Gabriel Traveler

Gabejedmo You Tube channel (click here)

2011-12-09T23:53:00.000-08:00

Click the link above to go to my You Tube channel, with almost 200 travel videos. Feel free to subscribe, as I'll be posting more movies soon, including upcoming ones about more of the Greek isles, India, Jasper National Park in Canada, and lots more.

One day on Santorini, Greece

2011-12-09T23:49:00.000-08:00

This is another short movie that tells the tale of my one day on the island of Santorini, Greece in 2009, which ended with finding a hidden church overlooking a spectacular sunset...

My new travel site, Gabriel Traveler (click here)

2011-12-09T23:46:00.000-08:00

Lots of cool new stuff on my new travel site, gabrieltraveler.com. Just click on the subject line above.

Take a bus ride into the Indian Himalaya mountains!

2011-11-26T12:33:00.001-08:00

A short movie about my amazing trip to Egypt in 2009

2011-11-21T17:10:00.000-08:00

Going to Asia for the winter (click here to follow my travels on Facebook)

2010-08-21T21:12:00.000-07:00

I will be traveling to Asia for the winter. In October, 2010 I fly to the Philippines for 3 weeks, and will be spending most of my time there in the stunning Palawan region. From there I will fly to the small city of Kota Kinabalu on the island of Borneo, Malaysia for a week. Then I fly to Bali and will be there (and other islands in that area) for 3 weeks. After that I fly to Kuala Lumpur, the largest city in Malaysia for a week. And then I'll fly to New Delhi, India. At this point I'm planning to spend the whole winter in India, staying mostly in one little village on the Ganges River, practicing yoga and meditation, writing and all-around relaxing and chilling out. I will be documenting my travels with photos, videos, travel stories, etc. on Facebook instead of here on my blog, because I prefer the video and photo quality there, and also it's easier for people to see when I've posted new stuff. Just click the subject line above to join my group devoted to my trip, and follow the adventures.

Old Fort Point in Jasper National Park

2010-06-25T20:54:00.000-07:00

A view of Jasper National Park, Alberta and the Athabasca River from Old Fort Point, a mile or so outside of the town of Jasper.

Jasper on a spring day

2010-04-22T14:59:00.000-07:00

Here's another video of Jasper, a little warmer and sunnier on a nice evening in late April...

Tour of Jasper

2010-03-13T04:29:00.000-08:00

A video tour during the snowstorm today of the small town of Jasper, Alberta, Canada.

Jasper, Alberta (click here for photos)

2010-03-03T03:35:00.000-08:00

I'm now back in Jasper National Park in Alberta, Canada; where I worked before around a year-and-a-half ago. After my 4 1/2-month trip this past fall to Greece, Egypt and Turkey, I decided to come back up to Canada to work again and hopefully ski for the winter. I first went to another small ski town, Fernie in British Columbia, which I'd heard nice things about. I stayed there for three weeks, and even moved into a house with a housemate. But after three weeks I hadn't gotten a single call back from an employer and the money was running low.

So I called up here to the company that I'd worked for previously (actually I did this after a little over a week, to cover my butt in case I didn't find anything). They had one position available, working at the front desk of one of their hotels, and they offered it to me after a phone interview. I took it and came up here by Greyhound (I sold the car back in Portland) and settled in. And as it turns out, I realized that I like Jasper better anyways, so it's good to be back. They also offer employee housing that's affordable, so I have my own room in a two-bedroom apartment, which I'm sharing with a guy from the Philippines. I plan to stick it out here at least into the summer and most likely until the fall, but of course we'll just see. Click on the subject line above to see some photos that I've taken in the past few weeks.

World Travelers Forum (click here)

2010-01-27T02:25:00.000-08:00

I've created a group on Facebook called the World Travelers Forum, for travelers to post photos, videos and stories, as well as interact and share tips and ideas about where they've traveled, where they want to go and how best to go about it. Click on the subject line above to go to the page and check it out (you'll need to have a Facebook account). While you're at it, feel free to add me as a friend if you like. And, go ahead and post some of your favorite or most interesting photos and videos for others to see.

Slideshow Greece 2009 (click here)

2010-01-22T23:40:00.000-08:00

I did some more organizing of my photos, including creating separate slideshows for each country that I went to during my 4-month trip this past fall to Greece, Egypt and Turkey. (Previously the photos were all jumbled together in no particular order). So you can now see them in chronological order, and from each country separately so that you know where they're actually taken. Click on the subject line above to see my best photos from Greece. And then look below to see the slideshows for Egypt and Turkey.

Slideshow Egypt 2009 (click here)

2010-01-22T23:37:00.000-08:00

A slideshow of my best photos from my three weeks traveling around Egypt in the fall of 2009 (click on the subject line above).

Slideshow Turkey 2009 (click here)

2010-01-22T23:33:00.000-08:00

A slideshow of my best Turkey photos from my three weeks there in fall, 2009 (click on the subject line above).

Downtown Fernie, B.C.

2010-01-17T20:55:00.000-08:00

I just arrived today in Fernie, British Columbia, where I plan to stay for the winter and perhaps longer. Here's a video of the quaint little downtown area.

in Fernie, B.C., Canada

2010-01-17T16:01:00.000-08:00

I made it to Fernie. So far it looks really great and I'm glad to be here. As it turned out, I didn't take the bus at all. The day before I was going to leave by Greyhound bus, I decided to put up an ad on an online rideshare board. About 30 minutes later, I got a call from a girl who was driving from Portland up to Vancouver the next day to visit her boyfriend who lived there. So we made plans to leave the following day at noon. From there I was hoping to catch the same bus that I otherwise would have been taking out of Vancouver anyway. However, due to a few delays we left later than expected and wouldn't be able to catch that bus, so I made plans to stay at a hostel in Vancouver for the night, and then would catch the bus the next day.

Fortunately however, I got a call while we were driving, from someone else responding to my other ad that I'd posted on the Vancouver rideshare site. He was leaving the next morning, driving from Vancouver to Alberta, and would be going right through Fernie. He had a friend in Nelson along the way, and was planning to stay there for the night.

We left a little later than planned, as it tends to go, drove all day and then pulled into Nelson around 6pm. We hung out there for the evening, I got in a much-needed shower, slept in the guest room, and then we got up early and discovered that it was (not all that surprisingly) snowing. Not too much and not too hard, and besides the guy I was with had a Ford F150 with snow tires, so it handled the snow well. The first couple of hours of driving was all in the snow, then we dropped down in elevation and it was all clear roads the rest of the way to Fernie. As we pulled into town about noon, I saw the Greyhound bus that I would have been on all night if I had taken it.

The town looks like pretty much what I was hoping for, and it's a real relief to have no future travel plans for a while. I've been corresponding with someone online the past week or so who needs a housemate, so I'll probably check that out in the next day or two. In the meantime I'm staying at the Raging Elk hostel.

Although there's a little less snow than normal apparently, there's still plenty around, so I'm looking forward to getting out on my cross country skis. There's snow right in town so hopefully I can find somewhere to ski that I can just walk to, since I'm now without a vehicle. But it's a small town and easy to get around. And the runs for the downhill resort can be seen from town, looks pretty tempting so I'll hope to get a job soon enough that I can afford to buy some used downhill gear, and then hit the slopes sometime this winter. But for now it's fun just to be in the mountains in a small town, a long ways from the city. Seems like there are some pretty cool people, restaurants and shops, etc. around here as well, so I think it has everything I was looking for.

Slideshow of my travel photos (click here)

2010-01-04T23:11:00.000-08:00

I've added a few older travels photos to my flickr account, from my 2007-2008 trip to Asia. Click the link above to see a slide show of my all-around best travel photos from Thailand, India, Nepal, Greece, Egypt and Turkey.

New publication (click here)

2010-01-03T19:00:00.000-08:00

I have a new short piece in a book compilation of spiritual writings from 111 different authors (although mine of course manages to weave in a lot about traveling). Titled "One Page Wisdom", it also features Mike Dooley, the actor from the movie "The Secret", which explores various spiritual concepts and phenomenon. Click the link above to go to my writing website, where there's more info on the book (as well as my other publications). The book was just recently published, and so is now available.

Termessos ruins

2009-12-27T08:38:00.000-08:00

The ancient village ruins of Termessos in southern Turkey:

Underground city of Derinkuyu

2009-12-27T07:46:00.000-08:00

Here I am with Dianna in the underground city of Derinkuyu in Cappadocia, Turkey; in which an entire city was carved out of rock deep underground:

Painted cave church in Cappadocia

2009-12-26T21:17:00.000-08:00

A small painted church carved out of rock in the Soganli Valley, Cappadocia, alongside countless cliff dwellings:

Cappadocia in central Turkey

2009-12-26T20:54:00.000-08:00

This is the strange and beautiful landscape known as Cappadocia, one of the most amazing places I've visited in the world:

Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, Yosemite

2009-12-23T22:08:00.000-08:00

I went hiking today at Hetch Hetchy Reservoir, in Yosemite National Park here in California (I'm visiting family nearby for the holidays). It was dammed in the 1930s (after much protestation from John Muir) but is still incredibly beautiful. Click the subject line above for some photos.

photos of Turkey (click here)

2009-12-11T03:31:00.001-08:00

Click the subject line above to see a bunch of new photos from my travels with Dianna around Turkey.

Back in Antalya (click here for images of Pamukkale)

2009-12-07T11:23:00.000-08:00

Dianna and İ are back in the medium sized city of Antalya, on Turkey's south coast, after a week of driving around western Turkey. Summing things up briefly, we left here in a rental car last Monday and drove to Kabak, near the town of Fethiye. Kabak is the last little village before the beginning of the 300-mile Lycian Way trek; which I had been considering doing on this trip, but which will have to wait for another time. We stayed for two nights in a little cabin in a gorgeous setting amidst beautiful mountains that hovered right over the sea.

From there we continued west to a small town called Koycegiz, that had some hot springs nearby that we wanted to check out, which turned out to be really nice. We stayed there another two nights. Then from there we headed north to Pamukkale, a popular tourist attraction and for good reason. Geothermal phenomenon there has created a bizzare landscape of white travertine with natural hot springs scattered all throughout a large area that looks something like frozen waterfalls cascading down white cliffs, but is actually a hard chalky substance. Click on the subject line above for photos to see what it looks like.

From Pamukkale we headed back east and spent one night at the small lakeside village of Egirdir. Today we continued south from there, stopping for a short hike in a national park, through trees shedding their leaves alongside a remote lake. Then we came back down to Antalya and are staying tonight in the same hotel where we stayed previously.

A couple of days ago we were making our travel plans, and decided to check for cheap flights online, since it's a long ways from here to Cappadocia in the center of Turkey. We lucked out and found dirt cheap tickets for $30 each. So we ended up booking flights from Antalya to Kayseri, near the Cappadocia region, and then from there back to İstanbul. We fly out of here tomorrow morning and will spend five days exploring Cappadocia, before flyıng back to İstanbul. Then we have just two full days in İstanbul before İ fly back to San Francisco, and Dianna flies back to Athens...Hopefully İ'll get the chance, either in İstanbul or else back home, to talk a little more ın detail about Turkey since İ've been skimming over things with short posts. And also İ'll be posting photos whenever İ get the chance, as well as videos. But for now it's time for us to find something for dinner, and then get some much-needed sleep before flying out in the morning.

in Antalya (click here for images of Termessos)

2009-11-29T09:44:00.000-08:00

Dianna and I flew yesterday from Istanbul to Antalya, a medium-sized city on the south coast of Turkey. I'm going to keep this one super short, so will just say that Istanbul was amazing, one of my favorite cities anywhere.

The south coast is looking great as well. Today we rented a car and drove up to some ancient ruins, called Termessos. Click the subject line above to see some images of the site.

We rented the car for a full 8 days, so tomorrow we'll be taking off from here and heading west, towards the Turqoise Coast and the general area around Fethiye. This is roughly where the Lycian Way trek starts, a 300-mile (500 kilometers) hiking route that I was looking into doing when planning my trip originally, but the plans got changed due to various factors. I would love to do the trek again at another time, but for now it will be great to simply drive through the area, and then stop and do some general exploring. Perhaps we'll even get the chance to do some dayhiking on the actual trail.

We'll probably stay in that area for a good 4-5 days or more. Then we're thinking of checking out an area called Egirdir, which is a beautiful lake and valley that's also on the way to Cappadocia, which is one of the must-see places that everyone raves about. Cappadocia is more towards the center of the country, so we haven't figured out exactly how we'll get there, whether by bus or keep the rental car and drive, then come back to Antalya and take another flight. It'll probably depend on whether we can find another super cheap flight back to Istanbul.

So I'll leave it there for now, and just say that Turkey looks really amazing and definitely demands more than just a few weeks to really experience the country. But a few weeks is better than nothing, so I'll soak it up the best I can in the time we have, and very likely be coming back some other time, as there's tons to see.

My photographic "Greatest Hits" (click here)

2009-11-23T10:01:00.000-08:00

Click the subject line above to view a slide show of my favorite photos from the past four months of traveling around Greece and Egypt (in somewhat random order).

More images of Athens...

2009-11-23T09:42:00.000-08:00

Colorful graffiti around Athens, and the Parthenon atop the Acropolis at sunset. (The Acropolis is the hill situated in the center of Athens, on which the specific building known as the Parthenon sits. As you can see, it's under restoration and rather marred by scaffolding.)...

Athens sunset photos

2009-11-21T09:59:00.000-08:00

Yesterday afternoon Dianna and I walked (okay, took the metro and then walked) over to the Acropolis. We strolled around there a bit, before catching the sunset from Filopapou Hill looking out at both the Acropolis and the city of Athens stretching in all directions, down to the port of Piraeus (where you catch ferries out to the islands)...

Soccer fans rioting in Cairo (click here)

2009-11-21T05:28:00.001-08:00

After the game that I watched in Cairo betwen Egypt and Algeria, the two teams had to play another game together to decide ultimately who would go to the playoffs. The game took place in Sudan a few days ago. Algeria won 1-0, and tragically (despite no apparent controversy over the actual game) this has led to all kinds of repercussions, such as violence between Egyptians and Algerians in both countries, and Egypt recalling its ambassador to Algeria.

Cairo photos (click here for more pictures of Egypt)

2009-11-18T06:54:00.000-08:00

Some random images of Cairo:

Desert photos

2009-11-18T06:41:00.000-08:00

The view of the road through Egypt's western desert from our taxi, on our way from Luxor to the Dhakla oasis:

Self-portrait with Jeffrey in the back seat. Angelique is behind me and Idoia is in the seat behind her:

Our car and driver:

The sun rising over the desert near the Dhakla oasis:

The hot spring near the desert camp where we stayed:

Egyptian soccer fans in Cairo

2009-11-18T05:06:00.000-08:00

While in Cairo I watched a soccer match on TV in my hotel, and Egypt won, 2-0. Here's some video of the fans pouring into the streets to celebrate, taken from the balcony of my hotel.

Back in Athens, Greece

2009-11-18T03:22:00.000-08:00

I haven't written in a long while, since Luxor, which leaves a lot to be covered. So I'm going to do my best to basically skim over what's taken place since then. In Luxor I found three other travelers who also wanted to cover the distance from the city of Luxor, on the Nile in southern Egypt, westward to one of the oases in the western desert of Egypt, called the Dhakla oases. There are about a half dozen major oases in western Egypt, which are simply places where, for one reason or another (mostly because they're low in elevation, in some cases below sea level) springs exist that provide water that otherwise would be non-existent. In most of Egypt it seems, it can go for years without any rain at all. So these few oases are the only sign of greenery and much else in the way of life, including human, in the midst of miles and miles of barren desert.

So the route from Luxor west to the Dhakla oasis, about a 6 hour journey driving directly, wasn't covered by the bus system. Instead you have to pay to hire a private car and driver (just a taxi actually), which was more than a hundred dollars. But split 4 ways it was much more reasonable. So I told the people at my hotel that I wanted to do this and they kept their ears open for other people who also wanted to make the trip. It ended up being myself, Jeffrey also from Portland, Oregon, and Angelique from Canada and Idoia from Spain, the two of whom had been traveling together for a while.

We drove all day through the stark yet beautiful desert, and our driver dropped us off at a desert camp that was a few miles outside of a small village at the edge of the oasis. The desert camp was essentially a collection of small adobe-style mud buildings, built for the purposes of visiting tourists to experience the surrounding desert. It was a gorgeous setting at the base of some cliffs, within view of the nearby oasis but otherwise surrounded completely by desert. There was a hot spring there, which we were all too eager to relax into after our long journey.

The next day Jeffrey headed out to find a somewhat cheaper place to stay in the nearby village, and Angelique, Idoia and I split a room to make it more affordable. We went for a hike out into the desert that day, and otherwise just relaxed back at the hotel room.

The next day we headed out as well, to the nearby village of Al Qasr, in which we toured a now-abandoned section of the town, that was built and lived in during medieval times. It was quite a fascinating look into how people lived hundreds of years ago, as the town was entirely intact, with multi-level mud buildings, narrow, shaded alleys and even a small mill that would have been powered by a horse or donkey.

That evening we caught a bus to another oases, Bahariya, about 5 hours away heading towards Athens, and spent the night at another camp in the desert. The next day we signed up for an overnight jeep excursion out into the desert near there. We got a late start, drove (or rather, our 26-year-old Egyptian guide drove) for an hour or so up a highway and then turned onto a smaller road, and then an even smaller one, driving pretty much right through the sandy desert. We arrived shortly after dark at one of the most beautiful scenes I've ever seen. It was pure golden sand shaped into undulating dunes, with different rock formations sticking straight up out of the sand. Unfortunately, my camera had locked up me and wasn't working at this point. But Angelique and Idoia took plenty of photos, that I'll be able to share at some point.

We hung out around a campfire as our multi-talented guide cooked up a great dinner; and then slept under the stars. The next morning we enjoyed the surreal scene in daylight for a while; and then headed out and continued through the desert. We stopped at one mini-oasis along the way, that looked like something out of a Saturday morning cartoon, with three or four palm trees sticking up out of the desert. There was a spring there that collected into several different pools that you could go swimming in, so we did just that. Then we started heading back towards town, passing lots more amazing desert landscapes along the way.

That afternoon the three of us caught a bus into Cairo, arriving late that night. Angelique and Idoia got a room, and I got my own in the same hotel. At that point I had about five days before I flew from Cairo back to Greece, and thought that I might leave Cairo to go visit Alexandria or Marsa Matruh, both cities on the northern coast of Egypt on the Mediterranean Sea, west of Cairo and the Nile. But I also knew that I had a bunch of stuff I could take care of in Cairo, and wasn't all that into more extended bus journeys. Angelique and Idoia spent another day in Cairo to view the pyramids; and then took off the following morning, bound for the Sinai peninsula.

As it turned out, I didn't make it out of Cairo at all before my flight. The main thing that I had to do was a lot of shopping. My next destination is Turkey, and it's going to be cold there, especially in the interior near Cappadocia. I figured it would be a lot cheaper to buy clothes and other things there in Egypt rather than in either Greece or Turkey. So I went on a shopping spree and got a new jacket, 3 pairs of pants, shirt, new shoes, belt, socks and underwear, long underwear, gloves, a hat and I forget what else; as well as some assorted gifts.

Also, I needed to book a flight back home, which turned into a bit of a pain as my credit card wasn't working, so I had to make a few phone calls to my bank to get that straightened out. Eventually I got that smoothed out and then booked a flight from Istanbul back to San Francisco for Dec. 16th. Also in Cairo I visited a few areas of the city that I hadn't seen before, and wrote a bunch of postcards. And one evening I watched a soccer match on TV at my hotel, between Egypt and Algeria. Egypt won 2-0, and Cairo went crazy with people pouring into the streets. I'll post a video of that later.

Wrapping things up, I got up early yesterday morning, caught my flight to Athens without incident, Dianna met me at the airport, and now I'm here staying at Dianna's apartment again. We're making plans to head for Turkey, and may actually take a flight instead of going by ferry, since it's almost the same price. We're looking at flying to Istanbul, and then Antalya on the southern coast of Turkey, next Monday or Tuesday. I'll write again sometime between now and then when we get the plans straightened out.

Going from Luxor to Dhakla Oasis

2009-11-06T12:04:00.001-08:00

I've had a great time here in Luxor visiting some of the many ancient sites that are scattered all throughout this area. Luxor was the capital of Egypt during the time of the pharoahs, and this was really where it was all happening (okay, not all, of course the Great Pyramids were pretty happening). But this is where the pharaohs lived, and died, and their tombs are all in the same area on the other side of the Nile a few miles away from here. The kings were all entombed in what is now known as the Valley of the Kings, 63 of which have been discovered. The wives of the pharoahs were entombed nearby at the Valley of the Queens. Except for a few exceptions, when a woman ruled as the pharoah because there wasn't an heir, or the heir was too young, in which case she also was entombed in the Valley of the Kings. King Tutankhamen, Ramses (there were a number of Ramses pharoahs), Seti, Nefertiti, etc. all lived here and were mummified and then laid to rest in ornately decorated tombs dug deep into the earth, and then covered over so that (so they thought) they couldn't be found.

One of the tours that I went on took me out to the Valley of the Kings, where you join the rest of the thousands of tourists that visit this area and hike up a barren canyon, and then go down into these tombs that are dug like perfectly square mine shafts, going at a slight downhill angle underground. We went down into three of the tombs, which gives you a good enough idea (not all of them are open to visitation anyway). Cameras are not allowed however, so unfortunately I don't have pictures of those.

Then we also visited Hatshepsut's Temple, which is in the same area on the western side of the Nile (the city of Luxor is on the eastern bank). Hatshepsut was one of the queens who took over as pharoah when her husband died (I forget which pharoah, I think it might have been one of the Ramses). The rightful heir, her step-son was too young. Besides she had ambitions of being in charge because she continued to reign after her step-son was an adult, until she died. Her step-son then took over as pharoah at the age of 30, but was so resentful of her step-mother not handing over power to him earlier that he had all historical traces of her removed. Although apparently not all, because somehow or other they were able to put the pieces of the story together and figure out that this temple was dedicated to her. Cameras were allowed there and I've posted some of those pictures already (see the link below).

Yesterday I took a day off from the temple-viewing and had a restful day walking around town a bit and uploading those photos. Then today I visited the massive and impressive Karnak temple, here on the eastern side of the river just south of the city of Luxor. I took tons of photos of that, but haven't had the chance to post any of them yet.

So tomorrow I'll be going west from here to one of the several oases in the western desert of Egypt, to the Dhakla oasis. I've heard good things about it from everyone who has been there and it sounds pretty interesting reading about it in the guidebook. For one thing, it will be nice to get away from the ever-present tourism in these more well-known spots along the Nile valley, and find a little more in the way of peace and quiet. Apparently there are hot springs near there. Not that you really need them during the day, it's still plenty warm, but at night it's supposed to be fun to sit there soaking in the middle of the desert, looking up at the stars. And it sounds great for hiking and general exploring. But, I promise I'll bring plenty of water and won't get lost! And besides I'll most likely have company as I'm headed that way with a small group of people. I'll be splitting a private car with three other travelers from my hotel: an American named Jeffrey, who happens to be from Portland and is also a dual American-Canadian citizen (!); a woman from Canada and another woman from Spain. I'm looking forward to seeing the desert landscapes on the drive there. It sounds like there isn't much in the way of civilization until you get to the oasis. I'll of course have more to say about that once I get there and see what it's all about...

Photos of Egypt (click here)

2009-11-05T04:42:00.000-08:00

Lots of new photos from the past week or so of traveling up the Nile River valley in Egypt (click the subject line above).

in Luxor

2009-11-03T09:52:00.000-08:00

I arrived in Luxor this afternoon. My two-day feluca boat trip down the Nile turned into one day, because the other five people on board were all on only a one day cruise. And since no one else was joining us then I would have been the only passenger for all of a day and another chilly (...okay, just plain cold) night on the Nile. So I decided to change plans and go ahead with the other folks, leaving this morning on a bus headed down here to Luxor.

But the feluca trip was a fun one anyway. After some waiting for other passengers, we set sail yesterday afternoon from Aswan at about 2:30 with eight people in total: the Egyptian feluca sailor, his young helper, and six passengers including myself, a couple from France, a couple from Japan, and a young, very enthusiastic and talkative guy from Croatia. The feluca boats don't sail straight down the river, but instead tack diagonally back-and-forth across it. The reason is that the wind blows upstream (and thus it's actually quicker to go upstream). It's a very relaxing way to sail though, because the Nile is pretty much devoid of any waves or hardly even ripples. But neither do you sail completely flat, since you're going back and forth, so the ship is always slanted one way or another, but not to any great degree.

The passengers all sit on a square, flat surface in the middle of the boat, almost even with the edge of the boat (with about a six-inch lip and then a couple of feet down to the water), which is cushioned and covered a few feet overhead with a cloth sheet, to keep the sun out of your eyes. So the first thing you do is take off your shoes and toss them in a plastic basket, then step down onto the cushioned surface, grab a pillow to lean against, and just kick back and hang out with the other folks.

We sailed until around 7:30 that evening, which meant for a couple of hours we were in the dark, or at least past sunset, since it's getting dark here shortly after 5 now. But things were well lit both by occasional lights from buildings on shore (the main highway runs right along the river), and especially from the full moon that started rising overhead.

So we eventually pulled over at a sandy spot on the river, and immediately everyone jumped off the boat and headed for the bushes, as there's no bathroom on board and we hadn't made any stops for those five hours, due to getting a late start (apparently they aren't allowed to sail after 8 pm). Then the 19-year-old helper cooked up dinner for everyone, which included pita bread, pinto beans, falafel, salad and something that resembled feta cheese, but wasn't quite the same. Pretty delicious. At about 9 o'clock the feluca captain started getting out the blankets, and it was apparent that it was going to be an early night. And, he confirmed that we would be heading out early morning.

So everyone layed down to sleep, and I layed down and, well, layed there. Then I got up, and sent a couple of text messages since we had a cell signal. Then some drums started playing somewhere nearby, and I was tempted to go check them out since it was coming from fairly close, and whoever it was was having a great time. But I figured it would be better to focus on the sleeping, even if it wasn't coming easily. As it turned out, the drumming was coming from another feluca boat's crew and passengers--and one of them was Clive, the Englishman who I had shared a cabin with on the train from Cairo to Aswan! I would find this out the next morning when I ran into him on the same bus.

Eventually sleep happened, or at least happened for a while and then didn't happen for a while and then occurred again, etc., intermittenly throughout the night due to the fact that despite being in one of the hottest countries in the world, wrapped in a very thick blanket that probably would have kept a camel warm (and smelled like it had), there on the Nile things were actually pretty darn cold.

At one point I woke up, sensed it was getting close to daylight, and looked forward to seeing the sun rising over the Nile. Unfortunately, I woke up again a short while later, and it already had. But it was still a gorgeous sight, and all considering I felt fairly well rested.

As we were all just beginning to wake up and, no doubt, thinking about checking out those bushes again, the captain pushed off without a word and we set sail. We didn't go far however, just across the river...and out of the sun that we had all been reveling in, since it was shaded there by palm trees. But this was where we would be catching the bus, and the captain probably wanted to be there waiting for it whenever it arrived. They then cooked up breakfast: scrambled eggs, pita with jam and cucumbers (I passed on the cucumbers) and shortly thereafter the captain's cell phone informed him that the bus had arrived, and it was time to grab my stuff and head for the highway, which was just on the other side of the palm trees.

I'll wrap things up here except to say that along the way to Luxor (chatting with Clive and catching up with what he'd seen) we visited two amazing temples, the Kom Ombo Temple and the Edfu Temple. The computer I'm on is being finicky though, so although I was able to upload a few pictures to my facebook page, it's not letting my load any more, so I'll have to try again some other time.

So I'm here in Luxor, staying at a very nice 3-star hotel that was part of my package tour, for the next two nights. After that I might stay a couple of more days, although I would switch hotels because I already asked them what it would cost, and it's way over my budget. But at least I'm living in style for now. From here I hope to go to the Dhakla oases, but I'll have to enquire about transportation because I've heard conflicting reports on how to get there from here. If that isn't a good way to go then I'll just change plans and head elsewhere, as there's plenty more to see...

Aswan Dam and the Philae Temple (click here for more info on the Philae Temple)

2009-11-01T09:33:00.000-08:00

Today my tour officially started, and I went in a mini-van with about 8 other folks from various countries (I'm not sure yet if any of them will also be on the feluca boat trip starting tomorrow) to the nearby Aswan Dam (actually called the High Dam, which is the second dam built after the original Aswan Dam was deemed to be insufficient). It is a remarkable feat of human achievement; but other than that it pretty much just looked like a dam, with a decent view of a huge reservoir, Lake Nasser. Lake Nasser is the largest artifical lake in the world, but it doesn't actually hit you that way upon seeing it, as the vast majority of it is out of sight because it is so long, stretching for 300 miles. And it actually isn't very tall, so it isn't nearly as dramatic a sight as, for example, the Hoover Dam. So basically, not one of the more remarkable things I've seen, other than that you might as well check it out while you're here and get a nice view of the surrounding desert in the process.

After that, we went to the Philae Temple, located on a tiny island in Lake Nasser, and that was actually one of the most remarkeable things I've seen anywhere. I wasn't able to upload photos from the internet cafe where I'm at here in Aswan, so I'll provide a link (click the subject line above) to the Wikipedia page, and upload my pictures later. It was absolutely stunning, carved out of pure yellow-golden sandstone and covered with exquisite, classic Egyptian carvings on almost every surface. Words don't do it justice. It was also in a beautiful setting with weird, golden scattered rock formations littering the land across the lake from the islet that the temple was on. Although, where the temple now sits is a different location from where it was built. It was originally constructed at a lower site, but the contruction of the Aswan Dam in the mid-20th century would have flooded it, so it was dismantled piece by piece and moved to a higher island nearby.

After visiting those two sites, we got back just in time to go take some pictures of the sun setting over the Nile, which you can see right from the city of Aswan and is quite a sight. Then I walked down the main bazaar, and had dinner at a small, cheap restaurant where I'd also had dinner yesterday. I had an excellent dish of some kind of macaroni, and bread with some sort of spread on it, both of which were delicious. It's only 8 o'clock here now but I'm beat and thinking about hitting the sack early, so that hopefully, perhaps, there's the slight possibility that I might get up in time to get some sunrise photos for a change. But, I'm not counting on it. When it comes down to it, sleep is more important than photos.

Either way, I'll be checking out of my air-conditioned hotel, and meeting somewhere on the Nile tomorrow afternoon to step onto a feluca boat and start floating downstream for the next two days. I'm looking forward to just kicking back and watching the river flow. Maybe I'll even make some progress reading the book I brought, which I've only read four chapters of in the past three months. And just so you all know, although there are crocodiles (or maybe it's alligators) in Lake Nasser, there are none in the Nile itself, since apparently the Aswan Dam takes care of them (so to speak) if they happen to float that far downstream. Just in case you were wondering.

I'll most likely be writing next from the city of Luxor, to the north a few hours by bus, but downstream on the Nile. Luxor is packed with some of Egypt's most amazing ancient sites, and I'm definitely looking forward to seeing them. Between the Great Pyramids and the Philae Temple, Egypt has already met my expectations of having the most captivating and mind-blowing historical monuments in the world, and there's still a lot more to see.

Aswan, southern Egypt

2009-10-31T11:41:00.000-07:00

I took an overnight train last night from Cairo to the medium-sized city of Aswan, on the Nile in southern Egypt near Lake Nasser, which is the largest artifical lake in the world (a result of damming the Nile). The train ride was pretty nice, as I had a cabin on a sleeping car (I'd wanted to take a cheaper daytime train, but it had been cancelled). I knew I would be sharing the cabin with someone, and it turned out to be an Englishman roughly my age. So we had plenty to talk about recounting our travels and where we were headed next, although he was on a much more abbreviated trip, spending about ten days just in Egypt before flying back to the U.K.

I'd heard the trains here weren't too punctual, and the English guy had actually talked to someone who'd said their train had arrived ten hours late! The one we were on left at 8 pm and was supposed to arrive 12 hours later, at 8 in the morning. But the rumors were proved right as it ended up being 4 hours late, right about noon. This didn't bother me all that much, as it meant that we had some daytime traveling to actually see the desert landscape along the way, which was really beautiful.

So for the first time in my travels, I've actually booked a tour. The manager at my hotel back in Cairo also organized tours, and was fairly persistent about trying to sell me one, though not in an overly pushy way. I kept turning down his assorted offers, and eventually booked that train ticket to Aswan, which also gave me a good answer to any more offers, since my plans were already in place.

But when I told him that I was taking the overnight train to Aswan, it turned out he had a tour with several other people already planned, starting in Aswan the same day I was arriving. It entailed spending two nights in Aswan, then two nights on a feluca boat floating down the Nile towards Luxor, and two more nights in Luxor, with guides and transportation to a number of ancient sites along the way. It sounded like he had one more space left to fill, and plus he'd obviously gotten the message that I was traveling cheap, as he offered it at a great price, $160 for six nights and seven days. That includes all accomodation, breakfast while staying at 3 star hotels in Aswan and Luxor, and all 3 meals included for the two days going down the Nile on the feluca boat, plus transportation and guides to the various sites. And it's supposed to be a smallish group of 3-5 other foreign travelers.

So considering that this was right in my budget range and would cover almost all of my expenses, I decided to go for it. I won't get another chance to float down the Nile anytime soon, and besides figured it would be fun to travel with a small group of other people for a change. There was one little snafu though, when I got to the train station today, and nobody was there to meet me, as was supposed to be the case. I was wondering about that since the train was so late, but didn't get too stressed about it, since I had the phone number of the guy who I'd bought the tour from (and of course knew where he worked, in case there was anything wrong with the tour). But things were corrected with a phone call back to the hotel in Cairo, and he told me which hotel I was staying at for tonight.

I checked in there, and soon afterwards a couple of the tour guides showed up to give me the basic info. They were two young guys, roughly my age if not a couple years younger, super nice and not pushy about selling anything else. It turned out that today there was nothing planned, which was fine ith me as I wanted to just walk around Aswan a little on my own anyway, and then take a nap after sleeping (not very much) on the train. Although I had a bunk, the train moved around a lot and didn't give me much of a chance to actually get to sleep.

So, the actual touring starts tomorrow (Sunday) at 2 in the afternoon (just my sort of schedule!), when we'll go to the Aswan dam, as well as to a temple on an island in Lake Nasser, which I'd read about in my book and sounds amazing. Then on Monday after checking out of the hotel, we'll head for the boat and start floating down the river. We won't actually be floating all the way to Luxor however, but instead will float for a day, and I guess dock the boat for the night somewhere and sleep on the boat. Then we'll continue the next morning until mid-day, at which point we'll drive the rest of the way, visiting two other ancient sites on the way to Luxor, both of which are ones that I'd read about and was interested in seeing. Once we arrive in Luxor and check in to our hotel there, we'll figure out the schedule for the final two days there.

So, that's basically what I'll be up to for most of the next week. Once the tour wraps up, I'll still have about ten days or so on my own in Egypt before I fly back to Athens. At this point I'm thinking I'll probably stay in Luxor for a couple of extra days, since it sounds like there's a lot to see there; and then I'll head west to the Dhakla oasis, out in the desert a ways. There are a hanful of different oases that all sound quite interesting, but that one is the most convenient it seems to get to from Luxor, though at the same time it's supposed to be a little less touristy than some of the other ones such as Bahariya and Siwa. I guess I'll write more about what the oases are all about when I actually get there.

That wraps things up for now, not exactly sure when I'll get the chance to write next...if not from Aswan again tomorrow sometime, then probably in Luxor after the boat trip.

Images of the Pyramids and Sphinx, Egypt

2009-10-30T03:37:00.000-07:00

More photos of the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx at Giza, Egypt (click here)

2009-10-29T14:47:00.000-07:00

I spent six hours today walking all around the pyramids and the Sphinx. Click the subject line above for photos.

Summing up Greece

2009-10-28T13:13:00.000-07:00

I'm going to try real hard to sum up, briefly (for a change), the last week-and-a-half or so that I was hopping around the Greek islands with Dianna. Last I wrote, I was on the volcanic island of Nisyros, after camping for 6 days there. We planned next to go to Santorini, partly to see it and partly because we had to go there first anyway, in order to get to another island that we were more interested in, Milos.

Our plans got changed, however, due to another ferry snafu (the first one was when we tried to go from Patmos to Ikaria, but the connecting ferry to Samos was cancelled due to high winds, so instead we started heading south). We caught a ferry from Nisyros to Kos, where we were supposed to catch the next ferry to Santorini an hour later. But we missed that boat by a hair because of two separate delays: first because of high winds that slowed the ship down, and then at the port apparently the anchor got hung up somehow and delayed us another fifteen minutes. We could actually see the boat we were supposed to be on to Santorini, from the ferry that we were still on, and we watched it sail away, with a tear or two in our eyes.

So, we bought a ticket for a ferry leaving the next morning from Kos to Rhodes instead, where Dianna had a good friend. We spent that night at a hotel on Kos and then caught the ferry at 5 am, arriving at Rhodes a few hours later. There we spent just one night at a scruffy, quirky hotel in an interesting part of old town, and then another at Dianna's friend's house. But we had three full days to explore (although, the first day we spent sleeping much of it, after getting up at four o'clock that morning). In short, we weren't too impressed by Rhodes. The one good thing about it was that we were there well outside of tourist season, and the place was fairly empty. The old town of Rhodes was beautiful, but scarred simply by tourist shops lining every inch of it. We did find a couple of nice beaches to hang out on, but everywhere you went you felt the presence of the hoards of tourists that descend on it every summer.

From Rhodes we ended up taking a ferry back to Santorini, which retraced our steps first to Kos. But we ran into yet another snafu when our boat didn't arrive, and we ended up being shuffled onto another one that was also going to Santorini. But it was the slow boat going to every little island along the way, and would be arriving seven hours later, at seven in the morning instead of around midnight. We actually didn't find this out until we were already on the ferry. We were pretty annoyed, to say the least, at being stuck in a position where we had to spend the night unexpectedly sleeping on a ferry. So, we went to the reception desk there and demanded that they give us a cabin for the night for free, since it was their fault that the boat we were supposed to be on didn't show up at all (apparently it just broke down and never started the trip). And to our surpise, with a little pushing they relented and gave us the keys to a cabin.

We arrived on Santorini the next morning, and spent only one day there. Santorini was also extremely touristy, but I'd wanted to see it because I had been there once before, when I traveled Europe at the age of 18. And unlike Rhodes, there was reason for the crowds, as it was exquisitely beautiful. I made the most of the one day we had, rented a moped and went all over the island taking pictures (there's a link somewhere below, if you want to check them out).

The next morning we caught a ferry over to the nearby island of Milos. The weather forecast said it was supposed to rain. But fortunately it was wrong and we had two days of brilliant sunshine to explore the deserted island and its beautiful beaches. Finally we caught a ferry to the island of Serifos, and the bad weather hit along the way. We stayed just one night there, and spent the evening huddled in a tavern, playing scrabble and drinking wine. The next day I tried to go on a bike ride, but had to turn back because it started pouring down rain hard. Then Dianna and I hopped on another ferry back to Athens. I spent two nights and one day there doing last minute packing, etc., hopped on my flight to Cairo yesterday, and here I am...

Images of Cairo, Egypt

2009-10-28T13:01:00.001-07:00

A few photos I took today here in Cairo:

More photos of Cairo, Egypt (click here)

2009-10-28T12:40:00.000-07:00

Arrived in Cairo yesterday afternoon, and spent today just walking around the city. It's an extremely interesting city, great for just walking around. Very busy and bustling, a little scruffy in places with scattered garbage, etc., and a lot of towering and rather drab apartment buildings, but nothing like the overwhelming pollution, decrepit infrastructure and borderline chaos of most cities in, for example, India. More on par with Bangkok, although not quite as modern. Tomorrow I'll most likely visit the pyramids, and/or the Egyptian museum, and Friday I'm hopping on an overnight train to Aswan. Then from there I'll head back north to Luxor. After that I might go check out one of the oases in the desert west of Luxor. Anyhow I'll try to write more soon, I'm beat and badly in need of a shower...

Some images from Santorini and Milos islands

2009-10-27T00:11:00.000-07:00

I didn't find the time to write another entry before hopping on the plane to Egypt in a few hours, so I'll try to write soon from Egypt. But here are a few pictures from the last few islands that I went to of Santorini and Milos, both of which were gorgeously brilliant. Much more photos at the link below, as well as tons of new videos from the past five weeks of Greek island hopping...

Tons of new videos of Greece (click here)

2009-10-26T11:42:00.000-07:00

I just uploaded more than twenty new short videos of my past 5 weeks or so biking and traveling around the Greek islands. This link goes to facebook, so you'll need a facebook account to see them. However, you can see the photo album below without having a facebook account...

Click here for more Greece photos...

2009-10-25T16:36:00.000-07:00

New photos of the islands of Santorini and Milos (click on the subject line above). I fly to Egypt on Tuesday. I'll be writing a new blog post soon, covering the past week or so, so check back here again in a day or two. (The link above goes to facebook, but you don't need an account to view these photos.)

Going to Santorini next...(click here for my Greece photos)

2009-10-15T10:32:00.000-07:00

Hanging out on the island of Nisyros, Greece:

Dianna and I have had a great time here hanging out on the beautiful little island of Nisyros. Dianna had been here once before years ago, and camped for three weeks on a remote beach, Pahia Ammos, that requires a short fifteen minute hike to get to. She'd made it sound like a pretty nice place, without elaborating too much, so I was definitely curious to see it.

Last Saturday we took a brutally early 2:30 am ferry from Lipsi to the island of Kos, which is a much larger nearby island, where we had to go first in order to get here. We arrived around 7 in the morning, and then had just an hour or so to kill there before catching a much smaller boat over to Nisyros, arriving around 10 in the morning.

We'd thought of just getting a room first so that we could get some sleep after a grueling night on the ferry, then do the shopping and the hike to the beach, etc. the next day. But we decided we were too excited to get to the beach and set up camp, and not have anything to do the next day instead.

We rented a car, then headed into the small main town of Mandraki, where we had a delicious English breakfast (fried eggs, bacon, sausage and toast), for a change from the usual muesli. With that I realized that I'd actually eaten three different breakfasts, on three different islands all within a 12-hour period. We'd taken a nap the previous evening on Lipsi before catching the early morning ferry, then had gotten up at around midnight to catch the ferry, and I made omelettes. Then after arriving on Kos I had a bowl of Muesli; and breakfast for the third time on the island of Nisyros. I'm sure it must be a world record of some sort.

Anyway, after breakfast Dianna and I went shopping for food for several days, then drove to the trailhead, partway around the island at the end of the road. We packed up and did the short hike, which went up a hill a bit and then wrapped around a small point, from where we got the first view of Pahia Ammos beach. It was a spectacular sight, especially since I had no idea what to expect. It was a large crescent-moon-shaped black sand beach with big dunes behind it, and a small valley going inland, surrounded by weird sculpted rock cliffs. As we walked down the trail to the beach and then up onto the dunes, you could see back into the valley; and my first thought was that it looked exactly like the African savannah. It was basically dry grassland and sagebrush, spotted here and there with skinny little trees, with large rounded tops that had plenty of foliage on them for providing shade from the sun.

We searched around and found a great spot, that was still in the sand but had three or four trees all right next to each other, making a large shaded area. We set up camp, then I took a quick swim and promptly crawled into the tent for a much needed two-hour nap.

We spent five days altogether camped there, and only saw a few other people, that just came to the beach for the day. Apparently it's jam-packed with campers in the summer, but we had it entirely to ourselves. We kept the rental car for the whole time, though we didn't end up using it all that much. But it was handy for storing some of our things so that we didn't have to hike everything in. A couple of days out there we never went farther than to the beach, and then back to camp (roughly a two-minute walk). But we still kept pretty active, between lots of swimming around and yoga on the beach.

A couple of days ago we hiked out to the car and toured the island a bit, including checking out the active volcano that's at the center of the island. And by "checking it out" I mean walking right down to the bottom of the crater floor. There's no lava pouring out at this point, but there are steam vents that can be seen from the hiking trails, and you can hear assorted gurglings around you, plus it stinks like sulphur everywhere. It was a pretty impressive sight, especially for such a small island.

Today we hung out on the beach for most of the day, then packed up camp around four in the afternoon and hiked out to the car. We drove back to the main town, and rented a room for the night to get a much needed shower and a welcomed night's sleep on a mattress. Tomorrow we're planning to take another ferry, to the island of Santorini.

I first visited Santorini when I came to Europe in 1990, at the age of eighteen. I more or less ended up there by accident. I was traveling with a friend, and we'd bought a ferry ticket from the port at Athens to the first nearby island. But we didn't much like the look of it, so we decided to stay on the boat to the next one, and hope that they didn't check our tickets. At the next island, however, we decided it still didn't look like what we were searching for in an idyllic Greek island. We did this several more times, until we got to Santorini. It was the final destination of the ferry, so we got off there, and it turned out to be a gorgeous and indeed idyllic island. It's also one of the most touristy islands in Greece. So it will be both interesting to see it with a new pair of eyes, nineteen years later; and it's also the perfect time to be there, well outside of the tourist season when there should be hardly anyone else there.

Hopping from Lipsi to Nisyros (click here for photos)

2009-10-09T08:43:00.000-07:00

Some images from the islands of Leros and Lipsi in Greece:

I'll keep this short. Dianna and I took a ferry about three days ago, going from Leros backwards a little to the island of Lipsi (which is right in-between Patmos, where we were previously, and Leros). Lipsi epitomizes the slow, peaceful, timeless pace of (some of) the Greek islands. It would take at most fifteen minutes to drive from one end of the island to the other. From any high point you can see the Aegean Sea in multiple directions, including various other landmasses such as other Greek islands or else Turkey.

There's just one tiny town, also called Lipsi, that supposedly has about 900 residents. Both Dianna and I were wondering, where are they? At any time of morning, day or evening, it seemed like it was still siesta time, with only the occasional person wandering by. Eventually we discovered another part of the village with some more signs of life, and some new markets and stores that we hadn't found before. But wherever you go here life is definitely at a very slow pace. The most noise pollution that you're liable to hear is the clanging of goat and sheep bells, or perhaps an outspoken donkey.

So after three days of exploring the island's beaches, tiny churches and windswept scenery, we're moving on in the middle of the night, catching the 2 am ferry south. We'll be headed via Kos to another small island, Nisyros. And then from there it's yet to be determined.

on Leros island

2009-10-05T03:49:00.000-07:00

I'm now on the island of Leros, which was just a short 1 hour ferry ride from Patmos. I stayed another couple of days on Patmos with Dianna, and then we looked around for where to go next. We wanted to go to the island Ikaria, which required first going to Samos, a touristy but apparently quite beautiful island. So we figured we'd go there for a couple of days, and then take another ferry to Ikaria, which by all accounts is quite an amazing and little-discovered island, of a fairly good size with lots of exploring to do.

But our ferry to Samos was cancelled because of high winds. We could have waited another day, but were anxious to get moving and see something new. So instead we got a refund on our ferry tickets and then took a ferry that same afternoon over to the island of Leros, arriving the day before yesterday. Dianna had heard some nice things about it, although my guidebook was a bit vague, so we weren't quite sure what to expect.

As it turns out, Leros is pretty much an average and fairly unexceptional island. If someone were to come here as their first visit to the Greek islands, they would probably think it was a great place. But having seen more interesting and beautiful places, and knowing there are nicer islands out there, there isn't too much reason to stick around for long.

Yesterday we rented a car and managed to see pretty much all corners of the island in a day. Afterwards, we pondered the possibility of catching a ferry the next day, today, to another island. But we'd already paid for the rental car for two days, and figured we could use up today taking care of assorted business, i.e. handwash some laundry, get some cash, do a little shopping, do some more research about the other islands and then buy our next ferry tickets. It's about 2 in the afternoon here now, a partly cloudy and fairly warm day, so we'll probably go to one of the nearby beaches in a little while and relax for a bit. The place where we're staying has a kitchen, so we cooked dinner there the past couple of nights (pasta and cheese the first night, omelettes and potatoes last night) and will probably cook again tonight, while we have a real kitchen.

As for where we're headed next, we'll most likely leave tomorrow and are strongly considering the island of Nissyros, further south with better weather. Dianna has been there before and really liked it a lot. Also there's a good beach where you can camp on, so that would give my budget a break to not be paying for accomodation for a little while.

Some images of Patmos Island, Greece

2009-10-01T10:32:00.000-07:00

more than a week on Patmos (click here for photos)

2009-10-01T09:58:00.000-07:00

I've been more than a week here on Patmos Island, in the eastern Aegean Sea a stone's throw from Turkey. It's definitely my favorite island that I've visited so far, and one of those all-around amazing places that would definitely be near the top of my list of favorite places in the world. For one thing, it helps that I'm here at this time, end of September/early October, as it's very mellow now with very little tourism. But it is a fairly well-known island, apparently jam-packed in peak season in large part because of its distinction as being the place where St. John the Apostle wrote the Book of Revelation. The very cave where God apparently spoke to him has been turned into a small monastery (and a tourist attraction) and another, much larger monastery, surrounded by huge castle walls, is perched on top of a hill that overlooks the bay at the center of the island and the port town of Skala.

But in addition to that impressive place in history, Patmos is impressive for the usual things that you expect out of a Greek island: a relaxed and exotic atmosphere; friendly and personable people; cool, surreal landscapes; small white churches scattered hither and yon in unlikely places; donkeys roaming the countryside; lots of stray cats lounging around in narrow back alleys.....and something else that you'd hope to find around here...let's see, what the heck was it.....oh yeah, beaches! Great beaches with calm, crystal clear waters, and at least at this time of year, not to many people around to get in your way.

So, I arrived here more than a week ago and spent exactly a week exploring the island on my own, with my trusty bicycle (well, other than yet another flat tire, #4). Patmos is great for getting around on by bike because although it's a fairly small island, there are a number of different roads that branch off going to various parts of the island, so that there are plenty of different areas to see. I basically spent every day biking my butt off, as well as hiking up to various ridges to get the view and see what I might come across (donkeys and horses mostly, and plenty of old rock walls zigzagging the barren landscape), and then finding a beach along the way. The island is long and thin, with an extremely narrow waist so to speak, at the center where the main bay and port town of Skala are located, making two distinct sections north and south. So from anywhere on the island you can see the sea, usually in multiple directions; as well as several other nearby islands, that aren't all that far off in the distance.

Then after a week to myself I was met by my friend Dianna from Athens, who I met at the Kalikalos retreat center on the Pelion Peninsula, a little over a month ago. She came in on the very same ferry that I'd come in on a week earlier, arriving at 7 am Wednesday morning. So I've been showing her around the island, with the difference being that we're now getting around by rental car, since she has a bad knee and can't bicycle.

We'll be hanging out on the islands together for a little while, and the plan as of now is to hop on a ferry on Saturday (in two days) to the nearby island of Lipsi. It's quite a bit smaller and supposed to be extremely quiet, even quieter than Patmos, which is a little hard to imagine at this point. But either way it will be nice to see somewhere new after spending a good ten days here. We probably won't spend a lot of time there, as there are lots of other islands to see, but who knows. After that though, we're likely heading to Ikaria, another island which you can also see from Patmos, but a much larger one, which also has hot springs...

That's all for now folks, talk to you all later...

on the island of Patmos (click here for photos)

2009-09-24T12:09:00.000-07:00

Arrived on the island of Patmos yesterday morning, after an overnight ferry from Piraeus (the port of Athens). The previous two day's I'd spent with good friend Dianna on the island of Aegina, just an hour's ferry ride from Athens (where she lives). But we parted with plans to meet up again in the next week or two. (Check out the link above for photos from Aegina, and of Patmos.)

Patmos is within sight of Turkey, and is where St. John wrote the Book of Revelation. It's also an extremely gorgeous island with exquisite landscapes, nice beaches and a relaxed atmosphere. I've done a fair amount of biking around, as well as hiking along some ridges overlooking the port and main town, and looking out to the sea in all directions, since the island is extremely skinny at the center. It's really the perfect place for just rambling around exploring on bicycle and on foot; lots of great landscapes and interesting things to come across, i.e. castle ruins, donkeys and horses, remote, uncrowded beaches and, for some strange reason, a table and chair placed randomly alongside a side road, with an empty bottle of ouzo and a shot glass on it, just waiting for a photo shoot (again, see the link above). Well I've got to cut this one extremely short, as I'm out of time on the computer I'm using. Check back again for more, whenever I get around to it...

in Athens for the 4th time (click here for photos)

2009-09-17T13:09:00.000-07:00

Way too much has happened since my last blog post, so I'm going to keep it to the bare minimum in summing things up. I spent two weeks at the Kalikalos retreat center on the Pelion Peninsula, north of Athens, and had a great time. The first week I spent at the Kalikalos center near the tiny village of Kissos. But there was another associated site about a ten minute drive away, at another little village called Anilio. There was a big group of people coming to do a circle dancing workshop, staying at that other site near Anilio; and they needed a few more people there to help out with things. So after the first week, I moved down to the other place for all of that second week. The good news was that there was a spare room, so I got to move out of the tent and live indoors. I took a couple of videos of both places, which can be watched on my facebook page.

But the really good news was that a nice Canadian couple, Fred and Ruth, who had arrived at Kalikalos the same day as me, were also leaving the same day that I was; and they offered me a ride along with my bicycle back to Athens. This was a real relief, to avoid having to deal with taking my bike on the bus again. So we all squeezed into their van last Friday and headed out, intending to drive to Athens that day, and hopefully be able to stay with a couple of people that had attended the retreat center earlier.

But along the way we all decided we'd rather see a little something else, and decided to take a detour to the ancient ruins of Delphi. This didn't actually require much extra driving, other than going on some smaller roads rather than the freeway. None of us really felt like dealing with Athens after having driven all day, and figured that we would be more up for it the next day, after a much shorter drive. So we pulled into the small tourist town of Delphi early that evening, found a campground and camped there for the night; then got up the next day to tour the ruins.

The ruins of Delphi were really amazing, actually a lot more interesting than even the Acropolis in Athens, because they were a lot more extensive. (As usual, photos are on facebook.) Afterwards we all hit the road again, headed for Athens. On the way we managed to correspond with two of the people that had been at the retreat center, and lived in Athens; both Greek women in our general age range. One of them was busy, but the other one, Dianna, who we'd all gotten to know fairly well, was free and invited us all to stay at her apartment for the night.

So we showed up pretty bedraggled around 7 in the evening, very grateful to be invited into her very nice little apartment on the top floor of a 6-story apartment building, within view of the Acropolis. Dianna had some free time over the next week, and told us that evening that she had a summer home on the Peloponnesus, a few hours south of Athens; and if we were interested then we could all drive down there the next day. Fred and Ruth wanted most of a day to see some of Athens; and I still needed to get my bicycle fixed. So the next day Fred and Ruth went out to tour the city, while Dianna called around and found a bicycle mechanic; then we headed that way to deal with the bicycle, with the arrangement to meet back at her place later in the afternoon, and then all drive down to her other house that evening.

So, after the usual delays we finally headed out of Athens later that evening. Fred and Ruth drove in their van, as they were planning to continue onwards from there; while I drove with Dianna in her car. However she didn't actually like to drive it much because of a bad back and hurt knee; so I drove, my first time driving in a foreign country (other than Canada, of course). Fortunately, the signs are almost always in English as well as Greek, and besides Dianna knew exactly where we were going, so it wasn't too much different from driving back in the U.S.

We made it late that night to Dianna's condo near the sea on the Peloponnesus, near the tiny town of Leonidio. The four of us spent three nights there, and had a great time; despite the fact that it was mostly rainy and cloudy weather. But we managed to get to the beach a few times anyway, explored the small village, went out to eat, hung out at her place, etc. Then Fred and Ruth continued on in their camper van, and Dianna and I stayed one more night in the same house.

Dianna is a musician, and had to get back to Athens two days later for a rehearsal. The next day, we decided to make use of the remaining day and see something new. So we drove north a little ways from Leonidio, and then inland and up into the mountains a little ways to a really picturesque village, and stayed there in a hotel for the night. Since it's mid-September, tourist season is winding down, and that area is somewhat off the tourist map anyway, so there were no other tourists in the village. There was only one small tavern, one hotel, and no mini market or gas station. And we were pretty sure there was no one else staying in the hotel. But the view from the room was amazing.

The next morning, we managed to enjoy the morning there, then headed out around noon to drive back to Athens. Unfortunately, we encountered car trouble almost right away. After about ten minutes of driving, I pulled over to take a photo of a cross on the side of the road. When I started up the car again, I noticed that the engine temperature was heating up big-time, and quickly went into the red. So I turned the car off, and we figured out what to do next.

The bad news was that we were in the mountains, somewhat in the middle of nowhere. But the good thing was that we were within cell phone range, and Dianna belonged to one of these auto services where they'll help you out wherever you are. So to make a longer story short, after several hours of waiting the tow truck finally arrived. And then after another hour or so of tinkering around with the engine, the tow truck driver got things fixed enough that we were able to drive off on our own, rather than having to be towed. It turned out that, despite having had a tune-up just a couple of weeks before, the problem was the fan had stopped working; and, the thermostat wasn't working properly; and, there was a coolant leak. So in other words, just about everything that could go wrong with the cooling system...

But we got back okay to Athens that evening (yesterday), and I'm back here staying at Dianna's apartment, making plans for my next step. One small problem is that the weather has been pretty funky all over Greece, including out on the islands, with plenty of clouds and rain. But some of the islands, the Dodecanese, which are further east near Turkey, seem to be mostly sunny. I might change my plans to go to Milos in the Cyclades, and instead go to Patmos, which is another island that was high up on my list...I'll probably get that straightened out tomorrow. Well, it's late here, especially since I didn't make this entry nearly as brief as I'd intended, so I'm headed for bed and will keep everyone posted one way or another with the future plans.

Lots more videos on facebook (click here)

2009-09-08T02:25:00.000-07:00

I've uploaded a bunch more videos of my Greece trip onto facebook, because they upload quicker there and also can be viewed in a somewhat larger screen. Click on the subject line above to go to my facebook page. You'll have to have an account already in order to view them, and be one of my "friends" so to speak, so feel free to make a friend request if you want to check them out.

Greece video 1

2009-09-08T01:12:00.000-07:00

This is the beach where I camped for a week on Anafi Island, the first island that I went to after flying into Athens.

Greece video 2

2009-09-08T00:53:00.000-07:00

This is a nice view of Hora, the only village on the island of Anafi, on a sunny and windy mid-afternoon.

Greece video 3

2009-09-08T00:38:00.000-07:00

Bicycling on Anafi.

Greece video 4

2009-09-03T23:07:00.000-07:00

Greece video 5

2009-09-03T22:45:00.000-07:00

Me harassing some doves and pigeons that were roosting on the side of a little shack of sorts on the side of a small country road, on the island of Syros.

at Kalikalos retreat center (click here for more info)

2009-09-03T02:26:00.001-07:00

I'll try to sum up the retreat center I'm now at in a nutshell. I found out about it online while doing general research about Greece before I came out here; so I had everything arranged already to be here for two weeks. I'm doing work exchange, which means that I work about 5-6 hours per day, and then get one day off each week (which for me is today).

The retreat center basically holds workshops that each last a week, and are hosted by different people that come from elsewhere, mostly from Europe, along with most of the participants. So it's really a mix of all sorts of different subjects, i.e. last week I think there was a tai chi workshop, next week is one called circle dancing.

Things change quite a bit depending on what workshop or workshops are going on. At the moment there are about 20 people here, including the manager of the retreat, a few people who have been here for several months, then a couple of other people who are doing short work exchange stints, such as myself and a couple from Canada, and then the paying participants. But then a bunch of people are taking off tomorrow since Fridays are when things change over, and then a new group of 15 people are coming for that dancing workshop.

Part of the idea of the place is to have a somewhat cohesive group of people, rather than just a group of staff who are serving the retreat participants. So even those who are paying to be here participate in a limited amount of chores, such as helping with a meal and clean-up, watering the garden, etc. But then during the day they are doing whatever workshop they came for. Then everyone gets the afternoons off after lunch, in which case most people go to a nearby beach; and those who are working come back for a short shift from 6-8 in the evening. Greeks eat dinner really late, so dinner is at 8:30, but even that is actually a little early for most Greeks.

I will have been here a week tomorrow, and then have another week after that. It's been great to hang out with a group of people as a change from traveling solo (although I did meet some cool people along the way as well). But now I'm getting a bit excited about heading out again to do more exploring of the islands. The good news is that the Canadian couple who are here leave the same day as me, and are planning to head for Athens. They are traveling in a camper van (all over Europe) and said they would probably have room for me and my bike if I wanted to get a ride back to Athens. Hopefully that will work out, because that would save me massive amounts of hassle in taking two buses from here to there, including wrangling again with bus drivers who clearly don't like the bike much.

That's all for now, it's getting on lunch time and then I'll probably be heading down to the beach for the afternoon. As I said, I'll be here at Kalikalos for another week, which means I'll be leaving most likely next Friday, September 11th or else perhaps the day after that, but probably Friday. Then for now, I've got my sights set on the island of Milos as my next destination, which has 74 beaches and really cool volcanic landscapes, and there's a campground there where I can stay. But of course plans could change depending on what other options I might come across in the next week.

at Kalikalos retreat center on the Pelion Peninsula

2009-09-01T08:33:00.001-07:00

Lots has happened since I last wrote, so I'll have to summarize as best as possible. I had a great time exploring the island of Naxos for a week. From there I decided to go next to an island that was conveniently located on the way back to Athens, so I went to the island of Syros for just two nights and a day. I arrived by ferry early in the evening, and bicycled with all of my things up and over the island to the other side, where there was the island's only campground. This wasn't such a bad ride, despite the fact that it was a lot of uphill the first half, as it only took about forty minutes. I made it down to the campground near the beach on the other side and camped there for the night. The next night I did a bit of exploring by bicycle (leaving my tent set up with most of my stuff back at the campground). Basically I just biked north up and over another ridge to another nice little beach. Syros was great, very mellow and low-key, not too touristy, not spectacular scenery but nice enough. Basically it was perfect as a quick stopover for a little change of scene from the busier and more touristy Naxos.

The next day I had to get up early to bicycle back over the island and catch my ferry at 10 am. Things were rather up in the air at that point. I was headed next for the Pelion Peninsula, north of Athens and there was no way to get there without going through Athens, even though I wanted to avoid it (especially considering that it was on fire for a little while). I wasn't exactly sure if I was going to spend that night in Athens. I was hoping that the ferry would get me there early enough that I'd be able to hop on a bus right away, and make it at least partway to my destination, which was about 6 hours by bus in total north of Athens, including a shorter bus ride to get to the smaller village that I was headed for.

The first complication arose when I went to get off the ferry and my bike had a flat tire. And I should mention that the slow leak I'd had on my bike for the past week or so had actually resulted finally in a flat tire the previous day. So that evening, not having the time to try and patch it, I'd replaced the tube with a new tube. So, the new flat was on the brand new tube. The first order of business then was to get that straightened out one way or another, since I didn't know if I might need to do some biking at some point on my way getting to the retreat center, and of course wanted to have the bike in working order.

The other thing was that I had come into a different port from the closer port to Athens of Piraeus, and was a little unsure how long it would take to get there. And, the ferry had been one hour later arriving at Syros, and then had taken longer than I'd expected getting back to the final destination, so I didn't get off that ferry until around 4 in the afternoon. There was a bus going from there into the center of the city, and fortunately I had no problems with the bus driver stowing my bike underneath the bus. On the bus I was then able to figure out where it would be dropping me off, which very conveniently was just a few blocks away from both the hostel I'd stayed at previously, and the bike mechanic that was right nearby.

So, I got off that bus, pumped up the tire just to get me down the street, and headed down to the bike mechanic. By this time it was getting close to 6 pm so I figured I'd be staying in Athens. The mechanic wasn't able to patch that tube for me for some reason (very little English was spoken there) but they were able to install a brand new tube for only about $7, so I went with that. Now I have two tubes with leaks that I'll have to patch at some point. Then I biked over to the hostel, they had room, and so I crashed there for the night.

Next morning I got up early to catch a bus out of Athens heading for Volos, 6th largest city in Greece and the closest large town to the retreat center I was going to on the Pelion Peninsula. Someone from the retreat center had emailed me saying there was a bus leaving Athens at 9:30. Conveniently again, the bus station was just down the street from the hostel.

I arrived at about 9:15 to get on the bus, but that bus was full. The next one was at 11:00. I explained to the ticket person at the counter that I had a bicycle, and they said that wasn't a problem. So around 10:40ish or so they started loading up the bus. As soon as I pointed at the bicycle the man loading the bus made it clear that he was very unhappy about it and, basically, there was no way in hell he was going to load it under the bus. To make a long story short, a commotion ensued, several English-speaking Greek people stepped in to help straighten things out since the man loading the bus spoke no English, and in the end he very relunctantly loaded my bike in and then piled baggage high all over it. Good thing that I was getting off at the final destination.

That bus ended up being late, and so I missed the last bus for the day that was supposed to be taking me from Volos another two hours to the tiny village of Kissos, which was where the retreat center was. To make yet another longish story shorter, through a lucky set of circumstances I ended up running into Jock at the bus station, who is the manager of the retreat center and who I had been emailing with over the past several months. He was there picking someone else up, and had previously offered me a ride, but then was unable to take me with the bicycle. So he told me about another bus that would take me partway to the village of Kissos. And the good thing was that it took me from Volos (which is by the sea) to the top of a mountain in the middle of the Pelion Peninsula, which is high enough that there's a ski resort there; and then from there it would almost all downhill biking for a good 15-20 miles or so going towards the village of Kissos. The thing is, that bus was leaving in 3 minutes. I rushed to the ticket counter, got a ticket and barely got myself and my bicycle onto the bus (this time there was plenty of room for the bike under the bus). I got off at the village of Hania, which was almost exactly at the top of the ridge. From there I started biking downhill, and it took more than an hour of constant biking down, before I finally hit some uphill and had another hour to get to the village of Kissos. I arrived at the retreat center just in time to take a shower and then have dinner.

I'm going to leave it there for now, so that I can save this post before anything happens since this computer is a bit temperamental. If I don't get the chance to write more tonight, then I'll come back later and explain more about the retreat center that I'm at.

still on Naxos (click here for more photos)

2009-08-21T08:44:00.000-07:00

I've had a great time exploring the much larger island of Naxos. The one problem I've had is I keep being completely worn out from all the hiking, biking and swimming I'm doing every day, but I keep not wanting to take a day and just sit around. I met an American woman here, Karen, who is camping at another campground that's just a half mile down the road from the one I'm staying at. Yesterday we went down to a a nice beach, where we braved the winds and flying sand. August is when the Meltemi hits Greece, which are daily winds that can get pretty intense. On Anafi they got so strong, particularly up in the main town perched on a ridge, that you could barely walk into it. A little ironic that this is always when most of the tourists are here trying to enjoy the beach. Apparently September is the ultimate time to be here, when things cool down, the winds die down and most of the tourists are gone.

So today Karen and I took a bus into the interior of the island to a really pleasant little village, Filoti. There weren't any particularly notable sights to see right in town, although you could hike from there up to the top of Mount Zeus, highest point on Naxos and in all of the Cyclades Islands. But that was a 3-4 hour round trip hike and neither of us were up for that. Instead we managed to spend a couple of hours just exploring the winding maze of narrow streets and alleys that make up most of the town, and eventually got up to a small church with an amazing view down to the town and across the whole valley. I've uploaded a few more photos, but am still having some trouble with the videos so will give that a try again later.

on Naxos Island (click here for photos)

2009-08-18T11:24:00.000-07:00

I took the ferry today from Anafi over to the much larger and more popular island of Naxos. It's quite a change of scene. Anafi was a relatively small island, definitely small in population, and for the most part off the tourist map. It was very rugged and steep yet barren, and had these crazy winds that would whip through the small town of Hora, that was perched on the top of a narrow ridge. Anafi was more introspective, whereas Naxos is much more of a tourist destination, with crowded beaches lined with all sorts of touristy shops and restaurants.

However, I'm enjoying the change. I realized when I got here today that, having just arrived in Greece still, I'm a little more interested in delving into the culture and mingling with the people than in finding solitude. Although Anafi was still a very interesting glimpse into the culture itself, there's a whole lot more going on in Naxos; plus the simple fact that I'm now staying in an actual campground, rather than sleeping on the beach, so that I've got the usual civilized facilities, such as my first hot shower with soap and fresh water (rather than a dip in the sea) in over a week.

Also, Naxos is much less hilly than Anafi, so it looks like it will be better for bicycle excursions. Speaking of which, I got the bike back up and running. My bicycle pump wasn't working simply because the stem on the tire was at an angle and so it wasn't connecting in the right way. But I got the stem straightened and managed to pump it up. However a couple of days later it was getting low again, so I've got a slow leak. For now I'll just keep pumping it up every few days, and at some point I'll need to either patch the leak, or else replace the tube. But at least it's working. I bicycled from the port to where I'm camping, Plaka Camping, which was a good 5-6 miles or so, and it was easy going because it was almost completely flat. On Anafi I could barely push my bike up some of the hills.

So it looks like Naxos will be good for exploring for at least a few days, if not more. There's certainly plenty to see, that is if my legs are up for it, I'm pretty sore already from the last several days of biking, walking and swimming. So tomorrow just might end up being a bit of a rest day to do my laundry, do some shopping, etc., just depends on how I feel in the morning.

As for future plans, I start working at the retreat center on August 28th, which is already next Friday. That's going to be a bit of a project unto itself just getting there, because I will have to get back to the mainland and then head north up to the Pelion Peninsula. That will either involve leaving with several days to spare and doing a lot of biking, or else catching a bus that will also take my bike. I'm leaning towards the latter. I'd rather leave most of the biking for the islands where things are a little more low-key.

Well that's all for now, I've got a bunch of great videos to upload but the computer here at the campground isn't able to upload them, so I'll have to wait and try another computer, maybe somewhere else in town....Well I'm headed for bed, or rather my sleeping bag.

Anafi Island

2009-08-15T01:53:00.000-07:00

I've been on the island of Anafi for about six days now. It's quite a beautiful and peaceful little island. There's only one village of a few hundred people here, although the island isn't extremely tiny, it still takes more than an hour to bike the length of it. But the one road only goes out to a monastery, which I biked to a couple of days ago. There are some videos of the monastery and other views of the island now on facebook.

So I've been camping on a small beach that's just a 10 minute walk from the port, and just a few minutes from a little restaurant called Margaritas, where they have free wireless access. I'm using the computer of someone else who is also camping on the beach.

Yesterday I went to take my bike out for a ride in the evening and discovered that the front tire was very low on air, not flat at least, but then I couldn't get the bicycle pump to work properly. So today (it's about noon right now) I'll have to get that worked out one way or another. Hopefully I'll get the pump working, otherwise there's a gas station not too far away where I can fill it up, and then see what happens over the next couple of days, whether it holds air or goes flat again. If it doesn't hold air then I'll have to make use of the one spare tube that I have. Other than this wrinkle, the bike has worked great though.

Other than biking around I've mostly been checking out the many great beaches on the island, none of which are too crowded during the day, but all of them seem to have at least a few people camping on them. I don't think that's the case everywhere on the Greek islands, however. On the more popular islands, for one you probably wouldn't feel as comfortable camping out because there would be too many random people around, and more chance of thieves, and also there might be police making sure people aren't camping. On the island of Naxos, where I plan to go next, I'll camp at a campground since it's a much more popular island. Each island is quite unique, just depends on the people and how crowded and/or friendly it is. And each one definitely has its own personality and different aspects to it.

The one village on Anafi, called Hora (which simply means capital city) is amazingly beautiful. All of the buildings are the classic white and blue, and it's perched on a ridge that looks out over the Mediterranean Sea. It's a very steep 20 minutes or so bike ride up there from the beach that I'm on. There's also a bus that covers the few miles of roads (it's about six miles from the village on one side to the monastery on the other, and I think there's another short road that I haven't explored yet). So I've made use of the bus a few times to go up to the village for dinner and shopping, etc. I've been hanging out with a small group of other folks who are also camped on the beach, an American woman who is about 40 from Minnesota, two Greek girls and an 18-year old from Germany.

Well I should probably publish this while I can because the internet here is pretty temperamental. I've managed to upload two videos to facebook so far, and am trying to upload a couple of others. I've also uploaded some new photos, which you can view by clicking on the subject line above. It's a link to facebook, but you should be able to view them even if you don't have a facebook account.

Take care all and I'll be in touch again pretty soon...

going to Anafi island (click here for more info)

2009-08-08T09:19:00.001-07:00

I managed to get my bicycle put back together today. It was a fairly greasy experience but not too bad, except that once it was basically back to normal I discovered that one of the bolts for the front brake had been stripped, making it useless. And the gears were shifting pretty rough, leaving it clicking a lot. So I asked at the hostel about a bike shop, they gave me some very general directions and I biked off to find it. Almost all of the shops on that street were closed because it was Saturday afternoon; but (very) fortunately the bike shop was open and there was a mechanic on hand. Otherwise I would have been stuck waiting around until Monday. The part probably needed to be replaced (not just the bolt but the whole mechanism), which they most likely didn't have. But he managed to jerry-rig it in a way that works fine and seems pretty reliable. And then there are always the back brakes. Also he fiddled with the gears and got them working properly.

So with that out of the way, I then headed for a travel office to inquire about ferries, since I'd heard that most of them were booked getting out to the islands. There was one seat left on a boat to the island of Anafi, leaving late Sunday night and arriving Monday morning, so I got that one. Anafi sounds pretty sweet, one of those places that's just as nice as other much more popular places, but somehow gets overlooked. I'm not exactly sure what sort of services there will be there, apparently there isn't a bank but there are small villages with hotels, restaurants, etc. And I guess you can camp near some of the beaches without any hassle and without worrying about your stuff, since there are so few people. The bike might not be especially handy there, since apparently it's mostly walking paths to get around, but that's fine. It sounds like there's some good exploring with secluded beaches, a monastery and ruins. I can't wait to take a swim in the Mediterranean. (Click on the subject line above for a link to more info about Anafi.)

Videos (click here to view)

2009-08-07T19:53:00.000-07:00

I've just uploaded some new videos to facebook. The computer I'm on doesn't have the software needed to view them myself, so I can't confirm that they're uploaded properly, but hopefully so. You can check them out on my facebook page. Just click on the subject line to this entry above.

the Acropolis in Athens, Greece

2009-08-07T10:32:00.000-07:00

I hiked up to the Acropolis today. I didn't actually pay and go in to see it yet, however. I'm going to make a concerted effort to get up earlyish in the morning to see it in the morning light tomorrow. But from the spot where this photo was taken there was another amazing view in the opposite direction, looking out over the city of Athens.

arrived in Athens

2009-08-06T15:34:00.000-07:00

I'm going to keep this short, but I made it to where I'm staying in Athens, the Hostel Aphrodite. Things all went pretty smooth getting here until it came to navigating the metro system. It turned out some of the trains had different routes because of construction going on. So that delayed me about an hour, but I managed to get things straightened out with some help from a few locals who knew English, though the little Greek that I learned has already come in handy. And then I had to haul myself, two backpacks (one largeish and one small) and the box with the bike about ten blocks from the metro station, but it wasn't too bad. The streets were fairly empty but the few people out seemed very friendly, men sitting in chairs on streetcorners talking, etc. Although it was a bit of a pain going that way at least I saved about 50 bucks that a taxi would have cost from the airport. And the ridiculous load that I have right now will look a lot better once the bike is out of the box, and most of the stuff is on the bike.

So I got to the hostel about 12:30 or so. It's pretty decent, marble steps, slightly scruffy, but basically clean and the room is nice and cool, must be air conditioned because it's still pretty warm outside, and free internet access. It's about 1:30 in the morning here, I'm hanging in there thanks to having an open seat next to me on the second flight, so I managed to get a little bit of sleep. But I'm basically headed straight for the shower and then bed, definitely plan to sleep in and then see how things are looking in the morning. The project for tomorrow will be to put the bike back together. Thanks to the free internet I'll be able to check email fairly regularly, at least while I'm here for the next few days. Hopefully I can manage to upload a video or at least some photos from these computers...Alright I'm headed for the sack. Or rather, a nice cold shower, then the sack.

Video contest

2009-08-03T11:19:00.000-07:00

This is a video that I made over the past couple of weeks for a travel contest which, if you win, they'll fly you to Australia for free, give you a van to drive around for 6 weeks, and in the process you make a documentary film about one of the 7 states of Australia. For more info click on the subject line above for a link to the website about the contest. There are seven different stages to the trip, each one of which is six weeks long. I'm submitting to the last four stages, so that if I were to win one of them, I wouldn't be going until after I'm done with my trip to Greece and Turkey, etc. As you'll see, the video is basically a 2-minute tour of Oregon:

Sleeping at a truck stop in southern Oregon

2009-08-02T18:46:00.000-07:00

I got a late start Thursday leaving Portland, heading for California to catch my flight out of San Francisco (visiting mom in Ukiah on the way down). I gave my buddy Erik a call to see where he was, since I knew he'd just started his job as a trucker a few days earlier and so could be anywhere in the 11 Western states driving his truck. Turned out he was on I-5 heading north, and was planning to spend the night near Roseburg. So he invited me to crash for the night on one of the bunks in the cab of his truck.

biking in Portland

2009-06-25T22:13:00.000-07:00

Bicycling along the Willamette River here in Portland with friend Gabe:

biking with friend Gabe, from 4th grade

2009-06-12T23:09:00.000-07:00

A quick little video from a bike ride along the Columbia River today with my friend Gabe, who I knew in the 4th, 5th and 6th grades. After that he moved away from where we were living in Willits, California, and I hadn't seen or heard from him since then. I happened to do an online search about a month ago, and turns out he's living right here in Portland:

eastern Oregon camping road trip

2009-05-31T00:35:00.000-07:00

Some videos of the scenery out in the desert of eastern Oregon:

eastern Oregon video 2

2009-05-31T00:17:00.000-07:00

eastern Oregon 3

2009-05-30T23:17:00.000-07:00

eastern Oregon road trip

2009-05-30T15:45:00.001-07:00

Some photos from my recent 3-day camping road trip out to eastern Oregon:

eastern Oregon photos

2009-05-30T15:42:00.000-07:00

Skiing, again

2009-05-22T13:27:00.000-07:00

Went skiing yet again on Mt. Hood yesterday, the weekly tradition. As you can see by this photo, the snow is definitely starting to melt, not sure how much longer I'll get to ski up there. Supposedly you can ski on Mt. Hood year round (or at least through most of the summer) because of the glaciers, but I'm not sure if what I've been skiing on is a glacier. I guess I'll find out when I see if it melts.

Mt. Hood video 2

2009-05-11T14:23:00.000-07:00

Mt. Hood video 3

2009-05-11T14:14:00.000-07:00

Mt. Hood video 4

2009-05-11T14:08:00.000-07:00

jumping sequence on Mt. Hood

2009-05-09T18:00:00.000-07:00

A series of photos I took jumping in the snow with Mt. Hood in the background. It isn't a proper sequence from the same actual jump, just separate photos that I pieced together...

jumping sequence 2

2009-05-09T17:56:00.000-07:00

skiing again on Mt. Hood

2009-05-09T00:37:00.000-07:00

More cross country ski photos from today, when I went up to Mt. Hood at Timberline Lodge and ski resort, right on the side of the mountain...

ski photos

2009-05-09T00:34:00.000-07:00

ski photos

2009-05-09T00:31:00.000-07:00

ski photos

2009-05-09T00:22:00.000-07:00

skiing on Mt. Hood

2009-05-04T00:04:00.000-07:00

This was actually a week earlier than all the other Mt. Hood photos above...

cross country skiing

2009-05-01T08:02:00.000-07:00

Cross country skiing again, at a spot I went to once before, several weeks ago. This time I had a little better luck with the clouds getting out of the way of Mt. Hood:

panorama of Mt. Hood and Timberline Lodge

2009-05-01T06:52:00.000-07:00

After skiing, I decided to head up to Timberline Lodge right on Mt. Hood and check out the view. It was pretty awesome in all directions. And since it was higher up in elevation the snow was much better. Next time I want to go cross country I'll think about just heading up here, since it's starting to melt off in the lower places at this point. This might not have been my last skiing of the season after all:

skiing Mt. Hood

2009-05-01T06:27:00.000-07:00

biking on my new (used) mountain bike

2009-04-23T19:50:00.001-07:00

Biking around Portland on my new mountain bike, on a nice spring afternoon:

biking around Portland

2009-04-23T19:43:00.000-07:00

Cross country skiing again

2009-04-23T08:41:00.000-07:00

Here's yet another cross country skiing video, back at Teacup Lake near Mt. Hood. This was several weeks ago (April 8th, it looks like):

Skiing photos....

2009-04-06T01:14:00.000-07:00

Some photos from cross country skiing near Government Camp, Oregon last week:

another ski video....

2009-04-06T01:12:00.000-07:00

Here's one more ski video from when I went out last Friday:

Skiing again near Mt. Hood

2009-04-04T13:00:00.000-07:00

I went cross country skiing again yesterday, this time in a new area, on some trails right outside of the tiny town of Government Camp; which is the closest town to all the ski resorts up on Mt. Hood.

Ski video 2

2009-04-04T12:27:00.000-07:00