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San Pedro

I’m blogging fast and furiously because the yoga thing starts tomorrow so I don’t know how many blog posts I’ll be doing from there. It might mess with my aura or something!

Today Roxanne and I took a boat to the town of San Pedro, across the lake from Panajachel. After finding a place to spend the night we took a tuk tuk up the hills to the start of the hike that goes up the San Pedro volcano. This hike is normally done early in the morning before the clouds roll in, so we opted just to go up to the 1st viewing platform. I can see why my mom was pumped to have hiked to the top 3 weeks ago – it was a climb!
When we came back down we found a frozen banana seller. I don’t think I could have found anything I would have wanted more. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the town, enjoying a drink while overlooking the lake, and scouting out which taco stand we are going to hit up for dinner.
Tomorrow we’re taking the boat to San Marcos, where the yoga class is. Hopefully I’ll be able to post about some cool experiences there. Or who knows… maybe I’ll just astral travel home to tell you in person!
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Guat’s Up?

The worst part about travelling is the travelling part! I thought I was so slick, having no problems with my 4 connections to get to Guatemala City, then getting to the bus station and hopping onto my 3 hour bus ride to a town called Panajachel. What I did not figure out until too late was that I had to get off the bus at some point and connect onto another one. I thought I had my bases covered. The guy in the seat next to me was supposed to be helping me but he fell asleep and failed to tell me when I had to get off the bus. Thank goodness I speak some Spanish. After some temporary panic I was on another bus to my destination. So I dragged my ‘not as cocky anymore’ butt off the bus 7.5 hours after my starting point!

I met up with my friend Roxanne at our pre-booked hotel and I went almost immediately to bed! Today we enjoyed exploring this city. Roxanne and I both love street food, grocery stores, and walking in the sun, so we’re a good team! Here are some of the highlights:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow we’re going to take a boat to San Pedro where we plan to do a volcano hike. Stay tuned!
By the way, for a different perspective you can check out Roxanne’s blog at www.delafrijoles.blogspot.ca !

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Last Arabian Night

We are on our way home right now, which is quite a long process, but we do have some parting pictures to show.  On our last day we headed to the city of Jerash where we walked around the old town site.  It still has many impressive ruins from back when the Romans were in power.  Take a look:

So now we have come to the end of another vacation.  We will for sure be blogging again in March when DawnO goes to Guatemala, and then Spain.  There may be one between now and then, who knows.

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Olsons of Arabia

We’re back to civilization! Wadi Rum was a pretty cool experience. It’s a red sand desert where Lawrence of Arabia became famous. The thing to do there is stay in a Bedouin tent camp and explore the desert via hiking, camel, and 4×4. 

When we arrived to the visitor’s center we met our guide and were taken to his home for tea. There we signed up for our next couple of days’ activities. We had decided we wanted to relax the first afternoon, so we were driven to our camp. Camp consists of black goat hair tents for sleeping, a larger area for meals, a kitchen, and pretty rustic bathroom. I guess in hindsight we should have been a bit more specific about timelines of what was to happen because after ‘relaxing’ in the heat of the desert, alone in our camp, for 5 hours we started to panic. We had water (thank goodness), but essentially no food and it was so hot we were cowering in a small cave for shade.
I flagged down a passing jeep and the guide called our people to get us some help. Within 10 minutes our awesome Bedouin cook/host/etc was there with cold water, snacks, and comfort in knowing we weren’t stranded in the desert!
We enjoyed our first night alone in the camp, feasting on a wonderful meal and enjoying the sunset and nearly full moon.
 

The next day we were picked up for our day of desert experiences. We had lunch at a beautifully refreshing natural spring, then were picked up by camel. I didn’t think the camel ride was too bad, but I looked over at RobO about 10 minutes in and knew that his ride was 9 minutes too long at that point! Our jeep picked us up and took us to the red sand dunes, a canyon, and 2 rock bridges. A highlight was when our guide said something about women not being able to drive, so RobO called him out and I got to drive us back to camp!
That night there were 12 of us for dinner which was chicken and vegetables that had been cooked under the hot sand. This morning I got up to watch the sunrise before our long trip north.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We’re in a town called Ajloun and plan to explore around here for our last 2 days until we board our flight home. I anticipate we’ll do 1 last blog post…

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The City of Petra

We arrived in Wadi Musa two days ago and have had some time to explore the nearby wonder of the world known as the City of Petra.  I was first introduced to Petra on the big screen when Indiana Jones  went there to find the Holy Grail.  Ever since then I put it on my bucket list of places to see.

The above picture is known as the treasury and is one of many places carved out of the solid rock walls of this amazing place.  This rewarding view is revealed after you wind your way through a kilometer of twisting rock walls on either side of you (this pathway is called the Siq).  There are several spectacular places to see after the Treasury, including the Theatre, the Royal Tombs, Colonnaded Street, and the Ad-Deir (the Monestary).
In Jordan it tends to get a tad hot around this time of the year so we have had to go twice a day. We come back to our hotel during the hottest part of the day which is somewhere in the +40C range.  Going in the morning and evening has afforded us some pretty unique views of this ancient city.

Tonight we went to an event simply called Petra at Night.  Lanterns light the way from the visitor center, through the Siq and end in front of the Treasury.  DawnO and I completely nailed it by going really early and watching them set up.  We were fortunate enough to get some great photos with no people!  Once the crowd arrived we sat around the candles and listened to Bedouin artists play music, sing songs, and tell stories about Petra and their way of life.  

We are heading to Wadi Rum tomorrow and rumour has it that we may not have internet access for a couple of days.  So don’t panic, moms.  We are safe and alive and will send a message when we can.

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The Kingdom

Last evening we arrived in Jordan. We spent one night in the capital city of Amman. We were pretty much asleep as soon as our heads hit the pillows, but this morning we were up early to beat the crowds to one of the main sites – the Roman Theatre. 

 

 

 

 

We then started our journey south, stopping along the way at a few places. The first was Madaba, a town that is famous for mosaics. In one of the churches they discovered the oldest map in Palestine, crafted from mosaic stones in AD 560.
 

Next we checked out Mount Nebo, where Moses is said to have seen the Promised Land.
 

We followed the road down to the lowest point on earth – the Dead Sea. We floated in the bath temperature water then exfoliated our bodies with Dead Sea mud. I could have soaked for longer, but robO had some cuts that were burning from the salt. At one point I licked my finger and it was honestly the saltiest thing I’ve ever tasted in my life. RobO also accidentally got some water in his eye and I can’t repeat what he said due to the G rating of this blog.
 

 
We are now in Wadi Musa, which is the small town outside of Petra. We’re gearing up to go to Petra tomorrow morning for sunrise.

Cue the Indiana Jones theme song.

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Cappadocia eye candy

Yesterday DawnO and I had a pretty low key day by our standards.  We knew we had to save our energy for what was to come.  We spent our day walking around our town and we stopped long enough to have a nap before the evening.  For dinner we had an amazing dish that they cook in a clay pot.  When they bring it to your table they have to crack it open with a knife.  

After dinner we walked to the top of a cliff on the edge of town to watch the sunset.  This also gave us a great opportunity to take some more pictures of the surrounding landscape in an ideal light.

In the top left corner of the following picture you can see the cliff’s platform:

Once the sun went down we went straight to bed because our morning was going to begin at 4am.  We were scheduled to watch the sunrise from 700 meters in the air…

Our favourite Cappadocian, who arranged our hotel and this balloon trip, ended up being our hot air balloon pilot.  It seems like Mustafa can do anything, but I bet he can’t sing a solo in a Community Musical Theatre production… where was I?  Oh yes, pictures.
Finally, here is a shot of us with Mustafa.  

This is our last day in Turkey.  We head to Istanbul this evening and then to Jordan (The Kingdom) tomorrow.
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Traveller’s Luck

Yesterday was our final day in Istanbul, so we spent the morning doing the tourist things that we hadn’t experienced yet: the Spice Market and the Grand Bazaar. We liked the spice market, but on our way to the Grand Bazaar we got a bit crowd-o-phobic so stopped for a snack and a decision. Truthfully I (dawnO) was OK with skipping the Grand Bazaar, but robO felt it was a must see. And he was right. It was quite a nice experience, especially compared to the chaos of the surrounding streets!

 

 

That evening we flew to Cappadocia, an area in Central Turkey. It was a long experience, from 2 screaming babies on the plane, to lost then found luggage, to a long ride to Goreme, where the room we had booked was no longer available; and it was after midnight.
Turns out we had traveller’s luck on our side. The hotel manager Mustafa is an amazing man. It was not his fault at all that we had no place to stay (our online booking was a bust, but no money lost). He took it upon himself to ensure we were taken care of. He set us up in a room at a friend’s hotel (which is a 5 star place I’m sure) for the night and would figure out more in the morning. This morning we were stressing a bit about our options, and Mustafa came back, arranging 2 more nights at this same amazing hotel (did I mention for the original price we were to pay??!!), recommending a great hike for our day, and by the way, he’s a hot air balloon pilot and set us up on a flight with a discount for ‘all of our trouble’. If you are ever coming here, you NEED to meet this guy because he is a caring and generous man. I can hardly wait to give him a positive review on Trip Advisor. (Not coincidently, the reason we chose the hotel that we did was because of great reviews about this guy.)
Anyway, this area is so cool. It’s kind of like Drumheller meets Bedrock from the Flintstones. Here are some pics from our day…
 

 

 

 

 

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Keblog – part I of a double blog

What a birthday! I warned RobO that if these great birthdays keep up I’m going to start expecting a trip every year at this time! (If you can’t remember last year’s Quebec City awesomeness your homework is to scroll back and read it.)

This morning started out with a walk to the painted steps. The story is that an Istanbul resident wanted to make people happy so he bought a few cans of paint and painted a staircase. The city painted it grey the next day, which caused a political revolt. The result? I guess you can see…

 

 

I met up with robO and we went to a Turkish Bath. This place was built 300 years ago and is in the ‘1000 places to see before you die’ book. Anyway, picture a big marble room filled with naked women soaping each other down. Before you get too excited, my woman was named Inge and she was exfoliating dead skin off of my body in little lint-like rolls. This was followed by a wash down and an oil massage. My skin has never felt so good! Check it off the bucket list! You can Read robO’s report for the full man experience.
Sorry… no pics of me in my birthday suit!
Next we visited the Bascilica Cistern, which is an underground water storage made with beautiful roman columns. And we got a special treat… a dress up like sultans and have a photo taken. Who could say no to that?!

The rest of our afternoon was spent eating amazing Turkish food and checking out the beautiful Blue Mosque and Aya Sophia.
 

We finished off the night with a birthday dinner and rooftop patio views of the sights. Not too shabby for the first day of my 36th year!

Looking forward to checking our the bazaars, then flying to Cappadocia tomorrow!

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Bloggle Bloggle -part II of a double blog

I can’t get enough of this picture:

Today DawnO celebrated her 36th birthday in magnificent fashion.  It all started with a Turkish bath.  And yes, we both got the full meal deal. You can read DawnO’s blog ‘Keblog’ for her experience.  Mine got a little awkward.

We each got sent into separate areas as the bath houses are segregated.  They took me to a little change room and told me to take off everything and wrap myself in a tea-towel and slip on a pair of wooden slippers.  I was led into this room:
I was told to relax and enjoy the sauna while I await my man.  Now at this point I was the only one in this huge room which was quite a cool place to be with nothing but your postage stamp of a towel and your thoughts.  Eventually the door opened and this was the scene:

It all started with a massage and streches, which included this dude trying to make my heel touch my back.  I may have yelped, but I did not let him see me cry.  I was then led to the sinks where I was scrubbed with an abrasive oven mit and washed with something that looked like a soaped up mop-head.  Up to this point my tea-towel was doing a better-than-expected job of covering my bits and cracks.  But it all came unravelled during my final rinse.  Soap was in my eyes so I lost sight of things…  When I finally opened them, I was free-balling it.  Unphased, my man finished the rinse cycle while I scrambled to cover up.  Afterwards he let me do some necessary self-rinsing and then met me outside the bathing room to wrap me in warm towels.  All-in-all, I would highly recommend a Turkish bath.