This year we started our annual photosynthesis trip in the oldest US city: San Juan, Puerto Rico.

On the two hour ride from the airport to Lhasa, I was expecting to encounter something like in "7 Years in Tibet," forgetting that there are probably very few places in the world where the passing of several decades brought by no change whatsoever.

Grape size raindrops were smashing into the car windows so hard I was having second thoughts about deciding to come to Costa Rica in the rainy season. Maybe I had underestimated what "rainy" really means in a tropical country.

Saint Martin or Sint Maarten is a tiny island in the Caribbean Sea, the smallest island to be shared for the last 350 years by two states, France and Netherlands.