La Festival Nacional de la Guabina y el Tiple

The biggest week in Vélez takes place in early August when the Feria de la Guabina y el Tiple comes to town and it seems the population triples almost overnight. The festivities kicked off on Tuesday morning at 5am with bottle rockets and alborada, a very loud band that marches the streets for an hour! When we asked why so early, they said it's for the drunk people, which was confusing for us, but made sense later in the week. It seemed each day had a different kind of desfile (parade). The three big ones were the horses on Friday, Chicha on Saturday and Flowers on Sunday. The children pictures here are wearing the traditional traje of Vélez.

Friday featured 33 Parranda Veleña, a parade of horses and riders. They assembled at the edge of town at 1pm, and the first ones reached the square at 5. We watched for a couple hours and they still weren't finished when we left for dinner. It was like no parade I've seen before. It was very slow. They would stop for long periods of time, sometimes to chat with spectators, riding back and forth along the route, some with a beer in one hand, reins in the other. It looked a lot like bumper cars on horses. Sometimes the horses would bang into others and often end up bunched up in a tight group. By the end the riders had been at it for a good 8 hours. 

The horses were doing a special maneuver, a very fast footed trot, while moving forward slowly and somewhat sideways. It looked pretty intense.They were obviously trained well. No separation between horses and spectators, made for some risky situations, and the next day I met a man who was injured by a horse during the parade. It's avoidable by keeping your distance, but it's also more fun to be right in front!

For Saturday's parade, EVERYONE was wearing a sombrero and traje, traditional clothing for this area, so it was hard to distinguish between the parade and spectators. Each parade group, unified with a colored ribbon on their hat came through distributing chicha, a traditional fermented drink made with corn, but alternatives include pineapple, rice, and other fruits. They sometimes had multiple 5 gallon jugs on wagons! They also handed out baked corn kernels and chicharon. This is just the beginning section, a sea of hats. This continues past me at least the same distance, then turns down another street leading to the square. Just a ton of people! Below is our friend, Nora, getting a chicha refill.

Our friends, Alejandro and Claudia, came prepared with their own chicha to share and calabazas, little cups worn as a necklace to conveniently drink what is shared. They also brought piquete, a traditional food basket containing cooked potatoes, yucca, chorizo, wrapped in banana leaves to keep warm. 

The Desfile de Los Flores (flower parade) on Sunday was my favorite. Check out this teeny tiny, traje-wearing dog! 

Many of the floats and decorations were bird related, which i really enjoyed.

Bands played traditional instruments including a jawbone (far left) and dancers performed while balancing bowls of chicha on their heads.

Vélez is known for their bocadillos (guava candies), so I thought this float was super clever.

After the floats, the horses again joined the parade, decorated with flowers. This time riders were wearing trajes and the women had their dresses turned around so the hand stitched panel was displayed over the end of the horse.

Journey hopped on when she spotted her favorite horse again at the end of the parade. 

At night the streets filled with food and game vendors. Pictured below is lechona, a deboned pig 

that has been slow roasted and stuffed with rice, pork and peas.

The stage hosted entertainment throughout the day, competitions and displays in song, including Guabinas, dance, and coplas, and at night big name performers played all through the night until 5am! Now you see why the Alborada starts at 5am, leading the drunk people away from the square! It's truly a nonstop event over the weekend! Saturday night featured a ton of fireworks around 11pm, which Journey and I watched from our apartment, two blocks from the square.

We really enjoyed our first feria experience in Vélez, but it was also nice when Vélez returned back to the quiet, little, tranquilo town it normally is. This is absolutely an amazing feria to experience! 

A Look Back at Our Years of Fulltime RVing and Worldschooling {A collection of our 'Year in Review' posts}

 Some of my favorite posts to read are the annual reviews. I decided to make it easy and put all of them here for quick reference. While living in the RV for the first five years, I wrote a recap of the previous year on our nomadiversary in April, but I later switched to calendar year. Click on the year to read.

2014: Began Fulltime RVing. 22 States, 33 state & national parks 

2015: 12 states, Hawaii, Japan, 22 national parks, Began birding, work-camping at a National Wildlife Refuge 

2016: Drive to Alaska for the summer. camp hosting. 6 new states and 3 provinces of Canada (Yukon, British Columbia, Alberta). 13 national parks 

2017: East Coast plus New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, Downsized from 37ft to 16ft RV! 13 new states, 37 national park sites, first birding festival. Birding the Everglades.

2018: 2 new states, Established a home base, Road trip to Vegas, hosted exchange students, training trip to Kenya with ITEC, Uganda to visit friends, Birding Colombia 

2019: Five months in Ecuador, visit with Waodani in the Amazon Jungle, Birding Ecuador. Colombia, Trip to Ohio, Tennessee 

2020: The good, bad and ugly year. The Keys

2021: Florida Keys. Charleston, South Carolina. Ohio

2022: Four month RV roadtrip out West. Our 50th state together! North Dakota. Minnesota

2023: Three months in South America: Peru, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay. Tunisia. 

2024: Southeast Asia: A month in Thailand and a month exploring Cambodia, Vietnam and Taiwan.  Turning Teenagers and flying airplanes.

2024 Year in Review

The highlight of 2024 was spending a couple of months exploring Southeast Asia together. We toured ancient temples, spent time with monks learning about their culture and practices, watched monkeys frolicking with their babies, fed elephants, ate a scorpion, kayaked thru caves and bioluminescent water under a starry sky. We trekked thru terraced rice patties, around water buffalo, to waterfalls and to mountain peaks. In Hanoi we attended the famous water puppet theater, dined while a train passed just inches from our feet, and walked thru the infamous prison that held many Americans during the Vietnam War. We boarded fourteen flights, rode tuk-tuks, songthaews, motorcycles, trains, sleeper buses and a cyclo. We swam in the Andaman Sea, Lan Ha Bay and put our feet in the East China Sea. We learned words and phrases in 4 new languages - Thai, Vietnamese, Khmer, and Mandarin. 

While in Vietnam Journey made pottery for the first time. She also had her first babysitting job and got braces. They both went to their first sleep-away summer camp and also stayed at "Camp Tami". (Actually the whole family ended up at Camp Tami later in the year). The three of us joined our church choir. We attended our first ballet, in which Journey's friend, Brooklyn, danced. I began offering Rapid Resolution sessions to help people dealing with thoughts/emotions/reactions that haven't been serving them. 

Back at home Asher and Journey celebrated becoming teenagers (13!) with a beach vacation and ice skating thanks to Meema and her friend, Sandy. 

We helped run a booth at the Sun N Fun Aerospace Expo where the airshow really caught Journey's attention, particularly the aerobatic pilots. We took the opportunity to have her sit in a number of small planes and ask the pilots lots of questions. We toured other aircraft including one of the few Air Force planes that is outfitted with skies for landing in the snowy landscape of Antarctica! It's outfitted with rockets on each side to propel it forward to take off from the ice! 

The pilots told Journey about the Young Eagles program which pairs volunteer pilots with children to take them on their first flight with the hopes of sparking an interest in aviation; whether it be flying, mechanics or air traffic control. Both Journey and Asher went on two flights with the Young Eagles program and even got to fly the plane once they were at a cruising altitude! Since then, Asher has been considering the possibility of a future in the Air Force. 

Journey attended her first book club. It was an adult group which read Heaven is for Real. She and I attended together and the other participants were extremely impressed with her contributions to the conversation. She then read The Book Thief for another club. This book full of figurative language was a huge challenge for my very literal Journey, but she powered thru and it stretched her. This coupled with a reading challenge at our local library for the month of April, inspired her to set an ambitious goal for reading for 2024, and on December 31st she finished her 101st book! Asher also read a ton for the April contest. One of the books he really dug into was about the search for the lost Ark of the Covenant.

We continue to love the offerings at our local library. The monthly card making class is fun and Journey and I took some sketching and art classes. 

Asher made his first sale on eBay. He discovered eBay when researching ways to fill in gaps of his coin collection. He's mostly been focused on pennies. He was learning from the local coin dealer who gladly took him under his wing and would spend a good hour with us each visit. Unfortunately the building where the coin shop was located closed unexpectedly, and we lost contact with him. 

My friend Jim heard of Asher's interest and sold his penny collection to Asher. That generous act alone filled more than 50 gaps in his collection, and Jim threw in a few wildcards, other types of coins that Asher really loves. 

He regularly makes a trip to our bank to buy rolls of coins to search. One day we asked at a new bank for coins. The teller said they normally only do that for account holders, but made an exception for him. He hit the jackpot! Found a 1909, steel, wheat cents, and proofs in those rolls! He researched how to open an account and did just that to have access to get more coins from them. He is still doing some metal detecting too.

Journey learned how to crochet and joined a weekly yarn club at the library. It's all retired women who have warmly welcomed her into the group, shared their supplies and have taught her many things. 

She started making her own jewelry, mostly beaded bracelets, but also earrings using different materials. She and Asher rented a vendor table at a Saturday market to sell their creations, plus advertise for coins to purchase. He had made some items with Perler Beads. Unfortunately it was not a popular time for the market. Very few people attended and they ended the day with zero sales. That's how business goes sometimes. 

Asher has been cooking more this year. He now makes his own pizza dough, and cinnamon rolls, plus when you he blueberry farm opened, he began making homemade blueberry pies for us!

Caught up with Courtney and DB in Sarasota. Chrissy, Shaun and Wade invited us to stay with them in Hilton Head, SC. We enjoyed time connecting and exploring the area and beach. Spent a couple days with the Israelis, Fugates and the Obriens. 

We rented an RV in the Keys to spend time lobstering, snorkeling and fishing. Asher and I caught fish. Asher kept four large Crevelle Jacks, brought them home filleted them and cooked them over an open fire.

The biggest surprise of the year was when A&J's best friend, Zach, who lives in Michigan, flew down to spend a week with us for his birthday! We took our kids to Universal for the day and Daddy "went to get the truck", and returned with Zach! 

Oh, speaking of Universal, we ended up getting military season passes which were only slightly more than the cost of one day! We had never been to Universal before and the Gebbias live right next to it. We visited them about four times over the year which was a great way to spend time with them!

Thanks to a house swap with friends, we enjoyed a weekend at Crystal River, fishing and kayaking from their house and scalloping for the first time. Asher cleaned and cooked the scallops for us. We definitely ended up with the better end of the deal, considering the swap was for our 12ft overlanding trailer! 

Journey started volunteering with a local ranch, a nonprofit that offers horseback riding to children with special challenges. She leads the horse and has received compliments and glowing feedback from the owner.

Daddy planned and led a camping trip for the men from church. It was a success and will be an annual event. He and Asher also participated again this year in the teen's Fish N Float Campout.

Journey took her first solo trip away, when Josie and Alan invited her to spend spring break with them and their niece in Sarasota. They worked on art projects and visited an animal sanctuary where they fed a bear and a white tiger.

Daddy and I walked thru El Jem, the best preserved Roman collesium, in Tunisia. Unfortunately the flight home caused barotrauma in my good ear! My hearing was impacted, but thankfully it returned within a few weeks. I now have a regimen of meds and techniques to hopefully prevent it on future flights, as the damage can be permanent.

This year I spent time birding with the Village Birders at St Marks NWR and Fort DeSoto. I also took a trip to Miami with Liz, where we may have had to be rescued by Cor. Tom held a party for our local birders where we could present a dozen photos we took during the year. Journey came with me and presented her photography to the group.

Gio finally left after six years of living with us. It ended like a bad thriller film, complete with deeply personal threats from him, and finally his insistence on being evicted. The stolen items and significant damage he left behind were an extra insult to extraordinary kindness we'd extended over our nearly 20 year friendship. 

Building has begun on our garage/nest. It'll take awhile to finish, but Daddy is excited about having his own gym and workshop!

Dad brought Helen to visit. I was excited to finally show her our home and property. They arrived right as our new shop was going up and helped me plant a new magnolia tree in front of it. I took them to the recharge park and SSSP. 

Volunteered for the Back to school backpack giveaway event, and the kids finally were old enough to volunteer for Night to Shine with me! They served as paparazzi. Journey also volunteered for KidzXP. The kids and I spent time helping a family at our church who is going thru a challenging time, with cleaning, babysitting and moving. We also served at church for the Foster parents date night. 

After a particularly brutal hurricane season for the Gulf Coast of Florida, we spent a day clearing out homes and a church that were flooded to 4ft.

We attended something called the "Tent of Miracles" where our kids got to see first hand what a wolf in sheep's clothing looks like. As we walked out we asked them what his message was about. Money, they said. Was he promising things that aren't in the Bible and saying God said them? Yes. Did he even one time in the two and a half hours ever mention the gospel? No! This is why we must know the Bible and measure everything someone says against it. 

I found out I have food allergies and sensitivities - eggs, wheat, dairy, nuts, beans... Man, oh man, so here is where my food challenges begin.