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Travel

Cuba | Day 5: Viñales Valley – Cigars and liquor and mogotes, oh my!

January 31, 2021 by intotherunknown 1 Comment

Health & Safety Note: This adventure occurred long before the current COVID-19 pandemic. Please be aware of, and follow, all local safety and health guidelines if you choose to travel during this time. 

Current regulations for American citizens traveling to Cuba can be found here.

Upon realizing our trip to Cuba was finally a reality, with flights and an apartment booked, I went into full research mode. I can’t help it, I like to plan. I like to know what there is to see, experience, eat, etc. in a new location.

I don’t necessarily need an to the hour planned out itinerary. In fact, that would actually drive me crazy. I do however like to go in with a list of things that are must do’s or a bit off the tourist beaten path, that you may not know about unless someone pointed them out to you ahead of time. 

When researching a new location, the first thing I do, is go on Pinterest and do a search for the location I am going to. This will usually bring up a wealth of blog articles ranging from top ten lists, must see or must do lists and off the beaten path lists. I look at everything, and old school style in a notebook, I start jotting down things that look interesting to me so I can look into them further. 

The other thing I do is go to the bookstore (yes, those still exist!) and go to the travel section. Being a visual person I much prefer a travel book with a lot of photos, versus a book that is all text. Descriptions are great, but I have saved myself great amounts of disappointment by searching for online photos of a location first. Many times what is talked about as this big fancy attraction, ends up being really small and run down, and not worth the hours trek out of the way to see it.

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Travel

Cuba | Day 4: Habana Vieja

December 31, 2020 by intotherunknown No Comments

Health & Safety Note: This adventure occurred long before the current COVID-19 pandemic. Please be aware of, and follow, all local safety and health guidelines if you choose to travel during this time. 

Current regulations for American citizens traveling to Cuba can be found here.

Day four started out with another early wake up. Partially thanks to the Rooster again, and partially because we wanted to take a day trip out to Viñales Valley, where the tobacco is grown and cigars are made. The weather later in the week was looking a bit cold and rainy, so we were trying to cram in all outside activities while it was still warm and sunny.

From our many prior trips to the Hotel Nacional, we already knew they had day tours that left from there each morning to various other areas of Cuba. We stopped off at a local bakery we had found near our apartment, and grabbed some pastries to munch on for breakfast. 

We arrived at the hotel well before the listed tour time on the sign and found the desk to purchase our tickets. Only one problem, the tour was already sold out for that day. Womp womp!

They let us know tomorrow’s tour still had availability however, so we each purchased tickets for tomorrow, and came up with a plan B for the day.

Yep, this means you have to wait for one more blog post to learn about all things Viñales Valley, and trust me you will want to come back for that one! 

Philip, who had chosen not to go with us as he was still working through his photography assignment, had planned to be in Old Havana (La Habana Vieja in Spanish) that morning, so we decided to go try and track him down. As we learned from our lengthy walk on day two, Old Havana was a bit of a hike on foot from the Hotel Nacional. Since it was still quite warm outside, we decided to take a taxi there instead of walking. No need to be sweating to death immediately after showering.

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50 States Half Marathons•Photography•Travel

National Parks Calendar

December 8, 2020 by intotherunknown No Comments

Over summer, I took a trip with friends out to a very remote town in North Dakota called Medora, to participate in a trail half marathon. As some of you may know, I am currently participating in a challenge to run a half marathon in every state. North Dakota was state number eleven!

While there, we spent a few days hiking in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, and per usual I photographed everything in sight.

The day after our race, we drove an hour up to what is called the North Unit of the park, as it has the most unique landscape compared to the other two units. It was also rumored to have the best chance of finding herds of bison.

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Uncategorized

Words Matter | Use them carefully

September 10, 2020 by intotherunknown No Comments

I am noticing a trend online lately, and it is honestly a bit disturbing. When did it become acceptable to use social media as a space to treat people as our own personal verbal punching bags?

2020 has been a crazy year so far. In just the first month alone, Australia was burning to the ground at an unmeasurable rate of speed, an Iranian General was killed in a drone strike, a passenger plane crashed killing 176 people, an impeachment trial was started against our president, a helicopter crashed killing Kobe Bryant, his daughter, their friends and the pilot and the United Kingdom withdrew from the European Union. Oh right and this little thing called COVID-19 started making its way around the world. That was month one.

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  • Cuba | Days 7 & 8: A Final Wrap Up
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  • Cuba | Day 5: Viñales Valley – Cigars and liquor and mogotes, oh my!

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