South Africa
Do we really need another photo of a zebra butt? That is an an excellent example of the type of question we never asked ourselves. We saw a multitude of amazing animals in South Africa, and have MANY photos of front and butts. For your perusal, we present the wildlife
South Africa
Johann returned to the homeland, new bride and mother-in-law in tow. We met up with his parents at the airport, bundled into the car, and snoozed only a little. That afternoon we received a very warm welcome from Ouma Maureen and Oupa Johan, who are incredibly kind and have a
Pigeons
If you didn’t know, Rachel really likes pigeons. There are so many colour variations! And they do science about that which is neat. Humans have been buddies with pigeons for at least 5000 years and counting. Some of the amazing things we've learned about pigeons: Picasso loved,
Bread
WHAT IS BREAD? If anything, our worldwide romp has been a meditation on this question. At its most basic, bread is joy. At its essence, bread is a mixture of flour and water which is then baked. Dough, also known as raw bread, may be conceived as an essential precursor
Argentina
Up at 2:30 am for our transit to the airport, Peru’s curse of early mornings reached even to Chile. We had to wait an hour for the check-in desk to open; Johann stood because a stray dog had sprawled out on the remaining seats and was happily snoozing
Bolivia
Our three days in the Bolivian Highlands seemed far longer, in the best way possible. This is a place we would recommend everyone to visit if they can. Day 1: Uyuni and the salt flats The sites around Uyuni were packed with photo-hungry tourists and souvenir stalls overflowing with mass-produced
Peru
The road from Manu Biostation snaked up and over the Andes, our minibus driver taking the corners at full speed. Luckily, Johann keeps a stash of Gravol in his hat. We hoped the tarp covering our rooftop luggage would hold fast while we drove under a waterfall, and that we
Peru
Note: This post is from Rachel’s perspective. Air like water, water as lifeblood, a craving for life so strong we might fear it if we didn’t wonder. My old ecology textbooks writ large, text straining and bursting into gemstone tapestries, colours we don’t have words for. The
Peru
We landed in Lima, Peru after our cramped overnight flight, and pretended to be logs. The hostel let us hang out in the common area until check in, and we ate stroopwafels and instant noodles out of our coffee thermos. Bed time was 7:30 pm. The next day had
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From mid-December to mid-January, we occupied ourselves with a mad dash through nine European countries. Here’s a few snippet summaries of what we got up to! Overview of Places Visited: 🍕 Bulgaria (Plovdiv, Sofia) ⚰️ Romania (Bucharest, Brasov) 🇭🇺 Hungary (Budapest) 🐈 Austria (Vienna) 🥟 Poland (Krakow) 🏰 Slovakia (Bratislava) 🕰️ Czechia (Brno, Prague) 🍺 Germany (Berlin)
Türkiye, land of culinary marvels, ancient history, and spectacular landscapes, we will be back! Swept by sea winds, Istanbul is one of the most beautiful cities we have ever visited, its skyline crowned with countless minarets. The Blue Mosque, with its ornate glazed tiling, sat nearby the 1500-year old Hagia
Let's pick up where we left off: in Nepal, having just landed in Kathmandu after trekking in the Himalayas. Johann got sick earlier, and was mostly recovered by the time we finished our trek. Rachel lay ill in bed for four more days while Johann braved the streets
How to even begin? Nepal was...a kaleidoscope, a certified doozy, the highest of highs and the lowest of lows. It was extremely diverse, breathtakingly beautiful, and decidedly uncomfortable at times. In short, Nepal was a lot, in so many ways. We hit the ground running, or rather trekking...in
During our two day stopover on our way to Kathmandu, we went to three of the seven Emirates: Ajman, Sharjah, and Dubai. We were quite excited to discover that the same amount of points that got us a dingy room on the outskirts of Paris here garnered us a stay
Greece was bright, friendly, and very rich with history. Our itinerary was in sandwich form, with Athens as the bread and the Greek islands as the filling. Maybe Naxos was the lemony green olive paste, and Syros was the feta cheese? Either way, it was delicious. Athens We sampled plenty
Those two words, art and olives, pretty much sum up the Italy part of our trip, and boy was it fun! 📻In case you're wondering about the radio silence - we do have a whole bunch of blog posts already written! Lately, we've just been low
We’re hoping this blog post hits vaguely like fine French cuisine: small in portion size but rather tasty. Or at the very least, like a bite-sized serving of that glorious Quebecois delicacy, poutine. Paris Our time in Paris was short, but very sweet (read macrons, pain au chocolate, crepes)
Spain greeted us with a smile, or rather a reasonably-priced gluten-free savoury empanada that was akin to an out-of-body experience. We just couldn't believe that it, or the €2 gluten-free baguettes, were real. Not to only dwell on food... but we also found gluten-free calamari and Rachel wept
Backpacking through the United Kingdom is an experience which we would describe as Old World broke. There is nothing like wandering through the charmingly dismal cobblestone streets, smelling the heavenly aromas of comfort food and not being able to afford any of it to bring the works of Charles Dickens
You can probably guess from our silence that we’ve been a bit busy! It’s a struggle to fit our sojourn to Japan into just one post, but there was so much to do and experience that we ran out of time to write! Tokyo Our time in Tokyo
Welcome to our blog! Rachel and I are doing something kinda crazy—we're backpacking around the world, exploring (at least) 16 different countries, all in the span of eight months. We'll be staying in hostels, trekking through mountains, catching a lot of naps on trains, and
