Our Leap Year

Category: Dog Travel

  • 18Aug14

    18Aug14

    It’s official: we’re back in the US. It feels simultaneously surreal and like we never left. We keep almost saying, “Buenas tardes.”

    We crossed the border on Thursday by land in Tecate. We were wondering what it would be like to cross a border with Holly by land. The CDC only requires proof of rabies vaccination and a visual inspection — meaning if your dog looks sick, they’ll require an exam and may turn you away. But no one even looked at her or her papers as we crossed. So after months of having to get crazy health certificates and vet exams and pat downs, Holly just drove across the border like the rest of us. Hah.

    Over the next couple weeks, we’ll visit family and prepare for our grand finale around the Tahoe Rim Trail. In the meantime, here is a listicle of some quick-yet-fun reflections.

    Friendliest people:
    Mexico and Costa Rica

    Best food:
    Mexico City, hands down

    Memorable meals:
    Pollo pibil in Tulum
    Feria costumbrista in Chiloé
    Steaks at Don Julio in Buenos Aires

    Best fruits and vegetables:
    Chile

    Best empanadas:
    Argentina

    Most beautiful transportation:
    The ferry to Chiloé and Isla Lemuy
    The bus to Bariloche, which runs through Nahuel Huapi National Park

    Most frustrating experiences:
    Getting a health certificate for Holly in Mexico
    Renting a car in Costa Rica

    Biggest failures:
    (Not) learning to make refried beans
    Not making it to the tip of South America

    Scariest moments:
    Holly getting stung by a scorpion
    The moment before jumping into a cenote
    Thinking the bus left us in the middle of nowhere at a rest stop on the way to Buenos Aires (it was refueling)

    Traditions we like:
    Merienda or onces, also known as afternoon coffee/tea, in Argentina and Chile
    Very early starts to the day in Costa Rica

    Things we won’t take for granted again:
    Dogs having homes
    People respecting lines
    Good bread
    Spicy food
    ATMs having money in them

    Best beach:
    Tulum

    Best big city:
    Buenos Aires

    Best drives:
    Seven-lakes route
    Around Lago Llanquihue

    Best outdoor experiences:
    Floating through canals in Sian Ka’an
    Boat ride through Tigre
    Butterflies in Monteverde
    Kayaking at Balandra

    Places we enjoyed the least:
    Mérida (too hot, but great food and architecture)
    Bariloche (too touristy, although beautiful)

    Most uncomfortable situations:
    Bus from San Jose to Sámara, where Chris couldn’t fit his legs in and had to keep them in the aisle
    Using bathrooms on buses

    Things we thought would bother us more:
    Slow restaurant service — what’s the rush?
    Bugs — with the exception of our first place, we can handle cockroaches and all kinds of stuff

    Most useful thing we brought on the trip:
    Sewing kit, perfect for mending holes in otherwise perfectly good clothes
    Time-release DEET lotion

    Things we thought we’d need, but didn’t:
    Water filter, because it’s more efficient to buy bottled if the tap water isn’t safe
    Cipro, because we never got sick — except when I got the flu/tonsillitis

    It’s a miracle we didn’t:
    Get kicked off more buses for smuggling Holly on
    End up with Dengue Fever

    Most popular blog posts of all time:
    Our decision to be digital nomads
    Deciding whether to move out of our cockroach casita
    The packing list
    Whether perfection is good or not
    How to budget for a traveling sabbatical

  • 10Aug14

    10Aug14

    We’re back in La Paz — and Holly is happy! So is my dad. Look at those happy faces! She’s even smiling after having to get pat down by an airport security agent. Yes, a PAT DOWN. So. Ridiculous.

    We’re exhausted after a long travel day, leaving Tulum so early that we had to say our good-byes to the Caribbean yesterday.

     

    Goodbye Tulum

     

    About an hour after we snapped this photo, some storm clouds came in. As everyone was making their way out of the water, Chris and I ran in for one last dip — and ended up with pounds of sand in our bathing suits from the churning waves.

    We actually felt like it was a proper end to our time there, like Tulum was saying, “OK, you saw me at my best and I have to leave you wanting more. Go on to your next adventure and I’ll be here waiting for you next year.”

  • 20Jun14

    20Jun14

    Yesterday, we paid a visit to our old friend, los Estados Unidos. We had a connection in Miami, but we’re telling ourselves that Miami is practically still Latin America, so technically we didn’t cheat. Now, we’re in lovely Tulum.

    It was a rough travel day because we had to pass through U.S. immigration and customs in Miami even though our final destination was Mexico. That took forever and made us nervous because we didn’t have a health certificate for Holly to get into the U.S. — only Mexico. But fortunately nobody gave us a hard time, although the guy who checked our passports looked at us very suspiciously when we told him we’d been traveling since October.

    Then my bag got sent to Washington, DC instead of Cancún, which was a downer but no real loss because all the clothes inside were dirty anyway. Although I did tell our shuttle driver, “No puedo cepillar los dientes, así que mi esposo va a sufrir.” He laughed and told me to use a coco leaf and I’d be fine. We were taking a shuttle because, for the first time, we got kicked off a bus for having Holly with us.

    We’re staying in a little casita in Tulum pueblo, about 3km from the beach. It’s a neighborhood with Mexican families and Italian expats. (We haven’t asked them how they feel about Italy’s World Cup performance today against Costa Rica.) We’ve rented bikes for the month from a great place called iBike Tulum (right across from the Chedraui) so it’s easy to get around. Their service and prices were great! We’re looking forward to riding around to the beach, the cenotes, and the ruins.

    It’s awesome being back in Mexico. While we were walking Holly, the pan dulce guy rode by. That actually makes me way happier than the views we saw today.

     

    Tulum Playa 2

  • 12May14

    12May14

    Today was the first of two travel days. I am operating on little sleep and only have the brainpower to share chronologically:

    2:00am Argentina Time
    Take taxi to EZE airport outside Buenos Aires

    3:30am Argentina Time
    Standing in world’s slowest ATM line. We had to get cash to pay for one other document saying it was OK for Holly to board the plane. When we checked in, the airline official said we had everything except this additional form that SENASA had to provide us at their airport office. So SENASA prepared the form and sent us to the cashier to pay, and the cashier sent us to the ATM because it’s cash only. I’m watching this guy spend 10 minutes trying to do whatever transaction is clearly never going to work and try to feel empathy instead of rage. When I get to the ATM, my withdrawal is complete in under 60 seconds and I have to suppress the urge to say, “This is how it’s done, people!”

    4:30am Argentina Time
    As we’re boarding our plane to Panama City, a group of people stops on the jet bridge to take lots of photos. It’s their first flight, they say, and ask us to take photos of them.

    Sometime in between half dozing on the plane
    “La primera vez en Panama?” asks the man we’re next to. We were all en route to Panama City, where he will change planes to head to Havana, Cuba and we will rush to make our connection to San Jose, Costa Rica.

    11:00am Panama Time (set clock two hours back)
    Board connection to San Jose to find someone sitting in one of our seats: a guy from Key West who has already had a few drinks and much more sleep than us.

    11:40am Costa Rica Time (set clock one hour back)
    A flight from the U.S. has landed at the same time as ours, so we find ourselves standing in the immigration line surrounded by English speakers. And a particularly rude set of them at that. We feel weird and much less enthusiastic about returning to the U.S.

    12:00 noon Costa Rica Time
    Customs official takes a copy of Holly’s paperwork, doesn’t ask to see her, and waves us on our way! Take Holly for a potty break, then take a cab to San Jose. The cab driver points out coffee plantations along the way. We check in to a hotel for the night so we can make the trip to Sámara tomorrow.

    3:00pm Costa Rica Time
    Take a walk to buy our tickets for tomorrow’s bus to Sámara and get to explore downtown San Jose. It’s raining and the temperature is perfect. San Jose’s interesting, but not a particularly nice looking city. End up walking down some rough streets to get to the bus station. Although, there are a few striking buildings downtown. And the people have been friendly so far. There are a shocking amount of American fast food chains.

     

    San Jose Costa Rica

     

    4:00pm Costa Rica Time
    Stop by the ATM to attempt to withdraw U.S. dollars since our rental in Sámara prefers payment in dollars. After spending three months in Argentina where dollars are practically contraband and ATMs run out of money, we both look on in disbelief as this ATM spits out $20s for us. Walk back to the hotel, but stop by a bakery along the way to try some exciting new breads.

    4:30pm Costa Rica Time
    Take Holly for a walk, then pass out. Can’t. Stay. Awake.

    7:30pm Costa Rica Time
    Wake up and try to adhere to a normal schedule by using blogging to stay awake.

    8:30pm Costa Rica Time
    Grab a small dinner at the hotel restaurant after a wander around the surrounding area turns out to be fruitless. After dinner, Holly makes friends with all the hotel staff. One guy talks with us longer and Chris guesses right that he’s from Argentina because he said calle like “KAH-JAY” rather than “KAI-YAY.” He left Argentina 12 years ago and was very happy to hear we spent time in the Lakes region, especially in San Martin de los Andes. He also said he doesn’t like the government there, so he’ll probably stay in Costa Rica for a while. He likes that it’s a small country and you only have to go 45 minutes to get to the beach or the mountains.

     

  • 08May14

    08May14

    Look what we saw today! We were over at the movie theater (we saw Divergent, if you care to know) and came across this Kosher McDonald’s. I did some Googling and apparently it’s the only one outside of Israel. There’s a regular McDonald’s on the other side of the food court. We didn’t eat in either of them.

    We also got Holly’s official health certificate from SENASA here in Argentina. It was such a pleasant experience! We showed up, filled out a quick form, waited a few minutes for our turn, the woman reviewed our paperwork, and we paid a small fee. Then, we were told to go wait in the park while they put together the certificate. A park? Yes, please!

     

    SENASA park and office

     

    SENASA park

     

    Chris even made a friend! This cat immediately came up to us for some love, which we gladly shared.

     

    Chris and cat

     

    Time is really flying by, and we were laughing today because we were having some deja vu. As we left Mexico City, our last few days were sleepy and we were ready to head to warmer climates because winter was starting. So we fled south to find summer.

    Fast forward five months, and our last few days in Buenos Aires are sleepy. Our Costa Rica checklist is complete. We’re about to head north to find summer. Although, we’ll be in the tropics so it’s always summer — just rainier at times.

    But anyway, I like the idea of chasing summer. That would’ve been my #2 choice for the name of this blog.

     

  • 05May14

    05May14

    Today is all about Holly! By the way, have we shown you these Holly cards? We met a couple who were giving these away and we thought they were genius, so we ordered some and Chris’s mom brought them when she came to Buenos Aires. When we meet new folks, we give them one.

    Two other reasons today is a Holly day:

    1. She’s famous! When we were planning for our leap year, one of the sites that helped us figure out what to expect was Dog Jaunt. Now that we’ve got some dog-travel experience under our belt, we wanted to pay it forward and share what we’ve learned. The blog’s founder, Mary-Alice, let me post a guest blog on how to travel with your dog within Latin America. When you’re there, check out her travels with her super cute Cavalier King Charles Spaniel named Chloe.
    2. She’s prepping for Costa Rica! We stopped by the vet today for her required health exam and health certificate. The vet was really friendly, gave her a LOT of treats while we were there, and told us to come back if we run into any issues getting our official health certificate. Tomorrow we have to go wait in line at SENASA in Puerto Madero to do just that. We also had a fun exchange with the vet, which we’ll leave you with —

    Vet: (Reviewing Holly’s documents) Ah, son de California?
    Chris: Si! Somos de California.
    Vet: Bueno! Me gusta Red Hot Chili Peppers.

     

  • 24Apr14

    24Apr14

    Hot sauce! We found a place with hot sauce!

    We had dinner at this delicious (and deliciously trendy) ramen restaurant this evening. It was started by a couple with roots in both Argentina and the U.S., and they make a tasty dumpling. Did you know that Argentinian food is not spicy? Same with Chilean food. Sometimes you’ll find a Tabasco-like chili sauce, but it’s more vinegar than heat. We’ve been really missing Asian foods, in addition to hot sauce, so we were in heaven.

     

    Fukuro Noodle Bar Buenos Aires 2

     

    Speaking of heaven and dogs that are trying to go there early, we figured out why Holly is so sick. Let’s go from the appetizing to the totally unappetizing:

     

    Holly Rock

     

    We found this rock in Holly’s poop today. It’s somewhere between the size of a nickel and a quarter. WTF.

    Don’t ask us how we found it and what we had to do to identify it; your imagination will suffice. We have no idea when she ate this, and we’re hoping it was the only one. She seems to be feeling a lot better, but if her bad stomach persists we’ll take her back to the vet.

    In other news, I published a guest blog on Brazen Careerist today with advice on how to take a leap year of your own! You know you want to take a career break too. All the cool kids are doing it.

    Lastly, we’re in the home stretch planning for our next location. Tomorrow, I have to get on the phone with the animal health inspectors at our destination airport to make sure they accept animals entering into the country 24/7. It’s important to confirm before we book our plane tickets. If we arrive when the inspectors aren’t there, they might quarantine her — or send us back!

     

  • 20Apr14

    20Apr14

    If you are coming across this post because you were Googling for emergency vets in Buenos Aires, click here to skip ahead to the listings.

    Holly always seems to get sick at the worst times. Did we tell you that less than a week before we set out on our leap year, she ate one of those cable tacks? Yeah, the kind with a NAIL in it. When we told the vet she pooped it out, his response was, “Well, better out than in, huh?”

    Last Thursday night after our fried chicken and beer night, we came home to find that she’d barfed…but eaten most of it. For those of you who know me, you know that I find the mere thought of this extremely nauseating. A few minutes later, she was pacing and whining and got sick all over again. She spent the most of Friday and Saturday looking like this.

     

    Sick Holly

     

    She’s prone to stomach upset and didn’t have any other symptoms, so we figured we’d cut her food intake and let her ride it out.

    Fast forward to this morning — Easter, when all the nearby vets are closed. Holly was acting really sluggish, and then threw up FOUR TIMES this morning. And the amount was…generous. Ugh, I’m queasy just typing this. Thank goodness for Chris, today’s MVP, who cleaned it all up while I hid in the other room.

    After the fourth time, we were like, “OK, so maybe we shouldn’t wait to take her to the vet,” because we’ve never seen her this sick before. After some Googling, I come across the website of a vet who does house calls. I apologize profusely for bothering him on the holiday, and ask if he can refer us to a 24-hour veterinary clinic, since most of what I find on Google is outdated yellow pages-style listings.

    Here’s who I talked to and who he referred me to:

    House Call Vet (not for emergencies)
    15-5887-9861 (mobile)

    Centro Veterinario Paunero (open 24 hours for emergencies)
    French 2673 (esq. Laprida) in Palermo/Recoleta
    11-4802-6837 (office)

    Centro Medico Veterinario Buenos Aires (open 24 hours for emergencies)
    Boedo 840 (esq. Estados Unidos) in Boedo
    11-4931-4425 (office)

    Ultimately, we took Holly to Centro Veterinario Paunero. We had to wait about 30 minutes because there were several people ahead of us with more urgent cases, including a little doggy getting a cast on its leg.

    The staff was really friendly and the vet we saw said that we just need to fast her for a little while, then switch her to a bland diet. She also injected her with an antiemetic for the nausea, which perked her back up in no time. She must have ate something that really, really irritated her system, so she just needs to cool it for a few days. The cost for the visit and injection was US$19.

    We can tell she’s feeling better because she’s hounding us for food. Sorry, little girl — doctor’s orders.

     

    Holly feeling better

     

    UPDATE: We found out what she ate. Naughty girl!

     

  • 29Mar14

    29Mar14

    Holly is a real trooper. She toughed it out with us on the 20-hour bus ride from San Martín de los Andes to Buenos Aires. Above is a photo of the scenery along the way, and below is the sunrise from somewhere in the middle of Argentina.

    We had a stop in Neuquén about 6.5 hours into the trip so she was able to take a potty break, but the rest of the stops were so short they didn’t let anyone off the bus.

     

    Sunrise in Argentina

     

    Even though she’s held it this long in the past, like when we were delayed getting home from work, we felt guilty every second. We gave her some water every few hours along with some kibbles in her toys so she didn’t get too bored. For the last few hours, I held her in my lap in her little bag. We’ll never do a trip that long with her without stopping somewhere along the way for the night! Thankfully, we made it and it’s over.

    So far, we love Buenos Aires. After getting settled in, we wandered around our neighborhood and grabbed some coffee. There were lots of people out in Plaza Armenia.

     

    Plaza Armenia Buenos Aires

     

    In fact, there were lots of people out everywhere! Walking on the streets, relaxing in the park, grabbing a drink at sidewalk tables. It’s a city buzzing with activity and we’re really excited to be here.

    More soon…

     

  • 20Mar14

    20Mar14

    A couple people recently asked, “How’s Holly holding up?” So we caught up with Latin America’s favorite Cairn Terrier in an exclusive interview.

    How’s your health, Holls?
    “Every time I cross an international border I have to go to the vet first. I pretend to hate it so I get lots of treats. I’m a sturdy girl and the vet says I’m healthy. The last one even said I have great teeth for my age! My monthly doses of Trifexis keep the fleas away. But I’ve also lost a pound since we left, probably because I changed food brands, so I get extra big dinners now. Muahaha.”

    How ya lookin’?
    “Pretty darn fine, if I say so myself. None of the groomers know how to cut my hair right because they all think I’m a Scottie. There was one guy in Mexico City who actually asked what I am and then looked it up in his book. He’s my favorite. Can I see him again?”

    Have people been pretty nice to you?
    “Yes, especially since they don’t know what kind of dog I am and are curious. I got lots of head scratches and pets when we were waiting to cross the border into Argentina. Everyone had to get off the bus and wait around, so I went around and said hi.”

    What’re you up to these days?
    “Most days, I take naps, go on walks and play with my toys. Sometimes I go places with you and Chris, but I don’t like to walk too far. Sometimes you pick me up and dance with me, which I pretend to hate but secretly love. I also have a bone that I chew on that smells super nasty — it’s my favorite.”

    What do you miss most about your old life?
    “Peanut butter. I had some in Mexico and Chile, but there’s no peanut butter here in Argentina! Oh, and carpet. Tile and wood floors are slippery when you have paws.”

    Have you learned any new tricks?
    “What are tricks?”

    OK, what about friends? Have you made any friends?
    “I liked Lucas, the other 15-year-old dog I met in Valdivia. He really understood me. Sometimes the street dogs come up and sniff my butt, but I just ignore them and they leave. They’re much more civilized than other people’s pet dogs, who bark at me from behind their fences. They’re just jealous that I get to go on so many walks. And because I’m pretty.”

    What are you most looking forward to?
    “Chris’s mom is going to bring me new toys when she comes to visit! She better not try to give me a bath. I am NOT looking forward to our bus ride to Buenos Aires. I have to stay in my little house the whole time. But it’s worth it for the new toys.”

    How does it feel to know you’ve traveled farther than some humans?
    “I’m sorry, what? I wasn’t paying attention. Do you have any treats?”

    If you have any other questions for Holly, let us know and we’ll ask her.