We were looking forward to this trip for a long time since we came to Switzerland. Its THE swiss berg like Mt. Rainier is for Seattle. A Meetup group was going for a multi-day trip to Matterhorn and we hopped on the opportunity. It was a big group around 30+ people and our first time meeting most of them. Finally the day came and we were all ready. We took a 3.5 hour train to reach there. The group had booked an entire hostel so we were the only ones there. There is no reception or anything just the group and it has the responsibility to clean up before leaving the place. Zermatt - the town at the foot of Matterhorn is a small car-less village. After reaching Zermatt we hiked around 20-25 minutes to reach ... read more

An unplanned hike - we were planning to take a break from the hikes this week after having hiked almost each weekend for last 1.5 month. But few of Tulika's office colleagues were driving to Grindelwald and were thinking about doing some short hike. It was by chance that she met them on their way out, and well well we cant refuse a hike. So they packed up, picked me up from my apartment along with all our gear and set out. This was our first and only hike in 2011 for which we went to by a car - so different than the US hikes which all used to start and end in the car. It felt very different as till now I was used to the train/bus to the hikes. The "short hike" turned ... read more

My last time in Paris was in February, in middle of winter. Now since we are living in Zurich, first natural trip was to Paris in summer. We spent a total of 3 days in Paris and I have to say that I was not blown away like people say, I was ready to leave the crowded city and get out somewhere in open by end of day 3. June 1: I had taken the evening train from Zurich and reached the previous night. Our first stop for this day was - no surprise here, Louvre Museum. We knew that its a huge museum and takes lot of time. But even then we were not prepared for the vastness of this museum. We started casually looking at all the paintings, reading some of them, then on ... read more

Our real trip was starting today. We figured out a plan to take the bus to get to remote area of Chugchilan. We packed our bags, left some luggage at hotel, took a local tram to the bus station. At the bus station we had an amazing view of Cotopaxi (unfortunately our only clear view of the mountain even though we were on it later!). We walked around, finding the bus that will take us to our destination towards Latacunga. On the way there we saw a nice village market where people were doing their daily shopping, but there was no time to get down from the bus and get anything. Finally our small hotel in Chugchilan. It was nicer than I imagined, clean, spacious with hammocks to chill out. There was no plan for rest ... read more

The schedule had another game drive next day morning and then drive to Ngorongoro crater after. Since we had seen most animals, we decided to skip the morning game drive in Serengeti and instead head to the crater in morning. It had rained quite a bit at night and I was quite worried that we will see more overflowing streams. The drive out of campsite was smooth. There was a overflown stream, but jeep sailed through it. On the way was the biggest surprise of all. We saw a cheetah. Its a rare shy animal and we were quite lucky to spot one. It was just sitting there on a rock, looking from side to side waiting for a hunt. Since we ... read more