WEEKEND IN MORRO BAY ON CALIFORNIA'S CENTRAL COAST: Guest Post by Susan Kean

Morro Bay is known for Morro Rock, an ancient volcanic mound at the end of Morro Rock Beach. The rock sits within Morro Bay State Park, home to lagoons, trails and a bird-rich saltwater marsh.

Recently, my friend Susan Kean traveled up the California coast to Morro Bay, stopping along the way at Pismo Beach and Ventura. I thank Susan for sharing her experience and photos with The Intrepid Tourist.

Whimbrel and a little plover

Morro Bay and the surrounding area is an idea spot for avid birders. Located on the Pacific Flyway, Morro Bay is a Globally Important Bird Area and a designated State and National Estuary.  In most years in January, The Morro Bay Winter Bird Festival promotes an understanding and appreciation of birds and other wildlife and an awareness of environmental and conservation issues of the Central Coast. This year, because of Covid, the festival was cancelled. (Despite the cancellation, The Morro Bay Bird Festival volunteers put on a virtual bird festival at the last minute and links to recordings of their free presentations may be found at Morrobaybirdfestival.org .)

Morro Beach at low tide.

Susan writes: Sadly the Morro Bay Winter Bird Festival was cancelled because of COVID but we still came up to Morro Bay for the weekend.  As the hotel registration person said, the birds haven’t cancelled.  Most exciting for me was seeing my first pair of bald eagles.

Silhouette of bald eagle in tree.

Old wrecked ship at Estero Bluffs

The tsunami hit at about about 8 am, which for Morro Bay amounted to unusual wave formation! Later in the day we did a boat ride and the boat guy said the water in the bay was still rocking back and forth, like in a bowl. As far as we were concerned we didn’t notice anything other than very cloudy water. [Susan's trip was the same weekend as the volcanic eruption in Tonga that resulted in a tsunami that impacted the California coast.]

Sea Lions, Morro Bay

On the way up to Morro Bay we visited the monarch butterfly grove at Pismo Beach. They are pleased with the numbers of butterflies this year. Last year they had none.

Monarch butterflies in eucalyptus trees at Pismo Beach. During migration the butterflies hang in clusters.

Entrance to the Pismo State Beach Monarch Butterfly Grove

 

Giant Coreopsis in a Channel Island native plant garden at the visitor center in Ventura.

MISSION TRAILS REGIONAL PARK, SAN DIEGO, CA: Hiking and Native American History, Guest Post by Tom Scheaffer

My brother Tom Scheaffer loves the outdoors and often goes hiking near his home in San Diego. I thank him for sharing his photos and report of a recent visit to Mission Trails Park.

Mission Trails Park is one of my favorite places to hike in San Diego. Mission Trails Regional Park is one of the largest urban parks in the country. It encompasses 8000 acres with 65 miles of hiking trails. Started in 1974, Mission Trails Regional Park has become one of the largest urban parks in the United States.

Traditional Kumeyaay House

On land originally occupied by Kumeyaay Native Americans, the park is the site of the Old Mission Dam, built to store water for the Mission San Diego de Alcala. For more about the early history of the region, click HERE.

In the park there are several peaks that you can hike to the top of, but my favorite hike goes to the grinding rocks. You wind through the chaparral and then through a beautiful oak forest before arriving at a creek where you see grinding rocks.

Acorns, produced by live oaks that grow in the area, were ground into meal in holes such as this one.

The Kumayaay people ground acorns on these rocks on the edge of the creek. The creek is actually the San Diego River which flows through San Diego and eventually empties into the ocean.

GLOFARI AT THE OAKLAND ZOO, CA: Spectacular Larger-Than-Life Animal Lanterns

Glofari at the Oakland Zoo displays realistically detailed larger-than-life animal lanterns.

Giant animal lanterns glow in the dark like creatures in a fantastical dream at Glofari, the magical night tour at the Oakland Zoo in California. I have been to the Oakland Zoo many times during the day, but Glofari provided a completely new experience. Lanterns and light displays line the paths, are tucked into the landscape, and sit atop the ridge at the end of the gondola ride. 

A giant praying mantis in the World of Bugs.

Each section of Glofari has a theme: Savannah Watering Hole, Winter Wonderland, Forests of Asia, Desertscapes and the World of Bugs. The real zoo animals are safely inside their indoor areas, keeping warm in the chilly night.
In late December, when our family was visiting for the holidays, we dressed in our warm jackets and made Glofari a family outing. (I had reserved tickets a month earlier.) It was the perfect Covid activity—all outdoors and masks required. Entrance is by advance ticket only and visitors come in at a scheduled time to limit crowding.

Lighted flamingos greeted us at the entry area and from there we followed the path down the hill through a colorful corridor, each arch decorated with the giant animal head. 

At the bottom of the hill elephants, giraffes, zebras and other animals spread across a field as they might be in real life at an African waterhole. Visitors can wander among them to admire them close-up.

At the Safari Watering Hole. The drama of the lights is enhanced by the blackness of the background—ideal for photographing the lanterns, but not for taking pictures of people, who appear as silhouettes against the colorful objects.

An animated peacock entertains visitors to the Savanna.

While the animal lanterns are fascinating simply for their artistry (painted cloth over wire armatures with lights inside) informative signs link them to facts about the real animals they represent. Many of the lanterns are animated. The peacock’s tail not only raises and spreads into a colorful fan, but blinking lights change color as the “feathers” move.

Plump pandas wander through a bamboo forest.

After spending time at the watering hole, we circled back up the hill past pandas, bighorn sheep, and other creatures of the desert before arriving at the gondola station for a ride to the upper section of the zoo. 

A condor flaps its wings along the path through the desert area.

Each enclosed gondola car accommodates eight people, perfect for our group. As we rode to the top we looked down at the lighted displays and the city beyond before arriving at the upper station and the Landing Café. There another amazing tour of amazing lighted lanterns awaited us—the world of bugs.

From the gondola station we emerged through the queen ant tunnel to a walkway through the World of Bugs.

Giant caterpillars, butterflies, spiders, and more sparkled beside the path leading to an overlook of the city above the bison enclosure--where one lone bison, snug in its furry coat, looked up at us from below as we admired the city of Oakland and lights of San Francisco across the Bay. It was truly spectacular!

At the overlook above the bison enclosure.

In addition to the animal lanterns, Glofari features lighted displays of flowers and other creations. Among my favorites was a tree hung with giant colored globes.

Colored lights become glowing sculptures.

Altogether we spent about two hours at the zoo. As we exited Glofari we stopped briefly at the amusement area next to the zoo, where children (and adults) can buy tickets to ride a train around the zoo or for other kid-sized amusement rides. Just for the fun of it, our three teen-age grandchildren rode the merry-go-round, just like old times when they were little. It was a fitting end to a special night at the zoo. Then we all went home for cups of hot cocoa. 

Due to the popularity of Glofari, originally scheduled to the end of January, tickets have been extended to February 6. 

For more information about visiting the Oakland Zoo, go to the Oakland Zoo website;

A giant crocodile at the Savanna Watering Hole.

Note: Glofari brought back memories of our visit to Philadelphia in 2016 when we went to the Chinese Lantern Festival at Franklin Square (near Chinatown) and saw dragons, giant lotuses, and other spectacular lanterns created from the same technique as the animals at the Oakland Zoo. 

ETOSHA NATIONAL PARK, NAMIBIA: Okaukuejo Waterhole, Guest Post by Sara Kras

Okaukuejo Waterhole, Etosha National Park, Namibia

My friend and fellow children’s book writer Sara Kras spent much of the past year living in Namibia. Here she shares a recent visit to Etosha National Park. Sara loves to travel and has contributed numerous articles to The Intrepid Tourist. Sara's most recent book, Baby Boomer Reboot, is a fascinating account of the challenges she faced going back to college in her fifties.  

 
Etosha National Park lies in northern Namibia. This large park is 8600 square miles and is surrounded by a fence.  To ensure the animals within its borders have water, many manmade waterholes have been constructed throughout the park. The most famous one is Okaukuejo. One of the park entrances is there, along with a large camp comprised of villas and cottages. There is even a large dirt parking lot where visitors can pitch their own tents and camp.

Entrance to Okaukuejo waterhole, with its characteristic stone tower.

High-end international travelers rarely stay on site at Okaukuejo because of the condition of the buildings. The main advantage of staying on site is to be at the waterhole after sunset, when there can be lots of activity.  If you stay outside the park, you must leave by sunset. We stayed in one of the most expensive rooms (about $180 including dinner and breakfast) called a Premier Waterhole Villa.  Our room #33 had a direct view of the waterhole. We could sit on the balcony or even in our bed and watch the animals come and go any time of day or night.  But, for this wonderful feature we had to put up with very noisy and leaky air conditioners, stained curtains, and an upstairs toilet with no toilet seat.  This was definitely not a luxury situation and most western travelers would find it intolerable. But it did have strong hot water pressure in the shower and the bed was comfortable--two of my main criteria since I am not a camper.

What did I get for putting up with this discomfort?  If you’re into African animals as I am, you get a lot.

After sunset, floodlights illuminate the waterhole. This is the best time and place to see the endangered black rhino.

On Day 1, we saw a large herd of zebra, many giraffe, springbok and gemsbok.  After the sun went down, a male lion began roaring and huffing. This continued most the night, though he never made an appearance at the waterhole. However, twenty black rhinos showed up, staggering their appearance to keep us all entertained, and two lionesses trotted down to the waterhole for their nightly drink.

During the night there was an intense thunder and lightning storm. Buckets of rain poured from the sky, much to our dismay, as rain disperses the animals because they can find abundant water elsewhere.

The waterhole was pretty quiet on Day 2. I felt sorry for the visitors that came to Okaukuejo for just one night (never a good idea). There were lots of long, sad faces sitting around the waterhole willing animals to appear. They never did except for three giraffes and three black rhinos.

Elephant herd

Because of the heat, a lot of water evaporated from the rain, so animals began making their trek back to the waterhole on Day 3 in the afternoon. There was a group of about one hundred wildebeest, along with zebra, gemsbok, and springbok. Several herds of elephants showed up, totaling about thirty. Many babies were part of the group. Later in the evening, five different black rhino made their lumbering appearance.

A visit to Okaukuejo is one of the most unusual safaris my husband and I have experienced. The reason is that the animals come to you. There’s no need to drive anywhere to search for them. In addition, there’s lots of opportunity to see the critically endangered black rhino. The best months to go to Okaukuejo are June through October when the park is the driest. 

 

LALIBELA, ETHIOPIA: Rock Cut Churches and Christmas Celebration, Guest Post by Kathryn Mohrman

 52 Places to Go: Week 52

Pilgrims came to Lalibela from all over Ethiopia--by plane, bus, car, van, donkey, and on foot.

My friend, Kathryn Mohrman, an avid and excellent photographer, recently visited the highlands of Ethiopia on a photo tour with about a dozen other photographers.  She has graciously agreed to share some of her photos and impressions of the trip. Kathryn is a professor at Arizona State University and travels widely for her job as director of several projects with partner universities in China and Vietnam. You can see photos from her trip to Morocco last year at her 2/4/13 post on this blog.  I have known Kathryn since we were students together at Grinnell College in Iowa. This post was first published at The Intrepid Tourist 2/17/14.

This is the approach to the church of St. George (you are looking at the roof of the church).  Notice that the church is free standing--there is an open area all the way around the structure.

Orthodox Christians in Ethiopia celebrate Christmas in early January. In the 12th century, King Lalibela created a group of churches hewn out of rocky cliffs in the northern highlands to form a "new Jerusalem" for believers. Today many devout Ethiopian Christians make a pilgrimage to Lalibela to celebrate the birth of Christ. Lalibela is a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The heart of Lalibela is a series of churches hewn out of rocky cliffs.

Lalibela is in the highlands of Ethiopia at about 8000 ft or 2400 m above sea level.  This was winter so it was fairly dry with no crops growing.We saw lots of livestock grazing in the fields--and walking down the roads.  In fact, I was almost run over by a bunch of galloping mules.

A few of the churches had frescoes painted on the ceilings; others had Bible scenes on canvas or wood as wall decorations. Passageways were carved through the rock to connect one church to the next.

Many thousands of pilgrims crowded the little town of Lalibela.  Often they had to wait quite a while to get access to the sacred sites. We saw informal preaching, singing and dancing in the courtyards surrounding some of the churches.  People were having a good time in addition to celebrating Jesus' birth. Turbans signify priests--they are expected to marry and have families.  Monks are celibate.

Priests would shake this instrument to accent the rhythm of their hymns.

We visited a monastery where we saw a number of precious objects.  This beautiful book was created in the 9th century when Europe was in the Dark Ages.
In the past there were hermits in little caves near the churches.  No hermits today, at least not in the main areas in Lalibela. 

People were expected to remove their shoes to go inside the churches.  Most pilgrims took off their shoes in the courtyards as well.

There is a Bible verse that says "it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom of God!"  Historic Jerusalem had a Needle's Eye gate and this is the Lalibela version.

As Christmas drew near, more and more people crowded into the courtyards.  On the night of Christmas Eve, many people camped out overnight in or near the churches to be ready for dawn on Christmas Day when a huge procession culminated the celebrations. (Read more about the celebration in this Smithsonian article.)

Several hours before dawn on Christmas Day, pilgrims were jockeying for position.  Many of them carried tall tapers although some used LED flashlights or their cell phones for light. Some priests, especially those who were collecting donations, wore beautiful robes and carried decorative umbrellas.

A large group of pilgrims came in several buses, complete with portable kitchen equipment.  After the final ceremony, the group gathered near my hotel for lunch before heading home.

 Noon on Christmas Day. 

This guy was one of my favorites.  I learned a proper greeting in Amharic which I said to him as he passed.  He walked a few steps, then turned around and blew kisses to me.  !!!

HAPPY HOLIDAYS! Beautiful Christmas Plates from Germany

When my husband Art was in high school he was an exchange student, living for a year with a family in Berlin, Germany. It was the beginning of a life-long friendship. After Art and I were married, his German family sent us annual gifts of beautiful Christmas plates from the KPM porcelain factory in Berlin, each year with a different design. (Weihnachten is the German word for Christmas or Christmas Eve.) We get the plates out each year during the holidays and are reminded of all the wonderful times spent together both in Germany and here in the United States.
The holidays are a time to connect with family and friends near and far. As I celebrate with my friends and family this year in California, I send you my best wishes for

HAPPY HOLIDAYS
and a
JOYOUS NEW YEAR! 

 

 

BERLIN IN WINTER: Stollen and Christmas Markets

 52 Places to Go: Week 51

Friedrichstrasse at night outside our hotel

[Diary of my trip to Berlin in November 2010]  It was the last Thursday in November and we were in Berlin, where Art was attending a conference.  We were staying at the Maritim Hotel, on Friedrichstrasse, the main shopping street of the former East Berlin, now a bustling center of commerce with huge department stores, hotels, and other businesses.  That evening we attended an elaborate buffet at the hotel with dozens of dishes and artfully prepared appetizers, many in little glass containers.  Main courses included venison and roast goose–the closest we came to a real Thanksgiving dinner.  After dinner we walked a few blocks to the intersection with Unter den Linden, a wide boulevard leading to the Brandenburg Gate, which was decked out for Christmas with sparkling lights.  The temperature was around 0 degrees Centigrade and it felt like it was going to snow.  In the morning, as I looked out our hotel window, I saw a light dusting of snow on the rooftops.

View from our hotel window

The next day while Art was attending meetings, I ate at the hotel again.  Dessert came on a plate shaped like an artist’s palette with cake, ice cream, and chocolate sauce in three “paint” compartments.  Everywhere in the hotel, walls were decorated with modern paintings, some of them huge.  Finally, on the last day of our stay I realized that the concept of the hotel was a giant art gallery!  (Hence, the palette for my dessert!)  One thing that puzzled me when I got on the elevator to go to our room was that each floor had a name on it.  I now understood that these were the names of painters and each floor was dedicated to the work of a single artist.  Our floor (the 5th) displayed paintings by German artist Bernd Zimmer.

Carved Christmas Pyramid

On Saturday afternoon, after the meeting was over, we went out shopping, stopping at a Christmas store filled with pyramids (elaborately carved wooden holiday decorations that turn from the heat of lighted candles), as well as many other kinds of other wooden objects, plus holiday table cloths, ceramics, etc.

Entrance to the Christmas Market at Gendarmensmarkt

Our real destination, though, was the Christmas market at the Gendarmensmarkt, a few blocks away, where we paid one Euro each to get in.  This huge outdoor fair had dozens of booths selling food and crafts.  On one side was a stage where entertainers danced and sang.  There was also a semi-indoor section tented off from the chilly air where there were more booths.  We toured the booths and  bought cookies and poppyseed cake to take home, puppets for the grandkids, and a Thuringer sausage on a bun for my lunch.  We also took a photo by a large decorated Berlin bear. (Bears are the symbol of Berlin. They are all over the city--something like the cows in Chicago.)  That evening, German friends took us to the Berlin Opera where we saw Mozart's Magic Flute.  The staging–lots of smoke and lights–was dramatic and creative.  It didn’t matter that I didn’t understand the German lyrics. It was all wonderful.  Afterward, we ate in the opera restaurant where Art had smoked eel and I had gnocchi.

Booth selling stollen, cookies and other baked goods

On Sunday morning we bundled up and walked to the Brandenburg Gate and from there to the New National Art Museum, a large glass box not far from the symphony hall.  The main collection is German art of the early to mid-twentieth century.  From the outside, the building seems unlikely to have wall space for much art, but the inside is surprisingly spacious. In one room, they were screening a 1927 film called Symphony of Berlin, a black and white visual homage to life in the city as it was then, bustling with industry and commerce. (You can rent the film on Netflix.)  Later, we met our friends again for a traditional German Christmas tea with wonderful homemade stollen, fruit bread, cookies, and marzipan, followed by more German food for dinner at a restaurant near our hotel.  The next morning we got on a plane to go back to LA.

Caroline at the Brandenburg Gate, Berlin

Note: We have been to Berlin numerous times, usually during warmer seasons.  This was my first trip in winter.  The short days and freezing temperatures, along with the sounds of Christmas music in the streets, brought back memories of winters in Minneapolis when I was growing up.  As a child, one of the highlights of the Christmas season was going downtown to look at the displays in the department store windows.  Even though I have lived in California for most of my adult life, and have gotten used to trees being green year round and t-shirt weather in January, Christmas still never seems quite the same without snow underfoot and the air so cold you can see your breath.  In Berlin, we could definitely see our breath in the night air!

This article was first published at The Intrepid Tourist 11/21/11.

All text and photos copyright Caroline Arnold at The Intrepid Tourist.