Attractions | Jason Around the World

Two nights in Melbourne

Attractions, Australia, hotels, Restaurants, South Pacific Tour 2014 No Responses »

Nov 052014

It was getting pretty late by the time I got to the Sheraton, but check-in was quick. I got a small studio suite as an upgrade, and the staff at the front desk was extremely genuine and welcoming. The room was also very nice, and overall for a Sheraton I was extremely impressed.

It was after 9pm at this point, but I wasn’t quite ready for bed, so I asked the concierge if he could recommend somewhere good and local to get a glass or two of wine and some tapas. He was very passionate about his job, and said there was a great little wine bar and bottle shop just down the street called the Melbourne City Wine Shop. It was excellent, and I had a couple of very good glasses of wine and a small cheese plate and called it a night.

After a good solid sleep got up and went wandering for a coffee. I’d been warned that it was sacrilegious to drinks Starbucks in Melbourne since it had so many delicious local coffeeshops, so I picked the first one that looked good and gave it a good. The coffee exchange was delicious, and I got a fantastic cup of Seven Seeds filter coffee and had “The Hipster” for breakfast. I’ll admit I ordered it for the name, but when I saw it had haloumi cheese too I was sold.

After breakfast I headed out for a good long walk to see the city centre. First stop was Federation Square:

Flinders Street Station:

Dili, Timor Leste, and diving with Dive Timor

Attractions, hotels, Scuba, South Pacific Tour 2014, Timor-Leste 7 Responses »

Oct 292014

My ride was waiting for me when I exited immigration, and we were off to dive! Volker, one of the owners of Dive Timor was there to pick me up, and took me straight back to their dive shop / guesthouse / restaurant. I was staying at their guesthouse, which consisted of around ten different rooms/apartments/etc. It seemed the convenient option given my limited time, plus would help me to maximize diving time. In addition, one of the most popular restaurants in town was listed on TripAdvisor as being above their apartments, so seemed a win win.

Got to their location, and quick lodging check-in. They weren’t too full, so I ended up on a two bedroom apartment. Unfortunately, the air conditioner in the common area didn’t work, but the two in the bedrooms were quite strong so kept the whole place reasonably cool. For the price, it was a fantastic choice!

After about 30 minutes waiting for everyone to arrive, we packed up the scuba gear in the van and headed to the first dive site, Dili Rock West.

I hadn’t been diving since St Kitts back in July, but really wasn’t nervous. I had my gear, etc, and the only nervousness was that this would be my first short dive. I’d never gone into the water from the shore before. Plus, being on the other side of the world was kinda cool. I guess after diving in Seychelles it shouldn’t have been a huge deal, but hey.

Plan was to walk about 10-20 meters into the water, and then try and get the fins on and head further out. Unfortunately, the waves kept crashing down on us, and I panicked a slight bit. Eventually managed to get things sorted well enough that we could descend, and once underwater things were zen and peaceful. Unfortunately, I’d wasted quite a bit of air at this point. Fortunately, I’d decided not to take my camera on the first dive, so I could really just focus on getting used to the water again and enjoying the coral.

I’d used a full 1/3 of my air at this point, and we were only 6 minutes in. I was kind of nervous I was going to be the reason we had to come up early (especially since I often am the first one out of air) but once I calmed down I started using the rest of it really slowly. There were only four of us diving, and two divemasters. Two beginners with one, and me and a guy doing his advanced certification with the other.

It was a good 45 minute dive, and I was excited for the second. We walked about 1/2 mile down the beach to “Dili Rock East” and got ready for the second dive. This one was much easier, because I knew what I was doing a bit better and how to fight the waves when getting into deeper water.

Almost right after descent was a cool lionfish hanging out:

The reef dropped down to about 60 feet pretty quickly, and it was a cool view:

Cool coral:

Las Vegas, Nevada

Attractions, Hawaii-France-Andorra-Vegas No Responses »

Sep 292014

Soooo this will be kinda brief – what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, yada yada.

Headed off to our hotel, the Aria Las Vegas. On the way, I got confused for a second and thought I was still in Paris:

First night was early to bed, because we were getting up early to drive out to the Hoover Dam. We took the dam tour. We took lots of dam pics. We made lots of dam memories 😉

Morning in Andorra, drive into France, back in to Llìvia, Spain, enclave, back into France, to Barcelona

Andorra, Attractions, France, Hawaii-France-Andorra-Vegas, hotels, Restaurants, Spain 2 Responses »

Sep 222014

Plan was to wake up early in order to have a nice casual drive to Barcelona. However, jetlag was starting to catch up to me, and I just couldn’t do it. Finally made it up around 9am, and headed down to the hotel restaurant for a quick breakfast. Hard boiled eggs, baguettes with Nutella, and some good strong coffee. What’s not to love? The very nice dining room of the Casa Canut:

After breakfast, I wanted to mail a few postcards, so wandered the town trying to find the local post office to mail them. I’d purchased postcards and stamps the night before and wrote the out over breakfast. The walk was a nice wake-up, and I got another good view of the ferris wheel in daylight:

Then, it was time to drive. Checked out of the hotel around 10:30, and the doorman brought Pépé the Smart Car around for me. First stop was Llívia, a small Spanish enclave completely surrounded by France. The route highlighted on the map below is the route I took into Andorra from Spain. I was planning to go out the east side on the yellow road you see, and head down the E9 highway to Llívia. This border of Andorra was supposed to be much, much more mountainous, and a very scenic drive.

Total travel time was forecast at one hour and 13 minutes, so I was expecting 1:30 to 2 hours with stops along the way for photos:

Leaving Andorra la Vella, some amazing views:

Reflections on my trip to Erbil, Iraq

Attractions, Iraq, New Years 2009-2010 1 Response »

Aug 112014

Now that I’ve been to 158 countries, it’s kinda cool being about to watch CNN/BBC and see all sorts of places in the news that I’ve been. But, for some reason these last two weeks, the news from northern Iraq / Iraqi Kurdistan is really bothering me. Reflecting on my photo album, it’s really amazing how much we managed to see despite the circumstances, and especially given where things now – I count myself very fortunately to have been there.

When I went there a few years ago, I really enjoyed it. It was my first “you’re going WHERE?!” country, and the people were fantastic and it was really an eye opening trip. So, I’m going to repost here that trip report, with a few edits/thoughts from the last few years. Enjoy!

—

Immigration was a breeze, and soon we were really there…we were in Iraq. But wait…where are the taxis? Now, I guess we hadn’t really planned this part too well, because it’s not like I should have expected for the Erbil International Airport to be really prepared with a modern tourist infrastructure. A couple years on, I can admit what happened…and just how stupid it was. After about 15 minutes of standing around and looking lost, we started chatting up a couple of mercenary looking types who’d arrived on our flight. Yeah, they were “private security contractors” and their company was picking them up. They sized us up, decided we were worth the risk, and offered to give us a lift to our hotel…no need to pay. So, into the Humvee it was when their driver arrived, and we were off. In retrospect, it was pretty insane….but how well it turned out said a lot. There’s only one other time since I’ve had to rely on strangers at an airport (this past January in Gabon) and that also worked well. Anyways, back to the story…

Soon we were at the Ankawa Palace Hotel, which we had randomly stumbled upon online, and based on the website and little information we could find about looked like a reasonable and safe place to stay. The rooms were clean and basic, the staff spoke very basic English, so all in all I would highly recommend it as a place to stay. Plus, a reasonable breakfast buffet and internet were included in the reasonable rate of $154 per night, and given this was December 30 and 31, it was a pretty good deal. It was 5pm at this point and we had two things to accomplish:

One, hopefully arrange a driver to drive us into the countryside the next day, and two find some dinner. Number one, again, we weren’t in the best position to negotiate. Like I said earlier, there aren’t exactly many tourists here, so if you want to arrange things there aren’t many options. The guy at the front desk made some calls over the next hour, and managed to arrange us a driver for the day. There were two waterfalls we wanted to see on the mountain road up to Hadji Omaran at the Iranian border.

Our plan was to drive past the Gali Ali Beg waterfalls and the Bekhal waterfalls, on the way to the mountainous region by the border. A driver was found for the full day trip, which seemed semi expensive, but how often do you get a chance to be driven around the countryside in Iraq?! That sorted, we headed off the the Mehdi Mall to hopefully find somewhere to arrange dinner. We didn’t manage to find anywhere to get anything to eat there, but did find a bowling alley, and lots of very unusual Christmas decorations. Now, Erbil does have a rather sizable Christian population, but it seems they’ve managed to take the American commercialization of Christmas to a whole new level!

Looking back now, it’s sad to see what’s happening to the Christian populations in northern Iraq. I didn’t quite understand at the time just how large this population was, just that it existed.

Want a blow-up Santa? For just 30,000 Dinars you’re covered!

There were also several rather strange costumed animals wandering around the mall, and Matt managed to make a new friend:

I wanted to go make friends with the giant cat wandering the mall, but he seemed incredibly popular with the locals (not to mention the half dozen santa people wandering the mall), so we opted to skip him:

They did, however, have a big grocery store in the mall selling, of all things, turkey!

Having failed to find a reasonable looking dinner option, we headed back to the hotel and decided that despite being dark, we were going to wander the suburb of Ainkawa and try and find the “Happy Time” pizza restaurant for dinner. It was listed on TripAdvisor, so how bad could it be…if it existed. But first, we had a 10-15 minute walk through the dark streets of Ainkawa to find it. Eventually, we found it, the food was adequate, and it put some of the nerves to rest having wandered around in the dark and not felt at all unsafe. A view of the pizza from the Happy Time:

Then it was back to the Ankawa Palace and off to bed early for the big day trip adventure the next day.

Our driver met us early, and soon we were winding out of the city in yet more very heavy rain towards the Gali Ali Beg waterfall. This is one of the most famous waterfalls in Iraq, and probably one of it’s most famous natural features. It is even on the back of one of the dinar notes.

Unfortunately, we were pretty disappointed when we got there, because of the amount of litter and rubbish just strewn all over the place. It was really rather sad. The other waterfall we stopped by was the Bekhal waterfall. Again, very similar. They were really cool to see, but the amount of litter was just really sad. In both places, we were the only people seeing them, but some of this probably also had to do with the rain.

Day 2: SCUBA diving, and daytrip to the island of Nevis

Attractions, hotels, Restaurants, Scuba, St Kitts and Nevis, St Kitts and Nevis long weekend No Responses »

Jul 252014

Woke up a bit before seven after more than nine hours of glorious sleep, despite the fact the room was slightly on the warm side – it never got much below 71/72 in the room despite the air being on full blast. Just cool enough to be sleepable, but barely. Headed straight out the hotel and down the main road to grab coffee and breakfast at Rituals Coffee Shop right when they opened at 7am. Rituals is a caribbean chain, and sort of like the starbucks of the Caribbean. Nothing fantastic, but a good reliable source of caffeine, which is just what I needed. They had no trouble making a triple shot over ice, and also got a ham, egg, and cheese breakfast sandwich on the bagel.

Walked the half mile or so back to the hotel, and packed up the dive gear, since the dive shop was picking me up at 8am sharp for a morning of diving. While waiting in the lobby I spotted another person with diving gear, and we started chatting, and turned out he was there with the family and lived just a few miles away in Virginia. Small world indeed – and lucky for me because he helped me remember I’d forgotten my dive computer in the room so I ran up and grabbed it quickly.

We were picked up just a few minutes late by Dive St Kitts, which operates complimentary transfers for their divers between hotel and the the dive shop. Nice added bonus! They do a two-tank boat dive every morning, and I’d signed up for just one day to start since I figured I might want to use the second day to play tourist. The ride to the shop was maybe 15 minutes, and when we got there we sorted out paperwork while the crew prepared the boat. This was a full service operation, with them doing all the work for you. They hooked up BCDs, regs, and tanks, and all you had to worry about was diving – quite nice!

We did a very thorough dive briefing in the shop before heading out – and it was definitely the most comprehensive briefing I’ve had anywhere. Details about the dive sites we’d be doing, details on the boat including entry and exit to the water, etc. Although the shop is basically a older one-room seaside building, the quality of the crew was definitely amazing to see. Our divemaster for the day was also fantastic, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention their infamous boat captain, known as Captain Crabby. We got him to crack several smiles, however, so I’m pretty sure there’s a softy under that sarcastic exterior!

One more note…Jeff, the guy I’d met earlier in the lobby, turned out to be a fantastic photographer. I’d decided to dive without a camera since it had been nearly 18 months since I’d been diving, and I really just wanted to focus on enjoying it as opposed to fussing about pictures all the time. Turned out to be the right call, because Jeff was an amazing photographer and more than willing to share photos…so thanks to Jeff, I got these great shots from the first day of diving:

Wreck of the MV Corinthian:

Turtle just hanging out:

Marine life on the wreck:

Staring contest with the world’s laziest turtle:

Quito, Ecuador

Attractions, Bolivia and Ecuador plus Medellin, Ecuador, hotels, Restaurants No Responses »

Jun 062014

It was nearly 7:30pm already by the time I reached my hotel, the Sheraton Quito. Nice touch number one: was met carside by the valet/doorman with an umbrella, so I didn’t get too terribly wet in the downpour. Now that’s service…and from a Sheraton! Check-in was pretty slow, taking nearly 20 minutes, but after asking if there might be any suites available for upgrade, they did find a nice junior suite for me.

It was happy hour, and I had lounge access, so decided to go check it out since it was still pouring rain. I was the only person in the lounge, and had a few small munchies and a couple of glasses of wine while I waited for the rain to let up. The hour I was there, I was the only person in the lounge…which kind of made me wonder why they had it open. After an hour of browsing the local area for places to eat, and the rain letting up to a steady drizzle, I decided to first go for a walk around the block. Couldn’t find either of the places I was looking for, but did manage to find a local ripoff of the Pinkberry frozen yogurt chain in DC. Or maybe this came first…not sure.

Didn’t find anything in my wander, so headed to the huge shopping mall near my hotel. Nothing that looked special there, and so far a TGI Fridays was looking like the best bet. It was almost 9pm at this point and I was getting seriously hungry. One more loop around the block, and I found a Chilis, lol. I was hungry, and it sounded good…plus the rain was getting heavier again, so I went in. Are you serious….a 2 hour wait for a table…maybe 90 minutes at the bar? I’ll pass.

Kept walking back towards the hotel and came across a little steak place right across from the Sheraton whose name I can’t remember. But hey, they had sangria, so all was not lost:

Unfortunately, my steak was terrible. It was way overcooked, and way too gristly. I guess my expectations were just too high after having great steaks all over south america. Oh well! At least it was filling. Decided to skip on desert, call it a night, and get up early to explore.

Still managed to sleep in until nearly 9am, just in time to go up and grab breakfast in the lounge. A decent selection of hot and cold items, and plenty to fuel me for the day. Once again, I was the only person in the lounge. I was beginning to wonder what was going on. There were wedding decorations all over the hotel, so clearly it was pretty full, but for whatever reason nobody was using the lounge. Oh well!

Went downstairs and asked the bellman to get me a taxi to go explore, and he highly recommended using a hotel car and negotiating a rate for all the stops I wanted to make. I had three stops planned, and the driver was more than happy to negotiate a flat rate for 6 hours. Sold…I wouldn’t have to worry about finding cars, leaving things in the car, etc. Maybe cost $20 or so more in the end, but well worth it to not have to think about safety/etc.

First stop was the TelefériQo (get it? Teleférico and Quito combined? Clever) which is a cable car that starts at about 10,000 feet and rises to nearly 13,000 feet and was supposed to have great views over the city. Paid my $8.50, and got a Sacagawea in change…I never even see those in the US, but apparently they’re alive and well in Ecuador. This was one of many times I got one.

There was absolutely no line, got my own gondola, and up I go. But first…let me take a #selfie

Great views of the city from the Gondola…I was getting a bit of fear of heights at this point….

At the top, I paused briefly to catch my breath…and start a hike further up the mountain. First stop was a small church:

Daytrip to Lake Titicaca, Bolivia

Attractions, Bolivia, Bolivia and Ecuador plus Medellin, Restaurants 1 Response »

May 202014

I wasn’t really expecting this daytrip to leave at 6:30am…it’s probably a good thing I didn’t know that in advance, or I might not have booked it. I was beginning to seriously run on fumes by this point in the trip, but hopefully seeing Lake Titicaca would make it all worth it. I had to admit, though, as anyone who wasted time watching Beavis and Butt-head as a kid, every time I hear Lake Titicaca I still think of the Great Cornholio…lol

Anyways, enough stupidity. Got to the lobby of my hotel at exactly 6:30, and there were no signs of life stirring yet. There was, however, a petite Bolivian looking lady wandering the lobby looking puzzled, so I asked who she was looking for. Yes, she was my guide…and the driver was on the way. This was all in Spanish, because up until this point she seemed extremely reluctant to speak English. She eventually warmed up, and we were underway.

It was about a 90 minute drive to Huatajata where we would pick up the hydrofoil across the lake. Although this was scheduled to be a group tour, there was nobody else booked from La Paz today, so I’d have the van to the hydrofoil all to myself. Additionally, the hydrofoil ride would be all alone, and we would pick up a large group of…you guessed it….Swiss tourists coming from Peru in Copacabana for the second part of the trip.

We made it Huatajata on time, after a long drive through the sprawling expanses of El Alto. Once there, there was a “museum” to see before starting the trip. When I was booking this, I discussed with several Bolivians I knew, and they all recommended to make the booking with Crillon Tours. Seems they had built much of the tourist infrastructure on the lake, including the hydrofoils, and had all the connections to make the trip the best possible. They’d even built a museum on Huatajata telling a bit of the history around Lake Titicaca, both before and after the arrivals of the Spanish. I was given 20 minutes to check out the museum while my guide got everything sorted for the hydrofoil. First highlight of the museum, a burial mummy:

…followed by the arrival of the Spanish:

Manco Capac, the first Incan incarnation of the Sun God, and his sister and Mama Ocllo in a traditional boat….

Outside the museum were some friendly alpacas (or are they llamas?) just hanging around….

La Paz to Uyuni, Bolivia, Hotel Luna Salada, and Salar de Uyuni Salt Flats

Airports, Attractions, Bolivia, Bolivia and Ecuador plus Medellin, Flights, hotels, trains 2 Responses »

May 162014

When I’d originally booked this trip, the flight from Bolivia to Uyuni was at the annoying hour of 6:30am. That would mean getting up around 4:30a at the latest to head to the airport on my second day in Bolivia. UGH. Just as I was leaving DC I got an email…the flight had been retimed to 5:35am, and the reason was given as “due to a maintenance service in the International Airport EL ALTO in La Paz city and will be closed at about 4 hours, from 12:00 pm to 16:00 pm during all month MAY.” Uh, exactly how does that affect a 6:30 flight? No clue. However, I resigned myself to a 3am wakeup call to get to the airport no later than 4:30…an hour before my flight, and hopefully a little sooner.

Woke up, out the door in about 20 minutes, and soon I was queued up to check in at El Alto. I can’t say I’ve ever seen an airline bragging that they fly a “new fleet of CRJ-200s.”

Check in was super quick, although I was kicked out of the bulkhead I’d reserved online, because I was told my Spanish wasn’t good enough to be sitting in an exit row. Boo hiss. It was still about 1:15 before the flight, so I had time for a quick (and pretty awful) coffee in the check in area, with a much better chocolate muffin.

Security was completely painless and took maybe two minutes, and soon I was in the rather decent departures area:

Boarding was called about 30 minutes before the flight, and we walked probably 300 meters across the tarmac to our plane:

Upon boarding, the flight attendant handed each passenger a goody bag:

Amaszonas flight 300
La Paz, Bolivia (LPB) to Uyuni, Bolivia (UYU)
Depart 5:35, Arrive 6:35, Flight Time 1 hour
Canadair CRJ-200, Registration CP-2742, Manufactured 1997, Seat 2F

Upon boarding, for some reason, the seats on this plane looked and felt really familiar. Only when I pulled up my phone to check out its history did I see why…it was a former United Express plane, and still had the United Express seats. So, this is hell. My least favourite aircraft (the CRJ) with vestiges of United Express. Great. Door closed about 5 minutes early with the seat next to me empty…and we started to taxi….a few minutes later, we headed back to our parking position and opened the door.

A rapid stream of spanish followed from the cockpit, with the simple english translation of “something wrong with the plane.” Great! Well, ten minutes later “something” was fixed and we were off! The flight was a quick 45 minutes or so, and the flight attendants did do a quick beverage service from the trolley. Can’t really complain…beats United Express!

Landing in Uyuni, it was cold. Really cold. -4C or about 26F according to my phone, and I was just in jeans and a lightweight pullover. Brilliant planning Jason, brilliant. I’d prebooked a driver/tourguide for the day, since I’d been told there were essentially two options in Uyuni: hang around town for one of the 6-people-packed-into-a-Landrover backpacker trips for about $50 a person, or book a private driver. Since I only had one day and no clue when I’d come back, I opted for my own driver so I could do what I wanted and stop however long I wanted.

My driver was waiting in the arrivals area as the sun rose, and we threw my backs in the vehicle and were off. He waid we had to wait for a permit from the police in town, so we had about an hour to kill before we could head out. We headed into a small restaurant/cafe for coffee and a light breakfast, and slowly after us it began to fill up with backpackers who’d taken the 10+ hour overnight bus from La Paz. They all looked like death, and I was beginning to think the extra money I’d paid was well well worth it.

Permit obtained, we headed out to the “train cemetery” at the edge of town. Not much to see, but since it was featured in just about every travel article I read on the town, I figured we should stop. At least it was a cool contrast with the brilliant blue skies:

Stopped in town to pick up some snacks and waters, and in the centre of town was this…unique…sculpture:

Next stop was my hotel, the Hotel Luna Salada. It’s a good 30 minutes out of town, right on the edge of the saltflats. The hallways/common areas are open to the elements, so it got very very cold. This was the walkway to my room…note the floors, which are made entirely of crushed salt:

We were set to head out on the tour at 10, so I had an hour nap which made me feel much better after having gotten up at 3am! The hotel was cold…quite cold….since the salt walls don’t really insulate things much and it drops below freezing at night. There were electric blankets on all the beds (a first for me) and they kept me nice and toasty warm!

The drive to the salt flats (with the obligatory 15 minute stop at a local craft market along the way) was pretty good…and upon entering the salt flats the driver really gunned it. It felt weird to be speeding across the salt with no roads, no markings, just a sense of direction.

I’d told my driver I wanted to see an area where water had gathered, to get a pic of the salt with the reflection. He knew right where to go, and we found an area where water was a few inches deep. We had to drive very slowly in this area, because supposedly if you drive too quickly the water splashes up on the car’s undercarriage, and will corrode things, shorting out the electrical systems due to its high salt content and stranding you:

La Paz, Bolivia, Day 1

Attractions, Bolivia, Bolivia and Ecuador plus Medellin, Restaurants 2 Responses »

May 062014

Through immigration and customs in less than 10 minutes, and had to find my way out of the airport, which was easier said than done due to lack of signage. Fortunately, I found an ATM on the way, so I could stock up on cash for the next few days. Got a taxi for 80 bolivianos (which I now know is a ripoff – 60 is the “real” price) – but getting ripped off by $3 on day number one in a country is nothing to get too upset about. Now, the fact he drove 140kph on the switchbacks down the mountain, that’s another story. Checked into my hotel the Radisson by 3:15, and was out cold by 3:30. Woke up the next morning to a fantastic view of La Paz out my window:

After about an hour to get moving and adjusted to the thin air, decided to start on a walk. I seriously don’t know what we did before google maps. I decided to slowly head down to the main tourist area, and was stopping every 2 blocks or so to catch my breath. 13,000+ feet above sea level kinda hits you hard. Along the walk, I saw a restaurant with a name that sounded familiar. Checked TripAdvisor, and sure enough I’d seen it there, advertising great breakfasts. Plus, Cafe Il Lampu had a fantastic seat on a little second floor mini balcony to people watch from:

Fortified with some espressos, toast, and my new vocab word of the day “huevos duros” or hard-boiled eggs, I was ready for some more slow wandering. After another 10 minutes or so, I came upon the church of San Francisco, which had a fantastic plaza to camp out and people watch for a bit . Are you catching a theme here? It was lots of stop and go walking in the thin air for the first several hours:

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