Right after we got settled in, it was time to speak to the wedding coordinator, Adélaïde, about the day.
Wedding planning can be stressful. I’ve seen it with my bud’s friends and family. So they went with a package deal. St Regis has this a la carte brochure where you can pick and choose the details.
They went with (exchange rate of approximately 100 XPF to 1 USD):
- Wedding coordinator fee 50 000 XPF
- Symbolic Vows (10 minute ceremony) 80 000 XPF
- White on white bouquet & boutonniere 37 500 XPF
- Signature white on white arch (round) 100 000 XPF
- 1 hr bridal hair styling and 1 hour makeup 40 000 XPF
- Simple Wedding Cake 12 000 XPF
- Dinner under the stars on the beach 37 000 XPF
- Miri Miri Spa location (normally 75 000 XPF, free because it was a valentine offer)
- 4 hour photoshoot with Kim Akrich 200 000 XPF
- Videography with Sadry Ghacir 63 000 XPF
Total : 619 500 XPF (around $6.2K USD) Given that the average wedding costs $26,720 USD, they made out alright!
Anyway, they picked all that stuff but they still didn’t know what was actually happening during the ceremony - hence the briefing.
Right by the lobby is the bridal boutique, and that’s where you go. Turns out a lot of people come to the resort and spontaneously decide to do a Tahitian vow renewal, so they are all set up for that!
Once in the boutique, Adélaïde ran through the schedule for the next day. Sounded pretty simple. Pokin : be ready at 10:30am. Nicholas : 1-1:30pm. Anything that needs to be pressed or steamed, pass it to Adélaïde now. Everything else will be handled.
Sweet! Sounds simple enough! Time to explore this place!
But it’s only 5pm and we have to wait till midnight.
Thank goodness we get to loiter in an airline lounge (thanks, Chase Reserve for the Priority Lounge access!) My bud and I settle into our seats.
From our seats we have a vantage point to our departure gate. It’s sort of fun, sitting up here and spying on other guests.
My bud and I kill time by people watching. Pokin decides to kill time by helping herself to pieces of sushi and celery sticks, one piece at a time. How inefficient, I think. “I’m killing time,” Pokin reminds us.
Eventually midnight rolls around and finally we get to board!
How do I know we’re going to a french destination?
Red wine? Cheese? Mini baguette? Dead. Giveway. Anyway, it’s a red-eye, so time for some sleep.
At 5am in the morning we roll into the Pape’ete, Tahiti. Flight 1, Flight 2 done. We collect our luggage and are greeted with leis. They didn’t count right and forgot my bud’s. I think my bud’s too sleepy to notice. Time to loiter again in an airport. I’m like a pro now at this.
The Pape’ete airport was unexpected. For how many tourists come through and how expensive Bora Bora is, I was expecting the airport to be nicer. But it feels a little older, a little worn down. Only later did I learn that French Polynesia is still a pretty poor country.
Around 7:30am, it’s time to board Flight 3 to Bora Bora! We did not realize it was open seating so it’s first on, first pick of where you sit. Lucky for us, we sat on the side of the plane where we got a first view of the island. I had to climb over Nicholas so I could get a good view, but a view I got! Looks like the video games I play!
The Bora Bora airport, built in 1943, was actually the first airport in French Polynesia. It was built by the US Army during World War II and all international flights used to route through this airport first. It wasn’t until 1960 that the Fa’a’ā International Airport opened in Pape’ete.
The Bora Bora airport is located on the fringes on its own island, and so from here, you have to get on a boat. Inside the airport were different booths set up by the hotels. At the same time we saw where we had to be, a fellow approached us (creepy a little ?)
“Mr. Scheri?” he says. “La ora na. Please show us your luggage and we’ll be glad to help you onto your boat.”
So we find our luggage and head out to the docks. I expected some sort of big boat. Our host points to the tiniest boat in the dock.
“Please, this way into the boat.” Turns out we were the only guests they were picking up at that time. Nice!! Our own private boat ride!
“I hope you don’t mind we chose this boat.” Our guide says as we start our journey. “It’s small, but it’s fast.” Off we go!
Our journey takes us from one corner of the lagoon eastwards. It takes about 15 minutes.
And then we are here! And were greeted by a whole entourage and some fresh mango juice.
Lucky for us, our room was available right away. But first, a tour. Every room at St Regis comes with your own personal butler, and it was time for our butler to give us a tour of the facilities. By golf cart! I hope to use our butler a lot. I want to order plenty of hot cocoa!
St Regis Bora Bora is a 44-acre property so it’s quite spread out! To get around the resort you can either call for a golf cart ride, or else you can take any of the bikes that are scattered across the property and cycle on the bike paths. The resort features two pools, several beaches, a tennis court, gym, spa, multiple restaurants, a couple baby sharks and a lagoonarium stocked full of fish that you can snorkel with. There are also paddle boards, kayaks and other equipment that’s free to use.
Photo courtesy of St Regis Bora Bora
But I want to see our room! And so, after our tour our little golf cart pulls up to our room. We were given room 118. Nicholas told me we had gotten a Deluxe Overwater Bungalow, but it looks like they upgraded us to one with a Mt Otemanu view. Sweet!
And here we are! Our bungalow is 1,550 square feet. Way bigger than the places we lived in SF, Chile, and HK! I could definitely get used to this.
It’s travel time – I see bags being packed. My bud tells me it’s getting married time! A big trip, I see, as the big suitcases are coming out. I saw suits, I saw dresses, I saw a lot of sunscreen…I got a little nervous when I saw how much stuff was going into suitcases but I breathed a sigh of relief when I saw the gaming laptop being added to the pile.
I sleuthed a little and saw pics of where we are headed– we’ll be staying on some cool over water huts. I’m already imagining it now – my bud and I, gaming on the deck. It’s going to be epic.
Everything was packed when Pokin came in :
“Hmm, our LAS to LAX flight is getting delayed. Right about how, it’s scheduled to arrive after our connecting flight to Tahiti”
Well I’m not ok with that! I was getting really psyched about our epic overwater gaming vacation!
“Even though our flight’s at 7 we better get to the airport early to see if we can get an earlier flight. We don’t want to risk it.”
So just like that, our day went from leisurely to frantic. We throw our stuff in the car and drive on down to the airport.
At the airport, my bud tried to get on an earlier flight.
“I’m sorry sir,” said the gate agent. You are booked on a fare class that doesn’t permit changes.
“But if we don’t get on an earlier flight, we will miss our wedding,” said Pokin.
“I’ll see what I can do, since it was a delay on our side”. The gate agent types away on his computer. “I’m afraid all the flights are full. The best I can do is put you on standby.”
And so it was 1pm and instead of gaming at home we are sitting at the airport hoping to get on a flight. Meanwhile, we are getting text message alerts constantly from Delta that our flights are being pushed further and further back. We see numerous flights leave for LAX but we don’t get to get on. BOO.
Our standby flight comes. There are 7 people on standby in front of us. One by one, they clear the standby guests to board until they stop right before us.
“You gotta be kidding me” I thought.
Everyone boards. We wait and I glare at the passengers.
Then, luckily they call us. We get to get on. They let in a few people after us, and that’s it.
Today we took a day trip over to Oatman, AZ, where a bunch of wild burros hang out. The town still looks like it’s out of a Wild West movie set, which is why it’s still a tourist attraction. Wildflowers looked in bloom!
“Hello, I’m looking for someone I could speak to about Sumi?”
“What’s this about,” demands Pokin
“This is Valerie from Valerie accounting and I was wondering if I could help Sumi with accounting needs?”
“No, Sumi already has an accountant,“says Pokin.
*I do not! *Thought I.
I hastily drafted the following message and sent it to Pokin-
Hi Valerie, this is Sumi. I do have big bear accounting needs. My bear box is constantly getting raided by my bear bud. What a jerk. I take that money fair and square from his wallet and I have a hard time accounting for all that is stolen back from me. I also make investments from time to time in his companies, and I’m pretty sure he owes me some dividends from those too. I pay well in hot chocolate and quality video game time if that’s something your interested in. You can read more about how great I am at http://sumibear.me. I’ve attached a photo of myself with my bear bin for reference.
P.S. I hope your quickbooks skills are as awesome as I am.
If only I could have spoken to Valerie to get her email so I could have sent her this message. Grrrr.
With our big hiking adventure done, we started making our way back to Managua. For no good reason, we were getting up earlier again because the hotel owner had made the mistake of mentioning to Nicholas that a nicer ferry left at 7:30am every morning. So we tried to take this 7:30am ferry.
The cab Nicholas had negotiated was waiting for us when we grudging got up. At the ferry terminal, I turned around and got another look at
Volcán Concepción, which was again, still covered in clouds.
Then it was time to board the ferry.
Since this is the only ferry for basically everything that needs to be transported between Ometepe and the mainland, you found just about everything on the boat. Tourists, backpackers, Canadians, even trucks full of bananas.
This ferry WAS nicer than the other one. They even served breakfast. My bud didn’t want any and so I didn’t get any either. Jerk. I got out to the deck for another view of the volcano.
Bye Concepción! I’m glad I’m not wet and squished atop you!
Although the ferry was newer, newer didn’t make it go faster and the return trip was the same over an hour back to shore. There, Nicholas again negotiated with a cab driver to take us back to Managua, but stopping to check out Granada on the way. The nice taxi driver chatted with us the whole way to Managua.
“How’s the spanish feeling?” Nicholas asks Pokin when we got to Granada.
“Pretty good! I feel like I can actually understand everything”
“Good! I told the taxi driver you were learning spanish and to please speak slowly and with easy words”
Pokin looked crestfallen. I’m just glad my bud can translate and I know my important words like cacao and caliente.
Granada is also along the shores of Lake Nicaragua, about 40 minutes away from Managua. It is interesting because it’s still got its colourful colonial architecture. It’s also where a lot of the expats have chosen to settle. We asked our driver to let us stop for a lunch, where we got to walk around.
I tried to go here for lunch but my bud opted for something more casual.
And then it was for the final stretch back to Managua.
For our last night in Nicaragua, Nicholas found one of the nicer hotels in the city. His idea was that we were celebrating now. Yes! Celebrating going back home!
Hotel Contempo was, well, a contemporary hotel situated in what looked like a residential neighbourhood. That’s the thing that’s so funny about Managua. It doesn’t look like there are very clear districts or zones. We seemed to be surrounded by giant private estates, all of which were fenced and guarded. And the hotel was not located on a main street but rather a few blocks and turns off the main road smack inside this neighbourhood. “Ok we’re eating in the hotel restaurant again,” decided Nicholas, and then we retired back to the room where everybody else made mention of the presence of hot water.
Next morning, another traditional breakfast for Pokin, french toast for Nicholas.
And time for the airport.
I’m glad to be homeward bound. This country was cool, but my bud didn’t whip out his laptop to play games even once!
We have to talk a little more about work / game balance once we get home.
The alarm went off at 4:30. At least I think it did. I sort of remember getting rolled into a bag. Pokin and Nick left the hotel room, and met the guide who was already waiting for us. The group of us climbed wordlessly into a taxi for our short ride to the hiking trailhead.
The two most popular hikes up Volcan Concepcion are La Flor, near Moyogalpa, and La Sabana near Altagracia. We did neither. Instead, our hike seemed to start on the southeast corner of the active volcano. Since it was 5am, it was still dark when we got started. Still, our guide had eyes like a cat and he walked pretty confidently up the trail. Pokin and my bud used flashlights. About 5 minutes into the hike, our guide decided to make Pokin a walking stick.
The first part of the trail was pretty “level”, though there was definitely an incline through private property. After trekking for about an hour, we reached the park perimeter hut (somebody’s farm) where we paid our entrance fee of $1.
Here is where the real incline starts. By now it became light enough for us to put away our flashlights. We started making our way up.
Sunrise! We’re on some serious slope.
Up and up we went, 2 hours, 3 hours.
Since it’s early, the cloud cover was still low, and probably about halfway up the volcano, we started heading into it. Throughout this time, we’re on a 45 degree incline. And that’s when things started to get dicey.
February is windy season. Everywhere you go you can hear the winds howl. Normally it’s just nice, but on a volcano, we really started feeling it whip is around.
And still we climbed.
And then we noticed our clothes were damp. No, it wasn’t raining. It was just damp from the clouds. Darnit, I didn’t sign up for a bath! I am so wet. This sucks.
Four hours. Five hours. We kept climbing. Now we are going almost vertical. There’s our guide. Wind is about 100km/h (60mph). That dot in the background is probably Pokin. I can’t really tell, I can’t see anything and I’m wet. I’m going back in my bag.
At around the 5 hour mark, my bud and I made it to the summit and waited for everyone to make it up. Pokin didn’t know, but my bud and I had big plans. The guide made it up. We waited. Here’s Pokin still trying to climb up.
And we waited. The wind is howling furiously and all of us are getting blown around the top of the summit. We waited.
Turns out Pokin wasn’t coming. We couldn’t really see her, but my bud eventually found her huddled in a heap, clutching to some rocks, bawling her eyes out. It was pretty steep. And wet. And cold. We were all miserable. But we knew Pokin would want to make it to the summit so my bud and the guide helped her up to the top, basically by hauling her up with her backpack strap. We all made it.
We are also all wet and cold. And the wind is still beating us in the face at 100km/h. But here we are sitting on the edge, looking down into the crater of an ACTIVE VOLCANO.
At this moment, my bud decided to enact THE PLAN.
“Hey Pokin, turn around” he says. Pokin was still clutching to the side of the crater holding on for dear life as she’s still trying to regain her composure. I got into position on his lap.
“I need you to turn around,” he says again. At glacial speed, she finally does so.
“So I’d like to propose we forge an alliance here by the fires of Mount Doom with a ring.” (My bud’s a nerd. I only half approve.)
Pokin looks at my bud with non comprehension. My bud gets on his knee. Pokin doesn’t notice. “Will you marry me?”
My bud produces a ring. By the way, proposing on the side of an active volcano was something I thought I had definitely approved of… but that was before the wind and cold. Oh well, it’s still awesome and I told my bud that if she said no he could at least throw the ring into the volcano like they did in Lord of the Rings.
The guide starts laughing. (Earlier in the day, the guide kept asking if my bud and Pokin were married and my bud kept saying soon to which the guide jested that maybe we were planning on getting married on the mountain.)
However, Pokin doesn’t say a thing.
“Is that a maybe?” says my bud.
A cold Pokin finally answers, “After this hike? Yes it’s a maybe.” “Ok good enough”, says my bud. “Let me hold on to the ring for you as we climb back down.”
We “hurry” back down the hill.
Unfortunately going down the hill at a near vertical incline isn’t very quick. It ends up taking as long going down as we took going up. Pokin is on all fours right now inching her way down the volcano, so my bud decides to hold her backpack and hiking stick for her.
And a gust of wind comes along, blowing my bud down the volcano.
My bud loses his balance. He catches himself with the walking stick.
The stick snaps in half. My bud falls. I fall. We tumble. Ouch. I don’t like this.
Luckily, all our video gaming practice was good for my bud’s dexterity and he rolled down the hill like we do in our games. My bud only scraped up his arms a little.
“You’re lucky,” says our guide “people have gotten way more hurt here. Some have died. And that’s why a guide is required on this mountain.” We also later learn that the wind and incline means helicopter rescues are impossible.
We continue down the mountain. Slowly.
At some point, Pokin finally defrosts enough to say yes. We are all still totally soaked by clouds and still thoroughly miserable. I’m on Pokin’s back now (bad idea) and she starts falling nonstop. Owww. This hurts. She keeps falling on me. Oww.
The nice thing about our return trip is that we got to take a different route down. This route had a scree hill that let you run down a third of the mountain. My bud and our guide ran down it pretty fast.
Pokin, on the other hand was too scared to do so. So she sat on her butt and slid down. Pictured in hand is a new walking stick, not the one that betrayed my bud.
If it were just the bud, guide and I, we would have been down fairly fast, but eventually we made it down past the scree and back into the forest.
You can see all the scree behind us! Now that it’s finally back in warmer territory and as our pants are drying you can see Pokin is in better spirits. She even had enough energy to demand a coke when we got back to the hut.
We did a check on my bud. He’s bloodied up, but should retain his gaming dexterity. I breathe a sigh of relief.
Eventually, about 10 hours after we made our start, we got back on the road. THANK GOODNESS. We survived. I got sat on more times than I cared to be, but we all made it!
And that was the story about the time we had an aventura on a volcano (elevation 5,282 ft, 1610m) so my bud could propose.
After three nights in San Juan, we made our way towards the island of Ometepe, home to those two active volcanoes in the middle of Lake Nicaragua - Volcán Concepción and its sister, Volcán Maderas. Volcán Concepción is still active, having last erupted in 2010 while Maderas has never been active. At 1600m tall, Volcán Concepción is the 2nd tallest mountain in all of Nicaragua just behind San Cristobal, and is known for its perfect cone shape. Madereas, while shorter, is home to a laguna inside its crater. It’s also where they grow coffee and cacao!!!!
From San Juan, it was a $25USD taxi ride to San Jorge, followed by a boat ride.
I am NOT sure how I felt about getting on these boats. They were…somewhat…rickety. The fare was like $1USD a person, and they gave everyone a life vest that looked like it had first been run over by a bunch of trucks. Given that this lake is home to bull sharks, I just hope this boat doesn’t fail and we end up in the lake. On the positive front, we didn’t.
Our ferry ride took about an hour, after which we headed into another taxi towards the eastern side of the island near Altagracia. My bud mentioned something about being nervous because he never heard back from the hotel he was booking from, but we arrived to what looked like a picturesque banana plantation that opened up into clearing where a colonial compound sat. And this compound had a sweet lake view. Nice! And they were expecting us! Even better!
This was our view right outside of the bedroom.
My bud and I found a hammock and we settled in nicely.
Evening came and we had to talk plans for the next day. Nicholas had planned a surprise activity involving a guide who then showed up to give us a brief.
“Tomorrow will be strenuous. We will be hiking up to the top of Volcán Concepción. The hike will take between 8-10 hours. Make sure you pack a lot of food, as well as 4L of water per person. It will be cold and windy. Make sure you bring a jacket.”
“Just how strenuous is strenous? how windy? I didn’t bring a jacket. I wasn’t prepared for this” says Pokin.
“Pretty strenuous. We start at 6am”
“I think we better start at 5,” says Pokin. “Also, we didn’t bring food.” She did not say that. I’m not getting up at 5. What do you mean we don’t have food?
“Sure, we’ll be here by 5am. We can pick up a couple sandwiches for the each of you.”
“What did you sign us up for?” says Pokin to Nick. He wisely says nothing.
I think it’s time to change the subject. Oh and look dinner is here! Because we are in a pretty remote little compound, we didn’t even think to look elsewhere for food. There was a cook on the compound who made breakfast, lunch and dinner every day. Breakfast was included, lunch was $6 and dinner $9. Because Ometepe has rich volcanic soil and pesticides are expensive, a lot of foods are actually organic. My bud tells me the food is delicious. I’m just looking around wishing I knew what a cacao plant looked like.
Well, with our early start, we’d better head to bed. No gaming for this bear.
Well first I made bud get me some mocha. Gotta try the cocoa goods after all.
We actually looked a combination of lots and houses as most of San Juan is still undeveloped. Lots with a view ranged from $80K to $230K depending on the size and quality of view and were usually between 500m and 1000m in size. Since many of the roads are not yet paved and are steep dirt roads, “15 minutes away from town” isn’t that far from the map, and prices of lots drops off very steeply after that. Once you buy a lot, you can then contract someone to build the lots for you, although it requires a lot of hands on supervision. Depending on the quality of the house you can expect to pay between $60-$100/sq ft of house. To buy a house, it looks like prices run at closer to $220-$250/sq ft.
Here’s an empty lot up in Paradise Bay, which is a development adjacent to San Juan.
And a house with a view. I liked that view. My bud and I wanted that view. We tried to buy it, in fact, but Nicaragua houses are based on cash not financing. I’d like to think I’m a balla bear but we’re not that baller, sadly. Do not touch my bear bin Nicholas!!!
Another house across the bay. This is in the Pacific Marlin Malibu development. Houses were $550K but completely turn key. They were pretty nice but all built way too close to one another. I wanted a place that could be a bear retreat.
The next day we went out again to look at more lots. This is actually the driverway of our realtor’s house. He hooked himself up with a sweet house and sweet view. This is what I want to do I am totally going to do.
And yet another lot - on the top of the mountains! You really need a 4WD car to get around. Even paved roads are incredibly steep. Good thing I can fly.
At the end of the trip, we got a good sense of options. I want that view from that house!!!
Some other interesting things we found out about houses in San Juan and Nicaragua in general - because there is so much outdoor living, outdoor spaces are included as part of the square foot listed. Also because the infrastructure isn’t fully developed, most houses are on septic tanks. As Nicaragua is still a developing country, many of the houses come with caretaker units, which allows you to hire live-ins to help you with your house and property. The average salary starts at $250 a month, but you actually pay 13 months as there is one month of vacation. I definitely want a live in caretaker to serve me cocoa at my paw beckon. Currently my bud doesn’t respond when I ask for cocoa. I wonder if I could find a caretaker that would game with me too. My bud’s been a little inconsistent for that.
We got up in the morning, and at 10am, our taxi driver from yesterday, Marcao came to pick us up. Today’s trip is a 2.5 hour drive from Managua down to San Juan Del Sur. I’m particularly excited about this destination as my bud tells me we might move here. I was a little mixed about moving to Nicaragua, but then I read in the Lonely Planet Guide book that they grow cacao here. Being situated close to a cocoa source? I could live with that. Onwards!
Along the drive we passed by sugar plantations, and got our first glimpses of that famed Lake Nicaragua. Lake is big! Looks like the ocean!
Yesterday for lunch, we invited our taxi driver Marcao to eat with us, so today he kindly offered to take us to visit some of the sites on our way to San Jan.
One detour Marcao took us to was Laguna Apoyo. This lake is formed from the caldera of an extinct volcano. The volcano must have been massive, as the laguna has a diameter of 6.6km.
What was interesting about this stop was that it felt more like a local tourist stop than international. Most of the souvenirs were brightly coloured and comprised lawn ornaments. Also all manner of tropical plants were being sold in little plastic bags. I tried to look for a cacao plant, but alas, I had no wifi and I have no idea what cacao plants look like. Nicholas, help me find one!
We then walked along the rim a little along with all the other local tourists before getting back to the car to continue on our way.
Right around 1:30, we got into the hotel where we are staying, the Villas de Palermo. The Villas de Palermo are set of apartments that are run like a hotel. My bud tells me we signed up for the all inclusive package. Sweet!
This is where I am going to camp out to sip my cold beverages of choice.
Next stop - the beach!
Villas de Palermo isn’t really walking distance to the beach, but they offer a free shuttle. So we hopped on the shuttle and went down the beach.
Annnnd apparently we missed the memo that Nicaragua is a Canadian hotspot. French Canadians everywhere for Sunday Funday! That’s right, these fellow Canadians know about Super Sumi Sunday!! Except that they seemed to be more interested in partying and drinking beer than gaming. Silly Canadians.
