The next morning, we headed out of Thimphu and went over Dochula Pass! Our first stop was the 106 memorial stupas, and a viewpoint that probably would have been amazing if the clouds weren’t so low. The drive through the mountains was beautiful and gave us a much better sense of the countryside of Bhutan.
From there, we had lunch and then took a nice walk out to the Chimi Lhakhang Temple, which is perhaps better known as the Fertility Temple. One of the aspects of Bhutan that is so fascinating is the part of its history dealing with the Divine Madman. Basically, he helped people reach enlightenment through intercourse, and so phallic symbols are a way for Bhutanese people to protect themselves from the evil eye. It’s hard to describe how many phallic symbols you see across the country. They’re painted on buildings. They’re sold in shops, with elaborate paintings and shapes and carvings. Our driver had one as his compass. Needless to say, I have a number of photos that I cannot show publicly from this trip.
It’s strange to have to edit my pictures in this way. I had to do that a little in PNG, because some of the tribes have traditional outfits for sing-sings that are more revealing than the West is comfortable with, but this is a whole different level – most of the photos from this area are unpostable because of the phallic imagery!
Once we got to the temple, our guide asked us if anyone wanted to do the fertility ritual. Two women in my group did, which was very cool to be able to watch! Basically, they had to put on what was essentially a backpack made out of a large dildo, walk around the courtyard clockwise three times, and then receive a blessing. This included rolling some sort of dice to learn about the gender and name of their future child.
From there, we kept driving to the Punakha Dzong! This one is often considered the most beautiful in the country, and I would have to say I agree. Seeing it over the river was stunning.
We had one more stop before we got to our hotel in Punakha, which was the longest suspension bridge in Bhutan. It’s beautiful over the river in Punakha – I loved the view from our hotel room while we were here!
The next morning we did the whole drive in reverse (with less stops) and headed back to Paro. Our first activity was the National Museum in Paro, which was an interesting experience. I’ve never seen a museum designed quite like this – it was in a cylinder, and you started around floor 3 or 4 and then went up to the top and then all the way down. There was a prescribed path that felt a little bit like a labyrinth, especially in areas where it took you down a staircase and then immediately back up another. Eventually, I ended up sort of separated from the group and I was working my way through the historical artifacts of Bhutan all on my own. It felt a little surreal.
After the National Museum, we headed down the hill to the Paro Dzong, which was smaller than the other ones we’d been to. We also stopped by some local archery grounds! Archery is Bhutan’s national sport. This was underscored when we arrived and our driver reached into a compartment in the bus where he kept his own bow and arrows, and he joined in. I’ve seen archery on TV before, like at the Olympics, but I don’t think I’d truly understood how far the distances were that they were shooting. It’s pretty incredible, I’m definitely glad we got a chance to see it.
We had a little free time to wander around in Paro, which was nice. Chelsea and I found a market and a path along the river. I love the chance to get lost in a city (or at least try, Paro isn’t big enough or windy enough to truly get lost). We had dinner at the hotel and then had a chill night – we knew we had an early rise the next morning so that we could hike to Tiger’s Nest!
From Istanbul, I headed to Bhutan! My friend Chelsea and I had been talking about going for several years, and so we finally made it happen in 2024. Bhutan is one of those places where tourism is pretty regulated, so we signed up for a GAdventures tour that would take us to Thimphu, Punakha, and Paro over the course of about six days. We met up in the Istanbul airport and flew to Kathmandu, and then from Kathmandu to Paro.
My first view upon landing in Paro!
The flight from Kathmandu to Paro is well-known to be one of the most challenging routes to fly. Part of this is the altitude and part of it is the terrain – to fly into Paro, there’s a drop down into a valley and then the pilot has to fly with mountains on both sides. It’s also an absolutely gorgeous flight if you sit on the correct side (left from KTM to PBH, right from PBH to KTM). We didn’t manage it on the way to Kathmandu but we heard the pilot come over the radio as we passed Mount Everest! Once we landed, we went through immigration and customs in Paro, which is a very fancy airport, and met up with our group so we could all drive to Thimphu.
Not all of the roundabouts are this fancy or have people directing them, but this one is pretty cool!
Thimphu is the capital of Bhutan, and has the interesting distinction of being the only world capital that doesn’t have any traffic lights. I also find it very interesting to see the architectural styles of Bhutan – they adhere very rigidly to specific aesthetic standards, both in their architecture and in their decoration. We went to one of the schools where they teach people the traditional painting and art styles. It’s great to see that they’re preserving that component of their history, but what it means for visitors is that you can’t actually tell how old something is based on how it looks. The shop on the corner might be in a building that was from the 1600s or might be built earlier this year, and it would look more or less the same.
Visiting the school was pretty cool. They were teaching a bunch of different disciplines, so we could wander through and observe as the students worked on their various paintings and sculptures.
One of our other visits in Thimphu was the Royal Takin Preserve! I had never heard of a takin before, but they’re a national symbol in Bhutan. Apparently, they like humans a lot, and when the Bhutanese people thought that they shouldn’t keep them in enclosures and released them back into the wild, the takins just came and lived in downtown Thimphu, so they’re back in their preserve now. They were really cute.
We also headed up to the top of a nearby hill to see the giant Buddha, one of the symbols of the city.
Our last stop of the day was the first of many dzongs, the fortresses that used to help protect every town in Bhutan! This was the Tashichho Dzong, and it was gorgeous. It was fun to go from Istanbul to here and see two cultures that did a spectacular job at designing these beautiful, intricate palaces and religious institutions in two totally different ways – Türkiye with tile, Bhutan with paintings and carvings. It felt like everywhere I looked had new interesting features to examine. We headed out of Thimphu the next day, but I’m glad we had a chance to explore Bhutan’s capital first.
I’ve flown through Istanbul airport before, but I’d never ventured into the city. Not for lack of trying, either – I’d been on a flight that could have qualified for a stopover tour, but I hadn’t been able to find it in the airport, and there was no luggage storage in the airport. Plus, that was before the metro reached the airport so it wasn’t exactly straightforward to get to the city. Regardless, I was very excited to change that with this trip!
I stayed in Sultanahmet, basically down the street from the Blue Mosque. As far as proximity to all of the quintessential Istanbul sites, this was perfect! That said, it was very busy and very chaotic – I think if I was going back to Istanbul, I would pick somewhere that was a little bit removed from the tourist sites, now that I’ve gone to them, because the more enjoyable part of the city was wandering through the smaller, less touristy neighborhoods and having coffee at the various cafés. My other pro tip re: the tourist sites – they are really busy during the day, but all that traffic drops off as it gets closer to dinner time, so if you can be flexible about your own itinerary, I would highly recommend looking at 6 – 8 pm as some of the best times to see some of the most well-known sites.
That’s what I did with the Hagia Sophia – I’d walked by it a few times and seen lines around the block, but when I was coming back from dinner there was no line! It was so cool to walk through with almost no one else around. The bottom level is reserved for its use as an operating mosque, while the top level is for tourists who want to come see the space. It’s a beautiful mosque, and the amount of history that’s taken place in this spot is unreal.
One of the coolest aspects of Istanbul, and of Türkiye as a whole, is the fact that it straddles the Bosphorus Strait and sits at the crosshairs of Europe and Asia! Most of Istanbul is on the European side, but it’s easy to take the ferry over. I spent a whole day taking ferries, first to Kadiköy and then to the Princes Islands. The views from the ferries are awesome and I had a really nice time exploring those areas.
My favorite of the major sites I went to was Topkapi Palace! It’s a massive complex and the tile work was gorgeous. While there were a ton of people there when I went, it was easy enough to avoid some of the longest lines and explore what didn’t require a massive queue – I still didn’t see everything, but what I did see was pretty spectacular. My only regret was that I should have planned out food a little better, because I didn’t have enough for breakfast and ended up having a cobbled together lunch of potato chips and juice because I didn’t realize how big of a complex it was when I grabbed my ticket.
The other major Istanbul site that was at the top of my list was the Basilica Cistern, for a kind of embarrassing reason? I’d read about it in a Dan Brown book, if you must know. His novel Inferno is partially set in Istanbul and there’s a scene set in the cistern that made it sound super cool. It made the whole city of Istanbul sound super cool, honestly, but the Basilica Cistern was the place I’d never heard about and then I looked it up and Google showed me some pictures that looked incredible. So I went after dinner and walked around. It was built in the 6th century and, while it used to be a major source of Istanbul’s water, it’s now a tourist attraction, so they project colored lights in there and there are several art exhibits. You don’t need a ton of time in there, but I’m glad I went to see it!
Most of what I did in Istanbul, though, was just walk around the various neighborhoods. Karaköy was fun, especially once I got off the main boulevards and found some smaller streets full of boutiques and cafés. I went into a couple mosques that weren’t the ones you know about by searching “what to do in Istanbul” online. I ended up in Galataport at one point, meant for cruise visitors but also an interesting little planned area along the Bosphorus. I saw lots of street cats.
I had a really nice five days in Istanbul! I’ve been wanting to visit for such a long time, and it definitely delivered. Istanbul is one of those hubs that I expect to fly through a lot more now that I live on the East Coast, and I’m glad I’ve gotten a chance to finally get out of the airport and see a little more of it.
My next trip started with a huge milestone: my 50th country! Considering that when I turned 20, I had only been to the US, Canada, and Denmark, where I had just started a semester abroad, it’s absolutely incredible how much I’ve had the opportunity to travel over the course of my 20s. My first goal was 30 countries by 30 and I have well surpassed that. I wanted to pick something cool for #50, so I went with a week in Türkiye! After landing in the Istanbul airport, I headed to the domestic terminal and boarded my flight to Kayseri.
I had booked myself into a cave hotel, which was absolutely the right call. I stayed at the Aza Cave Hotel, and they handled almost all of my logistics while I was in the region, including my airport transfers, my Red and Green tours, and of course, the all-important hot air balloon ride! I loved my experience there. Everything was so smooth, and there were amazing views of the valley from right outside my door.
The balloons didn’t run the first day I was there because of the wind. I was pretty jetlagged, though, so I still got up early and headed into town to explore a bit before my tour picked me up. The town of Göreme has tons of the traditional cave hotels, which is why it’s where a lot of tourists stay when they come to the region. It makes for an interesting town vibe, with lots of windy roads among the rock formations.
I was taking the Red tour the first day, which goes to many of the main sites in and around Göreme. It’s the most popular tour and is definitely a good introduction to the Cappadocia region. Fun fact, the term “Cappadocia” is more of a tourist region designation than any kind of real geographic/cultural designation. It’s in the Anatolia region of Turkey. The tour had a lot of cool stops, all clustered close to Göreme, and we had our lunch at the bottom of this canyon. This was the perfect first day tour – no long drives, and we got back on the earlier side. Between jet lag and the planned early wakeup the next morning, I was happy to have an earlier bedtime.
The next morning was the moment I had been waiting for – hot air balloons! I went with Discovery Balloons and had a great time. The morning started with a brutally early pick up from the hotel, and then we were driven to a dark field where we got pastries and coffee while we watched our team prepare the balloons. This was pretty cool in and of itself, because we got to watch as the balloons all around us started inflating and taking off.
Our guide started off by taking us as high as we could go, and then we worked our way back down through the valley. Something that really surprised me about the experience was how quiet it all was. Once you were up in the air, it was so peaceful – the only noise by the pilot was an occasional whoosh of flame to adjust the height and sporadic radio messages. I loved the experience of flying that way and seeing the rock formations from a different perspective.
As for how expensive your hot air balloon ride is, the main differentiator is the number of people in the basket. I did the standard one, which I think had capacity for 28 people, and I was happy with this. I personally wouldn’t have spent the additional money to do a smaller basket. I felt like our pilot did a great job maneuvering the balloon around so that we all got a chance to see everything, and it wasn’t like one side of the balloon ever had a “bad” view.
A hot air balloon ride is something I’ve always wanted to try, and I’m so glad I did it here in Cappadocia! I don’t think I need to do it again, because I think the experience of it wouldn’t necessarily feel that different even in a different landscape, and it’s a very expensive thing to do, but I do recommend that people try it somewhere that has a cool and interesting landscape. I also was so amazed by the pilots and crew and how smoothly everything ran – our pilot landed us on the truck that they use to transport the balloons, which was pretty incredible. Afterwards, we all got certificates and a sort of knockoff champagne to toast to our experience!
I got back to my hotel in time for breakfast and a very quick nap before my next tour, which was the Green tour. It goes a bit farther afield to the southern region of Cappadocia. We started at an underground city, which was fascinating to see how people lived in this region. For a long time, there were both cave dwellings and underground cities for security, which is similar to dwellings I’ve seen in the Western US as well. We also headed to Selime Monastery, which was high up on a cliffside.
Our lunch spot on this tour was super cool. We hiked down into a valley and along a river, and the restaurant had these little huts where you could sit and eat lunch. It was so relaxing, and the two other people with me had been on the Red tour the day before so we had a nice conversation along with our meal!
My last morning was a relaxed breakfast before heading back to Istanbul. I couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to Türkiye or a better celebration for country #50. Looking forward to many more!
In my quest to see all 50 states, most of the ones I had remaining got markedly easier once I moved to DC. None of those was quite as straightforward as West Virginia, which was only a one hour train ride from DC! I went on a whim, booking the train ticket on Thursday and heading out the following day after work for a quick weekend trip.
Know that I am by no means a Civil War expert, but my understanding is that the Confederate Army took it over at some point during the Civil War and then spent so much time and effort to keep it that it actually helped the Union defeat them. There is a ton of Civil War history here, as a lot of battles were fought in and around this area – much of Harpers Ferry is under National Park Service jurisdiction, so it was fun for me to get the stamps and go through the various exhibits they set up!
Beyond its historical significance, Harpers Ferry is a cute town. It seems to be thriving, with more locally-owned restaurants and shops than most small towns in America. I had some amazing food while I was there – my fav was a place called Snallygaster’s Café and Wine Bar.
The biggest draw of all, though, is the hiking! Fun fact, Harpers Ferry is pretty close to the halfway point in the Appalachian Trail, and you can hike towards Georgia or Maine if you want to. It also has several other trails branching out from the town. I was there in March, which is still a little early for prime hiking season – there was a ton of rain, which I imagine would have been pretty miserable as a backpacker – and I still saw plenty of people who were hiking and camping along the way.
I did a hike called Maryland Heights, which is where the quintessential pictures overlooking Harpers Ferry come from! Technically, the trailhead starts in Maryland, but you have to start in Harpers Ferry and cross the bridge to get there, and all the views are looking back toward West Virginia. It was a good hike, and I had great timing because the sun came out just as I arrived at the overlook.
Harpers Ferry has the best hiking I’ve seen since I moved out east, and I would definitely be interested in coming back for another weekend and exploring more of what West Virginia has to offer! Like my visit to Oklahoma, it’s always nice to explore a place where I didn’t have many expectations and find it a pleasant surprise.
When I was looking at my flight options back from Doha, the obvious choice probably would have been Qatar Airways. That said, if I’m going to fly across an entire ocean, I’d rather get miles for it if I can, and Qatar Airways isn’t in an alliance that’s beneficial for me. So I started looking at my other options, and when I filtered for either Star Alliance or SkyTeam, there was a pretty clear winner: Saudia. They partner with Delta, the flight was way cheaper than my other options, and they have a stopover program.
Which left me with a different and thornier question, which was whether it was a good idea to do a stopover as a solo American woman. Saudi Arabia only opened to tourism in 2019, so there really wasn’t a lot of information out there about what it was like to travel there, and they haven’t historically had the best track record on women’s rights. I spoke with a few other travelers about it, and they both told me it was safe, so I went for it, and I’m really glad I did! It was a fascinating place to visit and I’m also happy I saw it at this particular moment in time – I can see the trajectory of their budding tourism industry, but right now it’s still fairly nascent.
Let’s start with a quick rapid fire. The policies may later change, but this is accurate as of February 2024 when I went.
Did I feel safe in Saudi Arabia? Yes. I felt completely safe. This includes walking alone late at night and taking Ubers at all times of the day. Do women have to cover their hair? No, and I didn’t cover mine. In theory, if you go to a mosque you would need to, but that is true regardless of what country you’re in and the only mosques that non-Muslims can enter in all of Saudi Arabia are in Jeddah. Do women have to wear an abaya? No, but they do need to cover elbows and knees. I wore long pants and a long-sleeved shirt about half the time, and then I did buy an abaya in Qatar because I had a super fancy dinner planned and I wanted to look nice. Locals seemed a bit bemused/pleased when I wore the abaya but no one commented either way.
Wearing my abaya on my way to fancy dinner
With that out of the way, let’s get to the trip report!
The view from my hotel room!
As part of the stopover program, Saudia handled my transit visa and paid for my first night of my hotel. The one clunky piece of this was that I couldn’t add on a second night and just pay for that, I had to find the hotel and book them separately for the second night. And then I did have to check out and back into my hotel. But it was pretty painless, and the hotel room that they paid for was nice and very centrally located. It was right next to the National Library, which I didn’t get a chance to go in but was a really cool building.
I landed around 5 pm, and wow, rush hour traffic is bad. It looks like they might be starting to build their first train, but it’s not surprising that car culture reigns supreme in Saudi Arabia. I took Ubers the entire time I was there, which worked really well. I never had to wait too long, even when I was fairly far away from the city center. It took a little while to get to my hotel, which was fine because the only thing I’d planned for the first night was a fancy dinner! I’d made myself a reservation at The Globe, which is at the top of the building that looks like a pyramid in the golden sphere. And fun fact, it was Valentine’s Day the next day so they had a special set menu for that.
The food was pretty good. No alcohol – it looked like you could potentially add it on for an expensive fee, but I didn’t really care enough to ask. My real goal, though, was to do this for the view of the skyline, which was so cool! I love the building that looks like a giant bottle opener.
Leading up to this, one of my biggest questions was how the locals would feel about tourists. Going from fully closed to tourists, to a couple years where foreign women visitors were required to wear the abaya and cover their hair, to now – it feels like a lot of substantial changes in a pretty short amount of time. And in my experience, I found the local Saudis to be very warm and welcoming! Everyone asked me if I had been to Saudi Arabia before, how I was liking it, if I needed any recommendations of what to do. Even at the airport, the customs/border agents were smiling and laughing as I walked up, which is unlike…. almost every border experience ever. When I was leaving The Globe, one of the guys who worked there offered to take my picture with the sign, and then he wanted to take a selfie together as well!
I assume it’s because of the overwhelming heat during the day, but the timing of everything is later than most countries I’ve been to. My dinner reservation was for 8:30 pm. As I was walking back to my hotel, the mall that I walked past was still open, and had a closing time of 11 pm or midnight. I went in and wandered around for a bit. There’s always something a little surreal about seeing mostly American brands translated into different languages and cultures – I’m not sure I’ve even seen a Bath & Body Works outside of the US before!
The next morning, I had some free time in the morning, so I took an Uber to the National Museum. There aren’t a lot of tourist-y sites in Riyadh – it’s pretty much the museum, the adjacent Murabba Palace, and the Al Masmak Palace, which was closed when I was there. Both the National Museum and the Murabba Palace are free.
Between the museum and the palace, the museum was more interesting to me – a national museum is the chance to see how a country wants to portray itself. What pieces of history they highlight or skip over, what they’re proud of, what they display. And Saudi Arabia is in the midst of what might be one of the world’s biggest PR campaigns. Ever since Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) was announced as crown prince in 2017, Saudi Arabia has been making significant moves. Opening the country up to tourism and allowing women to drive are the most noticeable, certainly, but they’ve also been doing a lot of sportswashing with massive Aramco sponsorship in Formula 1 and the LIV tour in golf. They’ve announced multiple massive urban planning projects, like The Line, a proposed smart city in Neom that’s currently under construction, and an attempt to “re-green” the desert to help with climate change in the region. So yes, I was curious to hear how Saudi Arabia would present itself in its own words.
The first floor is primarily the history of the peninsula. A little about its geology and how it came to have the oil that has made it wealthy and powerful, and then the development of trade routes across Asia and how Saudi Arabia was tapped into that. And then I took the elevator upstairs, and found myself in a very detailed recount of the life of the prophet Mohammed. The second floor focuses on how Islam shaped Saudi Arabia, and it does not shy away from the theocratic aspects of their society.
Once I was done reading about how Islam transformed Saudi Arabia, I wandered through the garden and then Murabba Palace. That one didn’t have as many exhibits, or at least I didn’t know where to find more exhibits, so it was just a few smaller areas with photos and details about the King’s life. From there, I took another Uber to my next location, a Carrefour far from the center of the city.
I had booked a tour for the afternoon! When I was deciding on whether to come to Saudi Arabia, I had a choice between Riyadh or Jeddah. I chose Riyadh for a few reasons, including the idea that it was probably a truer introduction to Saudi Arabia than the comparatively liberal Jeddah and the desire to see the capital, but the main deciding factor was really that I wanted to see The Edge of the World. I had seen pictures online before and I thought it looked pretty amazing.
And you know what? It was. The company drove us out a couple hours from the city, first through small towns and then through the desert until we came to the edge of a cliff. We walked along it, even climbing all the way out to the tip of that rock formation (which was way less precarious than it looks in the photo). Then our driver made us dinner, so it was me and five others sitting there, eating our meals as the sun set over the cliffs. I got back to the hotel very late, but I’m really glad I signed up for it.
The next morning, I took an Uber back to the airport and took a direct flight home to Washington, DC. There are other areas of Saudi Arabia I would be interested in, namely Jeddah and al-Ula, which is a set of ruins that is allegedly reminiscent of Petra. But for Riyadh, the day and a half or so that I had was probably sufficient, unless they develop out their tourism a bit more.
You don’t need me to tell you the things that Saudi Arabia needs to work on. You probably already know about their problems with human rights, the power that an absolute monarchy can wield, and what concerns develop when one religion is taken to the extreme. And the level of gender segregation is jarring. In every restaurant, there was a men’s section and a family section, where women and children were allowed to be served. In my hotel, the gym separated out the hours that you could go depending on your gender. I know that coming in as a foreigner is not the same experience that Saudi women have, and I know there are still plenty of problems left to resolve.
In advance of my trip, I also read Daring to Drive by Manal al-Sharif while I was in Ethiopia. It had been on my TBR list for ages. Manal al-Sharif was one of the main women pushing for the right to drive in Saudi Arabia, which was granted in 2017. Licenses were first issued to women in June 2018. I would absolutely recommend the memoir, which was a great introduction on the women’s right to drive movement and what life was like up until about 2016.
Still, I was blown away at how much things had changed in the decade or so since the events detailed in her book. I saw women driving. I saw a huge, beautiful women’s college on the drive from the airport into the city center. There are no religious police anymore. No one asked me to cover my hair. No one even gave me so much as a second glance as a woman with uncovered hair or western clothes. Everyone I interacted with seemed happy to see me as a tourist in their country, and they wanted to know if I had ever been to Saudi Arabia before and whether I was enjoying my time there. I left feeling a lot more encouraged and hopeful for Saudi Arabia’s future – I think they’ve made an incredible amount of progress so far, and I’m curious to see what happens next.
After Ethiopia, Lucy and I headed to Qatar! We were excited to visit a friend of ours, Aisha, who had been with us in PNG and Vanuatu. She picked us up from the airport after our red-eye flight and we all went out for breakfast. We loved it so much we ended up going back to the same place the next day – with Aisha’s recommendations, we ate so well during our time in Qatar!
We were staying in the Souq Waqif area, which is a great area for tourists – the souq itself is fun to walk around, with lots of food and shops, and it’s pretty central to a lot of the major sites. My favorite part was the Falcon Souq. Falconry is a lot more common in the region, and so they have places that sell them along with all the accessories to train the falcons to hunt. It was so fascinating to walk into a shop and have all the birds lined up.
I don’t have much to compare it to, as I haven’t traveled much in the GCC countries, but it seems to me that Qatar has done a great job modernizing while still retaining the history and charm of the way it used to look. I’ve heard people say that Dubai, for example, is a bit too sanitized and they’ve lost the connection to what they used to be before the skyscrapers were built. I’ll be interested to compare once I make it to the UAE.
Once Lucy and I had a chance to explore the souq and take a nap – not necessarily in that order – we headed over to the waterfront. There are nice walkways along Al Corniche and some great views of the Doha skyline.
This sign feels like accidental poetry, I love it
Our walk was cut short by a sudden rainstorm. It turns out that when a country is built in a desert, they aren’t thinking about rain shelters! We ended up having to run for it before we could find a hotel lobby to shelter in. After waiting out the rainstorm, we made our way back to the souq area, which was even more beautiful at night.
Aisha didn’t have to work the next day, so she picked us up and we headed out of the city! We wanted to go to the UNESCO site in Qatar, which is the Al Zubarah Fort and Archeological Site. It’s about an hour northwest of Doha, and if you look it up on a map, the route looks like you’ve drive about halfway across the entire country.
One of the most interesting things to me is watching humanity solve the same problems in roughly the same way halfway across the world. The Al Zubarah Fort looked so similar to the types of forts that are found across the American Southwest, which has a very similar climate.
It was also good to get more insight into the history of Qatar before oil – this region was famous for pearl diving, which sounded like a very difficult job with the technology du jour, and that allowed them to flourish and trade with other civilizations. This was going swimmingly (pun intended) until the artificial pearl was invented, which pretty much cratered their economy. They were struggling until oil was discovered. We saw two abandoned settlements from when there was still pearl diving and then went out to lunch before heading back to Doha.
From there, we headed to the National Museum! It’s such a cool looking building. The architecture is based on the desert rose crystals, which is a formation of gypsum that’s common in the region. We didn’t have a ton of time to spend there before it closed, but it had a great overview of the country’s history and some very interesting exhibits. Afterwards, we had a last dinner with Aisha and got ready for our respective flights the next morning. Lucy was heading on to Bahrain and then Kuwait, and I was heading on to Saudi Arabia.
I really couldn’t have asked for a better introduction to the Middle East! It was so fun to see Aisha again and she was a fantastic tour guide to learn more about Qatar. I would definitely recommend spending a couple days here if you’re in the region.
Lalibela had been on my bucket list for a long time. I don’t even remember where I first came across it, but I saw a picture of the beautiful stone-hewn churches and I thought they looked SO cool. Since I had to fly to and from Addis as part of the Eritrea and Djibouti trip, I knew I had to make the trip to see them!
Let’s talk about safety. Ethiopia has been fairly volatile lately – while I am certainly not an expert, my understanding is that this is a ripple effect from the peace agreement with Eritrea. The northern region, the Tigray, was not pleased with how conciliatory the agreement was toward Eritrea after they had spent so many of their resources in that fight, and it erupted into civil war. The US State Department had this area as a Level 4 while I was there, and while I felt completely safe in Lalibela, I was also conscious that the fighting was not far from where we were. It’s definitely worth doing your research before planning anything in Northern Ethiopia at the moment.
The churches of Lalibela were built between the seventh and thirteenth centuries. Ethiopia is orthodox Christian, and part of that historically involved going to Jerusalem for a pilgrimage. In one of the changes of power, it became unsafe for the Ethiopians to go to Jerusalem, so they responded by building this site to be their own version of Jerusalem in Africa.
One of the coolest aspects of this site is that it is still actively used as a site of worship! While we were there, we saw plenty of locals coming to pray, and outside of one group of Russian tourists, we were the only foreigners for pretty much our entire tour. Our hotel had set up a tour guide to take us around, which was a great way to get a little more context.
The architecture is amazing. Pictured below is the most famous of the churches – this is the Church of Saint George, which is the one I had always seen in pictures. This one is the only one that doesn’t have the roof covered, so it’s easier to see the unique shape of the building.
We had two nights and one full day in Lalibela before we headed back to Addis for another stopover. Fun fact, I’ve spent so much time flying around this region of Africa on this trip that my flight tracking app is convinced that Addis Ababa is my home airport. As of the time of writing, I’ve been on 26 flights in 2024, and ADD was involved in 10 of those flights!
We booked a driver and tour guide for our third stopover, which was a nice way to see some of the parts of the city that were a bit farther out from the center. They took us up to Entoto Park, which had great views of the city and seemed to be a pretty cool recent development project. It reminded me of an Ethiopian take on N Seoul Tower, with restaurants and bars and walking trails for people to come spend time. Towards the end of our visit there, it started raining, so we ended up taking a driving tour through the main market before we headed back to the airport for our next flight.
All in all, Ethiopia was fascinating. It wasn’t always the easiest place to travel in – when you’re the only tourists around, it means there’s always a sense of being under observation – but it has some of the most amazing sites out there. This region, along with Eritrea and Djibouti, was such a good introduction to Africa, and I can’t wait to explore more of the continent in the future!
After a week in Eritrea and Djibouti, Lucy and I headed to Ethiopia! We had figured since all our flights went through Addis Ababa, we might as well use that as a launch point to see a little of Ethiopia before we returned to our respective countries. We had about a half a day in the city before we returned to the airport for a domestic flight out to the Afar region.
Our first stop was the National Museum, which houses the famous skeleton Lucy! We made a lot of jokes about Lucy needing to go see her bones, but it was super cool to see such a significant piece of human history. Ethiopia’s history as the cradle of civilization makes it such an interesting visit.
From there, we took a walk through the city. First impressions: Addis Ababa felt very cosmopolitan in some areas, especially compared to the frozen-in-time experience of Eritrea and the chaotic Djibouti City. There were plenty of skyscrapers and beautiful parks. We saw advertisements indicating that Addis was hosting some sort of event for the African Union. But we also found ourselves walking through some fairly poor areas, and it’s the first city I’ve ever been where multiple locals stopped us to tell us to put our phones away and not hold anything valuable in our hands. That was a strange experience.
The next morning, we boarded our flight to Semera. This is where we were joining our Danakil Depression tour! We had seen part of the continental rift in Djibouti, but the majority of it lies within Ethiopia. It is at the divergence of three continental plates, which makes for some spectacular landscapes. We had booked a three day tour, which would take us to some extremely remote corners in the Afar region.
Nothing really prepared me for when we got off the airplane. We walked out of the Semera airport, which is tiny, and we had figured we would see signs from tour companies as they picked up their clients. Instead, we walked out to UN cars. As it turns out, there are some refugee camps in the Afar region and a number of programs providing international aid, like the UN and the World Food Programme, but it was a little jarring to find that when we were showing up as tourists. We did end up finding our tour company, though!
Our first day was a long one. We headed through volcanic landscapes and made our way toward Erta Ale, which is Ethiopia’s most active volcano. We got there as the sun was starting to set and began a hike up to go see the volcano, which was a little treacherous because so much of the lava flow was brand new.
Fun fact, new lava flow feels a bit like stepping on a macaron, with a delicate crunch that makes you worry it might crumble underneath you. Also, this is where the Ethiopian calendar came up during the trip – I asked when the most recent lava flow had occurred, and they told me a date in 2016. I said that was surprising, because it seemed a lot fresher than that, and the guides laughed and said that was three weeks ago. Once we got near the volcano, I could feel the warmth of the Earth beneath my feet, hot enough that it started to get uncomfortable after a while.
This was the first night I’d ever spent camping under the stars! Which, the stars were pretty spectacular. The camping was a little rough because it was incredibly windy where we were, so it wasn’t the best sleep I’ve ever gotten. Still, windy conditions are temporary, and standing next to an active volcano is something I will remember for the rest of my life, so absolutely worth it. We headed out for our next day of driving. The landscape changed from volcanic to an area that looked more like the savannah, where the guides said we might see an ostrich if we were lucky. We didn’t, but we did see the cool bird pictured above that a friend of mine later identified as an Arabian Bustard.
From there, the landscape changed again, and we ended up in one of the most hostile yet gorgeous landscapes I’ve ever seen. The highlight of any Danakil Depression tour is Dallol, which is a hydrothermal system that’s part of this particular continental rift. It smells strongly of sulphur, so most of us brought masks to cut the scent a bit. Everything I was wearing went in the wash so fast after this tour.
It didn’t seem possible that the Earth could produce such color. The closest thing I’ve ever seen is Yellowstone, and even then, they aren’t quite as vibrant as the ones in Dallol. One of the other strange things is being able to walk so close to the geothermal formations – it certainly couldn’t handle the level of tourism as Yellowstone gets, but it was pretty amazing to be able to see everything up close without boardwalks or anything being roped off.
After we had spent our time at Dallol, we headed out to a few other saltwater lakes, salt flats, and salt pillars. As the sun began to set, we started to see these huge trucks transporting workers across the salt flats. We had a chance to meet some of them and learn more about their work, which was breaking up sections of the salt flats to harvest the salt. It sounds like a very difficult job. They’re dropped off at sunset and they work through the night, then the trucks pick them up at dawn. Working during the day would be too hot.
After one more night in the desert, we drove back across the Afar region to the airport and headed back to Addis for a late afternoon flight! I have the utmost respect for anyone who is living out in this region of Ethiopia – between the hostile environment and the lack of access to goods and services, I think it would be a very difficult place to live. After a few days, I was happy to head back to the city for a hot shower, plentiful electrical outlets, and running water, but for the people out there, even getting access to food and safe water can be a huge challenge. I’m very grateful for my chance to visit such a remote and largely unexplored region, and I had an incredible experience.
After wrapping up our time in Eritrea, it was on to Djibouti! It’s a very small country, so we were staying in the very creatively named Djibouti City, which is their capital. Djibouti is an interesting place – it isn’t particularly touristy, but there are a ton of foreigners around because of the military bases. It’s positioned right in the middle of a bunch of regions that frequently have conflict, and it seems like just about every military in the world looked at it on a map and went, “yep, let’s build a base there.”
As you can see, our flight was not particularly busy!
I don’t have a lot of pictures of Djibouti City itself. We did spend a lot of time walking around there, but Alvaro had warned us that locals didn’t like people taking pictures. Which I can confirm, because I wanted to take a picture in the market and got yelled at. And honestly, it’s not that scenic of a city. But the markets were cool to walk around in, our hotel was great, and we had some good dinners while we were there, so I can’t complain. Our last meal of Yemeni food was my favorite. It was also fun to break out my rusty French to help translated when we ordered food.
This mistranslation cracked me up
The first full day, we did the activity I was most excited about on this whole trip, which was snorkeling with whale sharks! I love whale sharks. I’ve seen them in aquariums twice (Osaka and Atlanta) and have been amazed by their size and how beautiful they are. Snorkeling with them in Djibouti was one of my top travel experiences ever. They come up to the shallow waters to feed. We had taken a larger boat to get out to the right area, but we switched to smaller boats to get closer to them. Our guide would point to them in the water and we would all have to jump out of the boat as quickly as possible in our snorkel gear to try to find them before they dove back deep under water. If you were careful and didn’t spook them, you could swim alongside them for minutes at a time. It was magical.
The rest of the day, we had lunch and relaxed on our larger boat. It was such an incredible day and one of my favorite animal encounters.
Our next day, we headed to Lake Assal! This is the lowest point in Africa, at -509 feet. I know myself well enough to know that I am not going to reach the highest point of the various continents but the lowest points feel more achievable. The lake itself reminded me a lot of Salt Lake and the surrounding salt flats – there were mountains nearby as well, so it felt like very familiar landscapes.
We also headed to a volcanic area, which included a spot where you could stand across the rift between the African and Arabic continental plates! Lucy and I saw more of this area on the other side of the border in Ethiopia later in our trip, which was much more scenic than the version in Djibouti, but I still think it’s cool to be on the borders of continents in that way. This is the second continental plate border that I’ve been to – the first one was the Silfra rift in Iceland, and neither has disappointed.
All in all, Djibouti might not be the next tourism hotspot, but it does have some interesting sites and is worth a few days if you’re in the region. Swimming with the whale sharks was absolutely incredible!
