Belize Music Festival

Sitting on top of the world, looking down on creation...I don't remember the rest of the song and we were over 10,000 feet short of the top of the world but it was a pretty good view anyway. Finally, a dream of about two years was completed. I made it to the top of El Misti, the volcano right outside of Arequipa, Peru, that had been calling my name since I first saw it about two years before. I tried to climb it as a day hike then but failed due to a very late start and not being used to the altitude, reaching only about 15, 500 feet. I still think it can be done as a day hike so that is a future goal.I had been waiting eagerly for my friends Jason and Lisa, SCARAB (Southern California Adventure Racing Buddies) members from Los Angeles, to get to here. We had been communicating by email for months as they were on a round the world trip and we wanted to get together when they came through Peru. Our schedules kept changing but at the last minute they meshed and we were able to meet a couple of times in ... [more..]

Take a shopping trip to the biggest shopping mall in the United States, Mall of America. This mall is located in Minnesota and has over 520 stores all arranged in three levels of walkways. The mall is organized into four different areas each with their own unique decorating and style. With a total gross area of 4.2 million square feet it is a great shopping vacation.Even though Minnesota has sub-zero temperatures in the winter the mall only heats the entrances. Heat is allowed through skylights and is also produced by all the lighting fixtures in the mall. Even during the winter air conditioning systems have to be used during peak hours to keep the temperatures at a comfortable temperature. Two nearly identical seven story parking ramps on the east and west sides provide 12,550 parking spaces. Parking lots on the north and south of the building bring the total number of spaces up to approximately 20,000.The mall opened its doors to the public on August 11, 1992. It became the second largest shopping mall in total area and largest in total store vendors that there is in the United States. When it opened, however, it was not the biggest mall ... [more..]

Why do People Travel?Traveling is probably the next best thing to having your own home. In fact one without the other doesn't provide maximum utility in one's life. However, there is one common ground between both: they both require planning. Buying a home is not a one time job. It is a journey that you carry on the entire time that you live in it. Similarly traveling requires a lot of planning, budgeting and setting up before you can enjoy it.What kind of Traveling do you Want?A lot of people like to relax in five-star luxury and lazy around so that they can relieve themselves of the daily grind of normal life. Others like a more active approach to traveling where they go to obscure places, visit new people, explore new caves and forests and live in the wild.The former is easier to do only because more people do it. But adventure traveling is not everyone's cup of tea. If you want to visit the great forests of Amazon or trek the Himalayas you will need more planning than cutting the flight tickets and reserving hotels and booking spa treatments online. Other than appropriate traveling gear, you will also need ... [more..]