Lodging

Pleasuring In Zanzibar

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We spent evenings on the deck of the Mercury Bar watching the sun set over the Indian Ocean full of fishing boats and beautiful lean bodies swimming in the water. The Mercury Bar is named after Freddie Mercury, the lead singer of Queen before he died, was born just up the street. We read in a local English language newspaper that his Bohemian Rhapsody was recently voted the number one all-time most popular song in the UK. Incidentelly, the bar menu has a drink called the Monica Lewinsky-Blue Curacao, triple sec, gin and sprite. Subscript: “Find out what a bubbly body can do in a blue dressing!”

Next morning on the 14th it’s back on the ferry (hi-speed hydrofoil this time) to the truck waiting for us in Dar es Salaam where we camped at the Mikadi Beach Resort in Dar again. We fight off the Malaria “mosies” (mosquitos) in the tent with a towel before falling asleep in a heap.

Overland To Dar es Salaam

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Virtually no cars on the road; only trucks and buses and a few vans. The people seem like they don’t see many overlanders; some-mostly women and little children wave-sometimes with thumbs up; occasionally an adolescent will give us the finger; many children hold out their hands and come running-obviously having gotten handouts in the past.

No one wants their picture taken. Most will turn their backs or rub the thumb and forefinger together indicating they want money if they see you with a camera. Most feel that it is a violation to have their picture taken and they will all want to be paid at least a couple dollars. One roadside young man threatened to throw a bag or oranges at Bob when he was trying to take a picture while we were riding along in the truck.

The kids are playing a Bobby Marley tape “Get up, stand up, for your rights…” Marley’s anniversary of his death was this week and there was a huge party at the Africa House in Zanzibar-lots of Rastifarians (or wannabes) here.

Bring T Shirts or any other cool clothes that young people in the States wear for trading with the local guys-you could come away with virtually any arts and crafts pieces you ever wanted. There is no money to buy anything Francis says. Even the locals go to a seller and offer 50 cents for a dollar item, he says. So if they can swap what they have with you that is how they get their clothes. Saw a Cliff Richards T-shirt while we were stopped at a roadside gas station. Cliff Richards! Cliff Richards! I yelled at the guy…I know him…in Tempe Arizona! He just laughed.

Sign seen over a business by the side of the road: Camp David Resort

Fields along here are not the small one acre parcels tilled by each family. These are full of rice and sisal-part of a large corporation. Huge fields of corn are all hand tilled.

I love to see the children so proud of themselves in their school uniforms running along side the road after school.

Truck Camp in Dar
As we drove into Dar at sundown, we almost choked on diesel fumes and charcoal smoke rising up from all the dinner fires. Worse than Bangkok where people at least wear surgical face masks. The truck drove to the car ferry for the ride across the bay to the uphemistically named truck camp-Mikadi Beach Resort it is called-for our first view of the Indian Ocean. Then, hot and sweaty, we dove for the wonderful outdoor showers enclosed in tile and green plants-the cold water feeling glorious. Our meal is cooked tonight by the Mikadi Camp Restaurant-wonderful white fish roasted in foil, salads and the ubiquitous french fries. We had to pay the bartender $1 to plug in our electronics.

The next day, while waiting fot the ferry back across the bay to Dar I could look down at the little Abdallah shop selling an odd collection of hair products, Fanta, water, rope, twine, a bicycle tire, empty plastic jugs and eggs. A few feet away a young kid was selling live chickens from a basket tied to the back of his bicycle. Another fellow is pushing along a bike with huge yellow water jugs tied to the top and sides; Another bike has a huge basket of coconuts. A black Malcolm X T shirt worn by a young guy in dreads.

I see what I think is resentment in the eyes of many who look up at us-the healthy, well-fed, big, well-dressed, well-endowed, well-educated…rich..,.on the ferry three Muslim men are looking at the truck-an older one talking animatedly to a younger one….the more he talks the more distressed his friend looks..wish I could be a little bird…It occurs to me that they have to bad-talk the west so they won’t lost their young ones to it…Bob would say I am just making an assumption based on paranoia…but the Muslim is not an authority on the West, I think to myself. I want to speak for myself. I don’t want him interpreting my life to anyone and yet we in the West do that all the time to “the Others.”

I’ll be darned if I can remember anything, except breakfast, that George has cooked for us so far on this overland trip!

Nairobi…First Impressions

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On April 30, 2002, the plane from Cairo landed in Nairobi Kenya to music from “Out of Africa” (groan) and a horrific monsoon-season rainstorm. A taxi ride to the downtown area that should have taken 20 minutes took three hours.

The Parkside Hotel where we are staying, across town from the Hilton and Stanley Hotels, is decent and many of the non-governmental organization expats stay here. For a city with a population of two and a half million people the downtown area is surprisingly small and you can walk across it in about 15 minutes.

First Impressions
You immediately see signs of the ousted English: driving is on the left side of the road, many of the taxis are English (they look like black 1940 limousines)they serve English breakfast including pork and beans without the pork. Besides Swahili and the tribal dialects, English is spoken as the common language.

The feel of the people and sound of their voices is soft and resonant-not strident as in Egypt. The smiles on these faces are wonderful. We are very happy to be here.

We don’t feel in the least bit uncomfortable yet. We are called Mama and Papa…disconcerting reminders of course that we are not 20 something backpackers.

The women all have straightened hair unless they have cornrows or short cropped hair. The men all have very short cropped hair. One seller, comparing his lack of hair with Bob’s referred to both of them as having “mosquito highways” the literal translation for a bald head in Swahili!

Cairo Egypt

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On April 21, 2002 while waiting for our flight from Athens to Cairo, we visited briefly with a gentleman sitting next to us who was on his way to Alexandria for what we thought was the dedication of the new Biblioteca Alexandrina (Alexandria Library). He was on the Board of Trustees I heard him tell an associate. When we boarded the plane a picture of the spectacular new library was on the cover of Horus, the Egypt Air magazine. The original library built by the Greeks in the fourth Century burned down in a fire so now President Mubarak and UNESCO has rebuilt the library. The design is a simple disc inclined toward the sea, partly submerged in a pool of water and is covered with Aswan granite engraved with calligraphic letters and representative inscriptions from the world civilizations. Really felt I’d missed something by not seeing it.

What we didn’t know at the time, however, was that there had been a huge student demonstration against Israel a few days before and a student had been killed by armed police whereupon Egypt cancelled indefinitely the dedication ceremonies in deference to the Palestinians.

Off the plane, a young Brit who had been in the country about 7 months as a volunteer teacher with the British version of our Peace Corps, jumped into the taxi with us for the ride into Cairo. He spent some time negotiating the fare with the driver. “20 pounds…you said!!” We found out later that they often tell you one price and then when it comes time to pay they up the price-or they will tell you one pound and then when you pull out the money they say “no, no English pounds!” So our taxi driver is getting double fare? “Yes,” he said, “that seems to often be the case here.”

We stayed on the island of Gezira in the middle of the Nile in Cairo. We stayed at the Mayfair Hotel in Zamelak, an area on the north end of the island where there are many embassies. The main street is named Sharia 26 of July to commemorate the fiery coup in 1952 that destroyed all the landmarks of 70 years of British rule.

There are several bridges that cross the Nile to Gezira, the one nearest us being the October 6 bridge, commemorating the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur when Egypt launched a surprise attack across the Suez Canal and restored Egypt’s national pride after the Israeli defeat of the Egyptian forces during the six day war in 1967 when Israel took control of the Sinai peninsula.

The capital of the Old Kingdom of Egypt has some extraordinary funerary monuments, including rock tombs, ornate mastabas, temples and pyramids. In ancient times, the site was considered one of the Seven Wonders of the World. It is now an UNESCO World Heritage Site

Santorini & Sifnos

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As the ferry approached the island through the caldera you see a red-brown black and pumice grey terraced cliff face that looms hundreds of feet above the water with brilliant-white buildings with blue trim reflecting the Aegean Sea hanging off the side. But all those beautiful buildings hanging off the cliffs of Santorini, as it turns out, are all hotels, boutique shops, cafes and restaurants with a few blue domed Byzantine churches mixed in.

Walked into a cafe for breakfast of coffee and pastry the first morning to the sounds of Portland’s own Pink Martini playing on the stereo. While walking around the town-Bob in his perennial shorts-we passed a group of Spanish teenagers and one was heard in English “look at that guy-he’s wearing shorts-makes no sense! Do you think it made any impression on Bob?

After exploring the island’s archaelogical and historical sites and lying on black sand beaches there was not much else to do unless you were twenty years old and wanted to spend all night in the discos-so we ferried it six hours to another, smaller island-Sifnos.

Sifnos
At the harbor port of Kamares we took a bus the five miles up a windy road to Apollonia where we checked late into the Sifnos Hotel-tired and hungry. There was only one other patron in the hotel, a French publisher who returns to the island every spring. Apostolos, the hotel proprietor, welcomed us each with an Ouzo. Then he treated the French woman and Bob and I with Mezedhes (appetizers) and we sat for the next two hours eating and talking culture and politics. This is what I had been waiting for! Marie, the French publisher was reading the memoirs of Edward W. Said the professor at Columbia University whose books are popular reading these days for an understanding of the middle east.

Apollonia is an amalgam of three very charming hilltop villages with connecting white-washed buildings with flower-draped balconies lining immaculate narrow marble footways. The people actually live and work here and one gets the feeling this is how they prefer things. The shops are only open during the summer so most of the locals have other work the remainder of the year, Apostolos says.

Sifnos is 16km by 8km-great for walking-so Bob took off the next day for a five hour walk following a trail with one great view after another along the way up to an acropolis with a church and some ruins from 600BC. Almost the entire island was terraced 2-3000 years ago when the islanders supported themselves with agricultural products but since the advent of tourism and vehicle ferries the walled terraces now mostly grow yellow and white daisies and blood-red poppies and support the lonely burro and the goats. It is interesting that the people built their town in and around the many ruins; Greece taking for granted its antiquity.

This island has given us a welcome respite from noise and activity; none of the shops were open yet and their owners were painting, sweeping, repairing all over-preparing for the summer-eager and hopeful.

Apostolos says the Greek Orthodox church is very powerful in Greece-and very conservative-legislating every aspect of family life which is the all-important institution next to the church. Families stay together always-even if/when children move away there is almost daily contact, he says. Marie, the French lady said that yes, the Greeks seem open and friendly but there it stops-they are very clannish and no one on the outside gets into the inner circles. She and Apostolos recommend reading “Three Summers” by Margareta Liberaki published also in English.

Women
My sense about the young women I have seen especially in the less developed countries of Spain, Portugal, Morocco and Greece is that they are a pretty savvy lot. Nothing will hold them back now!

As there was a strike on the day we planned to take the ferry back to Athens, we asked Apostolos if we could have the hotel room for the afternoon. “Of course, of course,” he says, “life is simple, life is simple!” When we were ready to leave, he gave us each a going away drink of Ouzo. I don’t want to leave this place…I am grateful for this journey; I have learned these ways so far to say thank you: Greek-efsharisto, Spanish-Gracias, French-merci, Portuguese-obrigado/a, Italian-grazie.

Back in Athens, I sat in the internet cafe with a young Anglican priest from Britain who was bicycling his way to Haifa Israel. Not worried, he said. The other fellow, was a UN Police Observer from South Bend, Indiana stationed in Kosovo making 90,000 a year. He was in Athens on leave. Meeting people like this is one of the reasons I like going to Internet cafes.

Athens Greece

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Landed in Eletherios Venizelo airport and everyone clapped as is often the custom around much of the world.

Took a one hour bus ride from the airport to Monastiraki Square Station at Syntagma Square in Athens. Walked down Ermou St. to Hotel Pella at the edge of the Plaka (old town). On our fourth floor balcony we had a direct view of the Acropolis that is beautifully lit at night. But in spite of the hardest beds of any in Europe and the street noise outside making it impossible to sleep without ear plugs. Nellie, the hotel manager from Bulgaria made our stay there a very pleasant one.

For dinner we gorged in the Plaka at the Egnokapta Restaurant. We had an eggplant casserole, spanokapita, val and onions, beet greens, peppers, yogurt and cucumbers, wine and afterward Greek coffee (that tastes like coffee grounds). Our watier-an older gentleman who assumed the authority of one who might own the the art of table- waiting made our meal even more pleasurable. As we were eating Bob looked around and wondered if any of the people there was a direct descendent of Aristotle…?

Olympics
The summer Olympics to be held in 2004 in athens is a matter of great debate among the people here. Because Greece is such a little country, and even though Athens will be greatly improved, the people are worried about the expense of maintaining all that is left once the Olympics are over. Soon an election will be held for a new mayor and local TV programs are filled with animated discussions about a new tax that is proposed to fund the improved infrastructure for the city. A new metro stop is being constructed below our hotel balcony and streets are torn up-workers working around the clock everywhere. Even though Greece is politically liberal, the people are generally very conservative and you get the feeling they enjoy nattering.

A bit of irony in these days: A T shirt saying that the fundamental Principles of Olympism is a philosophy of life exalting and combining in a balanced whole the qualities of body, will and mind. (From the Olympic Charter)

Went to Suyntagma Square to observe a demonstration and listen to Greek music supporting the Palestinians in the war with Israel. There was a huge picture of Arafat hanging at the square and our hotel proprietor told us that Greece will always support whoever it perceives is the “underdog.”

While surveying the scene, we stood and watched another drama-the street hawkers, mainly black African immigrants, selling sunglasses and purses on the blac market. Whenever the two police would walk up the street all the sellers would pick up their stuff and run and hide- then when the police passed they would all come back and within seconds be back in business again. Bystanders seemed entertained by the nightly game.

On the way back to the hotel we strolled through the Plaka looking for a place to eat and stopped to buy a small cylindrical shaped pillow for my train rides from a rug shop. On discovering we were American, the owner vented for 20 minutes about the stupidity of 9/11 and how it hurt the whole world economically because “when the US is in trouble all the countries are in trouble-like dominoes-so 9/11 hurt all of us! Look, the country is empty of tourists and my rug shop is empty!” He angrily called the people who commit these terrorist acts “barbarians.” He said in 3000 years of our history there has always been war between armies-not this barbaric stupidity- and on top of all this my 45 year old brother-in-law had a heart attack and died and I have to support my sister!” We found it difficult to find anything encouraging to say.

Illustrating the civilizations, myths and religions that flourished in Greece over a period of more than 1,000 years, the Acropolis, the site of four of the greatest masterpieces of classical Greek art – the Parthenon, the Propylaea, the Erechtheum and the Temple of Athena Nike – can be seen as symbolizing the idea of world heritage. It is an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Rome

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“Italy will return to the splendors of Rome, said the major. I don’t like Rome, I said. It is hot and full of fleas. You don’t like Rome? Yes, I love Rome. Rome is the mother of nations. I will never forget Romulus suckling the Tiber. What? Nothing. Let’s all go to Rome. Let’s go to Rome tonight and never come back. Rome is a beautiful city, said the major.” Ernest Hemingway, A Farewell To Arms.

Took one of those plush high speed TGV trains from Florence to Rome-one and a half hours. Wish the U.S. could have a similar system. A nice young guy in Bayonne, France who, while selling me some wonderful French perfume, told me about his three months he spent in the states and Canada-by traveling and sleeping on buses!

In Rome we checked in Pensione Cortorillo near the Termini (train station). This time there is a lift to the fifth floor. However, it was about 3 feet by 3 feet square. Bob thought he was going to be smart so he turned around and backed in with his backpack on. I walked in face first flat up against him. The inner doors (like French doors) barely closed behind me. Ok, good to go. Press the button nothing happens. Then Bob realizes that there is an outer door. So I have to back up through the door, turn around and back in so I can close the outer door. We get to the fifth floor. The lift stops. I look down through the metal grate of the lift and see the next floor about 12 feet down. Bob can’t see anything but now we can hear voices so I am thinking that since I can hear them maybe they will hear us holler for help. After some few seconds (which is long enough for many different thoughts to race through your head) Bob manages to turn his head far enough to see that behind him is another metal grate door and through it he sees the hotel proprietor waving frantically and yelling for Bob to open the door behind him which he does with great difficulty. Saved from eternal imprisonment in Rome.

The Vatican City, one of the most sacred places in Christendom, attests to a great history and a formidable spiritual venture. A unique collection of artistic and architectural masterpieces lie within the boundaries of this small state. At its centre is St Peter’s Basilica, with its double colonnade and a circular piazza in front and bordered by palaces and gardens. The basilica, erected over the tomb of St Peter the Apostle, is the largest religious building in the world, the fruit of the combined genius of Bramante, Raphael, Michelangelo, Bernini and Maderna.
We took a two-hour bus tour to get an overview of this city full of marble domes, Roman ruins with pieces lying willy nilly about, noseless and penusless statues and motorcycle dust. The tour was narrated in English but we only understood about half of it because of the Italian accent.

I had wanted very much to see the Trevi Fountain across from which was a delightful guesthouse where Barbara and I, in 1965, could look out on the fountain from our second floor window. We weren’t looking, unfortunately, when every last single bit of our luggage, and film, was stolen out of the trunk of my little red Spitfire Triumph that night. Legend has it that a traveler who throws a coin into the Fontana di Trevi, with its rumble of cascading water emerging from the back wall of the Palazzo, is ensured a speedy return to Rome and one who tosses two will fall in love in Rome. Well, in 1965 the first coin didn’t ensure such a speedy return but the second coin worked-my travel partner was charmed by a young Italian and spent a week longer in Rome while I went on toward Berlin by myself.

Rome is sensory overload of 2000 years of world history, art, architecture, politics and literature. We were exhausted after trying to absorb Florence and now Rome so we retreated gratefully to our room for a nap-falling asleep to the sound of music from “The Doors” and laughter from the young backpackers that filled the pension.

Last Night In Florence

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April 24, 2002
On the last day in Florence our room was booked by someone else and we had to move a few doors up the street to the Hotel Abaci. We had the Boticelli Room-pretty fancy compared to what we were used to. Many of the eight rooms in the hotel were right off the small dining area set up in the hall, so during breakfast people were coming out of their rooms in their jammies to cross the dining area to get to the WC around the corner-but they didn’t seem to mind a bit and neither did we-this is Europe.

In Florence I found internet nirvana. The young guys configured my computer so I could connect to their server and cut and paste my travel reports. Funniest experience was in Bayonne France where I asked to do this and they insisted I could just plug my phone wire into the wall and I’d be on the internet! The Senegalese guy at the local computer school really got a laugh out of that one. By the way, one of my readers says that her adult children, who are all computer nerds, contend that the reason the internet is not prominent in France is because the telephone wiring hasn’t been updated (except in the south) since World War I and doesn’t have the capacity.

In the old city near the Duomo where we were staying we passed a small church that was offering a concert with about 12 versions of Ave Maria sung by a young tenor. I thought I’d gone to heaven-for awhile anyway. Except for the American pop music played in most public venues, I realized we weren’t getting much good music, which, as a friend reminded us, is balm for the soul.

Nice

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From Avignon we took a train southeast to Nice on the Mediterranean and stayed there in a virtual apartment in the Hotel Constadt a block from the water. Spent most of the two days basking in the sun…with a few topless sun-worshippers…people watching on the Promenade…peaceful at this time of year…the sky filled with colorful kites.

Barri Gotic Barcelona

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In Barcelona we stayed in the Lower Barri Gotic area at Hotel Peninsular at Carrer Sant Pau, 34. Two single beds; sink; window opens into central court; very clean and nice bathroom and shower down the hall; towels, soap, toilet paper even. The hotel was on a narrow side street off the Rhumba or main promenade; full of Middle Eastern and Indian businesses. Down the street away from the Rhumba and couple blocks toward the water was a pretty rough area with prostitutes standing facing the street always with one foot up flat against the wall. Excellent cafe around the corner toward Rhumba; internet about three blocks down the Rhumba toward a statue of Columbus pointing the way West.

Bob came back late to the hotel one night about midnight. Right in front of the
hotel doors three guys walked up by him. One of them asked for the time and as Bob tried to show him his watch the guy tried to trip him. The hotel proprietor, who was on the job and alert, came running out of the hotel with a club. The men run off leaving Bob rather shaken and leery.

Big Deal
The architect Gaudi has left some remarkably wonderful work including the cathedral called the Temple Expiatiori de la Sagrada Familia. It won’t be completed before 2020. I want to come back to see it even if someone has to wheel me in here! The Gaudi Park, originally built as a planned living community, failed and was taken over by the city.

Seven properties built by the architect Antoni Gaudí (1852–1926) in or near Barcelona testify to Gaudí’s exceptional creative contribution to the development of architecture and building technology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Parque Güell, Palacio Büell, Casa Mila, Casa Vicens, Gaudí’s work on the Nativity façade and Crypt of the Sagrada Familia cathedral, Casa Batlló, and the Crypt in Colonia Güell represent an eclectic, as well as a very personal, style which was given free reign in the design of gardens, sculpture and all decorative arts, as well as architecture.

The work of Antoni Gaudí represents an exceptional and outstanding creative contribution to the development of architecture and building technology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Gaudí’s work exhibits an important interchange of values closely associated with the cultural and artistic currents of his time, as represented in el Modernisme of Catalonia. It anticipated and influenced many of the forms and techniques that were relevant to the development of modern construction in the 20th century.

Gaudí’s work represents a series of outstanding examples of the building typology in the architecture of the early 20th century, residential as well as public, to the development of which he made a significant and creative contribution. The area is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Small things
How to feel stupid in another country: buy a Metro Pass and then stand there like a dummy because you cannot figure out how to get it into the intake slot where you walk through the stiles. Finally we both figured it out at once-take the paper pass out of it’s tight clear plastic cover! If you hate feeling out of control and disoriented be sure to travel-it’ll make you flexible and tolerant!

News
The International Herald Tribune co-produces a pull-out section with whatever country it is distributed in, so for example, in Spain, the paper co-produces the pull out with El Pais, the major Spanish daily. The chairmanship of the European Union changes every six months and Spain is taking its turn so the papers are covering the EU and Basque terrorism.