DJ-RTW's Travel Blog

Round the World Wrap Up - Los Angeles, California

 This place was Amazing visited May 10, 2008

The best thing about returning to Los Angeles was seeing all of our family and friends. I'm posting just some of the photos taken and I was really sorry to find, after the events, that I didn't have photos of everyone we saw!

posted May 17, 2008 | Comments (0)

End of Round the World 1 & Start of RTW2 - Los Angeles, California

 This place was Amazing visited May 9, 2008

We end the two year Round the World (RTW) trip with visits to families and friends in Los Angeles, Chicago, Waterloo/Kitchener, Toronto and Calgary. We are being shown so much love by everyone that we want to end this blog with photos of all of the people who have been supporting us during our two year trip. Friends and family wrote to us, many came to meet us (Mom in Argentina and Australia, Mona in Brazil, Melanie in China, Sean in India and Allison in Australia), others took care of our cats and business (Jeff and Libby with sending medicine and stuff we needed from Chicago; Melanie with cats Mijo and Mija in L.A.; Allison with cat Babe in Chicago; Audrey and Rich with our personal business affairs in L.A., David with our finances in L.A.) , many, many people wrote to tell us they enjoyed our blog and to keep us up to date with what was happening in their lives. We thank all of you for helping make this trip possible. What’s next for us, you may ask. May and June 2008 will be spent visiting family and friends in the United States and Canada. In July, we’ll be in Costa Rica where Jacob will be studying how to teach English as a foreign language while I work on my travel book. We move to Guanajuato, Mexico in August (and expect to be there until February 2009) to assist a women’s rights organization, write books (Doris) and teach English (Jacob). After that, our plans get rather vague. We would like to return to the baboon sanctuary in South Africa for two to three months, travel through Eastern Europe in the summer of ’09 and then move to wherever Jacob has obtained a contract to teach (preferences are for Mexico and South East Asia). We hope to continue travelling the world until our health becomes too great a barrier: climbing Mount Kilimanjaro in a wheelchair is not advisable. We hope that you will join us either physically or by reading accounts of our travels in my books. Photos of friends and family to come.

posted May 17, 2008 | Comments (0)

Goodbye Moorea & Tahiti - Moorea, French Polynesia

 This place was Great visited May 8, 2008

Time to leave our little slice of paradise and return to the real world (!?!) to wrap up some stuff in the US and Canada and get ready for Jacob’s schooling in Costa Rica and our eventual move to Guanajuato, Mexico. A few final photos of Moorea and Tahiti are included here.

posted May 17, 2008 | Comments (0)

Under the Deep Blue Sea - Moorea, French Polynesia

 This place was Great visited May 5, 2008

Since we scuba dove and snorkeled for the first time in our lives (Great Barrier Reef, Australia), we thought we should also try walking on the ocean floor wearing a very heavy helmet that provides you with oxygen. And what better day to do something new than our 25th wedding anniversary. There were five people diving/ocean floor walking and two guides who attracted the fish, kept us out of trouble and made sure we were comfortable the whole time.

posted May 17, 2008 | Comments (0)

Sun, Sand, Sea & Relaxation - Moorea, French Polynesia

 This place was Great visited May 1, 2008

Your intrepid explorers ended their two year Round the World trip in the very-easy-to-take islands of French Polynesia. We spent a week on the island of Moorea – just a twenty minute ferry ride from Tahiti – and were rewarded with sunny skies, azure waters, tropical fish by the hundreds and more rest and relaxation than we could ask for after working so hard. We snorkeled pretty well every day, ate reasonably well at the resort and much better in local restaurants, sunbathed, swam and shopped a little. We also celebrated our 25th anniversary of marriage and began planning what we will do for our 50th (we already know but don’t ask). A pretty neat day of snorkeling started with feeding of four or five friendly rays which we could pet (feel like mushrooms). We also learned to make ‘poison cru’ (raw fish), a local delicacy that involves using lime juice to ‘cook’ the fish.

posted May 17, 2008 | Comments (0)