Blogs from North America - page 7758

They call the stretch of land down the east coast of the Yucatan peninsula the Mayan Riviera. It is a great spot on the carribean sea with white sand beaches, the most amazingly blue sea bordered by jungle. Ben was dreading the thought of ´beach days´ but I really wanted to stop here and enjoy the coast. Our first stop was Tulum, and we picked up an overpriced cabaña on the beach. Cabaña sounds reasonably romantic, but it was little more than a concrete floor (some were just sand), some sticks for walls and a thatch roof. We walked in to find a crab had already claimed the room and it snapped at our toes before scuttling under the bed. The setting was superb. We were right on the beach and we could see tracks in ... read more

Thursday 23rd August An early wake up enabled us to call our mothers before arriving at the main bus station an hour before our 10am departure. Another relaxing day sitting in a slow bus that stopped at almost every small village collecting passengers. We thought it was supposed to be an express but we think since there were so few passengers they combined the local bus and the express. We arrived in Acapulco about 6pm. The taxi driver insisted on taking us to his recommended hotel, so Judy stayed in the taxi while Rags checked it out. Needless to say we continued on until we arrived at the place we had selected the Etel Suites which turned out to be cleaner, bigger, cheaper and were high atop the hill overlooking old Acapulco. Once we depositied our ... read more

Thursday, August 23rd, 2007, 5:30am. Darrin awoke at dawn, and decided to set his canoe at the riverside before breakfast. As he was maneuvering the boat across a small ravine, a skunk popped out of the vegetation. Figuring that he smelled foul enough already, Darrin left the boat where it was, and quickly proceeded with breakfast. Seemingly noting Darrin’s submission, the black-and-white stripped-mammal wandered away without incident. Phew. Thus began a long and tiresome day of lining up, and portaging around, multiple ledges, rapids, and dams. Darrin portaged around East High Gate Dam, lined up a ledge just before Sheldon Springs Dam, and spent six miles pulling and paddling up swifts before reaching Enosburg Falls. (Lining is when a paddler stands on shore and uses a rope to carefully guide a boat through an up- or ... read more

We drove through the Smoky Mountains and listened to some bluegrass music while taking in the sights…it’s all about the music!! On the way to Nashville we stopped in Lynchburg, TN to take a tour of the Jack Daniels factory. It was an hour long tour and 104 degrees out…very enjoyable ;) LOL We went to the charcoal kiln, the original office, the distillery room and the mellowing room and wandered through the grounds. We had fresh lemonade after the tour and Jared got a limited edition bottle of Jack Daniel’s. We walked around the town (which consisted of a ¼ mile radius of stores all selling Jack Daniel’s memorabilia) and got ice cream cones to snack on. From Lynchburg we headed over to Nashville. We checked in to the hotel at about 7 (it was ... read more

From the moment I stepped off the plane in Bangkok to the last call for passengers to board back to JFK, I never heard a single Thai, Laotian, or Cambodian complain much about anything. It’s not in their Buddhist nature to raise a ruckus. Of all people, Cambodians have the right to a long list of grievances and I would not deny them the opportunity to express them every hour of the day if they so chose. No country’s people have been screwed over more than the Cambodians and deserved it less. At no point have I seriously questioned my safety in Southeast Asia. Except for relentless touts, no one has followed me, threatened me, or attempted to hurt me in any way. In my country, I cannot walk around safely in my own state’s capital ... read more