Camping

Happy Birthday!

More Austria pics to come, but as a palate cleanser a few pictures from one month ago, when we were camping and celebrating A's birthday with family!

Roughing It

Because A really has a total lack of compassion, we took a 3 hour bus journey (poor sick F) to Bacalar. Since we did not have any hotel reserved, we took a cab with a fellow traveler from the bus stop to the camp site/youth hostel that she had booked. Apparently, we still had not learned that we are not in our twenties...

Anyway, we got a tent with clean sheets and a slightly leaky air mattress. It felt like heaven since there were no fleas, and the owner was wonderfully professional.

Across the road, there was a very nice Cocina Economica, where the daily lunch special cost 2 bucks. They even gave us extra aqua fresca, which was especially good for F because he really needed to rehydrate!

Bacalar turned out to be a wonderful little town on a beautiful lagoon, with a nice town square, as well as nice Christmas decorations.

We spent the next day swimming at a sinkhole, and getting a couple of bug bites that made A's feet swell to humongous proportions.





Still, we had a lot of fun swimming and looking at the tree roots and fishes in the beautiful clear water.






On our way back to town, we stopped at a beautiful restaurant on the lagoon for some drinks and snacks.





In addition to a beautiful setting (we're hoping to add one of these pyramid things to our backyard -- it looks like a great way to hang your mosquito net!), the restaurant really made the experience complete with this amazingly off-key rendition of "Under the Boardwalk".






As much fun as pretending you're not forty-ish had been, we realized it was time to act our age. (Or, more precisely, we realized that traveling by bus took so long that we would not be able to go anywhere interesting in the remaining 7 days if we kept roughing it).



So, the next morning we took a bus all the way back again to Cancun's airport, where we picked up a rental car. Lesson learnt for next time: don't forget to pick up rental car at the start of trip!

National Park

After successfully decompressing on Isla Mujeres, we decided to forget the fact that we are 40-ish years old, and went on an adventure to relive our backpacking twenties. We took a (second class) bus down to Tulum, where we called the "National Park Camping and Hiking" to come and pick us up in an hour's time. The campground sounded great, a small place in the middle of the jungle, where you could rent a tent with air mattress and bedding provided.

While waiting, we had some good local food close to the bus station at arrival. Click on the sound-thingie to get the accompanying sounds.

At the agreed-upon time, we were sitting in the agreed-upon location and waited. And waited. And waited. The telephone I had used earlier to call the campground was now out of order (welcome to Mexico!), but after half an hour I finally managed to make a call on another phone. It turned out the owner was delayed by about 45 minutes. No apologies were made. We should have known better by then, but simply waited and waited, until one hour after the agreed-upon time, a tiny rickety old car appeared to pick us up and take us here:



The road to this place was long and pot-holed, and the car smelled bad. That was not the worst of it, though, because the owner was telling us about how LSD changes the way you see things, and how he was considering adding "guided experiences" to the programs offered at the campground (we were told that guidance is needed, because otherwise, when you get an out-of-body experience, your body might get cold, and you will go back to it, thus ruining the whole experience). We got quieter and quieter, in the end not even responding at all. We were going into the middle of nowhere with someone whose brain was clearly severely damaged...
 

The tent turned out to be provided with a good air mattresses and flea-infested blankets only. After asking about 5 times, we also received pillows but no pillow cases nor sheets. And we had already paid for two nights, damnit! The next day, we joined two school psychologists from California on a visit to the ruins of Coba. The weather was hot and humid, there were too many tourists, and A looks like she is about to cry.

But the day wasn't over yet! The food at the campground was terrible, so we decided to eat dinner in Coba, before heading back. At 8 pm, we - together with 3 other "happy campers" - arrived at the turnoff for the potholed road to the campground. The owner promised to come and pick us up in 45 minutes. Being somewhat more experienced with his time-keeping skills and not looking forward to 30 minutes in the smelly car, we decided to start walking, in the hopes of being picked up after a couple of kilometers.

We walked for about 90 minutes on the moonlit road (click above to hear the sounds), when the car pulled up next to us. The owner told us that the car was full, and that we were almost there anyway, so there was no point for him to drive back and forth to pick us up. We had walked about 8 km in the darkness by then, and had 4 km to go... We were flabbergasted by this lack of hospitality or concern for our well being, but had no choice but to keep walking.

Ten minutes later, we saw the car appear again from the direction of the campground (it turned out he still needed to pick up 2 of the 3 people who had been with us). He did not even stop but sped past us. The "ASSHOLE" I yelled after him in the quiet jungle made my throat hurt for quite a while.

The next morning, F had severe diarrhea, but I did not care. At 8am, our suitcase was standing at the exit, and we got into that crappy car again to listen to the asshole Canadian talk about drugs and how he was just a robot on solar energy and how Disney was going to buy up his property and hire him to set up more successful ventures etcetera etcetera. We even paid him a handsome amount for these services. But at least we got out of there!

On the Way Back from Florida

After swimming with manatees, kayaking with alligators, snorkeling with sting rays and jelly fish, and camping with mosquitos, we are back in a motel with internet access on the way back home.



Here is Anke and a whole gaggle of other tourists trying to pet a manatee (and succeeding in doing so):



One of the hundreds of birds we saw (I think this is an ibis):



And here is Anke kayaking:



Yesterday, we had a food day. We started with an amazing huevos rancheros at Rosita's in Florida City:



Followed by a famous rock shrimp restaurant, called Dixie Crossroads. They served corn fritters, which was a great (early) substitute for the obligatory oliebollen (Happy New Year!):



And these amazing rock shrimp:



We then drove on to a town that is even crazier than Williamsburg, St. Augustine (still in Florida). Anke found another great restaurant though, Catch 27. We had a wonderful fish stew:



And an even better main course of shrimp and grits:



We also had blackened flounder which was good, but paled in comparison with the shrimp.

We then enjoyed a little bit of the local craziness:





Happy New Year!

On the road to Florida

We left three days ago to follow the birds on their journey south. On our way, we encountered countless buffets with delicious southern food, beautiful beaches and wild camp sites, and, of course, hundreds and hundreds of old people who were enjoying their retirement in their RVs.
We would share our photos here, had Flickr not made it near impossible to do so. So, why don't you visit the bastards directly, and check out Frans's photostream?

UPDATED:

Here are the other photos:

Especially for Tuncay

Bear!

We saw this bear last weekend, after a hike in Shenandoah National Park. It was actually jumping between trees, while I was getting the camera ready.

Camping

Food was eaten and photos were taken

Even during their vacation, the teams from WTAW and EK do not rest, and continue to eat and take photos of what they eat, for your entertainment.

And camping, too!

We missed the US, because camping in Germany involves being surrounded by small permanent mobile homes filled with retirees busy keeping their little bitsy gardens, and no open fires or bears, or anything remotely exciting.

However, camping in Germany also involves being joined by Ellen and Christiaan, which makes up for all of that!

Also, weizenbier:

and sausages:

Hiking along the Rotweinwanderweg

Red wine and hiking - who would not love that combination? ...apparently, anyone under the age of 65 except for us, because we did not meet anyone who was not retired. But whatever, young people just don't know what they are missing..

Barbecue

Being in France means that wine is cheaper than beer, great food is prepared everywhere and supermarkets are a Walhalla with wonderful cheeses, fish, meatz, etc. Here is just a very small sample of the foods we prepared on our little barbecue:







Not pictured: sardines, trout, sausages (many times), côte de boeuf.