Ka-ra-kal-pak-stan
This was a real tongue twister. Ka-ra-kal-pak-stan. Ka-ra-kal-pak-stan. Now say it faster. Ka-ra-pa-kal… Damn. After spending nearly a month in the ancient Silk Road cities, the Fergana Valley, and the Nuratau Mountains, we thought we were finally getting a grasp on Uzbekistan’s diversity and complexity. We were starting to understand […]
Night Trains
Years ago, when we were staying on an island in Cambodia in a little bungalow on the beach, Victor walked off the bed platform in the middle of the night and fell down a few feet. He wasn’t fully awake and somehow didn’t hurt himself. When his mom heard this […]
Next on the Bucket List: Oktoberfest in Munich
I was chatting with my cousin, who lives in Frankfurt, Germany, and telling her all about our 36-hour trip to Munich just to attend the opening of Oktoberfest. “Have you ever been?” I asked her. “Oh no!” she exclaimed. “We are not big drinkers at all!” “Neither are we!” I […]
People Live Here. Nuratau Mountains.
We were outside the Jizzakh train station, patiently waiting on our Yandex Go taxi driver, when another taxi pulled up. The driver, a tall lean man in his early seventies, leaned out the window, “Where are you heading?” We explained that we were waiting for another taxi and he nodded, […]
Full Bloom in Namangan
A Tajik woman in a colorful dress was elbowing and pushing me away. I was too close, and she demanded space. She was also bothered by my camera, hissing at me that it kept poking her in the back. But what could I do? We were in the crowd, and […]
An Honest Conversation in Havana
There is a conversation that happens in every country we visit. The locals earnestly ask, we honestly answer, the locals are thrilled, and by the end of it, everyone is happy. But this one time, it went off script. “How do you like Cuba?” the taxi driver asked, flashing us […]
Our Own Museum of Travel
Our condo is a museum of our never-ending globetrotting. African masks, religious statues, souvenirs, and mementos from all over the world constantly fight for shelf space with the cats. The more we travel, the more things we bring home. Our minimalist way of life directly conflicts with the constant desire […]
Unexpected Food Capital of South America
How come Peru has two restaurants in the top 10 restaurants in the world list, while the U.S. has none? This was the question we puzzled over while boarding our flight to Lima. The answer was found shortly thereafter, during our nine-day crisscrossing of the land of the Incas, alpacas, […]
Peninsulas of Ireland Part II: The Luck of the Irish
Start here with Part I: The Undiscovered Peninsulas of Ireland. Day 4. Ring of Kerry on Iveragh Peninsula. We spent a long time discussing the Ring of Kerry during the planning of the trip, and it all came down to this not-very-common itinerary question: clockwise or counterclockwise? I can’t recall […]
The Undiscovered Peninsulas of Ireland
“It looks like a claw,” Victor said. We zoomed in to the bottom left corner of the island of Ireland on Google maps, and I clearly saw a claw with five crooked digits protruding into the ocean, the five southwestern peninsulas. The peninsulas, Mizen, Sheep’s Head, Beara, Iveragh, and Dingle, […]
On the Edge of the Crater: Volcano Hiking in El Salvador
My recent post about hiking (and running) through Dunloe Gap reminded me of the most spectacular hike we did at the end of last year. El Salvador and that entire region, including Guatemala and Costa Rica, are chock full of volcanoes, and yet another volcano hike didn’t sound like anything […]