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I arrived in Rio well rested, excited, and clutching my international text-worthy cell phone. I wandered around arrivals trying to figure out where exactly I was going and how I was going to get there. After circling arriving for a tenth time hoping to see a kind Brazilian with a little sign saying “Dana”, I found something better, my Irish friend Orla.
She arrived a day after she thought she was going to so we ventured to the hostel together excited to begin our journey. We quickly discovered that her ATM card didn’t work in any ATM and that there must be a lot of dangerous scams in Rio because everyone warns you about everything all the time.
Ipanema is gorgeous, just like the inspiring girl in the song. It’s is a lovely posh neighborhood on the beach full of gorgeous homes, highrises, stylish boutiques and amazing clothes, jewelry and leather handbags. People are uber-stylish and wear nearly nothing all the time – with havaianas flip flops, stilettos or platform sandals. The girls start wearing bikinis and dancing at age 1 and the men seem to have a permanent distaste for wearing shirts. On Sundays, the beachfront road is closed and everyone rollerblades, walks, plays music, sports, and hangs out on the beach. The beach path continues past Ipanema to the dodgier and more (in)famous Copacabana beach. Another brilliant song. There is so much to sing about in Brazil!
It’s easy to understand why Brazil, their neighborhoods and Brazilians themselves inspire so many songs. The country is a cacophony of sounds, sultry songs and beats accompanied by the and irresistible sway hips, fast moving feet, smiles and skin every shade of brown imaginable from cocoa to golden to ebony. According to the lonely planet, Brazil is 39% mixed race, but Rio seems much higher. A history of open immigration and intermingling has created one of the most beautiful and interesting populations I’ve ever seen. I imagine that America will one day have such a mix of cultures and skin tones.
Given my love of accents and diversity, I suppose I’ll eventually contribute to my own melting pot children.
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago. Add a comment
Ready for Brazil! My “plans” are 5 weeks in Brazil with Orla, my Irish friend, 4 weeks in Bolivia with Stephanie, an old travel partner from Canada, and 4 weeks in Peru with Corey, my old CEO and his daughter Chelsea. These are more plans than I have ever had going traveling. Usually I have a ticket and a lonely planet and that’s it. It makes me mildly apprehensive to have appointments to meet different people in different places at specific times. I’m sure the fun of traveling with friends will outweigh the hassle of planning around it.
And the end of my trip will be complete freedom like I am used to. I’ll be free to move about the continent in any crazy manner I want.
“Packing” is a whirlwind. While everyone else is out celebrating political victories and warm weather, I’m delivering my car to treasure island, deciding which tank top to bring and searching for nylon pants that didn’t make my crotch look miles long. I think I need to start producing attractive women’s travel-hiking pants. There is a huge gap in the market waiting to be filled.
Rucksack on my back, cell phone in hand, i board BART for SFO and my flight to Rio. Orla and i have spoken a few times and we have loose plans. There might be a driver form the hostel waiting for me, or Orla might be there, or I might take a cab. I like loose plans. I’ll figure it out when I get there.
After the frenzy of good byes, shopping, and packing, I’m looking forward to a long relaxing plane journey. Whatever i forgot is forgotten. Whatever i have i have and will hopefully have for the next 6 months. I will soon forget stress and worries and sink into my alter ego – dana, the American traveler from sf. actually dana will be dropped and i will soon become ‘that tall American girl ‘. Travelers meet too many people to remember names. we generally don’t even bother to ask them. we simply label people by their country of origin and an easily recognized trait like hairstyle, height, or weight. The short funny Frenchman, the bald American, the Canadian with dark curly hair, the dutch girl with pink shirt on. Life on the road is complicated so we have to simplify whatever we can. eliminating names is a clear win in simplifying interactions with strangers.
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago. Add a comment
Planning is a loose term. I don’t really plan for trips. I buy a plane ticket and a Lonely Planet guidebook and go from there. I typically travel by land and sea, book everything last minute, and remain fluid and flexible at all costs. I skip flying in I can.
But my trip to South America is different, I have friends to meet along the way and dates to meet them, so I need a rough plan. The first stop will be Brazil and Brazil is massive, the fifth largest country in the world actually. Orla, an Irish friend who used to live in SF, is going to be my partner in crime and we have 5 weeks to explore Brazil. My top priorities are diving in Fernando de Noronha and kitesurfing in Jericoacoara http://www.ikiteboarding.com/kiteboarding/articles/kiteboarding-brazil-the-state-of-ceara.aspx#
Fernando is supposed to be the best diving in Brazil and will be about the only opportunity I have to dive until I reach the Galapogas in Ecuador months later. Since Fernanado is an island, we have to fly there. A flight to Fernando is normally 800$ from the city of Natal or Recife but with the TAM pass, which is 5 one ways flights cost the same.
Booking the TAM pass reiterated why I never plan. What a royal pain in the arse. I spent about 24 hours on the phone with TAM with no success. TAM was impossible to work with. In typical third world fashion they said NO when I asked for a certain route on a certain day instead of suggesting a slightly different day or route. The means I had to ask about every possible combination specifically to get to an answer.
Finally I was able to book tickets through our saviors the BROL travel agency. BROL was much more organized and finally we ended up with 5 tickets within Brazil. Our overall plan is to hit Rio, Jericoacoara, Fernando de Noronha, Natal, Salvador, Foz de Iguazu, and Pantanal. Almost time to go to Brazil!
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago. Add a comment
Hiking in israel is really nice. it reminds me of the playa …without the noise, lights, music, and extra curriculars. our company hiked through this canyon and enjoyed a wedding like dinner outside under the full room and a running river (which is quite rare in israel).
Posted 3 years, 3 months ago. Add a comment
I just returned from my second trip to the Israel, and I liked it even more than the first time. I think I could live there.
Overall, Tel Aviv and all of Israel that I’ve seen is uber hip and trendy. People are thin, good looking and dress well. The mix of Jewish, Arab, and immigrants yields a lot of olive skin and dark thick hair. Bald is pretty popular as well. As it turns out, I love Israeli style – it’s the grown up raver style that I can never find in the US. Wide legged pants with low waists, multi functional utilitarian shirts that can be worn 4 ways, and lots of somewhat confusing but interesting details on shirts that show your belly. Even older women in Israel dress like this- that’s what they have. I love shopping in Israel. It’s a little slice of Europe with middle eastern flare (and prices that are much more palatable). The restaurants are all really nice and stylish too. Every restaurant in Tel Aviv and Herzliya seem to fall within the top 5% of cool places in New York or SF. Since the weather is temperate, they have huge windows and high ceilings with exposed pipes and ambient lighting. People of all ages fill the tables every night and day chatting over leisurely meals and espressos. Hip music with beats play in the backround mingling with laughter and smoke. That’s the only downside – smoke. Living in San Francisco for the past 10 years, I forgot what smoky rooms were like. Dinner is a long event in Israel and us Americans sit a little bewildered at the end of our mint tea wondering why the check never shows up. You have to ask for it as they don’t want to rush you.
Weekends in Isreal start on Thursday evening and the Sabbath starts Friday sundown which means all the stores shut down Friday evening through Saturday. That means you have to run all your errands Friday morning which seems aggressive, especially when Friday nights are dedicated to eating with family.
On Thursday night (aka America Friday), we hit Kuman, a dancing bar in Herzliya. The European-ess of Israel showed loud and clear in the cheesy bar. Just when you thought the music could get no cheesier, an electro version of “I Need a Hero” from Footloose came on. The music changed from Reggae to Techno to local favorites in an unpredictable and pattern-less order. No matter what song came on the crowd danced and cheered like it was their favorite. They never skipped a beat. Large groups of women danced together and all the men danced too. The bar was split equally between men and women. I can’t remember the last time I saw a roughly equal crowd of men and women out at a bar, let alone respectfully co-habituating without hitting on each other. The it was Thursday night, and everyone was clearly out to have a good time, there was no meat market aspect. People tend to marry young (by SF standards) and don’t wear wedding rings but ‘hitting’ on people is a much tamer sport. The buff barmen kept the drinks flowing and occasionally released paper towels from the ceiling. Yes, paper towels. Like Ibiza where bubbles or confetti fall from the ceiling, paper towels fall from the ceiling at Kuman. Everyone loved it and the barman cheerfully worked the clean up into their dancing and pouring drinks routine.
We had a great time. People wanted to talk to us (because we speak English) and Israeli conversation get pretty personal by American standards quite quickly. I get frustrated with the surface conversation here so I enjoy actually getting to know people (even if I’ll never see them again). They ask how old you are, if you’re Jewish, what you do for work, and on and on. At first it took me off guard then I understood; people were genuinely interested. What a concept.
Besides cool bars, there are thriving rave-like parties all over Tel Aviv on Friday night. I haven’t had the chance to go yet since I like to go sight seeing on Friday but next time I’ll make a point to go.
My sightseeing this trip was fabulous. I went with my co-worker Ruti 
and her darling daughter Karyn 
and husband Arud. They took me to the Dead Sea, the Dessert, and Masada. The Dead Sea is gorgeous – the salty shores and bright blue waters look like an icy sea – with Jordan visible on the other side. 
We dipped our hands in the water and Karyn through salty rocks into the sea. I made the mistake of tasting the water (to see just how salty it was). I can still taste the bitterness.
The dessert was stunning with wadi’s or canyons all over. Ruti and I went for a hike through a Wadi with climbing ropes and metal ladders built in. 
The last crevasse revealed the vast horizon of the dessert and dead sea. Karyn and Arud appeared below cooking thick strong coffee on a portable stove. 
We drank coffee and cookies just before the rains came and jumped back in the car.
Masada was amazing (though wet). Masada is a huge rocky natural fort that protected the Jews through out the years. The intro film taught me there was a massive suicide when 100’s of people were stuck in the fort with inevitable loss to the approaching romans. Rather than fall to Romans, the soldiers drew names to kill the women and children and all the soldiers, bar 10. One name was drawn from the 10 to kill the 9 others and lastly kill himself. Another spectacular tragedy in Jewish history. 
The rain brought floods and waterfalls to the dessert with brown rainwater and drudge water rushing to the Dead Sea – the lowest point in the world. Everyone stopped to see the phenomena, which Ruti and her family had never witnessed. Apparently I bring rain because this it the second time it flooded in Israel while I was there. I brought a bit of snow to London too. 
Back in Herzliya, the little silicon valley outside of Tel Aviv, I worked far too many hours and missed the opportunity to enjoy my beachfront balcony which was filled with rain water and wind nearly the whole trip.
Next time there will be sun, I hope!
Posted 3 years, 6 months ago. Add a comment
Posted 3 years, 10 months ago. Add a comment
This makes it easier to tell where my next vacation should be.
create your own visited country map
Posted 4 years ago. 1 comment
In 2003 I spent 6 months in Africa. It was the hardest trip I have ever done and changed my life in many ways – some good and some bad. I am slowly trying to write a book about it….and find myself re-living a lot of my experiences, reading my journal, and *finally* looking at my pictures.
It took me over a year to look at my pictures. I showed them to my parents when I returned and shared them with a few select friends who had followed my journey but otherwise I kept them neatly hidden in a CD case. I contained my memories and experiences the same way –neatly hidden in my head– I wasn’t quite ready to digest them yet. I was so happy to be safely home that I forgot about Africa for awhile. That changed this year and I have finally completed a big Africa collage.
I ordered the frames months ago. They were on back order which happily delayed my confrontation of Africa. I kept getting emails from Red Envelope thanking me for my order and telling me the frames would come in soon – reminders that I would deal with Africa soon. Eventually the frame came…I opened it and it sat for another month or so.
Finally I started the tedious process of choosing photos for the frames. I have 5 discs of pictures. They capture my breadth of experiences from climbing Mt Kenya, to safari, to volunteering on a refugee camp, to teaching diving in Mozambique, to hitchhiking in flat beds, to hundreds of identical buses packed with identical people, to thousands of shaved orphans. Happily I captured video and sounds too. The sounds of Africa are impossible to replicate – the massive animals, omnipresent bugs, syrupy voices singing gospel, tinny children laughing, throaty hawkers yelling, screaming, and silence….the silence of children who sit for day long bus journeys and never make a sound.
I finally narrowed thousands of photos to less than 100 and solicited help from my friends. They had varying opinions and I found myself taking defense when they didn’t like one of the photos I selected. They didn’t understand why I liked a photo of 40 expressionless kids standing in the back of a pick up truck. I explained the kids were all orphans and took me to their orphanage and sang songs for me and then sadly asked me for money with big eyes and little bellies. I ate dinner at one of the teacher’s house. She was wearing a pink chiffon dress in her mud hut with her blazer-wearing brother and heaps of kids in varying degrees of rags and dirt. The children were fascinated by me and the teacher made a special meal of tiny fried salty fish and mashed myndozi (which is tasteless mush). I swallowed bite after bite doing everything I could to smile and pretend I enjoyed the salty –fishy –mush. So that’s why I like that picture of the kids I explained. My friend said ‘oh, well you can’t see any of that looking at it’.
That’s why I like to travel because you can’t see or feel everything from a photo. Memory and experiences are all we have when push comes to shove.
My dad asked ‘what message are you trying to communicate with these frames? I mean do you want it to be artsy or do you want people to see where you’ve been?‘. He thought some pictures were too sad and I thought some were too pretty and serene.
My end results are a mix of safari animals, bald kids, tribes, gorillas, and one of me. I can talk about Africa now and I cherish my experiences there, but I don’t need to go back.
When people considering a trip to Africa ask me if they should go, I say “No I already went, I took one for the team. You don’t have to go!’. The exception is a short 5 star safari – but that’s not really Africa – that’s a giant nature reserve.
Posted 4 years, 1 month ago. Add a comment
Posted 4 years, 1 month ago. Add a comment
With few plans, carefully planned food, and solid shoes, we jumped in the car early Saturday morning and headed North to Humboldt Redwoods State Park. We backpacked about 15 miles and were almost alone. We realized it was a pretty scarcely traveled road when the Ranger had little to no information about the trail camps and the hikes to them. We saw only 1 tent (on the first night in the ‘closed’ trail camp), 2 people riding horses, and maybe 3 hiking groups. It was us, big trees, some deer, and a bear.
On day 2 we took a rest in a gorgeous grassy field in the warm sunshine. I was half asleep when Chris said ‘Um, Dana. There’s a bear.” I sat up and saw the gorgeous big black bear moseying in the grass about 20 meters downhill. He looked so docile, soft and fluffy – not like an animal that would eat you or rip up your car for an old pop tart.
Chris then asked “What should we do? Stay Calm?”
Having seen a few bears and never had any problems, I responded “I don’t think we’re supposed to be calm”.
Chris later told me his next thought was ‘if dana starts screaming or jumping up and down, I’m gonna be pissed’. Ha Ha. Jumping up and down was far from my mind.
We sat and watched the bear. He glanced up at us and carried on his way – ending up in the tree filled flat below – where my rucksack sat alone. Luckily there was no food in it. We hung out for awhile and watched the bear from a distance.
Chris grabbed a whistle from his rucksack and promised to protect us from any future curious bear encounters with his manly whistle.
Eventually we left the sun and our wildlife viewing spot after a few deer and no more bears. Apparently the bear is seen fairly frequently, and a mountain lion that we were not lucky enough to see. The horse riders we met told us that there are tons of bear cubs eating ripe apples and pears of the trees in the fall so we have to go back. I don’t know about the whistle though.
Posted 4 years, 3 months ago. 3 comments
