I passed my dirty underwear and socks through the little trapdoor in the iron gate, depositing them in the waiting hands of the tiny, wizened laundress. She smiled and said: mañana... Thus is business done in Guayaquil. It is hard to believe that Quito and Guayaquil are in the same country. Although only a 35 minute flight apart (or a torturous 8 or 9 hour bus ride down the slope of the Andes), the cities are different worlds. Guayaquil pulses with frenetic energy, the streets alive with screeching, careening traffic. Quito is a bit more stately. Guayaquil is tropical, the air [View Full Entry]

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It was 5am. I had already been hiking for an hour through the heavy darkness of the forest, my glasses fogged with the thick humidity, my boots almost lost to sucking mud on several occasions - and then my headlamp decided to die. We still had an hour ahead, up and down steep, muddy ravines, over fallen trees. I would only have the weak light of my guide Edison's flashlight to navigate. I would have to try and not think of ten inch millipedes or earthworms wide as a child's wrist. Was that a leech that dropped onto my collar? I [View Full Entry]

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Although I had read about this in advance, somehow the use of the US dollar as the currency in Ecuador has been vaguely disconcerting. Have I truly left the US? Am I in some strange transition zone between the north and south? Not really here nor there? Thus begins my South American journey. I arrived in Quito late at night on Wednesday, amidst a crush of international flights that disgorged at one time - a crowd that the three immigration officials could barely handle. My travel weariness, coupled with the thin air, made my bones ache, my legs shake. I crashed, [View Full Entry]

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Despite a rainy start to the day, the sun soon emerged, its remarkably intense light warming the cool morning. So I had yet another clear day to explore, continuing my tour of churches and museums, piecing together the layered history of the city and attempting to understand the intense religosity that infuses all aspects of life here. Stumbled on a rally for the worship of the sun god (Inti) and received a more than thorough tour of Mañuela Sáenz's home (the lover of Simón Bolívar, the Liberator's Liberator). Just a few photos to show - am off to the cloud forests... [View Full Entry]

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If you are thinking of traveling to southern Greenland, I suggest brushing up on your Spanish. Who knew that Greenland would be such a popular adventure destination for Spaniards? At almost every point on my Greenlandic journey, I ran into adventure tour groups from Spain. Perhaps drawn by the cooler summer climes of the far north? But beyond the Spanish invasion, Greenland proved an almost indescribable adventure and a fitting conclusion to my Viking themed voyage. Of a historical bent, I was able to stand amidst the ruins of the first Greenlandic Norse farmstead, Brattahlid, founded b [View Full Entry]

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As some of you probably figured out, Travelblog was down for almost the entire time I was in Iceland. All my entries were lost, though some have since been recovered. Now I am in Greeland, with only rare access to the internet and no ability to upload photos. So I am pasting a few blurbs for entries I had intended to post about Iceland. I will write about Greenland after I return stateside (for now know that it surreally beautiful and beautifully surreal). I will likely put together some photo slide shows of the trip. If you are interested in or [View Full Entry]

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Standing in the midst of some 8000-1000 inebriated Faroese at midnight last night, all of us belting out Faroese songs (me included), I realized I would have a very hard time explaining Olavsøka -- or St. Olaf's Day -- to anyone who had not witnessed it first hand. It is perhaps the most important festival in the Faroes, though only celebrated in Torshavn, the capital. What limited hotel and hostel space is available fills up months in advance, both with tourists and with Faroese traveling from other islands. Although St. Olaf's Day is technically just that, one day (July 29), [View Full Entry]

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Sitting on a grassy hill above the village of Gøta, watching the festivities of the surprising international G! music festival unfolding on the beach below -- and listening to the haunting voice of my now favorite Faroese singer, Eivør -- I couldn't help thinking: this is what the Faroe Islands are all about. Here was an international music festival, drawing performers from Europe and North America, in a little village that was also one of the major sites of the Færeyinga Saga, the farm of the powerful Faroese chieftain, Trondur i Gøtu (and the hometown of Eivør). And the bay [View Full Entry]

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It's really the only word I can think of to begin to describe the sensation of taking the train from Oslo to Myrdal and from Myrdal to Flåm. You slowly ascend through the gentle rolling farmland of southern Norway, thinking "oh, this is pretty". But then you climb into hills and forested craggy mountains dotted with pristine lakes and you say "this is spectacular". And still there's more. You burst into the clouds onto a high plateau of eerie rock and snow landscapes, obscured by rain and mist. Now you say "I have no words to describe this". And STILL [View Full Entry]

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Although I had been to Oslo once before, more than a decade ago, Meghan and I managed to see and experience so much that I felt I was visiting an utterly new city. On day one, between thundering downpours, we explored central Oslo on and around Karl Johans Gate, the main drag (the axis between the central train station and the palace). A particular highlight was seeing Edvard Munch's "The Scream" in person. But it was the second day, Meghan's first full one in Norway, that was the grand tour. With an absolutely beautiful sunny day awaiting us (a whole [View Full Entry]

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