After a few disappointing trips to Cabarete over Thanksgiving and late December where I was cursed with only 1 day of wind out of a combined 10 days there (granted it’s not the windy season there), I was looking forward to a change of kiting scenery.
As my fantastic baby brother Olivier lives in Sao Paulo where he runs marketing for BrandsClub, the Gilt equivalent of Brazil and was loth to travel, I searched for kiting options in Brazil. I chanced upon an article on Prea online and decided to take the plunge. We booked a trip from December 24 to January 1 at Vila Prea.
I was extremely apprehensive upon arrival. Prea is hard to get to. You fly into Fortaleza airport (FOR) and drive for 4 hours seemingly to the middle of nowhere. In the process you cross extremely poor towns and neighborhoods. The arrival in Prea was barely more reassuring as it was only marginally better than the towns we crossed on the way. Fortunately in the last 5 minutes of the ride, you reach a beautiful sand beach with amazing bungalows: Vila Prea.
The place exceeded all my expectations. They have not had a single day without wind since the beginning of the windy season in July (the season lasts from July to January). There was constant wind every single day from 11 am to 6 pm! The managers and staff are extremely friendly and helpful. The bungalows are great and have free wifi. The nearby town of Jeri is also extremely cute. The upside of how difficult it was to reach the place was that there was almost no one there! I never saw more than 10 kites simultaneously on the water. By comparison, on Cabarete I often felt I was stuck in traffic at rush hour!
I had a blast! I learned to jump and did my first back loop. My ardors were only tempered by my left knee and an upset stomach which seemingly did not appreciate all the sea water ingested in the process of learning to do a back loop.
Given how far Prea is, Cabarete will remain my first port of call for a long week-end of kiting given its direct 4 hour flight from New York, but for extended kite trips, Prea cannot be beat!
Ever since I read about Tanzania in National Geographic Adventure, I had wanted to go, especially as I had never been on a safari. I originally considered a 10 day walking safari in the Serengeti with Mark Thornton Safaris followed by a climb of the Kilimanjaro (not on the “Coca Cola route”). Mark Thornton Safaris provides an amazing experience as the walks are lead by a team of Maasai warriors, but ultimately, as my dad decided to join so much walking and climbing was inappropriate. As we considered our options, we were lucky that Mark Harrison, the CEO of Abraham Harrison, OLX’s fantastic PR agency had lived in Tanzania for a few years. He introduced us to Tanzania Odyssey and helped structure the trip for us.
We ended up selecting a mixed itinerary flying from Amsterdam to Dar es Salaam through Kilimanjaro. After one night in Dar, we flew to the Mwagusi safari lodge in Ruaha for a 4 day safari. From there we flew to Mahale on Lake Tanganyika where we stayed for 3 days chimping at Greystoke Mahale. Finally, we went on a 3 day walking safari organized by the Sand Rivers lodge in the Selous Game Reserve. All three areas had fundamentally different climates and provided very different experiences.
Ruaha
Ruaha National Park is in the middle of the country in an arid region whose landscape reminded me of Arizona and Nevada with desert like temperature variations: smoldering heat during the day to seemingly freezing cold at night.
We stayed in beautiful individual lodges. There was no cell phone reception, Internet or electricity, but the experience was all the better for it. The rooms had individual bathrooms, hot water in the morning and battery powered lamps at night. Meals were communal with the other guests. Dinners were truly exceptional as they were eaten in the open at a different location every night. For the game drives, we had our own car, driver and guide. The game drives would start at around 6 am. We would return for lunch at 11 am and start again in the afternoon from 4 pm to 6:30 pm. We read and relaxed during the breaks – you can’t see the animals from 11 am to 4 pm anyway as they stay hidden to protect themselves from the heat.
I had never been on a safari and was truly impressed by how close you could get to animals in open off-road vehicles. Wild animals are seemingly afraid of the strange bipedal beings we are, but unconcerned by the large mechanized vehicles we were traveling around in.
We were hopeful we would see many animals because the trip took place in late August during the dry season which provides the best opportunity for game watching. We were not disappointed! On our very first day, we chanced upon a beautiful 18 month old female leopard which was hunting dik-diks (very small antelopes). We had the privilege of being able to observe her patiently stake out her prey and discreetly crawl its way into hunting position. After observing her for 90 minutes we let her be to give her a better chance of reaching her objective.
On the second day we encountered a large 500 animal strong herd of buffalo. As we soon learned, wherever there are buffalo, there are lions! A pride of lions is often found following buffalo herds preying on the weak, old and young. Again, we had the privilege of seeing lions prepare an attack while male buffalo prepared a defensive barrier to protect the herd. Another group saw the buffalo actively chase away the lions which were forced to retreat into the trees.
During the game drives we saw countless yellow baboons, giraffes, hippos, crocodiles, vultures, zebras and elephants. I loved watching the fish eagle royally stand on a branch observing the world around him before majestically flying and catching a fish.
One of the cutest moments of the trip took place on the third day. While driving along a dry river bed we encountered a large elephant herd. We learned that elephants can find water tens of kilometers away. They apparently knew there was water running below the river bed and used their front legs to dig a hole one to two feet deep. As the water seeped into the hole, they used their trunks to drink it. We saw two of the cutest baby elephants first trying to imitate their elders by attempting to dig a hole, then lying on their side for their short trunks to reach the water in the hole their elders had made.
The Ruaha trip part of the trip was the one where we saw the most diversity of animals, but after 4 days of sitting in open air vehicles we were looking forward to a more active lifestyle. It was time to leave the arid landscape of Ruaha for the lush tropical climate of Mahale.
Mahale
The Mahale Mountains National Park is on the West Coast of Tanzania towering above Lake Tanganyika. Lake Tanganyika is one of the largest freshwater lakes by volume in the world: 670 km in length, 50 km in width with a depth of up to 1,470 meters! On the 90 minute boat ride to the Greystoke Mahale lodge it felt like we were navigating on an ocean. The ocean just happened to be made of freshwater and full of hippos and crocs!
After the arid climate of Ruaha with its drastic temperature contrasts, we welcomed the moist tropical climate of Mahale. We had individual bungalows which blended well into the forest. Mahale Mountains National Park houses some of Africa’s last remaining wild chimpanzees with a population of around 800 and the main attraction of Greystoke was the ability to go “chimping”. Every morning the guides would report where the troop of 60 nearby chimps were located and we would hike to them. Once we got close we had to wear masks to prevent potentially infecting them with the flu.
We would spend one hour observing them play, fight, eat and mate. It’s incredible how indifferent they were to us. They would pass by us oblivious to our presence only acting with other members of their group based on their position in the social hierarchy. We were also shocked by the similarity between their facial expressions and human facial expressions.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing on the beach, reading, hiking, playing Frisbee and kayaking before observing beautiful sunsets and dining on the beach with the other guests. It was the perfect way to relax after months of intense work. After three exquisitely relaxing days we took our leave and headed for the Selous Game Reserve.
Selous Game Reserve
The Selous Game Reserve is one of the largest fauna reserves in the world and is located to the south of Tanzania. It took the entire day of flying in the propeller plane to get there with 3 stops along the way, but it was well worth it. The walking (or “fly camping”) safari turned out to be the highlight of the trip.
Every morning we would get up at 5:30 am, walk from 6 am to 11 am. We would rest for a few hours before hiking again from 4 pm to 6:30 pm. After a long day of walking in the sun, we would relax and eat a fireside dinner with our guide before sleeping in our tents. The experience was as authentic as it gets – the restrooms were essentially a shovel and showers were provided by gravity (an elevated bucket with a drip below it) – but safe and luxurious.
There was four support staff for the two of us: a cook, someone to assemble the tents and drive them to the next night’s location and two guides with guns. We each had our own guide as my dad was not up for hiking 7-8 hours per day. Our guides had guns to protect us. Interestingly enough lions and hyenas pose little threat as they are afraid of us. Buffalos, hippos and to a lesser extent elephants are the real danger as they sometimes charge humans.
Even though we did not get nearly as close as we did in the off-road vehicle in Ruaha, we saw all the same animals: prides of lions, giraffes, zebras, wild beasts, buffalo, hippos, elephants and dozens of birds of all types! Probably because of our diminished relative size, it was more impressive and humbling to see them while on foot. Our humility was reinforced by our frequently chancing upon skeletons and remains which reminded us of the fragility of life. The awe inspiring power of nature was further strengthened by the beauty of the star filled nights which reminded us of our relative insignificance and made us all the more grateful for our ability to experience such magical moments.
Just as importantly, the trip, the long marches and the mid day pauses also allowed me to bond and connect with my dad in a way I had not in a long time. At the end of the trip, I felt closer to him than I had felt in years.
After three nights, we were happy to be taken to a lodge for a hot shower before flying back to Amsterdam, but already felt a tinge of the coming nostalgia for leaving behind such a beautiful wild environment. We had been touched in a unique way. I left knowing I would return to Africa: I long to see Victoria Falls, climb the Kilimanjaro and discover hidden wonders I am not yet aware of.
I was lured to Margarita and specifically the kite spot El Yaque by the kite boarding travel specialist Fun & Fly. It promised 360 days of wind out of 365.
Unfortunately the spot failed to deliver on its main promise. We were only able to kite 5 hours in the first 11 days. Fortunately, we were able to kite 5 hours on the 12th and final day. It rained every single day if only briefly. While the trip itself was inexpensive, food and local purchases were extremely expensive (above New York prices) as inflation increased many prices by 50-100% in the past year. The stay would also have been much more enjoyable if the room had hot water.
We intended to spend a few days in Los Roques or Tortuga as we had heard fantastic things about both locations but all the local flights were booked. We rented a boat and spent 2 days in Las Frailes, a small set of deserted islands near Margarita instead. The highlight of that trip came before we left as my cousin and I convinced our girlfriends we were going to sail the boat ourselves, share 1 small cabin for 4 people, eat the fish we caught which they would have to clean and prepare. Unfortunately the trip did not live up to expectations. There were no scuba tanks on board, contrarily to what we expected. There were no sand beaches on Las Frailes to walk on. There were not that many fish and corals to observe and the sea was covered by small jelly fish. Moreover, the boat rental was outrageously expensive!
The trip back to New York was a disaster. Santa Barbara Airlines closed its check in early and we missed our 6 am flight. They could not find our reservation in the system despite our printed eticket confirmations and took over 2 hours to issue our boarding passes. We could not pay airport taxes by credit card and the money exchangers did not allow the withdrawal of enough money to pay the airport taxes. We missed our connection in Miami and were put on standby for the flight to New York on American. The flight we ended up getting on in Miami was delayed 5 hours and they lost my suitcase!
On the bright side security was much better than we expected and did not notice any petty crimes. We did hear to avoid Caracas at all cost and dutifully obeyed. Should you come bring cash as you get two times the amount of Bolivars on the black market than at the official rate (and credit card transactions are at the official rate). Never get money at an ATM. Not only would the rate be at the official rate, but they would steal your PIN and take all the money out of your account.
Despite all of our travails, I had a good time given the charming company, witty conversation and relaxing atmosphere. Twelve days of doing nothing were exactly what I needed.
That said, I would recommend avoiding Margarita and will probably not come back to Venezuela other than to visit Los Roques.
Even though I have been to China many times in the past 14 years, my last trip to Beijing dates back to 1994. I was already fascinated by the economic reforms China was undertaking and wanted to live them firsthand as opposed to writing about them from my ivory tower in Princeton. I decided to spend the summer of 1994 at Beijing Normal University (Beishida) to study mandarin.
It’s hard to describe the incredible transformation the city has undergone in the past 14 years. In 1994, the various highway rings within the city were still under construction. Bicycles were the primary mode of transportation and there were few cars on the streets. At times, I felt that the cab taking me from the airport to the university was the only car in town!
My accommodations were Spartan. I shared a small room with another student, slept on a rice mattress and pillow no more than an inch thick. We shared a desk, a chair and a lamp that barely emitted any light! The building had communal Turkish-style toilets which had seemingly not been cleaned in 10,000 years. They were so filthy I threw up every time I entered them!
Classes were intense lasting from morning to evening with extra classes at 10 pm for bad students (e.g.; the foreigner who did not speak a word of the language before showing up there!). There was an exam every day on the previous day’s material which required intense studying after the extra night class. I would typically start studying around midnight, holding the lamp no more than 2 inches from my notes to be able to see anything! I would collapse of exhaustion at 1 am to ready myself for the daily 6 am wake up time.
The water was not drinkable and we all carried a thermos full of hot water all day, not the most pleasant drinking experience in 90 degree extremely humid weather. To add a bit of flavor to the water, we would put tea leaves in the thermoses – which became my explanation for why the Chinese drink tea :)
The university was in a relatively poor neighborhood and the food quality was rather low. Everything was extremely spicy with very little meat and invariably made you terribly ill. I don’t think there was a single day I was not sick!
Very rapidly, I realized that the safest and cleanest source of nutrition were watermelons. There were watermelon stalls at virtually every street corners brought daily by farmers. Despite the watermelons, I still lost over 40 pounds during the summer going from my usual 180 pounds down to less than 140 pounds!
My experience in Chinese hospitals was just as scary. As I was giving directions to someone, I pointed my finger in the direction they were supposed to be headed not realizing there was a metallic electric fan there. The fan had no protective cover and severely severed my index finger. Blood readily spurted from it in a cartoonish way. What truly frightened me was the sight of the hospital. It was extremely filthy and overflowing with patients. The doctor wore no gloves and I was convinced they would reuse needles and manage to kill in the process of fixing my finger! I actually consider myself lucky I only caught Hepatitis A during that trip (probably from the water)!
Despite the challenges, it was a fantastic experience. Having pledged to speak only in Mandarin (and frankly no one spoke any English or French), I picked up the language in record time. I really felt it was “learn or die”! This led to fantastic interactions with locals which are amongst my most cherished memories from this trip. I spoke with famers, cab drivers and dozens of entrepreneurs who ran small shops or stalls across the city. I could not but admire their enthusiasm. They were all so happy and optimistic about the future. They all dreamed of a better tomorrow and were convinced their children would have much better lives. The American Dream was alive and well … in China! In fact, once you interacted with them in their own language, most of the Chinese I met reminded me of Americans – though maybe the less civil harder working 19th century Americans (or at least my vision of them) – extremely hard working, ambitious, optimistic, capitalist, individualists desiring to succeed for their family and themselves above all else.
I also took advantage of the opportunity, especially the time after midterms, to explore rural China and discover some of its wonders. Waiting for the train in the middle of nowhere was always an interesting experience as many of the locals had never seen a Westerner and kept expressing amazement: “You are so tall! You have so much hair!” My body hair seemed particularly fascinating to them and was repeatedly touched and pulled!
You would not believe how inexpensive the trip was. The three months I was there cost me $362 all included (except for the flight there and back) – including various gift purchases in the silk market, food and the hospital visit – which means I lived on $4 per day!
Beijing today is unrecognizable from the city I left in 1994. Everything that was under construction has been built and then some! The city now has all the trappings of modern city with a burgeoning middle class. Cars abound – in fact bicycles have virtually disappeared from the streets. All the watermelon stands are gone as well! There are beautiful and distinctive skyscrapers. The airport is extremely modern. The Olympics left their imprint with an amazing stadium and much improved sports facilities.
The food, while remaining distinctively Chinese, is much richer. Meat and fish are a much more prominent part of meals. As in many American towns Pizza Hut, McDonald’s and to a lesser extent Starbucks are omnipresent. Most incredible, the tap water is now drinkable!
Individuals’ attitudes are also changing in reflection with their increased income. They remain individualistic, optimistic, hard working and ambitious and still believe in the Chinese version for American Dream, but they are also discovering the pleasures of indulgence and enjoying the now! They now take vacations and spend their disposable income on gadgets, cars and various consumer goods.
I feel terribly privileged to have been able to observe the rise of China. 400 million people came out of poverty in less than 20 years – the largest increase in welfare in the history of humanity – singlehandedly responsible for the decrease in global income inequality during the past two decades.
Beijing and China face tremendous challenges in the coming decades. They have to deal with an ethnically and linguistically fragmented population, rapid urbanization, rural poverty and difficult environmental challenges as illustrated by the quasi-permanently grey smoggy skies of Beijing. As ever, I remain an optimist believing in human ingenuity to surmount all these challenges!
Last September I embarked on a multi-sport adventure in Costa Rica starting near the Atlantic Coast and finishing on the Pacific Ocean. The experience was simply divine.
We started by staying at the Pacuare Lodge on the Pacuare River. This stay ended up being the highlight of the trip. The Pacuare Lodge is an eco-lodge where everything is natural. You get to the lodge by crossing the river by cable tow. The residences are gorgeous. They are perched in the middle of the forest with breathtaking views of the river. There is no running water, electricity or sewage. All use rain and sun as their only source of water and heat. You use candles and a wind-up flashlight as your only source of light. All the food is grown on the property itself and was fantastic.
The next day we went rafting on the Pacuare River with class IV rapids. The ride was thrilling and made all the more engaging by the majestic scenery. It also provided my closest brush with death in years. Towards the end of the run, the guide asked us if we wanted to do the last rapids which were only class II with our bodies. Several of us jumped in the water to see what it would be like. The experience at first was disappointing. The waves were small and the current did not feel that strong. Unexpectedly, I encountered two countervailing currents and was pulled straight down to the bottom of the river. As I looked up, I saw all the other swimmers and the raft go by as I was seemingly stuck in place. I swam upwards towards the light as strongly as I could but did not make any progress. After a few seconds, I decided to stop to conserve my oxygen. I calmly concluded that with my life vest and the air in my lungs I should be buoyant and that I just needed to wait for them to do their job. As the seconds passed by for what felt like minutes and my oxygen started depleting, I thought this would be an extremely stupid way to die. I could not hold any longer and started simultaneously swallowing water, throwing up and blacking out … just as my head crossed the water. I was saved! This served as a good reminder of how tenuous life is even in seemingly benign conditions – as everyone else reported the body rafting part as incredibly easy and uneventful.
From there we went to Arenal. The first day we started out with a canyoning tour. I had never rappelled down waterfalls and adored the experience. After a few hours of rappelling down cliffs and hiking, we headed to the Arenal Reserve. We went up the Sky Tram and did the Sky Trek ziplining. This was by far the longest zipline I had ever done – the last leg is almost half a mile long! We ended the day in style by relaxing in the hot springs of the Tabacon Grand Spa Resort.
The next day we did a full day bike tour of Arenal. The riding was grueling with rough unpaved road and numerous hills. We biked all the way to the base of the volcano and watched eruptions while surrounded by cooled lava. We wound down with amazing massages at Tabacon.
From there we flew to Quepos on the Pacific Ocean for a combination of sea kayaking, tennis and mountain biking. Once again, the experience was fantastic. After a weeklong adventure, our journey came to an end. We flew back to San Jose on a small propeller plane, but got caught in a thunderstorm on arrival with fog so thick we could not see the runaway. After two aborted landings we flew back to Quepos and took a cab to San Jose to fly back to the US.
This one of the most intense and fun vacations I have ever been on and look forward to similar adventures in the future!
I had heard great things about Cabarete in the Northern Dominican Republic and decided to check it out last September. I was not disappointed!
I had never been in a place that had such fantastic boarding conditions. Trade winds blow daily from at least 11 am to 5 pm. There was not a day where we could not kite board!
The hotels are a bit rustic (one of them has rooms for $9 per night!), but we were there to kite board not enjoy luxurious accommodations. Cabarete offers tons of other activities as well including windsurfing, scuba diving, dirt biking, horseback riding, cascading and more, but I have to admit we did not do anything other than kite board, play tennis and mountain bike.
Make sure you fly to Puerto Plata International Airport which is 20 minutes away to save yourself a 2/3 hour drive.
Somehow someone at the Four Seasons read my negative review and called to apologize. They reimbursed the room service charge and explained that the rental operation is run by Whistler itself and that they will try to push them to provide faster service.
They also suggested that next time I should complain while on the trip so they could accommodate me better. Good idea :)
This is not quite the review I expected to write 12 hours into the trip. The trip could not have started worse.
I had never been to Whistler and decided to take advantage of the fact that I was already in San Francisco to check it out. Unfortunately, the station is two and half hours from Vancouver airport. Worse, the bus dropped me off at the wrong hotel.
When I finally managed to get to The Four Seasons around midnight, the hotel service was a huge disappointment. There was not one to help out with the luggage. The food at the late night in room dining was expensive and terrible! In the morning, renting skis and boots took over 2 hours – including nearly an hour of their concierge not understanding my name and bringing me other people’s ski boots! It then took nearly an hour to buy a simple lift ticket! Worse of all, it had not really snowed in 6 weeks and the forecast called for rain at the station level for the duration of my stay. I finally got on the slopes around 11:30 am and the snow in BlackComb was icy everywhere except at the very top of the glacier where the t-bars run.
Fortunately, from that point on everything went great. That afternoon I switched to the Whistler side and somehow the snow at Whistler Peak was still very good despite being at a lower elevation than BlackComb. It did not rain, but snowed every day. Unexpectedly the station was hit by a storm that dumped almost a foot of snow. My heli skiing was cancelled due to the weather, but as I had to be ready by 7:30 am for that trip, I ended up being the first on the slopes and skiing in fantastic snow all day. Even better, I went heli skiing the next day enjoying both perfect fresh powder and amazing weather allowing me to get 9 runs in.
The station is huge. The skiable area is the largest I have seen in North America. Whistler is a great little town with lots of amenities. I ate at two delicious Italian restaurants: Il Caminetto and Quattro.
All in all I very much enjoyed the trip despite the lackluster start!
I adore skiing. I was introduced to it essentially when I learned to walk and have enjoyed it tremendously and extensively ever since. I had the pleasure of skiing in Snowbird and Alta with my dad and baby brother for the past few days and the experience was phenomenal.
It’s much more convenient to get to than Whistler or Jackson Hole from New York. There are numerous nonstop flights daily to Salt Lake City. Just as importantly the station is only 40 minutes away from the airport. It’s the only resort where I regularly go for the week-end if I see a storm system approaching.
The powder is amazing both in quantity and quality. The snow is very dry and over 500 inches regularly fall every season. I can’t recall having been to Snowbird/Alta without it snowing at least half the time. This trip was no exception with over 30 inches of snow falling over 3 of the 4 days of my trip and nonstop snow on the forecast for the coming days.
The terrain is also phenomenal. The skiable domain is much smaller than what you would find at Whistler, Chamonix or Les Trois Vallees, but it makes up for it with an impressive array of ungroomed bowls and tree runs. It’s also much larger than it used to now that Alta and Snowbird are explicitly linked and easy to ski from one to the other (you used to have to hike between the two). You can also augment it with the resorts’ heli-skiing and cat skiing operations, though the heli-skiing is often cancelled due to inclement weather. If you are up for a challenging day, sign up for the “mountaineering experience” in Snowbird where you will hike and climb your way to extreme terrain.
The station only caters to good skiers. There is no après ski to speak of. All restaurants close at 9 pm and most are mediocre at best. There is one exception in Shallow Shaft which offers delicious fares and amazing wine! Alta is the more elitist of the two stations. It does not allow snowboarders and does not put foot rests or safety bars on any of its lifts.
Possibly as a result, the station is not crowded. We never waited for more than 2 or 3 minutes and we found fresh powder in a few places in the middle of the day. Most stations are fully skied out within minutes of opening and the lines are much longer. It was so uncrowded, on a Spring Break week no less, including on Saturday, I wondered how financially stable the operation is. But for as a skier, I did not care, I was happy and fully fulfilled. My only complaint is the highly skewed male / female ratio!
All in all, I can’t think of a more pleasant skiing experience short of a week of heli-skiing. Happy skiing!
I read great things about this trip in National Geographic Adventure (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/) and decided to check it out. I enlisted William, a childhood friend and fellow car enthusiast who is also VP of Marketing at OLX, and we signed up for Ensenada Tour organized by Wide Open Baja (http://www.wideopenbaja.com/ensenada.html).
We drove the same buggies that race the Baja 1000 every November on some of that race’s trails. There were 10 of us in 5 cars plus the guide. We took turns to drive and co-pilot. We had never driven off road before and we rapidly understood the importance of the co-pilot. The co-pilot constantly communicates with the other cars and gives the driver detailed instructions on both were to go and how fast to take a turn. We still managed to get lost once :)
It’s absolutely amazing what these cars can do – we went on terrain I would have not imagined any car could handle! We did manage to get stuck once and blow a tire once. Two of the other cars also flipped, though no one was injured.
The best way to get a sense for what it was like is to watch some of the videos below:
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