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Africa Ethiopia

Camping at the Danakil Depression

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.

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Africa Djibouti

Whale Sharks in Djibouti

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!

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Africa Eritrea

Stepping Back in Time in Eritrea

When I went to Papua New Guinea with Wander Expeditions, it didn’t take me long to realize that I wanted to go on another trip with them. We had spent a night with one of the tribes playing Werewolf around the fire and dancing in the rain, and I wanted to capture that energy again. So I looked on their website and looked at the upcoming trip options, and I picked one that went to Eritrea and Djibouti. Was I familiar with either of those countries before I picked it? Barely. But I am so glad that I picked this trip.

Eritrea is a very unusual place. It’s sometimes described as the North Korea of Africa, which I think is an incorrect characterization. It is known for being very isolated, with a visa that’s difficult to get and restrictive rules on where you can go as a foreigner once you’re there. It ranks quite low in a number of human rights indexes and has been one of the bottom countries in the Press Freedom Index as well. When I was doing my research on it, it seemed like a lot of what impacted its human rights score was related to (1) the war, which I’ll get to in a minute, and (2) the military requirement, which, according to what I read, could have somewhat arbitrary rules and could lead to vastly different lengths of assignment and situations among its citizens.

A summarized version of the history is basically that, like its neighbor Ethiopia, Eritrea was one of the cradles of human civilization and had a long period of successful empires and dynasties. Then, when Europe got involved in Africa, they were colonized by Italy and were strategically important for their proximity to the Suez Canal. After WW2, the British took over from the Italians and made them pseudo-independent in the early 1950s. One problem with this – Ethiopia thought that Eritrea should belong to them. This led to the Eritrean War of Independence, which went on for 30 years and which Eritrea ultimately won in 1993. Things were still tense for quite a long time between Eritrea and Ethiopia. Locals in both countries still reference the war, but you can tell that tensions have cooled a bit because you can fly directly between the two countries now! This is recent – I got the Lonely Planet Guide for Ethiopia & Djibouti, which was last updated in 2017, and it said that there were no air links with Eritrea at all.

I loved Eritrea. I think, of places I’ve been to, it felt closest to an Italian Cuba. Despite reading about its dictatorship and place on the human rights indexes, I didn’t feel that as strongly as other places I’ve visited in similar situations. I didn’t feel as though people were measuring their words around us or monitoring what we were doing or anything like that – I found the Eritreans to be very warm and very welcoming to outsiders. It was a bit odd being, perhaps, the only tourists in the country for the first few days we were there. The last day, we did see a few Italians checking into our hotel as we were leaving, but otherwise my group appeared to be the only foreigners everywhere we went.

We spent most of our time in Asmara, which is the capital and has this beautiful old Art Deco Italian architecture. We saw their most famous buildings, like the Fiat Tagliero building, the old cinema, and a lot of beautiful old churches.

Kinda obsessed with this aqua-phobic demon

Eritrea is primarily an orthodox Christian nation. We went in a few churches and we got to see a religious ceremony happening later in the trip in Massawa.

We also crashed a wedding! It was pretty special to get to go and observe and see the amazing dancing that they put on. I can’t even imagine how my family would react if a group of strangers wandered into a family wedding, but this family was so happy to have us. They made up a plate of food for us to split and poured us all drinks. When we tried to leave, they actually called us back to make sure we saw the next dance, where a group of men danced with bottles on their heads. Definitely impressive!

We went to a very beautiful old post office, and around that time, I also visited my very first internet café. Eritrea does not allow foreigners to get esims or use international data plans, so in theory, the internet cafés are the only way to connect to the internet. In practice, I would say even this glimmer of internet proved elusive. Not that it stopped the people in my group from trying, but there was very little internet connection to be had the entire time we were in Eritrea.

Our next stop was one of the coolest markets I have ever seen, full stop. As a newer and more isolated country, I imagine their trade options are a bit more limited. As such, there’s a big focus on being able to re-use and recycle the materials that they have available to them. Which is another similarity with Cuba, actually. We just got to walk around and watch them at work as they were welding and hammering and riveting metals. It was SO interesting to watch. No labor laws, obviously, with the children working just as hard as the adults and no safety measures to speak of. I saw men welding using what looked like cardboard eclipse glasses as their eye protection. Even the man in the picture above is just wearing normal sunglasses.

From there, we headed out of Asmara! Fun fact, as a foreigner, you have to fill out permits to do anything outside of Asmara. These get pretty granular as well – we got asked to check a box if we were planning to snorkel or swim when we got to Dissei Island. Still, even with the bureaucracy, it was worth it to see a bit more of the country. The drive from Asmara to Massawa is absolutely stunning. Asmara is at 7,600 feet in elevation, so the landscape changes substantially going down to sea level. We also saw some baboons out the car window, which was good because every coworker asked me if I was going on safari while I was in Africa and at least this way I could report seeing at least one cool type of animal.

Massawa had sustained some damage in the war, but it was still quite lively and the buildings were beautiful. I could see the vision the Italians had for the oceanside city, with lots of patios where people could sit and drink and talk. We spent a lot of time hanging out at the various cafés and another internet café that didn’t let anyone connect to the internet. I also got eaten alive by bugs.

The next morning, we got to see a religious ceremony at the local orthodox church! I don’t know much about it, and there were a ton of people so it was a bit overwhelming and hot to stand amongst the crowd, but it was cool to get a chance to attend.

After that, we headed off to Dissei Island. It was fully uninhabited. There were a few structures from when they had tried to build a resort on the island, which would have been a good idea if they had, you know, any tourists. We went snorkeling for a bit and saw some sharks and fish and rays, and then it started raining so we mostly hung around the fire and ate spaghetti and talked. It’s never ideal when it rains when you’re camping (I say, as if this wasn’t my second time camping in a tent in my entire life) but we still had a nice time.

On the way back, we stopped at the Tank Graveyard! This is basically where Eritrea put all the tanks and military equipment from Ethiopia that they destroyed in their war for independence. I have to say, given the area and population of Eritrea vs. Ethiopia, it seems like they really punched above their weight in a military capacity. The Tank Graveyard is a surreal experience, and we wandered around and took lots of photos of the destroyed tanks (and even climbed a few).

After that, we went bowling. This was one of my highlights of Eritrea – this bowling alley was SO cool. It’s all manual, so there are actually people behind the pins putting them back, and they have kids recording the scores and keeping track of who’s winning. We had a lot of fun, especially once we got the hang of which lanes leaned which direction.

All in all, Eritrea was fascinating. I loved the chance to explore a country that not many people get the chance to go to. Also, I know it’s an unusual choice for first country in Africa, but I was really happy to get to my sixth continent. The logistics are a bit complicated for foreigners, but I would highly recommend it as an off-the-beaten path destination!

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North America United States

You’re Doing Fine, Oklahoma

As part of my effort to get to all fifty states, I ended up doing a stopover in Oklahoma City on the way from Denver to Washington DC! It was January, so… not exactly peak tourist season in OKC, if such a thing exists. That said, I loved my time in Oklahoma and found it to be one of the friendliest places I’ve been.

I stayed at the Skirvin Hotel, which is beautiful and historic and, according to the Uber driver who picked me up from the airport, haunted. I loved how central it was. I loved the historic vibes, and it was pretty reasonable for the cost, all things considered.

What I most admired about Oklahoma is the intention behind what they’ve built in their city. I started in Bricktown, which is along a canal and has light San Antonio Riverwalk vibes. I got dinner here and while it was pretty quiet, there were still people out playing mini golf and going to some of the restaurants along the water.

There was also a lot of street art, including the one above referencing the famous musical of the same name!

By far the most famous historical event to happen in Oklahoma was the Oklahoma City Bombing. On April 19, 1995, the Federal Building in downtown OKC was blown up in a domestic terrorism attack. To this day, it remains the deadliest domestic terrorism attack in American history. I wanted to go to the memorial and museum to learn about it and see how they represented those events. First of all, highly recommend if you’re there – it was a really impactful museum, covering the events of that day, the first responders and search and rescue teams and the incredible work they did, and the long term effects, as well as the hunt for Timothy McVeigh. Second, it is even more incredible to see what they’ve done with the city after that. If you asked most people to name 20 cities in America, Oklahoma City probably wouldn’t make that list. Even if you asked them to name 50, it still might not. And for this city to go through what it went through in 1995, rebuild, and come out with smart urban planning and a strong identity, it’s pretty amazing.

The next morning, I headed to the Oklahoma City Museum of Art! They have a Chihuly exhibit, which, if you’re not familiar with his work, he does some spectacular glasswork. There were a lot of pieces across the museum that I enjoyed.

Beyond the specific sites, one other thing that I want to shout out Oklahoma for is the friendliness and warmth that I saw exhibited across every part of my visit. Every Uber driver, bartender, patron in a restaurant – everyone local that I spoke to was so nice, and so happy to talk to me about their city. I think a lot of them were surprised I was there as a tourist in January, which, fair (I got so lucky with the weather). I went to a great breakfast place which was clearly very popular and busy, and when I told them it was my first time in Oklahoma, they comped my coffee and gave me a free pastry for the road. It was a wonderful experience, and I would recommend Oklahoma City to anyone who’s looking for a nice city break!

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Mexico North America

Thanksgiving in Mexico: Beach Edition

From Mexico City, Chelsea and I headed to Playa del Carmen! We flew into Cancun and took the bus an hour south. It dropped us off right in the middle of Playa del Carmen’s main street.

Unsurprisingly, Playa del Carmen is significantly more touristy than Mexico City! Cancun, Playa del Carmen, and Tulum make up a significant amount of American travel to Mexico, and it was easy to see what draws people here. The beaches are stunning and there’s a lot of tourist infrastructure. Chelsea was coming off a significant amount of travel in the US and I was coming off moving across the country, so we appreciated the chill vibes and the spent a lot of time at the beach.

We also took the ferry out to Cozumel! It was a pretty short boat ride, and it had a charming town and some nice landscapes. We ended up walking quite a ways away to find some good lookout points that the map indicated, and it was a great day trip from Playa del Carmen.

But the main reason I wanted to come to the Yucatán Peninsula was to see my third world wonder! Chichén Itzá is an easy day trip from Playa del Carmen as well. We were not interested in renting a car and you theoretically can get there by bus, but it’s not convenient with the transfers, so I booked a tour.

All the tour companies had pretty similar itineraries, featuring cenote swims, Valladolid, and the site of Chichén Itzá itself. Ours started with the cenote. The cenotes themselves are super cool looking, and it was fun to go to one and have the chance to swim! The water was pretty cold but I got used to it after a few minutes. What I could have done without was the hard sell – this was one of those tours where they try to sell you things on the bus and give you a tour of the gift shop and all that. A lot of the places I go are not necessarily on the beaten path and so it was a bit surprising to have so many pushy salespeople everywhere we went.

After the cenote and a pretty decent buffet lunch, we headed to the pyramids! I’ve always been a little surprised to find Chichén Itzá on the world wonder list given the sheer number of amazing historical sites out there, but I was pretty impressed. I didn’t know about the sonic engineering they did, with the effects that made it sound like echos and bird calls, and it was very cool. We had a good amount of time to explore the whole area, which had more than just the main pyramid. Of the two Mexican pyramid sites I went to, I probably enjoyed Teotihuacán slightly more, but I would definitely recommend both sites if you’re in the right region to see them.

Our last stop of the day was Valladolid. I found it quite charming and wished we had more time there – I could have used a full half day, and it would have been fun to do breakfast or lunch there instead of at the cenote. As it was, we left as the sun was setting and it took us a very long time to get back to our hotel. It was a long day but worth it in my opinion.

Overall, I had a great time in Mexico. Good food, good drinks, and interesting museums and historical sites. I know it’s a huge country with a lot of incredible places to visit, and I would definitely be open to going back – I would probably prioritize Oaxaca and Puerto Vallarta on a next trip! It was getting a little embarrassing that I hadn’t been, and so I was glad to get the chance to go over Thanksgiving.

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Mexico North America

Thanksgiving in Mexico: Museum Edition

I was at a party in Seattle with a few friends. We were drinking and playing party games, and we had just started playing Never Have I Ever. It had just gotten to my turn.

“Never have I ever… been to Mexico,” I said, expecting I could make a lot of people drink.

What I wasn’t prepared for was the level of shock in the room! For most Americans, Canada and Mexico are the first foreign countries they’ve ever been to, and so my friends were baffled how I had a country count into the 40s without having crossed over our southern border. We hatched a plan to go for Thanksgiving, and I am pleased to say that the trip actually made it out of the group chat!

We started in Mexico City. Part of why I’ve dragged my feet on Mexico is the perception of it as an American resort destination – so many people in the US go for all inclusives and private beaches, which is really not interesting to me when I travel. Mexico City, though, claims to have the most museums of any city in the world, and that’s more up my alley!

I arrived two-ish days before Chelsea and Angeli, so my first hotel was in the Zocalo area. It’s the historic center of the city, with pretty much all of the iconic buildings that you would use if you were going to do an establishing shot to show that you were in Mexico City. It was super busy and kind of chaotic almost every time I was there, so definitely a great introduction to the city! There are neighborhoods I ended up liking better, so I wouldn’t stay there again but I’m glad I did for the first couple days.

Once my friends arrived, we switched over to an Airbnb right by the Monument of the Revolution. I absolutely loved the view from our place! The plaza was having a festival one of the days but unfortunately it seemed to be a Christian rock concert, so we didn’t stick around.

The first priority was the Anthropology Museum, which is one of the most famous museums in Mexico City! It is a massive museum. We saw a very small fraction of what they had to offer, but there were so many interesting artifacts and I loved the way it was laid out. I would definitely go back.

The whole area around the museum was also great – it’s located in Chapultepec Park. You can rent a paddle boat or walk around for ages and admire all the statues. There are other museums, like a modern art museum with a great collection, and they even have a castle in the middle of the park! We walked up to it but didn’t end up going in because we didn’t feel like paying the admission.

One of my favorite things we did was the Frida Kahlo Museum! It’s located at a house that she had lived in, and features information about her life, recreations of the home when she lived there, and some of her clothing and artwork. She’s one of those figures that I’ve known who she is but very littlea bout her for a very long time. I found her story absolutely fascinating and really liked her art as well.

We also went to the Monument of the Revolution to check it out, especially since it was so close to where we were staying. You can go all the way up to the top in an elevator, which has great views of the city, as well as a little café. We got coffees and watched the sunset, and then we headed to the ground floor where there’s a museum about Mexican history. It didn’t have any English signage so I cobbled together my minimal Spanish along with a healthy dose of Wikipedia to learn more.

Obsessed with this futuristic library

A lot of the week was focused on eating great food and drinking margaritas on rooftops and wandering around the city! I had a lot of fun in Mexico City. I will say it was one of the more difficult places to navigate if you don’t speak Spanish, compared to many other places I’ve visited as a tourist where you can get by with less fluency in the native language. It was easy and pretty cheap to get around with Uber, even when my flight got in very late at night. There are certain precautions you should take in Mexico City, as with many major cities, but despite the fairly aggressive State Department warnings for Mexico, I felt quite safe throughout our time there.

We ended our time in Mexico City with a day trip out to Teotihuacán! It is definitely worth the trip out – it’s an amazing site, with so much history and a lot to see. We took an Uber out so that we could do it on our own time, which I was happy about. We went to one of the museum to see some of the murals and artifacts and made sure to get to all of the major pyramids. It’s unreal what these societies were able accomplish before modern technology. It was a bit challenging to get an Uber back to the city – I think we had a couple cancel on us before we finally found a driver who would come out there and get us, but we did make it back to the city.

The next day, Angeli headed back to the US and Chelsea and I continued on to our next destination in Mexico!

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Canada North America

Vancouver Views

When I got back from Australia, I already knew that I was going to move from Salt Lake to Washington, DC! It had taken quite a while between talking about it and getting all the various logistics together, and that process was exhausting, but I pretty much got back from Australia and started working through the things I wanted to do while I was still in the western half of the United States. One of those things was going to Vancouver.

I had always heard that Vancouver was a cool city. And it was long overdue that I should go back to Canada as an adult. I’ve been twice before – once, my parents and I went on a cruise to Alaska that featured a stop in Victoria, and the second was my family going to Banff for a longer trip. My memories were of gorgeous landscapes. One of the other travelers on the PNG trip was from Vancouver, which was the push I needed to actually plan it out and go!

I spent a lot of time just wandering the city, by myself and with Parsa. We took the ferry, we saw the views from his office building, and he knew all the great places to go out to dinner, so I ate very well while I was there! It was such a needed long weekend for me, since it had been very busy both at work and with all the logistics of moving and figuring out what to do with our house.

Over the weekend, Parsa rounded up a few friends and we went hiking! We drove up the Sea to Sky Highway, which is super gorgeous and scenic, and got some coffee in Squamish. Then we headed out to the trail. We hiked Tunnel Bluffs. Literally all the elevation gain is at the beginning, so at first it seemed a little tough, but after about 2 km it levels out and it was really pleasant. The views at the end were spectacular! It was such a nice day trip out from the city.

Vancouver was great, and now that I’m based out east I’ll have a better chance to visit the provinces of Ontario and Quebec! It’s easy to focus my travel in places that are more far-flung, but I’ve never been disappointed by my visits to Canada.

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Australia Oceania

Sojourn in Sydney

My final stop on this trip was Sydney! This had been the entire goal of the trip, actually. One of my good friends recently moved down to Australia for work, so I wanted to go visit her, which led to planning PNG and Vanuatu and let me lock in the rest of my travel across Oceania.

At the tail end of a month of travel, after 15 flights and time spent in 4 other countries, I was tired. So this part of the trip was a little more relaxed – I went to the office and met up with a lot of my colleagues from the Australian office, and we went out for dinner and drinks and even a pizza making class for our team activity! I had lucked out on the timing, and so it happened while I was there.

They also told me to go to the zoo! Apparently, we could request corporate passes as a perk, so I put my name in the spreadsheet and left the office a little early and I got to go to the Sydney Zoo for free. It was right at the end of the day so I didn’t have a ton of time, but I did get to see all the Australian animals. The view from the zoo is also pretty amazing!

I took a lot of ferries while I was in Sydney. My friend lives in the Manly Beach area. It means that her main way to commute to the office is by ferry, which seems way nicer! I loved the fresh air and the views, particularly around sunset and in the evening. Her commute always started or ended with the Opera House, which was so beautiful.

I had one full free day while I was there, so we spent it mostly in the Manly area. We started with a swim in the ocean, which was pretty chilly (since early September is still winter in Australia) but definitely worth it. Then we headed out to brunch and a long walk through the area. Vicki has been trying to go to different beaches, so we picked an area she hadn’t spent time in and walked along the beach and had a few beers. It was such a pleasant day!

In the evening, we headed to a show at the Sydney Opera House! It’s one of the most recognizable landmarks in the whole world, and it hadn’t even occurred to me that we could go and actually see a show there. Such a cool way to experience it! We went to Miss Saigon, which I had seen once before in Salt Lake. It’s such a moving show and the effects with the evacuation of the embassy in Vietnam was just as impressive the second time around.

All in all, Sydney was awesome. It felt like such a livable place – they have really made an effort to preserve and expand the outdoor space available to residents, they have great public transit, and everyone was friendly! I would definitely go back. Hopefully, the next time I’m in Australia, I’ll do a better job at seeing new places in Australia and not just using it at a launching pad for other countries!

Categories
New Zealand Oceania

Spontaneous New Zealand Road Trip

When I boarded my flight to Seoul at the beginning of this trip, I wasn’t planning on going to New Zealand. In fact, I had other plans to travel around Australia alone during this time before flying back to Sydney and meeting up with my friend Vicki. But I got invited to join a couple people from the PNG/Vanuatu trips for a couple days of road tripping around the South Island of New Zealand, and I figured I could rebook my original plans any time but this was a more unique opportunity! So I did some rebooking on my phone from our hotel in Luganville, and made my chaotic Oceania trip even more so.

My flight issues getting out of Port Vila meant that I was not able to actually do anything in Wellington. Instead, I got off my flight at 11:30 pm, went through immigration, and headed to my hotel that I’d booked in the airport for a few hours of sleep before my flight to Christchurch the next morning. Fun fact about New Zealand, I had booked everything so last minute that I forgot I needed to fill out the ETA. I filled it out from Lucy’s house on Friday night and then it was just pending for a while. I was worried they weren’t going to let me on the plane, but I googled it and everything online said they don’t actually approve them over the weekend, but you should be able to board as long as you show you’ve applied and it’s pending. Air New Zealand didn’t check when I checked in or boarded, and it wasn’t a problem when I went through immigration. I got the approval a day or so into the trip, and when I announced that I’d gotten that email, Alvaro and Eric were so confused how I had already made it into the country!

Christchurch was quiet but pleasant. We grabbed food there at a little crêpe place, then went to the 2011 earthquake memorial. It’s one of the most well-known events to happen in Christchurch – it was one of the most violent earthquakes to ever hit an urban center (thanks Wikipedia!) and 185 people died in the tremors. The memorial was well done. It reminded me of the Vietnam Memorial in DC, where it’s simple but classy and gives people a place to come and contemplate the loss of life.

From there, we headed over Arthur’s Pass and to the West Coast, where we wound our way down to Wanaka! It was a pretty long driving day, or at least it felt that way given that we had started on the North Island that morning. We had a couple stops along the West Coast as the sun set over the ocean, which was absolutely gorgeous. As it got dark, we realized that we were going to get into Wanaka quite late, so it was a bit of a scramble to try to (a) find a hotel that would let us check in that late and (b) finding a restaurant that would be open so that we could actually get dinner, as we hadn’t eaten much besides the morning’s crêpes and a few snacks that we picked up from a gas station. Luckily, we successfully found both lodging and food and had a nice night.

The next day started with the Wanaka tree! It’s a famous landmark in New Zealand and it looked…. pretty different from how I expected. All the pictures on the internet show it as a tree over a lake. Apparently, the water recedes a bit in the winter, who knew? Also, it was cloudy when we went, so you couldn’t see the mountains that are usually behind the lake. It truly was one of those “….that’s it?” moments, like when you see Stonehenge or the Alamo or Mona Lisa in real life. I guess we just went at low season, but still.

From there, we headed south, stopping in Queenstown for lunch and then continuing on to Milford Sound. They look so absurdly close together on a map as the crow flies, but Milford Sound is actually a four hour drive away because you have to drive around the mountains. It was by far the most beautiful part of the drive! If I was only going to recommend one place in New Zealand, I would recommend Milford Sound. It was definitely a trek to get out there but it was worth it. If your trip is both higher budget and more planned out than mine, I think there’s a way to do a day trip from Queenstown by helicopter, which would probably be an incredible experience.

A brief comment about the birds of New Zealand! I would have loved to see a kiwi while I was there, but they are shy and nocturnal. That said, I did see a couple super cool ones while I was there. The first is the kea, which is an alpine parrot and is super friendly and smart, but with a propensity for theft. We first saw them outside a café that said if the kea steals and eats your food, they will not refund you. The second is a weka, or Maori hen. Weirdly enough, they also like theft. Because we were basically the only people in Milford Sound when we were there, when I crouched down and stayed still, this one came right up to me!

After watching the sunset at Milford Sound, we spent the night in Te Anau. The next morning, we headed back to Queenstown for a more relaxed day! Queenstown reminded me a lot of the ski towns in Colorado and Utah. It probably seemed even more like it because they were having some sort of music festival/ski event, so the downtown was swarming with people with their skis and snowboards.

I enjoyed Queenstown! It had a really cool vibe. We mostly walked around and ate while we were there, although we did also try to drive up into the neighborhoods on the west side to get a good view of the town. The Queenstown Gardens were also really pleasant to walk and talk. Alvaro had an evening flight so we dropped him off at the airport and then Eric and I ended up bar hopping for a bit. It was a nice end to the trip, and I was glad I was able to join!

The next morning, Eric’s flight was earlier than mine, so I got to sleep in a bit and then made my way back to the airport. New Zealand had some of the best views from the plane on takeoff and landing! It had felt like the perfect amount of time to explore a bit of the South Island, and I was off to Sydney to meet up with my friend.

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Australia Oceania Vanuatu

Finding Paradise in Vanuatu

After all our struggles with delays and cancellations, I genuinely didn’t believe I would get to Vanuatu until our plane had left the ground out of Brisbane. But it did, two full days later than it was supposed to, and we landed in an absolutely gorgeous country!

Look how amazing the view was as we flew into Port Vila!

Our travel delays did mean that we missed out on Tanna. It was pretty disappointing to miss, because Tanna was the part I was by far the most excited for since it’s the world’s most accessible active volcano and you can basically go to the rim of the volcano and stare into the lava. But I still had a great time in Vanuatu, and I am so grateful for the friends I made through our entire POM VI experience – it turns out nothing brings people together more than spending a thousand hours in an airport!

We landed in the morning and then had a full day in Port Vila before we were supposed to meet up with the three people who were not personally victimized by the flight delays of Air Niugini. And what a nice day it was! We got massages, drank beers by the pool, and celebrated that we had finally made it to our next destination.

This is a photo I took at a stop on the side of the road – look how clear the water is!

The next morning, we headed back to the airport in Port Vila so we could meet the rest of the group and fly out to Espiritu Santo (often just called Santo). Going on a domestic flight in Vanuatu was strange. You read about how tiny the airports in the South Pacific are, but it’s another thing to wait at one. At one point, we thought we should go wait closer to the gate, and we stood up with all our bags, only to find that we were… already at the gate. We arrived in Luganville, which is Vanuatu’s second largest city (although city is perhaps a strong word). We stayed there for our first night and had a fun dinner of bonding with the three new people who had joined us on the tour!

The next day, it was time to head north! We started with one of the famous blue holes in Santo, which are freshwater swimming spots with stunning clear and blue water. It was beautiful and a really fun visit. I don’t know if we were in the off season, or what, but it felt like there was no one else at most of the “touristy” things we did, which was definitely not a bad thing – we were the only ones at our particular blue hole for almost the entire time we were there, which was pretty cool.

From there, we toweled off and headed up to our accommodation on the north side of Santo! We were staying in bungalows on Lonnoc Beach. Just as with the blue hole we went to, we were pretty much the only people here. It was absolutely incredible to be able to just swim and walk along the beach by ourselves. It really felt like a small slice of paradise.

More pictures of our beach time! It did rain for a good chunk of our second day, but it didn’t stop us from going out on the beach and standing in the water under the rain. It was such an amazing experience.

Yes, this is me standing on a Vanuatu post office. What of it?

After our second night at Lennoc Beach, it was time to head back to Efate, the island where Port Vila is. We flew back in the morning and headed to one of the most well known tourist attractions in Vanuatu – the underwater post office! It’s one of the most unique post offices in the world. I didn’t actually send a letter there, but several of the people in the group mailed postcards and we all went snorkeling together so we could see it.

We had a little more time to wander around Port Vila! Mostly, there were a lot of markets to explore and souvenirs to shop for. Some of us had also been talking about getting a matching tattoo, so we checked our our options, but the tattoo parlor was closed after we got dinner so we figured it wasn’t meant to be. Except….. I was supposed to be flying out SO early to Sydney, and when I woke up to catch my shuttle, I had an email saying that my flight was indefinitely delayed. Which, let’s be real, means cancelled. Because I had other plans and didn’t want to stay in Vanuatu by myself, I didn’t hesitate and booked the flight that I knew most of the others were on, which was an afternoon flight to Brisbane. Once I was back in Australia, I figured it would be a lot easier to sort things out. And when I showed up to breakfast, we decided that this was the universe telling us we should go get our tattoo.

This is my first tattoo! It’s one of those things I’ve always wanted to do, but never had anything specific that I wanted to get. So this was honestly a great way to do it. It was fun, it was spontaneous, and after I got it done I couldn’t stop looking at my forearm. Plus, it’s definitely an interesting souvenir from Vanuatu!

Blurry picture of my first official Australian Maccas on our brief road trip

Obviously, I hadn’t been planning on landing in Brisbane, so I had to do some adjusting for my trip. Initially, I was meant to land in Sydney, have a couple hours layover, fly to Wellington, spend the night there, and then meet up with Alvaro and Eric in Wellington for a flight out to Christchurch the next day. Luckily for me, Lucy, pictured above with the matching tattoo, lives close to Byron Bay, so she offered to take me to her house, let me crash with her for a night, and then I could take a short flight down to Sydney. If I could get Air New Zealand to just move me to the exact same flight 24 hours later, it would be a pretty easy fix. We landed in Brisbane and I stopped by the desk as soon as I cleared immigration. The woman was so confused by my ask and why I was in Brisbane and not Sydney, but she was able to help me! The only thing I had to do was book my flight down to Sydney the next day and all was not lost. I had a second unintended stopover starting at the Brisbane airport, and I managed to see a little more of Australia before Lucy dropped me off at the airport again.

The final cherry on top of the flight struggles is that I got to Ballina the next day and boarded my flight…. only to have them come on the announcements and tell us all to get back off the plane. The vehicle that was carrying the luggage literally hit the plane (???!!!??? it’s a plane? it’s not moving and it’s by far the biggest thing in your field of vision?) and damaged it, so they needed to get a flight engineer from Gold Coast to make sure that we were still good to fly. Honestly, it was super stressful in the moment, but looking back it’s also pretty hilarious to see just how many weird flight situations we got into over the course of this trip. Thankfully, after this one, it was pretty smooth flying! At the end of the day, we were able to re-board, I made it to Sydney, and I also successfully made my flight to Wellington to start the next adventure.