Adventure of the month

How much do I love Istanbul? Let me count the ways. Or better yet, let me count the photos... cause there sure are a lot of them. This month, I got to visit one of my favorite cities on the planet for the fourth time and added to my ever expanding Turkish photo collection. Instead of waxing nostalgic about the wonderful times I have had during these visits or struggling through a thesaurus finding synonyms for the words "lavish" and "exotic", I think I should just let the pictures speak for themselves.

As enjoyable as it was to soar over Cappadocia in a hot air balloon, the limited amount of fuel (not to mention the lack of a bathroom, kitchen or bar on board) dictated that we had to return to terra firma, sooner or later. This left me with nearly four days to explore the tiny town of Goreme and its surroundings. I was on my own and the daytime temperatures hovered in the 105 degree range, so I was not very motivated to do the public bus shuffle all over this very scenic desert. Instead, I opted to join the two ubiquitous tours offered by every hotel, hostel, tour agency and/ or street-side carnival barker. I set mine up at what has to be one of the coolest hostels I have ever stayed in. As with most of the accommodations in the area, Yasin's Backpackers Cave Hotel is located inside one of the rock formations. This means that some of the rooms, mine included, are actually natural caves. Uh huh, that's right, I spent my vacation sleeping in a cave. That alone would have thi...

I'd watched videos, I'd scrolled through a bazillion photos, I'd made half a dozen attempts to get here, but finally on August 15th, 2010, I was on my way to board a hot air balloon and soar over the surrealist landscape of Cappadocia, Turkey.  It was something I had been wanting to do for so long, and it was so disturbingly early (5am!), that I remained in a perpetual haze as a Spanish couple and I made our way to the Voyager Balloons office. I assumed I had an idea as to what would take place next. We would be served coffee and hopefully pastries (the presence of pastries was, for me, to be the determining factor into whether the hostel had steered me towards a legitimate or a Mickey Mouse balloon company), asked to sign some releases and be given a safety briefing that most of us would snooze through. I was joyfully right on  the one count that mattered.  There were pastries, some kind of cheese rolls, Turkish breads... Yasin's Backpackers Cave  had done me rig...

Wadi Rhum, Jordan Galapagos Islands Bangkok, Thailand Ulan Bataar, Mongolia Tarsus, Turkey This month, I was scheduled to visit Accra, Ghana, which would have made for one really cool Adventure of the Month. Sadly, the trip ended up cancelling and in its place, I am leaving to Boston and St. Thomas tomorrow. Hardly a fair trade, but what can you do? Rather than sulk, I have decided to delve into the past and post photos from some more noteworthy outings. Enjoy.