track our trek

after a restful, though chilly, couple of days on the brazilian side of the iguazu falls, we took an overnight bus to buenos aires in argentina...a very swank bus with seats that reclined almost all the way...they served dinner, breakfast & even champagne...i can´t vouch for the cuisine, as i am patently against eating meat served on a bus unless i´m desperate. but the champagne was great & we got to watch a couple of movies in english as a bonus. morning brought to the huge main bus terminal in buenos aires, from where we navigated our way to our hostel. hostel suites obelisko turned out to be nicer than a lot of the places we´ve stayed, for which we were glad since we were booked in for a whopping 5 nights. we were both nursing a cold, so i´m afraid we didn´t take in many of buenos aires´sights...after so many big cities, we weren´t wildly impressed & opted to rest up and try to recover fully before heading to chile. we stayed in most days, ate soup and empanadas, blew through a good part of our cold medicine stash & got lots of sleep. we did take advantage of 12 hours of spanish lessons offered at the hostel though! our teacher, natalia, was terrific & we got a crash course in traveller´s basic spanish...not enough to pass any great tests, but enough to have coherent conversations about where we´re from, getting places and buying tickets, restaurants and menus...useful stuff for backpackers! it was big fun and made us both want to learn more. on our last night, we went out for a fantastic tango show and a famous argentinian steak...the first real solid food i´d eaten in a few days...yum!

After spending 3-4 days in Rio we decided to go south to Paraty for a couple of days. Paraty is a little colonial town that our friend Ella told us we should check out. Paraty was a gorgeous little place. It is a walkable little town with cobblestone streets with lots of shops and restaurants. It sits on the ocean as well and also has rivers running through it. Paraty's history lies in the fact that it is an original colonial town that was one of the main trading posts for exporting gold out of the Brazil. Our second day there consisted of us seeing the surrounding area with its many waterfalls and its famous Jabaquara. This is essentially sediment dumped from one of the local rivers into the ocean. The sediment gets pushed into a small bay has been building up forever. The sediment one side of the beach is essentially a mud pool that people jump into and spread the mud all over their bodies. Once you're finished playing in the mud you can easily walk down the beach and clean off in the ocean  where the sediment is not so prominent.
That night we spent about 3 hours hanging out major dance competition by local children. It was the last day of 4 day event and we were lucky enough to stumble on it.
After missing the beach so much we decided to head back to Rio for 3 more days and probably our last days at the beach for quite some time. After deliberating on whether to take a 20 hour bus ride to Foz do Iguacu or a plane ride for $30 more....we opted for the plane ride. Hoping that our plane experience in Brazil would and should be better than our last we wound up missing our connecting flight in Sao Paulo due to delays on our first flight. Its funny our luggage made the flight but we didn't. Anyway....we had to spend a day in Sao Paulo and take the first flight into Foz do Iguacu where we were greeted by our luggage.

Foz do Iguacu are waterfalls that run along the the Iguacu river and one of the separating rivers between Argentina and Brazil. The river eventually runs into the Parana river and where they cross is the boader between the 3 countries of Brazil, Argentina, and Paraguay. While trying to shake off an annoying cough and sniffling noses we decided to take it slow here. So the day we got there we just chilled out, but the following day was spent on checking out the Brazil side of falls while the next day the Argentina side. On day four, we hopped on a 17-hour bus ride from Foz to Buenos Aires, Argentina...

The next week was spent around the southeastern part of the country. We all parted ways and we wound up in Rio de Janerio. We stayed in Copacabana and had a great time. Even the hostel we stayed at was awesome, with great people, and only 3 blocks away from the beach. Most days were spent hanging at the beach at either Copacabana or Ipanema. One day was spent going into downtown Rio and then checking out Pao du Azucar (Sugar Loaf). Downtown reminded me of the Wall Street area of NYC with small streets that are closed off to traffic and lots of people going out for lunch...etc. Besides people watching....the views of downtown are nothing special. Not even special enough to take out our camera and take a picture. Sugar loaf was very nice....but not as nice as hanging out on Ipanema beach for the afternoon. From Sugar loaf you get a extraordinary view of Copacabana, downtown Rio and surrounding areas. The layout of the land is quite amazing with large mountainous rocks that appear out of the ocean and coastline. Rio is a very hilly and mountainous place. But the view also gives the viewer an unflattering view of all the smog and haze that the city sits in. Yuck....quite disgusting.

After months of anticipation, we were finally headed for Salvador, Bahia to meet up with the Laboys and the Caldwells... After getting bumped from our Iberia Airline flight, we had to stay an extra day in Madrid and of course we missed our connecting flight in Sao Paulo to Salvador. (The one time in a year of travel that we actually were supposed to be somewhere at a specific time...)All we can really say is that Iberia airlines SUCKS! As you all know we've done a lot of flying in the past year and they were by far the worst. Even the discount airlines had more comfortable seats......anyway.
We arrived in Salvador a day later than we expected but fortuitously, we landed around the same time that our friends from the states did. So it all worked out perfectly!
In Bahia, we spent our first night eating authentic Bahian cuisine, sipping on caprahinias, and dancing on the streets of Pelohrino. 
The rest of the week was spent checking out the sites of Bahia, from the light house, and museum, to the local beaches, to going to a major music festival, as well as to a football match between Bahian rivals. All in all it was great to be relaxing with good friends. Even our digs weren´t too bad, the place came with a pool, two cooks and an entertaining guide. Yeah....we didn't do any kind of backpacking that week. It was fantastic! We were sad to say our goodbyes at the end of a too-short week!

we decided to make a slight detour in our trip and fly to geneva to see our friend sandra. she lives in france in a village called ville, and works across the swiss border half an hour away in geneva. we spent a few days with sandra and her friends and family taking in some of the french countryside and finding out what life is like outside of paris. daryll brushed up on his french vocabulary...we're convinced with a couple of months in the country, he'd be as good as fluent! we took a walk in the countryside and picked wildflowers. sandra and salumite treated us to a decadent 5 course dinner at an auberge (small family run restaurant) in the mountains...complete with wine, and aperitifs, we needed to be rolled out of there! it was our first time trying frog legs...very tasty! we even tried escargot for the first time at sandra's parents' house! surprisingly, they were pretty yummy too! garlic and butter make just about anything taste good! we took a picnic lunch up another mountain one afternoon and watched paragliders take off and drift on the wind currents...it's amazing to see up close. it looks so easy from far away, but watching them take off from a windy mountain top makes you realize it's a very difficult and technical sport! we spent a day in annecy wandering through the market, sitting in the sun by the lake and renting a pedal boat. we celebrated sandra and virginie's birthday with a great dinner at virginie and jc's house. on our last day, we spent the morning walking around lake evian - source of the world famous mineral water - and downtown geneva. it's a very international city with businesses from all over the world and banks as far as the eye can see. we had a great time seeing sandra again after our nomad tour & we can't wait to see her again...hopefully she'll come see us in the states once we're settled somewhere.

we took the train from hamburg to cologne for a brief stop, then flew to paris...we were hoping to meet for coffee with katja, whom we met on the nomad tour, but we were mixed up about which train station to meet at. :O( so sorry for sending you on a wild goose chase, katja! we really should've planned to be in cologne for more than a couple of hours...but we will be back in germany someday, i'm sure...once in paris, we checked into our hostel...5 floors up with no elevator...and headed out for a quick kebab w/ very tasty fries. we hit the streets early the next day to explore. we'd declined breakfast at our hostel so we could be free to find our own pastries for breakfast along the way...ahhh...pain aux chocolat and fresh strawberries...can't be beat. daryll has been anticipating this luxury for quite a while! we've been trying to get good pastries in lots of places, but alas we've been disappointed every time (except for one brilliant stroke of luck in tokyo of all places!)
after eating our breakfast in a park, we set out walking towards the arc de triomph. we met natalie along the way, a very friendly french woman who helped us navigate a ways through the busy streets. we reached the arc de triomphe...only to discover the streets were blocked and it was closed for a huge official ceremony...here we go with the holidays again...this time it was inauguration day for the new french president! aye aye aye! jokes...from there we walked to the eiffel tower, then the louvre, then notre dame...we covered a lot of ground that day & felt great about our 6 hours of walking...art historians forgive us, but we opted not to stand in line at the louvre & instead stayed outside appreciating the architecture! lol! we went back and did some quick laundry at the lavarie down the street (3 or 4 more times up and down the 5 flights of steps...) then out for sushi for dinner. day two was rainy, so we took the train to see moulin rouge and montmart, the church of the sacred heart...it's a great cathedral that sits on top of a hill that overlooks the city...we went to see the pompidou center, where we skipped the exhibits in favor of the architecture again, and we went back to see notre dame and the louvre at night. ahhh...paris is truly beautiful by night with all the lights sparkling on the water of the seine.

we were sad to leave family, but we had to press on after a week, so we took an overnight bus from amsterdam to berlin...we arrived mid-morning & headed for the nearest tourist information office to find ourselves some accommodation. (in keeping with our usual luck, we landed in town at the same time as some major sporting tournament, so hostels were chock full of students and coaches for the week. but, also true to form, we lucked out despite the odds and found a great hostel in the middle of the city. i was impressed that after all these years, i can still understand quite a bit of german, even though i'm terribly shy about speaking it...we spent 3 1/2 days in berlin riding the train around and walking all over the place...we were staying not far from a long section of the berlin wall called the east side gallery... it's been covered with murals and graffiti over the years & it's really something to see! we were both surprised at how much smaller the wall seems in real life than it did in our imaginations...we walked alongside it for 20 meters or so before we realized we had reached it! of course, since it's no longer a double wall & most traces of all the military fortification are gone, it's a lot less imposing. we spent a long day at the jewish museum...an interesting building by daniel liebeskind with some pretty extensive exhibits. we also saw the holocaust memorial, the brandenburg tor, one of the major military gates in the wall. and we saw a couple of great exhibits on aboriginal dot painting and shona sculpture from zimbabwe at the berlin art center. the city is huge, and 4 days wasn't long enough to see much of it, but we hope to make it back one day to see more.
next we hopped on a bus to hamburg to see rahel, the friend we met in new zealand...she is back home in hamburg now after her several months of travel in south america, new zealand and australia. it was great to see her and meet her family and friends. they all took us in and showed us around beautiful hamburg. we were there for haborfest, the 818th birthday of the harbor, so there were lots of festivities going on along the waterfront. heike, rahel's mom plays the soprano sax in a rock band called auszeit, and we even got to see them in concert! very cool...and we had our own personal tour of the ernst barlach art museum heike runs next door to their house...we're looking forward to seeing the exhibit she's putting together on turkish art that will open in the fall. as usual, we feel so lucky to meet so many terrific people throughout our travels!

from london, we headed off to see the davids of amsterdam with a cheap fare from easyjet...5 euros each (plus tax, of course)! easyjet rocks! we spent a fantastic week relaxing and checking out amsterdam w/ uncle donald, aunt michelle, donielle, arielle, and even donald jr. put in an appearance from nyc! we also met juan, actor/singer/dancer extrordinaire, and dear friend of the family...we went out for thai food and tried surinamese food for the first time. yum!! we took a sunset boat trip on the canals...the sun doesn't set until close to 10pm so far north at this time of year! we spent a day walking around the city and visiting the van gogh museum and the anne frank house...and let's not forget our visit to the heineken museum! entry fee gets you 3 beers! it was great fun... michelle and juan took us out for a tour of amsterdam's famous red light district...no visit to amsterdam would be complete without it! wow! prostitutes in storefront windows in every size, shape, color, gender, and gender combination you can imagine! and bars and "coffee shops" as far as the eye can see...jokes - just crazy! we took walks around nievwe vennep, and a bike ride to the petting farm with arielle. we watched uncle donald coach donielle's school baskeball team; arielle kicked our butts at wii - an interactive sports video game that was new to us. and a really big treat, we went with michelle and juan to do their sunday evening radio show! it was awesome to see my glamorous aunt in action, and we were excited to be guests and get to talk about the reasons we decided to come on this trip and the things we've learned along the way! check out www.inspirationalradio.net and www.michelle-david.com. one night, we covered the whole living room in plastic and had a pizza/painting party! a big mess and lots of fun. the only thing we missed out on was seeing michelle on stage, since she had a break from her busy singing schedule...most of all, we soaked up our time with family. it's been way too long since we 've seen each other (it was my first time meeting 3-year old arielle, and the first time daryll got to meet this branch of the family!)...but we'll make sure it won't be so long next time. thanks everybody! we love you!

after our week in cairo, we flew to london to visit for a few days with tania and for stef & adam's wedding. we stayed with tania in shepherd's bush & had a great time catching up. she took us out for our first taste of sri lankan food...so delicious! we spent a good deal of our first couple of days shopping for clothes to wear to the wedding...i suppose it would've been a bit uncivilized for us to show up in our zip-off backpacker pants and hiking shoes! we scored some dress pants for daryll for 8lbs at primark - the uk's answer to walmart. jokes! and tania helped me accessorize from fabulous shoes to jewelry to pashmina! we went to lunch at adam's parents' house the day before the wedding...it's the first time i've seen stefanie and her family since we graduated from texas 9 years ago! it felt great to see her again & to finally meet adam and some of stef´s extended family...including her fantastic brother-in-law, zollie, who was the absolute life of the party! lol! the wedding was beautiful with perfect spring weather. and we had a blast learning how to do some traditional scottish dances. we had a hard time keeping up with adam's 90-something year old grandmother on the dance floor!!
we got to spend a day hanging out with natassa again, and we went to see the tower of london & the crown jewels...briefly, because they move you through on a moving sidewalk to keep traffic from backing up! we walked across the tower bridge and had dinner together.

after a 3 hr flight from Athens we made our way to Cairo, Egypt. We hadn't heard anything from the hostel that we booked about navigating our way downtown to this city of 22 million people. After some last minute research we found out that a cab ride should cost around 50 egyptian pounds...but being the non-natives we are we could not get anything lower than 60 pounds. So we jumped into what looked like a taxi from England except it seemed it hadn't had an interior cleaning since 1964. It was obvious that we didn't communicate well with our driver cuz we were dropped off about 2-3 blocks away from our hostel. This was probably one of the more grottier hostels we seen in a while. Daryll had to put the beatdown on a massive roach we had in our room. It was huge, about the size two half dollar coins. Roaches aside our host Isham really made us feel welcome.

When we arrived we realized that we had no book guides, pamplets of any kind so we decided to book a cobbled-together package tour from our hostel that would wisk us through major sites in all of 6 days. So we figured out our itinerary, paid in cash, and walked along the Nile in Cairo for that first evening. Wow...the historical and magical Nile that we remembered from our history books looked like shit. It is a very large flowing river but stinks to high heaven and the pollution was terrible. I couldn't even count the amount of plastic bottles, tires, plastic bags....among other debris we saw floating through it.

Day two started with us trolling the sites of the great pyramids of Giza. As we should have known....no guide is complete without them trying to take us to local handicraft artists. After seeing how papayrus paper is made....we told our driver not to take us to anymore. We then arrived at the Giza pyramids and Sphinx to see hawkers trying to sell us donkey and camel rides around all of the sites for unbelievable prices....we neglected....repeatedly and walked it ourselves. There are 2 main pyramids and the Sphinx that every visitor must see. These tombs are incredibly enormous and can bee seen for miles (on a clear, non hazy day). For extra money one can also go inside one of the pyramids...but from what we've heard there isn't much to look at. None of the items that used to be in the tombs are there anymore and I believe paintings that once lined the walls have all faded.
After being at the Giza Pyramids we made our way over to look at the step pyramids of Mit-Rahina as well as we saw the museum of Imhotep & Saqqara where we saw a massive statue of Rames.

That night we caught a train to that dropped us in Aswan in the morning where we got picked up by our host at the Nobanil (or Nubanil) hostel. After resting a little and getting something to eat we jumped in van that took us to see the High Dam. This dam is something that Egyptians are extremly proud of. It seems that about 15% of Egypt is powered with the energy obtained from it. Although it was great to know Egypts main power source....looking at it was really nothing special.
Next stop was the Philae Temple. Philae Temple was one those ruins that was moved since the building of the dam in 70's. The temple is quite impressive with images and hyroglyphics all over the walls. Many of those images are typical of many temples with the pharoah presenting gifts to gods. Those gifts include fruit, plants, food, wine....etc. Interestingly enough....there are coptic symbols inscribed in some of the walls when it was "converted" into a church when christians took it over some time around the 7th Century.

Day four we got up very early, around 4 am to get a van that would take us a few hours to see the ruins of Abu Simbel. Abu Simbel is another temple that was moved to higher ground so that the placement of the High Dam would not damage it. This ruin sort of reminds me of Mt. Rushmore in the states...in the sense that it is images chisiled into the side of a mountain. Abu Simbel actually consists of two rock formations, one dedicated to Rames II and the other to his wife, Nefertari. When you walk inside these temples you can see paintings on the walls as well as more hieroglyphics. Its quite dramatic looking at these temples from the outside....they're extremely massive. Once inside the temples (which is essentially a cave inside of a mountain), you can still see some paintings on the walls from over 3200 years ago.

That afternoon we took a felluca (boat) trip around Aswan. I believe it would have been nicer had we been on one with more people. Instead we were together with just the driver of the falluca.   

That evening we took a train to Luxor which was about 3 hrs away. A different host picked us up right from the train station and dropped us off at the Lotus Hotel. This was probably the cleanest and swankiest place we stayed during our whole trip in Egypt. No roach stomping here. We really began to feel like royalty....getting picked up and transported to hotels. It was great.

Day five we visted both the East & West Bank of Luxor. We started on the West Bank and saw Hatchepsout Temple, Valley of the Kings and Valley of the Workers. Its interesting that we landed in Egypt during Spring time....cuz it was incredibly hot. Everyone (including our guide) was running to cover in the shade. The sun was brutal!!! We asked our guide what happens in the summer time. She responded by saying that she does not work in the summer time. Its just unbearable in summer and its considered to be their low season. Well the West Bank had usrunning for shade any place we could find it. After having lunch, the blistering sun tapered off in the late afternoon. That's when we headed to the East Bank which consisted of us seeing Luxor Temple and Karnak Temple. I believe that this was probably our favorite of all places we saw in Egypt. The sheer size and magnitude of both temples plus knowing that they are over 3500 years old makes your jaw drop. That night we got on a night train to send us back to Cairo.

Day six in Cairo was spent chilling out a little and going through the Egyptian Museum. This museum actually has all of the contents of what was found inside of Tutankhamuns tomb. Although Tutankhamun was only pharoah for 3 years (age 16 to 19) you can imagine, he didn't have time to get to be very popular. Because of such a short term as pharaoh....he was almost unknown to a certain extent. The reason why he is so popular now is because ALL of the contents of his tomb were left untouched and they were "discovered" in 1922. The jewelry and vastness to the amount of gold that was used in his tomb are incredible. The contents of his tomb take up a sizeble portion of the contents of the whole museum. The amount of gold draped over the mummy, to the gold draped around each of the 7 or 8 coffins that the body rested in. Each coffin was placed inside of a larger coffin with more intricate inscriptions....etc. It was mind boggling seeing all the gold....and don't forget he was considered an unknown pharoah. One can only imagine what Rames II tomb must have looked like had it remainded intact.

Day seven was spent traveling around Cairo on our own. Jumping in taxis to see the two main sides of the old city. The Coptic Quater and the Muslim Quarter. The Coptic Quater consisted of a maze of streets with old buildings, churches, a cemetary, even an old jewish section. The Muslim side consisted of compound on it with the Citadel, the Mohammed Ali Mosque, the al-Azhar Mosque, and the Naval Museum....etc.
All in all the ruins of Egypt are amazing, what is a little disturbing is how much of the history has been erased. Current Egyptians are not the original Egyptians and many of them including tour guides have no idea of this. Maybe our questions and about ruins would have been handled with more in depth knowledge from an Egyptologist rather from a tour guide who can recall dates and times like a recorded robot. We didn't see much of how people live in Egypt so it may be interesting to go back and stay with a native person and get a different perspective. It may also be interesting to visit the south to see where and how the decendants of Nubians live....even til this day.