GE 2018: Drowning in Buenos Aires: Day 1

Day 1 in Buenos Aires was AWFUL water thunderstorm after thunderstorm.  We walked in the rain, biked in the rain... we have been drenched all day. But what a fun city. Buenos Aires is so much like New York City: fun and hip with different neighborhoods, all with totally unique personalities.

We visited the city cemetery to find famous people’s resting places.  The rich and famous of Buenos Aries have palatial “final homes” with columns and turrets and reception rooms with cushy chairs so friends and family can come and comfortably grieve. 

Of course, finding Evita's crypt was one of the scavenges... with fresh flowers brought every day (still). 

Then off to the Museum of Fine Arts to see Picassos and Matisses ad Van Goghs…

Even a Rothko (same artist as the all-black Rothko chapel in Houston.  This man obviously over-concentrated the day that they taught "shading of one color" and took it to heart

And you can never have too many vagina and penis renditions.

"Holding" the obelisk downtown

Biking along the natural reserve …. And stopping for Gnobili

One scavenge was to make new social media friends.  We got the bike rental guy to not just "friend" us… but put us on the company facebook page. Sweet, sweet fame.

Favorite bonus scavenge of the day:  Eat at a Puerta Cerrada restaurant.  This turns out to be an “underground” private restaurant where a great cook turns her living room into a tiny restaurant and serves you at home.  After asking almost a dozen people about this - and getting a lot of blank stares - we hit jackpot with our new bike rental friend. He knew of one of these places and called and booked us a table.  We got out of the taxi in a quiet neighborhood, knocked on a regular and unmarked door, was buzzed in and told to come to the second floor. It was either going to be a great night or we were going to be starring on the next episode of "Missing  and Murdered Abroad." But a lovely  couple met us and showed us into their trendy living room (with great art) and - over the next 3 hours - they brought us course after course of gourmet food along with detailed descriptions of the preparation of each dish and every ingredient. It was such an unusual and interesting evening.

Chef and wife...

Living room aka our private dining area

After dinner, we went to a Milanga (or tango dance hall) and watched people – of ALL ages – tango.  It was almost midnight and couples in their 80s were twirling about… pretty impressive.

Off to bed ... I'm exhausted

Great Escape 2018: Busy Day in Bogata

On the way to the airport yesterday, when we opened the first envelope, we discovered we were going to Bogota, Columbia. YAY …  a new destination (although we did go to Cartagena, Columbia a few years ago on the 2015 Global Scavenger Hunt). We met up with Marnie and Greg at the IAH airport and had an interminable check-in experience (Avianca managed to successfully checked in only about 3 people an hour… thank goodness we had lots of time). Our plane landed in Bogata around midnight, so we did not meet up until 9:30AM this morning, when we opened our second envelope (which had clear “Do not open until breakfast” instructions). In the second envelope was a set of scavenges for Bogota today and information about our flight out tonight to meet the rest of the teams in Buenos Aries, Argentina.

We are staying in La Candeleria district of Bogata (the historical district) which has great architecture, cobbled streets and LOTS of graffiti and color.

Look at the character in this woman's face. What sorrows has she seen?

First scavenge of the day was to take a tram car ride to the top of the hill (Montserrat) for a panoramic view of the entire city.  And Bogota  is HUGE.  It stretches as far as you can see in either direction.  Eight million people.

Scavenge: Visit the Botero Museum

This turned out to be a very hip, modern art museum (which was free of charge).  It has dozens of Botero pieces as well as a few Picassos, Salvador Dalis and one Matisse.  I know that "art is in the eye of the beholder" but this Picasso - in my opinion - looks like a 2nd grader's art project. Honestly the street graffiti was so superior. 

But then I got hooked on the Botero pieces. Fernando Botero is probably the most famous artist from Columbia.  He was raised in Medellin and started out as an apprentice Matador, before he realized that art was more his calling than torturing and killing bulls (yes, I'm not even pretending to hide by disdain for bull fighting). Botero predominantly depicts voluptuous forms, often in the nude: a unique and easily recognizable style. Some critics say his work is silly or trivial, but I found his pieces (which are very large) almost magnetic.

Across town to the Botantical gardens which are an oasis in the middle of concrete madness. 

Pigeons swarm in the main square with Spanish styled architecture all around

An interesting scavenge today was to photograph political graffiti.  We found lots dealing with the various civil wars.  I like this one… in the game of war, no one wins.  So very, very true.

We had to interview people on the street about Columbia’s feelings on Venezuela’s economic instability. So, when we ran into come college kids looking to interview tourists for one of their classes, we did a fair exchange.  We answered their questions and they talked to us at length about Venezuela.  Since Venezuela has fallen apart economically – and there is no food or medicine etc. – Columbia has been overrun with people fleeing that collapse.  While Columbians believe that they must help their “brothers,” the sheer numbers of Venezuelans arriving every day has overwhelmed this country, especially its medical care system. This matter is a central issue in the upcoming elections here.

We are off now to Argentina for another adventure... we will miss the color of Bogota

Great Escape 2018: Heading out to … somewhere???

“The gladdest moment in human life, me thinks, is a departure into unknown lands.” – Sir Richard Burton

It’s that time of the year (plus 10 days)… today we JOIN the Global Scavenger Hunt 2018.  Sadly, the teams this year are already midway through their circumnavigation of the globe. Because Rainey and I signed up to teach at the University of Houston Law School this year, we could not – for the first time in 11 years – do the entire trip.  

Last class of the semester (circa yesterday)

It was a very sad day at our home when the teams met up in San Francisco on April 13^th and headed out to Taipei.  It was even worse when they moved on to India and then Africa (Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana).  My favorite place (India) and four new countries that I’ve never experienced… oh… there has been a lot of grousing and moaning.  But, yesterday was our last law school class, so today we fly out … to somewhere!!!  We will find out our “mystery” destination once we are almost at the airport.

Our dear friends Marnie and Greg are coming with us for this second leg so we will meet them at the airport today.  Having missed the first half, we cannot be competitive this year but that doesn’t mean we don’t intend to squeeze as much fun out of every moment of the trip.

Rainey packed in just his day pack so he seems ready to run. 

We have two envelopes to open from the event coordinators and Travel Master Geniuses (Bill and Pamela) … one on the way to the airport… and the second tomorrow morning at breakfast.  

So are we are on our way to London to take a second flight to South Africa and meeting the teams for a last African leg?  Or are we heading south to South America?

Stay tuned to find out….

GE 2017: Stunning Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka, an island off the Southeast tip of India, is a stunning country filled with history and archaeological treasures and best of all... some of the nicest, kindest, sweetest people in the world. Put it on your "must visit" list.

Fun fact:  There are 8 Unesco World Heritage sites in this small country (America has only 23 in its vasts lands).  So there are a lot of wonders to see in Sri Lanka.  Second fun fact: Almost all of those sites are on the TOP of a hill or mountain.  There is some unwritten rule here that everything gets more sacred if you put it really high up, where it's totally exhausting to visit it. But, I will admit, the views from some of these places were amazing. 

Bill opened the leg at noon on Saturday. By 1:45pm, Rainey and I had packed day packs and were on a 7+ hour, non-air conditioned train to Anuradhapura in the North. We did not get seats for the first 4 hours.  

So, imagine multiple hours where the people standing pressed right up against you are all rubbing their sweat right onto you with every shake and rock of the train.  I was doing lots of slow yoga breathing. The things you will endure on this trip for scavenge points...!!!

Plus the train moves only slightly faster than the villagers walking along the tracks. But it did give me lots of time to ask questions of our fellow riders and get some strategy advice on how to tackle this country.

Warning: you also have to stay sharp to side-step the cockroaches on the floor (what do you expect when people consistently walk up and down selling boiled corn, cotton candy, samosas.. you name it... and food crumbles litter the floor?) Finally getting a seat next to a window - many hours in - so the damp humid wind hit my face was like manna from heaven.

We passed through stretches of remote villages followed by fields and jungle brush and finally got off the train ... hours later -  very shaken but not stirred. As we left the station, we found that another scavenger hunt team had been on the train as well:  Team Ying, one of the father-daughter teams. We decide to share a taxi to a nearby hotel and on the way - very nicely - asked our taxi driver if he would invite us home to his house for dinner. Crazy, I know. But the competition awards big points for orchestrating just such an "invitation." Plus our thought was that being with another team probably reduced the chances of random cannibalism or a "Taken" experience. Our driver, Chachim, was either too polite or too shocked to tell us to get lost. So, instead, he took us to a locals-only part of town where we bought kottu roti - for all of us - from a street vendor to take to his house for a feast.

Less than an hour later we were sitting in Chachim's garden eating dinner. Much of his house is still being built (likely everything but the kitchen area) and has only dirt floor and open holes in the walls awaiting windows. But he has a garden with some palm trees and fruit trees and we hauled every chair he owned out to the yard. Such an interesting experience.

Dawn the next morning found us climbing to the top of the Minhitale. And, of course, we had to get to the TOP.

At one of the temples, we ran into a parade involving a beating drum band, a very long stream of orange cloth as well as much chanting and slow marching around the stupa.  Not sure the significance of any of that, but there was true devotion attached to the pilgrimage.

And my favorite shot from that temple complex...Aptly titled: "Monk resting below elephant statue."

We then moved on to another city, Polonnaruwa, which is chock full of ancient ruins. My favorite: the giant headless statue, mainly because the ground was so hot and you had to take off your shoes and the statue's black toes felt like my toes (burned all the way through).

Plus the fact that you are not allowed to take any photos while backing the statue (so you don't show the decapitated deity any disrespect) is a true repudiation of "the selfie."

Driving through town in a Tuk Tuk, we found lots of kids frolicking in the brackish water of the river to avoid the stifling heat. And whole families washing their clothes and themselves on the river bank

And how about this for unusual? There are tons of wild elephants in this part of the country.  As we drove alone, we saw one hanging out by the river ... and one just waiting for the cars to pass so he could cross the road.

Last scavenge of the day ... climb to the top of the Lion Rock. Because, if you were a king and there was one geological oddity (i.e a giant rock in the middle of a flat plain) wouldn't you also decide to build a palace ON TOP of the rock? Again, back to my theme of "atop is best and most sacred." Imagine hauling every piece of stone up there? 

Much of the palace has been washed away over the 1,600 years, but the entrance to the palace was originally through a giant lion's mouth. Only the lion's paws remain which lets you at least imagine how incredible the whole original structure must have been. 

There are frescoes drawn into the side of the rock in a small cave about half way up. If not actually drawn by a 12 year old boy, they were clearly created by an artist with a 12 year old boy's unrealistic imaginings of the perkiness and roundness of the female breast. Or breast implants were all the rage back then. 

I was so hot by the time we climbed down that I jumped into the hotel pool with all my clothes on.  I got in a 2 minute soak - and reduced my core temperature from health-damaged levels - before the nice security guard asked me to please get out.

Next morning we set out for Nuwara Eliya, a British-styled tea plantation town. A Tuk Tuk ride and 2 buses later... with 6+ hours of inhaling exhaust fumes ... we finally arrived and did a tour of a tea factory.  Guess what?  Automation has reduced the number of workers in the factory from 64 to 5.  Even in Sri Lanka... the robot-reducing-labor phenomena is alive and well. 

We learned that to buy a package of the tea would cost the tea pickers two full day's wages... just wow.

Last scavenge of Nuwara Elijah, to eat "high tea" in the British-styled gardens of the Hill Club (very posh).

Then on to the base of the mountain, Adam's Peak, where we got 4 hours of sleep before getting up at 1:30AM to start climbing.  The scavenge points were for being at the top by dawn. And we were...

We hurried back from Adam's Peak for check-in and found out that our next stop is Cairo, Egypt.  We were there 10 years ago. I wonder how it's changed in the wake of the Arab Spring.  Let's see...