Wandering North

Europe Moldova Romania-Moldova Trip 2024

More Moldova

I was back from Transnistria and on my second day exploring Chișinău. I think the capital city of Chișinău could reasonably be explored in one day, but I was happy to have two. I was able to move in a bit of a leisurely pace and go on long walks. And that’s really what I did on the second day.

*a large Gulliver’s Travels-inspired mural*

I walked over to the Ciuflea Monastery, which had three buildings, each of them beautiful, I had seen them from the bus when I went into the city, and they were noticeable because they were blue, topped with gold domes. Stunning.

On the way I enjoyed walking through the city, I always say that walking is the best way to see a city and that was certainly true for Chișinău.

I saw the big Soviet-era apartment blocks and oddly placed Soviet style artwork. On the street, sturdy women bundled up in winter coats sold bunches of flowers which were readily purchased by women passing by.

On my way back from the monastery I went to a big market: the Chișinău Central Market. It was great. Exactly what I expected and wanted. Partly indoors and partly outdoors people were selling all sorts of fruits and vegetables, meat, fish, and household items. It was a pleasure to walk around and, most importantly, I found people selling piroshkis. They are such a basic thing, but I don’t find them very often outside of places like Russia and Ukraine. My grandmother used to make potato ones and that’s always what I’m keeping an eye out for. So I got a couple from a woman selling them from a little kiosk and I was in heaven.

I went to the National Art Museum of Moldova, which was surprisingly good. The building dated from the 1930s and had a sizeable, but not overwhelming, number of artworks, paintings and sculptures, to visit. I particularly liked some of the busts and the whimsical paintings of men and women with cabbages for heads. The thing that I found incredibly awkward about visiting the art gallery was that I was the only person there when I visited and, in every room, there was an attendant observing. This made me incredibly uncomfortable. I felt like I had to linger over each work of art lest I offend them if I walked past something. And I felt like I had to nod and smile at everyone. It was a bit of an odd experience, but I enjoyed the art.

I stopped and had coffee at a few stylish cafés and continued to wander around taking pictures of the odd bit of street art or other notable sites. As much as I hate the “I heart anything” signs, but I felt like I had to take one in front of the Chișinău one.

Finally, I had heard that there was one more Lenin statue that I hadn’t seen, and it was quite a long walk through Valea Morilor Park, along a lake before following a dead-end road. It was a long and pleasant walk in the cool air. I eventually found the monument, but it wasn’t just Lenin, it was Lenin and Karl Marx and Georgi Dimitrov (the leader of the Bulgarian Communist party). What a find! It was worth the walk.

Even better, it was right outside the fenced off grounds of what appeared to be a small amusement park for children. It was closed, but some of the animatronics were still running. Is there anything creepier than a slightly disused amusement park? Maybe not. It was daytime so this wasn’t too bad, but it definitely had horror movie vibes.

*these eyes were opening and closing and moving side to side*

I rounded out the evening with dinner and a cigar on a chilly patio and a bit of work before going to bed. I had a great time in Chișinău (and in Transnistria). I don’t know that I’d make a point of revisiting the city, but I wouldn’t rule out revisiting Moldova.

Early the next morning I would fly back to Bucharest for one more day in the night before heading home.

Europe Moldova Romania-Moldova Trip 2024

Transporting to Transnistria

On my second day in Moldova I left Chișinău and took a tour to Transnistria.

The Unrecognized Country

One of the coolest things about visiting Moldova is that it gives you the opportunity to visit the territory most commonly known as Transnistria. When the Soviet Union broke up in 1990 and Moldova became its own country, Transnistria declared itself an independent state and it has remained that way, although it is technically part of Moldova it is not recognized as a sovereign country. So for those of us that are counting UN countries, we can’t include it in our country count, but it’s certainly a place worth visiting and is a bit of a political and geographic curiosity.

Throughout this post I’m going to refer to it as ‘Transnistria’ although its full name is the Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic or PMR. About two months before I visited it became illegal to refer to it as Transnistria and the requirement is to refer to it by its full name or as Pridnestrovie, but It is still commonly known as Transnistria so that’s the name I’m going to use. (Although I do really enjoy pronouncing Pridnestrovie with a Russian-sounding accent.)

Getting There

You can absolutely visit on your own from Chișinău driving or on a bus, but I had only one day and I wanted to learn about the region, so I hired a guide for the day. I booked for a company called PMR Tours, and I would highly recommend them. They have a vast array of tours of Transnistria ranging from half a day to multiple days and the tours can focus on micro topics like mosaics or beer or Jewish history. I picked two half day tours and combined them. I did a general history tour and a Soviet tour.

I was picked up at my hostel by a driver, Zhenya, big and stern-looking (but nice) who spoke no English, and we drove across the border into Transnistria. You need to bring your passport with you to cross into Transnistria and they will stamp a piece of paper and put it in your passport. It feels a little bit intimidating crossing the border, as there are armed Russian soldiers and proper checkpoints, but I get the feeling that it’s just for show more than anything. The drive took about an hour and a half, maybe a little less.

Bender

We drove to a city called Bender, where I was joined by my English-speaking guide Valiery. Bender is an old town dating back to at least the beginning of the 15th century and was a great place to start our tour as it is a place of a lot of historical significance. It is home to the medieval fort called Tighina Fortress, which we toured, and I learned a lot of history about the region.

Also enjoyable was that the fort had a small museum of instruments of torture. While I will seldom pay anymore to go into a torture museum, I’m always happy when I get to look at the instruments of torture. I just can’t get over how cruel we are and the lengths to which we spent time and energy coming up with new and innovative ways to be cruel. It’s so awful that I can only find it amusing. There was one other fellow who was there as a tourist, and we were both in the torture museum at the same time. We hadn’t spoken to each other, so finally I just blurted out to him, “So, what’s your favorite form of medieval torture” And it turned out to be a great conversation starter. Since then, I have used it at two separate business networking events to start conversations with strangers when I was bored. Give it a try. People will think that you are a weirdo, but it really does get the conversation going.

*instruments of torture – and conversation starters*

From the fort we drove a little more into the city and made stops to visit tanks and monuments and memorials to battles, fallen soldiers, and Holocaust victims.

sights of Bender

Outside the Cities

The owner of PMR Tours (I think), Andrey, joined us and we drove through Bender to visit some churches outside of the city. On the way we passed and stopped at some excellent Soviet era monuments and a couple of mosaics. I love that in the Soviet times they would do these elaborate mosaics not just for government buildings or art galleries, but to commemorate industry. That was the case on this company that made electrical cables, and still does.

We visited a massive monument to the two World Wars, which also gave a wonderful view of the countryside, misty and green.

We stopped to visit another building, and I can’t recall what the significance of the building was historically, but it had an enormous Lenin head out front, and as some well-preserved Soviet paintings inside.

During the drive and all the stops, I got to ask lots of questions about Transnistria today. Transnistria in most ways does function like a sovereign territory. It has its own border controls and currency. It has its own police and soldiers and ambulances and government. It’s just that it’s under the umbrella of Moldova.

Tiraspol

We got to a river, with a car ferry. It was a very simple operation. We drove onto the ferry which crossed the river using some sort of chain under the surface. A man, with a cigarette dangling from his mouth used a large lever and winch to pull us across the river. He had a friendly dog as his companion.

A short drive later and we were into Tiraspol, the capital of Transnistria. The history continued, but much of the visit to Tiraspol was focused on taking me to Soviet era buildings and statues of Lenin. I thought Minsk had the most statues of Lenin, but Transnistria is a contender for the most Lenins I’ve seen in one country.

Tiraspol is a nice city. It had a beautiful park, lots of public statues, and the sort of broad streets and big buildings that you would expect from the Soviet Union. The public statues were particularly impressive, not only of Lenin, but of people who fought in the wars, of the celebrated cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin who died at 34 in a MIG crash, and of…Harry Potter. Yes, there is a statue of Harry Potter just outside of the local university. The reason for it, allegedly, is that Harry Potter stood up against the prevailing forces and was brave and fought for justice and freedom. I suppose this resonates with the people of Transnistria as they have been oppressed and fought for independence from the Soviet Union and from Moldova and that fight carries on. In 2024 this seems a little bizarre, but I can imagine that 50 or 100 years from now Harry Potter will just be a historical literary figure, and it will be less bizarre that he is depicted in marble.

A lot of accounts of Transnistria describe it as quirky or bizarre, and I think the Harry Potter statue is one example that could warrant that description, but I didn’t find Transnistria to be weird. It is just a small territory striving for independence with a strong connection to its history. There is a lot of pride there and I think it’s a bit demeaning to write it off as just a quirky roadside attraction.

*a monuments to students and faculty who fought in WWII*

We wrapped up the tour with lunch at a local restaurant, and I chatted with my two guides. This was one of my favorite things about the trip because unexpectedly, the conversation took a turn from the history and contemporary politics of Transnistria into semi-professional arm wrestling.

One of my guides is incredibly passionate about arm wrestling. I think it came up because I told him that I was from Canada and there was some arm wrestler from Canada, but I can’t quite recall the origins. But once he started telling me that he was involved in arm wrestling I could not stop asking questions. At first I thought it was just a group of guys that got together to arm wrestle in someone’s garage once a week, but he explained that it’s much more organized than that and that they have arm wrestling equipment and specific exercises, and they have matches, and it’s a whole community of people that are passionate about this activity. I’m not a documentary filmmaker, but I would like someone out there who is to make a documentary about the men of Transnistria and their experiences around semi-professional arm wrestling, because it sounds like a fascinating tale of masculinity, competition, and personal identity in state struggling for recognition. Seriously, somebody please make this movie.

I rejoined with my original driver and was taken back to Chișinău, Moldova. It was such a wonderful day. I really wish that I had spent or could have spent more time there, and I would absolutely consider going back to spend a few days in one of the villages of the countryside.

That evening, I went out for dinner at a surprisingly good Italian restaurant (Little Napoli) for pizza and a glass of local wine and then back to my new favourite Moldovan cocktail lounge, Marlene, and had another cigar and cocktail, shivering in the night air. It had been a great day.

I still had one more day in Moldova before I would return home. On to the next day…

Europe Moldova Romania-Moldova Trip 2024

Chișinău, Moldova

After my initial two and a half days in Bucharest, Romania, I took a short flight to Chișinău, Moldova. If I had had more time I would have preferred to have taken the train, but the flight was quick and convenient. I was excited to visit Moldova for a couple of reasons. Reason one was that it was my final country in Europe and there was something satisfying about getting to colour in all the countries on my map of that continent. Reason two is that I had heard that Moldova, perhaps along with Belarus, was one of the more Soviet-feeling countries that were formerly in the Soviet Union. Immediately upon landing I realized that I was going to like it.

I took a bus into the city centre which was cheap and convenient. On the way in we passed by huge Soviet or post-Soviet apartment blocks and signs and churches off which made it very clear that this was a country with its with its 20th century roots in the Soviet Union. I was delighted.

I was staying at the Hostel Amazing Ionika Center City, a cozy little hostel downtown. I booked a private room. The hostel had a lot of men from Ukraine living there, presumably having left because of the war, who went off to work each day, but there were also other travelers.

I don’t think that I had even given Moldova any thought until I was in Uzbekistan in 2011 staying at a hostel where no one spoke English but the proprietor insisted that he share some of his cognac with me and he told me with great pride as he held up the glass of burgundy liquid, “Moldova,” he said nodding his head like ‘this is some good stuff.’ Moldova has Been making wine for over 7000 years. It’s not that famous outside of its region but I think it’s actually pretty good, from the little I have tried.

For many years after Uzbekistan, I had been reading about Moldova, but it seemed off limits. For a long time, it was considered to be the most difficult country to visit in Europe because it had prohibitive and seldom-issued tourist visas, but things had changed. I no longer needed a visa to enter the country, and Moldova was on the track to enter the EU. Even more modern accounts of people visiting Moldova described it as poor and unfriendly and uninteresting. I can’t debate the poor element, but I found it quite to my liking. There is something about many of the Eastern European countries where I understand that the people are described as unfriendly. This is not my experience. I find that the people are a bit stern, and they lack in unnecessary or unwarranted smiles and polite chitchat, but all of this suits my temperament perfectly, as I am also chronically immune to superfluous smiling and I have been accused of being unfriendly myself. Maybe it’s the Eastern European ancestry on my mother’s side. Anyway, I felt quite at home in Chișinău.

Also, the weather was perfect. It was cold, single digits for the most part, but it was sunny, and I had a winter coat, and I just thought it was delightful weather for walking around. Plus, in a city like this I kind of want to visit when it’s cold. It seems like a slightly poor former Soviet city should be cold. Always. Just to give you a little feeling of the hardship that was so pervasive in its history.

On that first day after arriving early in the morning, that’s what I did, I walked around, I got the lay of the land, and visited a few churches and cafés. The city feels poor – it’s not grand or impressive like a Kyiv or a Minsk – but it has a nice feeling, with leafy squares and beautiful Orthodox churches. There are a couple of museums that I would visit in the coming days.

I had missed breakfast but I went for a lunch at a quirky and cozy little restaurant called Eli Pili and had pierogies and borscht.

Later in the day, I wanted to go smoke a cigar. Unfortunately, Moldova has some pretty strict anti-smoking laws. No smoking inside and most of the places didn’t seem to allow smoking on their patios, but even so, most of the patios were closed because of the cold weather. There is a cigar lounge there called Churchill’s, and I went to it but there was an incredibly high cover fee to go inside and you had to buy one of their cigars, but their selection was dismal and pricey. I would have been happy paying the cover if I could have smoked one of my own cigars, or I would have been happy not paying a cover and buying one of their crappy cigars, but I wasn’t going to spend money on both.

I did a little bit of detective work, and I found a restaurant called Mojo. This restaurant has a no-smoking section and a smoking section, however, in the smoking section they will only let you smoke cigarettes and shisha. They wouldn’t let me smoke a cigar. No problem, so I had a light dinner and some shisha. It was a really lovely restaurant; not cheap, but cheaper than it should be for how fancy it felt. I asked the waiter how it was that they got away with smoking inside when it was banned. He said, “It is better that you do not ask.” Fair enough.

I walked back in the direction of my hostel. Chișinău felt perfectly safe to me at night. I notice that along one street was a stretch of kiosks selling fresh flowers that were open very late. Even past 10:00pm. The next day I asked about it and apparently the flower shops stay open late so that men who stay out too late drinking can buy flowers to bring them home to their wives.

And later in the evening I went to an excellent cocktail bar called Marlene. No smoking was allowed inside which is a shame because the inside basically felt like someone’s house and it was very cozy although quite crowded. I chose to sit outside on the back patio. It was freezing cold, but they provided blankets and given that almost everyone smoked there were other people out there. I had two excellent cocktails and two cigars, which was a wonderful way to end and my first day in this new country.

The next day I had a guided tour planned to visit the semi-autonomous region that is officially no longer called Transnistria. This obviously merits its own post, so read on here. I would return to Moldova for a full day and two nights after that trip, so my Chișinău experiences would continue.

Europe Romania Romania-Moldova Trip 2024

On the Dracula Trail in Romania

There was no question that I was going to do a day trip to visit Bran Castle (popularly known as ‘Dracula’s Castle”) from Bucharest. The question was how best to get there.

Setting Out

It is possible to get there by public transportation, but it seemed like a bit of a tight journey to do in a day. It would have involved taking a train and then a bus or taxi and it would have been a little bit too much to do in one day. So, I found a small tour where they take you to the castle for the day and back again; however, the night before I received an email from the small tour company saying they didn’t have enough people to run the tour, so they had moved me onto one of those big bus tours. I was disappointed. I didn’t want to be in one of those big buses, led around by a person with an umbrella, but at this late hour, I didn’t have a choice. So the next morning I got up early, grabbed a coffee, and went to the bus stop.

It was one of those big buses crammed full of people. I wanted to feel like I was too cool for that sort of tourist transportation, and maybe I am, but it actually turned out to be okay. This tour was little more than transportation. They shuttled us from stop to stop and as we approached they told us a few things about the place we were visiting and then they set us free to wander on our own. So it was fine.

*a couple of pictures i took from the bus window*

Magical Peleș Castle

The first stop was at Peleș Castle, just outside of Sinaia. The castle is closed Mondays and Tuesdays, so we would just be making a stop outside to wander around the grounds. The castle was built in the late 1800s by the then King of Romania, Carol I, in a neo Renaissance Gothic-Revival style. It is beautiful. It has the look of a castle that you might draw when you were a little kid, with tall, pointed turrets in a relatively small footprint but rising high in the mountains. It is surrounded by forests just outside of the town. What made the stop at the castle my favourite thing that I did in Romania though, was that it was snowing. This was in November, so it was chilly, but everywhere else on my trip the temperature stayed above zero and usually closer to 10°. But as we were a little higher in the mountains, the temperature dropped, and the snow began to fall. Even as we reached the town and castle, the trees were dusted with snow and flakes were falling. I was giddy. I love snow. As we walked around the castle, the snow was falling heavily and everything looked magical. I can’t imagine a prettier setting.

Bran Castle

From there we drove to Bran Castle. Dracula’s castle. Bran Castle is about 25 kilometres outside of Brașov, in the town of Bran. This castle was built from the late 1300s by the Saxons, so it has a more medieval kind of look to it. It is dramatic. it’s situated on top of a rocky hill looming over the town. It is famous for its association with Dracula and Vlad the Impaler, although the basis for these connections is tenuous at best. Bram Stoker never visited this castle and there’s nothing to suggest that he even based the castle in Dracula on Bran Castle. Vlad the Impaler is believed to have stayed there occasionally or at least once, but it was never his residence. The whole Dracula thing is largely just myth and marketing – but that doesn’t mean it isn’t cool.

Bran Castle is imposing and impressive, and Vlad the Impaler was a bloody and malicious ruler so, Dracula or not, it’s still a great place to visit. There are lots of Dracula representations around the castle, from the souvenirs sold in the town to the depictions of Dracula and Romanian spooky folklore figures like werewolves and ghosts in the castle. It’s a little bit cheesy, but I loved it I love anything monster and horror related so this was right up my alley. Plus, Vlad the Impaler? What a monster. What a badass. Impaling your enemies on stakes and a warning to others. That’s an impressive level of cruelty and drama.

I walked through the castle and then took a couple of moody selfies wearing my most goth sunglasses next to a gravestone at the bottom of the castle. Maybe I listened to a little Bauhaus on my headphones. I had a goth moment and high school me was proud. Who am I kidding? 48-year-old me was delighted.

Dale Raven North, elder Goth

I had a coffee and a pastry and we were back on the bus headed to Brașov.

Brașov

Brașov is a historical city with its own dark history. The pretty town square was once used to burn witches. Really.

We had an hour or two in Brașov. It was getting dark, and it was cold as a little snowy. I visited the Black Church (paid entrance; it was only ok), enjoyed a coffee at a cute café, wandered around. My favorite things (apart from the witch history) were the narrow alley way that was covered in graffiti and the town’s emblem, which was a crown with the roots of an oak tree.

Back on the bus, we headed back to Bucharest. I had a small cigar and headed back to my hostel for the night. I had an early flight to a new destination: Moldova.

Europe Romania Romania-Moldova Trip 2024

Bucharest Beginnings

For my November trip of 2024, I had planned to go somewhere a little more exotic than Romania, but after my excellent but slightly stressful trip to Eritrea and Djibouti, I felt that I needed something a little more basic. There were two countries left in Europe that I hadn’t visited: Romania and Moldova, and this seemed like the perfect time to go. And that’s how I found myself arriving at the airport in Bucharest on 11 November 2024.

I’ll say right now: this will not be my only trip to Romania. I think that Romania has so much to offer in terms of small towns and beautiful countryside, that I am definitely coming back. But on this trip, I would primarily be seeing Bucharest and a couple of nearby sites.

The First Night

I took a taxi to my hostel. I was a little underwhelmed by the hostel offerings in Bucharest, so I booked a hostel in the Old Town called the Antique Hostel. I booked a little late, and the room that was available was this massive room on the top floor with a small balcony overlooking the river. It’s not as nice as it sounds. The location was excellent, in that it was walking distance to the metro and to basically everything in the city, but it was fairly shabby and although my room was gigantic, it was mostly just empty space. No mirrors, no hooks, no hangers, no chairs. It was basically a bed and a sofa in a massive room of what at one time was probably a fancy apartment. The staff there were very friendly, and it had a grungy-looking but serviceable kitchen in the basement. I shared a bathroom on the floor with the other occupants. At all times of the day and night, there seemed to be men hanging around in the stairwell smoking cigarettes. And each night, someone tried the door to my room multiple times. So would I recommend it? No, but I would stay there again.

I arrived in Bucharest in the mid-afternoon, and it wasn’t too long before sunset by the time I got to my hostel. It was November, after all, and the days were short. It was also cloudy, cold, and pouring rain. Not ideal. I went for a walk around the Old Town. It has some charm for sure, but it is also very touristy and a little bit seedy. I think it would have made a better first impression if it hadn’t been such miserable weather. I wandered around a little and took in some of the churches and old buildings before settling at a Middle Eastern restaurant on their patio for a bite to eat, a drink, and a cigar.

The rain was coming down, and it was cold, but they turned on the outside heaters for me, and I sat under an awning and enjoyed some hummus and a cigar. Multiple local cats came and joined me on the warm benches and out of the rain.

On my way back to my hostel for bed, I stopped in at the bookstore. Bucharest has one of these bookstores that you’ll regularly see in lists of the world’s great bookstores: the Cărturești Carusel Bookstore. It was built in 1903 by a family of bankers. It was used for a time and then confiscated by the communists and used for a store and various other things before it was left abandoned. After many years of legal battles to regain the title to the building, the original family took ownership again and renovated it and turned it into this fabulous bookstore. It’s bright white and elegant; every view is exquisite. And of course, it has a little coffee shop upstairs. I went in for a browse and a cup of tea. I wanted to buy something, but honestly, I didn’t want more to carry around. It’s certainly one of the loveliest sites in the old centre of Bucharest.

The Next Day

The next morning, I got up early and went for a walk. It was still grey and raining. I strolled around the streets, which were mostly quiet. I noticed in the morning light how many lovely little churches there were. I popped into a few of them. The best was this one: when I went inside, it was lit only by candles, and there were four nuns gathered around a floor-standing candelabra singing the most beautiful hymns. I felt like I wasn’t supposed to be there, and I certainly felt like I shouldn’t be taking any photos, so I didn’t, but it was a special moment.

I went for breakfast at the Van Gogh Café. The Van Gogh Café is super touristy, and I would have skipped it except that it was raining, so sitting outside wasn’t an option, and the cafe just looked so nice and appealing. You can make reservations, and if you don’t, you’ll probably end up standing in a queue forever, but one of the nice things about being a solo traveler is that usually there’s a place in a restaurant or cafe for one person. They found a table for me upstairs, and I had some yogurt and fruit and coffee. It is a very nice cafe; I couldn’t resist taking a few pictures.

I continued my wander, seeking out some street art murals, which led me through some derelict neighbourhoods of the city. Bucharest is a city of contrasts. There are beautiful and well-maintained buildings and then areas of just boarded-up old buildings covered with graffiti and junk. It is, of course, a city that’s been through a lot.

I visited the Davidoff store and bought a few cigars. Great prices. I also took the subway to a different area of the city to visit a cigar lounge: the El Unico Deluxe Cigar Lounge on Boulevard Primaverii, a short walk from the Aviatorilor subway station. (There are other locations as well.)

Bucharest, surprisingly, is not great for smoking. Smoking indoors is completely banned, including cigar lounges, and if any of the patios have walls on them, such as plastic sheeting to protect from the cold and rain, then smoking is not allowed there either. I did, however, find a cigar lounge to visit. They had an excellent humidor with great prices and a beautiful interior with leather chairs and ashtrays, but sadly, smoking was not allowed inside there either. The owner ushered me outside onto the well-heated patio, which did have a cover and plastic sheeting to protect from the cold. I asked how they were allowed to smoke there, and he explained that he wasn’t. He said smoking was banned everywhere but that many politicians enjoy visiting his store, and so he’s allowed to remain open unofficially. I sat there cozily and had a couple of cigars. Delightful. A few men in dark suits came in and had cigars and espressos, and I couldn’t help but wonder if they were amongst the corrupt politicians.

I found a vegetarian restaurant for dinner, which was good.

I enjoyed this day and a half exploring Bucharest, but at this point, I was feeling a little underwhelmed. It wasn’t bad, but it also wasn’t great. I’m pleased to report, though, that my final verdict on Bucharest is positive. The next day I would go on a day trip out of the city, and then after that, I would have another day and a night in Bucharest, and overall I think it’s a good place and worth visiting; it probably needs at least two and maybe three days to explore properly. It’s not the most beautiful of cities nor is it the most exciting, but it does have a certain charm that is best revealed through deeper exploration than I was able to do on that first day.

But my next day would be my favourite of my short trip to Romania. Into the countryside … read on here.

North America USA

24 Hours in California: Ojai, Burbank at Spooky Season & Venice Canals

Earlier in 2024, I discovered that there were cheap flights from Vancouver to Los Angeles and back that made for a perfect 24-hour visit to see my sister, who lives in Burbank. Last time we used the opportunity to drive to Palm Springs. This time we had our sights set north.

I was curious go to Ojai. My sister and my mother had visited a while ago, and it looked so lovely that I wanted to check it out. My sister, Dawn, and her trusty canine companion, Bear, picked me up at LAX and we immediately hit the road. Ojai is only about an hour and a half north of Los Angeles, but we a stop to make along the way.

Great Pumpkins

We stopped in Ventura at Great Pacific Pumpkins. A pumpkin patch run by 5th generation family farmers where you can go and buy your future jack-o-lanterns, or just wander around and take fun photos. The pumpkins are arranged in cute displays with bales of hay and seasonal decorations. It was delightful. We took a million photos and picked up a couple of small pumpkins for decoration.

Great Pacific Pumpkins
(the one that looks like it B&W isn’t; it is just white pumpkins on grey stones)

Oh, hi, Ojai

We arrived in Ojai quickly. And it is charming. Ojai is a small city northwest of Los Angeles in the Ojai Valley. Population just under 10,000 people. Ojai is known for organic farming and spiritual practices and yoga and healthy living. It’s the sort of place where you would go and do a yoga retreat and live off organic vegan foods and buy expensive locally made crafts before going on a hike. I’m not into the spiritual side of things, but as a vegetarian, the healthy food side of it really appealed to me. I could imagine going there for a week of relaxation. (I’ll never do that though, as I seem allergic to relaxation, but I can imagine it.)

When we arrived, there was a farmers’ market on selling all the usual farmers’ market items. We both enjoy a small town farmers’ market. At the market, we saw Donald Glover AKA Childish Gambino, who apparently lives there part time and has a creative incubator in a citrus orchard on a farm he owns. I think Ojai has become kind of a popular place for some Los Angeles celebrities to live a quieter life. We wandered over to a vegan restaurant and had a bite to eat. We had coffee and wandered around some more. It’s a lovely town and a great day trip from Los Angeles.

I think the best thing about Ojai is Bart’s Books. I love bookstores and it is always interesting when they have done something sort of architecturally creative or thematically unusual. In this instance, Bart’s Books is unusual because it is entirely outdoors. It is behind a low wall of ivy, although there are books for sale on the outside of the fence, with a little sign that says just to leave some money if you take one. Inside, all the bookshelves are outdoors, with occasional awnings to protect you and the books from the sun. This gives you a sense of how good the weather is in Ojai. It was started in 1964 by Richard “Bart” Bartinsdale, whose collection of books was so expansive that he started selling books from outdoor bookshelves outside his home.

We browsed around and I picked up a book that I probably didn’t need, and we made our way back to Burbank. (We made a stop on the way back at the Ventura Cigar Lounge so I could pick up a few cigars.)

Evil Clowns in Burbank

Back in Burbank, it was evening, and we had another plan. As I have written about before, Burbank is home to lots of movie production studios, which means it’s home to a lot of movie people. They live in beautiful houses on perfectly manicured streets, and they go all out for the holidays. I’ve been there both at Christmas and Halloween previously and it’s incredible. At Halloween, the houses are all decorated. Some with modest conventional decorations but others are extreme. They have elaborate setups with animatronic figures, music, fog machines, and some have live actors. One even had a small ferris wheel. It’s amazing. And it is all free, although some of the bigger ones do take donations.

We didn’t stay up late enough to take in all of them, but we tried to hit some of the highlights. The best was the Burbank Clown House, which was incredibly decorated and also had some live evil clowns wandering around terrify you. Dawn and I, as lovers of horror movies and all things spooky, were in heaven.

*Aliens, Autopsies, Skeleton Bands, and more Evil Clowns*

Burbank really doesn’t get enough credit for being a fun city. I wouldn’t recommend anyone go there unless you have a reason to go there, but once you are there, there are things to do; and if you’re already in LA, at Halloween or Christmas, I think it’s worth going to Burbank to check out the decorations.

Morning on the Venice Canals

The next morning, my flight was at about 10:00am. Fortunately, both my Dawn and I are insane morning people. We got up before the sun and drove into Los Angeles, through Hollywood, and past all the landmark buildings. There wasn’t another car in sight.

Thankfully, at least one cafe was open (La La Land), and we stopped in and grabbed a coffee, before heading over to Santa Monica for another coffee (Dogtown) where one fellow was talking about skateboarding and another about rescue dogs, and then to Venice.

One of the things my sister likes to do is go paddleboarding in the Venice canals, but I had never seen them, so we parked the car and went for a walk.

The Venice Canal Historic District was built in 1905 as part of the planning for the city of Venice, as they wanted to make it feel more like the Venice of Italy. It doesn’t feel anything like the Venice of Italy, but it is splendid. The canals are entirely in a residential district and there are small footpaths on either side and then little bridges crossing. All of the houses are modest but beautiful and there are lovely plants and flowers along the way. The waters were calm at that time of the morning, and small boats and canoes were tide up along the shores. It was wonderful. So serene and beautiful; it is incredible to think that it is in Los Angeles. I loved just walking along it, but I look forward to going back one day and kayaking around the area.

And with that, it was time to go to the airport. It was almost exactly 24 hours since I arrived. As usual, when I told people I was going to Los Angeles for 24 hours I got the typical lecturing about how that isn’t enough time to go anywhere. But when I look at how much we were able to accomplish and how much fun we had in 24 hours, there’s no question that I am going to do it again.

Eritrea-Djibouti trip 2024 Europe United Kingdom

London Layover: Mayfair Morning

I left Djibouti city late afternoon, had a short layover in Dubai, and then a seven-hour layover in London. Never one to miss a London layover, I caught the Heathrow express to Paddington and then walked Mayfair.

If you read my blog at all regularly, you might know that I always go into London if I have a layover of at least five hours. The longer the layover, the more I can do. (Check out this post for my best ever London layover.) Seven hours is a decent amount of time. It gives me an hour from wheels down to arriving at Paddington, and then I usually give myself three hours before my flight to head back to the airport (because i am paranoid about missing flights) so I only had about three hours in the city, but it was worth it.

Every time I go into the city, I tend to pick a different neighbourhood or activity, although often that activity involves cigar smoking. With not very much time, I decided that a little coffee crawl around Mayfair would be a good idea. My flight landed at 7:00 in the morning so it was a perfect time to hit up the cafes. The air felt cool and refreshing after having been in the scorching heat of Djibouti. I sauntered leisurely around the streets and hit up a few cafes.

I went first to Cardinals Café. Nothing too extraordinary, but I liked it, an Italian café tucked down a side street and busy with people off to work. I had a double espresso and small cigar outside on the patio where a man awkwardly told me that my backpack had caused my dress to ride up above my bottom. Is there a word in English for being both mortified and thankful? There should be.

I went to the charming and fancy H.R.Higgins, a tea and coffee merchant in business since 1942. There I got a little adventurous and I tried some concoction that was a mixture of orange juice and espresso. Honestly I didn’t really care for it, but I also I had a croissant before carrying on with my stroll.

*H.R. Higgins (I resisted the urge to make any Magnum PI references)*

I visited Everbean x BIBI’S for my third espresso of the day, a nice neighbourhood café. I sat outside and was feeling so relaxed and in the moment that I even forgot to take a photo.

From there I just meandered about before going to Selfridges to visit the James J. Fox cigar store at that location. Usually I go to the James J. Fox location on St. James’s St., which has an excellent cigar lounge upstairs. This is simply a small retail outlet inside the Selfridges, but I wanted to pay to visit. I went in and picked out a few nice cigars. I was feeling a little bit sheepish because I looked a little rough. After traveling around my clothes were a bit dirty and rumpled and I had the look of someone who had been on a red eye flight, and I was still wearing my backpack, but I still received a polite reception and the people were very friendly as I chatted with him and told him about some of my recent adventures. Cigar people are lovely people.

At this point, I didn’t have much time left, so I leisurely walked back to Paddington station, smoking a small cigar. Did I do any sightseeing? No. Was it still worth it heading to London for this short time? Yes. Thought that maybe the espressos talking.

It was a perfectly pleasant way to end my trip to Eritrea and Djibouti. Even with all the things that went wrong on this trip, it was my favourite trip of 2024.

(My next trip would be to Southern California for some Halloween fun.)

Africa Djibouti Eritrea-Djibouti trip 2024

Two Great days in Djibouti City

Djibouti was my destination after Eritrea (following my brief and unplanned overnight in Dubai). Djibouti is right below Eritrea and above Somali on the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. It is a tiny country, just 23,00 square kilometres with just over a million inhabitants. A former French colony. It is an important shipping country and as a military base, due to its location. The capital and main city is Djibouti City.

The flag and the map. That’s Djibouti on the horn of Africa in green.

Day One – Arrival and Impressions

I flew in from UAE to wonderful views, having a whole row of the plane to myself.

I applied for and received my e-visa for Djibouti without issue. I provided my hotel booking and an invitation letter from a tour that I booked – not a tour for the whole stay, but for an overnight trip to remote Lake Abbé – and the visa was issued. No problems at arrival in Djibouti City. I caught a taxi and went to my hotel.

I was staying at the Ras Dika Hotel, which is right in the middle of everything. There was noting fancy about it, but it was clean and air conditioned and had a little seating area out front where I could have a cigar and watch the very busy street. The owner is apparently Canadian and the manager is from the Philippines. He was a very nice guy and helpful. I told him I needed to change some money, and we walked me a block away to a corner where older women sat in the street in chairs with large handbags on their laps. The money changers. He helped me get a good rate for my money. (I changed US dollars.) I had my walking around money and so I was off to explore.

Shortly after I arrived in Djibouti City I got a text from a friend, and she asked me if it was nice. I really hesitated before responding to that text message because I knew that the person who asked this question would most certainly not think that Djibouti city was nice. They would probably think it was awful. And a lot of people do say Djibouti City is awful. It’s hot. So very hot. It is a bit hectic and lacks infrastructure. Like ATMs, unbroken streets, good public transportation, lovely parks. It does have a beautiful sea front but attempting to walk along it is difficult because of the heat and the path is at one point blocked off causing you to need to take it ridiculously long detour away from the shore. Djibouti city is loud, and might be a little bit scary if you’ve never visited other African cities. But I have visited other African cities, and I thought Djibouti City was OK. I don’t think I’d recommend it to people. There’s not a lot in terms of attractions. Museums and art galleries and whatnot are basically nonexistent. But it does have basic infrastructure. Running water, air conditioning in some businesses, restaurants that look like restaurants, and importantly, sidewalks. Not sidewalks in all places, but sidewalks in areas with lots of vehicles.

I always feel like sidewalks or a good test of how well developed a city is. Sidewalks show a level of planning and thought for the citizens that live there. Sidewalks also give a person the ability to walk down the street without constantly having to worry about being run over. Where you can walk down the street without worrying about being run over your mind can turn to happier thoughts and generally leads to a more relaxed state of mind.

Anyway, Djibouti City had those things. And while I wouldn’t describe it as beautiful, I did enjoy my wander around.

Half of the city feels relatively developed and half of the city feels relatively underdeveloped. My hotel was just a few blocks into the more developed area. On my first day in Djibouti that was the side that I visited.

The buildings are not all in good repair, but there are some attractive ones, with Islamic style arches in some designs, some attractive mosques and a couple of nice cafes. There is also the market, which as far as markets go isn’t that picturesque, but it’s lively and authentic and gives you a sense of the place.

On my first day I walked around this neighbourhood taking pictures, stopping for generally substandard coffee, and exploring.

Finally, I felt like I needed a bit of a respite, so I walked from my hotel to that of the Hotel Kempinski, which is on the sea at the end of sort of a peninsula. It was about a 40 minute walk and quite pleasant as a lot of the streets had trees.

I arrived at the gorgeous hotel and made my way to the seaside where there was a bar and restaurant overlooking the ocean. I sat and had a juice and a coffee on the bar side with my cigar, before moving to the fancy Italian restaurant side for dinner and a drink and another cigar. Inside the restaurant it was cool and air conditioned, and outside it was hot, but I wanted to smoke my cigar, and I enjoyed watching the sunset over the sea and the rustling palm trees. It was exactly the relaxing visit that I needed.

I wasn’t sure if it was safe to walk back to my hotel at it was quite dark, so I had the hotel called me a taxi, which wasn’t particularly cheap but I appreciated the convenience.

Just a comment about the cost of Djibouti. It is not cheap. Sure, you could go to some hole-in-the-wall restaurant and have a bite to eat and it won’t be that expensive, but things like taxis and hotels and meals in restaurants that look like restaurants are all quite expensive, as are most of the tours that you can book. It’s sort of place where most people traveling there are doing so on a business trip, and so the nicer hotels and restaurants can afford to charge inflated rates.

The Final Day

I had four days in Djibouti city, but two of them I spent doing an overnight tour, which I’ll write about separately. On my fourth day, I had to be the airport rather late in the day, so I spent my daytime visiting the other side of Djibouti City, the less developed area.

I walked a bit more near my hotel and then crossed over. The less developed side was very interesting. It was a different world from the part I had already seen. This side of the city had no charming colonial buildings no paved streets no sidewalks, and really virtually no basic amenities. The streets were dirt and the houses were built out of corrugated metal and leftover timber. The streets were filled with roaming goats and chickens, people washing their clothes in buckets or cooking their food over fires. There was a market selling basic household supplies and tools. There was not much in the way of restaurants or cafes, but there were little shops selling basic essentials.

I really enjoyed visiting this neighbourhood. Despite how poor it was, it was pretty. Colourful. There wasn’t a lot of litter and the houses were all different bright colours. The sun was shining and it wasn’t hectic or crowded. I definitely stood out. And I wasn’t entirely sure if I was supposed to be there, so I didn’t take a lot of pictures. People stared at me but did not seem unfriendly.

Eventually I walked back towards my hotel. Grabbed bite to eat at an Ethiopian restaurant with a rooftop patio, strolled around a bit more, enjoying the crumbling architecture and hand painted business signs and numerous chat markets and then returned to my hotel to kill time before going to the airport.

At the hotel, the manager introduced me to another guest who had just arrived, coincidentally, another lawyer from British Columbia, Canada who is traveling by himself. This fellow was traveling from Egypt Southward with the idea to keep going until he ran at a time and had to be back at work period the nice guy we sat and chatted while I finished my cigar, at that point I went back to the airport, to fly home via London.

If you haven’t read about my truly excellent overnight visit to Lac Abbé, Djibouti, you can do so here.

Otherwise, this particular trip is nearly at an end. All that remains is a pleasant layover in London which if you care to read about you can do so here.

Africa Djibouti Eritrea-Djibouti trip 2024

Overnight at Lake Abbé

I enjoyed two days in Djibouti City, but the real draw for me was the countryside. There are a number of excursions that one can do on a tour in Djibouti. You can do long treks, wildlife encounters on the land, whale sharks in the sea, etc. The thing that I wanted to do though was travel inland to Lake Abbé, so I looked for a tour operator to do an overnight visit to that destination.

There were a few offering this service, but the one that I found eventually had the best price and itinerary combination. Africorne Travel, run by a pleasant and professional French guy, Alain, living at least part-time in Djibouti. Sometimes he runs the tours himself and if he is not around then he has a local run it. I was in the latter category.

The Journey

On the day that we left, my guide picked me up in a big 4×4 off road vehicle, driven by a driver whose name I can’t recall. We set out. We stopped at a market to buy some fruit and then drove past some large Chinese infrastructure building roads, and then we were out in the countryside.

The drive was excellent. There are some small towns and villages along the way as you drive to the lake. We stopped at one to have lunch, before continuing on our way. But as we got away from that small town, the land just became barren. Some small rocky hills or sometimes just miles of flat cracked earth. Little to nothing was growing, there was no water to be seen, aside from the odd camel, very little in the way of wildlife. The roads disappeared and we were entirely off road. The temperature was in the mid 40s. It was desolate.

*my crew: stopping for cigarettes and snacks*

What I found amazing, was that in this very inhospitable landscape, there were still small villages. In these small villages people seemed to live of houses that resembled rounded piles of sticks and fabric. There would be one or two shops, that were sort of like cinder block cubes. We stopped at one to pick up some water and cigarettes. But I just kept thinking, why live here? No shade or water, electricity or any conveniences. Surely like would be better in a town or at least somewhere where you cold grow food or fish, but you have to respect the resilience.

I was enjoying the journey, but what was unusual was that we were collecting people along the way. It had started with just three of us, but after our lunch in the small town a man with an orange beard joined us, and for a time another young man joined us. I gather we were giving them rides to other places that we were going. It was fun and I was happy for whatever was going on. I have since then had people ask me if I felt safe as a solo female traveler with all these strange men in the middle of nowhere; and the answer is yes. Without reservation.

The drive should have been about 6 hours not including lunch. So I was counting on it being maybe 7 hours or so. Even as I thought that, I did recognize that things can always go sideways, especially where, as here, there are no roads, but I was keeping my fingers crossed that in about 7 or 8 hours I would be at my destination camping out by the lake.

Unfortunately, things did take a bit of a turn. We got stuck in the mud. It’s funny to say “mud’’ because there was nothing remotely wet or muddy about the ground, but we got stuck in layers of dirt that had formerly been mud I suppose. We all got out of the vehicle and tried to help rocking it back and forth to get us unstuck. That was to no avail. And then we walked out from the vehicle into the landscape looking for large branches that we could use to put under the wheel to make sort of a ramp to drive out on. But the landscape was nothing. It was like the moon. There were no trees, and any bits of wood were just little twigs. Finally, two of the guys decided that they would walk back to the last village that we had passed and ask for help. The last village we passed was a ways back, but I figured that was the only option. (It’s worth mentioning, that in this landscape not only is there no Wi-Fi of course, but also no cell signal. Is the sort of place where you could imagine just dying if you didn’t have the right provisions.)

While we waited for them to return, I sat on the ground in the shadow of the vehicle and smoked cigarillos whilst being bundled up on a long-sleeved hoodie and brimmed cap. It was roasting, but I wanted to stay out of the sun.

I was expecting my travel mates to return with a vehicle with 4-wheel drive and a winch to pull us out of the hole, but what they returned with were three skinny young men in sandals, and with a collective weight of about 300 pounds, and a shovel. How was this going to work?

They got to work, digging a bigger hole and then filling it in with dirt, packing it down and adding more. And then with a bit pushing from all of us, we were out. Two of the guys walked back to the village with the shovel, but one guy joined us for the trip. Now we were six.

The new guy took over for the designated driver and it was clear why; he skills to navigate the terrain far exceeded that of the original driver. We drove in and out of deep crevices in the earth where water once flowed, we scaled hills that seemed to be nothing more than piles of boulders. A couple of times we briefly got stuck again, but he freed us quickly.

Of course, this delay had dramatically extended our journey and by the time we got to Lake Abbé, the sun was setting, but first I got a preliminary view of what I had travelled so far to see.

Lake Abbé

Lake Abbé is salty lake at the border of Ethiopia and Djibouti and is considered to be one of the more inaccessible places on earth. The landscape is flat and then towards the edge of the lake are these craggy natural chimneys and a small, dormant volcano. Because of the late hour I would have to wait until the morning to visit them, but I got some nice views from the camp.

The camp consisted of some igloo-shaped grass huts with cots inside, a covered patio area, cooking area, and toilets that worked if there was water.

I sat on the patio area with my companions. Only two spoke English, but we sat and ate dinner and drank tea, watching the landscape disappear into darkness. I enjoyed a couple cigars.

*On the right, that is me trying to take a selfie and being startled by a flying insect.*

Because there is no electricity and nothing for miles, the sky was spectacular with stars and in the distance there was occasional lightening. I went to bed but quickly realized that the huts were like tiny ovens, so I dragged my cot outside and slept soundly under the stars.

In the morning, before everyone else got up, my guide and I walked to the lake. The ground was crazy. In places it was hard and cracked with dried salt and in other places you would sink into mud past your ankles. There were fissures in the earth in places where hot water boiled up, producing steam. It was so cool; truly like being on another planet.

We could not get right up to the lake as the mud was too thick, but we got to see a lot.

Back at the camp, we had breakfast and then four of us walked to a different part of the lake, where the water appeared pink – because it was covered in flamingos! I had never seen so many. It was incredible. We couldn’t get too close without scaring them off, so my pictures are a bit lacking In quality resolution, but in person it was beautiful.

*Me and the original guide and driver and the substitute driver*

We packed up and started the journey to another lake – Lake Assal. On the way we met lots of camels and a small troupe of curious monkeys.

Our group dwindled as we dropped off our add-on travelers and again, we were three.

Lake Assal

Lake Assal is relatively close to the city, but on the other side. (It is easily visitable as a day trip from Djibouti City.) It Is notable for being a hypersaline lake, like the Dead Sea, and also for being the lowest place in Africa. I had had the experience of floating in the Dead Sea and didn’t feel like getting all salt encrusted so I didn’t swim in it, but it was beautiful. Like nothing I had seen before. Blinding white and reflective; like ice. We could walk out quite far on the salt before it turned into a lake, but with the water on top of the sale it became like a mirror.

At the shore were a few young men and boys selling salt and items, like animal skulls, that had been submerged in the lake and were now salt-encrusted artifacts.

*this would have looked so cool in my office*

We drove back to the city, stopping at a massive gorge and a view of the landscape.

It was an excellent experience and while it was not cheap, it was worth the money.

Back at Djibouti City, I would have another day before heading home via London.

For my post about Djibouti City, click here.

Move on to my layover in London here.

*friendly kids in a village in Djibouti*

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Melting Down in Dubai

This post won’t make a lot of sense unless you’ve read my previous ones about Cairo and Asmara on this particular trip, but you can read on anyway and I’ll try as best I can to sum up why I found myself sobbing in a hotel room in Dubai.

I arrived early in the morning at the airport in Dubai, having flown from Asmara, Eritrea on a spontaneous flight after other flights were cancelled. I knew I needed to get to Djibouti the next day, but I didn’t have a flight booked. I immediately sat down at the airport, got a coffee and logged on to Skyscanner. I was looking for any flights that would fly me to Djibouti and get me there, at the very latest, by the end of the next day. The day after the next day I had a rather expensive overnight tour booked to go to Lake Abbé and I wasn’t going to miss it. (Of course none of this would have been a problem if all of the flights out of Eritrea on Ethiopian Air hadn’t been cancelled, which is what led me having to book an emergency flight to Dubai in the first place and why I was sitting at the airport without any flights or hotels booked. The previous post sets this all out.)

I found a flight: one flight from Dubai that met my needs. It would be early the next morning and was a direct flight from Dubai to Djibouti city. It was like $800 US. The amount of money that I spent trying to reorganize my trip itinerary after the flight cancellations and Eritrea was significantly more than I originally paid, but what could I do?

I booked the flight online. Of course, now that meant I would be staying the night in Dubai, so I got online and found a hotel. I didn’t spend too long looking, I just booked a Radisson Blu (Dubai Deira) that was close to a stop on the metro so it would be easy for me to get back to the airport in the morning, but also it was within walking distance of the Creek.

I took the metro to the hotel. The hotel was big new and fancy, and not my sort of usual place but I was glad to see it. I was happy for all the comforts and conveniences. They let me check in very early, at like 8:00 in the morning. I got to my room feeling pretty pleased with myself for getting everything back on track. And then I checked my e-mail.

As I said, I had booked an overnight tour to visit Lake Abbé in Djibouti and camp out overnight, and it was kind of expensive, particularly for one person, but I had paid for it ahead of time by a wire transfer. When I opened my e-mail, I had a message from the tour company saying that they had not received my wire and I would need to pay for the tour in cash on my arrival. This was exactly the sort of reason that I always carry extra cash on me, but I no longer had my extra cash because I had to spend it all buying my emergency plane ticket out of Eritrea. I also didn’t know if I could get more cash because I have a $200 CDN per day limit on my ATM card. And here’s where I melted down.

I just started to cry. And I don’t mean that my eyes filled with tears, or I was subtly boo hooing. I started sobbing. I think it was all a bit too much. Since going on the trip I had the strange man enter my hotel room at night in Cairo, I lost my ATM card in the bank machine in Cairo, flights was cancelled out of Eritrea, and I had to spend all of my extra cash on a new flight, and I had just had to book a new another new flight to Djibouti and book a hotel, and on top of all of it, I had only been having about two to four hours of sleep per night for many days. And I just melted down. I cried so long and so loud that I actually got a call from the hotel reception asking if I was OK. I felt so worn down and defeated that I actually thought about just giving up and booking a flight back to Canada but I didn’t do that because even in my despair I knew that all of this was temporary and I know that the things that goes wrong on vacations are usually the things that we talk about later and wear as badges of honour. So I stuck it out, but in that moment, I felt lousy and weak.

I finally pulled myself together and left the hotel. I decided that what I would do was get the cash that I needed for the tour as an advance off my credit card and then use online banking to pay the credit card back right away. It was a solution. (As it turns out, the guy from the company wasn’t trying to scam me, it’s just that the wire transfer never did get there. And about a month after I got back from the trip the bank returned the money into my account.)

I walked down to the Creek, my face puffy from tears, and I hopped into an abra (one of the little boats) and went to the other side. I walked around a bit but I was still feeling pretty low, so I just went to a café by the water that I had been to twice before ordered some shisha and juice and a platter of delicious vegetarian treats and I just sat there listening to podcasts and relaxing. Eventually I went back to my hotel. I had a nap and went out in the evening for a walk and a cigar and talked to my sister on the phone, which also made me feel a bit better.

*lunch and shisha* *(eyes still puffy from red eye flights and crying)*

I think it’s important to remember that things are going to go wrong when you travel and that it’s generally temporary and you just need to tough it out; but also, that sometimes it is ok to cry and feel bad. Not everything with travel is fun and beautiful. Anyone that says it is, is lying.

I had a terrific sleep in my giant fluffy bed at the hotel. I awoke very early, and I went back to the airport to catch my flight to Djibouti, only about 24 hours later than my original schedule.

Sobbing in my hotel room in Dubai was definitely the low point of this whole trip and things would only improve from there, but even with all the things that went wrong in this trip to Eritrea and Djibouti, it ended up being my favourite trip of 2024.

On to Djibouti…