Category: Travel

Mba’eichapa (hello in Guarani).

Today marks a week since Jon and I left the United States.  It already feels like a decade ago.

We now reside in the picturesque country of Paraguay.  Paraguay is the land of red dirt roads, cows, orange trees, and terere.  Sometimes you must be weary of the cows, particularly at night.  They are everywhere. Including your neighbor’s front lawn in town.  And unlike the U.S. of A here they have horns.  Also, don’t confuse them with dogs.

I would like to introduce you to our host family and home for the next three months.  Our mom is Gladis, our father is Oscar, and we have two teenage sisters, Paz and Anahi.  They are simply great.  And hilarious.  Really hilarious. Do you know when you laugh so much that your cheeks hurt?  That’s what it’s like being around them.  Life is funny and it feels darn good to laugh.

I must admit that when my parents first suggested meeting in Cancun during Easter I was not automatically sold on the idea.  My entire perception of Cancun centers around MTV Spring Break.  Back in the day my sister and I would spend Spring Break on the couch eating raw pasta watching teens go crazy in Cancun.  Cancun is for you to go loco, that’s all I understood about this foreign place.

But I wasn’t going to pass on the opportunity to spend time with my parents and the sun.  So on the plane I got and met my parents and two of their friends in the land of Cancun.  It didn’t take much to convince me that Cancun was it, it simply took walking into our room and seeing the view.  The Cancun beach is more than noteworthy; it expands infinitely with gorgeous turquoise waters and pristine white sand.

Alongside the stories of food and making your tummy happy I will be sharing travels to here and there.  My problem lies in that I am awful in taking pictures when I am traveling.  So, for your sake and my memories sake, I am making a renewed effort to start snapping more.  And along the way I hope to improve those photography skills that are quite lacking.  Seriously, I had no idea what ISO or aperture where before starting this blog.  I have since then kind of figured out how to make the food thing work, but when I snap anything that isn’t food I am back at square one.

Alas, let me tell you about this trip, since I actually did snap a couple of pictures.

It all began on a rainy Seattle Thursday when I met up with my friend Tania out on the boat she lives on (living like a true Seattlite). Within an hour of me arriving and us chatting she convinced me to make a two-day rendezvous out to Portland.  As in leave the next morning.   You only live once, right?

This wasn’t my first saunter over to Portland, but hey, there is always something new to discover.  And there are always donuts to be enjoyed.  Voodoo donuts to be exact.  They are most famous for their maple bacon bar—yes it has slices of bacon on top.  Tania and I opted for the Voodoo dozen which consists of a random assortment of 12 donuts.  There is a full spectrum of options: donuts covered in mini M&M’s, Butterfinger crumbles, Captain Crunch, and the list continues.  Some were filled with cream and fruit jellies.  We ate donuts for breakfast for several days.  And, ahem, dinner.

I am certain that my parents instilled my love for travel in the months immediately after my birth.   Before I could even learn how to smile my parents had me on airplanes jetting around Latin America.  I am still discovering places I traveled to during those years that I cannot remember.

My ultimate goal is to become a Century Traveler, by travelling to one hundred countries.  Ok, maybe one hundred countries is a bit much.  Let’s change that to fifty. Fifty would be plenty.  How far along am I?  I am not quite sure, mostly due to Caribbean cruises.  Seriously, all those islands that you stop at just start meshing together.  So after a perfunctory list I just created I am at twenty-one, plus those Caribbean islands.