tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83424153411452391122024-03-08T14:31:59.760-08:00The Lone WalkerThis is a journal of my travels in Germany, southern Africa, and Switzerland in spring and summer 2016Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.comBlogger53125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-89376906956225924672023-09-28T19:58:00.001-07:002023-09-28T19:58:27.096-07:00Representation and realityI am reading an interesting book (just published) by Andy Clark, “The Experience Machine….” about the now well-established fact that our perception works by predicting continuity and transmitting only to correct prediction errors – and then only what is currently relevant, because of limited band-width. One fact I didn’t know and one I knew but didn’t connect before. There are +/- 4 times as many neural circuits from brain to perceptual organs as from perception to brain. Aha! Explains a lot. And – broadcast engineers greatly increase capacity by using the same assumption. My first publication was a critique of naïve attempts to apply information theory to human communication (and my first book an expansion of that critique) but I failed to see how that one wholly justified and useful application of Information Theory might apply to human perception and conversation. (So did everybody else at the time.)
From another interesting book, Enfield “The Way We Talk”: It takes a half second to understand an utterance and a half second to formulate a reply – painfully long - so keep conversation moving, we all maintain a representation of the conversation and use it to predict what the current speaker will say and when they will finish – and to maintain and constantly up-date our potential replies, so we can jump in as soon as they finish. If they surprise us, “um” or “uh” or an equivalent will hold the floor while we re-formulate the (erroneously) prepared reply.
We live and act in a world we imagine, partially (as relevant) updated by our limited-capacity senses. Because our brains and neural circuits are slow, we experience the past and act in the future. I’m not sure what we mean, then, by “the present.”
Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-14817151774281681752016-07-06T12:05:00.002-07:002023-06-09T16:03:08.213-07:00Hiking in SwitzerlandHiking in Switzerland <br />
The plane from Madagascar to Paris flew almost directly over the route I will be hiking; looking down I noticed the high passes still seemed to have quite a bit of snow on them Alpine Hikers told me most of the passes are clear enough for safe passage, but one might be impassible – however, with two weeks before I reach it they thought it might clear. <br />
The trip from Berlin to the first stop, Schwarzwaldalp hotel, was uneventful – beautiful scenery, a very slow bus up the mountain that cost an astounding 27 Swiss Franks for a 40 minute ride. The road from Meiringen is very steep and very narrow – like a Forest Service road with good pavement; whenever two vehicles meet one has to pull almost completely off the road and stop; sometimes one has to back up a ways to come to a suitably wide spot. The drop-off is steep enough to be rather scary for much of the journey. Schwarzwaldenalp is set in a virtual pasture, a green meadow that leads up to a modest but steep and rocky hill. It has the qualities of a rustic ski cabin – my room is so small it was very challenging to sort out my belongings and separate what goes in the suitcase with the transfer driver and what I carry in my backpack. Dinner was quite good, and ended with a lovely fruit salad topped with sorbet made from black currents – definitely something I want to repeat. <br />
Slept well – there is a small but very steep and noisy stream not far from my window – that and the sound of cow bells were lovely. Cow bells accompanied me all the way up to the pass and along the high path, across two gondola paths to a clear mountain lake, then down to Grindle… At first the sky was quite cloudy – but as I neared the top of the pass enough of the clouds cleared that I had gorgeous views of several famous mountains including Eiger and Jungfrau. They played hide and seek behind the clouds most of the day; otherwise it was a lovely walk, wildflowers everywhere, warm enough that I finally unzipped the legs of my hiking pants to turn them into shorts. <br />
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Thursday, July 7<br />
My room in Grindelwald was very nice – had a balcony with a good view of one of the mountains.<br />
Today dawned warm and sunny – great day for a hike. At the advice of Alpinhikers I took a train up to Alpiglen – 2000 feet above the valley floor – to start the hike there. The train is narrow gauge, driven by a cogwheel that engages a center ratchet rail. It was packed with tourists – not one of whom got off with me at Alpiglen. Also at the advice of Alpinehikers I took the Eiger Trail – it switch-backs steeply up at least 1500 feet, then continues to climb slightly less steeply toward the base of the Eiger Face, which it parallels for a mile or so, just beneath where it gets vertical. Spectacular views – although from that bottom perspective it doesn’t look nearly as high as it actually is. <br />
Following the directions, and not realizing until too late that an alternate trail provides a potential shortcut, I walked down to the pass, Klein Scheidegg, where my way to the recommended alternate trail (across the railroad tracks and down) was blocked by several hundred tourists queueing up to pay $50 or so to ride up to the restaurant on a shoulder of Jungfrau – tour guides were guarding the only passage through the fence, and I had to shoulder my way to the front and pretend I was part of a group from India to get through the gate and cross the tracks. That having been accomplished, it was a very nice hike through woods and meadows, with many spectacular mountain views along the way. It ended with a steep descent, over 1500 feet, to the level of Wengen, which is a small tourist village perched on the edge of a glacial valley, about 1600 feet up from the valley floor. (That descent is how I will start my day tomorrow.) <br />
<br />
Saturday, July 9. My knee was not happy with that steep descent, so I decided to take the train down to Lauterbrunnen and walk from there. I also bought a knee brace, and dosed myself liberally with motrin. All that worked – my knee actually felt better when I reached Obersteinberg. They day was somewhat cloudy, but quite pleasant for the walk. For the first couple of hours the peace and bird-song was disrupted every half hour by helicopter racket, but as I entered the upper part of the valley that faded, leaving only bird song and cow-bells. The valley is a typical U-shaped glacial valley, close to 2000 feet deep, with sheer walls and frequent waterfalls, many of which would dwarf Multnomah Falls. <br />
Eventually I headed up the very steep – but well-maintained – trail to the top of the canyon, where the pastures are merely steep, not vertical. (I feel certain Heidi did not suffer from acrophobia!) As soon as I broke out of the forest I found myself sitting in a meadow with a spectacular view of one of the Tschinglehorn, beyond the end of the valley. It was a lovely, idyllic place to have lunch and rest my feet. After a half hour, I continued on – the trail still had close to 500 feet to climb to get to the level of the family farm / mountain inns that line up along the top of the canyon. Steep-sloped (if they had snow on them I wouldn’t ski down them) lovely meadows with cows and sheep, frequent barns… Finally my trail joined the main trail, shortly before hotel Tschingelhorn, where several hikers were enjoying drinks and lunch on a lovely terrace. Unfortunately, lunch tends to be sandwich and pizza, and I can’t drink the beer, which is what I really want. Another 45 minutes through meadows (some almost level, although 20-100 meters back the meadow slopes steeply uphill toward a spine of sheer rock 800 feet above the trail.) I finally came to Obersteinberg, a rustic, mostly stone two story farmhouse/hotel that dates to the beginning of the 20th century and boasts a fantastic view. <br />
I had an apfelsaft – carbonated apple juice, closest thing to a beer I could think of, checked in, the walked back along the trail a ways to a semi-secluded little meadow on the edge of the steep drop-off, where I napped for a while, then did some pushups and stretches and wandered back. Eventually I realized that the trail continues on along a more or less level stretch toward the end of the valley so I followed it for 35 minutes, past the end of the glacial valley, a box-canyon actually that ends abruptly in a wall of 1000 foot cliffs. Another half hour would have taken me to a small glacial lake at the foot of a glacier, but I had waited too late, and my knee didn’t want to climb the final 150 feet or so. <br />
Dinner was rather odd. The innkeeper assigned tables – instead of putting me in one of the empty seats next to a window (I guess she thought the couples seated at all the window tables would not want an intruder) she stuck me with a family of four women and two young boys. She served a salad of simple lettuce leaves – good but plain – then brought the main course; rice and a kind of meat stew for everyone else, a plate full of crisp but somewhat oily hash browns for me, with one fried egg and two very thin tomato slices on top. I asked her if I would have any meat and she explained that the sauce had flour in it so I couldn’t eat it. It apparently never occurred to her to hold back a half pound of the meat and just fry it in a frying pan. No dessert, fruit, or anything. <br />
Breakfast was downright skimpy – bread for everyone else, three rounds of puffed-oat cakes with jam for me, one small piece of cheese apiece for everyone – about an inch by two inches by a quarter inch. That was supposed to sustain us through 10-12 mile hikes. Fortunately I carried lots of snack food! I have mixed feelings about Obersteinberg. It is a neat, historic old inn, in a spectacular location, easy to find solitude and absolute quiet (except for songbirds and cow bells). However, the innkeeper made absolutely no attempt to accommodate my dietary needs – cooking my portion of meat without sauce could not have been that great a challenge. <br />
The day broke clear and beautiful today, so I took the high route, up to the foot of the huge rocks that line the ridge. It was rather vertiginous – a somewhat narrow trail cut into the side of a hill so steep it would qualify as a cliff if it did not have grass and flowers growing out of it – don’t dare turn an ankle or stumble, because it wasn’t self-evident that you’d be able to stop from rolling or sliding down and over the cliffs below. The view is spectacular, but I didn’t look at it until, a mile and a half along, I came to a place where the slope eased off and the risk of a fall slighter. Then I came to a trail that leads up a very steep slope to an almost level flower-strewn meadow, 700 foot climb but stunning both for the mountain scenery and for the flowers. I sat there for a half hour, ate the one fruit-nut bar I’d carried up, then slowly ambled back down to where I’d left my pack, sitting down to enjoy and photograph the flowers in several spots along the way. <br />
The rest of the trail wound along through meadows and finally ended a wooded area, where it turns steeply down – and becomes gravelly and treacherous. Fortunately it is not so steep that you can’t take really short steps, which reduces the strain on knees and other joints. Still, nearly an hour later, I was glad to be off it and back on a (relentlessly) sloping upward gravel road that leads to Murren. Along the way I saw farmers out in the steep meadow, recently cut, where they were turning the hay by pitchfork (much too steep for any farm machinery, I think). I also saw several meadows filled with triangular structures about six feet high, a post sunk in the ground with two other posts bracing it – these are placed there to slow the movement of snow down the slippery grassy slope and reduce avalanche risk. I had wondered about avalanche – I can’t see how snow could ever not slide down those slopes, and apparently they get 7-10 feet a year. <br />
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Sunday July 10 <br />
This second day in Murren was scheduled to be a take it easy, rest up day – a nice hike on the bench above Murren laid out. Beautiful weather; I started out at a nice stroll, stopping to take pictures even though the sun was still on the wrong side of most of the mountains. Around 11 I came to a junction with a trail that led rather steeply up toward a ridge; I didn’t know if I wanted to work hard enough to go clear up but decided to see. I headed up, and after thirty minutes, about halfway to the ridge, came to a level grassy meadow, containing the bottom of a ski lift. I decided that was high enough for a take it easy day, so took off my shoes, put sun block on my feet, and spent a very nice hour and a half – ate some snacks, did some stretching exercises, took a half nap (head propped up so I could see the mountains across the canyon – principally, Eiger, Monch, and Jungfrau. A few other people exerted enough effort to get to that idyllic place, but we spaced ourselves out enough for a feeling of true solitude. <br />
Other highlights of the day: coming upon a herd of cows all jingling their bells; a symphony of bells with Eiger in the background. Lots of lovely flowers. Loitering long enough to get a photo of Eiger with at least some sun on the north face (not visible from Murren). Low-lights: a biting bee-like insect (it left huge patches of blood) forcing me to zip my long pant legs back on and spray with bug repellant. Coming across a youngish woman who had fainted in the trail – several people were with her, shading her from the sun while the medics arrived by helicopter – and I assume took her away. Someone said heat – although it was not a particularly hot day. But if she’s not used to high altitude and has not been drinking enough water (and eating enough salt), dehydration is certainly a possibility. I haven’t heard if she was all right. Otherwise it was a lovely, peaceful day – and I’m optimistic about the weather for tomorrow. <br />
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<br />
Tuesday, July 12<br />
My luck held just a little longer – yesterday dawned clear, warm, and lovely. I was able to get breakfast at a quarter to seven and head up the road before 8. The trail climbs steadily until it reaches the end of the ridge, where it goes up what seems to be about 800 feet of switchbacks – then it runs almost horizontally for a mile or two, across a steep meadow to Rotstuck Hut, a café and guesthouse located almost at the end of the canyon, at the foot of the Sefinenfurke pass (sort of like the Last Homely House). The predicted clouds had not yet begun to form, but I still wanted to get up over the pass as early as possible, so I went on ahead. Along the way, at one of the many fence crossings I overtook a couple of young me (Germans or Swiss, I’m not sure) who paused, I think studying their map, while I walked on ahead. I also passed an older man, who didn’t appear too happy about the sudden steepening of the trail. I never saw him again – I don’t know if he gave up or if he eventually made it over the pass. By now the trail was quite steep again, winding among boulders until it came up to a shoulder with a good view of the pass itself. Still no clouds, so I stopped here to take off shoes and socks and let my feet have a rest while I had some water and a fruit-nut bar. Just as I was leaving the rest stop the two young Germans caught up with me – I think they also stopped there for a rest, because when I looked back a couple of turns later I didn’t see them. I came to a turn of the trail from which it was possible to see the entire pass and the trail leading up to it – it was obvious that a large snowfield still lay just below the pass, fairly steep and at least 100-150 meters in length. But I knew several hikers had successfully negotiated it so I pressed on. <br />
When I reached the snowfield it was as steep as it looked – over 40%, steep enough that a person who slipped would likely slide all the way to the bottom – and possibly crash into the rocks at the bottom. On the other hand, the snow was soft on top – soft enough to dig in at least 3 inches with a good hard kick, and there were still depressions from previous hikers to kick into. Looking behind, I noticed the two young Germans had reached the bend from which the snow-field was visible. Apparently they were waiting to see if I made it before coming any farther. <br />
I climbed up almost to where somebody had strung a rope from the pass; the snow got steeper, and a little harder, but with a firm kick I could still get a pretty adequate toe-hold, so I proceeded to climb up to the rope, which I used for a while – I’m not sure how much it helped, though. Another 20 meters and I came to a section of rock the rope crossed, but it was pretty crumbly – looked like disintegrating shale, not good footing at all. So I stayed on the snow, and worked my way around the crumbly rock to an area that appeared to be part of a switchback on the (mostly buried by snow) trail. I pulled myself up onto it, and the footing seemed pretty solid, so I walked the remaining 20 or 30 meters to the pass. The young men were still watching from the curve in the trail. I sat down to rest and take a few pictures – thought about stopping for an early lunch but it was not even 10 – 3 hours after I left the inn. I did have another fruit-nut bar and take some pictures, including a picture looking back down the snow-field, with Eiger, Moengh, and Jungfrau in the background. Another hiker came up from the other side and we chatted a while, then both went our respective ways. <br />
I was delighted to see the Swiss had built a long, very sturdy staircase up over the steepest and trickiest part – so I descended maybe 200 feet on a long, long series of stairs. Getting down through that crap would not have been fun. <br />
The first part after the staircase section was still quite steep, not steep enough to be seriously dangerous but I still wouldn’t want to slide. Finally I came out of that broken rock to a reasonable meadow – not really flat, but flat enough that I could sit and take my shoes off to give my feet another rest – I also found a spot near enough to thistle-free that I could do a little badly-needed stretching. <br />
The rest of the climb down from the pass was the normal Swiss hiking experience – a very steep descent through lovely (but almost vertical) meadows, with cowbells and bird-song. Although one weather site had been adamant that there would be a thunderstorm at 12:30, clouds didn’t even begin to form until I reached the Inn. After checking in and having an Apfelsaft (carbonated apple juice, almost as good as a cold beer would have been) I took a walk down to see the Wildwasserweg – an incredible place where the glacial melt (thick grey soup) has carved a narrow canyon through the limestone, so that a series of waterfalls are in a long sinuous crevasse / cave – very impressive. I took a few photos which I will upload to my photo-blog. <br />
Finally, about dinner time it started to rain. then, about bed-time it started really storming. Because the weather stayed nice for so long, I had begun to entertain the hope that the forecast stormy spell might dissipate, but it was not to be. It stormed all night long, and I awoke this morning to dense fog and light rain. The rain stopped long enough that, along with an American couple who were also staying there, I got a nice walk down the Wildwasserweg to a village about 6 miles farther down the valley, where we caught a bus to the train station and a train to Kandersteg. <br />
The weather forecast still calls for at least two more days of heavy rains, thunderstorm, and fog – as I sit in my hotel room in Kandersteg I can not even see the hill a quarter mile away. So I decided my hike over the Sefinenfurke pass would have to be the premature end of my Swiss adventure. The forecast for Amsterdam between now and my flight home is sunny and mid-70s; a lot more appealing than thunderstorms, heavy rain, highs around 40 and possible snow flurries. <br />
I was disappointed to miss the last three days of the planned hike, particularly the Hohturli pass (9000 feet – not even to be considered in this weather). But it was a great adventure, a great series of hikes.<br />
<br />
Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-50534726902449472322016-06-24T07:24:00.002-07:002016-06-28T07:47:44.086-07:00MadagascarMadagascar <br />
The day started with a 4 a.m. wakeup and a 6:55 flight to Diego Suarez. There we were greeted by our guide for the next 3+ days, who guided us past the customary airport pandemonium. We drove for close to three hours on a government route, most of which was full of potholes, some big enough to hide a VW beetle. We passed hundreds of small shacks, and passed through two different towns having their weekly market day / fair; streets jammed with people selling, buying, and just seeing their friends. All very colorful. Many of the shacks have vendor stalls in front, offering fruit, soft drinks, and green coconuts. We stopped at one and bought a coconut each – they shave it down to the nut, cut the end off so you can drink the mildly sweet juice. Then they whack it in half and cut a thin slice of the husk that you use to scoop out the thin layer of coconut flesh, still gelatinous inside the shell. It is quite a treat on a hot day. Here in the north of the country it is much warmer than in the central highlands – it felt like it must have reached close to 90 during the day.<br />
We arrived at the resort area in time for lunch – a stir-fried vegetable dish, skewers of zebu, rice, and coconut chicken (like Thai curry but with very little spice). Then we picked up a spotter and headed for the Ankarana national park for animal and rock formation viewing. At the very entrance to the park we encountered a family of crowned lemurs feeding on a couple of fruit trees (African dates). We took some photos then walked on through a really nice tropical forest. Along the walk we saw three other species of lemur, tufted brown lemur, the closely related Sanford’s brown lemur, and the sportive lemur, a nocturnal animal who hides during the day – sometimes, fortunately, in view of our camera lenses. Some were pretty high in the trees and hard to see, but we were able to get quite close to others. One sportive lemur was hiding in a hole in the tree trunk, with only his head showing, but another clung, only partially hidden, in a half-hollowed spot about ten meters up the tree. <br />
We also did some hiking through the limestone formation that forms a huge part of the park, called Tsingy – a sea of grey rock formations with sharp tops and weird formations that resulted from sulfuric acid rain after a volcano eruption about a million years ago. <br />
The resort where we are staying is comfortable, a double and a single bed consisting of foam mattresses on a platform, nice and firm. It was quite warm but with the help of a fan we managed to sleep pretty well. Dinner was unexciting to say the least – I had rather stale tuna and Eric had unexceptional curried chicken. Wine was $11 for a pitcher that may have contained 2/3 liter, very poor quality and very expensive after the great wines we had in SA. <br />
The second morning we went for a longer walk in the same area, but went further, to a hanging bridge across a canyon in the limestone formations that led to a nice overlook across an expanse of the rock. We saw more lemurs as well as a small pale snake and two gekkos, one green and one very dark, almost black. In the tsingy field we saw a couple of species of euphorbia, also poisonous. According to the guide lemurs can also eat the euphorbia as well as another plant that produces cyanide – researchers have not yet determined how they neutralize the poison or whether it protects them from parasites. <br />
After lunch and a rest through the heat of the day we went to a different part of the park, where we watched a family of half tame lemurs at the edge of a big campground (unoccupied now but probably heavily occupied later in the season). Then we walked through the rain forest to a huge pit where we descended about 135 steps to the entrance to a fascinating limestone cave – lots of bats of three sizes, then deeper in the cave some lovely stalactites, stalagmites, and columns. <br />
Dinner was quite a bit better the second night – shrimp in a nice oil and garlic sauce with rice, a tomato salad, and a fruit salad for dessert. By the end of the second day I had 269 pictures of lemurs – obviously some weeding will be required. They are lovely animals – in their behavior they remind me somewhat of a cross between a house cat and a small monkey. Lemurs are abundant in Ankarana National Park – the only real threat is criminals who sneak in to harvest hardwoods, and pressure to open the park to prospecting for sapphires, which have been found nearby. However, several NGOs are active in promoting alternative ways for local people to make a living without further incursions into the park. <br />
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On Thursday we drove to another park, in the rainforest atop a mountain overlooking Diego Garcia and the bay. It was considerably cooler up there, and quite muddy from several hours of rain in the morning. We walked through parts of the park Thursday afternoon and again Friday morning. In addition to several species of Gekko and Chameleon, all unique to this island, and some frog species unique to this island, we also saw a family of tufted brown lemurs in a large tree next to a picnic area, where they were feasting on the new tender leaves and flowers of the tree. They were so intent on their feeding that we were able to get quite close to them and took some nice pictures. The chameleons we saw included a representative of the smallest species in the world, a tiny fellow about an inch long. I have a picture of Eric holding it. <br />
We stayed in a B&B, The Litchee Tree, that was a strange combination of elegance and Spartan bad design. It occupies an early 20th century French mansion with a sweeping view of the bay. Our room was large, with a large double bed and a single bed, all very cozy. The electricity was on only from 5:30 p.m. until 10:30, and there was not a single plug in the room for recharging camera or cell phone batteries. The bathroom had a lovely pottery sink - and no place to put soap in the shower. The owner ranted so much about tourists wanting wifi that Eric didn’t even ask about it. Dinner was quite good – a simple but elegant frittata followed by a delicious fruit salad. However, the wine list was on the ultra-high side; the cheapest bottle in the rack was over $35.00 (we had become used to excellent wines in South Africa for $5-6.) Very odd place; I don’t know I could recommend it. <br />
Finally on Friday we drove back to Diego Garcia where we had a great lunch in a posh hotel – both of us dressed in our muddy hiking clothes. A great crab salad, different from what I expected – potato and other vegetables instead of lettuce, followed by squid strips sautéed and served with some mixed sautéed vegetables. All very good. Then we were taken to the airport for the flight back to Tana. <br />
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A word about the countryside. I have already written about the terrible roads. People live along the roads in small villages and a couple of larger towns, mostly in quite small unpainted shacks. All along the road are little stands, often just a table with a makeshift roof of boards or palm leaves. Some sell soft drinks, some sell fruit – maybe two or three kinds, or just green coconuts which they chop off for you to drink the juice. Many sell bottles of lemons or other food pickled in lemon juice. In the towns, these little stands line the streets, with different wares – cloth, rope laid out in long lines for inspection, meat, various garden produce, live chickens, light hardware. We drove through on a market day when two of the larger villages were filled with people, most of them dressed in their finest clothing. Some of the young women were wearing jeans and t-shirts, but some were wearing lovely African print skirts. Our guide, Simon, explained that these are mostly married women, who are expected to dress more elegantly and traditionally. On special days they choose skirts with sayings that match the mood of the day – happy sayings for a wedding or festival, somber sayings for a funeral. Everywhere you see women, and some men, carrying surprisingly large and heavy loads on their heads. The women in particular, almost all the women of any age, seem to have a well-developed sense of style and elegance in their dress and carriage. <br />
In Diego Garcia, you see many men on foot pulling rickshaws and rickshaw-like wagons loaded with freight. You see oxcarts everywhere – more in the countryside, but some in the city as well. You also see groups of peoples sitting more or less idly in front of shops and houses everywhere, city and country – the unemployment rate is quite high, and most people get by with a series of brief jobs, and by selling whatever they can to each other. Our guide talked quite freely – if discreetly – about the corruption which is a drag on the entire society. It is apparent that the owners of vehicles who use the roads for commerce would save enough money on repairs to pay for fixing and paving the roads – but Simon says that they would be unlikely to find anyone they could trust to give the money to, so everyone evades whatever taxes there are. <br />
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It rained most of the way to the highlands, eased off once we arrived at the resort, then rained again. The highway is much better maintained than the one we drove on in the north – this highway connects the capital with the major seaport, on the other side of the island, so more money is spent on maintenance. <br />
We had lunch on the veranda between bouts of rain – fairly good shrimp salad and a meat dish.<br />
We checked in to the hotel then walked around the local village, which was quite interesting in itself. It was built about a hundred years ago, initially by soldiers from one of the colonial wars, then became a railroad town. The houses are of wood, mostly unpainted and small, though there are still some houses from the colonial era. Streets are muddy and lined with small stalls, like the highways. As we entered the main part of town we saw a man with a table, on which squares were numbered 1-6; he was shaking a cup with three die in it; children who looked as young as five or six were placing bets on the squares. Shops sold raw meat, whole chickens, vegetables, fruit, dry goods of various sorts – all hanging or lined up on small tables; most shops were perhaps ten feet wide. <br />
The highlight of the day was the night walk, before dinner, that lasted 6-8. We picked up a national park guide, John, who is very good at finding animals of all sorts – three species of tree frog, two of chameleon, and two lemurs. The rain stopped and the sky briefly cleared; we walked along the paved road, which was good considering the weather. At the very end he found a mouse lemur in a tree only a few meters from the road. <br />
Wooly lemur: A whole family in a tree, most half obscured by branches. One near the top completely visible, but inactive – feeding on leaves, not moving much. Another lower down on a large branch we could see better. Fairly large (the largest of the nocturnal species), and definitely wooly, white stripe on the legs makes them more visible. Erect posture; unlike other lemurs we’ve seen they don’t go upside down – we saw the lower one climb down the branch; she climbed down tail first, like a human would, rather than head first like the other lemurs. <br />
Goodman’s mouse lemur: the one we saw close at hand was stocky, short neck, large head with dark markings and pointed ears which, along with the huge eyes, made it look rather like an owl. Larger than a mouse, actually – more the size of a small squirrel, maybe 4-5 inches long. It sat for a remarkably long time while the guides shined bright flashlights into its eyes and we all admired it, then scurried off into the dark forest. <br />
Frogs: White-lipped tree frog, actually with an entire white underbelly – a bit smaller than our familiar leopard frogs. A leaf-green tree frog a bit larger than a 25 cent coin, which flattened itself to the thickness of a coin as we inspected it, and a brown tree frog with a gold belly. Remarkably, John saw the small green tree frog from across the road – we had to get a few feet away from it to see it, even with him pointing it out. <br />
Chameleons: two very small chameleons, one almost white. <br />
We finished the walk with a half hour left before dinner, so detoured for a stroll through the village and a stop in a village night-club – a shed with thatch roof and concrete floor with a local band playing through a bank of about six oversize speakers – most of the people inside were men and boys, from maybe 6 or 8 into late 20s, a few young women but not nearly as many as men. Outside the door was a makeshift merry-go-round filled with kids having a great time – sitting on benches that look like park benches, fastened to a round wood platform suspended from a pole in the middle that was sunk into the ground. <br />
<br />
Sunday morning we got up to rain. We had a scheduled walk in Montavidia National Park. We drove about 10 km, over an hour, to the park gate, then another 5 km, another hour, into the park itself, over a road that resembled Hunt Road, where I grew up, in the early 50s before it was covered with adequate gravel, after a heavy spring snow melt and two weeks of rain. John, the park guide, commented that forests and roads don’t go together – if a good road is built, people quickly cut down and steal the valuable trees (including Rosewood and several other species of valuable hardwood) and the forest disappears. <br />
We had barely entered the park when John spotted some bamboo lemurs at the roadside. Madagascar has an indigenous species of bamboo that grows very tall and bends over in an arc, almost touching the ground, with small clusters of leaves every couple or three feet. The bamboo lemurs disappeared pretty quickly – Eric managed to get a couple of shots first, using my waterproof camera. It was a good sign. <br />
Halfway to the parking place, John spotted a golden sefaca lemur – second largest on the island. It stayed around while I took several photos of it, with Eric holding an umbrella over me and my camera, then made a spectacular leap, or rather drop, down to a lower branch, followed by a lateral leap to another branch where it disappeared. As the name suggests, it is a brownish gold on top, a paler color, almost grey, underneath. It looked big enough to weigh 80 pounds but Elperon, our guide said it weighs about ten kilos. The difference suggests a pretty thick fur. <br />
We reached the muddly parking area and began our walk, in a light rain that intermittently increased to heavy, then decreased to a near stop, then started again all day long. We walked up a long rather slippery hill – I was glad I’d brought the trekking poles, one for me and one for Eric. The parks people have done a good job with stone stairs on the steeper parts, but the tree roots were wet and slippery, and the clay soil slippery in places. We stopped after about ten minutes to watch a family of common brown lemurs in a tree – we tried a few photos but they were pretty far away with the sky behind them – I mostly just watched them through my binoculars until they dropped down beneath the level of intervening brush. We climbed on up to a viewing platform where we took a few pictures while John went out looking for lemurs. Elperon told us most tourists would not make it that far – they took us up to the viewing platform only after seeing that we took the slippery steep trail in stride. He later told me he and John had discussed me (in Malagasy of course) and wondered at the fact that I am still an active vigorous hiker at my age. (I encountered that kind of preconception throughout the trip.) <br />
We rambled around in the mud and rain for another hour or more, as the rain slowly soaked through my rain jacket, without seeing anything more of note. When I realized my shirt was feeling a little damp I put the iPhone into a ziplock and the Canon into a larger plastic bag to keep them from being damaged. Eventually John decided we weren’t going to see any more so led us back to the road, about a km from the car. He commented “we may see something on the way back to the car.” He was right. About halfway there he spotted a small group of red-bellied lemurs, which are quite rare (Elperon said he hadn’t seen any of them for over a year.) Eric and I both took several photos as the lemurs moved from one tree to another – unfortunately no photos of their spectacular jumps from tree to tree. <br />
Back at the car we took our sack lunches to a shelter near the car and ate them. We had encountered several other tourist groups, most of whom hadn’t seen any lemurs, although the group who shared the shelter with us had seen a ring-tailed lemur, which we have yet to see. The rain increased, so we picked our way through the mud back to the car to drive back to the lodge and try to get some of our clothes dry. John said we would drive slowly because we might see something along the way – and once again he was prescient. On the way back we saw another bamboo lemur on one of the curved bamboo stalks. This one sat still while Eric and I took a dozen or more photos, then jumped down to a lower branch where it sat for another five minutes while we took more. John said this was a good thing about the rain – they tend to be more still when it’s cool and rainy; without the rain we might not have seen any at all. <br />
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The night walk was even better than yesterday. The rain eased off, and finally stopped when the walk was about over. This time we walked along a forest trail; began by spotting three of the four chameleons active in this area, a very small one, the stumptail chameleon, named for its unusually short tail, a larger green one, Parsons chameleon, a juvenile of a species that as adults is the largest in this area, a whitish one that turned brown as we watched it called the elephant ear chameleon because of its large ears that lay back along it’s neck, and one called the Satan chameleon because of its horn-like points. We caught a brief glimpse of a mouse lemur before it descended rapidly from its tree and disappeared, then watched two wooly lemurs for five or ten minutes. Finally, near the end of the walk, a virtual miracle: a mouse lemur crouched on a small branch maybe 5 feet from the trail, looking at us with its huge eyes while we took dozens of photos, a few of which actually turned out. It has a very cute face, small mouse-like ears. After a while it moved to a lower branch, stared at us for another minute or so, then disappeared into the brush. As we returned to the parking lot the clouds cleared and stars came out – a perfect evening. <br />
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Our last full day here was brilliant – but also made us feel that we had timed our visit pretty well. The clouds cleared somewhat, and it rained only a little during the morning, not at all during the afternoon. On the morning walk we spotted a group of brown lemurs fairly high in the trees – ended up barging off through the bush to get a somewhat clear shot – I only got a few worth keeping; Eric managed to get a few more. Then we spotted a couple of golden sefaca lemurs high in one tree. I got several good shots, looking upward so all I got was butt and tail, with a couple of shots with a head, looking over its shoulder. About then several more groups showed up and we were surrounded with over a dozen people of various nationalities, most with no sense of being silent etc. – getting into position for a better shot through the trees was almost impossible. The guides suggested we move on and leave the sefacas to the crowd. Along the way my hat got knocked off my head by a low branch – I picked it up and put it in a pocket but it dropped out again and I thought I’d lost it. <br />
We walked through the woods – lovely in the morning light, for another hour or so, hearing the calls of the indra all around us – the guide said they are territorial calls; they sound somewhat like whale songs although shorter; they carry for a mile or more. After a while John left us to go out scouting through the brush; he came back and led us along a faint trail through thick brush, up one very steep, muddy incline and down another – very difficult walking on sometimes slippery clay; we were very glad of the trekking poles. I was also glad of my previous hiking experience, which helped me find footing on the difficult terrain. <br />
We finally came to a spot from which we could see two indras. As we watched them we realized one had a young baby with her – we could occasionally see the face of the baby as it peeked out from under the mother’s arm – Eric managed to get a couple of very good shots of the baby – I only got one because at just about that time my lens got fogged up inside the outer cover, which can’t be removed. Fortunately, the fog cleared away after about a half hour. <br />
The lemurs decided to move off – it is a marvel to watch them leap sideways 15 or 20 meters to another tree, then a second, then a third, almost effortlessly. When they had gone the guide led us down another even steeper and more slippery trail into a ravine, and up the other side to a point where we could see three of the lemurs. We watched them for a half hour, taking some recordings of their calls, before clambering back up the hill to a better trail and walking back to the trail. <br />
After lunch we drove to one of the other resorts that has a private reserve called Lemur Island – a fair-sized patch of forest surrounded by a rather narrow canal (shallow moat, perhaps) wide enough to keep the lemurs on the “island.” We got into a small plastic canoe, which a guide paddled across the water into a slip, where we got out. While he went back to the guide a welcoming committee of common brown lemurs approached, walking along the handrail beside a walkway above the rather moist ground. When the guide appeared (with a sack of cut up banana pieces) the lemurs swarmed all over us (literally), climbing on shoulders and outstretched hands, looking for their reward – a small piece of banana. After a bit some other tourists showed up, and our guide led us to another boat landing, where we boarded another plastic canoe to be ferried across to yet another island, where we could also see golden sefaca lemurs in the trees, and black and white tufted lemurs, also in the trees, as well as the rather shy bamboo lemurs (about the size of a house cat) and hordes of common brown lemurs. We stayed there, close to the landing, while they came to us. The golden sefacas did not actually clamber onto us like the black and whites and the common browns, but they did come down close enough to pose with us. <br />
The bamboo lemurs are odd – they do not like to be touched, and seem somewhat fearful about coming too close, but they clearly want to be part of it – even when there are no bananas to be begged (and they don’t seem nearly as enthusiastic about the fruit as the common browns – they prefer to munch on bamboo leaves and grass, but they stayed fairly near, within a couple or three meters. The golden browns are more enthusiastic; several climbed up and perched on us; one adopted Eric and perched on his shoulder for almost the entire time we were there, an hour and a half or more, playing with his hair and his beard, sometimes with his hat, and at one point his glasses (he took them off and handed them to me.) Another one climbed up on me and sat contentedly on my shoulder, occasionally licking my shirt (by now, after three days in the rain forest, probably quite nutritious). From time to time he would lick my hands and nibble on my fingers in the way a pet cat often does – at first it made me a bit nervous (their teeth are sharp) but the bites were very gentle and restrained, again like a pet cat or dog. At one point a couple of black and whites joined the fun, climbing up onto our shoulders for a photo-op. In the background, the larger lemurs, especially the black and whites and the golden sefacas, would occasionally do a round of jumps, from one tree to another four or five times in a row. <br />
The experience was sublime – a nice rounding out of the Madagascar experience. First we saw the lemurs and various lizard species in their natural habitat, natural behavior, sometimes quite distant and occasionally close enough for a really good look. Then we had the extended play and photo session with the half-tamed lemurs on lemur island. It was very nice – even nicer because the rain had stopped and we could enjoy it more or less dry. <br />
The next morning we had planned another walk but Eric discovered his flight was that day – a day earlier than he had originally thought – so we had to leave for the drive back to Tana (Antananariba) right after breakfast. <br />
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Overall assessment: We were both very glad we decided to include Madagascar in our itinerary. It is a beautiful island, with wonderful people. Contrary to my preconceptions, it is as much or more Asian than African – the first settlers came from Indonesia, and half the current residents are of Asian descent. The culture is also a blend of the two. The situation faced by the lemurs and many other animal species unique to Madagascar is not as dire as I had been led to expect, although they are certainly under pressure, especially from logging and mining. The guides we encountered are very committed to preservation, and they happily speak of the many NGOs involved in the work. <br />
Poverty is, as we expected, widespread. The forest areas are characterized by very traditional farming – ox-drive plows or human labor to till the soil; very little evidence of any labor saving machinery anywhere. In the cities as well as the countryside, unassisted human labor seems to predominate – everywhere you see the human-pulled carts, often loaded with hundreds of pounds of freight (and occasionally with another person riding on back along with the freight.) In populated areas, every bridge and every stretch of river or creek that can be easily accessed is the site of women doing their wash in the river, and usually spreading it out to dry on riverside rocks or grass. Women and a few men are seen everywhere carrying loads, often what appear to be quite heavy loads, on their heads. The main means of transportation is walking, sometimes four or five miles to the nearest market town, carrying goods to sell in to town, carrying purchased goods back, usually on the head or back, or sometimes in a person-drawn or occasionally ox-drawn cart. The houses in the countryside in the warmer north are flimsy shacks of thin boards with thatch roofs; in the cooler central highlands they may be made of compacted and dried mud or concrete, even though wood is the more traditional building material. Aside from the main highway, paved and kept up because of its role as a connector to the seaport, the roads are pot-holed dirt roads, some showing signs of having once been paved; streets of the small villages are mud. <br />
The experience of seeing these remarkable animals in their natural habitat is incomparable, as it was in Africa. <br />
It appears that we arrived just before the opening of high season – the last two days we found many of the forest trails crowded, and Elperon tells us that for the truly high season, late September through October when more animals are out and the weather is dry and warm, you need to book accommodations a year or more in advance. That may be a good thing for preservation – the more people depending on eco-tourism, the more support there is for preserving the wild basis, but inevitably the nature of the experience will change. We felt very lucky to be able to observe the animals in their natural habitat and generally enjoy the rain forest as a place of quiet and solitude. <br />
Here even more than in the rest of Africa, avoiding gluten was a problem – compounded, perhaps, by the fact that Eric has a mild allergy to lactose, which seemed to confuse the issue. Very few people understand these issues; they often overgeneralize, assuming I can’t eat dairy products, or eggs, or rice, or even French fried potatoes. My French pronunciation is not good (I have never mastered either the nasality required for most French words or the particular rhythm and musicality of the language) and comprehension is made even worse by waiters’ inability even to conceive of someone wanting a meal sans ble’. Eric, who does much better at least approximating the nasal intonation, could sometimes achieve at least a limited comprehension – at least of the language, but not reliably of the underlying need. I never felt entirely confident that what I was eating was entirely free of a bit of flour. <br />
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Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-66284984302203059202016-06-07T22:01:00.001-07:002016-06-19T07:18:46.012-07:00South Africa<br />
I met a former student and current research colleague, Eric Jensen, in Johannesburg airport for the flight to George, where we were met by an old friend of mine from way back in my days at Stanford. He and his gracious wife Linda have been our hosts here – Linda has set up what she described (accurately) as an “ambitious” agenda for seeing some of the many highlights of the southeast coast of SA. We have visited a preserve where we walked with (actually slightly to one side of) a pair of lions (attended by a guide and three trainers, who attended the lions every move.) It is a rather awe-inspiring experience to spend an hour in the company of these magnificent and powerful beasts – well trained, used to people, but still definitely wild. We went to another preserve where we fed and petted elephants. When you feed them, they are behind a sturdy restraining barrier; they reach forward with their trunks to receive the pieces of fruit you hold out with your hands. (Yes, they provide water and soap to clean off the elephant snot later.) Again, trainers all over the place watching them – still, one I was touching and petting kept sidling toward me, and I had the distinct impression she would have liked to step on my foot, which I carefully kept out of her way. (I experienced similar behavior from cranky cows during my farm childhood.) Again, it is rather intimidating and definitely awe-inspiring to be next to these beasts. We spent another hour in a large forest developed as a monkey rehab center – ten species of primate, including ring-tailed lemurs and one other lemur species. Most of them are rescue animals, either formerly abused / neglected pets or abandoned orphans. The large area, if I remember correctly over 1000 hectares, is filled with enough trees that the animals can travel from one end to the other in the canopy. Other than the feeding stations with enough food (fruit, pasta, some meat) to ensure they do not compete and fight with one another, the area is a natural forest. Visitors are prohibited from touching or feeding; the idea is to “re-wild” the animals for eventual release back into the forest. All of them zip around so fast that taking decent pictures is very difficult; I only got a handful. A particular highlight was crossing a long swinging bridge where a dozen or more were clustered – apparently hoping to catch an unwary tourist with something shiny hanging loose. Monkeys have stolen sunglasses, purses, and even an i-phone. We kept our belongings firmly in hand as we watched their grooming, mock- (and occasionally real) fights, and general play on the bridge. <br />
Linda had rented a cabin at a national park on a particularly spectacular section of coastline at the mouth of the Storm River. The cabin was clean and comfortable, the view spectacular – a rugged rocky coast very reminiscent of the Monterey Peninsula, with 300 meter headlands plunging into the sea, shale and limestone formations, crashing surf, lush green forests. Eric and I agreed that one could easily spend a week here – there are several interesting hiking trails in the area, no sand beaches where we stayed but some very nice ones within a short drive. The little store inside the park isn’t much – one would need either to plan to eat in the restaurant or bring sufficient food (like many of the parks I’ve visited in the US). Between there and George the highway is lined with game parks and preserves; we only touched the surface.<br />
At 34 degrees south, the latitude and climate of George are also similar to Monterey. We visited at the beginning of winter (early June); the nights have been cool (you occasionally need a coat) and the days very mild – short sleeves or a light sweater. Our hosts tell us it is rather warm in summer, but it would be ideal in spring and fall. <br />
Before we left the Storm River we crossed a suspension bridge, then climbed up (about 300 meters) to a spectacular viewpoint. Then we went to a drive through a dense forest, where apparently there are some wild elephants no-one ever sees – but their damage is apparent. In this forest is a group of abandoned houses that have been taken over by a troop of baboons; very eerie watching them – like an end of the world movie. <br />
Yesterday we went to some game parks where we fed baby giraffes (baby – but I had to stand on tiptoe to keep the bottle upright!) We walked with lions – a rather interesting experience, and I had the opportunity to ride an ostrich – a bit scary (they have two speeds – stop and full run) but a lot of fun. The trainers did not explain how to steer, stop, etc., but they ran along beside the bird the whole way to control it. <br />
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Hunting camp<br />
One of Manie’s friends, Barry, came over and spent the night; in the morning we packed up clothing and supplies, drove over to buy some more food and pick up a second friend, Rassie. Then we drove the same route as yesterday, but continued on up a long valley, over another range of hills and into the semi-arid area called the Big Karoo. The landscape is reminiscent of the Western US upland plateau – low hills with barren mountains in the background, desert plant communities, and when we reached the area where they were planning to hunt, the same harsh cold wind. <br />
I learned that in South Africa, the owner of the land on which animals are found owns the animals. Animals in the national parks are the property of the government; animals on a farm the property of the farmer – most of whom construct high game-proof fences. They manage the game carefully, culling the herd to keep the population in line with forage and selling the rights to kill (and take home) the animals to supplement their income from sheep and cattle. To my surprise there is no other hunting license – you pay for what you kill, not for the right to hunt in the first place. The farm where we stayed has a four bedroom house with beds for 14 or 15, a reasonable kitchen and dining room. The farmer, whose daughter is married to Barry’s son, came to greet us – his name is Olaf but he told me to call him Odie. By looks, mannerisms, and (I gather from Manie) political attitudes he would fit right in in any farm area coffee shop in Idaho, Wyoming, Nevada, etc. <br />
Dinner was cooked over the coals from an open fire in a kind of shed to protect from the wind – a bommie, I think – while we had drinks and chatted. When it was ready we carried it into the dining room where I added salad thoughtfully provided for me by Linda. Lots of stories about previous hunting trips; Barry told of going for a boat ride in an estuary infested with rhinos, crocs, and sharks, and how his brother almost got them killed by speeding over the top of a rhino – which could easily have tipped them into the water, where plenty of predators would have been happy to make their acquaintance. <br />
It was quite cold at night but I slept pretty well, disturbed only by the constant sound of the wind. I got up early as usual, did a little stretching, and made myself some coffee then did a little work on my photos. When everyone was up and had had breakfast, Odie came and set up a target for the guys to sight in their rifles. Then we drove out to a large valley with a good sized herd of springbok. Odie positioned all three hunters several hundred meters apart a few meters up the slope of a steep hill above the herd. I stayed with Manie to watch how they did it. Some hands on horses more or less herded the springbok up to the waiting hunters, who waited behind the cover of bushes. The first group that ran in front of Manie was going quite fast, and the females were in the back. He lined up the rifle but did not get a good shot. After fifteen minutes, the herd came back, somewhat slower; one of the males paused and looked over its shoulder. Manie took the shot and shot it cleanly just below the ear; it dropped instantly, kicked for a minute or two, and was still, with its back fur ruffed up – which Manie tells me happens when they die. I waited with him a while, watched two lone males pass, just beyond Manie’s comfortable shooting range (up to 200 meters). Then Manie went down to slit the animal’s throat so it could bleed out, but he did not gut it yet. I gather he waited so long for fear of spooking the herd, since he still wanted to shoot two more. I later learned that a consequence of the delay is that the liver and heart get an objectionable strong taste – they are usually left in the veldt for the jackals. <br />
I picked up my pack to go for a walk. I crossed over the ridge, walked along the back side of the ridge, climbed up to a high rock for lunch with a view, walked a ways farther behind the ridge, crossed over and came down the hill behind Rassie, who had just shot his third and final springbok. He showed me a desert tortoise he had found, and we walked to the desert road to wait for the others. <br />
The hunt went generally well, with just a couple of snags. A young male broke his leg, so the horse riders cut its throat. Then the very last shot was through the jaw; they had to chase it down to be sure to kill it cleanly. We piled the carcasses in the back of Odie’s pickup and drove back to the hunting lodge. The springbok apparently knew when the hunt was over – as we drove around they ignored us and grazed peacefully, half the herd within easy rifle shot. I think they have learned through conditioning that men on foot and on horseback are trouble, but vehicles driving around are not. <br />
We had barely unloaded our stuff into the house when it started to rain, at first softly then a hard, wind-driven cold rain that lasted a couple of hours. The weather had clearly changed. After the rain it cleared up for a few minutes, then clouded up again. The wind died for a while, but by the time I got up the next morning it was blowing again at about the same 20 knots. The skies were completely clear; temperature just above freezing. After breakfast Odie came over and said he had arranged with a neighbor for me to take a walk in an interesting hilly terrain, lots of interesting rock formation. When it warmed up a bit, everyone piled into Manie’s SUV and we drove over to the place. The owner is a really nice guy; he outlined a walk that I thought he said is 3 km. I started walking; after a while the track started climbing up into the rocky hills. It circled around, at least a mile from the road and a mile or two beyond the pickup point – a total of 2 ¼ hours, walking at my normal brisk pace (3.5 to 4.5 mph, probably averaging 4). It was the longest 3 km I’ve ever walked – but it was interesting country, very nice walk. <br />
I used the rest of the day to sort and bring some order to my photos. At about 4 Odie showed up with his son-in-law for a visit, and invited us to come to the main house to watch a rugby game – Springboks against Ireland. It was an interesting way to end the hunting trip – Odie gets as worked up about rugby as he does about politics. It was an exciting game, ending with Ireland up one goal but SA came within a foot of scoring a final tying goal on the last “try.” Ireland was the underdog, but their defense was tougher and they won on turnovers, one to SA’s seven. We went back to a meal of baked potato and springbok liver, which is very very good; nicely textured, mild, with only a hint of gamey sharpness. <br />
As Manie commented, the farmers live here because it’s the life they chose. It’s not an easy life, but from my observation they have very warm family relationships. The main farmhouse is quite comfortable, large and well furnished. There is a fireplace in the living room and he brought a portable heater in to the TV room for the game. I enjoyed meeting them and experiencing their way of life for a few days. <br />
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About the animals: <br />
As I’ve talked with the various guides, and had the opportunity to observe many wild animals (as well as half-tamed animals here in SA), I’ve learned quite a bit about these animals and their behavior. <br />
Danger: The animal the guides fear most is not the lion, it is the hippo. The hippo rarely comes out of the water during the day; when it does, the guides clear out. It is unpredictable, easily annoyed, and very fast. The guides fear lions mainly at night; during the day they are predictable and, as long as you don’t corner or threaten one (or its cubs, of course) unaggressive. Elephants are respected but not feared unless they get upset (shining a light in one’s eye is a good way to get it very upset) they are ordinarily not aggressive. Leopards are rarely out in the daytime; at night they like all the other predators are very much feared. Rhinos – the one I observed is very unaggressive; they named it “No Worry.” Another in the same area is unpredictable and easily annoyed – the guides keep tourists at twice the distance from him as from the others. All wild animals, of course, are dangerous if approached or threatened, but most will give warning signals (for elephants, like moose in the US, a shake of the head is an early warning.) <br />
“King of the beasts.” Not really. Lions are slow relative to their prey and must get close enough to take the prey animal down before it can react – they are good for only a short burst of speed, and take a long time to recover. On the hunt, they move at a slow amble, stopping to rest every hundred meters or so. They hunt both alone and together; when hunting together one lion will circle out in front of the prey in an ambush. When hunting alone, they crawl, belly to the ground, from one bit of cover to the next to get as close as possible. On average, only about one hunt in seven is successful. After an attempt, it takes a couple of hours to build energy back for another try. Male lions will take a kill away from the female (leaving her cubs to go hungry) but hyenas will take a kill away from any lion. I was amazed how long it took the single lioness to kill the young kudu. It was apparent that, up until the kudu was all but dead, had she lost her grip he would have been able to get away – and had she let him get into a position where he could get at her with his hooves, he could have broken her leg or even killed her. <br />
Cheetahs do not protect a kill from any other predator – even wild dogs can drive them away. They depend on a burst of speed to take down the prey, and their lean build means that they could easily be hurt badly enough to lose that one advantage. Even in an area as game-rich as the Okavanga Delta it is not an easy life for any of the predators. <br />
If an animal (predator or prey) is wounded it often means death. I did see one male lion with a detectable limp – a hind leg was wounded in a territorial fight – but the guides said it is still a good hunter and still able to hold its own against other males. Since the cheetah relies on its strength, even a minor wound to a leg can mean starvation; that’s why they will allow any other predator to drive them away from a kill. Male antelopes often have a broken horn – they can still survive but it greatly limits their ability to compete for females. The territorial and mating fights are serious business, often fatal. For example the curved horns of the impala sometimes lock, and the animals will starve to death unless a predator happens upon them, which will usually happen. <br />
Prey animals often herd with other species: each has a unique set of perceptual defenses, and herding together allows them to benefit from the entire range. In the desert, where forage is scarcer, there is more competition for forage, so cooperation is a little less common and usually limited to species that specialize in different forage. <br />
According to one of the trainers, elephants have long memories and hold a grudge. After feeding elephants he always shows them the empty bucket so they won’t think he’s holding out on them – he told a story about one elephant who held a grudge against him for several years and, when he let himself get in a vulnerable position, tried to kill him. When I was near one of the elephants I noticed it kept leaning toward me, and recalled how cows will sometimes try to step on your foot; I was careful to keep my feet out of its reach and moved away as soon as Eric had taken a photo. <br />
The ostrich has only two toes; the main toe has a long sharp nail that can disembowel an enemy at one stroke. It can kick only in front, so the bird is virtually always approached from the side or back. <br />
In the South African game parks, they have trained lions, elephants, ostriches, and other normally quite dangerous animals to allow limited interaction with humans. However, there are always trainers present, and, like the guides in Botswana and Namibia, the trainers keep a close eye on the animals, and if anything seems out of the ordinary they bring the encounter to a rapid close. Even so, it is an intimidating and awe-inspiring experience to be so close to a lion or elephant – or, for that matter – to a giraffe or ostrich. Even with the training, these animals are still wild and still very much to be respected. <br />
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Capetown<br />
I finally ran out of luck with respect to weather. Linda came down with a bad bronchial flu so Manie and I drove to Capetown alone, stopping overnight in a small tourist town at the foot a mountain – I think it is a very pretty mountain but we couldn’t see much of it for the clouds and rain. It slowed down and finally stopped about the time we checked in. Manie crossed the street to a little pub where I joined him after trying – unsuccessfully – to get onto internet; turns out the phone company had crossed the lines to the lodge and hadn’t managed to fix the problem yet. The tavern was decorated like something from San Francisco circa 1967. I ordered a gin and tonic and Manie a whiskey and passion fruit; she initially poured brandy in his glass and, I realized as soon as I sipped mine, soda instead of tonic. On the wall someone had written in large letters “supercalifragiexpialidocious” and that seemed quite fitting. However we walked down to a restaurant where we had a good meal of ribs. <br />
The next morning I walked over a mile down the street and back in a beautiful morning; then we had breakfast and drove on. We hadn’t gone 1/3 of the way to CT before the rain started again, quite heavy most of the way – at one point as we went over a low pass the clouds were so low and it was raining so hard that visibility was less than 50 feet – quite frightening. The next morning the rain had slowed and, after we picked Eric up, ceased altogether. Eric and I did some shopping then walked a couple of miles along the base of Table Mountain – we realized it was too late to go all the way up since we had theater tickets for the evening. <br />
The play, District Six – Kanala, was very interesting. The background: District Six was an area of Capetown in mid-20th century that was composed of a vibrant blend of races – Black, Colored, White, Indian, and others. In 1961 the Apartheid government designated it a White area, ad 1964 they moved everyone out to different areas and demolished the neighborhood, bulldozing all the buildings to rubble. Promises of new housing were never realized, and for decades nothing at all was done with the cleared land. The play is organized around a young woman looking through her grandmother’s photo album; the actors acted out vignettes about life in the District based on the photos – mostly through song and dance. The contrast between the somber back-story and the vibrant, life-affirming music and dance gives the play a tremendous resonance and vitality. Eric and I could understand maybe ¼ of the dialog and lyrics since much of it was in Afrikaans and other languages and/or in heavily accented dialects of English. The SA members of the audience frequently laughed at humor we could only guess at. Even when we could understand the dialog, much of the humor referred to local cultural events and practices. In spite of the language and culture barriers we both enjoyed it tremendously; I felt it was a fitting part of my visit to South Africa, which is drawing to an end, a celebration of the diverse cultures and tragic history of the place, and of the spirit of the people. <br />
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On Saturday we went to Robben Island – the prison island where Mandela was imprisoned for several years. It was interesting, but not very well organized and poorly managed – a missed opportunity, really. They put us on huge busses, five seats across (2 and 3) – Eric and I both in the center seat, could see hardly anything; they stopped only once, at a snack stand where there was nothing to look at, before letting us out for a tour of the prison itself, which would have been very interesting had we been in a group of 10 or 12 not 55+. The guide on the bus was no better than a voice recording would have been – the guide in the prison a little better, but it was hard to understand him or even hear him with so many people. Both Eric and I felt the time could have been much better spent at a museum. If they ever get their act together this will be a great tour but for now we wished we had skipped it. <br />
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Sunday – our last day here – was better in spite of a driving rain. Manie drove us down to Boulder Beach, near the end of the cape, where there is an observation area for a large nesting colony of South African penguins. They are beautiful and interesting to watch and the scenery along the way is spectacular. In spite of getting rather wet and cold we enjoyed it immensely. <br />
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Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-36456299825613765162016-05-24T07:58:00.004-07:002016-06-07T22:00:22.967-07:00Namibia May 2016Namibia<br />
My first day started out a little earlier than planned – I did not realize Namibia time is an hour earlier than Botswana – ended up rising at 4 am rather than 5 as planned. I will sleep well tonight – although I may find the absence of hippos grunting and baboons barking a bit disconcerting. The flight from Windhoek was interesting – began like a major flight, with security check and everything; pilot and co-pilot – and the plane was a six seater with me as the only passenger. Starkly beautiful desert mountain country, deep box canyons carved by the rather scarce rains, scrubby trees scattered here and there. We landed on a gravelly airstrip hardly distinguishable from the surrounding terrain – disconcerting to hear the crunch of rolling gravel under the wheels instead of pavement. <br />
I was met by my guide, Mervin, who called a San tracker when I told him I wanted to walk before lunch. The tracker, Gideon, is a nice guy, very knowledgeable, good at explaining the finer features of the desert and how to track animals ranging from oryx (plentiful around here) to the small beetles that gather moisture from fresh antelope droppings, and who must dig a hole in a firmer spot of sand to keep from dying in the midday sun. He also showed me the burrow of the white dancing lady spider. The female constructs a trap door, just like the trapdoor spider in Queensland – but this spider is not very poisonous if at all. He showed me how to track the spider, the little jumping mouse, the local ground bustard, and chameleons – with his considerable help I managed to see and photograph one of the latter. Apparently they are not that easy to find and see, so I felt great about it. <br />
I am writing this on a lounge chair in the shade of my tent-cabin, which is actually quite luxurious – gorgeous view of the desert mountain across the valley. The resort I located near the crest of a large dune, above he airstrip. This place is very different from Botswana of course. I was warned not to expect to see many animals, but already I have seen a number of them, enough to satisfy me, and the landscape really is beautiful, in much the same stark way that southern California is. It appears that a major oryx trail runs across an open area right in front of our tents so I will see plenty of them. <br />
Lunch was great – smoked salmon on an avocado slice, chicken salad, passion fruit cream custard. Afterward I went for a vigorous 35 minute walk over a couple of dunes, which left me feeling great after such a long spell of idleness, then sat on the deck in the shade until 4:00, time for my afternoon / evening drive.<br />
The afternoon / evening drive was nice – dunes in the evening twilight. Dinner was spectacular. It began with the kitchen staff humorously presenting the menu – first the chef explained each course in English, then one of his helpers translated it into one of the local languages, clicks and all, singing it. Very fun. The main course was springbok steak – which I had been hoping for – cooked to perfection, juicy and tasty. I ate slowly savoring each bite, so as usual was the last to finish. <br />
The kitchen staff here, like at Selinda but in contrast to Kwara, take pains to assure, when the desert is flour-based, that my gluten-free dessert is of high quality. I am beginning to regard that as a sign of true excellence. At dinner the dessert for me was a small light crème with a delicious pear poached in red wine. For lunch both days it was a truly wonderful fruit salad. <br />
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May 24 <br />
Second day started with another walk with Gideon. We didn’t see many animals but he told several wonderful stories about the beliefs and customs of the San people. When we came to a fairy circle, he explained some of the large variety of scientific theories about them – he favors the theory that termites clear the circle and keep it clear. But his people teach that the souls of their ancestors gather to dance in a circle and the fairy circles are the dance spaces. <br />
When we came to a certain low bush called ostrich grass that has long straight stems, lined with spiky thorns like the acacia tree, he told the most charming story about his people’s ancient marriage customs. When the elders decide a young man is mature enough to be married they visit a neighboring tribe and negotiate for a bride. Then they tell the groom’s cousin to tell him to prepare himself. The elders prepare a house for the couple, then when time for the wedding arrives, they build a fire. The bride, covered with red powder, sits inside the new house. Her family gather on one side of the fire, his family on the other side. Her grandparents come and sing and dance outside the house until she comes out. Then she leads them to the fire, singing and dancing, and pauses in front of her family, where she continues singing and dancing. The groom then leads his elders, singing and dancing, toward the fire. Along the way, he gathers branches from the thorny bush, shaped like arrows, and makes a makeshift bow – not a real bow, but a ceremonial one. When he reaches the fire. he shoots the spiky arrow so that it sticks to the animal pelt she is wearing. Then he continues around the fire to his family. The bride takes the thorn branch from the pelt, and sticks it to her breast, signifying “this breast belongs to you forever.” The then proceeds to the groom, removes the thorn branch, and hands it to the groom. He sticks it to his breast, signifying “my heart is yours forever.” Then the elders of the two families lead them to their new house, where they instruct them in the ways of a marriage couple. However, the marriage is not yet complete, and they may not yet share a bed. The next day, the young man must go out hunting alone, kill an Oryx, and bring it back to camp by himself. He may not return until this task is complete. Once he returns with the Oryx, he has demonstrated that he has sufficient hunting skill and strength to become fully a man, and the marriage is complete. <br />
The other story, when we came to a plant called euphorbia (sp?) that looks a lot like a cactus, tall and round, but belongs to a different plant group entirely, he explained that the milky juice from the plant is deadly poison: if it touches your skin it causes a painful burn-like rash; if it gets in your eyes it can cause blindness, and if it is ingested, death comes quickly. (Other related plants are less strongly poisonous, but still troublesome.) He explained how his people discovered which plants can be eaten and which are poisonous. If they chance upon something that looks like it might be good to eat, they prepare it and feed it to a very old member of the tribe, who can no longer walk and no longer participate in the functioning of the tribe. If the old person survives and experiences no problems, the new plant becomes part of their diet. <br />
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After breakfast Mervin took me for a longer, rambling drive past the original Wolwedan camp and down onto the plain, where most of the animals other than oryx are to be found. We did see several springbok – beautiful animals – so I now know what I feasted on last night so gloriously. We saw one ostrich at some distance – barely close enough to photograph. At lunch I talked to another guest who saw both of those plus zebras and baboons. Luck – or perhaps the quality of the guide. Melvin is nice, but doesn’t really rise to the standards set by the guides I had at the last couple of camps. <br />
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<br />
Overall assessment: The dunes are quite impressive and quite beautiful – but not more so than several places in the American west. The staff at Wolwedons are very good, kitchen staff excellent – with one exception. It seems all the resorts have a tradition of a “sundowner” – they pack some light snacks and drinks – gin and tonic, wine, whatever, and have a little cocktail party out somewhere in the bush. At Selinda the staff always packed things I can eat; at Kwara they never did; here there will be a few pieces of fruit or, tonight, some bacon wrapped around olives (pits still in them – careful!) But there were also some things clearly made of wheat flour. Similarly, they deliver coffee makings first thing in the morning, with some cookies that also looked suspicious to me – no explanation whether I could eat them or not, so I did not. Otherwise the staff handled the challenge of my dietary restriction quite competently. My guide was indifferent – not terrible but not brilliant either. Gideon, the San who took me for walks was much better – more knowledgeable I think, quite funny, enjoyable to be with. I think Mervin got ticked off at Gideon because Gideon explained the nature and uses of several of the plants, and co-opted part of what Melvin planned to say. I’m sure there’s enough about this desert for both of them if they really knew their stuff. <br />
I enjoyed the visit – two days was definitely enough, and I suspect there are other places in this region that I would have found more worthwhile. I later learned from another visitor that there are Neolithic cliff art sites and an interesting cave nearby – either or both of which I would have enjoyed far more than driving around looking at sand dunes and oryx for hours. <br />
I hope I will see some of the really interesting desert plants like the baobab tree, for example. It was interesting, however, to see how much plant and animal life can be supported in a desert that gets maybe an inch or two of rain per year – just off what the plants can extract from the fogs that blow in off the Pacific. <br />
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Tok Tokkie Trail <br />
This three day hike was definitely the highlight of my time in Namibia. We first visited a sustainability training center, NaDEET (Namibia Desert Environmental Education Center) which was quite interesting. They’re doing some amazing stuff – recycling, solar power, minimizing water and power use. Then we arrived at a waterhole where we began the first leg of the trip, about 2 miles over a series of dunes – not large as the dunes in this area often seem to be. One member of the party, Ruby (from Texas struggled with the first three dunes – her husband, Adam, and I hung back with her to minimize discouragement, but finally she asked the guide, Richardo, ro arrange for the truck with our supplies to pick her up along the way. She rode in the truck the rest of the way, probably a good thing since it got more difficulty. She had recently had heart surgery and gotten out of shape and had not got back into shape. Two French couples made up the party – very nice people with good sense of humor. <br />
The first day’s short hike ended at a fixed camp atop a large broad dune, with a beautiful panoramic view. What a camp! The staff, Lulu (the chef) and Willie had laid out army cots with thick mattresses and bedrolls for me and each couple, spread out over the dune probably 30 meters apart, each with a little solar powered light, a rug to step on to keep from tracking sand into bed, and three little camp tables. Two toilets, a good distance from any “desert suite,” were marked with solar lanterns and a signaling system, white on one side, red (occupied) on the other. In the center was a camp kitchen where Lulu worked her magic, with a canvas wall on the upwind side, and a counter perpendicular to it. A few meters from the counter stood a long table, spread with table clothes, wine glasses, and flatware. The table was set with four solar lights, each embedded into the top of a pint mason jar so the light pointed down into the jar; in the bottom of the jar, a bit of sand with topical items like a little sculpture of the tok tokkie beetle or a bit of oryx dung and acacia fruit. Drinks were served as soon as we had settled in drinks were served. <br />
We sipped, admiring and photographing the sunset and examining the ever-present oryx through binoculars. After a while we seated ourselves and Lulu and Willie came out to announce dinner – as at some of the other camps, Lulu in English and Willie translating into his own childhood language.. I don’t recall all the dishes except that they were uniformly excellent – one I do strongly recall was the kudu steak, served the second night, which was tender and very tasty, kind of like the best elk I’ve ever had, but with a slightly sweeter and very complex, subtle taste. <br />
Breakfast was an assortment of cereals, yogurt, fruits, cheese and meat, and bread and jam. Lunch, left for us along the trail, was sandwiches. They took very good care of me, with gluten free cornbread, and gluten free versions of all the other dishes, including dessert. <br />
The second day we hiked for an hour or two over a series of ever higher dunes, then off onto rocky terrain, then onto a rocky trail that wound around the side of a mountain called “horse-shoe mountain” because of its shape. In addition to the ubiquitous oryx we saw a few springbok and several herds of zebras. We did not make very fast progress, because Richardo kept stopping us to point out some interesting feature of flora and fauna, including the dancing white lady, a rather large trapdoor spider that digs a hole a foot or more into the dune, lines it with silk, and constructs a trap door at the top of silk – like the trapdoor spiders we saw in Australia. You can find them by the subtle crescent-shaped indentation in the sand above the trapdoor. <br />
The trail steepened and got rougher as we progressed around the curve of the mountain toward a pass between it and another mountain, a total climb of about 400 meters. On top we stopped for tea / coffee and chocolate cake – Lulu provided chocolate covered cornbread for me; not quite the same, but quite good. Then we headed down toward the plain below – a much rougher descent. One of the French ladies was lagging behind, so I lent her one of my two trekking poles, which she later said made it much easier for her. At the bottom we walked for over a mile across a field strewn with rocks from pebble to small boulder in size, rounded the foot of another mountain, crossed a series of four increasingly high dunes, to our second camp. It was set up as before, except that the “suites” were set up in hollow spots in the top of the dune. Not as convenient for seeing the horizon but otherwise quite cozy. <br />
Each night, the stars were spectacular until the rising moon, 4 days past full, put an end to star-gazing. Everyone went to bed soon after dinner, around 8 or 8:30; it was very pleasant, almost magical to lie under a cozy feather bed / duvet, feeling the cool breeze on my cheek and looking up at the most brilliant display of stars I’ve seen since my childhood (before all the desert entry farms filled Idaho skies with dust). In the morning, I woke up around 4:30 each day, with the smell of dew-wet grass, which lingered for about an hour until about the time Willie brought around coffee and hot water to wash, when the warming air had dried it all off the grass. <br />
The setup for washing was quite interesting – a sort of plastic bucket on a folding 4 legged rack with a tin can to dip into the water after Willie had poured in the hot water – each can had four holes punched in the bottom so when you hung it from the top of one of the legs, four soft streams came out to wash with. <br />
The third day we walked over dune after dune, a total of over two hours, back to the headquarters shared by the tok tokkie trail people and NaDEET. There we had refreshments, said goodbyes, and my driver arrived to take me to Kulala Desert Lodge. <br />
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Kulala Desert Lodge <br />
This place is situated across a dry wash from the dunes – did manage to see some Ostriches here. The first evening my guide, Cliff, just took me out for a brief drive then up onto a high ridge for the ubiquitous :sundowner” – gin and tonic and some light snacks, this time stuff that I could safely eat including jerky made from kudu which is very good. Dinner both nights was good – I was spoiled by some of the previous resorts. The room is comfortable, with a nice, fairly modern bath. <br />
The one full day I spent here was a lot better than the first afternoon and evening, which were rather boring. It started with early breakfast and a drive out to a famous pan – a dried up seasonal pond/lake – overlooked by a 350 meter dune called “big daddy.” A group of four friends from Oklahoma joined me; they are all nice people with a good sense of humor so I enjoyed being with them. Two are retired doctors, the other two geologists – very convenient; they explained many of the features we saw, including dune shapes. <br />
Along the way we stopped for a brief walk that included a look at the dancing lady white spider, aka trapdoor spider. Cliff actually dug it out for us so we could see it – much larger than I thought it would be; I took a few photos of it. We all took several pictures of interesting dunes along the way. When we reached “Big Daddy” one of the other guys and I decided to climb it; the others decided to climb a shorter, 100 meter high dune and we decided to meet in the pan. About two thirds of the way up the other guy turned back so I plodded on – climbing sand is not at all easy. At the top there was a group of what must have been thirty US high school girls; I could barely find a place to stand on the top much less actually take pictures. Finally they left, giggling and yelling all the way, and I was able to take some pictures before I descended, half glissading in the heavy sand. It took 50 minutes to go up, 10 to go down. A lot of fun, and the first really strenuous exercise since leaving Germany. <br />
After lunch, we met at 2:30 for a drive out to a very old canyon, eroded by occasional floods from a sedimentary rock that combines sand with pebbles and rocks up to several pounds. Very interesting. Another sundowner, and back for dinner. <br />
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Overall assessment: <br />
The dunes area of Namibia is a bit of a letdown after Botswana. It is promoted for the scenery – which would be spectacular for someone who lives in Eureope or eastern U.S. It reminded me of nothing so much as New Mexico with oryx, zebras, and a handful of ostriches. I would have been happy with the Tok Tokkie trail and maybe one full day to see a few of the other sights. <br />
Wolwedans is a pretty luxurious place – excellent food, well managed, but a mediocre guide and not much to look at other than sand dunes and oryx. Kulala is comfortable and well-maintained but not nearly as well managed. Several frustrations: I did not get hooked up to wi-fi until about 30 minutes the morning I left; other guests said the had problems, but most were able to hook up once in a while. I would get connected to the kulala server but “no internet service.” There was supposedly a password but the login page never showed up. Staff gave contradictory and confusing answers to questions like meal times – I ended up hanging around the dining room from 6:30 until 7 the first night, waiting for service; the second night, I joined my friends at 6:40 and they were already seated and ordering. Laundry: I was told it would be picked up in the late afternoon – others were told first thing inn the morning. I gave up and washed a few things that absolutely had to be washed in the rather small sink. The guide, Cliff, was better than Mervin, at Wolwedans, but not up to the Botswana guides. (At least he doesn’t drench himself in perfume as several of the Kwara guides do.) Kulala uses closed-top vehicles instead of the open-top used elsewhere, which means two very wide blind spots, one on each side. As a result it was impossible to see when we were approaching something interesting until we were almost past it – the only ostrich I saw that was close enough to see (or photograph) clearly, I barely saw as we sped by because of that blind spot. By far the best here in the dunes area is the Tok Tokkie trail, which was magic from start to finish. <br />
Several people I met here rented cars to drive around southern Africa, and all swear by it, as a chance to really see the countryside. But when I flew out toward Damaraland, I feel I saw the countryside as well as I would have on the road – a lot faster, with a lot less hassle. I can see how it would work with 3 or 4 people traveling together, though. <br />
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Damaraland<br />
This area is radically different from the dunes.. This is lava rock over limestone and sandstone, so it is dotted with flat-topped buttes reminiscent of much of the intermountain west. The camp setup is familiar – very comfortable, open tent rooms with a clean, very serviceable bath; meals served at a common table – only ten rooms, so not a huge crowd of guests. Routine is similar to other camps – staff sings and dances in native tongue at dinner time, great food – very nice. Good guide; very interested in rocks. <br />
I discovered what may be the reason for the gluten problem I had – the person who greeted me told me they had been informed that I have “a preference for gluten-free.” I quickly informed him it is not a preference but a medical necessity – and made sure to talk with the cook as well, which I will continue to do. Later, at lunch the second day, they served a rice dish, then came to inform me that it wasn’t gluten-free and wanted to take it away. So there is a good deal of confusion, understandable I suppose. On the 2nd night they led us down to an outdoor place they have fenced off and set up for outdoor dining – a great experience overall. It was somewhat spoiled for me when the server brought me a dessert, then came back and took it away from me – apparently it was not g-f. Usually they bring some kind of substitute but this time they didn’t. I don’t really care, but after a while one of the women in the foursome sharing a car with me looked at me and asked “Aren’t you going to get a dessert?” For some reason that underscored for me the overall confusion. The next morning the manager apologized to me, which made me feel somewhat better about it. <br />
The g-f issue intruded in a more unpleasant way the last day of my stay there – I woke up in the middle of the night with gluten poisoning; as a result, reluctant to get to far from a bathroom I gave up a sunrise walk I had planned. This was the third such incident in two weeks, so the consequences were more pronounced than usual – I’m not sure what is happening, but I suspect the chefs are using some bottled sauce on some of the steak dishes without reading the ingredients label fully. One more example of the general lack of understanding about this. I will have to do more investigating. <br />
The first afternoon we visited a local village – people who were relocated to this wasteland from South Africa not long before South Africa lost its control over Namibia. They have adapted to the landscape, have gardens and livestock – but their cut of the tourist dollars is very welcome. If I understand correctly, the local population gets about a third of what we pay, which makes me feel considerably better about the costs. However, as I chatted with my guide, Teek, later, he gave a somewhat more cynical view. We visited a pretty little valley the afternoon / evening of the second day, with short cropped grass and several beef cattle, many of which did not look terribly fat. Teek talked about how desperately difficult farming is in this area – little water, poor forage, especially in a drought, poor prices for the beef. The third morning, we visited what had been a similarly pretty little valley, which farmers had burned from one end to the other in an attempt to make more room for grass for their cattle. Teek also saw lion tracks – he drove to the farm and talked to the farmer who said lions had killed one of his dogs and injured the other the previous night. We talked about the conflict between farmers and wildlife, especially lions – Teek said the farmers were supposed to get paid for any cattle killed by wildlife, but said it rarely happens, and that much less of the tourist money makes its way down to the local people than the official line suggests. It was a bit depressing but not surprising. Teek did have an optimistic side – Namibia, which is quite a new country, is trying to learn from the mistakes of other countries, notably Zimbabwe. However, prices rise fast, especially for housing, and the value from natural resources do not make its way back to the people. <br />
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In search of the wild elephant. <br />
The second morning we went on a game drive, in search of a newborn baby elephant. Along the way we saw a flock of ostriches, several herds of springbok, some mountain zebras silhouetted against the sky, a couple of jackals at a bit of a distance. We found tracks from a couple of lone males, then Teek went to where he thought the main herd would be, and found a huge bunch of prints, what looked like 20 or so elephants. We followed the elephant trail as they zig-zagged through the spring-fed valley, found several tracks headed for a rocky hill – we could hardly believe they would make a newborn elephant cross such difficult terrain, but Teek drove around the hill. He heard over the radio from another guide who had seen sign of them going up a different valley; we met the other guide, who went off to the left following the trail. Teek, on a hunch, drove up to the top of a rocky little hill and stopped at what looked to me like the edge of a cliff. He climbed to the top of the hill, swept the valley with his binoculars, and saw a couple of them in the trees. So we all clambered back into the vehicle and – to my surprise – he drove over what I had interpreted as the edge of a cliff, actually just a steep rock-strewn slope. We bounced down over the rocks and sped toward the site, where we saw several elephants browsing on the tree branches (I got a nice shot of one elephant with a branch in its mouth) and several others, including mother and baby, in the shadows beyond. The guide said the distance from where they had been previously spotted was about 40 km – a long way for a newborn baby, I would think. We watched them, relaxing in the shade of an acacia, for a couple of hours. I got some really nice photos of the baby, including a blurred shot of it falling down and some nice shots of its mother helping it back to its feet. I also got some shots of other slightly older juveniles playing and rolling around under the feet of and in the shadow of the adult elephants, which makes it slightly difficult to following the action. <br />
Tracking the elephants: They always set the hind foot down on and slightly ahead of the front foot, so you can tell the direction of movement by which circle is complete. When fresh, each print has ripple marks, which fade with time and wind. They also leave signs like fresh droppings with still wet sand from the urine, and bits of broken branches they have ripped off of the trees for food. Teek, like the other really good guides I’ve had, makes a lot of guesses based on his knowledge of the herd’s typical behavior and the terrain of the landscape – sometimes he’s wrong but often he’s spectacularly right. <br />
The following day my companions left so I was Teek’s only guest. I wanted to visit a nearby petroglyph site (which I later discovered is a world heritage site). We drove around first – viewing the burntout valley, etc. seeing a flock of ostriches and several other animals. Teek told me that the ostriches have an interesting social structure. The alpha female lays eggs and the other females lay eggs in the same nest, but only the alpha male and female tend the eggs and then the chicks. <br />
The petroglyphs are really great, although difficult to photograph because of the odd angles and glare reflecting off them. Some of my photos are very good but many are hard to read. They drew by scratching off “desert varnish,” like the Navaho, but they often engraved the picture much deeper. The only abstractions are circles with a dot inside, a symbol for water. Otherwise, local animals prevail: giraffes and hippos, which are also symbols of water. There were several varieties of antelope, several elephants, some quite lovely. <br />
After I had toured the rock art, Teek asked if I wanted to go back to the lodge or if I was willing to go with him to see if we could find where the elephant herd went. That sounded like an interesting adventure so I said “let’s go.” We had some coffee, some g-f chocolate muffins the staff had made for me and some of what I thought were g-f chocolate cookies (a later experience cast doubt on that – but that is a different story.) <br />
Teek drove up the valley, watching for tracks crossing the road. We saw a couple of single sets of tracks, but did not find the main herd tracks until we had reached a point where the valley started narrowing. He drove across the valley and back, then drove to the opening of a steep draw and stopped. He said they were probably heading on their annual migration to the foot of a large mountain some distance away, and they would either follow the road as it wound around the mountain or go up one of these draws. We started to walk up the steep rocky hill with the initial idea of climbing to the ridge to see if we could see them, then Teek motioned me over to where he was, to see if we could see tracks in the sandy bottom of the creek bed. We didn’t, so we circled back to the vehicle – a nice 40 minute walk in all. He went back to the road and drove along it for a ways, then turned up a rough track, up to the top of the ridge. We got out and looked down into another draw, where we saw several of the elephants, far below us. Teek started laughing, I think because he had managed to figure out where they were. However, as we drove back to the lodge, he mulled over the issue of leading a newborn elephant calf over such difficult terrain, and decided at least the mothers of the two young calves must have stayed behind with the calves. <br />
Teek also explained some differences between the desert-adapted and other elephants. The desert elephants never tear down trees or even break off large branches; they never stay at one water hole too long – he says they preserve their environment. They do rip small branches off a particular tree, strip the bark (which is nutritious) and leave the leaves for other animals – the trail of stripped branches with fresh unwilted leaves is one of the signs we had used to trail them. <br />
<br />
Desert Rhino Camp – final Namibia destination <br />
Basically similar layout with one addition – a self-appointed “pet” jackal, a nearly grown pup who hangs around in the mornings and evenings in spite of the staff’s attempt to discourage it. Very pretty animal who doesn’t understand the law against feeding wild animals or making pets of them. <br />
The first day there were only two other guests, an elderly couple who left Zimbabwe 40 years ago and now live in South Africa, Janet and Dusty. Dusty is very interested in photographing birds, particularly the more challenging very small birds. The result can be rather boring for a non “birder” – as long as five minutes at a time sitting in the middle of nowhere while he tries to focus his camera on a rather boring-looking sparrow-sized grey bird with a slightly long beak. Otherwise, the first evening’s game drive was pretty interesting – saw a mother hyena nursing her pups, a couple of jackals, a desert giraffe. We came back to meet the trackers for Save The Rhino who were scheduled to help us find a rhino the next day, then had a very nice dinner in a dining place set up next to the small pool – and first met the self-appointed pet jackal. <br />
The next morning it was up at 4:30, breakfast at 5, and off to find rhinos at 5:15. As we bounced along over the miserable roads (I finally took a photo of one) we saw several other animals (after the sun rose) including more giraffes, lots of springbok and steenbok and of course the ever-present oryx. (Not to mention several more tiny grey birds with subtle distinguishing features and a few larger, actually interesting birds.) Finally the guide got a radio call from the trackers who had found a rhino for us. We drove up to where they had stopped their vehicle, got out, and followed them, single file, along the road to a point downwind and slightly uphill, maybe 50 meters from the animal, who was contentedly and noisily munching on a low bush near some euphorbia bushes, and continued to do so while we took photos for about 20 minutes. <br />
There are several varieties of euphorbia – all of which are quite toxic to most animals. The euphorbia bush is interesting – rhinos and kudu are the only animals who can safely eat it, and it forms an important part of their diet. There are two varieties around here, one has fibrous long grey green stems, which both rhinos and kudus eat. The poison in their blood kills parasites. The animals get moisture as well as nutrition from the bushes. The other looks like a cactus, with thick ribbed stalks lined with spiky thorns. The black rhino uses his pointed prehensile lip to strip off the thorns to get at the stalk - white rhinos do not eat them. <br />
After our time was up (guests are rarely allowed longer than 20 minutes with a rhino, less if the animal seems at all disturbed) we drove around some more, saw several ostriches, mostly at a distance and running away. We also stopped at an area thick with Welvicha, which I had noticed and wondered about. They have only two broad leaves, which usually split into thinner sections as they grow. The leaves are a dark grey-green, turning brown then grey as the ends age and die; they can live over a century, grow very slow, and look like they are almost dead the entire time. The leaves have a leathery or plastic texture; the male has thin pollen stems, the female fruits that look like small upside-down pine cones. They do not actually flower – they belong to a category of their own, with no relatives. Elephants sometimes rip them up to eat the roots; antelope sometimes chew the leaves for the moisture and nutrients and spit out the fibrous remains.<br />
We also stopped and tasted the brilliant green ostrich salad plant, a succulent that is not poisonous and is rather tasty – a hint of lime – but survives a thirsty and hungry world because its leaves are exceedingly high in mineral salts – it tastes like something you might rub on a margarita glass, but not something to put in a salad. (I guess the local people have not discovered margaritas or it would be endangered.) <br />
<br />
Overall assessment: It took a while to get used to the different rhythms etc. in Namibia but once I did I have found it worthwhile. It adds considerably to my understanding of Africa generally, and also added a lot to my understanding of several species, especially elephants. It is very interesting to observe how the behavior of identical species is adapted to two remarkably different ecologies. Namibia itself is beautiful but in a harsh, forbidding way, not unlike Death Valley. The desert is 60 million years old, and 60 million years of wind have blown away most particles big enough to be picked up by wind, leaving a landscape that is either strewn with rocks of various sizes or covered with dunes from the sand that blows in from the Atlantic. This sand itself has an interesting history – it washes down the Orange River, is carried north by an ocean current, washes up on the shore of Namibia and is blown in by the prevailing winds which blow from the west. <br />
The camps are almost all quite well run, with excellent food and friendly, enthusiastic staff. They tried hard to understand and deal with my dietary restriction, with mixed success – the failures are probably due to food industry labeling practices, although I’ve not yet worked out exactly what is happening. Watching the guides at work here, as in Botswana, was a big part of the pleasure of the game drives and walks. They know their animals well, and approach tracking as an exercise in puzzle solving. They tend to begin with a “canned” package that will appeal to the average tourist, but I found that showing a consistent interest in culture and animal behavior encourages them to open up and share much wider range of knowledge – a huge advantage of staying longer at one place rather than hopping from one camp to another as many tourists do. Longer stays also makes it possible to observe and understand a wider range of animal behavior and ecological relationships. <br />
Flying in and out is interesting – gravel air strips; the guide is expected to get you there a half hour early and drive the full length of the strip to check for hazards – usually animals nearby ready to bolt across. Aircraft are usually 6 seaters, I had one 4-seater, sometimes 12 seaters. <br />
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One final adventure on the way out. When the bush plane was due to arrive the wind gauge was showing 15 knots, with gusts to maybe 25 – perpendicular to the runway. The intrepid pilot (a young South African woman – about ¾ of the bush pilots seem to be from SA) circled around, started the landing, and just as her wheels were about to touch the gravel her right wing dipped and almost touched the ground as a gust hit the plane. She jerked back on the throttle, climbed rapidly, radioed the guide that she’d be back in three minutes, circled around again, and this time made a perfect landing. I reassured myself that she’s done this lots of time, etc. etc., and, admittedly with a bit of trepidation, climbed into the plane as per her instructions. With me as the only passenger, she taxied onto the runway for a perfect takeoff. Fortunately the next strip, where I was to change planes for my flight back to Windhoek, is in a much less windy area, no incidents.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-80351492404296189842016-05-22T12:09:00.001-07:002016-05-22T12:09:16.394-07:002Kwara Camp <br />
The plane was late. Flight interesting – saw several elephants in waterholes, barely identifiable from the air. Got to the camp late, so had only a bit of time to settle in before tea and the afternoon game drive. <br />
They prepared me a special tea – gobs of onions with a piece of pretty good meat between two corn cakes. The onions were so strong I couldn’t eat them but fortunately there was some fruit, and I am never that hungry in the mid afternoon. But the contrast with Selinda was potent. <br />
The game drive started out well enough. We were looking for a group of three year old lions, two males and two females. We drove around for a while, then Mike, one of my two companions, saw the lions off in the woods. Neither the spotter nor the guide had seen them. We drove over and watched them and took a couple of pictures while the guide radioed the news to the other guides. Two other vehicles arrived before the lions started out on their hunt. We circled around while the other two vehicles followed – all very familiar from Selinda. The lions emerged from the wooded area into a large meadow of relatively short grass. Then we saw several giraffes across the meadow. They obviously saw the lion and the lion saw them. Ordinarily you would expect the lion to ignore them, since a lion cannot run as fast as a giraffe – you would also expect the giraffes to leave. Instead, the lion started toward the giraffes, and one of them started toward her. It was very dramatic – three year old lions are pretty inexperienced, and it was entirely possible she would try to take the giraffe. At that intense moment, inexplicably, Jacob said “We are only allowed to have three vehicles at one spot and if another vehicle comes we will have to leave.” He heard another vehicle coming, so we left! I was flabbergasted – one of us saw the lions, we were first on site, and we had to miss the most exciting part. We drove around a while, saw nothing exciting, and stopped for gin and tonic at sunset. On the way home we also saw nothing of interest. I later learned from passengers in the other, Johnnie-come-lately vehicles that some zebras with babies showed up and the lions turned away from the giraffes and tried, unsuccessfully, to take down one of the young zebras. I am so, so very pissed about it. One of the other guides at dinner explained that “Your guide knew from their body language nothing was going to happen and it was time for the sundowner.” Gin and tonic instead of a zebra chase!!! Not a very good exchange. <br />
At dinner, the waitress announced the buffet was set up, then said everyone else had to wait while David served himself first. I don’t care who knows about my celiac condition, and I make no secret of it, but it is awkward to be singled out that way. The food was good, but one dish tasted somewhat like German spaetzel. I ate part of it but should not have eaten even a bite – I woke up in the middle of the night with familiar symptoms of wheat poisoning. Symptoms lasted most of the next day, although I gradually got better. <br />
Based on the first day and night I am very unimpressed with this camp. The staff has a hard time understanding things – I still don’t know if they quite understand gluten-intolerance, and will have to be fully on my guard the whole time here. The guides are competent but not spectacular. Similarly, the food is reasonably good, but doesn’t come near Selinda. If I’d come here first, without the comparison, I’d probably feel more positive toward it. On the other hand, I’ve managed to have a really good time here thus far, and I’m sure the remaining two days will be just fine. <br />
<br />
May 19 <br />
Morning game drive was better – managed to spot a male leopard who did not want to be photographed and quickly vanished. However, we saw lots of other interesting game so it was overall pleasant. Vultures alerted us to a kill – all that was left were a few ribs and the lower jawbone of an impala, which looked very fresh – Jacob thought the vanishing leopard may have made that kill in the morning, and the hyenas probably finished what was left. <br />
Jacob is a nice person, very knowledgeable, although I don’t think he is nearly as knowledgeable as Obi. Aside from not sticking up for his passengers, he’s a pretty good guide. <br />
In the afternoon we drove down to the river and got on a flat bottom boat for a slow ride downstream to the main river, where we drank gin and tonics and watched the sunset, then took a much faster ride back up to the car to come home. We saw a baby crocodile on a log and a couple of elephants in a field of grass, plus a couple of hippos. But on the way back we bumped the back of two more hippos – Jacob says that a small bump like that won’t hurt them – and if you go slow when they get active around dark, they have been known to kick a hole in the bottom of a boat with their sharp hooves and strong legs. It was a fun leisurely afternoon / evening – quite a change of pace from other recent activities. <br />
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May 20<br />
Today started out on an interesting note. I awoke at midnight and there was total peace and quiet – then the mayhem started; lions roaring, hippos grunting and munching near camp, and what I believe was two baboons fighting, culminating in what sounded like one of them humming a sad song. When I walked over to the fire pit for breakfast, I learned that two of the guides were chased by – actually faced mock charges from – lions near the parking area. Then,, as I was eating my sweet roll and sipping coffee, someone spotted a lion just behind the trees next to the fire pit. Eventually we saw three, two females and a male. I had to take a picture in spite of the very poor light. After breakfast we followed them for a half hour so the guide could identify them. It turns out the male is not part of the same pride as the females, and they appeared to be trying to lose him so he wouldn’t take over anything they managed to kill. He is a mature lion, still strong enough to dominate others, although he has a wound in a hind leg from an old fight. It appears to be a tendon problem – his stride is normal and gracefully smooth until the very end, when his leg appears to pop as he lifts it. I’m sure a vet could diagnose it just from a video. In spite of the gimp, the guide says he is still a good hunter. <br />
We had to take the couple from New Zealand back to the airport, so we drove out in that direction. For a while we didn’t see much, then we came to a large park-like setting with deep lush grass a few inches tall – green and edible unlike much of the grass here. In that area we saw several varieties of antelope, zebras including two males fighting, wildebeest, giraffes, including a cluster I had to add to my large collection of giraffe photos (I’m struggling to delete as many poor pictures as I add good ones). Particularly amusing – we came to a tree literally filled with baboons who were chasing each other around, leaping to a nearby bush, and leaping down to the ground, a fall of about 20 feet. At one time at least a dozen fell within a few seconds, like it was raining baboons. Unfortunately we drove on before I could deploy the camera. I realize I need to have the small pocket camera out when we’re driving, take out the larger camera only when we stop so I have time to fuss with it a bit. <br />
Afternoon game drive started out leisurely. We dropped off Mike and Carrie but picked up two others, brothers from New Zealand, so we still have five in the car, the most I’ve experienced. All nice people, fortunately. We watched a large male elephant eating grass for a while. They use the hard sharp front edges of their front foot to loosen the grass, then grasp a clump with the trunk, beat it against their chest several times to knock off the dirt, then put in the mouth to chew up. We revisited the water hole where we saw the hippos this morning and there were three as well as some ibises and geese. Then we drove around a little, and the spotter saw cat tracks in the road, so we headed off into the grassy park-like area and found the four three year old lions again, and watched them watching a couple of kudu and a red antelope for a while. Then a call from another guide came – he had found a cheetah and her cubs eating a freshly killed impala. Jacob said it was on the other side of the concession and we’d have to drive very fast to get there before sunset but we all wanted to see it, so he set off. There followed the wildest ride I’ve had in a long time, bouncing over the hardened roads and plowing through the deep sand parts. We got there just as the sun was setting and I took sixty photos, some using flash (which didn’t seem to bother the cats). About forty turned out quite well. <br />
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May 21 <br />
Two interesting events today. In the morning we went for a nature walk – again with the guide carrying a big game rifle. As before, we saw some interesting wildlife from a respectful distance, including elephants, zebras and several species of antelope. We also saw a pad terrapin, a small turtle that lives in the water holes but, when we found it, was several hundred yards from the nearest one, on the way to another one. It is lucky we were walking not driving. The tracker picked it up to show us and it peed on him – a very stinky substance that serves as a defense. We also learned about a creeper vine that is used as soap – a few leaves and a little water, rub it together, and it emits a soapy, slightly oily liquid that serves well. I used a little, didn’t rinse, and found that it dried leaving my hands feeling as if I had used a good hand lotion. <br />
In the afternoon we came back to the same area, looking for the lions spotted the previous day, and saw a surprising (for hear) scarcity of game – as if everything was hiding. About an hour before dark, a radio message came that some wild dogs had shown up at camp (some days it doesn’t pay to leave home!) Apparently they chased an antelope right through camp, overturning chairs and making a general ruckus. <br />
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May 22 <br />
Some days it doesn’t pay to go very far from home. Jacob wanted to see if the wild dogs were still around so we drove around some of the nearby roads and, instead of dogs we found three spotted hyenas. We followed them for about a half hour and I managed to get a couple of pictures (I was on the wrong side of the vehicle, then they were in high grass, then another vehicle was between us ant them, then they went back into high grass). Jacob said they were heading into the brush and he didn’t want to spend the morning bouncing around in the brush so, instead of following them we headed for a different area to see if we could find four male lions who have formed a coalition. <br />
I was rather disappointed about the decision to abandon the hyenas – I would have liked to observe a lot more of their behavior. One of my minor disappointments about both camps, really, is the tendency to focus primarily on cats and on species count (see it, photograph it, move on to the next photo op). I would prefer focus on primates and canid species, and on more prolonged observation of behavior such as hunting and the male competition happening now as mating season approaches. However, my disappointment was at least partially assuaged when we found the three cheetahs again and I had the opportunity to watch the cubs playing. <br />
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Some general observations: The veldt is covered with several species of grass, each of which has a barbed or burred seed that is worse even than cheat grass. Several times we would see a lioness start limping and stop to dig a burr out from between her toes. The elephants and termites seem to play the major role in shaping the landscape: elephants rip up and pull over trees, and they keep the trees they like to eat pruned down to barren stumps with only a few leaves showing. They also eat the bark off of a certain acacia species, so that it is girdled and dies, accounting for all of the standing dead trees. Termites build the huge mounds, which are often populated by trees. As these areas connect up they form “islands” (which actually are islands during the rainy season floods). The islands are often covered with forest – either the tall, more open forests or groves of brush and trees stunted by elephant grazing habits. <br />
One frequently encounters several prey species grazing together – it appears that each species has a particular perceptual talent, eyesight, smell, hearing, and grazing together increases all their safety. <br />
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Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-6347344223952172092016-05-15T06:05:00.002-07:002016-05-22T12:07:37.819-07:00Selinda Spillway. <br />
The flight from Cologne to Johannesburg was less than half full – I was able to nab a full row of 4 seats and lie down for 6 hours – half slept most of the night but had at least a half hour of real REM sleep, with dreams. I was dreading this flight but it turned out pretty well. The flight to Maun was nearly full – all but two obviously tourists. I was met by a representative of the camps, but ended up waiting around for an hour and a half for the plane to take me to my camp. <br />
The flight itself was pretty interesting – we saw several herd of elephants and one herd of some smaller animal below. Upon arrival I was met be a man named Spike, one of the guides but assigned just to pick me up. They organize us in groups of 2-4 with one guide; my group had already left. Spike offered to take me to meet them, which we never did. However, while we were chasing them down we saw two small groups of giraffes, scores of impala and elephants (both thick as fleas around here), and several other animals. We ended in a small meadow at sunset, with a herd of about 20 elephants at the far end, including one baby. As the sun set and filled the sky with color the herd crossed the meadow and walked behind the vehicle, about 30 feet away. The guide was silent; all we could hear was the birds and crickets and the elephants passing by. It was sublime. When the elephants had moved on into the brush Spike started the vehicle and drove on to camp. Along the way we passed another herd of elephants in a grove of small trees, munching noisily on the leaves; I later learned this tree is one of their main sources of protein. <br />
I arrived at camp as it was growing dark and was greeted by the entire staff and a glass of lemonade. The manager sat down with me and explained their procedures and rules, the most onerous of which is that guests are forbidden to leave the camp at all unattended, or to walk between our tents and the lodge area unattended after dark. The only down side to the entire experience is the almost total lack of physical activity. <br />
A word about camp procedures. Every morning the guide awakens us (if we’re not already awake) with coffee or tea and cookies. (The first morning I had nothing except one of the granola bars but after I asked he started bringing me a banana.) He picks us up at 6 and we get into the vehicle – a 4 wheel drive truck-like land rover converted to have three rows of two seats – but usually there are only 3 or 4 people in it. We pull lap robes (lined parkas) over ourselves and set out for the first game drive – as soon as the vehicle is moving it is relatively cold until a couple of hours after sunrise. The game drive lasts until 11:30 or 12, when we return for lunch, followed by 3 hours of siesta. We meet again at 3:30 for tea – accompanied by pastries for everyone else, fruit for me, followed by the evening game drive. We return well after dark, usually around 8, for dinner. If you want, there is a fire for conversation after dinner but most of us are very aware of the 5:30 wakeup and forego it. The roads are all quite rough; half the time is spent off-road, which is even rougher. Whenever we get back from a game drive we are greated with hot wet clothes to wipe off the dust (although there isn’t much dust, surprisingly.) The animals are totally accustomed to the vehicles and usually ignore us – although some of the antelope and the warthogs are often a bit skittish, especially a lone animal away from the herd. <br />
Lunch and dinner are invariably gourmet experiences – to my immense satisfaction, including lots of fruit vegetables and salads. The staff have done an excellent job of accommodating my gluten free diet. There are drinks before dinner (and after if you have the stamina for it) and plenty of wine with dinner. <br />
Game is as abundant as the literature says – the reason, I suppose, for the prohibition on unaccompanied walks. My only real complaint is – I was told there would be a variety of activities, including canoeing on the river and long nature walks – but in fact, the river is too low, and thus far there have been no walks. Six days of absolute idleness is going to be difficult to take. If I return, I will come for no more than 3 days, with a visit to a more physically active place on either end. <br />
Internet connections are sporadic at best, so I will upload no pictures until I have a better connection.<br />
<br />
Selinnda Day 1 <br />
My first night’s sleep was, to say the least, interesting. Hippos came up out of the river to graze, snorting and farting as they munched; then some elephants came by, feeding much more noisily – all this very near my tent. (It was too dark even to think of seeing anything. Finally they quieted down and I was able to get to sleep. <br />
After 26 hours of travel with only dozing followed by an interrupted night of sleep, I was sound asleep when Obi knocked on my tent door. I got up, dressed quickly while drinking the coffee he brought and munching a granola bar, and was ready when he came back to fetch me. <br />
Right outside camp we saw a handful of jackals – beautiful animals, really – playing next to the road. This was followed by kudu, lots of birds, more elephants. <br />
The evening drive was even more interesting. Obi had heard that a young leopard had been sighted nearby, so we set out for the vicinity. He frequently drives off the road to inspect tracks (the animals seem to prefer the road to the tangled, head-high grass for some reason). When tracks head off into the brush, he will often follow, circling around to look for the animal. <br />
We saw many of the same animals as during the morning – it is astonishing how many large animals this area supports – it’s as if all the large animals in Wyoming were concentrated in Yellowstone. <br />
<br />
Selinda Day 2 <br />
On Day 2 Obi said we were going to try to find some lions that had been spotted in the vicinity, which had been seen beyond one of the other camps, so we set out in that direction. Along the way we spotted impala, a couple of Wildebeests, several other antelope species. Along the way we drove around for a while insome brush where footprints suggested they might be hiding out, to no avail. Finally one of the other guides reported having found them, so we drove on in that direction. When we arrived we found – two fat lumps of fur, swacked out sleeping off an obviously heavy recent meal. We watched them for about an hour and finally it warmed up enough that they got up and moved into some shade, where they flopped down for more sleep. <br />
We drove to an open field covered with relatively short grass (chosen, I assume, so Obi could keep an eye out for potential danger) for another lovely breakfast, eaten off the hood of the vehicle. <br />
On the way back we stopped by the sleeping lions again. The sun had moved so one of them was no longer in shade so we waited for him to get up, stretch and yawn, and move back into the shade, where it was obvious he would spend the rest of the day. <br />
On the way back we saw more antelope of various species, many hornbills, but not much else. After another hour or so of driving around Obi asked if we were ready to return for lunch. We all said fine, so he headed down a road that leads more directly toward camp. Almost immediately we came around a corner and – right beside the road – saw a lioness ambling through some sparse grass toward a clump of trees and brush. Obi stopped where we could watch her: She stopped briefly, staring into the brush at something, then turned and walked into the brush opposite of where she had been looking. So Obi drove around that clump of brush, where we saw nothing, but he said she was stalking something, so we stopped in another clearing and waited a while. After several minutes, the lion came around the clump, circled the vehicle, obviously looking at something beyond, then went back into the line of brush. Obi drove around her into the grass and around to the far side of the long line of brush and trees and again we waited. <br />
After several more minutes she came out of the brush, walked around us again toward a spot on the far side of a large clump, and sank into the low stalking position, which she held for at least five minutes, creeping forward so slowly you could hardly see her move. Abruptly she sprang, and through the brush we could see a warthog running for all he was worth, with the lion about a foot behind him. He was too fast for her, and got away. Again we drove around to see if she had caught him, and she walked around the vehicle again, headed out toward the marshy area – all very nonchalant, completely ignoring the vehicle and humans. We followed her for close to an hour as she patrolled, looking for other prey; then we returned to camp for our own lunch. In the afternoon we went back to see if we could find her cubs – Obi was pretty certain they were in a patch of brush covering several acres, but we couldn’t locate them. <br />
<br />
Selinda Day 4 <br />
We started a little later today because the other three members of my group had to catch a plane out before noon so needed to pack. We set out to look for the cubs again but, instead, ran into three lionesses, two adults and a juvenile. So we followed them the rest of the morning, watching as they tried for two or three warthogs. Obi says warthog is a main part of the diet because they have poor eyesight so are easier to catch. The lions spotted a herd of warthogs out in an open area beyond a grassy field. One of the adults circled around through the grass and the other started slowly maneuvering toward the prey: Then the adolescent started walking straight toward them. In spite of their poor eyesight, the warthogs could not help seeing them, spooked and ran. The same thing happened with a solitary warthog. We followed them for quite a while, until they sank down in the shade to rest. Whenever they go after an animal, they put on a burst of speed that exhausts their anaerobic energy so they have to rest about 15 minutes before continuing the hunt. Obi says they are actually not very fast compared to most of their prey, so stealth and tracking skills are vital. <br />
I was transferred to another vehicle while Obi took the others to the airport; had I thought faster I would have gone with them because they were going back to look at the giraffes again, but I didn’t. We drove to an open spot away from the lions and had a bite to eat, then drove back to see if they had become active yet, but they were obviously settled down to rest through the heat of the day. As we were turning back toward camp, we saw a lone warthog headed toward the lions, so we circled out well out of the way to watch. At first the lions didn’t seem to notice, but as the warthog drew near and started digging for roots, one of them rose up and started to watch it. Just as she was starting the stalk the warthog apparently smelled the lions, bolted and ran. This time I don’t think it was the adolescent’s fault. It appears life is pretty tough for lions – they have to try several times for one kill, and each try uses up a lot of energy. <br />
<br />
<br />
It apparently pays to make one’s needs known. Before sending the other members of the group to their airplane Obi told me that he would be guiding me alone, and that we would take some walks as well as filling in other things I’d hoped to see. So after lunch I put on hiking boots and, after tea, we drove out to an area with thin woods and sparse grass (good visibility to watch for danger. He carried a high-powered rifle just in case, and we took a nice long walk – about 2 hours at a moderate pace. I had a chance to experience the country close at hand, learned more about grasses, shrubs, and birds. We saw an impala male chase another male away from his harem, then, even more exciting, saw a group of males doing competitive displays. They jump high and kick their heels – Obi says that it releases pheromones from glands above the hoof. We also saw wildebeest and kudu in the distance – much more like I’m used to seeing wild animals. The silence, the turtle-doves calling all around, was very nice. My legs felt much better after the walk, and I felt more connected with Africa. Driving home after dark, we came around a bend and a herd of roan antelope crossed the road, single file and taking their own time. Lovely in the headlights. <br />
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May 16 <br />
Morning drive to see giraffes – they are scattered and we only saw a few. We did see another group of impala males, this time sparring with their horns; I got a few good photos. We saw a solitary zebra, and a Steenbok (sp?) that defecated then covered the pellets with dirt, like a cat. One of the other guides reported a male lion and some wild dogs, so we went over to check it out. The dogs had killed a small antelope and the lion chased them away and stole it from them. After a while we followed them as they went back to see if the lion had left any – the wandered around looking indecisive, then the lion made up their minds for him – he rushed out from a hiding place in some bushes and chased one of the dogs around a group of brush and out of sight. A little later he came back without the dog, which rejoined the other dogs. We followed them for a while as they set out to find something else for themselves. When they finally stopped to rest the heat was growing and Obi said they probably wouldn’t hunt any more until late afternoon so we drove off to find a good breakfast spot, then went looking for other animals. Along the way we came to a small pond with no fewer than 8 hippos in it, some of them more than half out of the water. <br />
On the way back, we saw fresh leopard tracks going off into the brush, and spent 20 minutes or so looking for the leopard. Then, we saw a line of elephants heading toward the river. Obi drove on to a field of grass, where we saw two more lines of elephants. He drove out and stopped in front of one of the lines where we waited as quietly as we could, snapping pictures all the while. They kept coming, eventually veering slightly to our right to pass within maybe 15 feet of us. It was totally silent except for the sound of their feet through the grass and their breathing – an awesome, almost mystical, experience. I tried to shoot a movie of another line but I don’t think I pushed the right buttons. Then, as we approached the camp, we saw two rhinos on the far side of the river, one of them noisily munching on the riverbank grasses. They are most likely the ones who have been keeping me awake at night. <br />
Afternoon drive – went to spend some time with the baboons. Unfortunately some were in the tree, some in the thick undergrowth, and some sleeping. A couple of them were grooming, which was interesting for a while. In any case I got a hundred photos to sort through and select from. I also learned what baboon turds sound like when they’re dropped from 50 feet up. Don’t ever set up your picnic under a tree with baboons in it. After that we went for another walk, shorter this time. Saw more impala and a herd of zebra – as yesterday, it seemed entirely different, seeing them on foot. Not necessarily better, just different. After having a gin and tonic back at the car we drove back to camp, Obi using his flashlight to find a very quiet and hardly distinguishable bush baby and a genet, very pretty little animal who let us look at him for a couple of minutes then disappeared around the tree trunk. Finally we saw an African wild cat – looks exactly like a grey house cat with black stripes on its legs. <br />
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May 17, 2016<br />
Great morning. Up at 5:30 to the coolest morning yet – had to put on pullover, fleece, and down jacket. We set out to find the leopard, who is quite elusive. Along the way, shining the flashlight around to look for small animals in the bushes, we accidentally shined it in the eye of an elephant 30 or 40 meters away; he bellowed in annoyance, and we turned off the lights. Around the next bush we saw another elephant almost on the road. Found some leopard tracks, (everything out there walks on the road if possible) and followed them until we saw tracks going back – drove off in the bush to see if we could find it; finally gave up when we came across tracks of a lioness and cubs. Followed those about 30 minutes and found the entire pride – five lionesses, three 3 month old cubs. Watched them a while, waiting to see if the lionesses would go hunting but they seem settled in, so we drove off to a large watering hole with about 50 elephants. As we sat there watching, more and more kept coming in groups of 10 or more, all of them lining up to drink, snuffling and grunting. Several babies. One adolescent who flicked her ears threateningly at me, then did an odd little shuffling dance, picked up and threw a twig, scratched at the dirt with a hind paw. <br />
One of the guides who had stayed with the lions radioed that they had caught scent of a herd of zebras and were stalking it, so we headed off back toward them, Obi driving as fast as he could and me hanging on. Then the other guide radioed that the juvenile who has already spoiled several hunts spoiled this one too, starting the chase before the adults were in position. So we went back to the elephant watering hole for breakfast. About half the elephants had left but more were still coming. I watched and photographed several babies, including one who kept rolling in the shallow water and playing – the only one, baby or adult, who bathed like that. Obi set up breakfast and we ate watching the elephants, being as quiet and non-threatening as we can. After we’d eaten breakfast another juvenile came up and stood 30 feet away, flicking her ears in an annoyed way. She did mock charges several times, stopping about 20 feet away then backing off. It is not easy to stand your ground when three tons of elephant comes charging toward you. <br />
Like yesterday’s elephant parade, this experience had a magical quality to it – the grey shapes moving through the background shrubbery, the sounds, the slow but very graceful walk of the animals, the occasional annoyed trumpeting. The feeling is almost indescribable. <br />
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May 18 2016 - Last day at Selinda <br />
We went out early to see if we could find the lions. Once again Obi found them first. We saw some leopard footprints but Obi said it is a male who is very shy and all but impossible to find. Then we hit paydirt – several sets of female lion prints, which left the road to the right. It took about five minutes to spot the lions. We watched them for a while; eventually two other vehicles showed up. There were five females; eventually they started yawning and pulled out, one by one – sometimes separated by several minutes. One was ranging off to the left, three at first walked abreast with one behind, then they formed a line. As before, it reminded me of gunfight scenes from western movies – the slow, ambling stroll, stopping now and again to scan the horizon, sniff the air. We would drive ahead a ways then lag behind, staying out of their way. One of the occasions when we were ahead of them we saw a kudu raise his head and turn toward the lions. It appeared he smelled but didn’t see them – he ran off into the tall grass but, it turned out, did not run far enough. After a while I noticed we had passed a warthog – which the lions had obviously missed – his lucky day. The other vehicles tracked the four females, but Obi had a hunch and drove along a road parallel to the solitary female, who had entered the same patch of the very tall grass, probably following the kudu. <br />
When we saw a small cloud of dirt off to the left Obi exclaimed “that’s it!” He stepped on the gas and turned toward the dirt cloud, racing through the grass in a short but very bumpy ride until we came to the scene of the crime. The kudu lay on its side, threahing around wildly and kicking out with all four hooves while the lioness had her jaws clamped tightly onto his left haunch, pinning him down. This went on for a while, then she started working her way up his belly, finally clamping her jaws on his throat, which quickly suffocated him. Once he quit threshing around she lay there beside his head, panting for several minutes. Then she started dragging the antelope, a few feet at a time with interludes of panting between, toward a nearby tree, where she left the animal, concealed by the tree and the surrounding tall grasses. By the time she reached it the two other vehicles had arrived. When she left to go fetch her cubs, Obi said it would take her a while, so we drove to a nearby clearing to have breakfast. He explained that she was taking a serious risk that someone else would find the carcass and she would lose it – but her cubs were ready to start weaning, her milk drying up, and she had to feed them. <br />
We drove back well before the cubs arrived, and Obi positioned the vehicle in as good a place as possible, given the tall grass. Eventually the lioness arrived, her cubs stringing along behind. There followed a growling and grunting feast, as she tore open the flesh in one spot for the cubs to begin feeding, the tore the belly open to expose the soft innards, easier for the cubs to handle. I think I got at least one picture of her snarfing up a shred of stomach or intestine – apparently it is crucial for her and her cubs to eat their fill as rapidly as possible in case a pack of hyenas or a male lion comes along to steal it away from her. We watched the mayhem for a while, then Obi took me back to camp for lunch and departure. Along the way I got a good laugh from him by commenting “I think for this lunch I’ll stick to salad and fruit.” I meant it in jest, but in fact that was all they had prepared for me. <br />
It was overall pretty disgusting but at the same time fascinating. Among other things I learned about lions is that they do not have it easy. They are slower than most of their prey, so must get close enough to catch the prey with a short quick burst. They miss at least five times for one success, and patience is all-important. The kudu also faces a quandary: they can’t run too far because they must eat almost constantly in order to get what they need. <br />
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Overall assessment: <br />
Selinda (They have two; I think this one is Forest Camp) is very well run, a great place to spend a few days. Most people stay only 3 or 4 nights; I was very glad I stayed 6, especially since it was my first experience of Africa. The food is excellent, and the staff did a great job of accommodating my dietary needs. I had different but delicious appetizers and desserts, and they sent excellent food for the game drive breakfasts. I think all the guides here are quite good but I also think my guide, Obi, was among the best – he has an almost instinctive feeling for the animals’ behavior and anticipated where to find them more often than not. He explained stuff clearly and at the right level of detail. My major complaint (which applies to this entire area because of the abundance of very dangerous wildlife) was the prolonged lack of exercise; Obi also accommodated this, taking me for two walks, one about two hours and another about an hour. Everyone is friendly and knowledgeable. Five stars – highly recommended. <br />
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Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-51014038390925336882016-05-05T15:27:00.004-07:002016-05-10T23:51:21.938-07:00Itinerary for Southern Africa and Europe May-July 2016 cgrd@pdx.edu<br />
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May 6 PDX to AMS May 6 <br />
Will spend a few days in northern Germany with Anja<br />
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May 11 Frankfurt Johannesburg to Maun <br />
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May 12 Arr. Maun, Botswana; bush flight to Selinda Camp<br />
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May 18 Okavanga Delta – Kwara Camp <br />
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May 22 Maun to Windhoek; overnight at Galton House, Windhoek<br />
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May 23 NamibRand Nature Reserve – Wowedans Dune Lodge. <br />
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May 25 Tok Tokkie Trail Mobile Camp. <br />
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May 27 Sossusviei Kulala Desert Lodge <br />
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May 29 Damaraland Camp <br />
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June 1 Damaraland Desert Rhino Camp Palmweg Concession <br />
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June 3 Windhoek – Galton House. <br />
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June 4 Flight to George, South Africa <br />
Will spend two weeks visiting with old Stanford friend Manie Breytenbach<br />
May hike part or all of the Otter Trail (depending on weather and other options).<br />
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June 13-19 or 20 Tour Cape area. <br />
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June 20 Fly Capetown to Madagascar Antananarivo <br />
A little over a week seeing some of this large island<br />
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June 29 Antinarivo to Berlin via Paris – flight leaves 1:30 a.m. (ugh)<br />
Five days in Berlin attending RaAM metaphor conference. <br />
Berlin: Hotel Pension-Spree, 19 Trautenaustraße <br />
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July 5 Berlin TXL to Zurich then on by train to starting point for ten day trek in the Bernese Oberland <br />
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July 15 Kandersteg to Zurich airport; Delta to Amsterdam; overnight at the airport Sheraton; fly Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-52011873598749063482013-07-07T10:44:00.002-07:002013-07-07T10:44:19.034-07:00Peru - Inka Trail and Amazon rain forest June 2013Peru – June, 2013
I have been thinking for some time of a visit to the Andes, with Peru’s Machu Picchu specifically in mind. Last winter I decided to do it as soon as school was out this spring – and managed to talk a friend, Ben Perkins, into going with me. The plan was to spend 4 days hiking the Inka Trail, an extra day at Machu Picchu, where we would climb Huayana Picchu, then spend 5 days in the Amazon jungle. We had initially planned to spend two days in Cuzco, but the itinerary prepared by the company I dealt with, Pachamama, omitted that from the plan. We later wished we had kept it in, because Cuzco is a pretty and interesting city that merits at least a couple of days in its own right – and we needed the time to do laundry.
Background: the Inka civilization
“Inka” refers only to the governing elite, who never numbered over about 100,000. Commoners, from various ethnic and language groups, were required to spend 4 months of every year, as a form of taxes, either working the overlord’s lands or working on various construction projects, including roads, terraces, and temples. Many of these people lived in highland villages – where their descendants still live (I think “highland” means well above Cuzco’s 11,000 foot elevation.)
The Spanish systematically destroyed as much of the Inka civilization as they could, just as they did elsewhere in South America, but the ruggedness of the terrain limited their activities, which partially accounts for the preservation of some sites like Machu Picchu, and also accounts for the continuation of many customs from pre-colonial times.
Cuzco - 6 19 13
Our hotel, the Maytaq, is about 1.5 blocks from the main square. It is clean and pleasant, with good firm beds, a very nice bathroom, and a good, efficient staff. The walls are a little thin, so we were kept awake by other people getting ready for early departures. Breakfast was so-so, one egg, some good fresh fruit, some indifferent salami and cheese. If I return to Cuzco I will probably stay there again.
The first day in Cuzco I had thought to visit some of the ruins there, but as part of a month-long festival of the sun they were having a kind of parade around the town square, with lots of traditional folk dances as well as marching groups of faculty members and (apparently) students from various departments of the local university, so we ended up spending almost the entire afternoon watching that. I got far too many good pictures; will need to do some heavy sorting. I later learned that the dancers were from universities all over Peru, and that it was a competition, with a judging stand in front of the main cathedral. (The couple at the right were central figures in what appeared to be a courtship dance.)
That night we met with one of the Pachamama guides for an orientation and got two slightly unpleasant surprises. We thought we had ordered two pairs of trekking poles, but they interpreted it as two poles, so we had only one apiece. Also, we thought we had paid $50 each to have a private group and not be added to someone else’s tour, but the clerk apparently missed that, so we had been assigned with a group of five Brits. As it turned out, that was not a big problem, since all of them turned out to be friendly, compatible people and in good condition for hiking the trail.
In Lima we had a very early wakeup in Lima to catch the plane - good thing we got to the airport a bit early, since the security line was a full quarter of a mile long. The problem was repeated in Cuzco: Fumbling with my watch, I apparently set my watch alarm to midnight. It repeated after ten minutes, so I had to hide it in the bathroom. Then Ben's alarm went off, and he dealt with that. We both had a hard time getting to sleep - then the hotel called with a wakeup call at 4 a.m., mistakenly believing that we were going to the trail that day. We both mostly dozed until the time when we really did need to get up.
Touring the Sacred Valley
The Sacred Valley tour was a bit of a bust. First we spent 1.5 hours driving around Cuzco picking up other clients and waiting for another bus, to trade English / Spanish speaking guests. Then we drove over winding mountain roads to Pisac, where we assembled along the trail from the parking lot and listened to a long lecture by the guide, then had just 15 minutes to poke around the site – which is quite interesting, and would have been worth at least a couple of hours. The view from the site is itself quite spectacular.
Pisac is a vast slope of terraced fields with food storage buildings at the top. Each terrace has its own micro-climate; the Incas planted different species of corn, potatoes, and other crops at different levels; they also appear to have done a lot of agronomic experimentation. They also worked out a way to dry potatoes, and to store food in a way that it would keep for years, using a combination of air circulation and natural insecticides in various plants.
The Inkas developed very complex systems of irrigation, by splitting stones and carving matching grooves in the stones to channel the water; many of these systems are still in operation. At left is an outflow from one of these buried “pipes,” with water spilling into a rock-lined ditch that leads down to one of the terraces. Most of the terraces are no longer farmed, but they are maintained weed-free by national park employees (with the help of grazing llamas).
On to Pisac town, where we spent over an hour in the shopping market, good for about ten minutes maximum in my book. We did enjoy the food market, with exotic varieties of potatoes, maize, and many fruits we’d never heard of. At right is a farming couple behind their food stand. Notice the white-skinned potatoes.
After wandering around for much longer than either Ben or I was interested in, we drove an hour to a roadside restaurant for a long elaborate lunch, more than an hour. The lunch was good, but much more than we really needed, and I’d have much rather spent the time exploring the Inka sites. A trio in the courtyard played tunes on traditional instruments – a stringed instrument and some flutes, and that was very nice.
After lunch we drove on to Ollantaytambo, where we visited a large site that was under construction when the Spanish arrived, and was abandoned without being completed. We skipped a site along the way that would have required about an hour walk each way - the shopping and long lunch did not leave time for such frivolities. That was exactly the opposite of what we would have asked for had we had the private guide we expected. This is only one of many ways in which I feel Pachamama let us down.
On the hill behind and to the right of the terraces above you can barely make out the trail that leads up to the Inka Trail.
At each site, the terraces provide a series of micro climates, and were used for agricultural experimentation, with different crops growing on each terrace, usually potatoes at the top, then maize, then fruit and other crops. At the very top were stone storehouses, constructed to achieve natural drying and cooling, and furnished with natural insecticide herbs that would preserve dried food for 20 years or longer. At the bottom were the residential areas, usually with a separate area for the temple and other public buildings.
The Inkas were great builders and architects. Above is one of their building blocks, with a groove that matches a projection on other blocks, keying them together like Lego blocks. They also put smaller stones in between larger stones, to allow the stones to move during an earthquake without falling down – these will be more apparent in some of the later pictures.
We stayed the night in the Pakaritampu Hotel, an interesting and comfortable resort complex situated on a sprawling set of terraced lawns. The dining room appears to have been constructed 70 or 80 years ago, with natural wood everywhere, almost elegant. Dinner was a huge disappointment - quite expensive, tough, and not very tasty, poor presentation. I had overdone trout in a wine sauce, served with equally overdone tasteless potato and at least one whole onion, which overwhelmed the taste of the fish. Ben had a grilled chicken breast, tough and flavorless - but he said the sauce was quite good. If I stayed there again I would walk into town and look for another restaurant. Breakfast was somewhat better – and, unique among the places we stayed, they actually had puffed quinoa as one of the cereal options. Immediately after breakfast we were picked up by the Pachamama bus and met our guide and the other members of our group. We then drove about 20 minutes to the trailhead, at Milepost 82, where we checked in with the park authorities, put on our packs, and set out. The picture to the right / above is my companion, Ben, standing in one of the doorways at Ollantaytambo.
Hiking the Inka Trail
The national park service issues permits for 200 trekkers each day; add guides, cooks, and porters, and there are about 500 people hiking each stage of the trek. The guides do a pretty good job of keeping the groups spaced apart, so you’re usually aware of no more than 15 or 20 other trekkers. The first day’s camp site was located in a small village, Wayllabamba, along with four other groups – but the camp sites were designed in a way that did not feel too crammed together. The second day’s camp site was larger, maybe 15 or 16 groups, but our guide, Jimmy, had selected a relatively secluded site at the very beginning of the trail upward. The third day’s camp site was the largest – since it is only a couple of miles from the Sun Gate, entry to Machu Picchu, almost everyone camps there. Not surprisingly, the toilet facilities became progressively worse as the size of the camp sites grew.
Our group. Our guide, Jimmy Mansi (jj_mansi@ hotmail.com), was quite good and if I return to Peru I will use him again. He was knowledgeable, considerate, and very good at planning the trip and securing a good camp site for us. Our hiking companions, all of whom were experienced hikers: Derek (derekroyh.lls@yahoo.co.uk), a little younger than me. Grant (grantmizen@hotmail.com) – ebullient and good-natured, and his father Geoffrey, about my age, used to be a runner until he hurt his feet, still in very good shape - hiked at about my speed. A married couple, Marc and Maria (marc@marc82.orangehome.co.uk) - Marc is a runner, very good shape. Both Derek and Maria seemed little unsure of their ability, but both of them kept a good even pace, and handled the most difficult parts of the trail very nicely. All in all, the group was quite well matched in terms of overall ability and pace.
(Derek, Ben, me (Dave), Grant, Geoff, Maria, Marc)
The cook was quite good - first night on the trail he did an excellent herbed trout; for breakfast the next morning he made herbed scrambled eggs for me that were also very good. Things went downhill a bit from there, not surprisingly since the cook and his helper carried cooking equipment table service, and all food on their backs. (I could have done with half the table service.) One of the ways Pachamama let me down was by not passing the information about my celiac disease along to the guide or cook. The cook did a quite good job of improvising, so usually I ate as well as the other guests – all except snacks, which often involved cookies or crackers, and even the candy bars were chocolate covered shortbread. Tea, before dinner, involved popcorn as well as some kind of wheat-based snack; everyone else dug into the popcorn first before eating the wheat-based snack. I took what I thought was more fruit-nut bars than I would need; turns out I didn’t take nearly enough. Fortunately, Ben brought far more than he needed, and generously shared some of them with me.
The trail. Most of the trail is paved with more or less flat stones; the slopes have steps. (That’s why you are not allowed to use metal-tipped trekking poles.) Some of the steps were uncomfortably high, especially on the steeper slopes – but I still preferred them to loose gravel and cobbles.
The routine. The day began before daylight, usually about 5:30, but 3:15 on the final morning. A porter delivered heated water and soap for washing, followed by a cup of hot coffee or tea. We then dressed, stuffed sleeping pad, sleeping bag, and everything else we wanted the porter to carry into a duffel bag and packed our day-packs, then assembled in the mess tent for breakfast. This was often centered around pancakes or bread – but the cook provided me with some kind of egg dish, usually scrambled eggs, and sometimes potatoes. After breakfast, we put on our packs and set out up the trail. We would usually pause for a snack along the way, stop for lunch around 12:30 or 1:00, then hike another hour or two and make camp around 3:00 or 4:00. The porters broke camp after we left, passed us along the way, and had things set up for lunch and camp when we got there. They are strong, incredibly fit, and almost run up the trail under their loads. Officially they are not supposed to carry more than 25 kilos, but their loads looked twice that to me.
Weather: generally cool – 40s at night, low to mid 60s in the afternoon – and mild, with occasional rain that rarely lasted longer than 30 minutes. I never put on my rain pants; the nylon hiking pants hardly got damp. At the highest camp, the rented sleeping bag was barely sufficient – I recommend a heat-reflective “space blanket” to throw over it. Fleece warmups are not necessary, but on the coldest morning I wore long underwear until just before we started hiking, and a fleece sweatshirt as well as my quilted jacket – both came off within the first 15 minutes of walking. A member of a later group reported sleet at the top of the first, highest summit, so we were lucky with respect to weather.
First Day. The first day's hike was short and easy. We didn’t start until probably 10 or after, hiked a gradual grade on excellent trail, climbing an easy, steady grade to a ridge, from which we could see the very pretty Llactapata ruins on a facing slope below us. Here, both the storage and residential areas are at the top; a religious shrine lower right. The Inkas liked circles; the scalloped terraces apparently have religious significance, as does the number three – it wasn’t clear what the circles represent; possibly the sun.
On the ridge above the ruins is the ruin of a fort, which probably also served as a relay post for the runners, who constituted the Inka’s main medium of long-distance communication.
Beyond the fort we descended into a long valley; about another hour brought us to the village of Wayllabamba and our first camp site.
The easy walk on the first day provided a nice chance to get to know everyone, and get a feeling for the group as a whole. During the day I walked along with every member of the group, getting to know them and learning all the names. Grant had probably the slowest pace; his father, Geoff, had a good steady pace quite similar to mine. Derek, Maria, and Ben were somewhere in between. On the first day, Marc walked ahead of the others; I gather he has done quite a bit of trail-running, and would have liked to run more. It could be that we were matching each other’s natural pace, or there may have been a kind of implicit competitiveness. In any event, it was a nice, even trail and fun hiking.
The camp sites are located in pastures below a small ruin of an Inca relay station, below some farm buildings and outbuildings. After we’d set up camp, I asked Jimmy where the bathrooms were located and he replied - see those two chickens? It's right behind them." I asked him what I should do if the chickens move, and for just a second I think he thought I was serious. Toilet facilities along the whole trail are rather Spartan - sitdown toilet at the first campsite, squat toilets after that (pretty scummy on the last night, probably because there were so many people using them.)
Second Day. Immediately after leaving camp we started on an uphill grade toward the 14000 foot (4,200 meter) summit (below). The trail alternates between quite moderate and very steep, through woods at first, then over a barren slope with grasses and short scrubby brush. I’ve noticed before that, especially on steep slopes or difficult terrain, it is very difficult to hike close behind anyone. If they slow or stop abruptly it breaks my rhythm and leaves me out of balance – which increases muscle strain and quickly tired me out. Accordingly, I brought up the rear for the first half of the ascent, stopping every time I caught up with the next person and waiting until they were almost out of sight before starting again. As we started up the final stretch, shown above, Geoff moved out ahead of the group, so I decided I would keep him company. That worked well, since we hiked at about the same pace.
The last stretch of trail to the pass (called “Dead Woman’s Pass” because, from a distance, on the far side, it looks like a woman lying on her back) is shown above; looking back down from the summit is shown on the left.
Everyone in the group seemed to be keeping a good, steady pace, with Geoff in the lead, so I walked along with Geoff at my own comfortable, slow but very steady pace all the way to the summit – on each step my heel was barely in front of my toe, breathing deeply and rhythmically, heart rate (measured when I reached the top), 130. To the left is a picture of me with Geoff at the top. I thoroughly enjoyed the hike up to the pass – the temperature and weather generally were pretty near perfect. Ben says he “hit the wall” on about the last hundred feet of elevation, but he still came up only a few minutes after Geoff and I reached the pass.
It was very pleasant when Geoff and I reached the summit, although a wind came up not long after the others arrived. The descent was equally steep, but I was able to do the same - keep an even pace - and it didn't hurt my knees nearly a much as I feared. Marc ran down part of the stairs.
Second night our camp site, at Pacamayo, had a nice view out to some mountains that were half hidden behind clouds most of the afternoon - cleared up about sunset to give us a very nice view. Unfortunately, we had to eat in a mess tent so could not watch the last of the sunset. The view, taken from partway up the trail above camp, is shown above. The mountains are all above 20,000 feet.
Day Three. The third day was the longest day - included another summit, about 4,000 meters, but easier because we started from higher up the mountain. Near the bottom of the pass, we stopped for about a half hour at Runkurakay, shown to the left. A light rain fell for about a half hour while we explored the place and took photos, including photos of the Inka citadel of Sayacmarca, shown below. The trail passes below Sayacmarca on the left – a couple members of the group walked out to it but I didn’t. The trail continued on for maybe a couple of miles, over undulating ground, past a campground where we stopped for a brief rest – but most of us preferred to go on after only three or four minutes, since the campground was pretty crowded and not very attractive.
As we continued on Ben told me something that was a little disturbing. Water had been a little bit of a problem – Jimmy would say there will be boiled water at morning, noon, and night, but there often wasn’t enough at morning and night. Ben wasn’t sure, but he thought he had seen a porter come back from the spring next to camp with a bucket of water from the spring and dump it directly into the pan from which the assistant cook was doling out water. I mentioned it to Jimmy, because I was pretty sure he would want to know, then at a brief stop took out my water filter and filtered the water from one canteen to another. If it happened, the spring must not have been contaminated, because no-one got sick.
To the left: a “fountain” at Runkurakay. All of the towns have one or more of these. The water flows in through the slot in the rock and down the groove to cascade into a shallow pool.
Eventually we came to another campground, just above Puya Patamarka, where the porters had set up lunch. After lunch, Jimmy wanted us to rest for a half hour, but I was restless so I told him I would wait at the ruins (to the right and below). I was glad I did, because I had plenty of time to look the place over. When the group came up, Jimmy just talked about it for ten or fifteen minutes, and then we went on.
Beyond the ruin, you can see the trail winding on around the mountain toward our third and final campsite. At the bottom of the terraced area is a stream and a series of five pool / fountains, with a pasture beyond, in which some cows grazed. The trail follows the stream and goes around the bottom of the terraces.
We followed the trail gradually downward, through forest, and eventually came to a fork in the trail. The bottom trail leads directly to our third and final campground, but we took the upper trail, which leads to the top of a large set of terraces overlooking the campground and the river far below. We spent 30 or 40 minutes there, then followed another trail down to the camp, which was already set up.
Day 4: The Sun Gate and Machu Picchu
Jimmy warned us that the porters would awaken us at 3:30, to get down to the entry gate to the M-P trail as early as possible, but all of us were up and dressed by 3:15. (That was good, because getting up early meant getting in to the toilet before the lines formed.) We ate a somewhat hurried breakfast, grabbed some fruit (and snacks for those able to eat wheat) from a bag provided by the porters, and hurried down to the gate. One reason for getting up early is that the porters take a separate trail down to the river, where they need to catch an early train back to Ollantaytambo – where they hook up with another trek and set out again the next day. (Above – with Ben at the Sun Gate. Left – Derek, Grant, Ben, Geoff, Marc, me, then Maria bottom row.)
Another reason is to reach the Sun Gate before M-P is totally jammed with tourists. Because of his organization and his success at nailing down good, well-positioned campsites, and because we all hustled, we were about third in line. After the gate opened and our papers were stamped, we filed through and marched at a comfortable but fairly fast clip through the woods in growing twilight. All members of our group showed our mettle as we kept the pace up, and eventually passed all the others at least a mile before we reached the Sun Gate. I took some photos from the Sun Gate, but I got much better photos from the top of the terraces (above).
The crowds showed up fairly quickly – fortunately, the first several busloads coming up from town headed up the trail toward the Sun Gate, so we were able to get a few good pictures before the place was totally over-run. Jimmy led us on a tour for something over an hour, explaining what we were seeing, then left us with tickets for the remainder of the journey plus instructions, including a recommendation for a really good restaurant, Indi Feliz, of which more later.
One of the most interesting aspects of all the Inka ruins is the architecture, the way they incorporated the landscape, and different shaped rocks, into their building. Most of the doors and windows taper inward toward the top, which apparently strengthens and stabilizes them – this is apparent in the photo above left. We also found it quite interesting how they incorporate oddly-shaped rocks (many of them either resembling the Southern Cross constellation or one of the nearby sacred mountains) into walls (above), and build walls around rocks projecting from the mountain.
They also either found or carved rocks and rock slabs into pictorial representations of mountains, often mountains directly behind them (picture to the left).
Below is a sun dial that caps the temple to the sun god, itself carved from and built upon a natural projection of the ridge. The sun dial, carved from the ridge-top, marks the seasons: At high noon on the day of the summer solstice, the projection at the top casts no shadow.
The crowds thinned out after noon, possibly because it was getting warmer. One useful strategy for those staying more than one day would be to arrive at the site right about noon and stay all afternoon (wearing plenty of sun block, of course).
(Right: me, Huayna Picchu behind.)
Around three we were pretty tired, so we caught a bus down to Agua Caliente, retrieved our duffel bags, and checked in to our hotel, the Killa. We were not very impressed with it – it was at least clean (no cockroaches, etc.), but the beds were spongy, and the only window looked out onto a stair case / maintenance area on the ground floor – more like a daylight basement, really. Breakfast was the most pathetic I had – a little fruit and a few rolls (I couldn’t eat) plus a little granola I also couldn’t eat.
We walked up the one tourist street, kind of interesting, but with restaurant representatives hustling you every step of the way. When we got to the end of the street we realized there is, contrary to what we’d been told, a hot springs just outside town, but we hadn’t carried bathing suits, and didn’t care enough to go clear back to the hotel for them. We wandered around a little more, had a beer (Ben) and glass of wine (me), then went to the Indi Feliz for what was easily the best dinner I had anywhere in Peru. The place specializes in trout and serves it about a dozen different ways. I had trout with Mango sauce and a passion fruit chutney, a salad of papaya and avocado balls in a nice vinaigrette, tomato stuffed with pesto, and finished off with a chocolate parfait, accompanied with a small dish of passion fruit mousse. Everything was delicious. The bill? $30! What was weird about the place – and the whole town – was the nautical theme, with mermaids, ship’s helms, and so on all over the place.
Day 5: Machu Picchu and Huayna Picchu. We got up early and caught the first – well, actually about the third – bus up to MP. We were maybe 50th persons in, but most of the others headed first up to the Sun Gate, so we had close to an hour to take people-free photos, like this photo of the sun temple and its terraces in the sunrise. We had tickets to climb Hyanna Picchu at 7, but when he saw the crowds lined up Ben decided he didn’t want to. I was about 30th in line, but they made everyone sign in (and out) so that spaced people apart pretty well. With my usual slow steady climbing gait, I passed party after party, eventually passing the last ones on a terrace about 40 feet below the summit. It didn’t really feel very crowded, and I was very glad I did the climb. It took almost exactly 30 minutes to reach the top – half what the guide-books predict.
The trail was mostly stairs, some of them steeper than anything we encountered on the Inka Trail. Most but not all of the steepest sections had rails or steel cables to hold onto; many of the stairs were four-footed jobs, more like ladders than stairs.
The views were spectacular, and there were some very interesting buildings and terrace walls near the top. I hit it lucky with weather, and was able to take a great panorama photo.
Near the top are two tunnels, both quite tight squeezes. The mountain is very steep, which is apparent when looking down across some of old buildings near the top.
After I climbed down, and rejoined Ben, I went down below the main tourist part of the site, all of which has been carefully restored. Below the main site are some ruins that do not appear to have been restored at all, which I found very interesting.
Ben got several bad bites around his ankles, probably fleas from the llamas. I was glad I wasn’t wearing shorts.
We had to catch a train at a little after three so we left the site about noon, had lunch, then sat around the train station for an hour or so. On the train, I sat next to a very interesting guy from Australia, half aborigine who works in youth services and also in providing STD information to the aboriginal community – using the storyboard technique, which he has adapted to fit the “Dreamtime” storytelling style of the Aboriginal community. I got his e-mail and will contact him again later – I’m quite interested in hearing more about his work.
Our adventure took a potentially ugly turn when we reached the station in Ollantaytambo, where we were supposed to be met by a driver bearing a Pachamama sign with my name on it. We saw only one such sign but it had someone else’s name on it, and when I spoke my name to the driver (who did not speak English) he said “no” and shook his head. After we approached him a second time we saw him talk with another driver; the other driver (who also spoke no English) came up to us and said “Pachemama? Dahveed?” So we said “si,” and followed him – very nervously, given all the warnings about taxicab scams. But after we were in the car, he said “Maytaq hotel, si?” so we relaxed a little. Only a little – the man drove like a maniac, 10 to 20 mph faster than the highway was good for, left hand side of the road more often than on the right hand side, tail-gating, passing on blind curves. We were terrified. Needless to say, we did not give him any tip at all.
Amazon Rain Forest
One thing we did not think about while planning the trip was laundry – and that plagued us the remainder of the trip, as we rummaged repeatedly through our dirty clothes looking for the least dirty pair of socks. I tried washing some socks on the second day in the Amazon, but they never did quite get dry. With electricity provided by a diesel generator, there was no clothes drier, of course – just the (rare) bits of sun.
We stepped off the plane into about 90 degrees and 99% humidity – shirts immediately turned wet with sweat. We found our guide with only a little difficulty, boarded a bus along with 20 other passengers to the Rainforest Expeditions office, a half mile away, where we were given a duffel bag and directed to put only the clothing needed for the jungle in it, and leave the rest in storage. First disaster – when I went to open my suitcase I found the zipper had jammed, and as I tried to unstick it, the zipper lining began to tear. I managed to open the other half, and get most of what I needed out (but I forgot my hat – which I turned out not to really need anyway). While we were doing that, it started raining, a true tropical downpour that finished the job of soaking our shirts to the skin, but also cooled the place off a bit. The rain ended not long after we all loaded onto the bus for the one hour trip to the boat landing.
The road passes through a shanty town called “Infierno,” and the name looks apt. The dwellings are made of thin posts (they looked like 2x2s) with plastic tarps for walls and roofs, packed fairly tightly together. (Ben says the ones near Johannesburg are twice as crammed together.)
The road was partially gravel, but mostly packed clay – and it takes little imagination to guess what happened to the clay in that rainstorm. So, halfway there, going up a hill the bus slid sideways into the borrow pit. We all got out, and the men were directed to help push the bus out, which proved to be pretty hopeless. Fortunately we were just uphill from a road construction gang, who finally brought a backhoe up to help us out. On the way again – then, about a mile short of the landing, we came to a long area of clay fill that was churned into a total mess – and at the far end, a larger bus was stuck, sideways, blocking the entire road. Several other vehicles were sitting in front of us, waiting for the chance to try their luck. At first the guides suggested we just walk – it wasn’t much more than a ten minute walk. But then another helpful piece of equipment came along, fished the other bus out of the mire – and so we climbed onto the other bus, and completed our trip. The result – we started the boat ride at least an hour late.
Once on the boat and underway, the guide handed out lunches – a rice concoction, saturated with soy sauce. Pachamama had not informed this guide about my gluten intolerance either. So I ate further into my rapidly dwindling supply of fruit-nut snacks. But on the river, tooling along at probably 20 mph, we had a cooling breeze and it was very pleasant, almost dreamy. It is not far as the crow flies to the first resort, Refugio Amazonas, where we were to spend the first night, maybe 20 or 30 miles, but the way the river snakes around it is more like 60 or 70. We had to stop at a check station along the way – and then we came to another tourist boat that had engine trouble, so we had to take on their passengers. With all of these adventures, it was after 7, and totally dark, when we reached Refugio. It is a quite luxurious jungle resort, private baths, a natural wood dining area and bar, very plush. Both dinner and breakfast were quite good.
The group. Ben and I were grouped with three New Zealanders, Keith and Lynn, and Evelyn (21 years old, just graduated, blowing her wad on a trip around the world “as long as my money lasts.” How great it would be to have had that kind of trust and confidence at that age!) Our guide, Daniel, was, like Jimmy, quite knowledgeable and attentive; all around a great guide.
The weather. After the initial bit of steamy heat, it settled down to a very balmy 60-65, down to mid 50s at night, with occasional 30 minute showers (but it dried up and didn’t rain at all on the last day or two). There weren’t many mosquitoes, and someone said they’d heard there isn’t any malaria in that part of the forest – but I chose to heed the travel nurse and used DEET liberally, in spite of Ben’s teasing about it. I got no bites at all – he got probably a dozen, which wouldn’t justify any spray at all in a normal forest.
After breakfast, with our bags packed and ready to be carried down to the boat, we walked through the forest to an oxbow lake (formed when the river cut a new channel) for a ride around the lake in a small flat-bottomed boat. Quite a few birds, notably three of a weird-looking species Daniel says is supposed to be a link between dinosaurs and birds. We also saw evidence of piranhas when Daniel threw pieces of bread in the water – the water would almost boil as the small fish scrambled to take bites out of the bread – but the water was far too muddy to see anything under the surface.
Late in the morning we boarded the boat and started up river again, stopping at another check station at the border of the wildlife preserve. After that point we began to see much more wildlife, including a caiman sunning itself on a sandy beach, a couple of storks, several white , a heron, kingfishers, small hawks. Daniel handed out omelette sandwiches which were very good – but apparently Lynn’s had gone bad, because she became quite ill and was in bad shape through the next entire day. The water was rising rapidly, partly from the previous night’s rain, but it had also rained pretty hard during the night. By the time we reached the TRC (Tambopata Research Center), the sandy beaches were all under 2 meters of water, and the river was full of whole trees and other debris, which the boat driver had to pick his way through and around.
We arrived around 4 p.m., just as a small group of howler monkeys had descended from the trees, probably to get water. Seeing them only a few feet away was neat. I didn’t get very good pictures both because they moved so fast and because of the foliage – problem with auto-focus; if there’s even a small branch in front it focuses on that, not on what’s behind it. That plagued all of us throughout the trip. (Howler monkey.)
The TRC. Like the Refugio, the TRC is located about a quarter of a mile back from the river, along a pretty jungle trail. It is a large, sprawling wood building, with one wing, devoted to the researchers and volunteers, off-limits to guests, and a large dining room at the other end, with guest rooms lining a walkway between. There are no screens on any of the windows, but every bed is surrounded with mosquito netting. Shared bathrooms, four each for men and women, line a walkway between the two wings, with a laundry area at the far end.
(Left: A tree frog seen at night – about an inch long.)
We got up early almost every morning, to get to the clay licks before dawn, but also for other expeditions that required an early start. There is electricity (and very, very slow internet service) for a couple of hours midday and in the evening; otherwise lights are kerosene lanterns, candles, and flashlights. The trails around the TRC are all a little muddy; some are very muddy. They supply “Wellingtons,” what I think of as irrigation boots, which hurt my feet – on two days I wore my hiking boots and picked my way around the mud; on two other days I wore the rubber boots. A huge herd of wild pigs makes it worse – rooting for tubers, they plow the soil in a five meter wide swath, turning packed, semi-dry mud into a stinking, sticky sty. Wherever they’ve been you need rubber boots.
Flora and fauna. We went on two night walks, and saw interesting spiders and tree frogs, but no animals. During the day walks, we saw quite a few monkeys, but only a handful close enough at hand and sufficiently unobstructed by foliage to take pictures. Most of the birds were quite distant. Very few tourists had binoculars, but I would not go again without both a really good pair of powerful binoculars and a camera with a much stronger telephoto than mine.
The clay lick (right) is particularly interesting. Birds begin gathering in the tops of nearby trees well before dawn, first parrots and parakeets in lower trees, then macaws in the highest branches, up on the bluff. They descend in thick groups to feed in roughly the same order. You can see them – barely – with the naked eye, but fortunately the guides bring a powerful telescope, and they have become quite good at taking pictures through it with tourist cameras.
(Two macaws close enough for a photograph.
Below – a small (1/2 inch) white furry caterpillar.)
Macaws typically lay three or four eggs each year, but depending on the season, may be able to feed only one or two of the chicks. The mother will choose the largest and healthiest chick to feed, and let the others starve. The researchers at the TRC decided to try saving the surplus chicks by bringing them back to the center and feeding them. When they were released into the wild, some of these thrived, some wandered out of the wildlife refuge into nearby agricultural areas and were killed, or were killed by predators. A couple of them apparently decided they preferred the easy life at TRC and remained as quasi pets (and pests). To the left is a picture of one of these climbing down a rope next to the wall of the room I shared with Ben. When he reached the bottom he stole a piece of coca candy I had left over from the Inka trail, unwrapped it and ate it. These two birds are also notorious for swooping down from the rafters at mealtime and stealing food from guests’ plates.
We saw five of the six species of monkey that live in the vicinity of the research station, but I was able to get clear pictures of only a few of them. Here are two of these pictures.
On the final day, we got up early again to catch the boat back to Puerto Maldonado. We left before dawn; I got a nice shot of sunrise over the jungle on the way back. We had to stop at one of the resorts to pick up several of their guests who were also catching an early flight out – they were not ready yet, so we had to wait nearly a half hour for them. As it turned out, this ate up most of the spare time we had, so we ended up having no time at the main office to sort and repack our baggage. Instead, we just grabbed our bags from the storage area and threw them on top of the bus, then did the repacking at the entrance to the airport. In the resulting confusion, I lost track of some of my luggage and ended up leaving it behind – it cost me over $200 to have it shipped back to me.
Our flight had us back in Lima at 4:00 p.m., and our flight to Houston did not leave until midnight. Pachamama had promised us a car and driver to take us for a partial tour of Lima and some time to walk around the coastal suburbs of San Isidro and Miraflores before returning to the airport. However, the driver did not show up, so we ended up having to wait around the airport for over 8 hours – and to make matters worse, the flight to Houston was delayed an hour. We were a little worried that the delay might make us miss our flight from Houston to Portland, but miraculously, when we got to Passport Control in Houston, there was no-one there except other passengers from our flight, so we breezed through in plenty of time. (After I complained about it, Pachamama agreed to refund the money for the tour, plus an extra $30 each because their staff did not thoroughly clean my sleeping bag – the first night on the trek I found someone else’s long underwear in it.)
Retrospective: It was a great trip overall. The Inka Trail was not as crowded as I feared, and I’m glad I did it – but in the future I think I will go for the less popular, hence less crowded alternatives. The jungle experience was very good as well. However, I kicked myself the whole time for leaving my binoculars behind. I would strongly recommend to anyone planning to visit the Amazon rain forest to invest in a really good pair of binoculars, and in a camera with a zoom that goes to more than the 3X my camera did. You rarely see birds closer than 100 meters, and even the monkeys are usually high in the trees, often some distance away. I wasn’t the only one – I saw very few other guests with binoculars, and only about 1 in 5 had really good cameras. The guides have good binoculars which they freely lend, but with five people in the group, it did not replace having your own.
The other advice concerns packing. Do not count on washing clothes in the rain forest – they won’t dry unless you catch one of the rare sunny dry days. And my friend Ben had a much better luggage situation than I – a compact but roomy duffel bag to check and a large capacity day pack with no waist strap which he carried on to the plane. The built-in padded waist strap on my day pack is great for the trail, but so awkward to stow in the carry-on luggage space that I rarely use it that way. With his luggage arrangement, Ben did not have to hassle with repacking at the Rainforest Expeditions office – and he did not have the difficulty I did keeping track of everything.
A light-weight nylon rain jacket is sufficient – I recommend nylon shirts and pants, which will shed most of the rain and dry quickly. You should carry a fleece or light jacket to the rain forest – we were lucky, but I understand it can get down near freezing in some weather conditions.
On the Inka Trail, there is a “tipping ceremony” the last night – this was not very well explained to us. In effect, you should carry an envelope for each member of the staff – guide, cook, assistant cook, and each porter; you write the person’s name on it and put the tip in the envelope. We managed, but it was awkward.
Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-17482282267023439092012-06-15T22:54:00.000-07:002012-06-15T23:00:48.248-07:00Sentiere du Cathar - Day 1 and 214 June 2012<br />Duilhac Sous-Perpeteuse<br /><br />This hike started out rather poorly - lost my wallet in London with all my money & credit cards - pretty certain it was stolen on the extremely crowded subway ride from Euston Station, near my hotel, to the station where I would catch the train to Stansted Airport, for the one daily flight to Perpignan (the only one I was able to find, anyway). So I had to make a very quick decision - stay in London, try to deal with it, miss the flight, and throw the entire hike off, or get on the plane and deal with it at my first B&B, in Estagel, a very old, very historic, but very small town north of Perpignan. I took the gutsy path and went ahead with the plan (the national railway gave me a complimentary pass to the airport). My host, Daniel Henry, picked me up at the airport (if I had been planning to take a cab or public transportation that probably would have decided me on giving up the trip.) Two hours on the phone with my financial services company, and we finally came up with the plan that I would transfer the funds I would need for the rest of this trip to him, and he would advance me the cash. I was a wreck, and for almost the first time since I've known I am gluten intolerant, I really seriously wanted a beer. Daniel gave me a glass of pink wine, not quite the same thing but much better than nothing! <br /><br />The hosts at the Auberge in Estagel are wonderful people. Extremely kind, went out of their way to be helpful, a tremendous experience. The room there was extremely comfortable, looking out on a walled garden, very quiet. Mme. Henry was heroic - apparently I had not told them I am gluten-intolderant, but she came up with something spectacular at the last minute - a rice flour and almond milk cake full of freshly-picked apricots that was delicious, and fueled me fairly well for my walk. There was also a "new cheese" - .like sour cream in consistency but not so strong - that apparently is eaten in a bowl with jam. I didn't realize that and ignorantly put it on my cake - but in fact it went perfectly with the apricots, so I don't actually think it was so bad! I should also mention their 2 year old, who is one of those incredibly sweet children who take immediately to anyone and everyone. While I was obsessiong over my financial issues (I had to have cash now or the trip was ruined, and the banks were thinking in terms of 2-5 business days!) he kept demonstrating and offering me his toys and trying to lead me outside to show me something or other. Very strangely. it really relaxed me! (He also strings his toys out all over the place, and I repaid his kindness by stepping on and breaking two of them.) The two dogs - terriers I think - were also very friendly and kept trying to nudge my fingers off the computer keyboard so I could play with them. <br /><br />So this morning the previous stormy weather cleared up, it began to warm, the sun came out, and finally at 10:15 I was on the road, then dirt track, toward the massif where the first castle is located. After walking along the main highway for a while I turned off onto a farm road, that led past a string of wineries (M. Henry tells me the soil is so depleted nothing else will grow here) to the base of the massif. At first the chateau du Queribus was just a big squarish bump on the edge of the mountain, but as I walked closer, detail filled in. Walking along the edge of the mountain underneath it, it is very imposing - it is evident why it was so difficult for opposing armies to capture! <br /><br />Talking with Daniel, I had thought of trying a short-cut either up a gorge and around the peak, or up over a shoulder of the peak itself, and thus cutting off maybe a mile of the distance, but the climb looked difficult, and a hundred meters or so of 5 fout high bush was in the way. The road I was on parallels the highway for at least a kilometer before joining it - I managed to cut off probably 1.5 miles by scrambling up a series of rock walls to the highway. The traffic was not bad, so walking along the edge of the highway was not terribly uncomfortable. I was walking around the castle, and kept getting different views. I had promised myself not to overdo the pictures quite so much this time, but could not keep from taking more snaps from various angles. <br /><br />At the pass, a paved road leads up to the Chateau parking lot - 2 km. at a 17% grade. I headed up it, sweating profusely (it felt like about 80 or maybe 85 F), and it helped me calibrate several trails I've hiked. At the top, there is a concession stand and ticket booth - the lady at the ticket booth let me put my pack in the room behind the booth, which was very convenient, since my shoulders were by then thoroughly tired of carrying the pack. I figured it to be about 12 miles (20 km) from Estagel to the castle, based on the time it took me to walk the parts that had mileage signs. <br /><br />The castle is very interesting - much of it in ruins, but enough there to get a great sense of it. Apparently it served mostly as a garrison - after the French crown defeated the Cathars and took it over, it was garrisoned by only 15 soldiers, then even fewer. It is easy to see why - it would be a tremendous challenge to assault it. Unfortunately, I also couldn't see how one could launch much of an attack from it, and apparently it was of little military significance after the Cathar era. <br /><br />I walked back down, bought an ice cream confection, then shouldered my pack and headed down the hill to Cucagnon, then here. I had originally planned to join the Sentier at the Chateau parking lot, but Daniel had warned me that it is very steep and cobbly, and I decided if it was any steeper than the road up I didn't want to subject my already sore feet to it, so I walked back along the highway. I had nice views of Cucugnan all the way down, with its working windmill. Daniel tells me that the miller uses only heritage varieties of wheat, does everything by hand. The houses in the front row all have magnificent views of the Chateau.<br /><br />At the bottom, I found the Sentier again - it is a very pleasant walk between the towns, through vinyards and patches of scrub forest, with song-birds on every side - totally enjoyable! But my feet and shoulders hurt, and I was well glad to get here and climb into a hot shower. Based on my walking speed I make it out to be a total of close to 17 miles, about 28 km, that I walked today. I had not planned on quite that ambitious a first day, especially not leaving late. But for all that it was a truly great day.<br /><br />There is a restaurant with a very large open air patio dining area across from the auberge - I had a glass of very nice white wine while beginning this. Then I walked around the town, which is very pretty, photogenic but nothing that really caught my attention - the walk did help to loosen up sore muscles. When it was finally 7:30 (nobody here eats before then; most more like 8:30) I went back to order dinner. The waiter understood about gluten-intolerance after some explanation, but habitually brought bread but, as he approached my table, realized I wouldn't want it. Actually I would have wanted it if I'd let myself - it looked spectacular. With the waiter's help (he speaks no English but was patient with my halting French) I managed to order - joue du porc, grilled, with chevre avec miele (goat cheese with honey) for dessert. I don't know what joue du porc is - I'd only encountered joue as cheek - but this had a big bone with a large spoon-shaped extension on it. Whatever part of the pig it came from, it was delicious. The chevre avec miele was a real surprise - the honey completely neutralized the goaty taste of the cheese and the dish came out really nice. He served it with a very good slice of cantaloup, which worked okay, but I am thinking that fresh figs might be better. I will have to try it later this summer - also the rice flour torte with fresh apricots.<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />15 June 2012<br />Domaine de Cousseres, Prugnanes<br />Longer walk today than I realized, but spectacular. This is the most expensive place I will stay at, 115 euros for room and 2 meals. Not bad, really, considering that I have a view out over the vinyards and limestone mountains beyond! <br />The walk started with breakfast - I know I told them about gluten intolerance, but I think they whizzed by it. A few slabs of cheese, a small carton of plain yogurt, fairly decent coffee. Good thing I carried lots of granola & kind bars! <br />It was quite cloudy when I started out - long uphill climb to Peyrepeteuse Castle - the guidebook says its a few hundred meters off the trail but actually it's over a kilometer. Spectacular views of the castle all the way up. I could see Queribus Castle quite prominently on the horizon, but the pictures didn't do it justice - sorry! <br />After touring English castles these Cathar castles are very interesting - they are built on all but inaccessible crags (how did they get all those rocks up there?!) As a result they pretty well conform to my most romantic notions of castles. Peyrepeteuse is particularly interesting - three structures spread out along a ridge line with vertical drops on one side, and just slightly less than vertical on the other side. This is not a site for vertigo sufferers. The rocks are limestone - some with the texture of marble - and they seem dangerously slippery now. I imagined fighting a battle in a rain storm and shuddered. <br /><br />The rest of the hike was through very rough mountain country, sometimes along a ridge, a lot of up and down. The scenery is spectacular (but I could not find many focal images, so I didn't take many pictures. Aside from being a bit longer than I had anticipated, it was a very relaxing hike. One of the things I have found most delightful of all is the songbirds. Even now as I sit next to an open window writing this I hear four or five separate species. On the trail they are almost constant. <br />It is also a bit surprising - yesterday I encountered hardly anyone else; today maybe 8 or 10 people, all day long. <br /><br />The Domaine de Cousseres is the most expensive place I've stayed - very luxurious. As I write I am sitting by an open window in my room smelling flowers and herbs and listening to song birds. Dinner last night was fabulous - started with sangria in the parlour (there are 10 guests in addition to myself, mostly Belgian, all French speakers, one speaks English slightly better than I speak French). Dinner itself began with lovely hors d'ouvres that I couldn't eat - two pates spread on French bread, french fried squid rings (breaded, alas). She made me a very nice salad so I felt only a little salad. The main course was an excellent paella. Dessert was a fresh apricot torte for those who can eat wheat products; for me she did some lovely things with ice cream, tropical fruit syrup, and chocolate sprinkles. It was worth the mile walk off the track.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-12095375255718925362010-06-27T00:50:00.000-07:002010-06-27T00:51:11.009-07:00June 27 Avebury and Ridgeway WalkFor my last big adventure in England I decided to do part of the Ridgeway Walk, which I read about a couple of years ago in the New York Times. A total of 85 miles, it stretches from just outside Avebury (which I intended to visit anyway) to the suburbs of London; the most interesting part is the westernmost part. The Ridgeway is an ancient highway, dating back to Neolithic times, which ran along the high ground to avoid the marshes and tangled forest lands in the lower ground. It passes a number of interesting archaeological sites, and affords breathtaking views of the English countryside. <br /> I got up bright and early Thursday morning, and took a series of buses from Milton Keynes to Avebury (always an adventure in itself, since the on-line and printed schedules often have at best a suggestive relationship to what actually heppens) - Oxford, Swindon, Avebury. Turns out that Thursday is Market Day in Devizes, the other side of Avebury, and the bus from Swindon was packed with people going to pick up farm-fresh veggies and strawberries. I was tempted - but when the bus approached Avebury it became obvious that a full afternoon would be needed there. <br /> Avebury is the site of a large neolithic monument - no-one is quite certain exactly what it was "for." (They may have had "conceptual art" back then, but probably not.) There are three nested circles of stones - huge stones, many of them twice the height of an adult - connected by two long avenues of stones to other sites. One of these other sites is a set of concentric mounds separated by ditches, probably a fortified village. The other is called the "sanctuary" - it was once a large structure, temple most likely, with both stone and wood pillars, but all that is left now is evidence of footings for the pillars, each marked by a concrete block. All there was to see was a couple of hippies meditating. The avenue of stone pillars, however, which still reaches halfway out (many of the stones have been lost, removed I would guess for use in more recent construction, and their position marked with concrete pylons). It is quite interesting to walk along. <br /> A couple of miles from Avebury and a mile and a half from the sanctuary are two other interesting monuments. One is Avebury Hill, a nearly-perfect conic mound, the largest neolithic structure anywhere in Europe, that stands like a small volcanic peak in the middle of a broad valley. On a ridge beyond Avebury Hill is a long barrow, a burial mound that originally had three chambers; one of these is open for public inspection, and well worth the visit. I walked there from Avebury, past Avebury Hill, and found it a very pleasant walk, but those with autos can park about 1/4 mile from the barrow. <br /> Back in Avebury. The town, much of which dates back several centuries, is located half within the circle of stones. The outer ring of pillars is itself surrounded by a deep ditch and high, steep-walled mound. My B&B (Manor Farm - I would recommend it) is in an old but undistinguished brick building, directly across from part of the inner circle of stones - the Red Lion Pub, where I had dinner, is across from another part. This was all very convenient; after walking around the entire circle, then walking out to visit the Long Barrow and the Sanctuary, I spent a while just sitting on the grass near some of the stones, and after dinner went back out again. The next morning, up at dawn as usual, I walked over and spent close to an hour walking around taking photos. The morning light was a bit harsh, but created nice effects with the dew on the grass and a light mist out toward the hills - and with absolutely no-one else up and about I didn't have to worry about finding the sight-line I wanted without someone's bright orange jacket in the background. I took nearly 100 pictures, figuring I could use the best and discard the rest, but when I looked at them found only a half dozen I could bear to delete. The stones are all interesting, and they are interesting in all kinds of light. It would be fabulous to come during a full moon later in the summer (with really good photo equipment). Even aside from the possibilities for interesting photos, it was lovely to wander around the stones in the morning, with song-birds everywhere. <br /> The writeup of the Ridgeway led me to believe that it was 40 miles from Avebury to Wantage, with the hamlet of Ogburne St. George halfway between, but a closer examination of the map showed that the first leg of the journey was only about 10-12 miles, then Ogburne St. George to Wantage a bit over 20 for a total more like 32 or 33 miles. Since I had planned to leave early, that meant that if I didn't want to spend an entire day in a tiny English Hamlet I needed to dally around somewhere. <br /> I set out, as planned, about 7:20, and walked east along a little country lane to pick up the Ridgeway about two miles along from the official starting point (which I had walked on Thursday afternoon, on the way back from the Sanctuary). It was a beautiful morning for walking, songbirds everywhere, an abundance of wildflowers, many of which I did not recognize. The Ridgeway is a "trail" for only a small portion of its length; most of it is more like a country lane, well-gravelled for the most part and in some places even paved. Parts are open to motor vehicles, most to horses and bicycles, but I encountered no motor vehicles, and maybe a total of two dozen bikes in two days' walking. It is easy walking, and broad enough that, unlike many of the trails in England I could have worn shorts, had I brought them along, without worry about nettles. I was glad to be wearing hiking boots mainly because I was hiking rather a long way, and there were a few stretches of trail still rutted from the spring rainy season, or with large stone cobbles, where I was glad to have them, but if you plan to do the trail in shorter stretches, in good weather, low-top walking shoes would be very adequate. The trail climbs some high ridges, but the grades are easy, few of them much steeper than 7-10%. It is obvious that parts can be muddy in the winter but in the summer it is fabulous walking; walking at a comfortable pace I probably averaged close to four miles per hour much of the way. <br /> About halfway through the first day's hike, at nine in the morning I came to Banbury Castle, an Iron Age fortified hilltop, one of a string of forts along the ridge. Each one has a large are for settlement inside three rings of circular mounds / moats for defensive purposes; apparently the topmost mound also had a palisade of upright logs. This first one was probably the best maintained - they let sheep in during the spring when the grass and wildflowers (not to mention the ever-present nettles) are growing, so the grass has a new-mown look to it, and the nettles are completely under control. Not wanting to reach Ogburne St. George earlier than mid-afternoon, I settled down on a pretty patch of grass overlooking Oxfordshire to the north, took off boots and socks, had a granola bar, and enjoyed the view. After an hour or so I moved to another equally pretty little lawn looking southward across Wiltshire. In both locations I was treated to a variety of songbirds, and swarms of butterflies. Two varieties were larger, orange and black, but one I had not seen before was scarlet red when flying, but with black netting that seemed to cover its wings when it settled onto a dandelion or one of the other yellow flowers for nectar. With considerable difficulty (they don't sit still for long) I was able to get a couple of decent photos. There was also a small electric blue butterfly, but it was even more erratic in motion, and I couldn't capture a picture of it at all. I spent a total of nearly three rather sublime hours on that old fortified hill-top, then put on boots and pack and headed out toward the east. <br /> My concern about arriving in Ogburne St. George too early proved well founded. The hamlet has nothing like a public park, not even a bench in sight. The pub / B&B where I stayed, The Inn with the Well, is a nice place and the proprietor and staff very friendly and helpful, but there wasn't a comfortable place to sit, shade or sun, anywhere. The room itself had two comfortable beds and a little dressing-table type chair, good to sit on while taking off boots but not good for much beyond that, certainly not a place to sit back and read a book. Inside the pub / dining area there are some reasonably comfortable tables and chairs, but it is rather dark and not a pleasant place to spend one of the first really nice summer days. Outside, there are several round picnic tables with hard backless benches - again, a good place to have lunch and a pint, but not comfortable beyond a half hour, an hour tops. I ended up stretching out on the bed for a while, then put my hiking boots back on and went out to explore the alternative ways to get back up onto the Ridgeway, taking a total of about a three mile circle hike, then came back, took a bath, had supper, rambled around town, sat on a hard bench outside the pub eavesdropping unwillingly on other people's conversations for a while, and went to bed early. The Inn with the Well (the name comes from a medieval - or maybe even earlier - well that is actually inside the Inn, with a glass floor over it and lighting so you can see down into it) is a comfortable enough place, a bit too close to the main motorway (right next to the main exit for Ogburne St. George), but there is another hotel a bit farther from the motorway, that actually has a half dozen comfortable sitting chairs on the patio, where I would stay if I were to come again. Even with more comfortable chairs to sit on, the hamlet is pretty to look at but a bit boring and I would plan the trip so as to arrive somewhat later in the afternoon, maybe 5 or even 6 p.m., just time to shower and clean up before dinner. <br /> The proprietor willingly fixed a "room service" breakfast for me, and a lunch to take along. That was good; having gone to bed a bit early I also awoke early. I should mention the ubiquitous "duvet" - a comforter style thick blanket that doubles as a sheet, and allows for no layering - in the spring or summer you either have it on top of you, and swelter, or off of you, and freeze, or half on, in which case legs and feet are in a steam bath while torso and shoulders freeze - why people think they're so great is beyond me, but 3/4 of the B&Bs in England have them. The only time I have every appreciated one was in Nepal, above 10,000 feet where the temperature dropped to freezing at night and four inches of yak wool was very nice to have on top of me. Otherwise, give me the flexibility of a sheet and a couple of blankets any time, and forget about the "duvet," "comforter," or whatever you want to call it. End of rant. <br /> It was a lovely morning for a walk, barely sunrise when I started out. The best route back up the ridge was along a narrow country highway with a 17% grade and two gentle curves, just enough to conceal walkers from on-coming cars. Even at 5:30 a.m. I knew there would be two or three, and I didn't like the odds. Fortunately, the previous afternoon I had noticed that it is possible to enter an open gate into a farmer's fallow field near the bottom of the hill, before the really dangerous part, and walk along a field road almost all the way to the top. I don't think it is actually a legal public access path, but my concern about half-groggy drivers going too fast for the road over-ruled my sense of the niceties. I was glad I did trespass - two cars and a delivery van passed along the roadway while I was climbing the hill, one going a reasonable speed but the other two going quite fast. <br /> As on the first day, I made good time without actually hurrying; the lane is easy, enjoyable walking, the brisk morning air and a variety of songbirds all along the way were very invigorating. As nearly as I could estimate from the map it is about 21 miles from Ogburne St. George to Wantage, the last 2 1/2 miles along one of the dread highways. (English highways rarely have anything resembling a shoulder; tall grass and sometimes impenetrable hedges come right up to the pavement, rendering walking quite a hair-raising activity.) I walked about three hours before coming to a really nice place to stop, at Uffington Castle. After a 25 minute rest break (boots off, granola bar and banana) I walked down to where I could see some of the famous white horse, originally laid out by neolithic people, re-done in the 18th century and now maintained by the National Trust. Then I took off walking again, accompanied by birdsong all the way. Along this stretch I began to encounter the hordes of people I had expected on a fine summer Saturday - two groups of schoolchildren, several people with back-packs obviously doing part or all the Ridgeway, including a couple of quite large groups of adolescent girls and several smaller parties, and quite a few mountain bikers. For all that, I was still walking in solitude for over half the time even on this final leg of the walk. I reached the final "castle," on the hill above Wantage, about 11:30, 6 hours after leaving Ogburne St. George. This one is not as well maintained or accessed as the others, and is quite overgrown with thistles and nettles, so I had to search to find a patch of grass where I could sit, take off my boots, have lunch and relax a while before heading down to Wantage and back to M-K. <br /> I had worried about walking along the motorway back to Wantage, but a paved country lane, not shown on my map, bordered the castle on the west and seemed to head down off the ridge. Reasoning that a paved lane must go somewhere (reasoning that has on a couple of occasions in England led me astray) I headed down it, and was pleased to find myself in the outskirts of a hamlet, which led me to a secondary road into Wantage. Better yet, about a quarter of a mile along the secondary road, just before it left the hamlet (and the sidewalk through the hamlet) I noticed a sign, "Walkway to Wantage." So my fears were for naught; I managed to get down off the Ridgeway and back into Wantage and the bus back to Oxford without walking even fifty yards along a busy highway. It was a very pleasant walk into Wantage, through some woods, along a field of almost-ripe barley, then along a boggy little area (fortunately the path was paved). <br /> One last adventure with the British privatized transportation service, and with the apparent reticence of British officialdom. I made it to the bus station just as a bus pulled in with "Oxford" on the front. I asked the driver if he went to the Oxford bus station and he asked "which one" - which surprised me a bit, but I had noticed before the bizarre arrangement in Oxford - what I took to be the main bus station is 5 blocks from the train station (with no sign-posts), making it rather difficult to make connections to the smaller towns, so it didn't surprise me to learn that there were also multiple bus stations. I told him I wanted to catch the X-5 back to Milton-Keynes, and he said he didn't go there, but could drop me off nearby. So I paid the fare, got on the bus, and we started off. The bus began by going everywhere except Oxford - and I soon realized that it was a "local," and that there were other busses from Wantage that went much more directly to Oxford (and possibly some that went much closer to the main bus station). I have experienced this many times in England: If you ask an English person who is not in any sense a public official for directions, they often give very good directions. But ask any official, a bus driver, a person at the tourist information counter, train station ticket seller, anyone acting in an official capacity, and they will answer exactly the question you ask, not the question you would have asked had you known to ask it. I am sure, had I thought to ask the bus driver "is there another bus that will take me to the bus station?" or "Is there another bus that will go more directly to Oxford?" he would have given me exactly the information I needed. <br /> At first I thought this was just bloody-mindedness. But on reflection, I think it may represent a kind of exaggerated reticence, a reluctance either to make assumptions about a client's actual intentions or to presume to inquire about the client's plans. In any event, I ended up having to walk five blocks through a narrow walled alley to the bus station and arrived just as the X-5 was leaving. I ended up waiting in the Oxford station for 45 minutes, but still got back to M-K in time to have a beer, take a bath, and get dinner more or less at my usual time. <br /> It was a great little hike and a very nice way to close out my two months in England. Today (Sunday) is a day for doing laundry, packing, cleaning my room, and getting myself together; tomorrow first thing I go into London for a final day in London before heading to Amsterdam, then home.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-70404832599403536472010-06-20T11:07:00.000-07:002010-06-20T11:08:12.697-07:00June 19 Polperro, on the Cornish coastJune 19 Polperro, on the Cornish coast <br /> The visit to the Cornish coast involved a complex series of trains - express to Euston Station, walk a quarter mile to Euston Square underground station, underground to Paddington station, catch the southbound train there. It was jammed with people, mostly holiday-makers, including one guy in the seat next to me who tried to sleep the whole way and sprawled every which way. The train goes through some lovely rolling countryside, then along the coastline for a ways, with wind-carved red sandstone cliffs along the north side of the tracks. It passes through Plymouth, then stops at Liskeard, which is not actually on the coast. There I transferred to another train - just one long car, really. It is the oddest station I've ever seen - "Platform C" is at right angles to the other two platforms, and on the north side of the tracks (Polperro is to the south). Only a handful of others got on with me. The railcar headed off in the wrong direction for a mile or so, circled around under the main line, stopped while a switch was thrown, then went back south again, in effect a switchback that eventually carried it under the other track. It passed through a long, pretty canyon that reminded me of the pasturelands around Tillamook, stopped several times at little sidings, finally stopped at the end of the line, Looe, where I got off and started walking. <br /> The coast trail goes for the first mile and a half through West Looe ("e" is silent - pronounce it like the Australian term for toilet) and along a drive next to the rocky beach before passing through a stile and heading gradually uphill through a pasture. Along the way I stopped at an ice cream stand and bought a black current ice cream cone - quite good. This section of coast really is quite spectacular; very like some sections of the Oregon coast except it is different rock, slate I think - tilted jagged-edged slabs making sharp angles against the horizon; none of the cliffs are very high but they are quite rugged, with pretty tide-pools at their feet and rolling pastureland above. The trail passes through the pastures and along the cliff edges; unfortunately it is often between six to ten foot hedges that totally block any possible view; but the rest of the time it affords quite lovely perspectives. Parts are dirt and might require hiking boots in winter, but I was glad I had just worn my lighter, more comfortable walking shoes. The steep parts all have either steps carved in the stone or made out of wood log segments with gravelled mud behind them - even the steep sections quite easy walking. I didn't really need my trekking poles, although they do make it somewhat easier on the really steep steps. <br /> Polperro is a fairly old fishing village, with a still active fishing fleet but the fishermen's cottages are now very much outnumbered by tourist cottages and B&Bs. (Many "fishermen's cottages" are for seasonal rent; I wouldn't be surprised if many of the fishermen have moved into more modern houses up the hill.) The streets of the old town are extremely narrow and rather quaint; the whole is very picturesque. The tide range is quite wide - when I arrived all the boats that had not gone out were high and dry, on their sides on the mud bottom. After dinner I walked back down and they were all floating quite nicely in what looked like ten feet of water. My B&B is comfortable, but a full half mile up the road away from the harbor, which isn't very convenient. Not much view, but as I write this I am listening to some very pretty birdsong. Lots of seafood restaurants here - hard to choose. Last night I had a decent bouillabaise of local seafood; tempted by the local scallops but also considering the whole lobster for tonight. I'm not sure whether it is local or not - I think probably not. They had black current sorbet as well as some other good-sounding dishes but I wanted to taste the sorbet and I'm glad I did. Very intense flavor; it needed a scoop of vanilla ice cream to tame it I think. They served it with four or five raspberries and one sliced strawberries - the other berries were totally overwhelmed by the pungent black currents. I wish we could get them - I think LaJean could work out some very interesting things to do with them. <br /> The waitresses told me about fireworks at "half ten" - Guy Fawkes' Day got rained out, and again on New Years', so they decided to use them to kick off their summer music festival. So I went back to the coast walk and climbed up to the cliff above the harbor - also above and across a spit of rock from the rocky promontory where they were to set them off. I misheard and thought the fireworks would start at ten, so I was quite early and, as the breeze sharpened, had to put up the hood on my windbreaker - but it was worth the wait. <br /> When10:30 came a fishing boat entered the channel and hung there, right below the fireworks zone. The fireworks guys yelled at him and the spectators booed and finally after about 10 minutes he gave up and went back partway out to sea. Some of the fireworks were a bit ho-hum, but some was really pretty spectacular, especially going off right overhead. The most spectacular I think was not on purpose - a very big one, or maybe more than one, misfired and dropped in the water (right where that stupid boat skipper had wanted to be) and blew up under water. By being up on the cliff instead of down on the breakwater with most of the (smallish) crowd, I missed seeing the fireworks reflected in the water but got to see them erupting out of the water - a fair tradeoff. After a while the guy the festival had sent up to watch over the dozen or so of us on the cliff got nervous and shoed us back from the edge but it was still spectacular. Another neat effect - they had set up fireworks launch emplacements all over the broken craggy promontory, some behind the rocky peak so that when they went off it was like a volcano erupting. Way cool. A big difference from Portland - no amateur bottle rockets. <br /> The trip started off with the oddest experience - I had ordered my ticket to London for next Monday and wanted to pick it up, since I will have a lot of luggage. There was a huge line at the ticket window and a much shorter one at the machine so I used the machine (which hasn't always worked with my chipless card). I stuck my card in the machine and, without asking for a ticket code, PIN, or anything, it read my card then spit out a ticket - a day return to London for that same day only, not the ticket I had ordered. The information guy swore I must have entered it wrong, and I did not have a printout of the confirmation e-mail, so I had to stand in the ticket window line after all (good thing I had allowed extra time for the walk to the train station). Sure enough, my confirmation code was indeed for June 28 and the many refunded the money from the one I didn't want. All I can think is that the previous customer must have begun the June 18 transaction but not completed it and not cleared it, so when I stuck the card in the machine completed his transaction. The web / ticket machine system is good when it works, but like all computerized systems maddening when it doesn't. <br /><br />June 19. <br /> Had a lovely day today. I had originally planned to take a vigorous walk, maybe 8 miles up the coast and back, but I decided to poke along instead, and just went maybe 4 miles and back, a total of maybe 8 miles, stopping at 3 or 4 places to sit on rocks or a grassy ledge and just listen to the ocean, the wind in the grass, seabirds, etc. Took quite a few pictures - very warm day, little wind, so there wasn't much surf but some of the views are quite spectacular anyway. After returning to the hotel for a bath I went back to the rocky promontory where they had fired off fireworks, clambered around on the rocks for a while, then found a couple of different pleasant places to sit, on the one side watching the extremely small waves, then over on the harbor side watching the other tourists - and on both sides listening to the gentle surf. <br /> Went to a different restaurant, had scallops in butter and garlic. Good, but they put way too much butter in - the scallops were in over an inch of butter, floating on top of the scallop juice. The salad was as mediocre as most of the salads I've had in England, ditto the soft crusted, partly stale bread. For nearly 20 pounds I expected a bit better. After dinner I walked back over to the rocky promontory by the harbor mouth, but the wind had risen enough to make it too cool to sit there long so I returned to the hotel room, picking up a pint of local dark ale along the way. <br /><br />Sunday evening<br /> The walk back along the coast was lovely - already warm at 9:00, sea almost like glass. What a day to be riding the train all day!Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-82747871861319961882010-06-16T00:08:00.000-07:002010-06-16T00:10:06.579-07:00June 15 Royal Opera, Covent GardensI have long wanted to see a live performance of an opera by a world-class company, and England's Royal Opera is one of the best, so I bought a ticket to their performance of Marriage of Figaro. I had meetings in the morning and afternoon at the university, so I walked straight over to the train station, and arrived in London about 4:30, too late to consider visiting a gallery first, since the opera starts at 7 and they advise patrons to arrive a half hour early. I walked around a bit, found a nice little French bistro for supper. The evening started out well - Confit de Canard, a duck leg in plum and brandy sauce with properly cooked green beans and a kind of potato casserole, topped by a "traditional French cherry tart," actually more like what I would think of as a cobbler, very very good. <br /> Covent Gardens Opera House is of course quite sumptuous, overwhelming even. My ticket was quite expensive - over $300, not anything I would do regularly. You can get cheaper tickets - the opera house has four levels of balconies. But my eyes are getting weak in dim light, and I decided to go for the complete experience. Along the same lines, I also pre-ordered a glass of champagne for the intermission. <br /> Overall the performance itself was excellent. I didn't recognize the names of any of the singers, but probably a true opera fan would. Erwin Schrott asFigaro and Mariusz Kwiecien as the Count were both superb - rich, full voices, very nice styling. I felt that Annette Dasch as Countess Almaviva was also excellent, but the opera buffs sitting next to me didn't like the quality of her voice. Unfortunately the female lead, Susanna was very poorly cast, Eri Nakamura, who "is participating in the Jette Parke Young Artists Programme." She unfortunately is not "ready for prime time." She has a very nice, sweet voice, and I thought quite good control, but it is very thin and easily overwhelmed. Her voice often got lost in the orchestral accompaniment, and almost always got lost in the trios and quartets that Mozart loves to use. Singing a solo, with only a harpsichord for accompaniment, she projected well and was enjoyable to hear, but much of the delight of the opera is in the playful, lively trios and the weakness of her voice turned them into duets, a tricycle with one wheel missing. That was the one disappointment of the evening. The orchestra, conducted by Colin Davis was outstanding. <br /> As Lynne predicted, wandering around the 2nd story bar with a glass of champagne during intermission was quite nice, and it rounded out the experience quite well. - well worth the 12 pounds. <br /> Audience response was mixed; about 1/3 very enthusiastic, 1/3 tepid (including the elderly couple next to me, who are subscribers and have very exacting standards). As we were leaving after the performance, the old gentleman asked if I had plans for after the performance, and I think that was the prelude to an invitation, but the train schedule for returning to MK is a harsh taskmaster - I missed the 10:57 so caught the 11:24. I think there are two trains later than that - it would have had to be a very quick drink or I would have been looking for a hotel room in London. Too bad, they were an interesting and very knowledgeable couple and it would have been fun. <br /> It was a great evening, and left me with an appetite for more. I hope I'm in a large city some time when the opera is performing one of my Verdi favorites.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-90138712804493889852010-06-13T06:37:00.000-07:002016-05-10T23:53:07.583-07:00June 13 Conwy and Conwy Castle, WalesJune 13 Conwy and Conwy Castle<br />
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The B&B where I am staying, Gwynfynn, is quite nice, and my room, the "Violet Room," would be very roomy except - perhaps consistent with the name - it is badly over-decorated, with decorations that eat available space to no good purpose (chintzy little unusable stools and tables, glass bead flower arrangements, etc.). The bathroom is roomy and comfortable, and the bed is good; altogether it is a nice place. Conwy is loaded with B&Bs, only a few of which can be found in guidebooks and on the web - my hunch is that the rest do just fine with repeat business and word of mouth. It is a lovely little town and I would recommend it highly as a place for 2 or 3 days in Wales - much nicer to my taste than Caernarfon, although that village would also do nicely. <br />
I got up three hours before breakfast, as usual, so had a cup of coffee in my room then took a long walk around the town wall - about half of it is in good enough repair to walk on - then down to the waterfront and over the bridge. I got several good pictures of the castle from the bridge and across the water. I came back to a very nice breakfast, then walked over to the castle for a slow tour and about a hundred more pictures, half of them repetitive (re-taking when no-one was in the way or the light looked better). It is a very interesting castle; some of the inner walls are fallen in and the wood-beam roofs are of course long gone, but enough of the inner walls are still standing that you can get a very good idea of it. It is a long castle, slightly irregular in shape. The main residence curves slightly around the right side; there are foundations along the left side where stables and the like were located. The castle was built with several towers, and smaller towers standing up above the towers. You can still see the ledges where beams were emplaced to support the floors, both in the main hall and in the towers. The castle is built of relatively soft stone; the arrow slots haver holes where grills were fitted to impede attackers from widening the slots enough to squeeze through. <br />
I spent nearly two hours in the castle, bought a few things in the souvenir stand, and by the time I had reached a little coffee shop to get a light lunch it was beginning to rain. I had hoped to get a nice walk in the mountainous national park nearby, but by the time I had finished lunch it was raining hard enough to convince me that wouldn't be a lot of fun - I'd rather sit in the room and work on the laptop while listening to the gulls squawking outside. It looks likely to rain on and off all afternoon, then probably clear up for most of the week - but who knows? British weather is even more unreliable than Oregon.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-62434930530955225902010-06-12T13:44:00.000-07:002010-06-12T13:45:11.486-07:00June 12 Caernafon Castle, WalesJune 12 Caernafon Castle, Wales<br /><br /> After completing the conquest of Wales, Edward I built a string of castles to solidify his hold on the place. Two of them, Caernafon and Conwy, are close enough to visit in one trip and still in fairly good shape (Prince Charles was invested as Prince of Wales in Caernafon, although they held the ceremony in the large courtyard because they were concerned about the condition of the Queen's Tower). Today I took the train to Conwy, dropped my pack at a nice B&B near the train station, then took a bus over to Caernafon. The castle is very impressive - like Carlisle Castle, it stands at one end of a wall that encircled the entire town at the time, and includes inner fortifications within a very large enclosed courtyard. The walls are quite thick, and the towers have double walls with passages on every level and arrow / gun slots for shooting through. The castle was falling apart and partially dismantled when it was rescued and largely restored in the 19th Century, but you can see in some of the pictures where a whole part of one tower is missing. <br /> Both Caernafon and Conwy castles stand next to a river estuary, and in each case it had been dredged out for navigation, so the castles could be resupplied by water. And in both cases, the effect of standing on the battlements looking out over the bay, or the farms, is greatly enhanced by the cries of sea birds.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-11167570350516723182010-06-08T22:44:00.000-07:002010-06-08T22:47:16.766-07:00June 8 Hadrian's Wall and CarlisleToday dawned as rainy as I expected, so I waited around for an hour, working on yesterday's pictures and waiting to see if it would ease off. It did ease off to a slow steady drizzle, which it maintained all day - varied from barely enough to need my rain pants to slight enough that I could have done without them - but it never got so warm that they were uncomfortable, so I didn't bother changing back and forth. <br /> I set out at a good clip, and made pretty good time. I stopped briefly at Birdoswald Fort, which wasn't open yet but isn't fenced, so I was able to look it over. It is not large, but I took a couple of pictures. Its primary interest is the evidence that it represents a late period when the Roman Empire was breaking up and the army was giving way to a warlord system. <br /> The hike from there to Landercost Priory is through pretty farmland, but much of the view was obscured by rain and mist; most of the wall is gone, but there are occasional bits still visible, along with the foundations of some of the turrets. I took pictures of a couple of these mainly because they were among the last artifacts of the wall that I saw on the hike. <br /> Landercost Priory is quite interesting for several reasons. The oldest parts date back to the 11th century. After maintenance stopped during the reign of Henry VIII, it started falling apart; only one part of it was maintained as a parish church. It is the first example I have seen where a currently active church is attached to a ruin. It also played an important role in English history - Edward I installed his court there for nearly a year, then visited again just before he died. The still active part has some very good stained glass windows among other attractions. The ruined part includes some really good examples of stonework, and a couple of very old tombs. I took a picture of two tombstones from Knights Templar; the images of swords are the exact size of their actual swords. <br /> In Carlisle, I immediately found a tea shop for lunch, and had a quite good baked potto stuffed with corned beef and some other goodies. Then I crossed under the highway to visit Carlisle Castle, which also has a long and colorful history. It was built in the 11th century on the site of a much earlier fort; the location at one time had considerable military significance, the more so given its proximity to the Scotch border, and the fact that Scotland contested control of the region up until it was incorporated into the UK. Mary spent some time here as Queen Elizabeth's "guest" before Elizabeth realized she needed to move her troublesome half sister farther south. The castle was besieged, taken and retaken numerous times; it was clearly built primarily for defense, not for comfort. <br /> Most of the city walls were destroyed during the 19th century; part of what is still visible was incorporated into the local government buildings, across from the rail station; I took a couple of pictures to upload. <br /> I also visited Carlisle Cathedral which, I am told, is the 2nd smallest cathedral in England, but boasts some very nice architecture and some lovely windows, as well as an old and beautiful wood-carved panel behind the main altar. <br /> It was a good trip all in all, not at all what I had planned but a lot of fun.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-40752215007286284042010-06-07T23:44:00.000-07:002010-06-08T00:00:10.416-07:00Romans in the mistJune 5 York & Newcastle<br /> Lynne took me and several others to York for a conference on metaphors and story-telling - I think York because of the successful metaphor workshop we (many of the same people) had 4 years ago, and the MetNet group has had other successful workshops there earlier. It was nice being in York again, although I retraced only a little of the sight-seeing I did the first time. <br /> I had been planning to walk part of the 84 mile long Hadrian's Wall trail for some time, but the weather forecast for my projected walk (Saturday through Tuesday) had been looking worse and worse as the time approached. Friday morning the forecast talked of 80% chance of rain (not showers) with Thunderstorms on Sunday - I began to think of either cancelling outright or changing the trip, and actually called to see if I could rent a car, to just drive out on Saturday and see the principle sights. But when I checked again on Friday afternoon (after wasting an hour and a half trying to work out alternative plans and discovering that the rental cars were all booked) I checked the forecast again. Now it was talking about 60% chance of showers Saturday and Monday, showers late Sunday afternoon. I decided, with my rain gear, I could live with that. So the trip was on again. <br /> This morning, I caught a 7:35 train to Newcastle. It is inconvenient - the hotel does not serve breakfast before 7, and there are always 2 or 3 large tour groups there, with all the group members lined up for breakfast right at 7, so I made sure I was there about 6:45 to get in before the crowd arrived. It was a good thing, too - a line formed at the juice bar that reached over 25 people long; if I hadn't got in first I probably wouldn't have got any breakfast at all. <br /> I reached Newcastle at 8:40 and ran full-tilt into the one thing that consistently frustrates me about England - signs and information. There is no tourist information office at the train station; I asked the travel information people and they directed me to the city center - I picked up a little Newcastle brochure that had a map of downtown, and it also showed it. So I set off in that direction, couldn't see it anywhere, reached a point that I knew was too far, walked back a ways, asked a shopkeeper, who directed me to the metro station underground. There I found a bus ticket office - they said the tourist information office was back toward the train station where I'd just come from. They also gave me a bus schedule and told me there were only two buses a day serving stops along the wall until you get well past Heddon (I wanted a schedule in case the weather turns really really vile.) I walked back toward the train station, ran into a young chap who asked what I was looking for, and showed me right to the information office - on a side street, with only a small sign on the street. They sold me a badle needed map (which is impossible to get anywhere else except by ordering it on the web - and the supplier accepts only checks drawn on English banks) directed me to the river and at least informed me that the walk runs along the river clear through Gateshead - and that there is a tourist information office on the river also, incidentally just a couple of blocks from the train station. One of the problems is that people who don't do vigorous walking have a hard time understanding what it is I'm asking, or that anyone might actually want to walk farther than a mile or so at a time. And the walk along the wall is less well known than I thought it would be. <br /> Finally on my way. The walk along the Tyne is actually quite nice - they've spiffied it up for both pedestrians and bikes, and it's quite pretty. As I was promised, there were lots of signs, including signs at places where you don't need them, e.g. where the trail turns and there is no possible alternative way to go. Then, after an hour and a half of walking or so, the trail turned away from the river and ascended a hill, ran through a meadow - to a place where at least 4 trails headed off in different directions. There, where a sign really was needed, desperately needed, there was no sign. (I have encountered that phenomenon all over England.) I followed a bike trail sign, which turned out to be wrong and led me off in the wrong direction, as a result of which I ended up walking most of the last 5 miles to Heddon along the sides of streets. And - most disgusting of all - contrary to what the bus information people had told me, there were bus stops all over the place and I encountered a city bus every 15 or 20 minutes; at least 5 lines serve the area to about a mile short of Heddon, and at least 3 go through Heddon itself. Since the suburbs of Newcastle reach almost to Heddon, had I known that I would have taken a bus either clear to Heddon or to the town just short of Heddon, and walked all the way to Wall, cutting a day off the trip. A day spent walking through the suburbs of Newcastle would not be much of a loss. I do think had I stuck to the trail I would have been walking through more greenway and fewer subdivisions - but it would still be pretty pure suburbia. <br /> The Hadrian's Wall web site, and the brochures about the walk, are quite misleading. They treat Newcastle like a point on the map, not a city of around a million population that reaches out 10-15 miles in every direction. They imply that you are walking alongside the wall the whole way - in truth, the first bit of the wall I saw was just outside Heddon, near the end of the first day's walk. Much of it is broken down, and the first 20 miles or so is buried under accumulations of soil - one sign, next to a flat pasture, describes a Roman fort that is totally buried under the pasture. The only reason to walk the section I walked today would be if you have a trophy collector's mentality and want to be able to brag about walking the entire distance. I don't care about that, and am deliberately omitting the first 4 miles and last 11 miles of the trail. Although it was a pleasant enough day, given that the forecast is for rain most of my trip I'd much rather have spent my one clear sunny day on a later stage of the hike, where there is more of what I came to see. <br /> One I got out of the greater Newcastle area and up on the ridge above the river valley, the countryside is actually quite beautiful. My room, a converted attic in a farmhouse, has a lovely view out over the rolling hills, pastures, and rapeseed fields. The owner, a retired teacher / farmer, is rather eccentric but very nice. <br /><br />June 6, Wall<br /> Nice walk today, but all I saw of Hadrian's wall was a little bit at the very end (actually beyond Wall), Chester's Fort, 1.5 miles beyond Wall, and a long section of the ditch that supplemented and in some sections apparently replaced the wall (it appears the wall actually never did stretch all the way coast to coast). I decided to walk over and see Chester's fort before signing in to my hotel because rain was threatening, and I was planning to leave before the fort would open at 9 a.m. I was glad I did - the excavated portions are quite interesting, and I took several dozen photos, a few of which I will upload. As I was finishing up, a few sprinkles were hitting my face, so I shouldered my pack and headed back toward the hotel. The rain seemed to be holding off so I detoured into a pasture to see a bit of wall with the foundation of an old "turret" (tower); the two pictures aren't very spectacular but it was interesting to see. By the time I reached the hotel it was raining hard enough that, had it been much farther, I would have stopped to put on rain jacket and put the fly on my pack. <br /> Things I wish I had known continue: There is another hotel over a mile farther down the trail and right on the trail, George Hotel, in Chollerford. I think it is a bit more expensive but would have been much more convenient. Had I had the detail map when I was planning all this I would have known. And there is at least one stop four miles this side of Gilsland, so a 20 mile stretch is not difficult to avoid if you can get the information to plan it. <br /> By the time I had dinner (a very nice roast lamb with veggies and Yorkshire pudding) and taken a bath it was raining quite steadily. I started rethinking my plan for the next day - if the rain continues, 20 miles would not be a lot fun, and one of the sites I really want to see, Vindolanda, is a mile or more off the trail, which would add two miles. Also, I'm a bit tired of just hiking along the edge of the highway, and it appears that the first six miles out of Chollerford have that quality. So - I decided to demonstrate my flexibility and good sense and change plans. I knew I might want to do this, so fortunately picked up a bus schedule in Newcastle. It turns out there is a bus that stops at the castle (1.5 miles from my hotel - 1/3 mile from the George, but oh, well) at 9:13, and will take me directly to Vindolanda. I can either catch another bus back to Housesteads, the other major site, or walk the two miles. Then I can walk from there to Gilsland, a total of only 10 or 11 miles, bringing the day's total walking to maybe 13-15 miles, much more appealing if it keeps raining. Much more appealing anyway. If it's really ugly I can catch another bus from Housesteads. Thinking ahead, the bus also stops at a village four or five miles this side of Gilsley, so if weather is ugly or it is getting late on Tuesday I can bail out there. <br /> Monday morning: looking at the map again I realized it is 22 miles from Wall to Gilsland plus .75 off the trail to the B&B - 23 miles in all, much more than I want to do in one day, and that includes leaving out Vindolanda. The change in plans is definitely a good idea. I am finding 14-17 mile days to be just fine, but I'm good and tired at the end of that, and adding another 1.5 to 2 hours of walking might turn it from fun into a chore. <br /><br />June 7, Gilsland<br /><br /> Vindolanda and Housesteads are both quite interesting and I was glad I scheduled them in. Unfortunately, the bus schedule is such that I was only able to spend an hour at Vindolanda, and would have liked to have spent at least another half hour. (The bus was late so I actually could have spent more time). It started raining when I reached Housesteads, but I managed to get some good photos anyway. It rained on and off all the way to Gilsland; I managed to get my rain pants off for only about 25 minutes the entire afternoon. Most of the way is either along sections of half-ruined wall or along sections where the wall is partially visible below the turf; some spectacular sections lie along the edge of sheer limestone cliffs; unfortunately the mixture of rain and mist made it impossible to get adequate pictures of these sections. <br /> It really is quite an experience to walk the defensive line of the Roman Empire, to see the engineering and craftsmanship, the town planning that went into constructing the forts. <br /> By the time dinner was ready, it had started raining fairly hard. I do not think I will walk more than half the distance to Carlisle tomorrow; the host tells me that the first 6 miles, culminating in a Saxon era priory, are the most interesting, and there is a handy bus from there to Carlisle. That is probably what I will do.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-679583456300395192010-05-31T11:41:00.000-07:002010-05-31T11:42:14.369-07:00May 31 - ChesterI had heard from several people (and read in a couple of guide books) that Chester, which is not too far from here, has the only complete town wall standing in England, and a lovely Norman Cathedral to boot, so I booked tickets for a day trip to Chester and hoped for minimal rain. It threatened rain when I got up, and actually sprinkled a bit on me as I walked to the train station, but it cleared later, then clouded, etc. all day long - quite a nice day, actually. Chester is a pretty town for certain, and the town wall is impressive - but it is "complete" only with a stretch of the imagination. Two sections were knocked down for the railroad, and bridges over the railroad rebuilt with stone railing from the old wall, and some of the wall is not much above street level - I don't think it's as impressive as York, but it is definitely interesting, and I enjoyed walking around it. <br /> It was also interesting to tour the Church of St. John the Baptist, which housed the cathedral for several hundred years, and has some fascinating and very romantic ruins from the collapse of part of the old church in the late 19th century. The current Chester Cathedral, a fine example of Norman architecture, is also very interesting. Both churches have very high vaulted ceilings, massive pillars, and lovely stained glass windows, some quite modern. In the current cathedral, there are also a large number of carved wooden seats, and many of the regular pews also have wood carvings, quite nice wood carvings, but many of them seem (to my untrained eye) rather secular for carvings on a pew, but perhaps I am missing something. I took quite a few pictures of them, because they are so interesting. I also took a picture of an interesting modern sculpture in the rectory garden. <br /> It was a great day and very relaxing. The old part of Chester is quite beautiful, and I enjoyed walking around the wall and just loafing around town for a while.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-37251562474122916912010-05-29T00:16:00.000-07:002010-05-29T00:18:05.469-07:00May 28, Darwin's House and Covent GardenYesterday I had a very productive day; managed to finish the outline for a book proposal and get much of the first chapter done; this morning I finished the first chapter and sent the whole package to my editor to see if it is about what she had in mind. Then I headed for the train station - and immediately ran into a little hitch. The bike front tire, fixed just a week ago, is flat again. Fortunately Joy was heading out to the gymn so she gave me a lift to the station. <br /><br />A second minor hitch: The bus company web page said there is a bus from Orpington to Down House (where Charles Darwin lived most of his life) every 20 minutes, but it was actually over an hour - who knows when the bus company last updated their web page. Once I got there, it was very nice. Not impressive in the way of the castles and monuments I have been visiting, but still nice to walk through the rooms where Darwin lived and did his work. I couldn't figure out if there was a no photos prohibition - there probably was since no-one else was snapping pictures, but I snapped a couple of the study where he wrote Origin of Species and several other books that would have made his reputation even without that book, and one of the billiards room, with the desk where he did much of his correspondence. They had very good displays, nothing new if you have recently read a good bio of Darwin, as I have, but clear and well presented. One thing I did find new and fascinating - they had put together a flip-card display showing the evolution of whales over the past 55 million years (based on fossile evidence). It was also enjoyable to walk on the "gravel walk," the long garden walk where he did much of his thinking. It would have been more enjoyable but there were faorly large crowds, which made it difficult to get into an appropriately reflective mood. Over lunch I met a charming English couple who live in Orpington and drivve out there just for lunch once a week; we had a great conversation and they kindly drove me back to the train station. <br /><br />Their lift got me back into London quite a bit earlier than I really needed, so after I dropped by thed ticket office to pick up my ballet and opera tickets, I wandered around Covent Gardens a bit - it is interesting, although not a place I necessarily want to go often. There was a very indifferent street performer, a gymnast / juggler who managed to keep 6 balls in the air for about 45 seconds, and did ten pushups on his thumb. He promised for a finale to do a sideways flip over a chain held 5 feet above a 14 year old boy lying on the pavement, but his audience manner was so incredibly irritating that I left before he got around to it. To state the obvious, I have seen better! <br /><br />With an hour to kill before my dinner reservation, I sat down at a sidewalk cafe on Wellington Street, one block away from Bow Street and the opera house, to have a cappuccino and begin writing this blog. I had decided a couple of weeks ago just to eat where I had dinner with Lynne before we saw Warhorse, partly because I knew how to get there and it's very close to the opera house (I didn't know that I wouldn't be rushed for time) and partly because I enjoyed the dinner I had there. <br /><br />Dinner was quite good - baked halibut in a sauce, oven roast potatoes and asparagus. They had an interesting dessert, mango with raspberry ice cream, but the dinner filled me up too much so I reluctantly passed on it. <br /><br />The Royal opera house is quite plush - seats more comfortable than anything in Portland, and they actually have room for my knees, plus vents under every seat so there is at least a bit of fresh air. The Royal Ballet performed three pieces, the first two to modern music and the third to a Bizet symphony. The dancers are of course superb. The first piece, Chroma, was set to music by Joby Talbot and Jack White III, choreographed by Wayne MacGregor (none of these names mean anything to me either.) I liked it by far best of the three. Costumes were minimalist, a soft fabric rather like short nightgowns that didn't get in the way of the movements or distract in anyway. Choreography was very lyrical, almost romantic, with lots of influence from modern dance; at times it was quite enchanting. The second piece, Tryst, was set to music by James MacMillan, choreography by Christopher Wheeldon. This piece was more classical in tone, but still with a lot of modern dance influence. The choreography was highly stylized, almost machine-like at times. Although there were some very fluid, lyrical moments it generally seemed, compared to the first piece, almost soulless. I enjoyed it, but kept losing the thead - I don't think it lacked coherence so much as that it failed to maintain attention. The third piece, Symphony in C, was set to the piece by that name by Bizet, choreography by Balanchine. It was the most classical of the three, danced in tutus and en pointe, very lyrical and romantic. I liked it a lot, but the first piece was still the best of the lot for me. During the first intermission I asked the usher about the vents, and we struck up a conversation which we resumed at the second intermission. She was a nice, interesting person, aspiring actress, very enjoyable to talk with. <br /><br />It was an altogether satisfying day, very relaxing, altogether successful. I feel quite rested up and ready to work through much of the rest of what promises to be a rainy weekend.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-49002445572818698482010-05-23T12:48:00.000-07:002010-05-23T12:55:20.768-07:00May 23 last day in SloveniaBecause I had so much difficulty figuring out bus schedules I had given up the possibility of another trip to the mountains, but Metka sent me the time tables I needed, and I realized I could catch a 7 a.m. bus that would get me to Lake Bohinj, near Lake Bled, so I did that. When I got off the bus, a computer scientist (Vietnamese but currently teaching in Hungary, also in Ljubljana for academic purposes) also got off. Tuan said he was interested in the tram to the canyon rim, and I said I wanted to walk on up to see the famous waterfall; he gamely went along with me. He is a very nice person and interesting to talk with, so we had a pleasant walk, 5 km. to the Savica Waterfall. When we reached the parking lot and paid our admission there were two huge tour groups assembling, which always makes me a bit nervous. Tuan suggested I go on ahead, since he expected to stop quite often to mess around taking photographs, then we could meet back at the coffee shop (I wanted a snack of some sort), so I did - but in the event he reached the top only a few minutes after I did. <br /> The waterfall really is spectacular; I have a couple of pictures on the photoblog. It emerges from behind a rocky promontory a little way up the base of a sheer cliff; unfortunately you cannot get to any location from which you can see the hole in the rock from which he water emerges, but what you can see is quite spectacular. Back at the coffee shop I discovered that they sell no pastries, which rather surprised me, so I had to settle for a granola bar with my coffee, and an ice cream bar to eat as we walked back along the road toward the tram. I also bought 1/3 kg of local cheese from a farmer who was setting up shop in the parking lot - it is swiss style, quite good. <br /> We reached the tram just before it was about to leave, and after learning that the trail (road actually) back down is only 8 km (for a descent of over 1500 meters), decided to buy only a one way ticket and walk back down. The tram ride itself was quite spectacular as we rose up high enough to see the snow-covered peaks above the walls of the canyon. At the top we spent ten minutes or so taking in the view and taking pictures (some of them are on my photoblog). Then we bought beers and I bought a sandwich (I had forgotten the cheese in my backpack) and we settled down for lunch. By the time we had finished lunch, it was threatening rain, and we could see it raining way down the valley toward Bled, so Tuan wasn't sure he wanted to walk down. But after talking it over for a while we decided to go for it anyway. <br /> The way down is a forest-service type road, very steep for about half the way, covered in gravel and rocks as large as soft-balls, that make for very tricky walking. I should mention Tuan was wearing street shoes, not at all optimal for that type of walking. It started raining, lightly, but enough that I put the rain fly on my day pack. We crossed several snow-fields, none deeper than a foot or so and pretty easy walking actually. The view was spectacular, lush green woods with occasional bits of the rock walls opposite showing through. The walking was extremely difficult for the most part but otherwise it was a very pleasant hike, and by the time we got down, Tuan and I were hitting it off quite well. We stopped at the tram station and bought a couple of beers, part of which we drank there on the patio, and part of which we carried down to the bus stop with us. It started raining again about the time we reached the bus stop shelter, but we only had to wait about 5 minutes. Within a half hour the rain had quite again and by the time we were halfway back to Ljubljana the skies were about half clear. It was a great day in the woods - and the lake really is quite lovely; one could enjoyable spend several days there I think.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-52195691797788911932010-05-22T12:15:00.000-07:002010-05-22T12:16:45.825-07:00May 22 Side trip to SloveniaThanks to an invitation from Metka Kuhar, a colleague at the University of Ljubljana, I had a chance to take a side trip to another part of the world I had never visited. The lecture, on metaphor, of course, went well, and was a lot of fun. Having a very long lunch with some of Metkas colleagues was also quite interesting. After that one day of work, the rest of the weekend, Friday through Sunday, was open for some sight-seeing. Renting a car was not a very good option, since I had to be at the airport Monday morning before the rental agencies open, and the ones downtown are not open on Sunday. That left me to deal with train and bus information. <br /> Metka proviided me with the URL for the bus company's on-line information service, along with a stack of brochures and printouts about interesting things to see and do in Slovenia. I began by leafing through the brochures and ruling out the things not served by public transportation, hikes above the spring snow line, and things far enough away that they would take more than a two or three hour bus or train ride to reach. Then I started looking up schedules and figuring out what I could reasonably hope to do. I immediately ran into one source of recurrent frustration: The university's quarters for visitors, part of graduate residence, has wireless set up in such a way that you need not only the key but also an account name and password, and if you haven't actually transmitted anything for about 5 minutes, it automatically logs you out so you have to log in again. While trying to figure out bus timetables, etc., it is easy to be apparently inactive for five minutes - especially Slovenian schedules, which are set up in such a way that you have to scroll through every town in the country for both your origin and your destination. So deciding on what to visit and working out when to leave to get there turned out to be quite frustrating and time-consuming. However, I finally decided on trips for Friday and Saturday - I decided I would have to work Sunday out after I got home on Friday or Saturday. <br /> On Friday I got up early and walked to the bus station, about a 2 block walk. After an hour and a half ride, I reached the little village of Divaca, near Skocjan Cave. The information in the tourist information, both on-line and in the printed brochures, was confusing; it said that there was a 45 minute walk through the woods to the cave entrance, and in the spring tours are given at 10 and 1:30. Since the bus arrives at 9:30, there is an obvious problem. I and two others on the bus who were headed for the cave asked 2 or 3 people how to get there and they all said the shuttle-bus, which leaves at 10! None of them seemed to see why that was a problem. Turns out they wait the tour for the shuttle-bus, so the tour doesn't actually start at 10, it starts about 10:10. <br /> I was disappointed - the rules include no photography inside the cave. Other members of the group ignored that inconvenient rule, and had I brought the camera that is better in low light I probably also would have. That was the only aspect of the visit that was at all disappointing. Skocjan Cave is incredible. The main attraction is reached via a series of chambers that would be quite spectacular in themselves, with stalactites and stalagmites but also many other interesting formations, including thin little calcium curtains and several flat, thin slabs of rock that were perched on other, sometimes smaller rocks. As water dripped on them, calcite built up into a mound, and stalactites had formed around the edges so that they looked like huge porcini mushrooms. <br /> After walking through several of these chambers, we began to hear the roar of a river, the waterfall we had been promised, echoing through the passages. As we passed though yet another domed chamber (100 feet and more above our heads), the water grew louder and louder - but nothing prepared us for the actuality of the underground river. In addition to its huge domed chambers, the cave has a gorge running through the center, a split in the rock that is over 100 meters deep, and perhaps 15 or 20 meters wide, with absolutely vertical walls into which the park service has cut paths and stairs (in many cases they have instead built walkways projecting out over the chasm). The waterfall was visible as a silvery glow near one end of the chasm, which curves around so that it enters toward you and exits to your left. The deep narrow gorge complete with waterfall and rapids would be enough in themselves, but there is much more to this part of the cave. The cave periodically floods, and about once in 100 years it fills to the top with rushing, churning water. Where the water turns the sharp bend in the chasm, it forms vortexes around the stalactites and stalagmites, and the circular rush of water erodes them both into spirals and into other very unusual shapes. <br /> The path crosses a bridge over the chasm, winds around the far side, and finally turns upward along a side passage toward the exit, which passes through a huge chamber that has been opened by a collapse to leave a doorway like the entry to some magnificent palace. Beyond the doorway is a huge sink-hole, the remains of a very large collapsed chamber that has several other chambers opening into it - later, on a hike around this sink hole I was able to see and photograph several of them. In the summer there is a great-looking path that leads off around and up the side of this sink-hole, but it is blocked off in winter and spring (probably for safety reasons. The path we took leads along the sheer side of the sink hole, across another opening into the cave, through which water (apparently the same stream) emerges, to a funicular that takes visitors to the top. <br /> There is another, bigger but more touristy, cave nearby that I had thought to visit, but the bus I expected did not come and I ended up waiting an hour and a half for another bus, which I just took back into town. Even though all I did was visit the one cave and walk through the woods back to Divaca, it was a great day. I capped it off by going to a restaurant beside the river downtown and having pork tenderloins with morels. <br /> This morning I got up early again, and took a bus to the lakeside town of Bled. All week the forecast has been saying the weekend would be sunny and mid 70s - but this morning it said chance of rain, and indeed as we neared Bled there was obvious heavy rain in the foothills above the town, and the streets were wet from recent rain. I began the day by setting out for Vintgar Gorge, 2.5 km away. In Bled, the signs were not very good and I had a hard time finding the way out of town, but as soon as you reach the outskirts, the signs are abundant and clear. It is a nice walk through suburbs and farmland, with views of the spectacular mountains and so-green forests and fields all around. Slovenia is entirely mountainous, only 10% is cultivated, and the rest is lush forest. It is quite lovely. <br /> I reached the parking lot at the entrance to the National Park just behind a tour bus, so followed at least 30 people through the ticket booth and entry gate. I hurried to get past them and on down the trail beyond the sound of their gabbing, had to stop to put the rain fly on my day pack when the light drip turned to light rain, then began to simply enjoy the walk. The gorge is like many I've seen in the U.S., but extreme in its narrowness, steep walls, and general impassability. The Slovenia Park Service (or somebody) has dealt with the impassability by building a combination of board walks and cantilevered walkways the full length of the narrow part of the gorge, which affords the opportunity to experience the gorge (it could not possibly be done on foot otherwise - the water is too deep and swift even to think of wading. A really good whitewater kayaker could probably negotiate it, but my sense was that it is rather narrow in several passages for a raft. It would be an exciting ride.) When I reached the end, I turned around and walked back, much slower than I had walked down in the first place, soaking in the enchantment of the place. Fortunately pictures were allowed here and I have uploaded a sampling. <br /> Back in Bled I stopped for lunch, then set out to walk the 7 km. trail around the lake. The lake is noted for several features, principally the castle atop a sheer-sided promontory near the center of town and a church built on a small island near the far end of the lake. I was able to get several really nice pictures of bot of these, and also, as the clouds finally began to lift, a few pictures of the mountains in the background. To get a sense of what Bled is like, think of McCall Idaho with the White Clouds in the background and a castle on the shore. It was a great outing and a really nice day.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-26934523753116915372010-05-16T07:41:00.000-07:002010-05-16T07:42:30.880-07:00May 15, Portchester CastleAs I expected, by Friday evening I was beginning to feel a bit too workaholic; fortunately I had already booked train tickets to Portchester, where Portchester Castle is located, right on the edge of the estuary of one of England's most important harbors, long the hub of Britain's naval power. The original walls were built by the Romans, on the site of even older fortifications, and most of the original Roman wall still stands. The castle was added to and expanded several times, beginning in the 11th century and ending with major renovations in the 15th century; not long after, the castle became militarily superfluous because of changes in ship design, armaments, and naval warfare. Henry II and Richard II both undertook major renovations and spent substantial time here; the last major military use of the castle was for staging Henry V's successful foray into France. Lots of history in this place. <br /> Subsequent to its military obsolescence the castle was used as a prison for a while, then fell into disrepair until its most recent owners recognized its historical importance and began the process of restoration and preservation before ultimately turning it over to the British government. <br /> The train trip there involved changing to the underground at Euston Station then back to a regular train at Waterloo Station; it was a comfortable ride through rolling green countryside with lot of small wooded areas here and there. I spent over two hours wandering the grounds, climbing the keep, taking pictures of the romantic ruins, and generally having a very nice day of it.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-74208704734222400932010-05-10T13:27:00.000-07:002010-05-10T13:28:35.235-07:00May 10 side trip to Chipping NortonI spent most of a pretty cool and rainy weekend working on a couple pieces of the empathy project; with a forecast of better weather for today I set out early on a bus for Chipping Norton, in the Cotswolds between Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon. It remains quite cool - there was heavy frost on the grass near the canal this morning - but it really was a nice day. <br /> Chipping Norton is a pretty little town to stroll through and the Cotswolds, a country of rolling hills and broad vistas, are quite beautiful, although not in a way that photographs very well. The path I followed went throug several lush fields, along a narrow paved road, and along some gravel roads. There were a few other people out walking the same path but we were so widely separated that they did not interfere at all with the solitude. I chose this walk because it has an interesting destination, a set of 4500 year old stones moved into a circle, a single standing stone, and one remaining burial chamber, fallen in. The legends surrounding these stones are on placards I photographed and uploaded onto the photo blog - they're mostly fanciful nonsense so I won't repeat them here. Near the stones is a 500 year old church made of Cotswold stone, which I photographed and uploaded. <br /> I arrived at the stone circle just behind a 40ish woman, who proceeded to walk in a circle just inside the stones twice, hardly looking at the stones as she did. There is a path worn so apparently that is the thing to do, although two seems an odd number - seven, twelve, or one hundred are more common. People go kind of nuts over the druid related stuff - none of the hotels near Stonehenge will rent rooms at all during the three days surrounding the summer solstice. <br /> I walked back through more fields, got into town pretty hungry so stopped in at an old hotel pub to get lunch. I had one of their specials, liver and onions in a sauce that looked like it might have been made with a little porter, very good. Then I had a rhubarb dessert - rhubarb ginger pie. It was more like a cobbler, with a bread-like crust on top, shortbread I guess. It was delicious with the thin slices of fresh ginger in it - I would never have thought of that but it worked! They suggested custard (runny, in England) on top of it; I'm glad I didn't have it, because the rhubarb was more delicately flavored than you might expect, and custard might have overwhelmed it. <br /><br /> It was a very pleasant outing, and left me nicely tired.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-88043264148213702192010-05-02T14:29:00.000-07:002010-05-02T14:31:34.801-07:00May 2 LondonMay 1, London <br /><br /> It turns out there are trains every half hour between MK and London; I could have saved money by commuting to see the plays and visit some museums. The Jenkins Hotel where I'm staying isn't much for 95 pounds - $150; bed is okay, bathroom makes a phonebooth look roomy. If I come back into London I'll buy a day trip, $20 and it includes unlimited use of the underground. I ended up spending twice what I should have for the train trip - the pane of glass at the ticket window interferes with communication and I ended up with a day return - changed it to a weekend return in London, but didn't realize until the transaction was complete that it would have been cheaper just to buy a one-way back on Sunday. I have encounted some very helpful people in England, also some very unhelpful, and the two ticket agents were decidedly unhelpful.<br /><br /> After I checked in I walked to the Museum of Natural History - turns out, over 4 miles, a full hour walk. Fun but I wouldn't do it again. The museum was free admission; huge crowds, but they didn't interfere much. I only looked at 3 exhibits, beginning with the dinosaurs. They have scads of skeletons, which is interesting; they have also arranged displays, some of which (an animated Ty Rex straight from Jurassic Park) are for the kiddies. Others, like the computer simulations that show how they work out how the big beasts must have walked, got up, sat down, etc. are really great. I recommend it. <br /><br /> I next went to the Earth exhibit, which begins with an escalator that enters the center of the earth. It's one of the few pictures I took (for the most part, you can find better pictures than I would take in any encyclopedia, or all over on the web.) Great multi-media display about volcanos, glaciers, underwater volcanos, erosion, etc. Also an excellent exhibit. I was getting tired so stopped for tea and a chocolate muffin, then went on to the Darwin exhibit; focused on insects. Also very educational, not quite as exciting to me as the dinosaur exhibit, but well considered. I caught a bus about 2/3 of the way back to my hotel, lay down for a nap, then showered and changed for dinner and the play. <br /><br /> It is not much over a mile to Drury Lane and Covent Gardens, so I decided to walk again. Not a good decision; no sooner was I committed to walking than it started sprinkling. Gradually the sprinkle turned to a downpour - at least I had a portable umbrella, but my pant legs and shoes were soaked. Then I reached Covent Gardens, where I was supposed to meet Lynne for dinner, at PJ's Bistro. There are three Covent Gardens - metro stop, opera house, covered market. No-one had any idea where PJ's bistro is; several thought I was looking for "Pizza." I got at least three very confident but totally wrong sets of directions, walked around in driving rain for over a half hour, finally stumbled onto the place, where Lynne was waiting, also drenched. The bistro is good; I had a very nice grilled chicken breast with potatoes and pea pods, cooked perfectly. <br /><br /> The play, Warhorse, was spectacularly good. It is a simple story about a boy and his horse, except the horse gets requisitioned for the army at the beginning of WWII, the boy joins up later to try to find and save his horse, lots of trials, injuries, etc... It is told with a combination of top-notch acting, very imaginative full-size puppets, and folk music (solo and choral). The horse puppets were so well done that it frequently seemed the three people operating them were struggling to restrain the horse, rather than animating it. (It has as happy an ending as possible under the circumstances, by the way.) I was riveted throughout - so much so that I'm tempted to come back and see it again before I leave. I hope a version of it is put on in Portland. <br /><br /> One final adventure - still raining fairly hard when I got out - London has the same scarcity of street signs as the rest of England - hard time figuring out the way back to my hotel so ended up taking a cab. 8.8 pounds, about $13, to go a bit over a mile. London is an expensive place indeed. <br /><br />May 2<br /><br /> It was still raining when I got up this morning, so I gave up the idea of a morning visit to the Tower of London, instead spent an hour uploading pictures of castles, had a leisurely breakfast, and walked to the British Museum, where the plan was to meet Eric and Sam, his partner. I had decided after talking with Lynne last night to see the exhibit of Renaissance drawings, but I nearly passed it up because the other exhibits were so wonderful. While waiting for Eric and Sam I started with an exhibit of artifacts from various traditional societies, including some excellent Eskimo artifacts and one small Easter Island statue. I ordinarily don't take many pictures in museums, because usually much better pictures are readily available, but there were several I couldn't resist, and I also decided I wanted to provide a sense of the neat things they are doing. <br /><br /> I moved throgh the North America and Central America exhibits, then went down stairs to a very large Africa exhibit. This included a large exhibit of masks and costumes for ceremonial use, which proved serendipitous, because it provided me an interesting background for the Lion King. I took a couple pictures of the most interesting ones, then entered the contemporary Africa area, which was even more intriguing. I was especially fascinated by several sculptures that were made from weapons turned in during a pacification campaign - I will upload a few of the photos I took of this exhibit. Every one of these sculptures was simply stunning. <br /><br /> I finally made text messaging contact with Eric and learned that their train line is being repaired so they would be delayed, and we decided just to meet at the theater. That turned into an adventure in its own right, and I finally ended up leaving his ticket at the ticket sales "Will Call" window - he made it to his seat with at least 2 minutes to spare. <br /><br /> Before leaving the museum, I paid the 12 pound fee for the drawings exhibit - I enjoyed it, but it was quite crowded, and it was difficult to really appreciate it. I would have enoyed it more if I had gone as soon as I arrived at the museum, before the crowds built up. Still, many of the drawings were very interesting, and they more or less took me back to the days when I was studying drawing. <br /><br /> The Lion King: It was really good, really polished, really opulent. Brilliant costumes, life-size puppets, masks, shadow puppets, kites, African music and dance, more modern music pieces heavily influenced by R&B, modern dance, ballet, aerial dance - all with great pace and timing, simply brilliant, a 2.5 hour riot of sensory experience. Every bit as good as Warhorse, although in a very different way - Disney-slick, very polished. My first reaction, halfway through the first act, included "heartless," but by the end of the first act I reversed that decision; it did not lack heart; it just had the edges softened, the shadows reduced, the light spots enhanced. I do think I'm glad I had not seen the movie - I cannot imagine a movie engaging the imagination enough to achieve the sense of magic delight that the play achieved. So much genius - the costume design, puppets, choreography, everything. It was a wonderful experience. <br /><br /> I think I will try to get into London for a couple more theater or dance experiences while I'm here - but I will do it by day trip from now on. Less expensive by far, and my room in MK is a lot more comfy than any hotel room I can afford.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8342415341145239112.post-47620108500041584152010-04-30T11:12:00.000-07:002010-04-30T11:31:39.299-07:00Settling in EnglandApril 30 - First week in England. <br /><br /> My flight from Turkey was uneventful; both Heathrow and the freeway to Milton-Keynes were uncrowded and stress-free. I was also treated to three days of beautiful sunny weather before more typical April weather set in on Thursday. I spent Monday and Tuesday in Milton-Keynes getting settled in the room I am renting from Joy, learning my way around M-K, and meeting with Lynne about the project (it will be another adventure in itself, as we work to connect our similar-yet-different approaches to metaphors and stories). Joy's house is quite nice, with a lovely back yard that includes a glassed-in sun porch overlooking a large koi pond (but alas, no place to set up a BBQ or eat a meal during nice weather. As the weather turns summery I will miss our wonderful patio in Portland more and more.) <br /><br /> Milton-Keynes is an odd town, a New Jersey style "New Town" built around several centuries-old villages, in a way that the existing villages are incorporated into the fabric of the town - yet the city center is itself a huge covered shopping mall. There is a network of bicycle, horse, and pedestrian paths that in principle provides a way to get anywhere in the city with very little interaction with automobiles. My first two forays were frustrating - the paths wind around in a way that is hard to follow, and the signs are often unhelpful - for example, when the path crosses a named surface street they don't tell you the name of the street, and the signs often point toward a location that is meaningful only if you know the city well (and is either not shown on the map or difficult to find). On each of my first three exploratory trips, one on foot, the other two on a bicycle Joy is providing for me, I ended up going at least half again the actual distance because of detours and double-backs. The fourth trip, walking to the train station for the trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, was more successful, since I finally realized that navigation is by village names, and a sign informs you each time you cross into a new village. The villages are roughly square, about 1 km to the side, separated by arterials that run more or less straight, from northwest to southeast ("verticals") and southwest to northeast (horizontals). Once I figured this out, I realized I need to write down, not a sequence of street names, but rather a sequence of neighborhood names to guide me on my trips. So the walk to the train station went smoothly and took a bit under an hour. Three or more trips around town and I will probably get it figured out.<br /><br /> I also realized that lacking a map of England (we have one that LaJean was supposed to bring, and I haven't found a bookstore yet from which I can buy one) cost me some money on my trip to Stratford. The train I took passes through Coventry to Birmingham, where I changed to a milk train back to Stratford. I did not realize how close Stratford is to Coventry. Since I want to visit Kenilworth Castle on the way back, and it is between Stratford and Coventry, I will take a bus to Kenilworth, park my luggage in the castle's cloak room (I hope they have one!) then take another bus on to Coventry, thus writing off the first leg of my return ticket. <br /><br /> The first couple of days in Stratford have been very interesting. I am staying in a very comfortable, although smallish, room in the Penryn House B&B, close to a mile walk from the center of town. Again because they don't bother putting signs on the main streets, getting to the B&B required a combination of guesswork, hope, and a bit of doubling back. The landlady compensated by providing me tea and some very nice cakes when I checked in. After checking in I toured Anne Hathaway's Cottage, then walked back into town and toured a couple of other houses associated with Shakespeare, including the house where he was born. Unfortunately they do not allow photographs inside, although they don't put up many signs about it and I did take one before a guard told me not to take any more. They also do not provide any really good photos of the interiors that you can buy - or I would have bought some. All of the houses are interesting - dark wood, and constant reminders of how much shorter people were in those days. I enjoyed all of them. I also enjoyed, yesterday and today, stopping in at a couple of 400 year old pubs - the Windmill, licensed in 1600, is the oldest in Stratford that has been in continuous operation. I do have a picture of its interior, and a picture of me in another pub, in an even older building. <br /><br /> On Wednesday night I saw a superb performance of King Lear. The actor who played Lear was spell-binding. Regan and Goneril were also very well-done; both came across with exactly the right sort of oily seductiveness. The performance got a warm but not enthusiastic ovation, but in Portland it would have earned a standing ovation. Different standards of comparison. I was less than enthusiastic about the staging - more of the time-shifting, with most (but not all) the costumes World War I vintage, and the backdrop based on a run-down factory or metal shop, with a bank of broken windows in the background, steel girders, and industrial-grade florescent lights. I hope that fad runs its course and they get back to staging Shakespeare in the eras in which the action supposedly happens. Although it wasn't as distracting as some I've seen recently, like one we saw in Ashland a couple of years ago, where the "Duke this" and "King" and other royalty titles, and the threats of execution, positively jarred with the 1920s jazz era setting. <br /><br /> Today I toured Warwick Castle. It was fun, but a bit much - they have converted it into a theme park, with costumed actors everywhere, and multi-media presentations. The cost of admission reflected that - ordinarily 19 pounds, 13 for me with a senior discount, plus 8 more for the dungeon. Sort of a continual Renaissance Faire. I most enjoyed the unconstrained, unguided, and mostly actor free tour of the family quarters and ceremonial halls. One actor, in the ceremonial hall, I did enjoy chatting with; he said he was one of the descendants of the family. A 1920s "weekend party" setup was kind of fun. (Complete with some dummies in period dress and some live actors playing people who might have been invited to a weekend party in the 1920s.) The castle was actually the family home until the 1970s when it was sold, probably because it was getting far too expensive to keep up. They did allow pictures here - the fellow I talked with in the ceremonial hall said they had put coatings on everything to protect them from light and flashbulbs. But the dungeon tour, which cost me an extra 8 pounds, was just a gussied-up Halloween "house of horrors" show, with a Black Plague room, a torture room, a court room, and an execution chamber. I think it might have been fun but they crammed 20 of us into one tour, so unless you were standing in front you couldn't see or experience much. I considered it mostly a waste of $12 and 40 minutes of my time. I really prefer seeing these places at my own pace, guided by my own imagination. It was no surprise when I later learned that the castle is operated by a commercial entertainment company - it _is_ a theme park. <br /> It started raining about the time I finished the tour - fortunately I came equipped with my portable umbrella. It was too late to visit Kenilworth, so I decided to head back to Stratford. In the town square was a cart selling curry - they were out of rice so gave me curried chicken on a baked potato, something I'd never heard of before. It was quite good, more like a slightly curry flavored chicken stew than anything, but warming in the drizzle. <br /> Eric Jensen came to meet me for dinner and the first 2/3 of Romeo and Juliet, before he left to catch a series of trains back home. We enjoyed a nice visit; he and his partner Sam will meet me in London on Sunday. He was in the vicinity to interview for a job in Sociology at U. of Warwick, apparently UK's 2nd ranked Sociology dept. - he later told me he got the job, which is no surprise. He is doing extremely well. <br /> I was not as impressed by Romeo and Juliet as I was by Lear - none of the actors seemed as dynamic, or as convincing; the two dukes seemed almost stiff. The nurse, played by an African-Brit with creole mannerisms, was great, and Mercutio (Romeo's friend who gets stabbed by Juliet's cousin Tybalt in a rather unsportsmanlike and opportunistic way) was great. Otherwise, many of the actors seemed to be just reading their lines, except for Romeo, who over-acted. The director put most of the cast in period costume, but had Romeo and Juliet in modern casual dress and the Capulets in black leather with high-tech switchblades like the heavies in a modern fantasy-punk movie. That was a jarring note: Tybalt came across as a treacherous, villainous bully, a person Juliet would not likely have loved enough to be emotionally torn by his death, and the feud seemed more like "victims vs. oppressors" than the more morally equal balance that, in my view, is necessary for the play to work. The director also used bursts of fire, to symbolize passion I suppose, but that also gave it rather too much of a flavor of cheap hollywood special effects, and actually distracted from the passion the language and the acting is supposed to project - perhaps that is part of the reason that the portrayals of both Romeo and Juliet seemed at once overdone and strangely tepid to me. Having Romeo wheel around stage on a modern bicycle was, really, a bit much. I enjoyed the evening but I have seen many versions of the play that seemed more convincing. In sum, King Lear was one of the best versions I've seen, but Romeo and Juliet was mediocre. They bused in a ton of high school students to see Romeo and Juliet, though, so it got a much more enthusiastic response than Lear got the night before. <br /><br />April 30 <br /><br /> Today I pulled my stuff together and took a bus to Kenilworth - taking my time, since I had been told by many people that there isn't much there; a judgment that turned out to be quite erroneous - I spent about 2.5 hours there and could happily have spent 4. Even in the town itself people seemed quite lukewarm toward the castle - and on one of the few occasions in my experience, I got very poor help from a librarian (the library doubles as tourist information center), who told me rather vaguely to just follow the road around, leaving out the crucial detail of taking a right turn a few hundred yards down the hill. I ended up in an obvious residential area, accosted a woman delivering pamphlets, who had to think for a minute and consult her own map, doubled back, found the turn I had missed, with no "Castle Road" sign. I found the sign another hundred yards beyond the intersection, in the middle of a long block. Grump! The British are really challenged about road signs. <br /><br /> Once I finally reached the castle, I was immediately impressed. The castle walls are mostly gone, with just a few badly ruined stretches and the lower half of the entry towers. The stables are intact, and now house a tea shop and exhibition hall with a really good display on the history of the castle. The central hall, used until recently as a residence, is still intact, and has had exhibits of how it looked when Elizabeth I visited. The original castle is in ruins - very picturesque ruins, where I spent the greater part of an hour taking photos and understanding why Sir Walter Scott was impressed enough to write a novel about it. (Got to re-read that book!) To me, the way it was romanticized in literature adds greatly to the interest and value in visiting the place. Not long after I arrived it started the same sporadic drip that it did yesterday afternoon, although not until near the end of the visit did it rain enough to justify putting up my umbrella. The clouds actually helped evoke the historical mood of the place. It dates back to the 11th century, has figured centrally in much of English history since. It underwent two long sieges, each time yielding only after the point of near starvation had been reached; figured in the romance between Robert Dudley and Elizabeth, was finally captured, used for a while, then rendered militarily useless by Cromwell's forces. There were only a few other visitors, so it was easy to let my own imagination run. I am familiar with most of the history, but it would be fun to reread it and visit the place again. <br /><br /> It is interesting and a bit dismaying that so many people told me there isn't much there. If I had only one day to spend in the area, knowing what I know now, I would definitely spend it at Kenilworth rather than Warwick, Kenilworth where there is only a couple of tents to interfere with your own free imagination. I guess on the other hand if I were touring England with a couple of restive pre-teens with little knowledge of or interest in history, I might opt for the vastly more "entertaining" theme park to get them out of my hair for a day or so. <br /><br /> I have been ruminating since before I left Turkey about history, in the light of the various historical places I have visited. In Asia, especially Nepal and India, the history I saw has very little to do with me or my culture - only the peripheral relationship from the introduction of watered-down Buddhism and Hinduism during the last half of the last century. It was interesting but did not really speak to my own life or culture. In England, every time I have visited I have felt the history strongly as _my_ history, history that contributed to what my culture is and who I am. In Turkey it was an interesting in-between. Most of the events, including the battlefields and castles, are part of the Story of the West, dating from well before the Greeks and extending through to the eventual conquest of Byzantium by the Ottoman Empire. But the story is told from the Ottoman perspective: Battles I grew up learning as tragic defeats are perceived as glorious victories. Even the historic Christian churches, some dating to only a century or two after Christ, were converted to Mosques. It is vaguely disorienting - in a positive way. I felt my perspective repeatedly, continuously, wrenched. That also happened to a lesser extent in other Asian countries, but the Hindu and Animist cultures, in particular, are so very different, so very alien that it did not have the kind of personal immediacy it had in the Greek / Roman / Byzantine / Ottoman empire, with its final layering of (still not fully realized) secularism cultivated by Ataturk (whose image is still everywhere in Istanbul). Don't get me wrong - I am no fan of the crusaders, and consider most of the crusades as little removed from genocide and pillage. But I still think of the fall of Constantinople as a tragic ending, and it is very enlightening to spend 3 weeks visiting historical sites in a country with a shared history but radically different perspective - the victory of Islam as a glorious beginning. (And indeed, considering what Muslim scholars and mathematicians accomplished while Europeans were struggling vainly to hold on to some shadow of the knowledge of the Greeks and Romans, it _was_ a beginning of a glorious age.) It has actually contributed to greater appreciation of England with our shared history.Davehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15424239992966750775noreply@blogger.com0