Time Out supports Passports with Purpose

If you're a Travel Blogger or Travel Blog reader, I'm sure that you'll have heard by now about Passports with Purpose, a charity raffle being supported by Travel bloggers around the world, to raise money for Heifer International, a charity working at grass roots level to beat poverty and hunger.

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Lonely Planet supports Passports with Purpose

I hope you'll have heard about Passports with Purpose by now, not only from me but from all the other travel bloggers who have been publicising this charity raffle on their blogsites. If you haven't bought your tickets yet, do check out all the fab prizes here and then go to First Giving here to buy your tickets. It's all in a good cause of Heifer International, a charity that fights poverty and hunger at grass roots level all over the Developing World.

I've already told you about my prizes of not one but two Christmas Hampers of Travel Inspiration, with guides and stationary to kick off your travel planning for the year ahead. To thank my sponsors, I'll be telling you a little more about their products over the next week or two, in case you need some more ideas for your Christmas list.

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Friday Photo - Internet in the Rainforest at Sarayaku - in Ecuador

Today I'm joining in with the Friday photo over at Delicious Baby to bring you a story from my travels with a story behind it.

Last October I spent three weeks travelling in Ecuador and we spent a few days in the rainforest community of Sarayaku on the Rio Bobonaza which flows down to join with the Amazon. This is a village which so far has fought off the oil companies and loggers who want to move into their territory and can only be reached by half a day in a canoe from the nearest town, or by light aircraft.

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Fantastic raffle prizes at Passports with Purpose

You'll also find this article over at my new blog at Heatheronhertravels.com

I'm so pleased to be supporting the launch today of Passports with Purpose a charity raffle in aid of Heifer International. For me December is the start of advent and the build up to Christmas, a time when we enjoy the company of our loved ones and appreciate the important things in life.

As travellers, many of us have seen at first hand that others around the world can't rely on the things we take for granted like a nice home, education and healthcare. Heifer International is an organisation that works at grassroots level to address hunger and poverty and it would be wonderful if our Christmas giving could extend to include those throughout the world who need our help.

Today Travel Bloggers all around the world are launching the Passports with Purpose raffle with some fantastic prizes and all the proceeds going to Heifer International. The prize that I'm going to tell you about is only one of many being offered through the efforts of Travel Bloggers and the Sponsors who have donated prizes. Tickets are $10 each and can be bought through Firstgiving here, but first let me tell you about my raffle prizes which have been donated by Lonely Planet, Time Out, Alastair Sawdays, Paperblanks, Pocketcomms and Indus Films.

I'm calling my prize a Christmas Hamper of Travel Inspiration with books, guides and stationary to inspire your Travel plans for 2009 and years to come, and I have not one but two of these hampers of travel inspiration to offer. This is what you'll get if you win one of these great prizes;

Christmas Hamper of Travel Inspiration number 1 - you'll get all of the following

Lonely Planet The Travel Book, a wonderful coffee table book packed full of photos and travel inspiration from countries all over the world and guaranteed to give you itchy feet.

Two Alastair Sawdays guides to Special Places to stay - these are guides to independently owned small hotels and guest houses which are special because of their attention to design, idyllic surroundings and a warm welcome for their guests. As you look at all the wonderful photos and descriptions you'll be dreaming of that cosy cave hotel in Cappadocia or the converted windmill on the Greek Island of Milos. You can choose two from the following guides; Turkey, Greece, Croatia, Green Places and English B & Bs.

Five Time Out City Guides - (yes that's not one but five) You can choose whichever five city guides you want from the Time Out City Guide collection, written by locals with an insider's perspective on all the best things to see and do in each location. This could be some great holiday reading to kick off your travel planning for next year.

Two Paperblanks Dayplanner 2009 diaries (one for you, one for your loved one?) in gorgeous covetable designs, to start to fill with your holiday plans. There are five designs you can choose from, and I'm also offering some more Paperblanks Dayplanners as a bonus prize if you read on.

A handy Pocketcomms communication aid with pocket sized pictures to help you communicate, even when you're stuck for words (What's I'm allergic to shellfish in Hindustani?)

Christmas Hamper of Travel Inspiration number 2

You'll get all the prizes listed above, except that..

Instead of the Lonely Planet Travel Book you'll get a DVD set of the Bruce Parry BBC Amazon series, following the incredible journey Bruce took through the Amazon Basin. I love seeing Bruce interact with all the different groups he meets, from the indigenous people who are fighting to protect the rainforest, to the loggers, gold prospectors and cocaine growers who are all trying to make a living around the Amazon. This prize was kindly donated by Indus Films who co-produced the Amazon series. (It works on UK DVDs but maybe not on US ones, but if you have no way to view it through a laptop, you can return it to me and I'll buy you another travel DVD - I just love to see Bruce in his tribal body paint)

Also, in this hamper you get three of the Alastair Sawdays Special Places to Stay Guides listed above.

How to buy your raffle ticket
By now I hope you'll be itching to head over to First Giving and buy raffle tickets for yourself and all your travel loving friends and family. But first take a look at all the other raffle prizes, as when you buy your ticket you'll be asked to specify your first choice of prize. Once you've selected your prize or prizes, go to First Giving to make your raffle donation. For each ten dollar donation you make, you'll be entered into the raffle for the prize you've selected. The winners will be drawn and notified via e-mail on December 30th and you can see all the details on the Passports with Purpose web-page.

Now for my Special Bonus prize. As Paperblanks have been kind enough to send me a whole box of their gorgeous dayplanner diaries, I have a further 18 to give away. So the first 18 people who head over to First giving to buy at least one ticket ( don't mind if it's my prize or one of the others) and then notify me through the comments over at my new blog, I will also send a Paperblanks dayplanner. That's on top of any prize you may win in the raffle.

So that's it folks - I hope I've convinced you to spread some Christmas cheer by heading over to First Giving to get your tickets and support Heifer International. A big thanks to Debbie, Pam, Beth and Michelle who came up with the great idea and have been working so hard behind the scenes to make it all work and also to my sponsors, Lonely Planet, Time Out, Alastair Sawdays, Paperblanks, Pocketcomms and Indus Films. I'll be thanking them all over the coming couple of weeks with more detailed reviews of their products, in case you're looking for any more ideas for your Christmas stockings.

Here's all the links again
The Passports with Purpose webpage
Heifer International
Details of all the Prizes
Buy your ticket at FirstGiving

PS If you're a travel blogger who is also offering a prize, let me know in the comments over at my new blog, as I'll be doing a round-up in a later post of all the prizes on offer

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Kapawi Ecolodge at the World Travel Market

When I visited the World Travel Market last week, I looked around the Ecuador stand and got chatting to the folks from the Kapawi ecolodge in Ecuador.

When I was in Ecuador last October, we ended our river journey at Kapawi, in Achuar territory on the River Pastaza, where we took a small aircraft to fly us back to the airport at Shell. As the weather was too bad for the plane to land, we stayed the night at Kapawi village, where the president of the community invited us for supper in his home and gave us permission to sleep in one of the school houses. The ecolodge is set by a lagoon, a little away from the main village, and we didn't get the chance to visit, but I'd heard all about it.


Heather with Kistupa Peas from the Kapawi ecolodge

The Achuar own the Natural Reserve in which Kapawi is situated and have made a strategic decision to say no to the logging and oil drilling that would destroy the natural rainforest environment. We had seen for ourselves the changes that logging can bring earlier in the day, when we visited the town of Andaos, down the river and just over the border into Peru. Here the palm roofed traditional houses had been replaced by shops, hotels and houses with corregated iron roofs, and the rainforest had all but disappeared.


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Friday Photo - Cheka Kidogo (smile a little) in London

Today I'm joining with the Friday Photo over at Delicious Baby, to bring you a photo from my travels with a story behind it.

This week, I was on the South Bank in London, on one of those wettest of wet days when if it doesn't rain it pours. I love the South Bank Centre because apart from the major art exhibitions & concerts, there's always something free and interactive going on there. Through the gloom I spotted this installation of photographs and videos called Cheka Kidogo which means Smile a little in Swahili.




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Friday photo - a hunter's view in Zakynthos

Today I'm joining in with the Friday Photo at Delicious Baby, from my sunbed on the Greek island of Zakynthos, to bring you a photo with a story behind it.

This morning I walked up with my husband, through the olive groves behind my sister's house on the island of Zante to admire the view over the bay. Every so often we would find a chair positioned somewhat incongruously in a clearing. At first I thought that someone had left them there so they could pause and admire the view. But then the spent shotgun cartridges in the vicinity gave me a clue.





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Friday photo - my Indian sponsor child

Today I'm joining in with the Friday photo over at Delicious Baby to bring you a picture with a story behind it.

I've also picked up on the theme of Blog Action Day which this year was on the theme of poverty. I believe that our individual actions can make a tremendous differerence to families across the world and have a ripple effect in inspiring others to do the same. What goes around, comes around as they say and sometimes the difference it makes can be to you too.



This is how I began sponsoring a child in India. An Indian priest, Father Pratap Reddy, visited my church some years ago and made an appeal for people to sponsor the education of children in his parish. We had been blessed with three children and wanted to spread our happiness around a little. We offered to become sponsors and over the years we received pictures and news of Thirumula Sagar and saw him growing up just as our children were too.


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The blogging girl's tale of Rwanda

Usually I travel because it makes me happy. I'm curious to experience different ways of looking at the world, to taste the food, take in the scents and sounds and soak up the sunshine and warmth of friendship and hospitality.

But sometimes we travel to dark, dark places where unimaginable things happen. One such place is Rwanda.

Maryam's blog My Marakesh is usually the place where I go to find gorgeous design, textiles, food and entertaining tales of her setbacks as she builds her Guest House in Marakesh. But lately Maryam's in Rwanda and reminding us that there are some places in the world are evil has been done while the world turned and looked the other way.

I read about Vestine, a lady close to me in age, to whom terrible things were done. Vestine is only one of many men, women and children who suffered in unspeakable ways, but her story reminds us that every victim has a face and their own story to tell. In another life that could have been me, or you.

Even though it may move you to tears I know you'll want to head over to My Marakesh and read Vestine's story and I'm sure you'll want to help, as I do, by sending a Paypal donation to Maryam to help survivors of the Rwandan genocide, like Vestine.

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Blue hearts and ghost-bikes - ways to remember the dead

As we travelled south from Quito along the Pan-American highway, it dawned on me that the front of the bus might not have been the best choice of seat. As if to demonstrate their machismo, the Ecuadorian bus drivers specialise in overtaking all other vehicles, preferably up hill and into the oncoming traffic. Every so often we could see blue hearts or Corazon Azul, painted on the road to mark where someone had died in a car crash. Sometime we would see a group of four or five together - large ones for adults, smaller ones for children. They are part of a campaign by the government in Ecuador to make people aware of the dangers of reckless driving.



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Liverpool poets and the flutter of a butterfly's wing

I met this week with the friends and neighbours who make up our local book group - this month we were reading the works of the Liverpool poets. The poets in question are Adrian Henri, Roger McGough, and Brian Patten who were contemporaries of the Beatles and started out reading their poetry in the 1960s in the clubs and coffee bars of Liverpool, at a time when poetry was becoming part of pop culture and accessible to all.

My favourite is Roger McGough, who is still going strong today, and this poem of his reminded me of the post I wrote back in January about the Egyptian fisherman who created chaos in the blogsphere.




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Orange and honey cakes for Fairtrade

I've been baking orange and honey cakes for my work colleagues to celebrate Fairtrade fortnight - they didn't last long but luckily I saved a few for you.



Here's the recipe;
175g unsalted butter
175g light brown Fairtrade sugar
1 tablespoon Fairtrade honey
3 large eggs
175g self-raising flour
2 tablespoons Fairtrade orange juice
Zest of 1 Fairtrade orange

Cream the butter, sugar, eggs, honey and orange juice, then mix in the flour. Bake in cake cases at 180 degrees for aprox 15 mins or until golden brown. Decorate with icing made with icing sugar and lime juice and decorate with orange zest.

You can see all my Fairtrade photos on my Flickr site here.

A Fairtrade trip to the Philippines

In Fairtrade Fortnight it's great to see all the media coverage about the difference that buying Fairtrade products can make. But I've also noticed some articles casting doubts on whether Fairtrade is an effective way of tackling poverty. Fairtrade has added its views to the debate but I was keen to hear from someone who had first hand experience of visiting Fairtrade producers.

So I contacted Jenny Foster, Fairtrade co-ordinator for Bristol who visited the Philippines last year, to hear her story - it turned out that our children are in the same class at the same school. It's certainly a small travelling world!

The Bicol area of the Philippines that Jenny visited is a mecca for divers and for climbers who visit the active volcane Mt Mayon. Jenny was able to get off the tourist trail and see what life was like for the people living there.

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Going Bananas in Fairtrade fortnight

To celebrate the beginning of Fairtrade fortnight I got busy baking and came up with a delicious Fairtrade banana and pineapple cake.


Bananas are the most popular fruit in the UK and are a major export for Latin America and the Caribbean - in some places such as the Windward isles the economy is completely reliant on them.


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Feral trade - or the wanderings of a coffee bean

First Fairtrade, now Feral Trade. Don't worry folks - I'm not abandoning my Fairtrade principles completely, but I had to share with you this intriguing concept of Feral Trade that's linking Bristol with other parts of the world.

It was all started by Kate Rich who works at the Cube in Bristol, a microplex cinema, art space and music venue.

Kate started Feral Trade as an experiment in trading goods in person over social networks - the use word 'feral' describes a process which is wilfully wild (as in pigeon) as opposed to romantically or nature-wild (as in wolf). Goods such as coffee from El Salvador, sweets from Iran and Grappa from Croatia are traded through personal contacts, with the journey being minutely documented on the feral trade website. According to Kate;

...the passage of goods can open up wormholes between diverse social settings, routes along which other information, techniques or individuals can potentially travel ...


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Fairtrade fortnight - coming soon to a world near you

Food lovers get ready - Fairtrade fortnight starts next Monday 25 February in Bristol and throughout the UK and runs until 9 March. If you're the kind of person who enjoys your food and cares about how it's produced, then I'm sure you'll already know all about Fairtrade.


But just in case it's passed you by, let me fill you in - Fairtrade is all about making sure that producers in developing countries get a fair price for their produce with a premium to invest back into their community. Fairtrade is big in coffee, tea, chocolate and bananas, but it also covers many other foods and even cotton, clothing and handicrafts.


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Turtles and plastic bags

I came across these colourful turtle bags in my favourite organic emporium, Fresh and Wild this week and they caught my imagination. I'd been feeling guilty about the amount of plastic bags we were using after reading an article in the Guardian about the campaign to banish them in the Devon town of Modbury.

Rebecca Hosking, a wildlife camerawoman, managed to convince the residents of her home town of Modbury to say no to plastic bags after filming a documentary about the terrible environmental impact they were having on marine life in Hawaii. These colourful string bags seemed the answer and I promptly bought one for my mother and two for me. They're small enough to scrunch up in a pocket and looking so pretty it would hardly be a hardship to use them.


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Egyptian fisherman creates chaos in the blog-sphere

On a sunny Sunday afternoon in Bristol, I passed the time of day with my neighbour at the garden gate. He told me a funny story about his friend who was unable to book a flight to Dubai because the airline websites were down - it was all because an Egyptian fisherman had dropped his anchor on the cable, causing havoc with the internet connections in the middle east.

My neighbour specialises in telling those truth-is-stranger-than-fiction stories that seem so improbable, they must be true. So I decided to investigate this particular tall tale for myself.

I discovered from Reuters that breaks in two cables off the Egyptian coast and one off the coast of United Arab Emirates had created chaos with internet access in the Gulf region and South Asia. Egypt lost more than half its internet capacity because of the breaks and the the service was not expected to be back to normal for 10 days. A major UAE telecom firm had been forced to re-route traffic via Saudi Arabia and India's internet services were operating at 80% of capacity, affecting Indian call centres.

As bloggers we rely on our internet access and fellow blogger Dubai-Jazz had a good old moan;

The internet service has been down for the last couple of days. I couldn't do anything significant during the slow down. I couldn't even post comments on my own blog let alone others. Gmail was also down. Youtube? ... forget about it.

All this was because some extra-witty Egyptian fisherman has decided to drop his anchor deep in the Mediterranean. Not only he'd dropped the anchor so deep and hurt one of the cables supplying bites to the Middle East and India, he had also dragged his anchor for 400 meters and cut another main cable in the process.

This surely must be a living example of chaos theory, where the beat of a butterfly's wings may alter the balance of nature and cause a typhoon.



Thanks for their photos to creativity+, dgrobinson, pete4ducks on Flickr.com