There is no electrical grid in Buhoma – the name of the settlement that includes the buildings both inside and outside of Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park. It took 180km (111 miles) of poor dirt roads to get here and the nearest paved road is 85km (53 miles) away. Our purpose for coming to Buhoma was to see the mountain gorillas in the wild.
We took the train to the Pacific Ocean, at Whittier, and boarded the cruise ship to continue our journey. The first stop was a day cruise in Glacier Bay National Park, which was spectacular!
The last portion of the trip to Death Valley was spent in some of the most remote parts of the national park. We visited The Racetrack, exploring the rocks that move across the dry lake bed. After a beautiful drive through Hidden Valley, we spent the night on Hunter Mountain.
To begin this cross country journey, we went north by train to Oregon, where we had to resort to taking a replacement bus to meet our connecting train that left Portland before we were due to arrive. Once on the next train east, we made our way toward Glacier National Park.
The first few days of our time in Glacier National Park were spent on the west side of the continental divide. Here we enjoyed our lakeside hotel room, drove along scenic roads and took several day hikes to beautiful lakes.
The east side of Glacier National Park was no less spectacular than the west side. We continued our day hikes in the area and stayed in one of the historic lodges. A day trip to Waterton National Park in Alberta, Canada was a highlight.
After spending time in national parks, arriving in a big city like Chicago was a big change. During the three days we spent here we visited several museums and saw a Chicago Cubs baseball game.
New York City was our final destination on the Trans USA train journey. Here we visited a variety of locations in the city, including the United Nations, Brooklyn Bridge, Greenwich Village and Central Park.
As I write this, our train has stopped in the Bhopal ‘B’ train station. We are traveling on an overnight train from Mumbai (Bombay) to Agra. It is 9:30 in the morning on the second day of our 22-hour journey.
We just completed our six-day trek in Western Sikkim, India. We met our guide, “Paul” at the airport near Darjeeling.
