(Kingston, Ontario, Canada)
An important part of travel is doing things that you just can’t do at home. This chronological list contains some of those unique experiences that haven’t found their way onto any of my other year-end lists.
1. Horse Ski Lift in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy
After skiing for miles and miles to the bottom of the stunningly beautiful “Hidden Valley”, we faced a long, flat traverse to reach the only lift in the area. We could endure an arduous “skate” to get to Armentarola or we could hitch a ride behind a team of horses. They loaded up about 20 of us on a series of strong ropes…and away we went! It wasn’t as unsteady as I thought it might be and we were soon at the base of our next lift.
2. Tour of the Pentagon
The security was very heavy but not much different from what you would expect at an airport. In fact, once I was inside, it felt more like a shopping mall with a very large school attached (some of the hallways were more than three football fields long) than a military command centre. However, our visit was still strictly controlled: we could not stop walking, not even for a drink of water, nor do I think we saw anything *truly* confidential. Nonetheless, I felt privileged to be on the inside of the Pentagon: how many people can journey deep into the bowels of their own military headquarters, never mind those of a foreign country?
3. Climbing to the top of a Minaret (Mostar, Bosnia & Herzegovina
It is not often that non-Muslims can explore an active mosque, let alone climb to the top of its minaret. However, as the Koski Mehmed-Pasha Mosque in Mostar is also a national monument, such access is granted to visitors for a small fee. The climb was steep, dark and claustrophobic…and then the exposed platform at the top was flooded and had a very low guard rail. Fortunately, the view was amazing (see photo at the top of this post)!
4. Hurling at the GAA Museum in Dublin, Ireland
While this was not as intense as climbing a minaret or skiing with horses, trying my hand at the very Irish game of hurling was still a unique experience. I had never played it before, nor had there even been an opportunity, but I thought I did pretty well at whacking the ball towards the target. It was a lot of fun, actually, except that I developed blisters on my hands after only a few minutes of thrashing!
5. Wandering Through Peruvian Salt Pans
This was an unearthly experience: a mysteriously salt-laden stream flows out of a mountain and into acres of pools that have been built below it to trap the salt. It was ingeniously low-tech and looked like a massive paint set. Best of all, we were free to wander around on the salt-encrusted walls between each of the pans! I am still eating the salt that I brought home from here; it’s nice to remind my taste buds of the culinary treasures that I experienced in Peru.
6. Reconnecting with my Dutch Family
One of the reasons my wife and I went to the Netherlands was to reconnect with my Dutch relatives as, despite many visits as a youth, I had not been there since 1991. We ended up touring The Hague and the Westland region for a full day with one cousin, met another in Maassluis, went to a soccer game in Rotterdam with a third, and spent several days in the northern Netherlands with a fourth. All of these experiences were great; all of my cousins have very nice “significant others” and children as well. The hospitality was wonderful throughout and I’m really looking forward to seeing each of them again.
7. Nighttime Reptile-Searching Walk in a Tropical Rainforest
The title says it all…and yes, it was as damp, steamy and creepy as you can imagine!
This is the last of my year-end lists. Stay tuned for the “statistical summary” of the year, a previously unpublished lost post from April of 2014, and some *new* travel experiences from both the past and the present!