Orange groves along the way to the Rio Frio View of Arenal volcano from my hotel room Now that we are in lower land in La Fortuna, at the base of the Arenal volcano we've moved into a new crop growing region. Rather than coffee up in the higher elevations its a vast variety of fruit. We've passed pineapple fields, papaya fields, sugar cane, oranges, mangoes and mangas (mangas are the supersized version of mangoes). The the three biggest crops they grow with the best bang for the export dollar are pineapple, bananas and coffee. We didn't see too many banana fields, but there were banana plants tucked around a lot of properties we visited. Coffee plantations tend to grow a lot because the banana and coffee plants complement each other in the soil I believe. They had huge papaya tree farms, and we learned that you have to pick the papaya while they're green otherwise the birds will feast and you have no crop to export. I was also amused th...
Now that I'm home again vacation is starting to just feel like a wonderful memory. It's a little sad how fast it can end. But the trip didn't really feel like it flew along at a crazy pace. And now it's back to real life! Our last day in London we had extra time in the morning to wander around but we still had to have our bags out at a specific time and that threw the schedule a little bit. But I was up early and walked down to Trafalgar square. I'm still a little awed at the sheer size of London but how incredibly walkable the city is. Also it was really nice to get there before the tourists and take pictures when it was just me! And of course I fit in one last waffle. That's a delight I will miss. We did survive the plane ride. Air Canada had a far better crew on the way back home than on the way there, I might consider traveling with them again for an international flight. The one thing I did find amusing is Heathrow air...
It has been both a laid back day and a busy day. Today we hit three countries in less than eight hours. Crazy times. We started out in Germany where we were woken up to a crazy rainstorm. We did have good timing and it was finished by the time we were off. We then made our way south through Austria. What a beautiful area it is. They call it the Tyrol and it is lush and mountainous. We had a mid-morning stop in Innsbruck. We had a bit of time to spend in the old town area. Sadly, the golden roof was covered for cleaning. I'll admit this is always the risk of traveling in the off times. Many areas have been nice and quiet but it does mean that this is the time of year that maintenance is done. But there was plenty other things to see and it was a nice spot for the morning. After our morning stop we made it through brenner pass into Italy on the way to Venice!! It was quite the drive. I understand why my travel agent thought I was a little bit nuts to do London-Pari...
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