Author Archives: cdub

Cape Town 2015

Sadly, we had to leave Cape Town. We spent a little under two weeks exploring Cape Town and the Western Cape and were floored with our experiences. We were surprised to find Cape Town is the number one visited place in Africa, not the pyramids in Egypt. Since it is currently winter in South Africa, we didn’t have too many crowds to deal with and found everything relaxed and laid back. Not many Americans make it to South Africa which is really too bad. The country has a fully developed infrastructure, some great national parks, delicious food, friendly people, very interesting history, and very good values.

We love visiting national parks in the US but we have found most countries’ national parks are nothing like the US’s – they would be very commercialized, no rangers, no real management, lots of people would live in the park, and so on. South Africa is definitely the exception, their national parks are very similar to the US’s. The parks are well structured, well signed, easy to visit, and very good values. There are parks all over the country and we visited three just in the Cape Town area alone. They are truly gems and they alone make South Africa worth visiting for nature lovers.

Jacquelyn and I are not wine drinkers and really do not know much about wine other than we like the white colored kind and the red colored kind is a bit more abrasive and unenjoyable. Since the Cape Town area is a famous wine region we decided to tour around a bit and check out the different manors and try some wine; it was fantastically delicious! There’s a really neat feature with some of the wineries: they offer picnics! All a person has to do is make a reservation the day before, show up at the appointed time, and enjoy picnic food and good wine around some very beautiful scenery. We had a lot of fun so I can only imagine how awesome it would be for wine aficionados. Unsurprisingly, there are many wine choices in the super market and most are pretty inexpensive, like $1.5-$3, so it was fun to handful of different kinds.

The food was very good. The Dutch and British ruled Cape Town and brought different groups, like Malaysians and Indians, to South Africa for labor which resulted in the melding of food to create some very distinct flavors we’ve never had before! The Malay food style is called Cape Malay; it takes the Malaysian cooking style and blends in Indian spices for European style dishes. There’s a dish called bobotie which can only be described as a meatloaf like dish with very mild curry flavors served with rice. It’s amazing.

Apartheid ended about 25 years ago yet it’s clear Apartheid made a lasting mark on South Africa. We had a handful of conversations with white and black people who lived through Apartheid and I still can’t think of a good way to summarize what we learned as it’s a blend of happy, sad, tragic, heroic, and villainous stories. Things have improved for a lot of people since the end of apartheid but there are still many problems. For people who like history and learning about different cultures, South Africa and Cape Town is a great place to visit to learn about an awful period of time from the very people who lived it.

There weren’t really any downsides visiting South Africa. Infrastructure was great, things were really easy/straightforward to do, and we didn’t encounter many surprises. The only slight inconveniences were the precautions we took for our safety. We received a lot of tips on how to keep ourselves and our personal belongings safe. In general, it seemed like everyone had different strategies for coping with the crime like hiding money in multiple pockets or carrying a large rock in case muggers come out on a hiking trail. Fortunately, we didn’t encounter any muggers and we were never in a situation where we were concerned for our safety. We found Cape Town and the surround area to be very safe. Even with the security / safety situation, I would still recommend anyone visit as common sense goes a long way.

Overall, we thoroughly enjoyed our time in South Africa and Cape Town. It was very memorable stay and we can’t wait to return!

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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Victoria Falls 2015

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Victoria Falls was stunning. We spent multiple days visiting the falls and enjoying its splendor. The view changed throughout the day as the sun moved across the sky: some areas became more clear, rainbows would appear only to disappear later. It was really easy to spend all day at the parks watching the waterfalls. No amount of videos or photos could have prepared us for how awesome the falls were. That said, there were some pretty large negatives in our visit which would preclude us from recommending anyone to visit unless for some specific circumstances

Victoria Falls straddles the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia and each side has national parks / viewpoints to see the falls. We visited both sides over the course of five days and were extremely surprised with what we found. Both Zambia and Zimbabwe are poor but Zimbabwe is REALLY poor. It is the most poor nation we have visited and there are only 22 other nations more poor than Zimbabwe in terms of average incomes and purchasing power. Zimbabwe had hyperinflation for a number of years and now uses the USD as their official currency. We ended up buying some of their old hyperinflated currency as souvenirs so now I can say Jacquelyn and I are officially billionaires many times over :).

While both nations are very poor, everything is a very bad value. This part of our trip has earned the distinction of being the absolute worst value we have ever encountered. The costs of things made absolutely no sense – we were paying greater than Western Europe / US prices for commodity items. Prior to our travel to the area, we had learned things were a bit expensive but we were not prepared for being treated like walking / talking ATMs. At times, setting our money on fire would have been more enjoyable than the services or items we received at the price we paid. Just an example: we take a lot of photos during our travels in the last year and we regularly back the photos up to the cloud for safe keeping. One restaurant we visited wanted $1 per 8MB of data; at that rate we would have spent nearly $150,000 backing up all our of our photos to the cloud. If I asked a local to shove a stick in my eye I’m convinced it would cost no less than $45 which is shocking as a stick in the eye should be free. Visiting Victoria Falls simply a bad deal.

We felt really happy at the falls and really enjoyed our time in the parks. Everything outside of the parks suffered from serious disorganization and basic activities, like checking in at the airport, became pretty large ordeals. This is similar to other poor nations we have visited but it was some of the worst we have experienced.

So, at the end of the day, we are glad we saw the falls but we won’t go back.

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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South African Safari 2015

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Who would have guessed driving at slow speeds while staring out the windows looking for African game animals for hours on end would be enjoyable? Certainly not Jacquelyn or I. Turns out, safari driving is a lot of fun! We spent about a week and a half in two different South African national parks watching the big game animals like lions, elephants, water buffalo and so on. It was a really cool experience and we really enjoyed our time; South Africa is an incredible place to boot with super friendly people, amazing scenery, great food, some very strange practices, and a great value overall. We have left South Africa for the time being, but we will be returning in a handful of days to explore the Cape Colony area – we really look forward to our return!

When we first set out on our trip, we didn’t really think we’d be going on safari. Neither Jacquelyn nor I are really animal people and we’ve never spent the time to look at animals we encounter in nature. We knew we’d be going to Africa so we started planning the places we wanted to visit. I read about “self driving safaris” where we wouldn’t have to go with a tour agency and we could go on our own pace. We have come to deeply detest guided group travel so this was a huge plus. We then learned we could stay within the national parks at different camps that had all the amenities we enjoy like running water, beds, cooking facilities, and surrounded in natural beauty. After researching where to visit, we settled on two national parks figuring at the very least we would be able to enjoy nature.

We sought out a lot of advice for South Africa since we had heard stories about danger and how people need to be very careful. All the recommendations boiled down to two items: don’t drive at night and treat stop signs like a yield sign to prevent theft/carjacking. Pretty easy advice to follow but we later learned the recommendation to drive during daylight was partially due to all the potholes in the roads. Apparently, there’s a pretty big problem with people popping tires or rolling vehicles when avoiding potholes so it’s recommended tourists simply drive during the day to be safe. That said, the roads were in good shape, we’ve driven in much worse conditions and didn’t feel as though the potholes inconvenienced us in the slightest.

We saw a lot of animals and it was really fun. Some animals, like giraffes, have really odd behaviors that make this rather majestic animal look completely ridiculous. There’s the big five game animals, rhino, elephant, leopard, lion, and water buffalo, that everyone strives to see when safari driving. It was easy enough to spot rhinos, water buffalo, and elephants since they are kind of hard to miss, but it was very difficult to spot lions and leopards. We almost went the entire trip without spotting a leopard because they are uncommon so it became our mission to spot a silly leopard only because that was the last of our big five sightings. We asked rangers, we looked at the sighting boards, and we asked other tourists just so we could see a leopard in the wild. Luckily, we saw one on our last day as we were headed out of the park. For people who don’t really care about animals in nature, we really put a lot of effort into seeing animals during our safari drives :).

So South Africa has some peculiarities, but I’ll just mention two. First: whenever we parked a vehicle in a public place there was always some random people who would “watch our car” to make sure no one messed with it while we were running errands, eating, or whatever. These people did not work for the places we were visiting, they were car watching entrepreneurs. We’ve been a lot of places where people demanded tips or wanted money for doing nothing so at first I just thanked the watchers and then left. After asking some locals whether this was legitimate I was told “Well, yeah, they watched your car for you”. It turns out these guys really did their job and didn’t just collect tips. We saw three car watchers forcefully remove a guy from the parking lot. Until I visited South Africa, I never thought car watching could be a dangerous or violent occupation. Second: people really take animal watching super serious. It was common to see $12,000 camera lenses, super expensive binoculars, and I even saw a vehicle mount system for someone’s zoom lens. We drove all over the national parks and from time to time would find some serious safariers hiding away from the crowds. We would chat with them and often times found they looked down on the casual safarier. There’s a stark difference between the regular folks and these super safariers – Jacquelyn and I would have the radio blaring while going as fast as we legally could looking for whatever animals were out in the open and these serious folks would be driving extremely slow, be very quiet, and they would be inspecting every nook and cranny. We quickly learned to spot those folks and then ask them what they saw – we saw a lot of cool wildlife that way!

We loved our time in South Africa and we’re really excited to return!

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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PS: there are a lot of birds in the album below.

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Israel 2015

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After traveling around Israel for a while, I think it might be impossible to describe the place. It’s quirky place with incredible sights, super friendly people, a surprisingly large amount of things to do, and excruciatingly hot weather. Most/all of us know many people travel to Israel for religious reasons so it wasn’t surprising when we saw people carrying large crosses in the Old City of Jerusalem, watching groups of “Israel by Birthright” scurry from one religious sight to another, or made way for the flocks of American high schoolers in Jewish Camp learning about Judaism on top of Mt. Masada after a sunrise hike. We expected it. There were three things we did not expect and they have little to do with religion: natural sights, the intense security, and the people we met. I’m not going to spend much time with the religious side of Israel, information is readily found online and pretty much matches our experiences at the sights we visited. Instead, I’m going to write about the three things we found surprising because we didn’t have a clue and the information online doesn’t really doesn’t do it justice. I like to think of this as the side of Israel that is either ignored or not actively shared.

There’s a massive amount of things to visit in Israel. Israel has the honor, or maybe curse, of being very important to a handful of Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, & Islam) and has been very important for many empires (Egyptian, Persian, Greek, Roman, Ottoman, etc.) going back 6,000+yrs. There are so many different ruins, relics, and important historical spots that pretty much 2/3rds of the world’s population could find something in Israel to tie back to their own heritage; it’s mindboggling so many important places are in such a small area. It probably has a lot to do with the different groups of people trying to kill each other in the area for millennia.

We were surprised by Israel’s natural beauty. We were expecting to see dry/arid/desert countryside and were pleasantly surprised to find forests, fields, and intensive agriculture in many places. We enjoyed some of the local produce like grapes and peaches while being shocked that these items actually grew in Israel. The Dead Sea area was strangely pretty and floating in the Dead Sea was like swimming in a hug. There are many outdoor activities to do in Israel: there are a lot of big hills/small mountains, hiking trails, caves, a few waterfalls, gardens, and lookouts in Israel’s 500, yes 500, parks. It seems people are traveling to Israel to see the religious sights and skip the natural wonders because either there were few people around or we had the places to ourselves. Israel is beautiful and has a lot to offer for people who want to drive around in the countryside and skip big cities altogether, we really enjoyed the natural beauty of Israel!

We were very surprised by security in Israel and the general security environment we encountered. Yes, we knew Israel took security seriously but this was next level. Our first indication things were different came when we tried to get on our flight in Athens. Before we could even get to the check-in counter we were questioned at length by Israeli security staff about our visit to Israel. They asked questions in different ways to see if they’d get similar answers and the most surprising question “yes, you answered you’re going to Israel for tourism, but why?” How do we even answer that!? It’s like they were role-playing a five year old who kept asking “but why?”. All of our personal belongings were removed from our bags and thoroughly inspected. It took an hour before we even made it to the regular security everyone has to go through!

The relics of modern wars gone by are easily found in Israel. While stopping to look over the Sea of Galilee, I noticed signs indicating a nearby minefield. On our way towards the Golan Heights, we passed military installations and drove along even more minefields sectioned off by barbed wire. All of this pales in comparison to our night in Majdal Shams on the Syrian border where we could Syria from our bedroom window. Our awesome Airbnb host, Bahjat, mentioned he sometimes can hear sounds of fighting in Syria. That night, as Jacquelyn and I were trying to go to sleep we could hear pop-pop-pop-pop, boom… boom… boom… of gunfire and explosions. In the morning we said to Bahjat, “we heard some noises…” to which he quickly replied, “SEE!? I said you could hear!”. It was very odd to fall asleep to the sounds of war and Bahjat seemed eerily calm with a war raging nearby. Even touring around Jerusalem it was clear the area was prepared for the worst: the emergency siren sounded when we on a tour and we were herded out of the open towards the walls / cover. We found out a while later it was a test but it was still a surreal experience. We visited an observation deck to look over the Old City of Jerusalem and the man who sold us our tickets had a machine gun. I asked him if the reason why he needed a gun was because tourists get out of line and he just chuckled followed by a serious: “It’s for terrorists. Sounds like tourists but different.”. At least they have a sense of humor about their current environment?

Even though the people of Israel appear to be prepared for war at a moments notice they are still very friendly and welcoming. We seemed meet curious individuals and get dinner invites wherever we went. The best experience was when we were in Majdal Shams and learned all about the Druze and living in the Golan Heights. As Bahjat was showing us around we came across his friend at a family BBQ in a park and we were invited to join. It was a remarkable experience simply because we had no idea who Druze were before we arrived and we had no idea Majdal Shams was so interesting. We thought Majdal Shams was simply a place to sleep during our journey through the north of Israel only to get quite the education and meet lots of friendly people. The rest of our Airbnb hosts would bring us local food to try and always made sure we were happy; it was awesome!

Speaking of local food, there are no Starbucks, no Dunkin Donuts, and McDonalds has outrageously expensive hamburgers because the burgers have to be char grilled and kosher in order to be competitive. Both Starbucks and Dunkin Donuts tried selling in Israel but gave up when they found out that Israeli’s don’t much care for the taste of Starbucks coffee and generally only eat a special type of donut around Hanukah. We heard from multiple people how food they eat overseas, like apples, gyros, etc., are all garbage compared to what they can eat in Israel. Who knew Israeli’s were so particular about food and drinks!? Seriously, the food is awesome.

Really the only downsides were the costs and the heat. Things are expensive in Israel and it felt like the sun was constantly trying to make-out with us. That said, we really enjoyed Israel, there’s a lot to love. We’d definitely come back!

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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Athens Final 2015

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Our time in Greece was really relaxing. We had grand plans to visit a lot of the countryside and go out to some of the islands but instead we ended up hanging out in Athens, enjoying the food, going to the ancient sights, and watching the protests.

Going to the 4th of July event was probably the best experience we had. We’ve been gone for 11 months and it was fun to watch fireworks, eat hot dogs, and hang out with Americans. Generally it is not enjoyable to come across a lot of Americans in a group while traveling but the 4th of July event was very good and we were happy to go!

We were really surprised by the food. It was pretty much nothing like Greek food in the US. Even the things we thought would be the same, like gyros, had French fries inside the wrap! We really enjoyed the flavors and all the offerings. There was a little restaurant next to where we were staying and I would go there to get a gyro pretty much every day. Soon enough they recognized me and then I noticed my gyros were getting bigger and bigger! Another real treat was finding baklava. Normally baklava is pretty expensive in the US, like $4 for a very small slice. I found a bakery near us that sold pie sized baklava for about $11, that’s a steal, so I bought two!

The ancient sights were really neat. We weren’t staying too far from them so we’d visit in the afternoon when the sun started to go down and the crowds cleared out. It’s rather amazing what people thousands of years ago could build!

We watched a lot of protests while we were in Greece. I happened to walk through the main square where people protest and was there when the voting results were announced. Like all the other protests, everyone was really laid back, it was calm, and it felt more like the State Fair in Minnesota. It now appears as though things will get much worse for the Greeks before they get better. That said, as tourists we were nearly unaffected; had we not been scrambling to get euros like everyone else when the banks first closed we would not have even realized Greece had issues.

We had a really good time in Greece. We arrived on a Saturday and the banks were closed that Monday; left on a Thursday and the banks re-opened the next Monday. Seems like we brought the bad luck for the Greeks :).

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Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

Athens 4th of July! – 2015

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We had a really fun 4th of July in Athens! Who would have guessed we would have found a party to go to!? It was a lot of fun to eat some true American food (hotdogs & hamburgers FTW!) with Americans.

We are pretty isolated from the current economic issues so things have been fine for us; we are really enjoying our time in Greece. The Greeks aren’t so lucky.

And, of course, no photo collection of Athens is complete without protest photos. I think the real winners of the protests are the flag and sign makers.

Happy 4th!

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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Athens, Greece – “Yes” Protest 2015

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Yesterday was the “yes” (people who want to accept austerity and stay in the EU) protest so we went to check it out. The protest was totally different than the “no” (stop austerity and see what happens) protest – the “yes” protest was massive, there were so many people in the square it was nearly impossible to move. It took us a good 20min to walk a quarter of a block. It was incredibly hot in the crowd even though the temperature was in the low 60s (15.5C). Police shut down the arterial streets because so many people were flooding in they spilled over the sidewalks.

Just like yesterday, the crowd was very chipper considering the severity and seriousness of their situation.

Yesterday, the bailout ended and Greece did not pay its creditors. The politicians are trying to wrangle a deal before the July 5 referendum on whether the citizens want more austerity or not.
There is word the government and the banking system only has enough cash on hand for a handful of days of operation.

I think we are in for an interesting week. The supermarkets and ATMs around us have plenty of supply so we’ll see what happens.

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Athens, Greece – “No” Protest 2015

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When in Greece do as the Greeks do, part 2: protest!

We are fine and things seem to be quite calm here in Athens. Given the severity and seriousness of the situation the Athenians are surprisingly chipper.

Saturday and Sunday were very hairy. We didn’t know if we would be able to get money and ultimately if we’d have to leave Greece. ATMs were closed or out of money, people were roaming the streets looking for working ATMs, shops/restaurants stopped accepting credit card – everyone is looking to get cash. Sunday around midnight all the ATMs across the nation stopped working due to capital controls. Fortunately for us, tourists are exempt! The ATMs started turning back on in the mid-day Monday and I was able to withdraw cash. There were reports supermarkets and fuel stations were being emptied but we haven’t found that to be the case.

We had heard the “no” group (no more austerity, leave the EU) was protesting outside of parliament so we decided to go down and check it out. It was very peaceful and all sorts of different age groups and folks from different walks of life were present. There were a lot of news crews and journalists roaming the streets. The “yes” protest (stay in the EU, accept austerity) is tonight and I think we will go to that protest too. Why not, right?

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Athens, Greece – Bank Run 2015

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When in Greece do as the Greeks do, right?

So, in this case… Join the bank run. Government shut down the banks and people are trying to get cash from ATMs – including me.

We arrived to Greece yesterday knowing there was still financial issues the country was working through with its creditors but we had no idea a bank run would happen. The day we arrived (6/27) we were able to pull a small amount of money out of an ATM at the airport figuring we’d get more money at the many ATMs spread all over the city of Athens. Early on 6/28 we were following the news and we realized we had a pretty big problem on our hands: the Greek government looked like it was going to fail to meet it’s financial obligations and we had heard people were withdrawing money at ATMs. Saturday morning I went out and tried to get as much money as possible. There’s word of bank holidays / closures and no one is sure what’s going to happen or whether we’re able to get money.

I emailed multiple people we knew in Athens asking what to do and how this will all get sorted. No one knew and stated they were in the same situation as Jac and I. The most memorable comment by far was, “good luck to us all!”. Not very reassuring.

I think we will have a very interesting time in Greece. Of all the different situations we planned encountering while traveling, a nations’ solvency was nowhere on the list. We certainly didn’t expect this.

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Southern Bulgaria 2015

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We were so lucky during the second half our trip through Bulgaria. We didn’t really know what we were getting ourselves into and didn’t know what to expect. We were in the mountains in southern Bulgaria and were able to visit some really cool caves, meet some awesome people, stay in some neat places, and go on some great hikes in gorgeous scenery.

We had no idea Bulgaria was so beautiful. We were here at the right time to see all the mountain flowers in bloom and we had good weather throughout. Tourism isn’t quite in swing yet so we had a chance to talk to our hosts and learn about their lives in Bulgaria. Much like everywhere else they were concerned about the same big three.

Bulgaria is made for outdoors activities. They have different mountain types throughout the country, from rolling mountains like the Appalachians to rugged mountains like the Pacific NW. The tallest mountain is around 9,000ft so pretty much everywhere is traversable by foot and the trailheads are easily accessed by car. Great views can be had pretty quickly, we would only hike for 30min to 1hr before trails would open up and give great views making the reward:effort ratio off the chart. Even the most popular trails are not crowded because of the time of year so we had a lot of time by hiking by ourselves enjoying nature in peace.

There are chalets, huts, and lodges people can stay at while hiking through the mountains. They range from basic (walls & door) to electricity, cafeteria, heat, hot water, internet, etc. We only stayed in one chalet and it was a great time. If/when we come back, I would definitely spend more time hiking and spend more nights in the mountains.

The hosts we had in the mountain areas were really cool. In one guesthouse we were pretty much the only guests. The guesthouse was in the middle of nowhere and had no internet so we were hanging out in the dining area killing time before dinner. We were sitting chatting with our host while the TV played traditional Bulgarian music. Soon Jacquelyn found herself learning traditional Bulgarian dance from the host! One of the nights we stayed near Rila Lakes I went out to photograph the night sky around 11PM. The chalet man, an awesome guy named Martin, came out to see what I was doing. We ended up chatting until 2AM while drinking his homemade rakia, a brandy like drink. That was the night I learned I cannot drink like a Bulgarian.

I would have loved to stay in Bulgaria longer, go on more hikes, and explore more of the mountains. Bulgaria has all the attributes we like and is definitely near the top of our favorite countries we’ve visited. Who would have thought? :).

Enjoy the photos!

Chris W.

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