Once a year for four months, the pine and oak forests of the UNESCO-protected Biosphere Reserve, high up in the Transatlantic Volcanic Belt outside of Mexico City, come alive. Starting in early November, on the Day of the Dead, millions of monarch butterflies arrive after their 3,000-mile journey from eastern Canada and the United States to mate … creating one of the most majestic natural wonders in the world.
The butterflies clump together for warmth when the sun is hiding.
It all started in December when I realized I wanted to start off 2016 the way I wanted to end it — traveling and being inspired. I’ve always wanted to see the butterfly migration; when I was a child growing up in Ohio, the butterflies would sometimes pass through on their way to Mexico, and it was awe-inspiring to see football fields full of them — and I wanted to revisit that on a grander scale. I knew I had to go see the migration in Mexico.
My friend Trisha lives in Los Angeles, Jackie lives in Dallas, and I am in New York City — basically, it’s hard to get together. So when Trisha suggested a girls getaway in Ojai, Calif., just 75 miles north of Los Angeles, Jackie and I jumped.
At first I was skeptical.
Ojai has gotten an annoying rap in the past as a healthy, vegan, spiritual hippie hangout.
And there are still some things that make you roll your eyes and giggle a bit. The “No Talking!” signs posted alongside the anti-cellphone warnings at the famed Meditation Mount lookout are a bit much, as are the plethora of signs warning you that everything is organic. (Doesn’t it all become a little like a double negative after a while? Like: “organic organics,” “vegan organic,” “farm fresh organic vegan.” At some point you just want to say, “Come on — I know this is all made from genetically modified cow hoofs!” Except, fun fact, vegans don’t have the most developed sense of humor and probably wouldn’t think that’s funny. Must be the lack of protein.) Or the shops that sell dream catchers alongside crystals and spiritual self-help books.
But I was about to get schooled.
The Ojai Valley Inn is a little slice of heaven. (Photo: Ojai Valley Inn & Spa)
Forget curling up with a cat, the most amazing thing in the world is cuddling an orphaned baby rhino. (Photo: Khululu Care for the Wild)
There is almost nothing more heartbreaking in South Africa’s war against rhino poaching than seeing a baby pachyderm standing watch over its dead mother, mourning. Many times the babies, too young to survive on their own, are also doomed; others are rescued — their fate unknown. But now, there is a facility in the north of the country where these babies are, fed, cared for, and ultimately released to the wild — and it’s guests (who pay for the volunteer experience) who are doing it.
It’s the new hands-on wildlife experience.
At Khulula Care for the Wild, situated on the banks of the Vreek, Noord-Kaap, and Queens rivers, in Mpumulanga, South Africa, you can actually cuddle, nurse, wean, and play with orphaned rhino babies whose mothers have been slaughtered by poachers.
According to Ellen Sziede, the marketing manager for African Conservation Experience, which runs Khululu, “there are an estimated 20,000 white rhino and 5,000 black rhino left in Africa. South Africa has by far the biggest population of all African countries, being home to almost 90 percent of all African white rhino. So the current estimated population for South Africa is about 18,000 white rhino and just under 2,000 black rhino.”
Viktor Barkas, who runs the Rhino Protrack team, which patrols for poachers on privately owned land outside of Kruger, in Hoedspruit, South Africa, told me last year that in the small area he patrols there are 2,000 rhinos — 126 of which were slaughtered in the first half of last year, leaving many rhino offspring orphaned.
“it is not a war on rhino,” Barkas said. “It is a genocide.”
The unlucky orphans (from all over the country, not just Barkas’s area) end up at Khululu, where the rhinos are raised and eventually released back into the wild in a program reminiscent of the wildly successful David Sheldrick elephant orphanage, in Kenya.
Volunteers are asked to stay for a minimum of two weeks — although exceptions are made — and during this time they rotate in and out of three teams.
The baby rhinos love feeding time.
Baby Olive loves her bottle. (Photo: Khululu Care for the Wild)
The first team, the Baby Team, looks after the youngest rhinos, which are still fed by bottle. “Travelers in this team spend a lot of time preparing the special milk formula and doing the bottle feeds, mothering the smallest rhinos, as they sometimes need people to stay with them at night when they are very small, and also helping with the veterinary care for new arrivals,” Sziede said.
The babies love a cuddle at nap time.
(Photo: Khululu Wild Care)
After working with the smallest rhinos, guests move on to Team Rhino, which takes care of the weaned animals, including recording feeding behavior and preparing mud baths for the little guys.
And then there’s Team Other — which isn’t as bad as it sounds.
“Care for the Wild looks after a lot of other species as well, not just the rhinos,” Sziede explained. “They currently have two hippos, three lions, several birds of prey, various antelope, a baby vervet monkey, and mongoose. All of these animals need feeding, enclosure maintenance, and enrichment — from playing with the monkey and mongoose to taking the hippos for a swim.”
Look who made a new friend… (Photo: Khululu Care for the Wild)
Sziede added that “This is hard work: Volunteers wake up at around 6 a.m. and go to bed at around 7 p.m … unless they are on the midnight feeding slot.” But the work is worth it.
And while there seem to be a lot of babies around, “There actually should be more babies (rescued),” Barkas said. “The poachers will kill the mother for the horn, and if the baby isn’t scared off, they will often kill it too just to silence it.”
The orphans will take all the hugs they can get.
Costs to volunteer (which include include pick-up/drop-off from Johannesburg Airport, accommodations, meals, and funding) are:
Two weeks: US$3,150Three weeks: US$4,050Four weeks: US$4,800
Everyone on Waikiki Beach knows “Uncle” Billy Pa. At 76, he’s been surfing the shores in front of the Royal Hawaiian hotel for decades and was part of the original Beach Boys (not the band!) — the group of local surfers who brought the sport to the rest of the world.
Hanging loose with Billy.
In the 1950s, Billy and his friends, including the Duke, a legendary surfer considered to be the father of modern-day surfing, started teaching tourists to ride the waves to earn some extra cash, and he’s been here ever since, surfing and teaching for the Waikiki Beach Services.
Not only can Billy surf, but he’s also the best teacher on the beach — you might remember from earlier episodes that surfing is not my forte.
But unlike Puerto Rico, there was no storm coming in, and the waves on Waikiki Beach were calm and easy. With Billy’s help and encouragement, I got up on my first, second, third, and fifth try.
Billy’s boards on Waikiki Beach.
But perhaps even better than surfing with Billy is hanging out with him and hearing his stories of back in the day, when surfing was still relatively unknown and he, the Duke, and the other Beach Boys would bum around the sand, getting paid to do what they love.
“I started on an old redwood board,” Billy said. “We would all share the boards — if one person had a board, he was everyone’s friend. We would grab rides to the beach and surf all day, sometimes five guys sharing one board — and then one day we started getting paid to do it. It was great!”
It’s his experience and his love of his sport that makes Billy the best surf master out there. Not only can he help anyone get up on a board, but is also patient enough to wait all day if he has to. If you ever find yourself on Waikiki Beach in Oahu, look him up. You will regret it if you don’t.
When people visit Hawaii, they usually go to Oahu, Maui, or, for adventure, the Big Island. Every so often, those who can afford the Four Seasons will stop off at Lanai, the island where Bill Gates got married … but very rarely do you hear people say, “I’m off on holiday to Molokai.”
And the locals are just fine with that.
“We don’t want the cruise ships here,” local musician and ukulele godLono said. “It would ruin our culture like it has with the other islands.”
From the balcony of my in Casablanca, life looks normal. (All Photos: Paula Froelich)
I’m sitting on the balcony of my hotel in Casablanca overlooking the beach and watching a group of teenagers play soccer. Women and children stroll by, and off in the distance you can see a surfer catching some waves. It all looks normal. But it’s not.
Two nights before, eight roaches slipped into Paris and, in an orchestrated attack, killed 129 people and terrorized millions around the globe.
Morocco, once a French colony, went on high alert. Their king was in the city at the time of the attacks. A day later, the king was back in Rabat, but the nervousness still permeated the country.
Riding around Marrakech in the sidecar of a motorbike, filming the city from an angle few ever get to see, courtesy of the fine folks at Insiders Experience.
I was in the country to speak at a conference and film my show, A Broad Abroad, when the attacks happened. At my hotel in Marrakech, people were glued to the television in the lounge, showing scene after scene of horror. It is not the first time I have been in a country after an international terrorism attack has occurred. I was in Jordan after the Tunisia attacks and in Mali when the civil war started. But this time was different. This time the attack was considered “fluid” (possibly orchestrated with the attack a day earlier in Beirut, which killed over 40 people and wounded 200 more). This meant there could be another attack, anywhere at any time. Morocco was of special concern as not only is it a former French colony, but it has had several citizens join ISIS in Syria, and the worry is those citizens could have returned and were going to sync up attacks with the ones in Paris.
It pains me to leave Morocco — an Arab, Muslim country in North Africa but still considered part of the Middle East — not just because Morocco is a lovely, safe country, but because I’m playing out the ISIL playbook.
That is what they want us to do — to hide; to cower in our homes, afraid to come out; to become xenophobes who are scared of anything different. For travelers to stay home so the countries whose economies are supported by tourism can fall into disrepair and chaos… making it easier for them to recruit. They want us all be afraid of different religions, because they have coopted what is a peaceful one and forcibly given it a new face of a monster.
But this is not the face of the country (and other countries in this region) I have experienced. Let me tell you the stories of the people I met.
There’s the 17-year-old surfer girl, who surfs every day because her brother, whom she was close to, died at sea. Every time she surfs she feels like she is with him. And her parents, who are conservative Muslims, give her their blessing, as they just want their daughter to be happy.
Kati Roumani is a historian who oversees the Marrakesh synagogue.
There’s the head of the Jewish society in Morocco, who practices his religion freely, without harassment and is friends with the king.
There’s the woman who oversees the only synagogue in Marrakech, who helps uphold of the 2,000-year history of Jews in Morocco.
Noor, on the left, is a transgendered woman who is a famed belly dancer in the region.
There’s the transgender belly dancer — the Caitlyn Jenner of the Arab world — who struggled for acceptance and to get her gender changed on her passport so she can one day marry. She is alive, well, and celebrated.
There are the women of the argon oil coop in Altima Sens in the Atlas Mountains, who work so they can support their family and not have to get married just to survive.
Kathy Krider, a former diplomat in the Clinton and Bush administrations, now owns and operates Rick’s Cafe in Casablanca.
And then there are the American expats who have moved here because they love this country so much and they can do business here without harassment.
These are the stories of Morocco and the Arab world.
They are not the ones that the disenfranchised, psychotics of ISIS would have you believe. Theirs is a myopic story of hate, of misogyny, of a warped dream — and they alone rule.
The sun sets on the road from Marrakesh to Casablanca.
It is a nightmare that I reject. It is one that 99.99999 percent of the world (including the Muslim world) rejects. And now is the time to put on your big girl pants, walk out your door, and stand up to this.
Morocco, I will be back. Sooner rather than later.
There is almost nothing more terrifying yet magical than being out in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Hawaii’s Big Island, with 18-foot-wide, alien-looking beings swimming backward loops just millimeters from your face.
One of the most fascinating things to experience in Hawaii is to take a night swim with giant manta rays. Although fierce looking — with triangular fins, horn-shaped cephalic fins, gaping maws, and long, sharp tails — they are not to be confused with some of their fiercer cousins (think sharks or Steve Irwin and his unfortunate demise).
“They are harmless — unless you dangle your feet and they accidentally hit you as they glide by,” Bob, my guide from Jack’s Diving Locker, said. “The largest of them can get up to 23 feet long and weigh 3,600 pounds, so it would be like getting hit by a Mac truck. But don’t worry,” he assured me, “that hasn’t happened — yet.”
A manta ray gracefully swims past a group of divers on a night dive in Kona. (Photo: Getty Images)
For someone who has a healthy respect for (read: fear of) the ocean, this wasn’t as reassuring as when Bob claimed sharks wouldn’t be present.
“Of course, sharks are in the ocean, but they usually stay away from the diving spots,” he said. “They usually feed at different times, and, well, no one’s been attacked on a dive — yet.”
Despite all the “yets,” I suited up — there was, after all, a 5-year-old boy on the boat, and I was not going to be outdone by a kindergartner.
The boats leave at sunset and cluster around the Sheraton outside of Kona.
“The night diving and snorkeling started when the Sheraton opened,” our guide said. “The lights from the hotel attracted the plankton, which brought the mantas.”
Divers and surface swimmers coordinate lights to attract the plankton that the manta rays feed on. (Photo: Jack’s Diving Locker/Facebook)
These days there are even more night lights. The divers bring beams of light with them and coordinate with the surface swimmers (that’d be me), clinging onto surfboards specially outfitted with more lights to create a column of light in the black darkness of the night ocean.
And then the giants come. At first there are one or two manta rays, gliding through the illuminated column, and suddenly you’re surrounded by the seemingly hollow beasts who, when they open their mouths, reveal the ocean through their two-foot-long gills.
A group of manta rays feeding at night. When they open their mouths, they seem magically hollow. (Photo: Getty Images)
It’s a silent ballet of creatures not even Cirque du Soleil could have thought up. The surreal experience is like watching aliens glide through the darkness, appearing from nowhere and disappearing, mystically, minutes later.
Afterwards, the snorkelers with me sat silent for a minute before looking around the boat in awe at the black ocean, hiding its marvels.
If you ever find yourself on the Big Island of Hawaii — go. It’s the experience of a lifetime.
In mid July every year, all over Mongolia, business in the boomtown capital of Ulaanbaatar and in the tiny towns dotting the country comes to a standstill — as day laborers, miners, shopkeepers and almost every man, woman, and child head to their yurts to prepare for the Naadam Festival.
When I went to Greenland in April, there was nothing I was looking forward to more than sailing through the country’s fjords and seeing the polar ice cap up close — plus possibly spying a polar bear. These things are all beautiful, but each also has a darker history.
The (disappearing) ice sheet, which is around 110,00 years old, covers 80 percent of the country and is 3 kilometers thick at its deepest point, but is generally 2 kilometers thick. The glaciers spread over the middle of the country and flow outward, breaking off in the fjords, which are filled with icebergs and sheets of floating ice called floes.
Sailing around the fjords is dangerous. Just as in “Titanic,” only the tip of the bergs flowing around you are visible. “You have to be very, very careful when sailing around here,” said my guide, Yakob Mathiassen. “But we are fine — we have an Inuit boat driver.”
It’s beautiful, but global warming is changing things. The ice sheet decreased 16 percent from 1979 to 2002, and as a result, polar bears — which generally stay to the very north of the country — have been coming south.
“There was one they had to shoot last year because it got too close to Nuuk City central,” Mathiassen said. “The theory is he came down and around the tip of the country on an ice floe with the current.”
(Fun fact: If you run into a polar bear and you don’t have a weapon, do not run away. They can run 40 miles per hour, so you can’t outrun them — you have to try to distract them. To do so, you have to get naked. Seriously. Take a piece of clothing off. Drop it on the ground and back away slowly. Then take another item off and back away slowly. Repeat until you are naked (ish) and then run. “Polar bears are very curious,” Mathiassen said. “They will inspect, bite, or play with objects they come across. Leave enough clothes for them to forget about you and run as fast as you can.”)
As you sail along the coast of Greenland, you also see picturesque but empty settlements. In the beginning of the 20th century, Nuuk was not the capital. At that time, most of the country’s population, which now stands at 50,000, was in small settlements which ranged from a few families to a thousand people dotted along the coast. People lived by hunting and foraging what they could. Supplies, mail, and even schools were shipped in.
When I first heard about the Arctic Winter Games, my head immediately filled with snowboarding, skiing, dog mushing, and possibly ice fishing. But that’s not all that happens…
Occurring every two years, the Arctic Winter Games are the Olympics for athletes in the places that inhabit the Arctic Circle: Canada, Russia, Alaska, and Greenland. Within the games are the Arctic Sports, a series of competitions that derive from Inuit culture and survival techniques that the Inuit needed to have when hunting or camping out on the ice for weeks on end. While now performed inside a warm gym, some of the sports — while featuring some seriously dubious names — can still be dangerous: Greenland’s Prime Minister Kim Kielsen is missing the middle finger on his left hand thanks to a game called the Finger Pull.
According to the Arctic Winter Games website, finger pulling occurs when “Two competitors sit on the floor facing each other and lock middle fingers. Competitors pull steadily at the fingers while bracing their opposite hands on their opponent’s ankle. The object is to pull the opponent over or touch the opponent’s hand to one’s chest.” Again, this can be oddly dangerous.
2. The Kneel Jump
“The competitor begins in a kneeling position, with buttocks resting on one’s heels, toes pointed backward, and hands on knees. From this position, he then jumps as far forward as possible, lands on his feet in a squatting position, and maintains balance.”
“Two competitors lie on the floor, their stomachs facing each other. A looped band is placed over the back of each head above the ears. Rising to a ‘push-up’ position with only hands and feet touching the floor, the athletes pull with their heads, bracing their hands out in front and using their whole body strength to pull steadily backward. The object is to pull the opponent over a line that is drawn between them. (Males only)”
“The competitor starts with a running or standing approach with feet no more than shoulder width apart at take off. The target must be clearly struck while both feet are parallel. Maintaining balance and control, the competitor must land on both feet at the same time, no more than a shoulder width apart.”
“In the starting position the competitor must brace himself with the elbow of the balancing arm tucked into the body. The competitor begins by lifting his feet off the floor while balancing on his hands. With one hand the competitor reaches up to strike the target while maintaining his balance on the other hand. The striking hand must touch the ground before any other part of the body does so. (Males only)”
“The competitor lies on the floor, face down, with arms straight out in an ‘iron cross’ position. Four assistants lift the competitor two to three feet off of the floor and carry him forward at a constant speed. When the competitor’s body or arms begin to sag, he drops. Longest distance before dropping wins. (Males only)”
7. The Triple Jump
“Using a running or standing start, the competitor completes three consecutive jumps. Feet must stay no more than shoulder width apart. The shortest distance from the back of the starting line to the nearest point touched by any part of the competitor’s body wins.”
While there are more self-explanatory Arctic Sports – including arm pull, stick pull and other jump categories, these were the most… illuminating of the bunch. In 2016, Greenland will host the games solo for the first time ever, so Arctic champion Tonny Fisker took me to the local high school gym where he and other athletes were training… Check out the video above for all the arm pulling, head pulling, stuffed seal kicking, and airplaning in action. It’s pretty fascinating. I swear.
