Geocaching in foreign countries

[+TnT7686]

My lovely husband and I started geocaching right here in Germany. We were introduced to this wonderful world in America but we never got around to starting until this year. Well we have had some interesting, frustrating, and funny experiences while we have been over here! One of my funniest experiences is when I was knee deep in a creek looking for a cache and a nice German man walked up on his horse. I couldn't tell if he was angry, amused, or concerned. I know basic German but not enough to explain geocaching to him. He stood there for an uncomfortable amount of time before he moved on. However, it was a hard find and when we was riding back I was still there. He just looked at me and laughed. Who knows what he thought I was up to but I am sure seeing a little America woman with mud on her face and soaking wet from the knee down was a funny sight to him. Oh and I did not find that cache that day...my husband found it the next day when I brought him with me! Our other issue is of course the language barrier when we are reading description and clues. We are big users of Google translate when we are out in the field thanks to our IPhone, which has been our saving grace. But the literal translation has made some confusing searches. So what are your funny, interesting, or frustrating experiences while geocaching n foreign counties? Oh and FYI I finally got trail cards in German so I can quickly explain what I am doing with a simple card.

[+me N u]

We currently live in Saudi Arabia, about 18 months ago we were on a multi vehicle geocaching trip to Najran in the south, near the border with Yemen, on our way north we were stopped at one of the many police checkpoints (so far we had managed to avoid being stopped) they insisted that it was dangerous for us to be in the area - despite this being day 3! The checkpoint police contacted higher authority who insisted we have a police escort for the rest of our journey, in the mean time we were sat at the side of the road in full view of passing traffic, one of our group who speaks Arabic told the police what we wanted to do ie visit such and such an area (close to a multi cache) and camp there overnight, after about an hour they said we could do this, so off we went, by this time it was late afternoon but we pressed on, the cache was about 10Km off road across soft sand but we did okay and found the first part of the cache, at this point the police decided we could not camp here after all, we would have to go back to the local police station near the checkpoint, by this time it was dusk, we attempted to explain that it was not safe to drive off road in the dark but they insisted, we safely reached the police station to be told we could camp nearby, in the morning we awaoke to find another vehicle with 2 plain clothes police who had driven down from the next biggest town to the north (about 300Km away) overnight, again we explained what we were doing and they seemed okay, so we set off again with 2 police cars, lights flashing etc attempting to keep us safe, as it was early morning we had decided to attempt a difficult to get to cache in the desert (GCC52E) which is a LONG way off road, to their credit both lots of police were game and came with us - see our log photo - after returning to the site of yesterdays cache and finding 1 and DNF the other, we were back on the road heading north, lights flashing etc and stopping every 100Kms or so for a changeover as we entered the next district, every time we were sat at the side of the road for at least 30 minutes in full view - remember it was dangerous for us to be there!

 

That night we were told to camp in a field close to a main police station,at about 9pm we saw several sets of police cars heading our way, and were told we could not camp here it is an area of "drug dealers and alcoholics" (both are VERY illegal in Saudi)obviously the day shift local police were not aware of this! The police insisted we go to a hotel, and asked us which one we wanted to go to - we told them we did not know the area, fortunately our car GPS indicated one about 40Kms away in the right direction, when we got there and as soon as we stopped, the police disappeared without even checking there was a room available, which fortunately there was.

 

Next morning we contacted the local police to check in and gave them our itinerary, another trip into the desert, this time about 150Kms each way, with an overnight stop, we were passed backwards and forwards through various departments until we just gave up and went.

 

From then on we were not stopped again, the whole trip was 6 days, we found 5 caches, DNF 1, were unable to visit 1 we had planned to visit and developed an earthcache, all in all an experience never to be repeated!

[+Andromeda321]

I moved to the Netherlands about 8 months ago and yeah, it's been interesting. Mainly because my knowledge of Dutch is seriously minimal but outside very touristy areas I can't read the cache descriptions! Mainly annoying because unknown and multis are so much more popular here, probably make up the majority, but I need a decent amount of prep to do them.

 

I will say, going to the UK or the US seems way easier than here these days because I can read the descriptions.

[+SwineFlew]

We currently live in Saudi Arabia, about 18 months ago we were on a multi vehicle geocaching trip to Najran in the south, near the border with Yemen, on our way north we were stopped at one of the many police checkpoints (so far we had managed to avoid being stopped) they insisted that it was dangerous for us to be in the area - despite this being day 3! The checkpoint police contacted higher authority who insisted we have a police escort for the rest of our journey, in the mean time we were sat at the side of the road in full view of passing traffic, one of our group who speaks Arabic told the police what we wanted to do ie visit such and such an area (close to a multi cache) and camp there overnight, after about an hour they said we could do this, so off we went, by this time it was late afternoon but we pressed on, the cache was about 10Km off road across soft sand but we did okay and found the first part of the cache, at this point the police decided we could not camp here after all, we would have to go back to the local police station near the checkpoint, by this time it was dusk, we attempted to explain that it was not safe to drive off road in the dark but they insisted, we safely reached the police station to be told we could camp nearby, in the morning we awaoke to find another vehicle with 2 plain clothes police who had driven down from the next biggest town to the north (about 300Km away) overnight, again we explained what we were doing and they seemed okay, so we set off again with 2 police cars, lights flashing etc attempting to keep us safe, as it was early morning we had decided to attempt a difficult to get to cache in the desert (GCC52E) which is a LONG way off road, to their credit both lots of police were game and came with us - see our log photo - after returning to the site of yesterdays cache and finding 1 and DNF the other, we were back on the road heading north, lights flashing etc and stopping every 100Kms or so for a changeover as we entered the next district, every time we were sat at the side of the road for at least 30 minutes in full view - remember it was dangerous for us to be there!

 

That night we were told to camp in a field close to a main police station,at about 9pm we saw several sets of police cars heading our way, and were told we could not camp here it is an area of "drug dealers and alcoholics" (both are VERY illegal in Saudi)obviously the day shift local police were not aware of this! The police insisted we go to a hotel, and asked us which one we wanted to go to - we told them we did not know the area, fortunately our car GPS indicated one about 40Kms away in the right direction, when we got there and as soon as we stopped, the police disappeared without even checking there was a room available, which fortunately there was.

 

Next morning we contacted the local police to check in and gave them our itinerary, another trip into the desert, this time about 150Kms each way, with an overnight stop, we were passed backwards and forwards through various departments until we just gave up and went.

 

From then on we were not stopped again, the whole trip was 6 days, we found 5 caches, DNF 1, were unable to visit 1 we had planned to visit and developed an earthcache, all in all an experience never to be repeated!

Thanks for sharing that story! WOW!

[+Ambrosia]

I had an experience right here near my home town. Not a foreign caching story, but it reminded me of your story.

 

I was trying to find a clever hide by the roadside, and a man walking along came up to me. He spoke to me in Spanish, and asked me some questions, obviously trying to figure out what I was doing to the signpost. I told him that I didn't speak Spanish, but he kept trying to talk to me. He was soooo curious, and very friendly. So just smiled at him and walked back to the car for a bit so that he would keep walking on. I felt bad, but there was nothing that I could do!

[+NYPaddleCacher]

I've got a a bunch of foreign country geocaching stories that I've posted in other threads so I won't bore those that have read them by repeating them here.

 

My last foreign country find was in Belgium. I was traveling to Rome for business for about a week and intentionally arranged my itinerary so that I had an over night layover in Brussels, partially because I had never been in Belgium before but also because I had never found a cache there. I got there late in the afternoon, checked into a hotel, then went out caching. The first one I looked for was the first cache ever placed in Brussels and not far from my hotel. Several of the previous logs mention that the coordinates were off and I didn't find it in the obvious looking spot. Before I could expand my search, a policeman came by and told me I had to leave the park as it was closing. I check my GPS for the next closet, about a 1/3 of a mile away and started to head towards it. Once I got outside the park I could identify the general area that it was in. The problem was that there was a huge "occupy Brussels" rally between my and the cache (and several thousand people where GZ appeared to be). Ironically, I was in the middle of a "occupy Rome" rally a couple of day earlier. The next closest cache was a half mile away at a comic book museum and sounded like it could be interesting. When I got there my GPS was pointing me to a spot about 100' behind a construction fence. The cache had been recently logged but I discovered later that it had been moved outside the construction area but the coordinates had not been updated. I went to the next closest, about .25 miles away, which brought me to a really pretty square. It was a tricky hide but I eventually found it.

 

I know that this doesn't compete with the Saudi Arabia experience posted early but the closest I can get to that was swatting tsetse flies while traveling through a game preserve in Tanzania just prior to finding a cache at the entrance to the national park.

[+ayrbrain]

We were in Dubai searching for a cache which became a DNF. We were right on the bend of a road with plenty of traffic. We were there ages searching! I saw the car drive into the car park where we were and look over at us. A good while later the man walked over to us carrying his gorgeous little boy and asked if we had lost something. Of course we ended up telling him about geocaching, he was from Syria and living in Dubai. I often think of him when we see Syria in the tv news! I have lost count of the times we have been asked. "have you lost something" when out caching lol