See, I’d done a bit of calendar calculating. I knew that, instead of finishing up with the Blue Ridge Parkway at Smoky Mountain National Park by the end of September, now we wouldn’t arrive until mid-October. That – according to my research – put us in the Smokies at peak leaf-changing season.

If there was a silver lining to Phoenix’ leg break, that was it. At least that was how I tried to console myself after the accident. I imagined all the breathtaking panoramas and all the stunning shots Bruno would capture that I, of course, would showcase boastfully on this blog.

Things didn’t turn out that way. The fall colors weren’t there yet. We were too early.

At the end of the Blue Ridge Parkway, with a lovely view behind, but no fall colors!

Our final campground on the BRP, surrounded by barely-changing leaves.

Baby’s first taste of fall.

A hike on the BRP.

It had been an unseasonably warm summer and fall in the region. Though there were many dead leaves scattered on the ground, and a few yellowing here and there, it was obviously that, even though mid-October is generally peak fall colors time in the Smokies, this year we were a week or two too early.

Usually, this wouldn’t be a problem for us. We generally have a pretty flexible schedule. But, with our US visa almost up, Mexico still oh-so-far away, and transit travel less than pleasant with a baby, we didn’t have the luxury of hanging around the Smokies any longer. Not to mention, I was able to snag a reservation for the last spot in the campground, available for a total of three nights. By Friday, the weekenders would be in and we were booted out.

Still, we were in Smoky Mountain National Park – the most visited park in the United States! It was exciting to be there and I, for one, wanted to make the most of it. I suggested we drive up to the highest point in the park, where a viewing tower offered those breathtaking views – minus the fall colors – I’d been hoping for. The road up to that point changed elevation so drastically that it was the ecological equivalent of taking a drive from Georgia to Canada – super cool! We could hike a little section of the Appalachian Trail (which we hadn’t seen since Virginia) and take in one last mountain view as a perfect ending to our three months in the Appalachians.

Smokemont Campground in the Smokies – I managed to snag three nights!

Hanging out Smokemont.

Alas, things were not meant to be. The weather turned rainy and foggy mere minutes into our drive up and we could hardly see oncoming traffic, let alone panoramic views.

Ever the optimists, we kept driving up. We parked in the slightly sloped lot at Clingman’s Dome and decided to have lunch while waiting for the fog to [hopefully] clear. We’d been there almost an hour, finishing our indoor picnic when, suddenly, I could see the trees moving past. Our bus was moving!!! Quickly, Bruno jumped into the driver’s seat and I shielded Phoenix, who was in his booster seat on the ground finishing his meal. Bruno managed to stop the bus, but not before it scraped past two parked cars.

The whole incident happened very quickly. No one was in the other cars, and none of us was hurt. It’s actually amazing because things in our bus weren’t secure – drawers weren’t locked, plates were on the counter – heck, I had even left the oil and vinegar bottles on the counter! Not a single item hit Phoenix, and he, frankly, thought our little ride was loads of fun!

We spent the next few hours dealing with insurance, park rangers, police reports, and apologies to the owners of the other vehicles. Needless to say that after all that, none of us wanted to hike up to the observation tower for a view. The weather hadn’t cleared up, anyway.

The first car we hit.

The second car we hit.

Our damage.

A bit more of our damage.

The rain continued the following day. We spent most of it inside the bus at the campground. We did manage a little stroll in the late afternoon – but no bears, no views, no leaves. The Smokies were a total bust. My blog post could not be.

A little stroll during the brief reprieve from the rain.

We caught sight of some elk early on in the Smokies, but this was as close as we got to any wildlife during our stay.

It was when we emerged from the Smoky Mountains and got a phone signal that we learned about Hurricane Michael tearing through the United States. Apart from the fact that this hurricane was devastating for so many people and communities, it actually directly affected us. After the Smokies, we’d planned to hightail it to the Florida Panhandle and spend a few weeks exploring its state parks (which offer some of the most beautiful beaches in the country – not to mention, ahem, laundry facilities!).

Since we know that the media often exaggerates news, we wondered if, perhaps, the devastation wasn’t quite as serious as it was being portrayed. Perhaps our plans wouldn’t have to change, we thought. One phone call to a single ranger at a single state park along the Panhandle confirmed that it was just as bad as on the news.

And just like that, our plans had to change. We are very lucky to have a home-on-wheels and the ability to pick it up and move it to a new, safer place when disasters like these destroy the livelihoods of so many. Driving across Alabama may not have been on my bucket list, but at least we could drive our home away from the devastation.

And, anyway, Alabama proved to be surprising. We rolled up to the Magnolia Branch Wildlife Refuge expecting to spend a transit night there before continuing toward Mississippi and onward. When we reached our campsite, though, I turned to Bruno and said, “I feel like we’re in Africa.” He looked at me, puzzled. “It doesn’t really look like Africa here,” he replied. And it didn’t. We were surrounded by some kind of pine tree, and there definitely weren’t elephants or giraffes wandering around.

Our campground in Alabama.

Lunch with a view. Way to go, Alabama!

It took me awhile to figure out why I was reminded of Africa, but I did. It was the way this campground made me feel. Because here we were, parked right – I mean right – at the edge of a little lake, on a gigantic rough patch of grass. There was hardly anyone around, tons of space, restroom facilities slightly run down. It was just the kind of campground we loved – just like the ones we often found in Africa.

It had been so long since we’d found ourselves in the type of campground. Even the ones in the national and state parks are too busy, too well-organized, too full of retirees (no offense) for our taste. Here, in Alabama, I felt like we’d slipped into a beloved well-worn pair of shoes. That had gone missing. That I’d forgotten about. And that I’d suddenly found again.

Taking a dip in the water in front of our campsite.

Mama and Papa chillin’, Africa-style.

Oh yeah, it felt that good.

Who knew, Alabama?

In all things travel – as in parenthood, I’m finding out – we have to expect the unexpected. Oftentimes, our expectations lead to disappointment; our plans have to change; and the pleasant surprises are found in the least-likely places.

Of all the animals that I have had the fortune of seeing firsthand – which, I am privileged to say, is a lot – whales top the list.  I think it’s that, despite their size, they are gentle and graceful, and totally mysterious.

I began falling for whales the summer I got to see orcas in the Juan de Fuca Strait off the coast of Victoria, B.C.  It was my first time observing wildlife in their natural habitat, and my dear mother and I were in awe of the calls of mating whales surrounding our zodiac.

I fell flat-faced head-over-heels for whales when I got up close to humpbacks off the coast of Ecuador.  My brother, his girlfriend, and I were returning from the “Poor Man’s Galagapos,” when a humpback approached our little motor boat and proceeded to swim along with us, crashing repeatedly into the water and showing us her ridged underside.  She was so close I could see the barnacles on her body, and I distinctly recall the eye on the side of her head – it appeared to be looking straight at me.

One of two shots I managed with my crappy camera of this amazing event.

One of the most awesome sights I’ve ever witnessed.

Three super happy campers.

It was no surprise, then, that when I learned that, in summer, we could see beluga whales in Quebec’s Fjord du Saguenay, or any of thirteen species of whale in the Saint Lawrence River, I was in!

The logical place to begin our whale-watching adventure was Lac St-Jean, which drains into the St. Lawrence River via the Saguenay River.  Though no whales reach even close to this lake, it’s a scenic, mostly flat, agricultural region famous for its blueberries and its 250km-long bike path around the lake.  As with all good searches, it’s important to take advantage of all a region has to offer.

Unfortunately, rain arrived at the same time as we did, and the thick grey clouds made clear that it was here to stay.  So we didn’t.  That’s one of the many advantages of having a home-on-wheels and no fixed schedule.

On the Whale Route!

Thunderstorm blowing in over Lac St. Jean.

Beautiful rainbow, but a mere brief respite from endless rain.

Instead, we continued onward to the fjord itself.  When I think of fjords, I think of Scandinavia, though the only fjord I’ve actually seen with my own eyes was off the coast of Oman’s Musandam Peninsula.  It turns out that a fjord is simply a long and narrow inlet of the sea, carved by glaciers, with high cliffs and deep waters.  At over 100km long, the Fjord du Saguenay is one of the longest in the world, and the only navigable fjord in North America.

We got to try navigating these waters ourselves – in kayaks!  It wasn’t easy to organize, because all kayak rentals on the fjord are via guided tours – apparently the current and wind on the water are unpredictable.  As a seasoned kayaker, this wasn’t appealing to me, and I set to work searching for a way around this rule.  In St. Rose du Nord, a charming village set in a narrow, steep valley on the edge of the river, I managed to find two locals who agreed to rent us their kayaks for a couple hours.  Score!  Bruno and I set to the water, where we were able to explore the rugged coastline from the sea.  The wind did pick up halfway through our ride, and it was, indeed, fierce – especially when a surprise storm rolled in – but it was nothing a strong paddle and a maple-butter ice cream cone couldn’t handle!

Navigating the fjord du Saguenay by kayak!

Meet Brittany, the serious kayaker.

Meet Bruno, the professional ice-cream eater.

Its navigability is not what makes the Fjords of Saguenay so special, though – it’s the whales.  Whales flock in crazy numbers to feed on the gigantic quantity of krill that can be found at the mouth of the fjord.  The reason for the masses of krill are complex, but, basically, it has to do with the warm waters of the fjord merging with the ice-cold water of the St. Lawrence River (and a bunch of other factors that I’m not sure I truly understand).

Because of my lack of understanding, I thought at the time that there were whales along the entire 100km-length of the Fjord du Saguenay.  We’d been straining our eyes to see them out on the water for days, to no avail.  In fact, it wasn’t until we approached the St. Lawrence River itself that we would actually stand a chance of spotting a whale – and only the belugas.

That would have been fine by me.  Of the thirteen species of whales present in Quebec, only the beluga whale is a permanent resident.  The cold water-loving beluga whale is a true resident of the St. Lawrence.  Sadly, they are now an endangered species (numbering about 900) and are thus a rare enough sight.  The high levels of pollution in the water, though much-improved in the last decade or two, have caused a lot of unnecessary beluga deaths.  But their numbers had already been decimated, since, until the 1960s, the Canadian government paid a loonie ($1) for each beluga head, believing these fish-lovers to be the reason for the collapse of the fishing industry in the St. Lawrence.

Alas, we did not spot any beluga whales in the Fjords du Saguenay.  But we did get to witness a few expansive viewpoints from the tops of its tree-filled cliffs.

A 10-minute uphill hike rewarded us with this view of the fjord.

Inland, it’s all hills and valleys and forests.

One of our boondocks along the fjord.

It was in Tadoussac that I became more confident in our whale-spotting chances.  The once-humble town is now a major tourist industry centered upon a single thing – whales.  A half-dozen whale-watching companies operate in the town, and you can buy whale-watching tickets at every dépanneur (corner store) or souvenir shop on the block.

I personally wasn’t planning on boarding a zodiac in Tadoussac – I’d read more affordable companies operated out of the nearby towns.  But, just being in a place so self-assuredly built around whales made me more certain we were on the right track.

As it was a lovely sunny day, and Tadoussac had that typical Quebec town charm – with colourful, tastefully-renovated old country homes, French-inspired gourmet cuisine, and the wonderfully nasal Quebec French accent – Bruno and I decided to make a day of it.  We wandered along the beach front, our toes in the relatively warm water; we visited the oldest chapel in all of Canada, perched along Tadoussac’s protected bay; and we had a fabulous lunch on the terrace of Café Bohème.

The oldest chapel in all of Canada.

Seriously cute homes in Quebec, right?

OMG this lunch was so exciting!

We also found a great place to camp for a couple nights.  A few kilometers east of town are giant sand dunes overlooking the St. Lawrence River.  Mercifully, Quebec is a wonderful place to boondock, and there were no signs here forbidding overnight stays.  We parked our bus on the edge of the dunes with a 180-degree view of the water, and I sat all afternoon at the top of the dune, gazing out into the water and soaking in the summer’s first true rays of sun.  I almost didn’t even need to see whales.

Me, loving life at the top of a sand dune overlooking the St. Lawrence River.

You see that big sand dune right there? Yeah, at the top of it is where we camped. Score!

Who am I kidding?  Of course I needed to see whales!  I wanted to see belugas, blue whales, right whales, humpbacks, porpoises, and all the other species of whales in the river I’d not yet heard of.

And so, we drove onward, toward Les Escoumins.  On the way, we saw a sign for Cap Bon Désir, with symbols of picnic tables and viewpoints.  Since it was lunchtime, we turned in.  Thank goodness we did, for here, unbeknownst to us, was the best site along the St. Lawrence to see whales from ashore!

This was the kind of place where Bruno sets up shop for the day.  I’d witnessed this on our safaris in Africa – he’d find a water hole or a hide that looked both promising and relaxing, grab snacks, water, a camera, binoculars, and a book, and that would be it.  Our day was planned – we would chill there, waiting for the animals to come to us.

This is thus what we did at Cap Bon Désir – we grabbed all the items listed above (as well as many extra layers of clothing – the temperature of the St. Lawrence here is 4 degrees year-round and we were on a rocky cliff jutting out into the water) and made ourselves comfortable.

Within fifteen minutes, two minke whales had come right up to the rocks and shown us brief glimpses of their fins before diving deep down and disappearing.  I began to think maybe I wouldn’t have to jump on a zodiac at all – the whales would just come to me!  Over the following five hours, however, I learned that it was only the minke whales – the most common whales of the St. Lawrence – who exhibited this gregariousness.  All other whale species were much further out – indeed, we occasionally spotted water shooting up from blowholes next to a zodiac far out at sea.

I needed to be in that zodiac.

Sat waiting for the whale show at Cap Bon Desir.

We saw a minke whale pretty darn close to the coast!

Another minke whale showed us its belly.

Mostly, though, Bruno took photos of sea gulls.

The following morning, we lined up with fifty other tourists at the pier of Croisières Escoumins and boarded one of two zodiacs.  Admittedly, it felt slightly odd to be joining such a mass of people on such a tourist activity, but desperate times call for desperate measures.  It was a gorgeous, calm morning, and a perfect day for a boat trip, but we were nonetheless advised to dress in layers, and we were each given a heavy winter parka to wear on top.  I was soon very grateful for these layers, because a 4-degree wind at fifty miles an hour sure is cold!

But I was happy.  I feel good on the water.  My senses were on hyper-aware mode and I scanned the water for any sign of movement.  Admittedly, since water moves, distinguishing a wave from a whale isn’t easy.

But it is easy to spot belugas.  And spot them we did!  Twenty minutes into our tour, we caught sight of bright white masses popping out of deep blue waters.  They were far off, and, because of their status, our boat couldn’t legally approach them, so the captain cut the engine and we watched and waited.  It wasn’t long before we were surrounded on all sides by beluga whales, for they travel in large groups.  As if this weren’t special enough, a group of three of them crossed immediately in front of our boat before swimming gracefully past the other side.  Boy, am I ever lucky with whales!

Beluga whales, approaching our zodiac!!

Even far away, belugas are easy to distinguish from the blue water.

Super happy to be out on the water and surrounded by whales!  (Thank you, mom and dad, for the birthday gift!!)

During the rest of the ride, we spotted porpoises, seals (they have few predators here since orcas come only in small numbers), and a massive group of minke whales feeding at the mouth of the fjord (a rare sight since they are solitary whales).  The blue whales hadn’t yet arrived to the St. Lawrence that year, and all the whales were so busy eating that we didn’t see much more than backs and fins quietly glide along the surface, but being surrounded by these mythical creatures was as touching as my other two whale encounters.

Another close-up glimpse of minke whales, this time from the water. I think there’s a seal head bobbing in the background.

This is the most “out of the water” shot we got.

It was also sad.  For me, the whales’ history is such a tragic one.  Whale-hunting, overfishing, habitat destruction, crashes with boats – it seems almost a miracle that these ancient creatures have managed to survive at all.  The right whale, which occasionally visits the St. Lawrence, was hunted to near-extinction because it floats when it’s dead, making it easy to recover.  As we watched belugas in the St. Lawrence, seven floating bodies were being recovered in the Gulf of St. Lawrence.  Usually, that amount of right whales were discovered in an entire season, and no one was quite sure why so many had perished in a matter of days.

Maybe the reason I love whales so much is this: they are as old as time, and a testament of the resilience of Nature.  They exist almost invisibly to us, revealing of themselves mere glimpses to those with a bit of patience and luck.  They remind us that a moment cannot be captured or held onto, and that its greatest beauty lies in its ability to swim free.

Never have I ever experienced a wilderness so wild as in Canada.

I first started to notice this back in Manitoba.  We were in the isolated and rarely-visited western sector of Riding Mountain National Park.  During the day, parked on a red Adirondack chair by the lake, the place seemed tame enough.  Peaceful, actually.

The #sharethechair movement, in Riding Mountain National Park.

Totally alone and totally isolated in this wilderness campground.

A lady popped by the campground.  She was scoping out the back-country trails for her yearly hike.  The past few springs had been exceedingly rainy, making the trails muddy, the bugs horrific.  This year looked more promising, and she was looking forward to her week of solitude in the park’s untamed wilderness.

The following day, we moved our camp eastward, to Lake Audy.  To reach this central sector of the park we had to drive out the way we’d come, make a huge detour, come back up into the park from another route, and then veer west again on the bumpiest gravel road our bus had yet encountered.  That’s how dense the park’s forests were – only those back-country trails the woman spoke of ran through them.

Bruno and I set out for a bike ride on those trails.  Normally we would hike, but the mosquitoes had picked up and we hoped to outpace them with wheels.  We managed to, but eventually got stuck in mud so thick we were forced to turn around.  If this had been a dry spring, I couldn’t imagine a wet one.

Prepping the bikes for our ride.

Before we hit the muddy part of the trail and had to turn around.

As I contemplated the nature of this national park, I began to compare it to those Bruno and I had visited in the United States – Petrified Forest and Saguaro, Grand Canyon and Grand Teton, and most recently, Yellowstone.  Each of those parks preserve a unique natural feature (usually geological), and visiting the park was much like visiting a European city – go snap-happy with the camera as we ogle at the beauty before us while simultaneously learning about the history of our surroundings.

In Canada, however, it seemed the national parks serve a different purpose – that of the preservation of nature, full stop.  The swathes of nature preserved by Canada Parks aren’t particularly unique or geologically interesting to humans, but instead represent important habitat for flora and fauna.  Humans are permitted to enjoy the parks, sure, but that enjoyment is incidental.  Interestingly, I saw a lot fewer tour buses and day trippers in Canada’s National Parks, and more hard-core outdoor enthusiasts here for the hiking, biking, canoeing, and kayaking.

Here just to enjoy.

Mantra of Canada Parks: preservation of nature.

The national park that probably most represents this vision of environmental preservation is Pukaskwa National Park, along Ontario’s segment of Lake Superior.  The park is gigantic, but accessible by a single route that reaches into the most northern 1% of the park.  The rest of the park is pure wilderness, available only to hikers and kayakers.  Visitor numbers to this section of the park are restricted so as to minimize human impact on these untamed wilds.

Bruno and I opted not to visit Pukawskwa.  We’d been in northern Ontario for several days by this point, traveling deeper and deeper into its wilderness of forests and lakes.  When we hit Lake Superior – the third largest lake in the world and the only Great Lake I had not yet seen – the weather went bad.  The sky was covered in a perpetual fog, grey clouds announced nothing but seemingly-endless rain, and in the little moments where things cleared up, the wind from the bitingly cold lake kept us in our winter clothing.

In the little lakeside town of Terrace Bay, we stopped in a café for a hot beverage.  The owner seemed eager to chat, so I asked him if this weather was normal at this time of year.  I was convinced it wasn’t, and trying to prove so to Bruno, who had been teasing me for days that this was summer in Canada.

“Oh yeah, this is normal weather around here,” the owner replied, much to my dismay.  “We only just got rid of the last of our snow last month, and the leaves on the trees came in around the end of May.  The locals start sweating when – during a few days in late-July – our temperatures reach 20 degrees celcius.”

I couldn’t imagine living through an eight-month winter, only to be rewarded with a few days of twenty-degree weather.  And what was the point of visiting a practically-inaccessibly national park only to sit inside the bus hiding from the rain and cold?

Lake Superior on a typical cold, grey day.

A fairly clear view o Lake Superior, which was moe often than not entirely covered in fog.

A day or two after that, though, is the real reason we didn’t visit Pukaskwa.  We had found a wonderful spot to camp for the night at the edge of a little lake near White River.  We’d just met Brian, an old fellow in a flannel shirt and a pickup truck who’d popped by for a chat.  He’d jumped from one conversation to the other – about how he had killed a hundred moose but he no longer would because they’re so rare; that trees had spirits and every time he cut one down for one of his log cabins dotting the area, it hurt him; that he was absolutely dismayed by the clear-cutting of the surrounding forests and the wind turbines they’d recently installed on what he felt was sacred land; that we should collect some rocks down by the lake because they were from the last ice age and held special energetic powers.  It was clear to me that this man loved his land, loved his wild, cold home.

There’s a lot of beauty to love in this region, I suppose.

Unfortunately we saw a lot of these trucks.

Bruno and I set in for the night.  Until that point, the bugs hadn’t been as bad as I’d expected.  When I knew we would be in northern Ontario in late June, I had posted a question on Facebook asking my Ontarian friends how bad the bugs would be at that time of year.  The replies I received had been frightening – “don’t wear a white shirt; it’ll be soaked red,” “I remember scraping caked blood off from behind my ears,” and “don’t go, just don’t”.  I’d only just received my first two black fly bites (ever!) the day before.  They’d turned into bloody welts, surprisingly large from such a small insect, but still, there had only been two.

Things changed that night.  As I was reading in bed, I started to notice mosquitos flying around our room.  I am one of those people who will stay awake all night because of a single mosquito buzzing in my ears.  Naturally, then, I proceeded to chase and kill them (yes, I know, it doesn’t seem like me, but I swear these are the only living creatures I kill!).  Yet, for each mosquito I killed, two more materialized.  What should have been a simple one-two turned into a rampage of over fifty mosquitoes, and I went to bed anxious and paranoid.

I was right to be paranoid.  Bruno and I were awoken at dawn to an incredible sunrise.  But that’s not why we’d woken up – it was the swarm of mosquitoes buzzing around our heads.  The next couple hours were a half-asleep blur of swatting, buzzing, and cursing.  Breakfast was much the same.  I didn’t even consider stepping outside, for, glued outside our windows was a thick blanket of mosquitoes desperately trying to find their way in.

The beautiful, mosquito-infested sunrise.

All told, I killed over 120 mosquitoes before Bruno tried stuffing the tiny holes at the bottom of each window that evacuate rain water from the window frame.

So, yeah, I wasn’t interested in another night with the mosquitoes.  Pukaskwa – the epitome of Canadian wilderness – could keep its untamed backcountry.  I’d had enough of wilderness for now.

I was grateful when the Sault Ste-Marie locks led Lake Superior into Lake Huron.  Here, the forests seemed less dense, the weather milder, the water calmer and clearer.  We entered Mennonite territory, and I was way more interested in their farmland and their traditional ways that I thought I would be.  They seemed so, well, civilized.

Mennonites shun motorized transportation and opt for horse-drawn carriage.

There were these signs all over the Lake Huron area east of Sault Ste-Marie.

Mennonites even use horse-drawn farm equipment!

It was a few weeks before I was brave enough to venture back into Canada’s wilderness – this time in Quebec’s La Mauricie National Park.  Admittedly, it was lovely.  We witnessed more of Canada’s endless lakes and forests, but the weather was finally warm and sunny.  We hiked to a waterfall and sat on a boulder at its edge, enjoying the cool flow of its water.  We mountain biked to another, less popular, waterfall, and picnicked atop its forested rim (apart from lakes and forests, Canada has a lot of waterfalls).  We experienced the vastness of the park’s wilderness from its stunning bird’s eye viewpoints, and relaxed in the sun at our campground.

But throughout all these wonderful moments, we battled – you guessed it – the mosquitoes.  In fact, they were worse here than I have ever experienced in my life (yes, fellow New Brunswickers, our mosquitoes have nothing on these).  They were around morning, noon, and night.  In the sun.  By flowing water.  And they were the biggest, fattest suckers I’d ever seen.  Everything we did, we did while swatting ourselves.

Enjoying the cool water.

Bird’eye view. This is actually a lake!

A view of beautiful Canada from above the tree line.

A picnic lunch by a waterfall.

I think it’s a few things that make Canada’s wilderness so challenging.  First of all, it’s the weather.  Wind, cold, rain, snow, scorching sun – even in summer, every day brings a new meteorological surprise.

Second, it’s the vastness of its land.  The space, though beautiful, is intimidating.  In Canada, you can really be utterly and truly out there on your own.

Thirdly – and perhaps most crucially – it’s the insects.  I mentioned the mosquitoes and the black flies (who, by the way, did get worse soon after my first two bites).  I didn’t mention all the spiders we keep finding in our bus.  They come in all shapes and sizes, and we remove at least one a day from our home-on-wheels.

I also didn’t mention the tick.  Yeah, I got bit by one.  It was way back in Riding Mountain National Park.  There were signs everywhere to be extra careful of them because these black-legged critters carry diseases.  We saw a few – one on my yoga mat, one in the house, one on Bruno’s shoe.  We were extra careful during our hikes and bike rides, and always checked ourselves thoroughly afterwards.

The one that got me was at a totally unexpected moment – on a bench in a manicured lakeside park in Wasagaming, the highly-developed cottage country of Riding Mountain.  We caught it right as it bit into my neck, and Bruno removed it promptly.  It was disgusting, of course, and my first tick bite ever, but we didn’t worry about it because it had barely bitten me.

It wasn’t until five weeks later that I developed strange bulls-eye-shaped welts on my shoulder and neck.  Five hours waiting in the emergency room and a six-vial blood test later, and I’m on antibiotics for Lyme disease*.

My strange bulls-eye bite. Tick bite? Perhaps!

See what I mean about Canada’s wilderness?

*In case you’re freaking out, we’re not totally sure yet that I have Lyme disease. The results won’t be in for another couple weeks, but I’m on the meds just in case.

Mama bear and her cubs aren’t far off.  Thirty feet away, tops.  In my whole life, I’ve never seen a bear, and now, here I am, standing on the side of the road in Yellowstone National Park, watching a family of them forage playfully in the bushes.  I don’t even care that fifty other people hover around me with cameras and tripods and loud voices, or that a ranger is directing traffic and ushering us back as the bears edge forward.  I am in awe of those beautiful, silky-black bears and the miracle of Nature I am experiencing here in Yellowstone.

The scene of the sighting may not be romantic, but I don’t care!

How COULD I care when I got to see this?

It’s sort of been this way throughout our four days in the world’s first national park.  Me in awe of the miracle of Nature, I mean.  And most of it had to do with bubbling, brewing geysers.

It’s rare for me to visit something with Bruno that he is seeing for the first time.  Amazingly, Yellowstone National Park was one of those places.  This doesn’t make any sense when you know how much Bruno loves national parks; but when you know the effort he puts into avoiding cold places, it makes perfect sense.

I didn’t give him the chance to bypass Yellowstone this time – I built our entire summer itinerary around it.

It’s funny, though, how little I actually knew about Yellowstone.  Like, I knew about the decimation of the wolves and their subsequent reintroduction (check out this amazing video on how wolves move rivers) and, of course, Old Faithful.  But I had no clue that the entire park was smoking and gurgling and simmering away.

Yellowstone National Park sits on an active volcano (or caldera) that is also the largest on the continent – it’s even been dubbed a “supervolcano.”  Because of this, it has one of the most diverse and extensive network of hydrothermal activity in the world.  This means I got a thorough education in geysers, of course, but also in hot springs, mudpots, and fumaroles!

Bruno and I walked into the Old Faithful Visitor’s Center just as Old Faithful herself began to blow.  Our timing continued to be impeccable that day – at that very instant, a nearby geyser (called “Beehive”) was also blowing, an event that is less common and reliable, and something that rarely occurs at the same time as Old Faithful.

Bruno finally made it to Yellowstone!

Just in time to see Old Faithful blow!

Nearby Beehive Geyser, erupting at the same time as Old Faithful!

Having fun learning about hydrothermal activity!

Bruno and I spent the day wandering around the boardwalks along the Upper Geyser Basin, which allowed us to see a variety of hydrothermal activity.  I didn’t know there were so many geysers in Yellowstone, and I quickly learned that, though Old Faithful may be the most famous (due to the predictability and frequency with which she erupts – roughly every 90 minutes), it is far from the most impressive.  Instead, Grand Geyser took the cake, but perhaps that was because we got to experience it blow up-close.  Its fountain-like eruption shot up 200 feet in the air and lasted about fifteen minutes!

Because we’d seen three geysers erupt within our first hour, I figured this was a common phenomenon, one easy to witness.  Over the following three days, however, I learned that the business of predicting eruptions is an approximate science, at best, and simply impossible to predict for more than a handful of geysers.  Steamboat Geyser in the Norris Basin, for example, can erupt at intervals of anywhere between one and fifty years (the most recent eruption was in 2015), and scientists can do nothing to predict an eruption but identify signs of its building pressure!

Racing toward Grand Geyser as it begins to erupt!

We made it!

Close-up during a quiet moment in the eruption.

One of the few geysers scientists can kinda-sorta predict.

Geysers are cool!

The geysers were cool, but more photogenic were the hot springs.  I had no clue hot springs could have such colours!  The science is that different-coloured bacteria thrive in different sections of the spring (the blue heat-loving ones closer to the center); but for Bruno and I, Yellowstone’s hot springs were simply a miracle of Nature that were really, really fun to photograph.

The largest hot spring is Grand Prismatic Spring (an apt name) in the Midway Geyser Basin, but my personal favourite was Morning Glory Hot Spring.  The colours were mesmerizingly vivid – apparently so mesmerizing that people, over the decades, have been compelled to throw coins, rocks, and even clothing into the spring.  This, sadly, blocks the spring’s free-flow of water (the key characteristic of a hot spring), diminishing the spring’s original bright blue color.  Every year the park has to remove the garbage from the spring, no easy feat when working with temperatures that far exceed boiling.

Hot springs are so colourful!

And it’s pretty fun to take abstract shots of them!

My favourite hot spring, Morning Glory.

Being the oldest national park in the world means that Yellowstone has gone through ever-changing regulations as we have learned how to better manage the park.  There are old photos of businesses offering spa facilities for tourists, using the water from the hot springs; and reports that early residents used Old Faithful as a heavy-duty clothes-washing machine!  This is the same mentality that eradicated the wolf from Yellowstone and caused the American army to need to protect the park’s ecosystem from poachers before the creation of park rangers.  It’s a good thing we’ve learned a thing or two over the years.

During our three days of hydrothermal tourism, we visited the bizarre Mammoth travertine terraces, which are a type of hot spring formation created from the limestone rock found in that area of the park.  We visited the acidic, grey, sulfury-smelling, deadly-looking Norris Geyser Basin, which could have been an excellent alternate setting for Mordor.  We saw fumaroles, which release only steam because they are so hot the water doesn’t have time to reach the surface; and mudpots, which are hot springs with sulphuric acid that breaks down rock into clay.  I loved the gloopy sound of bubbling mud.

At the Mammoth Travertine terraces, which are also a type of hot spring.

They definitely are terraces!

It’s really interesting how the bacteria even manage to integrate nearby plants into these formations.

Gloopy mudpots!

Check out all those fumaroles in the background. (Yes, we were cold).

Couldn’t this place be Mordor?

Actually, I loved all the sounds of the hydrothermal features.  They all made them: sometimes low grumbles or bubbling brooks, other times the sound of wind, pressure cookers, or of water boiling.  Who knew water and gas could replicate so many different sounds?

Despite the cool sounds and colors, after three days of looking at geysers, we’d had enough (for now).  Bruno and I turned our attention to some of the other features of Yellowstone National Park – like its yellow and pink canyon, dubbed “The Grand Canyon of Yellowstone” (and probably where the name of the park came from); and its waterfalls, carving out Cappadochia-like fairy chimneys in the rock.

Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.

Tower Falls

These formations remind me of fairy chimneys!

Most importantly, we turned our attention to the wildlife of Yellowstone.  Until that point, we had seen nothing but bison everywhere.  It seemed the bison were as common in Yellowstone as the impala in the African savannah.

That, however, is where the similarities between wildlife-viewing in Africa and America ended.  I think I had been spoiled by my African safaris, where on any single outing, you’d at least be guaranteed giraffes, zebras, monkeys, and elephants, if not some kind of big cat.  In America, it seemed, you had to content yourself with pronghorns and bison.  And they weren’t looking their best at this time of year!  Still, it was good to be around wildlife again, and I could see it was doing a lot of good for Bruno’s spirit.

Also, in America, you can view wildlife from outside your vehicle.  (The only place I know of in Africa where you can do this is in Zimbabwe’s Mana Pools National Park).  In the U.S., you can hike in bear country, get out of your vehicle when a bear is on the side of the road, and even take selfies with a bison!  Actually, those last two are highly discouraged, but that didn’t stop the countless tourists I saw literally two feet from a bison taking their latest Instagram shot!

Bison everywhere, shedding their winter coats.

I know he looks chill, but you still shouldn’t take an up-close selfie with him – that’s what zooms are for!

Even the pronghorns are shedding their winter coats.

I may have been feeling slightly underwhelmed by our lack of animal-sighting in the park, and maybe that’s why Yellowstone decided to give us a giant gift.  On our final day in the park, we were gifted with an Africa-like day of wildlife-watching that started with that family of black bears.  Honestly, that would have been enough; they had already brought me to tears (no joke).

But then, Yellowstone offered us a mountain goat balancing herself on the edge of a cliff.  Like the bison and pronghorns, she was shedding her winter coat, but to me, her beauty was perfect.  We were given the opportunity to watch a mother raven feed her young, which reminded me that even ravens are living creatures; and a coyote face off with a badger, which reminded me that Nature is filled with surprises.

Our efforts to find the wolves we kept hearing were passing along the river with a kill were semi-rewarded with a momentary distant glimpse of a black wolf retreating with her section of dinner.  I’ve been on a decade-long search for the elusive wolf (I’ll tell you about it sometime), and Yellowstone brought me just a bit closer.

As if all this weren’t enough, as we were about to exit the park, we caught sight of a lone grizzly.  He only stayed long enough to show us his rear and offer a few backwards glances, but it brought me back to that first animal-sighting of the day.

A mountain goat! Shedding his coat, but still!

Just hangin’ out.

Evens ravens are miraculous!

This is a crap-shot (we were so far away) but I’ve been waiting for a wolf-sighting for over a decade, so this will have to do for now!

We even got to see a grizzly!! Thank you, Yellowstone!

Mama bear and her cubs not far off.  Thirty feet away, tops.  In my whole life, I’ve never seen a bear, and now, thanks to Yellowstone National Park, I’ve seen several.  Thanks to Yellowstone, I’ve communed with the miracle of Nature, sometimes bizarrely bubbling in an otherworldly landscape, but always full of beautiful surprises.

I’d collected evidence of this last winter, when I visited my first two American national parks, Petrified Forest and Saguaro National Park (where I wrote Part I of America the Beautiful).  I was reminded of America’s beauty just recently, when our friends, Sharon and Glenn showed us around Sedona, Arizona, and the surrounding area.

But I learned it, without a doubt, during our recent road trip north, when we stopped in a few very beautiful, very grand, national parks – so grand, in fact, that two of them earned the word grand in their very names!

Can you guess which national parks I’m talking about?

Yup: Grand Canyon and Grand Teton National Parks!

Grand Canyon National Park

Grand Canyon is one of those places I’d grown up hearing about, and I’d conjured up its grandeur in a way that only a child with a very imaginative mind can manage.  I expected, then, that when I actually saw it, I’d be underwhelmed.

This must be why the canyon is so grand.  No matter how many photos of it you see, no matter how much you’ve built it up in your mind, you will still not be prepared for that first view of it.  There is no way to be disappointed by Grand Canyon, not a chance you cannot be touched by its sheer vastness.  It fulfills every clichéd expression of awe you can think of.

Grand Canyon is so big it looks like a two-dimension painting.  It’s impossible to view it in its entirety at once – though you can come close from the air, on the ground you’re limited to miniscule sections of it, (and they already look like giant canyons!).  It is so deep you only catch turquoise glimpses of the Colorado River, which, from above, looks more like a tiny creek than a river mighty enough to cut 1.6km down into layers of rock billions of years old.  It is so vast that when you see a condor – the largest bird in North America, with a 3+ meter wingspan – fly over the canyon, he looks no larger than a hawk.

The glorious Grand Canyon, and the Colorado River tiny below.

Photos cannot do Grand Canyon justice – and anyone, from each viewpoint, you can still only see a fraction of the whole thing.

In the eastern side of the canyon, you can catch better glimpses of the Colorado River. Makes you wanna raft it, doesn’t it?

When you see all this before you, you can’t help but feel intolerably small.

There is one aspect of Grand Canyon, though, that takes away from this poetic experience – the sheer number of people also experiencing it.

It’s no surprise, really.  Grand Canyon is one of the most famous geological landmarks in the world, and the variety of languages you hear around you as you take in the sights is proof.  Also, I think the fact that the national park can so easily be visited as part of a day trip contributes to the number of visitors.  Not only is Grand Canyon near a number of other worthy sites (Las Vegas, Hoover Dam, Flagstaff, Route 66, the national parks of southern Utah), but the very design of the park allows you to arrive, snap a few selfies to say you’ve been here, and be gone in an hour or two.

Thankfully, Bruno and I discovered that the further from the visitor’s center we traveled, the fewer crowds we encountered.  In fact, the morning after our arrival, as we headed west toward Hermit’s Nest, we could walk from one viewpoint to another along the edge of the canyon without encountering another person!  That returned the poetry to the experience.

Sharing the views with the crowds is a little less poetic of an experience.

Yet we managed to find a few quiet corners of Grand Canyon for ourselves.

Visibility that morning – over 100km in the distance!

That morning, it was incredibly cold out, and Bruno was hilariously covered in layers of clothing so that he looked like an astronaut.  It had snow-showered during the night, so the visibility on that sunny morning was spectacular.  We could see well over 100km in the distance, and I was deeply grateful for the chance to experience clear views of Grand Canyon.

As Bruno and I hiked (and sometimes took the free shuttle bus that plies this route – a great idea to reduce congestion on this road), I developed a strong urge to hike down into this grandest of canyons (something my mom and her girlfriends had done to celebrate their 50^th birthdays – right on, ladies!).  I wanted to commune with her more intimately, to get to know her from below, as well as above.  This hike now officially on my bucket list, so expect, one day, to read a post about the experience!

In other words, our brief visit to Grand Canyon National Park was more of a reconnaissance mission, and will undoubtedly not be our last.

Haha! Bruno wearing literally everything he owns!

The hiking trail along the rim of Grand Canyon – best not to be afraid of heights!

Can’t wait to return here with this man to hike down into the canyon!

Grand Teton National Park

From deep canyons to jagged mountains, the relatively young Teton peaks may be less infamous than Grand Canyon, but they are no less grand.  What makes them so impressive, I think, is that they rise up, as if out of nowhere, from the flat plateau of Wyoming.

Those Teton mountains sure are photogenic!

Until this point, all the national parks I’d visited were in Arizona.  Now, though, I was entering a brand new state – and Bruno was entering a brand new park (a rarity for a nature-lover who’s seemingly experienced it all).

We arrived into the park in the late afternoon, so all we really had time to do was set up camp before sitting down to dinner.  When our meal was done, we both sat there silently, staring at the mountains and the grasslands and the birds, saying and doing absolutely nothing.  It was a beautiful moment, a gift from the park.  These moments are the true gift of all the national parks, if you’re willing to stop and listen.

The Teton Mountains overlooked all our activities in the park.  They were there as we searched for wildlife – which included a few bison, pronghorns and elk, as well as two juvenile moose.  They were there, perfectly reflected in the clear waters of Jenny Lake.  And they were there, forever in the background, as we settled down by Jackson Lake for a quiet sunset.

Wow. Right?

A juvenile moose right at the entrance to Grand Teton N.P. Not nearly as pretty as a fully-mature one, though, eh?

Doing nothing but listening to birds was a wonderful gift from the park.

Because their trailheads were far from our campground, we opted, instead, to hike up to Signal Mountain (next time, though, I’d prefer to hike the Tetons themselves).  The sign at the trailhead warned of bears, and I spent a fair amount of time worrying about an encounter.  Eventually, I settled into the groove – or, at least I tried.  The trail had evidently not been cleared for the season yet.  There were so many fallen trees on the path (apparently the park had experienced an incredibly rough winter, with 600 inches of snow!), and we had to navigate through mud and snow.

Yes, snow!  By about the halfway mark in the hike, we were walking almost entirely on snow, our hiking boots falling through and slipping around.  We completely lost the trail and ended up cutting straight up to the top of the mountain in order to find it again.  Bruno had fun trying to catch me in ungraceful moments as I navigated tree branches and snow, but the truth is that my Mediterranean man slipped way more on the snow than me!

Our hike up to Signal Mountain was filled with dead branches, mud and snow!

And so, of course, Bruno had fun trying to photograph me struggling up the trail!

Here is where we lost the trail and had to hightail it straight up the mountain’s summit!

At the summit, we witnessed a really cool mating dance from this bird (the female wasn’t having any of it, but I was!)

After such an active morning, it was positively delectable to spend the afternoon sitting on the rocky beach of Jackson Lake.  Again, the Tetons were there, sparkling in the bright sun.  I sat, sunning myself, with a book and a pair of binoculars.  I tried – tried being the keyword – to sketch the mountains.  We had lucked out with the weather again – it was so hot I had to peel off layers and dip my legs in the icy water to cool off!  It was the perfect way to spend an afternoon with these grand peaks, and for this moment of communion with America’s beauty I am eternally grateful.

Relaxing in the sun in front of Jackson Lake and the Tetons.

An absolutely perfect afternoon.

Thank you to two grand national parks for showing us how beautiful America is!

Next Up: Yellowstone

From Grand Teton, it was a short jaunt to America’s most infamous national park – Yellowstone.  Though the word grand is notably absent from its name, it overwhelmingly lived up to its reputation.  I have so much to share (read: so many pictures to share) about our experience in that park that I’m going to have to devote an entire separate post to the park that showed me that, not only is America beautiful, it’s quirky and funky-looking, bubbling and brewing, too!

It’s Yogi Bear.

It’s obvious that I need a proper education in America’s National Parks, isn’t it?

Over the summer, Bruno and I received a surprise belated wedding gift from my brother and his partner, Aracelli – an America the Beautiful Pass.  This one-year pass gives free entry for one vehicle and all its passengers to over 2,000 federal recreation sites, including all U.S. National Parks.  Armed with this amazingly-valued permit, we hopped off Route 66 and did a back-to-back exploration of my first two parks.  Thanks to my brother and sister-in-law, my national parks education is finally underway.

Thanks Nathan and Ara! We’re [cold but] happy campers!

Totoyaya’s pretty darn happy too!

Petrified Forest National Park

Before reading up on this park in my National Geographic Guide to U.S. National Parks (also a wedding gift from my bro), I had never heard of it.  To be honest, I probably wouldn’t have made a huge detour to visit it, either – I’m not really into geology, and the idea of visiting a park preserving hunks of wood seemed a tad underwhelming.

But Arizona’s section of Route 66 cut right through Petrified Forest NP, and by that point, I was ready to get off the Mother Road and do something else.

I was in for a pleasant surprise.  I guess there’s a reason the U.S. National Parks have such a great reputation.

Petrified Forest NP is divided into essentially three sections, and each offers a unique, eye-opening experience.  In the north is the Painted Desert, a stark but striking landscape of colourful layers of sedimentary rock.  To my eyes, these badland formations were like a multilayer cake of strawberry, vanilla, and chocolate.  The Blue Mesa, near the center of the park, had particularly clear layers, as though an artist had used a ruler to paint strips of lavender, rust, and grey onto a blank canvas.  It looked too perfect to be Nature.  But it is – millions of years of temperamental Nature telling those of us that can read rock a story.

The Painted Desert, Petrified Forest N.P.

Blue Mesa. Incredible! Perfection!

I’m no rock-reader, but I did learn a bit of elementary geology that added a layer (pun intended!) of depth to the already beautiful otherworldly landscapes before me.  See, the Painted Desert unfolds itself to park visitors via a series of viewpoints from atop a natural plateau.  The plateau is made of black basalt rock that came from a recent (read: 5-16 million years ago) volcanic eruption.  This hard rock has protected the softer, older rock below from the erosion that has occurred all around.  Even the viewpoints tell an age-old story of change and chance.

The middle section of Petrified Forest NP speaks to ethnohistorians.  Archaeologists have uncovered parts of a gigantic pueblo (village) that was home to a tribe living on this land 700 years ago.  Puerco Pueblo was a group house consisting of one hundred rooms built around a central courtyard.  Up to two hundred people lived here at one point, pointing to the soil-depleting effects of human agriculture in the region.

Nearby are petroglyphs carved upon rock, probably by this same group of people.  There are photos of animals and people, but also abstract geometrical figures.  One rocky area has so many petroglyphs that it has been nicknamed Newspaper Rock!

Puerco Pueblo, the remnants of a 100-room pueblo (village) from the 1300s.

Checking out Newspaper Rock, a region filled with petroglyphs.

And here are some of the petroglyphs. Much more interesting face-to-face, admittedly.

There is evidence in the park that humans have inhabited this land for 8,000 years.  But to me, this middle section was most poignant because it showed how inconsequential our human history is in comparison to the other forces of Nature.

This point was further driven home when I finally encountered the petrified rock for which the park is named.  The southernmost section is filled with walking trails that take you past pieces of giant petrified wood.  Besides being a bit sparkly – and smooth to the touch, like rock – the wood looks just like, well, wood.  Bruno kept getting very excited, however.  I did too, once I understood what I was actually looking at.

This wood is 218 million years old (to put that into perspective, the Tyrannosaurus Rex roamed these parts 135 million years later!).  Back then, Arizona was actually a tropical forest only 4 degrees away from the Equator line (Pangaea in action is even crazier!).  The trees here were situated along a river channel, so many of them fell over during floods and were buried under the salt and soil before they could decompose.  Over the years, silica molecules slowly percolated into the wood, transforming it into quartz.  Erosion has brought those pieces of quartz-wood to the surface, allowing us to discover these wood fossils.

Those aren’t rocks, or wood – they’re petrified wood, 218 million years old!

A petrified wood forest, uncovered by erosion.

A close-up view of the petrified wood. You can see it’s shiny and rock like but still has the detailed shape of wood.

I’m cold, but it’s worth it to come face-to-face with the oldest things I’ve ever known.

Once I knew this, the petrified wood took on a totally different hue.  I was standing before something prehistoric, something beyond my logical grasp of time.  The oldest thing I’ve ever experienced.  I almost felt I should bow.

Petrified Forest National Park may not be a gigantic wilderness area with obviously impressive flora and fauna.  But with its sheer variety of experiences – and something for the ethnohistorian, geologist, and palaeontologist in all of us – Petrified Forest National Park is worthy of a good day trip.  I’m grateful it was my first U.S. National Park.

Saguaro National Park

I saw my first saguaro cactus as we drove down the Colorado Plateau from Petrified Forest NP toward Tucson, Arizona.  I couldn’t believe I had never come face to face with this quintessential symbol of the desert.  I’ve been to several – the Sahara, the Kalahari, and the Arabian Desert.  Heck, I didn’t even know they were called saguaro.

My first saguaro cacti!

Man, oh they ever big!

By the time we reached the Visitor’s Center at Saguaro National Park, I had a long list of questions about this most intriguing of cacti.  Saguaro are endemic to the Sonoran Desert, a complex and diverse ecosystem ranging from Mexico’s Baja Peninsula to southern California and a small piece of southern Arizona.  Apparently all those classic Western movies with Texan cowboys riding past these iconic cacti have gotten their ecology all wrong!

Contrary to what one might think about a cactus, the saguaro is actually a sensitive plant.  It requires a particular kind of desert – one with twice-yearly rainfall.  Because of its sensitivity to frost, it cannot grow above a certain altitude or latitude.  You can actually see rings around many saguaros showing points at which frost stopped the growth of the plant.  The saguaro disperses up to 40 million seeds in its lifetime, but only a single seed will reach maturity and replace the parent plant!

The Sonoran Desert is a veritable saguaro forest.

Bruno and I camped at a fantastic nearby campsite (that I highlighted in my November Wrap-Up) and set out onto the park’s longest hiking trail the next morning.  We hadn’t done a serious hike in about a year (since the Rota Vicentina in Portugal) and it was the perfect way to study the Sonoran Desert, and the saguaro, more closely.

I had learned about the life cycle of the saguaro at the visitor’s center, but on the trail I saw it in action.  The saguaro grows very slowly, at less than a centimeter a year.  That one lucky seed will begin its life under another desert plant – called a “nurse plant” – which will provide shade and protection for the seedling.  Eventually it will outgrow and outlive its nurse, developing its infamous arms at about 75 years old.  By the time it reaches 200 years old, it can weigh up to 7 tons and be as tall as a four-storey building! When it dies – due to harsh weather, disease, and vandalism – the saguaro slowly loses its green shade, becomes more bark-like, exposes its woody, porous interior, and then disintegrates into the earth.

This lucky saguaro seed has landed under a nurse plant, allowing it a greater chance of survival.

This saguaro is probably almost twice my age – but for a saguaro, it’s still a teenager.

At last the saguaro is beginning to grow arms – this means it’s about 75 years old.

And this saguaro could be between 150-200 years old!

Disease, weather, and humans contribute to saguro death. Hope this one had a good long life first.

As Bruno and I hiked up to the park’s 1400m-peak, we played desert games.  We tried to find saguaro at each point of their life cycle.  It was easy.  I searched for the biggest saguaro I could find.  We looked for woodpeckers, snakes, owls, and mice in the holes carved into the saguaro.  Bruno played the cactus version of the “cloud game” (the one where you find shapes in the clouds), pointing out different human-like poses by these very human-looking plants – so human that the Tohono O’odham, the natives of the Sonora Desert, believe the saguaro to be spirits of their ancestors.

Hiking was the best way I could think of to experience the Sonoran Desert.  Driving by we would have missed too many subtle details, like the cholla cacti that look like a creation from a Dr. Seuss book or the dried yellow flower bulbs sprouting up from the saguaro.  I’d love to visit this park in late spring when the saguaro blossoms waxy yellow and white flowers.  The Tohono O’odham cultivate this flower ever July – marking the beginning of their New Year – to produce jams, jellies, candy, and ceremonial wine used to bring on the summer rains.  Saguaro National Park was the perfect introduction to the Sonoran Desert, the backdrop for our overland adventures for the next few months.

Hiking in Saguaro National Park is a great way to get to know the Sonoran Desert.

Its cholla cacti, which come straight out of Dr. Seuss.

Little flowers on the heads of little saguaros.

We’ve reached the summit! (Finally a photo of Bruno – sorry Mama Caumette, but Bruno is a total camera hog in national parks!)

The Petrified Forest and the Saguara National Park couldn’t be more different parks.  They preserve completely different landscapes, have totally different weather patterns, and offer drastically different experiences.  This is amazing to me since the two parks are in the same state, and only a few hundred kilometers apart.

Yet, they both impacted me in the same way.  They each elevated a simple piece of flora – wood and cactus – that I would have otherwise glanced at inconsequentially.  They revealed the depth of value that a piece of wilderness can hold.  They prompted feelings of wonder at how small and fleeting I am.  And they demonstrated the variety and richness of America’s natural beauty.  Despite all the ugliness going on in the United States right now, these parks give me hope that America still is Beautiful.

***

Volunteer at U.S. National Parks!

If anyone is getting really excited about America’s National Parks by reading this, you might want to consider a pretty cool opportunity – volunteering at one of them!  At Petrified Forest N.P. I got to talk to a retired couple that has been volunteering full-time at National Parks all over the country for the past five years.  They stay a couple of months in each park and offer about 30 hours per week of service in any capacity they can.  In return, they are provided with free accommodation in the park.

I think this is such a cool opportunity, and it’s definitely on my radar for the future.  You get to experience a park in much more depth than as a short-term visitor, and you also get to give back to a worthy project.  The National Parks are severely underfunded, and will likely be even more once Mr. Trump takes office.  If you have a particular skill and at least a month of free time, then please consider putting your skills to work!

For more information on this amazing opportunity, and for the application form, check out this link.

Bruno and I had been in Oman a couple weeks.  We’d already had a run-in with the police, visited lots of forts and mosques, and fallen in love with cheap Omani-Indian fast food.

Now we were driving away from Muscat, the capital, and were heading down Oman’s eastern coast to do what we were most excited to do in this intriguing Sultanate – catch sea turtles in the act of nesting and laying their eggs.  (Read more about why this is such a wondrous experience in the official version of the story.)

Here, the coastline varied between rock that looked like coral and long white sand beaches.  Photographically, it was like a fairy tale.  But in actuality, we quickly learned, it was a pain in the butt.  The wind was a constant nag, bringing whipping sand, goose bumps, and whitecaps on the water.  Worse, as overlanders visiting a country with no campsites, it was a great challenge to find an uninhabited place in which to camp along the entire 400km stretch of coastline we crossed.

Hole in a rocky outcrop along Oman’s stunning eastern coastline.

Exploring a rocky beach along Oman’s coast.

Waves crashing onto the rocky coast of windy Oman.

Still, we were on a turtle mission, and search for nesting turtles we would.  We would just try to accomplish the mission as fast as possible.

On one of our first nights, after getting stuck in the sand on nearby White Beach and subsequently sharing a very strange session of tea with an elderly local villager, we parked on a rocky outcrop and effortlessly spotted turtle heads bobbing between the waves.  Later that day, while climbing down to a little gorge near our campsite, we saw tracks in the sand that Bruno declared were those of a turtle.

The little gorge we climbed down after spotting turtle heads bobbing in the sea.

Bruno, taking a closer look at those turtle tracks.

If it had been this easy to spot turtle heads and turtle tracks, then surely it would be easy to spot nesting turtles, I concluded.  I slept well that night, and dreamed of turtle eggs.

The following day, Bruno and I drove through Sur, a town famous for its dhow – or, traditional boat – building.  We climbed a little hill and got a spectacular view of the coast.  Then we carried on to Ras al Hadd, the official starting-point of turtle-territory in Oman.

Ras al Hadd is set along a long stretch of sandy beach, a beach known for its nesting sea turtles.  We found a sign displaying a series of rules of conduct on this beach, set in place to protect the turtles and their nests.  But other than that sign, there was no sign of anything turtle-related.  Instead, the beach was strewn with fishing nets, boats, and 4WD vehicles, used in Oman to help pull in one’s catch of the day.  We didn’t fancy sleeping among the fishermen here, so we carried on.

A panorama of Sur and its famous wooden dhows.

Guidelines for behaviour on this (or any, really) turtle-nesting beach.

There was more evidence of fishermen on this beach than turtles.

To Ras al Jinz, the turtle-nesting site of Oman and the entire Middle East.  This was the place where Bruno had spent so much time a decade before, camped along the beach watching turtles quietly dig nests in the sand, nestle themselves in, and lay a hundred eggs before waddling back to the sea and leaving their future babies to the fate of cruel Nature.  (Read more about that cruel fate in the official version of this story.)

Now, though, Ras al Jinz was just one big concrete building with a tourist information center and a mediocre museum.  Bruno was appalled, so we moved on, deciding to continue searching for turtles further down the coast.

We spent a night near As Sulayb, a fishing village whose nets were doing more damage than good to the turtles.  We spotted six turtles here, but all of them were dead.  This time, I was the one that was appalled.

Parked at As Sulayb, where I only saw dead turtles.

It was while going for a run that I spotted two turtles in the water, and, thinking they were alive, raced into the water to push them out. They were both, however, dead.

A sunrise breakfast that should have been beautiful but was just really, really sad.

We drove through the Sharquiya Sands, a desert of dunes that reaches to the coastline.  It was fun to climb dunes and gaze at the turquoise sea, but the wind made the sand storms too unbearable to camp here.

Sharquiya Sands is a big desert in Oman with sand dunes that reach all the way to the Arabian Sea.

Photo op amid the dunes.

But it was too windy to spend the night.

Instead, we chose to take a ferry across to Masirah Island, renowned for its turtle-nesting beaches.  On the ferry ride, I was full of anticipation at the prospect of soon accomplishing our mission.

Getting on the ferry bound for Masirah Island.

Excited to accomplish our turtle mission on Masirah Island!

Fellow passengers bound for Masirah.

Arriving to Masirah Island.

We spotted more camels than turtles near Masirah Island’s Turtle Beach.

Once on the island, we headed straight for Turtle Beach and the Masirah Island Eco Resort.  They had an interesting display of turtle conservation efforts on the island, but the receptionist told us we were too early for the loggerhead turtle nesting season, the type of turtle that nests here.  We spent the night on Turtle Beach anyway, but instead of turtle tracks, all we saw were tire tracks from 4WD vehicles playing in the sand.

Disappointed, we decided to drown our sorrows the next day at the resort pool.  A couple of hotel beers in a country where alcohol is hard to come by helped us swallow our turtle frustrations, and the following day we were ready to search every corner of this rugged, rocky, arid island for nesting sea turtles.

Chilling at the Masirah Island Resort’s pool.

Bruno’s chillin’ too.

And search we did.  We drove up and down the 95km-long eastern coast (where the turtles come to lay), searching for sandy beaches.  When we’d find one, we’d get out of the car and walk up and down the beach, looking for signs of turtles.  And eventually we found them.  At first, the tracks were faint – a few days old or more – but eventually, we found fresh tracks, certainly created the night before.

Parked along a beach searching for turtle tracks or nests.

Scouring beach after beach for signs of nesting turtles is hard work – hard work that requires an ample supply of water.

Finally, fresh turtle tracks leading to fresh turtle nests!

The nests are pretty big, aren’t they? They have to be, since they’re filled with countless eggs.

So, we parked our vehicle near the beach and set in for the day, filled with anticipation.  Since turtles almost always lay their eggs in the middle of the night, we busied ourselves that afternoon snorkelling in the water and walking up and down the beach while waiting for the sun to finally set.

Parked along our private turtle-nesting beach, waiting for more turtles to arrive.

Going for a beach walk (or a few) to kill time before nightfall.

The nearest village from our private turtle-nesting beach, and this was shot after a 40-minute beach walk.

I’m not going to go into the details of what exactly happened that night on that uninhabited, isolated stretch of white sand coast on faraway Masirah Island.  For that, you’ll have to read the official version of the story.  Suffice to say that it was an incredible night.

And no, I didn’t see nesting sea turtles in Oman.

Epilogue:  A couple of months after searching for nesting sea turtles in Oman, Bruno and I found ourselves along the Mediterranean Coast of Turkey, another key turtle-nesting coast.  I had hopes of finally accomplishing my turtle mission, but once again, we were too early.

With Phil and Angie, we visited Turkey’s premier Iztuku Beach near Dalyan and learned a lot about the local efforts to protect the sea turtles, both by Captain June (a famous sailor-turned turtle ecologist) and a Sea Turtle Research and Rehabilitation Center.  The beach was well-protected, which is great to see, but also means that independent overlanders can’t simply camp out here and wait for incoming turtles.  I guess my nesting-turtle mission will have to wait for the coast of Mexico!

I’m not quite sure why – masochism or redemption, perhaps? – but I googled the Rota Vicentina immediately.  The well-designed website described its two routes – the inland historical way, encompassing some of the old Grand Route (GR), and the coastal fishermen’s trail – along with topographical descriptions, accommodation information, and Google Earth tracking.  My interest was piqued.

The truth is that, despite the challenges of our Camino, somewhere along the way I’d learned that I liked long-distance walks.  In fact, I was already cross-referencing other interesting trails I’d heard about with our long-term travel plans to see where a few more hikes might fit in.

When I learned that the Rota Vicentina ran along our planned route south, I knew this was an opportunity I couldn’t miss.  True, we wouldn’t have time to walk all 400km of it – our transit south had to take us well into Morocco in a couple short weeks – and I still wasn’t mentally ready to sleep in any other bed than my own, anyway.  But Bruno and I could at least sample the Rota Vicentina, right?

Why not sample the Rota Vicentina, a new network of walking trails in south-west Portugal?

The Rota Vicentina? Looks right up our alley!

We chose the Fishermen’s trail because we love coastal views and because the trail cuts through a big natural park, the Parque Natural de Sudoeste Alatenjano e Costa Vicentina (which I gather is where the name of the trail network comes from).  We based ourselves in Vila Nova de Milfontes, the second village along the Fisherman’s trail, because it had a decent campsite.  We popped into the tourist office, which seemed to cater primarily to Rota hikers, and were pointed toward the blue and green trail markers that would guide our way out of Milfontes.

And that was that – the next morning, we were off toward Almograve.  It was a pretty simple pre-departure organization, compared to our Camino preparation, as we just needed to pack day bags containing enough food and water for a 16km walk.  One point for day hikes.

The Fishermen’s Trail, named after all its fishermen.

The blue and green trail markings of the Rota Vicentina.

Leaving Vila Nova de Milfontes and its tiny port.

I wasn’t just comparing day hikes to long-distance hikes as we walked the Rota, however.  I couldn’t help but compare this walk to the Camino de Santiago.  And when I did, the Rota Vicentina came up short in almost all respects: it didn’t have an aura of excitement surrounding it, its coastal cliffs were less high and dramatic; the scenery of the park wasn’t as varied.  The biggest drawback of the Rota, in my opinion, is that the trails don’t pass through any villages between the day’s start and end points (at least on the Fishermen’s Trail).  This meant that there was much less cultural interest, that you had to lug all the food and water you’d need for the day, and that you couldn’t make your day’s walk longer or shorter unless you bush-camped or doubled-up sections.

There was one thing I liked better about the Rota Vicentina, though: there was hardly any asphalt-walking.  The trail was almost always dirt, rock, or sand, meaning that your knees and feet take less of a beating.  (Indeed, I could still feel the places on my toes that had barely-healed blisters from the Camino and its nightmarish tar trails).  Walking the Rota was more physically-demanding because the trail was about 70% soft sand and we had to ford and river once (thankfully the water wasn’t deep), but at least I knew I wasn’t doing my body long-term damage.

Ok, the coast line IS pretty.

The Fisherman’s trail is composed of about 70% sand trails – hard on the heart, but soft on the knees.

Just finished fording the river. Ok, it was a creek, but still…

After a quick jaunt around the very small fishing village of Almograve, we hitchhiked back to Milfontes so we could sleep in our own bed that night.  A twice-daily bus travels between the two towns, but we didn’t want to wait, and the locals were very obliging.  It was my first time hitchhiking, so don’t worry mom.

The next morning we walked in the opposite direction, north toward Porto Covo (the first town on the Fishermen’s trail).  We preferred this day’s walk to our previous, both because we were walking north (which meant the sun wasn’t in our face but at our backs) and because the trail hugged the coastline more often.  We walked on sand through an astounding variety of shrubs, sturdy plants that must deal with an onslaught of hot sun, salty wind, and dry soil in their attempt to prevent the sand dunes from falling down the cliffs into the Atlantic Ocean.  We passed several fishermen parked on the edge of rocky cliffs, caught site of sandy coves and inaccessible beaches, tiny rock islands that fell away from the coast, and even and even a few birds’ nests big enough for me to sit in.

Cool shrubs, one of the many varieties of hearty plants along this chunk of coastline.

It’s the fishermen doing what they do every day that created this imprints in the earth for this walking trail in the first place.

Check out that massive bird’s nest on the top of the rock island there.

There’s a close-up, in case you couldn’t spot the bird’s nest. Anyone know what bird made this? It’s certainly not the seagulls that are sitting inside! :)

I’d have loved to drive a bit further south, park our vehicle at the intersection of the Fishermen’s trail and the Historical Way, and sample more of the Rota Vicentina.  I couldn’t deny that the almost-empty trail and the warm midday sun was doing my body and spirit a lot of good.  But, as a sign not far from Milfontes showed us, we still had over 1200km to Agadir, the approximate Moroccan meet-up point for our forthcoming family reunion.

1200km to Agadir, so we better get going!

I’ve spent three months touring around Europe this year, and one of the things that has most struck me is its sheer quantity of hiking trails.  We’ve stumbled upon them everywhere – in Bosnia, Slovenia, Switzerland, France, and Spain – always well-signposted and carrying a few well-equipped hikers from one lovely point to another.  I’ve learned about the GR, or Grandes Randonées, a network of long-distance footpaths across Europe (in France alone, there are 60,000km of GR trails).  I’ve learned about the Via Ferrata (or “Iron Road” in Italian), climbing routes covered with steel cables and other climbing aids scattered across the mountain ranges of Europe.

I hadn’t equated Europe with walking trails, but now I do.  It may be the thing I’m most excited to take advantage of when Bruno and I come back in our old(er) age.

I’ve been working to expand the list of interesting long-distance walks I’d like to do over the coming years.  I can tell you, for sure, that the Rota Vicentina – and a boat-load of other European trails – is now on that list.  Are there any others, anywhere in the world, on your radar that you can enlighten us with?

High-Season in Croatia

We’d just crossed the border from Bosnia into Croatia when we saw them. Asian tourists spilling out of massive busses. Retired couples seated comfortably inside luxurious camping cars. Hand-painted “rooms available” signs along the road.

We knew this would happen eventually. With every kilometer we’d driven, we’d mentally prepared ourselves. We’d half-expected to see it sooner. Yet, none of that stopped me from being taken aback by the tourism onslaught that is Europe in the summer. My brief brush with mass tourism in Cappadocia, Turkey – and even my full-on run-in at Ephesus – had nothing on this.

We were in Plitvice Lakes National Park, a place that evidently everyone had heard of but me. The park protects a series of pristine turquoise lakes whose water tumbles down from one to the next in a series of waterfalls. The color of the water, mixed with the greys and reds of the rock and the green of the dense, almost-tropical, forest, is absolutely mesmerizing.

Lovely Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia.

A diagram of the lakes, flowing down into one another from the highest to the lowest.

Water flowing into one of the lakes.

What isn’t, is sharing the waterfalls with thousands of other tourists.

Plitvice Lakes National Park is well-designed to maximize one’s aesthetic appreciation of the park. Hilltop viewpoints give a bird’s eye view of the scenery. Wooden boardwalks line the edges of the lakes for close-up views of the falls. There’s even a boat that can take you across the largest lake for a view from the water.

But the boardwalks are very narrow, and we often found ourselves at a complete standstill as people going the other way tried to squeeze past us or stop for a quick glimpse of photo of what we’d all come to see. We also had to wait at the viewpoints for that unadulterated view, and felt pressured not to linger because of all the people waiting behind us.

A birds’ eye view of the lakes and one of the wooden walkways.

Traffic jam!!

A very crowded boat ride.

As we hiked around the lakes, I imagined what it would have been like to experience this same place without the crowds. While I appreciated the dragonflies floating gracefully around me and the croak of frogs hidden in patches of pussy willows and under lily pads, I know for sure that the experience would have been much more profound had we been alone. The feeling of exploring a slice of wilderness, of communion with nature, was impossible to evoke.

Electric blue dragonflies everywhere.

These guys sure can croak!!

The lakes were loaded with fish that followed movement on the walking paths – probably hoping for bits of bread.

Still, we made the most of the day. Maps at the park entrances recommend certain itineraries, which involve a combination of boat, walk, and train in order to see parts or all of the lakes. We chose the longest itinerary (which takes about 5-6 hours and includes about 8km of walking), and we opted to do it backwards. The idea was that we wouldn’t be following behind the same groups of people the entire day, and we certainly hoped it might mean that we’d encounter fewer crowds. The decision may have helped us to get a few moments – and a few shots – alone, but it’s hard to say. I can say that, as the day progressed, the crowds thickened, and we were both thankful for our early start.

We managed a few solo shots.

A rare photo of both of us – hard to accomplish without a tripod!!

That evening, like the last, we returned to the parking lot behind a hotel that had allowed us to spend the night for free, with the unspoken understanding that we would dine in their restaurant (we were happy to abide, in this case, as their pizza and regional beer were delicious!). This bargain was to prove commonplace throughout both Croatia and Slovenia, and would be one we’d take up frequently. As we traveled further North-East through the Balkans, campsites were becoming increasingly expensive and busy. I was struggling with the idea of paying between $30-50 to park on a piece of grass, squeezed between other camping cars, with a busy road right behind us.

The day after our second pizza, however, we decided to splurge on the modern campsite nearby and spend the day catching up on laundry and internet, things that are difficult or impossible with the free-parking-eat-at-restaurant bargain. Plus, it was the third anniversary of our fateful encounter on the beach of Mozambique, so it seemed as good a reason as any to splurge.

It’s funny how every time we put a pile of money into our accommodation, we are disappointed. In Port Sudan, right before leaving Africa after three years, we’d indulged in a two-night stay at a five-star hotel (well, it once was) for Bruno’s birthday, and neither of us had slept a wink. Here we were at our most expensive campsite ever and we couldn’t find a piece of flat grass to park on, the internet only worked at the [very faraway] reception, and it rained all over my laundry on the line! We managed a nice-enough anniversary dinner together when the rain dissipated, but give me pizza, beer and a free parking space any day!

Pizza and locally-brewed beer at the free parking restaurant. Woo woo!

Our 3rd anniversary dinner.

Croatia is most famous for its breathtaking, ultra-long coastline. Before starting our Balkan transit, we’d made the decision to purposely avoid the coast. Bruno, as a European, knew what Europe can be like in the summer, especially the coast. As such, we’d opted to visit Bosnia’s central hills and towns rather than Croatia’s nearby coast. But as we consulted our map from the crappy expensive campsite, we saw that heading to the coast would shave a few kilometers off our transit. It wouldn’t hurt to smell a bit of salt air for a day or two.

By the time we started winding our way down the hills, one in five cars was a camping car. Campsite signs popped up every kilometer or two, and we tried visiting a few. They were all cramped trailer park villages, and most charging double what we’d paid for our special anniversary night. Since the weather wasn’t cooperating (the wind almost blew me into the water when I stopped to take a photo) and we’d internalized our lesson about the inverse ratio between accommodation price and satisfaction, we drove on.

Eventually we found a “trailer park village” stuck between the coast and the road that was at least in our price range (in fact, the lady told us we were so friendly that we could stay for free, even though we’d never asked!). Our experience on the Croatian Coast would be limited to a blistery drive along the coastline, a ride through Rijeka, Croatia’s largest port town, and breakfast on the Adriatic Sea with a view of sailboats and charming coastal villages illuminated up by the morning light. At least I caught a little glimpse of Croatia’s infamy, I figure.

A quick drive through Rijeka town.

Breakfast with a view.

The view.

A Very Brief Trip to Slovenia

We could have passed between Croatia and Italy through a tiny, 30km-long chunk of Slovenia. We could have been in and out in an hour. We were, after all, on a limited-time transit through France. But I couldn’t very well step into a country I’d never been to before and not at least see something! (Plus, Slovenia would be my final new country of the trip, and indeed for the next several months.) I read that eastern Slovenia had an abundance of caves (more than 10,000, and several hundred more being discovered each year), and with only the slightest detour, we could visit one.

We avoided Postojna, Slovenia’s most famous caves because of the 5km train ride through the caves, and chose the Škocjan Caves, a UNESCO world heritage site that many travelers cite as their favorite experience in Slovenia. When we arrived at the caves, though, we almost turned right around and continued on to Italy. The price, the crowds, the fact that you had to join a guided tour, the fact that you couldn’t take photos – this wasn’t at all the type of experience that Bruno and I seek in our travels.

A view from above of the cave and canyon system of Škocjan Caves.

Reka River, passing through the canyon on its way into the cave.

Yet, for the second time in only a few days, we swallowed our flight-response and continued on. And, just like in Pitvice Lakes (in fact, perhaps even more so), I’m happy we did.

Škocjan Caves were that type of bizarre beauty that you can’t stop looking at. Layers of white rock cascade down in mushroom-like formations. Stalactites and stalagmites reach toward each other, sometimes forming columns and other times forming strange structures whose shadows reminded me of monsters.

This was, by far, the largest cave I’ve ever seen. The Reka River heads underground through a tunnel and into this cave before re-emerging above ground several kilometers later. The cave network is long, with a series of chambers – some tiny and claustrophobic and others so massive I kept picturing Harry Potter’s fight with the obelisk – that go deeper and deeper underground (more than 100m at its deepest).

The tour had its plusses and minuses. Our guide was a passionate spelunker who pointed out the stalagmite (or is it stalactite, I can never remember!) that looks like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, showed us old walking trails, and told us about the admittedly fascinating history of cave discovery. Yet, we were still walking from point to point with twenty-plus people. We couldn’t linger as we wanted to, and the beginning of the cave (the best part, in my opinion) was a mad rush to catch up with the crowd. Bruno managed to sneak a few surreptitious photos here and there, but the guide had her eye on us pretty closely.

Formations inside the cave.

Stalac-stuff inside Škocjan Caves.

Our tour group.

I’m happy we visited Škocjan Caves, but both of us had had enough of the mass tourism of the region. The camping cars were getting to us. The campsites were getting to us. The cost and approach to tourism was getting to us.

We would spend a single night in Slovenia, and only four in Croatia. We had time for more, but this region at this time of year was simply not our cup of tea. We had a better idea of what to do with our extra days… but that, dear readers, is a story for another blog.

Çukurbağ

The sheep dog followed us into the foothills.

Entering the boundary of the national park.

When I walk, I think. I daydream. I ponder silly things. I reflect. I connect experiences. I’m reminded of other things that make me think, ponder, and reflect.

On this day, as we meandered up and down the silently beautiful foothills, I was reminded of the walks we’d done only a few days earlier, in Cappadocia. That region is a day-hiker’s dream, with no less than a dozen valleys to explore (that you can connect together to length and loop your walk, if you want). Many of them hold ancient cave churches visible only by the tiny doorways and windows carved into the face of mushroom-capped and elf-hat-shaped fairy chimneys. All of them offer overflowing natural beauty.

I had loved walking in Cappadocia. It was probably my favorite aspect of my time in a place where choosing a favorite is a huge challenge. It wasn’t just the fairy chimneys or the churches. It was that every step forward offered a new angle on the landscape. It was the vineyards poking out of pale, chalky earth. It was the tortoises we encountered on the road. It was the trees in full spring bloom. And it was, above all, the fact that we were free to enjoy our walk in peace.

Walking amid the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia.

Inside a cave house discovering during a walk in Cappadocia.

Lunch break while hiking in Cappadocia’s Rose Valley.

Vineyards and cave churches.

I thought back to our hikes on in Africa. In three years of travel through the continent, I can probably count them on one hand (ok, maybe two). You need a guide, or you have to pay a fee, or it’s not safe, the locals would say. There was always some reason that we couldn’t walk freely. Often, to be honest, we didn’t want to hike in a place. If the hike involved passing through villages, we knew without a doubt that we would be harassed, begged to, or scammed. Walking is supposed to be relaxing and meditative, but it rarely was in Africa.

I thought, then, about my past month in Turkey. I’d really enjoyed myself, so far. This country was growing on me, getting into my skin in a big way. I thought about how it seemed to be the perfect country for a traveler. I wondered if it might become one of my favorite countries of the forty-one I’d now traveled to.

It wasn’t just that I could walk here, without a guide, without paying a fee, without worrying about my security, or without being harassed by the locals. It was that Turkey really has the whole package. It’s got the incredible natural beauty. I’ve seen snowy mountains, rivers, giant blue lakes, geological oddities, rolling hills, steppe grass, and pine forests, and in a day or two, we’d add sea and beach to that list. The map of Turkey even shows a desert and a salt pan. The variety – and vastness, for Turkey is huge – of landscapes means that your bottom jaw barely reconnects with the upper jaw before dropping yet again.

Around the bend, a moment of beauty.

Another bend, another beauty.

A beautifully weird plant in the foothills of the mountains. See, even Turkey’s details are pretty!

Turkey also has a fascinating and complex history that I’m still struggling to make sense of. It wasn’t just the Byzantines and the Ottomans here – there’s a whole slew of characters involved, from the Hatti and the Hittites to the Ancient Greeks and Romans, the Persians, the Arabs, and the Seljuks. And there’s a historical site seemingly at every intersection to match.

Its culture is no less complex. The women wearing long sleeves, ankle-length skirts and headscarves holding hands with their mates as they strolled in the park; the young hip generation in Istanbul born from farmers in Anatolia; the [long and meandering] call to prayer coming from mosques that, here, sit empty most of the year; the fact that tourism has reached Turkey with a bang yet the locals still speak no English.

Now that I had been in Turkey for a few weeks, I was starting to understand some of the seeming cultural inconsistencies and to place customs and sites in historical context. I’d had to work hard for it, but things were finally starting to reveal themselves to me, just like the Turkish language that I was slowly picking up on out of pure survival. And with each layer I peeled back, I continued to find Turkey just as intriguing, but more and more appealing.

A Turkish family in the streets of Avanos. Check out the hand-holding.

Farmers in the fields.

Not one of these people spoke a word of English when Bruno approached, asking the price of the veggies for sale. Good thing I’ve been practicing my Turkish!

The sheep dog led us back down the hill toward Çukurbağ. A few people waved at us as we passed. Merhaba, we replied with genuine smiles. We’d just been on another successful hike in Turkey, one where we were neither pestered nor threatened, one where we’d been left to our own devices, one where we’d been free to explore the countryside at our own rhythm and to ponder those that had walked these paths before us.

As I walked past the friendly locals of Çukurbağ, and thought of all the other laidback, relaxed, and open people we’d encountered in Turkey, my meandering thoughts connected: It seemed there was a direct correlation between how much I liked a country and how walkable it was.

A country I can walk in is a country I like, I decided. And I’ve already walked a lot in Turkey.

I love walking! I love Turkey!