The driver carved his way across northern West Bengal through territory unknown to most, including the mapmakers. Our SUV eventually rolled to a stop at the end of a dirt road where a group of village women dressed in their best and brightest saris were seated in a semi-circle on the ground. They had been waiting for hours.
And they were waiting for us.
What is Central American food? Which dishes and street food should you seek out and what sort of flavors and spices might you find when you visit Central America? Our Central American Food guide shares of the best dishes and street food we found during the five months we traveled through Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Costa Rica. ¡Buen provecho!
To say that you’ve seen the world before seeing India is like saying you know yourself before taking a good long look at your naked body in the mirror.
Author's Note: As we begin to write about our last visit to India in greater depth, I’m reminded of my first trip there — also my first trip abroad that I took solo in 1997. Those were the days of traveler’s checks, thick stapled wads of Indian rupees, and exorbitantly priced, poor quality phone calls booked from telephone wallahs on the street. The ATM machines, internet cafes and easy-to-purchase mobile phone SIM cards of today’s India seemed only a pipe dream back then.
This chronicles the bizarre experiences and lessons – about India, travel and me – that first visit imparted. No other trip since has affected me in quite the same way.
As we travel, it's common for locals the world over to ask us where we are from. In Asia, the response “The United States” was usually sufficient. In Europe, they didn't ask; they assumed.
Not so in Central America. People were curious to know the states and often the towns and cities where we grew up, where we have lived. After sharing our details, it wasn't uncommon to hear: “I had a cousin who lived there“, “Oh, I lived [nearby] for 15 years” or “My brother lives there.”
I've been out of the dating game for exactly 12 years, so maybe I'm not the best person to write about how to snag a man. However, during our recent trip to the Galapagos Islands, I observed the behaviors of various birds and something struck me: their mating habits reminded me of those dating advice columns I used to read in Cosmo.
If memory serves, it's a cruel dating world out there. For those of you still in the game, take comfort that the animal kingdom knows no more forgiveness than our human one.
Were Charles Darwin to lead a voyage into the realm of dating advice, perhaps this is where he’d take us:
We usually share photos to better relate our experiences and provide a more personal look at a country and its culture. Here we do the same, but we add a cautionary tale.
Ah, the Galapagos Islands. An iconic destination if there ever was one. But what's it really all about?
Swimming with penguins and sea turtles, watching waved albatross couples do their mating jig, playing with sea lions, and laughing at boobies (birds, that is). And that's just the beginning. This was not a typical week in our journey around the world. But then again, the Galapagos Islands are not your typical destination.
The first person to utter “shit happens” must have been a traveler.
As I emptied myself from both ends for the better part of 36 hours in the hills of northern Ecuador recently (a bad batch of cevichochos, I suspect), I was reminded that we owe our readers an accounting of how we usually manage to stay healthy while we travel.
El Salvador is one of those places I recall from my childhood, but for all the “wrong” reasons. Newscasts in the 1980s equated the country with menacing jungles, death squads and guerrillas. Our recent conversations suggest that for many, El Salvador's image as dangerous and gun-prone persists today.