Category: Travels for Fun
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A WESTERN TURKEY ROADTRIP
From 12-19 April 1991, my ICARDA colleague, Anne, and I travelled in his little car on 2500 km roadtrip to Western Turkey during the Ramadan Eid. I did not take journal notes and can only piece together the trip via a vague memory and a few captions on photos. We began in Aleppo and drove the length of Turkey’s southern coast along the Mediterranean along the D400 highway. Days 1 and 2: Aleppo to Yenkikas to Tahtalı Dağı Day 3: Tahtalı Dağı We climbed Tahtalı Dağı (2,366 m), which is also known…
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DIVING IN BELIZE
In February and March of 1990, I had some time to kill. I was in between jobs. I had finished my job at the University of Wisconsin because I had been hired by ICARDA to work in Aleppo, Syria. But there was delay after delay in getting my work visa. So I figured I’d go to Belize while I waited and get my PADI scuba diving certificate. I arrived in Belize City and took a water taxi out to Caye Caulker. I spent enough time to get in enough dives to…
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Atitlán
I spent the summer of 1987 in Central America. Mainly I was in Costa Rica conducting research for my Masters degree. But the folks at CATIE gave me a contract to develop a slideshow on sustainable natural resources. For some reason, I invented an excuse to travel to Guatemala. Perhaps I was working but I only remember going to Lake Atitlán and staying in Panajachel. On one day I took a boat to Santiago de Atitlán and on another I rented a bike and pedalled south along the coast.
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ABOARD THE VICTORIA
When the Costa Rican National Park Service asked if I could join a group of American tourists on a cruise on a Swedish schooner to Parque Nacional Isla del Coco, I just couldn’t refuse. The Park Service always required that a representative join groups to the Island and my name came up on the list. We set sail from Puntarenas and for a couple of weeks, I was aboard the Victoria and we travelled to Cocos Island … fully pampered by the Swedish crew and British cook. The Americans came for…
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SELVA LACANDONA – NO PLACE FOR A GRINGO
Day 1 – 28 March 1981Lagos de Montebello to Huistan on the Rio Delores They were the best tortilla I had ever eaten. Made of freshly ground corn, they were thick, yet not tough and still warm. I folded one and used it as a spoon to scoop up the scrambled eggs served in a bowl of hot water with onions and tomatoes. An Indian man and his son silently sat on a stool, shelling beans, and watched my companion, Hans, and me clumsily try to use the tortillas as spoons.…
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California Odyssey
In December of 1979, the road once again called me. It was a time to head west, a time for vagabonding, a time to visit my birthplace and meet with my grandfather and father after 11 years of absence. My travels would take me to the Pacific coast, to Southern California, to the San Jacinto Mountains, to Baja California, and to Mazatlán, Mexico. I would see 11,200 kilometers of the road in 32 days. 7,200 of those kilometers would be by hitchhiking. In the evening of 21 December, I found myself…
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BIG BEAVER TRAIL
Hiked in August 1980 while I was working as a park ranger at the North Cascades National Park. Noted for its old-growth forest.
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DOWN UPON THE SUWANNEE RIVER
Spring Break. April 1980 Spring break is a time to head south and party on some Florida beach. After weathering a Wisconsin winter, I had Spring fever, no doubt about it. But I wasn’t keen about the beach party scene. So some mates and I decided to go canoeing in Georgia’s Okefenokee Swamp. My hometown mate, Dan Hartman, lashed a couple of canoes on my dad’s Vista Cruiser and drove from Amery to Stevens Point to pick us up. My mates, Steve Eklund and Jay Peterson, were joined by our neighbours…
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BAJA’S RED CARPET
Just say the word. Baja. Think of towering cordon cacti, grotesque elephant trees and winding boojum trees. Baja. Imagine long-tailed man of war birds, sailing pelicans and plummeting brown footed boobies. Baja. Dream about a remote wilderness peninsula 1280 kilometers long where the footprints of man are as scarce as rainfall. Baja. The very name rings with adventure. And the name rang so loudly in my mind that I was compelled to experience it on my own. PROLOGUE Mexican Highway Number One chalked up another victim: a second class bus on…
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