Since real time blogging is near impossible during travels, I’m going to go ahead and interrupt Eaman’s lovely stream of Iran posts to give you an update on what’s next for us because newsflash: Eaman got back last Thursday! And bigger newflash: We’re moving to California in the new year! Yep, our vague notion back in 2011 of moving to San Diego has become a reality. And we’re road-tripping all the way there from the East Coast!
First let’s start with what’s been going on. As you know, I’ve been home for six weeks, during which time I’ve reacquainted myself with my parents’ comfy leather sofa, read, watched TV, frequented Target, got all my doctors appointments in check and caught up with the friends and family I missed so dearly. (Lucky for me I was even here when one of my closest friends got engaged.)
Last Thursday, I headed to JFK airport to welcome Eaman home and during our last few days in Manhattan, we indulged at all our favorite restaurants (Shake Shack, ChikaLicious, L’asso and Habana oh my!), held our stomachs in food-coma agony, saw our friends, danced a Saturday night away, Sunday brunch-ed and said goodbye to that great, great city. In 2011, I ran away from New York; in 2012, I walked away with some sadness. No place like New York, that’s for sure.
On Monday, we traded skyscrapers for suburbs and hung out with my parents in New Jersey for the rest of the week. This Sunday, we’re packing up a rental car with all my necessary possessions and driving to Nashville, where we’ll be staying with Eaman’s aunt and cousins for two nights — a perfect midway stop before we make our way to Oklahoma to spend the holidays with Eaman’s family. We’re going to Thunder basketball games, having a belated traditional Thanksgiving dinner and buying a car, a necessary evil now that we’re moving California. A bit crazy to think we’ll be car owners. So grown-up!
We’re then road-tripping again (in our new car!) to San Diego probably some time during the first week of January. No, we don’t have jobs awaiting us. No, we don’t have an apartment lined up. No, we don’t have a ton of friends there. And actually, neither of us has family out there either. We just loved San Diego during a short trip in 2010 and its sunny impact on us hasn’t faded since. We love the weather, landscapes, healthy lifestyle, fresh food, people, pace of life, road trip possibilities and smaller-city feel. Honolulu was also a very real possibility, but after being away for more than a year, we didn’t want to be away from the mainland U.S. yet again. Plus, I’m not sure expensive Honolulu would be kind to our skinny wallets right now. (That said, we’re missing our Hawaii ohana like crazy.)
In any case, we’re excited to just go for it, try something new and keep our explorer spirits alive in new territory. San Diego, here we come!
And guess what? I loved the blogging thing so much that I’ll be chronicling this next chapter on a new, soon-to-be-announced blog. Check back here for details.
Thanks for continuously following us on our journey. Hope you’ll join us for the next one!
During the glorious three consecutive days off around my birthday, Eaman and I spent one full day on the road, checking out life on the island beyond Honolulu, which also gave us an opportunity to use Eaman’s cool new camera lens. Craig, master of road trips, put together a nice itinerary for us, and our friend, Doug, generously lent us his car for some Friday fun. We had actually considered jetting to Kauai for those three days, but in an effort to save money, we decided that it’ll be more fun to leave Oahu, able to say we really knew the island. (Besides, we’re headed to the Big Island over Memorial Day Weekend for a big camping trip, so at least we’ll have gone to one other island.)
Here, a little map of our eight-hour trip with stars marking the stops:
First stop: the Pali lookout off the Pali Highway.
Second stop: Valley of the Temples in Kaneohe. Nestled in the back of a spacious cemetery is the non-denominational Buddhist temple Byodo-In. It’s breathtaking. We felt so at peace, like we were witnessing something really special — and it got us very, very excited for South East Asia.
Our next stop was a close-up view of Mokolii, better known as Chinaman’s Hat, an island named because it’s in the shape of…you guessed it. The sky was a bit gloomy at this point, but it was a nice deserted spot to munch on our peanut butter sandwiches.
Our next stop wasn’t planned, which is precisely the point of road trips. We whizzed past it and quickly turned back around once we saw clear water. This beach had such a lovely, carefree vibe. I don’t think anyone was even in the water; it just happened to be the backyard for a few (lucky) people. And I just loved that green beach house.
We then headed to Waimea Bay on the North Shore since Eaman still hadn’t seen that area. (I had previously gone while he was in Oklahoma, remember?) But no getting in the water for us; the huge waves break ridiculously close to the shore.
Finally, we made it to Kaena Point. It’s the most northwest edge of the island, and besides seeing rows upon rows of patient fisherman, Craig had told us to park the car and walk the long walk to the very, very tip of the island to see some monk seals and nesting seabirds. Well, since we hit the road a bit later — noon to be exact — than Craig had suggested, we got to Kaena Point only around 6:15 p.m. The sun was setting, my phone and its all-important GPS was dying and that walk was mighty long. We walked and walked, though not all the way out, so no monk seals for us. But Kaena was still my favorite part of the road trip.
So spectacular, it gave me goosebumps.
Work hours have been painfully long since I got back from New Jersey last week. Eaman has been home in Oklahoma for the past two weeks. I’ve been getting into a bad habit of eating dinner on the couch, changing the channel to classic Friends episodes, falling asleep and waking up at 2 a.m. (I admit, I am definitely a grandmother by 20-something nightlife standards, but I owe this particularly sad turn of events to long hours on my feet at the smoothie shop and the relative isolation of living up a mountain. Am I less sad to you now? Hopefully.)
What I’m trying to say is, I was very much in need of an outing. During pau hana (happy hour) and subsequent dinner at the fantastic Vietnamese restaurant Super Pho last week, my cousin Pratt suggested we take a road trip somewhere on Saturday. Details weren’t necessary; I was ready to go anywhere.
Like I said, I’m starting to feel a little isolated living on this here mountain, which calls for a 15-minute downhill walk to a bus stop and the far worse 20-minute steep ascent back up the mountain. I was getting bogged down in Honolulu and knew there’s so much more to see in Oahu. But without a car, it’s hard. What a buzzkill it is to think: “Sweet! Let’s go to Kailua Beach. The bus comes in 27 minutes and then it’ll take us approximately 1 hour and 14 minutes to get there. And let’s pray it doesn’t take forever and a half to come back by bus. Can’t wait!”
But Pratt has a car, and she and her husband, Craig, have wanted to take us somewhere outside Honolulu for a while. (Unfortunately, Eaman wasn’t here for this excursion.) So on Friday night, she emailed me to be ready by noon for an adventure and to bring my bathing suit. That was one vague proposition I could get behind!
Where did we go? Well, a lot of places. Here, a little photo diary of our trip:
Stopped for lunch at Kalapawai Market in Kailua, a somewhat ritzy seaside town that boasts one of the best beaches on Oahu (called Kailua Beach) and ate lunch – a veggie-feta sandwich in my case — at a nearby park:
The weather was grim, but I believe that sometimes, a little fog and grey is quite beautiful.
A few bites shy of finishing my sandwich, this happened:
But onward, we said!
Pit-stop at a macadamia nut shop to jack free samples, like these honey-roasted treats, and macadamia nut-flavored coffee:
Con: The tourist crowd outside the nut shop.
Pro: The scene behind the tourists.
At “the hole in the rock” along the drive to the North Shore:
Our friend Suzanne had a particular fruit stand in mind that she wanted to show us:
Rambutan:
Suzanne bought us all coconut drinks…
…and they were the best I’ve ever had. They blew the Colombia ones out of the water!
When I said we went to a lot of places, I meant it. We even made a quick stop at the Waimea Arboretum to check out the two resident peacocks:
And finally, we made it to the North Shore, known to many as the surfing mecca of the world. Much of Lost was filmed here, and as well as one of my favorite movies ever, Forgetting Sarah Marshall.
People cliff-dove; I did not. But Craig and I did get in the water. To say it was powerful is a gross understatement. I could barely stand straight as the tide pulled back out. And though I managed, let me put it this way: It’s best to wear a one-piece bathing suit with those kind of waves.
On our drive out, we stopped the car to check out some ridiculously talented surfers from afar. I would’ve taken pictures but was too busy picking my jaw up from off the floor.
And as we wound our way back home, we came full circle with dinner at Peace Cafe, a tranquil vegan spot in Honolulu. I’ve gotta say: I’m so impressed with vegan food in Hawaii. In New York, I always found it bland. But here, everything is so fresh and well-flavored. And I just loved the vibe at this place. It was like a yoga studio with really good food.
Popeye sandwich at Peace Cafe — spinach, tofu, sprouts, pesto and Italian dressing.
We had been wanting so badly to do a road trip somewhere in Argentina, but we quickly realized that choosing the best route (not an easy task in this massive country!) was the least of our problems. As it turns out, there are no automatic rental cars on this continent, and if we wanted to drive, we had to know how to drive a stick-shift.
It was decided early on that Eaman would drive. (I’m not the savviest of drivers and I don’t enjoy it all that much.) He had driven manual once in his life ages ago and all he could remember was that he stalled — a lot. But then, he thought, what about YouTube? Couldn’t the viral video hub teach us how to do something that the non-North American world learns to do when they’re teenagers?
We did find a video –there are tons actually — and in El Calafate, Eaman practiced, while Dutch and English backpackers offered him a few tips in between fits of laughter. By the end of his personal training session, he had a decent enough handle to know that he could probably sort of do it.
But once we arrived in Esquel, there turned out to be a bigger problem* with the car rental. Where the heck was the Avis? Our reservation had a downtown Esquel address, just a few blocks from our hostel, but when we got to the address, there was nada of the sort in sight.
Was it there?
We had one night in Esquel before picking up the alleged car the next morning, so we spent an hour or so walking up and down the streets of this small town in search of the red and white sign. Even Avis customer service had no idea. But three separate locals did tell us something about a Toyota dealership, the airport and a Petrobras gas station. Sure. That made sense.
Since we had plenty of time at our disposal, we shelved the whole we-may-not-have-a-car scenario until the next morning. The next day, after more walking around, we put two and two together: There was an Avis agency adjacent to a Toyota dealership that was across from a Petrobras gas station. (Trying to decode a foreign language when no one speaks a lick of English is seriously like a game of Mad Libs.)
What? This doesn’t look like an Avis?
Huzzah! We found the Avis.
Our ride, a VW Gol:
The other, more important huzzah, was that Eaman conquered driving a manual car! Not to brag or anything, but he was pretty awesome. Yeah, he stalled a few times, but for the most part, he drove like a pro.
On the road:
Not only was it refreshing to take a break from the South American bus systrm, but having a car really paid off in places like El Bolson, where driving to hikes on rocky roads was a must. And it allowed us to stop and pick up some delicious cherries and raspberries from a fruit stand off the highway, too.
The dog at the fruit stand:
Sleeping on my foot:
And what about Esquel? There there isn’t much going on here beyond being the nearest hub to the Los Alerces National Park, which I’ll post about tomorrow, and there aren’t many restaurants or nice walks. But I will say it’s charming in its own way. Being off the backpacker route, it feels more authentic, more Argentinian. For us, it was nice to take a break without the compulsion to do something, and instead stroll through the grocery store and take some time to relax (and blog).
Here, some of my favorite images from Esquel:
Eaman standing by a part of La Trochita, an old-school locomotive made famous in Paul Theroux’s 1978 book “The Old Patagonian Express”:
Cool-shaped homes:
Roses everywhere:
Funny store signs:
Families at the playground:
*P.S. There was the slight problem of Eaman not having his drivers license and having to use mine instead. Good thing Argentinians are a lax bunch because we got away with it. I think the rental car guy thought the picture on my I.D. was Eaman anyway.