Category Archives: travel

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Baltic Cruizin’ – Day 9 Beautiful Stockholm

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by Bob Sparrow

The Islands of Stockholm

The Islands of Stockholm

I must have gone to bed too early the night before, or perhaps fell into bed in a drunken stupor, but I woke up alert as can be at 5:00 a.m., stepped out onto my balcony and saw the narrow channel we were passing through on our way into the harbor of Stockholm. Over the public address system, our captain was telling us that Sweden is made up of some 30,000 islands. The homes on these islands were beautiful and the grounds meticulously manicured. We were told that many of the homes on these islands are ‘summer cottages’ for the wealthy of Sweden.

Once we arrived in the port of Stockholm, we found, as you might suspect in a country with so many islands, there is not only a ‘Hop On Hop Off’ bus, but a ‘Hop On and Hop Off’ boat as well. We chose the boat. Once on board our driver tells us the name of the boat is ‘Take A Chance On Me’; not exactly a name that instilled a lot of confidence in the driver’s ability to navigate the busy port of Stockholm, until we learned that all the boats in this line were named after ABBA songs. The singing group, ABBA is still big in Sweden, very big. In fact, there is an entire museum dedicated to them. To me, it would be akin to having a museum in the U.S. dedicated entirely to the Monkees.

Our first stop for our water shuttle was the Vasa Museum. Vasa was a ship built in 1628 at the request of the Swedish king, slated to be the most powerfully armed vessel in the world. Unfortunately it was built too high and too narrow, with not enough rocks in the hull for the proper ballast and the ship sunk on its maiden voyage before it ever got out of the harbor! It remained at the bottom of the harbor for hundreds of years, until a crew in the late 1950s was able to salvage the hull. Over the next decade, 98% of the ship and all that it carried, was salvaged and restored and put on display in the Vasa Museum. The museum would seem to be more a tribute to the Swedish salvaging abilities than their ship building expertise.

We were back on the water shuttle and headed for our next stop, ‘Old Town’. Unfortunately, because Stockholm was our last stop, and thus the last of five ‘old towns’ we’d seen in a week, we were suffering from a bit of ‘oldtownitis’. But nevertheless we strolled along the cobbled streets, popping in shops and ultimately stopping for lunch. Stockholm was our shortest shore stay, so after hitting the stops along the water shuttle route, we were back on the boat for a late-afternoon departure.

The journey out of the harbor lasted over four hours as we weaved (as much as a large cruise ship can weave) in and out of the many islands on our way back out. We sat on the Budd’s luxury suite deck in the late afternoon sun sipping wine and watching the islands go by. Beautiful scenery. We had one more day on board and it was all at sea as we crossed the Baltic on our journey back to Copenhagen.

 

Next: Epilogue and Don’t and Dos of a Baltic Cruise

 

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Baltic Cruizin’ – Day 8 A Reunion in Helsinki

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by Bob Sparrow

Typically any place after St. Petersburg would be a let down, and the people who we’d talk to who had been to Helsinki said there really wasn’t a lot to do at this stop. But we had a special reunion planned.

A wonderful visit with Mira

A wonderful visit with Mira

When our daughter, Dana was not quite two years old, we had a live-in au pair (babysitter) from Finland, named Mira, who was about 20 at the time and attending near-by Chapman College. When I wrote my blog about Dana’s open-heart surgery two years ago, Mira, who had returned to Finland, read it on Facebook and re-connected with us. After we had booked this cruise, we wrote to her and told her we would be in Helsinki this summer and would love to see her. She responded in kind and set up a meeting for the afternoon we were in port. We disembarked in Helsinki and first took a water ferry to see the island fortress of Suomenlinna and toured there for about two hours. We then came back to Market Square in the town center to meet up with Mira.

She arrived with a big smile on her face and was simply delightful. She brought a couple of pictures of Dana and her from when she was with us in 1984. We spent the afternoon just catching up on what we had each been doing for the last 30 years!   She is doing well and lives in a very nice area just blocks from Market Square in mid-town Helsinki with her daughter Nova, who is 14. Nova’s father and Mira separated years ago. Mira had been a professional photographer, but is now working for an ‘electric company’ and is an avid tennis player. Regarding her social life, she said that after living 15 years in the U.S. then returning home, that she found Finnish men a bit wimpy compared to American men, so is not in a serious relationship.

After lunch she walked us through the Esplanade (the main street of Helsinki) and told us about her life in Helsinki and we up-dated her on our family. We stopped by the open market and she said she wanted to buy something for Dana. Linda picked out a Helsinki necklace piece that she really liked and Mira bought one for Dana and one for Linda. She took a cab with us back to the ship and we had a tearful goodbye. It made our trip to Helsinki very special. She promised to come and visit us with her daughter, but said she wants to wait until her daughter, who is an aspiring model, is 18.  Mira said that when Nova sees California, she will probably want to stay!

Next: Day 9   Stockholm

 

 

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Baltic Cruizin’ – Day 6-7 St. Petersburg, Russia

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by Bob Sparrow

imageFor me, St. Petersburg is a tale of two cities; one tale of being a city filled with a rich history and unbelievably beautiful and opulent palaces and museums that are beyond compare; the other tale being a city filled with people who match the ‘modern’ architecture – dull, gray and tired. We’ll focus on the former and summarize the contrast with, “It’s a great city, but I wouldn’t want to live there.”

It had been raining most of the summer in St. Petersburg, so parks were resplendent in foliage. Our private guide reminded us of how lucky we are to have two such beautiful days to explore this magnificent city.

If you ever plan on visiting St. Petersburg, let me start with a travel tip: To help keep all the Elizabeths, Catherines, Alexanders and Peters straight (I’ll avoid the sophomoric remark about keeping your Peters straight), you must read, Catherine the Great by Robert Massie; it is a wonderful book and it will not only help you keep all the Russian monarchy in order, but it will give you an appreciation for most of the venues that you’d be visiting.

Our first stop was at the Hermitage Museum, which holds so many works of art that it is said if you stood in front of each piece for just one minute, it would take you 11 years to get through the museum. We did not select that option, but we did stand in front of some Rembrants, da Vincis and Rubens among many, many, many others. Adjacent to her ‘Winter Palace’, the Hermitage was created by Catherine the Great, as she became the foremost collector of art in all of Europe during her reign. The Hermitage is magnificent, not only for the art that it holds, but for its spectacular gilded and mosaic interiors. It is truly magnificent. If you see only one thing in St. Petersburg, this is it. But it was just the beginning.

For pure iconic Russian architecture, the Church of Spilled Blood, site of the assassination of Alexander II is hard to beat. During the course of our two-day visit our tours included visits to Peter the Great’s summer ‘cottage’, Peterhof, situated on 100 acres of beautiful park grounds with water features that rival Versailles, France; in fact Peter’s goal when it built it was to build something better than Versailles.  He may have succeeded. We took a canal cruise up the Neva, Fontanka and Moika Rivers to see the ‘high rent’ district of St. Petersburg, then continued on to see Catherine’s palace, St. Isaac’s Cathedral, Peter and Paul’s Cathedral and Fortress, the room where Rasputin was assassinated. We took a ride on the super subterranean subway and finally hitched a hydrofoil ride back to city center. Toward the end of our second day we convinced our tour guide to make an unscheduled stop at a Russian bar, where we not only got a taste of a local brew, but of the local culture as well. The beer was better than the culture.

It was an exhausting two days, but we absolutely got our rubles worth.

Next: Day 8 A Reunion in Helsinki

 

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Baltic Cruizin’ – Day 5 Estonia and Getting Through the ‘Iron Curtain’

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by Bob Sparrow

Day 5 – Estonia   In the morning we find ourselves docked in the city of Tallinn, capital of Estonia where we can get off the ship and walk into town for the day. I must admit that, prior to this trip, if someone had asked me to locate Tallinn on a map, I might have been looking around Saudi Arabia. Fortunately I wasn’t driving the ship. Because it is strategically located on the Baltic; countries like Russia, Germany, Sweden and Denmark have all had their turn at occupying this country. We walk past the gates in the wall that once encircled the entire city and walk the streets of ‘Old Town’. John Billham, the Canadian member of our group has done his homework and guides us through the history of this picturesque town with the help of his Rick Steves guidebook. Lunch is in an Irish Pub; yes, the Irish seemed to have occupied every county we visit – thank goodness!

Getting In   With my soon-to-be-expired passport in hand, I sheepishly disembark in the port of St. Petersburg and head to customs and get in line. I check out the Russian immigration officer who is working the line I’m in. I walk up and hand him my passport – he gives me a stare that could chill beer; he says nothing and doesn’t smile; it appears to me that he’s having a bad day, but as I look at the other immigration officers, they all look like they’re having a bad day. They’re Russians for crying out loud! Contrary to popular belief, being an immigration officer in Russia is not all kicks and giggles. I fear that he’s going to take one look at my passport, see that it doesn’t have the required six months on it before it expires, blow his whistle and have me thrown back on the ship or who knows where. My heart is beating out of my chest, I feel like I’m reenacting the scene from Midnight Express, trying to smuggle drugs out of Turkey.

I search his face for a clue as to what’s going through his mind. He looks at my passport again then looks back at me, then looks back at my passport again. Oh shit, I knew it; I’ve been caught! I try to look exactly like the picture in my passport, but it was taken ten years ago, so that’s not happening. I’m sweating and I’m sure he can hear my heart beating from inside his little glass box. These guys are highly trained to notice people who are nervous. I know he knows I’m hiding something. Again, he looks back and forth between my passport and me several times, expressionless. I put on an encouraging smile as I start to wonder what they will do to me if I’m in violation of their passport/visa laws. Will they just send me back to the ship, or will they make an example out of me and let everyone know that I was trying to get into the country on an invalid passport and . . . OK, I can’t think about what they’d do. The inspector now seems to be studying my passport in depth. How long have I been standing here, twenty minutes? An hour? I wonder if I should run, I look for an escape route. I consider the possibility that perhaps I’m over-reacting. No, I know I’m breaking some Russian law and they are not going to just let it slide; these people don’t let anything just slide. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that my vacation is going to end with me breaking rocks in some Siberian gulag. Then I hear the word, “Next” and my passport is stamped and passed back through the window to me. I try to act casual, but I’m frozen in place, I’m pale white and the sweat rings under my arms are now down to my waist. “Next”, he repeats giving me a stare that was colder by several degrees from the one he first gave me. I smugly walk through customs – nothin’ to it!

As I finally walk onto Russian soil, the first question to myself is, will St. Petersburg be worth all the anguish I went through? Absolutely!

Next: Day 6-7   St. Petersburg, Russia

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Baltic Cruizin’ – Day 3-4 On Board & Berlin

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by Bob Sparrow

image

Guard Tower at Sachenhausen

All of Day 3 is essentially used up getting on the boat and to seeing how well our ‘Unlimited Drink Package’ works. We take a bus from the hotel to the port, get on our ship, the Star, and head to one of 15 or so bars on board. Sorry, I’d like to tell you more about it, but I don’t really remember too much more after that. But I do know that Norwegian Cruise Lines got the raw end of the deal when they allowed each of us couples to purchase unlimited cocktails for 9 days for only $250. We spent that before we waved goodbye to The Little Mermaid.

The morning of Day 4 we cruised into the port of Warnemunde, Gemany, where we got on a train and went to the Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, which is about an hour outside of Berlin. I’m sure most of you have read accounts or seen movies or documentaries on TV about German concentration camps.  I will tell you, and those who have been to one know this, it is noting like being there. The feeling I got as we were toured around the camp and told the many gruesome and heartbreaking stories, was visceral.   As I stared out over the expansive grounds, saw the weathered watchtowers where machine guns mowed down anyone trying to escape and learned of the harsh day-to-day agony that these people went through, I tried to imagine myself experiencing what they went through. We visited the gas chambers and crematorium, saw the gallows where dissidents were publicly hanged and walked through the barracks to see the unlivable living conditions in which the prisoners lived. I could not imagine this example of man’s inhumanity to man, and yet, it wasn’t that long ago. These Nazi bastards were some sick sons-of-bitches.

Sachsenhausen was not just a camp for Jews, it held any enemy of the state, foreign and domestic, which included gypsies, homosexuals, the handicapped, enemy soldiers and essentially anyone who was not in lock step with the Third Reich. It was a very moving and disturbing experience.

After nearly three hours there, we got on our bus and continued on into Berlin where we made several stops along the Berlin Wall, including ‘Check Point Charlie’ which is now Tourist Trap Charlie.   As we traveled along ‘The Wall’, our guide told us of the many stories of families being separated and people being shot as they tried to escape East Germany. We toured through the city stopping at several iconic landmarks like the Brandenburg Gate, the Reichstag government building and the Holocaust Memorial. Because much of Berlin was destroyed during the war, many of the buildings are new and the city was bustling with both locals and tourists. But for me, the atrocities of Sachsenhasen still lingered and hung like a dark cloud over the rest of the day.

The ‘Unlimited Drink Package’ came in handy as we arrived back at the ship for dinner.

Next: Day 4-5-6 Estonia and Russia

 

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Baltic Cruzin’ – Day 1&2 – Passports to Nowhere

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by Bob Sparrow

The Golden Tickets

Will they get us in?

Day 1 – History is rampant with examples of people struggling to get out of Russia; ironically this journey begins with a struggle to get in. The day before we are scheduled to start our Baltic vacation, I discover that Linda and my passports expire Feb 5, 2016, which at the time we booked this trip seemed like the next millennium. It did, in fact, cover the extent of our stay, however, unlike other Baltic countries, which require traveler’s passports to have at least three months before they expire, Russia requires six. To my horror, I discover that we’re two weeks and a couple of rubles short of six months. The stressful exercises I went through for the next 24 hours are too long and painful to recount; suffice it to say that they included, but were not limited to: a) talking to all the ‘express’ passport renewal companies that are only too willing to charge exorbitant prices to take advantage of distressed travelers like us, b) sending pleading emails to ambassadors at the Russian, American and Denmark Embassies, c) asking our cruise line if there was some sort of ‘work-around’, and d) calling our St. Petersburg tour company and begging and pleading for a remedy to my stupidity. As it turns out they did say they might be able to help us get into Russia, but as for my stupidity, they said they couldn’t help me with that. Clearly it was the wrong day to quit my crack cocaine habit!

As of this writing, while we are still in Copenhagen, we’ve been told by our Russian tour company, Alla, that our tour tickets will act as a temporary visa and will get us into St. Petersburg. Praise be to Alla.

Palace Guard - told us to "back off"

Palace Guard – told us to “back off”

This next event comes under the heading of ‘It’s a Small World After All’. After arriving in Copenhagen and resting up from hours of sitting, which seems like an oxymoron, and meeting up with our travel partners, the Budds, the VanBoxmeers (heretofore to be referred to as the ‘Boxes’ and the Billhams, we have an enjoyable walk through and dinner in ‘Old Town’ Copenhagen and are heading back to our hotel, when, on a crowded sidewalk in this foreign city that is 5,590 miles from home, we run smack into good friends, Mark & Barbara Houston, who, along with other friends Denise & Shirley Despie have just completed the same tour we are about to begin. We spend the next several hours in our hotel bar grilling them about their trip.

Little mermaid - back view

Little mermaid – back view

Little Mermaid - front view

Little Mermaid – front view

Not-so-little "R" rated mermaid

Not-so-little “R” rated mermaid

Day 2 – The forecast was for rain, but we had beautiful weather in the low 70s; our itinerary for the day reads like a Rick Steves ‘Copenhagen in a Day’ Guide Book – we visit the shops and restaurants of Old Town, take a canal cruise (see the Hans Christian Anderson’s Little Mermaid sculpture from the back), see the royal family palace, see the capital building,

Segway Riders - half of these people would fall and be injured before the day was over

Segway Riders – half of these people would fall and be injured before the day was over

take a Segway tour (see the Little Mermaid from the front), see a military fort, administer First Aid to the three who fell off their Segways, have a beer, go to dinner in a quaint Old Town restaurant, then finish with an evening stroll through Tivoli Gardens. Throughout it all, as all our tour guides spoke 3-4 languages, we were reminded of how lazy we Americans are by not even learning our own language so good

Tivoli Gardens

Tivoli Gardens

. . . er, well.

Tomorrow: Baltic Cruizin’ Day 3-4 On Board & Berlin

 

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Barnstorming the Baltic

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Calke

Suzanne ‘into’ her chocolate cake

(Editor’s Aside: Suzanne & Alan, Jack & Sharon and Linda and I were all on the ‘Central Coast’ last weekend. California’s Central Coast is known for producing a lot of wine, and last weekend we were known for drinking much of it. The occasion? Suzanne’s birthday! I’ll let her tell you which one, although I can tell you that the old Beatle lyric, ‘Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?’ has become moot. But I’m here to say, she hasn’t lost a step, although after last weekend there may be a few brain cells missing.)

by Bob Sparrow

Norwegian Cruise Line Star

Norwegian Cruise Line  – Star

After being released from the Betty Ford detox program after Tahoe and sweeping out my underwear, it was time to ready myself for another ‘road trip’. This time the ‘road’ is a bit salty, or at least brackish – the Baltic Sea, more accurately the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea.  No, I won’t be hiking it, but rather enjoying the trip from the deck of the Norwegian Cruise Line ship, the Star. Linda and I have never been to any of these destinations, so we’re looking forward to checking off these countries from our ‘Visit Every Country in the World’ list. Just kidding about the list – it doesn’t include Iraq, North Korea or Syria.

Our travel companions for this excursion include Jack & JJ Budd (previous travel companions to Ireland, South Africa and Charleston/Savannah), John & Judy VanBoxmeer (Ireland and Charleston/Savannah) and new additions from Canada, John’s sister Mary and her husband, John. I guess it’s always good to have two Johns on board. Come to think of it I guess we actually have three Johns, since Jack’s name is really John. Can you ever really have too many Johns? I’ll let you know in about three weeks!

Copenhagen

Copenhagen

We will all meet up in Copenhagen; some will get there via ‘1st Class’, some via ‘Business Class’ and then there’s Linda and me, in . . . ‘No Class’. On the leg from Chicago to Brussels I believe we have to serve coffee, make one trash pick up and prior to landing, remind passengers to return their tray tables to their fully upright and locked position; but those chores will give us some relief from our two middle seats in the rear that don’t recline.

Once in Copenhagen, we will have a couple of days to see that fair city, which we will do in part on Segways, a vehicle that the group practiced on recently in Newport Beach – the injuries should be fully healed by the time we get there. We also plan on sampling and rating ‘Beers of the Baltic’, ideally not while we’re still riding the Segways. We’ll start with some of Denmark’s most popular beers, Carlsberg and Tuborg, but we hope to get into some of their more interesting beers such as their top-rated, Mikkeller Beer Geek Brunch Weasel; say that three times fast . . . after you’ve had a few.

Baltic Ports-of-Call

Baltic Ports-of-Call

After departing Copenhagen, our first port-of-call is in Warnemunde, Germany, where we will take a train to a Concentration Camp in Berlin, which is not known for serving beer, but somewhere along the way we’d like to try Aecht Schlenkerla Rauchbier, a beer that is said to have a smoky flavor that tastes like beef jerky or leather – yeah, that’s what I looking for, a beer I can get my teeth into. Next stop is Estonia’s capitol, Tallinn, a city and country that has had a long history of German and Soviet domination. Then it’s time to move on to the happier countries. Oops! Our next port is St. Petersburg, Russia, that is if Mr. Putin has not annexed anything before then or declared war on someone. If we mysteriously disappear on this trip, this would be the first place I’d look for us.

Our final two ports are the Scandinavian cities of Helsinki and Stockholm, before we return to Copenhagen, where we will undoubtably spend time trying to find all the items we left there the previous week.

I know our ship will have ‘connectivity’, but the frequency of my blog submissions may be determined by just how much they’ll be charging me to use their precious cyber space. I’m sure I’ll figure out a way to ‘bring you along’ on this adventure. We look forward to you joining us.

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Emails from Nepal

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by Bob Sparrow

buildings crumbling

Kathmandu

Yes, I had heard from the travel agent that both Dom and Kiran were OK after the initial earthquake, but my three emails to Dom continued to go unanswered. All kinds of scenarios were running through my head as I wondered if the travel agency in New York really knew what was going on in Nepal and specifically with Dom and Kiran? I certainly wanted to believe they were OK, but wanted confirmation from Dom. I realized that responding to my emails had to be fairly low on Dom’s priority list at a time like this, but none-the-less I had hoped to hear from him to first, confirm that he and his family and Kiran were truly OK and secondly to try to get a ‘boots-on-the-ground’ perspective of how the nation of Nepal, and Dom specifically, was coping with this disaster.

I checked my email day and night, several times. Six anxious days passed and finally an email arrives from Dom. It reads as follows (I’ve edited it for easier reading – I think we’d all probably have difficulty writing in Nepalese if the situation were reversed):

Bob,

Namaste, (nom-ess-tay – a traditional Hindu salutation meaning “I bow to the divine in you”)

2014-06-05 18.27.35

Kiran – the mighty porter

     Thank you for your email … yes there was big earthquake. Sorry for late reply, my phone was destroyed so I’m using a friends – the Internet and electricity have been out for many days. Kiran is fine and I am fine with my family as well although we lost everything. Our home was flatted along with everything in it. We now live in a tent in an open field away from buildings, along with most of the people from our village. Because I know the Himalayas well, I have been in the mountains trying to help some of the more remote villages where help cannot reach. Thanks for your thoughts and all the blogs about our trekking.  I am so happy to keep in touch with you.

Dom 

 His email brought to life for me the nightmare that he and many of his countrymen must be going through . . . his home is now a tent in an open field! It was so like Dom, insuring that his family was safe, then setting out into the mountains that he knows so well to help others.

I wrote him back, thanking him for his email and telling him that Patrick and I would like to send him some money and asked how to do that. He replied . . .

2014-06-05 19.09.59

Dom in the Himalayas

Thank you very much for your email. It will be big support for me. I have a bank account but for a long time not using so better send by Western Union money transfer.

Name: Dom Bahadur Tamang             Address: Okhaldhunga – Shreechaur -7, Nepal

 I am very grateful for you and Patrick. It’s not easy even to write email. I am using friend’s mobile. Sorry for late reply. Thanks and best regards. Dom from Kathmandu 

With all the scam charities out there, Patrick and I gave money with the satisfaction of knowing that our donation was not only going directly to someone who actually needed it, but someone who we actually knew and admired.

I asked Dom to let me know when he received the money, as I didn’t want it to end up in the pocket of some Western Union clerk.  I had confirmed that it was picked up last Thursday, but had not heard from Dom, so I wasn’t sure he was the one that picked it up.  Finally, this past Sunday I received an email from Dom saying he was sorry for the delay, but he was helping in the village and yes, he had picked up the money and returned to his village to help with the reconstruction process. He was very thankful.

tentcity2

Nepal ‘tent city’

The second earthquake, which fortunately was centered in a more remote region of Nepal, still killed over 90 people at last count and injured over 1,200, bringing the death toll for both earthquakes to well over 8,000, injuries to over 20,000 and physical damage to over half a million homes.

‘Tent cities’ have sprung up throughout the area and are filled with people who have lost their homes as well as those afraid to go back to their homes for fear of another earthquake.

The losses from these two quakes will be felt for many years to come. As a trekking guide, Dom will have less opportunity to earn a living, as tourism to the Himalayas will certainly drop off dramatically in the near term.

To Dom, Kiran and all Nepalese – “Namaste, our thoughts and prayers are with you.”

 

 

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Feeling the Nepal Earthquake Here at Home

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by Bob Sparrow

2014-06-01 23.15.59

Dom

Those of you who have been following us for at least a year know that I was in Nepal a little less than a year ago visiting Kathmandu and trekking in the Himalayas, so I felt particularly saddened by the news of the recent earthquake in Nepal. Like most of you I felt so bad for these really good people, who had so little to start with and now have less – their whole world has been turned upside down – literally.

Additionally my personal concern was for the two wonderful people from there that I got to know very well by trekking with them for a week in the Himalayans – Dom, our guide and Kirin our porter (They are pictured on my Facebook homepage). They both lived in and around Kathmandu, Dom with a wife and two children, Kirin, is single. I emailed the travel agency in New York that booked our trip to ask if they had an email address for Dom, or any way to check on the status of both Dom and Kirin.

Basecamp2

Everest Base Camp

I heard yesterday morning from the travel agency that Dom and his family are OK, but no word on Kirin yet. Although I knew that communicating with Nepal right now was difficult at best, I sent another email pleading with the travel agent to do everything she could to check on Kirin’s status.

The riots in Baltimore and the continuing California draught have pushed the Nepal story out of the headlines, but those still following it know that the death toll has risen above 5,000 as of this writing and could get to as much at 10,000 before it’s over. Tens of thousands of people are living in tents and are still without adequate food and water, as relief is slow or non-existent to many of the outlying villages.

If you’re so inclined, there are plenty of places to donate to this cause, I chose the one here on Facebook at, https://www.facebook.com/nepalearthquakesupport

2014-06-01 23.16.11

Kirin

The quake that rocked the tallest mountain in the world devastated Everest Base Camp; two major avalanches over the last two years have killed at least 27 Sherpa guides. The climbing season, which just started, is now over for the year.

 

PS; I just received word from the travel agent this morning that Kirin is all right as well!! Happy for them both, but so heartbroken for all those Nepalese living this nightmare.

 

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Hiking Lost Palm Oasis and Ladder Canyon with the Odd Couple

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by Bob Sparrow

3 hikersNow that the rainy season in Southern California (2 days in January, maybe just one this year due to the draught) is over, it’s time to hit the hiking trails. Spring’s first trek takes us back to Joshua Tree National Park and to Mecca Hills Painted Canyon and Ladder Canyon for the first time.

(For new subscribers or for a re-visit, here are the two links to our Joshua trip two years ago: https://fromabirdseyeview.com/?p=1506     https://fromabirdseyeview.com/?p=1534)

The Cast

Patrick ‘Trail Boss’ Michael, my Nepal trekking buddy along with hiking novice, Marc ‘Swizzle Stick’ Webb, who stirs up all the neighborhood parties with his wit and enthusiasm make up our hiking trio. Patrick, the engineer and Marc, the salesman, invariably look at almost everything from two completely different perspectives. I felt like I was watching an episode of the ‘Odd Couple’ all weekend. The banter between them was constant and hilarious on virtually every subject.

Pat Marc

Pat & Marc disagreeing about something

We leave Orange County, Friday morning in Patrick’s Avalanche truck, which is pulling a 25’ camper – so we’re not really roughing it this time by sleeping out under the stars. As Marc’s wife, Lisa says, “You guys are going glam-ping”. We arrive at Cottonwood Springs campsite inside Joshua Tree National Park around noon and set up camp, which entails winding out the awning on our camper, unfolding our chairs and cracking open a beer.

2015-04-25 10.23.49

Lost Palms Oasis

Lost Palms Oasis

This hike was about an 8 mile round trip trek over a series of ridges and valleys and after reading the brochure’s description of this hike, below, we were very excited about the hike and having lunch at the oasis.

Large boulders, pools of water, intermittent streams, willow thickets and sandy beaches make this a delightful spot to pause.

That description of the oasis turns out to be a verbal mirage, as there were no pools of water, no streams, not even intermittently.  There was sand, lots of sand, but no beaches – I think water is a requirement for a beach. We did find some moist ground in places, so perhaps it once was as the brochure described, but thanks to the California draught we ate our lunch in a dry riverbed. But the hike was not without its redeeming features.

French toast

Banana, bacon French toast

Those who think of deserts as just brown mountains and sand would have a hard time imagining all the beautiful flowers, robust plant and animal life and beautifully colored rocks that are abundant here. When we realize how the flora and fauna in the desert gets by with so little, we almost feel ashamed wolfing down our banana, bacon French toast and New York steaks, but not ashamed enough to eat lizards and cactus instead.

Back at our campsite, dinner cooked under a billion stars and wine enjoyed around the campfire was all the stage that ‘Felix’ and ‘Oscar’ needed to continue their discussion of things like Patrick’s list of ‘trailer cleanliness tips, campfire protocol and bathroom ‘Dos & Don’ts’ – no matter the rule, Marc managed to ignore them all.

Ladder Canyon

This was the more interesting hike of the two – much more interesting! However, while researching this new hiking destination, we found the following . . .

“The geological formations of Mecca Hills are among the most unusual of their kind in the world and were formed by the convergence of the North American Plate and the Pacific Plate along the San Andreas Fault, which is overdue for a large quake.”

Which is what?!! ‘Overdue for a large quake’! Well isn’t that special.

We also should have read this other not-so-subtle admonition about the hike . . .

“Wear proper clothing, have proper equipment and follow these hiking tips or you may pay with your life.”

‘Pay with my life?!! Wow, I guess we should have read those hiking tips!

So, if you’re reading this and it ends suddenly in mid-sentence, you’ll know that the hiking tips were more important than we thought or ‘the big one’ hit.

We set out with the hope that the tectonic plates in Ladder Canyon were feeling very comfortable just where they are. The canyon is so named because the walls of the canyon are so steep in places that ladders are needed to get up and down the trail.

 

Trail to nowhere

The Trail to Nowhere

The hike is incredible; the canyon walls get to 50+ feet in height and as narrow in places as shoulder-width – not for the claustrophobic. Once through the canyon, we were supposed to continue the loop around through Painted Canyon, but we took the ‘Trail to Nowhere’ and had a view of Painted Canyon, but not a way to get down into it, so we ended up having to double back through Ladders Canyon to get home.

The day ends with another beautiful evening around the fire and another episode of the ‘Odd Couple’ discussing their opposing views on campfire flatulent etiquette.