I’ve got packing down to an exact science. For this six month trip I carried only a small backpack and a carry-on size (22″) rolling suitcase. So I had to choose every article with great care. One of the most difficult decisions when traveling light is what shoes to pack, simply because they take up so much room. I opted for two pair – one a really good (and really expensive) pair of Mephisto sandals that can even be worn into the water as well as my good old reliable tennis shoes. And when I say old, I mean really decrepit. These tennis shoes have seen better days – the laces are frayed and the soles were already cracked when I started this trip. With the amount of walking I’ve been doing, well, you can just imagine the condition they were in. But the plain and simple fact is that they are comfortable. They are well broken-in. They fit my feet like they were molded around them. For all those reasons I have been fighting the idea of new shoes but when I got to Pisa, Italy a week ago and it started to rain, I discovered that the seams between the soles and the upper fabric had come unglued and by the end of the day, my feet were soaking wet.
Still, I figured they would last to the end of this trip. And they would have, if not for the SMELL that erupted from them after they got thoroughly soaked, inside and out.
Dos Condes De Castro Guimares Museum and Library
At first I figured it was more the socks than the shoes, so I washed all my socks and continued to wear the shoes. By the time I got to Portugal I could smell them when they were on my feet. I was certain that people standing near me were wrinkling up their noses in disgust and looking around, trying to identify Continue reading
Nepal 
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