Category: Book lover

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Let’s do this!

We got back to Calgary on Sunday afternoon and hung out with our friends for the last time in what would be a few months. Monday morning we woke up and went to pick up the last thing we were waiting on – roof awning mounts. We picked them up and then drove back to the house to sort everything out. We packed almost all of our things into the van and then chilled out in the afternoon. Tuesday morning we were up (much later than we wanted) and drove out to our friends’ parents’ house to say goodbye. We ate lunch there and had a cup of tea before calling the border crossing to check two things. First, what time they were open until, and second if we were able to keep our vertical garden herbs or if we had to get rid of them. We weren’t able to keep them so we emptied the pots into some buckets and waved goodbye. The drive to the border was uneventful and when we arrived the crossing was empty, we were the only car there. We drove up to the window where we were asked a few questions and then told to park as we had to go inside. We thought we were inside because they wanted to ask us more questions but they just wanted us to pay the $12 fee and scan our passports. After a couple of minutes we were officially in the USA and were quite relieved at how quick the process was, it meant we could drive even longer. We drove into Montana and continued south, aiming for the town of Bozeman. We made it and were so tired we thought we would just check into a hotel as it would be easier for us to wake up and go. As it turns out, Bozeman was all the rage that night and every hotel was booked out so we pulled into the car park at Walmart and spent our first night of our US road trip there. Waking up the next morning we looked haggard but had no time to dawdle, we had a roof awning to pick up and install. So we drove to a mechanics shop, picked up the awning we had ordered online through them (shipping to Canada was going to take too long) and drove to yet another car park, this time one for a hardware store. Once there Mark pulled out his toolbox and got to work whilst I sat in the car and relaxed, only getting up when I was called to “hold this here for me”. After a couple of return trips into the store, Mark had the awning secured to the roof racks and we were off to Nevada. We made it to Nevada that night and were lucky enough to get one of the last hotel rooms in the town – we couldn’t spend two consecutive nights at Walmart, we needed showers. Our original plan the next morning was to drive all the way to Yosemite National Park but one of the main roads was closed which meant hours were added to our driving. We made it as far as Lake Tahoe and pulled into a camp ground and set up camp that night. The next morning I awoke on my 25th Birthday to our usual routine of cooking, cleaning and packing up, before more driving. Mark drove most of the day and we arrived in the late afternoon in a town just outside of Yosemite. We got the last fully powered site and began setting up our little home. It was so hot there that it felt like the heat sucked the air out of you but it was nice to sit down under our new awning with some snacks, drinks and play a game of Italian cards. It was here that Mark handed me his phone and said Happy Birthday. I looked down and there was a video on there, so I pressed play and began watching my cousin unwrap my birthday present for me – a new handbag. I smiled and said thank you and when Mark asked if I was surprised my reply was “Do you want me to be honest or lie?” “You knew?” he asked me. “Well, last night when you asked me to check your phone to see who had messaged you I saw you had a message from Shan telling you it was all wrapped, so I put two and two together but I didn’t want to tell you because you tried so hard to surprise me.” His reply was simply “fuck, I knew it.” So we sat around and laughed about this for a while before getting an early night sleep for Yosemite the next day.

We had a bag packed with lunch and water as well as some sunscreen and the camera. We began the hike up and straight away we were glad we started early in the morning because the sun was already so hot. The hike itself was difficult but made more so with the sun burning into you for most of the way up. I had to constantly stop just to walk off the path and into some shade. We eventually made it to the top (not without some tears from me) and were immediately thankful for the trees up there giving much needed shade. I wanted to take a photo of Mark sitting on the edge of the cliff because he seemed to be able to get so close to the edge but when I moved closer to the edge I discovered that a cliff top with a sheer drop below is not really for me so I quickly took the photo of Mark and left to make lunch. On our decent down from the top we run out of water half way down and were so glad it was on the way down, not the way up because we watched so many people, only half way up, already out of water and in the peak of the afternoon sun and we began to worry for these strangers. Did they realise the path was in the sun most of the way up? Did they realise there was no water taps along the way? We didn’t think they did, and shortly after half way down a lady stopped me to ask if I could take a photo of her and her family. After I did she asked me how much longer to the top and my reply of 2 hours shocked her. I looked around at her and her family and saw that only a couple of them had water bottles and all of them were empty. When I asked her if they had water she told me that they had already run out. This shocked me because even though Mark and I had run out of water, that was on the way down and once we got to the shaded part. These people hadn’t even began the hardest part of the hike and they had no water. I advised them to get more water and then continued walking to catch up to Mark. I wonder if they listened to me or if they kept going. Right near the bottom a man stopped us and asked how much further to the top. Mark told him and then his reply was “Can I have some of your water?” we both looked at him in shock because surely he didn’t plan on hiking the entire thing without any water, but we told him we were out of water ourselves. Once at the bottom of the trail we walked another 2kms back to the visitor centre and filled up our water bottles. After that we slowly made our way back to the van to sit down, eat and take off our shoes. My feet were so swollen it hurt to walk in thongs but while Mark got the van ready I went and bought a bag of ice and emptied it into a bucket where we cooled our feet and I waited for mine to return to a normal size. Once they finally did, we ate lunch, for the second time that day, and then began yet more driving towards Sequoia National Park. On the drive we spoke about how much more difficult the hike was than we expected and how unprepared we were, even though we were so much more prepared than other people. We decided to stop at the first Walmart we saw and bought hats, additional water resoviours, a small backpack for me and some small water bottles. All up we would have about 8 litres of water for future hikes, which should be plenty.

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The amazing view from the top of our hike

We made it to a town called Three Rivers just before dark and booked into a hotel because it is so hot outside there is no way we could sleep in the van. Once we checked in we thought it would be a good idea to go get petrol now so we didn’t have to in the morning. When we were about to leave the petrol station a lady asked us if we could give her a lift back in as it was too hot for her to walk all the way back. She jumped in the passenger seat whilst I sat on the floor between the two seats and she told us about her job – she drove Mennonite and Amish girls around for their summer break before they went back to their communities to begin the process of finding a husband. The drive was only about 5 minutes long so we didn’t get to learn more. As I sit here I’m thinking that I should do some research on the small bit of information she gave us but in the end I’m so hot and tired, I just want to go to sleep.

 

Love, a very tired B xxx

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Bears

We finished the van a week ago but still haven’t driven across the border into the US. We are waiting on a part to arrive before we can leave so in the meantime we have spent the past week driving through BC & Alberta, staying in campgrounds and getting used to what will be our new routine. It’s already amazing how much I miss certain things. Warm, not even hot, running water to wash dishes. At the moment I’m currently heating water in a pot on our camp stove and pouring it into a bucket to wash everything. I’ve had to remind myself what it’s like to use communal bathrooms, carrying everything through a campground and hoping I didn’t forget anything once I’m already in the shower – underwear seems to be the main thing I forget. Showers that have push start buttons and no option to adjust the temperature can be amusing. Constantly having to push the button every minute or so to ensure that the water doesn’t stop running and the wind that gets through the shower curtain doesn’t freeze you in the time between the water stopping and pushing the button to restart it. One thing I’ve never had to deal with before is the risk of bears. Making sure we clean up every bit of food scrap, even putting away all cleaning products every night so that the smells don’t attract bears. One thing we always hear on our travels is how much people are scared to travel to Australia because of the dangerous animals and we keep telling people here that at least we don’t have bears to deal with. One night this week I had to go to the bathroom at about midnight so I told Mark and asked him if he would walk with me as it was in another row of sites. He agreed and after putting on our shoes he asked me to grab the bear spray. As we were walking back I was telling him it was a good idea to get in the habit of bringing the spray so that we remember it when we go on hikes. He looked at me and said “it’s not for practice, bears can walk around this campground”, had I not just been to the toilet I probably wouldn’t have needed to after hearing that. The view of our van couldn’t come quick enough and I was relieved once we got back inside. I don’t know if Mark just told me that so that I would make sure I don’t go again at night but it sure had worked so far!

The next day Mark drove for a bit before I took over and of course as soon as I took over we came across a flashing sign saying “Bears on highway” oh, of course, bears. I was cautious driving along at the beginning but there didn’t seem to be any bears in site until we turned a corner and there were a bunch of cars pulled over on the side of the road and there it was, a baby bear just sitting on the side of the road with its back to us. Our friend’s parents had told us to be wary of bear cubs because the mum was usually close by, and so we just kept on driving because there was a bear cub, with no mum in site (yet) and a whole heap of trees around.

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We discovered that living out of the van is much more enjoyable when the weather is nicer so we followed the sun over the weekend and ended up at a place called Dinosaur Park which reminded us of Cappadoccia, Turkey and so we stayed for 2 nights to remind us of our time in Turkey and how amazing it was.

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Goodbye Fidel, Goodbye Cuba

We arrived in Havana on a Friday afternoon and after we stood in line to change money at the airport and then got ripped off by a taxi driver we were standing face to face with a small Cuban lady rapidly talking to us in Spanish. She owned the casa particular that we would be staying in for 3 days. Although I could barely understand what she was saying I liked her immediately for the small reason that her house was spotless. We left our bags in her room as our room was still occupied by some other people – I noted that she didn’t seem really thrilled with those particular people – and went to explore Havana. We made our way to the main square and climbed 2 flights of stairs to get to a bar with balcony views over the square, and it was here that we sat, ate lobster, drank mojitos and watched the musicians and dancing that we were expecting to find all over Cuba. We moved onto another bar and after more music, more lobster, more mojitos and some Cuban cigars we decided it was time for bed, after all, we knew we had over a month of this so why cram it all into one night?

The next day we were up and noticed the casa owner didn’t have that same spark she had the day before so thinking we may have gotten in her way some how we quickly left for the day. We spent the whole day walking around and checking out what Havana had to offer. At one point a local was trying to sell us a newspaper and we kept trying to explain to him that there was no reason for us to buy one as we didn’t speak or read Spanish, he looked at us with a bewildered expression and eventually left. We ate dinner at a nice restaurant (for Cuban standards) and thought we would take our time eating because there didn’t seem to be a lot going on in the city at the moment and figured we just had to wait until it was later in the night. While talking to our waiter he just casually through in “well because Fidel died yesterday we are hoping it is the start of change” and then because we were too slow to actually say anything in reply, he continued talking, told us to enjoy our meal and walked away. It was now our turn to look slightly bewildered as we realised the guy selling the newspapers today was selling the edition announcing Fidel’s death. We then heard from other people talking that there would be 9 days of mourning which meant no alcohol and no music. That explained what we thought was a rather slow Saturday night, we also realised that explained why our casa owner was down this morning – she had learnt of his death. Sunday in Havana was a weird experience. The privately owned bars and restaurants were still selling alcohol while the government ones most definitely weren’t, however the private ones didn’t know if they were going to be allowed to do so for the entire 9 days of mourning or if it would change again, there was quite a bit of confusion. A lot of the locals, especially the older ones could be seen crying on the side of the street while most of the younger locals looked like the whole process was going to be an inconvenience to them. We walked around for the day, eating churos and eventually bought the newspaper announcing one of the biggest events in modern day Cuba – Fidel’s death.

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We left Havana for Vinales, the land of tobacco, and when we arrived we were swamped by local casa owners wanting us to stay with them. We weren’t in the mood to really fend them off so very quickly we had one lady follow us and tell us we could stay with her. We just went with her because, well we don’t really know why, I guess we just couldn’t be bothered. She was lovely though and her house was on a side street where we had a view of the mountains. The next day we were up before sunrise for our horse ride through the countryside. Our first stop was what can only be described as a jungle lookout where we climbed to the top to watch the sunrise over the mountainside of Vinales. It was so peaceful up there that we stayed for a while just to relax. Our second stop was a tobacco field where we were given a mojito for breakfast and a quick 2 minute show and tell on how cigars were made and then because we were the only ones there we bought 3 cigars fully aware that we were probably being ripped off, just as we read that everyone seemingly is at these types of places. We had a few more stops after the tobacco field but we were in and out very quickly as they didn’t really interest us. With the horse ride over after 4 hours we were both hurting and tired so we went back to the casa for a sneaky nap that turned into a 3 hour sleep. We had thought we would need 3 days in Vinales but after our horse ride there wasn’t really anything else we wanted to do so we spent the next 2 days chilling out on our balcony and walking through town. We had caught a bus to Vinales and thought we would try a Taxi Collectivo to leave Vinales. Everything seemed great when we got picked up and were only sharing the car with another couple who sat on the bench seat next to the driver. After half an hour we pulled into a stop off the side of the main road that was filled with all other collectivos and had a restaurant and a few stalls. We thought we were there just to grab a coffee but after a little bit our driver was taking all of our bags out of the car and palming us off to another driver. This happened 3 more times before we were finally in a car driving towards Playa Giron. Our days in Playa Giron were just what we needed. We went to the beach everyday, read and ate great food. We were a bit hesitant to leave because we had been having a great time but we felt we needed to keep moving otherwise we wouldn’t get to visit all of Cuba.

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We left Playa Giron and spent the last days of the country wide mourning period in Cienfuegos and Guajimico and then ended in Trinidad. We had a couple of days in Trinidad but it was here that Mark mentioned that he wasn’t enjoying Cuba the way he thought he was and my quick reply was “me neither, I’m happy to leave if you are”. He was quite surprised by my response as he thought I had been enjoying our time there. We spent a couple of hours the next day working out what we were going to do and how soon we were going to leave. We agreed we would spend another week in Cuba and then would fly to Mexico and spend our remaining free time there before flying to New York. After working all of this out we had a really good final week in Cuba. We saved ourselves a decent amount of money by getting a local train for 3 hours between 2 cities and although we had to stand for majority of the train trip it was better than some of the buses and taxis we had been in. We stayed at a casa of a lovely family and from there we met a Spanish couple travelling on their honeymoon with their baby daughter. They offered to drive us an hour and a half the next day so we could get to our next stop and go to the beach. The beach at Cayo Guillermo was simply breathtaking and it was nice to spend a day with some other people, chatting to them and getting some advice for our travels to South America. After two days by the beach we packed up our stuff and travelled to another city just for the night before we made our way to Varadero, which would arguably be the most tourist-populated area in Cuba with a long stretch of beachfront all-inclusive resorts. We didn’t stay in an all-inclusive because it’s just not in our budget but it worked out much better for us. We stayed in a quiet street, a 5-minute walk to the beach that brought us to a part of the beach that was relatively quiet – our type of beach! Another great thing about Varadero was the amount of international cuisine restaurants that thankfully gave us a break from the standard Cuban dish of meat, chicken or seafood with rice and beans, which we had been eating everyday since the day we arrived in Cuba.

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We left Varadero and spent our last day and night in Havana. Havana is a really cool city and it ended our time in Cuba perfectly. Next stop: Mexico.

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I Am Pilgrim

Lisbon is such a cool city. Both Mark and I liked it as soon as we arrived and over the 2 days we were there we spent them walking around the city, enjoying the sun and enjoying the city. Towards the afternoon on our second day there we stopped by a market place set up with small restaurants selling food. We sat down straight away, ordered a starter of tuna in passion fruit and a glass of rosé each. We finished our food quite quickly and our wine even quicker and moved onto the oyster bar where we down 6 oysters between us and moved on again but this time to a deli where we bought fresh figs stuffed with prosciutto. I didn’t even sit down to eat mine, just took the plate from the lady, picked the fig up and ate it while standing. By this stage we were in a great mood but were literally eating through our money so we decided to have a quick walk around before heading to our apartment. This then turned into us finding the Gin Bar and ordering 2 gin and tonics, after which Mark thought another glass of rosè would be lovely. I was struggling to get through the G&T so gave Mark my wine glass. Back at our apartment we sat down and looked for a cheap place to eat dinner after blowing most of our money at the market. It was while we were looking for dinner that I started to feel sick. I laid down and an hour later was experiencing probably the most violent case of food poisoning I’ve had since I was in Mongolia a couple of years ago (that’s a whole other story). Mark later told me that he had been feeling sick too but after seeing what I was going through forced his body to get over it. I went to bed hungry and so exhausted that Mark woke up early the next morning to pack my bag for me so I could sleep a bit longer. He also left me at the apartment to go pick up our rental car, again giving me more time to sleep.

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2 Gin and Tonics please

I can’t say I remember much of the drive as I slept as much as I could but as we got closer to Peniche we started to notice this thick fog everywhere and as we pulled into town we could barely see a thing. It was like this for the whole day so we just drove around checking out places close by and planning our few days there. The whole reason we went to Peniche was so that Mark could surf and I could learn to surf. Thanks to the fog and cold weather I sat on the beach each day in a jumper and read while Mark braved the cold water to surf. Had the weather been warmer in Peniche our time there would have been even better but despite the cold we still had a great time. I was looking forward to heading down south though because the weather forecast was much warmer there. We left Peniche early one morning and drove south to a place called Salema on the Algarve coast. Salema is a really small town so there isn’t a whole lot to do there. Our days there were spent driving to some sites and towns nearby. We hired a kayak one day and paddled for awhile around the caves and rock formations along the coast. After nearly being run over by 2 boats we decided it was maybe best we turn around and head back in. By this stage my arms were killing me and because we swapped and I sat behind Mark on the way back I found it was easy to just relax and let him paddle. Once he realised what I was doing he was constantly looking over his shoulder trying to get me to participate. The Algarve coastline is so beautiful and I loved our time there so I was a bit sad to be leaving.

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Beautiful spot along the Algarve coast

On the morning we had to leave we were up early and out the door by 8am so we could drive 2 hours and get to Monte Rei by 10am. Now before you go googling Monte Rei to see what kind of town it is I will stop you there. It isn’t a town as such but a County Club and Golf Course. Yes, that’t right, we were there to play golf. I don’t play golf but I am an excellent golf cart driver so I drove while Mark played 18 holes. To occupy myself I had downloaded a new book and after 2 holes I decided the book was more important than driving so Mark drove both of us around the golf course.

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This is what a backpackers golfing attire looks like – a mix of old, borrowed and new.

My day went super quick thanks to my book and by the time we were at our new accommodation it was late afternoon but not so late that the sun was hidden so I quickly changed and sat by the pool to continue reading. To be honest I can’t really tell you what Mark did that afternoon because I wasn’t really paying attention. And so the next day when he asked me what I wanted to do my first answer was to continue reading which is exactly what I did. I spent the entire day moving around the accommodation grounds reading either in the sun or in the shade. It was after I had moved a third time that I noticed Mark had been following me and he now had quite a large collection of photos of me reading. Again, I can’t really tell you what else he did that day apart from follow me around with his camera for a bit and drive us to go get lunch. By the time I was in bed I only had a few chapters to go and of course there was no way I was going to sleep until I had finished the book.

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One of the photos Mark took while he was following me around

I finished the book and had a very restless sleep thinking all about it. I love books in general but I especially love books that play on your mind days after you’ve finished reading them. That book was one of them – it’s called I Am Pilgrim and even as I write this post I can’t clear my mind entirely of it so I will quickly tell you that we are at Rome Airport waiting for our flight to Copenhagen, Denmark. First stop will be the Royal Palace to say hello to our fellow Aussie, Princess Mary.

Love, I Am Pilgrim