https://www.andyanajones.com/blogAndyana Jones traveloguehttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/the-end-beginninghttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/the-end-beginningTue, 21 Jul 2020 09:00:00 -0700I never expected this go-round to be easy. After experiencing my fair share of precarious and uncomfortable travel over the years, I was firmly in the camp of feeling it important and worthwhile to struggle through the rigors of a journey to fully appreciate the rewards at the end, but I was not keen on putting myself through difficult travel simply for the sake of “the experience.” I was resigned to the fact that, ihttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/fjords-far-northhttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/fjords-far-northFri, 15 May 2020 15:00:00 -0700Some days are so much more. Facing a fork in the road, our options were to go left on what appeared to be the main highway, through a tunnel and straight into the mountain range, or go right, down a hill on what looked like a semi-maintained road that may or may not wind the long way around the peaks standing in front of us. With not many miles to make on the day’s agenda, we decided there wasn’t much to lose by takihttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/ice-caves-glacier-lagoonshttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/ice-caves-glacier-lagoonsThu, 14 May 2020 10:00:00 -0700Hopping into our cargo van turned monster truck, with its enormous tires and hydraulics, we made our way onto the glacier, cruising along the hard-packed snow still left over from the long winter. The further we climbed, the more eerie things got, as the bright horizon became indiscernible with the glacier’s end. We came to a stop near a group of workers shoveling snow, which seemed somewhat odd given we were surrounhttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/iceland-falling-waterhttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/iceland-falling-waterWed, 13 May 2020 11:00:00 -0700Sitting on an impossibly stiff bed half draped in a mosquito net, I stared out the pane-less and screen-less window onto the patchwork of rice fields below, leading into the calm waters of the mountainous Ba Be lake. Outside was pure serenity, while inside our homestay we wrestled with the thought of an abrupt end to our months-long trip. With the spread of the Coronavirus reaching the West, a series of well-laid plahttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/vietnam-the-northhttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/vietnam-the-northWed, 29 Apr 2020 20:00:00 -0700Over the years, I’ve learned that my travel bias is in favor of remote beauty. I am drawn towards areas or regions that are somewhat difficult to reach, resulting in a sparse tourist presence, perhaps lacking on luxuries, but making up for it in simple pleasures and views that make up the daily life of the local population. While Vietnam’s north does have its fair share of the antithesis of this type of travel localehttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/caves-and-karstshttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/caves-and-karstsMon, 27 Apr 2020 17:00:00 -0700Continuing our adventurous transport in Laos, we found ourselves crossing another remote border in an iffy bus that may or may not have been smuggling dozens of sacks of illegal charcoal into Vietnam. After nervously waiting while our passports were taken away for inspection for just a bit too long for comfort, we were finally relieved to hear the clicking of another stamp press as we made our way into the last counthttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/si-phon-don-laoshttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/si-phon-don-laosSat, 25 Apr 2020 13:00:00 -0700Often overlooked on many Southeast Asian travel itineraries in favor of Thailand or Vietnam, Laos is sandwiched between the two countries, along with Cambodia, its neighbor to the south. While every aspect of travel in Thailand comes with ease, there was no shortage of situations in Laos in which I found myself simply shaking my head and laughing it off because, well, what else could I do? The adventures started withhttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/angkor-wat-on-wheelshttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/angkor-wat-on-wheelsFri, 24 Apr 2020 07:00:00 -0700Some sights are worth repeating. Four years removed from my last exploration of Angkor Wat, I found myself back at the staggering compound of ruined temples in Cambodia, this time trading the comfort of a tuk tuk for a questionably stable mountain bike as my mode of transportation through the maze of temple complexes and courtyards that make up the famous Angkor Wat. After a 5am wake up call, we hopped on our bikes, https://www.andyanajones.com/blog/thailand-take-twohttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/thailand-take-twoWed, 22 Apr 2020 16:00:00 -0700Walking the streets of Bangkok in the dark of night, surrounded by food carts and vendor stalls selling everything from elephant pants to cigarettes to male enhancement products, it felt like we’d been dropped into a different world if for no other reason than the fact that we were walking about in crowds of people long after the sun had gone down. After months in Africa of planning our evenings around ensuring we wehttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/out-of-africahttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/out-of-africaThu, 09 Apr 2020 13:53:56 -0700Sitting in the back of an Uber on our way to our sea and city view AirBnB, it was evident that we’d long since left the heart of Africa. The previous three weeks in South Africa, and to some degree the two weeks of road tripping through Namibia before that, were an altogether different experience of a continent we’d grown accustomed to over the past few months. While the sights and comforts were welcome after the chahttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/capetownhttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/capetownMon, 06 Apr 2020 15:00:00 -0700“You Screeeaaam, I Brrrriiinnnnggg…ICE CREEEEAAAM!” Lounging on a pristine stretch of blindingly white sand, protected from the wind by giant boulders left and right and the granite peaks of a new world wonder behind, a granadilla lollie (passionfruit popsicle) from one of the handful of rhyming and roaming beach vendors seemed like the natural choice. Having been in Cape Town for a week-plus by now, you’d think I wohttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/hangin-with-mr-penguinhttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/hangin-with-mr-penguinFri, 03 Apr 2020 08:00:00 -0700Who doesn’t love a penguin? Few experiences can elicit the elation I felt swimming with the dusky dolphins in Kaikoura, New Zealand a few years ago, but I think those dolphins may have found some competition at Boulder’s Beach in Cape Town, South Africa. Like a toddler in an oversized tuxedo shirt, every move and mannerism of penguin’s life is just…awkward, in about the cutest way imaginable. Waddling to the crashinghttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/garden-routehttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/garden-routeThu, 02 Apr 2020 10:30:00 -0700Driving along perfectly paved roads, equipped with newly painted lines, shoulders, and stop lights, we pulled into a roadside farmstand, ordered an iced coffee, plopped down on some happy sacks in the middle of a bright garden equipped with pop-up shops inside old double-decker buses and promptly wondered where the hell we’d been transported. Surely, this was not Africa. Where were the chaotic and potholed streets, thttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/sossusvleihttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/sossusvleiSat, 21 Mar 2020 07:00:00 -0700Crimson sand dunes dominate the horizon in all directions as a slight breeze swirls a trail of wispy haze from the blurry peaks. Like enormous serpents, the spine of each towering dune is perfectly pronounced as it divides the light from the dark, the sun from the shade, the searing heat from the relieving cool. Hidden within the dunes, an oasis gone wrong awaits, with waters turned to dry, white pans, and lush foreshttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/ghost-towns-skeleton-coastshttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/ghost-towns-skeleton-coastsThu, 19 Mar 2020 07:00:00 -0700As if the gravel roads of Namibia weren’t adventurous enough, there’s a nice, endearing name for the long strip of land that runs into the Atlantic Ocean along Namibia’s western shores: The Skeleton Coast. Skull and Crossbones mark the entry and exit gates of the Skeleton Coast National Park, a wasteland of shipwrecks, whale bones, and mountainous sand dunes. A kaleidoscope of colors intermixes with the all-encompasshttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/namibian-road-triphttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/namibian-road-tripWed, 18 Mar 2020 02:44:41 -0700For months, I longed to explore Africa by my own accord. A failed attempt at securing a vehicle in Tanzania, along with some chiding from siblings on the idiocy of driving in the region, in addition to tight timelines for getting to the gorillas, all combined to prevent us from getting behind the wheel of our own vehicle to do some exploring. At long last, we found the perfect location to finally check off the box ofhttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/okavango-deltahttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/okavango-deltaSat, 08 Feb 2020 17:00:00 -0800Moving south into Botswana, the weariness of being on the road for months caught up to us in the form of about 30 hours’ worth of overland travel in our attempts to reach Maun, a jumping off point for visiting the famous Okavango Delta in the north of Botswana. The buses we’d hoped for either weren’t running due to the holiday, didn’t run any longer due to who knows what, or still ran, but left at times that weren’t https://www.andyanajones.com/blog/victoria-fallshttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/victoria-fallsTue, 04 Feb 2020 08:00:00 -0800Bring on the highlights. If ever there were enough water somewhere to quench the fires of Nyiragongo, Victoria Falls may be Africa’s best shot. Located on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe, Victoria Falls is the widest sheet of falling water in the world. Over the centuries, the waterfalls have carved out gorge after gorge, as it is constantly changing its shape and position of flow over the block-like basalt rocks. https://www.andyanajones.com/blog/virungahttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/virungaSat, 01 Feb 2020 19:58:36 -0800The night before making the nerve-wracking border crossing into the Democratic Republic of Congo, we sat on the porch of our thatched-roof hut in the Rwandan lakeside town of Gisenyi and watched the sun set over the shores of beautiful Lake Kivu. Across the lake, we could see nothing but dense green hills, the jungles of the Congo nearly in reach. We were unaware what the next 3 nights would bring us, so the calm andhttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/gorillas-and-guerillashttps://www.andyanajones.com/blog/gorillas-and-guerillasWed, 29 Jan 2020 07:00:00 -0800I came to Africa for Gorillas. I imagined what it’d be like to be face to face with a creature so similar to us, yet so much stronger and more powerful. I daydreamed about the encounter consisting of the great Silverback noticing my presence, pounding his chest, waiting to see what I was all about. I’d pound my chest as a response, and he’d grunt as a sign of respect, brushing past me into the jungle, into the Impene