Taking a short ferry ride out of Amsterdam, we noticed an immediate scenery change. Gone were the tall row houses, canals and bustling traffic of the city. Unlike most American cities, Amsterdam has very little urban or suburban sprawl. Just a five minute ferry ride from the city center we found ourselves amidst vast stretches of farmland with only an occasional farm house or village in sight. Take a ride in the countryside in today’s photo gallery

With just over one million bicycles (that’s more than one for each of the city’s residents) Amsterdam is a cyclist’s paradise and since we only had a couple days to explore city we decided that getting around town by bike would be the best way to cover as much ground as possible. For about $12 a day, we rented a couple of bikes from MacBike, a bike rental shop near Amsterdam Centraal train station, and began making our way through the maze of bike paths that criss-cross town. Ride around town in today’s gallery.

For most travelers visiting countries drastically different from their own, culture shock upon arrival in their unfamiliar destination is not an uncommon. For us, culture shock has become the norm, however our latest transition, Nairobi to Amsterdam on a red-eye flight, was perhaps our most drastic yet. Today marks Alicia’s last day on this leg of the jaunt as well. Take a walk around Amsterdam in today’s photos.

It’s the people that we meet that make a place, for us, the face of Kenya will always be that of Benard Langat’s. A long distance runner, hoping to make it onto the international scene, Benard graciously found time in the middle of his busy training schedule to show us around Nairobi. The following Q&A comes from a discussion we had with him during our time in Kenya.

Full Name: Benard Kibrono Langat

Born: Sironet, Kenya (Rift Valley Region)

Currently resides in: Nairobi, Kenya

Number of siblings: 8 (four brothers and four sisters), Benard is the oldest. The youngest is two years old.

Occupation: Professional long distance runner specializing in 10K and half marathon.

What are your long-term career goals?
I hope to be successful enough as a runner to provide money for my family to farm their land and buy more cows. I come from a poor family and I hope to be the light of my family and to provide whatever they need. (more…)

Until we touched down in Kenya, stories of a lightning fast boy named Philemon and Kenyan runners were the closest we ever got to the country. Our friend Jon Rosen, currently a masters student at Johns Hopkins School of International Studies in Bologna, Italy, was our link to the country, and is closely in tune with the running scene in Kenya through his friend Philemon Terer. The following piece by Rosen gives a glimpse at the scene at the elite runners village of Iten - where the running world is a long and hard ticket out of Kenya. This piece also appeared on RunnersWorld.com. - T.A.

Except for the muffled tones of distant cowbells and the mild rustling of nearby pines, the clearing where our group of runners has assembled is eerily silent. Though just a twenty-minute jog through glades and pastures, the local town where we began our warm-up might as well be days away, the street-vendors and overcapacity mini-busses having yielded somewhere around the ten-minute mark to the pristine forces of nature, including, of immediate concern to our company, a large green hill right out of the literature of Hemingway.

For our group of thirteen athletes, composed of eleven highly-trained Kenyans and a visiting father-son team of wazungus (white men in Kiswahili), this 150-meter mound is a sign that it’s time to get to work. As we line up in single file, shortly after 10:00 am, the most accomplished athlete of our group, Ronald Kipchumba Rutto, hands down the morning’s assignment: 15 times up and down. Knowing that most of the athletes have already run an hour hard early in the morning, I ask if the workout will be competitive. Rutto, the 2004 World Junior Steeplechase champion, turns and stares me down with a slight grin.

“We are Kenyans,” he says.

This is all I need to hear. (more…)

A rare day time flight (most of our trips have been at night) gave us a chance to see the world below, including the Nile river wending its way through the Sahara desert and Sudan. See the world below in today’s photo gallery.

All good things must come to and end, and we’re pretty sure our visit to Kenya is on that list of “we shoulda’ stayed here longer” places. With one last full day in Kenya, we explore Nairobi and get treated to tea at Benard’s place. Say good bye to Kenya in today’s photo gallery.

Our stateside homebase chief Alicia Conway (she keeps the site alive and running smoothly while we’re on the road) writes about the issues with “taking” photos while traveling through Mombasa. See portraits from the day in this gallery.

A few days into the trip, I was determined to get over my fear of photographing people. While this long-standing trepidation did not stem from the fact that this was my first experience in a developing country and as a true ethnic minority, these factors did help to magnify it for the first few days in Kenya.

A self-proclaimed “people day” on our second day in Mombasa resulted in what was simultaneously my best and worst photography day. I found some of my strongest photos hidden in the snaking alleyways of Mombasa’s Old Town. Much to my chagrin, I also found one of my biggest weaknesses. (more…)

Barely able to count it a visit, our tight schedule meant we had to leave Tanzania after a mere day in the country and head back to Nairobi. Once again, Mt. Kilimanjaro was covered by clouds, so we spent the few remaining hours acquiring kangas and roaming Moshi’s streets before a bus ride that gave a taste of Tanzania’s country side. See today’s photos here.

A bumpy bus ride that turned into a safari brought us to Moshi, Tanzania and a chance to see a glimpse of the monolithic Mt. Kilimanjaro. See Kilimanjaro in today’s photo gallery.