The immigration officer asked me where I had flown in from. “Lebanon”, I replied. “It’s pretty dangerous over there”, he remarked. “Actually not” said I, “they were some of the nicest people I ever met”. He muttered something as he put a special mark on my embarkation card: a “random” mark according to...
Mention the country of Azerbaijan and you’re likely to get a confused look. Much of the western world hasn’t heard of this nation and is even less likely to be able to locate it on a map. Information about it is sketchy at best. My first thought was that the name sounded like a Middle Eastern newly developed country full of goat herders and antiquated...
I could see land on both sides of me, but either way was too far for me to swim. My arms were tired, my throat was hoarse from shouting and I didn’t have a life jacket. It turns out that the reason they put those orange padded things on the boat is so that you’ll wear them and not end up drinking sea water and having your life flash before your eyes...
I’ve been shopping today. It’s my final day in Ethiopia and I’ve been buying everything from refrigerator magnets to an Amharic Bible that looks like a prop from an Indiana Jones film. As I have been popping in and out of various shops, I’ve seen a handful of inexperienced tourists attempting to buy souvenirs. It’s sometimes painful for...
Right now I’m in the airport of Addis Ababa waiting for the Ethiopian Airline rep to come back from wherever she went with my passport. I just finished a USA Today crossword puzzle and now I’m writing this. It keeps me sane when bad things happen during travel. You see, I’m supposed to be leaving for the Seychelles in an hour, one of the most exotic...
I know all the scams. I see them coming a mile away and am often amused that people fall for them in their travels. There’s a million of them, but they’re all centered around separating a tourist from his money. I’d been taken years ago in Thailand in a gemstone con and since then, have made a point to distrust most any stranger I meet...
I must admit, after my travels around the world, Dallas has never been on my “must-see” bucket list. It’s always been a city that I drove through on the way to somewhere else or a measuring stick to compare my hometown of Houston. However, I found myself there this week, and count me impressed. This city of full of fun things to see and do. I...
As I crossed the Arkansas state line into Tennessee, I played “Memphis” by Johnny Rivers. I hoped that the song might put me in a good mood in spite of the speed trap ticket I’d just received from a Arkansas trooper in a one horse town with more police than residents.I passed a giant chrome pyramid as I turned south for...
I first heard about the Azores a few years ago when I noticed a trip advertised for what seemed to me to be a ridiculously low price of $499 to visit the island of Terceira. For less than $500 the trip included a four star hotel for a week, breakfast, transfers and airfare from Boston. It’s rare to find a price that low to visit New Orleans or Atlanta, let...
I shielded my eyes from the pelting wind and tried to conjure up the album cover in my mind. How many naked babies were in the photo anyway? Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy was released waaaaaay before Photoshop was invented so it was quite probable they were using real live hippie babies back then. It was the 70s and photographing unclothed babies...