Author: Ryan

Peru and Machu Picchu (finally!)

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We have wanted to go to Peru and see Machu Picchu for a very long time. We had scheduled (and paid for) a trip to Machu Picchu around 2010 but a snowstorm in Chicago halted all flights and our trip was cancelled. So this visit has been a long time in the making.

We flew into Lima from Basel via Amsterdam on Monday and it was a long trip. I did book a car to pick us up (viator) from the airport though I should have first asked our hotel. We stayed in the Sheraton Lima historic center. The hotel was pretty nice and their airport shuttle was inexpensive.

Our first full day in Lima we did a food tour around the barranco neighborhood. We tried aji de gallina empanadas (chicken with a yellow pepper sauce), anticucho (marinated beef heart skewers), lomo saltado (stir fried beef), sea bass ceviche, and Jenn had a pisco sour. The food was really great and the area of town we visited was lovely. Barranco is known for it’s ‘graffiti’ and the bridge of sighs. Across from the bridge is the Hermitage of Barranco which was badly damage in an earthquake and hasn’t been fully restored.

Wednesday we left on a private tour to Paracas, Ica and Nazca. It was mainly a driving day with a stop at the National Reserve of Paracas to see the coast. At the reserve we spotted vultures, cormorants and grey footed boobies. We also stopped by the Paracas Museum and where learned about mummification by the ancient peoples, skull elongation and evidence of successful brain surgery.

The next morning, we took a boat tour of Ballestas Islands where we also penguins and sea lions. The ‘candelabra’ was the first of the geoglyphs we would see. We had lunch at the largest winery in Peru. Later, we continued on to Huacachina oasis where I rode a dune buggy and got to see more of the desert.

On Friday we flew over the Nazca lines before the long drive back to Lima.

Saturday we flew to Cusco where we stayed at Yawar Inka. We did a tour of several ruins around Cusco the next day.

On Monday we headed to the Sacred Valley and saw the salt mines of maras and more archeological sites; Moray and Ollantaytambo. We also stopped at an artisanal market where we fed Llamas and Alpacas, saw Cuy (guinea pigs) and bought a lot of woven Alpaca stuff. That afternoon we took the train to Aguas Calientes near Machu Picchu. At one point I did eat Alpaca and cuy. Alpaca was fine, tasted like chicken. The guinea pig wasn’t great.

Machu Picchu! We finally made it! It rained in the morning but as we went up the mountain the rain thinned into fog. After a few hours on the mountain the fog melted a bit and we got to see Machu Picchu pretty clearly. Construction at Machu Picchu was very different from what we saw at lower elevation where they suffer earthquakes- the stone work there is much more tight fitting, like puzzle pieces. After another night in Cusco, we flew back to Lima.

chinchilla

On our last two nights in Lima we saw the pachacamac ruins and the magic circuit (fountains with a light show). At the ruins, we saw pottery with sea animals (sharks and sea lions) and peruvian hairless dogs. In this region, there were more frequent earthquakes so the builders placed bricks on end so they had movement. This complex was built with mud bricks as it virtually never rains in Lima. We also managed to visit the Museo de Oro and Museo Larco which were both fantastic. At the Larco, we saw very life like pottery, mummies, very intricate gold jewelry, and surviving Quipu- record keeping devices fashioned from knotted cords.

Snorkeling in the Red Sea

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We went to Egypt in December for snorkeling. We stayed in three different resorts along the coast of the Red Sea. The snorkeling was surprisingly good!

We flew in to Hurgada which was a direct flight from Basel. Unfortunately, our first resort was LaHami Bay near the southern border. We hired a driver to take us and it was a looong drive, about 5 hours. The ride was crazy. Much of the drive was pretty desolate, with sand blowing across the deserted, wasted landscape on either side of the road. Our driver didn’t like his lane, so he spent most of the time in the opposing traffic lane. Thankfully(?) there were very few other cars to be seen.

The LaHami Bay resort was my least favorite resort we stayed at. The reef was robust but very brown. It could have been that recent weather stirred up silt, but there wasn’t a lot of color in the coral here. There were plenty of fish though, and supposedly a dugong is frequently spotted here (we never saw it). Later, we learned that a great site to snorkel with dolphins is not too far from here. Every day we were here, the boat trips to other sites were cancelled. There had been a recent capsizing so the government was being very cautious cancelling water travel. Getting into the sea here for snorkeling was exceptionally easy, with a lovely light sand beach and extremely shallow grade leading into the water. We had half board here (breakfast and dinner included) but we usually only ate dinner.

The second resort we stayed at was the Hilton Marsa Alam Nubian resort. This was the largest resort we stayed at (maybe ever?). The snorkeling was fantastic. We also had great weather while we were here. The water was super clear, the coral was mostly vibrant and tons of fish. Once again, getting into the sea was very easy. The food was better and more dishes were offered here than at either of the other resorts we stayed at. We paid for half board (here it meant breakfast included) and we paid for dinner separately.

The third resort we went to was the Movenpick. This was the most expensive and the room and furniture was the nicest here. The sea was a little harder to get into but I think this was mostly due to poorer weather. The beach sloped steeper into the sea and we had waves most days. The reef was decent once we got out a bit but the dive shop didn’t recommend going too far. At the Hilton, it felt like you could swim the reef for a mile.

I looked into whether we could visit any of the classic Egyptian sites but none really seemed practical from where we’d stayed. We’ll have to go back and make a specific trip to see more.

How to buy an eSIM (iOS)

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I’ve found that buying an eSIM while traveling has been an easy and inexpensive way to get phone service while traveling.

I’ve found and used two providers, Airalo (I used in Asia) and Ubigi (I used in Europe). Both require making an account, which is little more than entering an email address and password. And both should be easy enough to find in your device’s App Store.

When you open Airalo, you are greeted by a list of countries:

To buy an eSIM, it’s as easy and choosing a country. I’ve chosen Croatia:

The first three listed options show us different capacities and duration. It’s a little cheaper to buy a larger plan than to run out and have to buy a second plan. After clicking buy you’ll be taken to a payment page (or a sign up page if you arent logged in).

Ubigi is pretty similar:

The first page offers one-off plans which is what I’d be interested in while traveling. After clicking that, it opens a country list:

After choosing a region/data capacity it will bring up a page showing a full list of the countries participating in that plan:

Clicking checkout brings you to a payment page if you’re already logged in.

Now you have the eSIM and need to select it in your phone and deselect your home country eSIM so you cont get charged roaming fees. Open ‘Settings’ to find:

You want to choose Mobile Service here.

In the Mobile Service page you’ll want to turn on the new eSIM (here mine says Used as “Ubigi”) or Add eSIM if it isn’t listed. I would also turn off my primary SIM by clicking it and turning it off on the next page. Also on the Mobile Service page you can choose the eSIM for your Mobile Data by clicking ‘Mobile Data’

Easter in Poland

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We went to Krakow, Poland over Easter. This was our first time visiting Poland (and I doubt the last!). We had a great time and enjoyed very good food. Since we went before and during Easter, the Easter market was in full swing at the main square with handcrafted items and food stalls.

We had great food in a number of excellent restaurants (and at the markets!). I had Polish Sour Rye soup at a few places and it was always fantastic. Naturally we also enjoyed pierogi, oscypek (smoked sheep cheese), bigos, kielbasa and paczki. We did a lot of wandering around old town, enjoying the weather and beautiful old architecture.

We spent time learning more about Poland’s tragic history at Auschwitz, birkenau and schindler’s factory. I learned in school about what happened in Poland but nothing really prepares you to see over 2 tons of human hair that was harvested from human corpses to sell to german factories during the war- this was not the worst thing I learned there.

We took a trip out of Krakow to Zalipie to see the ‘painted village’ which were houses painted with flower designs inside and out. The local church also had some paintings.

The Nowa Huta (New Steel Mill) tour was pretty interesting. Nowa Huta was to be a model city for the socialist ideology, a showpiece for Stalinism. Though it’s just outside Krakow, residents of Nowa Huta (at the time ~1950s) would rarely ever visit the city due in part to the convenience of the newly planned city.

The Wieliczka Salt Mine was a fun trip. It’s a huge mine that is no longer in production but has been open for more than 700 years and produced something like 1/3 of Poland’s GDP. There are many chapels in the mine (because the mine is so large) and a great deal of salt carvings- including chandeliers.

Two weeks in Scotland

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We spent (almost) two weeks driving around in Scotland. I’d never been before so I was looking forward to seeing a new English speaking country! We stopped in London to celebrate a friend’s graduation there then took the train to Edinburgh.

As soon as we got into Edinburgh, we stopped for lunch at Makars Mash where I tried haggis for the first time. We walked some of the Royal Mile and peeked into St. Giles before finding our hotel.

The next day we picked up the car and drove to Aviemore. Driving on the left of course. Well, when there was a ‘left’- a lot of driving we did was on single lane roads with small areas to pull over let others by. Our first hike was to Loch Uaine, where the water is green because pixies wash their clothes in it. At the time, we didn’t realize how unique this would be in Scotland- all the other lochs we saw had very dark brown water. We also stopped by standing stones in a neighborhood in town. Later, we went to Blair castle. They had original tapestries depicting scenes from Don Quixote.

We headed to Tigh Na Bruach where we stayed two nights in a lovely BnB. This was on Loch Ness, where did a couple short hikes and a cruise where we saw a Highland cow or two from the boat. We also had lunch by the locks.

On our way around the west coast, we stopped at Inverewe Gardens which were pretty amazing. They said that because of the jetstream and nearby mountains, they were able to grow a number of more tropical plants. We stopped at Eilean Donan castle too, which has been in a number of movies.

We stopped at Culloden before spending a few days on Isle of Skye. Culloden was a battlefield that marked a major turning point in the history of the Scottish Highlands. The visitor center there had a well laid out explanation of the event leading up to battle. While we were there, they had a demonstration showing to to prepare and wear traditional scottish plaid (full plaid or belted plaid).

While on Skye Island, we did a little more hiking. We went up to Quiraing but the weather turned more foggy and had to turn back before being able to see all the rock formations there. The trail here was a bit difficult, climbing over rocks and water sources. I was able to see ‘the prison’ before the clouds came down and covered it up. The faerie pools was a less technical hike than Quiraing but the gravel path was rather steep.

We left Skye for Oban and stopped by Glen Nevis to hike to Steall falls. On the way we stopped and had sandwiches at a charity run farm that taught gardening to local school children.

From Oban, we’d planned to take a boat to Mull and Iona but it was cancelled due to high waves. We’d taken the ferry over already so we picked up the bus to Tobermory. The next night we spent in a lovely cottage on the edge of a farm. We also saw Stirling castle and the Kelpies before heading back to Edinburgh to return the car.

A week in Singapore

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The last week of our trip we spent in Singapore. It was fantastic. Singapore is a beautiful city with interesting architecture and gardens all over. We stayed at the Marriott South Beach and the hotel was pretty good but we probably wouldn’t choose to stay here on a future trip.

We took a big bus tour to get an overview of the city. I have pretty low expectations from these tours but included with our ticket was a night tour- and the night tour was pretty good. It took us to the bay to watch kite flyers, we had some street food and found a spot to watch the light show at Gardens by the Bay.

We spent a few days exploring Gardens by the Bay. It’s an amazing park full (botanical garden?) of flowers and trees of all kinds. They have a couple of huge greenhouses, the Flower dome and the Cloud forest. The Flower dome was full of live flowers in artistic arrangements. The Cloud canopy was a replication of tropical highlands and the flora you’d find as you rose in elevation complete with fog and waterfalls. They had an Avatar attraction during our visit and there were statues of flora and fauna from the movie scattered around. We also spent a lot of time in the Orchid house which was also a fantastic garden. In the middle of the park they built these ‘supertrees’ which roughly resembled trees with solar panels. Based around the trees is the nightly light show which we viewed during our visit here and also during the night tour.

We also went to the zoo for the River Wonders and Night Safari. River Wonders is a part of the zoo dedicated to rivers of the world and many of the critters found near them. We saw manatees (for the first time) as well as a lot of other interesting wetlands animals. They have a pretty nice boat ride that takes you through a number of exhibits (that you can ride multiple times). They also have pandas and red pandas. The Night Safari was also pretty great. The animal enclosures have very minimal fencing, so it feels like there are few obstructions between you and the exhibits. There were even a few animal enclosures you could walk through like the bat exhibit with the Malayan Flying Fox with a wingspan of around 5 feet.

Another place we went to was Haw Par villa. This park was basically a precursor to theme parks with dioramas and statues depicting scenes from Chinese mythology, folklore, legends, and history. We stopped at Maxwell center for chicken and rice in a clay pot from a michelin listed food stall. Naturally, a stop at Raffles hotel for a Singapore Sling was also a necessity.

Overall, Singapore was a wonderful city to visit and we would love to go back someday.

Two weeks in Thailand

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Jenn and I spent a month in Asia. A week in Cambodia, two in Thailand and a week in Singapore. This post is about the time we spent in Thailand.

We landed in Bangkok and stayed at the Chatrium hotel riverside. It was a pretty nice place. We were on the 19th floor and could see out over the river and the city. I got a haircut at the closest barber shop to the hotel and they wanted a selfie with me. The best thing we did in Bangkok was the Michelin guide street food tour. We had some amazing dishes and went into the kitchen (or the alley, in the first case) to see them being prepared. I highly recommend doing something like this if you get the chance.

We went to Wat Pho to see one of the largest reclining Buddha sculptures in Thailand. There were also a number of temples and a lot of other Buddhas.

Our next destination was Haad Tien Beach resort in Koh Tao, where we had a fantastic suite overlooking the ocean with a private pool. The rest of the resort was so-so. I had wanted snorkeling right off the beach at our snorkel destinations and the snorkeling off the beach at Haad Tien was poor. We had low visibility and extreme reef damage. You could tell there used to be a lot of coral, but not now. We did see a giant sea turtle though. The staff at the resort told us there wasn’t any snorkeling at the nearby Shark Island so we didn’t visit it right away. We joined a large boat snorkel tour that motivated us to find a private operator. With the private boat we saw better sites (including Shark Island, which was pretty good). Overall, I was a little disappointed with the snorkeling in Thailand- I think my expectations were much too high. The internet would have you believe it’s a great place to see Whale Sharks. However, asking locally turned up no operators that offered a trip with any expectation of finding one.

We moved on to Khao Lak where we stayed at the JW Marriott. This was our nicest hotel of the trip. There was a pool right outside our room (the longest in Southeast Asia!) that we could use to swim all over the resort, and they had a coconut boat that offered icy coconuts to drink. They even had fire dancers perform one evening on the beach. We visited Phang Nga Bay by long tail boat and kayaked through small sea caves and saw James Bond Island (The Man with the Golden Gun). On the way back we stopped at a floating village and we also hand fed monkeys.

We caught a snorkel trip to the Similan Islands. Sadly, this was a long boat ride for a couple of short snorkel stops. The islands were beautiful and we had decent snorkel experience, but it was a long day of travel for what was really only a short time in the water.

Once back in Phuket, we visited the Elephant sanctuary. We enjoyed this but had hoped for more interaction with the elephants, or even to have been in closer proximity. I think we drew the short straw on the tour that morning, as our group had many very young children which slowed our group a great deal. Other groups on the tour were in the park’s grounds while we stayed mostly on the skywalk, avoiding the elephants.

On our last day, on the way to the airport we did a bit of a city tour in Phuket. We visited a viewpoint (that we’d been to the night before) and the Big Buddha.

Thailand was great, but I felt two weeks was a little long even spending so many days snorkeling. Maybe if we’d had better luck in the water I would have wanted to stay longer. In hindsight, we could have stayed a couple more days in Siem Reap and a few less in Thailand. This was also my first time staying at a mega resort like the one in Khao Lak. They had everything, and it seemed like you could just arrive one day and plan a week of activities out of their planning book. That could have been low stress and very convenient. They also had the most comfortable bed of the whole trip. I really enjoyed our stay here.

A week in Cambodia

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Jenn and I just spent a month in Asia. We haven’t planned a trip of this length for a very, very long time. We used a travel agent VIVE to help plan the trip and it went pretty well. Our first week was in Combodia. After visiting Mayan temples, Angkor Wat joined the list of ancient places to visit. We stayed in Siem Reap at a lovely hotel, Shinta Mani. Our guide for the week, Bun, was very knowledgeable and incredibly helpful.

On to the Temples! Most of our time in Cambodia was spent at Angkor Wat and the nearby temples. The temples here were built generally between 800 and 1200 AD. I was a little surprised to learn that some had been built so ‘recently’. Many include what I would consider modern bricks in their construction (versus the large stone blocks seen in older construction). While the newer temples are Buddhist, the older ones are Hindu (and many of these have been converted- there have been Buddha statues added to many of the temples). They are covered in intricate carvings, and (maybe) kilometers of carved walls depicting stories from the Khmer Empire.

We also did a few cultural activities. We rode an ox cart into town one day and visited a local market. I got the feeling no one else rides an ox cart but the local market was very interesting. Our guide told us everyone was yelling out (in a local language) “the tourists are coming”. We had soup for breakfast at the market where our guide said this was his most common breakfast. We had sticky rice from a roadside vendor. We took a boat to Tonle Sap, the largest lake in Cambodia that in the rainy season can grow 4 times it’s size. Near the river the houses are on stilts because the water level change is so dramatic. On the lake itself are floating houses and villages.

I feel like we could have used a few more days in Siem Reap. We really enjoyed Cambodia and would love to go back some day. The people were really nice, the food was very good and we had a great time.

A week in Iceland

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Jenn and I spent a week in Iceland for her birthday. Since we haven’t gone on any major trips in the past two years, we were a bit out of practice even in the planning stage. We booked a guided tour from nordic visitor. The tour was decent but the weather didn’t fully cooperate.

We arrived in Reykjavik and did the FlyOver iceland experience. This was great! It’s an indoor movie/ride similar to something we’ve done at Europa Park. It’s sort of like a roller coaster in an IMAX theater but the seats move in 3 dimensions rather than riding on a track. The movie that plays for the ride was spectacular and showed off different environs in Iceland. Naturally, we checked out the grocery store. Prices are a little higher than Switzerland (particularly for anything imported).

The next morning our planned whale watching trip was cancelled so we wandered the streets of Reykjavik and met the yule cat. Apparently, if you do not receive any clothing for Christmas the cat eats you. We headed to the towering Lutheran church for a view over the city.

All morning, Jenn was putting in calls to get us on an afternoon whale watching trip. She managed to get us seats an a 3 hour tour. The weather started getting rough…. and they gave us sea sickness tablets. In any case, we saw some sea life and I managed to get a few pictures.

The following day our guided tour began and we drove a few hours to a black sand beach in southern Iceland. Iceland is an island composed of lava fields so vegetation is primarily mosses. The basalt columns on the beach were neat. There were warning signs for strong currents and unexpected waves around the beach. Several people distracted by personal videography got wet.

We were supposed to hike a glacier and an ice cave the next day but high winds caused road closures. I was pretty bummed as the ice cave was one of the major highlights for me. Instead, we visited several lovely but forgettable waterfalls. That evening we stayed at Magma Hotel out in the country and had a fairly clear night for viewing the northern lights. The forecast was weak for lights but we did spot a green glow in the sky. The following few nights had stronger lights but were cloudy, so this was the only night we actually spotted anything. The rainbow clouds really looked that way.

We also went to a glacier lagoon and diamond beach. The glacier lagoon is filled with icebergs sheared from the glacier. They float out to sea and some get beached nearby. The clear ice glistens, reminiscent of diamonds.

We left Magma and headed back to Reykjavik. On the way, we stopped by Geysir (the original geyser) and a few more waterfalls. We also saw the North Atlantic ridge and walked between the continental plates.

On our last day we went to Blue Lagoon, a geothermal spa. The spa/pool is rather large, and water is piped from deep in the earth. The water is a seawater/freshwater mix that is cloudy with mineral deposits. And it’s quite warm!

Overall, I enjoyed our trip to Iceland. We booked a 5 day tour and I think there was enough to do that we could have used two more days- or a day or two free to make up for bad weather. I hadn’t anticipated losing important parts of the itinerary due to weather and that was me being uninformed. Still, I’m disappointed to not have had a better aurora viewing and missing the glacier and ice cave was sad, too. It’s a small country so a trip much longer than a week might be hard to fill without a great deal of driving time. I think we’ll try a different country (and timing) for our next northern lights trips. (hello finland 2025)

Half a week in Handegg

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We spent a few days at Hotel and Naturresort Handeck in Handegg. It was a great little trip. We were up in the mountain a little bit, right next to the Gelmerbahn. The Gelmerbahn is an old funicular they used when they were building the dam at Gelmersee. It is the steepest funicular in Europe. (every funicular is the something-est) It was super steep though it’s hard to tell form the pictures. (I forgot my camera this trip!)

We did two different power plant tours in the region. There is an extensive underground network of pipes that connects water from dams and lakes in the mountains to a couple of power plants and other lower elevation lakes. They even sometimes pump water back up to the higher elevation lakes when they needs to bleed power off the grid. The first tour was of the oldest power station with vertical generators. The second used horizontal generators and also showcased a 14 meter cave of quartz crystals. The second tour actually put us in a van and we drove to different location in the underground power plant. It’s insane how big these stations are, all underground. There is 160 km of underground piping/tunnels for water flow to and from the dams. Probably what I found the most interesting is that they build their generators by hand on site. During the tour we happened to walk past a couple workers mixing ceramic for the insulator caps. There’s also a tiny battery powered train they can use to reach the higher station during winter when the roads are snowed out.

There were also some nice hikes from our hotel. Both that we did were fairly short but after sitting at home for a year during the pandemic, I think we were all a bit out of shape and wouldn’t have wanted to hike much longer than we did!

We had a great time and I would definitely consider going back. We had really excellent food at the hotel and we barely touched on the great amenities. They have a small heated pool, a hot tub, sauna and they even let you use their electric car for the day.