Story#682
Poutine at two in the morning
Minus twenty outside and a queue out the door. The man in front of us explained that the cheese must squeak, and that anything else is not poutine but a tragedy.
294 travel stories, part 3
94 stories on this page. It covers Canada, USA, Mexico and USA, Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and 14 other places. Page 3 of 3.
Page 3 of 3
94 stories on this page. It covers Canada, USA, Mexico and USA, Mexico, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and 14 other places. Page 3 of 3.
Countries on this page
Every country page collects its entries in one place, with a fact sheet and the guides for going there.
Entries on this page
Story#686
Northern lights over the highway
The driver pulled over without warning and turned off the headlights. Green went across the whole sky in about four seconds and then rearranged itself for an hour.
Story#690
The ferry through the fjords
The state ferry takes three days and you sleep in a tent taped to the deck. It costs less than a flight and you see four hundred kilometres of coastline nobody photographs.
Story#692
Grand Canyon at the wrong rim
We drove to the North Rim by accident, found eleven cars in the car park instead of a thousand, and had a viewpoint to ourselves for forty minutes.
Story#696
Descending is harder
Everyone warns you that going down is easy. On the way back up, in the last mile, a ranger handed out salt tablets and said the same sentence to every single person.
Story#700
Diner coffee refill
The waitress topped up the cup four times without being asked and called everyone honey. The pie was better than any restaurant we ate at that month.
Story#704
A town of eleven people
The sign said population 11. The bar was open, the man behind it was also the postmaster, and he knew exactly where we were headed before we said it.
Story#706
Route 66 remains
Half the towns on the old road are closed and half are museums about being closed. One motel owner has been repainting the same neon sign for thirty years.
Story#710
Yosemite in the dark
We hiked out under a full moon without torches because the granite reflected enough light. A ranger told us afterwards that this was either wonderful or irresponsible.
Story#714
Fog rolling into the bay
It came over the hill like water going down a drain in reverse. Ten minutes later the bridge was gone and it was ten degrees colder.
Story#716
Getting off at the wrong stop
We got out at 125th instead of 116th and ended up eating the best food of the trip while waiting for the next train, which we deliberately missed twice.
Story#720
Bluegrass on a porch
Four people, four instruments, no sheet music and no audience except us and a dog. It went on for two hours and nobody announced a single song title.
Story#724
Second line
A brass band came down the street on a Sunday afternoon and the crowd behind it grew from twelve to two hundred in four blocks. We never found out what it was for.
Story#726
Hurricane season lesson
The hotel put tape on the windows and everyone stocked up on ice. It missed us by ninety kilometres and the next morning the beach was covered in shells nobody had ever seen.
Story#730
The border crossing at midnight
Two hours in a queue of stationary cars with men selling churros between the lanes. By the time we crossed, we had eaten dinner without leaving the vehicle.
Story#734
Day of the dead, not Halloween
The cemeteries were full of families with candles, food and folding chairs, staying all night. A woman explained, kindly, that this was a reunion and not a haunting.
Story#737
Mole takes three days
Thirty ingredients, three days, and an argument with a neighbour about whether the chocolate goes in early or late. We were asked to judge and refused sensibly.
Story#740
Swimming in a cenote
The water was so clear that the boat above looked like it was floating in air. Fifteen metres down, tree roots came through the rock looking for it.
Story#744
Chichen Itza handclap
Clap once at the base of the pyramid and the echo comes back sounding like a bird. Our guide said the Maya designed it that way and then let three hundred people clap at once.
Story#747
The overnight bus with blankets
Reclining seats, a blanket, a film with no subtitles and a driver who took the mountain road at a speed we chose not to think about. We arrived rested.
Story#751
Volcano boarding
You climb a black cone for an hour carrying a plank and then sit on it and go down. Everyone lies about their speed at the bottom.
Story#754
Sloth traffic jam
The road was blocked for six minutes by a sloth in no hurry whatsoever. A park worker eventually carried it across and it looked mildly annoyed.
Story#757
Zip line nerves
The guide said don't brake, just glide. Halfway across a valley in cloud forest we understood why nobody talks on the way over.
Story#761
The canal from a small boat
Our boat shared a lock with a container ship the size of a street. The water rose nine metres in eight minutes and the crew above us waved down.
Story#764
Kuna molas
Every panel is hand stitched in reverse applique and takes weeks. The woman selling them explained the design was her grandmother's and then quoted a price that felt like theft on our side.
Story#767
Cartagena heat
We walked the walls at three in the afternoon like idiots. At seven, the same walls were full of people, music and lemonade sellers, and we understood the schedule.
Story#771
Coffee farm arithmetic
The farmer showed us how much a hand-picked kilo earns him and then what a cup costs in London. He wasn't angry about it, which somehow made it worse.
Story#775
Sunday cycling
A hundred kilometres of road closed to cars. Families, racers, a man with a parrot on his handlebars, and free bike repair stands every few kilometres.
Story#777
The lost city trek
Four days, seven river crossings and 1,200 mossy steps at the end. The guide's family had lived there for generations and he gave the tour partly in his own language.
Story#781
Boat to the jungle lodge
Three hours upriver, then the engine off, then paddling into a channel too narrow for the motor. The moment the noise stopped, the forest turned out to be extremely loud.
Story#785
Piranha for dinner
We caught four and ate three. They are mostly bones and the guide clearly finds the whole tourist ritual funny, but he cooked them properly.
Story#789
Meeting of the waters
Two rivers ran side by side for six kilometres without mixing. You can put a hand in each and feel the temperature difference.
Story#791
Carnival in a side street
The famous parade costs a lot of money. Two streets away, a neighbourhood bloco with a hundred drummers went past for free and nobody was filming it.
Story#795
Sunset at Ipanema
The whole beach applauds when the sun goes behind the hill. Nobody organises it and nobody explains it and it happens every clear evening.
Story#799
Iguazu from below
The boat drives you into the falls on purpose. Everything you own gets soaked and the guide films your face while it happens.
Story#801
Steak and no menu
The parrilla had four items and a chalkboard. The waiter asked how we wanted it, disagreed with the answer, and served it his way. He was correct.
Story#805
Tango in a square
Two people in their seventies danced on paving stones in San Telmo with a portable speaker. A crowd formed, and nobody who watched was under any illusion about who was best.
Story#809
Wind in Patagonia
The wind blew constantly for four days from the same direction. On the fifth it stopped and everyone in the hostel came outside to check that something was not wrong.
Story#811
The W trek weather
Four seasons before lunch on every single day. Nobody bothered changing clothes for the rain because it would be sunny again in twenty minutes.
Story#815
Stars in the Atacama
The guide switched off the last light and asked us to wait ten minutes for our eyes. The Milky Way arrived as if someone had turned it on.
Story#819
Salt flat perspective
Everyone takes the same forced-perspective photo and everyone thinks they invented it. Our driver had a box of props and a practised routine and enjoyed it more than we did.
Story#822
Death road brakes
Sixty-four kilometres downhill with a drop on one side. The guide said the brakes were the only thing worth checking and then checked them four times.
Story#825
La Paz cable car commute
The world's biggest urban cable car network is public transport, not a ride. We commuted across the city over rooftops for the price of a bus fare.
Story#829
Titicaca reed island
The ground moves under your feet like a mattress. They add fresh reeds every fortnight and the whole island is rebuilt from underneath over about thirty years.
Story#832
Ceviche at eleven
The best cevicherias close in the afternoon because the fish is from that morning. Anyone serving ceviche at eight in the evening, our host said, is telling you something.
Story#836
Rainbow Mountain crowd
Five thousand metres, three hundred people and a queue for the summit photograph. Twenty minutes along the ridge there was nobody at all and the same view.
Story#839
Galapagos indifference
Nothing runs away. A sea lion slept on a bench, a bird walked over my boot, and a marine iguana sneezed salt at me without moving.
Story#842
Market day in Otavalo
The animal market starts at six and finishes by nine. Everything else is for tourists and the sellers say so themselves, cheerfully.
Story#846
The night bus and the puncture
We stopped on a mountain road at two in the morning. The driver, the conductor and six passengers changed the wheel by phone torch in eleven minutes.
Story#849
Havana at eight in the evening
Somebody was playing dominoes on the pavement, somebody was fixing a car, somebody was singing. All three had been doing it since before we arrived and continued after.
Story#852
The Cuban mechanic
He had made a part for a 1955 Chevrolet out of a Russian tractor component. He showed it to us the way other people show photographs of their children.
Story#856
Jamaican bus music
The volume was not negotiable. A grandmother two rows up conducted with one hand and the driver adjusted the bass on her instruction.
Story#860
Hurricane shutters in July
Every house had them and nobody used them that week. The shop owner said you fit them in May and forget them, and that forgetting is the whole point.
Story#862
Snorkelling the blue hole
From the boat it is a dark circle in turquoise. From the water it is a wall going down into nothing and your brain refuses to process the scale.
Story#866
Bioluminescent paddle
No moon, no lights, no cameras allowed. Every paddle stroke lit up and fish left trails like sparks under the kayak.
Story#870
The wrong island
We took the wrong ferry and spent a day on an island with one road, one bar and eleven residents who found the whole thing very funny.
Story#874
Waiting out the storm at altitude
Afternoon thunderstorms arrive almost daily in summer. A ranger said the rule is simple: summit by noon, and if you cannot, do not summit.
Story#876
Trail magic
A stranger had left a cooler of cold drinks at a road crossing with a note. Nobody took more than one, and somebody had refilled the ice that morning.
Story#880
The desert night sky
We drove twenty minutes from the town and the difference was absurd. A ranger explained dark sky certification and then turned off her own torch to prove the point.
Story#884
Slot canyon rain rule
The guide checks the forecast for the whole watershed, not just the canyon. A storm eighty kilometres away can fill a slot canyon in minutes and there is nowhere to go.
Story#886
A hostel kitchen in winter
Nine nationalities, one pot of soup, minus twenty-eight outside. Somebody's grandmother's recipe was reconstructed by committee and it was excellent.
Story#890
The overnight train that ran late
Freight has priority, so passenger trains wait on sidings. We were eleven hours late and the dining car simply kept serving as if it were a hotel with wheels.
Story#894
Airport floor sleeping
There is a hierarchy: carpet beats tile, chairs without armrests beat carpet, and a bench near a plug beats everything. This knowledge is earned.
Story#896
The kindness of a stranger's phone
My phone died in a city where I could not read the alphabet. A teenager at a bus stop looked up my hotel, wrote the address in her language, and walked me to the right stop.
Story#900
Lost passport, calm official
The consulate staff had clearly done this a thousand times. She asked three questions, made two calls, and told me it would be four days and to go and enjoy the city.
Story#904
The bag that arrived later
Three days without luggage taught me that I had packed twice as much as I needed and that laundries exist in every country on Earth.
Story#907
Missing the connection
We missed by eleven minutes and were rebooked for the next morning. The forced overnight became the best city we visited that year, and we had never planned to go.
Story#910
Sharing a taxi
Four strangers at an airport at one in the morning splitting a fare into town. Two of them are still in a group chat with me eight years later.
Story#914
The universal language of football
A ball, a wall and six children. Nobody needed to explain the rules and nobody kept score properly.
Story#917
Learning ten words
Hello, please, thank you, sorry, yes, no, how much, where is, delicious and goodbye. Ten words changed every single interaction of the trip.
Story#921
When the wifi fails
Three days without a signal in a mountain hut. By the second evening, everyone had stopped checking their pockets and started playing cards.
Story#924
Eating alone
The first time is awkward. By the fourth you bring a notebook, sit at the bar, and end up talking to the chef.
Story#927
The market breakfast rule
Go where the traders eat, at the hour they eat, and order what is already on the counter. It has never once failed.
Story#931
A guidebook left behind
We found one in a hostel with four years of notes in three handwritings. We added ours and left it on the shelf for the next person.
Story#935
Postcards to yourself
Write one to your own address from each country. They arrive weeks later, out of order, when you have almost forgotten the day you wrote them.
Story#937
The film camera experiment
Twenty-four exposures for a two-week trip forces you to look before you press. Half of them were terrible and four of them are framed.
Story#941
Walking a city with no plan
Pick a direction, walk for ninety minutes, then turn around. You will find more than any list of top ten sights.
Story#945
The bench method
Sit on the same bench for an hour. A neighbourhood reveals its schedule: school, deliveries, lunch, dogs, old men, then children again.
Story#947
One night longer
Every good trip has a place where you stayed one night too few. The fix is a rule: if you say maybe on the first evening, book the extra night.
Story#951
Travelling with a stranger
We met on a bus and travelled together for nine days. Neither of us suggested it and neither of us mentioned when it would end.
Story#955
The last day rule
Do not plan the last day. Go back to the one place you liked most and do exactly the same thing again.
Story#959
Coming home wrong
The strangest part is the supermarket. Forty kinds of bread and nobody making eye contact, and you standing there wondering why it feels rude.
Story#961
The souvenir that mattered
Not the carving or the magnet. A bus ticket with a date on it, found in a coat pocket in February, worth more than everything on the shelf.
Story#965
Cooking it at home
We asked for the recipe and were given a list of ingredients with no quantities. It took eleven attempts and it still is not right, which is the correct outcome.
Story#969
The photo nobody took
The best moment of the trip has no picture. Everyone was holding something, or eating, or laughing, and by the time anyone thought of a camera it was over.
Story#971
Returning after ten years
The cafe was a phone shop and the owner had moved to another city. The view from the bridge was exactly the same and that was somehow enough.
Story#975
Travelling with parents
Slower days, earlier dinners, more sitting down. We saw about a third as much and remember roughly twice as clearly.
Story#979
The first solo trip
Three days of feeling conspicuous, then a switch flips and you realise nobody is looking, and you can do absolutely anything you like.
Story#981
Off-season logic
Half the price, a third of the people, and the weather does what it likes. Two out of three is a very good trade.
Story#985
Shoulder season sunsets
Late September on a Mediterranean island: warm sea, empty beaches and every restaurant owner has time to talk. Nobody tells you this because they want to keep it.
Story#989
The hardest goodbye
A host who fed us for a week refused payment and asked only that we send a photograph when we got home. We did, and she printed it.
Story#992
Learning to be late
In some places, arriving on time is what is rude. It took a fortnight to unlearn a lifetime of arriving nine minutes early.
Story#995
A map on a napkin
Better than any app. Four streets, one landmark, an arrow and a name to say at the door. It worked perfectly and we kept the napkin.
Story#999
Why we keep going
Not for the photographs and not for the list. For the twenty minutes on a bench in a place you cannot pronounce, when nobody in the world knows exactly where you are.
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