Day One

Arequipa to Chivay

November 25, 2003 

Dear Family and Friends,

Say “Hello” to Enrique, my tour guide, and Felix, my driver.

My small tour group is bound for Chivay and the Colca Canyon, by minivan.

The group consists of a young married couple from Spain, a younger, soon-to-be married couple from Peru, a young man from Japan and a young man from Germany. Yes, as per usual, I am the senior member of the group. “Señor Juan,” if you please.

Just outside the city we stop for some last minute provisions: bottled water, snacks and the WC. We are off to the high plains desert, volcanoes and the famously deep Colca Canyon.

(By the way, it’s a good thing we stopped for some extra water supplies. After about a half hour on the road, we passed another tourist van on the side of the road. The radiator was steaming. So, we poured in our extra drinking water and everyone was happy. No service stations out here, my friends. Just endless, stark, spectacular desert scenery.)

Hong Kong 香港
Special Administrative Region
April 13, 2009

Dear Family and Friends,

Their answers were always the same.

Whenever I asked other tourists what they liked best about Hong Kong, they responded heartily:

"Hong Kong is safe and clean. Transportation is excellent. Service is efficient. Shopping is supreme. The streets are buzzing. The food is good. The sights are impressive."

As one Aussie couple explained, "Hong Kong is lovely."

Vientiane, Laos

January 12-16, 2009
Dear Family and Friends,
Sabai Dee,

Here's a good one:

"The reason I didn't recognize you, Jan, is because when we met six years ago, you were fat. Now you are slim and younger looking."

So said my friend Kia, a lovely Laotian woman, who with her husband Wisai, runs a small restaurant in Vientiane.

So what am I doing in Vientiane?

{C}

January 28, 2005

The day-long boat ride down the Ayeyarwady River from Mandalay to Bagan...smooth, picturesque, uneventful.

Except for one stop along the way at Pakokku. Local women selling large, bright, hand woven cotton cloth. As the boat began to back away from the dock, the women became more agitated and started tossing their beautiful weavings to the passengers at the railing of the boat.

Medellín
Antioquia Department
Republic of Colombia
November 18, 2008,

Dear Family and Friends,

Now here's a unique travel adventure:

My Avianca flight from Cartegena to Medellín left on time at 08:00. Ten minutes into the flight the pilot made an announcement. Since my Spanish is improving day by day, little by little, poco a poco, I understood the pilot to say that the airplane had a technical problem and we had to return to Cartegena. We made a sweeping 180 degree turn and in a few minutes we were on the ground.

The gate agent estimated that our waiting time would be about an hour, mas or menos (more or less). "Mas or menos" I figured out is the Spanish equivalent of the Arabic "Inshallah."

Amber

Rajasthan,

India

February 23, 2007

Dear Family and Friends,

It just keeps getting better!

"The magnificent delicate-pink, fort palace of Amber (pronounced Amer), a beautiful, ethereal example of Rajput architecture, rises from a rocky mountainside about 11km north of Jaipur." ^[*]

As Adit and I drive into Amber, the walls and the towers, more golden than pink, sit high and imposing on the mountains to my left.