http://www.travelblog.org/Bloggers/jillsbrain/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from jillsbrain en-us Sun, 03 Jan 2010 05:11:55 +0000 Sun, 03 Jan 2010 05:11:55 +0000 One small story for your reading pleasure....I hopeAn expat friend had told me that often the men in his village use the phrase god is watching with one finger pointed to the heavens. Usually this is used when people are discussing some sort of injustice or when gossiping about some infringement of social mores that someone village has committed. Well it sort of stuck with me this fear that ' http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Morocco/blog-390580.html It may sound like this whole journey has been one adventure after another but things can get mundane as an untethered knockabout. Each place a new ritual like bathing from a bucket of hot water brought to my door each morning then finding something that resembles a hot beverage. Some days I discover there is no water today for bath or beverage so better to just buy that bus ticket and get the http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Morocco/Marrakech-Tensift-El-Haouz/Essaouira/blog-390577.html There is so much to convey and the 3 drafts for this entry just keep getting longer. In the interest of saving us both time letrsquos shift the format to a quick overviewMoroccoTaginesmall stew served in the little earthenware cook pots with chimneys filled with overcooked mushy vegetables and meat.Cumin used widely offered along with salt at the tabletry it on your eggs at breakfast http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Morocco/Tangier-T-touan/Chefchaouen/blog-389570.html If Latin America was a slow burn into my psyche and spirit then Morocco is sky diving crack cocaine it is first love at 16. Simultaneously drunk from the grandeur and stimulus these landscapes provide and insatiably hungry for more I wander and wonder when I will return. The soil is caked in my skin the incense and perfume dance in my lungs and the muezzin lsquocall to prayerrsquo a tou http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Morocco/blog-385521.html Lots of photos PLEASE make sure to see the ones at the endCheck out the camel ride into the Sahara....I'm back in the love feeling connected again with the positive energy that was in large part why I began wandering. Arriving in Morocco I immediately felt relieved. Signs that things would be different appeared after meeting a kind woman on the train within an hour of my landing. Sakina now l http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Morocco/Marrakech-Tensift-El-Haouz/Marrakech/blog-380185.html Although I experienced many unpleasant events in W Africa I did want to put up some photos I took that were irrelevant to the stories Irsquove told. Some of these shots are very beautiful and I am glad to have had these little moments of bliss. http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Senegal/Cape-Verde-Peninsula/Dakar/blog-379377.html In the two week lag between my arrival and the proposed start date with Gamcotrap my sentiment for the people began to change. Fed up with the hustlers of Gambia and the dire straights that the people living in lsquoSenegambiarsquo face which creates this vile stew of corruption shams deception and subterfuge. My final attempt to lsquohelprsquo backfired miserably. While in Gambia aft http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Senegal/Cape-Verde-Peninsula/Dakar/blog-378172.html In Jill v. West Africa I admit defeat. I'm feeling so emotionally fragile I may lose it at any time. Everything is in such disrepair that trying to accomplish anything in a given day is a frustrating nightmare. Without reliable infrastructure internet electricity running water telephone service I have become frazzled and undone. On top of that this particular area where I am staying Bakau http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Gambia/District-of-Banjul-/blog-372592.html Just a quick entry to bring you blog lurkers up to date. It was called to my attention by someone in the general public that I did not explain in my blog what happened between Ecuador and AfricahellipI left it out because my friends know the story and they are my primary audience.I returned to the states after 5 mos of traveling because I was suffering from homesickness and wanted the comfort a http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Senegal/Cape-Verde-Peninsula/Dakar/blog-371638.html My life is stranger than fiction.The setting Senegal on the road from Dakar to St. Louis on a good day about 4 hours by car. Today is not one of those.The cast of characters Me Maum and her mother Hade. Backseatman and four other people in the car.Foreshadowing the problem is one of language.Preface Irsquove been staying with a family of 10. ldquoFamilyrdquo is a loose term here b http://www.travelblog.org/Africa/Senegal/Cape-Verde-Peninsula/Dakar/blog-367988.html Who knew I would develop somewhat of a fancy for the indigenous people here in Otavalo. Never in my life did I think I would find so much beauty on the faces of so many people in one small place. Their aesthetic evokes a visceral response in me and I find myself gawking longer than is socially acceptable. The Quichua have a resolute stoicism mirrored on their faces and wielded in their bodies th http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Ecuador/North/Otavalo/blog-348535.html Wading the depths of the Amazon basin where piranha tarantulas scorpions anaconda and caymans are no longer merely words and glossy photographs on a page but are instead the fabric from which the jungle is woven. Half the fun of the adventure is in the journey there and back. I left Quito via public transportation around midnight after missing the earlier bus and arrived in Lago Agrio 8 ho http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Ecuador/East/Cuyabeno-Reserve/blog-349233.html Ecuador is amazing and there is much to tell. I canrsquot very well talk about Quito without first introducing the cast of characters. Jesper and Helle are a couple from Denmark and they are traveling 5 weeks with their 10 year old daughter Josefina. Karsten traveling solo is from Cologne and on the road for about the same amount of time. They are part of the crew that I met in this funky hos http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Ecuador/North/Quito/blog-349163.html Cartagena is definitely the most romantic and sophisticated city Irsquove encountered since August 1. Antigua Villa de Leyva Salento all offer a peek back into the colonial history and do so with great charms but none so far have stirred me the way Cartagena has. In fact the first two drafts of this posting were overly sentimental and floweryhellipmy amateurish attempt at an ode. And that http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Cartagena/blog-347807.html Okay...before I create the Cartagena entry I thought I would throw up a few interesting photos I've collected that are just quirky random shots. They make me laugh out loud. May you share my sense of humor....and in no particular order like my life and everything else in it http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Cartagena/blog-346983.html The first shots you see here are of a small city that we drove through on the way to Salento. I cannot remember the name of it but we were there on Saturday market day and I caught a glimpse into the local color. One thing I continually find fascinating is this belief in brujos witches and the sorts of potions that are for sale in small tiendas and in the mercados as well. I've added my own http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Salento/blog-338604.html I have so many photos from the Villa de Leyva region I decided to create two separate entries. We visited an Ostrich Farm and this small fossil musem ingeniously named El Fossil and Estacion Astronomica Muisca. First the Ostrich farm.....Nothing terribly noteworthy to write about but an interesting couple of hours. No we didn't dine on the creatures apparently they only serve ostrich dinner http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Villa-de-Leyva/blog-338016.html If Villa de Leyva doesn't enchant and enrapture you then quite possibly you've been at your desk too long. This little pueblo is irresistible. We helped ourselves to mouthwatering comedia infatuating cobbled calles and stumbled across deliciously bizarre sights. Staying only 4 nights left me wanting more rumor has it that the drummer who played with Elivis Presley lives in the area and owns a ba http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Villa-de-Leyva/blog-336621.html Welcome to the land of Claro entonces listo chiste and don't forget tranquilo. I could be the poster girl for the board of tourism in Colombia and by the look of things so far I'd say they need my help. I have no idea where the other tourists are. I'm staying in a quiet hostel in the more 'touristy' part of the historic city but this city must be off the gringo trail. Usually it is easy to f http://www.travelblog.org/South-America/Colombia/Bogota/blog-336187.html Much to catch up on I'm back dating some of these entries...I think we left off somewhere around Nicaragua or Costa Rica. I moved fairly quickly through this part of the world having visited Costa Rica in the past and being eager to move things along some toward S America. On the bus from Costa Rica into Panama I sat next to a guy from Bogota and over the next 18 hours we struck up a cryptic co http://www.travelblog.org/Central-America-Caribbean/Panama/Panama/Panama-City/blog-336155.html