Hellooo, Colorado

First stop in our travels: a wedding in Breckenridge and a few days in Boulder for an awesome movement workshop.

Mountain Adventures in Breckenridge, CO

We attended Ashley’s best friends’ (Christine and Danny) in the Colorado mountains. The wedding ceremony was beautiful and officiated by Todd, Ashley’s dad. It was cold the day of the wedding (an unexpected 40 degrees Fahrenheit!), but very special and intimate (only 30 wedding guests).

After the weekend, when our most of the attendees had left, we got to spend quality time with the celebrated couple. That week, we witnessed their legal wedding at the court house and went boating on Lake Dillon twice. As opposed to the cold day we had experienced just 48 hours earlier, the day was warm, sunny and calm.

Breckenridge and Lake Dillon are beautiful small towns, with cute main streets where you can go shopping and enjoy healthy Colorado food. We loved the following spots:

Sapphire Point: one of the most beautiful views in town and the location of the ceremony
North Ten Mile Creek Trail: for some chill hiking surrounded by boulders and yellow aspens
The Lost Cajun: awesome gumbo sampler and other fried animal parts
Mi Casa: humongous portions of tasty and healthy Mexican food

the view from Sapphire Point the day before the ceremony

Todd, Ashley’s dad with the newlyweds

falltime aspens

boating in Lake Dillon

the view while boating through Lake Dillon

making it official in the eyes of the US government

Hikes & Ido Portal Workshop in Boulder, CO

Following the wedding, we wanted to attend the Ido Portal Movement X workshop in Boulder. We decided to spend a week in town, hiking and enjoying the awesome food options that it has to offer.

We stayed in a rented room through AirBnB with an interesting and warm woman named Nan. We enjoyed a cozy space and some great conversations with her and her guests while keeping a manageable budget for a fairly expensive city.

After 3 or 4 days of walking around, we (probably prematurely) concluded that we could one day live in Boulder. For such a small town, we loved how outdoorsy and progressive of a town Boulder is; how many healthy and delicious eating options there are; and plenty of software companies with potential jobs for us.

Here are the highlights of our trip:

Dushanbe Teahouse: for a huge tea selection in a beautiful building built in Tajikistan and relocated piece by piece to Boulder
The Kitchen Next Door: great healthy food at a reasonable price and good portions
Boulder Shambhala Meditation Center: the original Shambhala center in the US
Fior Di Latte: OMG amazing gelato. We went there like 3 times in 4 days
Chautauqua Park and the Royal Arch hike for a strenuous walk at high altitude with a breathtaking view of the area

with Nan, our AirBnB host

with Johny, our workshop instructor

Royal Arches

Ido Portal Workshop

Over the weekend, the movement workshop was perfectly timed for beginning a trip around the world. The core philosophy is simple: MOVE. It’s a mix of capoeira, strength training, dance and other movement types, and the premise is that it doesn’t matter if you have a gym, equipment, etc – you’ve already got what you need by simply being human.

Here’s the video that made us want to do the workshop in the first place:

It was an intense two-day workshop (10 hours each day). While we were tired, we learned our bodies can handle more than we think and we can push ourselves further too. We were a bit dismayed that Ido Portal wasn’t actually there – turns out, he doesn’t come to hardly any of the U.S workshops – but Johhny, the teacher, did a great job.