Pasteis De Belem

The previous post in this series is here..

We had one more stop in Belem area. It was the Church and a pastry shop right near the church called Pasteis de Belem. This bakery has been around for a long long time and they have this one delicacy that is egg based. (angeye namakku appeattu!).

San kept raving about it as did our guide. So off we went, stood in line. Our guide knew the staff. so we got a little closer to the baking tour which was nice. Then we got to eat. I opted for a different pastry as the strong smell of eggs did not agree with me.

The two ladies were rolling their eyes constantly at my hot cocoa and pastry.

We got some to go in hopes that we could keep it in the fridge and bring it to the kids. The expiry date out of fridge was going to be 36 hours tops. So we got as freshly made stuff as we could get. Then we drove back to Baixa area. Our guide dropped us off and took off to do homework! Apparently a student doing this guide thing part time!

A video highlight reel of this segment.

It was still bright out. So we went to find dinner and decided to walk back to the gate and water front. We were treated to some interesting sights and sounds the rest of the evening. That in the next post..

Charm of old town Zadar and the Sea Organ

The previous post in this series is here..

After a long day at Plitvice we were dropped off outside the old town gate. It was again a mile walk along the wall. This time we decide to walk on top of the wall and see the boats and other sites. 

Went quickly back to our hotel and changed to get rid of the smoke smell on our clothes. The plan was to get a bite to eat (we were jet lagged and it started hitting us) and then see the Sea Organ and go up the bell tower.

Found a nice Pizza place and had it inside. If you don't want smoke, don't make the mistake of eating in the open dining tables. Peopel sitting there smoke or the passersby blow smoke that you can visually see come and settle down on your Pizza!

After that weird meal at 5PM we walked to the Sea organ. It was as amazing as advertized. The sea comes and and pushes air through these channels that make music along a 500 foot? stretch. 

From there we walked through the ancient Roman ruins to the Bell Tower. We could not go to the Church as there was a service and the doors had already closed. 

Walking up this tower reminded us of the Pisa Tower. Same narrow staircase with a window to the town every now and then. We were early for the sunset but decided to stay there on top of the tower for an hour! Needless to say there were a few 100 sunset pics.

Given Squarespace is yet to fix my slideshow gallery display, just gonig to post the pictures here one after the other. For the first time in 12+ years, Squarespace has not followed up on my ticket! This prompts a post of its own on Legacy products.. 

got this pano shot.. and then two other familes joined us.. 

Took this shot and they all asked me to show it to them and they took the same shot and thanked me for the composing.. little moments like that always make my day!

The fencing does come in the way.. 

After the tower we walked back to the market and waterfront, did some shopping, had some ice cream, I managed to get separated from San in that market and we both started singing the family song to get reunited.. saw the usual Chennai beach scenes on the sands there.. with the exception of a lady dressed as a mermaid for photo ops with kids and Mickey mouse's Croatian cousin! 

The town was bustling with activity. We stayed up till 9 and decided to call it a night.

A video highlight...

We still had half a day to spend the following morning before flying out of Zadar..

Glamping in Mars.. the Wadi Rum desert

The previous post in this series is here..

We raced out of Petra towards Wadi Rum desert to catch the sunset there. It was supposed to be the highlight of the evening.

We stopped at the mountain sides to see the desert from a distance for two minutes. Rest of the time it was just driving. We saw the original railroad that the Ottoman Empire had that was bombed out by the locals to help the British divide and conquer them.

After 2+ hours we showed up at the camp.

The terrain here is out of this world.. a lot of Alien movies are shot here. Martian was also shot here. Everything has a red glow to it. The sand eroded rocks formations look unique.

The person at the reception told us that we were the only guests in the entire camp for the night, thanks to flight cancelations and state department warnings! He was sad. He said normally the place is full two days before Christmas. Today we were the only visitors for not just this camp but most of the camps on this section of the desert.

Our guides realized there was not enough time to catch an open jeep ride or camel ride to go see the sunset from the dunes.. So they said "just go up to the top of the hill in the camp and you will get the view!".

We walked up, took pictures, saw yet another group of cats there and walked back down. It was eerily silent.

They would turn on the hot water for 30 minutes to an hour just for us given the camp was empty. We agreed on a time and it worked out. There was a dining tent and a post dinner fireside tent. We were the only visitors. The cooks were from Egypt and both of them did a wonderful job serving us vegetarian dishes. Did I mention the cabins were really nice inside! 

Got my paruppu sadham and roti (the Jordanian version) and was happy! We had some good tea next to a fire, joked around for 30 minutes and it was time to go sleep. It was freezing outside and the cats kept trying to get into the cabins. Some of us were already showing signs of allergies thanks to the cats and we were running low on Claritin supplies!

The night sky is supposed to be amazing here.

We were able to see a star studded sky with our naked eyes after they adjusted to the dark, but there was simply too much light pollution from the camp itself. They refused to turn off the flood lights. Then there was light from all the other camps. We spent an hour sitting above the last cabin on the hill to take these pictures. Most of them are 10 second exposures..

a sample..

A gallery of night sky portraits..

By this time we got worried texts from the ladies on why we didn't come back. I tried to clean the skylight filter on my SLR as it was showing hazy images.. only to drop it on the floor in the dark. That "clink" sound of glass breaking was not good. Guess San is going to find out that I broke a 50$ filter by reading this blog..

We had a good nights sleep but we all had to set an alarm to catch the 30 minute hot water window before breakfast. I woke up earlier and ran up the hill again to catch some golden hour photos before sunrise. They were "meh".. and by the time everyone assembled, the sun was up!

A candid shot of a scared San.. she is afraid of all dogs and cats and animals in general.. these cats were very aggressive and woud hiss at us and try to scratch!

A better pic after I shooed the cat to the side.. 

A video highlight of Wadi Ram!

we drove out of Wadi Rum (Valley of the Moon is what it means) after saying bye to the camp..to some amazing views in the haze after a simple breakfast. There was no milk for tea. Apparently cows milk in an alien concept here. The cheese they have is all goat cheese. It was good.

It was a 3+ hour drive to our last destination..