http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Salmagundi Tue, 03 Apr 2007 03:52:45 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en     After a bus ride from Hong Kong to mainland China, I hopped a teeming two night/three day train through some astoundingly beautiful countryside – steep valleys sloping down to river beds and yawning wet fields, sheer cliffs pierced with the glowing caves of workers camped down for the evening. The ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Salmagundi/tibet-part-i-chasing-shangri-la.html   We watched "Out of Africa" again the other evening.  And I, being a certain kind of woman, obviously heaved and sighed throughout with devout admiration of the indomitable Karen Blixen.  If you haven't seen it lately, you should of course stop reading this and go rent it. Not just because Meryl Streep is as inspirational ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Salmagundi/out-of-africa-redux.html From a perch on the roof of the all but deserted Sammo Guest House in Cape Coast, Ghana, I knew I probably wasn’t where I was supposed to be.  Meaning, I guess, that I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere on the road to the quaint beach villages bragged up by guidebooks ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Salmagundi/the-times-we-didnt-ask-for.html Pack your bag folks:  We're moving!   No longer will you have to remember the rambling, absurdly long (if clever) title of my travel blog (presumptuously assuming you lie awake at night trying to recall such things). We're moving on up to a short and simple, perfectly named new site in the sky ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Salmagundi/moving-on-up-wwwtrekfeetcom.html It’s a snowy New Year’s eve afternoon back home. Distracted halfway into or out of an outfit, I am clad in a bizarre sundress/sweater combo, cupping a mug of sweet warm jasmine tea and have tunneled deep into the fever of my good friend’s travel blog. Having picked up his ordinary ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Salmagundi/the-whole-wide-world.html   It is one of those sternly cold mountain nights, where the air seems frozen to the stars which seem frozen to the steely blue, hovering clouds that promise morning snow.   There is a window at my back, sighing chilled air at my neck as I sit at a massive, pale wood ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Salmagundi/snow-drifting.html    We were four hours or so up the “World’s Most Dangerous Road” when we pulled up upon a manger scene of rescue workers, law enforcement and barefoot locals hovered at the trail’s edge. Having been “warned” by every tourism-hustler in La Paz who rakes in big bucks sending European tourists quivering ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Salmagundi/fatal-roads-and-worker-uprisings-the-bolivian-plot-thickens.html I did nearly nothing today. Awoke to an open window full of green mountains, had fresh papaya for breakfast outside, wandered down a steep cobbled street to a tiny town square where I had coffee and watched the locals watch me watch them. I lumbered back up the hill, pretending to ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Salmagundi/nothing-is-more-than-enough.html Two flights, one overnight 18 hour bus trip and a series of increasingly shabby bus rides brought us to the edge of the Chilean world - the lovely desert village of San Pedro. Twenty four hours were spent enjoying San Pedro - showering, trying to sleep through the muted sounds of ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Salmagundi/antiplano-and-altitude.html   Last night, round about 10 pm, my partner in crime and I took a bleary eyed break from organizing and obsessively weighing our backpacks and made a run for the border. What more reverent way to christen today’s departure to South America than drive- thru, soggy pseudo-Spanish goodness? Ole! After months ... http://blogs.bootsnall.com/Salmagundi/butch-cassidy-che-guevara-and-more-salt-than-a-sailors-mouth-ie-viva-bolivia.html