After 20 years sleeping, this blog is ready to awaken! We have landed in Hanoi, Vietnam!!

Ellie & Kepfram begin their year in SE Asia - after 20 years back living in NYC & raising a phenomenal kid (who's now beginning his solo adventures), it is time to explore, immerse, and reconnect!

We hope you will follow along as we slow travel! Our proposed itinerary: Aug-Oct 2026 Vietnam, Nov 2026 Cambodia, Dec 2026 Laos, Jan-Feb 2027 Thailand, Mar-May 2027 Malaysia, June 2027 Indonesia, July 2027 ???

We look forward to sharing the new things we do, see, taste, and learn - stay tuned!

Labels: Status Update, Vietnam

It's hard to believe that this aventura is over, and that we've been back home already for almost 2 weeks....

I feel blessed to have met so many great people along our journey: my fellow teachers (& co-Spanish students) from Universidad Latina (Katie & Mike, Rachael, Shiona, Denise, etc), friends we explored Costa Rica with (Omar & Lea, Elizabeth & Isaac, Kassi), my students (especially Rocío and Ernesto who started out as students but ended up as real friends - and there are so many more - too many to list), my Costa Rican/Argentine Spanish teacher (Monica - one of the best teachers I've ever had) & her husband (Monte - gifted musician & friend), our incredible hosts in Nicaragua (Marcela & Boris), our traveling companions in Bolivia & beyond (Yvan & Cécile, Rafael, Franck & Charlotte), our new friends in Argentina (Araceli, Claudia & her family), plus all those other people who were kind to us along the way. (I'm sorry I don't have pictures of everyone - how could that have happened?!! Come visit us in NY, we need to document our friendship!!)

We saw so many incredible places, tasted many unique foods, got sick several times as a result, learned tons Spanish, laughed at our fortunes and misfortunes, read some great books (highlights for me being: Mountains Beyond Mountains, and Nine Hills to Nambonkaha), and overall expanded our horizons.

To see where we've been look in our archives:
July 2005 - getting to know Costa Rica
August 2005 - settling into Costa Rican life and our Villa Lakshmi apartment, looking for work, our trip to Cahuita
September 2005 - exploring San José, Montezuma, Cartago, Volcan Irazú, plus an intro Nicaragua
October 2005 - recap of our trip to Nicaragua, info on our new apartment
November 2005 - a quick update from Costa Rica
December 2005 - more from Costa Rica including our trip to Rincon de la Vieja, plus the start our holiday in Guatemala
January 2006 - more from Guatemala
February 2006 - more updates from Costa Rica including apartment photos
March 2006 - we say goodbye to Costa Rica then visit Panamá, explore Ecuador, and enter Perú
April 2006 - our trips through Perú & Bolivia (will Kepfram ever finish his post about el Salar de Uyuní??)
May 2006 - our visit to Chile and our first weeks in Argentina (including Bariloche, Mendoza, our intro to Buenos Aires)
June 2006 - our Buenos Aires apartment and our visits to Igauzú Falls (post pending - are you listening Kepfram??) & to Uruguay
July 2006 - our last days in Buenos Aires and coming home

Labels: Musings, Status Update

Were we've been & where we're going, courtesy of Paniglobe
-73.92, 40.67, New York City, USA
-84.07, 9.92, San José, Costa Rica
-85.95, 11.93, Granada, Nicaragua
-84.07, 9.92, San José, Costa Rica
-90.53, 14.63, Guatemala City, Guatemala
-90.72, 14.55, Antigua, Guatemala
-91.25, 14.72, San Marcos la Laguna, Guatemala
-91.51, 14.84, Qetzaltenango, Guatemala
-90.72, 14.55, Antigua, Guatemala
-90.53, 14.63, Guatemala City, Guatemala
-89.88, 16.93, Flores, Guatemala
-90.53, 14.63, Guatemala City, Guatemala
-84.07, 9.92, San José, Costa Rica
-79.52, 8.97, Panama City, Panamá
-78.48, -0.18, Quito, Ecuador
-78.42, -1.38, Baños, Ecuador
-76.67, 0.02, Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, Ecuador
-79.00, -2.89, Cuenca, Ecuador
-79.27, -3.99, Vilcabamba, Ecuador
-79.20, -3.98, Loja, Ecuador
-79.8, -6.75, Chiclayo, Perú
-79.02, -8.10, Trujillo, Perú
-77.04, -12.06, Lima, Perú
-76.21, -13.71, Pisco, Perú
-74.93, -14.82, Nasca, Perú
-71.97, -13.51, Cusco, Perú
-72.58, -13.12, Machu Picchu, Perú
-70.02, -15.84, Puno, Perú
-69.07, -16.16, Copacabana (Isla del Sol), Bolivia
-68.15, -16.50, La Paz, Bolivia
-65.74, -19.57, Potosí, Bolivia
-66.81, -20.46, Uyuní (Salar de Uyuní), Bolivia
-68.20, -22.94, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
-71.24, -29.89, La Serena, Chile
-71.63, -33.03, Valparaíso, Chile
-70.63, -33.46, Santiago, Chile
-71.97, -39.29, Pucón, Chile
-72.95, -41.47, Puerto Montt, Chile
-71.26, -41.13, San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina
Mendoza, Argentina
-58.36, -34.60, Buenos Aires, Argentina
-54.57, -25.60, Puerto Iguazú, Argentina
-56.16, -34.87, Montevideo, Uruguay (change to "Colonia del Sacramento, Uruguay")
-73.92, 40.67, New York City, USA

Labels: Status Update

Welcome to Argentina!Population: 39 million people
Currency: Argentine Peso, $3.08310AR = $1US
Capital: Buenos Aires
Food: Beef, lots of beef (distinct cuts of grass fed meaty goodness, salted, grilled & slow roasted). There are also lots other grilled specialties that we won't be trying like different sausages, & roasted organs that don't sound so good, but the dulce de leche we will be trying.
Roads: Still nice & there lots of options for busses (from 1st class to coach).


Black People Count thus far: about 12, we encountered a tour group from the West Indies on a mountain overlook so I'm not sure if I should count them or not. Ellie's past exprience in Argentina led her declare it "The Whitest Place on Earth," we'll see if that holds true this visit.
Itinerary: skiing in San Carlos de Bariloche, wine tasting in Mendoza, visit the Iguazu Falls Park, study spanish & tango in Buenos Aires for a month, & take a ferry over to Uruguay for a weekend.

Bye-bye Chile!
So our bus trip was comfortable & uneventfull. It was a pretty ride across the Andes, even on a rainy day it was impressive. It was kinda like going from the US to Canada, the customs people weren't tense, they did random searches of our bags, & we didn't feel like our bus was going to leave us.
I'm really hoping that our money will go a bit further here than it did in Chile, we'll see...

Kepfram

Labels: Argentina, Chile, Status Update

Peru, so far so good.
We just arrived in Nazca & I'm anxious to get to Cuzco.
All of Peru's coast seems the same. It's desert. It's hot. The little towns are poor, dusty, & not too remarkable. The bigger towns & cities have bigger buildings, & more ways to occupy your time till you move to your next destination, but we haven't been anywhere yet that we wanted to spend more time than we did yet.
Counting back: Chiclayo, Trujillo, Lima, Pisco, & now Nazca were all very similar for us. We visited museums & ruins in the first 3 & from Pisco we visited the Ballestas Islands, the "poor man's Galapagos" where we saw a lot of animals (sea lions, pelicans, inca terns, sea otters, crabs, humbolt penguins, & others). Pictures will follow later, we're backed up on photos & it's gonna take me a long time to upload everything.
Our bus tomorrow night to Cuzco is a luxury sleeper bus, I'm not looking forward to the 15 hour trip, but I am looking forward to a bus ride with movies & a stewardess...

Later,

Kepfram

Labels: Peru, Status Update

Welcome to Peru

We took an overnight bus from Loja in southern Ecuador & arrived in Chiclayo around 7am this morning. I slept for most of the trip.

So far this is what I know of northern Peru (we're only about 4 hours south of Ecuador).
It's hot. Mostly desert. You can see the Andes in the distance when you look east, they're pretty. It kinda reminds me of Mexico, along the road through the desert there isn't much & the towns that we passed looked pretty poor (thatched rooves & adobe walls @ times), but the quality of things increases as population density does. Chiclayo's got grocery stores, mototaxis, lots of little taxis, internet cafes, & comfortable hotels all pretty cheap too, Peru seems to have the best exchange rate yet for us.

More later,

Kepfram

Labels: Ecuador, Peru, Status Update

Free Trade Agreement / Tratado de Libre Comercio:



After spending 9 months in Costa Rica were we witnessed protests and a ton of discourse for and against (but largely against) the TLC in Central America (DR-CAFTA in the US - Costa Rica is the only targeted country that hasn´t yet signed on, but I expect that will be changing soon). As a result of being in the middle of all this we (I?) sort of forgot to pay attention to all the other free trade agreements which are propagating around the region in an attempt by the US to increase it´s world markets. We just happened to arrive in Ecuador in the week leading up to the final negotiations for joining AFTA (the Andean Free Trade Agreement) or TLC (already signed by Peru & Columbia and which Bolivia, which is leaning much farther left these days, is not expected to sign). As a result there have been protests, blockades, and roadblocks all over the country while largely indigenous communities have been preventing internal shipment of goods, oil, and tourist in order to influence the very unpopular central government. We weren´t able to visit many of the sites we´d hoped to around Quito as a result - like the archaeological park of Cochisquí or the famous Otovalo craft market (which was actually cancelled last weekend - but we couldn´t have gotten there anyway, at least not without a lot of time, effort, and $).

We decided not to stick around in Quito until everything blew over (even though we´d wanted to see the Equinox Festival near Mitad del Mundo), because it looked like the way south was opening up (at least temporarily), and as we´ve only budgeted 2 weeks of our trip for Ecuador, we were afraid to say in any one place too long.

We made it to Baños yesterday - but the trip took an extra 2 hours (5 instead of 3, and no bathroom on the bus....) because we had to backtrack and find an alternate route after we encountered a road which had been opened was blockaded once again. Along our trip we saw many areas where the asphalt was scared where tires and other obstacles had been burned to make roadblocks.

Along the way we had other delays because of accidents - overturned vehicles blocking the road - the first was a beer truck & we were routed onto the other side of the freeway with the oncoming traffic (so sad, all that beer...). The next was a long distance bus (just like the one we were riding in - SCARY!). The traffic was blocked in both directions while we watched them right the bus, luggage falling out on the road... we didn´t see any injured people though, perhaps there weren´t any, or perhaps they´d already been evacuated.

-ellie

Labels: Ecuador, Status Update

Woo Hoo - we´re in South America!!
Got here this afternoon, checked into our hotel, went and had some out-patient on my hand (amazing what a little skin infection will do after 3 days in the exceedingly hot tropical weather of Panama City....). I´m not sure if it´s the surgery, the antibiotics, or the pain killers, but I feel much better now... only it´s hard to type without the middle finger on my right hand (I´s K´s and commas are needed a lot, ya know?).
I´ll spare you the details, but suffice it so say: it was not pretty (and I´m not sure now why I wasted time on that manicure before we left San José, my hand is none too pretty with a bandaged up finger...... and I have to go back to the doctor tomorrow to see if I get to keep the nail..... oh, maybe I´ve said too much..... but since I have, let me just add that Kepfram, iron-clad stomach & all, couldn´t watch the procedure through to the end - but at least he held my hand during what I thought was the bad part: the anesthesia injection)
Anyway,
love to all,
Chao,
Ellie

Labels: Ecuador, Status Update

So it's been about a month since I wrote anything last.
I've been busy.
Ellie's been busy too.
Recapping since January in no particular order:

• My family came to visit in January. My Sister for a week & my Mom for close to a month. Much fun was had, we went to the beach, visited stuff around San Jose, visited a volcano, hot springs, rode horses, & ate a lot. This was our first family vacation in about 7 years, not so bad huh?


• Ellie & I had other guests last month as well. 2 of Ellie's good friends from NYC were here for a little bit. Taliegh stopped by for a couple days after a business trip & Randi was here for a week to study medical spanish. It was great to see some familiar faces even for a little while.


• Ellie & I visited the Baldi Spa in La Fortuna again with our friends Lea & Omar (I love me some hot springs).


• My afro became short locks.


• Our computer died. The power connector broke about 2 weeks ago & the price to replace it was ridiculous down here so it got sent home.


• I celebrated my birthday on Monday. Thanks for the cards everybody!


• We're leaving Costa Rica for good on Saturday. I've said goodbye to my friends & students, taught my last class, packed up our clothes, & cleared out most of our kitchen. It still looks like nobody wants to rent our apartment.


• Travel Plans:
  Sunday, arrive in Panama
  3 days later we fly to Quito, Ecuador. We'll make our way south to Peru hitting as many sites as we can, volcanoes, ruins, parks, etc. in about 2 weeks (we hope). We're gonna do the same in Peru(over 3 weeks), followed by Bolivia (<1 a="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chile" week="">Chile(1 month), Argentina (1 month), & Uruguay (just a weekend visit from Buenos Aries).

We had a great going away party, former-students, friends, & co-workers, a shame everyone couldn't make it. We should have had more parties here. I'm going to miss San Jose & Costa Rica. The people & places we've come to know & love over the last 9 months have been wonderful. I hope to keep in touch with everyone see them all again in time.

Things I'll miss (I had this list originally in the dead iBook, so this is nowhere near complete):
Guys selling fresh squeezed orange juice from shoping carts with attached juicers in the mornings
Salas the artist who paints scenes of Costa Rica on Avenida Central
Teaching
My students
Tin Jo
Pan y Vino
Crem Rica
The VIP movie theater in Terra Mall
& many more things I don't have time to write about...

Ok, I gotta go catch a bus. I'll write more from Panama...

Kepfram

Labels: Costa Rica, Status Update

I Love Flickr!
So a while back after a tragic computer accident where we lost about 1/2 of the photos we'd taken over the course of our trip I decided that I should back everything up online. I finished the process tonight & now you can see all the rest of our photos @ the link above (it's also now @ the top of our links section for future use).

Kepfram

Labels: Status Update

Week 3 in Costa Rica:

I need somebody to explain to me the difference between a developing & industrialized nation. Ellie & I were talking about the different ways the world's countries get described: industrialized, developing, 1st, 2nd, 3rd & World, core, periphery, & semi-periphery & I think my understanding of these divisions has been skewed by television always showing pictures of starving children in war zones when they use the words "Third World" or "developing nation."
Whatever you call it Costa Rica is one of these lesser nations, & the whole country reminds me of a poor county in Florida.
Everything available elsewhere in the world is available, but in shorter supply & smaller variety. & some things are incredibly plentiful here (example we've been drinking fresh squeezed fruit juice daily since we got here).
So where's the line? If anybody knows please get back to me...

Anyway, the family that the school has placed Ellie & I with are great people,
incredibly nice & very hospitable. I even like their dog, which wouldn't be saying much except after 2 bad dog experiences since arriving I'm even less of a dog person than I already was.
Anyway, I'm learning a lot in school, but haven't got the hang of speaking in the future or past tenses & vocabulary is still a problem for me, but I've got time to work on it.

So I'm really digging Costa Rica, warm weather, lots of friendly people, an affordable cost of living, beautiful countryside everywhere you look (clouds drift across the tops of the mountains surrounding the central valley daily), & so much wildlife to see. Since arriving here I've seen butterflies of various shapes, sizes & types daily, crabs, humming birds, monkeys, snakes, vultures, geckos, lizards, frogs, a bat, & some kind of BIG cat that climbed the wall of our house's courtyard (I'm calling it a puma till somebody can tell me it was something different).
UPDATE: Ellie checked her book, it WAS a PUMA!
Ellie & I have gone away every weekend we've been here (which is the main reason I've seen so many animals, the puma & bat were flukes for the city, I think), so far we've visited an active volcano & thermal spring, rode zip-lines through the forest canopy, visited the black & golden sand beaches on the Caribbean coast, & watched a couple movies in spanish (interesting side-note: nothing is censored on Costa Rican TV actually making some bad TV interesting to watch. For example: E!'s "Wild On" is actually an interesting program when there's nudity. Conversely I feel the need to apologize for the torrent of bad & suspect Television programming our country exports here. I watched the Samuel Jackson version of "Shaft" last night, I don't mind reading subtitles for a good movie, but for movies that aren't it just seems like too much work.). This weekend Ellie & I are thinking of going to Nicaragua or the Pacific coast, but I'm not sure what we're going to do @ this point, we'll see...

Talk to you all later,

Kepfram

P.S. I'm including some various pictures from our weekend trips. The ones with water are from our weekend in Cahuita, the ones without are from our weekend in Guanacaste visiting the Arenal volcano & Monte Verde.

P.P.S No matter what our teachers may have told us in school the seasons are not the same for the entire northern hemisphere. Costa Rica is between 8 & 11 degrees north of the equator, but "winter" here goes from May to November with "summer" filling December through April. There is no fall or spring. & it turns out that "summer" & "winter" are ephemysms for dry season & rainy season. Rainy season means it rains everyday in the after noon for @ least an hour. I've heard it can be bad, but haven't seen it yet. I don't mind the afternoon showers, they're mild.

Labels: Costa Rica, Status Update