The Great Traveler

(Review of events from earlier time)

An easy solution that I’ve often employed when desiring to meet someone is to rendezvous at the half way point. But if your friend is in Fiji and you are in Raleigh - what’s the half way point? California sounded like a reasonable answer. Problem is, Minu flew in to the Los Angeles Airport from Fiji, while I ended up flying in to the Orange County Airport. Since the two airports are only 45 minutes away from each other, I figured as long as we were in the same general area, we could meet up somehow. After all, being a 45 minute drive away from each other is far closer than being a 16 hour flight away. Seemed like a brilliant plan to me. Unfortunately, Murphy’s law [Read more →]

While some days writing seems to come naturally, today I feel it probably will not. Traveling is such a thrill that the thought of going back home to routine is another difficult transition. The last day of a trip, much like the first day, is an internal struggle emotionally.

We Went to Chichen Itza today, the former capital of the Mayan part of [Read more →]

On the Yucatan peninsula, in a city few people outside of Mexico ever heard of …I ate Christmas Eve dinner with an 80 year old from Hong Kong, a 60 year old divorced hippie, a 24 year old journalism student from korea, a poor but hardworking mexican bachelor, and a well to do family from mexico city. With turkey on our plates, English in our speech, and the sound of raindrops in our ears, these people from all over the world who hadn´t known each other for more than a total of 24 hours were all sitting down together on one of the most spiritual nights of the year. Not an ill word was spoken, but rather it was a joyous occasion - a celebration of equality, of hope, of acceptance, of love. Fate had brought all us vagabonds together on a day typically spent with close family and friends. While I had little to say, a feeling of contentment consumed my soul. [Read more →]

In search of a truly Mexican experience, we took the advice of a random guy (I find random guys either give really really good advice or really really bad advice)…and went to a place called Tequilas. We were truly the only foreigners there, which is exactly what I was looking for. [Read more →]

The American government has contracts with the American car manufacturers to purchase a certain number of buses every year. This means that every year they have to sell a certain number of buses. And since there is no domestic market for yellow school buses, the vast majority of them are purchased by overseas governments and private travel companies at deeply deeply discounted prices. So in even the poorest of countries, yellow school buses fill the roads, transporting passengers from one place to another. [Read more →]

Without fail, the hardest time of the trip is almost always the first night. Last night was no exception. What the hell am I doing? Am I crazy? I’m too old for this shit! Those thoughts crossed my mind over and over again for hours while I lay in bed. I think it has a lot to do with making the emotional and mental switch intro traveling mode. Everyday of our lives we have schedules planned, familiar faces, languages, customs. We know what the water tastes like, we know what we can eat -we know where an ATM is. Put in a situation like this, we have no idea what to expect and suddenly the surreal becomes reality. [Read more →]

I arrived in Belize City this morning from Miami. It was the first airport I’ve ever been to where the plane lands, and then turns around - and then - heads for the gate. Needless to say, its a small airport. We then took a taxi to the port, where we took at a boat for another 45 minutes to get to Caye Caulker. This is the starting point for looking at the second larges coral reefs in the world. [Read more →]

As we arrived back in the United States, CNN was showing a bombing in Sherm El-Sheik, the city we were in just 36 hours earlier. The hotel we stayed at, the coffee shop next door that we had lunch at, all were destroyed….and we were still supposed to be there. [Read more →]

Against my better judgment, we rode the bus back to Cairo from Sherm. The trip went much smoother, and had it not been for the previous ride up here, I would have found it normal. Mostly foreigners and not one military check. This was the same bus company I had ridden before? Maybe I was in the twilight zone. [Read more →]

After looking at the pyramids, we got the taxi driver to take us to to the bus station. We went down a back road which I figured was a shortcut. Seconds before we stopped I remember saying to myself, ‘now this is real Egypt. How many foreigners have ever seen this road.’ Just as I said that, we saw some [Read more →]