TravelStream™ news feed for member mikeandheather on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/mikeandheather en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Fri, 09 Jun 2006 20:05:07 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1149897360/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1149897360/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1149897360/tpod.html Fri, 09 Jun 2006 20:05:07 -0400 The Year of Living...

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Isla Mujeres, Mexico

So it's come down to this. We have been on the road almost exactly a year, and with 17 countries behind us, we're looking at a three-day weekend in Mexico.

Antigua became home for a while, which explains our silence over the last couple months - who writes a Travel Pod about home? Since we last wrote to tell you about our newfound domesticity, we made some great local friends, hosted family and friends from the States, and created a place in our hearts for Guatemala and its people. Our departure from Antigua, for so long a concept, a distant point on the horizon, sneaked up on us and suddenly we were traveling again. In San Cristobal we lounged in the shady zocalo, wandered through the quiet colonial calles and learned a bit about the fascinating history of the Chiapas region. In Palenque we hung out in the jungle and explored sacred Mayan ruins. In Tulum we partied on the beach and dived in a freshwater cenote. And just like that, here we sit, the warm sea breeze blowing off the lagoon right in front of our room on the Northern tip of Isla Mujeres.

We'll spend the weekend swinging in hammocks, reading, swimming, and occasionally murmuring our current mantra, "I can't believe we're going home on Monday." But we are, and sad as we may be that it's over, there's no better place than home to start planning for our next adventure! Hasta luego...

Mike and H
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1142703780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1142703780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1142703780/tpod.html Sat, 18 Mar 2006 13:05:48 -0500 The Year of Living...

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Antigua, Guatemala

Our introduction to Guatemala began 2-weeks ago with an effortless bus ride south from Oaxaca. On our way to the bus station that morning we seriously considered staying put, and were only willing to leave once we promised ourselves that we would be back. A brief period of clueless wandering around Antigua in search of a hotel that first night belied the surgical efficiency with which we organized this new chapter of our life on the road the next day. Within 24-hours we had moved into an apartment (which are at a premium right now, but we'll get to that in a minute), obtained a gym membership, enrollment in Spanish school and a fridge full of food.

Each day in our new home begins more or less the same, with a pastel sky forming the backdrop for the 12,000 foot Volcan de Agua that stands sentry less than 3 miles to our south. Though Agua is dormant, though the other three, standing in a row just outside of town to the West, are very active, with Pacaya spouting lava and smoke almost every day. The birdsong comes first, flowing from the vibrant bougainvillea outside our bedroom window, and at 6:00 and 6:30am, the bells toll in the central park a few blocks to the north, telling the people of Antigua that it is time to start the day. Soon the chicken buses turn up the volume. Bright colors cover the aging school bus chassis that rattle down the cobblestone streets past yellow, blue, red and green colonial buildings. Innumerable coffee shops line the central park, tempting passers-by with aromatic brews and fresh basked goods, but on most mornings Mike brews a pot at home, as H refuses to allow her feet to hit the tile floors before her first cup.

We go to Spanish school in a beautiful garden just around the corner from our pad. Though the lessons are one-to-one, H generally manages to make class pretty interesting for everyone in the general vicinity. Halfway through her first week she mispronounced the Spanish word for comb and, to the dismay of her maestra, at increasing volume (for everyone knows that if you can't say it right, you should just say it LOUD) she yelled in Spanish "penis, penis PENIS" until one of the other teachers stepped in put an end to the madness. For an encore, the next day, H questioned the gender of one of the people in a photo her teacher had brought to class, only to learn that the hombre she was pointing to was her own professora. Oops.

After class we usually go the gym, and when that's done we construct a massive taco feast. The routine seems like a very good transition for us as our return to the U.S. draws ever nearer. After almost nine months of eating three meals/day at restaurants, we have a profound appreciation not only for home cooking, but also for the daily trips to the nearby marketplace. We walk with our little straw basket and mingle amongst crowds of indigenous Mayans, mutilating the Spanish language as we purchase fresh fruits and veggies, tangy cheese and big bottles of ice-cold Gallo. We make our own salsa, consume more avocados than two people ever should, and buy steaming hot tortillas fresh off the thing that they make tortillas on right up the street. All over town, women in traditional Mayan dress spend the day clapping corn flour and water into perfect little pucks which they keep warm in big woven baskets and sell, 10 for about a quarter. There are beautiful restaurants all over town, but so far we can't seem to find any reason to eat anything else.

We mentioned that apartments were a little tough to come by these days in Antigua. As it turns out, we are here during lent (who knew?) and Antigua is a nucleus of religious activities for people all over Guatemala and other countries throughout Central America. Each Sunday evening a massive procession winds its way through the flower-strewn streets of our little town, with men and boys in purple silk regalia carrying huge floats depicting biblical scenes. Things will continue to heat up on the religious front until they culminate on April 16th, when we anticipate more than an egg hunt to celebrate Easter this year.

Though we are far more interested in establishing temporary roots than traveling around, we have started to make some plans to visit a few of the sights outside the gringo oasis of Antigua, and will take our first Guatemalan vacation next weekend to nearby Panajachecl on the shores of Lake Atitlan. The current plan is to hang out here until we head home in June, but our neighbor just let Heather borrow her guide book, and the possibility of a few Central American side-trips is beginning to look more and more likely. In the meantime, we'll both keep plugging away on Spanish and enjoying this final phase of our great adventure. Hasta luego for now...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1141251780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1141251780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1141251780/tpod.html Wed, 01 Mar 2006 17:43:23 -0500 The Year of Living...

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Mexico City, Mexico

The Indonesians on our flight from Malaysia to Java introduced us to a new form of plane passenger etiquette. They bum-rushed the boarding gate, used cell phones throughout the flight, and launched out of their seats the moment we landed - all of which seemed perfectly reasonable in comparison to the scene we faced once we disembarked and entered the chaos of the airport. A power outage had plunged the entire place into darkness, forcing customs and immigration officials to use their cell phones to illuminate passports for inspection. The pandemonium of the baggage claim process persisted even as the power was restored, and once the official government bureau de change agent and authorized taxi driver had legally robbed us blind, we made our way to town. The rain-soaked streets were devoid of any signage, and we found ourselves wandering through pitch-black back alleys in search of lodging. We eventually settled in to a sprawling colonial era hotel, and spent the next couple days wandering the congested streets of Solo before hopping a train north to Yogakarta to battle silver-smiths and batik peddlers, and to see the ruins of the ancient Buddhist Borobadur temple.

It was hot and muggy in Java and after a week inland we decided it was time to head to Bali. We rented surfboards and spent the week being humbled by the beach break that makes Kuta one of the best places on earth to learn to surf. Unfortunately, Kuta is also known worldwide as the sight of the deadly Bali bombings, and while we felt perfectly safe, it was painful to see the dramatic effects of terrorism on the tourist trade. Kuta is comprised of wall-to-wall shops, restaurants and bars, all virtually empty - it was as though the city had planned a big party and nobody showed up. We did our best to fuel the local economy, but mounting vet bills from home had further diminished our already meager backpacker's budget. After extensive blood tests, x-rays and surgery, Jesse Jane, our beloved Golden Retriever, was diagnosed with canine expensivitis, a chronic condition endemic among dogs in the Brody/Flynn families. The treatment involves daily infusions of cash, and thanks to the tireless efforts of Nurse Karen and our Platinum Visa card, Jesse's prognosis is good.

On the much-anticipated day of her arrival from Portland, we vacated our flee-bag room, picked our good friend Kristin up at the airport and whisked her away to the upscale hotel we chose for the occasion. We sat atop bar stools submerged in the pool, basking in the warm sun and KK's company while sipping on ice-cold Bintang beers, thus kicking off a ten-day fun-filled odyssey around Bali. Kris showed off her west coast surf moves before we left Kuta for Dreamland, an idyllic beach on the southern tip of the island. From there we made tracks for Padangbai, a fishing village up the east coast where we snorkeled in the azure waters of the Blue Lagoon, the ladies ate fresh sea food and we all fell prey to our first Arak Attack - a local liquor that we have concluded after much investigation tastes terrible regardless of how it's mixed. Leaving the ocean behind we headed inland for Ubud, where we browsed the endless boutiques and art galleries, took in an evening of traditional Balinese dance, cycled through lush rice paddies and pampered ourselves at one of the countless local spas. Exhausted from satisfying our every hedonistic whim, we were shocked to discover that our time in Bali was almost up. Back in Kuta, we returned to our barstools in the pool for one last Bintang binge and a bittersweet post-mortem of our amazing time together. And just like that KK was on her way back to the airport, leaving us to prepare for our epic journey to Mexico.

We flew from Bali to Kuala Lumpur to Singapore, where we curled up on some comfort-free chairs to wait out the midnight-to-7am layover. We managed to fall into some semblance of slumber just in time for the Singapore S.W.A.T team's transit lounge shake down. Surrounded by Uzi-wielding men in riot gear we hastily displayed passports and boarding passes. At long last we boarded a plane for a 17-hour journey to LAX, where surly security guards and super-sized everything let us know that we were back in the good ol' U.S.A. Before we could get used to flush toilets and drinkable water we were back in the air en route to Mexico City where we caught a couple much-needed z's before catching a bus to Oaxaca the next morning.

Needless to say, it's all a bit of a culture shock, but the fresh Mexican food, cold margaritas and vibrant plazas are helping us adjust to being back on the American continent. We plan to hang here for a couple days before making the 16-hour bus journey south to Antigua, Guatemala. Adios for now...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1143773820/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1143773820/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1143773820/tpod.html Wed, 01 Mar 2006 17:17:32 -0500 The Year of Living...

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Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

We were sitting in an airport coffee shop seeking to spend our last baht as we awaited our flight from Bangkok to Penang, Malaysia. Airport coffee shops are very good places to blow money. Having exchanged the equivalent of a few day's room and board for two cups of mediocre brew, we were talking about what we might want to see and do in Malaysia when, in a careless moment, H made a casual comment about the fact that neither of us had been ill in so long. Within 24 hours Mike was laid out, sick as a dog in a cavernous hotel room in Penang, staring at the ceiling fan as it stirred the sticky air overhead. Was it inevitable, just a matter of time, or did H's prideful remark summon the wrath of the travel gods? We shall never know, but suffice to say there will be no further commentary of the kind. Thankfully the illness passed, so to speak, in a matter of days, and with just 72 hours to explore Penang we set out to see the sights.

With countless unimaginative signs defacing it's crumbling colonial buildings, denying the city any modicum of charm, Penang struck us as decidedly shabby. While dodging traffic in our quest for a sidewalk, let alone something to actually see or do, we discovered Malaysia's epidemic - mall mania. On just about every corner of every city we visited on peninsular Malaysia we found ourselves in the shadows of these glass and steel edifices to conspicuous consumerism. From Muslim women wearing headscarves as they browsed Victoria's Secret outlets, to young couples window-shopping at Gucci, Versace and The Body Shop, the contrasts abounded. The only thing that reminded us that we weren't in Kansas anymore (besides the fact that we were actually in a mall) was the fact that Malaysians crawl the malls until well after midnight. The oppressive heat and humidity convinced us to overcome our aversion to self-contained shopping complexes and personal shame over our own travel worn garb, and with the first breath of blissfully cooled air, we were sold. But we soon learned that too much of a good thing can indeed cause frostbite when we shivered through our first full-length feature film in a Malaysian movie theater. In the arctic chill of the stadium seats we discovered yet another cultural morsel - movie-going Malaysians have a tendency to engage in constant conversation, perhaps in order to keep warm. Our practiced glance-backs failed to translate, and while they were entirely ineffective in quelling the conversation, they were returned with genuinely friendly greetings.

With only three weeks to explore Malaysia, we knew we needed to be efficient, so we opted to limit our mall time, and ended up spending a couple days online and in travel agencies, making plans. With seven months of spontaneous travel behind us, we found it difficult to commit to any semblance of an agenda, but paralysis soon gave way to purchasing. We ended up with no less than eight regional plane tickets each, and a schedule that actually required us to know where we were going. While the credit cards were still warm we went with the momentum and pulled the trigger on the Big Ticket - Bali to Mexico City. Having realized over the last few months that we'd really like to learn a language during this year away, and drawn by the idea of settling down a little before we go home, we've decided to go to Guatemala. Guatemala? Didn't we say we're flying to Mexico City?

In our distorted way of thinking, we assumed that since Mexico is right next door to Guate, we'd just save a few bucks on the tickets and find our way south via local transport once we arrived. At this point in the journey it tends to be enough just to get to the right continent. Tickets in hand, we got online to look into our options for the last leg of the journey, which was not the afternoon bus ride we thought it'd be, but rather a 30- hour marathon. Are we travel-savvy or what?

We did manage to make it from Penang to Kuala Lumpur, a modern metropolis which we used as a home base for a weekend excursion to a really quaint little town called Malacca. We strolled Malacca's cobbled riverside walks and were enchanted by its British Colonial architecture. It was there that we began to see the colorful preparations for the upcoming Chinese New Year celebration (year of the dog, of course). Red lanterns lined many of the streets and added a festive air to the warm evenings. We also noticed in Malacca a phenomenon that has held true throughout Malaysia - an apparently harmonious co-habitation of diverse racial, ethnic and religious groups. Malay, Chinese and Indians, Buddhists, Christians and Muslims all call this country home, and while tensions certainly exist, Malaysia seems to be doing a remarkable job of keeping the peace.

Back in K.L. for a second time we made our way to Borneo (specifically Sarawak, the Malaysian side of the island) and then via Twin Otter plane deep into the interior to Bario. This tiny remote village carved out of primary jungle is home to the Kelabit people, an indigenous tribe that has maintained a great deal of its traditional ways of life. The extraordinarily friendly people of Bario often leave the village to seek out educational and professional opportunities unavailable to them at home, but they tend at some point to return. We met and spent hours chatting with many locals who spoke perfect English - a rare and precious opportunity for a level of interpersonal and cultural exchange that language barriers often preclude. The woman who greeted us at the airport took one look at our passports and asked, "So, Bush or Clinton?" When we shared our preference she offered to pray for us, and suggested we take a knee as well. We knew Bario was for us!

While there are some contemporary conveniences (generator-powered lights in the evenings, a public telephone in town and even some satellite televisions), modernity has done little to disrupt simple and serene rhythms of daily life in Bario. We stayed with a local family in their longhouse, eating delicious meals prepared with plants that our hosts brought from the jungle to their open-fire kitchen, and mountainous plates of the world-famous Bario rice that we helped to harvest. We spent long languorous days following small trails through the dense foliage, visiting surrounding villages, basking in the generous hospitality of the locals who always seemed genuinely pleased to see us. It was an amazing week and we were acutely aware as our plane ascended above Bario to return us to "civilization" that the logging road we saw inching its way toward the village will almost certainly and irrevocably alter life in Bario.

A couple short flights later we were in Kuching, on the southern coast of Sarawak. We spent a couple days wandering around town, ventured out to a nearby orangutan rehabilitation center, then a bit further a field to spend a couple nights in Bako National Park, known for its bizarre proboscis monkeys and vast areas of well-marked hiking trails (we actually managed to hike for two full days without getting lost - a record for the direction-impaired duo). We arrived back in Kuching just in time for Chinese New Years. A local guy promised us that by nightfall "this place is going to be Baghdad, in a good way," and he wasn't kidding. We're pretty sure a couple SCUDS found their way in amongst the massive and innumerable firecrackers that exploded throughout the night, and when we went for a morning run, the streets were thick with the red paper remnants of a very raucous CNY.

We're now back in K.L. and tomorrow we head on to Solo on the island of Java, Indonesia. In a mere two weeks time we will meet up with the illustrious Kristin Kennedy for a beach blowout in Bali, Portland-style, our last hurrah in SEA before we repatriate in LAX for two hours en route to a three-month stint in Central America.

Until we write again, here's to all the dogs (and dawgs!) out there - a very very gong xi fa cai!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1136287020/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1136287020/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1136287020/tpod.html Tue, 03 Jan 2006 06:38:48 -0500 The Year of Living...

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Chiang Mai, Thailand

It's amazing just how time-consuming nothing is. We're not just saying that - we've done research. In fact, over the past month in Thailand, we've achieved a certain mastery in the art of doing nothing, and as such feel quite confident when we assert that when it's done right, nothing takes pretty much all day. The weather in the south of Thailand was pretty dismal actually, and we were amazed to discover that day after day we remained content to read books, take walks and watch the rain fall through the palms from the comfort of our bungalow's porch.
Not that we haven't occasionally strayed from nothing - we jogged (ok, fell gradually forward) along the white sands to and from our daily yoga class in Kho Lanta, and devoted many an hour to the masochistic maneuvers that the locals here call Thai massage. We swam with mantas again, this time in the Andaman Sea, and H managed to complete both dives without incident. She did however narrowly miss what would have been a dramatic collision with our bungalow owner's front door when she took her first and last stab at driving our rented motorbike. Mike thought it unnecessary to explicitly tell H to release the throttle when applying the break, and what ensued was a graceless low-speed surrender to gravity. Even while pinned in the mud under the mighty moped, she managed to assign the blame for this incident squarely on Mike's shoulders, and with no injuries save her pride, H resumed her role as back-seat rider. We tooled around the island for almost three weeks before moving on to a mainland beach for Christmas.
On X-mas Eve we paddled a sea kayak around the magnificent limestone rock formations of Hat Ton Sei, setting anchor occasionally to snorkel in the crystal clear water and landing on a near-by beach to help ourselves to deli sandwiches, fresh fruit and cold beers. The locals put on quite a show for the holidays, with lights on every palm tree, Bing Crosby and Jonny Mathis serenading our walks along the beach, and Christmas Eve curry served by Santa himself.
We hopped a train on Christmas night to head back for Bangkok, and the pain of leaving the beach was attenuated by a short but very sweet visit with our good friends Dan and Rachel who were honeymooning in Thailand. We bid The Smiths adieu and jumped back on the train, headed north this time, to Chiang Mai, a beautiful riverside city with flower-covered bridges, illuminated at night by countless white lights. We endured our longest separation to date when H took an all-day Thai cooking class and left Mike to get some work done on the course he'll be teaching in a few months. As if we needed another reminder of how fast this year is flying by, it was time to make plans for New Year's Eve, and we chose Pai, a small mountain village north of Chiang Mai, as our venue. It turned out to be a perfect spot - mobile pubs and beer gardens were everywhere, as were Volkswagen vans converted into morning-after espresso bars. The night sky was filled with great music, fireworks and hundreds of floating paper lanterns, and as we ate with our new friends at a sidewalk café, we watched a parade featuring the music and costumes of the nearby hill tribes. We ended up dancing at an outdoor club until the impending sunrise convinced us to call it a night, and spent January first paying the price.
Having recovered from our Y2K6 blowout, and (oops) overstayed our visa six days to squeeze in a few more precious moments in paradise, we are heading South to BKK and onward to Penang, Malaysia, where a little less nothing might result in a little more something for the next Pod entry. Here's to a healthy and happy 2006!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1133317140/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1133317140/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1133317140/tpod.html Wed, 30 Nov 2005 06:30:17 -0500 The Year of Living...

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Kathmandu, Nepal

Sometimes we weigh travel options knowing full well that the best choice is simply the lesser of two evils. Walk an extra week through sub-tropical woods, developing much-needed stamina for the trail ahead and dealing with the expense and other unforeseeable hassles associated with the Maoists who control the area between Jiri and Namche Bazaar, or spend the money up-front for a flight to Lukla, thereby foregoing both the beautiful prelude to the Solu Khumbu's high elevation hike, as well as the boys with guns. In the end, it was the all-day bus ride, the over-crowded coach creeping along death-defying switchbacks that tipped the scales - we'd take our chances in the air.

After a by-then anticipated delay, in an unnecessarily harsh reminder that budget travelers tend to get what we pay for, and pay for what we get, we were ushered onto the cloud-covered tarmac of Kathmandu's domestic airport to face our latest challenge. Simply put, we had to overcome every instinct for self-preservation to board a plane that looked about as flight-worthy as the busses we had so intentionally left behind. The fuselage was a long, thin box that could have used some duct tape in a few key spots, and the front tire was decidedly low on air. Like sheep we allowed ourselves to be herded through the miniscule hatch and took our places, dutifully inserting cotton into our ears and candy into our mouths, thereby taking full advantage of the in-flight services at our disposal. The engines revved and we somehow managed to get off the ground, and before we knew it, the green terraced fields of the Kathmandu valley gave way to snow capped peaks. The plane shook and yawed as planes should never do, and as the distance between us and each succeeding range below diminished, H decided that the flight could and should proceed without her observation. Head in hands, eyes squeezed shut, she went to her happy place as we barely cleared the last ridge and began to dive straight toward a runway as steep as and no longer than a San Francisco city block. The front tire, apparently flat so as not to burst on touchdown, held fast, and just like that we grabbed our packs and were walking toward Mt. Everest.

The Everest hike is all about elevation. When you fly to Lukla to start the trek your first steps are at almost 11,000 feet, and it's pretty much straight up from there. We decided to take it slowly so as to avoid any risk of altitude sickness, plus we basically couldn't breathe. So we spent some extra days acclimatizing around Namche Bazaar, and again in Tengboche, the picturesque Buddhist monastery in the sky, whose maroon and saffron-clad monks happened to be hosting the annual Mani Rimdu festival just as we arrived. Tengboche sits on a small shelf surrounded by some of the area's/world's most impressive peaks, and when we weren't checking out the intricate sand mandala or sitting in the frigid temple watching the colorful puja (ceremony), we watched in awe as the full moon rose from behind AmaDablam's spire, and Nuptse caught the last embers of the setting sun, with Everest sitting demurely in the background, ever coy in the diminishing distance that divided her from us.

As we continued our gradual ascent up the valley, the alpine forests began to yield to a more lunar landscape, and soon rock and ice dominated our days. We hiked up a side valley (Chukung) and climbed a, 18,500 foot peak that afforded unbelievable views of the massive glacier that continues to carve this valley, and the sheer cliffs beyond. You never could have guessed as we skipped down the trail that it had taken almost three laborious, breathless hours of sherpa shuffle, the slow-motion pantomime that replaces walking at this altitude, to get up the thing - a tough climb worth every step.

As we neared the terminal point of the Khumbu Valley, and prepared to visit Everest Base Camp, we found ourselves with front row seats for the start of the Everest Marathon. This event draws elite Nepali athletes, most of them Everest summiters, and a rowdy bunch of masochistic, philanthropic Brits who, despite obvious disadvantages, lined up beside the local favorites one freezing cold morning and somehow made their way over 26.2 absurd miles to Namche, with all proceeds going to village projects. Temporary hypoxia allowed us for a deluded moment to consider taking part in this madness sometime in the future, but we have since come to our senses and have set our sights on the more realistic and fulfilling challenges of international competitive eating.

Walking on the Khumbu glacier was a highlight, not for the views, which were far better from the vistas of Kala Pattar and Chukung Ri, but for the other-worldly sights and sounds of all the rock and ice. Huge boulders sit suspended on columns of ice while bubbling, gurgling, crackling sounds of indeterminable origin emanate from every direction. Several avalanches tumbled dramatically in the distance, and two helicopters, unable to stay aloft in the anorexic air of base camp, had tumbled as well, sometime in the last year, and like the aforementioned boulders sat suspended improbably on pedestals of ice. We deposited rocks in crevasses and listened to their perilous descent, threw rocks on frozen glacial ponds, trying in vain to fracture their icy armor, and despite our growing fatigue and frustration with the ever-present cold, more or less turned base camp into a play ground before heading back down the valley toward our final high elevation goal.

Cho La pass is the most direct route to the Gokyo Valley which lies to the west of base camp and the Khumbu glacier. The all-day journey up and over the 18,000 foot plus pass made us feel like we were on expedition, and convinced us that despite all this incredible beauty, we were ready to shower (it had been almost two weeks), eat salad and be warm. In addition, as you can see from the photo of H's salute to Everest, the altitude had begun to take its toll. The environmentally unpleasant effects of H.A.F.E. (high altitude flatulence expulsion) were readily apparent in the lodges, but we were surprised to witness the emergence of heretofore undiscovered malady, H.A.H. High altitude hatred compels its victims to walk behind their husbands compiling detailed lists of his transgressions and foibles, and to share them brutally with him when she caught her breath. These tirades provided temporary relief to the victim, and prolonged suffering for her mate. When she wasn't busy hating Mike, H became convinced that a conspiracy to taint her food with mothballs was afoot. First the water in Tengboche, then dal baht in Chukung - no meal was immune. Like any good therapist, Mike did his best to take her seriously, validate her experience, then to ignore her, until the morning when her oat porridge emerged from the kitchen tasting like garlic noodle soup, at which time we decided it was definitely time to GO DOWN.

En route back to civilization we enjoyed a couple days on the shores of Gokyo Lake, and one final climb to bask in the panoramic mountain views before heading down the valley. In a matter of days the air became intoxicatingly thick and we were surprised to find out just how much we had missed the trees. After 17 days we again boarded a plane and are now back in the bright lights of Kathmandu, where food tastes good again and H has begun to think that Mike's not so bad after all.

The last 6 weeks in Nepal have been amazing, and we can't wait to return some day. But for now the beach beckons. The tickets we bought a few days ago for Thailand were a great deal, until we learned that the airline had ceased to actually provide service pending payment of its fuel bill. Details. With two freshly printed tickets on a slightly more reputable airline in hand, we are very excited to be heading for the warm sands of Thailand, where we will begin our competitive eating training by consuming mass quantities of curries and phad thai. We plan to spend the holidays there, crash the Smith honeymoon for a night and perhaps hook up with some other friends that we've met along the way before heading for Indonesia, or Burma, or wherever the warm breeze blows us. Namaste for now...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1131512700/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1131512700/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1131512700/tpod.html Wed, 09 Nov 2005 07:51:40 -0500 The Year of Living...

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Kathmanduku, Nepal

Dubai was a pretty cool transition between Africa and Asia. Nairobi is a cosmopolitan metropolis to be sure, and it dwarfed every other African city we'd seen in the last four months, but it seemed like a quaint village compared to Dubai, where we were whisked from the space-aged airport in an air-conditioned luxury coach (there are no old cars in Dubai) through streets glittering with money and modernity. Magnificent tiled mosques provided a dramatic contrast to all that steel and glass, and the architectural mosaic was a stunning backdrop for the contemplative quiet of Ramadan. We wandered deserted streets during the day, gazing longingly into the innumerable eateries whose empty displays and sidewalk tables mocked our unholy hunger. H demonstrated profound cultural sensitivity when she gulped a cold Pepsi in full view of dismayed locals too pious to quench their own thirst despite the blinding midday sun. Our intentions to take full advantage of our most opulent accommodation to date, the Dubai Holiday Inn, hit an obstacle when we learned that the well-appointed gym was only open to women for about 15 minutes in the middle of the day, and the cornucopic breakfast buffet would have set us back close to $100. We settled for extended soaks in the rooftop pool and a couple $10 cups of real coffee before we headed for the airport en route to the more familiar backpacker's scene of Kathmandu.
We landed in Nepal's capital after a four-hour delay in Bombay (more than enough time for H to decide she doesn't need to return to India on this trip, if ever), and scammed a free ride in a jam-packed jalopy to a cheap hotel in Thamel, Kathmandu's tourist Mecca. We reunited with our friend David, who we'd met in Mozambique, and within a day were gearing up for our first trek, around the Annapurna circuit.
During our farewell dinner the night before a day-long bus ride to the trailhead in Besisahar, a light rain danced atop the tarp covering our candlelit restaurant, creating a cozy atmosphere and somehow failing to inspire any of us to consider the potential implications of this unseasonable precipitation. Three days later, having trekked in fits and starts through the lowlands, frequently seeking shelter in trailside tea houses as the rains continued to fall, we began to hear whispers of the much more dramatic weather that awaited us farther up the trail. Rumors of lost climbers rode the cold winds that sliced through the steep valley, and in bits and pieces we learned that we were in the midst of a historic storm, the likes of which even the most ancient village elders had never seen. One evening, as we joined other trekkers huddled around a pot-bellied stove, the lodge owner announced that a close friend of his had perished in the storm when an avalanche decimated the basecamp that sheltered a group of 18 French climbers and their Sherpas. The Thorong La, a pass that stands over 18,000 feet above sea level, and the only route to complete the circuit, was buried in 10 feet of snow and would remain closed indefinitely. Helicopters began shuttling the injured and affluent out of their snowy predicaments, and the tea-house conversation quickly shifted from food fantasy and bowel function to storm-related gossip and conjecture. How many were killed? When would the pass open? Should we abort our intended route and return the way we came? H, having rented a cheap Chinese immitation down jacket that was spewing feathers faster than trekkers could disseminate unsubstantiated rumors, decided as we waited out the weather to spread some gossip of her own. Soon, trekkers began to discuss the recent outbreak of high mountain avian flu, transmitted throughout the region by free-floating feathers, reportedly originating from an unidentified trekker's jacket. H's occasional clucking as she pecked at her dal baht pushed a coupled particularly nervous souls over the edge, providing some quality entertainment for our evil-minded trekking posse.
Over the next few days, the hot sun began to transform the snow-covered trail to mud, and the doom-and-gloom to cautious optimism, insinuating that we might soon be able to make an attempt on the pass. We spent a few more days acclimatizing in the shadows of Annapurna II, III and IV, enjoying sun-splashed day hikes into ancient villages carved into the hillside below faded prayer flags fluttering in the breeze. By the time we had reached the mid-elevation villages of Pisang and Manang, we had joined forces with a UK/NZ couple, and en masse decided to make a bid for the pass. As we filled our bellies with fresh bakery goods and chai in Thorong Phedi (the final tea house at the foot of the pass, where food prep has come a long was since Mike was last here over a decade ago), a brief snow flurry gave rise to fears of another storm. But when we awoke before dawn the next day, a starry sky announced an auspicious beginning to the much-anticipated hike. We climbed slowly through the thin air as the sun crept over the peaks to our east and despite the record-breaking snow that had converted the trail from steep switchbacks into a post-holed staircase, we reached the summit in no time. After snapping some pics of what we would soon recognize to be a premature celebration, we began the descent. Then we continued the descent, and continued some more, and five hours later we were still slipping and sliding our way down the treacherous mountainside. Our group was splintered by the every-man-for himself reality of the icy trail. Ill-prepared porters and trekkers alike struggled through the waist-deep snow, and Mike joined the multilingual chorus of foreigners longing for a snowboard to enlist the aid of gravity in this 5000-foot plus descent. We finally arrived in Muktinath and, realizing it was October 31st, expended our last bit of energy dressing up as exhausted, filthy trekkers and gulping ice-cold Everest beers, shouting "Happy Halloween" to a room full of confused trekkers and locals who had no idea what we were talking about.
Four days later we limped out of the low-land forests on the other side of the pass, suffering from a host of weather-related injuries: festering blisters, severe sun burns and skin rashes, swollen and twisted joints and inflamed upper respiratory tracts. Needless to say, we were ready to return to the flats and lick our wounds before heading off for the next adventure.
After 14 days and more than 300 kilometers of sub-zero degree, high altitude hiking, we happily basked in Pokhara's laid-back lakeside ambience, eating, drinking, and generally chilling out. One evening, over happy-hour bevies, our UK/NZ buddies talked us into sampling the region's unparalleled paragliding, and before we knew it we were signed up for a tandem flight. Like our very British scuba instructor in Mozambique, H's Russian pilot was a man of few words. In response to her nervous request to clarify the monosyllabic pre-flight instructions, the man she dubbed "Vladimir" grunted as he shoved her down the grassy slope and into the blue sky over Pokhara. We shared the wind with majestic hawks who led us into gentle thermals, soaring above the green foothills, with Machupacharie's picturesque snow-capped peak looming in the distance - another amazing, spontaneous travel experience.
We're now back in Kathmandu, and while some of our trekking friends are making a b-line for Thailand's beaches, and others will brave India's unique intensity, we are planing to defy all logic and head back into the mountains, this time Everest-bound. If the Moaists, altitude sickness or surprise snow storm don't get us, we'll write again in a few weeks. Until then...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1128930000/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1128930000/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1128930000/tpod.html Fri, 14 Oct 2005 08:27:28 -0400 The Year of Living...

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Nairobi, Kenya

We should have known that the on-time departure from Kampala to Kigali was too good to be true. When smoke began to billow from the roof and a pneumatic hissing eminated from the direction of the air brakes, we figured we might be in for a delay. The driver did his best to pretend everything was going smoothly but eventually the obvious mechanical problems and mounting protests from the other (all African) passengers forced him to make a pit stop. We eventually (meaning after a really long time) made it to the Rwanda border, where the advent of flat-screen computers, combined with a customs official who fancied himself quite the ladies' man and made some pretty reasonable offers to purchase Heather, resulted in another 2 hour delay. On the Rwanda side, in the absence of all that technology and romance, we breezed through immigration and as we waited for the first of what would be many military searches and check-points, Mike saddled up to a distinguished-looking gentleman to see if he could get the low-down on the approximate cost of a cab from the bus stop to a hotel in Kigali. He turned out to be a Kenyan with a PhD in history and a firm grasp of local economics. "You realize of course that according to all of us, and quite independent of the facts, we see you (muzungus) as being without exception quite wealthy. Your taxi driver will assume because of the color of your skin that you have more money than Kofi Annon, so you will pay a bit more."

We ended up sharing the taxi with a couple Scots, who we figured would pick up the tab since they must have at least as much money as Sean Connery. We spent the next couple days exploring Rwanda's capital together. As we wandered around the city the next day, we began to notice the wounds - angry scars and amputations abound in this town where just over a decade ago the very same streets were littered with dismembered corpses. We couldn't help but wonder how many of these people bear less obvious injuries, and how many others go about their days with impunity, having inflicted these unspeakable atrocities, now hiding in plain sight. Thoughts such as these engender quite a thirst, so we had a nightcap at the Hotel de Mille Collines, the sight of the cinematic Hotel Rwanda, where one mans courageous refusal to turn the other cheek saved a handful of precious lives. It was hard to imagine as we sat poolside beneath lush palm trees that here too terror had reigned.

The next day we hired a cab to take us to the recently erected Genocide Memorial, home to beautiful ceremonial gardens and mass graves that contain the remains of some 250,000 of the more than one million genocide victims. Near the current gravesites workers dug into the fertile ground to make room for the bones of victims that still turn up in urban construction sites and rural fields throughout the country.

Inside the Memorial, video clips of interviews with survivors punctuated the thorough historical explanation of the roots and inner-workings of the genocide. The international communities' complacency became painfully evident and impossible, at least from our politically naïve perspective, to justify. Gruesome photographs of the mass killings, corporeal remains and tattered clothing helped drive the point excruciatingly home. The bloodied Cornell sweatshirt and child-sized "I Love Ottawa" t-shirt, alongside family snapshots made it impossible to separate ourselves from these innocents, to dehumanize them as their murderers must have done. In one room, photographs of murdered children, Rwanda's abandoned future, included captions that listed the victim's favorite colors and foods, and their causes of death (bludgeoned, decapitated in her mother's arms, stabbed in the eyes, burned alive, etc).

Needing a break, Mike walked around outside the Memorial and ended up standing next to our taxi driver. In response to Mike's questions about life after the genocide, the driver patiently explained in perfect French that life in his country had become "impossible." He showed Mike the machete scars on his torso and neck, saying that he had been left for dead among the corpses of family and friends. He stared off into the hills and with a trembling lip and tearful eyes said "there are churches here that are still full of bodies and they have had to close the doors." What can people like us do, Mike asked. "Rien. I'll n'ya rien a faire." Perhaps the most difficult aspect of being here is the realization that despite all the good works in progress, on some level he is right - there is nothing to be done. Needless to say, we had a lot to think about as our minibus pulled out of Kigali, past the crew of workmen clad incongruously in the pink polo shirts and Bermuda shorts of the accused. Their hands tore this place asunder, and are now literally engaged in reassembling it even as these men await their day in tribal court, or gaccaca.

The road north to Ginsenyi snaked through unbelievably lush countryside, with terraced fields of tea, coffee, bananas and sugar cane. The man in front of us laughed and chatted with his fellow passengers, and while it was hard not to notice that part of his skull was missing, his levity seemed to compliment this picturesque landscape, adding hope, humor and beauty to the journey. We spent three days on the shores of Lake Kivu, in the scenic shadows of a chain of seven volcanoes; just a couple hundred meters down the beach, large villas occupy the small peninsula town of Goma, Congo. We considered taking a day to see Congo for ourselves, but there isn't enough Prozac in the world to enable H's mom to deal with that, so we gave it a miss. Traveler friends with less anxious moms confirmed that Congo is very much a war zone in places, with guns and decimated buildings everywhere you look. What a difference a border makes!

From Gisenyi we made our way over a rain-soaked mountain pass to Ruengherie, the primary base camp for Rwanda's thriving gorilla trekking enterprise. Having hooked up with a couple other travelers with whom we planned to share the taxi ride the next morning, we made like kids on Christmas Eve and tried to tame our anticipation in order to get some much-needed rest before the big hike.

We were lucky and early enough to be included in the group of 8 that got to visit the coveted Susa group the next morning. This is the largest group of mountain gorillas's accessible to tourists anywhere in the world, and the subject of Diane Fossie's groundbreaking research. Under the close supervision of an experienced guide and several armed military guys (there to protect us and the apes from the poachers who killed Fossie), we ascended through terraced fields and into the jungle. The thwang of our tracker's machete cleared the thick vines to carve a path deeper into the mist, and before we knew it we were surrounded by gorillas.

They don't seem real, more like animated stuffed animals, their jet-black fur standing out in stark contrast amidst the brilliant green foliage, sage eyes peering out from leathery faces to observe our approach without the slightest sign of distress. Being habituated to humans their entire lives, they just go about their business, which seems to consist of eating copious amounts of leaves and bamboo, napping and occasional outbursts of rough play. There were two silverbacks, massive masters of their domain, a bunch of lower males and some big mama's with brand new babies, including a set of twins, the only known of its kind on the planet. They all permitted us to get within the 7 meters allowed in the strict rules that govern gorilla trekking, and then they did the rest, chomping, snoring and playing, sometimes approaching to within a couple feet of us. From this close proximity, we were duly impressed, and emerged more than a bit surprised that they're not approaching their own school boards to distance themselves from any evolutionary association with us, instead of the other way around.

We were still on a primate high when we boarded yet another local minibus the next day for Lake Binyonyi, which we had heard was a great place to chill for a couple days. It turned out that we needed every minute of the r&r time to recover from the hair-raising ride, which included a sardine-packed vehicle to start with (meaning not only stuffed with people, but also sticky and shiny with fish oil from its last passengers, who were either fishermen, or some sadistic cult sent to destroy Mike, or both). But not to worry - we soon broke down and had a chance to inhale non-fish-scented dust on the roadside until we could thumb another ride which took us over an insanely beautiful but death-defying tightrope of a road that switched back through the mountains and finally into Kabale, where we kissed the ground before jumping in one last pick-up for the final stretch. Binyoni was great, a serene lakeside retreat where we ate, drank and paddled around in a dugout canoe until the time came to head back to the big city.

Back in Kampala, over beers and Uganda's version of a veggie burger (coleslaw on a bun), we decided to spend a few days in the north, near Murchinson Falls. We motored up the Nile, past schools of semi-submerged hippos numbering in the hundreds, who, along with hungry-looking crocs eyed us closely from the murky water. On the shore, the occasional giraffe and elephant could be seen in the distance. At one point, everyone on the boat but us began furiously thrusting binoculars to their faces. Bird watchers, normally a sedate group, went wild at the sighting of a rare shoe billed stork. While this particular feathered friend left us less-than-impressed, we must admit that despite our ongoing membership in the Bird Watching is Boring Club (BWBC), we can't help but appreciate Uganda's vast array of birds, including little ones with impossibly bright colors, and really big ones, like eagles and falcons which are pretty cool to watch even without a book and binocs. We finally arrived at the foot of Murchinson Falls, where the mighty Nile is funneled through a gap no more than 10 feet wide, creating supposedly the largest volume of water anywhere in the world. En route we enjoyed another primate close encounter, this time with chimps, who really do swing from branches and fill the jungle with grunts and cries that, along with tarantula-sized spiders on the wall of our thatched hut, cicadas screaming in the night made it impossible to forget the fact that we're in Africa. Having seen all that water rushing over the falls, we knew that before we headed out of Africa, we had to make our bid at taming the Nile.

Yeah, right. You try taming class 5 rapids (probably more like class 6 or 7 by U.S. standards) in a 14-foot raft. Granted, our guide was the Ugandan Olympic freestyle kayaking champ, and we had Heather and her paddling prowess on our side, but even then we managed to swim through all but one of the major rapids. Did we say swim? It was more like being tossed around in a huge, malevolent washing machine. Fortunately, there's so much water that any rocks that might otherwise do some serious damage are safely submerged, so it's just you and millions of gallons of water, obscuring up from down and making for some serious airtime as the waves catapulted us from the raft and into the torrent. We traded aqueous war stories over complimentary Nile River Special beers en route back to Kampala - the perfect end to one of our best days in Africa.

An all-day, class 4 bus ride later we find ourselves in Nairobi. It's hard for us to believe, but the time has come to trade jambo's for namaste's, apes for yaks, safaris for treks, Africa for Asia. We fly to Kathmandu Sunday night and though we hate to leave Africa, we are pretty excited to get to Nepal for some much-needed physical activity, and an up-close and personal encounter with the Nepal Himalayas. But before we do, our travel agent's decision not to book our new tickets (a little detail we discovered just today when we stopped by Air Emirates to confirm our flight) seems to have resulted in yet another fortuitous change of plans. Instead of a six hour lay-over in Dubai, we'll have almost two days to check out one of the seven territories that comprise The United Arab Emirates, about which neither of us knows a single thing, other than the fact that it is currently Ramadan, a holy time for Muslims and apparently a very cool time to be in Dubai. We'll let you know...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1127565120/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1127565120/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1127565120/tpod.html Sat, 24 Sep 2005 09:20:59 -0400 The Year of Living...

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Kampala, Uganda

When we last wrote we were headed from Mbeya to Dar es Salaam. In another installment of "getting there is half the fun," we passed on the 9-hour bus ride and opted instead for a 29-hour rail odyssey that wound through a national park, affording views from the '50's style dining car of grazing giraffes, lumbering elephants and various antelopey things. Needless to say, we had plenty of time to stoke our anticipatory fears of the Big City looming in the distance, and to remind ourselves that we have dealt with African metropoli before, and will do so again. With the confidence of now-seasoned independent travelers, we disembarked and found ourselves once again pleasantly surprised by the ease with which we negotiated the taxi (the original price was literally 10 times the eventual fare), found a hotel and settled in. Dar turned out to be a vibrant and very manageable city. We walked everywhere and really enjoyed the mix of African and Middle-eastern influence as well as a (compared to the countries we've been visiting up to now) sophistication and infrastructure that allowed us to get some errands (banking, email, travel arrangements etc) taken care of, and most importantly, to drink some real coffee! Having had our fill of urban exploration, we bid adieu to the mainland and headed for Zanzibar. Our small guest house was tucked into a corner of ancient Stone Town, with its labyrinthine alleys and old-world Muslim flare. The history of slave trade and spices infuse the atmosphere with mystery and seem to make time stand still. We wandered during the day and took in the awe-inspiring sunsets at the sea-view bar of a beautiful colonial era hotel. At night we dined at the open-air night market, where H gobbled fresh lobster, crab, marlin and other seafood delicacies, and Mike filled his belly with delicious Zanzibar pizza, all cooked over charcoal fires before our eyes for just a few shillings.
Then there was the diving. H was in need of an event-free, confidence building underwater experience, and was less-than-thrilled with the idea of descending more than 30 meters to explore a 150 year-old navy tanker wreck, but Mike assured the dive master that despite our novice status, we would be fine. And we were, until we rounded the corner of the sunken ship and found a previously unseen diver looking a bit out of sorts as she sat on the ocean floor, flailing with her regulator floating beside her. While our dive master attended to her, Mike did his best to interpret H's unique brand of underwater communication. Unsure of whether the scene unfolding before her was real or a figment of her nitrogen narcotic brain, H used her index finger to trace small circles in the clear water beside her head, followed by a thumbs up, making it known that she was done with this dive. The calm and collected dive master helped H chill out, assessed the group's remaining air and escorted us all to the surface. The dive master assured us that we had witnessed a rare event, and we decided not to tell her that we had encountered a similar drama every time we had entered the water wearing SCUBA gear. Could it be us?
We had a delicious lunch in the sun while our captain took us to the second dive site of the day, a shallow reef aptly named "Aquarium." Much to her credit, H got back on the horse, and this time enjoyed her dive immensely. The corals and fish were spectacular and in the absence of any underwater incidents everyone had a great time. Chatting up the highlights on our way back to shore, someone mentioned in a benign, by-the-way tone, "Too bad about those divers on Pemba (an island just a few miles north of Zanzibar known for its diving)." It was then that we learned about the Canadian woman and her two adult sons, a man from Belgium and their very experienced dive instructor who disappeared during a dive there last month and, despite a massive search effort were never seen again. We decided that it was preferable to have learned about this after the dive, and if H has her way we will not step into another swimming pool without a transceiver, inflatable orange marker and flare gun.

As if Stone Town wasn't relaxing and idyllic enough, we headed to the east coast of Zanzibar island for a few days of complete r&r on a remote beach near a town called Bwejuu. A steady, warm on-shore breeze shifted the silky white sand beneath our feet and gently rocked the hammocks where we read and dozed the days away - paradise! We finally admitted to ourselves that we needed to get a move on, and before we knew it were back in Dar. Discussing the upcoming Tanzanian presidential elections with a man in our hotel, we learned that in addition to a deep knowledge of local politics, he also had a friend in the safari business. Usually skeptical of this kind of set-up (everybody knows somebody who has something for sale), we decided to hear the guy out, and ended up being very impressed. Having hooked up with a young(er) British couple to improve our bargaining power, we all agreed that Elephant Adventures was as good as our budget was likely to get, and just like that we were headed on safari.

As we've said before, we're pretty convinced that the benefits of independent travel far outweigh the drawbacks, not despite but rather because of the fact that we often have no idea what we're doing and spend much of our day arranging and then enduring sometimes-brutal travel conditions. It is during these times that we have the opportunity to interact most directly with the people who live here. That said, there are times when it is REALLY nice to be whisked away on a tour and have the details taken care of - safari, here we come!

Our safari guide met us at the Arusha bus station in an army green Land Cruiser and promptly plucked us out of the fray. We were happy to leave behind the chaos of the Arusha bus stand where a man who we assume is employed by the bus companies to protect passengers was busy beating back taxi drivers and porters clamoring to (literally) grab our business. Our driver/guide, Junior and his sidekick Buga briefed us in the lobby of our guest house and early the next morning we headed out of town to the nearby Arusha National Park. At the foot of Mt. Meru, this small and scenic park is home to giraffes, wildebeest, zebras, tons of monkeys and antelopes, all wandering around their lush natural habitat as we stood in our safari vehicle (the roof lifts off in two sections providing unobstructed 360 degree views). We hired an armed guide to escort us on a short stroll through the jungle (no choice here - that's part of the deal to walk in a national park), and stood just feet away from giraffes as they nibbled the leaves off the treetops. Before the day was done, a pink cloud of flamingos flew overhead to escort us out of the park. We made our way back to Arusha town, collected supplies and drove a couple hours under a spectacular sunset to an isolated campground on the outskirts of Ngorongoro National Park.

Driving through the arid pastureland between our camp and the Crater, we passed crimson-clad Masai warriors tending their cattle. It's difficult to describe this scene, and we have no pix - the Masai, who distinguish themselves as the only tribe in eastern Africa to retain their traditional ways, don't like to be photographed (unless you pay them - that's part of our traditional way of life they seem to have embraced). The Masai are almost without exception tall and lean, their ebony skin taut over angular faces. The red of the traditional blankets they wear as clothing has over the centuries become a deterrent to lions, as a result of the Masai tradition that requires adolescent males to kill a lion in order to become a man. They carry sticks for herding cattle and are often seen walking alone through windblown terrain with the stick over their shoulders, arms perched on either side as if in crucifix. The women are adorned in ornate silver chains and bracelets, and seem almost always to be balancing absurd loads of cargo atop their shaved heads - the whole thing is just so National Geographic.

The Ngorongoro Crater is an awe-inspiring site, both from the rim where we marveled at its massive expanse, and from within, where the dense concentration of animals and oases of lush foliage amidst miles of arid landscape create a prehistoric scene. This was safari-ing at its best, close encounters with hippos, elephants, herds of wildebeest and zebras, rhinos and cheetahs in the distance, and best of all, the lions.

Under a broiling mid-day sun we came upon a group of 4 or 5 other safari vehicles stopped in a group - always a good sign. A pride of lions had gathered to make use of the vehicles for shade. As you'll see in the pictures, these giant cats were seriously close, and their proximity became really serious when one particularly assertive male decided that our gawking eye-contact was a bit much. He backed up, crouched down and gave us the evil eye like only the king of the jungle can do, and something very basic in each of us made our driver's warning to "be quiet and get down" completely unnecessary. There was a collective gasp and hush from the other safari-ers as we performed a flawless synchronized fall into our seats and held our breaths, hoping the lion wouldn't leap into the car through the open roof. Needless to say, we lived to tell the tale, and it was the highlight of the safari - until the next day's brush with the elephant.

You'd think we would have learned our lesson, but when we saw the enormous elephant lumbering down the hillside in the Tarangire Park the next day, we insisted that Junior take us in for a closer look. He had warned us that due to the fact that elephants sometimes wander out of the park and into the path of poachers and licensed hunters, they have come to associate our vehicles with danger and can sometimes be aggressive. Whatever. We left the riverbank where we were watching elephants play in the mud next to water-walking baboons and lounging antelopes and made our way to destiny. The size of this male elephant is hard to describe, except to say that as he approached our car, our driver reminded us that the Landie weighs about one ton, and the elephant was pushing seven. Once again our hasty descent into our seats proceeded our driver's hushed command, and this time the fear endured as the elephant stood by, looking as though he was deciding what to do. When he finally walked off, Junior let us know that we had actually been at some risk, and that the last time something like this had happened, the elephant inserted his trunk into the roof causing a customer to wet her khaki pants. Dry and alive, we drove around for a few more hours until the heat and post-adrenaline exhaustion finally took its toll, and we headed back to town. The three days were more than we could have hoped to ask for, and you might think we'd have had our fill of animal adventures, but...

We're now in Uganda, after a 22-hour bus ride that was an adventure of its own, and are trying to decide whether we should visit the mountain gorillas here, or in neighboring Rwanda. Rwanda is especially appealing to us now, as we had an opportunity in Arusha to sit in on a morning of the U.N.'s Rwandan War Crimes Tribunal. The lawyers all wear old-school black robes and white wigs and use the most high-tech A/V equipment we've ever seen to navigate the language barriers and length of time that has passed since the 1994 genocide. We are told that Kigali, Rwanda's capital city, is a great place to visit, as are some of the lakeshore resorts and Volcano National Park, so, having spent the day wandering around Kampala, we're headed that way tomorrow. We plan to spend a week or so in Rwanda before coming back to Uganda to brave the whitewater at the source of the mighty Nile River, then back to Nairobi to catch the flight that we have extended by two weeks in hopes of reducing our mounting despair at the thought of leaving Africa. That's it for now - we're off to see what other trouble we can find, and will report back in a couple week. Until then...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1125991440/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1125991440/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mikeandheather/world05/1125991440/tpod.html Tue, 06 Sep 2005 04:15:09 -0400 The Year of Living...

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Mbeya, Tanzania

It's been almost a month since we last wrote, and as summer comes to a close we cannot believe how time is flying! Mike asked H before we left, Africa for 3 ½ months? What will we DO? Well, that has pretty much taken care of itself. One thing that has become very apparent in our travels through Africa, the journey from A to B has been at least as, and at times more memorable than the destination. Case in point: the one-day odyssey between Mozambique and Malawi.

We awoke in the transit town of Cuamba at 4:30am and sprinted through the dark, dusty and deserted streets in search of a minibus that would take us west to the border. Our timing was perfect! We arrived just as the impossibly roomy van pulled into a random dirt lot. High fives all around as we loaded our gear and took our seats. The driver hit the gas and his lieutenant began the familiar routine of calling out the vehicle's destination in order to entice additional passengers. Before the minibus was deemed sufficiently full, we had circled the town for over an hour, repeatedly passing our hotel until, staring straight ahead with the glazed eyes of pre-dawn disappointment and discomfort, we finally began the trip. The 12-seat van held 29 people and somehow had enough juice left over to power a treble-only sound system used to broadcast a local DJ's maddening attempt to bid a rowdy good morning to every individual living in Mozambique.

We managed to complete almost one dusty, bumpy hour of the three-hour trip before the van dropped its transmission and limped to a halt in the middle of nowhere. After a great deal of discussion between the driver and the other passengers, the gist of which seemed to be what to do with these stranded muzungos, Mike flagged down a passing flatbed semi whose driver agreed to add us to his haul, and just like that we were off again. Sitting atop an unidentified pile of cargo, we were soon covered in blowing dust. But we had all the room in the world and, heads propped on our bags, dawned our iPods to add a soundtrack to the National Geographic-like tableau of naked children running barefoot past thatched huts, waving and laughing as they chased our truck. We were definitely in Africa.

Once at the border, we fought our way through the throngs of aggressive money changers on the Mozambique side, and found a hole-in-the wall eatery which despite its dubious sanitation standards was the only show in town. We ordered up some rice and beans and washed them down with cold beer, all under the watchful eyes of a crowd of young boys who seemed determined to take us for a ride on their bicycle "taxis". This turned out to be the only way to negotiate the 7km that divide the immigration posts, so we each chose a rider, haggled until everyone seemed equally disappointed with the price, and hit the road. The weight of their passengers and our baggage failed to deter the boys' laughter, let alone their assiduous pedaling as they raced each other over the rolling pot-holed hills.

Crossing into Malawi after one final haggle with the bicycle taxi boys, we jumped into a tiny pickup truck jam-packed with locals and their cassava roots, chickens and children. Thus began a series of transfers to progressively bigger and more absurdly full trucks, culminating in a final, excruciating sunset ride to Cape Maclear on the southern shores of Lake Malawi; thus ended one very full day of travel in Africa.

We spent almost the entire three weeks in Malawi on and around the lake, beginning with a two-day journey on a ferry called the Ilala. During the day we lounged on deck with fellow travelers, and at night we slept under the stars as the old-school steamer made its way gradually northward toward Nkhata Bay. Lake Malawi looks and feels like an ocean, though the warm, crystal clear fresh water is in some ways more inviting for its lack of salt and scary things that might eat you. Once settled in at the scenic Myoka Village in Nkhata Bay, with its fresh press coffee and veg meals, rustic lakeshore bungalows and unique mix of local and muzungo visitors, we vowed to stay in one place for at least 2 weeks for the first time on our trip. This plan hit the skids when the clothes we naively handed over for a much-needed professional cleaning were stolen from the drying line during our first night. We know what you're thinking - someone actually wanted Mike and Heather's clothes?! Were they trying to save us from ourselves, a kind of fashion euthanasia? We choose to think not. Hey, we may not turn heads in Portland, but by African standards we had it going on. (An interesting side-note: most of the clothes the locals wear seem to have been plucked directly from the Goodwill bins at home, circa 1990. So, as we head out to replenish our clothing supply there's a good chance we may be lucky enough to find a pair of jeans we wore in high school. The problem is they may not fit, since we seem to be the only two people in history to have gained weight in Africa). Anyway, the theft resulted in Heather's immediate disdain for all things Myoka, as well as Mike spending a great deal of the ensuing weeks going commando. Unsatisfied with the half-hearted police response, H assumed the role of clothes detective, scouring the city for boys bathing in her underwear, and shouting "Give me my jacket," in response to the hello's she received from suspects/villagers.

In dire need of a break from the case, we decided to take to the lake on kayaks. We spent three days paddling more than 75 km's north along the coast, waving to children as they emerged from their huts screaming "Azungo! Azungo!". Needless to say, kids running along Lake Michigan's shore screaming "White people! White people!" might not fly, but in this context it was just right, especially when they came to meet us in their dugout canoes, asking us our names, countries of origin and destination before they thanked us and rejoined their friends to tell them all about the encounter. We stopped during the days to jump off rocks and snorkel, or just meander around the shores where ancient Boab trees stand like sage sentries. At night, we camped out, cooking communal meals over an open fire. Once we reached our destination, we decided to hike back down south about ten miles through small villages to rejoin some folks we met at a lodge along the way. As we walked, we reveled in our commerce-free interactions with some of the friendliest people on the planet, who for now remain relatively untouched by tourism. We arrived hot and tired at our destination, a secluded beach lodge run by a very cool couple from the UK. We ended up making fast friends with the proprietors of this magical little lakeside oasis, and their friends from home who happened to be there for a visit. We kicked back in hammocks, ate delicious food and generally recreated, including some very intense table tennis played with hand-made paddles and a net made from mosquito netting - very Gilligan's Island. When their food and drink supply finally dried up, the Brits suggested we travel en masse back to Nkhata Bay. Once again, the journey was half the fun - bailing water from the boat that took us from shore to dilapidated ferry and arriving after dark under a sparkling starry sky.

H immediately resumed her investigation with renewed vigor. After several unsuccessful attempts to navigate the bureaucratic obstacles inherent in third world government agencies, H found herself accused by the Chief of Police of falsifying the cost of a Nike sports bra, worth about one month of his wages. The Chief's insistence that his trip to Mexico several years ago qualified him to estimate the value of the bra at approximately $7 inspired our friend Greg's outrage. He entered the fray, and while we are unsure whether it was his erudite argument or his bald head, tooth-mounted diamond and full-body tattoo that did the trick, he provided ample support (excuse the bra pun) for H's claim. The report was written, then typed, then double-checked and paid for ($20 to file a police report in Malawi), and we were free to go. Only in Africa.

We hung with Greg and the Brits another couple days, making our way gradually north toward Tanzania and the inevitable adieu. We have been so fortunate to meet and travel with such amazing people over the last few weeks, and while we have been looking forward to the freedom and feeling of accomplishment that comes with traveling alone, we already miss our companions and hope to see them again.

We left Southern Africa with fewer clothes but more friends than we had before, as well as a newfound appreciation for the region and its people. H has been particularly at home here, as the locals call her sister and manage to match her speaking volume decibel for decibel. We crossed the border into Tanzania yesterday and once again have been welcomed with open arms. We have both become very comfortable being the only mazungos on a bus, in a restaurant or even in a town, as seems to be the case here in Mbeya where we await a train that is scheduled to depart for Dar this afternoon. Our immediate plans include a clothes shopping spree in Dar, lounging and diving in Zanzibar and then heading north for a safari in the Serengeti. It's a rough life, but someone's got to do it! Back atcha soon...
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