A Difficult Day

Tags

Cape Coast Castle, Ghana, slave castles

Our spirits were already dampened on the foggy bus ride along Ghana’s coast. The air hung like gray flannel, so dense it seemed to physically press down upon us. The sun fought and failed to seep through the gray murk, and we knew our destination was not likely to perk us up. Our formerly lively group had gotten strangely quiet, all lost in our thoughts as we stared out the blotchy windows at the forlorn foliage on the side of the road.

Several years ago, I was very involved with a microfinance organization; I served on a board, did some volunteer work with them, and also took a number of trips designed to show donors what microcredit looked like in action. One summer I wanted to introduce the concept to my oldest son, so we set off for Ghana, a country where entrepreneurship and microfinance were thriving. We spent most of our time in Accra and Kumasi, meeting clients who made concrete blocks, raised chickens, opened rural schools, and processed palm oil, among other small businesses. It was a vibrant line-up of days with the ebullient and brightly dressed Ghanaian people, a week filled with color and laughter and success.

Our hosts had also arranged for some cultural sightseeing – an adventuresome hike though Kakum National Park, a few relaxed days on the beach in Elmina and, finally, a visit to Cape Coast Castle. But Cape Coast Castle was no fairy tale edifice, and our cheerful, positive trip was about to turn much bleaker than the weather.

From the late 1400s to the end of the 18^th century, many similar strongholds were built on the then-named Gold Coast of Ghana to serve as forts and trading posts along merchant trade routes. Portuguese and other settlers fought for control of this coast for centuries, but over time the commodities housed and hidden in these “castles” slowly transitioned from gold, ivory, and other precious goods to human beings.

In the fortresses, thousands of male and female slaves lived in dank, dimly lit stone chambers with little ventilation, light, and space to move about or even sit or lie down. Human waste filled these dungeons, and female slaves were regularly raped by their jailors. Water was scant, and disease, perhaps mercifully, killed off many of the captives.

Most of the light in this room is coming from camera flashes, not the pitifully small window openings

Cape Coast Castle and its ilk soon became the last stop for most slaves before they were shipped off to the Americas and other places. Horrible signs make clear the fate of the fortress occupants; “Female Slave Dungeon” announced the entrance to one of the cavernous vaults filled with sorrow, desolation and despair, and the “Door of No Return” on the sea-facing side of the castle was a terrible small opening where slaves exited into the boats that carried them to the cargo ships heading west across the ocean. Millions and millions of slaves from West Africa alone were shipped off from such castles along the harsh Atlantic coast.

Seeing these sights and hearing the history made the gloom of the day seem trifling in comparison. Just as I would experience at Auschwitz years later, I felt bludgeoned into silence; there were no words or cogent thoughts as I tried, and failed, to properly process the horror.

Coming out of the castle and onto its ramparts and courtyard, we gulped in the thick air and tried to cleanse ourselves of the revulsion and shame we felt as human beings.

There, we saw life going on as fishermen cleaned their nets and unloaded their catch from a day at work. The colored sails and hulls could not completely pierce the mist, and their muted, blurry hues had a confused, melancholy air that matched our moods.

Like the tangled nets and tattered flags, my thoughts were a jumble, and to this day, the boat scene feels as grim to me as the castle. I wanted and needed those boats to snap me out of my heartache, and they didn’t. At least their owners are free.

Friday Photos: Faces of Peru

Tags

Cusco, Peru, Sacred Valley, traditional clothing

Today, Friday Photos merge with Faces of the World!

Spectacular scenery makes for great photographs, but what really connects me to many of the places I’ve visited are the people I’ve seen and met. For me, their faces mirror the wonders, difficulties, joys, and nuances of their lands, and it is these photos I always seem to return to when I need a fix of another time and place.

Although most of the women in today’s photos were in touristy areas, and some might deem their clothing mere “costumes,” I found time and time again that many Peruvian women, particularly in Cusco and the Sacred Valley, proudly wore this traditional garb as they went about their daily business. I loved their bright colors and equally radiant faces.

Today’s faces are from PERU

 

 

Battling a Mountain

Tags

29029, endurance events, Everest, hiking, jesse itzler, Seven Summits, Snowbasin, Utah

Foreword I

I have barely posted here for months, and the biggest reason for that has been my laser focus on something that no one but my husband has known about since early December of last year. For those few souls who have missed my words, here are more than 5000 of them crammed into one post for you to enjoy! (Or skim, or skip …)

Foreword II

How can I possibly explain this folly?

There was nothing – nothing – I liked less than walking up a long, steep hill. I hated to breathe hard, I hated to sweat, and I hated the feeling of being physically and mentally uncomfortable. I do love to hike, though, and I do love to stand on top of mountains, so I have suffered through these grueling, awful ascents for years. I walked slowly and breathed hard, but my modus operandi was to just keep moving. I was almost always slower than other people going uphill, but fortunately, hiking involves plenty of flat, rolling, and downhill sections, where I walk quite briskly, so it has been hard for others (and even me, to some extent) to tell that I completely sucked at walking uphill. I have hiked very, very high (to almost 18,000’) and I have hiked for a very long time (almost 3 straight weeks), but in the midst of those achievements and others, I have been 100% miserable and cranky with myself on every long, difficult climb.

December 4, 2018

So, what do I decide to do when I read an article about an event that involves walking up 2310 very steep vertical feet in the middle of August in high-altitude Utah? But wait, let me expand. I was not just going to walk up that steep hill and then mosey down a few hours later and have a beer. I was going to try to walk up Snowbasin Mountain thirteen (that’s 13) times over a 36-hour period for a grand total of 29,029 vertical feet. In the debut of this event in Utah last summer, only 35% of the participants went all the way. And they probably never truly loathed or were bad at walking uphill. Oh, and I’m going to pay someone thousands of dollars to make this happen.

To put this in perspective, event founder Jesse Itzler told us that elevating one’s heart rate and shredding one’s leg, core, and even arm muscles for 36 hours is like running nine average-speed marathons back-to-back, or doing 2.5 Ironman triathlons in a row. I’ve never done more than a 10K race. When you reach a normal cruising altitude in a jet, look down; that’s the height we are going to have to climb. On my most ambitious hiking days, I’d maybe go up 4000 feet. When I decide to finally test my limits, could I not be a little more reasonable?

I read the article at 7:30 am in Outside Online and almost impulsively sign up immediately. I send the link to my husband, J, and write “I want to do this!” I am so pumped. The year of the event will contain a big birthday for me, and I have been feeling a need to show myself I can still cut it, to go BIG, to escape the limiting thoughts and negative self-talk that have consumed me in the last few years. I click the Chat button and bombard Matt, VP of Sales, with questions. I head out for the day, brain afire, and return afterward and call Matt to talk more. I crunch numbers, I read reviews and testimonials online, and I get more fired up.

This opportunity to face many of my personal fears and weaknesses should be my 60^th birthday present to myself, I decide. And the significance of the number 29029 cannot be overstated. This is the height of Mount Everest – my dream, my fantasy, my obsession for years and years. (Surely you’ve noticed my header photo for the last five years!) I’d like to believe that I could still climb Mount Everest, and I still dream of it regularly, but at my age, with no alpine climbing experience, and no $50,000+ to spare, I have accepted realistically that this is not going to happen for me. The 29029 event lines up so beautifully with the biggest dream I’ve ever had for myself, and it now seems like a bargain basement way to test my physical and mental limits.

December 5, 2018

I’m still high, but I have to face the fact that I probably do not have the ability to do any of this. I have another conversation with Matt. I read more, calculate more, debate more, and then I decide to see what I can even do as a baseline. I try walking the length of one summit hike on the highest ramp on my treadmill (not even close to the real thing), after a full tennis match to simulate tiredness, and then I do all the calculations to account for altitude and slope and the necessary ride back down after each ascent. I figure I’ll need at least two hours per summit, and there are thirteen summits to do. I have 36 hours total, and I will need 26 hours just to walk it all with no major breakdowns. That leaves me with ten hours to sleep, rest, eat, pee, and deal with any screaming muscles, joints, bones, and mental collapses. I can do that!

December 6, 2018

But have I discounted the pain of a real climb? I get on the Stairmaster at my gym the next day and make it about 8.5 minutes before I feel my steps are shaky. I am breathing hard and sweating; I usually stop before this happens (typed sheepishly, but true). I get off and decide this event is likely not for me. Thousands of bucks to do something for 36 hours that I just hated passionately for 8.5 minutes?

Later that afternoon, I realize I can’t give up the whole event just because I am unlikely to finish it or even do well at it. I just wanna be with these people! Colin O’Brady (first solo trans-Antarctica trekker and all-around endurance badass AND exemplary human) has done this twice! Olympic sprinters have participated. NFL players. Duke’s Coach K has had Jesse Itzler speak to his teams. It’s a hell of a lot of money to “just be with these people,” but … can I perhaps lower my expectations? Can I just train as hard as I possibly can and go and do whatever I can? They say it’s about “you versus you,” not a race, and I can buy into that mentality.

December 7, 2018

I tell Matt I am wavering. He sends some testimonials by others – a woman who does the whole thing in Vermont, a different woman who doesn’t make it and still extols the event, a guy who trains his butt off (literally; he loses 45 pounds) and gets it done. Another guy who goes hoping to summit once and makes it up five times (and is thrilled). I am reinvigorated. Maybe I should go to just be inspired by all these people and do whatever I can.

Or maybe I really can train enough to do it all?! F— it – I’m in! I don’t even wait for Matt to respond to my last email; I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and push the Buy button. Holy crap; what have I done? I justify. I can get some money back if I withdraw by late February. Won’t I know by then if this training business simply can’t get me ready after years of half-hearted cardio?

April, 2019

Flash forward to the start of our training program. I’ve spent the last four months training for the training program. Sad but true. I’ve gone from ten minutes on the Stairmaster to thirty. I am regularly running hill repeats and trudging uphill on an inclined treadmill. I can now run about three miles at a conversational pace and have found my latest high-altitude hike in Bhutan quite manageable. Easy, in fact, which makes me feel much more confident. And now the real work begins.

April-August, 2019

I’ve become a running fool. My running shoes go with me everywhere. Georgia, Pennsylvania, Northern California, Boston, Arkansas. I run four, then six, then eight miles at a time. I run five miles to my health club, do six hours of stepmill and treadmill workouts indoors, then run the five miles back home. I experiment with on-the-go hydration and nutrition, seeing what I digest well and what upsets my stomach.

This is all well and good, but will it get me up a steep, steep mountain thirteen times in a row? All day and through the night? At 9000 feet of elevation? At up to a 47% incline? Nothing I can do will truly prepare me for this event, I feel sure.

Our trainer Brent says, “the bigger the base, the higher the peak,” and this becomes my mantra. The more miles I put on my legs and feet now, the more ready they will be to go high and far in late August. At the same time, he urges us to “train where you are.” There is an online group for participants, and many are wearing weighted vests and spending hours at a time on a stepmill or a real mountain. We don’t even have hills in Houston. Some are organizing outings to the event venue. Others are doubling the mileages and times. But I plug away at my own pace, trusting in Brent’s reasonable philosophy. At my age, I also have to think about preventing injury; what good will I be at the event if I go overboard now?

Mid-summer brings certain facts into focus. One moment of truth is a grim reality check: after a one-hour run on June 4, in stifling heat and humidity, I try to do the required hill repeats and then my hip mobility exercises, and simply cannot finish them. The incline at my small Houston hill is 40-60%, about the level of the toughest slopes at Snowbasin, and I think I will die if I have to keep going … and this is after only 1.5 hours of exercise. How am I going to repeat that infinitely longer hill for 36 hours? Really, I am a fool to think I can rack up all thirteen summits in just a few months from now. Perhaps I can crunch out five ascents … maybe, maybe go up seven times?

Then again, after I get in the car and come home, I think about how OK I feel after fifteen minutes, and that I might actually be able to go out and start again. Time will tell. But I will need to push myself a lot harder, and that’ll be tough given that I am feeling wasted, hungry, and tired all the time.

A month out from the event, I experiment with the advanced slanted treadmill at my gym. I set the machine at a 20% incline right from the start and walk up 2310 feet in 67 minutes at a fairly comfortable pace and heart rate. If only the event could replicate this! At this pace, I’d have time to ride back down and even take a short rest before turning back up the mountain. Of course, 20% is only the average incline of the real mountain, and the real mountain also has gravel, rocks, boulders, straw, and uneven earth. It has blazing hot days and 40-degree nights. It has sections at double these slopes … okay, so maybe I can still hope to finish in less than twice this time. A two-hour ascent will still let me take a few short breaks, but there goes any chance to actually sleep at night.

By the end of July and into early August, we are at the peak of our training. We have three straight weekends of multi-workout days – days when we run or hike or cross-train for eight, ten, or twelve hours straight. This has become my weekend life, but I refuse to fall into the endurance training rabbit hole. One day I get up at 5 am so I can get the training done and still throw a dinner party for visiting relatives that night. We stick to our plans for dinner with friends at other times, and I attack my food like I’ve just burned it and a few more days’ worth of calories off beforehand (I have).

I feel strong! As I go into the taper weeks, J and I head west to hike in Idaho and Utah for almost a week before my event. I take it easy on my hikes, and I watch my footsteps like I never have before. No turned ankles allowed right now. No sore knees or hips, please. At the end of the week, J drops me at the site. I am a nervous wreck. Ready physically, but how will I ever know if I have the mental fortitude to climb up, up, and up, over and over again, all day and all night for the next day and a half.

I listen to the pre-event speeches, tucking tidbits of information and advice away for tomorrow, settle into my tent for a night of tossing and turning, and set my alarm for 4 am. Tomorrow at 5:45, we will strap on our headlamps and start up the mountain.

***

We start at 6 am, in the dark, with headlamps illuminating only the rocky patches of ground beneath us and the already-dusty trail shoes of the hiker in front of us. Perhaps this is good; we have seen the first one-tenth of the hill from the base, and it is beyond daunting. At about a 47-degree slope, the pitch makes our heartrates jump and our calves scream from minute one. When we see the first sign, meant to be helpful but certainly not, it says we have climbed a mere 500 feet. Most of us stop for a breather, a drink and a few hundred calories about 300 vertical feet later, at Aid Station 1. Taking care of our hydration and nutrition will be critical in the next day and a half as we burn thousands of calories and sweat out our water and salt stores with every ascent.

In spite of my careful plan to hike only at my own comfortable pace, I reach the first summit quite a bit faster than I had calculated. As I take the 15-minute ride back down to the base, I feel good. Strong and optimistic. I’ve just saved myself a good 45 minutes over my estimates, I calculate – time later for a nap or a real meal or a mental or physical breakdown. “Stay ahead of the clock,” we were advised. No time to gloat now; I need to keep moving and not even think about those extra minutes I’ve stockpiled.

Getting off the gondola and heading back to the starting chute is an eye-opening reminder that this is not going to be a walk in the woods. Our group of 220 hikers has spread out, and as I approach the board where we brand each ascent into the wood, I don’t see anyone I know, so I trudge to the starting line alone and begin to labor uphill on my own. It is light enough now to see, and I soon realize that the first 750 feet of this hill is perhaps the longest and most difficult stretch of all. It’s a sobering discovery; every time I start over, I’m going to have to find the will to walk through serious discomfort and exhaustion.

But Jesse and other speakers have addressed just this. “Be where your feet are,” we were told. I need to think about nothing but the next step – not the section above this, not the last hike where a steep jumble of boulders almost caused me to tip over backward, certainly not the fact that I have finished only one hike out of thirteen. One-two-one-two, click with the right pole, clack with the left. Breathe calmly; don’t outpace your breath. For me, a key will be to not stop between stations. Others are walking faster than I am, huffing and puffing, churning uphill past me. Minutes later, I am passing them as they bend over their poles, catching a breath, stretching a calf muscle. Already I feel a Zen-like calm, an autopilot rhythm that is propelling me up the mountain.

Last night a few speakers suggested we not put in earphones, letting our own thoughts and the nature around us fill our heads. This was heresy, I thought at the time; my music and my GPS watch have been my security blankets for months of training. Now I realize I have forgotten to push the Workout button on my watch for the first lap and the early part of my second. But by now I know my breath and heart rate patterns; I don’t think I’m exceeding a safe zone, and somehow the lack of music really IS keeping me focused on my feet.

And so go laps 2, 3, and 4, which I decide to do without any real breaks even though my pre-event plan was to stop for lunch after three climbs. Our rewards come in two ways: ascent count and a summit count. We are going for all Seven Summits, and it will take these first four ascents to get me to the equivalent of Mount Kosciuszko (Australia’s highest mountain), the lowest of them all. When I descend after lap 4, I not only sear my fourth symbol into the scoreboard, but I receive a checkmark on the back of my white bib for my first summit.

I take a break from the afternoon heat and sun, stripping off several layers, eating a brief lunch, and switching out my socks. So far I am immune to many of the afflictions my fellow hikers are experiencing: blisters, chafing, altitude headaches, nausea, or intestinal problems. I attribute my early hardiness to hiking experience; I am used to using poles to push my way up a steep slope, my calves and Achilles tendons are accustomed to being stretched this way for long periods of time, and I am very consciously focusing on balanced hydration and getting non-irritating calories into my system.

I head back out for two more rounds, hoping to finish by dinnertime and before it gets dark again. Lap 5 is like most of the ones before it, but by ascent number 6, I am feeling a crash coming on. It’s becoming harder to take a deep breath, even while stopping at the aid stations, and my inner thighs are cramping whenever I stop. I am alternately hot and shivery cold, and I feel certain that my next sip of an electrolyte drink will make me throw up. Slow down, I coach myself; I’ve stayed ahead of the clock all day so far, and I can afford a very slow lap. “Just keep moving,” we’ve been told, “the tents and the lodge are your enemy.”

Somehow, I plow my way uphill for a couple of hours, my slowest hike yet, and collapse into the gondola. I’ve been on the mountain for over twelve hours now, the longest sustained heavy physical activity I have ever experienced. I am thankfully alone on this lift run as I moan and whine like a blubbery child in my own little capsule the whole way down. I think back to my initial goal for the event: 7 laps – one more than half – and still more than doable if I get a good night’s sleep and wake up able to locomote.

I stagger into the lodge at the bottom and drink good, plain, cold water. I eat the blandest real food I can find and settle into a chair before I give up for the night. People are headed to their tents for a nap or a full sleep, with a number of my early hiking buddies saying they no longer feel compelled to go the full way to Everest. I am feeling the same, but somehow I think I have some reserves left today that my friends do not. I sit for longer than normal and catch the eye of one of our coaches. He has run marathons and competes as a triathlete, and I pick his brain about the body’s ability to spring back from a low point like the one I am in. We talk for a few minutes, and when he leaves, I decide to get up and try one night hike; the HQ team has been saying that everyone should try one, and at this hour I’m sure there will be people on the mountain for me to walk with.

I walk stiffly to the start line and look around. The base area is quiet; a group hike has left about thirty minutes ago, too late for me to catch up. No one else wandering around looking for a companion? Nope, this is going to be a solo run; I’ve done a few of them, and in many ways, I’ve liked them better. The less chatting I do, the more I fall into a rhythmic trance and the less I feel the toil of my legs and lungs. But I soon realize this is a different animal being all alone on a huge mountain in pitch darkness. And speaking of animals, I hear noises. I hope that’s the hoot of an owl and not the howl of a coyote. A triangular flag marking the trail edge licks its tongue at me as my headlamp illuminates its flickering edges. Every stick on the trail seems to slither like a rattlesnake as I get ready to place my feet down over and over again.

I want to go slowly to keep my tired lungs under control, and I need to be deliberate with my footsteps among the stones and – higher up – boulders all over the path.  At the same time, I want to race to the next aid station to see other humans, to get close enough to others who can hear me scream if something should happen to me. I crest the ridiculous hill that takes me about a fifth of the way to the top and start to see the lights and hear the thumping rap music that’s been playing at the rest stop all day. I glance at my watch and am startled to see I’ve come up here as fast as I did on the very first fast lap, and this after my near-complete meltdown at the base a short time ago.

I take great encouragement from that and after a two-minute rest I’m back on my feet and starting the long 1.25 miles to the next station. I’m practically humming now, feeling wonderfully resilient and sturdy. I high-five and fist-bump the volunteers at the next waypoint and keep on trucking. I reach the summit under a star-studded black velvet sky and ride down in pure elation. I’m more than halfway done, I’ve reached the summit height of Mount Vinson (Antarctica), and I’m feeling strong and capable.

The roller coaster ride is continuing, though, and by the time I’m at the bottom contemplating one more ascent, I’m back in a trough. My neck hurts from looking down at the path for hours at a time. My upper arms are starting to ache from the pole use, and my legs are beginning to feel rubbery. I find a friend who wants to keep going, and we fall into step in silence. Just having her nearby makes me feel better, and knowing that this fit young woman twenty to thirty years my junior is on the same lap as me makes me feel proud of myself. We struggle uphill together, chatting briefly in the aid stations, and finally separating briefly as we each tackle the final rocky slopes on our own. Mount Elbrus (Russia) – check.

“I’m done for a while,” I tell her on the ride down. I’m not only physically tired but I’m mentally fried, and I’ve got to rest my head and neck more than anything else. “Not me,” she says, “I feel like I’ll be better off just going all night.” It’s after 1 am, and I stumble to my tent, frozen to the bone. My teeth are chattering uncontrollably, and my legs feel disconnected from my torso. I slip as quietly as I can into my tent. My tent mates are slumbering as I lower myself to the edge of my bed, wincing at the pain in my screaming quads, and peel off my filthy clothing. I re-dress in tomorrow’s hiking togs and take a futile stab at cleaning my dust-covered feet with a wet wipe before crawling under the covers. I’d hoped for more than a few hours of sleep, but it’s almost 2 am by the time I set my alarm for 4 and try to relax.

I must have slept because the alarm startles me, and I rise quickly to my feet to stave off any attempt to lie back down. No contact lenses going in at this hour; I throw on my glasses and hat, bundle up in a few more layers, pack my waistpack, and unzip the tent flaps in the chilly pre-dawn air. I walk alone to the base, already calculating my chances of finishing. I’m on the murderous first hill by 4:30 am, and by the time the sun has begun to lighten the eastern skies, I am already on the way down. I barely remember the climb at all; half-awake and fuzzy-headed, I have cranked out lap 9 like an automaton and picked up two more of the Seven Summits – Denali and Kilimanjaro – with little pain at all. I catch a glimpse of my nighttime friend in the lodge; on the lap after I left her, she pulled a groin muscle and is done, joining the scores of others who have dropped out of the event for all sorts of reasons.

Aconcagua is another quickie. I’m astonished at how awake I am now, and I turn out one of my fastest laps since early the first day. I’m beginning to visualize snagging all of these peaks, and I alternate between wanting to laugh out loud and sob. This is not a situation I imagined. Me? One of the oldest participants here, still walking strong, with no injuries or complaints of any sort beyond bodily exhaustion. I’m highly emotional as I get my last red check mark on my back, knowing that I only have to walk up two more times before I get the coveted red bib, the outward sign to all that I’m on my last ascent.

The hubris! Did I celebrate too soon? Each climb is no joke, and the euphoria I feel as I climb into the gondola at the top quickly dissipates as the truth sets in back at the bottom. “Only” two more until I get the last bib? Umm, that’s three more total, almost a third of what I’ve already done. And there will be no more peaks to bag between Aconcagua and Mount Everest; I’ll have to take comfort in simply branding my board each time I do one more lap.

I don’t remember ascents 11 and 12 well at all. I am slowing down, but only by about two minutes or so with each new climb. The red bib is nigh, and once again I feel an outpouring of emotion combined with some sort of hysteria, surely brought on by sheer exhaustion mixed with jubilation. I am truly filthy at this point, and I’m down to a sleeveless tank, trying not to torch my arms, neck, and face as I climb higher and higher into the thinner air. I’m getting reports of people dropping out, oxygen masks being applied, knees being wrapped, and stomachs being emptied at the top of the mountain.

Although I have not traditionally been good at blocking out negatives or dealing with pain, I plod on and before I know it, I have arrived at the next-to-biggest moment of the weekend. The event announcer sees me disembark the gondola for the 12^th time, doing a herky-jerky walk back toward the starting chute. I can barely extend my legs by now, my limbs heavy with lactic acid, my muscles aching and tight, my feet clenched in my trail shoes. An event volunteer ties the red bib onto me, wishes me well, and tells me she’ll see me in a red finisher’s hat when I get back down. It sounds so imminent, but the minute I enter that chute for the final time, I know this will be the hardest lap of all. Luckily for me, I have plenty of time, at least four hours to do what has never taken me more than two, even on my one very slow climb.

I try to enjoy that last ascent, pausing to snap (terrible) photos of the signs and a bit of the scenery. It’s impossible to capture the intensity of the slopes or the feel of the loose stones under my feet; I will never be able to truly convey the energy of the aid stations with their upbeat music and encouraging volunteers. I chat with everyone I see on that final lap, but I find myself alone and utterly drained on my final trudge up the relentlessly uphill fire road at the top of the mountain. As I pass the last ¼-mile marker, I see a hiker twirl slowly as if in a ballet and then crumple onto the gravel. I rush ahead to offer help or to send a medic back down, and only then do I fully absorb what I have done – climb just over 29,029 vertical feet, the height of Mount Everest from sea level, a feat that only 139 of us would eventually accomplish that weekend. From what I understand, I am the oldest woman to finish.

Of course, I’m tremendously proud of my effort over the 30-some hours it took me to complete this challenge, but I’m also unendingly grateful for the chance to have even done the training and, as I expected from sign-up day, to have the opportunity to spend a weekend with the kind of people who want to see what their own Everest looks like. Even those who did not make all thirteen summits fulfilled certain goals for themselves, and there was not a cynical or disappointed heart in the house that evening. I have no need to replicate my journey here, but I am a believer in the mission of the challenge. “I am strong. I am capable.” Colin O’Brady’s words to himself on his Antarctic crossing ring though my head. I have a very different notion of what I am made of and what I can do in this world. I have battled a real, physical mountain, and I have owned it. Time will tell what I make of that on the other hills of my life.

Aloha, Unknown Beauty!

Tags

beach, Hawaii, hiking, islands, misperceptions, Polynesia, sun, vacation

We put Hawaii aside in our minds years ago, dismissing it as a destination for people who didn’t like to be as active as we did. Old people, we thought. Maybe corporate conventioneers. Let’s use our fit and functional years to climb steep paths and take 15-hour flights and sleep in tents and apply for difficult visas, we reasoned. Hawaii will be there when we can no longer do all those things, when we want to go sit on a beach with an umbrella drink in hand.

What changed? I don’t know really; all of a sudden, we just got an urge to see Hawaii. It helped that our adventuresome son had recently raved about his trip, our lively parents had loved the place, and so many of our energetic friends had returned multiple times to the islands.

So, no, we didn’t get old or lazy, but we did have two big birthdays to observe early this year and had narrowed our celebration spot to Namibia or Hawaii (slightly different choices, I know!). Hawaii won.

We’re so glad it did. And we were so wrong in our previous thinking. Maybe some people hang out on beach chairs sipping tropical cocktails for a week in Waikiki, but we were able to find more than enough to do on two of the lush, green islands that make up this chain of volcanic dots in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.

We started on Oahu. With the main Hawaiian airport, skyscrapered Honolulu, jam-packed Diamondhead, and yes, clichéd Waikiki on its shores, Oahu was routinely dissed by many friends who gave us travel advice. It’s too urban, too touristy, too congested, many tsk-tsked. But a close friend who knows Hawaii well convinced us to head directly out of Honolulu upon landing and hightail it to the quieter North Shore. A little research turned up more hiking options there than almost anywhere else in the islands, and we spent four days in an area with very little of the built-up feel of the southern shore or the other islands with strips of resort hotels.

We passed our days on a series of coastal trails, among them a long, sandy stroll to the northern tip, Kahuku Point;

a rough, windy walk out to far-west Kaena Point;

and a pine needle-laden path to a huge, old banyan tree and on to a World World II pillbox near Kawela Bay.

We ate from a shrimp truck, a local sandwich shop, and a 68-year-old shave ice stand in surfer-town Haleiwa while we admired the surfboards (and a few surfers, too – sorry, J) standing up against many a brightly-painted building. We watched those colorful boards in action, too, at the Banzai Pipeline, where young and old alike unfolded their tanned torsos in the curl of a huge wave pounding toward shore.

Our next stop was the Big Island, this one recommended by many who had found the land mass the most ecologically diverse and the “real Hawaii,” as we heard more than once. The first claim was easy to prove: in the next four days, we drove from lava fields to verdant gardens to ranch lands to desert scrub to one of the most serene and stunning beaches we’d ever seen. And back again, more than once, through these variations.

As we had on Oahu, we sought out some small communities, like Volcano Village, a street of about ten buildings near Volcanoes National Park, where we stayed in an old YMCA camp-turned-inn. After last year’s eruption of Kilauea, the world’s most active and dangerous volcano, parts of the crater rim drive were devastated and the breathtaking lava lake at Halema’uma’u crater collapsed and drained, leaving a vast field of dried-up, smoking lava.

The effects of Kilauea’s huge 1959 eruption are still eerily visible as well, making the visit to the park both mind-blowing and a little disappointing (in spite of our good fortune that its federal employees had kept it open during the government shutdown).

We also particularly enjoyed tiny Hawi on the northern edge of the island, where we caught an impromptu hula performance by a group of senior citizens and ate at a kitchsy restaurant that was part of Hawi’s rebound from ghost-town status in recent years. Near here, we took our steepest hike of the trip, picking our way slowly down a pitched, root-strewn path into the Pololu Valley that started with this panoply of warnings:

We felt secure enough in our footwork (and stayed hard to the non-cliff side!) and were rewarded with a misty, black sand beach … and then the long climb back up and out. It was the workout we were looking for, and the views may have been the most remarkable of the trip.

A shorter down- and uphill trail took us through the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden just outside Hilo. Given its internet presence and lofty name, I expected a major tourist attraction but was very pleasantly surprised to drive in on a 1½-lane, S-curve road and find a magical oasis that was the result of one man’s 8-year effort to clear and replant this Onomea Valley hillside in the late 70s.

We had our nicest dinner of the trip in crisp and cool Waimea, Hawaii’s higher-elevation ranchland that felt a little bit Outback, a little bit Texas in its look and spirit. We made the drive from sea level to 3000 feet and back a couple of times, never tiring of the vistas in either direction.

On the Kohala coast, we happened upon the Ala Kahakai National Historic Trail, a 175-mile network of seaside walking paths that ran near our hotel. After hiking the section nearby, we re-joined the trail twenty miles down the coast toward Kona a few days later, where we wandered through Kekaha Kai State Park one morning.

We picked our way through clots of hardened lava for several long, hot slogs, rounding a corner every once in a while to a new viewpoint where, I must admit, I found myself saying “Oh, it’s just another beach.”

Nine days in paradise may have made me sound jaded, but Hawaii is far from ho-hum. There are so many brilliant flowers, so much ambrosia-like pineapple and other fruit, and so many postcard-perfect palm trees bowing down to white sand beaches that I can barely imagine the days when I thought it would be an uninspired destination.

I never really thought about the fact that I could stay in the U.S. and be in Polynesia at the same time, surrounded by South Pacific motifs and visages, Aussie and Kiwi accents, and signs and menus in Japanese, to mention just a few of the cultural treats throughout our travels. We made a point to try and see the “real Hawaii,” on two feet as much as we could, and we think we succeeded. We ate breakfast with barefooted surfers on the north coast of Oahu, had to nix a hike when the only parking was in a seedy neighborhood crawling with cop cars, and missed getting some musubi at a 7-11 when a guy out front decided to take his pants off, scaring us off.

But we also stayed at a couple of beautiful oceanfront hotels, watched the sun rise and set over palm trees and limpid seas, swam in the ocean, and drank coffee in a warm and breezy open-air restaurant every morning.

We spent our last day in … yep, Waikiki, and we loved the whole loud, lit-up place. J wore the Hawaiian shirt his dad brought back decades ago, I wore more sundresses in a week and a half than I have in years, and one day at the pool, wearing the pink and orange flowered flip-flops gifted by the hotel, I ordered my own tropical umbrella drink with no shame at all. Mahalo, beautiful state – we will be back for more!

Inscrutable Marfa

Tags

Art, Donald Judd, Marfa, Marfa Lights, road trip, West Texas

A year-end drive, planned very last minute to stave off post-holiday gloom, took us to the Hill Country in the central part of the state, and then farther west to the empty expanses of West Texas. 

Our ultimate target was Marfa, a small town that defies easy description. Other writers have used words like hipster, artsy, curated, minimalist, fake, expensive, cool, and overrated. Every one of these adjectives can apply, but Marfa is a place you have to feel, not just see or try to put into words, and it takes more than dropping in for an afternoon to do it. On the surface, Marfa could be small-town anywhere – in prairie Iowa or rural Cuba. Half-century old cars and faded pickup trucks sit in small patches of scorched grass, vintage Airstreams glint among the sepia tones of the vegetation, and low-slung houses with chipped-paint fences hide courtyards and more from clueless passersby. This is what you see, and are meant to see, before (or if) you have your cultural epiphany.

But shimmering elusively in the plainspoken, down-home facades and pastoral landscapes are the half-hidden intellectualism, the artsy aesthetic, the foodie vibe, and (if you are the cynical type) the pretension that a visitor has heard is there but has to slowly discern. Inside some of those modest-looking dwellings live wealthy L.A. movers and shakers, up-and-coming or already famous artists, and well-heeled couples both young and old who seem to have been beamed in from Brooklyn or Seattle. There are infinity-edge pools hiding in there, and stainless steel kitchens, Eames chairs, and alpaca throws. We know this later, when we flip through books in the shops, but what we see are dusty streets with kitschy awnings and rusty screen doors.

On our first pass through town, we do not recognize a single gallery space on the two main streets; the buildings are nondescript and any signage or advertisement nonexistent. When our hotel receptionist points to the map and tells us where things are, I keep shaking my head, thinking I must have the map upside down or am otherwise disoriented. We went down that street, I say, there was nothing there! I think J and I are both thinking we drove 600 miles for nothing.

But no, a second pass reveals discreet signs, and simple iron doors open to reveal rooms containing, for example, three huge Andy Warhol paintings, or tablesful of art glass, or a “September Eleven” installation. Even our hotel surprises us: this unadorned, rectangular carton right off the railroad tracks shelters a hopping, see-and-be-seen bar, highbrow local bookstore, and Architectural Digest-worthy room décor.

Some of the trailers in town (and more than a few rentable teepees) are part of an ironic-chic camping complex. A plainly unattractive bluish-gray building contains just about the best pizza I’ve ever waited an hour and a half to get. Another old trailer dishes out “Marfalafel” and other Mediterranean goodies for visitors like Beyoncé, you, and me, and it takes us well over a day to even locate another popular restaurant that is tucked up against a random house with a teeny tiny sign.

We walk through a field filled with a kilometer-long string of concrete … things. Apparently some visitors mistake these for unused highway barriers. The minimalist blocks are the work of the Marfa art scene’s founding father, Donald Judd. Like the town itself, the sculptural art at first inspires some eye-rolling and disappointment, but after a slow walk from one end to the other, with the morning sun catching the blunt gray edges and illuminating the surrounding prairie grasses, the piece begins to appeal. We pose with our senior dog in the openings; this would have made a much edgier Christmas card!

It’s hard to tell if the locals want us there or not. It’s clear that the burgeoning art scene has kept the town alive; many other small settlements we pass through out here in the desert look one more economic dip away from extinction. But we feel the ambivalence of both the hip crowd and the locals. Many places are only open on the weekend, shops close when they feel like it even then, service is sluggish, and a shrug might be the best answer you get to any question.

It sounds a bit unlikable, doesn’t it, or at least difficult to fully appreciate? Why does anyone drive hours and hours (and you have to) to see this place whose most famous work of art, the fake Prada store, is another 36 miles outside of town? Whose other claim to fame is a set of mysterious lights that bob out on the desert at night? Whose essence can only be guessed at or seen in a book?

I can tell you why we did it – because it’s there! – but I can’t fully explain why I loved it. I need to go back and spend more than a day and a half browsing the galleries around town, to get a second shot at the Marfa Lights which failed to show up for us, to take the full six-hour Chinati Foundation tour, to try the Marfalafel since the food truck guys decided to close right when I walked up, and to try to more fully grasp the unlikely appeal of this tumbledown town.

I can tell you that after the first few hours, I thought Marfa was the dumbest destination ever, nothing but a sad little place, or maybe a joke on all of us. That after eight hours, a little of the mystery had gotten under my skin. That after a day, I was all in – hook, line, and sinker. I can also tell you my husband did not get past stage 1.5 of that thought evolution; he thought it was sort of interesting and enjoyed watching my gradual enthrallment, but I’m guessing my next trip will be solo!

Ambling Around the Alps

Tags

Alps, exploring, hiking, mountains, rounded, Weekly Photo Challenge, woods

How delectable it is to wake up and have a whole day stretching before us with no set itinerary. We eat a leisurely breakfast, stand on our patio overlooking Wolfgansee (Lake Wolfgang) in western Austria, and rejigger the plan we made last night. The morning is misty and cool, so we decide to postpone a hike and instead drive to a nearby town.

Not just any nearby town. Hallstatt, Austria, is a place that has grown so famous and so congested that some experienced travelers refuse to go there, and we are very close to skipping it ourselves. Even our hosts in St Wolfgang have warned us away, saying that people the world over were so obsessed with Hallstatt that the Chinese decided to build an exact replica of the town so that couples could take their engagement photos, wedding pictures, anniversary and birthday snaps, and unimaginable numbers of everyday selfies there without leaving Asia. In spite of the negative reviews, we figure it’s early in the day and not particularly nice out yet, so we spurn the naysayers and jump in the car for the forty-minute drive.

With this less-than-auspicious introduction, we are hesitant, but we arrive and park before the hordes descend, and to our delight, we have the shores of the lake to ourselves, except for a few swans, as we approach the village. Like overrun tourist attractions everywhere, there is a good reason for the throngs. Our first lakeside views take in a diaphanous scene of mirror-smooth gray-blue water, a mini-castle on the far shore, and the spit of the town itself, an impossibly perfect little concoction of spires, rooflines, docks, summer flowers, and wooden boats, all perched on the limpid lake. A ribbon of morning mist threads in and out of an inlet, adding an ethereal touch to the panorama.

By the time the streets start to fill up with the first of the day’s visitors, we are climbing high above the town. Small, tasteful signs ask walkers to refrain from photographing the private homes along the route, and we whisper softly as we pass doorways and gardens. A little later, we come back down and scoot out of town just as the sun begins to peek out from the fog and the multitudes start to arrive.

***

Back in St. Wolfgang, the day has blossomed into a cool and sunny brilliance. We grab our backpacks and set off for Schwarzensee, a lake high up in the mountains above our little resort town. The trail is alternately steep and flattish, with views of the vaporous Lake Wolfgang off to the right though portholes of evergreens and deciduous trees.

It’s a woodsy walk, with birch and evergreen trunks rising high above the needled brown paths. I trudge behind J, who is always the pace keeper, and get lost in my own thoughts for long stretches. We are nearly alone; on rare occasions, we pass a couple or two, and on the way down, we smile at a rowdy little family of parents and young kids cavorting up the hill.

Schwarzensee appears before we know it. After our long and difficult climb in the High Tatras of Slovakia a week earlier, today’s ascent goes fast. We are now starving; it’s after 2 pm and we’ve been gone since early morning. Lucky for us, these mountain trails often have some sort of refuge up high, always with beer and better food in the middle of nowhere than even a busy roadside stop in the U.S. We order a couple of dark brews, salads, and bread, and spend some time sitting in the sun at a picnic table, batting away bees and appreciating our mid-hike good fortune. We bounce with a slight buzz back down the trail and arrive at our lodging in record speed, sated and tired in a most satisfying way, ready for our next Alpine adventure.

***

The Julian Alps stretch along the border of northwestern Slovenia and Austria. They are an impressive but accessible range, and on the Slovenian side, they provide the snowcapped backdrop for the fairytale setting of Lake Bled and its island church. Here, on another quiet morning, we walk briskly around the 4-mile lake trail, viewing that idyllic little clump of land from every vantage point. You can pay to paddle out there on a tour boat, but I’ve eschewed that outing twice, preferring to see the water- and tree-ringed bell tower with its mountainous backdrop.

This time, we also forgo the medieval castle looming above the lake, instead making a number of stops on the stroll, perusing the Olympic rowing facilities, checking out one of Tito’s many summer villas, and stopping at the Park Hotel on the way back to the car for a slice of their famous cream cake.

***

There are higher summits, rougher peaks, scarier climbs, and more exotic mountain cultures around the world, but for my money, the Alps are the torch carrier for highland hiking day in and day out, the winner of the prize for “Most Well-Rounded” of mountain ranges, if you will. The countries that are caretakers of this range, and the people who make these slopes and meadows their home, have created a system of paths and services that are hard to beat. From our post-college backpacking days, to our first serious experience hiking the Mont Blanc circuit a decade ago, to the day hikes we sprinkle into our European trips, we have returned time and again to these green hills full of cows, streams, trees, and fields. It’s always a good day for an amble in the Alps.

High Tatras High

Tags

High Tatras, hiking, mountain lakes, mountains, pedestrian, Slovakia, Strbske Pleso, stubborn, trekking, Velke Hincovo Pleso, Weekly Photo Challenge

There was nothing pedestrian about the hike and the landscape we encountered in northern Slovakia last month, except that the only way to see it was on foot, of course.

I first heard of Slovakia’s High Tatras mountains in July of 2015, when a fellow blogger penned a compelling personal account of a hike to Veľké Hincovo Pleso. Her descriptions of both the physical trek and the restorative power of nature resonated with me. It was my introduction to both her and this relatively unknown trekking area, and I resolved then and there to do this very hike someday. In a way, our driving trip around central Europe 26 months later was planned around hiking this one little trail.

We arrived at Strbske Pleso, close to the mountainous border with Poland, after a few days in western and central Slovakia. We had already begun to absorb some of the wild roughness of this country’s natural beauty. Its smaller roads cut through dark forests of evergreens, but a drive up multiple switchbacks to our hotel and a late afternoon stroll around Strbske Pleso itself (pleso means tarn, or mountain lake, for those who don’t do crossword puzzles!) brought home the towering and glowering nature of the area. It was raining more than it wasn’t and when it did cease at times, there was a low-hanging mist and a deep chill in the air. We gazed out the front of our lodging to a valley far below, but at this point we had no idea what jagged heights lay behind the hotel.

Completely unaware that there are high peaks behind all those clouds

The morning of the hike, we rose to a miraculously sunny day – quite cold and crystal clear – but I had a new obstacle to overcome. Stomach trouble the night before had left me depleted, and I was plagued with a sharp headache and weakened limbs from the sickness and lack of sleep. But there was simply no way I was giving up the chance to take this hike on the only sunny day the area had seen or was likely to see in well over a week. I forced down a piece of toast, filched a roll and some cheese from the breakfast table for later, and donned every layer of hiking-appropriate clothing I could find in my suitcase.

We set off with husband J’s idea that I might only make it to Popradské Pleso, the first mountain lake on the route and about an hour and a half up the trail. Truth be told, even before I felt so debilitated, the map of the hiking trails had intimidated me; our ultimate goal lay near the highest peaks of the range, and there was a disconcerting amount of snow on steep-looking ridges on every drawing I consulted.

As we got underway, I had moments of doubt that I’d even make it to Popradské Lake, but as I have on so many treks in the past, I put one foot in front of the other until I fell into a rhythm and pushed my discomfort and worries into the background.

Somehow, even with my slowed pace and frequent camera stops, we made it to the trail junction in less than the posted time. Motivated to keep going by that surprising discovery and a deep drink of water, I insisted that we press on, passing a sign that said we had just a few more hours to Veľké Hincovo Pleso. No problem, I thought, even though I knew that the next phase would involve steeper slopes, fast-flowing streams to cross, and a jumble of rocks to climb. Two hours was nothing to me; I’d taken difficult treks that chewed up ten-hour days, and I repeated them day after day for weeks at a time in some pretty precipitous parts of the world.

Well, I was about to be humbled. Shortly after the turn, we were clambering over muddy tree roots and then a rock-strewn path, both of which felt nearly vertical to my wasted body. I begged J to go on ahead; he hikes fast and usually has no qualms about ditching me. But today he refused, saying there was no way he was leaving me alone when I felt weak and dizzy. I’m not much of a trail talker to begin with, but now I was dead silent, summoning all my energy stores for the next steps, steps that quickly became higher, sharper, and more irregular.

We began to cross several small streams, two with wood bridges and one an easy hop, skip, and jump on the rocks. I was relieved; the fording with a rope over a fast torrent that Julie had written about was no longer here! So what was that sound? That sound of churning water ahead and above, that sound of voices and shouts. My heart sank as we rounded a bend and saw it: a rough and tumble gush of water over half-submerged, jagged rocks – and no rope. People were tottering across, many plunging at least one boot into the rapids.

I was done, I thought. I have great balance and I love a good rock hop, but I was exhausted and suddenly paralyzed. I stood on the near bank, staring and shaking my head. The longer this goes on, I scolded myself, the more wobbly I was going to be. The key to rock hopping is an agile quickness; the more you waver, the shakier you get. J stopped halfway on the biggest, flattest rock and held out his hand. I have to admit it; I am a hiking hard-ass, and I wanted none of that wussiness. I made a few perfunctory, dismissive motions, but I finally hopped in, grabbing his hand, and we scampered the rest of the way across.

J said again Do you need to turn around? There’s still a long way to go, and then we have to get down.  

NO, I snapped. I’m not quitting. Spit out as if it were the most terrible word and idea in the world.

How did you end up like this? He laughed and shook his head.

Like what? Competitive? You know I’ve always been this way.

I was thinking stubborn and hard-headed …

That I was. Am. I was getting to that lake today.

Let’s give it until noon, I bargained. That’s the 2:10 we saw plus some extra time for all my stopping and slow going.

The next 75 minutes were arduous, and we walked in silence, J surging ahead and then checking behind him, me talking to myself in the sternest terms and ducking my head every time he looked back. The toil was relieved by the most astounding vistas – sweeping panoramas of the Mengusovská Dolina (Valley) behind us and neck-craning views of the crests on the border ahead.

At ten minutes before noon, a descending hiker said 5 minutes! and all of a sudden the trail leveled out and we were walking into the bowl that holds the largest and deepest tarn in the Tatras.

Not yet!

The goal – Veľké Hincovo Pleso

It was uniquely exhilarating, in some ways the most satisfying “summit” I’ve ever reached. I pumped my fist, J slapped me five, and a rush of energy propelled me out to the glacier-carved pool to fully absorb the arc of sharp peaks standing guard. We had the place nearly to ourselves for a few moments. I sat down alone on a boulder, finished my sandwich, ate a small square of chocolate, gulped as much water as I dared, and stood up.

And then we went down. It was an ordeal, and it took even longer, including a stupid mistake that cost us 45 knee-destroying minutes at the end. But I prefer to end this story at the high place, on a high note, in the High Tatras, by far the highlight of my two-week trip.

Guest Post from Ghana

Tags

Accra, culture, daughter, expat, fabric, food, Ghana, guest post, journal

I have written a time or two about a short trip I took to Ghana almost a decade ago, but I am now seeing current-day Accra (the capital) through the eyes of my public health worker daughter, who is living there and working on a malaria project for several months. Her journal has captivated me, both for her cultural insights and the hilarity (from afar) of her daily life and the inevitable adjustments that she has had to make. Without further preamble, let me introduce K and a few amusing snippets from her writings: 

On Fabric and Food

Since I arrived in Accra in late August, I have been keeping a journal that is more-or-less a chronological account of my days and weeks here, interspersed with some commentary on the excitement, frustration, awe, and unfamiliarity associated with new people, places, and ways of life. In that respect, my journal entries are not a perfect match for my Mom’s blog – that is, a compilation of very organized entries, with anecdotes that are neatly tied together by a central theme that is never tired and never forced. I can’t promise any of those things, but since she graciously agreed to let my words coexist with hers, I will do my best to follow suit. Here, I have taken snippets from my journal about my two most frequently-described topics – fabric and food – to give you a taste for the stories that surround them and for how they make my heart and belly full, respectively.

***

9/1. So I heard about expats having cheese parties abroad. Exclusive cheese parties. Who wants to share their cheese with 30 random people when you could share it with 10? Well, at the A&C Mall, which I visited 3 times today, the cheese was plentiful! I should have known better. The feta cheese I bought has a very unfortunate taste. I would be thrilled to share it with as many people as would be willing to eat it … I also took the moment to ask if we could stop for a few groceries, and I again, ended up with the weirdest basket of foods, including feta cheese, none of which I ended up eating tonight because the healthy things all required washing and I am JUST NOT READY to sabotage my diarrhea-less day with diarrhea yet. I did get the water boiler hook-up from the nice lady who works at my apartment, so now at least I know I can boil enough water so that I can dump excessive amounts of it onto fruits and vegetables without feeling as guilty about wasting bottles of water.

9/3. Cindy, a friend from school, introduced me to a tailor she has been using named Eleanor, who has her own store in Osu where you can pick out your own fabrics and clothing design. She was hilarious, radiant, and beautifully adorned with her masterful work and many brightly-colored accessories.

9/4. I identified a beautiful fabric dress that I want. Fridays in the office are for traditional Ghanaian clothing rather than business attire, and I totally want to get into that! Missed the boat this week and wore a red and black dress (here, red and black together means you’re going to a funeral…).

9/6. At work, I wrote down some basic expressions in Twi and practiced them, and I successfully put in my first food order at work (jollof rice). According to Wikipedia, it’s “the progenitor of the Louisianan dish jambalaya,” and that’s a pretty good description. For 10 GH₵ ($2.50), it was my lunch, dinner, and I still have more in my fridge at home.

Jollof

9/8. Mary, the receptionist, is good about remembering what I have eaten and thinking of something new I can try, so we decided together that today was kenkey day. Kenkey is this huge sourdough dumpling made from ground corn. It is super dense, and it is served with hot pepper sauce and fried fish. This sounded okay to me, not great, but when the time came to eat, Lucy, the woman who buys the food, pulled out a whole fish, eyes included, and flopped it onto my plate. She then showed me how to peel the leaves covering the kenkey, and when I involved my left hand, she pushed it away and said, “No, use right hand.” Theresa was eating it across from me so she showed me how to take some of the kenkey off the ball and rub it between my fingers to get it to the right consistency, and then to dip it into the hot pepper. Again, everyone was amused by this. I asked if I ate the fish with my hands, too, and people laughed again like “Obviously!” The hot pepper was extremely hot, and it was too much to eat in large quantities. Another colleague, Theresa, said, “Get her some gravy; she can’t eat that,” while Mary was dumping less spicy sauce from someone else’s plate onto mine and marking the line I shouldn’t cross for spiciness sake. My boss, John, was piling my plate with his fried yams and sweet potatoes (like French fries!), and saying “Eat these, you won’t be able to eat much of this (the pepper) yet.” Another woman walked in, glanced at me, jaw dropped, and went, “Is this safe?” I felt like a little alien worthy of protection.

9/10. I actually ate vegetables!! Well, on top of noodles (this is the starchiest life), and had my first sip of alcohol in a while. They were out of wine, so I tried their Club beer, which kind of tasted skunked. (Little did I know that’s just how it tastes.) Elizabeth, my new Ghanaian friend, ordered a Smirnoff ice, which was so funny to me. I told her about the American custom of “icing” someone and she thought it was funny but also didn’t really understand, which totally makes sense.

9/11. I stopped in Woodin, the popular fabric store, and finally made myself buy something. I have been so indecisive about these fabrics, and I think I just need to try out the process and see how the first piece of clothing I have made turns out. The salesperson was extremely friendly, and I asked him a million really dumb questions about fabrics and made him help me choose which one to buy, and he happily obliged.

9/12. Today, I ate white rice with red sauce and a hard-boiled egg. Mysteriously, this is the only food I’ve heard of without a local name. I was told, you are eating “plain rice.” Good to know. I also sampled someone’s waakye, which is rice and beans, with pieces of pasta, garri (crushed cassava), and Shito (black pepper). Everyone was packed in the lunch room at the same time today, eating with their hands, some standing up, and everyone sort of seemed to get a kick out of my confusion. I ask a lot of questions about the food because they seem to like explaining it, and it helps me, you know, bond.

Waakye

9/15. On Wednesday, the three of us ladies went out to lunch and ate sandwiches. Bliss. My sandwich had four carrot flakes, two miniature tomato slices, and a sprinkle of lettuce. I’m starting to feel about vegetables here like Mom felt about paper products in Tibet – overdose on them whenever possible because you never know when they’ll appear next. I practically sing aloud when I see an onion in my jollof rice, plain rice, or fried rice. Rice, rice, rice, onion, rice, repeat.

9/18. We left for Makola market, the overwhelming but famous Saturday local market in Accra. It was hectic and hot and there was everything under the sun, including live snails, but we stuck to fabrics, and I came home with two more, which I can’t wait to (someday) convert to clothes.

9/19. On Saturday morning, I vowed to use the shared kitchen at my place. I carried my eggs and olive oil and plate across the compound and into the kitchen. Alas, I could not light the damn burner. Someone said I needed a match. Another person said I just needed to adjust the gas tank. Either way, I’m afraid I will blow myself up before I eat an egg safely.

Red red

9/25. We all had non-instant coffee, a rare treat, and my friend Emily and I agree that is was the best and worst part of our day. It actually felt like a drug, rejuvenating me with every delicious sip, but hours later the two of us were seriously over-caffeinated just from the one cup and our arms and legs felt weak and twitchy the whole rest of the day.

9/29. First, they took us to my colleague Robert’s wife’s shop in a rather faraway location, and I had my measurements taken and handed over my beautiful fabric to have a dress made. I felt oddly sad giving it away, knowing it would not return to me in its perfect, unaltered state. Then Mary wanted to also stop at her friend’s shop, so we made another out-of-the-way stop, and I was lucky I had brought another fabric with me. This tailor measured me (in a much more intense, full-body way, including a nipple-to-nipple measurement that was in no way necessary for a skirt), and I handed over the other precious two yards I had unfolded, held up to my body, and refolded innumerable times. I exchanged phone numbers with both tailors and then texted them pictures of ladies I found on Google images whose clothing I wanted to imitate.

9/29. We stopped beforehand at Woodin so Emily could grab some last minute gifts, and the Osu location has way more fabrics, and I felt super addicted and emotionally unstable in response to this addiction that resulted in oohing and aweing and pining over fabrics that I can’t justify buying.

10/2. I got my dress back!! Robert delivered it to me by way of his wife, and as I held it up to myself, he expressed doubt that it would fit right. He was right. It was huge in the chest and totally gaping, but I still felt I had to model it for everyone, so I got to experience the joy of a group of colleagues tugging at the fabric over my chest, commenting on the flatness of my chest, and Robert taking up-close pictures of my chest to send to his wife so she could redo it. At one point, Robert was intently assessing the fit, and Mary slapped his hand away from me. He wasn’t making me uncomfortable, but it was cute to watch her stick up for me. I was sad to see the dress leave my possession again, but it came back, along with my skirt from the other tailor, and now they both fit, and I’m all set for African dress Fridays!

10/4. This weekend, I went to the obruni (white person) market (that’s what my friends call this market which draws mostly expats) on my own and bought some gifts and used the tailor I had met my first week, Eleanor, for my final fabric to be made into a shirt. The crafts are good there, but I find the obrunis consistently annoying, paler than ever, and loud. They fiend after the one and only bagel stand in Accra, and they shout at each other in jarring accents (I can’t even identify where such a voice would come from), which forces me to cringe politely into their round, burnt faces.

10/5. Since there is nothing else going on in my life this week, I will discuss the common expression used when you are eating and someone else enters the room – “You are invited.” This confused the heck out of me when I first got here. I would walk into the kitchen for a glass of water, and Mary would be eating unidentified meats for breakfast and she would say, “You are invited.” Huh? I smiled and nodded but then just walked away thinking I had probably done the rudest thing ever. Then, the next few times, I would walk in on someone eating, and they would say it without even raising their head or looking at me. Today, John was starting a late lunch as we joined a conference call together, and he said as we received the Skype call, “You are invited to my lunch.” Eventually, I realized (and got confirmation) that it’s just something people say out of courtesy but it doesn’t mean you have to join them, or watch them eat, or help them eat their unidentified meats.

10/9. Jack, one of the roommates and band members, arranged for a spit pig to be served through his local coworker’s family member, and we savagely sliced this pig apart for dinner, which we ate outside in the pouring rain.

10/17. When I got back, Donald and Samuel, who work at my apartment, were eating dinner in the bar and invited me to join. They were eating big hunks of pork, and I was full from dinner, but I tried to identify a small bite to be polite when they offered me some. Once I popped it in my mouth, I realized it was not going to be pretty. It was so tough, and they were asking me questions and I could not respond because my mouth was having to work hard on this very intense-tasting fresh pig with so much un-chewable fat. I told them, “Gimme five minutes,” which they thought was funny, but then five minutes later, when I was still “hiding” the huge un-chewable fat chunk in my cheek, I had to come clean and tell them I didn’t know what to do about it. Donald rolled his eyes and said to Samuel, “Get her a napkin,” and I tried to own the spitting out motion like I wasn’t the total obruni I am.

10/18. I started my day by picking up my shirt from Eleanor. She sells her stuff at the expat market each month, but otherwise you just go to her house. She is really successful – not just doing business in her neighborhood but totally catering to the expat community, too, and even starting to show her clothes internationally within West Africa. So I headed off on my own to meet this lady, and she lived in a little neighborhood so close to the beach you could smell and feel the water. She met me outside close to noon looking sleepy and of course wearing some African print shorts. When I walked into her house, fabric was draped over everything. It reminded me of what it would be like to go into an artist’s home and to find paintings and paint everywhere. She showed me to the showroom, and while she adjusted the shirt she had made for me, I shopped around. I don’t know why I’m such a fiend for these clothes – I literally ripped my own off in this stranger’s house and put as many dresses as I could find on myself.

***

I can now happily say I’m going African print strong, with five bright pieces of clothing lining my makeshift closet and two more fabrics lying dormant in my arsenal, awaiting their beautiful, affordable final form. While I may have beat indecision when it comes to fabric shopping and tailoring, I am still learning how to integrate fashion with food; understanding how to enjoy the dense, fried, caloric, starchy foods and still fitting comfortably into my never-even-slightly-stretchy prints has been a challenge I’ve yet to overcome. I still have a long way to go when it comes to adjusting to my life with one foot out the door, but I’m lucky I have a pretty solid role model who reminds me why I’m doing it.

A Steppe Out of Time

Tags

blue sky, camping, gers, Mongolia, nomads, rare, simple life, steppe, Weekly Photo Challenge

I’ve always had a fascination with the word “steppe,” a term I’d read in various books to describe the land over which impossibly exotic characters ranged – legions of Russian soldiers, swarms of Genghis Khan’s archers on horseback, camel trains of nomads traversing a vast, empty plain. I pictured the steppe as a massive shelf, an unbounded plateau taking a giant stride down from Russia and Siberia into Central Eurasia. I might even go so far as to say that I went to Mongolia solely to see the steppe, with its grasslands and treeless plains that spread out for miles and miles under massive blue skies. I saw the foray into this land as a rare opportunity to step off the grid and into the pages of history right up to this day.

In my last post, I noted my surprise at the newness and modernity of Mongolia’s capital, Ulaanbaatar. While I took pleasure in getting to know that city, my real joy in Mongolia was heading out to the steppe land west of UB. With one of the lowest population densities on earth, Mongolia is literally wide open, and I wanted to get out there and breathe in the vastness and, maybe, see a little of the life that takes place there, a life that feels far removed from that in the city.

The Mongolian grassland plateau is part of the biggest steppe region in the world, one that stretches from Eastern Europe (Ukraine) through Central Asia – a number of the ‘Stans (Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan), Russia, and others. While there are now paved roads connecting most of the country’s provinces, the majority of roads on the steppe are bouncy dirt paths, often with no discernible lanes or traffic patterns.

The verdant plains of summer spread out like ruched fabric, rising and dipping, folding and wrinkling like thick, crumpled velvet. Often, the greenish-yellow moors are framed by brown and purple mountains, unfolding in layers for miles on end. The vistas are like watercolor paintings, gradations of color and light stacked from foreground to background until they melt into the heavens.

Little white gers off in the distance dot the landscape, and herds of animals roam freely, the sheep with the goats, the horses alongside the camels.

Unlike the leap into the 21^st century that UB has taken in recent years, much of life on the steppe takes place just as it has for centuries, with people living in harmony with the land. Nomadic families move with the seasons, packing up their gers and their animals at least four times a year to find new pasturelands. In summer, access to water is critical, while winter brings a need for grasslands with minimal snow cover. In spring, the herders look for early flora to nourish the animals before birthing time arrives, and in fall, they seek out later-growth foliage to fatten up before winter comes around again.

Both the livelihood and sustenance of these nomads depend on their animals – primarily horses, camels, cattle, sheep, and goats. The Mongolian diet is heavily based on meat and dairy products, and days revolve around animal care and putting up food for future seasons. On a visit to a wonderfully engaging nomadic family, we helped milk the mares and the cows, then cut huge blocks of soft cheese into smaller pieces that were dried on the roof for winter consumption.

We drank airag, a fermented mare’s milk, nibbled on mutton dumplings, and savored a creamy rice pudding made with the cow’s milk we had helped procure minutes earlier. Animal fur, hair, and skins can be sold for use in the city as rugs, the famous Mongolian cashmere, and other products as a way to earn money to buy agricultural staples the nomads cannot grow (rice and flour among them), animals to breed (the most expensive, a camel, costs about $750), or supplies, like the gers themselves ($1000 or so).

Traditional herding life is likely to change and fade out in coming years as pressures to join the global economy increase and as younger generations develop ambitions beyond a life in the country. The families who still make their home on the steppe may live simply and freely, but they take small bites of the world beyond. They use solar panels for energy in their gers, their children go to school (which is compulsory), and, of course, they own cellphones, which are almost as attached to their ears as they are anywhere else! The darling girls I bonded with one evening knew their way around an iPhone – insisting we take selfies together and then taking (many, many) videos of me riding their horses.

I didn’t get enough time on the steppe. I understand the difficulty of taking people out into such unpopulated, unsupported areas and I get that most people can only take the ger camps for so many nights before craving a real shower and some wifi! But I could have stayed much longer, waking at dawn to see horses wandering through camp, bouncing down the dirt roads into the green suede hills, stopping to photograph a shimmering, lemon-lime wheat field or a posse of Bactrian camels, meeting the industrious and endearing local people, and reclining outside my tent at midnight to see the entire Milky Way clouding up a night sky unpolluted by other light sources.

The steppe was a rare treat, a dream come true, a step out of time and place, a pause button in the universe that I needed to see and experience for myself. If history holds, I will crave a return someday soon, and I will add Mongolia to the list of places I’ve felt compelled to revisit.

 

 

Meatless in Mongolia?

Tags

culture, customs, hospitality, meat, Mongolia, nomads, traditions, vegetarianism

I’ve been a vegetarian since 2009 and have rarely felt any need to eat meat since then. My reasons for choosing a meatless diet were many and varied, ranging from a waning interest in the taste of meat in general to the environmental and health concerns of raising and eating animals from huge, industrial farms. (Truth be told, my aversion started even earlier – after I read Alive, the book about airplane crash victims in the Andes who ate human flesh to survive. But I digress, unappealingly.)

I have not been a zealot about my stance, however, and many people outside of my family and closest friends are not aware I’m a vegetarian, even when I share meals with them. I’m reluctant to ask dinner hosts for special foods and have always quietly found plenty of things to fill my plate in almost every setting. When I’ve traveled, I’ve sustained myself perfectly well, even on arduous treks in locales where meat is prized, like Nepal, where I hiked for weeks in the high Himalayas, fueled mainly by carbs and eggs (and the occasional protein bar!).

So why am I even considering eating meat in Mongolia next month? For one, the traditional Mongolian nomadic diet is highly meat- and dairy-centric, with vegetables and fruits very hard to come by in the grasslands that cover much of the country I’ll be crossing. They are not easy to grow in the strong winds and harsh climates (both summer and winter) out on the steppe, and the nomadic population is on the move from season to season and could not tend them anyway.

(Pixabay)

Animals, on the other hand, move along with nomadic families and provide a consistent source of meat and dairy products to their owners. I’ve read that I can’t even count on eggs here, as I have in other meat-oriented cultures; Mongolian herders do not keep chickens because they are considered dirty (not to mention difficult to herd!). Beyond logistics, Mongolians also believe that meat is critical for the spirit as well as the body; in fact, they are often disdainful of vegetables, considering them food fit only for animals.

This disapprobation would not be enough to persuade me, but one other factor might: the strong sense of hospitality that Mongolians dearly value. In the nomadic grasslands, travelers are always welcome in any ger, the round tents that herdsmen and their families live in. The custom is to walk into any tent, even a stranger’s, and there are many greeting rituals that include vodka, snuff boxes, tea, and food. Much of my upcoming trip will be spent in the grasslands, staying in ger camps and meeting the local people. I’ve been told to bring along some small gifts, and I know from previous travels that refusing what is offered to me may be considered rude or offensive.

(Pixabay)

Will I need to eat a few bites of meat to be polite? Will I find enough to eat during my days on the steppe without resorting to meat? I don’t think I have a philosophical problem with it; many of my objections to meat are moot in Mongolia, where animals are treasured and raised responsibly. The bigger question is whether it will be at all appealing, or even bearable, to eat some of the animal products I may be served?

Have you ever had to, wanted to, or refused to put aside your preferences or beliefs when traveling?

Frustration at Fitz Roy

Tags

adventure, Argentina, disappointment, El Chaltén, hiking, Laguna de los Tres, Los Glaciares National Park, Mount Fitz Roy, mountains, Patagonia

I am obsessed with mountains. Many of my travels are fueled by a desire to trek or just lay my eyes on a specific mountain, and our first trip to Patagonia was no exception. My goal was simple – to get as close as I could to Mount Fitz Roy in Los Glaciares National Park in Argentina. I have no technical climbing skills, and it’s too late to start, but my fascination with the world’s most difficult ascents can be satisfied with circuit treks, base camp visits, and partial climbs. I am willing to hike for weeks on end, up and down, through heat and cold, to glimpse the heights that stir men’s souls.

Fitz Roy drew me because it is so extreme. Not the highest of mountains – the Himalayan peaks have double the elevation – Fitz Roy is still considered one of the world’s toughest climbs. The sheer verticality turns away most comers; in some years, more people summit Everest than even attempt Fitz Roy. Fitz Roy also attracted me because it is so fearsome-looking. Its stony gray face looms threateningly over a remote and barren landscape, raising goose bumps on my skin even from a distance – even from a photo! Often sheathed in cloud cover, the pillar pushes dramatically upward, a knife piercing the usually leaden skies above. The mere thought of clinging to its wind- and rain-lashed face brings shivers.

As we approach the small town of El Chaltén for the first time, our driver pulls over and suggests a photo of the spike and its neighbors from afar. In a hurry to get to our lodging and dinner after a long day of travel, I demur at first, saying that we are hiking to a better vantage point the next day. He pulls over anyway, looking at me pityingly, obviously more aware than I that this may be my one and only shot of the unobstructed peak.

We meet briefly with the guide we have hired for the next day and he lays out three hiking options. The longest (estimated at 8-10 hours round trip) is a trek to Laguna de los Tres, a high-altitude glacial lake with the most spectacular view of Fitz Roy. We will not be dissuaded from taking this route, even when he warns us that tomorrow’s weather will be atrocious. We fortify ourselves with the coziest dinner ever – thick local stew and dark home-brewed beer at La Cervecería, a warm cocoon of rustic wood benches and tables crammed together in one snug little room.

Our trek day dawns gray and foggy, as predicted, and we pile on warm and waterproof layers for the hike.

My spirits are already sinking, but we try to stay upbeat and optimistic as we walk, first through gently rising lenga forests, then past ice-cold streams and glacier tongues, and on up to the barren flanks that house two base camps for real climbers.

The closer we get to the lagoon, the denser the fog becomes and the more heavily the rain falls. We are now fully draped in rain ponchos, our hoods and hats and headbands underneath deadening the senses. Our pants are drenched; there is no sheltered place to stop and eat, and our legs and lungs are burning as we near the apex of our climb.

We stumble over slick rocks, seeing nothing but our own boots and the back of our guide. He suddenly halts and points ahead. We are on the shores of the lagoon, a murky pool of dull liquid, topped with a gloomy mist so thick it hovers mere inches from the surface. Behind the lagoon and the damnable vapor lies the best view of Fitz Roy in the world, but it is not for us to see today.

I am not a good sport about this. I have tears in my eyes and sulky words for my family and the guide, who is cranky himself at our insistence on completing the hike. We yank our lunches from our backpacks, eat soggy sandwiches in disagreeable silence, straining for a tiny gap in the murk that never appears, before turning helplessly downhill for the five-hour trek back to El Chaltén. It is the most disappointing day of my travel life, and even my strapping son collapses in exhaustion and frustration at the end of the day.

Like many disappointments, however, the day allows us to focus on smaller scenes of beauty, like the delicate calafate berry below, and serves as motivation to go back to this enigmatic mountain and charming frontier town at the bottom of the world someday.

Careful in Colorado

Tags

altitude sickness, careful, Colorado, Fourth of July Trail, Indian Peaks Wilderness, Nederland

While visiting Colorado this past weekend, we decided to take a moderately challenging day hike in the Indian Peaks Wilderness area outside the quirky little town of Nederland. Leaving Denver on a clear morning with a mid-60s temperature forecast in the city, we were psyched for a crisp but sunshine-filled day in the mountains.

The plan was to start at the Fourth of July trailhead, a name that further conjured up a pleasant, sunny stroll on green slopes. For whatever reason, the word “Alpine” that had been used to describe the terrain did not fully register (with me, at least), and the balmy fall weather we had been enjoying in Chicago and Denver this year gave us a false sense of what to expect at an elevation of 10-11,000 feet in the Rockies in late October.

The drive to the trailhead quickly disabused us of any notions of a temperate trek. Sitting up reassuringly high in A’s 4WD pickup truck, we still bounced and skidded the last 25 minutes into the trailhead parking lot on an occasionally slick and consistently rutted dirt road. I was grateful for A’s careful driving as I sat in the back biting my nails and skittishly recoiling from my window view any time we approached the edge of the narrow road and the drop-offs below.

The trailhead, at 10,120’, had a few inches of snow and the air was a chilly 35 degrees, but the sky was a brilliant blue as we started the uphill climb through a series of switchbacks. As we ascended, though, the snow got deeper and deeper, and my choice of ankle-high socks and hiking shoes began to look a bit misguided as the snow rose to mid-calf with every step. Again, careful attention was necessary as we stubbed our toes and tripped on hidden logs, crossed the icy remnants of summer waterfalls, and traversed exposed areas with no branches or rocks to grab in case of a slip.

After a little over a mile the trail split, with the Arapaho Pass Trail going off to the right and the Diamond Lake Trail turning left. Here at 10,752′, we chose to go south to the lake because the slight headache J had noticed as the hike started was getting steadily worse, and the lake path was leveling out while the Arapaho Peak trail was continuing to ascend sharply. Alas, at about the two-mile mark, we had to make the most careful (and smart) move of the day; J’s headache was now surprisingly and frighteningly bad and accompanied by some nausea, so we needed to reduce elevation quickly. Flying in from the flatlands of Illinois the night before, spending a quick evening in mile-high Denver, then attempting to trek high and fast to nearly 11,000’ the next morning proved to be a little aggressive!

This was our first time hiking in the Indian Peaks Wilderness area, and it was a gorgeous introduction. In the summer, the waterfalls and wildflowers are apparently stunning, and there are a number of trails and campsites that branch off from various trailheads. The Fourth of July Road does not open until late May or even June due to snow cover, and it closes by mid-November, just a few weeks away now. At any time of year, the last few miles of the access road would be difficult for a passenger car, no matter the weather conditions, and any hike at this elevation requires care and preparation. Perhaps we weren’t quite careful enough in our planning this time, but we can’t wait to go back!

This post was prompted by the Weekly Photo Challenge: Careful. See other entries by clicking on the link.

Jordan, Abbreviated

Tags

Aqaba, fasting, Jordan, Petra, Ramadan, Wadi Rum

We really didn’t mean to make Jordan an afterthought on our recent trip to the Middle East, but it got short shrift, I’m afraid, for a number of reasons. The primary impetus for our trip was a business meeting in Jerusalem, Israel, but I insisted that we add Jordan to the mix because it’s right there! and a relatively easy crossing from southern Israel.

Added to our limited number of days was, one, the unfortunate timing of our arrival in the country at the very beginning of Ramadan and, two, the current state of tourism in Jordan due to (largely unfounded) concerns about happenings in Syria and other neighboring countries. As a result, Jordan was not only eerily empty in places but lacking in services and certainly any air of festivity in the days we were there. I’m not Jordan-bashing; in fact, I left the country a fan of at least the places I saw, and I’d love to see more. In some ways, being there during the Muslim holiday added to the appeal, just as tramping though St. Petersburg in the dead of winter seemed to me to bring out the true soul of Russia.

Roadside flora and fauna on the road to Petra

Jordan is theoretically easy to visit on your own, especially using the Rabin/Wadi Arava crossing from southern Israel. In an effort to boost tourism, the Jordanian visa fee is waived at this crossing only, and going west to east into Jordan is fairly painless from an administrative standpoint. You can choose to make it harder physically, which of course we did. Instead of taking the bus to the central bus station in Eilat and catching a 5-minute, $8 cab to the border crossing, we got off at a lonely bus stop in the middle of the desert and walked to the border crossing based on some great money-saving advice I got online. I cursed this decision almost immediately, as we had to drag our bags about a mile down a baking asphalt road, rendering us overheated and short-tempered by the time we reached the Israeli exit window, where the computers were conveniently down for the next 40 minutes. After finally exiting Israel and making the 5-minute walk across no man’s land between countries, a series of bad signs and bad decisions led us to slog past a series of closed windows only to find we had not gathered the correct stamps and paperwork on the Jordanian side. Back we staggered, wilting with each passing minute, to complete the process before being loosed into a parking lot full of taxis waiting to gouge us for the ride into Aqaba.

Easy to find

Not so easy to find

On the Red Sea, Aqaba was a sleepy beach town, at least at the start of Ramadan. We had trouble finding lunch, the town center was shut down, and alcohol was a no-go almost everywhere, even at most eateries at our hotel. We lucked out at dinnertime, finding that a restaurant recommended by a Jordanian friend from home was not only open but serving beer. A postprandial stroll reinforced our luck in finding this great dinner spot as many places remained closed and the streets unnervingly vacant in a typically busy area, even after the sunset breaking-fast time was past.

On the plus side, chairs by the pool or the sea were widely available!

Ramadan and the drop in tourism continued to change our trip in ways both good and bad as we continued on to Petra (next post – more photos – stay tuned!) and Wadi Rum. At the height of Petra’s tourism crush, some 5000 people roamed the site each day; in the few days preceding our visit, we were told that total was down to about 70 on average. We did have a few more the day we visited, only because a cruise ship had dumped its passengers off for a day trip here, but the UNESCO World Heritage Site was surprisingly and marvelously uncrowded, especially as we roamed deeper and deeper into the ancient city. On the other hand, the pursuit of a drink (nearly impossible) and dinner (difficult before 9:30 pm) in Petra led us on a wild goose chase in town that evening, and all of the shops were closed.

Rooftop dinner in Petra – no need to worry about reservations

Driving from Petra to the Wadi Run protected desert area the next day, our driver told us how daily fasting causes accident levels to spike during the month of Ramadan. Shortly afterward, we saw a huge semi overturned on the side of the road, a sobering glimpse of a somewhat more serious ramification than my not getting a beer at the end of each day. Another crash appeared just a short time later, either as confirmation of his observation or just a wild coincidence.

Bedouin tent on the way to Petra

Our driver was purposely not fasting in order to stay alert in his job, but he advised us to be as thoughtful as possible when eating or drinking around the other guides, drivers, or camel herders. In the end, we refrained from eating at all with anyone fasting and tried to stay hydrated as inconspicuously as possible. While it did not rise to the level of a real challenge, the ability to get a beer or glass of wine was kind of a bummer at the end of our hot, dusty days in Jordan, and many eating establishments had special breakfast tents in the evenings instead of dinner to accommodate Muslim locals and travelers who were breaking their fasts at that hour.

Did Ramadan and some ghost-town-like inactivity impair our enjoyment of Jordan? Not at all. It was different – abbreviated in some ways – but it was a fascinating place to visit. Please watch for my next post(s) on Petra and Wadi Rum in the coming days to see the beauty of this peaceful land.

Why are you going to Russia … in the winter?!

Tags

Church on Spilled Blood, Hermitage, independent travel, Nevsky Prospekt, Pushkin, Russia, St. Petersburg, Tsarskoye Selo

This question, and its individual parts, was posed to me multiple times in the months preceding my trip to Russia a few weeks ago. When I first made the plans, I picked this destination for my January break, in part, because my mental picture of Russia has always included snow swirling on railroad tracks, border guards in fur hats, vast empty parks with snowy trees, and overheated rooms reeking of boiled cabbage! And that’s exactly what we got!

As the trip grew closer, my friends’ and family’s concerns proliferated. I am a fiercely independent traveler; I like a few guided tours here and there to learn more, but I like to be free also – to arrange my own transportation and lodging, to roam the streets, and to find things to do that feel a little more local. At this particular time, less intrepid souls fussed with me about Mr. Putin’s recent aggression, economic desperation that might boost crime against tourists with cameras, jewelry, and dollars, and even international sanctions that could affect food supplies. Stay in your hotel for dinner, I was advised, and certainly don’t walk around after dark. (Given that “after dark” started at 4 pm, that one was a no-go right there!)

That was a long introduction to say that I succeeded in doing this trip my way at my time; Russia in January was magical, and I would not have changed a thing. Unlike most visitors to Russia, my sister and I arranged our visas ourselves, bought plane and train tickets online, booked directly with hotels, arranged a few tours with a guide we found on the internet, and made ourselves at home as much as possible, even when that meant choking down a really bad lunch one day.

Of course, we visited the main draws of St. Petersburg, our primary destination, and its environs. Our first day after arriving, we drove out of the city to Tsarskoye Selo, the imperial village in the town of Pushkin. This is the home of Catherine’s Palace, the Baroque summer residence of the Russian monarchs from Peter the Great to Nicholas II. The palace interior is fascinating in the (been-there, done-that) way of all palaces – over-the-top gilded opulence, rooms covered in jewels (in this case, amber), thrones, rich fabrics, and impossibly high ceilings.

 

 

 

For me, though, the highlight was the snowy park in which the lavish estate is set. The whole complex of architectural structures and gardens was nestled among frosted trees and misty lanes, with the buildings and their brightly-painted walls glowing softly like Color Splash effects in black-and-white photographs. It was a peaceful morning scene, and our walk through the frigid park is a favorite memory.

 

 

 

 

The Hermitage Museum and winter palace was, likewise, a required stop, and it did not disappoint in its majesty and mouth-dropping enormity. One could roam for days through the galleries and exhibits, but we limited our time to four hours or so. The contents are impressive (Rembrandts, Italian masters, an Elgin Marble loan, the peacock clock, etc.), but we concentrated on their backdrop – the floors, walls and ceilings of the building itself.

 

 

 

We made cursory stops at a number of other venerable St Petersburg sites – Peter and Paul Fortress (and the Romanov and other tsars’ tombs), the Church on Spilled Blood, St. Isaac’s Cathedral, and Uprising Square, among others – and spent a very memorable evening at the Mariinsky Theater for a ballet performance of Swan Lake.

 

 

But we also enjoyed several days of just wandering the city between tourist stops. We never once felt threatened in any way, and the mood of the city during the New Year’s/Orthodox Christmas season was not exactly festive, but positive. We never saw any other English-speaking people in our time there (other than a few hotel employees), and the Russian people were patient with us as we pointed at food items and picked like kindergartners through the rubles in our hands to pay. We walked for hours with fur hoods cinched around our faces and handwarmers in our gloves, then burst into massively overheated buildings to eat or shop.

We did a vodka tasting and ate borscht, buckwheat groats, black bread, and blini. We stood in line like the Leningrad proletariat to buy greasy little pyshki (doughnuts) and sweet milky coffee at Zhelyabova 25, a Soviet-era shop where the quarters are cramped, the napkins are square sheets of non-absorbent greasepaper, and the prices are ridiculously low. We ate a $4 lunch (for two!) at a decidedly downscale luncheonette with a cafeteria-style set-up that allowed us to point at our choices (quite poor ones, it turned out), sit at communal tables with local families, and permanently impregnate our clothing with the smell of boiled cabbage and pickled vegetables.

 

We walked Nevsky Prospekt, the city’s main drag for both tourists and citizens, and its offshoots until our toes froze in our boots, admiring the picturesque canals, rivers, and bridges. We lurched, stiff and frozen, along the Neva River embankments to see the carvings there, and we ventured out in a snowstorm one night to eat a delicious vegetarian dinner in a cozy below-grade restaurant with an incongruous photo booth outside.

We ended our time in Russia with a train ride to Estonia. I felt like Anna Karenina boarding the aging, utilitarian train from an icy platform in blowing snow, awkwardly leaping the 18-inch gap into the shabby car with suitcase in hand and settling into an incredibly uncomfortable seat for the 6 ½-hour ride to Tallinn. Along the way, we stopped at a number of isolated countryside stations; at one, I saw a lone babushka and her dog on a cold, dark street and shivered to think I was really, finally in the Russia of my literature-fueled dreams. The border crossings to leave Russia and enter Estonia were satisfyingly stereotypical, with gruff, fur-hatted officers taking our passports and halting our progress for a good hour, and a last-minute attempt to dump rubles in the bar car involved some hilarious miming to buy a couple of beers and some peanuts.

We found no reason to avoid going to Russia right now, even in the dead of winter, and do not understand why so few visitors make an independent foray here. The visa work is admittedly cumbersome and expensive, but once there, it is not difficult to enjoy all the country has to offer without being coddled and dragged around on group tours. Our best memories are not of the big sights, but of the small moments – pushing in line to buy a salmon and cucumber sandwich, rattling down the railroad tracks through the night, listening to Boy George and chuckling at the apt anachronism as we passed looming old Soviet government buildings in a cab, warming up on pumpkin soup and potato pancakes behind a curtained window, and on one glorious January day, seeing the sun come out and illuminate the canals and buildings of this magnificent city just for us.

 

Getting the Least out of Your Trip

Tags

long-form, sarcasm, travel advice

For our current assignment in a long-form writing class, we were asked to do an instructional essay. This came with the encouraging comment that we are all experts on something, and that this post can take many different forms. I do travel a lot, but I still don’t feel that I can comfortably pose as the font of all knowledge on this subject, especially when many of my readers are such accomplished travelers themselves. So, I’ve decided to take a tongue-in-cheek* approach to my favorite theme. Herewith, my instructions for getting the least out of your trip.

*(Sensitive readers: I am being silly and poking fun here; no offense intended!)

Go somewhere famous

First of all, you’ll want to find a well-known destination that everyone has told you about. Any place off the beaten track is too difficult to plan and too weird; you just want to hit the most prominent cities or sights, ideally in well-developed nations, mainly to say you’ve been there. Seeing strange or lesser-known sights in countries with exotic languages and scary-looking foods does not sound like a vacation at all. It is also important to go to that right place at the right time; for example, it’s great to go during the very peak of high season, so that major attractions will be mobbed with tourists, and hotels and tickets will be priced at their maximums. You do not want to be stuck in hauntingly remote Mongolia watching wild horses fly across the steppe when everyone else is in Venice eating gelato in July.

Go here!

Do not go here.

Go somewhere to tick a box

If you have not been to every state, province, or continent, drop any other places you may want to see so that you can actually accomplish something. Seeing a second country in Asia or a different region in California does you no good at all if your goal is a count of some sort. Just because Ghana is vastly different from your Kenyan safari does not mean you should go back to Africa again; wait until you’ve notched Antarctica before you start re-visiting the harder-to-reach continents. Of course, it makes zero sense to pay a repeat call on any one place, no matter how much you loved it, because digging deep is not your goal; covering ground is your priority.

Plan every second

Now that you’ve got a destination and some dates, what’s next? Lay out a timetable, and schedule every minute of every day in the itinerary … and then stick to it no matter what. Day 2 in Paris is supposed to include the Louvre all morning, lunch in the Marais, a ride on the bateaux mouches, a quick duck into Notre Dame, then dinner on the Left Bank. If you get to the Marais and all the quaint shops beckon you to blow off the boat ride and linger in the sunny, cobblestone streets all afternoon, do not succumb! Ambling aimlessly in a famous city means you may miss some monument that needs to be checked off the list of things your guidebook or someone else told you to see. Do not improvise; this can lead to lazy mornings in a random café or a delicious quest to find the best dumplings in town, neither of which is a true travel accomplishment. You may get to know a few backstreets or even meet a fascinating stranger, but this is not why you have traveled over 4000 miles.

Go to the opposite extreme and totally wing it

Don’t be so Type A on your trip, dude! Don’t even bother buying a guidebook or doing any advance prep work or research into a destination. When you discover that morning that your one day in Dublin happens to land on a Sunday and that absolutely nothing is open – not the shops nor the room with the Book of Kells, the main reason you came to Dublin in the first place – don’t be frustrated. Just hang out at your hotel and do not even think about doing any planning for the upcoming days. And if your international flight home out of Helsinki leaves tomorrow, but the ferry from Tallinn is sold out for today … no worries! … this will only cost non-swimmers a $750 airline change fee, no big deal.

Do not leave your comfort zone

First and foremost, find a chain hotel, preferably one based in your own country. There is nothing worse than staying in a place with local decorating, staff, and food. Soothe yourself with a nice, neutral room with no hints of where you are and, by all means, be sure the hotel eateries stock food you are used to (and have English menus, obviously). Ideally, the lobby will have a Starbucks and you’ll be able to get your triple, venti, half-sweet, non-fat, no-foam latte instead of that tiny cup of Turkish coffee all those little old men are drinking on the sidewalk outside.

Along those same lines, locate as soon as possible your own comfort food; for some, this will be McDonald’s and lucky for you, these can be unearthed almost anywhere you decide to go. If you really can’t find one, you can still eat all your meals at your generic hotel; do not consider an outing to meet a local Tibetan family and try their yak meat, butter tea, or tsampa when you can get a juicy room service cheeseburger and avoid the crowded streets outside your little haven. Just being in Lhasa gets you points; don’t worry about actually experiencing it.

Do not eat this …

Find this instead.

Be inflexible, judgmental, and rude

Your tiny prop plane out of the Himalaya can’t fly today because it’s rainy and cloudy in Kathmandu, and the flight would be very unsafe. Be sure to complain loudly to the harried desk agent (a condescending or patronizing tone works best) that it is perfectly sunny where you are and that in your country a little rain does not stop flights from following a schedule. Do not under any circumstances venture outside to enjoy a final look at the beautiful Himalayan peaks or the soft, green, terraced fields near the airport. Instead, take this time to slouch down in your seat and sulk, letting out exasperated grunts and eye rolls any time a new passenger ventures near. To make your delay even more enjoyable, engage this hapless passenger in a litany of your woes.

Be sure to photograph absolutely everything

You certainly do not want to get home without at least 100 photos of the folk dancers you stumbled across in a small square in Cusco. Do not just sit there and enjoy the music and the joy of the dancers. A blurry string of photos, or some video you’ll want to watch at least two times over the course of the rest of your life, definitely outweigh any kind of beautiful memory etched in your heart. Besides, you need a lot of pictures to upload on Facebook. A few highlights are not going to cut it; your friends surely want to see all 1278 shots from your trip. A corollary: when hiking, stop every few feet to capture the scenery on your camera. You cannot rely on your eyes, ears, and feet alone to sear a sunrise, a tinkle of cowbells, or a steep climb into your memory. Holding up your fellow hikers is a non-issue; you paid for this trip and you are going to make everyone else pay, too

Complain when you get home

Finally, don’t forget to make the whole trip sound like a terrible ordeal once you get back home. Remember that one day in your two-week trip when it rained for four hours and you had to buy an over-priced (unattractive) umbrella and you still ruined your (inappropriate) shoes? Complain bitterly about prices, especially if you have haggled and still had to pay an impoverished peddler more than you thought his bracelets were worth. And embrace that jet lag! It makes you seem so put-upon yet worldly; milk it for all it’s worth. Once you are rested, go put that pin in your map and start planning the next bland adventure!

—–

In spite of the fun I had writing this snarky little post, let me assure you that I am no holier than thou. I have visited plenty of popular places, over-planned and under-researched, taken way too many pictures, and done some a lot of complaining on occasion. On the other hand, I have never eaten at a McDonald’s (or even a cheeseburger) overseas, and I have spent many a relaxed afternoon meandering a city with no productive intentions. I have against my wishes stayed in a chain hotel instead of an atmospheric, local inn (I had points!), and I have wimpily taken a pass on skewered beetles and worms, among other frightening foods. Travel should be something different for everyone, and really, the best instruction of all is to just get out there and see more of the world or your country, state, or city. As St. Augustine put it, “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only one page.”

No good advice on this one – do what you’ve got to do!

Travel with a Mission

Tags

foodbanking, hunger, interview, long-form, mission

In a departure from my usual travel stories, today I am featuring an interview, which is my first assignment in a class focused on long-form blogging. I spoke with Jeff Klein, President and CEO of The Global FoodBanking Network, about his business and the kind of travel he does in his work.

With this being a travel blog, can we start by having you explain how your world travel in the past may have influenced your interest in this job?

Well, I had the benefit of some international travel over the years, both for my prior business career and also leisure travel, and I think that it was really more the leisure travel that opened my eyes to the possibility of doing something focused on an international mission. Specifically, the international travel our family did where [we renovated] a school and community center in Costa Rica, and built a home in Mexico, got me really intrigued with the possibility of doing something more service-oriented in an international context.

You mean as a career as opposed to a vacation activity? And how did you pick food?

The initial decision to move from a for-profit corporate career to a non-profit career was not driven in any specific way by the travel experiences I gave you, but the combination of travel and service made me think about that as a possibility. How I decided to move into food was pretty basic. As I thought about different possible careers within the non-profit arena, I decided to investigate a broad category I call “basic human needs” that dealt with hunger, food insecurity (which is not knowing where your next meal is coming from), areas related to staying healthy, and shelter. Hunger, to me, has always been the absolute condition you have to sort out before you can educate or have a healthier, hopeful person. So to me it was the bottom of the pyramid.

Tell us a little about The Global FoodBanking Network in particular.

Well, many people have had experience interacting with foodbanks. Foodbanks started in the U.S. in the ‘60s. A food bank is an institution that’s really good at finding where there might be surplus food in the community … it might be food that has some packaging issues, dented cans, failed product extensions that just haven’t been successful, or promotions where the date for the promotion is over and now the manufacturer has to figure out what to do with it. A foodbank is the process by which that food can be gathered from manufacturers, grocery stores, produce markets, or any place where surplus product exists that’s still healthy and safe and legal to eat, but has just lost its commercial value. Foodbanks gather that through a pretty sophisticated interaction with companies that have those attractive parcels of food. They provide storage, record keeping, and tax receipts and then they redistribute [the food] to organizations that do the actual feeding, whether they’re soup kitchens, food pantries, orphanages, old age homes, or after-school programs.

So, this is foodbanking in general. Where does the Global FoodBanking Network come in?

GFN was created in 2006 out of the organization that focuses on foodbanks in the U.S., known as Feeding America. So many countries had been approaching Feeding America about how to make this happen in [their] countries. It started to consume a lot of staff time at Feeding America, which was focused on addressing domestic hunger, so a decision was taken by the board that, as an experiment, [they would] create an organization that would focus strictly on developing and scaling foodbanks internationally, using the know-how that exists in the U.S. So that was really the birth of The Global FoodBanking Network. [Later,] the focus became, OK, let’s help social entrepreneurs all over the world create foodbanks in their communities.

(Courtesy of The Global FoodBanking Network)

How many countries are you in now?

We’re currently working in 34 countries, either where we have foodbanks that are network partners of ours, or where we’re working on a project with the short-term goal of establishing a sustainable foodbank there to meet the local hunger needs.

What are the top few countries that you’re looking to get into next?

We have active projects in Botswana; that’s one that’s fairly new. We’re working with a great team to make an existing foodbank bigger in Peru and to make a foodbank a reality in Bangalore, India. Those would be three that are pretty topical right now.

Does your work differ depending on what country you’re working in?

The basic model of foodbanks is a good place to start, but yes, the model is very, very different in different countries. In Mexico, as an example, the foodbank provides food to local people who are identified by members of the community as having a particularly difficult time either through a sickness or a job loss, etc., so the food is distributed directly to hungry people as opposed to organizations like orphanages or organized non-profits. In some countries, there’s not much food that’s manufactured or retailed at grocers. Israel would be an example of one that has abundant produce. So they do something known as gleaning, which is work with over 700 farmers who will from time to time make their production available, either because they don’t think they can sell it at a profit, or it may have some modest damage or be out of season, or they may just do it for tithing purposes. They’ll gather that produce and redistribute it, which is great because it’s very healthy. So models change based on culture, local prices, local tax law and other regulations, but the general model is consistently applied with tailoring for the local geographies.

Gleaning in Israel. (Courtesy of The Global FoodBanking Network and Omri Rubisa of Front Photography)

One of the things we all learn though traveling is that we need to be culturally attuned. Can you give us an example of a place where you’ve had to change the way you talk or do business?

There are so many examples. I don’t like to speak about “Asia” [as one big place] because it [contains] many different cultures, but one thing that’s common among many of the countries is this idea of “hunger.” They view it as very insulting if they perceive that you’re telling them that you want to open a foodbank because they are not able to successfully feed their people; they see it as a loss of face, which is very significant in many of the Asian cultures. So when you address the notion of foodbanks, you really need to use different words. You can’t use words like “poverty” and “hunger.” What you do is try to convince people that it would be great to salvage or rescue perfectly fine food before it gets wasted or goes to a landfill. People usually say, yeah, that’s a really great idea! And we had this problem in India where people would say to us “why in the world would any organization want to provide free food to people?” They were convinced there was a political agenda and there was some kind of scheme to buy votes for the party that wasn’t in political control. So we had to spend a lot of time talking about why this was to supplement their activity, or a different approach that really focused on excess food that was going to be heading to landfill.

Can you tell me how it’s different to travel when you’re essentially on a mission vs. traveling just to enjoy yourself?

A couple of different ways. One is that financial resources are always in short supply, so when I do travel I tend to be very discerning about taking the trip in the first place and wanting to have my schedule be very relevant, where I can have meetings that are not just observational meetings. I mean, I have the curiosity, obviously, to see our operations, but everything I do when I travel is with the goal of making more resources available, better communicating the story, and raising awareness, all things that will help the success of the enterprise there. So I don’t leave myself a lot of time for traditional touring. I do try to engage in the culture and meet people that we’re feeding, but it’s first and foremost a very intense business experience; I’m trying to spend my time there to advance the cause locally. So that would be the first reaction; the second is that when I do my visiting, it’s not typically in parts of town that a normal tourist would want to go to. I’m seeing places where people are in desperate situations in terms of their financial status and hunger level. So in that sense it’s probably pretty different.

Do you feel hopeful about the future of food security in the world as a whole?

I try to. I think that what I can say is that a greater percentage of the world seems to be aware of the issue. I would say young people are very focused on hunger and the food waste that I talked about – the amount of food that the world grows but is not consumed, which is about a third of the world’s food, an unacceptable and staggering amount of waste. I think the world is putting some pretty intelligent, creative, focused resources against that problem and, of course, every pound of food that’s saved does not pollute, but it also feeds. In that sense I am more hopeful – that the amount of food waste that exists will be squeezed down and the beneficiary of that will hopefully be hungry people. I am encouraged by that. The world produces enough food to feed everybody on the planet, but so much of the food that we produce is wasted for commercial and logistics and distribution-oriented reasons, and sometimes, frankly, very cavalier treatment of food, where we take it for granted and are fairly wasteful just in our own consumption habits.

(Courtesy of The Global FoodBanking Network)

Is there anything else you’d like to add about your organization for my readers?

The only thing is, if you want to know more, go to foodbanking,org. We’ve got a really great website that’s educational, both on the nature of the food waste problem and the hunger problem, and what we’re all about and where we’re working in the world to reduce the amount of hunger that people experience.

Collecting Countries

Tags

Country count, in-depth travel, places visited

Lately I’ve noticed that some world travelers seem rather unappealingly attached to their “country counts.” It is certainly tempting to do; once you do start seriously wandering the globe and the count does start creeping up into impressive numbers, it is hard not to get a little, let’s just say, aggressive about adding places. Why not sneak over to Colonia del Sacramento for a day while in Buenos Aires and add Uruguay to the tally? Or take a day trip to Montenegro from Dubrovnik to bulk up the Balkans score. I’ve done both of those myself and enjoyed them immensely, but (I’d like to think) not just to notch two more nations. I gave my son grief this summer for driving a car over the Bosnian border from Croatia for a grand total of fifteen miles, and I joked that he could not really say he’d been to Bosnia & Herzegovina. His facetious response/rule? If you have something to eat or drink in a nation, it counts. So a cup of coffee later, he had added a new country!

All silliness aside, for all my wide travels, I’ve discovered in myself a preference to go deep – to spend a whole trip in one country or even one region. Beyond this, I’ve also gone back to many countries more than once when I just couldn’t get them out of my head. Yes, I could use my hard-earned money and vacation time to add another place to my list, but on a second or third trip, I can dig deeper than the main tourist sites and really get to know a place, or I can branch out and visit lesser-known cities or areas. And I just love the feeling of going back somewhere and feeling almost like a native; it’s so satisfying to really feel attached and connected or, even better, to know every little shortcut in a town and even give directions to someone else in a city halfway across the world.

Greece was one of the first places I visited multiple times. I had gone there as a child with my Greek grandparents, attended a camp in my teens, funded my own way there one summer during high school, and returned years later with my own family. Spain, too, became a favorite after a study abroad program and two subsequent trips to see new places and revisit old favorites, and France (notably Paris) has managed to insert itself into almost every western European trip I’ve taken.

The first country with which I truly fell in love, though, was Peru. I distinctly remember getting on the plane after trekking the Inca Trail and spending a little time in Cusco and Lima. I looked longingly out the window and just knew I would be coming back. In fact, I was back on a plane by myself a mere five months later to further explore the Cusco area and the Sacred Valley. I stayed in a small neighborhood in Cusco and fancied myself a Cusqueña; I walked all day, shopped in the local markets, and took a few day trips to Pisac and other towns along the Urubamba River. Rather unbelievably, I was offered the opportunity to go back again four months later to help lead a small group of visitors for a microcredit organization, and a year after that, I repeated that trip. Other than Peruvian tour guides, I may be one of the few people who has visited Machu Picchu three times in less than two years! I am now certainly the go-to source on Peru among my friends.

I have an even deeper connection and infatuation with Tibet, a country that is difficult to get to once, let alone twice. I originally went to Lhasa as part of a bigger trip to China but, again, before I’d even left this mystical city, I knew I was destined to go back and see more of both Lhasa and Tibet overall. A year later, I was back on the roof of the world and, this time, I hired a young man I had met on the first trip to take my daughter and me deep into the countryside. We spent days bumping along dusty roads on the Tibetan plateau. We stopped in raggedy little towns and ate with the locals; this eventful ride culminated in a brief stay and trek at Mount Everest’s north base camp, a place I had often imagined from all my reading. If I could, I’d jump right back on the brutal flights necessary to deliver me to spiritual Tibet yet again.

But other lands do call. One of them is Russia, the land of some of my favorite authors and a place that has long attracted me through its history and literature. In January, I will finally walk the streets of Anna Karenina and Raskolnikov, and in the bitter winter cold, I hope to experience in some small way the plight of so many pre- and post-revolution Russian characters, both real and fictional. I will see as much as I can, but after the Russian feast, I will do what the country-counters do – I’ll stop in Tallinn, Estonia and Helsinki, Finland for a small bite of dessert on my way home!

ICELAND: The Best of the Rest

Tags

Blue Lagoon, Geysir, Golden Circle, Gullfoss, Hella, Hellnar, Hofn, Iceland, Jokulsarlon, Skogar, Snaefellsnes, Stykkisholmur, Thingvellir, Vik

For its size, Iceland offers an unparalleled array of sights and experiences – from the bustling capital, Reykjavik (covered in Iceland Post 1) to serious treks and outdoor activities (second Iceland post) to every kind of topography one can think of. Today, I wrap up my Iceland entries with a compilation of all the other great stuff we saw and did in our eight days in this marvelous little country.

The Snæfellsnes Peninsula: With a just-barely-more-pronounceable name than the famous volcano in my last post, this western spit of land was one of our favorite parts of the island. Perhaps it was because it was our first destination outside of Reykjavik, but the Snæfellsnes peninsula really struck us with its natural beauty. We covered nearly the whole peninsula in the car, starting on the south shore with a hike near Hellnar, passing through Hellasandur and the national park at the tip, and circling back on a more northern route via Olafsvik, Grundarfjörður, and Stykkishólmur. At the end, we crossed the rugged mountain range separating the north and south coasts. Highlights were a short hike from Hellnar to Arnastapi (under two hours round trip) on a coastal trail reminiscent of Ireland’s Cliffs of Moher, wild horse sightings all along the roads in the national park, and the charming fishing village of Stykkishólmur.

Hellnar to Arnastapi hike

Coastal hike from Hellnar to Arnastapi

Stykkishólmur harbor

The South and Southeast: Maybe it was the appearance of the sun one day, but the whole south coast was among the most memorable of our countryside outings. We loved the marshy, riparian look of Hella and Hvolsvollur, the lush mountains above Skogafoss in Skogar, and the eerie black “ashtray” landscape near Thorsmork. Continuing east, we marveled at the blue-tinged chunks of ice in Jokulsarlon’s glacial lagoon and the black sand beaches of Vik. We hit luminous Höfn at the peak of afternoon sun and lazily drank a beer at a picnic table in the harbor, then ambled out along the beach with a spectacular view of mountains, a glacier, marshy grasses, and water. We did not do justice to Skaftafell National Park, a majestic collection of trails and sights; it was the day after our intense Fimmvörðuháls hike and our legs were just not cooperating! We stayed for two nights in tiny Kirkjubæjarklaustur, a perfect location between all the sites above, and found our most economical meal of the trip here – delicious pizza and salad at Systrakaffi.

Glacial lagoon, Jokulsarlon

Vik

Hofn

The Golden Circle: This loop, just a bit north of Reykjavik, is the most popular tourist route outside of the capital.   The iconic Iceland sights are all here – the geysers in Geysir, the stunning double waterfall, Gullfoss, and the heart of the nation, Thingvellir, where early parliaments met and the impressive continental rift can be seen. In spite of its fame, this area was one of my least favorite overall; the driving was unexciting and the crowds detracted from the rough Icelandic beauty we saw in so many other places. It was a must-see while in the country, but I’m glad we spent a few hours here and not a whole day. (Likewise, the Blue Lagoon was an interesting stop on our way to the airport at the end, but definitely not a highlight – too many tourists and vastly overpriced.)

Gullfoss

Big scenery, small buildings: Everywhere we went, we saw huge mountains, trees, and waterfalls looming over teeny houses and churches. There’s a reason so many photos of Iceland portray this contrast; it’s an irresistible juxtaposition of the grand and the simple. In many ways, it’s symbolic of the country in general. The scenery in Iceland is some of the most striking and imposing in the world, yet the human presence in this sparsely-populated land is meager – only some 320,000 people in the whole nation.

Language: With two language teachers on the road together, it was inevitable that we would be fascinated by the daunting-looking Icelandic language. Like German, to which it is related, Icelandic is an agglutinative language that uses many compound words, resulting in long strings of vowels and consonants that look outrageously difficult to pronounce but can easily be broken down into separate words that we began to recognize over the course of a week. Nevertheless, we found ourselves using only the first few syllables as we checked our maps and books; we stayed in “Stykkish,” drove to “Jokuls,” climbed near “Eyja,” and slept in “Kirk.” We had loads of fun turning the noun “snyrting” (toilet or restroom) into a verb and ordered many a “pylsur” (hot dog) in the gas stations along our route. (And by the way, gas stations like N1 were a godsend to our food budget; these clean, well-stocked shops had wonderful – sometime even chic – cafés with good food and shelves of healthy snacks.)

From town to country, peak to shore, majestic to simple, Iceland was a land of stunning contrasts – and we loved them all.

Faces of the World

Tags

faces, people, Tibet

Spectacular scenery makes for great photographs, but what really connects me to many of the places I’ve visited are the people I’ve seen and met. For me, their faces mirror the wonders, difficulties, and nuances of their lands, and it is these photos I always seem to return to when I need a fix of another time and place.

Today’s faces are from TIBET