I have so many thoughts and emotions about my Cuba trip, I am still processing everything I’ve seen and experienced on this spellbinding little island. Visiting Cuba turned out more challenging as I thought it would be, but it was so worth it. I have yet to go through the thousands of photos I took and sort my thoughts, but I’ll be sharing a number of Cuba articles shortly.
For now, let’s just say that Cuba isn’t like any other country I’ve ever visited, and yet, it felt strangely familiar. Why is that, you wonder? I grew up in East Germany, a Communist country, just like Cuba still is. In fact, Cuba was one of our socialist allies, and while with the collapse of the Communist bloc, life for me and 16 million other East Germans took a huge turn (for the better), Cubans still live so many aspects of the life that I remember from my childhood.
Before this little teaser for my upcoming Cuba content becomes too much of a ramble (I’ll be talking about this ‘walk down memory lane’, which this trip inadvertently turned into for me, in an upcoming article) – for now I just want to say that I was fascinated by the spirit of the Cuban people, the lust for life, their ability to find joy in the little things, and about seeing how life spills out into the streets everywhere.
By Dani – Full Story at Globetrotter Girls
Let’s start with where I am right now: in Mexico! I started the month in Ecuador, assuming that’s where I would also end it, but as so often, my plans changed completely (throwback to March of last year when I started the month in Colombia and ended in Mexico, too – also completely unexpectedly.)
Three countries, and twelve different beds. I thought this would be a slow travel month with a week in each place, but once I made the decision to leave Ecuador early, I sped up my travels to still see all the places I wanted to visit.
So how did I end up in Mexico?
After my trip to the Galápagos Islands, I spent a few days in Guayaquil followed by a week on Ecuador’s coast. I noticed that while I didn’t have a terrible time, I also didn’t love anywhere I’d been so far in Ecuador – with the exception of the Galápagos Islands. Quito was meh, Guayaquil was nothing special, and the beaches were only okay (I know, I am spoiled!). I had planned to spend all of March in Ecuador before flying to Central America in early April to meet up with one of my favorite people in the world for another epic road trip together. But did I really need to spend all of March in Ecuador? I started to look into alternatives while starting to plan our Costa Rica road trip. And nothing came together the way I had hoped.
Flights to Costa Rica were outrageously expensive – both from the States and from South America. I was unsure if I should head south to Peru or north to Colombia. I wondered if we should even travel to Costa Rica given the challenging travel planning, also considering it’d be during Semana Santa, Easter Week, which happens to be one of the busiest travel weeks in Latin America.
Baños is known as Ecuador’s adventure capital, and I knew there were a bunch of activities I could do here that would give me a nice adrenaline rush – rafting, paragliding, mountain biking, zip lining and canyoning, to name just a few.
The one attraction that gave me sweaty palms though? The infamous ‘swing at the end of the world;, where you dangle from a tree house over a cliff, high up in the mountains over Baños. It’s one of those places that you see a picture of and know you have to go there. Or is that just me?
For years, this was one of the only places I knew about in Ecuador. I knew about the Galápagos Islands, I knew about Quito, and the Swing At The End Of The World.
Since this was the thing I was most excited about doing in Baños, it was where I was headed to first. Initially I attempted hiking up the mountain, but when, after walking for an hour, I still hadn’t even made it to the bottom of the mountain on top of which the swing sits, I changed my mind and took a Chiva instead, a truck that’s converted into a tourist shuttle with benches in the back.
When my mosquito bite count reached one hundred and my laptop’s cooling fan started making noises as if it was trying to tell me ‘I can’t deal with this heat anymore’, I decided that it was time to get away from the beaches for a while and give both my laptop and my itching limbs a break.
The beach had been nice, but I needed to get somewhere high enough for the mosquitoes to not get there. And so I headed to Cuenca, at 8,370 ft (2,550 meters) too high for mosquitoes to continue to feast on me and cool enough for my laptop not to overheat.
Cuenca is a popular expat destination, with 5,000 mainly North American expats living there, and it is easy to see why. Life in Cuenca is pleasant, cheap and tranquil. Mountains surround the city, and you can walk everywhere in the center.
Cuenca has 52 churches and the best preserved colonial architecture in Ecuador, so much so that UNESCO declared the city center a World Heritage site. It was a city that I liked immediately – the first time I had this feeling during my time in Ecuador!
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After my week in hot and sticky Guayaquil I couldn’t wait to get to the beach for a fresh ocean breeze. I had heard great things about Montañita, a small village on the Santa Elena Peninsula on Ecuador’s Pacific Coast. Montañita is the country’s number one surf spot, and, as I learned when I arrived there, a prime party destination for people from all over South America.
Think South America’s answer to Ibiza, only with less mega clubs, but with loud music right on the beach instead, blasting from several discos right along the shore.
The problem with that? I was just not in the mood for a mega party, and I had also been warned about walking around town at night by myself. A couple of backpacking girls from Argentina were brutally murdered in Montañita less than a year ago, and I didn’t get a good vibe from the village. The beach was okay, but nothing special, and the waves were so insanely high that there was a red flag on the beach every day, warning people that the surf was intense and the current was strong.
I held the little bamboo cup with both hands and quickly gulped down the thick, dark liquid – Ayahuasca. The bitter taste in my mouth was repellent, and I tried to wash it down with some water as soon as I sat back down on the wooden floor of the ceremonial hut in the Colombian Amazon.
“You should be feeling the effect of the ayahuasca in about twenty minutes,” the shaman named William told us in Spanish. “If you don’t feel anything then, I’ll give you some more.”
He then pointed to my left, where on one side of the hut, the wooden wall was only chest high, above that it was open until the ceiling, like a window, but without glass.
“You’re very likely to throw up when the ‘medicine’ begins to work. If you feel it coming, throw up out the window.”
He then turned his headlamp off, the only source of light in the hut, and the four of us were suddenly sitting in the pitch black dark, cross-legged, waiting for Ayahuasca, the ‘medicine’, as William called it, to work.
Sonoma Wine Country is a popular couples’ weekend getaway, but what about LGBT couples? The LGBT hot spot of the West Coast, San Francisco, is only 55 miles (just over an hour) away, which makes Sonoma, and its largest city, Santa Rosa, perfect for a romantic weekend break.
In fact, Sonoma County was named as one of the top 20 tourist destinations for LGBT travelers in the entire U.S., and Huffington Post included it in its Top 10 LGBT Honeymoon Destinations.
I went to Santa Rosa and Guerneville to find out what Sonoma Wine Country has in store for queer travelers, from LGBT-friendly places to stay, things to do and which events are worth a trip.
This region of Northern California is primarily known for its many vineyards and wine tastings, but there’s a lot more to Sonoma County than just that: the Pacific Coast Highway, Redwood forests, river adventures, quaint little towns and beautiful beaches.