(Dana) It feels like Christmas morning. I have wanted to trek to see the mountain gorillas in Rwanda for years. It’s finally here. Will we find them? Will our interaction meet expectations? Will it have been worth the effort to find some of the last 800 of these animals on earth? The process that leads to […]
Read moreTimeless
(Dana) Walking for hours through the African bush with the hopes of coming across an elephant, giraffe or buffalo is something man has been doing for thousands of years. In Ruaha National Park in central Tanzania, we are privileged to walk in those same footsteps. Ruaha is approximately the size of New Jersey and receives […]
Read moreDon’t steal my soul!
(Dana) A group of ladies from the Akha Ghepia hill tribe are gathered to make a headdress for their friend who will marry this week. One bends bamboo into the hat frame. Another stretches the hand-spun, hand-woven, indigo-dyed cotton fabric over the frame. Several other women sew coins onto ribbon pieces, thread colored beads and […]
Read moreFading traditions
(Dana) In 2014, hundreds of thousands of visitors to Myanmar followed the standard tourist loop, including the stunning sites of Bagan, Mandalay, Inle Lake and Yangon. As I learned in 2014, the former Burma is a fantastic country filled with lovely people and perched on the brink of a tourist explosion. In 2015, I wanted […]
Read moreThe Arctic
(Dana) The Arctic. A place where the sun never sets in the summer…literally. Where the only metropolis boasts 1,800 inhabitants. That has no recorded history before the early 1500’s. Where it’s 40-degrees F during the hottest month of July. Where glaciers drop building-size icebergs into the clear water. Where it’s so sparse you can go […]
Read morePolar Bears
(Alex) For as long as I can remember I have been in love with polar bears. My best guess for a reason why: since I was a baby my favorite stuffed animal has been a white bear. When we were younger, we visited zoos around the Boston area and my favorite exhibit was always the […]
Read more6 DP (dog power) Engine
(Reis) We pulled up to the outpost in the limos of Longyearbyen (which is not saying much, given that they were 15 year old Ford vans repurposed as shuttles to our destination), and the smell hit us immediately. It was hard to describe but it was something that smelled awfully like 60 unwashed dogs in […]
Read moreYou went where?
(Dana) In January, Cambodian Living Arts annual board meeting took me half-way around the world. To justify the expense and travel time, I opted for a second week away and detoured to Myanmar. Where? Myanmar…the country formerly known as Burma. Like many Americans, I had the impression that Myanmar was still romantically undiscovered. After all, […]
Read more21st century dinos
(Andrew) With over 44,000 crocodiles, Padenga Crocodile Farm on Lake Kariba is one of the largest of its kind. At the age of 3, its reptilian inhabitants are slaughtered for their precious skin, which is sold in today’s markets. We arrived off of our houseboat and were greeted by a pool of disinfectant to dip […]
Read moreWalk, don’t run
(Greg) We hadn’t yet been told that, just a few weeks earlier, a Zimbabwean fellow had been killed by a lion exactly where we were walking, but I didn’t need that happy yarn to keep me on my toes. This was our first walking safari and I felt a certain responsibility to my own four […]
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