Air, Landier, and Sea

Really, it was about 150 hot air balloons, all filling the sky over Love Valley. We got the go ahead at 5AM this morning, and we were all thrilled! Although we’ve already done hot air balloon rides in Kenya, Capadocia is one of the places to balloon. The first 100 balloons went up about 20…

We’ve have a very full day of travel. We started in Bhutan, flew to Katmandu, changed planes, flex to India for a fuel stop, and then had a 7 hour flight to Cappadocia (Cap-uh- doe-key-uh). We did get some good rest on the plane though, especially with the fancy bedding they set up for us.…

Well we were right to conserve our energy for the Tigers Nest hike, because it was a beast! We started out at 8,000 feet and climbed to 10,000. The hike was 10 km up and down, so about 7 miles and this first half was pretty much all uphill. The only exception was when we…

Our first few days in Bhutan have been absolutely incredible! First of all, the country is closed to tourists. Since our group was able to pull some strings, we are pretty much the only outsiders in Bhutan. They were so excited for us to come that they made us a cake to have on the…

Namaste from Nepal! Today we arrived after a boat ride and a 5 hour flight from Maldives and headed straight into the cities of Katmandu and Patan. While in the States some may say Madonna is a Goddess, today we got to meet the Living Goddess of Patan. We took a bus tour (which was…

So we initially planned to leave Kenya and head for the Seychelles, but that didn’t happen. Don’t worry, this didn’t just happen to us, rather our whole group had to divert to another location because Seychelles isn’t open to tourists fully due to COVID. So our group instead headed to the Maldives! And honestly, we…

Today was our last day of safari and we had the option of leaving at 6:30AM or 9:00 AM. Naturally, we signed up for one of the 9 O’clock slots because we’ve had quite a few early mornings. However, our safari guide from yesterday, Douglas, suggested that if we wanted to see more activity, earlier…

To say every day of this trip gets better is an understatement. Here’s a fun fact about Africa in the summer: it’s cold! No one in our group (including us) was anticipating this, but luckily we had a lot of layers. Plus, our guides provided us blankets and hot water bottles in the Jeeps. We…

Our Kenya trip was in full swing from the moment we left president Kagame’s office. From the meeting, we were taken straight to the airport (with a police escort from the president which was really cool) and boarded the jet. When we arrived in Kenya, we were immediately placed on puddle jumper planes to get…

Today was an absolute showstopper of a day. We got to visit the endangered Silverback gorillas. Dian Fossey worked in the jungle of Rwanda for 18 years, and was incredibly successful in helping this population not only maintain but grow! When Fossey began her work, there were about 160 gorillas. Today, there are over 1,000.…