The Periapex » Travel

Back From the Galapagos Islands.

Periapex — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:51:23 +0000

We’re back from our 11 day trip to Ecuador (Quito, the capital city, and the Galapagos islands). The most difficult part of preparing for the trip was deciding what photographic equipment to take with me. The Girl insisted that we carry my 180mm macro lens, which I never ended up using.

What I did end up using was my brother’s Crumpler Whickey and Cox camera/laptop backpack, his 70-200mm f/4, my 17-40mm f/4 and 24-105mm f/4, 1 light stand, 1 shoot through umbrella, 1 580EX II flash, my SD500 compact with underwater case, and of course the 5D II. Add in assorted gels, filters, blower brush, lens pen, and wireless triggers, and there was barely enough room for clothes.

Luckily for us we didn’t need a lot of fancy clothes.

We toured the islands as part of a GAP Adventures group. There were 15 of us tourists in the group and GAP gave us duffel bags to repack our suitcase contents into. This made for much easier travel between islands.

The trip was an extremely active adventure full of hiking, biking, and snorkelling. The weather cooperated, the animals posed for photo ops, and our assorted bangs, bruises, and electrocutions were minor issues compared to our rewards for enduring them.

Not only did we luck out with all of that, but our group leaders were absolutely fantastic.

I’m slowly posting pictures of the trip to flickr. The lack of high-speed at home means that it’ll take at least a couple of weeks for all of them to get there, but as you’ll be able to understand once you see some of the shots, I’m glad that I carted all of that camera equipment around with me.

The islands truly do live up to their nickname, “The Enchanted Islands”. Their enchantments will remain with me for as long as I live and I’m pleased to see that the Ecuadorian government is taking extreme measures to preserve the biologic uniqueness of which the islands boast.

At some point in the near future, I’m sure we will all be able to look at the stewardship of these islands as an example of how we should all live and interact with the world about us.

Office Trip 2008: Punta Cana.

Periapex — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 15:03:08 +0000

And…we’re back.

In fact, we’ve been back for a while now, but I just haven’t been able to find the time to be on the Internet as much as usual. This is because of work and dancing, but mostly because of the Dog Whisperer. Cesar Millan has captured our interest to the point where we’ve been working diligently with his techniques and have been achieving amazing results. This all stemmed from a simple question which was posed to us at the Humane Society, “Cattle dogs can be very aggressive. How will you manage her if she becomes increasingly aggressive over time?”. We had no answer of substance. Now we do. More on this in the future.

Our office trip to Punta Cana in the Domincan Republic was loads of fun as we expected. We stayed at the Majestic Colonial resort over there:

The next vacation that The Girl and I will be taking is still in the planning phase, but will be a more adventurous trip somewhere on the continent of my birth. I’m looking forward to that one later this year.

St. Lucia Video.

Periapex — Tue, 26 Feb 2008 23:44:00 +0000

I’ve finally finished editing our video of our St. Lucia vacation over the week of Christmas.

The Case of the Almost Deadly Rum Punch.

Periapex — Sat, 02 Feb 2008 15:31:58 +0000

Anaphylaxis (severe allergic reaction): Life-threatening allergic reaction when cells in the body’s respiratory system swell causing the victim to suffocate. The immediate treatment is the use of adrenalin (epinephrine) to counteract the effects- this is usually given as an injection.¹

It was a typically beautiful afternoon in St. Lucia. We had parked ourselves on a couple of lounge chairs near the pool bar and were soaking in the atmosphere.

Looking at our empty cups, I wandered over to the bar and noticed that the drink of the day was rum punch. I’m not a “punchy” guy, but the description listed at least 4 different fruits and 3 different liquors in the drink. It looked interesting so I asked for a couple glasses of the concoction.

The drink went down pretty easily and fairly quickly. We started dozing off again.

It must have been about 10 minutes afterwards that my nose started to itch and run a bit…as it does when my seasonal allergies kick in. I started sneezing.

Hmm. That was strange for my allergies to start up so suddenly. I looked around and saw that we were parked right beside a number of shrubs and so I figured that one of them must have just spewed some pollen in my direction. I tried to return to my nap.

Over the next half hour, my symptoms didn’t improve but instead marginally worsened. The sun was heating up and so we decided to return to the room to continue our nap there (this was our typical daily routine).

We fell asleep on the bed.

Maybe it was an hour into that nap that I realized that I was tossing around quite a bit. I opened my eyes and found that I couldn’t breath through my nose at all. I can’t remember a time in my past when I have been as severely congested. I had to breath through my mouth. Even with all of the congestion my nose was still running.

I sat up in bed. I was becoming a little concerned now.

That’s when I noticed that my lip felt a little itchy. Hmm. Not only my lip but one of my eyes. I touched my lip then my eye. My lip, then my eye started to swell.

It slowly started to dawn on me that I was undergoing more than a pollen allergy here.

I ran to the mirror and looked at myself. My lip was now almost twice it’s usual size (and it’s already large to begin with), and my eye looked like it was attempting to swell shut. The itchiness was continuing, but I was able to keep my hands off.

I forcibly inhaled and exhaled through my mouth a few times to see if my airway was constricting, but that seemed ok. I turned to The Girl and shook her awake.

“Hey, I think I’m in trouble!” I said.

“Huh?”

“I’m having an anaphylactic reaction to something,” I stammered out.

“To what?” She asked.

“I dunno, but I’m going to take one of our antihistamines and go outside for some air. If I don’t come back in 5 minutes come and find me.”

“Can you breath?” She asked still half asleep.

“Yeah through my mouth. Nothing is constricting there.”

“Ok.”

And as I went out onto the patio for what could have been my last glimpse of sun and surf ever, my love rolled over and went back to sleep.

My symptoms lasted for at least another 12 hours but were controllable with Tylenol Allergy. Thinking about what might have initiated the reaction, which was the worst Type I reaction I’ve ever had, I decided it must have been the rum punch.

Fruit skins have become more and more problematic for me over time. The raw skins of cherries, peaches, and apples will cause some mild oral itching and swelling for me. I’m assuming that the rum punch probably had blended skins in it and that’s what set things off.

Moral of this story: If I’m dying, be sure I really am before I wake The Girl.

Footnotes:

http://www.ect-hk.com/ect_glossary_bot.html

No Problem, No Pressure.

Periapex — Tue, 22 Jan 2008 23:10:00 +0000

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Strong sun, a warm breeze, friendly locals, and reggae engulfed us over the week of Christmas. This was part of the magic of St. Lucia.

It is no wonder that it took us an hour and a half to get through Customs and Immigration. The people of St. Lucia are just extremely laid back.

Whenever we’ve gone away, we’ve found that what makes or breaks a good vacation ends up being the locals and how welcoming they are of foreigners. Our vacation to the Sandals Grande there was a “make” holiday.

The resort turned out to be very quiet…on the verge of not enough activity, but this ended up to be a welcome break for us. A hot/cold plunge pool, steam room, sauna, and beautiful gardens were almost a match to the beautiful people and island of St. Lucia.

Oh, also the bartender that did tequila shots with us was cool too.

“No problem, no pressure,” is what they say over there when you refuse something. It’s also actually how I try to work with my patients. I’ve caught myself saying the same thing during some of my consultations since then.

Our Cruise. Part IV. Random Shots.

Periapex — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 13:51:00 +0000

Mdina, Malta:

Valletta, Malta:

Barcelona, Spain:

French Riviera:

Palma de Mallorca, Spain:

Back in Barcelona we had dinner one night at a tiny Syrian patio restaurant. For 13.50 Euros, this Rioja was the best bottle of wine we had on our trip. You can see the wine stones on the cork:

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Our Cruise. Part III. Panoramas.

Periapex — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 16:22:00 +0000

Here are some stitched photos of various places that we visited. Actually the first picture isn’t a stitched photo, but is a good “panoramic” shot of what room service brought us one night at 3 am. We finished most of the two hamburgers, two plates of chicken drumettes, chilli, and Caesar salad before taking the picture. Oh there were also 2 chamomile teas.

Valletta, Malta:
Barcelona:
Palma de Mallorca, Spain:
View of Malta from the walls of Mdina:
Naples:

Next: Randoms shots.

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Our Cruise. Part II. Towel Creatures of the Ship.

Periapex — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 13:35:00 +0000

The art of towel folding was actually a group lesson that you could take on the ship. We didn’t because we were too busy participating in ballroom dance groups. Here are the creatures that awaited us in our room each night.

Next: Panoramas.

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Our Cruise. Part 1.

Periapex — Wed, 05 Sep 2007 22:31:00 +0000

Here is the first batch of pictures. We took tons of photos but I’ll save you from having to see all of them.

We flew into Barcelona and took the ship from there: Voyager of the Seas with Royal Caribbean. Overall we had a great time, but the trip was actually a bit of an experiment for us to see what we like better: resorts or cruises.

In the end we both decided that we prefer resorts. Although the quality of food and entertainment on the ship was far better than at any resort we’ve been to, with both of us enjoying nature as much as we do, we sort of missed the lizards, insects, and plants that are part of a resort experience.

As well, at a resort there’s always the opportunity to walk on the beach whenever you want, or to even leave the resort and be away from people. Not so on the ship.

The best part about resorts for us, is that we try to choose all-inclusive ones so that we don’t have to pay for alcohol.

The boat took a couple of years to build in Finland at a cost of about 720 Million US. The voyager class is currently the second largest in Royal Caribbean’s fleet with the Freedom class ships being first. They are currently building Genesis of the Seas which is going to be over 200,000 tons.

This is The Girl during the mandatory emergency drill.

And this is the theater on the ship.

The adults-only pool where we spent most of our pool-time while on board.

The main promenade on the ship.

Looking up at the elevators.

I had every good intention of completing the last part of the Cheatin’ Heart story while on the ship, but something better always came along.

Next: Towel creatures of the ship.

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Back From Vacation.

Periapex — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 13:57:00 +0000

We’re back from our Mediterranean cruise. Surprisingly jet lag doesn’t seem too bad yet. We had lots of fun, dancing, and food. There’s nothing like room service at 3 am.

I’ll post some pictures once we get ourselves reoriented and reorganised over here.

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