Category > Americas

Aug 22, 2015
Canada
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Jellybeans

 St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador

It’s worth the trouble.

Yes, the trouble of driving four and a half hours from Halifax to North Sydney, Nova Scotia, paying C$338 for a passenger and vehicle ticket for the 14-hour ferry, eating nothing but peanut butter sandwiches for something like four consecutive meals, sleeping in a chair and on the floor, then driving an hour and a half from Argentia to St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.

I’ve always wanted to go to Newfoundland (and Labrador, but that’s not fitting into this trip because the gravel roads won’t jibe with my tiny rental car). British Columbia is actually further from Newfoundland than England is! Being from one end of the country, it’s only natural that I’d like to see how the other is, but the little I’ve heard — generalisations like its very different accent, the fact that it only joined Canada in 1949, its nonchalance to icebergs and whales, its incredible natural offerings, and its cultural distinction from the rest of Canada — only made me want to see it more.

No matter how you get there or what you do there, it isn’t easy. I’ve run into cross-Canada bikers (many from BC), roadtrippers from all over Canada (primarily Ontarians, Quebecois, and BCians), and people who took the very expensive flight in. Getting around is also next to impossible without a car or the patience to hitchhike over and over again, and distances are incredibly long. Any of these factors are prohibitive enough to reduce tourism from what it could be.
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Aug 18, 2015
Canada
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Harbours

 Halifax, Nova Scotia

So I got a little too attached to Moncton (more specifically, the good company), which led me to cut time in Halifax (arguably more of a “city” than Moncton, and far more cosmopolitan in ethnic composition). Still, two weekday afternoons to wander around the compact, pleasant downtown and waterfront were enough to just barely glean off a general idea of a cool place to live. I definitely did not do it justice though, and I’ll have to return someday. (What I know I definitely missed was the music scene, but you can’t really expect much on a Monday or Tuesday night.)

I should mention two significant ties that bind Halifax and Boston: the assistance Boston provided after the Halifax Explosion (which is why Nova Scotia provides a big Christmas tree every year to Boston), and Boston’s prominent refusal to accept deported Acadians way back in the day. (Tying back to the last entry, Nova Scotia was also home to Acadians, who were deported and largely supplanted by New Englanders and Scottish immigrants.)

In addition, I’m pretty amused by the similarities – a beautiful public garden next to a green common space (Citadel Hill, which I sadly did not know was open to all even without paying admission), a lovely, long harbourwalk, the actually-argyle Argyle St being a pedestrian area akin to parts of Boston’s Downtown Crossing, microbreweries abound, including one right next to a bouldering space… Hmm, I could live here!

Within municipality limits is also Peggy’s Cove and its famous lighthouse and barren landscape, and a hop-skip west from there being the UNESCO-listed town of Lunenburg. The coastal drive between and including the two is an hour and forty minutes of quiet fishing villages, rocky shores, quaint churches, and colourful houses, and I could not have asked for a better time for a mix of fog and sun.
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Aug 16, 2015
Canada
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Nation

 Moncton, New Brunswick

Canada’s huge. It should come as no surprise that I can even feel like a foreigner in my own country sometimes. Yet…it is surprising! And awesome! If anything, it tells me how little I know and how much more is left to be seen.
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Sep 18, 2014
Canada
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Home

Vancouver, British Columbia

It’s taken me seven years to say this: I miss home. Having not been home for nine months — the longest stretch between visits I’ve had — made this visit that much more special. Even though I’ve travelled to and lived in some wonderful places and have so many more left on my list, at this point, I’m pretty sure that I’ll ultimately come full circle and end up in Vancouver.  It’s always going to be home base for me.

I’ve always been an ocean guy — Boston’s next to the Atlantic, and Vancouver the Pacific, and they’re both beautiful cities… but face it.  The beaches?  The mountains?  The forest?  Vancouver’s got that in spades.  Put it all together, and you’ve got my heart.  Where else can you see a skyline that includes all three, let alone those ubiquitous shiny glass buildings?!

I visit two or three times a year, and while I could make a run of doing the same things over and over again, there’s always something else on offer that I’ve never tried, despite living there for most of my life. So the only logical approach? Blend the two together!
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Aug 10, 2014
Canada
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Ha! Ha!

Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean, Quebec

Roadtrip! Conni planned our route, and it was to a region I’ve admittedly never heard of. A giant fjord. Sounds interesting!

But first, we had to rent a car. With Conni having not driven in three years and me having not driven (but for 10 minutes) in seven years and Xavi not a licensed driver, we were a bit nervous as to how we would fare…but we picked up a tiny little Fiat and were ready to go, no problems at all. There’s a first.

After a 4 hour drive to Lac St-Jean where we took our time and stopped several times, the skies opened and out came the rain. Well, there goes the beach day. The lake is huge though, easily mistaken for the sea when you’re next to it. We promptly decided to call it a day, heading to our next Couchsurfing hosts, Martin and Karyne and their three children in La Baie, a borough of the sparsely-populated but sprawling city of Saguenay (not to be confused with the region, fjord, national park, or river).

I can’t forget to mention that La Baie is so named because it sits at the mouth of la Baie des Ha! Ha! — or Ha! Ha! Bay in English, if you prefer. That is indeed its actual name, exclamation marks included.

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Aug 4, 2014
Canada
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Stairmaster

Quebec City, Quebec

It’s odd how long it’s taken for me to backpack in my own country. I’ve always imagined it as being hard to travel without a car.

Well, it is. A bus from Montreal to Quebec City costs about $60 one way, for a 2.5 hour ride — uhh, no thanks. We skirted that one with a rideshare, but getting a bus into town from a gas station on the outskirts of town was as much of a doozy as in some of my more obscure destinations. (You know the drill — questionable directions, haphazardly marked bus routes, exact change required, no stop announcements…) At least it’s comfy and with plenty of leg room.

Anyway, backtracking a little. A year ago, I met Conni on the street in Nicaragua, travelled with her for a week, and had a great time. Now, she and her boyfriend Xavi have moved from Costa Rica to Montreal, we’ve visited each other a few times, and we decided to do a short little road trip together around the province! It’s been quite some time since I’ve done a non-solo trip, and this is also the first time I’ve ever done a road trip.

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Mar 10, 2013
Nicaragua
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Cooperative

Estelí and Reserva Miraflor, Nicaragua

I met Tian, a South African working in Algeria, twice already on Ometepe, so it was a surprise to find him on the same minivan from León to Estelí. We had to wait for the van to fill up before we could depart. In the end, a woman and her daughter came on, but she refused to pay for two fares, insisting that her daughter (at least 10 years old, mind you!) could sit on her lap for the 2.5 hour ride. The driver wasn’t having it. Tian offered to pay one of her fares so we could get going, and I translated his offer for him. Everybody was satisfied with that.

I only had the one afternoon in Estelí, so after a rigorous cleanup from my León/Telica activities, I walked around town, taking in the many political murals, the market upon which all the farmers in the surrounding highlands converge on, and even a protest of some sort marching right past my hostel. Estelí is also very famous for cigars, but that didn’t interest me so much and I had no time. Continue reading →

Mar 8, 2013
Nicaragua
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Safe (probably)

Cerro Negro and Volcán Telica, Nicaragua

Nicaragua is already a country of volcanoes, but León is positively surrounded by them.  In fact, the old city of León was buried by an eruption and the current, rebuilt León is 30 km away from the old one.

I joined three people from my hostel on a day trip to Cerro Negro.  The rural road we were on wasn’t made for automobiles, clearly – aside from sharing the one “lane” with horses and cows, it was extremely bumpy and worn to the point that we got stuck a few times, needing to back up and speed across a hump or giant rock or tree root. Continue reading →

Mar 7, 2013
Nicaragua
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Stories

León, Nicaragua

León is in the lowlands, the hottest part of the country.  I thought it was hot enough already…but then I arrive to find 37ºC weather!  Given that, I found a hostel with a pool and spent a lot of time there.

León is a very colonial city, like Granada, with whom it has shared a long rivalry – both cities have been the capital of Nicaragua at some point, until the neutral city of Managua was finally picked.  Aesthetically, they’re similar (though León is a little bit more rundown), but politically, they couldn’t be further away from each other – León is the hub of the left, and Granada for the right. Continue reading →