Greek Sketches: Southbound

 

...we meander Thessaloniki, past ruins lying in open lots between the streets, in search of Byzantine churches, in search of lunch, in search of coffee.  The amazing Archeological Museum, Arch of Galerius, Rotunda.  Mount Olympus steadfast across the water, ships moving toward the Aegean.  Posters and stills in cafes for films I've never seen.  Dinner in a woody, nautical themed place that looked more at home in New England, or Central California, but for the bouzouki strumming in a back room.  We meet Adam in the morning, to wander the markets to sample Turkish delights, then up to the castle ruins to pose and photograph. Long lunch on a veranda with great views over the city, plus pizza and wine, as LYL tells our respective futures from Turkish coffee residue... 

...the road south.  A fire in a tunnel brings traffic to a crawl, but we escape before we get caught in it, and the rest of the afternoon is a long counter-clockwise loop around Olympus. Lingering snow on her upper flanks halts any discussion about a springtime climb.  The valleys beneath are broad and high, bringing to mind Colorado yet again...

...long pause in Volos, sipping cloudy ouzo on a patio beneath a spreading tree, talking Jason and the Argonauts who sailed from here.  It today has a somewhat run-down look, graffiti laden, with some threatening backstreets.  We wander one, peering through a workshop piled high with antique saddles.  The waterfront is tidier, with a massive model of Jason's Argo, and a sign warning Turkey to get their hands of Cyprus...

 

..the road climbs high along the Pelion peninsula, though little clinging villages that Adam narrates, creating bridges to legend and antiquity.   A brief stop for honey, then into Kissos as dark falls full.  This is our base for the night, in a beautiful old inn that is as charming as it is dark and cold.  The morning rain is heavy, so we linger long in our room before fleeing to a small and dark cafe in the village square, once again transported to the middle ages.  We read beside the fire until Adam shows up, then we grab our bags to descend through the fog to Agios Ioannis for lunch.  All is windy and stormy, the waves bashing against the concrete breakwater mere meters from the terrace where we dine...

 

...two nights at Damouchari.  I'd wanted the room at Ghermaniko Guesthouse where Romy Schneider stayed, but a German family has it.  Our room above the water is bright and spacious and has a massive terrace, where I read away much of our time here.  Little else to do but stroll the cliffside paths out to ruined cave temples, and to hidden beaches fed by towering waterfalls.   We share the paths with no one but olive trees and goats.  The quiet almost haunts us, here in the domain of the Centaurs.   We take a few meals on the stone terrace of Miramare, beneath photos of the cast of Mamma Mia, shot in this little bay.  (I hadn't seen the film, and upon watching it later, wish I still hadn't.) A fox joins us for lunch one afternoon, which I could practically hand-feed.  The Aegean beckons, but the wind-swept waves remain high and too dangerous to swim...

...driving the winding roads of the peninsula, visiting friends of Adam, both expat and local. Lunch at Itamos, then meander the stone paths up and down the hilly villages in order to work off the wine.  Tsagkarada is a regular fixture, particularly its great tree.  A final dinner with Adam at the magical Lost Unicorn, with the wine and conversation, cats and fireplace...

 

...and northbound again, albeit briefly.  Lunch at Dion, busy with Sunday families, then wander its remarkably expansive ruins, an overlap of Roman and Hellenic, where Alexander paid tribute before sojourning onward to Persia.  Olympus majestic above all.  I drive as far up its flanks as I can, then wander a trail briefly before retreating from the increasing rain, popping into a lively cafe here where hikes have been abandoned in favor of booze.  All is sunny and bright down in Litochoro. It is a charming little town, with an outdoorsy basecamp vibe that I always love.  We have a slow dinner at Gastrodromio, LYL looking toward the sea; me up the gaping yaw of valleys toward an Olympus fading in the light, whose full snowy form I won't see until the clear light of morning...        

...the incredibly varying scenery along the back roads, highlighting the vast extent of Greece's gastronomic agriculture.  We bisect a number of mountain ranges laterally, making us earn the journey back to Hellenic Greece.  The Monastery of Agathon is a courtyard oasis that is almost Himalayan, perched high above a broad river valley.  We dine on this view further over a terrace lunch nearby, before wending down past a downed fighter plane on a hillside, a tank in a village square.  And modern day tanks, caravans with license plates from all across Europe, clutter the landscape around Thermopylae.  I knew of the battle here, but not the springs.  I appreciate those more, and walk along the fast running stream of pleasant heat, trouser legs rolled high...

 

...we are surprised by the amount of snow on Parnassus, and surprised even more by a group of wild horses running up the road, thankfully cleared.  We keep pace with them awhile, before speeding onward to Arachova.  This too is a pleasant town, and our room sits on the valley edge, the perfect perch for late afternoon reading.  We wander the town as the light falls, up to the church atop all, though sadly our target taverna across the square is inexplicably closed.  We find another in the town center, Bonjour Cafe, with a cool wine cellar built into an ancient basement. Around the corner is a small Judo school.  I pop in and talk awhile with the teacher, a friendly young guy whose full beard and physique are outright heroic. Walking the dark lanes to our room, we pass an old women who enters a modest house on the corner.  Looking back, we note that the home she seemed to enter is boarded up, abandoned.  For two weeks we've been in pursuit of the ghosts of history, but here in this small town we've seen the real thing, one who probably never appeared in the pages of a Penguin paperback... 

..Arachova is on the doorstep of Delphi, so after grabbing take-away coffee and bread, we rush over to beat the tourist coaches.  We've done well, but more and more people arrive as we stroll the stones crawling uphill, and the fallen columns that are simply everywhere.  There are too many people are the museum, but we have the Tholos to ourselves, sitting quietly above the view...

 

...the drive back to Athens is through civilization gradually making its presence felt. Brief stops at Elefsina and Marathon, thankfully devoid of anyone but us.  The final descent through the hills is through a blackened landscape of last year's fires.  We wander aimlessly in search of lunch, which we take in Exarcheia, with its "edgy alternative vibe, its streets decorated with politically charged murals and lined with anarchist bookshops and stores selling rare vinyl and vintage guitars. Bars and clubs host live music, including rembetika (Greek blues), jazz and punk acts."  (Thank you G**gle.)  I love parts of cities like this, a mix of student and boho community with a dangerous feel that reminds me somehow of Seattle of the grunge years.  The archeological museum nearby impresses, then we continue our wander to get to the Acropolis for our reserved entry around sunset.  The alleys below are a riot of people, Americans mainly.  We retreat into smaller lanes, finding a quiet cafe beside Hadrian's Library.  Our server is a poet, and not being busy, he has time to chat Japanese poetry, and of course Lafcadio Hearn.  The Acropolis is as I remember, but sunset is far more pleasant than the heat of full morning.  I'm still put off by the never ending construction, and by the crowds, which are admittedly smaller at this hour.  I am far more taken this time with the views of the city.  We descend past a West African playing kora, and on into the tourist labyrinth of the Plaka.  We'd read about a classic old restaurant, with a mid-twentieth century vibe of old tables and celebrity photographs everywhere.  But this last meal in Greece was the worst of the trip, and the tourist circus outside was grating.  Two weeks in the countryside had given us so much, had taught me a great deal.  So it was a shame to end the trip this way, surrounded by the trappings of a century that thus far, has failed to impress...

 

On the turntable: Phish,  '1998-04-04, Providence Civic Center"

 

Greek Sketches: Northbound

...Octavian found victory at Actium more easily than we found the old battlefield itself.  The handful of homes scattered along the marshy shoreline blocks any access to the water, and there is no signage of any kind.  Surrendering, we drive north to Nicopolis, whose old walls parallel the quiet country road.  The crumbling stone edifaces and archways were put here by Octavian in 29 BC, after his victory, hence the name.  We walk awhile, gazing into the amphitheater, followed by a dog who briefly adopts us, before returning to the car to visit other Roman ruins that lay scattered along this narrow isthmus. The Necromanteion of Acheron is just to the north of here, above a small village.  I found conflicting information about whether the site would be open on this Holy Friday, but it is the locked gate rather than the old Oracle that tells the tale.  The dead would begin their journey to the underworld from here, floating down the River Hades.  Today it is kayakers who make the journey, drifting through a broad and beautiful valley.  The friendly dog who trails me as I enjoy the views I naturally call Cerberus, who chases the car awhile as we drove off...

...Dodoni lies nestled in yet another beautiful valley, whose surrounding hills reminds me of Boulder.  The ruins form a berm of sorts, hinting at an elaborate palace befitting the Oracle of Zeus.  Spring wildflowers bring color to the grassy spaces between the stones, watered by a quick and sudden storm that is a brief interlude to otherwise perfect blue skies...

 

...Greater Ioannina is a city of traffic and graffiti. Our target taverna is bustling for lunch, so we choose an outdoor seat just up the road.  Away from the sea, we settle on moussaka and a local white, a stronger tipple as befitting hearty country people.  As we eat, I watch suspicious looking figures pop in and out of an adjacent pharmacy. Once inside the inner walls of the old citadel, we immediately regret our choice of accommodation in the grotty modern city, as here all is tidy and clean.  The atmospheric upper ramparts of the castle give great views over the lake, and music wafts out from the church.  Byron had been here too, a guest of Ali Pasha, with whom he was not terribly impressed.  The Pasha is still here, his tomb covered by an iron cage.  Back in town, we have ice cream with Voula, an old university classmate of LYL.  She and her husband Vassilis are based here in Ioannina, working with the university.  We walk along the water's edge, then pass up and over the citadel to the other side.  A number of times, Vassilis is approached by apparent strangers who take him up in brief conversation.  I knew that he has a number of books and has a newspaper column, but it is becoming clear that he has some significant fame as well.  We wind up at a lakefront restaurant, quiet for the holiday, and with only about 10 percent of its menu available. But there is wine.  We make due, watching the ducks bounce in the waves of an evening gone windy...

 

...The winds have brought unstable weather overnight, which is what we don't want for our walk along Vikos Gorge.  But the mist at play beneath the towering stone walls is hypnotizing, a good distraction from the sheer drops a mere step off the narrow path.  The weather clears as we climb off trail to unmarked viewpoints, and allows us good photos of the meadow crowded with stone towers and small cairns that we stumble upon on the way back to Monodendri. We walk the cobblestone trails through the village, until the rain determines that it is lunchtime, which we take in an old inn that is familiar from any film set in the Middle Ages. Being a hotel, it would make for a great overnight.  But we are daytripping, so continue our walk, around town, down to the Monastery of Saint Paraskevi, an almost Indian name, as is Vikos itself, magnificent now in the full light of the sun... 

 

...We drive in and out of the clouds, over high mountain roads that abate at Papigko, tucked deep into the Zagori. Our digs for the night are in a sort of B&B, an old house horseshoed around a stone courtyard.  Our proprietress is a funky artist type, almost witch-like, with an apparent penchant for knitting. She takes us to the upper garden, but it is too misty to sit, and there are no views anyway.  LYL and I walk the small village, then settle in for dinner.  Our first choice is an atmospheric old taverna, but the menu was limited and the vibe a tad unfriendly.  Next door is bright and cheerful, and beneath the table my foot keeps time with the 70s rock coming through the speakers overhead.  The stone walls of our bedroom make for a chilly night, but we go out anyway, to enjoy Easter services in the village church.  We've arrived too early as not much is happening, but over the next hour more and more people fill the narrow recesses as the priests drone on and on.  Being from a small town myself, I begin to recognize archetypes, and my mind creates stories about them as I wait for something to happen.  Finally at midnight it does, as the bells begin to toll, and we all step outside to enjoy the fireworks, and those candle-lit balloons that drift ever heavenward like the souls of Jesus, though their eventual return will bring not salvation but polluted forests...

...I awake early to read in the courtyard, but the cold chases me in again.  I have coffee and little Easter chocolates until it is time for breakfast proper.  We walk the village again, this time under perfect blue skies.  In the full light it becomes clear that this mountain village is the preferred choice of holiday homes of the wealthy Greek city-dweller.   And why not, set beneath the towering stone spires above, still dusted with snow.  We find too that we missed a better hotel by a dozen meters or so.  Booking our hotels for this trip was tricky, as the trip was quite last minute due to scrambling after a cancelled cruise, and some prolonged coordination with friends we'd meet along the way.  While our accommodation was perfectly fine, the better spots had all been snatched up, which now makes sense with the awareness of the Easter holiday weekend... 

 

 ...We point the car deeper into the mountains, winding down some steep switchbacks that we'd come up the day before, which bottom out at a quaint little water crossing, before climbing steeply back up again. Here again is classic southern European mountain scenery, moving through forests from which a village will suddenly appear, clinging impossibly to the steep hillsides. (We can thank centuries of foreign invaders for catalyzing such charm.)   We stop the car at the Konista stone bridge, whose steep arch we climb for the obligatory photos, before sitting to coffee at a taverna on the far side.  We are meant to meet Voula here, or so we thought, for we find later that the bridge that served as our meeting point was not this (obvious) one, but was the one at the quaint little water crossing of an hour or so before.  But all is well as we walk the forestry road built high along the river, as beneath us kayakers drift toward Albania, drawing my eyes downward and past them to the older stone trail that plays peek-a-boo on the river's rougher side. We'll take lunch out on a terrace that overlooks a very smokey smokehouse across the car park.  The restaurant is busy this Easter Sunday, but the streets of town are silent, but for some wandering Romani musicians, who we pay to play a folk song for us.  Voula's house is at the top of the hill, with great views over toward Albania.  Though still geographically Greece, this is historically Macedonia, and Vassilis is one of the top scholars on the Vlachs, a medieval Balkan people from this region.  (Culturally, this segment of the trip has very little Hellenic Greek feel, having crossed a cultural border of sorts once we hit Ioannina.)  I read on the patio until the change of light brings out wine, then leafy dolmas.  Neighbors pop by to offer holiday greetings, all members of Vasilis's family, who all have adjoining properties.  I imagine there had once been a large family estate here, now divided up post-war.  When the light finally goes, we head off to a bed, and a very cold night.  Up here, spring is synonymous with winter...

 

...We take the faster lowland route back to Ioannina, then trace the lake's north shore before climbing again.  Aside for a quick coffee, we only stop again at Meteora, the trip's highlight for me.  I was memorized the first time I saw the cliff monasteries in a 45 year old Bond film.  We pass the rest of the morning visiting a few, up and down the steep stone steps to the eyrie churches taking up every inch of space atop the rocks.   But between, the crowds and traffic are too much.  (Easter Monday too is a thing here.)  So we retreat to the lowlands for a late lunch, then rest through the afternoon on the lawn of our small hotel, as a team of climber rappels from the impossible chimneys high above.  An early start brings respite from the hordes, and I've saved the three most intriguing sites to have nearly to ourselves.  Traffic begins to build as we move out of town. We follow small rivers, alongside which villages come and go. We climb again, though the roads run straight as they cut across high plateau, punctuated with small reddish shrubs like every other highland in the world.  We had to forfeit a visit to a site related to Alexander the Great due to Holy Tuesday (enough already!) but pulled into Thessaloniki by lunch time. It felt like we'd left Greece, and arrived in Turkey.  Which, culturally, we had...

 

On the turntable: David Johansen, "Live it Up"

 

Greek Sketches: Westbound

 

...That 2018 cruise around the Greek isles instilled in me a love for the country.  From ancient ruins to the animated kindness of most of those we met.  I find that my frat boy days paid off in an ability to still read the language, even without knowing the meaning of the words created by combining those familiar sounds.  And the biggest takeaway was that there are few afternoons better spent than one spent sitting outside a waterfront taverna, washing down calamari with local wine, and watching the cats frolic...

...no islands this time, being early May.  We'll drive the mainland instead.  Arriving late, we grab a hotel, and it is there that I find that we've arrived during Orthodox Easter week, something I'd never even considered.  The holiday is spread out over 5 days, and along with Mayday, mean a great number of frustrating closures.  Our hotels are set in stone, but I am able to reconfigure how the days will be spent, and though that means more time spent in the car, in the end we only miss two intended sites...

...the rental car process adds further frustration.  (Moral of the story: take great care if booking with a local company.). We pull out of town late, but finally free ourselves of the Mayday traffic and head north at first, though a rural landscape of dry jagged hills.  I'm intrigued by the vast number of shuttered petrol stations, no doubt hangovers of the financial crisis of a decade ago...

...up a narrow windy mountain road common to southern Europe.  The valley opens up to reveal a charred landscape, black stick figured trees abound.  The flames got as far as an old tree of great height standing on the edge of the terrace of Holy Monastery of Hosios Loukas, perhaps then turned back by the power of prayer.  Luckily for us this 1000 year old monastery lives on to dazzle us, stone courtyards framed by the Byzantine architecture I love so much.  We grab a sandwich in a small shop here and eat quietly with the silence and the views...

...the road to the sea winds downward as switchbacks cut into a steep mountain face, then traces the village-punctuated bays. People here drive like New Mexicans, well under the speed limit. When you live in the middle of nowhere, what's the hurry?...

 ...Galaxidi is our base for the night, a terraced room atop a hill.  The door opens onto views of the village proper, set around a square that fronts the water. We'll follow the waterline along to the marina, settling into a taverna just across from a flotilla of small fishing boats that are props in 1950s films.  The rest of the night is seafood and a bottle of white and pondering a life here, as cats nuzzle our calves...

 

...as we breakfast, a large tortoise traces the white chalk lines dividing the flagstones of the terrace.  We'll move significantly faster along the coast, west toward Nafpaktos.  Classic Mediterranean beach town, quaint shops and eateries bisected by traffic moving at a crawl.  We flee the latter for the heights of the old castle, the jagged ramparts overlooking the Gulf of Cornith, formerly known as the Gulf of Lepanto.  Cervantes lost a hand in an eponymous battle here, and his statue still stands beside the now tranquil waters.  Thank the gods of literature that he kept his writing hand...  

...not far away, another foreigner lost more than his hand.  Missolonghi honors Lord Byron with both a grave and a tall statue at one end of town.  We wander its narrow streets, first in search of lunch, and later the house where the famous poet drew his last breath.  The way to the latter is unclear, and we find ourselves moving into an unattractive area of empty lots (though we are puzzled by a house whose lavish third story is supported by two unfinished floors below. Very Indian.)  Giving up, we decide to circle back, and find ourselves passing a stone plaque telling us that this is where Byron died of fever in 1824 during the Greek War of Independence...

 

...a heavy rainfall accompanies us along the road to Lefkada.  I had wanted to have a quick dip in the sea here, my first immersion in the Ionian Sea.  But the day has grown cold, and our hotel provides no parking, forcing me to park way across the city, everything else full on this Holy Thursday(!).  The town is the birthplace (and namesake) of Lafcadio Hearn, a hero of mine, whose first residence in Japan was 30km up the coast from where I myself landed a century later, and whose Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan proved a valuable guidebook to the area. Today I find his museum closed, the first of the holiday sacrifices.  I do find his birth house, tucked down a small lane that leads to the main strolling street, overhung with bunting.  We divert to the waterfront to watch the sunset from the famed wooden bridge.  Apparently at one time the entire town was built of wood, after being leveled in an 1825 earthquake. But the taverna we settled into is now stone, as is the hotel balcony, where I watch the sun rise the next morning, over the pontoon bridge that now connects this once-island to places further afar...

 

On the turntable:  No Doubt, "The Singles 1992–2003" 

 

Santiago sketches

We begin the day with a visit to Isla Negra, Neruda's rambling old beach house built above the high waters of the Pacific.  It is a wonderful layout, the rooms flowing into one another, and filled with the fascinations of a man's life.  The beauty of his eye matches that of his verse.  It is the perfect place for an artist to finish out his life, surrounded by his memorabilia, and with a lovely view to ponder.  It reminds me a great deal of Bergman's estate on Fårö.  We were lucky to arrive at opening, and have the place to ourselves for a short time.  But even as others joined us, there was still a sense of quiet repose here, in these houses beneath the sweep of trees leaning away from the wind.  

Our driver seems to have no idea where he's going, and I watch again and again our vehicle turn broader loops on the Galileo Pro map on my iPhone.  It is lovely countryside though, through pine forests and classic little beach towns.  The main thoroughfare from Valparaiso to Santiago passes through Chile's wine country, and I find myself wishing I'd budgeted a day to stop along the way.  As it is, we only have this one day in Santiago, which is why the driver's indecision frustrates me.  I feel this way often while guiding in Japan, when my drivers ask me which way to go.  These guys have a single job to do, and aren't doing it. It wouldn't take more than five minutes to confirm the route before setting out.  

Our visit in Santiago too begins at Neruda's house there, the third in two days.  This one is almost a hybrid of the others, with the crowded decor of Isla Negra, but  built more vertically like La Sebastiana.  I like how each of the little houses is interconnected by courtyards.  The weather here must be better than out on the coast.

Santiago itself is modernizing quickly into the usual cold faceless city, but still bears plenty of monuments to its fading colonial glory.  (Valparaiso on the other hand was going beyond faded and running more to wilted, but at least they had the street art, and bit more charm.) The city's main appeal was its plentiful green spaces, and the funky bohemian vibe to BellaVista and La Starria.  We follow a walking course in one of my guidebooks, which takes in all the old buildings, and we break awhile from the 35 degree heat in the Pre-Columbian Museum.  I am mesmerized by the old statues in the basement, and while wandering the rooms above I feel a little sadness and surprise in the number of cultures that died after the Spanish came.  As Americans, we are taught that our history began with Columbus, but in growing up I learned that his name is synonymous with genocide.  It is inherent in the name of the museum, his surname now serving as a definition for colonization.  

Santiago's glory is in the outdoor museum that is the Plaza de Armas, but I have to say my own highlight is Iglesia San Francisco, whose thick boxy exterior has the look of the fortified adobe cathedrals of my native New Mexico, yet whose interior is almost Byzantine.   

We fly off to Rapa Nui for a few days, but return to Santiago for 12 hours.  At dawn I climb up Cerro Santa Lucia, and scramble to the top of the fortress there, which could easily be found in Rajastan.  Santiago is infamous for its smog, but this day is reasonably clear, and lingering summer snow can be barely made out on the mountaintops just outside town.  (I'll get a better look a few hours later as we fly over these Andes, the high valleys not many dozen meters below us, and not that far north from where the Uruguayans crashed in 1972.) Upon arrival the previous night, flames crept up the hillside above the zoo and Neruda's home.  The smoke lingers in the morning air.


On the turntable:  Jefferson Airplane, "Last Flight"

Valparaiso sketches

The first things that strikes the visitor to Valparaiso is the color.  At the very first I thought it was simply graffiti, the artists having been diligent in using the downtown area as a canvas.  But as the car rolled on I saw that nearly every surface had been defaced, the art growing more refined the classier the neighborhood. I've always thought that the most repressive regimes tend to produce a fairly literary culture, and perhaps these artists are acting in the same spirit.  It would be interesting to see the effect of social media on graffiti.  Because when you think about it, those of us who use Facebook are acting as graffiti artists aren't we?   

 The first stop was Neruda's house, a strange vertical labyrinth that was almost like a towering jenga, all jutting corners resting on a central spine staircase.  The rooms were small and well decorated, though the ability to see how they interrelated was disrupted by the number of visitors, most standing around, listening to those infernal headsets.  I'd first seem these in Avignon last summer, and immediately hated them.  Like when we are on a mobile phone, we tend not to notice what's happening around us. I've always disliked how the Japanese visit art exhibits, moving around the walls in a single queue, which makes it impossible to change the angle or perspective as a viewer since to step back leaves a space that the next person with fill, completely obliterating your view.  These sets are even worse since these people become static objects that must be navigated around, and detracts a great deal from the visit.  As I mentioned before, this changes our ability to engage a place, so immersed as we are in the flow of subjective information.  If you want to learn more, look it up later for God's sake.

The city itself made for a better exhibition space anyway, providing constant color in a landscape shrouded by summer fog.  The gloom and the hills really did channel San Francisco.  We killed time at the surprisingly impressive (and free) Natural History museum downtown, waiting for J. Cruz Malbrán to open.  When it did, we sat at one of the long tables covered in sticky plastic, as a cat settled in above, curling itself at the foot of the familiar ceramic dog listening to 'his master's voice.'  The shelves were littered with old nic-nacs, as if everyone in the neighborhood had contributed the contents of their attics.  The meal (singular) consisted of chorrillana, basically grilled slices of beef piled atop a mountain of fried potatoes. There being no menu, this was it; the only real choice being red or white, in regards to the half bottle of wine serving as accompaniment.  

The streets outside were bustling with a lunchtime crowd, with people sprawled in the park, and a brass band blasting their horns off the marble facades of the old buildings at the center of town.  We left this all in climbing up to Cerros Concepción and Allegro, where we meandered around the narrow lanes, admiring the street art now highly refined.  These mesas act almost as islands of wealth and culture above a gradually deteriorating downtown. 

I left LYL at Palacio Astoreca, then descended again to the lower depths.  The city has a certain reputation for danger, so it was best I was alone and unencumbered by a backpack.  It was certainly one of the roughest places I've been in for a while, where every single resident seemed drunk, and the cars would swerve at you if you stepped into the street.  I would not want to be here at night. A large portion of the Barrio Puerto was crumbling ruins, victims of the 2010 earthquake.  

I took a similar stroll the next day at dawn, keeping to the safer highlands.  The murals seemed to shift with the coming light, so I looped a few times, picking up a dog somewhere along the way, the only life I saw, but for the life being rekindled in a dying city, in the vivid faces of its street art.  


On the turntable:  Joni Mitchell, "Shadows and Light"  

Floating off Patagonia

I passed my winter a couple of years ago reading three classics of polar exploration:  Fridtjof Nansen's Furthest North, Apsley Cherry-Garrard's The Worst Journey in the World, and Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage.  It was this final book that really caught my imagination, and upon completion I immediately began to look for a sea journey that take me to the waters of Cape Horn.  And I found one, sort of.  While it wouldn't take me (this time) to Antarctica or South Georgia Island, it would take me through both the Beagle Channel, and the Strait of Magellan.   

The true journey starts further north at Peninsula Valdes.  I'd been interested in seeing the old settler villages that Chatwin discusses (and offends), but we chose wildlife over the Welsh.  It is a long drive out to a beach best known from that David Attenborough nature film, where the orcas race ashore to take sea lion pups.  While I didn't really want to see that, I did want to see the fins of the great beasts cutting the cold grey waters offshore.  I was denied this (as I was while kayaking Canada two years ago), but bizarrely I saw an entire pod from the ship the following afternoon....

...our Defender seems to skip across the boggy surface of the Falklands, where roads are a recent and still untested concept.  I'm amazing at the light touch of this strong and heavy vehicle, like the kinetic grace of an NBA player in a slam dunk contest.  It is a world of green out here, framed by the grey of sea and sky.  I imagine it must look the Orkneys or the Shetlands, far away at Britain's other end.  The people too are conservative and hardy, as they would have to be.  But it was the penguins we came to see, hundreds of them, all standing at odd angles like at a cocktail party. (If you've got a few penguins, you've got a tourist industry.) We tail a few as they make their way out to the water, heads arcing like a metronome.  Watching them, one can't help but laugh. 

Town itself is small and very English.  There is an iron bust of Maggie down by the water, not far from the wrecks of older ships.  This far-flung outpost has a long seafaring tradition, as the last outpost before the Horn.  While the Panama Canal brought an end to that, the island appears healthy, if not a bit self-contained.  And I can't stop thinking of Brexit in that regard...

...the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans must not get along because the waters between are among the most turbulent in the world.  A day after leaving the Falklands, the rocking was horrendous, but we got what we paid for.  I jokingly thought while bouncing across the bogs of the Falklands that it was rougher than the boat. Not any longer.  Albatross skimmed these towering waves the entire day, oblivious to the tempest beneath.  The passengers however walked along the breakfast buffet as if doing dance steps they'd learned from the penguins the day before.  I'd hear later from the assistant captain that the wind speed was 87 knots, a record for this 24-year old ship...

...re-reading Theroux's In Patagonia (of course), the perfect accompaniment as his book is a meandering journey with little regard to destination.  We too weave through these islets, seeking calmer water....

...as an American who has lived at both ends of our broad landmass, the notion of traveling from Atlantic to Pacific is something of a wonder.  I remember feeling that during my single day's traverse of the Panama Canal.  And though this passage through the Beagle had taken two days, it was nothing short of magic...

...the Rocky Mountain feel of Ushuaia, its multiple outdoor shops overhung by glaciers. Our lunchspot too not unlike those in towns populated by mountain hipsters, this bakery with sandwiches, craft beer, and rummage sale decor.  But rather than hipsters it is immigrants who made this town.  Reading a little history later in the maritime museum, finding it incredible the number of people in Patagonia who had roots in former Yugoslavian countries.  The end of the earth as opportunity and adventure as opposed to the end of the earth as nowhere else to go...

...I spent the morning kayaking the Strait of Magellan, as dolphins curled across the waters nearby.  We'd picked up our gear in a small ranchero house built beside a compact rodeo grounds. In fact Punta Arenas itself feels a bit like a small town in central Texas, but that association may have been brought about by the similarity in flags.  We visit the former house of Bruce Chatwin's great-uncle, the inspiration for his journey.  And a travel classic was thereafter born.  From here it is a long ways out to the trio of historic ships just out of town, recreated to a greatly refined detail, and good fun to clamber around.  Shakleton's egg-like is a small space for six men to spend two weeks.  And Magellan's Nao Victoria was so narrow and tall it hardly looked seaworthy...       

 
...on the way to Lake Llanquihue, driving through forests scented with pine, though bespeckled by the light leaf of eucalyptus.  Enjoying rural still-lifes unseen by ship: old man making his way slowly down dusty lanes by cane, a trio of sleeping dogs, women working in the forest.  Plus strawberries, vineyards, corn, and a volcano the replica of the familiar Fuji...


On the turntable:  Jackie McLean, "Demon's Dance"             
On the nighttable:  W. Somerset Maugham, "The Summing Up"

Montevideo sketches

The first view we had of the city was of the ruined wrecks of ships, lashed together like a mountain of scrap metal at the center of the harbor.  The harbor front wasn't much more attractive, but it was the downtown itself that the rusting hulks most resembled.  The streets were lined with beautiful old colonial buildings, now left into crumbling ruin.  It reminded a lot of Havana, yet without any of the Cuban optimism. 

Uruguay could never be considered one of the continent's wealthier countries, and a deep poverty was on show, huddled beneath these edifices of ruined splendor.  Five of these buildings had been designated as memorial sites of sorts, but it seemed little different than having a rusting old Edsel in your backyard, and calling it an antique auto show.   

But it was pleasant to stroll the streets, lingering a little in the green and open spaces of the plazas.  Here, people walked dogs which bowed down before one another in a certain deference that served as metaphor somehow of years spent under military dictatorships.  But I know I'm projecting.

We reached the Plaza Independencia eventually, with the 1927 Art Deco rocketship that predated Buck Rodgers. This heart of the city gave evidence of a parallel between the cultures of Uruguay and Argentina, right down to the color and iconography of their flags. It was a delight to stroll back toward the harbor through the pedestrian streets, which started clean and tidy near the plaza, but it felt that by the middle reaches they'd given up, as structure after structure was simply boarded up and abandoned. The economy was not very kind here.

Ironically enough I spent most of my time in a memorial to a disaster of a different sort, one dedicated to the Uruguayan rugby team that had been in the Andean plane crash in 1972, made famous in books and films.  I had always remembered it that they'd been a soccer team, though the cannibalism part I could never get wrong.  I remember reading Piers Paul Read's Alive, probably when I was a boy of no more than 11 or 12.  I remember being haunted of a photo of Susana Parrado, who even at that young age I found a certain beauty, an image that perhaps was guiding me toward pubescence. It was a bit shocking to be wandering through fragments of airplane, which I at first thought were taken from the wreckage itself, but they'd simply replicated parts from a plane of a similar vintage.  Nothing apparently remained of the old wreck site, as the fuselage that had been their home for 72 days was burned shortly after their rescue.  There were a few odds and ends that had been picked up by mountaineers about 30 years later.  Most interesting to me was getting a follow up to the story, four decades after having read the book.  It was haunting to learn that the entire site where the plane once lay has been overtaken by the glacier.  

And I again saw metaphor, as a sluggish economy slowly encroached to overtake the glory of a once elegant society.                              


On the turntable:  Jeff Beck & Eric Clapton:  "Exhaust Note" 

Buenos Aires sketches

Cafe Tortoni is the perfect encapsulation of Buenos Aires, a baroque French look enveloping a Latin soul.  The city itself screams high culture, and Tortoni's waiters serve up cafe creme or a proper English tea, while the books on the shelves behind you are all local writers, and famed Argentinians look down from the photos on the walls (including from Manet's Chez Tortoni) .  It reminds me of Cafe Greco in Rome, and even the clientele looks the same: a few local hipsters immersed in their books not so much to strike a pose as to ignore the cruise ship tourist types, or the large groups of Chinese who look most out of place.

The streets outside could too be Paris, though thankfully less grungy and with less blaring of car horns. The boulevards are broad, the marble buildings still grand and surprisingly white, though that could be the bright sun above.  This latter point could also be why the parks have far more trees, most with thick trunks and huge canopies.   No building is more grand than the Tango Porteño, though sadly it is impossible to enter without an accompanying guide.  I bemoan again what tourism has done to the world, that it is becoming difficult to truly connect with a place, or to simply engage, without having someone in your ear drowning it all in facts.    

One fact that we do quickly pick up upon is that the streets are less safe than Paris.  On a few occasions someone gestures to LYL to hide her camera.  She does, and places both hands on her handbag.  Locals also serve as a resource in finding a good place for lunch, where we take reprieve after a morning of wandering.  The 90-year old Chiquilin is a perfect choice, soaked too in that baroque vibe, but the meat and the wines are from the pampas nearby . 

Strolls makes for the best digestif, and this one was through a city that grew more and more fascinating as we went. A literary, cultured, classical European society of the 19th century, superimposed upon by the military dictatorships of the 20th. I felt that that older society had been the victim of murder, and was now beginning to decompose economically.

On the turntable:  Jethro Tull, "Days of Giving"
On the nighttable:  Vincent Van Gogh, "Dear Theo"

A Great Wall

May 2005 

It was on a trip to Beijing.  Walking across one of the big open courtyards of the Forbidden City, my girlfriend at the time said something, and I knew at that moment that we could no longer be together.  We visited the Great Wall the following day, and none of my memories of that day seem to include her.  She had already begun to recede from my life. 



On the turntable:  Joni Mitchell, "Wembley Arena, 08-24-1984"

Indo I: Delhi & Shimla

Sketches from a one month meander through India last October.


DELHI

...a man crossing the street is nearly taken out by a motorbike in front of the Nizam-ud-din Shrine.  We wander the warren of lanes, trying to memorize our way back out.  The water in the ghat in the middle of this maze is filthy, yet is busy with bathers.  The shrine grounds are packed for the Thursday night qawwali.  A young bespectled student type asks for a voluntary donation, which we give.  Nearby, a dwarf plays with a group of children, in a safe and uncrowded corner...

...chubby man coming down the steps of Jama Masjid quite gingerly, wearing an "Endurance College" T-shirt.  Obviously he flunked out...

...why is there a picture of Gandhi on all the police stations?...

...city bus with an advert for Uber...

...the mosque at Firoz Shah Kotla, is segregated even in ruin. Through the shattered brick walls I spy a handful of kneeling men, bowing forward again and again in waves... 

...a dawn visit to the Red Fort.  A black dog follows me for an incredibly long time, as if he'd adopted me.  Men futilely rake a massive and incredibly littered space out front.  Low-lying Chandni Chowk, like a groove in the city, as if everything in the city rolled away and came to rest there.   I have the Fort to myself, arriving even before the Chatta Chowk bazaar opens.  The fort has seen better days, but still has features that surprise, namely the throne backed by Italian marble (though I suppose the greater surprise would have been had by those executed here).    

...the driver I've hired for the day warned me off walking through the old city, claiming it was too dangerous.  He was happy to arrange a tonga though, but I'd already done that the day before, me eventually taking over for the rider who looked exhausted.  (And rightly so, it is no joke bicycling through the heat and smog of the labyrinth that is Old Delhi.)  There is an uncomfortable moment when I tell him to wait for me at the car, as he seemed to want to act as guide and remain at my side.  It has the feeling of telling a dog to heal, and I don't like myself much. But he mothers me a little too much, and seems anxious when I wander away in dodgy neighborhoods.  In time I realize his concern is more a masked phobia of Muslims. He also seems to have bad eyesight, which makes his navigation of traffic a little too interesting...

...I visit Purana Qila.  There is a zoo next door, but what's the point of a zoo in India, when all you had to do is look out the window. Lots of couples on the open grounds of the Qila, cuddling in the shade.   Now and again a guard will come through and separate them with a holler.  But all is 1950's innocence here, the boys laying with their heads in their girlfriend's laps... 

...a hijra slinks in a feline like way through traffic and up to my car window, palm then rapidly extended.  As I shake my head softly no, I get a nonchalant smile and she sashays away...

...I'm given a boxed lunch on the bus, which I don't particularly want.  I decide to give it to a beggar, but despite my best efforts, I can't find one.  I walk and walk, laughing that I am unable to find a beggar in India...
   
 ...a large gang of monkeys, most of them newborns, dig through a pile of rubbish behind the Secretariat Buildings...

...horses standing around Shahajahanabad's Turkman Gate, adding to the old-timey vibe...

...Connaught Place.  I've been warned to take care here, as it is a haven for the untrustworthy.  Apparently shoe-shine boys will flick shit onto your shoes in order to coerce you into a shine. The ear cleaners too are apparently pretty pushy.   I trace the ring around Connaught a couple of times, the shops closed, yet people are making their way to work.  On two occasions a man will fall into step in order to start up conversation, mainly to tell me of a relative living abroad. Neither of these encounters is threatening.  The second time, my driver pops up out of nowhere.  He's apparently been watching me, and thinking the man is pulling some kind of scan, begins to argue with him, the latter pleading to me to call him off.   I eventually duck down a side street toward the Oxford Book Store, stopping for a chai to kill time before it opens.  It is a little slice of hipster India: tie-less, short sleeved young men with perfect hair hunch over their Macs.  The bookshop too is hip and neon bright, with a young staff and a coffee bar attached.  I find the Kipling section and pick up a Penguin India copy of Kim. I figure it would make a nice souvenir, and it is only 200 rupees.  But then I remember the street kids, and think how much the same 200 rupees would mean to them.  I replace Kim on the shelf...

...a short walk from Connaught Place leads me through quiet neighborhoods to Agrasen ki Baoli, which immediately becomes my favorite place in Delhi.  This step well has all the look of a ruin, yet acts a peaceful oasis from the city, all young couples and a few Asian tourists.  While I wait for a couple of girls to go through their selfie rituals so that I can get a photo, I talk to a trio of boys sitting in front of the old mosque at the top of the steps.  They alternate between friendly and teasingly aggressive, so I leave them.  They later follow me out, still mocking, teasing. I make eye-contact with a long-haired and sympathetic looking taxi driver, and make the international gesture of toking a joint, as if the boys are silly and high.  The driver immediately perks up and asks me if I want to buy some pot.  Shit.  I laugh and walk away shaking my head...     

...protests in front of the main Police Station, with an "interfaith" theme.  But even this demonstration for religious tolerance grows heated, so I quickly leave Jantar Mantar before the swelling crowds cut off my escape. Along the way, I notice a hearse standing by...

...A Stroll through the quiet of the Lodi Gardens.  Stopping short to see a family repairing the walk, the children carrying bricks.  The youngest girl must be around my daughter's age, mud splattering her little dress.  I walk away to the shade of Sikandar Lodi Tomb, fighting back tears...

...approached by young men (always young men) to take a selfie inside Shish Gumbad, then step out the other side to a riot of schoolkids.  Beyond them, a group of people perform extreme yoga poses in matching T-shirts.  I wander away toward Safdarjung Madarsa, quiet but for a few girls chatting in the shade.  As I depart, I wade through a large group of schoolkids on a field trip, and my hello creates a roar of children greetings that echo beneath the stone, as their teachers try to quiet them down...

...returning to the hotel, and the body of our tour group.  A number of them tell how brave I am in wandering Dehli's streets, but I feel the opposite, a little sorry that they hadn't... 

...the peaceful oasis of our Maurya Hotel which resembles the Ranganathaswamy Temple of India's south, above the canopy of trees that spreads away in all directions.  Gazing out over the forest it is easy to see why Delhi is considered one of the world's greenest cities.  Beneath the canopy are all the embassies and the villas for government ministers, parliamentarians, and diplomatic corps.  If you limited your sightseeing to just this area, you'd think Delhi one of the most beautiful places in the world...

...the blood red sunsets over the haze...


    
ON THE TRAIN TO SHIMLA

...train pulling out of Delhi, offering a full view of the slums, the worst I've ever seen.  Cows and wild boar eat the garbage strewn everywhere.  Lots of people undertaking their morning ablutions at this early hour, squatting in full view. (I'd be surprised to see many men also squat to pee, but only if they are wearing kurta.) Woman squat too, though a slight distance from the men.  Boys simply stand, bait and tackle free in the breeze...

...on the train, each of the Englishmen is reading a newspaper, as if doing the daily commute back home. Over time I notice that the boldest font is used for tragedies in places that none of us have even heard of...

...a fellow passenger, a very old and dignified Indian woman with white hair, dark face, and a box of freshly jarred marmalade, which I lift for her onto the overhead rack, her cautioning at the fragility.  Life at either of its extremities certainly simplifies what truly is important...

...the fresh wheat cut on the Yamuna plain is stacked into domes that resemble the tops of minarets. Harvested rice fields are burned into tan and black stripes. The simple and tidy earthen farmhouses, many with a satellite dish. One has a massive advert for "Hero" bicycles painted on its side... 

...the uniform white of Chandrigarh in the distance, like bleached bones...

 

SHIMLA

...Shimla's roads and arteries like pasta spilled down the hillside.  The fainter traces of trails like lacework....
 
...Away from the traffic, Shimla is like a college town, with its lovely little pedestrian mall lined with shops, cafes, and cheap hotels.  I admire the church from afar, and later kick myself for not going in after I heard that Kipling's father designed the stained-glass windows...

...road works done by white-garbed Sikhs in bright orange vests...

..The drive down to Chandrigarh. While Taiwanese drivers are considered the world's most dangerous, Japan has the worst, and India the most foolish.  Buses overtake on blind curves through the mountains at speed. Apples for sale everywhere.  Shimla's now closed airfield like a plaster on the hillside. A man on the roadside pulls his chainsaw toward his sandalled foot.  Traffic slows to a crawl due to a puja.  A man nearly gets left behind by his bus as he pees obliviously on the roadside, and upon noticing, races uphill after the receding vehicle. (I certainly hope that he had finished his business first.)  A fleet of Mercedes overtakes the entire flow of traffic, some political bigwig aboard, flanked by bully-boys who scowl and gesture at the drivers to pull the fuck over. (Most of the worst traffic snarls or delays I experienced while in India were due to politicians moving from point A to B.) Lone bicyclist with a Czech flag rides through the dust swarms as he ascends slowly. Driver on a mobile makes a half-assed attempt to pull off the road, fouling four entire lanes of traffic.  And the fundamental disappointment that Chandrigarh's railway station is eight km outside town.  I was hoping to get a glimpse of the town that La Corbustier designed, India's first planned city.  I've heard the city called both stunning, and hideous.  Next time...


On the turntable:  Gypsy Kings,  "The Very Best of the Gypsy Kings"
On the nighttable: Rudyard Kipling "Plain Tales from the Hills"