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Operation Cheerio | Rescuing a Cuban Street Dog

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Cienfuegos Cuba
The first park we found Cheerio in.

Back in November of 2017, my wife and I went to Cuba, a place I had long wanted to visit. Its uniqueness, history with revolution and communism, and relatively closed-relationship with much of the world had always piqued my interest. I love visiting places that are so different than my home country. We went for just over two weeks, which proved to be a little too long in the end. Maybe its because my wife is from Mexico, or because we’ve travelled a lot through Latin America, or maybe just due to the overall cost of traveling around Cuba, but we were somewhat disappointed.

We still had a good time. We loved exploring Havana. We loved dancing in Trinidad. We loved meeting locals and hearing their stories, albeit through my wife as I don’t know enough Spanish. But it just wasn’t a place we fell in love with. Foreigners are charged excessively compared to locals. We felt like $-signs sometimes. The food is very bland and for anything more than bland, the prices are on par with Canada, the USA, and Europe. We enjoyed our time there but had no intentions of returning.

But then we did return, thanks to a street dog we named Cheerio. Cuba is full of street dogs – friendly little animals that have been given up by their so-called owners. Forced to fend for themselves, they tend to cherish foreigners who aren’t used to seeing street dogs and therefore show more love and affection than locals do.

Seeing street dogs breaks my heart. After all, it’s doubtful that they’ll live very long. With dangers such as cars, starvation, disease, and “government control”, life on the streets is often short-lived for a canine. I wish I could help them all but just like global hunger and pollution, there’s not too much I can do on a large scale. So, in terms of street dogs and cats, we usually try to give them a treat or some water, give them a little love, and then bid them farewell.

That is until we met Cheerio in Cienfuegos, Cuba. As we walked through Parque Jose Marti, this little dog ran up to us, so excited, wagging her whole bum in the process. It was the first time a street dog approached us so cheerfully, looking for some affection.
[Read more…] about Operation Cheerio | Rescuing a Cuban Street Dog

Part Two: Driving to Canada’s Arctic

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Note: This is part two of a two-part story. If you’re new to the story, please read Part One: Driving to the Arctic Ocean first.

Igloo Church Inuvik

Exploring Inuvik, NWT

After a night in Eagle Plains, we drove more, and more, and more before taking a ferry across the Mackenzie Delta to Fort McPherson where we stopped for gas. By now, the scenery was getting to be slightly more flat, although we still found trees along the way. Eventually, maybe 4-5 hours later, we arrived in Inuvik, the biggest town in the Arctic. Here, we found amazing accommodation at the Mackenzie Hotel and were able to enjoy some really good food such as fish tacos at Alestine’s, an eclectic local restaurant where the kitchen is inside a yellow school bus. We love finding local restaurants like this but it’s certainly no secret. Aside from Alestine’s, we still used our camp stove to cook many other meals as there wasn’t a huge selection in the area and the grocery store prices were quite insane. A single Gatorade was $7! I really don’t know how people can survive with these prices but I suppose that’s why hunting and fishing are still so popular. [Read more…] about Part Two: Driving to Canada’s Arctic

Part One: Driving to Canada’s Arctic

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Dream Trip Complete: Driving to Canada’s Arctic

I love a good road trip. There’s something about having a vehicle and being able to drive it where I want to go and about being able to comfortably pack my things and have them with me at all times. One of my bucket-list goals was to drive the infamous Dempster Highway all the way to Inuvik, Canada and then take the new highway to Tuktoyaktuk, Canada’s first road to the Arctic Ocean!

There was only one problem – The new highway wasn’t open yet. Luckily, however, I had a way to get around that. Back in 2017, I came up with the idea to travel across Canada for 150 days, creating a web series about Canada in celebration of Canada’s 150th birthday. This project allowed me to get special permission for a variety of things, one of them being access to the new Mackenzie-Delta Highway, the highway connecting Inuvik with Tuktoyaktuk in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

Yup, that’s right. I was literally allowed to drive the highway before it was opened to the public. I even had a construction crew join me! But first, back to the story. [Read more…] about Part One: Driving to Canada’s Arctic