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We’ve had a trip to Iceland on our “to-go list” for quite a while but it always seemed to get pushed off the top by something else. Jeff’s brother and sister-in-law went and loved it. His daughters went and loved it. We were in the process of booking a trip to Svalbard (that post is coming soon) and decided that a stop in Iceland would be perfect. To make it even better my son and son-in-law (from London) decided to join us for part of our trip.

After a short, over night flight from New York we arrived in Reykjavik and went straight to the rental car center. Jeff’s girls had recommended that we rent a wi-fi hotspot instead of a gps – what a great idea! Our phones had full access to maps and information as we traveled around a country that’s names defied pronunciation. We headed southeast out of the airport to begin our circumnavigation of Iceland.

The landscape can change from stark to lush in a flash and there are waterfalls around every turn.

Our first stop was at the ferry landing for the Westman Islands. Although the ferry website was impossible to decipher we were able to find out way there and buy tickets with 10 minutes to spare. These remote islands are about 40 minutes from the mainland during the summer but 2 1/2 hours in the winter (the only ferries then go to Reykjavik). Unfortunately I didn’t see much during the ferry ride – I fell asleep due to the short over night flight. We found a local guide when we got off the ferry and had a great introduction to Iceland. We saw the area of the volcanic eruption that covered much of the northern hemisphere with ash in 2010 and resulted in the largest air-traffic shut-down since World War II. We had our first puffin sightings.

We decided to skip any sights along the south coast since we planned to go to those areas with Eric and Rob. We headed to the Jokulsarlon Glacier Lagoon – wow!

We decided to wait to take a boat ride until we returned wit Eric and Rob.

A drive up the east coast takes you past beautiful fjords and lovely places to walk and admire the views. We had lunch in Hofn, a town known for their lobsters – good thing we had a high limit on our credit card: lunch for two was almost $100 and we didn’t have anything to drink besides coffee. That experience was a one and done. We stayed in Egilsstadir that night. Dinner was in a picturesque coastal town, Seydisfjordur, with a pretty church and a rainbow path.

Going to sleep proved to be challenging since there was no night darkness. The sun got dusky around midnight and started rising again around 3 am. All of the places we stayed had blackout shades but there was a good-news, bad-news about the day length: fun to continue seeing the sights long past when we should have been settling in for the night but definitely messed with our diurnal rhythms.

Next stop Dettifoss.

Myvatn was our next stop. Our innkeeper recommended a local geothermal spa (think Blue Lagoon but not famous). It was a wonderful way to relax after a long day of exploring.

Tip: make hotel reservations in advance – there aren’t a lot of places outside the typical tourist areas

So…

Sometimes it’s nice to travel close to home. I’ve always lived in the New York City area (except for college) and often forget what a great place it is to visit. We recently decided to spend the afternoon in Industrial City, Brooklyn, to see the Escher Exhibit. We took the subway from NYU to 36th street and when we exited the station and tried to get oriented we read the small print on the website and realized the exhibit is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays. Guess what day it was? Yup, Tuesday.

Plan B…New York Transit Museum. Good thing it wasn’t Monday because this is closed then.

This is a really fun place if you’ve ever spent time riding the NYC subways. There were pictures showing the different methods of construction (tunneling, cut and cover), the unions and various ethnic groups who built the subways, the maps of the different lines, and the general history of the New York Transit System.

There was a display of old cars located in the lower area of the station, sitting on tracks that are still electrified but presently unused. The cars ranged from the early 1920s to the present and although it was interesting to see pot bellied stoves for heating the cars, I was most fascinated by the old subway posters.

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As you can see, I found a Rheingold sign and a Miss Subway sign but couldn’t find one of my favorites: Miss Rheingold.

We went to the gift shop, just to look. It was actually the first time I can remember not having to walk through a gift shop to exit the museum. Fun gifts but I restrained myself and only took a picture.

I took the subway back to Manhattan to switch to the Path to get to Hoboken to change to NJ Transit since that has a station 3 blocks from my house. Since I’m a senior citizen I can get a round trip ticket to NYC for $7.50! The picture below is of the Oculus – the transportation hub built near the 911 Memorial. It is a wonderful building that houses a very expensive shopping mall (those who know me know that I don’t find that interesting at all) and often hosts various special events. The day I was there they had a farmer’s market with vodka, cheese, and bread samples…a fun break on the way home.

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Tip: Check days and times before heading out to an activity.

So…

Our journey continued back into Aswan for a few more sights before we boarded another ship to cruise down the Nile. There were so many boats that they lines up side by side and we had to walk through a few in order to reach ours.

The new ship was more luxurious than the first and the food was fancier but I really liked the intimacy of the first one better (capacity 120 but less than half full). But I digress: the boats were not the focus of the trip but were much nicer than traveling by bus everywhere.

Luxor: grand, spectacular, awe-inspiring, breath-taking!

Our guide chose to enter the temple area at the end of the afternoon so that we had the opportunity to see the detail of the construction and then the angles and shadows as the sun set and the lights came on.

As I mentioned in the last post, there a so many sphinxes in Egypt. The road, known as the Avenue of the Sphinxes, between Luxor and Karnak, is over 1 1/2 miles and is lined with them (probably had over 1300 in the original construction). One of the things we found amazing is the consistency of the statuary from the north to the south of Egypt, approximately 1600 miles. The ancient artisans were able to construct columns, statues of gods, and sphinxes that were almost identical without using modern technology and usually spanning hundreds of years.

Most of the people in our group had difficulty pronouncing and then remembering many of the ancient names. Our guide had a suggestion for this one:

Back to Cairo to make a few more memories. Along the way we saw a young man hitching a ride…

The Great Pyramid did not disappoint: situated just outside Cairo (think very close suburb) it is a glorious sight.

Tip: Get a map and do some advance reading to prepare for your experience. Remember…lower Egypt is in the north and upper Egypt is in the south!

so…

I don’t speak Arabic, Egypt has a long and interesting history, there are so many antiquities to see and a limited amount of time in which to see them…sounds like a group trip is in order.

We started in Cairo with a visit to the Egyptian Museum. Although there are thousands of amazing pieces there are no explanatory signs (okay there were a few: large obelisk, small obelisk, sarcophagus, burial mask…not very helpful). Our guide was university educated with a major in ancient Egyptian history and hieroglyphics so we didn’t suffer from the lack of signage.

Next stop: the Citadel of Saladin – a medieval fortress high on a hill with great view of the city below. We were surprised at how many of the local kids wanted to take pictures with us:

The Sphinx is always on the must see list. I was surprised at how many sphinxes there are (in addition to the very famous one) and how small the famous one actually is.

On day 5 we took a very early morning flight to Aswan where we visited the High Dam. It has doubled the electrical supply and created Lake Nasser but it has caused the relocation of many local Nubians, flooded many ancient ruins, and removed the annual flooding of the Nile which deposited rich silt in the farming areas.

We spend the next 4 nights on a small ship cruising Lake Nasser and seeing the sights along the way to Abu Simbel. There were a number of lectures and visits to a variety of temples (Kalabsha, Dakka, Meharakka, Amada), as well as relaxing in the pool.

Abu Simbel is amazing! Between 1964 and 1968 the two temples were reconstructed in their present location, 213 feet up onto a plateau of the cliffs they once sat below and 690 feet northwest of their original location. UNESCO was instrumental in this effort and along with teams of archeologists they made sure to orient both temples so that they now sit as they once did, facing east, so that on February 21 and October 21 the sun shines directly into The Great Temple and shines on the statues of Rameses and Amun. They also built a man-made mountain to give the impression of the temples cut into the rock cliff as they originally were. We walked the area during the day and then went back for a light and sound show at night (as the guide books predicted, it was touristy…but I was a tourist and enjoyed it).

Tip: Although the itinerary listed the trip as 15 days it really started on day 3 (overnight flight from the US with a stopover in Europe arriving on day 2) and day 15 was the travel day home. Check to see how many days you are actually touring.

so…

When you’re planning a trip there are so many options to choose from. The biggest option is whether to go solo or with a group. If you’ve traveled before then you can probably go on your own. Trip Advisor is good but it isn’t the only source out there. Use your search engine and look for other sources: personal travel blogs, travel book companies, local chambers of commerce, official government websites, etc.

If you’ve never traveled you might want to start with a professionally planned itinerary. Choose a company that is recommended by like-minded people. Investigate their “mission”: history, charity, architecture, culture, shopping?

Here are some compelling reasons to go with a group: is there a language barrier? is there a lack of easy travel choices (bus, train, rental car?) is there a large amount of local history? is it a highly regulated area (think Antarctica, Cuba, Russia)? do you have limited time with a lot to see? is there a strong potential for getting lost?

Tip: make sure you have a good, detailed map and/or a strong GPF signal

so…

Once you’ve decided where you’re going and how you’re getting there you need to take care of lots of little details:

1. Do you need a passport…is yours current? How many empty pages do you need for each country you plan to visit?
2. Do you need a visa…should you get it before your leave or in the airport upon arrival?
3. Call your bank…you probably want to use your ATM card to get local currency as you reach each destination (We forgot to call once and couldn’t get anything from the ATM – oops!)
4. Call your credit card company…they will need to know where you are traveling and how long you will be gone…make sure there are no foreign transaction fees associated with your card
5. Stop the mail and the newspaper deliveries
6. Put some sort of “away message” on your landline (if you still have one) and your cell phone
7. Check with your cell phone provider for international calling plans
8. Make sure you know how to use your cell phone for wifi use without incurring lots of extra charges
9. Change your house thermostats and water heater setting
10. Arrange for a pet sitter
11. Put your passport in the hotel safe and remember to take it out (We got half way to the Sydney airport when we realized our passports were in the safe at the hotel desk – a really big oops!!!  We had to go back to the hotel and we almost missed our plane)

Tip: If you travel often consider getting a Global Entry Number and/or TSA precheck – they save lots of time

so…

The exit for my happy place is 100: Garden State Parkway at Rt 33 East: Corlies Ave/Ocean Grove/Bradley Bch – Neptune Township.

Ocean Grove, founded in 1869, by a group of Methodist clergymen, is still owned by the Camp Meeting Association. You can own your house but you can’t own the land – it is leased from the association (try explaining that to the bank when you apply for a mortgage). Until 1985 cars had to park outside the community gates from midnight Saturday until midnight Sunday. The beaches still don’t open until noon on Sunday.  And… contrary to many images of the Jersey Shore, Ocean Grove is a dry community!

Before there were houses there were tents:

These are really wooden cabins with electricity and running water and canvas front rooms with covered porches. In 1870 there were 200 tents for every house but there are only 114 left. The canvas gets taken down each fall and put back up again each spring. All prospective tenters must be interviewed by the Camp Meeting Association and then placed on a waiting list.  Remember: full season rentals only, no subletting, no pets, no barbeques.

Most of the houses were built in the late 1800s and early 1900s and are protected from change (NJ Register of Historic Places, National Register of Historic Places). Many have covered porches; many are painted beautiful colors (which can only be chosen from a designated list of historical colors).

The beaches are clean and flat:

Before Hurricane Sandy there was a fishing pier; now there’s only half.

Ralph, the stuffed resident fisherman appeared at the end of the pier around 1993. He has disappeared at times but has returned to the end of the shortened pier and is love by many, including my grandson.

According to one source, his name come from:

Rising Above the Long Pier of Hope

Tip:  Rent one of the beautiful Victorian houses for a week or two to get the real feel of this wonderful community.

so…

We boarded another small plane and headed to Rwanda. We had purchased our gorilla permits many months in advance. They were for a specific date and that meant we were going rain or shine…I was not looking forward to hiking uphill in the rain that was predicted.

We went to the Genocide Memorial in Kigali. I learned so much about the horrible events of 1994. The docents were mostly descendants of the Hutus and the Tutsis. Their message was one of forgiveness not one of hatred or retribution.

Our next day was a trip to see the Golden Monkeys. They had just recently come down out of the trees to feast on the emerging bamboo shoots (yes, the kind we eat in Chinese food). They were so busy eating that they barely noticed us!

The next day was our hike to see the gorillas. There were 8 of us with 2 guides, 2 trackers, and 1 armed guard (he was there to protect us from rogue buffalo!). There were porters available for hire and we chose to use that service…they carried any gear that we didn’t want to carry, assisted us up slippery/root covered/muddy slopes, and even offered to carry us if necessary (not). These men were once poachers in the gorilla forest and the government encourages them to work as porters and farmers to discourage them from killing the gorillas.

When we arrived at the location where our “family of gorillas” was last seen we put everything down except for cameras and headed into their overnight camp.  Gorillas spend the day foraging and playing and then move to a new camp each night.

Wow!!! I knew they were big, but seeing them up close was amazing.

Our family consisted of 3 silverback males, 5 females, and 4 youngsters.

The kids were getting a bit rowdy and dad had a few comments:

The one below is Charles,  the head of the family.

Our last look as we headed for home:

Tip:  Buy the gorilla tickets way in advance, wear sturdy/waterproof hiking shoes/boots, hire a porter to help (even if you think you don’t need it…good for you and good for them)

so…

Our tour company arranged for us to visit a tribe of remote people who have lived the same way for tens of thousands of years. They live in the central Rift Valley (north-central Tanzania) and are among the last hunter-gatherers in the world.

National Geographic Magazine had an article about the Hadza in the December 2009 issue. I read it when I came home and felt like I was back in the camp again. Their language is called an “isolate”: Unlike any other studied language, it is comprised of soft sounds combined with tongue clicks and throaty pops (think about the movie “The Gods Must be Crazy”).

We arrived in camp just after the men had completed a hunting trip. The catch of the morning was some kind of cat – and I was chosen to help skin the cat!

Notice the modern shorts under the clothes made of animal skins. They trade for some “western” clothes when they meet other tribes who have more contact with a market culture. They cooked the cat after we skinned it and we all had a snack.

This is a Baobab tree and the chief is up in it. He noticed some significant signs in some of the limbs, hacked them, let them fall to the ground where the other men opened them to reveal honey made by ants. Of course we had to taste that too: it was so sweet and had a bit of crunch (ants) to it.

Dig in!      

As we continued our walk one of the men shot a bird and handed it to me on the arrow while he built a fire and cooked the bird. Wow…that’s fresh.

This is Jeff getting a hunting lesson

The Chief and I are getting cozy.

Our guide surprised us lunch after our visit

Tip: If you can arrange a visit with these people it is worth the time and trouble to get there. Be open minded about seeing, tasting, smelling, touching, hearing.

so…