Croatia, Montenegro, & Bosnia/Herzegovina

This port was my most adventurous yet because I added two countries to my itinerary…Montenegro and Bosnia/Herzegovina (former Yugoslavia). While students are not allowed to leave the country once we port, staff and faculty are. Since I had no solid plans in Dubrovnik, I just spent a little time there and spent the rest of the time checking out a couple neighboring countries.
A group of 8 of us spent the first day on a peninsula about 45 minutes from the port called Cavtat. We first checked out the old town Dubrovnik area, grabbed lunch at a pizzeria, and then after walking for 3 miles in terrential downpore and wind, jumped on city bus # 10 and took it until we reached our destination-a cute little town surrounded by a marina. We walked around the town in search for a 3-part puzzle-style Geocache. By the time we found the geocache it was dark and we were tired so we got on a bus and headed back to Dubrovnik.

On day 2, Josh and I hopped a bus, crossed the Croatian border into Herceg Novi, Montenegro, and went searching for a geocache. When we got to the bus station, we grabbed a quick lunch at a little cafe next door and then hopped onto a city bus and headed toward a small town called Kotor. We began our journey by climbing a mountain for over an hour. When we found the geocache it was planted next to a tree, in front of an old church, on the top the mountain. The mountain happened to be right next to the bus station so we didn’t have to use any city transportation to get from the station to the location of the Geocache. Success! The view from the top of the mountain was spectacular.

Next is where the real adventure began! After going back and forth on my decision to take a visit to Bosnia or not, I decided to give it a go. I hadn’t done any completely independent traveling on the voyage so far and I wanted to branch out and go for it at this port. So the next day I packed a light overnight bag and walked to the bus station for my 2 hour 45 minute bus to Mostar, Bosnia. I had no plans, just print-outs from the internet about the town that I was planning on visiting-Mostar. But before writing all about the town I visited, let me back up a little first...

I arrived about 30 minutes early for the bus because I didn’t want to miss it and about 20 minutes later, a group of familiar faces showed up. It was Professor Taylor (Tom) and his family and Professor Preece (Stephen) and his family who were also heading to Bosnia on the same bus. Unlike me, Tom’s wife (Laurie) had emailed someone regarding accommodations in Mostar for the night. It is very typical in this area of the Baltics to stay in people’s homes-usually the way it works is little old widowed ladies wait around the bus station day to day hoping to pick up backpackers and travelers to offer them a room or apartment in their house for the night. This is the only way these women make an income and from the reviews I found online it seemed like a rather safe and economical way to do it. I was planning to go that route and figure out the details once I arrived whereas Laurie had already began the planning for their group of 7.

As we stood there in the Dubrovnik bus station waiting for our bus to arrive, a little old man approached the group-he was connected to the woman that Laurie had emailed in Mostar (although she never got any response or confirmation) and he was meeting them to solidify their stay with his friend in Mostar. As they stood there and talked about what they wanted to do, the families then invited me along and included me in on their travel plans. While the excitement of my independent traveling adventure was now gone, my heart rate dropped immensely knowing that I had a group of travel companions. Laurie also just so happens to be a Gamma Phi Beta from Washington State so we already had a bond as sorority sisters, which came in very handy at a time like this. I was officially adopted into their travel group. They even had an extra sandwich and included me in on their dinner on the bus on the way there.

When we arrived in Mostar, it was dark and very cold. To our surprise, we were greeted with a little transport van that took us to this woman’s house. We were of course slightly apprehensive because we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into but we took a closer look at the accommodations and gave it a go. The woman was very nice and seemed happy to have the business during this cold off season. She gave us the rooms (two small private apartments-one with 2 beds and one with 3 beds) for 15 Euros per person and it included hot breakfast and coffee or hot chocolate in the morning-it was a steal!

After putting our overnight bags in the rooms, we went out to check out the town-more of like a sneak preview for the next day when it was actually light out. It was absolutely FREEZING so we were all bundled up. We finally came across a small pizza café that we stopped in for some hot tea and to thaw out. A few people got pizza and I got a jam filled crepe-yum! After our little snack, we headed back and went to bed.

Our next day started at 7:00am with a wake up knock from our little old lady friend and a snow fall!! It was so freezing that is snowed over night and into the morning. It was almost too picture perfect. It actually smelled like Christmas was in the air! The woman brought us trays with our breakfast consisting of delicious fresh bread, cheese, and scrambled eggs which made a mean sandwich and great start to the day!

So by 8:30am we were off to check out the town which was just filled with history. Mostar was the center of a very historical war in 1993 and much of it was destroyed. The aftermath of the horrific attack was still very visible. There were bullet holes on the sides of buildings and many of the buildings that were bombed and gutted were still standing there as shells. There were also tons of graveyards with all of the tombs bearing the year 1993-very sad.

Mostar is known for the bridge in the photos above. This one, however, is not the original, but it is an exact replica beause the original was completely demolished from the war. This one was just rebuilt in 2005. This entire area of the town was just gorgeous. It was filled with cobblestone roads and little shops. The water that flowed under the bridge was a beautiful aqua green color.

Our favorite little cafe that we went to twice in the two days that we were in Mostar.

Here I am at another little cafe warming up with the kids (all but 1).

We were so close to Sarajevo but unfortunately we didn't have enough time to go there. That will have to be a future trip!

I took it easy on my last day at this port. I slept in until lunch time and then went back to oldtown Dubrovnik with Eric and Jessice. Eric spent the afternoon in an internet cafe and Jessica and I walked on the wall of the Walled city, which is the famous sight of this city. The weather finally cleared up and I ended up having to take off a layer of clothes because I was getting pretty hot under my winter coat. We walked and walked all afternoon and took some really beautiful photos of the walled city and surrounding landscape. After grabbing some delicious gelato, we headed down to a little restaurant that was built in the rocks on the side of a mountain overlooking the ocean and watched the sunset with 20 or so of other staff and faculty. The sunset was really beautiful and we all agreed that it was the perfect ending to another great port!

Only one more port to go...Spain here we come!

Adriatic Sea Crossing Party

As we left Turkey and sailed toward Croatia, we crossed the Adriatic Sea. What better excuse to have an ice cream party? I reserved a room for the group and we hung out and enjoyed our ice cream cake. The 3rd picture is me with Ismael, one of my favorite guys from the wait staff.

I just love, love, love my students!

Turkey

Goodbye summer, hello winter! So the first thing I learned when we docked in Istanbul is that Turkey is freezing in November! What a drastic change from just a few days ago in Egypt where it was so hot and sunny. This also meant a change in wardrobe!


So once I broke out the winter attire, Istanbul was absolutely gorgeous. The closest US City that I could compare it to would be San Francisco, because of the wharf area, the bridges, and the houses on the hills, but of course it had a very Eurpoean feel to it.

One funny tidbit is that there are a lot of stray cats in Istanbul. The cats are actually really cute, well behaved, well fed by the locals. This is as opposed to the tons of skinny stray dogs that we experienced all over many of the other cities that we visited.

What also made this port different from all of the others so far is that I didn't plan anything out ahead of time. No trips, no schedule, nothing! Our port city, Istanbul, was so huge and had so much to offer that I didn't even need to leave the city.


So, my visit to Istanbul began with a stop at the major historical sights. Here are me and Jessica at the Blue Mosque.



Me and Akirah being silly and posing in the wall on our way into AyaSofya.

Chillin on the train with Anna.

Like usual, I traveled with the most of the Student Life gang. On day 1 our group headed out to visit the historic and beautiful Blue Mosque and AyaSofya, which were right accross from one another. The trains were so easy to use so we all bought a pass and whipped around the city each day.



After our touring we took the train to a very metropolitan part of the city for some shopping and dinner. Oh yeah, and dessert too (it was really hard to pass up). Yummy, I really loved the food in Turkey!


On day 2 we visited the Topkapi Palace. We just couldn't resist this funny photo opportunity!


Next, we spent a few hours at the Grand Bazaar (the largest bazaar in the world) which was really insane. After a long day of shopping I called it quits, grabbed a quick dinner on the ship, and took the night off to catch up on some sleep.

I had absolutely no set plans for the rest of my time in Turkey. By that point, I wanted to break away from the usual travel group so I ended up hanging out with Josh for 2 1/2 days, which was a nice change of pace. Josh has lived in Santa Barbara for the last 5 years but we actually never knew each other until we met as staff on this voyage. What a small world!

Josh is part of this international hobby group that plants caches all over the world of all shapes and sizes and puts the latitude and longitude coordinate points on a website (http://www.geocaching.com/) so that other people in the group can use their GPS tracking device to locate them and leave their mark all around the world. Think of it as an international treasure hunt! The caches are usually in the form of a small film canister or a tupperware container and they are planted all over in inconspicuous places that nobody would find unless they were part of this group and knew where to look. They might be under a rock or on the side of a monument or a number of other places depending on the cache and its size. There are something like 40,000 planted around the world. It is the neatest hobby ever!

So we spent our 2 1/2 days traveling together searching for four caches-one at the highest point of Istanbul, two on Princess Island (a two hour ferry ride from where the ship was docked), and one at the famous Istanbul bridge that connects Asia to Europe. The bridge cache was a "virtual" cache meaning that there wasn't any hidden treasure at this location. Instead, we just needed to visit it and take a photo to prove that we were there.


Day 3 Cache hunt. After attempting to communicate with a number of locals, we somewhat figured out the bus system enough to get us headed in the right direction for this cache. We took a bus for 1 hour and then got off of the bus, walked about a mile up to the peak of a mountain (the highest point in Istanbul) and let the GPS lead us the rest of way. It actually took a few hours to find the exact spot and I really felt like I was on a show like the Amazing Race or something. Once we got to the peak of this mountain, we saw the most gorgeous view of all of Istanbul right at sunset. It was just incredible! To get ther we went through some towns where there were no tourists in sight and nobody spoke English. Sadly, we never ended up finding the cache at the coordinate. This was a very unusual situation. The cache must have not been hidden very well so an outsider must have found it. Regardless of the failed attempt, we saw the most beautiful sunset at the highest peak in all of Istanbul-something that not many others can claim!

Once the sun set and it was gettting dark, we headed down the mountain and back to a main road. We stopped at a little cafe for a Turkish snack (flat break with meat inside of it) and some Turkish tea. We hung out there for 2 hours and relaxed and enjoyed the company. It was a lovely day!


Day 4 Cache hunt. The day began early and I had to fight through my tiredness. We took the ferry over to Princess Island and rented bikes to ride around the island with all day. The island was hilly and it was quite a work out. It was also raining on and off so it was a great, muddy adventure. We rode our bikes as far as we could toward the first cache until we had to lock them up and walk up a hill. We walked about a half a mile until we found the coordinate and began to look for the cache. Bingo-I found it under a rock! After leaving our mark in the log book, dropping off a few travel bugs (trinkets for the next person to collect and bring with them to their next place of travel) we hid it back under the rock and proceeded to find cache # 2. About 1 mile later, we located the other cache on the island. I spotted this one first, too! Not a bad start for a first time geo-cacher!.

Day 5 didn't initially begin as a cache hunt day but I actually ran into Josh and a student who were on their way to do one so I joined along for the adventure. We took the #22 Istanbul city bus for about 20-25 minutes to visit the famous land mark bridge that connects Asia and Europe. After the bus dropped us off, we marched up a bunch of stairs that led to apartments and we just so happened to arrive right as the sun was setting. We took some really pretty pictures and got to witness the true beauty of the bridge as the sun hit it just perfectly.

Days 3, 4, & half of day 5 in Istanbul were adventurous and fun. I got to go to landmarks in the country that I would have never visited if I didn't partake in searching for caches. After how much fun I had in Istanbul, I am setting aside at least one day in our next port to go on some more cache hunts!

Egypt

Before this voyage, my expectations of Egypt included things like dangerous, scary, and poor. Egypt was positively none of those things. In fact, it was absolutely beautiful, clean, historical yet modern, and the people were very friendly.

Egypt was by FAR the best and most AMAZING country I have ever visited in my life. I've always wanted to go to Egypt but I really never knew what to expect. Well, it was everything I could imagine and MORE and I would have stayed longer if I could. There is no other place in the world like Egypt and I am completely in LOVE with it! I took a zillion pictures but once again I am forced to pick just a few to put on my blog and share with my friends and family. If you EVER get a chance to go to this country, you must, must, must take advantage of it. You will leave feeling so enriched and lucky to have experienced all that it has to offer.

Egypt’s beauty was evident from the moment the ship docked in the Alexandria port. The port area was incredibly well kept, clean, and the palm trees reminded me of home.

I served as a bus leader for the 3 night Cairo/Luxor trip. There ended up being 4 buses for this trip (154 students) so I was one of four leaders. Perhaps the neatest thing about this travel experience was that we had personal armed security guards and mobile police escorts travel with us the entire time. Each of the 4 buses had a security guard who traveled with their respective bus at all times. It actually felt like we were either celebrities or royalty which was really neat. The security guards were undercover and wore business suits and literally escorted us everywhere. Ironically, I felt safer in Egypt than most of the other countries that we visited but someone must have felt it was necessary to hire these guys. The police escorts drove in a car beside the four buses at all times clearing traffic with their police lights if needed.

Once we docked in Alexandria at about 8:00AM, the ship took longer to clear than expected (geez, what else is new??) so we ended up being about two hours past our planned itinerary before we even hit the road. Once everyone was on the busses, we began our trip with a 2 ½ bus ride to Cairo.

When we arrived in Cairo, the first thing that we did was visit the pyramids of Zoser at Sakkara. Then we grabbed dinner at a huge buffet, checked into our hotel, and headed to the sound and light show at Giza. Since the Giza pyramids were a highlight of the trip, the sound and light show gave us a sneak preview of what we would see the following day.

After leaving the sound and light show we headed to the Cairo markets/bazaar and spent some time wondering around and shopping throughout streets (well, they were actually pretty sketchy alleys) of hundreds of venders selling anything you could imagine. I did, however, feel safe walking around with Eric even though we got slightly lost because the streets were dark and maze-like.

Day two began with a 4:00AM wake up call. We traveled back to the Giza pyramids to watch the sunrise and ride camels. This experience was almost unreal. I couldn’t believe that I was actually riding a camel at sunset next to the Giza pyramids in Cairo.

Now for a closer look and some fun pictures with some of my favorite students on the voyage!

Can you believe how massive these pyramids are?

We also got to go up close to the famous Sphinx statue for some fun photos.

After the pyramids, we headed to Memphis where we saw an enormous statue that was lying on its side and enclosed in a museum-type building. Outside there were also some other large statues. This is me and Joanna, one of my students, hanging out outside of the museum.

By that time it was lunch so we took a lunch cruise on the Nile River which included a belly dancing show. However, most of us agreed that the belly dancing show was more like a booby dancing show. The funny thing is that during preport we were told that we had to dress very conservatively as we tour thought out this country. I suppose this was an exception to the rules.

Anyway, the buffet lunch was really tasty (especially the desserts) and the entire experience was really fun and interactive. I sat there looking out the window thinking, I can’t believe I am on the Nile River right now!

After lunch we toured the Alabaster mosque where we got to witness people praying. The mosque was beautiful and grand and our guide tought us all about the muslem religion.

Next we went to the Egyptian Archaeological Museum. This museum was EMORMOUS! Unfortunately cameras were prohibited inside so I will only have my mental images to remember what I saw. Inside there were thousands of pieces (jewels, statues, pieces of hieroglyphics from the walls of tombs, mummies, and furniture). The most amazing artifacts that I got to see were the ones that were found in King Tut’s tomb. We saw the actual tomb and headdress (the ones that you always see in photos) and the plethora of expensive jewels and gold that were also found in his tomb.

Day three began with a 2:30am wake up call so that we could get to the Cairo airport and fly to Luxor. The first stop was the Valley of the Kings where we got to go underground to see the actual tombs of the kings as they were originally discovered. WOW!! This was incredible.

Cameras were prohibited here but don’t tell anyone…I hid mine in my wasteline and when I got inside the tombs I took a few photos of the hieroglyphics on the walls. I also took a quick 5 second video (I will admit that I get my skill and encouragement from my mom who took video of the ceiling of Sisteen Chapel in Rome back in 1999 on our family vacation).

Our next stop was a beautiful temple that belonged to Queen Hatshepsut. It was up against the beautiful mountain range and much of it was destroyed. The top photo is a view as we approached the temple and the bottem photo is a close up of one of the doorways.

At 4:000PM we took horse and carriage rides for 1 ½ hours all around Luxor. We went right through the heart of the city and past the national monuments, through the sugar cane fields, through tiny villages and through a bazaar. Our driver’s name was Abdulla and our horse’s name was Natalie. Abdulla really liked me and Eric so he actually let us drive the whole time. We sat up front with him took turns with the reins. It was AWESOME!! We made a quick stop to a village and watched a water buffalo powered machine turn a large wheel and scoop up water from a well, which then drained into a large pan. We also watched a snake charmer handle two poisonous pythons. Some of the students even held the snakes. For a moment I felt like I was in a scene from Aladdin or something. For the final stretch back to the hotel, I made Natalie run really fast. I captured a lot of it on video and I can’t wait to show everyone.

After dinner we went to the Luxor temple. The temple was all lit up and beautiful to see at night.

Our final day in Luxor began with another early wake up call-4:15AM for a hot air balloon ride. This was fantastic! For my first time taking a hot air balloon ride I wouldn’t have wanted it to be anywhere else but in Egypt. I was really tired from our packed itinerary the two days prior but I wasn’t going to miss this opportunity for the world. The students who skipped out really missed out on an amazing opportunity. The hot air balloon ride was so smooth and believe it or not, it wasn’t scary at all. As we ascended up into the sky, we watched the sun rise over the beautiful barren land. It was absolutely breathtaking. I also took some video of this experience that can’t wait to share with everyone. The land was beautiful and it was really neat to see the beauty that Luxor had to offer from a different angle.

As I mentioned in an earlier blog entrée, there are often a number of benefits that come along with being a trip or bus leader. Well on this trip I got to do both the horse and carriage ride and hot air balloon ride for free so I was very appreciative of that because together they were kinda pricey.

After the hot air balloon ride, we went back to the hotel for breakfast, checked out, and then headed to tour the Karnak temple, where we saw the world’s largest Obelisk. I took some fun pictures here with a few more of my favorite students.

Finally it was time to say goodbye to Luxor and head back to Alexandria. The 3 day trip was absolutely picture perfect and I left feeling like I experienced all that I had hoped for and more in two amazing Egyptian cities. Since our group consisted of 154 participants plus the tour guides and our private security men, we actually chartered our very own flight on Egypt Airlines. Remember those trip leader bonuses that I talked about before? Well I got another one here. I got to sit up in first class! Believe it or not that was the first time I had ever sat in first class in my entire life and it was quite lovely. The seats were large and nice and comfy and the service was especially good. Ahhhh, this is the life! Too bad the flight was only 1 hour long.

I spent the last day in Egypt back in the Port City, Alexandria. This city was also great. It was modern, clean and the traffic was crazy. After walking around the mall for a little while (that is where I snapped this photo of McDonald's) we went to the famous alexandria Library. It was beautiful!

Here I am with Eric in the Alexandria Library. By the way, I owe a huge thanks to the city of Alexandria for their free internet which enabled me to upload so many pictures to this blog entry!! So, here it is:

Thank you, City of Alexandria and the Alexandria Library!

My entire time in Egypt was absolutely incredible. I know I will come back here someday!