Trips for 2017

desert oasis outside Dunhuang, China

view from Morro Castle, Santiago de Cuba

We have 3 great group trips planned for 2017. I'll summarize them below and also post more details in several additional blogs.
First is our 3rd trip to Cuba, 2nd with a group, scheduled for February 8 to 20, 2017.  This time, given the difficulty of getting the hotels (all government-owned) to confirm reservations, we are doing a completely private trip.  Actually, it's one or the other--government or private--not a combination of both.  So, we'll be staying in private homes and villas, using privately-owned vans (there aren't many) and private guides.

male frigate bird seeking mate (that's his throat), Galapagos

There isn't much of a private economy in Cuba as virtually everything is owned by the government and Raul Castro wants to keep it that way.  But, the government has allowed families to start restaurants, rent rooms in their homes and own some small vehicles for tourist transportation.
Now that there are scheduled flights, getting to the island is much easier.  We will start in Holguin, with a flight there from Miami on American Airlines, and drive from there to Santiago de Cuba after a lunch with a friend who will tell us about the artists' guild, UNEAC, which advocates for artists of all kinds in Cuba.
Santiago de Cuba is where Fidel Castro was just buried, the birthplace of his revolution, and a 500 year old colonial city on sea.  We will drive west from Santiago (on the eastern end of Cuba), stopping in Camaguey, Trinidad, Cienfuegos and the Bay of Pigs on our way to Havana and the Vinales Valley to the west of Havana.  So, we will see the entire island.

Stone boat, Summer Palace, Beijing

Trip number 2 is to China May 4 to 21, again with a group.  We have been to China at least 20 times over the last 30 years and have seen such huge changes in the country during that period. During our first visit in 1987, most people wore Mao jackets and long, baggy pants, worked in the fields in impoverished villages and had little money with which to buy the meager goods in the government shops. Today, so much of China is neon and luxury, clearly not available to the majority of its citizens, but affordable to hundreds of millions of Chinese.
We think this is the best of the China that we have visited as we've crisscrossed the huge country from east to west and north to south.

mosaic cat, Jose Fuster neighborhood, Havana

Our trip will take us to Beijing, of course, Xi'an, Dunhuang, in the Gobi Desert, to see the magnificently painted Mogao Caves, Chengdu (home of a delightful panda breeding center and much more), Lijiang, ancient city on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau, by van across that plateau to Shangri La, and then to Shanghai.  The itinerary for this trip is on our website, www.eglobaleducation.com. .
Our final group trip will be to the Ecuadorean Amazon and the Galapagos in September.  While we haven't visited the Ecuadorean Amazon before, we have been to the Brazilian Amazon several times and loved its amazing diversity of plant and animal life.  We'll be staying at the Sacha Lodge where we can see this vast area in canoes and with forest and canopy walks.
Then on to the Galapagos, which we think is one of the greatest visits in the world.  Last year, we spent 2 weeks on a yacht so we could see all the islands of the Galapagos and decide which ones we thought a group would most enjoy. We chose the eastern islands for their wealth of bird and aquatic life, iguanas and tortoises.

giant tortoise studying us, Galapagos

In between, we'll be in Royan, France, to watch my son play in the beach Ultimate tournament there. He is on the USA grand masters (that means the old guys) team.  I'll brag a bit--Jim played at Stanford, was named the best player in the nation there, and later coached the University of Colorado team to a national championship.  We'll follow that with some hiking in the Pyrenees and, perhaps in 2018, a wine and hiking trip to southern France.

baby pandas, Chengdu, China

Finally, Don and I expect to do a planning trip to Iran in preparation for a group trip in 2018. Iran is one of the greatest travel destinations of the world, so we hope President-elect Trump does not mess with our current policy towards Iran and make it impossible to travel there. The ongoing tragedies across the Middle East have made too many wonderful destinations worrisome if not downright dangerous for Americans who love to travel.  We hope to be able to return to Egypt, Turkey, Tunisia, Jordan and Central Asia in the not too distant future. These are all incredible places to visit.
Meanwhile, please check out my blogs over the course of 2017 as we tour the world.