Taking a Stand Against Animal Cruelty: Support for the Travel Blogging Calendar

Seville’s central streets echo with the sound of hooves before the flamenco chords set it. The yellow-wheeled carriages carry tourists around the city’s main attractions and through the María Luisa park. It’s a romantic way to see the city, particularly for horse lovers (or those willing to pay to be whisked around).

Growing up, I spent my Sunday mornings at the barn, learning to care for horses. I was amazed at just how powerful the creatures were, and how gentle they became after being tamed. Pudge, my mother’s first horse, was an important part of our family until I was 22.

When my family came to visit shortly after putting Pudge down from an injury, I mentioned the horse rides. My mother staunchly refused, unwilling to take part in anything she hadn’t been properly informed about. After all, we hear about the cruelty towards work horses in New York City.

As it turns out, most Spaniards are great animal lovers, and the horse is one of its most revered creatures, valued for its beauty, power and noble personality.

Not every country has such a special relationship with animals.

I’m proud to be a part of the Travel Blogging Calendar this year. Service and charity have always been a part of my life, which is why I decided to walk the Camino de Santiago to raise awareness of pediatric cancer and raise money for a charity that’s very special to me. The Travel Blogging Calendar has used influencers in the industry to be a voice for the voiceless, including orphanages and disaster relief funds. 

This year, proceeds from the digital calendar will go to the Save the Elephant foundation located in Chai Ming, Thailand. This city is a backpacker mecca, and thus poachers capitalize on tourism by capturing elephants and using force to subdue and domesticate them. This process is called phaiaan, and it’s based on fear. If you ride on an elephant you, in short, are promoting this horrible practice.

The foundation and its animal park, Elephant Nature Park, use a technique of positive reinforcement to reverse phaiaan, and the park is now home to 26 pachyderms. Each of the elephants has been bought legally, and park founder Lek Chailert has been saving elephants since 1995.

Here’s the thing: it’s hard to not want to cuddle up to elephants – they’re adorable – and support local economies. But please be informed about how your dollars or euros could be affecting our four-legged friends. Tourism is a double-edged sword: while it can keep economies from collapsing, it also promotes terrible practices and has the potential to destroy culture and tradition.

How Can I Help?

I’ve always operated under the “You get what you give” motto, both in my classroom and my life outside of it. This prize rewards your generosity and voice in the fight against animal cruelty with a pretty sweet prize that will take you to the place where it all happens: Thailand.

I know you’re interested in winning a $2000 voucher from Flight Network towards a flight to Thailand and an week-long, customizable tour from Where the Sidewalk Ends for two people, which includes visiting the Elephant Nature Park. The contest will be held in raffle form, but a small gift towards stopping animal cruelty can mean a trip of a lifetime. And here’s the best part: The prize is valued at $3300.

You can purchase the digital calendar, which is in blog format and will allow you to travel around the world weekly, thanks to blog posts by other big names in travel blogging. A newsletter will also keep you abreast of fundraising efforts and the bloggers involved.

The amount of money you donate directly correlates to the number of entries you receive. For example, $20 gets you 10 raffle “tickets,” so a high donation means more chances to win. Sharing on social media through rafflecopter will also mean more entries.

Entering is easy – donate using this website, then use the widget to share on social media. Using your voice to spread the word about the harmful practice of phaiaan is just as appreciated.

The flight is a $2000 voucher, donated by Flight Network, that you can put towards a flight to Thailand. The tour with Where the Sidewalk Ends includes hotel, tours and transport, along with a trip to the park to meet Lek and her pachyderms is for two people. More information can be found on the Travel Blogging Calendar website.

You can also support the organization by sharing their story through Facebook or Twitter.

For more on Lek Chailert, the founder of this organization, check out her interview on Green Global Travel.

Please consider a small gift to help Lek continue the work she does, or even by sharing this post on social media. People really can change the world with small actions, and I appreciate you reading about this incredible cause and the great work it does daily.

Two Weeks on the Camino de Santiago: 14 Pictures of my Journey (Part 2)

Where we last left off, I had literally just climbed a mountain, but I had also scaled a mountain of self-doubt that told me my body was not strong enough to continue. We were halfway there, distance-wise, but coming to grips with the impending end of the journey.

Day Eight // Monday, August 5th, 2013 // Gontán – Vilalba //20km

Money can buy you happiness, it turns out, and we left Abadín before dawn after a few beers the night before and a sound sleep in a comforable bed to the tune of 19€ each. At this point, I’d only opened my sleeping bag once.

We didn’t speak much on the way to Vilalba, a once-powerful city that hosts a Parador. All of the sudden, there were more pilgrims on the trail who we’d never seen before, and we felt rushed to get to the next inn on time with Croissanthead (our so-named mascot for an earlier Xacobeo celebration). We had wine at the parador and met the cook, a man who had walked 15 Caminos in his life. I’d read somewhere that those who live along the trail are obligated by law to protect pilgrims and not do anything to ruin or impede their Camino. Written or not, pilgrims are respected by these townspeople, and not just for the tourism dollars they bring in. We were treated to a snack, courtesy of this fellow peregrino.

Even the local Proteccion Civil officer who ran the large albergue locked up 15 minutes later than normal because we invited him to a shot of orujo.

Day Nine // Tuesday, August 6th, 2013 // Vilalba – Baamonde // 20km

The reality of passing the halfway point in our journey was starting to weigh on me. The simplicity of pilgrim life was so inviting after a year of many changes and transitions for me, and knowing that I’d be finished in just five days got me a little depressed. I no longer befriended pilgrims, knowing I’d have to say goodbye to them once we reached Santiago. José was an exception. Sharing 20 kilometers with him into Baamonde was a treat.

The road that day was littered with small towns, dairy farms and leafy groves of trees and rudimentary stone structures. José is a secondary teacher in Valencia, so Hayley and I immediately had a connection with him and his outlook on life. Almost immediately after meeting another pilgrim, you exchanged the, ‘So what brings you on the Camino?’ question. José’s was simple, and it made me think of my own reasons.

The say the Camino always provides, and it does – from new friendships to a bit of clarity to a stronger body, or even a hot plate of food after a long trek.

That afternoon when we rolled into Baamonde, just 103 kilometers from Santiago, and we had ample time to enjoy the 94 others who were there sharing four showers with us. Afternoon beers, a large and tasty meal in a table that was far too small for us and our food, jam sessions in the patio as we waited out a rain cloud. When you only have one thing in common and nothing else matters, it’s easy to make friends. Besides, that’s what Facebook is for!

Day Ten // Wednesaday, August 7th, 2013 // Baamonde – Miraz // 14.5km

“Be careful of the Santa Campana,” Fernando warned us before retiring to bed. Our walk from the sprawling pilgrim’s inn at Baamonde to the rumored ‘nicest albergue on the Norte’ was a short one, but we’d have to rush – there were just 26 beds in Miraz.

We woke at 5am. It would be dark until nearly 7:30 a.m., but we didn’t have any time to waste. My guidebook told me that we’d walk three kilometers out of Baaaaaaaaaaamonde before turning left over the train tracks. Our flashlights bounced off trees, searching desperately before we got off-track and lost a bed.

Then it began raining. We thankfully didn’t see the witches of the Santa Campana, said to lure pilgrims into sorcery by handing them candles when it’s dark and rainy along the trail.

By the time we got to Miraz around 9:30 that morning, there were already six or eight other pilgrims in line. We set our bags down under the overhang, respecting the pre-established order for beds and joined the others in the town’s only bar. We considered continuing on to Sobrado, but I’m glad we didn’t – apart from a warm bed and blanket and other English speakers (the small albergue is run by the British Cofraternity of Saint James volunteers), we spent hours in the bar, warming up over beers and sandwiches. The rain and the fact that we had to wait forever was made better by the fact that there was a bit of cerveciña to make the time pass quicker.

Day Eleven // Thursday, August 8th, 2013 // Miraz – Sobrado dos Monxes // 25.5km

We took our time walking into Sobrado dos Monxes the following day, knowing that we were nearing the end of the road. It was a perfect day, with puffy clouds within reach and enough solitude to hash out issues and just talk about nothing in between.

The albergue is housed in a 10th Century monastery, and Hayley and I couldn’t help but draw comparisons to our weeks working in a haunted monastery in Uclés, Cuenca. The pilgrim hysteria was high, as a Jesuit group was also there, taking up nearly half the beds. After checking in and getting our stamp from the monks who lived on site and raised dogs and cows (which Carmela and I got to see!), Hayley and I escaped to a bar further outside of town. When we finished, half a bottle of wine each later, a stray dog who I’d tripped over earlier in the day was waiting for us, his broken chain dangling from his neck as he drooled over the hot pavement. We tried to lose him, and the poor pup kept getting shooed out of the monastery.

I honestly would have loved wasting hours petting him in the interior lawn of the sprawling, gorgeous palace, but he was not allowed to enter.

Long live Blacky. That is, if he stops tripping pilgrims.

Day Twelve // Friday, August 9th, 2013 // Sobrado dos Monxes – Arzúa // 22km

Fernando gave us a pep talk as we headed out of Sobrado towards Arzúa, the last major stop on the Francés and where our route would hook up with the main pilgrim trail. We’d lose most of our friends on this day who favored a shorter route that skipped the pilgrim town. Many bikers making their way to Santiago passed us, and we knew they’d reach Santiago in time for Pilgrim’s Mass that morning while we still had more than 50km to go.

Reaching Arzúa was a bit strange – there was already a long line outside the municipal inn when we arrived, despite making good time. Most of the private inns were booked up, too. In the end, a hotel offered us a good price for a street side room right near the central plaza.

‘You’ll need these,’ he said, handing us a pair of earplugs. I already had some, courtesy of the Novio, but I shrugged and took them anyway. We took long showers, ate a filling lunch and caught up on the news for the first time in days. Here in Arzúa, pilgrims are kings and there are loads of facilities for them. We had ample choices of where to eat, had special deals on laundry services and massages, and found ourselves feeling alone in a booming town – it took us ages to find familiar pilgrims.

Pilgrim culture shock at its finest.

Our second to last sleep was interrupted early the next morning by a bagpipe. The town had some sort of festival, hence the lack of private inns, and its last revelers were playing bagpipes to signal the end of the party. So that’s what the earplugs were for.

Day Thirteen // Saturday, August 10th, 2013 // Arzúa – O Pedrouzo // 19km

We wizened up and book a private pension again, not willing to hurry our penultimate day for sake of a cheap bed. This meant we could take our time walking, stop more often and really soak up the last few kilometers. By now, we were 41km away from the Plaza do Obradoiro, which we decided to split into two days.

This day was among the most enjoyable – frequently stopping for a beer, running into familiar faces, realizing we’d done 300 kilometers and were all but finished. Joining us were loads of bikers (we nearly got plowed into!), many families and scout groups, and even people pushing strollers! We saw the turigrinos – those who sent their packs ahead and just walked with little weight. I felt lighter than on any other day, and even the purge I’d do later that day of things I wouldn’t need or hadn’t used in two weeks seemed to lighten the load tremendously.

I realized that I’d done everything I intended to do on the Way, save arrive in one piece to Santiago.

Hayley stopped just ahead of me and pointed – didn’t you want to leave something at this mile marker? Once in Galicia, it’s easy to see how many kilometers are left until the cathedral because they’re all marked with the distance down to the thousandth. Exactly at 21,0km I left a purple and orange ribbon for Kelsey. I’d scatter several more the following day, too – at the Lavacolla airport, at Monte do Gozo and at Saint James’s tomb.

Day Fourteen // Sunday, August 11th, 2013 // O Pedrouzo – Santiago de Compostela // 21km

I slept terribly. Maybe I was anxious, but it could be because a homeless man walked into the albergue and took a shower, and then an obnoxious family who hadn’t walked much all took showers after 11pm, turning on lights and hair dryers after I’d already drifted into dreamland. I tried to read Shirley McClain’s The Camino, but it was full of weird mystical dreams and meeting random dead Scottish men who give her a locket and then there’s a big black dog that chases her and she sends him a big red heart of love in her bind of some shit.

Anyway.

I was grumpy, but we didn’t have time for it. Every step meant one second less of our journey, one second closer to the end. Memorials and statues were around every corner, and I felt like we were racing to get to the finish line (we did want to arrive by mass at noon). I made sure to stop in the chapel of Santa Lucia, following my protocol to always leave her a donation as my Catholic aunt told me I was to do if I took her name for my confirmation. I was emotional, about ready to burst at any moment.

It finally happened after reaching Monte do Gozo. After leaving a ribbon on the memorial to Pope John Paul II and stamping our passport for one of the last times, we started the trek downhill. I teared up, wiping away my emotion as Hayley warned me to get it together, or we’d never make it.

We stalled as much as possible without losing track of the time, which included shooting last-minute footage, splitting an Aquarius, stopping to admire a part of the city we hadn’t seen on previous visits. It was ending.

As we arrived to the old town, I was overcome with emotion – for the struggles, for Kelsey, for knowing that tomorrow meant Seville and life and the school year and social media. The bagpipe that I’d heard several times on previous visits rang out and I tripped over my feet. Within moments, we’d passed under the arch and into the morning sunlight. The lichen-covered church towered before us, and even though I’d seen it many times, it was more striking and more beautiful and just plain bigger than ever before. We laid down immediately, taking it all in, happy for the journey and the fact that our legs didn’t fall off.

We had 36 hours or so in Santiago, in which we drank beer, ate international food and paid out respects to Saint James. Hayley decided to shop for other clothes to wear on the plane, but I wore my smelly clothes home, concha attached to my bag. I was proud of it, and I wanted to it last until I was back home.

The thing is, the fact that I’ve seen and done something I’ve always dreamed about doing means that it’s going to last forever in my heart and my memories and my photos.

Yes, even this one: creepy doll heads in Lavacolla, just one of the weird things we saw in 325 kilometers.

Want more? My flickr page has every photo you could ever want to see, and I’m working on my first video! In the meantime, you can watch Hayley’s Camino video and tear up when I do when arriving to the Obradoiro (or laugh at how excited I get about a plate of lentejas)! To learn more about the Camino de Santiago, check out my resources page, or get your FAQs answered by Trevor of A Texan in Spain.

Huelva: Andalucía’s overlooked province and why I love it

Jessie called me to give me the bad news: “They placed me somewhere called Huelva,” using the hard h sound we’d learned to adopt in Valladolid. Without looking at a map, I assumed Huelva was on the other side of Andalusia and sighed heavily, sad that we couldn’t continue our Vdoid antics with an acento andalú for eight more months.

Jessie (on the far right) and I in San Sebastián. June 2005.

As a matter of fact, Huelva is the little slice of overlooked Andalucía is wedged between Seville, Cádiz, Badajoz and Portugal, a far-flung yet varied region.

Confession: I think Huelva has more to offer by way of destinations and gastronomy than Seville does. Gasp!

Bet you didn’t know that Christopher Columbus prayed at the La Rábida monastery before setting off for the New World (and that you can visit recreations of the Nina, Pinta and Santa María in its port), or that the Recreativo de Huelva is Spain’s oldest football club, as the English settlers to Río Tinto brought the game over when they came to exploit the mines?

I mean, yes, it smells like a swamp and it’s not exactly a beautiful city, but there are some redeeming factors that make the province of Huelva worth a day or two, particularly along its coastline or a trip to Doñana National Park.

THE HAM and other eats

I would clearly start with my taste buds and my beloved jamón ibérico. The black-footed pigs in the northern hills of the province, part of the Cordillería Bética, feast year-round on acorns, giving the cured meats a buttery smooth taste and texture. They’re taken to the slaughterhouse in Aracena in early Autumn to be turned into meats and other products from the Denominación de Origen Huelva (note: this weekend kicks off the Feria de Jamón in Aracena, where free samples abound!). 

Huelva is also famous for fresh seafood and strawberries. The gamba blanca de Huelva is a local favorite that is simply boiled and served with rock salt, and it’s characteristic of the region. The fresas and fresones are cultivated in the greenhouses along the coast from Palos de la Frontera to as far as Lepe, with their growing season lasting just a few months in the springtime. Migas, a bread dish with garlic, is also common in the mountains.

And then there’s wine! The bodegas around Bollullos Par del Condado produce a young white wine similar to mosto that’s a bit sweet, as well as vinegars. You can visit the bodegas and wine museums from Seville, as it’s only a 45-minute drive from the capital.

The beaches and mountains

Huelva shares a coastline with the Atlantic, with the Ríos Tinto and Odiel forming the Sebo peninsula where upon the capital sits, and the Guadiana separates Spain from Portugal. Many sevillanos flock to the coast during the warm summer months because of its proximity to the capital hispalense – less than 100 kilometers. The beaches are of fine sand, moderately windy and relatively clean. Seven of Huelva’s beaches have been bestowed with the Bandera Azul – three in Punta Umbría, two in Isla Cristina and one each in Moguer and Almonte.

In the Northern part of the province, the last little push of the Bética becomes the Sierra Morena. This region is full of great hiking trails, ideas for excursions like mushroom hunting, and gorgeous little villages where you can eat well and on the cheap. Aracena is the ‘capital’ of the region and boasts a series of underground caves and a crumbling castle that crowns the hamlet.

Huelva is also home to Spain’s largest national park, Doñana. These protected wetlands and pine groves cover about 135 square miles and is the breeding ground of the Iberian Lynx. The park boasts quite a few beaches, too, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. You can visit the park with a guide, though my mom and I snuck in a horseback ride from nearby Mazagón.

The fiestas

For years, I equated Huelva with a hangover due to its enormous Erasmus population and cheap bars (and because I was 22 and 23 when I went every other weekend), but Huelva knows its fiestas poplars.

Each Pentecost Sunday, those faithful to the Virgen del Rocío (known as Our Lady of the Swamps) take a pilgrimage to the Aldea outside of Almonte to witness the festivities to exalt one of Spain’s most popular symbols. It’s like the Feria de Sevilla set in the Wild West – hitching posts, covered wagons that people live and travel in for a few days, the palios that carry the image of the virgen towards the sacred ground where her image was found in a tree trunk or some business like that. And get this  – people flock from as far away as Brussels on foot, and then return the same way they came! If you’re on the way to Doñana, definitely stop in El Rocío and visit the gorgeous whitewashed shrine – it’s lovely.

Huelva also celebrates its connection with Columbus during Spain’s national fiesta, October 12th, has several smaller romerías for various saints in the province and has its own version of Carnival and Holy Week.

Living well and living cheap

For everything that Seville lacks, Huelva makes up for it. Onubenses enjoy a better microclimate than Seville, are closer to the beach and can live comfortably for cheap – Jessie and company lived right in the center of town in a Duplex for 180€ a month! I would grab a bus every other weekend to go see her and the other girls, enjoying a few days near the beach for cheap.

Getting to Huelva capital from Sevilla is easy: Damas runs an hourly bus on weekdays from Plaza de Armas for 16€ roundtrip. Have you ever been to Huelva? Any recommendations on other things to see?

Trekking the Barranco de Masca in Tenerife

Something inside me changed the day Hayley and I started on the Camino de Santiago – I starting to like walking! Ever since getting back, I’ve been scoping out places to take Pequeño Monty to strap on my boots and trek. Carly did the hard work for me – she found a cool hike in Tenerife. Julie, is your couch free one weekend so I can come stay?

For most people, Tenerife conjures up images of crowded beaches, bars overflowing with young holidaymakers looking for cheap drinks and a good time. However, there’s so much more to this wonderful island! Having found a cheap flight to Tenerife in 2013, I decided that this would be the year I would visit the island and discover some of these hidden gems. I decided I wanted to take a trekking holiday around the island, because I knew there was a whole ton of fantastic scenery just waiting for me to feast my eyes on. I only had a few days off work, so with a little bit of research, I came up with a plan to hike the Barranco de Masca. ‘Barranco’ means ravine, so this was essentially going to be a walk along a deep slice through a collection of overwhelming cliffs towards a rewarding beach bay at the end.

I started off in the remote village of Masca, which was essentially unreachable by car until the 1960s. Before that, visitors could only get there by a series of winding paths. The village itself is pretty tiny and surrounded by huge mountains on all sides. If you’re driving during your visit, then you can access the town by car, though the road is pretty treacherous. There’s a bus service that runs there from Los Gigantes though, which takes around 30 minutes.

From here you head out of the town to the well signposted route, then all you need to do is walk downhill – it’s pretty impossible to get lost here! You’ll pass over dry waterfalls as you head towards the coast. The sound of the rushing ocean was really exciting as I couldn’t wait to get into the water for a dip after sweating away in the barranco! Like most of the other people who were walking the trail, I decided to get the boat back to Los Gigantes as the walk back would have been twice as difficult as it was all uphill! The boats stop mid-afternoon, so make sure you plan in advance so you’re not forced to hike back.

The walk itself is gruelling, so if you’re inexperienced, prepare to be quite challenged. It took me around three hours, but it might take up to four hours if you want to be a little more leisurely. I had time for plenty of pictures though, so I wouldn’t say I rushed it. You should of course take your hiking boots with you – the road can be slippery at times and a fall could be pretty disastrous. Be aware that there is some light scrambling required, so if you aren’t comfortable with that, this walk may not be for you. Also be sure to pack enough water to sustain you. It’s a really hot walk, especially if you go early in the day, so take at least two litres. There isn’t really anywhere to buy food along the way either, so be sure to pack lunch and snacks to keep you going.

Carly Deevers is a woman who enjoys solo travel and the excitement this involves. She has travelled throughout Europe and Africa is next on her list. 

Images by Andrea Baldassarri and pululante used under creative commons licence

Any ideas for other great hikes in Spain?

Guest Post: Lanzarote’s Top Three

A visit to Lanzarote shouldn’t be solely about bathing on the beach and splashing in the hotel pool – not when this Canary Island has so much more to offer her visitors than just the typical beach break. While the all inclusive hotels in Lanzarote will provide all the amenities you could possibly wish for, it’s the island’s other attractions that really make the island worth visiting. From sea caves to cactus gardens and a humungous national park, Lanzarote has plenty on offer for those who fancy a change from the norm.

Timanfaya National Park

As one of the top natural attractions on the island, the national park is a popular addition to an itinerary, with coach trips operating regularly so that you can experience the barren landscapes of this incredible sight.

Jardin de Cactus

Mind the prickles! Located in Guatiza, it used to be the site of a gravel pit but is now the breathtaking home of almost 10,000 cacti in one mightily impressive garden. Make sure you relax on the terrace with an ice cold drink to admire the panoramic views of the garden in its entirety.

Los Hervideros

As the waves crash upon the rocks, more and more caves are formed but for now, there are several of them to explore. Los Hervideros is essentially a lava tube that has been formed by lava and trapped gases, and sea caves and blowholes are the product of natural progression over thousands of years.

Alternatly, head for the awesome craft markets in Haria, where you can pick up some handiwork produced by some of the local craftsmen or check out the underground home of island artist and architect, Cesar Manrique, which has been formed from a partially collapsed lava tube.

There’s plenty to see and do in Lanzarote – if you can tear yourself away from the beach, that is!

Want to learn more about the Canaries? Read my tips about Driving Gran Canaria on Backpacking Matt.

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