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Providencia, Colombia
In the faint morning light, I unclipped from the tether in the cockpit and removed my lifevest. I crept down into the cabin, seeing the boys both fast asleep. I had taken a three hour shift, instead of the usual two, because Josh had been up all night adjusting sails through changing conditions. He needed…
Setting Sail
The learning curve on a sailboat seems to be quite rapid. When Captain says “let’s furl the yankee,” or “we’re gonna come up on the halyard,” the scattered shuffling through ropes with that look of sincere confusion only gets you so far. On a boat, it’s either learn or be useless, sink or swim. A…
Catching a different wave
I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to talk to, but I knew his name started with J. Emma had told me about a person–named…something or other…starting with a J–who she’d met at Rio Coco. She said he has been sailing around the Caribbean, and he’d given her some advice about how to find a…
Utila, Bay Islands, Honduras
The sun rises just after five and peeks through my window. Slowly opening my eyes, I become aware of the fan’s breeze on my legs and the sound of the roosters outside my window. I sit up, ever so slowly, avoiding sudden movements. Tactfully and with precision, I peel back the curtain of my window…
My summer, on the halfshell
Well, this is awkward. Been a while. I said I’d write. I didn’t write. Didn’t call…eh.. It wasn’t that my summer was boring and there was nothing exciting to blog about; nor was it that I was so busy doing awesome things that I just couldn’t find the time. Those would be what we call…
I see France!
It’s gettin’ real. We were eating breakfast on the roof of my seven story hotel in Mandalay, my friends from Holland and I, when my tea cup started rattling on its saucer. The tea was spilling over the rim of the cup, and I wasn’t touching it. I looked at it curiously, at first, but…
The Boat to Mandalay
I woke up at 3:45 to Cindy Lauper’s Girls Just Wanna Have Fun on my iPod alarm. That song has, since 2004 been an alarm clock song for me. Gets me up every time. I threw my pack over my shoulders and got my shoes on. I went out in the darkness of the early morning, and started walking. It was reasonably temperate out, but the sweat, nonetheless, started covering my body as usual. I walked and walked and walked. I wonder how much time has passed. Is there any way I’m going to miss is? I looked at my iPod. 4:45. Shit. I pulled out my map. I was only 2/3 of the way there, and I needed to catch the 5 am boat. Desperate times call for desparate measures. I saw a man just ahead with a bicycle and one of those little seats attached on the side. There was no one else on the road. No taxis, no horse drawn carriges, no motorcycles. This was it.
The Train. The Zoo.
It’s hard to come up with words to describe such a day, so I am relying on the video clips I have. Please excuse Pavlo’s language in a couple…
The train was packed. There were people shouting, dancing, singing, sleeping, selling, and moving their household furniture.
It was nothing I could have imagined it would be. We were on the train for five hours. I felt like passing out from the heat. I should have brought more water. I looked at the water from the vendors on the trains longingly, wishing I could drink just a couple of sips. It wasn’t bottled. I might get sick. I ate watermelon, sucking the rind for all the water I could get. We got off between two stops, two hours from central Yangon. We walked down the tracks and saw a family. The kids were flying kites. A man beckoned us over.
Sweltering in Yangon.
I am safe and sound in Myanmar. I don’t have much time to write, as I am heading to the zoo with two new friends I met at my hostel, from Australia and Greece, but I wanted to check in for my mom’s sake.
A Letter to my Gut.
A letter to my gastrointestinal tract:
The havoc that is about to befall you, is one that I would not wish upon my greatest enemy…
Beijing, for 13 hours.
After arriving in Beijing, I quickly began to feel like I had lost my marbles. What the hell were you thinking, Anoush, everything was going to be in English? Everything was definitely not in English. I was the only non-Asian on my flight, and anywhere I looked for that matter. What were you THINKING it would be like? I began feeling a little overwhelmed. I was exhausted from an 18-hour flight and two failed attempts at knocking myself out with ambien, and I wasn’t imagining it would be like this upon arrival.
Arriving at Lake Village, YNP
I must work in the Yellowest place in the world: a Yellow hotel, in Yellowstone National Park. Ooo la la! In fact, the hotel that I am working in is the oldest hotel in any of the National Parks in the country, and the lake where it’s set is the biggest lake above 7,000 ft….
Airports, waitings, headaches
Alarm clock wake-up at 4 a.m. Foggy, solemn ride to Boston. After a early morning, teary-eyed goodbye, I boarded my 6:40 a.m. flight to Chicago. Arriving at 8:15 in Chicago, I was set to depart by 9:30 to Bozeman. The gate was packed with people, and the standby list was long. “If anyone would be…