Travel for Love

During the final few days of our Spain trip, Roberto and I managed to pry ourselves out of Cadiz to spend the last two nights in Sevilla before we had to catch our flights out of Madrid. Oh boy are we glad we did, this city is not to be missed!

We showed up at the train station and left our bags in the left luggage and walked in to the old town to find a place to stay for the night. As we walked, the streets got progressively narrower, the buildings older, and the scenery more and more unique. With every turn we came across a scene more beautiful than the last.

We wandered down the windy streets and found ourselves in the old Jewish quarter of Santa Cruz. Here, the streets are the most narrow and the buildings the oldest. Traditional white buildings with mustard yellow trim have geraniums and bouganvilla hanging from metal window boxes. This is where we needed to stay!

There are plenty of places to stay in this area, and to our delight most of them are little pensions, hostels, and little boutique hotels. We wandered in to a few places and got some quotes, and found a great little pension with a private room and WiFi for 35 Euros per night! The hostels and pensions in Andalusia often have very cute architecture: you walk in to a main common area (often open air like a little courtyard) with several floors and balconies overlooking the entrance. There are often beautiful tile work, potted plants and knick knacks, and even little water features.

Santa Cruz is the perfect base for seeing the sights of Sevilla. The barrio is full of cafes, one-of-a-kind restaurants, and little neighborhood bars full of old local men watching soccer games. The streets are alive with locals on scooters buzzing around and tourists getting lost in the maze of streets.

The neighborhood becomes truly magical at night. The streets are dimly lit and a warm breeze carries the fragrance of orange blossoms through the narrow corridors. At night the lively groups of tourists are replaced with couples from around the world slowly wandering the cobblestone streets together, discovering new magical spots around every turn.

The cathedral in Sevilla is magnificent, and reportedly the third largest in the world. Adjacent to the cathedral is Sevilla’s Real Alcazar, the city’s token Moorish palace, which is also beautiful. Popular things to do in the old town of Sevilla also include seeing a Flamenco show and attending a bull fight at the historic bullring. I also took a lovely Arab bath at the hammam right down the street from our Pension.

Sevilla is an incredible city with some very amazing influences. We had a very limited experience there and we didn’t venture out of the old town, but there are tons of other things to see and do throughout the city. Sevilla is a popular tourist destination, and was the first place on our trip through Andalusia where we saw significant numbers of Americans. I HIGHLY recommend a visit here and would definitely go back!

Our family and friends thought we were crazy. My dad said we would be attacked by terrorists. We invited a friend who would not go because it would flag him as a security breach at his job. Others never even heard of Istanbul.

But that’s where we were headed. My mom and I. For both of our first trip outside North America and for my mom’s first trip needing a passport, we were flying to Istanbul, Turkey.

My mom and I had decided to go on a Mediterranean cruise in April 2008. We had many to choose from, but for some reason we were drawn to the more “off the beaten path” itineraries instead of a typical Western European cruise. The one we chose on Norwegian cruise lines went from Istanbul to Athens, including stops on several of the Greek Islands and in Alexandria Egypt with an opportunity to get down to Cairo. It was a pretty good deal and we thought it would be a once in a lifetime opportunity to see some of these places in a relatively stress-free and comfortable way on a cruise.

But, cruise or no cruise, we still had to start of the trip on our own with two nights in Istanbul. I guess we could have arranged everything through the cruise, with airport transfers and hotel stay, but we decided to be a little more independent. We found a boutique hotel, Hotel Mena, in the historic Sultanahmet area of the city and took a taxi in from the airport after surviving our first long haul flight ever.

I remember the first few things that struck me after arriving in a bit of a daze after an all night flight. One was that it didn’t seem all that strange or different or far away. Sure, the architecture was different and people spoke Turkish, but the sky was blue and the grass was green, and I didn’t feel far from home like I expected I would.

Since I really didn’t know what to expect of Turkey, I was pleasantly surprised at how comfortable I felt there and about the lack of culture shock. Also, people had told us about how friendly and helpful the Turks were, but I was still surprised at how welcome I felt there.

When we first got to our hotel, we looked out the window to find a minaret with it’s speaker pointed right at our window. We knew we wouldn’t have to go far to hear the call to prayer, which was just as exotic and haunting as it sounds on Youtube. Especially when it’s echoing from several different mosques all over the city!

We took a little nap and then decided we felt well enough to go out for the evening. We asked the front desk where we could see some belly dancing, and the next thing we knew, we were being whisked off in a van through the narrow winding Istanbul streets. We went to a pretty generic, touristy belly dancing dinner show, but we had a great time there!

The place asked everyone’s nationalities when they sat down, and put their country’s flag on their tables so we could see where everyone was from. My mom and I sat next two a chain smoking Swedish mother and daughter pair on one side, and a table of rowdy Iraqi businessmen on the other. It was definitely an interesting night when the Iraqis started getting drunk and asking us why we hated their country. It was a little awkward. Later they had quite a fun night of dancing!

The show and dancing were excellent, and we were very impressed with the skills of the ladies. They also had a great MC who spoke so many languages it made my head spin. It was alot of fun seeing other audience members from all over the world. Yes, it was a very touristy insulated experience, but it was perfect for our first night out in Istanbul.

The next day we wandered around Sultanahmet on a beautiful sunny spring day. We were lucky enough to be in Istanbul during the annual tulip festival, and there were millions of gorgeous tulips of all colors all over the city. Despite being warned by every person and guidebook, we let ourselves get latched on to by a carpet store representative. He did show us all around the historic district and take our pictures everywhere before taking us to his carpet store. It really wasn’t a bad experience and my mom wanted to buy a rug anyway (she did!) and we did enjoy ourselves in the shop drinking apple tea and watching the salesman throw the rugs around. They really are spectacular! We were fortunate to end up in a shop we’d heard of and knew as reputable.

That evening we ended up having a blast out in the Taksim area of Istanbul, where they have a pedestrian street full of shopping and lots of bars and restaurants. We enjoyed talking with the young owner of a bar down one of the side streets in Taksim and spent the rest of the night upstairs in the bar listening to a live two man band play traditional Turkish music. We were the only foreigners in the place and it was really a wonderful way to experience a night out in Turkey. We ended up staying out until 3 am drinking Raki and enjoying the music.

The next day, we had just enough time to wander around the spice market and snap a few final photos before our ship sailed. We had definitely fallen in love with Istanbul and were very sorry to have to leave. There are still so many things I want to do there that we didn’t get to: a Turkish bath, Topkapi palace, Hagia Sofia, and just spending more time wandering around this beautiful city.

I think I learned a lot from this trip. It certainly made me want to continue to travel and see places off the beaten path. I’m really glad we got out of our comfort zone and took a risk on a destination that was “questionable” to some. I really loved how friendly and fun the Turks we met were, and enjoyed their sense of humor. Also, I did learn the ropes of the squat toilet there – that’s definitely come in handy since!

For anyone thinking of visiting Istanbul, do not hesitate! I felt very safe there, and the city is perfectly modern and developed. Many things are still a good bargain since Turkey is not on the Euro, and there are endless things to see and do. The history of Istanbul and the surrounding region is just fascinating, and the different empires that Istanbul has been under have left their marks on the city.

Where was your first trip abroad? Which destinations weren’t what you expected?

I keep procrastinating on my follow up Buenos Aires posts, after writing a little about our lodging experiences there. I’m starting to realize I keep putting off writing the follow ups because I don’t really have that much to say.

I had a lot of fun in Buenos Aires, and I definitely enjoyed places in the city. But, I wasn’t crazy about it. To me, BsAs did not have the energy, vibe, or instant appeal that I have come to find in cities like NYC, Rio, Istanbul, or even Paris. Maybe to me BsAs was just lacking that special something, the same way I’ve found Miami, Chicago, Shanghai, and LA.

So rather than try to write up a half-hearted summary of our mediocre food experiences and decent but not remarkable activities there, I will leave you with my impressions of Recoleta Cemetary. This was one part of BsAs that I definitely loved.

Yes, the first thing that struck me was that you could see inside the tombs – see actual coffins!

Once I got over that, I spent most of my time in the cemetery taking pictures of the cats. There were kitties everywhere! I saw that people had left food and water around, so the cats must have a nice peaceful life there.

The poor things looked pretty ragged though.

But sweet.

Some like the kitties more than others.

What a life!

I got out of the snow for a few days on a business trip to Orange County. My mom joined me for the weekend, and we spent some time in the afternoon exploring the Laguna Beach coast. In Crystal Cove State Park, we found lots of rocky coast full of tide pools. It was so much fun seeing all the sea life in the pools. Here are some pics.

The rocks were covered with mussels.

There were blue and grey anemones all over the place, of all shapes and sizes.

Further out in more water, there were starfish!

It was a beautiful place on a beautiful day!

As I mentioned in my Buenos Aires post, Roberto and I took the overnight bus to Mendoza as a side trip from the capital city. Originally we planned on staying just one night – two full days – in the city. Upon seeing the incredible snow-capped mountains rising from the desert as we approached Mendoza, we decided to stay an extra day. We changed our bus reservation at the madhouse of a bus station, and set off to find a rental car.

Disclaimer: This was not a well-researched trip. As I mentioned here, we were hoping to visit Patagonia on this trip. Unfortunately, we found out the gringo prices on Argentinas Airlines were around twice as much as indicated on the website, and flights there would cost around $400 per person.

We found a campground in the San Martin park on the edge of central Mendoza. It seemed that the campground and some other amenities in this park were built in the 70s when Mendoza hosted the World Cup. The campground was very… concrete, with identical campsites. It was more than adequate though, and we enjoyed our night there. They even had wi-fi.

We enjoyed a nice dinner near the park, in a fairly touristy area. Roberto came back from the restaurant men’s room with this photo:

Right. So…

The next day we waned to drive to the mountains. The guy at the campground told us to take the road to Chile to see Aconcagua. I had never heard of this place but apparently it’s the tallest mountain in South America. And the Southern Hemisphere. And the Western Hemisphere. Actually, the tallest mountain outside of Asia! It’s 22840 feet, with Everest being 29002. Mount McKinley is 20,320. So yea, we had to check that out.

We set out on a beautiful dessert blue sky day, on a breathtaking drive into the mountains. First we climbed grassy foothills, which gradually gave way to rockier hills covered in cacti. As we climbed higher and higher, the mountains got more and more rugged. We marveled at how each one had a unique color, as we caught glimpses of snowy peaks beyond the hills. We couldn’t get enough of the beautiful scenery.

As we drove up into higher elevations, the scenery continued to be spectacular. We had a nice lunch at a mountain restaurant, and noticed a couple ski resorts (closed for the summer of course). We also noticed quite a few campgrounds, and decided to stay in the mountains that evening at one of them. We also saw countless groups of Argentines having picnics and cookouts.

We continued up the mountains to Puente de Inca, a strange rock formation and old building.

Just a couple miles up the road was Aconcagua national park. We parked and decided to hike the 3km loop trail in the beautiful valley below the peak. As we got a bit further up the trail we realized we could hike much further than the 3km loop, taking the mule path used by the mountain climbers. We did see several herds of mules, driven by Andean cowboys, carrying supplies to the base camp.

Interestingly when I got out of the car and started hiking, I felt kinda funny. As if I was coming down with something, or hungover… just off. Then, I realized it was due to the high elevation. It made the hike a little more difficult.

I thought the “mountain climbing” vibe was really cool. We talked with some of the climbers returning from summit attempts, which was interesting. I had not expected to see that sort of thing! We ended up hiking for most of the day, only turning back when we knew we’d run out of daylight. It was not a difficult hike, but between the elevation, the dust and rocks, and the hot sun yet cold wind, it was grueling.

Hiking in Aconcagua national park made me want to climb a mountain sometime. Not that one… too advanced for me! But I can definitely see the appeal. A mountain like that just inspires the urge to get closer and closer to the top. This was my first experience with really big mountains, and I definitely think I will seek more out in the future.

We finished the day off with a drive up a crazy road to Christo Redentor on the Chilean border.

It was COLD up there, but very pretty!

We crashed at a nice little campground in one of the gorgeous mountain valleys. It was only 10 pesos per person, less than $3! I was surprised at how many hiking backpackers and mountain bikers were camping there, but we didn’t really get to know anyone that night. We slept very well after our long day, and I have never seen so many stars.

And I thought Mendoza was all about wineries.