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Friday, March 20, 2020

Flashback Friday - Once Upon a Time In Venezuela

With troubling times and travel on hold, I thought it might be nice to share a travel adventure that really ended up being a misadventure but, in the end, years later - we can laugh and really wonder did that really happen?

My First Time or How Not to Deep Sea Fish

Hours ago we struggled through snow drifts.  Now, under Venezuela’s tropical sun my husband and I anticipate tomorrow’s adventure, deep-sea fishing in paradise!

The hotels warn of beach cons.  Use the tour groups we’re told.  But us folk from the barren Canadian prairie are tough, we will not be conned…we’re smarter than the average bear… or in this case, Venezuelan.

Sunrise finds us on the beach.  The sun peels the last vestiges of sleep from our conscious.  Our guide is ready, smiling.  Okay, maybe that wasn’t a smile.  Actually, he looks downright unfriendly.  

The small wooden boat is primitive.  It holds an umbrella and a cooler.  The guide speaks only Spanish.  Truthfully, he does not speak at all.  And he seems opposed to hand gestures.  It is only the taxi to the harbour I say to the others.  

We arrive in a harbour filled with luxury fishing craft.  I contain my “I was right” smile.  Within minutes, the smugness slides deep into the bowels of the Caribbean as we chug out to sea.  The engine emits a relay of coughs.  A trail of blue smoke follows in our wake.

It is not the big fishing trip we expected but it will be fun, a delightful morning of fishing on the high seas.  Although it is clear we won’t be going far… there are no life jackets.

Many miles later…

There are five people onboard and four spools of fish line.  There are no rods.  Our recalcitrant guide keeps one, ignores us, and catches an angelfish.  Someone else catches a nasty looking eel.  Silent, the guide severs the line with a machete-sized knife.  What else lurks below?

Hours pass.  I resign myself to the only bathroom option. I leap overboard.  I surface, tread water wildly, and grab for the boat before I bob out to sea.  I try not to think about the eel.  

The afternoon’s sunburn finds relief in early evening.  Is this not a planned tour with a scheduled end?   Finally, we inform our now surly guide that we would like to return.  This time he acknowledges the hand gestures.

The boat swings from the sheltered chain of islands to open water.  Land is a speck in the horizon.  The gentle swells morph into something far more sinister.  They crash over the bow.  We are drenched.  A massive field of jellyfish clusters around the boat.  Do they sting?  Was that mentioned in the guidebook? 

Finally, Halleluiah, we grind into shore!  A spat worthy of both an orchestra and fireworks erupts between the other couple.   The guide glares at the dueling duo with every ounce of his long repressed hostility.   We dodge the combatants and leap for shore.  Dusk settles as sand shifts beneath our rapidly retreating feet.  

We end the day alone, the feuding pair and hostile guide dispatched to a bad memory.  Ice cubes clink in glasses of rum and coke, more rum than coke of course…much more.  

Until later. 

Dream big and travel safe.


Ryshia


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Tuesday, March 17, 2020

Happy St. Patrick's Day - Win a Book!

Let’s look forward to these moments when we can celebrate even as the world shares troubling times. Here, on the prairies, the global pandemic only has us beginning shutdowns and voluntary social isolation. Man, that sounds gloomy.  But it’s not, not yet - hopefully never. At our house, we’re catching up on episodes of the television series, Lost, and making calls to friends and relatives And,
with the dregs of winter still here, keeping warm. So, it isn’t, and can’t all be doom and gloom. Especially today. It's St. Patrick's Day, a day to celebrate. So have a beer or your favourite beverage and toast another day and up here, the slow demise of winter. 

Me, I’m going to celebrate the day with a little Guinness and a contest.

 I’ll be drawing two winners for an e-copy of The Tears We Never Cried. Contest ends midnight, March 18, 2020 CST.


Here are the rules:
You have to be a newsletter subscriber. Not one already?
Sign up for my newsletter, The Walkabout, and you're entered. Click below to sign on to not only be entered in the contest but keep up with my world of books:

 My Newsletter - The Walkabout - Sign up

Already a subscriber, send me an e-mail (ryshia@ryshiakennie.com) with The Tears in the re: line. 

 In the meantime, here’s some of what you’ve been missing - an excerpt from The Tears We Never Cried:

  The Tears We Never Cried:

Fifteen minutes after mother left, I was outside shoveling like a mad woman. Somehow the activity calmed the despair that seemed to hit me at odd moments, it was like premature grief, and I really didn’t want to grieve for her before she was actually gone. 
The shoveling helped. But it was tiring work, even for me and I’m not a small woman. Big-boned, mother always said. Another thing I didn’t get from either of my parents. My father, at least the man I had called father, wasn’t short. He was built reed-slim with bones that weren’t considered enduring. 
I was breaking a sweat and the sun was gleaming hot on my neck even as my thumbs began to freeze in my wool gloves. From the corner of my eye I saw a glint and flash that made me look up as the hard snow cracked under the weight of a vehicle. Russ’s SUV was pulling into our driveway and my heart, I hated to admit it even then, did a small skip. I literally didn’t breathe. Instead, anticipation hung in my chest like a raw and aching, or maybe whimpering was more appropriate, beast. The door opened and I recognized the figure getting out. I had known it was him before then. 
Russ. 
“Hi, Cassie,” he said as he opened the gate like it was normal for him to appear unexpectedly. 
I leaned on the shovel and wished I could have ripped the tasseled toque from my head. It was far from my best look. I wished I was dressed slightly better, that I was wearing makeup that ... I stopped such ridiculous thoughts right there. I had more serious things to contemplate. 
“What’s wrong?” He took the shovel from my now limp hand and dropped it to the side. 
I’m so mixed up. And those words almost came out. I stared at Russ horrified I had come so close to spilling my unwanted emotions at his feet. Despite my best efforts, tears filmed my eyes. 
Bless Russ, he never said a word. Instead he just wrapped his arms around me and I burrowed into the depths of his down-filled parka. His parka was slightly damp when I sheepishly pulled away. 
He reached into his pocket and pulled out a tissue.



I blew my nose. Could I be any more unappealing?


I realize that the end of the excerpt might be disturbing in the world's current pandemic alert. But, if you live in the frozen north, you'll know that cold weather can make a healthy person's nose run. And, in Cassie's case, that's exactly what happened.


The Tears We Never Cried:

A mother’s tragic diagnosis.

A daughter’s life on hold.
An ending and a new beginning ...



Cassandra McDowall’s mother has been forgetful for a while, but she never anticipated rapid-onset Alzheimer’s to come out of nowhere and shake their world to its very core.



As Cassie puts her already-lackluster life on hold, her mom’s indomitable will and spirit of adventure prove to be a handful.



And as her mother fades, the two embark on one last adventure—a journey that reveals secrets on the brink of being lost, the joy of foreign sunsets, and love where she hadn’t thought it possible.

 Until later. 

Dream big and travel safe.


Ryshia


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Friday, March 13, 2020

Flashback Friday - Over the Handlebars and Into the Fire

One thing of the many things one should not to do while abroad - fight with the persistent slide of your person down the fender of a very shaky dirt bike on a very busy highway. 
Here is how it all went down:

It was the last bike on the lot. A dirt bike that was questionable from the start especially with plans to ride a deus and hit a Thai freeway from Chiang Rai, Thailand to the northern border town of Mae Sai, Thailand. Apparently there was a reason that it was the only bike left on the lot:

...It spit oil - everywhere!...The speedometer didn't work!
...Its burning hot exhaust pipe stretched out where
the passenger's legs went! 
...The bike wasn't the only thing that had only one left - a helmet
in my size was the second!
...And the seat wasn't meant to double - apparently
neither was the fender!

So, in one of the most uncomfortable rides of my life we headed doubling down the Thai highway. A relatively busy foreign freeway is not one where you want a breakdown. So we valiantly kept up with the flow of traffic as oil peppered the driver's legs. But the faster our speed went the more the wind resistance seemed to send me sliding down that shaky seat - the fender. And when I wasn't repositioning, I was using my free hand to push the helmet up that had fallen over my eyes.

Next time you hear that there's only one rental left - walk fast - very fast - in the other direction. And don't go driving down Thai freeways on a worn out dirt bike. I know for sure you won't see me out there - at least not on a dirt bike




Until later. 

Dream big and travel safe.


Ryshia


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Friday, March 6, 2020

Flashback Friday - A Trip to the Past - Myanmar and a bit of Lip Gloss

With travel a little dicey with the world dodging the latest flu, I headed back to a virtual trip. Here it is another dive into past blog posts with - a day in Myanmar:

We've learned many things from our guide, Han, who showed us around Bagan, Myanmar for a few days. He took us through the history of the stupas that dot the Bagan plains and the basics of Buddhism. At first it is difficult to catch all his words as he speaks seriously and enthusiastically about his culture and beliefs. He is only twenty-three but already an accomplished businessman who guides tourists, owns a van and car for taxi service and helps to support his parents. He speaks English and Japanese and teaches children Japanese for free, one or two hours per day, which fulfills some of his obligations to his belief that one must learn and/or teach at least two hours per day. He says that he learned Japanese from an English/Japanese book and that Japanese is easy. I can only, as a true monolinguist, roll my eyes. I'm sure my smattering of French is not worth mentioning.


Meanwhile, on Mount Popa, with monkeys and stray dogs roaming everywhere, we meet children who may also have been versed in the middle way, or modesty and giving back, but who have only one thing on their mind today - lip gloss! 

"You are very beautiful Madam. Do you have lip gloss?" It's a chant I hear everywhere and get a grin when I tell them that they too are beautiful. Unfortunately, I did not foresee the demand for lip gloss and instead hand them a pen from my rapidly depleting supply. Fortunately, that is also their second request. "Stiletto Madam, pen?"




C'est la vie


Ryshia




Until later. 

Dream big and travel safe.


Ryshia


Book news? - follow me on Bookbub                                                   


   ...a world you never imagined!

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The Dead Sea, a tourist and a whole other  story!
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