After leaving Bosnia, we traveled South and entered Montenegro, which means “Black Mountain.” This country is ringed by mountains that are… you guessed it, largely black. In recent history, this country was declared a kingdom in 1910, then merged into Yugoslavia after WWI. After the breakup of Yugoslavia, Montenegro combined with Serbia to form a […]
Balkans 2 – Bosnia 2
This is part 2 of 2 describing our travels in Bosnia and Herzegovina (which will be shortened to Bosnia in further comments). Part 1 can be viewed here. As before, this is a continuation of our photo tour with Mehmet Özbalci of TurFantastic. Before meeting up with our photo group, we explored the streets around the […]
Balkans 1 – Bosnia 1
We have just started our latest adventure with Mehmet Özbalci of TurFantastic, this time to photograph five Balkan countries. Mehmet has become our favorite photography tour guide, and we have traveled with him to Iran, Sri Lanka, Georgia, Armenia, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Turkey and other countries. He knows where to go at which time for the […]
Istanbul – Resuming Travel in 2022
We are traveling again! The world of Pandemic COVID has not completely disappeared, but it is finally fading into the background, where the variants will likely become an embedded part of everyone’s lives forever. For those with access to vaccines, there is not much more of a concern than seasonable flu. We flew from Honolulu […]
Travels to Iran (Video)
We traveled to Iran in 2019, spending two weeks traveling the country. We were concerned about going. We expected drab, dreary automatons, afraid of the outside world and hating Americans and a hostile part of the world. We were completely wrong about every aspect of Iran that we had preconceptions about. Instead of being a […]
San Diego 4 – Wrap Up
Wrapping up our time in San Diego. We had heard of the Batiquitos Lagoon Trail located near Carlsbad, a coastal wetland and estuary, so we went there for a hike (above) and investigate whether it was good for plein air painting. It was quite windy and dry the day we hiked, and not teeming with […]
San Diego 3 – Tourists
We decided to become tourists in San Diego, and unwind without worrying if we looked like tourists… since that is what we were! First stop was the San Diego zoo in Balboa park. We arrived about 20 minutes before the gates opened, and there were already roughly 100 people in line before us (upper-left). It […]
San Diego 1 – Traveling Again With a Shot!
18 months since our last travel outside Ecuador (Oaxaca, Mexico in December 2019). 14 months since our last post, in which I wrote that we would be locked down for “a short time” for this COVID stuff. Well, we were only starting to get a glimpse of how serious the situation was way back then. […]
Oaxaca, Mexico 8 – Wrap Up
We have come to the end of our three week visit to Oaxaca, so let’s wrap up with some overall impressions. There are a few things that stand out and can’t help but be appreciated. First is the weather. We were here during late November and early December. The temperature was between the mid- 70’s […]
Oaxaca, Mexico 7 – Mezcal Distillery Tour
When I think of Mexico, I typically associate it with moles, salsas, tostadas, beer… and tequila. When we asked friends what they would like us to bring them back from Mexico, tequila was the only thing that came to their mind. It turns out that Oaxaca is most known for mezcal, and tequila is merely one […]
