About 50 miles outside of Medelln is the granite monolith that dominates the surrounding landscape, at 2,135 metres.
El Peon de Guatape was once worshipped by the Tahamies indigenous people. In the 1950s, a group of visitors spent five days climbing to the top of the massive rock using a wooden board to ascend up the rocks long crack along its side. Afterward, a concrete staircase was built into Read on...
Friday we all drove to Raleigh and stayed in a hotel so that we could catch an early flight. Tom drove Claire as he needed that car since his car had issues. He then had to drive home.
We took an early morning shuttle to the airport for our long flight to Hawaii. (1 hour to Atlanta and 9 hours to Honolulu). We had changed 6 time zones and almost 60 degrees in temperature when we arrived. We got o Read on...
For some reason I woke up this morning thinking about days. We divide our lives into measurable units – years, months, days, hours – and each passing day has a character or identity of its own. Each day in itself, a microcosm of life: we die each night and are reborn each morning. And there are so many days! In my life so far, up to and including August 13th 2022, there have been 25,792 days. Read on...
I cant change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination. Jimmy Dean . I rather like that saying . It has a sort of resonance that I find charming and challenging . We dont always like change . It can disconcert us . It can make us feel inwardly frightened . Worried about how the change will affect us . We can be accept the changes or reject them . WE have Read on...
Olive trees in the Garden of Gethsemane in Jerusalem. ...the Garden of Gethsemane, a word signifying The garden, still a quiet and secluded spot, is surrounded by a wall and forms an irregular square, with a diameter of 70 paces. It belongs to the Franciscans. The earliest account of the place dates from the 4th cent.; and in this case tradition tallies with the Bible narrative. ... The garden co Read on...
This is a very different type of blog for us. Firstly, we wont be writing it in a HE SAID... / SHE SAID...style. I (Ren) will be doing most of the writing with input from Andrew. Secondly, this Tasmanian trip will span the whole year, with day trips, long weekends and possibly excursions being undertaken whenever we have the time.
As is our usual routine before we travel, weve started immersing Read on...
Yesterday we had an adventure deep sea fishing on the Indian Ocean! It was a bit more than I expected in a lot of ways (the length of our boat trip, the swells on the ocean, and the disturbing nature of fishing itself).
Lets start at the beginning. We were up early as we were leaving at 7:30. It was raining when we got up, and while we were having our early light breakfast, but it soon stopped, a Read on...
I learned late in the day yesterday that today is a National Holiday. So RWO is closed and our classes are canceled since the women would likely not attend anyways. Today is NRM Liberation Day. It is a national holiday in Uganda observed on January 26th each year. The Battle of Kampala was a battle of the Ugandan Bush War that took place Jan 17th – 26th1986. The National Resistance Army attacked Read on...
Sunday: Started my time in New York off by hiking a portion of the finger lakes trail. The entire trail runs 580 miles end to end but including the entire network is 950 miles all in New York. Of course New York State isnt that wide but the trail is very wiggly. Did a 7 mile hike which was gorgeous and forested. Lots of good scenery and only passed 2 other hikers the entire way! Even on a Sunday a Read on...
Mama, can I have a salted cod fritter with oozy cheese for breakfast? Instinctually I grimaced, with a reflexive, no. Then I remembered that while on vacation, one should be more lenient. And so 5 Euro later, Asha was munching her way through a crispy, very pungent pastel de bacalhau. She smiled. And so it begins
It has been over three years since our last international vacation and travel has si Read on...