Posts Tagged ‘pretrip’

Never, children, ever, go walkabout Africa

Monday, July 14th, 2008

The first one to discourage me from going to Africa was Korney Chukovsky. His quirky Soviet whimsy warned little children, by way of a nursery rhyme, about its mean sharks, gorillas, and crocs whose main objective was to beat and bite them. Only Barmaley, a fat, bloodthirsty bandit was worse, and he too was roaming the treacherous continent, ready to catch, fry, and eat any stray toddlers.

Fear is a simple and efficient weapon in any discipliner’s arsenal. My mother, for one, still tries to utilize it now (though, she mostly manages to scare herself), about twenty years after Chukovsky has given up. Yet, as history tends to prove, powerful weapons tend to backfire. In my case, fear mutated into curiosity, and curiosity, in its turn, gave birth to giddy excitement. Slivers of fear remain now only in a form of little lightning bolts that fire up in my brain, like warning signals, every time I venture too far into the lion’s den. The only trouble, fear is a hungry beast, and it feeds on the unknown. Every newscast, every film portraying Africa (Lord of War, Blood Diamonds, and even the good old Gods Must Be Crazy) fires in my brain in a blinding lightning storm. And I’m a kid again, afraid of Barmaley, only now he is poor and angry with his government, his children are bloated with starvation, and his wife has AIDS. An M16 is in his desperate heartless rebel hands, and he will not hesitate to shoot me in the head for my water bottle.

For lack of real information, with only ugly stereotypes to illustrate what I should expect from Africa, I will be stepping onto the Dark Continent hoping its dangers are only all too hyped by mass media just like the piranha of South America. And if life has it, and there will stand a Barmaley in my path, I’ll take a page out of Chukovsky and have a friendly crocodile incarcerate him in its stomach until he is fully rehabilitated and wishes nothing more than to visit Saint Petersburg.


(left to right) Library, Rout for the next four month, our new lens, and our mascot – Che


Drugs

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Yaxchilan & Bonampak

Friday, October 5th, 2007

To understand why we went to Bonampak, I must first tell you about Luis. He came as a package deal with the Tikal sunrise-tour, which was the only way into the site at that hour. He was a good guide, at least this is what we thought at the time, though a little pretentious repeatedly telling us what page we could find his name on in the Lonely Planet guidebook, and how indispensable he was to the producers of Survivor-Guatemala. However, he seemed to know where to find monkeys, tarantulas, and the best angles for the shot. I even felt bad for the other guide (who in his turn seemed to loathe Luis when his back was turned). “Monkeys Ricardo?” Luis would ask, purposefully in English, with his whole group in tow. “No?” he sighed loudly. “Tarantulas? No?! Eh Ricardo, Ricardo…” and Luis would turn back to us, his group, flawlessly reciting the next chapter of his speech.

As part of the narration, Luis told us about Tikal’s frescoes. Blindingly beautiful, they were no longer open for public view as people kept writing their names on the antique paint or, better yet, scratching in it phrases like “Juan + Maria = Amor”. Understandably enough, I only shook my head in resentment of the vandals, and, when the tour was over, approached Luis who has just finished his “And if you would like to tip thank the guide, I’ll be right here” speech. “May I help you with anything else?” asked Luis as he kept receiving bill after bill and nodding in thanks, his left eye counting the loot, his right fixed now on me. “I only wanted to say thanks. It was great,” and I shook his outstretched hand. “I only wish we could see those frescoes.” I was sincere, and, as I often do, simply verbalized my thought out loud, but to my surprise Luis jumped at the opportunity. “It is possible,” he said in a low voice that was not exactly a whisper. “Come. Let’s talk. Let me see… I will find out.” And he set out for the site’s gates with us four trotting behind, all giddy and excited.

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The new and revised Inventory

Friday, July 13th, 2007

This is a new and revised version of the old inventory. After almost two years of continuous travel we are a bit smarter, and more experienced. For example, no way we are buying Travel TP again…

Below the cut I will be showing the new additions, criticizing some of our old choices, and showing off my favorite travel gadgets.

( The new and revised Inventory )

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GOODBYE AMERICA Ooooh

Monday, November 14th, 2005

As was expected, it was a dreadful last weekend. Being faithful members of the Procrastinators’R’Us society, we of course left everything for the last minute. Even though we found time to spend with family and friends, most of the weekend was spent battling various Customer Service Reps.

Right after I successfully completed my Diving Certification, Shurik realized that the very same morning he left our Debit Card in a Bank’s ATM. Brilliant. And what’s worse, it was Veteran’s Day and a Friday! The Bank was closed for the weekend, and there was no way of retrieving our card. Have I mentioned that our plane was leaving at 7AM on Monday? Then, we also realized that in another stroke of brilliance, your’s truly has left her Debit Card, to the same account, in Boston. All efforts to get an emergency replacement from our bank overnighted to us proved futile. We even considered opening a Bank Account in Florida, but no bank would give us a card right away. Luckily, we do have another card from an old account with an Internet Bank, but now we are left without a backup.

Another interesting battle that we had, has to be the Verizon fiasco. We still had more then half a year to our Family Plan. Two phones, each would incur an early termination fee of $175 if we will fail to prove that we are indeed leaving the country for an extended period of time. Our key point was that Verizon does not provide service in South America, our first stop on the trip. But Verizon had its own excuses… we will spare you the details but after two faxes, a trip to a Verizon store, and many hour long phone conversations, we got what we wanted. Needless to say I personally did a big victory dance to the occasion. So now, in case anyone asks, we are Travel Writers researching our next book, self employed and with no permanent residence. Bedouins have nothing on us.

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INVENTORY

Sunday, November 13th, 2005

This is “The Inventory”. Unless you are really bored, you would not find it very interesting.
It is mainly intended for us, and for fellow travelers who might want to get some tips on what to take on their trip. After all we did a ton of research and have hiked many recreational sports stores, so at least some this should prove useful to others. Be advised however, although this list is of our final cut of all the stuff we are taking, there is a very good chance that many of these items will prove to be useless and will be discarded. Couple of months into the trip, we hope to have a more accurate list of necessities.

However! For the rest of you, I have made links in the list to some cool little items that we stumbled upon in our search for the greatest Travel gadgets. Find out what can cure penis envy or will zap you to get rid of a bug bite.
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DIVING ROCKS!

Wednesday, November 9th, 2005

Diving rocks! Good night…

I you are wondering what the previous line supposed to mean, I can tell you that it describes my Monday in a nutshell. This is exactly how I felt after the first day of my crash course for my Diving License. Shurik already has his diving certificate and, like with every other thing be it ballroom or skiing, I need to catch up and fast!
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BOSTON GOODBYE

Wednesday, November 9th, 2005

It was the perfect Boston fair-well. As was expected, we did not leave on Saturday morning, after my driving test, but ended up packing and moving out throughout the whole day. The driving test, by the way, I passed. Second time was the charm, or maybe it was me not running down a bicyclist, this time, and not driving in the opposite lane. We also got the perfect chance to try out our “heaviest” clothing as it was quite cold and, as a special treat just for us, it was snowing! Probably the coldest we would get in the next year or so.

We then spent a week in NY at my mom’s. Pretty uneventful, except for a girls-night-out that I had with my girls from FIT. The morning-after headache was a small price to pay for the good time we had.

We are now in Florida at Shurik’s parents’ place. It’s really amazing how much destruction Wilma caused. His parents have been without electricity for over a week, just got it back a few days ago. And even then, the power went out again a few days later for about 24 hours, when we were already here. Fortunately nobody from the family got hurt, but both of their cars got damaged. Tiles from the roof fell on Tamara’s car and a tree has fallen on Arnold’s windshield rendering his car virtually un-drivable. The cable and the net are out as well, so in truth, I have no idea when will I have a chance to post this.

The most “fun” that we had from this whole situation are the driving conditions. Most traffic lights have been ripped off or hit by flying debris and so very few are in condition to actually direct traffic. Instead, all intersections have big orange cones at their stop lines, representing stop signs, turning them into giant 4-way stops. Needles to say, this creates a lot of traffic jams and getting around is challenging especially at night since the roads are not lit because most lamp posts are also damaged.

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UNEMPLOYED

Thursday, October 13th, 2005

I handed in my two-weeks notice today and will soon be joining the ranks of unemployed bums. Who’s with me?!

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CUTTING IT OFF

Wednesday, October 12th, 2005

I have made a decision. I’m cutting it off!
My hair has been with me as long as I can remember, and I’m not going to lie, I love it. It’s long, it’s curly, and against many people’s suggestions to experiment with my look, it has never been bleached, straightened, or colored. It is au-naturelle, and that’s the way I like it.
Nevertheless, the trip is coming and I have to consider our living conditions for the next year. Somehow I find it hard to believe that I will have the chance to wash my hair every day with hot water, shampoo and conditioner, in the Amazon jungle. Hell, the amounts of hair-mousse that I will need alone will take half of my backpack. No thank you.

And so, it’s coming off. Now, continuing with the tradition of “One man’s trash is another man’s treasure”, I have decided to donate my hair to “Wigs For Kids”, a company that accepts hair to make wigs for children who have lost hair due to chemotherapy.

( Pictures! )

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THE VERDICT IS IN

Wednesday, October 12th, 2005

Well dear friends, the verdict is in, and it seems I’m going to live. My morning visit to Dr.Goldsmith’s office looks to be my last one for a while, and I could not be happier!

Thanks to all who has been crossing their fingers for me!

Now the plan is truly in motion so we will “induce labor”, aka- buy tickets.

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