All These Guilty Southern Nights

…have you ever felt a southern night?
Free as a breeze
Not to mention the trees
Whistlin’ tunes that you know and love so (Glen Campbell)

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So different from northern nights. I’ve lived in the Arctic where you can spit and it’s turned to ice before it reaches the ground…

… yes, I’ve enjoyed both southern and northern nights…

But no matter the night ‘cause I’m feeling guilty… survivor’s guilt I suppose.

It’s gut-wrenching and painful… so much so that I need a double Margarita right now to quench my pain.

Greetings from Mexico, where the nights are balmy warm and the atmosphere is filled with a comforting glow as a half moon shines brightly above.

Meanwhile, my thoughts drift northwards to Canada, where record-breaking cold days and nights have become the norm.

The juxtaposition between these two worlds raises an internal dilemma – should my joy in the present be tempered with a sense of guilt for escaping the biting cold back home?

Here in Mexico, the nights are a serene blend of gentle breezes, soft, white sands, a sniff of tequila, and the sensuous notes of local, even some Cuban music.

The warmth saturates my body and mind, creating a sense of blissful tranquility.

However, the contrast becomes apparent as I wonder whether it is appropriate to revel in this warmth while friends and family endure the harsh winter in Canada

A nagging question of happiness versus guilt lingers in the backdrop.

On the flip side, Canada’s landscapes are painted with the mesmerizing flicker of light snowflakes, winds whipping blankets of white in cyclones, offering a visual spectacle against the cold, bitingly crisp darkness of the sky.

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Yet, beneath the beauty lies the reality of extreme temperatures.

As I bask in the temperate climate of the tropics, a sniggle of guilt surfaces, begging me to question whether I should be sharing in the challenges faced by loved ones back home.

Balancing enjoyment of the present with empathy for those enduring different conditions becomes a thoughtful exercise.

Instead of dwelling solely on guilt, I’m trying a shift in perspective towards gratitude.

Gratitude becomes a source of positive energy, motivating a commitment to contributing positively to the world, whether it be through empathy, understanding, or small acts of kindness.

Acknowledging the incredible privilege of experiencing diverse climates gives me a deeper appreciation for the richness of life’s experiences.

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Psychologists might explore the roots of this guilt I feel and work on reframing it as an opportunity for positive action rather than a source of distress.

Nope, says the devil on my shoulder that triumphs in today’s pitched battle… I think that just sounds like a whole lot of psycho-babbling to bandage over my feelings of guilt.

And in my remaining few hours and days of such arrogance, I’m gonna just love every moment spent under the warm glow of these Southern nights.

As for guilt, well… surely the late Jimmy Buffett won’t mind if I steal a page from his playbook… it really won’t take much Margaritaville tequila to drown my misgivings if necessary.

Carefree (Hardly) Highway!

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Well, by now, you hardly need an introduction to today’s guest blogger Jim Ferguson (above, 1978).

As Jim says in his post, he and I have been fast friends since meeting in the hospital hallways of Stanton Hospital in Canadian Arctic town, Yellowknife, in 1977. Yes, we were the original Dumb and Dumber… just kidding!

Jim has led an adventurous life as a Physician Associate, travelling and living for over 40 years in many US towns/cities including Nome, Alaska, along with his wife Deb.

Recently, the adventure bug has bitten once more and Jim has migrated across the continent from Oregon to Michigan to live closer to his daughter’s family.

Today, Jim shares with us a story from his youth, a young, naive Maritime lad seeking life experiences along the – perilous – road…

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I was recently listening to Gord’s Gold (Gordon Lightfoot – such a fantastic album and one of my “favs”) …

… and as I was listening to Carefree Highway, I found my mind and thoughts drifting like a rowboat down a lazy river in a gentle summer breeze.

My thoughts were not of love or one-night stands as seems to be the theme of Gord’s song but rather I was reminiscing of hitting a different sort of carefree highway-the Trans Canada highway, in my youth with my backpack on my back with all my worldly possessions and setting my sights on Yellowknife (YK) in Canada’s Northwest Territories.

Back in those days, all my friends in high school were talking about “going out west” to work in the tar sands at Ft. McMurray and dreaming of making the “big bucks”. I was less interested in the tar sands and more interested in YK. I remember looking at an atlas and seeing where the town of about 9,600 (at that time) was located and thinking to myself “that is where I want to be”.

It would be foolish for me to say I was not nervous as my mum took me to the train station in Halifax, NS in early June 1975 to start the first leg of the journey by train.

It was the first time leaving home for me, and at the time I was but a lad of 17-years old with long blonde hair and looking like I was about 12-years old.

Larry can attest to how young I looked. In Yellowknife Larry was this adonis-like beautiful specimen of manhood with his gorgeous quaff and thick moustache and hirsute chest while I was the total opposite of that image…😊. I looked like Kevin McAllister from the movie Home Alone. You get the idea.

With such an image in mind what could go wrong traveling alone across the country…right!!! Well… the initial part of my trip took me by train to Montreal and from there I hitchhiked to Edmonton, Alberta where I caught a flight to YK.

My aunt picked me up in Montreal and I stayed the night with her and my uncle. After breakfast the next day Auntie Sheila gave me $20 bucks and drove me to the west end of Montreal and dropped me off on the Trans Canada Highway and the real journey began. Auntie Sheila gave me a travel map of Canada and I recall enjoying long studies of the map and imagining where I was going and how the trip would unfold and the sites I would see. It was all very exciting (although my aunt thought I was crazy).

I have vivid memories all these years later standing on the highway, or just walking westward with my thumb out hoping for that “mother of all rides”, the one where you jump in and the driver tells you that he/she is going all the way to Edmonton! Well…those types of rides were rare and more often I would get a ride a couple of towns further along the highway, BUT when those longer rides did come along it was gold (not Gord’s Gold but Jim’s gold 😊).

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My hitching days (frequent thumbing adventures from 1975-79) were filled with exhilaration, frustration, reassurance of my faith in humanity, and that the world can be an extremely dangerous place. Where better to experience these emotions and feelings than when alone thumbing across the country, eh?

The feelings of exhilaration mainly revolved around the absolute beauty that is our homeland-Canada! Wow!!!! What a beautiful country.

Yes… I am referring to the geographical beauty of Canada BUT I am also referring to the beauty of its people.

On the geographical side, there is magic traveling the roads and highways of the Annapolis Valley in Nova Scotia or along the mighty St. Lawrence River and the Great Lakes, or through the vast wilderness that is Northern Ontario to the seemingly endless great plains of Western Canada, and then seeing the picturesque Rocky Mountains and finally crossing over Great Slave Lake and coming into YK.

Go and listen to Gord’s song, Canadian Railroad Trilogy to get a vast sense of the beauty and majesty of Canada. It is truly hard to put into words the stunning beauty that is Canada from east to west and south to north. I’m sure you’ve all had your own taste of it. I never get tired traveling in Canada even to this day.

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On my travels “across this mighty land” (Canadian Railroad Trilogy reference intended…thanks Gord) I encountered amazing diversity of colour, religion, nationalities, etc., all making Canada their home. I’ve long sensed that Canada’s greatness lies in its diversity and in the way such diverse groups can come together and create a peaceful community.

Even though I’ve lived in the States for decades, I have NEVER stopped being a proud Canadian, an admirer of Canadians’ exhibition of qualities of friendship and peace to others. I’ve encountered English Canadians, Acadian Canadians, French Canadians, white/black/brown Canadians, religious and atheist Canadians, male/female/LGBTQ/trans Canadians and everything in-between. No matter who they were… they were amazing people.

Yes… there were frustrating experiences… sometimes going several hours without a ride, or in the case of Northern Ontario, sometimes going several hours and barely seeing a car back in those days could be frustrating! There were lots of times where I would be caught in rainstorms and soaked to the bone with no bridge under which to seek shelter.

Some days when the sun was beating down and it was hotter than the Hobs of Hades (I understand that to be damn hot) it would be challenging to find respite from the heat.

I can’t tell you the number of times I unrolled my sleeping bag and slept on the side of the road off in the trees or in a field. Been there… done that! These were minor frustrations in the grand scheme of things. I always have loved being remote and having time alone so while some frustration did creep in, I did my best to appreciate the experiences… to enjoy the moment.

My faith in humanity received a boost during my hitchhiking days. I got picked up by some amazing people (see next paragraph for a glimpse at some of the #%*holes).

I was heading out of Winnipeg with my sights set on Edmonton and a car pulled over and offered me a ride. The man was probably in his early 50s and he was headed to Saskatoon. I struck gold!

What a gem. He worked as a regional sales manager for a pulp and paper company, and he had served in the Canadian Armed Forces.

Well… we began to talk of my dad who was an RCN pilot and was part of the history of Canadian aerobatic flight – known mainly in the Maritimes as The Red Herring. This man knew of my dad and personally knew some of those in the RCN my dad worked with over the course of his career. The man let me drive part of the way so he could rest. He treated me to lunch along the way. He had a CB radio (remember those? “Breaker…Breaker…19”) and when he dropped me off on the west side of Saskatoon, he sent out a call over the CB telling people about me, and if they saw me on the side of the road to stop and give me a ride.

His final words were that if I ever hitchhiked out west again and if I got stuck or ever needed money, I should call him at any time of day or night and he would come get me if I was close by or would wire me money if I was not close by. His name was Neal Gelinas. We stayed in touch over a number of years, and I suspect that he has long since “moved on from this world” but he left a lasting impression on me as a young man on how I should treat others. There were many other wonderful examples I could share of the kindness of others towards me while traveling the highways and byways of Canada in my youth.

As you can imagine, hitchhiking as a teenager (especially one who looked like a 12-year-old) could be fraught with potential danger and peril. I experienced it all.

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I was close to decapitating myself in Northern Ontario as me and this other young hitchhiker I had met on the way west decided to “hop a train” while it was racing through the woods northwest of Thunder Bay in the dark. Not a smart idea. Luckily, we came to realize that our plan had lots of holes in it and we came to our senses before either of us ended up dead.

On other occasions, I got into cars and didn’t smell the odour of booze or weed until the driver was speeding up the road like a madman. Luckily, I escaped any serious injury.

I know you are wondering “Heh Jim…did you encounter any scary weirdos?” Yes…there were scary weirdos! I won’t go into all the “hairy” details but suffice it to say that I’m a firm believer in keeping BOTH HANDS on the steering wheel while driving.

I probably should have sensed “Danger Will Robinson! Danger!” when one guy pleaded with me to change into some skimpy shorts he “conveniently” had in his trunk on one hot summer day when he picked me up in NB. I declined but still got in the car (what an idiot…yes I was a bit naïve back in those days).

I carried an 8-inch hunting knife with me but never had to defend myself with it thankfully. After 15-20 km things were getting a bit concerning so I had the guy drop me off under a bridge just north of Fredericton New Brunswick. He was going all the way to Montreal, but it was not worth the aggravation to stay in that vehicle any longer than I had to. There were other weirdos too.

As I sit here reflecting on those crazy days, I realize I would not trade them for anything.

They were great adventures, and I met some amazing people along the way, not the least of whom is Larry and his wife Maureen. All these journeys took me to YK where we met during the fall/winter of 1977, and we became fast friends enjoying lots of fun and interesting times together in Canada’s north and even a couple of visits in our later years.

My hitchhiking days (my old backpack below) are over so I will just have to live vicariously through Gordon Lightfoot’s Carefree Highway going forward.

Peace,

Jim Ferguson

A Titanic Adventure

Belfast Docks. Northern Ireland.

A wee journey backwards today, backwards to April 1912… no … even earlier still. Let’s go…

Forget about the more than 1,500 souls that slipped and plunged into the dark and icy Atlantic drink and perished.

Forget about the names and faces of the rich, the powerful, the notable (John Jacob Aster, Molly Brown, authors, heirs, heiresses) who put up the funds and found the drive to build a mountainous, unsinkable craft of the sea.

Forget about Leonardo and Kate playing cutesy kite at the bow of the ship or steamily sucking face in the car below deck…

And now, put your head around the thousands of Belfast poor and plebeian who got up each day in 1910, 11, and 12, and brought themselves to the dockyards of Harland and Wolff where they used their muscles and brawn to build a ship beyond most imaginations’ scope… a floating miracle of the day…

… with simple tools, buckets of sweat, and impressive skill sets.

They put the pieces of the massive jigsaw puzzle together, saw the change from the boatyard’s original name of the ship from Number 401 to TITANIC, and brought it to life.

Today, the Titanic museum sits on this same site in Belfast, the very same site where Titanic and sister ship Olympic were built from nothingness to majestic floating miracles of the day.

Last week, we took this trip through time in the impressive – yes, you might even describe it as titanic – museum dedicated to Belfast and its incredible construction of the epic ship.

The museum itself is enormous in size and takes you on a tour of time, back through the history of Belfast, before the “troubles” of Northern Ireland… back to the time and place…

… back through moody, dimly-lit hallways with interactive displays showing where early plans were hatched… large cavernous rooms containing dozens of men (always men) poring over blueprints and rolls of paper designs they sketched and debated and finalized. Painstaking work by great designers and engineers of the day.

And then, one day, March 31, 1909, the work began in laying the keel on these docks from nothing but a dream and a gargantuan supply of metal, wood, glass, and thousands of Belfast, blue-collar workers.

Here, the 3,000 workers and 3,000,000 steel and iron rivets were hand-driven and hammered into place one at a time by 4 men in a crew. The rivets used in the front of the ship – made of weaker iron rather than steel, were the ones that struck the iceberg.

Two men on either side of the hull hammering in one rivet at a time

Over 2 years, 8 construction workers died and hundreds were injured.

(There was an unwritten expectation in shipyards at the time of ‘one death for every £100,000 spent’, so at a build cost of £1.5 million , the Titanic’s toll was less than the 15 deaths that might have been expected. Early good news.)

A few key “lucky” blokes were even given a free passage on the inaugural sail.

The workers toiled on average 49 hours weekly for the sum of £2.

Finally, twenty six months later, on a clear and momentous May 31, 1911… at 12:13 pm, the 882 foot-long Titanic slid over tons of tallow- into the Belfast Lough, where it sat for almost another year while the glamorous inside fittings were built before she could sail.

Author/photographer William MacQuitty watched the launch saying, “Slowly gathering speed, the Titanic moved smoothly down the ways, and a minute later was plunging into the water and raising a huge wave. I felt a great lump in my throat, and an enormous pride in being an Ulsterman.”

The museum takes you through all of this with dramatic displays and personal stories of those who did the rigorous work.

At one point, a Disney-like ride carries you through the dark, inner workings of the ship during its building phase… up and down you travel through the bowels of the hull of the Titanic with blasts of heat emanating from the furnaces that prepared the rivets for attachment amid ear-piercing hammering and engine noises blasting.

Anchor makers on the Titanic

In less than a year, the Titanic lay quiet on the floor of the Atlantic, broken and memorialized as a grave to hubris and optimistic thinking. The demise of the RMS Titanic was the fault of the designers, not the shipbuilders who made the incredible ship.

The hardworking breadwinners of Belfast at Harland and Wolff continued making ships in Belfast for many more years until the last one was launched in 2003.

Today, their memories lie buried inside this formidable museum on the Belfast waterfront where the world can gain insight into their lives and their world… the memories of an underwater “museum” captured above-ground on the dockyards of Harland and Wolff.

PS As a final notation to this trip, a visit to Ireland and Northern Ireland are a sensory delight with fabulous dramatic vistas.

Beautiful narrow roadways lined with hedgerows or stone walls for driving, and friendly, enthusiastic country folk who share the pride they feel in their lush homeland and history.

Add in some pints of Guinness, a dram of Irish whiskey, or a Shepherd’s Pie made with stout, and an Irish lilt will come to your lips with you hardly even noticing.

After left-shifting a rental car for more than 2,000 kilometres on bucolic Irish backroads, I can proudly attest that I only struck blood-curdling fear into my car’s internal residents and the good citizens of the Emerald Isle a few (dozen) times!

Titanic launch May 31, 1911.

Stairway to Heaven

Luke Skywalker, where are you? I’ll answer later…

Skellig Michael (in back) and Little Skellig (foreground)

Skellig Michael, Ireland.

High above the Atlantic, on the westernmost edge of Europe, you can cast your eyes further westward across the chilly waters towards faraway lands…

Lands where so many impoverished and starving Irish migrated to over the centuries… but you can also peer skyward to the heavens that drew religious monks here from Egypt, Arabia, and Gaelic lands to commune with God.

This peak, the Monastery of Skellig Michael, 8 miles from the southwestern shores of Ireland’s County Kerry, was home to 600 years of monks (between the 6th and 12th centuries), who created a rocky “home” for themselves on the far edge of the known earth when it was believed you would fall from this flat planet once you ventured further east.

The monks, always counting 13 in number at any one time (representing Jesus and the Apostles), painstakingly constructed the stone steps leading to the top where a nest of beehive stone buildings housed them and their religious beliefs.

We arrived by small boat at the dock of the rocky crag just before noon after a 90 minute rollercoaster trip through the ocean swells, from Portmagee with 10 others.

The surreal scene greeting us at arrival resembled a busy Air Force base with thousands of winged gannets and puffins aloft, circling and dipping in the strong north breezes.

The rocky outcroppings and ledges of the island were dotted top to bottom with literally thousands of the birds… white spots littered like huge handfuls of confetti dropped from above to coat the surfaces.

Our group hopped off the bobbing boat at the small dock of the island with the advisory to return to the same spot in 2.5 hours exactly as the boat would only come ashore for a minute or two before casting off again.

This wasn’t our last advisory…

The warnings were many.

* The website posted warnings.

* The boat operators warned.

* Explicit signage warned.

* A guide at the start of the climb up the rock stairs gave a lengthy and detailed warning.

Yes, the guide was friendly but stern in his words.

The 600 rocky steps up the stone monument in the sea were not to be trifled with, the white-haired scholarly fellow said.

The sandstone and compressed slate steps – typically about 3-4 feet across – were uneven and often with sheer drops on the outer edges, he noted. With care and due attention, all would go well.

But, for those who might try taking photos while climbing, it could – and had unfortunately in the past – spell disaster. Always stop with two feet planted firmly to take pictures, he insisted. Pass others carefully. And if the heights become too much, well… sit down and end your upward journey with no worries or guilt. Every day, of the maximum 180 visitors, there are those some few who don’t manage to see the monastery at the peak.

For those with ADHD tendencies like myself, it was difficult to listen in while simultaneously absorbing the sight of 8 or 9 inch tall, doll-like puffins staring back at us from their little shelves of dirt and rock, mere feet away.

Puffins. Real live puffins. Upwards of 10,000 puffins adorned this small island rock, bottom to top.

Atlantic Puffins – sometimes called Sea Parrots – arrive on the island by the thousands in early July each year to make their little nest crevices among rocks or in burrows in the soil on the mountainside.

The monogamous, pair-based avians produce 1 creamy white egg each season. The parents take turns feeding their young, small fish they harvest by diving into the ocean.

By early August, their fledglings set, the birds desert the island and return to their normal sea-based homes off the coast of Iceland.

Our hike was breathtaking… filled with fabulous vistas and heart racing precipice drops.

The scope of rock building taken on by 13 monks over hundreds of years is a testament to human strength and resilience. Their hardships were many and often painful; all part of their veneration to God.

Ultimately, our hike up the steep rock was as thrilling as it was disastrously uneventful… Woot Woot!

We passed the spots filmed in the movie Star Wars, The Last Jedi where Mark Hamill and Daisy Ridley interacted in the upper reaches of the stony monastery. Yes, the elder Luke found his force here on Skellig Michael.

It’s a great day when you can climb a Stairway to Heaven, survive an encounter with a Jedi camp, and come home with an adventure to share.

Slainte…

Photo credits: Maureen Miltimore Green, Erin Green, and The Man On The Fringe

Wonder of Wonders… Miracle of Miracles…

In song, a fictitious fiddler perched precariously on a roof… leaving the wonder of his music afloat in the flaming sunset… the miracle of his existence tenuous…

… in real life, and far less romantically, I indelicately leapt to perch precariously, and smeared some of my own DNA on the Capitol landscape.

It bled like stink and hurt like hell.

Washington, DC – It was stupid of me to attempt to jump up on the concrete barrier in
front of the imposing Lincoln Memorial.

An innocent impulse of childlike enthusiasm and impulsiveness overtook me, creating a slip and gash of my knee and shin, scraping skin and bone across the unforgiving concrete.

I was overflowing with enthusiasm about simultaneously viewing the wondrous Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Vietnam Veteran Memorial Wall… all were visible from one convenient location on the Washington Mall, and in my mind, would be even better so when elevated by about 3 feet on top of the cement barrier.

OUCH!

Are you as wide-eyed intrigued and awestruck as I am by the kaleidoscope of amazing natural and man-made parts of our world?

The skies over us are azure blankets to the countless wonders and miracles in life.

I’ve reflected in blogs past about my successful quest in visiting each Canadian province and territory.

I’ve blah-blah’ed on to outline my desire to touch ground on each of the continents as well as each of the 50 US States.

These fanciful aspirations must have been drifting through my dreams last night – I awoke in the early darkness with mini thought-balloons bouncing between my ears about the “official” wonders of the world.

A word of advice? Never debate your mind-thoughts in the middle of the night, they’re rambunctious and unruly 3 year olds who adamantly refuse to sit still and behave.

My foggy brain meandered in circles of pity, that bastard berating voice telling me how woefully inadequate I’ve been in failing to see and touch so many worldwide miracles that exist.

Case in point: I’ve yet to visit even one of the original ancient 7 wonders.

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The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World were:

• the Great Pyramid at Giza, Egypt.
• the Hanging Gardens of Babylon.
• the Statue of Zeus at Olympia, Greece.
• the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus.
• the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus.
• the Colossus of Rhodes.
• the Lighthouse at Alexandria, Egypt.

Yup, nada. Not a one. Sad. Loser.

I mustered a spirited defence and volleyed a response to my sub-conscious: “Wait a minute, I’m able to place checkmarks beside 5 of 7 of the “new” wonders” …

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The “New” Seven Wonders of the World

• √ Chichen Itza, Mexico.
• Christ Redeemer, Brazil.
• √ The Great Wall, China.
• √ Machu Picchu, Peru.
• Petra, Jordan.
• √ The Roman Colosseum, Italy.
• √ The Taj Mahal, India.

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Still not satisfied with my Wonders’ count, I reloaded further ammunition into my argument. Touché!

I’ve touched, smelled, tasted, absorbed, spoken to, and smiled at earthly masterpieces, experiencing some magnificent physical marvels that, similar to a well-written book or unimaginably beautiful painting, filled me with an overarching sense of reverence and awe.

I’ve seen and breathed in the air of specialness near and far. Personal defining moments.

So today, I give you my own personal life experience 7 Wonders.

 

The “Larry” Seven Wonders

of a Random Baby Boomer’s World

• Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

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Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall, Washington, DC – USA

I’ve combined two iconic American war-related sites into one spot.

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War.

The battle was bloody and fierce with the largest number of casualties of the entire war (Combined Union and Confederate casualties at Gettysburg totalled 7,058 dead – 33,250 wounded – 10,800 missing), and is often described as the war’s turning point. Union Maj. General George Meade’s Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, halting Lee’s invasion of the North.

A few months after the battle, on November 19, President Lincoln used the dedication ceremony for the Gettysburg National Cemetery to honor the fallen Union soldiers and redefine the purpose of the war in his historic Gettysburg Address.

The battlefields and cemeteries and museums of Gettysburg imprinted in me the tragedy and futility of war in heartbreaking contrast to the beauty of the surrounding fields and farms.

The Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial Wall is made up of two seemingly unending 75.21 m long walls, etched with the names of the killed servicemen honoured in panels of horizontal rows.

At the highest tip (the apex where they meet) of the walls, they are 3.1 m high, and then taper away to a height of just 20 cm at their extremities. Symbolically, this is described as a “wound that is closed and healing”.

When a visitor stands before the wall, his or her reflection can be seen simultaneously with the engraved names, a symbolic way of bringing the past and present together.

The wall listed 58,191 names when it was completed in 1983. Simple names that exude power and emotion similar to the aged gravestones of Gettysburg.

This was the war that I “lived and experienced” as a youth each night on my black and white TV screen, watching the body bags unloading from the chasm of monster-sized airplanes.

• Machu Picchu – Peru

At the conclusion of an 8 hour mountainous hike, this is probably the most stunning vista I’ve ever experienced, as we surmounted a final hill and spied the Incan citadel from the Sun Gate overlooking Machu Picchu.

The 15th century citadel situated on a mountain ridge 2,430 metres (7,970 ft) above sea level is located near Cusco, Peru, where we studied Spanish for 3 and a half months.

Most archaeologists believe that Machu Picchu – built in the classical Inca style, with finely cut, polished dry-stone walls – was constructed as an estate for the Inca emperor Pachacuti (1438–1472).

If a picture paints a thousand words, Machu Picchu is the artistic soul of a million million words. To experience it first hand is to sip from the cup of spirituality.

 

• Niagara Falls – Canada

Despite being a huge tourist trap, this was a frequent childhood haunt for me. My Ontario family would visit the cataract most summers with out-of-town guests.

There is special magic when you stand just feet away from the parapet, feeling the rumble of the water, and the uneasy sense of being drawn in by the cascading, rushing water as it bravely leaps into the chasm.

• Igloo Church, Inuvik, Canada

Our Lady of Victory Church, often called the Igloo Church, was opened in Canada’s Arctic in 1960 after two years of construction.

Brother Maurice Larocque, a Catholic missionary to the Arctic, who had previously been a carpenter, designed the church despite a lack of any formal architectural training, sketching it on two sheets of plywood that are displayed in the building’s upper storeys. Its unique structural system, “a dome within a dome”, protects the church with a foundation consisting of a bowl-shaped concrete slab on a gravel bed atop the permafrost.

I saw this building in the summer of 1978 in the Land of the Midnight Sun (and Winter Darkness). The day was warm and dusty, and any igloo looks out of place in the heat and dry, but I knew then, and now, that bone-chilling, eyelash freezing winter filled with hoar frost and ice is always lurking nearby in the far north.

• Sagrada Familia – Barcelona, Spain

The Sagrada Familia is a large Roman Catholic church in Barcelona, designed by Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi (1852–1926). Gaudi’s work on the building is part of a  UNESCO World Heritage Site, and in November 2010 Pope Benedict XVI consecrated and proclaimed it a minor basilica, as distinct from a cathedral, which must be the seat of a bishop.

The Sagrada Familia, like any of Gaudi’s many structures, are in the category of “love ’em or hate ’em“… “unique” hardly captures his vision of art and architecture. The church exterior is akin to a child’s pop-up storybook filled with picturesque Bible tales.

Barcelona is a beautiful rose in my bouquet of world cities thanks to Gaudi.

• Terracotta Warriors – Xian, China

The Terracotta Army is a collection of terracotta sculptures depicting the armies of Qin Shi Huang, the first Emperor of China. A form of funerary art, it was all buried with the emperor in 210–209 BCE. It’s purpose was to protect the emperor in his afterlife.

The buried “army” was discovered in 1974 by two local farmers in Xian, Shaanxi province.

The figures vary in height according to their roles, with the tallest being the generals. The life-sized army includes warriors, chariots and horses. Estimates are that the three pits containing the Terracotta Army hold more than 8,000 soldiers, 130 chariots with 520 horses and 150 cavalry horses, the majority of which remained buried in the pits nearby Qin Shi Huang’s mausoleum. Other terracotta non-military figures were found in other pits, including officials, acrobats, strongmen, and musicians.

The scope and detail of this underground discovery still leaves me shaking my head in amazement.

• Dachau – Germany

Dachau concentration camp was the first of the Nazi concentration camps opened in Germany, intended to hold political prisoners.

It is located on the grounds of an abandoned munitions factory near the medieval town of Dachau, outside of Munich.  It was enlarged to include forced labor, and eventually, the imprisonment of Jews, German and Austrian criminals, and eventually foreign nationals from countries that Germany occupied or invaded.

Prisoners lived in near-starvation and constant fear of brutal treatment and imminent death. There were 32,000 documented deaths at the camp, and thousands more undocumented.

I stepped through the gates of the camp as a “tourist” in 1979 and immediately felt a heavy enveloping curtain of pain and a huge weight of human tragedy.

 

• Grand Ole Opry House – Nashville, USA

Music is an important part of my world – music of all types.

And what is more welcoming and friendly and joy-inducing than a beautiful church-like haven (even the seats of the Opry are pews) to sweet sounds of instruments and voice? The Opry House is a modern mecca for those of us who love the sound of the fiddle and the steel guitar.

Listening to the final group song of the evening a few years back, Will The Circle Be Unbroken, left a chill in my spine, even to this day… yes, that’s the power of music.

……………….

And there you have it in wondrous fashion. 1 natural wonder, 2 distinctive churches, 3 war-related memorial sites, and 3 man-made spectacles.

OK, did you notice? You did?

Yeah, I cheated.

That was 8 wonders, 9 if you separate out the Gettysburg and Vietnam Veterans’ Wall. And given half a chance, I could list dozens more spectacular moments and vistas that I’ve been lucky enough to glimpse in my days.

And despite all these incredible facades and edifices sprinkled around the world… if we view our world in another way, there are wonders and miracles to be had without setting alight on an airplane, or a ship, or a train.

I leave you with the following poem to reflect upon:

Seven Wonders of the World

I think the ‘Seven Wonders of the World’ are:
1. To See
2. To Hear
3. To Touch
4. To Taste
5. To Feel
6. To Laugh
7. To Love.

The things we overlook as simple and ordinary and that
we take for granted are truly wondrous!

A gentle reminder —
that the most precious things in life
cannot be built by hand or bought by man.

Author: Unknown

 

 

 

Goa… Goa… Gone…

As the sub-continent days pass, we move steadily southward, and our journey nears its end, we shed layers of clothing bit-by-bit like strippers in a sticky barroom.

The flight from Mumbai International Airport – a bright, modern facility with a nice selection of latte shops (see where my priorities lie?) – to Goa is only 2 hours with an added 3 hour delay… due south.

Mumbai was warm.

Goa is hot. And humid. And tropical. And lush. And Christian looking.

It’s jarring to see Catholic churches and cathedrals after almost 2 weeks of historic Hindu temples, palaces, and Muslim mosques.

There’s something for everyone in India.

Goa still exhibits the cultural influence of the Portuguese, who first landed in the early 16th century as merchants and conquered it soon thereafter. The Portuguese oversaw Goa for about 450 years until it was finally re-taken by India in 1961.

Goa is India’s smallest state by area and the fourth smallest by population and is also India’s richest state with a GDP per capita two and a half times that of the country.

Slipping along the smooth 4-lane highway in an air-conditioned van from the airport to our resort near the beachfront, we enjoy sparkling beautiful hilly vistas filled with coconut palm trees, lush agricultural fields, new-to-us birds, and ocean views.

The population here is obviously less crowded and so the chaotic driving is, yeah, still chaotic, but relatively calm in comparison to crazed Delhi and Mumbai. You can almost breathe normally in this organized disorganization.

As the mango sun melts into the Arabian Sea, our first evening is spent on the enormous – accompanied by heart-thumpingly loud music and laser-trinket vendors – wide open beach where we have our first fresh seafood meal of the trip, taken under the crescent moon and stars.

Make mine Kingfish please.

Sunset on the beach in Goa

The following night, smiling chef Pascoal, sweat beading on his brown forehead, prepares and shows us two curry dishes that both include fresh coconut.

The basis for all Indian food comes, as we’ve discovered in our three earlier cooking demonstrations in Jaipur, Udaipur and Bijapur, in the curry sauce. Hot oil, onions, ginger garlic paste, coriander, tomato, turmeric, cumin.

A few other spices come and go depending  on the locale and the tastes of the cook. But the basics remain the same.

The big difference in Goa is the pleasurable addition of coconut to the mix.

Earlier in the day we wandered through a forest-like spice plantation encountering a full kitchen cupboard of spices growing under, on top of, and over the ground.

The meandering trails we ambled in the sticky heat were lushly replete with vines of black pepper, striped orange roots that looked like ginger but were in reality turmeric, cinnamon bark trees, vanilla orchids, green cardamom, bitter-nut, and nutmeg. A wake of flavour.

Black peppercorns ripen on the vine

Bridge across lagoon to spice plantation

Finally, the taxi to whisk us to the Goa airport for our long trek home belatedly arrives.

Quietly taking in the scenery en route allows us to daydream and reflect on the cornucopia of experience and sensation.

Reflect on the friendly faces we’ve seen everywhere; the enthusiastic children, some begging, but most merely enthusiastically aroused by an out-of-the-ordinary white face in their village.

Reflect on the many encounters in the streets and markets, the folded hands and Hindi namastes in greeting.

Reflect on the treasured Indian chai, the soothing drink found everywhere that takes on a slightly different tinge of flavour in each region, a bit more ginger here, a little more cardamom there.

Reflect on the haunting Muslim calls to prayers that ring out across towns and cities in the early morning dawn.

Reflect on the roads thronged with placid sacred cows, plodding majestic camels, motorcycles, tuk tuks, transport trucks, cars and more cars, horns in ceaseless use.

Reflect on the sight of rambunctious pink-bottomed macaque and Hanuman langur monkeys scampering along fence lines where round discuses of cow dung dry for later use as cooking fuel.

Reflecting on the inner knowledge that twice or three times a day curry dishes is just too much intense spicy flavour for our western palates.

India is a maelstrom in our minds.

Colours, textures, sounds reverberate in our heads.

The level of input and arousal is often too fast-paced, too great to assimilate in any reasonable way, like trying to breathe air under a gushing waterfall as it washes over you.

The Airbus A-320 lifts gracefully away from the Goa tarmac and the lengthy flights begin.

The emerald green forests, lush views of palm trees and sparkling ocean below are quietly soothing, like a warm milky cup of chai, fragrant steam wafting gently upwards to the clouds.

NAMASTE!

 

Leaving On That Midnight Train to Mumbai…

Our milky white-faced group within the walls of Amber Fort of Jaipur

 

It’s easy to lose your head in Mumbai (Bombay until 1995)… not to mention an arm or two.

More on this in a second.

Mumbai is a huge metropolis on the western coast of India.

20.5 million souls surrounded by ubiquitous smoky haze and skies.

Honestly, all of India that we visited in late January was grey with a pall of smoke haze.

I had naively figured that when we decamped congested Delhi, the winds would gently sweep the atmosphere of smoke, and the skies outside of the city would be small-town clear and pristine.

Nope. Blurry haze followed and hung over us from Delhi to Agra, Jaipur to Udaipur, Mumbai to Goa.

Sorry, I lost my train of thought. Must be the smoke clouding my brain.

The metro system of Mumbai is efficient and well-used.

But the young men of Mumbai, like young men all over the world, like to impress young ladies and friends with acts of derring-do. Apparently, this daring to impress includes hanging head and body limbs outside the wide open doors of rapidly moving metro cars.

Unfortunately, metal poles and other trains pass perilously close by to the metro cars. Despite signs inside the cars cautioning riders in Hindi and English to stay completely within the cars, young men continue to pay more attention to the young ladies than those prescient warning signs.

And, unfortunately, each day 10 accidental deaths occur on the Mumbai rapid transit system.

Every day.

Efficient at transporting. Efficient at killing.

……………

The overnight train from Udaipur to Mumbai is described as a first class, air conditioned, comfortable sleeping car arrangement. Sounds pretty good, right? Can’t wait.

Walking along the late-evening platform to the stationary train, baggage rolling along behind, there is a grimy sense that we’re traipsing alongside a 1918 version of a Russian cattle cart for the poorest of the revolutionary Bolsheviks. Old… worn… dirty… bars over the windows.

FIRST CLASS SLEEPER is written on the side of the train cars.

We clambered aboard and found our assigned seats as many other passengers squeezed by with heavy suitcases and bags, to locate their seats. We jammed our luggage beneath the bench seats as best we could.

Sitting down on two brown vinyl, straight-backed benches facing each other, a few tears in the fabric, 3 passengers per side, we looked around at the milieu that promised pretty high and delivered pretty low.

When were the walls and windows of this train last washed?

As the train quietly pulled away from the station right on time, each of us assessed the apparent sleeping arrangements. The benches we sat on were the lower bunks for 2, the seat backs folded up and made a mid-section set of bunks for 2 more and finally, another bench folded down from the ceiling making a 3rd set of bunks of the remaining two.

Rudimentary bathrooms with rickety metal doors were located at the end of the car, one washroom set up Indian-style (squat toilets) and the other a Western-style seated toilet. Caked in grime. Neither facility looked remotely appealing even before they had been used by 30 or 40 souls for the following 16 hours.

Spoiled westerners that we were, we gasped, shrugged and gamely tried to make the best of an uncomfortable situation.

Maureen and I volunteered for the top bunks since one of our British travelling companions was suffering intestinal discomfort – a middle bunk made more sense for her need to have easier access to a toilet. Two very pleasant young Indian passengers returning to Mumbai took the bottom bunks.

Each passenger was given a sealed plastic bag containing two white sheets and separately, a roughly-folded beige woollen blanket with tattered edges and seams.

After sleepily awaiting a visit from the train’s officious purser to check our tickets and passports, we threw our carry-on bags up to our bunks and climbed the metal rungs at the end of the bench bunks to the upper reaches.

Very little space remained between the bunks and the ceiling so we wiggled and wormed our way forward onto the platforms that would be our resting place for the night.

Sitting up wasn’t an option. Movement of any type was barely an option. Making a comfortable bed to rest was challenging with the limited space and a carry-on bag taking up much of the room available.

But manage we did.

My legs needed to remain bent for the night so that my feet didn’t impede passersby or prevent the door to the train car opening.

After finding a small nest of reasonable comfort, no desired bathroom break could be reasonably contemplated or envisioned for the reminder of the night given the work effort to find a way out of the straightjacket and then to return again.

Morning finally arrived. But we couldn’t escape our pods until the other younger members below decided to awake. Prisoners on a shelf.

16 hours after pulling away from Udaipur, we descended from the sleep car into the humid heat of Mumbai.

Travelling is about accommodation and acceptance of the good and the less than good, and so accommodate we did.

…………..

Mumbai as I said is a sizeable city on the west coast and, as a financial centre, consists of that confusing mixture of great wealth and sublime poverty. Beautiful modern skyscrapers co-exist with destitute families sleeping roughly on the sides of heavily trafficked roads through the city.

Our first morning journey in Mumbai was to the world’s largest outdoor laundry facility… Dhobi Ghat.

The flyover bridge of Mahalaxmi railway station gives us a bird’s eye view of the huge outdoor laundromat stretching far off into the distance.

Rows of open-air concrete wash pens are each fitted with their own flogging stone, filled with men and women handwashing the clothes.

Whole families live within the washing compound that lies next to the Mahalaxmi railway station. Long lines of sheets and men’s white shirts hang languorously in the sunshine between the wash pens.

The washers, locally known as Dhobis, work in the open to wash clothes from Mumbai’s hotels and hospitals, businesses and private citizens. Like the incredible organization of Mumbai’s lunch box deliveries, no laundry is lost or misdirected.

Descending the bridge stairs, we soon find ourselves ensconced in the labyrinth of washing pens where Dhobis stand in the fibre-stained waters, washing, rinsing, thrashing the clothes and bed linens on the stones like medieval torturers, then hanging them to dry from twists of rope in the open air.

Children and small cats appear in occult doorways, darkened rooms reveal men pressing clothes and sheets with large, red hot coal-filled irons.

……………..

Travel tells us stories of history, some ancient, some recent.

Not always nice stories.

As we arrive at the massive India Gate, an Arc de Triomphe-like edifice on the Mumbai waterfront, Chandrajeet, our local guide, reminds us of the terrorist attacks that took place here only a few years back.

In November 2008, 10 members of Lashkar-e-Taiba, an Islamic militant organisation based in Pakistan, carried out a series of 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks lasting four days across Mumbai. The attacks, which drew widespread global condemnation, began on Wednesday, 26 November and lasted until Saturday, 29 November 2008, killing 164 people and wounding at least 308.

We wander across the clogged-with-traffic roadway to the Taj Hotel, where world leaders such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have stayed, and also where, 32 died during the terrorist attacks.

We pass through stringent security to enter the lush hotel. The inside is beyond description, lavishly rich and sumptuous, filled with enormous bouquets of flowers, floors and walls lined with marble and glass.

We glide up a wide, romantic staircase under stunning crystal chandeliers before spilling into the dignified-as-all-hell Sea Lounge for traditional Afternoon Tea.

The Sea Lounge is filled with old colonial charm and a live tuxedo-clad pianist, highlighted by a spectacular view of the Arabian Sea.

Rocky, one of our Australian travel companions and I – sampling far too many sweet treats –  try to quickly outguess each other as the pianist starts into another musical movie theme… My Fair Lady! The Sound of Music! Dr. Zhivago!

The high tea features an elaborate buffet spread of classic English delicacies as well as local Indian favourites smoothed down with a selection of fine teas. The artistry of the display is sumptuous to the eye well before it intoxicates the palate.

The complicated blend of deadly tragic events and sophisticated high-life magic settles over us in a puzzling, somewhat unsettling way.

………….

There is always a time gap in my travels where my mind assimilates and digests the monstrous volume of input. I always feel so overwhelmed and slow to absorb at the time.

Sights and sounds, scents, tastes, images and textures settle and mingle for days, weeks and months after we return.

This trip to India is no different.

Travel allows us to learn about other places, other cultures, other stories. Travel brings us understanding – not always agreement – but understanding of the people and their ways.

Travel teaches us something about ourselves, an exploration of the outerward journey but also the inner journey, sneakily revealing our strengths and weaknesses, the stuff we’re made of… the good, the bad, AND the ugly… who ME?

Namaste !

 

Cooking With Surfer’s Momma … Starry San Juan del Sur Nights …

Teodora takes us to the markets to find the fresh ingredients needed for Indio Viejo …

Are You Hungry?… Me Too … Let’s Eat!

If you stop by my house for a meal, be prepared to dine on the cuisine of my latest travel venture:

• Aji de Gallina from Cusco, Peru …
• Moros y Cristianos from Havana, Cuba …
• Chicken Tajine from Marrakesh, Morocco …
• Tapas from Barcelona, Spain …
•  or in today’s case … Indio Viejo from Teodora’s kitchen in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. 

Just a few days ago, we spent a few hours in the steamy (31 degree C) markets and kitchen of Teodora, a friendly lady who’s spent her entire life running restaurants and hostels in San Juan del Sur, on Nicaragua’s northern Pacific Coast.

A quaint little tourist town, San Juan has fantastic wide, white sandy beaches and lots of tiny T-shirt shops and seafood restaurants overlooking the beach and the sparkling ocean. A grand white statue of Jesus looks down over the town and ocean from atop a nearby hill.

SOYA… a hostel owned by Teodora and the name of her vegetarian restaurant … today’s meal breaks the house rules and uses beef …

After introducing ourselves to Teodora, and asking her to please speak slowly in Spanish (“despacio, por favor”) so that we can understand, we toddle behind her into the town’s streets – market stall to market stall, neighbour to neighbour – sourcing the needed items for preparing a classic Nicaragua beef stew dish called Indio Viejo (yup, The OLD INDIAN)

First we locate a tiny wood-shack tortilla shop where we pick up a small plastic bag of Masa (corn flour dough for making tortillas, but today it will be used as a thickener in our stew) from an elderly woman in the smoke-filled shack.

We meander further along the noisy, bumpy street and step into a busy set of market stalls.  Moving from one stall to the next, Teodora selects fresh cilantro, tomatoes, onions, sweet peppers, garlic, and sour oranges, passing a very few Nicaraguan Cordobas (local currency) to each of the lady shopkeepers.

Vegetables in tow, we head back into the streets and trundle along a few blocks, stopping once in a while to have a friendly visit with local ladies pushing their sweet children in little “car”-shaped strollers – lifelong friends of Teodora’s. Of course, their Spanish chatter is too rapid for us to gather more than a few ideas of where the conversation is leading.

Our final stop is at a glass-fronted Carneceria (meat shop) where we pick out a couple of small pieces of res (beef) that are bagged by the young boy behind the counter.

All the ingredients we need now are in our bags, so we head back – in the typical tropical plodding walking pace – to SOYA, the hostel-restaurant owned by Teodora.

It’s time to start cooking.

Entering the hostel’s front opening, we pass through a dark, narrow hallway into the back area that blossoms into a small square that opens to the skies. On the perimeter of the square are rooms cheaply available for rent to tourists, and from what we can see, mainly backpackers of varying ages.

In the centre is a square room with a door that opens into a congested kitchen – the room jam-packed with pots, pans, bags, coolers, vegetables and fruits – there is scarce room for any sort of food preparation.

Teodora, accustomed to the conditions, shows no signs of concern, and pulls out a ceramic soup bowl to place on the little bit of space by the sink. She also places a large teflon-lined pot on the stove, strikes a match to light a propane burner underneath, and begins explaining the preparation details of this dish.

Along with the essential cooking directions, Teodora includes little snippets of information about her sons (her one son Saul – she affectionately calls him Saulito – was actually my surfing instructor on Playa Hermosa the day before) and grandchildren, often flashing a bright gold-toothed smile, showing her pride in her family.

She talks quietly as she washes and cuts the beef, the vegetables, the sour oranges (I’ve placed the recipe ingredients and details at the bottom, so I won’t get terribly detailed here). I love it when we add a toothpaste-sized lump of rust-toned achiote paste to the masa dough and the entire stew takes on a rich orange-brown colour.

There’s barely a square inch of space available amid the pans and dishes and clutter … Teodora cuts vegetables right in a bowl by the edge of the sink…

After about an hour of cutting, boiling, stirring, and sautéing a salsa garnish, the finished dish is ready to sample.

Each of Teodora, Maureen and myself, scavenge up a bowl amid the counter clutter and scoop a ladleful of the rich, thick stew into our bowls. We squeezed our way out of the tiny kitchen – two other travellers, one Romanian, the other Mexican, had begun preparing their own meals alongside us as we chopped and stirred.

We plunked ourselves down on a long concrete bench that runs along the length of one of the inner walls of the compound and try our first taste of Indio Viejo.

Mmmmm … the tangy sour orange combined with the strong garlic, corn flour, and cilantro flavours to make a full-flavoured, heat-free dish with tender chunks of beef that I’m looking forward to recreating in my – just slightly less cluttered – Canadian kitchen.

So, please drop by and we’ll enjoy some together.

Diakachimba!!

 

Nighttime in San Juan del Sur

The brightly lit 24 metre-high white statue of Christ of the Mercy peers out at us from the north hill overlooking little San Juan del Sur.

Stately coconut and royal palms rise over this resort town that attracts tourists – mostly beautiful young things – by the throngs.

To a lesser degree, it’s a bit like spring break week in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. At night, pairs and groups of people migrate down the middle of the narrow, uneven streets into bars and restaurants pumping out loud music in styles of jazz, or salsa, or rock.

The town is a living organism with a heartbeat that picks up as the night moves on.

This evening, there’s a touch of magic in the warm night air – delight in eating fresh seafood with our group while sipping fluffy rum drinks and cervezas in the wide beachfront restaurant … a romance in the night sky as Jesus looks down over us, stars twinkling overhead. Our travel mates laugh and play in a light alcoholic haze around a circular table perched right on the beach sand.

Dinner on the beach at San Juan del Sur …

 

It’s a great group we’re travelling with, although – full disclosure, I have to say this as some of them might just read this! But, honestly, we blended pretty harmoniously.

Travel company gAdventures thrust us together as we arrived in Granada, Nicaragua from regions around the globe.

Before we knew it, we were meandering throughout hot and humid northern Nicaragua as a troop containing an even 10 of us – 5 Canadians, 1 American, 1 Belgian, 1 Aussie, 1 Brit, and 1 Costa Rican (Esteban, our guide).

It was a wide-ranging selection of nationalities, genders, accents, ages, religions, and interests. And yet we somehow came together and melded well despite our differences.

Many activities we experienced and saw as a group … at other times we headed off in diverse directions as our interests and palates differed.

And I’m going to share a secret with you after this latest journey… come closer and I’ll whisper …

I don’t usually enjoy travelling in groups.”

I like taking odd detours and finding side streets with local interest that draws me in – group travel is usually just too regimented to provide the freedom and flexibility that I crave. And, for sure … there always seems to be a personality or two that drives me bonkers. Although, to be totally fair, it might be MY personality that gnaws at the others!

A nighttime visit to see glowing lava inside the Masaya Volcano, near Granada …

 

One of the small joys of travel, for me, is that I often find myself meeting people that I may not approach or stumble upon in my own little circle, my town, my country.

I like to believe that many travellers are explorers seeking to open their minds and hearts to what the world has to offer, as well as discovering hidden parts of themselves that they don’t really understand just yet. There are minute-to-minute stresses and challenges that enlighten us about ourselves.

Travel is both an outward and an inward journey of discovery. 

…………………………

As the jets thrusters roar up for us to make the final taxiing turn onto the nighttime runway, I look out the small airplane window, soaking in the final views of a foreign landscape, and I ask myself,

How many vistas are lovelier than a lit runway at dusk, cold blue and warm yellow lights leading off into the far distance, hinting at a destination exotic and far off … or … just reminding me that I’m coming home.”

 

INDIO VIEJO RECIPE:

Ingredients:

• 1 and a half pounds of beef (or chicken, pork, or … tofu even)
• 1 pound of corn flour or “masa” (pre-made corn flour dough)
• 2 yellow onions
• 2 bell peppers
• 3 tomatoes
• 1 bunch of fresh cilantro
• 1 bitter orange (you can use lemon as a substitute)
• 2 or 3 tbsp. olive oil or butter
• Achiote or annatto (needed for coloring, although you can use sweet paprika as a substitute)
• 6 garlic cloves
• Approximately half a gallon (2 liters) of water

 

Cook cubed beef in the olive oil with garlic, diced onion, tomato and julienned bell pepper.

Add the water and boil with the lid on the pot until the meat is soft (about 1/2 hour).

Add some water to the corn dough in a bowl and mix until the dough is blended into a smooth paste. Add a tablespoon or so of achiote or annatto to make the corn dough slurry look slightly red. Add this to the beef/vegetable pot and mix it all together on medium heat.

Add the juice from the bitter orange, and let it cook for another 5 to 10 minutes until the mixture is thickened and boiling with large bubbles.

Serve with rice, and/or fried plantain.

The Dog Days of Nicaragua

Diakachimba!!

The days start hot as soon as the sun rises along with the humidity here in Leon, Nicaragua. The air is slightly oppressive, filled with sun-scorched temperatures and steamy humidity. And still this isn’t the truly “hot” season yet.

The crumbly patchwork streets – a mix of some asphalt, some concrete, some cobblestone – are quiet this early other than the occasional woman who starts work early or the numerous slightly emaciated dogs that wander the neighbourhoods hoping to come upon a scrap of food… anything left behind by a late night drinker or a bag of garbage left untended.

On the surface and in many ways, Nicaragua is hard to distinguish from other Latin American countries.

There are ramshackle houses and vendor stalls made from tin and scrap pieces of salvaged wood… the kids play games in the streets … young Moms wander the narrow calles, sweet brown babies held snugly to their chests in light cotton wraps … bicycles loaded with entire families glide over the bumpy streets … Spanish voices float loudly in the air filled with diesel fumes …  scents of stale urine mixed with caffeine add to the melange.

But not everything is the same. There is something different here in Nicaragua…

The kids and moms and dads of Nicaragua just don’t understand the nature of the hard sell that any other Caribbean nation has known for years. Marketing your goods in a third-world country doesn’t just happen.

Nicaraguan sellers quixotically think that “No” means “NO”.

Most other Caribbean, Latin American, South American countries know this is patently false. You need to push and press and hold each rich tourist, it’s like a WWF fight, anything and everything goes. Take no prisoners, leave no tourist wallet unturned until you’ve captured the mighty US dollars from deep in the pocket.

Street vendors are just so polite in Nicaragua… and unlike Cuba, for example, no government officer or policeman is enforcing their polite distance. They just don’t know any better.

Only the dogs get it here in this Central American locale… maybe they have an international code by which they know the skill set needed.

The dogs are far better beggars than the children.

They have the hangdog look down pat as they stare at you from a few feet away in a head-bowed manner.

Then painfully slowly, one slow-motion paw in front of the other they approach and rest their scratched nose or scrawny-furred jaw on the edge of your leg and rest silent, unmoving. The eyes are sad, almost haunted, irresistible.

Once fed a small scrap or ignored for too long they turn and wander, ever so slowly back to their sleeping tribe on the edge of the pavement… laying in a circle nearby the black dog, and the tan dog, and the white dog with the black patch circling his eye.

…………..

Nicaragua is still in the early stages of its tourism industry and will take some time to develop along the lines of its other Caribbean neighbours. It’s not a bad thing… fewer people speak English in the hotels and street stalls – it’s a wonderful opportunity for us to practice Spanish.

So often when we travel, hauling out our rudimentary language skills, English is spoken to us in return, making it easy for us, but not so good for making the mind work hard to find the right words.

But in Nicaragua, we can work our skill set – or lack of one perhaps – as few people in this just-developing nation have studied English.

……………

Nicaraugan street dinner in Leon with our group of Canadians, American, Belgian, Brit, Aussie, and Costa Rican

You might want to call it “Nici” time.

Eating in a restaurant in Nicaragua is a test of the typical Westerner’s patience. Prepare for long waits between each step of the eating process.

Menu arrives…. wait …
Drink orders taken… wait …
Drinks arrive… if you drink wine, don’t expect glasses or an open bottle for some time yet , yup… wait…
Food order taken… now the need for patience really begins… after 15 or 20 minutes expect the waiter to return to tell you that the lamb or soup you ordered is not available today (there are plausible rumours in our group that lamb has never been seen in Nicaragua despite appearing on every menu).
Wait for a menu to be brought again in order to make your next choice of meal.
The drinks will have been long exhausted before any food arrives, and liquid refreshment will not be replenished unless a waiter is forcibly made to listen to the order.
Once the usually delicious meal has been brought to the table and thoroughly enjoyed… it’s time to settle in and wait for la cuenta (the bill) to come…

In Nicaragua, a quick lunch or dinner is an oxymoron just waiting to be tested.

…………..

It’s a rich, cacophonous mix of sound at 6 am in this tiny village of Los Angeles on Ometepe Island, in the middle of huge Lake Nicarauga.We’re doing a 2 night Homestay with a local farming family. Our house Mom is a 60’ish divorced lady called Midea who needs the small income that we tourists provide.

As the morning arises, it feels like I’m in a blender swirling with loud whistles and whooshes of wind high in the trees- the palms, the eucalyptus, the ceibas.

The wind circles lower into the smaller trees and bushes- the sour oranges, the mangos, the bougainvilleas and hibiscus – and then begins to rustle the rusty tin roofs of houses and sheds creating shudders and bangs, then wooden doors swing on hinges, roosters crow from all directions, blue and yellow birds sing and squawk, and in the far distance a speaker pumps out a bass beat of mi-doh-mi-doh-mi-doh music, a horse whinnies… and finally I can feel the strong welcoming rush of the wind penetrating the gaps of the roof and walls running over my white cotton sheet – it feels fresh and comforting as I nod off to its caress.

……………

Volcano boarding on Cerro Negro…

One of 7 still-active volcanoes in Nicaragua, Cerro Negro beckons with the unique chance to surf or slide down its long, gravelly-smooth black front surface … it’s a novel experience that comes along so rarely that it would be crazy to pass by, right?

And it’s safe too, the volcano hasn’t erupted since 1999, so what are the chances it will erupt today?

A narrow, twisting dirt road outside Leon leads to the base of the beautiful conical volcano. After signing in at the official volcano office – they need sufficient information from you to pass on to your national authorities should you perish – it’s just a short drive on to the base parking lot where you look up to the 728m. high peak of Cerro Negro.

It’s an impressive sight, especially when you peer up along the north spine and catch sight of the small ants that are other boarders climbing to the peak for their rapid descent down.

The dozen or so of us -Dutch, Aussies, Americans, Canadians – are given a small backpack to carry with coveralls and protective gear, and then a plywood ‘toboggan’ with a square patch of thick linoleum on the underside that acts as the slippery surface for sliding over volcanic ash.

We’ve all been given the option to stand ‘snowboard style’ for the run downhill, but Dennis our guide informs us that there is little control on the upright boards and it quickly becomes extremely dangerous as speed increases. Hmmmmm. Each of us chooses the ‘sit-down’ version happily.

All set with water bottles and slathered with sunscreen to protect against the penetrating sun, we head off in a long line like marchers heading off to the first base camp of Mount Everest.

The early going isn’t very steep, but the size of the black rocks and boulders is fairly large – at one point a young American fellow dislodges a boulder about twice the size of a basketball that tumbles down and just misses the climber below.

The footing is a bit tricky at times, but mostly all goes well as we move higher and higher and the vistas grow more lush and appealing.

At the halfway point about a half hour in, we stop for water and rest and capture the scenery and each other on cameras… all the big lenses and iPhones are pulled out and smiling hikers’ visages preserved for bragging rights later on.

The cross breezes are becoming quite strong at this elevation, so our guide instructs us to carry the board in a horizontal way so that we won’t catch a draft and be pulled off the side of the mountain.

The climb is now a steady incline but smooth and gravelly underfoot as we mount the spine of the hill… now we are the ants that can be seen from far below.

A slight scent of volcanic sulphur permeates the air and the winds are becoming substantial – then in just a few moments we come over a steep rise and the sight of other ‘boarders’ in their sliding coveralls greets us – we’ve made it, we’re at the peak.

Jesse... a co-traveller from Calgary looks ready for the big slide...

The verdant valleys stretch out in all directions below us, but the sight we’re most interested in is the one straight ahead – the flat, black expanse that drops off like a Black Diamond snowy ski run below.

Before pulling on our sliding gear, guide Dennis scrapes the gravel surface where we stand as on the backside of the black sliding surface is the interior of the volcano. We can see small steam and gas clouds rising up from below in the crater. As he scrapes a few inches into the surface of the volcanic rim, steam appears and, holding my hand close by I feel a glow of heat emanating from the ground.

We take a few fun photos, then begin to strap on knee and elbow pads, and pull on the well-worn coveralls over our own clothes. Gloves and protective eye goggles are next.

As we dress, Dennis instructs us that the toboggan is narrow and that it’s easy to fall off. We’re to keep our legs well outside of the edges and use them to balance ourselves and also use our feet as brakes, particularly as our speed increases towards the bottom half of the run.

We’re given a reminder that this isn’t a race and that although boarders have been ‘clocked’ at 120kph, we’re not here to kill ourselves. I look around me – everyone in the group smiles and nods. There doesn’t appear to be any heroes in this group.

It’s time!

We all climb that last few metres to the top and survey the run below.

Dennis sets us into one of two start paths, then he runs down down down the hill so that we can barely see him in the far distance. His job now is to signal us when it’s safe for the next boarder to start – he can see the bottom of the run and will know if the last boarder made it to the end safely.

Two by two we slot into the start ‘troughs’ and once the arm signal is given by Dennis below, the first pair (a Dutchman and an American) push off. They begin hesitantly, the toboggans gripping the gravel a bit, but then momentum kicks in and their speed increases. A long dust cloud forms like a vapour trail behind each sledder.

Now it’s my turn…

Clumsily I trudge over to the start slot and toss the toboggan down into the hot, black sandy-gravel. It’s as if I’m a space astronaut… all moves are slow and clunky. I plunk my ass onto the back of the toboggan and wiggle back and forth until I’m centred properly.

The hand signal from below comes and I push off with gloved hands – my speed increases faster than I anticipated. Loud grating noises of the board scraping gravel grow in volume and a cloud of volcanic ‘smoke’ trails behind as I go faster and faster.

Soon I’m at the halfway point and I see Dennis the guide waving excitedly at me. No way am I letting go of the reins that hold me onto this speeding sled. My will to live is too great to stupidly let go and wave.

By this point, there’s a constant upwards spray of black dust and gravel forcing itself into my nose and mouth and I fear I’ll swallow a big mouthful of gravel that is attempting to choke the life out of me.

I can see the bottom of the mountain approaching, but just barely through the dust cloud… the sensation of bumping, bouncing, gravity pressure, and loud noise feels to me like what I see in movies of astronauts blasting off a launchpad.

Then, in only about a minute and a half, the run comes abruptly to an end and all is quiet except for the excited voices of those who came down ahead of me.

I stumble up and off the toboggan and shake a pound or two of dust and gravel off the coveralls… I feel exhilarated and can still feel the bump and buzz in my bones, the gritty dust between my teeth.

In two or three minutes time, my group of fellow travellers in Nicaragua – Costa Rican guide Esteban, and Canadian compatriots Pierre and Jesse – high five each other and take photos of each other’s blackened faces, hair and necks. Our smiles stand out white against the black on our faces.

It’s been a good day!

The only way to describe it is in the lingo of excited Nicaraguans…

Diakachimba!

(Next week we’ll play out the final week of this Nicaraguan adventure)

The Zen of Travel and Bucket List Maintenance …

12 Days … 8 States… a “taste” of many places and sights… Nevada (blue surrounded by red) will have its own stop one day later on …

Why don’t you go on west to California? There’s work there, and it never gets cold. Why, you can reach out anywhere and pick an orange. Why there’s always some kind of crop to work in. Why don’t you go there?

 The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck

 

Salinas, California – Huddled gangs of male, dark-skinned immigrant workers sway swiftly, expertly in the skin-searing sunshine. Salty drips of sweat glisten on their faces as they creep steadily forward, feeding the machine.

It’s a synchronized dance – bent over at the waist, quietly swinging their arms and hands back and forth, cutting off the lettuce head at its base, then flipping the green, leafy bundles upwards to the hungry motorized contraption that semi-automates the harvesting of vegetables.

A quiet mix of Spanish chatter accompanies the work train as it inches, like a fuzzy caterpillar, over the landscape.

Women workers sit crouched under the shaded canopy of the moving machine, catch the lettuce head tossed their way and rapidly strip any stray or dirty leaves before layering the head into a waxed cardboard box that is whisked away across the country to your neighbourhood supermarket or restaurant.

 

Harvesting Romaine Lettuce in Salinas, California

Hundreds and thousands of store shelves are filled with heads harvested every day in this very same way, using the inexpensive sweat of a Mexican worker’s brow.

If you had a salad this week that crunched with lettuce, chances are it came from this field, or one just like it in California’s famed Salinas Valley. 80% of the lettuce consumed in North America is grown in the seemingly endless trench of flat, fertile farmland south of San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

On the dirt roads that line the edges of the field are mobile Porta-Potties… 5 to 10 upright pee and poop houses pulled on wheels like a wagon train behind dusty pickup trucks that follow the workers from field to field.

Field after crazy long field look the same – endless rows covered with leafy greens stretching off to the far-distant hills.

It’s a modern, ghost-like vision of the 1930’s Depression-era John Steinbeck novels Grapes of Wrath and East of Eden.

Of course in the 1930’s harvesting was done with the grunt labour of the displaced mid-western sharecropper forced off his land by drought and dustbowl conditions.

Today, the Mexican labourer is the standard-bearer for the 30-40C hard work while his American counterpart drives an air-conditioned Hybrid-powered Prius to work in Silicon Valley’s shiny Apple and Adobe office buildings just a few miles north of here.

Reading Steinbeck’s stories of the Depression and the Salinas Valley was a treat for me in high school – his detailed, painted descriptions put me in the hot field alongside the poor emigrant farmer from Cimmaron, Oklahoma or Dallas, South Dakota.

……………………………………

We’ve been off driving through 8 western U.S. states for the past two weeks – absorbing the stunning views and the sounds, smells, and tastes of the country and its people – a fast-paced 14 day “tasting” tour.

This journey is another slice of the pie that makes up my bucket list goal of visiting each of the 50 American states – a slice bitten into and consumed in years past has been walking the roads of each Canadian province and territory.

Of course, this one blog post can’t bite very deeply into such a large pie. And so I’ll share with you an appetizer “taste” from each state we passed through of the larger impressions and themes that swirl in my head from such an odyssey.

But first … an important starter.

Music.

I always find a way of cementing a trip like this or any other into my mind, is to choose one song that somehow connects with the memory and impressions of the scenery and the people. We all know a certain song heard years later re-immerses us in the sights, sounds and smells of a moment in time.

With the exception of California, the musical sounds of the western America’s radio airwaves are dominated by country station after country station, while the talk radio is all evangelical scripture and deep-voiced preacher types.

One song played over and over again each day that I couldn’t resist singing like my hair was blowing long and unfettered in the breeze – Bartender – sung by the trio Lady Antebellum –  a harmonious blend of voices, pop-country beat and great banjo picking at the end of the chorus (I even enjoyed the song before I’d seen the video featuring blond eye-candy Kate Upton — BONUS!!). This song will project a clear vision of the highways of the western U.S. onto my interior TV screen for years to come.

And so now, my quick and dirty impressions:

• WASHINGTON – Known as a huge apple-growing state I was taken by surprise to find a prairie landscape on its interior roadways. The stretches of blacktop between Spokane and Grand Coulee Dam were surrounded on both sides by monstrously huge grain and hay fields stretching into the distance. It only seemed appropriate to eat a COW PIE – mashed potatoes, corn, crumbled meatloaf smothered in gravy – at the Cowboy Cafe in Davenport. YeeHaw!
  

  Where are the apple trees?

• OREGON – Sparkling sun interspersed with fog and mist along the twisting bends of craggy shoreline, azure sea and royal-blue sky. Scents of salt and slightly fishy breeze had me dreaming of the next serving of clam chowder and crab with each step along the long, sandy beaches.

• CALIFORNIA – Towering redwood and sequoia forests made tunnels every few miles along the weaving highway north of San Francisco. When you entered the grove, the air became damp in the dark and cool, as if someone had turned out the lights in the room. The car danced between the trees that hugged the edge of the roadway. Deep, vertical striations in the bark of the grand trees lead your eyes upwards, straight up like pencils because the trees have no signs of any bend in them. There was no branch growth going up for 40, 50, sometimes 100 feet.

Further south and west of L.A. – beyond Palm Springs and gargantuan “wind-turbine farms”, the hot, dry, desert highways were lined with mile after mile of plantations of almond and pistachio orchards.

• ARIZONA – Scrubby desert, McDonalds billboards, and 44C temperatures led us to the precipice of the striated, colourful Grand Canyon. Despite being the “shoulder season”, licence plates from across North America jammed the numerous parking lots leading to the Visitor Center and the edges of the immense canyon. Yes, it was GRAND!

• UTAH – 80 mile-per-hour (135kph) speed limits carried us northward like a strong tailwind. Evenly-spaced green grass clumps speckling the wide valleys like a measles epidemic collided with hillsides of red soil and rock. And then the white white granite architecture of Salt Lake City arose, the spotless homebase of Latter Day Saints. Immense, shuddering musical notes emanating from the colossal pipe organ inside the Mormon Tabernacle leave me breathless and at an unexplainably heightened spiritual level.

• IDAHO – Highways that in most areas normally rumble along with a happy mix of auto and 18-wheel freight truck traffic, are taken over by heavily-laden potato trucks running just-harvested tonnes of spuds to markets and storage depots and french fry processing plants. Yes, Idaho really does grow potatoes, lots of potatoes. I pulled out a bottle of ketchup and began to salivate as I drove alongside.

• WYOMING – Yellowstone Park has an amazing landscape of geysers, steamy outbursts, and bubbling mud flats. And then, of course, each 90 minutes, Old Faithful, the lover that never tires, recreates its explosive show over and over. It attracts tourists to its ritual performance, like a popular Broadway play in New York City, or, for a trip like this, like the Grand Canyon’s quietly impressive presentation further south.

• MONTANA – This is truly big cowboy country. Lacy, translucent mist in the valley bottoms with sun that streaks the upper surfaces and hillsides in the early morning dawn. Smooth-sloped hillsides that are grassy on one side, and furry with evergreen trees on the other side like a man’s unshaven back. Montana is replete with big skies, big fields, seemingly ubiquitous casinos and big, huge bellies. It’s a surprise to me that I haven’t encountered it before, but Montana is the first U.S. state where I’ve eyed the modern-day stereotypical American we all hear of with a huge appetite and belly to match.

…………………….

The road trip journey just ended has added another 8 states to my list and left me with a lifetime count of 22 states sampled. Yes, I’m not yet halfway finished in my search to make a call on all 50 states. It’s a dirty job …

But I’m carrying out my wanderlust pilgrimage by free choice and personal desire.

I look on John Steinbeck’s depression-stricken characters like Tom Joad; or today’s Salinas Valley, filled with desperate immigrants working for meagre pay – all impressive in their resilience and strength, carrying out their own journeys to survive – a necessity for existence.

For all of that, I feel myself so lucky, so fortunate, to live in a place and time where I’m not scrabbling hopefully, desperately, across the landscape searching for a meal and a dollar to survive.

Next time you’re in Utah, drop by my new enterprise!