By now, many of you know how much we enjoy travel. Between the two of us, Maliah and I have seen a fair portion of the world. Our next adventure is to see more of it together – and you will be able to join us!
Maliah lived in the Yucatan for five years where she started and ran the first English language newspaper before returning to the US. I’ve got to get her to write about her time in Mexico.
Izamal, Yucatan
My first trip out of the United States was in 1972 when my family took some relatives to Tijuana for a day. I recall enjoying the trip and had fond memories when I returned years later. But the travel bug started working on me when I was in college. By that time I was well into adventure movies and the exotic locales appealed to my imagination. One of my favorite films then was The Razor’s Edge with Bill Murray, which piqued my curiosity about Tibet and France. Then I learned about the Camino de Santiago, a journey that still calls to me. The bug finally bit me during an elective class I took during the summer of 1985. The subject was ‘religions of the world’ in which I first got a closer look at something other than what I was raised around. Buddhism was ok but Hinduism was more interesting – that is, the home of Hinduism. It wasn’t the religions that captivated me in that course, it was India. The professor had spent many years of his life there as a young man and then again when he was married and had become a father. He showed us thousands of slides he took over the years of his travels throughout the sub-continent. I was mesmerized by the exotic details and I was hooked. I had to travel and I had to go to India.
I didn’t actually get to travel outside the country again until 1996 when I was deployed with the US Air Force to Al Kharj, Saudi Arabia. For 179 days I lived in a military tent city but had a job that authorized me to leave the US camp, go off the Saudi base and go into town or wherever my work took me. Very few personnel had that freedom and in my job I wore civilian attire, most of the time and always when off base. I found the landscape of that part of the country to be very much like west Texas and Palm Springs. One month I spent in Kuwait. The experience was influential, especially at night when the imagination is rich and free. It was memorable to see a night sky that I had never seen before. On my home, I managed a week’s worth of leave in Germany, mostly around Frankfurt and Rudesheim, with my first day trip into France. I had a quiet day in Strasbourg.
Travel was definitely for me! My next foray out of the US was when I came off active duty and spent 30 days in Europe. I had a Eurail pass and a backpack and I was off the pager for the first time in six years (This was 1999, remember). I saw more of Germany, having a giant beer wherever I went, visiting the Bavariafilm Studio outside Munich, a memorable episode there. Spent one night in Zurich, Switzerland, where the hostel smelled like dirty feet but I managed to wander into a curio shop where I purchased a couple of Hindu figures I still have on display at home. A week in Italy meant the Cinque Terre trails, then a couple of days in Florence and back on my north. After a night in Germany, I headed to Amsterdam where I visited museums and an old church and had the best Heineken on draft that I’ve ever had. Oh yes, there was that other part of town I’d heard so much about. From Amsterdam to Paris for four days, which was everything I had imagined, thanks to a local resident who showed me around. Ah, Paris. Espresso, excessively fancy wrappings on chocolate pastries, wine, cheese, and my first taste of escargot, which I loved. The Louvre was insanely big. The Eiffel Tower too crowded to go up. And I watched the movie Asterix & Obelix without subtitles. It was among the best days of my life.
I knew I had made the right choice on the job I took after the Air Force because it required world travel. Though it was serious work and several times dangerous, it was a period of travel adventure unlike any I’d had. Jordan, Bosnia, Greece, Croatia, Eritrea, Sudan, Afghanistan, the Philippines, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Pakistan, Italy, Iraq. I spent weeks at a time in Amman, Sarajevo, Athens, Zagreb, Asmara, Khartoum, Kabul, Manila, Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Jeddah, Bogota, Islamabad and Karachi, Rome, Mosul, Baghdad, Basra. Several of those places I returned to multiple times. Wherever I went, I tried to see as much history as possible. One city I merely transited through each time was Tashkent on the old Silk Road. My favorite thing there was the Tamerlane museum and walking along Broadway Street. I saw Petra, the Dead Sea, Corinth, old Omdurman, the Spanish Fort in Intramuros, old Jerusalem, Jaffa, Nineveh and the Ziggurat of Ur, to name a few. It was the best job I’d ever had. The best money and world travel. The risk was worth every minute.
But it wasn’t all work related travel for I managed three trips with the World Explorers Club, two to Mexico and one to Peru and Bolivia. Seeing the Maya sites through Central Mexico was enlightening and amazing. Going to Puma Punku convinced me that the theory of advanced technological civilizations in the distant past were a distinct possibility. We did have one dangerous episode, which I’ve written about before. That night on Lake Titicaca in a terrible storm aboard an inappropriately equipped boat. I can’t swim for crap and there were not enough life jackets. Still, a good time was had by all.
Unfortunately, after that period of my life, I haven’t done as much world travel as I’d like. My one trip to Canada was to speak at a conference in Nova Scotia. My three trips to Tijuana since have been to a pharmacy, to take my son to a dentist, and years later to go with Maliah to a dentist. I have, however, made trips in the US, which I’d already seen most of. I’ve been to Montana three times since doing a TV show there in 2013, driving there and back on two of those trips. There have also been the trips to Sonora for research and NYMZACON.
It doesn’t matter where I go, I find there’s always something valuable in the experience. That’s what I love most about travel. My approach is to never take a whirlwind ‘see everything’ tour. I do plan it well in advance (because that’s part of the anticipation), but I like to get there and just take it leisurely. Leave something unseen so that you have a reason to go back, I say. That’s what I do. When I went to Italy, I didn’t see Rome. I eventually got there, on the job, paid to be there for an entire month, staying in a world class hotel. Walking around at a comfortable pace, soaking it all in is what I like to do. And spending two hours sitting at a sidewalk cafe is something I do often when traveling. Of course, one usually does not have the luxury to take a place as slowly as my profession allowed, but I still go at my leisurely pace even if only there for a couple of days. Travel with me is not a rush around experience.
Maliah and I have been discussing travel for a couple of years now. Her business vision is designed to offer tours relative to our interests in history and lost civilizations. She has commissioned me to work with her on designing trips based upon my research and books. We’ll be offering these soon. You’ll have an opportunity to travel with us to places like the Yucatan, Brazil, Peru, Patagonia, Chile, Scotland, Ireland, England, Spain, Portugal, Canada, parts of the US, Australia, Thailand, and even India. The first trip is being planned now and we’ll be announcing it by the end of the year. We’re starting with a special trip in the US, keeping it affordable and within the theme of our mutual historical and lost civilizations interests.
I’m looking forward to traveling with you so keep an eye on the website and always read the newsletter for early bird announcements!