From that first short trip to the UK I followed it up with another, then a trip to Italy, then Cuba, Thailand, Mexico, Switzerland, Croatia, and going back to the warmer climes to indulge my new hobby of scuba diving. Much of this I documented online in one way or another.

Although I’ve been very lucky to travel to all these wonderful places, all my travel has been for 1, 2, 3 or at most 4 weeks at a time (the one 4 week trip worked by combining 2 weeks in one year, and 2 weeks in the next for my 30th birthday in January of 2008). As much as I have loved all these trips, they’ve only really served to whet my appetite for travel.

Which brings me to now. Now, after quite literally years of planning, I have the opportunity to take a year off of my day job and to spend the bulk of that time travelling. I am, understandably I hope, very excited.

Now I’m getting close to the trip, the counter on the right is counting down to my last day of work and the official start of my travels. As I hope to document my trip via this blog, I have decided to start now with the planning and pre-booking phase.

So to start in the middle rather than at the beginning the only thing I’ve actually booked is for October which is just about at the half-way mark of my intended trip. I will be trekking the Annapurna circuit in Nepal in October. I booked so far in advance because there was literally only one spot left and the dates worked for me.

Also, at this early point it’s really more about establishing a firm marker around which I can plan. I now know that I need to be in Nepal before October 20th, so I can shape my plans before then with that in mind. What those tentative plans are though, I’ll save for a future post.

I originally wrote this while in Mexico last month, but I never published it… I intended to illustrate it with photos but as I don’t know if I’ll get around to doing that I guess I’ll just hit publish and be done with it!

January 28th, 2012

The diving is superb, but the town shows the strain of hosting the cruise industry. Cozumel is a small island, about a 30 minute high speed ferry ride away from Playa Del Carmen on the mainland of the Yucatan peninsula. I’ve come here to dive, but between dives there’s lots of time to spend exploring the island and ruminating on my thoughts.

Cozumel hosts cruise ships, I can’t believe how many ships dock here everyday. I picture the Caribbean sea as swarming with these enormous floating cities, plodding their way though an unmarked but well trodden highway in the water. Everyday, except Sunday as far as I can see, brings at least 3 and sometimes more cruise ships into the port of Cozumel. Something like 15,000 visitors who will stay a single day and be gone by 6pm in time for departure to the next Caribbean port waiting to sell them slightly different trinkets and expensive brand name gear identical to what they can get at home in Canada, the USA, or Europe, perhaps for less money.

Despite my griping, I’m sure the local citizens are happy to host these transient guests, they bring a seriously huge amount of money to an island who otherwise would have to depend on the money brought in by scuba diving tourists, who spend their money on the next tank of air rather than Mexican silver bracelets, rings, diamonds, and expensive watches.

The local satisfaction with this state of affairs notwithstanding, the huge infrastructure built up for these visitors which are gone by sunset makes the downtown of Cozumel feel like a ghost town at night. There are quite a few non-package tourists on the island, mostly staying in hotels in town or in super budget accommodation like my own, going to sleep early to dive the next morning… which also contributes to the ghostly’ness of the town at night. I think, minus the cruise infrastructure this would work, but the overall relaxed vibe of divers and the frenetic activity of the cruise passengers makes Cozumel feel like an unsettled place, unable to find it’s real groove.

I, unsurprisingly, was here to dive. The reefs around Cozumel are some of the best in the world, fed with a steady current that whips around the island, keeps the water temperature constant, and helps prevent the depredations of runoff and temperature change which are rapidly killing coral reefs around the world. During my 4 days of diving these reefs I’ve seen (numerous times) nurse sharks, sea turtles, octopus, rays of many sizes, trumpet fish, lobster, crabs, drummers, and countless other fish I don’t really know the names for.

Apparently someone stupidly introduced Lionfish to cozumel, a fish I’ve seen many times while diving in Thailand but one that lacks any natural predators in the Caribbean. The reefs around Cozumel are actually a national park, protected from fishing and probably more lucrative as a tourist destination, but for the Lionfish the park authority has decided to let the dive masters working the reef everyday take on the job of natural predator. It was on one dive where we saw three Lionfish that we had a really cool experience with a nurse shark – after having fed the first Lionfish to some grouper hanging around our divemaster decided to keep the last one in his pocket.

As we were getting close to the end of our dive, I was in fact just about ready to start my safety stop, a nurse shark swam up to ask our dive master for the tasty fish in his pocket. In case you don’t know, a nurse shark is a pretty tame shark, this one was about the size of a medium sized terrier and pretty much acted just like a puppy who wanted to play and smelled a treat in your pocket. This nurse shark hung around, swimming up to each of us and generally distracting us all as we tried to maintain an even depth of between 3 and 6 meters before surfacing. Even after he was fed he stuck with us, perhaps convinced that we were holding out on him, but eventually we all surfaced and he lost interest. In the end, we spent a good 10 minutes hanging out with the shark, it was perhaps the best experience of a solid run of great dives I had on the island.

Cozumel has been great, despite its conflicted personality, and it does seem to satisfy both the divers and the cruise passengers (not to mention the package tourists, but they really don’t spend lots of time in town anyways), and in the end it was a much needed mini-break for me before my big travel which should be starting in June/July of this year. I’ve had great dives, a ton of sun, and am ready to return to the frozen north… not to mention excited to finally see Pipes again when she returns from her adventure in Thailand.

Today was pretty jet lagged (due to a stupid idea on my part to leave friday night, overnight in montreal, so I could catch the earliest saturday flight to cozumel. So that wasn’t my best plan, but I did make it to my hostel before noon today so I guess it worked, if you count having only had about 2 very much interrupted hours of sleep as a success.

Ok, enough about that, how about the food?

First meal of mexico was sorta a late lunch, I had to go to the dive shop to arrange details, size the equipment etc so after taking care of that I asked the owner/manager for the closest/best food. Ended up at a fairly busy touristy restaurant called La Choza, but despite the overabundance of tourist clientelle the food was still very tasty. I ordered the “Comida Nacional” which started with a tasty chicken noodle soup and ended with a plate full of beans, rice and fried beef. Good flavour but simple, and no real effort to spice it, not sure if that’s just how that dish is or if it’s the result of the tourist clients.

Cost with Cerveza – 107 Pesos

Next dinner at the closest place to the hostel – sorry I didn’t get the name. Unlike the restaurant near the dive shop this restaurant was pretty much exclusively mexican families, and they didn’t serve beer adding to it’s mexican family restaurant vibe. I had Fajitas Pollo con Quesa (chicken fajitas with cheese) and dang was it tasty! Enjoy some pics. Again not really spicy, but they did add some sauces which had good flavour but no heat.

Some photos here!

I hope to have finished editing and uploading a diving video soon!

It’s 8:20 pm and I figure if I can stay up for another 40 minutes I  might just sleep through the night. My recipe for fighting jet-lag includes:

• Forcing myself to sleep as much as possible near the end of my flight (required chemical assistance, and even so all I managed was 6 hours of fitful sleep, waking up at 4:30am bangkok time).
• No napping!
• As much time outdoors as possible to convince my body that yes, the sun really is up and I should be awake.

For the most part I think it’s working, it’ll be a few days before I’m properly in this timezone but at least I’m generally awake during the right hours.

Diving

I won’t be blogging again until Tuesday I think, I leave tomorrow for a 3 day, 3 night liveaboard dive trip. I’ve got this neat camera that can shoot underwater, so hopefully I’ll get some good video to post (though given the quality of the internet connections here it’ll have to be ultra low quality for now). We’ll be doing 10 dives in 3 days, in some of the worlds best diving areas, I’ll post more details when I’m back (and hopefully less tired and brain-dead).

Oh yeah, the flight

I feel like I should say something about the 18 hour business class flight from LAX to BKK – but there really isn’t much to say. For the most part the best thing about business class is that there’s nothing to say about it, it’s nice enough to forget you’re on a plane and just concentrate on sleeping or watching a movie or something. The food is better, but it’s still airplane food and I wouldn’t go to a restaurant serving it, but it’s good enough.

The one bit to note is that on my flight from Bangkok to Phuket I ended up getting upgraded into a first class seat – it’s only an hour long flight so it’s not much to get excited about – but it was very nice… here’s a pic of what the first class seating is like.

Ok – I’m going to pass out now.

Stupid “Blizzard”

At the very least my obsessive weather checking meant that I knew as soon as my flight out of Toronto was cancelled, and called into aeroplan early enough to get them to put me on the flight leaving a day earlier. So a mad dash of getting everything done last minute later, some drama with an annoying US Customs agent, and one economy segment later, and I’m safe and sound in LA and killing an unexpected extra day in LA.

Decided to go with the cheapest/easiest way and just too the tourist bus to Manhattan Beach, which was pretty quiet. I did have a delicious breakfast burrito though.

Mini Breakfast Review

Ocean View Cafe – Manhattan Beach, California

Cristobal Bacon Burrito – $4.99

On it’s own the burrito was ok, good ingredients but obviously spiced for white people. Once I went a bit crazy with the bottle of Tapatio hot sauce it was delicious. IMHO you simply cannot have a burrito without some heat.

Another awesome thing – I forgot how delicious fresh tomato is, I always do in the winter. It was such a treat to have tomato that tasted half decent inside the burrito.

The hash browns were meh, but the service was excellent with a very personable waiter who I sat and chatted with for a little bit.

Now I’m sitting in LAX, waiting for the Thai Airways counter to open so I can check in for my next flight – 18 hours from LAX to Bangkok. Next update should be from Thailand!

Trip to Mexico

No blogging from that trip but here’s Pipes’ post about our trip – she’s better with words than me for sure. I haven’t even managed to publish my photos from the trip yet! [edit - ok, published now]

Work, work, and more work

Over the past year I have continued to work on a pet project that has been too successful. Great in that something I set out make happen (despite significant organizational trepidation) has become a real thing, terrible in that we’re now in the bind of having to support it without any of the organizational supports that come with a normal project in my organization. Oh well, still I can’t complain, I’ve got a great boss and am basically encouraged to find new and interesting ways to improve (read shake up) the bureaucracy.

My brother joined the Canadian Forces!

That’s right, the same dude who used to cause so much trouble back in the old neighbourhood is now responsible for our national security – Jokes, he’s totally responsible

Anyways, he finished his basic in late 2009, went on to train as a Aerospace Control Operator in Cornwall, and is now stationed in North Bay doing things he’s not allowed to talk about. I find it a bit crazy that my brother has an honest to goodness security clearance.

Boston (PAX East)

Another trip, another opportunity to blog missed! To be honest, as much as I love hanging out with my tribe of geeky video game nerds, I just wasn’t into it this time. It could have been because it was my third PAX (and I had just gone to PAX prime in Seattle in September 09), or it could have just been that I liked Boston so much I was more interested in exploring than in staying inside and playing games, regardless I had a great time. I met the marvelous H.A. Conrad and Bill Wadman (photographer extraordinaire [srsly - check out some of his work] and all around great guy) and bumbled around Boston for a good long weekend of fun.

Bought a condo

Yes I have had well over 30 different “permanent” addresses in my 30-something years on earth, so I figure the only way to slow that trend down was to kick it up to the next level and buy a piece of (theoretical) property. Pipes and I co-purchased a lovely 2 Bedroom condo in the St. Lawrence Market neighbourhood of Toronto and it’s absolutely grand.

Renovated a condo

Dang – it’s grand now, but it was a bit of a mess when we bought it. One full kitchen and bathroom reno, not to mention tons of painting, moving in, and furniture assembly (damn you IKEA) later, and we’re super happy with the results. For time scale, we closed in April 2010, moved in July ’10, and were finally “settled” by September/October ’10. Lots of hard work but totally worth it.

Family reunion

I don’t talk too much about my family, because my immediate family is a rather small group, but heck I have a huge extended family that I basically don’t know at all. So at the end of July ’10 I decided to take my mom up on an offer to visit a family reunion with a seriously Quebecois branch of the clan. It was a blast, however I was almost forced into getting a Bloc Quebecois membership card by a member of my extended family. Thankfully I made it out in one piece with my Canadian Federalist leanings intact.

Croatia

Does it show I like to travel? Originally planned as a solo trip for me to go dive the Mediterranean, Pipes’ decided that Croatia looked cool so it happily morphed into a trip for both of us. Yes another opportunity to blog missed, but at least I uploaded the photos.

Christmas in Saranac Lake

And finally, we capped off the year visiting my mom in beautiful Saranac Lake, NY. Anyone who followed the Diner Dash will remember the place, no real wealth of photos this time, just a good visit.

Phew – a year worth of updates in a single post… perhaps this year I’ll manage more regular posting to this blog? We’ll see…. (well, there is this trip to Thailand coming up, maybe I’ll post from the road).

d_c

of course i’m uneasy over what’s happening in ottawa, we have a minority prime minister actively subverting the democratic institution with seemingly great effect. it may sound like hyperbole to say that having government answerable to parliament (no matter how screeching and ineffectual the house may and often be) is one of the fundamental principles of democracy in canada, but it’s bloody true. yes we have other pillars holding up our system here in Canada*, but i can’t help but feel that this prorogation is just the latest sign of a system crumbling under it’s weight. AB, a commenter on remarkks post decrying complacency, would disagree (as would others) but just because something is technically legal doesn’t make it right or good for democracy or society.

we’re really lucky in canada, so lucky that most people don’t bother to become involved in politics at all. i don’t really blame them. unlike Mark, i’m not particularly angry at people who don’t bother to vote (although i do try to convince them to do so, even if only to spoil their ballot), politics is a game with weird rules filled with unlikeable players who often make terrible decisions while acting like spoiled children who won’t share their toys. i wouldn’t care either, if i wasn’t obsessed with trying to figure out why our world is so eff’d up and looking for ways to make it better.

Mark has made a call for people to get up, do something. connect with their communities, and somehow, we’ll forge a new world and come up with “something better”. i believe this is possible, but i worry. we may come up with “something just as bad” or “something worse”. in an effort to both act on his call and satisfy my own worries, i think it’s important for us to talk concretely about what it is we’re doing. what is this new present we’re trying to make?

i don’t know what it is, but i think i can try to describe some of it’s attributes.

• it’s definitely more connected. individuals matter more but some individuals matter more than others. we can talk about how the internet allows for anyone to hop on their digital soapbox but the fact remains that building a strong network you can influence is work. if you have the time and resources to do that work good for you, but recognize that there are lots of people who don’t (or don’t want to) and who are only perhiperally connected. these people still matter.
• it’s definitely global. sure in canada we’ve got a prime minister who has gone prorogue, but democracy is under threat everywhere. it’s not a question of having good versus bad people in power, democracy pretty much guarantees that we’ll always (at some different points in time) have stupid/mean/corrupt/evil people in power at some point or other, the problem is that our democratic processes aren’t resilient enough in our new global/technical/connected context when the inevitable dumbass comes around.
• it’s definitely more equal (for some). among my group of friends, and my wider network of connected individuals it doesn’t really matter if you’re black, white, aboriginal, asian, indian, gay, bi, straight, baptist, atheist, or muslim. yes we all bring our own point of view, but your cultural identity doesn’t exclude you. that said, you’re not excluded by virtue of race, religion or sexual orientation, but there aren’t really very many people in the wider networked group i’m observing who aren’t university educated or working in a professional capacity.

i think that the change we’re (and i say we, but i can only of course speak for myself) all actively participating in has those attributes. it’s still too vague for my liking though, and i don’t agree that simply re-establishing community is enough. we need to change institutions and the rules of democracy to update them for our new context. we need to get into the difficult details. i think we need to stop fiddling with the symptoms, and start thinking about tackling the very real, and very tough problems with foundational code underlying our society. in canada that means the constitution, but what we’re going through is (i think, hunch really, but i trust my hunches and maybe one day i’ll try to write out a justification for it) symptomatic of a wider global difficulty with trying to come up with a governance system that fits the new reality.

*namely an independent judicary enforcing a strong set of constitutionally guaranteed freedoms, a fundamental lack of corruption amongst our public bureaucracies (this is not to say our bureaucracy isn’t without it’s faults, but i have yet to be asked for a bribe by any public official. try getting through a routine traffic stop in many parts of the world without paying i a bribe) and a democratic process (read: elections) that is generally not open to cheating

this isn’t the case with this trip. for those that don’t know, i’ve been a bit busy at work for the past couple months, and this isn’t so much a vacation i’m on as a forced escape from work. i don’t want to burn out, so i needed to get away, simple as that. in the limited planning i had done Switzerland was not much more than a good location from which to get to france and italy, not a destination i had planned to explore thoroughly in and of itself.

so, imagine my surprise that i find myself visiting nothing but Switzerland for this trip. the reasons were simple, the route to Italy was through Switzerland, giving this country enough time to impress upon me that ‘hey, wait a second, what’s all this then?’. it’s an astoundingly beautiful country. also, the Canadian dollar is almost the same as a swiss franc in value, so it’s easier to gauge expenses (bloody expensive) while the euro is more than $1.60! one quick purchase later and i had an all Switzerland rail pass and no idea what to do with it.

this, of course, is all a lead up to explain how, at 1pm today, i ended up in Gimmelwald (wow, beautiful) at the mountain hostel, where, if you’ll peruse their website, you’ll see that they don’t open until the 18th of April. ahem

Petra, the owner, was around when i arrived and graciously offered me the run of the hostel, even to stay the night in the empty hostel should i wish. it was gorgeous, and until about 5pm it was my plan to do so. after hiking up to Müren, enjoying a late lunch and a cappucino i returned to the hostel ready to get some domestic chores done, shower/shave, wash clothes, catch up on my blogging/photo processing & organizing, etc. having showered, and started my laundry i then discovered that the internet was down. faced with a long boring night in an empty hostel on a coldd mountain (it’s warm during the day, but even down in luzern it was sweater weather at night) i’ve decided to leave while i still could, semi-damp clothes be damned.

now i’m on the train, after catching the second last gondola/bus/train combo out of gimmelwald, heading back to interlaken in search of a hostel. if all goes according to plan, i’ll be posting this while drinking a beer and eating dinner. *fingers crossed*

p.s. found a wonderful hostel in interlaken – the happy inn lodge.Only one room left, a single room all to myself (perfect for drying all the clothes that was still damp), will stay another night in the dorm. joining a group going to the highest trainstation in europe tomorrow (over 3000meters!), many pics to follow.

today i went to visit titlis, a popular skiing mountain in the luzern area. there’s a train directly to the town, engelberg, where you then take a series of ski lifts and/or gondolas to the peak. the train from luzern to engelberg takes just about an hour, and it takes perhaps another 30 – 45 minutes to make it all the way to the peak. the whole thing is very surreal to me.

titlus is a mountain not merely conquered by humanity, but something more thorough. thousands of tons of steel and concrete were hauled to the very top of this part of earth’s skeletal system, all to build a playground. we truly are a spoiled segment of the human species.

if mountains had emotions, i wonder what the brothers and sistes of titlus think of the situation. what does one mountain feel for another? contempt at the subjegation, or piercing lonliness from watching a party that can never be joined.

you can see more mountain photos in my flickr set