The tiny Colombian island of San Andrés lies within the Caribbean sea off of the coast of Honduras, northwest of the Colombian mainland. San Andrés is a popular vacation destination for Colombian mainlanders to escape to during holidays and weekends as the airfare is cheap, less than $100 each direction from the capital city, Bogotá. I visited mid-week for three nights for a good deal on accommodation; it ended up being a smart decision as the island was mostly empty of tourists. The AirBnb that I was at was about 100 meters from the shoreline and offered a scooter rental that was ideal for exploring the island. It only takes about an hour to circumnavigate the circumference of San Andrés and really, you don’t want or need a car for that. A popular alternative is to rent buggys – sort of two-row, suped-up, open-air golf carts and we saw many vacationers travelling around as two pairs of couples in this fashion. I was working while there and the internet was certifiably terrible, some of the worst and least-reliable of anywhere I have travelled. Restaurants and cafes don’t have accessible wifi for their patrons and even that which was provided in our accommodation was […]
Read More
Three years ago I visited Shaman Winston in the Peruvian Amazon for an eye-opening ayahuasca experience; at that time, many happy discoveries within myself had me anticipating an inevitable, future return. This time around there were fewer surprises and a little more adversity, yet again I feel better afterwards for having done it. The trip entailed two nights in the jungle removed from electricity, wifi yet accommodating in ample supply of mud and biting flies. It took a plane from Lima, a car, a boat and a short hike crossing a river twice to reach the Shaman’s compound. I was barefoot and shirtless the entire time (the native flies were well fed) — the two weeks subsequent itching a fond reminder of my time spend mostly naked and unafraid. The low point of the weekend adventure was the afternoon of arrival — enduring a preliminary “cleansing ceremony” which wasn’t a part of my initial experience two years prior. The intent of the ceremony was to remove toxins and emotional restraints that would otherwise prohibit ayahuasca’s intended lessons. People who eat unhealthy diets, drink excessively need to be purged beforehand so that the plant can work its magic, so it was […]
Read More
From Cologne I rented a car to explore some of the scenic country of the Rhineland and make it over to Bonn en route to meeting my friend who was on the other side of the German border in the Dutch town of Vaals. Bonn was just a short two nights but I was surprised at all the photo opportunities. Just exploring nearby Drachenfels castle overlooking the Rhine river was enough to pique my interest and intent to return again for a longer stay. I was most delighted to find references to the Nibelungenlied completely by accident in a small attraction outside of Bonn. Three years ago I read the Nibelungenlied (translated into English of course) and it instilled a curiosity to discover more of the geography and diverse culture of Germany. To find it here again after doing so was immensely fulfilling — it felt as though the universe was reminding me that I was following the proper path.
Read More
While I was in Cologne, three different times, strangers approached and started conversations with me — a huge surprise. Europeans just don’t do that — and certainly not Germans! I had expected that people in Cologne were friendly, open-minded and warm as that was the driving factor for wanting to visit; Europe is nice but it’s typically much harder to meet new people as an outsider. The most interesting person I met was the manager of a hotel I stayed in who was family friends with the Kennedys, spoke seven languages and was somehow curious about me. We spoke for half an hour — Mathias left an impression and I can’t help but thing the universe was urging me to stick around and explore his city further. The second most interesting person I met while in Cologne was a woman about 60 years old who had invested in Apple stock in 1999 — we were admiring an Apple computer on display from the period (inside a design museum); she told me that because of that wise decision today she’s “almost rich” — in German terms I understood it to mean that she is. Cologne felt like a great place to […]
Read More
I had eight days that I didn’t know what to with after leaving Croatia and before Thanksgiving happened back in the USA so I decided to explore the German Rhineland for the first time. It was a great fit because Split has direct flights to Düsseldorf (one of only four cities during the off-season). Conveniently, Cologne is just 20 miles south of Düsseldorf and was the main draw to me this trip. Bonn was tacked on at the end and facilitated en route planned meetup with my friend Ben who I had seen just weeks before in Bremen. Düsseldorf was an exciting destination because I had no expectations ahead of time. As luck would have it, I arrived the night before the annual one-day Carnival celebration; while the normal Carnival celebration is in February, on November 11th each year there is a one day Carnival event with street celebrations and people partying in costumes. It’s like the precursor to what follows three months later. Imagine my surprise to unexpectedly wander into a cohort of Germany cheerleaders line dancing and throwing each other in the air in front of a local pub. I took some fun photos of the festivities across a few […]
Read More
For the fourth time in three years I returned to Croatia to work, swim and be barefoot. The waning Indian summer of October served as a re-calibration to the internationally-remote lifestyle I had set aside during 5 months living in Denver, Colorado; as such, I focused on walking everywhere, eating healthier and undoing the harm of rigid routine staying in one place always brings me. I did do a couple of touristy things during my first week in Split — a tour of the ship building yard and an excursion to a nearby cave (click link to see photos from each). Other than that though I focused my 5+ weeks more on living a healthy, happy and comfortable life along the sea and developing the daily routine to support it. My apartment was near the beach and afforded a beautiful view of the ever-changing sky between dawn, dusk (here are some highlights). The irony of escaping Denver, only to reinvent a routine elsewhere is a funny pattern I always repeat. My Split routine is really great; in the morning I walk to the gym, only two hundred meters from my front door. Afterwards I walk down to the sea, 300 meters […]
Read More
My friend Ben had sent me a calendar of beer festivals in Germany this autumn. Neither of us had been able to visit Oktoberfest this year and were keen for a mulligan. Ben wanted to meet me in Stuttgart for the second-largest beer festival after Oktoberfest. I had just arrived into Split, Croatia however, and was decompressing from my time in the USA and quite enjoying it — I declined the invitation. Fast-forward a few weeks and it turns out there will be a different festival happening in Bremen the last weekend of October. We booked it – my first weekend adventure for quite some time. I had never been to Hamburg or Bremen and this reconnaissance trip was shorter and easier than Havana and Mexico City in terms of logistics — two nights, 48 hours. Short trips like this afford the freedom to be picky on what you do with your time because with so little of it, you are unencumbered by standard tourist obligations; you can curate what is most convenient and “best” without being obliged to visit a museum that other people feel is important. I had not done a trip like this one for a while […]
Read More
One of the trendiest vacation destinations for Americans completely underwhelmed me. Perhaps expectations of Cuban cigars, classic cars and a laid-back atmosphere poisoned me to the reality I immediately perceived of deep economic and social problems masked with a tourist-friendly facade; the entire impression felt as though I was watching a performance with a simultaneous eye on the happenings behind the curtain. There are a few places I never need to return to and Havana is one of them. I knew going into it that it was a place for European and American tourists and “the real Cuba” existed in the rural areas not the capital. Nevertheless I was looking forward to a four day reconnaissance trip to scope it out to see if I wanted to come back to explore the rest further. I anticipated that I would see lots of touristy stuff – vendors, solicitors, “authentic Cuban X” for display and sale; none of that was a surprise. Nor was the highly curated 4-block radius of Old Town Havana — which is delightfully cute and very clean. Musicians playing in cafes and bars, asking you for tips. The classic old American cars from the 1940s and 1950s really […]
Read More
I shake my head recollecting the period of time I believed Mexico City to be a polluted, dirty, crowded, dangerous and ugly city not worth visiting. I’m not exactly sure why I came to believe this but it probably had something to do with an American bias that perceived things happening south of the boarder generally repugnant. This same perspective admittedly also inhibited me from choosing to learn Spanish in school as a second language (instead I chose Latin — who chooses Latin?) — a limitation I am currently working to overcome. It’s a shameful memory to remember a time when I could off-handedly intuit a city, and probably its nation, as not worthy of my interest without ever visiting. I was thankfully forced to reconsider this perspective as friends (many of them) kept relating how wonderful Mexico City was. I looked at them unconvinced — “what about all the kidnappings and murders?” — then it was my turn to be looked at strangely, “uh — it’s not like that at all.” And just like that I became one of those people I encounter all the time in the USA who are guilty of being a little out of touch […]
Read More
After spending 5 months in Denver, Colorado I needed a change of pace so I heeded the invitations of my international friends who now call Venice Beach home and spent three nights steps from the ocean, channeling some raw creative humanity to break me out of my routine. Boy did it work. Something I have had to rediscover and reminded myself of the past few months is just how much I require transition to be the best version of myself. I thrive with the discomforts of the non-routine and find myself more myself when I seek it out. My short trip to LA could never be described as uncomfortable — everything was easily facilitated with the help of my local friends Arestia, Johnson, Derryl, Chris and Brittany. Between In-and-Out burgers, a Saturday bar crawl on electric scooters and a hip, industrial art show in downtown LA — I had so much fun mixing things up. A total jolt to my system and a needed reminder of just how important environment and wonderful people are to maintaining a healthy, happy Reid.
Read More
