Jess and Craig:

First off, sorry for being such crummy bloggers in the end. We are back in the states now. The adventure is over. Our next step is to re-join the rat race...pick a new town, find new home, and get a new job. It has been an amazing year, and 8 amazing months of travel. I highly recommend that everyone try to find a way to take time out of life to truly enjoy themselves. I am incredibly grateful for the experience we have had. It has made me a much more relaxed person and given me a new attitude about the importance of just enjoying life. I could go on and on, but I am not sure I am articulate enough to really get my point across without sounding like a dork. In the end, we made a lot of memories, met a lot of great people, and had a really good time. Lastly, we are incredibly thankful to everyone who took the time to read our blog and checked in with us, it always made us feel closer to home.

I think I will start this entry with some final statistics and follow with a quick description of our last few weeks in Peru.

STATS....

10 Countries visited (Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nepal, Turkey, Egypt, Tanzania, Qatar, Peru), 11 if you include our N. American stint in NYC.

3700 miles on our bicycles (Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia) plus a very tough mountain bike ride in Peru

Longest ride 106 miles

22 days of backpacking (Nepal, Turkey, Peru)

Highest climb 16,400

32 scuba dives (Andaman Sea, Mediterranean, Red Sea, Indian Ocean)

Deepest dive 105 feet

1 pizza oven built

1 wedding

1 day of food poisoning

1 week of head colds

scattered days of upset stomachs

A quick summary of Peru...

Back to Lima 8/29/09

We headed back to Lima for a day before catching a flight to Cuzco. We decided not to stay in the same thieving hotel as last time despite the offer of a free room. One fun story from that day in Lima is that we arrived at about 5am...an inconvenient time, when guest houses have yet to open and the dark streets of Lima are a little to dicey for loitering on. We met an English couple on the bus who suggested we head to a casino as alternative to sitting in the doorway of our guesthouse. It was an awesome suggestion. We spent a little over an hour there, drinking free coffee. Craig played blackjack at the 5 soles table (about a 1 dollar 30) and managed to win us a whole twenty soles!! I was very impressed and completely re energized by the gambling despite having been awake all night the bus.

Cuzco  8/30/09

Our main reason for coming to Peru was to attend our friends Chris and Shelby's wedding. We are so thankful that they decided to get married in Cuzco, because we loved loved loved Peru, and had a great time in Cuzco. Our other friends Todd and Jen were down there for the wedding as wells which made the time even more fantastic. The day we arrived we met up with everyone and Craig quickly arranged to tag along on an all day motorcycle ride with Todd and Shelby's family. I know he had a great time...so great he is now threatening to get a motorcycle licence in the US for future trips (a plan that is not going over so well with his wife). I can't give much detail on his day but I know that they toured through the whole of the sacred valley and had a blast. I spent the day with the girls shopping, a perfect day for me too.

The next few days were spent hanging out with Jen and Todd and celebrating the Howe's marriage. They had a great rehearsal dinner at a local restaurant and then an absolutely beautiful wedding at the Monasterio hotel (An old monastery that has been transformed into a 5 star hotel but still has the original chapel and architecture). They served us an amazing meal that evening for sure in the top 3 off the trip.

The day following the wedding Grant (Craig's brother) and his girlfriend Caitlin arrived in Cuzco. With them we traveled to Oletatambo and explored the Incan ruins there. From there we took the train to Aguas Caliente and hiked up to the famous Machu Pichu. Machu Pichu was as spectacular as everyone has always said, namely because of it's unbelievable location in the mountains.

Puno    8/5/09

We next headed to Puno, a small city on the shores of Lake Titicaca. Sadly, Grant got sick for this portion of the trip Grant did manage to rally on our second day there to join us on a tour of the reed islands. There are people who live on the lake on man-made islands built of reeds, pretty cool.

Arequipa 8/7/09

Our last stop before Grant and Caitlin left was the city of Arequipa. Grant was still in recovery at this point so we decided it was best to stick around and just enjoy the town. It was a beautiful colonial Spanish city sitting at the base of two huge volcanoes. While there we celebrated Craig's 32nd birthday with a fabulous Italian meal.

Colca Canyon 8/11/09

After saying goodbye to Grant and Caitlin we headed to Colca canyon for a quick visit. This is the second deepest canyon in the world. The deepest is only a few miles away and is about 150meters deeper. We only had a day to spend in this canyon, but it was a great time. We stayed the night in a really small village at the mouth of the canyon called Yanque. Just outside the village were natural hotsprings and a pool where you could pay a dollar fifty to bathe-awesome. Our bath was followed by the discovery that there was a celebration going on in the village and the whole town was out dancing and parading in the central square. Of course we had to laugh the next morning when the tour buses came through this little village and the town put on the "local" dance show, which by comparison seemed painfully contrived and touristy. That next day we head to the Cruz del Condor, high point on the canyon wall where Andean Condors (the largest flying bird in the world) flocked. This was a spectacular scene. There were probably 20 or 30 of them and they swoop right over your head and just the sound from their wings through the air was enough to startle you. And like an airplane in the distance there size did not seem diminish as they flew away from you. It was an amazing sight.

Nazca  8/13/09

Now we get to it, a major trip highlight. We left Arequipa and headed to the coast to the town of Nazca. Nazca is a nothing town but around it's outskirts are the Nazca lines. Huge drawings in the ground that are so large they can only be seen from the sky. The images include geometric shapes and animals, like monkeys and humming birds, and my favorite and huge waving alien on the side of mountain. We took a flight to see them and it was AWESOME. Please look it up online. They don't know why they were made. Some say it was a calendar or agricultural guide others day it was a communication with aliens. I say aliens. After seeing it, I believe in aliens.

Pisco  8/14/09

For anyone who has been to Peru, you have for sure had the famous Pisco Sour. Turns out there is also city called Pisco, perhaps where the drink was born. This is a coast town that was 75% destroyed in an earthquake a few years back, and, sadly, corruption has kept redevelopment at a slow pace. Lot's of temporary buildings and torn up streets. The draw to visiting this area is the Islas Ballestas, small islands just off the coast that are the home to an abundance of wildlife. They call it the poorman's Galapagos. On the way out to them we saw dolphins and a humpback whale. The islands themselves were covered...and I mean covered...with BIRDS...all sorts. Blue footed boobies, penguins, pelicans, and a whole lot more. Every inch of land had a bird sitting on it. Surrounding the islands on the rock outcroppings were sea lions (sea wolfs in spanish) and their pups. It was quite the scene. Classically, on our trip back to shore our boot ran out of gas, seems they forgot to fill up before leaving. So we were stuck at sea for a bit waiting for rescue.

Cerro Azul  8/16/09

The famous surfing beach and our last stop of the trip. Craig did his research and this was clearly the beach most famous for it's waves, so we of course assumed it would be no problem for Craig to get set up with surf gear once we were there. What we found was a super sleepy little fishing village with no surf shops and definitely no other tourists. After asking around, Craig eventually found a guy that had a surf board that he would rent for Craig when he got home from work. Luckily that ended up working out well and Craig spent half the next day in the water and even caught a few waves. The village itself was great. Incredibly friendly and safe (an improvement on Pisco which was a bit sketchy). We even had the treat of discovering the saturday night festivities where everyone in town comes to the central plaza for charcoal grilled chicken, corn, fried dough, and, of course, pisco sours. A fabulous end to a fabulous trip.

THE END

7-24 Huaraz to Paria Camp

We woke up early, stashed our extra stuff at our hotel (didn´t bring the dive computers backpacking this time), and headed up to a bridge on the north end of town where we heard that we might be able to get a bus to Vaqueria, where our trail was to begin. We hadn´t quite arrived at the bridge when a guy in a big green van pulled up and asked if we were going to Cochabamba. We said no, that we were going to Vaqueria. He said "hop in...I´ll take you to Caraz." After verifying that this was indeed the town where our mountain road departed the highway, we did, without asking any more questions. In case you thought we were suspicious, cautious travellers... After an hour or so we arrived and hopped out of the van only to hop into another one which was going up to Vaqueria, this one full of tourists on an organized trek. They were confused how two new members had entered their group, but gave us people to talk to over the next few hours up and then down the steep gravel road into the heart of the mountains. The road wound behind Huascaran, the tallest peak in Peru, and went over 15,500 ft pass before descnding down to our 10,000ft trailhead. We hit the trail and had a beautiful hike up to our camp at Paria. Toward the end of the hike, Jess was hurting a little due to the altitude (we camped at 12,500, an altitude to which Jess had been many times before without trouble, but such is the nature of AMS). We had a great campsite on a little island in the river, and Jess slept for about 13 hours straight. I cooked probably the worst camp meal ever of half over and half under-cooked spaghetti, trying to conserve fuel in case we had to stay an extra day to acclimatize Jess.

7-25

We went to bed so early that I was awake well before sunrise, but cold and the desire to let Jess sleep kept us in the tent until after 8 AM, which is late for a camp morning. Jess had a slight headache still, and I advocated sticking around for an extra day, but wanted to get going and thought she could handle it. The day was one of steady climbing, first up the valley, then up the slope over a pass at 15,700 ft in a saddle between two peaks. The scenery was dramatic and beautiful, much like some parts of our trek in Nepal. The weather was a bit of a drag, alternating between hot sun and rain and snow and back again, necessitating many wardrobe changes. It was worth it though, as every time the clouds would part we would be treated to another stunning alpine view. But Jess was hurting. At one point, she stopped to rest while I ferried my bag 10 minutes up the slope so that she could walk without a pack while I carried hers. But by the time we reached my pack, she was feeling even more crumby and I ended up carrying them both (don´t ask how...it was in no way comfortable). We continued to climb, and so strong was Jess´ desire to not backtrack (which some may remember from our bike trip) that she kept going after throwing up spectacularly on the side of the trail. I was getting increasingly worried as we neared the top (which got steeper and looked increasingly like Cirith Ungol) because Jess entered whispering mode, and would not speak except to say that she thought she could make it. But eventually she did. The pass was gorgeous, with snow-capped peaks outstretching one another right above our heads. We headed down into the ever-thickening air and slowly but surely Jess started to improve. By the time we got down to camp at 14,000 feet, Jess was herself again, smiling and snacking and helping with camp chores, in way better shape than she was the previous evening. We laughed the rest of the night about our relief at her recovery, and at our various worst-case-scenario thoughts that thankfully did not come true. We had another great campsite (though, as it was in a nice green meadow near the river, the donkeys loved it too and left alot of landmines for us to dodge). I took a cold bath in the glacier-fed river and proceeded to put on all my clothes and crawl in my sleeping bag to shiver for 20 minutes until I recovered. Other than the fact that we went to bed at 8.00 and so were up at odd hours of the night, it was a great end to a dodgy day.

7-26

We woke up late again, but didn´t really care, as it was all downhill for us. The trail descended through a narrowing valley which opened into a couple of spectacular lakes. The weather was once again finicky, and we missed our chance to see Alpamayo, "The Most Beautiful Mountain in the World", which was shrouded in clouds as we passed beneath it. Jess was 100% for the whole day, which was great. To make sure there was some drama to our day, she did take a great wipè-out with her pack on and needed help to get up, which I could hardly provide due to laughter. Our last campsite was the best, a flat green patch right next to the river and secluded by huge boulders on the other 3 sides. We made ourselves stay up until 9:30, playing cards in the tent while the quarter moon rose and lit up our little meadow.

7-27

Our last day on the trail was steep downhill all the way. We actually got an early start, as we wanted the best chance at hitching a ride once we got out of the mountains, and headed down the trail as the first group of the day. The valley got narrower and steeper as we descended, and waterfalls cascaded down from hanging glaciers on both sides of the trail. Things also got greener, and there were beautiful flowers in blooms of every color. We popped out of the canyon in a little village and easily found a ride with a guy who had just driven up from Huaraz with a couple of gringos who were starting the trail going the opposite way as we had. Along the way, we also picked up a crazy lady who read peoples luck with coca tea leaves and had all kinds of charms and rattles that she kept whipping out of her bag to show us. We made it back to Huaraz without a hitch, though the sight of the snowy peaks along the way made me ache to be back in the mountains.

We have one more day to kill in Huaraz, and then we head back to Lima on the night bus to then catch our plane to Cuzco and start getting ready for the main event, the wedding of Chris and Shelby followed shortly by the arrival of Grant and Caitlin. Everyone take care and keep in touch.

For the last few weeks we have been visiting friends and family on the east coast. We call this the North American portion of what has turned into a truly round the world adventure.  Although the time was filled with great excitement (meeting new babies, visiting new homes, and even a bachelorette party) we decided not to blog on this time. We had a great time seeing everyone, but are really excited to have one more adventure outside the US before completely reentering the real world.

So begins the story of Peru....

The truth is we are here for a wedding that is going to happen in Cuzco on August 1st. But we decided why not expand that time and get to know Peru. We also are excited because on August 2nd we will be joined by Craig´s brother  Grant and his girlfriend Caitlin.

7/22/09 Lima

Ten years ago Craig and I came to Peru. On that trip I got very sick and in Lima I was diagnosed has having had a gallstone attack. I flew back to the states leaving Craig to continue our trip through Peru. Consequently, it is especially exciting to be back here together to get to see some of the places I missed, as well as to get to explore new parts of Peru together.

My memories of Lima from that time are of a dingy capital with beautiful architecture, but with a reputation that you will probably get robbed by your taxi driver or mugged while visiting the sites...so not good. The lasting memory made for a very pleasant surprise on our exploration of Lima this time around. I found the city beautiful and friendly. It still has a bad reputation for thievery, but I did not find it so scary (fast forward we do get robbed while in Lima..see below). We spent the day walking around the city. Visited and old cathedral with underground catacombs (complete with bones), ate some awesomely cheap Peruvian food, and even popped in to see the new Harry Potter movie (who can resist). We had a great day and headed out that night on the most comfortable bus yet to the mountain town of Huaraz. Now for the robbery. Because we were forewarned regarding the muggings of Lima we left our belongings at our hotel locked storage while we explored the town. We discovered after we arrived in Huaraz that while in storage our bags were rummaged through and our IPOD and the camera we were borrowing from Grant were stolen (we had not even been in Peru long enough to take one photo). So lesson learned, there are thieves in Peru and they don´t all drive cabs or wait around dark corners.

7/23-7/24 Huaraz

Beautiful Huaraz. This town sits at 3,100 meters at the base of Andes. Back boned by rugged snow capped peaks, it is absolutely breathtaking. If this town were in the US I think it is for sure where we would choose to live. After recovering from our night bus we spent the afternoon exploring town and making plans for the following days. In order to help with acclimatization before heading out on a trek we decided to spend the next day mountain biking near the city. We met with a guide at a place called XTreme Mountain Biking (I am not quite sure why the name of the shop did not clue me into the experience I was signing up for). After hearing about our various options we choose the one the guide described as a nice easy ride in the local hills on roads and with great views of the mountains. A 4 hour circuit.

Bright and early we headed out. Now if I thought that having already biked 3500 miles earlier on this trip would have given me some sort of athletic advantage I was dead wrong. About 10 meters into the ride my heart was pounding out of my chest and I was offering to turn back and let Craig and the guide continue on. Of course, no one would have that so I was obligated to bike/walk up hill for at least two hours. Reluctantly reassured by our guide that although it was only 9:30 in the morning we had all day, or at least until sunset at six. At the top of the hill I was promised and easy traverse across the hillside. What he meant was a technical single track with steep drop offs. As I continued to walk/bike the reassurance came again when the guide told me soon we would get to the down hill which was a "road". Clearly our definition of road is different or else Craig and my spanish is worse than we thought, because the road was a rocky sandy trail suitable for transport by a donkey but certainly not anything motorized. So, once again I continued to walk/bike/run (when bad dogs presented) my way slowly along. I managed to only take one good spill on this adventure squarelyy into a large pricker bush leaving me with cuts all over the left side of body and at least ten splinters that worked their way out over the following days. I am happy to report we did make it back in 6 hours (long before the sunset) and the views were as magnificent as reported.

After writing this whole bike story I realize I neglected Craig´s perspective. Craig thought the ride was great. He never fell. He biked over portions that even our professional guide had to climb over. He defended me from every bad dog. He carried my bike when I was too tired. And he always waited. What a guy.

Hi Everyone.  Here is a little breakdown of our adventures in Tanzania:

After about a week of kicking around Dar, we finally too koff on our first adventure.  We traveled North through Tanzania to the Uzumbara Mountains, where Theron has done most of his living and working for the last five years.  The Uzumbaras are part of the Eastern Arc Mountains that pop up along the East African Coast, and, being temperate semi-rainforests with very different climates from the dry lowlands that surround them, end up having an abundance of wildlife that live nowhere else in the world. Theron took advantage of this fact and, while on a Fullbrightscholarship, started the Amani Butterfly Project.  The project now has about 300 farmers who farm the exotic butterflies of the region and send the pupae (chrysalis) all over the world to zoos and butterfly exhibits.  The idea is that the farmers need the forests to stay intact for them to keep catching butterflies, so there is now an economic incentive for the local people to preserve their forests, rather than cut them own for traditional agriculture.  And it seems to be working.  All over the place around Amani you see the little butterfly enclosures in people's yards, and the project is running now wthout much help from Theron and making about $100,000 a year for the village and the farmers.  

So Theron has a pretty cool thing going up there. He also has a house high on a hill with a dramatic view of a deep mountain valley that extends all the way to the coast near Tanga, and the sun glimmers off the Indian Ocean 25 miles away every morning at sunrise.  He knows pretty much everyone in the neighborhood, and people are really nice to him, so we were always getting gifts and good deals on tea and mandazi (African doughnuts).  We had a good time going on some hikes through the jungle, including traversing beautiful waterfalls and a night walk where we found some crazy tree frogs and chameleons.  But, the major part of my time up there was eaten up building a gigantic pizza oven in Theron's yard.  Apparently, he used to have one and threw some major village pizza parties until some cow who really liked the oven for a scratching post finally did it in.  Theron was psyched to build a cow-proof replacement, and I foolishly offered my services.  The process of building something in Amani, where the nearest Home Depot is 11,400 miles away, is alot more than I bargained for.  To build the foundation, we had to drive around until we found a guy near the tea plantation who had busted up a bunch of rocks and took 3 trips in a land rover to haul a cubic meter up the hill to the house.  To make mortar to hold them together, we had to get a guy to pull buckets of sand from the bottom of the river, shovel them into rice bags, and ferry them up the hill.  You have to dig the pink-red mud from a roadside escarpment and haul that up too.  You also need to haul water, bucket by bucket, to mix it alltogether.  For the oven, we had to find a guy who makes bricks, and carry  them from where he made them up to the road, then ferry them up the hill in the truck.  And on and on and on.  But eventually we got it done, and ate pizzas like kings for the last two days of our trip. 

We really liked it up in Amani, but after 10 days we had to return to Dar and get ready for our little safari, which Jess is going to recap.

July 3rd, 2009      A recap on Tanzania

Part 2: Safari

Last time we were in Tanzania we did the Northern safari circuit which includes Serengeti, Ngorongoro Crater, and the other parks in that area. This time we decided to head in a different direction to the Mkumi national park. After the typical errands/traffic of Dar, we made our way out to Mkumi and arrived just before dark. We had just enough time to take a quick tour of the park. We were rewarded with sunset views of giraffe, impala, hippos, elephants, and wort hogs. After our quick safari we set up tent in the yard of guest house and headed out for the a healthy meal of chips mayai (eggs and french fries fried together in a pan). We ended the night sitting at the guest house drinking Safari lager and playing pitch (anyone who was with us eleven years ago knows that this was a remarkably familiar scene). Next morning Craig rallied at 5:30am, cooked Theron and I oatmeal, and got us on the road back to safari by sunrise. We decided to get up this early with the hopes of catching a leopard before the heat of the day.  Despite the fact that Theron lives in Tanzania and has been on a zillion safaris, he has never seen a leopard. Craig also has had never seen one and I had only ever seen one at night time, so we really had our fingers crossed. We started the morning by following another safari vehicle called "Leopard Safaris," thinking they clearly would lead us right to one. But after about twenty minutes of following them we decided that they were just way too distracted by giraffe to ever have leopard success, so we broke free and headed down our own route. About ten minutes later as we are distractedly cruising at fairly high speed looking for a spot for Theron to stop and use the bathroom, Craig yells "leopard!"  Right on the side of the road was a crouching leopard. We got to watch each other for a few moments before the leopard reasoned that it was best to hit the road. It was a pretty awesome sight! From there the sightings were a bit down hill. We saw the typical animals listed above and we drove EVERY possible road in the park. Including ones that no one had clearly been down in ages. Which meant that we spent a lot of time cutting the eight foot overgrowth with our vehicle and crossing our fingers that we had not left the path. On one of these explorations we found ourselves at the bottom of a steep river bed unable to get up the other side. Nothing like having to get out of the car in lion land to make road repairs. Theron and Craig loved it. As for myself, I was a bit distracted by the fact that we were on a path the no vehicles passed down and a few days walk from a world not ruled by carnivores.  Happily after about 45 minutes and many failed attempts we flew out of the hole. We continued to drive around until the end of the day, and despite not having any further awesome sightings and having to initiate a battle of who in the car could kill the most of the most tsetse flies(theron was the BIG winner), we all had a great time.

That evening we headed out to the Udzungwa National Park. Udzungwa is a forested mountain area where there are tons of different types of monkeys and elephants living. While there we camped at Theron's roomate's campsite, which turned out to be really nice, complete with bonfire and high pressured showers. The next day we went on a guided hike through the park to an absolutely spectacular waterfall. Along the way we saw red colobus, black and white colobus, blue monkeys and the endemic species of mangabey monkeys (that remarkably were not discovered until 1979), as well as evidence of elephant. We also had a near miss with a forest cobra that scared the bejesus out of our guide.  We ended the day with another reminiscent night of pitch by the campfire. Around ten p.m. Theron's roommate (Woody) arrived along with the manager of the campsite. At this point I hit the hay and Craig and Theron ended up staying until about 3:30am swapping stories with woody by the campfire. Unfortunately for Craig, by seven am the African sun was fiercely beating down on our tent and the only option was to get up or be cooked alive. After a tasty breakfast of chai and chapati, Theron led us on a bushwhacking adventure looking for host plants for butterflies. I am happy to report that although we were covered by scratches and bizarre rashes caused by some unfriendly plant, no one managed to step on a hidden snake. We spent the rest of the day in a somewhat futile attempt to cool down by hosing off the car. We also got introduced to a new and quite juvenile game enjoyed by Theron as a child, where one throws a Frisbee at a person trying to hit them while the other person is not allowed to move. Somehow this painful game had us cracking up for hours. Dinner that night was cooked by the staff at camp and was scrumptious beef curry. Next morning we headed out on one more adventure before hitting the road back to Dar. This adventure was to a patch of woods located in the center of sugar cane fields that we had learned the day before was a great spot to see monkeys. We brought a local man with us to show us the way. We followed a road out through a village and into the sugar cane. From there the road ended. Once again we were forced to use our borrowed vehicle as a plow as we mowed down lines of sugar cane and worked hard at getting lost in the middle of nowhere. The drive stopped short as we came upon a huge ditch in the road, luckily spotted before we fell in. Happily from there we were a short walk to the forest. Of course, I was too scared of snakes to really enjoy the bush whacking but once we got to the forest we got to see more monkeys and of course more butterflies. After a short walk we headed back to the car to begin our trip back to Dar. Somehow we managed to follow the track of broken sugarcane and found our way out of the field and back to the world.

The rest of the time in Dar we spent hanging out and preparing for birthday parties.  Woody's wife Hannah got a surprise party that included a couple of dives (so we got to go along on that part).  And two days later, the day before we left, Jess and I were on dessert duty for Jaki's b-day.  Though making cake and tiramisu is alot trickier with African ingredients than it is at home, we pulled it off and enjoyed a couple of fun parties.  And then we flew back to the USA...for now.

Well, we have once again taken a pretty big hiatus from our blog.  Big enough that we find ourselves now back on our home turf, staying with Grant in New York.  Our month in Tanzania was great...we will try to fill in the details when we have time.  For now, we wanted to get our photos up (fast internet makes this job unimaginably easier), and let everyone know that we are safe and happy. 

OK.  Here are pictures:

The end of our trip in Turkey

From our stint in Egypt

From Tanzania

We have a couple of weeks to kill here before we head down to Peru for the last adventure of this little trip.  Then we have to try to get caught up with the rat race again. 

Enjoy the photos, stay tuned for the stories, and keep keeping in touch!!!

We are still alive, and in Tanzania!  Sorry to anyone who checks that we have not been keeping up very well online...the days are just packed!

We had a great end of our trip in Egypt, highlighted by a dive to the wreck of a WWII ship full of trucks, tanks, plane wings, motorcycles and other fun stuff (check it out:  http://touregypt.net/vdc/Thistle.htm) and also by a day of walk-touring in Cairo.

Now we are in Tanzania with our old friend Theron and his wife Jaki.  It is fun to be back in Tanzania, though a lot has changed in 10 years.  So far, we have been hanging out around Dar Es Salaam, where Theron and Jaki live.  We went to the beach south of here and spent a day, and aos visited the construction site that will one day be their home.  The rest of the time has been eaten up by trying to replace the stolen power window switch in Theron's car with a (far cheaper) household wall switch without starting a major fire (the first two attempts resulted in minor fires), drinking beer all day at ex-pat charity events, and hanging around the awesome house where they (and we) are staying, swimming in the pool and watching pirated DVD's of US TV series.  We are going to go on a few safaris in the next few weeks.  Jess and I are having fun and trying to remember our Swahili, which is coming back slowly. 

Hope all is well on the home front.  We will keep you posted if exciting things happen.

Take care!!

Hello Everyone!  Jess and I are in the very relaxed town of Dahab, Egypt.  We decided to come to Egypt a couple of weeks ago, being as how it was right on the way from Turkey to Tanzania, and is reputed to have some good falafel.  And world class diving.  And some pyramids.  So we hunted around the web and found an outfit that ran a pretty affordable program that started in Cairo, took us out to the Red Sea, and got us back to Cairo again with diving, hotels, pyramids, camel rides and transport included.  Not knowing our way around this neck of the woods,we decided that the package might be the way to fly.  So now we find ourselves dragging out of bed every day to go diving in the Red Sea and hang out around the pool, which is not getting old very fast.  The last few days have been pretty fun and interesting, so here is a rundown:

Sunday, May 24th:

We killed the morning knocking around Istanbul and made it to the airport for our flight to Egypt.  It only took two hours to get there, and the contrast from green Mediterranean Turkey and the desert of Egypt was immediately apparent.  Cairo is a city of thousands of brown mud brick buildings in the middle of the biggest desert I have ever seen, and the outskirts blend in seamlessly with their surroundings.  When we arrived at the airport, there was a dude from our tour company standing there with a sign.  He helped us through the visa line and put us in a cab straight to the hotel.  We were on our way into town about 10 minutes after we left the plane, and already getting used to having someone go through all the hassle for you!  Our hotel room in Cairo was deluxe, and we spent that evening meeting with the guy who was going to show us around the next day and taking it easy. 

Monday May 25th:

We started the day by heading straight to the National Museum, which houses all the Egyptian artifacts that were left after the Brits made their grab.  We were awe struck in Troy to think what people had achieved there so long ago, but Egypt blows that right out of the water.  There were all the sarcophagi and statues you would ever need to see, as well as mind blowing stuff like 2 story tallred granite columns that were carved in one piece 400 miles from Cairo and somehow brought up for some dudes tomb.  The most impressive thing was the contents of the smallish (by ancient Egypt standards) tomb of the young Pharoah Tutankhamun (King Tut), whose tomb was the only one discovered intact and unlooted.  The contents fill the entire top floor of the museum, and seem to go on forever.  It was a pretty great museum, but it was still a museum and we were psyched to get out ofthere and head to the Pyramids.  On the way, we stopped for lunch at an Egyptian perfume store, where they were making perfumes from flower essences in the same way Egyptians have done for 5000 years.  The proprietor was a tall, skinny, old Muslim dude with a smattering of about every language you could think of and a really entertaining sense of humor.  They had the modern world figured out, and were selling mixtures that provide the base for (or at least successfully knock off)just about any big name fragrance out there in undiluted form for what Jess told me (as she, like the 6 other people who were touring with usthat day, was getting sucked in to buying a bottle of her favorite) was really great price. 

Then came the pyramids, and they were truly amazing.  After seeing a million pictures, I sort of thought that they were going to be cool but nothing too surprising.  But I was wrong.  They were even more unbelievable than I expected.  They look like mountains on the horizon as you approach through the streets of Cairo, and it is really hard to wrap your head around the scale even when you are standing right amongst them.  The biggest is 450 ft tall and the base covers 40acres.  And though you aren't allowed to climb up to the top, access tote structures themselves is pretty unfettered and you can climb around on them.  Walking around the desert surrounded by these huge structures and older than anything you have ever seen is really a trip.  We also got to go inside the 2nd pyramid (you can go in the 1st too, but it costs 5x as much so we thought #2 was pretty good).  That was  a highlight.  You start at ground level and walk down a hot, stuffy,tunnel that is only 1 meter tall until you are 18 meters underground. Then you walk through a chamber that leads to another tunnel that goes back up and ends in the center of the pyramid at the tomb of the king. It was a crazy feeling to be in that room, under millions of tons of rock, that was in perfect condition and exactly as it was 4500 years ago (minus all the treasure and the dead king).  After a while, we reluctantly headed back out of the tunnels and into the desert air.  We drove a short way up to a high point with a view of all three pyramids in Giza, and then, in another highlight moment, we hopped on the backs of a 8 grumpy camels for a ride back to the pyramids.  It was an amazing day.

Our tour guide Hassim took us out to Egyptian dinner at a restaurant with a great pyramid view, and then the group split up. Jess and I, the only two divers, headed back to the hotel to await our midnight bus to the sea, while the others hopped on a train to begin their 2 week Egypt tour.  At midnight, a rep from the company took us to the bus station and literally put us in our seats on the bus before saying goodbye.  And we were off for the beach.

May 26th-

The night bus sucked, just like a night bus ought to, so when we arrived in Dahab (and got a ride right to our hotel by the guy who was waiting for us), we sacked out for a couple of hours before getting up and exploring town.  Dahab is a pretty small, low-key town perched on a bay of the Red Sea from where the hills of Saudi Arabia are easily visible across the water.  This was an old Bedouin village, and it is surrounded by a completely dry mountainous desert,making for a really striking contrast with the deep blue water.  We also hooked up with our dive guides and planned the next couple ofdays.  We are actually doing our Advanced diving certification while we are here, so we had to do a little homework while enjoying a beer (not easy to procure in this very Muslim land) on our patio by the pool. Then we ate a delicious Egyptian food dinner, walked along the rocky beach back to our hotel, and settled in to watch bad movies on TV before bed.

May 27th-

We went on 2 pretty cool dives this day.  The dives were pretty easy, but the sites were very beautiful.  We aren't seeing rays and sharks all over like we did in Thailand, but the water here is very clear and deep deep blue.  The coral are very brightly colored and beautiful, so the less frequent big fish sightings are made up for by the surroundings. 

May 28th-

3 more dives today, and two of them were absolutely amazing.  The first one is called the canyon.  You swim out of a coral bay and along sandy-bottom see with big coral boulders laying around and lots of fish (and a huge octopus changing colors under some coral was pretty cool) and then you arrive at the canyon. It is a hole in the ocean floor that drops down a narrow gorge full offish to a sandy bottom 100 ft deep.  If you are a serious technical diver with 4 tanks, you can follow the canyon out to see to an exit 250ft down.  If you are us, you then swim through a cave and up a narrower passage to pop out at the top again.  The second dive is called the Blue Hole, which is just that, a hole in the coral reef 300ft deep. The crazy thing is that it is right next to shore; a 6 year old could throw a rock into it from the road.  We started this dive a couple hundred feet up the coast by dropping head first down through a narrow chimney in the reef and popping out in the middle of a densely populated reef wall, looking up at 90 ft of crazy coral shapes above our heads.  We ended by swimming around the edge of the Blue Hole and got out right in front of the restaurant which served good food and watched our bags for us while we were down.  I think it was my favorite dive ever (out of all 20 that I have done).  The third dive of the day was a night dive, always a favorite of Jess and I.  Afterwards, we went out and ate Koshary, and Egyptian dish worth mentioning because it is so unique:  It is macaroni noodles, 2 different kinds of spaghetti noodles, 2 types of rice, chick peas, lentils, and tomato sauce all mixed together in a bowl.  We decided that "Koshary" must mean "leftovers" in Arabic.  It is definitely high on the fill-you-upscale, and with tea our dinner came to $1.80!

May 29th-

Today we pretended like we were on beach vacation (I guess we weren't really pretending).  We laid around on beach chairs and went snorkeling at acouple different spots.  It was a great lazy day.  But, we are makingup for it tonight.  At 11:00, we are catching a ride a couple of hoursnorth to climb Mt. Sinai.  It is reputed to be the spot where Moses gotthe Ten Commandments, and also the location of the burning bush (a 600year old monastery is built at that site, and we are going to get tocheck that out as well).  The idea is to start the climb in the middleof the night and be at the top for the sun rise.  Sounds good to us...we will let you know how it goes!

Take care, and keep in touch!

Well we have been slackers and taken a large break from the internet...now we have to play catch up. We did a lot our last week in Turkey, including sea kayaking over a sunken city, a 3 day trek on the Lycian way, a visit to a place where hot spring water flows down a white mountain of calcium, and finally a visit to Troy.  I will now try to do my best to recap the time, so bear with me.

5/16, 5/17- Kas

We spent two days in the small coastal town ofKas (pronounced Kash). The town was incredibly cute. It is an old fishing village that developed into a touristy town, but managed to retain a low key atmosphere and charm. While there we went kayaking to the "sunken city". I was pretty excited about this activity, I though truins are cool, but certainly Atlantis is cooler. The kayaking wasgreat. I have actually never kayaked before (or not at least that I remember) and I thought it was fantastic. The Mediterranean was areally amazing deep blue with perfect clarity and the weather was great. The city, however, left something to be desired. There was not much to see. Many crumbling walls and not much else. The guide kept pointing things out like specifics on rooms or mosaics, but I mostly just saw rocks. They don't let you snorkel or dive in the area (which is really what I had hoped for) so it was a bit difficult from the surface to see below the choppy water at the shore line. Despite the disappointment in the lost city, we both really enjoyed the kayaking and even began discussing the possibility of one day kayaking the Mediterranean (of course given our current bank account situation, that trip is not going to be anytime soon.)

Our second day we were Kas Craig went on a dive to see a wreck. I had a bit of a cold so I ducked out. He had a good time and couldn't stop talking about how amazingly blue the Mediterranean remains even when you are 20 meters deep.

5/18-20 Trekking the Lycian Way

I had never actually heard of the Lycian way before this trip. It is a route that follows the Mediterranean coast of Turkey through areas where Lycian people used to live. We read about it in our guide book and choose to do a three day portion that was rated as one of the top ten walks in the world by I can't remember who.

Day 1:

Our trip to our starting point was a bit more challenging than our guide book made it sound. The guidebook directed us to take a bus to a town called Esen get off and hail a cab to a village called Alinca. We got off the bus (which actually did not stop in Esen but instead a couple of kilometers away on the side of the highway) and began trekking. Unlike when we trekked in Nepal, we did not put any of our belongings in storage, so with heavy packs filled with ridiculously useless belongs (i.e. down jackets, dive computers, winter clothing) we entered Esen in the heat of the day. We discovered pretty quickly that this was a village that tourists rarely visit, as the children and grown-ups stared, yelled hellos, and giggled as we passed. What we also discovered as we walked through the village was that there were no taxi-cabs and we had about 19k to go. Another kilometer or so down the road we did get picked up by a minibus which took us a few  K before dropping us at the turn off to Alinca. We walked a couple of kilometers and managed to hitch a ride with a local in their car a little further, and then got another ride on the back of hay tractor.  We ended up walking the last 6k (all, alas, an uphill climb) until we reached the village. The walk was lovely through pastures, olive groves and around huge rocky mountains with cliff drops to the Mediterranean and reaching thousands of feet above our heads. We ended up walking about an hour or two beyond Alinca and pitching camp in a small olive grove terraced on the slope of one of the mountains. It was an ideal camp spot with a beautiful view of sea and an old cistern where we were able to get water.

Day 2:

I woke the next day with a terrible terrible cold/cough...very sad for me. But the hike was still great.  We continued down the mountain we had camped on and at the base was a canyon that eventually popped out at a beautiful rocky beach. The weather was windy when we got there so we did not get to swim, but I did get to have a nice lunch of chicken soup at a little hotel in the small village that sits above the beach. From there we hiked on to the next village, a small quaint place called Faralya. Like the day before, the hike was gorgeous(definitely deserving of a best walk award). Along the way we didn't pass very many tourists, but funny enough we did cross paths with two ladies we had kayaked with in Kas two days before, I guess Turkey isn't so big after all. Here we ended up pitching our tent at a guest house. I was feeling pretty crummy when we arrived, so while I swam in the pool and took a nap, Craig went down the hill (actually more of cliff) to the Butterfly Valley canyon and beach. What he described when got back was a beautiful beach with a gnarly river canyon that you can ascend up through waterfalls using ropes. He also said that the beach had a young Turkey hippy scene, I picture college kids camping and doing yoga in a little bit of paradise.

Day 3:

This day I woke up feeling even crummier. So I decided that instead of taking the7 hour Lycian way trail through the mountains we would take the 2 hour coastal road route. It ended being a beautiful walk and we arrived a tour destination right at the start of a huge rain storm, so I think we did well to take the short cut.

5/21 Pammukale

From the end of our trek we got directly on a bus and headed to the town of Pammukale. My interest in Pammukale began with a photo I saw in Mexico of a woman snorkeling in crystal clear pool with broken ruins underneath her. Again, I thought this was my chance to see Atlantis. However, I subsequently found out that this pool is actually man-made and the ruins were bull dozed into the bottom of it. But, it turned out that the place where this pool is located is actually a must see in Turkey.  Pammukale is a small village that is located next to the ruined town of Hieropolis. The ruins of Hieropolis sit on the top of hill above a mountain of calcium pool hot springs. From Pammukale the hill looks like a small ski slope. You approach the ruins by walking up a chalk white path through tiers of crystal blue pools. It is breathtaking and, like Cappadocia, it looks like you could be on a another planet (you will have to see the photos). The ruins themselves were very impressive, dating back to 200 BC. The pool I had longed to see was actually built in the middle of the ruins and despite its artificial beginnings I was still determined to swim in it... that is until I found out it cost 30$ a person and the water was more slimy green than pristine blue....alas.

5/23 Troy

Moving right along. We hopped another long long bus(Turkey is a huge country) and headed to our last site, Troy. We had heard that there was not much to see at Troy, but we could not pass up the opportunity to stand where the Trojan horse once passed. We stayed the night in a large port town called Cannakale and hit up the ruins the next day. The trip to Troy ended up being really enjoyable. The ruins were actually only discovered a little over a hundred years ago, when a German named Schliemann used Homer's description of the city to pinpoint where it could have been. What he discovered was actually the ruins of nine cities that existed between 3000BC and 100AD...let me repeat that: 3000BC. The ruins were labeled based on which era of Troy they were and from the days of Homer's stories (1300BC) there still existed the city walls, a portion of a tower, a well, and some foundations of homes. Although the remnants are not as impressive as other ruins in Turkey, and it turns out that Homer's story was more of a fable, Craig and I both found it pretty awesome to be standing in Troy.

From here we move to Craig's tale of our time in Egypt.

below ıs the lınk to our album from cappadocıa

http://picasaweb.google.com.tr/lh/photo/4bbkquZOGRDaPZVszEyzxQ?feat=directlink

May 15th, 2009   Olympos, Turkey

For all of those who doubt the stories from ancient mythology and the tales of Homer, doubt no longer, for we have seen the truth...a mountain that breaths fıre!

We have spent the last couple days staying at a seasıde resort area (really backpackers haven) buılt around the ruıns of the ancıent cıty of Olympus. The beach here was absolutely beautiful and quıet wıth perfect (although chılly) medıterean clear blue water. The ruıns sıt ın a valley between hıgh rocky hılls. Craıg of course lead me on a very adventurous exploratıon of those hılls whıch both renewed my fears of heıghts and left me wıth more scratches on my legs than I have had sınce chıldhood. But the maın attraction whıle we were there was Mt Chimaera. Last nıght we took the 7k walk from our hotel to arrıve at around 9 pm on the sıde of thıs mountaın where flames have been comıng out of the cracks ın the rocks for thousands of years. The story goes that the Chımera was a fıre breathıng monster wıth lıon head, goat body, and serpent taıl who was speared ınto the depths of the mountaın by Bellerophon (who happened to be rıdıng pegasus on thıs mıssıon). Sınce that tıme Chımaera's fıre has contınued to seep from the mountain. The more scıentıfıc explanatıon ıs that there ıs a natural gas leakıng from the earth and for some reason combustıng ın the presence of aır. But whatever the explanatıon Craig and I are were pretty awed by a sıght of fıres seepıng out ground, knowıng that they have been burnıng for "eternıty".