When I told friends that I was headed on a wine and bike tour of the California wine valleys over Christmas, they looked at me with much concern. ‘Careful not to drunk-bike!’ a number of them warned. I was a little concerned myself. Not because of the drunk-biking, I figured we’d be wine tasting, not guzzling. What worried me was the actual cycling. In the welcome package Dan and I received from the tour company, Backroads, we read that the ‘basic’ route options were around 30 to 50 miles of riding a day (50 to 80 km). I’m a commuter cyclist, not a spandex-clad speedster. I was worried I’d look pretty foolish alongside the others in our group. We prepared ourselves, at least superficially, by making an expensive trip to Mountain Equipment Co-op to get all the cycling gear, at least we would look the part.

When we arrived in Napa Valley and met our Backroads leaders, Kelly and Liz, I was immediately reassured. They loved the word ‘options’ and repeated this several times over the 6 day trip. If you didn’t want to ride one afternoon, there was always the option to hop on the backroads bus and get a ‘bump’ up a hill or back to the hotel-spa. That choice sounded especially good to me on Day 2 when we were completely drenched by a record-setting rainfall while cycling through what felt like interminable rolling pastures of farmland. I could have sworn the horses and cows looking on were sharing a quiet chuckle. I fell way behind Dan and his parents on the last 6 miles of that ride. I wasn’t even sure I was going the right way. I made up this little ditty to distract me from my sore, wet and aching body.

The weather improved after that. We didn’t get any more rain but the sun remained hidden behind thick clouds. Isn’t California supposed to be warm all year round? To distract us from our frozen toes and fingers, we were treated to lush rolling hills of vineyards, a sparkling Lake Hennessy (where we took a break from biking to walk the slack line for a while) and the sacred redwood forest.

Photo credit: Liz Gauthier

Photo credit: Liz Gauthier

Every few miles there was another winery to check out, more than our palates could handle. I thought I would become a wine expert by the end of the trip but instead I became more confused. What I liked, others didn’t and what they liked, I could barely swallow. What I did learn is that everyone’s taste for wine is different and even when a wine is very highly rated or expensive that may mean nothing to your particular palate. I found out that I don’t care much for peppery wines, or what I refer to as the ‘burning tongue’ wines. I like the smoother, mellower wines that have a caramel or vanilla flavour.

Photo credit: Liz Gauthier

Beyond biking and wine-tasting, the Backroads trips are also about the fabulous hotels, gourmet food and spa treatments. I don’t think I have felt so pampered in one week in my life. I won’t go through them all but a highlight was definitely the Roman Bathing Ritual at the first hotel, the Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn, which involved submersing our aching bodies in pools of different temperatures, a eucalyptus steam room and dry heat sauna, followed by peppermint tea and dehydrated veggie chips by the fireplace in the ‘relaxation room’. At the Mission’s Michelin starred restaurant Santé, I had my first taste of black truffle mushroom. A simple slice garnished my Grown-Up Mac and Cheese appetizer. However, I was mildly confused at all the hype as I could hardly taste the mushroom!

The Madrona Manor was another gem, this 1881 Victorian mansion was so heavily decorated for Christmas I thought it would collapse under the weight of so many baubles.

I also fell in love with the views of Bodega Bay from our balcony at the Bodega Bay Lodge. The ocean looked appealing but a group of Californians we met in the hot tub warned us that the area, known as the Red Triangle, plays host to 38% of great white shark attacks. (Those Californians went on to steal our bathrobes with our room keys tucked inside. This resulted in us making a shivering wet phone call to the front desk where we proceeded to mix up our room number and get new keys made for Dan’s parents’ room rather than our own!).

Watch out for the great whites

Overall, it was a fabulous trip. All the biking made the gorging on incredible food feel guiltless. After 50 km of ‘rollers’ as they liked to call the terrain, we could easily tell ourselves ‘we earned it’.

The Gang

Dan convinced me that our trip wouldn’t be complete without a little scuba diving. Being a bit of a fish myself, it was an easy sell. We had heard that Taganga, a small coastal town on the Caribbean coast near Santa Marta, Colombia, was one of the cheapest places in the world to get certified to scuba. I like cheap, but I also like safe, and after reading some accounts on the internet about people who had gone diving with one of the discount scuba schools in Taganga, I was feeling queasy. Dan assured me that we would be smart and safe and not just go with the cheapest offer.

Despite the heat and the temptingly cool ocean, we spent our first day in Taganga researching. We visited the top three scuba schools in town: Poseidon, Aquantis and Octopus. Poseidon had the priciest package but they also had the nicest looking facility and equipment, a good safety record, offered accommodations included in the price of the course and the students who we met in the office seemed really enthusiastic. Aquantis was a close second but didn’t offer the included accommodations, and Octopus was by far the cheapest but also seemed to be the most disorganized of the bunch.

We moved into the Poseidon apartment later that day and met our teacher, Jimmy, a smiley Colombian who could barely speak English. It’s hard for me to believe now that my Spanish is dwindling, but we were instructed for our Open Water Diver certification almost entirely in Spanish! Dan and I spent the rest of that day with our new manuals, trying to cram as much info into our heads as possible. It had been almost 5 months since I’d studied for anything and I was out of practice. It probably didn’t help that we were studying in hammocks and drinking rum and cokes to “stimulate” our brain cells.

My first impression of scuba diving was that it’s complicated, especially the equipment. I’ve never been a very mechanical person but I was forced to become conversant in the language of valves and pressure gauges. We were gradually introduced to the underwater world, spending the first day in shallow water practicing skills and discovering what it felt like to breathe like fish. My first few breaths were very cautious but breathing underwater felt comfortable, familiar even. Maybe I was a fish in a previous life?

The next few days were filled with diving. We explored the waters of Tayrona National park each morning, with the other divers from the school. Our first dives were at 12 metres but as we progressed we were able to go as deep as 18 metres. While underwater, we explored a kingdom of reefs, anemones, tropical schools of fish, moray eels, lion fish, rock fish and “mariposas” (butterfly fish). Each day, we felt more comfortable. Scuba diving is much more than just breathing underwater. It’s also about controlling your buoyancy so that you don’t have to work to keep your body level in the water; and it’s about observing the wildlife without disturbing their natural environment.

The world at 12-18 m below sea-level is a very peaceful place, especially when all you can hear is your own breathing and the muted sounds of the fish world. Jimmy turned out to be an amazing teacher; and, if I may say so, we weren’t too shabby as students. We both got 100% on our final tests and were awarded an extra “fun dive”. I’m really looking forward to doing more scuba diving in other parts of the world. It’s such a soothing, quiet place – qualities that are harder and harder to find in the above sea level world.

We boarded a ferry that took us through the busy harbour. As we left shore, we were surrounded by magnificent tall ships flying flags from all corners of the continent.

They were part of a regatta making its way around the continent in celebration of 200 years of Latin American independence. If you ask me, a grandiose trip is the absolute best way to celebrate your independence.

The ferry let us off at the Oceanarium at Isla Rosario, where we gawked at turtles, sharks, manta rays and dolphins.

Calina and I were preoccupied with locating a seahorse in a seemingly empty fish tank when we were herded back onto the ferry.

Our next stop was Playa Blanca, a long white sand beach with calm, bright-blue water. We separated from the day trippers and walked along the beach to find ourselves accommodations for the night.

I had my heart set on camping in a hammock, listening to the roar of the ocean as I swayed gently in the night breeze. With some dishonest salesmanship, I convinced Calina of the orthopaedic qualities of hammocks.

We spent what was left of the day playing music and Calina taught me a folk song her dad sings called, “The Girl with Thunder in her Hair”.

Our hosts, from whom we rented the hammocks, served us a dinner of fresh fish and coconut rice.

It was so delicious, it took no time at all for us to devour it completely.

The woman who served us our meal returned a few times to bring us drinks, each time with increased friendliness, then increased belligerence. We realized that we hadn’t been drinking alone, and thus the sensation of falling asleep to the roar of the ocean was substituted with the sensation of falling asleep to the roar of a drunk.

With a great deal of experimentation we were able to get comfy in our hammocks. We positioned ourselves diagonally to minimize spine curvature then made further adjustments as various body parts became tingly from lack of circulation.

Eventually our raving hostess quieted and the experience became closer to what I had hoped for. We fell asleep and awoke with the sun the following day.