Nov. 11 - I believe blogs are usually done while one is away or doing something but that is not what I am doing. For lots of reasons I kept a daily journal but have left the blog til now for my trip this Fall. I travelled to England, Turkey, Slovenia, Italy, Croatia, Serbia, Bulgaria and France but not a lot of time in each country. I was in Turkey 3 weeks and took a train through Serbia stopping in Belgrad for about 4 1/2 hours. The trip didn't go as planned and that was fine.

So it started Sat. Sept 1 when I drove to Calgary and left my car securely stored in Cathleen's garage (thank you Cathleen) and took a cab to the Caglary airport and a plane from there to London Gatwick airport. I arrived the day after I left early in the morning and after clearing customs I took the bus into London cause I was flying out of London Luton early the next morning. I wandered aroung London for a while and checked out the scene in Traflagar Square. The Paralympics were on and there was a simulcast of the events on a giant screen in Trafalgar Square. I had a cheap ticket to a play that night (7 pounds) but decided I was too tired to enjoy it so after dinner I rescued my pack from the Left Luggage at Victoria Station and took a bussout to Luton airport.  I flew at something like 6 Am so my plan was just to sleep for a few hours at the airport and it worked out great. I thought I might have to sleep on the floor but Starbucks had some very nice chairs and I had a good nights sleep which takes me to Sept 3 when I flew early in the morning to Istanbul.

sept 3 - got to Istanbul a bit tired and as usual a bit disoriented and took a bus to Taksom square and from there a thieving taxi driver ripped me off taking me to near my hostel. It is my fate to be ripped off by taxi drivers. Not all for sure but the crooked ones must see me coming.

Found my hostel, the Sultan Hostel,

which was in a great location and well run and a fine place to base myself from. This is the view down the street my hostel was on looking towards the Topkapi Palace and I was within five minutes walking distance of the Blue Mosque, the Haya Sofia, the Hippodrome etc. and my hostel had a good restuarant and served a fine free turkish brekkie. All very good but going on the internet sucked. I didn't have an internet device with me and I was using the hostel's computer and having not unusual problems getting of my email account etc. Frustrating. But overall I was happy, exploring and relaxing.

Sept 4 - I had decided that I would take a tour. Istanbul Walks wasn't very expensive and it seemed good money to spend my money so that I could have a better understanding of what I was seeing. The tour company said to meet at the Spice Market but did appreciate prioer contact. I couldn't contact them through my gmail (why they didn't accept my answer to the security question "What was your mother's maiden name?" I have no idea) so I contacted Istanbul Walks through Facebook which kind of amused them.

I was quite happy with the tour as there weren't many of us. We walked through the Spice Market which was relatively new ( 4-500 years old) and did a tour of a mosque and then took a ferry on the Bosphorus. We went down the European side almost to the Black Sea crossed to Asia, walked up to a old fort, had lunch and came back the Asian side. (top picture above is on the European side of the Bosphorus and the bottom picture is on the Asian side of the Bosphorus.)

On the tour I met Mike and Natalie from Illinois (Natalie originally from N. Ireland) and we get along and decide to do another tour the next day together.
get back to hostel and talk to Eekhail who runs the restaurant I think and spent 12 years in New Jersey and I chat with my roomates in the 6 bed dorm. A young Japanese woman in Istanbul to study mosque art, a German couple ane a brother & sister from Australia. She has just spent 6 months in Japan and he has a degree in meteorology and will be doing graduate studies at Cambridge.

Sept 5 - today I do the Classic & Highlight Tour with Istanbul Walks   (Haya Sofia below)

and Mike and Natalie. Maybe dervishes tommorow evening? Last night impromtu chat in the restuarant w/ table of Quebecois, brother & sister from Australia and a young German strarting a one year travel. Late in the afternoon I am resting against an old tree in the 3rd Courtyard of the Topkapi Palace Our group has spit up and I got tired of looking at amazing treasures. Mike & natalie are in line to see a roomful of holy relics ie the staff of Moses, the jacket of Mohammed etc. Nassa and Assma (a honeymooning couple from Libya [see picture below w/apprentice guide in black shirt]) 

We had an interesting discussion with Nassa and Assma (not much Assma) and our guide about wedding and marriage customs. Nassa and Assma are from a conservative tribe in Libya and had a 7 day wedding (and are happy with the Libyan revolution).

11 PM - had a good day touring major sites. Mike & Natalie left tour before Grand Bazaar (4,000 shops). I did a bit of the Grand Bazaar and met them at their hotel after getting lost looking for it. I get lost a lot and now believe it is a good way of exploring a new city. Had some wine with them at their hotel and then went to try a meatball place they had read about. Not so good. Walked back to my hostel to share a hookah (apple flavoured tobacco) and in the square in front of the Haya Sofia there was a full choir entertaining turks and tourists alike. They were singing The Lion Sleeps Tonight and I asked and found out they were from The Polish Maritime University. I bought a CD. Came back and shared a hookah.

 I really should use more sunscreen!
new room mates - a young couple from Slovenia.

Sept. 6 - Bought some presents and met Mike & Natalie at the mosaic museum. Lunch & walk along the sea wll and over the Galata Bridge crossing the Golden Horn.Took the underground funicular and went up to the Galata Tower. Great views.

We walked back along the underside of the Galata bridge which is lined with restaurants and stopped for a fine fish dinner followed by some "rikshi" which is a VERY strong turkish liquor. I grabbed Mike's daypack when we were leaving which he didn't notice so he tried to grab the identical pack which wasn't his from someone else! Tram back to Blue Mosque and goodbye to Mike and Natalie but we will meet again in Cappadocia. Home, chat w/Slovenian couple and to bed.

Sept. 7 went on tour of Archeology Museum. Amazing and Overwhelming. Coffee at hostel then assemble stuff to mail home. tommorow early flight to Cappadocia. As I am having coffee in front of the hostel someone walks by dragging one of those hard suitcases with small wheels which makes an annoying noice over cobblestones. Found the post office and then was told I would have to go get box for stuff. She gave me directions (3oo m Mohammed box near big pharmacy) and I found the box place after about 40 minutes. It was about 100 metres away. On the way back I was in the Blue Mosque square and there were about 3 flocks of tourists each with their guide leading and carrying high some colourful item for their flock to home in on. Istanbul Walks go no matter how many peole show up and today it was only me so I had a private guide.

This evening one of the young guys who works at the hostel asked me how he would could spend a year in Canada. I gave him some info about the work and visit program. Last night when I came in I was told we have a Aussie couple in our room for a few nights. They were asleep when I left in the morning. When I came home they were gone and we have 2 mexican women w/us who I haven't met yet. This is Friday night and I have been here since Monday AM and I'm feeling like a long term resident.

Sept. 8 Up early. Some sightseeing, some relax & some get ready for next stop. Sitting outside waiting for breakfast to be ready. See an oriental woman in nice & short dress struggling down street w/large suitcase on small wheels.

Random

the infamous real prison featured in Midnight Express has now been changed and renovated & is a Four Seasons Hotel

Wandered through the Gold area of the Grand Bazaar

I have seen dolphins in the Bosphorus

Lots of cats in this city but I haven't seen any fat cats

Found laundry & seems OK. four hour service. Went to the Museum of Islamic Arts. Interesting and Beautiful but my understanding is shallow.

Sept. 9 - staff awake & working. Guests still in bed. I'm sitting out front thinking of my planned trek. started to eat street food yesterday. Took my clothes to the laundry & chatted w/woman who is from Macedonia and is running the laundry. She works 7 days a week and has for a long time. Eekhail who runs the hostel restaurant says he works 6 days a week and he is busy when he works.

How many times have I been hit up by a carpet salesman? a dozen? Keep sense of humour! "You walk like someone who wants to buy a carpet!" Have excuse ready. "My friends are waiting for me and I am late!" Avoid "Can I ask you a question? What country are you from?" works to start the conversation which leads to the carpet store.

I pick up my laundry later and pack and leave early tommorow. I am ready to move on.

Sept. 10 tired and bored and waiting to board in airport lounge. Got up at 5 AM for airport shuttle. Long involved discussion last night w/young Swede about reality, magic and love. lots of talk w/questionable substance.

Sept 10  - Got up early and took shuttle to airport. Boring wait in airport as usual. Got to kayseri and found no shuttle booked for me. Log expensive taxi ride. Driver drank Red Bull and bought me a water. Got to Goreme and the Kose Pension and realized I must stay longer than planned. Goreme is a tourist trap and I kind of like it.Met a couple of yanks and a young Belgium woman who doesn't like being a financial consultant but does like to travel.

My dorm room is cool.

Liesbeth from Belgium.

Mike & Natalie invited me to their cave hotel. Goreme is part of Cappadocia which is well know because people have been making homes and churches etc by hollowing out the sandstone formations for hundreds or thousands of years and some of the sandstone formations and quite beautiful and unusual.

Mike and Natalie's cave hotel (in an old cave) is in Urgup which is about 10 k away. I decide to go early as this may be the only time I get to see Urgup. I missed the minibus with the next one more than an hour and a half away so I decided to hitchhike. Several offers but they weren't going to Urgup. Small delivery vehicle picked me up. he spoke almost no English and I spoke almost no Turkish. He had a stop in another town and then we went to Urgup where he dropped me off. Much fun and great trip. Wandered around Urgup. Not very exciting. Goreme is no more exciting but I like it better.

I walked around looking for their hotel in the likely place and somehow I ended up with a Persian man who offered to show me where it was. After two hours we had wandered around Urgup and he had introduced me to several of his friends and brought me to his home where he gave me tea and talked of how he would like his son to go to Canada and maybe I could help I reminded him I had to meet my friends at their hotel and he stirred himself and helped me find the hotel. Pleasant dinner with Mike and Natalie & we made plans for next two days. Natalie doing haman but Mike not interested. I've done one already. Got up at 7 AM to use the toilet and saw many hot air balloons rising in the early morning. Very cool.

Sept 12 AM yesterday had  lazy day morning and went for a hike in the afternoon with Mike. Natalie had planned to go to a haman but decided a rest day worked better for her. Had a turkish pizza which offers good taste and good value too. Then we went to see the Whirling Dervishes at a local cultural centre. Not just dancing a cermony involving singing, dancing and music. Must read up on Sufism. Beautiful and interesting but what was happening.

Today a rour with Mike & natalie and their guide. Early breakfast & eavesdropping on conversation at next table. Two ordinary looking young British women, twins, who turn out to be scuba instructors and are talking with their tablemate about diving with sharks in South Africa.  Now it is night and I have had a good day and my plans are changing. Still leaving for Fethiye on overnight bus but now I am thinking of a gullet trip Fethiye to Olympos. As I get closer to putting pack on my back and trudging uphill I find other very attractive things to do. Explored various parts of Cappadocia toeday. Underground city housed 10,000 hiding people in time of attack. 9 layers down & increasingly small passages. I got down to 3rd level & came right back up. Great dinner with Mike & Natalie and they leave tommorow to Istanbul and home (Illinois).

Above pic is Mike & Natalie on the Galata tower in Istanbul

Mike & Natalie gone. Liesbeth. I'm gone tommorow. I've had enough cave houses, churches hotels etc. I talked to our guide yesterday. He said tourism took off in Cappadocia around 1980. At college/university he studied tour guiding which included languages, history and archeology. Locally you can now get similar training in Cappadocia as well as training in balloon piloting. We asked Fatiy how people felt about tourism and he said hey liked it as it brought money into the area. When we touring around we saw a town that probably was what the area was like before the tourism boom - dusty, tired and broke.Too early for dinner so I am just hanging around the centre square when a boxy older car pulls in. Very crowded with young people. It appears that 4 young Turkish guys have given 3 young Japanese girls a ride. All smiles and picture taking and then each group goes its own way.  I am ready to leave Cappadocia and wonder about things and places to come. Will I be the youngest on a party boat? Bulgaria whch Liesbeth didn't like because of the corruption. The lycian way with no set accommodations. Paris? Everyone says Paris is beautiful but the people of Paris are not very friendly. I'm not worried and I am sure all will work out. 

August 18 _ So I am off again in a couple of weeks- London>Turkey (a bit more than a month)>Bulgaria>Paris and back to London for a day and home. I am very much looking forward to it and will be updating this blog as before BUT it will be intermittent as I am going to depend on internet cafes and they are fewer than before. Also I am not taking an internet device or smart phone. I'm too old school and will only be taking a camera. One device to look after and keep charged and thats fine. In the middle of the trip is a three week period I will be hiking along the Meditearaen Coast of Turkey in a beautiful and rural area so my opportunities to go on the internet will be limited.

That's fine. I will probably do as before and update my journal (by that I mean write in a notebook - nothing electronic) every evening to help me rememeber so many of the details that I would otherwise forget and then when I find an internet cafe and am inclined to spend some time there I will update this blog with pictures added when I get home. I enjoy doing the blog but it definitely takes second place to being and seeing where I am and meeting new people.

If anyone is curious I will be in London a day and then off to Istanbul for a week or so then to the Cappadocia area of Turkey for two and a half days and then I take an overnight bus (supposed to be a different and interesting experience in Turkey) to the coast where I walk for about three weeks and then fly to Sofia, Bulgaria where I will be for about two days and then to Paris to stay with a friend, Jean-Baptiste, from when I did a camino in Spain. Several days in paris and then the eurostar high speed train under the channel with an afternoon and evening in London and home the next day.

and so it goes 

So it is 2011. Work has been slow so I have no travel planned. The weather has been poor and I am doing some work on my house. Its kind of a bland year. I am going down to the coast and will see family and friends and I look forward to that. I am also going to volunteer at the Vancouver International Fringe Festival and meet some new people and see a lot of theatre and that will be a lot of fun. But still no excitement and not much challenge. a bland year.

So when a new company started offering skydiving in Golden I knew this was what I needed.

Like lots of people I'd thought that I should go skydiving sometime but that time had never happened. Obviously my time had arrived.

I chose to do a tandem skydive. This means being attached to an instructor. I did this as it was cheaper as they didn't have to train me and when you do a tandem jump the plane goes much higher and you free fall for several thousand feet before the chute opens and that seemed like it would be an interesting part of the experience. Also I considered safety and I thought that the company has the most incentive to consider and protect my safety when I am attached to an instructor. All this and it is cheaper too! what's not to like?

So I showed up and got prepared and in the plane which then climbed to 12,000 feet (about 3,650 metres) so we were looking down in the local mountains and then instructor attached us together and I put my feet and legs outside of the plane and we left it. Woooooh!

We fell for about 45 seconds and I understand we reached speeds of about 175 kph. It wasn't exactly fun but more like an intense experience to be processed afterwards. Then the cute opened and we drifted down for a few minutes before landing in an open field next to the runway.

It was a very interesting experience. I am glad that I did it but don't think I will do it again. Once was enough for me. I didn't find it scary which I think was because the company (Extreme Yeti) was relaxed and professional and I asked enough questions to satisfy myself they were being careful nd professional. I should note I was a bit nervous/scared as the airplane was reaching the altitude where I was going to leave it but I dealt with that by focussing on the procedure and what I had to do.

So it did add some excitement to the summer but I defintely need to make some intersting travel plans for next year

John

Morocco Pictures 2010

This is the place we stayed at in marrackech -the Riad Omar which looks better on the inside than on the outside. It was in the Medina which is the old part of Marrackech and only a couple of hundred metres from the central square and the souks which were amazing and, for me, a bit overwhelming. When I first came to marracekech and before I met the group I was travelling with I stayed in a hostel which was also fine but not so well located.

This is the street leading to the Jemaa el Fna (the central square in Marrackech) where you will find manymany vendors, alleys leading off toe hundreds of souks and acrobats, snake charmers, music etc. I don't have any pics of the Jemma el Fna as I didn't think I coukld possibly convey the colour, variety (amazingly good people watching) and extent of the scene.

Our group on camels in the Sahara

Me on a camel. Check out the classy specialized camel riding footwear I have on.

The camel behind me kep wanting to get acquainted.

Outside our desert camp there was a nomad's camp and this youhng girl came over to offer some handicrafts. She was a very good bargainer.

Riding camels in to the Sahara.

Me waiting to go into the desert with our transport waiting for us

Our transport in to the desert

Having a swim at a hotel in the desert before riding camels into the dunes. This was a treat after trekking for a week or so.

The gate to a small city.

Our trekking group with our guide, cook and muleteers

a young Berber girl checking us out at a kasbah that we stopped at for a short while

Vern considering who knows what while we stop at the kasbah for some water and mint tea

Me on the roof of the kasbah

walking through a berber village

Berber youth by our camp in the Atlas mtns

weary trekkers seek shade at the end of the day

Stream through a gorge. I walked about 2-3 k through the stream. mainly ankle deep and sometimes up to my knees. It was fun.

a rest stop with our guide Mohammed (Mo) on top

ruinds in a green valley amidst dry hills

trekking

in the Atlas mountains

our trekking camp set up at a nomads shelter

large home in a berber village. Note the livestock

We crossed many streams but this may be the only bridge we saw.

Stopping at a tiny store in a tiny village Terry casually asked the price of a dress. This is the result.

Trekking past some ruins

Mo, our guide, with two of the muleteers

Our cook with one of the mules. They packed up when we were leaving in the morning and then passed us during the day and had camp ready for us when we reached it later that day.

The intrepid trekker in the Atlas mountains

our sleeping tents, some of the mules and the atlas mtns

A nomad's shelter with out trekking tent in the background

about 1/2 hour before reaching the summit of M'Goun at 4,070 metres

at the top of a pass and descending to our campground below

Trekking in the Atlas mtns

Trekking camp with the dining and cooking tents
(white) and the smaller sleeping tents

Mo, our guide, in the centre with some of the funny looking Canadian trekkers

Mo helping us across a small stream

leaving the Happy Valley and starting our trek into the mtns

a funny looking Canadian trekker at dinner

Liz and Vern, some of my fellow trekkers who were all from the Chilliwack Outdoor Club

Happy Valley

Our guide's new home and small hotel being constructed

The Atlas mtns

Jemaa el Fna at night

OOOOOps - this in Spain

I enjoyed Morocco finding it very interesting and vry different from what I have experienced before. It was some times a bit overwhelming and the scenery in the Atlas mountains was great but very different (much more arid) than I was used to.

The group I travelled and my travel arrangements were very different from those in Spain where I had just come from. In Spain we were all meeting each other for the first time and we had noone to solve problems or make decisions for us so I think there was a bonding. In Morocco the situation was different as I was joining a group where everyone else knew each other and noone knew me. Also we were looked after and decisions to a large degree made for us. I have done lots of camping and hiking and found it strange to leave the work for others but our guide, cook and muleteers were friendly and efficient and needed the work more than they needed any assistance from me. Just a bit different than I was used to.

I did enjoy Morocco and found it a fascinating country to visit. Of course my knowledge after a couple of weeks there is VERY limited but I can see why so many people have visited and enjoyed it.