Around the world with National Geographic

 We had a number of possible options for our first full day in Panama. We chose to visit the Embera Quera community.  This is a village of native peoples about an hour plus outside of Panama City.  A bus took us to a spot on the Gatun River where we piled into a set of canoes for the trip to the village.  The canoe trip took about 30 minutes. Once we were there, there were various presentations on the history of the Embera people, and their customs, and walks around the village, including up to a new building they were putting up to use as a school.  There were songs and dances and a lunch of fish and fruit served on banana plant leaves. Then it was back on the canoe  And back to the bus and back to the hotel.  After a short break there was a guided walk around the hotel neighborhood, called Cisco Virgo (the old quarter), back to the hotel for another short break and then to another dinner, this time at the Biomuseo. The Biomuseo is a science museum th...

Today was the first full day of the trip.  We left Washington DC, taking a bus to Dulles Airport at about 7:30 AM.  But instead of going to the regular terminal, we drove off to the side to what looked like a simple office building.  From there we went to a small hanger with a Lear Jet in it.  In addition there was a metal scanner and a table and some TSA agents, who checked us out and we walked back out and onto the bus again, who drove us over to our plane. There are those who have asked for the “tail number” since you can apparently track a plane by its tail number.  The tail of the plane looks like So, I guess our tail number is TF-LLL. We took off about 9:30.  The plane was fairly full, but not completely.  There were comments that some people dropped out after the switch from Peru to Panama.  Icelandic Air actually flys the plane, and there was a full contingent of crew — from 10 to 12 people, at least. We were seated in an exit row, so ther...

 Most of today was just tourist in DC. First we found a Walgreen’s to buy replacement mosquito repellant since TSA had confiscated our previous bottle in Austin.  And a few other things.   We went to the sculpture garden next to the National Gallery of Art and then the National Gallery of Art.  After a couple of hours there, we realized that the National Gallery of Art is different from the National Portrait Gallery, where Linda wanted to see the portraits of Michelle and Barack Obama.  So we walked on over to that.  Then it turns out that museum is 4 floors of stuff — some of it pretty good stuff — but so much of it.  By the time we got thru with it — and by got thru, we were just tired out and still probably had 3 and a half floors to go — we needed to head back to the hotel, for the actual prepared part of the trip. First there was a walk (4 blocks) to the Nat Geo headquarters where there was a presentation and introduction to the staff who would be...

 We start the trip off by flying to Washington DC.  Jen is looking after the house.  And the cat and the dog.  Kat took us to the airport. As soon as we arrived we hit our first snag,  Once we had packed, and we knew that we had 3 bags to check, I went online and paid United for the 3 bags.  But when we got to the airport, they wanted me to pay for the bags again.  Eventually we got an agent, and after poking around in their computer, she said that I had paid for the 3 bags for the return flight, and I still had to pay to get them to DC in the first place. Then security took a long time trying to decide if our carry-on backpacks were dangerous or not. But eventually they let us in.  We wandered around, got some early lunch, and waited for the flight.  The wait and the flight were uneventful, and we landed at Dulles airport.  Dulles is very large and we landed at C or D and it took a trek and a “bus” ride to get to baggage claim.  Th...

I noticed an advertisement in the Wall Street Journal for a trip around the world with National Geographic, and following up on that found a different one that would take place from Dec to Jan 2020. That meets a couple of my pleasure points: It gets me out of Central Texas during the height of cedar allergy season. Most of the sites were in the Southern Hemisphere, so it would be Summer, and hopefully warmer. But the trip during 2020 was already full, and then in 2021 Covid hit, but it looks like they will re-open for the 2022-2023 schedule, so we are on "Around the World by Private Jet" from 29 Dec 2022 to 21 Jan 2023. Our trip starts in Washington DC and goes to Peru, for Machu Picchu Easter Island Somoa Great Barrier Reef in Australia Cambodia for Angkor temples Kathmandu, Nepal Paro, Bhutan Agra, India for the Taj Mahal Tanzania for the Ngorongoro Crater Jordan for the Petra ruins Marrakech, Morocco and then back to Washington DC. We need to fly from Austin to Washing...