“What sunshine is to flowers, smiles are to humanity. These are but trifles, to be sure; but scattered along life’s pathway, the good they do is inconceivable” | Joseph Addison
Here are some smiles I’ve picked up along my travels, from people from all walks of life; some who don’t always have much to smile about, but they smile all the same.
As soon as I saw that the theme of this week’s photo challenge was adventure, my head started spinning. I love going on adventures, so much so that I had to put the word ‘adventure’ in the title of my blog…so how on earth was I supposed to pick just the one?!
Instead, I decided to share a few of my favourites with you, from setting off on the start of an incredible adventure around the world, adrenaline packed activities like skydiving over the Namibian sand dunes or climbing mountains; trying new things, meeting new people, and everything in between 🙂
Christmas Day last year we found ourselves in the desert city of Jaisalmer, a beautiful place to spend the day but somewhere that doesn’t celebrate the festive season like we’re used to. With not much to do in the way of Christmas evening festivities, we decided to climb up a hill to watch the sunset over the city and the Fort.
Along the way we walked past small homes, cows in the garden briefly paused their grass munching to watch us, old people sat in the doorways and waved hello to us as we passed, and children ran out to climb the steps with us. When we reached the top, they sat with us, smiling and grinning that they’d made new friends, even if we couldn’t speak the same language.
India is full of such diverse landscapes from huge bustling crowed cities, snowy mountains, the dusty orange deserts, rolling green hills and white sandy beaches. Every new place we explored seemed like it was in a whole other world to the place we’d just come from and I loved everywhere for each different sight it offered.
The Thar Desert was one of the highlights of our time travelling around this incredible country. Just outside the desert city of Jaisalmer, our home for the night was a gorgeous (if freezing) luxury tent.
To me, the window seat of a plane is like candy to a baby. I love flying and I always try to grab a window seat so I can watch the world go by and ooh and ahh as we get a glimpse of our next destination as we come in to land. Sitting slightly behind the wing of the plane is my favourite spot where I can get some great shots of the sky or the landscape below us with the tip of the wing lined up perfectly. It helps that Mr Ayla doesn’t like flying in the slightest so he’s always perfectly happy to let his eager wife take the best seat 🙂
Most people view Ibiza as a place for drinking, partying and wild holidays. And, yes, this is mostly true – I even remember going to a foam party when I visited Ibiza as a child with my family! But there are some quiet and relaxing spots and the island is still a beautiful place to visit with some of the most amazing sunsets I’ve ever seen.
This week’s photo challenge theme – containers – immediately made me think of the huge amounts of food, spices, sweets, flowers and little trinkets that we came across on our travels across India, all stored in containers, bowls and sacks, bundled on top of carts and spilling out of roadside shops. Although the weekly photo challenge is usually just a photo with a small story or caption, there was absolutely no way that I could say so little about the food in India. It accidentally turned into a slightly longer post – oops! – as I found myself writing more and more and wanting to share the deliciousness of India with you 🙂
I’m not really a fan of using my iPhone to take photos and my camera comes pretty much everywhere with me. But we ended up using our phones a lot more than usual on this trip as silly old Alex broke our camera by dropping it the evening before we started the Inca Trail – one of the greatest hikes in the world. Yes, I was angry (slight understatement!), and no, he didn’t hear the end of it!
After hunting around the small city of Cusco for hours looking for a repair shop, it somehow magically fixed itself, only for silly old me to go and break it again by getting it wet during a storm in the Amazon Rainforest. And yes, I was just as angry with myself as I had been with Alex!
I was expecting a dusty little wooden hut full of biting insects for our stay in the Amazon, but when we arrived we found a lovely bungalow hidden in the depths of the rainforest, just a few steps from the Amazon River.
While we were wandering around Lima, we came across Kennedy Park, a pretty green area nestled in the district of Miraflores. This is now my favourite park in the world – not because of the abundance of green grass for people to relax on in the sunshine and not even because of the people that gather to dance to the Peruvian music – but because of the cats. The park is home to an array of cats who roam around, finding shelter amongst the flowers, climbing the trees to hide from lively children, and trying to pinch some food from people having picnics.
Mama Ayla's Adventures 