We continue to use Braşov as our base to explore more of the area.
Today we got to visit one of our key target locations for this visit – Bran Castle – the supposed home of Count Dracula. Of course, Dracula is a fictional character by author Bram Stoker – but he drew on local superstitions and legends and added to the already existing infamy of the historical ruler Vlad Dracul “The Impaler” Țepeş, who was here in the late 1400s.
We are staying in a building constructed in the 1500s.. we’re up in the attic and have been admiring the original wooden beams and supports. Brenda noted that the wooden sections are joined not by nails but by wooden stakes. Even though we are staying about 15 miles from Bran Castle, we know we are safe should any bats or vampires make their way in.
Bran Castle – construction began in 1377. For several hundred years this castle served as a border crossing and tax collection point, when it wasn’t served as a garrison agains the dreaded Ottoman invaders from 1400-1650s.
Heading up to the top.. if Brenda can barely squeeze through these passageways, what chance do the rest of us have?
Out of the castle and heading toward the car – to run the gauntlet of souvenir stands. Brenda is looking for something to take home for the kids.
Biserica Neagră (the Black Church) right next to our hotel. It is so named from a 1689 fire that ruined the interior and blackened the exterior stones. Construction began in the late 1300s as a Catholic church, but during the Reformation the Lutherans took over and it has been a Protestant church since 1530.
Tomb markers of local dignitaries long since gone.
We went shopping in the afternoon and then looked for a late lunch/early dinner. We had our best meal on the trip (so far) at an authentic Romanian restaurant (Schnitzel, cabbage rolls, pickles and beer). Brenda loaded up on small meat scraps so she could make friends with the local feline population all around town.
Today we packed our bags and took a taxi back to the airport in order to rent a car for the rest of our week in Romania. We then headed north through the Ploieşti oil fields (Arge will know all about this area) and into the Carpathian mountains.
Our first stop was to visit Peleş and Pelişor castles. The main castle was undergoing significant exterior renovations and so looked like this:
Not terribly picturesque. It would have normally looked like this:
It was built for King Carol I of Romania from 1873 to 1914 and served as his summer retreat. It has 170 rooms and covers about 35000 sq.ft.
The interiors were stunning; all fittings and furniture were retained. The castle is known for it’s intricate woodwork and carvings.
The second castle, Pelişor, was several hundred yards away and was the retreat for King Carol’s nephew and heir, the future King Ferdinand (son of Carol’s brother Leopold von Hohenzollern) and Ferdinand’s consort Queen Marie.
After both tours, we found a restaurant close by for lunch – I had a dish of wild boar while Brenda ordered venison and potatoes.
Continuing our drive, we finished up in Braşov, back down out of the mountains and the first stop in Transylvania.
The building in the foreground is where we are staying.. that little window (diamond shaped) is our room.
Town square as the sun sets. There is evidence that this town has been inhabited continuously more than 6000 years ago. Some of the architecture yet existing is from the 1500-1600s.
It’s still below freezing, but that doesn’t prevent folks from sitting out in the sun and having beer and hot wine.
This is a vacation for us – I couldn’t come up with any way to mix business with pleasure. Last Fall Delta Airlines offered a sale on tickets from Atlanta to Bucharest (the capital of Romania) – with a limited range of available dates. The offer was so good that we bought the tickets and THEN started to figure out just what the heck we were getting ourselves in for. There are not a lot of tourists here in February. We think that we lucked out in that it is to be sunny for almost the entire duration of our trip – but that came with unusually cold temperatures and a lot of snow. There was a snowstorm here that hit the country just a few days ago; schools are closed and a lot of roads haven’t yet been cleared. Did I mention that it is cold? The low tonight will be 5F. Perhaps this is why the tickets on Delta were so cheap.
In the airport in Amsterdam – there aren’t any direct flights from Atlanta to Romania, so we had to fly to The Netherlands first and catch another flight on Tarom (??!) airlines going to Bucharest.
Of course this airport has a tulip store. Brenda was scoping out the tulip bulb selection and plans to get some to take home with her on our return leg to Atlanta.
It took us nearly 24 hours to get here.. once we got to the hotel we quickly showered, found a bite to eat, then collapsed for a 12 hour sleep session.
Morning in Old Town Bucharest. Our hotel is centrally located so we were able to walk to everything worth seeing today.
All of the restaurants have set up outdoor seating with heaters and covers to allow one to dine on the street in sub-freezing temperatures.
Walking along the Dâmbovița River that bisects the city.
The Palatul Parlamentului building – the world’s largest (in mass, not area) building in the world. It’s a massive marble structure with 9 floors above ground and 9 below. This was a passion project from Romania’s former dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu who wanted to show off power and majesty. It was started in 1977 and completed in 1991 – 2 years after Ceaușescu’s death (by firing squad after Romania’s liberation and freedom from Soviet control).
The building now houses several different offices and museums. We visited Romania’s museum for contemporary art.
Brenda trying to figure out what she’s looking at.
Brenda felt that this piece most accurately captured her feeling about most of the museum’s collection.
Plowing through a flock of pigeons
The city is a combination of 1900-1930’s Belle Époque and Art Nouveau with post WWII Soviet Bloc Eastern European conformity.
Lunch of meat skewers with potatoes, corn, hummus and beer.
Graveyard in 18th century monastery.
A cover of yellow glass tops this 19th-century passageway lined with pubs & restaurants.
What we’ve learned:
Everyone smokes
The men wear tracksuits and all look like Russian mob affiliates
Brenda has never seen so many tight pleather pants worn on women who really shouldn’t..
English is common second language. When I spoke to our Taxi driver in Romanian, he complimented my effort and then asked “why did you bother to learn Romanian?”
Prices are relatively expensive – on par with what we expect in the Eurozone countries.
This is our final day before making the long trip home. We have a flight from Siagon to Hong Kong set for the evening and I worked out that we had enough time to squeeze in a tour out in the country before heading back.
We signed up to see th Cu Chi tunnel system that is a 2-hour drive north and west of Saigon. Cu Chi is an immense network of connecting tunnels – part of a much larger network of tunnels that underlie much of the country. They were the location of several military campaigns during the Vietnam War, and were the Viet Cong’s base of operations for the Tết Offensive in 1968.
The tunnels were used by Viet Cong soldiers as hiding spots during combat, as well as serving as communication and supply routes, hospitals, food and weapon caches and living quarters for numerous North Vietnamese fighters. In the Cu Chi area alone, there were more than 250km of these underground passages and bunkers.
The tunnels contained various bamboo traps made by the Viet Cong to injure and potentially kill South Vietnam’s Tunnel Rats if they breached the tunnels. The tunnels also contained ventilation shafts to release smoke from fire and any poisonous gases pumped into the tunnels by the Americans.
On the way to the tunnels we stopped at a rest area next to a factory that hand makes lacquerware. As an extra dig to us Americans, the workers here are all handicapped from birth defects due to Agent Orange exposure.
Another incongruous stop along the way – to a shooting range where they let you fire left over Vietnam war hardware. You can pick your poison, so we both got a chance to shoot an AK-47.
Leftover US military hardware is everywhere here – lots of them in parks and similar open access areas.
C-130 transport.
Here they are showing some of the gathered shells and fragments that were dropped in Cu Chi over the years, trying to destroy the underground tunnel systems.
In one of the stranger events, all tourists watched a film (from 1967) produced by the North Vietnamese government that showed vignettes of some of their more notable “American Killer Heroes” who tallied up body counts of US soldiers through bombs, ambushes, traps and other guerilla tactics. Here, the war from 1955-1975 is called “The Resistance War against America to Save the Country”. They make no mention of the South Vietnam government nor military resistance, the civil war, the origins of the hostilities after the French left, the violation of the 1954 Geneva Conference and UN agreement… just that all Vietnamese freedom fighters and liberators needed to kill the American imperialist aggressors.
The tour guide apologized to us before and after the video – told us he had to show it since the government still runs the park.
Destroyed M48 Patton tank along the way.
Here is one of the trickier entrances into the tunnels. This was the typical size – you can imagine how small one needs to be to get in. With the lid on top and some leaves spread over, you would never see it even if you were inches away.
Here is an enlarged opening for fat Westeners. It was still really cramped to get into but I had to give it a try. Brenda wisely passed.
You didn’t need to crawl, but you surely had to stoop. I could just squeeze through width wise and banged my head too many times to mention. It was also about 140 degrees down there and my shirt was soaked after I got out.
They had several tunnels for us to try.. one about 5 meters in length, another 15 meters and the final one almost 100m long. Brenda did the first small one and passed on the rest due to the claustrophobic conditions.
Bamboo spear trap. The tips were coated black with some distilled tree sap that was poisonous.
We also saw many bomb craters from US attacks. This particular one did manage to hit the tunnels so that you can see the opening remnants that collapsed and were exposed.
A larger underground area that served as a field hospital.
It was fun to get out into the jungle here and get a feel for the area; my it was hot and sweaty.
After a lunch and the long bus ride back to the city, we packed up and headed for the airport to take a night flight from Saigon to Hong Kong. We stayed in a hotel near HKG airport, got about 5 hours of sleep and are back at HKG awaiting our flight to Seoul ICN airport, then make a connection to take us all the way back to ATL.
The majority of today was spent with a supplier meeting and a plant tour of their new multi-building facitlity out of town. This was my principal justification for coming to Vietnam.
The drive was about an hour east of the city and our first opportunity to get out and see a bit of the countryside. Low lying, swampy water everywhere.. just like in the movies!
Furtive shot taken when sitting down for our first meeting.
Some shots of their equipment. These are fully automated “flat panel lines”. Raw materials go in and boxes of 2’x2’ light fixtures come out. No labor involved.
Good, old fashioned assembly lines. The workers here put in 12 hours a day, 6 days per week before OT kicks in.
It is worth noting that none of these companies are Vietnamese owned. These are all Chinese companies who have set up shop here to avoid paying the Chinese duties on US-bound product. This loophole may eventually be closed, but for now, they make hay while the sun shines.
Automated powder coat paint line putting the white paint finish on bare metal fixtures.
This was lunch for me. I have been to my share of Chinese lunches/dinners, and the senior or most honored guest always gets the head of the fish. It is supposed to be the best portion. I’ve always been quite happy for someone else to have this honor, but now I’m stuck.
Almost a double rainbow over the Saigon river. By the time we got back to the city it was almost dinner. We rested for a bit, got a bite to eat and settled in for the night. I had more phone calls to make (I do calls in the night so I can talk to folks back home in their early morning) and then we turned in.
Our second day in Ho Chi Minh City – we had the day off to explore the town. My work calls didn’t begin until after dinner and so we had a chance to sleep in for the first time this trip, get a leisurely breakfast and then head out on foot. With temps in the low 90s and the humidity high, we wilted quickly, sweating through the few remaining clean clothes we have in our suitcases. The weather held, though – due to the remaining dregs of last weeks Typhoon we were supposed to get non-stop rain during our time here, but you can see from the photos that nature chose a different path.
This group will have lots of street scenes and it light on destinations.
Big market for a lot of low cost items. Brenda found some sort of lacquered four-piece wall art that she’s bringing home.
Don’t think these women didn’t pounce on Brenda anytime she walked down the aisle.
Ho Chi Minh’s People’s Committee City Hall – The building was opened in 1909 by the French Indochina governors-general to celebrate 50 years of French presense in Saigon.
War Remnants Museum – a VERY interesting place to visit and very depressing. They say that history is told by the victors. Here, the victors are the People’s Army of Vietname (aka North Vietnamese) and they do not pull any punches about the atrocities committed by the French and then the U.S. in the last 100 years. Outside of the building are some old US weapons and transport that were captured during the War.
This display shows the infamous “Tiger Cages”, guillotines and other torture devices used by the French and South Vietnamese “rebels” on the patriotic liberators from the North.
They had separate rooms to show what US supplied Agent Orange did to the citizens, what torture did, what the mass burning of villages did; all the beheadings and maimings and starvation and exposure did – with blown up photographs and displays of the tools of the trade. Brenda gave up and sat down in the lobby to wait for me to finish the tour. Of course, the message was all one sided; one can imagine that the same was being done all around.
On to more walks about town.
This was lunch for us – Brenda wanted a photo to share with Phuong that we were eathing authentic, local Ox-Tail and Chicken Phở soup.
The place now is just the US Consulate – the Capital of unified Vietnam is now up in Hanoi. Note the flag.
This is the rooftop where in 1975 the last helicopters took away the final contingent of Americans, marines and Graham Martin, the final Ambassador to SV. Note the small, beige building on top and see the famous photo below.
Our second day at the lighting show. Basically same schedule; we got up early and had a breakfast meeting with one of our suppliers. We then headed to the light show to meet contacts and see what is new. Donny and I left early to get in another late afternoon with the wives.
Me with one of our suppliers; I see them about once every 1-2 years.
Kimberlee – she came to HK from Atlanta to learn a new position (international sourcing). She walked the show with me and we met with a company with factories in China and Vietnam who have some product we are considering.
Afternoon on Kowloon Bay. It kept threatening to rain but never did. We walk the promenade and then decided to sign up for a 1-hour boat ride that circuits around the bay.
Brenda on a boat, with waves and everything. She was a real sport but was glad when we were done.
We had some time to kill before our dinner reservations so we walked to the Peninsula Hotel – one of HK’s most historic and swankiest hotels. There is a bar upstairs that Donny and I visited last year and we wanted to re-create the fun.
Lady in red, with the largest wine glass ever.
Dinner for 6 at the Harbourview. Outdoors with the city as a backdrop. We met up with Kimberlee and her sister (who came with Kimberlee for fun). This was our last evening together before we all split up. Some are returning home, some are staying in HK, and some (us) are continuing on to other destinations.
The large building in the foreground is the convention center where our trade show was held. This is my 6th (!!) trip to Hong Kong over the past 20+ years. It never disappoints and is an amazing, memorable and FUN! city to take in.
Yesterday was another travel day – Brenda and I got up at 5am to head for the airport to take a Cathay Pacific flight to Saigon, Vietnam – our first time here. Officially called “Thành phố Hồ Chí Minh” – that’s too many syllables. The city was renamed in 1976 from Saigon to Ho Chi Minh after the last helicopter left the embassy here in 1975 and the north completed their sweep south. But the airport, the river, our hotel and the local beer are all called “Saigon” and that’s what I’ll stick with.
We got into our hotel around noon and gratefully they had an available room so that we could drop off our luggage, take quick bath and a nap and be refreshed to start our adventures here. We have the next day off before Brenda and I tour a couple of factories in the area that are making some components and finished fixtures that we are purchasing for the US market.
Phuong will surely laugh at every stupid/naive observation we will make, but here goes… It’s hot and muggy and chaotic and noise and a bit smelly in spots. It does remind me a bit of my China visits 20 years ago – where there were fewer cars and armies of folks on scooters. We are staying in “District 1” which is the oldest and nicest part of the city, right along the river.
Brenda and I just walked around the general vicinity to get our bearings and to allow me to build my mental map for the next couple of days. Phuong supplied us with a list of “Must See” spots and so we intend to hit as many of those as possible. I needed to find an ATM since we arrived without any of the Vietnamese “đồng” (local currency) we would need to get shopping.
The view from our hotel room.
Ho Chi Minh City Book Street – a pedestrian street with book shops, cafes and related vendors. Brenda is picking through hand-made-paper sheets that have wood block and hand painted artwork added.
Saigon Central Post Office. The building was constructed when Vietnam was part of French Indochina in the late 19th century. It counts with Gothic, Renaissance and French influences. Construction was complete 1891 and is now mostly a tourist attraction, but they do conduct shipments of letters and parcels in the back.
Looking for treasures to bring home for the kids.
There’s a sucker born every minute.
Uncle Ho portrait in the background. His image is everywhere.
Scooters everywhere and they go where they damn well please. Side walks and traffic lights are not only optional, but largely ignored.
Brenda trying to cross the street, dodging scooters to and fro.
As the sun began to set, we headed back to our hotel for some free eaties and drinks at the Executive lounge and then turned in to watch some tv, get our bags organized and get to sleep early. We had been running on 4-5 hours of sleep each night for the past week and B was beginning to feel the first signs of fatigue illness. After a fantastic 9+ hour sleep night, I’m happy to report we’re in fine fettle and ready to hit the street again today.
Our traveling continues to Hong Kong. We are here for several days to attend an annual trade show – HKTDC Autumn Lighting Fair.
View from the lounge where we had coffee and breakfast each morning.
Attending the show – big crowds and very busy place. All of the photos I took here are of boring people and product. No fun to be had.
Donny and I did steal away in the late afternoon, met up with Brenda and Meredith, and we headed to Lantau Island where you can take a series of cable cars up to the Tian Tan (Big) Buddha.
View from the Buddha at the top.
An active monastery, which we walked to after climbing to the top of the hill.
Brenda giving their sacred cow some head scratches.
Our companions on the cable car returning home. The three girls on the left where real characters and had the whole car laughing at their antics. The couple on the right were from Moldova.
Dinner for our gang.. With Andy on the left and Kevin Green (lives in North Carolina) on the right. I picked out the restaurant – classic HK “Hot Pot”.
Our second day in Ningbo. It’s a Friday here and we had a lighter schedule. Our team split up – some of our other co-workers went on some plant tours outside of town. Donny and I had visited these same factories a year ago, so we opted out.
We did get an opportunity to do some shopping in the morning and so headed out.
View from our hotel room. Please excuse the mess.
Brenda loves the meals here. The buffet breakfast room at this hotel is the largest we’ve ever seen. This is what passes for breakfast for Brenda. Mine looked a lot more recognizable.
There is a Typhoon out in the South China Sea named ’Trami’. It will hit northern Vietnam in a day or two and then bounce back out to sea. We will avoid the worst of it, but the rains started today and did not let up all afternoon and evening.
Out shopping. We had a driver and interpreter (named Ann) with us. She took us to the dodgy part of town where we could find the shady dealers of fake watches, handbags, shoes & etc.
Donny and Meredith are haggling to buy some merchandise to take home to relatives and friends. I got one extra item thrown in at the end and benefitted from all of her work to wear the guy down and get a “good deal”. I’m guessing the vendor still made a mint off of us.
We then headed to the swankier part of the city to window shop and hit a lunch place our translator recommended.
This is another one of the typical Chinese restaurants.. the first floor is where you go and decide what dishes you want ordered, choosing which sea creatures are not long for the world. Most plates are unidentifiable. Too many of the plates look very unappealing. Donny and I struggled to find a beef and/or chicken dish that would suit us while the ladies safely become staunch vegetarians to avoid nasty surprises and offending our hosts.
In the end it all worked out.
The skies opened up on us after lunch so we stopped at one more large mall before heading back and preparing for some more meetings and a more formal dinner.
Mall entrance.
This is a store where you pay to go in and sit down and pet kitties.
For this store we wish Josie was with us; this place would be right up her alley.
Lobby of our hotel.
Stormy afternoon.
Dinner with the full team again – a French restaurant in Ningbo that was really good and satisfied our “comfort food” craving after days and days of strange plates and protocol.
Thursday is another travel day for us, making the flight from Beijing to Ningbo. I visited this city last year – where we do business with a company. The owner is hosting our visit – putting us up in a hotel, driving us around, taking us to dinner & etc.
We got into our hotel in the afternoon, had about an hour to change and then we headed out of town to do a factory tour of their complex. They have about 400 workers and 750,000 sq.ft. of space – making all sorts of indoor and outdoor lighting fixtures and large 20’ to 40’ tall poles for municipal and roadway lighting.
This is precise the kind of factory one sees here when one asks “where did all of that US manufacturing work go?”
In Beijing on the way to the airport – the CCTV building – Central government controlled radio and television headquarters. There are some really striking buildings to see here.
The new Beijing Daxing International airport – built just in 2019 to get ready for the winter olympics that took place here a couple of years later.
One person booth for Karaoke, in case you just need to get in one more croon before you board.
Our hotel in Ningbo .. this is the same place I stayed last year.
After our plant tour, we settled in for a long, traditional Chinese dinner. 10 of us in all with guests from the US, the UK and India as well as the locals.
Presentation of the dishes takes equal prominence to the quality of the food. This dish was a floating “boat” of various fish cuts and a dry ice performance.
Our host knew that I was after another try and their high end Peking Duck dishes. He accommodated me.
Plenty to eat and more than our fair share to drink. The lazy Susan rotates continually, so one just has to wait until the dish they like the looks of gets near by. As always, too much food and a long dinner with many toasts. Very good food and not too many items I chose not to try (e.g. frogs).
Our final afternoon in Beijing before we continue on..
Lunch in the mountains. It had warmed up nicely and we all sat outside on a deck with the Great Wall and surrounding countryside as our backdrop.
Another strategic stop for the Brenda – a jade factory. This was something she had researched well before the trip and was eager to tour. A store clerk who speaks English is giving us the history of jade, where it’s mined, how it’s processed. The final pieces of art are crafted here in this village.
A show of one of the local workers.. using a small mill to craft a “ball within a ball within a ball” pieces. The final product can have as many as 8 inner layers. The final outer piece is carved with dragons and other flourishes.
More training on the various qualities of jade, color & etc.
On to the showroom. We are coming home with something modest from here.
Late in the afternoon we toured the summer place, located about an hour outside of Beijing. It is a complex of palaces, gardens, and lakes that was used as a retreat for members of the ruling family from the time of the Jin dynasty. The first stage of construction on the Summer Palace building was commissioned in 1750 by the emperor Qianlong—the fourth emperor of the Qing dynasty—as a gift for his mother. It was completed in 1764.
The Summer Palace was “devastated by invading European forces” – both the French and the British took over and destroyed much of the architecture during the Opium Wars in the 1860 to 1900 time period. On both occasions the palace was rebuilt by Empress Dowager Cixi. As our guide explained it, to Chinese people the palace has become a symbol of national and cultural resistance in the face of foreign barbarism.
The place is overwhelmingly photogenic; we got there as the sun was setting (the “golden hour” to photo nerds) and there were a lot of ladies dressed up in period Ming and Qing dynasty outfits. On my last day here I grew bold and got right in there to take my own fair share of photos, welcome or not!
Changlang long gallery – over 2200’ in length. Each section has hand painted depictions of Chinese history and folklore.. over 14000 individual images.
Final shot of Beijing with a less than enthusiastic partner.
This morning started early; I had calls and meetings that ran from 3:30am right up until I met the rest of the gang for breakfast at 7:00am. In China, we’re exactly 12 hours off time-zone-wise; it’s easy to keep track of the time at home but difficult to keep up communications.
Here’s my new office – the spacious, dark lobby of the hotel where we are staying.
We got an early start on our sightseeing.. about a 2 hour drive up into the mountains north of Beijing. And then, we mounted a sky lift to take us to the top of the peak. Here is our version of a selfie with Donny and Meredith behind us. How is it more people don’t fall out of these things to their death?
But it was all worth it – to spend a morning on the Great Wall.
One doesn’t so much as “walk” the Great Wall as you go up and down a lot of stairs; some of them are so steep you have to use your hands to couch and crawl up and down. Most areas do not have handrails.
This is a location that is well worth the hype. The wall is over 13,000 miles long, but there are only a relatively few spots that are open to the public near Beijing. Most of the wall is deteriorating, but the Chinese government is now pumping more money into the effort to restore and maintain what they have. Construction started around 800BC and ran pretty continuously until 1700AD.
We got to the site quite early in order to avoid all of the tourists. Things start to get much more crowded later in the day. I desperately wanted some photos while the sun will still low in the morning and the wall wasn’t filled with bodies.
We walked a section until we ran to the end of the line that is open to the public.
As a special treat, our guide knew of a restricted area that we could sneak into to walk a bit along the side of the wall and over to a section that is not yet restored.
Climbing up the rubble to the top of an un-restored artery that branches off from the main line.
You can see in the distance (to the left) that this section continues – it turns out off for another couple hundreds of miles.
Our hike there and back again, we opted to go back down to the mountain base using a toboggan ride. You control the speed with a handbrake.
Visiting the Great Wall was the foundation location of this entire visit. Donny was anxious to tick off this “bucket list” event and we were only too happy to help him make it happen.
After this, it was time for lunch and our drive back to the city for some more sightseeing.
Greetings from the glorious worker’s paradise. Much family happiness and long productive life wishes for you all!
We are in the nation’s capital of 22 million to spend a couple of days seeing the sights. Very gratefully, we have the services of a travel tourism company to handle all of the difficult bits – which is just about everything over here. A company that Donny works with (whom we will visit in a couple of days) set us up with an agency that picked us up from the airport, set an itinerary, and basically took care of us 18 hours a day.
Our first stop was Tian’anmen Square. Here we are getting our bearings to start the day. The weather was cold in the mornings (upper 30s) but quickly warmed up to be in the 60s just after lunch. Very nice weather for walking around. Jenny, our tour guide, was giving us the history of the square. As always in this most superior of nations, one choses their questions wisely and keeps their big yawps shut on a great deal of topics. Even so, we learned a tremendous amount and the locations here are absolutely worth seeing once in your life. The scale of majesty and modernism is jaw dropping.
In the square with the entrance to the Forbidden City in the background.
In front of the National People’s Congress . The Great Auditorium, the biggest hall in the entire complex, seats more than 10,000 people. It is here that the National Congresses of the Communist Party of China take place, and also where the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the National People’s Congress (NPC) meet once a year. During these meetings the country’s fundamental political and social questions are discussed, and important laws and regulations decided upon.
Making our way to the Forbidden City; here the Chairman of the Board is definitely NOT Sinatra.
Waiting in a security line. Security was tough here.. several passport checks and metal detector/wand sessions. They’ve had some ahem unrest here in the past. The buildings of the Forbidden City are mostly made from wood and they do not want anything brought in that could cause a fire.
The ‘City’ itself is a series of palaces that was built over 400 years and was China’s seat of government over 5 Emperor dynasties. In total it is 180 acres in size and has 70 large palaces and almost 10,000 rooms. We spent 3 hours here and only saw a very small amount along the central spine of the complex.
Getting a history lesson. Jenny was very well versed. All of the names and dates spun around in our heads and quickly left.
Leaving the norther gate. The original City grounds extended well into the hills beyond (where you see more palaces) but we did not go on to see those. It was time for lunch and afternoon activities.
In the afternoon we drove to a nearby lake and walked around taking in the views. There is a nearby restaurant that the guide recommended after I told her that I wanted to eat Peking Duck in Peking!
And I got my duck. This version was served already sliced up. One would take one of the paper thin wheat “tortillas” from the center, add some of the duck skin and some of the meat, using the brown dipping sauce. Add veggies, roll it up and eat.
Afterwards we walked through some of the local neighborhoods on our way to Prince Gong’s Mansion.
This is Beijing’s largest and best preserved Qing Dynasty (1644-1911) property. We did not know anything about the history nor could we appreciate how important it is to the Chinese. Apparently this prince was a good guy and is well loved; many of his items (furniture) and rooms have become sites for pilgrimage. Chinese come from all over the country just to see the place, touch the wood of the buildings walls and beams & etc. For me, it seemed as if half of China was here the same time we were. It was too crowded to see much and I fear the importance of this hallowed ground was lost on us.
Yes, this place serves hamburgers made from donkey meat. No, we didn’t try it.
Our final stop of the day was a special request by the ladies – The Hong Qiao pearl market. This place is world famous and huge.. four floors of pearls and related jewelry. The quality of the product increases as you go up each level. Of course, we went right to the fourth floor to start the hunt. This is picture of the van we’ve been using this week to get around.
It was late in the day and we were the only customers at their top line vendor.. the attendants smelled blood in the water; Brenda and Meredith got a LOT of attention. Donny is off in the background, far less interested. He’s looking over all of the famous previous customers – Queen Elizabeth, Thatcher, both Bush families, Putin and an endless list of royalty from Europe and the middle East.
Brenda did not leave empty handed. I guess the pearls here are of much higher quality and much cheaper than what you can get in the states. Pearls are pretty much “out” back home and with the youth, but they are still a foundation jewelry piece for the Chinese.
Time to turn in. Our view of Beijing from our room.
Today was a travel day – the afternoon and evening were consumed with getting to the airport, through the whole process, and on to our next destination.
We did have some time in the morning to take a hike – at Gwanaksan park near Seoul University. Korea is quite mountainous and has some fantastic hiking trails with beautiful views and buddhist temples hidden away. If we ever come back, I would really like to spend a couple of extra days out of the city doing some of those hikes. For now, we packed in what we could before we had to head for the airport.
Fording the creek.
There were not many others on the trails – but those who were out and about were ALL men and women in their 70s and 80s. These seniors were serious – with all the right clothing, hiking poles, top end shoes & etc. We got lost several times and were at their mercy (with help from Google translate) to help us find road access again so we could hail a cab before we missed our flight.
Colors!
Just in case you think we’re getting a bit too big for our britches, the photo above shows you what the Executive Lounge at China Eastern Airlines was serving their VIP guests. This is not an exaggeration for effect. That was lunch for us. Thankfully, Donny bought some goodies from home – beef jerky and corn nuts to complement our American cheese slices and saltines.
All the big hubs in the US need some of these to take care of the folks who have long transfer layovers or get stuck due to delays. You rent a bed, with all the plug ins and features so you can relax, read, watch a show or sleep.
This evening we toured the Myeongdong Night Market – far more active than we had assumed. The market was filled with people and food stalls in about an 8 x 8 block area of town. We could hardly make our way through the passageways.
We did settle on a traditional Korean BBQ place where the cook the various cuts of meats and vegetables on hot coals right at the table.
The next morning (Sunday) was game day for us. I was able to VPN into an ABC station in the US so that Donny and I could watch the game right after breakfast. UT was playing UGA – we are fans of both teams, but some of us are more rabid than others. In the end, the Dawgs won and Donny spent the rest of the day in a really good mood. Note the snacks we brought from home so we wouldn’t starve on all of the healthy unidentifiables they sell here!
After the game we headed to a large convention center / mall complex for lunch and some walking around. This is the Starfield Library; a real lending library that was designed to really show off their stacks.
Across the street from the mall is the Bongeunsa buddhist temple. This place was built on a hillside with numerous small structures. It was an active place with many people attending for prayers and rituals, etc so I didn’t get many photos for fear of appearing invasive.
We finished the day with a tour of the War Memorial of Korea. I’ve been here a couple of times before, but it’s always worth a return trip and is an impressive campus honoring the sacrifices made by all NATO combatants of the Korean War.
One of the several hallways that list the names of the dead on the granite stellae.
Brenda’s in the shot at the right. The families are feeding fish and playing with model gliders in front of the playthings of war.
With the sun setting, we headed back to our hotel and had a light dinner in the bar with drinks and snacks and good company.
I’ll try to do this periodically; internet speed and access can sometimes be a bit spotty.
Brenda and I are back overseas for a lengthy bit of work and play. Our first stop is a long weekend in Seoul, South Korea. For most of this trip we are joined with couple Donny and Meredith. Donny is a co-worker of mine – the same man that went with me to Asia a year ago. This time we were able to have our wives join us.
First stop is Gyeongbokgung Palace – built in the 1400s as the king’s principal address. Brenda found an entrance where even she has to duck. Meredith is behind her.
Locals rent period clothing and walk the grounds, take photos, get married & etc in this park/museum.
Happy tour guide pied piper leading Chinese tourists through nearby neighborhood.
No idea what this is.
Little boys walking through a re-created street scene from Seoul in the 1970’s.
Waiting to walk across the busy street.
Jogyesa Buddhist temple – this weekend was the Chrysanthemum Festival.
The ladies looking over the options for handmade Korean lacquer boxes.
Street scene – I’ve never seen a harpist busker before.
Picking out wooden spoons.
Trying to order lunch. Nothing was in English and there were no photos to help. This process took us a LONG time to finally get 4 bowls of noodles ordered.
Heading into a skin care store – cremes and masks are big business in Korea. They have all sorts of recipes that can’t be purchased in the US – so the stores are crammed with Koreans and Westerners alike buying carts of this stuff.
And guess who couldn’t help but fill their bags with all sorts of skin care product treasures to bring home?
Our final morning excursion down the river was to a family farm. Below, a cool boat on the journey. Look at that reflection in the water!
A local church.
Another doggo greeting party (my favorite kind!) at a local “Caboclo” farm. Caboclo is the common term for the people who live here – mixed race people of native Brazilian (Amerindian), sub-Saharan black ancestry, and white Portuguese, from way back in the rubber plantation days. Our guide said that there are only two types of people who live here – the indigenous tribes folk and ‘Caboclos’. (Our guide told us that he, and all the employees at the Lodge, are Caboclos.) There are hundreds of different tribes in the Amazonas state. The government protects them and will not allow Brazilian citizens, let alone tourists, enter their designated areas.
Bananas are one of this family farm’s crops. Manioc is their primary crop. (Manioc = cassava = yucca = tapioca… all depending on where you are from and/or how the root is processed.)
On this farm, they mainly process the manioc roots into farinha flour – their staple for carbohydrate rich meals — which is sold mainly into Manaus. They keep enough for themselves, and sell the rest. Their secondary crops (also mostly sold into Manaus) are bananas and pineapples.
Our guide demonstrating how the manioc roots are processed into flour. (It actually looks more like cornmeal than wheat flour when they’re done with it.) First the roots are peeled. Nothing is wasted. The peels are used as chicken and hog feed.
Once the roots are peeled, they are shredded on a machine that is essentially a giant cheese grater, then put into a huge tub and squashed to get most of the juice out of it. (Adam didn’t get photos of those machines.) The starch sediment that settles out of the juice is dried and powdered to become tapioca.
They grow two kinds of manioc (or cassava) — yellow and white. The white is minimally processed and can be boiled and eaten like a potato. The yellow variety is toxic until all the juice is squeezed out and the root is thoroughly dried and cooked. It contains high levels of cyanogenic glycosides (cyanide) in it’s natural state. This is the yellow variety. Once it’s shredded and dried, it is toasted in this huge iron pan for several hours. It must be constantly stirred so it won’t burn … it takes upwards of 10 people working all day to produce about four 75kilo bags. They get around US$90 per bag.
These are the manioc plants, a woody shrub in the spurge family. One of the reasons it’s such a valuable crop is that it’s capable of growing in very poor soils. The family have several fields of manioc in succession and rotation plantings. It takes about a year before the roots can be harvested, and then the field needs to have something else grown on it for a couple of years to re-set the soil. They have fields of manioc planted at different times and therefore at different stages of growth so they can do fairly continuous harvesting.
Manioc field with bananas in the background.
They also grow two types of pineapples. The smooth-leaf kind (which we always see in our US grocery stores) and this type below with serrated leaves. The leaves are wicked sharp! You could probably use them as bread knives, they are so sharp. The pineapples are a little smaller than we’re used to, and MUCH sweeter. I love them. It’s going to be hard to go back to our subpar pineapples at home, now that I know what the good ones taste like.
The family’s little shop. They let us sample fresh juices made from fruits on the farm.
During the months of November through January, the height of the dry season, this part of the riverbed is completely dry. The family has to walk 25 minutes to the nearest put-in spot for a boat if they want to go to a grocery store. They have a very large personal garden and they raise chickens for eggs, and fish in the river … they are almost completely self-sufficient. The only things they buy from the store are bottled water/drinks, beer, coffee, tea, and sugar. Their main diet is fish and manioc, prepared in various ways.
The house. During the wet season, the water is nearly up to their front porch.
Part of the family’s personal gardens. They grew an astonishing variety of food crops. Two kinds of limes, all the herbs you’ve ever heard of (oregano, mint, etc.), lemongrass, ginger, onions, and tons and tons of fruits, most of which I didn’t recognize. I knew the limes, starfruits and avocados … but that’s about it. Everything else was exotic.
Avocado tree.
This weird little thing is an achiote fruit, used to make cosmetics like lipstick and blush. The seeds are crushed to produce a bright orangy red pigment that can also be used as a food coloring. I tasted it and it basically had no flavor of it’s own. (It’s commonly known as annatto.) It’s full of carotenoids and has superfood health benefits.
That’s them growing on this tree.
They also had acai trees, aramanth plants, a wide variety of palms, and lots of various nut trees.
Back at the Lodge for lunch and afternoon siesta before heading out at 3:30 p.m. for the afternoon/sunset excursion.
The Lodge restaurant set up for lunch.
Grilled tambaqui. This was served at nearly every meal.
Adam indulging in a Cuban cigar given to him by a friend. The coconut-looking half-shell next to him is a brazil nut shell…. they are so hard they won’t burn, so it’s a very popular ashtray material.
[Adam] This was a common POV for Brenda and I after heading back to the cabin – splayed out on the bed in front of a blasting AC. As I mentioned before, there were usually 2 excursions each day, each lasting about 3 hours. We would always start out on boat and then sometimes land and do some inner forest exploring. We took a different route every day and so nothing seemed routine. Most of our energy was devoted to looking for animals..some trips yielded up a great number of sightings, others were complete duds. The only animal we did not see (that one would reasonably expect to see here) were the sloths. We did see 3 different species of monkeys, 2 species of dolphins, many, many, many birds, caiman, lizards, bats, iguanas and no end of bugs and fish.
Our final afternoon excursion of the trip.
We entered into a swampy area and found quite a lot of wildlife on this outing. The tree trunk below has 5 fruit bats on it … can you spot them?
While we were looking at the bats (after viewing a large group of squirrel monkeys), we heard an incredibly loud, eerie, haunted hooting. Our guide suddenly became hyper-alert and excited. He very quietly landed the boat and headed into the forest in his bare feet. (He’d told us we wouldn’t be getting out of the boat on this trip, so we were all in sandals and shorts, etc.)
The minute our feet hit the ground, we were attacked by ants. Our guide was so focused on the trees he didn’t seem to notice. He told us what we’d just heard was the call of the Dusky Titi monkey, an extremely rare animal and almost never seen in this area.
Our group tried desperately to be very quiet so as not to scare the monkeys away, but the ground was covered in dried leaves that crunched loudly with every step. We were also being eaten alive by ants, so trying to do the ants-in-your-pants dance without making sudden movements or noise. We failed.
We did end up seeing the monkeys, but they were pretty obscured by trees and too far away for us to get any photos. Our cameras were not well suited to this trip … a trek through the jungle really requires a high-quality telephoto setup. A macro lens would have been quite handy, as well.
Here is a photo I stole off the internet, just to show what one looks like.
Our guide was so excited about spotting this monkey he said of the ant bites, “Worth it. Ant bites, only 2 hours painful.” He was right, too … by dinnertime, I changed my shoes and realized my feet didn’t hurt anymore. The ant bites had all but disappeared.
It was dusk by the time we returned to the Lodge.
10 Aug 2024
We had breakfast this morning and then embarked on the 4-hour trip back to Manaus. Photo below, me using the internet in the restaurant before breakfast, which was only available in the common areas of the Lodge. That’s what the other people are doing, to0.
Remains of the breakfast buffet.
Looking at exotic fish, waiting for our boat taxi.
Luggage loaded and ready to go!
Check out these boat fenders on our boat on the Amazon – we truly are all part of a Globalized community.
One last parting gift, we saw a pod of gray river dolphins on our way back to the first car point. The photos are zoomed-in iPhone pics, so not the best, but it was a magical experience.
We’re spending one more night in Manaus, then flying to Sao Paulo where the week of work will begin. We expect it will be much less exciting, so for now we will sign off until next time.
[Adam] We settle into a routine here at the lodge. After breakfast, we head out and explore another trail in the jungle. It usually takes us 2-3 hours for each sortie we make. Most of the animal activity occurs early in the morning and just before sunset.
The middle of the day is stiflingly hot and almost nothing is out and about.
After lunch, we use the afternoon to check internet, work, do some laundry, take a nap and read.
The animals in the jungle do not wish to be seen. The guides work hard to find the animals they do – and since we’re in the wild there are no guarantees we’ll see much of anything. Such is the nature of these hikes. After our walks in the woods, we come back drenched in sweat, hit the potty, hit the showers and then lay spread eagled on the bed in front of the A/C until we feel something closer to normal. Then, head back out!
Life on the river. This was one of the larger/nicer settlements we passed.
This is the book (in electronic form) that I brought for the down times on the journey. Teddy wrote this in 1914 and it describes his journey up several unknown (at the time) rivers. His journey ends in Manaus and he spends a great deal of time stomping around the areas we are currently touring. Anything that moved was shot, stuffed and classified – all in the name of conservation! Roosevelt is an entertaining writer and such a “field naturalist” nerd – he was fascinated about everything in life and always dove right into the deep end. He could talk at length about almost anything and only shut up when someone else, speaking from a greater authority on the matter at hand, was talking. I would like to think that Roosevelt would be the preferred candidate over everyone else should he somehow run this fall.
Our cabin has a back porch that abuts the forest. Brenda can sit in a chair on the porch, enjoy a tea and watch parrots take fruit from the tree right in front of her.
More establishing shots of Turtle Lodge.
[Brenda] Outside the Lodge restaurant after breakfast, this angry-looking cat attacked my ankles as I walked by and scratched me up pretty good. One of the employees came running to my rescue, shouting “NO, Juju!”
Baby chickens running around the property.
I made it my mission to befriend Juju. I gave her a little piece of ham and now she follows me around and hangs out on our porch. No more jungle kitty attacks. She even slipped into our room when Adam opened the door, jumped up on my bed and licked my face. Now she’s a sweetie!
A cashew tree on the property. The first pic is an immature fruit, with the cashew nut hanging off the bottom.
The second pic is a ripe fruit (nut hanging off the bottom.) The fruits are edible and people make them into juices. This one looks like an animal has been chewing on it.
After breakfast, we head out by boat – sometimes for 10 minutes, sometimes for more than an hour. The guide picks a spot for us to land – we then get out and walk.
The guide knows these areas well and gives us a good variety of trees, plants and bugs to discuss. The one item he would never leave home without? A machete. He says survival without one in the woods is doubtful.
Another caiman – this one was medium sized – about 8’ long.
The tree below is a brazil nut tree. They can’t effectively be farmed because they produce nuts only sporadically, depending on the weather, rainfall, temperatures, etc. in any given year, making them an unreliable crop. They are collected from the wild.
The nuts grow inside a hard shell that looks a lot like a coconut, but thicker and much stronger. In fact, during the months when the trees are dropping their pods, it’s incredibly dangerous to walk in the jungle because if one hits you on the head, it’s instant death. The pods are really heavy.
The tree has a symbiotic relationship with the acouti (a rodent), which is just about the only animal with teeth strong enough to open the outer shell. Acoutis eat some of the nuts and bury the others, which is how the tree gets its seeds dispersed. The guide said the only other animal that can open the outer shell is a human with a machete.
Here he is showing how they use the machete to crack open the nut and peel off the shell. The raw brazil nuts have a texture sort of like jicama. I’ve only ever had them toasted. The raw fresh ones are pretty good.
Adam watching the path for creepy-crawlies.
Things to avoid. When we cross a path currently being occupied by flying bees, or ants, or spiders’ webs, the guide uses the machete to clear up a new path. We give a lot of things a wide berth. The beetle below has a nasty sting.
Huge spider web.
A different spider, on a web spun right across the middle of our trail. This guy was huge. The guides used their machetes to clear a different path for us. They were afraid that if they tried to clear the web, the spider might jump on someone.
Me taking a photo of a lizard.
Lousy zoomed-in iPhone shot of the lizard.
Cicada mud tubes. The cicadas stay underground for several years, then finally emerge to reproduce and die within about 4 days.
The mud-looking pod stuck to that tree is a termite colony.
White termites doing their thing. There are two types of termites in the Amazon … these white ones living on trees ….
… and black subterranean termites, that make these huge mounds on the forest floor. Barely visible, right near the elbow of the girl with blond braids, is a big hole made by an anteater.
Thick jungle growth.
Epiphytes growing on a tree.
After lunch at the Lodge, we went out in the boat to search for wildlife. It was so hot and humid today (97F, 56% humidity) that most of the animals were inactive. We did see a few, but not nearly as many as the past two days. Tomorrow is supposed to be even hotter… 99F.
Blue capped heron fishing in the river.
We also glimpsed a pink dolphin, but it was up-and-down so quick we couldn’t get any photos.
As it gets closer to dusk, the black water becomes almost like a mirror. It’s really beautiful and the photos don’t do it justice.
Twilight is a great time to be out on the river. The temperature comes down, and the animal activity increases … especially the birds. They all congregate at sundown to return to their respective roosting spots for the night. It’s a noisy, fascinating spectacle.
Back up in the morning at 5:30 to see the sunrise and look for birds.
In the middle of the water you can see the fin of the gray Amazon river dolphin.
Success.. In the photo you can see a pair of Scarlet Macaws (like the ones we used to own) plus one Toucan to the lower right of the Macaws.
Zoomed in blurry view.
Much closer view. This Festive Amazon is wild (not a pet) but comes to the camp frequently for food. People give him fruits and other yummy tidbits. He’s sort of half-tame.
View of our cabin and those of our neighbors’. Total capacity here is about 40 people, but I count no more than about 20 over the past 2 days. Our tour group is limited to 6 people – two other couples go with us, young kids from the UK and an older set from The Netherlands.
After breakfast today we took a boat to a trailhead and walked back to our camp – about 3 hours in total. It was HOT and humid.
Before we headed into the jungle, our guide cautioned us not to touch anything, step on anything or eat anything. The Amazon is full of life, but it seems as if everything out here is designed to kill humans, starting with the mammals, to the lizards to the insects to the germs.
He said, “Spiders will bite. 3 hours painful.”
“Bully ants,” holding his fingers to show they are over an inch long, “will bite. 12 hours painful.”
Then he pointed out places where bushmaster snakes like to hide. They are not intimidated by humans and won’t move out of the way like the harmless snakes will. “Bushmaster will bite. 6 hours dead.”
Then he pointed out some mushrooms. “Do not eat. 3 hours dead.”
“OK! Follow me!” and off he went.
Above is an extremely rare Brazilian rosewood tree. This wood was highly prized by musical instrument makers, particularly for guitars, until it became illegal to harvest or import/export the wood. The trees are now under heavy protection by the Brazilian government. The guide was allowed to chip off a tiny piece of it’s bark so we could smell it. It has a very sweet aroma that smells kind of like cedar, but not quite.
They cut some new fronds from the interior of those huge palms to show how people use them to make roofs for their houses, along with many other things like baskets and clothing. When the emerging fronds are cut from the center of the plant, they grow back very quickly and don’t damage the parent plant.
The stems with strips hanging down (photo below) are stacked of top of each other, which forms a waterproof mat for roofing. The roof will last 5 years before needing to be replaced.
Roof of the restaurant at Turtle Lodge. Interior….
… and exterior.
Some critter cut very neat holes in this leaf.
Below: this tree has flammable sap. When people camp in the jungle, generally during the wet season, they use this to start their campfires. You cut a gash in the bark until sap runs … it’s very sticky and reminded me of birch sap. You get a wad of it on the end of a stick, light it, and it turns into a long-burning torch you can use to start a bigger fire.
He is burning the sap wad on a stick, and letting the molten sap drip onto this leaf. It dries to a power-like consistency that you can save in a pouch for starting fires later if you want.
Below you can see the blackened sap that has dripped onto the leaf.
In this form, it acts a lot like gunpowder. He blew the powder into the flame and it sparked up like fireworks.
This evening has no scheduled activities so everyone can sit back and relax, enjoying the sounds of the jungle at night. Tomorrow morning after breakfast, a different jungle hike. Time for bed now!
We are spending the next 4 nights and five days at a lodge about 3.5 hours south of Manuas – down the Amazon and then up several other rivers to a remote location very close to “nowhere”.
In order to get to the lodge, we had to take a car to the docks. We then took a boat down the river. We then loaded into an old VW Kombi for a drive until the road ended. Then we got into another boat for the final journey. One can only get anywhere around here by boat.
Getting ready to take off.. clean clothes and showered!
Our first stop of the day – the docks to get us a boat down the river.
This is the meeting of two rivers, both part of the Amazon. One river is more acidic, higher temperature and faster than the other. The result is that there is a clearly delineated barrier between the two.. that continues for many miles downstream.
In an old VW for the road trip. This was a no frills but lots of thrills ride.
End of the road, yet to another boat loading. We have all our suitcases and backpacks with us, so we needed some help to get all things loaded and secured.
Our final destination – the Amazon Turtle Lodge. The room does have AC (thank God!), running (but not hot) water and mosquito nets. The plumbing comes straight from the river, so they told us to be careful not to get it in our mouths. It’s for bathing and flushing toilet only. Bottled water is available for everything else, including brushing of teeth.
After lunch, Brenda and I went exploring on one of the nearby trails.
The above photo is to show the massive scale of the palms. This type (I forget the name but they are a popular potted houseplant in the States) can get enormous when it’s in the correct environment.
Internet is available, but it is slow and very limited range. We have to assemble at a public location to pick up a signal from the satellite station.
Heading to the lodge restaurant.. 3 meals a day served here. It’s buffet style (all inclusive) and serves about 40 guests, the capacity of the Lodge.
View from the top of a hill down to the dock where we embark/disembark.
An afternoon boat trip around the area.
Fishing for piranhas. We have a guide and he brought along chunks of chicken guts to use as bait.
I caught two! They weren’t very big, but VERY sharp teeth. I couldn’t get the hook out of it’s mouth and had to hand it over to the guide. He treated these fish like unexploded bombs he needed to defuse, but he did get all the hooks out. The fish were returned to the river.
Adam caught one, too.
Then a frog caught Adam.
Returning to the Lodge for dinner. There is another excursion at 8:00 p.m. to hunt caimans, is an alligatorid belonging to the subfamily Caimaninae, one of two primary lineages within the Alligatoridae family, the other being alligators. The Amazon does not have alligators like the ones in the southern United States. The caimans can get up to 5 meters long, but are generally smaller than alligators.
Sunset on the Amazon River. We’re only about 250 miles from the equator, so the day is split almost exactly into 12 hours of daylight, 12 hours of dark. (Sunset is 6:00 p.m., sunrise is 6:00 a.m.)
The stars were spectacular. There is zero light pollution out here, and a new moon. We were hoping to see a night sky like this in the Sahara Desert a few months ago, but the mood was full and so bright you could practically read a book by it. We got our magnificent night sky here in the Amazon instead. It’s also the first time we’ve seen the stars from the southern hemisphere. We’ve been to the southern hemisphere before, but always in cities and we never went out at night and looked up. This night, we got to see the constellation Southern Cross.
Hunting caimans. They shine a flashlight into the vegetation on the sides of the river and look for eye-shine. The caimans’ eyes are reflective and stand out as a red or yellow flash. They hunt alligators in Louisiana the same way.
[Adam] Our guide has spotted something. He jumped out and trudged around in the dark until he found a target worth grabbing. When the flashlight was off, it was DARK DARK. All sorts of critters were out.. we even had a couple of fish jump out of the water and into our boat, which freaked out some of the other couples who traveled with us. During the trip, I put my hand on a railing in the dark and got stung/bitten by some bug who then flew off. I have no idea what it was, but my finger hurt for a couple of hours afterwards.
He caught one with his bare hands. These guys know everything about every animal and every plant in the jungle. He showed us that this one was female, probably about 3 years old, and demonstrated how her eyes have a second lens that closes underwater to protect her eyes. It retracts automatically when air hits her eyes. She was terrified and making squeaking noises that sounded a lot like a puppy. She was relieved and (I think, somewhat confused) when he put her back in the river and let her go completely unharmed.
We returned to the Lodge at 9:30 and went to bed, exhausted from the excitement of the day. We need a good night’s sleep because tomorrow begins at 5:30 a.m. for a sunrise boat ride (sun rises at 6:00a.m.) and bird watching.
For the next two weeks we are in Brazil. There is one week of play and then one week of work (in Sao Paulo) on the schedule.
We have traveled to Manaus, Brazil – in the heart of the Amazon jungle and right along the river. We have never been before; it’s not like getting here is on the way to something else. We’re going to spend the week in the jungle, exploring the Amazon.
Several months ago we both went in for the “traveler vaccine package.” Yellow fever vaccine, typhoid, Hep A and B, tetanus boosters, and anti-malaria pills. We were quite surprised when we showed up for our appointment, expecting to spend 15 minutes getting shots, but instead were ushered into a private room with two nurses who gave us a 2-hour counselling session about how to keep ourselves healthy for the duration of our trip and non-contagious upon our return home.
Among other things, we had to sign a solemn oath that we would not, !under any circumstances!, touch a bat. We also have to continue taking the anti-malarial medications for 7 full days after we leave the area so as not to pass malaria into an uninfected mosquito population.
Streets of Manaus on a Sunday morning.
At breakfast the waiter recommended an open market they set up each Sunday morning. We were off as soon as we finished our plates. Manaus exists due to the rubber trade in the 18th and 19th centuries. At one point, Manaus was one of the wealthiest cities in the Hemisphere… not so much now. First Malaysian rubber plantations were established that out-produced Brazilian methods (more on that later), and then technological/chemical improvements developed alternatives to pure rubber killed the industry.
In Manaus, the city elders had so much money that they constructed “The Paris of the Tropics” – including an opera hall that now serves as the city’s most recognizable landmark.
We bought these Brazilian cherry wood cutting boards to bring back as gifts (plus one for ourselves.) Brazilian cherry wood is a misnomer, considering it is not related in any way to cherry trees. It’s a tree in the legume family (Hymenaea courbaril) and produces wood with a hardness rating nearly double that of oak. It grows fast, is hard and durable, and is therefore used everywhere. It makes particularly nice flooring, since it can take a beating in high traffic areas without getting dented and scratched up. It is also popular for use in kitchen equipment (cutting boards, wooden spoons, bowls, etc.) and furniture.
Later in the day we went to the Marina do Davi to find a boat that would take us to The Museu do Seringal, a recreated rubber plantation. Figuring out all this chaos was an adventure in itself.
The boats serve as taxis along the river with defined stops. There are numerous sandy beaches along this portion of the river where people stop off to party, swim and do general weekend beach stuff. I guess they don’t have any nasty critters along this stretch of the river.
After about a 30 minute boat ride upriver, they dropped us off at Seringal Museum. This was originally created as movie set for the film “A Selva” that came out in 2002- but is based on a Portuguese book written in the ‘30s that recounted what actually happened at a nearby rubber plantation.
We found someone here who spoke English and he gave us a personalized tour of the grounds, showing us how rubber was harvested, how the business operated and the miserable conditions everyone suffered living in the Amazon during this period.
Meeting the greeter dog. She was a sweetie.
The story was a sadly familiar one of colonial times, wherein Europeans established colonies and proceeded to enslave, abuse, cheat, exterminate, and exploit native peoples.
In this case, the Portuguese established the rubber production and used all sorts of nasty tricks to enslave local people. The man who ran the plantation (called The Colonel) was essentially a dictator. The Portuguese would persuade men from other areas of Brazil to come work the rubber plantation on the promise of high wages and wonderful opportunities. (Local people could see how the place was run and steer clear.) Once the men arrived, they were turned into slaves. They were killed if they tried to escape, they were forbidden to fish or forage food in the jungle and had to buy food from the company store, at massively jacked-up prices. They were paid for the rubber they produced by weight, but the Colonel’s scale was rigged to cheat — for example, 100kilos of rubber would weigh in at about 40kilos.
In an effort to get more fairly paid, the workers started embedding rocks and bits of metal into the rubber blocks to make them heavier. This worked for a little while, until the Ford Motor Company started sending letters of complaint that when they cut into the rubber blocks to start processing them into tires, the rocks and metal bits were wrecking their machinery. At this point, the Colonel figured out what the workers were doing. He would make men throw their rubber blocks into the river — if it floated, it was pure, but if it sank it had rocks in it. If someone got caught with a block that sank, they were tortured and killed.
Meanwhile, the Colonel lived in a fancy house filled with fine furniture and fittings from Europe and the United States.
This room was the guest room where Ferreira de Castro, the author of the original book, stayed during his time in Manaus. (A reproduction for the movie set, based on drawings and descriptions from the author.)
The dining room, with Portuguese glassware, oriental china, a huge clock (not pictured) from Boston, linens from France, etc. Nothing but the best for these guys. The Colonel’s wife thought the water from the Amazon river was dirty, so she had water for her bath imported from Europe. She took a bath once a week. The extravagance and waste was appalling, considering the conditions they forced on the men they enslaved and abused to make all their money. (No women worked the rubber plantations.)
One final insult to injury, the Colonel “encouraged” his workers to convert to Catholicism and built a little chapel on the grounds (below). He doled out favors and slightly better treatment to those who converted. The priest he installed, however, was fake … he was not a priest at all, but a spy who kept tabs on what was going on in the work camps by taking confessions and earning the trust of the men who came to him. He then reported everything to the Colonel, who used the information to punish and/or kill anyone they felt might become a troublemaker.
The cylinder shaped rolls are actual rubber “blocks”. Each weighed about 22 pounds. The guide showed how you could bounce one on the floor like a basketball.
Our guide explained that the rubber trade in Brazil ended up being out-performed by rubber plantations in Malaysia, which was the beginning of the end of Manaus’s prosperity. Seeds were smuggled out of Brazil and grown on farms in Malaysia, which were able to be much more efficient. The Brazilians didn’t farm as such; they tapped trees already growing in the jungle. It took much more time to harvest the sap because they had to find the trees, and go some distances between them. The Malaysians farmed in the traditional manner, with big fields (orchards?) of trees in dense copses.
Later, in a tour of botanical gardens, we learned that the soil in the amazon forest is very thin sand. All the nutrients that support the vast jungle come from fallen plant debris that rots on the ground. Once you clear a piece of land for farming, the soil itself is so poor nothing can grow. It only works in an environment of great biodiversity. I’m guessing that had something to do with why the Brazilians didn’t farm the rubber trees and hunted for wild ones instead. Perhaps Malaysia had better soil to work with. (Just guessing, I don’t know much about it.)
For our benefit, the guide cut a fresh gash on the rubber tree and embedded the container to catch what “bled” out… not much different than how one taps for maple syrup. A single person would fill about 100 of these little cups per night. They did all their cutting at night because the sap flowed better when the temperature was lower.
The liquid sap was applied to a stick and heated up over a chimney to smoke. The material would eventually go from yellow to black, then the worker would ladle more of the liquid on the pole, always turning and adding, layer upon layer (much like making a dipped candle) until the final block was completed. A single block took about 4 hours to make. The smoke and fumes were so toxic that every worker with this particular job died within 3 years.
The structure in the background was the “house” for the workers.
It was up on stilts as a (largely ineffective) safety measure against jaguar attacks. People died here constantly — jaguar attacks, horrible working conditions, torture and execution at the hands of the Colonel, malaria and other diseases, starvation, and attacks from indigenous people who wanted the rubber-making people to go away. I made the comment that out of all of those ways to die, jaguar attack might be one of the better ones because at least it would be quick: the guide got all serious and said, “No no, ohhh no no you do not want to die by jaguar.” He then told a story that happened just about a year ago, his friends were out and a jaguar attacked a man in front of them. The group managed to chase the jaguar away, but not before it disemboweled the guy. His intestines were hanging out of his body, and his chest was so flayed you could see his heart beating through his rib cage. He died before the ambulance could get there.
Another story, his uncle came home to find his dog missing. He checked his security cameras and saw a jaguar attack his dog, drag it up on top of a high wall, and tear it to shreds. He had to go find the shredded pieces of his dog that were still left and bury them. He now takes his remaining dog with him everywhere he goes. He won’t take any chances leaving her home alone. So jaguars are still to this day something to fear.
We saw a lot of boats with these tiny outboards.
5 August 2024
We started today at the art market in Manaus. We hit the internet and got the locations of some potential sites that were pretty active on a Monday. Unfortunately, we struck out. No treasures coming home from this morning’s excursion.
From there we took an Uber about 30 minutes outside of town to the MUSA – the Museu da Amazônia – a botanical gardens in the jungle. This was more like it. Although the heat was stifling (96 degrees and muggy) the walk through the woods was well worth it.
At the Botanical Gardens, They would not allow Brenda entrance with her open-toed sandals. Too many snakes and spiders; they rent boots and socks, like at the bowling alley, for folks who did not come prepared.
We never saw any snakes, but did encounter one extremely aggressive spider.
Below: We saw an enormous dragonfly with spectacular yellow wings. He looked like a small drone. I was attempting to get close enough for a photo but I noticed a spider dangling off the brim of my hat directly in front of my nose. I went into “Eek, a spider” mode and by the time I got the spider safely off on a tree, the dragonfly was gone. (This was not the aggressive spider.)
The gardens has a tall metal tower that you can climb to get a view of the jungle canopy and then well over it. This is from the top viewing back to Manaus. It goes up some 250 feet and allows great views and a decent breeze.
However, it also felt a bit precarious; the railing swayed in the breeze a bit. I spent about 10 seconds at the top and immediately headed down. I waited for Adam at the base while he took photos. One guy at the top was sitting in the yoga Lotus pose, meditating. I hope he felt peaceful up there… I certainly did not!
They had a small section with replicas of dinosaurs fossils found in the area. Below is an enormous pre-alligator. It weighed between 10 and 15 tons.
The giant sloth weighed around 5 tons.
There is an aquarium at the gardens as well. This fish is a Tambaqui, a freshwater white fish found in the Amazon. These are a staple of the diet here – they can get quite large. The flavor reminds me of halibut.
Orchid and bromeliad house.
Our final meal in downtown Manaus. This restaurant (Tambaqui de Banda) is listed as the #1 joint in town. We tried to get in on Sunday, but it was packed. Late afternoon on a Monday was better. We tried two special, local foods:
An appetizer called “Caboco Enrolado” – made from an eel called “Pirarucu” wrapped in fried plantains and cream cheese. It was better than it sounds, but not great.
Typical grilled tambaqui meal. Just fresh fish with salt, other dishes served on the side. Usually some rice and a salsa or two, plus limes for squeezing. The bones in these fish are quite large. You can pull the meat off of them like you do with spare ribs.
Tomorrow morning we are being picked up by a tour company and going to a place deep in the jungle on the Amazon river called Turtle Lodge. This will be the adventuresome, “rustic” part of our trip.
Today is Monday.. I had some work meetings in the morning in the central part of town. I was able to finish up around noon and race back to our hotel to head out for some fun in the final afternoon of our trip.
Today is also our wedding anniversary… 29 years.
We toured Teotihuacan, located about an hour out of the city. This is the site of an ancient city with remaining pyramids, avenues and other important stone structures. The civilization that created Teotihuacan run from about 100BC to around 700AD. At its zenith, around 350AD the city comprised of over 18 square kilometers, 2000 buildings and a population of 125,000 – making it the largest city in the western hemisphere. These folks pre-dated the Toltecs, Mexica (Aztecs) and Maya by almost 1000 years.
Chasing Brenda down one of the minor pyramids in the park. Tourists can no longer climb the two largest pyramids – the Pyramid of the Sun and the Pyramid of the Moon.
Back side of the Pyramid of the Sun. This structure is about 235 feet tall – larger than those at Chichen Itza or Tikal but still only a little more than half the height of the pyramids in Egypt.
There isn’t much left preserved save a few murals and some carvings and chambers that surround the greater pyramid plazas.
Lots of vendors hawking all kinds of thematic crap.
Sunday morning in Mexico City. In a country where things don’t really get started each day until around noon, Sunday starts even later. The major roads through the city were closed down this morning to allow for a road race – which was perfect timing to give us a chance to wander down some of the main boulevards without so much traffic.
We took a leisurely morning stroll of about 3 miles down to Chapultepec Forest, their version of central park. Weather has been fantastic here.. high 50s in the morning to mid 70s in the afternoon. Although, at an elevation of 7400 feet, you do a bit more huffing and puffing than you’re used to.
Morning from our breakfast nook.
The Angel of Independence – one of Mexico’s most recognizable images.
A museum within Chapultepec Castle.
The top tower of Chapultepec Castle. At the highest point in the city a castle was constructed by the Spaniards in the 1700s after demolishing previous Aztec temples. This is the location of the final battle of Chapultepec – during the Mexican-American war. (Mexicans call it “The invasion of the North Americans”. These are the ‘Halls of Montezuma’ in the US Marines’ Hymn.
Close up of one of the carriages used by Emperor Maximilian I when he ruled Mexican in the late 1860s.
The mascot of Chapultepec is the grasshopper, since the name is Aztec for “The top of Grasshopper hill”.
After hitting the museums and forts, we headed back down to do afternoon market shopping. Being Sunday afternoon, market stalls and booths were everywhere and it was packed.
Brenda looking for treasures in the antique market district.
Windows of another building we toured.
Brass and bronze knockers, handles, keys & etc. Brenda bought a small pair of handles with a lion motif for a future John Mayse drawer project.
I have some business meetings to attend in Monterrey and Mexico City this week. To convince Brenda to come with me, I bookended the business talks on a Friday and Monday – giving us a chance to have a weekend of play in Mexico City.
The weekend of fun started off pretty lousy.. the whole Microsoft glitch computer error thing affected flights all day.. ours was delayed and we didn’t get into our hotel room in Mexico City until around 2:00am EST.
Finally getting on the plane to head to the capital.
View of the Reforma and Centro district of Mexico City from our hotel.
Touring the inside of the Catedral Metropolitana de la Cuidad de Mexico – built in 1524.
We were up early (for Mexicans) and walked around our neighborhood to get our bearings.
Checking out the local plants.
The Zocalo – famous large plaza.
Today we went shopping – many informal markets were set up for the weekend – all within walking distance.
A treasure Brenda is bringing home – volcanic molcajete for making guacamole and other salsas. Brenda bought one for Bella when were were in Puerto Vallarta last fall.. and then wished she had purchased two at the time. Finding an authentic vendor of these things was job #1 for her this trip.
Putting on a cheap purse she bought to hall around small items.
In the markets – this one focused on food.
Things are starting to get crowded by the afternoon.
Does this look up to code?
Food vendors are everywhere and business is booming.
Adam has work in Frankfurt, Germany next week. We found very reasonably-priced tickets from Frankfurt to Marrakech, Morocco on a budget airline, so we came a week early to add a Moroccan leg to the trip.
We are excited to make this journey … we had an extensive trip to Spain and Morocco planned for the summer of 2020 with all three kids, but had to cancel it because of the Covid pandemic. We’ve been looking for another opportunity to visit Morocco for years now, and this seemed too good to pass up. It would have been even better if the kids could have joined us, but all three of them are “adulting” now and have work/college obligations at home. So, this time, it’s just Adam and me on our own.
Äit Benhaddou
25 February 2024
[Adam writing here…] This is our first, full day in Morocco. After breakfast, we were picked up by our driver to whisk us off on a 5-night, 6-day journey through the southern part of the country. His name is Khalid and his English is better than my Moroccan Arabic (called Darija). Khalid is a Berber from a small town in the Sahara and does these tours up to 4x a month during the busy season. During the summer, when no-one wants to be here because of the heat, he heads home to relax before things pick back up again in the fall.
Brenda and I do not need to share the ride with anyone else. We can come/go/stop to suit our interests.
This morning we left the big city of Marrakech and headed into the Atlas Mountains. Temperatures: Lows are in the 40s, which is why we started the trip in coats. It kept pretty cool throughout the day in the high elevations. We stripped down to our shirtsleeves by mid afternoon when we were climbing up and down village stairs.
A surreal landscape stop along the way, showing off the salt and other minerals deposited by water that bubbles up from deep below the surface. It’s very similar to Yellowstone National Park, but without the sulfur smell.
Touring some ruins of an old Kasbah (fort).
Khalid giving Brenda some history lessons about the Berber tribes that live high up in the mountains in these little villages.
Kasbah Telouet. This was built in the 1800s but is degrading. This area was hit by the big earthquake last September that killed almost 3000 people. We saw a lot of remaining evidence of the quake, rock slides along the roads, building damaged & etc.
The pass through the Atlas mountains here is the highest point in Northern Africa, just over 7,200 feet above sea level.
A view of one of the valleys. Where there is water, there is green. One can zoom into this photo and find little houses built along the river and into the rock sides. The principal crops below are Almonds and Saffron.
Brenda getting a lunch at a buffet restaurant near our final destination. There were a lot of tourists in the town to see the famous Äit Benhaddou ksar (fortified village). Most of the tourists here are French or German. French is the second language of Morocco and one can get around pretty good if you happen to know more than about 40 words of French (I don’t…).
Sunday is laundry day in the rapids of the river.
The narrow streets of Äit Benhaddou, full of vendors hawking their wares. Brenda did not leave empty handed.
Shot of the village itself. It is a World Unesco site that was built sometime in the 1100s as a trade stopping spot between the Sahara and Marrakech. Most of what you see now is from the 1700s and 1800s.
This town has been used as a backdrop in more than 50 movies and TV shows, including Lawrence of Arabia, Cleopatra, The Mummy, Gladiator and Game of Thrones.
View from our hotel room, looking over to one range of the Atlas mountains. Where we are staying tonight is about 4500’ up.
At our hotel. As is customary, we are welcomed with Moroccan tea and snacks.
View of our next door neighbors from the rooftop of our hotel.
Foum Zguid
26 February 2024
We continue our journey south, out of the Atlas mountains and to the southern edge of Morocco, along the Algerian border.
Sunrise in Äit Benhaddou. You can hear the chant of the call to prayer about 10 minutes prior.
Along the way we stopped at a Berber village that has a Women’s Cooperative to make rugs. There are numerous styles and materials used, depending on the source. Local Berbers do it one way but there are also rugs made by Cave Berbers, Touregs, Nomads and Bedouins. I used to think those were all pretty synonymous, but each is a different “race” and there are numerous tribes within each sub-category.
All dyes are made in-house from natural plants. Typical dyes are made from indigo (blues), saffron (oranges and yellows), henna (reds) and mint (greens.) Other plants (berries, flowers, bark, etc.) are mixed in to get other colors. Most rugs are woven on a loom and then embroidered, using sheep or camel hair. Brenda is getting a lesson and doing it wrong.
Upstairs is the shop; we couldn’t leave without finding something small and colorful that wasn’t too much money and would fit in our suitcase. (We bought the small blue one on the floor, between the yellow and multi-colored rugs. The primary dye used for ours is indigo.)
Further on we stopped at a spot where date palms grow. We ate a few, but it’s too early in the season. They were very sweet, but astringent.
In Foum Zguid (pronounced like “Fomez Gade”). Brenda did some last opportunity shopping. We also picked up food and water for a picnic lunch. This town is the last stop before the roads end and the rest of our trip is done by 4×4 on trails. Eventually, there aren’t even trails.
Later that afternoon Khalid stopped at the only shade for miles to give us a chance to eat lunch and go potty.
Nomad house on the way
A well in the middle of nowhere… but with solar power to run a pump that will fill the basin when needed.
We’re now in the sahara. I took this photo from the top of the dune after “using the facilities” on the other side.
Now we’re talking. The seed goal for this entire trip was to “Go riding camels in the Sahara” … and we finally got to do just that.
On the way to our camp. It was very windy this afternoon and a sand storm developed; the scarves weren’t just for looks. You need them to protect your skin from the abrasion of flying sand and dust. Temperatures are not bad.. 80s in daytime and upper 40s at night. We’re told the camels actually prefer this type of weather because it’s cooler and sand/dust doesn’t bother them.
The final leg to our camp is about an hour’s ride by camel from the car dropping off spot.
Our final destination coming into view.
The tents are very nice. They call this place “Nubia Luxury Camp” and, considering where we are, it is quite luxurious. Each tent has electricity, running water, a toilet and rudimentary shower, and wifi. No A/C or heat, but plenty of blankets for when the sun sets. The floor is covered with Berber rugs.
What was special about today was that we had the entire camp to ourselves. We are staying here two nights – the second night 12 other people arrive. But for our first 24 hours, we were waited on to an embarrassing level.
Dinner for two in the communal meal tent. The food was fantastic.
A better view of the tent with me making my “I’m having the time of my life” face.
Sahara Desert
Feb 27, 2024
We are spending 3 days / 2 nights somewhere in the Sahara. This range of dunes is called Erg Chigaga, but it’s more of a region than a specific location. (Broad, flat regions covered with wind-swept sand or dunes, with little or no vegetation, are called ergs or sand seas.) The Berbers all know where they’re going. They grew up here, work here and live here. We certainly wouldn’t be able to find our way anywhere without a guide.
It’s not hot, but very dry. Sand gets everywhere… and the older you get, the more nooks and crannies the sand finds.
Photo taken about 1:00 am. There was a sand storm yesterday afternoon which kind of ruined things for stargazing. Things finally calmed down a bit at night. The moon is full and it was SO BRIGHT that you could go anywhere you wanted by moonlight. Other than this, there isn’t a light around beyond the led lights on the tree.
Just before sunrise.
Tracks from the camp’s resident cat. I read that the Berbers keep cats to chase away snakes and scorpions from the camps. They have more wildlife here than you might think, but most are nocturnal.
Our camp’s camels. There are no fences here; to keep the camels from wandering off, they tie up one of their legs. (You can see it on the two camels in the foreground.) They can walk on three legs, but don’t like it much. Therefore they stick around.
Entire view of our camp at sunrise. We stayed at the tent just to the right of the main tent in center. All of the other ones were empty last night.
Hot water heater… of a sort. Showers this morning were rather brisk, but maybe if we had waited another hour or two it might have warmed up.
Breakfast. Way too much food for just the two of us.
Campfire in the center. This will be a locus of activity later tonight. (Our first night was too sand-stormy to be outside.)
Going for a walk before we start our day. They asked us what we want to do today and we said “Ride more camels.” So, we have plans for a journey to an Oasis about 10 miles away. Getting there by camel.
Photo of the camp manager going over to tell the camel shepherd that we’re ready to saddle up.
This one is my guy for the day.
A handy place to keep some water.. .and you need it.
Brenda is in heaven.
Some of our convoy’s camels. The shepherd set the riderless camels free to graze while we continued on. They bind their legs to keep them from running off too far. He will pick them up on his way back to camp later in the evening. The two camels we were riding were none too happy about having to continue walking while the others all got to stay in the grazing grounds. They did a lot of grunting and moaning.
Wild donkeys.
At our final destination. We rode 3 1/2 hours to get here… a Nomad camp that is set up to receive tourists to look around, share a tea with a local and get some food. Here she is demonstrating how she bakes bread.
She has an open fire/charcoal pile and the loaves are cooked on top. Later she scrapes off the charcoal and they’re ready for eating. We had some with our tea. It was delicious.
At the Nomad camp. This is a pen for baby goats. The mothers are herded off to the mountains to eat during the day and then return to give milk to kids and humans alike.
Brenda remains in heaven.
The garden.
The kitchen.
The guest area for meet and greet.
Our hostess making traditional “welcome” tea – a mixture of black tea and frankincense. Most of the other teas we have had this trip are from mint. The frankincense added a delicious and exotic flavor to ordinary black tea.
Lunch for us. Vegetarian, with even a few things Brenda couldn’t identify. Once again, though, the food was great.
More of the Nomad working areas.
Solar power is a wonderful thing out here. Our camp is run from it, and the Nomad camps have put this technology to use as well.
After the 3.5 hour camel trip in + lunch + time to rest, we decided not to ride the camels back. Our bottoms couldn’t take more of the punishment, and the rate at which we travel it would be after dark before we made it back to camp.
They generously offered to drive us back… only 20 minutes return trip by car. We were sore, but so happy to have experienced the rides. What we asked for is not “on the menu” from the tourist company, but I told them this was our principal goal of the trip and they went above and beyond to accommodate us. (We became under the impression that most people think one hour of riding camels into the camp is quite enough, thank you very much, and a lot of people even opt out of that.) It isn’t the most comfortable mode of travel, but it is ever so cool!
Along the way back we stopped at an honest to goodness Oasis; water year-round that is percolating up from somewhere deep underground. A very popular spot for animals and humans alike. Khalid told us that an oasis has a permanent water source. Most areas with green trees do not have permanent water; they are areas where rainwater collects and sinks into the sand enough for trees to grow, but they do not have spring water. You can see how people dying of dehydration in the desert would see trees and get excited, only to be devastated to find there is no water to drink once they got there. You’d only get that at an oasis, like this one.
A well created to capture some of the Oasis water. There were frogs living in the well and the oasis spring … how on earth did they get there?!?
Back at the camp.. and the rest of the guests arrived. 12 “Woo Girls” from the US and Canada, mostly in their 40s and 50s, arrived to the camp hanging out the windows of trucks, Dukes of Hazzard-style, whooping and hollering and all dressed up in turbans. The camp got quite animated and our hosts immediately started apologizing to us for the noise and general behavior.
We were just fine with the group, but the hosts sheepishly kept asking us if we were ok, if we wanted to go stay somewhere else tonight, when we wanted to eat & etc.
Brenda and I went for a long walk (long for sand, that is) to find a nice spot to have a sit and watch the sun set. It was the “magic hour” for light, so lots of photos were taken of the dunes.
With no wind and nothing for miles, it is often dead quiet. One can sit and listen only to one’s tinnitus. The opposite of snow, the sand amplifies sounds; if there is activity around, each dune acts like a sound dish and reflects and reverberates any little noise from very far away.
Our last sunset in the Sahara.
After dinner, the hosts lit up the bonfire and treated us all to a concert, using Berber instruments and songs.
View of the bonfire. Brenda’s back is to the camera. It gets cold quickly here. The Woo Girls are running around, singing and dancing and chugging from the individual bottles of wine each brought with them. (Moroccans are not big drinkers; if you want alcohol, you have to bring your own. It can be found in the bigger cities, like Marrakech.)
The camp just before bedtime.
As they promised, the Sahara offers an unparalleled view of the stars. Not a great photo, but you get the idea. Bed time….
Agdz
Feb 28, 2024
Today is the day we pack up and leave our Sahara camp. We’re slowly making our way back to Marrakech, but hitting some interesting stops along the way.
Hey, it’s my birthday today! 55 years old. I now qualify to buy a house in an “Active Lifestyle” senior citizen community.
Loading up and out at daybreak. It’s another 75 minute ride back to the place where we meet up with the truck that takes us on. The camp staff drives our luggage in a separate car so we don’t have to load it onto the camels.
Ho hum, yet another Camel ride for Brenda.
We are heading east toward a town called M’Hamid – where the road begins again. On the way, high up on a hill, we stopped to see these Nomad women selling scarves and little toy trinkets they make by hand. Brenda is trying to figure out how to buy and thank the woman for some little treasures she is bringing home to the girls.
Another of Brenda’s goals was to buy a Tagine – the earthenware pots used for so many meals here. She wants a real one that can be used in our oven at home, not the ornamental ones that are usually sold at the tourist traps.
In Tamegroute, in the Draa River Valley, we stopped at a pottery factory to find what she was after. Tamegroute is known for their pottery, made with traditional techniques and knowledge passed down for generations.
A man demonstrating the pottery wheel techniques.
Kids mixing the dirt and water & etc for spinning. This is the factory.
Product going into the kilns. The black coating is a glaze made from copper, magnesium and a couple other minerals, all locally sourced. After firing, the glaze becomes bright green and is the traditional finish. Other colors are offered, as well, also made from local natural materials.
The processes have not changed in thousands of years. As far as we could tell, men make the pottery and women do the painting.
The final product in the warehouse.
Brenda deciding on her selections.
.. and of course, finding the one animal to play with while the owner wraps up our pottery. (Let’s see if they can somehow make it back to home in one piece.)
In Agdz… this is our hotel for the night, surrounded by stunning gardens.
A 50 yard walk out of our compound yields an abandoned village of Ahslim Ksar. No one has lived here for about 70 years – modern citizens moved a bit south and live now in “the city”. This entire walled village can now be explored, at your own risk.
An old well, next to a field of date palms and saffron crocus.
Another Kasbah that is still in use down the way.
Back at our hotel. We have found that if you can get water here, things grow amazingly well. The soil is rich, just bereft of moisture.
Dadés Gorge
Feb 29, 2024 (Leap Year!)
We are now making a lazy return trip to Marrakech. Today we headed back up deeper into the Atlas mountains to see how many of the Mountain Berber people lived… they have carved out a life wherever there is water, and built villages into the steep rock walls. They are efficient at capturing the melted snowfall to irrigate farms. All of southern Morocco is oranges and browns except where there is any small amount of water – and then you get lush greens and huge varieties of plant life. Top elevation was over 7200’ and most of the villages we visited were above the 6000’ level.
Heading out this morning. Brenda purloined a sugar cube from breakfast to give to the hotel donkey. His braying was our wake up alarm in the dark at 6:00 am today.
We had some time to explore again the deserted ‘ksar’ village.
Down one alleyway we encountered a dog seemingly guarding the pass (hanging out the second-floor window opening). His body language got more and more nervous as we approached, so Brenda made us turn back.
This photo could have been taken yesterday or 2000 years ago.
Roadside vendor. Brenda is negotiating final pricing on some more trinkets for the girls. (Khalid was translating.)
Goats in the Tinghir gorge.
Better shot of this gorge… a creek running through a pass flanked by impenetrable, steep walls.
Small town where we got lunch.
On the rooftop of our restaurant. Khalid knows all the “best kept secret” places that are off the tourist path. Brenda can just be seen, tucked deep into the shadows. The Arabic writing on the mountain side says “Allah, Country, King”.
Teapot vendor further along on the trip.
Shot of a typical village in the mountains. Tallest tower is always the mosque. Green in the center of the valley where the water flows and the crops are grown.
Back up over another mountain.
Our final stop for the day, in the Dadés (pronounced “dads”) Gorge. We are calling this the Riggins of Morocco… a small town at the bottom of another gorge with walls of mountain on either side. We walked up and down the road for an hour to get some exercise (long car trip day). I wanted to buy some Moroccan candy to bring home to the kids.
Marrakech
March 1, 2024
Today is mostly a travel (drive) day back to Marrakech – where we will spend the final 2 days of our time here in Morocco.
Leaving our hotel in Dadés. Built into the hillside, level space comes at a premium. One has to take many stairs (sometimes both down and up) to get anywhere in the hotel.
Stork nest on top of the mosque tower. Mom is on eggs and dad stands guard (on one leg, of course).
Even roadside bathroom stops are photogenic. (Those blue doors lead to the bathrooms.)
Back in Marrakech – at the Jemaal El Fna, the renowned square and marketplace in Marrakesh’s medina quarter (old city). This has been a marketplace location since at least the 1100s.
Brenda in one of the souks of the medina, haggling over a teapot. (Most of these vendors speak a little English.)
There are “districts” where certain types of merchandise are sold, but we couldn’t discern any organization.
We did find an artist Brenda liked and are coming home with a painting rolled up in our suitcase.
Metal light fixtures and lanterns.
Evening brings out the food vendors for dinner.
Stall selling Moroccan flags in front of the mosque.
March 2, 2024
Our last day in Morocco. Our flight back to Frankfurt is scheduled for the evening, so we had most of the day to wander around town, do some last minute shopping, and look for cool things to photograph. We put in over 15 miles of walking all about town, eager to see all we could before we took our flight out. Most of the time was spent wandering through the alleys of the medina, visiting all of the souks.
Momma kitty standing over her baby.
Leather factory; the guy above was loading up with tanned hides, presumably off to deliver them to the individual leather workers in the souk stalls.
Artisans work in the back of their stalls, sell finished goods in the front.
Le Jardin “Secret”… a Riad in the middle of the marketplace. Built about 450 years ago, it fell into ruins until about 10 years ago, when it was restored and turned into a museum.
Medersa Ben Youssef: Islamic school for boys built in the 1300s. For hundreds of years it was the largest school in North Africa.
Dyed wool being delivered into the market.
View over Jemaa el Fna. We stopped for one last serving of water, tea and some banana juice.
Some final shots from our last day in Germany. We fly home tomorrow morning. I’ve been working the past 3 days, mostly at the big Light + Build trade show, plus dinners out each night with customers and/or employees. Brenda came out on two of the 3 nights and charmed them all.
Our hotel – a big Hilton downtown.
Some of the ALP guys – in a “welcome to Germany” dinner with lots of beer and Germany fare.
The Frankfurt Messe – where the big show is.. There are actually 12 buildings of this size all interconnected.. the place is huge and can’t be seen in one week. I walked the show for 2 days and only saw halls 3, 4, 8 and 10 with any degree of thoroughness.
Our final free day before coming home. Brenda wanted to hit the Zoo and then the Art Gallery. Photos from both follow…
She is trying to get the big kitty’s attention.
This was our favorite painting at the Städel Museum, their main gallery for prominent European art from the middle ages to present. ‘Ein Seesturm an der norwegischen Küste’ by Andreas Achenbach, 1837. He got the angry waves better than Patsee.
Walking back to our hotel to take a nap after lunch.. then start the packing.
We have arrived to Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia on our first full day of fun. This is a special trip for us – all 3 kids are with us as well as our younger dog, Winston. Max is too old, deaf and grumpy to travel anymore. John and Elaine are babysitting him at home while we are away.
We left home on Saturday afternoon and drove the first three hours to Knoxville, TN. On Sunday we slept in, took a leisurely breakfast and drove the rest of the way to HF – arriving her around 4pm. Just enough time to get settled and unpacked, find dinner and begin hard core relaxing.
Our house was built in 1830 and overlooks the Potomac river. The building served as a hospital for both the US and Confederate troops during the civil war. HF was changed hands 8 times from 1861-1865. HF is also the site of the famous John Brown raid and failed black uprising.
Our parking spot and rented house – it’s the brick place on the left with the large, central fireplace.
View of our front room.
Isabella is grading papers. Finals week is over, but she has to get all papers graded and into the computer by 5:00pm today. She hasn’t yet been able to relax on this trip.
Down one of the main streets near our house.
Out on our first hike of the day. Cold (38 degrees) but sunny and not much wind.
Much of the town is preserved as a national park; most of the buildings have been restored/renovated. Many are re-done just as they were in the 1860s.
Interior of dry goods store, as an example.
The firehouse now known as John Brown’s fort: It was in this building that John Brown and several of his followers barricaded themselves during the final hours of their ill-fated raid of 1859.
Abandoned railroad bridge piers. They were built in the 1830s for the B&O railroad. The Confederates blew up the bridge in 1861 and it was rebuilt and destroyed numerous times throughout the war, sometimes being replaced by a temporary pontoon bridge.
We attempted another hike across the Potomac into Maryland to walk up the Maryland Heights. Winston was NOT happy about this walkway and when we got to the far end, there were several steep series of open grate stair steps. We could not get him to walk the gratings and could not carry him. He got into a full, wiggly panic and could not be comforted. We had to abandon our hiking plans and turn back.
We found another hike more to his liking; along the Shenandoah river.. this is part of the Appalachian Trail. HF is just about halfway between the starting point in Georgia and the end point in Maine.
Brenda’s dinner – CBD salad full of marijuana leaves. She did NOT expect that. The leaves don’t have any of the THC, smell a bit like mint and did not taste good.
Our houses mantelpiece – with cap lock rifle and real cannon ball and shells.
Left over equipment from the 18th and 19th century armories – HF was ground zero for the nation’s arsenal and factories that produced much of our countries arms and armor. These lathes were turning gun stocks and rifle barrels.
20 December 2022
Our first, full day in Newport. We are staying here for three nights before continuing on to Maine. We have another AirBnB house with plenty of room for 5 + dog and within walking distance to the main, touristy part of the town.
Morning walk; this graveyard is a block away from where we’re staying.
One of the main purposes of this stop is to tour Salve Regina University (in Newport). Josie has been accepted here and been offered a very generous scholarship. Even so, it’s still a bit of a stretch, financially.
In addition to a campus tour, we visited with the Financial Aid office and (in a reasonably-well-off, white family way) begged for more money. We walked away fairly encouraged and will be looking for more letters and information coming from them in January. Salve is small (2100 students) liberal arts university that has a good Education program (Josie’s intended major) – a Catholic school that takes in all types.
View from the campus green behind the admin building.
The girls impressed with the admin main hall.
Typical classroom we found that was open.
More campus buildings.
On to even fancier stuff… The Breakers – summer residence for the Vanderbilts. Built in the 1890’s. I think most of you have toured this place, no?
The music room all fixed up for Xmas performances.
Main hall. We purchased a package that will get us into three mansions.. The Breakers today and two more (Marble House, The Elms) tomorrow.
Driving around Aquidneck island. Apparently we come from the less well-healed branch of the Jeffery family tree. These folks would not allow us to crash like a group of Cousin Eddys.
Typical houses in the area. My co-worker, Alan, who has lived in the area for many years tells me that even if we won the lottery, we still couldn’t afford to buy these places.
Brenda was anxious to see if Winston took to sheep like fish to water. He did not. I think we bought a dud in the sheep herder department.
Brenda, however, always has an ability to get the animals to do her bidding.
Doing some Xmas shopping along the waterfront in Newport.
As the day progressed, Brenda has begun to feel worse and worse – likely food poisoning. The day before, she bought a veggie wrap at a New Jersey Turnpike truck stop. Who knew that might carry risks??!!
The kids and I went out to a seafood dinner and we turned in early to watch Christmas movies and South Park re-runs.
22 December 2022
Brenda was ill today (stomach bug) and so we adjusted to a more mellow schedule. (She’s getting better now..)
Starting out in Newport, RI again.
Picture of the house where we are staying.
Taking the dog on a morning walk.
The four of us (less Brenda) toured “The Elms” – another late 19th century summer “cottage” built for the Berwind family – he was Big Coal.
After that, we decided to drive up to Providence, RI on a lark. Bella wanted to find some places to shop. Josie wanted to see RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) where one of her friends is hoping to attend. We parked in downtown and just wandered about.
We found a nice bookstore. Bella bought a couple of books for her job. Next door was a Korean place and the kids wanted to have lunch. Providence is about 35 minutes away from Newport.
That afternoon, we toured the 3rd and final mansion open this time of year. Brenda was feeling better and really wanted to see “Marble House” and so she joined us. This was another Vanderbilt house – different brother or cousin or such. It’s hard to keep track of them all.
More really fancy rooms.
It gets dark here about 4:00pm; after that it’s wine time. We got take out pizza from a place a block away and watched “Four Christmases” on the tube.
This morning we pack up and head for Maine. It is VERY warm this morning (53 degrees) but very windy and wet. We’re going to miss all of the winter snow and ice just by hugging the seaboard all the way north. The temps drop sharply over Xmas weekend, though. We’ll hopefully be safely ensconced in our next place for the next 3 nights.
23 December 2022
A comfortably short 3.5 hour drive from Newport up to Maine. The winter storm finally arrived, but the narrow strip of land along the seaboard managed to stay warm. We drove through Boston with temps in the upper 50’s.
We saw our first snow after entering Maine (from a former storm) and made it to Portland by early afternoon.
Over Xmas we are staying on an island (Peaks Island) off the coast of Portland. We arrived at the Ferry terminal by 2:00pm and were the first and only vehicle to make the crossing. I learned later that the ferry service had been closed all morning due to the extremely high winds. After a choppy 20 minute boat ride, we made it to Peaks Island and on to our house for the next three nights.
View of Portland from the cozy confines of our car during the ferry crossing.
It was warm all day but very windy. The news that evening reported sustained winds at 30-40 miles per hour and gusts over 65.
Our house. Built in 1914 as a summer cottage. It has 4 bedrooms and 2 baths.. very well modernized and appointed inside. After unloading our gear we went to the island’s only grocery store to get food. All of the restaurants and other stores are already closed for the weekend.
Typical houses. Based on my dog walks I would guess that only about 1 in 5 are currently occupied.
24 December 2022
This morning (the 24th) most of the storm has already passed by. The temperature is now 14F with windchill at -2F. The weather will dictate much of what we can and can’t do over the next several days, but we have a great place to hunker down for Xmas day.
It is cold here now. Sunny but windy with wind chills below 0. Early morning dog walk. Winston doesn’t seem to mind the cold.
Today we took the ferry back to Portland ME to get our Xmas Eve lunch and do some shopping.
Ready to brave the elements. It’s about a 30 minute trip to the mainland.
A bit of background here. Usually we try to build our vacations around some theme or principal goal. This fall when we asked the kids what they wanted to do, Josie said she wanted to go somewhere cold. Check. Holden said he wanted lobsters in Maine. Check. This was our big meal of the trip.. the kids just love the things. I don’t but was happy to let them dig in.
Back home and hunkered down for the next day. Everything is closed today; our larder is full, the heat is on and we have games and cable TV.
Merry Christmas!
25 December 2022
A quiet day that went by way too fast. Everyone got to sleep in a bit longer than usual. We watched some TV in the morning and then explored the island. The highlight (for Winston) was our time in the woods near the center of the island. We could take him off leash and let him loose for awhile to burn off some excess energy.
Frozen pond
Brenda and Isabella going for a walk.
Before we left on the trip, Brenda purchased a dog coat and booties – in case we encountered ice or snow. Winston tolerates the coat but hates the booties. Fortunately, we didn’t need the latter on this trip.
For Xmas dinner, Brenda made Jambalaya. After that we burned away the afternoon with a calm, quiet game of Risk. Bella won and won’t let any of us forget that.
We leave Maine this morning and begin our return trip South. We will take 4 days on the return trip to have time to see some fun things on the way back.
Dec 27, 2022
Our travels today began in Trenton, NJ and finished up in Richmond, VA. We had to navigate through Philadelphia, Wilmington, Baltimore and DC traffic.. but the worst stretch of all was between DC and Richmond where 4 accidents on the Interstate. It took us longer to make the 100 miles to Richmond than it did McClellan.
This is near the location where Washington crossed the Delaware on December 25, 1776. We’re on the New Jersey side, near Trenton. This is the Johnson Ferry house; it waas used briefly by General Washington and other officers at the time of the Christmas night crossing. Brenda is checking out their frozen vegetable garden.
The location where Washington & Co crossed the river. The kids were unimpressed – no where near as wide and dramatic as seen in the famous Leutze painting, but we did see some ice floes. I guess you had to be there. Josie wondered why Washington didn’t just take the bridge shown in the far left of the photo above.
On the previous travel day, we did little but drive and make occasional pit stops. Winston never got a chance to stretch his legs and it showed in his behavior later that night. With the weather improving and an ideal place to hike, we stopped in DC to do a walk around the National Mall.
Of course, as soon as we arrive, President Biden boards Marine One and heads off for Edwards Air Force Base. The town isn’t big enough for the both of us.
On the Lincoln Reflecting Pool.. frozen over. This shot took a bit of work as Winston is not a fan of the ice.
This amount of ice is more his speed.
In all we got in 4.5 miles of hiking which did a world of good for everyone. Subway sandwiches for dinner.. we got in after dark. Only enough time to sort out the beds and watch a little TV before bedtime.
Dec 28, 2022
Our final day of rest/play this trip was in Richmond, VA. There is quite a bit to see and do here; we could easily have spent several more days here if we weren’t also kind of anxious to get back home. You will note a marked lack of Civil War photos below.. The rest of the family vetoed all of my great suggestions – and there is NO shortage of great CW things to see and do in and around Richmond. That will have to be saved for another trip.
We did visit the Edgar Allan Poe museum – for some reason I always thought he was from Baltimore (that’s where he died), but Poe grew up in Richmond and lived here on four separate occasions throughout his brief, 40 year life.
We then toured Agecroft Hall – a tudor manor house first built in the late 1200s in Lancashire, England and expanded over the next 600 years. By the 1920s it sat derelict but was then purchased by a rich Richmondite who packed it up and shipped it to here, brick by brick.
Brenda smelling herbs in the nearby garden.
We got a lunch downtown in a restaurant that was dog friendly.
After lunch we shopped in the Carytown urban retail district.. over 200 quirky shops full of used clothes, antiques and small restaurants. We then returned for an early turn in.
The long drive home from Virginia.. We left at 4:00am and got in just before 1:00pm yesterday.
Map of our path.
All of us went to John and Elaine’s this morning for waffle breakfast and a review of our events. Isabella drove home to Savannah this afternoon. Josie goes back to school on the 5th and Holden on the 9th.
Our last day in Morocco. Our flight back to Frankfurt is scheduled for the evening, so we had most of the day to wander around town, do some last minute shopping, and look for cool things to photograph. We put in over 15 miles of walking all about town, eager to see all we could before we took our flight out. Most of the time was spent wandering through the alleys of the medina, visiting all of the souks and trying to fend off the aggressive vendors.
Momma kitty standing over her baby.
Le jardin “Secret”.. a Riad in the middle of the marketplace. Built about 450 years ago, it fell into ruins until about 10 years ago, when it was restored and turned into a museum.
Medersa Ben Youssef: Islamic school for boys built in the 1300s. For hundreds of years it was the largest school in North Africa.
View over Jemaa el Fna. We stopped for one last serving of water, tea and some banana juice.
And now, back to Frankfurt to get to work. Not likely to run into more of these guys this week where we’re going.
Today is mostly a travel (drive) day back to Marrakech – where we will spend the final 2 days of our time here in Morocco.
Leaving our hotel in Dadés. Built into the hillside, level space comes at a premium. One has to take many stairs (sometimes both down and up) to get anywhere in the hotel.
Stork nest on top of the mosque tower. Mom is on eggs and dad stands guard (on one leg, of course).
Even roadside bathroom stops are photogenic.
Back in Marrakech – at the Jemaal El Fna, the renowned square and market place in Marrakesh’s medina quarter (old city). This has been a marketplace location since at least the 1100s.
Brenda in one of the souks of the medina, haggling over a teapot.
There are “districts” where certain types of merchandise are sold, but we couldn’t discern any organization.
We did find an artist Brenda liked and are coming home with something rolled up in our suitcase.
We are now making a lazy return trip to Marrakech. Today we headed back up deeper into the Atlas mountains to see how many of the Mountain Berber people lived.. they have carved out a life wherever there is water, and built villages into the steep rock walls. They are efficient at capturing the melted snowfall to irrigate farms..all of southern Morocco is oranges and browns except where there is any small amount of water – and then you get lush greens and huge varieties of plant life. Top elevation was over 7200’ and most of the villages we visited were above the 6000’ level.
Heading out after breakfast. Brenda squirreled away some sugar cubes from breakfast to give to the hotel donkey. His braying was our wake up alarm in the dark at 6:00am today.
We had some time to explore again the deserted ‘ksar’ village.
Down one alleyway we encountered a dog seemingly guarding the pass. His body language got more and more nervous as we approached, so Brenda made us turn back.
This photo could have been taken yesterday or 500 years ago.
Roadside vendor. Brenda is negotiating final pricing on some more trinkets for the girls.
Goats in the Tinghir valley.
Better shot of this gorge.. creek running through a pass flanked by impenetrable, steep walls.
Small town where we got lunch,.
On the rooftop of our restaurant. Again, we were the only ones at this level. Brenda can just be seen, tucked deep into the shadows. The Arabic writing on the mountain side say “Allah, Country, King”.
Teapot vendor further along on the trip.
Shot of a typical village in the mountains. Tallest tower is always the mosque. Green in the center of the valley where the water flows and the crops are grown.
Back up over another mountain.
Our final stop for the day, in the Dadés (pronounced “dads”) George. We are calling this the Riggins of Morocco.. small town at the bottom of another gorge with walls of mountain on either side. B and I walked up and down the road for an hour to get some exercise (long car trip day). I wanted to buy some weird Moroccan candy to bring home to the kids.
Today is the day we pack up and leave our Saharan camp. We’re slowly making our way back to Marrakech, but hitting some interesting stops along the way.
Hey, it’s my birthday today! 55 years old. I now qualify to buy a house in an “Active Lifestyle” senior citizen community.
Loading up and out at daybreak. It’s another 75 minute ride back to the place where we meet up with the truck that takes us on. Our driver has already dealt with our luggage.
Ho hum, yet another Camel ride for Brenda.
We are heading west toward a town called M’Hamid – where the road begins again. On the way, high up on a hill, we stopped to see these Nomad women selling scarves and little toy trinkets they make by hand. Brenda is here trying to figure out how to buy and thank the woman for some little treasures she is bringing home to the girls.
Another of Brenda’s goals was to buy a Tagine – the earthenware pots used for so many meals here. She wants a real one that can be used in our oven at home, not the ornamental ones that are usually sold at the tourist traps. In Tamegroute, we stopped at a pottery factory to find what she was after.
A man demonstrating the pottery wheel techniques.
Kids mixing the dirt and water & etc for spinning. This is the ‘factory’.
Product going into the kilns.
The processes here have not changed in thousands of years.
The final product in the warehouse.
Brenda deciding on her final selections.
.. and of course, finding the one animal to play with while the owner wraps up her pottery. Let’s see if they can somehow make it back to home in one piece.
In Agdz.. this is our hotel for the night.
A 50 yard walk out of our compound yields an abandoned village of Ahslim Ksar. No one has lived here for about 70 years – modern citizens moved a bit south and live now in “the city”. This entire walled village can now be explored, at your own risk.
An old well, next to a field of date palms and saffron crocus.
Another Kasbah that is still in use down the way.
Back at our hotel. We have found that if you can get water here, things grow amazingly well. The soil is rich, just bereft of moisture.
We are spending 3 days / 2 nights somewhere in the Sahara. The rage of dunes (a sea) is called Erg Chigaga, but it’s more of a region than a specific location. The Berbers all know where they’re going.. they grew up here, work here and live here. We certainly wouldn’t be able to find our way anywhere without a guide.
It’s not hot, but very dry. And sand gets everywhere.. and the older you get, the more nooks and crannies the sand finds.
Photo taken about 1:00am.. there was a sand storm yesterday afternoon which kind of ruined things for stargazing.. Things finally calmed down a bit at night. The moon is full and it was SO BRIGHT that you could go anywhere you wanted by moonlight. Other than this, there isn’t a light around beyond the led lights on the tree.
Just before sunrise.
Tracks from the camp’s resident cat. I read that the Berbers keep cats to chase away snakes and scorpions from the camps. They have more wildlife here than you might think, but most are nocturnal.
Our camp’s camels.
Entire view of our camp at sunrise. We stayed at the tent just to the right of the main tent in center. All of the other ones were empty last night.
Hot water heater.. of a sort. Showers this morning were rather brisk,, but maybe if we had waited another hour or two it might have warmed up.
Breakfast. Way too much food for just the two of us.
Campfire in the center.. this should be a locus of activity later tonight.
Going for a walk before we start our day. They asked us what we want to do today and we said “Ride more camels”. And so we have plans for a journey to an Oasis location about 10 miles away. Getting there by camel.
This one is my guy for the day.
A handy place to keep some water.. and you need it.
Brenda is in heaven.
Some of our convoy’s camels.. our driver set them free to graze why the 2 of us continued on. They bind their legs to keep them from running off too far.
Wild donkeys.
At our final destination. We rode for 3 1/2 hours to get here.. a Berber camp that is set up to receive tourists to look around, share a tea with a local and get some food. Here she is demonstrating how she bakes bread.
She has an open fire/charcoal pile and the loaves are cooked on top. Later she scrapes off the charcoal and they’re ready for eating. We had some with our tea.
At the Nomad camp. This is a pen for baby goats. The mothers are herded off to the mountains to eat during the day and then return to give milk to kids and humans alike.
Brenda remains in heaven.
The garden.
The kitchen.
The guest area for meet and greet.
Nomad woman making us “welcome” tea – a mixture of black tea and frankincense. Most of the other teas we have had this trip are from mint.
Lunch for us..vegetarian with even a few things Brenda couldn’t identify.
More of the Nomad working areas.
Solar power is a wonderful thing out here. Our camp is run from it.. and even the most modest Nomad camps have managed to put this technology to use.
After the 3.5 hour camel trip in + lunch + time to rest, we decided not to opt to take the camels back. Our bottoms and other nether bits couldn’t take more of the punishment.. and the rate at which we travel it would be dinner time before we made it back to camp. They generously offered to drive us back.. only 20 minutes return trip by 4×4. We were sore, but so happy to have insisted on the rides. What we asked and got for is “not on the menu” from the tourist company, but I told them this was our principal goal of the trip and they accommodated us.
Along the way back we stopped at an honest to goodness Oasis.. Water year round that is percolating up from somewhere deep underground. A very popular spot for animals and humans alike.
A well created to capture some of the Oasis water.
Back at the camp.. and the rest of the guests arrived. 12 ‘Ya-Ya’ women from the US and Canada, all in their 50s and 60s arrived to great whooping and dancing and carousing. The camp got quite animated and our hosts immediately started apologizing to us for the noise and general behavior. We were just fine with the group, but the hosts sheepishly kept asking us if we were ok, if we wanted to go stay somewhere else tonight, when we wanted to eat & etc.
Brenda and I went for a long walk (long for sand, that is) to find a nice spot to have a sit and watch the sun set. It was the “magic hour” for light, so lots of photos were taken of the dunes. With no wind and nothing for miles, it is often dead quiet. One can sit and listen only to one’s tinnitus. The opposite of snow, the sand amplifies sounds; if there is activity around, each dune acts like a sound dish and reflects and reverberates any little noise from very far away.
Our last sunset in the Sahara.
After dinner, the hosts lit up the bonfire and treated us all to an ad-hoc concert, using Berber instruments and songs.
View of the bonfire. Brenda’s back is to the camera. It gets cold quickly here. The Ya’Ya’s are running around, singing and dancing and chugging from the individual bottles of wine each brought with them.
The camp just before bedtime.
As they promised, the Sahara offers an unparalleled view of the stars. Not a great photo, but you get the idea. Bed time….
We continue our journey south, out of the Atlas mountains and to the souther edge of Morocco, along the Algerian border.
Sunrise in Äit Benhaddou.. you can hear the chant of the call to prayer about 10 minutes prior.
Along the way we stopped at a Berber village that has a Women’s Cooperative to make rugs. There are numerous styles and material used, depending on the source. Local Berbers do it one way but there are also rugs made by Cave Berbers, Touregs, Nomads and Bedouins. I used to think those were all pretty synonymous, but each is a different “race”.. and there are numerous tribes within each sub-category.
All dyes are made in house from natural plants. Most rugs are either woven on a loom or sewn.. using sheep or camel hair. Brenda is getting a lesson and doing it wrong.
Upstairs is the shop; we couldn’t leave without finding something small and colorful that wasn’t too much money and would fit in our suitcase.
Further on we stopped at a spot where date palms grow. We ate a few, but it’s too early in the season. They were bitter and astringent.
In Foum Zguid (pronounced like “Fomez Gade”). Brenda did some last opportunity shopping. We also picked up food and water for a picnic lunch. This town is the last stop before the roads and and the rest of our trip is done on 4×4 on trails.. and then eventually there aren’t even trails.
Later that afternoon our guide stopped at the only shade for miles to give us a chance to eat a lunch and go potty.
Berber house on the wayl
A well in the middle of nowhere.. but with solar power to run a pump that will fill the basin when needed.
We’re now in the sahara. I took this photo from the top of the dune after “using the facilities” on the other side.
Now we’re talking. The seed goal for this entire trip was to “Go riding camels in the Sahara” .. and we finally got to do just that.
On the way to our camp. It was very windy this afternoon; the scarves weren’t just for looks. Temperatures are not bad.. 80s in daytime and upper 40’s at night.
The final leg to our camp is about an hour’s ride by camel from the car dropping off spot.
Our final destination hoving into view.
The tents are quite nice.. they call this place “Nubia Luxury Camp” and, considering where we are, it is quite luxurious. Each tent has running water, a toilet and rudimentary shower. No A/C nor heat, but plenty of blankets for when the sun sets.
A welcome tea.. traditional at every place we arrive. What was special about today was that we had the entire camp to ourselves. We are staying here two nights – the second night about 10 other people arrive. But for our first 24 hours, we were waited on to an embarrassing level.
Dinner for two in the communal meal tent.
A better view of the tent with me making my “I’m having the time of my life” face.
This is our first, full day in Morocco. After breakfast at 8, we were picked up by our driver to whisk us off on a 5-night, 6-day journey through the southern part of the country. His name is Khalid and his English is better than my Moroccan Arabic (called Darija). Khalid is a Berber from a small town in the Sahara and does this tours up to 4x in a month during the busy season. During the summer, when no-one wants to be here because of the heat, he heads home to relax before things pick back up again in the fall.
Brenda and I do not need to share the ride with anyone else.. we have our own Toyota Land Cruiser 4×4 and can come/go/stop to suit our interests.
This morning we left the big city of Marrakech and headed into the Atlas Mountains. Temperatures: Lows are in the 40s, which is why we started the trip in coats.. it kept pretty cool throughout the day in the high elevations.. we stripped down to our shirtsleeves by mid afternoon when we were climbing up and down village stairs.
A surreal landscape stop along the way.. showing off the salt and other minerals deposited by water that bubbles up from deep below the surface.
Touring some ruins of an old Kasbah (fort).
Khalid giving Brenda some history lessons about the Berber tribes that live high up in the mountains in these little villages.
Kasbah Telouet. This was built in the 1800s but is degrading. This area was hit by the big earthquake last September that killed almost 3000 people. We saw a lot of remaining evidence of the quake, rock slides along the roads, building damaged & etc. The pass through the Atlas mountains here is the highest point in Northern Africa.. just over 7,200 feet above sea level.
A view of one of the valleys. Where there is water, there is green. One can zoom into this photo and find little houses built along the river and into the rock sides. The principal crops below are Almonds and Saffron.
Brenda getting a lunch at a buffet restaurant near our final destination. There were a lot of tourists in the town to see the famous Äit Benhaddou ksar (fortified village). Most of the tourists here are French or German. French is the second language of Morocco and one can get around pretty good if you happen to know more than about 40 words of French (I don’t…).
Sunday is laundry day in the rapids of the river.
The narrow streets of Äit Benhaddou, full of vendors hawking their wares. Brenda did not leave empty handed.
Shot of the village itself. It is a World Unesco site that was built sometime in the 1100s as a trade stopping spot between the Sahara and Marrakech. Most of what you see now is from the 1700s and 1800s.
This town has been used as a backdrop in more than 50 movies and TV shows, including Lawrence of Arabia, Cleopatra, The Mummy, Gladiator and Game of Thrones.
View from our hotel room, looking over to one range of the Atlas mountains. Where we are staying tonight is about 4500’ up.
Lots of animals to see here.. On the first day alone, Brenda has been able to play with puppies, cats, goats & sheep.
At our hotel.. as is customary, we are welcomed with Moroccan tea and snacks.
View of our next door neighbors from the rooftop of our hotel.
This is another travel day for us, but we had the morning free in Frankfurt to do some more exploring. It was cold and rainy this Saturday morning, but we had the proper gear to head on out.
Selfie in the mirror before leaving the hotel room.
Dreary, wet and windy Saturday morning.
View of the old part of town from a bridge over the Main river.
Central train station.
View of the inside, but we’re not taking a train today.
Top view down of sycamore trees that line both sides of the river. They have them trimmed over the decades to provide a neat canopy style once Spring and Summer arrive.
Inside Goethe’s house. Brenda is always a sucker for a tour of the inside of someone’s old house. The is the boyhood home of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German author, playwright, scientist and politician.
Goethe wrote “Faust” in this room (on a desk near where I’m standing to take the photo). It is a large house with 4 floors + attic + basement… he came from money before he became known for his own accomplishments.
After this, we headed back to hotel, grabbed our luggage and took an Uber to the airport to fly to our next destination….
Marrakech, Morocco! Our first time in Africa. I bragged to Brenda that, upon consideration, I have now been to 5 separate continents in just the last 6 months… and I feel like we never get to go anywhere!
Our Riad (hotel) for the night.. We got in exhausted, dumped our luggage, went up to the rooftop for some coffee, tea and snacks and then turned in.
View of our room. We have a long day tomorrow (Sunday).
Brenda and start what will be a two-week trip, combining work and fun together. We left Atlanta yesterday evening and got into Frankfurt (direct flight) this morning. We were able to check into our hotel before noon, which gave us a chance to take a shower and get some much needed sleep. (Even though it’s an 8-hour flight, Brenda didn’t catch a single wink). Later in the afternoon, we got out and explored the city, found some food and did a little shopping. Frankfurt isn’t much of a tourist destination, but with the jet-lag and first day jitters in a foreign country, it’s enough adventure for us today.
Active town center where the main pedestrian plazas are found along with lots of shops flanking on both sides.
Römerburg public square, site of the city hall and main administrative buildings since the 1400s.
More of the colorful buildings once the sun came out.
Walking along the river front.
This is for Holden. No one loves a good German pretzel bathed in mustard more than that guy.
Inside St. Bartholomew’s Cathedral. There has been a church here since the 600s.. this building was completed in the 1550s and is one of the few large buildings that survived several British bombings in the spring of 1944. Most of the center of the town was destroyed at that time.
Our final day in the Orient. Our plane leaves ICN airport 6:45pm – we had the morning free to explore a bit as tourists. My family was last over here in 2018 and so I had some ideas of what to show to Donny on a tight time frame. It was his first visit to Seoul but now he wants to come back with his wife.
Sunrise out my window.
We went to Gyeongbokgung Palace, the largest of 5 royal estates in Seoul. The original buildings date from the 1400s; some are from the 1800s and some are more recent restorations/recreations. During the Japanese occupation they destroyed many important Korean historical buildings. Others were dismantled and relocated to personal estates in Japan.
We got there right when they opened and, for a while, essentially had the place to ourselves.
If you dress up in the rental Hanbok costumes, you get in for free. Donny chose to pay. Most are young women posing for fun, some are young couples.
But not all…
Real pumpkins!
Next we moved on to the Korean War Museum.. 36,000+ US boys lost their lives here from 1950-1953… and about 10x that number of ROK soliders.
Despite the low tech bombing methods of the Communist North.
Very impressive museum and well worth visiting and spending a full day.
Last meal in the East.. after all the unknowns we’ve poked into our mouths with chopsticks, it was fun to try a different dish.
Airplanes.. time to get these photos sent off and ready to board.
Today was travel day – a literal Planes, Trains and Automobiles to get us from Tainan, Taiwan to Seoul, South Korea. A whole lot of ticket buying, luggage lugging, taxi hailing, money exchanging, meals missing and going from stressed to make schedule to bored with too much time between intervals. We have had perfect weather this half-month.. no rain and it’s been in the 80’s our entire trip.. until we got into Seoul. The sun is out, but the lows are in the upper 30s (F). It was a bit nippy walking around this morning, but the sun was out an felt great if you could stand in its path.
Taiwan has about 100 motorbikes for every car.
Nobody locks them down. Helmets are left on the handlebars. I suppose that if everyone has one, no one needs to take one.
Catching the bullet train back to Taipei.
We got into our hotel after 7pm – all we had since breakfast was a Snickers bar and coke. Even though tired, we wanted to try authentic Korean Barbecue. I looked up a place within walking distance. This seemed to fit the bill.
The place was cramped and packed.. and when we walked in everyone stopped what they were doing to stare. All that was missing was the “record-needle-scratch” that they play in the movies. Fortunately a couple were leaving and we got in at the next table. No one spoke English and we didn’t know the process. We managed to finally order some beer and a plate full of various pork cuts and we were off to the races.
Donny demonstrating that he was worked out the process well enough not to go hungry. The rectangular chopsticks were a bit difficult to maneuver.
For our final, send-off dinner from Taiwan we were taken to a Teppanyaki Grill – similar to Hibachi style Japanese places. The menu is fairly well set.. the only thing you can choose is the type of beef you want and your after dessert drink.
I do NOT like seafood and I don’t like eating strange items that can’t translate well. The dinner was quite good; nothing was bad, most items were just fine but I won’t be seeking much of this out when I get home. The dinner group was less formal and since I was sitting right next to the chef, I had a chance to take some photos of each plate being served.
Seaweed from Nagasaki, tuna and some jellied crab thing.
Setting up our next dishes; some kind of fish on some kind of mushrooms.
Pork and other sea based edible things.
Eels
Lobsters. They’re fresh – as in we see him slice them and put them on the grill.
He separates the claws, the bodies are steam for extra time with some leaves and a pile of salt.
This is the steak that I ordered. 4oz of USDA with garlic cream sauce and special black salt from Hawaii.
Seahorse soup.
Coffee with a strange dessert. We also had appetizers (you pick out, they’re not cooked on the Teppan) and plenty of wine, rice and other side dishes.
This morning we took a high speed train (185mph) from Taipei down to Tainan, near the southern end of Taiwan. It only took about 2 hours to make the journey.
We got on the first stop; the car was full before leaving Taipei.
Some scenery along the way out the window.
It is hot and humid here.. Temps in the mid 80’s. The southern end of Taiwan is always quite warm.
We stopped for lunch at a place where you cook your own meat and scallops. Pretty much all ‘Chinese’ restaurant meals are community style, regardless of quality or restaurant fanciness.
Even the guy eating alone at 20 has got plenty to keep him busy.
Another plant tour.. this time this is a factory that makes a lot of aluminum reflectors for us.. the kind that go into downlights in ceilings. This is their anodizing line – putting a special reflective coating on aluminum parts.
Some of you might recognize the brand.. you can get these at Home Depot or Lowes. All of this company’s product goes to the US.
Front of the building.
Daoist temple. I was surprise to see how many Christians live here in Taiwan.. a lot of churches and even people saying Grace before starting meals.
Hotel lobby in Tainan. I wanted to bang on those drums so badly.
Walking around Tainan. Population about 800,000. Tainan is the oldest city on Taiwan island. It used to be run by the Dutch in the 1600s before some Chinese warlords kicked them out. We didn’t have any free time today, what with the train, meetings, plant tour and lunch/dinner. We leave Tainan this morning and start our long journey home. I’ll probably have one more photoset from our time in Seoul if our schedule holds.
We met for breakfast at 8, filled up, grabbed a taxi and headed out.
First stop, Cristo Redentor (Christ the Redeemer).. This is Brazil’s most visited tourist attraction. We wanted to get their “early” but the lines spilled out into the street already when we arrived. It took us a while to figure out tickets, lines, procedures & such.
From the top of Corcovado Mountain, one can get 360 degree views of the city, ocean and mountains beyond.
I did manage to get Brenda to pose here.. I have the same shot of her when she was here last (March of 2009).
On to Jardim Botânico, the Botanical Gardens of Rio. It was founded in 1808 by King John VI of Portugal. Originally intended for the acclimatization of spices like nutmeg, pepper and cinnamon imported from the West Indies. It now has a collection of tropical plants from all over the world. Everything you can buy from Home Depot in the indoor garden section grows wild here.
The rules were quite strict against stealing seeds, pods, roots & such to squirrel away and take home. This cramped Brenda’s style.
Mid-Afternoon and we’re hungry. I had read about a popular, local seafood restaurant and bar that is a must try… Being a Saturday afternoon, we had to wait a long time to get a table. The restaurant was small, cramped, chaotic and served fantastic food. All dishes were “family style” serving 2-3 people each. The ladies had a caipirinha or two to keep things merry and moving along.
The views out the window from the restaurant (Bar Urca).
Back on Copacabana Beach for the four of us to walk up and down and see the sights. Bars line the border between the beach and promenade and they are packed! Live Samba music is performed every couple hundred feet or so.
Both Brenda and Meredith bought a decorative stone parrot. (Brenda now has two).
Called “Footvolley”.. it is just that.. Volleyball where you can’t use your hands. These guys are good!
Soccer from dawn to dusk, from cradle to grave here.
Being hot and muggy, a cold coconut water drink hits the spot. Vendors sell them on the street.. They use machetes to whack out a small opening at the top of the coconut; insert a straw and you’re off. A lot more water in those than you might think.
Donny and Meredith taking photos to send home to their folks.
We finished up with gelato on the way back to hotel. Then late night drink at the hotel and bedtime.
Our final day in Rio (Sunday) before we head off to work.
The famous Copacabana mosaic promenade.
It is a lot quieter out in the mornings. Grey day, everything is grey. It rained the night before. We had occasional rain showers throughout the day.
Sunrise at the beach.
The Selaron Steps (Escadaria Selarón).. 215 steps more than 140 yards up the hill.. “In 1990, Selarón began renovating dilapidated steps that ran along the front of his house. At first, neighbours mocked him for his choice of colours as he covered the steps in fragments of blue, green and yellow tiles – the colours of the Brazilian flag. It started out as a side-project to his main passion, painting, but soon became an obsession. He found he was constantly out of money, so Selarón sold paintings to fund his work. It was long and exhausting work but he continued on and eventually covered the entire set of steps in tiles, ceramics and mirrors.”
We found a couple of Georgia tiles.
Donny (in Master’s shirt at right) admiring the wildlife.
Graffiti on top of graffiti
Brenda headed back down carefully.
While riding in a taxi from one location to another, we found this Sunday market.. The women wanted to stop to view what was on offer.
Structures we found during hike in Tijuca National forest.
A mansion that was owned by a 1920’s Brazilian industrialist and his singer wife. It is now converted to a museum and restaurant.
Right after lunch the skies opened up and we got drenched. We found a streetside bar that had room and parked ourselves for an unplanned lunch until the weather improved.
Figuring out what we’re going to order and do next.
Quite by coincidence.. the name of the place was “Adam’s Bar” in Portuguese.
Ipanema Beach after the big storm passed. Surfers taking advantage of the new waves.
More walking about on Ipanema Beach.
One of Brenda’s treasures. She bought two oil paintings from one artist. This guy is taking the canvas off stretchers so that Brenda can fit in oversized luggage for our trip home.
Late afternoon brought more rains. The 4 of us met at Hotel bar for drinks and then walked to an outdoor dinner on Copacabana. After this, some more night shopping along the beach, a gelato for dessert and then bedtime. We have to get an early start for a long travel day tomorrow with business meetings & etc.
Brenda and I are in Brazil for the next week. I have some business meetings that take place on Monday and Tuesday, but before that, we flew to Rio to spend the weekend with another couple. The overnight flight here was just the usual level of unpleasant. No problems at all, but the typical overnight mess, trying to make connections, running through the airports, trying out my VERY rusty Portuguese and etc.
Once you finally get to your hotel room, you are so thankful. The views are worth it.
After a shower and change of clothes, we headed out to tourist attraction #1 – Pão de Açucar – Sugarloaf Mountain and the fantastic views of Rio.
Donny and Meredith… the couple we’re with. Donny and I work together. This is their first time here.
Donny figuring out how to buy water. It’s Winter here, but still hot and muggy.
The views from the top can’t be beat.
As the sun set, Brenda and I walked down along Copacabana beach just to check out the sites. We were so tired, we begged off a dinner with Donny+Meredith. We crashed in our hotel room and just ordered room service.
In bed by 8 to get a decent night’s sleep.. Saturday is another big day of fun.
Final shots from our spring break trip to the GA/FL barrier islands.
Fort Clinch, on Amelia Island, FL. This was built to ward off the Spanish, but expanded to protect against the British in 1812 and the Seminole Indians later. What we see now was largely a result of Yankee occupation of the fort in 1862.
The curators have restored the fort and given it a “day in the life” look from 1864.
Back to the beaches. Winston needs walks several times a day and he got them on this trip – far more interesting than doing our loop around the neighborhood at home.
Ruins of a sugar mill near St Marys, GA – built in the same tabby (seashell concrete) construction used throughout this region.
The port of St Marys, GA.
Final shot – one of me. I promise I had more fun than it seems judging by the photo.
On this day we visited Jekyll Island, further south along the Georgia coastline. Our first stop was Driftwood Beach – a great place to walk and photograph. Gnarly pine and oak trees litter a desolate beach, standing like twisted sculptures in front of a picturesque coast. Some of the trees remain fully exposed and some appear to emerge from the depths of the sand. This is due to the north end of the island slowly eroding away and being deposited on the south end of the island.
We then visited the Jekyll Island Club Historic District..This island was once an entire private, gentleman’s club for the elite of the 19th century. The original Hotel and outbuildings have been preserved and open for various public uses. The centerpiece of the grounds is the large Jekyll Island Club Hotel, a two-winged structure that contains numerous suites for rental. Thirty-three buildings from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries surround the hotel; many are the elaborate mansion-sized “cottages” built by the rich.
After a lunch on the island we continued our journey south to the next place we would be staying for the final three nights – Amelia Island.
Near our house is East Beach (on St Simons) that allows off leash dog walks. We spent A LOT of time on that beach. Winston never turned down an offer to return.
There are several state parks and hiking trails on the island.
Bella had the day off (Presidents Day) and so drove down to eat lunch with us. Afterwards, the girls went off shopping at several, large thrift stores and brought back all sorts of treasures.
During this trip, we had two cars for the 7 of us. Josie and her two friends were able to manage their own schedule. We would occasionally meet up for meals, but largely we operated as two separate units. Everyone was VERY happy with the arrangements. No one likes to work by my schedules!
