Flashback: Diving the Red Sea

Before diving in (sorry) to the story of the week we spent scuba diving in Sharm el-Sheikh, we just wanted to say how thrilled we are for the people of Egypt now that Mubarak has officially stepped down. There was a strong sense of resignation and apathy when we were there – a feeling of “What’s the point?” that pervaded the few political conversations we had with locals. I remember our guide Mohammed saying that things were never going to change because the corrupt government made all the rules. The contrast behind that defeatism and the images and stories we’re seeing out of Cairo today could not be more stark. We wish them all the best.

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New Years 2011: A Tango Odyssey

Hi folks! Another quick update as we head off on our final adventure before heading home (!) in less than two weeks. We’re in Guayaquil, Ecuador right now, and tomorrow we’ll be heading out to the Galapagos Islands for eight days (that is, assuming Laura’s appendix doesn’t stage a last-minute coup as mine did right before we were originally supposed to hit the Galapagos in November). We’ll be totally offline for the next week, but we’re planning to post a full report on our three amazing weeks in Patagonia as soon as we get back. With more than 1,800 photos to sort through (good lord) and so many great hikes and adventures to write about, it’s proving to be a slightly bigger job than we initially anticipated.

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Feliz Navidad!

Feliz Navidad from Buenos Aires! It’s in the 90’s down here and there’s not a Christmas tree in sight, but we’re managing to make the most of our holiday away from home. I made my great-grandmother’s meatballs and homemade sauce for Christmas Eve dinner last night, and we invited Kate and James, two British friends we met in Torres del Paine, to join us for dinner in the apartment we’re staying in here in BA.

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Viva la Venezia!

Laura and I have been in Italy for exactly one month today, so we’re long overdue for an update. We have a legitimate excuse: we’ve spent the last three weeks on the Maestrelli/Frazier “bullet train” of family tourism – one week with Laura’s parents, sister, and uncle in Tuscany; then a week on the Amalfi coast with my parents added to the mix; then a final week with just my parents in Sicily – and we were on the go pretty much non-stop. Our Moms did an incredible job planning our time together, and I swear my Mom would make an amazing tour guide… you would get your money’s worth of site-seeing, that’s for sure! :) Laura and I found ourselves quoting National Lampoon’s European Vacation more than once during those three weeks, with an Italian flare, of course: “Look kids! Pompei! The Duomo!”. We’ll have a lot more to share about our travels with our families in a future blog post (and they may chime in with a guest blog entry or two, ahem).

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Kili Videos!

At the risk of Kili overkill (over-kili?), we thought we’d share a few of the short videos Laura shot during our trek. The first video (1:23) was taken on Day 2, after we arrived at Shira 2 Camp. You’ll notice that we seem pretty happy – the sun is shining, our breath sounds are normal, life is pretty good…

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Wedding Crashers!

We interrupt our regularly scheduled (and recently grossly neglected) international travel blog programming to announce that we’re back in the US of A! But only for a week — we decided to make a quick detour back so we could surprise our friends, Ginny and Mark, at their wedding in teeny, tiny Currituck, NC.

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Gross National Happiness

We said farewell to Tsewang and our six fellow trekkers on Saturday, and spent the rest of the day watching random American sitcom reruns on Indian TV channels. (We get why they’re still airing Friends, but why anyone thinks that Yes, Dear and Just Shoot Me are shows worthy of television immortality is a mystery we’ll just have to chalk up to cultural differences.) By the next day, Dustin was feeling a lot better, and by the day after that, he felt strong enough to tackle the steep, vertical climb up to the stunning monastery called Tiger’s Nest (a day hike we’d missed out on when our tour group did it a few days earlier). The hike ended up being a fantastic introduction to the Bhutan that had been taunting us outside the windows of our hotel room, with everything from beautiful mountain scenery to fascinating Buddhist culture.

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Travel Blues

Lest you, our gentle readers, think that our Vanuatu travels were full of nothing but erupting volcanos, amazing shipwreck dives, rainforest cave spelunking, and crazy land-diving locals, we thought we should mention the other side of our time on the islands. This is the side of our travel adventures that rarely gets documented on our blog because, well, it’s kinda boring. It’s when the glamour of international travel gives way to monotony, routine, and the daily annoyances of being on the road. It’s when we start fantasizing about being back in our own home, eating a Mission burrito, and not having to worry about drinking out of the tap or where our passport currently is. It’s when we want to be anywhere but where we currently are.

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The Diving Boys and the Shutterflies

We were on Pentecost Island for less than 24 hours, but it was easily one of the most memorable parts of our entire stay in Vanuatu — and not just because we were lucky enough to witness the amazing land-diving ceremony there. But before we get to land-diving, a few other highlights from our whirlwind trip to Pentecost…

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Magnum Cum Laude

As you no doubt remember, near the beginning of our trip I discovered that there are nine (NINE!) varieties of Magnum ice cream bars available in New Zealand and Australia, and Vanuatu as it turns out. (Check out my original Magnum P.I. blog post for the sweet details.) I made it my personal quest to sample all nine flavors before leaving Oz (two months seemed like plenty of time), and I nearly completed the task before leaving New Zealand. Only one flavor escaped me, the one that I saved (savored?) for last, hoping it would be the pinnacle of my glucosic gastronomic adventure: the exotically named Magnum Ecuador Dark.

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