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The second highest mountain in Africa is Mount Kenya, rising over 5 kilometers. In terms of beauty, it is the first, according to Kenyans. It has three peaks, Batian (5,199 meters (17,057 feet)), Nelion (5,188 m (17,021 ft)) and Point Lenana (4,985 m (16,355 ft)). Batian and Nelion are technical climbs needing crampons, ice-axe, harnesses, cables, hooks etc. The Lenana peak can be climbed with a hike.   I planned on a 4-day trip which would allow me to climb up the Sirimon ga

Towards the southeast of Kenya, very close to its border with Tanzania is the Amboseli National Park. Kenya’s Tsavo East, Tsavo West, and Maasai Mara are other fantastic game parks. What sets Amboseli apart is the huge variety of birdlife in it besides the wildlife. I was driving from Maasai Mara to Amboseli non-stop starting at 6:30am and passing Nairobi at about 10:30am. I was blessed with great weather and was nearing the turnoff to the unpaved road to Amboseli. I saw a gr

One of the big attractions of Kenya is the Maasai Mara National Reserve. I wanted to visit it and heard that people can do a game drive as a self-drive, and that seemed very intriguing. In the past, I had gone to Serengeti, Ngorongoro, Tarangire and Lake Manyara in Tanzania, where I always had a tour operator take me on such drives. I was told that a 4x4 was required to go on this game drive. In Nairobi, I was able to negotiate a 7,000 Kenyan shilling a day Nissan XTrail rent

Roughly about a 120km from Nairobi downtown is the Nakuru county which has the Eburru forest. I decided to do this hike and the tour operator asked to meet at 5:30AM in Nairobi. We left punctually and picked up more people on the way until there were about 20 people on the mini bus. Driving through beautiful, wooded areas that were visible after an hour or so out of Nariobi, we saw views of a couple of rift valleys. The road to our destination was well paved for the first 100

Very close to Palm Springs desert is a hike named Herman's Trail, which is relatively easy. It is about 11km/7miles long with a 1,200 feet/350 meter climb. A very interesting feature of this hike is the Oasis in the middle of the desert. The hike starts very close to the city of Thousand Palms and the little San Bernandino Mountains are visible as we approach the hike. They have a very peculiar shape that shows a lot of folds or creases. In the middle of mountains and desert

In October 2019, I decided to hike with two of my friends the "cactus to clouds" hike in Palm Springs, California, which my friend called the most difficult hike he knew of. I was not convinced. I had climbed many mountains and felt a little cocky. In order to climb this mountain, which is called Mount San Jacinto, we flew from San Francisco to LA, rented a car, drove to Palm Springs starting at about 10 p.m. and reaching about midnight. We started the hike behind the library

I made some Romanian friends on my Camino de Santiago Walk and we agreed to meet up in Romania for a hike. When that opportunity arose, I was in the capital of Moldova, Chişinau. These friends told me to take a bus to a border town named Iaşi. It was a four-hour international bus ride that went through open farmlands. Almost three hours into the ride, the police stopped the bus and asked me for my passport. The other passengers were Moldovan. After a quick check, they allowed

Years ago, on a visit to Thessaloniki, Greece, I had rented a car and wanted to go to FYROM -t he former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, but was told that the car would be pelted by the locals, and I decided to heed the advice, and deferred my trip. Turns out, I could never finish that goal because FYROM ceased to exist, and in 2020, it was named as North Macedonia. On my trip to Kosovo, I planned to go that neighboring country and visit their capital, Skopje . It was a two-h

I had a day in Switzerland before the next flight from Zurich and also had a rail pass which allowed travel anywhere in the country. The Michelin chef Richard and his wife Yvonne Stöckli at Alpenblick Wilderswil, where I had stayed the prior night, were very friendly and they suggested going to Lugano by train and then to Zurich. They said the train route was very beautiful and went through a small town in Italy. I walked to the station which was not too far away and began th

Switzerland is a beautiful country which makes you marvel at its scenic nature at every turn. In the Swiss Alps is Jungfraujoch , a saddle connecting two major 4,000-meter-high mountains. To reach the " Top of Europ e", I went to a city named Interlaken . The colorful Swiss trains are cute, and I reached Interlaken by train from Zurich. Swiss Rails sells rail passes for different days' duration and the 5 days pass I purchased allowed unlimited travel throughout the country.

I have been aware of Oktoberfest since the early 1990s and quickly agreed to go to experience it when a friend proposed a trip. We decided to go to Munich for enjoying it for a couple of days. Late September in Munich is a time for booming business time. V isitors from all over Germany as well as the world participate in this beer festival, probably the biggest in the world. It is hard to find hotel rooms close to Theresienweise - the area that hosts the festival. To seem l

Thinking about Japan, my mind always goes to the World War II bombing, and I visited Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I went again in the most recent trip and walked around the Peace Memorial Park. On the towards the ground zero monument, I saw the 'A-bomb Victim' sculpture. It had a brief description of the bombing. The statue reminds us of the victims of the atomic bomb and the roof tiles melted by the heat rays. The ground just below the explosion reached 4,000 degrees centigrade a

It is a hopeless task to find the pre-iPhone era pictures of my visit to Kyoto, Japan. When I visited it again, armed with my iPhone, I was determined to revisit the gem of the Kyoto temples, the Kinkaku-ji . I took a bus and arrived close to the temple area, then walked the remaining distance, bought the ¥500 ticket and entered the temple. The Kinkaku-ji temple is a World Heritage Site, a Zen Buddhist temple from the 14th century, one of the most visited in Kyoto and famed t

On multiple trips on the Shinkansen from Tokyo, I have seen the almost perfect, snow-clad Mount Fuji and have wanted to climb it. The tallest mountain in Japan, with a height of 3,776 m (12,389 ft), it is almost equal to Mount Rinjani in Indonesia. Mount Fuji is a stratovolcano that last erupted in the eighteenth century. The mountain's symmetrical cone is visible from Tokyo, which is about 100 km away. Mount Fuji is a Japanese cultural icon seen in art and photos and visite

Yogyakarta is a city on the most populous Java Island in Indonesia, about 45 minutes flight from its current capital, Jakarta. It is a gateway to two amazing UNESCO world heritage sites. There are many tour operators in there and the most popular trip starts with a 4am pickup to see the sunrise over Merapi mountain. Tourists are driven for just over an hour to the parking lot of Punthuk Setumbu, a popular place to watch the sunrise, northwest of Yogyakarta. The Mount Merapi a

On maps from the olden times, we have seen the phrase here be dragons . Today was the day for me to see the actual dragons. After Padar Island, we started towards pink beach but there were almost hundred other boats headed there already. The guide changed our course and took us towards Komodo Island first, hoping to escape the crowds. From the pier, you can see the colorful shops. After that you have to wait around until the guide pays the entrance fees to the tourist office

Overnight, the ‘Captain Octopus’, my tour boat, had docked at Padar Island after starting at Kalong. We were 14 passengers onboard and after having a sumptuous dinner, which was completely seafood based, including crabs, fish, and salads, we were told to wake up by 4:30am. The sky was dark, with no light pollution, except that emanating from the hundred or so other boats that were docked here. I learned something new from a young British medical school student about night pho

Barely a half an hour flight from Denpasar is an island named Labuan Bajo, the gateway to Komodo national park. Renting a small scooter, for $3 for the evening, I set out to Sylvia Hill, a spot beloved for sunset viewing. A German fellow traveler led the way, and I was at the spot just as the sun was about to set. The island had many high spots for great pictures of the surrounding area. There is a single lane highway close to the coast and it can be seen when landing onto La

A few tourists told me about a town named Lovina at the north of the Bali island which was reachable in about two hours on a drive over a 5,000 feet pass driving on a very winding way. It was well worth the drive because the path goes by the two beautiful lakes : Beratan and Danau Buyan, before arriving at Lovina which is situated on the Bali Sea. Lovina has a very long, black sand beach with many restaurants and moored boats. Walking on the beach, it is easy to wade in the

An active volcano in Bali , Indonesia , close to another volcano on the same island, named Mount Batur , lies the highest point on Bali, and dominates the surrounding area, influencing the climate, especially rainfall patterns. It is named Mt. Agung and has a beautiful cone shape. From the top of Agung, the peak of Mount Rinjani on the island of Lombok is visible as well. Agung is a stratovolcano , with a large and deep crater with a recent eruption in 2017-19. In my last