The kindness of strangers

In this time of celebration and giving, people tend to look back on the year that is about to fade into memory and take stock. I got to thinking about it today and realized that it has been one heck of a year! There have been so many adventures, so many experiences that I will never forget, so many good times. But I want to write about today is the kindness that I have born witness to this year.

Now I’m not necessarily talking about the kindness of my family – I could talk about how I was welcomed into homes of relatives all over Canada and Australia. Picked up from airports at all hours, made home cooked meal after meal and felt the love of family all over the world.

And I’m also not really talking about the kindness of my friends. Friends who supported me and helped me in so many ways. Friends in Canada who went out of their way to help me research my Canada project. Friends in NZ who supported Sophie while I was away on the road – for what seemed like most of the year. Friends like Sarah in Tanzania who went out of her way to show us her adopted home and friends like Steve and Leyla who flew to from the UK to Paris to join us for the weekend. Friends like Andrew who invited me on his grand adventure – where we rode our bikes from New York City to Detroit.

No what I’m referring to is the kindness of strangers. This year I have been truly showered with help, assistance and comradeship all over the world. I’m not talking about huge things, but all sorts of little things that add up.

Little things like the people who lined the course of the Motatapu Marathon and cheered me into the finish – you have no idea how good that feels after running 42km!

The guy Andrew and I met near Niagara Falls, NY while we were bike touring who out of the blue offered for us to stay at his house for the night. Simply because he was a fellow cyclist; he offered his home to two complete strangers.

To the elderly gentleman in Paris who shattered the rude Parisians stereotype by going out of his way to help us find our way – even though we didn’t even ask him for directions and his command of English was almost as poor as our mastery of French.

To the guy at the Emerates desk in the Nairobi airport who left his desk, travelled into the bowels of the airport to find my bag and make sure that it made it onto our connecting flight – well it didn’t make it, but at least he tried!

To the woman in Tahiti who picked me up while I was hitching a ride, if it wasn’t for her I would have missed the ferry and my flight out of the country.

To the guy who gave me a ride in The Turks & Caicos after I was completely soaked by Tropical Storm Olga and in the middle of nowhere (check out the vid if you haven’t yet)

To all the people who have helped me research little towns all over the place, who never knew who I was working for and still went out of their way to help me.

There have been so many more examples that I could tell you about – just today a local guy here in St Lucia talked to a bus driver in Creole for me, to be sure I got dropped off at the right destination.

I don’t want to get on some sort of moral pulpit here, but in this world that is supposedly full of religious intolerance, terrorism and “bad people” I’ve experienced a year filled with people going out of their way to help strangers. So the next time you see somebody who looks lost, needs a bit of help or maybe just a few words of encouragement – think how you would feel in their place.

be the change you want to see in the world – happy holidays, and be well.
~Scott

Transitions

Sometimes change is hard, sometimes change is as good as a holiday – as the saying goes. Last week I made a move – I left the newly familiar shores of the Turks & Caicos and headed south to St. Lucia. My life is all about new experiences – it’s something that I love. I crave the unknown, new destinations, new adventures. New mountains to climb, new physical boundaries to find – the draw of the unknown is immeasurable. But just because the unknown is so desirable – doesn’t necessarily make it any easier.

I was in the groove in T&C – I had it down pat, life was easy. Maybe it was too easy, because the transition to St. Lucia was a bit of a steep learning curve. Where the former island was easy to travel around with tourist infrastructure and a geography that was dead easy to navigate – things are a bit different down south. All of a sudden I’m back in the developing world.

Granted, I had a bit of a rough start to things. It’s quite ironic in fact – I’m a real champion of technology. I love gadgets, computers, cameras and so on. But I’ve been up against it for the past few weeks – my computer is dying. Shortly after arriving in the Caribbean my little Dell has started to act up to the point that the death rattle is eminent. I won’t bore you with the techno-babble but I’ve become all too familiar with something called, “The Blue Screen of Death”. Nothing that ends in of death is ever a good thing…

So after I arrived in this new and strange place my travelling companion, workmate, potable cinema, digital photo album and link to wi-fi, blogs, news and communication has been a glorified paperweight. The tech-trouble didn’t stop there. My bank card wasn’t working in the local ATM’s here, so until I travelled to another town to a different brand of bank – finances were getting a bit tight. This all added up to the world being a bit half-full for a few days.

Now don’t get me wrong, St. Lucia is a beautiful place – amazingly striking to be honest. Massive Tahitian style mountains jutting up from the sea towering over the tiny island. The blue-green Caribbean water lapping on the dark sand beaches. Rainforest covering the hillsides with microtowns bustling with colourful locals…

But it never really clicked until yesterday. There I was riding in a local bus – no different to any other bus I’ve ridden in while in the developing world. Not a bus by western standards but a van crammed to capacity with locals – and me shoved into the back corner. Maybe it was the way the towering Rasta was driving – like a complete lunatic, maybe it was the road – the windiest stretch of highway I’ve ever been on (and yes that includes NZ and Peru) maybe it was the dancehall reggae blasting through the speakers at full volume. But what I really think it was the granny in the seat in front of me. As the bus rocketed around the corners with reckless abandon I could see her head bobbing to the beat of Sean Pauls distinctive voice. In that instant I knew it was time to chill out, go with the flow and no matter how up and down the road is - remember to enjoy the ride…

Merry Christmas everybody – to you and yours I wish you the best over the holiday season and a great start to 2008! But don’t worry; I’ll be in touch before the end of the year!

Cheers
~Scott

Government House(party)

I’ve said it before, I’ve even said it in this blog – but it bears repeating. The best part of travel is the unexpected experience and since I last posted on this blog, there has been a healthy dose of the unexpected. Recently I’ve been on the tiny island of Grand Turk a speedy 20minute flight over the Atlantic from Provo. This easternmost island in the Turks & Caicos chain, is both the tiniest if the major islands and also the home to the capital.

Now I’ve been to some places with humorous names in my life; Boring Oregon, Climax California, Moose Jaw Saskatchewan, but I’ve found a new all time classic. The capital city of the Turks & Caicos Islands is called… Cockburn. There’s no need to make a joke – it’s done.

So anyways here I am in Cockburn, doing my thing checking stuff out. And it’s a great little town, a real slice of old school Caribbean – narrow streets, lined with whitewashed walls, colonial houses painted wild colours and conch shacks selling the catch of the day. I wander into the tiny local museum and give it a good look, turns out to be a pretty cool place, with lots to see. After a bit of a wander I head out – as I’m walking out the door a middle aged guy stops me and asks how I’m doing. We chat for a bit and it turns out he’s the curator at the museum. When I tell him why I’m there, he invites me into the lab to show me something cool – a box, a big box filled with maybe 10 pirate cannons. Very cool stuff. We chat for a bit more and I get some great info about the Island. I say goodbye to Neal and continue on. I chalk it up to being a cool unexpected moment.

Later that day I was back at my hotel chilling out when there is a knock at my door. It’s Neal, “Hey do you want to go to a party tonight?” I’m a bit thrown, this guy from the museum is asking me to a party.

“What sort of party?”

“Well the Governor, as in the Queen’s representative, is having his annual Christmas party at Government house, and I thought it would be a cool event for you to see.”

It was a no brainer, “I’m in.”

So at 7pm Neal picked me up, I jumped into his van loaded with his wife and kids and we headed to the other end of the island to have nibbles with the head of the nation. I went to quite an effort, pulling out a clean button down, putting on my trousers for the first time since I left home and putting on my dress flip-flops.

Well make no mistake it was the social event of the season. Everybody who is anybody in the T&C was there, and I was too. the beer flowed like wine and the nibbles were particularly posh. The back yard was decorated with Christmas lights as we chatted away in the courtyard. It turned out to be a great party, I met lots of interesting folks and took full advantage of the open bar – it just isn’t fare when they pour glasses of red by the pint…

Early on in the night I shook the hand of the Governor and said g’day – nice chap. He seemed to enjoy himself too, later on in the evening I saw him stumbling around searching for the way to the bar.

The next day I woke up with a bit of a sore head, which was cured pretty quickly once I jumped into the ocean on my first scuba dive of the trip – but that’s a whole different episode.

There’s a great saying that you can never plan great journeys, you just have to be open to them unfolding in front of you. If you’d said to me that I was going to end up getting on the lash with the Governor I’d of laughed at you, but once it’s happened all of a sudden all of the other absurd possibilities don’t seem quite so fanciful.

Dream big – you never know what’s going to come true.
Cheers
~Scott

Scott Vs. Olga

Tropical storms out of season? nah, don't worry - it will never happen. Well it did. We were lucky here in the Turks - we only got brushed by the side of Tropical Storm Olga. Others in the region weren’t so lucky - in the Dominican Republic 19 people were killed, mostly from a river suddenly flooding. What we experienced here was just an insane amount of rain - all at once. Here is what I experienced, while waiting for a ride from the ferry dock i was standing in the sunshine, Then the wind changed a bit and you could feel that it was about to rain, and then all of a sudden WHAM! Go into your bathroom, step into the shower fully clothed and hit full throttle on the shower and that's exactly what it was like! crazy amounts of water all in the span of about 5 minutes. i had all of my gear with me - which got soaked. Luckily all the important (electronic and paper) bits were either in a dry bag (which was intended for sand, not rain) or buried deep within the bag - so nothing was damaged... pretty sobering though, especially to read the same storm took so many lives...
Read this link for more on the story: http://uk.reuters.com/article/homepageCrisis/idUKN13225959._CH_.242020071213

And have a look at this video to see what the storm felt like for me.


More to come – take it easy out there…
~Scott

the beach you've always wanted to find...

check out this video of one of the best beaches i've ever been to....

You’ll know when you know….

What makes a place good? What makes a hotel worth staying in or a restaurant one that you would recommend? Taking an even wider angle POV on the subject, what makes a place worthy of visiting in the first place?

It’s something that I go through all day every day as I research a place – who would want to come here and why? Does this appeal to a dirt-bag backpacker who will sleep in a gutter rather then pay $20 for a hostel. Or is this a spot for the uber-rich who think nothing of dropping $3000 a night on a hotel room. Well today was a pretty typical day, I saw both extremes in all of their glory. Stepping back for a sec, so what makes this place good?

This morning I left the Island of Provo and I jumped on a ferry to the neighbouring island of North Caicos. In the past there was only one way to get to this next island – a brief but inconvenient and expensive flight. This little plane ride made it just too damn hard for lots of people to even bother to check out this island. Which does have its advantages – keeping numbers down, preserving authenticity. But in the Caribbean, authenticity is often interchangeable with exclusivity – which is always the high price option. And when there are only high rollers in a place, all of a sudden the price of everything goes straight through the roof. So there is a balance to be found in there, where a place isn’t over run, but you can actually afford to be there.

So I buy my ticket and head down to the wharf – the ferry was parked up and I knew I was onto something good. The boat was a glorified motorboat with rows of seats running up the middle of the craft – there would be room for about 20 people for the 30min voyage. I was early and chose a seat – I wondered how full it would become.

As departure time approached the ferry slowly filled to capacity and I looked at my fellow passengers and I knew I was onto something good. There are times when you are travelling when you can just tell that you’ve caught onto what you’ve been looking for all along. I was the only tourist. Locals chatted away in Creole on their mobile phones, laughed and jostled their boxes of shopping onto the seats. In Provo I was right smack dab in the middle of the tourist track – but the second I got on the ferry everything changed.

I arrived onto the island and got in a taxi to take me to my hotel. I arrived to find that I was the only person to be staying here tonight. Walking from my beachfront room to the water I made the first tracks on the snow white sand. Looking down the beach – there wasn’t a single sign of human habitation – save the rusting hulk of a shipwreck poking out on the oceanic horizon.
I took a deep breath, and knew I’d found what I’d been trying to find. I’ll stay here for a couple of days exploring this sparsely populated island – searching out choice snorkelling spots, deserted stretches of white and whatever else I come upon…

This puts it all into focus – I chatted to an island hotelier today, she was feeling a bit stressed as she had a big night tonight. She was going to be running at capacity and all the guests were set to check in this afternoon. She had eight guests arriving. Yes – 8.

Sometimes paradise is a golden sand beach, or a snowy mountain top. But sometimes the best sort of paradise is the one that gives you that feeling that you discovered something. And maybe that’s what we travel for – to discover new places on our globe – and new things inside the globe we carry on our shoulders…
Cheers
~Scott

a couple of pics

Here are a couple of photos from Providenciales in the Turks & Caicos Islands...

this first one is my hard at work on my bike, heading to a hotel to check it out....

This is one of me at lunch chowing down on a local fav - Conch. yes the big pink curvy shell - inside a little creature makes it's home and it tastes alot like squid - YUM!!! here i'm eating it ceveche style - raw with lemon and lime - so good!

take it easy out there,

~Scott

Eau du Kamode

Well after much transport, I have finally touched down in the Turks & Caicos Islands. I arrived last night a couple hours later then I was supposed to as the plane was delayed because of snow in Chicago – you just can’t escape the grip of old man winter no matter how far south you go… DAMN YOU SANTA – DAMN YOU AND YOU’RE LITTLE EVLVES TOO! Well maybe that was a bit harsh…

One of the unadulterated joys of travel is the unexpected experience. They can take so many forms, from spotting the familiar to experiencing the utterly unexpected. I got a bit of both of those yesterday.

The first thing happened before I even touched down – I was on the plane filling out customs forms and read something that made me burst into spontaneous laughter right then and there. On the form there was a list of the duty free allowances – pretty standard stuff for the most part. 2L of wine, 100 cigarettes and so on. But it was one line that I’m still a bit perplexed by. At the very end it said:

“20ml of perfume or 250ml of Toilet Water”

Now I’m not about to tell somebody what they should be using for their personal hygienic program – but something tells me that The Body Shop doesn’t have a huge stocklist of, ”Toilet Water.” Or at least I hope not. I would assume that they are referring to cologne – at least I hope so. Either way next time I’m bringing my allotted amount of TW so I can excrete into the pure, clean, natural H2O of New Zealand. Nothing makes me feel at home like the familiar splash of Queenstown water.

So that was bizarre – but then I got to the hotel and flicked on the TV. You gotta live the Caribbean where pirated satellite TV is always on offer. The first channel I flick to – the French Canadian Sports network. I watched a hockey game in French, sitting in the sweltering Caribbean – nothing says Christmas time quite as much as that!

The place that I’m staying in addition to Canadian TV also has bikes available to the guests. Perfect - made researching today much easier and a great way to see the island. I much prefer to walk or ride a bike, you really can’t get into the groove of a destination in a car or worse yet on a bus – but that’s just my thing, I’m a walker…

So I spent much of the day cruising around checking out hotels, eating at some nice spots and feverishly scribbling into my notebook. I’ve taken along a new toy with me this trip, a GPS. I gave it a good go today smacking waypoints into it, for the Points of Interests that will eventually become the map for the book. It’s a great way to make sure the points are accurate and so much easier compared to marking up a paper map as I go (the tried and true old school way)

Well I better go – time to grab some dinner (with the notebook in hand) and then get back in time to catch The Hour on CBC and… (insert toilet water joke here)

Cheers
~Scott

Homeland Security

Greetings from 30,000ft – I’ve just finished my third consecutive ‘lunch’ and I’m cruising over George W territory with the plains of Texas unfolding beneath me. I’m in that jetlagged daze where I’m really not sure what time or day for that matter it is. I left in the morning, had dinner at 3am, woke up a couple hours later had breakfast, got on another plane and all of a sudden it’s 7pm. The need to sleep in a real bed is becoming an overwhelming urge – time to hit the internal control-alt-delete and reset the system into some for of circadian rhythm that resembles normalcy before the sleep monster gets me.

Travelling through the good old U, S and A has become a rather interesting prospect in this post 9-11 world. It seems that every time that I pass though America (3 times this year, so far) the thumbscrews are turned a notch or two tighter by the department of homeland security. Something new this time was an onboard announcement that passengers were forbidden to congregate in the plane outside of their seats. Apparently terrorists never manage to get seats together, or perhaps the cue for the toilet drives marginal characters right over the edge and the urge to auger the Airbus into a landmark outweighs the urge to evacuate their bladder and they just snap. Either way – there is to be no fraternization at any time while the doors are sealed. Just to be safe I didn’t utter a word to the person beside me on the Auckland to LA leg – 11hrs of complete silence… you’d think that would be more un-nerving?

But it didn’t stop once I was on terra-firma. Apparently the risk of terra was just as firma once you set foot on Yankee soil. It took a joyous 90minutes to get through passport control. When I finally got to the front of the line and had my turn – the immigration officer asked me if I could see his screen as he was typing away. I stood on my tippy toes, crained my neck and leaned in towards him. He looked at me like I was insane and I slinked back like a scolded child. “I’m not supposed to be able to screen am I?”
“No, you’re not.”
“Riiiiight.”
Luckily they let me go on through…

Wellll I betterrrrr save some batteries for a DVVVVVVVVVVD – the thoughhht – woah turbulence – sorry about that. Yeah time to tuck into a flick and get ready for ‘lunch’.
Cheers
~Scott

PS. Chase Jarvis's blog can be found at: http://chasejarvis.com/blog/

sorry for the omission in the last post.

BEHIND THE CURTAIN

As a guidebook author for Lonely Planet Guidebooks I’m often asked by friends and people I meet to explain how it is a guidebook comes to be made. Taking a page from my friend Chase Jarvis – who’s great blog (www.????) has done wonders to remove the mystery shrouded around commercial photography – I hope to do the same for travel writing.

So stay tuned and look out for an inside peak into my world. You’ll see what happens before I ever step on an airplane, what life is like on the road and what the reality of writing up a manuscript is all about. Sometimes you’ll envy my, sometimes you’ll pity me and more then anything you’ll get to know my world a whole lot better!

As I write this I’m sitting in a departure lounge at the Auckland Airport about to board a flight to LA. This time yesterday I’ll be in California, ready to board another flight to Miami. After spending a short night in a hotel I jump a morning plane to Provo in the Turks & Caicos Islands of the Caribbean. So this is all quite relevant – it’s going out live and happening right now…

So how does it all start???
The process of writing a guidebook – or commonly a portion of a book, starts months before I ever leave home or put pen to paper. As an LP author I’m privy to the publishing schedule so I can see the upcoming titles. As this schedule is updated books will appear on the horizon – inevitably there are books that spark my interest. The first step is to talk to the Commissioning Editor who is in charge of the book. I’ll email them and start a dialog on what the book is all about, what they require and what I can bring to the project. The process goes back and forth a few times and if it is deemed that the author and the project are a good match – the contracts are drawn up and it’s all systems go!

This is when the real work begins – the preparation phase of a guidebook is anything but glamorous – but invaluable for the final product. This prep can take many forms; most of it is pure research. The internet is a great source of information on destinations – articles from travel websites can be a great insight into what is happening in a destination, new trends or recent developments. Google Alerts are also a great resource – they funnel news and blog stories that have key words of your choosing. For example I’ve been able to read nearly every news story from a multitude of sources about the Turks & Caicos Islands – all delivered to my inbox.

In addition to the web – there is pure book research. I start by reading all of the competitor’s books to see what they’ve been up to and how to best the competitions’ books on the destinations. I also read books by notable authors from the place and just about anything else I can find – I’ve spent more time reading Conde Nest Traveller then I ever thought I would for this gig that’s for sure!

With all of that research in mind it’s time to make a plan. By getting a good idea of what is hot right now, what is old news and what might be cool soon I can start to plan my time. Time is always limited on the ground – there are miles to cover and knowing what is the plan for the next day is a HUGE help.

All that’s left to do is to do the normal prep work that the average traveller does before leaving home – that might include getting shots, getting one last haircut and a new button-down to try for that business class upgrade. But one thing to remember is that although I’m headed to supremely spectacular holiday destination – I am not there for a holiday. So I have a laptop in tow, a GPS to help with mapping, a digital camera to document everything, blank DVD’s to back up files, a flash drive for critical backups, hard copies of maps to update, the previous edition to help me get around, copies of other relevant materials, a compass to keep me from getting lost and a notebook that will hold all of my research data and will never leave my pocket till I get home.

So I better run – time to jump on that flight and try and get a few hours sleep. If I can’t there is always more prep work to be done – more articles to read and plans to formulate…

If all this sounds way too tough – don’t feel that bad – it is the Caribbean :)
Cheers
~Scott

the day that Evel died

goodbye evel - the world will miss you. What would the world be like today if it wasn't for Evel Kneviel? I just don't want to even think about it...

Though years of alcoholism and misogynistic rage was your ultimate end – your poetry, swagger and fantastic outfits will live on forever…

nobody ate shit into the pavement at 90mph like Evel did – nobody.

godspeed my friend - may all your landings be soft and you're throttle be pinned.

~Scott

Ultra-marathons are easy – you just don’t stop running…

This past weekend in between getting gear sorted (ie: sun cream and surf trunks) I took the trip down to Te Anau to watch and support friends who were competing in a classic adventure race. The Kepler Challenge is a fantastic event that I participated in last year – it’s a 60km mountain run in the wilds of Fjordland National Park. With over a 1km of altitude gain in the first half alone it’s not one to underestimate! Great fun was had by all – even those who ran the 60kms!

It was great to see young and old ‘competing’ in a race that 99% of the athletes are there for the awesome experience and not the victory. A couple of things to keep in mind for a bit of perspective – the winning time was a shade under 5hrs (most hikers take 3 or 4 DAYS to walk the track) and there was a competitor who has competed every year for the past 20 years!

Congrats to Christian for a stellar 18th place finish, Alice, with a 1hr30 min improvement on her PB to come a very enviable 8th place, and Mark for his great effort on the Luxmore Grunt – well done guys!

I’ll be out there next year – it was too hard watching all of the fun and not getting the chance to be out there amongst it too!

I better ‘RUN’
~Scott

Ps. This is a photo of the mayhem at the start – with 450 runners competing to get through the bottleneck at the start of the trail.

for more info on the race check out: http://www.keplerchallenge.co.nz/