This time we were determined for it to be different. Less sleep, more exploration.
I checked into a nice hotel, have a good view of the palace. Let’s go!
This time we’re traveling with Michael and Savannah, it’s their first time in Japan and they are super excited. In addition to that, Pokin will be busy for a few days in a work conference and another friend, Reesa, will be joining us. This is starting to sound like a crowd, but I’ll roll with it.
The first thing Nicholas, Reesa, Michael and Savannah did was book a food tour. Normally Pokin would handle this sort of thing, but since she isn’t here, we’ll have to make do with a regular guide. Unfortunately nobody told the guide about my allergy to anything non-chocolate, so he picked traditional japanese places instead. The rest of the gang seemed to love it though, they ate and drank all evening at different places.
After successfully navigating our way back to the hotel, we decided to call it a night.
For almost my whole life, Pokin’s been talking about wanting to pet baby whales. I don’t know what the big fuss is with them, but this year we finally actually made plans to see them.
Gray whales migrate south during the winter to have their calves, and apparently one year, some baby whale got the idea that it’d be a good idea to swim up to humans on boats and get pets. Other whales got FOMO, and pretty soon, generations of whales got used to swimming up to humans. Of course the humans loved it, and now it’s a tourist hot spot where people from around the world come to touch whale.
Within the Sea of Cortez, there are multiple places to visit whales. The two main places are San Ignacio Lagoon, and Magdalena Bay. Based on the logistics of where we had to go, Pokin went with Magdalena Bay (although whale sighting odds are apparently better up north in San Ignacio.) Pokin picked an outfitter called Magdalena Bay Whales, and booked it.
That was the easy part. Now we had to get there. The getting there took 3 full days.
First we got up. Too early.
Then we took a connecting flight from Phoenix to Loreto.
We got in too late to make a transfer so we slept for a night in Loreto. Loreto’s one of the best places to go Blue Whale watching, but we decided to ration our whale watching time and opted to wander around the town and the malecon instead. Outside of whale watching, Loreto is definitely primarily a tourist sports fishing town.
The next morning, we got a car hire to take us 3.5 hours across the peninsula over to San Carlos, where we were to spend another night. I didn’t know what to expect of San Carlos. It was also mostly a fishing town. We got dropped off at the Isabella B&B (which is affiliated with Magdalena Bay Whale Camp), my bud paid for the tour with money he raided from my bin, and we were left to our own devices for the rest of the day.
The town was pretty small, but fairly spread out. The roads were paved with sand, and it was really windy, so walking around took a while. It was also incredibly exfoliating as fine sand particles continually blasted us in the face. We took a loop, ate sand, snorted sand, spit out sand, and went back to the hostel.
The food at the hostel at least was pretty good. There were plenty of chips that everyone liked. Pokin ordered all sorts of weird seafood stuff, and since there wasn’t much to do everyone went to bed early, because we were told the boats would depart the next morning at 6am.
Oh she also ordered some sort of weird margarita.
The next morning, before sunrise, we got up to wait for our guides. Breakfast was included, but everyone was nervous about being on a boat so only Pokin ate much of anything. She got huevos rancheros. Brave. The sensible people got oatmeal. I decided to fast.
As the sun started to rise, our guides in gumboots showed up, and it was time to make it to whale camp!
We loaded up on these small boats, and zipped across the bay as the sun rose. What a sight! I would have loved it if I wasn’t freezing so much. I guess even freezing, I loved it and made an exception for being on the water again.
I thought we were going to unload our luggage but it turned out we were starting to whale watch right away. Whales are morning mammals, so no time was to be wasted to the whale meet and greet.
I didn’t know what to expect as the boat headed out to the ocean, but pretty soon I realized there were blowholes and spouts all across the bay. Everywhere I looked there were whale spouts. Whales everywhere!
While this area has the best chances of having whales, it turns out it’s not a given that whales will swim up to you, or that you can every touch one. We later ran into a family that has been back 3 times, but has yet to touch a whale. Well the big goal is to be able to pet a whale. They swam close, but not close enough…
And then one swam up to my bud and got a quick pat.
“How was it?” I asked my bud
“It was alright’ he said
“Cool.” Good enough for me. Glad my bud got to pet one. For me, I came to see whale. No need to paw one.
A few more hours out at sea, and I was done . I was cold, I was sleepy, and I think the rest of the boat felt the same. We saw plenty of whale and got lots of video, so it was time to head to whale camp.
Our boat starts speeding towards shore, and soon enough, we pull up to a number of glamping yurts flanked by two giant whale bone carcasses. Epic!
I loved it, my bud loved it. This is going to be cool.
My bud turns to Pokin “why didn’t you book us more nights here?”
“I had no idea how much you guys would like it,” was her rather unsatisfactory answer.
I got in, claimed my bed, then decided I’d rather see what was available for lunch. They actually had hot cocoa on the menu. I like the spirit-bear-friendly menu. But Pokin went for more disgusting seafood instead.
Whale watching was only once a day, so we were left to our own devices for the rest of the day. Anna and Adam explored camp, and my bud, Pokin and I went on a short trek from camp to the other side of the bay.
In all, it was maybe a 1 hour round trip.
The next morning, we got out on the boat for more whale action. Compared to yesterday, it was much quieter. We didn’t see any whales who wanted to play for quite a while. Jerks! Luckily they eventually came around.
No one got to pet any whales today, but at least they came by pretty close.
Everyone started getting pretty cold (because no one told us it’d actually be cold in February in Mexico — apparently we should have known that. I blame Pokin for not sufficiently communicating this to the group, even though I guess she did tell us it’d be windy and to dress warm. I still blame her.), so because everyone was cold we decided to head back to camp for a quick last break, before getting back to the mainland.
Whale watching was pretty fun. I’d hang with whales again.
From San Carlos, it was a 3.5 hour drive to La Paz. Onwards!
It’s been a while since we had a good adventure, so I told my bud we needed more bear and bud adventure time.
Off to camping we go — we’re headed to the valley of fire to do some solo camping. Annoyingly, my bud seems to have misplaced the poles for my Sumi tent. Fine, I’ll share his. The red rocks look pretty nice, I’ll accept the shared accommodations compromise.
Suddenly I hear – “Clomp, clomp clomp”. What is that? I look out from our tent to find wild big horn sheep trotting around my camp like they own it.
I guess they were kind of cool. They climbed up the rocky mountains super quick. Time to tuck in for the night since we have plans in the morning.
We wake up early and drive to the nearest little airport. Nicholas has decided to finally learn to fly like I do, and there’s no better way to learn than trial by fire. Time to jump out of a plane! That’s right – Nicholas couldn’t find anybody that wanted to go skydiving with him, so it’s just me and him. The instructor wouldn’t let me go in the plane for some reason. I told him that I was a pro and I should be the one teaching people to fly, but he ignored me. Jerk. I guess I’ll just see Nicholas in the air.
Really I’m the real pro and they should have brought me.
It’s been a while since I last visited the Grand Canyon, and one thing I was upset about last time was that I didn’t get to go down. Sure, it’s pretty up top, but who wants to see the canyons without actually going into them. This time would be different. Although Pokin is still recovering and can’t hike, I’m forcing my bud to gear up and go all the way down. PoOn had the idea of doing this hike called Bright Angel Trail, which involves hiking 9.9 miles and descending 4380 feet. Sounds good.
Eric and Po On joined him, and we all had lemonaide at Phantom Ranch at the bottom of the canyon. Nice work. Now it’s time to haul it back up.
Overall I like the Grand Canyon, it’s nice, but definitely better when you do the whole trip. It did take a long time though, next time I’ll make my bud run it. Pokin met us up for part of it, thinking it would be a shorter trek. Little did she know she was just making herself suffer by going down the steep switchbacks to immediately come back up. Sucker!
Today was tour day. We went to the town of Montepulciano during the day to check out old town, before we had a photography tour booked with Alfredo.
Montepulciano can be a little bit confusing because it’s the name of a medieval hilltop town in the province of Sienna in Tuscany, and it’s also the name of a wine that is not produced in Tuscany.
Come photography tour time we got into the car and it became a game of racing for light.
We started at the windows 95 wallpaper spot.
This involved pulling onto the side of a highway, scrambing going down the embankment of an overpass and wading waist deep into grass for the perfect angle.
Then we moved to the Gladiator ending scene. To get here, we wound our way up and down various semi steep roads, down the back driveway of a school before wading through more grass.
From this angle, outside of the wheel marks of mowed lawn, it would be difficult to discern what era we were in. We rested here for a good long while, crouched on the heelside, watching rippling waves of grass fields and feeling the breeze, waiting for Alfredo to take a smoke as we heard his tales as a Reportage photographer. And tales Alfredo had, from stories of how he gained the trust of DRC Congo generals to facing down guns in the inner streets of LA in his search.
The sun was starting to set, so we set out towards another set of hilltops, turning up and down more roads, questionable roads, then finally definitely not roads.
Alfredo continued to tell us tales of his time as a reportage photographer as we watched the light change and the sun set —
— before we finally raced back to catch Montepulciano at night.
Tuscany day! Of course Pokin booked us another full day tour, so I was forced up at 7am along with everyone else for breakfast and to get on the road.
Turns out our car was stored halfway across the city, so they needed time to fetch the car for us. I could have slept more had I known this! Someone failed at planning.
Some time that felt like 30 minutes later, the car pulled up in front of the hotel, and it was time to navigate out of Firenze. A little less stressful out than getting in. The bollards were down, so a few left turns and we were out of town (though it still gave us a scare to see the poliza with their lights on behind us.)
I was excited about Tuscany. I enjoyed my France trip to Provence 10 years ago and it felt like Tuscany would be similar.
We were staying in a place called Villa Cicolina, and after a couple of hours on to the autostrada, we pulled up.
And we were all promptly glad we got the full deal on car insurance. The place was very lush, but they also left branches draped over the driveway. In fact, the bushes were so dense we weren’t sure at first if we had gone up the right street, and Nicholas had to very grumpily back down the driveway while the car proximity sensors beeped madly at us because the bushes were so close.
Eventually we arrived at the right front entrance, to the surprise of the owners.
“You’re here very early,” she remarked.
I agree, I thought. No one should be forced to travel this early.
“Oh it’s because we have a tour booked,” answered Pokin.
Our rooms weren’t ready, but we were able to leave our bags while I scouted the property. Definitely reminds me of our trip to France. Lots of flowers. Looks good.
Nicholas parked the car in the parking lot down the street away from the bushy roads. I made sure to greet him on his return. He looked a bit grumpy.
Then it was time for our tour. Pokin booked a tour with a guide named Chiara from Montalchino Wine Tours. The itinerary was an olive oil tasting, a visit to a dairy farm, and a wine tasting. I wasn’t interested in any of those so I mostly planned to nap in the bag at first.
The olive oil place they stopped at was named Frantoio Fregoli. It was definitely not olive oil season so most of the machinery was disassembled, but the owner Francesco came by to give us an explanation of everything. He also showed us how the machinery worked. That got my curiousity piqued. I got out to take a look.
We learned that the highest quality olives are harvested around October when they are still green, and at time, only 10% yield is possible. But olive oil harvested then has the highest percentage of polyphenols. If you harvest closer to December, you can have a higher oil percentage but there is major flavour and polyphenols loss. Temperature too, affects the percentage and the ideal temperatures are between 10oC-27oC. Francesco walked us through their machinery designed to cool the production so that the temperatures never exceed 27oC.
We also learned that good quality olive oil starts to lose its number of polyphenols once opened. Try to use up your olive oil within weeks! Organic olive oil at the property had close to 800 polyphenols, whereas their regular olive oil had around 400. Every year, olive oil loses around 100 polyphenols. Finicky stuff!
Francesco demonstrated how to do a proper olive oil tasting (you want to draw air in through your teeth), and we learned that Tuscan Olive oil has a peppery bitter taste. We tried to buy some olive oil (still waiting to pay), and then we were on our way.
We had time to kill before lunch, so Chiara took us to Pienza. Unlike many of the other towns in the region, Pienza was built during peaceful times, so it didn’t have the typical fortifications common in the area.
Pienza as it looks now came to be thanks to Pope Pius II. Story has it that Pope Pius II was born in the region back when Pienza was known as a small village named Corsignano. He felt like as pope, he should come from a more beautiful and representative town for a pope, so he had Pienza rebuilt for use as his summer residence. Pienza, “city of Pius,” is known as an ideal Renaissance town, and was one of the first towns to apply urbanist planning concepts that were later applied to other cities across Europe. It also seemed to be the centre point for many spots around Tuscany. It was super hot and sunny so I wasn’t that up to explore, but we snapped a few photos before heading on to lunch.
Our next stop was to Il Casale, a Dairy Farm that produced a variety of pecorino cheeses. This was when Pokin learned that Pecorino cheeses described any kind of sheep’s milk cheese.
Apparently cheeses were brought in by the Sardinians. Tuscany used to be a really cheap region, and so many Sardinians immigrated to the area, bringing along their cheese technique.
Il Casale was perched up on the top of a hill, with beautiful views of the surrounding countryside.
I was impressed. I got a few pics. Everyone sat to eat lunch. The food was good. For them. They liked some sort of salad leaf named mizuna (portaluca in english). I didn’t. I’m not a goat.
Then it rained. On all of us. I was less happy about that. This giant raindrop landed perfectly into Pokin’s espresso cup which splashed coffee all over her. That was a little amusing.
The next day, we started with a hearty breakfast at the Art Hotel Commercianti where I was surprised to see candy being served for breakfast.
Then it was time to begin our quest for a laundromat. By now, Pokin and Nicholas were low on clean underwear. I told them if they just wore a tunic like I did and stopped being so reliant on pants they wouldn’t be in this kind of predicament. Of course they didn’t listen.
After setting in, we decide it’s time for some lunch. We started exploring around until we found a charcuterie place. It kinda just looks like what we normally eat at home.
Bologna is also known for Le due torri, or the Two Towers, built in from 1109-1119 by the Asinelli family. I don’t know what it is with Italian buildings and the fact they like to lean, but these towers lean. Something about the south ground. Apparently there are 9 towers in Italy like this.I guess at least they are beig stabilized so it’s really more of a threat to themselves!
Finally we peeked in the Basilica di San Petronio and called it good for the city.
Oh as a last fact, Bologna is not the birthplace of Bolognese sauce. They do have a kind of meat ragu, but we were told definitely they were absolutely unrelated.
We’re in Bologna for two nights, but let me tell you about the night before when we got here.
Because of our packed day, it was already getting late.
Then Bologna is one of those restricted cities were the instructions for driving in are, to say the least, dicey. There are traffic zones everywhere that you are not allowed to drive in – even worse, they fine you and you don’t even know it till years later.
We didn’t want to run the risk so we tried our best to follow instructions as well as we could, be really instructions were wanting. This makes it look way simpler than it actually was.
What this map fails to show are just how narrow the streets are. It does show all the no go streets, but because of the fact that we were driving a ‘large’ SUV to fit all 4 of us and our luggage, just because a street wasn’t no go didn’t mean we could actually FIT down that street.
Nicholas was not having fun trying to figure out how to get places. Sometimes we’d be trying to fit down a street, when a car would come the opposite direction and then it was a stalemate. Who would try to reverse into a little crevice to allow the other to pass. Stress levels were high.
We follow the map until we get to a large city square, blocked by police. Oh great. We pull up to the police and notice they are blocking the way because there is a giant mob of people in the square, obviously celebrating something. I assume they must be here to celebrate my arrival, but nobody seems to agree with me. We try to tell the police where we are trying to get to – a hotel that should be nearby. They point directly ahead, towards the mob of people. “Really?” we think, “through this crowd?” – Nicholas starts to drive. We notice in the rear view mirror the police officer chasing after us. No, not through the crowd, ahead and to the right he corrects, down a dead end alley way that looks like it shouldn’t fit our car, that is also blocked off by people in chairs.
After narrowly escaping mowing down a celebrating crowd of locals, we find the hotel and thankfully pass the keys off to hotel staff who is able to drive the car to wherever it’s supposed to actually go. Phew.
We’re in an Art hotel, it seems neat.
But hold up — what exactly is happening outside? We decided to check it out.
It turns out it’s a festival or something for the church, and the local bishop is visiting with a procession and a whole big celebration. Stupid. I’m just going to pretend they actually are here for me.
After calling it an early night, we got up early for a packed road trip driving day.
Today, the goal was to get on the road in Rovererto where we could hit up the oldest coffee shop in the world. Bontadi Coffee Roasters was founded in 1790 and they have a whole coffee museum dedicated to it! We got in right before they were open, but they were kind enough to let us in.
After seeing the museum, of course we had to go get some coffee, so we wandered into the square to find some.
Then, because we had a packed schedule, it was onwards to Verona.
Verona is now in the Veneto region of Italy, and we could start to see the transition away from more German influences towards Roman and Italian. Verona is most famous for being the setting for Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet. There’s also a roman amphitheatre which I was eager to see, called the Verona Arena. Naturally, a question I had was what on earth is the difference between an arena, a colosseum, and an amphitheaters? I can’t say I really know, other than it seems like there is only one Colosseum — the one in Rome. Turns out the Verona Arena is older than the Colosseum, and was used as a practice ground. It was built in 30 AD and is one of the oldest structures remaining.
Since we were going to see the Colosseum later, we decided not to go in, but we did camp out across the Arena to enjoy some aperol spritzes.
After lunch, we went to look for La Casa di Giulietta, which is the home of Cappello family and the inspiration for Romeo and Juliet (hence Juliet’s balcony). It was pretty crowded and touristy so we didn’t spend so much time there, but had to see it.
