Around the World in 180 Days

Day 15. Zorita de los Canes

2011-04-21T15:39:00.000-07:00

In the early 1860’s France, Spain, and England sent armed forces to Mexico, “to protect the interests of their nationals” doing business in the young nation. Since some of these nationals were bakers, this episode is known as the Guerra de los Pasteles (the Cakes War). Among the Spanish forces was a young ensign, Valentín Domínguez, from Zorita de los Canes, who upon seeing the beauty of the New World deserted the expeditionary force to establish himself in the small mountain town of Huatusco, in the highlands of the state of the coastal state of Veracruz, where he found a bride and a new life growing coffee. It was also here that his nine children were born.

Back in his hometown just enough news were received from him to raise him to the status of legend. There are vague recollections that he came back to Spain once, in a crisp white suit and Panama hat, the very image of a successful plantation owner. Finally, in 1907, a letter and photograph were sent, to inform the relatives in Spain of his death. The photograph was duly saved among the pages of the family Bible, and the legend of “the family in America” acquired the patina of old age.

In the meantime, in Mexico, the sons and daughters of Valentín had children of their own, and they grew up hearing the story of the ensign who had deserted, and how he had come from Zorita, and over the generations they spoke of “the family in Spain”. One of the sons of Valentín was Anastasio, who in turn had a daughter named Guillermina, who in turn had a daughter named Norma, who in turn had a son named Horacio Ferriz Domínguez.

Thirteen years ago, on my first trip to Spain, I drove to the northern provinces looking for the birthplace of my great-great-grandfather. I did find a Zorita, and eagerly asked and old man if the Domínguez family still lived there. No, there had never been a family of such name in the town, not even 100 years ago. A few years later, my parents came to Spain to celebrate their Gold wedding anniversary, and duty bound they rented a car, drove to southern Spain, found another Zorita, and suffered the same disappointment: No Domínguez family had ever lived there. Finally, a few months ago, a cousin broke the news that he had found the right Zorita, by the shore of the Tajo River, less than 100 km east of Madrid. My cousin had visited the place and made contact with the family, and from him I got the e-mail of a cousin and made a preliminary contact myself.

And that is why today I woke up early, rented a car, and drove east of Madrid in search of my roots. I ended driving too far to the northeast, but “preguntando se llega a Roma”, and after a bit of backtracking I finally came into Zorita de los Canes, a charming and very small village at the foot of a knoll dominated by the ruins of an old castle. There were also arrows pointing the visitor to the archaeologic zone of Recópolis, so I figured I would do a bit of exploring of the surroundings before immersing myself in family matters.

Recópolis is an amazing site. It was established in the VI century, by King Leovigildo, after he completed the Visigoth conquest of the Iberian Peninsula to form the first Spanish nation (the Visigoths were among the Germanic peoples who spread through the late Roman Empire in the IV century, to later expand into Iberia). Recópolis was to be the fiefdom of the crown prince, and grew into quite the busy town. Nearly a 200 years later, in the VIII century, Arab tribes conquered Spain and turned Recópolis into one of the main hubs of the califate of al-Andalusí. The Arabs were expelled from this part of Spain in the XI century, at which time the Knights of Calatrava took over the region, and moved the settlement a few hundred meters to the knoll of Zorita de los Canes, where they built a castle. The castle and the surrounding town flourished up to the XIV century, and were known for the rather large number of Jews who settled there. At this time a small church was built over the ruins of the Visigoth church of Recópolis, which during the XV and XVI centuries became the hub for celebrations throughout the region, who came to “the old city” to be merry, even though all visible signs of the Visigoth town had long been buried by soils and debris.

Reeling with the impressive history of little Zorita de los Canes I finally walked into the village. An old gentleman was working in his garden, and after saying hello I took the opportunity to ask for directions to the house of Petra Domínguez. He looked at me for a moment, and then said “She is my sister. My name is Aurelio Domínguez” “Well, then you must also be my uncle. I am Horacio Ferriz Domínguez.” He gave me a big smile and told me that his sister had been waiting for me all morning, and had just gone down to the road to take another look. And then family started flocking in. I greeted Aunt Petra, then Cousin Miguel, then Aunts Cristina and Matilde, then Cousin Laura and Aunt Isabel. It was the most delightful and long delayed family reunion one can imagine. They were all tickled pink to greet one of the long lost relatives from Mexico, and I could see strong family resemblance between them and some of my aunts back in Mexico.

We all went to Aunt Petra’s home, where lunch was all ready, and started cross-referencing family connections. Oh, yes, the memory of great-uncle Valentín was very much alive, and later Aunt Cristina produced the original 1907 photograph of my great-great-grandfather, a man with a magnificent moustache. I also had the chance of showing them photographs of the family, which my thoughtful daughter had loaded on my computer.

Alas, I may have met the last generation of Domínguez that can be expected to live in Zorita. Most of the youngsters have left the town, which officially counts with 107 inhabitants, but in reality has only 30 permanent residents. The aunts are all in their late 70s or early 80s. Cousins Miguel and Laura are slightly younger than I am, but their grownup children have already moved out of the town toward the larger cities. They come to visit, of course, but they cannot be reasonably expected to come live in Zorita for good. But it still is, and will always remain, the land of one of my forefathers.

I am insanely happy at having had the opportunity to touch base with the family in Spain. They are charming and generous, and I would very much like to come and visit them again, but this time in company of my daughter and her husband, so links can be forged among the new generations. There is something amazing at finding that the roots of your family tree are deep and strong, and that those that drank life from the eternal waters of the Tajo River, probably since the VI century, are still in place.

Finis

Day 14. Santiago de Compostela a Madrid

2011-04-21T15:32:00.000-07:00

Oh sadness. Today in the morning we returned the bikes and felt somewhat empty not pushing our noble steeds up the streets of Santiago. To reduce my sadness let me reflect on what it involved:

Time: We figured it took us 9 days of actual travel. In retrospect, it would have been better to plan 11 days; one to take a break mid way, and the other to travel to the coast at the end of the trip.

Equipment: We rented the bikes from TourNRide in Santiago, and the bikes they provided were excellent. Have them provide panniers, helmets, and pedals, but bring your own seats. They provide basic tools and one spare tube. The small levers to change a tune were of plastic and pretty useless, so make sure to bring metal ones.

Gear: Thanks to Norma and Evan we brought only the bare essentials and at times it seemed too much. The list included:
- Boots, which you will be wearing. Don’t use biking shoes. You will be walking a third of the time, uphill and on slippery slopes, so you will need good hiking soles.
- A small sleeping bag because some hostels don’t have blankets
- A small towel
- Two biking shirts (not three, not four, but two). All biking stuff is made of synthetic materials that dry pretty fast (or not if it is a cold and dreary day). One of the two you are wearing at any given time, and that is true of all items below.
- One camelback backpack (priceless!)
- Two biking shorts (the ones with padding in the butt)
- One pair of long pants
- One pair of shorts
- Two pairs of undershorts
- Two pairs of biking socks
- Two long-sleeve shirts
- One felt vest
- One rain jacket and pants
- One pair biking gloves
- One pair wool gloves (some mornings are really cold)
- One pair biking leg warmers
- One pair biking arm warmers
- Toiletries
- Small bag of clothes soap (you will have to wash every day)
- Camera and charger, and USB memory stick for backup
- iPod and charger (my trusty travel companion, but optional)
- Computer and charger (optional, but otherwise you would not be getting my updates)
- Sun block
- Dark glasses
- Money (lots of money!)

Planning: Damn the planning! Go with the flow and seek shelter wherever the night catches you. It is part of the fun. No need to bring GPS, maps, or travel books; just follow the yellow arrows.

Company: It is absolutely necessary to have a super companion, like Raúl. Look for someone who is stout of heart, good natured, intelligent, curious, lover of good food, tuned into nature, optimist, and not a complainer. Remember, El Camino is not a destination, but a quest, and to get the most of it you want an akin soul by your side. I am reminded of the words of a song from my youth, who advised “Caminante, no hay camino. Se hace camino al andar.”

Both Raúl and I are amazed at the fact that we completed such a long way without mishap. Think about it. 550 km is like biking from Mexico to Guadalajara, San Francisco to Los Angeles, or Frankfurt to Paris!

Alas, all good things must come to an end, and after a walking visit to Santiago, which is a lovely city, we took a taxi to the airport, boarded the plane to Madrid, and were back in the real world. We came to the house of Maria Eugenia and Juan, Raúl packed his bags, and I walked him to the metro, where he left for the airport and Barcelona. He is a good friend, and I look forward to our next adventure (we are toying with the idea of a trek to the Himalayas sometime in the next couple of years).

I had some money burning a hole in my pants, so I wandered to Puerta del Sol, the tourist center of Madrid, and performed the last ritual by going into El Corte Inglés to buy the poem El Cantar del Mío Cid, and a pan to make tortilla española (I plan to poison my daughter with it when I get home).

When Juan came home, around 8:30 pm, we took a stroll down to the Rio Manzanares and the newly improved river park, and then went for tapas into a tiny neighborhood bar, El Delfín. The owners, Paco and Carmen, are old friends of Juan, and elbow to elbow in the crowded small place we enjoyed tapas of Callos a la Madrileña, Caracoles en Caldillo, and Braised Lamb Livers. Oh, how I am going to miss the good Spanish food.

Day 13. Arzúa to Santiago de Compostela (40 km)

2011-04-21T15:28:00.000-07:00

We did start a bit earlier than usual, and it is still dark. It is Sunday morning, so the few cars we see on the road are of those who caroused all night, and we are weary of drunk drivers. Finally it gets clear enough that we can see the yellow arrows that have guided us throughout the route, and we can take the pilgrims path. But it has been raining for two days, so the path is muddy and slippery. I feel tempted to keep to the highway, but Raúl is a purist and prefers following the path through the mountains.

The day is overcast, and there is a gentle drizzle, but the country we are moving through is glorious. At some point the sun breaks through the clouds and the pasture fields blaze like emeralds surrounding old stone farms from which issue columns of smoke rich in comfort and fragrant with breakfast. We have not had breakfast, or coffee, because every bar we pass is closed.

The drizzle is intensifying, and without really noticing we are getting wet. It is borderline between drizzle and rain, so I decide not to use my rain jacket. It is a bit cumbersome and makes me sweat, and I am sweating enough with the ups and downs of the path. We are done with the big mountains, but there is enough relief here that for every descent to a valley there is a walking ascent to the next ridge. It is slow, slippery work, and despite all our efforts the morning is ticking away.

Finally we find a place that is open, sometime around 10:30 am, and we gratefully gulp cups of café con leche. The friendly bartender also fixes us an appetizer of jamón serrano and cheese, which restores our much diminished strength. Alright, this is it, Santiago or bust.

It was almost bust, because now it is raining on earnest, and pretty soon we are soggy wet. But we press on, with the interminable up and down, until finally we make it to Lavacolla (32 km). The story goes that this is the last big stream before Santiago, so pilgrims took the time to make their ablutions (hence the name, which in Spanish means “clean your butt”) and made themselves presentable for coming into Santiago. The good Lord has taken care of our ablutions with his rain, and still dripping we push up the last hill. It may be the last hill, but it is interminable. All our forces are spent and we climb it with our hearts.

Finally we reach Monte de Gozo (37 km). From here, we are told, the pilgrims got their first sight of Santiago, and rejoiced at having reached their long awaited destination. I am not sure where to look, because it is quite hazy, but another rejoicing pilgrim points toward some distant pines and says “There, to the right of the pines, you can see the tower of the Cathedral.” My God, it must be several hundred miles away!

One last push and . . . we did it! Covered with glorious mud we enter Santiago de Compostela, sometime around 2 pm. 550 kilometers in nine days, and with only three flat tires. We barely remember the fluvial valley of Burgos, the hot meseta of Castilla, the fertile plains of León, the snow storm in Cruz del Ferro, the valley of the Knights Templar, the insane climb to O Cebreiro, and the grueling ridges and valleys of Galicia. We are here!

After unloading our few worldly and soggy possessions at a convenient hotel, and spreading them out to dry like if it were the laundry yards of Mumbai, we headed to the Cathedral to give thanks and to complete the rituals of the pilgrim. Our credentials are examined, and we declare that we have done the trip from Burgos for cultural and religious reasons, and in exchange we receive a certificate that goes back to the Middle Ages, in which it is stated that Raúl and Horacio (names written in Latin) have completed the pilgrimage to Santiago “pietatis causa” (for reasons of devotion).

The last step, which we gratefully do, is to hear mass in the magnificent Cathedral, and to pray for those for whom we have made the pilgrimage. We missed the Pilgrims Mass, Sunday at noon, and have instead come to the 7:30 pm mass, but it is a solemn act nonetheless, and a fitting finale to a most remarkable trek.

Day 12. Ventas de Narón to Arzúa (37.5 km)

2011-04-21T15:17:00.000-07:00

Morale is high! We have had a good night sleep and our hostess tells us that after a short climb we will be going all the way down to Melíde. Unfortunately she is a compulsive liar and pretty soon we start going up and down small valleys and intervening ranges. It is tiresome pushing up a somehow steep slope for about 500 meters, then zipping down another 500 meters, and then starting all over again. We love the country, but our forces are waning away at an accelerated pace. The sky is overcast but the rain is holding.

Finally we make to Melíde, and just as we are entering the town Raúl gets a flat. God looks over his pilgrims, though, because 50 m away there is a bike shop, and right in front of it is one of the best pulperias in the country. A pulpería is a restaurant that specializes in pulpo (octopuss), which is first boiled until tender, then sliced, passed over hot olive oil, and served with paprika powder and coarse sea salt. We had a heavenly lunch!

Then we go back to the roller coaster, climbing painfully, flying down slope, and then climbing again. We are worried we are not doing good time, since our goal is to reach Santiago today.

Entering Arzúa I get a flat. I filled the flat tire with foam, and it seems to be holding, but the repair shop in Arzúa is closed and we are told he won’t open until Monday. Raúl is hungry so he suggests having dinner and observing the tire. We dine, and coming out find that (a) it is raining, and (b) the tire has lost some air. Raúl suggests we stay here for the night, replace the tube in the tire, and try to start early tomorrow. Argh, so close and yet so far!

We only have 40 km to Santiago, but here we are at 5 pm, having changed the inner tube (messy because it was the rear tire, and we had to deal with the chain, the gear assemblage, and all the grease), and all we did today were 37.5 km. We will have to see if we can start real early tomorrow to make for the lost time.

Day 11. Triacastela to Ventas de Narón (57 km)

2011-04-21T15:14:00.000-07:00

We slept like logs, and were much recovered by the morn. Our spirits plunged, however, when the weather forecast predicted heavy rain in Galicia. Rats! We tried to depart early (8 am), and made record time to Samos (10 km), where there is a magnificent Benidictine convent. Unfortunately we got there at 9 (my Mom would have called us Los Abominables Hombres de las Nueve), and the earliest we could visit the convent was at 10 am. We were on a hurry to recover the lost time and advance as much as we could before the stormy weather caught up with us, so we contented ourselves with taking lots of pictures from the outside.

We made Sarria (21 km) by 10:30 am. Not a pretty city. Just the type of agglomeration of apartment buildings that I have come to dislike. So we crossed it quickly, and embarked on a very pretty route through the hills. The sun was holding despite the weather forecast, and for the next 40 km we did all that a good bicigrino is expected to do. We went through beautiful valleys, where cows where happily munching away, and charming hamlets of milking farms (the danger of going through cow country is that you have to be very careful where you roll; that next clump of dirt could have your bike smelling for hours!). We went down slopes covered with flowers, grunted up hillsides, walked through mud carrying our bikes, biked along the middle of the road/stream (a clever invention of the Gallegos to make the road and the stream follow the same path, to conserve space), defied dead coming down slippery slopes, and overall had a good time.

We got a bit wet around lunch time, when we arrived to Portomarín (41 km at 275 m elevation), an interesting town on a hill overlooking a dry dam. We later learned that the reservoir had been emptied to make repairs in the penstocks, but it was very strange to see the drying skeleton of what must be a pretty lake. On further inquiry I learned that the old Portomarín lies buried in the sediment of the dam, and that the Romanic Church in the plaza of the new town was brought in from the old town stone by stone! We had a good lunch of Empanada Gallega (filled with bacalao) and Lecón Asado for Horacio and Caldo Gallego and Merluza en Salsa Verde for Raúl, and with full bellies we were ready to resume the road.

And then it happened all over again. We had to climb from 275 m to 650 m in 13 km, so we pushed, and pushed, feeling the strength drain from our limbs. Then, when we thought we could not push any further, there would be a short flat stretch where we could mount our faithful steeds, only to find around the bend another slope, longer and steeper than the previous one. Our hopes of advancing significantly toward Santiago were dashed, and as we reached the crest, around 6 pm, we were delighted to see a small rural hostel a few hundred meters away, in Ventas de Narón (57 km at 625 m elevation). We dragged ourselves in and found another of the many families of friendly Spaniards, where were absolutely delighted to see a pair of tired pilgrims, and offered us a cheery bed in their empty hostel, a warm shower, and a typical Galicia meal. And just as Raúl was taking his shower a veritable deluge fell on the small town. We were so glad we had reached shelter on time!

Day 10. Cacabelos a Triacastela (57.5 km)

2011-04-18T17:00:00.000-07:00

We are dead tired. Today was the most grueling day we have had since we started. The day started like any other day, with a good breakfast and departure from Cacabelos around 8:30 am, under a cloudy and menacing sky. We were happy going on flat ground, when all of a sudden the road goes up a hill. Rats! We dismounted and pushed up the hill, which is a fairly tiresome thing to do first thing in the morning. Then we reached Villafranca (8 km and an altitude of 500 m), a beautiful mountain village with a Franciscan convent established by Saint Francis himself.

From Villafranca we followed the canyon of the Valcarce River, which is deeply incised unto the mountains. It was a beautiful ride through the trees, but we were going upriver, slowly gaining elevation. We arrived in Las Herrerias (25 km and 650 m altitude) in good cheer, had a good early lunch with cold cuts, and gained the intelligence that following National Route VI was too dangerous and longer than if we took the short, steep, and paved road across the mountains.

Famous last words! Steep does not make justice to the “wall” we were pushing our bikes on. In three kilometers we reached an elevation of 775 m, and another four kilometers would bring us to the lofty altitude of 1,100 in Laguna de Castilla. The slope was brutal (12 to 15%), and I had to push the bike up using the old trick of counting steps. One, two, three . . . 39, 40. Stop. Take five deep breaths. Start again, one, two . . .

We finally made it to Laguna de Castilla, a group of five houses, when it started to rain. The rain was light, but the cold wind drove it into our bones. Adelante! Three more kilometers, with an elevation gain of 200 m to gain O Cebreiro (35 km and 1,300 m altitude), the first town of Galicia. We were now way up in the clouds, blind with fog and rain. Fortunately there was a bar, so we were able to warm up a bit, with coffee for Raúl and warm wine with sugar for me. For a moment we toyed with the idea of calling it a day then and there, but it was only 4 pm and staying would put us hopelessly behind schedule.

So we pressed onward, and within a couple of klicks we had come out of the clouds and were even blessed with some sun. Now we had the chance to admire the beauty of Galicia, a green and blessed country where every hill is draped in emerald green, interrupted only by the brown stone walls erected in time immemorial, which dissect the landscape like veins. The hills are immense, the slopes are infinite, the canyons are deep, and the clouds had lost their menacing air.

But our pain was far from over, because we dropped in elevation, trudged up again for nearly a kilometer, dropped once more, and had to crawl one last time two kilometers of painful slope. I was so glad to have Raúl for my partner in pain, because tired as he was he never lost his good humor and his geologist eyes.

The last part of the day was heavenly. A 15-km down slope, where we were able to fly with the bikes. The downhill was pretty steep (7%), so we flew cautiously, pressing hard on the brakes and hoping they would hold. Finally we made it to Triacastela (55 km and 600 m elevation), where we engaged a small apartment in a pensión, to recover and dry our soggy clothes.

Day 9. Rabanal del Camino to Cacabelos (48 km)

2011-04-18T16:55:00.000-07:00

Last night it started raining. I could hear it from my bunk at the hostel. Fortunately the sound stopped after a few minutes and I slept the sound sleep of the ignorant. It had stopped raining because it had started snowing! When we got ready to go in the morning the whole world had turned white! Well, if you must, you must. So we got on our way . . . wait . . . my front wheel was a bit low, so I had to pump some air in it. Raúl was of the opinion that we should change the inner tube right then and there, but I was eager to start and poo-pooed the idea. Famous last words!

We got on our way, on foot, pushing the bikes against a freezing head wind. The slope was too steep for us to ride, so we walked, and walked, and walked, all the time pushing the bikes up an 8% slope. Then I realized that there were little bubbles coming out from every little crevice on the front wheel. Rats! I hate it when Raúl is right!

By this time we were close to the pass, and we were facing a serious gale that, blowing through the pines, chilled us through the bone. Fortunately we found a frozen town near the crest, and after forcing our way into an abandoned porch we were able to shelter ourselves out of the wind to change the inner tube (a 3-ring circus in itself, because the crappy wedges the rental company had given us would bend each time we put any stress on them).

We pushed on. Exhausted and chilled to the bone, we faced what had now turn into a blizzard that was sweeping the crest of the high mountains. We were tired beyond tiredness, and pushed on out of pure piss and vinegar, neither of us willing to admit that we were dead tired or stone cold. The landscape was surreal. The kind of icescape one would expect in the exploration of Antarctica. But we pushed on, laughing and taking pictures, while our limbs became numb with the cold. Finally we made it to the top, and from there we could ride the bikes. But it was like riding down from the high Sierra, with the cold wind biting our faces, legs, arms, and hands. Crossing the mountains has never been for the faint of heart, but this time we outdid ourselves.

Of course, there is a certain reward to doing feats of courage in Europe. A mesón is never too far away, and we did find one 10 kilometers down the road, in a small hamlet called El Acebo (16.5 km). As soon as we walked in, the friendly bar woman placed big plates of steaming soup in front of us, and at my request warmed some wine with sugar and orujo (the local Schnapps) in the microwave, and a few minutes later we were able to thaw from the inside out. I could have stayed there forever, in this small warm heaven inside the frozen wilderness of the Cantabrian mountains.

Alas, all good things must come to an end, so after an hour of heaven we went out there, to brave the elements. By then, however, the furies had relented, and all we saw were the last flecks of snow turn into a light, cold rain. Incidentally, while we were there we had adopted a young Spaniard, who was freezing on the bike, so we jerry rigged some plastic gloves for him with an old supermarket bag, and shepherded him down the mountains until the slopes became more genteel, just as we reached the town of Molinaseca (25 km). Nice town, Molinaseca, with a narrow “Main Street”, and very nice views over the river.

Eventually we made it to Ponferrada (31 km), where we saw the castle of the Knights Templar, and the Basilica of the Blessed Mother Mary. Legend has it that one of the Knights Templar came to the town, and inside an old tree trunk he found an image of Mary, and that is why Ponferrada was established. For us it will also be the place where we had another fine meal of rice and calamari cooked in their own ink, some type of veal cordon bleu, and pimento peppers stuffed with fish. And then there was the wine, and the dessert, and the coffee, and the . . . What a civilized place is Spain!

We pushed another 15 kilometers to Cacabelos (48 km), where we found a wonderfully luxurious hotel to recover our strength. We are going to need all the recovery we can muster, because the daily effort is beginning to tell, and we still have 180 km or so to Santiago.

Day 8. Leon to Rabanal del Camino (60 km)

2011-04-18T16:50:00.000-07:00

I need to do this fast, because my computer is running out of juice, so I will sketch the main ideas and flesh them sometime later.

We did go to Vespers, and it was a magic experience. Sor Ana, a diminutive nun who is in charge of the hostel, was expected to come at 9:25 pm to collect us and take us to the church. When she arrived she was all flustered, saying “Where are the bicycles of the Mexicanos?” Well, they should be there; why? She had seen four bicycles in the afternoon and now there were only two, and never, ever, has a bike been stolen from the convent. Fortunately the other two bicigrinos were there, and they promptly explained they had taken their bikes to the repair shop. Sor Ana expelled a deep sigh of relief, and then gathered her pollitos in a hurry because it would not do to be late for Vespers. So we followed her, and in the atrium she gave us responsorial booklets, rehearsed us on what was going to be our role, and finally ushered us into the church. The sisters were just coming in, from wherever the invisible bell they carry in their heads told them it was time, and the service started. It was calming to hear the voices of the nuns repeat the millenary formulas, and at the end the Mother Superior came to the front and blessed us, the pilgrims, with an encouragement to see into our souls and carry there the true pilgrimage of our faith. It was very touching.

The following morning we took off early, enjoyed the city of León in the cold of the early morn, and then went for about 10 kilometers parallel to a busy highway. Not much fun.

Then we got to Hospital de Obrigos (17 km). Pretty town. From there we took off across the mountains. Pretty but tiresome because there were many small up and downs.

Eventually we made it to Astorga (40 km), around 2 pm, just in time for lunch. Maria Eugenia and Juan had told us we should not miss the Cocido Maragato, in the restaurant Casa Maragata, so we dutifully went there (the surrounding country is called the Maragatería, and that is where the funny name comes from). No doubt they meant well, and the food was delicious, but it was not a good idea just before we started up the foothills of the Talano Mountains (the tail end of the Cantabrian mountain range). Peculiar about this cocido (stew) is that first they bring the meat (seven meats that have been slowly cooked in the stew, including pork ear, pork feet, thick chunks of bacon, beef, chicken, and all sorts of chorizos). Then, after you have stuffed your face with meat they bring the garbanzos and veggies. Then, after you cannot possibly eat anymore they bring the broth! Why? Because this was a dish developed during the Spanish civil war by the soldiers and, since shooting could start at anytime, they were anxious to pack the meat first!

Stuffed with food we started the long bike ride up the foothills. They are beautiful, but I am afraid we did not enjoy them as much as we should because we were trying to digest our wonderful lunch. It was soooo painful biking up the unrelenting slope, which was just steep enough to extract the last bit of energy from you as you force the bike up, foot by painful foot.

Finally we made it to Rabanal del Camino (60 km), where a friendly hostel was waiting for us with warm showers and wash basins. The lady of the house told us that we should go to Vespers in the little church, which we did, and were treated to a magnificent concert of Latin chants by the three monks who live in this tiny mountain monastery. It was magnificent.

Since by this time our digestion had been completely ruined, we went to have a glass of wine and some tapas in the local mesón. The mesonero had tried his hand at making callos, which is beef tripe cut in small pieces and stewed in a delicious tomato and garlic sauce. Unfortunately he had only made a small portion, just enough to see if his customers would like them. We praised them heartily, so from now on the mesón at Rabanal will feature Callos a la Raúl.

Day 7. Sahagún a León (50 km)

2011-04-18T16:46:00.000-07:00

Once again we are blessed with shining sun, even if the coffee houses are closed this early in the morning (“this early” being a relative thing, since I have been awake for hours). Finally we found a place for Raúl to have a zumo de naranja and a magdalena and I a café con leche and a pastry covered in chocolate.

By the warmth of 9 am we were on the road, uncertain if we were going to spend the day biking on the highway. No, that was not the case. After a couple of klicks we took a dirt road that took us through the most beautiful rolling hills and the most bone-jarring cobble road you can imagine. At first we thought that this was the fault of the cursed Romans, who built their roads by piling cobbles thick and high before covering them with the a thin layer of sand. Naturally, since there have been a couple of years since the last Roman engineer maintained the road the sand has blown away and the cobbles are exposed. But not all fault can be laid at the feet of the Romans, since these rolling hills are formed by an extensive layer of river conglomerates that seem to go on and on.

Finally, with our teeth loose and our butts severely sore we arrived to the town of Mansilla de las Mulas, where Raúl had the brilliant idea to stop for a bocadillo and a cold glass of beer. Having recovered our strength and enthusiasm we took to the road, which was sunny, dry, and thirsty, until almost at the verge of collapse we reached the small town of Arcahueja, where a mirage sign claimed that the local bar carried sidra from Asturias (Apfelwein!). The friendly bartender opened a bottle of cool sidra just for us, and holding the bottle over his head he poured it unto two small glasses to a depth of no more than an inch. “Drink, drink” he enticed us “before the gas bubbles wear away”. We, being obedient pilgrims, drank and drank, as he poured time and time again, punctuating the drinking with tapas of patatas (French fries), pimientos (marinated red peppers), and huevos capeados (hard boiled eggs rolled in an egg batter and then deep fried). We made it out of the bar making zig zags in the bikes, but the refreshing coolness of the sidra was absolutely fantastic.

And so we made it to the beautiful city of León, where we went straight to the convent of the Benidictine nuns (patron saint San Benito), also known as The Carvajalas, where we humbly asked for shelter for the night (this is one of the big stops for the faithful, and we felt we had to follow tradition). We were very welcome, and settled easily unto our cots, long enough to shed our biking gear and go out into the secular world to seek food (which ended being a magnificent affair with pasta with shell fish for Raúl and cold cuts for me, followed by a veal cordon bleu that was to die for, cheese cake, and a digestiff).

Afterward we visited the magnificent cathedral of León, which is one of the most beautiful cathedrals I have ever seen. It was an important place in our pilgrimage, being a place that is truly conducive to prayer and meditation. From there we went to the convent of San Isidoro, but by then we were beginning to ache, and after a short while we were seeing the monuments of this magnificent city with a little bit of hatred.

We have finally made it to the hostel, and are now waiting for the 9:30 pm benediction to the pilgrims. I am not sure we will make it.

Day 6. Fromista to Sahagun (58 km)

2011-04-18T16:41:00.000-07:00

We had a slow start, probably because both of us slept the sleep of the tired and didn’t wake up until 7 am. The hostel was as cold as only a stone building can get, but a good breakfast and the friendly chat of our hospitaleros was all that was needed to energize us for the day ahead. The air was crisp but the sun was shining on a blue sky, so it should be a good day.

Our first stop was Carrión de los Condes (18 km), of dark memory because this was the estate of the two counts who married the daughters of El Cid. They are mentioned in the saga because they behaved very badly with their wives, and ended leaving them for dead tied to a tree. But even if the counts were real bastards, the place was a prominent one, and the Knights Templar erected in it an enormous temple. A friendly native told us stories about the time when the meson was the most popular stop in El Camino, and the best place to eat lechazo churro (an intelligence that was totally obscure to us, because we didn’t recognize any of the words).

Coming out of Carrión de los Condes we stopped to visit the cloister of San Zoilo, and then took a very straight and flat road across the plain of Palencia. This is a dreaded stretch by the pilgrims on foot, because you have the impression of getting nowhere, but we bicigrinos had a good time enjoying both the agricultural richness of the plain and the sight of the Picos de Europa, the name given to the highest, snow-clad peaks of the Cantabric Mountains to the north. I felt at home, because that is the feeling I have when I drive through the Central Valley of California and turn east to gaze on the snowy peaks of the Sierra Nevada.

For lack of something more exciting to tell, let me describe the ordeal that is going to the bathroom when you are clad as a bike rider: First I have to take off my vest, then my shirt, then the suspenders of my biking shorts, then my shorts, and finally I can drop the biking shorts so I can do my thing. It is a very vulnerable position, which could be construed as indecent exposure by anyone not familiar with the stupid biking attire. Speaking of which, I have to say the biking shorts, with their padded bottoms, are the least becoming of attires on an elderly gentleman with the shape of a pear. Besides, they feel as if I were wearing a diaper. Definitely not my favorite piece of attire.

Finally we reached the end of the plain, at Moratinos (50 km), and all of a sudden I felt totally spent. Maybe it was because there was no sign on the distance of our destination. Raúl, good friend that he is, slowed down so we could move at a steady pace, but after another couple of klicks he also ran out of steam.

We finally dragged ourselves into Sahagún, very tired and hungry, and after a couple of false starts we finally settled on a nice hotel and were able to relax. The term “relax” is a misnomer, because the pilgrim has to wash clothes every day (we only carry two shirst, two pieces of underwear, two biking shorts, two pairs of socks, etc.), take a shower, and then go find a place to eat. Unfortunately most establishments serve dinner from 2 to 4 pm, then close, and do not open again until supper, from 8 to 10 pm, so we had to go roaming until we found a place that would agree to make us a bocadillo. Now, Spain has the most delicious food in the world, but they really need to learn from the Mexicanos how to prepare a torta. You know, they could put some frijolitos on one half of the loaf and some crema on the other, plus a bit of aguacate and tomato so the bocadillo is moist and delicious. Instead they simply slice the loaf and just put the chorizo inside, slapping the two halves shut as if the delicious sausage would like to escape from this desecration.

So, this city of Sahagún is no other but the birthplace of Fray Bernardino de Sahagún (1499-1590), who did so much for the natives of New Spain at the time of the Spanish conquest of Mexico, and who is rightfully considered the founder of the study of anthropology in the New World. Fray Bernardino died at the ripe age of 91 years in his beloved New Spain.

Day 5. Burgos to Fromista (70 km)

2011-04-13T13:50:00.000-07:00

Victory. . . . Victory? . . . Victory. . . . Victory!

We have conquered the first leg of our pilgrimage, and can now say that we are on a quest!

We spent the night at the Burgos shelter for pilgrims, which is very basic but very nice. They even lent us two sleeping bags to make up for our unpreparedness. Raúl was a little cold (his sleeping bag had a distinctive “scent”, so he didn’t get inside it), but I was hot and slept almost the way the good God brought me into the world. In any case, we were off by 8 am, ready to tackle the Castilian Plateau.

The first 10 klicks were on the shoulder of the N-102 county highway, which is not very exciting. Once we reached Tordejas, however, we went down a vicinal road which gave way to a dirt road within a few thousand meters. From that point on, the ride went through steep paths that went up from an erosional valley up to the Castilian Plateau. Then we would bike 2 to 5 kilometers on relatively flat roads (but sometimes we would find a big pool of water, and then we would have to wallow through the mud), and finally we would have to go down into the next drainage to start the story all over again. We thanked the blazing sun and a cloudless sky for relatively dry ground, but now and then we would find patches on the plateau that were a true mire, and had to cross daintily so we would not splatter mud all over our face. The plateau would be so hard to cross during a rainy day!

Somewhere half way through the day we met a large group, and of course made the small talk that is expected from pilgrims. Well, it turns that they were four families, with all the kids, who had hired a mini-bus for a weekend family outing, and they were following only their favorite parts of the camino. They asked us where we were from, and exploded with comments once we told them we were from Mexico. The kids were absolutely fascinated, and they kept asking us how long it had taken us to get to Spain. The right answer would have been that we had started from Tierra del Fuego a month ago, and had pedaled across the Atlantic, but had trouble fitting the bikes through the Strait of Gibraltar and had wasted a couple of days there. Alas, I did tell the true, so their enthusiasm promptly waned away.

We kept on our way, stopping at Hontanas (30 km) just long enough to drink a caña (a glass of cold beer), admire their beautiful church, and tell the story of El Medio Pollito when we saw a windvane(remind me to tell you that story one day). By 1 pm were entering Castro Jeríz (41 km), where we admired the Colegiata de Santa María, the Church of San Juan, and the long arcade of the Municipal Palace. We stopped here for a very abundant lunch. Very abundant!

We retook our way around 2 pm, feeling at peace with the world, and right away faced a brutal 12% slope that went on for over a kilometer. It is needless to say that we walked the bikes, making short bursts of 30 to 50 m, and then taking a breather. When we made the top it was only to drop like a stone in an 18% downslope, which we again walked because it looked really scary on the bike.

After that came a flat, long stretch, for which we were very thankful. Just as we were entering Fromista (70 km), we stopped to admire the Canal de Castilla, a fabulous piece of hydraulic engineering of the XVIII century. The canal extends for 200 km, and allowed for transport of grain through barges. At the place we stopped included four gates to lift (or drop as the case might be) the barges over an elevation difference of 15 m (45 ft).

Fromista was our destination for the day, and we were grateful to make it there at 6 pm, in time to find a hostel, take a shower, have dinner, and drop exhausted for a well-deserved night of sleep.

Day 4. Burgos

2011-04-13T13:47:00.000-07:00

Burgos is a beautiful city, built at the confluence of two streams (the main one being the Arlanzón River). One of them provides the city with a set of scenic pools, crisscrossed by bridges, whereas the Arlanzón is a green corridor much favored by couples in love and energetic power walkers. These innocent-looking streams carry some punch, however, and in the last 100 years have jumped their banks a couple of times and flooded downtown Burgos under several feet of water.

Today we became official pilgrims of the Camino de Santiago. We got our pilgrim passport, and have now the right to bear the cockle shell that distinguishes those embarking in this trip of faith. I didn’t know this, but after Rome and Jerusalem, Santiago de Compostela is the third main site of pilgrimage in Christendom, so we feel honored and humbled to be part of this sacred tradition.

After being anointed we spent the day visiting Burgos, which we found to be a beautiful and charming city that manages to blend, in an extraordinary way, architecture and traditions that go back to the Middle Ages with bold modern architecture and a lively lifestyle. I have crossed many dreadful Spanish cities, where all you see are drab high rises, so I was delighted to see that Burgos is noting of the sort. Places of note are the gothic cathedral, the statue and memorials to El Cid, the fortress, the promenade by the river, the university, and the Museum of Human Evolution.

Most of the cathedral space is open to tourists and has been tastefully arranged as a museum of the XV and XVI centuries. We were fascinated by the masterpieces in painting and sculpture, but then again that is true for many of the beautiful churches and monasteries sprinkled throughout the city. The place of honor in the main nave is the burial of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, best known as El Cid, and his wife Ximena. I read the saga of El Cid when I was in junior high, just like any other Mexican student, and I was not sure if it was fact or fiction. I must confess I remember little and will have to read it again, but I vaguely remember he was lord of a small state, that he helped consolidate the kingdom of Castile, and that he extracted a solemn promise of good rule from the first Castilian king (something like the agreement of King John to Magna Carta in England).

We had a fabulous lunch, I of a mushroom omelet followed by morcilla (a piquant blood and rice sausage that is the specialty of the city), and Raúl of spaghetti followed by cod fish in a parsley sauce.

After a walk around the fortress (which we could not visit because it is only open on weekends) and magnificent views of the city, we headed toward the university. Here again the Burgaleses have accomplished a tasteful blend of old and new, with the core of the complex being a XVI century hospital that has been beautifully renovated. Funny thing, however, is that the whole university was deserted. After much walking we finally found a guy enjoying a cigarette break outside of the library and we asked him why no one was there. “It is Friday. Nobody comes to school on Friday.” I am sure my students would think this an extremely civilized costume!

Raúl had to attend to some of his business via the internet, so we parted ways and I went for a long, long bike stroll along the Arlanzón River and all the way to the Aguas Blancas forest east of the city. This is the equivalent to Chapultepec in Mexico or Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. Since the day had been beautiful and sunny, and the afternoon was no less balmy and gorgeous, the Burgaleses were out there en masse, doing what people around the world do when the winter comes to an end and the first sunny weekend finally sets in.

Much relaxed I biked back to town to visit the Museum of Human Evolution. It was one of the finest pieces of museography I have seen in a long time. First there was a very clear explanation of the geomorphology of the surrounding area, which is dominated by a limestone substrate and thus has well developed karstic topography. There are sink holes, caves with extensive horizontal galleries, and caves with deep and sharp vertical drops. Sometime in the 1950’s a cut made for the passage of a train sliced through the clay-filled core of one of these caves, and exposed archeaologic layers filled with human remains. To name but two of the main discoveries, in one of the caves, at a level that must have formed between 1,000,000 and 800,000 years ago, archeologists found a mandible of Homo heidelbergensis, which is the oldest human fossil in Europe, and which pushed back the migration of hominids from Africa into Europe. The second find was a steep pit which apparently had been used by Homo nenaderthalensis for the disposal of their dead 500,000 years ago. They seem to have used little ceremony in disposing of the bodies, simply hurling them down the chasm. A bear would fall in from time to time, no doubt attracted by the stench of rotting flesh. The find is significant because from it they recovered a 95% intact skull. The area where all these discoveries were done is called Atapuerca (and in fact we drove through it yesterday without recognizing its significance), and is in all respect as amazing as the caves of Starkfontein in South Africa, or Chokotiuen in China.

The day finally concluded with another fine meal of paella and rabbit stew, this time generously irrigated with a bottle of fine Rioja. It is a hard life, but someone has to live it!

Day 3. From Madrid to Burgos

2011-04-12T10:46:00.000-07:00

Juan and Maria Eugenia left early for work, and a bit later I walked down to the nearest metro station to meet my friend and traveling companion for this adventure, Raúl. Raúl and I went together to engineering school, from 1972 to 1976, but after school we drifted apart, and it was not until a couple of years ago that we touched base with each other. He found me in the internet, we started to correspond, met in Tijuana (where he was doing a consulting job), then he and his wife Georgina came to visit me in California, and finally me and my niece Maya went to visit them in Mexico City. On that latter occasion we traveled together through central Mexico, and it was during that trip that the Spain adventure was conceived.

We were all excited and thought this was a trip that we could do with our daughters and their husbands, and despite the protestations of Georgina we planned the grand tour of Spain. Then came the bad news: No, so sorry, neither his two daughters nor my own Faby could afford the time or money, and Georgina thought we were insane and wouldn’t hear about our crazy plans. And so it is that two older and perfectly sensible men are embarking in a quest, perhaps not unlike that of the Knight of the Woeful Countenance and his faithful companion Sancho. Who is who in this duet is something only time can tell.

As I started saying, Raúl and I met at the metro station, walked back to Juan’s house to repack the few things we are taking together (2 shirts, 2 underpants, 2 pairs of socks, one pair of shorts, two biking shorts, two biking shirts, and assorted toiletries), and after saying goodbye to Estrella and Armando went back to the metro and ultimately the bus station. We were in luck: A bus was departing in 15 minutes, and by 2 pm we were in Burgos, where we had to pick up the bikes. Friendly natives directed us to the FedEx office, and after one bus ride and some brisk walking we reached their office and took possession of the bikes. Everything was going perfectly, until Raúl noticed that the company had not sent the pedals. Rats! No problemo. We asked our local informants, and they directed us to a bicycle shop about a mile away.

The bike shop was closed (here a lot of businesses are closed from 2 to 5 pm), but we were able to leave the bikes in charge of yet another friendly young man, had a bite to eat, and then came back to the now open shop. We felt great about being recognized right away as pilgrims of Jacob’s Way, and after a few minutes we were fully equipped to start our adventure. First we biked a couple of miles to our hostel, dropped our gear, and called a cab to take us see the sunset at the XII century church of San Juan de Ortega. The church has the sarcophagus and remains of San Juan de Ortega, but is better known for a bassrelief of pilgrims praying to Our Lady, and for the spotlight effect that the setting sun, filtering through an open window, has on the different scenes of this relief. I should mention that when we got there we found the church closed. We asked the young keeper of the hospital de peregrinos (pilgrim hostel) if we could see the church, but he told us that the church closed at 5 pm. Not to be deterred we fell in conversation with him, and learned a lot about the Camino and the pilgrims in it. He also showed us the hospital, and explained how the whole pilgrimage system worked. After a nice 10 minutes of conversation we said goodbye, took photos outside of the church, and were ready to go away when the nice young man came to us and said, “Oh, I cannot let two pilgrims come this far and not see the church. Come along and take as long as you want.” So we did, admired the effect of that last beam of sunlight, and reverently said a prayer for the intention of those who we are doing the pilgrimage for. Our new friend then gave us a very wise piece of advice: “As you walk along keep an eye for the weary and the thirsty, and share with them your bread and water. Then you will be a true part of the Camino.” Words to live by.

We finished a wonderful first day with a fabulous meal of fish soup, fried fish for Raúl and a yummy lamb stew for me, dessert, and a bottle of wine. And all this for only 20 euros! We are certainly going to enjoy our trip!

Day 2. Madrid

2011-04-12T10:28:00.000-07:00

With only four hours of sleep Gustav and I headed for the Frankfurt airport, first to seek a much needed cup of coffee, and then for me to embark on the next leg of my trip. The flight left at 7:50 am, and by 10:30 we had landed in Madrid. This city has the best metro connection possible between airport and city, so by 11:30 am I was already walking down the streets of the southern suburbs, headed for the house of my friends Maria Eugenia and Juan Ley Pozo. They both work at a private clinic, Juan as a doctor and Maria Eugenia as a medical technician, so they would not be home at this time of the day, but Juan’s parents would be waiting for me.

As I walked from the metro to their house I reflected on the old saying that Madrid has “nueve meses de invierno y tres de infierno”. The weather was cold and menacing. The wind chilled you to the bone and the dark clouds were ready to let go. So much for sunny Spain! But the weather forecast is good, and tomorrow we should see the sun reappear, and northern Spain should be mild and sunny for the rest of the week. Hope springs eternal!

When I got home I was received by Estrella and Armando with the same love and kindness they have always lavished on me. Juan and I met in Germany 20 odd years ago, when we were both guests of the Von Humboldt Foundation, but I only met his parents 15 years ago, when the whole family emigrated from Cuba to establish themselves in Spain. Estrella is now 88 years old, and is a typical Cuban woman, talkative and very charming. Armando, for his part, is now 104 years old, and claims to be deaf and nearly blind (none of this is strictly true; he has simply perfected the art of selective hearing and of smiling beatifically to the world around him). I love to talk with them, because they are full of wonderful stories. This time Armando started reminiscing about his early years in China. He and his family lived in a small riverine village near Canton, and were very poor, so when he was a young lad (16 years old, I believe), he left his family and emigrated to Cuba, where over the years he worked just every trade imaginable. At the end he settled to be a photographer. He must have been a pretty suave Chinaman, because at age 40 he hooked Estrella (I vaguely remember he made a home-movie of their honeymoon trip, and she was quite a looker at the time), and the rest, as they say, is history.

All along during the story telling we were having lunch (a delicious Chinese fried rice prepared by Armando), and they kept pressing more and more food unto my plate, until at the end I had to throw the towel and roll out away from the table. I wanted to have a nap, but thought it would be better to first take a stroll around the neighborhood. What fun it is to wander through a foreign city, and to be fascinated by every store front. And from fascination to fascination I ended standing in front of a hairdressing school, and on a whim went in to have my hair cut. The charming receptionist asked if I wanted to have a student or a teacher do the cutting. “A student, of course. If they don’t practice they will never get good at it”. I was shown to the chair of a young, petite woman, who very professionally isolated my head from the rest of my anatomy, and who was practicing cutting hair with scissors rather than mechanized clippers. She did a great job, now and then interrupted by her master teacher, who corrected her posture, told her not to start at the center but on the side, and taught her the techniques at her disposal for cutting around the ear or halve the length of the hair on top. I was extremely satisfied with my hair cut, and left behind me a self-assured smiling student.

Back at the apartment I took a nap, worked on this blog, and waited the arrival of Juan and Maria Eugenia. They finally made it home around 8 pm, and at that time, tired from a long day at work, Maria Eugenia started to produce a culinary masterpiece: Migas!

According to Juan, this is a poor man’s dish, done with pieces of old, dry bread, maybe with a bit of bacon for flavor. Maria Eugenia stepped up the dish about it by adding pieces of chistorra (a very thin sausage). Preparation is conceptually simple. First you cook the bacon and chistorra over a hot fire, with some olive oil so the thing will not burn. Once cooked you add salt and powder of red pepper. While this is going on, in a separate pan you heat more olive oil, and fry on it the bread, which has been broken into small, quarter-inch pieces. After the bread starts browning add the contents of the other pan, mix together, and voila your migas are ready. It is a salty dish, so you want to eat it with fresh grapes to balance the flavor.

The talk after dinner meandered lazily around old memories, vacation tales (Juan, Maria Eugenia, and their son Juan Armando visited the western US last August, and cannot say enough about the beauty of California and the National Parks of the west), the current economic crisis, and advice about what not to miss while following the Camino de Santiago (Jacob’s Way). There is nothing as pleasant as visiting with old friends!

Day 1. Frankfurt

2011-04-12T10:21:00.000-07:00

After a very uneventful United flight (the best movie in the roster was The King’s Speech), I landed in Frankfurt, the springboard of many of my past traveling adventures. This time everything went without a hitch, and after just a few minutes waiting by the curve I saw this beautiful woman waving at me from a luxurious Mercedes convertible. It was my dear Christine, who had come to pick me up in just about the most glorious, warm and sunny day I could have hoped for. I had expected cold and grimy snow slush on the ground. After all, this is Germany, where in the last trip I almost froze my buns. This may bode well for the whole trip, since Spain should have even better weather than Germany, shouldn’t it?

Chrissie had planned a walk through Hessen Park, a historical park in the foothills of the Taunus Mountains, just west of Frankfurt, where the state of Hessen has built a historical cluster of villages. The buildings from these villages are original houses and farms found in the state of Hessen that have been dismantled, transported to the park, and then reconstructed with loving care and amazing detail using the original wood and stone work. Some of the buildings show how Hessians lived in the middle ages, or the 1600’s, or the 1800’s, and others are workshops where docents still weave fabric for reproduction dresses, shoe horses, or demonstrate the skills of glass blowers and coppersmiths. We spent a delightful couple of hours catching up on the family and common acquaintances, and then Chrissie drove her convertible at high speed back home to Doerningheim (fortunately I fell asleep and was thus spared a heart attack).

Back home I took a long nap, to be ready for the festivities that followed. You see, my friends are always very glad to see me, and they always celebrate my visits with copious amounts of good German food, and even more copious amounts of wine and stolid German beer. Me, being but human, have the tendency to overeat and over drink, which is not the best way to start a trip. This time we went to an Apfelweinstube in Sachenhousen. This was an old restaurant specializing in apple wine (alcoholic cider) on the other side of the Mainz River, in “the house of the Saxons”, who were mercenaries working for Carl der Grosste, who had the good sense to have them camp on the other side of the river from the city where he established his court. We met there Chrissie and Gustav, Andrea and Frank, and Anna and Felipito. The last two are the grown up children of Chrissie and Gustav. I call Phillip Felipito only for old time sake, since I have known him and his sister since they were babies, but he is now a grown up man around 7 feet tall.

Besides several liters of Apfelwein the yummy delicacies included Handkaese mit Musik (cheese marinated in vinegar, served topped with onions and cumin, well known for the explosive effect it has with the tender digestive system of foreign visitors), Steak Tartar, Leberkaese mit Kartoffeln, and slow cooked joints of beef. It was a superb banquet, full of laughter and back-and-forth stories, and I managed to eat and imbibe in moderate quantities. Then we went for a walk and we had to try the traditional dark beer brewed in Sachsenhousen (bad idea to mix drinks), and eventually came home to face the real test: My annual lecture in enology, delivered by Prof. Dr. Gustav Kobberger, aided by his well-stocked wine cellar (this tradition goes back to 1989, when we first met in Bochum, in northern Germany, and when Gustav would come to stay for a few days loaded with wines from all over Europe). This time Gustav was sublime: He opened three bottles in close succession (and I must confess I felt a cold chill spread down my spine, as if the consecutive “pop”, “pop”, “pop” were sniper fire rather than an invitation to the epicurean delights of good wine) and the evening started developing like a well known and beloved symphony. Fortunately one of the wines was considered “undrinkable” by my knowledgeable friend (its place was taken by a new “pop”), but three bottles of heady wine can do serious damage to the unweary traveler. Ah, but it was great to relive the old times!

Day 0. The adventure begins

2011-04-12T10:17:00.000-07:00

I woke up early, and had a delightful chat with Sandy, who is now pursuing a Master’s degree in Nursing Education at Stanford. She has worked as a nurse for 30 odd years, but after completing her degree hopes to make a slight career shift into education, perhaps at the Nursing program at De Anza Community College. She is writing a big paper on the relative merits of traditional instruction versus computer-assisted instruction. Since I am myself interested on launching an online MS program in Water Resources we had plenty of ideas to exchange, and the morning went by remarkably fast. At 11 am their son, Ryan, took me to the San Francisco airport. I have now the honor of being his first customer on a limousine service he would like to launch. He was not sure what permits he will need, but he wants to build a limousine service driving between the San Francisco, San Jose, and Oakland airports, as well as driving people back and forth from restaurants and dance clubs. I believe it has good potential, and am glad I helped him baptize the idea.

2011 trip to Spain

2011-04-12T10:15:00.000-07:00

This is the story of my 2011 trip to Spain. Like my other travel logs, I hope it will be a daily reflection of the wonders a traveler gets to see when visiting foreign lands, as well as the small trials and tribulations that are the spice of life abroad. But let me start with the cast of charaters:

Day -1. Once again I am delighted that before embarking on a new adventure I get to say hello to old friends. I am flying out of San Francisco, and started enjoying myself with a brief visit to Sandy and Dave Ashby, the parents of DJ, who is my daughter’s husband. Sandy works as a nurse, and every other Sunday she has to work the graveyard shift, but Dave was the ever gracious host and we had a pleasant dinner of teriyaki chicken as we talked over his retirement plans. He will be retiring next year, and with any luck will be able to volunteer at a nearby golf club, in exchange for playing a round of golf three or four times a week.

Day 15 – The jinx is still on

2010-12-28T06:21:00.002-08:00

I should have suspected something when I first learned my return flight came back through Denver.

First, I never connected with Gustav and Christine, even though the two of them made separate trips to the airport. I waited in exactly the same place I had waited for Chrissy two weeks before, but nada! Of course, here I am coming from sunny, warm Egypt and I get to stand in the cold, winter air from 8:45 to 9:30 am. By that time I was getting pretty cold, and it was starting to snow, so I moved myself to the interior of the terminal, where I waited at the Treffpunkt until 10:30 am. Sigh, my looked for meeting with my dear friends didn’t get to pass.

OK, so I entertained myself for a couple of hours and then went to board my Frankfurt to Denver flight, at 12:35 pm. Ah, but the damn thing had been delayed, so it was not until 14:30 pm we were put in the bus and driven to the far confines of the airport to a Air Bus that seemed to have been brought out of deep frozen storage. All along we saw airplanes being dowsed with this green stuff, which is used as a de-icer. OK, so we are all packed in the plane, ready to go by 15:30, when the captain comes on the PA system to announce that now we have to wait to be de-iced, and the de-icer coordinator has us scheduled for 16:30. But we are in a faraway, almost forgotten corner of the airport, miles and miles away from where the de-icing action is taking place. As it turns out, the bloody de-icer coordinator is a dirty, deceiving, lying scoundrel, who every half hour he promises he is sending the de-icing truck. Finally, at 19:30, when hope has died in all our hearts, the green goop arrives. Ah, but we don’t want to breath what is in the green stuff, so the AC system is turned off, and over the next hour we get to almost suffocate as we see, for the tenth time, the safety announcement that promises we are ready for takeoff. Finally we take off, at 20:30, with exactly 7 hours of delay with respect to our original flight plan.

By the time we get to Denver, at 22:00, it is too late to catch a connecting flight. Of course Chrissy has my jacket back in Frankfurt, so when I hear that it is -5 degrees C (20 degrees F) outside I start to shake uncontrollably, remembering another time when I almost died of exposure at the same airport. So, shamelessly I stole one of the little Lufthansa blankets, wrapped myself in it Arab style, and was bracing to spend a shivering night at the airport when Lufthansa came through one more time. They put the whole plane up for the night in local hotels, paid for dinner at the hotel, and booked everyone in the first flight out of Denver (which for me is the 9:50 am flight that should put me in Sacramento at 11:00 am).

I am bummed that I am not going to be on time for my classes, but I managed to e-mail all my students by 9 pm California time, so if they are typical university students that check their e-mail one last time before going to bed most of them will know that I am stranded in Denver and we will not have class.

So, all is well that ends well, but I have to acknowledge that the Denver jinx is still on.

Day 14 – My last day in Egypt

2010-12-28T06:21:00.001-08:00

This was it. A last day in Egypt, and a relatively short list of things to do. First I had to return the car, and I felt pretty sure I knew what roads to take to get back to the center of town. By I did a silly mistake and missed the onramp to the express way and got “funneled” into the small streets. Left, then right, then left . . . oh boy this is going to hurt . . wait, this part of town looks familiar . . . maybe if I cut across this narrow alley . . . yes, there is the roundabout where I had lunch after visiting the Egyptian Museum. Three minutes later I parked the car in front of the hotel, and five minutes later I was walking away, free of cares, toward the metro station.

Second, Ali had told me I had to visit the Al-Azhar Mosque, which was established on 970 AD. It is not the oldest mosques, but it is one of the oldest. It has the added claim to fame that within a few years of its foundation a school (madrasa) was added to it (988 AD). This madrasa eventually became the Al-Azhar University, which claims the title of the second oldest university in the world (the oldest is the madrasa/university in Fez, Morrocco).

Across the square is the Mosque of Sayyidna al-Hussein, one of the most holy places of Islam, since it is the burial place of the head of Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet, who was assassinated in Iraq (thus starting the feud between the Sunni and Shia branches of Islam, a feud that continues to the present day. Since it is such a holy place, it is not open to visit by non-mulsims.

Third, just alongside the mosque starts the Khan al-Khalili, the legendary market of Old Cairo. I had put shopping until the very last day, to save my pounds for a truly unique souvenir. I knew exactly what I wanted: A couple of cheap papyri to put on the walls of my Africa room, and a faience figurine of either a winged scarab (yeah, good luck with that one), an ushebti (figurines that were added to the burials of kings or nobles to perform any manual labor required of the principal in the next world), or a hippopotamus (I had seen one in Luxor, and I was kicking myself for not buying it then and there).

As always, the market place was fascinating. The color, the variety, and the absolute charm of the sellers is irresistible to me. The papyri were no problem, and I was even bold enough to haggle a bit on the price. The faience figurines, on the other hand, were nowhere to be found. Maybe I should say that faience is a type of ceramic that was popular during pharaonic times; quartz sand mixed with a pigment was sprinkled on a regular clay figurine, and when the piece was fired the quartz and the pigment would fuse and together glaze the figurine with an attractive blue or turquoise tint. Most of the merchants had no idea what I was talking about, and instead kept directing me to the regular fare they carry for tourists. Quite despondent I was ready to quit, when a lady told me to follow her to her son’s shop. It was a big shop, with many pieces, and I was sure to find what I wanted there. No, it looked just like another waste of time when I spotted a dust covered basket in one of the corners that had some pale green figurines. I pulled it out and there they were, a good dozen of ushebtis forgotten by time. The folks there could hardly believe I was interested on those old, chipped pieces, but business is business and after a modest amount of haggling I became the proud owner of the best two pieces.

After that I went back to the Scout Center, because I wanted to buy some Scout paraphernalia for Dave. So I did, and afterward realized I still had 130 pounds in my pocket. Cool, now that I am done with my shopping I can blow this money on another museum and a good meal.

So off I went again, this time headed for the Coptic quarter of the city. I am referring to the quarter where some of the old Coptic churches and monasteries are, not where the modern Copts live. You see, the Copts are the garbage collectors of Cairo, and they pretty much live around and at the dump. But in the old days the Copts became famous for the “invention” of monastic life, and many Coptic monasteries were built between 200 and 1200 AD. This means that for quite some time Coptic Christianity and Islam shared the country “nuss we nuss” (50-50). History tells us that around 675 AD, just a few years after the death of the Prophet, 2,000 Arab riders invaded Egypt and brought Islam unto the land. They established their first city, El Fustat, in close proximity to the Coptic monasteries, just south of what eventually was to become Old Cairo.

So I burnt 50 pounds in the Coptic Museum (OK, but not great), walked around the neighborhood, and secure on the knowledge that there was nothing else I wanted I started browsing through shops. I looked with interested eyes at a book on Egyptian cooking, but I only had 60 pounds to spend, and the book was 75 pounds. The very charming gentleman running the bookshop was not weakening, but he invited me to look at his brother’s bazaar, where maybe I could get something for my 60 pounds. OK, I went in, and looked, and was turning ready to go when I spied TWO beautiful faience winged scarabs! I was cool as ice when I asked for the price. The gentleman laughed and said “a lot more than 60 pounds!” But he knew I was hooked.

When I told him I had no more money he suggested paying by credit card. Really? My credit card has been totally useless so far, so I gladly reached for my wallet when I recalled I had left it at the Scout Center. Arggh. “No problem”, said he, “my brother will drive you to the hotel and you can pay for it then and there.” What can I say. When you meet such an accommodating salesman there is little one can do. So I got a ride to my hotel, with lots of conversation and sightseeing along the way, I got my credit card and using a portable remote terminal took care of business, and now I am the proud owner of four magnificent pieces of ceramic art (and an Egyptian cookbook :). I am one happy pup.

And that is it. Tomorrow I take the plane to Frankfurt at 5 am, and expect to have breakfast at the airport with my dear Christine and Gustav. After that I will fly from Frankfurt to Denver (I shudder every time I think about the time I got stranded in Denver under glacial conditions), and from there to Sacramento, where DJ and Girl will pick me up. It was a short but intense trip, and I will remember Egypt and its fabulous people fondly for many years to come.

Finis.

Day 13 – The Delta

2010-12-28T06:20:00.001-08:00

I feel a little guilty, but I was not really impressed with Alexandria. Egyptians think it is their most beautiful city, and the setting along the Mediterranean is indeed magnificent. However, the waterfront is “choked” by old and decaying high-rise buildings, set way too close together which accounts for very dark streets and alleys. My guess is that development went nuts in the 60’s, with everyone wanting a condo near the ocean, and lack of good planning ended creating an overcrowded beach front (reminds of Valparaiso in Chile, which suffers with the same ailment).

The drive south through the Delta was not quite what I had in mind. First, the morning was very, very foggy, so there was little to see. In fact, I got turned around and went good 20 km in the wrong direction before I was able to turn around. Each country has its own peculiarities with respect to the flow of traffic, and Egypt is big into sending you one way, and then suddenly expect you to make a U turn to head in exactly the opposite way. My problem is that I don’t read Arabic street signs, so I have to wait for the odd sign in Roman script to check if I am going on the right direction. Makes for very interesting detours.

Once the fog lifted I saw I was crossing a pretty, bountiful agricultural area. I stopped a couple of times, but there were no real roads away from the main highway, and the few I saw went into more of those unsmiling ag towns like I had seen in el-Faiyum.

There were plenty of vehicles on the road, and I saw a couple of rather gruesome accidents. Unfortunately Egyptians are not good enough drivers to weave at high speeds through heavily loaded trucks. But since they believe they are very good they speed up, straddle lanes, squeeze between trucks and cars, and every single car is scratched and dented. I have to be very careful not to get my car scratched.

Of course I saw many canals in my travels, and twice crossed distributary channels of the Nile, so I can be thrilled by the fact that I am crossing the delta of the Nile. One interesting site are the pigeon coops, which rise 15 feet into the air, like thumbs, and are thus easily visible across the flat landscape. Egyptians breed pigeons for tow reasons. One, as food. Two, for the guano (and hence the need for pigeon coops). Of course the pigeons poop all over the fields during the day, thus providing random applications of fertilizers, but all the night poop accumulates at the bottom of the coop, where every so often it can be collected to be used as fertilizer.

I finally made it to Cairo, where I had to struggle to find my way. I do have a map, and given enough time I could read it, but with all the crazy drivers here there is never a moment or place to stop and look at the map. Instead I had to rely on instinct and recollection of the way I went before, which takes a little longer but is almost as good as map reading.

So I am back in my comfortable suite at the Scout Center, writing my notes while I look at the TV and sip apple soda. It is getting dark out there, so I think I should go out to dinner. We will see what tomorrow brings.

Day 12 – A drive through the countryside

2010-12-28T06:19:00.000-08:00

I decided to stop being a tourist and to spend a couple of days driving through the country, just to get a feel for it. I rented a car, braved the Cairo traffic for longer than I had expected, and finally made it into the road that heads south parallel to the Nile. It was not a happy choice since it is a narrow road, full of slow traffic, and going through lackluster towns.

Eventually I made it to the desert and headed toward el-Faiyum. The desert is . . . well . . . the desert. Endless expanses of sand, rock, and little else. Some portions look dug out, as if it were the training ground of every backhoe operator in the country.

El-Faiyum is a surprise when you come in from the desert, with its green agricultural fields. None of the fields is particularly large, and I was unable to figure out the general pattern of the irrigation canals. It makes for a pretty if unexciting landscape, and I am sorry to say the towns are not the quaint little “pueblitos” I had imagined. No, they are conglomerates of high-rise buildings, 8 to 10 stories high, set too close together and in a rather poor state of repair. The muddy streets, strewn with trash, don’t do much to improve the general mood.

Slightly depressed I decided to take the Desert Road and head north, to Alexandria. It was a pleasant drive, and I got to Alexandria by late afternoon, in time to enjoy a walk along the Mediterranean coast. I had to find a place to sleep, however, and to my surprise I didn’t find the beach front crowded with hotels. There were a couple of the super fancy hotels (200 dollars a night in the one I asked), but finding a modest hotel took much longer than I had expected, and forced me to drive up and down the seafront boulevard, each time pitting my abilities against those of the wild Alexandria drivers. I reflected about what made them so bad, and concluded that, being coastal folks, they behave like a school of fish, swerving left and right following the leader (irrespective of where the lines on the pavement are). The trick is to become the leader, but in order to do that you have to drive really, really fast.

That night I went meandering through the narrow streets of the city, grazing from street vendors. My favorite was something I bought at the butcher shop. They make a patty of ground beef with spices and salsa, pat it flat between to discs of dough, and then bake it on a little oven right then and there. Totally delicious!

Day 11 – A brief history of the Nile

2010-12-28T06:18:00.000-08:00

The ride on the train was all I had expected to be, sans crime. To a devotee of the novels of Hercule Poirot, I couldn’t help but hope that someone would be bumped off in the middle of the night, and that peering out of my door I would see a woman with a dragon-embroided bath robe walking toward the opposite side of the corridor. Alas, it was not to be, and I had to satisfy myself with a good dinner, a rocking sleep, and a fabulous sunrise over a landscape dotted with palm trees.

I spent the day taking care of the business that brought me to Egypt on the first place: A conference on the development of water projects in arid lands. Most interesting is what I learned about the Nile. The history of the Nile can be described in four stages.

The play starts with the opening of the Red Sea, during the Oligocene. At that time the eastern edge of the African continent was uplifted, as an angry sore around the rifting area. This diverted the flow of water to the west, so there was no “Nile” flowing from south to north at this time. Then something catastrophic happened: Africa nudged itself north against Europe. Two consequences of this nudging were: (1) Deformation and mountain building in Egypt, creating a “fabric” of folds, or ridges and basins, with a general northwest orientation. One of these ridges (anticlines) was to become the el-Fayum depression at a later time. These folds blocked the east-to-west streams and the Nile 1 was formed. The Nile 1 meandered all across Egypt, carrying a goodly amount of water and the sediments eroded from the Red Sea Mountains until 6 million years (Ma) ago, when the second consequence of the collision between Africa and Europe was felt. (2). 6 Ma ago the Strait of Gibraltar closed. Cut off from the inflow of Atlantic water the Mediterranean dried out! Yes, the large volume of the Nile 1 notwithstanding, evaporation in this hot area outpaced the rate of recharge. A thick layer of salt and gypsum accumulated at the bottom of the Mediterranean, which lay 3,000 m below current sea level. From the standpoint of the river, such a gargantuan drop in base level caused the river to aggressively cut down its channel, carving a canyon that rivaled the Grand Canyon in all respects but one; instead of being only 320 km long, like the Grand Canyon, the Nile Canyon was 1,300 km long! Imagine what a rafting trip that would have been :)

5.4 Ma ago, the “dam” at the Strait of Gibraltar broke off, and the Atlantic cascaded into the Mediterranean with a deafening roar. No other waterfall on Earth could have rivaled this one! Now, what happens when sea level suddenly rises? The ocean invades the land canyons, forming estuaries that extend deep into the land. Since the Miocene canyon of the Nile 1 was so long and deep, the estuary was unusually long and deep, and for a couple of million years marine/estuary deposition dominated central Egypt. The river had disappeared in the meantime, but its tributaries kept bringing sediment to the estuary until eventually the Miocene canyon was all filled up with sediment, and the Nile 2 was established.

3.3 to 1.8 Ma ago, the Nile 2 ran over the marine/estuarine deposits, and started carving a not very deep but fairly wide valley. The climate was more humid, and large tributaries in Sudan and Western Egypt contributed significant amounts of water to the river. Then climate changed, quite suddenly as climate is wanton to do, and a very dry period ensued. The dry conditions lasted between 1.8 and 0.8 Ma ago, and they were so severe that the Nile stopped flowing.

The end of the dry period, 800 thousand years (ka) ago, brought the Nile 3 back with a vengeance, and it is largely during this time that the broad valley of the Nile gets its final remodel. This is probably also the time when a channel breaks off the main stem of the river to pour water into the el-Faiyum depression. The origin of this depression, which is now as low as 50 m below sea level is still unclear. Geologically it is an anticline, so it should be high rather than low. Perhaps the folding caused fissuring on the crest of the anticline, formation of caverns, and collapse of an extensive cave system to form the depression. In any case, if you imagine the Nile as a carnation, with the stem being the Nile flowing from south to north, and the delta being the flower itself, el-Faiyum would be the only leaf branching off the stem. All the way up into pharaonic time, in times of flood, the Bahr Yusef flood branch of the Nile has flowed through the Hawara Channel into el-Faiyum, feeding a lake that formed and dried out between big flood events. It was a natural detention basin for the flood waters of the Nile. The ancient Egyptians recognized this, and made sure the channel was kept clear of sediment that could clog the channel and impair the spillway function. Sometime in Ptolemeic times sluice gates were added to the channel, so irrigation into el-Faiyum could be controlled, for the growth of cash crops to be sold to Rome.

Another dry spell starting at 400 ka and ending at 12.5 ka, caused the Nile 3 to flow intermittently (interestingly, between 15 and 11.5 ka is when California has the very wet climate that we geologists refer to as the Pluvial Period of California history.
So at 12,500 years ago the Nile 4 gets established. Much smaller that its predecessor, the Nile 4 is content in flowing over a small portion of the broad alluvial valley, moving around the sediments accumulated by the Nile 3. At Aswan, during construction of the high dam, geologists found over 250 meters of alluvial sediments under the current channel of the river, which go back to the filling of the Miocene canyon by the estuarine and alluvial deposits of Nile 2.

Egypt, and all of the Sahara for that matter, had its own Pluvial Period from about 10,000 to 4,500 years ago. The rain belt of the intertropical convergence region shifted northward just enough to turn the desert into a savannah, and much of Egypt’s groundwater must have been recharged during this time. Then climate started deteriorating, and civilization sought the Nile 4 valley as a cradle to develop. Although the evidence is at best permissive, it seems that the three golden periods of Egyptian civilization may have coincided with times when the flow of the Nile was average or above average, whereas the two intermediate periods when government collapsed may have coincided with periods when the flow of the Nile was well below average for an extended period of time.

Day 10 – The East Bank

2010-12-28T06:17:00.000-08:00

Well, the accommodations may have left much to be desired, but the friendly game of dominoes last night, and a lavish breakfast this morning did much to mollify my poor opinion of the hostel.

I decided to spend the morning at the Karnak temple complex, which has been called the largest religious complex in history. I decided to take a minibus, which took many detours through the city. “What is going on?”, I thought as we were blocked off by streets being torn off. Well, the Luxor municipality is engaging in a major beautification effort, which in a couple of years will give this city a magnificent river walk and improved street network. However, there is always a danger when you start excavating on a city with more than 2000 years of ancient history. In effect, the public works have unearthened a major avenue of antiquity between Karnak and Luxor temples, and now they are slowly recovering the hundreds of sphinxes that lined the avenue, plus an untold number of other treasures. It looks to me that the plan is to reconstruct this major avenue, and open it to the public as another Theban wonder (but to do so many ugly buildings are being demolished, and the street network needs to be changed significantly).

Karnak is indeed amazing. It covers an area of 80 square kilometers, of which maybe 10 square kilometers are open to the public. The rest of the area is still being investigated, and everywhere one sees archaeological crews hard at work. Most of the work is done by Egyptian laborers, who dig and dig and dig through recent soils before finding a solid surface that the archaeologist can then check. Some other archaeologists (students to judge by their age) have the more entertaining task of making full-size sketches of hieroglyphic inscriptions (a see through acetate is taped on top of the inscription, and the copy is made by marking the acetate with a waterproof marker).

The set of temples is to complex for me to try to describe in these notes, so I will just make a few notes at random. My first impression is that Egyptian monumental architecture is based on rather minimalist but enormous pylons or porticoes. Their simple architecture made them an ideal canvas for the kings of ancient Egypt to carve enormous murals glorifying their deeds. An interesting piece of trivia is that in reconstructing one of these pylons archeologists found they were filled with the remnants of another temple that had been demolished in antiquity. It turned out to be the temple built by Akhnaten, the heretic king, so archaeologists photographed every piece they could find, and with the help of a computer did a virtual reconstruction of the whole temple! (The computer went through all possible matches of the fragments until the whole picture emerged). A physically reconstructed wall of the temple can be admired the Luxor Museum.

A second element is called a hypostyle hall, which is a very tall roofed enclosure supported by a forest of massive columns. It is supposed to be a representation of a “forest” of papyrus reeds, where some of the columns are topped by buds, and some other by open flowers. It makes for a great place to imagine ancient conspiracies brewing.

There are two obelisks standing, and a couple more crashed on the floor. Somehow they don’t look as large in the framework of the massive temples, but they are beautiful in their simplicity and impressive balance. Did you know that obelisks are totally unsupported laterally, held vertically in place by nothing else than their prodigious weight?

Finally, there were any number of small temples, many of which were demolished after the reigning king made the trip to the west bank. Most exquisite were those of Hapshepsut, the female king, built of red Aswan granite, and that of Amenhotep I, built of white Egyptian alabaster (i.e., travertine limestone). Both temples have been reconstructed in the adjacent Open Air Museum, which I had all to myself since other tourists were too cheap to pay the 25 pound entrance fee.

After I finished visiting Karnak I walked along the river to the downtown area, where I wasted 50 pounds in the Mummification Museum (a small and not very interesting collection of mummifying implements and animal mummies). Hot and hungry I found a oasis of shade in a small outside café, where I sat quietly for nearly two hours reading, seeping cold beer, and having a yummy lunch of pizza and a type of Egyptian lasagna that was to die for.

In the afternoon I went to visit the Luxor temple, which is small compared to the temple complex of Karnak, but likewise very beautiful. It was built by Amenhotep I, but was “refurbished” by Ramses II (aka as The Great Chiseler), who put statues of himself all over the place, and refaced the pylon so he could carve the story of the Battle of Kadesh (again!).

At 7:30 pm, thoroughly exhausted after a day of solid tourism, I headed for the train station for the overnight trip back to Cairo. I have decided to be kind to my tired bones, and have booked a sleeper berth. I have not been in a train sleeper since I was a kid, so I am quite looking forward to the comfortable ride.

Day 9 – The West Bank

2010-12-28T06:16:00.000-08:00

Four o’clock in the morning and I am already on the road (there seems to be a pattern here). Last night Ahmed Ishmael talked me into a ride on a hot-air balloon to see the sun rise over the West Bank necropolis of ancient Thebes. I talked him down to 70 dollars for it, but now I am regretting falling for this. It is probably going to be some silly go up tethered to the ground, take a quick look, and get back down. At least I am not going to be the only mug. There is quite a crowd once we get to the wharf, to take the little boats that will cross us from the East Bank to the West Bank. I get lumped together with a party of Germans, and we have a good laugh together as we cross.

A quick minibus ride takes us to the field where the balloons are getting set up. There is something eerie at seeing these behemoths raise their enormous heads as the hot air fills their entrails. In the dark of the night the bursts of flame illuminates the thin fabric, and they look like dragons bobbing their heads as they breath fire. Finally our balloon is standing erect, trying to lift but held in place by the hands of the numerous ground crew. It is time for us to board, about 20 people to the basket. Then the captain gives the signal, the ropes are let go, and with a roar we start our ascent.

Wait. Where is the tether rope? How are we going to get back to the landing field? As we rise we start to drift, and all of a sudden this is not some silly ride anymore. We are actually going to float across the West Bank, and God only knows where we are going to land! The full moon illuminates the flood plain of the Nile, but the stark hills of the Theban Escarpment, where the Valley of the Kings is located, are still in penumbra. We rise more and more, and now we can see the full breath of the flood plain on both sides of the Nile, covered with fertile agricultural fields, and as if drawn with a sharp edge the boundary of this land of plenty with the barren desert on both sides.

The sun finally breaks through the eastern hills, and the Theban Hills are set in fire as the Aten bathes them with a reddish glow. Now we can see Hapshetsup’s Temple directly ahead of us, in Deir el-Bahari. The Valley of the Kings must be right behind it, but the wind is carrying us in the opposite direction. Right behind us is the town of Al-Quner, infamous because it has cradled generations of tomb robbers since antiquity (but has also provided expert workers for archaeological excavation crews).

We are absolutely fascinated by the landscape that unfolds beneath us. I spot a fox, running at a gentle, unhurried trot through the fields, until it gets lost in a sugar cane field. There a small farm comes slowly to life, and a young woman brings the cow in for milking. There a crew is hard at work, sowing grain on the furrows being opened by an ox and a plow. Looking up we see the other balloons all around us, each following a different path and giving us excellent opportunities for photographs against the full moon, the rising sun, or the Theban Hills. This has to be the coolest thing I could have done here in Luxor!

At some point we start our descent, and I for one cannot see where we are going to land. I see high-voltage lines, and irrigation canals, and small towns, and agricultural fields, but where are we going to set this behemoth without destroying some poor farmers crop? It is true that the captain has no way to steer the balloon, but he knows that the wind moves in different directions at different altitudes, so he bobs up and down until he finds the current that is just right an using a radio he gives instructions to the ground crew. We finally spot them about a kilometer ahead. They are driving along a canal, and it looks like the captain is planning on dropping us right on the levee. I hope he knows what he is doing, because on one side there is the canal, and on the other a sugar cane field. The last few hundred meters are exciting, with the basket grazing the top of the sugar cane. And just on the knick of time the top of the balloon is opened and we drop like a feather on the top of the narrow levee, where the ground crew jumps and grabs the basket to keep it steady. We have made a perfect landing!

The rest of the day was pretty exciting as well. First I went to see the Colossi of Memnon (the name given by the Greeks to two giant statues of Amenhotep III), which is all that is left of the temple of Amenhotep III. You see, he was unwise enough to build his temple out of adobe bricks on the flood plain of the Nile. Well, the Nile flooded every year and the adobe temples got wet and eroded, one little bit at a time, until all that was left were the two massive statues of the king, which had been carved out of hard sandstone.

Hatshepsut’s Temple was also interesting. She is unique in that she was the only woman who became King. Yes, she was a regular Queen, but when her hubby died she took over the throne (probably as a regent for stepson Tuthmoses III), and within a couple of years proclaimed herself King, wore the false beard, and went ahead to do pretty good things. The temple is a glorification of all she did during her reign: Sent an expedition to Punt (present day Erithrea or Somalia), brought back resinous trees (from which incense is ultimately derived), honored the gods, had obelisks carved in Aswan and brought them by barge to Karnak temple, etc. In short, she was an OK King. Unfortunately the Egyptians could not cope with the idea of having had a woman King, so a few years after her passing her name was officially erased from the historic record, and her images and cartouches were carved out of her temple.

The Valley of the Kings was a bit of a disappointment. Not the three tombs I visited, which had wonderful mural decorations, but the valley in general. It is much smaller than what I had imagined, and the tombs are but a few tens of meters apart. Hard to understand why it took so long to locate them, but here I am speaking out of ignorance, since I have no idea of the amount of work involved in clearing the entrance of a tomb.

In the afternoon I relocated to the hostel I had booked through the internet. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. It is nothing like what was shown in the picture. No, it is positively seedy, and one of the less appealing I have found in my trips to Africa. Oh well, I can survive a night here.

My evening activities included a visit to the Luxor Museum (a very nice piece of museography!) and a walk through the sueq or suk. I was dreading the latter, because the hawkers can be quite annoying, but that was not the case. You were of course actively encouraged to come into the shop and look, but they were respectful enough not to follow you or grab you by the arm. I did enjoy myself quite a bit.

Day 8 – Goodbye to our felucca

2010-12-28T06:15:00.002-08:00

Two thirty in the morning, and the breeze has almost died down. Somewhere in the distance a muezzin chants a prayer. The full moon shines over the bank of the river, where a fox stands immobile, looking at the sleeping felucca. But not everyone is asleep. I am fully awake, taking every sound of the night, smelling the cool breeze (the desert air is gone, replaced by the fresh wind from the Mediterranean), and looking at the fox as it turns on its heels looking for a more interesting view. I don’t want this magic to end, but I know that shortly after sunrise we will disembark and say goodbye to our friendly crew. Staying in my sleeping bag is no longer possible, so I get up and step on shore.

The great river flows slowly past me, invitingly. I cannot let this opportunity pass, and under the full moon go for the coolest swim I have ever had. The water is so refreshing.

My swim has apparently woken Reis Awat, who discovers the barky is stranded high on the sand. This is not good and he promptly gets ready to put it afloat. A quick bark and the boys drag themselves from their blankets; I, as the cause for this early activity, get drafted as crew. At the word of the Reis we all put our backs against the hull and heave . . . heave . . . heave. The first couple of efforts were futile, but at the third push we feel the heavy vessel start sliding. More pushing, much more grunting, and finally we are floating free on the water. Without a word the Reis and his crew go back to sleep, and I am left alone one more time, free to contemplate this magnificent river.

But all good things must come to an end, and after a wonderful breakfast with French Pita (just like French Toast, but with pita bread instead of toast), we say goodbye to our friends and aboard the minibus that will take us to the next stage of our journey.

First we stop for only half an hour at Kom Ombo, to see an interesting Ptolemaic temple. The Ptolemys ruled Egypt from 323 BC (the death of Alexander) to 30 BC (the death of Cleopatra), but in these 300 years they were busy little bees who built many temples in a most curious mix of Egyptian and Greek architecture. Kom Ombo is a fine example of such mix, and its location at the bank of the Nile is without equal.

Then we stopped for an hour at Idfu (aka Edfu), at the Ptolemaic temple to the falcon god Horus. Now, this temple looks 100% Egyptian, and because it is so recent its bas-reliefs are beautifully preserved. I remember thinking, when visiting Machu Picchu, how odd it was to find such a piece of monumental architecture without a carving, a statue, or an inscription. Well, at the Horus temple the difficulty is to find a surface without an inscription! They sure were chatty, them Ptolemys, and I suspect they tended to repeat themselves a lot, just like my students do. The effect, however, is quite impressive.

We finally made it to Luxor, where my friends scrambled into all sorts of low price hotels. Me, a favorite of Lady Fortune, ended in a 4-star hotel. I don’t know how this happened, but our mini-bus driver got a special cell phone call, naming me, and was instructed to take me to this awesome hotel, where a representative of Habibi Tours was ready to receive me. He had may plans for the next two days all lined up, talked me into a 4 am departure to take a balloon ride over the Valley of the Kings to see the sunset, and got my instructions for a sleeper train to Cairo on the night of the 24.

I think I will take a bath in my luxury tub while I can, to shake the tiredness off my weary bones . . . oh, wait, what is that? The muezzin’s first call to afternoon prayer. Yes, I think I will pour myself a drink and soak in the tub until it is time for the second afternoon prayer.

Day 7 – Sailing the Nile

2010-12-28T06:15:00.001-08:00

Sailing the Nile on a felucca has made me the happiest man alive. This is exactly what I had in mind when I dreamed on lazily gliding down the Nile.

Feluccas are heavy boats, with very broad beams, a massive mast, and a rudder whose post is a good 6 inches in diameter. Yet, with their impossibly tall triangular sails, they move gently through the water as if they were mythical monsters or sail fish.

Now, as all my students know an area of low pressure develops over the very hot land, which constantly draws wind in from the sea. In other words, the wind blows from the north, precisely in the direction in which we wanted to go. So Reis Awat, seasoned sailor that he is, tacked his way from one side of the river to the other, over and over again, so we effectively moved in zig zag fashion downstream. This curious way of advance is somewhat slow, but has the advantage of maximizing sailing time, and of giving the sailor alternate glimpses of both banks and their exotic landscapes. I should add that these are true sailing ships, with no form of mechanized locomotion, so the master has to be particularly vigilant to not lose his wind or get pushed unto a lee shore.

All along our merry crew kept a constant flow of chatter, cups of sweet tea, and a very passable and varied number of meals. Nothing fancy, you understand, but traditional fare that goes remarkably well with the appetite that a fresh breeze seems to make particularly sharp: scrambled eggs with tomatoes and spices, pasta, rice with potatoes, falafel and salad with goat cheese, and abundant amounts of pita bread. Nobody went hungry on board!

My cup of joy overflowed when Reis Awat asked me to take the rudder (I had been hovering over him all morning long), and for a couple of hours I was Reis Horacio el-Misri (Captain Horacio the Egyptian!). I loved having the massive rudder under my control, and checked off one of the big items in my bucket list: Sail the Nile.

Later in the afternoon we had a bit of a change in the wind, when a hot air mass coming from the Sahara blew from the west, which allowed us to sail in a straight line, “running away” from this cross wind until it was time to anchor for the night.

Day 6 – Abu Simbel

2010-12-28T06:14:00.000-08:00

Three in the morning, and like a bevy of mummies five of us stumbled stiffly through the night to meet the small bus that was to take us to Abu Simbel. We are told it is a hard ride through the desert, so we do one half at night to enjoy the cool of the morning. We have to go in convoy, apparently to protect ourselves from attack by marauding Bedouins.

It is indeed a harsh desert, with endless spans of sand and small outcrops of rock. The sunrise is spectacular.

We get to Abu Simbel around 7:30 am, and are told we need to be back in the bus at 9:45 am. So, we have two hours and we have to make the best of it.

Maybe I shall start by telling you that, although within the frontiers of modern Egypt, we are well within the biblical land of Kush (later known as Nubia, and encompassing the southern portion of modern Egypt and the northern portion of the Sudan). The ancient Egyptian empire ended at the first cataract, where modern Aswan was built, and we are nearly 200 km south of the first cataract. To find an Egyptian monument here would be like finding an Aztec pyramid in downtown LA! Clearly Abu Simbel was built so far into Kush as a double dare of king Ramses II, aka as Ramses the Great, to the Kushites. Any of them gliding down the Nile toward Egypt would see this enormous temple along the banks of the Nile and think “What the hell?” And if they were bold enough to disembark to check it out, they would be faced with four 20 m-high statues of Ramses the Great towering over them. Trembling they would walk between the legs of the innermost two statues, through a corridor where the only decoration is a long row of Kushite captives (you can tell they are African blacks from the curly heads and the distinctive facial features), being dragged on a line by the victorious Ramses. If by this time they have not peed in their pants they would enter the great hall, where the Egyptian success at the battle of Kadesh is told in exquisite and painful detail, showing Ramses victorious over the Hittite army (the Hittites were the modern Syrians), and culminating on a tableau where Ramses is rubbing elbows with the three main gods. In short, this was Ramses’ way of warning “all ye who cross this gate” that they better turn back because ahead they could only look forward to defeat and slavery.

There is a second temple at Abu Simbel. It is the temple that Ramses II built to honor the great love of his life, Nefertari (which means “The Beautiful Has Come”). Nefertari was his Great Wife, and although he had many secondary wives and concubines, from whom he begat more than 50 children, Ramses loved and honored her above everyone else. The temple is less imposing than the main temple, but it is lovely in its reliefs, and when you leave and take a look back at it, you cannot help but sigh looking at the romantic inscription in it portico: Nefertari – She for whom the sun does rise.

Lost in reflection I wandered back into the commercial annex to the temple complex, and got there just as a movie about the archaeological rescue of Abu Simbel was starting to play. I knew of course that the temple had been salvaged from being covered by the rising waters of Lake Nasser in the mid 1960’s, but I had no idea how this had been accomplished. In fact, looking at the exquisite reliefs in both temples it is hard to imagine that they had been cut into blocks at some time past. But cut they were, with wireline saws and with regular lumberjack saws, and in a display of craftsmanship they were moved a hundred meters up the hill to be assembled again in such a way that you cannot see the seams! Rightfully, UNESCO and the contractors from five countries who did the work can claim to have saved a priceless jewel of the patrimony of humanity.

Long bus ride back through the desert, arrival to Aswan, quick walk through the souq (market) and its magnificent mounds of spices and dry hibiscus flowers (jamaica para nosotros los mexicanos), and I finally landed in the welcoming magic carpet of the felucca that was going to be my home over the next three days. Feluccas are the graceful sailing boats that ply the Nile. Their broad beams trigger images of luxurious carpeted platforms where Cleopatra may have lain as she traveled downstream (north) to meet the Roman conquerors.

The company included two Australian couples, two Canadian girls, a German couple, an American woman, a Chilean guy, and yours truly. The felucca is under the capable command of Reis Awat, and he is “helped” by his two apprentices Ala and Yossuf. Reis Awat (i.e., Captain Awat) is a small wiry old man, who can read the river like a book. He is a devout Muslim, and as the first afternoon call to prayer resonates through the valley he lays down his best robe to use as a praying mat. The first afternoon call to prayer is also the first call to drink for our Australian friends, who soon have the whole company playing a drinking game. It is really easy, but I am going to record it here for memory sake. All players sit around and draw a card in turn; depending on the card drawn the following happens (all seen from the standpoint of the person drawing the card):

1 – I designate one person to take a drink
2 – I designate two people to take a drink
3 – I designate three people to take a drink
4 – I become master, and when I do something silly, like putting my thumb against my forehead, everyone has to do the same. Last one to react takes a drink
5 – Social! Everyone takes a drink.
6 – Rhyme time. I say a word or a sentence, and everyone in turn has to keep the rhyme going. First one to be speechless takes a drink.
7 – Categories. Say cities in Egypt. First one to falter takes a drink.
8 – Rule. I set a silly rule, like no laughing allowed. Everyone who laughs takes a drink until a new law gets proclaimed by someone drawing an 8.
9 – Everyone on the downwind side of the boat takes a drink
10 – All Americans (from the continent America) take a drink
11 – All Europeans and Australians take a drink
12 – Queen. All girls take a drink
13 – King. All guys take a drink

Kind of fun!

Day 5 – The Egyptian Museum

2010-12-28T06:13:00.000-08:00

I have devoted the morning to touring a grand museum. The building is of 1890’s vintage, on the general lines of the old Louvre. Unfortunately it has not aged graciously, so I think I should send them Faby as a consultant to jazz up the paint work, refresh the glass windows, and rearrange the collection si it tells more of a story. Ah, yes, the small typewriter cards have to go, to be replaced by large, bold notes of explanation.

But outside of this minutia I have to say I stand in awe. The pieces are truly magnificent, and speak of the highest level of artistic accomplishment in a civilization that not only flourished 5,000 years ago, but also went through two near collapses and, like a phoenix, rose from its ashes twice! I imagine we could call its transformation into a Greco-Roman “colony” as a third and final period of decline, but if so they went into the night with a bang.

Fabulous pieces include the Nermer Tablet, which records the unification of lower and upper Egypt about 3,000 BC, under King Menes, the unusual statues of Akhnaten, the heretic king, the many statues of Ramses II, aka Ramses the Great, tons and tons of stele and papyri with lengthy inscriptions (they were chatty little things those Egyptians), and the carving of Nut, the protective goddess of the starry sky, on the inside of a royal stone sarcophagus. The treasures found in the unrobed tomb of the young King Tutankhamen are indeed remarkable, not only on the wealth they represent but also on the variety of artifacts represented.

I made the bad decision of paying a small fortune to visit the royal mummies, thinking that it was there that the full regalia of Tutankhamen would be on display (it is not, since Tutankhamen still rests in his tomb in the Valley of the Kings, no doubt on a store-bought casket). Imagine my disappointment when all I saw was row after row of mummies, and I have absolutely no interest on mummies. However, I did find an interesting thing. These mummies of ancient kings had all been found together, in a cache at Deir el-Bahari. It seems some king of the 25th dynasty was concerned about the pillage of ancient tombs, so he had all the royal mummies he could find in the Valley of the Kings collected, had them rewrapped and tagged (a toe tag, like they use in the morgue these days), and buried them all together at Deir el-Bahari, where his guards could keep an eye on them. Pretty nice of the old fellow, don’t you think.

I have to praise the Egyptian Museum for their decision not to allow cameras. Most tourists groan (me included) when they have to surrender their cameras at the Guardarropa, but it is sooo much nicer to wander looking at the collection without having to stop every five seconds while some nincompoop takes two minutes to fire a shot. Now, if they would only ban tour groups my cup of joy would overflow. What a nuisance it is to get engulfed by a bunch of tourists moving like a swarm of locust!

A quiet walk along the Nile brought back my sense of balance, and after a delicious lunch of a ketfo sandwich (some type os spice ground beef rolled into a sausage) and a liver sandwich (chicken livers cooked in a tasty tomato sauce) I made contact with Habibi Tours, who will facilitate my visit to upper Egypt. Their representative was most professional, I paid for all the arrangements, and was even given a one hour in a hotel room to take a shower and take a nap. At 3:30 pm, exactly, my driver came to pick me up, to drive me at neck-breaking speed to the airport. Egyptians are good drivers, but they have the tendency to straddle the dividing line between the lanes, no doubt to double their chances to shift to an empty lane. The problem is that by doing so they actually occupy two lanes, so the Formula One racer coming behind has to (1) toot his disapproval, (2) squeeze himself in half a lane, and (3) straddle the line himself so other drivers will have the same troubles that he had to face.

But I made it to the airport, and an uneventful plane ride brought me to Aswan, the city that has grown around the Aswan High Dam. It is a colorful city at night, with people coming out at night to promenade along the river, play in the public gardens, or just seat with friends sipping coffee, just like they do at La Parroquia back in Veracruz.

Day 4 – The Pyramids of Giza

2010-12-28T06:12:00.000-08:00

Smile and the world will smile with you! I should have not wasted good worry on money matters, because the first bank ATM I visited was happy to disgorge large amounts of pounds unto my waiting hands. Feeling flushed I went in search of breakfast, which I found in a small but popular eatery on a back street. With signs and pointing I managed to order an egg sandwich, but I had to forego a cup of morning coffee. On reflection, I believe what the friendly people in the eatery were trying to tell me is that I had to go around the corner to get coffee, so I am going to try again tomorrow.

I had asked at the Scout Center and was told a taxi to the pyramids should be only about 20 pounds, but the one man that accosted me first quoted 300 pounds for the day, or 70 pounds for just the one-way trip. Something told me I was being taken, so I just jumped on a bus and let lady fortune guide my steps. But she had some help, because the friendly manager at the Scout Center had lent me his personal map of Cairo, and you know me: give me a map and I will easily get to the end of the world.

I made the mistake of wearing shorts, which shouted to the world I was not an Egyptian. Otherwise I got many compliments on my graying beard, which everyone thought made me look like an Egyptian. In any case, a man in shorts looking at a map seems to awaken all the kind feelings that Egyptians have toward visitors. I was looking at the map and had just found that Cairo has a metro (oh happiness :) when this friendly gentleman riding the bus asked me if I needed any help. “Yes, please, could you tell me when we reach the metro station?” “Gladly, I am going there myself.” Score!

My good angel guided me to the metro, insisted on buying my ticket, got me off at the right station, flagged down the correct minibus, paid for the ride, and finally told me where to get off and in which direction to walk to get to the pyramids. Pretty neat, isn’t it?

As I walked the three blocks between the place where the minibus had left me and the pyramid I could see in the distance I realized, with a start, that the pyramids are on a meseta or plateau. In fact, the great pyramid is dangerously close to the edge of the plateau. Ah, but the sedimentary rocks that underlay the pyramid are pretty tough. The sequence includes interbedded sandstones and shales (the materials in which the Sphinx is carved), all capped by the most beautiful nummulitic limestone (Nummulites sp. was an Eocene foraminifer that could grow to the size of a quarter, so the fossils are quite spectacular). The limestone has excellent compressive strength but can be easily carved with stone tools, which is why it made a wonderful foundation material. Did you know that the base of the great pyramid is about 14 acres (7 hectares) in surface area, and that throughout this large area the elevation barely changes by more than two inches?

The visit to the pyramids was a cultural experience. The Giza Plateau is some sort of city park for the inhabitants of Cairo, who come here for family picnics, for the kids to ride horses and camels, and for couples to hide from prying eyes between the mastaba tombs. Tourists are and added bonus, rather than the raison d’etre of the recreation area. So I was able to engage on serious people watching at the same time I dodged camels and runaway horses. Of course I also stared in awe at the magnificent monuments, but I was not going to go into a narrow tomb passage with several hundred Cairenes!

I did go into the Khufu boat museum, since it is a rather unique artifact. Khufu is the king who built the great pyramid, but added considerably to his stature when in the 50’s archaeologists discovered an enormous boat in a “trench” excavated parallel to the side of the pyramid. The boat had been dismantled, stored in the trench, and covered by giant block of limestone that kept it safe for nearly 4,000 years. The wood, cedar of Lebanon, was in very good shape, so archaeologists were able to restore it and put it together. It is about 60 m long, is held together by a complex network of ropes and notes, and is in every respect a royal barge. The preferred explanation is that it was the funerary barge of King Khufu, in which he made the trip to the west bank (an euphemism for dying and being transported to the west bank of the Nile for burial).

All good things must come to an end, and after walking like a dog for several hours I finally got hungry. I had seen a seafood restaurant on my way in, and decided to treat myself to a nice meal of fish. And what a wonderful dining experience it was. First of all, I had three waiters hovering over me. Just so we understood each other, they made quite clear that I was going to have a wonderful meal, and that I would be so satisfied with it that I would be eager to leave them a big tip. Yes, it was yummy, with appetizers of pickled vegetables, grilled veggies, hummus and tabouli. And let’s not forget the cold, cold beer (beer and wine being hard to find in a Muslim country). Then came the main dishes of rice, grilled fish, and fried calamari. Knowing I was Mexican my gracious hosts found some chili peppers, which I was forced to at least try not to hurt their feelings. For dessert I had bananas and sliced guavas, which I was not able to finish because I was seriously satiated. Ah, but the drinks man had to come and serve me some tea with mint leaves, pouring it graciously from up high. A fine dining experience, and I was indeed glad to hand tips all around, but it makes dining out kind of expensive. I am sure I will have many more opportunities of talking about the love of Egyptians for tips, or baksheesh :)

On the way back to my luxurious Scout Center I stopped in several bazaars, looked at beautiful papyri, and coveted many archeological reproductions. But I was good and bought nothing. I will acquire a piece, I am certain, but I am going to bide my time to make sure I get the best of the best.

My unerring instinct also put me on the road to perdition. Yes, even in a Muslim country you can find the odd street where liquor runs like water, with the accompanying relaxation of moral codes. Nothing new under the sun.

Day 3 – A busy day in Petra and the Dead Sea

2010-12-28T06:11:00.000-08:00

I was back on the site by 6:15 am, intent on enjoying the Rose City by myself. There were actually a handful of tourists that had bit me by a few minutes, but they were no match for my brisk walk, and soon I was alone, truly alone, in this magic place. Thanks to Ben’s advice I had a goal: to climb to the edge of the mountain range, to look at the biggest of the tombs/temples, and to peer down unto the rift valley of the Dead Sea.

Making the climb in the early hours of the mountain was the best thing ever, because I enjoyed the morning breeze and the shade of the cliffs. Besides, as I said, I was alone, me and my soul, so I could enjoy the sense of discovery almost as if I was the first people to ever set eyes on these wonders. The temple was magnificent and absolutely gigantic. I bet it was used for very special feast in Nabatean times (it is called “the monastery”, but I am pretty sure that is a late designation, as there are no structures that would suggest occupation for any extended period of time.

The view of the rift valley was breathtaking, and in every way on par with the East African Rift Valley or the Rio Grande Rift. Ben called it when he said that the rocks toward the bottom looked like basalts. They sure looked that way to me, and I wondered whether they indicated a time when a Mesozoic flood basalts covered the Arabian shield (they cannot be related to the rift, you see, because they are below the Nubian Sandstone, which is probably Triassic of Jurassic in age). An interesting little problem that drew me deeper and deeper into the wadi, trying to get to a fabulous outcrop where a set of dikes cuts the basalt sequence. The great advantage of being an independent traveler is that you can go wherever you want, and get into all sorts of trouble all on your own. Sanity came back to me while I was contemplating crawling down a free-fall cliff a few tens of feet high, and regretting that I will never be able to ascertain 100% that those were basalts I started the laborious climb to the edge of the rift.

On the way back I took detours to see some of the more remote temples, and the remains of the Byzantine church. The latter included a beautiful mosaic floor where the whole of creation was being depicted. The medallions depicting African animals were particularly exquisite.

Finally I couldn’t dodge the hordes of tourists anymore, and walked one last time up the wadi, saying goodbye to beautiful Petra. Back up in civilization I treated myself to a delicious lunch of bakhari rice (long rice cooked with turmeric, coriander, pepper, clove, and cardamom, followed by a spicy lamb kebab grilled to perfection. The kebab was served with something like a thin flour tortilla (like those used for burritos), coated with a spicy salsa that gave it just the right amount of zest.

Then came the struggle of what route to choose for the way back. It was 1 pm, and I had to be at the airport at 6 pm. The route I came in would only take 3 hours, but I had gotten a glimpse of the Dead Sea and the call of adventure was too strong to ignore. So I hurled recklessly down the steep slopes of the rift, driving a road that must have had an overall 100 % slope for a good part of the way. I was still looking for the Petra Basalts, but I never got low enough in the stratigraphy to see the base of the Nubian Sandstone.

Finally I made it to the bottom of the rift, which to my great surprise is a thriving agricultural area. Somehow I had imagined it would be as barren as Death Valley. It is more like the Imperial Valley, where irrigation can make miracles. There are indeed vast salt pans, and mining potash is one of Jordan’s main sources of income, but overall it is not as harsh a desert as I had expected. Finally I got a good look at the Dead Sea, took the obligatory picture, and then hurled up another impossibly steep highway, counting the miles and minutes to the airport as if they were precious drops of water to a man dying og thirst in the desert.

Yes, I made it, just so, and with the sense of unreality I boarded the Egypt Air flight, to let The Horus bring me back home to Cairo. Funny how now I feel Cairo is home and how smoothly I negotiated the taxi to bring me to my Scout Center, where I was received as a member of the family. With one difference, though: I am the poor member of the family, who had to leave a deposit and beg a soda and a bottle of water on credit. Let me explain. There is an ATM outside of the Scout Center, so I had counted on it to get money for the lodging that night and my tourist activities for the next few days. But the bloody thing didn’t work! No, my transaction was denied one time after the other, and at the end I had to lay my whole fortune (200 Egyptian pounds) on the counter, as security that tomorrow I will get things squared out at a bank, and pay my full bill (and a soda, and a bottle of water). Argggh!

Day 2 – A quick detour to Jordan

2010-12-25T12:24:00.000-08:00

I woke up at 5 am, apparently totally caught up with jet lag, and promptly started making preparations for the trip to Jordan. I wanted to have a cup of coffee, but apparently Cairo is one of those cities that wakes up late and all of a sudden, so I walked and walked looking in vain for a small café. At last I flagged down a taxi and went to the airport, where the cup of coffee was both too small and too expensive.

A totally uneventful flight brought me to the Amman airport, in Jordan, by 9:30 am. I innocently thought that half an hour would be enough to get through immigration, in perfect time to meet my rental car at 10 am. Alas, it was not to be. Jordan requires a visa, which you can buy on arrival, but the line was super long and super slow, and as soon as it started to move out would pop at the front of the line a “coyote” or dragoman, with the passports of about 20 people, and all progress ground to a halt. The phenomenon of the dragoman is pervasive in Egypt and Jordan, perpetuated by generations of parasite tourists, who would rather pay an extra charge than make line like we regular people.

So it was not until 11 am that I came out of the customs area, and found no Budget person waiting for me. I went to information and was told that the man was around. Then his buddy from Thrifty called him and found out he had gone back to Amman, and would not be back for about half an hour or an hour. I was clearly ticked off, and went to see if other cars were available at Avis or Europcar. Nothing. It turns this week is a big Muslim holiday and all cars are out. More grumbling on my part, but at least time has passed so the Budget man must be forthcoming. Ah, here is the man from the info booth: “The Budget man called to say he is not coming.” Great! One of his buddies probably saw me asking around, passed the word, and the other bum decided not to interrupt his holiday for an ingrate like me. I am screwed. I went as far as asking this girl who was renting a car if she would consider taking a passenger, but she was not going to Petra.

OK, back in the prowl I cornered the Alamo/National man. Yes, they had a car, but because of the holiday I would have to rent it for four days. Fine, the cost of the rental just doubled but what is one to do? So I go for it, it takes a while to get the car, we sign the papers, and then I learn that I have to pay the bringing of the car to the airport and then the taking it back from the airport to Amman. 50 Jordan dinars! (Something like 75 dollars!) This trip is definitely coming at a pretty price.

Finally I am on my way. It is 12:15, and I feel that precious exploration time has been wasted at the airport. Now I have to drive like a maniac to make up for the lost time. I am going over totally desolate desert, where very few have been foolhardy enough to settle. Looking over the rear mirror I see a sandstorm following close on my heells. It looks like a scene from The Mummy, where the evil wind drives a sandstorm that obliterates everything on its path. When it catches up with me visibility drops to just a couple of meters and I am forced to stop at the side of the road. Fortunately I was detained for just a couple of minutes.

I finally got to Petra at 3 pm. In my original plan I was going to have lunch before visiting the site, and maybe book a hotel, but I am anxious about the lost time and decide to make a beeline to the site.

And then I went into a different world. Imagine, if you please, a narrow canyon carved in a massive, cross bedded sandstone, not unlike the Navajo Sandstone in Zion National Park. The sandstone forms very tall vertical cliffs, which host the necropolis of Petra. The narrow canyon eventually opens into a valley with a flat, broad bottom, but still surrounded by majestic cliffs. This is where the city proper stood.

Petra became an important cultural center after Alexander the Great added the Middle East to the Macedonian empire, sometime around 300 BC. It flourished in the centuries that followed as a Greco-Roman metropolis under the Nabatean kings (people from the Arabian Peninsula who adopted the Greco-Roman ways with a remarkable ease; I also see some Mesopotamian influences). A big earthquake around 400 AD severely damaged it, leaving behind domino-like piles of collapsed columns, and by 500 AD the city had been abandoned. It had a renaissance between 700 and 1000 AD, when a Byzantine church was built over the Greco-Roman temples, and no doubt some of the tombs were used for Christian gatherings (there is in fact a series of arches that were added to one of the big temples during Byzantine times).

The city itself reminded me of Efesus, with its main walking avenue surrounded by columns, shops, fountains and palaces; its auditorium carved on the rock sandstone, and its magnificent view of the valley. On the other hand, the Nabatean kings were strongly influenced by the Egyptians, and were big into excavating monumental tombs for themselves, at the base of the cliffs of the necropolis. It is these tombs that we see in the much admired “churches” carved out of the rock (see, for example, the “church” where Indiana Jones found the cup of Christ in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” Truth is, there was never a church at this place, but just the elegant tomb of one of the Nabatean kings. The problem is that they used the level of the wadi (the Arabic word for the Spanish arroyo) to carve the entrance of the tombs, and centuries of flash floods and relentless weathering have covered many of the tomb entrances and defaced the elegant facades, giving Petra the patina of antiquity that makes it such a magic place. There are also fine examples of flood deposits inside the tombs!

It was dark by the time I got out of the site, so I had to move quickly. As I said this is a big holiday week, and all hotels are full. But I have a nose for these things, and pretty deftly booked what I believe was the last free room in town. Dinner was a modest but tasty affair. I was lured to the Cleopetra Restaurant by the brightly illuminated porch, but it was the smiling and polite propietaire who talked me into it. His vest looked a bit the worse for ware, but the colorful buffet was exactly what my starving stomach needed, and I was happy to help myself to three servings of the most varied of dishes: falafel with cucumber and tomatoes, hummus, tabouli, rice with aubergines, grilled chicken, lentil soup, and many types of salads and vegetables. Simple, but it was exactly what I needed to make up for the missed breakfast and lunch.

Day 1.0 - Monday

2010-12-25T12:21:00.000-08:00

After a long, uneventful 10 hours I made it to Frankfurt, where we landed promptly at 8:30 under a light rain. Well, at least it was not cold, and seeing the smiling face of Chrissy was enough to make me feel like the sun was shining. She and her son Phillip came to pick me up, and in less than 20 minutes we were in downtown Frankfurt, where we met with daughter Anna, who took time off her busy schedule to come show me her new apartment (well, a year ago new). It is in the fourth floor of a building without an elevator, but is beautifully located smack in the middle of old town Frankfurt. Pretty cool pad.

From there we four stopped and said hello to Onkel Klaus, and then went to have a Graef Vollsinger beef sausage and Kartoffelsalat at the Kleine Markthalle, for old time’s sake. Then we bough cups of coffee to go, and bummed around the old center of town until it was time for Ana to go (she was allowed to cut work for a couple of hours to come meet her Mexican friend, but she is a working stiff now). We then went down to the River Mainz, crossed the river over one of the bridges, and then went to say hello to our friend Aurora, one of the original group that made the trip to India two years ago.

And that was it. Time ran short in a hurry, and we had to get back to the airport to continue the trip to Egypt. I was so glad to see Chrissy and the kids, who are one of the precious families that took me and Faby as one of their own in our wandering years.

Six more hours stuck in a plane and I finally landed in fabulous Cairo!

As it is, Cairo airport is very modern, and I had little trouble exchanging money (1 dollar = 5.48 Egyptian pounds), collecting my luggage, and finding a taxi. The taxi ride to the youth hostel (15 dollars) was through a modern freeway and wide avenues, and the traffic was no more crazy than what I have seen in Mexico or Beijing. The hostel is actually the Cairo International Scout Center, and is a 6-story impressive building with lots and lots of room for boy scouts from around the world. Unfortunately there does not seem to be anyone here right now, so the place is disappointingly quiet. My fabulous private room (20 dollars) has TV and refrigerator, wireless internet, private bathroom, and a private balcony, so I can tell I am going to be very comfortable here.

By 8 pm I was ready to go in my first exploration of Cairo. First things first; I have to get a plug adaptor so I can charge my computer and iPod, so I asked my friendly host for a supermarket. He promptly asked if I was taking a taxi. “No”, I said, “I need to discover Cairo on foot”. He liked that, and with a big smile gave me very understandable instructions on how to get to the commercial area. Once there I had to try the charades approach to explain what I wanted. I had brought the extension cord I always carry with me, so with a bit of French and a bit of Spanish I gathered the attention of three young workers, who not only got the plug I needed, but insisted on connecting it themselves since it was obvious I didn’t have any tools. Ah, my soul is at rest. Once again I find that kind people are to be found all over the world. I know I am going to like it here.

Day 0.5 – Sunday

2010-12-25T12:20:00.000-08:00

Sharp at 2:30 am Sandy came to pick me up, to drive me to Sacramento airport. It is a good thing I had supper at their house, because she was quite surprised when I said goodbye and told her “see you in 6 hours”. “What do you mean?” “Well, you are taking me to the airport, remember?” “But I thought that was Sunday night.” Alas, no. Had to leave the house at 2:30, to be at the airport at 4:30 am, to depart at 6 am, bound for Houston International.

Once in Houston I had a layover of nearly five hours before I could board the Lufthansa flight to Frankfurt, where bright “tomorrow” morning I will meet Christine Kobberger for the shortest visit I have done to Germany so far. Hey, I’ll take it.

Day 0. Preparations for a trip to Egypt

2010-12-25T12:13:00.000-08:00

Well, I am all packed, letting the time tick slowly until it comes time to go to sleep for a few hours before starting the trip. I think I have taken care of all things, so to pass the time along I have invited Chico to go for a canoe ride down the Tuolumne. A couple of weeks ago I bought a cool canoe, only 12 feet long, and I am dying to try it out. The purpose of a short canoe is so I can transport it easily (it fits in the bed of my blue truck!), and can go solo if need be. Of course, I would much prefer to have company, but I think I am loosing my touch and it is becoming increasingly difficult to ensnare an innocent soul into my crazy plans.

So Chico came at the appointed time, we loaded the canoe on my truck, and off we went. The plan was to put in near La Grange, and then canoe down for about 8 miles to the Turlock Lace campground. We were finally in the water at 12:45, trying to find our balance; it seems to be a pattern with me that I have to fall in at least once before I remind myself on how to balance, but Chico is an expert so I was hoping for a dry ride. It was not to be: At some point we had to make a sharp turn, the canoe took in water, and . . . we managed to right ourselves without ending in the drink! But the canoe doesn’t have much freeboard to begin with (or is designed for a man and a skinny woman, and two gorditos were pushing the limit), and with water we were floating about an inch from sinking. But we held in, moved the slow moving bathtub by the shore, and we managed to get out unto the sand with little more than a wet butt.

The rest of the run was uneventful, and what a run it was! We covered the stretch in about one and a half hours, not necessarily because we were rushing, but once we got on sink we barely wasted a stroke. It was a perfect afternoon, with the sun shimmering on the autumn colors of the trees, and I felt it was a great omen for the new adventure.

That afternoon I spent at Sandy and Chico’s, getting a foot reflexology massage, watching one of the Harry Potter movies, and having supper with my dear friends. When I got home at 8 pm I spoke with my parents for 5 minutes, hopped in bed, and slept like a log until 1 am.

Day 22. Around Beijing and the end of this adventure

2010-08-20T05:42:00.000-07:00

We met at 8 am in Tian’anmen Square with Annette and Alberto, a couple we had met in Xi’an and with whom we had made plans to spend a day visiting Beijing. Annette reminds me a lot of Faby: brunette with brown eyes, short, pretty, and with an enviable bronze complexion. She is German, has a German mom and a Bangladeshi dad, and like my beloved daughter is a polyglot who feels at home anywhere in the world. Alberto is Catalan, speaks very good Spanish and English, and is tall and of fair complexion (just like DJ!). They are traveling through China for three weeks, after which Alberto will back home to Barcelona and Annette will go to Hangzhou for a year to complete her degree in Economics. Pretty interesting travel buddies for the day, wouldn’t you say?

The Forbidden City was a bit of a disappointment. It is a must-see landmark in Beijing, but in summer it is hot and terribly crowded. Besides, you only get to see the central one third of the whole complex, where the big palaces are. OK, one would think, there should be plenty to see in the big palaces. Alas, no. They are essentially giant warehouses, with a rug, a throne, and a few imperial amenities (you need to add with your mind a throng of 3,000 concubines, flowing banners held by eunuchs, lanterns, gongs, and colorfully dressed courtiers to get an idea of what the place might have looked like in its heyday). But you have to do your imagining as you peer through rather narrow openings since the public is not allowed inside the warehouses.

The imperial garden, at the far north of the complex, is OK, but not as imperial as Versailles or those of the European nobility. Besides, the soot that floats over Beijing gives all surfaces a slightly shabby aspect.

Fortunately Klaus had recommended climbing the small wooded hill that rises north of the Forbidden City, and that was delightful. An additional fee of 20 yuan cut the crowds by at least 90%, so you could actually stroll through the woods, stop to look at groups doing dance/exercise, and from the top of the hill look at the Forbidden City, which from the distance does indeed look imperial and vast (this is when we realized tourists only have access to one third of the whole complex).

With our karma and feng shui restored, we ventured west, to the lakes that border the Forbidden City to the west, and where the Winter Palace and the White Pagoda are located. I never identified the palace, but the complex of the White Pagoda was quite interesting, with several temples devoted to different incarnations of the Buda and his coterie of angels and demons.

The lakes themselves are a favorite place of relaxation for the Beijingese, with all sorts of opportunities for boating, strolling, or picture-taking. Now, the Chinese have taken into picture-taking with a vengeance, and are intent on dethroning the Japanese as the biggest collectors of tasteless pictures. Interesting characteristics include total lack of the concept of framing, avoidance of any sense of normality (either by being stone faced or by breaking into silly poses), and incredibly long intervals to actually snap the picture (why, in comparison with them el Coquito is like lightening in taking a picture).

Thoroughly satisfied with ourselves we were thinking of quitting for a few hours, but we dug deep into our reserves of inner strength and went walking through the Hutongs west of the imperial complex. You see, Beijing was built from scratch as a planned city in the 1420’s, and as soon as the imperial and administrative complexes were delimited a couple of million squatters established residence around them (actually, they were probably the workers and artisans that built the imperial complex). Well, as time went by the “old city” became defined by a network of alleys with small, single family residences, where the people lived in a type of vecindad or vecindario, doing half of their living in the communal areas. So the narrow streets were where kids played, food was prepared in small coal burners, bucket showers were taken, clothes were hung, and socializing took place. With the Olympic games in 2008 many of these vecindarios or Hutongs were razed to the ground, but a few were rebuilt as a show piece of history, and the remaining ones were give a coat of paint to brighten their squalor. Luke felt we were wasting our time walking through little ugly streets, but I hope one of these days he will remember walking through the history of old Beijing.

After a quick lunch at Yoshinoya (one of my favorite fast food restaurants from Japan) we said goodbye for a few hours to Annette and Alberto (we were meeting again at 6 pm), and Luke and I headed home to take a break. Fortunately Klaus has a good collection of action movies, so we relaxed for about an hour and a half watching Die Hard 4 with Chinese subtitles. Nice :)

By 5 pm we were on the road again (or shall I say in the metro again), headed for a dinner date with Klaus, Annette, and Alberto. Klaus figured that if we had come all the way to Peking, then the least we should do is have a traditional Peking Duck dinner. He had chosen a strip of nice restaurants intermingled with pubs and handcraft shops, along the shore of one of the lakes, for our dining experience. The restaurant was super popular and super crowded, because on top of serving delicious meals they also put on a dinner show. We missed the first part of the show waiting for a table, but we thoroughly enjoyed the second half, looking at the jugglers, the dancers, and the magicians! (When I was a little boy my parents took us to see a Chinese magician, who I remember as being marvelous. He wore a Mandarin robe, and long mustaches, and performed the most amazing tricks I had ever seen. This show totally reminded me of that wonderful memory).

The Peking Duck was superb, but this was an upscale restaurant so I didn’t get to gnaw on the head, neck, and bones of the carcass. Schade! The trick with Peking Duck is that it is sliced very thin and is served with very thin steamed tortillas, a strongly flavored duck gravy, cucumber strips, and onion strips. The diner takes one of the tortillas with his/her chopsticks and lays it flat on the plate, dips in the gravy two or three slices of duck and lays them on the tortilla, adds a few slivers of cucumber and onion, and then wraps it tightly to form a small package that can then be daintily placed on the mouth. Well, since we had the League of Nations at the table the results were as varied as burritos and Knödels, but they certainly didn’t resemble the sample we had been given. Ah, but the taste was not affected by the outside appearances, and we thoroughly enjoyed our meal.

Klaus then invited us to go for a walk along the strand, and to have a beer in one of the outside pubs, and so we let the night drift away until . . . shit, what time is it? Ten? Oh my, the metro closes at 10:30 pm!

We quickly gathered our tiliches, and at a brisk walk headed for the bus stop, rode to the metro station, and there said goodbye to Annette and Alberto. They are a very neat couple, and we wished them the best of lucks for the year to come. I am sure Annette will come back speaking Chinese like a native, but I am sure Alberto will pine for his vivacious girlfriend alone in Barcelona.

Then we turned and ran into the metro. Oh, good, the last train is at 11:20 pm. But it was already 10:40 and we had a good stretch to go, including two transfers. We made the first transfer on the nick of time, and we ran with the rest of the stragglers to try to catch the second transfer. We were almost there when the crowd came to a sudden, silent stop. The last train had just pulled out of the station and we had missed it! (At the end it was not such a tragedy, since we were already within walking distance of the house, but it was a first time experience to have missed the last metro train by seconds :)

Well folks, that is it. I am actually writing these notes on Day 23 (August 18), and in a few more hours Luke and I will be boarding the plane for Seattle, will have a layover of 5 hours in Sea-Tac airport, and then will take the last leg of the trip to Sacramento, where we should arrive at 7 pm of August 18. Luke figured that this trip has involved something like 9 flights, 12 major stops, 4 bus rides, 2 hard bike rides, and 1 death march. During these three weeks we have made many new friends and visited old friends (“one is silver and the other gold”), Luke has collected many girlfriends, and we have seen wondrous sights. We have tasted exotic foods, dined in fine restaurants, and enjoyed breakfast with the locals by the curbside. Best of all, we came to say hello to our Chinese brothers and sisters, and got a warm brotherly embrace from them and an invitation to come back soon. Not to worry, we will.

Finis.

Day 21. Travel to Beijing

2010-08-20T05:39:00.000-07:00

And just like a magic carpet Eastern China Airlines deposited us unharmed at Beijing airport a little past noon. It took us a while to get our backpacks and navigate through the metro, so we were 20 minutes late for the appointment we had made with Klaus at a park near his work. No Klaus, but he got there ten minutes later. He had correctly assumed that if we had not shown at the prearranged hour it was because of some delay, went back to work, and this was his second visit to the park. We exchanged greetings and the key to his apartment, and a few minutes later we were on our way to home!

It was so nice to kick off our boots, turn on the air conditioning, pop open a coke, and sit down in front of the TV to just relax. We saw a funny martial arts movie playing in the late 1800’s (“Once Upon a Time in China”), and were just reaching the end when Klaus got home.

OK, what shall we do? Let’s go to the Donghuamen Night Market! We quickly charted our way through the metro, which at 7 pm was packed to the gills (so much so that we got separated, because Luke and Klaus couldn’t stuff themselves in the car I had oozed into), and reached Wanfujing street, which is the shopping street in Beijing. The night market is an alley that opens into Wanfujing, and its famous because of the odd things it offers to the gourmand. Well known are the skewers of small scorpions, which are still moving before they are deep-fried and given to you with a flourish. Luke and I had to taste them, of course, and have the photos to prove we did it!

Other oddities, which we didn’t try, include skewers of tarantula, big black scorpions, lizard, cycada, cycada cocoons, bird nests, snake meat (tastes like chicken) and sea horses, in addition to the common fare of spicy beef, squid, chicken, meatballs, and dough balls. There were also drumsticks of every species of bird known to man, and tasty-looking roasted lamb legs (although now that I think about it they could very well have been roasted dog legs). The merchants add much to the color and din of the market by offering steaming bowls of noodles or rice, so you can easily make a meal by picking a little here and a little there from different stalls. And for dessert you can have a skewer with glazed fruit, that somehow still looks fresh and crunchy after having been dipped in gleaming caramel.

Alas, my companions were more horrified than enthusiastic at the cornucopia spread in front of them, so, after feasting my eyes and trying to store in my memory the scents, colors and music of one of the most remarkable markets I have seen in my life, we ended going into a regular restaurant to a tray of steamed buns, and cold dishes of chicken and vegetables (only to find out that Luke has never eaten cold chicken and didn’t care for it at all!). The kid eats scorpions but won’t touch cold chicken; what’s up with that?

Day 20. Biking through Xi’an

2010-08-20T05:35:00.000-07:00

Luke has gone native! Since there are several ways in which this expression can be used I better explain. It first comes to my mind by the fearless way in which he plows across traffic in a bicycle, as if traffic laws were not even a recommendation but a downright annoyance.

I imagine I could also use the expression in the sense that he is beginning to think like a Chinese. Perhaps it is the fact that his physical features straddle a fine boundary so sometimes he is regarded as a foreigner (in which case he draws the stares and admiration of children), and sometimes he is regarded as a chinito (in which case he draws in rapid-fire Chinese conversation). Have you noticed how he squints his eyes when he looks at you? Well, Chinese young women find that squint adorable, so he gets a lot of smiles and batting eyelashes. No wonder he is thinking on moving to China after he finishes college.

OK, now that I have permanently embarrassed my travel companion it is time to get started with my narrative: Trying to be economical we decided to rent bikes and enjoy a Sunday in the city on the cheap. Our first stop was a very large city park just outside the old city walls. It is the equivalent of Chapultepec, in that lots and lots of people had come to walk, to do tai-chi, to practice the Chinese violin, to kick the hacky sack, to paddle in the lake, to visit the zoo, to play in the mini-fair, and even to practice ballroom dancing.

After a thoroughly enjoyable hour of people-watching we got back on the bikes and headed for the North and South Lakes, a few kilometers out from city center. We were having a good time, even though I had to cringe at Luke’s lackadaisical disregard for city traffic. (I have to revise my former statement that Chinese are terrible drivers. They are very good in the sense that they will come within millimeters of running you over, but once their bluff has been called they will actually stop and let you step in front of them. I am just to weak on the knees for playing the chicken game with a bus!)

There we were, a good 10 km from city center, when my back tire went “bang!”. What to do? Buses here don’t take bikes, and a bike is too large for the little taxis they have here. Luke offered to strap the bike to his back, but that was a bit too much to expect from the lad, so we parted company with the understanding that he was to continue the tour and be back at the hostel by 2 pm, while I would simply walk the shortest route back home.

It was a long but nice walk. I made a few stops to buy pop frozen bars, take pictures, or just stare at interesting shops. The bird pet store was particularly interesting, not only because all sorts of wild birds were flying around the cages, but also because they also sold these small straw cages (about the size of a tennis ball) where a giant, noisy cricket was to be had.

I made it home around 1:45 pm, and Luke was already waiting for me. The folks at the hostel were really mortified that the bike had failed on me, and they refunded me the whole rental fee. I need to praise the wonderful staff of all International Youth Hostels we had stayed at, and very particularly Ken and Wen from the Xi’an hostel, who have not only been fabulous hosts, but have also become close, caring friends. They are wonderful examples of the young Chinese, who appreciate the value of tourism and go out of their way to care for their charges!

We figured that lunch had to be traditional and cheap, so we asked our excellent hosts and were directed to a noodle shop just outside the old city wall. Great! Throughout our three weeks in China we had not had a straight bowl of noodles, so it seemed fitting to close our stay in this wonderful city with a treat. And what a treat it was! For 28 yuan (about US $4) we had two delicious bowls of noodles with chives and beef, a giant Coke, and a half liter of cooold beer. Best deal in town :)

As our last hoorah we climbed the old city wall (now beautifully restored), rented bikes anew, and did the 14 km circuit along the crown of the city wall. This wall is immense! It must be a good 30 m high, and at the crown 15 m wide, so when you ride along it you are high over the city, and facing a wide avenue ahead of you. Nice place to ride and think.

Day 19. Disaster strikes

2010-08-20T05:28:00.000-07:00

Luke had been partying until an ungodly hour, so I let him sleep until 9 am. I know, unheard off. It was cool and overcast when we got out of the hostel, but we were silly enough not to carry and umbrella with us. First we walked a couple of blocks to the corner where the breakfast vendors congregate. We had a pocket of noodles, a Chinese crepe, and fruit yogurt drink for about a dollar each.

We had decided to spend the morning at the Shaanxi History Museum (Shaanxi is the state or province where Xi’an is located), so we started walking toward the bus stop when a light rain started. We could have gone back for the umbrella at that point, but the rain was too light and we didn’t want to backtrack, so we decided to tough it out. Bad mistake.

The bus dropped us a long block from the museum, but by this time the rain had started in earnest and we were quite wet in a matter of minutes. Still, the day was young and we felt like this city was now ours so in good spirits we platched all the way to the museum. Then we saw the line and Luke almost went back. It was looong! It turns out that the museum is free, but in order to get a ticket you have to write down your name in a list, show your identification, and write your identification number in the list. Since there were some families with four or five family members the process was taking forever.

By the time it was our turn we had been standing under the rain (very light by now) for about an hour. Ah, the sacrifices a tourist must make.

The museum was magnificent. It turns out that this state, and the valley where Xi’an is located, have been heavily populated for a very long time. Fossils of Homo erectus have been found at a couple of localities, and as we had learned yesterday there were a number of Paleolithic and Neolithic villages sprinkled here and there. Their presence is richly documented by pottery, stone implements, and the first bronze implements.

Then come the different dynasties that made this city either their capital, or at least one of their main cities. Don’t quote me on this, but I believe the city was important in the times of the Shang (1600 to 1046 BC) and Zhou (1046 to 256 BC) dynasties, and became the capital of the Qin dynasty (which only lasted as long as emperor Qin was alive, from 221 to 207 BC), under the name Chang’an. I have told you about the terracotta army, and the museum had a very nice display about it, but there are also tons of artifacts and structures of this time that have been exposed throughout the city. Then we have the Han dynasty (206 BC to 220 AD), which was a time of considerable advances in technology and agriculture, but the golden age of China and the city come with the Tang dynasty (618 to 907 AD). Fabulous palaces were built throughout the city during this time, trade with the surrounding area and the countries of the Silk Road flourished, the court become most refined (with a superabundance of portly ladies that Luke and I dubbed "the ugly fat concubines"), and the goldsmiths, silversmiths, and statuary carvings reached their pinnacle.

Less than 20 years ago a hoard was discovered in the city, and the artifacts were being displayed in a special exhibition called “The Treasures of the Tang”. The crowning piece of the collection was a beautiful carving of a water buffalo in agate (as luck would have it, the museum had a reproduction for sale, but they no longer have it because now I have it, he, he, he :)

The final dynasty to call the city home was the Song dynasty (960 to 1279 AD), which perfected the art of the three colors glaze on pottery and terracotta statues (you may have seen reproductions in the form of horses or camels with an ochre, celadon, and brown glaze).

Luke lost interest about half way through the museum, but he was a good sport and didn’t complain aloud as I went from one exhibit to the next. All good things must come to an end, though, so sometime around 2 pm we left the museum, at peace with men and the world, and entered the first restaurant we saw for a well deserved lunch. Spirits were high, and we were thoroughly enjoying a quiet day in “our city” when disaster struck:

From the restaurant we walked a long block to a big park developed around a Buddhist temple with a tall pagoda. We were in no hurry, so we enjoyed the walk, Luke became acquainted with a traditional Chinese toilette (“Damn uncomfortable”, says he), and we did plenty of people watching on our way to the entrance to the temple. For example, we have noticed that people here sit on their haunches to rest, rather than sitting on a bench. So we get to the ticket counter, and I reach for my wallet, and . . . no wallet. Damn! Trying not to panic I casted my mind back, and concluded I must have left it on the table at the restaurant after I paid for lunch. We turned back right away and fifteen minutes later were at the restaurant, but without success. The waitresses seemed honestly distressed, and according to them no wallet had been found, but . . .

So I lost my driver’s license, my ATM card, two credit cards, and about 80 dollars in Chinese money. Not a tremendously big loss, but with it went all the ability we might have had to get money from the ATM. We have taken stock of our resources and count 100 yuan that Luke has, and 500 yuan, 50 dollars, and 100 euros that I have in my passport pouch. We should also get 100 yuan back from our deposit at the hostel. Considering that we only have three more days to go, we should be able to make it through without problem. Still, I am vexed that after so many years as a traveler I have made the mistake of leaving my wallet at a restaurant table (Tantos aňos de condesa y no saber menear el abanico!).

Rats, rats, and double rats!

PS. To celebrate our new found poverty Luke and I went to the movies tonight. It was some sort of psycho-thriller called “Curse of the Deserted”. A definite B movie, and some of the weird parts we definitely didn’t understand, but it was a new experience.

Day 18. The Terracotta Army

2010-08-20T05:21:00.000-07:00

Today could be seen under two lights: the slow and anti-climatic view of the straight tourist, or the awe-struck view of the student of antiquity. I will have to combine the two in a single narrative, which may make for some contradictory statements, but so is life.

We could have attempted to visit the foothills of the Li Mountain on our own, but this time it seemed more expeditious to book a tour. So the day started late, with pickup at 9 am, lazy stroll to the other youth hostel (which is about ten times larger than ours), sit and wait, wait and sit, and finally we got started at 10:30 am. Traffic was fierce, so our driver chose to take a shortcut through less savory parts of town, and it was not until 11:30 am that we got to the site of the Neolithic village of Banpo.

Banpo was occupied in the middle of the period that Chinese archaeologists refer to as the Matriarchal period (7,000 to 5,000 BC). It is a particularly interesting site because one can see the actual surface excavated by the archeologists, on which it is easy to recognize the foundations of at least three different types of dwellings, cooking pits, and the moat that once protected the whole village (a monumental piece of engineering a good 6 meters deep and about 1,000 m long). Ah, if only Uri were here to witness all these wonders! Within the village there were also a significant number of burials and utilitarian pottery.

The next stop was at a handcrafts shop, with the excuse that they would explain to us the way in which the terracotta warriors were made. They actually did a good job at describing the process of molding and firing, which was no small feat given that the statues are life size. The trick was to fire them in parts, to later put the parts together. We learned two important facts: First, the warriors had been painted in bright colors. Unfortunately very little of the color remains today, so they look instead black due to the fact that they were fired in reducing wood fires. Second, four years after the death of emperor Qin Shi Huang Dhi (pronounce the first word Chin), a rival warlord got into the mausoleum complex and smashed each one of the estimated 10,000 statutes (actually, he missed one, so there must had been 10,001 statues). This latter piece of intelligence really shocked me. I though they had found the whole army intact, “standing frozen” as a guard of honor to emperor Qin. Instead I learn that what you see today is the patient labor of hundreds of archaeologists, who so far have only reconstructed 10% of the whole army.

Illumination comes at a price, however, and for the little lecture we had to go through a gauntlet of sales people that were trying to sell us everything from a full-size terracotta warrior (I was tempted . . . it would look so nice guarding the library) to lacquered furniture and silk rugs.

The next stop really annoyed me (I tell this in the order in which enlightment came to me). We had booked a visit to the mausoleum of emperor Qin, and instead we were driven to this Las Vegas type of building, where 30 years ago government artists had built a model of the mausoleum, together with little figures milling around the streets. It was a very large model (say 50 by 100 m), and clearly they had put on a lot of detail, but it was not the site I had expected to visit! Our guide gave us some bullshit about the government having decreed 50 years ago that no one was to enter the site, because archaeological technology was not advanced enough to cope with the proper excavation and preservation of the site. I now wish I had put more attention to the model, because in fact it was built with as much archeological information as was available at the time. For example, the scale of 1:100 was as accurate as they could get it, so that means the mausoleum was about 5 km by 10 km in area. 50 square kilometers! That is half of the size of Teotihuacan! Fortunately I noticed, on the periphery of the outer wall of the complex, the miniature representation of the elongated pits filled with row after row of terracotta warriors, and from that got the idea that the warriors were but a small part of the mausoleum. The mausoleum itself had an outer and an inner wall, with lots of small structures scattered through, and a central dominant artificial mountain 100 m high. I believe the mountain was just a decorative feature.

Anyway, still upset for what I considered an underhanded switch I barely turned my head when the guide pointed out a small mountain in the distance, and mentioned that it was the central artificial mountain of the mausoleum complex. Had I been thinking clearly I would have used this central point to draw on the landscape the possible footprint of the complex.

So finally we made it to the site of the terracotta army, where all of China had decided to congregate. We dutifully followed the throng to the exhibition halls, and in reverence entered the hall of Pit 1, where most of the reconstructed warriors are exhibited. The “pit” is immense and the rows of warriors and their horses seem interminable. However, the reconstructed statues occupy only about 10% of the excavation area. Behind them you can see the “work in progress”, which are jumbles of fragments of soldiers and horses that are being patiently put together by an army of archaeologists. What a monumental project! And yet, the whole professional life of some of these archeologists is going to be to put together a dozen statues. It seemed to me a job that is at once sublime and extremely limited in scope.

I was musing about this as I walked through Pits 2 and 3, which are nowhere as impressive as Pit 1, when everything clicked together as I walked through the Exhibition Hall, which is a museum of “the other stuff” that has been recovered from the mausoleum. Now, remember that in the model the warriors were but a peripheral feature of the 50 square kilometers site, and that there were a lot of other features and structures within the site. “The other stuff” are materials that have been recovered from exploratory excavations elsewhere within those 50 square kilometers, and the magnificence and variety of the artifacts is but a taste of the information that remains to be recovered.

I came out of the hall and stared at the foothills of the Li Mountains. Out there, 5 kilometers distant, I could see the artificial mountain that marked the center of the site. All of a sudden the throngs of tourists became so many Qin dynasty people, milling around and building what will no doubt earn the title of Eight Wonder of the Ancient World. Yes, the terracotta army is magnificent in its own right, but what will be found over the next 100 years of archeological work baffles the imagination. This is a unique opportunity of seeing a site at the very initial stages of exploration, and to an old archeology buff like me is a thrill to contemplate the possibilities.

The ride back to the hotel was slow and full of traffic, but I enjoyed the chance to mull quietly on what I had seen, both factually and figuratively. I just wish I could have a second look at that model.

Back at home Luke went in the search of girls (that boy has some punch with the fair sex, and because he looks much older than he really is he comes up with really cute co-eds), and I went to the supermarket. Yes, wherever I go I enjoy going to the supermarket to see what they have for sale. It is a way of confirming that yes, I could live here if need be. So I pushed my little cart through the wines (I bought some Great Wall wine that turned out to be pretty good, and got a corkscrew as a present from an obliging employee), the meats (they have chorizo and patitas de puerco!), the fish (wonderful variety), the veggies and fruits, the spices, and the sauces, to name but a few, and ended with 80 yuan worth of merchandise that somehow I will have to eat over the next three days.

Finally, to wrap a very full day, I had a foot massage, that Lucienne had recommended as being very special. Actually it was a little brutal, but I was happy enough to make an appointment for a lower back massage and acupuncture tomorrow evening. Why not? After all, I don’t come every day to China :)

P.S. I forgot to make some historical remarks about emperor Qin Shi Huang Dhi. He is remembered as the first emperor of the whole of China, and gained this distinction at the end of the Warring Period (500 to 221 BC), when his state (the Qin state) defeated the other major state in southern China. For the fist time, then, most of the territory now known as China was under a single ruler. Now, you don’t get to be top dog by being a nice guy, and emperor Qin was no exception to this rule. With a fist of iron he imposed on the whole land the Qin script (and to do that burnt any books written in any other script, and buried alive all scholars that could have rewritten the burnt texts), the Qin coins (round and with a square hole in the middle, rather than the spade or knife-shaped coins used in other states), the Qin distance between cart wheels, and the Qin everything. He started working on his mausoleum even before he became emperor of all China, and was buried in it around 207 BC. With his death the Qin empire started to fragment, and four years later the country was once again a mess of warring factions. Remember that one of these warlords took it upon himself to destroy the terracotta army outside of the mausoleum walls (nobody has any idea if he got inside the mausoleum itself).

Day 17. Travel to Xi’an

2010-08-20T05:17:00.000-07:00

Luke stayed up until the wee hours of the morning playing games with Lucifer and her Corean gang (I am just reporting it as I heard it), so he barely had any sleep before it was time to get up and catch a taxi for the airport. Punctually at 7:45 am the plane took off and two hours later we were in the historic Xi’an. It was here that the emperor who unified China established his capital, around 200 BC. Since then it has been the capital of the empire on and off, so it has relicts from just about every single dynasty.

The wall that surrounds the old city has been reconstructed, with is monumental gates and all, and our hostel lies at the base of the south wall, on the inside of the city, along what is called “ancient street”.

As soon as we dropped our packs we headed for the Muslim part of the city, with the idea of getting a Muslim lunch: Lamb stew with pieces of unleavened bread (they actually brought us the bread and the empty bowl, so we could break it in little pieces ourselves before the broth was added), cold breaded fish on a sweet sauce (Luke ordered it thinking it was chicken and ended not liking it), a mushroom medly, and a super spicy chicken dish that had us sobbing after the first bite. We then went to look for The Grand Mosque, which didn’t look so grand because visitors are not allowed past the first hall.

We then went to look at the monument that marks the beginning of the silk road, the trade rout that extended from Xi’an through the Gobi desert, Kazakstan, the Caspian Sea, the Carpathian Mountains, Poland, and finally Holland (with a southern branch that went through Iran, Irak, Turkey, and from there the Mediterranean). The monument itself is well done, but the real thrill is to think that we were at the point where caravans with hundreds of camels would gather, to start of a trip that would take them through 5,000 km of oppressing heat in the desert, and of freezing nights in the mountains, to maintain alive the flow of goods from east to west and viceversa. I can almost hearing them saying “Bye Honey, I’ll see you in a couple of years” and off they went!

Our last hurrah was visit to the Forest of Steles, a museum devoted to the preservation of the stone steles where the teachings of Confucius were first written down, legends were carved, and legal mandates were preserved for posterity. It may seem dumb to wander through rooms filled with stone pillars where the Chinese characters can barely be distinguished, but in a way is like browsing through a library where very old manuscripts are preserved and exhibited to the public.

As I said, trying to read a stele is very difficult, but the museum has developed a nifty technique in which they apply a thin layer of wet “paper” (kind of a hybrid between a fabric and paper), which when it dries shrinks and clings to the stone. You can then roll ink on the said paper, and create a negative copy of the stele (it is called a “rubbing” but I think it is closer to inking a lithograph stone). It is such a neat technique, and such a chance of having a museum quality copy of an ancient document, that I couldn’t resist. There was a stele, dated 1530, that showed a topographic map of the Yangtze River, in a stretch that had had catastrophic flooding in the past, and the accompanying text described the actions that the Ming dynasty engineers were taking to prevent flooding. It was exquisite . . . and they had made a “rubbing’ of it . . . and it was so tempting . . . and . . . and . . . and I just had to spend a small fortune getting it for the library! I will still have to invest quite a bit getting it mounted in fabric before it can be exhibited, but I think it will be magnificent :)

Day 16. Hot and frustrated in Nanjing

2010-08-10T17:49:00.000-07:00

Today had all the hallmarks of a crummy day: It was unbelievably hot, the stupid city only has signs in 10% of the streets, I was working with a totally inaccurate little map from the Lonely Planet book, nobody could figure out what I was talking about, and at the end I had to eat a big slice of Humble Pie. But let me start from the beginning:

I had told Luke that the only reason we had come to Nanjing is because it was the home port of the Treasure Fleet, a fleet of hundreds or even thousands of vessels that between 1405 and 1430 was the main maritime power of the world. The fleet had sailed under the orders of Admiral Zheng He (also written as Cheng Ho), and it charted and visited all of the “known” world, which for the Chinese meant all of the Indian Ocean (but read 1421 The Year China Discovered America for a tantalizing hypothesis that Chinese ships sailed along the west coast of the Americas). So this is a big deal for anyone interested in the voyages of discovery, right? Wrong! It seems that nobody here has heard of this great event in Chinese history, and that I was doomed to get blank stares in response to my inquiries.

Prior to arrival I had consulted a website, which gave the location of the archaeological excavation that in 1985 found the shipyard where the enormous treasure ships had been built (they were behemoths that would have made an 1800’s man o’war look like a little barky in comparison). The location was very close to the center of town, so I dragged Luke there, and we walked up and down, left and right, clockwise and counter-clockwise around the area without finding the site. All my inquiries were responded with blank looks, and for once nobody could understand my most basic questions. Luke was a tower of patience and common sense, and time and again told me that it would be a lot more reasonable to have the ship yard by the river, and not in the center of town. Yes, it would make sense, but this crazy city without names on the streets was not reasonable, was it?

In the pointless search we visited the Imperial Lake (Nanjing was the imperial capital under the first emperor of the Ming dynasty), the city wall, and the Jinming temple, but the bloody Zheng He museum was nowhere to be found.

At the end I gave up (yes, I must confess I actually gave up), and trying to rescue the day dragged Luke in the direction of the Taiping Museum, but even this was being very difficult due to the miserable street signals and the lousy “sketch” I was using for a map, so at the first stationary store I found, I walked in and bought a real city map. Armed with this we reached the Taiping Museum without any problem. Boy, but was it hot! We stopped under the shade of a tree to rest, and goaded by my previous failure I studied the new map in careful detail. Nothing. Nada. No bloody Zheng He museum.

And then Luke’s common sense came to haunt me: “But the shipyards had to be by the river.” So I followed the course of the river in the new map and, bingo! There it was. Plain for all to see. I jumped to my feet and almost dragged Luke out of the stupid Taiping Museum, hailed a cab, and sped toward the riverside location.

Yes, it was not a figment of my imagination. The site of the three Ming shipyards really exists, and it really has been excavated, and it really has bronze haut reliefs depicting the arrival of the Treasure Fleet to the great ports of antiquity in Taiwan, Vietnam, Borneo, Sumatra, Hormuz, Siam, Sri Lanka, Calicut, Malacca, Goa, the Read Sea, and the West coast of Africa. Yes, it really has bronze copies of the stele that Zheng He had erected at each of this landings, and it really has a bigger than life statue of the famous admiral, and the gigantic rudder recovered from one of the Treasure Ships, and a true-scale reconstruction of what one of the medium size vessels might have looked like.

It is a pity that the day was impossibly hot, and that I had spent so much of Luke’s energy in the morning’s foolish wild goose chase, and that there was no one else in the archaeologic park to share on the experience. It really seems that nobody in Nanjing knows or cares about the voyages of Zheng He and its Treasure Fleet :(

After the small triumph represented by finding the site, there was nothing else to do but come back to the hostel and try to chill and rehydrate. In an hour or so we will go to dinner, and early tomorrow morning we will take off for Xi’an.

Day 15. Travel to Nanjing

2010-08-09T17:47:00.000-07:00

Another travel day, so not much to report. We took the bus around noon and by 5 pm we were entering Nanjing. I have noticed a bit of anxiety in Luke when we arrive to a new place, and he has to be reassured often that yes, I know exactly how to get there. This time was a bit harder to keep the deception because the bus station was in a seedy part of town. As is the normal pattern, I asked for the nearest metro station and got some vague waving of the hand. Luke picked up on the uncertainty, and started worrying right away. I managed to get him going for about five blocks until I finally found someone who knew a bit of English and she categorically informed us that there was no nearby metro station.

In triumph Luke said “OK, now we take a taxi, right?” Why is it that people that are lost always want to take a taxi? What is the fun in that? “No, we take the bus”. Not that I knew where the bus was going, but I was not going to give in so easily. So we jump on the bus and, oh delight, there is a map of the route posted behind the driver. Everything was in Chinese, of course, but a map is a map and I am good at reading maps. So after a few seconds inspection I was able to assure to my worry wart companion that in 10 more stops we would find a metro station (which we did, so the rest of the arrival process was a piece of cake).

Luke met a couple of gringos at the hostel, and was happy to be able to talk to them in English. They suggested we accompanied them to dinner, and we were gladly to accept. Whatever made me think that a couple of gringos would know their way through an unknown city? Mind you, on the way in I had spotted a row of very fine, simple restaurants around the corner from the hostel. But no, this kid claimed that he knew of a nice place to eat and dragged us for a couple of miles to the financial district of the city, where there were lots of banks but nowhere to eat. I had to take over and turn off the main street until we found an eatery that looked adequate.

Alas,there was no picture menu in this place, so at random we ordered some chicken dish (very good), a fish dish (good), and some vegetables (limp and tasteless). On the way back I guided the small troupe to the metro, and from there it was easy to return home.

Day 14. Hong Cun and the Emerald Pools

2010-08-08T17:38:00.000-07:00

Everything hurts... Legs, arms, knee, ankle, bones, skin. I didn’t realize it, but I must have been making faces going down all those damned steps, so even my ears hurt! Speaking of steps, I dreamt that an infinite number of coolies had been building steps all night, and that I will have to go down them for the rest of my stay in China.

The truth is that we woke in our friendly hotel, looking forward to a new day. The manager of the hotel is an older Chinese American fellow, educated in California, who a few years ago came to China to venture into the hospitality business. He is, of course, perfectly bilingual, and was of great help setting us to a delicious dinner last night, a traditional Chinese breakfast this morning, and a tour of a historic Ming dynasty village.

A traditional Chinese breakfast consists of tea with milk (with sugar added for Western palates), rice gruel (plain, with sugar, or with spicy pickled bamboo shoots), a hard boiled egg, and steamed bread rolls. We put the spicy bamboo in our rice gruel, and Luke credits it with a wonderful laxative effect that a half hour later completely cleared his digestive tract.

For our tour of the Ming village of Hong Cun our genial host had retained the services of a very professional lady, who drove us in her brand new car. Enter scary driver number three. Like our driver in Yangshuo, this young woman was very professional and serious about her driving, but she followed the “rules of the road” to the "T", which involved squeezing her car into incoming traffic, much honking, and passing in blind curves. Now, we all know that passing in a blind curve is very dangerous, so if need be, you want to do it fast and with lots of power. In the Chinese mind this could lead to an ugly accident (as opposed to a not so ugly accident), so in an uphill they pass in the blind curve at a crawling pace, and in fourth gear, with the car shuddering. At least you have lots of time to pray during the whole ordeal.

I have the theory that here driving is learnt by looking at old movies, where James Bond speeds down a mountain road in San Marino. On the downhill they like to imitate the style, but they are not quite sure why one cuts curves. So they speed up to the curve, cut into the opposite lane well before they come to the curve (and therefore are unable to see if anyone is coming their way), and then screech their way through the inside of the curve. This time there is no time for prayers, so I had to rely on the “medallita de San Cristobal” that my Mom gave me for this trip.

The last scary moment came when we were barreling at great speed through a small village, and I saw a woman holding a child getting ready to cross the road ahead of us. The woman looked up when she heard the horn, and I could read in her eyes her belief that she could beat the car in the crossing (remember that the concept of taking turns to pass is unknown here in China). She braced for the run, and I applied the brakes on my side, but our driver just clenched her teeth and accelerated even more. She was going to beat this woman and her child to the crossing or else. Well, she knew more about the Chinese psyche than I did, because indeed we beat the mother and child with about 10 cm to spare. Piece of cake!

It was with some relief that we arrived to the village of Hong Cun. The village was established 500 years ago, when an oak and a gingko were planted on a knoll overlooking what was probably an ox bow lake. Since then every marriage in the village has circled the oak three times to assure happiness and prosperity, and every funeral has circled the gingko three times to assure peaceful eternal rest. I had never seen a gingko tree this old, and was kind of startled to learn that they grow to form sober trees.

The village has been continuously occupied since Ming times, and the old part of town is a real time machine to older times. The residents welcome tourists and the money they bring, so one is allowed to peek into their houses and look without pressure over the handcrafts they offer for sale. It is nice to be able to shop without pressure, so Luke and I bought a couple of souvenirs and tasted a couple of the local breads. One in particular is prepared on a spinning hot plate (like a potter’s wheel), where thin strands of colored batter are intermingled to form a giant crisp crepe. The crepe is folded into a flat “burrito” while it is still hot, and becomes very crisp and brittle as it cools. Very yummy and entertaining.

After the Hong Cun village our driver suggested visiting the Emerald Pools, so off we go again, at high speed, to new adventures. The Emerald Pools are formed along one of the rivers that come down from Huang Shan, on a stretch where the river gets out of the intrusive rocks and cuts through the gneisses and greenstones that form the country rock. They are indeed limpid pools with an emerald green color, strung like beads along the river canyon. Oh God, not the steps again. This is what that army of coolies was doing last night! But to be a real tourist you have to suffer, so I limped my way up and down the river, oooing and ahhhing, like a good tourist should. As an added incentive we learned that it was here where many of the flying scenes of Crouching Tiger – Hidden Dragon were filmed.

Our excellent driver delivered us to the bus that in due time would bring us back to Tunxi. Once we got there, however, we had some distance to go to get to the hostel. We could have taken a taxi, but what would be the fun of that? Instead we took a bicycle rickshaw and comfortably sat in the little cab as the daredevil lady driver braved the traffic to bring us safe and sound to the doorstep of our hostel.

I had laundry to do and memories to put down in writing, so I stayed at the hostel for the next two hours, but Luke had excess energy to burn so he rented a bike and went for the grand tour of Tunxi. Later we went out to dinner and had a clay pot of noodles, and barbecued squid, chicken wing, mushrooms, and beef. We topped it all with a nice piece of pastry bought at the “panaderia” (yes, they have “panaderias” just like in Mexico), and after an evening stroll headed for our beds for a well deserved sleep.

Day 13. Huang Shan (Saturday August 7)

2010-08-08T09:58:00.000-07:00

Six in the morning and we are already in a minibus that is making a perfect imitation of Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride. The Chinese are lovely people, but they are the wildest drivers I have met (and I have seen pretty crazy driving around the world). I will have two or three other chances to tell you how wild they are, so this time I will limit myself to notice their total ignorance of the concept that if I let you pass then I will have the road for myself. No. I must pass right now, which means all of you have to shrink away to let me pass (they do the same when walking). So, if there is me and another car going my way, and there are two cars coming against us, then we have the problem that four of us must fit at the same time in a two lane road. Since nobody wants to give way, well, that means we will have to live with clearances of just 2 millimeters on each side!

We got to the town of Tang Kou, at the foot of Huang Shan (The Yellow Mountain), around 9 am, and found all the tourists we had missed at Tunxi. They were everywhere, swarming like ants. Much to my displeasure I found out that there was an entry fee of 230 yuan each, plus 80 yuan each for the cable lift. Actually, this is like 50 dollars total, which is not that much, but certainly highly priced when you compare it with national parks elsewhere in the world. On top of the cost, the queue was like “la cola para la masa”, and packed like only the Chinese can pack a queue. It was not until 10:30 am that we finally stepped into the gondola of the cable lift, and all of a sudden the ground disappeared below us and we were lifted into a surreal world.

Huang Shan is a Mesozoic intrusive massif, which has been recently uplifted. The granite that forms it has two sets of vertical joints, so weathering and erosion have combined to create a forest of spires, hundreds of meters high. The total elevation of the mountain is only 1,600 m, so the vegetation is luxurious, and the small umbrella trees hang from impossibly small crevices on the face of the rock sentinels, creating an other worldly effect.

So, here we are at the Chinese Yosemite, and there are a million Chinese tourists around us (oh, yes, the majority of the tourists are Chinese visiting their beautiful land). I didn’t think this was a problem, because in Yosemite you lose the crowd as soon as you step out of the flat, easy path. Not here, though. The Chinese are tough, and no stinking 60 degree slope is going to stop grandma from climbing the peak to enjoy the view. Besides, here we are in a civilized country where hundreds of workmen have labored to build beautiful staircases that go up and down the said peaks. And I am not talking about rickety ladders. Oh no. Here we make staircases out of granite blocks, carefully chipped to have the perfect shape and firmly set in concrete. How I learned to hate those steps!

My hope of finding accommodations in the mountain were dashed by the roiling crowd. Well, then second best would be to complete the whole circuit in one day and go back to sleep in Tang Kou. I decided this around noon time, so we headed to the northwest of the park, where the real cliffs are to be found (The Grand Canyon of Huang Shan). The map showed two loops, each about half a kilometer in length, that were highly recommended, and after that we could follow the advise of the Lonely Planet guide and head for “the western steps” (curse the Lonely Planet editors forever and ever as we shall soon see).

So, the loops may be only half a kilometer in length, but what nobody tells you is that there is nearly a kilometer of relief in the course of the loop, or that you have to descend about 2,000 steps on a 70 degree slope and then climb a similar number on the other side to complete the loop. The landscape is . . . well . . . indescribable. This stairway to heaven hung in the middle of space, with peaks soaring hundreds of meters above us, and a chasm of some more hundreds of meters at our feet. This is the closest I have come to soaring like an eagle, and the feeling was at once terrifying and exhilarating.

And then, after climbing half a million steps my knee decided that it could not take the half a million and one and went “twang”. Rats, rats, and double rats! We were deep in the center of the park, so I knew that we needed to start back right away, before the knee swelled up. The choices were to climb to the top of the ridge and from there reach the cable lift station, or walk down toward the west gate of the park. Somehow walking down seemed a better idea (it was definitely the wrong idea), so Luke and I started down an interminable 10 km of stairs. The one “good thing” is that suddenly the crowds disappeared, so we were able to enjoy the raw beauty of the towering landscape. Right at the start of the descent from hell we found a couple of Aussies, who had also chosen this way down, and on and off we met as they overtook us or we overtook them.

After the first kilometer my knee was throbbing, after the fifth kilometer my balance suffered because my knee was giving, and after the tenth kilometer I was dragging. This is when we came upon the first path sign: Left: climb 5 km to the pass and down for another 9 km to Tang Kou. Right: 4 km to Tai Ping. Well, we wanted to go to Tang Kou, but 14 km was out of the question. Maybe we could go down to Tai Ping and take a taxi to Tang Kou. Luke went back to let the Aussies know what we were doing, just in case they wanted to come with us and share a taxi.

I went ahead, limping slowly, when out from behind a tree popped out this girl, about 18 years old, with a big smile. We greeted each other in Chinese, and then she started a rapid fire explanation in Chinese. Alas, she didn’t speak a word of English, and besides learning that her name was Wen I couldn’t understand anything else she was saying. So we went back to playing charades, and I told her we were very tired and trying to reach town, and she told me not to worry because she had phoned her uncle in Tai Ping to come pick her up. Right about then Luke, and Katie, and Marcus arrived, and I brought them up to date. Aha, like a knight in shining armor here comes Wen’s uncle in a nice little car. I can only imagine his confusion when he found his niece in the company of four big, sweaty foreigners. No problem, apparently. We piled in the little car, he turned around, and we went back to Tai Ping.

They asked us where we were going, and on hearing Tang Kou there was much shaking of heads, and I quickly understood that to go to Tang Kou would imply driving all around the mountain massif. So we explained that we would like to take a taxi. Consultation ensued while we were drinking some bottled water (Wen’s treat at a local store), cell phone calls, and . . . nothing. No taxi could be found. OK, said Wen’s uncle, I will take you, so we piled into the car again and off we went.

He was the second scary driver we met that day, so let me tell you about the second peculiarity of Chinese drivers. They rely heavily on the horn to attempt to clear the way ahead. The problem is that nobody gives a dam about said honk; in fact, I think they open themselves just a little wider when they hear the horn. But for the driver the horn is a magic shield against incoming cars and trucks, so as long as they have it nothing can go wrong. Well, something did go wrong. The horn stopped working! Just like that. It was a devastating blow to Wen’s uncle, who kept pressing at the button in disbelief. From there on his driving became even more erratic and insecure, and as if in a wicked turn of fate incoming buses and trucks became more numerous. We were all a nervous wreck when we finally came into Tank Kou, after a ride of nearly 75 km!

I cannot describe how grateful we were to Wen and her uncle, who out of kindness and friendliness took an enormous amount of time and effort to see that we reached our hotel that night. It would be as if I found someone in Waterford who with signs managed to make me understand that he was heading for Sacramento, and I were to say “no problem, hop aboard, I will take you there”. Our opinion of the Chinese is soaring right now :)

We spent the night at the same hotel that Katie and Marcus were staying at (Lonely Pines Hotel), and we had dinner together that night. The topic of conversation was, of course, how we all wanted to have an adventure in the Chinese mountains, and how faith had turned it into an unforgettable experience. Life is good!

Day 12. Trip to Tunxi

2010-08-07T09:56:00.000-07:00

Not much to report since this was a travel day, so I will have to fill some space by telling you about Luke’s adventure last night.

So, we got to the hostel around 9:30 pm, bushed after walking like dogs at the Expo. But Luke, young pup that he is, still had some energy to go find something to eat. Well, temptation came his way, because the local eateries are close to the metro station, and being so close to the metro he figured he would take another look around The Bund. So he jumps in the metro and just as he is getting of the station at Nanjing Rd. he sees that the metro station is closing! Fear struck because (a) Nanjing Rd. is pretty far from where the hostel is, so he would have to walk a significant distance, and (b) he is not very oriented at night, so there was a pretty good chance he would get lost. Just then a local hoodlum comes and starts making conversation, and pretty soon figures this poor kid is lost. “No problemo”, says he “give me 25 yuan and I will take you there in my motorcycle”. Now, we have all taught our children not to talk with strangers, but these are desperate times and at the end we see Luke on the back of the bike, flying through the night streets of Shanghai (the term shanghaied comes to mind!). But this story has a happy ending, because the other guy was as good as his word and duly delivered Luke to the hostel in one piece. Ay, ay, ay, if his mother knew where her baby has been she would not be able to sleep at night.

For obvious reasons Luke had a slow start in the morning, and it was already 10 am when we arrived at the bus station, facing long lines to buy tickets in a narrow, crowded hall. But once again life was made easy by a friendly young man and his wife, who came to our rescue seeing we were clueless foreign devils. He was distraught to find out that the first run to Tunxi was at 4 pm (we had probably missed the morning run), but on my advise bought the two tickets for me. They said goodbye and headed for their own bus, while Luke and I pondered what to do.

We had a good 5 hours ahead of us, so staying at the bus station was out of the question. On the other hand, we had already made up our mind to leave Shanghai, so it was only half heartedly that we headed for the Pudong district, to see the big buildings and riverside views. After a few hours of that we looked for a place to have lunch (crab claws marinated in wine, curry vegetables, and steamed eel), and got back to the station in perfect time to catch our bus.

Tunxi must be a good 500 km from Shanghai, which we did in about five and a half hours, running mostly on a new highway. We got at Tunxi at about 9:30 pm, and right away got a taxi. The cabby brought us to the start of a brightly illuminated alley, and by signs told us that the hostel was down the alley. Turned out to be tourist alley, with all sorts of merchandise aimed at tourists, but not a tourist in sight. Maybe it is true that the Expo has diverted to Shanghai all the tourism that would otherwise now be at the mountains.

Tomorrow we will be going up the mountain, Huang Shan, so it will be a couple of days before I am able to connect again. I expect some fabulous mountain views and tough hiking.

Day 11. The World Expo 2010

2010-08-06T09:52:00.000-07:00

We are all excited about going to the Expo this afternoon, but we had to find something to do with ourselves during the morning, so we headed to the Shanghai Museum, which according to the Lonely Planet guide could take the whole day to visit. On the way I had a noodles burrito (yes, folks here seem to have an interminable variety of ways in which to eat noodles!) and Luke had a Gatorade. He is still not quite up to normal as far as going to the bathroom is concerned, so he is taking it easy.

I thought the museum was about the history of Shanghai, but alas that was not it. It is a fabulous collection of art, from 5000 BC to the Ching Dinasty (which ended in the early 1900’s). It includes stone artifacts and carvings, terracotta statues of Buddha and his buddies, lots of terracotta pottery, bronze castings, the most impressive collection of Chinese ceramic through the ages, jade carvings, coins, seals, rolls of Chinese calligraphy, and beautiful prints. I think both Luke and I enjoyed the prints the most. For one thing, we had just been in the karstic landscape that seems to have inspired many Chinese painters. For other, many of the artists use the single stroke black line as their basic technique, which is what Luke uses when he draws, so he could really identify with the overall effect.

I was a bit baffled by this extensive collection, since a lot of the artistic patrimony of China was destroyed during the dark years of Mao’s Cultural Revolution. By looking carefully at the descriptions of the pieces, however, I was able to solve the mystery: Either they were the results of extensive archaeologic work done in the last 10 years, or they were gifts of private collections that were kept in Hong Kong and other expatriate Chinese communities.

Lunch followed: A spicy seafood soup (with big hunks of tofu, yuck!), a chicken in lemon sauce, fried noodles Hong Kong style, and some pastry filled with sweet beans for dessert. Our waitress was a hoot, and totally got into the charades game, so we laughed a lot during the meal.

To kill a couple of extra hours we went for a walk through old town Shanghai, which is a warren of narrow alleys in which houses alternate with tiny store fronts. Our ultimate goal was one of the few surviving Confucius temples. This turned out to be a spacious temple complex, well maintained and with pretty pagodas and gardens. Very few people in it, however, since the communist regime frowns on religious practices. Luke wondered why would a temple be erected to Confucius. He was admittedly a great philosopher (way back in the 6th century BC), and his ideas have pervaded the way of life of the Chinese for 2,500 years, but he is no god. A very cool room in the temple complex is the library, where some very old editions of books that convey Confucius ideas are housed (Confucius, like Socrates, did not seem to have written anything himself, so all we now about his thinking is through the works of his disciples, and the disciples of his disciples). It is a serene building, and the collection is well displayed. It has the distinction of being Shanghai’s first public library!

The time came at last to head to the Expo, but we were misinformed about the right metro station to disembark, so we ended having to walk an extra half a mile to get there. Not good, because my foot was hurting a bit and we were going to have to do a lot of walking within the Expo itself. And so we did!

The Expo grounds are absolutely immense, so to get from one pavilion to the next you have to hoof it. By past experience in the Zaragoza expo I new that you cannot possibly see it all, so I suggested to Luke that we skip the China pavilion (after all, we are here seeing the real thing), and that we concentrate in the pavilions of other Asian nations, and maybe Africa. Well, even with this reduced goal there was no way we could see it all. I have already mentioned the distances involved, but one also has to take into account the lines to get into the pavilions, and the time you want to spend gawking at the displays. It is easy to get into a feverish frenzy and rush through the pavilions, but that is really not what it is all about. The Expo is like the opportunity of taking a condensed trip through the world, so the way to do it is take your time and get into the marvels that each country has on display.

We very much enjoyed going through the pavilions of Malaysia and Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand, and the smaller nations of Africa. It gave Luke and I a chance to talk about other countries I have visited, and those we would like to visit next (except that we ran out of time and energy to visit the Egypt pavilion, which is what I have my sights on for the next trip).

Exhausted we finally decided to quit sometime around 9 pm (after only 5 hours of walking, what a pair of whimps), but it took us nearly an hour to get to the gate, and another half hour to reach the metro and get home. My feet hurt, and I am a bit concerned because the next three days are supposed to be spent hiking around Huang Shan, one of the five must-see peaks of China.

Day 10. Trip to Shanghai

2010-08-05T09:49:00.000-07:00

Luke is not a happy pup. He has been a bit constipated throughout the trip, but today in the morning his constipation reached its high point and he was not feeling well. We will have to stop by the pharmacy in Shanghai and get him a mild laxative.

We had arranged for a private ride to the Guilin airport, and our driver showed up punctually at 8 am. I had arranged the drive through a travel agency, so I imagine she makes her car available for this kind of drive to the airport to supplement her income. She was driving a new and immaculate VW Golf, and was a most careful driver. Having said that, a careful driver has to adjust herself to the rules of the road, weaving in and out of traffic, or pushing for her turn at an intersection in the face of formidable odds.

We made the 60 km trip to the airport in good time, and arrived with two hours of free time before our flight. The flight itself was uneventful, but different in that this time I got a window seat (I much prefer aisle), and there were no clouds or haze so I was able to look at the landscape. The Yangtze River (or Chang Jiang in Chinese) is absolutely enormous, broadening to more than 1 km as it approaches the sea. All around it are wetlands, shipyards, peers, and warehouses, as witnesses of the importance of this port to the flow of goods from China to the world and viceversa.

Landing at Shanghai it took us but a minute to figure the metro system, and armed with Special Expo 2010 passes, good for many trips, we zipped to downtown and our hostel with no problem. Well, there were a couple of moments of indecision, but a kind passerby quickly put us in the right path (Luke and I have reflected that throughout this trip we have been very fortunate to find kind people that have made the effort to talk to us and help us with the little hiccups).

After we checked in at the hostel we went to take care of two important businesses. First, get money from the ATM (I was successful but Luke was not; it may be that he chose savings account instead of checking, so he will try again tomorrow), and second get some sort of laxative for Luke. The latter was a lot of fun, because the young woman at the pharmacy really got into the charades game with us, and you can imagine that mimicking constipation and its cure has infinite potential for having fun.

Later we walked to the entrance to the Expo, but figured it was already too late to get our 90 yen worth of fun. We will do it tomorrow. Instead we took the metro to Nanjing Rd,, which is the shopping street of Shanghai. The color, light, and glitz are incredible! Girls, here you could get your dream job, and become a shopping consultant for country bumpkins (yes, we looked enough like country bumpkins that more than once we were offered the services of a guide to take us shopping). Christine, you have to come to Nanjing Rd.!

From there we walked to The Bund, a term used by early European traders to refer to the muddy banks of the Huangpu River, a tributary of the Yangtze River that divides Shanghai in the old (west of the river) and the new (east of the river). Here it was that the big trading houses built their warehouses and offices, and eventually these early monuments were transformed into banks and houses of exchange, until The Bund became the financial heart of the city. The river is no longer allowed to run naturally. Instead an impressive water front has been built, such that the river now runs higher than Nanjing Rd. The walking avenue on top of the dike is a super popular walk for residents and tourists alike, to catch the evening breeze, gawk at the neon lights of the new Shanghai, gawk at the old architecture of The Bund, and take millions of pictures. We did our share of picture taking, but finally gave up and headed to our well deserved rest.

Day 9. The bicycle tour

2010-08-04T09:44:00.000-07:00

I finally got my wish of devoting a day to a big bicycle tour around Yanshuo. We started pedaling east, toward the town of Fuli. It was a busy highway, full of buses and trucks, and the 5 km there were not particularly pleasant. But then we turned north, toward Xingping, on a much smaller country road. This is where I felt we had finally reached agricultural China. The main crop is rice, but there is enough variety in vegetable plots and orchards to give a feeling of prosperity, all framed by the spectacular view of the karstic mountains.

Here they get two crops of rice. One is being harvested right now, and the second is being planted for harvest in October. So, on one hand we saw plenty of farmers working on cutting the loaded rice stalks, and threshing the rice out using a very clever type of threshing machine. The left over stalks are then dried in small bunches, but it is unclear to me what they are used for. One use is to cover the bikes and motorcycles of the ag workers, so they won’t be cooked by the relentless sun. The end of the harvest process is to spread the rice on small concrete pads, for it to thoroughly dry out. The rice is raked every now and then with big wooden rakes, to make sure that it is thoroughly dry before it is taken to market.

The big sacks of rice are transported on an interesting type of vehicle: a one piston light tractor, which pulls a medium size truck bed. Just like one sees in the county fair, these one-piston engines use a fly wheel to keep the engine turning in between the firing of the piston. They have a distinctive rhythm to them, that goes well with the general scene (but they leave behind big black clouds of diesel fumes—the smell of money!).

Did you know that peanuts are the root and not the fruit of the plant? I had always imagined they dangled from the plant, like green beans. The plant itself is quite unremarkable, so I could die of starvation in a field of peanuts and never know any better.

The planting of the new rice has its own charm. First, you plant the rice in trays, with one plant to each bump in the tray. While the nursery plants grow, you harness your water buffalo and plow the parcel. Then you flood the parcel, and use a kind of paddle wheel (once again pulled by your water buffalo) to break the clumps of soil into an even-textured bed of mud. By this time the little plants are ready to come out of the tray and go into the ground. Rookies place each plant in the mud by bending at the waist over and over again, but old crafty farmers throw them like darts at remarkably precise distances.

Once we arrived to Xingping we faced the challenge of crossing the Li River. Fortunately there are a large number of bamboo rafts to choose from. Not so fortunate is the fact that they all want to sell you the scenic tour, so it took some firmness on my side to negotiate a simple crossing of the river. By now it was getting close to noon, and the sun was shining relentlessly on our backs, so after crossing the river I dropped my shorts and went for full body dunk. Luke was shy and contented himself with sitting under the shade of a bamboo. Incidentally, big bamboo trees have a heavy canopy of leaves, so heavy in fact that under their weight the tip of the tree bends down. From my vantage point in the river, they looked like a herd of brontosauria coming to drink at the riverside.

Resuming our bike ride, we found that our black top road had been transformed into a narrow dirt trail that meandered through the fields. My cup of joy was full to overflow! With my conical Chinese hat, I could adopt the persona of a farmer of old, driving his bike toward . . . the mountains? Hmm, this doesn’t look so good. These mountains are beautiful to behold, but they look pretty steep. Onwards we went and, yes, the path took to the mountains. That it was a regular traveled path we could not doubt, because from time to time a moped would pass us, but if biking is much superior to walking, walking is much superior to walking your bike up the steep slope. Don’t get me wrong, we were in the midst of incredible beauty, but it was hard work. Finally, huffing and puffing we reached the top of the hill and there, like a mirage, was a little store.

The store here is the meeting point of everyone in the small hamlet, so there were many welcome grins when we gasped “Ni Hau”. The owner of the store immediately came out to welcome us, and promptly put out two small stools for us to sit down. But first things first and we made a beeline for the cooler, where I found an ice-cold Iqe beer and Luke found a big bottle of Sprite. We sat down to be the center of attention, the lady of the house brought out a small electric fan, and between laughs and hand gestures we explained that we were visitors in a tour of Yangshuo. This was the small hamlet of Daopin, and our hostess explained that we had the option of taking the long road to Putao, or the much shorter route to Yangshuo. By now the short route seemed the best option, but from her gestures we understood that there were several forks in the road so we had to be careful.

With much regret we said goodbye to the good people of Daopin and embarked on three hours of grueling mountain biking. Every time we reached an intersection we stopped and waited for someone to come by to get directions. Luke commented on how friendly everyone is here in the mountains. They stare at you like a strange animal, but as soon as you say Ni Hau or Hello they break out into smiles and words of greeting.

Together with many breathtaking views of the distant river and the mountains that rise into the air as “piloncillos” we saw many signs of prosperity. Many farmers are building beautiful roomy houses two or three stories high. I think that these enormous houses are meant for extended families, so they are built like small hotels. Also, after what seemed miles and miles of gravel paths, we reached a brand new concrete roadway. China is indeed on the fast track of development.

A final word regarding this bike ride: It is not for the faint of heart, but it is the most beautiful thing we have done in this trip. We must have gone a good 50 km (20 miles), and we got back to Yangshuo completely exhausted but completely satisfied with the result of our adventure.

Day 8. The Li River

2010-08-03T09:42:00.000-07:00

Last night Luke discovered the fun of staying up all night, shooting the breeze with fellow travelers. The party broke about 2:30 am, but then he stayed up talking with the cute girl that was operating the bar. Somewhere along the line she lost the padlock for the door of the bar so she couldn’t leave. They ended dozing in the chairs of the bar, and that is where I found them at 5:30 am lost in sleep (in reality I didn’t recognize Luke, and simply thought the two attendants normally slept there).

By 8 am we were ready for the minibus that picked us up, and by 9:30 we were at the ferry wharf, where it seemed thousands of people were trying to board one of the dozens of ferries docked. Later we heard that this was a very small proportion of visitors compared to other years, presumably because there were so many people at the World Expo in Shanghai. Well, somehow we all got sorted out, boarded our ferry, and started the most magnificent trip one can imagine. The river meanders through steep buttes, partially covered in a dense green vegetation, and partially exposing the limestone that forms them where vertical walls make it impossible for the vegetation to get hold.

Visibility was quite good, so I cannot tell you about peaks emerging from the mist. However, I can tell you of the play of the sun in the green and white of the mountains, and on the reflection of these peaks on the water of the river. It was a magic trip.

Included in this trip was a Chinese lunch, which was served in tables of six people, and which included leek soup, rice, crunchy crabs and small shrimp, potatoes cooked with pork, green beans cooked with beef, cauliflower, and a few other things I cannot remember right now. A regular feast it was.

Our tour guide, Trudy, worked real hard to make us all comfortable, and took special care of me and Luke. She finally talked us into taking a tour of the countryside around Yangshou after docking (for a modest fee, of course). She even made it her job to see that we were comfortably installed in our youth hostel (a supercool one, partially excavated into the side of one of the limestone buttes), and afterward escorted us to the place where the group for the tour was meeting. The bus took us to a small village about 10 km from Yangshou, where we got to see a traditional farmhouse, and where I bought myself a traditional Chinese hat at the general store. Across the village is one of those tall bridges, and from the top of it we got to see another fabulous landscape (Trudy called it Shangri La).

Our next stop was a small pier, where we boarded bamboo rafts to take a trip through one of the smaller tributaries of the Li River. These rafts are awesome, since they have a draft of less than 5 cm and can float through almost anything. Evan, I think you should get one of these through the internet. I can totally see you floating through the Eel River (and I can lend you my Chinese hat!)

The raft trip included a stop to see a fisherman using cormorants, a “drunk” girl singing folk songs (to me it sounded the guide called her a “drunk” girl, but she was really trying to say “young” girl), and a water buffalo and its calf. I also got a chance to buy “green fruit”, which looks like a fat green grape but is totally different in seeds and flavor.

We are finally back at the youth hostel, and I am typing these notes looking at a magnificent sunset among the peaks of Yangshuo. Couldn’t ask for a better office!

Day 7. Guilin

2010-08-02T09:40:00.000-07:00

Southern China Airlines tele-transported us west, to the City of the Mountains, Guilin. Since it has the same moniker as Monterrey I should probably rename it the City of the Mounds, but I have to acknowledge that the mounds may only be 50 m high, but they are bloody steep! OK, remember all those Chinese paintings you have seen with impossibly steep mountains rising through the mist? Well, they represent the landscape around and within Guilin. It is what is called a karstic landscape (the name comes from the region of Karst, in eastern Europe), an forms when a limestone terrain gets exhumed by the rapid cutting down of rivers. In the case of Guilin this is not a phenomenon you watch in the distance, but what makes the street turn or end abruptly.

Before we boarded the plane we were approached by a representative of Southern China Airlines, who offered pickup service at the other end for what would have cost to take the shuttle. OK, Lady Fortune is smiling on us. We get to Guilin airport and indeed a charming young woman is waiting for us, gets us into the minivan, and along the way tells us touristy things about the city. I smell a rat. And what are our plans? Ah, yes, “they” can arrange the boat trip to Yuangsho for just 480 yuan, but since we are only going one way and not using the return trip by bus she can cut the fee to 420 yuan each (plus lunch). That is like 70 dollars each, which is a good price for a long ride along the famous Li River, so at the end I sign up and we are set for tomorrow (later I found that at the youth hostel I could have secured the same deal (minus lunch) for 380 yaun. So indeed, Lady Luck is looking after us, and we have booked a fair deal. Isn’t that neat from Southern China Airlines?

To top our good luck, she and the driver have nothing else to do and wait while we check at the hostel so they can give us a ride to downtown. Neat folks!

First order of things is to get lunch, which this time consists of fish cooked in beer (a Guilin specialty), duck in beer (another Guilin specialty), and fried rice. Wow, it turns out to be massive amounts of food! Luke is tepid about the duck (which was very spicy and stringy) but liked the fish and rice. Still, we could not finish it all (and you know how I feel about leaving food on the plate). Good stuff!

Next we went to the Ming Palace park, and climbed the Hill of Solitary Beauty to get a fabulous panorama of Guilin and the surrounding karst topography. At the park we also saw the Examination Complex, and Luke even took a test on Chinese calligraphy (I don’t think he passed). The examinations were the process through which the learned government officials were selected (who we, in the vernacular, call the mandarins), and it was a system that dominated Chinese life for well over a thousand years.

We then took the infamous bus 58 to the Reed Flute Caves (if Luke ever looses patience waiting for something just whisper bus 58 in his ear and he will calm down). Yes, the bloody bus took forever, but eventually took us to the caves, which were quite spectacular. Too bad we could not understand the explanation of the guides, but we ooo’d and aaah’d at the magnificent formations, just like any good tourist should. I stood firm at the onslaught of vendors at the exit, but poor Luke caved in and bought a nice shirt.

By now we are expert bus travelers, so we took bus 3 to downtown, and walked along the Peach Blossom River, the Two Lakes, and the Li River. “But why are we walking?” asks Luke. “Because we are not in Kansas anymore, Toto”, says I, “and because walking here is different than walking in Oakdale”. He really enjoyed the walk, though, and I believe he is slowly coming to realize that part of travelling is just to walk and get a feeling for the people and their city. Incidentally, I like Guilin, and could easily live here.

So, there are lots of pigs here in Guilin. No, I do not mean the people that pick their nose, spit, or throw trash on the sidewalk. No, I mean pigs. Stone pigs, pigs on billboards, pigs on the side of vans. I am not sure what this is all about, but I intend to interrogate our guide tomorrow.

Day 6. Guangzhou

2010-08-01T09:38:00.000-07:00

We slept in, so it was already 7 am when we hit the road. Let’s see, where shall we start? Let’s take the metro (old hat by now) to the memorial to Dr. Sun Yat-sen, the founding father of the Chinese Republic. I tried to explain to Luke that he was the equivalent to George Washington to the US, or Miguel Hidalgo to Mexico, but it took a while to sink in. Anyway, he is a revered figure throughout China, but they lay it particularly thick here in Guangzhou, so I suspect he was born here.

The memorial is solemn, but the lack of original memorabilia is noticeable. This “museum”, like many we have seen, have photos or reproductions, but no original material. I wonder how much of this original material may have been lost to the ardor of the Cultural Revolution, in the late 1960’s.

To find the exception that proves the rule, we then walked to the recently excavated tomb of the second emperor of the Han dynasty (II century). Fortunately for us, the tomb was discovered in 2003, and so escaped the purge of the Cultural Revolution. The museum is interesting (but all it has is what was found in this particular tomb), and the museum store had reproduction pieces to die for. I was very tempted, but at the end took control of myself and realized I could not be carrying the piece I wanted in my backpack (now, as I write this, I am kicking myself for not buying it, because I will probably never again have the chance of buying a bronze brassier from the Han dynasty).

Throughout our tourism it has been pretty hot, so I have not told of the many breaks we have taken. Now that we know the system, we zero on a small shop, buy a soda for Luke and a beer for me, and we sit in little stools outside the shop seeing the world go by. In this particular attention we saw the technique of a potted plant merchant, who carries her pots in a bike. An amazingly large amount of people stop to contemplate the plants (only 1 in 4 had flowers), so she takes the plant out and puts it on the ground, the costumer walks around it praising its merits or tallying its defects, they argue, he walks away, she snatches the pot and puts it back on the bike, and the circus starts again. The best beer I have had so far :)

Next was a visit to Yuexiu Park, the Chapultepec of Guangzhou. Streams of people flock to this urban park, which eventually could be followed to the top of the mountain, several kilometers away. Alas, we were not so adventurous, and modestly limited ourselves to a short walk up the hill to the Guangzhou Municipal Museum. A very neat exhibition, again showing artifacts excavated after 2000, which does a good job tracking the development of the city from Neolithic times to our days. As part of the visit we saw the Five Rams monument (should be called the One Ram and four She-goats), which commemorates the legend after which the city is named: The “place” used to be a miserable hamlet in the delta of the Pearl River, with nothing to eat. Then one good day, five immortals came from heaven riding a ram and four she-goats. On their shoulders they carried stalks of rice, as a present to the humans that were starving in the delta. Ever since, the region has enjoyed incredible prosperity, being able to feed themselves with plentiful rice. So Guangzhou has two other names: “Yangcheng” or City of Goats, or “Suicheng” or City of Rice Stalks.

“OK”, said Luke, “are you ready to get back to the hostel?” “What? Do you know what time it is?, said I. “It is only 11:30 am, kid. We have a long way to go.”

And a long way we went. I wanted to walk through old Guangzhou, which reminded me a lot of old town Mexico. First, every space open to the street is a potential trade spot. So, the street is a series of small shops, and people live either on top of the shop, or in “vecindades” in the inside of the block. Access to these warrens is through long and narrow corridors (we saw one that looked like the long and ark entry to Hades). Second, merchants of the same trade are all in the same block or segment of the street. So, you have one electrical components store after the other for a solid block, and then you have only toy stores, and in the next block only dried seafood stores. How much business can one store get? Well, it seems to work because (a) the costumer prefers the choice opportunities, and (b) the closely knit merchant community can set a fair price (a rogue who tries to undercut the price is quickly busted by a group price war).

On our passage through old Guangzhou we stopped for lunch at an authentic Dim Sum Cantonese restaurant (we were, once again, the only foreigners), where Luke was introduced to the pleasures of Dim Sum. It was a fabulous opportunity to sample the 1,000 different types of small dishes that Cantonese cuisine has to offer, so we ate our fill for less than 10 dollars.

After lunch we walked around some more, and then went to walk through the campus of Sun Yat-sen University, which is the equivalent of Stanford University here. It is a beautiful campus, mostly built between 1905 and 1910, before the 1911 revolution. We took this chance to relax from the hustle and bustle of the market place.

Our last leg was to take the taxi boat from the university to the hostel. We got here around 6 pm and are now “taking an afternoon off”, washing clothes, watching TV, and computing with a glass of nanche-wine by the side. We deserve a few hours of R&R, because tomorrow we need to leave for Guilin at the crack of dawn.

Day 5 (July 31). The trip to Guangzhou

2010-07-31T21:18:00.000-07:00

As a well-oiled travel machine we were having breakfast at 6:30, boarding the city bus by 7:00, crossing the border at 7:30, and sitting comfortably in the bus to Guangzhou at 8 am (the latter with the help of Chi and his girlfriend, who kindly helped us to buy the tickets and find the right bus :)

Across the border from Macau is Zhuhai, a very pretty coastal city with a coastal drive that would be completely at home in Acapulco. Chi explained to us that this city was only 30 years old, and had been built as part of the special economic zone prepared to receive Hong Kong and Macau in 1996 and 1997.

We arrived to Guangzhou (aka Canton) around 10:30 am, and this time I had a chance to appreciate the vibrant modernism of this city. It reminds me of Los Angeles, with its freeways and skyscrapers. They are getting ready to host the 2010 Asia Games in November, so the city is in a fit of cleaning, repairing, and modernizing. The bus left us at the Landmark Hotel, and from there we took a taxi to our youth hostel. The taxi left us by the side of the Pearl River, in a street that seemed in the verge of being demolished. Apparently it had had a series of restaurants and night clubs, but everyone of them seemed now abandoned. We walked less than 200 meters when a mirage appeared in front of us. No, it couldn’t be. A big store front had the welcoming words “Youth Hostel” and the lobby looked like that of a hotel. Young travelers were scattered among comfortable sofas and a side desk with a couple of computers, while on the other side a friendly cafeteria was serving late breakfast or early lunch to a few more travelers. The front desk was attended by three young women who received us with a smile of recognition, as if we were old friends. Yes, they had our reservation, but alas, they were out of general dormitory beds, so instead they would lodge us in a two-bed room. We get to the room, and we find that not only we won’t have room mates, but the room has a TV, air conditioning, and its own bathroom! We have died and got to heaven :)

We spent an hour or so winding down, getting laundry done, and grabbing a bowl of noodles and wonton, but eventually we left the lap of luxury to go out into the world. At my suggestion we started with a trip to the zoo, which required us to learn to navigate the metro (piece of cake, we are getting to be pros at this). The zoo was a total success as far as people watching was concerned. The Cantonese are a happy, prosperous lot, who now how to amuse themselves with the family, and you would never guess their political regime is any different from ours. Gone are the times when everyone had to wear the same type of clothes, and now you see a fair mixture of tee shirts, hot pants, and designer clothes. We did frown at two things, however: people happily picking their nose in public (from guys to cute girls), and people tapping on the glass or mesh of the cages or throwing food at the animals (in spite of plenty of signs asking them not to).

From the standpoint of the animals I have to give this zoo a low mark. Unfortunately the wave of modernization has not reached far enough here, and many of the animals are housed in simple concrete boxes and bored to tears. I had to see the pandas, but it seems there is only one, and he was wedged somewhere between the lions and the monkeys. In my humble opinion, the zoo administration could reduce the number of animals in the collection so they could give them more space, and they could rearrange the collection so you could learn more about the animals of southeast Asia.

After the zoo we took the metro again, and stepped out at the riverside, intent on reaching a riverside park where my informant at the youth hostel had told me there were bikes for rental. It was in this leg of the trip that Luke learned some valuable lessons:

Make sure you know in which direction the metro is going! That means learning to read the metro maps, regardless of the language they are in.
Horacio has never been here before, so he really doesn’t know where he is going, or how far it is. He only looks like he knows.
Any “short distance” with Horacio could well turn out to be a death march. You should worry when you are using flip flops and he is wearing his hiking boots.

So we walked, and walked, and walked, came to the park, and found no bicycles for rent. Rats! Luke’s flip flops were looking the worst for wear, so we took a bus back to where we had started (another small triumph). I had spotted a restaurant at this end of the riverside avenue, so we decided to have dinner there (“we” is a euphemism here, because Luke has been “plugged” since we started, and he was considering skipping this meal).

We walk inside and of course everybody speaks Cantonese, so my cheerful “Ni hou” was received with giggles. Fortunately, a very professional-looking hostess kept her cool and with a smile brought us a picture menu, and one of her assistants set the table and brought us a pot of tea. So, I promptly served myself a cup of tea, which prompted another set of giggles. This people must have some sort of giggling disease. So, we order a plate of veggies, a plate of beef with veggies, a plate of squid with veggies, a Pepsi, and a beer. Looks of alarm as we are getting ready to take the fist swig from our respective drinks, but our hostess once again saved the day by bringing two glasses. Hmm, funny, the glasses are warm . . . then I look at a neighboring table and notice that the pot of tea was not meant to be a pot of tea, but an invitation to rinse the chopsticks, the cup, and the minuscule plate. Smiling at our hostess I signaled that I got the idea and started rinsing my chopsticks. With the exasperation of a mom dealing with a two year kid she firmly took the pot of tea from me, and demonstrated the whole rinsing procedure while everyone looked at us as if we were the village idiots. Live and learn!

Incidentally, Luke learned another valuable lesson:

When at the table, it is every man for himself, and if you are not fast Horacio may eat the whole thing.

You see, unlike what we are used to, where everyone takes into his or her plate the portion he/she intends to eat, thus establishing claim to a part of the feast, in China everyone eats directly from the serving plate, with no way to “reserve” the good pieces (this is why the plate you are given is minuscule, its only purpose being to give you a place to rest your chopsticks from time to time). So the faster you move your chopsticks, the more food you get (and I am pretty fast with chopsticks!)

We got back to the youth hostel at about 7:30 pm, with a full day behind us. But there was one more thing to do: About 50 paces from the hostel there is a peer, where a ferry moves people across the Pearl River, and where a boat makes a night cruise along the river. By 8:30 we were comfortably installed in the front of the boat, and off we went. It was fantabulous! Both sides of the river are lined with promenades, big buildings, and little buildings, and all of them are illuminated in one way or the other. So are the bridges and the boats that ply the waters of this vast river, so you get the impression to be inside an explosion of light and color. We thoroughly enjoyed the first leg of the trip, but on the way back tiredness took over, and we were quite content to stay inside the boat, dozing with the passing waves.

PS. I forgot to mention that the drab little street where the youth hostel is located turns into a veritable Xanadu when night falls. The “abandoned” restaurants and night clubs come to life, a kaleidoscope of lights illuminates the night, big cars with darkened windows disgorge glamorous women and new millionaires, and all manners of temptation lure the bypasser. Maybe this is why we saw so many hung over people in the living room of the youth hostel when we arrived. Don’t worry Sandy, I shall keep a close eye on Luke.

PS 2. I also forgot to mention that I have suffered a sad reminder of my approaching dead. We were in one of so many metro rides, when a young man sprung to his feet and offered me his seat. How funny, I thought, until I saw the looks of pity that he and his buddies casted my way. I had just been offered a seat as a senior citizen!

Day 4. Exploring Macau

2010-07-30T21:17:00.000-07:00

Only Day 4? Really? It seems we have been seeing so much that by now we should be in Day 10. Anyway, the day started very early. I woke shortly before 5 am to have the bathroom to myself (one bathroom for at least 16 lodgers), but shortly there after many of the other lodgers woke up so the place became a zoo. It turns out there is a rowing competition going on, and some of the rowers are staying here. Luke managed to get ready pretty early too, so by 6:30 am we were on the road.

First we took a walk around one of the fresh water “lakes”. Since this is a small island with no place to build a reservoir, the clever authorities simply built dikes in the harbor, pumped the salt water out, and filled the space with fresh water. This is now the freshwater supply of Macau, so they are very strict about not bathing, fishing, or other activities that could contaminate the water.

Walking, walking we ended in the temple of A-Ma, which is probably the oldest structure in the island. According to legend, a young woman dreamed that her two brothers and her father were in grave danger at sea, and in spirit went to help them. She managed to help her brothers, but was awaken before she could rescue her father and died of grief. For more than a thousand years the fishermen of the island have been praying to her for good luck, and thus the sanctuary has slowly grown bit by bit. Luke was quite fascinated by all the people praying, and by the incredible variety of offerings they bring (the most colorful are handfuls of ghost money, which are burnt in special furnaces to propitiate goo fortune.

We also found the Maritime Museum, but at 7:30 am was too early to visit it. So instead we had breakfast in a traditional eatery, with café con leche, tea, and noodles. Luke also ordered a small bottle of milk, which he judged “to sweet and rich” but happily chugged down.

We then decided to start using the bus system, at 50 cents of a dollar each ride, partly to save us from walking in the heat and partly as cheap sightseeing. By the end of the day we were quite adept at it.

Next stop was the façade of the Church of St. Paul, destroyed by a fire 100 years ago, and a delightful visit to the air-conditioned Macau Museum of history. A great little museum, housed in the Fortress on the Mountain. I was a bit baffled by the fact that this fortress, which was the main protection of Macau against pirates and invading fleets, is so far from the ocean (later, in the Maritime Museum, I learned that when the fortress was in use the beach was a lot closer than it is today, since the island has almost doubled in size by landfill). The Macau Museum had great displays on the history of the city, showing the parallel development as a Chinese city and a Portuguese city.

Another bus ride brought us back to the Maritime Museum, this time at a more civilized time. The displays included wonderful ship models, maps and models depicting the growth of the city, and all sorts of marine memorabilia. I was in heaven, since you may remember that one of my traveling quirks is a fascination with zoos and maritime collections.

Lunch was a very yummy plate of rice with black pepper duck. Sigh!

For the afternoon we visited the Grand Lisbon Hotel, with its remarkable display of art treasures, and tried to walk a bit through downtown, but it was just too hot. So instead we took yet another bus ride to the far end of the neighboring islands of Taipa and Coloane (which together with the “big” island form the Special Economic Zone of Macau). The end of the line is the beach of Hac Sa, where not only did we get our feet wet in the South China Sea, but where we found a super modern, super comfortable youth hostel. My Lonely Planet really screwed us up this time. They should have advised us to take bus 26A direct from the border crossing to the Hac Sa beach, for all of one dollar, book in this marvel of youth hostel, and then pay another dollar everytime we wanted to come to downtown Macau. I am definitely writing to the editors of Lonely Planet!

Day 3. The trip to Macau

2010-07-29T21:16:00.000-07:00

We woke very early in the morning, consolidated our packs (16 kg mine and 17 kg Luke’s), had breakfast, and said good-bye to Klaus. I am sorry I didn’t get to say goodbye to Yin Ru, but as I told her in a note good friends meet again sooner or later, so I look forward to our meeting again in Asia, Europe, or America!

The first metro past at 5:54 am, and the airport express metro passed at 6:15 am, so without problem we made it to the airport by 6:45 am. Check in was a breeze, and we finally boarded the Air China flight to Guangzhou at about 7:30 am. Once again I managed to fall asleep as soon as I sat down, woke up to have breakfast, and fell asleep again until the bump of the landing woke me up. Alas, poor Luke is not as lucky and had to hear me snore all the way.

Once in Guangzhou airport it was a matter of just a few minutes before we found the express bus to the China Hotel, from where the bus to Macau departed. As we approached the city it became clear to me that Guangzhou is an enormous city, and that we might have a bit of trouble jumping from one bus to the next. The bus left us half a block from the China Hotel, and from the distance it looked a bit too posh to serve as bus station (in fact, it is so posh that in the back it has a small but very well appointed bus station). The first couple of people we asked just shrugged their shoulders, and I was distractedly looking around while crossing the street. In a matter of a second my ankle gave way and I fell rather dramatically by the curb of a major street. Luke picked me up in a flash, but my ankle was badly twisted and I was hurting. A compassionate bystander came to our help, and directed us to the small bus station in the back of the hotel. By 1 pm we were comfortably installed in a luxury bus, two of five passengers, on the way to Macau.

The ride lasted something like two and a half hours, through very pretty agricultural country. A few quarries showed deeply weathered intrusive rocks, but in general the land was decked in the green of banana trees and other tropical crops.

The bus dropped us at the depot on the China side of the border, so it was very easy to walk into the Chinese immigration office, cross the courtyard, and walk into the Macau immigration office. It took us a few minutes filling forms and being scrutinized by immigration officials, but at the end we made our triumphal entrance into downtown Macau to exchange a few dollars into patacas, the currency of Macau.

Luke was a little worried I would want to walk all the way to our hostel, so to be compassionate I agreed on taking a bus. We would have gotten there faster walking, but the bus took us in a circuitous tour of the city, so we were able to look at the fancy casinos (Macau has been called the Vegas of the west, although on an income basis Vegas should be called the Macau of the east. Our lodgings (Augustus Lodge) turned out to be a small apartment on the third floor of an ancient building in downtown. It had been described as a charming small hostel, but there is very little charm in it. Still, it is in downtown, and the old city center of Macau has all the charm one would want.

By this time we were starving, so we walked a couple of blocks and entered a little eatery that was packed to the gills. We ordered a dish of ox tails on rice in a black been sauce, Portuguese rice with eel and crab eggs, and a broccoli stir-fry, and we ate like kings for under 10 dollars.

Happy and satisfied we went to walk through the old center, and visited the old house of a Chinese merchant, the Catholic cathedral (with mass being said in Portuguese), the ruins of the old Jesuite school and temple, and the fort that protected the city in colonial times. The small peninsula of Macau had been under Portuguese rule since the 16th century, and only got turned in to China in 1999, so the cultural mix between Portuguese and Chinese is pervasive, as shown in its cuisine, its bilingual character, and its boisterous population (the decibels are much larger in Macau than in Beijing!).

Tomorrow we have the whole day to explore the city, but for now a shower beckons.

Day 2. The Great Wall

2010-07-28T21:16:00.000-07:00

Since Yin Ru is with us, and navigating your way to the Great Wall is difficult, we decided to visit the 8th wonder of the ancient world today rather than toward the end of the trip. Now, the Great Wall extends from the Pacific to the Gobi Desert, over a distance of nearly 2,000 km, so when one goes to “see the Wall” it means you have chosen one of those 2,000 km for an outing that will take all day. The part that everyone sees is probably the closest to the urban area of Beijing, but we figured that we didn’t want to be lost among hordes of tourists, and chose an out of the way location known as Huanghua. It took us from 7:00 am to 11 am to get there (and Yin Ru had to made constant inquiries to make sure we took the right bus), first in metro to the long-distance bus terminal (no problem there, since the metro of Beijing works really well), a long-distance bus to the north of the urban area, and then a local bus that penetrates deep into the countryside to provide service to hamlets scattered across the green valleys and mountains. Huanghua is one of these hamlets, and its claims to fame are a reservoir and dam (the latter made with pieces from the Great Wall), a magnificent segment of the Great Wall running along the crest of mountains and dipping into the valleys, and a stubborn refusal to let the federal government take over the restoration and tourist management of their wall. The feds have answered by posting stern signs indicating this segment is closed, but the locals blow them off and encourage the rare visitor to go climb the wall.

So we did, starting about 11:00 am, a time when the sun is at its hottest. Yes, it was miserably hot and muggy, even if we never saw the sun due to the pervasive haze that was with us all day long. Klaus claims it is smog, but here in the country it cannot be anything but fog and haze caused by the very high humidity. We were all drenched in sweat for the day, but we got to see one of the better exponents of the Great Wall, and with no tourists! The architecture was magnificent, the slopes impossibly steep, and nature was luxuriant all around us. Luke was climbing around like a goat, while I huffed and puffed like the Big Bad Wolf. Georgina, you would have loved it; we must have climbed 3,000 stair steps, some of them at a 45 degree angle!

At the end, however, the heat and the humidity got to us all and we reluctantly went back down the mountain to seek our ride back. We had to wait for about 45 minutes, which we filled drinking beer/soda, and eating popscicles. By the time we had taken first the local bus, and then the long-distance bus back to the metro it was 5:30 pm (i.e., peak time for people and traffic).

So we entered the metro and were treated to what I have been reading so much about: A wave of humanity ebbing and flowing through corridors and platforms, like a pulsating amoeba. Maya, I wish you had been there to see us scrunch into a metro car, cheek to cheek and buttock to buttock, unable to move a millimeter in any direction. Hah! And people say the metro in Mexico City is crowded. You have not seen crowded until you try the Beijing metro at rush hour!

We finally made it home, to a cold shower and a big plate of chilled watermelon. Luke bailed out after that, assuring us that he needed more sleep than food, but Yin Ru, Klaus, and me still ventured out to have barbecued fish (super yummy, with peanuts, chives, and other green stuff), and an oven pot of pig intestines and slices of blood pudding. Yin Ru and I asked for the latter just to gross Klaus out, which we managed to do beautifully. Still, it was a very tasty dish, and we brought home some of it in case Luke gets hungry or Klaus changes his mind. Yeah, right!

Day 1. The trip (July 26 AND July 27)

2010-07-27T21:14:00.000-07:00

I met Luke at 4 am, ready for the trip. He had slept something like a couple of hours, a mixture of excitement and packing and repacking. His backpack is enormous! Chico and Sandy drove us to Sacramento airport, where we waited about four hours for the first leg of our trip, to Seattle. We got there without any problems, but again had to wait for another four hours before we could board the Hainan Airlines flight to Beijing.

The flight was long (11 hours) but uneventful. We were flying west, so of course we crossed the international dateline and stepped into the following day. The gentleman to my left was a Beijing lawyer, and gave me some pointers on how to get from the airport to downtown Beijing, using the airport shuttle. I of course slept like a log for most of the trip, but Luke was barely able to sleep, even though he had deprived himself of sleep the previous night.

Once at the Beijing airport we went through immigration with no problem, exchanged dollars into RMB (or yuan) at about 6.7 RMB per 1 dollar, picked up our backpacks, went through customs, and stepped into China. Luke decided that his backpack was too heavy, so we will have to do something about that when we get to Klaus. We duly asked about the shuttle, and were directed to the right bus without much trouble.

The shuttle brought us to downtown and for the first time I got that tingling through the spine that told me I was in a giant city where I could not understand a thing. Downtown Beijing has enormous buildings, many freeways, a fair amount of cars, and a goodly number of people. Ah, but if you look carefully there is the odd sign in English. I knew we had to get off in the third stop, and it was with some relief that I noticed Guandou bridge in one of the signs, since that was a landmark in my map. So we alighted from the bus, and in my best Mandarin I asked the directions for the next bridge. The young woman looked at me with some puzzlement, and then answered in very passable English that, yes, the direction I was pointing was correct, but why not use the metro? We were one station away from our destination, and Luke was still muttering about the weight of his backpack, so a metro ride was a solution sent from heaven.

We walked into the station and headed for the machines, where another very nice woman explained to us the way to get tickets, stood by patiently while our backpacks went through the x-ray machine (all hand bags, packages, and backpacks go through this), and practically walked us to our platform. One short ride and we were there. All we had to do now was find the apartment building, a block and a half away. So we walked, and Luke complained of the beginning stages of scoliosis, and I ignored him while I tried to ask for directions in Mandarin. Alas, the Chinese, like the rest of the people in the world, are not satisfied with a simple “yes” or “no”, but need to give me a whole, long, unintelligible explanation of why they cannot simply point me in the right direction.

Then I spotted a public phone, and thought about calling Klaus and Yin Ru. Ah, but to use the phone you need a phone card, and my attempts to buy one were fruitless. For example, a young woman looked at my charades in wonder, and asked me why didn’t I simply use my cell phone? Later I learned from Yin Ru that there must be only 100 public phones in all of Beijing, that she had never seen one being used, and that she had no idea where one would buy a phone card. OK, forget the idea of the phone, and get back to asking for directions.

Well, finally we got half the way there, and then I spotted in the distance a blond head. “Klaus, amigo!” Yes, it was Klaus and Yin Ru, who had had the good sense of coming down to the street, to try to spot our taxi cab (most sensible people would have taken a cab from the airport, wouldn’t they?) Big smiles and hugs followed, and our good friends showed us into their building and apartment (it turns out that Luke had guessed the right apartment building from the distance!).

After a delicious bath we went out to dinner, at a typical eatery. Yin Ru did all the ordering, in rapid fire Mandarin, and we ended with a small mountain of skewers with pork, some type of stir-fried turnips, calabacitas, stringy pseudo-bambus, and 1000-year-old egg. Luke by this time was eating by instruments, since he was dead tired. So we finished our yummy food and learned: always triple check the total, the pork skewers need to be paid separately to the guy that barbecued them outside the restaurant, and nobody has change for a 100 RMB bill! The latter is an important discovery, because all our fortune is in RMB’s.

We got home and Luke promptly crashed. It is very hot and muggy, but mercifully our room has air conditioning, so we will get a good night rest.

Day 15. Vámonos p’al Norte!

2010-07-25T21:13:00.000-07:00

Again, not much to report. We started north toward the border, together with my parents. Our excellent Silverio was at the wheel (he is my brother’s personal driver), and by 2:30 pm he brought us to the Laredo border crossing. The Rio Grande was at a much lower stage than when we saw it two weeks ago, but still in flood.

The border crossing was slow but uneventful. I hesitated for the fraction of a second when the customs officer asked if we were carrying any medicines. Should I tell her that my parents were carrying a small pharmacy with them? “No, officer”. So she waved us in and that was that.

After an early dinner at Denny’s (I love their senior menu), Silverio left us at the hotel and started on the long way home. Poor man, will probably not get back home until 9 pm.

My parents found that their favorite soap opera channel was available, so they settled in the room for the evening. Maya went to the gym, and I went to the bank. After all, I have another trip to fund next Monday! When I got back I went to the gym with Maya (need to start training for the bike trip in March to the Camino de Santiago, Spain), then we went swimming, and finally went to pick up cups of tea for my parents.

Tomorrow we will leave for California, so I think this will be the end of this blog. Stay in touch for the blog of the trip to China that Luke and I will start on Monday! =)

Day 14. Monterrey, Ciudad de las Montañas

2010-07-24T21:09:00.000-07:00

Since there is not much to do in Monclova, Maya and I borrowed a car and drove a couple of hours to Monterrey, the City of Mountains. The title comes from the tall mountains that rim the basin, which are formed by enormous folds of a Cretaceous limestone sequence. My idea is that we could hike around in the mountains, glimpsing at the city below. Unfortunately Monterrey suffered quite a bit during hurricane Alex, which brought unusually heavy precipitation to the area, causing the dry washes to turn into roaring rivers. This happens from time to time in desert environments, but the times in between are so large that people become complacent and start using the washes for sports fields, temporary markets, and even camping areas. Well, all that is gone!

Our first stop was in a place called La Huasteca, a favorite pic-nic place for the people of Monterrey. Here a canyon cuts through steeply dipping limestone beds that have been eroded into obelisks that jut for a few hundred meters into the air. Normally one walks through the wash, but there was still a good size river running through it, so we had to limit ourselves to contemplate the cliffs from the distance. The two bridges that normally cross the dry creek bed had been washed away, but the road crews had already built two temporary berms to cross, so we got pretty far into the canyon.

Our next stop was the trendy neighborhood called San Pedro, where I treated Maya to a piece of heaven by taking her to lunch at Wendy´s. She has been an absolute trooper at eating all sorts of Mexican food, but she had a yearning for American food and was happy as a clam eating a chicken sandwich and fries drowned in ketchup :)

My Plan B was to go walking in Chipinque, a relatively cool forest high up one of the mountains that overlook Monterrey. The road up is steep, and had all sorts of small landslides and potholes eroded by running water, but was still passable. Unfortunately once we got to the entrance station of the park we had to turn around. Sorry, but storm damage was intense, and they were in the process of removing debris and making repairs. Rats!

So we went to downtown, stared at the damage done by the Santa Catarina river to the two freeways that run along its banks, and settled for a walk around the macroplaza and the shopping district. Maya chided me for having her dress for hiking when the most strenuous thing we did was go up a flight of stairs. How was I supposed to know?

So, it was a lot of driving for very little excitement. Oh well, in every life a little rain shall fall (or in the case of Monterrey, a lot of rain shall fall).

Day 13. Monclova

2010-07-23T21:12:00.000-07:00

Not much to report. We had a slow morning running errands, such as visits to the pharmacy, the bookstore, and the supermarket.

In the afternoon we went to visit my brother Armando and my sister-in-law Mimi. Armando was not there, but his grandson Angelito was, so we took the lid off the small swimming pool and splashed for the rest of the afternoon. Armando eventually got home and promptly got into the pool. It was a lovely afternoon, with a refreshing breeze to counter the brutal heat of Monclova.

Day 12. Saltillo to Monclova

2010-07-22T18:34:00.000-07:00

The day evolved slowly. I woke up early to surf the internet to plan the trips of next year (Egypt and Spain, I think), but the rest of the family did not surface until past 9 am. After breakfast my cousin Carlos took Maya and me to the Museum of the Desert, one of the not-to-miss sights in Saltillo. It has all sorts of interesting things about the desert, but is better known for its displays of dinosaurs. As it turns out very few fossils have been found of Triassic and Jurassic dinos, but in the Cretaceous a shallow sea embayment formed in what is now the state of Coahuila, and its shores provided the perfect environment for the activities of dinosaurs, and for their preservation as fossils once they died. The museum is not only a showcase, but includes a team of paleontologists that search, dig for, and investigate these fossils.

The museum also has a small collection of black bears (still roaming around in the mountains of Coahuila), coyotes, and Mexican wolves. The latter are pretty much extinct (the result of a systematic campaign of extermination by US and Mexican cattlemen, who in the 1950’s to1970’s used poison in out-of-the-way water ponds), with only three populations left in captivity. The museum is part of an effort to expand the captive populations with the hope of reintroducing these animals in some protected areas.

Afterward we came back to another fine meal (Pescado a laVeracruzana), and very, very slowly prepared for the trip to Monclova. My aunt and uncle wanted to drive us to my parents’ home, both to make life easy for us and to visit my parents. My aunt let the cat out of the bag when she told me that she wanted to see how my Mom was doing. “What happened?” “Oh, she fell and broke her nose.” “What?!!” Yes, my poor Mom had slipped forward while fiddling with her walker, and had hit herself against a sharp edge and broken her nose. Falling down is, alas, a common occurrence, but this is the first time that she has not been able to do the ninja roll, so she was hurting. Pobrecita!

So we started kind of late (maybe 4 pm), and then we found out that the first third of the highway was closed for repairs of the damage caused by the heavy rainfall of storm Alex, so we had to do a big detour through the old highway and that took forever. My cousin Carlos was driving, and he has a pretty heavy foot, but it was not until 6:30 pm that we got to Monclova. By this time my aunt had covered the whole recent history of the family, and Maya’s head was spinning, so it was with relief that we pulled in front of my parents’ house. Wow, my Mom looked like she had been in a boxing match! She fell 8 days ago, so the swelling and the pain were all gone, but she still looked like a mean street fighter.

A few minutes later my other cousin arrived. His name is Jorge and he moved to Monclova seven years ago to work with my brother in the steel mill. Five years ago he married Yvonne, and they now have two children, and a house in the process of construction that is almost90% ready. He wanted to take his parents to see the new house, so of course we all went to see it. It is in the outskirts of Monclova and it is huge! The lot must be as big as mine, but the house is very large (actually, it is a three bedroom house, but everything is large in it). Jorge was so excited talking about his new house, which they have built little by little as money became available, that it was hard not to be carried along by his excitement.

We ended the day—a very long day—with supper at a local restaurant, where I did my best to gross Maya out by ordering the head of a baby goat. Mmm . . . tacos de ojo, sesos, y lengua!

Day 11. Saltillo

2010-07-22T18:21:00.000-07:00

I tossed and turned in a restless, shallow sleep, and woke with a start, drenched in sweat. I had done the same for the last eight hours, concerned that we would miss our stop. Normally the driver announces on a deep baritone the name of the town where the bus is stopping, but this particular driver was in a grumpy mood and the passengers had to fend for themselves. No, not yet, we were in Matehuala this time, and I had to face another three or four hours on the overheated bus. Rats!

Finally the torture came to an end, and at 5:45 am we stood, blinking like owls, in the platform of the city of Saltillo. It was too early to call my aunt and uncle, so we decided to take a taxi. A nice old gentleman was behind the wheel, but try as he might, he could not remember where the street Davila Fuentes was. Hmm . . . OK, I started describing to him the way, but he said there was no street of that name there. He had driven through Saltillo for 30 years, and he knew every street. There was no Davila Fuentes street on that part of town. Reluctantly he followed my instructions, shaking his head. I was confident because I have gotten lost many times going there, and finally my uncle impressed on me that I had to go up from downtown—on this street whose name I couldn’t remember—until I got to the Oxxo (a type of 7-Eleven), and then make a turn left. So we get to the Oxxo and turn left, and I say in triumph “This is the street”. The man turned to me with some resentment and said “You didn’t tell me you wanted the street Zapateros”. I asked my aunt a little later and indeed, the street had been called at some time Zapateros, but the name had been changed nearly 10 years ago. It just happened that my worthy cabby had not had a fare to this street in more than 10 years!

OK, it is 6:15 am, and enter the family Ramos Suarez: My uncle Bernardo is in his mid 70’s, as is my aunt Prieta (this is not her name, but a moniker she got as a kid because she was very dark skinned). My uncle is a retired doctor, and a very jolly soul. My aunt is the most divine cook and loves to talk. They have four children, all of them grown up. The older is Bernardo, who is married to Rocio; then comes Liz married to ????; Jorge married to ????; and Carlos. Because Carlos is not married he lives with his parents, and will only leave when either he gets married, or when his job forces him to leave town. Maya was blown out of the water by this Mexican custom, since Carlos is 37 years old (she is chomping at the bit to go out to college shortly before she turns 19). Like all good Mexican families they all like to be together, and very often come to enjoy Mom’s fabulous cooking. They are the most kind and generous family you can imagine, and they received us with open arms.

We started with a badly needed shower, which Maya followed with a four hour nap. I used the post-shower time to catch up on family gossip, and to go downtown with my uncle to buy some books. On the way back we picked up Maya and went to visit the Museum of the Teaching Profession (a big to do because my Saltillo family includes some very prominent educators, one of whom is featured in the museum). It was kind of funny because the house where the museum is located was the house of an aunt of my uncle, so he kept expanding on the explanations given by our guide, telling her stories about the fountain, the chimney, or the banister of the grand staircase. We also went for a walk in the Alameda, the favorite Sunday walk of old residents of the city.

Back home we sat down to a fabulous meal of Arroz con Pollo and Albondigon, and immediately after left with Bernardo Jr. for a tour of both the old city (the Ojo de Agua where the city was founded, the mirador with a great view of the city, the cathedral, etc.), and the new city (an immense area to the north of downtown with many modern residential developments, malls, and commercial areas). I had no idea Saltillo had grown so much and was such a vibrant city. It has a very good climate (particularly when compared to Monterrey 75 km to the north), and has attracted lots of industry, so level of employment is good and its economy is thriving. At the end of the tour we picked up Rocio from her work, and went back to a yummy supper of taquitos and tamales.

Sadly all this good food made me think that as soon as the summer travel is over I need to put myself on a severe diet. Sigh.

Day 10. More of Guanajuato

2010-07-22T18:20:00.000-07:00

We decided to be our own tour guides, and since our hotel was near theValenciana Mine we started by visiting this small mining community(the silver mines here have been active for more than 400 years, and 5years ago were bought by a Canadian company that believes there is alot more ore in them). First we had to visit the church, which is ajewel of 18th century architecture. The three retablos (the wallsbehind the altars) are covered in gold leaf, and survived the war ofindependence (1810-1821) and the revolutionary war (1910-1917) thanksto the fact that they were covered in coarse plaster, thus hiding themfrom the greed of the fighting factions.

We also visited a rock and mineral shop, where they had a beautifulspecimen of the host rock, criss-crossed by veinlets with ore.Unfortunately the shop owner was convinced that the shiny stuff wassilver, and he asked an astronomic price for the specimen. So mystudents do not get a sample from Guanajuato for the ore deposits lab;pobrecitos!

Next we went a hundred meters into the mine, guided by an old miner.He was fabulous! Full of old stories about his time as an apprentice,and how he slowly worked his way to master. We saw different models ofthe mining operations, mannequins demonstrating mining techniquesthrough the ages, and old pieces of equipment. Our miner had workedwith a couple of those pieces of equipment, so he could tell firsthand how hard it was to work with the percussion equipment, firing thedynamite, and even having to carry the bodies of comrades who hadperished in a misfire. Since we were interested and posing manyquestions he talked at length, and went out of his way to demonstratethe darkness in which he had worked, and the different types of ore.We spent well over an hour in the tour, and when we came out hisbuddies asked why he had taken twice as long as normal. What can Isay, we were wonderful company 

Afterward we took a ride along the panoramic roadway that runs alongthe outer edge of the city, twisting around the deep gorges, andgiving breathtaking scenic looks of the city when crossing the ridges.

Our final destination was the gardens of the Hotel Mision Guanajuato(actually, the hotel leases the land from the state Direccion deIntegracion Familiar—DIF—so the gardens are truly the DIF gardens, butnobody would recognize them by that name). They cover about 4 acresand are simply fabulous! Maybe not as luscious as the Jardin Borda inCuernavaca, but deigned with exquisite taste, and lovingly tended by asmall army of gardeners. Don’t miss them if you ever go to Guanajuato.

We had dinner in the hotel, and it was a special occasion becauseafter the good meal it came time to say goodbye to our good friendsGeorgina and Raul. They were magnificent hosts, very congenialtraveling companions, and the sweetest couple you could imagine. Mayaand I commented that it was clear that after 34 years of marriage theyremained deeply in love, and their solicitude for each other hadpermeated the trip to that point. They had also grown quite fond ofMaya, whom they introduced as their niece, and in parting invited herto come visit anytime. We will certainly miss them, and to make thegoodbye more palatable have made a plan to go biking together alongthe Camino de Santiago, in Spain, in the last two weeks of March.Looking forward to that trip!

Maya and I used the afternoon to visit the Alhondiga de Granaditas(museum closed), the Mercado Hidalgo, the Museum of Don Quijote, andthe Presa de la Olla. We walked, and walked, and walked, but by 8:45pm we were in the bus station, ready to board the bus that will takeus to our next stop: Saltillo.

Day 9. La Tzararacua y Guanajuato

2010-07-22T18:11:00.000-07:00

We figured that the best part of the morning would be taken with thetrip from Uruapan to Guanajuato, but eager to extract the most of thetrip decided to make a short detour to visit the waterfall of LaTazararacua, about 10 km south of Uruapan. It turns out that this partof Michoacan has very steep topography, and the Tzararacua is at thebottom of a very, very deep canyon, so of course there were many, manysteps to get down.

Once we got down, however, we were thunderstruck by the beauty of theplace. The Rio Cupatitizio forms the bulk of the waterfall in terms ofdischarge (and it has been raining a lot lately), but what is reallyunique is that the cliff has “exposed” the water table near thecontact of two lava flows, so the whole water is springing along thewhole wall, creating a curtain of falling water. (I have seen the samephenomenon only once before, at the Burney-MacArthur Falls in NorthernCalifornia).

La Chiva Loca (aka as Mayita) decided to jump on a zip line thatrushes down the roiling waters. If her mother could see where herdaughter has been not only would she not be able to sleep at night,but she would also stop talking to me! Maya’s lead was followed byRaul, who was beaming with excitement after the swift ride. Alas,Georgina and I thought that they were nuts and remained with our feetplanted firmly on the ground.

The ride to Guanajuato was swift, along excellent toll roads, exceptfor the crossing through Morelia, which had a lot of traffic. We gotto Guanajuato sometime around 4 pm, so after dropping our things atthe hotel made a beeline for downtown, where we had a delicious dinnerunder the shade of the trees of the Parque Union. Later we took astroll around the callejones (very narrow footpaths in between housesand buildings that seemed to have been tossed helter skelter on thesteep slopes of the canyon where Guanajuato was built) to see theCathedral and the University.

Guanajuato was one of the earliest silver mining districts developedby the Spaniards in the sixteenth century, so it retains a very strongSpanish flavor. I believe it is my favorite Mexican city, full ofcreepy legends and romantic traditions. One of these traditions wasestablished by students in the seventeenth century. A Tuna, or studentmusic group, would go singing to the streets to earn a little moneysinging in plazas, or they would bring serenades to the girlfriends offellow students for a few coins. From there to flirting with everypretty girl in town was but a step, and now they adorn their 17thcentury garb with capes with ribbons of many colors, each given by agirl who showed some favor to the young man.

Naturally we wanted Maya to see this old tradition, so we joined aTuna as it ambled through the city, “callejoneando” until quite lateat night. They did a good deal of songs, and Georgina and Raul joinedin every one of them. Wow, they seem to know all songs ever written!It was a very romantic stroll through the town!

Day 8. Paricutín

2010-07-16T18:09:00.000-07:00

The streets of Uruapan were barely waking up and we were already on our way to San Juan Nuevo, where reportedly you can find the best traditional breakfast of corundas (a type of round tamal wrapped in green corn leaves) and churipo (a beef broth with big chunks of beef and cabbage). Yes, all we had heard was true. You can order corundas preparadas, like Maya did, which come 5 to a plate and are served with crema y queso. Or you can order churipo, like I did, and then dunk your corundas in the broth. Add a café de olla to the mix, and you have indeed a delicious breakfast.

And we needed a nutritious breakfast, because come hell or high water we were intent on reaching Paricutín. For those of you who haven’t heard, Paricutín is the only volcano that we have seen being born. It started as a crack in the ground of the corn field of Dionisio Pulido, sometime in 1944. Mr. Pulido heard rumbling noises coming out of the crack, and a few hours later a dark cloud of scoria and steam started issuing out of the fissure. He promptly notified the municipal authorities about the phenomenon, and a couple of days later geologist Ezequiel Ordoňez arrived onsite, and started documenting the growth of the new volcano. The volcano grew up to its final height of 300 meters in a few months, but volcanic activity continued for another three years in the form of parasitic cones and lava flows. One of them finally reached the town of San Juan Parangaricutiro, surrounded it, and finally destroyed it in 1947.

Of course, Raul and I had to see this geologic wonder, and we had been told that from San Juan Nuevo (now you understand why we have a town called new San Juan) one could probably rent horses or hire a truck to take us there. Ah, but they had not taken into account that we were traveling in a Jeep SUV, so Raul asked for directions and there we went!

The road was from passable to miserable, but our brave steed never faltered, and after an hour of feeling we had been caught in a clothes washer we arrived to the mal pais formed by the lava flow. We turned a bend and there they were, Paricutín in the distance, and the tower ofthe church of San Juan Parangaricutiro as the only indication of the former location of the town. It was very sobering to climb over the jagged rocks of the lava flow into the remnants of the church. Significantly for the locals, the lava never touched the altar’s backwall, so there are still many offerings of flowers and prayers on it.

As we were coming back from the engulfed church, we fell in conversation with one of the locals, who assured us we could get to the foot of the volcano itself by going back and taking a different road. So we did, and the new road proved to be sometimes miserable, sometimes nearly impassable. Still, we finally got close to the foot of the volcano, and without vacillation we started the climb. I was quite surprised to see a lot of fumaroles. The volcano was now over 65years old, and I would have thought that infiltrating rainfall would by now have cooled the rocks completely. Comes to show that rocks are very poor heat conductors.

Maya, who is a "chiva loca", headed straight up to the zone of the fumaroles. If her mother knew of the cliffs that girl climbed she would not be able to sleep for worry! So of course I had to go after her, while Georgina and Raul took the more sensible way around. We kept going past the fumaroles field, straight up the volcano. The slope must had been a good 60 degrees, steep as steep can be, and covered by jagged bombs the size of baseballs to basketballs. The rock fragments were very loose, so for every three steps we took we went back one (Georgina later told us that in the route they took they went back one step for every one they took).

We finally made it to the top, and the view was glorious! The crater is elongated, deep, and has very steep walls. Add to that the fumaroles and the unreal swirling of clouds around us, and you could well imagine you were looking into the maul of Hell. This time we were very lucky, and when we did the circuit around the crater we had clear views of the lava fields surrounding us. Way, way far out there we could see the tower engulfed by the lava.

Georgina and Raul caught up with us as we ended out circuit of the crater, and we all stood there speechless, but happy to have accomplished such an adventure. Georgina swears that she will never do such a crazy climb again, but I am beginning to convince her that next time we have to climb the Pico de Orizaba!

One last, sad, note, about Paricutín. Dionisio Pulido, the owner of the corn field where Paricutín grew became very famous, as his name appears in almost every Introductory Geology book. However, fame does not bring bread to the table, and the poor man spent years asking the government for compensation for his lost field. Alas, the growth of the volcano was considered an Act of God, and the government refused to compensate him. Finally, after a frustrating ten years Dionisio Pulido decided to put the volcano for sale, and placed announcements to that effect in El Excelsior, one of the daily newspapers of Mexico City. As far as I know nobody took the offer (pity, I would have certainly jumped at the chance of having my own volcano :)

Day 7. Janitzio

2010-07-15T18:04:00.000-07:00

Like brave little tourists we woke up early, had a breakfast of café con leche and pan dulce, and went for a walk through Morelia’s downtown. An area of 10 blocks around the cathedral has been declared a World Heritage site, and indeed every street is full of colonial charm. Now and then we got a glimpse of a private residence, stark on the outside, but having an inner core of gardens and flowers. We visited the School of Music (very nice), and the old convent of the Carmelites, which has been renovated and now functions as a Community Center. The structure is enormous and very beautiful, but the best part was to see so many people involved in aerobics, guitar lessons, salsa lessons, tai chi, choirs, etc. It is indeed a space devoted to culture and recreation.

Back in the car we headed for the Lago de Patzcuaro, a lake renowned for its celebration of the Dia de Los Muertos. As we approached, from the distance you could see a steep hill covered with houses, like a small Mont St. Michel. It was the island of Janitzio, which sits in the middle of the lake. We promptly decided to go there, took seats in a long boat that was ready to depart, and . . . and right behind us a band got unto the somewhat crowded boat. No sooner had we cast off than the band started to play, and soon the boat was a floating dancing party.

We approached the island and out came to greet us a small flotilla of fishermen, in their traditional boats, which at the distance seem to have ethereal wings. The wings are the nets, which are fitted to a big hoop. The fisherman skims this hoop through the water, and the whitefish, who likes to swim very shallow, gets scooped out of the water. Pretty clever.

Once we landed we came into a market scene, with each house having handcrafts for sale. We were also facing a long climb to the top, through meandering narrow “streets” full of stairs. Huff and puff, huff and puff, we finally made it to the top to enjoy the magnificent view of the lake and the emerald fields surrounding it. This is volcanic terrain, so dotting the landscape were the profiles of volcanoes, great and small, randomly spread across the land. Maya andRaul had the energy to climb the 70 steps inside the giant statue of Morelos that crowns the island, while Georgina and I enjoyed ourselves watching the Viejitos execute many of their crazy dances. The Viejitos are dancers who are dressed like old men, and normally start each dance stressing the tottering walk of old men, just to gain energy and speed as they dance, clacking their wood-soled huaraches to create their own version of tap dancing. I was sorry Maya had not seen the dance, but after they got down we had the good fortune that another group of Viejitos started their own performance. It was particularly cute because the oldest Viejito must had been no more than 5 years old.

We ate in Janitizio, in a restaurant overlooking the lake. Naturally Raul and I had to taste the local moonshine, called charanda. It is a type of rum, very pleasant to the taste. I had the local fish, Maya had chicken, Georgina had enchiladas, and Raul had carne asada. It was pretty good!

Back across the lake, we drove through the small town of Patzcuaro (very quaint), and by 7 pm we were arriving into Uruapan, which will be our center of operations for the next couple of days. Uruapan is not particular as a town, but is the port of entry to many natural beauties.

Day 6. Nevado de Toluca

2010-07-14T17:58:00.000-07:00

We left the house at the wee hours of the morning, intent on missing the morning traffic of Mexico City. It worked like a charm, and by 7:30 am we were crossing Toluca, headed for the volcano that towers over the city. This is the most accessible of the chain of active volcanoes that crosses Mexico from east to west: Colima in the west, then Nevado de Toluca (or Xinantecatl), Popocatepetl, La Malinche, and Pico de Orizaba (or Citlaltepetel) in the east. We stopped around 8:30 in a little restaurant at the foot of the volcano to have breakfast (and to see Mexico score three goals in the first half of the World Cup of Womens Soccer), and then started the drive up the mountain.

When we got to the 4,000 m elevation (about 12,000 ft), we found the road closed. The guard explained that access to the crater lakes had been barred two years ago, because of the litter problem caused by the visitors. The option was to walk the last 6 km down the road, or to take the 2 km shortcut over the rim. Naturally, we chose the shortcut, and 45 minutes later were standing on the rim, panting because of the exertion at high altitudes.

At our feet extended the broad depression of the caldera, or somma, formed 40,000 years ago when the volcano had its last big eruption. The jagged edge of the peaks that form the rim look, from the distance, like the crest of a crown, in the middle of which seat, like jewels, two lagoons. One is of the deepest blue, whereas the other appears to be made of turquoise. It is a good thing I have seen this landscape before, because I was able to describe it great detail to Georgina and Raul, who, alas, couldn’t see a thing because the fog was so thick you could barely see 10 feet ahead of you (see the description of Aso Caldera, in my Japan blog, for a similar event). Well, Maya insisted we had to go down, because she was not going to come all this way and not see the lagoons, so down we went (Georgina and Raul, clever people they are, decided that this was far enough for them and they would go back to the car). It was a precipitous way down, but all of a sudden the ground leveled off and we almost fell in the water of the Lagoon of the Moon. Well, we walked around a bit, took pictures of the fog, and then started on our way back.

Ah, what cruel blow faith had in store for us, because for once my legendary sense of direction failed (I blame the fog), and after scrambling up the hill for some time we came abruptly to a road. A road? We had crossed no stinking road on the way back. I promptly figured out that this was the road that had been barred, so all we had to do was follow it and it would take us back to the car. Left or right? Oh, I was pretty sure it was to the right, so Maya and I took off at a good clip, and half an hour later almost fell in the Lagoon of the Sun. Rats, I had done it again! In compensation the fog lifted briefly at that moment, and we had a nice view of the lagoon, which extended all around us!

So we went back on our tracks, and Maya set a killer pace, but 6 kms a lot of kilometers, so it took us a good hour and a half to get back. On the positive side, the fog lifted at this moment, and we had some magnificent views of the Valley of Toluca below. We were tired when we got back, and much to my surprise we found no Georgina nor Raul. I asked around and nobody remembered seeing them, so I started to worry, thinking that perhaps they had followed us into the crater and gotten lost. A gentleman there had a cell phone, so I tried calling Raul but got no answer. I was already in negotiations with the guard to see if he would take me in his truck to look for them when Raul called back! They had climbed for a second time to the rim to see if they could see us (no chance with the fog, really, but they were also worried because of our long absence). Ten minutes later we were reunited, and laughing at our misfortunes, drove down from Xinantecatl.

We then took a two or three hour ride through the Mexican countryside, heading west. It was so beautiful. This is the rainy season, so the fields are looking green and are being lovingly tended by farmers. Even the cacti and magueys were looking great. There are hundreds of small dams and lakes, all brimming with water. It will be a good year.

We got to Morelia sometime around 6 pm, and after a couple of false turns we finally made it to our hotel. After briefly freshening ourselves up, we went out to be tourists, following the old rule that tourism must hurt. Actually, it didn’t. We crossed through the Candy Market (Morelia is famous by the variety and tastiness of its candies), walked along beautiful colonial buildings, and finally came into the main square. We were wondering what to do next, when I spied a city tour bus. Perfect! We bought our tickets, and for the next 90 minutes enjoyed a guided tour full of stories and lovely sights. While on the tour it got dark, and we were able to admire the beautiful illumination of temples and colonial palaces around the city. They have truly done a good job highlighting the beauty of its colonial architecture.

We ended the very long day with hot chocolate/coffee and “pastel de tres leches” under the arches of the main plaza. Maya thought the young waiter was cute, and made goo-goo eyes to him, upon which the quality of service got erratic but the coffee got much better. =)

Mexico - Day 5. Chapultepec

2010-07-13T10:42:00.000-07:00

We caught a ride with Raul, who had to go to the west part of the city, and landed at the Museum of Anthropology by 9:30 am. Maya was feeling much better, and was no doubt happy we had not taken the metro.

The Museum (yes, with a capital M) is one of the best in the world, and in its first floor houses the most amazing collection of Mesoamerican artifacts, beautifully displayed in thematic halls. In addition, there are detailed models of all famous sites, and full-size replicas of some pyramid decorations, burials and tombs, and inside chambers selected for their exquisite decorations. Maya went nuts taking pictures “for Uri”, but I am not sure what the intention was here. I believe it is because Uri, who is studying archaeology, is sure to turn green with envy. She also played a game of hide and seek with two younger girls, who broke into giggles every time they talked to her.

After we finished browsing through the first floor we had lunch, and thus fortified, we climbed the steps to the second floor, where the vast ethnographic collection of the museum is on display. This collection documents the mores, costumes, work, festivals, and handcrafts of modern Mexican Indian tribes. It is a wonderful reminder of the rich cultural traditions of the native people of Mexico, even though it becomes clear that their numbers are dwindling and their lifestyles are being diluted by modern culture.

After we finished I had to stop at the museum shop, where I found the perfect missing piece for my collection: A vessel with lid in the thin-orange tradition of Teotihuacan. So I bought it and now will have to be carting it around for the rest of the trip (as my mother would put it, “ahora tengo que andar cuidando la loza”.

Since we still had some time, we crossed Reforma and took a walk around “El Lago”. I told Maya that I used to play hookie here when I was in middle school. We then turned into the main touristic pedestrian path and walked all the way to the zoo. Of course we had to visit the zoo!

The zoo is very well maintained by the city, is free, and is a great place to look at both animals and people having fun. Maya had a field day taking photographs of all the animals, elbowing her way to the front of the line. She made a friend with a little girl who pinched her gently in the leg, and then turned to give her a big smile. This young woman sure is a magnet for little girls!

Just as we were getting out of the zoo Raul called to see if he could pick us up on his way from work, so we also had a very comfy ride back home. When we got home we were starved, so it was a good thing that Georgina had dinner ready. She made a very yummy chicken soup with veggies, and “pollo en pipian” (chicken in a green mole sauce). Muy sabroso!

Tomorrow we start on a tour that will take us to Morelia, Uruapan, Guanajuato, and Aguascalientes, so I am not sure I will be able to keep up with daily entries. Not to worry, sooner or later I will get access to the internet.

Mexico - Day 4. La ciudad de los palacios

2010-07-12T10:35:00.000-07:00

Today Maya and I are on our own. Raul dropped us off at the metro station, and 20 minutes later we were in the zocalo (Central Square). Unfortunately there was a picket of some type or another, with many tents, so we couldn’t truly appreciate the vastness of the space, nor the mosaic it makes with the Cathedral on one side, and the Palace of Federal Government on another. We walked to the corner of the plaza where the remains of the Templo Mayor of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, was located. Unfortunately the museum was closed.

We then went into the Cathedral, built between 1570 and 1750. It is an enormous building, but to my taste it is too cold and gloomy. We did have a bit of fun taking the bell tower tour, because they take you tothe roof of the main nave, and from there the bell man jabbers away about the age and weight of every one of the bells. One of them, a counterweight bell that is played by making it turn on its axis, hit one of the bellmen sometime in the 1950’s, so the church punished it by taking off its pendulum. However, 2000 was a year of indulgence, when all sins are forgiven, so the bell was pardoned and now flies with all its buddies in major celebrations, such as Christmas and the Day of Independence.

From there we walked down Tacuba, admiring the different colonial palaces. They are now known by their current use, but in the past they were the houses of Spanish noblemen. We saw the Palace of the School of Mines, the Department of Communications, the Central Post, and thePalacio de los Azulejos (so named because of the blue tile that gracefully adorns both interior and exterior). Buildings like these gave Mexico its name of the City of Palaces (la Ciudad de los Palacios).

Then we walked past the Palace of Fine Arts, built in the late 1800’s or early 1900’s, and cut across Central Park (La Alameda) before heading back to the metro.

The close quarters of the metro freaked Mayita out, and she started to feel not so well. Actually, I suspect that she had had a bit of an upset stomach since the morning, and the heat and the crush just brought it to a head. She was a trooper, though, and did her best to enjoy the ride in trajinera through the canals of Xochimilco.

Let me backtrack a little. When Cortez arrived in Mexico Tenochtitlan, he found a magnificent city on an isle at the edge of a large lake. The city was connected to the mainland through causeways, and a myriad of flat-bottom boats (piraguas) plied the water of the lake moving people and goods back and forth between the city and the main land. Much of the food supply of the city was grown in floating rafts covered with dirt. Well, Xochimilco is what is left of those rafts of floating agriculture (chinampas), and over the years has become a favorite weekend treat to go board a decorated flat-bottom boat (a trajinera), meander through the canals, buy food from floating kitchens mounted on piraguas, and listen to the music of bands of mariachis or marimbas also afloat. It is a veritable Venice of the New World.

They were filming an episode of the soap opera “La Loba”, so we got to see actors all dressed up for a wedding, camera crews, and a few extra bands and “tourists”, all afloat their respective trajineras. Fun.

From Xochimilco we went straight to the house, and Maya made a beeline for her room, and fell asleep for the rest of the afternoon and evening. I hope a mild fast, lots of sleep, and her youthful resilience will conquer by tomorrow.

Mexico - Day 3. Teotihuacan and Coyoacan

2010-07-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

Today is Sunday, so we decided to do a long outing to Teotihuacan, the Place Where the Gods Were Born. Before I tell you about this giant city of antiquity, let me set a chronologic framework for the cultural development of ancient Mexico:

1500 to 500 BC – The Formative. Small independent communities.
500 BC to 200 AD – The Preclassic. The Olmecs.
200-750 AD – The Classic. Teotihuacan in the Altiplano. The Classic Mayas in Guatemala, Honduras, and Chiapas.
750-1250 AD – The Postclassic. Caltonac and Tula in the Altiplano. The Postclassic Maya in the Yucatan Peninsula.
1250-1521 AD – The Aztec.
1521-1810 AD – The Spanish Colony
1810-1821 AD – The War of Independence
1868-1872 AD – Maximilian’s Empire
1910-1917 AD – The Revolutionary War

OK, so please note that the Aztecs are very late coming into the central Altiplano, and that by that time Teotihuacan had long been abandoned. Imagine the amazement of the Aztecs as they contemplated the giant pyramids, the empty causeways, and the abandoned palaces. This is why they thought that this is where the Gods had been born, and why they gave this abandoned city the name Teotihuacan. We don’t know what the original inhabitants of the city called themselves, but we do know that they built an enormous commercial empire that controlled the flow of merchandise from the Altiplano, down the Gulf Coast, and into the Mayan sites of Central America. We also do not know why they abruptly disappeared in 750 AD, leaving behind their city and dispersing to partner sites such as Caltonac and Tula.

You can probably tell that this is one of my favorite archaeologic sites, and I was quite eager to show it to Maya, Georgina, and Raul. We got there around 11 am, and made a bee line for the Pyramid of the Sun, reasoning that we might as well make the toughest climb while the day was still cool (actually, we had perfect cloudy weather throughout the day).

The Pyramid of the Sun is a good 100 m high and was built in stages, adding one layer after another over a period of 200 years. Like the pyramids of Egypt it is one of the earliest structures erected by the Teotihuacanos. Unfortunately we cannot be quite certain that its current aspect is the original one, because when it was reconstructed in the early 1900’s there was much guesswork on the part of the archaeologist. When we got to the top, huffing and puffing, we found a group of sun worshipers praying the sun under the direction of a native woman (we found another two groups doing the same in different portions of the site). It was interesting to hear the gibberish, imagining it was Nauhatl, but she broke the enchantment when she spoke of Chilaam Balaam (the Mayan word for the 7 heavens).

From there we walked north along the Causeway of the Dead, toward the Pyramid of the Moon (again, remember these are all names given by the Aztecs, and that we don’t know what the original inhabitants called these structures). There was enough people to make the Causeway interesting, as we imagined the original times when the Causeway itself, and the many bordering plazas and temples must have been teeming with people. The city grew over the years to almost 100,000 inhabitants, so it must have been a pretty lively place.

The Pyramid of the Moon is smaller than that of the Sun, but is more impressive in that it stands at the end of the Causeway, and thus can be clearly seen for a distance of several kilometers. We had to climb it, of course, and from it had a fabulous view of the layout of the site.

To the side of the pyramid are some exquisite palaces, but the one of Quetzal Papalotl was closed for renovation. Still we got to see the underground chambers of the palace of the Sea Eagles, where some of the original wall murals are well preserved.

We now took the long walk south on the Causeway of the Dead, to reach the complex known as the Citadel. It is a good 4 km from the Pyramid of the Moon, but the time passed quickly joking and looking at the wares being offered for sale by ambulant merchants. I bet the same was true 1500 years ago!

The Citadel was built after the pyramids of the Sun and the Moon, as a very large ceremonial square, surrounded by small platforms and temples. It does contain a small but beautiful pyramid, decorated with masks of Quetzalcoatl (the Feathered Serpent) and Tlaloc (The God of Rain), but for some strange reason the front of it was covered with a late layer (which is probably why the masks have been so well preserved).

Tired, but not beaten, we made a last stop at the museum of the site, which has a fabulous model of the site. The model is “sunk” and covered with see-through plastic, so one can “hover” over the city to admire its incredible urbanism and extent. I paid a visit to the museum shop and bought a reproduction of a piece of ceramic I had been coveting for years, so I was very happy. Maya in turn bought a very nice mask.

We had a late lunch/early dinner in one of the many restaurants in the area, and managed to catch the extra times of the Spain-Holland game. It was great to see Spain score the winning goal! Let’s see, we had a sampler of tlacoyos and quesadillas, a molcajete of assorted meats, and a big serving of cecina (which proved to be a little bit too much for Maya). Oh, and I had two jarritos of pulque curado de guayaba! (Pulque is a fermented drink that the Aztecs were drinking when Cortez came to Mexico. It comes from the maguey—the Century plant. The central leaves of the maguey are cut out, to create a small bowl, in which the sweet sap of the cactus collects overnight. The following morning the “tlachiquero” comes and siphons out the sweet sap or aguamiel, and brings it to the farm house, where the aguamiel is put to ferment in big vats. You can drink it straight—definitely an acquired flavor—or you can put fruit to soak in it. In my case I had one where guava had been soaked into the vat, and it was quite yummy).

We went back to Mexico City, which was unusually empty and clean (we attributed it to the soccer game and the recent rains), and decided to cap the day with a stroll through Coyoacan.

This was a small town away from the city (but now is just a part of it), where the Spaniards established rest homes, and ever since it has retained a quaint colonial flavor. Aha, this is where all the people were! The place was packed, because coming to Coyoacan to have some ice cream, sip on a cup or chocolate, or just sit in the park is a favorite pastime of people who live in the south of the city. A very good end to a very good day!

Mexico - Day 2. Cuernavaca

2010-07-10T08:22:00.000-07:00

After a good night sleep and a lazy morning, Georgina, Raul, Maya, andI headed south of Mexico City, toward the city of Cuernavaca. To get there one first has to go over the volcanic range that forms the southern limit of the basin where Mexico City is. It is a beautiful mountain range, decked on pine trees and high mountain meadows, and the site of the small village of Tres Marias. Since time, immemorial travelers have stopped at this tiny town to eat delicious Mexican food, and we were not going to be the exception.

It was about noon, the sun was shining, and the café de olla was sweet and delicious. The specialty of the region are quesadillas filled with yummy things like wild mushrooms, papas con chorizo, the flower of the zucchini plant cooked in a tomato sauce, braised calf brains, huitlacoche (a black mushroom that grows on the corn ears), chicken, and, of course, cheese. Every bite brought me happy memories of the many outings I did with family and friends when I was young.

Immediately after we got out of Tres Marias we were surrounded by a heavy fog. This is common in this stretch of the road, which goes down the precipitous edge of the Mexican Altiplano to the south. It is a mountain front nearly a 1,000 m high, against which bank the clouds coming from the south. One can see places where lava flows spilled over the steep slopes, not unlike the pali of Kilauea in the big island of Hawaii. In the distance, one can see the remnants of a gigantic Pleistocene lahar (a debris flow), which ran at least 30 km into the plain below and now forms a series of steep mounds several hundreds of meters thick. (We actually saw this on the way back, when the fog had burned out).

At the bottom of the steep incline is the valley of Cuernavaca. This city has been a favorite rest place for people from the city since the time of the Spanish conquest. It lies at a much lower elevation than Mexico City, and accordingly has a much balmier weather. Flowers are to be found everywhere, and the whole city has a general feeling of bonhomie. We headed for the historic downtown, to dust off some more memories of my youth. For example, we went to the Jardin Borda, which is an enormous botanical garden right in the center of the city. It was probably the creation of a rich nobleman from colonial times, but it has been preserved over the centuries to the great delight of kids and lovers.

From there we went to visit the cathedral, which is a tasteful combination of very old and very new. From the outside it has all the hallmarks of a sixteenth century religious complex, built more like a fortress ready to stand siege than a church. However, the inside ofthe main church (there are four of them in the complex) was restored sometime during the last 20 years in a very sober modern style. Blood-red skylights give a solemn ambiance to the enormous nave, decorated only with the remain of frescoes that must have been added during the seventeenth century. Something about these frescoes seemed peculiar to me. They showed sailing vessels coming to a shore, and friars bringing banners and crosses to the new land, but none of the landscapes looked like Mexico. Then there was a scene with a good number of friars being crucified, and that reminded me of the Martyrs of Nagasaki, in Japan (see my blog of Japan for more details). Well, it turns out that it was exactly that event that was being represented, as I learned by laboriously deciphering the writing accompanying the scenes. Why was the Cuernavaca Cathedral commemorating this particular event is something I couldn’t figure out.

Our third stop in downtown was in the Palace that Cortez had built for himself, as Marques del Valle de Mexico, around the main plaza. It now houses a small museum that explains the pre-Hispanic history of the valley, and the main events of the colonial era and the events that led to the war of Independence. Incidentally, this year Mexico celebrates the 200th anniversary of the war of Independence, and the 100th anniversary of the revolutionary war.

On the way to the car we went through the main plaza, where a music group was loudly entertaining the crowd with music from northernMexico. Nice.

Our final visit was to the waterfall of the Salto de San Anton, a favorite destination of the family when I was a kid. A small stream, today engorged by the copious rain, hurls itself over a ledge formed by a lava flow. It drops a good 50 m, forming a nice waterfall. Unfortunately the small path that leads to the base of the waterfall was closed, reportedly because some of the columns of the columnar-jointed lava flow have fallen and destroyed the path. Too bad, because it was great to get behind the waterfall and look up into the gorge. Other attractions of the area are a nursery with the most amazing tropical flowers, and a restaurant where you can eat some very exotic dishes (but we played it safe by ordering food we could all recognize) —well, I had to have a sopa de medula for old times sake.

Mexico - Day 1. The trip (July 9)

2010-07-09T10:14:00.000-07:00

We actually started last night, at 8 pm, when Chico picked me up for the ride to the Sacramento airport. Maya was all excited, savoring the adventure to come. She was dressed very chic, with cargo pants,sandals, and a tee-shirt with the legend “I am BORED . . . with you”. We arrived in good time for our midnight flight from Sacramento to Houston, sat in Houston for four hours, and finally took the short commuter flight to Laredo. It was warm but overcast, the best conditions for crossing the border on foot.

I looked for the driver of the only taxi, who turned to be a middle age woman speaking in her cell phone who simply waved us in. She waved three other people in, and without breaking the cell phone conversation she jumped in and started driving out of the airport. We had just been delivered unto the hands of Nora Madrid, taxi driver extraordinaire!

Somewhere in between cell phone calls from old clients, calls to dispatch other drivers to pick fares, arranging the installation of a new air conditioner, and calls to several friends to borrow the money to pay for the AC, I managed to ask her to take us to downtown. She blissfully ignored me and started driving out of the city, as she text messaged at terrific speed “Don’t you worry, my friend, I will take you to Nuevo Laredo as soon as I drop off these other two people” she explained, in heavily accented English. I made the mistake ofanswering back in Spanish, and the floodgate of her pent up emotions poured as a torrent of stories about her 16 years as a cabbie in Laredo. We had plenty of time for conversation, because after she dropped off the two “trockeros” and the truck depot she explained she had to swing by her house to talk to the AC man, but not to worry, because she would take us to Nuevo Laredo immediately after that. “No,no”, I said, we only want to the border crossing on the US side. She looked at me seriously and asked (all this between cell phone conversations): “But you want to go to Mexico, right?”. “Yes, but we are crossing on foot”.

“Oh no, you cannot cross on foot, the pedestrian bridge is closed and you can only cross by car”. I told her I didn’t believe her, and she offered a bet of $2,000 that she was right (exactly what she needed to pay for the new air conditioner). I felt she was trying to take us fora ride (literally and figuratively), but she was so earnest that I finally gave in and agreed to the fare (under the threat of grievous bodily harm if I found out she was lying). So we took the car bridge and—Oh, my God! –saw that the Rio Grande had flooded its banks and was on the brink of flowing over the pedestrian bridge! So, dear Nora Madrid had been right all along, and I had to eat humble pie. If you ever need a wild ride through Laredo make sure to give her a call at(956) 645-5890.

OK, so now it is noon, and Nora has left us at the bus station. I walk confidently in—followed by a slightly shaken Mayita—and find out that there are no buses out of Nuevo Laredo! The Rio Salado had flooded, cutting off all roads out of the city. We were stranded!

I tried checking with other bus lines, and looking for private cars that could take us to Monclova or Monterrey, but got nothing, nada, zip. By this time we had made friends with the owner of a little tacoshop, who very kindly had sent his helpers to inquire from Pedro, and la Sra. Gonzales, and el Grupo Senda, and . . . the local travel agent. And it was from the latter that we got a small ray of hope: Why not fly? Why not indeed? Nuevo Laredo has a perfectly good airport, and for a goodly consideration he managed to get us two tickets in the7:30 pm Mexicana flight. Thank God for the Visa Platinum card! :)

Having arranged our escape from this besieged city, Maya and I went for a walk through downtown, got drenched by a summer downpour, and hot and sweaty, finally decided to take a taxi to the airport, where we sat for another four hours waiting for our flight. Fortunately I was able to connect to the local wireless network (I love my new netbook), alerted my friend Raul about the change in plans, and he was able to pick us up at the Mexico City airport. It was a long travelday, but we are finally here!

Japan - Day 21

2010-01-25T08:09:00.000-08:00

Day 21 – Jan 25
So, I lied and yesterday was not the last entry…

The play is not over until the fat lady sings, and I am dying to tell you what I did today early in the morning:

So, I woke up real early in the morning, to have a quick look at the Tsukiji Fish Market, which is very likely one of the largest fish markets in the world! It was buzzing with activity, and I almost got run over several times by the forklifts and small carts they use to move the merchandise around. The morning starts with the auction of tuna fish. These are the fresh tuna, which are auctioned to chefs and restaurants. The record is a fish that brought in one billion yen! That would be 10 million dollars!!

I then moved to the wholesalers’ area, where a tourist is a bloody nuisance to the fishmongers who are trying to prepare the merchandise for store purchasers. It is not a sight for vegetarian eyes, with all the chopping and slicing that goes on. I saw a fresh tuna being butchered, and it is a tough exercise. The eyes are the size of a large egg, and you can buy yourself a bag of tuna eyes for little money (I understand you can make a great fish soup with them).

The Japanese beat the Mexicans at eating anything that swims, burrows, or pulsates, so the variety of fish, shellfish, snails, crabs, and invertebrates is truly outstanding. They come in all sizes, from the little clams barely bigger that a fingertip, to the monstrous octopi, clams, and king crabs. The tuna are pretty huge themselves.

It was a fabulous visit to the marketplace, and I ended buying a good serving of caviar for my breakfast. It is an ugly task, but someone has to eat all that bounty from the ocean :)

On the way back I dropped for a look at a 24-hour Internet and Comics Club. This is a facility where for a few hundred yen you can rent a comfortable booth to surf the internet or to read comic books to your heart's content. The cabins are equipped with a very comfortable recliner, a superfast computer with earphones, and a small desk. A soda fountain is available all night and is free of charge, and if you decide to spend the night playing internet games (5 hours for 1,500 yen), you can take a shower before heading for work. Why didn't we look for something like this when we got stuck at the station in
Nagasaki?!

Did I mention that in Japan one does not need a bicycle helmet? It is a bit surprising since they are so safety conscious in everything else. Well, there are also no restrictions on the number of passengers that can ride, and on the way back to the hotel I almost got run over by a young mother carrying her 2 year old in a back seat, and the 6 month old baby in a pouch in front of her. A mom does what a mom has to do!

OK, now it is really time to go. We are leaving with lots of time, with the idea of getting to the airport, leaving the luggage there, and then hanging out in the town of Narita until the time comes to check in. We'll see how that works out with our giant pieces of luggage.

Wish us luck!

Japan - Day 20

2010-01-24T18:08:00.000-08:00

Another fun day!

Chris wanted to sleep in and then go shopping for souvenirs, so I took off early in the morning with the bike and went all over Tokyo. Have I told you that I think having a bike is great thing? As it turns out folding bikes are a dime a dozen here in Japan, with a staggering variety of models. The one I borrowed from Normis and Evan is a pretty sturdy version (made in China, incidentally), which is good for long distance travel on a highway. For city use I have seen some really cute ones, made of aluminum and with small wheels (16 inches?), so they are light and fold into practically nothing. I need to get myself one of those…

I was the Abominable Turista de las Nueve when I got to Ueno Park, the Chapultepec of Tokyo, so nothing was open. I did get a chance to observe the homeless of Tokyo, who use portions of the park as their residence. The well-established ones have built tents or hovels with cardboard and blue tarps. You can drag the Japanese into the lower strata of society, but you would never be able to take away the fact that they are Japanese; accordingly, outside of each hovel there was a pair of shoes, and I have no doubt that inside they were wearing a tattered house coat and cheap house sandals.

My next stop was the area known as Asakusa, which is the old part of Tokyo. Streets are narrow, the marketplace is extensive, and the place all of a sudden became packed! There is a very old temple complex here, and it attracts enormous Japanese crowds and a goodly number of tourists. I had great fun strolling through the stalls.

From there I biked to the Ryogoku area, where the Mecca of Sumo is located. Now, today is the grand finale of the winter sumo tournament, so I had no hope of getting a ticket, but I saw there was a sumo museum and I thought it would be a pretty cool thing to see. Alas, the museum must be inside the hall, and I never found my way in; however,
I saw a couple of "the boys" coming in. They look like enormous panda bears, all smiley and cuddly before they walk into the arena.

Fortunately the Edo-Tokyo museum was right there, so I got my museum fix after all. Edo was the original name of the small village that would eventually grow into the megalopolis of Tokyo, so it was the best way I could have hoped for a quick review of the history of the city. The displays varied from amazing (e.g., a full-scale reconstruction of the first Kobuki theater) to neutral (e.g., strips of documents in Japanese), but overall it was a fascinating couple of hours I spent there. One of the highlights was a concert of Japanese music with a flute and an instrument that could be described as a big salterium (a large string instrument with about 20 strings, which was plucked or strummed with the right hand while the left hand was used to fret the strings to the correct length). Very impressive both from the art of the performers and from the beauty of the music.

Afterward I worked my way back to the Ueno Park, because I wanted to visit the zoo. This time all the key ingredients were there: Sunday, after lunch, and a sunny afternoon. The Tokyo zoo is divided in two parts, with the first part being a rather standard animal collection on top of a small hill. The second part is a bit unique, in that it is dominated by a large lake, with wetlands around it, where all sorts of birds can be seen. I concentrated my attention on "birds" of the female type, who obviously came to the zoo to display the latest fashion. Tokyoites are fashion conscious and much better groomed than their counterparts in the country, but making a broad generalization I would say that they are generally short, stout, and prone to look like a manga character. Mini skirts and high boots are all around you, with generous amounts of bare skin in between (it was sunny but still chilly, so you know these girls are very devoted to the cause of fashion). Well-fleshed seems to be more popular than anorexic, and puffy jackets and scarves are liberally used to simulate a generous upper storey (which, alas, nature has not seen fit to endow the Japanese women with). Big oval eyes are also in great demand, so girls dutifully do their eye exercises when at leisure (e.g., while traveling in the train). And throughout all this, where is the male of the species? A sad disappointment, if you ask me (but then again, all fathers think the same of the new generation of males, don't they?).

The sun was setting as I biked back into my hotel, having spent a delightful day in this little town. I still had one more task to accomplish before I could call it a day, however, so at peace with the world I took the two bikes apart and packed them for the trip back home. Done!

This is the end of this blog as tomorrow we take the plane back. It is with a happy and grateful soul that we will say goodbye to Japan. They have been gracious hosts and have welcomed us into their culture with open arms. I wish I had the time, appetite, and money to have tried all their fabulous foods. Then again, we have just glimpsed at the southern half of Japan, so if anyone is willing in a couple of summers, I would be ready to come back and see the northern half. Fun place, Japan!

Japan - Day 19

2010-01-23T18:08:00.000-08:00

I had a wonderful day! I woke up early and jumped on the bike to go for a morning bike ride around Lake Kawaguchiko, which is one of the five lakes that surround Mt. Fuji on the north. The lake looked really big, so my plan was to just bike a part around it, searching for the perfect photo of Mt. Fuji. As it was, the bike ride was so delightful, the early morning so pleasant, and the scenery so spectacular that I ended going all around the lake. They were a couple of hours of great beauty, and I thought to myself that after this I was ready to tackle the hustle and bustle of Tokyo.

I got back to the hostel around 10 am, and Chris was already waiting for me, armed with a plan to visit two lava tubes near the next lake. We took a quaint, rickety bus to get there. Here you take a station number when you get on the bus (ours was station 4), and inside there is an illuminated bus that tells you what your fare is up to the current station. So, if you got on the bus at station 4 you may pay 200 yen by the time to get to station 10, or 650 yen if you get off at station 30. It is a bit nerve racking to see the fare mount up as you proceed to your destination, but once we got past 680 yen we could take advantage of the all-day 1,300 yen ticket for both the in and return trips.

The lava tubes are . . . well . . . lava tubes. If you have never seen one they are definitely interesting, but they are not the best of the species. The local promoters have cheated a bit by spraying water on the walls, making for very slippery floors but spectacular displays of icicles.

By the time we got back to the hostel it was time to pick up our stuff and head for the dragon: Tokyo!

But you learn something after spending three weeks in the country, and it was with total confidence that we navigated from the local mountain train to the express train to Shinjuku station (west Tokyo), and from there to the Yamanoto line, which runs in a circle around Tokyo, between Shinjuku station on the west and Tokyo station on the east.
Another simple transfer, a train that was running late (I had been hoping to catch Japan Rail or a bus running late, and they always came with punctuality to the second, but this time I caught the train arriving four minutes past its scheduled time!), and . . . voila . . . there was our hotel. Traveling in this country has ceased being a challenge. Time for me to move on!

Japan - Day 18

2010-01-22T18:07:00.000-08:00

Another day of train travel! We figured it would be a skip and a hop to Mt. Fuji, but alas, we almost had to go all the way to Tokyo before we could turn around and approach Mt. Fuji from the back, using the commuter and slow mountain train lines. But we finally made it to K’s House Mt. Fuji, and now we are comfortably installed.

Since I have nothing much to tell about today, let me just ponder about the fact that in this trip we have used all possible means of travel. We flew here, and have moved adroitly in shinkansen, express trains, commuter trains, and slow mountain trains. We have biked all around--an easy country to do urban biking, but a fairly mountainous one for rural biking--, used a car once, took the tram and buses, sailed on tramp steamers, jumped on chair lifts, and hiked all around. Yes, we have done our fair share as adventure travelers!

Japan - Day 17

2010-01-21T18:06:00.000-08:00

For starters here are the web portals of the two youth hostels I spoke about yesterday:

K's House Backpackers Hostel is www.kshouse.jp

J-Hoppers is www.j-hoppers.com

As I said, both are top notch hostels here in Japan.

OK, back to the narrative, today in the morning we took advantage of the offer made by one of the hosts, piled in his car, and went to see the town of Shirakawa Go about an hour's drive away. Thos town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and is basically a typical Japanese mountain town of a couple of centuries ago. It is a real town, though, with farmhouses that were built two hundred years ago. They are BIG farmhouses, four or five stories high, where the family lived in the ground floor with the animals, workers in the second floor, and then two or three floors used for raising silk worms, weaving, or whatever it is that farmers do over the long winter nights. The basement was used for "curing" niter, a key component in gunpowder done out of a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and human pee.

The town was pretty cool, but the weather was Scheisse. There was at least a meter of snow on the ground, but with the rain it had turned into slushy roads. I held true to the notion that "Tourismus muss Weh tun", and stubbornly visited farmhouses, Buddhist temples, and quaint rural streets.

Back in town I changed socks, and promptly took the train to the neighboring town of Hida-Furukawa, where I visited the Annula Festival Museum. It turns out that for the last 400 years the town has had this festival, where these floats are paraded. The floats are amazing, four or five tiers high, with remarkably sophisticated puppets and children Kabuki theater players. Anyway, they have made a great display of these floats, some of which are 200 years old, so you can wonder about the details of workmanship and the art of the puppeteers. They also have a great 3-D film about the whole festival, so you can really feel like you are there.

Next I went to the carpenter's museum. It turns out that the woodworkers of this region have been known throughout Japan for the last 300 years, and are widely recognized as the masters of the art. Chico, Lucienne, and Dan would regard in awe the mastery of these folks, who with basic tools are the architects behind the great temples and carvings of most of Japan.

I finished my visit with a delightful stroll through this charming city, looking at sake breweries, quaint shops, and all sorts of artist ateliers.

Later in the evening I cooked for Chris and I, a delicious meal with lots of veggies (some sort of leek, mushrooms, and broccoli) and a big pile of the famous Hida beef. Tonight, for once, we ate to our heart's content!

Japan - Day 16

2010-01-20T22:23:00.001-08:00

Not much to report, because today was a traveling day. I gave up trying to visit Iya Valley, so from Kochi we took a train across the highlands of Shikuku (very scenic), crossed the largest suspension bridge in the world to reach the island of Honshu, sped along the southern plain (and gaped in awe at the solid urban mass that starts in Kobe on the west and ends in Tokyo on the east; wow, there is a lot of people living elbow to elbow here), and eventually took the slow train to the mountainous heart of Honshu. This is the region called the Japanese Alps, and as we slowly climbed the landscape became more and more alpine. Oh, my God, there is a thick carpet of snow!

We finally got to the town of Takayama, with no idea about where we were to stay. But our good luck held, and we found a great youth hostel a few blocks from the station: J Hoppers. Now, I have already told you that youth hostels are really the best place to stay in Japan, but I should add that besides the old-fashioned youth hostels, like those at Sakurajima and Matsuyama, there is a new generation of private-enterprise hostels that seem to be mushrooming across Japan. The two that have caught our attention, and which deserve our most energetic praise are K's Backpackers Hostels and J Hoppers. Do yourself a favor and check their websites if you ever plan to come to Japan. They are clean, roomy, helpful, have full kitchens, and --most important as far as Chris is concerned-- are attracting the kind of fun people who you want to meet at hostels.

We have decided that we like Takayama. It is a nice mountain city with lots to do (which we will do tomorrow), lighted streets, lots of shops and restaurants, and a healthy nightlife. Their claim to fame is very good mountain beef, so Chris and I decided to splurge and go for a nice carnivore dinner. It was our first visit to a typical Japanese restaurant, with low tables and sitting in cushions (but I am sorry to say that neither Chris nor I are built for the lotus position). The dish was delicious, but tiny! Yes, we came out licking our chops but still hungry, so we had to go to the supermarket and buy a new meal all together. Japanese cuisine is for gourmets, not gluttons!

Japan - Day 15

2010-01-19T22:22:00.000-08:00

I woke up early in the morning and went for a walk. The hostel on top of the hill has a truly fabulous view!

Later in the morning Chris and I went for a walk around the Dogo Onsen. First we visited one of the shrines that form part of the Shikoku pilgrimage. Let me back up. The island of Shikoku is famous for a pilgrimage that goes counterclockwise around the island. The circuit involves visiting 88 shrines all around, and people do it on foot (six months), bike (six weeks), bus, or car. Pilgrims wear distinctive white clothes, and we actually saw one in Dogo (which is the 57th shrine in the pilgrimage).

We also visited the Onsen, including the private part reserved for the emperor. Pretty nifty. Then we went down to see the singing clock, which is a miniature of the many tiers of the Dogo Onsen itself.

We rounded the evening with a cool tram ride to the foot of the hill where the Matsuyama feudal castle is built. We took a chair lift up the hill, just like the ones used by skiers, and spent a delightful hour visiting the castle. It is a grand structure meant to keep feudal enemies at bay, but I don't think it was ever attacked. Chris dressed up as a samurai! The armor was there, and a friendly attendant took the time to dress him up.

We took the tram back to Dogo, collected our stuff, and then took the tram back to the train station. Our goal was to reach the isolated mountains of eastern Sikoku, in what is called Iya Valley. Access is difficult, however, and our best bet was to stop at the tiny village of Oboke, spend the night, and then look for a bus or something to take us to the valley. We got to Oboke around 6 pm, just when it was getting dark, and Chris called the place where we were planning to stay to get directions. Oh so sorry, they said, we have no place tonight. What?! Chris almost lost it, thinking about Nagasaki, so I took a quick look at the train schedule and decided to push on to Kochi. The only option was the slow milk train, so it was not until 9 pm that we got to Kochi. Based on very vague instructions I managed to find an obscure Japanese guest house. The lights were out, but I walked into the lobby saying Komban-wa, and eventually a diminutive grandma answered the greeting. She was a chatty thing (in Japanese, of course), so we got along famously. She promptly sent her grandson to set a room for us, and she brought yogurt and bananas for us to have a bite to eat before retiring. The following morning she was bustling around at 5:30 am, greeted me cheerfully, and eventually wrote me a bill that, as she very expressively explained included a significant discount because we were visitors to Japan. What a delightful person!

Japan - Day 14 (second half)

2010-01-18T22:21:00.000-08:00

It turns out that the port of Hiroshima is a long way from the downtown area where the Memorial Park is, so we had to pedal for nearly an hour before we got there. Bitching and moaning from my traveling companion. But we made in time to catch the ferry that was to transport us across the Inland Sea toward Matsuyama in the island of Shikoku. It was a very beautiful boat ride, weaving as it went through dozens of small islets and narrow canals.

Alas, the port of Matsuyama is also a good 4 km from the city, and the area where we were heading was another 6 km inland. So there goes another hour pedaling. Chris started to say something, and I retorted something like this is what happens when you choose to travel instead of staying at home laying down on the couch. There were no further complaints.

Actually, we did quite well riding straight as an arrow to the Dogo area, which is the old center of Matsuyama, and after a bit of searching we found the Masuyama Youth Hostel perched atop a hill. I am sure they built it here to provide the visitors with a breathtaking view of Matsuyama, but to the tired traveler the slug up the hill is the coup de grace.

Quickly recovering from the exhaustion, I went down the hill to the Dogo Onsen, recognized to be the oldest hot springs bath in all of Japan (3,000 years old). It is a grand old building, and I duly enjoyed my bath. Later I wandered around the area, passed the red light district, and eventually came back to a well-deserved supper of octopus, dumplings, and tempura. Very nice indeed!

Japan - Day 14 (first half)

2010-01-18T10:00:00.000-08:00

Spent the morning at the Hiroshima A-Bomb Memorial and Peace Park.

What a vile act of terrorism. I am speechless.

Japan - Day 13

2010-01-17T22:19:00.000-08:00

I had a wonderful half day hike, up another of the deep canyons of the island. The trees were old, gnarly and impressive. I was contemplating a herd of deer, peacefully browsing in the fest, when one of these damn island monkeys emitted a shrill cry that scared the living daylights of both me and the deer. From the corner of my eye I could see him scurrying into the brush, no doubt laughing his little monkey head off.

At 1 pm we took the ferry back to the mainland. It was another beautiful cruise, and I decided to do it in comfort by spending a good half hour in the sauna of the ship. We came back to Kagoshima around 6 pm, and promptly rode to the rail station to jump on the train to Hiroshima. We traveled through the early evening, and came to Hiroshima around midnight. We did not have to sleep in the station, however, since Chris had gotten on the phone and made arrangements for us to spend the night at the Hiroshima Youth Hostel. Nice!

Japan - Day 12

2010-01-16T08:51:00.000-08:00

Today we went into the heart of the island, which is a national park. We were told that one of the best walks had just opened, so early in the morning we took the bus and started the long, long climb. Chris fell asleep almost immediately, but I stared in awe at the magnificence of the landscape. These are some steep mountains!

By 9:30 we were standing at the trailhead looking with some apprehension at the recently opened trail. It may have opened in the minds of mice and men, but nobody told the snow anything about it, so once again the Mickey Mouse shoes were asked to do the job of snow crampons, and the new set of umbrellas were asked to do the job of alpine piolets, and Chris and I bravely ventured into a world of wonder. It is a deep canyon, at an elevation of about 1200 m, where are luscious forest has grown. It turns out that Yakushima has a very high rate of rainfall, so its ecosystem is like that of the Olympic
Mountains in the US, and trees that are normally "big" grow to gigantic proportions. The patriarchs are cedars, one of which was 1,800 years old, which were highly praised during the Endo period (about 300 years ago) for the construction of temples and castles.
Everywhere one sees evidence of old logging activities, in the form of gigantic stumps from where new trees have grown. The Endo loggers were mostly interested on splitting shingles out of very straight trunks, so they left behind large middens of stumps, branches, or knots. Because cedar is a very resinous wood these leftovers have aged beautifully through the last 300 years, and are now sought after by the islanders for the carving of statues, vases, plates, and beautiful tables (later in the flatlands we saw one that sold for $10,000 and was to die for).

So Chris and I trudged through about 2 kilometers of this winter wonderland, amazed at the sight of deep ravines, roaring rapids, and surreal gnarly trees. By the time we got back to the trailhead we were comfortably tired and fairly wet. Then we realized that we would have to wait nearly three hours for the return bus, so Chris suggested we walk down the mountain (remember he had slept all the way up, and had not see the 15 kilometers of road we had climbed through. "How far can it be?" he asked rhetorically. Just as rhetorically I answered "Oh, a few kilometers." After all, who am I to break his little heart (besides, the prospect of a death march was kind of appealing to me).

Chris is a trooper! He walked a few paces behind me, without complaint, for three hours. We averaged about 4.5 kilometers per hour, so were nearly to the base of the island when the blessed bus made its appearance and picked us up. On the long way down we stopped to look at the rocks now and then, and I had to change my opinion about the geology of Yakushima. It is the perfect pluton! The core of the island is formed by a quartzmonzonite with giant crystals of potassium feldspar. The pluton intrudes a tilted sequence of pillow lavas and marine sediments accreted along a subduction zone. This tilted sequence fringes the pluton all around the island, and forms the narrow strip of lowland that separates the mountains from the sea.

By the time we got home we were hungry and very tired, but after a nice meal and a hot water bath I am ready for another death march tomorrow (actually a half death march, because our ship departs at 13:30). Some people never learn :)

Japan - Day 11

2010-01-15T08:51:00.000-08:00

Bright and early we headed for the wharf, to board the ship that will take us to Yakushima island. Nice ship, evidently design to carry hundreds and not just the five cats we were. I guess once you have the concession you are obligated to provide the service, no matter what.

As we were steaming out of the harbor Sakurajima had one last eruption, to say goodbye in style. The harbor is at the end of a very long ria, so for the best part of an hour we could see snow-clad mountains on both sides. It reminded me very much of the inland passages of both Chile and the west coast of Canada.

Breathing in the salty air of the Sea of Japan (or are we in the northernmost corner of the South China Sea?) brought out all my buccaneer ancestry, and I walked back and forth on deck, looking for ships to plunder. I had my heart set on boarding one of the hydrofoils, but man can they move! I bet that they are at least three times faster than our plodding tramp steamer.

We got to Yakushima around noon, and headed for the local youth hostel. The owner was not there, so we had to wait for nearly an hour, and by the time we were done checking in must already have been closer to 2 pm. OK, what to do? Let's take the bikes and go around the island. Well, easier said than done. Like most coastal roads this one does not strictly follow the coast, but goes a bit inland, raising and falling in elevation. After 8 km of such treatment we were bushed. Fortunately we found a Banyan Park that provided both a chance for rest and an excuse to turn around.

Banyans are members of the ficus family, and here they grow in grotesque forms, not unlike the trees that grew near Cacahuamilpa. They also reminded me of the walking trees of Peru. Basically, they drop roots from the side branches, so when these roots reach the ground they take hold and a new trunk grows. After a while the main trunk is surrounded by the trunks of its shoots, and the whole family knots together in the most amazing shapes.

Much huffing and puffing brought us back around 5 pm, in time to make inquiries about taking the bus into the interior of the island. Reportedly the cedar forests are something else, and earned Yakushima the honor of being designated a World Heritage Site.

Japan - Day 10

2010-01-14T08:50:00.000-08:00

I spent a bad night, waking every half hour with a hacking cough. Finally I got out of bed around 5 am and sat on a tatami wrapped on a blanket, waiting for the morning. It was still snowing. Finally morning came, I took a bath, and woke up Chris so we could get out of Sakurajima as early as possible. The boy took his sweet time, so it was not until 10 am that we took the ferry. No sooner had we done so that the skies parted, and Sakurajima showed itself in all its glory. Curses! Why couldn't yesterday be today? I was musing about that when a big dark cloud belched out of the summit. The volcano was erupting, as if trying to make fun of us! There it goes again!

Well, at least we saw it erupt. Let us now go to the ferry terminal to buy the tickets for this afternoon. Alas, it was not to be. The ferry to Yakushima island leaves every day at 8:30 am, so we will have to wait until tomorrow. OK, that requires a change in plans and looking for accommodations here in Kagoshima. The Lonely Planet guide gave lame directions to the local youth hostel, and it turned to be a very steep and tiresome wild goose chase, because apparently the hostel has been closed (I have the 2005 edition). Panic! Where are we going to stay? Chris had visions of spending another sleepless night at the train station. Fortunately we found a ryokan (a traditional Japanese hotel) that is not super expensive, and having taken care of the need for shelter we were able to think about being tourists again.

We visited a small museum on the construction of Japanese stone bridges (fascinating feats of engineering), and the Iso garden where the house of the local feudal lord was located. Another beautiful Japanese garden, where the attention to detail has created another masterpiece of harmony and serenity. We had tea at a traditional tea house there.

We rounded the afternoon with a visit to the aquarium. A very nice collection indeed, beautifully displayed. I saw a Whale Shark!

We are now back at the ryokan, washing clothes and recharging our batteries for the next adventure: A visit to the island of Yakushima!

Japan - Day 9

2010-01-13T08:49:00.000-08:00

Oh my God, the sky has fallen! Wait, no, it is just that it snowed heavily overnight. In fact, it is still coming down pretty hard. Wait, the clouds are parting and I can see the mountain. Oh, it is covered again.

What to do? Well, I didn't come all this way to just look at snow fall, and Chris seems to be happy sleeping, so I am going to go out there are rough it.

And rough it I did. I took my bike and bravely pedaled through the blizzard, looking for a way up the mountain. Alas, at the end I was defeated. I just could not see a thing. So I biked to the port, visited the small visitors center, and then biked along the coast along the Lava Promenade. It was very lovely, but it would have been even better if the snow would have let me see the mountain.

They have a very cute Public Foot Bath, which is basically a hot spring with benches so the tired hikers can soak their tired feet in the hot water. They also have a big, open-air rock band concert area, which I am sure would look great packed with people in a sunny, warm afternoon.

Finally I gave up, and around noon came back to the hostel, just to find Chris getting ready to go for a walk. Good luck, bud! I was cold, and hacking again with the cough I thought I had gotten rid off, so I went to the basement hot spring and foot-bathed in the very hot water to regain normal body temperature. I had the vague notion of going out again in the afternoon, but the snow kept falling and I ended staying indoors.

Is weather against us? This is the second geologic wonder that we cannot visit because of the %$#& weather.

The Chinese House of Horrors feels more depressing than ever :(

Japan - Day 8

2010-01-12T08:48:00.000-08:00

Didn't do much today. The day was spent traveling from point A to point B, but unfortunately my stupidity forced us to go A to C back to A to B. So, we werein Aso in central Kyushu, and looking at the map I saw a track going along the east side of the island. So we went east, to the city of Beppu (famous for its hot springs), only to find that the shinkansen only runs along the west side of the island. So, after waiting at Beppu for a couple of hours we got on the very same train (with the very same lady controller), and once again crossed Kyushu.

It was a very scenic crossing of the mountains and of Aso caldera, so it is nothing to scorn at. I also had a fabulous lunch in the train, with sushi of several kinds and a healthy serving of salmon caviar. Yummy!

Once we got to Kamamoto, on the west shore of the island, we jumped in the shinkansen, and an hour later we were in Kagoshima. My unerring sense of direction brought us straight into the Sakurajima ferry port, and after a brief 20 minutes we docked in Sakurajima. It took a while to find the youth hostel, but we finally got there. The youth hostel looks a bit run down, and is not as comfortable as others we have been in. The lady who runs it looks like the Chinese landlady of Thoroughly Modern Milly, and the place has the same feeling of intrigue. I am expecting to see a Chinaman pushing a laundry cart every time I round a corner. It is interesting that it has its own onsen in the basement! However, the water is too hot to be enjoyable (and it is certainly murky and stinky).

I don't recall if I praised the hostels in Kyoto and Aso, which were new looking and friendly. They are a much better deal than the business hotel we stayed at in Tokyo, which was expensive and with a really, really small room. In contrast the hostel beds are roomy, the rooms are large and sunlit, and you have full kitchen privileges. This is important to us who need a few cups of coffee in the morning, because buying coffee by the cup is expensive (3 to 5 dollars per cup). Chris and I also like buying dinner at a market, and then coming to the hostel to warm it up and eat it in the jolly dining room. Oh well, we will survive the Sakurajima Chinese Horror House somehow.

We are excited with the prospect of hiking around Sakurajima volcano tomorrow morning. This is a very active volcano, which had 750 eruptions last year (an average of two per day), and has had 75 so far in January (five per day!). We are going to see us some volcanic activity!

Japan - Day 7

2010-01-11T22:03:00.001-08:00

Yesterday afternoon we took a long series of trains, from the shinkansen down to a puttering diesel mountain train, to travel from Nagasaki to the central mountains of northern Kyushu. The way up was so steep that the put-put train had to zig-zag forward and upward to make the steep slope (a feat I had only seen before in the train ride between Cuzco and Machu Picchu in Peru). It was a jolly ride, however, and I split my time between watching the beautiful scenery and people-watching a family that was clearly coming back to their mountain town after a morning in the city: Mom on one end, boy, girl, girl, and Dad on the other end. The girls were all excited and prancing around, sometimes kidding with Mom, sometimes with Dad, sometimes with their brother, who was not much fun because he was lost in his iPod. Mom and Dad would talk to each other over the din, or try to read, or doze off, but the dynamic changed every 30 seconds so there was no chance for anyone to settle into a pattern. That is what I have in mind when I think about a couple with kids :)

At about 6 pm we arrived to the small hamlet of Aso, which was going to be our base of operations for the exploration of the central volcanic complex of the Aso caldera. Yes, Day 7 was planned to be a geologic day, devoted to visiting one of Japan's natural wonders. The caldera eruption reportedly took place 100,000 years ago, and from the train we saw the imposing caldera margin a few kilometers away. The hamlet of Aso is inside the caldera moat, however, between the wall and the post-caldera central volcanic complex.

Early in the morning I woke up Chris, we gathered our gear, and with steaming breath headed to the station to take the bus that carries mountaineers to the central volcanic complex. After what seemed an eternity we got back from the bus, at the mountain hut near the rim of the currently active crater. Clouds of sulphurous billowed from the crater, and to our great disappointment we learned that the path around the crater was closed due to suffocation danger. So we settled for the second best, and prepared to claw our way up the steep slopes of Kijimadake Peak, the tallest mountain in the central complex. A bitter blizzard was blowing, so we tightened the straps in our snow crampons, gripped our piolets, and very carefully and slowly trudged up the steep scarp. It took all the courage and stamina we could muster, but at last we made it to the summit, from which we had a breath-taking view of the whole of the Aso caldera, the Furonomike Craters at the foot of the 600 m face of Kijimadake Peak, the bellowing steam issuing from the bare rock walls of the active Nakadake Crater, and the endless grassy slopes of the 1,000 km Valley (a fancy name for the moat of the caldera). It was a glorious view, forever etched in our imagination.

Unfortunately it was an image only etched in our boundless imagination. Alas, the straps of the snow crampons were nothing else but the shoelaces of the Mickey Mouse shoes, the piolets were nothing else than the umbrellas we had borrowed from our friendly youth hostel (which we had to replace with store-bought ones because we left the originals behind), and the glorious sights were nothing else than a solid wall of fog that never let out while we were on the mountain. We bravely climbed Kijimadake Peak in total fog blindness, and Chris almost fell 600 m into the depths of the Furonomike Craters, and our throats rasped when breathing the sulfur issuing from Nakadake Crater, but we never saw past the tip of our noses. Oh well, you cannot win them all :(

To look for a silver lining, when we got back to town our excellent hosts recommended a relaxed visit to the local "onsen". OK, whatever an onsen might be it sounded like some relax would bring relief to our sorry, cold, and damp bones. "Onsen" is Japanese for hot spring, and as luck would have it we happen to have one about 100 m from the hostel. So we unloaded our crap, grabbed a towel, and enjoyed the best couple of hours in what is probably the national sport. Evan, you would love the onsen culture here (but alas, it is not unisex, so you could not share it with Normis), as towns vie with each other for the number and quality of their onsens. Aso is not in the run, but the nearby town of Mijagi boasts 23 different onsens within easy walking distance! Anyway, you get there, undress in a common dressing room (you bathe in the buff, but good manners require you to modestly cover your nether region with a towel when you move around), and enter a large hall that serves as distributor to the showers (it would be anathema not to shower before entering the hot spring), the sauna (where you can join the locals for a good sweat while you watch a match of sumo in the TV--sumo being a sport as exciting as American football, with 10 seconds of action squeezed between 10 minutes of boredom), hot or cold wading pools, and--at last--a beautifully landscaped hot spring. The atmosphere, the babbling brook, the waterfall of steaming water, the feng-shui of the rocks and shrubbery, all are carefully designed to give you--the master of this small natural empire--a bit of heaven.

Say yes to onsen!

Japan - Day 6

2010-01-10T18:17:00.001-08:00

When I woke up at 6 am, fairly refreshed by a long snooze, it was to find the wild-eyed anxious face of Chris staring at me. The poor guy had not slept a wink, haunted by the denizens of the train station (and train stations can attract quite a few unsavory characters in the wee hours of the morning). He was ready to go!

My mother used to call my father El Abominable Turista de las Nueve, a play on words about the Abominable Snowman that makes fun of his tendency of wanting to start his tourism while everyone else was asleep. Well, Chris and I put one on him when we turned into Los Abominables Turistas de las Seis, looking for places to visit at 6 am
:)

Nagasaki sits at the land end of a deep ria, a submerged river valley, in which the ocean has advanced into the land as a narrow dagger that cuts deep into the heart of Kyushu (the southernmost of the three big islands of Japan). The Korean peninsula lies just across the narrowest portion of the Sea of Japan. Nagasaki's first claim to fame is that it was the port first reached by the Dutch and Portuguese seafarers in the 1600's. At the time Japan was under the political control of the shoguns, who looked at the Europeans with extreme distrust. The shogun determined to limit contact with the Europeans, who were restricted to Nagasaki as the only port that would receive their ships. Nagasaki thus developed as a typical multicultural city, with strong influences from nearby China and Korea, interspersed with Dutch and Portuguese enclaves. One of these enclaves was the Catholic church, who used Nagasaki as the center of its missionary efforts, led by the Society of
Jesus.

One of the missionaries was a young Mexican named Felipe de Jesus. According to the stories my Mom used to tell me when I was a kid, young Felipe--Felipillo--was a very hyperactive child (not unlike yours truly, which is why the story was to me) and in his many antics had killed a fig tree that grew in the family yard. In exasperation his nanny used to say that he was a hopeless case, and that only if he were to become a saint the dead fig tree would come back to life. Well, many years later, as a missionary in Japan, Felipillo suffered martyrdom when the Shogun rounded up all the missionaries and their converts, crucified them, and abruptly put an end at all contact with the outside world until the mid 1800's. After the prophecy "Cuando la higuera reverdezca Felipillo sera santo" the fig tree came back to life!

I tell you this story because we did visit the monument and chapel to the 26 martyrs of Nagasaki, to commemorate the memory of San Felipe de Jesus.

The second reason why Nagasaki is know is because on August 9, at 11:02 in the morning, it was obliterated by the detonation of the second atomic bomb the United States dropped on Japan. 150,000 civilians died in what to this day remains as one of the most infamous acts perpetrated on a civilian population. The site of the detonation is deep in the heart of the city, where the old Catholic cathedral used to stand. Hypocenter Park is now a serene place surrounded by simple memorials and thousands of paper prayers for world peace. I was struck with a memorial to the Koreans that died during the blast. It was a kind of apology offered by the Japanese people, who acknowledged invading Korea in the early 1900's, depriving the Korean people of their right to independent government, and enslaving them to come work in Japan to support the war effort. Japan is ashamed of what they did to others, and dedicate this hallowed ground to the cause of peace throughout the world, and a nuclear-free world.

Why the United States took the decision to perpetrate this horror is one of the big puzzles of history. The war had already been won, and Japan was trying to negotiate the terms of surrender. Some think that the dropping of the bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki was to justify to the American taxpayer the expenditure of 2 billion dollars in the Manhattan project. Others believe that it was a show of force to the USSR (which backfired into the Cold War, the expenditure of trillions of dollars into a MAD program (Mutually Assured Destruction), and the absurd proliferation of nuclear weapons). But why civilian populations?

A nuclear-free world seems an impossibility nowadays, but has to be the dream of any good person on Earth. President Obama was largely granted the Nobel Peace Prize because he is the first world leader, ever, who has committed to ending MAD and seeking a nuclear-free world.

A visit to the Atomic Bomb Museum is a shocking testament to the brutality of war. Armchair warmongers, who click on the remote control as if they were releasing Fat Man from Bock's Car at the time they mutter "Nuke 'em", should come and see what comes of it all. Maybe then they would understand the words of Sherman as he surveyed the devastation his troops had wrecked on the South: War is Hell.

Japan - Day 5

2010-01-09T18:16:00.000-08:00

Chris is trying to kill himself. Last night he again stayed up until 3 am, shooting the breeze, so it was a bit with zombie eyes that he woke up at 7 am for our outing to the nearby city of Nara. We decided it was time to have a day without bikes, hopped on a slow train, and an hour later we were in the city of Nara, which has the distinction of
having been the first capital of the Japanese empire, from 730 to 800 AD. We got there around 9 am, made a bee line for the tourist information center, and found out that the local YMCA has a program that hooks volunteer guides with visitors. The volunteers are taking classes, but basically offer their services because they figure it is a fun way to meet people from all over the world, and to practice their knowledge of city history and foreign languages. Would we like a guide, then, as a free service? Of course!

Ten minutes later we met Noriko, a very petite smiling woman in her mid 50s, who with lots of bows and smiles introduce herself and steered us through the enormous municipal garden of Nara. This garden is home to the 5-storey temple (very cute and scenic), the temple of the giant Buddha, the Shinto shrine of the 2,000 lanterns, and about 10,000 deer. The deer are supposed to be the messengers of Buddha, so they are protected, revered, and a bloody nuisance. Chris made the mistake of buying deer food once, and from there on they followed us everywhere!

The temple of the giant Buddha is, as the name implies, a very large temple with a sitting statue of Buddha that must be a good 30 m (100 ft) high. It is a very holy place in Japan, and Noriko did a fabulous job at explaining every detail about the building, the spirits that protect it, the way the Buddha was cast, and other little trivia that made our visit very enjoyable. One anecdote will amuse you: One of the pillars has a hole, maybe 30 cm in diameter, and legend has it that if you can squirm yourself through the hole you will pass all your examinations. I immediately tried to encourage Chris to give it a go, to make sure that he won't stumble in Hydro or Applied. He was tempted, and looked at the hole with greedy eyes, but at the end his fear of getting stuck prevailed, so he will have to pass my classes the old-fashioned way.

After walking all over the place, taking the great views of the city, gawking at a traditional Japanese wedding, and drinking a cup of tea courtesy of the Shinto shrine we were getting tired and hungry. We invited Noriko to lunch at a ramen house, where we had a chance to talk at length about ourselves. Her story seems to be very common among Japanese women: She is happily married, but her husband--who is an engineer--is a workaholic who leaves home at 8 am and doesn't come back until 11 pm. As long as her two children were small she had plenty to do, but now that they are grown up she feels alone, and has joined the volunteer guides program, and an afternoon program mentoring high school students, to have something to do during the long empty day.

We finished our visit to Nara with a walk around the old town, which included a visit to a traditional Japanese house of say 75 years ago, and a relaxing walk around a private Japanese garden. Interesting that in this garden instead of grass they have moss, which does not require mowing and gives the aspect of a fuzzy carpet. An army of gardeners keeps the place spotless!

We finally said our goodbyes to our new friend and took the train back to Kyoto. We had a little over an hour to pick up our bags and bikes and board the train to our next destination, Nagasaki.

The train ride was uneventful, but we were getting to Nagasaki at midnight, so we came with the idea of just riding the trains all night. No good. As soon as we got to Nagasaki they turned off the lights and closed the station. The place was deserted. OK, so midnight is not so bad, so let's bike to the youth hostel and get some sleep. We did, only to find the hostel closed and dark. I made my best to break the combination, rouse the neighborhood, or force a side door, but to no avail. What to do? Well, says I, better get back to those benches we saw outside the station and crash there. Chris stared at me with horror (at this point please remember that he had had but four hours of sleep the night before), and couldn't believe his eyes when we got to the station and I pulled my very thin sleeping bag from my pack. In less than 5 minutes I was in the land of nod, while for poor Chris started a long night of horrors. Pobrecito!

Japan - Day 4

2010-01-08T22:10:00.000-08:00

My dear Chris found our hostel had a pub, so he felt he had to close it at 2 am. Needless to say he was dead to the world when I tried to wake him up at 7, at 7:15, and at 7:30. Finally at 7:45 I shook him in earnest, with the thought that this was my last attempt and then I was leaving him behind. Alas, he woke up, and with a bit of a hangover he followed me on the bike half way across Kyoto to the Imperial Palace (I think I heard some grumbling about "this damn bike", but I ignored it because we had to make it to the palace by 9:30 if we were to make the only tour that day. We were nearly out of breath, but we did, and thoroughly enjoyed a guided tour through the palace complex of the Japanese emperors from 670 to 1868. Very nice indeed. Compact and sober, but with beautiful gardens.

Afterward we continued crossing the city, to reach the Golden Temple. This time I definitely heard mutterings about the $#%@&* bike. You see, Chris is a true blue American, used to having his car, and other forms of transport are truly foreign to him. I reminded him that we could be walking, and he boldly stated that it would be better that way (little does he know what a death march of 12 km can do to a portly young American).

Anyway, the temple was absolutely gorgeous, not only because of the gold leaf that makes it shine like . . . well, gold, but also because of the serenity of the surrounding gardens. In a way that is the seal of this city. Kyoto is the second or third largest city of Japan, but it is a serene place, where urban rudeness has not overcome the natural courtesy of the Japanese people.

Another bike ride (with some more mutterings) brought us once more across the city, to the eastern foothills, where the side path of a small canal takes you across some of the most beautiful old houses of the city, interspersed with a multitude of small shrines. It was very pleasant, but what had really brought us to this part of the city was the Kyoto Zoo. As some of you know, I make a point of visiting the zoo every chance I get, since it generally is a place to see families at ease. Unfortunately the Japanese children are heavily deprived, and we saw little of them. The zoo was OK, however, and we got the added bonus of seeing many of the animals being fed.

Our final salvo of the day was a bike ride through the commercial portion of downtown. Chris was really hating the bike by now, so he was in a hurry to be done with it. Beware, says I: Remember that god number 7,345,256 of the 10 million Japanese gods is the god of bicycles, and he may not take your comments kindly. The language that follows is not suitable for mixed company, but showed in no uncertain terms what Chris thought about god number 7,345,256. Whatever.
The ride through downtown was very interesting. Basically, it was an old fashion downtown with myriads of little shops, but then it was gentrified and turned into an enormous covered mall, not unlike the Grand Bazaar of Istanbul. I was having a great time, looking here and there, when right behind me I heard the words of god number 7,345,256: CRAACK! I turned around and saw Chris sprawled on the ground, surrounded by flying pieces of metal! What the . . .? The clamp that held the seat of the bike in place had fallen apart! "I knew it, I knew it! This bike hates me!" ranted Chris, while we tried to make sense of what had happened. What had happened is that the 3/8-inch bolt that held the sit clamp together had sheared. Really? OK, so Chris is a bit on the portly side, but to cut through a 3/8-inch bolt? Nothing to it but take to our feet to look for a place that could repair the damage (and I hope my portly companion learned how much more slowly one goes on foot that on bike). A kilometer later I spotted a motorcycle repair shop, and I stopped to say hello to the elderly owner and with charades to explain our plight. He was very sorry for us, and called the young mechanic in the shop across the street to ask for help. The young man was all smiles and all concern, and got to fixing the problem with full Japanese zeal. Back and forth and back and forth until he found the perfect bolt for the job. In the meantime the wife of the shop owner fixed tea for us and invited us in to seat down and enjoy the tea. Continuing the game of charades I told them about our trip and they were all suitable impressed. At the end the problem was fixed, our good Samaritan would not take any payment, and we gratefully took our leave from our gracious hosts. It is moments like these that I find it worth to travel half around the world!