AaronDeannaTravels

The trip by the numbers

2008-09-14T18:14:00.001-07:00

So, we've been back in the states for over a month, back in Brooklyn for over two weeks. Deanna started work 10 days ago and I'm biting the bullet and starting tomorrow. Apprehension, nerves, anxiety--those are just a few emotions coursing through me right now. But I'm also excited at this tabula rasa being placed before me. I couldn't be happier with my new company; it's going to be a great match.

The best coping mechanism we have right now is reminiscing about our trip, so writing this final blog post is very therapeutic, a much-needed catharsis. I have such vivid memories of August 15th last year--walking to the A train, the 95 degree heat, our first day "hiking" with our packs on, in all my 58-extra-pounds glory, a homeless crackhead accosting me and poking my shoulder, the long ride through Brooklyn and into Queens, the madness of Terminal 4, the waiting, the last phone calls to our parents, the delayed flight, the fantastic stewardesses, our first immersion in Spanish... I remember our first day in each new culture and country. But with so many memories, it's easy to get lost. So I've tried to encapsulate the entire year below...

Here are some numbers to help sum up the trip of all trips:
•4 continents visited
•16 countries (17 if you count sneaking through Brasil for 45 minutes)
•10 time zones
•20 UNESCO World Heritage Sites
•119 cities
•23 forms of transportation
•10 overnight buses (including 1 overnight ferry)
•53 sushi meals (mmm)
•27 types of fish eaten
•21 beaches
•42 books read (and 14 New Yorkers--thanks for that care package, Mom!)
•525 crossword puzzles completed
•35 items of clothing purchased (11 were for Aaron)
•3 packages shipped home (and 2 hand carried home--thanks, Rachel!)
•9 real concerts seen (and about 15 ethnic music performances)
•13 friends from home came to visit (Rachel gets kudos for visiting us on 2 continents)
•12 illnesses, including 6 food poisonings, 3 flu/colds and 1 fall off a bike (Aaron)
•4 cooking lessons (each in a different cuisine)
•5 wine regions
•11 SCUBA dives

Trip highlights, in chronological order:
•Machu Picchu (this ranks as the #1 experience of the whole trip)
•Jeep tour in Bolivian Salt Flats
•Star gazing, San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
•Seeing a real moai (Easter Island statue) in Vina del Mar, Chile
•Wine tasting in Mendoza, Argentina
•Penguins in Ushuaia, Argentina
•Glaciers in El Calafate, Argentina
•Driving through a snowstorm in Patagonia
•Iguazu Falls
•Renting a beach house in Punta del Diablo, Uruguay
•New Year's Eve, Montclair, NJ
•Thai Elephant Conservation Center
•Getting engaged (OK, this might edge out Machu Picchu for the #1 spot), Lampang, Thailand
•Thai cooking school, Chaing Mai, Thailand
•Hiking through garlic fields, Pai, Thailand
•Slowboat trip down the Mekong in northern Laos
•Luang Prabang, Laos
•Our sushi restaurant in Sihanoukville, Cambodia
•All the temples at Angkor Wat and Angkor Thom, Siem Reap, Cambodia
•Hoi An, Vietnam
•3 day junk boat tour of Ha Long Bay, Vietnam
•Learning to SCUBA dive in Koh Tao, Thailand
•Mt. Bromo volcano complex, Java Timur, Indonesia
•Sunrise dolphin watching in Lovina, Bali, Indonesia
•Hiking through rice paddy terraces, Ubud, Bali, Indonesia
•Watching movies and eating sushi in the sand, Gili Trawangan, Indonesia
•Diving the Great Barrier Reef, Cairns, Australia
•Whale watching, Coffs Harbor, Australia
•Wine tasting, Hunter Valley, Australia
•Glacier Hiking, Franz Josef, South Island, New Zealand
•Bungy jump, Queenstown, New Zealand

So as I wrap up this post, so ends the best chapter in our lives thus far. There really isn't much more to say... We are so lucky to have had this voyage, and to have spent it all together. We loved every minute of it and did our best to never take it for granted. "And you may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?" -The Talking Heads, from the song "Once In A Lifetime"

Back in the USA - West Coast edition

2008-08-17T18:45:00.000-07:00

So after the longest August 8th on record (18 hours in NZ, 12 hours over the Pacific and 14 hours in LA), we arrived at my sister Sarah's house to the cheers of three amazing, smiley nieces (and their sign, at left). Despite the red eyes and crippling jet lag, we were immediately invigorated by the girls. Once my brother-in-law Mark got home from work, the 7 of us ate and laughed well past the young girls' bedtime.

We spent the next three days in a complete haze--waking up early for morning baby duty, napping, and eating some of our long-forgotten favorite American foods (mmmmm In-N-Out Burger). My littlest niece, Ariella, just started on solid foods, so at the right you'll see Deanna feeding her some mushed up carrots. Another new skill she developed while we were gone is crawling. Her sisters call her "speed turtle" (after a kids song) and her favorite toy was an empty water bottle.

We gave the girls their presents, Ao Dai dresses from Vietnam (Ariella has one too, but it's just a little big on her), so enjoy that picture below.

One day we went to see a marimba band play for free at The Farmers' Market at the Grove. Watching the girls dance the afternoon was priceless beyond words, so here are some pictures and a video.

And to round out the musical highlights of the trip, here's a video of Dalia jamming on the harmonica while Sarah and Aliza play the blues on the piano:

All in all, it was an amazing few days. We were very sorry to say goodbye, but New York is calling. We're in New Jersey right now with Deanna's parents (after 3 days in Maryland with mine) and are almost adjusted to this time zone. Stay tuned for a photo gallery from New Zealand and another blog with a trip wrap up. I have my cell phone again (same number), so feel free to call and chat anytime.

Last day abroad!

2008-08-07T15:34:00.000-07:00

Here we are, checked out of our hostel in Auckland, waiting to head to the airport. This mood is quite representative of our trip--a man (and woman) without a country, homeless and happy. We're pretty excited to fly back to the states and see our friends and family. But "excited" isn't really the word to describe our feelings for having our own closets, bathroom and kitchen again... But before I get all sentimental and start recapping the trip, here's one more blog about our time on North Island, NZ.

After our 2-week road trip on South Island, we flew north to Wellington. It was a pretty rough day: start of the job search, cold and rainy, and a plane ride so bumpy that I almost cried. But all was alleviated when we found ourselves eating dinner at Sweet Mama's, a fantastic restaurant modelled on the food at New Orlean's JazzFest. I ate the second best crawfish monica of my life. And the po'boy was pretty great too. After dinner we caught up with Nico, our tour guide from Chile's lake district, and his girlfriend Kristen. Always great to see friends on different continents!

We spent a great day in the Te Papa museum, which houses exhibits on all aspects of New Zealand--from Maori culture to geology of the islands. At the right you'll see a Maere, a traditional Maori meeting house. We also caught some of the Wellington International Film Festival--make sure you go see Young @ Heart, a fantastic rockumentary about a group of people in their 80s and 90s singing contemporary rock songs.

The next day we rented another car and drove up to Rotorua to soak in some hot springs and absorb more Maori culture. We took in a show at Te Puia cultural center, which houses the Pohutu Geyser (picture below), the biggest one in the southern hemisphere. At the left is a guy doing the Haka, traditional warrior dance (to try to scare the enemy off the battlefield before the fight even starts). Also pictured below are women dancing with poi, which were used by men for battle training and women for rhythmic drumming. Here we also got to see the rare Kiwi bird, which was a lot bigger than we imagined. Unfortunately we couldn't take a picture of it as they're nocturnal and camera flashes blind them.

Next, we went to the Waitomo glow worm caves. The cave system is dug 130 feet below by underground rivers. A weird moth / maggott insect lives on the walls of these caves and their excrement glows in the dark. The bioluminecense creates an amazing effect that makes you feel like you're outside looking at thousands of stars in the sky. Unfortunately, the glow worm pictures didn't really come out. Below left is a shot of the glow worm larvae, which look like little strands of fishing line hanging down from the caves.

In two hours we board our flight to LA. 4 days there with my nieces, then we'll fly to the East Coast to see our families in Maryland and New Jersey. We'll be back in NYC by the end of the month, but stay tuned for some more blog posts with videos and a trip wrap up. See you soon!

Aaron's one and only (and final) willing hike

2008-07-29T16:24:00.000-07:00

So our last two major activities on South Island were probably our favorite: glacier hiking and wine country. After the Milford Sound (previous post), we drove through the amazing Haast Pass--snowcapped mountains, rainforests, coastal jungle and more--to the Franz Josef Glacier. Just a few km from the coast, this glacier is the fastest moving glacier of its size in the world.

We started with a 45 minute hike on challenging rocky terrain to reach the west face of the glacier. Once there, we strapped on our crampons (mind you, we're in borrowed boots as we've been exclusively wearing sandals since January) and started the ascent.

The face was pretty rocky which lead to an ugly discoloration (below left) of the white/blue ice, but we were pretty psyched just to be on the ice. Our first obstacle / adventure was a tiny 2-meter long blue ice tunnel (below right).

After that, we got off the rocky ice to the real stuff--snow compressed by its own weight over 60 years. We arrived at a worm hole next. This tiny tunnel went on for about 25 feet and barely wide enough to fit me on my back. Brave Deanna threw claustraphobia to the wind and went in first and I followed. Commando sliding with our elbows on our sides, we both emerged on the other side with one side of our bodies completely soaked and adrenaline pumping through our veins.

Overall, this was one of the coolest days of our trip (credit my parents with that pun). Enjoy the montage below!

After the amazing day on the glacier, we drove up to the Marlborough wine region. Not much to report, other than mmmmmmmmmmmm wine. Here's one of my favorite pictures--check out the wine bottles, the wine barrels, the grape vines and us!

Oh, and for all my Jewish friends (aka 80% of you), please take a few minutes and fill out my sister's survey. It's pretty fun to think about and will help her greatly in compiling stats for her second book.

Last stop: New Zealand

2008-07-22T18:19:00.000-07:00

The last 9 days have been pretty hectic. We landed in Christchurch, NZ, late on Monday night. Tuesday we spent walking around the city and planning our 3 weeks here. Wednesday we rented a car, a bright red Ford Focus and hit the road. There aren't any highways here, really--it's mostly just two-lane roads that weave in between cities, around mountains and lakes and across narrow one-lane bridges.

Our first stop was Lake Tekapo, where we had a relaxing afternoon walking around the lake and admiring our first glimpse of the postcard scenery here on South Island. This "town" really consists of a grocery store, a tour operator, a hostel and a quaint one-room church right on the lake's edge (left). We really got into the quiet solitude--a good preview for the weeks to come.

From Tekapo we drove on through to Queenstown, the adventure capital of the world. About 20km outside of the city, we saw a sign "Site of first Bungy Jump and Museum, 400m on Right" so we decided to pull off the road and check it out. I had planned on doing a bungy jump or skydive out of Queenstown, but I had not decided which or when. That being said, it took about 3 minutes from the time we walked into the building for them to wrap my ankles (right) and put me in a harness. Faster than going to McDonalds, no joke.

They counted down from 5 and I jumped. 2.2 seconds and 43 meters later, I snapped back up with a triumphant scream. There is nothing in the world that comes close to the sheer ecstasy of a freefall. It was a bit shorter than I would have liked (and really gave me the itch to go skydiving again), but man, what a feeling. See the previous blog post below for a video Deanna took of my jump. At the left, you'll see me pumping my fists in the air in pure joy right after that jump.

Once we arrived in Queenstown, we went directly to FergBurger, the famous burger joint in town. Afterwards, we walked around town, taking in breathtaking views of the lake and snow-capped mountains. It's easy to see why backpackers get stuck in this city--it has every adrenaline sport known to man (and a few new ones, too), great food and a pristine view. The next day we took the gondola up to the top of one of the mountains and admired the view with a hot long black (double shot of espresso--they don't believe in filter/drip coffee here) and listened to the screams of people cliff diving and bungy jumping a stone's throw to our left.

We decided to street luge down the mountain--basically a sled on wheels with a huge handbrake lever in the middle. We were going a little too fast for pictures, but at the left you'll see us in our safety helmets before the run. It was a blast, but paled in comparison to yesterday's jump. We celebrated the day with a fantastic feast in town, sampling the local delicacy of blue cod.

The next day we pushed on further in our road trip. We find ourselves pulling over every hour to snap pictures of the scenery as it's just so perfect, albeit a little too foggy up in the mountains. Every mountain pass or valley reminds of a different scene in Lord of the Rings (so we've gone online and found the filming locations--we've driven through a bunch of them).

Our next stop was Te Anau, the launching point for scenic boat trips along the Milford Sound. We had a rainy day, which the locals kept saying was better, as more waterfalls sprung up. We spent two incredible hours on the Spirit of Milford, taking in the amazing green cliff walls lining this spectacular fjord. Enjoy the pictures at left and below. Right now we're at the Franz Josef Glacier, a few hundred km north of the sound. Tomorrow we're doing a half-day hike on the glacier, with crampons and all. Luckily our hostel has a hot tub for relaxing afterwards!

Bungy jump!

2008-07-17T17:01:00.001-07:00

A whale of a road trip

2008-07-15T19:45:00.000-07:00

So for our last week in Australia we rented a car and drove north along the Pacific coast. Our first stop was Port Stephens where we took in some great scenery and caught our first glimpse of whales off the coast. But when we turned our gaze back to the coast we saw the most puzzling thing--a caravan of camels walking along the sand dune. We've seen a lot of weird animals, but this group was just way too out of place (remember, it's winter down here). We stayed in a great lodge/hostel in the woods (with a wild koala lounging in a tree) and managed to get in a nice round of mini-golf. I beat Deanna by 20 strokes, but we both got a hole-in-one.

We got an early start the next morning and arrived at Hunter Valley with enough time to visit 3 wineries and the Hunter Valley Smelly Cheese Shop (mmmmm). Thanks to a graet promotion from my AmEx card, we got 50% off our swanky hotel right in the middle of the valley. We haven't stayed in a real, western-style hotel in months, so it was a real treat to have a hot tub, bath robes and a private balcony. On the left is our favorite winery, Tempus Two. Below left is a winery in the shape of an oak barrel and below right is Deanna posing at one of the prettier wineries (but unfortunately the wine didn't match the scenery).

After 2 days in the valley, we drove up to Coffs Harbor to spend some time with our friends Graham and Fiona (below right, with Deanna), who we met on our tour of Ha Long Bay in Vietnam. They rolled out the red carpet with top notch hospitality. In between feasts fit for a king, we managed to go whale watching on a katamaran right off the coast. Two humpback whale calves took an interest to our boat and swam along us for about 90 minutes. It was incredible to see them so close (5 meters) and the water was so clear that we could even see their white bellies (at right). They kept hamming it up for us, swimming circles around and underneath our boat. Pictures and two videos below. Enjoy!

After whale watching, we did a small hike, saw the world's largest banana, walked past a golf course overrun with kangaroos and watched a perfect sunrise the next morning before heading back to Sydney. Pictures below.

Halfway through the final drive, we had lunch in a rest stop, pictured at the left. Since we didn't make it to the real Ayer's Rock, we figured a quick visit to a fake replica would do the trick. We're now in New Zealand and have started a 2-week road trip on South Island. It's pretty chilly here, but the scenery is spectacular.

Koala cuddling in Cairns

2008-07-11T22:10:00.000-07:00

So after our three dives on the Great Barrier Reef we visited the old hippie town of Kuranda where our main attraction there was "Cuddle a Koala" in the petting zoo. The cute little grey guys munch on eucalyptus leaves all day which leaves them in a daze so they're pretty docile. My bear was pretty heavy--about 25 pounds and I got about 5 minutes of him hanging on my arm, clawing my stomach (they have sharp claws!). He didn't do much of anything, other than leaving a nice little present on my shirt... Deanna also got to pose with the kangaroos--see below.

To get back to Cairns we took the Kuranda Scenic Railway, a gorgeous 2-hour ride through waterfalls, mountain cliffs and valleys with perfect views of the Pacific to the east. It was such a relaxing counterpoint to the hectic pace in Carins city itself. Enjoy the picture at the left of the train going underneath the Bridal Veils Falls.

Enjoy the montage of pictures from Cairns below.

The next morning we woke up way too early to catch our flight back down to Sydney where we had a whirlwind day. We spent the afternoon at the fish market eating the freshest sushi ever (again), having coffee with our friend Rebecca at the El Alamein fountain (below), walking around downtown (past the Great Synagogue, at right) and seeing a contemporary take on Mozart's Don Giovanni at the Sydney Opera House. Check me out wearing a tie for the first time in months!! Pictures below.

Great Barrier Reef

2008-07-08T01:49:00.000-07:00

'Nuff said. Enjoy some pictures from the underwater camera we rented during our three dives. Open any picture in a new window for more detail (the camera was 12 megapixels!).

Down Under in Sydney

2008-07-03T23:40:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Sydney way too early in the morning but were greeted by John with the warmest reception ever. It was so nice to see such a friendly and familiar face waiting in the terminal for us--and he even gave us a copy of the Lonely Planet for Eastern Australia! We spent the first day doing laundry, food shopping, watching TV and Deanna cooked her first post-Indonesian and Thai cooking school dinner (Indonesian satay-inspired meatloaf with a curry gravy and Pad Thai noodles mmmmmm).

The next day we woke up so refreshed and set out to explore the downtown area. We walked around Hyde Park, past the ANZAC memorial, St. Mary's Cathedral (at right) and on to the Botanic Gardens, full of flying foxes (aka HUGE bats) and a great view of the opera house with the Harbor Bridge at sunset. It was breathtaking! Enjoy some pictures below (the last one shows how the sail designs of the opera house were taken from one sphere).

The next day John (and his lovely girlfriend Christine) drove us out to the Blue Mountains for some great scenery. We spent a few hours around the Three Sisters Rocks (below left), took the world's steepest funicular (though I'm sure Valaparaiso, Chile, might take offense to that claim) down the old coal miner's canyon and a great sky tram back up. We finished off the day at a lodge watching the sunset sitting beside a fireplace and drinking delicious Australian wine. A perfect day...

We finished off the weekend with an incredible meal at the Sydney fish market--aka fresh sushi heaven. Deanna and I split half a kilo of tuna and salmon, which were cut fresh in front of us (at left) from that morning's catch. It yielded about 60 pieces total and we were stuffed all day! John and Christine went to town on the heaping plate of mixed grilled/fried seafood "for two," which really could feed several families.

We worked off some of the calories from that epic meal with a great hike around Bondi Beach, watching the surfers ride some crazy waves on a beautiful winter's afternoon.

We're up in Cairns now, about to head back to Sydney to start a mini road trip to Coff's Harbor. We're a bit behind in blogging (as we rented an underwater camera for our three scuba dives on the Great Barrier Reef) so stay tuned for a few more posts coming soon.

Australia, here we come!

2008-06-24T22:27:00.000-07:00

So in a few hours we will board a plane from Bali down to Sydney. This means an end to our 5 months in Asia! We're pretty excited to get back into a Western culture. We're not going to miss the heat, the geckos, the mosquitoes (ok, all the animals), the noise (loudest continent on Earth!), the difficult-at-times travel, the mopeds everywhere, the trash fires, and the language barrier.

But there are so many things we're sorry to leave behind--the children (their smiles, waves, hellos, etc), the food, the culture, the surprises around every corner, and much more. Our time in Asia has been so special and unlike anything we've ever encountered before (except for getting lost in Chinatown on a hot summer day). We expected it to be a lot tougher of a place, and although we were pushed out of our comfort zone at times, we were generally surprised by how certain things that blew our minds at first eventually stopped phasing us (lack of sanitation and customer service, ruthless touts and traffic, squat toilets, etc) and became the butt of many jokes.

The highlights are too many to name and completely overshadow any inconveniences and lows we encountered. It was refreshing to be seen as just a westerner instead of American, however no matter where we went we were seen as walking dollar signs first and foremost. Technology and globalization definitely have their pluses and minuses...

We are leaving Asia with a huge smile on our faces and a bit more patience. It's been surreal being on the road for so long, living with a limited wardrobe and not having seen the Simpsons in too many months (I wonder which of those applies to which of us?) but it feels great to consolidate your life to a backpack and walk through a living museum for a while. "Buy the ticket, take the ride."

So we leave you with our last impression of Asia: a cloud-obscured sunset behind the coastal temple of Tanah Lot. An incredible, Zen-like escape from the Australian suburb that is Southern Bali which left us gazing in awe at the waves breaking on the temple rocks.

How do you say "paradise" in Bahassa Indonesian?.

2008-06-19T21:54:00.000-07:00

"Don't disturb me, I watch a movie on the beach." Have truer words ever been spoken? Here in Gili Trawangan there are two fine establishments that have DVD-watching bungalows located ON the beach. With over 500 titles to choose from, including brand new releases (thanks to prolific video pirating in Asia), we've probably watched 15 movies so far here. Some of our top picks have been: You Do Not Mess With the Zohan, Walk Hard, 21, National Treasure 2, Blood Diamond, Babel, Lucky Number Sleven and today we're having a Harry Potter marathon (guess whose choice that was?). Man, life is tough. Pictures below of the bungalow and also the beach.

Other than watching movies, we've done copious amounts of crossword puzzles, two fantastic scuba dives (we even saw a 6' reef shark), caught up to April in our New Yorkers (thanks, Mom, for the care package!), walked around the island for sunsets and have had incredibly cheap and fresh sushi feasts in the sand almost every night. So yes, life is beautiful. It's pretty hard to drag ourselves away from this paradise island, but Australia beckons.

Speaking of my mom, she just finished her second book, titled "The Keys to Senior Housing: A Guide to Two Generations." So if you know any publishers or literary agents, please let me know.

Time to go soak up some more rays. We'll check back in once we get to Australia. Happy summer, everyone!

Of Rice and Men

2008-06-10T22:08:00.000-07:00

Ok, well really just of "rice." We've seen our fair share of rice fields on this trip--in literally every country we've been to (save for the 2 hours I spent shopping in Myanmar's equivalent of Tijuana). Vietnam stands out as having the most beauitiful rice paddies--the most striking greens we've ever seen with the conical hats poking above. But in central Bali the hilly terrain doesn't allow for endless tracts of rice stretching to the horizon. Here they have to terrace the land and grow rice in small patches that drop in elevation every 10 or 15 feet.

And it's really something. Scroll down to the previous blog post to see the most breathtaking pictures. In Ubud we've spent hour after hour walking through the rice terraces, watching the ducks sip water from the flooded paddies, men with curved knifes whiddling wood and children flying kites higher than the far-off cell phone towers. Watching the reflection of the sun set (right) in the flooded paddies is an image that will always stay with us.

In South America there are tons of stray dogs everywhere--which means that no one cleans up after them. This leads to a problem when walking down the steet: you constantly have to look down at your feet in order to prevent stepping on unwanted dog droppings. Here there are much fewer dogs so it really isn't an issue, but there is something new keeping our eyes fixed on the ground--small Hindu offerings called "canang sari."

This island is unique in that it is almost entirely Hindu, whereas Indonesia as a whole is the largest Muslim country in the world (with a whopping 240 million people). So every day, in front of every store, house, temple, staircase, etc, you will find one of the offerings shown above. They are put out three times a day and only Shiva knows how many we stepped on. At the right is a much larger and more elaborate offering given for the Festival of Knowledge, a holiday that occured while we were in town.

One of the days we spent taking a cooking class, which of course centered around rice (served with every course). We never bothered to steam it, but we did eat plenty of it with each of our creations. On the left is Deanna with our teacher, Ketut, making a fantastic vegetable dish that employed the base gede, or basic spice (their version of a curry paste). Below you'll see Deanna working on tempe manis and a chicken curry. Further below, you'll see me working on an Indonesian satay, which is more like a meatloaf on a stick than a regular satay bbq skewer. Mmmmmm...

We managed to pull ourselves away from Ubud to spend a week or two on Gili Trawangan. Just off the coast of Lombok, the next main island east of Bali, there are three tiny islands, known as the Gili islands (the word "gili" means "island" so go figure). We're on the larger one, Gili Trawangan. I could spend a few paragraphs writing how crystal clear the water is and how quiet and tranquil the beaches are, and how beautiful the sunset looks behind Bali's big volcano, but there's really only one detail worth noting. There is a sushi bar here that is ON THE BEACH. We're talking IN THE SAND. There is nothing more amazing and relaxing and perfect than eating sushi with your toes in the sand. Life is good...

Getting the Bali monkey off our backs

2008-06-07T21:40:00.000-07:00

We finished our wonderful sojourn in Lovina with a sunset fishing trip with our new buddy, Bikul. In staying with the traditions of the islands, we fished manually--fishing line wrapped around a short segment of bamboo (above right). No rod or reel, so now if Deanna ever makes it onto "Survivor" she'll know what to do. On the left you will see the one fish that I caught (at a whopping 5"). I also managed to get two of my three hooks ripped off--Bikul thinks that I snared two small snapper and then a baracuda ate them, hooks and all. Patient Deanna didn't even get a nibble on her bait.

From Lovina we took a breathtaking minivan ride inland through the mountains, lakes, monkey forests and hydrangea fields to the great town of Ubud. Surrounded by terraced rice paddies, this town has it all--music, food, temples, shopping, and scenery--tons of culture. On the left you'll see us in front of spectacular rice terraces that cover every hillside. We've been here for a week and it's pretty hard to motivate to go anywhere else.

On our first night here we caught a traditional Bali Ketcak fire dance show. The vocal music was supplied by 70 village men, young and old, sitting in a circle. They did rhythm and melody for over an hour, just with their voices. The first act was a take on the ancient Hindu saga, the Ramayana (below left), and the finale was a man with a horse costume walking through coconut husks on fire (below right). That, coupled with the Gamelan music played nightly behind our bungalow, has given us an authentic feel for the endearing Balinese culture.

In between visits to the fantastic library, which has every book we've ever wanted to read, we've kept busy with a few day trips around the region. The first was to the Sacred Monkey Forest. It was great to see all the wild macaques running around the forest temples, but when one mischevious monkey chose my back to climb on, we decided it was time to get out of dodge.

Other Ubud highlights have been a trip to Goa Gajah (the elephant cave) and Gunung Kawi, one of the most beautiful places we've been to on this trip. The latter, pictured right and below, was a small river valley with altars carved into the mountain side. Deanna, with her impressive hawk eyes, spotted a tiny sign in one of the farms that said "Waterfall 200m." We followed the arrow and about 2km later, a local farmer guided us the rest of the way. During the entire walk we were surrounded by spectacular rice terraces (below right). Since we were the only people around, it felt like our private paradise.

The elephant cave is a temple chiseled into the hillside in the middle of the jungle/forest, surrounded by ceremonial spring-fed baths. The lush plant life in the temple complex made it a sight worth seeing. Stay tuned, as we have more Ubud pictures and stories to tell (as soon as we find a faster internet connection).

Volcanoes and Dolphins

2008-05-31T23:19:00.000-07:00

We flew into Surubaya (on east Java) a few days ago, and were the only tourists there. The city was dirty and crazy, but there is something so great about being completely off of the tourist track. I mean, no restaurants in the western sense of the word, no English anywhere, even just trying to find something edible for dinner at one of the street stalls was a challenge. For a longer time it would be really difficult, but for one night it is really exhilarating.

The next day we made our way by bus and minivan to Mount Bromo (above and left) which took about 6 hours. The ride to get there was gorgeous - wild flowers everywhere and hills filled with terraced farms. The coolest part was that every few minutes during the ride as we got higher the temperature went down 5 degrees. By the time we arrived in Mount Bromo it was actually cold!

Our hotel was perched on a ridge overlooking the rim of the crater of 3 active volcanoes--the view was astounding. The next morning we woke up at 3:30am to take a jeep to a nearby mountain for a bird's-eye view. Unfortunately it was too cloudy to see anything as the sun rose, so we went down a bit and were able to see it all.

Then we went to the base of one of the volcanoes and hiked up to the rim to look down into the bubbling lava. See below. It was truly incredible, but there is nothing like the smell of molten sulfur in the morning! Omelets, anyone?

The next day we started a very long journey to Bali. After an overnight bus and ferry we got to Lovina where we have been for the last few days. This little beach town is so empty that it feels like we have it to ourselves. The only drawback is that since they don't see much tourism, the locals try to sell you everything - "You want fruit, massage, fishing trip, sarong, transport, my first born?" - as you walk down the street. It's not as bad as Cambodia or even Vietnam because they are SOOO nice here. Seriously, the nicest people in all of Asia, but it's sad to see how the Kuta bombings and the tsunami have affected the country. But, people are still quite happy here and never miss a chance to play soccer on the beach during sunset (at right).

We woke up for sunrise two days ago to chase around some dolphins on a boat. They swam right up next to our little boat--it was incredible! We saw groups of 20 or so dolphins including some really cute babies just jumping and swimming around. And to top it all off, our boat driver was named "Bikul" which is pronounced "be cool." Pictures below. Sadly, Ricky Williams was nowhere to be found...

And here are some videos. Sorry for the shaky hand and the jumping around--and for the low quality. Youtube won't publish them for some reason so we're using blogger's video tool which isn't as good.

Tomorrow we are going fishing at sunset with him, which should be fun. Then we're off to Ubud, the cultural capital of Bali, with its art galleries, craft villages, art courses, rice field hiking, and temples. I (Deanna) will be taking a cooking class there as well as batik course and possibly some wood carving.

Southern Ma-laze-ia

2008-05-24T22:52:00.000-07:00

We've spent the last week doing just about nothing... and it's been great. We're not quite road-weary yet, but it is very nice to take a break, unpack our bags and stay in the same room for 8 nights. We've settled in Kuala Lumpur on the main street of Chinatown, so we're constantly eating amazing and cheap street food (the duck has been our favorite). KL has a huge shopping mall culture. There's one area of town, Bukit Bintang, that is a collection of 15 full-size malls (each with a theme--electronics, clothing, housewares, etc), all with food courts, movie theatres, bowling alleys and air conditioning. So we've made it a point to visit as many malls as we can, basking in the frigid air. The mall at the base of the Petronas Towers (see right--the world's tallest buildings from 1998-2004) has EVERY western store we've ever heard of--from Famous Amos to the Gap, Hermes to Reef, KFC to Chillis, and Body Shop to California Pizza Kitchen. We've even seen every English movie playing here (6 of em, including Indiana Jones in IMAX). And everyone speaks perfect English.

So this has been a lazy week of singing the Big Mac chant ("Two all-beef patties...) to win a free Big Mac, going to the Indonesian Embassy three times, 5 trips to a fast-food sushi restaurant (gotta love the conveyor belt), beard shaving (see left--us on the sky bridge connecting the two Petronas towers) and relaxing.

Some highlights of KL were the Islamic art museum, in a gorgeous, well-lit building, all the beautiful mosques around town (see right for our favorite one) and just riding around town on the monorail and subways. See below for the Petronas Towers during the day and a fantastic ornate Hindu temple, the Sri Mahamariamman Temple.

We did manage to wake up at an early hour one morning to take a day trip south to the colonial town of Melaka. This town has a rich history of Chinese, Dutch and British rule, with churches, forts and temples to prove it. We spent a scorching hot day walking around the old town (with its great mauve buildings, some dating back from the 1750s, see left). Below on the left you'll see the famous Porta di Sebastian, at the entrance to the fort. Below on the right is a bonus picture of us with 3-D glasses on about to watch the 3-D film on the building of the Petronas Towers. Tomorrow we fly to Java, Indonesia, to check out some volcanoes en route to a few weeks in Bali. We'll check back in soon!

(Scuba) Diving into a new culture and country

2008-05-16T03:01:00.000-07:00

As soon as you walk into Malaysia you can't help but be hit with a very unique and authentic culture. Immediately the smells, the way people dress and the genuine warmth and openness of the people you encounter are felt. It's hard in Thailand (especially in the South) to find moments that don't feel manufactured for tourists. That being said, we did manage to catch this picture (on the right) as we were on a ferry leaving Thailand. Not pictured are their cell phones and cigarettes.

After 4 transfers on different minivans (one complete with four roosters in the back seat--no joke), we arrived in Malaysia excited to experience yet a new culture and food. The blend of Indian and Chinese is just tops--when curry meets sichuan flavors you really can't go wrong. We spent our first night here in Kota Bharu at Zeck's Guest House. Zeck is the perfect hostel owner--friendly, informed, warm and willing to go out of his way to help. And his wife, Maria, knew the best spots to eat in town. She introduced us to Ayam Percik--chicken BBQed in a thin coconut curry. Mmmmmm...

The next morning we caught a van to the east coast to take a ferry to Palau Perhentian. We chose the smaller of the two islands to relax and go diving again. On first look (at right), this jungle island was paradise. Upon further investigation, it's just not the place for us. It only has electricity from 7pm to 5am, most hotels had colonies of bed bugs, but the piece de resistence was the monitor lizards.

We've grown quite accustomed to geckos by now. Ranging from 2" to 8", the geckos keep to themselves, eat flies and the occasional mosquito, and stay on walls near light sources. Not a huge problem for us. But, on our first night in the Perhentian Islands, we discovered two monitor lizards in our bathroom. The big suckers. The one of the left was about 3' long, but the two in our bathroom were only a mere 18". As we'd just come from two different beaches, we decided that after our dive the following morning it would be time to move on. A wise choice, as after Deanna handily scared them off with some bug spray, one came back later and haunted us all night.

The next morning we woke up bright and early (which is easy to do when the fan cuts out at 5am and the heat pours in), eager to jump in the water, where, strangely, the animals don't seem to bother us. Must be the wet suits... We had an incredible dive at a site known as "The Temple." We swam through a school of 500 yellow snapper, saw a three-legged turtle, bamboo sharks, a moray eel, two puffer fish (someday I'll get to try fugu), beautiful angel fish and what we've now named "the disco fish" as it looks like the colors inside Studio 54. Surreal and amazing. Next time we go, we're going to rent an underwater camera. But for now, enjoy the "before" and "after" pictures below.

After another quick night at Zeck's, we took an all-day bus through beautiful mountains up to the Cameron Highlands. Very similar to the Vietnamese city of Da Lat, Cameron is a cool respite from the tropical heat at lower elevation. This is the flower and fruit capital of the country. Today we went to a tea plantation (its aroma is second only to the wineries of Argentina and the garlic fields of Northern Thailand), picked strawberries, chased butterflies and brave Deanna played with a Rhinoceros Beetle. Yeah, did I mention I don't like animals? Enjoy the pictures below.

Tomorrow we're off to Kuala Lumpur to spend a few urban days before flying to Indonesia.

Same same but different -- Thai islands

2008-05-10T03:26:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has been to SE Asia will know the phrase "Same same but different." It's quoted by every salesperson from fruit-stand hawker to hotel owner, and if you spend enough time here, you'll start to say it yourself. What it means is that any two things will be called the same for any purpose--generally the bait and switch. Like when trying to buy a small black t-shirt, the vendor will offer you a pink XXL t-shirt.

For us, we're at that point in the south of Thailand, coming from the Koh Tao in the Gulf of Thailand (east coast--pictured left) to Koh Lanta in the Andaman Sea (west coast). Buddhist to Muslim, party central to deserted, clear skies to overcast and rainy. Alas, it's still the same amazing Thai vibe, food and beaches. We spent a week on Koh Tao getting our scuba Open Water certification. Unfortunately we don't have any pictures of us in full gear as my camera isn't waterproof, but we do have some pictures below of our diving group (left) and with our awesome instructor, Yuki, who helped make this experience a highlight of our whole trip (right).

Now we're on Koh Lanta enjoying the quiet. The silence is golden. There is nothing going on here in Lanta except empty resorts (ours pictured right--all the bungalows are connected by a canopy of palm trees and orchids) and the crashing of the waves. The beauty of low season is that all the resorts are half price and the daily south-Floridian rainstorms help cool down the afternoons. Just what we wanted after a week hanging out underwater and on dry ground with other divers. And thankfully we're far away from the horrible tragedy in Myanmar. It's hard to imagine the death toll is approaching 100,000, but after seeing some of the delta shanty towns in Vietnam and the riverside huts in Laos, we can almost grasp the scale of one storm washing away town after town. Here's to their government letting more foreign aid in ASAP...

Tomorrow we leave Thailand (for the 4th time; this time for good) and cross over in Malaysia. Our first stop is, you guessed it, another beach. Palau Perhentian awaits, with white sands, rustic bungalows and the allure of more great diving. The island only has electricity in the evening so I doubt we'll be checking email much, if at all. Happy Mothers' Day to all our favorite Moms out there (Liz and Roberta especially) and we'll check in after several days at yet another same same but different paradise island. And just a reminder--next year's annual Cuatro de Mayo party will be held on my rooftop as per usual. On the left you'll see me celebrating in the lone Mexican restaurant on Koh Tao, aptly named El Gringo.

Majestic Ha Long Bay

2008-05-03T05:38:00.000-07:00

We're decompressing (pun intended) in Koh Tao, Thailand for a few days now, getting our Scuba diving Open Water certification. We loved our first dive so much that we're going for four more. But let's recap our last experience in the water first. Ha Long Bay, yet another UNESCO world heritage site, is in the South China Sea, a few hours from Hanoi.

We booked our trip with a small travel agency back in Hanoi and all 14 of us set off by bus to Ha Long harbor. We boarded our junk and sailed off with a grand seafoad feast. Our group was great--we made some good friends on the tour, especially Graham and Feonia, who graciously invited us to stay with them in Australia.

We spent the afternoon cruising around the gorgeous limestone karst rocks, all covered in striking green foliage. The water was a beautiful blue/tourquoise, but unfortunately the skies were overcast so the colors didn't come out that vividly in our pictures--but it did lead to some lingering mist that left us speechless. Our first stop was the Hang Dau Cave island, with two monstrous caves inside one of the big karst islands.

From there, we floated for a while and dropped anchor right in the heart of the bay, with the karsts all around us. We stayed there for the night, with a few bottles of wine split among all of us, chatting the evening away. The following day we docked at Cat Ba Island, exploring some more caves, kayaking in the bay around Monkey Island and just relaxing. The last day of the trip we boated back to the mainland and returned to Hanoi. It was an incredible trip and the perfect way to end our 5 weeks in Vietnam. Enjoy all the pictures below!

Alright, time to get cracking on our PADI textbook to learn more about scuba diving. Tomorrow we dive again!

Hats off to Hanoi

2008-04-29T05:49:00.000-07:00

So here we are, on our last night in Vietnam. It's been a fun ride, that's for sure--between the mountains, the beaches, the swampy river deltas and the crazy big cities, deep history and shallow bays, we've had a blast. A few too many hassles, but it comes with the territory. The food was OUTSTANDING (bun cha was our favorite dish) and deserves special mention, as it was very very cheap. Bia Halida with the ring pop opening was my favorite brew (though Beer Lao is still the best in southeast Asia). When you come here, make sure you pull up a kindergarten-sized stool and have some tasty street food. But bring ear plugs--it's LOUD here. We definitely tip our hats (see left) to this country as a whole.

We settled into Hanoi pretty quickly, acquainting ourselves with the madness of the Old Quarter. It feels like Canal Street meets the wholesale district in midtown--people hawking everything under the sun. The blazing hot sun (though the last few days have been blessedly overcast). We've spent the majority of our time here walking around the Hoan Kiem Lake in the middle of town. This scenic lake has its own Arthurian legend as King Le Loi (who has many streets named after him here) was given a sword that helped him defeat the Chinese invaders. Le Loi gave the sword back to the magic turtle who lives in the lake, thus fulfilling the prophecy. Pictures below. And can anyone interpret what the street sign on the right means? Our guess is "don't drive into trucks."

We spent one morning visiting Uncle Ho at his mausoleum. This is quite an involved process--bringing your passports (then never showing them to anyone), dressing properly, no bags, no cameras, no talking, walking through 3km of lines with pushy tour groups and reverent locals. And don't walk on the grass or the guards will blow their whistles at you. Seeing Ho Chi Minh's actual embalmed body was surreal. It looked very waxy, but his beard is perfectly preserved; and he looks short. At the left is the outside of his mausoleum, which sits next to his old house, the one-pillar pagoda and a fine assortment of other attractions that we were unable to take pictures of. So it goes.

From there we headed down to the Temple of Literature, the first university in the country. Dating back over 1000 years, this beautiful courtyard and pagoda complex was well worth the visit. It's very tranquil and surprisingly quiet inside the walls. There's a nice pond inside lined with stone turtles with stone slabs inscribed to honor all the teachers of yesteryear. Turtles, along with the phoenix, the dragon and the unicorn/dog, make up the four sacred animals in this culture. Check out Deanna posing with a phoenix (yes, they look more like flamingos or peacocks) below on the right. On the left is a huuuuge gong that would call the students to class.

Another day here was spent a few km outside of town at the museum of ethnology. It was really nice to see aspects of the 50-some ethnic minorities that make up this country. The museum was laid out very well and had some great stuff in there--ritual buffalo sacrifices, water puppetry (see left), funeral rites (see below left; does that remind you of Dubya or is it just us?). It was nice to contrast the hill tribes here with the ones we hiked through in northern Thailand. Outside were full-scale models of tribal houses. The 40' tall A-frame community meeting house (below right) was our favorite.

One last highlight of Hanoi was going to see a water puppet show. We caught the late bill on Saturday night (and the theatre was packed to the gills). It was a great combination of Punch and Judy and a Shamu show at Sea World. The skits spanned all aspects of Vietnamese life--from working the rice paddies to coming home from school to mythology and cosmology. Below on the left is the stage/pool with the band set off to the left. On the right is King Le Loi giving the sword back to the sacred turtle (it's grainy, so open it in a new window to see).

Tomorrow we head back to Thailand to decompress at some fantastic beaches. Koh Tao is our first stop to try scuba diving. Look for another post coming soon about our amazing time in Ha Long Bay.

PS-- Congrats to Jen and Jeff for getting engaged in Costa Rica! We're so happy for you two :)

Crossing the 17th parellel

2008-04-28T04:21:00.000-07:00

After our great stay in Hoi An we continued north to Hue, the old capital of Vietnam. We were a bit soured on this city from the get-go, as I got pretty sick on arrival and the city cuts off electricity every day (alternating between mornings and afternoons)--and every hotel owner we encountered lied to us about it. So after recovering from the flu and getting over the annoyance of 95 degree days sans fan or AC (hey, we better get used to it--Indonesia in June is going to be HOT), we set out to explore what the old city has to offer.

We started out the old imperial palace complex, which consists of the Citadel (above), the imperial enclosure and the Forbidden Purple City (at right--but all the namesake purple flowers were destroyed during the Tet Offensive in 1968). A few pagodas along the Perfume River and a huge lunch later, we went outside the city limits to see some of the old emperors' tombs. These huge park complexes were a great breath of fresh air--no noise, smog, zooming motorcycles or trash. Enjoy some pictures below.

Before taking a boat back to Hue, we stopped at a little cluster of huts to see two ubiquitous items being made--the conical hats and sticks of incense (pictures right). The hats are so iconical (credit Deanna with that pun) and make for amazing scenery on long bus rides (staring out into rice paddies and seeing women's hats poking above the bright green). As for the incense--well, we've seen/smelled incense for years, yet we never knew how it is made. Pictures below.

The following day we took a tour of the DMZ (pictured left). Running along the 17th parallel (and the Ben Hai river), the demilitarized zone separated North and South Vietnam during the war. There are almost no remnants of the American presence there--one tank remains on a hill where the base was. On the northern side of the river were stacks and stacks of loudspeakers used to broadcast propaganda to those in the south. From there we went a bit farther north to visit the tunnels at Vin Moc. Unlike the ones at Cu Chi in the south, these were civilian tunnels--aka tall enough for me not to have to crawl. 17 babies were born there during the war. There were three levels--at 13, 17 and 23 meters below ground. We spent about 45 minutes walking through the different levels, which ultimately let out right at the beach. Entrance and exits shown below.

We've got one more day in Hanoi before we head down to the Thai beaches. We'll try to get another post up ASAP of Hanoi and Ha Long Bay, but I'm not sure ha long it will take (credit Aaron with that one).

The romantic city of Hoi An

2008-04-22T07:09:00.000-07:00

We spent a good 5 days in the small town of Hoi An, on the Thu Bon river. This quaint, picturesque town has the best examples of Vietnamese architecture still standing. The old historic center is full of beautiful two-story yellow brick buildings with wooden balconies. It felt a bit like the French Quarter in New Orleans, without the smell of all sorts of bodily fluids, trash everywhere, drunken idoicy, etc.

Most of our time was spent strolling the streets (right), winding through hidden alleys, staring at the beautiful Japanese covered bridge (below right), enjoying the beauty of the town lit up at night (below left) and lots of shopping (more on that later).

This town is famous for its artisans, painters, tailors and even lantern makers (right--getting ready for the full moon lantern festival, which we missed). It was very hard to prevent ourselves from buying up the whole town (read: Deanna getting loads of clothes handmade to her exact measurements). All the crafts and paintings were gorgeous, so it took us 4 days to decide on one painting to buy. Below on the left is our painter standing next to two smaller versions of the one we bought (which has three women and was already packed up in a tube when we took this shot). On the right is Deanna and her tailor in her brand new suit--not pictured are the two pairs of pants, the shorts, the winter coat, the high heels and the leather boots she also got made (for a grand total of $200)

One highlight of our time in Hoi An (and our SE Asian experience so far) was a windy afternoon spent flying a kite. We had no idea that we would get such an amazing response from the local kids when we brought a kite to the riverside. Luckily for Charlie Brown with the red beard, there was an older man who helped us get the kite flying while Deanna held his beer (the old man's--sadly Aaron did not have one). Enjoy the pictures below.

Enjoy this video of us all playing together. Afterwards, I gave the kite to the littlest one to keep, which produced the most memorable smile.

We also took a day trip to the ancient ruins at My Son. This small jungle complex reminded us of the Jesuit mission we visited in southern Paraguay. Actually, it looked the exact same. Below are two pictures so you get the idea.

Now we're in Hanoi with only 6 more days left in Vietnam. At the end of the month we fly back to Bangkok to start working our way south through the Thai beaches.

A breath of cold air and back to the beach

2008-04-12T04:43:00.000-07:00

From Saigon we took a ride north through the countryside and up into the mountain town of Da Lat. This city was settled by the French as a resort town during the colonial period. There's even a TV antenna as a replica of the Eiffel Tower (see right). It was the first time in our two months in Asia where it was not scorching hot. We even wore our hoodies for the first time since the airplane ride from LA to Bangkok! I can't underscore how nice it felt not to be constantly sweating.

The only problem with Da Lat is that it is 100% kitsch. It looks and feels like a small town nestled in the Swiss Alps. The city is surrounded by hills covered in pine forests and they dug out man-made lakes all around. As cute as it was, it was a bit hard to get over the fakeness / Epcot feel of the town. But then we remembered--wait a minute, we love Epcot! So we embraced the kitsch by touring the forest in a gondola sky ride, posing in front of cheesy topiaries, riding a bumper car/toboggan down to a waterfall, and taking our picture at the Valley of Love--picture the lawn furniture section of K-Mart during a post-Valentine's Day clearance sale, all set up in a park to earn this city the title of Honeymoon Capital of Vietnam. See pictures below.

But, despite all that, we did manage to visit a Buddhist meditation center (below left), watch silk embroiderers work their magic, have some top notch Vietnamese meals, and tour some old French aristocrats' villas (below right--me at the desk of the fanciest/richest villa pretending to be important with two phones).

The countryside around town was just beautiful, as you can't really go wrong when you emulate a Swiss chalet town. The waterfall was nice (though they all pale in comparison after Iguazu) and we caught sight of a perfect Vietnamese scarecrow--shirt on a stick with the ubiquitous triangle hat. See both below.

Another thing we found really interesting was the Dragon Pagoda. They started building this temple 15 years ago and still have lots of of work to do. The entire 7 stories of the chedi are mosaic, being assembled by hand. On the right is one of the many dragons that adorn the temple. Below on the left is a pile of bowls waiting to be broken (delft is VERY big here); on the right is a man on bamboo scaffolding working on the outside of the 4th floor.

And for good measure, they let me ring the bell. Can't argue with that! After a few chilly days in Da Lat we descended from the mountain ridge and went to the beach. We *love* the beach! Especially when we're running low on reading material and the touts are selling $3 xeroxed copies of books we want to read... Nha Trang was beautiful and relaxing. The South China Sea was the perfect color and temperature, with great beach bungalows for rent. We spent a week doing just about nothing there, though we did manage to find the best pizza in all of Asia there. Miss Universe 2008 will be held there in August, but the convention center is just a huge ditch right now. Some pictures below.

We're in the gorgeous city of Hoi An right now and will try to get a new post soon. In the somewhat-sad-news category, we finally booked our return tickets back to the states. On August 8 we fly from Auckland, NZ to Los Angeles, spending a few days with my nieces, then on to DC, NJ and finally back to NYC!

*Note* Sorry for any weird spacing issues... It is impossible to view any blogs in Vietnam (government censorship?) so I can't proof any of these posts. The weird thing is, blogger.com is fine, but any blog itself is blocked.

Cause it's 5, 6, 7, Vietnam is really gr8!

2008-04-03T04:14:00.000-07:00

It pains me to write "gr8," but If you don't get the title, go watch "Woodstock" and you'll understand. Alright, that out of the way, time to recap that last few weeks. After Siem Reap we bussed back to Sihanoukville to decompress from the tiring Angkorian heat. We spent our days reading on the beach, playing cards and backgammon and uploading pictures. The usual. Only this time the internet cafe was ON the beach (the picture on the right was taken while sitting at a computer). If life gets better than this, sign me up.

After a few relaxing days we took our longest Asian bus ride yet (12+ hours) across the border into Vietnam. It felt great to put all the hassles and annoyances of Cambodia behind us and find ourselves in the land of great food and traveler conveniences. We settled into our guest house in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and crashed. It's amazing how exhausting sitting on a bus for 12 hours can be. We spent the next two days walking around Saigon, eating pho and discovering all sorts of new good food (bun cha and bun thit bo xao being our favorites).

One of those mornings while Deanna went shopping, I took a tour of the Cu Chi tunnels, dug by the Vietcong during the American War (as they rightfully call it here). On the right I'm posing with two new plastic friends (Cu Chi is done up like an Epcot Center pavilion, with animatronic soldiers, an AK47/M16 firing range and about 15 gift shops). Below on the left is the entrance to the tunnels. I crawled through that one on all fours for about 15 long, sweaty, claustrophobic minutes. It's amazing that people LIVED down there for years. On the right a tour guide demonstrates one of the hidden fox holes.

We then embarked on a 2-day tour of the Mekong Delta, which only seemed appropriate as we've been in it or on it in three other countries so far. On the left are a few of the outboard motor boats we used in the deeper sections of the delta. In the shallower parts, we used canoes like in the picture below (complete with authentic triangle hats). The stunning scenery made us feel like Martin Sheen in Apocolypse Now. Except we were yelling "The delight, the delight!" instead of "The horror."

We saw how the locals make coconut candy (below left), rice wine (35%, yuck), rice noodles, rice paper (below right) and how they shuck rice husks. Yeah, in case you couldn't tell, rice is pretty important to daily life here. We really enjoyed how they kept all the huts cool with cross-breezes and shade. Thank god for that, as it is pretty stifling in here.

On the small motorboat we got to visit the floating market. Most of the roads in the delta are only big enough for motorbikes, so the locals float everything along the river. Below left a man buys some watermelons and below right a woman pulled her canoe right up to our boat to sell us cold drinks.

Travel note: We've noticed a trend in Asia thus far. It has to do with loud noises and early morning hours. I've lovingly dubbed it the Asian alarm clock. Like the alpaca nightmare of Peru and Bolivia (4-7 thick alpaca blankets weighing about 10 pounds on each bed, making you feel like you're getting your teeth x-rayed every night while you sleep), it tends to be a bit of an nuisance. Ranging from hotel employees to animals to horn honking to wedding rituals to reeducation public loudspeaker messages (well, that's what they sound like if you don't know the local language), we're woken up early just about every morning. And we're talking the 4-7am range. SE Asians get up RIDICULOUSLY early. We've yet to find a hotel where this isn't the case. Luckily we're able to fall back asleep most mornings.

I know, I know--poor us. We're grateful that we don't have to get up for work every day, but it's still a royal pain. Enjoy the video above of our last morning in Siem Reap, where a wedding was slated for that AFTERNOON. At 4am a loud speaker on the street started BLARING music. If you can call it that. We're talking the WORST, most off-key nails-on-a-chalkboard we've ever heard. And I've been to my share of rock concerts and this hurt my ears more than seeing Mars Volta live (sorry, Deanna!).

Anyway, we're having a fantastic time in Vietnam. We're in Nha Trang right now, relaxing at the beach (which seems to be a recurring theme in our travels). We're sorry if you believed ourApril Fool's prank. Our prior blog entry was entirely fabricated. Anyway, Deanna gets WAY too seasick for that to happen. We leave you with a picture of our new careers as canoe paddlers and rice paddy workers in the Mekong Delta. Ok, if you believe THAT one then you're really gullible!

Our ship has come in!

2008-04-01T01:54:00.000-07:00

It seems that all the planets were aligned yesterday. Carol and Simon, two British retirees, used to run a fishing company out of Liverpool for 36 years. When they retired two years ago, they bought a 45' schooner (Fish'n'Chips, registered in Liberia) and have made it west through the Panama Canal and the South Pacific. They've recently docked in Nha Trang for a few weeks to do some scheduled maintenance on the boat (picture below--the same model, not their actual ship).
After meeting them on our tour of the Mekong Delta, we decided to stick together for a few more days and travel to Da Lat together, up in the mountains. It's delightful here, as the air is cool and crisp. It's the first time in Asia we've actually been chilly! But I digress...

Over a delicious dinner last night (with awful Da Lat mullberry wine, yuck), they made us an offer we couldn't refuse. They asked us to accompany them for the next leg of their journey! And of course, we accepted.
So for the next 18 months (yikes!! it seems longer when I type it out) we will be on their boat--Deanna as the cook and me as the first mate (or, as Deanna likes to tease me, the Skipper). We'll have our own bedroom below deck and our first stop will be Singapore to load up on supplies for one year in the Indian Ocean.

As of now, we'll head northwest to Sri Lanka and southern India. From there we'll stop in Dubai and head south down the east coast of Africa (I'm most excited for Madagascar). In about a year (slated for June 15, 2009), we'll round the Cape of Good Hope and by August 1, we should be relaxing in the Canary Islands. Route below.

They have a laptop computer on their boat and some cool satellite connection, so we'll be able to keep in touch. Before we depart from Singapore, we'll have a full itinerary of all our ports of call. So if you're planning a vacation, you can come meet up with us!

In preparation, Deanna has purchased literally a year's supply of dramamine, bonine and ginger pills. I'm still looking for a good waterproof sunblock over SPF 25 here (not that easy to come by) to get in bulk.

We're so excited... This is such an amazing opportunity and we're so thrilled that Carol and Simon are willing to take us along for the ride.

Siem Reaport

2008-03-18T22:34:00.000-07:00

Wow. The temples at Siem Reap in Northern Cambodia are simply beyond description. The scale of the archealogical park is enormous--everyone recognizes the 3 main stupas of Angkor Wat (on the right) and the jungle temple of Ta Prohm (where Lara Croft Tomb Raider was filmed), but there are hundreds of other temples in the area. You can spend weeks exploring, climbing and hiking through them. So enjoy all the pictures below; I hope this gives you an idea of how magical and special this place is.

The majority of the temples were built during the heyday of the Cambodian empire in the 10th through 13th centuries. King Jayarvaman VII is responsible for the most impressive areas--some as temples for worship, other as tombs for his parents and some as massive religious cities, housing up to 70,000 people. This entire site is a great juxtaposition of Hindu and Buddhist cosmology and imagery. On the left is us posing in front of one of the towers in Bayon, the main temple in Angkor Thom.

Below on the left is is the causeway leading to the West Gate of Angkor Thom. On the right is Bayon. Home to hundreds of images of Lokesvara's face (four-sided, usually), this is the most impressive example of baroque Khmer architecture.

Our tour guide, Sim, while not the best English speaker, knew all the great spots for amazing photos. Below is each of us kissing Lokesvara (from afar, thanks to perspective). Hey, we're engaged, not married yet!

We walked through the woods of Angkor Thom, scouting out some of the smaller temples. On the left was one of our favorites, as two trees sprouted out from the stairs. It was just a teaser of what was to come later--Ta Prohm (Tomb Raider). On the right is me below a tree root. Everything about this place was BIG.

Once inside of Ta Prohm, we were blown away. It would have been easy to stop the trip here, as we'll be hard pressed to find anything more awe-inspiring and beautiful. But hey, we're always up for a challenge! Enjoy the montage of photos.

And one more that will probably end up framed on our wall...

From Ta Prohm we headed a few km south and crossed the long causeway over the moat leading up to Angkor Wat. This more famous spot is the prime example of classical Angkor architecture. It originally had 9 main towers but today only 5 are still standing (but you usually get a vantage point straight on, so it looks like there are only 3). On the left, we're standing between two nagas (5-headed snakes believed to be the mythic ancestor of the Cambodian people) with Angkor Wat on our right. Below are two more of our favorite photos. The word "picturesque" really just does no justice...

That evening we treked up a hill 1km west of Angkor Wat to watch the sun set (see on the right). Pretty spectacular view... That night we had a great dinner in town and got much-needed foot massages. Life is tough!

The next morning we got up super early to watch the sun rise over Angkor Wat. This involved tiptoeing across the causeway in pitch black, which gave us the feel of being the first explorers to ever set eyes on this man-made wonder of the world. Once inside, we set up on the stairs to the northern library and waited for the sun to poke through.

We spent the rest of that day on the grand circuit route, seeing some of the less-popular (though still amazing) temples. And we went back to Ta Prohm just to get lost in the ruins at 6am, when we were the only people in sight. Such a special morning!

We're still hanging at the beach right now, relaxing (after 5 consecutive mornings waking up before 6am). On Monday we take a bus across the border into Vietnam, where we'll start our five weeks there with Ho Chi Minh City. I'll leave you with one more picture from sunrise... Enjoy!

Phnom Penh, Cambodia

2008-03-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

Here we are again, back at the beach in Sihanoukville, Cambodia. Rachel just left after a whirlwind 10 days crisscrossing this unique country. We met her in Phnom Penh, where we had a pretty solemn day touring the killing fields and former prison of Pol Pot's horrible Khmer Rouge regime. At the right are Deanna and Rachel riding in our favorite form of transportation--the omni-present tuk tuk.

We started the day off at Tuol Sleng, the former elementary school that Pol Pot turned into a prison known as S21. From 1975-79, over 14,000 people were brought here, tortured, forced to confess to crimes they did not commit (mostly they had to admit to ties with the KGB or CIA). All but 7 were either killed on site or taken by bus during the night to the killing fields 15km outside of town. Warning--some of the pictures below are pretty greusome.

This concentration camp still conjures horrendous memories and nightmares to every Cambodian. Below on the left is one of the cells, on the right is the bed inside, with leg iron, used to bind the feet of the inmate.

Below on the left is one of the gallows used to torture and hang prisoners. On the right are the rules of conduct for the inmates. Open that picture up and read them.

Finally, below on the left is a grim reminder not to take this prison too lightly. On the right is my picture of a picture of a map of Cambodia made from prisoner skulls and blood. The KR regime used this map to plan raids on villages and transportation of prisoners.

From S21, we went outside of town to see the actual killing fields. This was one of 17 spots in Cambodia where the mass killings took place. Several million were killed in the 5 years of Pol Pot's rule. This place was originally a Chinese cemetary set a bit back from the road. It wasn't even discovered until over a year after the Vietnamese overthrew the Khmer Rouge. On the left is a shot of some of the mass graves. Below on the left is one of the skulls--most people were bludgeoned to death, as the regime didn't want to waste bullets. Note the fatal blow mark in the skull. On the right is a pile of prisoner clothing found during the recent excavation.

Below on the left is a picture of the ground; clothing and bone fragments are poking through as the ground turns to dust during the dry season. On the right is a lizard on the tree--a nice reminder that even in such a horrendous place, life still goes on.

We finished the afternoon at the Grand Palace, and topped the night off with some tasty cocktails at the Foreign Correspondant's Club. A little more upbeat, that's for sure.

Life in Laos

2008-03-02T05:08:00.000-08:00

So last we checked in, we had hung around the Golden Triangle. From there, we took a ferry across the Mekong to cross into Laos. We spent the night in Huay Xai, a relatively worthless town which exists solely for the launching point for the 2-day Mekong slow boat. In the morning we bought some provisions (canned tuna and cold Beer Lao, which is by far the best local beer we've had so far) and got prime seats on the slow boat.

We were the first ones on the boat and things looked pretty good when the 11:00am departure time rolled around. Sure the wooden benches were uncomfortable, but at least we each had one to ourselves. Then at 11:07, a group of about 35 people showed up and we had to all scrunch together. Luckily, Deanna and I were up in the front and still kept our extra butt room. We sailed and salied and sailed (ok, well I guess technically we motored), watching the beautiful scenery laze by (Thailand on the right and Laos on the left).

After a few hours the novelty wore off but we made the best of it, hanging with Seth and Erin, a fun couple from Texas (he happens to be an accountant so he and Deanna had plenty to talk about), and Laura from SF. Just as the sun was setting, we pulled into a small town to crash for the night. It felt great to stretch the legs and not have to sit on hard, thin, wooden bench.

The next morning we got on the boat (a different, smaller boat) and were all SUPER packed in. No leg room, no butt room and no room for our bags. So it goes... note: if you're planning on doing this trip, either go north (far less popular, aka not crowded) or get 25 people together in Huay Xai and charter your own boat, with leather captain chairs and all the extra room you could hope for. After a few too many hours, we finally docked in Luang Prabang, our home for the next week, to watch the sun set.

This French colonial town has everything a semi-weary traveler could want--beatiful scenery, two rivers, friendly people, great restaurants, chill bars and did I mention great restaurants? It reminded us a bit of Cusco in the sense that LPG has a friendly and inviting vibe. It has a good balance between the locals pandering to tourists and doing their own thing, so we never really felt as intrusive as we do now (in Vangvieng, which really only exists so backpackers can get drunk at bars showing reruns of Friends and Family Guy all day and night).

We spent hours just strolling around town, winding through alleys and enjoying life. Here are some pictures from around town (mostly flowers, with one pic of sausages drying in the sun). The one of the white flowers is not upside-down; that's how they grow.

We had a great French dinner at the best restaurant in Laos (not saying much, mind you), where we met Rebecca, a sweet and friendly Aussie whom we'd love to meet up with if/when we get down to Oz. We spent our last day in town at the waterfalls 25km south, seeing bears, turquoise water and lazing around. See below.

Tomorrow we tube down the river and the next day we beeline for the border back into Thailand, straight to the beach. We should be in Ko Chang with enough time to unwind for a few days before crossing into Cambodia to meet Rachel who is coming in for 10 days.

Northern Thailand: where the fields smell of garlic and one motorcyclist saved our trip

2008-02-22T04:48:00.000-08:00

So from Chiang Mai we took a minivan north through the windy mountains to Pai. En route, we heard a thump, and figuring it was merely a bump in the road, continued on. the back windshield door fell open and we heard a thump (figuring it was a bump in the road). A few minutes later we looked back and saw the back window/door had opened up and one thing had fallen out: my backpack. A complete catastrophe--all my current worldly posessions gone for good. A sheer travesty. Once we finally got the driver to pull over, he walked around to the back and scratched his head, shrugging. He closed the window and was walking back to his door when a mircale happened:

A local Thai on a motorcycle had picked up my (heavy) pack and was holding it (with one arm) for the five minutes it took to catch up with us. THANK GOD!!! We didn't even get to thank him as he just rode off into the sunset...

Just to backtrack, above left and right are pictures from Doi Suthep, a hilltop temple a few miles north of Chiang Mai.

Pai is a very cute hippie village nestled in a valley high up in the mountains. There are literally more smelly dreadlocked hippies than local Thai folk. They came there for a good reason though--the mountains are beautiful, the town is lush and green with a small river trickling through. There is a vibrant night life with music, fire dancers and street fairs, all with a low-key laid-back spirit. Very easy to relax here for a while.

After hanging out with Drew, a fellow New Yorker we met in Chiang Mai, for the evening, we decided to spend a few days in town. The following morning we embarked on a full day's hike to two hill tribe villages (Lizu and Lahu). We walked through garlic fields (you would not believe the smell; Deanna was in heaven!), bamboo forest, waterfalls and other gorgeous scenery. Enjoy the pics below... (the first one is of picked garlic on a truck headed to the market)

After Pai we went to Chaing Rai via Chiang Mai (try saying that ten times fast), further north. We took a great tour of the Golden Triangle (the triple border between Thailand, Myanmar and Laos), the fabled opium-producing region of yesteryear. En route, we stopped at the Monkey Cave, a mountain cliff that falls into a lagoon, with about 200 monkeys hanging around (credit Deanna with that pun). Enjoy the monkey montage below... Open the last picture in a new window and see how many monkeys you can count (be thankful they're climbing the mountain and not jumping in your bed).

From the monkeys we drove to Mae Sai, the very northern tip of Thailand. I crossed the border into Myanmar to do some shopping (it felt like crossing from San Diego into Tijuana) while Deanna relaxed at a cafe. Once back safely in a non military dictatorship, we drove to a viewpoint above the triple border. In the picture below, we're standing in Thailand, Myanmar is behind us to the left and Laos is behind us to the right. A bit reminiscent of the Paraguay / Argentina / Brazil border (sans incredible waterfalls).

And just because we are surrounded by thousands of them every night, below is a fun picture of a little gecko. We're off tomorrow to cross into Laos and take a slow boat down the Mekong River for a couple of days. We'll check back in soon...

More Elephants, some Thai Cookery, and some Temples

2008-02-13T18:29:00.000-08:00

Now that we're engaged life has changed dramatically -- OK, actually not at all. We are just as happy as can be and really the only thing that has changed is that we are more north.

Below are some more elephant pictures that were too amazing not to put up.

Elephants bathing

Elephants marching while banging on a drum (and some people can't even chew gum while walking!)

Ta Da! Me and an elephant

We've spent the last few days in the ancient city of Chiang Mai. It is a tourist-beaten place but it still retains its charm and provides us with easy access to things like cheap delicious food, great shopping, easy sightseeing, and Thai cooking schools taught in English.

The temples here are adorned with Buddhas in different postures, signifying different times of Buddha's life.

Ahh...so pretty, so serene.

After spending our days in temples, we decided to follow a Buddhist proverb.

We enrolled in Baan Thai Cookery School for the day.

First we learned to shop for ingredients.

Then with classmates from England, Ireland, and Austria, we chopped, mashed, mixed, and cooked.

We cooked and cooked then ate and ate.

We learned to make five dishes but more importantly, learned the techniques to prepare most Thai dishes. We also learned the secret of Thai cooking, which is fish sauce, oyster sauce, and sugar (of course this can be altered for our veggie friends).

When we get home get ready for some yummy Thai dinner parties!

And just because she's adorable, here's the picture of the two-week old kitten that runs around our guest house. She's tiny, maybe 6 inches long...

Why today is the best day ever!

2008-02-09T04:32:00.000-08:00

Deanna here - today is the best day ever for many reasons:

We rode an elephant through the jungle in Northern Thailand for a good cause.

We watched elephants paint self-portraits.

We are staying at a beautiful wooden teak gueshouse right on the river in Lamapang.

We had an amazing Thai lunch cooked with fresh ingredients from the area.

And....

Drumroll...

We got engaged!!!

Aaron bought a beautiful backpacker-friendly engagement ring back in NYC and was waiting for the right time to propose. After the amazing day we had at the elephant conservation center, we went back to the guest house for siesta (still have a bit of South America in us). Aaron set up the ipod speakers to play our song (a Jerry Garcia Band version of "How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)") and went out to the balcony overlooking the river all while I was in the bathroom killing a small ant colony. He asked me to come out to see something amazing, and since I was engrossed in my ant-killing rampage, I didnt hesitate to go wearing the Larry's Dive Bar XL bright yellow t-shirt (won at the superbowl party in Bangkok).

When I got outside he was on one knee. I started to cry immediately. He said some very special things and proposed. And of course my answer was YES!

Enjoy the pics below (Note: I changed for the photo shoot)

Jetlag be damned, Bangkok here we come

2008-02-04T03:40:00.000-08:00

Hey there! Long day today--woke up at 5am (we surprisingly had no trouble adjusting to the 15 hour time difference) for the Super Bowl. Deanna was thrilled with the outcome and I was thrilled just watching one last football game this season.

So our flight over here was perfect--Thai Air gets a HUGE two thumbs up. Great service, plenty of legroom, good on demand entertainment system and yummy food. 18 hours later and we were in a hot pink taxi cutting through rush hour to get to the Sukhumvit section of Bangkok. We checked into D'Pelican guest house and decided to forgo the nap for some Buddhist temples.

After two taxi drivers said they would not take us to the historic center, we snapped back to our adventurous selves (alright, I'll admit it, we got lazy in the US) and took the sky train to the river boat to get up to the Grand Palace. From what we can tell so far, this city (and probably most other big cities in Asia) thrives on the dichotomy between ancient and ultra-modern--just the idea of taking a quiet, clean and efficient above-ground subway to a long-boat to float slowly down the river impressed us.

Here we are at Wat Phra Kaew, in the Grand Palace, home of the emerald Buddha (which is really made of jade and is spectacular, but alas, no cameras in that temple). We got our first taste of the Heat this afternoon, as the direct sun was just sweltering (and it's the dead of winter, yikes!). So we wandered back home and had a great dinner--despite everyone's warnings, the food here is pretty close to what we get when we eat thai back home, which proves my theory that Faan on Smith Street is legit for thai, japanese and chinese.

The next day we took the underground subway to the train station to book our passage up north. Everything runs very smoothly here so far, very reminiscent of German efficiency. (Note: I wrote this yesterday, so of course it came back to bite us in our ass today--we spent 5 hours in the train stration today waiting for our delayed train...) Tomorrow morning we head up to the ancient walled city of Sukhothai en route to the hippie trail (we had the gringo trail in South America and now the hippie trail here) outpost of Chiang Mai. A quick tuk-tuk ride later put us at Wat Pho to see the largest reclining Buddha in the world--a whopping 46 meters long and 15 meters high. You don't really get that full scale below...

Next we strolled to an outdoor market and tried some new food-- unidentifiable oatmeal-like mushy soup with some sort of meatballs and other stuff in it. It was actually one of the best things I've had here so far. Note the soup dribbling down my chin as I waited, posed, for Deanna to take the picture. Later that night we met up with Russ's and Jordan's uncle, Mark, for dinner and a tour of the red light districts. We had a blast running around Nana and Soi Cowboy areas.

Right now we're in Phitsanulok, after the aforementioned 5 hour delay leaving Bangkok. The train ride up here was breathtaking--palm trees, rolling green meadows, craggity mountains topped with giant bronze buddhas, temple after temple. Tomorrow we will head to Sukhothai to see the ancient walled city. We'll check in again when we get to Chiang Mai. Here's to hoping that either Clinton or Obama (whoever wins today) can and will beat the republican candidate...

On the road again!

2008-01-30T16:49:00.001-08:00

We're in Los Angeles now (after a great 4-day stretch in San Francisco with Beth and Andrew), at my sister Sarah's place, visiting with my three nieces. Aliza, 5 years old, Dalia 2 1/2 years old, and Ariella, 7 days old. It's been incredible to be here for 3/4 of Ariella's life--she's amazingly sweet, cute and baby-soft.

Enjoy some pictures of us with the Benor girls below.

Tomorrow we board our plane for the 17 hour trip to Thailand. We'll post when we get there and get adjusted to the 15 hour time difference. Yikes!

See you in Asia...

Recapping with pictures and videos

2008-01-06T07:09:00.000-08:00

Here are all our picture galleries from the first leg of our trip:

Peru (Part 1)
Peru (Part 2) and Bolivia (Part 1)
Bolivia (Part 2) and Chile (Part 1)
Chile (Part 2)
Argentina (Part 1)
Argentina (Part 2)
Paraguay and Uruguay

And here are our videos:

Penguin one
Penguin two
Glaciers calving
Driving through Patagonia
Deanna tangoing (sideways, sorry)
Aaron tangoing (sideways sorry again)
Iguazu Falls one
Iguazu Falls two

Two videos of Iguazu Falls

2008-01-04T08:43:00.000-08:00

Enjoy! The falls were VERY loud, so sorry about the white noise (and sorry about that pun).

Time to catch up...

2007-12-30T19:44:00.000-08:00

We're at my parents' house in Maryland right now before heading to Russ and Beth's new house for NYE with the usual crew. So i figure this is a good time to finish recapping our time spent in South America.

After Iguazu Falls, the three of us snuck through Brazil illegally (45 minutes in a car en route to Paraguay) and finally got to Ciudad del Este on the hottest day of our trip--100 degrees and humid. After a six-hour bus ride (sans air conditioning, sigh), we found ourselves in Asuncion. On the right you see us in the room where their Declaration of Independence was signed in 1811.

After touring around the city (the slums are located literally in the shadow of the president's enormous palace, no more than 20 yards away), we drove a few hours south to Ybycui National Park to do some hiking. There are 620 species of butterflies in that park, but amidst the waterfalls and streams, we only saw about 25 different types. Some were as big as my hands, some were the size of a thumbnail--all with strikingly vivid colors. Take a look at the one on the left with black and turquoise markings.

After we bid farewell to Rachel, we took a bus south to Encarnacion (where we had excellent sushi, thanks to a large Japanese (and Korean) importer influence). There we saw ruins of a Jesuit mission from the early 1700s. Set in a tropical forest, th ruins looked like something out of an Indiana Jones movie. See pictures below and note the monkey we saw at lunch right after the mission...

We crossed back into Argentina and made our way down to Buenos Aires to catch the boat to Uruguay, where we bussed over to Punta del Diablo. This great sleepy beach town would be our home for the last two weeks of our trip, so we rented a great house right off the beach. Below is the house and the view from the deck.

Stay tuned for a few more videos and a recap of our 4.5 months in South America. Happy New Year everyone! See you in '08...

"I'm going back to New York City, I do believe I've had enough"

2007-12-26T08:30:00.000-08:00

We arrived safely this morning at 7:30am and went straight to Tom's Diner for a wonderfully decadent "down home" American breakfast with backpacks still in tow. Plans for the rest of the day are to get reacquainted with our couch and HD tv, and to eat as much Asian food as we possibly can. I (Deanna) no longer have a cell phone, so for the time being, if you'd like to contact me call Aaron's cell or email me. Hope to get in touch and see everyone soon.

Welcome to the jungle (finally!)

2007-12-09T13:35:00.000-08:00

So we finished off our two-week run in Buenos Aires and visit of the Estrogen Crew (Lauren, Randi and Bari) with a fun night of clubbing in the swanky Palermo neighborhood. The week with the girls was a blast! Tons of shopping--laughing more at Argentine current fashion (think of your worst memories of late 80s/early 90s "fashion") than buying things. I (as the guy) now have extensive knowledge of BsAs's best chairs and couches in trendy shops. At the right is the five of us at Cafe Tortoni watching a very fun tango show.

On December 1, the two of us flew up to Iguazu where we met my old roommate and travel buddy Rachel for a week´s visit. The national park was incredible--there were 3 different circuits that led us to different vantage points of the breathtaking waterfalls. The lowest circuit got us really close to the falls which served as a really nice treat while hiking in 95 degree weather. The upper circuit gave us an insane bird's-eye view. The last trail led us through a network of catwalks so we were able to walk right over the precipice of the gushing water. Below are some of our favorite pictures.

OK, so here's the deal. We're spending our last two weeks of South America in a sleepy beach town in Uruguay called Punta del Diablo. Internet hardly works here (which is fine because who needs a computer when you have a hammock overlooking the ocean?) so I will post the rest of the Iguazu pictures and the whole blog about Paraguay when we get to a decent internet connection in Buenos Aires or back in NYC.

Speaking of NYC, we land on Dec 26th in the morning. Let me know when you're around so we can meet for a drink and catch up!

Videos!

2007-12-08T09:53:00.000-08:00

Hey everyone... just spent a wonderful week in Paraguay where we were the ONLY tourists around. Literally, we did not see a single other backpacker or even a businessman. Pretty crazy but pretty sweet.

So here are some videos from the last month or two that we hope you enjoy:

Penguin waddling towards us

And another couple of penguins waddling

Perito Moreno glacier calving in (make sure to listen for Deanna asking me if I captured the moment)

Homage to Patagonia (sorry Lemon Jelly, but we were listening to Mocean Worker at the time)

Deanna doing the tango (sorry it's sideways)

Me doing the tango (sorry it turns sideways a few seconds into it)

We're stuck in a bus station at the Argentina/Paraguay border for a few hours so hopefully we'll have time to post some more pictures. Check back soon!

Thanksgiving in Buenos Aires

2007-11-27T08:49:00.001-08:00

Sorry for the lack of recent posts. We've been inundated with friends and family so it's been hard to get to a computer to upload pictures. As soon as we flew from Ushuaia up to Buenos Aires, my sister Miriam landed from NYC. And Gabe (and his father) were in as well. Then Deanna's best friend Randi showed up, followed by Deanna's sister Lauren and her best friend, Bari. So for a few days we were rolling 7 deep and having a blast together! We were all here in BsAs at the perfect time--the two weeks in spring when the purple trees are in bloom.

The four of us (Gabe, Miriam, Deanna and I) took the ferry over to Uruguay to spend the day in Colonia del Sacramento. A very cute town settled by the Portuguese (coming over from Brazil) with a tropical-feeling beach and some fun ruins. Below on the left you have Deanna trying (unsuccessfully) to hoist one of the very old drawbridges up and on the right is a pretty street, which also has the awesome purple trees.

On another day, just with Miriam and Deanna, we walked around through San Telmo (where we briefly ran into Gabe and Shanon and Jared) over to La Boca, the rough-neck neighborhood known best for it's brightly-colored row houses and it's soccer team, the Boca Juniors. After wandering around the wrong part of town, we eventually came upon the tourist section, with restored houses and people tangoing everywhere.

And since we're as cheesy as can be sometimes, below are two pictures that are obnoxiously cute--us in front of Rodin's The Kiss sculpture and us in a cardboard cut out of a couple dancing the tango.

Another highlight from last week was going to a professional tango show with Miriam. After some incredible dance and song, Deanna decided to show the dancers how tango really should be done. I have a video of her dancing with the guy and one of me dancing with the woman (who very politely leaned in to me and whispered "stop dancing in circles!"). Actually, I'm in the process of uploading a bunch of videos, so stay stuned for another post coming soon with penguins waddling and glaciers calving in.

The following day, for Gabe's birthday, Randi, Miriam, Gabe and I went to watch a soccer game--next door neighbor rivals Racing Club vs Independiente. What a crazy and fun experience! Songs, dance, chants, flares, flags, smoke, riot police, and oh yeah, 90 minutes of football. Enjoy the montage of pics below (and feel free to blame some random Irish guy for our very dark faces in the first one). Make sure you check out the 8 foot wide moat that ran around the entire soccer field, preventing fans from running on the pitch.

Check out
all the
smoke from
both sides'
fans!

We capped off the incredible first week in BsAs with Gabe's birthday dinner (and a belated Thanksgiving dinner) at one of the 18 amazing steak restaurants we've eaten at so far. Again, feel free to blame some random Porteña woman for the awful camera work... We've got a few more days with Randi, Lauren and Bari, and then Deanna and I fly up to Iguazu falls where my old roommate Rachel will meet us for a couple of days there and then a few more days in Paraguay. Can't wait!
Stay tuned for some videos coming soon...

Iceberg, right ahead!

2007-11-13T08:19:00.000-08:00

Well we just got back to Ushuaia after our little road-trip. The drive up there was, well, hard--to say the least. God bless Argentina for paving its highways in Patagonia... once we got to the Chilean border (there were 4 border crossings during this excursion), the roads were bumpy, rocky and full of pebbles--not the ideal driving conditions for our little Silver Bullet, a 2-door Volkswagen Gol (stick shift, of course).

But after a ferry ride across the Strait of Magellan, a night stopover in Rio Gallegos (weird town, don't ever go there), a complete inability to move the car in reverse and about 45 stallouts trying to shift into first gear, we made it to El Calafate. Sweet, sweet success! The town was nestled right on a turquoise lake at the foothills of the Andes where the Patagonian steppe meets the forrests--just beautiful.

Lake Argentina, the county's biggest (and prettiest) lake runs right into Glacier National Park, so we headed there for a few days of boating around icebergs and glacier watching. To the right you have us in front of an iceberg the size of our apartment building. The ice itself is crystal clear (they served us whiskey on the boat with ice cubes chipped off from a berg), but every berg looks bright blue--some light refraction trick that we couldn't quite grasp in Spanish (see below, right)

After a while, we came to a bay where we hiked through a forrest to a lake bordered by 4 glaciers. Icebergs were floating all over this misty lake. One of the more surreal things we've ever seen. A picnic during a light sunshower made it a highlight of our trip. Pics below.

The following day we took a bus to another side of the park to see the Perito Moreno glacier. Not as big as a few of the ones we saw the day before, but this one has a tendency to calve in daily. We got as close to this glacier as the park would permit--about 300 meters away in a boat. To give you some idea of the massive size of this thing--the north face is about the height of a 40-story building (see below left for boat/glacier contrast). Seeing huge chunks fall into the water left us speechless. I caught one of the calvings on video and will post it when we get to a faster connection.

That night back in the hostel, we met two American girls traveling through South America. One was from Dallas and the other was from Park Slope, Brooklyn. The craziest thing was that I had met her last summer on the beach in Ecuador... it really is a small world after all. The drive back to Ushuaia was a lot easier--we did it in one day. About an hour before arriving, we were hit with a snow storm. It felt like driving through a black and white movie from the 40s... I hope the picture at the right captures it.

We're uploading two albums of pictures--the rest of Chile and thus far of Argentina. Should be ready in a dew days, so check back soon.

It's the end of the world as we know it (and we love it)

2007-11-06T14:28:00.001-08:00

We're in Ushuaia right now--the sourthenmost city in the world. Argentina's Tierra del Fuego is a gorgeous island that reminds me a lot of Alaska. Absurdly breathtaking. We're so isolated that if you went due south from here, passing through the south pole and then back up north again, you wouldn't reach land until Indonesia. But let's back up a bit... We left off when we were headed into Argentina.

Our bus from Valparaiso took us winding through the Andes at the base of Aconcagua, the highest mountain in the Western hemisphere. We made it to Mendoza in the late afternoon and explored the town (which we expected to look like Napa or Santa Barbara, not a bustling, spread out industrial town with 800,000 residents).

We spent a few days touring vineyards and tasting the best malbecs in the world but our first attempt at locating a top notch winery was doomed from the begining. We were given 5 sets of different directions to the same vineyards...

We chose the one that sounded the most reliable and rode a bus for 45 minutes, which eventually dropped us off in the middle of grape vines and nothing else. Long story short, we flagged down a lower-end vineyard pickup truck and had him drive us back into town. Travel tip: when in Mendoza, hire a car and driver to take you through the vineyards.

Afterwards, we settled on a standard mini-tour of two vineyards. Above on the left is me drinking from the biggest barrel in the region (I would be willing to bet a bottle of wine that our whole apartment back in NYC would fit inside the barrel--see picture above).

On our last day, we went to Ruca Mallen, which had the most amazing five-course lunch with divine wine pairings. We met the lovely couple above on the right, Cliff and Phyllis. Originally from Boston, they have retired to Florida and spend a great deal traveling the world. We shared a few glasses of wine and some great conversation, and they invited us to go to the next winery with them on their tour (Carmelo Patti, above holding the bottle of wine--note: his Cabernet Sauvignon is Deanna's new all-time favorite wine). Little did we know, they also arranged to pick up our tab for lunch. How generous! We can't wait to return the favor.

We took an overnight bus to Buenos Aires and spent a low-key day getting a feel for the town in preparation for our two week stint there starting on the 17th. From there we caught an early morning flight to Ushuaia (after a mini-debacle of going to the wrong airport at 4am, luckily we eventually made our flight 30 seconds before they closed the gate) where we currently are.

Our first excursion was to a penguin colony. Only 15 people are allowed on the tiny island at a time (and 45 total per day), so we were really lucky to spend a few hours with 20,000 penguins. To the left is Deanna doing her best penguin waddle impression. Below are a bunch of pictures we took there--we hope you enjoy them as much as we enjoyed the penguins! (Yes, that's a rainbow above the pengiuns in the third picture...)

Then we celebrated Deanna's birthday with a very relaxing day at a spa overlooking the Beagle Channel. Afterwards, we went to an amazing dinner at (according to 2005 survey) the best restaurant in Argentina, Kaupé. Thanks for that gift, Mom and Dad! Tomorrow we rent a car to drive through Patagonia up to El Calafate to the National Glacier Park there.

Off to Argentina tomorrow

2007-10-29T12:59:00.000-07:00

So here we are in Valparaiso, which is a really funky town. Nestled between some hills and a port (with tons of MSC shipping containers--I can't believe I'm missing Jam Cruise this year!!), Valpo is home to 23 funiculars, to assist in my laziness--god bless each and every one of them. The one at the right ascends at a nice 45 degree angle.

Once on top of the hills, the row houses look like a cross between those in the opening credits of "Full House" and those on the Washington Mews, but painted with all the colors imaginable. With the ocean just below and funky murals everywhere, Valpo is really endearing.

Today we took a day trip to Viña del Mar, the Miami Beach of Chile. Cute town, but the Chileans really need to learn the rule about not bringing glass to the beach. Every lake or ocean beach we've seen here has had shards of broken glass everywhere... no good for the feet.

The highlight of the day (and week) was definitely seeing a real moai (those crazy Easter Island stone heads) that have been taken from Easter Island. Only 11 have ever been taken from Easter Island (one was returned). This one was taken in 1960 to NYC to protest Air France's attempt to build a refueling station on Easter Island. The protest worked and the moai was eventually returned to Chile. I've loved these things since I was pretty small, so this was far and away one of the highlights of our trip. Enjoy the pics!

Schnitzel, wine, and rainbows... this is living

2007-10-26T11:49:00.000-07:00

Back by popular demand (ok, my mom and Helfand) its me (Deanna) writing again. To continue where we left off from last week's entry, the Pachamama by Bus tour arrived in Pucon to drop off another set of travelers and to pick us up. Before leaving nature's wonderland, we went for one more hike in Parque Huerquehue, a very magical place. Half of the beauty was the scenery and the other half was actually being able to say the name correctly.

After leaving Pucon, we traveled on Ruta Los Lagos, stopping about every 30 minutes at a beautiful lake surrounded by snowcapped volcanoes. It was absolutely breathtaking. Our destination for the day was the town of Valdivia, known for sea lions, its fish market, and its university. We arrived mid-afternoon and went straight to the fish market to watch the gigantic sea lions vie for scraps of salmon (Aaron did not participate as the sea lions were quite large).

The next day we were off to Puerto Varas, a very German-influenced town--you guessed it, on a lake surrounded by volcanoes. We were very surprised and amazed that there are so many German towns in the south of Chile. Schnitzel, strudel, and German-speaking Chileans are in abundance. Frutillar, the town that claims to be the "most" German is famous for its music festivals, German architecture, and is sponsored by Nestle.

The next two days were spent driving back to Santiago. All of our fellow passengers got off so it was just Aaron, Rodrigo (driver), Nico (guide), and myself. We had some great "Tiny Dancer" style sing-a-longs and stopped at Saltos de Laja waterfalls and the Balduzzi winery.

We arrived back in Santiago yesterday and are just hanging out enjoying city life. We saw "Superbad" yesterday which we highly recommend. Travel note: Chilean movie popcorn does not taste like American movie popcorn! Tomorrow we head to Valparaiso, a funky San Fransico like town on the beach. From there we will make our way to Argentina to spend my birthday (Nov 6, i like presents) in Mendoza wine country. Keep sending emails and other fun things!

You can take the girl out of Jersey but you can't take the Jersey out of the girl

2007-10-16T05:59:00.000-07:00

We arrived in Santiago after an overnight bus and checked into another awesome, funky hostel. The room wasn't ready so we went straight to the computer to find out that I (Deanna writing here) passed the CPA exam! After two years, I am now a Certified Public Accountant, or Chilean Party Advocate... tomayto, tamahto. So we celebrated by putting the "fun" in "funicular."

After that we walked through the city and had some celebratory pisco sours while we waited for the sushi place to open. Low and behold, the pub barker in the street was wearing a "Central Jersey" hoodie, as displayed below. As a newly-certified Party Advocate, I made sure we shared a dance in the street.

Santiago is a beautiful and modern city, very different from what we´ve seen so far in South America. It´s nice to have the comforts of home (subway, rush hour, skyscrapers) but Santiago still retains its old world charm. There are many parks throughout the city but one in particular that won our hearts. Parque Cerro Santa Lucia is similar to, but much smaller than, the area with the castle in Central Park. After walking through a wooded hill, we reached beautiful fountains, gardens, and castle Hidalgo. It is truly an amazing urban treasure.

We took a few days to walk around town, relax in the park, and shop in a mall that puts Short Hills to shame. It felt like when I go to see my parents in Jersey. Later that night we met Marcie´s awesome cousins, Andreas and Brieta, for a great dinner at a cute local place. The company, food, and storries we shared made the night one to remember. Aaron also got to geek out about Bob Dylan with them, which made him very happy.

The next morning we were picked up by "Pachamama by Bus," our transport / tour for the next couple weeks. On the first day there was a stop to the touristy, but on-the-way, town of Pomaire (home of the 1 kilo empanada). Next, we stopped at dam that powers all of southern Chile. Then, we got to our home the night, Pichelimu, a cute surfing beach town. We saw a great sunset at Punto Lobos which has the best break in Chile and some say South America.

We had a "family" dinner with the tour group back at the hostel and bonded with the rowdy Irish guys. Oddly enough, one worked in Wildwood, NJ a few summers ago making sure the rides were safe. Note to anyone going to Wildwood... the rides are checked by drunk 17 year old Irish guys... proceed with caution!

Next morning, we set off for the long bus ride to Pucon (the Interlaken of Chile). On the way we stopped in Santa Cruz (left) to visit the museum owned by Carlos Cardoen, arms dealer and one of America´s top ten most wanted men. The incredible museum was full of tomb raider type illegalities, had an old railcar, and a gallery of beautifully-restored cars from the turn of the century (20th, not 21st). After that, we cruised for 8 hours with a steadfast Sergio at the wheel.

We are now in Pucon, where we decided to spend a week (hopped off the bus), doing all sorts of nature sports. So far we´ve hiked, we´ve biked, and have plans for rafting, zip lines, boating in the lake, and more hiking. Yes, by using the sushi place in town and visits to thermal baths for bribery, I have persuaded Aaron to hike, more than once. Below are some pictures of this beautiful town framed by lush green mountains, lakes, and a snow-capped volcano.

Volcano at the edge of town and river running through Pucon

Fun totems at one of the lakes (Well he's clearly sad because we litter too much, but I'm not sure why she's so happy), and great wooden cobblestones.

Awesome waterfalls (that flow through the ground, though you can't tell from these pictures) hidden in the woods about 20km outside of town.

PS... there is a huge kitchen at the hostel and we have the place all to ourselves until the next tour group gets here to pick us up on Friday. I´ve been cooking up a storm and loving every minute. This place is my paradise.

Chilling in Chile

2007-10-06T09:59:00.000-07:00

Ahhhh how sweet it is! 0 elevation. Zero altitude. Every breath fills your lungs with oxygen. How we've taken that for granted. We're in Zona 3, in Northen Chile. Bahia Inglesa, a cute little beach town that is a bit deserted (it's early spring here, not exactly beach season for the locals), but we're psyched to be at sea level and out of the desert. Below is Deanna actively exploring the concept of chilling in Chile.

So from La Paz we took a 3 hour bus ride to a 7 hour train ride (which ended up being hellish as the dust from the desert found a way to get inside the cabin, making it impossible to breath or even see the english subtitles of the dubbed version of High Crimes, with Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd). We arrived pretty late to the mining town of Uyuni and checked into our hotel, showering and repacking for the excursion into the salt flats. The morning saw us rounding up supplies (water, batteries, cookies, wine--you know, the four main food groups), and we were off into our 4x4 jeep. We lucked out--two of the other three people in the jeep were the awesome couple, Shanon and Jared, from Salt Lake City whom we met in the airport in our thwarted attempt to visit the jungle in Rurrenabaque.

Armed with our driver-cum-mechanic, Nilfer, our cook, Hilga, and our fifth partner in crime, a cook from Montreal named Ben Finkelberg (we never got your email, so if you're googling yourself, as we frequently do, and come across this, please email us or post your email in a comment!), we set off bounding around the desert and salt flats. Our first stop was a ghostyard for ancient trains, from the mining heyday. Back in the day, several of the mining towns in southwestern Bolivia were larger in population than London and Paris.

After that, we headed to Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world. The light reflecting off the white was blinding and the salt went on forever. And ever. And ever. They supply most of central South America's salt from this reserve (though I don't see many goiters, so I guess they iodize it in some factory--don't look behind the curtain!). It really looked like someone painted a backdrop and we were on a soundstage.

So of course we took some fun pictures... First is Deanna holding me in the palm of her hand (cue evil laugh).

Then you have the five of us, Shanon, Ben, me, Jared, and Deanna.

At one of the hotels made out of salt, here was a sign on the wall (alas, we couldn't find a "Do not lick the walls" sign).

And here's me floating in mid-air.

In the afternoon, we got to an island in the middle of the Salar. They think that before the Andes formed, this region was a lake. Once the plates shifted, the whole area was raised closer to the sun causing the water to evaporate. This island was formed, with 3000 cacti growing on it. Here's us in front of some of them.

That evening, we arrived in the "town" of San Juan. This farming village, of maybe 20 people, was built up into a rest stop for all the Salar tours that pass through. We saw some 5000 year old mummies (below is us walking back from the necropolis at sunset), had dinner with another tour jeep, and tried to drink our wine, which had clearly turned to vinegar under the desert sun in Uyuni.

The next morning saw us bouncing around more of the altiplano. And since you requested more pictures of us and fewer pictures of rocks, we decided to compromise--more pictures of us and rocks. Note the active volcano in the background, with a plume of smoke coming out of it.

Later that day, we stopped off at a few lakes. The first one was blue water with tons of salt and borax floating on top of it. And flamingos. Lots of flamingos. Below you can see them hanging out by the salt.

After that, we headed to the red lake, where we spent the chilly evening at 4800 meters (that is 15,780 feet, yikes!). Seems to be some sulfur runoff from the mountains (mixed with some elements and oxides that we couldn't quite translate from Spanish). Here is me on a cliff above the red lake--and that is actually the water that is red, not something floating on it. Very weird.

At dinner, one of the vicuñas decided to join our tour group, but when we hid the crackers from it, it spit at us (barely missing Deanna's dinner plate). Below you have Jared trying to lure her (the vicuña, not Deanna) outside.

The next morning we woke up at 4:45, freeeeezing cold (as you can see Shanon, Jared and Ben huddled together under a blanket in the jeep), so I decided to take a little swim in the thermal baths just

after watching the sun rise over a few geysers (that's me in the foreground center).

After my swim we rolled on to the third lake, the green one (I know it looks blueish below, but compare it to Deanna's scarf and it looks green--my camera did not do it justice). The green water is caused by copper runoff from the mountain.

We crossed the border into Chile and took a bus 45 minutes down the mountain (and down about 1500 meters) to San Pedro de Atacama. Despite all the stray (and rabid-looking) dogs, this was an incredibly cute village. It felt like the perfect beach town--one-story adobe buildings, dirt paths everywhere, weeping willows, but there was on problem: the beach was 100 miles away! We spent a few days (and 10 showers to get the desert dust off) relaxing and reading there.

We took two excursions from San Pedro. The first was to the Valley of the Moon for the sunset over a giant sand dune (see below). Above is the Dinosaur Valley (as those sand/rock formations look like a stegosaurus's armor).

The other trip was about 20 minutes outside of town, to a French astronomer's house. Alain Maury was a gracious and very funny host to our small tour group. He gave us a tour of the stars with a green laser pointer (that incited a Malaysion traveler to call Alain a jedi). He and his wife showed us all the constellations and i FINALLY SAW THE SOUTHERN CROSS FOR THE FIRST TIME (after spending 6 weeks looking for it, every night... grrr). The super-duper telescopes were aimed at Jupiter, the butterfly cluster, the spiral nebula, antares (a star in Scorpio), Alpha Centauri and a supernova. We had a blast dorking out about the stars and finished the night with very yummy hot cocoa.

The next morning we took a bus out to the coast to celebrate our one-year anniversary. In Antofagasta, we ate two asian meals (chinese for lunch and sushi for dinner mmmmmmm), stayed in a very nice hotel and relaxed the night away. Now we're in Bahia Inglesa, staying at the funkiest hotel ever--the Domo Chango Chile--a geodesic dome / yurt / pod / igloo hotel. The picture below is taken from inside the restaurant / common area, which the proprietor, from Berkeley, told us is modeled after the tents he used to hang out in at Burning Man. We have our own pod thingy to ourselves (so I guess that makes us the pod people?) right on the beach. Ain't life grand!!

Smooooke in the Jungle (A fire in the sky)

2007-09-27T12:21:00.000-07:00

Alas, the Rolling Stones were truly wise when they said "you can't always get what you want." We spent the last two days hanging in the airport, waiting for our flight to leave from La Paz to Rurrenabaque, in the Amazon jungle basin. There we would have done many cool things (swimming with dolphins, eating pirhanas, learning about the medicinal plants and whatnot), but our valiant attempt was thwarted.

At the end of each winter, the locals gather all the underbrush and refuse that accumulated during the winter and burn it. One big fire to send all the trash up to the heavens. Which causes a LOT of smoke. So much smoke that our 18-person plane was unable to land on the grassy hill (seriously, there's not even an airport there). So we spent two days in the airport in La Paz, being told every hour to come check back an hour later. Just a bit frustrating. Don't ever fly with Amaszonas. They're the worst (the only compensation we got was a free Jr Whopper from Burger King and small fries).

Highlight of the airport (other than hanging out with other fun, stranded tourists) was watching workers oil and polish EVERY leaf on every tree inside the airport. Not sure why they do that, but the kicker was that they wore hardhats while doing so.

So we found out that they don't expect any flights to get in there for at least a week (we feel bad for everyone in the jungle, as they are stranded and can't get out!), so we are not going. Tomorrow we head into the salt flats then across the border to Chile. We should have some amazing pictures after this little trip, so check back in a week or so.

Now, for your enjoyment, here are some pictures from La Paz.

Nice garden in the main park by the ampitheatre/band shell.

A marching band on a random day--not a holiday) decided to march down the middle of the main avenue, delaying our bus. But they were having a blast.

One of the mountains surrounding La Paz (in the Zona Sur neighborhood... where we had those incredible pastrami sandwiches).

The next two pictures are of the Valley of the Moon. One astronaut who has actually been on the moon (or at least a soundstage in New Mexico) said this was the closest he's ever felt to being back on the moon. So kudos to the Bolivians for naming their valley!

Last night was spectacular. Once we admitted defeat in our quest to reach the jungle (I guess we have learned something from the Myth of Sisyphus), we went to Plaza Avaroa with two fellow strandees (Phillipe from Belgium and Dave from Scotland) and dined at a churrascaria and had INCREDIBLE steaks (with wine, fries and sausage) for a grand total of $25 (for four people).

After dinner, we walked a few blocks to the Thelonius Monk jazz club where we saw a great German fourtet (kick drums/e-drums, bass, trumpet and DJ) play. It's been too long since we'd seen live music. It really hit the spot in a big way!

And they had awesome treble-clef candlesticks, shown here with our favorite Bolivian wine :)

Lake Titicaca and La Paz

2007-09-24T14:40:00.000-07:00

So we're hanging in La Paz now, getting ready to fly up north in Bolivia to the Amazon basin jungle. Tapirs, crocs, river dolphins, pirhanas, etc... but that's just the dinner menu. (Ok, not really, but they do cook up pirhanas--we're excited to try one!). We'll let you know how it tastes in next week's blog, when we get back.

Our last night in Cusco was perfect. We finished our last Spanish class and went straight to the best restaurant in the country--the MAP Cafe. Located in the Museum of Precolumbian Art's courtyard in a glass cube (think Apple store), the MAP Cafe boasts the best chef in the country (and some say the continent). We had an incredible feast with drinks, three courses and live music, it was under $100. God bless cheaper economies (I type this as the dollar keeps hitting an all-time low against the Euro... thanks, Bush!).

The next morning we took a train through the beautiful southeastern countryside to a stopping point on the Peruvian shores of Lake Titicaca, where we spent the night. Thanks to a great trio of Argentinian retirees on the train, we shared gourd after gourd of maté and watched the hills and rivers roll by. After the 7th hour on the train, we had to resort to watching the Family Guy movie on my iPod. We love technology... we really do.

The next morning we took a super early bus to the Bolivian border and crossed with relative ease (only a thin chain three inches off the ground prevents you from making a run for it). Twenty minutes later and we were in Copacabana (sans Lola), on a peninsula jutting into the lake.

Titicaca is enormous (it's really hard not to crack pun after pun, but I'll spare you) and it seems like an ocean. In fact, it felt a bit like Malibu, but colder and less developed, complete with gorgeous sunsets over the ocean. The very sleepy town didn't have much going on, except for huge parades and festivals every single day. One highlight (though we didn't have the camera) was about 20 8-year-old school children walking through the main street all dressed up in homemade Tigger/cat costumes, chasing their teacher, dressed up as a mouse.

After a few days of relaxation, we hopped a boat to take us to the Isla del Sol, an early Incan stomping ground in the middle of the lake. We hiked the length of it (three and a half grueling hours--see Aaron's "Why I Hate Hiking" diatribe, to be posted later), which Deanna absolutely loved. I'm still sore (a week later). The path took us along a ridge at the highest points of the island, where there were rock gardens and some cool ruins (see the pictures below).

A few days later, we took a bus further along the lake to La Paz, the highest capital in the world. But to get there, we had to take a quick ferry--passengers in boats while the bus was floated on a barge across the straight. See the picture below. I saved the day with my leatherman as our boat stalled out 3 times (we're talking about a 100-yard straight to cross) and they needed my knife to fix a gas line.

We arrived to La Paz and felt instantly at home with the pace of life and variety that the city has to offer. One thing that really strikes us as odd is the layout. The city is built in a giant valley/canyon, and it's HUGE. The interesting thing is that the richest parts of the city are the lowest in elevation, in the center of the valley. The hills with the stunning views are 100% slums--the opposite of most places we know.

After a morning of walking and exploring, we hopped on a double decker bus to tour the city. The highlight so far (not counting the warm pastrami sandwiches with real deli mustard in a restaurant owned by a New Yorker) was the Valley of the Moon (which is on top of a hill--go figure), with crazy rock stalagmites formed by erosion. Pictures don't do it justice, but too bad--you're going to see them anyway in the upcoming ofoto gallery.

Tomorrow we're off to the jungle, then the salt flats. Stay tuned for some more amazing pictures of rainforests, geysers, animals, and, well, salt flats. And food.

Off to Bolivia

2007-09-14T10:04:00.000-07:00

Today is our last day in the wonderful town of Cusco. We finish our Spanish lessons this afternoon and celebrate with a fancy dinner at the Map Cafe, which has the most famous Peruvian chef (Deanna has seen him on TV a few times).

So speaking of food, we have had so many amazing meals in this town. Some of the best were: trout sashimi, alpaca meat, chifa (chinese/peruvian hybrid), burmese chicken, the weclome comfort of a Grey Dog clone coffee shop brunch spot named Jack's, some excellent pizza and pasta, and of course, guinea pig. Apologies to any vegetarians, but we had to post a picture of it (below).

And since this town is so famous for its Incan walls, I thought it was cute how the local beer has the wall depicted on the bottle, see below. (Click on it to make it bigger so you can see the wall.)

While eating the local delicacy of cuy (guinea pig), we took in a fun dinner and dancing show (with a shofar/didgeridoo instrument, so we were able to hear the shofar sound on Rosh Hashana). Traditional andean and incan music, complete with pandering to the tourists (several songs ended with "shave and a haircut, two bits" and there was a 5 minute classical music medley that leaned heavily on Mozart) with fun constumed dancing. And guinea pig. Pics below.

We spent last sunday with Evan and Eve in the market town of Pisaq. Such hustle and bustle... We bought two things for our apartment: a great hand-drawn cubist picture of a guitarist and pan-pipe player, and a hand-woven wall hanging of butterflies (to match the butterfly necklace I bought for Deanna). The picture below is just one tenth of the market place. The picture below that is of a really cool tree (and you can see all the vending booth tops in the bottom of the pic).

That's about all for now. Hope all is well! Let's go Redskins...

Happy New Year!

2007-09-12T09:34:00.000-07:00

Shana tova to everyone! Happy New Year from Peru. May you all have a happy and healthy New Year.
Love,
A and D

The Bellybutton of South America

2007-09-08T10:08:00.001-07:00

So we're still in Cusco with one more week to go here. We absolutely love this town, no doubt. Any town where we can drink Boddingtons and watch the first NFL game of the season is fine by me. Oh yeah, and we ate chicken wings that night too. Met a great family from Indianapolis who was very excited to see the Colts in Peru. Swapped travel stories with the parents and their very sweet daughter, Jennifer, who lives in Prospect Heights. Great company!

But as for some more authentic Peruvian fare, we've been seeing parades just about daily (they celebrate one Catholic saint every day--which generally involves pretty tame fireworks starting at 6am and continuing throughout the day), as seen below.

Above was some child saint parade. Below was a military parade on a national holiday here (no one quite knew what the holiday was celebrating, but it was a grand fiesta). About 600 national police in full uniform marching around and around, and around the main square, Plaza de Armas. As it seems to be a recurring theme, we couldn't help to crack the "Big Ben, Parliament" joke.

So we're finally done with our first week of Spanish classes. To give you an idea of the level we're at, check out this video below. One more week to go and hopefully we'll master the language. I just have to stop speaking Italian to everyone...

Below is a picture of Deanna's purse, as mentioned in a previous blog entry. She loves it more than me (ok, maybe I'm exaggerating). We spent a full day with Evan and Eve, friends from back in NYC. Eve loved the purse so much she went and designed her own one that day. I think I might get into the import/export business when we get back to the states... Let me see if I can trademark "Vandelay Industries"

So with Evan and Eve, we went up to one of the mountains at the edge of the town to check out the Incan ruins of Saccsayhuaman (pronounced: sexy'woman). Amazing huge stones (the size of three of me) overlooking the city in the valley. While all Incan ruins now pale in comparison to Machu Picchu, Saccsayhuaman was pretty impressive...

...but what really made that special was two bottles of wine and a perfect sunset over the Andes, as seen below. Another incredible dinner of Alapca meat (mmmm) and we sent Evan and Eve off to start their Incan trail hike to MP. We're meeting up with them tomorrow in Pisaq to check out the huge Sunday market place (hopefully we'll be back in time to catch the sunday night football game--assuming I can wrestle the remote control away from the World Cup of Rugby hooligans in this town!)

Now for some good measure (if you've actually read this far), here are some more pitures of what we've been up to here. First off is the two of us with our Spanish teacher, Henry. In this picture he looks like Ethan Schwartz's clone... pretty bizzare if you ask me.

Next up is one of the Peruvian bands we've seen so far. Our favorite place is a tapas restaurant / art gallery / concert spot called Kilometre 0. The guy pictured below also had a nice Ibanez and apparently a brand new wawa pedal. He didn't quite grasp how to effectively use it, but it was very fun nonetheless. (Our favorite live music here so far was a Colombian trio--alto sax, nylon guitar and a singer with a ratchet stick percussion thingy. Only about 15 people in KM0 that night, including a Colombian guy straight out of the 70s who sat by himself, singing along to every word in complete ecstasy. The owner's wife and her sister, both around 30, were there and one of their tiny cute baby was standing on the bar dancing the whole time. A truly magical night...)

Below is an example of the Incan walls in this town... huge blocks fit together perfectly without cement or glue. Most of these were uncovered during an earthquake in the 1950s. The Spanish built directly on top of the Incan walls and the original walls were finally uncovered thanks to a natural disaster.

And lastly is a picture of the Peruvian flag (red and white in the background) and the Incan flag (rainbown in the foreground) which is just about the exact same as the gay pride flag. Oh, and in case you were wondering, we saw a sign at the far end of town that said in Spanish, "Welcome to Cusco, the Bellybutton of South America." Thanks to Henry and our Spanish lessons, we were able to translate the sign quite easily. Picture taken in Plaza San Blas, where our Spanish classes are.

So after our next week of Spanish classes, we plan on heading south to Lake Titicaca then over into Bolivia for a few days in La Paz and then off to Salar de Uyuni, the enormous salt flats of southwestern Bolivia. There is a hotel made entirely out of salt there, and supposedly there is a sign in the lobby that reads "Do not lick the walls." We'll report on the validity of that rumor in a few weeks.

Keep in touch! We love getting emails from you guys :)
-A and D

Chilling in Cusco for a while--now with pictures!

2007-08-31T10:25:00.000-07:00

Ok, so here is our first picure gallery! Enjoy. It took us 10 hours to upload all them (man, I miss T1 connections...).

After a few days in Cusco (no, not really, after about 3 hours here) we decided to stay in this town for a while. Then, since all of South America is COLD, we decided to stay here for a almost 3 weeks to take Spanish classes. We start on Monday, so we're looking forward to our last few days of freedom (nah, just kidding! total and complete freedom every day).

Deanna finally picked up her purse (we'll get a picture uploaded ASAP) and loves it more than anything (even me!). We found a sushi spot that we're excited to try, and we've already eaten at Cusco's version of the Grey Dog twice. There's live music just about every night--we're going to see some classic rock cover band tonight at the traditional Peruvian bar named "Paddy Flaherty's." Who knew that that meant "Gringo toursts" in Incan?

Check back soon for some more pictures of the town.

Machu Picchu, Sacred Valley and Cusco

2007-08-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

So we closed Mancora out with a bang. Our last night we had a feast with Bobby D (pictured below with Deanna) and hit the town up with him.

We said goodbye to our beach paradise early in the morning with a cab ride north to Tumbes to fly down to Cusco, via Piura and Lima. I slept the entire time and Deanna finished reading "Places In Between" which she highly recommends. After landing in Cusco we took another cab 90 minutes into the Sacred Valley to our destination of Ollantaytambo. We checked in to the oldest hotel in town (that Deanna basically planned the entire Sacred Valley excursion around) called El Albergue (pictured below), which lived up to all of its hype.

The town felt like what the Peru pavillion would look like at Epcot Center combined with the Ojai valley region in California. As cute as can be (except for the hill we had to walk up every day, which took 15 minutes). We ate like kings (the second best spaghetti bolognese I have ever had--the best was in Bologna), relaxed, explored some Incan ruins and steamed in the eucalyptus sauna every night.

Our third morning in town, we took a 7am train to Aguas Calientes, the launching point for Machu Picchu. We got there around 8:15 and bought our MP tickets and our bus tickets (important travel tip: get your tickets before you go up to MP, as they don't sell them there). We took the bus up the 30 or so switchbacks straight up the mountain and emerged in a drizzly cloud at the entrance. We hired a guide, Olga (who was awesome), to take us around for the morning.

The rain was a blessing in disguise. MP was almost empty--they average 2000-3000 tourists a day and there were maybe 200 people at most when we were there. Everyone in brightly colored ponchos (one for 3, two for 5--all my Phish tour friends would have been happy) spread throughout the ruins, giving us plenty of room and space to explore without running into tour group after tour group like we were expecting.

That picture above is actually us standing on a ledge overlooking MP. We swear it is not a green screen or backdrop as it appears to be. Click the link at the bottom of this blog entry for our first Ofoto gallery slideshow. That being said, pictures just don't do Machu Picchu justice. The scale of the place is expansive and the way the Incas used the mountain in the construction of it was mind-blowing. They left every rock already existing on the mountain in place and built walls around them. When constructing all the agriculural terraces, they used the excvated rocks to build the walls and structures (so they didn´t have to schlep rocks from a quarry).

The below pic is one of our favorite parts of MP. In several places, the Incas sculpted large boulders into exact replicas of the surrounding mountains in order to summon the power of those mountans without having to climb those higher and more treachersous peaks. The mountains across the valley were as lush and green as any rainforest and the clouds added such an air of mystery and intrigue. It was right out of Jurassic Park or Lord of the Rings. We really took a step back in time on top of that mountain.

We hadn't realized that MP is a complete mystery... no clue why it was built--no gold or silver found, no king's quarters, and the spanish never knew about it. 120 mummies were about the only thing Hiram Bingham found there when he discovered it in 1911. Plenty of theories abound as to the function of the city, but our favorite (and what Olga believed) was that it was a brain trust where they brought the most important, intelligent, educated and refined Incan minds to experiment in agriculture, textiles and religious observances. Kind of like when the Apocalypse is about to come and the US sends a space ship to another planet with the best and brightest... (OK fine, we caught the end of a cheesy 80s sci-fi flick in Spanish in the hotel last night.)

Our other favorite part of MP was the llamas walking up and down stairs to feed on grass on the terraces (no lawn-mowing necessary). Deanna was very proud of me for making a Peruvian woman laugh with a spanish pun. When a llama walked right in front of us, I turned to her and asked "¿Como se llama?" :)

After about 4 hours we took the bus back down the mountain and hopped the train back to Ollantaytambo (though not before picking up a really cool handmade backgammon set with condors and llamas as the pieces). On the train, we were doubled over with laughter when the drink servers put on some techno music and did a full-on alpaca sweater fashion show, complete with runway struts and turns. Think Magnum and Azul Steel...

We got to Cusco yesterday morning and immediately fell in love with the town. We´re staying in the San Blas neighborhood, the bastion of bohemian life and artisans. We strolled around, exploring the crooked cobble-stoned streets (that remind us of Brooklyn Heights back home) and drinking coca tea (this city is at 13,000 feet). We stumbled upon a craft store where Deanna fell in love with some of the purses. We met the designer (pictured below). I decided to buy Deanna an early birthday present so she and Marcela designed a new purse together that Marcela is making by hand as we type this. She can´t wait to pick it up tomorrow!

After that we did some more strolling and found ourselves in a plaza with a delightful surprise--a Brazillian reggae/ska band (below) was setting up getting ready to play for free. We hung out watching them dance around, having a great time. Reminded us how much we have missed live music! Luckily this town is bumping with bands and DJs playing every night, which factored into our decision to stay here for a while.

Last but certainly not least, we met up with Raj and Carrie, friends from back home, for an amazing dinner (alpaca roast beef mmmmmmmmmm). Thanks for treating us to dinner!

Now the rest of you need to come visit and we promise we´ll treat you to a night on the town. Keep the email updates coming--we love hearing from you.

OFOTO LINK will come when all the pictures finsh uploading... check back later.

3 towns, 2 ailments, 1 week equals tons of fun in Peru

2007-08-24T14:36:00.000-07:00

So here we are, sitting 20 feet from the beach in Mancora, a two block slice of paradise a few hours south of Ecuador, but let´s start from where we left off...

After the 20 hours of travel from NYC to Huanchaco, we spent 2 lovely (yet chilly and cloudy) days there, exploring the sleepy beach town and admiring the canoes hand-woven from reeds that the fisherman use to catch our yummy ceviche dinners. Pic below.

Next we went to the pre-Incan ruins at Chan Chan. The Chimu civilization existed on the coast of northern Peru and southern Ecuador for hundreds of years prior to Incan subjugation. Our sweet little tour guide tried really hard to teach us all about the Chimu in English but some things were definitely lost in translation. What we came out of it was that most of the ruins are reconstructed (well, redetailed) and that when a king died, they built a new palace for the new king and sealed off the old one, each time (for 23 kings). Below is a pic of the sanctuary. It was pretty impressive to see the scope of building from this moon-worshipping culture. Deanna´s favorite part was the sacrificial lagoon in the middle of the palace with 12´high reeds and lotus flowers (as traded for from Polyneasian merchants).

After that, we took a 7-hour bus ride east through switchback trails up into the Andes until we got to the 9000´high town of Cajamarca, noted for being the city in which Pisarro executed Atahualpa in the main square, thus crushing the Incan empire. Pic of the Plaza del Armas is below. Aaron got nailed with altitude sickness and Deanna got ¨New York Pizza¨ to nurse him back. Thank god that our hostel had a TV that we hooked our ipod into and were able to watch 2 movies and 4 episodes of 24 (season 4... see, NewsCorpians? Deanna is catching up!).

After exploring the bustling town, we embarked on what we thought was just a tour of pre-Incan aqueducts up at 13000´. It turned out to be a breathtaking 5km hike through amazing rock formations leading to the unbelievably engineered 3000 year old aqueducts. Our tour was completely in Spanish, so we never fully grasped the dirty limericks our guide kept making up (though thanks to a German tourist, we got the unrhymed versions). The rocks were spectacular, and we played the ¨name that cloud¨ game with them (in Spanish) and the whole tour group had a collectively dirty mind. Below is a pic of the us on one of the rocks.

Then we got out of the mountains with an overnight bus to a morning bus to an afternoon bus that finally put us here in Paradise. In Mancora, there is a beach, kite surfing, seafood, backgammon and tons of backpackers lounging around. And Bobby D. He´s here for a month to become an expert kite surfer. Good to have a friendly around! The rest of you better meet us somewhere soon...

If there´s any place to get knocked out of commission with a stomach bug, Hostal del Wawa certainly is the place. Deanna went through 10 hours of extreme hell, but is now back to eating the freshest tuna out there (sans red dye). Our hostel is literally on the great beach, has great food, plays great music, has great people, has great everything, and only costs $15 a night. Half the fellow travelers have been stuck here, some for 4 weeks, with no plans on leaving any time soon. As for us, it was hard to pull the trigger, but we bought plane tickets for tomorrow morning to head down to Machu Picchu.

The water is warm and the sun is about to set, beckoning us back to the water. We miss you all and we´ll get back in touch after Machu Picchu. Please let us know what´s shaking back home... we´d love to get emails from you.

We´re safe, don´t worry

2007-08-16T18:53:00.000-07:00

Wow... thanks to all 30 of you who emailed us to make sure we were safe. The earthquake took place in Peru (well, 30 miles off the coast and 25 miles below sea level) last night while we were at JFK airport. CNN made it into a way bigger deal than it is down here--nothing has really changed except a few broken windows (so we´ve heard) a few hours south of Lima. We landed safely this morning then got on a 9-hour bus ride north to Huanchaco. We´re staying in a great hostel a few blocks from the beach. Choppy waves, great for surfing (they actually have separate areas for professionals and amateurs).

Just had an amazing ceviche dinner and some pretty bad local pilsener beers. Tomorrow we´re off to check out some Incan ruins at Chan Chan and explore the town some more.

Thanks for all your concerns!
Love,
A+D

One more day!

2007-08-14T18:15:00.000-07:00

26 more hours until our flight... we couldn't be more excited. Just got back from our final dinner in NYC--gorging ourselves at Taro, the freshest sushi in Brooklyn. Excellent fish. mmmmm...

Doing some final packing tonight, cleaning tomorrow and then we're off. Since a lot of you have been asking, here is our itinerary for the year:
Aug 15 - Fly into Peru. Head up north to the beaches. Then southeast to Cuzco, Machu Piccu, Sacred Valley, et al. Then further southeast to the Nazca desert.
Septemberish - Either head east to Bolivia or South to Chile/Argentina.
Octoberish through late December- Either Brazil or Chile/Argentina. Hopefully a quick stop into Antarctica. A few days in Uruguay. Mendoza wine region in Argentina. Patagonia also.
Dec 25 - Fly from Argentina back to NYC.
Dec 31 - NYE with the crew
Early January - Hang out in NYC, catch up with friends, have fun.
Jan 19 - Cristina's wedding
Jan 21 - Fly to San Francisco, see friends
Jan 26 - Fly to LA, see friends and sister, nieces new niece or nephew
Jan 31 - Fly to Thailand
Winter 08 - See all of SE Asia - Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Laos, Malaysia, et al.
Spring 08 - More of SE Asia
Summer 08 - Maybe the Olympics in China?
Summer 08 - Australia, NZ

Let us know if/when you'll be anywhere near us and we'll make it a point to meet up. Please stay in touch while we're on the road!

So much food...so little time

2007-08-13T12:35:00.000-07:00

With only 2 days left of having all the options that New York provides and of not having to adhere to a very strict budget, times have been yummy but busy. So far being unemployed has meant multiple trips to Duane Reade, visa pictures at the UPS store (**Travel tip 1: Bring 10 passport photos on your trip to expedite visa processing at borders and save $$ on fees) Grimaldi's pizza, Brooklyn Ice Cream Factory and bloody marys at Superfine - not a bad life. So left on the itinerary is Yankee game tonight, omakase at Taro tomorrow, lots of TV and packing up the apartment in between. Slade our "new roommate" moves in as soon as we leave so cleaning an apartment that we've completely neglected over the past few months has been overwhelming but nice...I'm going to miss cleaning my apartment :)

We are so incredibly excited to start the trip and to get on the road. Plans at the moment (which have changed a few times in the past couple days) entail flying into Lima and connecting to Trujillo. We will explore Trujillo, Chan Chan and Huaca del Sol, using Huanchacho beach as our base. After that we'll work our way up the coast to meet Bobby D in Mancora on the 22nd.

So our next post will be from the road. See ya in Peru!

It's the Final Countdown (da nu naa nu...)

2007-08-08T12:26:00.000-07:00

Excerpt of an email with a friend:

"no post-travel plans. I don't want to have any plans while I travel. this trip is about absolute and complete Freedom. mental, geographic, financial (well, to some extent...) etc. I want nothing weighing on me. I don't even have an end date to the trip.

that being said--there are two headhunters who have been actively recruiting me for a while... one call to them and I can easily get a job. just not sure I want to keep doing sales. I'm good at it, but it's not very fulfilling. working for relix is (rather, was) quite fulfilling. my passion and love for the subject matter easily outweighed the "used car salesman" feeling that every sales person feels (whether he admits it or not). so, if an opportunity came up for a travel, music, food, wine or backgammon magazine, I'd probably jump on it. otherwise, I'll wait until the right opportunity finds me.

and who knows, maybe I'll fall in love with a quaint beach town and open up a hostel. or become a sushi chef. or write a travel book. or just keep a pack on my back and live the dharma bum life for 10 years...

the possibilities for us are endless, and at this point in my life, it's the best feeling in the world."

That's exactly the mindset both of us are in. And it's amazing... :)

Setting up this blog

2007-07-14T07:21:00.000-07:00

Well here I (Aaron) am sititng, on Jesse's back deck at the beach. It's early in the morning and my throat is predictably scratchy. Grateful Dead playing, sun shining, nothing left to do but smile, smile, smile. Russ once told me that of all the beaches he's ever been to, Fire Island is far and away the best one. I can't necessarily qualify this statement as fact, but I haven't been able to prove him wrong yet. I've seen some amazing beaches--San Sebastian, Spain; Mykonos, Greece; Canoa, Ecuador; Cascais, Portugal; Eilat, Israel; South Beach, Miami; Costa Maya, Mexico; Cayo Levanado, Dominican Republic; etc, but there's just something special about this place.

But I digress. We (Deanna and me) are about to embark on a trip around the world. We're looking at about a year, with 4 continents for sure, and in a perfect world, 6 (we'll probably save Africa for another time). This trip is the jealousizer--everyone we mention it to immediately becomes jealous, saying, "Wow, I wish I could quit my job and travel around the world for a year." Well, you can. And it's pretty easy--here's how: save some money, then walk into your boss's office and say "I'm quitting to travel around the world" then do it. That's what we did and so far, it's been great. We leave a month from tomorrow.

I'm spending this weekend at the beach (with Jesse--that's him in the pictures) reading travel books and websites, creating this here blog, and wrapping up loose ends--a seemingly endless process. There are a bunch of silly tasks required for putting one's life on hold--freezing a gym membership, acquiring health insurance, buying plane tickets, saying goodbye to friends, gearing up, packing, etc. I keep finding myself getting bogged down in the minutae, but luckily Deanna has been such a great centering force--always reminding me of the utilitarian purpuse. The ends really do justify the means--we're about to travel around the world for an entire year!! So here I am, lying on a chez lounge in my favorite beach with my favorite music playing, thinking about the year ahead with the love of my life, experiencing a new adventure every morning... Enjoy our travel blog.