I can't believe that today marks 10 years since I traveled to a little village called Kandaria, which is a few hours outside of Kenya's capital, Nairobi.This was my first time out of the country, and also what I see as a big milestone in my photography journey. I had started taking pictures at the age of 13, but I saved up my money the summer before this trip to buy my first SLR camera. Looking back, I see a lot of ways that these images could be improved. "If only this was in focus..." or "If only the quality of light was a bit better there." However, I still cherish these images and these memories, and still see echoes of this style in my current work.
Ahmed consists a gorgeous combination of rainforests and beaches, and has some of the best snorkeling that I’ve seen.
100% on the disclosure on the snorkeling, though. The water was a beautiful blue and the tropical fish were abundant, but sadly much of the water here was littered with trash.
It’s definitely shocking to be snorkeling while also trying to navigate though clouds of waste that we humans have created- and will not soon go away. I’ve always heard things about trash in the ocean, but I had never before watched fish around me nibbling on the plastic.
After Ahmed, we made the trip to Gili Meno, which required more travel and logistics than we originally anticipated. Several ladies in Ahmed took our luggage and loaded it onto a ferry boat, which took us to Gili Trawangan. From Gili T, we took another short boat ride towards Gili Meno. We expected for that boat to bring us all the way to the shore, but we ended up stopping out in the water and transferring ourselves and our bags to another small boat that finally took us to shore.
There are no motorized vehicles on the Gili islands, so we loaded Kim and the bags onto a horse drawn wagon and met her on the other side of the island at our hotel.
What a gift to take a break from work and fly across the world for two weeks!
Spencer and I had been talking about going to Indonesia for a while to visit our friends Kim and Luke, who have been living there for the past year.
We finally made the decision to go in October, bought our tickets and began planning.
Our first several days there were spent in Salatiga, which is where our friends were in language school.
We were able to spend quality time with them, meet some of their good friends, and get the lay of the land.
The travel to our destination included a 1.5 hour flight to New York, then a 14 hour flight to South Korea, and finally a 7 hour flight to Bali. We stayed in Bali for the night, and did the last 1.5 hour flight to Yogyakarta in the morning, where our friends picked us up at the airport and drove us 2 hours to their home in Salatiga.
A bird shop. Exotic birds are commonly kept in cages by people on the island of Java, and some are used in songbird competitions
Spencer and I putting our feet into the water at an amusement park of sorts in Salatiga- here small fish nibble at your feet and get rid of the bacteria.
From Salatiga, we all flew to Bali, which included a 1.5 hour car ride and 1.5 hour flight.
Once in Bali, we hired a driver to take us to the village of Ahmed.
On the way there, there was a torrential downpour. We were getting concerned when we were driving in a van through water almost up to the tire welds, but it seemed to our driver and the moped riders around us that is was just another day in Bali.
Kim found this crab in my hair while we were snorkeling- then it hitch hiked the rest of the day on her sun shirt- until she discovered it later when we were back at our villa.
I’ve posted about Grayson Highlands before, but to me it’s a magical place that’s worth mentioning again. Nestled in a cozy corner of Virginia, less than an hour from the North Carolina state line, Grayson Highlands State Park sits tucked away from the spoils of urbanization. It was the first place that I ever went backpacking with friends, swinging from a hammock on an early summer night reading Krakauer's “Into The Wild.”
I credit this place for opening my eyes to the world of outdoor adventure, and I believe that it will always be a refuge for me- a place to escape from the addictive power that technology and social media hold.
This was my first time visiting NYC, and it was beautiful. Not in the scenic wilderness way that I'm used to, but in the lively, diverse sort of way.
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