Finding well-being through travel and books. |
Hello and welcome! I have two great passions in life. The first one is travel. After a series of life-changing events, my husband and I decided to spend the kids’ inheritance and see as much of the world as possible (I’m still bitter about Damascus). Our bible? A Thousand Places to See Before You Die. Please join us on our adventures seeing new places, meeting fascinating people and trying new, exciting, and sometimes just plain weird, food. My second great passion is books. Reading expands my interior world in the same way travel expands my external one. And, books are a great way to armchair travel - not only through distance but through time as well. My tastes are eclectic, so we’ll be looking at a wide range of writing in a possibly haphazard fashion. Come along for the ride! My best, Kirsten ** Images For Use By Upgraded+ Only ** |
Two weeks ago, I was in Ecuador to attend a Chautauqua hosted by Cheryl Reed of Above the Clouds Retreats (insert hyperlink). The Chautauqua was an adult education movement that was popular in North America during the 19th century. The purpose was, and still is, to encourage learning through lectures, music, culture, events and storytelling. The theme of this particular Chautauqua was to explore happiness and freedom, and to learn about a small part of Ecuador. I was very excited about the week-long event, as David Cain (insert hyperlink), a blogger whose posts I read faithfully, would be presenting, as would the inestimable J. D. Roth (insert hyperlink). Our group spent the first night in Quito, where I discovered that being at nearly 10,000 feet of altitude was not exactly my favourite place to be, then we left the next morning to head for our retreat headquarters, the El Encanto resort in the cloud forest. On the way, we stopped just outside of Quito at the Mitad del Mundo (the Middle of the World) where, by 500 BCE, the ancient Quechua people had already figured out that the Earth was a sphere and therefore must have a dividing line in the middle. They named this central line, as determined by the equinoxes (equal day and night), Inti (sun) Nan (path). Over 2,200 years later, in 1735, a French Geodesic Mission set out for Quito to pinpoint the location. The Mission’s expedition lasted for nine years and succeeded in obtaining a fairly accurate measurement of the equator as determined by modern military GPS, and also in naming Ecuador (French for equator). Ironically, the French could have saved themselves a lot of time and money by just asking the Quechua, whose observations of the sun’s path gave a more accurate reading than the French instrumentation. Perhaps if we get out from behind our equipment and use our senses to actually observe the world around us we end up with a better idea of reality. Read the rest here |