Travel Photos from 2014

Somehow 2014 turned into a year of travel: visiting all seven contents, 59 flights on commercial, private and military planes, thousands of frequent flier miles and tens of thousands of photos taken.  

It doesn't look like 2015 will end up being such a busy travel year, but should be interesting in its own right.

Here is a quick highlight of just a few of my favorite photos from each continent this year. 

Map made at travellerspoint.com

North America: 

Ice caves in the Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau, Alaska.

Looking down on Higgins Avenue, Missoula, Montana

Asia:

Dhow boats on Dubai Creek in an older section of Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

The Burj Khalifa, the worlds tallest building dominates the night in Dubai.

 Oceania:

One of the few shots I got in Christchurch, New Zealand.

A shadow of Christchurch's new city skyline.

 South America

Kid's play frisbee with us, while struggling to hold onto the snacks we gave him, in the Santa Cruz Valley of Peru.

Morning at Tongariki, Easter Island, Chile.

Africa:

A Martial Eagle enjoys it's evening meal in Kruger National Park, South Africa.

The most intense eyes I've ever seen.

Zazoo from the Lion King.

Harold the Hippo.  He's always in his pond so the safari guides go there when they are having a slow wildlife  day.

Europe:

Blue Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey

Fishing in Istanbul's Bosphorus River.

Of course I had to see Big Ben during my day in London.

Antarctica:

Adelie Penguin rookery at Cape Royds in McMurdo Sound.

A young Weddell Seal pup

Looking toward the Royal Society Range while flying into the Dry Valleys Region of Antarctica.

Penguins in Cape Town

African Penguins

I’m writing this as I fly over natural gas fires in Saudi Arabia.  They are a bright contrast to the darkness and dimly lit cities below.  They also represent another foreign world to me. 

I should be in Istanbul right now, but thanks to the lovely Turkish Airlines I’m 13 hours later than planned.  Bummer because it took away half a day of my short time in Istanbul.  But much to my amusement the angry Arabs and Irish on the flight provided excellent people watching with their yelling and ranting.

Cape Town from Table Mountain

Turkish Airlines did put us up in a fancy hotel for a few hours though.  But the time sitting around in the airport and transport to and from the hotel was more than double the time actually spent in the hotel.  I did get to see the bill (footed by Turkish Airlines) from my few hours in this hotel and it was a bit more than the cost of this flight.

Top of Table Mountain

I left Cape Town a few days ago with having completed my goal of playing tourist by hiking up Table Mountain and seeing the penguins.  With such a short time in some of these places on these trips I feel like the best way to see is unfortunately to be your typical tourist.  But Cape Town was great.  I would love to go back and send much more time there.  If you combined the skinny jeans and hipsters of Portland, OR and the money and beaches in San Diego and the breweries and good food and diversity of both you would get something akin to Cape Town, South Africa.

I'm finally posting this from Istanbul, where my luggage was finally delivered.  How do you delay a plane for 13 hours and not put a single piece of luggage on it?

Ostrich Foot

The Long Train to Cape Town

The last day of my safari consisted of a long drive back to Johannesburg with a few stops at some viewpoints.  I used the time to edit photos and try to catch up on some sleep. 

After a day and half of rest in Joburg I hopped on the train to Cape Town.  It was supposed to be a 26-hour ride through South Africa and I was excited to sleep and see some of the country.  Well, I did sleep a lot.  But the scenery didn’t offer much.  Most of it was similar to driving along I-80 through Utah and Nevada.  But there were a few baboons and funky looking antelope along the way.  

Mountains and vineyards started to appear just as the sun went down for the 2^nd time on this trip.  The sun was only supposed to set once during this trip.  Yes, I’m writing this on hour 29 and I hope to be in Cape Town sometime within the next three hours.  Last night someone stole a long section of the electric cables (that power the electric train engine) above the rails ahead of us.  The train company was trying to get a diesel engine to come and tow us to the next section, but apparently the cables were replaced before that happened.  I’m not complaining about the delay at all.  It has given me time to finish photos and catch up on some sleep.  Expecting such delays, the train always has enough food on board for a second dinner for everyone.  I was telling the cab driver in Cape Town about it and he said that people steal cables every day along the rail lines. 

I kept my camera in its case on the train ride because there wasn’t much to photograph and it was just nice to sit and enjoy the view for a bit.

The African Bush

My tent for the week.

During the next few days in Cape Town I hope to see the views from atop Table Mountain and watch some penguins.

The last leopard of the trip.

Kurger National Park: Part 2

White-backed Vultures

African Elephant

The days on this Safari start at 5:30am for coffee and a muffin and we’re in the trucks by 6 to drive into the bush looking for animals for three hours until we return to camp to a huge breakfast.  Then we’re free until 2:30 (to nap and edit photos) when there is a snack, big enough to be a lunch, and leave for another drive and rush back to the camp by 6pm because the safari companies are fined if they are out past that time so it is easier for the park to properly patrol for rhino poachers.  Then dinner is from 7:30pm until about 9.  I think everyone else then heads to bed, but I end up staying awake for another two to three hours uploading and starting to edit the hundreds of photos from that day.  I kept up with editing photos the first two days, but I’m writing this on day five and I’m almost halfway through the photos from day three.

Martial Eagle

Impala

I’ve never really been on a guided trip before.  It is great being a client.  It is so nice to not have to think for once.  I just have to show up when they tell me to and there is food and the plans are already made.  And the food is absolutely amazing.  

Burchell's Zebra

African Hawk-Eagle

Marabou Stork

The last few days have been pretty slow when it comes to spotting animals.  Hippos were the most exciting things for me, but there we drives when we’d hardly even see an elephant.  But the drive this evening changed that.  It started out slow, with just a few warthogs and impala and a giraffe.  After almost an hour we spotted another leopard (the third of the week) lounging in the middle of the road.  We were the only vehicle around, and only four of us in it, and watched it for about 20 minutes taking photos and video (I’ll put up videos in another post soon). We eventually left the leopard and all decided that if we didn’t see another animal for the rest of the evening we’d be happy.  Less than ten minutes later we saw a lion…and another….and another until all ten lions (a male, three females and six cubs) emerged from the grass on a hunting mission.  We followed them down the road for a while since they didn’t seem to want to get out of the way for us.  They ran back into the grass and we drove ahead to the rhinos that we’d spotted in the distance at the same time as the lions. The two white rhinos didn’t stick around long when we drove up, but we ended up seeing eight more before the end of the day.  After turning back toward the camp we ran into a heard of over a hundred water buffalo, a few dozen vultures, an elephant and a few zebras.  Besides seeing a kill I don’t think anything could top this drive.  I could go home happy now, but I still have 2 days left. 

Buffalo

African Elephant

Lions!