XYZ
After the stirring and emotional Closing Ceremonies of the Avon 3-day at Piedmont Park, Rahrah, (my 2 ½ year old granddaughter) rushed into my arms and right away noticed the smiley stickers on my walker ID tag and cheerily informed me that she gets those stickers too for going to the potty like a big girl. I said I got those for the same reasons, for stopping at every pit stop and using the porta-potties! I drank gallons of Gatorade and water as we were told over and over to hydrate and I swear I've never emptied my bladder as much as these 3 days!
The porta-johns lining the route on every pit stop every 2 miles or so is memorable in this event as much as the sea of blue tents, 3000 plus, lined up in alphabetical grids every night in our movable campsite. My tent address was H-81 and that was my gear and duffel number too and we bring these to the gear truck marked H every morning when we dismantle our camp and the crew transport them to the next site. Every campsite is a veritable city. Again there were hundreds of porta-johns everywhere. There was a huge dining tent where spicy chicken gumbo was served up the first night and pasta marinara the next. After dinner the mess tent was transformed into an entertainment center where local bands and acts were brought in for us to relax and groove. There was a concierge tent where every night a selection of complimentary Avon products were offered. There were the podiatry, chiropractic, medical, and massage tents. There were hot shower trucks and you can sign up for towel service for $4 so you don't have to pack wet towels the next day. It rained the first night at camp and some tents were in 2 inches of water so some had to move their tents in the night or slept in the dining tent. My tent was spared the flooding and I only had to put up with a slight surface dampness. I was profoundly exhausted the first night. We walked the longest the first day, 21.9 miles. I did not think to plan my pace and pit stops so I got into camp late and couldn't get into the massage list anymore. So I took 800 mg Ibuprofen and a long hot shower and zipped into my sleeping bag and I didn't even know that the camp was flooding until morning. The next day I was wiser. I was one of the first 300 to arrive at the campsite and I went to the massage tent right away and got the full treatment within the hour. Aahh! Sheer bliss! I had a blister, a pea-sized no account beginner but I took it to the podiatry tent anyway and they drained it with a syringe, put a band-aid and it was gone the next day. That night the temperature dipped to 40 degrees and when you have to go because you filtered gallons of Gatorade that's when you wish you were a man so you can urinate in a bottle right there in the warmth of your sleeping bag.
The final day was a glorious day and excitement has built up. There was this Harley riding volunteer crew of flamboyant characters in their sleeveless vests with names like WASSUP showing off biceps and wearing ponytails or the belly types showing off bald heads but shod in cowboy snakeskin boots nevertheless. They came roaring vroom vroom in their cycles first thing in the day. They opened the route and we couldn't start walking until they checked the road ahead and said go! They parked at intersections and held the cars, their radios blasting motivational songs like Willie Nelson's "On the Road Again" or YMCA. Everybody loved them and of course they relished their role as support and protector. I heard they have been volunteering for the past 3 years and this group had a monopoly going, no one else can sign up unless one of them quits.
I did it! I walked 60 miles for 3 days on October 5-7 and raised $8413 for breast cancer from all of you dear friends who supported my effort. The Atlanta Avon 3-day, 2300 walkers all and at least another thousand crew and volunteers brought in $4.4 M to the Breast Cancer Fund. Sixty-three cents for every dollar is returned to the fund which supports medical research, education, and programs for early detection and treatment among medically underserved women. Last year The Winship Breast Cancer Institute of Emory University and Grady Memorial Hospital received $15.3M from the fund. THANKS to all of you DANKE, GRAZIE, MERCI, GRACIAS, ARIGATO, MAHALO, MARAMING SALAMAT PO!
It was great fun for me all the way. From dreaming up the Mad Hatter's
auction-fundraiser, to writing those corny (but effective!) poems and sending out my ABC, to camping out for 3 days and now I've come to XYZ. The whole effort was a super adventure and a grand party for me. But all good things must come to an end. So I'll start another one. On July 4th next year I'll run the 10K Peachtree Road Race. There will not be any fund-raising for this so no need to take out your checkbook, it's just the biggest road race in the world and I've got to do it!
Wednesday, March 01, 2006
Embracing Life
We came home from the Filipino-American New Year’s Ball at 1:30 AM, January 1, 2004, exhilarated by the excitement of welcoming the new year in the company of dear friends we have known for 24 years. I was still revved up and wanted to watch the re-run of the Times Square celebration. He said he was going to bed. He felt very fatigued at the party, could hardly walk back to the car, but gallant as ever, he insisted on getting the car and picking me up at the curb. I climbed into bed half an hour later, and as I dozed I heard him gasp. I can’t believe what was happening. I dialed 911 and started CPR. I couldn’t do it properly on the yielding bed, so I rushed downstairs to wake up my live-in houseman so he can help me bring him down to the floor. But as I pumped his chest I was computing in my mind the elapsed time that he didn’t have a pulse. My trained persona as a doctor knew. But I was saying to myself, he couldn’t be dead. I knelt by his side, unbelieving, numb, I felt detached, like I was watching someone else. I screamed to rouse myself. I asked him is he dead, what the devil did he do that for? I scolded him and then I could cry. The EMS crew arrived and I was like a robot. I just followed what they told me to do. I called my daughter, and in an hour friends started coming, friends we just parted with 2 hours ago. When they took the body we sat around in silence, stunned, and then I remembered we were keeping a bottle of Dom Perignon chilled for special occasions. We popped the cork and drank to Johnny. It was the special occasion.
I was overwhelmed with the outpouring of grief, support and love from friends, family and colleagues. It was not enough to stop after the eulogies and then go deal with this loss privately. His golf buddies held a golf tournament in his memory in the dead of winter. Community organizations dedicated dinners and conferred honors. Many wanted to know if they can give money to a cause he supported, in his memory. People just sent money to me outright and I didn’t know what to do with it. My sister suggested funding a scholarship. His career was related to medical informatics. He was well known in my alumni circle as he was sought for his opinions when our class was evaluating our alumni project for our alma mater, which was computerization. It was an AHA! moment when the idea struck, and it proved to be a perfect fit. I knew exactly how I would do it. In the year when lupus reared its ugly head, in 2001 I walked 60 miles in the Avon 3-day Walk for Breast Cancer and raised $857I by throwing a party on my birthday. Instead of bringing gifts, friends brought treasures for auction, in a Mad Hatter’s party where everyone came in original hats to vie for fun prizes. I would recall my Mad Hatter’s team and throw a big auction fund-raiser party. And we did, and raised $20K to endow the Johnny B. Pellicer Professorial Chair in Medical Informatics in the University of the Philippines College of Medicine and we had a blast of a party!
I love life and always had fun as far back as I can remember. Growing up in the Philippines, I spent an idyllic childhood of romps on the beach digging for clams with friends and getting into mischief and receiving punishment as the ringleader. I was adventurous and curious, and even if I got into trouble, the experience always seemed worth it. I loved life before I met Johnny and I loved life when I was with him for 35 years, and I haven’t changed after I lost him. If anything his death taught me to even love every second of life as long as I live. When I saw him across the room for the first time, fireworks burst in air. He gave me an experience I will never forget. He had bad genes. I had a preview of what was going to happen through his identical twin brother’s life who died 3 years earlier, being older in the order of birth. Both had gout, diabetes, hypertension, and then late onset lupus that accelerated the worsening of all conditions leading to complications, in their case, coronary artery disease, kidney damage, and painful neuropathy. During the 3 years of Johnny’s illness I endured with him open- heart coronary bypass graft surgery, lithotripsy, gallbladder laparoscopy, and IV chemotherapy. He wanted to live, and he lived until he died. He succumbed to a second massive coronary when he went on that final sleep. My son wrote in his blog, “ My mother taught me how to live life, but my father showed me that life is worth living. ”
I have many lives. I have my work life practicing medicine, my family life, life with friends, community life, life of personal pursuits and solitude, and I had my life with Johnny. I’m surrounded by loving people with whom I enjoy indulging varied interests, such as golf, mahjong, the theater, dancing, dining, wine, tennis, travel, skiing, karaoke singing, solving world problems, and exchanging scatological and titillating jokes. I laugh loud, and sometimes find myself rolling on the floor.
I’m continuing my life as I lived it before Johnny died. On the year of his death I had the auction fund-raiser and was attending all the community functions held in honor of his memory. I went to Venice during Thanksgiving as that was planned with him before he died, and I discovered I needed respite. It provided me with solitude to find my bearings. On December 24 of that year my mother died. In the first year after his death I went to Antarctica , then I was a principal organizer of our Annual Medical Alumni Conference in South Beach, and after that I went for a retreat in a Zen monastery in Tassajara. This second year of his death, I had a New Years Day open house to gather friends to pray in his memory, then I went to East Africa for a safari, and now I’m chairing the committee to celebrate the centennial of Filipino-American migration with a cultural festival at Atlantic Station in Midtown Atlanta. My life is busy and fulfilling. I’m the Miman of 2 beautiful grandchildren. But there is that part that was my life with Johnny and it’s irreplaceable. I may have another relationship. That will be a new adventure. Life is exciting, it is worth living indeed.
I was overwhelmed with the outpouring of grief, support and love from friends, family and colleagues. It was not enough to stop after the eulogies and then go deal with this loss privately. His golf buddies held a golf tournament in his memory in the dead of winter. Community organizations dedicated dinners and conferred honors. Many wanted to know if they can give money to a cause he supported, in his memory. People just sent money to me outright and I didn’t know what to do with it. My sister suggested funding a scholarship. His career was related to medical informatics. He was well known in my alumni circle as he was sought for his opinions when our class was evaluating our alumni project for our alma mater, which was computerization. It was an AHA! moment when the idea struck, and it proved to be a perfect fit. I knew exactly how I would do it. In the year when lupus reared its ugly head, in 2001 I walked 60 miles in the Avon 3-day Walk for Breast Cancer and raised $857I by throwing a party on my birthday. Instead of bringing gifts, friends brought treasures for auction, in a Mad Hatter’s party where everyone came in original hats to vie for fun prizes. I would recall my Mad Hatter’s team and throw a big auction fund-raiser party. And we did, and raised $20K to endow the Johnny B. Pellicer Professorial Chair in Medical Informatics in the University of the Philippines College of Medicine and we had a blast of a party!
I love life and always had fun as far back as I can remember. Growing up in the Philippines, I spent an idyllic childhood of romps on the beach digging for clams with friends and getting into mischief and receiving punishment as the ringleader. I was adventurous and curious, and even if I got into trouble, the experience always seemed worth it. I loved life before I met Johnny and I loved life when I was with him for 35 years, and I haven’t changed after I lost him. If anything his death taught me to even love every second of life as long as I live. When I saw him across the room for the first time, fireworks burst in air. He gave me an experience I will never forget. He had bad genes. I had a preview of what was going to happen through his identical twin brother’s life who died 3 years earlier, being older in the order of birth. Both had gout, diabetes, hypertension, and then late onset lupus that accelerated the worsening of all conditions leading to complications, in their case, coronary artery disease, kidney damage, and painful neuropathy. During the 3 years of Johnny’s illness I endured with him open- heart coronary bypass graft surgery, lithotripsy, gallbladder laparoscopy, and IV chemotherapy. He wanted to live, and he lived until he died. He succumbed to a second massive coronary when he went on that final sleep. My son wrote in his blog, “ My mother taught me how to live life, but my father showed me that life is worth living. ”
I have many lives. I have my work life practicing medicine, my family life, life with friends, community life, life of personal pursuits and solitude, and I had my life with Johnny. I’m surrounded by loving people with whom I enjoy indulging varied interests, such as golf, mahjong, the theater, dancing, dining, wine, tennis, travel, skiing, karaoke singing, solving world problems, and exchanging scatological and titillating jokes. I laugh loud, and sometimes find myself rolling on the floor.
I’m continuing my life as I lived it before Johnny died. On the year of his death I had the auction fund-raiser and was attending all the community functions held in honor of his memory. I went to Venice during Thanksgiving as that was planned with him before he died, and I discovered I needed respite. It provided me with solitude to find my bearings. On December 24 of that year my mother died. In the first year after his death I went to Antarctica , then I was a principal organizer of our Annual Medical Alumni Conference in South Beach, and after that I went for a retreat in a Zen monastery in Tassajara. This second year of his death, I had a New Years Day open house to gather friends to pray in his memory, then I went to East Africa for a safari, and now I’m chairing the committee to celebrate the centennial of Filipino-American migration with a cultural festival at Atlantic Station in Midtown Atlanta. My life is busy and fulfilling. I’m the Miman of 2 beautiful grandchildren. But there is that part that was my life with Johnny and it’s irreplaceable. I may have another relationship. That will be a new adventure. Life is exciting, it is worth living indeed.
Sunday, February 12, 2006
China
Misadventures in China: The Golden Girls' Grand Tour
August 2002
ON THE SECOND WEEK OF OUR GRAND CHINA TOUR we decided to take a break at McDonald's, in Chengdu. We had just come down from Lhasa, Tibet, where at an altitude of 13,000 feet we had all gotten sick from the thin air, with palpitations, shortness of breath, nausea, light-headedness, and terrible, pulsating squeezing headaches unresponsive to any analgesic. The only relief was to suck oxygen from aerosol canisters you could buy for Y 30. That's how I survived climbing the steep steps and breathing the thick incense of the Potala Palace. Tess was having palpitations and didn't want to test the limits of her cardiac pacemaker so she stayed in her room. Didi tried to get out but couldn't make the palace steps so she decided to go back and take refuge in the bus, because it was also raining and the wind was whipping. Myrna was coming down with the flu when we left Xian, so she also had fever and chills on top of altitude sickness. She only saw her bed and the bowl of the toilet during the 2 days we spent in Tibet. She didn't eat for 2 days and was glad to lose weight, her only consolation. She said she would return to see the sights she missed only if she got crazy enough. She got worried so she agreed to see the hotel doctor who made a room call, gave her a physical, confirmed she had the flu and altitude sickness, then gave her a shot and a supply of medicine, all for Y 100, the equivalent of $12.31. Managed health care in the United States is ripping us off. When we left Tibet we were hungry. Yak cuisine I believe is only cherished by yaks, and we had had enough Chinese food for a week, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, so we definitely needed a break. McDonald's was restorative.
We had started in style. In Vancouver, our gateway to Beijing, we hired a white chauffeured limousine to pick us up from the airport and take us to the historic 5-star Fairmont Hotel, across from Robson Street and the fashionable downtown scene. The weekend stay in Vancouver was the warm-up act, as our trans-Pacific crossing was not until until Monday.
We couldn't wait to get to Beijing. But our excitement was quickly contained when Tess's luggage didn't show up. We saved the day by having a good excuse to shop. However, Air China found the bag in Vancouver and brought it over the next day. Didi wasn't as lucky with her new camera. She had narrowly escaped disaster in Vancouver during security inspection. She was held up a long time when she couldn't operate the brand new camera because she had forgotten about batteries. She therefore had to step out of the security area and arrange for it to be put in checked baggage. It arrived with us only to get lost later in her hotel room.
Beijing was venerable, ancient and impressive. It is hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics and you won't miss to note that with street hawkers pushing Olympic-logoed hats and stuff. It is over 2000 years old, like most of the other places we visited. It's good to visit these ancient places. After all we were taking this trip on our golden 60th birthdays, so in comparison, we are juveniles. You think everything in Texas is big? Well, you obviously haven't been to Beijing. Tiananmen Square holds 1million people. I can't even imagine that. It requires aerobic fitness and good running shoes to traverse. The Forbidden City is forbiddingly huge as well, with one courtyard after another and another. Just to get from room to room is like walking to the next block. Its floors are layered under with 6 meters of stone, to prevent enemies from tunneling in. It was barren. It had no trees, for similar enemy-deterrent reasons. Forbidding indeed! I lost the group in the Temple of Heaven and managed to find myself in the surrounding gardens amidst 600- year-old cypress trees. I thought it was there where the intention of the Temple was felt most and was meant for me to experience. It was like the uplifting one feels in the right moments and solemn state of the spirit in cathedrals. I was thinking that if I never find the group I'd just take a taxi to the hotel. But Peter, our tour manager found me. You'd think it would be smooth sailing from here on, but no!
We checked in for a very early flight to Xian still groggy from lack of sleep because we had played mahjongg until 2 AM and barely had enough time to repack and make it to the airport. Well, our flight was delayed for 4 hours, we were told to our chagrin. But China Southern was nice. They booked all the passengers at a nearby hotel, gave us full breakfast, and told us to rest and take a nap and they'll ring us when our flight was ready. Wow, do you think Delta would do that? Playing mahjongg in hotels is easy in China. Everybody does it in their rooms and every hotel is set up with rental tables and mahjongg sets to hire by the hour. I bought an exquisite hand-carved black agate mahjongg set and we used it to play that 2nd night in Beijing, only to discover that the set was the mainland version, not the familiar Hong Kong set we are used to. Mainland mahjongg has 8 fewer flowers. I had to return the set, regrettably.
Xian was lovely. Our hotel faced the city square and every morning at first light, we saw everyone come out to do Tai Chi. There are no health clubs, so the citizens use public spaces for these activities and for social gatherings. There was a group of women who did their exercises with colorful fans and another group with a leader who called the graceful sustained movements to hypnotic music. With the morning light coming in at an angle against the ancient city walls and reflecting over the Drum and Bell Towers, the whole scene was mesmerizing, surreal. In neighborhood alleys, people played chess and mahjongg, did each other's hair, cleaned the baby or brushed their teeth, socializing simultaneously. And of course the terra cotta warriors were just mind-boggling. The imagination of this particular Qin Dynasty emperor was truly beyond ordinary. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda paled in comparison. The disaster in Xian was that we didn't have enough time to do shopping. Our local guide, Margaret was very proud of her city and was determined to give us and show us the experience she thought we required to appreciate her city. She was a hard taskmaster and exhorted us against shopping for bargains and fakes, and warned us not to fall for ruses and manipulations by these new entrepreneurs. In the end Margaret was right and we enjoyed her city the most, thanks to her.
As soon as we descended from Lhasa to Chengdu, we felt much better. The headaches just disappeared. After McDonald's we're off to Chongqin where would board the boat that would take us on a 3-day Yangtze River cruise. The highlight would be passing through the Three Gorges, which next year will disappear in the biggest dam project in the world. When the dam is operational, the water will rise to 145 meters and flood the ancient towns and cultural relics along the river. When May, our local guide announced that we were going on a 4-hour bus ride to Chongqin and that we should all head for the bus station, we all cracked up. Right away I yelled to Myrna, "Hey, use devastation in a sentence". And on cue Myrna replied, " To go to Chongqin, pirst we must go to de- bas- tey-shon". We doubled over laughing and I'm sure the other folks on the tour group thought we had all gone mad. We went on and on with " Hey, use tenacious in a sentence", and so forth, until we exhausted our repertoire.
A cruise on the Yangtze is not anything like going on a Disney Big Red Boat. There is absolutely nothing to do but sit and watch the scenery. We went on off-shore excursions to ancient temples built on the sides of the mountain plunging into the river. We took a ski lift to the Ghost City (torture chambers and ugly creatures where sinners would go and attempt to be purified for reincarnation). We paddled upstream in tributaries to be in the midst of pristine blue-green crystal waters and feel enveloped by soaring mountain walls on each side. But it didn't take long to discover the art of doing nothing. It was actually peaceful. In the evenings it was mahjongg time, until Didi and Myrna got on each other's nerves and began wagging fingers in each other's faces and got all worked up over nothing. We quit mahjongg right then and there and didn't touch it again. But we love each other, so the next day all was forgiven and we prepared for the eagerly- awaited sojourn to Shanghai. Shucks, I wasn't able to recover my mahjongg losses totaling close to 60 US dollars.
Shanghai is Chicago along the "Bund," New York along the East Bank, and China in the Old Town. It has the pulse of the West, with frenetic shopping on Nanjing Road and gleaming breathtaking skyscrapers in the new city that rose from the East Bank marshes only in the last 10 years. Its sweeping highway exchanges puts Atlanta’s Spaghetti Junction to shame, and the tallest communication tower in the world gives its skyline a futuristic ambience. We found a bottle of French Bordeaux and drank to my 60th birthday. It was Sunday, the 25th of August. Shanghai. Just the name conjures mystery, intrigue and excitement.
The next day we were back to reality. We were going home and suddenly we couldn't wait to get going. The Pacific crossing was sooo long and we needed to stay overnight in Vancouver to get a flight home to Atlanta very early the next day. But that was OK for as soon as we got into Vancouver's spanking new international concourse we were grateful for the clean and deodorized restroom facilities with soap and paper supplies and flushing seat toilets. We never got used to the crouching position and the heavy stink of open floor urinals without flushing water and toilet paper in China. Flushing seat toilets are the hallmark of advanced civilization, don't anybody dispute that! We couldn't stomach another Chinese meal, so we looked for Goldilocks and ordered kare-kare, binagoongan, dinuguan, and sago drink. All was well, we would be home soon. Or so we thought. But we couldn't believe what happened next. Our connecting flight from Minneapolis had been canceled. Northwest was going to put us on their last flight out of there 3 hours later. Unacceptable. Our graciousness and equanimity had been spent in China. We demanded to be booked on another airline at their expense, and we were serious. We landed at Hartsfield on Delta only 40 minutes later than our original scheduled arrival with all our luggage and pasalubong. At last we were home!
August 2002
ON THE SECOND WEEK OF OUR GRAND CHINA TOUR we decided to take a break at McDonald's, in Chengdu. We had just come down from Lhasa, Tibet, where at an altitude of 13,000 feet we had all gotten sick from the thin air, with palpitations, shortness of breath, nausea, light-headedness, and terrible, pulsating squeezing headaches unresponsive to any analgesic. The only relief was to suck oxygen from aerosol canisters you could buy for Y 30. That's how I survived climbing the steep steps and breathing the thick incense of the Potala Palace. Tess was having palpitations and didn't want to test the limits of her cardiac pacemaker so she stayed in her room. Didi tried to get out but couldn't make the palace steps so she decided to go back and take refuge in the bus, because it was also raining and the wind was whipping. Myrna was coming down with the flu when we left Xian, so she also had fever and chills on top of altitude sickness. She only saw her bed and the bowl of the toilet during the 2 days we spent in Tibet. She didn't eat for 2 days and was glad to lose weight, her only consolation. She said she would return to see the sights she missed only if she got crazy enough. She got worried so she agreed to see the hotel doctor who made a room call, gave her a physical, confirmed she had the flu and altitude sickness, then gave her a shot and a supply of medicine, all for Y 100, the equivalent of $12.31. Managed health care in the United States is ripping us off. When we left Tibet we were hungry. Yak cuisine I believe is only cherished by yaks, and we had had enough Chinese food for a week, for breakfast, lunch and dinner, so we definitely needed a break. McDonald's was restorative.
We had started in style. In Vancouver, our gateway to Beijing, we hired a white chauffeured limousine to pick us up from the airport and take us to the historic 5-star Fairmont Hotel, across from Robson Street and the fashionable downtown scene. The weekend stay in Vancouver was the warm-up act, as our trans-Pacific crossing was not until until Monday.
We couldn't wait to get to Beijing. But our excitement was quickly contained when Tess's luggage didn't show up. We saved the day by having a good excuse to shop. However, Air China found the bag in Vancouver and brought it over the next day. Didi wasn't as lucky with her new camera. She had narrowly escaped disaster in Vancouver during security inspection. She was held up a long time when she couldn't operate the brand new camera because she had forgotten about batteries. She therefore had to step out of the security area and arrange for it to be put in checked baggage. It arrived with us only to get lost later in her hotel room.
Beijing was venerable, ancient and impressive. It is hosting the 2008 Summer Olympics and you won't miss to note that with street hawkers pushing Olympic-logoed hats and stuff. It is over 2000 years old, like most of the other places we visited. It's good to visit these ancient places. After all we were taking this trip on our golden 60th birthdays, so in comparison, we are juveniles. You think everything in Texas is big? Well, you obviously haven't been to Beijing. Tiananmen Square holds 1million people. I can't even imagine that. It requires aerobic fitness and good running shoes to traverse. The Forbidden City is forbiddingly huge as well, with one courtyard after another and another. Just to get from room to room is like walking to the next block. Its floors are layered under with 6 meters of stone, to prevent enemies from tunneling in. It was barren. It had no trees, for similar enemy-deterrent reasons. Forbidding indeed! I lost the group in the Temple of Heaven and managed to find myself in the surrounding gardens amidst 600- year-old cypress trees. I thought it was there where the intention of the Temple was felt most and was meant for me to experience. It was like the uplifting one feels in the right moments and solemn state of the spirit in cathedrals. I was thinking that if I never find the group I'd just take a taxi to the hotel. But Peter, our tour manager found me. You'd think it would be smooth sailing from here on, but no!
We checked in for a very early flight to Xian still groggy from lack of sleep because we had played mahjongg until 2 AM and barely had enough time to repack and make it to the airport. Well, our flight was delayed for 4 hours, we were told to our chagrin. But China Southern was nice. They booked all the passengers at a nearby hotel, gave us full breakfast, and told us to rest and take a nap and they'll ring us when our flight was ready. Wow, do you think Delta would do that? Playing mahjongg in hotels is easy in China. Everybody does it in their rooms and every hotel is set up with rental tables and mahjongg sets to hire by the hour. I bought an exquisite hand-carved black agate mahjongg set and we used it to play that 2nd night in Beijing, only to discover that the set was the mainland version, not the familiar Hong Kong set we are used to. Mainland mahjongg has 8 fewer flowers. I had to return the set, regrettably.
Xian was lovely. Our hotel faced the city square and every morning at first light, we saw everyone come out to do Tai Chi. There are no health clubs, so the citizens use public spaces for these activities and for social gatherings. There was a group of women who did their exercises with colorful fans and another group with a leader who called the graceful sustained movements to hypnotic music. With the morning light coming in at an angle against the ancient city walls and reflecting over the Drum and Bell Towers, the whole scene was mesmerizing, surreal. In neighborhood alleys, people played chess and mahjongg, did each other's hair, cleaned the baby or brushed their teeth, socializing simultaneously. And of course the terra cotta warriors were just mind-boggling. The imagination of this particular Qin Dynasty emperor was truly beyond ordinary. The Big Wild Goose Pagoda paled in comparison. The disaster in Xian was that we didn't have enough time to do shopping. Our local guide, Margaret was very proud of her city and was determined to give us and show us the experience she thought we required to appreciate her city. She was a hard taskmaster and exhorted us against shopping for bargains and fakes, and warned us not to fall for ruses and manipulations by these new entrepreneurs. In the end Margaret was right and we enjoyed her city the most, thanks to her.
As soon as we descended from Lhasa to Chengdu, we felt much better. The headaches just disappeared. After McDonald's we're off to Chongqin where would board the boat that would take us on a 3-day Yangtze River cruise. The highlight would be passing through the Three Gorges, which next year will disappear in the biggest dam project in the world. When the dam is operational, the water will rise to 145 meters and flood the ancient towns and cultural relics along the river. When May, our local guide announced that we were going on a 4-hour bus ride to Chongqin and that we should all head for the bus station, we all cracked up. Right away I yelled to Myrna, "Hey, use devastation in a sentence". And on cue Myrna replied, " To go to Chongqin, pirst we must go to de- bas- tey-shon". We doubled over laughing and I'm sure the other folks on the tour group thought we had all gone mad. We went on and on with " Hey, use tenacious in a sentence", and so forth, until we exhausted our repertoire.
A cruise on the Yangtze is not anything like going on a Disney Big Red Boat. There is absolutely nothing to do but sit and watch the scenery. We went on off-shore excursions to ancient temples built on the sides of the mountain plunging into the river. We took a ski lift to the Ghost City (torture chambers and ugly creatures where sinners would go and attempt to be purified for reincarnation). We paddled upstream in tributaries to be in the midst of pristine blue-green crystal waters and feel enveloped by soaring mountain walls on each side. But it didn't take long to discover the art of doing nothing. It was actually peaceful. In the evenings it was mahjongg time, until Didi and Myrna got on each other's nerves and began wagging fingers in each other's faces and got all worked up over nothing. We quit mahjongg right then and there and didn't touch it again. But we love each other, so the next day all was forgiven and we prepared for the eagerly- awaited sojourn to Shanghai. Shucks, I wasn't able to recover my mahjongg losses totaling close to 60 US dollars.
Shanghai is Chicago along the "Bund," New York along the East Bank, and China in the Old Town. It has the pulse of the West, with frenetic shopping on Nanjing Road and gleaming breathtaking skyscrapers in the new city that rose from the East Bank marshes only in the last 10 years. Its sweeping highway exchanges puts Atlanta’s Spaghetti Junction to shame, and the tallest communication tower in the world gives its skyline a futuristic ambience. We found a bottle of French Bordeaux and drank to my 60th birthday. It was Sunday, the 25th of August. Shanghai. Just the name conjures mystery, intrigue and excitement.
The next day we were back to reality. We were going home and suddenly we couldn't wait to get going. The Pacific crossing was sooo long and we needed to stay overnight in Vancouver to get a flight home to Atlanta very early the next day. But that was OK for as soon as we got into Vancouver's spanking new international concourse we were grateful for the clean and deodorized restroom facilities with soap and paper supplies and flushing seat toilets. We never got used to the crouching position and the heavy stink of open floor urinals without flushing water and toilet paper in China. Flushing seat toilets are the hallmark of advanced civilization, don't anybody dispute that! We couldn't stomach another Chinese meal, so we looked for Goldilocks and ordered kare-kare, binagoongan, dinuguan, and sago drink. All was well, we would be home soon. Or so we thought. But we couldn't believe what happened next. Our connecting flight from Minneapolis had been canceled. Northwest was going to put us on their last flight out of there 3 hours later. Unacceptable. Our graciousness and equanimity had been spent in China. We demanded to be booked on another airline at their expense, and we were serious. We landed at Hartsfield on Delta only 40 minutes later than our original scheduled arrival with all our luggage and pasalubong. At last we were home!
Island Fantasies
Island Fantasies, No Man Is An Island
November 3, 2002
What is it about Islands that beckon? I suppose each of us can come up easily with our own vision of island living. I grew up in the Philippine Islands. I know exactly what it's like to live in an island. So what possessed me to pay $450 a day to stay at Greyfield Inn in Cumberland Island where there's absolutely nothing else in the place but it's maritime wilderness? The only lodging in town is Greyfield Inn with 12 rooms; otherwise you backpack and rough it in the wilderness camps to sleep over in the island. Greyfield is a 5-star historic inn operation where dinners are a dressed-up affair preceded by cocktails and civilized conversation in the antique-furnished living room. You are given a tour of the Island by a resident naturalist in an open truck with blankets provided to warm your lap. At the end of the tour, he switches the wheels to the 4-wheel mode and drives on the beach for miles and you see nothing but wide dunescapes and wild horses and shore birds and blue sky and foaming waves. The air meeting your face is crisp and fresh you can just feel the exchange of gases taking place in your lungs, clean air in, polluted city air out. After the tour, you can pick up your gourmet picnic basket and you can take it anywhere to have lunch. You can eat in the wide front porch or on picnic tables on the front lawn, or in the back overlooking the marsh, or you can take it under the canopies of spreading live oaks decorated with hanging Spanish moss, or you can take it to the beach on a bike available everywhere in the inn property. On the beach you can walk for miles without meeting anyone except a wild horse or a flock of migrating swallows, or sea gulls. The inn provides special bikes you can ride on the beach, and I learned to ride the bicycle this way, an exhilarating experience I'll always treasure for years to come. Camping out means, well you know what camping is. It would be not as primitive if you can get reservations in the Sea Camp area, the only developed section of the Island for the public. For $4 a day users fee, plus the ferry ride to get to the Island ($12) you can have camping amenities such as power connection, flushing toilets, cold showers, and fire pits for cooking. But you have to bring everything else of course and carry them on your back for at least 5 ½ miles and then you pack all your garbage after breaking camp and take it on your back again because you're supposed to leave the place undisturbed, without any sign that you've been there. Cars are not allowed on the Island unless you're a descendant of one of the 10% landowners in the island. The rest of the island is owned and administered by the Park Service as a National Seashore. That was designated in 1972 after wrangling by conservationists, developers, politicians, and the heirs of industrial tycoons, the Carnegies primarily. Now the Island is available to the public albeit in limited ways. Because it is operated as a wilderness area there are restrictions in its use. The 4 camp sites 3 of which are in wilderness areas, only accept 20 reservations each at a time for a maximum of seven days each stay, so the island only sees about 50,000 visitors a year. The waiting list is about 6 months. It is the same for Greyfield Inn, the only private enterprise on the Island, by virtue of heir succession. If the owners decide to sell the National Park Service has first option on the property, which it will exercise for sure so that the whole Island will be all public eventually. I made reservations a year ago only to cancel it because Johnny was stricken with virulent systemic lupus. When he got slightly better to allow travel, I made another reservation 6 months ago to visit the Island to celebrate our 34th wedding anniversary. I mentioned this to friends during dinner at home one night and in a single response everyone wanted to come too. Right then and there we logged on the Inn website and as fate would have it there were 3 rooms available and the Abelleras, Mallaris, and Apanays booked them that very instant.
Why did we want to go? Why all this excitement about an Island? The first time I returned to visit home, after being away for 20 years, we went to a resort island off Cebu. It was a different experience than what I had when I was growing up in Pasacao. Though those childhood years in Pasacao I remember as priceless, the island experience this time as an adult has other yearnings and fantasies tacked on to it. Perhaps I have been influenced heavily already by western ideas, or have I drifted slightly from my roots? I said then, “ Oh, let’s buy a little Island here to retire to!” And what was I envisioning then? I had an image of an idyllic paradise. Sunshine and balmy weather all year round, fragrant breeze blowing your hair, walking barefoot on the beach under moonlit skies, I, the queen of this piece of earth, separate from the rest of the world, in my own domain, self-sufficient and beholden to no one. I will surround myself with beauty and with the joyous company of family and friends, who will come and visit and I will shower them with hospitality and generosity and I in return will be enriched by their presence and affection. That was the scenario. I thought it was original then until I learned about the settlers of Cumberland Island, especially the last tycoons who built their mansions there and tried to live in the Island albeit on a grand scale, but the broad stroke is exactly as I saw it in my whimsical musing.
The Island belonged to the Timucuan Indians in pre-Columbian times. They are now extinct, killed by the diseases brought by the European colonists, to which these tribes didn’t have any immunity. They were tall, reaching seven feet to the Spaniard’s average 5 ½ feet. They were formidable and brave warriors to be sure, but the white man’s germs wiped them out and a succession of these white settlers tried to live in the island. When the English drove out the Spaniards they named the Island after the Duke of Cumberland. Later the Crown parceled the Island to loyal subjects and the Island evolved into Plantations until they were broken up after the Civil War. The new industrial tycoons, the Carnegies primarily bought most of the acreage and lived their fantasies on the Island in much the same way I envisioned it. The ill-fated John Kennedy, Jr. and Carolyn Bissett had very romantic and exclusive notions of the Island and had their supposedly secret wedding there. The Dungeness Mansion, which is now in ruins, was the center of that lifestyle. It was surrounded by gardens, it hosted glittering socials for family and VIPS and the beautiful people of the era, it cultivated crops and raised farm animals, it fished in the surrounding waters, it was a self-sustaining entity. But obviously it didn’t last, the dream cannot be sustained. Today the Island is close to how it existed when the Timucuans boiled the sap from the indigenous holly bushes that grow on the North Shore and in their ceremonial rituals they formed a circle and drank this brew until they were intoxicated to the point of throwing up. So our company of dear friends drank Cabernet that we smuggled in our luggage, we toast our friendship, our affection for one another, and cherish our fortune of being together as couples for over 30 years and for $450 a day we got to live our Island fantasies and we only have to pay the price in expendable dollars. That was a good deal, if we forget about the swarm of ticks and gnats and mosquitoes that would eat one alive whenever the air gets warm. We were glad to flee the Island in a fast boat to escape this attack.
November 3, 2002
What is it about Islands that beckon? I suppose each of us can come up easily with our own vision of island living. I grew up in the Philippine Islands. I know exactly what it's like to live in an island. So what possessed me to pay $450 a day to stay at Greyfield Inn in Cumberland Island where there's absolutely nothing else in the place but it's maritime wilderness? The only lodging in town is Greyfield Inn with 12 rooms; otherwise you backpack and rough it in the wilderness camps to sleep over in the island. Greyfield is a 5-star historic inn operation where dinners are a dressed-up affair preceded by cocktails and civilized conversation in the antique-furnished living room. You are given a tour of the Island by a resident naturalist in an open truck with blankets provided to warm your lap. At the end of the tour, he switches the wheels to the 4-wheel mode and drives on the beach for miles and you see nothing but wide dunescapes and wild horses and shore birds and blue sky and foaming waves. The air meeting your face is crisp and fresh you can just feel the exchange of gases taking place in your lungs, clean air in, polluted city air out. After the tour, you can pick up your gourmet picnic basket and you can take it anywhere to have lunch. You can eat in the wide front porch or on picnic tables on the front lawn, or in the back overlooking the marsh, or you can take it under the canopies of spreading live oaks decorated with hanging Spanish moss, or you can take it to the beach on a bike available everywhere in the inn property. On the beach you can walk for miles without meeting anyone except a wild horse or a flock of migrating swallows, or sea gulls. The inn provides special bikes you can ride on the beach, and I learned to ride the bicycle this way, an exhilarating experience I'll always treasure for years to come. Camping out means, well you know what camping is. It would be not as primitive if you can get reservations in the Sea Camp area, the only developed section of the Island for the public. For $4 a day users fee, plus the ferry ride to get to the Island ($12) you can have camping amenities such as power connection, flushing toilets, cold showers, and fire pits for cooking. But you have to bring everything else of course and carry them on your back for at least 5 ½ miles and then you pack all your garbage after breaking camp and take it on your back again because you're supposed to leave the place undisturbed, without any sign that you've been there. Cars are not allowed on the Island unless you're a descendant of one of the 10% landowners in the island. The rest of the island is owned and administered by the Park Service as a National Seashore. That was designated in 1972 after wrangling by conservationists, developers, politicians, and the heirs of industrial tycoons, the Carnegies primarily. Now the Island is available to the public albeit in limited ways. Because it is operated as a wilderness area there are restrictions in its use. The 4 camp sites 3 of which are in wilderness areas, only accept 20 reservations each at a time for a maximum of seven days each stay, so the island only sees about 50,000 visitors a year. The waiting list is about 6 months. It is the same for Greyfield Inn, the only private enterprise on the Island, by virtue of heir succession. If the owners decide to sell the National Park Service has first option on the property, which it will exercise for sure so that the whole Island will be all public eventually. I made reservations a year ago only to cancel it because Johnny was stricken with virulent systemic lupus. When he got slightly better to allow travel, I made another reservation 6 months ago to visit the Island to celebrate our 34th wedding anniversary. I mentioned this to friends during dinner at home one night and in a single response everyone wanted to come too. Right then and there we logged on the Inn website and as fate would have it there were 3 rooms available and the Abelleras, Mallaris, and Apanays booked them that very instant.
Why did we want to go? Why all this excitement about an Island? The first time I returned to visit home, after being away for 20 years, we went to a resort island off Cebu. It was a different experience than what I had when I was growing up in Pasacao. Though those childhood years in Pasacao I remember as priceless, the island experience this time as an adult has other yearnings and fantasies tacked on to it. Perhaps I have been influenced heavily already by western ideas, or have I drifted slightly from my roots? I said then, “ Oh, let’s buy a little Island here to retire to!” And what was I envisioning then? I had an image of an idyllic paradise. Sunshine and balmy weather all year round, fragrant breeze blowing your hair, walking barefoot on the beach under moonlit skies, I, the queen of this piece of earth, separate from the rest of the world, in my own domain, self-sufficient and beholden to no one. I will surround myself with beauty and with the joyous company of family and friends, who will come and visit and I will shower them with hospitality and generosity and I in return will be enriched by their presence and affection. That was the scenario. I thought it was original then until I learned about the settlers of Cumberland Island, especially the last tycoons who built their mansions there and tried to live in the Island albeit on a grand scale, but the broad stroke is exactly as I saw it in my whimsical musing.
The Island belonged to the Timucuan Indians in pre-Columbian times. They are now extinct, killed by the diseases brought by the European colonists, to which these tribes didn’t have any immunity. They were tall, reaching seven feet to the Spaniard’s average 5 ½ feet. They were formidable and brave warriors to be sure, but the white man’s germs wiped them out and a succession of these white settlers tried to live in the island. When the English drove out the Spaniards they named the Island after the Duke of Cumberland. Later the Crown parceled the Island to loyal subjects and the Island evolved into Plantations until they were broken up after the Civil War. The new industrial tycoons, the Carnegies primarily bought most of the acreage and lived their fantasies on the Island in much the same way I envisioned it. The ill-fated John Kennedy, Jr. and Carolyn Bissett had very romantic and exclusive notions of the Island and had their supposedly secret wedding there. The Dungeness Mansion, which is now in ruins, was the center of that lifestyle. It was surrounded by gardens, it hosted glittering socials for family and VIPS and the beautiful people of the era, it cultivated crops and raised farm animals, it fished in the surrounding waters, it was a self-sustaining entity. But obviously it didn’t last, the dream cannot be sustained. Today the Island is close to how it existed when the Timucuans boiled the sap from the indigenous holly bushes that grow on the North Shore and in their ceremonial rituals they formed a circle and drank this brew until they were intoxicated to the point of throwing up. So our company of dear friends drank Cabernet that we smuggled in our luggage, we toast our friendship, our affection for one another, and cherish our fortune of being together as couples for over 30 years and for $450 a day we got to live our Island fantasies and we only have to pay the price in expendable dollars. That was a good deal, if we forget about the swarm of ticks and gnats and mosquitoes that would eat one alive whenever the air gets warm. We were glad to flee the Island in a fast boat to escape this attack.
Grouper Omelet
February 2004
Bring 7 friends for a beach weekend and cook in and have a seafood night
Start with Dom Perignon 1993 and Brillat Cheese from Star Provisions
Follow with a fine 1993 Barolo and a voluptuous 1994 Brunello and a silky Cabernet
Serve colossal steamed fresh red shrimps from the gulf, seared glazed scallops, assorted seafood & spinach stew, grilled vegetables, and a huge grilled grouper
Finish with rum cake and Grand Marnier and Remy Martin Champagne Cognac XO
Go to bed and wake up groggy and watch the sunrise with your morning java cuppa
Flake a fistful of the left-over grilled grouper
Combine with chopped left-over sliced tomato from the meal before last
Scrounge for left-over mango and onions and chop
Heat a non-stick pan with 1 tbsp oil
Beat 4 eggs and set aside
Sauté the flaked grouper with the chopped thingies
Spread solids evenly on the pan when wilted
Pour the egg over and let the underside set over medium heat
Take a plate and balance it over the pan
With a flick of the wrist and with confidence, turn the pan over the plate
Then slide the inverted omelet back to the pan and finish cooking until the opposite side is set.
Go back to your coffee and let the others cook the rest of breakfast.
Bon Appetit!
Bring 7 friends for a beach weekend and cook in and have a seafood night
Start with Dom Perignon 1993 and Brillat Cheese from Star Provisions
Follow with a fine 1993 Barolo and a voluptuous 1994 Brunello and a silky Cabernet
Serve colossal steamed fresh red shrimps from the gulf, seared glazed scallops, assorted seafood & spinach stew, grilled vegetables, and a huge grilled grouper
Finish with rum cake and Grand Marnier and Remy Martin Champagne Cognac XO
Go to bed and wake up groggy and watch the sunrise with your morning java cuppa
Flake a fistful of the left-over grilled grouper
Combine with chopped left-over sliced tomato from the meal before last
Scrounge for left-over mango and onions and chop
Heat a non-stick pan with 1 tbsp oil
Beat 4 eggs and set aside
Sauté the flaked grouper with the chopped thingies
Spread solids evenly on the pan when wilted
Pour the egg over and let the underside set over medium heat
Take a plate and balance it over the pan
With a flick of the wrist and with confidence, turn the pan over the plate
Then slide the inverted omelet back to the pan and finish cooking until the opposite side is set.
Go back to your coffee and let the others cook the rest of breakfast.
Bon Appetit!
There's Wine in Them Thar Hills
There’s Wine in Them Thar Hills
In fancy company, we like to think of ourselves as eonophiles. But among kin and friends, we are viewed as a bunch who just like to get drunk and get silly on a scheduled basis, more or less. So every month we have dinner in each other’s homes and introduce personal wine discoveries to accompany the food. For the most part, our search would take us to Dekalb Farmer’s Market or Costco, or World Markets, to browse their wine ratings and check the bargains. But some of us who are retired and can take off anytime to travel have gone for wine pilgrimages to the hallowed and ancient lands of vinification themselves, Italy and France and to the noveau lands of Sonoma and Napa Valleys. In all of these the delight is in outdoing one another in displaying one’s wine tasting vocabulary, never mind that we have no idea on how to judge the wine. But then, just like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, good wine is in the palate of the imbiber, a matter of personal taste. This is the only way to view this exercise if we are to keep our affection for one another. Otherwise it would be an enologist’s war, for each one of us is passionate when we describe how a particular vintage affects us. We can wax poetic with our tongues, describing a particular vino’s bouquet, or legs, or sweetness, or dryness, or it’s finish or nose. Sometimes the descriptions can become X-rated, particularly when you’re searching for the subtlest nuance to convey a wine’s body. Do you notice how consistent wine’s imagery is with seduction? If you close your eyes and listen to a wine’s description, you’d think one is describing a full-bodied voluptuous woman with a fresh grass smell and great legs and ruby or cranberry red lips with an apple or musky aftertaste! You would notice in this particular group too, with an aggregate of 145 married years among them, how the talk easily descends into the gutter after the first few bottles are uncorked. The descriptions become wild, then crude, as boys who’ve had a few are wont to do. But since their tongues are now nimble and loose, and the grape’s nectar is in the head, we learn of secrets that help them to stay the virile boys that they are. So we look at them with indulgence and generosity and refrain from washing their mouths with soap.
The year before we decided to mark our anniversaries of marital togetherness in Cumberland Island and the fond memories still linger and are reviewed every time we meet. We note that I learned how to ride the bicycle there, on the pristine white beach, witnessed by shore birds and wild horses, fear of falling easily whisked away by the gentle reassurance of friends and the exquisite peace bestowed by the tranquil island that still exists as god intended it to be. This year we decided to go to the mountains and witness fall in its splendor. A friend offered the use of his mountain retreat nestled on a hill along the banks of the Chestatee River. But what can one do in Dahlonega, Lumpkin County? Is there any restaurant one can dine in? What can we do to fill the time? Once you’ve viewed the scenery, what is there to do? We look down on the Chestatee as we swing on the wide back porch. We supposed we can go fishing. But it’s past the fishing season and the fish are gone. From March to September the Chestatee obliges anglers with rainbow and brown trout, spotted, white and redeye bass, stripers, bluegill, and redbreast. But it’s now November. Our cook ( who we brought along fearing that there’s no place to dine in the mountains), the only one to get out in the water and cast a fishing pole, caught thumb-sized specimens not fit for the grill, so they had to be set free. In the summer one can also float down the Chestatee, on rafts or ride the white rapids on certain stretches of the river, or view the falls that drops about 60 feet along the river’s way. This river’s headwaters springs from Lumpkin County and meanders along valleys and hills and empty into Lake Lanier. It is the little brother to the mighty Hooch. In some sections, the river bottom had been defaced by dynamite blasting, river rocks and boulders disturbed from their natural state by man prospecting for gold in the Dahlonega quarries, the site of the first US gold rush in the 1800’s. Did you know that there was once a mint in Dahlonega to strike those gold US coins? You can learn all about the first gold rush in the USA in the Gold Museum in Dahlonega and visit a gold mine and pan for gold, and be entertained, if that’s your thing. But our thing is to shop, so we set out to the historic town square where there are several antique centers filled with treasures as good as gold. My shopping coup is a wine cork bulletin board with pewter wine-themed push pins, a marvelous souvenir of our expedition!
We discovered there is wine in them thar hills! Because of its elevation, about 1600-1800 feet above sea level and the cooler temperatures, the north Georgia mountains is hospitable to growing certain varieties of grapes, notably cabernet francs and merlots. There are dedicated eonophiles and vintners, who for the sheer love of vinification, staked out their fortunes in these mountains, and just like the early prospectors for gold, they dug into the ground to find their treasure. Today, they are pouring their initial vintages from the barrels and producing wines that are gaining attention from the big boys and attracting audience like us from established wine-tasting touring centers. We visited Three Sisters Vineyards. The name was inspired by the spectacular view of the three mountain ranges straddling the tri-state border of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia in the north, just a hop and a skip away from our cottage on the Chestatee. They are uncorking their 2001 Meritage wines, so named because of their merit and heritage. Accompanying it are fine handcrafted cheeses from Sweet Grass Dairy Farms in Thomasville, Georgia. On this day we sampled Botana, an aged goat cheese which won 2nd place in the American Cheese Society Competition, and a cheddar, Clayburne, which won first place in the cow cheese category. Our hosts during the wine tasting were the owners, Doug and Sharon Paul, who craft their wines with love and pride and also collect fine handcrafted jug pottery indigenous to the region. They have a Howard Finster work behind the bar. Their Meritage Merlot won first place in the Wine Spectator’s ratings of Georgia wines in 2003. The wine trail lists several wineries; Frogtown Cellars, Wolf Mountain Vineyards, Habersham Vineyards, Crane Creek, Chestnut Mountain Winery, Chateu Elan, Fox Vineyards, Split Rail, Tiger Mountain, Puckett Family Vineyards, Georgia Wines, and Persimmon Creek. Napa Valley, watch out! I came home with a bottle of Three Sisters 2001 Cabernet Franc.
We brought a cook with us fearing that we can’t find any place to eat, but we were mistaken. There are many fine dining establishments in the area. We dined in, but decided to not skip the Southern family style dining at the historic and must-eat Smith House, and had lunch there on our way home. An endless stream of juicy fried chicken, roast beef, ham, vegetables and side dishes are served throughout, with a peach cobbler a la mode to finish the meal. Yummy!
We went to the mountains to be away and to be together and to enjoy food and wine. Our first night we had Italian sausage spaghetti marinara, accompanied by Italian wines, a fine Barolo and Riserva Chianti among the 4 bottles we consumed. The second night, we had grilled pork loins accompanied by various Cabernets from California, Chile and France. In between, during snacks and mahjong, we finished off a Beaujoulais, Merlot, Spanish and Argentinian reds, and a German Riesling. Evening entertainment was Mahjong, and to have a quorum we needed Eudy to play. But she didn’t know the game and she was reluctant to be taught, and she whined and complained, and protested. But she was given a proposal she can’t refuse and so she learned the game and played to complete the women’s quorum, albeit with the coaching of our cook who was at her side throughout. Our cook is a skilled player, so it must be Eudy’s luck that determined her position of being the only loser after 2 nights of play. Our conscience prevailed on us in the end and we didn’t accept her money. But on our next outing, she will not be spared, we will take no prisoners!
We were wishing our stay was longer but it was time to go home. We parted at Smith house after the belly-busting all-you-can-eat lunch. For half of the group it was to drive down GA 400 directly to go home or stop by the premium outlet mall in Dawsonville. For the other half that are golfers, the day will just begin with a tee time at Gold Creek, the Robert Trent Jones complex on Hwy 136. I shot a 97, a perfect conclusion to a wonderful weekend among dear friends who cherish family and each other who with their partners share 145 marriage years together. The bacchanalia of food and wine, gambling and laughter, rising above the rumble and swishing waters of the Chestatee will prompt fond memories for many months until next year’s get-away.
In fancy company, we like to think of ourselves as eonophiles. But among kin and friends, we are viewed as a bunch who just like to get drunk and get silly on a scheduled basis, more or less. So every month we have dinner in each other’s homes and introduce personal wine discoveries to accompany the food. For the most part, our search would take us to Dekalb Farmer’s Market or Costco, or World Markets, to browse their wine ratings and check the bargains. But some of us who are retired and can take off anytime to travel have gone for wine pilgrimages to the hallowed and ancient lands of vinification themselves, Italy and France and to the noveau lands of Sonoma and Napa Valleys. In all of these the delight is in outdoing one another in displaying one’s wine tasting vocabulary, never mind that we have no idea on how to judge the wine. But then, just like beauty is in the eye of the beholder, good wine is in the palate of the imbiber, a matter of personal taste. This is the only way to view this exercise if we are to keep our affection for one another. Otherwise it would be an enologist’s war, for each one of us is passionate when we describe how a particular vintage affects us. We can wax poetic with our tongues, describing a particular vino’s bouquet, or legs, or sweetness, or dryness, or it’s finish or nose. Sometimes the descriptions can become X-rated, particularly when you’re searching for the subtlest nuance to convey a wine’s body. Do you notice how consistent wine’s imagery is with seduction? If you close your eyes and listen to a wine’s description, you’d think one is describing a full-bodied voluptuous woman with a fresh grass smell and great legs and ruby or cranberry red lips with an apple or musky aftertaste! You would notice in this particular group too, with an aggregate of 145 married years among them, how the talk easily descends into the gutter after the first few bottles are uncorked. The descriptions become wild, then crude, as boys who’ve had a few are wont to do. But since their tongues are now nimble and loose, and the grape’s nectar is in the head, we learn of secrets that help them to stay the virile boys that they are. So we look at them with indulgence and generosity and refrain from washing their mouths with soap.
The year before we decided to mark our anniversaries of marital togetherness in Cumberland Island and the fond memories still linger and are reviewed every time we meet. We note that I learned how to ride the bicycle there, on the pristine white beach, witnessed by shore birds and wild horses, fear of falling easily whisked away by the gentle reassurance of friends and the exquisite peace bestowed by the tranquil island that still exists as god intended it to be. This year we decided to go to the mountains and witness fall in its splendor. A friend offered the use of his mountain retreat nestled on a hill along the banks of the Chestatee River. But what can one do in Dahlonega, Lumpkin County? Is there any restaurant one can dine in? What can we do to fill the time? Once you’ve viewed the scenery, what is there to do? We look down on the Chestatee as we swing on the wide back porch. We supposed we can go fishing. But it’s past the fishing season and the fish are gone. From March to September the Chestatee obliges anglers with rainbow and brown trout, spotted, white and redeye bass, stripers, bluegill, and redbreast. But it’s now November. Our cook ( who we brought along fearing that there’s no place to dine in the mountains), the only one to get out in the water and cast a fishing pole, caught thumb-sized specimens not fit for the grill, so they had to be set free. In the summer one can also float down the Chestatee, on rafts or ride the white rapids on certain stretches of the river, or view the falls that drops about 60 feet along the river’s way. This river’s headwaters springs from Lumpkin County and meanders along valleys and hills and empty into Lake Lanier. It is the little brother to the mighty Hooch. In some sections, the river bottom had been defaced by dynamite blasting, river rocks and boulders disturbed from their natural state by man prospecting for gold in the Dahlonega quarries, the site of the first US gold rush in the 1800’s. Did you know that there was once a mint in Dahlonega to strike those gold US coins? You can learn all about the first gold rush in the USA in the Gold Museum in Dahlonega and visit a gold mine and pan for gold, and be entertained, if that’s your thing. But our thing is to shop, so we set out to the historic town square where there are several antique centers filled with treasures as good as gold. My shopping coup is a wine cork bulletin board with pewter wine-themed push pins, a marvelous souvenir of our expedition!
We discovered there is wine in them thar hills! Because of its elevation, about 1600-1800 feet above sea level and the cooler temperatures, the north Georgia mountains is hospitable to growing certain varieties of grapes, notably cabernet francs and merlots. There are dedicated eonophiles and vintners, who for the sheer love of vinification, staked out their fortunes in these mountains, and just like the early prospectors for gold, they dug into the ground to find their treasure. Today, they are pouring their initial vintages from the barrels and producing wines that are gaining attention from the big boys and attracting audience like us from established wine-tasting touring centers. We visited Three Sisters Vineyards. The name was inspired by the spectacular view of the three mountain ranges straddling the tri-state border of Tennessee, North Carolina, and Georgia in the north, just a hop and a skip away from our cottage on the Chestatee. They are uncorking their 2001 Meritage wines, so named because of their merit and heritage. Accompanying it are fine handcrafted cheeses from Sweet Grass Dairy Farms in Thomasville, Georgia. On this day we sampled Botana, an aged goat cheese which won 2nd place in the American Cheese Society Competition, and a cheddar, Clayburne, which won first place in the cow cheese category. Our hosts during the wine tasting were the owners, Doug and Sharon Paul, who craft their wines with love and pride and also collect fine handcrafted jug pottery indigenous to the region. They have a Howard Finster work behind the bar. Their Meritage Merlot won first place in the Wine Spectator’s ratings of Georgia wines in 2003. The wine trail lists several wineries; Frogtown Cellars, Wolf Mountain Vineyards, Habersham Vineyards, Crane Creek, Chestnut Mountain Winery, Chateu Elan, Fox Vineyards, Split Rail, Tiger Mountain, Puckett Family Vineyards, Georgia Wines, and Persimmon Creek. Napa Valley, watch out! I came home with a bottle of Three Sisters 2001 Cabernet Franc.
We brought a cook with us fearing that we can’t find any place to eat, but we were mistaken. There are many fine dining establishments in the area. We dined in, but decided to not skip the Southern family style dining at the historic and must-eat Smith House, and had lunch there on our way home. An endless stream of juicy fried chicken, roast beef, ham, vegetables and side dishes are served throughout, with a peach cobbler a la mode to finish the meal. Yummy!
We went to the mountains to be away and to be together and to enjoy food and wine. Our first night we had Italian sausage spaghetti marinara, accompanied by Italian wines, a fine Barolo and Riserva Chianti among the 4 bottles we consumed. The second night, we had grilled pork loins accompanied by various Cabernets from California, Chile and France. In between, during snacks and mahjong, we finished off a Beaujoulais, Merlot, Spanish and Argentinian reds, and a German Riesling. Evening entertainment was Mahjong, and to have a quorum we needed Eudy to play. But she didn’t know the game and she was reluctant to be taught, and she whined and complained, and protested. But she was given a proposal she can’t refuse and so she learned the game and played to complete the women’s quorum, albeit with the coaching of our cook who was at her side throughout. Our cook is a skilled player, so it must be Eudy’s luck that determined her position of being the only loser after 2 nights of play. Our conscience prevailed on us in the end and we didn’t accept her money. But on our next outing, she will not be spared, we will take no prisoners!
We were wishing our stay was longer but it was time to go home. We parted at Smith house after the belly-busting all-you-can-eat lunch. For half of the group it was to drive down GA 400 directly to go home or stop by the premium outlet mall in Dawsonville. For the other half that are golfers, the day will just begin with a tee time at Gold Creek, the Robert Trent Jones complex on Hwy 136. I shot a 97, a perfect conclusion to a wonderful weekend among dear friends who cherish family and each other who with their partners share 145 marriage years together. The bacchanalia of food and wine, gambling and laughter, rising above the rumble and swishing waters of the Chestatee will prompt fond memories for many months until next year’s get-away.
Venice
Venice
Thanksgiving 2004
Venice is a Renaissance theme park, like a Michelangelo Disneyland. It was just like in the pictures, everywhere you go it's a Kodak opportunity. I had a great time and didn't even mind much that I was alone. Johnny and I planned to do Venice before he died on January 1 and I decided I'd go anyway. I just went wherever my feet took me or just jumped into any waterbus that comes by and went wherever it went and got off and explored if something seems appealing in that stop. It wasn't crowded at all and the weather was partly sunny, low 50's, no flooding. Most tourists were Europeans, gets there by bus, about 6-8 hours from anywhere in the mainland, lots of honeymooners, there was a large group of Korean and Japanese tourists. I went to non-tourists spots like the island cemetery St Michele, one of a kind. I saw a gondola carrying a coffin covered with flowers on its solitary way to join the funeral party (missed to take pictures of this, I was fumbling for my camera and my waterbus sped by). I hung out at the fresh market, where they sold sparkling fish under tall arches and baroque buildings, and the cheeses and smoked meats spilling over just looked like they're to die for, not to mention the patisserie and you'd love the gelatos, hand made fresh everyday! Checked out Lido just to see what's it's all about. The beach is littered with cabanas that looked like Porta-johns. I can't imagine how they find space to stretch and sun themselves. I stumbled on the Jewish section, the oldest ghetto in the world where the word ghetto was used to designate their segregated community. Shakespeare's famous Jew was from Venice right? The theme park concept continues with evening entertainment. I went to a Chamber concert of Mozart, Bach, and Vivaldi with musicians in period costumes at the Doge's Prisons, crossed the Bridge of Sighs to get there, which was a non-descript footbridge. Also went to an Opera concert of Rossini, Mozart and Donizetti Arias again in period costumes, at the Scoula of S Teodoro. All their buildings are works of art so I didn't bother to join any city tour, just went on my own. Ate at their osterias, had spaghetti with squid and black ink sauce, and grilled seafood, and of course I have to have tiramisu, which originated there. Shopping should have been fabulous and actually cheap since the stores are boutiques and sell one of a kind items made by the owner artisan designer. Knits, leather and Murano glass jewelry and serious gold and precious stone jewelry, are mouth-watering but my shopping budget was already all spent on one item, a 10-piece Murano glass nativity set with 24-K gold highlights, which I had to hand carry all the way. The wines were expensive, still can't afford the Barolos, Brunelos, and Amarones . A half bottle Valpolicella is what I had with dinners, about Eu16. I had dinner conversations with diners at the next table. People are very friendly, and European tourists want to practice their English so they are very chatty. My hotel was very charming, a refurbished palace just steps away from a vaporetto stop, very convenient and a 10 minute walk to San Marco square and to the Rialto bridge, with old world service. What a treat, after all the rudeness of the airline people on my way over. My plane was late from Atlanta missing my connection at Kennedy but they were late too and were still boarding late-comers, so I pressed to be boarded, and this airline agent bitch threatened me and told me she can choose not to board me if I didn't keep my mouth shut. So I kept my mouth shut. It worked for me, this Pilgrim's holiday solo trip, next year I think I'll do Amsterdam.
Thanksgiving 2004
Venice is a Renaissance theme park, like a Michelangelo Disneyland. It was just like in the pictures, everywhere you go it's a Kodak opportunity. I had a great time and didn't even mind much that I was alone. Johnny and I planned to do Venice before he died on January 1 and I decided I'd go anyway. I just went wherever my feet took me or just jumped into any waterbus that comes by and went wherever it went and got off and explored if something seems appealing in that stop. It wasn't crowded at all and the weather was partly sunny, low 50's, no flooding. Most tourists were Europeans, gets there by bus, about 6-8 hours from anywhere in the mainland, lots of honeymooners, there was a large group of Korean and Japanese tourists. I went to non-tourists spots like the island cemetery St Michele, one of a kind. I saw a gondola carrying a coffin covered with flowers on its solitary way to join the funeral party (missed to take pictures of this, I was fumbling for my camera and my waterbus sped by). I hung out at the fresh market, where they sold sparkling fish under tall arches and baroque buildings, and the cheeses and smoked meats spilling over just looked like they're to die for, not to mention the patisserie and you'd love the gelatos, hand made fresh everyday! Checked out Lido just to see what's it's all about. The beach is littered with cabanas that looked like Porta-johns. I can't imagine how they find space to stretch and sun themselves. I stumbled on the Jewish section, the oldest ghetto in the world where the word ghetto was used to designate their segregated community. Shakespeare's famous Jew was from Venice right? The theme park concept continues with evening entertainment. I went to a Chamber concert of Mozart, Bach, and Vivaldi with musicians in period costumes at the Doge's Prisons, crossed the Bridge of Sighs to get there, which was a non-descript footbridge. Also went to an Opera concert of Rossini, Mozart and Donizetti Arias again in period costumes, at the Scoula of S Teodoro. All their buildings are works of art so I didn't bother to join any city tour, just went on my own. Ate at their osterias, had spaghetti with squid and black ink sauce, and grilled seafood, and of course I have to have tiramisu, which originated there. Shopping should have been fabulous and actually cheap since the stores are boutiques and sell one of a kind items made by the owner artisan designer. Knits, leather and Murano glass jewelry and serious gold and precious stone jewelry, are mouth-watering but my shopping budget was already all spent on one item, a 10-piece Murano glass nativity set with 24-K gold highlights, which I had to hand carry all the way. The wines were expensive, still can't afford the Barolos, Brunelos, and Amarones . A half bottle Valpolicella is what I had with dinners, about Eu16. I had dinner conversations with diners at the next table. People are very friendly, and European tourists want to practice their English so they are very chatty. My hotel was very charming, a refurbished palace just steps away from a vaporetto stop, very convenient and a 10 minute walk to San Marco square and to the Rialto bridge, with old world service. What a treat, after all the rudeness of the airline people on my way over. My plane was late from Atlanta missing my connection at Kennedy but they were late too and were still boarding late-comers, so I pressed to be boarded, and this airline agent bitch threatened me and told me she can choose not to board me if I didn't keep my mouth shut. So I kept my mouth shut. It worked for me, this Pilgrim's holiday solo trip, next year I think I'll do Amsterdam.
Antarctica
January 2005
It’s the Last Continent, the Great White Continent, the last frontier, and I’ve got to visit it, because it’s there. And since everyone is now going to Alaska, going to Antarctica is the last exotic thing to do. The world is getting smaller and smaller, and soon, space will be the next frontier. But for now, it’s got to be Antarctica.
It is very white. Glaciers and ice mountains and sea ice and floating icebergs as far as the eye can see. But if you look closer on a clear day and snippets of sunrays can come through the perpetual clouds blanketing the continent, there are subtleties of color that you can discern. Blue ice shimmering in the landscape, cascading and disappearing into turquoise waters with a faint suggestion of emeralds as the waves lap against white monuments that seem to float out of the sea. And the landscape is vast, overwhelming, and for the early heroic explorers, inhospitable and tragic. The pristine mountains forbid trespassing, the certain outcome is death. But we are adventurers in the tourist age, and we arrived in Antarctica in a sturdy Finnish built expedition cruise ship, the first of its kind, our “little red ship” the Explorer. It’s small enough to navigate around the ice and get us close to shore so we can land in our jaunty 10-man rubber Zodiak boats. Compared to large cruise ships who now also troll the area, we can explore the land indeed and get our feet on terra firma in the continent, as compared to merely sightseeing and watching the scenery through binoculars. In our zodiacs following the whales we came so close to feel the shower spray from their breathing holes and then smell their really bad breath.
To get to Antarctica we had to fly from all over the planet in commercial jets to get to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world in the province of Tierra del Fuego in Argentina. These names are all too familiar to us with our history of conquest by Spain, as the Magellan Strait is in these parts, and not far away is Cape Horn. Without the discovery of these waterways that connect the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, our destiny as a country may have been very different.
To get to Ushuaia from Atlanta, you fly to Miami (1 ½ hours), then to Buenos Aires (8 ½ hours), then to Ushuaia (3 ½ hours). Can you imagine the flying hours and routes of those coming from Australia, Korea and India and Norway? The Southern hemisphere is 2 hours later than EST, and the seasons are reversed as you know. So it’s summertime in Antarctica and its 29-35 degrees F and it’s sizzling!
We were told that we had been very fortunate to have fantastic weather during our sailing. It takes 2 days and 3 nights to get out of the Beagle Channel and get onto the Drake Passage then cross the Antarctic Convergence and then finally be in Antarctic waters. In fantastic weather with hardly any wind our little red ship was rocking and see-sawing in
billowing waves as big as our ship itself. Everyone had drug loaded little round band-aids stuck behind their ears or swallowing Dramamine by the fistful. I prided myself as an old salt, having grown up in Pasacao, with a fisherman for a grandfather, so I refused drugs, but yielded to an afternoon in bed to prevent me from shaming myself. The Drake Passage is open sea and notorious for turbulence. There is no scenery, there’s nothing to focus on except the lapping of waves against the hull of the ship. But behold an albatross! It came from nowhere. It followed the ship and carried the wind to take us to Antarctica. Pumped up with tales about the albatross and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Ancient Mariner, the tour staff, at the conclusion of our voyage, had no problem raising $2700 from the passengers in an auction to save the albatross. The Scot, who owns a sailboat, bid $1000 on the ship captain’s map of our journey.
And finally, land! Er, Ice! We are in Antarctica.
We are told nobody owns Antarctica, that there’s a treaty between the countries to ensure that is so, but Argentinian and Chilean children are shown from the first day of school onwards, their country’s map with Antarctica as part of it. Go figure what will happen a generation from now. There are no living things in Antarctica except cellular organisms. The living is in the waters around it, the penguins that inhabit the shores and the seals and whales and seabirds. I saw Chinstrap penguins, Gentoo penguins, Adelie penguins, Macaroni Penguins, leopard seals, weddell seal, elephant seals, minke whales, and orcas. On the continent we made landings on Paradise Harbor, Neko Harbor,Wilhelmina Bay, Aicho, and the Lemaire Channel. The flora and fauna had more variety in the subantarctic islands, such as the South Shetland Islands with moss vegetation, and seabirds such as kelp gull and skuas. They were very interesting to learn about, but after you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all, and though the penguins were very amusing and a joy to watch, you can only watch their limited behavior repertoire so much. Besides the rookery stinks to high heaven, a fishy, decomposing odor not unlike bad bagoong. You can’t tell that from the neat, elegant photos taken of these birds.
I began to watch the clock for the next meal. The gourmet meals on board are prepared by a young German cook who had been to Cebu and other parts of the Philippines to recruit kitchen workers. He likes their work ethics and attitude. The ship crew consists of 30-some Pinoys out of a crew of 50’ish. There are few 2nd level officers, and ship engineers. I got to know most of them, with 2 from Naga City, and several from Bicol. I spent a night playing mahjong with them and got beat, but they refused to accept my money, so I didn’t join them when they invited me back for tong-it. But they had calderetta one night and to me that was a welcome culinary break from the gourmet fare in the dining room.
I began to entertain myself getting to know the passengers. We are a broad sample of tourists, mainly Caucasians from Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Scotland, Belgium, USA, a large tour group from Portugal, an Indian couple from Bombay, a Korean couple from Pasadena, and myself the lone Filipino passenger. One of the Pinoy crew said to me, “Ikinararangal po namin na pasahero rin kayo”. It makes me wonder how they feel about themselves being forced by economic realities in the Philippines to work in a service occupation and be separated from their families for years. There are 5 young women in the crew. They feel that they are treated fairly, but they work long hours. It seems the Pinoys are well liked in the industry because they are efficient, hard workers, and docile.
But to go back to the passengers. There are a lot of 20-somethings in this group, who are taking a break from life to find themselves by traveling all over South America for months with their backpacks and shoestring budgets. It was a splurge for them to be in this Antarctic cruise, as it is for me too, for this itinerary is still limited and the cost remains a premium. Some have quit school, others are in between jobs because they quit the job they didn’t like, or have been laid off, and others just can’t find jobs and don’t know what they want to do. Then there’s a group of young couples who have jobs and mortgages but are traveling before the children arrive. There’s hardly any in the middle ages, a few in the 50’s, and a large group of fit and able seniors in their 70’s with the oldest at 81. I felt out of place, neither considering myself as a young one or a senior but that didn’t stop me from amusing myself. I jumped in the icy waters with the young ones, sang with Michael, the tour staff pianist, in the lounge, told dirty jokes with the solo traveling guys, talked about the children with the women, and sat at the bar stool to shoot the breeze with anyone until the bar closed. Deischa, the Pinay bartender got a big tip from me at the end of the cruise, because she took good care of me at the bar. The tour staff hung out at the bar and I got to know intimately their motives and rationale for working in the business. It’s amazing how a little wine or distilled spirit can loosen the tongue, but I wasn’t working so I steered the topic away when they got serious. They’re not about to get an analysis from me, after all they’re not in my health insurance reimbursement plan. The Scot runs away with the most flamboyant designation in the group. He walks around indoors in his shorts, and in our Zodiak landings, he’d come down to the ice in his knickers and plaid kilt. I asked him if he’s wearing any special garment under his skirt. He said , “It shrinks”. What did he mean by that? The Odd Couple are lovely people, but they stand out like Mutt and Jeff. The guy must be 300 lbs and 7 feet tall and the woman has the stigmata of an achondroplastic dwarf and barely passes the 4 feet mark. He is all arms and legs flailing while getting in and out of the Zodiak, he doesn’t have any idea how to do it. I thought he was going to crash down into the rocks. He was all contorted trying to find a footing on the boulders while taking pictures of the penguins. And he tried to be gallant by letting everybody climb into the zodiac first while he holds it steady, but mama mia, he was trying to put his legs first into the boat and standing rather than do the proper technique of sitting on the side and easing into the boat, with a low fulcrum of gravity. So the Zodiak is unbalanced and he’s there teetering on one leg and was about to fall so he catches himself and puts his foot on wherever. And it was in a hole on the bow where the rubber connects to the rigid stepping platform, and his leg is caught and he couldn’t extricate it and he’s there all 300 lbs sprawled and flailing. It was so hilarious and I was shaking so bad from controlling myself from bursting into laughter. No one was laughing. I can’t believe no one was reacting. This group of 108 very different people is like that, very polite, very proper, very rule-abiding, very constipated! And his wife so sweetly helps him and suggests he take off his leg from the boots so he can extricate himself, then she asks if he got the shot of the penguin and acts like he’s not making a big spectacle. Then there’s the GP from Chicago who also runs an addiction inpatient program, who takes notes at all the lectures and reviews them and underlines them later, and asks clarifying questions, then endlessly talks about the subject long after the session. Whew! And what about The Vamp from hell, which at first I didn’t recognize as such. I didn’t have accommodations in Ushuaia, all the hotels were booked by the time I tried to reserve one. So I was gonna wing it and this young woman was inquiring before me at the airport about accommodations, and she’s part of the cruise. So we agreed to team up and share a room. The tourist desk found us an expensive hotel room but she requested a hostel because she’s trying to save money. It was fine with me. I’ve never stayed in a hostel so I was curious. What we got was very nice with 2 beds and a private bath. After dinner I had no objections to bar hopping for a while. I had no idea she was hunting for prey when I went to the Irish Pub with her for a drink. When I realized she was hunting I left her to return to the hostel and told her I’ll leave the door unlocked for her. Shuffling sounds and a strong odor woke me up as daylight was breaking and I opened my eyes to see her having sexual intercourse in the next bed. It was a small room and enclosed and the odor of undeodorized and unbathed male body is making me nauseated. I yelled at her to ask the obvious, what she’s doing and how dare she bring this man into our room and she should leave right now and do it elsewhere. The 2 left quickly and without protest but the reeking smell hung in the air permanently. So much for her. I avoided her like the plague in the ship. The Hostess, is this kind lady who is so nice, she takes care of everyone in her table wherever she happens to sit for dinner, inquires about everyone, and includes everyone in the conversation, and is very accomplished with this task. She’d be a bore saying all the right things but she’s genuine and very sincere, she remembers all the names, and next day she’d greet you with your name. At the end she sought me out to say goodbye, to reassure me that things will get better. She lost her husband 9 years ago and now she has remarried 4 years ago and happy again. She pried it out of me that I just had a similar loss, when in fact I had planned not to talk about this in this cruise. She made me cry, but it reminded me that what I’m doing is trying to bear the loss. I’m nowhere near things getting better.
So like the little red ship that has to reposition in the ice and set our course around the Great White Continent, I have to do the same. I have a lot in common after all with the young ones in this tour. They too are trying to find their position and mapping the course of their journey.
The return trip seemed endless. The Drake Passage crossing was real bumpy, and this time for a change, we rounded Cape Horn, and that was being like in a martini shaker. Everyone took to bed early, even the party-going contingent of Portuguese tourists. This group is 30-some strong. They took over the lounge every night and partied, but they didn’t mingle much. They spoke Portuguese among themselves and it seems only a few speak English. They came from all over Portugal, put together by this travel agent who brought a TV crew to film their entire experience for travel marketing. They had a popular talk show host with them. She interviewed the tour staff and ship crew, made commentaries on what she’s observing, and her cameraman was all over the place, even practically stepping over the penguins. Some of the passengers were not fond of them. I got to chat with a woman in the group who is a diplomat and who is serving as president of the UN Committee on Women’s Rights. Her husband painstakingly harpooned each pea on his plate and set them aside, because he does not eat peas. His mama never taught him, I guess. Quite a few from this group took the dare to jump in the ice. The talk show host’s assistant interviewed me after I emerged from the freezing Antarctic and I told her that the experience was exhilarating and that everyone should do it before they die. So who knows, I may still be shown on Portuguese TV. On our way back to the ship after the icy dip, and we’re all shivering in the Zodiak, a fantastic thing happened. The ice mountain in front of us was sliding in very slow motion, and right before our eyes the wall of ice fell into the sea gracefully like a penguin entering the water. It was calving. It was silent. We were mesmerized and stunned. Then a huge wave swelled and was coming before us, like a tsunami! And in a flash the ocean between us and the ship was littered with huge ice floats. Our Zodiak can’t maneuver through the ice litter. We had to wait for over half an hour until the ship can reposition and make a path for us to get through. It was the wrong moment for us to take that icy dip. But the ship had a sauna, and the brandy later felt warm and soothing.
When we disembarked in Ushuaia very early in the morning I have until 2:30 pm until my flight back to Buenos Aires, then to the States. I was determined to play this golf course there, and had a 9 AM tee time. I played the Juno golf course when I made my Alaskan cruise. That was the northernmost golf course I played, so I just had to play this golf course at the end of the world, 54 degrees, 29’ 52” South Latitude. The Ushuaia golf Club is a 9-hole course at the foot of the glacial mountain of Tierra del Fuego, along the river Pipo. The day was gorgeous. I was so excited to play after having been at sea for 9 days. My first hole was a triple bogey but I finished with a par on 9th, and in between was of no concern.
It’s the Last Continent, the Great White Continent, the last frontier, and I’ve got to visit it, because it’s there. And since everyone is now going to Alaska, going to Antarctica is the last exotic thing to do. The world is getting smaller and smaller, and soon, space will be the next frontier. But for now, it’s got to be Antarctica.
It is very white. Glaciers and ice mountains and sea ice and floating icebergs as far as the eye can see. But if you look closer on a clear day and snippets of sunrays can come through the perpetual clouds blanketing the continent, there are subtleties of color that you can discern. Blue ice shimmering in the landscape, cascading and disappearing into turquoise waters with a faint suggestion of emeralds as the waves lap against white monuments that seem to float out of the sea. And the landscape is vast, overwhelming, and for the early heroic explorers, inhospitable and tragic. The pristine mountains forbid trespassing, the certain outcome is death. But we are adventurers in the tourist age, and we arrived in Antarctica in a sturdy Finnish built expedition cruise ship, the first of its kind, our “little red ship” the Explorer. It’s small enough to navigate around the ice and get us close to shore so we can land in our jaunty 10-man rubber Zodiak boats. Compared to large cruise ships who now also troll the area, we can explore the land indeed and get our feet on terra firma in the continent, as compared to merely sightseeing and watching the scenery through binoculars. In our zodiacs following the whales we came so close to feel the shower spray from their breathing holes and then smell their really bad breath.
To get to Antarctica we had to fly from all over the planet in commercial jets to get to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world in the province of Tierra del Fuego in Argentina. These names are all too familiar to us with our history of conquest by Spain, as the Magellan Strait is in these parts, and not far away is Cape Horn. Without the discovery of these waterways that connect the Atlantic to the Pacific Oceans, our destiny as a country may have been very different.
To get to Ushuaia from Atlanta, you fly to Miami (1 ½ hours), then to Buenos Aires (8 ½ hours), then to Ushuaia (3 ½ hours). Can you imagine the flying hours and routes of those coming from Australia, Korea and India and Norway? The Southern hemisphere is 2 hours later than EST, and the seasons are reversed as you know. So it’s summertime in Antarctica and its 29-35 degrees F and it’s sizzling!
We were told that we had been very fortunate to have fantastic weather during our sailing. It takes 2 days and 3 nights to get out of the Beagle Channel and get onto the Drake Passage then cross the Antarctic Convergence and then finally be in Antarctic waters. In fantastic weather with hardly any wind our little red ship was rocking and see-sawing in
billowing waves as big as our ship itself. Everyone had drug loaded little round band-aids stuck behind their ears or swallowing Dramamine by the fistful. I prided myself as an old salt, having grown up in Pasacao, with a fisherman for a grandfather, so I refused drugs, but yielded to an afternoon in bed to prevent me from shaming myself. The Drake Passage is open sea and notorious for turbulence. There is no scenery, there’s nothing to focus on except the lapping of waves against the hull of the ship. But behold an albatross! It came from nowhere. It followed the ship and carried the wind to take us to Antarctica. Pumped up with tales about the albatross and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s The Ancient Mariner, the tour staff, at the conclusion of our voyage, had no problem raising $2700 from the passengers in an auction to save the albatross. The Scot, who owns a sailboat, bid $1000 on the ship captain’s map of our journey.
And finally, land! Er, Ice! We are in Antarctica.
We are told nobody owns Antarctica, that there’s a treaty between the countries to ensure that is so, but Argentinian and Chilean children are shown from the first day of school onwards, their country’s map with Antarctica as part of it. Go figure what will happen a generation from now. There are no living things in Antarctica except cellular organisms. The living is in the waters around it, the penguins that inhabit the shores and the seals and whales and seabirds. I saw Chinstrap penguins, Gentoo penguins, Adelie penguins, Macaroni Penguins, leopard seals, weddell seal, elephant seals, minke whales, and orcas. On the continent we made landings on Paradise Harbor, Neko Harbor,Wilhelmina Bay, Aicho, and the Lemaire Channel. The flora and fauna had more variety in the subantarctic islands, such as the South Shetland Islands with moss vegetation, and seabirds such as kelp gull and skuas. They were very interesting to learn about, but after you’ve seen one you’ve seen them all, and though the penguins were very amusing and a joy to watch, you can only watch their limited behavior repertoire so much. Besides the rookery stinks to high heaven, a fishy, decomposing odor not unlike bad bagoong. You can’t tell that from the neat, elegant photos taken of these birds.
I began to watch the clock for the next meal. The gourmet meals on board are prepared by a young German cook who had been to Cebu and other parts of the Philippines to recruit kitchen workers. He likes their work ethics and attitude. The ship crew consists of 30-some Pinoys out of a crew of 50’ish. There are few 2nd level officers, and ship engineers. I got to know most of them, with 2 from Naga City, and several from Bicol. I spent a night playing mahjong with them and got beat, but they refused to accept my money, so I didn’t join them when they invited me back for tong-it. But they had calderetta one night and to me that was a welcome culinary break from the gourmet fare in the dining room.
I began to entertain myself getting to know the passengers. We are a broad sample of tourists, mainly Caucasians from Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, Scotland, Belgium, USA, a large tour group from Portugal, an Indian couple from Bombay, a Korean couple from Pasadena, and myself the lone Filipino passenger. One of the Pinoy crew said to me, “Ikinararangal po namin na pasahero rin kayo”. It makes me wonder how they feel about themselves being forced by economic realities in the Philippines to work in a service occupation and be separated from their families for years. There are 5 young women in the crew. They feel that they are treated fairly, but they work long hours. It seems the Pinoys are well liked in the industry because they are efficient, hard workers, and docile.
But to go back to the passengers. There are a lot of 20-somethings in this group, who are taking a break from life to find themselves by traveling all over South America for months with their backpacks and shoestring budgets. It was a splurge for them to be in this Antarctic cruise, as it is for me too, for this itinerary is still limited and the cost remains a premium. Some have quit school, others are in between jobs because they quit the job they didn’t like, or have been laid off, and others just can’t find jobs and don’t know what they want to do. Then there’s a group of young couples who have jobs and mortgages but are traveling before the children arrive. There’s hardly any in the middle ages, a few in the 50’s, and a large group of fit and able seniors in their 70’s with the oldest at 81. I felt out of place, neither considering myself as a young one or a senior but that didn’t stop me from amusing myself. I jumped in the icy waters with the young ones, sang with Michael, the tour staff pianist, in the lounge, told dirty jokes with the solo traveling guys, talked about the children with the women, and sat at the bar stool to shoot the breeze with anyone until the bar closed. Deischa, the Pinay bartender got a big tip from me at the end of the cruise, because she took good care of me at the bar. The tour staff hung out at the bar and I got to know intimately their motives and rationale for working in the business. It’s amazing how a little wine or distilled spirit can loosen the tongue, but I wasn’t working so I steered the topic away when they got serious. They’re not about to get an analysis from me, after all they’re not in my health insurance reimbursement plan. The Scot runs away with the most flamboyant designation in the group. He walks around indoors in his shorts, and in our Zodiak landings, he’d come down to the ice in his knickers and plaid kilt. I asked him if he’s wearing any special garment under his skirt. He said , “It shrinks”. What did he mean by that? The Odd Couple are lovely people, but they stand out like Mutt and Jeff. The guy must be 300 lbs and 7 feet tall and the woman has the stigmata of an achondroplastic dwarf and barely passes the 4 feet mark. He is all arms and legs flailing while getting in and out of the Zodiak, he doesn’t have any idea how to do it. I thought he was going to crash down into the rocks. He was all contorted trying to find a footing on the boulders while taking pictures of the penguins. And he tried to be gallant by letting everybody climb into the zodiac first while he holds it steady, but mama mia, he was trying to put his legs first into the boat and standing rather than do the proper technique of sitting on the side and easing into the boat, with a low fulcrum of gravity. So the Zodiak is unbalanced and he’s there teetering on one leg and was about to fall so he catches himself and puts his foot on wherever. And it was in a hole on the bow where the rubber connects to the rigid stepping platform, and his leg is caught and he couldn’t extricate it and he’s there all 300 lbs sprawled and flailing. It was so hilarious and I was shaking so bad from controlling myself from bursting into laughter. No one was laughing. I can’t believe no one was reacting. This group of 108 very different people is like that, very polite, very proper, very rule-abiding, very constipated! And his wife so sweetly helps him and suggests he take off his leg from the boots so he can extricate himself, then she asks if he got the shot of the penguin and acts like he’s not making a big spectacle. Then there’s the GP from Chicago who also runs an addiction inpatient program, who takes notes at all the lectures and reviews them and underlines them later, and asks clarifying questions, then endlessly talks about the subject long after the session. Whew! And what about The Vamp from hell, which at first I didn’t recognize as such. I didn’t have accommodations in Ushuaia, all the hotels were booked by the time I tried to reserve one. So I was gonna wing it and this young woman was inquiring before me at the airport about accommodations, and she’s part of the cruise. So we agreed to team up and share a room. The tourist desk found us an expensive hotel room but she requested a hostel because she’s trying to save money. It was fine with me. I’ve never stayed in a hostel so I was curious. What we got was very nice with 2 beds and a private bath. After dinner I had no objections to bar hopping for a while. I had no idea she was hunting for prey when I went to the Irish Pub with her for a drink. When I realized she was hunting I left her to return to the hostel and told her I’ll leave the door unlocked for her. Shuffling sounds and a strong odor woke me up as daylight was breaking and I opened my eyes to see her having sexual intercourse in the next bed. It was a small room and enclosed and the odor of undeodorized and unbathed male body is making me nauseated. I yelled at her to ask the obvious, what she’s doing and how dare she bring this man into our room and she should leave right now and do it elsewhere. The 2 left quickly and without protest but the reeking smell hung in the air permanently. So much for her. I avoided her like the plague in the ship. The Hostess, is this kind lady who is so nice, she takes care of everyone in her table wherever she happens to sit for dinner, inquires about everyone, and includes everyone in the conversation, and is very accomplished with this task. She’d be a bore saying all the right things but she’s genuine and very sincere, she remembers all the names, and next day she’d greet you with your name. At the end she sought me out to say goodbye, to reassure me that things will get better. She lost her husband 9 years ago and now she has remarried 4 years ago and happy again. She pried it out of me that I just had a similar loss, when in fact I had planned not to talk about this in this cruise. She made me cry, but it reminded me that what I’m doing is trying to bear the loss. I’m nowhere near things getting better.
So like the little red ship that has to reposition in the ice and set our course around the Great White Continent, I have to do the same. I have a lot in common after all with the young ones in this tour. They too are trying to find their position and mapping the course of their journey.
The return trip seemed endless. The Drake Passage crossing was real bumpy, and this time for a change, we rounded Cape Horn, and that was being like in a martini shaker. Everyone took to bed early, even the party-going contingent of Portuguese tourists. This group is 30-some strong. They took over the lounge every night and partied, but they didn’t mingle much. They spoke Portuguese among themselves and it seems only a few speak English. They came from all over Portugal, put together by this travel agent who brought a TV crew to film their entire experience for travel marketing. They had a popular talk show host with them. She interviewed the tour staff and ship crew, made commentaries on what she’s observing, and her cameraman was all over the place, even practically stepping over the penguins. Some of the passengers were not fond of them. I got to chat with a woman in the group who is a diplomat and who is serving as president of the UN Committee on Women’s Rights. Her husband painstakingly harpooned each pea on his plate and set them aside, because he does not eat peas. His mama never taught him, I guess. Quite a few from this group took the dare to jump in the ice. The talk show host’s assistant interviewed me after I emerged from the freezing Antarctic and I told her that the experience was exhilarating and that everyone should do it before they die. So who knows, I may still be shown on Portuguese TV. On our way back to the ship after the icy dip, and we’re all shivering in the Zodiak, a fantastic thing happened. The ice mountain in front of us was sliding in very slow motion, and right before our eyes the wall of ice fell into the sea gracefully like a penguin entering the water. It was calving. It was silent. We were mesmerized and stunned. Then a huge wave swelled and was coming before us, like a tsunami! And in a flash the ocean between us and the ship was littered with huge ice floats. Our Zodiak can’t maneuver through the ice litter. We had to wait for over half an hour until the ship can reposition and make a path for us to get through. It was the wrong moment for us to take that icy dip. But the ship had a sauna, and the brandy later felt warm and soothing.
When we disembarked in Ushuaia very early in the morning I have until 2:30 pm until my flight back to Buenos Aires, then to the States. I was determined to play this golf course there, and had a 9 AM tee time. I played the Juno golf course when I made my Alaskan cruise. That was the northernmost golf course I played, so I just had to play this golf course at the end of the world, 54 degrees, 29’ 52” South Latitude. The Ushuaia golf Club is a 9-hole course at the foot of the glacial mountain of Tierra del Fuego, along the river Pipo. The day was gorgeous. I was so excited to play after having been at sea for 9 days. My first hole was a triple bogey but I finished with a par on 9th, and in between was of no concern.
Thursday, February 09, 2006
Out of Africa, Over the Rainbow
On our last day In Zanzibar, while sipping our first cup of coffee after an early morning beach walk to greet the sunrise, sitting on a deck gently rocked by the lapping of waves beneath it, a spectacular rainbow swathed the sky, plunging into the horizon of the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean. It was visible only for a brief moment as the rising sun swallowed it swiftly, but it gave much excitement to the moment as our adventure in Africa was coming to an end. A stripe of many colors, how fitting an image to paint the picture of the memories of these last 2 weeks.
I arrived in Nairobi at 8:30 PM of the next day, East Africa being 7 hours ahead of EST, after a journey of 8500 miles and an 18-hour flight from Atlanta via Amsterdam. I barely slept, watched 4 movies en route, and had wine with the 4 meals I consumed on board. Furthermore, the wait for my luggage and visa processing was chaotic and very long. Jomo Kenyatta International Airport was very basic and merely functional, a stark departure from the gleaming and entertaining Schiphol where a layover is welcomed because of the many amusements offered such as the casino, trendy shops loaded with international goods, movable exhibits of the Rijksmuseum, at this time showing art from the Dutch golden age such as Jan Vermeer and his Girl with the Pearl Earrings, massage lounge, internet stations, numerous restaurants, bars and coffee shops, sleek toilets and showers, a lounging area where you can stretch and snooze, banks and currency exchange and ATM’s, and attentive and customer-centered service . I was exhausted as I took a taxi to my hotel. However, less than 5 minutes on the road to the city center, the taxi headlight shone on a magnificent black and white striped horse standing and facing us, a Zebra! It was so unexpected and so amazing that all fatigue left me. I knew then that I was going to have a great time.
Our Kenya and Tanzania experience covered over 2200 km. in 10 days trucking and camping from Nairobi to Dar es Salaam and 4 days in Zanzibar, where we got to stay in hotel rooms in Stone Town and a beach resort in Nungwi. Driving to our destination was long and bumpy and dusty, but we got to experience the immense diversity that East Africa has to offer. Many places in our itinerary were not accessible by air, train or bus. The custom-fitted Mercedes overland truck we used was a veritable hotel on wheels. The space under the seats were built with storage bins where we can unpack our luggage and safely lock them. The back rests were built with shelves which stored groceries and dry foods and condiments. The outside panels of the truck had shelves and storage under it and it also housed the water tank, fuel tank, coal bin and the camp stools and tents. When we open camp the side panels go up and all things are on hand for making dinner. Peter, our camp assistant did most of the cooking and heavy cleaning but we all took turns to help with chores. It was a novelty for me to be camping and I didn’t know what to expect. The first night, after driving down the escarpment of the Rift Valley, we pitched tent on the edge of Lake Naivasha. I layed awake listening to strange sounds and sensing the presence of living things outside my tent. I was told the next morning that hyenas and hippos were in the vicinity. The trip I booked was midway between the really basic camping and the luxury safari. I figured the basic was too rough and the luxury, aside from being very expensive, will not offer the authentic experience of the wilderness. We camped in organized campsites except for 2 nights in the wild, where there were absolutely no amenities that we had to forego showers. In organized campsites there were showers and toilets and electricity, and some have bars. A few have upgrades for basic lodging with en suite bath which I availed myself of whenever offered. Camping got old with me very quickly. One upgrade was in the farm campsite in Kembu which was a charming 1 ½ story cottage with a twin bedroom on the main level and a queen loft with a veranda. I shared this with 2 crazy guys from Vancouver. Our cook didn’t serve brewed coffee which I missed terribly, so it was a treat to have a kitchen where I brewed fresh Kenyan coffee for the 3 of us. In Mikadi, near Dar es Salaam, the upgrade was a palm-thatched beach hut. Here breaking waves lapped at my doorstep, the sea breeze caressed me to sleep and the warm sunrise woke me up in the morning. In Kilimanjaro, the upgrade was a cottage built in colonial times with extensive grounds planted with bougainvillas and hibiscus and where there was a birdman who was nursing an orphaned falcon with raw meat, and a large bar with cushioned couches to lounge in.
Exodus operates from the UK and most of the 15 travelers were from there. Four were from London, 2 couples from Southampton, one from Birmingham, one from Scotland, 4 from Vancouver, and I from the US. Our trip co-leaders were a young Caucasian couple from Zimbabwe and our camp assistant and cook, Peter, is an African from Tanzania. Peter was amazing in the camp kitchen. Without a Cuisinart or an oven he prepared pureed soups, mashed peas and vegetables, and even baked a cake.
At first camp I identified my travel buddies, the Truckin’ Thrashers. They’re a motley group of comedians who needed a female audience so their excesses at scatological and lewd allusions will not descend into the gutter. There was the monologist whose string was played masterfully by the artful picker and aided in harmony by the sidekick. The ensemble was completed by the passionate force of our man from Puglia. We sat around late into the night after everyone had zipped themselves into their sleeping bags cracking up around the campfire or in the bar. We had been scolded about propriety and to mind our manners. I’ve been around enough with guys like these, having been regularly recruited to be the 4th man in a golf foursome, or to fill in at poker or mahjong, or just to be the ear for their stories when the going at parties gets boring. The jokes and the laughs are all about the same things, to conquer sexual anxieties and homophobia and to titillate with erotic fantasies. I smile at them with indulgence even if I’m tempted to wash their mouths with soap, because in their other lives, away from the guy group, they are quite lovable men. I’ll remember them fondly, for they made me feel special on this trip and the pleasure was mine.
Jambo! Karibu! Hello! Welcome! in Swahili. From Nairobi we drove down to the Rift Valley on bumpy pot-holed roads passing the shanty suburbs teeming with activity of the market on Sunday. Kenya looks very poor. I’m reminded of the squatter district in Tondo, with its dirt-floored huts made of corrugated aluminum and salvaged construction materials. Everyone on the street greeted us. Children waved and ran after the truck laughing in merriment. The people are very friendly. However they have also learned from the tourists. In cities and tourist areas they are intrusive and accost you with offerings of service or goods for sale. I got lost in the labyrinthine alleys of Zanzibar and I asked a little girl about 11 or 12 years old for directions and she asked for money first before showing me my way. She pissed me off so I gave her only half of what I intended. On the other hand one of us left a camera in the Land Rover in Ngorongoro, and the African guide returned it safely, but the taxi driver on the way to Dar airport quoted 15000 shillings when I engaged him which I verified clearly, then tried to rip me off by demanding 50000 when I got off. I prevailed.
The Rift Valley grabs you breathless. It was formed 20 million years ago by a violent tear of the Arabian and African tectonic plates and ripped the earth from Syria to Mozambique. In its wake volcanoes and lakes and mountains and vast plains were formed. Serengeti, the endless plains or siringit, as the Masai calls it, is an ocean of undulating golden grass from horizon to horizon and beyond, as big as Belgium, as big as Ohio. Its surface is dotted by kopjes, charcoal gray volcanic rock outcroppings that take on fanciful shapes and precarious positions as they are molded by changing temperatures through the millenniums. The immense landscape of grass is relieved by the graceful spreading crown of acacia trees. It is the season of migration. Around January and February 1.6 million wildebeests, and hundreds of thousands of zebras, gazelles, impalas, topis, waterbucks, hartebeests, buffaloes, warthogs, and giraffes march from Masai Mara in Kenya to Serengeti and Ngorongoro in Tanzania following the rains to graze in the new vegetation and mate and give birth. Later in the year the reverse trip occurs as the rains turn north. It is dazzling to drive amongst these wild animals and see them up close and personal. There are wildebeests everywhere. They are massed in front of you and behind you and against the horizon you can see lines of thousands of them trudging along in a file, following the one in front of them from nose to tail. They didn’t bother us and seemed not to be bothered by us. They gave way for the truck to pass through. We came upon a family of giraffes, lumbering and very tall and very colorful feeding on acacia trees and sucking water from the tall cactus. Click and whirr, the cameras shoot. It is fatal for them to lower their heads so they cannot drink from the ground. We camped in the wild and had an early morning drive before the sun is up to spot the predators as they stalk their prey and make their kill. One has to know the habits of these magnificent animals higher up in the food chain to know where to look for them. We were rewarded with 2 hyenas finishing up after a lion kill of an impala. Meanwhile vultures were silently and patiently hovering by or perching still on treetops, vigilant, ready to swoop as soon as the hyenas had their fill. In a moment we heard shrieks and the rush of wings. About 20 vultures swooped into the abandoned carcass in a feeding frenzy. In the distance the lion that made the kill was walking away in a relaxed stride, looking for a cool spot under an acacia tree to rest and sleep, his hunger satiated for the next 3 days. Our guide spotted for us a solitary leopard up in a tree. Jackals and more lions and hyenas completed our morning. We felt fulfilled seeing a kill here and other evidence of it with abandoned carcasses of downed wildebeests and antelopes, but in the alleys of Zanzibar we were repulsed and turned away from a cat feeding on its kill of an alley rat.
The Rift Valley has many lakes and we visited the fresh water lake Naivasha and had a boat ride to view hippos and a variety of birds. We identified the fish eagle, ibis, kingfisher, various sea gull and pelicans, superb starlings, sparrows, an owl and a flock of the weird huge bird, the maribu stork. We visited Elsamere, on the other side of Lake Naivasha, the former home of Joy Adamson, of “Born Free” fame, now a conservation center, and we had tea on its lawn, where colobus monkeys stand alert to steal our crumpets or playfully grin and make faces at us. In lake Nakuru, a soda lake, we came upon the dazzling sight of thousands of pink flamingos feeding on its shores swathing the edge of the lake with a ribbon of pink. There were mean rhinos in the near distance, and we had to walk behind the cover of the truck to get on shore to get close to the flamingos. We had lunch high on a kopje, and had a sweeping panoramic view of all these grandeur. We didn’t have to spend $400 on a balloon ride over Serengeti to experience this breathtaking vista, as 2 of us did and they missed all the excitement of viewing a lion kill up close. We saw the rock hyrax, a tiny strange rodent-like animal, the nearest relative of the elephant, believe it or not! And elephants, we saw herds of them, feeding on acacia trees and bulldozing the landscape.
We camped for a night on the banks of Lake Victoria, the 2nd largest fresh water lake in the world, next to Lake Superior, its size as big as Ireland, and bordered by 3 countries, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. It’s the source of the headwaters of the Nile. With a glass of wine we pondered the romance of its waters flowing through the legendary river in the land of the pharaohs as we watched its spectacular sunset unfold before us.
We left Serengeti to drive to Ngorongoro, a collapsed crater 16 km wide with steep walls 600 meters high. We camped at the rim of the crater before descending in 5-man land-rovers early the next morning. As we opened camp 3 zebras galloped across our site and hyenas laughed and kept us awake all night. But the night was magnificent with the pitch black sky and brilliant constellations so clear with shooting stars drawing a bright flash across the horizon. I’m reminded of Van Gogh’s swirling starry night. We descended the crater in the early morning mist and caught the sunrise peeking out of the caldera’s rim and illuminating the crater with its lake below in muted surreal light. Ahh, I have no care in the world. I can live like the Masai who are allowed to graze and water their cattle herd in the Ngorongoro reserve. The Masai man leads his cattle from the village to the water every morning, lays in the shade and wait for every animal to finish grazing, then herd them back to the village at night, to repeat the same thing everyday. The women remain in the village and build their mud and dung huts, cook, gather wood and fetch water and tend the children. On second thought, I take back my wish.
Ngorongoro is a natural zoo with about 100,000 animals living permanently there and swelling in numbers during migration, with the arrival of the herbivores, wildebeests, et al. The elephant population is old, all males, as the females stayed up to be with the children, as once down they cannot go up the steep walls of the crater. Similarly there are no giraffes. It is disconcerting to see everyone here, land-rovers in huge numbers darting here and there in stalk of animal specimen, unlike in the Serengeti where it’s so vast you seldom see anyone else with you. There were 3 van-loads of Orientals and I was curious so I inquired and they were Koreans. If a party spotted anything of interest it was relayed to the guides in other vehicles and everyone scrambled to the site. It was gridlock. It spoiled the experience for me, but it illustrates the dilemma for tourism in this country. It is a poor country and needs dollar exchange revenue badly, it has limited habitable land, and population is growing fast, yet they have reserved vast wild parklands for protection, for the rest of the world to experience, for there is no place on earth like this, unchanged from the day of the big bang or from when god created it, depending on your persuasion. It could be the birthplace of humankind, based on finding “Lucy” near here.
We paused at the hippo pool for lunch and were warned to guard our meal from the black Kites, scavenger birds who had learned to steal the lunches of tourists. I barely lowered myself to sit on a driftwood under a tree when a Kite swooped from nowhere and ripped the 2 sandwich bags from my hands nearly amputating my fingers. “Shit, there goes my lunch!” Later on I was still fuming as I told the story, when something dropped at my feet. It was one of the bags, with a piece of bread crust still in it, and the bird was over my head up there in the tree, amused I’m sure at my expense, and then I felt something trickling down my legs. It was the bird’s chalky guano, its excrement! Such nerve, I was really dissed.
It’s a long drive to Kilimanjaro but I was filled with excitement. I recall Hemingway’s “Snows of Kilimanjaro”, the movie with Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward and Ava Gardner, which I saw as an adolescent in the Philippines, and I fell in love with it! I had yearnings then of going to Africa, and to see the world, and there I was, right in its bosom. I had to climb Kili. It is the highest free-standing mountain in the world at 19,335 ft (5895 m), rising from the hot savannah and rolling plains of the Great Rift Valley to its frigid snow-covered peak. One can climb it without mountaineering skills but one has to be fit and can stand sustained running for half an hour, for the altitude can be a killer. I never acclimatized to the low oxygen tension climbing only to 2700 m, up to Mandara base camp, in the Marangu route. It takes 3-4 hours to reach Mandara, and I was huffing and puffing and stopping every 20 steps for the last 30 minutes of reaching the camp, to catch my breath. Pole pole, slowly in Swahili, that’s how you finish. I decided right then and there, never mind my romantic notions of the mountain, that I will not return to climb my dear Kili to its snow-capped peak after all. The descent was a cinch. I was comfortable with my breathing, there was a refreshing drizzle, and I was able to observe and enjoy the semitropical lushness and beauty along the way.
By this time, after 10 days of camping, we were weary and ready to relax on the beach in Zanzibar. The drive was long, through sisal and coffee and tea plantations. We got to view the lush countryside before descending to sea level and confronting the heat and humidity, but a plane trip would have been better as there’s an airport between Kili and Zanzibar.
We reached the port of Dar es Salaam, a busy city teeming with people and honking vehicles. Up until this point we encountered only occasional trucks and buses on the road. There are no private cars on the highway in Africa. The locals walked to their destinations, long walks sometimes on bare feet. From Dar we took a 2-hour ferry ride to cross the channel to Zanzibar. The ferry was packed, there were custom checks and bag inspections, the locals elbow their way through and do not queue, and the population stinks with a peculiar body odor which gave me a headache. We were soaked with sweat as we had to dress covering our knees and arms, in deference to the custom of the majority Muslim population on the coast. We were held in an airless packed compartment, 6 to a row, and the sailing was choppy than usual, we were told, I needed to breathe. I got out of my seat and stood on the deck among the crates and bags and chickens in cages. Sa-id, the ticket conductor invited me to the bow of the ferry where there’s better view and seating, where I could sit on a stair and face the horizon ahead, among the crates, and bags, and chicken in cages. On the way to the bow I had to pass through the galley and got to meet the captain and the officers. Captain Chile,etc. was chatty and we had a long conversation, and that’s when I learned Coretta King had died. That was Thursday, February 2.
There are no more gigolos on the beaches of Zanzibar. That went with the Aga Khan and Rita Hayworth. Zanzibar is imbued with exotic and ignominious history, being a busy and rich trading post in its heyday for cloves and other spices, ivory and slaves, and ruled by sultans and sheiks in their gilded palaces. It is a tropical island with bananas and coconut trees and the red colobus monkey, and white fine sandy beaches. But it is run down and faded like an old dowager who had lost her fortune, and slowly crumbling into ruins. But you can imagine how it can be a jewel if restored and cared for. Stone Town with its narrow alleys and remains of grand houses with intricately carved doors accented by brass finials can be imagined to be once magnificent and shining. But alas many sections are in ruins with the dwelling’s guts exposed and inhabited by alley cats and had become receptacles for the ubiquitous flimsy used plastic bags that are strewn all over the landscape. The oceanside park is inhabited by locals who squat or nap there all day and accost you with touts of tours or goods or taxi for hire. At night it is lovely at a distance with the night fish market and bazaar, but it is intimidating for the tourist to stroll through it. There is a program unveiled for restoration, but the government has no money and has no private benefactors to do the massive work. It is such a pity for it is a world heritage site. However there is a Freddie Mercury restaurant, the local world recording artist celebrity. There are several fine restaurants housed in the few restored grand houses, and the meals are cheap and the South African wines are great, as the beers, Kilimanjaro and Tusker. We tried their Chinese restaurant, and it felt strange not to have pork in the menu. At the next table from us the newly appointed Minister of Agriculture was being honored. There is a nice shopping section but there were no unique blings to buy. Tanzania is not the place to buy Tanzanite jewelry. There are no chic shops. New York and Las Vegas have the best designs in Tanzanite. We spent 2 days in Stone Town and took the spice tour and viewed the slave market and Prison Island, where recalcitrant slaves were held until shipped to the New World.
Then we were off to the beach in Nungwi, north of the island, 1 ½ hours from Stone Town. It takes determination to get there. The road is dusty and bumpy and pot-hole ridden. I’m reminded of the drive from hell when we went to Boracay. You pass through little villages of thatched huts and roadside vegetable stands. In Nungwi Village our accommodations are 3rd rate but adequate. Nearby, a 20 minute walk on the beach away from the Village, there is a new international caliber resort, Gemma del Est, with competitive international 5-star rates, but expensive by local standards. Regardless of where you stay, the beach is the picture of paradise, endless and broad white stretch of fine sand, turquoise waters, gentle breeze, clear sky, coconut trees curtsying to the sand, and quiet coves where no one else is there but you. I spent the day following a snail as it crossed a sand ripple, watched a spindly sea urchin roll on its many spines, studied shallow pools formed by the receding tide, turned over stones to coax colorful fish out in the open, picked shells, stalked sand crabs to its hole, dug for clams, looked for starfish in different colors, picked brilliant broken off corals, read a book, dozed and dreamt.
I arrived at Hartsfield-Jackson in a downpour, and learned that my sister is boycotting her daughter’s wedding, that my son and his girlfriend have broken up, that my Philippine Foundation executive director had resigned, and Coretta King is dead. I am back to my life, but on that last day in Zanzibar the rainbow dipped into the horizon and I think the other end lies in the Amazon.
I arrived in Nairobi at 8:30 PM of the next day, East Africa being 7 hours ahead of EST, after a journey of 8500 miles and an 18-hour flight from Atlanta via Amsterdam. I barely slept, watched 4 movies en route, and had wine with the 4 meals I consumed on board. Furthermore, the wait for my luggage and visa processing was chaotic and very long. Jomo Kenyatta International Airport was very basic and merely functional, a stark departure from the gleaming and entertaining Schiphol where a layover is welcomed because of the many amusements offered such as the casino, trendy shops loaded with international goods, movable exhibits of the Rijksmuseum, at this time showing art from the Dutch golden age such as Jan Vermeer and his Girl with the Pearl Earrings, massage lounge, internet stations, numerous restaurants, bars and coffee shops, sleek toilets and showers, a lounging area where you can stretch and snooze, banks and currency exchange and ATM’s, and attentive and customer-centered service . I was exhausted as I took a taxi to my hotel. However, less than 5 minutes on the road to the city center, the taxi headlight shone on a magnificent black and white striped horse standing and facing us, a Zebra! It was so unexpected and so amazing that all fatigue left me. I knew then that I was going to have a great time.
Our Kenya and Tanzania experience covered over 2200 km. in 10 days trucking and camping from Nairobi to Dar es Salaam and 4 days in Zanzibar, where we got to stay in hotel rooms in Stone Town and a beach resort in Nungwi. Driving to our destination was long and bumpy and dusty, but we got to experience the immense diversity that East Africa has to offer. Many places in our itinerary were not accessible by air, train or bus. The custom-fitted Mercedes overland truck we used was a veritable hotel on wheels. The space under the seats were built with storage bins where we can unpack our luggage and safely lock them. The back rests were built with shelves which stored groceries and dry foods and condiments. The outside panels of the truck had shelves and storage under it and it also housed the water tank, fuel tank, coal bin and the camp stools and tents. When we open camp the side panels go up and all things are on hand for making dinner. Peter, our camp assistant did most of the cooking and heavy cleaning but we all took turns to help with chores. It was a novelty for me to be camping and I didn’t know what to expect. The first night, after driving down the escarpment of the Rift Valley, we pitched tent on the edge of Lake Naivasha. I layed awake listening to strange sounds and sensing the presence of living things outside my tent. I was told the next morning that hyenas and hippos were in the vicinity. The trip I booked was midway between the really basic camping and the luxury safari. I figured the basic was too rough and the luxury, aside from being very expensive, will not offer the authentic experience of the wilderness. We camped in organized campsites except for 2 nights in the wild, where there were absolutely no amenities that we had to forego showers. In organized campsites there were showers and toilets and electricity, and some have bars. A few have upgrades for basic lodging with en suite bath which I availed myself of whenever offered. Camping got old with me very quickly. One upgrade was in the farm campsite in Kembu which was a charming 1 ½ story cottage with a twin bedroom on the main level and a queen loft with a veranda. I shared this with 2 crazy guys from Vancouver. Our cook didn’t serve brewed coffee which I missed terribly, so it was a treat to have a kitchen where I brewed fresh Kenyan coffee for the 3 of us. In Mikadi, near Dar es Salaam, the upgrade was a palm-thatched beach hut. Here breaking waves lapped at my doorstep, the sea breeze caressed me to sleep and the warm sunrise woke me up in the morning. In Kilimanjaro, the upgrade was a cottage built in colonial times with extensive grounds planted with bougainvillas and hibiscus and where there was a birdman who was nursing an orphaned falcon with raw meat, and a large bar with cushioned couches to lounge in.
Exodus operates from the UK and most of the 15 travelers were from there. Four were from London, 2 couples from Southampton, one from Birmingham, one from Scotland, 4 from Vancouver, and I from the US. Our trip co-leaders were a young Caucasian couple from Zimbabwe and our camp assistant and cook, Peter, is an African from Tanzania. Peter was amazing in the camp kitchen. Without a Cuisinart or an oven he prepared pureed soups, mashed peas and vegetables, and even baked a cake.
At first camp I identified my travel buddies, the Truckin’ Thrashers. They’re a motley group of comedians who needed a female audience so their excesses at scatological and lewd allusions will not descend into the gutter. There was the monologist whose string was played masterfully by the artful picker and aided in harmony by the sidekick. The ensemble was completed by the passionate force of our man from Puglia. We sat around late into the night after everyone had zipped themselves into their sleeping bags cracking up around the campfire or in the bar. We had been scolded about propriety and to mind our manners. I’ve been around enough with guys like these, having been regularly recruited to be the 4th man in a golf foursome, or to fill in at poker or mahjong, or just to be the ear for their stories when the going at parties gets boring. The jokes and the laughs are all about the same things, to conquer sexual anxieties and homophobia and to titillate with erotic fantasies. I smile at them with indulgence even if I’m tempted to wash their mouths with soap, because in their other lives, away from the guy group, they are quite lovable men. I’ll remember them fondly, for they made me feel special on this trip and the pleasure was mine.
Jambo! Karibu! Hello! Welcome! in Swahili. From Nairobi we drove down to the Rift Valley on bumpy pot-holed roads passing the shanty suburbs teeming with activity of the market on Sunday. Kenya looks very poor. I’m reminded of the squatter district in Tondo, with its dirt-floored huts made of corrugated aluminum and salvaged construction materials. Everyone on the street greeted us. Children waved and ran after the truck laughing in merriment. The people are very friendly. However they have also learned from the tourists. In cities and tourist areas they are intrusive and accost you with offerings of service or goods for sale. I got lost in the labyrinthine alleys of Zanzibar and I asked a little girl about 11 or 12 years old for directions and she asked for money first before showing me my way. She pissed me off so I gave her only half of what I intended. On the other hand one of us left a camera in the Land Rover in Ngorongoro, and the African guide returned it safely, but the taxi driver on the way to Dar airport quoted 15000 shillings when I engaged him which I verified clearly, then tried to rip me off by demanding 50000 when I got off. I prevailed.
The Rift Valley grabs you breathless. It was formed 20 million years ago by a violent tear of the Arabian and African tectonic plates and ripped the earth from Syria to Mozambique. In its wake volcanoes and lakes and mountains and vast plains were formed. Serengeti, the endless plains or siringit, as the Masai calls it, is an ocean of undulating golden grass from horizon to horizon and beyond, as big as Belgium, as big as Ohio. Its surface is dotted by kopjes, charcoal gray volcanic rock outcroppings that take on fanciful shapes and precarious positions as they are molded by changing temperatures through the millenniums. The immense landscape of grass is relieved by the graceful spreading crown of acacia trees. It is the season of migration. Around January and February 1.6 million wildebeests, and hundreds of thousands of zebras, gazelles, impalas, topis, waterbucks, hartebeests, buffaloes, warthogs, and giraffes march from Masai Mara in Kenya to Serengeti and Ngorongoro in Tanzania following the rains to graze in the new vegetation and mate and give birth. Later in the year the reverse trip occurs as the rains turn north. It is dazzling to drive amongst these wild animals and see them up close and personal. There are wildebeests everywhere. They are massed in front of you and behind you and against the horizon you can see lines of thousands of them trudging along in a file, following the one in front of them from nose to tail. They didn’t bother us and seemed not to be bothered by us. They gave way for the truck to pass through. We came upon a family of giraffes, lumbering and very tall and very colorful feeding on acacia trees and sucking water from the tall cactus. Click and whirr, the cameras shoot. It is fatal for them to lower their heads so they cannot drink from the ground. We camped in the wild and had an early morning drive before the sun is up to spot the predators as they stalk their prey and make their kill. One has to know the habits of these magnificent animals higher up in the food chain to know where to look for them. We were rewarded with 2 hyenas finishing up after a lion kill of an impala. Meanwhile vultures were silently and patiently hovering by or perching still on treetops, vigilant, ready to swoop as soon as the hyenas had their fill. In a moment we heard shrieks and the rush of wings. About 20 vultures swooped into the abandoned carcass in a feeding frenzy. In the distance the lion that made the kill was walking away in a relaxed stride, looking for a cool spot under an acacia tree to rest and sleep, his hunger satiated for the next 3 days. Our guide spotted for us a solitary leopard up in a tree. Jackals and more lions and hyenas completed our morning. We felt fulfilled seeing a kill here and other evidence of it with abandoned carcasses of downed wildebeests and antelopes, but in the alleys of Zanzibar we were repulsed and turned away from a cat feeding on its kill of an alley rat.
The Rift Valley has many lakes and we visited the fresh water lake Naivasha and had a boat ride to view hippos and a variety of birds. We identified the fish eagle, ibis, kingfisher, various sea gull and pelicans, superb starlings, sparrows, an owl and a flock of the weird huge bird, the maribu stork. We visited Elsamere, on the other side of Lake Naivasha, the former home of Joy Adamson, of “Born Free” fame, now a conservation center, and we had tea on its lawn, where colobus monkeys stand alert to steal our crumpets or playfully grin and make faces at us. In lake Nakuru, a soda lake, we came upon the dazzling sight of thousands of pink flamingos feeding on its shores swathing the edge of the lake with a ribbon of pink. There were mean rhinos in the near distance, and we had to walk behind the cover of the truck to get on shore to get close to the flamingos. We had lunch high on a kopje, and had a sweeping panoramic view of all these grandeur. We didn’t have to spend $400 on a balloon ride over Serengeti to experience this breathtaking vista, as 2 of us did and they missed all the excitement of viewing a lion kill up close. We saw the rock hyrax, a tiny strange rodent-like animal, the nearest relative of the elephant, believe it or not! And elephants, we saw herds of them, feeding on acacia trees and bulldozing the landscape.
We camped for a night on the banks of Lake Victoria, the 2nd largest fresh water lake in the world, next to Lake Superior, its size as big as Ireland, and bordered by 3 countries, Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda. It’s the source of the headwaters of the Nile. With a glass of wine we pondered the romance of its waters flowing through the legendary river in the land of the pharaohs as we watched its spectacular sunset unfold before us.
We left Serengeti to drive to Ngorongoro, a collapsed crater 16 km wide with steep walls 600 meters high. We camped at the rim of the crater before descending in 5-man land-rovers early the next morning. As we opened camp 3 zebras galloped across our site and hyenas laughed and kept us awake all night. But the night was magnificent with the pitch black sky and brilliant constellations so clear with shooting stars drawing a bright flash across the horizon. I’m reminded of Van Gogh’s swirling starry night. We descended the crater in the early morning mist and caught the sunrise peeking out of the caldera’s rim and illuminating the crater with its lake below in muted surreal light. Ahh, I have no care in the world. I can live like the Masai who are allowed to graze and water their cattle herd in the Ngorongoro reserve. The Masai man leads his cattle from the village to the water every morning, lays in the shade and wait for every animal to finish grazing, then herd them back to the village at night, to repeat the same thing everyday. The women remain in the village and build their mud and dung huts, cook, gather wood and fetch water and tend the children. On second thought, I take back my wish.
Ngorongoro is a natural zoo with about 100,000 animals living permanently there and swelling in numbers during migration, with the arrival of the herbivores, wildebeests, et al. The elephant population is old, all males, as the females stayed up to be with the children, as once down they cannot go up the steep walls of the crater. Similarly there are no giraffes. It is disconcerting to see everyone here, land-rovers in huge numbers darting here and there in stalk of animal specimen, unlike in the Serengeti where it’s so vast you seldom see anyone else with you. There were 3 van-loads of Orientals and I was curious so I inquired and they were Koreans. If a party spotted anything of interest it was relayed to the guides in other vehicles and everyone scrambled to the site. It was gridlock. It spoiled the experience for me, but it illustrates the dilemma for tourism in this country. It is a poor country and needs dollar exchange revenue badly, it has limited habitable land, and population is growing fast, yet they have reserved vast wild parklands for protection, for the rest of the world to experience, for there is no place on earth like this, unchanged from the day of the big bang or from when god created it, depending on your persuasion. It could be the birthplace of humankind, based on finding “Lucy” near here.
We paused at the hippo pool for lunch and were warned to guard our meal from the black Kites, scavenger birds who had learned to steal the lunches of tourists. I barely lowered myself to sit on a driftwood under a tree when a Kite swooped from nowhere and ripped the 2 sandwich bags from my hands nearly amputating my fingers. “Shit, there goes my lunch!” Later on I was still fuming as I told the story, when something dropped at my feet. It was one of the bags, with a piece of bread crust still in it, and the bird was over my head up there in the tree, amused I’m sure at my expense, and then I felt something trickling down my legs. It was the bird’s chalky guano, its excrement! Such nerve, I was really dissed.
It’s a long drive to Kilimanjaro but I was filled with excitement. I recall Hemingway’s “Snows of Kilimanjaro”, the movie with Gregory Peck and Susan Hayward and Ava Gardner, which I saw as an adolescent in the Philippines, and I fell in love with it! I had yearnings then of going to Africa, and to see the world, and there I was, right in its bosom. I had to climb Kili. It is the highest free-standing mountain in the world at 19,335 ft (5895 m), rising from the hot savannah and rolling plains of the Great Rift Valley to its frigid snow-covered peak. One can climb it without mountaineering skills but one has to be fit and can stand sustained running for half an hour, for the altitude can be a killer. I never acclimatized to the low oxygen tension climbing only to 2700 m, up to Mandara base camp, in the Marangu route. It takes 3-4 hours to reach Mandara, and I was huffing and puffing and stopping every 20 steps for the last 30 minutes of reaching the camp, to catch my breath. Pole pole, slowly in Swahili, that’s how you finish. I decided right then and there, never mind my romantic notions of the mountain, that I will not return to climb my dear Kili to its snow-capped peak after all. The descent was a cinch. I was comfortable with my breathing, there was a refreshing drizzle, and I was able to observe and enjoy the semitropical lushness and beauty along the way.
By this time, after 10 days of camping, we were weary and ready to relax on the beach in Zanzibar. The drive was long, through sisal and coffee and tea plantations. We got to view the lush countryside before descending to sea level and confronting the heat and humidity, but a plane trip would have been better as there’s an airport between Kili and Zanzibar.
We reached the port of Dar es Salaam, a busy city teeming with people and honking vehicles. Up until this point we encountered only occasional trucks and buses on the road. There are no private cars on the highway in Africa. The locals walked to their destinations, long walks sometimes on bare feet. From Dar we took a 2-hour ferry ride to cross the channel to Zanzibar. The ferry was packed, there were custom checks and bag inspections, the locals elbow their way through and do not queue, and the population stinks with a peculiar body odor which gave me a headache. We were soaked with sweat as we had to dress covering our knees and arms, in deference to the custom of the majority Muslim population on the coast. We were held in an airless packed compartment, 6 to a row, and the sailing was choppy than usual, we were told, I needed to breathe. I got out of my seat and stood on the deck among the crates and bags and chickens in cages. Sa-id, the ticket conductor invited me to the bow of the ferry where there’s better view and seating, where I could sit on a stair and face the horizon ahead, among the crates, and bags, and chicken in cages. On the way to the bow I had to pass through the galley and got to meet the captain and the officers. Captain Chile,etc. was chatty and we had a long conversation, and that’s when I learned Coretta King had died. That was Thursday, February 2.
There are no more gigolos on the beaches of Zanzibar. That went with the Aga Khan and Rita Hayworth. Zanzibar is imbued with exotic and ignominious history, being a busy and rich trading post in its heyday for cloves and other spices, ivory and slaves, and ruled by sultans and sheiks in their gilded palaces. It is a tropical island with bananas and coconut trees and the red colobus monkey, and white fine sandy beaches. But it is run down and faded like an old dowager who had lost her fortune, and slowly crumbling into ruins. But you can imagine how it can be a jewel if restored and cared for. Stone Town with its narrow alleys and remains of grand houses with intricately carved doors accented by brass finials can be imagined to be once magnificent and shining. But alas many sections are in ruins with the dwelling’s guts exposed and inhabited by alley cats and had become receptacles for the ubiquitous flimsy used plastic bags that are strewn all over the landscape. The oceanside park is inhabited by locals who squat or nap there all day and accost you with touts of tours or goods or taxi for hire. At night it is lovely at a distance with the night fish market and bazaar, but it is intimidating for the tourist to stroll through it. There is a program unveiled for restoration, but the government has no money and has no private benefactors to do the massive work. It is such a pity for it is a world heritage site. However there is a Freddie Mercury restaurant, the local world recording artist celebrity. There are several fine restaurants housed in the few restored grand houses, and the meals are cheap and the South African wines are great, as the beers, Kilimanjaro and Tusker. We tried their Chinese restaurant, and it felt strange not to have pork in the menu. At the next table from us the newly appointed Minister of Agriculture was being honored. There is a nice shopping section but there were no unique blings to buy. Tanzania is not the place to buy Tanzanite jewelry. There are no chic shops. New York and Las Vegas have the best designs in Tanzanite. We spent 2 days in Stone Town and took the spice tour and viewed the slave market and Prison Island, where recalcitrant slaves were held until shipped to the New World.
Then we were off to the beach in Nungwi, north of the island, 1 ½ hours from Stone Town. It takes determination to get there. The road is dusty and bumpy and pot-hole ridden. I’m reminded of the drive from hell when we went to Boracay. You pass through little villages of thatched huts and roadside vegetable stands. In Nungwi Village our accommodations are 3rd rate but adequate. Nearby, a 20 minute walk on the beach away from the Village, there is a new international caliber resort, Gemma del Est, with competitive international 5-star rates, but expensive by local standards. Regardless of where you stay, the beach is the picture of paradise, endless and broad white stretch of fine sand, turquoise waters, gentle breeze, clear sky, coconut trees curtsying to the sand, and quiet coves where no one else is there but you. I spent the day following a snail as it crossed a sand ripple, watched a spindly sea urchin roll on its many spines, studied shallow pools formed by the receding tide, turned over stones to coax colorful fish out in the open, picked shells, stalked sand crabs to its hole, dug for clams, looked for starfish in different colors, picked brilliant broken off corals, read a book, dozed and dreamt.
I arrived at Hartsfield-Jackson in a downpour, and learned that my sister is boycotting her daughter’s wedding, that my son and his girlfriend have broken up, that my Philippine Foundation executive director had resigned, and Coretta King is dead. I am back to my life, but on that last day in Zanzibar the rainbow dipped into the horizon and I think the other end lies in the Amazon.
Tuesday, November 29, 2005
Ich Liebe Berlin
Hi Y'all,
Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Got back Sunday without any checked luggage but hand-carrying the flu instead and today is my 2nd day of calling in sick from work and I'm not enjoying it because I'm really feeling miserable, truly being punished for my shenanigans with the State beaurocracy.
Berlin is a city emerging from the rubble of bombings literally, and tryingto come to terms and move on from it's dark and ignominious past. The city has grand boulevards and majestic roundabouts, and a sprawling central park Tiergarten, the hunting grounds of past royalty, that was just lovely last Friday covered with fresh snow, the same weather which dumped tons in the rest of Europe and paralyzed transportation. Doobie and I took the double-decker bus hop on and off city tour while snowing which rendered the city views pristine and fresh, until it got heavy and dark towards the afternoon. I was cozy in my ankle- lenght mink, a wise decision considering I hesitated to lug the bulky garment at first. I bought a wool cloche, hated to pay the Euro price since I know i can get a similar one from Loehmanns at 75% off, but I needed a hat in the snow. I lost it on our first stop, left it on the bus, then Doobie and I got separated and went on our separate ways. I hopped back on the bus at Checkpoint Charlie about 2 hours later and I couldn't believe it! There was my cloche on an empty seat. I felt it was my lucky day. Checkpoint Charlie was the border crossing between East and West Berlin when the Wall stood from August 1961-November 9,1989. Berlin has been divided and reunited many times, parceled out among various nations as war booty and divided into 4 sectors at one point. There are whole neighborhood sections bombed to smithereens during WWII. Therefore you don't see many old buildings in spite of the city being 750 years old. But literally they are reconstructing it as it was and heavy equipment and lorries are everywhere, digging the rubble and building anew. There are sections that are completely modern marked with distinctive architecture designed by important architects from the planet, such as in the Potsdamerplatz, the equivalent of Times Square and in the superlative Friedrichstrasse shopping arcades. The Kurfurstendamm or Ku'damm for short is the longest street in Berlin and is very charming and romantic with double sidewalks lined with cafes and shops and with trees and park seats in the center promenade. Bismarck, who felt culturally inferior (my editorial),designed this after the Champs- Elysees and it captured its splendor. The rebuilt Reichstag, the seat of the Republic and the new observation dome atop it with its intricate mirror panels and rails has circular spiraling ramp where you can stroll and have a panoramic view of the entire city. It is a work of art built by an important London architect. Not far is the historic Brandenburg Tor, where part of the Wall once stood, and south of it is the newly opened Holocaust Memorial designed by American architect Eisenmann. It is a field of 2711 concrete stelae in a grid pattern, with varying heights covering a whole city block with the effect of undulating and seeemingly unstable surface if viewed as a whole composition. Along the shorter pillars of the field it suggested rows of perfectly lined coffins as far as the eye can see. One can walk in between the stelae and can enter the field from any direction and find one's own way among the pillars. Among the tallest ones one can feel an oppressive feeling as if the walls are closing in. Underground is the holocaust museum, a place so gripping it will not fail to break you down in tears. I emerged very angry at Bush's policies,for many of them are reminiscent of Hitler's initial moves that culminated in the atrocious systematic murder of a group of human beings.We stayed at the Westin Grand on Friedrichstrasse, a former palace which is decked to the hilt in Christmas lights and holiday trimmings. It has a central 6-story foyer with a stained glass domed ceiling and a grand staircase where carolers would line up to entertain guests beginning next week. It's a shame we missed this. Berlin is big on the holidays, just like its big on its mascot the Berlin bear, which can be seen in effigy or as looming sculptures in corners and sidewalks all over town. Christmas bazaars and fairs are popping up in every neighborhood and major commercial intersections. We checked out the bazaar set up near our hotel, in the Forum on Unter den Linden, a square flanked with beautiful buildings, among them the Staatsoper and St Hedwig Cathedral. I stopped for a moment at St Hedwig to pay my respects. It is an odd Catholic church set up differently with no central space or knave and the main church space is in the basement level and divided into several chapels.These Christmas bazaars are so nostalgic and festive. They set up wooden booths dressed with holiday lights and glitter. They sell crafts and the usual import doodads from developing countries, and gifts and holiday decorations, and wonderful food concessions with bratwurst stands and cheese and spun sugar candies, fried dough breads,pastries and chocolates to die for, a Thai booth where I had to sample their noodles (good), capuccinos,and hot chocolates and warm spiced wine laced with amaretto (goes down real smooth). The bigger bazaars come with old-fashioned fairs with ferris wheels and carousels and music grinders with hustling monkeys (now robotized). You meet the German populace, and as a group they are a handsome lot, after the Scandinavians. They are rule abiding. They stand at the street corner waiting for the green pedestrian light , they don't cross even if they've been standing for ages and there isn't any car in sight. The rule goes both ways. They don't stop for jaywalking pedestrians, and would run over you if you cross on the red light.The food is robust and sticks to your bones, made the old-fashion way with real butter and fat on the meat. We dined on various restaurants and cafes along the River Spree.Maya took us to her favorite cafe where we had desserts and coffee and played mahjong for one jai-alai, which Dobbs won. Maya requested a mahjong set for my pasalubong, and she wanted to play right away so she can refresh her memory of the game.She plans to introduce the game to her friends. In one cafe they had a ticker tape of the beer prices on view on TV screens so you can check how much your favorite beer is going by the glass. I sampled the traditional holiday menu of goose, venison, and duck, and various sausages,schnitzel,hot potato salad,candied and spiced apple sides,cabbage,and sauerkraut. We only drank beer, sampled lagers,and pilsners, and dark,and wheat beer as much as we can. I gained 3 pounds.The populace is handsome too in the U-bahn. We took 2 trains to get to Maya's flat for coffee and cakes, in the mixed section of the city.Heretofore we haven't met any ethnics or colored, except us. Their ethnics are Turks,and their story as minorities is the same as in America. We met 2 of Maya's roommates, Ian and Karen. Maya's building is a cooperative, and they are in the midst of renovation and painting in their individual unit.The roommates all have interesting resumes. Ian is a set designer and carpenter and built his bed platform himself, which is very funky in black,and his shelves are stacked steel laundry drums, very original and funkier still, and works very well in storing shirts and underwear and socks. Maya's space has tall windows which she draped in sheer gossamer, and she has good light to maintain her tropical indoor plants in good health. She's not living in squalor, mom. We had melt-in-your mouth cakes in different flavors with various berry fillings and chocolate and cream layers from Maya's favorite bakery and coffee in the dining area. Karen spread a blue cloth on the table and arranged votive candles and yellow autumn leaves she picked from the courtyard below in the center. We had lively conversation about the state of the world, why the holocaust happened, the minority issue in Germany, and America, the state of our schools, the unemployment in Germany and the European Union, about the job-nomads (my new favorite term) and entertainment junkies among the X-generation, and time just flew, and I was almost late for La Boheme at 7 PM at the Komische oper. Maya and Doobs have their own schedule to cruise the bars and check the rock and roll bands until 3 AM. I was more miserable with my cough and headache after the opera,I didn't feel like having dinner and I had to beg for aspirin from the concierge. I had potato and sausage soup in the lobby and a wheat beer, then packed , scheduled a wake-up call at 4 AM and went to bed. Our return flight is at 7:10 AM.
Hope everyone had a nice Thanksgiving. Got back Sunday without any checked luggage but hand-carrying the flu instead and today is my 2nd day of calling in sick from work and I'm not enjoying it because I'm really feeling miserable, truly being punished for my shenanigans with the State beaurocracy.
Berlin is a city emerging from the rubble of bombings literally, and tryingto come to terms and move on from it's dark and ignominious past. The city has grand boulevards and majestic roundabouts, and a sprawling central park Tiergarten, the hunting grounds of past royalty, that was just lovely last Friday covered with fresh snow, the same weather which dumped tons in the rest of Europe and paralyzed transportation. Doobie and I took the double-decker bus hop on and off city tour while snowing which rendered the city views pristine and fresh, until it got heavy and dark towards the afternoon. I was cozy in my ankle- lenght mink, a wise decision considering I hesitated to lug the bulky garment at first. I bought a wool cloche, hated to pay the Euro price since I know i can get a similar one from Loehmanns at 75% off, but I needed a hat in the snow. I lost it on our first stop, left it on the bus, then Doobie and I got separated and went on our separate ways. I hopped back on the bus at Checkpoint Charlie about 2 hours later and I couldn't believe it! There was my cloche on an empty seat. I felt it was my lucky day. Checkpoint Charlie was the border crossing between East and West Berlin when the Wall stood from August 1961-November 9,1989. Berlin has been divided and reunited many times, parceled out among various nations as war booty and divided into 4 sectors at one point. There are whole neighborhood sections bombed to smithereens during WWII. Therefore you don't see many old buildings in spite of the city being 750 years old. But literally they are reconstructing it as it was and heavy equipment and lorries are everywhere, digging the rubble and building anew. There are sections that are completely modern marked with distinctive architecture designed by important architects from the planet, such as in the Potsdamerplatz, the equivalent of Times Square and in the superlative Friedrichstrasse shopping arcades. The Kurfurstendamm or Ku'damm for short is the longest street in Berlin and is very charming and romantic with double sidewalks lined with cafes and shops and with trees and park seats in the center promenade. Bismarck, who felt culturally inferior (my editorial),designed this after the Champs- Elysees and it captured its splendor. The rebuilt Reichstag, the seat of the Republic and the new observation dome atop it with its intricate mirror panels and rails has circular spiraling ramp where you can stroll and have a panoramic view of the entire city. It is a work of art built by an important London architect. Not far is the historic Brandenburg Tor, where part of the Wall once stood, and south of it is the newly opened Holocaust Memorial designed by American architect Eisenmann. It is a field of 2711 concrete stelae in a grid pattern, with varying heights covering a whole city block with the effect of undulating and seeemingly unstable surface if viewed as a whole composition. Along the shorter pillars of the field it suggested rows of perfectly lined coffins as far as the eye can see. One can walk in between the stelae and can enter the field from any direction and find one's own way among the pillars. Among the tallest ones one can feel an oppressive feeling as if the walls are closing in. Underground is the holocaust museum, a place so gripping it will not fail to break you down in tears. I emerged very angry at Bush's policies,for many of them are reminiscent of Hitler's initial moves that culminated in the atrocious systematic murder of a group of human beings.We stayed at the Westin Grand on Friedrichstrasse, a former palace which is decked to the hilt in Christmas lights and holiday trimmings. It has a central 6-story foyer with a stained glass domed ceiling and a grand staircase where carolers would line up to entertain guests beginning next week. It's a shame we missed this. Berlin is big on the holidays, just like its big on its mascot the Berlin bear, which can be seen in effigy or as looming sculptures in corners and sidewalks all over town. Christmas bazaars and fairs are popping up in every neighborhood and major commercial intersections. We checked out the bazaar set up near our hotel, in the Forum on Unter den Linden, a square flanked with beautiful buildings, among them the Staatsoper and St Hedwig Cathedral. I stopped for a moment at St Hedwig to pay my respects. It is an odd Catholic church set up differently with no central space or knave and the main church space is in the basement level and divided into several chapels.These Christmas bazaars are so nostalgic and festive. They set up wooden booths dressed with holiday lights and glitter. They sell crafts and the usual import doodads from developing countries, and gifts and holiday decorations, and wonderful food concessions with bratwurst stands and cheese and spun sugar candies, fried dough breads,pastries and chocolates to die for, a Thai booth where I had to sample their noodles (good), capuccinos,and hot chocolates and warm spiced wine laced with amaretto (goes down real smooth). The bigger bazaars come with old-fashioned fairs with ferris wheels and carousels and music grinders with hustling monkeys (now robotized). You meet the German populace, and as a group they are a handsome lot, after the Scandinavians. They are rule abiding. They stand at the street corner waiting for the green pedestrian light , they don't cross even if they've been standing for ages and there isn't any car in sight. The rule goes both ways. They don't stop for jaywalking pedestrians, and would run over you if you cross on the red light.The food is robust and sticks to your bones, made the old-fashion way with real butter and fat on the meat. We dined on various restaurants and cafes along the River Spree.Maya took us to her favorite cafe where we had desserts and coffee and played mahjong for one jai-alai, which Dobbs won. Maya requested a mahjong set for my pasalubong, and she wanted to play right away so she can refresh her memory of the game.She plans to introduce the game to her friends. In one cafe they had a ticker tape of the beer prices on view on TV screens so you can check how much your favorite beer is going by the glass. I sampled the traditional holiday menu of goose, venison, and duck, and various sausages,schnitzel,hot potato salad,candied and spiced apple sides,cabbage,and sauerkraut. We only drank beer, sampled lagers,and pilsners, and dark,and wheat beer as much as we can. I gained 3 pounds.The populace is handsome too in the U-bahn. We took 2 trains to get to Maya's flat for coffee and cakes, in the mixed section of the city.Heretofore we haven't met any ethnics or colored, except us. Their ethnics are Turks,and their story as minorities is the same as in America. We met 2 of Maya's roommates, Ian and Karen. Maya's building is a cooperative, and they are in the midst of renovation and painting in their individual unit.The roommates all have interesting resumes. Ian is a set designer and carpenter and built his bed platform himself, which is very funky in black,and his shelves are stacked steel laundry drums, very original and funkier still, and works very well in storing shirts and underwear and socks. Maya's space has tall windows which she draped in sheer gossamer, and she has good light to maintain her tropical indoor plants in good health. She's not living in squalor, mom. We had melt-in-your mouth cakes in different flavors with various berry fillings and chocolate and cream layers from Maya's favorite bakery and coffee in the dining area. Karen spread a blue cloth on the table and arranged votive candles and yellow autumn leaves she picked from the courtyard below in the center. We had lively conversation about the state of the world, why the holocaust happened, the minority issue in Germany, and America, the state of our schools, the unemployment in Germany and the European Union, about the job-nomads (my new favorite term) and entertainment junkies among the X-generation, and time just flew, and I was almost late for La Boheme at 7 PM at the Komische oper. Maya and Doobs have their own schedule to cruise the bars and check the rock and roll bands until 3 AM. I was more miserable with my cough and headache after the opera,I didn't feel like having dinner and I had to beg for aspirin from the concierge. I had potato and sausage soup in the lobby and a wheat beer, then packed , scheduled a wake-up call at 4 AM and went to bed. Our return flight is at 7:10 AM.
Monday, August 08, 2005
Tassajara
Tassajara
August 2005
It’s been a while since I greeted mornings and I had forgotten how exhilarating it can be. At 5:20 AM the hand bells at Tassajara wake you up, the tinny tinkling sounds meander along the cottages and summon you from sleep. I booked a tatami room, a 10X12 cottage shared with Anicia, furnished sparsely with reed mats and 2 double futon mattresses on the floor covered with plush down comforters. They keep you warm and cozy at night for the temperatures dip to 45 degrees from the 100 plus heat during the day. The room has low shoji screened windows just above your head as you lay low on the floor futons. You can look up and peek through the bamboo grove which is still in darkness and see the glimmer of light in the sky. It is just a hint of light and gradually, like someone is turning the dimmer switch in a room it brightens and muted indirect light fills the surroundings. The sound of wood mallet striking wood plank cracks the stillness, summoning the monks to Zazen at 5:50 AM. Different sounds interrupt your dozing, signaling various activities for the monks, the sound of distant drum-roll followed by slow beats then brass gong sounds and finally the tolling of the giant railroad bell at 6:30 jolts you into awakening and attention. The light has bathed the whole camp and there’s no mistaking, dawn has arrived. Sunrise is not until another hour, when the sharp yellow rays of the sun strike the side of the mountain and erupt with exuberance and spill over into the cottages in a powerful presence that is palpable physically. It is time to rise.
It’s this kind of experience that brings guests to Tassajara year after year. We’ve met guests who had been coming for 23 years, just to spend a week away from it all, no electricity, no cell phones, no TV or radio, no newspapers. To be one with nature giving a hint of what the Zen practice might be all about.
We came to Tassajara for a retreat workshop on The Spirit of Practice= Christian and Zen. It is led by Brother David, a Benedictine monk, and Paul, a Zen Buddhist. I came because I’m a Catholic skeptic looking for ways to recover my faith and Anicia came with me because it sounded like a neat thing to do, and besides it’s close to Carmel Valley where Pebble Beach is and we can take a side trip and play Pebble Beach. Instead we played Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Course, where we walked 18 holes for $20 twilight rate and the course was just as spectacular and special as the $475 plus Pebble Beach Course. The course is laid out in the same strip of God’s land overlooking the Pacific and the rugged rocky shores where seals and shorebirds co-exist with gawking tourists forever shooting them with cameras. The natural dunes and ice plant abundantly covering the fairways and the shifting wind and herds of black tail deer camping out on the greens are more than enough hazards to make your game exciting and frustrating. From the 15th hole of the Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Course, you can see the 18th of the Pebble Beach Course.
The workshop was intense. We start with 30 minutes of sitting in silence at 8 AM. This is a small approximation of Zazen. Paul looks the part of a Buddhist monk. He is ascetic in build, with high cheekbones and hollow cheeks and dark eye sockets framed by clean-shaved skull. He sits on his pretzel twisted legs, right foot over the left thigh and vice versa, spine erect, chin forward, looking ahead in a blank stare, and breathing evenly and silently, immobile, unshifting for the whole 30 minutes. I suppose he is capable of emptying his mind, the object of Zazen. Meanwhile, I’m trying to be very still, but I cant’ help it. My muscles start to quiver after 3 minutes and I’m forced to make an ever slight move to shift my weight. Then I just had 2 cups of coffee on empty stomach at 7:30 and my GI-tract is rattling with borborygmi so loud you can hear it across the room. And I cannot empty my mind. I’m peeking from the sides of my eyes to see what the others are doing. And I’m stealing a look at Paul. And my mind goes to wondering what to do after the session at 1 PM, should I go to the Narrows and read or bathe in the swimming hole? Should I hike the Overlook Trail tomorrow? Today at dawn, hiking the Ridge Trail, the mountain wildflowers were covered in mist, the Mexican heather, and mountain sage smelling so fresh and the Yucca tall and arrogant over the trodden grass. Then I try to be serious and think of serious stuff. I should be more tolerant of all humans, stop hating my Indian colleagues, love my place of work at the state hospital, be nicer to my friends and get along better with everyone, etc. But then, thinking at all is all wrong. I should empty my mind, that’s the way to practicing mindfulness and be one and discover your true nature and self. I should concentrate on breathing and letting all thoughts go and be with the here and now, the present, be open and receptive, be oneself and yet be everyone. I should be that wave individuating and defining myself as I come to shore , but I’m also one with the ocean where as a wave I come from, and I go back and become part of one. Whew! For 5 days we grappled with abstract and deep ideas, trying to reconcile and differentiate the practice of Christianity and Zen. We went to the virgin birth, to the figure of Mary, the trinity, to Jesus, sin and confession, punishment and atonement, heaven and resurrection, charity, grace, prayers, the crucifixion, monastic life, rituals and ceremony. The group was articulate and erudite and illustrated their meaning with quotes from poems and literature , EE Cummings, Yeats, Whitman, among others. They knew history and anthropology, and they knew personal experience. There were 13 women and 1 man, ages ranged from 23 to 89. There were 2 mother –daughter pairs, and one has a son in his 3rd year as a Zen student at Tassajara. Some sessions were very moving, you can’t help spilling your emotions in a group like this, but the leaders are very skilled and that’s reassuring. They were able to maintain boundaries and keep the process oriented to the topic.
After a grueling morning of these sessions, we look forward to lunch at 1 PM, announced by the sonorous tolling of the big old railroad bell. Meals are prepared and served by the Zen students on cloth- covered long tables and cloth napkins which we keep stowed away in our marked napkin rings for reuse in the next meal. The vegetarian meals are delicious and very filling, and the breads are specially famous and at the end of your stay, they bake a bunch of different varieties which you can purchase as a donation to the Zendo. Lunch offers an option of eating in the dining room or self-preparing a boxed meal from a delectable array of spreads, prepared salads, cheeses, vegetarian pates of almonds and sundried tomatoes or pestos, and condiments, in addition to fruits and fresh greens and baked goods. On our way up the mountain, driving from San Jose International Airport, we stopped by for half a case of wine, and this just proved divine to take along with the boxed meal for picnics at the Narrows, the trail along Tassajara Creek where in its nooks and crannies you can find secluded swimming holes and giant flat boulders to spread your beach towel and sun nude and feel a belonging and oneness with nature.
It only took a brief moment of observation at the baths to realize that we can be completely free in this setting. On our first day we arrived at the segregated baths with bathing suits but we promptly ditched them after we surveyed the scene. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I can reclaim my body without self-consciousness, how liberating! Now I understand the freedom and I suspect joy that European women have about their bodies, no matter what shape it’s in. I recall traveling in Sweden and going out on the boat with a friend, and it just enthralled me to see everyone nude unselfconsciously, with all shapes of bodies, fat, thin, pregnant, scarred, smooth, all baring it to feel the sun’s warmth and vitality.
It’s not easy to get to Tassajara. It is in the middle of the Ventana wilderness, a national reserve. It sits on the Santa Lucia Mountain of the Los Padres range. It’s on a fault so hot sulfur steam escapes from the earth’s core and feeds the Tassajara hot springs, which from the late 19th century already catered to the imaginative few who saw its potential as a resort and healing center. When the resort was burned early in the century , it was not rebuilt, but in the 50’s when interest in Buddhism began to pick up in the West, a friend of the late Zen master Shunryu Suzuki suggested that the old resort site would be a perfect place to open a Zen Center. Thus the first training Zen monastery outside of Asia was built. It is only in recent years that guests can stay at the center, and only during the summer season. For the rest of the year the center functions strictly as a monastery. It is a remote place accessible only by a 14-mile steep dirt road which narrows to one lane in many places, and first climbs up to the top of the ridge, then switches in an abrupt hairpin turn and follows the ridge down, then up again, then the final descent of 5 miles is a brake-burning plunge that stirs up a thick smoke of swirling dry earth that settles completely covering your car. You need a 4-wheel drive to negotiate this terrain, but our rental car, a Hyundai Sonata has only the Drive shift, no low gears. I trusted Anicia, who was driving, with my life, and I was in Zazen even before we started our retreat. It normally takes 1 hour and 15 minutes to drive this 14-mile road, but Anicia got us through it in 50 minutes. This is the moment when the Buddha in all of us would say, “ Life and death is the same thing, it is something, and it is nothing.” What? Me worry? NAH!
Click on Brother David from this link, he's really remarkable!
http://www.gratefulness.org/index.htm
And click this link for some pictures, click on next to get to the next image
http://travel2.nytimes.com/slideshow/2003/06/22/travel/20030622tass.slideshow_1.html
August 2005
It’s been a while since I greeted mornings and I had forgotten how exhilarating it can be. At 5:20 AM the hand bells at Tassajara wake you up, the tinny tinkling sounds meander along the cottages and summon you from sleep. I booked a tatami room, a 10X12 cottage shared with Anicia, furnished sparsely with reed mats and 2 double futon mattresses on the floor covered with plush down comforters. They keep you warm and cozy at night for the temperatures dip to 45 degrees from the 100 plus heat during the day. The room has low shoji screened windows just above your head as you lay low on the floor futons. You can look up and peek through the bamboo grove which is still in darkness and see the glimmer of light in the sky. It is just a hint of light and gradually, like someone is turning the dimmer switch in a room it brightens and muted indirect light fills the surroundings. The sound of wood mallet striking wood plank cracks the stillness, summoning the monks to Zazen at 5:50 AM. Different sounds interrupt your dozing, signaling various activities for the monks, the sound of distant drum-roll followed by slow beats then brass gong sounds and finally the tolling of the giant railroad bell at 6:30 jolts you into awakening and attention. The light has bathed the whole camp and there’s no mistaking, dawn has arrived. Sunrise is not until another hour, when the sharp yellow rays of the sun strike the side of the mountain and erupt with exuberance and spill over into the cottages in a powerful presence that is palpable physically. It is time to rise.
It’s this kind of experience that brings guests to Tassajara year after year. We’ve met guests who had been coming for 23 years, just to spend a week away from it all, no electricity, no cell phones, no TV or radio, no newspapers. To be one with nature giving a hint of what the Zen practice might be all about.
We came to Tassajara for a retreat workshop on The Spirit of Practice= Christian and Zen. It is led by Brother David, a Benedictine monk, and Paul, a Zen Buddhist. I came because I’m a Catholic skeptic looking for ways to recover my faith and Anicia came with me because it sounded like a neat thing to do, and besides it’s close to Carmel Valley where Pebble Beach is and we can take a side trip and play Pebble Beach. Instead we played Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Course, where we walked 18 holes for $20 twilight rate and the course was just as spectacular and special as the $475 plus Pebble Beach Course. The course is laid out in the same strip of God’s land overlooking the Pacific and the rugged rocky shores where seals and shorebirds co-exist with gawking tourists forever shooting them with cameras. The natural dunes and ice plant abundantly covering the fairways and the shifting wind and herds of black tail deer camping out on the greens are more than enough hazards to make your game exciting and frustrating. From the 15th hole of the Pacific Grove Municipal Golf Course, you can see the 18th of the Pebble Beach Course.
The workshop was intense. We start with 30 minutes of sitting in silence at 8 AM. This is a small approximation of Zazen. Paul looks the part of a Buddhist monk. He is ascetic in build, with high cheekbones and hollow cheeks and dark eye sockets framed by clean-shaved skull. He sits on his pretzel twisted legs, right foot over the left thigh and vice versa, spine erect, chin forward, looking ahead in a blank stare, and breathing evenly and silently, immobile, unshifting for the whole 30 minutes. I suppose he is capable of emptying his mind, the object of Zazen. Meanwhile, I’m trying to be very still, but I cant’ help it. My muscles start to quiver after 3 minutes and I’m forced to make an ever slight move to shift my weight. Then I just had 2 cups of coffee on empty stomach at 7:30 and my GI-tract is rattling with borborygmi so loud you can hear it across the room. And I cannot empty my mind. I’m peeking from the sides of my eyes to see what the others are doing. And I’m stealing a look at Paul. And my mind goes to wondering what to do after the session at 1 PM, should I go to the Narrows and read or bathe in the swimming hole? Should I hike the Overlook Trail tomorrow? Today at dawn, hiking the Ridge Trail, the mountain wildflowers were covered in mist, the Mexican heather, and mountain sage smelling so fresh and the Yucca tall and arrogant over the trodden grass. Then I try to be serious and think of serious stuff. I should be more tolerant of all humans, stop hating my Indian colleagues, love my place of work at the state hospital, be nicer to my friends and get along better with everyone, etc. But then, thinking at all is all wrong. I should empty my mind, that’s the way to practicing mindfulness and be one and discover your true nature and self. I should concentrate on breathing and letting all thoughts go and be with the here and now, the present, be open and receptive, be oneself and yet be everyone. I should be that wave individuating and defining myself as I come to shore , but I’m also one with the ocean where as a wave I come from, and I go back and become part of one. Whew! For 5 days we grappled with abstract and deep ideas, trying to reconcile and differentiate the practice of Christianity and Zen. We went to the virgin birth, to the figure of Mary, the trinity, to Jesus, sin and confession, punishment and atonement, heaven and resurrection, charity, grace, prayers, the crucifixion, monastic life, rituals and ceremony. The group was articulate and erudite and illustrated their meaning with quotes from poems and literature , EE Cummings, Yeats, Whitman, among others. They knew history and anthropology, and they knew personal experience. There were 13 women and 1 man, ages ranged from 23 to 89. There were 2 mother –daughter pairs, and one has a son in his 3rd year as a Zen student at Tassajara. Some sessions were very moving, you can’t help spilling your emotions in a group like this, but the leaders are very skilled and that’s reassuring. They were able to maintain boundaries and keep the process oriented to the topic.
After a grueling morning of these sessions, we look forward to lunch at 1 PM, announced by the sonorous tolling of the big old railroad bell. Meals are prepared and served by the Zen students on cloth- covered long tables and cloth napkins which we keep stowed away in our marked napkin rings for reuse in the next meal. The vegetarian meals are delicious and very filling, and the breads are specially famous and at the end of your stay, they bake a bunch of different varieties which you can purchase as a donation to the Zendo. Lunch offers an option of eating in the dining room or self-preparing a boxed meal from a delectable array of spreads, prepared salads, cheeses, vegetarian pates of almonds and sundried tomatoes or pestos, and condiments, in addition to fruits and fresh greens and baked goods. On our way up the mountain, driving from San Jose International Airport, we stopped by for half a case of wine, and this just proved divine to take along with the boxed meal for picnics at the Narrows, the trail along Tassajara Creek where in its nooks and crannies you can find secluded swimming holes and giant flat boulders to spread your beach towel and sun nude and feel a belonging and oneness with nature.
It only took a brief moment of observation at the baths to realize that we can be completely free in this setting. On our first day we arrived at the segregated baths with bathing suits but we promptly ditched them after we surveyed the scene. I was pleasantly surprised to discover that I can reclaim my body without self-consciousness, how liberating! Now I understand the freedom and I suspect joy that European women have about their bodies, no matter what shape it’s in. I recall traveling in Sweden and going out on the boat with a friend, and it just enthralled me to see everyone nude unselfconsciously, with all shapes of bodies, fat, thin, pregnant, scarred, smooth, all baring it to feel the sun’s warmth and vitality.
It’s not easy to get to Tassajara. It is in the middle of the Ventana wilderness, a national reserve. It sits on the Santa Lucia Mountain of the Los Padres range. It’s on a fault so hot sulfur steam escapes from the earth’s core and feeds the Tassajara hot springs, which from the late 19th century already catered to the imaginative few who saw its potential as a resort and healing center. When the resort was burned early in the century , it was not rebuilt, but in the 50’s when interest in Buddhism began to pick up in the West, a friend of the late Zen master Shunryu Suzuki suggested that the old resort site would be a perfect place to open a Zen Center. Thus the first training Zen monastery outside of Asia was built. It is only in recent years that guests can stay at the center, and only during the summer season. For the rest of the year the center functions strictly as a monastery. It is a remote place accessible only by a 14-mile steep dirt road which narrows to one lane in many places, and first climbs up to the top of the ridge, then switches in an abrupt hairpin turn and follows the ridge down, then up again, then the final descent of 5 miles is a brake-burning plunge that stirs up a thick smoke of swirling dry earth that settles completely covering your car. You need a 4-wheel drive to negotiate this terrain, but our rental car, a Hyundai Sonata has only the Drive shift, no low gears. I trusted Anicia, who was driving, with my life, and I was in Zazen even before we started our retreat. It normally takes 1 hour and 15 minutes to drive this 14-mile road, but Anicia got us through it in 50 minutes. This is the moment when the Buddha in all of us would say, “ Life and death is the same thing, it is something, and it is nothing.” What? Me worry? NAH!
Click on Brother David from this link, he's really remarkable!
http://www.gratefulness.org/index.htm
And click this link for some pictures, click on next to get to the next image
http://travel2.nytimes.com/slideshow/2003/06/22/travel/20030622tass.slideshow_1.html
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