• Home
  • About
    • Who We are
    • Affiliates
    • Disclosures & Guidelines
    • FAQs
    • Privacy Notice
  • Funding Your Travels
    • Banking on the Road
    • Credit Cards in Our Wallet
    • Spending
  • Contact
    • Media
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Partnership Opportunities

i should log off

log off and live!

  • Travel & Planning
    • Travel Reflections
      • Good, Bad & Ugly
      • Re-Entry
    • Travel Resources
      • Travel Tips
      • Travel Bloggers
    • Reviews
      • Gear
      • Operators
      • Travel Clothing
    • Travel Gear
      • Cameras
      • Danny’s Clothes
      • Electronics
      • Health & Hygiene
      • Jillian’s Clothes
      • General Gear
  • Destinations
    • Travel Guides
    • Africa
      • Egypt
      • Ethiopia
      • Lesotho
      • Kenya
      • Malawi
      • Morocco
      • Mozambique
      • Namibia
      • South Africa
      • Sudan
      • Swaziland
      • Tanzania
      • Uganda
      • Zimbabwe
    • Asia & Oceania
      • Armenia
      • Cambodia
      • China
      • Georgia
      • India
      • Kazakhstan
      • Laos
      • Thailand
      • Turkey
      • Uzbekistan
      • Vietnam
    • Caribbean
      • Antigua
      • Cuba
      • Jamaica
    • Central America
      • Belize
      • Costa Rica
      • Guatemala
      • Honduras
      • Nicaragua
      • Panama
    • Europe
      • Armenia
      • Austria
      • Belgium
      • Czech Republic
      • France
      • Georgia
      • Germany
      • Hungary
      • Italy
      • Spain
      • Turkey
    • North America
      • Canada
      • Mexico
      • USA
    • Middle East
      • Egypt
      • Israel
      • Jordan
      • Oman
      • Turkey
    • South America
      • Argentina
      • Brazil
      • Bolivia
      • Chile
      • Colombia
      • Ecuador
      • Peru
      • Uruguay
  • Weekend Adventures
    • Cycle
      • Pastimes
        • Beer & Wine
        • Books
        • Cooking
        • History & Culture
    • Dive & Snorkel
    • Hike
    • Trek
    • Whitewater
  • Photos
    • Photo of the Day
  • Family Travel
You are here: Home / Archives for crafts

Photo: Crazy Face

November 8, 2011 By Jillian

Before the conquest of the Incan civilization, other groups and tribes dotted the Andes mountain range.  Much of their culture was recorded in the pottery which they used day to day.  From water jugs to symbolic fertility statues, the National Museum in Lima holds an incredible collection and variety of ceramic pottery from around the Andes.

Although there are tons of ceramic objects on display, the geometric shapes on this pot and the expressiveness of the face in clay, make this one of the most memorable.

 

To see more of our favorite photos from around the world check out our travel photo page. Let us know your favorites and we’ll include them in our photo of the day series.

IF YOU GO: Lima has just a few museums worthwhile, this being one of them.  Don’t miss the Incan Gold Museum or some of the art galleries just off the main plaza.  Being the center of the Spanish world in South America, Lima has an interesting smattering of European and native architecture, art and religion.

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: crafts, museums, pottery

Photo: Clay Animals

September 19, 2011 By Jillian

We wandered off the path hiking to see ancient hieroglyphs in Lesotho. Fortunately we found a young cattle herdsman, who showed us the way after an elaborate game of charades. Hiking through a cave we saw these small clay animals. We were unsure if they were for sale or on display, but we marveled at the simplicity and yet the artistry of the animals.

We later determined that modeling animals, especially cattle out of clay is a bit of a hobby for young boys, whose job it often is to look out for the cattle. We met such a boy another afternoon in Lesotho, and sheltered under a rock during a storm, we shared a few vocabulary words, laughs and a snack.

To see more of our favorite photos from around the world check out our travel photo page. Let us know your favorites and we’ll include them in our photo of the day series.

Clay animals in Lesotho

 

IF YOU GO:Lesotho is a mountainous country and great for hiking. The people are incredibly friendly, especially the children. We spent our time at Malealea Lodge, which is frankly probably where you’ll end up if you go. It was an incredibly wonderful stay, very worth the potholes and bumpy car ride to get there.

Filed Under: photos Tagged With: crafts, hobbies

Ephesus

August 16, 2010 By Jillian

From Istanbul we joined the backpacker circuit of Turkey and made our way down to Selcuk and the ruins of Ephesus. You can imagine our surprise when we arrived in Selcuk not to the hassle of a thousand touts, but rather polite offers of just a few.

IMGP6083Our expectations were high for the Ephesus ruins. Since the eastern Mediterranean is a seismic zone, most of the ancient Greek and ancient Roman ruins found in Asia Minor are piles of rubble. The draw to Ephesus is that much of the city has been recovered in decent condition and significantly reconstructed. The unfortunate side of this is that some of the areas have been very poorly restored with poured concrete that detracts from the grandeur of the architecture and design.

Ephesus was the capital of Asia Minor under the Roman Empire. That means it had a huge population, probably about 200,000, a large harbor and an immense amount of commercial activity. IMGP6108All of that translates to some very rich residents who built extravagant homes, and paid taxes to build an impressive library and theater. The terrace homes, covered in mosaics and frescoes are reminiscent of the homes at Pompeii and are being reconstructed and preserved as we speak.

The ‘piece de resistance’ in Ephesus is the facade of the library, which has been rebuilt on site. Not just the walls, but even some of the statues in the niches survived the ravages of time in decent condition. It’s a beautiful look at what public buildings may have looked like during the Roman empire. For me it was remarkable to see it reconstructed on site in stead of in a Museum. IMGP6124The scale of the theater is spectacular, although much of the decoration has been lost. Unlike the ruins of other theaters, you enter from the stage level, rather than from above, giving visitors the unique actor’s perspective.

A small city adjoining the ancient site, Selcuk is a lovely place to pass a few quiet days. Many of the hotels and pensions have quaint courtyards to pass away the mid-day heat and the downtown area is bustling with little restaurants and shops. In the evening, the local park is full of men drinking tea and having a late night snack. The whole town is understated, which is rather unusual for a touristy place. Most of the tourists seem to be on day trips from their cruise ships in Kushadasi, which might be why the place has maintained its small town charm.

IMGP6112 Stopping into a textile shop to take a break from the sun, we were invited to tea, a rather common occurrence here in Turkey. Like in Istanbul, we were quickly in the midst of an unlikely discussion on politics in Turkey (specifically the eastern areas) and it was almost two hours later when we walked back into the sunshine having felt like we made a friend. Rather ironically, we later figured out that it was the same shop in which another travel blogging couple had purchased a kilim nearly a year ago!

If you go: Turkey’s cultural sites have rather steep admission fees and its not uncommon to have to pay additional for the “highlights” once you get in. The terrace homes for example, are an additional 15TL once you are inside Ephesus the 20TL site. As always, avoid the middle of the day. If you are spending the night in Selcuk, go in the late afternoon (2-3 hrs at the site is sufficient for the average traveler) to avoid the cruiseship tours which overrun the site in the morning. Marble ruins are gorgeous at sunset anyway! Most pensions and hotels in Selcuk have free transportation to the site, just ask to be dropped at the top. It’s a lovely and shady 3km walk back to Selcuk on the new bike path, which takes you passed the only column of Artemis’ temple, one of the Ancient World’s 7 wonders of the world. Buses connect Selcurk with all nearby cities and sites almost hourly and there is overnight service with several companies from Istanbul.

Filed Under: Europe, Headline, History & Culture, Middle East, Turkey Tagged With: ancient sites, crafts, ruins

Nairobi: A small series of unfortunate events….

April 14, 2010 By Jillian

After too few days in Lamu, we returned to Nairobi to drop Nikki off for her return to the US. Nairobi is the opposite of Lamu. Loud, chaotic and cosmopolitan we were immediately caught in the middle of the biggest city in East Africa. Awful traffic, drizzling weather and finding a place to stay well after dark, our initial impressions of Nairobi were awful. Nairobbery it’s often called, and on that first night we were on guard against everyone and everything.

Things are always better the next morning, especially in a city where there’s the opportunity for some retail therapy. You may remember in Zimbabwe we purchased some beautiful stone sculptures. Shipping them home, we were devastated to find out that not only had they broken but in fact they were “pulverized.” Unable to console ourselves, we’ve made it our mission to figure out how to get back to Zimbabwe on this trip and purchase more- suggestions are always welcome! In the mean time, we’ve looked for similar art everywhere and although it’s mostly copycat stuff made from soapstone here in East Africa, we took a chance and headed to the City Market in Nairobi to have a look around.

If you hate hard bargaining, stay away from this place. Seriously. It was a nightmare of pushy salesmen, vendors and hawkers who not only shouted at you, but also tried to physically pull you into their stores. Prices started at nearly 10 times a reasonable price and after just an hour we could hardly stand it anymore. Fortunately a year of practice has given us the ability to sniff out a fair deal and a genuine tradesman, so although it was a harrowing experience, we came out loaded with crafts, paintings and even a stone sculpture or two. Thankfully we had a very willing courier and a very large plastic duffel bag to transport everything safely home.

Feeling better about Nairobi and a series of small unfortunate events that have been plaguing us the last few weeks, we put Nikki on her plane and returned to the city. Only to find our room key missing. Astonishingly, this is the first time in more than a year of travel that we’ve lost a room key. Unable to find a working spare, we spent the night in another room and waiting to break in until the morning. The hostel people were wonderful about the key, and had a working spare made for us so we didn’t have to destroy anything to get to our toothbrushes. Twenty minutes later we realized that we had made a costly mistake in our travel planning- Ethiopia does not give visas at its land borders. Gathering our passports, we rushed to the Ethiopian embassy to try and get our visas processed before the weekend. Of course, they were closed for an extended weekend…until Tuesday which meant we’d have to wait at least five more days in Nairobbery.

It seems as though everyone comes through Nairobi, so although we were stuck for five days waiting for the embassy to open, we had plans nearly every day with other travelers, ex-pats, friends of friends and colleagues who happened to be in Nairobi the same time. It’s weird to realize that we’re nearly half way around the world and we know a bevy of people here. On top of that we have half decent internet here for the first time since leaving a continent with the word “America” in it and have enjoyed walking around town a bit.

The manager of the hostel we’re at told Danny that he’s been here for 23 years and that 10 years ago travelers like us were mugged on a daily basis. Now however, he hasn’t had a single mugging amongst his clientèle in the last 8 years. Maybe Nairobi is getting better after all.

Filed Under: Africa, Headline, Kenya Tagged With: cities, crafts, market, shopping, travel

Connect With Us

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Flickr
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • Twitter

Featured Posts

Our Bucket List
How We Travel For Free
$ Travel Tips

Recent Comments

  • Barbara on Kayaking Kauai’s Na Pali Coast
  • Lori Hubbard on Review: Eneloop Batteries and Charger
  • TK on The Trouble with Philadelphia

Banking on the Road

It can be very hard to keep track of your finances while you're on the road long-term. Be sure to check out how we took care of our finances while traveling and feel free to email us any questions you have.

Adventure Guides

Torres Del Paine
China Adventure
Uzbekistan Overland
Egyptian Odyssey
Malaria
Argentina Adventure
DIY African Safari
South Africa Guide
Bolivia by Bus
How-To African Visas

[footer_backtotop]

Copyright 2008-2015 · All Rights Reserved · Contact I Should Log Off · RSS · Partner With Us · Privacy