Focus on Narrative Travel Writing Contest Winners &
Latin America Volunteering, Travel, Study, Work and Living

Having my hand drenched in palm oil and scorched over an open flame wasn't my idea of a perfect tropical getaway. But that's what I found myself doing on my last day on São Tomé.

A tiny equatorial nation of two islands and 160,000 people, São Tomé e Principe floats in the Gulf of Guinea in West Africa. It's blessed with an abundance of fish, fruits, plants — and sea urchins, as I found out on a deceptively tranquil beach. After a clumsy fall in the shallow water, I ended up with my right hand full of brittle black needles.

"Do you want to try the local cure?" the white-haired Portuguese doctor asked, giving up after fiddling with a hypodermic needle and tweezers for a good half hour. He'd extracted some of the spikes, but most were buried deep in the skin of my hand, which was starting to resemble a baby blowfish. "Ask your friend’s housekeeper.”...

Read more......

It is mid-afternoon in the western Mongolian countryside. Simon and I ride horses alongside Donde and his eldest son Edk. Donde's presence invokes respect. He is a stout man, with a bear-like body. I speculate about the large scar that runs the length of his cheek. Did he rescue one of his sheep from the mouth of a wolf, wrestling the wolf with his bare hands? As we later learned, the scar came from his eagle, when it swooped down onto his gloved hand, open talons accidentally coming into contact with his face. Donde is part of a tradition that stretches across millennia in this part of the world, a tradition that could easily die in the next couple of generations, if not for those like Donde's sons, who carry on the tradition of eagle hunting: a highly adapted form of hunting using eagle's to kill the prey...

Read more...

...What I'm getting down to is the essence of a ritual whose understanding demands time, and a certain state of mind and being. It's an understanding of an organic sense of time, not the mechanical ticking of watches but the sort of time associated with growing chin hair, or the menstrual cycle, the sort of time many backpackers, obsessed with racing through as many countries as possible, do not take the time to understand. This is a sense of time that has often been associated with the Orient. Whether that's just an illusion I don't know, but let's explore it...

Read more...

I had been mislead to believe that it was best to fish when the moon was full and the tide low, under the night sky or at the break of day. Instead it was dusk. The setting sun had stripped the color from the beach. I was sitting in the sand with my quiet friend Danilo. He had spent 20 of his 30 years on a fishing boat and had only recently begun to work at a posada instead. He set me straight when it came to fishing. "Sarah," he said, "If there are no fish it doesn't matter what time of day it is. Fishing is a matter of luck." ...

Read more...

...What I'm getting down to is the essence of a ritual whose understanding demands time, and a certain state of mind and being. It's an understanding of an organic sense of time, not the mechanical ticking of watches but the sort of time associated with growing chin hair, or the menstrual cycle, the sort of time many backpackers, obsessed with racing through as many countries as possible, do not take the time to understand. This is a sense of time that has often been associated with the Orient. Whether that's just an illusion I don't know, but let's explore it...

Read more...

"But I'm not a Hindu," I reply.

"You can take puja sir. It is all one god," incants the man sitting lotus in the sand, sandal-paste smudging his forehead, that distinctive sideways nod as he speaks, hands gestured prophetically to the heavens.

A holy man is offering me salvation on a beach in Kerala, South India, a fishing village, home to a 2000 year-old Hindu temple, and above a cliff where budget travellers swarm for cheap rooms, beer, sex, and the unobscured roar of the Arabian Sea...

Read more...

...Cabrales is not your commercial, mass-produced blue cheese. It is like beer from a local microbrewery in its craft and attention, but world-class as a product. The taste is too unique and strong to create any potential demand for mass consumption, even if the producers decided to go that route, which they do not. The cheese production is family-run, family-owned, and generations old. The festival gave off such a local and neighborly aura that I would not be surprised if the goats and sheep — from whose milk the cheese is made — had been inbred for decades. The cheese-producing entities are unflappably permanent. When external economic forces bring down the last of the corner pharmacies, small cattle ranches and independent bookstores, Cabrales will endure. For any corporation that even wanted to buy up Cabrales, the profits may not be great enough, the market may not be big enough, but above all, the passion, livelihood, and definition of the entire community is Cabrales cheese. The community would never part with it...

Read more...

It was twilight on the evening of the holiest of days: Timkat, "Epiphany," in the small and ancient city of Gondar, tucked away amongst the mountains and plateaus of North Western Ethiopia. In the small neighborhood of dirt roads, small stone houses, and tiny tin kiosks, light bulbs were glowing dimly, children were playing their last games of the day outside in the street, and the sounds of chatter and laughter were coming from inside the small homes. I was squeezed into Birhanie's tiny hut with my female neighbors, celebrating the remains of this important day...

Read more...

When night descends on Ban An the isolation feels complete. The closest village, an hour's walk away, may as well not even exist. The gas lamp on the wooden table casts a glow across the side of Kem's face as she works on the strap of her sandal, the small tube of epoxy in her hand looking very much out of place here in this primitive oasis of civilization. Animals bellow and grunt in the darkness. Hushed words drift in and out from somewhere unseen; voices of children, not at play but at task. The cooling air smells faintly of earth...

Read more...

Travel for travel sake is fine. But travel takes on a new dimension when combined with a purpose, as Thommen Jose finds out from his journey to Pauna, an unknown mountain village 30km by foot from the last motorable point in Chamoli, Uttarakhand in India...

Read more...

Despite the astonishing amount of travel literature on India, very little has been written about the massive, lumbering system that connects its various limbs: the railways. It is my firm belief that to truly traverse India, you must travel by her trains. While traveling by trains, differences of class, caste, and religion are, often reluctantly, suspended. Watch people on a train closely enough, and the culture and ethos of various parts of India can be easily discerned. Trains also mirror the inexplicable, and often overly frustrating, mystery that is this nation...

Read more...

The ongoing conservation efforts taking place in the wondrous Iguassu Falls in Brazil and Argentina...

Read more...

...My sister Jean and I are in Costa Rica as volunteers under the auspices of the Costa Rican Humanitarian Foundation, run by dynamic former Peace Corps volunteer Gail Nystrom. She offers opportunities for insight into aspects of "Tico" life for her assorted volunteers, of whom we are by far the eldest. Our shamanic evening is only one of several extra-curricular activities we enjoy...

Read more...

Founded in 1977 by Dr. Clayton Allen Hubbs, Transitions Abroad magazine was the only print publication dedicated to work, study, living, volunteering, and immersion travel abroad. Its purpose — in print and now as a Webzine — is the dissemination of practical information leading to a greater understanding of other cultures through direct participation in the daily life of the host community.

TransitionsAbroad.com will be expanding upon the material covered in each monthly edition. We will be working on developing each issue with a specific focus — be it regional or thematic — and are seeking contributions from professional and freelance writers alike.