Matt Feldman Photography
In the Atacama Desert of Bolivia, distant clouds gather above a peak. It’s high altitude and very very dry.
The dunes of Mongolia, a few hours drive from Dalanzadgad.
It began this morning in Taupo with a 5 am wakeup call for the bus ride to Tongariro National Park. The bars were still bumping and thumping with New Year’s festivities, but I suited up with cold weather gear, attempting to be prepared for the Tongariro Crossing, billed as New Zealand’s most spectacular one-day walk.
Having acquired some kind of cold in Marrakech, I’ve started to cough. I hoped that good food and the warm air would snuff it out before it (and I) became a nuisance. No such luck. I awake today to begin a two-day mountain trek with a full-blown hacking cough.
It is warm. For the first time since my departure from Baltimore, many hours and 15,994 km of flying prior, I notice the air temperature. It is distinctly un-planelike. And humid. I have arrived in the terminal of Lilongwe’s airport and am staring out the window at the lush green fields reaching to the edge of the parking lot. Taxis and shuttles board their passengers for the half hour trip into the capital city. Rather than heading to the city, I wait for my backpack, naively hoping that the South African Airways staff will somehow discover it in the empty plane and bring it to me. When they finally tell me the bag is still in Johannesburg, I find a taxi and set out for my hotel.