January 2008 Archives
Heroes
Rain pounded on the tent fly but the sky had lightened to dull gray. I could not stay inside any more. I put on all my warm clothing and covered it with raincoat and rain pants. I dashed to the picnic shelter. While I was priming the stove, a gray haired woman poked her head out of the big log building next door. “There’s hot coffee here in the clubhouse,” she called. I hurried in. An electric heater on the wall glowed orange, but the room was cool. A handful of men clutched coffee mugs and huddled near the heater. Two women hunched over a puzzle at the far end of the hall. One of them straightened up. “Hello, I’m Jane,” she said,” “Come on in and warm up. Help yourself to donuts and danishes. You’re not cycling in this weather, are you? It’s supposed to drop to 27.”
Go Because You Only Live Once: Some Travel Advice from My Grandma
Two years ago this month, Francisco and I were married on Playa de los Cabros, one of the dozens of beaches on the island of Vieques. Francisco spent the morning cooking filet mignon, seafood paella, and a vegetarian dish for the friends and family who had come to spend a week with us at some modest houses we'd rented a few miles away on another beach. I shimmied my way into a fairly traditional gown I hadn't expected to wear and drove people back and forth to the beach in our rented Suzuki-- we hadn't remembered to plan for transportation.
We called it the anti-wedding wedding. We didn't want bridesmaids or best men. We didn't want ministers or the formality of ceremony. We didn't want presents. What we wanted was to have a small group of loved ones with us in a place we loved. We wanted them to have a vacation and to know and experience one another. Francisco wanted to cook for them. I wanted to plan experiences for them. The only things we asked of them were to show up and, if they so chose, to offer a reading during the wedding. They could wear what they wanted (and I love that the pictures prove that they did!). We'd take care of the rest.
Fear and Loving in Bali
I have found that you get the same questions from every cab driver in the world: Where are you from? Is it your first time here? How long are you staying? When did you arrive?
In the few taxi trips I’ve taken in Bali, after saying I’m an American, every cab driver has said the same thing “We don’t get many Americans here anymore.”
For those who are news impared, back in 2002 there was a terrorist bombing at Bali nightclub. 202 people were killed, mostly foreign tourists, the largest group of which were Australians. Since then, tourism in Indonesia has never fully recovered.
St. Andrew's Caretaker
Just up the hill from the Medina, we were poking our heads through the garden gate of the Church of St. Andrew's, looking for a bench on which to rest momentarily. Mustapha noticed us immediately, put down his garden shears, and came down the path to greet us. With a big, warm smile, heusheredus inside and into the church's cool garden. He explained proudly he had been the church's caretaker for 45 years, and before we thought to ask, opened the church for us to see.
The church, too, was impressive: a 19th century built in a respectful Moorish style; framed pictures inside showed the church in the days it overlooked green hillsides and the sweeping, sandy coastline rather than the urban, boxy skyline of a modern city and the managed steel sides of an industrial port. The stonework and carved wood of the bright, quiet interior were charming.
"There aren't any yokels"
"You know when [some] people come into what they call the sticks, they have a contempt for the yokels. It took me a little time, but when I learned that there aren't any yokels I began to get on fine.... Once you respect them, they can understand anything you can tell them." -a traveling performer quoted in Steinbeck's Travels with Charley
The word "yokel" dates back to 1812 and is believed to be derived from the German word jokel, a "disparaging name for a farmer." It could also, the online entymology dictionary suggests, be a direct appropriation of the British word "yokel," which means "woodpecker" in the dialect of a particular region. In either case, the modern usage of the word has come to mean, in good plain Southern English: "hick."
Adios Mexico mi amor...
So, all good things have to come to an end and finally after almost exactly two months we were going to leave Mexico. We’d never expected to spend so long there, nearly twice the length of time we’ve spent in any other country during the trip. Nor was it one of the places we’d been wildly excited about beforehand. It had been a bit like popping out for a reluctant beer of an evening as a social obligation with someone you vaguely know. Then finding yourself staggering home blind drunk at 5am with an inane grin on your face having had ‘the besht night out ever’ with your new best friend in the whole world. Two glorious months of cacti, culture, cowboy hats, cervezas and enough frijoles to sculpt a convincing scale model of Popocatepetl. Mexico, te amo!
A Reason to Wander: Interview with Sloan and Amy
In 2006, Sloan and Amy decided to leave the comfort of home and embark on a year-long round the world trip that took them through Asia, Europe and Central America, before they eventually arrived back in the United States in late 2007. Along the way, they shared stories and photographs from their trip on their blog, Reason to Wander.
TravelBlogs caught up with Sloan and Amy to find out why they decided to make this journey, what they learned along the way, and what advice they could offer other people considering leaving home to travel the world.
New Yorkers Are Nice, Dammit
I don't know when or how it got started or who's responsible, but there's long been a nasty rumor circulating around this country that New Yorkers are nasty.
I won't deny that we're an assertive lot and, at times, even aggressive. Don't dawdle in front of a New Yorker in the subway during rush hour and for God's sake, don't stand on the escalator platform and try to get your bearings as thousands of us are trying to move from one train line to another. It's true that we can be direct. Just this morning, I walked our dog to Walgreen's, where I planned to buy laundry detergent, dog food, and nail polish. "No dog food," the Indian woman barked at me, as the Puerto Rican woman yapped, "Ya gotta pick up your dog when you're in the store, ma'am." "I didn't know," I said. "Well now you do," she said in a particularly rude tone. "You should get some manners," I replied, as if politeness is something you can buy at the store.
Wetter and Wilder: Impossible Thrills in El Salvador
Wading down the boulder-strewn river, hemmed in on both sides by thick jungle, I could hear the rumble grow louder. Oh man, I thought, here we go again.
This rumbling had become a familiar sound today and, like so many times already, was once again the unmistakeable roar of water crashing into the base of a waterfall. But this time - even before I had reached the edge of the cascade - the resonating thunder was loud enough to send the alarm bells ringing. By a long shot, this was the loudest set of falls so far. It could mean only one thing: the biggest waterfall yet. Even more alarmingly, once again I would be expected to blindly run off the end of it.
Sleeping in a Graveyard
Our first night in Florida topped the night behind a Wal Mart, the night on top of Sandia Crest and the multiple nights behind “No Trespassing” signs as the most memorable night of our trip.
“Stopping!” Ken called. “There is something wrong with my trailer wheel.” I steered my bike into the grass beside the road. Ken leaned over his trailer, and felt the wheel. “There aren’t any broken spokes,” he mused. He pushed his bike forward and produced a terrible jarring sound. Wendy came to help.
Jet Blue Flight from Rochester to JFK
Two women- mother and daughter- are sitting behind me on this Jet Blue flight to JFK. The mother is thin, around 40 years old, adorned in makeup and other beautifing elements, and was probably attractive at one time. The daughter is a little fat, barely 21, and has eyes that are spread widely apart like a goat. They both have dangly, gold earrings and big mouths.
“Remember when we were on that flight to Mexico? Remember when that stewardess hit me in the head with a book? That bitch just had to wait until we got off the plane for me to kick her ass ” the daughter yelled in her best ghetto accent (they were caucasian, by the way).”She just didn’t like me singing my rap music,” she continued.
They are very loud. Everyone on the plane can hear them yelling and singing.
It's Good to be the Sultan
You cannot discuss Brunei without talking about the Sultan of Brunei. Not talking about the Sultan is like not talking about an elephant in the middle of the room.
Brunei is the Sultan and the Sultan is Brunei. It is a form of government unlike anything in the world today.
The Sultan is one of the most facinating leaders in the world today, and if you don’t know why, by the time you finish this you should see why I have a Paris Hilton like facination with him. You dare not look, yet you cannot turn away.
Notes from the Road: Interview with Erik Gauger
Notes from the Road
is a recent addition to TravelBlogs, but it's been around since 1999.
The site combines Erik Gauger's stunning photography - shot on a
traditional large-format film camera - with his engaging stories about
ordinary places.
These days, the site is attracting quite a bit of attention, thanks in
part to Erik's detailed coverage of a small Caribbean island's struggle
with an American golf course developer.
TravelBlogs caught up with Erik to talk more about travel, photography and the Guana Cay conflict.
The City on the Edge of Space
When one thinks of Texas, one thinks of heat, of dusty desert landscapes upon which tumbleweed rolls along. Texas is a big place, though, and Houston offers a tree-filled view, a lush river delta leading into the Gulf of Mexico. However, with a latitude of 29 degrees north, 45 minutes, a latitude further south than Cairo, Egypt, one would expect Houston, Texas to be warm, even in the January.
In fact, average temperatures for Houston in January tend to be in the high teens Celsius. That is why it was so surprising that the weekend I choose to tour the city, Houston would be experiencing a high of 10 Celsius. Unprepared for the cool weather, I had to wander down to a Target store and buy myself a sweater. Local Houstonians were wandering around in heavy jackets with scarves and gloves.
Redcockaded Woodpeckers
Just north of Lake Pontchartrain we saw our first Red-cockaded Woodpecker. It was the bird I most wanted to see on our trip (with the exception of an Ivory-bill of course).
I first heard about Red-cockaded Woodpeckers north of the Arctic Circle, where there are few trees and no woodpeckers. We were paddling down the Firth River in Canada’s Yukon Territory, just east of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. One evening a large herd of caribou crossed the river. The calves, a couple of weeks old, were whirled downriver by the strong current. They bobbed alongside their mothers like buttery-brown corks. Later, a grizzly killed a calf across the valley. We watched the drama while one of the other paddlers told us about another drama, a courtroom battle centered on Red-cockaded Woodpeckers.
From Northern Lights to Southern Cross
I'll be honest. We never thought January 18th would come. When we set
off for Iceland, the summer was still blistering, and planning as far
ahead as after Christmas was all theoretical. But as I start writing
this blog entry, it's officially the last day of our trip. Right now,
we're fresh off a whirlwind tour of New Zealand, firmly ensconced in
front of computers at Auckland Airport, and not quite sinking into the
realism of finality.
It's been a crazy trip—by the numbers, if
nothing else. We've traversed, by bus, car, boat, horseback, train, and
simple walking, 33,420.5 km of the earth (that's about 83% around the
world. It doesn't include the flights, which add another 41,485 km to
our tally, putting us almost twice the circumference of the equator.)
Nepal: Country in the Clouds
Getting off the plane in Kathmandu it was immediately clear that I was not in Kansas anymore. Or maybe it was that I had simply returned to Kansas from another universe. But either way it was odd, because I've never been to Kansas in my life.
After India, everything seemed so calm. It was as if the world around me had taken a collective dose of Tylenol PM, and really, I think that's the best way I can describe Nepal; if India were to take a big, deep, medicated breath, relax, and sprout a few 28,000 foot mountains, it would be Nepal.
10 Hours in Surfer's Paradise
A few days prior to my arrival in Surfer’s Paradise, a beach town between Byron Bay and Brisbane, I had received a “Come on down mate” from a couchsurfing host. He had included his address and phone number in the response so I was excited to have a free night’s accommodation. I had sent him a second e-mail, however he hadn’t responded. My gut nudged me out of concern, however I didn’t listen.
I arrived in town by bus around noon, and promptly left a voicemail for my contact. Since I’m not carrying a cell phone, he’d have no way to contact me back, so the onus was on me. I tried a second time, then decided to enjoy the beach. It was sunny and hot, and since I had put my backpack in a locker for the day, I didn’t want to go swimming, and thus sat under the shade of a tree on the beach, taking in the scenery.
The Camera Trap
If you have ever had a video camera fixed to your eye at an airshow, or at the car race track you will understand what I mean by the camera trap - so fixated are you on capturing the moment (to be stored forgotten in your camera) that you miss the real experience. When filming or photographing people that loss is even more profound. That is what happened here.I was being guided through the Forbidden City in Beijing. According to the China National Administration of Tourism; China Statistical Yearbook 2003, 878 million domestic tourists moved about China in 2002. If you visit Tienanmen Square and the Forbidden City in summer you could be forgiven for thinking most of that number were walking through the place with you.
Can Anyone Read Nepali?
So I was traveling in the north east of India with Stubbs back in 2005, and I was just standing around in the market watching some ladies buy oranges when a guy with a big old camera came up to me and asked if he could take my picture. I obliged him and he took a couple snapshots. I thought nothing of it.
A few days later Stubbs and I made our way back down to Siliguri and went to the train station and bought a couple of tickets to Bodhgaya or somewhere holy. As we were standing on the platform a local guy comes up to me and begins shoving a newspaper in my face. I tried to pushed him away, but he kept trying to stick the newspaper right in front of my face. Right at the point when I was beginning to get a little annoyed he suddenly yelled, "You," while excitedly pointing to a picture in the paper.
He was right. It was me.
Si, se puede... o si se puede?
Yesterday, Francisco and I took the cheap rental car out for a spin around the curvy roads of Mexico City's outskirts. We were bound for Cuernavaca, for no particular reason other than curiosity and the desire to be in motion. Half of the trip, it seemed, was in stop and go traffic headed out of the city on Insurgentes Sur, but when the road finally yielded to the mountain, the lights and speed bumps disappeared and Francisco pushed the Platina's engine for all it was worth (which isn't much). The two lane road wound through barrios of bare concrete block houses, with a view of the city all that they had to commend them...at least from the outside. Small crosses and altars to the Virgen de Guadalupe dotted the road, interspersed among roadside food stalls, and then, the road flattened and a scene worthy of a Van Gogh painting unfolded on the left--small golden haystacks formed into vertical cones-and a man tending sheep trudged up a hill on our right.
Travel and Writing: Interview with Lauren Carter
If interviews on TravelBlogs are anything to go by, it seems that a love for travel is often accompanied by a love for writing. Julie Schwietert, Randall Wood and Scott McNeely are three examples of travellers who love to write about the places they visit.
Lauren Carter is another one to add to the list. She's a professional travel writer living in Canada with her husband. TravelBlogs caught up with her to talk a bit more about her love for travel and writing - and also to see if she had any tips for aspiring travel writers.
Portland Notebook: The Barley Mill
I WAS ON THE HUNT - I wanted meat, and I wanted beer. A simple burger joint would not do; I craved atmosphere, a dark pub corner where I could hunker down over a hearty ale and dive into a book or sit back and feel the currents of Portland’s Southeast side. Belly grumbling and mind determined, I set out into the night.
I cruised over to Bellmont Street; at first I found only a rowdy sports pub, but I hopefully explored the sidestreets. Delightedly I stepped into an apparenty quiet, candelit spot - only to find a couple pounding shots at the mostly-deserted bar, hoots ensuing. I moved on.
Visit to the USA- Back with Family
I must say that it is nice to past through my homeland of the USA every once in a while. I get to spend a little time with my family, check up on my old friends, read my books (I have lots of books!), play with my sister’s son and my little Chinese sister, and recheck my bearings.
As far as I travel I know that I can never really leave the place that I come from: Route 104 out in the country side of Upstate NY, a few miles from Lake Ontario and an hour east of Lake Erie. Farmer’s fields, orchards, woods, creeks, and lakes- a wide open landscape if I have ever known one- is my home. This is where I learned how to ride a bike and how to dream of far distant lands. Dreaming, this was the skill that I learned best here.
Introducing: Aidric Ignacio Heimburger Boza
Well, it looks like I'm a daddy!
Before I get into today's (lengthy) story, I'll give you a little background about his name, which I've kept quiet about with everybody, including my family.
As I mentioned last November, hunting for a suitable name for a baby with as mixed a background as Aidric has was quite an undertaking.
Tornado Warning
“Y’all know we’re in a tornado watch zone?”
A man leaned out of a truck window. We must have looked an odd sight, three sopping cyclists, squatting in the mud, eating lunch. “Just letting y’all know.” He pulled away, leaving us alone with the rain. Texas had greeted us with headwinds, Louisiana with freezing temperatures, now Mississippi was welcoming us with a downpour and a tornado threat.
Fungus gnats
What if I told you that you had the opportunity (operators are standing by!) to strip, in the rain, down to your bathing suit, squeeze yourself into an oft-used-and-seldom-washed, mildewed and odorific drysuit, dripping wet from its last occupant, immerse yourself in a pair of oversized, torn shorts, and water-socks with holes in them, just to shimmy your now-neoprened derriere into the inner-tube of a tire? What if I were to tell you that, thus-bedecked, you had the opportunity to join fourteen other similarly-clad tourists for a three-hour, claustrophobiogenic spelunk, 210 feet below the earth's surface, jumping backwards off waterfalls in pitch darkness, landing in fifty-degree, eel-infested, spelean rivers and ingesting—nasally— a fair bit of their water (and possibly a bit of giardiasis to boot...we'll find out in two weeks), simply to see the defecatory products made by the maggots of a fungus gnat? What if I told you that, after you were done, you were offered (It's free! Act now!) some tepid, watered-down tomato soup and a week-old buttered bagel (but only one). How much would you pay?
What Creatures Will Roam Glen Canyon?
When I stop at a gas station to stretch my legs under a blue sky, I notice some homes, wooden fences and a few trees. I ask the blonde teenage attendant what town I am. Her expression and reply made the question feel somehow forbidden. “Hilsdale,” she mutters, looking away.
The town name doesn’t immediately ring a bell, but the presence of trees, shrubs, those fences – might make this a good spot to check for any new species of birds I had never seen before. The Utah-Arizona border, north of the Grand Canyon and east of Las Vegas, is a weird sort of biological zone. Some creatures exist here that exist nowhere else in the world. More likely though, a little town amidst all this dry scrub and red earth might attract some migrating birds, moving south to Mexico or Southern Arizona in the fall.
Cultural Immersion: Interview with Julie Schwieter Collazo
Like many travellers, Julie Schwieter Collazo loves to immerse herself in foreign cultures - by reading more about the places she's visiting, learning the language, and by meeting the locals. The opportunity to see - and experience - another culture first-hand is one of the main inspirations behind her travels.
Originally from the southern United States, Julie lives back and forth between New York and Mexico City with her husband, Francisco. Until recently, they also lived in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
TravelBlogs caught up with her to talk more about her experiences living in foreign cultures.
Return of the Day Job
IT BREATHED AND HOWLED, letting out its whistle like some heaving iron monster. The train was almost invisible in the fog and floated eerily amid the sprinklings of urban light in the pre-dawn black.
It was a halting sound. I paused, straddling my bicycle, to wipe my dewy glasses before continuing my ride to work. The world was an opaque mess of white, and with such limited visibility I only hoped I wouldn’t slam into a parked car - let alone a moving one.
The USA Needs Tiendas
I had an interesting discussion over lunch yesterday with my Peruvian girlfriend and her sisters about the small corner stores that intermittently dot the maze of neighborhood streets and avenues in Latin America—known as tiendas, in the local tongue.
The small convenience stores pop up just about everywhere you can imagine, and often stock all the basics one might need in a pinch: from beer to bread to baking soda, and most any foodstuff in between.
I was remarking how common it seemed for folks to live within (and only travel within the confines of) a four- or five-block radius around their home, yet have access to almost all the things they needed on a regular basis—be it church, food, entertainment, or shopping.
Sickness & Dogging...
We left Guanajuato and headed towards the great gathering of the Monarch butterflies in El Rosario, supposedly one of the most incredible natural spectacles on the planet. Millions of Monarchs arrive to over winter in Mexican sanctuaries each year having migrated from as far north as their summering haunts in the Rocky Mountains. The weirdest thing is these migrations take longer than the average lifespan of a typical Monarch - about two months. So the butterflies that return to the over-wintering grounds are the great, great grandchildren of those that left the previous year. Think about this navigational feat next time you’re lost returning from the pub. And blame a distant ancestor for not telling you the way home.
Quebec City is cold, snowy and 400 years old
On July 3, 1608, Samuel de Champlain was looking to set up the first permanent settlement in the new world for France. Coming to a narrow spot in the river that had served both as an Iroquois settlement called Stadacona and fort founded and later abandoned by Jaques Cartier, Champlain decided on this spot to locate his city. Naming it after the local native work Kebec, meaning “where the river narrows,” Quebec City became the most important city in New France.
Nearly 400 years later, Quebec City is geared up to celebrate its 400th birthday. That celebration started on December 31st, 2007, with a multimedia musical show leading up to the countdown to midnight and the ringing in of 2008.
Simple Pleasures: The Evening Meal in Djemaa el Fna
Evenings in Marrakesh, after browsing the shop windows of the jewellers and cobblers we liked to settle down to eat in the outstanding Djemaa el Fna, which our guidebook called "the finest city square in the world." And it was indeed pretty wonderful: acrobats, story tellers, snake charmers, and row after row of brightly-lit foodstalls.
It was the best place on earth to eat. Around the edge of the square were the restaurants serving warm couscous and stewed meats, and the ubiquitous sidewalk cafes serving mint tea and steaming black coffee. But across the rest of the square every stall was a new delight: heaps of walnuts, almonds, and salted cashews, dried apricots, fresh prunes, figs, and dates.
Speaking in Tongues
The other day, Mom and I were talking about language and how much it defines a place. Born in Washington, D.C. and raised in Florida (which, despite its geography, let's agree, has never really been Southern), she settled in South Carolina, and in some ways, found herself in a place that might as well have been a foreign country. She told of a time when she informed a neighbor she'd lost something. "Well, what went with it?" the neighbor asked my puzzled mother, who wracked her brain to figure out whether her missing item had an accomplice. "It was only later that I realized that 'What went with it?' meant 'Where did it go?'" she said. Over the years, she's become more adept at deciphering the order of words and other peculiarities unique to language in the American South. In fact, just the other day I heard her pronounce "can't" as "cain't."
Peruvian New Year's Haze: Pisco and Pyrotechnics
The smell of gunpowder filled my nostrils—the air so thick with it I could taste the haze engulfing the city. Lima erupted with explosions at midnight, stirring memories of WWII footage shown on the History Channel, as an endless barrage of flashes and concussion waves bounced off the concrete homes and buildings. New Year's Eve wasn't ushered in with a bang, but with countless BOOMS.
The munitions detonated in this city for New Year's must have been two or three fold the already saturated amount seen on Christmas Eve. Every half block there seemed to be a neighbor who spent an excessive amount of Peruvian soles on (illegal) fireworks—or perhaps the combined efforts of families and guests celebrating together. The displays of light and sound were amazing for such an armature level.
Big Daddy Splat!
Following the ‘Museo de las Momias’ our experiments in activities of questionable taste continued with a night out at the ‘Lucha Libre’ (literally ‘free fight’) that is Mexican wrestling. Very much a family affair we sat in the ‘Parque Beis-Bol’ amongst groups comprising several generations of locals as the first bouts of the night began. We’d arrived ridiculously early so sat on our concrete bench behind the chicken wire fence separating us from the ring (in ‘The Pen’), our sense of anticipation increasing in direct proportion to the loss of feeling in our buttocks.
The wrestlers in the first part of the bill looked like your Dad had decided to have a go. With podgy bodies clad in string vests, ‘budgie-smuggling’ Speedo swimming trunks and old tights they grappled with each other in amateurish style. One even looked like he was about to go fishing, wearing camouflage shorts and a khaki green body warmer. More J.R.Hartley than Giant Haystacks.
The Perpetual Wanderer: Interview with Craig Heimburger
In 2005, Craig Heimburger left his native United States behind to become a "perpetual wanderer". Now on the road for over two years, he has visited over 40 countries in the Americas and Southeast Asia.
He is currently living in Lima, Peru, where his girlfriend, Tatiana, is expecting their first child in the near future.
TravelBlogs caught up with him to talk about leaving the United States, travelling with a pregnant woman in Southeast Asia, and cross-cultural experiences in Peru.
When the Dust Settles
On the fifth day the sun broke through.
I'd been woken by an unusual sensation. The sunny shafts piercing the curtains seemed disconnected from my last few days in Beijing. A siege of smog was under-way, darkening the daytime sky and rendering all in a murky grey. I'd held back on some of the tourist trail waiting for good weather, partly in hope of those blue sky postcard views and partly to minimise exposure to the throat grinding pollution. Indoor attractions had kept me busy. I'd padded around a few unexpectedly good museums, seen Beijing acrobatics, done aquariums and art exhibits. The murk even held a strange beauty, obscuring skyscrapers into peering shadows and blowing calm wisps across the Summer Palace lake. But I grew restless for blue sky, realising time was ticking by and I'd still not seen many of the capitals treasures. So looking down at the warm patchwork playing out on my duvet I could tell I'd caught a break.
The sun had broken through.
