The train arrived at the station in Marrakech, we said goodbye to the Libyans we met on the way, and wandered off into the night to find our hotel. The next morning we had a chance to explore the city and another busy medina. Compared to Fez, the old city of Marrakech is a little more active and a little more manageable. It’s not as big, the streets are a bit wider, and there are several large open squares – the largest hosts an enormous collection of street cafes that …

For the last five days, we got to catch up with a friend who volunteered for the Peace Corps and was placed in Albania. The high speed ferry from Corfu only takes thirty minutes and Lesley met us on the other side for lunch. The town where we landed, Sarande, is quite touristy, including a promenade along the water. After lunch and a 40 minute bus ride (20 kilometers) to Ksamil, we settled into her apartment and walked around town shopping for dinner. We were excited that we could cook …

The town of Hvar was a great place to relax for a few days. The tourist season was waning for the island, which made it a good time to come and enjoy the place with fewer crowds. Our apartment was conveniently located just off the main square, giving us easy access to the beach, coffee shops, the old fort, and the shops on the narrow streets of the old town.
After a bit of confusion finding our apartment, we got settled in and set out to explore the town. At …

When the British got tired of the heat they went to the mountains, we were hot and tired in Kolkata so we went there too. Apparently this happened to them a lot, so they found a little patch of fog in the Himalayas and built a small city up there. Posters on the walls of travel agencies offer views of Mt Everest from town, but the reality for us, in the middle of monsoon season, was just clouds. The fog would roll in and out all day, but never cleared …

After the commotion of Beijing, we were looking forward to spending a few days somewhere quieter. A sacred mountain and the home town of Confucius were on the way to Shanghai and that sounded like the perfect stop. The town of Tai’an still had plenty of energy and the mountain is a pilgrimage for Chinese people so we didn’t really find the peaceful spot we were looking for. We did get to climb up about 7,000 steps, so it was still a productive day.
We arrived on the bullet train from …

While it’s easy to spend a lot of time drinking beer on the beach, there are other places to see. The next stop was the mountains. We found a nice hotel with a view of some rice fields at the base of a couple volcanoes. It was nice and quiet, sometimes depressingly empty. A couple bus loads of old people showed up one night, but were gone the next day. They were on some sort of organized tour, and judging from the extremely sunburned beer bellies, they probably had spent …

The main destination in New South Wales was Sydney, but the first stop was the Blue Mountains.

Feeling that the name was a bit familiar, we looked into it and found out there are at least ten mountain ranges in the world known as the Blue Mountains. This one was probably unique in that it had a city named Katoomba, which is where we spent the night. The town was quite pleasant, we even found several places serving high tea with all the traditional items. We were mostly there to see …

After the ferry ride from Wellington to Picton, we made our way towards the west coast of New Zealand. The first night we made it through wine country and stopped for a pint and glass of wine at the Cork and Keg and continued on to St. Arnaud before we parked the Hippie Camper for the evening. The next day was a long haul to the glacier area. We stopped throughout the day to see the sights like Pancake Rocks, and a brewery. We also had a seaside picnic lunch. …

No regrets is what they say, right? We couldn’t pass up the chance to go hiking in the Patagonian Andes, or trekking as it seems to be called in the rest of the world.
We had talked to the guys at the National Park office and at the Club Andino Bariloche to find out where to go and what to expect. There is a pretty popular 3 day/2 night hike with stops at refugios along the way. The refugios offer food, overnight stays and cooking facilities, all for a slightly elevated …