Ten Feet Out the Door

Tags

family, family travel, gathering, Weekly Photo Challenge

Every few years, our family of five eschews traditional gift-giving at Christmas time. Instead, we gather in some far-off location where we can just be with each other without the distractions of errands, other friends, or holiday madness.

Epidaurus, Greece

Long before we started this tradition, we carted our kids around the world as they were growing up. When I look back now, I can’t imagine how we herded three children under ten (with suitcases) through the radiating streets around the Arc de Triomphe to catch the rush-hour metro. I am in awe of the mere idea of trekking and camping with five teenagers (our three and two friends) on the Inca Trail. I cringe to remember my 6-year-old pushing and shoving with a friend on the edge of a chasm in the Dart River area of New Zealand. And I have photos to document the times we pulled over to capture some striking scenery and ended up with one boy or another watering the local flora on the side of the road. (T alone has sprinkled five continents, I would guess.) Ten feet out the door was not an excursion for the meek; it was a major production and involved the assembling of a lot more than just people. Back then we had to gather passports, inoculation records, tiny backpacks, snacks  – and more often than not, our wits – as we set off for new places.

Serengeti, Tanzania

As the years passed, the kids got busy with activities and college and their own lives, and my husband could never get away as much as I could to travel. I started to travel alone – either completely solo the whole time or just on my own until I met up with a trekking group somewhere. Even as some of my neighbors clucked disapprovingly, I grew to really relish my time alone, and I tried to book at least one and sometimes two trips a year during my work breaks to explore somewhere my husband didn’t care to go.

Iguazu Falls, Argentina

But as much as I enjoy the adventure and peace of wandering the world on my own or in small numbers, the gathering of my brood to travel somewhere new is the greatest gift I can imagine. This year, our gathering spot will be Colombia, and I can’t wait to have our ten feet all together once again!

See some other great takes on the Weekly Photo Challenge here!

High Adventure!

Tags

#merufilm, Meru, scary hikes, Shark's Fin, Thrilling Trails

In the last week or so, I’ve come across two things that have fed my hunger for adventure at a time when the only ‘thrill’ in my life is income production for the next exploit. For one, I saw that a local independent theater was playing the new-ish documentary MERU, a gripping mountain-climbing film that also features three appealing climbers. One of them, Jimmy Chin, is also a celebrated photographer and filmmaker and, lucky for us, he attended the opening screening here in Chicago and spoke with the audience afterward about his roles as climber, director, and producer of MERU.

From the merufilm.com website, here is part of the introduction to whet your appetite:

“In the high-stakes game of big-wall climbing, the Shark’s Fin on Mount Meru may be the ultimate prize. Sitting at the headwaters of the sacred Ganges River in Northern India, the Shark’s Fin has seen more failed attempts by elite climbing teams over the past 30 years than any other ascent in the Himalayas.

… To undertake Meru, says Jon Krakauer, the bestselling author of Into Thin Air, “You can’t just be a good ice climber. You can’t just be good at altitude. You can’t just be a good rock climber. It’s defeated so many good climbers and maybe will defeat everybody for all time. Meru isn’t Everest. On Everest you can hire Sherpas to take most of the risks. This is a whole different kind of climbing.”

In October 2008, Conrad Anker, Jimmy Chin and Renan Ozturk arrived in India to tackle Meru. What was meant to be a seven-day trip with the equivalent amount of food became a 20-day odyssey in sub-zero temperatures, thanks to the setback of a massive storm that showered the mountain with at least 10 feet of snow. Like everyone before them, their journey was not a successful one.  … By September 2011, Anker had convinced his two lifelong friends to undertake the Shark’s Fin once more, under even more extraordinary circumstances than the first time around.

MERU is the story of that journey—one of friendship, sacrifice, hope and obsession.”

MERU won the U.S. Documentary Audience Award at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival, and it’s easy to see why. The film succeeds as both an adventure film and as a story of personal struggle for the three men. The website link above lists theaters across the U.S where the film is opening through mid-October if you, too, need a jolt of adventure but can’t leave your home or armchair right now!

***

The climbing in MERU is light years beyond what I have ever done or could ever hope to do. But a day after watching the film and wishing I were 20 years younger and 10 times braver, I came across a National Geographic list of the World’s Best Hikes: Thrilling Trails, and (ever-so-slightly) puffed out my chest at the discovery that I had done two of them. (Yes, I agree in advance with many of you who would argue for more/other/different treks than those on this list; there are lists for everything these days, but this is as good a start as any for this post!)

One of them, Huayna Picchu in Peru (see my post on that hike here), really was terrifying, but the other – the Kakum Canopy Walk in Ghana – did not faze me at all.

Kakum Canopy Walk, Ghana

Precipitous paths do induce fear in me, but creaky swinging bridges high over ravines do not. I guess we all have our personal fear factors. Hiking near a smoking volcano – not a problem. The via ferrata treks – lots of fun / add them to the list! Clinging to those splintered old wood platforms with giant gaps in them on Mount Huashan in China – never, ever going to happen for me!

These 20 hikes have various scare quotients, from tight squeezes in narrow tunnels to dizzying heights to extreme temperatures. Some of them sound quite exciting to me and will be added to my travel wish list, a few of them are things I would not do for a million dollars, and two of them are hikes I have already done.

How many of these 20 Thrilling Trails have you trekked? I’d love to hear your take on them or any other adrenaline-producing ones you’ve done!

• Besseggen Ridge, Norway
• El Caminito de Rey, Spain
• Leukerbad Via Ferrata, Switzerland
• Devil’s Path, New York, USA
• Stromboli, Italy
• Aonach Eagach Ridge, Scotland
• Huntington Ravine, New Hampshire, USA
• Kokoda Trail, Papua New Guinea
• Dry Fork Coyote Gulch, Utah, USA
• Black Hole of White Canyon, Utah, USA
• Granite Peak, Montana, USA
• Búri Cave, Iceland
• Crypt Lake Trail, Alberta, Canada
• Pacaya Volcano, Guatemala
• Huayna Picchu, Peru
• Mount Huashan, China
• Lion’s Head, South Africa
• Kakum Canopy Walk, Ghana
• Low’s Peak Via Ferrata, Malaysia
• Chadar Trek, India

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!

Here’s to Beer

Tags

Beer

My recent Friday Photo of some Guinness kegs in Dublin got me thinking about beer. The nectar of the gods is always a big part of my travel enjoyment. Before you think me a sot, let me say that I am simply an enthusiastic social drinker who particularly relishes a cold beer after a long day of trekking, sightseeing, or laboring.One of my fondest beer memories is from a trip we took to the Monteverde cloud forest area in Costa Rica. Our family joined a larger group to work for nine days in Santa Elena, CR, where we mixed concrete by hand, dug trenches, hauled concrete blocks, and built bookshelves, among other duties. At the end of each long, hot day, we were filthy and exhausted. When we arrived back at our humble hostel each night, the dilemma was what to do first: quench our thirst and relax our aching bodies with a drink, or clean ourselves up? As the days passed, the original binary choice of Beer or Shower morphed into a multivariable quandary expressed as Beer-Shower-Beer? or Shower-Beer-Beer? or Beer-Beer-Shower? or (screw the shower!) Beer-Beer-Beer! Imperial was definitely the ale of choice here, regardless of whether it was consumed before or after the bathing.

A good, local beer after a long day of trekking is also a marvelous reward. At dusk in the Great Rift Valley in Tanzania, we enjoyed many a Safari, Tusker, or Kilimanjaro outside our tents.

On the Inca Trail in Peru, we became quite partial to Cusqueña Dark, while in Glacier National Park in northern Montana and Canada, we consistently grabbed a Moose Drool out of the cooler. Asia is not a high point for beer, but once we had acclimatized in the Himalayas in Nepal, we enjoyed a Gorkha or Everest most evenings after a day on the Khumbu trails. And a cold and rainy Mount Fitz Roy climb in Argentina was blissfully followed by two delicious home-brewed dark and blonde beers at cozy La Cervecería in the tiny town of El Chaltén.

Even a casual sightseeing day is enhanced by a good beer during or after. The light and dark Sarajevska brews in Bosnia & Herzegovina were both excellent at the end of a travel day, and in Düsseldorf, Germany, we drank our way through a day-long layover at the Braueries Uerige and Zum Schlüssel, both famous for their altbiers.

In Iceland, we happily whiled away several afternoons in Reykjavik with some Brios, Gulls, and Egils, and we tamed our post-trek PTSD after a particularly daunting mountain hike with a good Borg Úlfur draft.

And then there’s Ireland, oh Ireland! A real Guinness Draught the minute we arrived in Dublin at 10:30 am and a weekend full of Murphy’s Irish Stout, Harp Lager, and so many more rich and creamy Irish ales. A “beer from the roof of the world,” a Lhasa, perked up a lunch at 11,000+ feet in Tibet, an Ožujsko welcomed us to Dubrovnik, Croatia, and we lingered over a luscious Laško in Ljubljana, Slovenia.

 

Another dark beauty, a Książęce, bid us farewell on our last night in Krakow, Poland … and on that note, I’m off to the fridge! Cheers!

Facing Fears

Tags

Conquering fear, Lukla, travel dangers, world's most dangerous airport

I am not a total chicken, but I don’t consider myself the bravest person around either. (Some people in my family might, possibly, even argue I’m a bit of a worrier, maybe.) Travel has presented me with some good challenges, and there have definitely been times I was not at all sure I was up for them. The existence of this post means I have somehow survived all these real and perceived dangers, but the memory of a few of them can still make my hair stand on end years later.

When it comes to nerves on the road, it doesn’t have to be bungee jumping or whitewater rafting to produce a good adrenaline rush sometimes; believe me, I’ve frozen up before my share of foreign subway ticket machines while my train is leaving the station, and it can be daunting just trying to get directions or pump gas in a country where I can’t even read the alphabet!

But danger to life and limb is a different story. The first time I remember really feeling physically shaky was on a zip line in Costa Rica. The zipping itself was a blast, and standing on the platforms between zips was manageable, but there were three platforms from which we had to rappel instead of glide. The idea of that backward step D-O-W-N (that’s 140 feet down!) and the initial drop freaked me out; I was not at all sure using my hand as a brake was really going to slow me down and I pictured quite a splat at the bottom when it didn’t work. It did.

Tight spots and closed-in spaces are another great fear inducer for me. I once got talked into going down into some cenotes in the Yucatan peninsula and swimming down an underground river; to this day, the thought of being in that watery underground cavern makes me shiver. Likewise, crawling through stone tunnels – twice – in Peru made my blood pound as I tried to inch forward, feeling both my back and stomach scraping rock and knowing all too well that I could never turn around if I had to. Just the thought of being closed in gives me nightmares, and being in these claustrophobic situations in real life made me feel sick. I was sure I would be the first person to become paralyzed or trapped inside all those dark tunnels. I wasn’t.

Scary vehicle stories abound in my travels and many others’. From the bouncing, out-of-control rickshaw in Lhasa traffic, to the bus careening around mountain curves in the Balkans, to the Athenian driver who … well, ALL the Athenian drivers … , traveling under someone else’s control can be quite frightening. By far the greatest example of transportation trepidation was a flight from Kathmandu into Lukla, Nepal – the gateway to the hiking trail to Everest.

In the weeks before traveling, I watched way too many Youtube videos of this harrowing flight and by the time I boarded the aging, cramped prop plane, I was terrified out of my mind. For once, everyone on board shared my nervousness and a few morbid jokes took the edge off for the first few minutes. Both take-off and the flight into the Himalaya were smooth enough, but the landing was a big gulp. Trying to hit a 1700-foot long, 65-foot wide runway that starts at the edge of a cliff and slants uphill toward a mountain face at the other end, the pilot deliberately cuts the engine just before touchdown (stall alarm screaming) and slams on the brakes to mercifully end the flight. Before the trip, I had recurring visions of dying on this landing just as a planeload of passengers had a few weeks before. Luckily, I didn’t.

Heights and narrow ledges are another test of my mental strength. I know I am sure-footed and rarely worry that I will misstep, so my fear here is not always a physical one. No, I’m afraid that others will slip and either bump me or make me watch their own flailing deathfalls. On a narrow trail in New Zealand’s Dart River area, with a huge ravine on one side, I was petrified watching my son walk in (what I perceived to be) a careless way through the woods. I kept picturing him tripping and falling off but, of course, he didn’t. At Angel’s Landing in Zion National Park, I did question my own footwork and had the additional fear that one of the heavy chains I was grasping to stay on the ledges might suddenly pull out of the rock. Somehow, it stayed intact this one more time!

If I had to pick my poison? Well, I think I’d take heights and rickety ledges and scary vehicles over anything cramped or subterranean. An avid spelunker or diver I will never be. I’d rather fall off a cliff than get stuck deep in the sea or an extended passageway underground. Just reading articles – heck, just typing these words – about cavers trapped in rain-filled tunnels or deep-sea divers whose ropes get tangled on coral makes me sweat and breathe faster.

Fording fast rivers in Chile. Exiting a chaotic airport in the middle of the night in Kathmandu. Eating a singed guinea pig in Peru. They’ve all required a gut check of some kind or another, but I’ve made it through all of them and learned a little about needless worrying, maybe. “Always do what you are afraid to do,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. I’m trying to take him up on that challenge as often as possible.

[Photo of Xcaret cenote from hellomagazine.com]

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

 

 

Why Huayna Picchu?

Tags

Huayna Picchu, Machu Picchu, Peru

After completing the four-day Inca Trail trek into Machu Picchu, a few of us decided we needed one more challenge. Halfway up the mountain behind the lost city of the Incas, all I could think about was “why?”

The ancient city of Machu Picchu is what visitors come to see, but the iconic mountain looming in the background of almost every photo shot there is the frame without which those pictures would look like many other ruins. Access to that backdrop, Huayna Picchu, is strictly controlled; at the time we were there, only 400 people were allowed to climb it each day. We were up at 5 am, in line before 7, and to the gate and moving down off Machu Picchu (Old Mountain) and up onto Huayna Picchu (Young Mountain) by 8 am. My initial plan was to go as far as my fitness and fright would allow. Within minutes, my group had left me behind, and I stumbled and clambered and whined in my head as I ascended steadily but fearfully. Huayna Picchu is not that steep or that high, and the path is not that narrow, but the combination of pretty steep, pretty narrow, and no impediments between the path and a 1000-foot pitch off the mountainside made this little morning diversion a real adrenaline rush for me.

Whether it was through stubbornness, a need to prove something, idiocy, or sheer momentum, I finally reached a plateau near the top where the trail diverged and signaled the point of no return to the summit. I rested a moment and considered, looking toward the peak for some sign of my companions, unaware that they would descend a different way. I had gone this far, and my lungs and legs were saying yes, so I turned right and headed up the tiny stone steps. At times, I crawled like a baby, and I steadfastly kept my eyes on the stairs and away from the dizzying precipices on the sides. There were some ropes and wires on the most exposed sections, but not nearly enough to make me feel secure. Simply put, I was scared sick.

Finally, I reached a tunnel, which I had to squeeze through on my hands and knees, holding my backpack out in front of me; I emerged from this channel of hell almost on my stomach. My relief was short-lived as I next approached a creaky wood ladder leading up through a crevice onto a huge, slanted slab of granite. I crawled off the ladder and onto the rock, and there I was – at the peak!

I had little time to exult. The summit was crowded and I knew I needed to get down in very little time to meet my family. Starting the descent made me almost as panicky as the climb, for I first had to slide down another inclined hunk of granite with no hand- or foot-holds. I crabwalked gingerly, scraping the bottom of my pack the whole way down. The rest of the return journey was a nightmare in reverse, but I had one of the greatest feelings of accomplishment ever when I reached the bottom. So why Huayna Picchu? To quote George Mallory who was, I admit, describing a much greater challenge: “because it is there.”

Those are the Machu Picchu ruins WAYYY down there!

 

Friday Photos: Queens of their Domains

Tags

Nepal, Peru, Tanzania, Tibet, Travel Himalayas

I have so many photos to share, and I can’t imagine I will write a post about each and every one of them.  I thought I’d pick a few favorites each Friday and post them with simple captions only.

Ama Dablam, from Everest Base Camp trail, Nepal

Serengeti, Tanzania

Peruvian woman, Chinchero, Peru