Daily Travel Photo - Bandar Seri Begwan, Brunei

Back in Aussie

I’m back safe and sound from Papua New Guinea. I have a lot of stuff to write and I’ll try to get some of it up over the next few days. I’m in Cairns for two days before I fly to Darwin and start the drive to Perth. That is going to make going from Sydney to Cairns look like a trip around the block.

Oddly enough, I met a lot of Americans in PNG. I almost never meet Americans while traveling and I hadn’t expected to meet any in PNG of all places.

I probably had more conversations with people in PNG than I did my entire time in Australia. You don’t get the average 18-22 year old gap year European who is out to get drunk in Papua New Guinea.

Daily Travel Photo - Tasmania, Australia

Yellowstone

Madison River Valley, Yellowstone NP

I’m still in PNG and that means another guest post. Today’s is from Erik Smith. He is trying to visit all the National Parks in the United States. He has been to over 200 National Park Service properties. Prior to the start of my trip I had visited almost 100 and managed to visit an addition six since I left the US, in Hawaii, Guam, and American Samoa. You can visit Erik’s website here. You can also listen to an interview he had on the Amateur Traveler Podcast here.

Over the past five years, I’ve been trying to visit all for the National Park units in the Lower 48 states. So far, I am through 215 of the 326 I have included on my list. My extreme love of the Rocky Mountains and the American West has inspired me to visit more of the parks of the Western U.S. than the Eastern U.S., but I will catch up on the parks of the East as I am visiting New York in June, and hopefully New England in September. My favorite park of the one I have visited so far is Yellowstone National Park, which is mostly in Northwest Wyoming.

I first visited Yellowstone as a teenager with my family in 1983. A few years before we had traveled to the Grand Canyon, and being from Michigan, the wide open spaces of the American West left me breathless. Yellowstone was another one of those eye opening experiences. I remember how truly awe-inspiring the geothermal features were and how much fun my brother, sister, and I had commenting on the sulpher small emanating from the park’s many geothermal features. Many of these features had such great names too- Dragon’s Mouth Spring, Whirligig Geyser, Snort Geyser, The Belcher, and Spasmodic Geyser, just to name a few. My most vivid memory of Yellowstone from that early visit is of the bison. They were everywhere. We would see them blocking traffic and creating long delays and they slowly meandered across they roads. They would be just milling through the parking lot at Old Faithful. We even had some that grazed right next to our campground, looking at tame as cows grazing in a field. This was especially cool for us because being from the east, we had no wild animals as big as buffalo.

Olde Faithful

I’ve been back to Yellowstone a couple of times as an adult and the park really has a lot of things going for it. It is singular in the United States to find a place so rich in geothermal activity. Most of the main areas have exceptional boardwalks which allow the visitor to get close to the action. The Yellowstone Foundation in cooperation with the National Park Service has a fine set of full color guides these main areas that give a small amount of information on many of the features located along the paths. There are visitor centers and a few museums located all around the park, which do a nice job of explaining the scientific side of all the unique beauty that the visitor sees. It is wise to make use of all of the park’s internet resources before going. It is real easy to find out where ranger-led programs are taking place and where seasonal road work is taking place (there always seems to be some). Two of my favorite internet resources are http://www.yellowstone.net/ and http://www.nps.gov/yell/index.htm, the National Park Service page for the park.

Hot Spring

Yellowstone, despite heavy summer crowds, is still a great place to see wildlife. In May 2006, I was lucky enough to see both a grizzly and black bear. Thankfully the Grizzly was at a safe distance across a river, and the black bear was down an incline from the road and had a cub with her. Rangers were present at the black bear sighting to educate the crowds that had developed, but also to keep people at a safe distance, as bear can become agitated by people when they are with their cubs. Rangers also lead occasional bird-watching walks, which as a teen was one of my favorite activities and has inspired a lifelong love for birding. There are also many other wildlife encounters it is possible for visitors to have with elk, moose, coyotes, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, deer and, if one is very lucky, a sighting of the elusive Yellowstone wolves. Of course, it would be impossible to visit without seeing the bison, the animal that inspired such wonder in me as a child.

Yellowstone is a big park, and as I mentioned earlier, it can get crowded during the summer, but there are plenty of places to get some quiet and solitude. Many visitors stay to the popular areas with all the amenities, but there are plenty of hikes which will have you in the middle of the wilderness within five minutes of leaving your car. Off peak season can be great times to visit the park. As I previously mentioned, my last visit was in May of 2006, and many times I felt like I had parts of the park to myself. I was lucky enough to visit late in the month when all of the roads were open. Rangers told me that early in the season was a great time for wildlife in the park, as the summer crowds often scare some of the animals out of the park and into the surrounding areas.

One of the areas that is popular for good reason is the Upper Geyser Basin, which is home to Yellowstone’s most famous attraction, Old Faithful. Old Faithful erupts every 70-90 minutes and there is a seating area surrounding it that is almost always at least half full with people waiting for the next eruption. The surrounding area is incredibly active, and is a great place to walk around while waiting for Old Faithful. I am always surprised that more people don’t spend their time walking around instead of waiting, since Old Faithful can be seen from almost the whole basin, you’d never really have to worry about missing it.

One of my favorite areas of the park is the Norris Geyser Basin, which is a 45 minute drive north of Old Faithful Village, but is missed by a lot of tourists looking to head to the more famous areas. There are two great walks here, the Back Basin area, which is home to Steamboat Geyser, the largest active geyser in the world. Steamboat Geyser’s eruptions are legendary, but very infrequent. On may May 2006 visit, the sign near Steamboat announced that it had been over a year since it’s last major activity. The eerie blue of Cistern Spring is my favorite of Back Basins features. The other part of Norris Geyser Basin is called the Porcelain Basin, home to two of my favorite names in the whole park, Whirligig Geyser and The Black Growler.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

The Canyon area of the park is the area surrounding the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone River. While nowhere near the enormous scale of Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona, Yellowstone’s Grand Canyon is superb. There are hiking trails that will take you down into the canyon, and these are difficult and quite strenuous, but from all accounts worth the effort. Most visitors stick to the trails and overlooks near The Upper and Lower Falls. I particularly like these because some of these overlooks put you so close to the waterfalls that you can see rainbows in them on sunny days when the lights is right. At the very least, everyone visits Artist’s Point, a viewpoint from which one can take in the splendor of the whole multi-colored canyon plus both waterfalls.

A final good thing to mention about Yellowstone is it’s proximity to Grand Teton National Park, directly to the south, and a great National Park in it’s own right.

Daily Travel Photo - Sarawak, Malaysia

Daily Travel Photo - Victoria, Australia

Daily Travel Photo - Big Island, Hawaii

El Gringo Tiene Gusto Del Caramelo (The Gringo Likes Candy)

While I’m in Papua New Guinea, I’ve asked several other travel bloggers to provide some guest posts. Todays entry was written by Malena Stiteler who is on an eighteen month round-the-world odyssey seeking out as much candy as she can get her hands on. I sincerely hope her travels take her to dentist at some point along the way. You can read more about her travels at Candy From Strangers.

Mexico is known for Mayan ruins and colonial cathedrals, chillis and tortillas, sombreros and tequila. Most travelers seek out some combination of chilled cervesas and hot beaches, indigeneous crafts and famous murals. No one drinks the water in an often unsuccessful attempt to avoid Montezuma’s Revenge, everyone hopes they don’t get robbed (almost no one does) and chances are not enough sunscreen is applied. While there, I hit many of Mexico’s highs and lows, but throughout I tried to include an additional dimension of cultural exploration: the national and regional candies, sweets, and dulces of Mexico.

Much like the history of Mexico itself, the candy of the region exists as a combination of modern, indigeneous, and colonial influences. Sweets that have been around for thousands of years sit side by side Spanish-influenced colonial candy and modern mass-produced treats of corn syrup and artificial colors in candy stores. No era has acheived full dominance over the candy market, which means it is possible to try a veritable timeline of candies while traveling - and of course, each region of the country has their own little niche.

Pre-Columbian Candy

The first and most basic form of “candy” in Mexico is simply the fruit. Mangoes, pineapples, and coconuts have long helped the people of the region satisfy their sweet tooth. The great civilizations of the region developed additional techniques for candy creation: bars of honey, nuts and seeds were common in the Aztec areas of Mexico long before the conquistadors arrive, along with sweetened tuna treats (made of the fruit of the nopal cactus, not fish like it sounds like.) And, of course, most famously cacao was first discovered in Mexico by precursors to the Olmecs around 1800 BC, albeit in a form very different from the sweet chocolate bars that plague our teeth today. Until the arrival of Europeans, the cacao bean served two main purposes: both Mayans and Aztecs created a drink used for ceremonial purposes as a stand-in for human blood and the latter considered it a form of money, where one cacao bean could purchase a single large tomato.

Today, fruits are served on street corners all over the country for very little as a refreshing snack. Cacao is still served much as the Mayans drank it in Oaxaca, where it is possible to buy bags of freshly ground cacao beans mixed with sugar, cinnamon, or vanilla to your specifications from the prolific chocolate stores. Queso de tuna is a specialty of the Zacatecas market and women wander the squares of northern cities with baskets on their heads full of round bars made of honey, sunflower seeds, and peanuts called palenquitas, and small sweet square bars of amarynth seeds and honey called alegrias - although not without some interference from the Spanish government, who banned amarynth seeds for almost 300 years due to its history as the base for small, sweet, pagan statues that were used in Aztec rituals, including that of human sacrifices.

Colonial Candy

Once the Aztec civilization was subdued by the Spanish forces, the Catholic Church began moving missionaries in, building monasteries and convents to help civilize the indigenous population. The convents, largely staffed by Spanish nuns with European traditions were instrumental in creating many of the distinctively Mexican candy flavors of today. These colonial candies are quite varied, from the sweet caramely flavored cajeta made in Celaya of sugar and goat’s milk to Morelian ate, a delicious chewy fruit spread made of guava, apples, peaches, or pears. Perhaps the most disturbing “candy” are the cooked sweet potatoes called camotes. Devised by a student as a practical joke on a nun at the monastery in Puebla, the joke backfired when the nun ended up enjoying the roasting sugared potatoes, to the student’s surprise. The squishy, yammy sweet with undertones of chocolate, coconut, pineapple, or strawberry was not my favorite Mexican candy!

One interesting thing about the colonial candy is that while it is possible to get most of it throughout the country now, each sweet has an association with the specific convent and city that gave birth to it, making travel to that city an amazing way to learn about the candy in depth. Perhaps more interesting are the different reasons that nuns made sweets at all. The first (and most obvious) was to sell the candies for money and to provide the indigeneous people of the regions a new way to harness their natural resources. The second more unlikely reason that nuns would create delicious sweets was to treat their friends and lovers - not exactly an image most people have of Catholic nuns!

Modern Candies

So, what is seen in candy stores today? The traditional stores sell most of the colonial and pre-Columbian candies, of course, but most gas stations and convenience stores stick to modern, mass-produced Mexican candy. There really isn’t a large market for candy imported from the States or from Europe, but there are numerous Mexican candies with very distinctive tastes that aren’t sold anywhere else. Mango, tamarind, watermelon, and lime are common flavors, and the use of a sweet chili powder shugar is ubiquitious and delicious. It is common to buy lollipops or hard candies with a separate packet of spicy chili powder to dip the sweet into, and if that isn’t available chances are the chili flavor is added in already. Although I feel bad for the way the mass-produced candy is starting to shut the handmade traditional candy out of the market, I have to admit that my sweet tooth extends to it as well.

So what does this all mean for a traveler to Mexico who wants to take in some of the candy of the region? What are the best destinations or candy activities? Mexico City is an obvious destination, with a wide variety of candy stores and pretty much all of the traditional candies freshly available. From here most travelers will head out to visit a few colonial cities: perfect because most of these cities have their own regional specialties. For example, Celaya is a small city famous for Cajeta and many of the stores offer free tasting and the opportunity to watch the making of cajeta in action. Morelia has a candy museum that documents the history of candy in the region, and offers free tasting, while Puebla has a street lined with candy stores and more free samples at the tourist office. (You may notice that my suggestions revolve around free samples…)

From here it is a short trip to Oaxaca where the scent of freshly ground cacao beans fills some streets. The chocolate here is quite different from American or European chocolate, as it is much more coarsely ground and sugary, but it is perfect for a traditional hot chocolate drink. Heading to the eastern coast the use of fruit such as coconut and pineapple becomes much more common, with cookies filled with a pineapple jam or sweetened coconut bars native to San Cristobal de las Casas and the Yucatan. Any one of those cities should offer a traveler an interesting taste into the Mexican culture of sweets.