The Sunrise World Travelers
Our Special “Guest” Speakers for the June 3, 2021, meeting were our own world travelers, Don Floriani, Peter Banks, and Scott Holder. The topic was Amazing Travel Experiences! Their experiences were truly international and intercontinental: Flo’s trip to Umbria, Italy; Peter’s sailing lifestyle in the Caribbean; and Scott’s “practice” climbs in Ecuador. Sunrise spans the globe!
Don and Wendy Floriani bought an Italian travel vacation donated by John Johns at one of our past annual events. Don and Wendy traveled to Umbria, Italy and lived in an Italian villa in Umbria, where Don admittedly spent the entire vacation eating his way through Southern Italy, with some meals in Amsterdam as well. Don and Wendy hopped from town to town in Southern Italy eating some of the best Italian food in the world. They traveled in Umbria, giving special mention to Cortona in Eastern Tuscany, and to Don’s new favorite place, Sila. Don provided photos of wild boar and octopus meals. They had an awesome time on their never-to-be-forgotten Italian vacation.
Peter and Mary Banks bought their 38-foot French-built Lagoon sailboat in 2015 to accomplish their dream of living and sailing in the Eastern side of the Caribbean out of Saint Martin. The islands in this area are much like Peter’s hometown of San Diego; warm and dry. The water is unbelievably clear, with 100-foot visibility and average temperatures of 85 degrees! Peter and Mary’s favorite island was St. Barts, about 22 miles southeast of Saint Martin. Peter says that living and sailing in this part of the Caribbean is like being in paradise; it is another world. They got up early, enjoyed the 100-foot visibility and watched every sunset every day. Peter and Mary’s idyllic sailing life is apparently over, however, since they are in the process of selling their yacht. As someone said: “the happiest days of your life are the day you bought your boat and the day you sold it.” What an amazing sailing run for this amazing couple!
Scott Holder rounded out our world traveler triumvirate. As we all know, Scott is a world class mountaineer and, apparently, needs to warm up before scaling the highest peaks in the world by traveling to exotic locations to take day hikes. His trip to the Ecuador’s part of the ring of fire in 2014 was one of these warmups. Quito, Ecuador is one of the highest cities in the world and was a perfect way to get into high-altitude shape. Scott and his fellow climbers scaled Fuya Fuya, Imbabura, Cayambe (a volcano that erupted 2 weeks after he was there!), and Chimburazo. Chimburazo’s peak is 20,500, the highest mountain in the world. Scott also enjoyed staying in some wonderful Ecuadoran hotels and climbers’ huts. He provided us with photos of one hotel, a hacienda built in the 1800’s, which included a chapel built in 1750. He also showed photos of him straddling the equator and a massive waterfall with three separate cascades, near Quito. One weird and inexplicable fact about Ecuador is that the people seem fixated on guinea pigs and include them in their diet!
Many thanks to our amazing speakers for sharing their travels with us. These places all sound colorful, wonderful, and joyful – well done Don and Wendy, Peter and Mary, and Scott!
View the presentation HERE! It will be available only for the next week or so.
