Nov 152018
 


So, first off, let’s get this out of the way: a million mea culpas for being out of the action for a rather long time. I wish I had a better excuse, but unfortunately it’s just work. Work, work, work and more work. In addition to the work that pays the bills, there’s been lots more time in the gym paying for the sins that first and business travel bring (aka, getting my fat ass back into shape.)

But, with lots of work comes lots of stories, and I have at least two posts that I owe you:

1) A week in Stockholm, where I ran a conference and managed to pull a newbie first: losing my wallet when I was responsible for all the bills of the conference. Lots of good stories in this one…

2) A week in Shanghai for work, with lots of firsts for me. Despite being to every country, I always felt my China experiences needed to be expanded, so this definitely helped.

On top of those, I have a bit of travel coming up…ok more than a bit:

1) A trip to Cairo, Abu Dhabi, South Africa, Zimbabwe, with just a touch of Germany

2) A far less common corner of Germany (and a new one for me) with a side-trip to play tourist in Saudi Arabia. You read that right…

3) Winter in Chernobyl, then up to Lithuania and Latvia (two places where I want to “improve” my visits) followed by the train to Kaliningrad, bus to Gdansk, and finally train to Berlin.

4) Some really juicy “unrecognized country” travel, which you’ll have to wait for details on…

Oh, and this is all in the next 90 days….sit back, because….I’m baaaaaack!

Apr 232014
 

I’d been thinking about this trip for a long time. For about a year, I’ve had only two countries remaining to visit in South America, Bolivia and Ecuador. I’d always planned on doing it with American, but earlier this year when United seriously devalued miles I wanted to burn every last one. I started looking for weeks I could get away, and possible routings. Getting into La Paz and out of Quito were pretty easy, but getting between them was harder.

I could have done the easy thing and just buy it, but I had some more miles left, and United was giving me all sorts of exotic routings that would allow 23 hour connections in cities I hadn’t been to before. In the end, I decided on Medellin as it sounded the most interesting and exotic. I’ll admit, I didn’t do much research when putting this together. I had over 500,000 United miles to burn, and under a week to get things done, so I planned the in and out flights…and left the middle to chance a bit. That said, I leave in barely a week and still don’t have everything booked. It’ll all come together I suspect.

…any last minute “musts” or advice are certainly welcome.

The planned itinerary, and rough plans for this report:

Part I: Washington DC to La Paz, Bolivia on US Airways and Avianca (via Charlotte, Miami, Bogota)
Part II: La Paz, Bolivia
Part III: La Paz to Uyuni, Bolivia and the Hotel Luna Salada
Part IV: Salar de Uyuni – the Salt Flats
Part V: Uyuni to La Paz, and daytrip to Lake Titicaca
Part VI: La Paz to Medellin, Colombia on TACA Peru (via Lima)
Part VII: Short Stay in Medellin
Part VIII: Medellin to Quito, Ecuador on Aero Republica and COPA (via Panama)
Part IX: Quito, Ecuador
Part X: Quito to Washington DC on COPA and US Airways (via Panama, Cancun, and Philadelphia)

Routing:

map

I promise this won’t be one of those post and run trip reports….it’ll go live in just over a week with the first update! I also can’t resist sharing, as a teaser, the BIG trip I’m planning in October/November. Suiffice to say with a trip report name like “From Bula to Shalom!” I hope it will be epic…four weeks in the south pacific, a couple days in DC for laundry, and then Israel and Palestine.

Dec 312013
 

“Since I had peeped over the edge myself, I understand better the meaning of his stare, that could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness. He had summed up — he had judged. ‘The horror!’ He was a remarkable man. After all, this was the expression of some sort of belief; it had candor, it had conviction, it had a vibrating note of revolt in its whisper, it had the appalling face of a glimpsed truth — the strange commingling of desire and hate.” – Joseph Conrad, the Heart of Darkness

Africa. The more I go, the more I learn about myself. But as Conrad noted, it’s just a peep. Enough to know these people are tougher than me, they endure way more that I could. I come into their world for a brief couple of days, usually via some Lufthansa first class flight, and only glimpse at the reality that is Africa. But it’s enough to know that given enough time…Africa would win most likely 😉

This trip came just 7 days after returning from three weeks in Tajikistan, Moscow, Montenegro, and Serbia. I left exhausted, to take on probably the most difficult group of countries I’d set out to do to date. For some foolish reasons, I combined many of them into one trip. The visas themselves, well, they were a mix:

Cameroon: easy, but sketchy. Made me wait around there embassy for two hours, but then $140 in cash later I had it on the spot.

Gabon: drop it off, two days later it was ready. Piece of cake.

DRC: ugh, letter of invitation, notarized with three different stamps in the DRC, etc. Once I had that, however, it was a piece of cake.

Congo: well, there’s a story here. I’ll tell that when we get to it.

Angola: eight trips to the embassy. Lots of confusion, forms, cash, stamps, emails, angry people. But I got it. I still can’t believe I got it.

The rest were no visa, or visa on arrival. I’ll detail more when I get to the individual posts.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to keep up not TOO delayed. The flight routing is:

Trip Map

…first post coming soon. First thought on parts:

Part I: Minneapolis to Malabo, Equatorial Guinea on US Airways and Lufthansa
Part II: Malabo, Equatorial Guinea
Part III: Malabo to Douala, Cameroon on Ethiopian
Part IV: Douala, Cameroon
Part V: Douala to Libreville, Gabon on South African
Part VI: Libreville, Gabon
Part VII: Libreville to Kinshasa, DRC on ASKY
Part VIII: Kinshasa, DRC
Part IX: Kinshasa to Brazzaville, Congo by boat
Part X: Brazzaville, Congo
Part XI: Brazzaville to Pointe-Noire, Congo by train
Part XII: Pointe-Noire, Congo
Part XIII: Pointe-Noire to Cabinda, Angola by taxi
Part XIV: Cabinda, Angola
Part XV: Cabinda to Luanda, Angola on TAAG
Part XVI: Luanda, Angola
Part XVII: Luanda to Sao Tome, Sao Tome e Principe on TAGG
Part XVIII: Sao Tome e Principe
Part XIX: Sao Tome e Principe to Praia, Cape Verde on TAGG
Part XX: Praia, Cape Verde
Part XXI: Getting home – TBD!

I already know this isn’t how it will happen. It’s Africa. Things change, and break, and don’t happen, or go places they don’t expect to. It’s gonna be an adventure!