Discovering Yourself Through Travel

On September 26, 2016September 26, 2016 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Colorado, Photo Challenge13 Comments

When we were young, we read stories and saw movies about Native Americans going on vision quests. A journey into the wilderness with nothing but a bow and arrow where they were to survive in the harshest of conditions until they would have visions of their ancestors who appeared in the form of an animal. That animal would become their spirit guide and would reveal to them their true selves. Images of venturing into the wild as a child only to return as an adult, while obviously more metaphoric than actual events, do have parallels to real life. We had a friend once tell us that you are not truly an adult until you live out of the state or country where your family resides. In many ways, that is true. Without the support system that family and friends can offer, you don’t always know what you are truly capable of.

We have found that the more that we have travelled and lived away from our family, away from childhood friends, in places where there is a distinct language barrier, the more that we have felt fulfilled. We won’t claim adulthood, even after over five decades of existence, but with every adventure we feel a little closer to discovering our own personal spirit guides. This week’s Daily Post Photo Challenge is Quest. In many ways, our desire to travel, to see the world unfiltered, to meet people from various cultures with beliefs that are not the same as our own, is our own vision quest. Perhaps it is a lifelong journey, not a week in the wilderness, but a journey spent discovering ourselves over and over again.

Since this is a photo challenge, we decided to use some photos from one of our hikes in the mountains of Colorado to reinforce the image of a vision quest. One could easily imagine that young Native American boy wandering into the forest to meet his spirit guide as an eagle, or a stag, or perhaps a wolf. Walking below the wide open skies and the stars at night, truly one with his world, one with nature. We may never achieve the complete connection to the world as he would have, but we will strive to do so with each and every travel experience. We hope you enjoy these visions from our hike as much as we did at the time that we experienced it first hand.

The Wildflowers of Colorado

On August 26, 2016 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn Colorado9 Comments

One of our favorite things about hiking during the summer in Colorado are all of the beautiful wildflowers. It doesn’t matter if we’re hiking in the mountains or just taking one of the various trails that run through the neighborhoods, there are wildflowers everywhere. There are so many different varieties and each are beautiful in their own ways. We especially like seeing them in the ruggedness of the mountains as it brings a splash of color to contrast all of the deep greens and browns.

Unfortunately, the growing season here is very short, so you can only find the wildflowers blooming from June through August. When they are blooming, though, they can be quite spectacular. They also bring with them some beautiful butterflies as well as bees. It is that time of year now when the nights start to get a little colder and there is a hint of autumn in the air already. Soon the wildflowers in the mountains will be covered with snow and go dormant until they return next summer.

We are hoping to get in a few more hikes before the wildflowers are gone and the scenery is replaced with changing of the leaves, which is also truly spectacular.

What is a Canopy Tour?

On August 19, 2016July 6, 2017 By Isobar ExpeditionsIn South America8 Comments

During our trip to Bolivia, we scheduled a canopy tour during our stay outside of the Carrasco National Forest. Perhaps it was just naivety on our part, but we thought that the canopy tour was going to be some sort of rope bridges strung from tree to tree for us to walk along and see the natural wonders of the rainforest. We knew that we were spending the night in an eco-lodge, so we packed minimally with the lightweight long pants, shirts, and hiking shoes. When we reached the lodge, our guide, Remy, asked whether we had shorts and sandals to wear. Sandals in the jungle? We didn’t have other shoes, but our pants could be converted to shorts.

We put our bag and our camera in our room as we were told that we couldn’t carry anything with us as we went into the jungle because we weren’t walking on bridges in the treetops, we were going zip-lining. Oh, and the reason we needed other shoes was because we had to hike through a stream to get there. There would also be an opportunity to swim in the river to cool off from the heat of the jungle when we were done. We looked at Remy and said, “this wasn’t in the brochure”. That would be our running joke throughout the rest of our trip whenever we encountered something unexpected.

We trudged through the river with water that was as high as our thighs at times. We couldn’t take our camera, but we handed one of our cell phones to Remy so that he could record our adventures. After about twenty minutes walking through the river, we came to a waterfall and the young boy from the lodge who was leading us to the zip-lining course climbed up and tossed a rope down for us. We were to climb up the waterfall using the rope. The trick we were told was to keep our stance wide, take small steps, and keep our hands in front of our feet. Sounds easy, right? We made it up, but there was some slipping along the way.

At this point, we were soaking wet, but felt we’d accomplished something, so we put a smile on our faces and kept going, surely it was going to get easier. Next we climbed up a steep hill and there were two cables that stretched from a tree to another tree on the other side of a ravine. The cables were about five feet apart, one high and one low. We had to cross the ravine by shuffling holding onto the upper cable while and shuffling our feet slowly on the lower cable. Trying not to look down, we wobbled across the ravine and fortunately no one fell, even with our wet shoes.

Next we came to rope hanging from a tree and Remy demonstrated that we were to get a running start and swing out on the rope over the edge of the cliff that was next to us. We were harnessed in, so we could let go of the rope and do tricks if we desired. Not part of the brochure, but we were resigned at this point to make the most of it and let ourselves have some fun with it. From there on it was your typical zip-lining adventure as we flew across huge canyons from one tree to another, like Tarzan swinging through the jungle. It was fun, but we were exhausted when it was over.

We hiked back to the lodge to get dinner and a glass of wine. We were going to be hiking in the jungle the next day and climbing into caves, so Remy had the idea to put our shoes next to the vent of the motor for the freezer, which pumped out warm air, which fortunately ended up drying our shoes over night. As we walked back to our room in our socks, we felt something itching our feet. Once in our room, we turned on the light and found our socks covered in ants, which were extremely hard to remove. It was quite a day, but definitely not what we were thinking we would be doing when we first saw that our two-day adventure included a canopy tour.