Month: June 2015

So you quit your job to travel the world?

Quitting my job to become a traveling writer was not easy. While determining my premeditated roaming as yearlong provided some sort of framework, truth be told I was freaking the hell out until I finally bought that first ticket and left Israel. At this point my neurosis didn’t necessarily subside but just looked better under a tropical sun. Looking back, I think my psychological trajectory from the day I resigned until I finally became a real-life traveling bum had various clearly defined stages. The Four Stages in the Psyche of the Unemployed Traveler The state of ecstasy. That’s the moment right after you hand in your resignation letter and sit at your office desk looking at Google images of the beaches you will be lounging at and mountains you will be climbing. That is after 1-2 months, during which you must continue coming to the office and pretend to care about the job you just quit. When that sinks in begins the second stage: impatient annoyance. Things that never bothered you before like the lady that tells you …

A Taste of Colombian Medical Care with a splash of Vallenato

It happens to the best of us. Even someone with an iron stomach as myself who prides herself on having the ability to eat everything and anything, gallantly sampling all the delicacies street vendors have to offer will eventually get food poisoning or whatever it was that had me check in at a Colombian clinic in Valledupar. It wasn’t pretty. I had arrived in Valledupar for the famous Festival de la Leyenda Vallenata. A type of Colombian folk music, Vallenato is this country’s pride and joy. I met Bogotans who had travelled on 18-hour busses to attend the festival over the weekend. All hotels and hostels were filled to the brim and the town’s streets filled with Colombians in sombreros vueltiaos dancing to never-ending tunes usually played with a trio of accordion, guacharaca, and caja vallenata players. The birthplace of Vallenato, Valledupar is not much of a destination for foreigners. During my three-day stay there I frequently felt as though the few foreigners that I shared a dorm room with in Provincia Hostel were the …

America the Inspirational: Dangers of Returning Home

I almost flaked on my Advanced Open Water diving course in Taganga at the last minute. I do that sometimes. I get scared of finishing things and run away. I had already done six breathtaking dives and to complete the course I had one requirement left: the 30-meter deep water dive. The night before the dreaded deed, I read the chapter on deep diving from the PADI booklet because I also do that. My homework, that is. PADI had elaborated on quite an extensive amount of possible things that could get me killed from this really unnecessary activity that is breathing under water with fish and other aquatic life. After all I had spent all my life not diving to 30 meters as a happy and thriving individual. I was scared. “Do I have to?” I asked my instructor in the morning. By looking at my face you would think that it’s not pretty coral but rotting fish that awaited me under 30 meters. Thankfully, Tomas glanced at the death page I was pointing at …

Love as Understood through Mexican Telenovelas, Turkish Movies, and Colombian Chickenshit

Sometime in the last decade Turkey became the world’s second largest exporter of television shows, particularly soap operas. According to a report Turkish soap opera exports went up from only $10,000 in 2004 to $200 million in 2012. Many people I meet around the world ask if I know this or that character from a Turkish soap that I’ve never heard of. I once tried to watch the Muhteşem Yüzyıl, (The Magnificent Century) about the life of Sultan Süleyman, the greatest ruler of the Ottoman Empire. Its episodes, which often last over two hours, feature many scenes where two lovers stare at each other for minutes on end to melancholic music as palace rules prevent them from expressing their love through touching. As Turkish soaps become the talk of the world, academics argue the extent to which they increase Turkey’s soft power in the Middle East and the Balkans, where the shows have been particularly popular, though I wonder how much influence can bad actors staring at one another have even if they are popular. …

Over Land in Parque Tayrona, Under Water in Taganga

If I were to believe the rumors I heard about Taganga, I was about to arrive in Colombia’s version of Ko Phi Phi—a once-charming island in the Andaman Sea filled with 20-something backpackers who roam the island’s trash-filled streets as they suck cheap alcohol from buckets. Needless to say, I was not happy in Ko Phi Phi. A small fishing village just 15 km from Santa Marta, Taganga is also getting a bad reputation. Unsustainable tourism, mainly the “Middle Eastern” kind as one tripadvisor reviewer wrote, had changed this beautiful cove for the worse. I was especially apprehensive about staying in Taganga since we had just spent two peaceful nights in Parque Tayrona, sleeping outside in hammocks with the sounds of the Caribbean as a lullaby. For the past two days, I had been starting my mornings with a walk on the Arrecifes Beach, which stretched for kilometers without another soul in sight. For the first time since my arrival in South America, I didn’t have to answer whatsapp messages from members of my family who seemingly …