365 Days of Freedom.

28 Jun

A year ago today I wiped my classroom chalkboard clean for the last time, and walked out into the New York City summer as a truly free woman.

I had been waiting for this moment for what felt like eons.   We’d been planning to leave, in some form or another, for years, and I had been imagining this moment for nearly as long.  Don’t get me wrong here, I didn’t hate my job, I just knew that this part of my life was coming to an end and I was ready to move onto the next bit.

Honestly, it was a little anti-climactic.  Two days later we packed up the rental truck and drove what remained of our belongings back to a storage unit in Colorado, so at the time we were still in a bit of a frenzy.

Before we officially set out on this journey we took 4 months to decompress in Vermont, which was a lifesaver.  Living in New York City turns you into a different kind of beast, and I was ready to unwind and re-learn how to live slowly.

Not working is exactly as great as it sounds.  If we could do it forever, we would!  At the time, there were some murmurs of worry from well-intentioned friends and family.  People worried that we were leaving very stable jobs and benefits for something unknown.  People worried that we would have a hard time replacing those jobs when we were finished travelling.  People worried that we’d become lazy and not have the motivation to work.

The thing is, those were their big worries, not necessarily ours.  I’m not going to tell you we didn’t have some moments of doubt or fear along the way, or that we haven’t thought about the obstacles we may face when we return.   We’ve got a plan for facing the potentially difficult job market as well as a healthy re-entry fund, and that’s all anyone can really do in our situation.

The other day a friend posted this on Facebook:

There is incredible truth in that statement.  Anything you want that requires change is likely to be at least a little bit scary.  If you never confront that fear, you will never be able to make the changes.

We know that there are no guarantees in this life.  That’s exactly why we’ve spent every day this last year living with wild abandon even when, or perhaps especially when, it frightens us.  For the first time in my life I can say that I am living my life without regret.  I know that we may not ever get an opportunity like this again, and I refuse to let fear stand in the way.

Photo Friday – Spice Market in Jerusalem

22 Jun

The spice stall

Local markets are probably my favorite place to spend time in a new city.  You can learn an incredible amount about local culture by wandering around the market and seeing what’s for sale, which usually includes everything from local produce to local fashion.  Jerusalem’s old city has an extensive market.   Parts of it are geared nearly completely to tourism and you’ll find stall after stall of t-shirts, rugs and trinkets, BUT, if you wander off a bit down the side streets you’ll encounter the local market stalls.  We passed this vendor selling spices, clearly still close to the tourist center as the labels are in English, and the smells were intoxicating.  I want to bottle it up and be able to take it with me…perhaps a new flavor of scratch-and-sniff is in order?

Tags: , , ,

The Ecuador Roundup

19 Jun

The Statistics

Number of days spent in country –  16

Cities/towns visited – Banos, Lago Agrio, Cuyabano (rainforest reserve area), Quito, Otovalo

Number of different lodgings – 4

Bus journeys –  21

Combi/collective/taxi  journeys – 3

Boat rides – 8 short rides

Days of rain – 4

Budget

Total US dollar amount spent – $1,295

Average cost per day, per person – $40.50

Average lodging cost per person, per night – $11  We generally stayed in private rooms with our own bathroom.  Staying in dorms would have cut our costs a little, but not enough for us to deal with the hassle of sleeping in a room full of randoms.

Most expensive lodging – $11.50/person for a double room with a shared bath in Quito

Least expensive lodging – $8/person for a kinda gross dorm room with a shared bath in Quito

Average food/drink cost per day (per person) – $15.51  We had some splurge meals that upped this total, you could get by easily on half this cost for a food budget if you stuck totally to cheap set lunches and street meat for dinner.  We were pretty sick of soup, rice, potatoes and low-end meat by this point though so we opted to spend a little more and get a better variety/quality of food.

Our biggest budget buster was a 4 day trip to the Amazon, which set us back about $450, and was so totally worth it.  We booked our trip through an agency in Banos, and ended up at the Jamu Lodge, which I’d highly recommend.  All our food and lodging costs were included for those days, along with an English speaking guide and all the activities.

The Best

Hostel – Traveller’s Inn in Quito.  Rooms are a good price, spotless, and a huge breakfast is included.  They also have a happy hour with $1 big beers, though keep track of your tab or pay as you go, we were charged for at least 4 more beers than we really had.

Food – The encebollado soup (like a seafood and onion soup, sounds odd, but is DELICIOUS) at Picanteria y Restaurante Tiburon on Gyuaquil at Montufar in Quito.  A gigantic bowl of soup will set you back about $3.50 and comes with a little bowl of popcorn and plantains.

Tour – Jamu Lodge 4 day Amazon tour.  I’ve said before that we don’t generally do tours but you can’t go to the Cuyabeno Amazon Reserve without a tour.

Rainforest waters at sunset

It’s a protected area of primary rainforest, and had we known how much we’d love it, we would have done a week there.  We heard you see more animals on a pampas tour in Bolivia, and compared to jungle treks there, that may be true…but I can’t imagine seeing much more wildlife than we saw in the 4 days we were on this trip.  There were multiple species of monkey, pink river dolphins, caimans, anacondas (2!), all kinds of birds and fish and bugs and and and and and!

A brave friend attempts to lick a giant “spiney lobster cricket”….blech!

The lodge was very well run, clean, and comfortable.  Our guide, Dario, was excellent.  The food was good and plentiful.  We got a better price than on their website by booking in Banos, though we didn’t realize it was a better price until later.  There are a variety of different lodges you can visit, so check out your options before you book.  They all seem relatively similar though, and are all located in the same general area.  I’ll write a full post about it eventually, but if you are on the fence about a jungle tour while in Ecuador, just do it!  It ranks in the top 5 things we did in South America for sure.

The Worst

The bus rides.  People say Bolivian buses are bad, but I’m telling you, we had worse rides in Ecuador than we ever did in Bolivia.  Cramped seating, a total lack of air conditioning or circulation, and maniac drivers that I thought were about to drive us right of off the cliff’s edge numerous times.  The absolute worst ride we had in all of South America was an overnight bus from Banos to Lago Agrio that was so cramped even I had my knees smashed into the seat in front of me.  No one would open their windows and it was horribly hot and humid.  They also oversold the bus so there were people actually laying in the isles for the whole ride.  It sucked.

Tags: , , , ,

Photo Friday – Produce in Turkey

15 Jun

This week I don’t have the most spectacular or artistic of photos, but it’s something that’s been very representative of our time in Turkey.  Turkey is the only country in the world that produces enough fruits and vegetables to feed its entire population.  The only one!  I am pretty amazed by that, and it certainly explains both the quantity and quality of fruits and veggies we’ve encountered here.  You can get a kilo (that’s more than 2 pounds!) of cherries or apricots for about 1.75…it’s unreal.  Breakfasts consist of tomato, cucumber, cheese, olives, bread, honey and in some places we also get huge slices of watermelon.

I’ve never seen tomatoes this consistently magnificent anywhere else in the world.  I kid you not, every veggie stand we pass has crates and crates of the most perfectly ripe tomatoes.  They don’t ever seem to be bruised, or picked too early, or worm infested.  I buy them sometimes just to eat whole, like an apple.  Mmmmmm.

Tags: , , , , , ,

The Bolivia Roundup

11 Jun

The Statistics

Number of days spent in country –  19

Cities/towns visited – Tupiza, Uyuini, Potosi, La Paz, Coroico, Copacabana, Isla del Sol and various little settlements in the southwestern part during our jeep tour.

Number of different lodgings – 10

Flights – 0

Bus journeys – 6

Combi/collective/taxi  journeys – 3 plus a 4 day jeep tour.

Days of rain – 3

Budget

Total US dollar amount spent – $1497.36

Average cost per day, per person (excluding the visas, which cost $135 each) – $32.30

Average lodging cost per night, per person – $8 – We were able to spend most nights in private rooms with private bathrooms.

Most expensive lodging – Both places we stayed in La Paz (Hotel Avenida, and the Adventure Brew B&B) were about $11.40 per person for a private room with private bathroom.  Adventure Brew was a much better deal as they had consistent wi-fi, pancakes for breakfast, and a free beer every night.

Least expensive lodging – $3.50 per person in a nameless hostel in Coroico.  We had a 3 person room with a shared bathroom.

Average food/drink cost per day, per person – $12.35 We ate out for every meal, and drank like fish. We had a mix of street food and restaurant meals, as well as a healthy amount of snacks… usually in the form of pastry.

Best

Hostel – Adventure Brew B&B in La Paz.  There are two Adventure Brews, almost right next door to each other.  We stayed in the B & B because it was more chilled out than the actual hostel.  We had a private room/bathroom for $11.40 per person including a pancake breakfast (REAL pancakes!) and a free beer for each person every night.  They had the most consistent internet of anywhere we stayed in Bolivia.

Food – The food in Bolivia gets a bad rap, but truth be told, we ate pretty well there.  Perhaps it’s that we went in with very low expectations.  Maybe it’s just that the value is just so great.  It could be that half of what we ate was pastry, which was delicious.  Whatever it is, we have lots to say in the ‘food’ category!

Falafel at La Mia Pizza in La Paz – A hole in the wall that serves some pretty good falafel at cheap prices (15 Bolovianos for one huge sandwich).  It’s on Calle Illampu near the corner of Santa Cruz.  It’s just past a big outdoor/camping shop.  Look for the crowd of hippies outside.

4060 in Potosi, Bolivia.  Named for the altitude of the city (incidentally, Potosi is the highest city in the world at 4,060 meters, which is 13,320 feet!), the food at 4060 is definitely one of the better meals we had in our last 6 weeks in South America.  It’s a tad pricey for Bolivia, which means a plate will cost you about $8.  They have a big variety of dishes, both local and international, as well as a variety of smoothies and desserts to choose from.  It’s just off the main plaza, going uphill on Hoyos.

Alamos  in Tupiza on Avaroa Santa Cruz –

This massive heap of food cost all of about $3!

The food here is average for Bolivia, but the portions are gigantic and the prices are dirt cheap. The biggest draw for me was the décor…which was insane.  Walking into Alamos was like stepping into another dimension.  There are knick-knacks everywhere, most of which are western themed.  A huge steer skull with glowing green lights in the eye sockets stares down at patrons from the top of a wall that is plastered with publicity photos of celebrities, photos of tourists sitting in the booths, old movie posters, random license plates, and all kinds of other junk.  It’s incredibly entertaining.  Huge meals with liter beers will set you back about $5.

Inside Alamos.

When you find this guy, you’ve found the best chicken dinner in Bolivia.

Chicken place in Uyuni – Uyuni is a shithole.  Sorry, but it is.  The most redeeming thing about the place (other than the salt flats) was the fantastic chicken dinner we had for…wait for it…about $2.  We had huge plates of the standard rice and french fries with 1/4 of a chicken.  It was some of the best chicken I’ve had, ever.  It’s roasted on a spit right outside the restaurant, and is perfectly cooked.  Go to the corner of Potosi and Bolivar.  Head down Bolivar going away from downtown until you see the guy in the picture.  There’s no name.  We were the only gringos in the place, and some of us (gentlemen, I’m looking at you here…) had more than one plate.

Carla’s Garden Pub in Coroico – Just off the main square, towards the bus station, there are stairs leading downhill from town.  If you go down them you’ll run into Carla’s Garden Pub, a lovely place to while away an afternoon.  There are snacks, cheap drinks, hammocks, a cat, and wifi!  It feels more like Thailand than Bolivia and we spent a few afternoons drinking Tequila Sunrises as we watched the sun set over the hills.

Activity

4-Day jeep tour to the Salt Flats – I will write an entire post about this at some point.  We took a tour of south-west Bolivia through La Torre Tours, and started from Tupiza.  We saw some crazy landscapes, culminating in the huge salt flats outside of Uyuni.  If you have the time, it’s a great trip.  If you don’t, get yourself to Uyuni and just do a one-day of the flats, it’s totally worth it.

Riding horses outside of Tupiza. Photo by Bryan of http://www.happytobehomeless.com

Horseback riding – You can’t ride horses for this cheap anywhere else in South America.  We went on a 4 hour ride outside of Tupiza, near where Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid met their demise.  Incidentally, make sure you check around and find a place that will give you helmets…our ridiculous cowboy hats would not have done us much good had we suffered a fall.

Worst

The worst is really a relative term in this case.  There were plenty of completely mediocre, and some downright awful, places we encountered…but…it’s Bolivia and that’s just how it goes.  There wasn’t anything in particular here that we could really single out as being more terrible than was tolerable for the situation.    Except maybe the freezing cold showers.  Especially the one in Uyuni.

Tags: , , , ,

Salt Pans in Peru

8 Jun

These salt pans are just a few hours outside of Cuzco in Peru near a tiny village called Moras.  An underground spring pours saltwater down the hills into the “pans” that locals have created.  As the water evaporates, huge salt crystals remain.  This particular area provides Peru with nearly 80% of its salt!  The pools are all at different levels of evaporation, which accounts for the patchwork of colors.  There’s no real perspective in this photo, but the area is huge!

Tags: , , , ,

Photo Friday – Mt. Nemrut, Turkey

1 Jun

Giant stone heads at Mt. Nemrut

We were incredibly bummed to not be able to pull off a trip to Easter Island while we were in South America, so when we heard that there we a different type of giant stone heads that date back to around 62 BC in Turkey, we were determined to see them.  It’s in the middle of nowhere on the eastern side of Turkey, and to see the sunrise on the heads you need to drag yourself from sleep at around 2:45 in the morning (give or take, depending on the season) in order to get to the mountain and climb up to the top.  While it’s no Easter Island, it’s definitely lovely and we’re glad to have made the journey.

As an aside, if you do end up going, try to remember that you aren’t the only one who got up before dawn to see this site.  The jackasses below insisted on taking all their group photos RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE HEADS as the sun was rising, thus preventing everyone else from getting a clean shot of the ruins with the pink morning light.  A number of us asked them to please move for a few moments so we could all get a picture, but they refused.  The obliviousness/obnoxiousness/self-righteousness of certain types of tourists really wore on our nerves throughout this little side trip, and reminded us why we generally avoid group tours.

Don’t be a jerk, remember other people want to take photos of that big famous monument as well.  Snap your picture and move out of the way.

Tags: , , , ,

The Argentina Roundup

28 May

The Statistics

Number of days spent in country –  43

Cities/towns visited – Mendoza, Bariloche, El Bolson, Esquelle, El Calafate, El Chalten, Ushuaia, Buenos Aires, Iguazu Falls, Salta, Humahuaca, Purmamarca, Cafayate, Angostaca.

Number of different lodgings – 12 hostels and a couchsurf

Flights – 1

Bus journeys –  26

Combi/collective/taxi  rides – 9

Bike Rentals – 1

Days of rain – 4

Budget

Total US dollar amount spent – $5522.62

Average cost per day, per person – $64.00

Argentina is not as cheap as it used to be.  Our ‘Local Travel’ category of the budget was by far the biggest chunk of spending here – long distance buses are triple the cost that they were in 2009, and flights are as expensive for foreigners on the domestic airlines.

Average lodging cost per night – $15.35 per person.  Hostels were pricey in Argentina compared to other places in South America.  We ended up in dorms often, though we went for a double room, even with a shared bath, in a few places.  You could do cheaper, especially if you are willing to stay in the party factory dorms, or sacrifice location or cleanliness.

Most expensive lodging – Reina Madre Hostel in Buenos Aires – a private room with shared bathroom was $23.25 per person.  The second most expensive was the Freestyle Hostel in Ushuaia which was $20.50 per person for a DORM.

Least expensive lodging – $9.30 per person for a dorm room in a little hostel in Angostaca.  We got stuck there overnight while on a road trip through northern Argentina.

Average food/drink cost per day (per person) – $14.30 – We consumed an obscene amount of cheap empanadas, usually for lunch.  We often cooked dinners in at the hostels because of the high cost of eating out.  We did go out for dinners sometimes though, or ate at the hostel when they had an asado night.

The Best

Empanadas!

Hostel Empedrado in Mendoza.  They have private rooms as well as dorms, clean bathrooms, TWO kitchens with plenty of cookware, a small pool, hammocks, free glass of wine every night, free empanada making class, good wi-fi…and FREE LAUNDRY!!!  It’s just an overall winner.  It is a little bit outside of downtown, but not more than a 10 minute walk.  You can book online, and if you’re headed there in the summer make sure to ask for a room with air-conditioning since some only have fans.

Hiking up to Fitz Roy in El Chalten. Looks like a fake background…but it’s not, it’s just a bad exposure!

El Chalten – Yeah, the town.  If you like mountains you will LOVE El Chalten.  There are multiple day hikes that get you way out into the hills with some of the most spectacular mountain scenery we’ve encountered.  Take your time and spend more than a hot second there, you won’t regret it.

Big Ice Tour in El Calafate – Even though we got ripped off by the travel agent who sold us our tour, this still goes down as one of our favorite activities.  It really was worth it, especially if you’ve never been on a glacier.  If the cost is too steep for you, look into a trek on the Viedma Glacier out of El Chalten.

Taking a break from biking in Bariloche

Biking around the Circito Chico in Bariloche – We haven’t gotten around to posting about this ride, but it’s a 25 kilometer ride around beautiful meditteranean colored lakes just outside of Bariloche.  You can rent a bike for the day and set out at your leisure.  There are many places to stop along the way for picnicing, swimming, or just gawking at the scenery.  The bike rental will only set you back about $18 and you can get there with public transportation.  Your hostel should be able to reserve you a bike, otherwise any travel agent in town can also, just make sure they don’t charge a commission for it.  You’ll get a map from the bike place, but don’t worry, it’s a loop and basically impossible to get lost.

The Worst

We really loved almost everything in Argentina, and the one major exception was Hostel Pudu in Bariloche.  We heard that it was fantastic, and perhaps it used to be, but now it’s just run down despite the bright and shiny website.  One of the hostel owners spent more time getting high with the guests than doing other things…like cleaning the bathrooms, which were disgusting.  There was a pretty high price tag for a dorm room, and I have to admit to sheer laziness or we would have moved after the first night.

Tags: , , , , ,

Blue Mosque – Istanbul, Turkey

25 May

Blue Mosque main interior dome – Istanbul, Turkey

Istanbul has so many things to see, we could easily spend months here and never be finished.  One of the first must-see items on our list was the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, which is more famously known as the Blue Mosque.  The nickname comes from the multitude of blue tiles that adorn the inner pillars and domes.  It’s one of the most beautiful buildings we’ve seen on this trip, and we walked out with dozens of photos of the interior mosaics.

Tags: , , , , , ,

Being Lost, And Found, In Strange Lands

22 May

Being in a foreign country, especially when you have a minimal grasp of the language, is both exciting and exhausting.  Travelling on a budget means that we pretty much never hire a tour guide, and we always go for the public transportation options.  Guidebooks are okay for getting a general idea of how to get around using public transport or our own two feet, but often the book falls far short of any real help.

Once in Valdivia, Chile we knew that we could get to a small park reserve by bus, but we just weren’t sure of the times, or where to catch it.  We asked our hostel, who told us a bus number that was totally incorrect.  We asked the tourist information office. Twice. They gave us the correct bus name, but couldn’t be specific about where it stopped.  We asked 7 different people who worked in the general area and they all pointed us in different directions.

FINALLY, the next day, we found the bus stop and, surprise surprise, it wasn’t anywhere near any of the places we’d been directed to.  Once we were on the bus we asked about specific return times since the reserve was nearly 50 kilometers outside of town.  We were told there were two return times – 2pm and 5pm.  As the reserve was the last stop, the driver assured us that this is where we needed to be to get picked up.

We were at the stop at 1:30pm, just to be safe.  We waited. And waited. And waited.  Finally, at 3, we started walking.  At 4:30 we managed to hitch a ride with a very nice couple who spoke zero English and didn’t seem to understand our Spanish very well.

Justin attempts to get us a ride on the long walk back to Valdivia…we had seen nothing but these sheep for 45 minutes.

Thankfully, they were able to drop us reasonably close to a town that had another bus that could take us back to Valdivia.  It was an adventure, to say the least.

My point is, sometimes getting around can be tough.  Every once in a while though, we encounter a stranger who helps us avoid yet another fiasco.

Today we were attempting to get to one of Istanbul’s oldest Byzantine churches, which is a bit off the regular tourist circuit.   We knew we could take a bus, but the place we had to get on was riddled with buses and we had not a clue which one we needed.  After asking about 7 different drivers, all of which just waved us towards the general direction of another dozen buses, we were approached by a man who asked (in English!) if we needed help.  We told him where we were going, and as luck would have it, he was also going that way.

Then we realized we couldn’t pay the fare in cash, we needed some sort of metro card, which we didn’t have.  The man paid our way with his own card and refused our multiple attempts at paying him back.  He then rode with us to our stop, got off with us, and led us for the 20 minute walk through winding streets to this little church.  There is no way we would have found this place on our own.

The whole time he’s helping us I was thinking, “What does he want? Is he going to charge us something for this?  Is he really dragging us to a carpet shop to try and sell us something?” but no, he was just really nice.  After getting us to the church he wished us a happy day and went on his way.

Every once in a while we are reminded that in this huge and crazy world there are genuinely kind people, and we are very thankful that we encountered one of them today.

Tags: , , , ,

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →