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VW Caddy

In only a short time, we cover a fair territory in our rented VW Caddy, from Dublin to Cork to Galway and back. The roads are beautiful even if a bit narrow and with cars on the wrong side. We pass countrysides filled with farm animals, forests in the Ring of Kerry, and rocky rolling hills in the Barren. We sing along to the great tunes of our youth (the 90’s), laugh to comedy tracks, and otherwise just give each other a hard time. Susie announces each animal, Nick checks us in, Chris captures the moment on CMOS, Megan guides us, and Gabe and I alternate between driving and navigating. As far as teams go, this one ain’t bad.

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VWCaddy2

 

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Cloudy with a chance of rain

As it turns out, the luck of the Irish doesn’t always extend to the realm of weather. Our first day in Dublin and Dalkey may have been more an anomaly; however, being day one, we didn’t fully understand the magically delicious weather we had. Day two starts still sunny, but by the end of the day when we arrive in Cork, our luck had run out. And by the end of day three, the heavens open up as we walk home the two blocks to our lovely B&B in Galway. Our faces are pelted with small water pellets and enough wind to make it look like we had a healthy sunburn.

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Nonetheless, rain cannot stop us. We will visit the sites, explore the town of Cork, tour the Kilkenny Castle, and drive around the Ring of Kerry all the while stopping in small towns along the way to find delectable bites of stew, fish ‘n chips, and pork served in every which way.

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ring-of-kerry

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Hello Dublin

Soon after our Boston midnight flight

We seek an Irish morning meal

Blood sausage and eggs, what a sight

And we eat with quite some zeal.

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Very soon to Dalkey we train

To visit a friend and relish the sun,

As we walk up and down costal terrain

We feel this day can’t be outdone.

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Fish and chips, bangers and mash

Continues the tour de local cuisine.

In day one, we make quite the splash

And we finish in Dublin’s bar scene.

dalkey

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Support me in bicycling for affordable housing

After finishing grad school and before I go back to work, I’m looking to do something adventurous, something that is in my wheelhouse but still forces me to stretch, and something that will let me reminisce about the impact I had, the friends I made, and the places I visited. In short, I have decided to be a Trip Leader for a non-profit organization called Bike & Build.  The organization’s mission is to raise awareness and money for affordable housing across the United States, and from mid-June through the end of August, I will be one of several leaders taking a group of 30 bicyclists 4000 miles across the country, stopping to help build homes along the way.

Before starting this adventure, I need to fundraise at least $4500 for Bike & Build and for the cause of affordable housing.  If you are interested in supporting my Bike & Build fundraising effort this summer, please visit the Bike & Build website to make a contribution sponsoring me.  You can also donate by making out a check payable to Bike & Build, Inc., writing my name in the memo line of the check, and enclosing the tear-off part of this pamphlet.

I feel it important to promote the cause of affordable housing given the not far removed housing bubble has left many hard pressed to find homes, and more specifically find credit to finance those homes. In the last several years, affordable housing has become a much larger national issue, and I hope that by participating in Bike & Build, I will help to bring more attention to it.

I’ve been lucky to drive across this country twice, experiencing its spacious skies, amber waves of grain, and purple mountain majesties, but to bicycle across the country will more deeply connect me to the route. I look forward to the burn of my quadriceps through mountain passes and to the full body jolts from the all too occasional potholes. I’ll get a chance to more viscerally feel the vastness, the diversity, and the character of this nation, while at the same time learning about one of the more serious issues facing so many of its inhabitants, affordable housing.

Donation website: Support me here

My rider profile: Bike & Build Profile

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Santiago’s Farewell

We finish our last game of cards at the top of Cerro San Cristobal before commencing our last drive through Santiago back to Hotel Galerias and then onwards to the airport.  What we hadn’t accounted for was Friday afternoon rush hour traffic.

After only one wrong turn, we find ourselves about two blocks away from the hotel at a complete stand still.  Intersections are clogged, I literally put the car into Park and I exit the car to try to investigate the problem.  Two of the group leave the car and head towards the hotel by foot to collect our luggage, and before anything has changed other than a decrease in patience and an increase in car horns, they are returning with a hotel dolly full of our bags.  Putting luggage in the trunk is a not a trivial activity, and thus we begin the dance that is arranging our bags in a very particular way.  We put in about three bags and then suddenly traffic starts to move.  I jump back into the driver’s seat, the rest of our luggage is carted to the side of the road, and through the car window, we discuss a new rendezvous point slightly up ahead.  We change this meeting point once or twice and eventually just pull up in front of the hotel to complete this luggage-filling process.

The car is now filled, but our adventure to the airport is only half-complete.  It is still rush hour and the low setting sun in our eyes only adds to the adrenalized moment.  I receive honks of discontent for video-game like maneuvers such as making right turns from non-right lanes, cutting the same car off more than once, changing lanes with such frequency that it almost seems unproductive, and squeezing through spaces that makes our luggage-packed trunk seem spacious.  All that said, this video game ends at the airport’s rental car lot with full health bars and the car hasn’t even suffered a scratch in the process.  We have barely enough time to blow a sigh of relief when the parking lot attendant points out some small scratches near the trunk of the car.  Being able to talk my way out of these small nicks in Spanish gave me confidence that my language skills had advanced at least some over the last two weeks here in Chile.

We all make our flights on time and brace ourselves for the 80-degree (Fahrenheit) temperature swing we are about to experience upon touching ground in Boston.

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Valpo

We all pile back into the car, make a pit stop by Pablo Neruda’s cliff-top, ocean-view house, and continue onwards to Valparaiso.  This colorful port city, which is oftentimes called Valpo brings out the photographer in two of us as we pass through its winding, hilly streets.  We get to skip climbing up one hill by braving the Ascensor Concepcion, a short century-old funicular in an historic part of the city.  We then weave our ways through countless cute shops and mini cafes stopping all the while to capture each scene via CMOS sensor.  As the day is a bit overcast, our cameras are not overwhelmed with brightness, with shadows, or with intensity of any sort; however, the flatness of light gives some of the otherwise hidden parts of these colorful streets a little more attention than they would otherwise have received.  We end our visit in Valpo at a cafe complete with live music from a local Chilean.

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Santiago by night

As our trip comes to a close, we appreciate some of Santiago’s nightlife by exploring Barrio Bellavista, a neighborhood chock full of restaurants, bars, cafes and clubs.  On consecutive nights, we find dinner at a local spot and then venture out to find some dancing.  Bar Constitucion, a club with very eclectic music from electroclash to house to hip hop to rock ‘n roll and more, provides us with an interesting cross-section of locals and foreigners who have all found themselves in Santiago.  At Bar Constitucion, we chat up some locals and thus get chance to practice our Spanish, and we also dance among our selves on the smoke-filled dance floor.

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Colchagua Valley Wine Tasting

We find a piece of home, and more specifically of Trader Joe’s, when we visit Viña Concha y Toro, the famous wine producer of Casillero del Diablo.  After a couple tastes at this winery just southeast of Santiago, we continue southward to the Colchagua Valley where we enjoy wines, lunch, vineyard-filled hills, and walks among the grapes.   In the center of the valley is Santa Cruz, a cute town filled with boutique hotels, small houses with flowered window sills, and restaurants, cafes a plenty.

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Making ourselves at home

We ask for a late check out because our flight that we had to change due to our previously non-existent tickets is scheduled for 11pm.  Our late checkout is not granted, and given that our day began at 4am with the Tatio Geyser tour, we feel like resting at the lodge for the rest of the afternoon.  Now we are confined to only public spaces and face a bit of a problem.  So logically, we take over the pool area.  And by “take over,” I mean we literally all move over our luggage, swim, shower in an outside accessible bathroom, play music, have our stuff draped over chairs, and try to make as much space as possible for the other guests wanting to use the Jacuzzi.

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El Tatio Geysers

A 4am alarm is never pleasant, but alas, we want to see the Tatio Geysers at sunrise and doing so necessitates an early wake-up.  We are picked up by Mauricio, the same guide from Cosmos Andinos, who toured us around yesterday, and the whole bus minus the driver proceeds to fall asleep until we arrive at the geysers two hours later.  When we arrive, the temperature is well below freezing and thus a bit uncomfortable, but the excitement helps us warm up.

The scenery again is other-worldly, and we end up reflecting the landscape’s energy as we run around taking pictures of each other and of the geysers.  For the rest of the bus, I feel that both the geysers and our group serve as two forms of morning entertainment.  Whether it is one of my friend’s rabbit shaped beanie, all of us taking ridiculous silhouette photos in front of the geyser’s mist, or just the fact that we are constantly out of breath because we’re running around at 4000 plus meters, we are a bit of a spectacle.

Before returning home and stopping every couple minutes for a photo opportunity, we try the nearby hot springs as the outside temperature begins to warm up.