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A Setting Fit for a King (Croatia Part 1: Dubrovnik, Split and Hvar)

8/21/2014

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By Caitlin

PictureView of Dubrrovnik from our hostel
It would surprise no one that every year when the NYT publishes its “41 Places to See in 2014” (or whatever year it is), that I am always very excited to read it and commence travel-fantasizing. I think this is where I first read about Croatia as a “hot spot” of beautiful beaches where the celebs go to escape the overexposure of other amazing Mediterranean oases like Ibiza or Capri. Intrigued by a country I only knew of because of wars and refugees now considered a hot spot, I added Croatia to my mental list.

We spent about 17 days in Croatia, and we honestly could have spent much more time there; it blew us away with its natural beauty and history. At the bottom tip of over 4,000 kilometers of coastline, is Dubrovnik. An absolutely beautiful city on the sea, where the best vantage point may have been from up the hill in our (otherwise really crummy) hostel. The blue water and sky are nearly the same shade on a clear day. You really don't mind the drunk German teenagers blasting American country music when you can wake up to that view. Its perhaps the biggest tourist attraction in Croatia, beloved by Croatians and international travelers for good reason. 

The main thing to do in Dubrovnik is visit the Old Town which is surrounded by walls 25 m high and 6 m wide in places. The walls have been used as a fortress to protect the people inside since the 13th century, and even in the most recent war in 1991. We were surprised that during the 1991 Yugoslavian war, 68% of the Old Town houses, with their picturesque, matching red roofs, were destroyed or were damaged by shelling. Most of the roofs were repaired since then and it was hard to imagine such destruction and tragedy happened so recently, as thousands of tourists move through the city every day admiring the palaces, churches and cafes. Dubrovnik has so much history to spare that one of the old forts has a dance club in it at night. 

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The city walls of Dubrovnik, dating back as early as the 12th Century
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The old city of Dubrovnik
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The main street in the old city of Dubrovnik
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A dance club in a historic fort! (Club Revelin)

On a lighter note, we were giddy to learn that scenes from Game of Thrones were filmed here, including Dubrovnik as the setting for King's Landing. Too thrifty to spring for one of the official GOT tours, Google assisted us in nerding-out. For those who watch Game of Thrones, you know how beautiful King's Landing is and can see why we were so amazed by Dubrovnik.

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Dubrovnik, Croatia
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Dubrovnik, Croatia
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After Dubrovnik, we moved on to Split, another gorgeous city on the coast, and Hvar, an island known for its lavender fields and party scene. Split features Diocletian's Palace, the home of the Roman Emperor in the 3rd century. Hvar, one of the thousands of islands on the Croatian coast, was bursting with bars and parties. We saw so many gleaming yachts in one place that even Kanye would be impressed. We enjoyed the vibe, sticking to the quieter beaches and renting a boat to explore the small islands across the channel. (Captain Jed returns!). 


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Split, Croatia
Having heard a lot of people rave about Croatia, we were a bit skeptical about how great this place really could be. It was beyond all expectations and one of the most beautiful countries we have visited. We imagined an up-and-coming, but struggling post-war nation and indeed, the recent and historic conflicts are still fresh for Croatians, who are often reluctant to discuss it. However, the areas we saw are built-up with clean streets and super trendy bars and restaurants that could belong in Miami or Paris. As it has become a vibrant tourist destination, the prices have gone up too and it is definitely no longer a bargain vacation. The number of people visiting Croatia in August was unbelievable, but not hard to comprehend once we saw how beautiful it is. I guess I'm not the only one who has her finger on the World's Hot Spots. ;-)


Here are some pictures from Dubrovnik, Split and Hvar (Click to enlarge):
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A Change to our Viking (Sweden and Denmark)

8/13/2014

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Stockholm, Sweden - By Caitlin

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Cobblestones, church spires and cafes galore! We embarked on our newest continent in mid-July: Europe. We were sad to leave Africa, but the familiarity of Stockholm, Sweden was a welcome back to our usual comforts. At first, we were still skeptical of luxuries like tap water and continued to sterilize it, which is laughable considering their tap water is probably cleaner than ours in Chicago. Our bus from the airport had faster wifi than nearly anywhere we had been in Africa. Talk about culture shock.

Stockholm was our first European stop and we included it mainly because a high school friend of mine, Ben, and his fiance Val, have been living there for the last two years. We were fortunate enough to benefit from their Stockholm tips and tricks and we had a blast reminiscing and learning about life in Sweden. Stockholm is a city of islands connected by bridges and scattered with beautiful parks. I started to wonder if “picnic” was a Swedish word because everyone seemed to be enjoying wine and snacks in the parks on blankets. We did our best Swedish impression and had a picnic ourselves (i.e. an American cookout) with Ben and Val and a few others. They introduced us to a Swedish game, Kuub, played on the lawn, and is like bowling or cornhole, but much more complicated (those Swedes are sophisticated right down to their lawn games!).

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Pop Shot bball champ with her prize, a Chicago Bulls bear
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By one of the many canals in Stockholm
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With our lovely hosts, Ben and Val
Between the extensive public transport and renting bikes, we covered a lot of ground in Stockholm, opting for exploring the city on our own instead of doing many touristy things. I missed the famed Vassa musuem, but that only leaves me an excuse to go back. Our favorite spots in Stockholm were the hip Sodermalm neighborhood, Djurgarden, a large park with bike paths and beaches and the quaint Grona Lund amusement park. Stockholm was lovely and while it saw the demise of Jed's attempt at facial hair (RIP JedBeard) it was a great kickoff to our Europe leg. Thanks to Ben and Val, our wonderful hosts, who made us Swedish pancakes with lingonberries for the train ride to Copenhagen. What an amazing treat!

Copenhagen, Denmark - By Jed

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Our other scandanavian stop was Copenhagen, which was a bit of a homecoming for me; I spent a semester abroad there in law school. I had come to view Copenhagen as a great place to live, but not necessarily a great place to be a tourist since I did not think there were a ton of touristy things to do. Turns out when you squeeze a bunch of sites and activities into a few days instead of a few months, it definitely feel like there is a lot more to do!

While the “Little Mermaid” statute, one of Copenhagen's most well-known tourist attractions still disappointed 5 years later (it is literally smaller than I am), I really enjoyed the rest Copenhagen had to offer. There were some of the old favorites, including Nyhavn (a picturesque street by the port with multi-colored, historic houses), Stroget (the pedestrian only shopping street) and Christiana (a weird, squatter-run section of town that has declared itself an independent land). There were also some new areas that I had not been to in the past, such as a very cool 17h century church (Church of our Saviour) which has a spiral staircase on the outside of its towering steeple, and the lovely Norreboro neighborhood by the water.

We were also treated to a lovely evening and home-cooked meal from my local Danish friend, Gunilla and her family. It was amazing to get a home-cooked meal, as it had been many months. It's really nice to get a true local taste of a country and have a more authentic local experience. I hope we can get to do more authentic experiences like this on the rest of our travels.

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View from top of Church of our Saviour
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Our Danish friends and wonderful hosts
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I don't know anything about this staute, but I like it
All in all, I was a bit surprised by how much I enjoyed my return. Copenhagen, like Stockholm, is a very modern, quaint, clean and enjoyable Scandanavian city. A number of things had changed, but a lot has also stayed the same, including my favorite cheap meal, 7-11 Chicken sticks (I know it sounds gross, but people actually eat the food at the 7-11s here because they are much nicer...and everything here in Copenhagen is so expensive!). Looking forward to returning again sometime soon...
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Primate Party - Video (Uganda)

8/6/2014

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Here is a little video as a follow-up to our blog post about our chimp and gorilla treks.  Click on the image below to play the video:
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Primate Party (Uganda)

8/3/2014

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By Jed

After a trip to the Serengeti, you would think we would be a bit sick of seeing animals, but our trip to Uganda was based around seeing some animals. However, these are a very unique set of animals that can only be found in a couple regions of the world: the endangered Mountain Gorillas and Chimpanzees.

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Mountain Gorillas – Bwindi Impenetrable Forrest


There are currently less than 900 mountain gorillas in the world and they can only be found in Uganda, Rwanda and the Congo. They do not survive in captivity, so it is not even possible to see a mountain gorilla in a zoo. The parks take the conservation of the gorillas very seriously and the permit to go into the park is ridiculously expensive (but at least is supposedly used to fund the protection and conservation of the gorillas). Once you find the gorillas, you are only allowed approximately one hour to observe them and take pictures before you have to leave, so as not to disrupt them too much.



To say the park is remote would be an understatement. It is an 11 hour drive from the airport in Kampala, the last few hours of which are up a makeshift dirt road up a mountain. Then to get to the park itself, it is another hour plus hike up the mountain. On our scheduled permit day, we arrived at the park and were split into small tracking groups...we were placed into a group of four. Each group is assigned a different family of gorillas to find (each family ranges from about 9-20 gorillas). The rangers know where the gorillas were the previous day, but they can move 10+miles in a day, so they need to be found again. A group of professional trackers get out into the jungle early to try to find each family. It can take anywhere from 1-6 hours after we enter the jungle to find them. Fortunately for us, after about an hour and a half of us hiking through the woods, we got the call that our family had been spotted.

They don't call it the “impenetrable” forest for nothing. Our guides led the way, slashing branches and vines with machetes, but that didn't help much as we tripped and stumbled over VERY dense brush. It is hard to describe, but basically it felt like you were right smack dab in the middle of a giant shrub at every moment. Everyone slipped and fell at least once and fortunately did not fall over one of the giant cliffs that dotted the landscape. When we finally arrived, we were immediately greeted by a giant, 550lb silverback gorilla in a tree. The silverback is the adult male and there is usually 1 or 2 per family. He was an impressive thing to watch. The jungle was so dense though, that when he climbed down from the trees, we couldn't see much. During our hour, in addition to the giant silverback, we also were treated to a tiny baby gorilla struggling to climb a tree, a juvenile having some fun pounding his chest at us (apparently they really do do that) and got to see 4-5 other members of the family. It was great watching these rare, gigantic animals in nature.

Here are some photos of the gorillas.  Click on any picture to bring up a larger photo gallery:
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Hiking up to the forest
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The "impenetrable" forest. Note the Obama backpack
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Check out that belly
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Chimpanzees – Kibale National Park

This was supposed to be the appetizer of the trip because the chimpanzees are not as rare as the mountain gorillas and often are skittish and hide way up in the trees, but actually this ended up being an even better experience than seeing the gorillas. We had heard from past stories that it can take several hours and hiking for many miles to see the chimps, and even then you might only get to see 1 or 2 chimps from a distance, but we really lucked out on our trek. As soon as we entered the jungle, the chimps could be heard hollering loudly. The sounds the chimps make was really quite overwhelming... and slightly intimidating. As we approached the raucous group, we found a few that were hanging out on the ground and let us get within a few feet of them. Then the leader of the group arrived with a few of his friends and the place went nuts. There were over 40 chimps around us, screaming their heads off, running back and forth past us, climbing up and down trees and swinging from branch to branch. You really felt like you were a part of their community with all the noise and commotion going on around you. One of the guides that is with us has a heavy duty machine gun, as the chimps are much stronger than us (5-6 times stronger), so they make sure things don't get too out of hand.

Here are some pictures of the chimps...click to enlarge:

Although both experiences were really enjoyable, being able to get so close to the large group of active chimps really made it stand out. The pictures here obviously don't express what the noise was like, but I am working on a video compilation that should be ready in the near future, so check back!
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