Blowhole at the waterfront of Xcaret Park near Playa del Carmen, Mexico.
Where are Kevin and Ruth now? Playa del Carmen, Mexico.

Where are Kevin and Ruth going next? Toluca on December 24th!

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

Booked!

A steady rain fell throughout the day yesterday. Great for our grass, and great for the local farmers, many of whom had just finished seeding. And we had just had a fire ban instituted, so there's no reason that won't be removed. Raining again today, but it's supposed to clear up by Wednesday morning.

We don't take many days off while we're here at the park. There's always something that needs doing. But when it rains like that, it's an indoor kind of a day!

Said goodbye to our friends Phil and Wendy who left to go back to Moose Jaw. They didn't have a real long way to go, but the gravel roads out of here would sure be muddy!

Ruth baked some bread, and brought a few more things in from the motorhome and cleaned the motorhome fridge and put the racks back in. And she did some sewing repairs on a few clothing items.

Meanwhile I had told you about the possibility of booking a flight to Romania, so I got on the phone with a Flight Center travel agency where a good friend of our daughter's works.

For some reason, this flight wasn't available online at the $660 price that Google Flight Search had said. The best price I could find online was $685, and the flight times weren't as good.

I had all the routing codes and everything ready for the agent, and even then, the best price she could come up with was $674...it was only $14 higher, so we booked it anyhow! No idea where Google was coming up with the $660.

So, on November the 1st, we fly from Ottawa to Montreal, then Montreal to Zurich, Switzerland, then Zurich to Bucharest, Romania.

We'll be away for six weeks, and return December 15th.

Here's a map that shows where we fly into, and the general area...


Some of our time is going to be spent in the tiny country of Moldova (smaller than South Korea, and less than half the size of the state of Kansas). It is listed as one of the ten least visited countries in the world! 

But, there are some attractions in Moldova. The country has the largest wine cellar in the world. It's 55 kms (33 miles) of underground tunnels and you actually drive your car down there. In the tunnels are two million (yes, 2,000,000) bottles of wine!

And, we're going to visit the breakaway republic Transnistria, the most Russian place that you can visit outside of Russia.

And, we're possibly going to visit Istanbul, Bulgaria, and Serbia.

We're excited!

Here's some pics from our walk around the park yesterday evening when the rain stopped for a while...

Great horned owl youngster.

This rabbit sat perfectly still, acting like nobody could see him if he didn't move!

Lots of robins building their nests.

And our resident moose is still hanging around!

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Fantastic deal on a 1,000 watt pure sine wave inverter. Even comes with the remote!


And in Canada, a great deal on a small wheeled suitcase. Hard to go wrong at this price...



21 comments:

  1. Now that's an adventure! Say 'Hey' to Dracula from us.
    Enjoy the rain.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, it should be a great adventure. :-) Not sure that we will make it very far into Romania on this particular trip. We unfortunately won't have enough time because of the Schengen Visa rules and knowing that we will be spending 2 to 2 1/2 months in Spain and France in January and February. We will make a separate visit to Romania some other time where we can really explore it properly.

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  2. We loved Romania!!! Especially Transylvania. It's a beautiful place with lovely people.
    We have translated some of our blogposts from Eastern Europe into English. You can find them on www.twodanesontour.com if you scroll down a little bit. (They are marked with (English) so you don't have to go trough all the Danish blogposts as well).

    If you have any questions you are more than welcome to find us on Facebook: Two Danes On Tour

    Happy travels
    Anne Marie and Rasmus
    Two Danes On Tour

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    Replies
    1. Thank you very much for directing us to your blog and the posts on Romania. Looks like you had a wonderful time. Unfortunately on this particular trip we will be spending very little time in Romania itself as it follows the Schengen Visa rules and we know that we will be spending at least two months in Spain and France in January and February and we are only allowed three months out of six months in any of the European countries that follow this rule. We definitely will spend a few days in Bucharest though. Romania is definitely on our list of countries to visit proper but it will just have to wait for another time.

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  3. Do you suppose that moose was displaced by the wildfires?

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    Replies
    1. No, we don't think it was displaced by the wildfires because we think it may have been here since last fall. We did see one wander though the campground one evening last September. It isn't unknown to see moose in the area according to the locals who have seen moose in this part of Saskatchewan before. I am sure she will quickly hightail it into the hills once the campground starts to fill up.

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  4. Sounds like the perfect beginning to an entire adventure filled winter.

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    1. Yes, we think it will be! We are definitely looking forward to it especially because we know how much we enjoyed our time in the Czech Republic and Slovakia back in 2012 and think this will be similar.

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  5. Wow! A great destination. This will make for very interesting reading.

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    Replies
    1. We think so too! Not many people explore this part of the world so we are looking forward to showing people what life is like there.

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  6. If you make it to Transylvania, be sure to visit Dracula's Castle (there really is one).

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    Replies
    1. Unfortunately on this trip I don't think we will be making it outside of Bucharest for the reasons stated in the replies to the comments above. As much as we would love to go and visit it (yes, we knew that there was a real Dracula's castle which is Bran Castle) but will just have to wait until we make a return visit to Romania when we will have time to explore it properly.

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  7. On to the next adventure. Sounds like a great one coming up in the Fall.

    I love the photo of the Great horned owl.

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    Replies
    1. Yes, the planning has started. Planning is almost as fun as the journey itself. ;-)

      Thank you Paul and Marsh, we love our great horned owls. We enjoy looking at them each day, just watching them grow and boy they sure grow fast!

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  8. Wow, that sounds great! Nice to have some plans firmed up, now you can spend your free time researching (I know you do it like I do it) the trip.

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    Replies
    1. Kevin wastes no time finding somewhere to travel it seems! ;-) Yes, the planning begins and that is a lot of fun too. We never have things too organized but we do like to have an idea of what places to look for in the way of accommodations and also where some good hiking is and of course what interesting places there are there in the way of sightseeing and then sort of plan around that.

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  9. We have two good friends we worked with at Bryce who are from Muldova. Perhaps we can get some tips!

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    1. Cool! If you get some good tips then by all means pass them along. :-)

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  10. The largest wine cellar puts it on our list of places to visit:)

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    Replies
    1. I think that's what sold us on visiting Moldova on this trip! ;-)

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  11. Nope hadn't hear of it before! I actually had to look it up, so now I know where it is. :-)

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