Homer

The only reason I am in Homer is to take the Alaskan ferry.  I've heard of Homer but not much.  Now I wish I have more time here.  There are a lot of things to do here after I picked up one of the tourist brochures and talking to people who have been here.  It's a relatively large town, for this area.  Of course, it depends on the time of the year.  Like a lot of Alaskan towns, the population swells during the summer tourist season.  Officially, it lists its population as about 5,500.

Homer bills itself as the "Halibut Fishing Capital of the World."  They even have a Halibut Cove here.  There is a lot of hiking, fishing (of course), bear viewing, art galleries and restaurants.  It is located in a stunningly beautiful area called Kachemak Bay.  Uniquely, it has the Homer Spit, a 4.5 mile stretch of land into the ocean.  On the Spit are various activities:  hotels, restaurants, camping, and the ferry terminal.  This is where I will start my Alaska ferry journey for 3 1/2 days through the Aleutian Islands to Dutch Harbor.

The only negative I can think of Homer is the high price of accommodations here.  I know it's tourist season now and they should be higher.  Most of the rooms are over $200 a night.  I opted to go through Airbnb and found a room at a private residence for about $99 a night.  My hostess is a dog-sitter so she has about 15 dogs all over the house.  When I got there all the dogs were barking like crazy.  I am not a dog person but I am not averse to them either.  After a while they calmed down and stayed quiet for the night.

In the morning she had a meeting in coffee shop in town so she dropped me off there.  I've been trying to kill time at this coffee shop because I don't have a place to put my luggage.  I called the ferry terminal and they told me they don't have a place to keep my luggage.  I then found a resort near the ferry terminal that would allow me to store my stuff.

Lots of tourist come here to fish. 

I got to the Spit at about 3 pm in the afternoon.  There are a lot of businesses here catering to the fishermen.  I signed up for a 3/4 day halibut fishing trip towards the end of my Alaska trip.  This means that I will be back in Homer in about 2 weeks.  This was not originally planned.  This should be fun.  I am really looking forward to this.

Fishing boats along the Spit and mountains across Kachemak Bay

An Aleut filleting salmon that he caught

The popular Salt Dawg Salon

Customers stick bills all over the bar, which are donated to charities once a year

This bumper sticker sums it all

Glaciers

A glacier is a river of frozen ice.  It is said that Alaska has at least 10,000 glaciers, most of them unnamed.  They are a popular attraction in Alaska.  Click here to read more about glaciers.

When ice in a glacier recedes, the flooded valley becomes a fjord (pronounced f'yord).

The area around Seward is part of the Kenai Fjords National Park.  It is a very big area and includes some very popular tourist areas.  Many companies depend on tours to these areas for their businesses.  I signed up for a 9-hour tour of the Northwestern Fjord with Kenai Fjord Tours.  There were probably about 30 people on the boat.  It starts from the harbor area of Seward, south through Resurrection Bay, and then out into the Gulf of Alaska.  There are several fjords here.  I don't know why the company picked Northwestern Fjord but the scenery and the wildlife on the way is simply amazing.

If the pictures below don't look as sharp as they should be, that's because it's been raining in Seward for the past 3 days.  It's really hard to take good pictures when you are wet and the sun is not out.  They were mostly taken with my iPhone, which also explains the lesser quality pictures than those taken with my Nikon DSLR camera.

Northwestern Fjord

Puffins on the cliff

Stella Seals

A Humpback Whale Diving

Waterfalls are all over the place

Beautiful Coves are everywhere

The next day I took a 30-minute shuttle to Exit Glacier.  This is one of the few glaciers where you can  get very close to it or even hike on it.  The company that runs the shuttle offers hike on the glacier.  I did not do that because I did the same thing in New Zealand, on the Franz Josef Glacier in South Island.  You can read more about my hike on the Franz Josef Glacier.  It was an excellent experience and if I had not done it before, I'd definitely do it.

I joined a Ranger Hike when I got to Exit Glacier.  This is one of the excellent programs offered by the National Parks.  You can find them at every National Park.  You just have to find out when they have Ranger Hikes or Talks.  They are both very informative and are usually free.

Our ranger took us on an hour and a half hike to the glacier.  On the way she stopped at several places to explain about the glacier - the history, the science, the geology and how climate change has affected a lot of things in Alaska.  The National Park Service is cutting back on carbon usage to protect the environment.  At the end of the hike, we were left to enjoy the views of the glacier.  If it was not raining, I'd have continue to hike up to the Harding Ice Field, which is like a frozen reservoir that feeds many glaciers in the area.

Area around Exit Glacier

Ranger leading him to glacier

Bridge on trail

Hiking Trail to glacier

Ranger giving talk on early mammals in the area

After three wet days in Seward, I am ready to head out to Homer this afternoon.  I will spend 1 night there before getting on the Alaskan Ferry.

Seward

Much of Alaska's progress in the last 100 years can be traced to the train.  Without the railroad it'd have been very difficult to move men and material through this enormous state.  Two railroads operate in the state:  the Alaska Railroad and the White Pass and Yukon Route.  The latter runs from Skagway to Fraser, BC, and was established 100 years ago during the Klondike Gold Rush.  The Alaska Railroad runs from Seward in the south, through Anchorage and all the way up north to Fairbanks.

I heard a lot of good things about both railroads.  I decided to try the scenic train from Anchorage to Seward, a roughly 3-hour ride.  I paid extra for the Goldstar Service, which is equivalent to first-class.  You get to ride in an elevated dome-car, giving you a 360-degree view.  You are also served meals and drinks.  Part of the journey parallels the coast so you see some beautiful coastal scenery.  It also travels through some beautiful mountains and get to see waterfalls, glaciers and even some animals.  Even though they pride themselves on the service, I think the Alaska Railroad has some things to learn from the European trains.  Instead of being served at your seat, you have to take turns going to the dining car downstairs.  I had to wait for at least an hour before getting a chance to eat my breakfast.  The dome car is an excellent idea though.  You feel like you are open-air car.

All Aboard!

Riding through some beautiful coastal and mountain areas

Fourth Avenue, the "main" street in downtown Seward

Sea Life Center

The Iditarod Race used to start here in Seward

Harborfront

A couple of bald eagles near the harbor

Lots of sea otters around this area

 I arrived in Seward in the early afternoon and tried to check in to the Hotel Seward, one of the oldest hotels in the town.  The room was not ready.  Luckily, the Sea Life Center is only two blocks away and I had plan to visit there.  I spent a little over an hour there.  It was okay but not excellent.  Having visited SeaWorld at San Diego and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, this place is much smaller.  I already knew a lot about the exhibits.  It is a good place for cruise ship passengers to kill some time.  It's also a nice facility for the area.

One of the surprises I had so far on this trip is the price of seafood in Alaska - especially salmon and halibut.  You would think that since salmon and halibut are abundant here and came mostly from Alaska, they'd be cheap here.  NOT!  Most of the salmon or halibut dinners are in their high 20s'.  That's more expensive than the same dinner in Phoenix or any place in the US.  Even the locals complain about it.  I saw a local restaurant offering a pound of king crab legs for $50.  That's a lot of money for king crab legs.  They may be fresher but they are definitely not cheaper.

The big thing that I am planning to do in Seward is a tour of the Northwest Glacier with the Kenai Fjord Tour.  The other place that I am interested in is Kenai Fjord National Park.  As you can tell by now, I am a big fan of the US National Park.  I heard that you can walk up to the Exit Glacier at the park.  That's in the next post.

Anchorage

When I left Phoenix on Tuesday, June 23, it was over 110F (43C).  When I landed in Anchorage, Alaska, at 1 am in the evening, it was about 60F (15C).  I've been in Anchorage for 2 days and the high temperature never got above 72F (22C).  At times I had to wear my jacket because of the wind.

Anchorage is the first stop on this Alaskan trip.  This will be my base.  I am using the first day of the trip to gather information about the other parts of Alaska that I planned to go.  Although I was able to get a lot of information from the internet and tour books, I was hoping there is place in Anchorage where I can pick up brochures and talk to a live person.  As soon as I landed I was able to pick up a lot of brochures at the airport.  On the first morning I went downtown and found the Anchorage Visitor Center.  This is a great place to get information on Anchorage itself and the surrounding areas.  However, they directed me to a building across the street that has all the other information about the entire state of Alaska.  It's called the Alaska Public Lands Information Center (APLIC) and is owned by the Federal Government.  This is exactly what I was looking for.  It's not enough to just look at brochures but talk to people who have been to those places and has intimate knowledge of them.

B&B Where I stayed in Anchorage

Anchorage Visitor Center

Alaska Public Lands Information Center

I saw a few excellent videos about Alaska at the APLIC.  I also joined a walking tour about Captain James Cook and the impact he had on Alaska.  It seems like he left his name everywhere I went:  Australia, New Zealand, and now Alaska.  Western history books may have said that he discovered Alaska but Alaskan natives, who have been here for more than 10,000 years, will strong disagree with that.  Unfortunately, he was killed by the Hawaiian natives on his third voyage.

I walked around and explored downtown Anchorage but there was not much to see.  You can easily cover the whole in about an hour.  One of the interesting facts about Anchorage is that you can fish for salmon only a few blocks from downtown.  I went to check it out and sure enough there were quite a few fishermen at Ship Creek fishing there.

A Statue honoring Captain James Cook

Salmon Fishing at Ship Creek

I topped off the day with a nice salmon dinner at a local pub

My plan for the second day was to rent a bicycle and ride along the Tony Knowles Coastal Trail.  The bus ride from the B&B where I stayed to downtown is about 30 minutes.  I started early, had breakfast at McDonald's, and was downtown around 10 am.  I rented a bike from Pablo's at the corner of 5th Avenue and M Street.  It costs $20 for 3 hours plus $5 extra per hour.  By 10:30 am I was on the bike trail.  The trail is about 20 miles round-trip and normally takes about 3-4 hours.  It goes through some beautiful pristine forest and with views of Cook's Inlet, the distant mountain ranges and downtown Anchorage.  If you are lucky, you can run into some wildlife along the trail.  As I was rounding a corner, all of a sudden I saw two moose in front of me.  I stopped and took several pictures.  I was hoping to see other animals, including bears, but I was not so lucky.

Getting ready for a biking adventure on the trail

A beautiful creek along the trail

View of distant mountain ranges

Beautiful Aspen trees

A monument commemorating the 1964 earthquake

What the trail looks like

Some beautiful homes 

Warning about Moose - accidents must happen quite often

A couple of moose grazing alongside the trail

In the afternoon I spent a few hours at the Anchorage Museum, located downtown.  It's an excellent museum with a lot of history of Alaska and what their current concerns are.  One prevailing theme I see is the concern with climate change.  Alaska's ecology and livelihood depends on ice.  With ice melting faster than before, it affects the entire food chain, from the phytoplankton to the whales.

Anchorage Museum

One interesting observation is the number of Asian restaurants in the city.  As I take the bus and walked around downtown, I saw many Vietnamese, Japanese and Thai restaurants.  I even ate Thai food at a Vietnamese restaurant.  According to the museum, the number of Asians and Pacific Islanders make up about 8% of the population of Alaska.  That's more than Native Alaskans.

North to Alaska

It's peak summer season in Phoenix and that can meet only one thing:  HOT!  Even though I've lived here for almost 40 years I still cannot handle the heat.  The whole city slows down.  Most go somewhere much cooler, especially San Diego, where the temperature is about 70F or 21C.  Last week the high temperature in Phoenix was between 110-115F (43-46C).  It's about 4 months of hell.  You just stay indoor or go to someplace air-conditioned.

This is a perfect time to be in Alaska.  I've been thinking of this trip for a while since I heard about the Alaska Marine Highway System (AMHS).  It's the kind of thing I like to do:  enjoying nature at a leisure pace.  I've taken a commercial cruise before to Alaska - from Vancouver to Southeast Alaska.  It was fun and we ate a lot.  This is really a ferry run by the State of Alaska to connect all the remote places.  I will be taking the one that goes from Homer in south-central Alaska to Dutch Harbor, almost at the end of the Aleutian Islands.  It will take about 3 1/2 days and stop at various ports along the way.
Before the ferry trip, I will spend a few days in Anchorage, then Seward, where the Kenai Fjords National Park is located.
After the cruise, I will spend almost a week in Denali National Park, hoping to see a lot of wildlife there and enjoying the beauty of the place.
These are the two main parts of the trip:  the ferry trip and Denali National Park.  I am leaving things quite open so that I can change or include it as part of the trip.
Hopefully, I can update this blog as I go.  I already know there is no wifi on the ferry so I will be not be able to do so for a few days.
The Travel Alaska website is an excellent resource for finding out more about travels in Alaska.
You can "right-click" on the map above to get a larger picture.
Your comments are most welcome.
Come enjoy Alaska with me.

Porto

We flew from Madrid to Porto.  It took a little over an hour.  If we have taken the train, it would have taken at least 12 hours, and may cost even more.  We have reservation a a hotel called Tryp Centro.  From the description in the hotel information, it sounded like getting there from the airport would be simple.  It was easy taking the train to the nearby train stop but finding the hotel was not easy.  It said that it's only a 5 minute walk away but we have to ask several people and walk through cobble stone streets before we found the hotel.  It was a fairly nice hotel, a little out of the way but since we were there for only 1 night, we were okay with it.

It's about a 10 minute walk to Avenida Santa Maria, a pedestrian street full of tourists and shops.  Since we have so little time, our plan was to buy a ticket on the hop-on hop-off bus for an easy way to get around the city.  The ticket costing €20 each, is good for 2 days and include wine-tasting at 3 wineries.  It was a very efficient way to experience and see the city.

Our first stop was the area across the Duoro River from the Ribeira.  The Ribeira is a touristy waterfront with many tourist shops and restaurants.  On this side of the river, there are many of the port wine tasting centers.  This part of Portugal is famous for their Port Wine.  The name Port wine came from the city of Porto.  Port wine is sweet, usually served as a dessert wine.

We had a chance to visit all 3 wine-tasting centers.  At one, Cockburn's, we took a tour of their wine cellar.  We like the wine very much, mostly because it's sweet and pleasant tasting.

The bus tour also included a short boat ride on the Duoro river.  It was interesting to see other parts of the city that is not as touristy.  The bus tour itself was very interesting because it drove around some of the historical parts of the city.  Unfortunately, we did not have time to stop at most of them.  Prices in Portugal seems to be lower than in Spain.  Sardines are a favorite here.  One night I ate a plate full of sardines at a restaurant near the hotel.  Fresh sardines taste a lot better than canned sardines.

Sampling Port Wine

One of many Port Wineries

A view of the Ribeira across the Duoro River.  Port wine cellars are on this side of the river.

Many restaurants along the Ribeira

A market full of fresh fruits

Sardines are very popular in Portugal

Portuguese Pee in Puny Potty in Porto Portugal

A faded façade of an old house on the riverfront

Avenue Santa Maria - a pedestrian mall