The Other Americas

Aside from the United States, there are other places in the Americas where we’ve traveled or would like to travel.

In 2011, we turned in our two weeks of Marriott Vacation Club Palm Beach resort to Interval International. Once we were able to book the exact dates for Africa and picked something for our anniversary, we chose a vacation with the girls. The safest time was to go in late May after they were both out of school. We picked a couple of different options for our exchange, and Puerto Vallarta was the first one to hit. Madeline and I had been there once before on a cruise, and we remembered how beautiful it was, so we hopped on it right away.

In 2012, we spent a week in Aruba at one of the Marriott Vacation Club resorts. The best part about this vacation was that we met Peter and Paula Barnett and became instant friends with them.

In 2015, we spent a week in Costa Rica on a Marriott Vacation Club guided tour and in 2018, we went to Atlantis for Vistana Vacation Club.

The Other Americas

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We did a couple of tours on this trip, like a tour to De Palm Island, a jeep tour to Natural Pool, and another to Baby Beach. When we weren’t on a little tour, we were spending a lot of time at the resort pool and lazy river. Of course, the best part of Aruba was meeting our friends Peter and Paula.

Aruba: 03/07/12—03/14/12

Our trip started off a little rocky when we were bombarded by timeshare salespeople at the airport, but then we settled in. Our resort was north of the city, but we took a taxi into town one day and did a bus tour another. What we discovered was the city was virtually dead. Only one cruise ship landed a week since it was the low season, and because of the recent violence in Mexico, tourists seemed to stay away altogether. That enabled us to receive more personal attention.

Puerto Vallarta: 05/28/11—06/04/11

The middle part of our tour was in Arenal. The resort here was phenomenal, as it had a set of pools fed from a hot spring and every room consisted of a duplex that faced the volcano. This volcano was extremely active just five years ago, and you could still see steam coming out of the crater after a night’s rain. We went on a little hanging bridge tour, where we walked a couple miles through a thick forest. We also saw a toucan, which was cool.

Costa Rica: 02/27/15—03/06/15

This was the shortest foreign visit I ever took. I flew overnight and landed in Buenos Aires in time for lunch, a long meeting, and dinner before I went to bed. The next morning, I took the ferry over to Colonia, Uruguay for another meeting. I returned and was back off of the continent less than 36 hours after I landed. I did get to enjoy my first Brazilian Churrascaria, though.

Argentina: 06/12/00—06/13/00

I had been to Montreal a few times on business and really liked the city and its people. Madeline had never been to Canada, though, so we went for a long weekend. We explored Montreal and went up into Quebec City, and we again thoroughly enjoyed our time in the area.

Quebec: 06/27/97—06/30/97

This was a short business trip for me, but I was able to spend an extra couple days checking out San Juan and area. The thing was, Hurricane Hortense hit Puerto Rico 3 days before I landed, and power was out at the hotel and throughout the city. I saw the damage firsthand when I drove around the island a little bit.

Puerto Rico: 09/13/96—09/15/96