A Side of Sweet

Portland Rose Garden + Bagel Co

Today we started out at the International Rose Garden. Portland is called the Rose City, and they prove it with this incredible free garden. The number of roses was almost overwhelming and I kept expecting to hear the “We’re painting the roses red” song from Alice and Wonderland!

There was also a Japanese Garden across the street, but we decided the $8 price tag was just a bit too much for out budget. Instead we did the “Google Tour”, which was still quite impressive.

After that we visited the “Alphabet District” on 23rd street, where the streets that cross is are named from A to Z. A bit of trivia, many of the characters from The Simpsons are named for these streets, including Ned Flanders, the bully Kearney, Reverend Lovejoy, Mayor Quimby, and Milhouse Van Houten. (Thanks to Wikipedia)

I forgot to pack a sweater, so I stopped in Brooklyn Industries and bought this awesome snap fleece:

We also stopped at the Portland Bagel Company and enjoyed their Bacon and Cheddar bagel, which was phenomenal. Lunch was a crepe at Vivace – brie and pear.

On the way out of town, we stopped at Widmer Brothers Brewery. We got a sample paddle and I finally found the amazing craft brews that I was expecting in Portland. Their beers were beyond delicious! My favorite was the Himbeer Gose. It was raspberry flavored and bright pink, much to the dismay of Pat. He found the Rotator IPA and the Nelson O’Ryely more enjoyable. We will definitely be looking to bring a case of their beer home!

That was the end of our time in Portland. Next stop – Oregon wine country.

Oregon Colombia River Highway

In the afternoon, we headed outside of Portland to see the historic Colombia River Highway. The highway is punctuated with waterfalls along the way and we stopped to see a few. The most impressive is Multnomah Falls, but this is also the most touristy (so much so it has a fudge stand at the bottom!). Our favorite was Bridal Veil.

On the way back home, we stopped at the very upscale Riverview Restaurant. The only reason this place fit into our budget is because they had a Groupon a few weeks ago! I had the best tuna steak I have ever had, and Pat had an amazing piece of salmon. We also topped it off with creme brulee, which was phenomenal. It was nice to sit on the deck outside, overlooking a river and a lot of green space. We highly recommend it!

Portland, OR

Portland was the first stop on the official 2011 “Residency Lifestyle Tour”. Pat and I both think that the west coast would be an ideal place for us to end up after our time in Madison is done.

We were lucky enough to find a place to stay with some locals, Daniel and Becky, on couchsurfing.com. They had a great place in north Portland, with easy access to the city via the metro. The first night, they took us to a local dive bar, something that Portland has on every block. It was the ultimate dive experience, with pool, video games, a big screen TV, shuffleboard, Poker from paybyphonecasino.uk, and a multitude of local beers on tap. We had an epic shuffleboard tournament, boys versus girls. Unfortunately, Becky and I were creamed by the boys, but we did put up a solid fight in the second game.

The next day, we hit up the Portland visitor’s center, where the people running the desk were SO helpful! I would highly recommemd making this your first stop if you are new to Portland.

Armed with maps, we set out to US Outdoors, a local sports shop, to find me a surfing wetsuit. I lucked out, and the first one I tried on was on sale AND fit perfectly. The guys working also told me I set a store record on fastest wetsuit on and off. Finally all those days as a triathlete pay off!

We stopped at one of the many food carts in Portland for some cheap thai food. If you are in Portland on a budget, food carts are the way to go! Lots of options and totally delicious!

In the afternoon, we hit up Mississippi Street, a place that reminds me a lot of State street. It’s lined with brew pubs, cute boutiques, and great restaurants. The smell of waffle cones drew us to Ruby Jewel Ice Cream. We chose the salted carmel and dark chocolate flavor. Their all natural, sustainable ice cream did not disappoint!

We also had a pint at Amnesia Brewing. Not the best beer I’ve ever had, but very satisfying given that we had one of the first sunny days that Portland had seen in weeks!

Sorry for the utter lack of photos for this post! We both left our cameras back at Daniel’s. 🙁

Visiting Chicaque National Park

Kelly and I had a few days left in Colombia, and I was getting a little anxious about not seeing enough of the country during our short stay. Truthfully, we were also a little sick of Bogota. I found what looked like a great getaway outside of the city: a ’20 minute drive’ outside the city Chicaque Natural Park, a remote cloud forest, with ranch accommodations at the bottom. Cloud forest? 20 minute drive? We were sold. The 20 minute drive actually turned out to be navigating a series of various forms of public transport (train and several minibuses), followed by a private taxi to the trailhead leading to the resort. No big deal:

We got to the trailhead, in the clouds, and began hiking down a set of brick stairs which seemed to indicate that the lodge couldn’t be far off. Wrong. It turned out we had an epic hike down the mountain side where the resort laid at the bottom.

The hike was a welcomed workout for me, especially considering I was wearing BOTH of our hefty packs. On the other hand, for Kelly, the hike was more of a guessing game about how long it would take for her sprained knee to explode as we hiked a path down these cliffs:

After a little under two hours, we made it to the resort with its promised views of the forest and a glass of fresh squeezed limeade. After a short session of picture snapping, we sat down to our highly anticipated four course meal composed of properly prepared, traditional Colombian dishes. Nom nom.

We both slept hard that night, woke up the next day, had a nice breakfast and went for a little exploratory hike through the cloud forest.

There were tons of animals living in the valley around the ranch – including a pair of peacocks, of all things!

We took some great pictures and then headed back for lunch. With our stomachs stuffed to the brim, we began the hike back up forested mountain and into the clouds to return to Bogota. The cloud forest proved to be a very relaxing and energizing accompaniment to our stay in Bogota. Nature!

We’d highly recommend it if you’re visiting Bogota. It turned out to be about $95 for the two of us for three hearty meals and accommodations in the lodge. Don’t expect anyone to speak English though!

Go:

Chicaque National Park
San Antonio del Tequendama
Tel: [57](1) 368-3114 / [57](1) 368-3118 / [57](1) 368-8733
Fax: [57](1) 244-1230
https://www.chicaque.com/

Bogota, Colombia, Part III

Our last night in town, we decided to take the advice of the New York Time’s 36 hours in Bogota article and check out local artisanal leather workshop, Giraldo Taller Manual del Cuero so Pat could look for a murse (man-purse).

We weren’t disappointed, the leatherwork was beautiful and Pat found a satchel for a reasonable price.

After our shopping, we took a taxi to the Zona Rosa, the modern shopping district, for dinner at the famous Andre Carne de Res.

Everyone we have met, raved about the “dining experience,” including the New York Times. It includes live entertainment, professional dancers and tons of red meat. Call me jaded, but I didn’t think it lived up to its reputation. It felt very contrived and fake, and our dinner cost just about as much as a steak dinner in the US. We also checked out Bogota Beer Company for a local brew. All-in-all was a nice way to spend the last night with our new Australian friends, Cheryl, Josh, Charlotte, and Habesh.

New Year’s in Bogota

It was harder than we had expected to make plans for New Year’s in Bogota. We were expecting the capitol city to be full of fun things to do for the holiday, but it turned out that New Year’s eve was considered a family holiday and everyone was expected to spend ring in the new year at home with their family. The bars didn’t even open up until after 1:00 in the morning!

For the tourists, one of the local hostels, the Cranky Croc, organized a Party bus which drove around the city from 10:30pm until the bars finally opened up. It was “all-you-can-drink” while on the bus, then you were taken to three of the better clubs in town, including a hotel bar on the 32nd floor with a city view. The only catch is that all this entertainment cost $40 US!!! It also went until 6:00 in the morning, which was a far cry from our usual 10:30pm bedtime routine (remember, there was nothing to do after dark where we were staying in Bogota). We decided spending all that money to stay up until the wee hours of the morning just wasn’t worth it, so we opted to celebrate the New Year quietly back at the hostel with a bottle of cheap champagne.

We went to the Cranky Croc for a New Year’s eve barbecue and watched our fellow travelers prepare to spend all night on a bus! Naturally, most of the preparations included drinking tons of Colombia’s famous rum. Then we headed back to Hostel Chocolate and rang in the New Year with some fellow travelers, Cheryl and Josh. Nothing says hard-cord partying like being in bed by 12:15 on New Year’s!!!!