INDIA, JAIPUR: CITY TOUR

  December 29, 2025

We don't usually believe in quitting while the sun is still shining, so we ended the day with a city tour of Jaipur, led by a new guide booked through Audley Travel. His day job is teaching high school, and he was great!

Jaipur, by the way, is the capital and largest city in the northwestern state of Rajasthan. With a population of over three million, it is also the 10th largest city in the entire country. It is known as the "Pink City" due to the dominant pink color of the buildings in the old city. Along with Delhi and Agra, it is part of what is known as the "Golden Triangle" tourist circuit.

Jaipur appears in popular western culture. Paul McCartney wrote a song entitled "Riding into Jaipur" that is mostly Indian-themed sitar music with just a few words: "Riding into Jaipur, Riding through the night, Riding with my baby, Oh what a delight."  The city is also the setting for the 2011 movie The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel and its 2015 sequel, The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel.

We began at the Hawa Mahal, or "Palace of Winds," built in 1799 from red and pink sandstone by the grandson of the founder of the city. The palace has 953 windows. The iconic view that we saw is actually the BACK of the palace!

It's always good to start off with a snack (or two), and our guide waited in line for this fried something  (I can't remember what), served to us on a used page from a child's workbook, and then another treat served on a leaf. 

INDIA, OLD DELHI: CHANDNI CHOWK MARKET

 December 23, 2025

Remember how I said you shouldn't drive as a tourist in India? You shouldn't cross the street by yourself either. There are no crosswalks or traffic lights and crossing takes a special kind of skill. This is one of the many harrowing experiences we had crossing with a guide, who in this video is holding on to Stan.

The way a lot of locals get around is in this little three wheelers that we came to know as tuk-tuks in Thailand. In India they call them rickshaws, and they function like taxis. These are one-seater taxis for one to three passengers.

Two-seaters can take four to six passengers, depending on how squished you want to be.

I can't remember if our guide rode with us. Maybe he was up in front.

MALTA: DAY 2, PART 1 - WALKING AROUND VALLETTA, ST. PAUL'S SHIPWRECK CHURCH AND CHAPEL, AND MORE

 March 19, 2024

We began our second day in Malta with breakfast in our hotel. I love Eggs Benedict, and I would give these a 6 or 7 out of 10--better than most, but not great. 

Julia joined us in the hotel lobby and led us on a walking tour of Valletta, the capital city. Valletta is set on a hill, and the streets are positioned to maximize cool breezes from the Mediterranean Sea. What are those round things in the street on the right?

They are restaurant tables. and how do you set up tables on a hill? You make wedges to go under the downhill legs. Do they do this for the chairs too? I don't know.

COLOMBIA: THESE ARE A FEW OF OUR FAVORITE THINGS

 March 14-23, 2023

After many of our trips, starting with some of the trips we took with our kids, we have made a list of all of our favorite experiences and things we want to remember. We decided to do that for this trip. So, in no particular order other than this is the order we came up with them, here are our favorite experiences, places, people, and things from our trip to Colombia.

- Fruit EVERYWHERE! Mangosteen was our favorite, but we also enjoyed granadilla, dragonfruit, lulo, and guanábana.

- Fruit juice of all kinds, but especially the kind mixed with milk (probably sweetened condensed milk).

- And speaking of juice, the raspberry grape juice with dinner in Bogotá was Judy's favorite.

- Cartagena--everything about it. It was our favorite city, and Carolina was our favorite guide.

COLOMBIA: MEDELLIN, PART I - COMUNA 13

 March 22, 2023

In Hotel 10 in Medellín, breakfast was included with our room, and it turned out to be a very nice buffet that included Colombian dishes, muffins, cheeses, lots of fruit, juices, an omelet station, and more. It was a feast.

Medellín (pronounced Med-uh-ZHEEN by the locals) is the second-largest city in Colombia, after Bogotá. Situated in the Andes Mountains at an elevation over 4,900 feet above sea level, it has a population of 2.5 in the city proper, with an additional 1.5 million people in the surrounding metro area.

Medellín was named for a small village in Spain that was the birthplace of Hernán Cortéz. Today, the city is made up of 16 comunas, or districts.

We were picked up by our guide, Jakob, at 9:00 a.m. and driven to Comuna 13, located on the opposite side of the city. We walked a few blocks, almost immediately starting uphill. We said hello to Che Guevara . . . 

COLOMBIA: CARTAGENA, PART I

 March 15, 2023

Bob had arranged in advance for a private city tour in Cartagena, and after we dropped off our luggage at our hotel, we were joined by what turned out to be our best guide of the trip, a young woman named Carolina. She was excellent in perceiving our likes and dislikes and adjusting the tour accordingly.

Cartagena, founded by Spain in 1533 and located on the Caribbean coast of northern Colombia, is a city of almost a million people. It is a major port (one of the largest in South America) and historically part of world exploration and trade. 

Our hotel was kitty-corner from the Castle San Felipe de Barajas, a fortress built in 1536 by African slave labor under Spanish rule. It is an imposing presence and defended the city from attacks many times in the past. Along with the historic city center, it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984. These days it is used for social and cultural events. 

Our first destination was the Convent of Santa Cruz de la Popa, a convent built by the Spaniards atop Mount la Popa, the highest hill in Cartagena (about 500 feet high). From that spot we pretty much had a 360° view of the city. 

We could see the downtown/business district skyscrapers, which are almost all white. The contrast to the poverty-stricken areas full of cardboard shacks on our way up the mountain was pretty stark. 

JAMAICA: MOCKINGBIRD HILL, THE BLUE MOUNTAINS, AND OUR JOURNEY HOME

 February 18, 2023

Not far from Port Antonio, a city of about 14,000 on the northeastern coast of Jamaica, is a lovely eco boutique hotel named Mockingbird Hill. 

It is located between the Caribbean Ocean and the Blue Mountains, which contain Jamaica's highest peak (7402 feet), and it has some incredible scenery.

Photo from Travel Weekly

PORTUGAL: CABO DA ROCA, CASCAIS, AND A LISBON PARK FESTIVAL

 June 23, 2022

Before returning to Lisbon, our guide took us to what she called "the end of the world" (known more officially as Cabo da Roca), the westernmost point of Portugal and, in fact, of continental Europe. A lighthouse began operating at this point in 1772.

ECUADOR: ANDEAN FOOTHILLS

 March 28, 2022

On our last morning in Ecuador, we had to have a Covid antigen test, required for entry into the United States. Our guide Javier arranged for someone in a lab coat who was supposed to be a "medical" person to come to our room to administer the official test. He did some pretty light swishing around in our nostrils with a swab and headed off with our samples to the lab. Later in the day we got the certificate certifying that we were negative for Covid in our email.

We had one last delicious breakfast in the hotel--eggs benedict and some bread for me, complete with a little pighead butter pat.

We got on the road towards Guayaquil, with a couple of planned stops.

We really enjoyed our time in Cuenca, where even the overpasses are artsy.

We basically retraced our path of two days prior, just going down instead of up. Javier confirmed that the shorter route was still impassable. 

ECUADOR: TRAVELING TO THE GALAPAGOS ISLANDS AND VISITING BALTRA AND SANTA CRUZ ISLANDS

 March 21, 2022

After our full day in Quito, we were ready to head to the Galapagos Islands. Our hotel in Quito was one or two blocks from the airport, and the hotel had a shuttle ready for the eight of us at 7:00 AM. There were some confusing things to do at the airport, like have our bags run through x-ray before security as well as fill out some forms in a different location of the airport. It was by no means a clear process.

The Galapagos Islands straddle the equator 563 miles west of continental Ecuador. Flights leave for the islands from Guayaquil, so we had to fly there first (45 minute flight). It was fun to see the Guayaquil LDS Temple both on landing and take-off.

The second leg of the flight, from Guayaquil to the Galapagos Islands, was about 1.5 hours. This map isn't to scale (the islands are MUCH smaller in relation to the continent), but it at least gives a good idea of the location and number of the islands. There are 13 major islands and more than 100 smaller islands in the chain.

Map from here

Two airports are used for tourism in the Galapagos. We landed at the one on the island of Baltra, a tiny desert island separated from the much larger island of Santa Cruz by a narrow channel. (The other airport is on the island of San Cristobal.)

We disembarked old-style down a flight of stairs wheeled up to the plane.

The airport itself is quite small.

After two long years of pandemic waiting, we were very excited to finally be on the Galapagos Islands!

ECUADOR: QUITO-IN-A-DAY

 March 21, 2022

Quito is the capital and largest city in Ecuador. Situated in a valley in the Andean foothills at 9,350 feet, it is the second-highest capital city in the world (La Paz, Bolivia, sits at 11,942 feet) and the capital city closest to the equator. It is the only capital city next to an active volcano, Pichinca, which stands at 15,728 feet. Its last major eruption was in 1660, but it did puff a fair amount of ash onto Quito in 1999. Quito has, however, had a significant number of large-magnitude earthquakes in the last 100 or so years, including two that were stronger than 8.0 in magnitude: 8.8 in 1906, 8.2 in 1979, and nine stronger than 7.0 since 1942. Yikes.

Founded by the Spanish in 1534 on the ruins of an Inca city, Quito proper covers 143 square miles and has a population of 2.8 million, and we had about ten hours to see it all.

In the morning we met up with Terry and Geneil and enjoyed an upgraded breakfast on the "club floor" with them, (Remember, Terry had been upgraded because it was his birthday.)

Beautiful flowers--of course--and passion fruit.

Afterwards we gathered in the lobby with the other two couples who were joining our group, Brian and Renee Bascom and Ward and Norma Robinson, who had arrived in Quito in the last day or so.

A guide and driver picked up the eight of us and we were on the road by 9:00 AM. Our first stop was the Itanim Middle of the World Museum.

Here we all are!