TravelStream™ news feed for member youngtravellers on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/youngtravellers en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Mon, 25 May 2009 22:43:51 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1197468780/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1197468780/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1197468780/tpod.html Mon, 25 May 2009 22:43:51 -0400 Don't go there...it's dangerous: Erin and Travis take on the world

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Ajmer, India

I don't want you to be alarmed, dear reader, but I felt it appropriate that our third pair of eyes, the one and only Emily Newton, write a guest entry.  Let's be easy on her, maybe even give her an encouraging comment or two.  And don't worry, we'll be back after Pushkar and Ajmer.  Our day trip to Ajmer happened sort of by accident and without much in the way of expectation. It was Travis' day to rest his gastrointestinal tract and enjoy the comforts of a room with a commode. Erin and I were feeling much better and we decided to try and check out the nearby town of Ajmer that wasn't on our original itinerary. Buses left pretty frequently, so we wove our way through the streets back to the original bus stop and found our ride in no time. Figuring out when to get off of the bus was a different story. With our navigational confidence still barely intact, we held on to the optimistic thought that we would simply know when we had arrived in downtown Ajmer. Usually this involves looking for more buildings and congestion than usual, but more often than not we fell victim to peer pressure and just got off when everyone else did. Fortunately, we headed in the right direction when we got off the bus at some random corner with a group of locals. We had to walk along a stretch of highway for a bit, but we were able to find the historic section of town pretty easily.The Nasiyan Jain Temple was our first destination and we had almost given up on using the small LP map to locate it when we came upon a striking red structure with a walled courtyard. We peeked in and figured it was worth asking about and checking out while we were exploring the city. The woman at the ticket counter gestured for us to go through a doorway that was opposite the courtyard of the temple complex and Erin and I exchanged puzzled looks. Immediately upon stepping through the doorway Erin looked up at the ceiling and reached for her camera as she let out a small squeal of delight. We were heading down a corridor that led to some stairs and each portion of the ceiling that was built a half a level higher and followed the contour of the stairwell was painted a different bold color and contained an equally as bold painted flower in the center. At the end of the stairs, we saw a longer hallway with stained glass windows on the left and large, protective glass panels on the right. When we reached the viewing area we were totally taken aback. Laid before us was an amazingly intricate and elaborately carved diorama, painted almost entirely in gold, depicting scenes from the creation of the Jain universe. While we were viewing from the second floor, the display itself took up the entire space of two uninterrupted  stories. Two huge models of structures dominated the display and divided it into halves. On one side was a large tower with a spiraled stairway and on the other was a square palace with a courtyard. Marching, flying, sailing, and parading all around these structures were dozens and dozens of figures. There were beautifully carved soldiers,  townspeople, royalty, holy men and women, atop and alongside elephants, horses, and chariots. Peacock, swan, and elephant-shaped ships filled with musicians and their instruments hung from the ceiling as if they were flying around the tower and palace. Erin and I spent quite some time slowly making our way around the perimeter of the viewing floor as we tried to take in all the intricacies of the diorama. Even the walls surrounding the display were covered with panels of paintedscenes from Jain creation stories, sheets of colored glass and mirrors. The flying peacock ships were easily my favorite. For an unplanned, unexpected extra side trip, this temple display was certainly a highlight. We couldn't resist checking out the arrangement of miniature silk paintings for sale right outside of the entrance and ended up picking out a few with the justification that they made great travel-tolerant gifts. We stubbornly wandered through the streets for a while trying to find the Ajmer museum when we eventually settled on finding a driver who knew where we were trying to go. A modest old fort and palace built by the MughalEmperor Jahangir in 1616 had been converted into an equally as unassuming little museum, containing the usual displays of old temple carvings, small paintings, weapons, and some textiles. We returned to Pushkar in time for dinner with Travis that evening. He was feeling much better and we decided to end our extended stay by committing to some bus tickets to Udaipur. Emily
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1211692680/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1211692680/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1211692680/tpod.html Sun, 15 Feb 2009 21:13:56 -0500 Don't go there...it's dangerous: Erin and Travis take on the world

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Bajawa, East Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia

Assured that there would, indeed be a bus going to Bajawa today, we setour alarms for 5:10, told the friendly hotel lady that we'd likebreakfast at 5:20, and then we would be all set to wait for the bus,which was supposed to arrive at 5:30.  It didn't.  I guessit's lucky that we spent the extra few rupiah to book the ticket withour friendly agent, because the bus arrived at 5:20 and honked at us tocome, so we didn't get breakfast at all.  Poor hotel lady woke upso early and we'd asked her to give us breakfast before 5:30 twice andshe never actually got to give it to us.  Had we just waited bythe side of the road, we probably would have missed the bus, because itwouldn't have known we wanted to get on it.  ConfusedlyTravis and I ambled up to first one door of the bus, then another, thenback to the first.  We had no idea where to sit or to put ourstuff.  You see, the bus was chock full of huge bags ofshallots.  The entire back of the bus, the aisles up to andsometimes above the level of the seats, and the roof.  Thousandsand thousands of tiny onions.  Lovely.  It started with me,and then everyone else who climbed on the bus stopped and said the samething, "Oh my!"  Luckily Travis and I were first on the bus(except for the shallot man), so we had the pick of seats.  Thismeant that we chose to sit before the door and take advantage of whatscanty leg room there was.  Then we proceeded to drive all aroundLabuanbajo until the bus was full to what I am sure was double itscapacity.  And so the day began.  There were fourWesterners on the bus.  We were all alright, except that we're alla little oversized for the seats.  The rest of the bus was full ofIndonesians going from somewhere to somewhere else.  Full. Every seat was taken, sometimes double, because babies always sit onlaps, until they're 8 or so.  The aisle full of shallots was aperch for several more people, and of course there were the requisitemen hanging out the door.  For the first few hours everyonesettled in.  My one annoyance was that Indonesian men feel likesmoking whenever the fancy takes them, including confined buses. So, in addition to shallots I was choked with the foul stench ofcigarettes in my face.  Travis decided I was unreasonable. "So some foreigner comes in and they should change everything foryou?"  It was a point, and that's why I never asked anyone to stopsmoking (besides which it would have been pointless because EVERYIndonesian man smokes, so I would have had to ask most of the bus toplease stop).  But most Europeans smoke and they manage to bepolite about it.  You never realize how little Americans smokeuntil you leave the US.  I kid you not.  Compared to the restof the world we seem to be a country of non-smokers. Otherthan the fact that the bus was stiflingly hot on the inside bits, wemeandered down the winding roads of Flores for a couple hours andseemed to be making good progress.  Then something on the busbroke down.  Fortunately the way transporation seems to work onthese islands precludes the possibility of hurrying, so everyone justsat back.  I was actually happy it finally stopped, as I had toscurry into the bushes.  Then the bus continued.  Then theIndonesians started vomiting.  In China we met a couplewho had started in Indonesia and they mentioned that Indonesians arenot the greatest bus travellers and plastic bags are always provided onbuses.  We had a first-hand experience when a little girl sittingdiagonally behind Travis spewed the contents of her stomach all overhis head, neck, and back.  As I was not personally affected Ifound this quite humorous, but Travis did not.  He wiped it alloff and then I lent a hand.  Luckily it was all rice and bananachunks, so there wasn't any residual slime - at least not thattime.  After this she managed to aim for the bag her mother washolding.  The mother appologized to Travis profusely.  Eventuallywe stopped for lunch at a way shady establishment.  Definitely notFDA approved.  We opted for some instant noodles from a shop downthe street.  Then everyone climbed back on the bus and we startedagain.  I offered to sit on the onion side of the seat so Traviscould get some more air at the window.  This was a bad idea. At first I realized that I was now directly in line to be puked on andthe little girl had just eaten lunch.  She didn't actually getsick again, but it was a slight concern.  Then as we trundledalong I got more and more nauseated.  The combination of onionodor, residual vomit, and sweaty bodies crushed together was just toomuch for my stomach.  I think I ended up spending nearly fourhours bent double trying not to breathe with a bag in my hand. And I've never gotten sick in a car before.  It washorrendous.  Travis wasn't bothered.  Figures.  Atlong last, after more than 12 hours in our cramped seats, we finallyarrived - 3 km from Bajawa.  We foreigners looked for ourbags.  They'd been moved to the roof, and one of our foreignnumber decided he was glad he didn't know it was moved, because at onepoint some stuff fell off the bus.  Then we all climbed into thewaiting bemo (that be Indonesian for minibus taxi thing) and journeyedinto town.  The Austrian stayed at hotel Eidelweiss, which Ithought was fitting, and the rest of us journeyed onward to a cheapplace with a restaurant.  This is how we met Will. He's probably no older than 60 or 65, has three grown children, and hiswife died suddenly two years ago.  So he decided to make his wayaround the world in an easterly direction and see what he always wantedto see while he still had his health.  At dinner he told us pilesof stories, and I thought yet again how I like to meet kindred spiritson the travel trail.  Poor guy started in India, though.  Iwouldn't recommend that to anyone, and he told us he almost quit. But he didn't, so we continued a little part of our journeystogether.  It was quite an adventure.  Erin
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1216135860/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1216135860/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1216135860/tpod.html Tue, 03 Feb 2009 20:24:08 -0500 Don't go there...it's dangerous: Erin and Travis take on the world

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Madaba, Jordan

Madaba is an easy day trip from Amman, but it's also supposed to be a nice town to stay in instead of Amman.  The city has found its place in history because of its massive collection of mosaics.  Our first stop in the city was at the Archaeological Park.  Contrary to the sound of its name, it is not large.  And it's pretty much solely a collection of mosaics from different places and periods.  For good measure they've got the old Roman cardo of the city running through the middle of the park.  I love mosaics and have formulated a plan to make myself a Roman bathroom, so you may eventually see a lovely mosaic floor in my house...whenever I get one of those.  But really, you should look at the photos, because my descriptions will not be good.  After the museum we traipsed to the main event - a mosaic map that once contained two million tiles but is now one third its original size.  The map described the Middle East from Lebanon to Sinai - all the important political and Biblical sites being represented therein.  Many of the places we've been were still visible in the remainder of the map, and that was fun to see.  It was also confusing, however, because the map is oriented bizarrely.  The map currently lives in a Greek Orthodox church - also jam packed with its own mosaic artwork.  Travis had fun.  Next we made our way down to the Madaba Museum, where the curator or whoever he was was so desperate for companionship that several things happened: he attached himself to me, he invited us to tea, and he got teary when we left.  It was innocent enough, so although I should have called a halt to the attention I didn't really feel a need to.  Travis was shooed out of the room we were in and he proceeded to ask me to take pictures of everything.  Apparently he was equally as enamored of my camera as of me.  This was impressive, cause I think I smelled pretty gross.  Impishly my new friend sprayed with water the mosaics in his domain to darken the colors for my photos.  I think this was technically not allowed.  Travis returned to find my friend holding my leg while I stood on a bench for a good shot of the mosaic.  He was holding my leg so I wouldn't fall and break my arm like the guy did yesterday.  Hmm.  But like I said, I didn't feel threatened and it wasn't terribly horribly inappropriate, so we all stayed friends.  When we were about to leave he invited us to take tea.  Although he lived in the city all his life, he was a Bedouin, and you really shouldn't refuse to take tea with a Bedouin if you can help it because it has political repercussions.  Besides, when we told him we had to go he got all teary.  He really liked Americans, he said.  We figured he must be bored out of his mind.  Tea was lovely and perfectly normal, and after it was finished Travis and I made our way onward without mishap.  I wasn't totally comfortable with the museum experience.  Like I said, I didn't feel threatened, but I knew I was in an Arab country and that Arab boundaries were crossed, and I thought I should be more wary in the future.  Just because this one man was harmless didn't mean that the next one would be.  It was with these thoughts in mind that I proceeded to be 100% sexually harassed.  The Church of the Apostles has a big mosaic (the largest in Jordan) that has nothing to do with any apostles.  Not anymore, anyway.  The thing you go to see is a medallion of a sea goddess surrounded by little sea creatures including a tiny octopus.  It's very nice.  What was not very nice was the dirty old man who first tried to kiss me and then grabbed my ass and shoved me into his crotch while my husband had his back turned.  I ran away.  It all didn't go as I would have wished, for many reasons.  First, I should have been more careful.  I'm not saying that this is my fault, because I should not be taken advantage of just because I'm a white woman, but there are things to do in Arab countries to keep your distance that I just didn't think of as totally necessary (most of the men I'd met were quite decent and conservative).  Therefore I will say that, if you must have physical contact, completely limit it to a handshake.  But keep in mind that Muslim women do not touch Muslim men and they can take advantage of a handshake.  Never allow the cheek kiss - you are not in France or Eastern Europe and the only reason a man will do this to you is to make a play for your mouth or other anatomy.  Second, after I said no to the kiss attempt, I should have run away immediately.  By not doing so I'd left myself available for the ass grab.  (Sorry Grandma, but it wasn't pretty so the words aren't gonna be either.)  Third, I should have smacked the skeezy *** and told him exactly how inappropriate his behavior was.  But cowering behind Travis worked alright, too.  If you don't think aggressively on the spot like me, however, you can always write to the tourism board and hope that action will be taken so it doesn't happen to other women.  In the event that action is not taken, I have given you my advice.  The experience still upsets me, so consider that and take care of yourselves.  Welcome to Madaba. Erin A note of follow-up:  We have been contacted by the tourism board of Madaba.  This body does take seriously offences against tourists, which should make visitors feels safer because someone will listen to them if an incident does occur.  In a case of mistaken identity, they believed that the man portrayed in a photograph in this entry was the man who harassed me.  He was not.  He is very friendly, only wished to make our visit happy, and we have found that comments written herein, while we believed them to be innocuous, were taken to be more sinister.  I wish to apologize to this man for our rude treatment of him in this writing.  I have slightly modified the entry to make it less hurtful to an individual I had no wish to hurt.  As for the true culprit, because I have no image of him I can only hope that he can be identified.  I suggest that if anyone else has visited and met with harassment they direct complaints to monther@visitmadaba.org.
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1193944500/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1193944500/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1193944500/tpod.html Sun, 21 Dec 2008 00:52:59 -0500 Don't go there...it's dangerous: Erin and Travis take on the world

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Pisac, Peru

We had a bad start for our Sacred Valley adventure.  Erin went the bathroom and I came in right after her to find gallons of water flowing from the toilet tank.  It started flowing over the bathroom floor so I took off the porcelain top and set it down to see if I could stop the water.  It slid down the wall and broke into a bunch of pieces.  Even with the bulb up and the pipe plugged water was still flowing from somewhere.  The guy had to come up and shut-off the water.  We just haven´t had much luck with toilets.  So I went downstairs to use the bathroom and the same thing happened again.  We just don´t have much luck with toilets.  She charged us 20 soles (half a night´s stay) for the porcelain.  I wasn´t very happy.We walked down to the bus stop from which we had immediately caught a Pisac-bound bus just the day before.  No bus today.  Finally a bus came and they told us to go somewhere else.  The taxi drivers kept trying to get us to take a taxi for 50 times the price and we said we wanted the stupid bus.  Finally one pointed us to a station down the way where we found a different bus going to Pisac and hopped on.  I don´t understand why simple things are so difficult sometimes.The bus found its way to Pisac.  The guy on the bus was talking to me in Spanish and told me to take a taxi to the top since it would be easier (Erin didn´t hear this).  However, since one of our purposes was to get some practice before the upcoming Inca Trail, I persuaded her to walk to the top.  The guidebook described the path as a steep uphill 4 km climb.  Piece of cake.It was market day in Pisac and we planned on buying some cold-weather gear for the Inca Trail and Bolivia (Erin cannot regulate her body temperature).  There are a bunch of stalls all selling textiles and clothing.  I´m pretty sure they believe that if they say, "It´s made of alpaca," tourists will take it at any price.  I seriously doubt most of it is actually alpaca.  Anyways, after refusing a 70 sol sweater we got two for 30 each.  Prices may vary.  So we headed uphill.  It was very steep.  Erin did not appreciate this.  She complained a lot.  The view was quite spectacular however, and we slowly made our way uphill towards the small lookout tower that never seemed to get any closer.  "Why do they put the ruins all the way up there!" she yelled at the sky.  Then we got to the stairs.  She might have killed me if she could catch me.  After quite a long time we made it to the ruins and sat down for a break.  Erin said she had a stomach ache and was not in the least interested in exploring the ruins.  Especially when I crested the hill and saw that the ruins were quite extensive and the parking lot was a long way away.  So she grumpily started towards the parking lot while giving me permission to scamper up higher to the rest of the ruins.  Scamper might be overstating things slightly.  I was wheezing by the time I made it to the top of the mountain.  The views were amazing and I got to wander around peeking out various windows at the valleys on all sides.  Somewhere in here I lost my sole remaining lens cap.  But really, anything that´s small and thin and needs to be pried off with two fingers wasn´t going to last long anyways.  So I´m in the market for other ones.  From the main ruins there were two paths: one up and one down.  I figured I had come this far so I huffed and puffed up.  The silly Incas put towers and lookout posts in such inaccessible places that the paths didn´t even go there anymore.  I´m pretty sure they could fly.  A little farther on I crawled through an Inca tunnel chipped out of the rock.  Then a cool defensive door across the path.  I reached another area with an Inca castle (the military sector as opposed to the temple sector).  I couldn´t even figure out how to climb up there.  On the cliff behind the buildings there are thousands of holes carved into the rock.  These were Inca tombs that have been gone over by grave robbers.  There are a bunch of baths up here too, some with running water.  I followed the terraces down to the parking lot was Erin was waiting for me.  Í thoroughly enjoyed Pisac and wandering through the ruins.  It´s much better to do it independently than with a day tour because you don´t get to stay long enough.  It´s very hard to bargain for a taxi ride when it´s very obvious you aren´t going to walk back down the bloody hill.  We passed a check point and both the guys in the front seat throw their seatbelts over their bodies.  The policeman tells the driver to go slowly.  They don´t listen.Back in Pisac we buy a scarf, hat, and mittens.  The lady proposes 18 soles for the scarf.  Erin proposed 10.  The lady does not argue.  Makes you wonder how much it´s really worth.  We very easily catch a bus back to Cusco.Here we get fed dinner by some nice guests before heading over to a hostel I reserved a couple months ago for the Inca Trail.  The hotel owner is very nervous about everything and it makes me edgy.  It is very fancy by our standards.  Our "double" room has four beds in it.  But it has cable and Erin drinks in some English television.  The guy informs us that the company will pick us up early the next morning.  This was our "briefing and recommendations."  They were supposed to meet us and give us some information.  Oh well.Tomorrow we begin the Inca Trail!Travis   
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1193608260/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1193608260/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1193608260/tpod.html Sun, 21 Dec 2008 00:40:38 -0500 Don't go there...it's dangerous: Erin and Travis take on the world

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Amantani, Peru

Peru seems to like 2 day tours.  So we went on another one, this time to the islands of Lake Titicaca.  Aside from having a funny name, Lake Titicaca also has a host of fairy-tale islands that you can visit.  We signed up for an overnight tour that included the floating islands of Uros, Amantani, and Taquile.We all piled into a boat.  Piled because there were about 27 of us and only 20 could squeeze into the interior portion.  Our guide was Esteban, who took turns speaking in English and Spanish.  That, I would have to say, is the one disadvantage to being able to understand Spanish.  I have to listen to everything twice.We motored out to our first stop, the floating islands.  These things are pretty amazing.  The people of Uros, most likely because they felt pressure from the encroaching Incas, decided to move out onto the lake.  But the real islands were already taken.  No problem, they just built their own.  The totora reed permeates every part of life here.  It grows in this corner of the lake, and is gathered in bundles for food, for shelter, and for transportation.  The totora reed has a large root base, and these blocks are stacked to form the bottom of the island.  These may be up to a meter in height.  On top of these are placed the reed stems to a height of another meter or two.  The entire construction is floated on the lake.  Each islands holds up to 6-7 families or around 40 people.  As the reeds decay more are stacked on top.  Each island has a lifespan of around 25 years before it starts to break up, at which point it is banished to a graveyard.  There are over 40 islands, and a portion of them have been given over completely to tourism.  There are as many boats heading to the islands as there were buses heading to Colca Canyon.  They work on some kind of rotation system so that every boat gets its own little island.  So we pulled up to one of these islands and were greeted by the women in their traditional dress.  Stepping onto the islands is a strange experience.  It has a soft, spongey feel and you sink in a little as you walk.  We gathered around and our guide gave us some information while the women set up their crafts in a semicircle around us.  The totora make the islands but they also are food.  The soft white stem can be eaten.  It tastes like celery, minus the flavor.  They eat and trade fish that they catch in the lake, as well as exotic trout.  At one point they opened up a plug in the island and dropped a line down to demonstrate how much water was under where we sat.  It was about 20 meters deep.  We had the option of taking a reed boat to the next island.  It looks like a Viking ship and a lot of them have dragon faces on the front.  It was steered and rowed with a back and side oar.  It wasn´t the speediest form of transportation, but it was surprisingly steady.  On the other side we saw a reed sofa and a little museum that consisted almost entirely of stuffed birds.  We boarded the real boat and headed off to Amantani to spend the night.Like almost everywhere on the lake (and Peru for that matter), the economy of Amantani was also dependent on tourism.  Here they took the tourists into their homes.  When we arrived at the dock a list was given over to the head of the community and he called off families.  It was like we were choosing teams for baseball.  We were assigned to Irma, and we followed her as she walked in silence up the hill.  Most of the island is uphill.  The altitude doesn´t help.  We were shown into a rather nice room on the second story of their home.  Soon after we were served lunch and we had some conversation.  Irma lives in one of nine communities on the island.  They take turns hosting tourists.  She has two children, Jose and something that sounds vaguely like William.  Her husband, Bautista, is working in Puno.  He won´t return for three months.  They speak Quechua but learn Spanish in school.  She is 33 years old...and she considers that old.  We are served soup, coca tea, and a plate of rice, potatoes, tomatoes, and...fried cheese.  Yes, a big thick slice of fried cheese.  It´s good but I couldn´t eat it all.  We meet in the square to take a walk to the top of the island.  Irma warns us to remember her name because tourists end up getting lost and can´t find their families.  Esteban tells us a little more about the island.  Almost the entire land area is sloped and terraced.  The people have divided the island up into four quadrants.  Every season they plant potatoes, sweet potatoes, and cereals in three quadrants while leaving the fourth fallow.  They rotate each season.  But they don´t trade for the other items.  Each family has terraces in each of the four quadrants, and grows all of the crops at once.  An interesting system.  He lets us try some coca leaves as we start off up the hill.Hiking up hills at high altitude is not really that fun.  Erin does not enjoy it.  But the view is ample compensation.  The water has a brilliant aqua color and I can´t stop staring at it.  We reach the top of the island and have a 360 view of the lake.  One side is Bolivia and you can see huge snow-capped mountains.  There are two high points on the island.  One side is for Pachamama (mother earth) and the other for Pachatata (the male version).  This area is open only once a year when the entire population comes up here to participate in a ceremony.  It involves lots of coca leaves and llama fetuses.We saw a boy walking up the hill with a big stereo.  Apparently the young children come up here to hang out.  The boys travel to Puno, work, and buy a stereo.  They bring the stereo up here and girls flock to the guy with the biggest stereo or the best music.  Natural selection at its best.    The island has no cars and no electricity.  We sat in the dark and wondered what to do.  Irma came to collect us and we went into the kitchen room for dinner.  It is a separate mud-brick building and lit by 3 candles.  It feels very medieval.  I asked them to say some words in Quechua.  Thank you is about five syllables and slipped right out of my mind.  Erin didn´t feel well enough to eat dinner.  Irma went out side and picked a bud off a plant and put it in her tea.  The main dish for dinner was a bread-like nugget made with egg and sugar.  Its pretty good.  After dinner we went to a pena, or dance.  Irma arrived with our clothes.  I donned a poncho and funny cap while Erin got into a dress, belt, and shawl.  We walked through the darkness and the stars were amazing.  So was the silence.  We went to the school hall and a band played songs.  Irma dragged us out to dance almost every time.  At one point everybody linked hands and we ran around in circles.  It was fun but tiring and hot.  Erin starts to ask if Irma would like a drink and she is nodding and saying coke before she finishes.It rained heavily during the night.  We had breakfast and Irma walked us down to the docks.  She told me that it was the first rain of the season.  Lucky us.  We said goodbye and climbed back into our boat.This morning we were heading towards Taquile.  It isn´t until we pull up to the dock that our guide informs us that we´ll be leaving from the OTHER side of the island.  We began to huff and puff up the hill.  Taquile at this time of the year was prettier and greener than Amantani.  The blue is even more beautiful.  We made it to the main plaza and looked at a photo exhibition of the island.  Our guide told us that the hats the men wear denote whether they are married or single.  The women too wear dark colors when they´re married and light colors when they´re single.  Instead of shaking hands, the people on the island exchange coca leaves.  I had a delicious trout lunch and we started down the 500 or so steps to the dock.  On the way back we could see the clouds racing in next to us.  The boat started rocking and he had some of us switch sides.  It started raining as we pulled into Puno.  We were lucky the weather held out.If someone wants to take a class about how tourism affects native populations, this would be the perfect place to go.Travis
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1193348940/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1193348940/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1193348940/tpod.html Sun, 21 Dec 2008 00:34:25 -0500 Don't go there...it's dangerous: Erin and Travis take on the world

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Chivay, Peru

There are two ways to visit Colca Canyon: on foot and by bus.  The 2-day trekking tour involved a 2am wake-up followed by a 3am wake-up.  The 2-day bus tour involved an 8:30am and a 5am.  Erin was in support of the latter.  This was the first time since the beginning of the trip that we had shared a multi-day tour with a fairly large group of people.  We were travelling with Julie from France, three Americans from Seattle, and a Peruvian school group of 5 kids and 3 adults.  It was quite a combination.  Our guide was William, a rather serious fellow who would spout off facts to anything that seemed to be paying attention.  He preferred Spanish for said facts, and I ended up translating a lot of what he said to Erin.  We climbed out of Arequipa and into the altiplano (high and flat).  It is a national park and home to a population of vicuñas.  A vicuña is a smaller cousin of the llama and alpaca.  It is prized for its wool.  A scarf can fetch over a thousand dollars.  It was endangered but is recovering.  We would stop and pile out of the car to peer across the plain at tiny vicuña spots, then pile back in and pass another group two minutes later right next to the road.  Wouldn´t stop a second time.  We also saw fat, rabbit-like creatures with tails, and Andean ducks (domesticated by the Incas).  Further on, we stopped to peer at llamas penned in a rock circle like fish in a bowl.  It was kind of strange.  We looked at them and they stared back at us.  Erin gets excited around anything resembling a llama.  We also stopped for the obligatory coca tea.  Yes, the leaves are used to make cocaine.  But you need 500 grams of leaves to make one gram of cocaine.  The leaves are a stimulant and are also supposed to help with altitude sickness.  You can also ¨chew¨ coca leaves by putting them in your cheek.  I´m sure we´ll get to that later.  We needed the tea because we climbed to a pass at 4800 meters.  This is high.  We got out to see the snow-capped mountains around us.  People have been placing rock markers as petitions to the mountain gods for some time now.  There are thousands.  Speaking of thousands, at every stop the bus makes there are thousands of women in traditional dress trying to sell you textiles.  Since there is only one road and the buses all stop at the same places, they just have to sit and wait for the tourists to walk into the trap.  But even worse are the cute little girls with baby llamas.  How can you resist?  They are evil.Both of us began to feel the altitude as we came down from the pass.  Mostly a dull ache behind the eyes.  It isn´t pleasant.  We stopped once more over Chivay before heading down.  People began to protest that they had had enough stopping for the day.  We descended to lunch.  Did I mention that this was the tour in which nothing was included?  That means meals as well.  But they can bring you to any restaurant they want.  We ended up at a buffet.  I´ll admit it was good and we got to try all kinds of interesting things, but it was a little pricey.  The Peruvians slipped off to find their own food, and so did Julie.  We splurged.We were taken to our respective hotels.  The hotel depended on the travel agency you booked with, so we ended up at three different places.  It wasn´t a bad place really.  A little while later we were picked up to go to the hot springs (also not included).I´ll admit I was a little sceptical about driving all the way out here to go to a bathtub.  Until I got in the water.  It was very nice. Then we got a beer.  It was nicer.  We soaked there for a while until I got out and dropped my lens cap through the slats on the hanging bridge.  Yeah, I´m just that lucky.  Couldn´t find it.Next was dinner and the "folklore show."  The folklore show was the only thing that was included on the tour.  Turns out it was just a band playing while we paid for an expensive dinner.  They did dance for a little bit, and I got dragged up there a couple times.  But it was pretty poor.  We chatted with Julie and William and I had an alpaca steak.  The Americans had passed on both the hot springs and the dinner.  They were sleeping off the previous night´s revelries.  We decided not to pursue the night any further due to headaches and the five o´clock start the next morning.  To bed.The next morning we had the standard breakfast of rolls with bread and jam, coffee or tea, and some fruit foam.  We talked with an Australian who had taken the 2 am public bus to get down here for the Cruz del Condor.The Cruz del Condor is one of the major attractions of Colca Canyon.  This is apparently the last natural population of condors in South America.  These birds have up to a 3 m wingspan and circle effortlessly in the updrafts here in the canyon.  All the tourists and trekkers try to make it to the lookout between 7-9 in the morning to see condors circling in the thermals here.  We putted along, stopping a couple of times.  The first place was a town where children dance in the main square for tourists before going to school.  We couldn´t resist taking pictures with eagles and owls.  Another stop was a lookout over the Pre-Inca agricultural terraces that lined the entire canyon.  The canyon gets deeper and deeper until you arrive at Cruz de Condor.  With the rest of the vacationing population of Peru.We had 40 minutes for a condor to appear.  Some days the 30 strong population decides to give the tourists a show.  Other days they hide and laugh at them.  I thought it was going to be the second one.  About 15 minutes in a condor appeared across the canyon and banked in front of us before disappearing from sight.  A flurry of activity and then everyone went back to staring vacantly across the canyon.  Towards the end of our time we spotted a couple of birds circling farther down the canyon.  They swooped closer and closer until one made a pass over our heads.  Then they were gone.  It was pretty cool to watch them float over the canyon, soaring in circles while hardly flapping their wings.  The pictures of two black dots don´t really do it justice.Now that the birds were gone we took a short hike along the canyon with Julie and William.  The Americans stayed behind at the first lookout.  It was quite a magnificent setting.  So magnificent that Erin wanted to take a picture of the William, Julie, and me.  So she carefully positioned us and then took a couple steps back to frame the picture.Suddenly she stopped walking and got a very surprised look on her face.  Yes, folks, she backed into a cactus.  It was a nasty cactus, too, like a bush with big angry spines.  A good 10-12 of these had penetrated into her back.  And they weren´t coming out.  This, naturally, put a damper on the rest of her hike.  Don´t worry though, because Julie came to our rescue with tweezers and we managed to extract the spines.  William told a story of a priest that fell in love with a married woman.  They ran away to Arequipa together and were happy for a couple days.  While returning, however, they fell off the road and into the canyon.  No one knew what had happened to them until the condors began to circle over the spot.  The place today is names Crus de Cure (priest´s cross).We stopped at another buffet for lunch (apparently there are six of them in the town), and then finished up with a long drive back to Arequipa.  It was a good time and the canyon is a very beautiful place.  I´d like to come back here to hike through the small villages of the canyon someday.  Travis
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1192896420/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1192896420/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1192896420/tpod.html Sun, 21 Dec 2008 00:26:55 -0500 Don't go there...it's dangerous: Erin and Travis take on the world

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Paracas, Peru

As usual anything worth doing means you have to get up early.  So for our two hour boat tour of the Paracas Reserve that was exactly what we did.  Paracas is known as "the poor man´s Galapagos" due to its plethora of animals on little islands and the fact that it cost us a whopping 100 soles (33.33 dollars).  That´s for the two of us (it was supposed to be 90 but we gave the guy a 100 and he didn´t have change and we never saw it the next day).  Consider that the Galapagos are upwards of $2000 per person (on a cruise, which seems to be the way they do it).  But we didn´t get weird lizards and ancient tortoises.  Oh well. When we arrived at the Paracas pier there were already a zillion other tourists and pelicans.  Yay, pelicans!  Apparently we weren´t the only people to disallow the earthquake to put a damper on our travels.  While all the tourists congregated at the end of the pier a little boy came with a bag of fish bits and began feeding the pelicans, drawing them toward the tourists.  He also charged you a little money and you could feed the pelican yourself.  At one point one of the pelicans was standing right next to my leg and I looked down at his pretty colorful beak and noticed that pelican feet are a really weird shape.  See the photo.  It seemed like everyone else got to go on the boat first, but finally it was our turn and we got a brand new boat and had our pick of the seats.  They say it´s best to sit on the left side of the boat for spotting animals, but the captain did a pretty good job of turning around for big things, and most stuff was pretty high up, so it´s probably not a huge big deal.  We sat on the left side, and it was super!Paracas Bay is the site at which José de San Martin arrived in Peru and began his short-lived liberation of said country.  It is therefore thought of as a special, historic bay in Peru.  As we made our way through the bay we spotted a pair of bottle-nosed dolphins and a lone sea lion popping in and out of the water.  When there are only two dolphins it´s really hard to take a photo, but I managed to get the top of a dorsal fin.  Woot!  Everyone got all kinds of excited.  The first stop on the freezing cold boat ride is at the Candelabra.  It´s actually only cold when you are zooming in the boat, which is a total of about an hour, so dress warmly.  The Candelabra is similar to the Nazca lines in its representation and mystery.  It´s a giant image carved into the side of a mountain, mostly straight lines, but at the tops of the three "candlesticks" there are round things, which makes it look more like a candelabra and less like some random stick drawing.  There are lots of theories about the candelabra, and the mystery will remain for ages, since they don´t even really know how old the thing is.  It may have been carved by indigenous peoples ages ago, as the Nazca lines were.  Some think that it was carved by San Martin as a sort of beacon and that there are masonic symbols within the carving.  Or it may have been a pirates´ brotherhood beacon.  For a while they even thought that it was for the aliens, pointing them in the direction of the Nazca lines.  Then they found out that it didn´t point toward the Nazca lines so there went that theory.  If you look at pictures, you will see that the candelabra appears to be entirely made of sand.  So how on earth does it stay where it is and not erode away, like, overnight?  I will tell you, because I know the answer.  The mountian is in fact a limestone mountain covered in sand, so the actual carving is not in the sand, but in the limestone.  Furthermore, there is a maximum of two millimeters of rain per year in this part of the desert, so there´s not much opportunity for erosion.  And so we can all marvel at this bizarre thing for centuries to come.  Or maybe decades if all the ice melts and the ocean levels drastically rise.  Whatever.  After we left the Candelabra we sped across the ocean for about half an hour before achieving the Islas Ballestas.  The first island we saw was apparently the pretty one, because of all of its caves and holes and sea-carved stone.  It was gorgeous and picturesque, no doubt about that.  The first birds we saw were boobies, and they were all over the place.  There were a few clusters of them flying with us at sea, divebombing every now and again when they saw a tasty fish.  Watching divebombing birds is SWEET!All the passengers got all kinds of excited again when we spotted our first cluster of penguins.  The most common type of penguin is the Humboldt penguin, also known as the Peruvian penguin, and they have pretty black and white countercoloring, with sort of swirlies around their eyes.  There was also another type of penguin that lived down in the caves, but we can´t figure out what they were, so it´s a mystery.  Travis doesn´t seem to care and says that penguins are penguins.  Which they are.  They were so neat to see in real life!  They´re maybe a little less than two feet tall, and they almost blended in with the other birds they were chilling with.  Also on the little island was a flock of pelicans.  Apparently they like to keep to themselves, because they were only in one spot and there were no other birds there.  The big island boasted so many cormorants that the entire flat surface was black on top except for a giant yellow mound that may have been a guano mountian.  Cormorants are the main guano producers on the islas.  Just so you know.The Islas de Ballestas were, during the 19th century, a very wealthy place due to their huge amounts of guano, which was at that time Peru´s main export.  Guano has lots of nitrogen and is an excellent fertilizer, or at least it was until synthetics came along.  The guano is extracted every 7 years, otherwise, the birds are left to their islands in peace.  In some places guano can be up to 50 m deep.  That´s a lot of crap.Of course, everyone´s favorite thing on the islands is the sea lions, which hang out (quite literally) on sunny rocks just about anywhere on the island.  On one beach there was a whole colony of sea lions and some of them swam close to investigate us.  In case you were wondering, you can differentiate a sea lion from a seal because sea lions have foot-like tail flippers that can be bent around, and they can stand up, like when you see a sea mammal show at Sea World, and the animal is sitting, that´s a sea lion.  Also, sea lions have little ear flaps, which seals do not possess.  So, now you know, sea lions walk on land, seals flop.  And I learned that when I worked at the National Aquarium in Baltimore, so don´t think that this boat ride is an educational experience.  It´s a lot of tourists getting really excited about animals.  We were definitely guilty of taking a million pictures and saying, "sea lions are SO CUTE!"All in all it was a good morning, but we were ready to escape the earthquake territory and get to Nazca to see some sweet archaeological sites.  Woot!Erin
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1228107900/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1228107900/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1228107900/tpod.html Sun, 21 Dec 2008 00:23:10 -0500 Don't go there...it's dangerous: Erin and Travis take on the world

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Ellicott City, Maryland, United States

The trip was incredible.  I would go again in a heartbeat.  Of course, the most common answer to the most common question was easily predictable for us (although I'll make you choose for yourself, and not tell you our own answer).  Where would you go back to?  What was your favorite place?  Travis didn't want to write the last entry until he had a job and could say that it all ended happily ever after.  For me, as a humanities major in an economically interesting period, life is not all roses.  And yet, for me it all has nothing to do with now.  I wouldn't trade the last year for anything.  My perspectives have changed a bit.  I'm less stressed about needing to save the world.  I've discovered that, by and large, the world does, actually, manage to take care of itself.  I don't think I've changed a great deal, and I think I expected that I would.  There's the travelling me and there's the home me, and now that I'm home, that Erin is front and center.  I do find my experiences shaping my conversations in unexpected ways, and my companions don't always expect that part of me.  And there's always the travel snobbery to contend with.  One must always attempt to curb any burbling of travel snobbery in mixed company.  Now I'm home.  I thought I knew what I wanted, but I'm still figuring life out.  I'm 24, so really this should not be a shock, but it is.  Luckily my husband is an engineer, but I am not gainfully employed and the circle of job searches and rejections does take its toll.  After a year of not really worrying, I must say I'm concerned.  What if nothing actually turns out the way I want it to?  But here again the trip steps in and tells me that even if I'm not the most powerful bureaucrat in Washington (or whatever), that's not what should concern me.  We saw people in all kinds of different circumstances in all kinds of different countries, and it only confirmed for me that life is truly what you make of it.  So what will I make of my life?  The story is yet to be written.  What I do know is that, even if I hampered my ability to maintain a competitive edge in this driven US workforce, I have had something that most will say they wish they had, but they never will.  I also know, because it happened this way every day for 388 days, that everything will turn out alright, one way or another, so just chill out.Erin
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1228099620/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1228099620/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1228099620/tpod.html Sun, 21 Dec 2008 00:04:03 -0500 Don't go there...it's dangerous: Erin and Travis take on the world

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Ellicott City, Maryland, United States

I kept waiting for it to hit me.  You know, the change.  Or perhaps The Change.  I had travelled around the world.  I had seen so many things that people will never see, had so many wonderful experiences than I could have ever imagined.  "Your life will be changed forever," they told me.  "You'll look at everything in a new way."  So I waited.  And waited.Some things were different.  I did look at some small things in a new light.  It's funny how it took a year of travelling to beautiful places to realize how beautiful my own neighborhood was.  After spending so much time in crowded, dirty cities, I found the huge, green, manicured lawns of my neighbors a tourist attraction in themselves.   They were an item that few people around the world could ever hope to afford.  Houses and cars that I had always taken for granted were suddenly huge and luxurious.  I looked at a modern single-family home and wondered whether one or two small Nepalese villages could live together inside it.  But soon these feelings faded.  And life was what it had once been.  Only memories were left, and even those were faded and distorted.  Had I really done all those things?  Had it been one big, happy dream?I chose, instead of facing the world, to dive into one really huge project: our photos.  It was a monumental task.  We had randomly dumped memory cards from four different cameras onto DVDs in several different countries.  I had to sort them out and make sure they could all be recovered.  The final tally was approximately 25,771 photos, or 72.2 GBs.  It requires 20 DVDs to hold them.  Through them I relived the trip again.  It was almost as good as the first time.With about $300 in the bank, and living off the charity of our parents, our next task was to find a job.  And so began the depressing cover letters, resumes, and networking sessions.  We were stuck in limbo, not quite finished with our travelling lives, and not quite started with our new lives.  But all things have an end.  On November 14th I accepted my first full-time job.  I can therefore now say without any doubt that this IS possible.  You can take time out from the rat race and follow your dreams.  The rat race will always be waiting for you when you come back.   It isn't always easy and it isn't always fun, but you won't ever regret taking the step.So I suppose, upon further reflection, that I didn't change after the trip at all.  The change happened when I  gave up everything that I had known and stepped on that very first plane.  The change happened when I had a dream and brought that dream to life.  When you return from a trip you want to share it with family and friends.  But an immense voyage like this couldn't be swallowed quickly.  To them it was a series of places and faces that grew tiresome fairly quickly.  But we always have each other to rehash old stories with, and that shared experience will last a lifetime.Many people smile wistfully upon hearing about our travels."Wow, I'd really like to do that someday.""But I have... [a dog, a job, kids, a house, etc, etc, etc]"We all have so much that we want to do, but never really believe that we can accomplish it.  There is always something that gets in the way, and we let it, because deep down most of us are scared of taking that first step.  And someday never comes.I can close my eyes and travel the world.  My mind can journey from the white expanse of the salt flats in Bolivia, to the flash of a colorful sari in India, to the majestic mountains of Nepal, to the beautiful beaches of Thailand, to the cool of a Pharoah's tomb in Egypt, to the wild expanses of the dunes in Namibia, and all the way back home.  I have many more years left to travel, and so many more places to go.  But I am now a world citizen, part of the wider scheme of things, and I wouldn't give it up for...the whole wide world.~Travis
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1228529040/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1228529040/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/youngtravellers/young_rtw/1228529040/tpod.html Fri, 05 Dec 2008 22:59:46 -0500 Don't go there...it's dangerous: Erin and Travis take on the world

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Ellicott City, Maryland, United States

Just for fun, below is a list of our favorite memories from each country we visited.  E stands for Erin and T stands for Travis.  Enjoy!GuatemalaE-  Hearing crackling sounds behind us and turning around to see a new lavaflow spewing from the rocks, Volcan Pacaya.T-  Being on the beach at just the right time to discover and witness a turtle crawl up and lay her eggs, Parque Hawaii.HondurasE-  Sitting at plastic tables in the Seven Seas Restaurant, trying to decipher the unintelligible English of the old men.T-  Watching WWE Smackdown with Alfredo the crazy islander and eating french fries and gravy.PanamaE-  Watching ship after ship miraculously pass through the Panama Canal.T-  Getting an extremely sweet snow cone saturated with condensed milk from an ancient man on the streets of Panama City.PeruE-  Waking up to a hot cup of coca tea every morning on the Inca Trail.T-  Dressing up in traditional clothing to dance with our host on Amantani Island, Lake Titicaca.BoliviaE-  Wandering in confusion and awe around the Witch Market in La Paz, gaping at the dried lama fetusesT-  Watching a priest in a NY Yankees Hat bless a car in Copacabana.  The proud family poured wine everywhere and got a guy to take their picture.ArgentinaE-  Sitting in a square where local artists display their work, eating a delicious orange and watching people wander about.T-  Discussing why Batman was better than Spiderman with our waiter at the Tango Show on Thanksgiving Night.BrazilE-  Stumbling upon the unpublicized Selaron Staircase after a long search.  Being shown the tile staircase by a friend of the artist while he worked.  T-  Taking to the streets for the Lapa Street Party.  Standing outside a bar and listening to a samba band as we grabbed tequila shots off a tray.IndiaE-  The first night in Amritsar, walking into the Golden Temple Complex, hearing the chanting and watching the crowds bathe in the sacred pool and circle the temple.T-  Morning in Pushkar, looking out our hotel room's door.  A women in a brilliantly colorful sari was sweeping against a brilliant blue background of the wall.  The light was shining directly down on her. NepalE-  Sitting on a rooftop, drinking apple cider and basking in the afternoon sun while enjoying the view of snowcapped Himalayan peaks.T-  Getting invited to a traditional dhal bhat dinner by our extremely talkative hotel-owner on the last night of our stay in Pokhara.  ChinaE-  Beijing, Temple of Heaven.  Watching the middle-aged people doing their morning exercises, which involved hopping as a group, in the middle of the beautiful park.T-  Waking up after an overnight train ride.  Watching the women powder their faces and everyone filling up their thermoses and adding water to their instant noodles.VietnamE-  Holding on to the back of a motorbike wearing a helmet that didn't fit properly, weaving through the busy streets of Hanoi.T-  Playing badminton with an exciteable little girl at our homestay in the Mekong Delta.  She delighted in whacking it into the bushes so I would have to go get it. CambodiaE-  Having our lunch interrupted in Phnom Penh by two precocious children who were trying to sell postcards.  They eventually got distracted by filling random numbers on my Sudoko and writing on each others faces.T-  Gliding along the Mekong River towards Phnom Penh and waving to the excited, naked children playing in the water.ThailandE-  Climbing onto my elephant for the first time, Elephant Conservation Center.  T-  Watching exhibitionist lady-boys perform "Gigie has a Disco" during a night of Thai Boxing, Chiang Mai.  MalaysiaE-  Eating cendol on the streets of Penang.  I liked this sweet milk, ice, and strings of gummy green bean goop, but Travis refused to eat it.T-  Drinking our daily tea and eating scones with whipped cream and jam in our comfy retreat in the Cameron Highlands.  It was very British.SingaporeE-  Being stared at by locals while eating Indian food with my hands, Little India.T-  Marvelling at the Merlion statue, possibly the worst mascot ever.IndonesiaE-  Eating local-style nasi goreng and coconut water on the side of the road in a deserted town outside of Borobudur.  A local waiting for his own takeaway order chatted with us and made sure we were well taken care of by the non-English speaking cook.T-  Zipping across the channel to Gili Trawangan in a tiny local boat as the sun set over the giant volcano of Bali.EgyptE-  Waking up on a rocky outcropping to watch the sun rise from Mt. Sinai.T-  Climbing out the window of our hostel at 3am to catch our Abu Simbel tour because our hotel owner chained the door shut, Aswan.IsraelE-  Wandering through the twisting alleyways of the old city to buy groceries every morning in Jerusalem.T-  Breaking into an orchard with Jean-Baptist and munching on mangoes while gazing out over the Sea of Galilee.JordanE-  Eating a traditional mensaf dinner with the mysterious French-Algerian "Desert Man" at our empty hotel in Petra.T-  Standing on the roof of our great hotel in Karak at sundown and looking down at the valley below.  Waving to the excited kid who continually yelled HELLOHELLOHELLO! whenever he saw us.Kenya-E-  Making our nightly foray to the local chicken and chips shop in downtown Nairobi.T-  Watching giant shafts of sunlight break through the clouds over the Maasai Mara Game Reserve on our first evening game drive.TanzaniaE-  Wandering the narrow, cobbled streets of Stone TownT-  Getting robbed was fun.MalawiE-  Falling asleep to the crashing waves of Lake Malawi with our resident cat curled up in the blankets, Nkhata Bay.T-  Falling asleep to the crunching of elephants eating the trees around our hut in Vwaza Marsh.ZambiaE-  Sitting in the undercarriage of a bus and talking with the conductor about his life while waiting 5 hours for our bus to Livingstone to leave the bus station.T-  Discovering a brilliant green chameleon climbing down a tree in the courtyard of our hostelNamibiaE-  Getting up before dawn to watch the sun create striking shadows over the Sossusvlei dunes.T-  Being able to pronounce everything in an exaggerated German accent for the entire time we were in Namibia.  Where are we?  Vind-HO-eK!!South AfricaE-  Talking about South African history and politics with an English South African and his Afrikaaner wife in Graaf Reinet in their bed and breakfast.  He would have big pauses in his sentences that his impatient wife would fill with chatter.T-  Buying a giant ostrich egg at the grocery store and making enough eggs to feed several people. 
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