca is really into is Mezcal – not the rot gut downed by Hollywood banditos, but rather high-end, aged clear Mezcal, sin worm. Mezcal is made from maguey, a type of agave and is meant to be sipped straight. Thanks to a tip from our friend George, we went to a little hole in the wall mezcaleria called In Situ. Its walls were lined with hundreds of bottles of Mezcal, and only Mezcal.

In Situ mezcaleria

Owner, Ulisses Torrentera, and friends at the bar

Bottles of mezcal

The liqueur is made in dozens of factories around Oaxaca, from Mom and Pop shacks to fancy places with tasting rooms that would not look out-of-place in Napa. A red-cheeked round little man named Ulisses Torrentera runs In Situ, and he wrote the book on Mezcal (literally – he handed us the book he wrote but alas it was in Spanish). However, even with his limited English and our nearly non-existent Spanish we learned a great deal from him and tasted several varieties before settling on a bottle with a nice smokey flavor to bring back to the boat.

The bottle we took home. Traditional mezcal is drunk from these ceramic cups

The bottle we took home. Traditionally mezcal is drunk from these ceramic cups.

Ulisses tasting a local farmer’s mezcal

It was fascinating to watch a farmer come into the shop with several large soda bottles filled with his product to sell to Ulisses. After tasting it, Ulisses let us know under his breath that this particular batch was not very good and he wouldn’t be buying any. We felt bad for the farmer but that’s business I guess. Although it isn’t as well know as tequila, mark my words, I predict it will soon be the next drink de jour in the states.

Mercado entrance

Camarones (shrimp)

Sorry Wilbur

The Juárez and 20 de Noviembre mercados are giant labyrinths of food and craft vendors selling everything you can imagine and some things you can’t. On our days, yes we made several trips there, we ate and sampled and bought everything from Oaxaca cheese (like string cheese), chocolate to those damn grasshoppers.

Oaxaca cheese

Peter was in carnivore’s heaven when we wandered into the smoky carne asada alley. It’s about 200 feet long and lined with glowing barbecues on each side. You can barely see your hands in front of you, due the smoke. He didn’t know what the procedure was, but after a little Spanish and a lot of pantomime, he was handed a plate with raw peppers and scallions and pointed to the row of identical stalls grilling beef and sausage.

He picked one and handed his plate and the vegetables to the grill master and said “mixto”. What he didn’t know was that the meat was sold by weight and, not specifying an amount, they decided how much he wanted. We sat and waited and soon a kilo, maybe more, of perfectly grilled meats and the aforementioned scallions and peppers as well as tortillas and salsas were delivered to the table. It was really a meal for two or three people and all for about $9. I went to another stall in the marketplace for a tlayuda. This is a pizza-size baked tortilla that is covered with any combination of things, but always based with black bean paste.

Tlayuda stacked up at La Abuelitas

tlayuda

Again this was enough food to feed the town and was only $5. I wasn’t successful finishing mine (I shouldn’t have filled up on those grasshoppers 😉

Lucy had room service back at the hotel!

Click here to read other posts on our road trip to Oaxaca or for post on touring the city.

The Road to Oaxaca

Posted on February 26, 2014 by Neko

Huatulco Beach

We arrived in Hualtuco to find long stretches of empty beaches, a nice marina, but a sterile town.

This is one of Mexico’s planned tourist areas, trying to make up for the sins of Cancun and Ixtapa by thinking things out before slapping up high rises on every square inch of land.

La Crucecita, Hualtuco

They succeeded in avoiding the spring break blight, but forgot about history and culture, resulting in a charmless town with quaint neighborhood names like sector A & sector C and, oh yes, everyone’s favorite sector T. Most boaters hole up here waiting for a favorable weather window to cross the infamous Gulf of Tehuantepec (Click here for that post). Amazingly when we arrived there was such a window and several other boats we knew were going. So what to do: do a quick turnaround and take the opening or stay for an inland adventure? After our fun stop in Acapulco, we were itching to see more sides of Mexico, not just beach towns, and Oaxaca (wa-ha-ka) was at the top of our list. Many warned against the long journey and torturous roads, but after researching and hearing that our NY pal George and his wife Laura had just had a fantastic trip there, so we couldn’t resist. Besides Lucy had already rented a car 😉

Oaxaca please

So we drove about 250 miles from Huatulco to Oaxaca. We will do a longer posts about the trip, but first we had to get there. Many folks warned us that the drive would be a horrible one on a bad road in very mountainous terrain. We had a lot of experience driving in mountain switchbacks from our time in Northern California and thought, “how bad could it be?” Well, the road was VERY windy and long (6.5 hours), but it is pretty well maintained.

Road to Oaxaca

The countryside is absolutely stunning – very hilly and largely unpopulated, with many agave fields and roadside mezcal factory.

Agave field

Roadside Mezcal factory

Whenever you’d approach a small town, sometimes just a couple of buildings clustered near the highway, there would be a speed bump, or several, spanning the highway, called a “tope”. Now, mind you, this was a highway that several seconds

Catus

earlier you were traversing at 70 mph. We only failed to see and slow down for about two of them and those we bounced over Dukes of Hazzard style, thinking we’d have to buy the rental car company a new exhaust system.

But, apart from those instances, the trip was fine. We arrived in one piece and can report that it’s not the road that makes the trip tough but the crazy drivers down here. There seemed to be a memorial at ever other turn.

Road side memorial

This is a truck chassis being dragged 500ft back up this hill from where it went over the edge. May whomever was in that vehicle rest in peace.

Oaxaca accident

Click on photos to enlarge or click here for photo gallery

Feliz Navidad

Posted on December 25, 2013 by Neko

Feliz Navidad, próspero año y felicidad. May your new year be filled with adventure, love and smooth sailing!

Neko’s crew has been immortalized

Sailing on Neko

Enjoy Yourself, It's Later Than You Think

Author Archives: Neko