A Traveler's Dilemma

All of our possessions

The thoughts in my head this morning are as follows, in order of importance.:

1. I am very glad to be of a less-than-average height American
2. Why are all the clothes in Mongolia so small and all the hats so big and what does that tell you about the average Mongolian?
3. Why is it impossible to find a winter hat in the coldest capital on the planet?
4. Where the hell is our luggage?
5. I am never, ever, checking luggage again.

Sure there are other things flying through my head such as why do they drive on the right in Mongolia and sit on the right? But these random thoughts are more of a white noise barely heard over the five listed items that boom through my head like a Victor Wooten bass line in the front row of his concert.

As I sat contently in my coach seat on a twelve hour flight to Beijing and wrote to you about the adventure we sought and the time-traveling we hoped to do in Mongolia, little did I know that the luggage that we packed and re-packed half a dozen times the night before was probably still sitting on the tarmac at LAX. Both Amanda and I landed in Mongolia with no bags – a feat that I dare anyone to repeat. I believe 99% of statisticians would agree that this event is statistically extremely improbable.

This happened to us once before when we landed in Cairo in January, 2011. This time was a little different though. Remember when I told you how we were coming to Mongolia to shun modernity and embrace the old world? This is easy to say when you have a pack in the trunk of your plane containing modern wonders such as rain jackets, sleeping bags, hiking boots and at least a few changes in underwear.

In Egypt we travelled for nearly a week before our bags were delivered to us in Luxor. In Mongolia I just don't think that's going to happen. We arrived to our hotel at around 1PM and, after a serious talk over some meat and noodles, decided to go forward with our planned itinerary. We hopped a bus to the Black Market where we loaded up on the essentials for cheap: hats, rain ponchos, socks, undies, a duffle, some clothes, a flashlight, shoes (I flew here in flip flops (face-palm)), toiletries, and a dozen snickers bars.

I now write to you from the last row of our small propeller-driven airplane headed northwest to the Hovsgol region and the Darkhad Depression. The plan is to see the Naadam festival, go on a three day horse trek, and spend a day relaxing at the lake. At this point, I don't know what to expect. For fear of sounding too whiney, I've left out the other, much smaller issues that have challenged our enthusiasm to be here in the first 24 hours.

Yet, as I stare out the window at the beautiful lush rolling hills of green spread as far as the eye can see, I am optimistic that our luck will improve, our outlook will brighten, and the small hooded coat that we took from our hotel's lost and found will keep us warm. We refuse to give in. We asked for adventure, and we have an adventure.

Why Mongolia?

Mongolia: 1/7 

July 5, 2013

In the last few weeks I've been asked repeatedly by nearly everyone with whom the topic arises: “Why Mongolia?”

Unfortunately I was consistently unable come up with an answer that was both honest and interesting at the same time. That's not to say that the truth of our choice isn't interesting, but merely that most people simply can't fathom why anyone would spend thousands of dollars to fly half -way across the globe to stay in tents for two weeks skipping such modern luxuries as the internet, paved roads, showers, electricity, or even fresh fruit.

If I have to be perfectly honest, of all the destinations Amanda has taken me, this one is by far the most desolate and the most adventurous. As I sit on this airplane crossing the Bearing Straight headed for Beijing, I ponder what the next two weeks will bring. This will likely be our most expensive and at the same time most uncomfortable journey to date. We will arrive in Ulaanbaatar and begin a 14 day private tour with a driver and a guide. These hired folks will show us the Naadam festival, the reindeer herders of the north, the beautiful lake Hovsgod, and of course the Gobi Desert. We will do most of the traveling by jeep and horseback.

Why are we doing it? A sense of urgency I suppose. In a world completely engulfed in media, technology, and instantaneous updating, Mongolia seems our last great option to explore a simpler way of life. Many Mongolians still live entirely off the land in nomadic fashion. Yet, as with every culture Mongolia is modernizing itself with breathtaking pace. Our guide and driver will introduce us to these people living in ways similar to their ancestors two thousand years ago. Sure we will miss such luxuries as beds and restaurants. However, this is the very reason we will be going.

It's been a busy few weeks leading up to now with very little time to sit and consider this trip. To all of our friends and family who asked: “Why Mongolia?” The answer is quite simple. It's a fading opportunity to travel back in time and we intend not to miss it.  (Photos in the next entry, I promise)

Apostle Islands, Wisconsin

    I will forever remember the Apostle Islands as the place where I was taught that, despite being thirty years old and married, we can still be scared like a little trembling children. There’s not much in this world that truly scares me. Apparently a violent thunderstorm while camping on a tiny island off the northern tip of Wisconsin is one of them.  The lightning flashed with such frequency that it created a strobe effect as Amanda and I peered through the tiny window on the roof of our tent at the trees above flashing and dancing in the storm. That wasn't the scary part. The rain came in spurts, sometimes heavy. That wasn’t the scary part. What truly made me fear my maker was the wind. The sound started with a whisper and steadily grew with every bolt of lightning above. Within twenty minutes we were certain there was a tornado. We heard the train roaring through. The sound was absolutely deafening. I was waiting for trees to start falling. It roared and howled for another twenty minutes and then it quickly dissipated.

    Amanda and I let out a sigh of relief and went back to worrying about the bear that paid our campsite a visit three hours earlier. 

 
    The Apostle Islands consist of 22 islands of similar shapes and sizes. We had chosen to explore them by sea kayak. It was a quick adventure. We spent only two nights on the islands. I would guess we kayaked about thirty miles in total. The islands were indeed beautiful. Each island boasted red rock cliffs the fell into Lake Superior forming caves and beautiful sculptures on their way to the water’s edge.

    The windy conditions and accompanying whitecaps made our crossing from island to island more harrowing and difficult than we would have hoped for. However, once we reached the leeward side of the islands we were greeted by beautiful and peaceful calm. We sat in our tandem kayak and watched the bald eagles skillfully hunt fish from the lake. We ended both days by eating our dinner on the west-facing beaches eating our pre-planned dinners. It was a memorable and sometimes scary adventure that we will always remember. 

 

Isle Royale

    “Are you the passengers on the flight off the island?” The approaching long-haired park ranger asked the four of us. The answer of course was “yes” as we sat on a dock wearing self inflating orange personal flotation devices staring at a plane floating in the water with all of our bags on board. “We’re in a holding pattern” he replied back.

    About thirty minutes prior to this Ranger’s uninspired attempt to cover the truth, Amanda and I, along with Willy and John, two guys who had been fishing for the past seven days from a canoe, were sitting in that small seaplane. Our pilot had loaded us up and was untying from the dock when a different Park Ranger with a crew-cut motored up in a boat, tied off, and began arguing with the pilot. It was odd. The pilot told the Ranger that he had to fly, the weather was changing for the worse, and that he had been docked for over an hour and would have been happy to discuss said dispute which brought this overzealous park ranger to our dock that day, but now, he had to fly.

    Then the Taser gun came out.  The pilot, obviously fraught with disbelief, took one look at that Taser in the crew-cut Park Ranger’s hand and walked away. Not that I can blame him. However, as the park ranger chased after him, Taser in hand, us four passenger were left in a situation that none of us had ever encountered before. Being the obedient humans we are, we sat on the plane waiting for someone to tell us to do otherwise. The boat taxi driver came by about fifteen minutes later advising us that he thought we’d be here a while.  So we de-planed ourselves.

    After the long-haired park ranger proudly used his airport lingo on us, Amanda and I decided to hike over to the only restaurant on this remote island in Lake Superior for some much needed lunch.  We had, in fact, hiked more than seven miles that morning without a proper meal.

 

 

    Our adventure began four days prior. The same pilot flew us from the Houghton/Hancock airport in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. That’s the part of Michigan with trees and moose, rather than blighted cities and car factories.  Thirty minutes later we landed in the bay at Windigo on the west end of Isle Royale.  Isle Royale is the least visited National Park in the country. It is an island about 40 miles long and maybe ten miles wide, boasting healthy moose and wolf populations and no bears. 

     

    The four day trek from the west to the east end of the island was absolutely wonderful. We averaged about 11 miles per day. The weather was perfect. And while we never saw a moose or wolf, we spent hours upon hours simply soaking up the raw, untamed beauty of nature in this pristine island ecosystem. In day one we saw one other group of hikers. In day two we saw one other hiker. We camped on the water and drank from the lakes. Each day we looked forward to reaching our next campsite so that we could just relax and get bored in nature. Isle Royale was not the most beautiful or most challenging hike we had ever completed. But it was somehow the most comfortable. The path was mostly soft dirt, the climbs were never more than 800 feet, and there were no bears to worry about. The weather was nearly perfect and the mosquitoes nearly non-existent. The trip was perfect, except for one thing.

    As Amanda and I drank our beers at this only island restaurant, discussing the amazing hike we had just completed, we saw our pilot being escorted in handcuffs. Great.

      I will abruptly end this story by saying we never got our food.  A third Park Ranger rushed us off away from our beers to the plane and suddenly our pilot appeared in front of us. We flew away feeling a bit like escaped convicts.  It was a strange ending to an otherwise incredible adventure. We don’t know exactly what was going on between the pilot and the Park Service. However, the pilot seemed calm enough and we landed safely at the airport thirty minutes later. I’m pretty sure the one passenger waiting to fly back to the island was certain the plane had crashed over Lake Superior. Nobody had told him a thing in the two hours he sat alone at the tiny airport. He looked scared out of his mind. We asked him to take our photo.

High Stakes in the Great Lakes

    We skipped stones into lakes Huron, Michigan, and Superior. We rode bikes through the Tunnel of Trees. We rode a tandem around the perimeter of the car-less vacation destination of Macinac Island. We flew in a sea plane. We hiked 44 miles in four days across Isle Royale. We ate whitefish for breakfast. We kayaked in Lake Superior for three days. We spent the night on an island all by ourselves. We admired maple, birch, helm, and countless other tress. We saw bald eagles, bears, snakes, and everything in between. We ate amazing meals and not so amazing meals. We camped six out of eleven nights. We hiked in the sand dunes. We contemplated life while staring at the calm Lake Michigan. We traveled from Wisconsin to Michigan in the last operating coal powered steam ship in the country. We visited with family, we danced at a wedding, and we got bored in nature. Most importantly, we loved every minute of it. We cooked twelve meals from a camping stove aptly named a “Pocket Rocket”.  We read, we talked, and we sat in silence. We drove nearly 1500 miles passing hundreds of lakes.

 

    Amanda and I skipped a foreign destination for this year’s big vacation. We instead opted to explore Amanda’s own backyard. The great lakes are an incredible, if not underrated, region of our country.  We encountered endless miles of beautiful farmland set amongst dense and healthy forests. It is a region that while heavily populated, still has a lot to offer in the way of solemn serenity.  Our Great Lakes vacation may not have been our most scenic or interesting destination that we have embarked on. However, what it lacked in these qualities it made up for in other ways. We loved the hospitality and immaculately manicured gardens. We loved the clean trails and litter-free highways. We gawked at the endless miles of vacation homes lining hundreds of lakes busy with vacationers from further south. We engulfed ourselves in the nature and aside from one violent thunder storm, never worried about a thing. Everything went according to plan, including the weather.

    We ended the trip in Amanda’s hometown of Ann Arbor for her dad’s birthday. The only thing Amanda and I enjoyed more than the trip itself was each other’s company. 

Bacadehuachi, Mexico

Bacadehuachi is a miniscule ranch town of about 1500 people in eastern Sonora, Mexico. Set in a gorgeous valley alongside a perennial stream and surrounded by the towering Sierra Madres, this town was home to my great great grandparents, my great grandparents, and my grandmother for the first fifteen years of her life.



Since moving back to Tucson, we have wanted to make the pilgrimage down to Baca. The opportunity finally presented itself to us. We packed up the Tacoma and headed south across the border to a little known corner of the planet that plays an integral role in my ancestry.

On the long drive we were awestruck by the stunning and absolutely untouched beauty of this part of Mexico. Once the road heads east from Moctezuma, we wound our way through incredible mountain passes and lush lowlands until we arrived, eight hours later, in Bacadehuachi.

My Great Aunts Teresa and Lydia were in town for Dia de los Muertos. We watched the small parade of school children, admired the idyllic church and took many strolls through the simple streets.

Amanda took to documenting the Dia de los Muertos annual grave maintenance. During this important holiday to honor the dead, the cemeteries in Mexico sprout with life and fresh colors overnight as families visit the graves. They spend the day repairing fallen tiles, painting worn engravings, and replacing dead or faded flowers. We were able to witness this transformation firsthand and even help to decorate the graves of my great great grandparents.

We spent countless hours eating homemade food and chatting with distant relatives over bottomless coffee and endless memories. We learned about the history of this town, how Geronimo’s army used to raid it for supplies, how my great great grandparents were both teachers in Bacadehuachi when the town was only accessible by horse.

It was a magical trip to the motherland, one that I intend to make again sometime. Amanda had a wonderful time documenting my family and enjoying the beautiful scenery and hospitable people.

After all these years of telling everyone I am half Mexican, for the first time I actually believe it to be true.

Borneo

We procured a flight to South Central Kalimantan the other day, intent on witnessing one of man’s close relatives living in the forest in Borneo. Borneo contains some of the world’s largest rain forests. These lungs of the earth are under constant threat as they are illegally burned to the ground in order to grow cash crops such as palms for oil. Tanjung Puting National Park is a vast reserve of rain forest set aside for rehabilitating orphaned orangutans. When the forest burns, the orangutans lose their homes. They come here, often without their families, to thrive in a protected region.

Six tourists, ourselves included, boarded a wooden klotok from Kumai, a town heavily occupied by massive concrete windowless houses. They are homes to the swallows whose nests are then harvested for the infamous bird’s nest soup, a Chinese delicacy. The constant hum of Muslim prayer emanating forth from the mosques scattered about were masked by the pre-recording sound of flocks of swallows blasting from the openings of each house, an effort to lure more birds and more profit from the skies above.

The competing sounds of this vibrant river town quickly faded as our klotok chugged down the river destined for Camp Leakey, an orangutan observation and research center. We had before us three days of a true boat safari in the grandest fashion. We were treated to wonderful meals, endless tea and coffee, new friends from Spain and Russia, and superb monkey viewing on the shoreline trees high above the river.

The Orangutans were amazing creatures to behold. It was as though we were watching our own kind, albeit much hairier, climbing around the vines and canopy, devouring bananas at the feeding stations. When the orangutans first arrive to the park, they are fed daily while they acclimate to their new surroundings. Nearly every female carried a baby on her back.

As the days came to a close, we would re-board our boat for a sunset cruise to witness the proboscis and macaque monkeys along with the elegant kingfishers and the elusive crocodiles. As we headed back to port on the final day we caught a glimpse of the largest male orangutan of the trip sitting in a tree over the water. He likely weighed over 250 pounds. We could almost see him waving goodbye as we left the tranquil rainforest of Tanjung Putting and headed back to the madness of Asian city-life.