The Honeymoon is NOT Over!

Twelve months ago today we set out on the journey of a lifetime. After countless tuktuks, 75 trains, 41 buses, 26 pick-up trucks, 25 airplanes, 21 boatrides, 3 motorcycles, 3 horses, 2 camels and 1 helicopter (but no partridge in a pear tree) we find ourselves sitting in Frankfurt killing time reflecting on our experiences before boarding our final flight home. A day that we thought that would never come. At any point in our trip, the return flight seemed so far away; yet in retrospect the year has passed so quickly. We have lived amongst poverty and wealth; kindness and con-men; and seen natural and manmade wonders. We feel lucky to have had the opportunity to experience and see more than many do in a lifetime.
Travel does not come without challenge, fortunately the most difficult experiences have evolved into great stories while the good times and kind people we met live on as great memories. The number one question already posed to us has been “where was your favourite place?” A question that is impossible to provide a single answer for. Let’s demonstrate this challenge with the following list:

Favorite People: Myanmar
Favorite Museum: The Apartheid Museum, Johannesburg, South Africa
Favorite Meal: Le Calandre Restaurant, Padua, Italy
Favorite Sailing Destination: Cyclades Islands, Greece
Favorite Beach: Ko Rok Nok, Thailand
Favorite Natural Wonder:(tie): Goreme, Turkey; Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe, Emerald Cave, Thailand
Favorite Architecture: Spain (Gaudi & Frank Gehry)
Favorite Wines: Tuscany, Italy
Favorite Party: Running of the Bulls Pamplona, Spain
Favorite Man-made Wonder: Angkor Wat, Cambodia
Most Beautiful City: Capetown, South Africa
Most sobering place: Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp, Berlin Germany
Most photogenic city: Venice, Italy
Heftiest dose of culture shock: Rajasthan, India

And the list goes on… if you dare ask the question!!
Although you all may think we just ate and drank our way around the world we actually learned a few things. Adam wanted to write something corny about the “interconnectedness of mankind” but let’s just say this: world events seem more personal than they were prior to this trip. Having visited cities like Istanbul and Jaipur prior to this year’s bombings, countries like Myanmar prior to the hurricaine, and Zimbabwe days before the sham election, gives a whole new perspective to events that often seem so removed from our daily lives. We often ignore the fact that they are impacting real human beings just like us. Okay we promise, no more soapboxing!
Now time for the sap… we often joked that we would probably come back from our honeymoon divorced after spending so much time together. We have derived a mathematical formula that based on the fact that we’ve spent 24 hours a day together for an entire year is probably equivalent to the average couple being married for 10 years. Guess what…. no divorce in sight and surprisingly few arguments! We did fall into different roles in order to successfully negotiate our journey. Adam’s department: major transportation, technology (of course), and communications. Jen: accommodation, dining, daily itineraries, and the often dreaded journal keeping- (volume three is currently in progress). As previously mentioned, it wasn’t all fun and games and there were occasionally moments where one or the other of us was ready to jump on the next flight to Vancouver. Inevitably one would pull the other up by the bootstraps and make the world right again. When undertaking a journey like this you only have each other to rely on. It tests the strengths and exposes flaws, making or breaking the relationship. In our experience it has definitely been a positive influence.
We look forward to the next chapter of our lives together, spending it with our friends and family that we have missed so much this past year.
Beware the eight hour slide show of 9,800 photos that we plan on inflicting upon you soon!

Honeymoon in Kazakhstan

Off we went to Kazakhstan! We had planned a surprise wedding gift excursion for Natalie and Martin but Martin’s constant quest for clues forced us to create a rouse. We told Nat to pack a desert camoflauge burka and Martin a few pounds of shrapnel for the pipe- bomb classes. We have to admit after three weeks of developing this story, Martin became rather enthusiastic at the prospect of playing with Molotov cocktails…. Should we be worried?
Although the final destination was to be Venice, we further threw them off with one night in Padua enroute. What’s in Padua? Not too much except a fabulous restaurant, “Le Calandre” which more than made it worth the stop. The food was exquisite and the staff had struck the perfect balance between professional and fun. A gift of a “Venice” guidebook over dinner disclosed the next destination. The next morning we made the short journey by train. Arriving at the hotel by water taxi certainly had it’s charm but more importantly surely saved us a few hours as we would’ve never found the tiny back alley that provides land access to the obscure rear entrance to the hotel. Oh yes and there was the fact that Adam had put his back out before leaving Tuscany (the fact that his backpack contained it’s usual contents plus 7 bottles of wine had nothing to do with it of course) so the three of us were thankful to not have to haul the extra luggage over all the little bridges of Venice. We set Natalie and Martin loose during the couple of days to soak in all the sights while we fine tuned our plans for the evenings. Of course the trip would not have been complete without a sunset gondola ride with champagne. We were too selfish to send them off on their own so we joined them to spoil the romance and get our share of the bubbles and the inevitable laughter and fun.
Over the last several weeks it was so enjoyable for us to not have to figure out where to live and how to get there (our jobs for the past year) because Nat and Martin had spent so much time planning this leg of our journey together. After seven weeks of the four of us being together and countless laughs and stories, it’s time for us to separate; Nat and Martin continuing on to Rome and us…. starting our journey back to Vancouver!!!!!!!

Under The Tuscan Sun

En route from Cinque Terres to Tuscany we decided to stop in Pisa along the way so Natalie and Martin could see the famed Leaning Tower of Pisa. While babysitting the bags at the train station we discovered that there would be no train to pick us up for the remainder of our journey. Thirty minutes later when Nat and Martin returned we made the mad dash across town (on foot) to the central station, arriving just in time for our train.
A brief stopover in Florence found us with some wheels and more importantly, Natalie’s Mom, Anita. What is a visit to Tuscany without a stop at the “instamatic wine dispensary” in Greve. Yes, this is the one we’ve already visited two other times in the past year but we couldn’t resist introducing the gang to this wine-lover’s paradise. With purple teeth we set out to our home for the next week. Apparently having four backseat drivers does not improve one’s odds of navigating (especially when they’re all wined-up), as we had some difficulty finding our villa. At last we arrived at our quaint little farmhouse set on a working olive orchard. We were greeted by our fast-talking, sharp witted Welsh hostess, who proved to be invaluable in organizing wine tours, food, and more wine tours.
In between all the Brunellos, Chianti’s, Supertuscans, and Nobiles we managed to squeeze in visits to Siena, Florence, and San Giminiano. We also stopped in at an Abbey to listen to some Gregorian chanting. Although harmonious, the monks seemed a little distracted: one turning up late in his track pants, another cracking his knuckles, and of course there was a nose picker amongst them as well.
Our visit concluded with a delicious meal in the company of our fellow guests at the olive orchard all seated along a huge farmhouse table under the Tuscan sky.

Cinque Terres

After a long day of trains, planes, and automobiles; we arrived in Montorosso. We did get a fleeting glance of the leaning tower of Pisa as we whipped past with our cheeks pressed up against the window of the train. Montorosso is one of five villages perched along the rocky coastline of the Italian Riviera known as Cinque Terres (Five Lands). Each of the quaint towns can be visited by bus, train, boat, or foot. Having done a lot of sitting around on the boat for two weeks, we figured the latter option would be most beneficial. We worked up quite a sweat in the 35 C heat clambering along the undulating paths between the villages. We were rewarded with a couple of swims, gelati, and a delicious lunch at an authentic Italian taverna. The wine and lemoncillo certainly did not qualify as performance-enhancing. We did the return journey by boat taking in the view of the villages from the water. The next couple of days were spent kayaking to one of the villages, doing the hike in the opposite direction (at a far less leisurely pace), and spending some time on the beach. With sore legs we ventured off in anticipation of some therapeutic wine consumption in Tuscany!

Acropolis Now

Our journey landed us in Athens for a couple of nights. Of course our first priority was to attend to our personal grooming. Freshly soaped, shaven, moisturized, and desanded we spent the next couple of days exploring the ancient ruins of Athens. (The male of contingency of the group wants everyone to know that they did NOT moisturize). Walking amongst the ruins, it was moving knowing that Socrates and Plato once strolled these very paths…. Then our thoughts were interrupted by the 200 decibel cries of an old Greek lady screaming into her cellular phone. Of course by Greek standards this probably meant she was having a pleasant chat with her friend. The generally cranky attitudes of the Athenians contrasted starkly with the hospitable and warm interactions that we had had with the locals of the islands. The evenings were spent soaking in the awe-inspiring view of the Acropolis from a more distant and comfy spot on the rooftop bar of our hotel. We look forward to recounting the history through an evening of Greek movies including Homer’s The Odyssey and of course….”My Big Fat Greek Wedding”

The Cyclades Chronicles Part II

Santorini proved to be a highlight, sailing through the crater of an active volcano was definitely a surreal experience. The following day found us in a former pirate hideaway, a sandstone cove with plenty of caves to hide treasures in. The crystal clear, turquoise waters and network of cave tunnels through which to swim quickly sold us on staying for the night rather than the couple of hours that we had originally planned. We lucked out with the most scenic and private anchorage in the bay right next to the cliffs. We were a little unnerved when we witnessed a large chunk of sandstone crumbling away and landing within a couple of metres of another boat but luckily we made it through the night unscathed. Onwards we sailed to the main harbour of Milos, birthplace of the lovely Venus di Milo. Nat and Jen decided to buy some fresh fish from the neighbouring fishing boat which proved too small and tedious to clean with the boats inadequate utensils so the fish were relegated to dolphin bait. Natalie took us by rental car on a roller coaster ride to the beaches and towns around Milos. This involved squeezing down narrow streets, many hand brake starts and careening around numerous blind corners. Our wild ride took us to a beach that resembled a lunar landscape (see photo) and our other beach excursion found us amply exfoliated due to the small sandstorm stirred up by the wind. We returned to discover our boat dwarfed in the shadow of the “Mother-Ship”, a super-luxury motor yacht named” Siren”. Further research revealed it to be the #77 on the biggest, baddest, luxury yacht in the world list. Yours for only US$600,000 per week!! We kept an eye out for Oprah or Elton but only saw a couple well preserved octogenarians disembarking.
After Milos came the “baiting of the dolphins” or perhaps more accurately “torturing of the dead fish”. Nat and Jen had hatched an elaborate scheme of luring the dolphins to the “Jen and Nat academy of Dolphin Acrobatics”. The thought of living in a dinghy full of water must not have appealed to our flippered friends because strangely enough we didn’t attract any in spite of the disembowelled fish dragging along behind our boat.
The following day was off leisurely start, we even began the lofty undertaking of personal grooming. With Natalie half-naked and Martin half-shaved, there was an abrupt call to all hands-on-deck. The wind had shifted and caused us to drag anchor towards some nasty looking rocks. Our personal hygiene was delayed for yet another day as we quickly pulled up anchor and set our course for the day. The dolphins finally showed up again but Martin’s childhood “Flipper” dreams went unfulfilled despite his best efforts to get the dolphins to frolic with him in the water. A couple nights later found us in the legendary party island of Mykinos. We spent a couple days exploring the white washed village and visiting beaches with names such as “Paradise” and “Superparadise”. Perhaps Fabulous and Superfabulous would have been better names given the teensy white speedos and fantastic drag shows that got started as the sun set on the beach. The evenings were spent gallivanting around town and getting our last dose of the Cyclades night-life before heading back to Syros to return Ionia to her home base.