A little Harrari girl approached the five of us and to each one spoke the following: “Fish have no legs. Donkeys have four legs. Cows have four legs. And antelope have two horns. Now give me birr!” Her factual data and explicit demand caused me to think about the reasons of travel. We travel to absorb, to broaden the mind and expand our human consciousness. We move to progress, one hopes, in a forward direction, evolving with new skill sets and creative tools. We explore to simply discover the blossoms of unknown territories in mind, body and spirit. All these are [View Full Entry]

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Addis Ababa sneaks up on you under the cover of darkness and smashes into your senses at the first light of day. Molasses mixed with gasoline and diesel spews from exhaust pipes, filling the grills of the public lines packed with humanity. Everything under the African sun thuds into 250 square kilometers of valley and pumps out a life bursting with tenacity. Dirty, dusty and polluted—Africa’s 4th largest city is… surprisingly easy. Catch a minibus from the roadside to a nearest transport hub and in an hour the whole sprawl is at your fingertips for less than a dollar (at the [View Full Entry]

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Italy missed it. The Emperor Haile Selassie created a new legacy. Agriculture flourished with creative inventions of coffee and teff. And people evolved with smiles on faces of unparalleled beauty. Nestled within the Horn of Africa, this land is boisterous and unique; food specialized and faith ingrained deep with the freedom to believe. Home sweet home, Ethiopia. Twenty-four hours of transit to a different time zone upon a different continent in a world that revolves in different Time, all set in a calendar 7 ½ years behind the West. Add one extra month (which proceeds the month of August) in a [View Full Entry]

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The Faces and Emotions of Peace BAINBRIDGE ISLAND, WA - November 12, 2009 Cameron Karsten Photography is a portrait of peace. On Thursday, Nov. 12th from 6 - 8:30PM, an Artist’s Reception at The Upstairs Gallery in The Pavilion commemorates a new display of photography. Captured from around the world, the Bainbridge Island exhibition kicks-off Cameron Karsten’s upcoming adventure to East Africa and is part of the One World Multicultural Festival; an all-day event celebrating world diversity with international foods, cultural music, exotic dance, conceptual art and independent film. Along with partner Lily Brewis, the islanders’ journey will begin in Ethiopia, [View Full Entry]

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The soul of the roving Cameron Juan Karsten is within photography and writing. He yearns for expansive adventure of the deepest value in order to express the tales of humanity. [View Full Entry]

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Bears are a species I have never encountered, and to be honest, a species I’ve always wished to experience. A bear by my car. A bear in my trashcan. A bear in the sights of my telephoto or a bear scurrying away in daylight at the trailhead. But a bear near my bed or next to my tent? I don’t care for that. Ah yes, Yosemite National Park. In my first twenty-five years of being human I never witnessed The Colossus despite living a mere five hours south. It was always one of those undesired, over-populated RV hog-towns where my family [View Full Entry]

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Monday Evening Surrounding me are large pines, oaks and birches. Their leaves dance with the breeze in rhythms of a Fall melody, rustling like sequin designs presenting kaleidoscopic colors of greens, yellows, oranges and reds. Draped along branches swaying in a swooned throng, the arbors tower into a deep cast of infinite blue. “Simone,” I shout. Opening the fence, I step inside his property line and stride across a patch of freshly mowed grass. No response. I call out again. “Simone!” A disturbance swells from the bushes. I direct my attention beyond the reaches of wild brambles and sorrel scrub. “Dude,” [View Full Entry]

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[url=http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Washington/Olympic-National-Park/blog-433869.html/]<<<...Continued There is little hope in my mind. I hear waves. Not calm smooth waves, but a miasmic destruction of breakers crushing one another before steamrolling onto shore. I open my eyes and blink into a soft morning light. Inside my tent, it’s neither bright nor dark. It’s that shade of gray matter infusing all color, dissolving vibrancy like bleach to a load of reds. The rain-fly covers the vents above my body, making it impossible to observe what’s outside. I close my eyes and listen, relaxing into the Therm-A-Rest, feeling the stones press into my spine as if receiving a [View Full Entry]

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[url=http://www.travelblog.org/North-America/United-States/Washington/Olympic-National-Park/blog-432278.html]<<...Continued La Push, Washington is at the edge of the universe. It’s out there… way out there. And La Push is one of the finest surfing and camping destinations in the state. When the waves are good, it is intense. Big beautiful busty bountiful crests pitch over onto the neoprene heads of surfers. And when the waves are not on, when the sea is blown out—winds howling, rains horizontal, tree trunks slamming the rocky shores—then plenty of hiking, exploring and camping infuses the experience. Either way, it is a stunning part of the Pacific Northwest coastline. I pull up late at [View Full Entry]

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There are rules to the road and I was obviously ready and willing to learn. I jumped in the car, hours late and having just packed, and was completely discombobulated. But what mattered most was to be in the car, heading north, heading west, heading south, heading east. I was reeling for the Queets River, some 40 miles south of Forks, Washington. But like I said I was late, and my compatriot who was going to “introduce” me to the steelhead country up the Lower Queets Valley was missing. For three days and three nights we planned a serious backcountry fly-fishing [View Full Entry]

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