San Marino

The Most Serene Republic of San Marino is a tiny, landlocked nation within the confines of Italy near the Adriatic sea. With only 31,000 people, and just 24 square miles of land, it is a strange anomaly of history. Italy used to be many small principalities, kingdoms, and states, but by 1871 these had all been absorbed into the Republic of Italy. All except San Marino. They have been independent since the fall of the Roman Empire. They stayed neutral in both World Wars. They even convinced Napoleon NOT to invade them.

I could not pass up the chance to get another country, so we rented a car from Hertz and hit the road. My Ford Ka sported a massive 1.2 liter engine that spit out a whopping 68 horsepower. It goes 0 to 60 in just under 10 minutes. Perfect for parking, not so perfect for merging in thick highway traffic. It should be noted that Italians drive 80mph at all times. And gas costs $7.90 a gallon. And there are toll booths every ten miles. Thankfully we had our new trusty Garmin GPS. This thing rocks. I can't imagine driving in Italy without it.

I worried that San Marino would suck, and Lindso would be saying "We drove 4 hours to see this dump?", but we were not disappointed. The main town of San Marino (also called San Marino) featured a walled town with three medieval towers capping the top of the highest mountain in the country. Another fairytale town like Siena. The best part was that with few hotels, nearly everyone clears out with the last tour bus. We had the town completely to ourselves that evening.

Florence, Italy

Florence is a wonderful maze of art, architecture, and history.

A copy of David sits outside the Palazzo Vecchio. We stood in line to see the real one at the Accademia Gallery.
Nightfall with the Ponte Vecchio in the background
The Palazzo Vecchio and La Loggia was our regular evening spot to sit and eat gelato and gaze at 500 year old sculptures.
I had to put aside my preference for beer and become a wine drinker on this trip. The house wine is usually pretty cheap, sometimes as little as $7 for 750ml bottle. It's decent stuff too. Italian beer is pretty awful.

Pisa, Italy

People go to Pisa for one reason only....to get a picture of themselves pretending to hold up the Leaning Tower of Pisa. I'll not claim to be any different.

The Leaning Tower was more interesting than I expected. It is a beautiful structure, and would be worth seeing even if it was upright. The whole "Field of Miracles" is a wonderful place to lay on the grass and look at some amazing marble buildings. Other than that though, Pisa has little to set it apart from any other Italian town. We spent one night here, and that was just the right amount of time.

Siena, Italy

Siena is a wonderful, romantic, fairytale castle town. Cobblestone streets, brick buildings surrrounded by city walls, a perfect central Piazza, this is the reason people come to Italy. Sadly we had only one night here, and were wiped out with jetlag.Due to a camera problem (see Florence) this is one of the only surviving photos of lovely Siena.

Phillipsburg, St. Maarten, Netherlands

OK, so St Maarten isn't actually it's own country, but rather split evenly between the Netherlands and France. In fact it is the smallest island in the world that is owned by more than one country.

We arrived at the port on the Dutch side, and immediately caught a taxi to one of the most famous small airports in the world.

Airport beach or Maho beach. A small but nice beach if you don't mind the jumbo jets over your head.

If you put up a sign like this, you know its going to draw a crowd.

The Sunset Bar at Airport beach claims that topless women drink for free. Karine called them on it.

Frigate Bay, St. Kitts and Nevis

St. Kitts and Nevis is the smallest, least populated sovereign nation in the Western Hemisphere. It's sort of the Liechtenstein of the Americas. And much like Liechtenstein, it attracts many foreigners with tax bills to avoid, or a sudden need for a passport other than their home countries. If you can afford to invest in $350,000 worth of real estate, and pay a nominal $35,000 processing fee, you can have Kittitian citizenship within six months.

Karine, Lindso and Emilie
We had signed up for our only Carnival-run shore excursion of the trip, an overpriced $60 tour of the island. The first stop was a boring tourist trap called the Romney House.
The second stop on our tour was the awesome Brimstone Hill fortress. Finished in the 1790's, the Brits protected the island from pirates and the French with it. It is a World Heritage site today, and only interesting architectural site we saw on the cruise.The island of St Eustatius off in the distance.

near Frigate Bay
Of course the afternoon began (and ended) with a Carib.

Crane Beach, Barbados

Barbados did not work out the way we expected. Lindso and I planned to catch a cab to the capitol city of Bridgetown, rent a car, and spend the day driving a lap around the island. We got into a van full of cruise passengers heading towards Bridgetown, and were informed that Prime Minister David Thompson had died of cancer the previous week, that today was his funeral, and that the entire country was closed for business to attend. No rental cars available.

Some guys in the back of the van had a plan to go to some swanky resort with a beach. Since that was where the van was headed, and we were already in the van, that's where we were headed. After an hour ride, "The Crane" resort told our van to get lost. Chaos ensues.

Our driver mentions his birthday is Monday. My birthday is Monday. The cabbie is exactly twenty years older than me to the day. Strange.

Finally, with our newfound friends Arie and Karine we got a ride "Cutters" restaurant. Arie immediately orders a round of rum shots to celebrate finding any business open on Barbados.

And then another round. And then Banks beers. And then rum punch. Did I mention it's only 10am? We finished lunch, purchased every cold Banks beer the owner had, borrowed his cooler, and then he even drove us to the beach!

http://www.cutters.bb/Friends.html

Crane Beach was indeed fantastic.

And a cooler full of Banks and rum punch didn't hurt. The rest of our van companions were please to have beer delivered.Soon it seemed like a good idea to climb a tree.

It was like living a Corona commercial. Except with Banks.

Roseau, Dominica

We docked in the musty tumbledown capital of Roseau, Dominica. Dominica is the poorest Caribbean island save for Haiti. There is a visible lack of development compared to the other islands we would see. In Roseau not much has changed in the last thirty or forty years. It has a crumbling charm, but I wouldn't want to be out here after sunset.

We were immediately met by Nahjie, our guide from Extreme Dominica. I had pre-booked us an all day hike, 12 miles up and down mountains into the interior of the island, to a boiling lake. We drove for nearly an hour into the World Heritage Site of Morne Trois Piton National Park. Beautiful vistas of forest and jungle surrounded us. From there we hiked up and down up and down for 2 hours to reach Boiling Lake

The volcanic mud supposedly has great exfoliating qualities for the skin. I felt like Nahjie was having a laugh at us.

The hike was very tough. I was a bit out of shape, and I fell behind a couple times. I'd compare it to climbing an easy 14er in Colorado. Nahjie had no problems.

On the way back we climbed down into a hot spring waterfall fed pool.

At the end we drank a couple Kabuli beers and swam into a cold crystal-clear freshwater stream that ran through a 20 foot high smooth rock wall canyon to a waterfall. Amazing!

We were very happy with the service provided by Extreme Dominica. It wasn't cheap at $80 per person, but we really enjoyed our day. Give em a try. http://www.extremedominica.com/

Finally dropped off in Roseau we were immediately cornered by a hulking Rasta man offering us weed. Thankfully, he did take no for an answer, and we crossed the street to some bar that had been built out of cast-off plywood and corrugated sheet metal. The service was slow, the beer was cold, and our time was short. Back to the ship we ran.

St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands, USA

On arrival in Charlotte Amalie, we walked a loooong hot mile from the port to the center of town, then wandered aimlessly until we found our way to "Blackbeard's Castle". An obvious tourist trap, we allowed ourselves to be suckered in at $12 each. It turned out OK, they had a pool, and a bar, and those two things fix almost any situation.

Label states: "confusion and plotting developed if Blackbeard's men were sober, but all was calm when they had enough ale" Well said.

If someone is going to go to the trouble to erect a cheezy photo-op billboard, then it's the least I can do to oblige.
Lindso decided she likes St Thomas and declared victory over the island

Cotopaxi Volcano, Ecuador

I signed up for a daylong tour with Gulliver travel company to hike up to the glacier line of Cotopaxi Volcano. Cotopaxi is an active volcano, the second highest in Ecuador, standing at 19,347ft. An eruption from Cotopaxi killed over 1,000 people in 1887. It is due for another eruption, and now over a million people live in nearby Quito. When it happens, it will be horrific.
Hopefully today would not be that day. We rode a bus for several sleepy hours and then started our hike at about 14,700ft, which was already the highest elevation I'd ever achieved. My $2 hat from Otavalo came in handy.

Our first look at the glacier.

At 15, 700ft. we took a break in this refuge. Soon it began to hail and snow.

Finally we reached the highest point we could hike to; 16,400ft! To go further on the glacier would require ice climbing equipment, and also a day of acclimatization to be able to handle 19,000ft. I'd like to have done that, but, so little time.

We descended back to the refuge, where a fantastic spread of food awaited a dozen hungry hikers.
After hiking the rest of the way down to the parking lot, we jumped on mountain bikes and barrelled down the dirt road out of the park.
I recommend Gulliver Travel for this tour. At $35 I thought it was a good value, they provided a good English speaking guide, good food, no problems. The easiest way to book a tour is just to turn up at their office in La Mariscal, see what they have available and sign on.

The vegetation at 12,000ft looked remarkable similar to what you'd see in Colorado at a similar elevation.

Otavalo, Ecuador

Today I did a day tour to the market towns of Otavalo and Cuicocha. Along the way we crossed the Equator, and stopped to snap some pics. There is a much larger and more famous Equator monument called Mital del Mundo, but it turns out that it's not actually on the equator. They missed it by 200 meters. So this one's good enough for me.
I was so busy haggling and buying stuff in Otavalo, I hardly took any pictures. But here is an example of a colorful Otavalo market stall. We had 90 minutes in Otavalo, and I could have used 3 hours at least. This is the place to come to outfit your whole family for winter weather. Many beautiful sweaters, scarves, hats, mittens, jackets.

Next we stopped at the nice Peguche waterfall. Ecuador is really a beautiful country. In just a couple hours of driving, we passed giant snowcapped mountains, and deep, sharply dropping valleys. We saw farmers working the land all the way up to 14,000ft. Rivers rushing through the valley floors. Indigenous ladies in traditional dress carrying babies in a sling.

Her shirt says, "I am a beauuuuuuuuuuutiful child"
This plant produces a drug known as Scopolamine. Scopolamine is a dangerous drug that turns humans into near zombies. Criminals blow the powder form of the drub into peoples faces and then can easily convince the person to give them their ATM pin, their car keys, or their apartment keys. According to Wikipedia, "In recent years the criminal use of scopolamine has become epidemic in Colombia. Approximately one in five emergency room admissions for poisoning in Bogota have been attributed to scopolamine." If you want to be terrified before your next visit to Colombia, click on the link.