Snorkeling In Lembongan by Griffin

On Wednesday my family took a snorkeling trip to three different bays around Lembongan (an island off the coast of Bali.) We woke up early and rushed to the beach with our cameras and bathing suits. Our boat driver led us to our boat and we hopped in. The next half an hour was spent riding the waves with a lot of salt water in our faces. Our clothes were already drenched before we reached Manta Ray Bay.

My dad jumped in first to be our shark tester, “No sharks” so we all jumped in. Manta ray Bay had dark murky water with no coral just sand. It was ominus and creepy and when our boat driver said “manta ray to your left” I got really freaked out. We swam as fast as we could, hopeful that we would beat the other tourists. And we did,  two big manta rays about 20 feet away glided in the water like birds in the air. They were beautiful and scary all at the same time. But they eventually glided away and we started looking for a new one.  My dad tapped me on the shoulder and I turned around just in time to see a manta ray swim right past us. It had two front bulbs jutting out of its head and its tail you can imagine was long and scary. After a while we got back in our boat and rode to Gamat Bay.

                                         

This bay was known for its fish and this was right. Tons of different fish crowded around in schools as we dove to admire them. They were all different sizes and colors. And I kept on thinking there was a shark waiting to eat all of them. But I got more used to the mysterious water and had a great time looking at the fish. The third bay was called Crystal Bay meaning the coral. This Bay was mind blowing!  I have been to Hawaii many times and there is some coral there but not much due to sea level rise. Crystal Bay however had so much coral there was no sand.  Everywhere you would look different pieces of coral would be swaying or standing stiff in so many colors like blue,  green, pink, purple, red, yellow, brown and so many more. I have never seen this much coral! We never wanted to leave but sadly by three o'clock we had to get back on the boat and go home.

                                               

This was an amazing day with all the things I saw and experienced. From the coral, to the fish, to the manta rays, and even our wobbly boat this was an amazing day and if you ever go to Lembongan make sure to snorkel!

                                           

Authenticity, by Colleen

I was lucky enough to travel around Greece, Turkey, Israel, and Egypt for several months post-college.  One of my travel buddies was of Greek heritage, and as a result, we got to stay on a tiny Greek island sleeping on his great aunt’s roof, after she met us at the ferry in her babushka outfit crying and babbling in Greek at meeting my friend for the first time.  Truly we were the only Americans on this tiny island, and basically had Greeks, donkeys, and the Mediterranean Sea for company.  One of our other traveling companions had emigrated to the US and come to our high school from Beirut so spoke Arabic. Traveling with him around Egypt, Turkey and Israel was fantastic because he could really gain us entry to non-tourist experiences simply by being able to speak the language.  We felt like “insiders” and scoffed at “tourists” with their huge cameras and knee socks and tour busses.  We were having Authentic Travel Experiences.

I loved the middle east - the people in Turkey and Egypt were among the most hospitable, open, friendly people I have ever encountered.  I loved the call to prayer at 5am, I loved having apple tea in carpet shops while chatting with young Arab men (admittedly, not too many women were seen anywhere but the marketplaces or doing laundry), I loved the art and architecture.  I loved being invited by the guide who helped us climb to the top of the Great Pyramid at Cheops (no, not legal), into his home to meet his wife and children.  I told myself that no matter what, I would return there some day.

But that was 1992, almost a full decade before 9/11.  And when we were planning this trip, I so badly wanted to include Turkey and Egypt on our itinerary, but I’ll be honest when I say I was just too afraid.  Too many bombings, too crazy president, too much unrest.  And I felt sad to not show the kids another side to Islamic culture, a counter to the media representations of terrorists and our president’s shameful comments and ridiculous travel bans.  So when Greg said we could fly through Dubai, I thought WOW!  At least we will be able to have a brief introduction to this amazing culture, I can show the kids a glimmer of what I had seen decades earlier.

But planning a 24 hour layover, how can you have a really “authentic” experience? And what does that even mean anymore?  Pre-internet, it used to be that you’d roll into a town armed with your Lonely Planet guidebook and figure it out as you went.  You had to talk to locals, maybe get a referral to someone’s cousin brother’s hostel or to his aunt’s restaurant. Now we've got Trip Advisor, travel blogs, and Air B&B and everything seems pre-packaged and, well, almost predetermined.  Nevertheless, I will admit I jumped into Trip Advisor with glee to sort out some fun, if not necessary authentic, experiences for our quick stop. 

Dubai is a city in a desert, quite literally built on oil.  Oil was discovered in 1966, and a mere 5 years later, the UAE was born.  Its population is only 20% citizens, the rest are immigrants and expats.  Commerce is king; it boasts the largest mall in the world, as well as the tallest skyscraper.  Environmentally, it is incredibly forward thinking, pledging to generate 75% of its energy from renewable resources by 2050 (and we pulled out of the Paris Accords and have an EPA chief who denies global warming?  Hmmmmm) It is seriously over the top so of course, we chose to go to Aquaventure Water Park, an enormous water park in the midst of the Arabian Desert.  And even 12 year old Griffin wondered “how do they get this much water in a desert?”   

But what an amazing place!  Yes, it’s much cooler than Wild Waves.  But water rides and lazy rivers aside, I had never seen such a diverse group of people in one place. Women in full on burka-style bathing suits floating next to tan blond Aussie girls in string bikinis.  Throngs of Indian families in colorful old timey bathing suits on lounge chairs next to huge groups of African women with their hair tied up in kente cloth.  Plump and sunburned Germans chatting with young international hipsters of unknown origin.  It was incredible!  So maybe I wasn’t hanging out with Bedouins (the government had provided them all with free homes, education, and health care so they no longer lived a nomadic lifestyle), but wasn’t this authentic?  Wasn’t this a microcosm of modernity, at least in a middle eastern city dedicated to commerce and built on oil revenues?

Determined to make the most of our 24 hours, we went from water park to desert safari!  We were picked up at the water park by our driver Saeed, driven out to the desert where we went 4 wheeling in jeeps all over the dunes.  The kids LOVED it, and I have to say it was exhilarating to be cruising over dunes in the middle of nowhere fearing that you may roll at any moment!  This was followed by a falcon show, as apparently the royal family are fans of hunting with falcons, and the bedouins used to hunt with falcons before they were granted the aforementioned free homes. This was followed by more 4-wheeling, and then over to the Bedouin “camp” for sand boarding, camel riding, hookah-smoking (no, the kids were not allowed), a lamb BBQ, and a belly dance show.  I think the idea was to educate tourists regarding Arab ways of life long passed.  I was torn, as here I was engaging in the type of cheesy pre-packaged experience that I once mocked.  But the kids loved it, and I once again struggled with what I was exposing them to, what they were really learning from all of this, and what type of experiences are “worthy” to have on this year long journey. 

As we watched the sunset over the dunes in the Arabian desert with about 100 other tourists chatting away (fantastic fodder for my “Selfies Around the World” project), I told the kids about the time I rode a camel out into the desert from Cairo to Saqqara and slept in the Bedouin camp under stars so bright the sky almost looked like day.  And I hope they get to have Authentic Travel Experiences like that one day.  Fingers crossed for them.

Croatian Horseback Riding, by Rowan

It was the first day in the two months that we had been gone that we saw rain. Coincidentally, it was also the day that we had planned to go horseback riding. My mom decided to stay behind because she didn’t want to ride in the rain, but my dad, my brother, and I bundled up, and hopped in a car. We drove to a little restaurant that google maps said was the horse ranch, turned around, decided that turning around wasn’t going to get us to the ranch, turned back, and drove on from the little restaurant. We finally got to a field with four or so horses in a stable. We pulled up into the muddy grass, just as a tall man in a cowboy hat came jogging up to us. He introduced himself as Tomo. The rain had become a drizzle by then so none of us were worried about riding in the rain. Tomo introduced us to his stable hands, all 14 or 15, who were internshipping for the summer, and got to ride the horses in return for doing the chores. 

We spent half an hour or so deciding which horse to pick, discussing trail rides, and how long we wanted to ride for. We decided that two and a half hours would be enough, and all saddled up. My horse was named Zena, dad’s was Grete, and Griffin’s was Socole. My horse was tall and a dark brown, and Tomo told us that she was the “queen”, of the group. Dad’s horse was a little short, a chestnut color with a white strip on her forehead and some white dots on her hooves. Griffin’s horse was so short, she looked like a pony covered in little grey specks. 

We had been riding for about thirty minutes when the first attack happened. Zena struck. Apparently Zena was used to being in front, and a leader. She was upset because Tomo placed her in the back of the line. The order was Tomo, Griffin, Dad, and then me. Zena was being a little bit stubborn, and she wouldn’t listen to any of my commands, I had to be very firm with her to get even the tiniest bit of movement. She got more and more irritable, when suddenly… she bit Grete, dad’s horse! Right in the butt. So naturally, Grete kicked her leg out and hit Zena, and Zena wasn’t too happy about that. Zena decided she was fed up with being in a line, and started to trot ahead in front of Tomo, which didn’t please the cowboy. He yelled at her and wrapped her on the butt, and she fell back into line. 

An hour or so later, we were heading back to the ranch, and Zena was in the back again. This time, Socole was in front of her. Socole was tiny, and she wasn’t as big as a threat to Zena as Grete was, so Zena thought that made it okay to bite Socole. Zena continued to bite Socole about every five seconds as if saying, “come on let's bolt!”. But Socole actually listened to Tomo, and wouldn’t move out of line, and by then I had gotten used to Zena’s little tricks, so I could keep her in line. But now I had to stop her from gnawing off a chunk of my brother’s horse’s butt.

Finally, Tomo said that the horses could let off some steam and we could trot, but only trot, because it had started to rain again. We had just started to pick up the pace when in front of me I see Grete, dad’s horse, stop. Then, she bucked, and dad flew off of the side of Grete, onto his back. Grete cantered away to a more secluded part of a field next to us and started to graze, apparently done with trail riding. Dad wasn’t hurt and wasn’t upset at all, but was laughing because the whole time he had been talking about how he used to vault, which means doing gymnastics on horseback. Obviously, vaulting doesn’t prepare you enough for 37 or so years later riding stubborn horses. After that fun encounter, it started coming down. It was so so wet and cold, and we still had half an hour left. By the time we got back to the ranch, we smelled, looked awful, and were freezing. But the entertainment the last two hours had presented us with was so worth it. 

Truffle Hunting, by Griffin

                              

Truffles are a delicacy in the USA, mostly because they don't grow in America. There are only a couple of places where you can find good truffles, including Croatia, France, Italy, New Zealand, and Australia.  My family went to the Motovun forest in Istria, Croatia to truffle hunt. Our guide, Nickoli, told us all about it. The first thing is that you can't  truffle hunt without dogs because they have a great sense of smell and can smell a truffle a meter deep in dirt. Truffle hunters used to hunt with pigs, but they ate the truffles that they found. There are two kinds of truffles, black and white, though I personally think they both smell like barf.  They grow underground and are a type of fungus called Ascomycete. Truffles have to live close to a tree root, the biological term for this is ectomycorrhizal. The trees include Beech, Birch, Hazel, Hornbeam, Oak, and Pine.

                                          

As you know, dogs play a huge roll in truffle hunting, but they don't just learn overnight. It can take many years to train a dog to truffle hunt. Truffle hunters have different tactics to training their dogs. Any dog can become a truffle hunter, it doesn't matter about the breed.  Our truffle hunter explained that he puts truffle on the mother's teat so when the puppy drinks the mother's milk it gets used to the taste of truffles. This is important because normally a dog doesn't like the taste of truffles. Any dog can learn how to hunt truffles it just takes time. When the dogs are puppies you teach them to use their noses to search for truffles by putting truffle on their toys or just hiding a truffle and urging them to find it. Our guide, Nikoli, usually takes three dogs out with him each session, and can spend two to three hour hunting for truffles with his dogs. When his dogs find something Nickoli tells the dog to dig. Then, when a truffle is shone the hunter looks over the truffle and then gives a little truffle to all the dogs. Even who did not contribute get a reward so all the dogs can learn to work together and be successful.

                                         

Truffles can be made into many different things including truffle oil, truffle paste, truffle with pasta, truffles with bread, salad with truffles, and truffle soup. The list is endless! People have been eating truffles for a long time, we still don't know a lot about them. We know that they are fungi and they grow near roots. We think we know what climate they grow in, but then the climate changes and it's the best truffle year ever. It's a hard job to have because sometimes the truffles don’t grow in a certain period of time and you have no income. Typically the white truffle is more expensive than the black. White truffles are typically 3,000 to 5,000 euros per kilogram and the black are usually around  2,000 euros. Truffle hunters sell truffles at markets and to restaurants.  Some people even ship truffles to other countries.

                                            Extra info:

Australian Black Winter Truffle (Tuber Melanosporum): June-August

Black Burgundy Truffles (Tuber Uncinatum): September- November

White Truffle (Tuber Magnatum Pico): October- December

Black Winter Truffle (Tuber Melanosporum): November-March

Getting from A to B in Croatia (Greg)

Well, transit here aint all that different from anywhere else.  And yet, of course, it’s got some quirks.  Being a slightly less than diligent planner, I’ve been schooled a bit in things I probably should have known, and a few I still can’t fathom.  So, to save any other subpar planners out there, here are a few tips on getting from A to B in Croatia.  

First lesson/reminder has been to ask, ask, ask.  I usually get a different answer from each person I ask.  Actually, that’s true been true of just about everything in Croatia, but especially with the buses.  In one town, I had five people point me to five completely different bus stop locations in the space of three blocks.  I finally found an actual bus - at yet a different spot.  That bus wasn’t on any schedule I’d seen, print or online, and no one seemed to know about it.  But when I asked the driver where I should wait he said:  “Sure, I take you.”  I asked when, and he shrugged and said: “now.”  (Me) “How much?”  (Him)  Shrug, “70 kuna,” shrug again, “50.”  So I went. …  I was the only one the bus for the next hour and a half.  Seemed like a pretty straightforward thing - driver makes a little pocket cash on an unofficial run.  But then he stopped and picked up a few more people who were clearly waiting.  So how did they know about the bus?

Anyway, there are multiple bus companies in Croatia.  And while they generally all go through the central bus station in the bigger cities, it’s, again, better to ask 10 people.  For example, it turns out Split has a completely different main bus station for routes leaving the city and the “city” buses, which incidentally do go to other cities that must be, what? close?  Also, even though they are completely separate companies, there’s often just one company kiosk looking like the sole official bus company at the city station - but they can only sell you tickets on their line. So where do you buy tickets for the other buses at the same station?  .. just keep asking

Luggage on Croatian buses is sometimes an extra fee and sometimes not.  Seems to have more to do with whether the driver feels like getting out of his seat.  I thought it might be a scam so I tried to pay at the “official” ticket window and was told:  no, you can only pay the driver for luggage and we (i.e, the company ticket office) have no idea whether or how much it costs.  So, just like anywhere else … be nice to your driver, eh.

Renting a car is pretty straightforward and you can find good deals.  Roads are pretty good and the main toll roads are about 1 kuna / kilometer.  But if you’re renting watch out for the one way drop off fee.  $150 in country was the going rate when I looked.

Ferries are a whole different  ball game.  The official company, Jadrolinija, has its own site, and the agencies or consolidators that pop up in online searches don’t have all the smaller routes (and charge more).  But the site is funky.  You can eventually find the posted schedule for any line, but won’t necessarily be able to buy.  On our last ferry ride, the online schedule had shown no sailing the day we needed.  But then I did a search to buy a ticket, and of course that day came up.  I then tried to book online and got a note to call or email.   Refreshingly, I actually got a personal response by emailing, and the person kept answering my questions.  Turns out that you can’t book online too close to sailing.  But the smaller ferries without cars are called catamarans (they are in fact catamarans, and apparently it’s bad form to call them ferries when speaking to a live person but of course they are still listed as “ferries” online) and you can have both on the same route.  But the cats don’t seem to allow online booking, and some of the non-catamaran ferries only take reservations for cars, and so may show fully as fully booked even though you can still walk on.  

Overnight ferries, especially too or from another country, are again a whole different world.  Those you can and should book ahead if you want an actual cabin to sleep in.  If you miss that, the options will be either just general space on deck, or a reserved “reclining” seat.  But the recliners are already in an ever so slightly reclining position.  I.e., they do not move.  Also, the room with the reclining seats is (in summer) ungodly hot and the lights stay on.  Not surprisingly we were almost all alone in our “reserved” reclining seats, until about 2:00 am when a few drunks wandered down and and took a seat to snore away for a few hours.  No reservation needed for that I guess.

Colleen wrote about this before, but turns out that what everyone else does is to buy a general seating ticket and then head to the bar, which has couches.  It’s loud (it’s a bar on a night boat after all).  But people aren’t bashful about claiming an entire couch and sleeping in the midst of the shouting 14 - 24 year olds.  In fact, the smart ones all rushed up to the bar to stake out their couches before we could figure out what was happening.  So, lesson learned.  If you can’t get a cabin, treat the overnight ferry like the day after Christmas sale at Fry’s.  Get there early, shove your way to the front of the line, and when the doors open, sprint like hell for the bar, and guard a couch like a junk yard dod.  Then drink yourself silly so you can sleep through the young hooligans.  

Boat Week, by Rowan

On Saturday, we met Rodco, our skipper. The start of our boat trip excursion started there, in a little marina on the coast of Split, Croatia. We hauled all of our bags to the boat, it took us a good two hours to set sail, but we finally started going. The ship was around 30 or so feet long. It had three bedrooms, a kitchen with a stove, broken fridge, a booth nailed to the floor, and two extremely stinky bathrooms. You could also sit up top by the wheel, or at the very front, which we did a lot because once or twice we all succumbed to the seasickness. We had to learn to, “not go down, is bad for your stomach”, as Rodco liked to say.

Anyway, the first night we sailed for about three or so hours, getting used to the boat and attempting to actually sail, not motor. We finally got to a little bay where maybe 5 or so boats were already anchored. By this time it was around nine o'clock. Rodco had promised us a swim, so we got into our suits and kind of clung to each other while Rodco jumped. This wasn’t the smartest decision on the Butwartz part, but Griffin decided to watch Jaws the night before we left, and we ended up all coming over to watch it. Now, on the actual boat, we were standing there freaking out because the water was pitch black and we were sure a huge shark was going to eat us all if we went in. Eventually, I caved and jumped first. The rest of the family jumped after that, though Griffin would always jump and then immediately climb back onto the boat, screaming, “SHARK!!”.

The next morning, we woke up and met up with Della, Vance, Jen, and Miles. They are old friends who had done the same trip around the world three years before when Miles and Griffin were in third grade and Della and I were in sixth. We all had breakfast, and then swam for half the day, talking and catching up. The eight days went something like that. Waking up and swimming, then either hiking, sailing, play games, or swimming some more. Then finding our way to a quiet bay, eating some dinner, swimming again, and then falling asleep. It was an adventure because every day we could do whatever we wanted. We found this one restaurant with Miles and Della’s family, along with their skipper, Vlaho, where we got a huge lamb on four platters, and ate almost all of it.

On the day of my birthday, August 9, Rodco had gotten this little old Croatian lady to bake me a cake and send it to a restaurant in the town we were staying. We had just finished eating our dinner, and a new waiter brings a giant chocolate cake out, it was super gorgeous, but all I could look at was Rodco’s huge saucer eyes, staring at the waiter. We had just finished our pieces of cake when Rodco grabbed his phone, pulled up a picture, and whisper shouted, “OUR WAITER IS KOKO”. We kind of all stared at him for a second, I mean Rodco was crazy but now we all thought that that he was actually crazy. We all must’ve looked very confused so he explained that Koko’s adventures was a very famous kids’ movie series, and that they were the most watched kids’ movies in Croatia. When “Koko” came to give us the check Rodco asked for his autograph, he said yes, but then he asked for my name. I said Rowan, and he wrote a little note and gave me a signed piece of paper. Rodco was confused and then asked, “um can I have one too?”. My fourteenth birthday turned out to be a pretty memorable experience.

Thoughts on an overnight ferry from Italy to Croatia, by Colleen

We had a hellish night on an overnight ferry from Ancona, Italy to Zadar, Croatia.  It was unanticipated as our experiences on the Italian overnight ferries were more like cruise ship experiences, with cocktails served immediately upon embarking, overpriced but good Italian food, and comfortable clean cabins with showers.

Not so with the Croatian ferry company!  The cabins were all booked so we had to make due with the "reclining chairs" ferry section (which Greg really did pay extra for) and I assume something was lost in translation because the chairs definitely did NOT recline. Oddly, the glaring florescent lights were also kept on all night, I think the idea was to encourage people to pay more for this type of chair, but to actually torture them into remaining awake between departure at 10pm and arrival at 6am. The best part was awakening to a woman's smelly feet literally in my face, as she had pushed them through the gap in the seats from behind me.  

Apparently, the Croatian ferry bars stay open all night so we were roused in the wee hours by gaggles of young Croatian men "singing" (or yelling / slurring) some hilarious American pop music.  We apparently did not receive the memo that the thing to do on a Croatian ferry upon embarking was to immediately run to the top floor and stake out the couches in the bars and "jazz club" so that you had a nice flat surface upon which to lay your weary head.  Amazingly, people were literally snoring on what looked like comfortable couches, despite the blaring music and drunk young travelers reveling. So I will chalk this one up to "adventure," as opposed to "fun."  

I did have lots of time to think, though, and created a few lists:

Things I miss about home:

1. Shower stalls that are larger than 12 inches by 12 inches and actually drain
2. Sitting at a cafe enjoying a coffee or cocktail without being completely engulfed in cigarette smoke
3. Efficiency
4. Not feeling stupid all the time due to my abhorrent lack of language skills
5. Summer in Seattle by Greenlake, Lake Washington, and Golden Gardens, and camping at Icicle Creek
6. Girlfriends and talking to people other than my immediate family (this is perhaps actually #1)

Things I do not miss about home 

1. Trump
2. Tweets from Trump
3. Trump firing people every 10 minutes
4. More news stories about Trump
5. Driving in Seattle traffic
6. Constantly running from one thing to the next thing
7. Not being able to swim in the warm sea, which is heaven