Bolivia

Yesterday I arrived to Bolivia, Santa Cruz. I am staying at my aunts (well, my stepmom´s sister, to be correct) house, for the two month I will be here. She lives with her husband and three daughters (my cousins). I arrived early in the morning yesterday, and on the way to the house we bought some saltenas and had them for breakfast. They were delicious! We stayed at the house and relaxed, until about 8:30 pm. Then we went to a exhibition, where there was so many people! You could buy all kinds of stuff, even bulls and cars. There were young gorgeous women dresses up in gowns at every stand, to attract attention. We had dinner at a restaurant really late, because of the many people it was hard to get a table earlier, but when we finally ate, the food was so good. It was really fun to experience the exhibition!

Today we went to a barbecue with lots of other family members. Actually it was an farewell party, for one of the cousins, who is leaving to France to join the army. We first barbecued and afterwards we went to the outside pool and  inside steam. There was also a sauna and indoor pool.

Now we are relaxing at home and my two youngest cousins love Photo Booth on my Mac computer, so we took so many pictures.

(Blonde and curly hair, so cute!)

Uncle William

These past days I´ve been at my uncle Williams apartment, hanging out with him, my grandfather and sister. The other day my sister, her brother, my brother in law and I had a barbeque :-)
Well, tomorrow I am off to Kansas, to visit my dad and stepmom :-)

Today i had dinner with my uncle and sister. After dinner we went for a walk and our uncle introduced us to the store Charming Charlie, that he knew about from his other niece (or was it a girl friend?) What ever, we loooooved the store! It had so many jewelry, accessories, clothes and more in all colors! The store is divided up in colors, so its so much easier  to find the things you like in the certain color(s)!

Peace out..

Pura Vida

While reading Jwoww from the Jersey Shores blog I read about Pura Vida. It all started with two friends going to Costa Rica, and one day meeting Jorge, who handmade beautiful colorful bracelets. While Jorge struggled on selling his bracelets, to provide money enough for his family, the two friends ordered 400 bracelets, that could take back home to California. The bracelets were quickly sold out, and after some time there was a big business in the bracelets. Now the Pura Vida bracelets are helping different charity organizations (ex breast cancer, aids/hiv, our soldiers, alcoholics anonymous ), collecting money to improve peoples lives. 

Tomorrow Im going to get a couple for my self! :-) Check out their website, and all the cool bracelets and more! Join them on Facebook! :-)

Paddle board fitness

Some more inspiration for fitness on a paddle board!

http://www.paddlesurfhawaii.com/fitness/

Paddle board Yoga

I just found some fun and motivated paddle boarding yoga exercises on Youtube! I´m so in love with the whole paddle board idea, since I tried it in Puerto Rico - its definitely on my christmas wish list! :-)
Check it out!

Kitty Cat

Taylor and I have been up most of the night taking care of the kittens, because they need to be fed every 2-3 hours. So today, we are really exhausted! I feel so bad for Taylor, who has to work all day, and only had a little sleep, but "you gotta do, what you gotta do!" While she is at work, I´ve been taking care of them, been on Facebook, Skype and of course blogging (not to mention reading other blogs!) Her are some pictures of the smallest kitten :-)

*The pictures are taken on webcam, so thats why the quality is so good.

(The kitten is so tiny!)

Kittens

My girlfriend, Taylor, and I were on our way to bed, just checking our Facebooks, when she suddenly says:"Where gonna take care of three kittens!". I was like "Say what?", well apparently her friend had received three kittens from a lady who had found them. Their mother was a stray cat, who sadly passed away! 10 minutes later, Taylors friend stood in the door with the kittens. We´ve fed them and now we are all six (me, Taylor, three kittens and her dog) finally ready to go to bed. Well for now, because the kittens need to be fed every 2-3 hours.

Kayaking, part 2

Finally I got the pictures from the kayaking/Bio-bay tour! :-) 

 (My kayaking tour guide.) 

 (Group picture after kayaking.)

(Group picture after kayaking, again.)

Quote of the day

"Sometimes you just have to accept the fact that some people only enter your life as a 

temporary happiness."

Rainforest and Bio-bay

The day before I went paddleboarding and on the beach, I actually went on a full day combo-tour to see the Rainforest and Bio-bay. What an amazing experience!!!

The tourguide picked me up at the Courtyard by Marriott hotel nearby, and then we went off to pickup the other tourist and go to Fajardo. First we went to the Rainforest informationcenter and saw a short introductionmovie about the Rainforest and its history. After the intro-movie we drove to the Rainforest and walked through it too a waterfall, where we had so much fun and took lots of pictures! It took about 20-30 minutes to walk each way, and the tourguide had given us about half an hour to have fun at the waterfall, so in total 1 ½ hour.

On our way toward the Bio-bay we made a few stops. The first stop was at Yokahu Tower, which is an observation point. The tower has 98 steps (well, thats what my tourguide said!), and when go get to the top, the view is AMAZING!

Second stop was at La Coca Falls, with is more of an ”picture-taking-oppurtunity”. Its right next to the road, so you will pass it on you way to/from the Rainforest, but definitly a place to stop for some good pictures.

Third stop was as small restaurant. I don´t remember its name, but the food was so good and cheap! I had grilled chickenbreast and wellow rice with coconut, and to drink Pina Colada of course!  My first time trying rice with coconut, but defenitly not my last time having it! J

Finally we got to the kayaking place at the Bio-bay.  We started with a group pictures and then the instructors learned us  a few tips and practical things about kayaking. When he had the lifejackets on and in the kayaks, we kayaked through a channel towards the Bio-bay. We saw iguanas in the trees, white birds (I dont remember their exact name), termits and small fish in the water. When we got to the Bio-bay it was still kind of early, so we had to wait till it got darker. Meanwhile our kayaking instructor Niko explained us about the Bio-bay, some animals that lived there and about some research within the water of Bio-bays. I found it really interesting, fx the Bio-bay water, can only flow with the stream, not against. Another example is that in the summer time the water glows more green-ish, as in the winter it glows more blue-ish.

After Niko explained a little about everything, we had some free time to ”play” with the water. When you shoock your hand in the water it would glow blue/green-ish, so cool! After playing around, we kayaked back and had some free snacks (water, apples and peanut/mms/marshmallow mix), and one more group picture.

There was a couple of tents that sold souvenirs and a tent with chicken and/or pork sticks, so we had some chicken sticks and again, Pina Colada. Haha J

It was a really good day and so many new experiences - totally worth it, and Im so glad I did it!

*(Apologize, there are no pictures of the Bio-bay tour wet (I didn´t want to risk the camera getting wet!), but the tour guides took some pictures they mail us soon.) 

 (Flower at the Rainforest Information center.)

 (Close-up: the flower from above.)

 (The waterfall in the Rainforest.)

 (The waterfall in the Rainforest.)

 (Me looking at a little fish.)

 (The coooold water! Well, it was okay when you first got in though.)

 (Finally been under the water, and enjoying myself.)

(The Yokahu Tower, Observation Point.)

 (The view from Yokahu.)

 (The Yokahu Tower.)

 (On top of Yokahu Tower.)

 (At La Coca Falls.)

 (Me at La Coca Falls and some other tourists.)

 (Again me at La Coca Falls.)

(And once again, me at La Coca Falls.) 

Leaving Puerto Rico

Well today Im leaving Puerto Rico. Right now Im at the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport, waiting for my flight, which is in 2 ½ hour from now (my bag is checked in and Ive already been sitting here for an hour!). Theres no wifi around here, so I decided to write some blog updates I can post as soon as possible. I came so early, okay maybe too early, Ill admit that. First I had decided to take a cab from the hostel to the airport, but they charged 17 dollars plus one extra dollar per bag (so in total it would have been 19 dollars).A little too pricey for me, when I also had the alternative to take the buss for 1-2 dollars, but I would have to switch buss, so two busses. First of all, I had no clue what time the buss came and so on, so I asked the receptionist at the hostel, and because its  Sunday, it only went once an hour (but he wasn´t sure), but he knew that it wouldn´t come that often on Sundays. Go figure! So as always a cab is the easiest alternative, especially when its 80-90 degrees, I have two big bags to carry (without wheels), and a buss I cant rely on! ”Great” I thought, but luckily another guy from my hostel had ordered a cab and was going to the same airport, and our flight were only an hour apart. So we shared the cab, and I could continue my day happy with the cheap cab charge J

(His flight is an hour earlier then mine, so thats way Im here so early.)

Funny thing, now that I was just blogging about him , he just came by! Apparently our flights are at the same gate, just an hour apart.