Turmi, Ethiopia | 7 April, 2007 | $3.41 Turmi wasn’t much of a town. The dusty orange dirt road ran through a few concrete structures, and we stationed ourselves down the road at one of the only hotels in the area. We each had our own cement cell which became oppressively hot with the door…
More than anything else on the road, I’m interested in seeing how local cultures live and how they dress. Textile design and traditional costuming are something I will go out of my way to see and the Mursi are known for their atypical adornments. Because Mursi women are so well known for stretching their lips…
Jinka, Ethiopia | 5 April, 2007 | $5.68 Jinka is a sizable town in the remote Southwest area of Ethiopia near the borders of Sudan and Kenya. It was also home to a fascinating little museum that’s part of the South Omo Research Center. I enjoyed the chance to walk around town and people watch.…
This month’s Women Who Bike brunch was held just down the street. Good food, interesting conversation and I even found another couchsurfer. This picture inspires me to wear more fun stuff when I bike but I’ll have to wear shorts underneath if I’m going to get my leg over my bike’s cross bar. Shoutouts to…
Arba, Minch | 3 April, 2007 | $5.68 We stuck around Arba Minch for another day to meet up with our travel partner, who took a short flight from Addis Ababa. Driving around Nechisar National Park, I saw my first wild zebra! What a contrast from Tanzania, when zebras were so plentiful that I stopped…
Arba, Minch | 2 April, 2007 | $3.40 During our second day on the road we stopped for gas in a town named Ziway where I first noticed how popular fooseball is in Ethiopia. Kids and young men played on dusty tables on street corners and hung around waiting for a free table. In the…
Over his lifetime my uncle has been involved with many charities and told me about one where he helped to send bicycles to India. At the time I wondered why anyone would go to the trouble to ship containers of old bicycles to the other side of the world. During my travels I have seen…
Wondo Genet, Ethiopia | 1 April, 2007 | $5.68 My rough plan for Ethiopia was to head up North first and then find some people to join me for a trip around the South. I had been worried about timing because rainy season was on the way, which makes navigating many roads in Southern Ethiopia…
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia | 31 March, 2007 | $2.60 (my portion of a 2-bed room) Although I arrived from the airport with two Americans, one left the next day for an interview in the Middle East so we switched to a double room. Before his flight the three of us explored Addis a bit and…
After I skip more than a few days of posting on my “Where I Slept” series I never catch up. For that reason I’m going to skip ahead from where we left off in January and transport us from India to Ethiopia—skipping over Southern India, Jordan and Egypt. Don’t worry, I’ll fill in the blanks…
We had a glimpse of spring here in Chicago a while back but it’s turned cold again. During the winter I continue to bicycle as my primary form of transportation but this cold is really getting old. My Gary Fisher bike is almost one-year old and I really love it and it’s huge, steel basket.…
A tourist named Steve Gong was able to shoot HD video with his Nikon 5D camera by training himself to compose and focus blindly, with the camera hanging around his neck. Along with many detractors I agree that the hairstylist in this video, (even if she agreed to be filmed), could be at danger from…
I love this video from Iceland’s tourism department! A bicycle trip around the island has been on my list for a while now, I just need to decide when and find someone who can keep up. Inspired by Iceland Video from Inspired By Iceland on Vimeo.
This morning Chicagoland woke up to more than 20 inches of snow on the ground—the third largest in recorded history. When I ventured out my back porch I quickly realized that I was snowed in. The back gate into the alley was blocked on both sides by a four foot drift. Luckily the snow drifts…
I was pretty excited when my brother first played The Metro, a concert venue I spent much of my teens and 20s at. This weekend he topped the Metro, gracing the beautiful House of Blues stage. Now I just need to convince him to face the audience! Amrita at House of Blues – Keyboard Solo…
Saturday afternoon was spent in a cleared out storage room in the back of a record store watching Steve Wiebe attempt to regain the world championship title in Donkey Kong. Watching someone play Donkey Kong for two hours isn’t as boring as you’d think, but I still can’t get the soundtrack out of my head.…
Aurangabad – Mumbai, India | 8 January, 2007 | $13.33 (hard sleeper train) Indian sleeper trains must be shocking to anyone who hasn’t traveled outside of the U.S. before but I got used to the hard surfaces (and people trying to sit on my legs while I slept) after a few rides. India is a…
Aurangabad, India | 7 January, 2007 | $6.67 The Ellora caves near Aurangabad were much more impressive than the Ajanta caves because of the huge scale of the carvings. In both cases the attractions were crowded with visitors and lacking any serious security. I’m more concerned with the Ajanta cave painting surviving years of curious…
Jaigon, India | 6 January, 2007 | $4.45 I was only looking for a place to stay in-between visiting the Ellora and Ajanta caves and saw little of Jaigon. It doesn’t seem to be a place worth stopping but this hotel room was odd in it’s sterile modernity. More photos of the Ajanta caves can…