Nature trip in Arizona Part 4: Antelope canyon boat tour

The previous post in this series is here..

While eating the tamarind rice and choking on it, I asked San "arent we supposed to be on a boat tour today as well?" and she goes "In the interest of time I did not book it!".. a few tears and sentimental dialogues that would seriously make Sivaji Ganesan hand over his Chevalier award to me, we called the tour operator and were confirmed for the 5PM (last) boat tour of Antelope Canyon. We were asked to be at the dock 15 minutes before and the dock was 15 minutes from our hotel. 

We decided to take a power nap for an hour and head out..  

it was Antelope canyon day.. a tour all morning, a tour all afternoon and now for the evening a boat tour.

We realized while entering the dock that the boat tour fees did NOT include the entry to the dock which was part of the National park service. If you don't have a National park pass, you have to pay 30 $.. if you do enjoy national parks, strongly recommend you get the annual pass for 80 bucks.  It is always a good thing to support our national parks!

Seeing natural wonders gives me more goosebumps than visiting any temple. Keep telling my family that if you want to realize god, go to a National park and take a look from any vista point!  Or look at the smiling face of your spouse or children.. while the second option makes you mentally happy, you don't get the exercise.. so go to the parks!

The boat tour was great! we got waterbottles on the boat and a tourguide who was local and gave us a personalized tour as we spent an hour on a boat going through the canyon on water! 

Loved it through and through!

a photo gallery of the nature pics..

Once done, we decided to go find dinner in Page. The first mexican place we went to had a 45 minute wait. So we went to the second one and were promptly seated. The food was amazing as was the service. 

my models did not disappoint!

Video highlights reel of the boat tour and back..

The next morning was going to be an all day drive back to Phoenix after a few stops. So we decided to hit the one big super Walmart in the area before going to bed. Have not seen a store this big in my life! Stocked up on some yogurt, bottled water etc. for the return trip and made it back to the hotel.

Day 2 of the trip was done!

The mother of all waterfalls

The previous post on this series is here..

The main highlight of the Argentina- Brazil year end trip was a visit to Iguazu falls. This was the bucket list long awaited visit.

After spending two days in Buenos Aires, we flew to Porto Iguazu airport (which is inside the national park) and had a taxi pick us up and drop us at an Airbnb. Porto Iguazu is a small place with a bunch of hotels, restaurants and shops mainly catering to the falls tourists. It was raining as expected and we were in the middle of the jungle in a small town. We had a good nights rest and were to be picked up at 7AM. 

Our plan was ambitious. See both the Brazilian side and Argentinian side of the falls in one day. Iguazu means "big water" in the local language. 

We waited to get a same day visa to Brazil at Faz Iguazu (Brazil means Portugese becomes the language!) at the gates and after a 30 minute wait we were waved through. We were dropped off at the ticket center for the falls with precise instructions from Martin (our driver for the day). He communicated with us using Google translate on his whatsapp the entire time while trying to improve his English. There were three stops. First stop was a jungle walk (optional) which I did with a sub group from the bus. Second stop was a boat ride to the falls and back which the entire family went on. Third stop was a vista point with a walkway to the edge of the falls (again I went alone). 

The boat ride took us to the Brazilian side of the falls. We were all completely wet anyways after that boat ride. The walkway to the edge of the falls was unbelievable. There is no way to describe this in words or capture my emotions as I wandered through this place. So here are the pictures in slideshows..

 

and some pictures with us ...

After the walk to the vista point we got back on the bus to the ticket center, waited for Martin to pick us up. This place reminds you of the Antarctic penguins documentary where everyone is trying to find their chosen one in a crowd.. unfortunately Martin and us did not have any specific Yaadon ki baaraat type songs to call each other.. in a mad crowd of drivers trying to find their respective tourists, we decided to wait as opposed to get lost. Finally our driver found us and off we went back to the border. 

It was interesting as the Brazilian side had no record of us entering that morning as their computers had an issue updating. So we waited as they made manual passport entries and finally let us go back into Argentina. That cost us another precious 30 mintues. Martin raced us to the Argentinian side of the falls where we were to take yet another bus ride, followed by open jeep looking vehicle ride, a walk down 500 steps, and a boat ride. Given the wet clothes, San and the little one decided to walk and see the falls. It was a 2 plus mile hike and they preferred that to getting wet again. 

Jr. felt bad for daddy and agreed to join me. She later told me it was a great decision as she thoroughly enjoyed the boat ride and falls. This trip to the falls was 10X better than the mornings trip. The highlight of the falls is a place called the "devils throat" where water just gushes out. The Argentina side of the falls is a must see just for this. It is risky as we don't get anything but a life vest and the waters are turbulent. However, all is well that ends well.. definitely recommend going on that boat.

we got gopro videos from both rides. I also took videos using my iPhone and the SLR and have combined them into multiple clips.. 

The videos ..

Bus ride and walk to boat ride on Brazil side

Brazil side boat ride

Vista point walk on Brazil side

Argentina side boat ride including a visit to "devil's throat"

Videos we paid for and got.. again the Brazilian side was a lot less exciting and a lot more expensive..

Was not even able to find the video from the Brazil side. One reason why I should try to blog as soon as trip is done!  

Jr. and me had to walk back a good mile and a half in rain to get back to the entrance and then we made it back to the Airbnb. We got some to go food at one of the local restaurants, rested for the night and were off the next morning. 

We said bye to Martin.. good people come in many shapes and forms.. Martin, is "good people"!

We got to see the falls from the plane and it was magnificent.  

also got to see some beautiful sights from the plane as we flew along the river..

There was still an evening to spend back in Buenos Aires near another airport and we were to fly to Rio from there the following morning..

More on that tomorrow.. 

Swinging above a cloud forest - Costa Rica Day4

The previous post on this series is here..

On Day 4, we said bye to Arenal Paraiso and were on our way to Montaverde cloud forest. We were told that if we go by car around the lake (they had built a dam on the river outside Arenal for hydro power and it is quite a large lake) it would take us 6 to 7 hours, so it was better to take a car to the edge of the lake on Arenal side, go by boat to the other side and then get a ride on a Van up into the mountains.

That took us 3 1/2 hours with all the loading and unloading. 

When we got on the boat it was nice. No crowd. When we were dropped off on the Montaverde side, there were 20 vans waiting and it was a rush for those people to get into the boat. They did not even give us room to get our luggage out of the boat. Given the rain and slush, our suitcases got a lot of mud as did we, in the process of getting out and finding our waiting van. 

The boat was not part of Desafio (maybe they should start some boat service too..). The boats were also in bad shape. As soon as we sat down, the chair in front of me came and hit me in my leg. It narrowly missed my knee. "You can mess with the gods, but you cannot mess with your knees!" is what my yoga teachers tell me all the time... this was a close call. The boat operator apologized and said "sorry, this has been broken for some time. please let my boss know! I have told him multiple times". I told him to put a sign on that seat. 

But for that, the ride was pleasant and we were still in the mist. There was not much visibility on the lake for the entire 40 minute ride. 

The van ride on muddy potholed roads on the Montaverde side was actually beautiful. We were going into and above the clouds. The scenery was breathtaking, wherever it was visible (see the video..)

We made it to two different hotels this time. Our friends stayed at Montaverde Inn and we ended up in El Bosque Inn. They were 5 minutes drive apart. El Bosque has sets of three rooms and 6 such sets on the main section. There is forest everywhere around us. It is a preserve. They also had a common room/reception/breakfast area and an Italian Restaurant right outside the main access road (which was so busy that you needed reservations in the morning to get dinner.. so we missed it). 

We were given 30 minutes to drop our bags and get ready for a pickup to Selvathura park. There was no chance for lunch. We made it to the park for the Ziplining adventure and were told we were still late and had to take a 2:30 slot instead of 1:30. There is a really nice restaurant at the Selvathura park with fast service. So we grabbed something and stood in line.

If you go to Montaverde, the Zipline at Selvathura is not to be missed. It is a 2 1/2 hour deal. There are 13 platforms, 16 lines (might have got those two mixed up) and a Tarzan swing (optional) and a Superman option where you go face down on the last longest line (1 Km) for an extra 11 bucks. Hindsight being 20/20, I should have gone on the Superman thing as well, but was happy to try Tarzan. The last leg was so misty that my eyes were blinded by the water.. so Superman would not have made a difference. If you do go on a clear day, don't even think about it... take the Superman option!

By the time we got out and handed our gear back, it was already 5:30PM and dark. So our trips to the butterfly garden and the night tour of the forest were moved to the following day. 

We had been on our feet the entire day and were glad to go back to the inn. Our rooms were ready by the time we got back and we decided to eat in the local town in MontaVerde at Pizza Metro... thanks to our friends recommendation. It turned out to be a nice place with great food and fast and courteous service. 

You can always get Taxis for 6-8 dollars to and from the inn's to the town. The reception folks as well as the restaurants are very nice and call taxis for you!

We were tired and wanted to sleep right after getting to the inn, but the forest and weather had other plans. The noise on the roof because of the wind and rain was deafening and it went on for a long time. It was like being in a take off.. once you know the roof holds, you go to sleep! 

Day 5 became even more packed and we were told pickup would be an hour earlier. The kids rejoiced at this.. no I am kidding. They were this close to going on strike, were it not for the fact that they were well fed at dinner. 

More to follow..

Islamorada

We were done with Orlando visiting the theme parks and had two days before flying back.

Two half days is more like it because on the first day we drove from Orlando to Miami in rain and by the time we were at the Gateway to the keys area it was almost 1 in the afternoon.

The original plan was to go all the way to Key West and back but with three old people and two kids cooped up in a Van all morning it was going to be a tough sell. 

So we stopped at the visitor center in Key Largo. 

Note: There are multiple boards that say "Visitor Center" as soon as you enter Key Largo, but only the one with the Chamber of Commerce board is the official Visitor center. The rest of them are boards which lure you in and some guy representing some other activity in Key West tells you "there is nothing here really. your only option is to go all the way to Key West". Fortunately we stopped at the real visitor center also and there was a nice lady who asked us all the right questions "how many in your party?", "how much time do you have?", "what are your preferences for activities?" etc. etc., gave us free maps and pretty much planned our afternoon for us!

So off we went to Islamorada, which was 35 minutes away and visited "The Theater of the Sea"

We spent a good three hours there doing the nature walk where we got to see their conservation effort and how they save creatures deemed unfit to release back into the wild, including a turtle that was wearing a life jacket. Seriously, not kidding. This turtle has a buoyancy defect and needs a life jacket so it can float and come up for air. 

The place is apparently family owned for 65 years. So I ask the girl who is feeding the crocs, turtles and sting rays "Are you like the Sea version of We Bought a Zoo?" and she goes "Something like that!"

Here are some pictures from the walk.

 

After the walk we were treated to a Parrot show. The kids and my camera enjoyed the show.

 

This was followed by a Dolphin Show and a Sea Lion show. They really did a great job of teaching the kids about the animals, their behaviors, even asked us to sigh a petition to protect whales from being deafened by the US Navy because of some experiments they were doing on the West Coast!

 

Did I mention how Jr. got to pet the dolphins? Odds of her being picked in Sea World were 1:1000 and here it was 1:5. There were 20 kids in the audience and they picked 4 volunteers. This is my kind of place!

The people in the park were truly sincere about conservation and cared about the creatures deeply. 

Finally we went on a small boat with an open bottom (ring boat?) where the dolphins swam within the boat, rang a bell and did some tricks for us while we went for a 10 minute ride along the mangrove forest.

It was three hours well spent and off we went to a limestone beach at John Pennekamp State park.. More on that in a couple of days!

If you visit the keys in the wrong season, this place is guaranteed to be a hit with young and old...

A Brahmin is a Brahmin..

When we were in 9th or 10th grade there was a story in our English Non-Detailed textbook called "A table is a table" (forgot the author already) where an old man who is bored out of his wits decides to call his table a bed and a plate a spoon etc. and renames everything one day at a time. He is a loner and soon loses his mind as his warped language becomes out of tune with the rest of the world.. it is a sad story.

Well that was a side story just to put the title in context? Maybe not. Just writing that title reminded me of that old story. So if you have a link to that story on the web, do let me know.

This post is really about our one day trip to Allahabad from Varanasi during our recent India visit. We started early in the morning and went to the Triveni Sangam. Then went on to visit Nehruji's house which is now a museum and on the way back to Varanasi stopped by a place called "Sita Mardi" which according to our van driver is the place where Sita is supposed to have gone into the ground at the end of the Ramayana. There was nothing to indicate this at the site even according to religious propaganda people, but it was a cool place and a neat temple in a great setting. So it was worth it.

The kids were their co-operative best considering we had to stop at roadside tea stalls for breakfast and tea. The flies were buzzing by the 100's and daddy and grandpa were designated swatters as mommy watched the tea cups (mud cups of course). In spite of the swatting the little one ended up with gastro-enteritis the next day and we were dealing with doctor visits in Varanasi!

We made it to Prayag and saw the place where the Ganges in full flow met a relatively timid Yamuna river. There were many boats that were willing to carry us to the confluence so "we" could take bath (on the boat?). Let me just say that those ads by Aamir Khan on how to treat tourists in India are simply not working!

The boatmen were hell bent on conning us and our cab driver seemed to be in on the scam for his kickback. Finally after some bargaining we managed to get in one boat and the funny thing was the "exclusive boat for your family only" ended up taking two last minute extras. The boatman said "this is a priest who will go to the sangam and back many times, so he doesn't count against the exclusivity clause".

Off we went and this priest gets to the point and says he will offer a short prayer and it is not going to cost us anything since we paid for the boat. Our spider sense did not tingle and we said "okay". Then he started off and we followed and before you know it the dude is asking us to donate 10000 rupees for some religious charity as part of the prayer!

We told him as politely as we could that he gives the whole priestly class a bad name. Then the rest of the family backed out the "dip" plan because of the strong current and only yours truly decided to take a dip in the confluence of rivers. They had guys on either side of a platform created between boats to catch anyone who drifts off. It was nice and the water was definitely murky and muddy but super fast.

They tell you that when you take that dip at Prayag, you should give up something for the rest of your life. Well, I gave up trusting priests from the UP!

Just before taking the dip we put a few coconuts into the water and this was part of the deal but the guy who drops the coconuts added a 100 rupee note to the coconuts. There are people who go recover the coconuts and the notes and that is another story. But that guy was doing hard labor and I let it slide. So gave him a 100 rupees and told my FIL to give the priest also a token 100 rupees (in spite of his attempted con job) and guess what he says?

"Don't give that untouchable and me the same money! Don't insult a brahmin like this!"

At that point, wanted to just spit on his face and get out of there, but one cannot walk out of a boat that is between two fast moving rivers. So told him to return the 100 rupee note and when we came back to the bank of the river told him that I was touched by the untouchable while he disgraced me.

We have a long way to go and it is hard to believe this is 2011 after an experience like this.

Some pictures from the boats..

It is truly a humbling experience to let the river surround you..

With the exception of the con artists, everything else went well and we did enjoy the boat ride and the small temples on the river banks.

People say you should visit Prayag at least once in your lifetime..

Well, our "once" is done! It may be our "only once" considering the wife, kids and FIL all said "Not again unless we have our own boat!"

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