MCB

MamieBrisker

MCB

I am pretty sure I got my love of traveling from my grandpa, Lee Maynard. I can only hope I'll be able to visit half of the places he's been. 😊 My parents have also been supportive in my desire to travel, sending me on my first overseas trip to play volleyball competitively at the age of 18 as my graduation present! Best present EVER!
I've never blogged before so I do hope I'll be able to express myself and everything I will be seeing and/or experiencing clearly and those reading will enjoy!
~Mamie




Our honeymoon began with an 11:45pm flight out of Fort Lauderdale, direct to San Pedro Sula, Honduras. A short flight (in which we were asked to sit alone in the emergency exit seats due to us being the only English speaking passengers… not sure how we would have helped 100+ Spanish speakers in an emergency, but we liked the bigger seats and additional room to lay down, so no complaints) later we landed in San Pedro Sula at 1:15am central time and experienced the BEST customs experience ever. Short and quick. Once we grabbed our luggage and they scanned it, we found our hotel cab driver holding a sign with our names and off we go. We stayed two nights at Casa Del Arbol in the city center and it was the perfect location. The hotel ... read more

Europe » Spain » District of Madrid » Madrid August 22nd 2013

In less than 48 hours we'll be on a direct flight from MIA to Madrid, Spain! In order to familiarize myself with myself with blogging on here again, I'm just posting our 10 day itinerary. On Saturday at 7:40am, we will be landing in Madrid! From there we'll stay 3 nights and enjoy the city sites and a wine and tapas city tour is on our agenda. Tuesday we will depart Madrid on one of their super quick trains and head to Valencia where we'll be staying another three nights. On Wednesday we'll get up bright and early and head to Bunol for the main attraction of our trip.... La Tomatina! Tomatoes will be flying and we'll walk away with tomatoes in parts unknown! Super excited for that portion of our trip. On Friday we'll hop ... read more

South America » Colombia » Barranquilla February 18th 2012

After trying to figure out for days how we were going to get up the coast from Cartagena to Barranquilla, we finally lucked out today and ran into Valentin!! Valentin is the nicest cab driver we experienced in Cartagena and was on the street as we exited car rental places because we were getting desparate in finding transportation to the city of Barranquilla where the 2nd largest carnaval in South America (only behind Rio de Janeiro in Brazil) was taking place! Valentin spoke slightly more English than Greg and I's Spanish and offered us a great deal (only 400 Mil pesos! $240 USD) to take us, show us around, and bring us back. SO WORTH IT! We picked up some cervesas for the ride (because that is legal here), and headed north up the coast. After ... read more
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South America » Colombia » Quindío » Armenia February 14th 2012

Today we left La Tata and were taken on the Jeep Willy around town to pick up our life jackets and our lunch (that was made at one of the locals homes) and down into the valley to the Rio la Vieja (River of Old Women.. not Carrie and I). The raft was made completely from bamboo and we found out later that after the 17km trip down the river, they take the raft completely apart and load it into a truck to get it back to it's starting point. The raft we were on had two benches, but another held 3 benches and another group got on that one. We had two guides/people who used large bamboo sticks to make us go in the correct direction and not run into any rocks or trees. One ... read more
Waterfall
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South America » Colombia » Quindío » Salento February 13th 2012

After the coffee farm tour, our awesome driver Orley met us at the hotel to drive us for the day to Valle de Cocora and Salento. Both of these towns are set amid gorgeous green mountains in the coffee zone. We first visited the Valle de Cocora that is the home of a ton of "palma de cera" (wax palm), that is the largest palm in the world (up to 60 meters tall) and is also Colombia's national tree. The views in the valley were breathtaking and the people were kind and helpful throughout. We enjoyed an excellent trucha (trout) lunch at Bosques de Cocora Donde Juan B. We also tried their speciality cinnamin drink -Canelazo. YUM! We ventured down the opening path of the Reserva Natural Acaime and saw the trout farm that our delish ... read more
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South America » Colombia » Quindío » Armenia February 13th 2012

Today we hopped on a Jeep Willy. We learned that the coffee farms are really dependent on these vehicles to travel within their farms. They used to have to travel by foot or on a horse, but now they can access the land much quicker. The Willys can hold a few tons of weight (coffee) and they even have parades during certain times of the year where they show off the Willy's by loading them down in the back with weights and they go up on two wheels and drive. The hotel La Tata is part of this really large coffee farm in the area, so one of the main coffee people- Juan Pablo, who has a degree in horticulture and gave us (well, told Jose, then Jose translated as best he could to the gringos) ... read more
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South America » Colombia » Quindío » Armenia February 12th 2012

Today we hopped on a bus, similar to a Greyhound bus, and headed over and through the mountains to the Coffee Zone (Zona Cafetera, or Coffee Axle) where the region produces the most of Colombia's coffee crop. The people here are fantastic as we were expecting to catch a 11:45am bus, but when we arrived at the station, Elias (Jose's family) found a bus that left at 10:30, and the driver stood there waiting on us even though it was 10:32am. The views were, once again, stunning, and mountain sides hold coffee plants galore, all in perfect lines to make the picking easier. We were so high up, I felt like we were really close to the clouds. We also witnessed 3 kids, not older than 13-14, hop on the back of a semi truck for ... read more
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South America » Colombia » Medellin February 11th 2012

Day 2 in Colombia and our final day in Medellin means cramming everything in under 12 hours. We were advised by a local to take the Turibus tour that also provided English speaking tour guides. That allowed Jose to not have to translate for the most part. There were 15 others on the bus and the tour guide spoke in Spanish for 20 minutes then condensed what he just said to 4 sentences of English. :) It was enough, though and he was nice and friendly to us. They did, however, have USA music playing on the radio and we got a little Vanilla Ice and Ice Ice Baby. :) We stopped a various places during the Turibus. In Downtown Medellin, there was a plaza that had huge figures/statues by the artist Fernando Botero. We also ... read more
Medellin

South America » Colombia » Medellin » Guatape February 10th 2012

Hola! We made it to Medellin, Colombia! It was a direct flight out of FLL to Medellin via Spirit Air. Customs was very easy and painless to get through. We stopped to exchange money for the cab ride to the hotel and were excited to learn that we were charged less than a $1 for the fees. Colombia uses the Colombian peso and currently we get approx 1800 pesos for $1 USD. The cab ride took us down the mountain into the city of Medellin. The views were beautiful and full of red brick buildings thoughout the city. The experience of riding in a cab was very scary and interesting. Dogs roamed freely and knew how to evade the vehicles. Motorcyclists swerved in and out of traffic and the cars were constantly watching their side view ... read more
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Europe » Ireland » County Kilkenny » Kilkenny March 15th 2011

Today was our last day of traveling the island. Kinda sad and kinda happy not to be in a car for 4-6 hours a day.... Mixed emotions, but we've seen a lot and have had a great trip, so I'm mostly happy. Today we left Limerick and traveled to the southeast of Ireland and visited Ireland's oldest city, Waterford, home of Waterford Crystal. :) Our GPS is not the most reliable and doesn't recognize the newer, major hwys so we've had a bit of trouble these past few days deciding whether to listen to the GPS lady or go with the signs. Just an FYI... follow the signs. :) We make it to the city centre of Waterford and go in the Waterford Crystal store. The next tour isn't for an hour or so and we ... read more
Ms. GPS
Waterford Crystal
The inside of Waterford Crystal




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