Category Archives: Overal en nergens

Meer plaatsen bezoeken -> meer leren -> meer mens

Ireland: Highs and lows

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It was a nice trip. A bit stressfull, and a lot of driving around, but overall we enjoyed the trip.

The highs/top outings during our trip were:

The lows (for me):

  • Belfast. I have to be honest, I struggled with this city, mainly because of the atmosphere created by the murals. Many of the tours focus on wall paintings about past conflicts, and the figures portrayed were involved in very violent events. Seeing them displayed so prominently, almost celebrated, and called ‘volunteers‘ felt unreal to me. In my mind, ‘volunteer‘ was being used as a synonym for people who committed acts I find deeply troubling. When I told my friends that my first step to improve the city would be to paint over all those walls, they couldn’t understand me at all.
    The strange thing is that the people were incredibly friendly. It was the only place where someone shared his whole life story with me while we waited for the bus, and the only place where asking for directions led a woman to start in Welsh and then switch instantly to English when she saw my face.
    Very warm people, but for me, the city itself felt heavy and depressing.
  • Very long rides, long times in the car. Lots of days we spend between 2 and 6 hours in the car. A lot and quite stressfull.
  • Spanish timetables. Eating late, like in Spain, is not the Irish way. Finding a place to eat after 22:00 was not a nice experience, and we ended up lots of times eating fastfood or chinese.
  • Last day. Stress. Wake up early, drive 3.5 hours to the airport to return the car, take a bus to the airport, check in, and take the plane. No breakfast, no lunch, only coffee, and after arriving take the bus home and walk for 15 minutes with 4 huge bags. Not the best way to end the holiday, thats for sure.

Ireland: 1 mistake

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A waterfall, then a castle, and then a small surprise. The cottage we had booked turned out to be 200 km further away. Oof. Well, these things happen. We arrived late, but with a small BBQ it still turned into a nice evening.

The next morning we headed out early, towards a little beach. But soon the route started to look suspiciously familiar… The beach was only 5 km from the castle we had visited the day before. So another 200 km of driving. And after the beach, plus a few other sights in the area, another 200 km back.

In the end we clocked 600 km (and also 6 hours) that we could easily have avoided if I hadn’t trusted the AI so blindly. Unfortunately, I only realized that when it was already too late.

Ireland: The plan

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We’re exploring Ireland for our family vacation. From the 6th to the 15th of August we plan to discover a new culture. We are going with some friends, and in total we will be a party of eight persons, so fun is guaranteed. Ana and Nuria make a very nice planning for the trip. I did notice we spend quite some time driving around, but they have thought about it, so it should be okay.
This is the plan that was devised. When we return I’ll post a travel evaluation.

Seeing and experiencing plenty of places is of course an important part of the holiday. So far, the plan looks perfect for discovering many different sides of Ireland. I also have my own wishes for this trip, and that’s to get a little taste of Irish life and I don’t think that’s difficult at all. Starting the day with a nice big breakfast, and ending it with a pint in the pub. That feels like the right way to experience Ireland.

Lanzarote, a long weekend

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Timanfaya!We visited Lanzarote again, this time with two families: five (5!) children and three adults. On the first day, right after arriving, we picked up the rental car and immediately started sightseeing. Our first stop was Mirador del Mar, with a beautiful view of the nearby island of La Graciosa. After that, we continued to the Cueva Verde, an enjoyable tour through a lava tunnel. Next we visited Jameos del Agua, a partially collapsed lava tube that’s home to many tiny blind white crabs found only on Lanzarote. The whole site was transformed into something special by the local artist and architect César Manrique. Finally, we headed to our villa, checked out the pool, and found two geocaches along the path near the little beach.

On the second day we drove to the center of the island, to the Timanfaya volcano. We had to wait in line for 90 minutes, but after that we could hop straight onto a bus for a stunning tour through the volcanic landscape. After visiting the volcano, we stopped to see some impressive rock formations, deep cracks in the terrain, a perfect spot for a few great photos.

La Graciosa!On the third day we went to the island of La Graciosa, which we had already seen from the viewpoint on our first day. A half-hour boat ride took us there. We bought some sandwiches and rented bikes for a long ride across the island. Getting lost was impossible: there’s only one clear route. At one of the beaches, Alex and I found some salt. It looked surprisingly clean, so I took a little with me to experiment with later. We returned on the last boat of the day and headed back to the villa.

On the final day we took it easy. Checked out, drove to the airport, and headed home. A tiring but wonderful little trip.

Tenerife & Emilia

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Miguel, Alex’s godfather and Alan’s pan-godfather, has a conference where he was invited to give a talk. He’s attended conferences all over the world before, but this time it’s in Tenerife. Nice and close, so it’s perfect for us to make a weekend trip. We’ll take the car and the ferry over on Saturday, and head back Sunday evening. Super easy. The only thing we will miss is Alan’s football match, but I think we can make it up by all the fun activities we planned.

The plan
We will take the ferry so we can take our car on Saturday morning. The plan for Saturday is to visit a fun adventure park. Afterwards, we’ll explore the little village nearby the forest where we booked a room, find a restaurant, and maybe even grab a geocache. On Sunday, if the weather allows, we might go up to the highest point in Spain: El Teide. Then it’s back home again.

The actual adventure
Rainbows everywhere!Oh no, a big storm was on its way… Emilia. Many public and semi-public activities were cancelled. The forecast for Saturday was high waves (up to 12 meters!) and strong winds. Not the best situation for a boat trip to Tenerife, but so be it. We had the first boat on Saturday. Also the last, because after that all trips were cancelled. It was an interesting crossing.

The forest adventure was first postponed and then cancelled. Mount Teide was off limits because of some snowfall. So we went for some alternatives: visited a few ancient pyramids, stopped at some viewpoints, found a beautiful geocache, explored the Museum of Science, enjoyed some lovely meals, brought Miguel to the airport, and then took the boat calmly back home. Despite the cancellation of almost all our plans, we fortunately still enjoyed the weekend getaway.

Sinterklaas

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Barbacan!Every year, Sinterklaas visits the Hotel Barbacan in Maspalomas, in the south of the island. The hotel is a favorite destination for many Dutch guests, and maybe that is why they have fully embraced Dutch traditions. Sinterklaas comes by for all the Dutch children staying at the hotel, but Dutch residents of Gran Canaria are also welcome, and sometimes even receive a personal invitation.

We have been going almost every year, for nearly fourteen years now. Each time, the Sint arrives in his convertible, sometimes accompanied by a lively band, and always surrounded by plenty of Pieten. Afterward, the celebration moves indoors, where every child receives a small gift directly from the Sint, interspersed with musical performances and, of course, lots of sweet treats to nibble on.

It was fun, but we can clearly notice that the kids are getting bigger. Maybe this was the last time we visited the Sint, or maybe just one year more. We don’t know yet, but it feels like the end to this tradition is getting nearer.

Barranco de los Carnicalos – Ravine of the Kestrels

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A fun and easy route. After parking on the small parking area at the beginning of the route you simply follow the water to the final destination of the trail, a lovely little waterfall. Along the way, you walk about three kilometers there and three kilometers back. The path is narrow, winding under tunnels of reeds and over slim walls. At some spots you need to be a bit careful! You’ll often need to jump across the water. Halfway through, there are a few beautiful spots for a picnic (so dont forget to bring some food and drinks). If the weather is nice, you can even take a quick dip in the water.

Fuerteventura

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The English used to send criminals and unwanted individuals to Australia. The Russians sent their troublesome people to Siberia. Spain also had its own place for unwanted residents and they were given a one-way ticket to Fuerteventura. It’s quite understandable that Fuerteventura was chosen as a destination for undesirable individuals. The entire island consists mainly of sand and rocks, with only the occasional plant and a clear lack of water. It’s bone dry everywhere.

Nowadays, people go to Fuerteventura voluntarily. We’ve actually been there twice before, and this time was just as enjoyable. We visited some of the enormous beaches, charming villages, and took a fun excursion to a small island (Isla de Lobos) to explore and discover it.

Camping and filming – Lessons learned

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Camping, llanos de la pez!Well, my first video that was basically centered around me got me quite a bit of comments. It also taught me quite a bit. First the lessons I learned myself:

– Batteries. Lots of video means you need some way to charge a battery, or have a replacement ready. In the two days camping I spend the battery of my good camera the first day. My phone was empty around noon the second day, and the two gopro clones I had did last a bit longer, but had a terrible image and sound quality.
– Interaction. It was difficult to film people I did not know. It felt like I would invade their privacy, so I did not film anything while I talked to others. People in our group also showed some restraint when appearing, so I also kept these interactions to a minimum. The result was a movie where I am almost the only person to appear.
– Clean. The video needs to be ‘cleaner’. I don’t know the correct word, but a lot of my sentences end in gibberish no-one can understand. I need to speak clearer. Some parts of the video show the ground, or my feet, or my shirt, and are not focused correctly. I needed to keep some of these parts to avoid breaking the monologue I was having.
– Information. I need a bit more of background information, so I have something to say when there is a dull moment.
– Editing. Cutting away boring parts is not so easy. I was talking a lot, and sometimes I had to leave bad parts to not cut my sentence in half. Sometimes I had to remove big clips, because I repeated things I had already said. Shorter sentences and a small pause before changing topic might help a lot to do the editing afterwards.

My family also had some comments. Quite a lot of comments actually, but most are covered my the issues I found myself.

– Focus. There is no clear goal for the movie. I was told nobody would be interested in seeing only me talk (and drink). It the focus is a family movie we see to little family. If the focus is transmitting interesting facts, I need to include more information.
– No interaction. The same as I already stated, but my family told me it was not all on me. The participants to the video should participate more, without being scared of the camera. This will probably be hard to achieve, because I told everyone I would be making a video, and everybody thought it was a good idea, but still almost nobody wanted to be filmed.

Conclusion: I liked filming and thought the video was not so bad, and maybe even a bit funny, but after all the criticism I have changed my mind. It is not a good video, and it would take a lot of effort to make it better. Will there be a next video… I´m not sure. We don’t normally go camping, so maybe I can make a video when we do something more often, and I need something to talk about. I’ll see, but for now my motivation is a bit low.

Camping – Llanos de la pez

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About two years ago we discovered two YouTubers that really inspired us. First ‘Bald and bankrupt‘, who made really great videos, like the one I like most, where he visits an off limits Russian production facility to the one of their last space shuttle like rockets. The ‘Buran’.

The other YouTuber is ‘Kurt Caz‘ with lots of good videos, but the one I like best is where he visited a family in the middle of nowhere, they invited him to some food, and he then did a fundraiser for the family in Haiti, and returned later to give them some money. The family uses the money to buy a motorcycle, to help them with a better future.

We went camping recently at a site called ‘Llanos de la Pez‘, in the middle of Gran Canaria, and tried to make our own video, inspired by these two great YouTubers. See for yourself how it turned out!

The educational aspects of the video, that maybe remain a bit in the background:
– We are camping in a forest that is representative to Gran Canaria a few hundred years ago
– At that time the entire island was covered with forest/trees
– Roque nublo is the place where the original inhabitants (the guanches) used to meet, to discuss important issues
Maybe the video is a bit over the top, but we laughed really a lot during the production, so even if it is not the best video, we can only be happy with the result.

If you want to go camping yourself, then here are some more info and guidelines for your stay. Ask for permission to camp and spend the night. Walking routes available in the area.