xini blog

After our executive morning in Stowe, it was time to hit the road again and start to make our way south for our return to Boston. We had enjoyed the scenery of White Mountains in New Hampshire, so we decided to meander our way through Vermont's Green Mountains as well, with the rough plan to end up in Pioneer Valley for the evening, as our guidebook made it sound like a nice place to aim for. The Green Mountains are very green indeed and less mountainous than the White Mountains. We drove through steepsided wooded valleys, rolling green hills and lush farmland, interspersed with small farming villages - including lots of craftshops and of course the ubiquitous American flag. We stopped in one of these villages for a late lunch in a surprisingly cool cafe: magazines, wifi access, organic produce and other urban comforts in effectively the middle of nowhere. We also passed through a village about to have its summer fete and were stared at by the entire village which had turned out to

Although Stowe was undoubtably a nice place to stay for a while, we wanted to head south to see a bit more of the state before heading to Boston so we only had a morning or so there. After a coffee and a bite to eat in the high street cafe, we decided to head on up to the Stowe ski area, not because we expected to be able to do any skiing in 30 degree heat but it might be interesting to see and perhaps scout out an area for a future ski holiday. Our experience with ski resorts is pretty much limited to the Three Valleys in France, and Lake Tahoe on the California/Nevada border. American ski resorts don't really have the charm of Alpine places we know such as Meribel. Stowe town was nice, but quite a long drive from the lift base which kind of ruins the apres-ski atmosphere. However, the people in Stowe seemed to have realised that skiers like the ski-out/ski-in world you get by having lodges, bars and restaurants on the mountain and are building a brand new village by their lift b

After our extended stay in Woodstock it was time to move on to Vermont. Number one in our list of places to visit according to our Rough Guide to New England was Burlington up in the top-left hand corner of the state. And en route were the towns of Montpelier (pronounced rather unfortunately as Mont-PEEL-yer) and Waterbury, home to the Ben and Jerry's ice cream factory. The route into Vermont was as scenic as any we'd done so far with rolling thickly wooded hills and little waterfalls cascading at the side of the road. This continued until we crossed the bride over the Connecticut river (a rather weedy little river to have a state named after it, at least this far up). It wasn't that the scenery was any less pretty but we couldn't see any of it. The rain came down just as we crossed the river. It was as if the states controlled the weather; New Hampshire sunny, Vermont rainy. Well I guess that's why the area's so green. To accelerate our journey now we'd com

Feeling good yet sore after our first one-day hike, we decided to continue our scenic walks programme in the White Mountains. After all, our South American trek would be four days non-stop and we didn't feel quite prepared for that yet. We left Bar Harbor in the morning and set off on another scenic drive, this time heading west from Maine back into New Hampshire. We entered the region on the Kancamagus Highway, which is not so much a highway as a scenic, narrow road that winds itself along a river through steep rocks and across a few mountain passes. We'd definitely left the the coastal hills behind and entered the mountains. A few ski resorts started to pop up alongside the road and the winter warning signs were becoming more serious and frequent. The White Mountains must get very white indeed in winter. Of course, we were driving through this landscape in a heat wave, which made all these warnings of snow and ice hazards slightly surreal, but it did allow us to stop off alon

After our gastronomic delights and gentle activities for the first few days in New England, we were now ready for some action - and started to feel the need to work off some of those clam chowders. In addition, we had our 4-day South American trek to train for, and had not really worked on this since Puerto Rico. We therefore decided to head off to explore some of New England's national parks and do some serious walking. Our first stop was Acadia National Park on the Bar Harbor peninsula in Maine, a beautiful drive heading north along the coast. When we got close to the peninsula, we stopped at the Acadia visitor centre to ask for maps of the park and information about walking routes, but the place turned out to not be the visitor centre at all. Although it looked like a visitor centre (nice information desk, stuffed bear in the corner, photos on the wall and plenty of leaflets for hotels), all the lady at the desk could tell us about hiking in the park was to "be careful as i

I hereby award the prize for best station to Washington DC. What an immaculate building. The outside is similar to other public buildings in DC, in that its imposing, white and impressively large. Inside it's marble floors, columns, green foliage and good cafés and shops, has well staffed information desks and is very clean. How very different to London's Victoria station. Travelling by train isn't really the done thing in America, as the distances are large and flights cheap. But as we'd be travelling in far too many flights on this trip, and because we wanted to see a little of the countryside (now whetted by the pretty drive through Virginia) we thought six hours on the train would be a good way to travel up to Boston. It was a pleasant journey via Pittsburgh and New York, though obviously you don't get to see the prettiest parts of a city by the railtrack. I did enjoy the approach to New York. I don't think any other city I've seen has the experience

Washington DC, the centre of power of arguably the most powerful nation on Earth. I didn't really know what to expect from Washington beyond the well known sights such as the monuments and the White House. Fortunately we didn't need to think too much about where to stay and the like as we were visiting our friends Andy and Siobhan who kindly let us stay with them and their sons Anthony and Liam. Andy picked us up at the airport and was waiting for us by the baggage carousel. This struck us as a bit of a security risk, not that Andy himself was allowed into the aiport, but that anyone can wander in and help themselves to whatever luggage they liked. This was the system at all the US airports we went to, even for international flights where you might have to spend a long time coming in through customs. Maybe Washington's citizens are all law abiding though as we got all our bags and headed over to Andy's car. Well, Siobhan's car as Andy's Mustang is less suited to

El Yunqe is a rainforest in the east of Puerto Rico. It's also rather hilly. And it has a number of well-kept paths and trails. This made it a very good place to do our second trek in preparation for the Inca trail in Peru. We started by visiting the vistor's centre as that's what they're for. We watched a short film about it, and had a wander round the exhibits in a very impressive modern building with waterfalls, a tree-canopy boardwalk, and information desks. But there wasn't much to hold our attention for that long, so we drove up further to the start of the trails where a friendly ranger waved us on our way, and we headed up. The first path was remarkably well kept and paved with stepping stones, but quite steep and long. I'm not expert on flora, and the trees looked pretty similar to those you'd get at home. But as we climbed onto more rustic tracks, the forest changed quite a lot. The trees became more spindly, and coated with lots of dangling moss. A

We hadn't really planned on going to Puerto Rico, but when it turned out that all flights into the US from the Caribbean went via the island, we thought we'd spend a few days there and have a look around. And we're glad we did. Puerto Rico was the first Caribbean island we'd been to which didn't have English as its first language, but our lack of Spanish wasn't a problem. As you probably know, Puerto Rico is sort of part of the United States. It isn't a state, but it's not a separate country either; the citizens have US passports and so on, but no representation in the US government institutions. In fact it came as a surprise to us when we were handed our landing cards on the plane and they were the ones you'd normally fill out when flying directly into the States (you know the one - "are you a terrorist.... are you a nazi.... are you a drug dealer?"). On landing, we went through customs and a very friendly official stamped our passports.

Now we had our own transport, it was time to explore the island a bit more. The Dutch people we'd met on our arrival in Speyside had been singing the praises of the small town of Castara on the north end of the Caribbean coast, so we decided to head up that way. Esther had been diligently reading the weekend newspaper travel sections, and had read about a place that looked very nice and relaxing, in a minimalist-but-cool way. It also had its own kitchen so we could save a bit of cash by eating in for once, maybe having something other than chicken or shrimp. We survived our first road journey unscathed, and arrived in Castara mid-afternoon. Again we were greeted by a fantastic bay view as we descended the hill into town. Some teenagers were hanging around by the bridge at the start of the town, and all eyes followed us as we rumbled by. We looked out for signs as we drove through but the buildings thinned out and trees took over, and we decided to turn around and look harder. The t

Today was the last day of my advanced diving course, and I was to do the navigation course. Spencer and I were dropped off on a nearby beach, where I could plod around the sand (fortunately without my fins on) with a compass, practising walking in squares and triangles. Seemed easy enough. The water was not at all deep here (if it was two metres I´d be surprised) and the strong swell kicked up the sandy bottom making the visibility about as good as pea-soup. My attempt at "natural navigation" without a compass was consequently rather hit-and-miss. I´d swim out twenty kicks or so, turn around, and swim back. On the surface I´d then spin around looking for Spencer who´d roll his eyes from 30 metres away. After another couple of attempts I´d managed it, and graduated onto using the compass. That was more like it. Nice straight lines, a perfect square, and then onto the triangle. Well, that was the idea. A triangle has less sides, so should be easier. I´m not quite sure what shap