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You are here: Home / Archives for gbu

Good, Bad and Ugly- Sleep

May 17, 2012 By Jillian

Adventure travel often leads to some rather interesting places to sleep.  In 21 months of travel, we slept on more modes of transportation than I care to admit- more inexpensive small hotels than you can imagine and inside more mosquito nets than I ever dreamed, even when I wanted to be a fairy princess.  To travel you have to be a good sleeper – you have to be willing to make an adventure out of sleeping under an open sky, to see the silver lining of a noisy hostel dorm and be willing to give up a few creature comforts for a few amazing sunrises.  If you aren’t a good sleeper, give it a few days on the road and you’ll be snoozing like the best of them!

Here are our favorite “nights” of sleep from our journey around the world:

The Good Sleep
Comfortable Bed, a world traveler's dream!
It’s hard to narrow it down to just one night.  The best night of sleep I had on the whole trip was probably in Buenos Aires, in an apartment Danny’s parents rented – I was horribly sick and needed the creature comforts of home.  But the most memorable night of sleep?  I’d have to say it was camping in South Africa’s Kalahari National Park listening to the lions roar throughout the night. Earlier in the day they had wandered within a few meters of the camp’s electric fence while Danny was cooking dinner – a crazy experience to say the least.  Drifting off to sleep in the middle of nowhere under an African sky  listening to lions, it was like a surreal dream.  I won’t say I wasn’t a bit anxious about the whole thing, but I slept surprisingly well and it’s a night of sleep I’ll never forget.

 

The Bad Sleep Camping in Africa

Have you ever been in a flooded tent?  When we pulled into the Malealea Lodge in Lesotho we set up our tent in an area that looked safe from water.  The caretaker told us we’d be find in water – perhaps it was a question lost in translation or perhaps the downpour was just unusual- but at some point in the night it began to rain.  A few drops turned into buckets, and we awoke soaked from the ground up.  We’ve probably camped hundreds of nights out in the woods, never have I ever woken up to inches of rain inside the tent.  Scrambling to a) get out of the tent and b) to save our worldly possessions we looked like a 1930s comedy act.  The two stooges.  Chalk it up to being half asleep, but we managed to get out of the tent, get into a small unlocked rondavel and crawl into two warm, dry beds.  In the morning we dried everything out on the grass- you can bet we didn’t stake up there the next night.

 

The Ugly Sleep

If you thing something small can’t have a big impact, think about the mosquito.  Our night in Harar, Ethiopia will forever be the worst night of sleep in my life.  Earlier in the evening Danny had suffered from some digestion issues that left him feverish, shaking and slightly delirious.  With the water out at the hotel, I spent the evening running buckets of water back and forth from our room to the cistern in order to force flush the toilet.  Without our mosquito net and first aid kit, we had broken the two rules of backcountry camping – we had left our survival gear behind.  Needless to say, Danny spent the night feverishly running to the bathroom to kill all assortment of bugs when the lights turned on, only to return to bed to be bothered by mosquitoes.  Zipping around the room all night it felt like we were at war and Danny was the walking wounded.  Getting up for a 3am is generally not easy, but that morning we were all too happy to evacuate and get out of Harar.

 

Ever had a truly memorably night of sleep on the road? What about a bad?  Ever suffered an ugly night of sleep?  Make us feel better about our GBU, share yours!

 

Filed Under: Good, Bad & Ugly, Headline, Journey Tagged With: africa, gbu, memories

Good, Bad, Ugly: Camping

June 16, 2011 By Danny

Guess what…it’s SUMMER. For us in Florida that means sweltering heat but for most everyone else in the northern hemisphere it means it’s time to head out and enjoy the best that nature has to offer. Everyone has a different style when it comes to the great outdoors but it is hard to find a person who doesn’t love a good camping trip. We did a fair bit of camping in our travels, mostly in Africa where we carried our own camping equipment, and those nights have made for some of our fondest memories.

overlanding in sudanThe Good – We were scared to enter Sudan but once we were about to depart we were sad to see it go. It was here that we made a true “bush camp” for the first time, literally pulling over off the side of the road and pitching our tents wherever we wanted. We sat out each night, sitting in the middle of the Saharan Desert with no one else around, enjoying a nice South African Potjie (Poi-kee) and starring at the most amazing stars we’re likely to ever see in our lives. We were constantly on watch for scorpions (didn’t see a single one) and the four of us went through a full 25 liters of water a day. The first night we slept in the shadow of pyramids and on the final night we readied for our ferry to Egypt. When we we boarded our version of a luxurious Nile Cruise (yup slept out on deck) we hadn’t showered in 4 days…it didn’t matter, we were happy!

The Bad – Just a few weeks before our arrival to Sudan we found ourselves in Ethiopia and unable to find a place to stay. We pulled over at a local hotel and squeezed into the parking lot filled with USAID and UNICEF land rovers and were met by the attendant who told us the hotel was full. Naturally it was the only one for miles. With no other option, he charged us 50% of the standard price and allowed us to ‘camp’ in the conference room. I probably don’t need to point out that the only reason a hotel in the middle of nowhere in Ethiopia needs a conference room is so the aid workers can come together and spend a long day talking about Ethiopians…I digress. We had no option but to camp inside this conference room (a couple of other similar hotels had let us use the parking lot) and made it through a very uncomfortable night on a hard tile floor.

Camping tentThe Ugly – We spent only a few days in Lesotho and they were all wonderful. Upon our arrival at the campsite I asked the attendant if it would rain. In climates such as that the answer is only ever yes or no…and this man told me no. He was wrong. Our final night there the rains started to come. They did not stop. We’d pitched our tent on the high ground but there was so much water that it didn’t matter. Water was coming in from both the ceiling of the tent and the floor and we quickly decided to grab all of our things, ditch the tent, and run for cover. There were rondavels (little round cabins) and we managed to break into one. While we were drying out our things and our bodies and trying to get settled in we saw our tent FLOATING away. That’s how much water there was….so much for no rain!

This column of ishouldlogoff.com aims to answer those questions that we always get asked. What was your favorite this, or your worst that. We aim to highlight a new topic and will do so until we run out of ideas. If you have an idea for a Good-Bad-Ugly post, feel free to tell us in the comment section below or send us an email. To read all of them, click here.

Filed Under: Good, Bad & Ugly, Headline, Journey Tagged With: africa, camping, ethiopia, gbu, good-bad-ugly, lesotho, sudan

Good, Bad & Ugly: Food

March 25, 2011 By Jillian

I’m not exactly a gourmet foodie, but I absolutely love trying new and different foods. Sampling new foods was one of our favorite things about traveling around the world. In fact, we started a segment called “Foodie Friday” to highlight all the different foods we were eating. Like all things in life, some were good, some were bad and others were just downright ugly. Looking back on it now, I’m surprised that Good, Bad and Ugly all come from Asia. Not that the food other places wasn’t good, bad or ugly, but these are the memories that stick out.

The Good – India
Indian Thali platter
We arrived in Mumbai at 2:30am exhausted and greeted our couchsurfing hosts in a blur. The next morning we found out that not only were they interesting people, but they could also cook seriously delicious food. So good that I suggested that for their RTW she teach Indian cooking classes at hostels. Delicious. Fortunately this wasn’t a once in a country experience. Everywhere we went, everything we ate in India was downright delicious. From the chai to the dals, naans and everything in between we could hardly get enough. We almost always ordered the Thali platter, an assortment of small dishes on one big platter (think of a Mediterranean mezze) and no matter what came out it was always delicious and the plates cleaned. I’ll never forget eating at a restaurant in Delhi, turning over the menu and seeing their other worldwide locations- Edison, NJ and Manhattan!

The Bad – Central Asia
Chinese Shashlik
Shashlik is simply mutton meatballs on a stick. It’s grilled over a fire and usually served as street food.  The meat is usually mixed with some chopped up onion and it’s generally served with a generous helping of flat white bread, vinegar and raw onions. I’ll get to why in a minute.  We saw it all along the silk road, and for the most part it was pretty similarly spiced and presented.

Shashlik is generally made with the fattiest cuts of meat and more than once there were bits of bone in my shashlik. That’s not too bad though, I mean it happens, at least it’s a sign that it was real meat! The reason shashlik falls under the bad though, is layer of greasy fat it leaves in your mouth. Hence the vinegar and onions- to cut through the fat. It’s not disgusting by any means, but that fatty film just put me off.  It coats your entire mouth and it reminds me of the rendered chicken fat my mom used to keep in the fridge.  Gross. After a few days I wasn’t interested anymore.

The Ugly – Laos
I love home stays mostly for the company, but also for the delicious and authentic food.  Unfortunately we had downright awful food at a home stay in Laos. So bad that it made me gag and vomit in my mouth. Pleasant details, I know. Some sort of ground up organ (you can tell by the texture) and what tasted like dirt. It was awful and for the first time in all of Asia I went to bed hungry.  Ramen for breakfast in LaosIn the morning we had ramen noodles for breakfast, I don’t think I’ve ever been so happy to see instant noodlese before in my life! The rest of the food in Laos was fine, but this meal will always stick out in my head as the worst of the entire trip.

This column of ishouldlogoff.com aims to answer those questions that we always get asked. What was your favorite this, or your worst that. Every week we aim to highlight a new topic and will do so until we run out of ideas. If you have an idea for a Good-Bad-Ugly post, feel free to tell us in the comment section below or send us an email. To read all of them, click here.

Filed Under: Good, Bad & Ugly, Journey Tagged With: food, gbu

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