Adventure of the month

When is a pink lake not a pink lake? Before addressing this riddle, I should probably clarify a couple of things. When I say pink lake, I am not referring to the ones in Australia, Canada or Azerbaijan . My focus is on Lake Retba aka Lac Rose in Senegal. This is because I was recently spending some time in Dakar and thought it might make for a worthy outing. A Google maps search revealed it was less than a 30 minute drive so I thought it was strange when the hotel concierge booked our driver for 3 hours. Maybe there was a lot to see along the way. The truth is that Google maps has no idea what Senegalese roads or traffic look like. In theory, I guess you could cover twenty kilometers in 20 minutes or so but that theory would have to discount dirt roads, traffic and the occassional goat. It took us about an hour to arrive at Lac Rose's shores but I had seen enough vibrant Instagram pictures to know that it would be worth it.

The more you see, the more you realize there is to see. I don't know if that is an actual quote or a if it's saying that I saw somewhere and butchered for my own purposes. Either way, I use it a lot. Whenever someone introduces me and says something along the lines of "This is Berti. She's loves to travel and she's been everywhere", I'm quick to jump in and point out how much I haven't seen. I'll protest that "You know the saying, the more you see..." as the person wonders if I understand how small talk works and why I need to be so damn literal. However, there is some truth to it. Obviously, no one- no matter how well-traveled- has been everywhere. Nor should they. There are some boring ass places in this world. But there are also so so many amazing places. You would think that with the glut of travel shows, instagram influencers and  annoying bloggers, we would know about all of these places, whether we'd been or not. Case i...

Friend: Hey, if you are interested, you can fly for free to Me: Awesome! Yes, I'll take it. Friend: Great, it'll be on flights to Me: When does it leave? I can get my bag right now.  Friend: Don't you want to know where it goes? Me: Does it matter? The answer is always going to be yes. But sure, where am I going? Malaga. Through an arrangement with a Dutch low-cost carrier, my colleagues and I could go to Malaga for free. I had already been , some eleven years ago. Twice. The first time I stayed in the port city itself and the second, I used it as a jumping off point for Sevilla and Granada. Both times, I fell madly deeply in love with Andalusia, the southern region of Spain.

Can't decide between a weekend getaway to Greece or Turkey? Want to do both but are limited on time? I've got the place for you: Cyprus. The southern half is culturally Greek, although not a part of Greece itself. The northern part is under Turkish control and is sometimes referred to as the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus. It is essentially two countries for the price of one. In the span of one city block, you can go from a borek to a gyro, from Euro to Turkish Lira, from Efes to Mythos. Just don't think that this is a harmonious relationship. Far from it. There are a lot of geopolitical sticking points with the arrangement, none of which I am well-versed enough to discuss. I can only speak to the practical issues. For one, my Cypriot map- the nice official one that I had picked up at the tourist office in Larnaca- effectively ends when you reach Nicosia. Anything north of the dividing line could just as well be the Mediterranean Sea. There are no cities marked, ...

Four years ago, I was in Vilnius, Lithuania trying to plan out my day. Among the tours on offer was one to neighboring Belarus. In less than an hour, I could happily add a new country to my list. The problem- I had not realized this far enough in advance and did not have either the necessary visa or the time to get it. No Belarus for me. Fast forward to 2019, the visa requirement has been lifted and conveniently, there is now a direct flight from Amsterdam to Minsk. I visited in August, when the weather was perfect and was admiring the blue skies while trying to talk to the cab driver who picked me up at the airport. With no common language between us, I was working off of google translate. As I did this, he kept saying "Russian". It was obvious I am not Russian, so that's probably not what he was trying to ask but I had no clue what he was getting at. I just smiled and kept typing away. When I handed him my phone, he went straight to the language selection mode a...

Reasons I was really excited about going to Tonga:  1. Are you kidding me with this? It's Tonga. It's a country that I have not been to, that I never thought I would have a chance to get to and now I have a flight booked to mother fucking Tonga!  2. Humpback whales. Other places have them but very few allow you the chance to get in the water and swim with them. Tonga is one of those magical places. So far this summer, I'd froliced with (look away if you hate shameless bragging): 3 species of reef sharks, bull sharks, turtles, giant mantas and whatever nudibranches are. I was due for a whale encounter.  3. Tonga is the only royal kingdom in the South Pacific. While all their neighbors were being occupied (mostly by the Brits and the French), Tonga maintained sovereignty. To this day, they have a king whose visage stares down on you from billboards all over the island. This reason is not all that exciting but I feel that lists work best in threes.

Samoa has a ridiculous number of churches. I would like to quantify "ridiculous" but no one I asked, not even google, could give me a number and I think I know why. There are simply too many to count! You could try but at some point, you are going to lose your place and have to start all over again. I know. I tried. About 15 minutes into my ride from Faleolo Airport into downtown Apia, I noticed that every other structure seemed to be a religious building of some kind. Usually, they came in pairs. If say a Protestant church opened on a corner, a Catholic one had to claim the adjacent turf. Curious, I started counting them. I hit 43 before I got bored and turned my attention elsewhere. And we were only 20 minutes into the ride.  Once we arrived at the uber-colonial Sheraton Aggie Grey , I was quickly reminded of what happens when missionaries really do a number on a small South Pacific Island. It was Sunday, so I expected the stores to be closed but I was certain it was ...