Pammie On The Go

2007-03-16T21:31:00.000-07:00

Pammie resigns the blog

Sigh. I have totally lost interest in my blog. I haven't got the strength to keep it up. It was a fun thing to do during the winter when I didn't have much to do. But now I have other things to keep me busy, so I am going to put it on hold for a while. Thanks for all of your visits and your comments, I really enjoyed them!

2007-03-12T22:02:00.000-07:00

Teotihuacán

Avenida de Muertos at Teotihuacán

The first day of the tour we went to the two pyramids of the Sun and the Moon at Teotihuacán, the first city established in the Americas and the beginning of Mexican civilisation, home to 250,000 people back in it's day. The Aztecs rediscovered the ruins and believed the structures lining the Calzada de los Muertos, or Avenue of the Dead, to be tombs, but in fact they were residences of the elite. There were other areas designated to artisans, merchants, and labourers.

My roommate climbing the Temple of the Moon

The pyramids there are the second tallest in the world, after Egypt’s. The Temple of the Sun is 222m by 70 m, with 248 steps, and built in 100 AD from 3 million tonnes of stone, brick, and rubble, without the use of pack animals, metal, or the wheel. So we walked to the top of both of them. They actually don’t know much about the history behind the pyramids so all they could tell us were theories. The entire complex was burnt sometime in the seventh century AD, possibly looted, and then completely abandoned before being rediscovered by the Aztecs.

The Temple of the Sun

They were completely buried over by river soil and vegetation before they were rediscovered again in modern times. The president at the time of the latest rediscovery wanted to get them cleaned up and excavated for the Mexican Centennial celebrations and the archaeologists were falling behind schedule. So he told them, I don’t care what means you use, get those things cleaned in time for the celebrations. So amazingly for archaeologists, they used dynamite and blew up the top part of the temple of the sun. Amazing that people would be so destructive to their own national archaeological treasures. Then they get all annoyed that there are pieces of their history held in museums around the world rather than displayed in Mexico. But what the heck, if they are going to blow up their own stuff and allow the remainder to get stolen by their own citizens for their private collections, then perhaps the French and the Germans ought to look after it for them until they can demonstrate that they are responsible enough to mind them themselves.

On the way to the pyramids we stopped at the cathedral of Guadalupe (where I picked up the annoying habit of saying constantly, wadda, wadda… wadda lupe!!), built on the site where the peasant Juan Diego had a vision of the virgin on Dec 9th, 1531. The church wasn’t particularly interesting to me, I don’t like Mexican churches, they all look tacky and cheap (the new thing is neon signs on the altar). It’s amazing how much blood they depict in the images of Jesus, he is dripping with the stuff and it’s all very gory and he looks like a victim of a spectacular axe murder horror flick. Guadalupe is the patron saint of Mexico and people travel from all over the country to worship at this church. It is specially designed so that the giant cross above the altar extends to a lower level room below the level where the services are held, so that the masses can get as close to the cross as possible without interrupting a service. To maintain the flow of traffic they have installed a moving sidewalk to take the pilgrims across the foot of the cross and then another moving sidewalk back again, so they can do two laps and get funnelled back out again. The person designing the walkway asked the architect how long and fast the walkway should run, and he said, enough so that a person can do one Hail Mary each way. Never seen anything like it.

We passed by Tlatelolco, where around 400 students were massacred by police during a student demonstration just before the Olympics held in Mexico City in 1968. Not only did they fire onto the unarmed students in the plaza, they also took up positions in the surrounding buildings and sniped down onto them, chasing the students into nearby dormitory buildings to hunt down the fleeing ones and shoot them in their rooms. We asked if anyone boycotted the Olympics because of this, but the local guide didn’t know, he probably wasn’t even born then.

2007-03-11T11:04:00.000-07:00

Pammie meets Antonio and Gala from Egypt while in Mexico

After our orientation meeting I met up with Antonio and Gala, two Mexican theatre students I met in Egypt while they were on holiday from working in London at the time. They came to my hotel. In Johannesburg on the way to Tanzania my flight had been delayed by about 4 hours so I spent the time looking through the airport and thought an ostrich egg would make a great gift for Gala. So I had hauled this huge fragile thing around with me in my back pack (it took all the space) from JNB-DAR-BULY-DAR-JNB-NYC-MIA-MEX, gingerly placing it under each air line seat, making sure it didn’t get crushed and thus ultimately wind up giving her a package full of smashed egg shell fragments. I triumphantly gave Gala the ostrich egg, relieved to finally be rid of the dreaded thing, which was wrapped in like 20 metres of bubble wrap. She unwrapped it and immediately ignored the egg and began popping the bubbles. Antonio, who looks a little like Salvador Dali with bleached hair and the same moustache, stared at the ostrich egg, observed it with a trained eye while held at a distance with outstretched arm, then brought it back close up, shook it, put his eye to the hole where they had extracted the egg, and when they finally guessed what it was, they said, but...why? And put it in their backpack without a word. Gala is a vegetarian and doesn’t seem pleased at the idea that I killed a baby ostrich so she could have a present. I can’t believe I tiptoed across the planet with that naffen thing and they aren’t thrilled with it. I would have been stoked. But what the heck, they're actors, what do they know.

Pammie sharing a sheesha pipe with Gala and Antonio in Egypt

Anyway they took me on the metro and then a pesero (a small fat and bubbly cartoon-like bus bouncing along on small tires called a fish bowl because of the huge windows displaying many more people smashed into it than there should be) to a bar and we had a few drinks, I had margaritas, and we ate some little Mexican snacks, sopes, for dinner. Not to be confused with sopas, which is soup. Sopes are little tortillas spread with refried beans with salsa and cheese on top.

Mexicans only really eat two meals a day, one big breakfast in the morning around 8 or 9 am, then their main meal at around 2 or 3 pm, and then a snack in the evening. Not a bad set up, and good for me too when I travel alone. I tend not to eat dinner when I travel because I don’t like being out and about at night, but, the meals must be evenly spaced and snacks can be critical to the success of avoiding a cranky pammie. So we talked in the bar for a while, then they took me back home. We took the metro which is very efficient and just as good as the one in Paris, with trains running every few minutes and the network of lines spider webbing throughout the city. It is much cheaper to use than the Paris metro, and a ticket will take you anywhere you want, without zone restrictions. I think the tickets were only about 10 cents each. Like the Paris metros (the trains are made in France, too), they are packed with people including encamped homeless people and travelling musicians playing for handouts. The metros here also have vendors walking from carriage to carriage hollering out that they are selling pens, candy, pirate CD’s, etc.

Gala and Antonio wanted to meet up again the next evening to walk around the Zocalo or main plaza so we could eat street food there, but it was raining the next evening, so I never called. I cannot stand to use the telephone and it took me two days to get the nerve to call Antonio the first time. Gala also loves food and wanted to take me especially to the little street food stalls. It was amazing how much weight she had lost since I’d seen her in Egypt 9 months ago, and when I commented on it, she said she’d had to lose weight because she couldn’t get any theatre roles unless she was skinny. In Egypt she was normal sized, if not with a bit of puppy fat, from stealing food from the restaurant in London where she worked, she said. She was very good looking then, and wore no makeup. Now she was very thin with lots of make up and she looked terrible, like a witch. Guess that's the theatre!

2007-03-10T17:21:00.000-08:00

Pammie meets her travel mates in Mexico City

That night we met our tour guide, Jessica, who is a Mexican girl who looks all of 14 years old but was actually 23 I think, she had just finished her BA last year in fine arts, majoring in painting. Predictably unemployed as fine arts graduates tend to be, this was her first time working as a tour guide but she has been to all the towns we were visiting and seems pretty competent, very conscientious, and well organised. One thing though, she doesn’t ask us for our travel insurance details (which is good on the one hand since I didn’t get any and the brochure threatens to leave you behind if you don’t get insurance, so I was hoping to pass my medical insurance off as travel insurance. On the other hand this is also bad in case all of us are engulfed in a giant fiery bus accident, then no one at the tour company has our insurance details….). In addition to Jessica, we have local guides at each place we visit so it is no tragedy if she doesn’t know all her facts and figures. She also loves food and enjoys translating all the menus for me and if she is not certain about the details she asks the waiter for us. She indulges my choices for restaurants and seeks out the very best for me, or looks at my recommendations. This is good because the restaurants I want to go to are a little more on the expensive side, but no one else ever realises the difference since Jess and I make all the restaurant decisions (it’s always wise to leave it to the experts). I’m pleased with this because often people take budget travel to the extreme and live on discarded scraps of food, but are quite happy to fork out endless supplies of money for cigarettes, drugs, and beer. I have my priorities….Anyways Jessica is great, very conscientious and with so many people asking questions and translations she gets a bit flustered sometimes and speaks in Spanish to us and English to the wait staff.

Our guide Jessica. Too cute.

There are 10 of us on the two week tour including the Jessica. Unusually enough there are two South African women, one a Chinese lady and the other an Indian lady, but both in their 50’s and born in South Africa, and both overweight. The Chinese lady is built like a walrus and her tiny feet can barely support her weight, and if she gets her upper bulk out of balance with her lower half then her tiny feet have to scurry to catch up with the momentum of her mass until they are in equilibrium. Their accents are funny...they don’t speak Afrikaans as first choice although they know it, but they have an unusual accent. They are both from Port Elizabeth, the Indian lady will later be referred to as the pizzatarian.

Then there's an Australian boy who works as a psychiatric nurse and is a bit of a hippie spaced out druggie love child (he smokes pot and does magic mushrooms the whole time we are there. Another thing our guide forgot to do was tell us the rules about no drugs, etc) and carries his guitar every where and sings songs to match every situation we are in. It seems we have quite a few singers in the group so the Australians sing along with him, and also sing Australian national songs, which I enjoy listening to. He doesn’t drink, which is a plus, since Australian male drinkers can be a bit of a problem sometimes. He is on the trip because he is following the Australian cricket team on their tour of the West Indies and was in the neighbourhood. He's also cut his own hair and ran out of energy or forgot to do the back, so he has this weird clump of hair sticking out of the back of his head.

My travel mates. From the bottom left we have the pizzatarian, the walrus, the comb-over, the drug-boy obscuring my roomate, the Irish builder and his wife to the left, the annoying Argentinian, and Jessica.

Then there's another Australian, a guy who works in the complaints department of a phone company despite having a degree and an extensive background knowledge in politics and history and is an exact reincarnation of one of the engineers at work (Moonie): same pale translucent moon-like skin, same manner of speaking, delivering abrupt definitive statements brooking no argument whatsoever in a piercing voice that could penetrate one end of an in flight 747 to the other, but about 50 kg overweight and thinning greasy unwashed hair with the dreaded comb over. A major know it all, like Moonie, but blessed with more accuracy and breadth of information which makes it more bearable.

Then there's an Australian girl, a lesbian, also overweight, who works in a hardware store. It turns out that she is my roommate and she is quite reasonable, and easy to get along with. She’s a diabetic though and suffers from the infrequent and oddly spaced meal times, and gets a bit aggressive if her insulin schedule gets out of whack.

The worst one of the group is an Argentinean girl who moved to Australia as a child, she speaks Spanish which is handy for translations but not good when talking with Mexicans, because nearly all Latin Americans dislike Argentineans for being arrogant. She is one of those non-stop rapid-fire talkers, laughs hysterically at every comment to the point of physically collapsing on the nearest supporting victim, and monopolises the guide in Spanish with urgent and lengthy complaints about the unsophisticated Mexican service.

Then there's another overweight Australian girl who is on her honeymoon with an overweight giant of an Irishman also living in Australia, a builder, who is nearly impossible to understand, with such a thick accent. All in all, a pleasant enough if slow moving and out of shape group of porkchops, although I think the Argentinean will be the pain in the ass.

2007-03-07T21:04:00.000-08:00

Hanging around Mexico City

Since it was a Monday, the day of closure for museums world-wide, there wasn’t much else to do but go to see all the famous neighbourhoods. William Burroughs and several of his Beat Generation friends lived in Mexico City for a while and this is where he played William Tell in a bar with a glass on his wife’s head, only to have her raise up on her tip toes at the last minute and cop the bullet in the forehead (or so he reckons. She was a drug addled mess, addicted to Benzedrine, and could hear people whispering at the other end of a street block in New York City. He is an interesting character, a Harvard graduate and lifelong heroin addict and heir to the Burroughs adding machine family. He used to line up his wife's Benzedrine bottles on the mantlepiece and shoot them off with an air rifle while sitting in an armchair. He also used to make art by putting a spray can in front of a piece of white cardboard, then shooting the spray paint can to see what designs it would make on the paper). He only went to jail for a few days for this. I could have visited the house where Trotsky and his wife hid under their bed to avoid an assassin’s bullets, but decided not to (he was later successfully assassinated by a fanatic posing as his assistant who hammered him in the skull with the business end of an ice axe).

I walked through the Zona Rosa, formerly the hippest neighbourhood in town, and perhaps I didn’t go to the right places but it looked pretty ordinary to me, which perhaps explains why it is now described as the formerly hip area. So I went back to the historic center around my hotel, and had a look at a shop called Casa de Azulejos, built in 1596 and covered with pretty blue tiles (no doubt hence the name Azulejos, as azul means blue. I might be incorrect but I believe the word for tiles is azulejos, perhaps because tiles were commonly blue back in the old days) shipped from China on Spanish galleons and now has a Sanborn’s department store inside. I was going to go to San Angel Inn, which is a famous Mexican restaurant and supposedly has the best margaritas in town, and also to Café L’Opera, where you can still see a bullet hole Pancho Villa shot into the ceiling, but I ran out of energy (Pancho Villa is a former cattle rustler turned leader of the Mexican revolution, who was particularly well known to Americans because he signed a movie contract to film his battles. He even organised to have his prisoners of war executed during the best lighting conditions).

The Casa de Azulejos in Mexico City

For lunch I went to Los Girasoles, one of the trendiest new restaurants in town. I tried huitlacoche, which is a black fungus that grows on corn, sounds terrible, but was served in little tortilla purses. I’d forgotten that quesadillas in Mexico City are not as I know them: two flat thin flour tortillas grilled with cheese and maybe chopped chiles in the middle. The ones in Mexico City are made from corn dough called masa (which also makes the flat corn tortillas), but are much thicker and heavier textured, and formed in the shape of empanadas. The ones I ordered were made of blue corn. In fact flour tortillas are expensive and not common in Mexico City, they favour the corn ones. Flour tortillas are generally a northern Mexico thing, while they prefer the corn ones sin the south. Just as well for me because overseas you can only buy the flour tortillas (although in sold packages with a one year shelf life, scary!!), not the corn ones. A Brazilian guy sitting at the next table introduced himself to me, and was also interested in food, so we traded restaurant names and dishes to try.

2007-02-26T20:40:00.000-08:00

Pammie Sees the Ballet Folklorico

The Tiffany curtain at the Belles Artes Theatre

After visiting the Palacio de Belles Artes, I went back to my hotel, had a shower, and went back to the ballet. Like I said there was hardly anyone there and I was in the middle of the 4th row back from the stage. It was two hours of all kinds of Mexican dancing and music with about 32 performers and a big mariachi band, so it was very colourful and lively, with all the famous songs and dances and clothes I remember as a kid. I don’t remember where I have seen all these dances before, perhaps in visiting performances when I was in school, or on TV or something (well, I did grow up about an hour away from Mexico so that might explain it). They do the famous Mexican hat dance, and then there’s another one where they hold one hand behind their back, hold their shoulders and backs stiff and straight upright, and swish around red handkerchiefs and stamp stiff legged with their boots. They use a lot of tap dancing with the hard heels of their boots, and the guys were very cute in tight white pants and were having an absolute blast performing, it was fun to watch. The girls didn’t seem so happy. The Tiffay glass chandelier at the Belles Artes Theatre

The stage curtain was made by Tiffany’s of NYC and is made of nearly a million pieces of coloured glass, and shows the valley of Mexico City, with mountains, lakes, and streams in beautiful blues, greens, and pinks. When they shone the stage lights on it, the glass tiles changed colours, and as the curtain rose with the lights dimming for the performance, the scene appeared to shift from dawn to dusk, and then finally nighttime, with everything in darkness except the lakes still shining with a blue white light, as though reflecting the moon. It’s the prettiest crystal thing I’ve ever seen.

I missed dinner because it was 10:45 pm or so by the time I got out of the theatre. It had been raining, and I had to scurry home past Alameda Park in the dark and hope not to get mugged on the way home. It isn’t that far of a walk, and I could have run out into traffic on the busy street if I had been hassled. There were still a few street vendors around taking down their stands.

The next morning I went back to the Cafe Tacuba for my breakfast and had enchiladas with green sauce, beans with cheese, orange juice, coffee, and hot chocolate again. After breakfast I went to the central cathedral, the oldest and largest cathedral in the Latin America (built in 1525), but couldn’t go to the main part because a service was on. I wanted to see the national palace which has another famous Diego Rivera mural in it, but the guard said they weren’t allowing tourists in that day because of a demonstration in the Zocalo (the Mexican word for Plaza) across the street. I saw a banner that said something in Spanish about human rights for indigenous people. I thought it was interesting that in English, the word right, as in right and left and human rights is the same, and so it is in Spanish, derecho.

The Zocalo is the main square or plaza of a town, and the one in Mexico City is very big, and gets it’s name from a rock plinth that used to stand there but is now long gone. Even today all the other towns in Mexico call their main plaza the Zocalo, after the one in Mexico City. They are usually pretty nice square areas decorated with hedges, fountains, and grass for picnics and vendors selling balloons, toys, and food, with mariachi or other kinds of street musicians.

2007-02-21T21:33:00.000-08:00

After the Grasshopper Lunch in Mexico City

The interior of the Palacio de Belles Artes in Mexico City with it's Art Deco architecture and murals

After my grasshopper lunch I went to the Palace of Fine Arts, which is also the venue of the Folklore Ballet, the show I missed the previous night (Saturday). I see a sign that says performances are Sunday and Wednesday only, which is also what their website said. What about my Saturday performance I had tickets for? So I go to the box office and ask for my tickets. They’ve never heard of me, no such thing as performances on Saturday. Now, I am starting to slowly realize that I bought a ticket for a touring performance of the Folklore Ballet in naffen Puerto Rico!!! Sheesh. Anyway it turns out there are still tickets available for $400 (pesos!) so I bought a ticket for that night at 8:30 pm. I thought I was very lucky it wasn’t sold out but it turned out that there were very few people at the show. All that stress, surreptitious web surfing while at work, and $18 down a Puerto Rican gurgler for nothing.

Diego Rivera's Man, Controller of the Universe

In the meantime I had a look around the palace which is mainly famous for its art deco architecture and the murals painted on the walls inside. Most of the famous Mexican painters were commissioned by the government to paint murals all over town to tell the story of the history of Mexico, to encourage the working people, and commemorate various events. The most famous artist, Diego Rivera, has a mural at the Palace of Fine Arts called, Man, Controller of the Universe, which was originally commissioned in 1934 by the Rockefellers for the Rockefeller building in NYC but the Rockefellers had it destroyed because of its anti capitalist themes, and so he re-did it here. Two other artists, Jose Clemente Orozco and David Alfaro Siquieros also have murals there which were very well done. I’m not normally a mural kind of chick but these are very appealing.
Another Diego Rivera mural

All of Mexico City is built on swampy ground and the Belles Artes has sunk four metres since it was built, they say the buildings erected by the Aztecs were constructed in such a way as to avoid sinking, whereas the Spaniards were not able to avoid it (one of my guide books explained that the Aztecs were successful because they used the more “porous” vesicular lava for their building stones, except for the fact that the vesicles in a lava do not communicate and therefore are not porous, so, that's possibly not the reason!).

After looking around there I went to the Diego Rivera museum which houses his most famous mural, originally painted in the lobby of the nearby Hotel Prado that was destroyed during the 1985 earthquake that killed over 10,000 people (the hotel is now a Sheraton, I think). He did the painting on a separate piece of concrete that was not attached to the building, so it survived, and has now been moved to this museum. It’s 15 m long by 4 m high and is called Dream of a Sunday Afternoon in Alameda (the park right nearby, also close to my hotel), and depicts all the people that Rivera imagines has walked through the Alameda at one time or another, from Hernan Cortes, who conquered the Aztecs, to the Austrian archduke Maximillian who was crowned king of Mexico in 1864 only to be assassinated three years later, Pancho Villa, the artist himself depicted as a chubby boy holding balloons, his wife Frida Kahlo, and other Mexican identities. Incidentally there are very few images of Hernan Cortes in the country, except for negatively portrayed images such as this one by Rivera.

2007-02-20T20:22:00.000-08:00

Lunch at Casa Merlos

Chapulines and guacamole at Casa Merlos. If I'd gotten the gem-like pools of brilliantly coloured moles, I would have photographed them too.

On the way back to the metro from the anthropology museum, I passed by a tall iron barred fence around a park where a photographer had hung many excellent photographs of the different environments and animals of Mexico. This reminded me of the aerial photographs by Yann Arthus-Bertrand that mom and I saw hanging from the fence at Luxembourg Gardens in Paris.

For lunch I went to a restaurant called Casa Merlos. The guide book said it was in a bad neighbourhood and not to go there at night. It was also quite a ways from the nearest metro station, and because of the taxi reputation I was forced to walk from the metro to the restaurant, perhaps not such a great idea since I didn’t have a map and only a vague idea of where it was. I was walking in a pretty scary barrio, with all kinds of low riders driving Chebbies around. I asked three different women for directions before I finally found the place in kind of a roundabout way. There was a sweet old man at the door who tried to help me with the menu, but he didn’t speak much English.

I had been recommended to ask for a tasting platter of moles, which are different types of sauce that take about two days to prepare. One reviewer said that when she was there, she had about five or six different brilliantly coloured moles served with a piece of pork or chicken in little gem-like pools in each little white dish. I vividly recall this phrase. But they didn’t seem to understand this concept of brilliantly coloured gem-like pools and so they pretty much ordered for me. The old guy finally dredged up a lady from the back who spoke some English, so I mentioned the tasting platter of moles to her and I thought I had it solved. But it turns out they only had three different types of mole available that day, and so she brought me three small coffee saucers with a spoonful of the three different moles, and nothing to dip into it, except the tortillas I had on the table. So I was kind of disappointed that I didn’t get my little gem-like pools of mole. Coffee saucers wasn't quite what I had in mind. Anyway I tried the three sauces, one was made of peanuts, kind of like a satay sauce, the other of mole poblano which is the most famous of the moles, and is made with chiles and unsweetened chocolate. This by far was the best, with a very deep, smokey flavour. Then the other was made of pumpkin seeds and was called pipian verde, and apparently I ordered this because a plate with a single white boiled chicken breast covered in green pipian verde showed up, nothing else with it.

For my appetizer I ordered chapulines served with tortillas and guacamole, which are grasshoppers fried with chile and served with lime. Yikes they were on the big side and it took a bit of effort to eat them (although they were not as big as the ones in Tanzania, which I tried once). These fellers actually look more like stripey yellow and brown crickets than grasshoppers, to tell the truth. I wonder what happens to all those cucarachas, by the way….. So I made two grasshopper tacos with guacamole on top and tried to make sure I didn’t look at their little faces before taking a bite. I hate it when antennae get stuck in your teeth... I told the English speaking lady they also ate grasshoppers in Tanzania but they were the big bright green ones, she said she could only hack the small ones personally, and the ones I were eating were the medium ones, a bit on the big side for her stomach. So I figured two tacos worth was enough of an Aztec experience. I could have also tried other Aztec specialities, such as gusanos de maguey, the worms which live inside cactus pads, or escamoles, ants larvae, but passed on that.

For dessert I had rice pudding, and a Mexican coffee. They were so happy to have me there and asked how I had heard of them. She gave me a little booklet of recommended restaurants in Mexico City. She even brought out the chef, a lady in her 60s, who owned the place, to come meet me and shake my hand. The English speaking lady asked me how I had found the restaurant and was appalled to hear I had walked there. Why they have their restaurant in such a bad part of town I don't know. So she ordered a safe taxi to take me back to the metro.

2007-02-18T08:45:00.000-08:00

A Little History of Mexico

There are 20 million people living in Mexico City. Or is it 28. Well, what’s an extra 8 million when you are talking those numbers. Nearby is Popocatepetl, at 5,452 m (17,887 ft) the second tallest mountain in Mexico (the tallest is Pico de Orizaba at 5,760 m or 18,898 ft). But Popo is better known for it’s major eruptions 5,000, 2,150, and 1,200 years ago. It’s been letting off steam, gas, and small eruptions since 1994. So if that thing goes like Mt St Helens, there are a fair few people in it’s path.

Then I take the metro to the anthropology museum. It’s pretty big and has displays on all the different states and peoples of Mexico, plus the origins of people in the Americas. The main information boards are in English but the rest in Spanish. If you wanted to read everything it would take you forever, but I've long since given up reading all the info in a museum. But I was amused to read one sign that described a carving of 40,000 rabbits, which is apparently the behaviour one regresses to after drinking too much tequila. It took me about three hours to get through the museum. The Mayan room was shut, kind of disappointing, since that is the most interesting culture aside from the Aztecs (whom they referred to as the Mexica, I didn’t realize they were the same thing as the Aztecs till a day later and I had wondered why they left out the Aztecs from their displays….). I later learnt that some priceless articles had been stolen from the Mayan rooms a few years ago, inside jobs planned by museum staff, and the rooms have been closed ever since. In fact many pieces have been stolen from the museums and are in the hands of rich Mexican private collectors.

The first people arrived in Mexico around 20,000 to 25,000 years ago. The Olmecs formed the first organized culture during the Pre-Classic period spanning from 1400 BC to 300 AD, and are credited with developing the first measurements of time. They also created the first permanent religious sites in the Americas, wrote with hieroglyphics, and developed a 365 day calendar. With increasing trade and pilgrimages to their holy sites, the Olmecs began to integrate the customs of new peoples and so their influence declined. The Zapotecs and later the Mixtecs (who mixed with the Zapotecs, no doubt hence the name) rose to prominence during the Classic period from 200 BC to 900 AD. They formed powerful empires and their culture reached the peak of arts and sciences. They built the military fortress at Monte Alban, which we would see later on our tour.

The abandoned fortress at Monte Alban

Teotihuacán, with a peak population of 200,000 people by 600 AD and the sixth largest city in the world at that time, is considered the most important site in all of Mexico, and was contemporary with Monte Alban. Teotihuacá dramatically collapsed for unknown reasons around 600 AD, at which time the Mayan people were reaching their peak, with up to 14 million citizens forming urban centres ranging from the Yucatan down through Honduras, Guatemala, and Belize. Like all of the previous cultures, the Mayans adapted the ideas and skills of their predecessors and the people they came into contact with. Their culture also mysteriously collapsed in 900 AD. The cultural standards raised during the classic period, particularly by the Mayans, were never to be reached again. The post classic period followed, from 900 to 1519 AD, dominated by more militant and aggressive societies, beginning with the Toltecs and Huastecs, who engaged in extensive animal and human sacrifices and made displays of skulls and heads. Unified dynasties were on the decline and from them rose independent states. The Aztecs were the most efficient of the military forces and conquered more and more independent states, absorbing their cultures and traditions. By the late 1400’s the Aztecs were the most powerful culture in Mexico. The last leader was Motecuhzoma who lived to be only 18 years old, and died in 1520.

Avenida de Muertos, or street of the dead, at the abandoned city of Teotihuacán

Later I asked our leader why we in the US refer to him as Montezuma, and she said she presumed it was because his real name was difficult for us to pronounce. Motecuhzoma was in power when Hernan Cortez and the Spanish conquistadores arrived in 1518, and part of the reason why the Spaniards were so quick to defeat the Aztecs was because the Aztecs believed the bearded, white skinned, blonde, and blue eyed Spaniards to be the legendary return of their god Quetzalcoatl, arriving from the east to destroy the Mexicans. The Spanish discovered this superstition and manipulated the Indian’s fears to their advantage. Hernan Cortez was commissioned to explore and conquer Mexico, and he advanced on the Aztec capital from the east and destroyed all the buildings within a few weeks, using rifles, horses, armour, the support of the Tlaxcalans, traditional rivals of the Aztecs, and the deliberate spread of smallpox to gain his victory.

During the time of Henry VIII, Mexico City was larger than the City of London (I mentioned this fact to an Englishman at work and he said, yeah, well all Mexico City was back then was a bunch of tack-o stands!! Note: no one else on the planet knows how to pronounce the word taco except for people from the Americas). The Colonial period followed, with disease and harsh treatment in the mines and farms reducing the indigenous population from 25 million in 1519 to one million by 1650. Mexican independence from Spain was spurred by increased taxes imposed by Spain on Mexico to meet the economic losses Spain had suffered in the wars in Europe following the French revolution. Miguel Hidalgo called for independence in the town of Dolores on October 16, 1810; his supporters seized several towns but he was captured and beheaded in 1821. Hidalgo’s downfall was due to the lack of support by the Creoles, white Spaniards born in Mexico filling most of the colonial administration positions, who feared they would be persecuted if independence succeeded. But a military revolt in Spain in 1820 forced King Ferdinand VII to adopt a constitution, and the ensuing disorder in the Spanish military meant that Spain was unable to provide soldiers to prevent further uprisings in Mexico, and so were forced to recognize Mexican independence.

One of the most famous Mexican leaders during the early stages of independence was General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna, who was president 11 times between 1833 and 1855. He was a little eccentric and decorated his house in European fashions, insisted on being referred to as His Most Serene Highness, and had his presence announced by 21 gun salutes. He lost his leg in 1838 but had it interred in 1842 and paraded through the capitol, and placed in an urn during an official government ceremony. Earlier, Santa Anna led forces into Texas for the Battle of the Alamo, killing Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. Sam Houston defeated and captured Santa Anna a few weeks later, forcing him to sign a treaty granting freedom to Texas, formerly a Mexican territory. Santa Anna renounced the treaty upon his release, provoking the American-Mexican war of 1846, which resulted in the surrender of 55% of Mexican territory to the US, including Arizona, California, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and Texas. Six years later Santa Anna regained the presidency and sold another parcel of land to the US before he was overthrown.

From here on the presidency went back and forth between different factions, including Benito Juarez and Porfirio Diaz, who encouraged economic growth with foreign investment. But elections were rigged and political repression was rife, leading to the Mexican revolution from 1910 to 1917, during which nearly two million Mexicans lost their lives, or 1 in 8 of the population. Famous leaders of the Mexican revolution include Pascual Orozco, Emiliano Zapata, Venustiano Carranza, and Pancho Villa, with Carranza eventually gaining office at the end of the revolution. His successor, Calles, formed the PNR (later renamed the PRI) in 1929, which has controlled the Mexican government since the election of Fox, a former Coca Cola executive, in July 2000. So there you go, a small history of Mexico. I have the feeling that I borrowed heavily from my guidebook while writing these notes years ago, so credit goes to the Mexican travel book writers of the world!

2007-02-17T10:34:00.000-08:00

Arrival into Mexico City

Breakfast at Cafe Tacuba

On the plane from Miami to Mexico City (3.5 hours), the Mexican businessman sitting next to me, who hadn’t spoken to me the whole flight, asked me how I was getting to my hotel and advised me not to take a taxi except for the special airport taxis. I had already read this in my guide books: not to flag down taxis on the streets because they are notorious for robbing, beating, and raping their passengers, and to only take the registered taxis at the airport or have restaurants and hotels call the expensive registered ones once you are in town. There is even a US State travel advisory against taking taxis in Mexico City. Crikes. Amid warnings against travel in Iraq, stepping on land mines in Cambodia, getting caught up in civil unrest in Angola, is the warning not to take the taxis in Mexico City. Sheesh. But it was nice of the guy on the plane to give me the advice.

So I get to my hotel in one piece at around 11 PM, reception has no English, and they don’t know who I am. Finally I convince them that me llama es Pamela and I have a reservation, and go to my room. It hasn’t been cleaned from the last tenant. I go back down to reception and get another room; it has someone else’s suitcases in it. So I go back down to reception again and get a third room, this one doesn’t have air conditioning that works very well but at this stage I am happy for any room and it doesn’t face the noisy street. It’s not too hot so it doesn’t matter about the air conditioning. I take a shower and remember the Mexican thing where hot water only happens at certain times of the day (I later learn this is a feature unique to my room only). Oh well.

In the morning I walk several blocks down the street to the Cafe Tacuba, which is also the name of a well known Mexican rock band. The café was established in 1912 and has pretty stained glass windows, high arched ceilings with sunlights and different coloured tiles on the floors and walls. I have huevos rancheros which are two fried eggs on a corn tortilla, with green enchilada sauce on top, and refried beans, queso fresca, a crumbly dry white cheese the Mexicans use. I also have a fresh orange juice and a coffee with milk, served in a tall glass with a bit of coffee essence poured into the bottom and then hot milk poured on top from a great show-offy height. Afterwards I have a hot chocolate, which Mexico is famous for (they invented it, but the Spanish introduced milk to it).

2007-02-15T21:35:00.000-08:00

Pammie is Confused About the Mexican Ballet

Now I am not so happy about my delayed flights because I have ordered tickets to see the Ballet Folklorico in Mexico City, show time scheduled a slim two hours after my originally scheduled landing time, and I am going to miss it. The ballet is a two hour spectacular (according to the brochure) of all the regional dances and music throughout Mexico, and has been performing for many years and tours the world. For the past few weeks I spent hours at work surreptitiously trolling internet sites looking to buy tickets online. My guide book says there are performances on Wednesday and Sunday evenings only, and I will be there Saturday evening, so I can make the Sunday performance. They book out fast, they say, hurry pammie hurry!! Gosh I have less than a week before the performance, I’m frantic. Ticketmaster Mexico has tickets for $400 on Wednesday only, and I won’t be there on Wednesday, what the….$400!!! Sheesh, I don’t like the ballet that much, far out. I delete that browser window fast.

I realize later that the peso is also designated by the $ sign, and there is 10 pesos to the dollar, so US$40 for a ticket. Heh heh. Wouldn't be my first currency exchange confusion. Ticketmaster has a plan of the theatre seating arrangements so you can select where you want to sit. I check Ticketmaster every day up to the Friday morning before I leave and they still never offer tickets for sale for the Sunday performance. Meanwhile I've been keeping my eye on another dodgy looking web site that advertises tickets for $18 for Saturday night, the night I arrive. So I buy those tickets at the last minute. I wonder why they have performances on Saturday, since all my information says Wednesdays and Sundays only? but what the heck.

The dodgy website has no plan of the seats so when I buy the tickets on their form I type in a request in the comments field I ask for the best possible seats and please not on the balcony because I hear you cannot see all the stage from there, and Pammie has suffered bad experiences with expensive box seats before, in Vienna, for instance (13% view of the lower left stage where no one ever stands, and 87% view of the box seats opposite). They write back and say they have bought my tickets for me and to collect them at the box office, but that it is free seating (I always wince at these words and imagine a huge shoving crowd free for all fighting for the best seats), and there is no balcony, I must be thinking of the theatre in San Juan, which does have a balcony. Huh? I have no idea what they are talking about.

I finally make the next flight from NYC to Miami (3 hours), and have an hour’s layover there. I see on CNN on the TV terminals that they have caught the guy who let off the bomb at the Atlanta Olympics, and am appalled to see the hyper dramatic news coverage, with thundering increasingly hysterical movie theme type music blaring and flaming red hotrod headlines zooming across the screen. How embarrassing. Why can’t they just report the daily news from around the world instead of turning this one incident into a big Hollywood event? It seems like CNN just lurches from one dramatic crisis to another.

2007-02-14T17:05:00.000-08:00

Trying to Get to Mexico (2003)

Every trip has to start with the dramas of air transport, because getting there is never guaranteed from Africa, and never seems to go smoothly. This was the route: Starting with a two hour flight from Bulyanhulu, just south of Lake Victoria, on the company Dash 8 (seats about 35 people) to Dar es Salaam, leaving at 10 AM. On arrival at the domestic airport the company mini van dumps us at Dar es Salaam international airport. The guards will only allow passengers into the terminal two hours before their flight, so we kill time with lunch at the Flamingo restaurant above the terminal, rather than wait for a chance to sit and sweat on the two continuously occupied park benches outside the terminal. This is our last chance for African food poisoning. Fish n chips with hot pink ketchup.

Check in, departure 3:20 pm. 3.5 hour flight to Johannesburg. One hour time difference (South Africa is 1 hour behind Tanzania), two hour layover at Johannesburg airport then a 17 hour flight to New York City via Ilha del Sol, a previously unheard of island lying off the coast of Ghana, used as a refuelling station. The plane bursts a critical hose and so we spend three hours in the middle of the night on Ilha rather than the scheduled one hour. I have two hours before my flight to Miami from New York City so I am doomed. But not to worry, booms the confidence inspiring captain over the intercom, they have radioed ahead and South African Airways ground staff in NYC have checked our flight schedules and have rescheduled all our connecting flights. Just check with the ground staff and they will assist. Phew.

I land, make it through customs (this is always a nervous procedure for those of us who have, um, maybe forgotten to file a tax return for the past, um, 14 years), and ask to see the ground staff so I can find out about my rescheduled flights. But I see no friendly helpful South African Airways ground staff eager to assist with my reconnections. Airport staff say perhaps they are waiting on the other side of that door eager to assist, no, they are not there, hmm, perhaps they are beyond the next door, nope, the next one? Finally I am spat outside, no ground staff anywhere, and they won’t let you back inside the terminal once you step through that final door to the outside world. I see the captain leaving and complain to him about the no ground staff situation, he says, I suggest you take control of your own destiny, run to your next terminal, you never know, your flight might be delayed. So I make a run for the terminal bus and get to the check in counter 2 seconds after my flight leaves. Oh well. And don’t you know, the non-existent South African Airways ground staff have in fact NOT rescheduled my flights.

The guy at the American Airlines counter says not to worry, just telephone them at this number, toll free, but you have to put in 50 cents or something to get the call to go through first. Well Pammie hasn’t got any American coins. So this guy lends me 50 cents or whatever it costs to make a telephone call these days out of his own pocket. I dial up, and reschedule my own flights, thanks a lot South African Airways ground staff. I give the counter guy his change back. Now I have five hours to kill at John F. Kennedy international airport. I could go into town but what do I do with my luggage, they don’t do lockers these post Sept 11 days.

So I get to know all the scary black hustlers who hang around airports directing confused travellers and their bulky luggage to their terminals, hoping to intimidate them into tips. I ask them which are the best terminals to hang in, since there’s 9 terminals. I ride in circles from terminal to terminal on the bus, and see the same guys from time to time, we are becoming familiar, they say to me, see ya in terminal 6! Now I have a chance to eat some US food, yowza. So what do I do just before going to Mexico, I go to a perfectly spotless white brushed steel Mexican place (never a décor to recommend a Mexican place) and have a not very good freezer style burrito. Hmm. Should have had that fatburger at TGI Friday’s in terminal 9 after all. So I decide to travel to terminal 9 anyway and have dessert at TGI Fridays and order a hot fudge brownie sundae. It is incredibly sweet and I can only eat two spoonfuls. Disappointing. I am always surprised by how poisonously sweet American food is, I don’t remember it being like this.

Now I’m thinking, wow, I can buy some cool sunglasses for cheap! Maybe a nice watch! Some American clothes! But those terminals are useless, nothing in them. No internet café!! You would never even know you were in the US in fact if you landed there blindfolded. Every one is speaking Spanish.

2007-02-11T14:29:00.000-08:00

Pammie's New Closets

Right hand side of the master bedroom closet. It's a little dark in the far corner but there are shelves for purses plus a tall hanging area for dresses and coats. Two rows for hanging shirts and pants/skirts. There is a shelf below the shirts that could be used for stacking sweaters two high.

Left hand side of the master bedroom closet. The wire basket is for dirty clothes. At the very top of the unit is space for some short Ikea boxes for additional storage.
The spare bedroom closet. I need to work on my linen folding skills. There are two drawers for visitors plus hanging space and two shelves, because the towels will be hanging in the bathroom when they visit. And more storage above for the short Ikea boxes.I had the entryway closet done in white because it is nearly twice as cheap as the brown stuff. The box to the left now has the vacuum cleaner and the iron in it. I was disappointed at the amount of hanging space, I should have made it wider, but the designer assured me there would be enough room for my stuff and for visitors, but in fact I had to move four of my jackets to the spare bedroom.

All in all it's been worth it. They were very professional, the stuff is good quality, and it has a lifetime guarantee for everything from chipped shelves to sticky drawers.

2007-02-10T09:56:00.000-08:00

Pammie's Last China Post and Last Chinese Toilet Post

Last night on the train I went to the toilet, and while doing the usual juggling act of trying to keep the shorts down but up off the floor pan, all of a sudden one of my shorts pockets felt a lot lighter than it was before. I thought, the heck was that? My little phone had dropped out of my pocket and fell flat on his face in the toilet! I looked down in mid-uh, you know, pee and saw my little phone now being watered on. I instantly rescued him, now totally soaked, and these toilets do not have flushes!! Amazingly this toilet had a pan at the bottom, most of them go straight down to the train tracks, I could have lost it forever. I started to think about the guy who was there before me, and then thousands of others there before me, then all the billion people in China, how many with digestive tract disorders?, all using trains, how old was this train? divided by how many toilets per carriage? And they're selling beer on these trains? So how many visits to the toilet per trip? I'm starting to do the maths, agh!!! Now all over my phone's little white face....I was in denial, wiped the little pee tears off his face with my toilet paper, went into the washroom and wetted down a tissue and patted him down, took the phone apart, wiped down all the inside bits...damn. Luckily it wasn't a normal western toilet or the little dude would have drowned for sure...then again I wouldn't have effen dropped him either....I took him back to the train where one of the Australians lent me one of those sano-wipe things and gave him another wash....I am so not happy about this!! Anyway he is working fine. I have a new screen saver which is a frowny face, he is not happy at all either! So now when I am talking on my phone, it is through a WHOLE lotta people!

2007-02-08T21:22:00.000-08:00

The Temple of Heaven, Beijing

The Temple of Heaven

Yesterday I went to the Temple of Heaven, and walked around there for a while. Then on to the shopping district in the hopes of finding some nice sandals. But I didn't find anything, the styles aren't all that great. I went and had my hair cut....this is the first time in a year. I was kind of running out of things to do, so I thought what the heck, it always makes an interesting souvenier. It was very nice, they shampooed, conditioned, and massaged my head for about 20 minutes, and then the guy cut my hair very nicely, despite the fact that no one spoke English there, and everything was in sign language. It doesn’t matter where I get my hair cut anyway, no hairdresser ever speaks my language. He then dried it, and styled it all different ways: straight, curly, up, down, he was having fun....and did it very well. It was a very trendy looking place with everyone wearing fashionable clothes and excellent haircuts, so I was disappointed to be assigned to this guy with a bad haircut and dressed looking like a garage mechanic...but it was one of the best haircuts I have ever had, and only $12.50....not bad considering that you cannot get a decent girls haircut for under $40 these days....

No photies of Pammie's haircut, so here are photos of incense burners outside the Temple of Heaven instead

After that I went back to the hotel, had a shower to get all the hair bits off of me, and then we had our farewell dinner at a special Peking Duck restaurant in a hutong, or old Chinese neighbourhood, which are slowly being destroyed to make way for new buildings.

By this time Naomi had pretty well had it listening to the Australians whining about everything, and also my German roommate who can be very loud and abrupt....and although she probably doesn't realise it or care, she comes across very rudely....Anyway Naomi was pretty tense and couldn’t wait to get away from them. She handed us cards to complete our trip feedback on-line, but the Australians proceeded to tell her all their complaints for the next 45 minutes....such as how they thought she should have told them exactly what to buy at the grocery store when we had overnights on the train....geez. They thought she could have made better recommendations. Isn't that a personal choice what you buy at a grocery store? She always told us to have plenty of water and fruit, bread, sweets, etc. What else did they want, personalised shopping lists? Anyway I feel sorry for her having to put up with that. I'd snap and get fired my first trip out if it were me.

A random shot of the Art Deco lights at the Beijing metro station

After dinner I had to listen to my roommate zip, crinkle, slap, shove, mutter, swear, pound from one side of the room to the other, and talk to herself in German under her breath until 11:30 last night, trying to stuff all her junk into her pack, and again at 6 Am this morning....now it is kind of cold and rainy out, perfect weather for sending emails, but again I am at a hotel, and it’s kind of expensive, and I have a group of Englishmen having a very loud conversation behind me, which is very distracting...it's like having someone bellow in a library...You can tell it's the end of my trip, because I am getting very cranky!

Inside the Beijing Metro

2007-02-07T21:49:00.000-08:00

Beijing Opera

The Beijing Opera

After we got back from the Great Wall we went directly to the Beijing Opera, which was a lot smaller scaled than I expected, the theatre itself is set in an old temple. It’s the oldest theatre in China, built during the Ming Dynasty in 1667 and converted to a theatre in the Qing dynasty. There are very few tables and chairs set out, you drink tea and eat small snacks while the performance is on. I guess they don't mind if you crackle your peanut wrappers here.

There were three small segments of opera, normally they go much longer, for four hours or something, but our whole performance was only for one hour, which was enough. They gear the performances for Westerners because this is on the tourist route and they make money from them, and they know we don't have the interest or attention span, besides we can't understand a word they are saying and to be honest, it's a godawful screeching racket, I had to keep my fingers in my ears during most of it. There were perhaps 9 performers all up...the best part was being able to go backstage and watch the actors put on their stage make-up, and except for the women's hairpieces, the performers do it all themselves. After the play we all went straight to bed....after our 4 hour walk up and down the stairs of the Great Wall, and no real breakfast, lunch, and completely skipped dinner that night, we were all pretty wiped out.
The gawdawful rackets at the Beijing Opera

2007-02-06T20:10:00.000-08:00

The Great Wall of China

We had our four hour hike along the Great Wall of China today in misty weather, walking between Jinshangling to Simatai. We were escorted by a band of local people who insisted on “leading” us along the walk (it’s kind of hard to get lost along the great wall, considering it is a rather distinctive feature 6,000 km long and about 8 metres wide, and the only structure in the mountainous region we were in. Despite widespread and persistent rumours, it is NOT visible from outer space, as I later learned).

Pammie at the Great Wall of China

Anyway these little guys insisted on trying to hold our hands the whole way, saying repeatedly, careful, go slow, at every step, so at the end they could demand payment for guide services. I found this extremely annoying and refused to accept my guide and completely ignored her hand every time she put it out to help me, but every time I looked up, there she was in front of me, her pleading eyes searching for mine, it’s like if we made eye contact it would be a work contract. I’d want to take a picture and I would have to move to the other side of her to get her out of the frame. If I wanted to walk fast she’d be in my way, slowing me down, if I was going slow she’d be on the steps behind me poking me in the butt with her umbrella. My guide said they were very poor and needed money, but my word, surely they can think of a more productive way to earn money than harrassing tourists.
My self appointed guide at the Great Wall

The wall follows the mountain ridges and rises and falls, so most of it is up and down small steps, rather than a flat path, and it was a bit slippery in the misty rain. At the end the guides tried to sell us postcards, t-shirts, and picture books. I offered my guide more than the going rate for a packet of postcards (postcards are not sold individually here, they all come in packets of 20 or so at a set price. None of them are of a variety of scenes throughout China, but all of the same place, so that you wind up with maybe 5 good cards and 15 cards you didn’t really want), and there was a big scene because I did not want to pay her three times the going rate, plus a guide fee. Well she could have refused my offer, I didn't have a gun to her head. This was the only time I was annoyed in China. Oh, except for the part where it was sweltering and my room mate refused to let me put on the air conditioner in the room at night, because it gave her a sore throat, so I sweated all night and all day.

2007-02-05T18:35:00.000-08:00

Chengde

The Temple of Potoraka

Today we left Beijing early in the morning and drove for 4.5 hours north to Chengde, home of the emperor’s summer palace. And it's here for good reason...it's just about nearly naffen cold here, and of course all I have is my little t-shirt and shorts.....we only brought overnight things, so I had to wear tomorrow's t-shirt on top of this one to keep warm. We visited Puning Si, the Temple of Universal Peace, which commemorates Qianlong’s defeat of the Mongolian rebels in 1755, and is home to a 22 foot tall statue of Guanyin, the world’s largest wooden statue, with 42 arms. We continued on to Puru Ozongeheng Si, the Temple of Potaraka Doctrine, built for the Panchen Lama in 1786, and to make him feel more at home, modeled at 1/3rd scale on the Potala Palace in Lhasa. Tomorrow morning we drive 2 hours to the Wall, and then have a four-hour hike along the wall, and then get back to Beijing in time to go to the Beijing Opera...

Roofing detail on the temple within the Temple of Potaraka. Notice the little figures along the drain pipe, which have some kind of evil warding off/good luck attributes.

Gross!! I have this guy about a foot away from me who hocked a great big loogey and spat on the ground, he is now leaning over my shoulder and reading this email, or more likely, looking at the bizarre incomprehensible characters I type. I was in a museum and someone cleared out the entire contents of their sinus system and blurghed it onto the floor in the corner of the museum. Lovely. Don’t linger in museum corners, that’s my advice.

More roofing detail. They overlap tiles in Asia which means they burn through a lot of tiles to cover a small area.

2007-02-04T09:58:00.000-08:00

The Forbidden Palace, Beijing

The Forbidden Palace with a photo of Mao over the front door. They don't have a picture of the Queen in front of Buckingham Palace, do they?They say that if you touch the brass decorations on the doors leading to the Forbidden Palace with the right hand you will have a certain kind of luck, and another kind of luck if you touch them with the left. This lady is covering her bets.A temple within the grounds of the Forbidden Palace

Beautiful tiles and doorways leading to a complicated maze of laneways and courtyards.

Prayer wheels to spin to send prayers to heaven.

It was interesting to me to see how differently people practice the Buddhist religion in Nepal versus China. In Nepal their whole life and being is Buddhist. They express this with certain rituals such as always approaching a religious structure in a clockwise manner, and spinning prayer wheels clockwise, etc. The Chinese have forgotten these things, and to the Chinese tourists here spinning them was like a tourist ritual similar to taking your photo in front of the Eiffel Tower.

An incense vendor carrying more supplies for sale outside the temple in the Forbidden Palace

2007-02-03T14:43:00.000-08:00

Peking Duck in Beijing

Tiananmen Square, Beijing

We arrived in Beijing early in the morning. First stop is to Starbucks for an iced latte right near the hotel. Then on to Tiananmen Square, where Mao paraded 1 million soldiers during the Cultural Revolution, and declared the People’s Republic of China in 1949. It is also home to the massacre in the 1989 pro democracy rallies. We visited the Forbidden City, so called because it was off limits to foreigners for 500 years. It was the home to Ming and Qing dynasty emperors and was built between 1400-1420 by millions of labourers. I had my first of three Peking duck dinners (now called Beijing duck), and then watched the USA lose to Germany in the World Cup at a pub with Naomi, the tour leader.
Peking ducks waiting to be coated with molasses

The duck is pretty nice…traditionally served either as a half or whole duck, sliced, with each slice topped with a slice of skin. The duck itself is coated with molasses and then hot dry air forced through it, then roasted in an open brick fireplace.

Peking duck in the oven

It’s served sliced on a plate, accompanied by small tortillas, sliced green onion, and some brown sauce to make a duck taco. And then a cup of duck soup. Everything but the quack!

Everything but the quack

I have been having a good time. It's been good to see China, and especially the Terracotta Warriors, and I think also the Great Wall tomorrow will be another good experience. But I have to say China is the least culturally interesting country I have visited in Asia....it's a shame how they have demolished their cultural history (eg the Cultural revolution), out with the old, to make way for the new. Doesn't have to work that way...but too late. The Chinese are very nice personally but they just don't have the depth of character of their neighbours elsewhere....

2007-01-31T21:15:00.000-08:00

Scorching in Xi'an

Sesame candy (Halva) in Xi'an, a Muslim speciality

It is a real scorcher out there....I got up this morning and went straight to the Xi'an museum....then back out to the Muslim quarter, walked along the streets and got some good photos of the street food there, browsed in the shops, managed to get away with absolutely nothing (well, just one little small horn drug box....). I went to the Mosque for a look around. The mosque is designed exactly in the same design as a Buddhist temple, which sort of shows how these guys are totally stuck in an architectural paradigm. Xi’an is at the start or the end of the Silk Road through central Asia, depending on your perspective, so the Muslim influence spread east. Xi’an is a 6,000 year old town and in it’s day had 66 or 6.6, can’t read my writing, million people, and like Rome and Constantinople in their day, was once the greatest city in the world. It’s just unbearably hot out so I hung out for a while in this big grocery store to cool down in their air conditioning and got some stuff for today's overnight train trip to Beijing...although I did it on a full stomach so I probably did not get enough stuff, but I won't starve.

Lots of interesting things for sale in the Xi'an markets

I have someone hanging over my shoulder watching me type this, this room is full of Chinese people playing computer games. There is some sort of program they can use that pastes Chinese characters into a little screen and I guess that's how they communicate, because there’s no way they could make a Chinese keyboard, so they have to use a normal keyboard somehow. We have been a bit of a tourist attraction to the locals...the other night we were staying in a historic inn, and we were eating dinner and people walking down the paths along the canals could look in the open door and watch us eating, and they would stop and gather at the door, and take our photos. But most of the time we are ignored, no one tries to hassle us too much. Every once in a while someone shoves a fan in your face, but they aren't persistent.

2007-01-30T19:50:00.000-08:00

More in Xi'an

Flatbread coming out of the outdoor oven in Xi'an

On our second day in Xi'an we had some free time so I went to the Steles museum, which displays 2,300 stone tablets engraved with Chinese calligraphy from the Han dynasty, riveting hey....anyway they were of all the "had to have" books amongst the intelligent folks way back when, it would have been a lot more interesting if I could read Chinese calligraphy....

Steles at the Stele museum in Xi'an

You can see a photo of someone making a rubbing of steles by clicking here. I ran into a group of elderly French tourists I had sat with and said my 12 words of French to on the train to Xi’an. I walked around a little artisinal crafts area for a while and happily came home empty handed....

Pammie makes it through the calligraphy shop without any damage

That evening we went to a dumpling banquet. Dumplings are small boiled ravioli like things, stuffed with different fillings. They are shaped into animal forms reflecting the nature of the filling, fish shaped for fish, pig shaped for pork, etc. Very cute. I did wonder about the ones shaped like mice though…

The pig shaped dumplings are filled with pork, the goldfish shaped ones are filled with...

Then we saw a stage show with singing, dancing, drums, flutes, etc. A major extravaganza, not just 3 or 4 stragglers roped in off the streets but like 50 Rockette type people on the stage at once so it was fun to see, and the drummers and the horn players were very funny, doing competitions between each other on percussion instruments, all in mime.

Next we are off to Beijing, and the Great Wall, which will be the next best thing to see, after the Terracotta Warriors. Yuk, just had a guy sit next to me smoking a cigarette...better get to the hotel room soon and have a shower before our trip on the train, seems rather futile though since we will be running sweat just minutes after stepping out side the hotel room, may as well try though...and we are in "hard sleeper" this time, which means a big open area with us and a buncha Chinese guys, and those dudes are not quiet....well I have my ear plugs!!

One of the buildings on the grounds of a mosque in Xi'an, with very little Islamic influence to the architecture

2007-01-29T20:39:00.000-08:00

Terracotta Warriors of Xi'an

Pammicotta Warrior

We arrived in Xi'an the other day at around 8 pm....went to the Muslim quarter and had skewered beef and mutton on bicycle spokes, oil and all, and flat bread with salt and cumin I think, very nice. The next morning we went out to the Terracotta Warriors which were exceptionally cool. They were discovered in 1974 by a farmer digging for a well....there are at least 7,000 life size terracotta warriors fashioned 2,000 years ago to accompany the emperor Qin Shi Huang in heaven so he could continue to be a warrior in the next life (a farmer buries himself with a little terracotta barn with little terracotta animals, etc, so he can be a farmer in the next life too).

This is the emperor who built the Great Wall, his tomb is 1.2 km away, which means, there are probably heaps and heaps more warriors yet to be found. They have only excavated 3 pits so far. The warriors are arranged in battle formations, with officers, generals, cavalry, archers, infantry, and charioteers. Every single statue has a different face and expression, probably copied from fellow sculptors, with hollow bodies with solid legs to lower the center of gravity so they stay upright.

The chariots are made of bronze. It's an amazing sight to see the rows and rows of warriors. They have the first excavation under an enormous airport hanger, with 7 m or so deep trenches with the men arranged in them. Of course you can buy replicates of them, all different sizes. That was very interesting.

2007-01-27T08:59:00.000-08:00

Hammered in Xi'an

Lotsa lotsa cupsa beer

Hey, howzit...hic...going....just come back from hic dinner where I had a bunch of hic skewers, lamb and hic beef and did I mention hic a buncha buncha cupsa beer. Anyways I was in the Muslim quarter just now having dinner, did I mention having hic lotsa beer and hic skewers of lamb and beef....the beef was done on bicycle spokes over coals, the lamb on something flatter with a pointed diamond shape skewer dunno what sort of implement perhaps bicycle spoke on railway track flattened in the one dimension?? Still pondering that will let you know what I hic come up with.

Lamb on oily bicycle skewers and cumin flat bread

Today we spent hic going to some tombs, underground, with all the different burial styles of Luoyang and elsewhere, gotta say pretty naffen boring but at least it was cool down there.

The Muslim Quarter of Xi'an at night

Then on the train from Luoyang to Xi'an which is a hic very hip town and have I seen from the windows of the mini hic bus that brought us from the train station (our stop in Xi'an was washed out due to floods thanks for the tip I've been walking on as high a ground as possible, thanksverymuchforthat), lotsa cool tea pots and boy was that a struggle to remember what the heck hic I was wanten to say to you before I started the paranethesis hic thing).

Skewers being bbq'd on the street

So anyways I am stayen away from tea pot shops promise. My luggage is um full of empty space surrounding lotsa cool teapots of extraordinarily small small useless size because me, myself, as Andre' would say, I'm a big cup of coffee and a big cup of tea kind of hic chick. But dude. Okay now i'm laughen and I'm going to get kicked out of here.

Outdoor restaurants in the Muslim Quarter of Xi'an

The World Cup's on the TV and it's Italy versus Korea and last I checked Italy got one point but a buncha people screamed a while ago so someone else got a point, can only imagine Italy...In a few days it's US vs Germany and for the sake of international relations between myself and my German roommate I can only hope that Germany wins although I secretly hope for the yanks to win, how could I not....but forgot what I was going to say.

Bins of things to have stirred into your stir fry. I didn't check for small animals.

2007-01-25T21:46:00.000-08:00

On to Shaolin Temple

Banquet dinner in Louyang

Tonight we had an enormous Chinese banquet, the best thing was a huge dish of small green asparagus, then some other green stuff like spinach, a whole steamed fish, some chicken in lychee sauce, tofu, etc, pretty nice. We are eating nice dinners to make up for the fact that breakfast doesn’t really exist here and the banana shops always seem to be somewhere else at breakfast time. This morning I had slices of white bread and could feel my teeth dissolving....last night on the train I bought what I thought were packets of Ritz cheese and crackers and a small loaf of bread....was surprised to discover the Ritz crackers were sweet, didn't realise they made them sweet. I am going to get cavities on this trip for sure. The train was nice, four of us to a compartment, on little sleeper beds with nice bedding and lights, so we sat there and read for quite a while, nice and relaxing. Tomorrow we go to the first Buddhist temple in China, then to a kung fu demonstration, and to another temple....

Shaolin stupas

So we went out to the Shaolin temple, home of Kung Fu, where Jet Li trained, although I had never heard of him till then, not being a Kung Fu fan. First we went to a forest of 244 stupas, or small pagodas, dedicated to the monks of the temple. Then we visited the temple itself, founded in the 5th century AD by an Indian monk, who invented Kung Fu.

Shaolin temple

Then we visited a Kung Fu school, and watched a demonstration. The kids there are anywhere from 3 up to their 20's, and pay to go to the school to learn exclusively Kung Fu. They had a bunch of little kids there, some as small as 3, hopping around like frogs, or imitating other animals, tumbling, bending themselves into pretzels...then the older ones did some mock fighting, or swinging chains around. One guy managed to hold a large ceramic bowl onto his stomach using only suction, and they got three guys out of the audience to try to pull it off his stomach but they couldn't. Then one guy stabbed a needle through a pane of glass, to pierce a balloon behind it, leaving only a small hole in the glass. Freaky. Then other boys did back flips, cartwheels, that sort of thing.

White Horse Temple

Then on to visit the White Horse Temple, built in 68 AD, the first Buddhist temple in China. So I had a full day of looking at stuff but at a leisurely pace, just as well, as it is danged hot out there and I am nearly always on the verge of a headache with the MSG in the food. Probably also dehydration but I am trying to drink as much as possible. Luckily there are toilets all over the place so no worries mainly about getting stuck out in the sticks with no toilet...although they can be pretty scary, and today wearing 3/4's pants was a hassle because they keep dragging in all the toilet water....its a struggle trying to keep your pants up and down at the same time and try not to pee all over your feet, plus juggle toilet paper.

A Chinese pit toilet, possibly the only photograph of a pit toilet ever published on a blog.

Well it is late and I don't know if I am imagining this or not but I think I am getting bitten heaps by mosquitoes! I've been absolutely drilled...feet, legs, arms, my cheek, bridge of my nose....crikes. The others are full of bites as well. Luckily no malaria but they itch! I had street food for dinner, very nice shredded pork in a beautiful marinade sauce chopped up and served in a chapatti, cost less than a dollar. It was so nice I had two. Tomorrow we are going to some tomb museum, and then take the mid-day train to Xian, where the terracotta warriors are, this should be very good.

2007-01-24T20:44:00.000-08:00

News of Dr Hennie

I have to interrupt my China trip to tell you the latest news about Dr Hennie. After publishing my Kilimanjaro story I started getting re-spooked about what could have happened to Dr Hennie, what with him being headed for holidays in Thailand just as the tsunami struck, just after having his girlfriend die and his family farm being seized at gunpoint, and then his email account ominously closing out. So I wrote an email to the medical consultancy firm he worked for and they sent me back the information that he was living in Halfway House, South Africa, and gave me his cell phone number.

Hmm. I have to admit I was a little disappointed. Well it's great that he's okay and everything but I was hoping for something a little more exotic. Like perhaps he had been hammered by the tsunami while floating on a inflatable banana lounger but managed to surf to shore then clocked his head on a floating VW bus, lost his memory, and is now an ordained Buddhist monk who keeps wondering why his toes are all black. Or manager of a strip bar in Patpong. Or something. Anyway Halfway House sounded interesting, perhaps it is where disoriented and recovering traumatised medical doctors spend their time until they are ready to face the world? Further research reveals Halfway House to be a suburb of Pretoria, one of the capitols of South Africa, about 30 minutes north of Johannesburg. Gosh it just keeps getting worse.

I had a friend of mine in South Africa call his cell phone number the other day but Hennie was driving, so the conversation was a little confusing, but the doctor managed to get across that he had been in northern Thailand when the tsunami hit and was safe and sound and is not an ordained Buddhist monk or manager of a strip bar in Patpong. So anyway, perhaps I will get an email from Dr Hennie with more news. Tomorrow back to our regularly scheduled broadcast of Pammie in China.

2007-01-23T19:36:00.000-08:00

Souzhou to Louyang

Blue Wave Pavillion

I'm not sure what I am going to do today, there are a heap more gardens to go through but I haven't got the drive to see all of them, particularly when they aren't all that nice looking. I did go to the Blue Wave pavilion, an 11th century garden, until I couldn’t take any more gardens. I had a foot massage at the Blind Institute. This time I managed to convince the kid that he shouldn’t be using bead of sweat on the forehead inducing pressure, surely that can’t be good for you.

I had a nice lunch of shredded pork in ginger and pepper sauce, and a few dumplings. I've forgotten to mention prices, things are pretty cheap here. To get into a garden it is somewhere between $1-3, whereas in Japan I remember it being about $7. A bottle of water is 50 cents, dinner is about $2-3, and our two star hotel with two single beds, TV, bathroom and air conditioning, is between $50-60. So it's pretty affordable...I'm always amazed though on these trips how people begrudge paying a 5 cent fee to use the public bathroom, or getting very annoyed if the beer is 2 cents more in one place than it is in another. For the thousands of dollars they spent on their airfare you'd think they could just relax and enjoy themselves and not fret or get bitter and twisted over the 10 and 20 cent things that eventually accumulate to only $5 over the course of two weeks....We went to a bar last night after the Master of the Nets and they had a happy hour drinks menu, so all of us got a happy hour special except for the whining Australian, who ordered something different and was surprised to pay the normal price, and then sat there bitterly complaining about how it was the most expensive beer he had had in China at 4 cents more than he had paid previously, it wasn't even a local beer, where was Becks from anyway, blah blah blah. Eventually he and his went home and the tour leader said they had been whining the whole time and she was worried they were dragging the others down.

My roomie Birgit writing postcards in our overnight train to Louyang

We went on to Louyang, an industrial town of 6 million, the former home of Confuscius, famous for the annual peony bloom (wowsa), by soft sleeper class overnight train. There were four beds to a compartment, very clean and cozy with mattresses (thus the soft designation, without the fluffy stuff it would be hard sleeper class), sheets, blankets, comforters, pillows, and a towel. There was even a thermos of hot water to make tea. A nice night, although the toilets are a bit of a hassle on a train. Man I desperately need a wee!! Hope there is something here in this hotel place I am using their internet. Let me quickly tell you about my day while I go into renal failure...so we arrived in wherever the heck we are, yep, Louyang, I am never going to remember these place names, at about 10 am, checked into the hotel, had a shower, dropped off my laundry, checked my email, had a quick Indonesian meal at the hotel, Anyway then phew!! Just raced off downstairs for a wee, man, these Asian guys got to get over this squat toilet thing, I am sick of peeing on my feet!

A Buddha at the Longmen Grottos

Anyway, so we set off the Longmen Grottos, which are 2,300 small limestone caves with Buddha statues carved into the caves. Over 100,000 Buddha images were carved at around 494 AD over the next 200 years.

Some of the very large Buddhas at Longmen Grottos

Western travelers destroyed many of them, several large ones are now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC and some in a museum in Kansas, a state I somehow doubt is swarming with Sinologists.

Then during the Cultural Revolution, the Red Guards showed up and smashed many of them in the face with hammers. There would be a wall of thousands of tiny little Buddhas, each with their face smashed off by a hammer.

A wall of little Buddhas, all with their faces smashed in by the Red Guard

So out of these 100,000 Buddhas, perhaps 20 are completely intact, and the best are very huge. I don’t know why they didn’t destroy the big ones, probably they were worried about the chance of some kind of ghostly revenge. So this was the best sight so far, this trip is getting better as we go. There is a lot of free time, but unfortunately there is not a whole lot of stuff to do in that time, except check emails, do some shopping, or sit in the hotel and read. So I am getting through my MFK Fisher book of letters and the old dear is due to die in the next year or two.

An interesting sign at the Longmen Grottos

2007-01-22T18:58:00.000-08:00

From Zhouzhang to Souzhou

Boarding our transport to Souzhou

On we went via boat through canals and then a private mini bus to Souzhou, a 2500 year old town famous for its gardens. In fact the Seattle Garden Society were at one of the gardens en masse while I visited. I didn't have a very touristy day the first day in Souzhou, since I was completely beat by the lack of breakfast and lunch, not enough to drink, and the heat. We went straight onto a canal tour after checking into our hotel, looking at the backs of Ming Dynasty homes, which wasn't as appealing as it sounds, especially with rats scurrying about at the water line.

The back of Ming dynasty homes in Souzhou

I visited the Garden of the Humble Administrator, which dates from the 1500’s. It was a pretty nice garden, most of them seem to be mainly pavilions set in concrete with rock formations, which would be nice enough I guess but everything looks very grimy and in desperate need of a good wash down, so dusty and polluted looking.

Garden of the Humble Administrator

There is not a lot of rubbish on the streets though. I don't see many animals around, just a few cats and small dogs, I guess the big ones are all in stir fries by now. Anyway I went through the gardens there for a while, then took a rickshaw back home, which was the best part of the day. I asked the driver to take me to all of the beautiful places, so he went out of his way to take me to the old neighbourhoods to see the old Ming Dynasty homes, the best old bridges, and scenic spots. He insisted I take a photo of every bridge, thank goodness for the delete function on a digital camera!

Some of the many bridges over canals in Souzhou

We went through all the back streets, and along the sidewalk markets where vendors lay out vegetables, eels, little frogs, crayfish, fish, snakes, turtles, fruits, noodles, tea, whatever, for sale. We went past a school and saw all the little kids leaving for the day and their parents arriving to pick them up. Then you see people along the canal doing their dishes in it, their laundry, their waste disposal, their drinking water collection, it is an all purpose thing. Amazingly filthy....the canals through Bangkok however have a far richer, denser brand of polluted water, and the kids swim like fish in it. Here I haven't seen anyone in the water except for a few rats, watermelons, a chair....the water isn't that polluted really considering how many people are up against it.
Lunch in Souzhou

That evening we met up with our tour leader and she took us to a nice place for dinner, she and I shared pork and crab dumplings, which are like boiled ravioli with the meat inside, pretty nice. Then we had fried wonton with some sort of green thing on the inside, not greasy at all. That evening we went to the Garden of the Master of the Nets, and stopped in each pavilion to see a little play, or someone playing the flute and recorder, or the zither, or a two stringed guitar, or singing, etc. It was pretty fun, and there were mostly western people there. We had a local guide who took us to each tableau and explained what we were going to see, so made it a little more interesting than going on our own. This garden is the smallest in Souzhou and is dated from the 12th century. It’s supposed to be the best garden in Souzhou and part of it has been recreated in miniature at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC.

Zither playing at the Master of The Nets

2007-01-21T08:30:00.000-08:00

From Shanghai to Zhouzhang

The view of Shanghai through the smog from the Oriental Pearl TV tower

I went up the Oriental Pearl TV tower, 468 m high, to gaze out over the metropolis of Shanghai, or what was visible through the perpetual layer of smog. Although the others tell me they have had sunny clear days, my entire vision of China was through the constant haze I have always seen Asia through, except Japan. I visited the Yu Yuan gardens and bazaar, built from 1559-1577 and now a complete tourist trap. Filled with unappealing dusty rocks cemented into fantastic shapes shaded with dusty elderly gnarly plants, and little pavilions, walk ways, throngs of visitors, and of course, retail opportunities everywhere. Best part, Starbucks! And public toilets everywhere thankfully.

The Yu Yuan Gardens, Shanghai

One night we saw the Shanghai acrobats who were pretty mediocre by Western standards (I have seen Cirque de Soleil, so it takes a lot to impress me now) although the others reckoned they were great. The best part was watching 7 deliriously happy and insane guys racing motorcycles with their tires inches from the others around the inside of a giant steel caged ball, beeping their horns madly the whole time, one mistake and it would have been a spectacular chaotic tangle of motorcycles and bodies, including one kid who must have been 9.

7 Shanghai acrobats whizzing around the inside of a a steel cage

On the trip is Birgit, a single German lady of about 38, an Australian couple in their late 50’s or early 60’s who did nothing but complain the whole trip, and a very quiet young American couple, 19 years old, he a Jewish boy (his name is Isaac Solomon, so I guessed), and she a first generation Taiwanese. She is very handy to have around because she can interpret for us, although she is getting bothered a bit because everyone thinks she is our tour leader and wants her to use their services, etc.

Our room at a Qing dynasty house in Zhouzhang

Our first day traveling was via private mini-van to Zhouzhang, famous as the Venice of China, where there are Ming and Qing dynasty houses set along canals crisscrossed by tiny arched bridges, with weeping willows hanging over the water.

Zhouzhang, the Venice of China

In fact one of these double bridges was a symbol, at one time, so they say, of the UN, but I don’t recall it. Artists, poets, authors, and musicians came here in the old days, and nowadays the Chinese tourists come to reminisce over what they imagine to be the romantic old days and to sing nostalgic tunes of the past.

Tourists thinking about the poetic good old days in Zhouzhang

We stayed at a Qing dynasty home built from Chinese redwood, they also served us a very nice meal. The local delicacy is pork shoulder covered with a thick blanket of fat and glazed with some sort of red sweet stuff, all set out in trays in the open air for display, amazingly no flies on them. The meat itself was very tender and nice.

Pork shoulder, the delicacy of Zhouzhang, displayed at an outdoor countertop

We bought a pass which allowed us into 15 or so very small museums and the preserved homes of famous Chinese artists and authors. They were thronged with Chinese visitors, who shuffled through the narrow streets and sang old songs. A troop of little old ladies wearing dish towels on their heads who would ambush people as they crossed a bridge, clasp their hands together and sing, swaying back and forth, and then demand money for it. Very pushy, never did figure what the dish towel thing was about.

One of our group runs the gauntlet through the crowd of dishtowelled little old ladies

2007-01-20T11:44:00.000-08:00

From Shanghai to Beijing

The view of Shanghai from my hotel room

So far it is very hot. I got in to Shanghai about 6pm last night, and met my tour leader, Naomi, an English girl in her late 20’s. I am joining a group of five who have been traveling together for two weeks already from Hong Kong to here, I am joining them at the second half of their tour. I am sharing a bedroom with a German lady called Birgit....I only briefly met her, she was asleep when I got in last night and she left this morning at 6:30 am. Naomi and I went to a Japanese place for dinner last night because she wanted sushi, so we had some sushi and miso soup and edamame beans. Then we went to an Italian gelato place afterwards. Oh yes and to a bar before hand and had my only Chinese food so far, which was a Chinese beer. I haven't had anything to eat this morning yet, can't seem to find any normal food. There's no English at all written anywhere and it doesn't look like many people do speak English. Hmm. Glad I am on the tour. 94% of the tourists in China are Chinese, so very little tourism is geared for the foreigner. Why should they go to the trouble and hassle of writing English signs when so few of them speak it, for such little reward?

The television tower across the river Hunggpu

Our hotel is right off a main shopping street, within walking distance of the Bund, a long promenade along the river Hunggpu, a tributary of the Yangtze. Across the street are huge Neoclassical customs houses, banks, hotels, etc. People walk along the Bund and have their photo taken up against the small retaining wall.

Neoclassical buildings along the Shanghai Bund

Most people are out exercising in the morning when it is cooler, either by ballroom dancing, walking backwards (these people are weird), or stretching exercises. You see entire office staffs lined up outside their buildings, all doing stretches before they start work for the day.

Morning exercises for the office block

In the evenings people walk around in their pajamas. Mom, dad, the kids, all in their PJ’s, and maybe granddad might be out there too in his boxer shorts, having a pee on the sidewalk. It turns out that every single hotel we stayed at for the whole entire trip had exactly the same layout, which is a requirement for them if they want to obtain a license to accept Western tourists.An outdoor mall in Shanghai

There are lots of mediocre shops in well developed outdoor and indoor malls, selling nothing particularly appealing. There are very few Western shops, and the stuff in them either Asian-ised (floral, little girly, or that puke yellow colour you see everywhere in Asia) or very outdated fashions. No modern electronics anywhere, except perhaps cell phones, no music shops at all. One street back from these nice areas is the usual chaos of Asia: laundry hanging everywhere, a tangle of telephone wires, people riding on bicycles, chickens in baskets, a scramble of people fighting over fish, frogs, turtles, and vegetables laid out for sale in the gutters. One street back from the main shopping street is the usual chaos of Asia.

We had three days in Shanghai, mainly spent on our own, although we did re-group for a Shanghai evening meal, can’t even remember what we had now, although all of the food on the trip was typical of Chinese food I’ve eaten everywhere, no worse, no better, of course quality depends on where you go and how much you are willing to pay. I walked around the French Concession where there are a lot of glitzy shops, drank a few iced lattes at Starbucks to escape the heat and get a caffeine fix, and went on the first of a several tea pot shopping sprees….yikes! Had sushi for lunch a few times, there is no Western food here except McDonalds and Pizza Hut, and I’m not that desperate yet, although I had McDonalds after one late night. The Chinese eat very early, around 5 pm, so it’s hard to find a local restaurant open late. I learnt that a Chinese lantern is round and fat, while a Japanese lantern is long and thin, so that’s one way of telling a Japanese restaurant from a Chinese one, and there are a surprising amount of Japanese restaurants here.

2007-01-19T21:17:00.000-08:00

Tim and Jennifer's Photos

The famous steam powered clock at Gastown. Actually the clock is no longer powered by steam but they still blow steam out of it so tourists can take photos (Tim had one posing for him).

One of the many fruit stands at Granville Island. I should come here more often, it is only 10 minutes away by seabus, and I am a 3 minute walk from the seabus. But you can get in trouble when you go to markets and you are the only one in your house.

Underneath the Granville Island bridge. You don't want to be spending a lot of time under Canadian bridges because they are forever falling down.

Outdoor art at Coal Harbour. There's a bit of an upside down theme with outdoor art there.

Tim and Pam outside the Vancouver Aquarium

Tim and Jennifer along the seawall at False Creek North.

2007-01-17T18:39:00.000-08:00

Cheese and Caraway Biscuits

These make a nice savoury little side to go with the soup. They are much nicer warm out of the oven than they are on the second day. Although I am considering giving them a short nuke in the microwave to see if that helps.

100 g grated Parmesan cheese

50 g blue cheese crumbled

150 g chopped butter

1 cup flour

1/2 tsp caraway seeds

Mix everything together to form a dough. Roll into 3.5 cm diameter log, wrap in plastic and refrigerator for one hour. Cut into 1 cm slices, place 4 cm apart on greased tray. Sprinkle with extra caraway seeds and bake at 180C for 15-18 minutes until crisp and golden. Cool on tray.

2007-01-14T11:06:00.000-08:00

Red Bell Pepper Soup

I had this soup at Luisa's house at Canadian Thanksgiving.

You get your red bell peppers, cut them in half, wash them, and make sure all the little seeds are out.

Squash 'em in a baking tin, skin side up. I am using the non-stick silicone sheet so I am not chipping away at burnt bell peppers later. Put them in an oven. I dunno what temperature. I used to just crank the dial around till it felt right but now the oven here is with digital buttons so I've lost my flair.

The good thing about a digital oven for us folks with short attention spans is that you can set a digital timer, I think they go in for something like 30-45 minutes. I guess you just want them cooked and soft. I don't try to peel them because that's a hassle and besides the skin doesn't bother you. I do take off the burnt bits just for the sake of aesthetics.

Stuff them in a blender and whizz 'em up. If you want them runny you can put in chicken stock. I don't. If you want to be fancy you can put in spices. I don't, I just do it plain, and grind some fresh pepper over the top when it's served. Too easy.

Makes a nice lunch with hot buttered sourdough toast and a big fat glass of milk.

2007-01-13T13:59:00.000-08:00

Death to the Ant Nation

When I was at Bulyanhulu my favourite person to talk to was our office cleaner, David. In fact it took a bit of time to establish his name because originally he was referred to as Omari. I made a comment about an upcoming Muslim holiday and he said he was a Christian. I asked him what was he doing with a Muslim name then. He said he had a job in Dar es Salaam where he replaced a man in an office who had his name written on a plaque on the door, so David became known as this man. And now since he has this work history under the name Omari, and needs the references, it's just easier to become Omari.

Anyway David came into my office one day and asked did I have any Doom. Doom is the name of bug spray in the African continent, it no doubt contains all of the leftover DDT from the first world. I said yes I had some Doom and what did he want it for. He said, "it is Death to the Ant Nation, no discussion!"

Unfortunately I never took a photograph of David. So here's my boss, Ettienne du Plessis, with a can of Doom on his desk. It is a little disturbing that it's in such an accessible position isn't it?

David knew that he could make me laugh by saying unusual things. Tanzanians normally keep their head shaved, which they will do probably once every few weeks. David had gone several weeks without a shave and his hair was now about 2 mm tall. I commented on the extreme length of his hair and he said, "Aah! It is unruly!" This story is much more effective when I do it in my Tanzanian accent, which is very funny.

Concepts in Chinese Water Torture

The air conditioner water drain was blocked in our office so instead of draining outside it dripped onto the bookshelf. Hendrik shared an office with me for a while so he put a bucket underneath the drip to catch it, so we would listen to dripping water all morning. Charles, our geology data entry clerk, came in to the office and saw the bucket. I say to Charles that we are suffering Chinese water torture. Reliably Charles asks what is Chinese water torture and so I explain it to him, he thinks the Chinese are maybe not such nice people.

Hendrik Meiring and Esau Mwakitwange (are you impressed that I can still remember how to spell his name after all these years?!) standing at the counter to collect their underground lamps and self rescuers. Photograph taken by Tim Whillans.

2007-01-12T18:55:00.000-08:00

Bananas at Bulyanhulu

Bananas on offer at the mess. The green round things are oranges. No one except the Tanzanians ate them; they would slice off the top and suck what little juice was inside. Despite this practice most Tanzanians have beautiful teeth.

I worked at a gold mine called Bulyanhulu in Tanzania for four years. For the first three years I worked two months straight and then had one month off, which I would spend travelling around Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

Unfortunately for food obsessed Pammie, the mess at Buly was the worst I've had by far. Also unfortunately, it was managed by South Africans who, dare I say it, possibly do not have the highest standards when it comes to food, which is generally considered to be fuel. They thought the food was the best they'd ever had, even compared to what they ate in their own homes. Scary.

More bananas. I took to taking photographs of the bananas and sending them to the Human Resource manager as a protest. After three consecutive days of these photographs, we got good bananas, and I was a much celebrated legend at the mine, although our good fortune lasted several months. No doubt there is "troublemaker" marked in my personnel file somewhere.

Every day I ate two bananas (or as you can tell from the photos, the edible portions of two bananas per day). After fifty days, I did my math, and sent out an email to my family and friends announcing I had just eaten my 100th banana.

Dad wrote me back: I myself have a very mild form of obsessive compulsive disorder. Those who progress through the symptoms, and have displayed various forms of behavior that is considered menacing to society at large, are frequently institutionalized. This is often manifested in COUNTING BANANAS!!!

Our mess was managed by Sodexho, a French catering firm that specialises in awkward locations and oil platforms. After about three years it was discovered that the food purchaser had a deal going with the suppliers: they would give him an invoice but he actually paid much less, and pocketed the difference. If you visit European restaurants you will often see a sticker on the front window advertising "Sodexho Rated". If I see this I do not enter.

2007-01-11T21:20:00.000-08:00

Things I Like and Don't Like About Being Back In North America After 17 Years

Things I Like

Eye Contact - People notice you here! I've been ignored for two years.

Sidewalk Skills - After living where about only 20% of the population have sidewalk skills, it is a pleasure to be in a land where 80% of the people have sidewalk skills.

Young People - Crikey, there are people my age here! There are different coloured people here!

Good Food - I spend all my time in the grocery stores, staring at it, even after being here for five months now.

Decent prices - No more walking away from a shop and thinking, say, that wasn't so bad, and then seconds later realising that was pounds not dollars, and slapping my forehead.

Courtesy - People say thank you, have a nice day. So it might not be from the bottom of their heart, but it's a positive energy, and that's a great thing.

Good Service - people want to sell me a house. They want to sell me a cell phone. They want to open an electricity account for me. They want to do everything for me. They respond to emails. They process my application in minutes and with a smile.

Friendliness - it used to freak me out but now I even start conversations in lifts. People say hello or smile at a cross walk, or if they pass you on the street.

A functional real estate system - you can only make an offer on a house if you actually have money in the bank...there is no backing out after two months of your lawyer doing work for nothing....

Doors that are wide enough for furniture - no more hoisting my couch and armchairs over garden walls and balconies.

Measurement marks on the butter wrapper - no more faking it.

Dishwashers - say no more.

Big washers and dryers - so I can do my laundry in half the time.

Electrical outlets in the bathroom - yay, I can plug in my electric toothbrush, and my hairdryer if I had one! 515 million people living with electrical outlets in the bathroom, surviving day to day, demonstrates that it is possible....

One mixer tap in the bathroom - instead of one tap dispensing ice cubes and the other dispensing steam

Things I Don't Like

No diagonal cross walks - because I'm in a hurry.

Shower taps that control both temperature and pressure - because sometimes I like just the cold to come blasting out.

Non consistent application of use by dates on food - I think these fellahs are hoping we're not going to notice....

Vacuum cleaners - the only thing that seems to have evolved since 1950 is the price....

Awesome - It's awesome how often this word is used!

Street theatre - people projecting their lives for the benefit of their audience, the rest of the world.

Scabby milk rings around the plastic milk bottles - whatsup with that? Quality control issues?

Laundry knots - Maybe bigger washing machines twist your clothes into knots?

2007-01-10T20:13:00.000-08:00

Vancouver Aquarium

Tim and Jennifer and I went to the Vancouver Aquarium over Christmas. The aquarium is in Stanley Park, we had already walked there the previous day to see the totem poles so this time we took a taxi which gave us an interesting view of all the trees that had fallen near the road. I love the jellyfish most of all.
They had an interesting exhibit that lets you get inside the tank to take photographs, but I think the best photograph is the one taken of the photographer in the bubble.

The star attraction at the aquarium is the beluga whales which have a lot of personality. We saw them blowing bubbles then popping them and showing off for the audience. You can see the belugas and the dolphins for free, as they are in the outside area. We had our lunch there too which was a painful experience, since the cafe is outside, a harsh place to put it considering how cold and rainy it can get here. And no heat lamps! Electric coloured jellyfish. If I had a fish tank I would only have jellyfish in it.

2007-01-09T20:34:00.000-08:00

Around Vancouver

I've been so busy posting stories that I totally missed out on posting holiday pictures and scenes from around town. Ah well, here they are now.

This is the alleyway behind my office downtown, which has been transformed into a Chinatown set for a movie that was being filmed on the roof and on this street. The movie takes place in NYC, and we had a whole lot of yellow NYPD cars driving around too. The set looked very authentic with stands selling fruits and vegetables, bolts of silk, cages with song birds, etc.

When Tim and Jennifer were here over Christmas we heard about The Secret Lantern Society, which celebrates the winter solstice with a parade of drums and lanterns. So we braved the cold to see the parade, but unfortunately it was so secret that there were only two drums and a few lanterns. But the Vancouver fire department did show off this display of their fire fighting equipment based on False Creek, where they can draw water in case of fire.

One of the thousands of trees knocked down in Stanley Park during the hurricane force winds before Christmas. Stanley Park is located in downtown Vancouver where over one million mostly coniferous trees grow in a 1,000 acre park. The park is surrounded by the seawall walk, which is 8.8 km or 5.5 miles long.

Totem poles in Stanley Park.

View back to the city from the seawall, showing some of the many Christmas lights on display over the Christmas holidays. These Canadian fellahs yank 'em down straight away, though, no messing around, nearly all of them were down the week after Christmas.

2007-01-08T21:54:00.000-08:00

Cooking Advisory- Irish Oatmeal

I bought this can of Irish Oatmeal purely out of fascination for the design of the can. Also I think dad bought some similar stuff when he came to visit me in the UK. The other day when I had a cold seemed the perfect time to try out my Irish Oats. I read the directions three times, until finally it dawned on me they were actually saying that the oats took THIRTY minutes to cook, not three as I had decided in my mind, and this thirty minutes starts an indeterminate amount of time AFTER the oats are softened by cooking for what is presumably another 30 minutes. Who has that kind of time in the morning? I guess the Irish, and no wonder they are putting whiskey in it! And dad, which would partly explain why he is up at 4 AM...

The oats, with a long time yet to go before they're finished...

2007-01-07T09:58:00.000-08:00

Climbing Kilimanjaro - The End

The group gathers on the lawn of Marangu Hotel for a celebration, September 2003

Back at the hotel, farewell, dinner, departure: The last morning we packed up our gear for the final time and left Horombo hut, traveling down through the meadows into the rain forest. We ate a freshly packed lunch at Mandara hut which had been sent up by the hotel. We wanted to get Brett down off the mountain as quickly as possible as he still was suffering so we radioed to the park headquarters and they sent up an ambulance to take him down the last few hours.

John, our patient head guide, who understands how to motivate

Dr Hennie still hadn’t arrived by the time we left after lunch. We ran down to the park headquarters and met up with Brett and Tracy who now felt just fine, about 85% he said. We waited quite some time for Hennie but he didn’t arrive. We were about to pile in the cars to head back to the hotel and send a car back for him when he arrived. On arrival at the hotel I had two showers and two shampoos. I was filthy, covered with brown dust kicked up by other climbers and no baths aside from a morning and evening face wash for three whole days and two half days. Suzette de Winnaar left Bulyanhulu in 2004, returning to Johannesburg to start up her own business with her husband Johann. We never did the boat trip.

After the shower all of us and the 21 support crew gathered on the lawns of the hotel garden for drinks. There were speeches of thanks for our success and then Julie and Hennie handed out the tips to each of the crews, including a packet of instant soup and some candy for everyone, provided from the vast stores of Johann and Suzette. The vast majority of Tanzanians haven't got instant soup technology so with a great deal of sign language Johann explained how to make it, but it seems not everyone caught on, as we watched some people reading their packets aloud very slowly: “cup…..of……soup….” with a puzzled expression on their faces. The porters and guides sang us a Kilimanjaro song, and then we received our certificates for reaching the top: Hennie, Johann, Luiz, Jules and myself to Uhuru, and Suzette and Tracy to Gilman’s point, or the rim of the crater. We learnt that Andrew had descended Kibo hut as we made our summit attempt and continued on to the hotel, I believe. He had made a full recovery as well.

Johann de Winnaar. Johann was one of the main music makers at Bulyanhulu, and a well known and liked man on site.

That night we had a farewell dinner and the next morning vehicles collected Johann, Suzette, myself, Hennie, and Luiz to take us to Kilimanjaro airport for our flight back to Dar es Salaam while the others continued on to a safari.

Dave Shuttleworth. I saw Jules last summer and she tells me Dave is still doing well.

Andrew bonded closely with his porter who assisted him down from Kibo Hut.

Brett Thomson is still a mill trainer at Bulyanhulu. I had a bizarre coincidence with Brett....I worked at Telfer Gold Mine with my friend Cailli in 1999. Julie Shuttleworth also worked at the same mine with us. Cailli began working for a mine software company in Perth, and in 2004 she helped me get a job with her company in their UK office. In January of 2006 she and I went on a business trip to Ireland, where we met up with another friend from Telfer, Murray, who was working in the town of Lisheen. He told me that they were having a visitor from Bulyanhulu the next day, and phoned around to find out where the visitors were that night. We went three doors down to another bar, where we found Brett. In Brett's company was another friend of mine from Tanzania, who had also worked with me in Tasmania....it is such a small world! Brett didn't know my friends Cailli and Murray, but both of them knew Jules.

Julie Shuttleworth was soon made mill superintendent at Bulyanhulu. She is now based in Perth, where she is designing the new mill at Buzwagi, another Barrick Tanzania operation. She and I had dinner in Vancouver this summer.

Tracy Thomson, who lives in Australia. I didn't know Tracy before the hike, and I have not seen her since.

Luiz Correia soon left Bulyanhulu and moved his family to a mine in Mexico. He left Mexico after a few years and is now on a mine in Mali.

Pammie. I was living in Johannesburg at the time of the hike, working at Bulyanhulu on contract, after working on the mine for three full years. I moved to the UK six months after this photograph was taken, and lived there for two years, working for a mine software company. I moved to Vancouver six months ago, where I am working for a consulting firm.

After our climb of Kilimanjaro, Dr Hennie Van Staden continued on to Zanzibar for a few days, where he learned that his girlfriend back in South Africa had died of cancer. On Christmas Eve of the same year, his family farm and property in Namibia, in the family for over 150 years, was taken from him at gunpoint by Namibian nationals. He moved to northern Thailand where he continued to work as a doctor. The last I heard from him was an email saying he was on his way to holidays. Two days later the tsunami hit Thailand and I never heard from him again. His email account is no longer active.

2007-01-06T10:47:00.000-08:00

Climbing Kilimanjaro Day Four, Descending to Horombo Hut

Brett, Johann, Suzette, Dave, Pammie, and Tracy kneeling before our descent to Horombo Hut

About an hour after Dr Hennie has descended to Kibo hut, we pack our things and descend down to Horombo hut, but not before Luiz drops the last of my toilet paper down the toilets at Kibo. Luiz and I are now awake and feeling fine, rolling down the mountain, passing a group of Tanzanians and Indian Tanzanians on their way up, none of them looking enthusiastic, many draped over rocks, one woman is literally being dragged between two porters. It seems forever and ever till we reach Horombo hut, we hadn’t realized it was so far. Finally we reach the huts, eat dinner, and go straight to bed. Strangely enough I do not sleep well, and keep waking up.

Our porters carrying our things back down the mountain, passing other porters on the way up

Dave’s tea: We of the non-snoring group are all waiting for our dinner to be served at Horombo Hut, our first real meal in two days, when we noticed the snoring crowd weren’t showing up. We asked John if he’d told them what time dinner was and he said that none of them wanted dinner. I believed this of Luiz who hadn’t wanted his lunch either and just wanted to sleep. The next morning at breakfast Dave and the others slid next to us on the benches saying they were starving, what with not having dinner last night. We asked where they had been last night, it had been a brilliant meal of chilli and chips. He said, you guys got dinner? We said, yeah, where were you? He said, well, John came to my door and I asked him what time tea was and he said there was no tea so I went to bed!! (Australians often use the word tea to refer to dinner!).

One last backward look at the trail leading to Kibo Hut and the summit of Kilimanjaro hiding above the cloud line

Nightmares on the mountain: I’d known that psychedelic dreams are a side effect of high altitude from my experiences in Nepal but hadn’t experienced them on Kilimanjaro till now and no one else had mentioned them either till this night. I had a dream I was watching an old lady, unable to walk, dribble her head and herself by the momentum down a concrete sidewalk where she led me to a burnt out vehicle in a field where a disembodied hand was rhythmically hammering through someone’s chest into their heart with a geological hammer, in time with my own heart beat. I woke up then fell asleep to watch myself and a friend grocery shopping, with him constantly moving away from me, till I watched him leave the shops and go to his car which was parked in one of those classic doomed cinema situations, under a streetlamp, blackness all around and the rain coming down, picked up by the lights, next to a chain link fence, with a group of hoods approaching, who kicked him unconscious. Suzette had bad dreams of her son, Julie screamed in her sleep.

Dr Hennie is grateful for the help of the porters who helped him descend while crippled by his Namibian Army boots, which were probably regularly worn nearly 30 years previously. As our mine site doctor in Tanzania he had no access to any climbing equipment of his own and was relying on borrowed gear

Diamox: There was a big debate on whether we should use Diamox, which is a drug commonly used to treat glaucoma and prevents or relieves sickness caused by high altitude. It increases your metabolism and thus your breathing, providing your body with more oxygen. Side effects are an increased urinary output which exacerbates the existing problem of dehydration while on the mountain, tingling in the hands, feet, lips, and carbonated drinks tasting strange. Sometimes it can make you feel a little under the weather. There is also the moral high ground debate as to whether one should be assisted by drugs to climb a mountain, but we figure, people have no problem taking aspirin to fix a headache caused by altitude, why not Diamox to help with the same thing. So I bought 6 bottles of Diamox in Cancun (love those Mexican no prescription drug stores!!).

Suzette enjoying her morning coffee, after her nightmare filled sleep after the climb

We were a little apprehensive about beginning our dosage while on the mountain, wondering whether it could possibly make us feel worse. Johann and Suzette and I decided to begin taking trial doses 2 days before the mountain, hoping that if we did experience side effects, they would wear off by the time we began the climb. We noticed tingling in our feet and hands, and sodas did taste flat, but we had no other problems so continued to take the recommended dosage of 250 mg with food at breakfast and dinner every day until we descended. I cannot say how much it assisted me but I certainly had no headaches except for about 20 minutes on the descent, and even the urinary output thing wasn’t too much of a problem. I took one with Luiz and Johann on the way to the summit and none of us noticed any improvement, maybe because we were already used to the drug. Julie took a bottle but only used two tablets, one on the evening before the summit attempt, and once at Hans Meyer cave and noticed a dramatic improvement in her health. Dr Hennie took his tablets beginning on day one, but didn’t comment on how he felt. None of the others took it, although Brett was taking Gingko Bilbao or whatever that stuff is, which didn’t help him.
Jules and Brett, the morning after the climb

Suzette’s boat cruise: When we were packing up at Horombo hut and discussing whether we would ever undertake such a mission again, Suzette said, “next time we’re booking a boat cruise”. We all decided of course it had been worth it but we would never do it again. Luiz, who had previously been entertaining fatherly thoughts of later accompanying his son on the mountain, who had failed an earlier attempt, decided the young fellah could do it himself. We thought of the guides who did this many times a year and wondered how they could do it. It recalled to me the Japanese proverb: “one is blessed to climb Mt Fuji but a fool to climb it twice”.
Pammie waking up the morning of the climb, Tracy watching for my reaction

2007-01-05T20:27:00.000-08:00

Climbing Kilimanjaro X - The Summit

John, Pammie, Jules, Dr Hennie, and Johann on the way to Uhuru. Photo taken by Luiz

Pammie having her photograph taken in front of the summit sign. Photo taken by Luiz

Luiz joins us! John the patient shepherd follows behind.

Luiz, Dr Hennie, Jules, John, and Pammie at the top of Kilimanjaro, the roof of Africa. Photo taken by Jules.

I don’t recall any of our other companions on the mountain passing us on the way down but near the summit of Uhuru we pass several people I don’t know who tell us it isn’t that much further. Johann and Hennie reach the top first, then Julie and I together. At this time I have given up on Luiz, having tucked his head under a rock in the shade to go to sleep in my mind, so am happy to look back and see him stumbling up after Jules and I have taken our photos. Luiz wants nothing more than to find a soft rock and go to sleep. He fretfully stumbles from rock to rock, trying each, but none are comfortable. Finally he finds a rock at my feet and leans against my knees. I also really want a nap. When the five of us are gathered and had our photos taken, I want nothing more than to get back down and have a nap before we have to leave Kibo hut for Horombo hut.
Glaciers near the top of Kilimanjaro

I stumble on down but the others are delayed taking photographs of the next summit party. We are about the third last party to summit. Now I am descending on my own and I can’t understand why the others are taking so long to catch up with me. Now I am worried, wondering whether we are meant to descend by another route. I’m returning the way we came, and we have to go back to the hut, but my mind is tired and I’m confused. Finally the others appear. I start to get a headache for the first time and all I want to do is stop and rest, so I sit often with my head in my hands. I feel bad for delaying the others but they say later they were also grateful for the rest.

Pammie resting in front of the glaciers (photo taken on the way up the mountain)

We descend to the crater rim and Luiz and Johann and Jules set off at a great pace straight back down the mountain, disregarding the switchbacks. I see Luiz sitting one last time till he windmills back down the mountain, out of sight. I stay with John, and now Hennie is stumbling behind me. His Namibian army boots are too tight in the toes and he is suffering from his toes and now his knees. He’s swaying, nearly out of control, nearly taking me out falling one time. We stop in Hans Meyer cave for a drink (I’ve only drunk 500 ml the entire morning) and he speaks to me in Afrikaans, asking for the number of something. I tell him we are in room 3, it’s about 11 AM, it’s about an hour back down, about 3 more km, hoping I’ve covered all the options. Now Hennie is stopping at every switchback and I want to leave him but feel bad, and stay. Finally I catch sight of the huts and I bolt, leaving them behind.

Pammie in red hat, on the descent. John and Johann in the lead and Jules and Luiz resting below them.

I finally reach the edge of the camp at around noon and Dave is there to take my photograph and to give me a hug. I continue on to the dorm and I am crying again (reached that finish line, where’s the podium, the band with the American national anthem!?!). Suzette greets me at the door, hands me a drink of orange energy liquid, leads me to bed, takes off my gaiters and my shoes, and puts me in my open sleeping bag. I am hot, and don’t want the covers, she says I will be cold soon. I’m sweaty and smell like a drowned lamb in my woolen sweater. I’m afraid to ask her how she’s done because I am under the impression that she turned back at Hans Meyer cave.

I rest for a while but now the others are talking of their adventures. I hear Brett tell Suzette that she needs to get back into bed, that she has done just as much work as everyone else. Then I learn that both Tracy and Suzette made it to Gilman’s peak, each separately with their own guide. Brett & Dave had turned back at the cave. Now we are chirping away excited, learning about the other’s experiences, Johann is on the upper bunk asleep I think and Luiz is finally dead to the world in his. We wait more than an hour and a half at least and finally Hennie arrives. I feel bad because he should have only been 15 minutes at the most behind me, but I learn that he completely stopped after I bolted and John had to go down the mountain to fetch two guides to help drag him down. The guides give us soup and fruit but we are still not able to eat much. Luiz won’t wake up for his meal, and here I was worrying we were talking too loudly.

Johann and Jules descending Kilimanjaro

2007-01-04T20:08:00.000-08:00

Climbing Kilimanjaro Part IX, the Summit Attempt Continued

Finally we make it to Hans Meyer cave at 5,150 m, the halfway point up today’s climb of the mountain. I try to drink a little and suck half an energy gel sachet. We continue up the mountain not long after. There is a bit of confusion because some people turn back and it is not until I arrive back at the hut later that I learn that Brett has turned back with pulmonary edema (he is coughing frothy blood later), and Dave has also turned back with concerns for his heart, and the consequences of him having a third heart attack and us having to drag his lifeless body back down the mountain. At this point I do not see Tracy and Suzette anymore as I am so focused on what is ahead (it is still dark), but since I can see Johann with us I assume that both of them have turned back.

Our group at Hans Meyer Cave. Pammie is in brown jacket, red pants, and black gaiters

We continue walking and the stopping is getting too much. Dr Hennie is behind me and keeps groaning the classic Afrikaans phrase of despair, “Ach, no man” every time he sees the Dutch people ahead of us stop. I finally work my way to the front of the bus and push our guide John in the back every time he stops and tell him in Swahili that stopping is very bad. He says we must wait for the others. I tell him we have three guides so they must separate us up, the slow people in one bus and the faster ones in another bus. Eventually we do break into separate buses but I don’t really appreciate it at this stage since I only look back once, to see the sunrise at the crater rim.

I look up every once in a while and am surprised at how the top of the mountain continues to stand directly above us, and I can see pretty trains of headlamps shining from the people winding their way above us. The sight of them so far above ought to depress me, but I like the looks of the lights. We constantly ask John how much further to the top. Eventually we reach some large rocks requiring relatively large steps. The hotel owner had told us to take heart at this stage, because the top is very near. We were glad to see them. We keep clambering up, at this stage it is so light I can turn off my headlamp, but it is not quite sunrise yet.

John, Luiz, Johann, Dr Hennie, and Pammie at Gilman's Point. Jules is taking the photograph.

Eventually we see a mass of people at what looks like the top, taking photographs of a glacier off to the north. Our guide pushes us forward and eventually we reach the sign that says Gilman’s Point, 5,685 m. I start sniveling and crying (I’m a weenie that cries when other people go through the finish line at marathons or stand up to accept their Olympic gold medal with the US national anthem playing). Dr Hennie, Johann, Luiz, and Julie and I take photographs of each other. Photos of us show all of us completely whacked but John the lone compus mentus face. It’s only at this stage that I realize who is actually around me, previously I had lost track of everyone except for Hennie right behind me, groaning ach no man.

Receeding glaciers near the top of Kilimanjaro

John points out Uhuru, the highest point on the mountain, in the distance. We ask him if we have time to make it, he says sure. It’s strange to think that even going as slowly as we did, we still reached Gilman’s point in the average of 6 hours. I’d thought we’d gone much slower than that. I am tired and sleepy but still feel strong and I am ready to push on for Uhuru. The hotel owner had told us that only a splitting headache or altitude sickness should turn us back at this stage, and not to turn back for only nausea, slight headache, or laziness or sleepiness, since we would kick ourselves later, he knew this from experience. It’s only 210 metres further up.

The view onto the glaciers and the valley plain below the cloud cover. Unfortunately views from Kilimanjaro are not that spectacular, as it is an isolated volcanic cone in an otherwise flat plain.

Amazing what a difference that small distance makes. I am very sleepy, I have no energy, but no headache, and no stomach problems. It’s just that I feel so tired, every step takes such exertion, the thought of the steep slope is depressing, and my heart is racing. I stop often to let my heart beat get back to normal, but the others don’t seem to mind, they stop also. Johann & Hennie push slightly ahead. Julie and I are walking roughly together, and every time we stop and I look back, Luiz is flat out lying on his back. We call out to him to continue and he barely lifts his long arm and flicks his wrist, waving with his fingers dismissively, saying, go on without me. We cajole him into following. At one stage I bribe him with a cookie and a Diamox at the next rest stop. He comes up, collects his Diamox, eats part of his frozen cookie, and continues on. A photo of him taken around this time shows him dragging his feet like a zombie with John walking behind him, looking for all the world like a shepherd patiently driving his charge along.

TO BE CONTINUED....

2007-01-03T20:59:00.000-08:00

Climbing Kilimanjaro Part VIII

Day four (beginning at 11 pm on day 3): Kibo hut to Gillman’s point at sunrise. 5 km, 4,703 m to 5,685 m, 6 hours (3.1 miles, 15,430 ft to 18,652 ft). On 1.5 km (0.9 miles) to Uhuru peak at 5,895 m (19,340 ft), elevation gain 1,193 m, 1:5 gradient. An hour’s rest at Kibo hut then back down to Horombo hut. Total 27 km (16.7 miles) distance, 16 hours on the trail.

We are awoken at 11 pm. We grimly put on our summit clothes and try to eat some cookies and have something to drink, with my nausea I can only manage one cookie and a cup of cocoa. We make an unbelievable racket, which must surely disturb the people in the rooms around us, who are scheduled to depart an hour after us, because they have walked so quickly the previous days. Jules, Brett, and Luiz, getting dressed the morning (actually the night) of the summit attempt.

Andrew announces that he has pulmonary edema and is going to descend. This upsets Dave who now wants to accompany Andrew back down the mountain; Andrew has saved Dave’s life twice during heart attacks before and now he feels bad for abandoning him. Julie convinces her dad that it will not help Andrew any for him (Dave) to give up at this stage, and so Dave prepares to climb.

We assemble at the door of the hut at 12 midnight and set off up the mountain with our headlamps on. It’s just as well we are leaving at night because the sight of what is ahead of us would be very depressing. The first few hundred metres is relatively flat and then the mountain begins a series of switchbacks crisscrossing up the face of the mountain, the path is made of loose crushed ash and vesicular basalt. We take only baby steps to avoid sliding backwards.

Dave, the only one of us looking fresh, getting dressed, with Andrew behind him, who has not yet made his announcement.

We make an early toilet stop that seems to last forever. We assume it is Tracy since she always stops but we discover she is amongst us. We wonder why are we waiting. We all train our lights on something moving in the dark and can see only a faint outline. Is it one of us? Let’s go. No, someone says to wait. We wait forever. No Tracy is here let’s go. Is there someone out there? We all sweep the area with our lights. Finally Luiz appears, appalled that all of us have had our lights training on him when he needed some privacy.

Dr Hennie gives a thumb up while getting ready for the climb. There are no photos after leaving the hut until sunrise, since none of us use a flash outdoors.

We continue on, our bus goes very slowly, too slowly for me, and we stop often, this is when I feel the cold in my toes and my fingers. I feel strong but sleepy and feel the constant stopping is sapping my strength. The owner of the Marangu hotel told us to set a goal in our minds, like 100 steps, then have a rest, but never to sit down. We are having a rest perhaps every 20 steps, we’ll never make it at this rate. We have a set time at which we have to turn around and descend the mountain in order to make it back to the hut before the following nightfall.
Suzette preparing for the climb, looking very apprehensive.

The Americans march cheerfully past us, their guides singing Swahili songs of conquest and singing the praises of Irvine, Colorado, and Kilimanjaro. We are on the same portion of the trail with the 9 Dutch people and some others we don’t know making a bit of a traffic jam, and we are out of synch. Every time they stop they stand directly in the trail and we have trouble passing them. When we want to stop they want to get past us, but at least we stand aside to let them pass.

I am now thinking murderous thoughts about why I would be so stupid as to not only choose to do this unpleasant thing when I don’t even care about climbing mountains and what’s more spend $700 in the process. Mauritius, why didn’t I go to Mauritius instead. White sand beach, girlie drink with umbrella in it, swimming, sun, sleep, sleep, sleeeep…. I tell myself that when I make it to the crater rim I will stop and go back. The rim is the top as far as I’m concerned, the 210 extra metres is just a geological freak of nature, right? I still feel strong though, no headache. But every time I take a sip of water I feel nauseous and feel like I will have the runs soon so I stop drinking, although the prospect of a dehydration/altitude headache worries me. So we are ascending very slowly.

TO BE CONTINUED....

2007-01-02T20:11:00.000-08:00

Climbing Kilimanjaro Part VII

Day three: Horombo hut to Kibo hut via the upper saddle. 17 km, 7 hours walking, 3,720 m to 4,703 m (elevation gain 983m), 1:15 gradient (10.5 miles, 12,205 ft to 15,430 ft)

The group on the morning of Day 3 prior to setting off, with the snow capped peak of Kibo in the background

Again we are awoken at 6:30 with hot water and the hike begins at 8 AM. We have the option of reaching Kibo hut by the lower saddle which is the easiest, shortest, and most commonly used route, or via the upper route, which adds an extra 1.5 hours. We decide to take the advice of the hotel and ascend via the upper route for the better views and to avoid the dust kicked up by porters descending the mountain, and to assist in acclimatization.

On the morning of Day 3. At this altitude the sun is intense and burning, but we are warm with the exertion. Dr Hennie is wearing gloves to protect his hands from sunburn. Brett was amused at the style and asked if he was planning on doing a touch of gardening along the way.

The trekking companies give you the option of spending a day’s acclimatization sitting at Horombo hut for a second day, but we declined, figuring that in case we did experience headaches, we would prefer not to sit around for an extra day and suffer. Besides each extra day on the mountain means more food, porters, and hut fees. The Japanese girl stays behind in Horombo for her acclimatization day but the Dutch, American, Czech, and Belgians continue on up with us.

The group at Zebra Rocks before lunch time.

I am now concerned that being in the lead for the first two days will compromise my summit attempt so I join the bus that now consists of Johann as the steady pace maker, Suzette, Hennie, Dave, and Andrew. Luiz tries to stay with us but can’t seem to shorten his stride, often Dave and Andrew also pull ahead. I can’t hack the slow pace any more and Luiz and I again go into the lead until lunch, afterwards I stay with the bus.

The group at a rest stop. Brett is not doing well and Andrew is very quiet. There is a memorial here to someone who presumably died on the mountain. The memorial reads: Loretta Mae Hedrick, January 29, 1931 -April 29, 1979. From the flame trees of Thika, to the Serengeti Plains, from the mountains of the moon, to the snows of Kilimanjaro, Africa was her land.

We are now walking above timberline in alpine desert, a bleak moon-like landscape littered with stones and volcanic bombs. Many people have taken to spelling out words and phrases with rocks, and there are cairns stacked everywhere. The saddle we are on is formed from the merging of two separate peaks, Mawenzi and Kibo, which together form the mountain of Kilimanjaro. Mawenzi peaks are jagged and suitable only for experienced mountain climbers. Kibo is the highest peak at 5,896 m.
This photo taken before lunch shows the trail ahead, which winds up to Kibo hut way in the distance, and ends just below the cloud which is rapidly approaching us from the mountain

Photos of us at this stage capture very concentrated expressions on all our faces but I don’t recall a heavy atmosphere, everyone is happy and cheerful. It is still warm enough to hike in t-shirt and shorts but I have changed to long johns to avoid further sunburn (unfortunately with the pants on inside out with a giant white tag fluttering in the breeze like a bunny tail, which amuses the others no end). I am using the dreaded sunblock which smears the dust from the trail into a muddy mess. Brett, Tracy, and Julie remain far in the rear, continuing their water drinking fest. I am not feeling the altitude, have no stomach or headache troubles and am not suffering from exertion and feel very strong. I learn later that Brett had a headache at Horombo hut which continues to haunt him.
Lunch stop. We are concerned about the mayonnaise in the egg salad sandwiches which have been sweltering in John's backpack for three days now.

Dr Hennie leading the Bulyanhulu group

We make it to Kibo hut at around 3 PM again and find it cluttered with tents from other climbers attempting the mountain from the western side. The hut is divided into an eating area and several dorms sleeping 12 people so we have a dorm to ourselves. Everyone sets about intent on sorting out their sleeping gear and the gear they will change into for the summit attempt.

Trekking across the lunar landscape

We are worried that we will have to expend unnecessary energy stuffing our sleeping bags into their cases in the middle of the night and so we are happy to learn that we can leave all our gear spread out in the locked dormitory where we will return for an hour’s rest after reaching the summit. Everyone asks the other, what are you wearing on your feet, your bottoms, your tops, what snacks will you take with you, how much water will you carry, etc etc.

Brett bringing up the rear. You can see Kibo hut just above the relatively flat area, and then the trail to the summit winding up the mountain

We have now lost our appetites and can barely force ourselves to eat our dinner of spaghetti. We want to go to bed as early as possible as we will be awoken at 11 pm but the guides try to tempt us with tinned fruit. The Belgians look ill and can’t touch their food, the Americans are served dinner in their rooms and we don’t see the Czechs at all. The water has been carried up for us and is filled with slimy algae which is strained off for our drinking water, I get a green strand of it in my soup.

Brett finally makes it to Kibo hut, with Tracy and Jules behind

My head is fine but my stomach is now starting to rumble. Julie has a bad headache and takes her first Diamox and instantly feels better. We eat a small meal and go to bed at around 6:30 pm. I wake up at around 9:30 pm with a case of the nerves and a badly constricted stomach from the atomic strength waist band on my polar plus tights, so get up to go to the toilet and can’t sleep well after that.

2007-01-01T10:32:00.000-08:00

Climbing Kilimanjaro VI

Accommodation on the mountain: The climb was hut based, the first two nights are spent in Swiss style A frame chalets sleeping 4 or 6 with clean mattresses and pillows. Snorers and suspected snorers are banished to their own hut (Dave, Andrew, Luiz, and Hennie). Apparently during the very busy time of the year there is not enough room to accommodate all climbers and so people wind up sleeping on the floor in a large dorm room. This would annoy me greatly after having paid all that money for the service, and wanting to be in the best condition possible for the climb. We didn’t have this problem though and mostly were kept in rooms together.

Day two, the group poses in front of our first glimpse of snow capped Kibo, the highest point on Kilimanjaro to the left, and Mawenzi to the right.

There is a large dining hall at each camp to serve all persons. Tanzanian staff sleep in separate huts and cooking quarters were not inspected for the sake of ignorant bliss. There are no showers but running freezing cold tap water is available if you really want to clean your feet. Long drop toilets at the first huts, western and Asian style toilets at the second night’s huts. Third night spent in dorm style room with all 10 of us in the same dorm. Terrible long drop toilets with many short drop accidents. Fourth night spent going up and down the mountain then an early sleep the following night at the second night’s hut. Relatively clean drinking water at all the huts except the last hut, our porters carry water for us to this hut. We filter all our water and add cleaning drops at the last night’s hut.

Brett and Tracy following the trail through grassland

Our other companions on the mountain: Also beginning their climb on the same day as us is a group of 9 Dutch people concluding their month long tour through Tanzania and Kenya. They had the option to either end in Zanzibar or Kilimanjaro. I think this is why so many people fail on the mountain, it is tacked onto the end of something else and isn’t the main objective of their visit. There’s a single Japanese girl who now lives in Perugia, Italy, a pothead who spends her free time smoking joints with her porters. Then there are two American brothers from California, two young Czech guys, and two young Belgians. All these groups are always way ahead of us and reach the huts about 2 hours earlier than we do, but eat their meals together in the same hall as us. We notice that the two Belgian guys will always sit down for their dinner at the same time as us but have to wait for the start of their meal until around the time the 10 of us have finished eating our dessert. Each group has it’s eating area demarcated by their table cloth, ours is a red and blue checked Masaai cloth. The Belgians have a small Bart Simpson table cloth, the Americans are impressed by their scrap of Christmas paper.

The group stops for lunch Day Two. We are starting to see scrubby brush type plants.

Day two: Mandara hut to Horombo hut. 15 km, 7 hours walking, 2,700 m to 3,720 m (altitude gain 1,020m), 1:15 gradient. (9 miles walking, altitude from 8,858 ft to 12,204 ft)

The porters wake us up at 6:30 with a bowl of hot water to wash our faces, and a cup of coffee or tea. Breakfast is at 7 AM, and we depart at 8 AM. We’d gone to bed at 7 PM so we have had a very good rest. Except Johann has been sick in the night with food poisoning but is soon sorted out by the doctors, with all of the medical kits between us we could do a little light open heart surgery and deliver a baby and inoculate it against all known diseases if we wanted to.

A steeper portion of the trail. This area had suffered from fire a few years previously and had not yet recovered.

We climb a small distance through the rain forest which gives way to open shrubby heather and meadows, with some giant lobelias. This day is our first clear shot of Kilimanjaro and so everyone stops for photographs. Again Luiz and I are in the lead although we still feel we are walking very slowly, with the same buses behind us as before. Again we have a picnic lunch at a rest stop with tables and toilets. The track is still good and the gradient quite easy. I had been concerned about the gradient because the effort of hoisting my body weight up on a step really drains me of energy. I couldn’t get anyone to answer the gradient question for me even after intensive grilling but I am here to say that there are only approximately 10 full body weight steps, the rest of it is very easy! (A note on gradients: a 1:15 gradient means that there is an elevation gain of 1 unit of measure for every 15 horizontal units. So if you walk 15 feet, you will climb 1 foot of elevation.)

Transition zone between grassland and scrubby bush

We arrive at Horombo Hut and have our afternoon tea, eat dinner, filter our water, brush teeth, and into bed at 7 PM again. It is nice sharing the hut with 5 others, each of us checks on the other, what are you wearing on your bottoms, your tops, what are you eating, have you got your sunscreen, are you drinking enough water, how’s your stomach how’s your head, etc etc. A lot of psychological support which is very helpful.

Giant lobelias in the mountaine area

Johann, Suzette, Brett, Tracy, and Pammie on the bunk. Brett has been feeling the effects of altitude the whole day and is not doing well. He is beginning to cough up blood, we will learn later. The only way he can sleep is by sitting up.

Dave, Andrew, and Johann practice with the evacuation ambulance stored beneath the huts in case of emergency.

2006-12-31T09:28:00.000-08:00

Climbing Kilimanjaro V

Day one: Marangu gate headquarters to Mandara hut. 12 km, 5 hours walking, 1700 m to 2700 m (altitude gain 1000m), 1:12 gradient. (7.5 miles, 5,577 ft to 8,858 ft)

The team at the park headquarters sign at the start of the trek

We load up two ancient vehicles with ourselves and our gear and drive about 4 miles to the park entrance. We sign in, have a group photo taken at the entrance sign, and we are on our way. The first day is through a lovely old growth rainforest (2,000 mm rain per year, 79 inches), in shade, warm humid air, and Spanish moss and epiphytes hanging from the trees. The trail is of dirt and rocks and a few wooden bridges over small streams. The trail is wide enough for two persons to walk side by side. It is a very relaxing beautiful walk and we are encouraged to take each day slowly to assist in acclimatization (besides there is nothing to do at the huts once there). John the head guide and Dave. John is carrying our lunches and a sack for collecting rubbish on the trail

But Luiz and I find ourselves in the lead nearly instantly, even though we both feel we are walking excruciatingly slowly. It’s worse for Luiz because his legs are twice as long as mine (I tell him I am actually walking twice as far as he is). I expected Julie and Brett to be in the lead since they are both very ambitious young guns but they were no doubt conserving themselves for the summit attempt. Not only that but they took a print or digital photo every three steps so the mountain is now fairly well mapped.

Pammie and Luiz in the front
We fall into four buses: Luiz and myself, then Dave and Andrew, then Suzette, Johann, and Hennie chirping away in Afrikaans, then Brett, Julie, and Tracy in the rear. Julie and Tracy are in a water drinking competition and drink about 5 litres per day each which requires frequent toilet stops. There are little kids on the lower slopes asking for candies or pens, unfortunately many foreign tourists give them gifts and now they are addicted to it. We hear the sound of wood collectors in the forest also, this is legal. On the trail, day one. Suzette giving Johann a big smile
At around 12 we begin to encounter the first climbers descending the mountain, nearly all of them look surprisingly clean and refreshed, and a considerable amount of them are the frail transparent type you’d think would never attempt something like this. There are a few extremely despondent people. I’m afraid to ask people if they succeeded, in case they hadn’t. I mention this to the others behind us and they say they have been asking everyone how they went. So if the person looks receptive I will ask them and we get a few rapturous tales of their adventures and advice. On the trail in beautiful rainforest

We have lunch from our packed lunch sacks at a picnic area with benches and a toilet. We arrive at Mandara hut at around 3 pm where the porters eventually greet us with warm water for washing, and set out coffee, tea, and popcorn and biscuits in the mess hall. Some of the others continue on up the path to have a look at a small cinder cone, I conserve my strength (besides I’ve seen a bunch of craters). We are all so committed to doing everything possible to facilitate our success that we walk very slowly, drink lots of water, scarf down any food set in front of us (also rejecting anything slightly dodgy looking, just in case of food poisoning), and go to sleep at 7 pm. Suzette hates drinking water

There’s no way that old guy’s gunna make it:

Hennie is walking up the trail with Suzette & Johann and his mop of white hair is sweaty, and he must look like he’s struggling. A few climbers going down the trail pass them and once they think they are out of earshot, comment: “there’s no way that old guy’s gunna make it”. This comment rings in Hennie’s ears for the rest of the hike and is oft repeated.

Dr Hennie and Suzette

2006-12-30T10:42:00.000-08:00

Climbing Kilimanjaro IV

The route:

There are eight different routes up the mountain radiating along the southern approach from east to west, only two approach from the north. We chose the Marangu Route, which approaches the mountain from the south east, and is the most popular route and thus nicknamed the Coca Cola route and deemed “easy” and “not strenuous” and “the least attractive route” by those who have not attempted the climb on this route. The hotel owners assured us that there is nothing second class about the route and certainly nothing easy about it. They say that they are upset by the negative image given to this route by the guide books and say that the bad reputation was started by guides working on the western routes, as more annoying paperwork is required on the Marangu route, so they want to begin the climb on the western side.

Pammie waiting for the others to complete check in procedures at the Park entrance.

Certainly several people at work and a few members of the South African hiking club gave me a hard time for attempting Kilimanjaro on the Coca Cola route. This was before I knew the differences in the routes, so my answer to them was, why should one attempt to spend more time and effort on a mountain than necessary? The other routes require more days and are not hut based, therefore more gear is required, and more porters, and thus the trip costs more money, additionally, an extra day at altitude might equate into an extra day’s headache. Why make my life difficult? There is $700 at stake here, I don’t want to throw it away! If I want to go on a hike to look at flowers and catch butterflies, I shall do it at a lower altitude and at less cost, and without a headache!

Dr Hennie, Johann, Brett, Pammie, Suzette, and Tracy in their jammies collecting filtered water at Mandara Hut, Day 1.

My clothes & gear:

Lightweight supposedly waterproof Hi-Tec hiking shoes (never put to the water test), several pairs of thick socks, several pairs of thin socks. Four pairs long johns pants, four pairs long johns shirts, one pair shorts (worn the first two days, on the third day I wore long johns because my legs were getting sunburned, but would have preferred the shorts). Two pairs polar-plus pants (one pair never worn), one pair polar plus tights with atomic strength waistband. One jersey, one t-shirt, one regular weight woolen sweater, one polar plus jacket, one gortex shelled polar plus jacket, Gortex pants, Gortex outer shell, one down jacket never used. Thin pair of gloves, heavy outer gloves (these were thrown in at the last minute and I was very glad to have them), polar plus beanie, woolen beanie. Own sleeping bag, silk inner liner sheet, pillow case.

Pammie's pack on the top bunk at Mandara Hut, Day 1

If it sounds like a lot, it did to me too. I asked the lady who checked my stuff and she said, better too much stuff than not enough. This is also my general philosophy in life although this attitude is changing now that I am paying for my own house moving costs. I also wonder whether my porter agrees with this policy...

Pammie holding staff outside Mandara Hut, morning of Day 2, with Dr Hennie, Luiz, Brett, Dave, and Andrew.

Sunglasses, reluctantly borrowed sunscreen, borrowed wooden staff (I fanatically despise carrying things in my hands and resisted the dreaded staff but my friend Sandy persuaded me to try it. I used a wooden staff with metal tip provided by the hotel and it was indispensable and one of my best friends on the mountain, although it did make my right hand get sunburnt and cold (normally I just keep my hands up in my jacket sleeves and never wear gloves). At our orientation meeting we were advised to select a staff that came up to the middle of our chest, the better to rest on it on summit day, and it came in very handy for this.

Porters outside Horombo Hut, the morning of Day 2

I wore a regular book bag sized backpack for water, warm weather gear, rain gear (luckily it never rained on us, but I used the gortex on the summit day for extra warmth and to keep out the wind, but we were lucky and it was always clear and never windy), snacks, digital camera (I took very few photographs, but the others took brilliant ones. Two 500 ml Nalgene water bottles, one 1 litre Nalgene water bottle. I had troubles with my water freezing on the summit attempt, the others carried canteens inside their jackets which kept them warmer, but ultimately we found that drinking water made us nauseous on the summit attempt and so it wasn’t a problem. Not a slip of paper extra beyond what was required in my daypack. Headlamp for nighttime summit attempt.

Dr Hennie laughing at Johann taking a photo of my unusual walking gear: long johns to keep the sun from burning my legs, but with the label showing. According to popular opinion the long johns were inside out. I think they were right.

Tea towel for face and hand washing, small slivers of soap, small toothpaste, toothbrush, contacts, contact lens solution, Diamox, Ibuprofen, malaria prophylactic tablets, malaria treatment medication, bandaids, mirror, spare batteries, map. Snacks included chocolate bars (never ate), instant soup, hot chocolate with marshmallows, rice krispies marshmallow cookies, red hot tamales (never ate and now they are all welded together), macadamia brittle, cashew nougat, Berocca fizzy vitamin tablets for drinking water, never used, 1 litre thermos for soup, never used, since they provided us with soup at dinner anyway and I was afraid of carrying the extra weight. My porter Richard carried nearly all my snacks up and down the mountain again, including the thermos. I gave him one chocolate bar (he wouldn’t know what white chocolate is, right?), and ate only the marshmallow cookies and the macadamia brittle for snacks.

Porters carrying our gear past our first view of the summit of Kibo. There are two volcanoes within Kilimanjaro: Kibo, which is higher, and Mawenzi, which is harder to climb.

2006-12-29T13:55:00.000-08:00

Climbing Kilimanjaro III

Cost:

US$700, about half go to park fees (for four days up, 1 day down, 4 nights in huts), the other half goes to the hotel who provide all the support and salaries for the crew. In addition the head guide gets a $50 tip, the assistant guides $30, and the porters $20. Persons feeling particularly grateful for extra personal attention will give additional tips at their discretion. Hotel accommodation is $30 including a full course country style dinner and breakfast. Hotel grounds are beautiful with a restaurant, shop, bar, gardens, and simple cottage style accommodation.

Dave, Andrew, and Brett in the gardens of Marangu Hotel

Food on the mountain:

Breakfast consists of tea, coffee, cocoa, milo. Cornflakes, papaya, bananas, hard boiled eggs, bread and butter and peanut butter or jam or honey. Sausages, tomatoes, and cucumbers. No one is going hungry here.

Having tea upon arrival at Mandara Hut, Day 1

Lunch is in a packed bag and eaten at picnic rest stops, consisting of two sandwiches, carrots, bananas, and a cookie, tea and coffee.
Breakfast at Mandara Hut, Day 2

Afternoon tea on arrival at the hut is popcorn, cookies, and drinks.

Lunch on the way to Horombo Hut, Day 2

Dinner is anything from steak and fried potatoes, to pasta, baked beans and chips, stewed vegetables, cabbage, soup, bread, and fruit or biscuits for dessert. I’d heard horror stories about the food on the mountain and we were very pleasantly surprised.

Dinner at Horombo Hut, Day 2

Everyone carries personal snacks, Suzette & Johann have about a suitcase full of energy bars. There is no shortage of food whatsoever.

Dave enjoying dinner at Horombo Hut, Day 2

All photos by Julie, Brett, and Johann

2006-12-28T13:28:00.000-08:00

Climbing Kilimanjaro

The team:

Suzette de Winnaar, a 48 year old South African buyer from the purchasing department, and her husband

Johann, a 48 year old electrician, both runners and keen squash players. Suzette has been talking about climbing Kili since we got here in early 2000. The three of us spent the previous week together on safari.

Suzette and Johann with Dave and Dr Hennie to the left and right

Julie Shuttleworth, an ambitious upper 20’s Australian metallurgist and now plant superintendent, wall climber, and hiker. We also worked together at Telfer. Suzette spoke to Julie who took the initiative in organizing the climb, and she and I researched a few outfitters and decided on Marangu Hotel.

Julie’s dad Dave, an English fitter, about 64, and survivor of two heart attacks whilst cycling. Deaf as a post but very friendly with a good sense of humour, and was always talking to other climbers.

Julie and Dave Shuttleworth on the Bulyanhulu airstrip

Dave’s Australian friend Andrew, a medical doctor, also the same age, saved Dave’s life twice. Very quiet and takes advantage of Dave’s deafness by taking the piss out of him while he can’t hear.
Andrew and Dave at Marangu Hotel

Brett Thomson, an Australian upper 20’s mill rat, also into wall climbing, very fit, and a scuba
instructor.

Brett’s Australian sister Tracy, in her early 30’s, in real estate. Very chirpy and fit right in.

Brett and Julie Thomson on the Bulyanhulu Dash airplane

Dr. Hennie van Staden, a 50 year old Namibian medical doctor, eccentric, bachelor. Probable misanthropist, but surprised me with his charming personality in our company. He instantly endeared himself to me on the first day by saying I had the loveliest accent he’d ever heard (he’s been to every country on the planet except for Corsica, so he knows his accents…). This was before the swearing started, no doubt he’s changed his mind since.

Dr Hennie with Suzette to the right

Luiz Correia, a 41 year old Portuguese descent South African, former plant superintendent, now continuous improvement coach who lists his occupation as ----, also into running, sailing, and squash.

Myself. My preparation for the hike included running 46 km per week in the last days and eating steak for dinner every day for a week before the climb to boost red blood cells. Grrr!!!

Luiz and Pammie at dinner at Marangu Hotel

2006-12-27T19:56:00.000-08:00

Kilimanjaro

The support:

Our guides were provided by the Marangu Hotel, located at the foot of Kilimanjaro, in the village of Marangu. The hotel has been guiding since 1932, the owner Desmond was born in Tanzania and first climbed Kilimanjaro at age 14. All staff at the hotel including receptionists have either attempted or climbed the mountain so that all are familiar with what lies ahead, and know exactly what the word “hard” means. The hotel provided intensive information via email and a 2 hour orientation meeting at the hotel dealing with issues ranging from altitude sickness (headaches, nausea, loss of appetite, dehydration, pulmonary and cerebral edema), sun protection, food, high altitude medication (Diamox), Tanzanian etiquette, what to expect on each day, how best to approach the climb physically and mentally, etc. Desmond tells us that on average 30% of the people fail to reach the top but their business has kept a database for years and the hotel has a success rate of 87% to the crater rim and 70% to the summit (the actual highest point on the mountain is a 210 m high bump on the rim of the crater). People most likely to fail are athletes and teenagers, because athletes push themselves too hard, and teenagers lack the discipline. An interesting psychological note is that the hotel only quotes recent successes and makes no mention of failures.

Suzette and Pammie listen to Desmond of Marangu Hotel during the orientation lecture

All of the Bulyanhulu group are concerned about malaria since we notice many mosquitoes (malaria is endemic to our area and a huge problem at the mine), but apparently there is no malaria here. Local knowledge has it that “traveling” is the cause of malaria.

Porters and support staff at Marangu Hotel lined up with our gear

The hotel lends out climbing gear free of charge as required, from sleeping bags, canteens, jackets, clothes, blankets, walking sticks, back packs, etc. Staff inspect your gear and provide extras where necessary.

The team: Jules, Pammie, Dr Hennie, Andrew, Suzette, Dave, Tracy, Luiz, and Brett kneeling. Johann is behind the camera most of the time.

John is the head guide, and has climbed Kilimanjaro over 100 times. He is in his upper 40’s but looks much older, and has the face of a gorilla (a nice gorilla though). Alternate guides are Kamili and Faustino, brothers, around age 60 or so they look, who have climbed the mountain over 350 times. It took me till the third day to realize they were two different people. Last alternate guide is Thomas, in his upper 20’s. There are 21 Tanzanian staff in total, the remainder being porters and cooks (one porter for each climber). The porters carry all our climbing gear, food, cooking utensils, and some water. We only carry small day packs with rain gear, warm clothes, water for the day, cameras, and snacks. Together there are 31 of us on the mountain and we are far and away the best looked after, particularly at meal times.

Pammie and Brett during the packing

2006-12-27T14:46:00.000-08:00

Last Email from Barcelona

We haven't done too much stuff today, went to a weird museum in a very nice building but with art by a Spanish guy we had never heard of, Antoni Tapies. Didn't like his stuff, which was kind of angry and industrial and uncomfortable looking, but the museum was nice and curated well. Then we walked down to the contemporary art museum but it was closed. So we've done a lot of walking and pottering around and seem to have had a big day but haven't accomplished much. We did find a good pair of shoes for me and a nice skirt for Cailli though!

The Antoni Tapies museum, which Cailli noticed because of the barbed wire sculpture on the roof, which should have been a tip off to his style, but we didn't know any better at that stage.

Tomorrow we will go back to the contemporary art museum and then go to Gaudi´s Sagrada Familia. That's our last full day and those are the two other big items on our list. We are in a weird Chinese internet cafe, very smokey, I am on a very bad keyboard, so I won't write much!

Detail on the door of Antoni Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia

The flamenco guitar was okay, there was a guy doing the singing shouting thing like the Gypsy Kings, then a lady came out and danced for a bit, but the best part was just watching the locals in the audience following the music. The band had an acoustic guitar, violin, a singer/shouter, electric guitar, and a percussion drum thing which was very neat, just a square box that the guy sat on and patted the front between his legs. It had a cool sound, we saw a drum shop today and had a look at them, too bad I don't play drums.

Antonio Gaudi's La Sagrada Familia, still being built after all of these years.

Interior of the Contemporary Art Museum, Barcelona

Pammie's shopping loot, which includes: drinks coasters, a bullfight poster, three silver rings, a coin purse, three Korean Pucca purses, three pairs of Camper shoes, a nice watch which I haven't figured out how to change the time on yet, three bowls for serving chips and olives, and a waiter's bag for Joe.

2006-12-26T08:56:00.000-08:00

Hello from Barcelona

We had a huge day yesterday. First we walked up to the Joan Miro museum. I was very hungry for my lunch by the time we finished, so we found a place along Las Ramblas which had seafood paella, a tourist trap joint but still okay, with a jug of cold sangria to go with. We then headed on to the Picasso museum which was very good. He lived out this way for several years and donated something like 2,500 pieces of art to the museum. It shows work from all of the different periods of painting he did over his life. He started when he was 9 years old and actually was a very good portraitist. I made a memorable quote to Cailli that Picasso could paint quite well when he wanted to. Anyways there were no particularly famous paintings at the museum but it was a good history of his work.

Hams for sale in a shop in Barcelona

Then while we were walking along Las Ramblas, a big group of bicyclists went past, all nude. Yowch, that just has to hurt. So we have seen some reasonably weird stuff. Saw the nude bikies, then a while later rounded a corner and saw a massive group of old people standing in little rings of about 8 people, all holding hands and holding them up high, and doing some weird pogo stick dance jumping up and down in place to a Germanic sounding band. There was a booth with a bunch of trophies too so I guess the most stylish pogostickers must get points and a trophy.

Wrought iron detail outside a Gaudi apartment building. Gaudi's father was an ironmonger.

After dinner we were walking back along Las Ramblas and heard a crowd of people running up behind us and shouting and screaming. In front of us, another crowd running towards us and shouting and screaming. All wearing red and green and white and wearing flags and yelling numbers over and over. The two groups of screamers met right where Cailli and I were standing, and they were just gleeful, jumping up and down, waving their flags and jumping and yelling. We figured the Mexicans must have won their World Cup game against the Iranians, which they had, we saw it on the news later, I think it was 3-1 or 4-1, and they were shouting the score over and over again. It was fun to watch, they were so happy.

Art Nouveau building. Note detail under overhang at the top right.

Today we did a huge walking tour of all of the Gaudi buildings including the Park Guell, and then some modernista stuff, which is Art Nouveau to everyone else. A big day walking, then to celebrate Cailli's birthday, and my new job, and went to a very flash restaurant, I think it's the nicest Cailli's ever been to. We started out with a glass of champagne, then they gave us a bunch of complimentary appetisers, like a little mussle with seawater gelatin, then some interesting little nibblies. For my starter I had steak tartare with two potato french fries, Iranian caviar, and mustard. And for my main, caramelised veal cheek with bean foam. They did quite a few foamy things, Cailli had some kind of cod foam and cheese foam, which she liked. Then for dessert I had sage sorbet with honey fettucine and seagrass soup. A little weird.

Gaudi's Casa Mila apartment building

So now we are a bit sleepy and dopey, finished our tour of the modernista stuff, and are headed to look at some more buildings in a bit. Tomorrow we will hit a few more museums. I think we will also go to a flamenco show one evening. We still have two full days to fill up. It's quite cool here, lots of good architecture, interesting shops and restaurants and cafes and things, and the weather has been perfect, blue skies, dry, warmish but with a breeze to cool things down. And our hotel is very nice with a very good air conditioning system and some very fluffy blankets and pillows so I can snuggle under the covers and breathe cool air but still be warm.

2006-12-25T00:00:00.000-08:00

Barcelona (June 2006)

Not too many transport dramas to report today, got to the hotel in Barcelona at around 1 pm, Cailli didn't land till 1:45 so thought I would check in and make sure everything was cool. I had telephoned to make the reservation about 7 weeks ago and emailed to confirm, but you never know....I was particularly worried they would try to put us in a room with one bed (I don't share beds with girls even if they are my best friend!). I had stayed in this hotel the first night I arrived and wasn't particularly impressed...there are so many cute hotels in Spain and this one is kind of boring, and grey, and boring, and... just grey.

An outdoor bird market on Las Ramblas, Barcelona

Well I got there, and they tell me there is a problem with the reservation and they are moving us to another hotel for tonight and then for the next four nights we can come back. I am very annoyed because it's a hassle packing and unpacking, and also, Cailli and I in the meantime had been searching for a better hotel but couldn't come up with one, after turning down a better and less expensive hotel because they only had four nights accommodation after which we would have had to change to another. And here we are in the very same situation but in a more expensive, boring, and grey hotel. Hmph. I said that wasn't very nice, as I had made the reservation 7 weeks ago and they should have let me know. They don't wanna hear about it. It's the same price, what's my problem. Hmph.

Spookey creatures from the sea at Barcelona markets

So off we march to the new hotel which turns out to be absolutely beautiful and modern and extremely cool! Yowza. I ask can we stay there the whole five nights for the same price? His eyes light up and he says yes. Yay! For the same price as the grey hotel! So I call up the grey hotel and tell 'em to get naffed. So now we are staying at this very nice hotel at a very good price! So it's turned out well. We stumbled upon these Catalonia dancers outside the Barcelona cathedral. A bizarre sight when you are not expecting it.

So Cailli didn't get in till nearly 4 pm which is the latest they will serve lunch here. So we walked her luggage to a restaurant I had scouted out near the metro while I was waiting for her, then we hit our favourite Spanish shoe shop, Camper, and I got, um, two pairs of shoes! Cailli still had her suitcase with her. We checked her into the hotel and she likes it too. So far all we have done is walk down Las Ramblas to see all the street performers and went into the food markets which have fantastic displays of very exotic fruits and all kinds of bizarre seafood. Then we went to see the cathedral, on the way there we saw tickets on sale for a Concierto de Aranjuez, with Manuel Gonzalez, said to be the best guitarist of Spanish music, who has played at the Lincoln Center in NYC and other happening places. So we have tickets to see that tomorrow night. Gaudi's Parc Guell in Barcelona

So we have plotted up which museums we want to see, then on Monday when all the museums are shut we will do a guided architectural tour of the Gaudi buildings. So should be a lot of fun! We are out of here on Thursday so we have lots of time to explore. Parc Guell

And it is very fun with Cailli here, I'm taking more photos and of course it's fun to have her to talk to, she's very easy going and a good companion.

2006-12-23T09:11:00.000-08:00

Hello from Sitges (June 2006)

Well I made it to Sitges, which is a beach resort about 30 minutes south of Barcelona. It's very hip with the gay community, I should have known better and spent more time here rather than Benidorm. This place is very cool with lots of neat shops and restaurants and things. And the weather has been nice and clear blue skies this whole time which has been good too. Still haven't made it down to see the beach, because now that the bad, bad laundry man has all of the bottom half of my clothes I tragically had to go and get some replacements!! Got some nice half shorts half pants things that will look good enough to wear to work in the summer, or on a mine somewhere where it's hot.

Salt cod hanging in the window in San Sebastian. Pammie in reflection; skirt now in the possession of the bad, bad laundryman.

Getting here was a bit of a drama. I had to get on the bus at 8:55 AM yesterday, which is a decent enough time. Dragged my suitcase down to the bus stop which if you remember is not actually a bus stop, just the side of the road. So I am there about 15 minutes early. At 8:55 the bus is still not there. Neither at 9:10. Nor at 9:20. I am starting to get worried. As far fetched as it seems, perhaps the bus was here really early and already left. Or maybe there's another departure point. I ask a girl next to me, she doesn't know. There are other buses going to Valencia, Alicante, Madrid. No one wants to go to Barcelona.

Frank Gehry's Guggenheim Museum, Bilbao, Spain

I go to the ticket counter, where is the bus? They wave me back to the bus stop. There are not very many people there with luggage who look like they might be going to Barcelona also. At 9:45 the bus finally shows up. How can they be so late already this early in the morning? Then after about an hour and a half of travel, I realise, this is the milk run. We spend about 20 minutes on the highway then spend about 40 minutes getting off the highway, into the city center, pick up one person, then get back to the highway for another 20 minutes then another 40 minutes getting to the next podunk town, repeat again and again and again until 6:30 pm. Leon Cathedral, Spain
It's hot on the bus, it's only about 20% full, but I always have someone sitting next to me, we have seat assignments but it never occurs to anyone that they could possibly just find an empty seat somewhere else so we can spread out a bit. I would have done it myself but I was on the window seat and each time I had some fat Spanish dude next to me. We stop once for 25 minutes for a snack, then 45 minutes again for a disgusting roadside diner lunch. yuk.

Seville bullfight schedule 2006

We finally get to Barcelona, I was hoping that perhaps the bus would stop at Sitges along the way seeing as how we have stopped at every other little village along the whole entire coast. Nope. After trying to find Spain's especially well camouflauged metro system, including converting a major rail terminus into a gymnasium but neglecting to remove all of the train signs on it, I finally get on a metro to the main station then manage to get my train to Sitges.
La Mesquita, Cordoba, Spain

It's absolutely packed, I am standing up with my backpack, my luggage, my bullfight poster, we're squashed in there like sardines, it's very hot. Sheesh, and it's a 30 minute train ride. We go about 10 minutes and the train stops. For 45 minutes!!! We are all stuck in there, they won't open the doors because there are other trains going past us, at least the air conditioning is working a little bit. I have some fat German lady next to me who keeps pushing me. I have chosen this very day to carry 2 kg of water in my backpack. I manage to get my backpack off. A girl nearly faints and people make room for her and wave magazines at her. I'd give her some of my water but I can't bend over to get to my backpack because the German lady keeps pushing me.
La Mesquita, Cordoba

After 45 minutes the train starts up again and at the next station like 1 person gets off and about 10 people get on. We wait. We hear shouting. We see some cops run past. We hear shouting. We hear shouting in the different direction from where the cops are running. This is not good. Then we see an extremely drunk guy shouting, followed by an even drunker woman with a totally bashed in face with stitches in. He gets onto our carriage, shouting, he is spraying chunks, the lady's eyes are swollen shut and looks like she is going to hurl. Amazing how much space is immediately made around these two, like sharks in a school of fish. Fortunately they part the sardines like water and go through our carriage to the other end. Everyone is totally relieved and saying things in Spanish which could only be something like, "could it get any worse".

The Alhambra, Granada

Now I am not certain what my stop in Sitges is called. They have a very good system here of naming the metro stops with obscure names, not the name of the town it is in, how sensible would that be. They also have a very good system of not putting up station name signs on the platforms, so even if you know the stop name you can't read it anywhere. At one stop quite a few people get off, but I reckon, after 1.5 hours of standing on the train, that we still haven't gone the 30 minutes the trip is supposed to take. The train leaves, I can now see the ocean. Drats I've missed my stop. Well I can get off and go back. The train keeps going. Forever. And ever. Sheesh man. Finally it stops and whaddya know, there is a sign I can see and it says Sitges! Woohoo!! I find my hotel, it's now 9:00 which is only marginally embarrassingly early to arrive for dinner. And I had a nice dinner!

Alhambra tile detail

So today I will potter around, maybe sit in the sun for only an hour to top up the sunburn, and spend the rest of the day checking out this town. It's got lots of nice places, so I can easily make myself happy here. You don't have to check out of hotels till 12 noon so I will hang here till the last minute then go to Barcelona, check into our hotel and meet Cailli at the metro, which is a risky thing to do, because Cailli, like all mining engineers, has no sense of direction and is forever going in the wrong direction, (even though she can read a map). It'll be fun!

2006-12-22T08:10:00.000-08:00

Crab Cakes

Burekaboy introduced me to a cute little monkey that makes a wicked potato latke. Not to be outdone by a monkey, even though he is a cute little bugger, I have to show you the crab cakes I made last weekend. I do not include step by step photos in order to preserve my culinary edge, can't be having the monkey making better crab cakes than me!

Three of the five crab cakes the recipe below yields.

½ cup mayonnaise
½ cup chopped fresh chives
¼ cup chopped fresh parsley
2 tbsp fresh lemon juice
1 tsp seafood seasoning blend
¼ tsp cayenne pepper (not weapons grade)
1 ¾ pounds lump crabmeat, picked over
5 cups fresh breadcrumbs made from crustless French bread
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp olive oil

Mix first 6 ingredients in large bowl. Stir in crab. Add 2 cups breadcrumbs, mix well. Season with black pepper. Place remaining 3 cups breadcrumbs in medium bowl. Using scant ¼ cupful for each, shape crab mixture into patties. Drop into breadcrumbs; turn to coat, pressing crumbs to adhere. Arrange cakes on baking sheet. (Can be made 6 hours ahead, cover and chill). Melt half of butter and half of oil in heavy large skillet over medium high heat. Add half of crab cakes. Saute until heated through and golden brown, about 5 minutes per side. Arrange on platter. Repeat with remaining butter, oil, and crab cakes. Garnish with lemon. Makes 20.

The recipe above is probably from Gourmet magazine. A few notes: Five crab cakes cost me $20 in crab meat alone (from an expensive grocery store, but still). I got five crab cakes out of this dosage of crab. So if I understand my maths correctly, to get the yield advised by Gourmet then just imagine each of my crab cakes divided by four. Which makes it a crab drop rather than a crab cake, in my book. Also do not use weapons grade cayenne pepper. I made this mistake and I could barely taste the crab. I used store bought bread crumbs (don't tell the monkey; he would have made his own).

2006-12-21T08:54:00.000-08:00

The Bad, Bad Laundry Man of Benidorm

Pss... on the laundry thing....I went there to collect it and now he wants to charge me 18 euros rather than the 10 euros we had agreed on to wash and dry my laundry. I have previously had my week's worth of laundry done for 6 euros, then 8 euros, so I figure the more touristy a place the higher prices will be. But now he's taken it upon himself to dry clean three of my skirts and one of my shirts, all of which I put through both the washer and the dryer at home for years now. I say sorry, I didn't ask for this to be dry cleaned, I asked for it to be washed and dried only, I will only pay the 10 euros we agreed on yesterday. Which significantly hasn't been written down on my docket.

A stand in photo for Benidorm: a poodle on a balcony in Porto.

He takes out the tags on the clothes and tells me that they said dry clean on them and it is very bad to put through the washer. I say no it is too bad for him, he didn't have my permission to dry clean them. He shows me the tags again. I say too bad. He shows me the tags again. I say too bad. I only have a 20 euro note. Blast. I need to get 10 euros somehow, if I give him the 20 he will only give me 2 euros back. I was going to throw all these clothes out at the end of the trip anyways but I would have liked at least my last week wearing the clothes. So I say 10 euros for the other clothes and you can have the freaken three cheap skirts and the shirt with all the missing buttons!! So now this loser has my clothes! oh well.

A cafe in Porto. All of the buildings are fronted with beautiful tiles, which were unfortunately last cleaned about a century ago. Porto taught me that there are two issues with being a beautiful city: good design to begin with, but maintenance is crucial.

I wanted to report him, because every business in Spain must keep a customer complaint book that is inspected regularly by the government. I tried to get the hotel to ring him to complain, which they did for me, he told them to call back in 10 minutes and when they did, of course now he won't answer the phone and they get the answering machine instead. I can't be bothered to go back to the horrible little man! Luckily I was wearing one skirt that I did like and was thinking I should have put through the wash, glad I didn't or else I would have lost that one too, the four things I lost I really was going to leave behind!

I went on a tour of Sandeman's port distillery.

I spent a feverish hour or so on the internet last night researching a hiking trip to Iceland , I've always wanted to go there and figured I ought to go there now while I am at loose ends and reasonably close to there. But trips are very expensive and none of them really fit my dates right, so I guess I ought to just hang out in Wells, and enjoy my last few weeks there, it really is a beautiful place.

Tile fronted homes and a church in Porto.

2006-12-20T21:08:00.000-08:00

On My Way to Sitges (June 2006)

Sitting here checkin my mails and my little knees have about six mosquito bites on them! Little buggers are hanging around in the dark under the desk! At least I won't get malaria but you know what it's like....they always freak you out.
As I mentioned before, Benidorm doesn't rate any photographs. Here is the train station at Porto instead.

I'm out of here tomorrow, going to stay in a beach resort called Sitges south of Barcelona for the two nights before Cailli arrives in Barcelona. I bought my bus ticket last night and the person ahead of me wanted to pay for his tickets in one euro coins. Which the guy behind the counter didn't want to know about. So there was a major big argument about that. I guess the guy doesn't have very good counting skills or something because he had to stack the coins up in stacks of five then line them all up and make sure they were all even heights.

Sintra palace at Tavira in Portugal. Note the Islamic influence in the architecture, tiles, and the kitchen chimneys.

Anyways unbelievably another person working behind the counter noticed the hold up and opened a second desk and I got my ticket for 8:55 in the morning to Barcelona. I asked for the arrival times and it gets in at 17:30. Wot....that's a long time. I ask her, is this via Madrid? Via Paris? No, the stupid train goes back down south to Alicante, then back up past Benidorm and then on to Barcelona!!! Agh!! I hope she's wrong, that would really annoy me, because I know the bus I was on the other day from Granada stopped at Alicante first then continued to Benidorm then on northwards. Queluz palace in Queluz, Portugal

The other day I was standing in line at the train station in Seville to buy a train ticket to Cordoba. They have signs above the desks saying immediate sales and future sales. Since I wanted to travel that day, I stood at the immediate sales desk line. I was next up to be served when a guy opened the desk window to the right, and motioned me over. His sign said future sales though. Anyways I said I wanted to go to Cordoba. He said at 11 AM. I said at 12:45 please which is the cheaper slower train which I have a pass for. He started pointing at the other line. I said well frack I was just in that line you *^%$# and you said you could serve me. Actually I only just thought that. Then he started shouting 11, 11, 11 at me. I wasn't sure what his deal was, did I need to go to counter 11, because I didn't want to go on the 11 AM train, and I knew from the schedule there was one at 12:45. The guy behind me in English said I needed to buy a ticket. Well what the heck do they reckon I was trying to do, and why was this guy behind the desk shouting at me for anyways!! I just left! I was just going to jump on a train and buy the ticket on the train but they had some kind of security line you couldn't pass unless you had a ticket, so I had to go back in (another!) line to get my ticket from a normal person. Jacaranda and bouganville at Alcazar gardens in Seville

I was awake at 5:30 and most of the early morning, it was absolutely freezing in my room. I tried to turn the air conditioning but I think it is centrally set, which seems to be a common thing here, and there are no blankets on the bed, just a sheet and a thin cover. So I shivverred most of the night. Oh well I can have a nap later. Got a bit nuked yesterday so I am out of the sun today. I will go and sit on a sun lounger in the shade later and read my book. I need to find a coffee, I had breakfast in my room, got some croissants and some orange juice from the local supermarket. My laundry is getting done at the moment too, woohoo!! Just as well, they have these loose tiles here and twice now I've stepped on one and filthy water has shot up my leg, and I've been wearing skirts, so it's not a nice experience at all. The scary part about the water is that it is very dry here and certainly hasn't rained for ages, these tiles are out front of pubs so they can only be sewerage pipes or else from when someone's been power hosing down the floor of the pub...argh!!

The Alcazar in Seville

This place is really something. I am ready to leave tomorrow morning. At night it is reasonably cute when the little old folks are out in full force. They get in a big tangle on the sidewalk and it's hard to get past them and all their canes. They have heaps of open fronted cafes with sing alongs, dancing, bingo, etc. The old fellahs are quite cute, watching them dancing and getting their tans. Remind me not to get old though. But some absolutely dreadful Brits around, unbelievable. I overheard one lady outside a shop, counting her change with a look of disbelief on her face, saying over and over "I've been done! I've been done!". And another lady going into another tacky junk shop saying "we 'aven't been in this one yet 'ave we Kevin".

2006-12-18T21:54:00.000-08:00

Benidorm (June 2006)

I finally got here at something like 9:30 at night. I called the hotel to confirm that I would be arriving late in the evening and stupidly didn't ask them where they were relative to the bus station. Which turned out to not be a bus station anyways, just a brief stop to turf us off at the side of the road in amongst all the people having their night time walkies. Anyhoos, after quite a trek, my hotel is tucked in one far far corner of the beach area, I found my hotel, very very flash, and so it should be for 100 Euros a night (my usual budget is around 65 Euros).

Benidorm is so horrible it doesn't rate a photo. Here is the beach in San Sebastian instead.

On the way to the hotel I couldn't believe the people I was seeing. I have made the observation before to Cailli that I have lived and travelled in quite a few countries now and have seen a lot of different people. And I can appreciate that all countries have different kinds of people in them. But the UK takes the cake, by far and away, for having the uttermost slaggiest skankiest chicks on the planet by orders of magnitude, and this is saying a lot, because coming from California where we have a lot of our own 100% Grade A beef skanky chicks, and Australia has their Gothic chicks, and South African chicks must surely be the world's highest consumer of makeup on the planet. So I am dragging my stuff past the most sunburnt, wobbly high heeled, bad makeuped, black eyelinered, blue eyeshadowed, over hairsprayed, horribly accented, rolls of fat hanging out over way too low cut pants, totally drunk, hideously slutty dressed manky skanky British chicks I have ever ever seen in my whole entire life ever anywhere ever. Bloody hell (my apologies to any British readers. You need to sort your overseas visitors out though).

Even the Eiffel Bridge in Porto, Portugal was more photogenic. And yes, that's the Tower dude.

I went back out again and found an American BBQ rib restaurant which I had passed on the way to the hotel, I love American ribs so I couldn't pass up the opportunity, although it turned out to be not so great and filled with screaming kids.

Even the fish would rather be in the aquarium at San Sebastien than at Benidorm.

So today I am up, my air conditioning is working so well that I am actually woken up by the cold at night, woohoo! I figure not to rush things so I wander down to have my breakfast at a cafe (they charge an amazing amount for breakfast in the restaurant, but it is the dreaded open buffet and I guess people can really load their plates). So I go to a local cafe and ask for the usual Spanish breakfast of churros con chocolate, which is sticks of doughnut dough deep fried then dunked into cups of very very thick hot chocolate, a cafe con leche which is coffee with milk, and zumo de naranja which is freshly squeezed orange juice.

The orange trees of which I speak, a specimen here from Seville.

Speaking of orange juice this whole area of southern Spain is absolutely covered with orange trees, olive trees, and nut trees. I cannot believe how many fallen oranges there are around orange trees even in the orchards. So while I am sitting there eating my breakfast, overlooking the sidewalk, I watch an endless parade of the most amazing human wreckage you've ever seen. Mostly Spanish, but lots of Poms, Scots, and some Dutch and German. Blimey. All of them on cheap hotel/flight deals. My guide book says Benidorm is trying to clean up their image and make it more upmarket, but they are not doing very well. Every single shop sells tacky junk for little kids and tourists, and there are heaps and heaps of British oriented restaurants and cafes and pubs with names like The Guiness Pub, The Huxton Pub, Picadilly Circus cafe, Big Ben pub, Full English Breakfast With All British Products, etc. If this is the target they are catering to then the well heeled set will never come here. I was going to stay here perhaps again on Thursday and Friday night but I think I might just go to Sitges beach near Barcelona for a change of pace!

That will be enough crankiness for today.

2006-12-17T09:28:00.000-08:00

Carcassonne and Sarlat

The next day it was the train to Carcassonne. I checked into my hotel and headed straight off for the castle. This is the famous place that was under siege and things were starting to look desperate, until Madame Carcas took the last pig, fed it the last handfuls of grains, and hucked it over the castle walls at the siegers, where it splatted at their feet, spraying fresh grain everywhere. Apparently the siegers took one look at this and figured there was so much spare food inside that they had better go away and bother someone else. Or so the story goes. Anyways nowadays the inside of the fortress is full of the usual little French shops and cafes and swarming with tourists.
This part of the world is particularly well known for cassoulet, which is a fancy kind of franks and beans really, cooked white beans with maybe some confit duck and a few varieties of sausages for flavour. And they are also famous out this way for pate du canard, which is pate of duck liver or else the goose liver. I had dinner at a very nice place in town where I ordered the pate du canard for my appetiser and the cassoulet, which turned out to be a monstrously huge dish. There was an Irish couple next to me who spoke to me for a while and shared their wine with me. Dunno what it is with people who offer to share their wine with you after you say you don't like wine, as though they are drinking the one special wine that tastes like no other wine in the world that's all of a sudden going to convert me to liking wine. Anyways it was nice of them, and I figured the wine would help break down some of the fat. The next day I was off to see Sarlat, which, according to the notes I had made during an intensive period of study of European maps and travel routes in 1999, had a "beehive caves du mort". Cool, pammie's a sucker for beehive shapes. So I get out there and it turns out to be an exceedingly cute little town with a tourist information center that has a nice walking map to follow. I find my beehive cave du mort which turns out to be vaguely beehive shaped and possibly held the bones of some fellahs who worked at the church nearby. Hmm, so much for coming all the way out here to look at this disappointing beehive thing (I had had a similar experience in Greece which also has an imaginary beehive structure) but the town was very cute. It was almost worth considering retiring there someday, except for all the tourists.

The elusive beehive lantern du mort

My hotel had a little pool and everything so I sat by the pool for about an hour, to prepare my glowing white body for the Mediterranean to come later in the trip. I haven't been out in the sun for something like two years now. Getting to Sarlat was a bit of a drama too, with three connections, and one long stop at lunch. I found a local place that had a dreaded buffet for starters and then no menu whatsoever, but they gave me a plate of grey flabby roast lamb and very garlicky cassoulet. I ate the cassoulet and left the lamb and just had grated carrots for my starters! I had dinner that night at a nice outdoor place. So far the weather had been nice and sunny and warm, although I was blowing my nose with allergies a lot. There were two outdoor eating areas, my side with all the other civilised French fellahs, and then a tour group of extremely loud Americans on the other side. There is a vast difference between the way the French and the Americans approach the dinner table. On the way to the restaurant, the French are no doubt debating the various merits of this particular restaurant over another. They get shown to the table and immediately they study the menu. There is no idle chitchat about their cable TV connection or the other topics of their daily life. There is no telling the waiter to come back to take their order later because they were too busy talking about other stuff. No, everyone at the table debates what they will have for dinner and there is a big discussion. The waiter comes and is grilled for information, then the order is placed and there is an air of expectation of what is to come. Everyone sits quietly at the table, chatting, sipping wine, generally behaving themselves. But the yanks on the other side of the garden were all over the place, wandering from one table to the next, getting up to do this and that, with waiters trying to do their job with a largely absent diner.

They reminded me of that North American phenomenon which I had also noticed on my trip to Vancouver a week or so before: the dreaded female scream-laugher, the one that thinks every single statement is hilariously funny and also has one of those piercing shrieks AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!!! In a piercing scream that can and probably does etch crystal glass, shatter small mirrors, disintegrate Waterford chandeliers, cause cave stalagtites to drop, and souffles to fall. And the more they drink, the more frequent the screaming gets. I was surrounded by French people on all sides and at one stage the elderly French couple sitting next to me mentioned the screamer, not sure exactly what they said but if I had enough French I would have suggested talking up a donation to get her some kind of tranquiliser or sedative and having it sent to her table on a silver platter with our compliments. Anyhoos. For dinner I had pate du canard again and duck confit for my mains, yum.

The next day I was off to Perigeux, which is the capitol of the Perigord region and the capitol of fois gras production, you can even go on tours to see the duck and the geese getting grain crammed down their faces to swell their livers up, cool. Ecotourism. This is also where all of the ancient cave drawings are. In fact the caves are between Sarlat and Perigeuex, but I thought it would perhaps be easier to get transport to the cave drawings from Perigeux seeing as how it was the capitol and everything. But no, turns out, there is no transport to the caves. You have to have a rental car or take a taxi there. And you have to buy a ticket to see the cave paintings. A year in advance. And you can only buy the tickets at the caves themselves. So, I can take a 36 euro taxi ride out there to potentially not get into the caves at all. What's a girl to do. Have pate instead! Woohoo. I consider going to the movies seeing as how the Da Vinci Code has just been released. The French actress Audrey Tatou is in it, and from all the advertising she's getting you wouldn't even realise there was anyone else in it. Ah well, I give it a miss, I didn't like the books much. Actually it was a bit of a scene getting to Perigeuex in the first place as there are no trains directly from Sarlat to Perigeuex even though they are not all that far apart. I had to have three connections, two of them by bus, with a long lunch stop, which is normally a good thing, except they stopped at a place that didn't have a cafe that sold food, just drinks. How inconsiderate.

Map at Perigeux train station

2006-12-16T19:26:00.000-08:00

Stuck in Santiago de Campostela (May 2006)

Pilgrims arriving at Santiago de Campostela, which is something like the second or third most important pilgrimage site for Catholics. They carry a wooden staff and a scallop shell, which is apparently what St James wore. The cathedral is dedicated to him.

Here I am hanging out in Santiago de Campostela waiting for my train to Porto in Portugal. This town has got the most inconvenient connections....you don´t get here till late at night and you can´t get out till the late afternoon. Normally I check at the train station when I arrive in a new town, for the timetables to my next destination. But I had called ahead to make my room reservation and had told them when I was arriving, and the train had been 30 minutes late, so I thought I would just go straight to the hotel and check the times later, in case the hotel was fretting about whether I would show up or not.

The cathedral of St James (Santiago or San Diego, in Espanol).

So my hotel is very cute, very central, I´m here for two nights hoping to go to Porto the second morning. Yesterday I had all of my laundry done so I have a big fat fluffy pile of clean clothes, nothing like that to make a traveller happy. I had a look around town, mailed my postcards, caught up on my emails, then toodled down to the train station to get the schedule to Porto.

Wot. It doesn´t leave till 6:30 pm!! And it doesn´t arrive in Porto till 11 at night! I look at my watch, it´s like 6:10 pm then. Draaaaaattsss!!! Now I have a whole entire day practically to kill in Santiago and I´ve already done this place. If I had checked earlier, I could have left right then. Normally I like the train to leave in the morning, arrive at my next destination around noon, check out the city, and then leave the next day. Now I am wasting a whole entire day here, which could have been spend far more productively on the beach somewhere in southern Spain later on in my trip.

2006-12-15T20:57:00.000-08:00

A Typical Training Conversation

Pammie: Class, notice that we can determine the volume from our block model. If we were to add the density to the block model we could also determine the tonnage. If we know the densities of each rock type, and we have rock types in the model, then we can set a density value in the block model according to the rock type. We can do this in a process called EXTRA. EXTRA is a process that creates or manipulates fields with algebraic equations.

Shall we run EXTRA to create a new density field in our block model file, and set the values according to rock type, so that we can determine the tonnage?

Class:

Pammie: Okay, lets run EXTRA to set the density values. Ready?

Class:

Pammie: Are you ready to run the process EXTRA to set the density values in the block model?
Yesnoyesnoyesnoyesnoyesnoyesnoyesnoyesnoyesno

Class: Okay.

Pammie: Okay, type EXTRA in the command line. EXTRA is spelled "E-X-T-R-A". Type EXTRA into the command line. Has every one got that? "E-X-T-R-A". Type EXTRA into the command line. Have you got EXTRA typed into the command line?

Class:

Pammie: Has everyone got EXTRA up?

Hasan: It doesn't work.

Pammie, after inspection: EXTRA is spelled EXTRA, not EXRTA. Try typing "EXTRA".

Pammie: Okay, the INPUT file is the block model file we just created, which we called MODELOUT. We want to add the density field to this INPUT file. Type MODELOUT as
your input file. Type MODELOUT as your input file. Everyone, type MODELOUT as
your input file. Has everyone got that?

Class:

Pammie: The OUTPUT file we create will be called FINAL. Type FINAL as your out put file. Has everyone got FINAL as the output file? Type FINAL as your output file. Has everyone got that?

Hasan: What is the input file?

Pammie: The input file is our block model file we just created. The input file is called MODELOUT.

Hasan: I don't have a file called MODELOUT.

Pammie: What did you name the last model file you created?

Hasan: I called it HasanMod.

Pammie: Okay, the rest of the class called it MODELOUT. So you can type HasanMod as your input file. Type FINAL as your output model.

Hasan: Why are we doing this?

Pam (internally): !"&^£$(*&£$)(*&£*&^(*$£%$%"^*$^%^*%*%%!!!!!!!

I may have frustrating days like this but at least I get to see things like this on the way there and back!

2006-12-13T21:24:00.000-08:00

Lessons I Learned in Bulgaria

1. Never correct the managing director on the origin of his Maasai warrior carvings. If he says they are from India, they are from India.

2. Never keep your cell phone in your back pocket. It's only a matter of time before it falls into the pit toilets.

3. Always tell your taxi driver that you are in the first stages of pregnancy and could he please reduce his speed from 160kph, even though he does reduce to 100kph on the tight corners, as you get nauseous easily. Pammie having dinner with Dimiter the mine geologist and his wife and daughter.

2006-12-12T21:31:00.000-08:00

Bulgaria April 23 2005

A church in Panagurishte. I think they are Orthodox. Which is kind of like Catholic except they wear bigger hats.

Yesterday I had coffee with the two translators on the mine site, both of them are girls. One is the PA to the mine manager and the other is a contractor that works with me every day and who is very difficult to hear because she speaks so softly. Also her tone of voice makes everything she says sound like a translation of a memorised text (a thick text too). For example at the coffee, the PA translator, who is more interesting and can hold normal conversations, made a remark about the history of the town of Panagurishte (where we are at) and asked the robot translator to tell me about it. So I got the translated text on how at one time Turkey occupied Bulgaria, and the people of this town were the first to organise a rebellion against the oppressors (I thought, cool, I've never actually heard a person use the word "oppressors" before! Perhaps she will say "throw off the yoke of our Turkish oppressors" next!! But she didn't. Sigh.). Anyways I forgot what I was gunna say. Oh yeah, she is a robot.

The hotel where I am staying is slowly losing interest in me because I am very cheap. I am having only orange juice with my dinner and my meals are coming to US$3. So they are going to some effort to serve me but not getting as good a return on their investment than if I were to drink heaps of booze and wine. So it is taking them longer and longer to get up to serve me. My room isn't being cleaned, they don't make the bed or clean the bathroom, the only thing they do is replace my towels. The CNN is off, and the heater doesn't work, it's been freezing at night, and there's been no hot water in the shower twice now. So, I am going to spend my dinner money elsewhere.

The cultural center in Panagurishte.

We had to work today, a Saturday, which didn't impress the students. But at least we got to a stage of the analysis where I can do a lot of work behind the scenes and keep myself busy in the evenings. I've got tomorrow off so I will have a snooze, read, have some lunch, catch up on mails and do some work and maybe write a few stories on the laptop.

A day later

I'm sick of the food here. Instead of eating at the hotel as usual, I went to a different restaurant for dinner last night at the place where I had coffee on Friday afternoon with two of the translators from work. It had EXACTLY the same menu as the hotel where I am staying. I guess the owner of my hotel swiped their menu. So, it's chicken or pork, done in either big pieces or small pieces. And all of it is raw so I can only have the chicken. If I survive salmonella here it will be a miracle. They do a lot of charcoal grill here and they have a special talent for getting black grill marks on the meat and cooking it, more like congealing the meat, until it is a hard translucent pink, with barely the formation of fibers in the meat when you pull it apart. It has the texture of warm silicone. So I will be ready to get out of here I think.

The hotel restaurant. A cosy place with hunting decor. They also get the French hunting channel on TV.

I wouldn't have chosen to come to Bulgaria on holidays so it is interesting enough to come here with work. It's a pleasant enough place, with nice green mountains and countryside, and a mixture of old brick country houses and abandoned ominous and blocky Soviet era buildings with broken glass panes that look like they used to be former nerve gas factories or something. I'm tired of Eastern Europe and how depressing it is, and the food situation. This country is better than the others but the young people here are still totally depressed about their situation in life and how difficult it will be to change the socialist attitudes. The young people have no hope, it will take another 3 generations or so at least till they get up to scratch. They are joining the EU so hopefully that will move them along quicker.

My hotel is getting worse and worse with steadily reducing levels of service, cleaning, etc. Plus no CNN (ie, TV in English) for the past several days, intermittent hot water, and it's freezing. Unfortunately I can't change my hotel since there are only two in town and the other one is completely booked out with about a thousand screaming kids on a school trip. Even if they had a spare room I wouldn't want to be there. I went there to have dinner once and was scared off even as I went through the lobby, the place was swarming with screaming kids. I finally got another blanket at my hotel and the owner fixed the heater, but they still turn off the hot water in the middle of my shower. I can't imagine that it runs out so suddenly, but who knows.
The view from my hotel window.

I have been doing some work and then working on writing up my Mali story and started this Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown today. After the type of books I normally read, his style of writing is comparable to eating at McDonalds after eating in fine restaurants. I like McDonald's, it's predictable, clean, well engineered, and you always get what you expect. Still it's a matter of quality. It will keep me busy for a while.

The bathroom in my room. The title of the photo is "bad, bad design.jpg". Note the fact that the shower is also in this room and please also note the position of the shower head relative to the toilet. Deary me.

2006-12-11T20:04:00.000-08:00

A Nearly Typical Travel Day in April 2005 (Courtesy KLM)

I'm in Haarlem at the moment. I left Bristol yesterday but my flight was cancelled after waiting at the departure lounge for an hour. I was pretty dark about this because I had my hotel booked in Amsterdam at my own expense and if I didn't show I would still be charged for the hotel, not to mention the taxi fee out to the airport and back. I considered going back home and forgetting about my weekend in Holland and just go across to Norway on Sunday afternoon. Then they said there were a few seats left on a flight to Amsterdam leaving an hour later. So we made the dash across to the check in desk scattering little old ladies line barriers and stray bits of luggage and suffered several excruciating minutes as I chose a bad counter with the most pathetic nervous old lady trying to deal with other difficult customers as the last few seats were snatched up by other operators. I got on, though, one of the last seats.

I took the train from Schiphol to Amsterdam Central and took a tram to my hotel but wasn't sure of the stop. The tram driver promised to call me at my stop but when it was looking like we were way out in the country side I got up to be sure he hadn't forgotten me, and he had. So I had to go all the way back and then trundle my suitcase around looking for my hotel, then lugged it up five flights of narrow Dutch staircases to my room way up in the stratosophere.

They do have pretty flowers in Amsterdam, once you get there.

I had worked up a sweat by then so I went to a little shop to buy a little bottle of water for 3 euros, sheesh. I'm in a noisy neighbourhood and I had screaming women outside my window all night keeping me up. I had a look through some of the trendy shops in Amsterdam this morning then took a train to The Hague, because I thought there were some engravings by my favourite painter, Pieter Brueghel The Elder. I found another museum instead and saw Vermeer's Girl With the Pearl Earring, I had no idea it was out there and it is a beautiful painting, I was glad to see it. I didn't know where the engraving museum was so I sat in the museum shop and looked through a Brueghel book and it turns out all the engravings are in Antwerp. Oh well, I'm not so hip on engravings anyway.

I had a look out for my mate Slobodan Milosovic because I think he's out this way for his trial but I didn't spot him. So I took the train to Haarlem to have a look through the markets and shops. It's nice to look at all the details on the old buildings, lots of tiles and funny designs and cool things to look at in the window. I got myself a pair of shoes for work, I am turning into a bit of an Imelda Marcos lately with the shoes, and an alarm clock for my bedside, which I didn't have before. Then an iced latte and now at the email. Later I am heading back off to Amsterdam, dunno what I will do for dinner, I think there is a nice looking restaurant near my hotel. Or maybe go see a movie.

On Sunday I went back to Amsterdam to continue on to my job at a mine near Stavanger, arriving at the airport at 5 pm. I check in and they say there is a problem, that the flight is overbooked, and I won't get my seat assignment until I go down to the gate and apparently fight off any others to have a chance at a seat. If not, not to worry, there is a direct flight to Stavanger in the morning that will get me there at around 9 AM. So I go downstairs to the gate and learn that the flight has also been delayed by two hours. So now I wait until 8:30 pm and go back to the gate then to do battle. They won't give me a seat, and kick five of us off the flight. And now, the freaking flight tomorrow morning is also already overbooked, so I can't get on it either.

The petroleum museum at Stavanger.

Stavanger is an oil industry city. People on the flight from Amsterdam are going to and from work, it is not a tourist destination. The people that have been kicked off the flight will now miss their helicopter to their oil rig. If they miss their helicopter they will miss their shift and they will be immediately fired from their extremely high paying job. There are all kinds of tears and yelling going on. For this inconvenience they give me 250 Euros cash, transport to a hotel, a night in a hotel, and a 5 Euro telephone card which won’t work. I ask to have my suitcase delivered to me so that I can change clothes and get to my toiletry kit, including the ever important contact lens solution and case. I normally carry all these things with me but when I travel with the laptop it is so heavy and has no room for toiletries. They assure me to go to belt 9. Pammie goes to belt 9 and there is no suitcase. I go to the luggage counter and they assure me it is at belt 9. I go to belt 9 again and the suitcase is not there. I go back to the counter and now they tell me the suitcase is in a magic office where there is a magic key and no one can open this magic office until 1 hour before my flight leaves tomorrow morning so just go home and don't worry about it. Pammie is worried about it. First they tell me one thing now a magic other thing. I have no confidence. They tell me to shut up and go home. Dutch fellahs are not noted for their manners, unfortunately.

Old houses in Stavanger.

So I go out to the shuttle to transfer to the hotel and meet a crowd of about 300 people waiting for the shuttle bus, among them many many many loud American students. A single bus pulls up and all 300 of us try to jam onto this bus, Pammie is good at these things after crushing little old ladies to get on my flight so American kids are no problem. I get on the bus and finally get to the hotel at 11:30 pm. I try to use my telephone card and it doesn't work. By a fantastic stroke of luck I have a very very small bottle of eye wetting drops in my purse, so I dribble them into a wineglass and store my contacts in there over night.

A typical neighbourhood in Stavanger.

By the way I am with 5 others that got kicked off the flight and THEY got their luggage. The five others are following my luggage proceedings with interest. In the morning I go back to the airport. I ask to see my luggage, they don't know where it is, check at the gate. I go to the gate, there is no one there until 5 minutes before the plane departs, they say, uh, yeah, the um, the luggage is on this plane, uh, yeah. Heh heh. My plane goes to Bergen, where I am to collect my luggage. As you would imagine, my luggage is not there. I travel on to Stavanger finally, arriving yesterday at 1 pm, and I go to the luggage counter. They tell me to go to another luggage counter. Those guys send me back to the first luggage counter. It was very warm in Amsterdam so I put my coat in my luggage and had on only a sweater, but now it is cold in the airport office since they are doing repairs and it is open to the elements. One of the ladies that had been kicked off the flight with me, who had been following my luggage progress (not much else to do), offered to give me her very nice coat!! She said I could make arrangements to give it back to her after I got my luggage. That was very nice. I go to the first luggage counter and fill in a form when all of a sudden a light bulb goes off over the ladies head and she leads me to some lost luggage, and there is my suitcase. Finally. I am in my socks for two days now and on the other side of my underpants.

So, I missed a day’s consulting, tough luck for Datamine. I went up to the mine late, met my student and started a little bit, then had an early night. I'm out of here now, it's late and I am on my own for dinner, I have to use a local cafe which hasn't got anything written in English. Norwegian menus are impossible to figure out!

2006-12-10T09:07:00.000-08:00

A Letter From Budapest (November 20th, 2004)

I'm in Budapest now. Its freaken freezing here, was snowing when I arrived. My taxi driver was on time for once, so he should be (I have ripped strips off for being late in the past). I jumped straight into the back seat for a snooze, since it was 3:15 AM. I couldn't get to sleep and it kept getting colder and colder and colder, and I'm thinking, sheesh, what is it with fat taxi drivers they have to keep it like the arctic in here. He kept bipping a button on the dash and I kept thinking he was making it cooler. I didn't want to say anything thinking a conversation would stop me from falling asleep. Finally it was so cold I couldn't stand it anymore and asked if he could turn on the heater. Turns out the heater was broken. It's a nice Jaguar, but heaters are important too, especially on two hour taxi rides. Then finally just as I fell asleep, he said "sorry about the temperature", and woke me up. Sheesh. Then 10 minutes later we were at Heathrow. I had breakfast, had a coffee, got on the plane and fell asleep before the others were even seated (a great skill refined during years of doing fly in-fly out). So I got a 2 hour snooze on the plane.

Hungarian goulash

I'm at the Best Western which is okay but slightly depressing in the decor, no bathtub, too bad. So far I have walked down the pedestrianised shopping center, had a lunch of Hungarian soup, whatsitcalled, goulash, or maybe something else. And some crepes with paprika flavoured "meat' in it, very good. Later I went to a famous bakery and had a piece of cake and some coffee. I am continuing the search to find some decent tights with no luck. I saw St Stephen's Basilica, then walked across the Danube to look back at Parliament and the Chain Bridge. Now I am warming up in this nice internet cafe in a bookstore, not a bad price either.

The Danube
Parliament House

St Stephen's Basilica

2006-12-09T09:18:00.000-08:00

Get Me Out Of Heeeereeee!!!!! (A Letter From Kosovo)

The view from my hotel room in Prishtina, Kosovo. Please note that beautiful sunsets over a city are nearly always the product of pollution.

At this time two years ago I spent a month doing mining software training at a coal mine in Kosovo. Kosovo is a pretty bleak place. I stayed at a hotel in the capitol of Prishtina and was under the impression for weeks that Prishtina had been bombed in the war until I was advised that only military targets had been bombed and that Prishtina just naturally looked effed up.
Downtown Prishtina

I did the training with a German colleague who works for a coal consulting firm in Germany. We ran out of things to say at dinner time the first night, he was a tremendous bore. We met in the morning to go to work, which ran from about 8 Am to 3 pm, then we went back to the hotel and met again at around 5 pm for drinks at a pub run by an Englishman, and then we went out to eat. We worked Saturdays and had Sundays off. On Sundays he was always threatening to ring me to organise to do something together so I kept my telephone unplugged.

The chair by the elevator where I waited for my colleague every day

The training took place in a purple painted room filled with computers and about 12 chain smoking geologists and engineers, none of whom spoke English. We did the training through a translator. No one was interested, and no one listened, they talked amongst themselves the entire time, and no one had a clue or interest in what was going on. The training was paid for by the United Nations. At first I wondered what I could possibly teach someone in a month, since I would normally run out of things to teach after two weeks. By the end of a month no one could do a single function unassisted. It was very frustrating but my colleague, who had done training there before, had warned me what it would be like and said not to worry about it.

The training room and some of the students. Everything, including my NOTEBOOK smelled like cigarettes when I got back.

I wrote this letter to a colleague at Datamine. The first sentence is referring to the fact that there were a whole bunch of steel ball bearings in my shag carpet that, along with various other large particulate matter, were never removed by the cleaners during my one month stay:

Hi john,

Yeah, there was some debate on this side as to how the ball bearings got there. I thought some sort of military thing because there are a lot of UN police here. Anyways the carpet here is pretty skid-free, what with all the wrinkles from age and all the chunks holding up the rest of the pile. Thank god there are no cockroaches here though!

My bedroom. Steel ball bearings are in carpet near the end of the bed.

You had a pretty idyllic childhood. I was a city kid but orange trees were everywhere. We amused ourselves by hucking oranges in the zygote stage at passing vehicles. I guess a vandalous childhood leads to a career in geology, where you can smash rocks with a hammer and do other destructive things with a proximity to explosives.

The picture on the wall of my hotel room. It depicts a drawer full of red keys, one silver key, and one gold key.

Well, another Sunday in Prishtina. More and more expats are leaving to go home for the holidays. There are an amazing amount of expatriates here, I've never seen so many guns or police in my life. Luckily it is pretty quiet here. Except for the siren alarm testing center which is located right next door to our hotel. It took me a while to work out what was going on with all these sirens. A siren of different types, but all of them extremely loud, goes off every hour or so, 24 hours a day. It took me a while to notice there was no Doppler effect involved, so I realise, finally, that the UN building behind us must test their sirens all the time. I love it here!
The view of Prishtina from the taxi on the way back from work. There are random craters and piles of rubble laying everywhere which led to my impression that it had been bombed in the war.

The hotel breakfast room above with Soviet style inspirational art at the end of the room, and below it, a photo of the lobby.

2006-12-07T19:31:00.000-08:00

What Pammie Does All Day (Sometimes)

This is what I look at all day, sometimes. I used to do this all day long at Bulyanhulu, now I have a little more variety (and better food and a lot less malaria). These sticks represent diamond drill holes. They are called diamond drill holes because the drill bit is impregnated with industrial diamonds to cut through rock. The circular drill bit is attached to a cylinder of steel called a drill rod and as the bit is turned by a machine it cuts and progresses through the rock, and a core of rock slides up the inside the drill rod. When the drill rod is filled with core they pull the rods out of the hole and dump the core, hopefully in order, into a core tray. The geologist then measures the depth down hole, and logs the core for the various types of geology and other features and takes samples to see how much of the good stuff (gold, copper, etc, and if there's enough of the good stuff, they call it an orebody) is inside the rock. The holes are surveyed and so we know where the hole is in three dimensional space. The picture above shows many drill holes. They are generally vertical, and you can see that they are drilled along a trend, which, if they know what they are doing, which is not always the case, is following the trend of the gold. These drill holes are coloured by the amount of gold in each sample, blue is bad grades (not economic to mine), and red shows good grades. My job is to make sure the sampling is done right, that the drill hole is in the right place, and all the data has been verified. Then I want to make a model of the orebody, so we can display the shape of the orebody, so the engineers can figure out whether it's economic to mine, how to mine it, and how to get to it. To do this I can draw (digitise) little lines to connect one patch of good stuff on a drill hole to another.

I think maybe you can just barely see that I have three different sets of strings here: blue, lavender, and pink (you can tell I am a girl geologist). I have made them different colours because there are three different orebodies here which are close to each other. Now that I have done my interpretation of connecting all the good bits together, I need to be able to connect the lines together into a solid so that I can find out the volume of the orebody.

So this is my solid model, which is called a wireframe. It's totally enclosed, and empty on the inside, and I can get the computer to tell me the volume. The next part is to estimate how much gold is in the ground between the drill holes. The sample by volume is very very small compared to the space between samples. So we have to estimate the grades, and to do this we put a block model inside of the wireframe, which are digital blocks or cells that can each contain data with different values. Such as what the rock type is, what the density is (how much the rock weighs), and the gold value. You can see that if we have one drill hole that has say two units of gold in it, and a drill hole next to it also with two units of gold in it, probably the space between also has two units of gold. There are different mathematical formulas to work out the grades.

I am working on this project now, and this is as far as I've gotten.

2006-12-06T18:46:00.000-08:00

Photos of Mali

I did like these granaries along the Bandiagara Escarpment in Mali. Any building that wears a hat will just automatically be photogenic. Now I have my port Dogon unpacked, and currently stuffed in a closet, since I don't have a granary to put it on, despite what I told my guide in Mali.

Trading pinasse on the Niger at Mopti in Mali. They probably make the trip up to Timbuktu also.

The usual fleet of little kids appear whenever you make landfall. I doubt little kids living along the Mississippi swarm all over boats that stop along their banks, but I suppose they have more diversions.

Stilt walkers at the Dogon dance in Mali. I note that there were many stilt walkers at the Pride Parade in Vancouver. Seems to be a diversely distributed skill.

Village elders lined up for the photo shoot in Mali. What a life.

2006-12-04T20:00:00.000-08:00

Jordan and Mali

This is the treasury at Petra in Jordan. A very stunning structure carved into the sandstone cliffs, especially since it is accessed by path at the bottom of a very long, very narrow, and very deep canyon, which suddenly opens up to a cross canyon to reveal this structure (and also the back of the Norwegian girl) directly ahead of you. Imagine stumbling upon this and not expecting it. Actually you would probably be tipped off that something was up ahead because the walls of the canyons are also lined with troughs for collecting water, and no doubt there were sellers of various things stationed along the way. Surprisingly there were no vendors when I visited except for a few kiosks just behind this shot to the left and right.

A fisherman on the Niger River in Guinea not far from Siguiri Gold Mine. We had been out on a fishing trip on the diamond driller's boat (diamond drillers always have the best stuff), and on the way back the sun was low and we didn't see his net stretched across the water. Actually he was quite pleased we wrecked his net because the drillers gave him a fistful of money for his trouble.

A baobab tree at the Bandiagara Escarpment in Mali, and a friend of our guide. There are many baobab trees in Mali. The locals don't cut them down for firewood because the wood burns too fast. But they do use the fibers for making fiber-ey things, the pods are used for rattles, and can be made into cream of tartar.

A hat seller at Mopti in Mali. He doesn't look very happy, but I suppose he is asleep. The hats don't look comfortable at all, and are made from leather and wicker.

2006-12-03T17:02:00.000-08:00

Turkish Nights

A lamp shop at the Kapali Karsi in Istanbul. These also remind me of the lamps you see in Venice, which they probably found from Islamic traders.

These are pretty inticing looking shops I have to say. The lamps are great looking but not very practical if you have the same lamp hanging skills as pammie. I still have two collecting dust in my treasure chest. Not to mention the 14 Vietnamese silk lanterns...

Nothing like a whacking massive bit of scaffolding to ruin the majesty of a place. The Aya Sofia originally started out as a Christian church, then the Islamic guys took over, now it is a museum. The massive wooden circles have the names of the prophets written in pretty Arabic script.

The interior of the Blue Mosque. The light situation is a little interesting but at least they can change the bulbs with just a ladder. If you look around the inside of a mosque you might find an ostrich egg hanging somewhere. They are said to keep away spiders. I have lots of ostrich eggs and I had heaps of spiders. Hmm.

2006-12-02T21:18:00.000-08:00

Pammie's Living Room

The lamp got switched to the spare bedroom now that I have a standing lamp in the living room next to the dining room table. These Canadian fellahs don't put lights in the ceiling, I notice. The box thing to the left would normally hold a TV but I think I won't get a TV, seeing as how I never remember to turn it on. I can just get the news from the headlines from the newsstands as I walk to work. If anything major happens you will have to let me know. This means that the TV box can go down into the storage room and free up some space in the living room.

Once the TV box is gone one of the chests can go to the right hand side of the brown couch, and that will make more room in the middle. The skinny standing lamp is from the UK and needs to be re-wired, which is probably not going to happen anytime soon.

The view from the white couch. The bookcase is holding all my cookbooks and food related literature, and has an ominous forward lean to it. I would like it closer to the kitchen but it would mess up the line of the African masks if it were closer.

Possibly not the best photograph of the painting I bought at The George in Croscombe just before I left the UK. I liked it particularly because it was painted by a South African artist, Catherine Ash, and that I found it at my favourite pub in the UK. The publican is a Canadian and displays artwork by local artists on his walls. So the painting reminded me of two places I have lived. It won the 1st prize in the pastel section at the 2003 West Somerset Show and 1st in The Show. I asked the artist, who I did not meet, to tell me about herself and the painting, and she wrote me by email:

Thank you for letting me know that you have bought the painting. I hope you will enjoy it for many years to come. I am happy that it has been bought by someone with an appreciation of Africaand its people. The painting evolved from a black and white photograph I came across in a newspaper. I called the painting Looking to the Future...? because of the unknown and daunting future facing most women in Africa to-day.

A little about me ... I have been painting for many years - when I first started I worked in oils using a pallet knife - I just couldn't get the effect I wanted with the conventional brush. I then discovered pastels and found I could get pastels to 'work' and have used them exclusively since then. When we came to England in the 70's I enrolled at The Sutton College of Liberal Arts in Surrey, later I did a 2 year life drawing class at Morley College in London, where I also did a further two years of sculpture. Over the years I have sold a number of paintings - both oil and pastel. I believe you will be returning to America quite soon, I wish you luck and I hope all goes well.

2006-11-30T18:53:00.000-08:00

Pride Parade

I never posted my photos of the Pride Parade that was held in the West End this summer.

It was really hot out and they held it right in the middle of the day in the blazing sun. It lasted over two hours, I couldn't take the sun any more and left before the end.
There were people stacked up five deep along both sides of the street for about 8 blocks. They need to make the route longer!

2006-11-29T18:03:00.000-08:00

Cactus and Refrigerators and More Thanksgiving

This is in a very pretty little cactus garden at Balboa Park in San Diego. We were also there right at the best light, so they were pretty photogenic.

Jennifer trapped by the curly tree.

The inside of Sue and Phil's refrigerator at Thanksgiving. This was even before all the leftovers got crammed in there.

Phil's dressing. Very fluffy huh.

Phil's peas.

Tim supervising the cooking.

Broccoli and chicken casserole. We also had lumpia which are Filipino egg rolls, cranberry sauce, homemade macaroni and cheese, gravy, pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and ice cream. Yum, a great meal and a very fun trip to California and spending time with Tim and Jennifer and her family.

2006-11-28T19:52:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving

I had my third 2006 Thanksgiving dinner at Sue and Phil's house in San Diego. 2006 was my first real Thanksgiving since 1988 so I am making up for lost time.

Instead of the usual sweet potato pie, we had yam chips instead. Yum.

Ooh, crescent rolls, haven't had these in years. Dunno how they make them but they must be extremely bad for you since they taste like they have been injected with a major dose of movie theatre popcorn butter. Note the baking matt, which keeps things from sticking to the pan.

Okay now Thanksgiving is over we can take out the Christmas decorations. This pink Christmas tree would look great in Cailli's house!

Furry cactus at the cactus garden at Balboa Park, San Diego. A great way to work off Thanksgiving dinner and also the lunch at the authentic Mexican place...

Tim and Jennifer being attacked by the curly cactus.

Cactus are very photogenic.

2006-11-27T21:22:00.000-08:00

Phil's Photos

I used to really like my camera until I saw what Phil's camera can do with a feature called colour swap. You focus on the colour you want to highlight, and it takes a photo with only that colour picked out and the rest in a kind of sepia tone. Not only do you get the photo you intended but you also get some unexpected highlights like the guy in the yellow shirt in the background.

Sue at the cactus garden at Balboa Park in San Diego. Sue is my brother Tim's wife Jennifer's sister, and Phil is her fiance, if that sentence makes sense.

Palm trees at Balboa Park.

A house in Mission Hills, San Diego. We went for a walk around the neighbourhood before having a great BBQ lunch at Phil's BBQ restaurant in San Diego.

Jugglers at Balboa Park.

2006-11-27T08:22:00.000-08:00

Snow in Vancouver!

My flight from California arrived late into Vancouver last night, and by the time I got outside it was past midnight. All the shuttle buses had gone home for the night and there was a huge line of people waiting outside in the snow for taxis. I waited 1.5 hours for my taxi and didn't get home till after 2:30 AM.

This is the view from my balcony. My house is nice and toasty warm though. It's always light in my bedroom at night because of the street lights, but it's even brighter now with the reflection off the snow.

The view out the front door. You can still see the trail where I dragged my suitcase through the snow.

2006-11-20T20:10:00.000-08:00

Architecture Around Vancouver

There are a few Art Deco buildings around town, this one is near my office. I am not sure what it is. Notice the trees beginning to turn colour, this photo was taken on October 21, 2006.

This is a restaurant in Yaletown which I haven't tried yet. I like the industrial looking beam, the old lamp, and the glass panes above the door. This would be a converted warehouse left over from the freight train days.

Waiting for the sea bus outside the Science Museum across the water from where I live. No doubt this was the height of science theme architecture at the time it was built. Now it just looks a little dated and small. It's infested with screaming little kids too.

Trendy steel and glass restaurants along Marinaside Crescent next to Quayside Marina, around the corner from my house.

View from the start of Stanley Park seawall walk looking back towards the high rises at the north end of downtown, unfortunately at low tide which seems to be scheduled at the middle of the day around here. My office is two streets back from the water.

2006-11-18T17:22:00.000-08:00

Unpacking

Argh. Well I made some good progress today despite the fact that I only spent about three hours doing any actual work. My strategy so far seems to involve moving stacks of things from one place to the other, giving the temporary impression that one place is sorted out.

So I fixed the bed, and cleaned up most of the master bedroom and bathroom. The master bath is having some plumbing problems. The drain doesn't work on the bath tub so I have a layer of silt on the bottom of the bath from the recent additives to our drinking water supplies (dirt), and also the toilet doesn't flush. Just as well I have a second bathroom. Then I had to go out to find a shower curtain and some glue be gone degumming liquid for my new crystal glasses from Fortnum and Masons, who use weapons grade sticking glue for their price tags.

Next up is the living room and bits and pieces of the kitchen. The cabinet where the pots and pans go has a yukky sweet smell to it, so I am going to have to put some eucalyptus oil or something in there to kill that off. One big problem is the lack of linen shelves. I need to get one of those closet organiser things.

2006-11-17T18:34:00.000-08:00

What I Was Doing on June 20th, 2004

What I’ve been reading: The Independent newspaper on Saturdays which has the travel, cooking, and entertainment sections. A few weeks ago I bought a book called 1000 Places To See Before You Die. It is gratifying to see that I have seen nearly 20% of the places I have to see before I die. What do I mean. I gotta get a move on. 20%!! Even if a 80% success rate is considered acceptable I still have 60% to catch up on.

What I’ve been eating: Now that I have my own flat I’ve been eating cereal for breakfast, those little square shredded wheat things with apricot or cranberry filling. A cup of coffee, and a glass of orange juice. I normally eat a kiwi fruit but I just paid a fortune for four of them that went from being hard as rocks to rotten on the inside with no edible window. So I will have to find something else. For lunch a shredded chicken sandwich on sunflower bread with whole grain mustard and Hellman’s mayonnaise, and shredded mixed Italian salad on top. A small packet of potato chips, a box of local strawberries or a peach, a few spoons of yogurt, and a cookie. For dinner, which isn’t consistent, lately I have either been skipping dinner or having crackers with scary unpasteurised French bleu cheese from the local markets, or local French pate, or with Somerset Brie, also faintly scary. I made roast chicken once with roast vegetables. My first meal was grilled salmon with soy/maple syrup glaze, the second meal was seared tuna. Greens are asparagus, other vegetables butternut squash and onion and baking potatoes (yay, finally, a place that sells baking potatoes instead of just boiling potatoes!! Although nothing can beat an Idaho. My dad informs me otherwise.). I try to get as much fresh food from the local markets on Wednesdays and Saturdays. There’s a fish guy, a meat guy, several cheese people, an olive and marinated vegetables lady, baked goods, a poultry person, inconsistent fruit and vegetables, and a disturbing lack of refrigeration at most places, including the chicken guys.

What I’ve been thinking about: Buying a house. My wages from Tanzania are burning a big hole in my pocket. Hopefully soon I will get my work visa and I will pay taxes like everyone else and be legal and do something constructive with my money. Rather than pay someone else’s mortgage for them why not buy a house. Well because they seem to be running at around £200,000 for a dog box, that’s why. That’s US$360,000. Here I was thinking I could buy myself a whole house. I could have in South Africa but the exchange rate had plummeted by 30% since I had arrived (as usual), and I couldn’t justify buying a house there. Anyway they keep saying in every newspaper and on the radio constantly that housing prices are to plummet soon but no doubt that will wait till just after I’ve bought mine.

My next holiday: No big plans. On the weekends if I don’t have any plans I will just take the local bus to various destinations until I have seen all the local areas. I could go to the coast up to the sea, or anywhere really. It would be nice just for the drive because this is a very pretty area. Glastonbury Festival is on next week so I might take a bus over there to see all the people in town, in fact I could probably see them from here. This is a huge annual four day rock festival in a farmer’s muddy field like Woodstock, but I don’t want to see the bands and get crushed by all the people though or use their infamously disgusting toilets or slosh through the mud.

Things I’ve bought lately: A subscription to Esquire magazine, which is a man’s magazine I know, but who minds looking at pictures of guys plus they have some pretty funny articles. Also a subscription to Outside magazine, now that I live in a place where people won’t steal my mail. Yay. I subscribed to Outside and Gourmet magazines when I was in South Africa and only got about a third of them. There must be some well read people in the post office. I also bought a mop and a toilet brush yesterday, oh joy. Last week I got a hair dryer, I should have brought my one from South Africa but didn’t think I would need it. It’s pretty damp here and things take a long time to dry, including my hair.

What I’m wearing: Now I am dressing up for work because of visiting clients so that means I have a library of about 5 skirts, two pairs of pants, and about 6 shirts which get rotated around. I bought three pairs of shoes in about 30 minutes just before I left South Africa so now I have a leather pair, a beige pair, and a black pair. I haven’t got a jacket, just a long coat, so eventually I will need to make a trip to Bath which has some nice shops, to stock up on winter things including stockings.

What my hair looks like: as usual, up in a band, although a lot shorter than normal because of the usual miscommunication between myself and the hairdresser, who this time interpreted my request to take off half an inch as 3 inches. Oh well. I get my hair cut about every six months anyway so it’s not a drama. I am still in the habit of washing my hair at night and then squarshing it while still wet during the night so it isn’t acceptable to wear out of the band during the day. Now I have a hairdryer I can go for a walk early in the morning then have a shower and dry it and wear it out, but I’ve only done this once. Freaked ‘em out at the office because they were only used to it being in the band.

What I’ve been listening to: Classic FM radio which is turned on 24 hours a day, otherwise I will never remember to turn it on. I never lived in an environment where the radio was always on but I enjoy it when I visit people who do, and while I was staying at the B&B they had it going while I was eating breakfast. Now I will never remember to turn something on if it isn’t directly in my face, like the lock on the front door, or else feeding me caffeine like the coffee maker. So I figured it’s no big deal to keep it on all day and that way I can listen to it during all my meals. I can hear it slightly from the bedroom which is a bit unsettling. You’d think they’d play all the serene pieces at night but you’d be amazed by how many marching tunes they put on in the middle of the night. Maybe there are night shift people out there needing waking up.

What I’ve been fighting: As usual, the constant and overwhelming urge to goof off. I dunno what it is but while I’m working I’m constantly reminded of things I would rather be doing or looking up. And with the internet right there it’s so easy to look up Horse Riding lessons in Somerset county or the Stock Exchange Game or whatever. Anyway I try to keep it under control. What with the move to the UK and the photos I’ve been posting I have a nice big inbox which is fun, but then I am always tempted to answer them during the day, as there is forever someone wanting to talk to me if I come in early or stay back late to do them then. Also, it just occurs to me, I’ve been fighting the urge to say SHUUUUUT UUUUPPP!!! I work with some very sweet people but two of them are CONSTANTLY talking. We communicate with other offices regularly via the MSN Messenger or by email and so someone is always commenting on the conversation they are having with someone else on that or with the email they just read. These two talk aloud as they work through problems with their work. So I am always tuning in and out of what I am working on and saying huh? Huh? Huh? Huh? I can’t concentrate!!! I now just ignore everyone, which isn’t good if someone expects me to be paying attention. I am pretty good at ignoring people, I tuned out my last bosses’ voice because he only spoke in Afrikaans unless he was directly speaking to me, but that isn’t a good habit to get into.

What I’ve been seeing: whenever I walk to work or through town I notice how old everything is, from the ivy covering all the tree trunks to the wavey glass in the windows to the cobblestones on the market street to the details on the houses and buildings. It’s a nice change.

What I’ve been smelling: Unfortunately the musty smell of the carpet in the house when I first walk in the door and the duvet cover which needs to be changed also. I’m trying not to breathe too deeply otherwise because I had terrible hayfever when I first got here but it seems to be getting a bit better now.

What I’ve been drinking: a half of cider when I go to the pub which is short for a half pint of cider. This is cider country so each pub has a few different local choices. I’m a slow drinker and also the cider gets you hammered quickly so ordering a half means that I am not drinking warm cider by the end of the glass and then I can have two glasses and decline the third and get home without stumbling into ditches. During the day it’s the mango tea from Hawaii which costs more per ounce than gold, which I brew in the morning in one of those big plunger things then dilute each mug by half with water during the day.

What I’ve been saying: I’ve developed yet another annoying habit of ending every word in "skie" what with all the Russian contacts we have at work now. So now it’s "output the file as a DXFskie", or "man this town sure has a lotta slutskies", or "what the effskie". I have to stop swearing.

2006-11-16T20:57:00.000-08:00

Turkey

Someone turned off the sun while I was gone, so I haven't got any photos of unpacking disaster scenes which hasn't made any progress since I left for Mexico. So since Cailli is in Turkey I thought I would post some of my Turkey photos.

Turkey was my first Muslim country, and the Blue Mosque was the first mosque I had been in. I have to say I was a little nervous because I thought I would stand out and they would make me cover my hair. I shouldn't have worried because there are heaps of tourists there and besides I could pass for a Turkish chick except I was wearing a nuclear red jacket and a whacking great camera around my neck.

This was my hotel the first time I stayed in Istanbul, the Yesil Ev, which means the Green House, it is over 100 years old. The next time I stayed at the Blue House, the Mavi Ev. I was not expecting this kind of architecture whatsoever. I had in mind a city built of squat square dun coloured sandstone, high stone walls, and drifting sand dunes. Instead I got something that looked straight out of San Francisco. But like San Francisco, Turkey has a lot of earthquakes so buildings are made out of wood and often rebuilt because of damage by earthquake and fire. This particular building is directly across the street from the Aya Sofia and is in a perfect location, especially if you like to hear the call to prayer.

The Blue Mosque at night. I made a fantastic recording of the call to prayer on my cell phone. I really like the call to prayer and the one in Istanbul is fantastic, and is done in a rolling fashion from one muezzin to the next between the Aya Sofia and the Blue Mosque and two or three other nearby mosques. It's also tremendously loud and the recording was perfect. Unfortunately I had to leave the recording behind in the UK as I couldn't get it off the cell phone, which belonged to my work.

2006-11-14T08:56:00.000-08:00

Photos from a Mexican Gold Mine

A view of part of the open cut mine in southern Mexico, about an hour's drive northeast of Acapulco. You can see part of the Rio Balsas in the distance.

Unfortunately I did not see this myself, a geologist at the mine gave me this photo. He lives near this cave full of massive selenite crystals (similar to gypsum) in northern Mexico. They are not mining the crystals but they take tourists through. It would be a very interesting place to visit but it is tremendously hot inside, they say.