My Bucket List (Not yet formal)

Well--I haven't actually developed a formal Bucket List, but I could get a good start on one if I needed to turn one in for a class. It would include such places as Angkor Wat, Viet Nam, Australia, New Zealand, Prague and the Czech Republic, Montenegro, Dubrovnik, Greece, the Central American countries, Easter Island (and others in the south Pacific), a return to Rome and Italy to see Pompeii (and to Florence again to see The David one more time), and a number of African countries--Kenya, Namibia, Morocco, Egypt and others, India, the Maldives, Malta, and Mauritius, and all of the Caribbean islands, including Cuba, and the Nazca Lines. Not that I will ever have the money or the time to go to all of these places. But I started to think about a formal Bucket List when I discovered this trip to Machu Picchu and the Galapagos Islands (http://www.oattravel.com/gcc/general/default.aspx?oid=222218), both of which would be ranked rather high on my list--Machu Picchu in the top five, most likely. This is an 18-day adventure in a small group offered through Overseas Adventure Travel (http://www.oattravel.com/gcc/general/) and matches almost exactly a trip I once mentioned to a friend--the only missing point of travel from my original day dream is Easter Island. This looks like a neat adventure. Now I just need to figure out how to fund it. Alas--there's always a catch.

Centro--The Old City

We spent some time in the old part of the city, known as Centro. We took the Sabalo-Centro bus from our location in the northwestern part of the city through the Golden Zone into the Centro district. Here you will find an old-fashioned market place and a downtown area like the old downtown of St. Paul. We walked past the landmark cathedral (didn't go in) during our search for Plaza Machado, which we found about five blocks from the cathedral. A book fair was in progress, and several artists were displaying what I would call political cartoons--at least they were drawings with captions such as we would see on the editorial pages of American newspapers. During our walk to Plaza Machado, we also found the Archaeological Museum. Once again, we decided to keep walking, preferring to explore that part of the city. We found a nice family-style restaurant in Centro called Panama. Kind of a cafeteria atmosphere, but wait staff did serve us. Particularly distracting was the dessert tray, which somehow managed to wheel by our table a half dozen times during our meal. While we didn't make this a major portion of our trip, I have mentally earmarked it as an area to further explore. I think it could provide some interesting revelations. If you ever go, you may want to check this site, http://www.mazinfo.com, for ideas about what to do and see.

Mazatlan Sunset

In Mazatlan, at sunset, there is sometimes observed a phenomenon known as the green flash. It occurs just as the last bit of visible sun falls below the horizon. At that moment, the green flash--like a green spark--sometimes appears to observers. I have seen it, though not on this most recent trip. I set out to capture it during my recent stay there, but was unable to to do so. Nevertheless, the sunsets are quite nice to watch.  They looked something like the one above.

Hangin' Out In Mazatlan

So this was a hang-out-and-not-do-anything kind of vacation. We were there from March 21-29. No itinerary other than to get to Mazatlan and enjoy the weather. Oh, we did some modest stuff--took the local buses here and there. Ate at a couple of neat restaurants, and one awfully overpriced one at which we got hustled to buy a condo. We were surprised by rather cool and windy weather Tuesday and Wednesday (March 24, 25), and it served as a reminder to bring something with long sleeves, even to Mexico. Could have used a sweatshirt those days. But, as we are from Minnesota, we just naturally think of Mexico as a place to run about in swim suits and without shirts (well, me anyway). Not always so! Although, there is considerable difference from the sun to the shade. But on the cool days, even Char found it hard to be in the sun. I typically do not sun bathe, but I went one time with Char down to the pool to catch some rays. Got red, as expected, but because of my Swedish skin, which tends to burn when exposed to an incandescent light bulb, I knew not to over do it. So I avoided a nasty sunburn.

One of the neat things about staying at La Marina (the blue-and-white building in the photo above) is that mobile vendors come by--one daily, one three times a week. Gilberto, the fish man, comes daily, and offers residents a choice of fish or shrimp--whatever the fishermen have caught during the night. So the seafood is always fresh. Sometimes, when the fishermen party on a Sunday night, they don't always make it out to sea on time, so Gilberto has been known to show up on a Monday with slim pickin's.

Guman, the vegetable man, shows up with fresh (mostly) produce on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. All sorts of stuff. Potatoes, onions, carrots, peppers, bread, limes, bananas, cilantro, cantaloupe, pretty much anything you'll need to plan a meal. This turns out to be handy because the in-house restaurant (which is inexpensive and pretty good) only serves dinner on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday nights. It serves breakfast and lunch daily.

Sol if you want dinner on the nights that the in-house restaurant isn't open, and you don't want to cook, you'll have to look elsewhere. We did try some restaurants. Pancho's is just a few hundred feet from the corner of Calle Garzas and Avenue Playa Gaviotas. It's a nifty place that sits on the ocean and is divided by a public access to the beach, that is, public access to the beach runs right through the restaurant. It features open-air, but covered, dining as well as indoor dining on two floors. Menu is quite comprehensive. Full selection of typically Mexican cuisine, plus items you might see in the states as well. We've eaten there before (a couple of years ago), and the quality of the food and service is quite good.

Not so with The Shrimp Factory, which is on the corner of Calle Garzas and Avenue Playa Gaviotas (yes, just down the street from Pancho's). I should have suspected that an establishment with that name would be suspect. The waiter directed us to a menu selection for two, which offered a variety of seafood--fish, shrimp, lobster. That, with a drink and the standard chips and salsa, came to about $60. Overpriced, I thought.

But the real insult was that a street hawker, Alejandro, walked across the street from his kiosk on the corner right into the restaurant and started to talk with us. We thought he was a restaurant employee just being nice and friendly. I can't believe how naive I continue to be. No one is ever nice to you without a reason. There is always a hustle. Always. Every single time. We were a captive audience sitting at our table. The short story is that Alejandro watched us enter the restaurant, came over and made nice to us, then left and watched us while we ate, and when we were about done, showed up to make his pitch for a condo. He was so smooth in the way he handled us that it took a day to realize how much our privacy had been violated. I was not only angry with him, but with the restaurant management. However, I got over it, because carrying a grudge requires too much work. Lesson learned. It's just the way things are.

The restaurant incident was just one small annoyance of an otherwise enjoyable week. From our fourth-floor balcony, I rather enjoyed watching the goings-on on the beach. On one occasion, a couple rode by on horseback. People came out in the early morning and late evening to fish. On another occasion, a little boy, maybe three years old, came out early one morning with his father and grandfather. As the older men fished, he took it upon himself to fill the sea with sand. He was rather diligent about running up a slight incline, grabbing a handful of sand, then chasing the receding water to throw the sand in the sea. That was fun to watch. He was having a good time. (not sure if you can see it in the accompanying photo, but the little guy is in the process of throwing sand, which is visible just to his right under the palm fronds.)

We spent a lot of time reading, which, at least for me, is a luxury. Char was on her fourth novel by the time the week ended. I was way too ambitious in my packing. I think I took five books along, but spent all of my time in the 2008 edition of The Best American Travel Writing. I was particularly interested in the stories that came from Africa and the Middle East. What an interesting collection of essays--no destination pieces here. The articles are more of an exploration of current local culture and lifestyle. While I think the articles selected revealed a heavy New York bias on the part of guest editor Anthony Bourdain (of the 25 essays, six are from The New Yorker and four from Travel & Leisure), I've nevertheless found the pieces I've read so far quite interesting. Makes me want to go to a place and immerse myself in the local culture for a time. That's always the best way to travel, in my opinion. Not always possible, but still the best way.

Mazatlan 2009: Currency Exchange

Interesting discovery regarding money exchange, which I suppose most folks know. Prior to coming to Mazatlan, I stopped at the Travelex booth at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport to get some pesos for our trip. I hate to show up in a foreign country without some of the local currency. I changed some money and received 12.84 pesos/dollar. Of course, I didn't get enough, so in Mazatlan, I stopped at one of the ubiquitous bank ATMs and withdrew some money. (It's one of the great advantages of having a debit card.) I was surprised to learn that the exchange rate was 14.08 pesos/dollar. Lesson learned. At least for Mexico. Show up with enough to get to the hotel and settled in, then hit an ATM. Chances are you'll get a better rate of exchange.

Rock Solid Appliances (or Solid Rock Appliances)

In Sierra Leone, a washing machine is a rock. This was evident everywhere. Women would wash clothes in basins or big pans or stand in pools along a roadside or in the river and soak clothes. Then they would beat them on a rock.

We took a tour of an orphanage in Makeni, the Children's Rescue Operation Project. We walked through the house, out the back, and around the side. As we passed it, Abu, our driver, pointed and said casually, “That is the washing rock.” You see it in the center of the photo of the house with a small tree in front of it, and again in the close up photo.

It's hard on the clothes, to be sure—washing them on a rock. We were warned prior to embarking on our journey that we should be prepared to have our freshly washed clothes returned with tiny holes, a by-product of using the manually operated rock washer. Actually, this never happened while we were there—that our clothes came back with holes. Rather, they came back smelling of smoke—as they would if I had been near a campfire. Our clothes were washed daily and they must have been hung to dry near the cooking fire. They always smelled of smoke. Sometimes they were still damp. We had to put them on a drying rack to let them finish drying.

I can remember my mother using a ringer-style washing machine. She would take the freshly washed clothes out to the back yard and hang them on the clothesline. Even in winter. Our clothes would freeze then, but they would dry. That was a lot of work. What must it be like for the women of Sierra Leon who have only a rock to wash clothes and the brush or the roadside or the ground to lay them on to dry?

Big Joe and Little Joe

One of the more interesting and fun experiences during our time in Sierra Leone was our interaction with the children. As soon as we got out of the truck, the children surrounded us. They would take our hands and tell us their names. And after about a half dozen kids told you their names, they would start to ask you to repeat their names. So, the deal was, we memorize a whole bunch of names, but all they need to do is remember ours. Very challenging. But, for the most part, they were delightful. This actually happened to us in two communities: Makeni, where we stayed, and Manonkoh, where we spent most of our project time.

While we were out-side, the children were with us con-stantly. And as you might expect, certain kids show up all the time. Their regular presence gives you a chance to get to know them and to become friends. I think each member of the group formed friendships with one or more of the children. Certainly I developed somewhat of a relationship with the little guy I'm holding in the photos. I met him on the first day I went to Manonkoh. His name is Joe, and he learned that my name was also Joe. And so, from that first day until the last day in Manonkoh, he was at my side whenever I was there. He was attached by an invisible elastic band. When I would get out of the truck, he would suddenly be there. And if I walked off or moved around to take a picture, he would soon appear again at my side. He rarely smiled, and we didn't converse much. But he did lobby me from time to time to take a picture of him and a friend. He is the size of a two-year-old, but I suspect he was perhaps three or four. He sort of took possession of me. When other children came up to me and took my other hand, he would chase them away. I made an effort to stop him from doing that, but he was rather persistent. I actually had to physically restrict him from hitting some of the other kids. (Just as an aside, the children were very rough and tough on each other. In many ways, they are no different than children anywhere.)

You can see that I wore a yellow bandanna while I was there. One day, late in our stay, I took out a bandanna and tied it on Little Joe's head. That raised quite a stir. Several children asked me for a bandanna, and I did finally give away a few. After I gave Little Joe the bandanna, he disappeared for a while, only to show up a few minutes with a woman who must have been his mother. He held up a bag to me. In it was two guava fruits. It was his gift to me.

In addition to telling us their names and requir-ing us to remember them, the children also con-stantly asked us to "snap" them. Snapping, of course, refers to a snapshot--a photo. Their method of communicating this was to come up to us, hold their tiny little fists over their eyes as if to simulate the picture-taking process, and then call, "Porto, porto, snap me, snap me."

Now, porto translates as white man. Actually, the term is "el porto" and hails from the first white visitors, the Portuguese. But the "el" often got dropped, or would be pronounced more like, "Aporto, aporto." You get the idea.

The process of taking a snap is to make the photograph of the child, and sometimes his or her friend, then turn the camera around to show them the viewing screen so that they could see themselves. This usually resulted in a lot of oohs and ahs.

Now, there was a risk to snapping a child. The crowd around your legs might only be four or five kids at any one time. But as soon as you took the first picture of the first child, the crowd would quickly grow to 10 or 15, and often more. The more photos I took, the more requests I got. This was the same for everyone in the party. The children just swarmed around us. They pushed and shoved each other to get in front of the lens. They never tired it.