 |
I am a retired educator from
Pennsylvania. I have been traveling
every winter since 1999, mostly by myself,
but with occasional visitors and traveling
companions. The idea began as a way
to escape the cold Pennsylvania winters
and the snow, but quickly evolved into
exploratory, soft adventures (not sky
diving, mountain climbing, etc., since I
have a phobia about heights) that expand
my knowledge of the geography that I once
taught in public schools.
Traveling
alone has a few disadvantages, like no one
to share conversation over dinner, but
there are also advantages. The most
important of these is that it requires me
to reach out to people in other countries
for human contact. Trying their language
(even if I have to use a small
Berlitz-type pocket manual to start),
their food, and their customs really gets
me involved with the other culture. I
don't miss the tourist highlights, but I
do it slowly, in the off-season
when the tourists are few and far between.
|
I travel with
no hotel reservations and usually plan
each day as it happens. I
love staying in a place long enough to
learn where the locals eat, so that I can
enjoy the food they eat in their daily
lives.
I stay in
very inexpensive hotels and, because I
usually travel where the dollar goes
farthest, it is sometimes amazing at how
inexpensive this trip is. My first
winter getaway was to drive with a friend to
Costa Rica. We traveled from
Pennsylvania to the Mexican border using
only two-lane roads and then traveled south
through Mexico and Central America to Costa
Rica. It was a sensational experience and I
learned much about the cultures of the
countries through which I passed.
The
following
year I traveled alone on a small motor
scooter that I purchased in Bologna, Italy,
hugging the warm Mediterranean coast through
Italy, France, Spain and Portugal. The
cultural differences and the interesting
people I encounter during my odyssey make
these trips educational as well as fun.
In 2001 I traveled with
my trusty motor scooter once again. I
started in Germany, rode through France,
Belgium, Spain and finally on to Portugal,
before returning to Germany.
In the winter of 2002, I
traveled to Europe for four months. I
taught English to Spanish business
executives for 10 days each in January and
February. After that I traveled
southern Europe, mostly by train on a Eurail
pass, and visited Portugal, Tenerife in the
Canary Islands, France, Italy, Sicily,
Switzerland, and Germany. I then
returned to Madrid where I met my wife and
another couple and embarked on a 17-day
jaunt around southern Spain.
The winter of 2003 saw me
depart from home in the beginning of January
and meander to Miami. I took ferries
crossing the Outer Banks, visited friends in
Sarasota, and stayed with a nephew in Miami
before leaving for Rio De Janeiro, Brazil,
where I spent two months basking and
sweating profusely in the sun and oppressive
heat. I absorbed much Brazilian culture in
this beautiful city on the south Atlantic
and especially enjoyed seeing Carnival, the
most spectacular human event I have ever
witnessed. Iguacu Falls on the Pirana River
straddled between Argentina and Brazil was
an equally spectacular natural phenomenon.
In
the winter of 2004, I put 12,000 miles on my
1986 Volvo by driving to California, then
down the Baja. I took a ferry from there to
the Mexican Riviera (think Mazatlan, Ixtapa,
Puerta Vallarta, and Acapulco), before
meeting a friend in Mexico City. We then
drove together through Central America to
Costa Rica, where I really did escape the
snow. Another friend flew to Costa Rica and
rode back with me to Mexico City. I
continued by myself from Mexico City, along
the Gulf of Mexico, and finally back home.
The old Volvo held up nicely, although a few
overheating problems made the trip more
memorable. The car is doing fine, sporting a
new radiator, and has just passed the
225,000 mile mark. She (her name is Glee -
you'll have to read the trip's log) will get
a rest this winter, however.
Back to teaching English
in Spain in the winter of 2005, my efforts
for two weeks of free room and board, the
only compensation for teaching to Spanish
business executives, returned me to a
country that I love very much. The
students were wonderful and enthusiastic as
always. After two weeks of teaching, I
headed to Tangiers, Morocco, for my first
visit to the African continent. I
returned to Spain after three days and
experienced the thrill of Carnival in Cadiz,
in southern Spain. I stayed with an
architect, a student in my just completed
English class and had a fantastic time at
the celebration I found more intimate and
exciting than the Carnival in Rio that I
experienced a couple of years earlier.
After Carnival, I headed
to Cascais in Portugal where my wife and
friends visited me for a couple of weeks in
a whirlwind tour of Portugal. On the
way home, I traveled to Prague in the Czech
Republic for three days, then trained
through Slovakia to Budapest, Hungary, where
I met friends from a pub back home on their
annual junket. Then, it was back home
through London to reintroduce myself to my
grandchildren and the rest of my family.
2007 took me to
Buenos Aires where I spent a few days
discovering the so-called Paris of South
America with its many unique neighborhoods
before my friend, Schim, whom I met one year
teaching English in Spain, joined me for a
three-week trip by bus and ferry through a
wide swath of South America. We
traveled to Uruguay, across the grasslands
of Argentina to the wine center of Mendoza,
then through the Andes to Chile where we
explored Santiago and two cities on the
Pacific coast. Schim returned to the
friendly environs of Orlando, Florida, after
three weeks and I continued to Lima, Cuzco,
and Machu Picchu in Peru. After the
exhilarating visit to Machu Picchu, I headed
for Panama and a reunion with my family that
included a great fishing trip. Most of
the family accompanied me to Costa Rica for
a three-day visit before they, too, headed
home. I finished the year's adventure
with five weeks of solitary lounging around
San Jose, reveling in the dry, warm climate
that reminds me of San Diego,
California. It was a delightful way to
complete a hectic winter of touring.
I keep my
adventures posted here on the World Wide
Web, so friends and family can keep up with
my journey. I make occasional stops at
Internet Cafes along the way, enabling me to
communicate with family and friends, some of
whom, for whatever reason, seem to worry
about me. I invite you to follow along
as I update the web page along the way.
|
|
