Mike's 2009/2010 world tour

It's all over

2010-06-11T20:33:00.000-07:00

The fat lady is singing, and it's all over but the crying. 400 days have come and gone, but wow – what an adventure! 6 continents, and 44 countries in all. We met so many great people, saw a lot of things, enjoyed many new experiences, and learned a ton. Indeed, these were the purposes for doing this trip.

Although this does not come as an epiphany, I think the strongest impression this trip has made on me personally is to recognize and really appreciate the degree of poverty in which most of the world lives. Life in Canada is pretty good, even when it's bad. I'm not saying we should grow complacent – indeed we should agitate for improvement, but all the while recognize that we have it pretty good.

We saw first hand the cruelty people can exhibit against one another, but also incredible acts of kindness. Some of our best memories are those spontaneous acts of kindness that complete strangers showed us. I hope that from this we can learn to live with open minds and kind hearts as well.

Other major themes of the trip were to take in all the cultural nuances we could – food, drink, arts, religion, clothing, social practices, language, etc. Oh, and almost missing a lot of our flights, buses and trains. That was another common theme of our travels!

If anyone is interested in the chronological list of countries, here's where we spent our 400 days:

Australia, New Zealand, England, Ireland, North Ireland, France, Switzerland, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia, Germany, Poland, Scotland, South Africa, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Kenya, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Israel, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, India, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Philippines, Japan, China (including Hong Kong and Macau), USA, Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Colombia, and Mexico. Phew!

CLICK HERE if you want to see our route plotted on a world map

And so it is with mixed emotions that I am back home. Am I ready to be back? No way! There's still so much of the world to experience. I've never been to Antarctica before, and I'd like to go to Holland with my dad, and it would be nice to visit Russia again, and of course there's Central America, Iran and the Middle East, etc. In fact, I think we need to do this again! Having said that, it's fantastic to be reaquainted family and friends.

One of the best parts of the trip was catching up with our international friends. It was so much fun to see familiar faces once in a while – especially when it was on their turf. While on tour we managed to meet up with:

1) Stuart and Anita in Mollymook, Australia (for their wedding)
2) Kouros and Fereshteh in Mollymook, Australia (also guests for the wedding)
3) Asha in Gold Coast, Australia (hmmmm)
4) Reinhold in Papa Moa, New Zealand
5) Daniel and Carmen in Sydney, Australia
6) Ian (but not Danielle) in Ireland
7) John and Arranny in Paris, France
8) Axel in Dresden, Germany
9) Daniel and Carmen (again) in Berlin, Germany
10) Khristi and Tim in Munich, Germany
11) Inita in Cologne, Germany
12) Shauna in Arusha, Tanzania
13) Dave and Sarah in Istanbul, Turkey
14) Gaietry in Bangalore, India
15) Mark and Laura in Ho Chi Mihn City, Vietnam
16) Claire in Shanghai, China
17) Bao Demei in Nanjing, China
18) Xu Tao in Nanjing and Xi'an and Beijing, China
19) Katsunari, Yumi, and family in Oita, Japan
20) Akira in Tokyo, Japan
21) Luke in Tokyo, Japan
22) Amanda's family in New York, USA
23) Carlyle in Curitiba, Brazil
24) Stuart and Anita (again) in Quito, Ecuador
25) Duncan in Lima, Peru
26) Pat in Lima, Peru
27) Amanda's aunt Gloria in Chicago, USA
28) Fabian, Elsa, and family in Bogotá, Colombia

While acknowledging those friends we met up with, we must also say thanks to our families at home who really went out of their way to make this trip possible. Amanda's father, Ed, thanks so much for looking after business while we were away. Your role in all of this was absolutely pivotal in us being able to do this trip. Mom – you too – thanks for taking on a big chunk of the paper work while we were gone! And thanks also to Amanda's mom Carol, and to my dad for the assistance you also provided! And one final shout out, which goes out to my incredible wife for tolerating me 24/7 for a year straight. I don't think there are many people capable of doing this, but you did it with a smile. You're the best!

Thanks also to CouchSurfing.org Wow – what a fantastic web site; it brings together hosts in their home city who are willing to accommodate total strangers who are passing through (like us) – and it's totally free. We Couch Surfed maybe 50 nights which saved us thousands of dollars, but even in countries with inexpensive hotels we Couch Surfed for the cultural exchange. We made some really good friends this way.

While signing off, I also want to say thanks to everyone for following along with my blog. I hope you enjoyed reading it as much as I did sharing this with you all. I'd love to hear comments or questions from anyone who'se willing to oblige. I love hearing back from people.

Peace out...

Mexico

2010-05-29T11:26:00.000-07:00

With Colombia behind me, I headed to Cancun, Mexico to meet up with Amanda (she was in Chicago visiting family while I was in Bogota visiting friends). We stayed at a typical holiday resort - this one called the Royal Mayan. It was the usual mix of beach, swimming pools, and hotel suites.

Actually, the week was surprisingly fun and really busy. We took advantage of all the activities and amenities. We were body surfing at the beach, swimming in the pool, played beach volleyball, tennis,

and took some sailing lessons with their fun little boats. In fact, on Friday we joined the weekly "regatta" and came in first place! That was pretty fun.

For something with a little more substance we headed out for a day trip to the Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza. The place was amazing! Not only a huge site, but the artifacts were really great. The main event of Chichen Itza is the central pyramid, built as a testimony to the Mayan's prowess of astronomy. For example, the pyramid has four sides, each with 91 steps (so 4 x 91), and then there is the top level where they all meet (+ 1), so that's 4 x 91 + 1 = 365, and there were other astrological significant elements built into the pyramid.

This was also one of the sites where the Mayans would do human sacrifices. See that reclining stone figure at the bottom of this next picture? You may need to click on the image to bring it up a little larger. Anyway, that's the exact spot where the high priest would hastily cut into his victim's chest and pull out the heart while it's still beating and place it on the altar.

And it wasn't just human sacrifice by having your heart cut out while you were still conscience to see it happen, but they also bound virgins by the wrists and ankles and cast them into a deep natural well while adorned with lots of heavy stone jewelery. Those who were sacrificed were held in the highest esteem. To give your life in a bid to appease the gods was considered the pinnacle of altruism.

We finished the week in Cancun with our days filled with sun and fun. Then all too quickly it came to an end and here I am at the airport in Mexico City waiting between flights wishing I'd taken the time an even LONGER adventure. Well, maybe next time.

Bolivia and Colombia

2010-05-22T08:29:00.000-07:00

Upon finishing with lake Titicaca we headed into Bolivia

Bolivia is an impoverished country, but still has much to offer and was well worth the visit. The main reason we wanted to go there was to experience some part of the Amazon jungle, and for some reason this was proving difficult (was fate trying to send us a message?). For example, we originally thought of going to Iquitos in Peru, but all the cheap flight seats were taken, so then we thought we'd go to the Cuzco area of Peru, but mud slides had closed those roads. Then we thought we'd go into Bolivia and from La Paz head into Rurrenabaque, but protesters had created a roadblock. And so it was that on our fourth attempt we finally managed to get on a river boat cruise up one of the tributaries to the mighty Amazon river, near the town of Trinidad. Here's the boat that was our home for four days.

It's a little old, but sure was fun... In fact, the top two levels were actually a river boat transported from Holland and fitted to a Bolivian made hull and lower floor. Hey – why not? The Amazon scenery was really nice. I couldn't believe we were actually in the Amazon jungle!

We even got to visit a local farm by horseback...

It was here that I learned rural land in Bolivia is incredibly cheap. I was told that for as little as $60 USD you can buy a hectare of land (that's 10,000 square meters, or almost 2.5 acres). No – I'm not missing a zero there – I don't mean $6,000 or even $600. I mean $60 – s i x t y. A guy can spend that much on a nice dinner back home – or own a hectare of land out here! No – I don't have any announcements to make about any land purchases, but it does make a guy think...

It was also my birthday out there on our Amazon jungle visit, and I was happy to spend it with six very nice Bolivian nationals who shared our boat with us, as well as the very kind staff members.

Although we didn't see quantity or variety of animals I had hoped to see in the jungle, we did come across some wild life...

... including a delicious fish that Amanda caught us for dinner one night. Tasty as it was, we all went to bed a little hungry after splitting this eight ways (plus a share for the crew)

And if it's catching things that I'm discussing right now, how about our ship's captain. He caught these two guys No - neither became dinner - they were both "catch and release".

But if I am discussing food, how about our typical breakfast spread. All the tropical fruits a guy could desire.

This region of the world is also home to another food. Well, maybe food is the wrong word, but there's a leaf we often used to make tea. Others use it to make cocaine.

After our time in the jungle we returned to Bolivia's capital, La Paz, and its traces of colonial influence.

At 4,000 meters (well over 13,000 feet) La Paz is the world's highest capital city. Here's a more typical view of La Paz with the Andes in the background.

At one point we were walking through down town and we heard some loud bangs and pops, and then we saw a crowd of people running through the streets towards us. Slowly advancing behind the crowd was a line of riot cops - helmets, shields, batons, etc, and they were randomly firing tear gas cannisters to disperse the crowd - which explains why the crowd was running. This was a new experience for me, and even as I saw the gas coming out of the cannisters I thought "that couldn't really be tear gas - could it?" So I thought we'd hang around a few seconds to see if it was real tear gas or not, and yup - it was real: stinging eyes, a terrible smell, and a strange taste in the back of my throat. We then joined the running crowd to avoid an even stronger dose of the tear gas. We're told this isn't an uncommon experience in La Paz. This is how the police disperse crowds before protests become unruly.

In Bolivia it's common for traditional women to wear bowler hats. No matter how many times I saw this, I just couldn't stop staring. I just think it looked so odd.

Apparently the reason for this is that about 100 years ago an importer had brought a ton of bowler hats into the region but was unable to sell them. He gave a few to the wives of local aristocrats hoping that other women would copy the fashion and buy up his stock. He was so successful that he had to import more hats, and the trend continues to this day.

Across the street from our hotel in La Paz was the witches market where you can pick up all the essentials for your potions, and brews. Necessities like shrunken heads, cocaine leaves, crystals, aphrodisiacs, and yes, llama fetuses can all be found here.

I also joined a group for a day trip out for a mountain bike ride down what is supposedly the world's most dangerous road - at least that's what the brochure said. It's a dirt road starting at 4,700 meters - that's really high - the air is thin up there, so it's a good thing that it's a day of downhill riding. The road runs through the mountains along some perilous cliffs. In fact, many corners had one (or more) makeshift graves marking where some unfortunate soul went over the edge, to their certain death.

There's now a new (paved) road that's much safer and everyone now drives on that road, which leaves this old dirt road available for us mountain bikers. It lacked the technical challenge I enjoy with single track riding, but it was still fast and fun.

Although there are signs of improvement, Bolivia remains a very impoverished country raked by political problems. For example, I learned that only once in its history has a Bolivian president ever given over power to an opponent after losing in elections. There was also a time when Bolivia had three simultaneous presidents, and more recently there was a president whose term lasted just six hours before he was overthrown. With this sort of instability, it's no wonder that the country isn't exactly marching ahead, and that causes protests, which riot police disperse.

Amid more disruptions by protesters we managed to catch our flight as scheduled and returned to Lima, Peru for a few days.

We stayed with Duncan again, and he took us out to a great restaurant that serves beef heart on skewers. Actually, it was delicious.

We also managed to visit another friend in Lima: Pat, a university friend who happened to be starting a vacation in Lima so we arranged to meet up with him for a day.

Together we went to a museum where we saw this interperative painting of The Last Supper where Jesus and his disciples are sharing a meal of guinea pig and tropical fruits.

After a few days in Lima Amanda and I went our separate ways, so to speak. She headed to Chicago for a week to see a relative, while I headed to Bogota, Colombia where a friend of mine lives.

Fabian and his wife Elsa lived in Edmonton for five years, and being an avid cyclist he rode with a club that I also rode with. And so here we are enjoying his road bike collection at his new house in Bogota...

And it seems Fabian isn't the only one in Bogota with a love for cycling. How about this tough guy and his Harley.

Fabian, Elsa and family were such great hosts. They put me up, fed me, showed me around Bogota, and made sure I didn't get kidnapped.

We went to the city's main square, Plaza de Bolivar...

And to the gold museum.

Although I wasn't allowed to photograph it, there was a brick of gold weighing some 37 kg.

And then there was the art museum, which largely featured the work of Colombian painter Fernando Botero whose work was fantastic.

Colombia (well, Bogota anyway) was far more progressive than I expected. It was clean, modern, and a thriving metropolis. It far exceeded by expectations. Colombia is quite rich in resources, including mining and gem stones - especially emeralds. Some locals mine independently and bring their emeralds to the city to sell. They all sort of congregate along this one street and you can literally see tons of people buying and selling emeralds out in the open.

And if you look hard enough you can also see locals selling something else - fruit! Lots of it!

And then with just ONE WEEK remaining in our journey I headed to Cancun, Mexico to meet up with Amanda. This will be less of a cultural experience, and more of a relaxing week at a resort (I know - I totally feel like I'm selling out by doing this, but I guess we all have to accept our fates).

2010-05-06T04:42:00.000-07:00

Peru!

It wasn't long after saying good-bye to our friends Stuart and Anita in Ecuador, that we said hello to Duncan in Lima, Peru.

One thing we did was visit a museum that had in its collection a few shrunken heads used as trophies after battles.

We also went to Lima's upscale neighborhood Miraflores where it was nice to see some older people out of the house and dancing in the park.

After our brief visit to Lima, we were off Nazca, famous for the aptly named “Nazca lines”. We spent about half an hour in a small plane flying over the lines. You may need to click the images to bring them up a little larger than just miniatures in the blog - the lines are pale and rather thin. Anyway, here's the Hummingbird...

and the Monkey...

And then we traveled further south in Peru – yes by bus! We went to Cuzco which is in the Sacred Valley and not too far from one of the continent's best known sites: Machu Picchu! I was very excited to see this ancient city that used to be home to some 800 Inca, but was abandoned circa 1550 as part of the Inca reaction to the Spanish conquistadors. Their idea was to relocate everyone from various cities to a more remote area and make a final stand against the Spanish, but really it was no contest. It took only a handful of conquistadors with their vastly superior technology to basically wipe out the Inca civilization. Oh – and the smallpox they carried too. In fact, that did vastly more damage than any battles fought.

For those wishing for a little exercize, you can follow the signs to the nearby summit of Waynapicchu

which is a fairly steep mountain peak....

The reward for doing so is the fantastic view overlooking the entire Machu Picchu site

This ancient city was discovered in 1911 by explorer Hiram Bingham. Despite its size the entire city was hidden from view due to 400 years of abandonment and the constant advance of the jungle. Obviously the site has now been cleared so we can get great views and see the city as it might have looked while inhabited by the Inca.

Oh – did I mention the altitude? Machu Picchu was built near the top of a mountain, and sits at 2430 meters above sea level (7970 feet). The air is noticeably thin up there and makes for hard work trekking all about. We often saw clouds below the city.

So why would a civilization build their city so high? They learned the hard way that low lying areas are under constant threat of mud slides from the steep mountains surrounding the area. Luckily they didn't need to haul fresh water up to the city – they specifically chose sites like this because even up here, some had underground fresh water springs. 350 liters per minute, apparently.

After all that hard work of hiking and climbing a guy needs to relax with a few drinks.

Afterwards, we continued south through the stunning backdrop of the Peruvian andes

and settled in the town of Puno, which lies on the shores of Lake Titicaca, the world's highest “navigable” lake (whatever that means). Anyway, the lake is very high, at almost 4,000 meters, and it is also quite large, measuring over 160 km long.

There remains a small population who live out on these man-made floating islands built of reeds.

Apparently, these people were under constant attack by their aggressive neighbors, and their solution was to abandon the land they traditionally inhabited and build floating islands where they would be safe from invasion. They even built floating farms for their livestock.

The remaining population now depends mostly on tourism from visitors who are interested in this curious bit of Peruvian history. They had the usual kitch for sale but seemed happy.

Unknown to most tourists, it is in the lakeside town of Puno that lies another famous site: Machu Pizza! Mmmm – it sure tastes good to have some familiar food once in a while.

We ventured a little further than most people by catching a three hour boat ride further into lake Titicaca, to Isla Amantani.

It is a simple life led by the inhabitants of the island where even electricity is not to be taken for granted. Everyone has a role to play, and there's plenty of hard work to go around.

It was also here on Lake Titicaca that we saw this fantastic sunset

The next day we continued on to another island. We found it a little odd to see lots of older men knitting in their spare time

We enjoyed a fantastic lunch of some typicall Peruvian food

And then it was time to leave the lake and return to Puno. Fortunately we didn't have to take this boat back. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have made it all the way back.

We departed Peru and headed for Bolivia... and you'll have to wait for me to publish that blog update where you'll hear how we found ourselves on the wrong side of the Bolivian riot police and got to sample some free tear gas. Stay tuned!

Argentina, Brazil, and Ecuador

2010-04-20T08:21:00.000-07:00

After New York our adventure continued in South America, where our first stop was Argentina....

Unfortunately, we only had time for the capital city, Buenos Aires – famous for being the birthplace of the Tango...

Buenos Aires is also famous for having the world's largest (widest) street. If I recall correctly, it is 20 lanes wide, and takes usually three "walking man" pedestrian light cycles to cross.

If any of you are of a certain age, you may recall the 1982 Falklands war where Argentina grew impatient with Britain's handing over of the Falkland islands, and so cobbled together a rather ill conceived invasion – which cost them dearly: many dead, military hardware destroyed, and Britian now refusing to follow through with the handover. Anyway, there is a permanent honor guard present at the Falklands war memorial in Buenos Aires.

Buenos Aires is interesting and seems a peaceful place to live if this picture tells the story

The city has a beauty despite its decay and is a bit like a living museum. Everything was once new and beautiful, but the clocks seems to have stopped in Buenos Aries and the city definitely shows its age.

We only had a few days in Buenos Aires, and soon we were on a flight to Brazil

... where we met up with our friend Carlyle who used to work with me in Edmonton.

He lives in the very attractive city of Curitiba, full of parks and green spaces, and this botanical garden

Following our visit with Carlyle we were off to a few of Brazil's better known cities – next stop: the megalopolis of Sao Paulo, home to 11 million citizens, and half of the nation's G.D.P. For all its size we found there wasn't all that much to see and do, actually. I think the hilight was the MASP (Museum of Art, Sao Paulo):

We didn't stay long in Sao Paulo, and soon we were back to our old tricks of taking buses, but wow – the buses in Brazil were awesome. In just six short and comfortable hours we arrived in Rio de Janeiro. The first thing we wanted to experience was Christ the Redeemer, the enormous concrete Jesus statue on the mountain top. Our timing was bad as the entire structure is currently covered in scaffolding so a crew can spend three months cleaning the it. So, this is all we managed for a photo of it:

However, the view from the mountain top was great. We could easily see across the Ipanema beach district to Rio's other recognizable icon, Sugarloaf mountain.

The next day we made our way over to Sugarloaf, and boarded the cable-car for a ride to the summit.

From here we got a view back to Christ the Redeemer.

We also went to several of Rio's grand buildings, such as St. Paul's cathedral

and the government's parliament building

The weather had begun to turn, but despite that who could resist a walk along the Copacabana beach? We saw a group playing, um, “headball?” - not sure what's it's called, actually. They were really talented...

It was around then that the rain really started coming down, and didn't let up for well over a day and at times was intense. Which led to the flooding in Rio that you probably heard about in the news...

The incessant precipitation eventually caused mud slides in some hill side slums, and last I heard the death toll was over 250! In the days following the rains the sea was violent and we were warned not to go into the water. Here's what the waves looked like at the normally docile Ipanema beach:

We had a (tame) close call of our own in Rio where we ended up on the winning side of an attempted robbery. No – it was nothing dangerous, but a kid tried to seal our camera. A few days after these rains we decided to have a nice lunch outside at a sidewalk cafe. I set my camera down on an unoccupied chair beside me and soon the waiter came out with a simple velcro loop. He put it through the camera's wrist strap and fastened it around the arm of the chair. Not long after, while my back was turned, a young man ran past our table and grabbed the camera, but the velcro held firm, and the camera clattered back onto the chair. He went for a second grab, but again came up empty handed and he then decided to flee. However, some good citizens hearing my shouts as he ran stopped him in the street. The camera was not damaged, and more importantly was still in our possession. And what did this young man get for his trouble? Amanda felt sorry for him and gave him the remainder of her lunch as she thought he looked hungry. I was pretty mad at him at first, but all's well that ends well.

Fortunately our remaining time in Rio was far less dramatic than floods, mud slides, and petty crime. We did a bit more sight seeing, such as the metropolitan cathedral. It's striking looking outside...

... and cavernous inside ...

From Rio we flew to Ecuador.

and went straight to the Galapagos islands.

This is where Charles Darwin visited in 1831 and began to develop his theory of evolution.

The Galapagos are famous for the fragile ecosystems it plays host to, and the fearless animals present there. There are few, if any, predators on the islands, so the animals living there have very little fear of humans approaching, and you can get quite close without distressing them. Knowing this would really be something to see, we played a risky game of “find the best last minute deal” and booked a room on this boat (the Queen Beatriz) for about half price the night before it sailed...

Check out the boat's captain...

The Galapagos animals were stunning. Of particular note was this famous fellow...

This is Lonesome George, and he is the very last of this subspecies. There are no females of his type, so it was sort of sad to acknowledge that we were witnessing the extinction of a species – mostly due to human interference.

One curious thing we came across on the islands was the "pirates post office". Back in the pirate days, boats would stop at the Galapagos for the abundant fresh water at its springs, and to stock up on giant tortoises (like Lonesome George) as they would remain alive for many weeks without food, and thus supply the ships with fresh meat. Anyway, ships that stopped would drop off mail in this barrel...

and then sort through the letters already in the barrel. There was an unwritten rule that if the route of your intended journey would take you near any of the addresses listed on the envelopes in the barrel, you were to deliver them, knowing that others would do the same for you. The tradition lives on, and tourists from around the globe leave mail in the barrel for other tourists to deliver. We found a couple addressed to people in Calgary, and so next time we are in the city, we'll try to deliver them.

But the highlight of the Galapagos was certainly the wildlife that calls this area home. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves...

All too quickly our time in the Galapagos came to an end and we returned to Ecuador's capital city, Quito, which is just 20 km for the equator, so a day trip was necessary...

Also, Quito is where we met up with Stuart and Anita. They were just finishing their one-year long honeymoon. In fact, it was their wedding in Australia which was the catalyst for our year long trip. However, being much tougher than us, they have spent their year cycling around South America. Now that's impressive! Here we all are together enjoying the natural hot springs in Papallacta (about a two hour drive out of Quito)

And that was it for Ecuador. We get on a plane tomorrow and head for Lima, Peru where more friends and adventures await...

New York City

2010-04-01T07:55:00.000-07:00

Following China we were on our way to South America, but first we had to transfer in New York city. Rather than suffering a four hour layover we had made arrangements for a 170 hour layover, which is to say that we spent a week in NYC

Amanda's family met us there and spent a few days with us before they headed back home.

NYC has so much to see and do, and we saw and did a lot. I had been there once before on work, but I only had a weekend off to explore the city (at least that's what I told my boss!). This time I was able to take it all in. Of course there are the iconic New York images such as the Chrysler building ...

... and the Empire State building

We went up to the viewing deck on the 86^th floor – and wow – that's quite a view...

Some of you who know me might recall that I really enjoy fine art and so I had to drag Amanda to some of the world's best art museums here like the Met, the MoMa, and the Guggenheim. Here we saw works by some of our favorite artists such as Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, Modigliani, Jackson Pollock...

... Georges Seurat, Paul Cezanne, Marc Chagall, Kandinsky, Edvard Munch, Gustav Klimt, Giacometti...

... Matisse, Diego Rivera and his (ex) wife Frida Kahlo, Jasper Johns, Degas, Damien Hurst, Rodin, and of course my favorite of all time Vincent Van Gogh...

Of course the Guggenheim is known not only for the art it contains, but also the building itself is a masterpiece. Designed by Frank Gehry (arguably the world's most renowned architect) it is another hallmark of New York city.

And who could miss mentioning the Statue of Liberty – donated to America by the French after WW II.

The citizens of NYC have a reputation for being, shall we say, a little terse. But we found the locals to be very friendly, actually. Many times if I had a map open trying to figure how to get somewhere a nice person would just come up and offer help. That's not to say New York is only full of smiling happy people. I did feel pretty safe there, but there were signs (literally) suggesting the contrary:

As we blitzed our way through the city, we visited Times Square...

Tiffany and Co. and Saks 5^th Avenue, as well as Christie's auction house – where you can actually buy a VanGough (if you've got about $50,000,000 USD to spare). We walked through Grand Central Station to the Dakota building right beside Central Park. This is where John Lennon lived and where he was shot on December 8,1980.

I asked the door man which apartment John Lennon used to live in and he replied that we was not allowed to say because his widow Yoko Ono still lived there. We quickly saw the cavernous NYC public library, and went to the NBC studios at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. We walked past ground zero where the twin towers of the World Trade Center were brought down. America is now getting on with building the Freedom Tower in their place.

Nearby is the New York Stock Exchange on Wall street – the very epicenter of the planet's finances. By the time it takes you to read this sentence there will have been about $4,000,000 dollars traded there. And speaking of stocks and finances, I was quite surprised by the conspicuous presence of Canada's TD bank in NYC. They have an office directly beside the NYSE, one in Times Square near the Nasdaq stock exchange, and indeed many branches throughout Manhattan. Who would have thought a Canadian bank would have such a presence in NYC?

We took in some New York culture by seen a play off Broadway. Unfortunately we were badly time zoned and slept through about half of it :-(

We also bought tickets to a Knicks NBA game from a scalper outside Madison Square Gardens...

We went to the Musuem of Natural History, and went through St. Patrick's cathedral...

... and walked several times through Central Park

One curious thing we saw was a “national debt clock”. It ticks off every second, showing each American their share of the national debt...

Wow – now that's a big number. 12,000 BILLION dollars. Ouch.

Nearing the end of our week in NYC we visited the Intrepid – an old WW II aircraft carrier that is now on display. You can walk all through it and see first hand the hardware that America used to project force up until 1990 or so...

Among many other planes on the flight deck was an A-21 blackhawk – predecessor to the SR-71 blackbird.

The SR-71 has the world's fastest PUBLISHED top speed. Of course the performance characteristics of current military planes is top secret, but you can guess they're even faster than than this plane's mach 3. This plane was designed as a spy plane to take photographs over sensitive areas in Russia. It was not a fighter at all. In fact, it had no weapons – nor defense systems. If its radar picked up an incoming missile, the defensive strategy was simple: accelerate. These planes were so fast, and flew so high that they could outrun anything Russia could shoot at them. These planes make a bullet from a rifle seem slow! Imagine firing a rifle at the same moment this plane passed by – this plane would easily pass the bullet. Like not even close – it would be maybe 200% faster than a bullet! Cool!

Anyway, there were many other planes and helicopters on display as well as the ship itself. Beside the carrier was the USS Growler, a retired submarine armed with nuclear capable cruise missiles. There was also a BA Concorde on display. Pretty cool....

And before we knew it our week in NYC was just about over. Unfortunately, there was still one more “adventure” to come. We headed off to the airport with plenty of time to spare, but somehow managed to take the correct subway but in the incorrect direction – we were going AWAY from the airport. For some reason the good folks who manage the NYC subway system decided to save money by NOT putting subway maps in some stations, nor in the subway cars themselves, so we didn't realize our error until we got off the subway at the end of the line. And now there wasn't plenty of time before our flight – in fact it was pretty limited. Too limited to take the subway all the back to where we started from, and then on from there to the airport. So we decided to hail a cab. But out there on 207^th street in Harlem there weren't taxis roving around that you can just jump into. So Amanda went to a store to use their phone and call for a cab and they told her that right across the street was an airport transfer cab company. Wow – just the stroke of luck we needed in the midst of our bad luck. So for the low low price of $70 our driver raced through the rush hour traffic and got us to our airline check in desk just before they closed. He got a nice tip for that bit of driving! I think we'll go back to our old ways of not giving ourselves too much preparation time ahead of flights and trains – we seem to do better that way.

Anyway, we made the flight and are now in South America! Yay!