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El Salvador: My Trip Write Up and Tips
Travel to El Salvador: It’s a place where grimy surfers voluntarily disappear barefoot on black sand beaches for cheap. It’s the type of place that’s getting harder and harder to find. You can order spicy chicken or fish under a thatched roof beach shack. The cook might chase your yard-bird or a fisherman might wrestle in pacific treasures into the boat that morning. It’s bubbling turquoise foam at your feet while the black sand sticks to you like Oreo cookie crumbs. If palm trees, quiet colorful towns, and ungodly amounts of papusas sound enticing, then El Salvador is for you. Mind Open to the New This is an up and…
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Philae Temple: Egypt Files Part 2
EGYPT– The place that has inspired writers and travelers for centuries– ON A SLEEPER TRAIN. I had sand on my skin, caked with sweat. The brim of an adventure hat had shielded me from the inescapable sun that had now set. I pulled the hat from my head, revealing a sticky nest of hair underneath. I ruminated how an age-old adventure could seem brand new, like I was the first to experience it out of all mankind. But I knew I wasn’t. I was on an epic adventure to Aswan and the Temple of Philae. 1854– the British instituted the original tracks from Cairo to Aswan in this year, which…
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Tarangire: Bathing With Elephants + Hunting With Lions, Tanzania
Tarangire National Park was one of my favorite places in Tanzania because of the number of wild elephants. Stepping off the plane at Kilimanjaro, we met our safari team. They had everything perfectly preplanned and ready to go. There was the company owner, who had recruited me online who I’d spoken to for a few months. He introduced himself as White. Several days later, after getting to know him a bit, I would chuckle when I read “Wilson” on his business card. White suited him. “We call him White because he is lighter skinned than us”, the driver Hamisi said. White had a beautiful caramel complexion and was from a…
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Birding Uganda’s Lake Victoria
We barreled down a red dirt road in the western countryside of Entebbe. In Uganda, the roadside was an active area where women balanced baskets on the crowns of their head wearing vibrantly patterned wraps. I closed my eyes, jostled, with each large bump, trying not to miss any of the rural farming sights, where middle aged children went to fetch water in the typical yellow jugs which seemed more fitting to hold gasoline than water. Children as young as three held hoes to help in the family gardens. The termination of the road led to a cove where a group of men gathered around empty boats. They’d been out…
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Lake Bled: Angry Fairies & The Best Souvenir That I Never Wanted
Very rarely do places actually live up to their expectation that I have in my head. That’s what I reminded myself as the car door muffled shut. I climbed up a grassy embankment to the main road, and back down the other side. Lake Bled lay before me. Immediately I was hypnotized by the tall white steeple of the Pilgrimage Church. The church sat on the island in the middle of the lake. Visitors rode Pletna boats out to the island and rang the church bells for wishes. The ringing reverently reverberated over the glass-like surface tension up to the peaks above. My imagination was immediately captivated by legends of…
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My Midwest Road Trip
I’m finishing my freedom road-trip of Covid rebellion. I stayed home for seventy days, then couldn’t take it anymore. I had to go. It was a trip that lead me through middle America, the heartland, the America that most international tourists don’t get to see. It started at the monument of our leading men carved into a natural wonder. We have a history of trying to conquer our land, either in the west, the horizon via skyscrapers, or on the side of a mountain: Mt. Rushmore. The trip went through Minneapolis, where protests gathered. Did you know that some states have bills going that will make it illegal to protest…
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Somaliland
I’d gone into Somaliland with an open heart and an open mind. I’d read so much good news online from the tight knit community of international country collectors. Somaliland wasn’t Somalia; it was supposed to be safe, interesting, and welcoming. Before entering Somaliland, at the gate in Djibouti, I hadn’t covered in my hijab. All of the ladies who had seen my hair now starred a hole through me as I stepped into their country. They were smiling. They were beautiful and mysterious and traveled in women-only-groups. I, on the other hand, even though I was covered, wasn’t mysterious at all. They knew exactly what I looked like without my…
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Ethiopia –Responsible Tourism: Getting Exactly What I Wanted –Then Guiltily Hating It
When I headed to Ethiopia, I really wanted to see wildlife. But sometimes when you get what you want, you find that it isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Nevertheless, a good experience that made me all-the-more hardier for future travels. The title of this article seems harsh. I actually had a wonderful time in Ethiopia. But now more than ever, it’s important to make sure that [our] world travel is environmentally friendly and culturally responsible. Although crowded, the country was indeed beautiful. There were many typical interesting sights like pack donkeys and women carrying firewood. There were also tangled ideas to think about, like the Orthodox religion that…
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NOT IRAQ, KURDISTAN (PART 2): The Peshmerga, Yazidis, Saddam’s Palace Ruins, and the City in the Sky
If you haven’t read Part 1 of this story, I would suggest starting there. Disclaimer: this story isn’t full of the cute narrative misadventures that I typically do. But nevertheless I was sure that there was a story here, somewhere buried beneath the facts, a considerably more important one. Some names have been altered to protect the identity of sources. “ کاروان.” reads as an insider guide who introduced me to his homeland. Peshmerga soldiers furrowed their brows in skepticism when we presented them with our passports. “Tourists? . . . In Kurdistan?” They seemed surprised but waved us through each checkpoint. This particular checkpoint sat at a Peshmerga training…
