Paul Carlino
Reading is Fun!

I learned to read a long time ago. But somewhere along the path of life I fell out of the habit of reading for pleasure. Then along came the “LIttle Free Library” . . .

Reading is Fun!
Featured Articles, Mexico, USA
Paul Carlino
Vaccination Day

Follow us on our 72 hour odyssey from Central Mexico to Laredo, Texas to get jabbed with the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine . . . only hours before the Center for Disease Control puts a pause on further administration of the shot . . .

Vaccination Day
Paul Carlino
Road Trip to Summer Vacation

We had already spent ninety days quarantining from Covid, so another seven days in a car driving to the US would be a piece of cake.

Road Trip to Summer Vacation
Featured Articles, Living in SMA, Mexico, Moving
Paul Carlino
Our Mexican Revolution

San Miguel de Allende was significant to the origins of the Mexican Revolution that sought independence from Spain.  Was it just coincidence that our newly transplanted Vanamos family chose to establish residency there . . .

Our Mexican Revolution
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A Short History of San Miguel de Allende

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A Short History of San Miguel de Allende

San Miguel was founded by a Franciscan monk in 1542 and fortified as a Spanish garrison in 1555 to protect the new road from Mexico City to the silver center of Zacatecas. In 1826 it was renamed San Miguel de Allende after favorite son Ignacio Allende who was one of the conspirators that spearheaded the Mexican Revolution from Spain and had his head chopped off for his efforts. Not much else happened in town until 1938 when an art school was founded. The resulting arts scene attracted the famed beatniks who wrote poems and got drunk here in the 1950’s and put the city on the map as a destination for foreigners, which in turn attracted the 35,000 or so ex-pats who live here now. Finally, in 2016, Vanamos arrived in an effort to make more of our own history.

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The Hardest Part III - Exercise

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The Hardest Part III - Exercise

We were young and naive. Before we left on our year long overland trip through Mexico and Central America in our 1985 VW Westfalia camper van, we thought we could follow two very simple "road rules," that our kids would take an interest in learning, and that we would all come back fit and healthy.

Things did not go as planned.

You can read how we broke our “road rules” here, and how good students can make crappy homeschoolers here. Regarding our non-existent exercise routine, read on.

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The Hardest Part II - Homeschooling

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The Hardest Part II - Homeschooling

In advance of our year on the road, we presented the Alexandria City Public School (ACPS) system with a thoughtful home school curriculum covering everything from animal migratory patterns to car mechanics that any self-motivated student would be thrilled and excited to study. ACPS stamped its approval and we went merrily on our way. What we didn’t consider was that we would not be bringing any self-motivated students along with us.

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One Week and One Thousand Miles

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One Week and One Thousand Miles

Since we left El Salvador on June 9 we have driven Wesely over 1,000 miles across Guatemala and Mexico and I’ve got the driver’s tan to prove it - my left forearm is as red as tomato soup. It’s not our style to blow through places so quickly, but at this point in our year long trip we are focused on getting back to Alexandria for better or for worse. Despite our accelerated pace, we’ve managed to squeeze some fun in between our long driving days.

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The Hardest Part

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The Hardest Part

We thought leaving behind our responsibilities and driving overland through the Americas in a 1985 VW Westfalia camper van would be endless servings of strawberries and cream. But it has turned out to be a lot harder than we expected. I often find myself thinking of what our new friend Claude said to me one night as we washed our dishes in San Cristobal, Mexico. Claude is Swiss and has been driving around the world with his wife for almost fifteen years. He said, “Everyone at home thinks we’re on vacation. But this is hard work.”

Now, to be sure, this is not work in the sense that my shift starts at 9 a.m. and the boss is going to be pissed if I’m late. One of the liberating things about this lifestyle is that we have the complete ability to do whatever we want. If we want to go to the waterfall to swim today we can. Or we can do it tomorrow. If we want to go to Mexico, or stay in Guatemala, the choice is ours.

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Revolution in El Salvador

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Revolution in El Salvador

We try to avoid cities because we hear they are more dangerous, we know there’s more traffic, and we want to go to sleep at night to the sounds of mountain streams and howling dogs not to the sound of honking horns and howling dogs. Sometimes we make exceptions. After leaving Nicaragua and driving all day through Honduras into El Salvador, we spent the next day driving a few hours into the mountains of El Salvador to the town of Perquin. The next day, I had already driven five hours towards our planned destination, and we were still two hours away. I was done. When I saw a sign for Santa Ana, a place I remembered reading about as being worth a visit, I asked R to check out our guidebook to see about it.

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The Road Less Traveled - Leaving Nicaragua

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The Road Less Traveled - Leaving Nicaragua

We finally left the comfort of Paul and Marisa’s front yard after spending 11 days going to the beach, riding bikes, going to a rodeo, eating home cooked meals, and making natural skin products. Coconut learned to make kombucha, a fermented non-alcoholic hippie drink, and got her own “scoby” to make more, and we even celebrated Paul’s birthday by taking him out to a restaurant in one of the first downpours of the rainy season.

Everyone got along easily and we could have stayed even longer with this generous, fun, and like-minded family but we’ve learned a few things by always being the last to leave the party. One of the things we’ve learned is that eventually you’ve got to leave the party.

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How to Ruin Your Life

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How to Ruin Your Life

We were excited to renew our club membership at Hulakai Hotel where we spent a great week on our first pass through Playa Maderas, Nicaragua, in March. So we were all disappointed when we pulled into the parking lot after a hot border crossing from Costa Rica and realized the hotel was closed for renovations for the week. It's the beginning of the low tourist season in Central America, in anticipation of the rainy season, and many businesses shut down during this time to repaint, refresh, and refurbish. Coconut and J took the news well, but given the extreme temperatures, refused to camp. We all needed a shower anyway, so R and I hadn't really considered that option except as a means to tease and torment the kids. Tyler, owner of Hulakai, took a few minutes from his family pool party to buy us a soda at his bar and recommend a beach front place called The L'il Aussie Hut.

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Adventure Costa Rica

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Adventure Costa Rica

We managed to avoid all of the touristy things on our first pass through Costa Rica. But on our second pass, we dropped colones like it is fake money on hotels, eating-out, and all manner of adrenaline-pumping activities. In short, we are acting like we are on vacation, not a budget.

On the one hand, I wonder why we didn’t do all of these things in other countries where I am sure they cost less. But, on the other hand, I’m okay with going to the ATM for more cash every day because Coconut hasn’t been this excited to participate in family things since we started the trip and went to Busch Gardens.

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Life Advice from Steven Tyler - Our Last Days in Panama

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Life Advice from Steven Tyler - Our Last Days in Panama

We began the long drive towards the real lives we put on hold last August in Alexandria, VA at 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday after stuffing as much free breakfast as we could into our mouths and pockets. Through no fault of the GPS, I immediately made a wrong turn in what i assume was a subconscious protest against my current plan to report for duty at my former employer in three months.

We haven’t planned an itinerary for our journey home because we figure, why start now? We think it will be a mix of re-visiting places we really liked and going to new places that we wished we had hit the first time. Of course, it will have to be a more superficial touch because we only have until the end of July. Saying we have “only” three months left in our trip seems spoiled, but my freedom is at stake so please allow me that indulgence.

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The Panama Canal

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The Panama Canal

Panama City is a big, bustling modern city with an obvious American influence. It boasts the largest mall in Latin America, a Trump tower, and more familiar chain stores and restaurants than you can shake a stick at. It’s also got elements of ferality - that feeling that anything goes - that we have come to love and appreciate about Central America. We shared our cheese and crackers with a police officer who stopped his patrol to admire Wesley. Try doing that in Washington, D.C.

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Adventures on the Caribbean Coast - Part II

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Adventures on the Caribbean Coast - Part II

If you look at a map of Panama, you will see that there is one road connecting the northwest corner of the country with the rest of the country, which, as far as we can tell, consists of the Pan-American highway and Panama City. If you actually drive that one road, you will understand why no one bothered to build another - there’s nothing out there except jungle, bananas, and an occasional wooden house. We crossed the border at Guabito-Sixaola into this remote corner of Panama with two U.S. ex-pats we met in Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. Ricardo and Miguel live in Boquete, Panama (separately, they went through some effort to explain that they are not a couple), and did a border run to Costa Rica so that Miguel could renew his 90-day visa to Panama when he re-entered (he is not yet a legal resident).

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Adventures on the Caribbean Coast - Part I

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Adventures on the Caribbean Coast - Part I

After leaving the Buena Finca in Saripiqui, R and I decided to cross from Costa Rica to Panama at the Sixaola-Guabito border crossing. We felt that this border crossing had some advantages. First, given its remote location in Costa Rica, far from the Pan-American highway, we hoped it would be quicker than crossing at one of the other two available crossings. Second, it would put us in a corner of Panama that is only accessible by one road, which we likely would not have traveled at all if we entered Panama on the Pan-American which provides a more direct route to Panama City and the Canal Zone. Finally, it would require us to travel to the Caribbean coast, which we’ve not been able to do so far in eight months of driving Mexico and Central America. The trip through the lowlands of Costa Rica took us through banana plantations grown under the Chiquita, Dole, and Del Monte flags. Thousands of banana bunches had bags hung around them to keep off the birds and presumably to hasten the process so they can be cut and exported. Bananas are like a delicious but worthless currency and we haven’t purchased one in months because the places we’ve been have had a bunch hanging from the rafters and you can walk by and help yourself.

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La Buena Casa

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La Buena Casa

We were all sad to leave our latest Workaway with Esteban and Tom on the Buena Finca. I think everyone was sad to see us go as well – and not only because I was the one who brought the beer and rum each night.

When we arrived almost two weeks ago we thought we had signed up to provide manual labor on Tom’s farm but it turned out we spent most of our days at the ferreteria (hardware store) run by Tom’s family – brothers, uncles, sisters, and cousins.

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Our Five-Star Toilet Rating System

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Our Five-Star Toilet Rating System

Traveling with kids is hard. This is particularly true when traveling in developing countries that are hot, dusty, and where the population of ants trails only that of the underprivileged. We try to be accepting of certain local cultural habits and, in fact, even embrace those that suit us. For example, it’s okay to stop your car anywhere on or alongside the road for whatever reason so long as you smile and wave at those trying to get around you and it is acceptable to drink a cold beer at any time of day -  it is always beer o’clock.

In order to avoid going completely feral and maintain some semblance of a civilized manner, we try to shower daily and we require certain standards of cleanliness from the places that we stay, and in particular for our hotel room toilets. Public facilities are a crapshoot, however, so to help lighten the mood when one of us is faced with the prospect of a grim restaurant or roadside constitutional, we’ve come up with a five star toilet rating system.