It was a dream vacation, really. The company was setting up some equipment in Singapore and needed someone to go. Hindu Temple I traded a first class ticket for two seats in coach so that my wife could accompany me on our first trip to Asia, and after a grueling umpteen hour flight from Denver through LAX and Tokyo, we finally touched down on the island and were whisked to the Intercontinental hotel in the dead of night. The fourteen hour time difference combined with the flight made for a serious jet lag, but after some serious sleep, we were out exploring this unique nation state.
Singapore is a cauldron of activity with throngs of people crammed into a small area, but it manages somehow to maintain a sense of order and calmness. Downtown, modern high-rises alongside aging colonial architecture frame broad leafy streets and lush parks, making this a wonderful city for walking. Ethnic neighborhoods offer fascinating glimpses, and tastes, of different cultures, and a series of quays along the river provide plenty of opportunity for al fresco dining. During the frequent torrential downpours and the heat of the day, you don’t have to miss a beat, descending into a sprawling series of underground malls connected by pedestrian tunnels and an easy-to-use subway system.
One such subway line carried me out to my job site the next day in the suburbs, emerging above ground into a residential area studded with lots of technology company campuses. The work I did there over the next few days was interesting, but what I really remember is lunch. Lunch was at an open air food court and market, Mosquewhere technology workers sat in long tables enjoying fresh made soups, stews, meat skewers and fried things, a mix of Malaysian, Indian and Chinese. I devoured some kind of mysterious peanut soup that was fantastic and apparently significantly exotic enough to impress my hosts, who regaled stories of other foreigners who refused to eat anything questionable (which was mostly everything…). Personally, this market was exactly why I was here.
Singapore’s diversity reflects its location near the Asian Subcontinent, with a large Chinese population, and lesser but still significant numbers of Malaysians and Indians, among others. While these groups live in naturally segregated areas, there is also an amazing blending. Riding the subway during rush hour, you see people of all different cultures mixing and interacting seamlessly. Streets wind past traditional Chinese medicine shops, Mosque minarets and ornately adorned Hindu temples. Small microcosms of each culture offer small shops with products imported from home, as well as authentic restaurants and food stalls. Open air markets are a tropical fruit paradise, and make sure not to miss the Durian, a large spiky fruit that smells strongly like used gym socks, leading to its banishment from indoor areas, but whose flesh is really tasty, especially in a fresh fruit smoothie.
The second week of our trip, we moved hotels from the extravagantly priced, but paid for by the company, Intercontinental hotel, to the Hilton near a major commercial area called Orchard Road. We weren’t here for the glitzy Rodeo drive lookalike with Planet Hollywood, Saks 5th Avenue and Bloomingdales, but this is where the cheaper (and mind you I have my wife with me) hotels are. It was here that we had a most challenging Monk in Parkand rewarding Chinese Dim Sum experience. I found a blurb in the hotel magazine about a hole-in-the-wall place called East Ocean that promised a local and authentic experience. The first challenge was finding it, which turned out to be mostly because the door was completely unlabeled, but spying a family of hungry looking Chinese heading through the unmarked door and up a stairway, we took a chance and struck pay dirt. We were indeed the only tourists in the place, which was packed and had a bit of a wait, but once we got to the table, the feast of smells, sights and tastes that define Dim Sum was unleashed upon us. We didn’t know what many things were, and the servers rolling around the little metal carts filled with dumplings and sticky buns, couldn’t tell us. That only made it better, as we bought plate after plate of the tasty morsels.
The other big attraction in this western side of the island is Jarong Bird Park, a large nature area with hundreds of bird species represented in a variety of aviaries and well designed enclosures. It is a spectacular and well run park, with acres of open fields, woods and water, providing habitat for tons of exotic birds. There is also the large Singapore Botanic Gardens, which includes an impressive orchid garden, among lots of other tropical flora. Days are spent meandering through these tropical nature areas, enjoying the warm nights, eating world class cuisine and street food, and experiencing a wonderful mixture of first world modern luxuries and third world markets and ambiance. Singapore really is a truly fascinating city, clean and orderly on one hand, chaotic and exotic on the other, offering something for everyone.
Friday, January 8, 2010
Hiking the Sierra Norte
In the early afternoon heat, after experiencing the local Sunday tangui (market) in Tlocalula, Cabana in Lachataowe were bouncing along in the back of a flat bed truck ever higher into the mountains. The back and sides of the platform, shared with six indigena women and a bushel of some type of flower, were open or barely covered, causing the increasingly cooler, wetter air to chill us into putting on our fleece jackets. Finally above tree line, the desert scrub gave way to green forests, our height reinforced by the family of turkey vultures circling and diving over the steep mountain slopes alongside the road. Out of nowhere appeared the small town of Cuajimoloyas, it's grouping of houses and businesses scattered up and down a grid of very steep streets. The truck stopped and we stepped off to begin our two day trip into the Sierra Juárez mountains northeast of Oaxaca, Mexico, also called the Sierra Norte.
Our adventure began the day before at the offices of Expediciones de Sierra Norte in the capital city, where we decided on a day of hiking and day of horseback riding between Cuajimoloyas, Latuvi and Lachatao, three of the villages participating in the cooperative Pueblos Mancomunados run by the a group of non-governmental organizations. The office provides tourists and locals with information and arrangements to explore 100 kilometers of trails connecting eight mountain towns by foot, bike or horse, eating local food and staying along the way in "rustic" cabañas. The office collects a small fee (10USD) for their services, and writes up an itinerary with costs to be paid along the way to the individual towns. These services provide important revenue for the towns and promote responsibility and protection of the forest land.
In Cuajimoloyas, the cabañas are literally at the highest point in the village, looking out over what would be a great view if the town wasn't obscured by clouds. They have electricity, hot water, were very clean, well built and maintained, which would be true for all of the cabañas we stayed in. A quick walk down to the only open Rock Pinnacle in the cloudscomedor yielded a hearty dinner of chile rellenos, chicken in a chipotle sauce and wonderful salsa and tortillas prepared by two women in a small kitchen attached to the dining room. By the time we got back, a fire was raging in our room with more wood stacked for the night.
After breakfast at the other comedor in town (and the best coffee and hot chocolate of the trip), we met Evencio, our guide, back at the cabaña around 10am for the start of our first day's hike. The conversation was lively as we hiked down a wide dirt track past giant cactus, bulls and burros, occasionally passing farmers working their land, all the time descending out of the clouds. The track eventually became smaller and we found ourselves in the eerie mist, on a rock pinnacle surrounded by trees covered with hanging moss. This was the halfway point where we met up with Javier, our guide the rest of the way to Latuvi.
We quickly made our way down steep hills till we reached a stream with a trout farm, perfect for a meal or a quick rest. The climate was much warmer here and the pastoral country setting was relaxingly idyllic. After having a cerveza with our guide, we finished the primarily downhill hike with two exhausting kilometers up a steep road, cresting at the tiny town of Latuvi and the welcoming promise of a hot shower and rest. Latuvi's center was at the top of the hill, with a small school, municipal building, a couple comedores, and the dramatically perched cabañas, with a panoramic view of the valley below. The hillsides tumbled down from here, dotted with small houses and farms, all seemingly basic structures juxtaposed by electric wires running across rooftops and clusters of satellite dishes.
Life in these villages is much slower and less rigid than in the city. Time is largely irrelevant as people go about their daily lives, going to school, working the fields, or providing the limited services available, guided by a natural pace more than the exact hour. Often, while looking to pay for the cabaña or meet the next guide, we were told "mas tarde", a phrase that literally means "later", but more loosely translated, meant "sometime in the future, someone might be along and will probably come find you". There is literally nothing to do in these villages for tourists but to unwind and soak in the sun and slow pace.
The next morning, our guide Miguel appeared at the cabaña with two small horses named Fito and Guerra. We mounted and with Miguel leading the way on foot, proceeded down the cobblestone main street, veering off onto a narrow dirt track that wound its way down steep switchbacks till we reached the bottom of the valley. The path follows an ancient Zapotec trail along the small river for seven or eight kilometers past small subsistence farms, dry brown, yellow, and light green grass and scrub, that reminded me so much of Northern California in late Summer, it was easy to understand Mexico's historical attraction to the state that used to be theirs. The horses struggled up and down rocky trails, carefully choosing their steps to avoid plunging down the hillside. After four hours, we ambled into Lachatao, and were instantly smitten with the sleepy hamlet.
Santa Catarina de Lachatao feels bigger but quieter than the other towns, centered around an old stone Fito the Horsechurch that provides a sense of colonial times. Our cabaña had a balcony overlooking the church and from here we watched the hours tick by, seeing nothing but the occasional dog, or student learning their lessons in one of the church's outer alcoves. One of the highlights of the trip was a dinner we had at Restaurant Los Pinos, a one table affair in the kitchen of the owner Sylvia, whose house sits on a farm with a greenhouse, where she grows all of her ingredients naturally. We had excellent tasajo (thin skirt steak grilled straight over the burner flame), an excellent nopalito (cactus) salad, and the ever present frijoles (black beans), salsa and tortillas. While the food was fresh and wonderful, the best part of the meal was the conversation, as other members of the family came and went, greeting and engaging us warmly. By the end, we felt in some strange way that we knew these people, had been part of their lives in some small way.
The bus to Oaxaca left early the next morning from the square in front of our cabaña, and we had not yet paid. The teenager who we were supposed to pay had taken “mas tarde” to the extreme, and never come back. We left the cash in the room and boarded the brand new Mercedes mini bus. As it wound its way down the narrow switchbacks, more and more passengers got on until it was standing room only. Kids in school uniforms, university students with laptops, old women with goods to sell at the market and families heading to larger towns for services or work. Provided as a free service to the people of Lachatao, the bus is a visible example of the direct impact tourist dollars make to the people of the eight towns participating in the decade old ecotourism project. Visiting the towns of the Sierra Norte gave us a glimpse of modern day rural Oaxaca, an introspective and unique journey that will hold a special place in our memories.
Our adventure began the day before at the offices of Expediciones de Sierra Norte in the capital city, where we decided on a day of hiking and day of horseback riding between Cuajimoloyas, Latuvi and Lachatao, three of the villages participating in the cooperative Pueblos Mancomunados run by the a group of non-governmental organizations. The office provides tourists and locals with information and arrangements to explore 100 kilometers of trails connecting eight mountain towns by foot, bike or horse, eating local food and staying along the way in "rustic" cabañas. The office collects a small fee (10USD) for their services, and writes up an itinerary with costs to be paid along the way to the individual towns. These services provide important revenue for the towns and promote responsibility and protection of the forest land.
In Cuajimoloyas, the cabañas are literally at the highest point in the village, looking out over what would be a great view if the town wasn't obscured by clouds. They have electricity, hot water, were very clean, well built and maintained, which would be true for all of the cabañas we stayed in. A quick walk down to the only open Rock Pinnacle in the cloudscomedor yielded a hearty dinner of chile rellenos, chicken in a chipotle sauce and wonderful salsa and tortillas prepared by two women in a small kitchen attached to the dining room. By the time we got back, a fire was raging in our room with more wood stacked for the night.
After breakfast at the other comedor in town (and the best coffee and hot chocolate of the trip), we met Evencio, our guide, back at the cabaña around 10am for the start of our first day's hike. The conversation was lively as we hiked down a wide dirt track past giant cactus, bulls and burros, occasionally passing farmers working their land, all the time descending out of the clouds. The track eventually became smaller and we found ourselves in the eerie mist, on a rock pinnacle surrounded by trees covered with hanging moss. This was the halfway point where we met up with Javier, our guide the rest of the way to Latuvi.
We quickly made our way down steep hills till we reached a stream with a trout farm, perfect for a meal or a quick rest. The climate was much warmer here and the pastoral country setting was relaxingly idyllic. After having a cerveza with our guide, we finished the primarily downhill hike with two exhausting kilometers up a steep road, cresting at the tiny town of Latuvi and the welcoming promise of a hot shower and rest. Latuvi's center was at the top of the hill, with a small school, municipal building, a couple comedores, and the dramatically perched cabañas, with a panoramic view of the valley below. The hillsides tumbled down from here, dotted with small houses and farms, all seemingly basic structures juxtaposed by electric wires running across rooftops and clusters of satellite dishes.
Life in these villages is much slower and less rigid than in the city. Time is largely irrelevant as people go about their daily lives, going to school, working the fields, or providing the limited services available, guided by a natural pace more than the exact hour. Often, while looking to pay for the cabaña or meet the next guide, we were told "mas tarde", a phrase that literally means "later", but more loosely translated, meant "sometime in the future, someone might be along and will probably come find you". There is literally nothing to do in these villages for tourists but to unwind and soak in the sun and slow pace.
The next morning, our guide Miguel appeared at the cabaña with two small horses named Fito and Guerra. We mounted and with Miguel leading the way on foot, proceeded down the cobblestone main street, veering off onto a narrow dirt track that wound its way down steep switchbacks till we reached the bottom of the valley. The path follows an ancient Zapotec trail along the small river for seven or eight kilometers past small subsistence farms, dry brown, yellow, and light green grass and scrub, that reminded me so much of Northern California in late Summer, it was easy to understand Mexico's historical attraction to the state that used to be theirs. The horses struggled up and down rocky trails, carefully choosing their steps to avoid plunging down the hillside. After four hours, we ambled into Lachatao, and were instantly smitten with the sleepy hamlet.
Santa Catarina de Lachatao feels bigger but quieter than the other towns, centered around an old stone Fito the Horsechurch that provides a sense of colonial times. Our cabaña had a balcony overlooking the church and from here we watched the hours tick by, seeing nothing but the occasional dog, or student learning their lessons in one of the church's outer alcoves. One of the highlights of the trip was a dinner we had at Restaurant Los Pinos, a one table affair in the kitchen of the owner Sylvia, whose house sits on a farm with a greenhouse, where she grows all of her ingredients naturally. We had excellent tasajo (thin skirt steak grilled straight over the burner flame), an excellent nopalito (cactus) salad, and the ever present frijoles (black beans), salsa and tortillas. While the food was fresh and wonderful, the best part of the meal was the conversation, as other members of the family came and went, greeting and engaging us warmly. By the end, we felt in some strange way that we knew these people, had been part of their lives in some small way.
The bus to Oaxaca left early the next morning from the square in front of our cabaña, and we had not yet paid. The teenager who we were supposed to pay had taken “mas tarde” to the extreme, and never come back. We left the cash in the room and boarded the brand new Mercedes mini bus. As it wound its way down the narrow switchbacks, more and more passengers got on until it was standing room only. Kids in school uniforms, university students with laptops, old women with goods to sell at the market and families heading to larger towns for services or work. Provided as a free service to the people of Lachatao, the bus is a visible example of the direct impact tourist dollars make to the people of the eight towns participating in the decade old ecotourism project. Visiting the towns of the Sierra Norte gave us a glimpse of modern day rural Oaxaca, an introspective and unique journey that will hold a special place in our memories.
Armchair travel during Winter
In the depths of winter, my first New England one in a decade, I find that more often than not the roads are a mess on my days off. I am stuck at home looking for a way to come through this unusually wet winter; I survive on books. The deeper we get into the season the more I wish to escape to someplace warm and far away. So it is through these books that I have gone off, while still seated in my chair with the old wool blanket under my chin.
Travels from Another Era:
A Room with a View, EM Forester, 1908
This classic follows Lucy Honey Church to Florence, England and finally back to England as she negotiates the social norms of Edwardian English along with her own more liberal feelings about love and passion.
The Immoralist, Andre Gide, 1902
Set in Italy and Algeria, The Immoralist follows the internal moral battles of Michael as he shifts his life from the study of ancient ruins to searching out the hedonistic pleasures of living life for the moment. Gide not only takes the reader through the ancient Roman ruins in Italy and the streets of Biskra, but he also brings us into the internal conflict that Michael goes through.
Around the World:
The Female Nomad, Rita Golden Gelman, 2002
In 1986, children’s book author Rita Golden Gelman, almost fifty, divorced her husband and got rid of most of her possession to live on the road. In the Female Nomad, Gelman talks about how she made her way around the world and the connections she made along the way. While she may not know the languages, Gelman connects with the different communities that she stays with by learning to cook with the women. Her descriptions of making tortilla’s from scratch and the Thai stews filled with coconut and lime leaves will make anyone hungry.
The Great Railway Bazaar, Paul Theroux, 1977
I first read this book while I was dutifully waiting for my son to be born. This memoir of a train trip from England to Japan, leads you on an adventure through Iran and India and many other spots. Like my pregnancy, Theroux starts out fresh and excited but as the trip continues he becomes more disillusioned by what he sees. The book seemed to match my feelings as I read it.
Alone Abroad:
Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey Into Bhutan, Jamie Zeppa, 2000.
Jamie Zeppa spent three years in the country of Bhutan as a volunteer teacher of English. As one of the few foreigners in the country she learns how to live among the people without any previous knowledge of the country and its culture. This is a rare view of a country that holds its isolation paramount, letting in few outsiders.
Finally I will leave you with one of my favorite authors, Isabel Allende. Women traveling on their own, has become one of her more recent themes. Ines of My Soul and Daughter of Fortune both tell the story of women traveling alone in times when it was not common. Ines of My Soul focuses on a woman who leaves Spain for the New World and her role as a conquistadora, through Peru and Chile. Her earlier book Daughter of Fortune tells the story of Eliza, an English woman from Chile who heads to the United States during the time of the railway expansion, following her love, and father to her soon to be born child. This is her tale of learning a new place alone, and the world she creates for herself there.
Here I have only mentioned the books that are closest to my heart, but when it comes to travel, there are so many more out there for you to explore and enjoy. I hope that you can find time to sit down for a while with your own book.
Travels from Another Era:
A Room with a View, EM Forester, 1908
This classic follows Lucy Honey Church to Florence, England and finally back to England as she negotiates the social norms of Edwardian English along with her own more liberal feelings about love and passion.
The Immoralist, Andre Gide, 1902
Set in Italy and Algeria, The Immoralist follows the internal moral battles of Michael as he shifts his life from the study of ancient ruins to searching out the hedonistic pleasures of living life for the moment. Gide not only takes the reader through the ancient Roman ruins in Italy and the streets of Biskra, but he also brings us into the internal conflict that Michael goes through.
Around the World:
The Female Nomad, Rita Golden Gelman, 2002
In 1986, children’s book author Rita Golden Gelman, almost fifty, divorced her husband and got rid of most of her possession to live on the road. In the Female Nomad, Gelman talks about how she made her way around the world and the connections she made along the way. While she may not know the languages, Gelman connects with the different communities that she stays with by learning to cook with the women. Her descriptions of making tortilla’s from scratch and the Thai stews filled with coconut and lime leaves will make anyone hungry.
The Great Railway Bazaar, Paul Theroux, 1977
I first read this book while I was dutifully waiting for my son to be born. This memoir of a train trip from England to Japan, leads you on an adventure through Iran and India and many other spots. Like my pregnancy, Theroux starts out fresh and excited but as the trip continues he becomes more disillusioned by what he sees. The book seemed to match my feelings as I read it.
Alone Abroad:
Beyond the Sky and the Earth: A Journey Into Bhutan, Jamie Zeppa, 2000.
Jamie Zeppa spent three years in the country of Bhutan as a volunteer teacher of English. As one of the few foreigners in the country she learns how to live among the people without any previous knowledge of the country and its culture. This is a rare view of a country that holds its isolation paramount, letting in few outsiders.
Finally I will leave you with one of my favorite authors, Isabel Allende. Women traveling on their own, has become one of her more recent themes. Ines of My Soul and Daughter of Fortune both tell the story of women traveling alone in times when it was not common. Ines of My Soul focuses on a woman who leaves Spain for the New World and her role as a conquistadora, through Peru and Chile. Her earlier book Daughter of Fortune tells the story of Eliza, an English woman from Chile who heads to the United States during the time of the railway expansion, following her love, and father to her soon to be born child. This is her tale of learning a new place alone, and the world she creates for herself there.
Here I have only mentioned the books that are closest to my heart, but when it comes to travel, there are so many more out there for you to explore and enjoy. I hope that you can find time to sit down for a while with your own book.
Sights and Sounds
We were heading south to escape the cold of the central European winter and to bask in the rich Mediterranean sun. Our two month long journey during the mid-February semester Grand Bazaarbreak began in Southern Germany, and wound it’s way slowly through the Czech Republic, Hungary, Bulgaria, Serbia and then a final long haul train down to the port of Istanbul, the European gateway to Asia. After weeks of traveling in snow and cold, visions of warm clear days in Istanbul framed by the turquoise waters of the Bosporus Strait sounded pretty good.
Arriving in the afternoon, we immediately noticed that our intentions of basking in the sunshine might have been thwarted, as not only was it cold in the city, but it was uncharacteristically snowing. Glumly, we set out to find one of the backpacker hotels recommended by our guide book, and after working our way further into the labyrinth streets of Istanbul, we finally found the place we were looking for. We were shown upstairs to a bedroom with eight single beds aligned. The price was right, so we decided to stay and were oddly (at the time it seemed odd) given six or seven large wool blankets for our bedding.
To orient ourselves, we began our explorations at the massive complex of impressive structures in the Sultanahmet district, the heart of the old city. Sprawling parks dotted with fountains and lawns connected beautiful mosques like the Ayasofya (Hagia Sofia) and the Blue Mosque, as well as historical buildings and museums. We had planned to explore on our own avoiding guided tours and the like, but after ignoring a number of offers from touts, we were approached by a middle aged man who pursued us in an impressive variety of Hagia Sophialanguages including Russian and some form of Scandinavian. For reasons that have been lost to me over time, we decided to finally engage Ahmed, representing ourselves as Germans instead of Americans. We were studying in Germany at the time, and it seemed like we would garner more enthusiasm from the Turks than a couple of Americans might. Ahmed had lived in Germany for many years it turned out, and we made arrangements to meet him the next day for a personal and intimate tour of the city.
That night we discovered why we needed so many blankets for our beds….there was no heat! Istanbul is generally very mild to hot, so most cheap hotels and homes didn’t have heat. We slept that night with many layers of clothing and still were miserably cold the entire time. The next day, we upgraded to another youth hostel that offered little space heaters for about an extra dollar per night. Running on empty from a sleepless night, we met Ahmed back at the Sultanahmet district and began our behind the scenes tour of the city, and behind the scenes it was.
Aside from visiting the aforementioned mosques, which were magnificently adorned in rich wall to wall mosaics and tiles, we rambled through the city down passageways no tourist would ever find, or more to the point find their way back out of. Small steep alleyways crisscrossed the sprawl of Istanbul, affording wonderful views of the crystal blue strait below and glimpses of the cobbled together houses that the common people lived in. As we got further out from the center, it took on the look and feel of shanty towns, with structures made from whatever people could find, barely able to withstand the mild weather, and certainly offering no running water or electricity. We visited a traditional tea house, beautifully tiled and peaceful, where old men sipped the strong sweet nectar that is Turkish tea and played dominoes. We visited small pastry shops that offered sticky treats all based on puff pastry and flavored with pistachio, honey and rosewater. Minarets could be seen everywhere and the haunting and mesmerizing call to prayer that rolled through the city from these towers blended with the sights and smells to create an exotic and truly intoxicating experience. The day with Ahmed turned out to be one of my most lasting memories of the entire trip.
However, no visit to Istanbul can be complete without a visit to the expansive bazaar, a large area of narrow streets lined with vendors of all shapes and sizes selling pretty much anything you could think of. Passageways were clogged with people, animals and cars, all trying to make their way from here to there. Boisterous and endless shopkeepers offered their wares to anyone passing by. If you saw something you liked, you had better buy it then, because you’d never find that particular stall again, as I quickly found out. Haggling was expected and required with many beautiful items worthy of purchasing, especially rugs, pottery, spices and antiques. Leaving the bizarre was as challenging as navigating through it, as you get so turned around that you’re not sure where you are when you leave. But the chaotic nature of the bazaar is what makes it so wonderful…you can go back many times and never have the same experience twice.
Arriving in the afternoon, we immediately noticed that our intentions of basking in the sunshine might have been thwarted, as not only was it cold in the city, but it was uncharacteristically snowing. Glumly, we set out to find one of the backpacker hotels recommended by our guide book, and after working our way further into the labyrinth streets of Istanbul, we finally found the place we were looking for. We were shown upstairs to a bedroom with eight single beds aligned. The price was right, so we decided to stay and were oddly (at the time it seemed odd) given six or seven large wool blankets for our bedding.
To orient ourselves, we began our explorations at the massive complex of impressive structures in the Sultanahmet district, the heart of the old city. Sprawling parks dotted with fountains and lawns connected beautiful mosques like the Ayasofya (Hagia Sofia) and the Blue Mosque, as well as historical buildings and museums. We had planned to explore on our own avoiding guided tours and the like, but after ignoring a number of offers from touts, we were approached by a middle aged man who pursued us in an impressive variety of Hagia Sophialanguages including Russian and some form of Scandinavian. For reasons that have been lost to me over time, we decided to finally engage Ahmed, representing ourselves as Germans instead of Americans. We were studying in Germany at the time, and it seemed like we would garner more enthusiasm from the Turks than a couple of Americans might. Ahmed had lived in Germany for many years it turned out, and we made arrangements to meet him the next day for a personal and intimate tour of the city.
That night we discovered why we needed so many blankets for our beds….there was no heat! Istanbul is generally very mild to hot, so most cheap hotels and homes didn’t have heat. We slept that night with many layers of clothing and still were miserably cold the entire time. The next day, we upgraded to another youth hostel that offered little space heaters for about an extra dollar per night. Running on empty from a sleepless night, we met Ahmed back at the Sultanahmet district and began our behind the scenes tour of the city, and behind the scenes it was.
Aside from visiting the aforementioned mosques, which were magnificently adorned in rich wall to wall mosaics and tiles, we rambled through the city down passageways no tourist would ever find, or more to the point find their way back out of. Small steep alleyways crisscrossed the sprawl of Istanbul, affording wonderful views of the crystal blue strait below and glimpses of the cobbled together houses that the common people lived in. As we got further out from the center, it took on the look and feel of shanty towns, with structures made from whatever people could find, barely able to withstand the mild weather, and certainly offering no running water or electricity. We visited a traditional tea house, beautifully tiled and peaceful, where old men sipped the strong sweet nectar that is Turkish tea and played dominoes. We visited small pastry shops that offered sticky treats all based on puff pastry and flavored with pistachio, honey and rosewater. Minarets could be seen everywhere and the haunting and mesmerizing call to prayer that rolled through the city from these towers blended with the sights and smells to create an exotic and truly intoxicating experience. The day with Ahmed turned out to be one of my most lasting memories of the entire trip.
However, no visit to Istanbul can be complete without a visit to the expansive bazaar, a large area of narrow streets lined with vendors of all shapes and sizes selling pretty much anything you could think of. Passageways were clogged with people, animals and cars, all trying to make their way from here to there. Boisterous and endless shopkeepers offered their wares to anyone passing by. If you saw something you liked, you had better buy it then, because you’d never find that particular stall again, as I quickly found out. Haggling was expected and required with many beautiful items worthy of purchasing, especially rugs, pottery, spices and antiques. Leaving the bizarre was as challenging as navigating through it, as you get so turned around that you’re not sure where you are when you leave. But the chaotic nature of the bazaar is what makes it so wonderful…you can go back many times and never have the same experience twice.
Canadian Tulip Festival
St. Valentine’s Day is noted for roses, but the holiday always reminds me that my wife’s favorite flower is actually the tulip, Tulips and Churchsomething that can be hard to come by in a snowy February in Vermont. Planted before the first frost of autumn, they’re quickly forgotten about until they emerge unexpectedly in the sunny warmth of spring. The red, yellow, purple, pink and white heads on single smooth green stalks begin to frame gardens and walkways around the country, reflecting our fascination with this simple and elegant flower from Holland. As a belated gift last spring, I took my wife to one of my favorite Canadian cities, Ottawa, which just happens to host an annual Tulip festival that showcases both the city and this wonderful flower.
This quaint capital city reflects both the English speaking majority and the French speaking Québécois minority, divided by the Ottawa River separating the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Punctuated by beautiful parks, stunning architecture, scenic river overlooks, and lively outdoor markets and cafes, Ottawa is relatively small and often overlooked, lying midway between the larger cities of Toronto and Montreal. While winter might be a challenge here, since it’s considered one the coldest capital cities in the world (with an average temperature of 41.9 degrees Fahrenheit), the spring and summer months are fantastic, perhaps made more so by the contrast.
The Canadian Tulip Festival began in 1953, several years after Princess Juliana of the Netherlands gave Ottawa 100,000 tulip bulbs to show appreciation for the city’s harboring of Holland’s exiled royal family during World War II. The eighteen day extravaganza each May has become the largest Tulip festival in the world, hosting hundreds of thousands of tourists viewing millions of tulips spread throughout the city. Many of the events are free, or can be accessed with an inexpensive pass including transportation between the venues on the “Tulip shuttle”. The event has grown in scope, and features Tulip Fieldmusical concerts, competitions, and a formal Tulip ball including beautiful dresses made from flowers. Visiting in the beginning of the festival can be risky since the weather determines when the tulips bloom en masse, but the crowds increase as the weather gets warmer, so going early can often be a risk worth taking. Make sure to take in the lower key display at Commissioner’s Park, set in a beautiful suburb surrounding Dow’s Lake.
Unless you’re a horticulturist however, the amazing variety of colors and styles of tulips mostly provide a stunning backdrop to experience the rest of the things this city has to offer. The downtown area is about four square blocks and centered on the ByWard Market, featuring lots of indoor and outdoor vendors selling their wares, from crepes to cheese to hot sauces and pretty much else anything you can imagine. It’s surrounded by specialty shops, boutiques, cafés and restaurants, and cute little cobblestone alleys where you can sit and watch the world go by.
For people watching and an interesting menu, I especially recommend the Fox And Feather Pub, tucked down a picturesque pedestrian street. On a hot day, they had a Tulipsrefreshing melon bisque special, Leffe beer on tap, and they even welcomed our overheated canine companion providing ice water and lots of attention. There are plenty of other bars and clubs around which create a relatively subdued but fun nightlife. For those fans of Douglas Adams, one that sticks out is a club called Zaphod Beeblebrox that is known for live music and festive young crowds.
Despite the small area, downtown Ottawa (called Centretown) also reflects the melting pot of cultures with a variety of restaurants from high end cuisine to hip vegetarian joints, and choosing one may be a challenge. One of our favorite places we always go back to the Calendario Azteca restaurant, a very authentic journey through the cuisine of Mexico, including the rare Huitlacoche, a mushroom that grows on the corn cob, spiced and served in a crepe. There is also a Little Italy (and it’s really little), and we had a wonderful meal at Trattoria Café Italia which offers a large menu of traditional items including a number of vegetarian options. You can also snack your way through the market, and if you’re not from the area, don’t miss the bagels made Montreal style at Continental Bagel.
Besides being the provincial capital of Ontario, Ottawa serves as the national capital, and it has the official and parliamentary buildings to prove it. Most of them border Major’s Hill Park along the western bank of the Ottawa River, and they’re joined by cultural landmarks like the National Arts Centre, National Gallery, the Mint, and a War Memorial. Take a scenic walk across the Alexandra Bridge into Quebec and visit the Canadian Museum of Civilization in the Hull area, which includes an IMAX theatre. While this side of the city doesn’t have a lot of restaurants, there are a number of nice patisseries and coffee shops. The best place to stay if you can swing it is the Fairmont Chateau Laurier, which looks like a castle, and sits right on the river along with the other buildings on Parliament Hill, making it the perfect location to walk anywhere.
This quaint capital city reflects both the English speaking majority and the French speaking Québécois minority, divided by the Ottawa River separating the provinces of Ontario and Quebec. Punctuated by beautiful parks, stunning architecture, scenic river overlooks, and lively outdoor markets and cafes, Ottawa is relatively small and often overlooked, lying midway between the larger cities of Toronto and Montreal. While winter might be a challenge here, since it’s considered one the coldest capital cities in the world (with an average temperature of 41.9 degrees Fahrenheit), the spring and summer months are fantastic, perhaps made more so by the contrast.
The Canadian Tulip Festival began in 1953, several years after Princess Juliana of the Netherlands gave Ottawa 100,000 tulip bulbs to show appreciation for the city’s harboring of Holland’s exiled royal family during World War II. The eighteen day extravaganza each May has become the largest Tulip festival in the world, hosting hundreds of thousands of tourists viewing millions of tulips spread throughout the city. Many of the events are free, or can be accessed with an inexpensive pass including transportation between the venues on the “Tulip shuttle”. The event has grown in scope, and features Tulip Fieldmusical concerts, competitions, and a formal Tulip ball including beautiful dresses made from flowers. Visiting in the beginning of the festival can be risky since the weather determines when the tulips bloom en masse, but the crowds increase as the weather gets warmer, so going early can often be a risk worth taking. Make sure to take in the lower key display at Commissioner’s Park, set in a beautiful suburb surrounding Dow’s Lake.
Unless you’re a horticulturist however, the amazing variety of colors and styles of tulips mostly provide a stunning backdrop to experience the rest of the things this city has to offer. The downtown area is about four square blocks and centered on the ByWard Market, featuring lots of indoor and outdoor vendors selling their wares, from crepes to cheese to hot sauces and pretty much else anything you can imagine. It’s surrounded by specialty shops, boutiques, cafés and restaurants, and cute little cobblestone alleys where you can sit and watch the world go by.
For people watching and an interesting menu, I especially recommend the Fox And Feather Pub, tucked down a picturesque pedestrian street. On a hot day, they had a Tulipsrefreshing melon bisque special, Leffe beer on tap, and they even welcomed our overheated canine companion providing ice water and lots of attention. There are plenty of other bars and clubs around which create a relatively subdued but fun nightlife. For those fans of Douglas Adams, one that sticks out is a club called Zaphod Beeblebrox that is known for live music and festive young crowds.
Despite the small area, downtown Ottawa (called Centretown) also reflects the melting pot of cultures with a variety of restaurants from high end cuisine to hip vegetarian joints, and choosing one may be a challenge. One of our favorite places we always go back to the Calendario Azteca restaurant, a very authentic journey through the cuisine of Mexico, including the rare Huitlacoche, a mushroom that grows on the corn cob, spiced and served in a crepe. There is also a Little Italy (and it’s really little), and we had a wonderful meal at Trattoria Café Italia which offers a large menu of traditional items including a number of vegetarian options. You can also snack your way through the market, and if you’re not from the area, don’t miss the bagels made Montreal style at Continental Bagel.
Besides being the provincial capital of Ontario, Ottawa serves as the national capital, and it has the official and parliamentary buildings to prove it. Most of them border Major’s Hill Park along the western bank of the Ottawa River, and they’re joined by cultural landmarks like the National Arts Centre, National Gallery, the Mint, and a War Memorial. Take a scenic walk across the Alexandra Bridge into Quebec and visit the Canadian Museum of Civilization in the Hull area, which includes an IMAX theatre. While this side of the city doesn’t have a lot of restaurants, there are a number of nice patisseries and coffee shops. The best place to stay if you can swing it is the Fairmont Chateau Laurier, which looks like a castle, and sits right on the river along with the other buildings on Parliament Hill, making it the perfect location to walk anywhere.
See New York
It is a Monday evening in New York and I find myself on the subway heading to Brooklyn. The car is filled with young people with laptops and messenger bags heading home from work. They don’t look like they work in offices but the occasional building pass gives them away. At DeKalb Avenue I get off the train and walk over to Gold Street to the Clock Tower Building.
I’ve spent the last few days in galleries and Museums looking at art. I am literally itching to create some myself, except that I didn’t happen to bring any supplies in my small suitcase. Lucky for me there is the Etsy Lab’s open house. Every Monday night 4-8 and the first Sunday of the month 2-6 you can use their equipment and make stuff and meet people.
The Etsy Lab is an offshoot of the Etsy an “online shopping bazaar Etsy, a very much for-profit entity that bills itself as 'your place to buy & sell all things handmade'” (Rob Walker New York Times Magazine 12-17-07). Located at their headquarters in the Clock Tower Building (325 Gold Street) the open lab takes place in and around all of their offices. Etsy has taken over most of the sixth floor and filled it with various offices and studio space.
I am buzzed into a very industrial looking building and take the elevator to the sixth floor. Inside the office there is an Etsy local sellers meeting. Beyond that there are people working on various projects talking and occasionally running across the room to find some supplies.
They are in the middle of dismantling a half pipe to make room for more desks. They explain to me that they aren’t too upset that it’s being dismantled since they just got a shuffle board table. At two and a half years Etsy has grown from three guys at a dining room table to a staff of 55. It is a busy place, not only does everyone talk to you but there is the feeling that you might be hanging out with friends in someone’s apartment (or in my case the art room after school in high school).
I am here to make something, so after getting the grand tour I get started. I’m going simple, a little wall hanging made of fabric scraps, and there are lots of leftovers from people’s screen printing projects, so I mix and match until I’m happy with my nine little squares.
There is a table full of sewing machines to use as well as other tables for other projects. For the more ambitious, or local person, they could bring their own silk screen and use their very cool silk screening set up. Or if you have the urge to do a little jewelry making there is a fully loaded jeweler’s bench; just bring your own piece of silver or what ever you are going to work with.
As I sew I talk with two women who met while doing a bird count in some years before. A staff member stops by to see what people are working on and we talk a while about Etsy and how she got involved. In general it is a low key relaxed evening, a good way to take a break in the middle of a New York City trip without going home.
I’ve spent the last few days in galleries and Museums looking at art. I am literally itching to create some myself, except that I didn’t happen to bring any supplies in my small suitcase. Lucky for me there is the Etsy Lab’s open house. Every Monday night 4-8 and the first Sunday of the month 2-6 you can use their equipment and make stuff and meet people.
The Etsy Lab is an offshoot of the Etsy an “online shopping bazaar Etsy, a very much for-profit entity that bills itself as 'your place to buy & sell all things handmade'” (Rob Walker New York Times Magazine 12-17-07). Located at their headquarters in the Clock Tower Building (325 Gold Street) the open lab takes place in and around all of their offices. Etsy has taken over most of the sixth floor and filled it with various offices and studio space.
I am buzzed into a very industrial looking building and take the elevator to the sixth floor. Inside the office there is an Etsy local sellers meeting. Beyond that there are people working on various projects talking and occasionally running across the room to find some supplies.
They are in the middle of dismantling a half pipe to make room for more desks. They explain to me that they aren’t too upset that it’s being dismantled since they just got a shuffle board table. At two and a half years Etsy has grown from three guys at a dining room table to a staff of 55. It is a busy place, not only does everyone talk to you but there is the feeling that you might be hanging out with friends in someone’s apartment (or in my case the art room after school in high school).
I am here to make something, so after getting the grand tour I get started. I’m going simple, a little wall hanging made of fabric scraps, and there are lots of leftovers from people’s screen printing projects, so I mix and match until I’m happy with my nine little squares.
There is a table full of sewing machines to use as well as other tables for other projects. For the more ambitious, or local person, they could bring their own silk screen and use their very cool silk screening set up. Or if you have the urge to do a little jewelry making there is a fully loaded jeweler’s bench; just bring your own piece of silver or what ever you are going to work with.
As I sew I talk with two women who met while doing a bird count in some years before. A staff member stops by to see what people are working on and we talk a while about Etsy and how she got involved. In general it is a low key relaxed evening, a good way to take a break in the middle of a New York City trip without going home.
Island Life on Utila
Time really does slow down on an island, which is hard to comprehend for those of us caught up in the fast paced Biking in Utilapressure cooker of modern society, but it’s the single thing I enjoy most about the island life. The smaller the island, the slower the pace, and the first one I visited was also the tiniest I’ve been to, but it was just this smallness that made it such a special place. In the southern Caribbean Ocean, just north of the Central American nation of Honduras are the Bay Islands, a string of three small tropical islands, of which westernmost Utila is the smallest.
Known in backpacker circles as a great, cheap place to get your scuba diving certification, Utila offers little more to do, but plenty to enjoy. Like the other Bay Islands, Utila is reached by a short ferry ride from the mainland coastal city of La Ceiba. Unlike the rest of Honduras, English is more widely spoken than Spanish, and the native inhabitants are primarily Garifuna, descendants of Black Caribs, giving it a much different feel than the rest of the country. Tourism has become the primary source of income, and Honduras recently made Utila a tax-free zone to encourage its further development, as well as standardizing scuba diving rates (read this as get there now before it gets overdeveloped).
hammocksArriving at the docks is a mellow affair, with few or no hawkers, so take your time walking the several blocks of accommodations and dive shops before choosing. The main road goes in both directions along the coast as well as going straight ahead to the uninhabited North side of the island, where the road literally just ends at an empty beach. Most people come for the diving, and there are several places that offer free dives, dive courses and accommodation. We stayed at Cross Creek, one of the larger hotels and dive centers, and signed up for the beginning PADI dive certification course.
Like most inexpensive dive centers, Cross Creek is a magnet for traveling young people from around the world, either learning to dive, or master divers plying their trade. We stayed in the clean and sparse hotel, which was a single row of small rooms with fans and small beds, fronted by an open terrace perfect for hanging hammocks and lounging. There is a restaurant and bar on site, which the dive masters are required to work at to earn their keep, but often was not open. The dive course involves classroom training a couple hours each evening, and diving from about 6 to 1 each morning, including quite of bit of prep time getting the gear ready and cleaning it when you return. The remainder of the time we were free to explore the island, although often exhausted from the rigors of diving.
Utila was hot, really hot, probably the hottest place I had ever been to that point. By the end of the first day, I was walking everywhere shirtless and had given up trying to protect against the sand fly bites that now covered my body. The heat is really what creates the slowness of island life though, and you can’t really have one without the other. A siesta is normally taken in the midday, as it’s really too hot to do anything and much of the activity is in the relatively cooler mornings and evenings.
Fresh seafood and simple ingredients are the staples of the food on Utila. Most of the restaurants are single person affairs, Xijing Restaurantranging from a person’s home to a slightly larger restaurant with several tables. At some of the smaller places, there may only be one item, whatever was fresh and available that day. One of my favorite places like this was Xijing restaurant, with four shaded outside tables, and such tasty dishes as rice and beans, barracuda with fries, or if you time it just right, you can get some sweet rice, made with coconut milk, cinnamon, and sugar in a ten gallon vat over an open flame, and gone within half an hour. Other staples of the island include fried chicken, grouper, tuna and conch. Almost everything is accompanied by salad or fries (papas fritas). Dinner will cost you less than 5 USD with beer. Baked goods are a favorite at breakfast on the island, and if you’re up for a challenge, you have to find Taracina, a woman with a shack in the middle of nowhere offering the best Pan de Coco around, definitely worth seeking out.
Outside of eating, diving and relaxing in your hammock, there is deliciously little to do. You can take the single track dirt road to the Northern side of the island, which is a couple hours walk through quiet palm trees and woods, to an empty beach on the other side. There is a primitive Iguana research station that you can visit, or volunteer at and stay a while, and help protect the spiny tailed Utila Iguana. There are some small cays to the Southwest that can be visited in your spare time. You can hang out with fellow travelers and discover many things about the world. Other than that, enjoy the sunsets, and the lack of excitement. It’s what makes any island special, reminding us of what is really important in life. Be careful though, because you may not want to come back.
Known in backpacker circles as a great, cheap place to get your scuba diving certification, Utila offers little more to do, but plenty to enjoy. Like the other Bay Islands, Utila is reached by a short ferry ride from the mainland coastal city of La Ceiba. Unlike the rest of Honduras, English is more widely spoken than Spanish, and the native inhabitants are primarily Garifuna, descendants of Black Caribs, giving it a much different feel than the rest of the country. Tourism has become the primary source of income, and Honduras recently made Utila a tax-free zone to encourage its further development, as well as standardizing scuba diving rates (read this as get there now before it gets overdeveloped).
hammocksArriving at the docks is a mellow affair, with few or no hawkers, so take your time walking the several blocks of accommodations and dive shops before choosing. The main road goes in both directions along the coast as well as going straight ahead to the uninhabited North side of the island, where the road literally just ends at an empty beach. Most people come for the diving, and there are several places that offer free dives, dive courses and accommodation. We stayed at Cross Creek, one of the larger hotels and dive centers, and signed up for the beginning PADI dive certification course.
Like most inexpensive dive centers, Cross Creek is a magnet for traveling young people from around the world, either learning to dive, or master divers plying their trade. We stayed in the clean and sparse hotel, which was a single row of small rooms with fans and small beds, fronted by an open terrace perfect for hanging hammocks and lounging. There is a restaurant and bar on site, which the dive masters are required to work at to earn their keep, but often was not open. The dive course involves classroom training a couple hours each evening, and diving from about 6 to 1 each morning, including quite of bit of prep time getting the gear ready and cleaning it when you return. The remainder of the time we were free to explore the island, although often exhausted from the rigors of diving.
Utila was hot, really hot, probably the hottest place I had ever been to that point. By the end of the first day, I was walking everywhere shirtless and had given up trying to protect against the sand fly bites that now covered my body. The heat is really what creates the slowness of island life though, and you can’t really have one without the other. A siesta is normally taken in the midday, as it’s really too hot to do anything and much of the activity is in the relatively cooler mornings and evenings.
Fresh seafood and simple ingredients are the staples of the food on Utila. Most of the restaurants are single person affairs, Xijing Restaurantranging from a person’s home to a slightly larger restaurant with several tables. At some of the smaller places, there may only be one item, whatever was fresh and available that day. One of my favorite places like this was Xijing restaurant, with four shaded outside tables, and such tasty dishes as rice and beans, barracuda with fries, or if you time it just right, you can get some sweet rice, made with coconut milk, cinnamon, and sugar in a ten gallon vat over an open flame, and gone within half an hour. Other staples of the island include fried chicken, grouper, tuna and conch. Almost everything is accompanied by salad or fries (papas fritas). Dinner will cost you less than 5 USD with beer. Baked goods are a favorite at breakfast on the island, and if you’re up for a challenge, you have to find Taracina, a woman with a shack in the middle of nowhere offering the best Pan de Coco around, definitely worth seeking out.
Outside of eating, diving and relaxing in your hammock, there is deliciously little to do. You can take the single track dirt road to the Northern side of the island, which is a couple hours walk through quiet palm trees and woods, to an empty beach on the other side. There is a primitive Iguana research station that you can visit, or volunteer at and stay a while, and help protect the spiny tailed Utila Iguana. There are some small cays to the Southwest that can be visited in your spare time. You can hang out with fellow travelers and discover many things about the world. Other than that, enjoy the sunsets, and the lack of excitement. It’s what makes any island special, reminding us of what is really important in life. Be careful though, because you may not want to come back.
Experiencing the Utah Desert
Heading to the desert is a craving for me, as the sun begins to return but the days are still filled with snow I start to crave the feel of sandstone under my fingers and the smell of new sage. This want for land that is both scrubbed clean and busy with life has been with me always, but until I met the desert I did not know what it was.
A misplaced feeling for someone growing up along the eastern seaboard I always associated my unrest with the bare trees of February and March. I translated this as anger at their starkness, how could I know I was craving something that I had never known.
Then after my first long winter in the southwest mountains of Colorado, a friend invited me to go for a hike in a near-by canyon in March. We were less than an hour from the five feet of snow that stood around our houses but in Sand Canyon I had soon tied my jacket around my waist and was letting the sun warm my forearms.
On that day in that canyon I understood what I had been longing for. And then, as if I had always known it I constantly craved the desert. Every day off I would search out new spots where I could taste and touch the desert.
The desert of the Southwest is not a sandy one; this is not the Sahara or Gobi. Our desert is a dry place but not without life. It is filled with yucca and sage, mice and coyotes and much more. It is a busy place filled with life. But it is still a place of extremes. While it may be close to ninety in the mid-day sun it can drop to below freezing in the dark.
The animals, plants and people who make it their home have spent thousands of years learning to adapt and live together. Unlike the leveling of New England the Southwest could not be tamed, instead those who chose to live there had to learn to live with what the land gave them.
I will always be a guest in the desert, my need for it is seasonal. As the Vernal Equinox approaches I can feel it grow in my bones but once the ground thaws my focus shifts and the desert only seems a nice memory, a place I was as a tourist visiting but not seeing.
Then deep in the summer months when the desert is too hot for me I remember it again, if I did not visit that year, my longing returns in my dreams. But I dream of the desert of March not August and so I put the need aside letting it grow until the following winter when it will blossom in me earlier as if to give me time to plan better, to get my body out into the desert 'or else'.
If you want to taste the desert I suggest going to Utah, to Moab and the surrounding area. Arches National Park is a good starting point, it is a little sterile with paved roads and guard rails in some places but the views of the naturally formed arches are beautiful. Try to catch Delicate Arch at sunset or by a full moon and walk one of the primitive trails.
For a longer, less populated trip I would suggest the slot canyons of the Eastern edge of the San Rafael Swell. Here you can camp on BLM near the entrance to one of a few different canyons. You can spend the day, usually alone, in the canyons among the sandstone walls and looking out on the layers of color that make up the reefs above. These canyons vary in sort, some are winding sandy paths that reach all the way through the Swell while others have sections so narrow that you can touch both walls and drops that have you scrambling over cliffs five or six feet high. Each one has its own beauty unlike another’s.
Remember the desert is a harsh place, you will need to bring water in with you and since it is hot and dry you should be drinking a lot of it. At the same time, flooding is a threat in the canyons. Make sure you know what the weather is going to be before you enter the canyon, flash floods do occur and when they do there is no place for you to go. Don't be scared off but be cautious in canyon country.
A misplaced feeling for someone growing up along the eastern seaboard I always associated my unrest with the bare trees of February and March. I translated this as anger at their starkness, how could I know I was craving something that I had never known.
Then after my first long winter in the southwest mountains of Colorado, a friend invited me to go for a hike in a near-by canyon in March. We were less than an hour from the five feet of snow that stood around our houses but in Sand Canyon I had soon tied my jacket around my waist and was letting the sun warm my forearms.
On that day in that canyon I understood what I had been longing for. And then, as if I had always known it I constantly craved the desert. Every day off I would search out new spots where I could taste and touch the desert.
The desert of the Southwest is not a sandy one; this is not the Sahara or Gobi. Our desert is a dry place but not without life. It is filled with yucca and sage, mice and coyotes and much more. It is a busy place filled with life. But it is still a place of extremes. While it may be close to ninety in the mid-day sun it can drop to below freezing in the dark.
The animals, plants and people who make it their home have spent thousands of years learning to adapt and live together. Unlike the leveling of New England the Southwest could not be tamed, instead those who chose to live there had to learn to live with what the land gave them.
I will always be a guest in the desert, my need for it is seasonal. As the Vernal Equinox approaches I can feel it grow in my bones but once the ground thaws my focus shifts and the desert only seems a nice memory, a place I was as a tourist visiting but not seeing.
Then deep in the summer months when the desert is too hot for me I remember it again, if I did not visit that year, my longing returns in my dreams. But I dream of the desert of March not August and so I put the need aside letting it grow until the following winter when it will blossom in me earlier as if to give me time to plan better, to get my body out into the desert 'or else'.
If you want to taste the desert I suggest going to Utah, to Moab and the surrounding area. Arches National Park is a good starting point, it is a little sterile with paved roads and guard rails in some places but the views of the naturally formed arches are beautiful. Try to catch Delicate Arch at sunset or by a full moon and walk one of the primitive trails.
For a longer, less populated trip I would suggest the slot canyons of the Eastern edge of the San Rafael Swell. Here you can camp on BLM near the entrance to one of a few different canyons. You can spend the day, usually alone, in the canyons among the sandstone walls and looking out on the layers of color that make up the reefs above. These canyons vary in sort, some are winding sandy paths that reach all the way through the Swell while others have sections so narrow that you can touch both walls and drops that have you scrambling over cliffs five or six feet high. Each one has its own beauty unlike another’s.
Remember the desert is a harsh place, you will need to bring water in with you and since it is hot and dry you should be drinking a lot of it. At the same time, flooding is a threat in the canyons. Make sure you know what the weather is going to be before you enter the canyon, flash floods do occur and when they do there is no place for you to go. Don't be scared off but be cautious in canyon country.
Trekking the Lycian Way
Watch out! Here comes another one. We're walking down the boardwalk in Oludeniz, Turkey which also doubles as a paragliding landing zone. It's no wonder people leap from the surrounding mountains and glide down to a soft beach landing, into this bay that's one of the most photographed areas of the Mediterranean coastline.
Oludeniz
Oludeniz means "dead sea" in Turkish. The actual town is named Belcekiz, but if you walk a couple hundred meters down the beach, you reach a peninsula of sand which creates a sheltered lagoon. The still, deep blue water behind this spit of land is the "dead" calm sea.
Campgrounds on the lagoon provide quiet places to relax, with or without the family. Bring your tent or rent a fully equipped caravan or camper trailer. Back in the town of Belcekiz, you can choose from a range of hotels. A clean midrange bungalow in a garden setting with AC, TV, and private bathroom costs around $35 USD a night for two.
Visit Direct Holidays for cheap Turkey holidays and all your travel needs.
Besides the beautiful beach and bay, the reason we came here was to trek along the Lycian Way. It's a meandering trail that follows the contour of Mediterranean coast of southern Turkey. While the 300 km trail itself was opened 1999 it is comprised of paths that are thousands of years old. Take a month and hike the whole trail to Antalya, or pick smaller sections to explore over a few days.
Lycian Way mapOne of the many highlights along the way is Butterfly Valley. This section of the Likya Yolu (in Turkish) is over 300 meters above the water. Start at Faralya and hike the down steep trail about 45 minutes to reach Butterfly Valley on the coast. Vertical cliffs on both sides of the narrow beach define the valley. Hippy expatriates raise over 40 organic foods and try to escape the real world in this mostly self-sufficient Walden. Hold those ropes tightly when climbing back up to the main trail. This side trip is not for the faint of heart.
On the small plateau at Faralya you will be greeted by the sight of George House, a family run inn with bungalows for travelers to stay and communal meals to bring back that hiking energy. Hasan is the host and son of the owner. He is a kind man and his family create a comfortable environment to relax. This is a popular lodge so make reservations if you can.
Finding a place to stay isn't always about reservations. In many villages, families welcome trekkers into their private homes. They'll flag you down along the trail, lead you home, clean up their bedroom, and sleep in the kitchen for the night. Dinner and breakfast are included, which are often delicious, but pale in comparison to the experience. You leave knowing you helped a local family, most of whom are simple farmers living off the land. Roads and electricity have just arrived at some of these villages.
Along the trail are historic towns and ruins like Letoon and Xanthos. Xanthos is a mini version of Ephesus, with an amphitheater where gladiators fought in Roman times. See beautiful tile mosaics and Lycian tombs without jockeying with tourists for a position to take a picture. The Chimaera or eternal flames of Mount Olympos are another popular destination with tree houses overlooking the Mediterranean.
Mediterranean Sea coast
The most stunning part of the Lycian Way are not specific places or ruins but the way you start to get used to life here. It isn't uncommon to spend a few hours with a stranger walking along the trail as they commute home on foot; you are the one visiting after all. The list of stunning views is endless but it's the smaller moments that you remember. A meal shared with a family on the side of the road where conversation is a mix of pantomime and a few shared words. Walking through the olive groves seeing the ripe fruits hanging down on the branches will return to your mind with every olive eaten. Or maybe it's the herds of goats whose ancestors have walked these trails since ancient times.
Oludeniz
Oludeniz means "dead sea" in Turkish. The actual town is named Belcekiz, but if you walk a couple hundred meters down the beach, you reach a peninsula of sand which creates a sheltered lagoon. The still, deep blue water behind this spit of land is the "dead" calm sea.
Campgrounds on the lagoon provide quiet places to relax, with or without the family. Bring your tent or rent a fully equipped caravan or camper trailer. Back in the town of Belcekiz, you can choose from a range of hotels. A clean midrange bungalow in a garden setting with AC, TV, and private bathroom costs around $35 USD a night for two.
Visit Direct Holidays for cheap Turkey holidays and all your travel needs.
Besides the beautiful beach and bay, the reason we came here was to trek along the Lycian Way. It's a meandering trail that follows the contour of Mediterranean coast of southern Turkey. While the 300 km trail itself was opened 1999 it is comprised of paths that are thousands of years old. Take a month and hike the whole trail to Antalya, or pick smaller sections to explore over a few days.
Lycian Way mapOne of the many highlights along the way is Butterfly Valley. This section of the Likya Yolu (in Turkish) is over 300 meters above the water. Start at Faralya and hike the down steep trail about 45 minutes to reach Butterfly Valley on the coast. Vertical cliffs on both sides of the narrow beach define the valley. Hippy expatriates raise over 40 organic foods and try to escape the real world in this mostly self-sufficient Walden. Hold those ropes tightly when climbing back up to the main trail. This side trip is not for the faint of heart.
On the small plateau at Faralya you will be greeted by the sight of George House, a family run inn with bungalows for travelers to stay and communal meals to bring back that hiking energy. Hasan is the host and son of the owner. He is a kind man and his family create a comfortable environment to relax. This is a popular lodge so make reservations if you can.
Finding a place to stay isn't always about reservations. In many villages, families welcome trekkers into their private homes. They'll flag you down along the trail, lead you home, clean up their bedroom, and sleep in the kitchen for the night. Dinner and breakfast are included, which are often delicious, but pale in comparison to the experience. You leave knowing you helped a local family, most of whom are simple farmers living off the land. Roads and electricity have just arrived at some of these villages.
Along the trail are historic towns and ruins like Letoon and Xanthos. Xanthos is a mini version of Ephesus, with an amphitheater where gladiators fought in Roman times. See beautiful tile mosaics and Lycian tombs without jockeying with tourists for a position to take a picture. The Chimaera or eternal flames of Mount Olympos are another popular destination with tree houses overlooking the Mediterranean.
Mediterranean Sea coast
The most stunning part of the Lycian Way are not specific places or ruins but the way you start to get used to life here. It isn't uncommon to spend a few hours with a stranger walking along the trail as they commute home on foot; you are the one visiting after all. The list of stunning views is endless but it's the smaller moments that you remember. A meal shared with a family on the side of the road where conversation is a mix of pantomime and a few shared words. Walking through the olive groves seeing the ripe fruits hanging down on the branches will return to your mind with every olive eaten. Or maybe it's the herds of goats whose ancestors have walked these trails since ancient times.
Lake Placid Olympic Village
Lake Placid is best remembered by most people as the location of the “Miracle on Ice”, when the United States Hockey Mirror Lake at Dawnteam made up of amateurs beat the mighty Soviet team during the 1980 Winter Olympics. This small village in the beautiful Adirondack Mountains of New York State actually hosted the 1932 Winter Olympics as well, and while the town continues to market their Olympic past to tourists, there are plenty of other reasons to visit the area. Plenty of outdoor sports, restaurants, shopping, and locally crafted brews top the list.
While most would consider winter the best time to visit the area, it’s really quite a great place to visit at any time of the year. With no major airport nearby, you’ll be driving, so make sure to get off the highway and take some of the winding one lane roads through the countryside, following gurgling rivers through forests and mountain vistas waiting to be photographed. Much of this is National Forest land, and plenty of trails are accessible right off the road for hiking or snowshoeing depending on the weather. The small towns in the region make their living off of tourism, so you’ll pass plenty of outfitters offering guided fishing, canoeing and kayaking, snowmobiling and cross country skiing trips.
Mirror LakeOnce you make it to Lake Placid, you’ll be confronted by an out of place conglomeration of chain hotels and outlet stores on the main drag along the banks of a brilliant lake. Strangely this lake is not actually Lake Placid, but the smaller Mirror Lake. Hidden among these trappings of tourism though are some individual shops, hotel and restaurants worth seeking out. One of my favorite shops is the Lake Placid Clock and Watch Company that offers tons of authentic Black Forest Cuckoo clocks, as well as German beer steins, a great place to browse.
We stayed at the Golden Arrow, the only hotel with actual lake frontage (the rest are across the street for some reason). The Golden Arrow is a family owned hotel started by immigrants from Southern Germany, and they even have a clearly stated environmental mission statement that includes building a “green” roof, offering perks for those who travel to the hotel by means other than car, and a recycling program for guests. Our room had a balcony overlooking the lake, and was more moderately priced than most of the other large hotels.
The variety of restaurants in town is extraordinary for the middle of nowhere, with many ethnic cuisines represented, especially if you get off the main drag. Italian is very well represented, and there are five places all owned by the same family emigrated from Bosnia, all of which get great reviews but only one I can attest to personally, Jimmy’s on Main Street with a very traditional Southern Italian menu including a wonderful antipasto. One of my favorite finds was Mykonos, a Greek restaurant with all of the specialties of that ancient cuisine and desserts to go with it. Plenty of vegetarian options are offered, and one of the best Tsatziki’s I’ve ever tasted…garlicky, creamy and lots of it. If you ask the locals where they go, they’d probably say the Caribbean Cowboy, a small, hard to find place with an eclectic fusion of Caribbean and Mexican dishes like Roast Vegetable Tamale Pie, Jerk Chicken or a Southwest Spiced All Natural Pork Loin with a Mole sauce.
The locals would also tell you that central New York has some of the best artisanal hand crafted beers in the States. Whiteface GondolaThe place most tourists go in town is the wood paneled, somewhat stuffy, Great Adirondack Steak & Seafood Company where they make a full lineup of beers including a good Abbey Ale and a seasonal Barleywine, best enjoyed on their large front deck. A couple blocks off of Main Street, in a small house overlooking Mirror Lake, is the lower key and local Lake Placid Pub and Brewery, offering lots of excellent brews alongside traditional pub fare. This place is famous for Ubu Ale, a dark English Strong Ale, but they had a strong seasonal French Farm-style beer while I was there called Biere de Garde that I just had to get a growler of to go.
If eating and drinking isn’t enough to keep you busy, there are actually other things to do. As one would expect of a two-time Winter Olympic host city, there are plenty of facilities for winter sports. This includes a dizzyingly high ski jump that you can take an elevator to the top of, a bobsled run you can pay to ride down with a professional rudder man, and a luge run you can do on your own. There are two hockey rinks in the Olympic facility that host regional hockey, speed skating and figure skating tournaments as well as doubling as a conference center. Touring and Snowmobile trails abound and a small ski area called Whiteface is a few minutes away, which also has a modern gondola up to the second highest peak on the mountain. As is typical these days, it doubles as a mountain bike haven in the non-snow months. You can even take lessons in the biathlon on the shooting range.
When there is no snow on the ground, you can enjoy plenty of hiking or mountain climbing with trails criss-crossing the area. Tons of rivers and lakes offer scenic fishing, canoeing and kayaking. There is a public park in town with tennis courts, a walking and biking path around Mirror Lake, and most of the indoor winter activities are open year round. Fall offers a very special experience with the Adirondacks changing into a huge variety of deep reds and yellows all around you. With all of these options, Lake Placid makes a relaxing and scenic place to visit no matter what you like to do. World Class food, eclectic and outlet shopping and any outdoor activity you can think of in a sleepy mountain village.
While most would consider winter the best time to visit the area, it’s really quite a great place to visit at any time of the year. With no major airport nearby, you’ll be driving, so make sure to get off the highway and take some of the winding one lane roads through the countryside, following gurgling rivers through forests and mountain vistas waiting to be photographed. Much of this is National Forest land, and plenty of trails are accessible right off the road for hiking or snowshoeing depending on the weather. The small towns in the region make their living off of tourism, so you’ll pass plenty of outfitters offering guided fishing, canoeing and kayaking, snowmobiling and cross country skiing trips.
Mirror LakeOnce you make it to Lake Placid, you’ll be confronted by an out of place conglomeration of chain hotels and outlet stores on the main drag along the banks of a brilliant lake. Strangely this lake is not actually Lake Placid, but the smaller Mirror Lake. Hidden among these trappings of tourism though are some individual shops, hotel and restaurants worth seeking out. One of my favorite shops is the Lake Placid Clock and Watch Company that offers tons of authentic Black Forest Cuckoo clocks, as well as German beer steins, a great place to browse.
We stayed at the Golden Arrow, the only hotel with actual lake frontage (the rest are across the street for some reason). The Golden Arrow is a family owned hotel started by immigrants from Southern Germany, and they even have a clearly stated environmental mission statement that includes building a “green” roof, offering perks for those who travel to the hotel by means other than car, and a recycling program for guests. Our room had a balcony overlooking the lake, and was more moderately priced than most of the other large hotels.
The variety of restaurants in town is extraordinary for the middle of nowhere, with many ethnic cuisines represented, especially if you get off the main drag. Italian is very well represented, and there are five places all owned by the same family emigrated from Bosnia, all of which get great reviews but only one I can attest to personally, Jimmy’s on Main Street with a very traditional Southern Italian menu including a wonderful antipasto. One of my favorite finds was Mykonos, a Greek restaurant with all of the specialties of that ancient cuisine and desserts to go with it. Plenty of vegetarian options are offered, and one of the best Tsatziki’s I’ve ever tasted…garlicky, creamy and lots of it. If you ask the locals where they go, they’d probably say the Caribbean Cowboy, a small, hard to find place with an eclectic fusion of Caribbean and Mexican dishes like Roast Vegetable Tamale Pie, Jerk Chicken or a Southwest Spiced All Natural Pork Loin with a Mole sauce.
The locals would also tell you that central New York has some of the best artisanal hand crafted beers in the States. Whiteface GondolaThe place most tourists go in town is the wood paneled, somewhat stuffy, Great Adirondack Steak & Seafood Company where they make a full lineup of beers including a good Abbey Ale and a seasonal Barleywine, best enjoyed on their large front deck. A couple blocks off of Main Street, in a small house overlooking Mirror Lake, is the lower key and local Lake Placid Pub and Brewery, offering lots of excellent brews alongside traditional pub fare. This place is famous for Ubu Ale, a dark English Strong Ale, but they had a strong seasonal French Farm-style beer while I was there called Biere de Garde that I just had to get a growler of to go.
If eating and drinking isn’t enough to keep you busy, there are actually other things to do. As one would expect of a two-time Winter Olympic host city, there are plenty of facilities for winter sports. This includes a dizzyingly high ski jump that you can take an elevator to the top of, a bobsled run you can pay to ride down with a professional rudder man, and a luge run you can do on your own. There are two hockey rinks in the Olympic facility that host regional hockey, speed skating and figure skating tournaments as well as doubling as a conference center. Touring and Snowmobile trails abound and a small ski area called Whiteface is a few minutes away, which also has a modern gondola up to the second highest peak on the mountain. As is typical these days, it doubles as a mountain bike haven in the non-snow months. You can even take lessons in the biathlon on the shooting range.
When there is no snow on the ground, you can enjoy plenty of hiking or mountain climbing with trails criss-crossing the area. Tons of rivers and lakes offer scenic fishing, canoeing and kayaking. There is a public park in town with tennis courts, a walking and biking path around Mirror Lake, and most of the indoor winter activities are open year round. Fall offers a very special experience with the Adirondacks changing into a huge variety of deep reds and yellows all around you. With all of these options, Lake Placid makes a relaxing and scenic place to visit no matter what you like to do. World Class food, eclectic and outlet shopping and any outdoor activity you can think of in a sleepy mountain village.
Festival International de Jazz de Montreal
Living in Central Vermont, I'm only a couple hours drive from one of the more unique and captivating Canadian cities, lovely Montreal. St. Louis Square FountainSet alongside the St. Lawrence River, this town forty minutes across the border in the province of Quebec is dominated by a French Canadian heritage evident in the language, the food, and the overall European feel of the city. Filled with sidewalk cafes, bistros, and a large population of people from everywhere, Montreal is a world class melting pot, and the perfect host for the annual summer jazz festival (Festival International de Jazz de Montreal).
The Jazz Festival offers hundreds of different concerts, representing the spectrum of jazz and blues from traditional to Dixieland to Quebecois to Caribbean and African. The majority of shows are free and held in the middle of a large outdoor area of the Latin Quarter (a.k.a. red light district), a four block radius of Ste-Catherine, President-Kennedy, Bleury and St-Urbain streets. Either a blessing or a curse depending on your perspective, officials chase the typical colorful characters of the area away for the duration of the festival, although some of the less conspicuous clubs continue to operate during that time. The remainder of the shows are relatively expensive headliners at some of the larger venues, and lesser known acts at a number of jazz clubs around town.
In the outdoor area, there are four stages set up, all showing different acts simultaneously throughout the day and evening. One would think the sounds would collide and create a real cacophony, but the layout is well designed and one can definitely distinguish the different music as you move from stage to stage. The crowds are reasonable during the day, and it's a great time to chill out and experience the atmosphere. Buy a shot of Grand Marnier in a Dixie cup, and some Poutin and enjoy the bands, most of which will play again later that evening. For those unfamiliar with Poutin, this is a uniquely Jazz Festival SignFrench Canadian dish with French Fries topped traditionally with a brown gravy and whole cheese curds, although it's also possible to find more gourmet and unusual toppings. More and more people file in as the days go on, and by evening, the square and stages are lit up in all colors of neon, and the headliners whip the large crowds into a frenzy with their passionate playing.
Since the outdoor area is free, you can come and go as you please, which is a good thing because the area has tons to explore. We stayed at the clean and cheap Auberge Le Jardin d’Antoine, perfectly located at one of the major intersections of the Latin Quarter, rue Saint-Denis and rue Sherbrooke. Restaurants, shops and bars line rue Saint-Denis and continue North into the quieter neighborhoods of Plateau, Outremont and Mont-Royal or South into Vieux-Montreal (the old town). All the cuisines of the world are represented here, and in good weather, there is plenty of outdoor seating.
Just north of the hotel along Saint-Denis is the quiet and local Square St. Louis, a small park surrounded by beautiful townhouses, with a centerpiece Victorian fountain and benches to watch the world go by. Continuing further north goes through shaded neighborhood Rue St.-Denisstreets with narrow three story houses similar to the Brownstones of downtown Boston or Brooklyn. Cut over ten blocks west and head up Avenue du Parc, with Montreal’s namesake Parc Mont-Royal on your left, and a wonderful variety of ethnic eateries and markets, particularly Greek and Latin American. On any trip to Montreal, it’s vital to get fresh bagels, claimed to be the original bagel (despite the protestations of Manhattanites), and the best place for this is St. Viateur's Bagels. This tiny shop is open 24 hours a day, and there is almost always a short line. The bagels are bagged for you right off the line, and they’re still warm and absolutely perfect. Make sure to check out the Greek bakery around the corner as well (on Rue du Parc and St. Viateur Ouest) for fantastic pastries and coffee.
As many times as I go to Montreal, I continue to find new places to explore. The Jazz Fest is a great free event to build your trip around. See as much free music as you like, and spend the rest of the time getting to know this friendly and diverse city, historic, multicultural, and most assuredly French.
The Jazz Festival offers hundreds of different concerts, representing the spectrum of jazz and blues from traditional to Dixieland to Quebecois to Caribbean and African. The majority of shows are free and held in the middle of a large outdoor area of the Latin Quarter (a.k.a. red light district), a four block radius of Ste-Catherine, President-Kennedy, Bleury and St-Urbain streets. Either a blessing or a curse depending on your perspective, officials chase the typical colorful characters of the area away for the duration of the festival, although some of the less conspicuous clubs continue to operate during that time. The remainder of the shows are relatively expensive headliners at some of the larger venues, and lesser known acts at a number of jazz clubs around town.
In the outdoor area, there are four stages set up, all showing different acts simultaneously throughout the day and evening. One would think the sounds would collide and create a real cacophony, but the layout is well designed and one can definitely distinguish the different music as you move from stage to stage. The crowds are reasonable during the day, and it's a great time to chill out and experience the atmosphere. Buy a shot of Grand Marnier in a Dixie cup, and some Poutin and enjoy the bands, most of which will play again later that evening. For those unfamiliar with Poutin, this is a uniquely Jazz Festival SignFrench Canadian dish with French Fries topped traditionally with a brown gravy and whole cheese curds, although it's also possible to find more gourmet and unusual toppings. More and more people file in as the days go on, and by evening, the square and stages are lit up in all colors of neon, and the headliners whip the large crowds into a frenzy with their passionate playing.
Since the outdoor area is free, you can come and go as you please, which is a good thing because the area has tons to explore. We stayed at the clean and cheap Auberge Le Jardin d’Antoine, perfectly located at one of the major intersections of the Latin Quarter, rue Saint-Denis and rue Sherbrooke. Restaurants, shops and bars line rue Saint-Denis and continue North into the quieter neighborhoods of Plateau, Outremont and Mont-Royal or South into Vieux-Montreal (the old town). All the cuisines of the world are represented here, and in good weather, there is plenty of outdoor seating.
Just north of the hotel along Saint-Denis is the quiet and local Square St. Louis, a small park surrounded by beautiful townhouses, with a centerpiece Victorian fountain and benches to watch the world go by. Continuing further north goes through shaded neighborhood Rue St.-Denisstreets with narrow three story houses similar to the Brownstones of downtown Boston or Brooklyn. Cut over ten blocks west and head up Avenue du Parc, with Montreal’s namesake Parc Mont-Royal on your left, and a wonderful variety of ethnic eateries and markets, particularly Greek and Latin American. On any trip to Montreal, it’s vital to get fresh bagels, claimed to be the original bagel (despite the protestations of Manhattanites), and the best place for this is St. Viateur's Bagels. This tiny shop is open 24 hours a day, and there is almost always a short line. The bagels are bagged for you right off the line, and they’re still warm and absolutely perfect. Make sure to check out the Greek bakery around the corner as well (on Rue du Parc and St. Viateur Ouest) for fantastic pastries and coffee.
As many times as I go to Montreal, I continue to find new places to explore. The Jazz Fest is a great free event to build your trip around. See as much free music as you like, and spend the rest of the time getting to know this friendly and diverse city, historic, multicultural, and most assuredly French.
Rainforests of Ecuador
Driving rain pelted our open canoe as we forged our way up the Rio Napo further into the rainforest, driven slowly by the Thatched Hutgentle hum of the outboard motor. Our waterproof high tech fancy shells and hiking boots quickly succumbed to the elements, while our guide's simple garbage bags and bare feet served them perfectly in the humid and wet weather. The Rio Napo is a tributary of the Amazon, and this was the beginning of a three day trip into the jungle outside of Coca, a retired oil boom town in the deep interior of Ecuador.
The South American Explorers Club in Quito is a great resource for information including travel reports by fellow explorers, several of which pointed us to a tour guide named Wimper Torres operating out of Coca. We attempted to call to make arrangements, but were told simply to make our way to the little town and ask for Wimper when we got there. After taking an overnight bus over a single track rutted dirt road, we reached the town which consisted of a few square blocks of dirt streets and wooden planked sidewalks. There were a handful of stores selling crafts and staples, basic restaurants and the surprisingly nice Hotel Auca, where we negotiated a triple room, and inquired after Wimper Torres and were told that he'd find us later in the day.
After walking around town and having a simple almuerzo (a fixed lunch menu) at the Residencial Lo Janita, we returned to the hotel to find Wimper waiting for us. On the bus, we had met a couple guys from Japan also canoelooking to do a rainforest tour, and since it's cheaper the more people you have, we decided to go in together on the trip. We flagged down a passing flat bed truck, and accompanied him to his home on the outskirts, where he spread out a map of the area and we discussed what kind of trip we wanted to take. We decided on a three day trip where everything was included for 30USD per person per day. He needed to buy provisions so we made arrangements to meet the next morning at the docks.
The next day we met Wimper and his nephew Irwin, and after a visit to La Oficina de Comandante, where we had to get permission for the trip (a formality) and leave our passports during our trip, we loaded our gear and supplies into an eleven meter outboard canoe. We pushed off from the shore, and began our slow five hour trip upriver, immediately met by torrential downpours limiting visibility. The river presented a variety of hazards from sandbars to trees, but the experience of our guide on these waterways showed and finally, we turned off into a maze of small lagoon waterways where we were sheltered from the rain by the canopy overhead and could talk with our guide who pointed out numerous colorful birds.
We finally reached a hut that would become our home base for the rest of the trip. It stood about five feet above ground on stilts, had no walls, a sixty foot square bamboo floor and a pitched roof made of palm leaves. Wimper strung two ropes across the hut, over which we hung thin mosquito netting to sleep under. There was a simple outhouse approximately fifty feet from the hut, a trip to which was quite an adventure at night as you needed to climb down the ladder and then navigate through the forest to find it. It was a creaky shack with a hole and it was best not to think about what was above or below.
We spent the next two days exploring the forest by canoe and foot, and View of Lago de Paranalearning from Wimper and Irwin about the jungle, its native peoples and the changes taking place in the area. The oil industry, while not unwelcomed by the people as it brought a measure of prosperity, had disturbed the ecosystem and driven most of the large animals further into the forest. The Quechua and Yasuni Indians of the area were subsistence farmers and fisherman, although there was a bit of the wider world mixed in with a prevalence of Western style clothing, jewelry, and sometimes even generators and appliances. These people were living in both worlds.
We went fishing one afternoon, using simple six inch pieces of bamboo with fishing line and a hook. We caught a Piranha and Irwin caught a very large Jaguar fish, both of which we cooked and ate that night. Wimper cut the Jaguar fish into rings and fried it along with rice, plantains and French fries, which made for a very tasty dinner indeed. Each day for lunch, Wimper made a fresh salad of onion, cucumber, tomato, canned tuna and lime juice, after which Wimper washed our plates in the river, which was disconcerting, but we never got sick.
We hiked through the forest teeming with plant life, learning from Wimper about medicinal plants and symbiotic relationships between floras. We visited a large lagoon called Lago de Pirana, and climbed a circular staircase to the top of a giant tree, affording views of the endless rainforest canopy. At night, we practiced our Spanish talking with Wimper about all kinds of things, and one of the things I remember most was Wimper saying that he really enjoyed guiding Americans because we were always interested in our surroundings, and always relished the food put in front of us, perceptions we were more than happy to perpetuate.
After a tiring but satisfying three days, we retraced our route. We took our guides out to their favorite restaurant, the Monte Carlo, where we enjoyed a multicourse meal and a final conversation. Our trip into the Amazon Basin was over, but it was a wonderful experience made more special by choosing a small group, a local guide, and basic accommodations. Most people choose Brazil for this kind of adventure, but Ecuador offers a smaller scale way to enjoy the uniqueness of a journey into the rainforest of South America.
The South American Explorers Club in Quito is a great resource for information including travel reports by fellow explorers, several of which pointed us to a tour guide named Wimper Torres operating out of Coca. We attempted to call to make arrangements, but were told simply to make our way to the little town and ask for Wimper when we got there. After taking an overnight bus over a single track rutted dirt road, we reached the town which consisted of a few square blocks of dirt streets and wooden planked sidewalks. There were a handful of stores selling crafts and staples, basic restaurants and the surprisingly nice Hotel Auca, where we negotiated a triple room, and inquired after Wimper Torres and were told that he'd find us later in the day.
After walking around town and having a simple almuerzo (a fixed lunch menu) at the Residencial Lo Janita, we returned to the hotel to find Wimper waiting for us. On the bus, we had met a couple guys from Japan also canoelooking to do a rainforest tour, and since it's cheaper the more people you have, we decided to go in together on the trip. We flagged down a passing flat bed truck, and accompanied him to his home on the outskirts, where he spread out a map of the area and we discussed what kind of trip we wanted to take. We decided on a three day trip where everything was included for 30USD per person per day. He needed to buy provisions so we made arrangements to meet the next morning at the docks.
The next day we met Wimper and his nephew Irwin, and after a visit to La Oficina de Comandante, where we had to get permission for the trip (a formality) and leave our passports during our trip, we loaded our gear and supplies into an eleven meter outboard canoe. We pushed off from the shore, and began our slow five hour trip upriver, immediately met by torrential downpours limiting visibility. The river presented a variety of hazards from sandbars to trees, but the experience of our guide on these waterways showed and finally, we turned off into a maze of small lagoon waterways where we were sheltered from the rain by the canopy overhead and could talk with our guide who pointed out numerous colorful birds.
We finally reached a hut that would become our home base for the rest of the trip. It stood about five feet above ground on stilts, had no walls, a sixty foot square bamboo floor and a pitched roof made of palm leaves. Wimper strung two ropes across the hut, over which we hung thin mosquito netting to sleep under. There was a simple outhouse approximately fifty feet from the hut, a trip to which was quite an adventure at night as you needed to climb down the ladder and then navigate through the forest to find it. It was a creaky shack with a hole and it was best not to think about what was above or below.
We spent the next two days exploring the forest by canoe and foot, and View of Lago de Paranalearning from Wimper and Irwin about the jungle, its native peoples and the changes taking place in the area. The oil industry, while not unwelcomed by the people as it brought a measure of prosperity, had disturbed the ecosystem and driven most of the large animals further into the forest. The Quechua and Yasuni Indians of the area were subsistence farmers and fisherman, although there was a bit of the wider world mixed in with a prevalence of Western style clothing, jewelry, and sometimes even generators and appliances. These people were living in both worlds.
We went fishing one afternoon, using simple six inch pieces of bamboo with fishing line and a hook. We caught a Piranha and Irwin caught a very large Jaguar fish, both of which we cooked and ate that night. Wimper cut the Jaguar fish into rings and fried it along with rice, plantains and French fries, which made for a very tasty dinner indeed. Each day for lunch, Wimper made a fresh salad of onion, cucumber, tomato, canned tuna and lime juice, after which Wimper washed our plates in the river, which was disconcerting, but we never got sick.
We hiked through the forest teeming with plant life, learning from Wimper about medicinal plants and symbiotic relationships between floras. We visited a large lagoon called Lago de Pirana, and climbed a circular staircase to the top of a giant tree, affording views of the endless rainforest canopy. At night, we practiced our Spanish talking with Wimper about all kinds of things, and one of the things I remember most was Wimper saying that he really enjoyed guiding Americans because we were always interested in our surroundings, and always relished the food put in front of us, perceptions we were more than happy to perpetuate.
After a tiring but satisfying three days, we retraced our route. We took our guides out to their favorite restaurant, the Monte Carlo, where we enjoyed a multicourse meal and a final conversation. Our trip into the Amazon Basin was over, but it was a wonderful experience made more special by choosing a small group, a local guide, and basic accommodations. Most people choose Brazil for this kind of adventure, but Ecuador offers a smaller scale way to enjoy the uniqueness of a journey into the rainforest of South America.
The American Flea Market
On weekdays this square of concrete fills and empties with the regular intervals of the school bell, as one group of junior high students is traded for another. They mill around during recess and stand uncomfortable in their shorts for games of kickball and handball during gym class. It's a space every city kid has inhabited, an urban field of tan and black, faded paint lines of a baseball diamond or four square court. This particular yard is only blocks away from New York's Central Park, the only color here are the taxis passing by. But early Sunday morning a transformation happens in this spot, and in many other school yards across the country. Folding tables are unpacked, hand-made and vintage wears are laid out, stacks of apple crates driven that morning from the Catskills are taken from trucks. By ten the once empty school yard has become a vibrant flea market, as it has been for twenty-two years.
Markets and Bazaars can be found all over the world, in many towns they are the main source of commerce, but here in the United States where you can find what ever you want at big box stores 24 hours a day, the flea market fills a different need. People come not out of a need for a particular thing but for the joy of the search. You may leave with a few things in your bag, but you bring away from it a sense of connection, a return to our collective past. Where else can you sift through bins of buttons to find a matching one to your grandmother's sweater that has hung in your closet for a decade unworn, and two minutes later watch a woman expertly twist lengths of silver into a pendant while she talks to the four people who are looking at her booth?
As a teenager I would come to this market to escape back in time as I browsed the old magazine ads from the twenties and thirties and to watch the people. I can still capture that feeling when I enter the cafeteria where more tables stand, and the room smells of old paper and school lunches. Some of the same vendors are here as when I was young. New ones have joined them filling spaces left by vendors who have died or moved on, becoming equally as timeless no matter what they are selling or how old they are. As I finger costume jewelry and dressing table mirrors a young orthodox guy haggles with the coin dealer and a Korean mother and daughter browse the movie paraphernalia. The room is full of conversations but they are buffered by the tiles leaving me to drift into the past.
Each row at the market is filled with tables and booths, discount underwear next to African tapestries, rare coins beside personalized 'while you wait' dog food bowls. The goods that are sold are not staples but the market itself is a step aside from our usual life. Here people slow down and browse. We start conversations with strangers over old tea pots and yards of ribbon. Old women with shopping carts and teenage girls both look at the same sweaters hung on wheeled racks. Being here I want to create the stories for the people around me, give them lives. Maybe it's a sweater the old woman wore when she was young and still traveled in packs, as the girls who dance around her do.
At another flea market in a rural area I find myself on my knees digging through a damp box of old metal tins. This market is in the middle of a strawberry farm. On either side of the market area are acres of berries waiting to be picked. My son has wandered away from me and is exploring a pile of stuffed animals that is taller than him. By the time I have caught up to him he is running towards a couple of girls who are selling zucchini. The wares at this market couldn't be more different. The people here are as well, but there is still the same feeling, of people searching for something, not an object exactly. We find a pair of pajamas for him and a few tins for me, oh no we've spent three bucks.
As we walk through the field to our car we are stopped by an older gentleman with dark blue jeans and a tractor cap. He is one of those people who looks as though they are busting at the seams of their skin, his face is rosy and he is smiling. "I remember taking my son with me when he was that age. Now," he points to a man and small boy in matching blue sweatshirts, "All three of us come."
Markets and Bazaars can be found all over the world, in many towns they are the main source of commerce, but here in the United States where you can find what ever you want at big box stores 24 hours a day, the flea market fills a different need. People come not out of a need for a particular thing but for the joy of the search. You may leave with a few things in your bag, but you bring away from it a sense of connection, a return to our collective past. Where else can you sift through bins of buttons to find a matching one to your grandmother's sweater that has hung in your closet for a decade unworn, and two minutes later watch a woman expertly twist lengths of silver into a pendant while she talks to the four people who are looking at her booth?
As a teenager I would come to this market to escape back in time as I browsed the old magazine ads from the twenties and thirties and to watch the people. I can still capture that feeling when I enter the cafeteria where more tables stand, and the room smells of old paper and school lunches. Some of the same vendors are here as when I was young. New ones have joined them filling spaces left by vendors who have died or moved on, becoming equally as timeless no matter what they are selling or how old they are. As I finger costume jewelry and dressing table mirrors a young orthodox guy haggles with the coin dealer and a Korean mother and daughter browse the movie paraphernalia. The room is full of conversations but they are buffered by the tiles leaving me to drift into the past.
Each row at the market is filled with tables and booths, discount underwear next to African tapestries, rare coins beside personalized 'while you wait' dog food bowls. The goods that are sold are not staples but the market itself is a step aside from our usual life. Here people slow down and browse. We start conversations with strangers over old tea pots and yards of ribbon. Old women with shopping carts and teenage girls both look at the same sweaters hung on wheeled racks. Being here I want to create the stories for the people around me, give them lives. Maybe it's a sweater the old woman wore when she was young and still traveled in packs, as the girls who dance around her do.
At another flea market in a rural area I find myself on my knees digging through a damp box of old metal tins. This market is in the middle of a strawberry farm. On either side of the market area are acres of berries waiting to be picked. My son has wandered away from me and is exploring a pile of stuffed animals that is taller than him. By the time I have caught up to him he is running towards a couple of girls who are selling zucchini. The wares at this market couldn't be more different. The people here are as well, but there is still the same feeling, of people searching for something, not an object exactly. We find a pair of pajamas for him and a few tins for me, oh no we've spent three bucks.
As we walk through the field to our car we are stopped by an older gentleman with dark blue jeans and a tractor cap. He is one of those people who looks as though they are busting at the seams of their skin, his face is rosy and he is smiling. "I remember taking my son with me when he was that age. Now," he points to a man and small boy in matching blue sweatshirts, "All three of us come."
Classic Cairo
When my friend suggested that our next biannual trip be Egypt, I have to admit I wasn’t overly excited at the idea. I mean, I love the food and the ancient and exotic cultures Spice Stand in Khan el-Khaliliof the Middle East, but I also had visions of swarms of tourists driving past the Sphinx in their air conditioned buses. To mitigate the imagined crowds, we chose to go in March, after the high season ends, and our plan worked beautifully. I found Cairo to be very calm and relaxing, sort of like life is a warm summer day over and over, its people stoic but shy, and aside from the truly famous things like the Pyramids at Giza, we encountered very few tourists.
We stayed in the Ezbekieh quarter of the city, about twenty miles east of the Nile and the tourist strip, close to the peaceful Ezbekieh Gardens, Opera House, Central Railway Station, and downtown commercial drag. Walking around the immediate hotel area was extremely pleasant, with a marked absence of touts, a plethora of coffee houses (ahwe), and local places to eat. The coffee houses are filled with men at outdoor sidewalk tables, enjoying sheesha (waterpipes), shai ala bosta (tea) and a game of dominoes, watching football (Champion’s League was going on) or just talking. Women are rarely seen in the coffee house, but otherwise are plentiful on the streets, some wearing the hijab and some not.
The sheesha are hookahs with water in the base, flavored hot coals in a metal bowl on top, and multiple hoses for patrons to draw on. Packaged plastic tips for the hoses are provided, and properly done, smoke is inhaled and blown out the nose slowly. The hot coals are infused with traditional or apple flavored tobacco in a special cooker, and stoking the hot coals is a serious art. The tea is sweet and refreshing, but make sure you ask for shai ala bosta, as otherwise, you are apt to be given a lipton tea bag instead of the wonderful black tea served with granulated sugar and a sprig of fresh mint (nana) that really enhances the experience.
Sphinx at Giza From the street carts to the communal restaurants, the food was wonderful. Alcohol was not served anywhere, except one tourist restaurant we ended up at. There was actually a liquor store around the corner from our hotel, but buying beer and smuggling it back to our hotel felt oddly inappropriate here. Primarily we either had kebab of some kind from street vendors, or one of our favorite experiences was at a typical restaurant near our hotel, where they didn’t produce any food, but rather, provided a menu of all kinds of things, which a runner then went and got from one of the street vendors. We had some of the best falafel (tammiyya) that I ever had, made right next door on a large round griddle, as well as several staples like tahini and baba ganouj. English was very rarely spoken, and often the menus were in script anyways, so eating was a challenging but rewarding experience, and fantastic for a vegetarian.
The Khan el-Khalili is a very large market in Old Cairo, with miles of vendors selling everything from rugs and spices to household wares on narrow unpaved streets clogged with throngs of people. Haggling is the norm, but most things are very cheap by Western standards. Near the market is the beautiful Al-Azhar Mosque. The walls and chambers were Spartan or adorned with beautiful tile work and rugs, but far less pretentious than their Western church counterparts. Behind the mosque was a neighborhood of small streets, too small for cars, and as we got progressively further in, there was a feeling of danger confirmed by several people who basically told us to go back, which we did. Whether this was just a dangerous part of town like all cities have, or a seat of fundamentalism (and hatred of the West) was unclear, but it was the only time we felt nervous in Egypt.
As we found everywhere in Egypt, our interaction with the locals was limited, both by language and possibly our status as infidels. Aside from a few friendly conversations, most of our contact was with aggressive or deceptive hawkers. One of the joys in traveling is meeting people from other cultures and spending time learning from each other, and we are conditioned to expect that when someone is friendly and starts up a conversation, that it is genuine without ulterior motive. In Cairo this was really not the case. Over and over, we had pleasant conversations with people including those our own age, that blatantly or subtly, always (I really mean always) ended at someone’s shop being shown wares and expected to buy them.
Of course, one can’t avoid the tourist things completely in Cairo, and despite the crowds and touts, we had to go to see the Pyramids at Giza. Felukka on the NileTake the subway to Giza, and then take a taxi from the subway to the Pyramids complex. While majestic, the pyramids are unfortunately empty shells at this point, with all of the artifacts long ago shipped off to a museum in London or Cairo. Expensive tours of the inside of the structures are available, but offer little beyond saying you’ve done it. Guards surround the structures to prevent further degradation, but they supplement their income by accepting bribes, so a little baksheesh and you can do anything short of using a hammer and chisel. Hordes of tour buses filled the parking lot providing plenty of reason for the hawkers to descend on the area like locusts.
The other big tourist area is near the Egyptian museum along the Nile, where the area is actually barricaded off and only foreigners and those serving them are allowed. Here one finds the trappings of the West with the Hilton, Hard Rock Café, TGIF and a multitude of other global chains. One reason to go there though, is to ride in a felukka, a traditional sail boat still used to travel the Nile River. Going out for about an hour at sunset is a stunning experience, gliding past the shores of this ancient river where so many others have gone before. It’s a perfect ending to a trip into the fascinating and historic past that is the Egyptian capital of Cairo.
We stayed in the Ezbekieh quarter of the city, about twenty miles east of the Nile and the tourist strip, close to the peaceful Ezbekieh Gardens, Opera House, Central Railway Station, and downtown commercial drag. Walking around the immediate hotel area was extremely pleasant, with a marked absence of touts, a plethora of coffee houses (ahwe), and local places to eat. The coffee houses are filled with men at outdoor sidewalk tables, enjoying sheesha (waterpipes), shai ala bosta (tea) and a game of dominoes, watching football (Champion’s League was going on) or just talking. Women are rarely seen in the coffee house, but otherwise are plentiful on the streets, some wearing the hijab and some not.
The sheesha are hookahs with water in the base, flavored hot coals in a metal bowl on top, and multiple hoses for patrons to draw on. Packaged plastic tips for the hoses are provided, and properly done, smoke is inhaled and blown out the nose slowly. The hot coals are infused with traditional or apple flavored tobacco in a special cooker, and stoking the hot coals is a serious art. The tea is sweet and refreshing, but make sure you ask for shai ala bosta, as otherwise, you are apt to be given a lipton tea bag instead of the wonderful black tea served with granulated sugar and a sprig of fresh mint (nana) that really enhances the experience.
Sphinx at Giza From the street carts to the communal restaurants, the food was wonderful. Alcohol was not served anywhere, except one tourist restaurant we ended up at. There was actually a liquor store around the corner from our hotel, but buying beer and smuggling it back to our hotel felt oddly inappropriate here. Primarily we either had kebab of some kind from street vendors, or one of our favorite experiences was at a typical restaurant near our hotel, where they didn’t produce any food, but rather, provided a menu of all kinds of things, which a runner then went and got from one of the street vendors. We had some of the best falafel (tammiyya) that I ever had, made right next door on a large round griddle, as well as several staples like tahini and baba ganouj. English was very rarely spoken, and often the menus were in script anyways, so eating was a challenging but rewarding experience, and fantastic for a vegetarian.
The Khan el-Khalili is a very large market in Old Cairo, with miles of vendors selling everything from rugs and spices to household wares on narrow unpaved streets clogged with throngs of people. Haggling is the norm, but most things are very cheap by Western standards. Near the market is the beautiful Al-Azhar Mosque. The walls and chambers were Spartan or adorned with beautiful tile work and rugs, but far less pretentious than their Western church counterparts. Behind the mosque was a neighborhood of small streets, too small for cars, and as we got progressively further in, there was a feeling of danger confirmed by several people who basically told us to go back, which we did. Whether this was just a dangerous part of town like all cities have, or a seat of fundamentalism (and hatred of the West) was unclear, but it was the only time we felt nervous in Egypt.
As we found everywhere in Egypt, our interaction with the locals was limited, both by language and possibly our status as infidels. Aside from a few friendly conversations, most of our contact was with aggressive or deceptive hawkers. One of the joys in traveling is meeting people from other cultures and spending time learning from each other, and we are conditioned to expect that when someone is friendly and starts up a conversation, that it is genuine without ulterior motive. In Cairo this was really not the case. Over and over, we had pleasant conversations with people including those our own age, that blatantly or subtly, always (I really mean always) ended at someone’s shop being shown wares and expected to buy them.
Of course, one can’t avoid the tourist things completely in Cairo, and despite the crowds and touts, we had to go to see the Pyramids at Giza. Felukka on the NileTake the subway to Giza, and then take a taxi from the subway to the Pyramids complex. While majestic, the pyramids are unfortunately empty shells at this point, with all of the artifacts long ago shipped off to a museum in London or Cairo. Expensive tours of the inside of the structures are available, but offer little beyond saying you’ve done it. Guards surround the structures to prevent further degradation, but they supplement their income by accepting bribes, so a little baksheesh and you can do anything short of using a hammer and chisel. Hordes of tour buses filled the parking lot providing plenty of reason for the hawkers to descend on the area like locusts.
The other big tourist area is near the Egyptian museum along the Nile, where the area is actually barricaded off and only foreigners and those serving them are allowed. Here one finds the trappings of the West with the Hilton, Hard Rock Café, TGIF and a multitude of other global chains. One reason to go there though, is to ride in a felukka, a traditional sail boat still used to travel the Nile River. Going out for about an hour at sunset is a stunning experience, gliding past the shores of this ancient river where so many others have gone before. It’s a perfect ending to a trip into the fascinating and historic past that is the Egyptian capital of Cairo.
The Margaret River Region of Australia
The Margaret River Region is one of the most amazing parts of Western Australia. This region is blessed with some of the most agreeable and pleasant weather of any place across the world. Additionally, this region has some of the most picturesque landscapes and stunning natural formations that Australia has to offer. The Margaret River Region is also growing by leaps and bounds due to the immense popularity and appreciation of the wines that are grown in this region.
Wine tourism has been on the up for many years now and Margaret River region wines are now acknowledged as being amongst the best in the world. The Margaret River region is conveniently located at a short distance from another one of Western Australia’s gems, namely the city of Perth.
Margaret River Holiday Homes is an organization that has been helping to fulfill the accommodation needs of visitors to the Margaret River region for a very long time. Margaret River Holiday Homes is undoubtedly the first and last word when it comes to finding the best accommodation options in the wider Margaret River Region. All the homes offered by Margaret River Holiday Homes are well-appointed and cater to a number of different budgets and accommodation needs.
Wine tourism has been on the up for many years now and Margaret River region wines are now acknowledged as being amongst the best in the world. The Margaret River region is conveniently located at a short distance from another one of Western Australia’s gems, namely the city of Perth.
Margaret River Holiday Homes is an organization that has been helping to fulfill the accommodation needs of visitors to the Margaret River region for a very long time. Margaret River Holiday Homes is undoubtedly the first and last word when it comes to finding the best accommodation options in the wider Margaret River Region. All the homes offered by Margaret River Holiday Homes are well-appointed and cater to a number of different budgets and accommodation needs.
New Years Eve Restaurants in Nottingham
Nottingham becomes alive on New Year’s Eve. Nottingham is famed for its vibrant night life and there are hundreds of options for any New Years Eve revellers, the question is what to do? With the largest concentration of bars and pubs in a mile radius in the whole of Europe party goers can enjoy a huge range of stylish bars and then go to one of the many clubs and dance the night away. The Lace Market is home to a number of stylish bars from Living Room to the famous Pitcher and Piano converted church, or perhaps West of the city towards the castle and the cobbled streets is for you. There are a good number of restaurants in Nottingham that will cater an amazing 3-5 course meal and then provide a range of post meal entertainment so you and your guests won’t have to worry about a thing! Having a meal with friends and family on New Year’s Eve is the perfect way to chat about the highs and lows of the year and indeed set those New Year’s resolutions. After all isn’t New Year’s eve about celebration, those you care about and reflection on the year just gone. Go dine are already taking bookings for New Year’s eve and as everyone knows, those who prepare early tend to get the right offering, venue and even the best table; as the year progresses we shall be adding New Year’s Eve menus and putting these all in one area for you. Vienna - Situated just of the Market Square in Nottingham city centre Vienna would make the ideal venue. Beautiful surroundings, in house bar, and if you want to join the crowd gathered in the square simply step outside. Harts - Nottingham restaurant awards winner 2009, Harts will ensure your New Year’s is memorable. Exquisite food, fantastic champagne, perfect service, in-house bar, the list goes on, ooh and why not stay in the fantastic rooms within the hotel... the list is endless at Hart’s. Home Bar and Restaurant- If you want to be slightly away from the hustle and bustle of the city centre Home Bar is a perfect venue. Home Bar is literally that, Home from home. Enjoy a fantastic menu cooked by one of the finest chefs in Nottingham and then why not sit back in one of Home’s leather sofas. Check out New Years Eve restaurants in Nottingham.
Visit Famous Cities on Rajasthan Tour
Rajasthan is globally famous tourist destination of India. It is the romantic state of India with innumerable tourist’s attractions. Visitors from all over the world come here to explore the attraction of the city that tells the saga of the bygone era. The state is gifted with innumerable tourist’s attractions that offer a wonderful holiday experience in Rajasthan. The state is famous for timeless monuments, rich culture, fairs & festivals, wildlife, etc. It will be a wonderful experience for vacationers, wildlife lovers and honeymoon couples being in the wonderful state of India. Visitors will have a golden chance time to collect innumerable moments to cherish the tour throughout lifetime. There are several places in Rajasthan that are worth visiting and exploring. Some of the most visited cities are Jaipur, Jaisalmer, and Udaipur. Apart from these cities tour visitors can also explore the Agra and Delhi on their tour to Rajasthan. These cities are nearby Rajasthan and most of the visitors never miss a chance to attend the tourist’s attractions of these cities. Jaipur also known as Pink city of India is the most visited city of Rajasthan. It is also said that the city is the Gateway to the Rajasthan Tourism. More of the Pink city is famous for appealing tourist’s attraction. Some of the popular attractions of the city are Hawa Mahal, Jantar Mantar, City Palace, Amber Fort, Birla Mandir, etc. It will be a wonderful experience to witness the Amber Fort on the back of the elephant. Visitors will hardly miss this chance when they are in Jaipur-the Pink City of India. Jaisalmer also known as the Golden City of India is all time favorite of tourists. Apart from the city attractions visitors cal also enjoy the camel safari in Jaisalmer. Here visitors can explore the richness of the Thar Desert enjoying a camel safari. Udaipur also known as the City of Lakes is the heart beat of Rajasthan tourism. It is true that the city has innumerable tourist attractions that are worth visiting and exploring. But one can never hide the fact the Pichola Lake is the most famous attraction of the city. It is sure visitors will fall in love with the mesmerizing look of the Pichola Lake and the stunning view of the Raj Mahal Palace in the middle of the lake. Beside tourist attractions Rajasthan the land of maharajas is the heavenly destinations of royal wedding. Wedding in Rajasthan are mostly arranged in the heritage hotels, palaces and forts of Rajasthan. Now most of the people and celebrities arrange their marriage ceremony in Rajasthan. The romantic environment, imperial and majestic setting and the traditional marriage ceremony gives a feeling of kings and queens for the moment. It is dreams come true for every couple to get married in the royal environment of Rajasthan. Apart from exploring the beauty of monuments, tourist can also explore the beauty of Rajasthan Temples. There are several temples in Rajasthan some of the popular ones are Birla temple & Govind Devji Temple of Jaipur, Jain temples & Nathdwara temple of Jaisalmer, Eklingji temple of Udaipur, Ajmer Sharif of Ajmer and Brahma Temple of Pushkar. Visiting Brahma temple of Pushkar will worth your Rajasthan temple tour. It is said that the Brahma temple of Pushkar is the only temple in India dedicated to Lord Brahma-the creator of this universe. After explore every length and breadth of Rajasthan they can also enjoy the tours to Delhi. Delhi is the capital city of India. It is true that most of the tour to Rajasthan starts from Delhi. The capital city of India also has major attractions. Visitor being in the capital city can explore some of the prominent tourist attractions such as Lotus Temple, India Gate, Red Fort (Lal Killa), Akshardham Temple, Qutub Minar, Raj Ghat, etc. Beside all how will one forget to visit Agra the city of India that holds one of the Seven Wonders of the World. Exploring the beauty of Taj Mahal will be the delightful experience of Tours to Agra. Millions of tourists from all over the world come to Agra to grab the architectural magnificence and the magical beauty of Taj Mahal.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)