After seven days at sea we find ourselves in the Azores on the island of Terceira. The 7 days was nice but it feels good to set foot on solid ground.The island is rolling green hills, cows, and white houses with terracotta roofs. The streets are black and white cobblestone. Pretty.
I need to leave the Baja for a moment to catch up with where I’m sitting at the moment; Pompano Beach, Florida) but before I do, I’m posting a few pictures and places we recently visited on our drive from Fort Collins, Colorado to San Jose del Cabo, Mexico.
Fincael del Mirador, Guadalupe, (Rt. 3 a short drive from Tecate)
Note our white Jeep. Finally in retirement.
Next stop: San Quintin, drive toward the ocean and stay at Mission Santa Maria Hotel.
Catavina, another planet, check out the cave paintings and feel bad your rock garden is never going to look as good as this.
San Ignacio Springs Bed and Breakfast. As advertised “Your Paradise in the Baja” but must like: kinda camping, jungle, starry nights, swimming, kayaking, and good food.
Next stop Loreto then Ciudad Constiticion.
Mike and I have been planning to drive from Fort Collins, Colorado to San Jose del Cabo, on the southern tip of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula for some time. This would be our 3rd trip, and it would not be round trip like the previous 2 adventures. Similar to us retiring, we decided to retire Mike’s ’95 Jeep Cherokee to our digs in SJD. Yes, a few people laughed and looked on with fascination. Many said “I had a Jeep just like that one, around 20 years ago”. Yes, they looked on in envy as our confidence grew and we rolled along in a vehicle that rolled off the line 28 years ago. More pictures to come, this the tip of the Baja where we finally landed.
Waking up to winter in Fort Collins, Colorado. 10 inches of snow on Monday, 65F on Tuesday.
OK, Just found my photo. Up in the clouds, only took me 2 hours. So, here’s my thoughts on packing. The most important thing to pack, or pre pack is your head. There is a book I love entitled “Leaving Losapas: (by Roland Merullo). It’s a paradise island story, love loss and recovery. The most important thing I took from this book was a short statement he made on traveling. He said “It doesn’t matter where you go, it only matters who you are when you get there”. You can take that in many ways but it has always helped me.
One time when Mike and I had a job cleaning bathrooms at a camp ground a woman said to me, “Geeze, I can’t wait to go home” I don’t like camping. I can’t wait to get back to Kentucky.” I thought, how could you not like this, you are in one of the most beautiful spots in the United Stats, You are traveling in a deluxe motor home, you are standing in one of the cleanest bathrooms in the nation.
More later on this. Signing off.
OK, its been a while since I posted anything on my site; arewethereyetworld.com. Since then I have what they call a “new device”, not one but many, do you feel my pain? For some reason I can’t find the question mark on my “new device” key board, which is actually quite nice with tiny, tiny real keys mounted on a tiny tiny key board. Oh Jeeze, there it is ???????? Thank goodness, I use a lot of question marks.
So then I had the delema of not quite remembering my usernames and passwords, very complicated, lots of phone calls, email secret codes, etc. Thankfully the folks at WordPress and Blue Host are very patient beings. Now there’s just a few remaining snags, how to add a photo, where are my photos? Spell check, OK real trouble without that option. Notice I don’t know how to spell delema OK, now I do; dilemma. But I used my verbal assistant who will not be available in all situations.
OK now I’m going to try and add a photo. One from a file or one I might take?
OMG, there you go. This is an old photo of a place we hope to go on this upcoming trip. OK, I don’t feel real secure so I’m going to try another.
OK, some progress. More later.
We saw a lot of cool stuff out the windows of our car and we stopped a lot to visit with the locals.
Even after struggling with our newly learned Portuguese and them showing off their Portu-English we learned a lot about the country. Portugal is in the Mediterranean Zone. The weather is mild and there are lots of sunny days, there is enough rain to make everything green.
There are wild flowers everywhere, bright red poppies, yellow buttercups, and bushes of bright yellow and white. Purples pop up here in there, making quite a color palate. 
There are lovely seaside towns and villages, they have great seafood as well a good pork and beef, did I mention ham?
Did I mention pastries? Beware of the “pastel de natal” which is a flaky tart filled with a creamy center, a little cinnamon. Really it’s a can’t eat just one love affair.
We were fascinated with the cork trees. They only grow in this southern Mediterranean Zone, Hence this is the only place you can see the Cork Oak in it’s natural habitat. Portugal produces more than 50% of the worlds cork. It’s an amazing material. It’s extremely durable and is also compressable, elastic and flexible. It is impervious to liquids (which most are familiar with) but also is a poor conductor of electricity, heat, chemicals, sound, and has unlimited durability. Naturally we had to stop and shop, this is what we saw: cork shoes, boots, handbags, jackets, vests, jewelry, insulated mugs, stoppers of all kinds, mats, rugs, artwork, paper, printed postcards and other signage, cigarette and cigar tips. The shops did not cover many of the other uses; packing material, floor and wall coverings, mattresses, insulation, the list goes on and on. We bought a few things, ha ha.
A little about cork harvesting and production because it is truly an enviable balanced sustainable conservation of a natural material. When you harvest cork you don’t cut down the tree. It is actually illegal to cut down a cork oak (deal or alive) in any part of Portugal. The cork is harvested by hand with a hand axe. The Tiradors (cork strippers) are a lot that passes down the craft from generation to generation. They are the highest paid agricultural worker in the world. They work in pairs, one guy climbs the tree and 
the other works from the ground. Together they chop off the dead bark which is kind of grey-black. They peel off a door size rectangle portion. It peels like an orange and exposes a new yellow/ red bark underneath. It takes 9 to 10 years for the cork to grow back. The good cork called amadia doesn’t show up until the 3rd peel.
That’s when it finally finds it’s way into a wine or champagne bottle or a new pair of shoes. The first 2 peels are used for more industrial purposes like insulation. Too much to know about cork? It’s harvest is directed by the first full moon in May. Ha ha we need to buy more cork to keep these guys in business.
Moving up the Coast
Day 5 in the Mediterranean; we started looking at our calendar and return flights back to Colorado. We were still 8 hours out of Barcelona and decided to move up the coast. We landed in Javea / Xabia Puerto (Spanish / Castellion name, I guess they don’t think I’m confused enough already). Anyway, Paradise Part ll, for 65 Euros a night. This place is beautiful. We are at Hotel Miramar with a corner room.
The 3 windows allow the “special Mediterranean light” to blast in causing you to reach for your sunglasses before you get out of bed. They have special roll-down shutters on the exterior of the building to aid you in the early morning but once those are up, put on your suit and head to breakfast. We are steps from the beach which they call “La Grava”. La Grava means gravel but not gravel like we know it, here it’s small shiny rocks. They make a wonderful noise as the surf rolls up. We rent 2 lounge chairs under a palapa, the swimming is divine.
Have I mentioned shopping?
As we stroll around the port town we pass multitudes of great little shops. Even I am enticed inside. I buy a pair of shoes at a place called Sho La La. I love the sales guy. He is handsome only because his not- so- handsome parts are put together just right. He has a shaved head and very dark eyebrows. He has a row of silver studs running from the base of his hairline going down his spine into his tank top. He’s kind of grumpy until you see he is the king of sarcasm. A perfect match for Sho La La.
It seemed like we had been experiencing a lot of city life in the last few weeks, Sevilla and Granada were full of looking, hiking, reading, studying, and writing, and appreciating the historic significance of each and every spot. We decided to rest our brains on the Mediterranean.
We didn’t know a lot about southern Spain but figured we could make our way to the beach, we’re good at that. After evaluating a few red flags like; large population base, popular with tourists, a hit with the Brits (no offence all my new friends) and “hang onto your wallet”, we settled on a place called Calypso Beach in San Juan de los Terreros, Pulpi, Spain. Small, quiet, quaint seaside village, all of the above for a modest 60 Euros a night.
Two room suite, private veranda with a killer view of the Mediterranean, not fancy. What tipped us off to the “not fancy” was their beach restaurant that had a rip roaring fire going (olive tree logs) with an entire pig and two lambs steaked in the ground roasting- away- the- slow- way. We sat down to dinner that night and Mike said “pig please” and I said “lamb please”.
A dinner for the books. The beach scene was all about family, small groups setting up camp each day, swimming and bobbing around in the surf. We met some nice people (Hi Vivien and Richard!) As the days marched on we eventually walked up the beach and visited other small coves. Calypso is a lovely spot but beware future planners, I saw some cranes on the outskirts of town and I don’t mean birds.
I love it when our Lonely Planet Travel guide says; “get lost in the maze of Gothic cobbled stone streets”, “Wander the Balixa neighborhood”, “Discover the historic heart of the Old City”, “Celebrate the night life in places you’ve never been”. I’m here to tell you “getting lost” actually means; really lost. Not knowing where you are, not knowing where you have been, and not knowing where you are going. And if you are really unlucky you are dragging your suitcase, and it’s getting dark outside. The sound of Barcelona, Lisbon, Seville… bump, bump, bump, crunch crunch, crunch, snap, snap snap, the sound of suitcases rolling, the sound of feet on stone, the sound of maps folding shut. Ha ha, it usually works out thanks to the millions of locals who are more than happy to give directions in a language you don’t understand. That is the sound of travel.
