I’m sitting at a square wooden table in the Brûlerie of Quebec City’s St. Roch – my neighborhood since December 2012. My ears will NOT defrost. I once read that Canada “is a country much too cold for good sense.” It’s -28°C outside. -38°C felt. I can only agree. A soya latte is slowly warming … Continued
This was my first big trip abroad and everything seemed to be going wrong. Exhausted after an eight hour flight (and a three hour wait at Heathrow earlier that day) by the time I arrived at Vancouver airport I was ready for the day to be over. But it wasn’t, and would not be over … Continued
There’s one way over the bridge and no stopping till the other side. The first time I was only nine. I watched out the window, saw the blue ocean, the shadows of the clouds, the sides of the bridge rushing by. I imagined people landing on the island at night in canoes and rowboats. The … Continued
You can’t drive here; you can’t boat here; you can’t even walk here… you’d be eaten. We’re somewhere in the back end of nowhere, some 300 kilometers from the closest paved road; 1500 kilometers from the nearest Whole Foods. If you cry wolf here, everyone believes you. It’s the third day of a week-long safari. … Continued
It was cold. We moved quietly, silently, around the campsite. The morning was barely breathing and the pale grey light held the landscape in suspense. “I’ll go in a canoe with you,” whispered Lucy. Without much need for communication from our leader, we launched the canoes and climbed in. The lake was cold, my legs … Continued
Female solo travelers are constantly being asked that age old question about how possible it really is for a woman to travel alone. I have been on both sides of that conversation, asking the question before I had ever really traveled, and responding to it now, after four years of being on the road, three … Continued
I hate Klezmer music. The whiny shriek of the clarinet sounds like a castrato who woke up to find a tarantula staring at him. The tunes all sound like a newly bar-mitzvahed boy went crazy on Clarinet or Trumpet Hero. The roughness of the syllables coming from the singer’s mouth reminds me of what I … Continued
Travel is the Traveler The guidebooks warn about this treacherous, hardscrabble path. “The travel-writing trail is long,” one says, solemnly. “It can be extremely demanding and daunting…lonely, exhausting, and depressing.” But here, I’m undaunted and uninhibited, quickened by a private fire, and the warnings only fan my ardor as I survey the vexing terrain. The … Continued
This place is my home. I love it here. I am infatuated with the smooth, curved logs that form the walls of the Ranch House. I am entranced by the cool, fading orange-brown oak of my cabin floor. I am hooked on the smoke that billows from the copper-coloured kitchen. Spider webs, thick glass windows, … Continued
TORONTO: TOWER TALLER THAN ANY OTHER AND DISCOVERING THE REAL MEANING OF FREEDOM, INDEPENDENCE AND FRIENDSHIP Written by Dindo Varona In the back seat of the 8-seater Nissan Murano van, was where I patiently anticipated our next stop; it was a nice early July summer day as I see the tower high in the air. … Continued