The Western Cape

In order to escape Christmas and its shopping and jingling terrors, we got up at 6h30 in the morning an headed East, out of Cape Town, and towards Mossel Bay. We drove all morning, some 400 kilometers East, through the Western Cape’s mountain ranges, its farmlands and forests, bush land and hills.   The country […] Read More

Record Vintage Cars

I wanted to go to the museum of photography today. But, as it happens sometimes, I only made it as far as two blocks. Then I ran into a vintage car. Nice, I thought. I had seen a couple of them around town already in the past weeks, so I didn’t give it much thought. Until, […] Read More

Mexican traffic rules

With some 20+ million people living in Mexico City, I expected traffic to be horrible. Truly horrible. Truth is, it’s not half as bad, most of the time. Just avoid the rush hours, and you’re fine. My first impression, arriving on a Sunday, ahead of the national holiday, was: there is no traffic at all. […] Read More

Sonoma

Even though we danced all night, we got up early in the morning and hit the road north, for a trip to Sonoma. It was Vitor’s last day in San Francisco, but how could a visit be complete without having tasted some California wine? I love the drive up there, over the Golden Gate bride, […] Read More

Unloaded

We left Reno this morning for the final 219 miles back home. As Labor Day was over, the drive was smooth and quick and we arrived at the Bay at around 1 pm. Over at Tim&Tom’s Duboce apartment, we unloaded the U-haul quickly and stashed everything neatly into their garage, waiting for the cleaning on […] Read More

Back to civilization

We got up at 3 something this morning and packed up our tents and loaded the rest of our stuff into the U-haul, and drove off the playa at around 4… All in order to avoid the mass exodus from Burning man that would inevitably clog the playa and the streets to Reno a few […] Read More

Off to Reno

Last night I dropped off my three boxes of stuff, the duffle bag of dust-proof zip-locked clothes and my bike at Tom & Tim’s home at Duboce Park. This morning I got up early and headed over, to help Tim with a few things, mostly getting the dry ice into the food container without freezing off our fingers. When […] Read More

Thunderstorms

The last day in Vancouver was relaxing, but something was in the air. I was at the beach – yes, again – and read a bit. But high humidity and clouds announced a bit of a weather… I checked out late, but managed to meet my host Darek, a hydrologist, who rented me his room […] Read More

Back to Canada

As I could not find a place in Seattle (that I could pay) that was free for the whole month, I checked out of Lily’s home this morning, rented a car, and drove up north to Vancouver. I like this city. It’s been a long battle between Vancouver, Seattle and Portland, as my home for […] Read More

La ville de Québec

We decided to get up early and head the 225 km up north towards Québec City, the capital of the region. It is the oldest French settlement in the area, founded in 1608, and later on the Capital of Nouvelle France. Once we left Montreal, the country became all flat. A few massive mountains around […] Read More

Countryside

As Renato and Dennis had a rental car, we decided to make a road trip out of Montréal and into the Quebec countryside, towards the US border. There, Quebec starts to become anglophone, and has a rich history between the US and Canada. Some of the towns there were founded by English loyalists, who were […] Read More

Underground (and over water)

Istanbul’s public transport system is developing faster than they can print the maps. My books are useless when it comes to the metro/tram system. The otherwise greatly informative and amusing Gebrauchsanweisung Istanbul (Istanbul Manual) published in 2010 lists one (!) metro line in operation…. The maps in several apps for my phone are helplessly out of […] Read More