19/3/16 Today I am feeling so frustrated and disappointed. Yesterday, I set out to climb Mt. Kinabalu. Mount Kinabalu is the highest mountain in South East Asia. From the Himalayas in the north to Guinea in the south, there is none to compare with the 4095.2 metre tall (13435 ft.)…
I’ve been having problems with my stomach since I came to Malaysia. Actually, it started before I even had left Australia. I thought maybe it was something I ate or the way I was eating that was messing up my lap-band. I thought I’d irritated it because I ate too…
I’ve noticed that the further northwest I travel in Queensland, the more kangaroos there seem to be. I’ve also noticed a marked decrease in Wi-Fi. (This seems to be a direct inverse relationship.) There have also been a bunch of termite mounds, many of which are clothed – yeah, t-shirts,…
Whew! I did it! I am now a certified PADI Rescue Diver, so yay me! I made it through both my “hell dive” and my “hell day” without (terrible) incident! The nice thing about the rescue class is that it gave me some exposure to lots of the things that I’ll…
(WARNING: Written while grumpy! May contain some cursing and general huffiness…) Today was the first day of my Rescue Diver course, a class which is a prerequisite for the Dive Master course. I am in El Nido, a town on the island of Palawan in the Philippines. I’ve heard the diving…
I met the greatest lady yesterday! I had stopped in a cul-de-sac on the top of a hill so that I could clean out my car. I’d spent the morning at the library, but it was a Saturday, so it closed at 1230. So, before deciding where to go from…
Today, I got up and my main goal for the day was a hot shower. It’s interesting how sometimes it’s the little things that become important when you’re traveling with not many things. I’d been taking cold showers at beaches and such for the most part when I traveled the Great Ocean…
Well so far, New Zealand has been a delight! Especially after the suckiness that was my time in China…. I arrived here early in the morning on the 27th of November. My cousin’s daughter Mona was going to pick me up at the airport and my flight got in a…
“I’m like a bull… I only fly away” You know what country I find kind of intimidating? China. More than a billion people here. I can’t read or understand their language. I believe the country is still communist, but I’m not entirely sure. Either way, they have a lot of…
I’m on a ferry right now, headed back to Athens from Santorini. I had a great couple of weeks there. It would be more difficult to leave, I think, but as we were pulling out of the port, the clouds opened and the sun burst through. I am on the…
My wake-up call this morning was neither wanted nor pleasant! I was stung by a bee while still in bed! I woke up in Monodentri, a bit chilly, but snuggled in my warm bed. My shoulder was sticking out of the covers and I could hear something buzzing about in…
I went back to the reggae bar last night, Juuls in St Julians. I have been sick these last couple of days with a cold and cough, so I haven’t accomplished a whole lot. I’ve wanted to go scuba diving, but it’s hard to put more pressure on your ears…
Today ended up being amazing! I went scuba diving in Lanzarote. Ana, the girl I’m couchsurfing with, had said she would meet Ronald, David and I at a beach at 2:30. They are the two others who are couchsurfing with her also. We got up in the morning, intending to find…
Last night, I went to the restaurant that my host Zuri recommended called Casa Camilo. It’s right on the tip of the Puntilla, to the north of Playa Cantera. He’d said they had the best seafood around, and when I got there, the waitress first asked what I wanted to drink.…
I’ve been enjoying my time in Gran Canaria immensely. It has, for the most part, been a nice respite from the constant sensory and emotional input that is Morocco. There is plenty to see and do here, however. It’s also nice to be in Spain, because I’ve been able to…
Wow, leaving Morocco today was a lot harder than I thought it would be. There are several new friends and people whom I will miss very much. Although these last few days have been difficult, I definitely enjoyed my time here, and I’ve come to love many things about this…
I arrived in Ouarzazate yesterday rather late in the evening, on the bus from M’Hamid via Zagora. I was happy that I knew exactly where I was going already, since I’d called ahead and talked to the guys at Hotel Baba about getting a room again and the hotel is…
The day after I returned from the desert, Hassan invited me to join him and his family at their house in the evening, to celebrate the beginning of Ramadan. I hadn’t really intended to still be in Morocco when Ramadan began, as I have been hearing horror stories about everything…
Today, I jumped off a cliff. Twice. So for all those of you who have wished I would “go jump off a cliff,” in the past, the good news is, your wish was granted. The bad news is, I was attached to a dude with a parachute. Also, bad news…
Leaving Essaouira was hard, and the suckiness of the actual journey only reinforced for me the idea that maybe I should have stayed longer. The day started out so well…. When Ana and I got up on our last day in Essaouira, we were just in time to go meet…
Anna and I had decided to stay an extra night in Essaouira after the festival ended and so we got a hotel room near the center square of town to share the next day. She’d been staying at another friend’s house the previous night or two, so we met up…
Ismael, Anna and I had made plans to meet up with Anas and Haitem over coffee the following morning. Coffee, was a leisurely experience, as most of our mornings thus far have been, with different friends popping in and out to join us for a coffee. I think my favorite…
The second day of the music festival, we decided to go to Sidi Kaouki, which is a town near to Essaouira known for having a particularly beautiful beach. Youness is a surfer, so he goes there a lot and wanted to show us the area. His sister decided to join us, along…
After an long bus ride, I just arrived in Chefchaouen, a town in Northern Morocco up in the Rif mountains. It’s a beautiful town, known for the way most of the buildings have been painted blue and white. It looks a bit like I’d imagine a little mountain Santorini would be. I…
Yesterday, after breakfast, Maia and I decided to go to a garden the French woman in our home recommended. She used to live here in Morocco, so she’s pretty comfortable here and knows her way around. Since the Jardin Jnane Sbil is relatively near to the Bab Boujloud (Blue Gate)…
After arriving in Rabat by train, I haggled with some taxi drivers for a while before finally finding one who only overcharged me a little bit to take me to the kasbah gates where I was going to meet Nuría, my hostess for the AirBnB place where I am staying.…
“Hey, did you hear about so-and-so, who just quit their job to travel the world?” For as long as I remember, I’ve been a bit jealous whenever I heard that statement from someone. That little monster, Wanderlust, would perk its ears up within me and give a little growl. I…
