Food on jtalbot/blog

Quilotoa

Mon, 05 Jun 2023 22:30:00 -0600

We drove from Quito to Baños by way of Quilotoa today. When the plan was originally pitched, I thought Quilotoa was (mostly) “on the way” to Baños. When you’re zoomed out far enough on Google Maps, the detour from Latacunga to Quilotoa doesn’t look like a big deal, but it’s a narrow, super windy road through the high mountains with a lot of steep ups and downs. It added an extra 3 hours to the drive (plus the amount of time we spent in Quilotoa). We wound up spending most of the day driving with a pretty good hike to break things up. It was just about perfect.

Cotopaxi

Sun, 04 Jun 2023 22:30:00 -0600

At over 19,300 feet, Cotopaxi is very high. It’s the second highest peak in Ecuador (after Chimborazo). It is the third highest active volcano on the planet. Because of its proximity to the equator and the equatorial bulge caused by the spin of the earth, its peak is nearly 6,000 feet further from the center of the Earth than than the center of the earth is from the highest point on Mount Everest.

Walking Tour of Quito

Sat, 03 Jun 2023 22:30:00 -0600

We skipped breakfast today because we were headed out to an all-day walking food tour of Quito. Breakfast is included with our room, and it’s probably a nice spread, but we decided to get a little extra sleep this morning. We ate late last night and really overdid it and we will probably be eating early and often on the food tour this morning, so eating breakfast would have been a mistake. Instead, we just met in the lobby of the hotel and then grabbed an Uber to take us to the center of the old town where we would start our walking tour of the city.

Arriving in Quito

Fri, 02 Jun 2023 22:30:00 -0600

This is going to be an interesting trip. We bought our airplane tickets just two days ago. We drove home late Monday evening after camping in Canyonlands. Wednesday around noon Brett said he found cheap tickets to Quito this week and we had 2 hours to decide if we were going. We have talked about visiting Ecuador for years. Our only choice was to say yes. So we bought tickets Wednesday afternoon to fly out at the crack of dawn Friday morning. We drove to Salt Lake Thursday after work and started planning the trip that night. We figured out a good outline of what we wanted to do and see, booked the first few hotels and activities, and went to bed sometime after midnight. About 4 hours later we were driving to the airport. I think that’s a record turnaround for us.

Amman, Jordan

Sat, 04 Feb 2023 22:30:00 -0700

Another Sweet Marriott Suite

Driving into Amman was an interesting experience. It’s a big city. It’s a modern city with skyscrapers. All the buildings are white and/or glass. We wound around the city until we arrived at the Marriott Amman. It’s a very nice hotel, but there are very few properties that can compare favorably to where we stayed last night (the Al Manara in Aqaba). That was really something. The staff here in Amman were extremely generous. Not only did they upgrade us to a suite, but they also provided a gift card to eat free at one of the on-site restaurants. We went to the sports bar and had a reall good hamburger before heading off to bed.

Aqaba and Snorkeling the Red Sea

Fri, 03 Feb 2023 13:30:00 -0700

As we drove into Aqaba after a long day in Wadi Rum, we saw a Safeway. We tend to visit grocery stores to buy drinks and snacks and it was pretty exciting to see a name like Safeway.

Al Manara

When planning this trip, we knew the stay in Aqaba needed to be a nice respite from camping in the desert of Wadi Rum. So we booked the ultra luxurious Al Manara by Marriott. It turned out to be even swankier than we anticipated. It was super nice and we got upgraded to a huge suite overlooking the bay. It’s the type of place that put a hand-written note, addressed to me, in our room before we got to it. And there was a big plate of really fancy sweets. I may have decided I love macaroons after that. Such a fun thing to have when you first walk in.

Kerak Castle, Dana, and a Traditional Meal

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 22:30:00 -0700

We needed to give the Dead Sea a few days to calm down so we decided to drive south to Petra via the inland route which meant climbing up and through the steep cliffs along the eastern edge of the Dead Sea. The road up and over was very narrow and extremely windy. It’s a good thing nobody else was on that road because getting past each other could have been dicey.

Moses and Mount Nebo

Tue, 31 Jan 2023 13:30:00 -0700

We flew on Egypt Air from Cairo to Amman this morning. The flight is just barely longer than an hour, but they still managed to do a full meal service. None of us were hungry, having already sat for a really good breakfast in the executive lounge at the Cairo Marriott earlier that morning. I can say without a doubt that the food options on our Egypt Air flights were definitely lower quality than all our other flights on the trip.

Our Last Night in Sarajevo

Fri, 07 Oct 2022 22:45:00 -0600

Despite all the scars from wars, Sarajevo still feels very much like a typical European city. It feels more like “Europe” to me than Split did. I’m sure that’s the influence of the Habsburgs. As we walked around the city tonight, I found myself thinking about how important Sarajevo has been in the history of Europe and the world. And I’m not just talking about hosting the Olympics. It was the first city in Europe to have electricity, tramways, and other technologies.

Rakitnica Canyon

Fri, 07 Oct 2022 22:30:00 -0600

We got up extra early this morning because we had to be in Konjic by 8:00 for today’s adventure. We’re staying at the Swissotel in Sarajevo and they serve breakfast from 6:30 to 10:30. I think that’s the largest breakfast window of any hotel we’ve seen. And the breakfast spread was really good. So we met everyone for breakfast at 6:30, ate quickly, and left the hotel by 6:50.

Konjic is a popular tourist town for mountain adventures like rafting and canyoning on the upper Neretva River. We were scheduled to do two canyons with some river boarding (think boogie boarding down a mountain river). Unfortunately, the water levels are too low right now for the river boarding, but we still got to hike the canyons and float the rivers in our wetsuits and life jackets.

Mostar and Sarajevo

Thu, 06 Oct 2022 22:30:00 -0600

I’m writing tonight’s blog in Notepad because the Internet connetion here at the Swissotel in Sarajevo is so terrible. I can’t even check my email via Wi-Fi. My cell phone is working perfectly thanks to T-Mobile, but I only get 5 GB of free international data each month, so I don’t want to overdo it. But this Wi-Fi situation is upsetting. The rest of the hotel is really nice. I am super impressed with the quality of everything else, so it’s sort of crazy that I can’t get Internet access in my room. I’ll post this the next time I actually have Internet access.

Split, Croatia

Wed, 05 Oct 2022 22:45:00 -0600

We left Krka National Park on the slow boat back to Skradin at 9:30 am and then walked back to our hotel. We had officially checked out of the hotel before we left for Krka earlier that morning, because checkout time was 10:00 am and we had no way to guarantee we would be back by then. So we cleared out our rooms and put all our bags and gear into the van before heading out. But we left our van in the hotel parking lot while we toured the park. We arrived back in Skradin around 10 and walked back up to the hotel to get our van and drive down the coast to Split, the second largest city in Croatia.

Plitvice Lakes National Park

Tue, 04 Oct 2022 22:30:00 -0600

We had another unexpectedly good breakfast this morning. Our hotel isn’t very big, and the breakfast/dining room is equally small. But they managed to put together a pretty good spread. Lots of cheese and charcuterie, several kinds of granola and other cereals, multiple kinds of juices that were really good, yogurts, fruit, etc. I wasn’t expecting it, but it was really good. So we left for the park full and ready for the day.

Fratarica Canyon

Sun, 02 Oct 2022 22:30:00 -0600

The hotel was hot. I don’t sleep well when it’s too hot, and it was too hot last night. We tried opening the door to let in the amazingly cool and fresh air from outside, but it was so noisy that we had to close it. Maybe leaving it open and loud would have been a better choice, but instead we suffered and didn’t really sleep more than about 4 hours each. That’s a terrible record for our first night here after a full night of not sleeping on the plane. So we’re going to have to solve something for tonight. Hopefully there won’t be as many late loud parties tonight since it’s Sunday. We’ll see.

Saint George to Ljubljana

Sat, 01 Oct 2022 22:30:00 -0600

A long time ago in a galaxy far away, we booked a trip to Ljubljana, Slovenia. We knew we wanted to spend some time there and to see some of the surrounding countries. We got our flights and seats and all that fun stuff booked and paid. Months later, Delta threw us a curve ball. We live in Saint George, Utah, so when we book international trips, we have to decide if we’re going to fly out of Las Vegas or Salt Lake City. The rest of our friends on this trip were flying out of Salt Lake, because they live near there. We opted to fly out of Las Vegas because it was a little cheaper and shorter for us (once you add in the drive to and from either LV or SLC). But there we were, about 6 months after making our choice and Delta cancelled our flight and booked us on new flights that cut a full day from our trip. There was no way that would work, since the rest of the crew wasn’t going to be missing anything and we would have a hard time catching up with them. So we had to make some hard choices and wound up starting our day 3 hours earlier, adding an extra stop in Detroit, and being pretty upset at Delta… But at least we could still arrive in Paris with the rest of the group and then journey on to Ljubljana together. Delta wound up changing little things like plane sizes and schedules, but they didn’t amount to enough for us to have to do anything.

Goodbye Crete, Goodbye Greece

Sun, 10 Oct 2021 22:30:00 -0600

Today was our last day on Crete. I really enjoyed Crete. It may not be the “paradise” spoken of by our taxi driver on Santorini, but it’s a pretty, amazing place. The north side has all the cities and is fairly green and beautiful. The center has surprisingly tall and steep mountains. The south side has beautiful beaches. We spent the day at one of those beautiful beaches today.

Driving from Chania to Elafonisi Beach is a challenge. The roads are windy and very narrow. In some places they are so narrow only a single direction can proceed at a time. We passed through what looks like a railroad tunnel, barely wide enough for the microbus we were driving. The road takes you through a few small towns where you are sometimes forced to pull to the side into a driveway so traffic coming towards you can get by. If you get carsick easily, this may not be a good trip for you.

Santorini to Heraklion

Thu, 07 Oct 2021 22:30:00 -0600

We got up early to see if there was a response from the boat tour company. They replied during the night. They’re not running the boat that does tours of the volcano this time of year, but offered to have us take their other boat (at twice the price) to visit some beaches. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out either, so we had a day of relaxation ahead.

Taking it Easy

We got up, packed our bags, and walked to a nearby bakery for breakfast. This one doesn’t have a beautiful view and doesn’t really cater to tourists. That made it a lot cheaper, but it was also a lot more complicated for us to order. I ordered something I had never seen before called “salty pancakes”. Brett got an omelette. Charmaine and Jess each got a Greek yogurt. The portions were huge, as they always are in this country. It was a real job eating all our food, but we managed to do it.

Santorini

Wed, 06 Oct 2021 22:30:00 -0600

It’s pretty cool here right now, so we didn’t see the need to get up super early to start our big hike. We got up at a reasonable time, walked around town until we found a nice breakfast place overlooking the ocean, and then started walking from Fira to Oia.

Breakfast was pretty good, but it was more expensive than it was worth, in my opinion. I guess that’s what you get when you go to a place with a nice view. Instead of the typical Greek yogurt, I went for some coconut yogurt with mangos and chia seeds. It was tasty, but I definitely could have used a bit more food before setting out on our hike.

Meteora to Santorini

Tue, 05 Oct 2021 22:30:00 -0600

The day started early. We had to drive back to Athens in time to catch a flight to Santorini, and that meant leaving the hotel before 7:00. Breakfast doesn’t start until 7, but we hoped to sneak in and get a doggie bag for ourselves anyway. No. The lady setting up the buffet wasn’t going to fall for our tricks and excuses. We did finally talk her in to letting us grab “a role” before walking out to the car.

From Athens to Meteora

Sun, 03 Oct 2021 22:30:00 -0600

We went to bed a bit early last night. For some reason staying up through the night on a flight will do that to you. So we went to sleep around eight and woke up around five. That’s a bit earlier than we were hoping, but the traffic noise was starting to build and it didn’t seem like we would be able to fall back to sleep.

Today is Sunday. A lot of things seem to be closed on Sunday, even in Athens. We walked around the hotel in search of an ATM, an electronics store (hoping to buy a plug adapter), and to find some breakfast. We found an ATM at a bank across the street from the hotel. Across another street from there is a bakery called Bread Factory. We had no choice but to buy some pastries. The pastries were good, especially the mini Pain au Chocolat.

ChocoMuseo Antigua

Thu, 08 Apr 2021 22:30:00 -0600

We went to the ChocoMuseo in Antigua today. We signed up for the “bean to bar” workshop. This wasn’t our first chocolate factory tour, but this was so much better than any of the others. They didn’t include picking cocoa pods or fermenting or drying the beans, but we did get to roast them, grind them into paste using a mortar and pestle, make various chocolate drinks, and finally make our own chocolate bars. We also learned a lot along the way. I really enjoyed the whole experience. If you’re ever in Antigua and you like chocolate, this is a workshop for you. And it’s only $25 per person. Very worth it.

Semuc Champey (Part 1 - Below the Waterfall)

Sat, 27 Mar 2021 18:30:00 -0600

We slept pretty well last night, despite having 3 of us in the room and sharing a double bed with Charmaine. The only time I woke up was when I was freezing and had to adjust the air conditioner so it wouldn’t be so cold. Tessa said something about how she’s glad she brought her blanket from home with her or she would have frozen. That’s a good air conditioner.

The long ride to Lanquín

Fri, 26 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

We got up and ate breakfast earlier than usual this morning. It’s Friday, which means we’re not working – just trying to get our adventure on. Some of our previous attempts haven’t worked out exactly the way we hoped, but nothing stands in our way today. We’re headed to Lanquín to see Semuc Champey Natural Monument. It’s about 200 miles each way, but it usually takes 8+ hours due to traffic, construction, narrow winding roads, slow trucks, etc. Our driver pulled his van up to the house at 8:00 and we headed out.

Settled In

Thu, 25 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

It’s amazing how quickly we can go from being awed by living in a big house with two chefs making amazing meals every day, someone doing all the cleaning, making my bed every day, doing my laundry, and a gardener who’s here three days a week making all the indoor garden areas, fountains, stairs, etc. look amazing… to taking it for granted.

Taking all that for granted? Yes.

We’re getting ready for our trip up to Semuc Champey tomorrow and I just caught myself wondering why my dirty clothes were still hanging on the clothes line upstairs and hadn’t been dried and folded yet. How did I get to that point? I’m very upset with myself for coming up with such a thought.

Ash Tuesday

Tue, 23 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

Pacaya blew its top again today and they had to close down the airport. Our weather forecast in Antigua was for “Volcanic Ash”. I think we got a little bit lucky with the winds today because some locations got several centimeters of ash on the ground and we just got a heavier snow than normal. But it’s probably a good thing we’re not trying to camp up there tonight. lol.

Pacaya can wait

Mon, 22 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

When you make plans to summit volcanos, your plans have to be flexible. Volcán de Pacaya just began a new intense eruption yesterday and a new period of increased activity, so the country closed the National Park. Nobody gets to go near the volcano until it slows down. We got the email about it today, so we won’t be climbing to the summit tomorrow night to watch the lava flow down the side of the mountain after all. We’re hoping it will calm down enough before we have to fly back to the United States in a couple weeks, but there’s no way to predict what it will do. Brett’s kids are pretty upset about missing it, but there’s nothing we can do except enjoy our other activities. We’re still expecting to have a great weekend in Semuc Champey this weekend, but even that depends on the weather.

Last day in Monterrico

Sun, 21 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

We went to bed around 9 pm last night. We must be crazy gringo party animals. We invited Nate to sleep on the pull-out bed below our bunkbeds last night because he didn’t sleep very well on the couch in the family room the night before. There are no window coverings in there and the lights from outside were shining right on him. He fell asleep almost immediately, but he didn’t last very long. There was thumping music and fireworks keeping the rest of us awake until about midnight. And that’s about the time Nate decided he would rather sleep on the couch than in our room. I guess we are too noisy with our random coughs and snoring. I woke Charmaine up a few times to get her to stop snoring, but I think I slept pretty well overall.

Villas Aqua los Cabos de Monterrico

Sat, 20 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

Surprisingly good breakfast

I think I slept pretty well last night. I had the remote control to the air conditioner in bed with me, and I actually got cold enough at one point that I had to set the temperature a little higher so I wouldn’t freeze. That’s exactly where I wanted it to be.

Omelette breakfast with platanos fritos

Our Monterrico Adventure Begins

Fri, 19 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

Feeling Fine

As expected, I felt fine this morning. I didn’t want to get too crazy, but I did eat some pan dulce and drank a little orange juice. We worked some magic and found a nice Airbnb on the beach in Monterrico, rented some cars from Alamo, and headed south for a beach adventure. It isn’t El Salvador, but it’s the next best thing.

Our Airbnb hosts were hurrying to make our unit ready for us and said they could have it available by 2:00 pm if we returned the Excel spreadsheet with our passport numbers and license plates. The form had to be filled out by us, then signed by the owner of the unit and returned to the property management and security dudes prior to our arrival or we wouldn’t be allowed in the gate. Of course, we couldn’t fill out the form until we knew our license plate numbers and we wouldn’t know those until we picked up our rental cars.

Our Chefs are Amazing

Mon, 15 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

Last night we decided to meet at 7:45 each morning for scripture study before breakfast. I’m not sure how well that will work for me, because I’m used to sleeping until I wake without ever using an alarm. That usually translates to me waking up around 8, but there’s no guarantee. I’m definitely not a morning person, so we’ll see how it goes.

I didn’t get to sleep last night until about midnight. Then I woke a few times due to noises and other things. By 7:00 I definitely didn’t feel like I slept enough, but it was time to start the day. Our two chefs were here and preparing breakfast. They cut up fresh fruit into big bowls. We had pineapple, watermelon, cantaloupe, blackberry, and papaya. I sucked down a lot of fruit. I’m so in love with papaya. The main part of breakfast was “typical” Guatemalan. We had eggs, black beans, and platanos fritos con crema. I loved the fresh fruit. The eggs had a nice salsa. The black beans had a really complex flavor.

El Tenedor del Cerro

Sun, 14 Mar 2021 22:30:00 -0600

Brett and Nate like to punish themselves. They proved it by getting up early and going for a run our very first morning in town. It wasn’t a long run, but it was on the cobblestone streets of Antigua, which can’t be fun. A few minutes after they came back, Brett got a message from someone he knew when he was on his mission here years ago, who just happened to be in Antigua with his girlfriend for a cake piping class.

Breakfast in Antigua

Fri, 12 Mar 2021 23:00:00 -0600

Antigua has continued to grow since the last time we were here. There are a lot of great places to eat. After a long trip to get here, we needed to eat (and drink). Before we could go off wandering around town, we needed to get settled at the house we rented to be our home base for the next few weeks. We toured the property, met the gardener and the maid, and decided who would stay in which room. Let me just say, this place is fantastic. We knew it would be nice, but it’s even nicer than the VRBO listing made it look. This is going to be a great trip.

San Jose to Key Largo

Sun, 17 May 2015 02:00:00 -0600

We took a taxi to the airport. It costs about $40 each way (after tip). Parking at the airport is $15 per day, so the $80 taxi ride is a money saver for any trip longer than 4 days. This trip is going to be a bit longer than that.

When you hire a taxi to take you to the airport, you never know if they’ll pick you up or drop you off on time. Will they drive the same route you drive? Do they drive faster or slower than you? So you plan on a little extra time. We also allowed a little more extra time because we knew we would be checking a bag filled with our scuba stuff. We had scheduled the driver to pick us up at 9:30. He called at 9:20 to make sure he had the right address. He showed up right on time, drove the shortest route, and got us to the airport by 9:50. We walked straight to the self-check kiosk, checked in, turned in our bags, walked through security without stopping (there’s never a line in San Jose) and sat down at our gate. I guess we didn’t need as much buffer as we thought. We had nearly two hours until our flight was scheduled to leave.

Upper Crust Grill - Heyburn, Idaho

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 22:30:00 -0600

Wow. I didn’t expect to find a place like this in Burley. My expectations for food establishments in Burley were set very low by a terrible experience I had at Wendy’s on my way through town several years ago. But this town has come a long way in my eyes since I started participating in the annual Spudman Triathlon. I have come to realize just how beautiful it is to be right here on this part of the Snake River. And now I’m finding great places to eat. Burley keeps finding new ways to impress me.

Blue Lemon - Highland, Utah

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 22:30:00 -0600

I live in a part of Utah County where there are very few businesses of any kind. We can’t even get pizza delivered to our house from any website other than Dominos.com, which is just sad. So when Charmaine’s little sister, Lisa, wanted to go to a local restaurant, because it was so good, I was more than a little skeptical. When Charmaine confirmed that she had been there previously, and that it really was quite good, I figured I should give it a shot.

Food Critic

Sat, 18 Jul 2009 18:30:00 -0600

I moved from the Seattle area to Utah County about four years ago. One of the hardest parts of that move was the extreme lack of good food in Utah. I grew up in Utah and always figured we had good food here, but just in the expensive restaurants. I was wrong. There is no substitute for seafood only a few hours old, and it will never be possible to have that kind of freshness in Utah. One coping method I’ve found is to go on vacations, with the goal of eating great food being high on the list of reasons for choosing a location.