The Best and Worst of Times

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September 19th 2011

Today was a difficult day for my roommate Hayley. She lost her 17-year-old brother a year ago to the day. It is really hard for her to be apart from her family right now, but Devin and I have been doing our best to support her. Hayley asked us to go with her to the beach tonight to light a candle in her brother’s honor. When we told Milagros and Jesus where we were going, they insisted that they go with us for support. It was really touching to see two people take on a parenting role to a couple of girls who they haven’t known for more than a few weeks. Jesus told us to think of him as a real father while we are here.

When we got to the beach, Hayley, Devin, Jesus, Milagros and I had to huddle really close together to block the wind so we could light the candle. We had a few minutes of silence for Brandon and then Jesus opened the backpack he brought and pulled out three long wooden sticks and stuck them into the ground and lit them. He is a kung fu instructor and is

fascinated by Chinese culture. He explained to us that in China, this is how they light they way for loved ones lost and that there had to be three because two and four were considered unlucky numbers. It was incredible that he thought to honor Hayley’s brother in a way that was special and unique like that. After the beach, Hayley, Devin and I went on to a park with an ocean view to light the candle again. I asked Hayley if she would mind if I said a prayer for Brandon and we all closed our eyes and took turns saying something. I think it meant a lot to Hayley. She shared her favorite memories she has of her and her brother with a smile on her face and tears in her eyes. It was a good night for our family here, despite the sad occasion.

Tuesday September 20th, 2011

When I went into the kitchen to make some breakfast before school, I was surprised to find two notes tucked into small colorful paper envelopes. I grabbed one and took out the note to find my name on it. The note said “Buenos dias! Jerica, que seas

muy feliz en este precioso dia. Que hables mucho espanol! Ja, ja, ja…” For those of you who don’t speak Spanish, the note said “Good morning! Jerica, I hope that you may be happy on this precious day. I hope that you speak a lot of Spanish! Ha, ha, ha…”. We later found out that Jesus had written the notes for us. It made my day, because it reminded me of the notes that my mom use to put in my lunchbox when I was younger.
I went to the library to study after class for a few hours… I was trying to stay busy so I wouldn’t have to think about the fact that Blake and I were apart on our 3 year anniversary. I did get to Skype with him on his lunch break, so that was great. I can’t believe it has been 3 years!

After dinner, Hayley and I met up with some of the international students from our class and went to a bar for Salsa dancing lessons. It was so much fun! Our instructor just had us get behind him and imitate his steps and then after a few minutes of practice he

would pair us up with a random guy and we would practice with partners. He said I was a natural =). I hope salsa dancing becomes a weekly ritual!

Wednesday September 21st, 2011

It was difficult to get up this morning because we didn’t get home from salsa dancing until about 1:30 AM. I wasn’t in the best of moods for some reason, but that didn’t last long. Jesus walked into our room with a huge box and said it was for me! I opened it to find that Blake had sent me the most beautiful flowers! I was surprised, because I didn’t expect him to send me anything since we are so far apart. He is always so incredibly sweet to me and I love him. You are the best Blake!

It is about 4 PM here in Cadiz and I need to go study so I will do well on my final on Friday. Wish me luck!

Jerica

There are more photos at the bottom of this page

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Stranglers

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The first day here our program coordinator thought it would be cool to give us the lowdown on Athenians. We were told to basically never trust any of them. Ever. For anything, forever. Apparently everyone from Athens is trying to scam us, scare us, steal from us, or steal us. Our coordinator really made it sound like there was going to be stranglers around every corner waiting to strike. I was so ready to see some stranglers, I bought new batteries for my camera and everything. So far, no stranglers. However, there are many extremely intimidating little old ladies. Maybe it's a trap, and they'll shed their skin and become stranglers and strangle us or do something else that's equally as traumatic and horrible and violent. At this point, I almost hope so. I mean, I brushed up on my Tae Kwon Doe and everything, I'm ready to be attacked, ok guys? Pass the word on if you know any ruthless Athenians. I was slightly disappointed when I started meeting locals and everyone was so nice to us. They helped give us directions, told us some helpful tips when it came to traveling, and pointed out fun places to go. Obviously, I had my guard up the whole time. Literally, my fists were up and I was ready to defend myself, while an adorable 70+ Greek woman gave me a coupon for the tram. I got a definite strangler vibe from her for sure. Look, I'm not trying to say that I'm not taking danger seriously, but in all reality, Athens feels like everywhere else. As long as you're smart, stay in groups, and stay away from bad areas, you'll probably be ok.

Anyway, a couple Americans on the trip with us asked if we wanted to hike up to a monastery with them that looked pretty sweet. We had seen it for the first time the day before when we walked into the square to catch a tram to the beach, which was beautiful by the way. So we managed to build up the courage and leave our apartments, despite the fact that we would probably be savagely attacked by Athenian locals. I know it's shocking, but we decided to take our chances. SPOILER ALERT: We were fine! I know you were all worried.

So we walked back up to the square where we'd seen the monastery from afar. We were unsure of how to get to the base of the site, so we just started walking toward it. You could see the monastery from everywhere, which was perched on top of a small mountain. We aimed for the mountain and began walking through the city. We asked several people for directions, and eventually found the stairs that wound up the side of the mountain. We began walking up. It was a tough hike, but all of a sudden I turned around to wait for Keira who was behind me, and I saw the city. What seemed like millions of rooftops looked back at me. I could see over the tops of the trees, and the large apartment buildings that circled the small mountain. The giant city of Athens looked tiny. It was incredible. I felt invincible. Then I got attacked by mosquitos, stumbled while running away from them, fell to the ground and cut my foot. ....So I'm not invincible, it's cool. I still have welts from the brutal attack, but it was definitely worth it. We continued climbing and eventually reached the top, where we took about one hundred pictures. We went inside the monastery and it seemed to knock me right back to my childhood. There was a donation jar next to a bagillion candles, and luckily I knew what to do with them, thank you Sunday School. I dropped a euro into the slot and took two. I brought them over to a shelf of sand, sitting in front of a stained glass window and lit them, sticking them in the sand. I said a prayer for my family, like I used to when I went to church all those many many many many many many many many many years ago. It was a really nice moment, until my stomach growled so loudly, I'm sure I interrupted at least 42 people's deep confessions to Jesus. I literally turned heads. I mean, I didn't blame my stomach, I was starving. I found my friends and we got dinner on top of the monastery as the sun went down over Athens.

Stay tuned for my next post: Gazi-- The Greek party scene.
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Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place The Todra Gorge

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Travel Blog » Africa » Morocco » Anti-Atlas » Blogs » Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place ?Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place – The Todra GorgeAfrica » Morocco » Anti-AtlasSeptember 27th 2011

Published: September 27th 2011 « Previous Entry 

Todra GorgeNow for some dirty talk!
The journey continued through the dusty roads of the desert through the Mid Atlas mountains to the Todra Gorge. That afternoon I went to my first bathhouse to get steamed, slimed with savon noir (palm soap), roughed up by a tabbeya (bath attendant) with a mean kissa (pumice glove), and doused with warm water. All modesty aside, we stripped down to our panties. I joked with my roommate that after this experience we would be friends forever because we shared such an intimate moment. Modesty is something the Moroccan women don’t have when it comes to a hammam. I couldn’t believe the layers of skin that came off my body. I emerged into the warm Moroccan night relaxed, refreshed, 5 pounds lighter and vowing to think clean thoughts kinda - hard since the men are so charming and handsome. Wait until you see their King and then you’ll understand.
Stuck Between a Rock and a Hard Place – The Todra Gorge
Before arriving to the Todra Gorge, we made our way through green palmeries and yellowish Berber villages until the road was closed in by 15km high walls of pink and grey rock. The Todra Gorge
Making room for the mules toois a massive fault that divides the High Atlas Mountains and the Jebel Sarhro. The approach was thrilling and scary if you looked out the window of the minibus to see the drop below. Still exquisitely relaxed from the Hammam I wasn’t sure if I would have the energy to partake in a 4 hour trek of the Todra Gorge or if I would be able to withstand the heat. Fortunately, I decided to go for it. It was phenomenal! This was an unforgettable experience that has made my top ten list.
Moving on westwards we headed for the movie capital of Morocco, Ouarzazate. This is where Gladiator, The Passion of Christ, Kingdom of Heaven and Babel. We stopped for lunch here before a short drive to Ait Benhaddou, famous for its 17th century Kasbah. We took part in a cous cous cooking class with our host, Action Houssain who has been in many feature films. What a character!
Our longest, but most spectacular drive was six hours, across the High Atlas Mountains via the Tizi ‘n Tichka pass, the highest in Morocco at 2 260m. We drove until the end of the road into the Toubkal region to Imlil.
Taking a breather
From here we had a 45 minute uphill walk to stay with a Berber family in Aremd. Jebel Toubkal, Morocco’s highest mountain was in view from our terrace.

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Mina Lagrande
la grande mina I'm off once again on another year long adventure. Through this travel blog, I'm hoping to share some wonderful experiences and images with my family and friends so that they too will be on the journey with me.... full info Joined:September 12th 2011Status:BLOGGERBlogs:2Photos:35Forum posts:0Blog Options[blog=654555][blogger=218140]Private MessageSubscribeBlog MapPrivate Blogs (1)GuestbookCommentRecommend (0)Print Version
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In 788, about a century after the Arab conquest of North Africa, successive Moorish dynasties began to rule in Morocco. In the 16th century, the Sa'adi monarchy, particularly under Ahmad AL-MANSUR (1578-1603), repelled foreign invaders and inaugurat...more info
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Time for tea againAn eleven year old Berber girl who lives with her family in the Todra Gorge prepares a tea for us.
Shy beauty
How high can one go?We climbed to 1 200 metres!
Return to the villageFour hours later we returned to the village below with the Todra Gorge behind us once again.
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Sule turtles and plenty of bus

Luckily managed to take the bus to Ba?os that evening and arrived at midnight. We expected to be left in a bus station and instead was the side of the road with groups of men lingering everywhere. We didn t really if wants to be left there, but had no choice as the bus quickly accelerated out ... leaving us quite scared. We marched at the hostel as quickly as possible, avoiding eye contact, ignoring comments and with our heads deep within our Guide trying to see the map in the dark.

Ba?os is Gorgeous! A lot of waterfalls everywhere and famous for its thermal waters, as well as his extreme sports. Unfortunately when we were there it rained non-stop ... was pretty sad. Instead of cycling around all the waterfalls we got into a chiva bus agreement agreement ... basically a truck with benches and no real sides playing loud music and flashing lights ... a party bus for instance. We were the only gringos, if agreement with the rest of Ecuadorians party, so we chatted with them as we squinted through the rain to see the falls. We did canopying (being cut on a zip wire back and feet and if flying agreement through canyon) that was really funny ... Although I think I feel safer on the bus. even at night.

We went to the thermal baths that night to try to warm up after a day in the rain, and they were beautiful! Waterfalls, mountains and the Moon in the background were so nice, although we did feel a bit uncomfortable with the amount of interest that we got from the crowd surrounding ... as Steph said "if I never had a bathroom with 50 men Ecuadorians staring at me!" An experience!

The next day we got up early and headed to Mount Quilatoa ... This was not in our plans, but a guy who we met told us that "it was so beautiful that I cried" ... so we added to our itinerary. We took a bus trip through the mountains, getting taller and taller, with beautiful scenery (llamas, sheep farmers etc) ... good for attempting to distract from the edges was veering towards the cliff bus. We arrived mid-afternoon and a lady jumped on our bus that offers a place to stay. We were able to negotiate a good deal, $ 8 for dinner, a double bed each and breakfast and then headed to the mountain to see what the fuss was all about ...

Well I didn t agreement actually cry, but the view was spectacular. The bus ride took us almost to the top of the mountain and we just had to climb a bit more to sommet and we had the most amazing sight of a huge Lake sparkling turquoise, completely surrounded by volcanic mountains. The trek towards the Lake was fun and enjoyable, but when we walked up that night was a different story ... it was getting dark, cold, altitude has made it more difficult to climb and we advised on wild dogs!
That night it was freezing absolutely! Beds were not necessary, as we all piled into one to try to stay warm. Log burner in our room tinto out after 20 minutes, then we spent the next 40 minutes trying to chop kindling with out sharpeners (very impressed with ourselves for this brilliant idea!)... we got a flame for a few minutes and then dipped in smoke again. :-( If not the best night's sleep! (A huge understatement!)
The next day was a day of bus ". We spent the whole day travelling towards the coast on a variety of buses of different quality. Some were good with lots of space and movie playing, the worst part was about 20 (dark) when the bus stopped, told the driver to get off and take in a different "due to an accident". We knew what was going on, but had no choice but to obey and come out with all our bags and stand on the side of a busy road in the dark! After a few minutes trying to think of a plan if we were left stranded did get another bus and we ended up in a nice Hostel in Puerto Lopez, with hammocks and style tree house.

Thursday ... we pulled from our screened early for a ride to The Isla De Plata "the poor man's Galapagos Agreement."An incredible day! On the boat above we went whale watching! Saw a lot of code and fins are sventolati to us. On the island there were tons of exotic birds ... boobies blue feet, being the most impressive. But the highlight of the trip was after the island, when we went to swim with the turtles! We put on ventilators and jumped off the boat and suddenly were surrounded by about 5 huge turtles! It was great! If they weren t afraid of us all and appeared to want to play! We were able to hold on to them and be taken for a ride, really something special.

The next stop is Monta?ita.

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History Museums Ruins

Saturday September 10th
I have actually felt fairly non-touristy so far here in Cusco since I am actually working, but today I felt as touristy as it gets. Vivi and I started early to walk to town, buy the obnoxious ´tourist ticket´ that every tourist must buy to see the ruins (it includes the ruins around Cusco, ruins in the Sacred Valley, a few others, and then some museums in Cusco as well), and then visit as many museums as possible before our City Tour this afternoon. We went to the Popular Art Museum (just a bunch of art and sculptures made by people in the community), the Regional Historical Museum (my favorite of the day. It had history of Cusco, the Spaniards, Tupac Amaru, food, Pisco Sours, Garcilaso, and more. It was very interesting and had plenty of information in English), and the Contemporary Art Museum (pretty cool, but I´m not one to stare at a piece of art for an hour so it was a pretty fast walk through), all three of which were included in the tourist ticket. When we got to the Plaza de Armas there were tons of people, no cars, and some sort of ceremony going on. We managed to weave our way through the plaza to find the Inca Museum (not included in the ticket). It looked like it was a big ceremony celebrating all the military, police, security groups, city beautifiers, cultural groups, etc. from Cusco and its surrounding provinces. The Inca Museum was pretty interesting, there were a bunch of artifacts and information (most of it in spanish). They could have done a better job with the presentation, with more english, but it was still good. Back to the Plaza to eat lunch and watch the parade of the different security groups before heading off to join our group for the city tour.

The first stop was the huge cathedral in the main plaza which looks amazing, but costs 25 extra soles to get in as a tourist. Turns out you can get in for free if you go super early in the moring during mass, so Vivi and I decided to save some money and do that another day. So then we had another hour to wander around before we rejoined our group. With the group again, we walked to the Qoricancha temple (now a church but which has Inca ruins reserved inside) where we learned about the temples of the sun, moon, stars, and lightening. During Inca times the temple used to be the center of a huge system of holy sites and temples spreading out like rays of the sun from Cusco. Our bus took us up the hill to Sacsayhuaman (not sexy woman) which was probably a religious site but has three layers of outer walls for protection making people think it was a fortress. Supposedly the Incas first built Cusco in the shape of a puma with this site as the head. The site has HUGE stones that make up the outermost wall that must have taken hundreds of men to move, an incredible task. Sacsayhuamen ended up being my favorite ruin of the day. We also visited Tambomachay (a water temple), Pucapucara (but we were running a bit late so we didn´t get out of the car to wander around the ruins), and Qenqo (it was dark by the time we got there, but it was just a huge rock in which the Incas had hollowed out a passageway with an alter as a worship site). We got home late and it was a very full day, so we just went straight to sleep.

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Great Barrier Reef

Um kurz nach acht werden wir abgeholt und ums Eck zum Hafen gebracht – irgendwie haben wir uns den Weg weiter vorgestellt, nachdem die Dame im Büro des Campingplatzes uns erkl?rt hat dass es viel zu weit zum gehen sein.
Dort wartet ein ehemaliger Hummerkutter - nun umgebaut zum Ausflugsboot, der so etwa 30 Leuten Platz bietet, die zum Schnorcheln ans Riff wollen. Und genau das machen wir. Die drei sympatischen Mitglieder der Crew (Kapit?n, Marinbiologe und Marinbiologin) geben uns noch die n?tigen Sicherheitshinweise und ab geht’s eine Stunde Fahrt zum ersten Schnorchel-Stop.
Die See erweist sich als etwas rauh, Wind so um die 25 Knoten, was immer das auch in km/h hei?en mag aber auch wir f?hnerprobten Tiroler finden, dass man diese Briese als Wind bezeichnen kann. Auf jeden Fall, die Wellen sind gro?, das Schiff rollt aber die Sackerl bleiben unbenutzt.
Dann endlich, das Meer wird ruhiger wir sind am Riff und nun endlich raus ins Wasser. Wir schnorcheln um bunte Korallen, durch bunte Riffe und k?nnen nur staunen über die unglaublich bunte Vielfalt im Meer.
Wir werden an noch zwei weitere Stellen am Riff zum Schnorcheln gebracht und das Staunen h?rt nicht auf. Auch wenn wir die gro?en Fische, Haie und Rochen leider nicht sehen bleibt es ein unglaubliches Erlebnis.
Bei der Rückfahrt haben wir noch das Glück, dass ein Buckelwal unseren Weg kreuzt. Er springt aus dem Wasser und verschwindet mit lautem Platsch im Meer. Noch einmal taucht er auf und winkt uns mit der beeindruckenden Fluke zu. Er wird wohl weiter nach Süden ziehen und wir müssen zurück ans Land.

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Gengma and surounding

On the evening at 1988 November 6th, an Richter 7.6 earthqueak hit Gengma, killed more than 700 people and injuried about 8000 citizen. But look at Gengma town today, you wouldn't find any trace of that deadly disaster, only the memorial tower erected in the middle of the Baima Plaza reminded people of the event. At the back of the Plaza is the rebuilt Gengma Tusi mansion, in fact, almost all the historial relics had been destroy by the earthqueak, one more deadly blow after the culture revolution.
Gengma(@1100m) is a small town with the bus station stood near the beautiful built Jingge White Stupa could dated back 220 years hidden on top of a small hill behind the local high school, the Stupa was dedicated to the people of Burma and China after many year of war and conflicted, and finally both country could live in peaceful and friendly environment. The Stupa had been rebuilt at 1992 according to the original main tower, and 12 smaller stupa had been add around the main tower, each stupa stood for a month of the year.
Gengma is a friendly and welcoming town, so infomation for the surrounding could easily obtained. Not far from the Baima Plaza is Zongfosi Temple. Buddhism not coming into Gengma before the year 1473. Couples of traders went to Kengtong in Burma, and impressed by the faith and custom of Buddhism, and when the monk in Kengtong find out they had never heard of Buddhism and had no temple in Gengma, the monk presented the traders with a buddha statue and send 2 monks go back to Gengma with them, Buddhism spread the first time and Zongfosi Temple was built to took charge of all the other temples. Inside the main temple hall you could see a long banner depicted the whole life's story of Buddha.
25km outside of Gengma on the road to Shuangjiang, a huge cave on the side of the hill where they had find some relics could dated back 3000 years ago, said sthere was sign of building construction mean...there could be human activies in the pre-history time. they also suspected the tunnel inside the cave could lead all the way to Shuangjiang about 100km away, of course...no one ever made it that far. anyways...you could walk about one kilometer deep into the cave if you dare to, altough not hot but it was dark and humid, and many insects swarm around your headlight torch...annoying! They call the cave Shifodong - the stone buddha cave, as some stalactites inside the cave look like a buddha. In the old day people would take refuge here when natural disaster appeared, so it said to be a blessed heaven from the deity. every year during Water Festival thousand of people will come here to pay their respect to Buddha. and together of course...eat, drink and fun fair....a men-made disaster to the cave I would say!
Markets around Gengma area was a surprised as I didn't expected to find anything dressed tribal or something new. The less interest was Mengsheng market right inside Cangyuan region, a huge market hall but without much business. "normally I do business until 3pm" one vendor said by 1pm when we were waiting for the minibus to depart. seem like most of people were busy in harvest pineapple. In Mengsheng still could see some Wa in costume, and they wear thick round neck ring and ear-ring in disc and square shape. Batuan market further down from Mengsa was busy inside the small town. First I was attracted by the huge rugby turban. plain colour knee lenght long sleeve jacket open from the right and long trouser. Happily identified themselve "we are Han" when asked. Then I spot some dressed in a little bit more colour, long sleeve robe open in the middle, knot by a single silver button. the sleeve were in blue while the main body in black, there were pattern in lapel and cuff area, they wear baggy trouser and legging, most of them didn't speak Chinese. After enquired I find out they were Lahu. The closer Lahu village is about 15km further up the mountain, and they celebrate Torch festival, " a big event in their village" a local told me. I made a mental note of this. The majority are Dai in the market, the plain tight long sleeve shirt and the salong skirt was easy to identified. The Gengma market was also busy, although it all set inside the huge market hall, still...there are great atmosphere as the area was big enough to creat a market scene inside. Here you could see Dai of course, then there are Lahu but without costume, only could identified by their shoulder bag, you also could see Wa with simple costume, typical Wa skirt and a plain jacket, no headdress was in sight. In the market I also find couple of Lisu women, although no costume dress only an front apron and a shoulder bag, local told me they are Lisu. But the surprised was the Yi, I didn't know they had Yi in Gengma, they call themselve Mula Yi, they live near Mengsa area. they wear their headdress in a rectangular shape, and dress similar to the Dai but they wear legging.
I quite like Gengma, not only it is small enough to walk around, people were just nice and friendly. the only disappointed thing was I couldn't find a decent bakery for bread and cookie, and...a new bus station had been ready about 1 kilometer at the edge of town. I really wonder why a small town like this with tiny bus traffic, there not even a chaos scene during peak hour on market day, why you need a bus station a long way from town center????

note
bus Mengyong to Gengma 21 yuan
minibus Gengma to Mengsa 15 yuan
minibus Gengma to Mengsheng 15 yuan
minibus Gengma to Shifodong 15 yuan
entrance fee to Shifodong 15 yuan
There are more photos at the bottom of this page

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