The first half of our day is about as unexciting as I expected. There is a reasonably good spread for breakfast, but there is always something a bit deflating when traveling outside of the US and stepping up to a buffet tray full of hot dogs. I’m not sure why sausage is such a foreign concept in all the places we travel as my summers slinging meat at the slaughterhouse taught me the process is pretty much the same, yet here we are.

From there it is into the safari car and onto the highway. Like a lot of places, that means two-lane road (paved though, so good news there) shared with all other forms of transportation imaginable and pretty much no room to pass. Scooters piled high with bamboo, flatbeds hauling loads of bricks up the hill at seven miles per hour, and tuk-tuks chugging along powered by golf-cart motors, we get the pleasure of following them all.

Jackson, our driver, has been at this a while and helps pass the time pointing out interesting tis-bits along the way. The scenery here doesn’t have a whole lot going for it, but seeing the people going about the daily routine is interesting. We pass through some tribal areas and learn more about their way of life, including the Maasai, who we see walking along herding their animals like we’re in a Nat Geo special.

Our goal is the Lake Manyara National Park. It is smaller and gets less PR than some other stops, like Serengeti, but is apparently the best spot to see elephants. From the looks of the gate, it seems like we might also have a shot at seeing a dinosaur or two.

This is our rig, a converted Toyota Land Cruiser, complete with refrigerator and extendable roof.

We’re sharing it with a couple of Italians who finished Kili the day before and share a few tips about what to expect.

It seems James Bond may also be here, although I didn’t see him in person.

After a quick lunch, we’re off, with our spotter on the lookout for wildlife.

As we are without our usual events coordinator and animal lover, I was a bit concerned for what she might miss. Fortunately, there wasn’t a whole lot here. We didn’t see these baboons with babies clinging their backs and bellies…

There were no giraffes snacking on spiky acacia trees like this one…

No warthogs…

No water buffalo…

And definitely no 10,000 pound elephants wandering down the narrow road, brushing by the car as it slowly passed.

I heard we might see some 1,000 year old baobab trees like this one but, nope, none of those either.

After a wasted afternoon, we admit defeat and head up to our camp where our cook sets to work on a well-deserved three-course meal (sitting in a jeep all day is grueling work)

We have a long drive in the morning to get to Serengeti National Park so, refueled, we’re off to bed. As the philosopher Froggy Fresh once said,

I said tonight we gonna be sleeping in the tent
So grab a sleeping bag a pillow and a friend
We’re gonna do it, it’s gonna be awesome
With good times a friendship can blossom

In all of the write-ups, the authors say the last 1,000 meters of Kilimanjaro is the hardest. No surprise really. As the tallest mountain on the African continent, some 19,000 feet above sea level, the thin air takes a toll, particularly on us sea-level dwellers. Time will tell if that actually is the worst part, as the first 9,000 miles is definitely no walk in the park.

The flight from Seattle to Doha, Qatar clocks in a just over 14 hours, which feels like the better part of eternity locked into an aluminum tube. Add another 14 hours stuck in an airport with a creepy, exceptionally teddy bear, and then 8 more hours to travel from Doha to Kilimanjaro. Without a doubt, it is the longest it has taken me to get somewhere and, but the time I finally set my bags down and fall into bed, I feel like I have already climbed a mountain.

[bear pic]

After dragging them across Spain earlier this summer, there aren’t many takers for this adventure, with most of the team opting to enjoy a few relaxing weeks before school starts at home. Fortunately, Nick has never met a dumb idea he doesn’t like, and has joined me after his time in Europe. He’s getting awfully close to starting a life working for the man, so I’m glad to have him along for what could be our last big adventure for a while.

Our base of operations is Moshi, at the base of the mountain just outside the national park. The original plan was to rest here for a few days and just experience Tanzania. Egypt notwithstanding, this is my first time in Africa, so I’m anxious to try the food, meet the people, and just generally experience something new. That plan changed a few days ago when the tour company that we booked our climb through let us know they had a short, 3 day safari heading out the day after our arrival that would get us back in time to start our hike.

A safari is probably THE bucket list item for Efe Bomba (or just F-Bomb now that she is back home in the US), so we debated passing it up, before finally deciding to give it a go and treating it as a trial run for when she can be here. The fact that we’ll be camping instead of staying in lodges helped sway public opinion. For as much as she loves animals, there is no way in hell that she is going to sleep on the ground while they wander around her.

So, on what little rest we can get in our jacked-up time zone state, well be heading out first thing to Lake Manyara, a four hour drive from Moshi and the first of the three parks we’ll be hitting on our express tour.

Let the adventure begin.

We have had the good fortune to see a lot truly awesome places over the years, but there is something about Pompeii that makes it one of my favorites. We have a great tour guide and see all of the usual highlights, but my happy place is wandering down quiet side streets on our own, what remains of Mount Vesuvius looming in the background. Away from the crowds, it isn’t so hard to imagine life here two thousand years ago and the people then walking down the exact same sidewalks we are now.

We’re in no particular hurry, but even so, it all takes a little longer than it probably should as our events coordinator needs to stop and touch the “good luck” symbols peppered throughout the city. I guess Redmond must be a naturally lucky place as I definitely don’t recall this level of interest back home.

After a break for lunch, we hop back on the train and ride it to the end of the line in Sorrento (minus Sam, who has dipped in order to get back to the apartment and finish up a final assignment for his summer session). It is fun showing the boys the narrow streets filled with stores peddling all things lemon-related, and the beach we used to walk down to when we stayed here.

As with the rest of Italy, it is way too crowded this time of year for our tastes and, after a few hours of sightseeing, we are ready to call it a day. By the time we make it back to Castellammare di Stabia we’re too tired to even leave the apartment for dinner.

Tomorrow is our last day and, with no tours booked, we’re free to see whatever the boys want to check off their list. There’s talk of a boat trip down the coast or maybe taking a cable car up the mountain so we shall see what the morning brings.

Not much to report today as the bulk of it was spent packing up our things in Rome and transporting them to Castellammare di Stabia, where we’ll be for the next three nights. Our new place is in a residential part of town, so a bit of a walk away from the city center, but we have restaurants and a grocery store nearby meaning we don’t really need to leave the area if we don’t want to. The beach is also just a few blocks away, although away from the resorts there doesn’t seem to be any effort to clean up the cigarette butts and garbage that washes ashore.

We do luck into the best pizza we have had so far and you know you are off the beaten path when the price of calzone the size of a small baby is a whopping five Euro.

The primary target of relocating south is getting closer to Pompeii and checking that off of the list is the plan for tomorrow. There’s not much tree cover in a giant archeological dig so we’re booked in for as soon as the gate opens. At this rate, maybe we’ll retrain these kids to get out of bed before noon on their own.

It is amazing what trains zipping around at 300 km/h make possible. Florence is far enough away from Rome that it seems outside the boundaries of the typical day trip but, in practice, it is a bit over 90 minutes away. Compared to more local tours, where you can waste that much time picking up passengers from a dozen hotels in a crowded minibus, it is a pretty elegant option.

Our first order of business is to head directly for the Ponte Vecchio as our trip coordinator has been raving about the chocolate croissants we stumbled across the last time we were here. We also take a few sfogliatella, a lobster tail looking pastry popular in this part of the country. Thumbs up on the former. The latter I can probably live without.

Florence is a breathe of fresh air after Rome (quite literally, as there are np piles of garbage slow-roasting in the summer sun here). It is still way too crowded for my taste, and there is construction everywhere, but it just feels less chaotic.

We spend the morning on a walking our of the old city. This is something new for all of us and we have great guide pointing out things we completely overlooked when we were here on our own, like the monuments for the 1993 bombing, where the city was bombed to the ground in WWII and then rebuilt and, most importantly, a few places the locals like to eat.

The tour ends at the Accademia Gallery, where a nonstop parade of “influencers” line up for some quick selfies with Michelangelo’s David before rushing off in search of more “look how glamorous my life is” content for Instagram. We take a few ourselves but need way more work on our poses if we’re ever going to make it big.

For lunch we stop first at the lampredotto stand our guide pointed out. It is a classic street food here, made up of stewed cow’s stomach (just the fourth stomach though as that, apparently, is the USDA Prime one) on a roll. It is better than it sounds but remains, shall we say, an acquired taste. Nick, to his credit, gets back in line for another while we head off in search of something a little less adventurous.

Our final stop is the Uffizi Gallery. It is as overwhelming and mentally exhausting as it was the first time we saw it but I feel like I absorbed a bit more walking through it again. Perhaps after another fifty times or so I’ll finally get a handle on all of the priceless art gathered here and the fascinating history around it.

The return train whisks us back to Rome right around dinner and a final bit of time in the city. We’ll be right back at the station in the morning, bags in tow, heading to our final destination near Sorrento. Hotels are lights out expensive anywhere near the Amalfi Coast this time of year so we found an apartment just a few train stops away that should give us a good base to slow down a bit and enjoy our last few days in Italy.

We know there won’t be much shade today walking around the Colosseum and Forum so have picked a 9 am tour to try and beat the heat, even though you’d think we were prying our kids out of bed in the middle of the night by the speed they are moving. The apartment we have rented is right next to the main train station which makes it extremely easy to get places, although the neighborhood leaves a little to be desired (unless a bit of a Seattle underpass vibe is your thing).

Sam did this tour with his classmates a few weeks ago so it is only Nick and Joey seeing it for the first time but it is still hard not to be impressed walking through it all again.

It is midday as we make our way up Palatine Hill, and you know it is hot when my fellow adventurer accepts water from a public fountain intended for the common people.

Our guide spends far more time walking through the ruins on the hill than we did the last time around. It is a nice change as it makes this part of the tour mostly new but we get far less information about the Forum, which I think the boys would have enjoyed.

From there we head off on the Sam Tour of Rome – a combination sightseeing and culinary experience. First stop is his school, paired with stir fry noodles in the nearby plaza.

Then, after a quick detour to step inside the Pantheon, it’s across the river to his old apartment (which, despite appearances is not in the hood), accompanied by burritos from the restaurant down the street. Sam, it turns out, doesn’t really like Italian food and has spent most of the past few months finding places that serve everything but.

It has been a long day and the heat sucks your soul so, by the time we get back to the apartment, the entire squad is exhausted. No rest for the weary though. Tomorrow is an even earlier start as we’re day-tripping it all the way to Florence.

I said a few days back that sometimes you remember things being better than they actually are. Well, Rome may be a case in point. We were here in the fall last time around so maybe that made all of the difference but, in late July, the city is brutally hot, humid, crowded, and depressingly dirty. It has all the things I would look for when choosing a place NOT to go on vacation so is a bit of a let down from how much we enjoyed it before.

The boys (all three of them now!) don’t know any better so they are willing participants as we cram three or four days of sightseeing into the two we have available.

First there are the Spanish Steps…

Then the Trevi Fountain…

A quick drive by the Pantheon and Castel Sant’Angelo…

And finally, the Vatican Museum and St. Peter’s Cathedral, which are crammed to the point that you can’t really stop to look at anything for more than a few seconds (which actually works out fine since the two dollar radios out guide is using crackle like a New York subway speaker so we don’t really know what we are seeing anyway).

On the way back to the apartment, the boys spot a fast food restaurant called Jolibee and insist we stop there to eat. It is a fried chicken place but for some reason, with 10,000 pasta places to choose from, we also end up with spaghetti-type concoction that looks like it came directly from a high school cafeteria.

Maybe tomorrow we can really luck out and find an Old Country Buffet.

Sam finished up his summer session about a week ago and has been holed up in a hostel patiently waiting our arrival. Flights are running very full at the moment and the best we could get was flying together into Madrid and then splitting up, with two of us following into Rome a few hours later.

Joey and and I take the first shift and enjoy a nice trip with an entire row empty in front of us. This news does not please my fellow adventurers who were told at the gate that every seat was full so, no, they can’t switch to this earlier flight.

All is forgotten though once we touch down and catch the train into the city. There, waiting in there terminal for us is the man himself – Sammallama.

Our travel coordinator has planned a pretty packed itinerary for the handful of days we have here. Usually it’s me that drives everyone crazy to do things so I’m grateful for a little time off.

Rental cars, it seems, are not too common in Santiago de Compostela as the only ones we are able to find are at the airport. With a look of complete seriousness on his face, Joey says I should just get up early in the morning, take a cab to pick it up, and then swing back by the hotel so that he doesn’t have to get up so early. Flying quite close to the sun that boy.

It takes about an hour to get to the lighthouse at Finisterre and considerably easier in a car (thanks for the tip, Dale). It is just as amazing as we remember it, and we wander down past the crowds to find some quiet spots to sit and look out over the water. This definitely feels more like an ending so when my fellow adventurer tells me she’s been called back to do the camino again, I think we’ll add this last piece on again.

From here we plan to head north to Muxia, but first, we need to stop for food in the town of Cee, where Angela will tell you they serve the burger that saved her life. Somehow we manage to find it and, while things are often better in your head than they are in real life, this is by far the best burger we have had.

Muxia is a short twenty minute drive further on and, just when I thought it couldn’t get any better than Finisterre, now I’m not so sure. It is also a old fishing town but one that doesn’t really seem to have grown up. There are no tour busses and, this time, the end of the road takes you right down to the water.

There is a big bay here and you can see several sandy beaches around the rim that all seem completely empty. If I ever need to just disappear for a while, this feels like the kind of place I could do just that.

Back in Santiago, it is fireworks night (ostensibly for the festival, but I choose to believe they are because we finished the camino). We make our way back up to the cathedral and join the crowd of people that fill the main plaza. The TV personalities are there and we follow the countdown on the giant display.

At 11:00 the sky lights up in all directions. Or so it appears on the TV. The plaza is surrounded on all sides by buildings a few stories high making it quite possibly the only place in Santiago where you can’t see the fireworks. Fortunately, the show goes on for quite a while and by walking a block or so we are still able to catch a part of it. It’s not perfect, but still a pretty darn good way to close this chapter of our adventure.

For the first day in a very long time, there is nowhere we have to get and nothing we have to see. Stepping out of the elevator, there is a glorious spread of fresh fruit, pastries, coffee, juices, and all the yogurts you could ever eat and still leave some for other guests (Irish guy who bogarted all the yogurts in Reliegos, I’m talking to you).

We spend most of the day just wandering the streets of the old city, popping into shops here and there for souvenirs to bring back home.

There is also an excellent museum here dedicated to this history of the camino and it is interesting to learn some interesting facets of the journey we just completed that give it some additional perspective. For as difficult as we found it, a definite tip of the hat to those brave enough to attempt it in the days before there were even bridges across the rivers (what did those folks do on days they felt like carminoing?).

For dinner we end up at a tapas joint. The waiter does a double take when Nick rattles off our order and then includes a side of patatas bravas. The chicken fingers Joey wanted comes with potatoes he says, but we wave him off, confident we know what we are doing.

Five plates of potatoes later (since EVERY dish comes with them) it is now a test of will. But these are battled-hardened boys and, after a month of Spanish tortillas, a few lowly tubers aren’t near enough to break them.

They don’t have much left after that and head back to the hotel with mild cases of starch poisoning while Angela (off the trail she no loner goes by her trail name) and I stick around for a concert playing in the plaza next to the cathedral.

Tomorrow is our last full day in Spain and we’ve rented a car to take the boys out to Finisterre. There’s a part of me that wishes we had the time to hike it but I’m not sure I’d find many takers even if we did.