In three days, Kelly and I are off on our next adventure, with our friends Keaka, Tom and Brian. Here’s a map of our full itinerary:
For the first 10 days, Keaka, Kelly and I are doing the Gecko’s Backroads of Morocco tour, and then meet Brian in Portugal, Tom in Madrid, visit Granada & the Sierra Nevadas, Valencia (home of paella) and finally Barcelona. The anticipation is killing me!
I had a fabulous time at Coachella!
Day 1: We arrived on an early flight, and it cold and rainy. At the festival, locals were not ready for cold weather, as they were in shorts and tanks. There was a run on hoodies as a result. Janis and I found a comfy spot in the right beer garden off the main stage (which we called the Canadian tent due to the overwhelming number of Canadians), and watched great performances by Jimmy Cliff, the Arctic Monkeys and Pulp. The front man of Pulp had great interaction with the audience, loved their set. The Black Keys disappointed, they were off time and I just couldn’t get into them. We got super lost on the way back to the shuttle, so we walked around in frustration for an hour and a half, and event staff were useless with directions.
Day 2: The security line was 1.5 hrs for the 2 layers of security (1 extra for shuttle folks, still cant explain that) so I missed seeing Big Pink, but caught Manchester Orchestra, Laura Marling (got up front and centre at the small show), the Shin, Bon Iver, and an overly long 2 hr Radiohead set. I wasn’t much into their new stuff, it was disappointing. Janis and I got home at 2:30am, exhausted.
Day 3: The sun was finally shining, and we got up earlier to see bands. Saw Metronomy, First AId Kit, Santigold (a highlight), Wild Flag (yawn), Gotye (another highlight, totally packed), Justice (so dancey!), Girl Talk, Florence and the Machine, and finally a star-studded set by Dr. Dre, Snoop, Emimem, 50 Cent, and a hologram of the deceased Tupac.
It was a great long weekend!
South Africa is an interesting mix of first and third world. We started in Cape Town, then onto wine resort Stellenbosch, and continue more into the heart of South Africa, along the Garden Route to Tsitsikamma National Park, surfing capital Jeffrey’s Bay, Addo Elephant park, and ostrich capital Outdshoorn.
In Cape Town, we started with a hike up Table Mountain, which was gorgeous, and abseiling 112m down Table Mountain, the longest in the world. The abseiling was kinda scary, I wouldn’t do it again, but Kelly enjoyed it. In Cape Town, we also saw the V&A waterfront, the colourful Bo Kaap neighbourhood and major neighbourhoods downtown. The most interesting was the District 9 museum, which described how a multi-ethic neighbour was torn apart by the advent of apartheid, and how community groups were trying to redistribute stolen lands from non-whites. Continue reading
We’re home exhausted from Peru and hiking the Inca Trail- it was good! We visited Cuzco, the Sacred Valley and Macchu Pichu.
There was some issues though – bad things come in threes:
1. Flight was delayed by a day so we didn’t get our day to explore Lima. Instead we flew in really late, slept, and were whisked off to Cusco first thing in the morning with our Gap Adventures tour group.
2. After visiting Cuzco and the Sacred Valley, and acclimatizing, Kelly got sick on the trail on day 1 and had to hang out in Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley instead of hiking. He had fun exploring town and doing day hikes on his own though. The guides thought it was altitude sickness, but Kelly thinks it was something he ate, or the fact that he stupidly drank tap water.
3. It was rainining/foggy at Machu Pichu so it was hard to see when I finally summited (Kelly took the train up and met me, he was fine after his one day sickness).
Despite all this we had a great time, and I surprised myself, keeping up with an ultrafast hiking group (we did most day’s hikes in half the prescribed time). The last day we did 19km (the guided added 3km without telling us, cause the porters were complaining they didn’t have time to setup the tents and cook before we showed). The group was really fun, the scenery was gorgeous, and the cooks made some really good Peruvian soups!
I’m a crazy trip planner, and my Argentina trip was difficult to plan, as it is a large country and we had only two weeks. An excursion to Salta in the North or a trek in Patagonia in the South would’ve been nice, but no go.
Beyond Buenos Aires and Mendoza, I needed another trip stop, so I found Cordoba was in the middle and had a fair number of historical attractions. It was a risk. Eventually, I discovered Cordoba was known as the paragliding capital of the world and I knew I was onto to something good.
After a long night bus in (steak, wine and TV onboard, Argentine buses rock!), we checked into our hostel, and to my amusement, discovered we were followed to Cordoba by Keaka’s four new British female friends, who stayed in our hostel. We saw churches in town, and enjoyed live music in our hostel, but the highlights, were the hiking and the crazy paragliding.
Apparently it only rains a few days a year in Mendoza, and we hit all those days.
Kelly and I love wine, so I had booked ourselves (Kelly, Keaka, Kel’s mom and I) to do a self-guided bike and wine tour through Mendoza. Problem is, it as raining and the tourist police would not allow us, or anyone else, to rent bikes. Apparently it almost never rains in Mendoza, so this was a stroke of bad luck. Thus, we found ourselves meeting up with a group of travellers in the same boat, including several Stanford students on exchange, whom we cabbed to wineries with. It was pretty good, but the wineries there definitely are not organized like in Canada and the USA and few are open to the public for tastings. Continue reading
Hola Buenos Aires! Kelly, his mother Karen and I arrived via Houston, where we had a brief stop for BBQ and fresh air, and then hopped aboard another plane for Buenos Aires, where we met our American friend Keaka. Our hostel, Hostel Estoril is fabulous – it has a rooftop bar with good company, where Keaka immediately made friends with 4 British girls, a Dutch girl and a an Irish gent. On the first day, we wandered around town and checked out the weekly San Telmo market, which was filled with handicrafts and leather work.
After my 3 days in Paris, I continued my cheap impromptu European trip with a $100 flight to London Luton airport on the infamous Easy Jet. It was worth every penny.
I had no plans in London, and started by random walking out of my hostel on Bolsover Street in Westminster. I ends dup at Oxford and Regent streets (hello Top Shop!), and ended up in Leicester Square, Piccadilly Circus, avoiding rioting Sri Lankans at Parliament and Big Ben and crossing the Millennium Bridge (the twisty one from Harry Potter). Everything in London seemed so recognizable, although I wasn’t exactly sure of the names of places offhand.
I had a lovely time in the evening doing a walking tour with London Walks, ending with some pints with an American. The next day, I was off to see art at the Tate Modern and Tate Britain, where I fell in love with the Turner pieces.
I also checked out Kensington Gardens and Portobello Market, and took in a show in Covenant Gardens – I highly suggest ‘Spring Awakening’, the best musical I have ever seen. It had a young hip crowd, and I loved that you could bring your drinks INTO the theatre. That never happens at home. In fact, there seemed to be alcohol everywhere – lots of pubs, and you can drink in the movie theatres. How civilized.
Ah, the city of lights!
Paris was a last minute trip, as I was bored and unemployed, and happened upon a steal of an airfare direct to Paris on a weekday with little notice, which coincided with when my sister-in-law, Bonnie, and her boyfriend were to be there. This was perfect, as I could spent the day alone seeing what I wanted, and still had people to dine and chat with in the evening, to share our day’s highlights over a bottle of wine in a cute café. Continue reading
This year our annual ski trip with American friends took place at Aspen Snowmass in January. None of us had ever been, and one of the crew had recently moved to Denver, so seemed like a good spot to go. I flew in directly on points, but the other four drove four hours from Denver. We soon realized that regular Denverites go to Breckenridge for the weekend, as Aspen is too far of a drive.
We stayed literally right across street from Snowmass, which was the largest of the four mountains in the area, others being Aspen, Aspen Highlands and the beginner mountain Buttermilk. The cabin was really expensive and not nearly as nice at cabins at the other resorts we have tried, but it was alright. We headed up Snowmass the first day (Friday) and it was pretty quiet. It’s a big mountain, a lot like Whistler, lots of terrain. The big thing we noticed was their ‘double blacks’ ski runs were more like blacks at Whistler. We were on the lookout for some more challenging terrain, which we hoped we would find on Aspen Highlands. Continue reading
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