The library at the San Francisco Monastery and Church. Photo by That Other Guy.

The Pirámide de Agua in the Parque de la Reserva. Photo by Javi270270.

This is the Cerro San Cristóbal. Now that’s a lot of houses, almost on top of each other. Photo taken by anaisanais.

Larcomar is an upscale shopping center in the Miraflores area of Lima. Pictured here with the Telmex headquarters and a Marriot hotel as a backdrop. Photo by Hazelbrae.

Plaza San Martín by night. Photo also by Hazelbrae.

Some colorful clothing. Photo by TravelingMan.

And if you haven’t had enough, you can browse Flickr’s Lima, Peru Photo pool, or take a satellite tour below.

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Now, can anyone tell me how they sing Happy Birthady or if they have a song they sing at birthday parties in Perú?

The only thing I don’t like about this video is that the interviews in Spanish with the locals are hard to hear.

The internet has a lot going for it. You can find lots of things to help you in your studies. Video, audio, text, and many other resources can help you learn Spanish. You can find information for when you’re going to travel to another country to practice your language skills. But a word of warning is in order. Don’t believe everything you read on the net. Or at least double-check with some other sources.

Here’s some visit Barcelona site that I’d like to use as an example, because it is spreading misinformation about what city is the capital of Spain, which would probably be quite offensive or amusing to madrileños.

Barcelona is presently the capital of Spain, and is the 2nd-biggest city in the country.

Humorously, on their Madrid page, they also say (truthfully):

More than 3 million people live in Madrid, the capital of Spain.

But the same site has some of its facts right– they speak a lot of Catalán in Barcelona, and there are also a lot of municipal parks there– something even I have mentioned before.

So a word to the wise- Leverage the internet to help you learn, but be skeptical about everything you see.

Photo by jpl3k on Flickr.

When I saw this Spanish immersion school website yesterday, I couldn’t help but remember the two months I spent in Costa Rica about ten years ago. The grainy pictures on there could have been pulled straight from my memory archives. That flashback– combined with a promise I made to post more about different Spanish-speaking places where you can study Spanish and have fun at the same time– prompted me to start writing. This immersion school site, called Learn Spanish and Surf (go ahead– check out the surfing part of your studies), is typical of the laid-back fun-loving Costa Rican lifestyle, which can be summed up with the Tico’s trademark greeting Pura Vida. The best I can translate that, is if someone asks how you are– Hey what’s up?– you answer “Life is awesome!”

Some of my best memories are the food. I’d eat a plateful of french fries slathered in mayonnaise, ketchup and melted cheese. I still remember the tangy taste of a 4 x 4– a hamburger piled high with slightly fermented, shredded cabbage. The gallo pinto is a typical (at least that’s what they tell tourists) breakfast dish that consists of fried rice peppered with whole black beans, topped with a sunny-side-up fried egg.

Walking into Grecia, Alajuela, you’ll see a huge red cathedral that towers over the town square. It’s quite an impressive and imposing structure, that would be even more imposing if you didn’t know it is made of sheets of steel. That’s right, no metre-thick stone walls. The outer skin of this thing is made of steel sheets imported from– if memory serves me– England in the 18th century.

If you go out of Grecia and head north, you’ll soon enter into real, live jungle, with monkeys swinging in the trees and lots of eyes belonging to unidentified animals staring at you from under the huge tropical leaves. On one outing we rented a wooden boat outfitted with a motor and went where there are no roads. We went downstream on a wide, deep, slow-moving muddy river. For lunch I had iguana meat, which, like any meat you aren’t familiar with, predictably tasted like chicken.

The memories blur. Gardens of bushes carved into the shape of animals. A dairy farm on top of a mountain so high that there was still neblina at mediodía. Walking in a park at dusk, among sentinel-like trees whose trunks are painted white. The lights, tastes, colors and even the smell of concentrated vehicle exhaust that won’t dissipate because the cars’ catalytic converters haven’t worked since 1988. The beat-up green Willys Jeep from about 1940 that I drove a couple of times. I had a great time, learned how to think pura vida, and went from second-year Spanish to communicative fluency. My only regret is I don’t have 3GB of digital photos to prove it all.

When you’re traveling out of the country– in some Spanish-speaking country no doubt– you probably use a credit card. I know I do. Nobody these days carries large wads of cash, and somehow traveller’s cheques are not quite as convenient as plastic, especially for things like making phone reservations.

But if you do use your credit card, use it sparingly. Most credit card companies add a surcharge of about 2% for the privilege of making a purchase in a foreign country. If you add this to Visa and Mastercard’s 1% “currency conversion” charge, you’re out $3 for every $100 you spend. Although this might not sound like a big deal, it can add up, and it’ll come as a surprise if you aren’t expecting it.

If you do a lot of foreign travelling, you probably want to find a bank or credit card issuer that doesn’t charge extra for out-of-country purchases, leaving you only with the 1% currency conversion fee.

Just thought I’d let you know so you won’t be surprised like I was.

But there’s another thing for certain.

You’ll take a lot of things with you, only to cart them back home unused.

At least that’s what usually happens to me.

A friend of a friend visited not long ago and exemplified this. She only had two suitcases, but they were the big ones. And stuffed full of all the necessities of life, which we can get by without, and even are often happier without.

I am committed to taking only One Bag next time I travel.

If I take more clothes than I end up using, I’m peeved with myself. But if I didn’t bring something that I did need, it’s an opportunity to buy something new, maybe even something representative of the area I’m visiting.

I don’t need any valuable jewelry.

I don’t need any books to read. I want to do things, not sit in a hotel and read, I can do that at home. Ok, maybe I’ll take one small dictionary.

I don’t need the iPod, mini television set, or other electronic wizardry. One camera for a few tasteful shots is a go.

I’ll leave the blowdryer, travel iron, six pairs of shoes, and de-linter home.

What I will bring is the tried and trusted gear that I will use every day. If I forget something, I can buy it along the way.

What do you stand to gain by bringing only One Bag?

• One Bag is more mobile. You can grab it and be on your way in a lot less time than someone with three bags.
• One Bag is more secure. You can keep an eye on it or take it with you easier. It is also a lot less pretentious and doesn’t call attention to itself.
• One Bag will bring you peace of mind. Since you don’t have all your possesions with you, you aren’t worried about losing everything. With One Bag, it’s less likely that you lose it.
• One Bag is more economical. You don’t have to pay to transport, load, unload, store, clean, and insure so many belongings.

What to put in your One Bag?

If you want some help deciding what to put in your bag, try the Universal Packing List. You tell this online utility when and where you’re travelling, what you’ll be doing, and a lot of other information, and it spits out a detailed list of suggested items for you to take. It’s really quite interesting. If you want some more coaching, there’s a site called One Bag that teaches you everything you need to know about the art and science of traveling light.

Whatever you decide to bring with you, consider if you can get by with One Bag. I’m convinced you’ll the happier for it.

I’ll close with this saying that Sosia found for me:

En un largo camino, hasta una paja pesa (on a long journey, even a straw is heavy)

In case my previous reasons to visit Spain weren’t enough, the annual insanity of La Tomatina should be the clincher. This food fight takes place on the last Wednesday of August in Buñol, Valencia, where the small town’s population quadruples and 40,000 people hurl overripe tomatoes at each other until the streets literally fill with tomato stew. The battle is limited to one hour, which is long enough to do away with several truckloads (110 metric tons) of tomatoes. Local businesses and homeowners try to mitigate cleanup time by covering storefronts and homes with plastic sheeting before the event.

Thanks to Aaron Corey for the photos.

Besides these ants, there are some other insects that are commonly eaten in various parts of Mexico.

Escamoles

Escamoles are ant lavae or eggs that are used to prepare different dishes. Seasonal and hard-to-find escamoles can go for as high as $30 to $50 a pound, and can be thought of as similar to caviar. This is on my list of things to do, and the next time I get a chance, I’m going to have to try escamoles.

Chinicuiles

Maguey worms Gusanos de maguey (chinicuiles) are edible caterpillars that live in the maguey and agave plants. They are considered a delicacy and are often eaten raw, toasted or crushed in a spicy red salsa. That spicy red salsa is pretty good by the way.

Chapulines

A chapulín is a big grasshopper. You can eat a handful as a snack or enjoy then combined with other foods. The word chapulín comes from the indigenous náuatl language. Of course, grasshoppers are known as saltamontes or saltones in other areas. Chapulines are toasted similar to chícalas. You can get a little bag of them for about $1.50, so next time you’re in Mexico, you have no excuses.

After all this talk, aren’t you getting hungry?

And if you think you have an aversion to eating insects, think about honey. It’s really just nectar from flowers that bees ingest and regurgitate a couple of times and then store it in a half-digested state. ¿No te encanta la entomofagia?

Oh, that’s right, you do and I do.

But in addition to that, there are other great reasons. I’ll let the following pictures take the place of about 27,000 words.

1

They really light up the Agbar Tower at Glòries in Barcelona.

2

The entrance to Gaudi’s Güell Park in Barcelona, looks like an enchanted place. This is one of about 70 municipal parks in the city.

3

If you’re tired of the parks, take a stroll on Barcelona’s beaches.

4

You might also like the beaches of Cádiz.

5

The Aran Valley in Catalonia looks like a really inviting place.

6

The Mosque or Mezquita in Córdoba has some really colorful pillars and arches.

7

You get to fly into one of the most colorful airports I’ve seen. This is the Barajas International in Madrid.

8

La Peñalara is the highest peak in the mountain chain Sierra de Guadarrama.

9

The Metrópolis building, on Gran Vía.

10

The Puerta Alcalá at the entrance to a park called El Retiro.

11

The Alcazaba, an 8th centruy Moorish fortification stands over a Roman theater in Málaga.

12

The Castillo Gibralfaro, on a hill next to the Alcazaba in Málaga.

13

The harbor at Málaga.

14

A Roman theater in Mérida.

15

The Pyrenees.

16

Roman aqueduct in Segovia.

17

The Puente Alamillo in Sevilla.

18

The Romans sure built a lot of aqueducts and theaters in the Iberian Peninsula. This one’s in Sevilla.

19

City Hall behind a fountain in Valencia.

20

This rounded glass building known as L’Hemisfèric is an Imax theater, Planetarium and Laserium in the Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias in Valencia.

21

La Lonja de la seda, known affectionatly as La Lonja, was built as an oil market and was later used as a silk exchange.

22

A typical narrow street in the old part of town, Valencia.

23

The Aljafería, an 11th century Moorish palace and castle in Zaragoza.

24

La Puerta del Carmen, Zaragoza. Wouldn’t it be interesting to drive down a modern thoroughfare and drive by this?

25

The River Ebro running through Zaragoza. Looks like the setting for a Harry Potter book.

26

A snowy afternoon at Pilar’s square, Zaragoza.

27

Plaza de las catedrales, in Zaragoza.

Picture credit goes to Wikipedia and the volunteers who create it. You can find these pictures by starting at the article about Spain and following links to other articles.

The three cropped pictures shown above are (left to right) (1) The Mexican Stock Exchange building (La bolsa Mexicana de valores); in the original photo you can see the US Embassy on the far left. (2) Mexico City lights at night. (3) Orderly rows of houses in an Ixtapaluca complex of more than 20,000 homes.