Sometimes we want to travel but are intimidated by being by ourselves.  We want company, but don’t want to be on a bus load of couples travelling around Europe.  We want to explore out of the way places, but are nervous going on our own.

The good news is there are a lots of companies out there who are ready to meet  your need. Many of them are offering tours especially focused on the needs of w0men travellers.  Women Travel the World has a special Tour Calendar of these tours – you can explore the great cities of Europe, walk through Kenya, barge through the French countryside or travel the Silk Rd…

I just surfed into the site and there are currently these tours on offer:

• Australasia/Pacific (38)
• Europe (47)
• Africa/Middle East (30)
• Asia & Eastern Europe (70)
• Central/South America (13)
• North America + Hawaii (10)

All you have to do is name your dream destination and surf in to find what is on offer from a variety of travel companies.  It could not be easier – and there are new tours being added all the time.

Find your Dream Tour now

Venus Adventures is a NZ and Swiss based company which focuses on women travellers.  They can help you organise your own custom trip (mixed or women-only) to Morocco!

If you are thinking of going to Morocco on an exotic holiday, but are not sure what to see and do, just let us know what your interests are and we can put together an itinerary especially for you – whether it be hiking in the mountains, riding camels into the Sahara, cooking classes in Marrakech or indulging in a traditional Moroccan spa treatment – we can tailor make something to suit your budget and needs.

Or if you want to remain flexible, we can put you in touch with our trusted local contact in Marrakech and he can help you with anything you need while in Morocco, from airport transfers to shopping to tours. For more information, please just email us on info@venusadventures.travel.

Or if you would like to join us on a fun, women-only trip to Morocco, our itineraries can be found here:

Here is some feedback from the last trip:

Into the Desert

“I can’t seem to stop thinking of all you guys and Morocco, it was such a fabulous time and I think we had the kind of holiday not that many people get to have, with the adventures and meeting the people.” Angela, NZ

“Thank you for the great tour. My family could hardly believe it when I told them all the things we did, especially the rafting. It was fun unpacking everything and giving out presents. It seems really dull at home now after all the fun we had but I guess the normal round will take over again.” Helen, Australia

Karen Cooper’s Blog – Karen is  60 years and still riding

This Feb I will be 60 years old. I wanted to celebrate it with an unforgettable experience. As MJ would say “This is it” After 30 years of considering a long cycling trip, I signed up for a 2 month tour starting Mar 4 in San Diego and arriving in St Augustine, Florida on April 30.

This is a women’s tour with most of us being 50-60 years old. I will go as a Sag Driver and be able to ride 3 days and drive 1 day…..so I have a built in rest schedule. We ride 60 miles a day 6 days a week with 1 day off each week. It looks like I will have an extra day not riding each week and that is just fine with me, plus I received a 40% discount by working part time. 
Read more of Karen’s adventures

She is a certified Outdoors Educator (NOEP5) from the National Outdoor Leadership School (NOLS). Mary also received her wilderness first responder course from NOLS as well.

Mary has an undying commitment to providing exceptional service and quality tour leadership and her company, Standout Adventures, is registered with the Kenya ministry of tourism.

“We stand out from the crowd, not only because we organize your East African adventure to your full satisfaction, but also because 5% of all tour proceeds are donated to Openhand Orphanage.”

Dianne Sharma-Winter Writes:

Every cloud has a silver lining, sometimes even gold.

This belief had sustained me through the first month of a course of training in Ayurveda in a small-unexplored area of Kerala, India’s premier state for the practice and study of this ancient science.

Even though I was aware that one-month course would barely scratch the surface of the vast ocean of knowledge that is Ayurveda, I was more interested in learning about the practical forms of massage and herbal treatments to adapt to my own massage practice in New Zealand.

I have lived and travelled in India for many years and always avoided the courses offered specifically for tourists. My reasoning is that the marketing of the mystical east doesn’t always come with a quality control certification. Also, there is always bound to be a cross-cultural confusion. Students from the west want to be explained why the east is east and how they can cross the ocean of western ideology to the east. That can take a lot of class time.

So before I enrolled on the course, I had an understanding that in terms of Indian society and caste, someone who earned their money in this way was somewhat lower on the social scale than the doctor who supervised the treatments. The idea of rich white women arriving to learn what is not such a well-respected job could result in some cultural and professional confusion, at least that was the risk I knew I was taking.

It proved to be correct, so I won’t dwell on the details of my course of learning there. While the doctor who delivered the lectures seduced me into learning and adopting the practices of Ayurveda into my life, I found the practical classes in the afternoon less than useful.

There was a lack of boundaries between some student and the instructor based on this cultural confusion added a lack of respect or dignity offered to anyone who offered to be a massage model. One woman would practice the massage movements accompanied by her pseudo orgasmic moans that she thought the model should have been exuding instead of whimpers of embarrassment.

By the time the end of the week began to loom, I would make plans to put as much distance between myself and my classmates as possible.

Malabar Gold

I took it upon myself to begin to explore this little visited part of Kerala and learn a bit about the place. While I was unhappy with my course, the locals looked friendly and their food was sublime.

When I first arrived in Kannur, I had gone to the Kannur Beach house, a lovely home stay run by Rosie and her husband Hazzir. They gave up careers in Singapore to come back to their home place to open up the heritage house they had bought on the beach when after tourists began to knock and ask for rooms. Sensing that tourism could be a viable income and lifestyle for them, Rosie and Hazzir relocated their family back to Kannur and opened the Beach House. They are both wonderful and stimulating conversationalists and the most charming of hosts. Their business has paid off for them although rose admits that their parents living nearby both still ask them when they are going back to Singapore to get a real job. Meals are superb and Rose will go out her way to organise anything you may wish.

Kalarippayattu- a divine martial art

Olivier, a dancer from Paris who photographed every meal that was set before us in the guest house had come to Kannur especially to see two things, the ritual festival of the Theyyam and the oldest form of martial art in the world, the Kalarippayattu.

He was disappointed to hear that his schedule didn’t allow him to stay another day for the Theyyam but Rosie had organised for him to go to a local dojo to watch a training. We set off in a rickshaw along rutted roads, got out and walked when the hill got too steep, followed a path through coconut tree lined paths to a humble mud and hut which was the dojo.

There were kids of all ages tumbling around on a hard dirt floor, an altar set in the corner and a wiry looking black belt Master standing around.

The training began with an elaborate offering to the deity in the corner, including some amazing body movements which were something like a karate kata but a hundred times faster and more elaborate. Then the real fun began! The leading fighter in this dojo was the twelve year old daughter of the master himself, she fended off four boys at one stage and leapt and jumped so fast that our cameras could only catch a blur. Having studied the Chidokan form of karate for many years in New Zealand, I recognised forms from that style echoed in the movements of these kids on the hard dirt floor.

We were impressed to the point of having tears in our eyes, thanked the kids for their performance and left like kids who had shared a secret world as we oohed and ahhhed and giggled our way back to the rickshaw.

But there was more to come

Theyyam

That night as Olivier headed off to the airport I took a rickshaw in the opposite direction to a village square where there was to be a performance of a Theyyam.

Seems that the origin of the Theyyam has been lost in the mists of time, so ancient is the practice. In more recent times, Theyyam have evolved into the form it is now because of the lower caste people being barred from entry to Hindu temples. Nothing daunted, they created their own individual forms of worship and celebration the most spectacular of which is the Theyyam.

Every village will tell their story in a different way but the event is staged around a story of the Hindu gods or a local god, as the story is enacted the dancers take on the paint and the part of the god in an elaborate ritual which happens back stage while the crowds mill about and picnic and pass babies around, all waiting patiently for the moment to come.

When the dancer who has been ritually prepared observes his face in the mirror he is said to become at that moment a vessel of the god, then he is lead out in a costume of flames and towering headdresses.

Impervious to the fact that half of his costume is on fire, he runs and leaps and his eyes roll wildly, he has two bodyguards on either side to protect his physical body.

Eventually things calm down and the god is bought to again, People line up to make offerings and ask for blessings or advice.

By five in the morning, the excitement is over and people start dwindling back to their homes, I find the rickshaw wallah and go home with my head full of sparks. Imagine that kind of ceremony in the days before electricity, before television, before we all got so sophisticated! It would have scared the living daylights out of most kids!

Early morning at the chai stall

To be closer to the course of study, I moved into the township of Kannur. It’s rare to see another foreigner here who isn’t here to study Ayurveda or the Martial Art, most of the food is local and it’s difficult to get a meal in the evening. The locals are big on breakfasts though, I begin, a pre-breakfast ritual with the owner of the place where I take a room Mr Rajan Kumar.

We both wake early and it’s cooler outside my room than in. We both share some hot water together, and then I make coffee while he gets himself ready.

Then together we drive to a local chai stand where locals in the know await the early morning delivery of hot vada, crunchy fried round doughy bite of delight. Usually taken with sweet milky chai

He smokes and we watch groups of locals all out in the early morning air walking for their health. We laugh at ourselves for being so lazy and keep promising that one morning we will walk to the chai stand for our fried bread and cigarette but we never do.

By the time we have returned to the house, Rajan’s sister has prepared breakfast tradition style. Every day brings a new delight, a new way to eat rice or banana or coconut.

Evening meals create a bit of a problem; so I go to a local Muslim dhaba and order whatever is vegetarian on that day. They make a wonderful little sweet that I can never seem to get enough of and I end my meal of curry and rice and curly crunchy paratha with that.

The men who eat there are mostly workers from nearby building sites and the meals are slapped down on tin plates, Hot water laced with Ayurvedic spices is served all over North Kerala is a healthy alternative to icy cold water. I begin to get a taste for it, the heat and the herbs reassure me as to its safety.

Backwater Bliss

The next weekend I set out for an overnight float in a boat in the little known Valiyaparamba or Bekal Backwaters is in the far north of Kerala in the district of Karsagood.

Bekal was once the opening for the spice trade route, its wide river stretched from the forests where pepper grew in wild indigenous abundance and the dreamland of early Arab explorers. Pepper was then the valuable Malabar Gold; in Europe it often doubled as currency in the height of its dizzy rise to the top of the tradable. The Portuguese were the first to wrest control of the monsoon soaked forests of Malabar from the Arabs, after came the Dutch and the English. Forts dot the northern coastline, canons still perch like hopeful overs on aging battlements. Bekal Fort is one of the most impressive examples of forts in India. The Karsagood district is only a short train ride from Kannur. The owner Jaganath meets me at a local station.

He seems a little sorry for me to be having a houseboat to myself. I tell him I am more than happy to be out of town, on water and with the cool ocean breeze in my hair. There are two men on the boat to take care of my every need which seemed a bit extreme but I was too charmed by the boat and the watery landscape ahead to be bothered by aloneness, I just revelled in it!

The food continued to delight and confirms my opinion that South Indian food is one of the most delightful cuisines in the world. The staff are unobtrusive and discreet, I laze and watch the world float by in shades of green. Islands interconnected by bridges and roads form a system of four rivers where mail and bread is delivered by boat, where fishermen repair their nets against the sea that pounds one island in the distance. We get off and walk through preserves of forests hiding the very herbs I was learning about in Ayurveda and coconuts drying on the beach, covered in nets to keep the birds away.

As I drifted off to sleep there was the sound of the pounding of drums from a village Theyyam, there was the resounding echo of the sea and the quiet creak of the boat as it listed lazily with the tide.

The next weekend I took the evening train to Goa where I had planned to meet a friend. The train was air-conditioned and the conductor promised to wake me when the train halted briefly at Canacona so I could leap off at the station closest to Palolem, the beach where I like to stay in South Goa.

Its not always a good idea to arrive in India anywhere at that hour but I was encouraged to think there might be some rickshaw action when I spotted some tourists obviously waiting for a train. Eventually one arrived with another two passengers for the train yet to arrive. He charged me outrageously but I didn’t complain. I was happy to know that my pre arranged room would be open and all I would have to do was walk in and go to sleep.

Kannur is so centrally located; I think to myself that it’s amazingly still unexplored. Most tourists to Kerala head straight to the south, which is just as fine, but Kannur still has that untouched kind of feeling. I was beginning to feel that I was on a journey of how many places can you reasonably visit from the township of Kannur for a lovely weekend break?

The Western Ghats

With nothing left to do but head for the hills, I did exactly that. Booked myself into Wynberg Resort in the tea and spice growing highlands, an area called Wayanad in the Western Ghats of Kerala. This area shares a border with Tamil Nadu and though the distance from Kannur to Wayanad is short, the road is steep and winds through ancient forests.

Mr Rajan had offered to drop me by car on his way to Bangalore but the plans fell through at the last moment and I decided to go by bus.

Wynberg Eco Resort

As the bus wound itself around the hillside in spirals that rose like the pepper vines around the Western Ghats, I began to wish I had taken a car. That this would have been the wisest course of action was confirmed when I got to the assigned place to meet the owner of the resort and than had to go halfway back by local bus! But after another mere twelve or so kilometres in a rickshaw and I was there and being welcomed into my little eco hut at the Wynberg Resorts.

Lunch is served and as I eat the owner’s daughter arrives home from school and introduces herself. She is wonderful self-assured and an uninhibited conversationalists. She takes me on a walk around the property built by her father Vanchy who is a wildlife enthusiast and photographer

He is also a bit of an eco warrior; the resort has organic gardens, a methane plant and runs on solar power.

Within half an hour I am bamboozled by the girls knowledge of the plants and the jungles around her that my pen could hardly keep up with her flow of information.

Although the resort edges both the National Park of Nagahole and the Nature Reserve area of Tholpetty both areas had suffered fires and were closed to the public at that time. Apart from swinging idly in my hammock beneath towering acrea nut trees, I took a day to drive around and sightsee. A brief sweep of the brilliant green curve of tea gardens, the impressive 13th Century Jain temple at Sultan’s Battery, where a man explained how the construction of the Jain was involved cosmic alignments amongst other things. The ancient rock art atop a winding staircase built into a limestone mountain at Edakkal Caves are said to date from the stone age.

North Kerala the land of loom and lore is the ancient enigmatic India from every fact. There is the legacy of the various nations they traded with and still do today, there are ancient traditions and secret people flashing in the monsoon soaked forests and a cosmopolitan lot of locals.

As we flashed around the countryside, where wild elephants can and will roam freely across the road there was glimpses of the “tribal” people. These are the descendants of the original Dravidian race of people and ‘very secret people” said my driver.

Such is North Kerala, a secret place just waiting to be discovered!

Diannes websites:

• http://diannesharmawinter.com/
• http://diannesharmawinter.com/blog.html

“How many times have you been travelling and visited a school or community or local charity that you would love to help? The school needs books, or a map or pencils; an orphanage needs children’s clothes or toys. All things that, if only you’d known, you could’ve stuffed in your rucksack. But once you get home you forget, or you’ve lost the address, or worry that whatever you send will be stolen before it even gets there…”

Kate Humble did not just wonder, she has done something about it and set up a website to help you know what best to stuff your rucksack with, when you travel. StuffYourRucksack.com

I travelled to Morocco with Venus Adventures and part of that trip was to stay with a berber family in the Atlas mountains.  Our guide Julie Paterson suggested what we should take to share – pens, paper, jewellery, soccer balls.  It was great to be able to share something from our rucksacks with this small community.  As the sun went down and the snow threatened, I spent a memorable hour in a candlelit room with an 8 year old girl trying  on jewellery and making shadow puppets on the wall.  No word of language in common, but a world shared.

by Brenda Barrie

In May 2009, I travelled from China to Nepal on a 26 day trip, so full of interest and contrasts that it seemed to last for months rather than days. First, we sampled views, made famous by traditional Chinese paintings, of the Karst landscape in the Guilin region of southern China. This included an enjoyable three hour boat trip on the Li River from Guilin to Yangshuo – a great place for touristy shopping. In the morning, we headed for the rice terraces of Long Ji. After about two hours, we left our bus in a car park and climbed a path to stay the night in a Dong style ‘village in the clouds’. This was a complete contrast to the hustle and bustle of Guilin and that afternoon we walked to the top of the hill, for stunning views over villages and water filled terraces glittering in the sun. The next three days were spent travelling through the hilly Dong and Miao minority areas of lush green tea plantations and ever present flooded rice terraces. We had time to visit several villages and also spent one night in a traditional Dong drum tower village.

The next phase of the journey started with a day travelling by train and road from Kaili to Yichang on the Yangtze River. I’ve always found it fascinating watching everyday life going on from the comfort of a railway carriage. The different landscapes and contrasts between rural and urban areas were very interesting. That evening we boarded the boat for our Yangtze Three Gorges cruise. The Victoria Star had great accommodation, delicious food and a very helpful and friendly crew who also provided nightly entertainment. In the morning, we had a close up look at the Three Gorges Dam – an amazing feat of engineering – then passed through the five locks of the dam, before going through the first of the three gorges. For the next two days we continued up the scenic river and left the boat for a couple of shore excursions. We reached Chongqing at night and disembarked after breakfast. We visited the Dazu Buddhist rock carvings, took a late afternoon stroll around the central square and had an opportunity to join the locals in their evening dances. Next day we got up close to the pandas at Chongqing zoo and sampled the local Sichuan cuisine. Then came the beginning of the most long-awaited part of the trip for me, as we commenced the highest rail journey in the world.

We boarded the train to Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, in the evening and spent that night and all the next day travelling northwards to Lanzhou, then heading west towards Qinghai Lake, which we passed while we were having dinner in the comfortable dining car. Late evening gave us tantalising glimpses of snow covered hills, looming behind sand dunes lining the edge of the lake. The next morning I woke in the grey light of pre dawn, to the soft hiss of oxygen being piped into our compartment. I peeked out the window and could hardly contain my excitement, as I saw the ghostly-looking snow covered hills of the Tibetan Plateau. The colours changed as the sun began to rise and my nose, or my camera, remained pressed against the window for the rest of that day. The line tracked south to reach its highest point of 5072m near the Tibetan border and late afternoon, just before we pulled into Lhasa station, we could see the Potala Palace perched on top of a rocky outcrop overlooking the city. There was no mistaking where we were!

Our comfortable hotel was in the Bakhor Tibetan district, and we were able to get a real feel of the place when we strolled to a local restaurant overlooking Bakhor square and the Jokhang Temple. In the morning we visited the Potala Palace, previous seat of the Dalai Lhama, for about three hours or so. In the thin air at 3650m, the steps of the Potala were not easy going, but with a few ‘camera stops’ were certainly not too hard either. I found it difficult to believe that I was actually there – somewhere I had dreamed of being since I read the book ‘Seven Years in Tibet’ about 49 years ago! We spent three nights in Lhasa, also visiting Deprung and Sera Monasteries and the Jokhang. There was time to stroll around, do a bit of shopping and be totally ‘gob-smacked’ at the co-ordinated music and fountain show in front of a flood-lit Potala – not exactly traditional!

Our last four days in Tibet were spent on the Friendship Highway to the Nepalese border. We crossed over the Yarlung Tsangpo River, which travels to the east of Tibet, then through deep mountainous gorges, until it is forced to change direction and flow back to the west through India as the Brahmaputra. We then headed for Gyantse, going past Yamdrok Lake and the Karo La pass at 4960m. We saw Gyantse Fort perched on a rock above the town, had lunch, and spent some time exploring the Kumbum Monastery (featured in the BBC documentary ‘A Year in Tibet’). We continued on to Shigatse at 3840m where we stayed two nights and visited the Tashilhunpo Monastery, the seat of the traditional Panchen Lhamas.

Our next stop was New Tingri, or Shegar, at 4300m. We travelled via the Langpa La pass at 5220m, catching a glimpse of Mount Everest behind light cloud in the distance. Walking in the village late afternoon, we were treated to a most unusual – to us anyway – display of rainbow-like colours shimmering in the otherwise dark blue sky between two clouds. We had a very early wake up call the next morning, about 4am, in order to get past some road works before the road was closed for the day. It was just beginning to get light when our guide pulled our vehicles over, pointed to the left and said “Everest”. Well, it was another unexpected ‘gob-smacking’ (I can’t think of a better way to describe it) moment! There before us was Everest floating above the mist in the valleys, and as we watched, the sun rose, giving Everest and the misty clouds above it a golden pinky hue. It was really magical – not even the very obvious electrical cables running down a side road could detract from it! Later, I realised that it was on this same date, 29th May, in 1953 that Hillary and Tenzing climbed Everest for the first time. They had also risen at 4 am on that day, but I think we had the easier time after that. We then continued towards the border, crossing the Thong La at 5120m, which was covered in snow and low cloud and freezing cold. The only colour was the array of prayer flags, which are on top of every pass.

Three hours later the scenery was the complete opposite. We were in the warm, tree covered gorge leading down to the ‘Friendship Bridge’ at the border. Our last night in Tibet was spent in Zhangmu, perched on the side of a steep hill, packed with trucks and cars. We were in Kathmandu, the Nepalese capital, by late afternoon the next day and spent the last three days of our trip exploring the sights, before flying out to Hong Kong and then home.

I have had quite a few overseas journeys in the last twenty years and think that this one would have to be very close to the top of my favourites list. I seemed to have a permanent smile on my face and even now, whenever I remember it, the smile comes back! Travelling with a small group of like-minded people is most enjoyable and I have now been on four trips with Silk Road Adventures run by Pat and Murray Reedy, to places such as China, Myanmar, Mongolia, Siberia, Iran and now Tibet and Nepal.

See more Flickr Photos of this trip

The idea of volunteering in another country has long been considered the province of students and recent graduates; images of intrepid twenty-year-old Peace Corps workers in a remote Sierra Leone village might spring to mind. Today, however, the idea has reached far beyond that to become accessible, and highly popular, among travelers of all types and ages. Volunteer travel has grown so popular that a term has even been coined for it: Voluntourism.

Foreign destinations are luring American citizens who want to sightsee, while at the same time engage in community service. Companies and websites specializing in voluntourism have sprung up by the hundreds, and volunteer vacations can be found in all parts of the world, doing all kinds of activities – from digging wells for clean water in South America, protecting the elephant population in South Africa, or working with children living in orphanages.

It was this last type of volunteer vacation that hooked me – in fact, inspired me to write a book about my experiences. In 2004, I became involved with a nonprofit based in Austin, Texas called The Miracle Foundation, which manages orphanages in India and recruits sponsors and donors to support the children living there. I began volunteering for the foundation and sponsored a child, a ten year old boy named Santosh, living in the state of Orissa in northeastern India. The founder of the organization, soon invited me to accompany her and a group of other volunteers to Orissa. And so it was that in March 2005, I found myself in India for the first time – a ten-day volunteer trip that I was to make, it turned out, many more times over the years since.

The village is remote, and it took forty-eight hours of exhausting travel to arrive at the ashram where the children live. By the time we arrived, all ten volunteers in the group were suffering from sleep deprivation and culture shock; the overwhelming throngs of people, the smells and sounds that awakened all the senses at once. The streets filled with bicycles, rickshaws, cars and cows with the constant, blaring beep-beep of the horns that rose above it all. Mostly, the frantic poverty that does not let you rest.

Caroline had briefed us well on both India and expectations for our week at the orphanage, but nothing could have prepared me for what I felt when we turned through those gates. Dozens of children were lined around the drive in a semi-circle, waving and chanting “welcome” over and over. I climbed out and they swarmed all over me, reaching for my hands and touching my feet in blessing. I was overwhelmed, lost in the sea of small bodies; smiling, barefoot children who asked nothing from me more than simply being there.

As I would soon come to find, in India these “invisible children” are everywhere – they fill the streets, the railway stations, the villages. Others have been trafficked or taken into indentured labor to pay off an old family debt. They are orphaned by AIDS and malaria, simple infections or sometimes, nothing more than poverty – their parents cannot afford to feed them. Many are homeless, overflowing orphanages and other institutional homes to live on the streets. Amidst the growing prosperity of India there is an entire generation of parentless children growing up, often forced into child labor and prostitution – more than twenty-five million in all.

But there in Choudwar, a small town about a hundred miles south of Calcutta, one man named Damodar Sahoo had dedicated his life to providing a home and family for some of these children. Before The Miracle Foundation, he had constantly lacked enough food, clothing and supplies to adequately provide for those he had taken in – children who had nowhere else to turn.

Mr. Sahoo, known to everyone simply as “Papa,” greeted the volunteers heartily, chewing the betel nut that turned his teeth red. He gave us a tour of the compound while the children trailed us, rushing past each other to claim a volunteer’s hand. They were everywhere, always underfoot, craving our attention. As I walked along four or five clung to each arm; when I sat down they filled my lap, their slight frames making barely an imprint against my skin.

I spent the following days just being with the kids, befriending them, playing with them. Our days at the ashram were filled with games, reading, dancing and laughing. It felt a lot like summer camp. There were puzzles, English flash cards, hopscotch, frisbee and the hokey-pokey, which the children wanted to do over and over once it was taught to them. I began to discover who they were – their individual personalities and dreams. I watched the shy ones come out of their shells and self-confidence blossom.

As it did, their “best behavior” fell away and they were normal kids, not always sweet and perfect but often mischievous as well. When they thought I wasn’t looking, they would shove each other out of the way or bestow thunks on one another’s heads in annoyance. They used the language barrier to their advantage, pretending at times not to understand when the adult volunteers said it was time to put a game away, reminding me of my daughter when she was young and seemingly deaf to the word “no.”

We began to make friends, and I discovered that they were just as curious about us and our lives as we were about them. The kids spoke varying levels of English, largely dependent on how many years they had been living in the ashram and attending school. Some had a large vocabulary and conversational skills; others spoke little more than a few words of English. I found it was surprisingly easy, however, to communicate without sharing even a word of common language.

In many ways they were just like other children I’ve known with homes and families of their own – except for their neediness, their raw hunger for affection, love, belonging. In the midst of the games, laughter and silliness that we engaged in all day long it became almost easy for me to forget that they were orphans. When that reality came crashing back it never failed to hurt my insides with the same breathless intensity as it had the first time. Especially when it intruded unexpectedly, as happened one afternoon.

Caroline and Papa had arranged an ice cream party. Two tables were pulled into the courtyard as the frozen cartons were delivered. The kids lined up eagerly from youngest to oldest to be handed their paper cups of ice cream as we scooped it out in a battle of time against the sun blazing overhead. As we served the icy treats and listened to the kids slurping away, I noticed that Santosh, the boy I sponsored, was nowhere to be seen. I asked some of the other boys about him, and they pointed toward the top of the stairs.

I went up and found him sitting alone, seeming sad and listless. He wasn’t interested in the ice cream. A house mother named Madhu passed, and I asked her to help me find out what was wrong; I was afraid Santosh was hurt, or sick. Madhu took him into the boys’ dorm and talked to him for several minutes.

“He misses his mother,” she said simply when she came back out.

I felt it in my heart, and knew that although they loved us being there it could sometimes only make them miss the presence of their own parents. The good of all these caring surrogate parent figures – Papa, Caroline, the house mothers, the volunteers – outweighed the heaviness of sorrow, to be sure. But it was easy to miss the sadness, at times, in the presence of love that filled the ashram. I was reminded anew that these children all carried secret grief and damage inside them, often hidden or temporarily forgotten but never erased entirely.

I sat with Santosh on the edge of the concrete walkway outside his dorm room. Draping my arm around his shoulders I squeezed reassuringly and held him against my side. I knew that his mother had died when he was so young he couldn’t possibly remember her, not really; but to mourn the idea of a mother, that huge absence in his life like a great gaping hole – that was another thing completely. We sat together, not speaking, while in the courtyard in front of us the other children slurped up their ice cream noisily.

Shelley Seale has written for National Geographic, The International Ecotourism Society and The Voluntourist, among others, and is a contributing author to The Voluntary Traveler. She is also the author of The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India, which tells the true stories of some of the inspiring children she met on her journeys through the orphanages, streets and slums of India.

The Weight of Silence: Invisible Children of India

The Voluntary Traveler

Buy the Book here: The Cuban Chronicles: A True Tale of Rascals, Rogues, and Romance

Some girls have all the fun. Calgarian writer Wanda St.Hilaire has taken her passion for travel, especially to Spanish speaking countries, and has given readers an opportunity to experience Cuba from an original and spirited perspective

In the infancy of Cuba’s tourism, Wanda St.Hilaire takes a trip to the tiny island. In spite of her love of all things Latin, she puts herself on a travel ban to Castro’s Cuba, one that lasts twenty years.

When she is forced to cancel a trip to Oaxaca, Mexico at the last minute, she finds herself in Cuba twice, on back-to-back trips. Walking into the backstreets of Havana, eyes wide open, she is pulled into a dalliance with a charismatic cubano.

In The Cuban Chronicles, St.Hilaire’s travelogue/memoir, she describes that underneath the façade of Cuba’s tourism lies the desperation of a society living mostly in abject poverty. When tourists mingle with locals, we get a glimpse of what underlies the frivolity of Cuban entanglements. St.Hilaire speaks with an authentic voice and doesn’t mince words; she recounts her own activities, emotions and opinions with refreshing honesty. The author is a natural storyteller and her vivid descriptions of people and her surroundings make Cuba come alive for the reader. Being an epistolary composition (the book is based on a series of letters to a friend in Paris), the author’s tone is warm and confidential, and peppered with touches of humor.

Think Eat, Pray, Love meets Bridget Jones’s Diary
with a dash of cayenne!

Wanda St.Hilaire supports her travel and writing habit by working as a reluctant sales and marketing representative. She spent four blissful winters away from the frozen landscape of Canada living in the barrios of Vallarta, Mexico, and she has traveled throughout the world. She lives in Calgary, Alberta.

What intrigued me most was the “Ayahuasca ceremony”. Ayahuasca is a Quechua word meaning “vine of the soul,” and is a powerful, vile-tasting drink made from a jungle vine. The shamans use it as way of unraveling the self, and it is supposed to be able to cure anything, from physical illness (like cancer) to psychological pain (depression) – or put simply, it is a good way to clean up any baggage, big or small, in your life… I felt like fate had thrown an unusual opportunity onto my path.

You have to be brave to take Ayahuasca because of what you may face. Visions, hallucinations and vomiting are all part of it – it cleans you from the inside out. But whether your experience after drinking Ayahuasca is scarey or not, depends on how many demons you have to purge out of your mind, body and soul. You may face all sorts of past trauma, self-destructive beliefs, or emotions. One thing is for sure though: the end result is always positive. Now I am not a kook, or a recreational drug-taker, but what convinced me to do it was a positive National Geographic article about Ayahuasca on the internet. It turned out to be the most mind-blowing, fascinating and beautiful experience of my life.

I had fasted all day to prepare myself for the ceremony that night. Myself, 3 shamans, and Angel my translator were seated on cushions, with vomit buckets in front of us. The shamans puffed away on jungle pipes, preparing themselves for the long night ahead. I was given a cup of Ayahuasca – disgusting, brown, fermenting sludge, which I gulped down very reluctantly. Lights were turned out and the shamans started to sing icaros (ancient spirit songs) to me. Their voices vibrated and reached high or low notes effortlessly, and each voice sounded like at least two people – truly beautiful to listen to, they sounded like angels. I could feel myself float off to another realm, their voices carrying me like a drifting feather to another world.

After about 20 minutes I vomited up the Ayahuasca, which is part of the bodily cleansing. In some strange way it felt good to get it out of me, all sorts of toxins seemed to come out. I started to have trouble breathing. I am not asthmatic, but have suffered odd stress-related breathing difficulty in the past couple of years. The shamans told me not worry, it would pass. It did. Twenty minutes later my lungs felt 10 times bigger and I was gulping deep breaths. Amazing.

Eventually I began to hallucinate, seeing fluorescent colours and cartoon-like insects swirling around me. I watched them, as they closed in on me, trying to suppress me, constricting my body. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I asked. I got the message back that it was negative energy attached to me, and to flick it off. I did, and it all disappeared. The shamans believe negative energies are actually spirits who attach themselves to you to create trouble.

Then the visions started. People and events came into my mind, things that had happened in my past that I needed to make peace with. In my mind I would ask questions – why this or that happened, why this person had been in my life. For every question I asked, I got a very clear, precise message back. It was like having a direct phoneline to God. Anything I asked about my past, present or future, I was advised on.

The whole ceremony lasted around 8 hours, with the shamans taking turns to sing to me as I worked though my past. I was visited my deceased friends, I found answers to many questions, and I felt an intense bliss. Now, several weeks later I still feel the positiveness and relief of old baggage gone. I feel privileged to have been part of an ancient ceremony and to have listened to the amazing, beautiful icaros, and I know I will go back to do another ceremony to open my mind to bigger things.

Keep an eye on Venus Adventures website for a future trip to Peru!!!

Julie Paterson Venus Adventures – Global Trips for Women who Love to Travel

Our Motto:  “Life is uncertain – eat cake!” Venus Adventures specializes in women-only holidays and short breaks to fascinating destinations:  Morocco, Egypt, India, Ethiopia,Turkey, Mali, Jordan, Vietnam, New Zealand