Wandering in Whitehorse

Even though I'm still in Canada, this is an adventure! Whitehorse! I have wanted to come here forever and am excited I finally had the chance! For those not so much in the loop, I'm doing a 4 week rotation in Family Medicine/ER - my last rotation of med school!

My poor Vancouver soaked soul was blasted with sunshine coming off the plane - awesome. I enjoyed the rest of the day wandering around Whitehorse where my crowning achievement was finding the most expensive sushi in the world. Now you may be saying "Annie, why sushi in Whitehorse. You deserve to pay a lot for that bad decision." I can't explain it - just wanted sushi. $30 later (for a bento box!!!) I continued on my way. Luckily it was delicious. Don't worry Wasabi Sushi (in PG) - You're still my #1.
Later in the day, I went for a run at 7:30pm and it was still sunny! Twilight around 9 pm. I love these long evenings. Apparently it's getting dark out 6 minutes later per night.

Other great thing - the "student residence" is actually a converted LTC facility. That means my bed is a hospital bed (and actually goes up and down) and my toilet has arm rails and a call bell. Not sure who would answer if I pull it though... There are a couple other nursing students here so I have some good company.

Oh -and the clinic is great so far. I get my own office, computer and patients and then just review them as needed. I think it will be great training for residency where I'll be more independent. The clinic is also tres close to the local chapter of Buckys and to a fab cafe called "baked." Amazing coffee, sandwichs and goodies. Christie - they make a mean Americano Misto. :)

I have a couple days off now, so I'm hoping to go exploring this w/e. Hopefully to Kluane National Park at least to look around. Unfortunately, not quite hiking season in the Yukon. :)

Lovely La Fortuna - August 2008

So I see I have fallen behind in my blogging! Agh! Must mean I´m much to busy doing things that are more fun!

So the final day in Monteverde was wicked. After exploring the forest all Am, we toured a coffee plantation in the afternoon! Some of you may know that I enjoy the "odd" cup of joe, so I was super psyched to see this place! The tour was called "Don Juan´s" coffee tour as the plantation belonged to this 73 year old Costa Rican man - Don Juan himself! He made the tour to show travellers what a Costa Rican farm looked like 100 years ago so there were other crops as well like beans and corn. The property was gorgeous, and set in the middle was a beautiful cafe to enjoy, what else, but a steaming cup of Don Juan´s cafe. I learned about how coffee is grown, collected and roasted etc. which was pretty cool. I think I knew more then the average tour-ee as I spent many a summer at the academy of CCT. :) At the end of the tour I grabbed a steaming cup of light roast which I thought was terrific. I brought a couple mini bags for the real coffee drinkers out there!

The next morning we were whisked off to La Fortuna, home of the famous Arenal Volcano. We patted ourselves on the back about 150 times for choosing the 3 hour, scenic taxi-boat-taxi route of travel rather than the 8 hour public bus around the lake! We were also lucky to meet Lorna, Chris and Jim there, 3 coolcats from the UK, who became our bestest friends for the next 48 hours or so!
So the first afternoon, we traveled up to Arenal for a 3-4km hike around the jungly base of the volcano. Not too strenuous, but very beautiful. I have to warn you, I have about a trillion pictures of this volcano from every angle you can imagine! We then travled to the SW side to await the lava flow at dark. So we waited. And Waited. And then it rained. A lot. So... long story short, we spent the next 3 hours at the wet bar at the mineral springs instead of waiting for lava. I think everyone agreed it was a good call! My pina colada tasted extra delicious as I sipped it 1/2 submerged in soothing vocanic warmed water! This place also had killer waterslides which we all agreed, would not pass Cadanian safty standards - really fun though. Exit speed had to be about 70km/hr. All that bathing makes you really hungry so we capped off the night with a couple pizza pie´s from "Luiggi´s."

The next morning Taylor and I went on an all day safari to the wildlife refugee know as Cano Negro. It is located about 2 hours N of La Fortuna, right next to the Nicaraguan border. We spent a leisurely 4 hours floating on muddy rivers watching crocodiles, birds and tonnes of monkeys!! We ever saw a "blond" monkey which is appearantly really rare, and due to a recessive gene. Ate a delicious meal with our crew and enjoyed a couple bottles of wine, all this to watching a football match of Costa Rica vs. El Salvador. Couldn´t imagine a better night!

This Am, we said good bye to our new friends and checked out a brilliant 70 meter waterfall just out of town. It was incredible. We went for a swim right below it and could really feel the incredible amout of power! The pics are awesome.

This evening, we made out way out to Liberia where we fly out from tomorrow. Sad to be done our adventure but happy to have some cleaner clothes in the near future. And today is Taylor´s 26th birthday! Hurrah! Not too much partying to be had here, but we had a good celebration last night.

Annie out.

So the big news of today is that my camera was fixed by Greg the camera genius who happened to be on a tour of the Santa Elena Reserve with me this morning! Hurrah! I have definitely lost some earlier pictures, but I am so happy that I will have a camera for the rest of the trip. That coupled with the fact that I am feeling great again is making today look a lot brighter than yesterday. We knew it was going to be a good day when we started off with a breakfast of pineapple strudel and a cup of black Costa Rican coffee.

The night tour was well, wet. Imaging yourself trudging through thick, muddy jungle for 2 hours in the pouring rain with flickering flashlights.... it was totally fun but I was freezing by the end. We scoured trees with our flashlights looking for the many nocturnal critters, but it was difficult to look up for too long without getting and enormous rain forest sized raindrop in your eyes! We did see an agoudi (sp?), an owl, some tarantulas (yikes!) and a bunch of totally crazy insects (walking sticks etc.). I was a little nervous when our guide kept poking the tarantula, trying to get it to come out... "no seriously, I'm fine looking at it from here!"

This morning we toured the Santa Elena Cloud Forest Reserve in Monteverde which was AMAZING! A brilliant combination of primary and secondary forest. The sun was shining full force this AM, and subsequently filtered through curtains of green biomass. The biologist in me was going crazy especially when we saw a howler monkey! I also enjoys hiking on a "Youth Challenge" created trail, which let me reminisce on fun times in Guyana.

Anyways, more to do today!

Monteverde Madness - August 2008

Ola Amigos!

So we finally made it to Monteverde after a 3.5 hour bus ride with ~85 of our closest Costa Rican friends. The bus was so jam packed, I was balancing on one foot on the back of the drivers platform, holding onto the back of his seat and the overhead luggage rack. Oh yeah, and the floorboard immediately in front of me kept falling out. Needless to say we were really happy to get here and vowed not to use public transport for the rest of the trip.

We have been looking forward to getting into Monteverde as it has much more going on then the other places we've seen so far. Monteverde is also known as the "cloud forest" as the humidity is so high. The morning was really nice but both days and nights have had consistent rain. It's actually not bad at all - the rain is a nice soundtrack to being nestled between several rainforests! And you really don't notice the rain once you are in the forests. My hair is enormous at almost 100% humidity, FYI. :)

It is really touristy, but there is good reason for it as there is so much to do here! We've also ran into way more travelers which has been nice. This morning we visited a rain forest and toured it 1st by a series of hanging bridges and then by zip line! The bridges were nice as you could cruise through the 3km route and take as many pics as you wanted of the vast expanses of canopy. The zip line was unbelievable! We flew through the sky on a series of cables going from platform to platform - such a rush! We also did the "Tarzan Swing" which is exactly what it sounds like. I screamed the entire time but loved it.

The only downside of our jungle adventure this morning was that I somehow deleted all the pictures of the trip so far on my new and "improved" camera. I just can't believe it...perhaps when I get back I can find a way to restore them. The other crappy part of today was getting some sort of bug! We've been trying to pinpoint what it was but can't pick just one thing. Haven't really ate much today, but am feeling much better after taking some of Taylor's patented Tyelenol + Caffeine + Gravol + Immodium combination. I know you are not supposed to use immodium too often, but I was on ziplines all day! Had to be done. Christie, I thought of you when we had all these little traveling mistakes and reading your blog about things going wrong... it always works out in the end but is enough to make you scream at the time. Gotta love it. Nothing chocolate and wine won't fix right? No nutella though. :)

Anyways, we have much more of our trip planned out now (which I am happy to report is public bus free) and have booked a bunch of really cool sounding trips including a night tour of a rain forest tonight! Hopefully we will see a bunch of little nocturnal critters. Tomorrow we are going for a guided tour of one of the forest reserves followed by a tour of coffee production in the region. Can't wait.

Hope all is well! XOXOAnnie

Adventures in Costa Rica - August 2008

Ola!

Annie´s blog is back with avengance as I take on my next adventure! I will be in Costa Rica for the next 9 days travelling mostly in the Northwestern part of the country. I am travelling with my good friend from Med School, Taylor, who turns out to be quite handy as he speaks WAY more Spanish than me! I picked Costa Rica as the place to travel as
1. Spending all that time in PG makes you crave warm places
2. I wanted to explore the varied landscapes - jungles, volcanos, beaches oh my!
3. Seemed like fun!

Anyways, we flew into Liberia via Houston without a hitch. The airport was really tiny and reminded my of flying into Guyana. Not quite feeling bold enough for public transpot, we grabbed a cab and made our way to Playa Hermosa, a small town on the Nicolya penninsula. Our place was fantastic and located in an enormous tropical garden approx. a 1 minute walk to the beach! The beach was perfect, only a handful of people sprinkled along the 2km coastline and amazingly warm, blue water. For dinner we ate at the ¨Pescado Loco¨(crazy fish!) which turned out to be an excellent choice. Tried our first ¨ceveche¨ which is raw seafood marninated in lime juice and cilantro. Quite delicious! The best way to describe it is tasting like Aunt Cathie´s salsa over lime flavoured shrimp - and you KNOW I love AC´s salsa!

Anyways, yesterday we started making our way East towards Monteverde, the ¨Cloud Forrest.¨ We are currently in Tileran which is a really lively little place with a huge garden in the centre of town. Lots of music pumping from every direction and many ¨Soda´s¨ which are like little diners which serve common fare. Now we are just waiting for our bus to whisk us away to the cloud forrest!

More soon!

Germany and Check Republic

The final leg of the tour! And what a great one - I enjoyed Germany much more than I ever I expected I would. Perhaps I just entered with low expections?

Christie and I began in Berlin and were pleasantly surprised with a very shiny, new, quick-paced city. We learned so much about German history, politics and economics of the last century. So many buildings are stark reminders of WW2 and the holocaust - the buildings that weren't bombed down are literaly covered in bullet holes. (~80% of Berlin's buildings were bombed in the war). On our 2nd day we visited Sauchenhausen (sp?) concentration camp - the camp that served as a model camp and SS training facility. Though the visit was thoroughly disheartening, it did serve as an excellent time to reflect on a period of history that will hopefully will never be repeated. Berlin was also the place where we tried "Curry-wurst" which is a city specialty. Now that we've had it, we know how to make the secret sauce.... lots of curry powder + lots of ketchup. Mmmmmm! Oh one more thing about Berlin! We saw Katrina Witt's old apartment! Sweet.

We next skipped over to Prague which was a fabulous change from Western Europe. I mean, just the language so tricky! Luckily, Christie and I don't take ourselves too seriously. You should have seen the dinner we made... seeing as we couldn't read any labels, we just went by the pictures... what could possibly go wrong? Our spaghetti dinner was a ferocious shade of green. lol. Luckily it still tasted good. Most of our time in Prague was spent wandering the city and marvelling over the architexture. I especially liked the clock that had astronomical correlations. I also enjoyed the cheap-o beer; A pint cost less than a Canadian dollar. Nice! The next day however, I made a conclusion that Canadian gals like us do not have the correct enzymes to metabolize Check beer (based on big headaches!...it couldn't possibly have been the quantity....) :)

Munich was up next and I just loved it! Quite a lot smaller then Berlin, but with just as much or more to do. On the first night in town, we wandered into the main square and took in the sights. We had to tear ourselves away from the enormous displays of Birkenstocks! The prices were so low too! Ahh well. The next day should offically be called "Tour Day." We started out with a 3 hour walking tour of the city which was just excellent. Saw the Glockenspiel which was a little wimpy to say the least. After the city tour our guide mentioned that he was doing a "Beer-Hall" tour of Munich and the 1st 1 litre beer was included. What could we say? Of course we were going - beer halls are a huge part of Munich history! (This is where Oktoberfest is for those who don't know). So that tour was just wicked - about 16 of us trekking around the city pretty darn tipsy. We saw the HB beerhaus that Hitler used to speak at (the swastikas are now covered by Bavarian flags), and many others that were more like city parks with picnic tables. All good fun. When that came to an end, our guide mentioned that everyone on the beer-hall tour got to go on the Pub-Crawl for free. Yikes. So I made it about 2 hours before calling it a night in Munich. All in all a great day!

Belgium - Mussells in Brussells and Beer all the time.

Ahh, Belgium. A master of gastronomical delights and 3 National languages! (1. French 2. Flemish-Dutch and 3. German.) Chrisitie and I have decidied the 4 food groups of Belgium must be 1. waffles 2. Chocolate 3. Fries and 4. Beer. I won't lie to you... I ate and drank a lot in Belgium. And it was totally worth it.

We spent the first 2 days in Brussells which delighted us with countless architectural masterpieces. The Grand Place is a truly unbelieveable square - full of people, music and yes, food. The Moules Frites were delicious! It was here in Brussells that Chrisite and I started our quest of discovery of fine Belgian beers. Famourite so far: Leffe Radiuse (red). Christie says she like blonds better. lol. We toured the Catillion brewery where they told us to "forget everything you have ever been told about beer making"... hahaha...they were a little too intense for us!

Next we cruised over to Bruges which I thought was wonderful. It was a major European trading ceentre (for lace and such) until its sea route dried up leaving it isolated inland. We had a good laugh trying out our Flemish here - I was a little rusty! lol. We took a wicked canal cruise and were able to truly appreciate the beauty of this little city. Some people call Bruges the "Venice of the North".... the people in Bruges however call Venice the "Bruges of the South"! Chrisite decided that she was somewhat of a Belgian beer purist here and began drinking only trappist beers (ones made by monks in monestaries). She now declares Rockforth to be her favourite. And she is going to be a nun and start a trappist vineyard. hah. Christie actually disapeared from the world for about 3 days on account of reading the new HP. I'm glad to report she is now back (but now believes she has caught bed bugs!) IT's always an adventure!

The next day we took a full day tour of "Flander's Fields" which was amazing to say the least. I learned more about Canadian involvement in WW1 in a couple hours than I ever knew before. We viewed the Canadian war memorial, trenches, bunkers, graveyards, meuseums and the memorial to Dr. John MacCrae, the doctor who wrote the poem "In Flander's Fields" about his fallen friend. It was incredibly moving. No poppies though - our guide said they bloomed early this year.