Note: idly flicking through some old notebooks, I found this journal from 2010 scribbled in the back of one of them. I have transcribed it here almost verbatim, with some insignificant tweaks for flow. Some of the spelling, especially the French, has been left deliberately unchecked. Square brackets are my notes written now, in 2017. [...]
Note: this was one of my early attempts to craft a single travel journal piece from an adventure. Two of my best buddies and I spent eight chaotic, harebrained days in the Middle East in the autumn of 2004. It took me more than ten years to see the opportunity to publish my writing. Jordan Waking up in [...]
I'm specifically talking about the postcard idea of "paradise" here, something like white, palm-fringed sand under empty blue skies, or a palatial suite at a five-star boutique hotel. Whatever it looks like to you, the trouble with "paradise", besides not existing in the first place, is that we get used to it. We get used to everything, it's [...]
Here's a trivial and subjective list of some of the encounters I've had with wild animals that have, for widely different reasons, stayed in a special place in my memory. They're in no meaningful order. Albatrosses, Otago Peninsula New Zealand (2010) From within a whirling, squawking cloud of seagulls, we saw a strangely captivating bird soar [...]
After the highlands of the north, we travelled south by bus to the city of Masaya. On the way we were struck by how uncultivated Nica was. Rather than crop-filled fields, we saw large areas of grass and trees. Everything was green. We passed fertile plains that were fringed by volcanoes, and sprinkled with colourful [...]
Note: Following the previous post from Los Zorros, in the northwest of Nicaragua, we travelled by bus to Estelí, in the more central northern region of highlands that border Honduras. We followed instructions for where to catch buses from Estelí to Miraflor but were doubtful and uncomfortable when we got there. It was 05:15 and [...]
https://www.flickr.com/photos/morph/15324342157/sizes/c/ We took a microbus (minivan) from León to Chinandega. We could see tree-coated volcanoes right from start, flickering like a zoetrope through the trees at the side of road. While I tried to take photos of the view, a lady beside me brushed her hand on my shoulder. I reluctantly turned [...]
Jet lag and exhaustion caught us around 22:00 so we got an early night and woke to the sounds of a metalwork shop jangling through the gap between the wall and ceiling. It was the only rough edge to an otherwise blissful place to stay. We followed the Lonely Planet walking tour of the city’s [...]
San Salvador Airport, El Salvador. Airport Time. Timeless time. Tired and impatient in the no man’s land between timezones and nations. Between the Here that we wished you were at, and the There back at the start of the journey. The sleepers on the airport floors and benches experience perhaps an even more extreme time [...]
We took a bechak from Freddie's to the island's western horn. So steep was the road through the forested island that I had to walk alongside the bechak at one point. But after endless climbing came the freewheel descent to Iboih. The settlement comprised just a little cluster of bungalows, shops and cafes, although development [...]
