U of M Community Service-Learning Students in Ecuador.
Alumni Answers: What’s your favourite travel story?
From family road trips to long weekend getaways or grand European adventures, travel is a key ingredient of many summers.
With much of our campus communities on vacation, and our students exploring the world on travel-study programs, we want to know: what’s your favourite travel story?
Did you make new friends? Eat something usual? See a spectacular sight?
Tell us your experience in the comments below or email alumni_answers [at] umanitoba [dot] ca by Aug. 10, 2018.
We’ll post our favourite answers on Aug. 15, so visit the alumni network page to see if your story was included!
Alumni Answers is our way of building community with our alumni by sharing memories, ideas, and opinions with one another. Every month, we’ll pose a new question to make us ponder, laugh, or learn together. Want to get next month’s question sent straight to your inbox? Email alumni_answers [at] umanitoba [dot] ca with “Sign me up!” in the subject line.
While waiting for a ferry at sunrise from the North Island to the South Island (New Zealand), a simple “good morning” and unspoken, mutual appreciation of nature’s beauty with an older Maori man, evolved into a warm, profound soul-soul exchange.
If you’re really interested in blasting off into outer space, then
head to Mangaia in the Cook Islands. Mangaia is so off the tourist map, you find none of the trappings of modern tourism. Take the cave tour with Tere, learn about cannibalism, stay at Ara
Moana (one of two accommodations on the Island) and get ready for an
incredible local experience. It’s the only time we got an “Ei” (flower
necklace) and travel around the Island is in the back of a pick-up
truck with coral roads, palm trees and exotic tropical flowers on
either side.
Julia and I, and four Swedish tourist were guests of honour at their
annual talent/model show, which featured more than half of the women
on the catwalk portrayed by men. How often does a cultural experience end up being a drag show? Pack a couple bottles of wine from
Rarotonga and enjoy them by moonlight at the “lookout,” a short walk
from Ara Moana Lodge. Watch the lonely fisherman walk the reef swinging a
flashlight to and fro in the blissful moonlight. Listen to the adults
and children sing beautiful songs in the poetic Maori language, their
drums upside down plastic pails. Yes, Mangaia is so “out there” they
may have to ration electricity and your accommodation is the size of a garden shed; but no mind, a flashlight and some
propane makes everything better. Say “hi” to Ruff, the Ara Moana
dog who dutifully slept outside our front door
every night. Tu and her sister Oko love a good chat, and if Jason is
still there, thank him for the wonderful meals, especially the fried
bread and roasted chicken. (Free range of course).
Mangaia is a gem. Where else will you find pristine beaches with
barely twenty footprints over the past ten years, and coral that is
broad and exploding with colour just a few feet from shore. This is the Garden of
Eden.