Cycling the End to End: Cornwall, Devon and Somerset, England

Bicycle touring: Cornwall, Devon, Somerset

May, 2014

The Cruel Cornish Hills

We were not counting on the punishing hills. We should have been more realistic. Our only previous bike tour had been on a rails to trails outing of five or six days where doing thirty to forty miles in a day was not a problem, even for us at 70. Okay, we thought, it will take a little longer. But we can manage. Wrong. Our bikes were more heavily laden, we're now 73, and we think we were lacking a lower gear or two that "real" touring/road bikes have (ours were a compromise purchase of commuting bikes at a reasonable price with elevated handlebars which is much more comfortable for us than the bent over road bike style). Consequently, we couldn't even peddle to the top of many of Cornwall's steep back roads. We'd have to get off and push the last bits. By the time we'd reach our day's destination, we'd be really done in. Then we'd have to get up and do it all again the next day. After only three days, we took a day off. That was in Mortenhampstead. We'd made it all the way through Cornwall, Devon and across Dartmoor. But we were wiped out. Our host in a B and B there (Cookshayes Country Guest House), Barry, was terrific. Sympathetic, supportive, caring. He did our laundry, we enjoyed his fabulous breakfasts, and hiked the moor--that was dumb. We should have just slept. Anyway, there were lovely moments we could reflect about. The gorgeous stone houses and churches, many draped in blooming clematis, just like in the pictures of English cottages. The brilliantly colored rhododendrons blooming in multiple front gardens, just like as though it were nothing special. Lovely tea breaks in cute shops. Gorgeous, hilly fields newly spread with, yikes, smelly manure. Well, that wasn't so nice, actually. Tall hedges/stone walls lining one-lane roads with few cars, and when there was a car, they were so careful of us. BUT, the downsides were heavier. While the UK is working on making more cycle trails, and traffic free routes, at this moment it is still not easy to go long distances without hitting A or B roads for some miles most days. The B roads aren't so bad, but the A roads can be awful. There's no tradition of shoulders on roads in the UK, probably because of rock walls. Ancient stone walls line most of the roads, and to move them and make shoulders would probably raise a howl of protest. So paved roads are two cars wide, in most cases, and that's it. So picture riding along on the edge of your lane, with lots of traffic, including trucks and buses. Cars line up behind you, or else pass inches from your terrified body. It's not fun. Most drivers are courteous and careful, waiting to pass when it's clear. But not all. My neon yellow rain/wind jacket probably saved our lives a time or two. It was eye catching, even on dark days. There are modern roads with shoulders, the M roads, but they are off limits to cyclists, as they should be.

We pursued, on to Bristol from the moor. But on the way, the second day from Bristol, I took a spill. Geo had warned me about trying to cross even a low curb on our rather slick roadie tires. Sure enough, I was trying to leave heavy traffic to do a route check (we had to constantly pay attention to our written directions) and there was just a one inch edge. I didn't have enough of an angle to cross it. My front wheel just hit it and stopped, and the bike keeled over sideways, kaboom. My head hit the ground hard--I was so grateful right away for my helmet. And my whole left side. Wham. Geo pulled me up, and I really thought I was okay. I knew it was as hard a fall as I'd ever experienced, but nothing was broken. Only a scrape on the left side of my knee. It took a couple of days for the bruised ribs to let me know how affected they were. We cycled on to Wells, looked at the cathedral, then Bristol. The next morning I was beginning to feel worse. We decided to stay another night. But that afternoon, we concluded we'd best abort the ride. We were just not making enough progress to get to Scotland in the time we'd allotted, even were I not injured. So we planned to ride 50 miles further on, where we could get a good train connection to Glasgow, in Hereford. Meanwhile I started taking ibuprofen, after reading that pain control was the most important treatment for bruised ribs. But getting out of Bristol proved to be an awful morning. First we crossed the Avon on the wrong bridge, adding ten miles to our ride to Monmouth. Then we had miles of A road with terrible traffic. Stressful. Finally we got into Wales and gorgeous peddling (Tinturn Abbey!) though still hard. By the time we reached Monmouth at 3:00 or so, I was a wreck. I showered and fell into bed, sleeping an hour. 

The most painful time was at night, Moving around in bed was so difficult. More pain meds. I was sorry to have to go another 20 miles the next day, but it was a beautiful, warm, sunny day (we'd had a week of spotty rain, clouds, chilly temps), and no really steep hills, though hills there were. We had booked in to the airbnb home of Kathleen B., a welcoming, generous host who took really good care of us, which helped a lot. The next morning we caught the train, and in 5 hours with only one change we were in Glasgow.

At first we thought I could rest a couple of days and we'd pick up the cycling again. But impediments loomed. The weather was Scottish: cold and wet. The hill profiles and distances were challenging. My injuries were not just healing overnight. So we rented a car. The next phase has become a road trip, with a tiny Fiat. That blog to follow. Meanwhile, I'll tack on some photos, though I did not get many of the early days of cycling.

Photos: Top, George near Mortenhampstead.    A misty morning in Cornwall.  Middle, a nice B and B north of Exeter.  Below, the start at Lands End, and Barry's super "full English breakfast"--enough to cycle on all day.

A Repositioning Cruise across the Atlantic

Words from a Winch Wench

April 26, 2014 on board Adventure of the Seas

We know we are in a remote part of the Atlantic Ocean when our room TV tells us there is no satellite signal and thus no TV, and no news.  No more reminders of the lost 10th graders from South Korea.  No more worries about Russia, Ukraine, and what to do.  What we can see is the view off the bow from a live mini-cam, or the information about our position, speed (17 knots) and distance traveled so far: 1700 nautical miles or so.  Or pay per view movies and such.  Not that we mind our lack of television.  There is much to do on board, as our cruise director constantly reminds us--on the intercom and at various venues.  This morning I can choose among a belly dance class, ice skating, working out in the gym, or water aerobics in the pool--not to mention doing the daily sudoku or reading my library book.  And those are just the things that interest me.  There are also trivia groups, bingo, napkin folding, Spanish language, and a seminar on sparkling wines.  Later, this afternoon, a group of women meets for our second rehearsal for a flashmob dance routine to "Killer."  I'm doing that too, if I can manage to learn the steps.  Life on a cruise ship has not been about shuffleboard and deck chairs for a long time.

Cruising is a difficult travel subject to discuss.  I am sitting on our tiny balcony looking at large swells coming at us in a sea that is the deepest and most glorious shade of blue I have ever seen.  Having this experience is to be treasured and savored, in my opinion, because we are traveling upon a part of our planet that makes up most of our surface, yet how few of us get to spend any time getting to know it with any intimacy?  Travel of any sort if to be valued, and sea travel is of enormous value to one's perspective on our earthly home.  Yet, there are all the negatives.  Cruise ships use huge amounts of fuel to move passengers for no very good reason from continent to continent--in this case North America to Europe--or simply port to port.  Our chief engineer talks about thousands of kilograms of fuel.  In answer to a question about gas mileage, he says we get about 1.5 feet per gallon!  Not that we use gasoline--rather a crude oil called "cabbage."  I'm sure that's what he said.

And, it's all just old people overeating.  Well, it's true that 65% of the 2800 or so folks on board are over 55, and in fact, 300 of them are over 75.  And it's hard not to overeat, what with the spread put before us three times a day.   But there are a few younger folks too.  We met some Canadians in their 50s, we guessed, whose motto is "Eat dessert first."  Take that cruise while you are alive and kicking.  Don't wait until you maybe can't manage it for one reason or another.   Like Mary Poppins urges, let's go fly a kite.  We got to see Saving Mr. Banks in the ship's theater, followed by an outdoor screening of Mary Poppins, which I had never seen, and which BEGAN at 10:30 at night, and lasted well over two hours.  I was pretty worn down by that evening.

Cruising can be affordable, but it requires a certain amount of dedication.  We suspect the staterooms are priced very reasonably because the company is convinced that once aboard you will indulge in the many sometimes pricey offerings available.  A glass of wine is $8.  Off ship tours are $30 to $200 a person.  Buy diamonds.  Designer clothes.  French wines.  Or gamble in the casino, pay for spa treatments, visit the fitness specialists for individual programs.  There's not much you can't buy.  Frugality is a challenge, but it can be done.  Though we did buy a $100 each excursion.  That's when I got to be a winch wench.  We were visiting the island of San Martin in the Caribbean, port of Phillipsburg.  On offer was a sail aboard an Americas' Cup racing boat.  Three of them actually, which would be racing, with cruise ship passengers as crew.  Stars and Stripes, which was America's entry in 1987 and won, I think; Canada II, and Northwind, also Canadian.  To me it seemed like an experience I was never likely to be able to have unless I did it now, so I talked George into it, and he was game, given that his seasick pills seemed to be working just fine.  We were assigned tasks, based on our willingness to be "active."  I was nervous about this, of course, but I was glad I spoke up for active, because one of the women who declined to be active was given the job of watching for icebergs.  How demeaning is that?  Another was the bar tender, which basically meant making sure people had enough water.  I and another woman became winch wenches.  Well, that's a little demeaning too, but the job was challenging.  In the stern, we sat with a rope wrapped about a post (I'm sure it's called something nautical), and it had elaborate hardware and we had to do winding and unwinding in a specific way whenever the captain barked orders at us.  It was so unnerving we had a hard time paying much attention to the boat's progress in the race.  (Hence I'm not even sure who won, but it wasn't us.)  There was the command to "ease," meaning let out some rope, but in a certain sequence we were to ease until he told us to stop.  Let out a LOT of rope, in other words.  I hope it wasn't because my companion wench and I were a little slow to ease that our boat came in third, but it wasn't about winning, anyway, in my opinion.  It was a beautiful, sunny, breezy hour on the water, and I would have loved a whole day of it.  George was a mainsail grinder, and he and another man worked a winding device that let the mainsail in or out as we tacked.  Our captain was cool, even with such a novice crew.  He was on his fourth sail race of the day with these land lubbers.

Last night we were up late again.  This time it was a 50s and 60s rock and roll party--held on a dance floor of wood covering the ice of the skating rink.  Yesterday's ice show was remarkable.  There were young professional skaters from Russian, Canada, the US and Ukraine.  We had rink side seats, which was neat.  No charge.

May 2--day 13 of the cruise

We've covered 3800 nautical miles--slightly longer than land miles--and have moved our clocks and watches ahead five times in seven days.  It is a bit difficult.  Each morning there are fewer people at breakfast early.  I'm only guessing because we are not there either.  The lunch crowd at 3pm is huge.  Our bodies are struggling to catch up.  Still, it is better than doing it all at once, as is required when you fly.  We'll arrive in England adjusted to English time.  The seas have been amazingly calm.  We've had no rough weather at all.  We've lost our Caribbean temperatures, of course.  It was still fairly balmy in the Azores, our last stop, but now, two days north from there, it is in the 50s outside.  Europe in spring.  Also gloomily cloudy.  Today the regulars usually sunning themselves at the pools are all tucked in the library and other indoor spots with their books.  Only the hot tubs are popular.  And lots of people are remembering the gym is there.

The Azores are a Portuguese autonomous region of nine islands (900 miles from Portugal), but most of the population is probably on San Miguel with a tidy and historic port at the small city of Ponta Delgado.  There is an area of old homes and shops on narrow cobbled streets--the buildings hung with wrought iron balconies, tile touches, cut lava stone trim and pastel colored stucco.  One was being restored, and you could see the primitive building material of the original walls: mud, volcanic rocks, pebbles.  Many are for sale and would require loving restoration.  But it seems to be happening.  With our friends we hired a taxi to take us to see one of the sites--a view down into an extinct (they must hope) volcano with two large connected lakes and a town in the tree lined caldera, and then a walk in the crater among the inhabitants, who didn't seem nervous.  The last eruption was 1440.  The island is teeming with cows, and our taxi driver explained that the island exports milk to Portugal.  Azorean milk, he said, is the best.  He claimed the cows were stress free, but I think they also get a lot to eat.  There is no grass like this west of Vermont.  There were dozens of cows per five acre pasture.  It must grow faster than they can eat it.

Sigrid and I walked to the presidential palace and grounds up on a hill in town.  We bought senior tickets for one Euro each and walked all around the building looking at the gardens.  Apparently they don't worry about terrorists here.  The climate is mild enough for towering Norfolk Island Pines.  And we saw a hibiscus TREE that was ten feet tall in a park nearby.  They grow pineapples to export, as well as tobacco and tea.  Until 1981 Sperm Whales were harvested.  We estimated that gasoline cost $16 a gallon.  Happily the island is only 60 kilometers long and varies between 8 and 15 wide.

George and I ride the stationary bicycles in the gym every day.  We know we have to if we expect to ride any distance at all on the End to End route in the UK.  We're even worried about making the 40 miles we're committed to on our first riding day, as we've booked a B and B in a town 40 miles north of Penzance.  It's hilly, and we've only toured once with luggage--four full panniers each--and that was on a rails to trails route in Missouri.  Basically flat.  Then we look worriedly at the forecasts on the TV--which is up and running again.  Most of Europe is in the midst of cold, stormy weather.  And we've no doubt added to our challenge by gaining weight on the ship.  

A few words about Mercedes Lafuente.  She's our cruise director, from Argentina, and a hard working woman.  She's in charge of the ship's entertainment, which goes on most of the day and night.  She's good humored, lively, six feet tall, attractive and formidable.  We all got a little tired of her telling us to "put our hands together" to welcome this or that magician or ventriloquist or the ship's terrific orchestra, and reminding us of all the wonderful things there are to do each day--she appears at as many as she can manage, and conducts a good number of events from bingo to evening parties.   But I think Royal Caribbean must treasure her, for she is hugely energetic, enthusiastic and successful.  She had half the 1300 British cruisers out one night for a sing along sort of event in the promenade--a kind of Main Street in the middle of the ship--and they were a happy bunch, singing along with a tape of 30 or 40 years of popular tunes--about half of which were also sung in the US. One day she gave a lecture on Evita Peron.  This is a multifaceted woman.

On May 4 we docked at Southampton at about 5 in the morning.  It has been the calmest of crossings.  We've had no rough weather, and just a day or two when the water sloshed around in the pools much at all.  We hardly noticed we were at sea unless we got out on the decks and felt the wind.  George and I and our friends Sigrid and John got off the ship about 8 in the morning and took a bus to the train station.  They were off to Manchester and Ireland, and we went south to Penzance--taking three different trains to do it.  English trains seem to be as punctual as those in Switzerland.  We had four minutes to make one connection and it went off without a hitch.  Today is the 5th; we are in cloudy Cornwall, ready to collect our bikes and begin the next phase of our journey.

The photos are a shot off our balcony on the exceptionally blue water day, and a view of the front of a sister ship much like Adventure of the Seas, parked next to us in San Juan, PR.

Cozumel

January 27, 2012


Cozumel, Quintana Roo (Yucatan) Mexico



The island of Cozumel appears prosperous in January, largely because of the 5 or more cruise ships that dock here six days a week. One day we counted seven. We figure that could be about 20,000 visitors in one day--on an island of 75,000. The taxis line up near the port for blocks, hopeful that they'll have a fare. Tourism workers drive cars and SUVs, talk on cell phones, take their chunky children to Burger King, dress smartly. But the minimum wage in Mexico is 54 pesos a day--which makes it, at 13 to the dollar, a hair over $4. In the tourist restaurants, a beer costs 20 pesos, a taco plate 100 or more. Old men drive three wheeled bicycle carts for hire to carry luggage, cement blocks, soft drinks for sale, or grandma. And anywhere you go in town, taxis circle like sharks after an elusive fare.

We came to Cozumel because of the clear, warm waters for snorkeling and diving, the balmy weather, and the chance to be in Mexico again. And because we found, on line, an apartment for rent owned by an American woman who was most communicative and helpful, for a monthly rate of $1300. Although that's not cheap, it is much less than most of the hotel rooms in the entire "Riviera Maya"--the coast south from Cancun to Belize that is thronging with visitors from Europe and the US. And it includes a kitchen/living room and separate bedroom and bath, a garden setting and a small pool, with maid service if we need it, plus wifi. We've been doing more apartment renting in the last couple of years of travel, finding that we really enjoy settling in, cooking, getting into a routine, and feeling a bit like residents. Calvin Trillin, in Travels with Alice, calls it hanging out. He thinks there ought to be a series of travel books on Hanging Out in Fance, Italy, and more. Cozumel isn't as glamorous as Tuscany, for sure, but hanging out here is really good.

So back to prosperous. There are houses behind high walls. You can't see them, but you can see the jungle of trees and flowering vines that surround them, and you sometimes get a glimpse, as a solid gate opens and a car emerges, of spacious hacienda living inside. Such houses occur randomly around the city. We live on Avenida 55, between Calles 3 and 5. There are no haciendas on our street, but we do have a wall and a locked gate. Our apartment is one of six in three buildings. We are many blocks from the port, and miles from the nearest beach. On our street are colorful little concrete block houses. Some are tidy, and a bougainvilla or palm peeks over a wall. Some have a covered porch in front that serves as a parking spot, a minivan bulging out over the sidewalk. Smaller ones, if you catch a glimpse inside, look less upscale. Often there is a hammock, a TV and some chairs, and not much else. On each block, a few houses have commercial activities on the porch or just inside. There's a man selling fruit--grapefruit and oranges stacked up neatly on a little table, while he sits much of the day in a plastic chair. There's a loncheria across the street, just down from the house where a tiny dog spends the day on the sloping metal roof. (He's stopped barking at us, finally.) There tacos are sold, and our Canadian neighbors in the apartment next to ours buy guacamole from him. (They were amazed to learn guacamole was mostly just mashed avacados. They had never known what an avacado looked like before they encountered one in our fruit bowl.) There's a guy who welds all day long in his garage. Another house has Abarrotes (groceries) Gaby painted on the wall, and the living room behind the open front door displays racks of chips. Many of the houses look run down, and some are empty: a severe hurricane sat malevolently over the island in 2005. There are broken down vehicles, scrap metal, discarded plastic toys, metal drums, plastic barrels--all sorts of detritus stuck here and there. Many houses are built right up to the sidewalks, which border the street. Walking the sidewalk is often not possible because of the clutter. And other issues. Sidewalk construction is the responsibility of the property owner, we surmise. Each section looks different, and the quality varies. Some are perfect, even cut with striations so they are not slippery in a rain. Others, though, are broken, heaved, cracked, humped or missing altogether. They are blocked by concrete electric poles, a parked car, a garbage can chained to a wall, or even, in one case, a row of recently planted royal palm trees, thriving in their concrete casing. This morning I had to detour around a clothes line filled with wash. We walk a lot. We have a little Nissan rented sedan, but it's a bit scary driving it around town, what with all the motorbikes filling the streets, passing cars whenever and however they can.

So this is our neighborhood, and we think the prosperity is a little thin. Maybe not trickling down to so very many on the island. Many of our neighbors seem to be just getting by.

We walk in the morning for exercise. There's a soccer field/track only a few blocks away, and each morning it is full of locals jogging and doing calesthenics. One very heavy guy has been there every morning bundled up in long pants and a Donald Duck sweatshirt. We are in shorts and a tank top in my case. It is warm. He was walking really slowly the first day, but he's picked up a little speed. Geo thinks it's a New Year's resolution. Our favorite walk is to the the old mercado, which still exists downtown, even though there are modern supermarkets just south of the city a few kilometers. There we visit "our" fish man, who filets the freshest of sea critters for us--snapper, mackerel, grouper. They cost about $7 a kilo--less than $3.50 a pound, guys. Another favorite is to the ice cream shop, also downtown. The coconut has so much actual coconut in it you have to chew. Okay, let's see it's 17 pesos--$1.30.



When we want to go to the beach, we drive. The beach scene in Cozumel seems a little strange. Maybe because of the day-visits of the thousands of cruise ship passengers, a series of day-use beach clubs line the calm, western side of the island instead of multiple hotels, though there are a few of those. Buses and taxis take the passengers out to these clubs where they can pay a fee to rent a beach chair, swim in a pool, drink a margarita, parasail, snorkel, kayak, scuba, play on giant inflatable water playground equipment (picture a floating slide and trampoline) or eat a $13 hamburger, or a $15 serving of ceviche. Happily at most clubs you can park, walk in, pass the souvenir stands, restaurant and booking staff, and walk up or down the beach to a relatively quiet spot to spread your beach mat, all without parting with a peso. We smuggle in a lunch. Posted signs tell you no food or beverages--in English. Better is to leave all that behind and find an empty beach, but this is a bit of a challenge. The island is a solid slab of ancient reef limestone, and much of the coast is rock. (Tidal pools form in the sculpted, sharp stone, and tiny crustaceans take up residence. You miss this on a jeep tour.) The best sandy bits are taken up by these clubs, hotels, and national parks that cost a lot to enter. The solution is to go to the wild east side where the surf roars in, there are no hotels and only a few palapa restaurants, and most of the visitors are just passing by on jeep tours of the island. But much of that coast is rock too, with intermittent pockets of beach. Still, you can have them to yourself. It's dangerous to swim, however, as there are currents and undertows. Our favorite beach, on the south coast and not dangerous at all, is in a park variously called Punta Sur or Faro Celarin. There's a reef off shore there, and after a long swim out to it, you can follow it with a current parellel to the beach. There are great fan corals swaying in the surges, and heaps of fascinating fish. The fish seem to swim with us as the current pulls us all along. Magical. We saw one absolutely brilliant fish today that had at least six colors. There must be a fish life list. I have to find out what he's called. Dive shops have fish ID cards. It's great that this beach is protected from development, but it's not so nice that it costs $12 a person to visit. Another way to snorkel is to go out to a reef with a boat. We tried one such outing, and were impressed. Snorklers were given neon green vests, and a snorkel master with a buoy went with us. There are many boats about, so we appreciated such concern with safety.


Many days we stop at the Mega on the way home. This is a Walmart sort of store with a terrific produce department. And anything else you can think of to buy. (Its logo is a pelican with a large pouch.) I fill my cart with more than I need, failing to focus on the fact that my present home is just a couple of kilometers away and I can come back tomorrow. It's an ingrained habit for someone living 40 miles from a grocery. I remembered to bring an old Mexican paperback cookbook from home, and it's been fun hunting ingredients for regional dishes and experimenting. There's a local flavoring paste called achiote that's used in sauces for fish and pork. I made Yucatecan Fish one night using it along with orange juice, onion and limes as a simmer sauce. The local tacos are made with unfried corn tortillas--just heated briefly on a griddle. You top this with cooked fish (or meat), chopped onion, cilantro, tomato, cabbage and lime. They are served open face, and you have to figure out how to pick them up and eat them. Delicioso. I've learned how to make an acceptable ceviche. I figure a flash frozen fish from Costco might just work. It could be my new pot luck hors d'ouvre. Food from the grocery is cheaper here than at home, if you buy tortillas and local produce, fish and meat. Most costly are processed and imported things like chips, canned salmon, peanut butter. We bought a heavy metal orange juice squeezer once we'd found 20 pounds of sweet ripe oranges for two dollars. It's a lot of work, pressing out that juice. But wow, is it good.


Local Color. We gave a worker at the Punta Sur park a ride one day, and I asked him if he was a Maya. There are many of Mayan descent here, and they do look a bit different than most Mestizo Mexicans. He said he was, and that he came from a small inland village where all the residents were of Mayan origin. He speaks Mayan, as well as Spanish and English, but his children do not. He says now kids can study Mayan in school, but his 14 year old daughter does not want to. "I tell her she should," he says. "It's important. It's our culture." The fear is so many young Maya are moving to the coast to serve the tourist industry, the language and culture will disappear even more rapidly than in the past.



At the lighthouse museum, Punta Sur, we learned that the Maya were great navigators, and undertook long trading voyages up and down the east coasts of the Americas. They built stone structures to tell themselves something about where they were, and if there was a good port--or danger. They planted signal palm trees, as in, pull in at the three palm island. I didn't know that.

There's a really good history museum here with descriptions of exhibits in Spanish and English. Gripping is the tale of a Spaniard of the 16th century who married a Mayan maiden and raised a family. Subsequent Spanish explorers urged him to return to Spain, but of course he was now a committed immigrant. He was later killed in an uprising, fighting along side his new people.



Tips for Travelers. We assumed renting a car from a local company would be cheaper, and benefit the locals. Wrong. We started looking for a car after we found that we could not get a pair of decent bicycles for a reasonable cost for a month. Renting bikes by the day is the norm--for $14. If you reserve a car online, even after you get here, it is MUCH cheaper than just showing up at the local office. For $28 a day-- one week minimum--we got a car including the local liability insurance--a must to stay out of jail if you have an accident. The local guys want $60 a day, and $25 for a motorscooter. There's no local bus transport except around town. The taxis seem to have island travel locked up, and it's $10 each way to get to the nearest beach.

There are a few small hotels and other apartment rentals on line. Staying in town is cheaper than any beach hotel, but you have to be prepared to rent a car, or bring your own bicycle. Some nice beaches are 10 or more miles from town, and the loop road around the island is more than 40 miles. Just for fun we looked up the price of a modest looking beach hotel. $275/night. This is the Caribbean, I guess.

Turkey Two

TURKEY TWO
October, 2010

Things to Like, things that are annoying, about Turkey

I’m getting to like cucumbers, tomatoes, feta cheese and olives for breakfast. It’s kind of like having a Greek salad--without the onions.

Free tea. After a meal at most Turkish restaurants you are offered a free glass of cay. Pronounced “chai” as the c has a little tail that makes it a “ch.” Acik cay means you want it half water and half tea, because otherwise it is very strong. It comes in a tulip shaped glass of three or four ounces, with two lumps of sugar on the saucer. You must hold the rim to drink it. What a nice custom.

Tourists are not usually offered real coffee. Somehow they have the idea that we want Nescafe, and that’s what we get. Real Turkish coffee, strong and in a small cup, you have to go and find in a café.

Most of the pension bathrooms have showers that are on hoses fastened at shower height just randomly stuck somewhere in the small room with a drain in the floor. There is no shower stall per se. The toilet gets sprayed, or the sink or everything. Occasionally the space is so small you cannot sit facing forward on the toilet. In addition, the rooms are usually a step up from the bedroom. In one place, it was two steps up. We both missed the first step more than once, as it was hard to see and you just are not expecting it. There do not seem to be building codes for minimal requirements.

Which reminds me of a general irritation, which is floor levels. One constantly must contend with changes in floor level from inside to out, or room to room, or sometimes within a room. Stairs too have unpredictable heights--one staircase can have several different heights of risers. This is most disconcerting to feet that think they can predict the depth of the next step based on the one just previous. We’ve stumbled and tripped and almost fallen any number of times, and are grateful to so far have remained upright. It makes us appreciate the oversight we have at home that assumes such unconformities are dangerous, which they are, and regulates them generally out of existence.

Turkish buses. They are comfortable, spacious, clean, reliable, frequent, convenient. The bus stations are often far from the center of town, but individual bus companies will collect you from your hotel and take you to the station, and the reverse, in minibuses--the procedure being called “servis.” A host serves tea, Nescafe, fruit juice, colas, sodas and water as well as sweet packaged cookies or cakes on long distance buses.. They stop for meals on occasion, but often at a company owned restaurant where the prices are inflated. We’ve been on buses that went four hours without a stop, and there is not a toilet on most of them. Smaller towns are served by a dolmus, a minibus, usually from a stop close to the center of town. You can get just about anywhere in Turkey by public bus--and in a timely manner. Costs are not dirt cheap, but moderate: $20 to go about 200 kilometers.

Baklava. Bakeries make lots of greasy, heavy sweets, but they also do a big variety of baklavas--called something else depending on the flavor: walnut, pistachio, almond and many more. All are the usual honey-based oozing confections, and delicious, but best taken in small doses.,

Turkish Delight. Turns out this is a powdered sugar covered gelatin candy in a huge variety of flavors and prices. We’ve bought a sort of generic flavor in a grocery for as little as $3 a kilo, but it’s usually more like $16 a kilo--though you generally don’t want a kilo, but 100 or 200 grams. My favorite, though I’ve only tasted a few flavors, is “the sultan,” which is coconut and pistachio, or at least that was what it was called in Selcuk. George likes lemon.

Olive oil. We love olive oil. But it’s a bit of a shock to go from thinking that, as Dr. Joel Fuhrman admonishes, a teaspoon will do on your salad, to having things cooked in oil that, if it is measured at all, must be in cups. On our recent “Blue Voyage” in the Mediterranean off Fethiye, our captain Ahmet was also the cook, and had learned in local big hotels. He knew how to make omelets, which was a treat, as usually the only eggs we’ve eaten have been hard boiled. However, he cooked the omelets in copious amounts of oil, negating, somewhat, their delectability. One dish I love, except for the oil factor, is something called “Imam Fainted.” It’s called this, we hear, either because the Imam fainted from delight at this marvelous dish, or because it required the use of so much olive oil. An eggplant is halved, its center scooped out and mixed with ground meat, this is mixed with spices and cooked in oil, stuffed into the shell of the eggplant, and the whole is simmered in olive oil until done.

Beds: Maybe if we were staying in hotels with any stars at all we wouldn‘t have this complaint, but the small pensions universally buy mattresses that are, I believe, an innerspring style that “firm“ doesn‘t begin to describe. Besides a rigidity that will put your arm to sleep if you are on your side, you risk getting poked with a spring. We remedy this somewhat by traveling with ultra light Thermarest mattresses--after bone jarring experiences sleeping in Asia.. Usually the pillows are okay, but occasionally they feel like they have about as much give as a basketball.

A Wallet Found

Recently we set off on a seven kilometer hike to a town over the mountain from Fethiye to Kaya. The trail was a section of the Lycian Way. There was a road to the town, and we could have taken a dolmus, but we wanted to train up a bit for some more hiking on the long distance trail we hoped to do--should the weather improve. We walked a kilometer or so on a road before we got to the trailhead, and Geo found a wallet on the ground, its contents strewn about. We gathered up all the little scraps and looked through the pile. There was a national photo ID card, a credit card, various receipts, and tucked in the wallet was 500 lira--$350. Whoa! We puzzled over what to do. We were a little afraid that if we just turned it over to the police, the money might not get back to the young man in the picture. But there was no telephone number. How could we find him? We asked Omer, our hotel man, and he felt the police would be best. Geo went to the main station. There was no one there who spoke English, so he could not explain to the guard outside, who would not let him in. Finally we went to the tourist office, and there one of the staff who did speak English went with us to a police station nearby. She and the officer went through the receipts and found that the boy had just paid for a driver’s ed class. They called the school, got his phone number, called him, and he said he’d be right over. George was pleased, for he wanted to hand the boy the wallet and the money himself, to know he’d truly gotten it. Twenty minutes later he arrived, and Geo gave him his things and shook his hand. He kept telling us thank you. A police staffer came out and in halting English said to us the boy was very lucky that we had found his wallet, and that he had a whole month’s pay in the wallet when he lost it. We wish we could have conversed with him, to find out how he could have lost it, and how long ago, but we had to be satisfied only with knowing he’d gotten it back. That, and I took his photo with George.

The Lycian Way
With a remarkable effort, a British woman (now a Turkish citizen) named Kate Clow has gotten the Turkish government to recognize and support a long distance hiking trail is the southern most part of Turkey sometimes called Lycia or Likya after the people who were early inhabitants and builders in stone, often in harbor settlements. She put together the system using a hodgepodge collection of goat herders’ trails, ancient links between towns, contemporary dirt roads, and a few created trails. It stretches from Fethiye in the west to Antalya in the east, and covers about 500 kilometers. When the route intersects major roads, there is a distinctive yellow sign describing the two destinations at hand. Along the path, there is a system of way markers, which are two small stripes, red and white, painted on rocks, trees or poles. Wilderness purists will cringe, but it is really great to have these guiding marks. When you come to a fork, often a red x on a rock let‘s you know which is NOT the way to go. It must be difficult in the extreme to hike the whole thing, for the route goes relentlessly up and down the contours of this rugged, mountainous coast, and it’s rough, rocky, narrow at times, often steep, brushy with the thorniest of shrubs, mainly far from any fresh water, extremely hot in summer with very little shade, and without huts or organized camping. However, it does pass through small villages, and there you can, we have heard, pitch a tent, find a bed or buy a meal. Our plan was to walk a few sections of the trail, parts we could organize from one town or another so we could hike with simply a day pack or at most, a slimmed down load of overnight gear suitable for staying in a pension. One such part we did went from a small hilltop settlement called Akbel down to the sea and the ruins of Patara near a town called Gelemis, a hike of about 14 kms. The highlight was a section of Roman aquaduct that contained many remnants of a siphon system (see two photos) the engineers designed to get the water over a low valley. It was remarkable to see how they had cemented the sections together, sections that had been hewn from blocks of stone with fittings much like what we see in water pipes today. Even more remarkable was to spend an hour in this spot completely alone. After the congestion at Ephesus--dozens of bus loads of people packed into a ruin that had been so ransacked, many of the few existing statues were copies of things now resting in London and Vienna and other big cities of the world--it was a joy to soak in the scene at the Delikkemer, as the siphon is called. This and dozens of other ruins along the Likyan Yolu, the trail’s Turkish name, are just laying about. You can sit on them, poke through them, exclaim and puzzle over this and that, and just let your imagination fill in the blanks. It’s not important to know that it was a fifth century BC Likyan settlement that got taken over by Greeks and then Romans, then Byzantine era folks who built Christian churches out of blocks and pillars they pulled out of falling down temples to Athena or Artemis. It is nice to just sit meditatively for a while on a block and let the weight of all that history soak into your consciousness along with the warmth from the stone.

We ended up spending three nights in Gelemis in a comfy hotel, enjoying a wide sandy beach (a three km hike away), protected from development, amazingly, because of nesting turtles, ruins and gorgeous sand dunes, and hiking to see further ruins, like what our hotel man, Mustafa, claimed is the world’s first light house. Only the bottom ¼ of it is still upright, but it was all of hewn stone, beautifully fitted together with a spiral staircase, once tall enough to shine a firelight over the dunes to show the way into the harbor of Patara. On our first afternoon at the beach, Geo napped and I went swimming, past the surf line and over my head. I soon realized a current was taking me slowly away from the beach. I completely forgot I was not supposed to fight the current--just try to cross it and get out of it. Instead I began to swim as hard as I could for shore. It was not a good feeling to see that I was making no progress. I began to get really tired, and swallowed some water. It suddenly struck me that I might not be able to get in. I decided I needed help. As a wave crested, I could see Geo, lying on his back, his red hat over his face. “George,” I would yell and wave, then the wave would slide under me, and I’d lose sight of him. A woman on the beach called out, “Are you okay?” “No,” I said. “Get George.” I pointed to the sleeping man. (Recreated scene for photo) She sent her husband (he later apologized to me, saying he was not a strong swimmer) after George and started in to the water toward me. I yelled at her not to come in. I could just see two of us stuck out there. Then there was Geo, dashing into the surf (he hates cold water, but he didn’t even flinch), soon able to reach out and grab my hand. We swam in together, Geo giving me occasional shoves and pulls until I could get my feet solidly on the sand. What a guy. My hero.

Another day on another section of the Likyan Way we took a dolmus from the delightful small city of Kas up into the hills to a place called Cukurbag. From there we walked higher still to explore a ruin, then we planned to walk back to Kas--a total of 14 kms. About noon we found a bit of stone wall in the shade to have lunch. There was no lunch in the pack. I had either left it at the ruin when we dipped into the bag for a snack, or it had come out of the unzipped pack accidentally when we were scrambling about. In any case, we had only our water and two pieces of bread. Apples, sardines and almonds were gone. We glumly ate some bread as we hiked along a gravel road. There was a truck with two women at the back. It was a traveling store, and they were buying batteries and light bulbs. I got out our trail guide which had a glossary. Mevey? I asked (fruit). Elma? (Apples). By gestures we gathered that the truck man had no fruit, but one of the women did. He gave her a bag, and we followed her to her house, just there, a lovely old stone and tile roofed number. She disappeared into a basement like room, and soon came back with a whole bag full of apples! We tried to explain that we were walking and could not carry a whole bag of apples, but we would happily take four. I got some coins from my pocket and held them out to her. She brushed my hand away roughly, as if to say, “How could you think I wanted money?” and just gave me the fruit. We hear Turkish village hospitality is remarkable, and this was our first experience with it. As is so often the case when you travel, if you are needy and have to ask for some help, that is often when you have the most memorable moments. She let me take her picture, too. Attached.

When we first arrived in Kas (the s has a tail, so it's Kash)a pension owner met our bus--named Suleyman for the sultan--so we let him carry a bag and we went to look at his place. It had a great roof terrace, and the room was fine, so we took it. Room with breakfast 50 Turkish Lira or $35. The breakfast was exceptionally nice, with lots of fruit and a pretty presentation (see photo). Suleyman’s sister-in-law was in the kitchen. We talked often with a guest named Brian who has retired to Turkey from the UK. It was interesting to learn that he has a one bedroom apartment in Fethiye for about $225 a month, which may be why we have met quite a few retired Bits here. He says Turkey has a three tiered economy: tourists pay dearly for everything, foreign residents pay somewhat increased prices, and locals pay rock bottom. Everything has to be negotiated, he says. We have noticed that it is rare to see fixed prices on things. You ask, and are told the price. So it depends on who you are, what you pay. We are often asked what country we are from. Many Turks think we are German. Geo wants to tell them we are from anywhere but the US, as he thinks Americans will be charged the most for everything.

Our last stop on the coast was Antalya, and city that boasts of being paradise, and in many ways they have a point. The climate is mild, fruits and veggies grow abundantly in the area, the city is set between mountains and sea and just glows, it has protected its old neighborhoods and ruins to some extent, so that narrow, charming streets with restored Ottoman era houses remain--now all pensions or shops, and it boasts a world class museum full of artifacts from area ancient cities. There were, among many glorious treasures, some elaborate sarcophagi. One, however, was small and plain. Around third century, AD. The text nearby explained that it was the tomb of a dog. An inscription had been diciphered which explained the dog had died suddenly and its owner was grief stricken. The dog, it said, was named Stephanos. Its owner was a woman named Rhodope. It was, she said, a happy dog.

Turkey is often cited as being a country that bridges Europe and Asia, and it is fun to see examples of that. Toilets come to mind. In bus stations and city-provided “WCs” there is usually a choice between the classic Asian squat toilet with its faucet and container of water, and the standard western model. We see the Asian phenomenon of small shops--some just a little larger than a closet--lining the streets. There’s a mini-mart selling bottled water, cigarettes, potato chips and sweets on every block. The poor owners are there for hours and hours every dang day. Yet Turkey is modern and western, with good roads, great buses and bus stations (they look like mini airports, with food stalls and internet connections and news on TV) block after block of five to twelve story apartment houses, all with balconies and tidy landscaping. The cities have good mass transit and parks, road signs and walk lights. On TV there are women news readers dressed fashionably with stylish hairdos. Ads are snappy and sell coke, cars, milk and McDonalds. TV soaps are very popular, with waitresses forgetting their customers to watch the latest episode. The current raging issue of headscarves is so typical of the dichotomy here. The country wants to be thought of as modern--and head scarves seem so backward. Yet, there is a strong urge to say people must be free to choose. If a woman cannot be true to herself and take off her scarf to go to college, then she shouldn’t have to. But so many modern Turks wish that she would. The current prime minister is taking a more conservative stance than has been the norm in the government. He is saying let them wear headscarves, and his wife has been wearing one for public events. Shocking! The military says--not at our events. So there’s tension.

Urhan Pamuk has written a book called Istanbul in which he describes Turkey’s great effort to be more western than eastern, and says that it has cost it a lot psychologically. He finds Istanbul a melancholy place, because it has long striven to be what it just isn’t and can’t be. Perhaps eventually Turkey will find an identity that it can be proud of, and it will be something uniquely its own, a blend, for sure, of east and west.

In any case, it’s a great country to visit, and we’ve enjoyed being here very much.

Turkey One

Scarf Store

Turkey (One)
September, 2010

We arrived in Turkey on a flight from Budapest--four hours late--and were grateful that the tourist info desk at the airport was still staffed at 9:00 at night. We got a map of the city and asked if he could show us where our hotel was. We knew it was near Taksim Square, and we knew the airport bus would drop us there, but could we walk to it from the square? Yes, he said, and drew the route. This turned out to be very helpful information when we dealt with our first nefarious taxi driver of the trip. He approached us as we waited for the airport bus, and offered to take us and two others to Taksim for the same price--twice as fast as it turned out. We were a little wary, but said yes, after repeating twice the terms of the agreement. 10 lira each ($6) to Taksim. So we get there after about 20 minutes and he asks what hotel. We tell him. He says it’s three or four kilometers south, and he’ll take us. No, we say, it’s only a couple of blocks, and we’ll walk. He is most insistent, and what do we know? But we resist and send him away. In the first of many such moments, a young man with halting English leaves his post at a sidewalk restaurant where he was making fresh juice drinks and asks if we need help. Where is this street, we ask him, showing him the map. He studies and studies, and decides he knows. He points. We thank him, but ignore the advice, as we think we know better. As it turns out, he was showing us a short cut, and we went the long way around--but at least ended up at our hotel after just a five minute walk with our packs. After we settled in, we walked back to thank the young man at the juice stand. Such generous help has been offered to us every day, which makes independent travel in Turkey possible, for not a lot of English is spoken, and not many signs offer help.

There are heaps of tourists in Turkey, but they tend to travel in flocks, great huge buses full, from France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Holland, each with a language specific guide. Few of them are wandering around looking lost. They are being well cared for. There have been times we’d have liked such comfort, but we like the cheap cost of doing it on our own, and we like the encounters we sometimes get to have with English speaking locals. A good example is Riza. He told me his last name, but I didn’t write it down, and now I’ve forgotten. He’s a guide in Cappadocia, or Kapadokya--the Turkish spelling. Kapadokya is an area of Turkey with several large and small towns that’s composed largely of volcanic tuff from an ancient and massive eruption. This stuff has eroded into what we’ve known as tent rocks--they call them fairy chimneys here. Centuries ago the local inhabitants started carving out the soft rock to make cave homes, and later the Christians here (10th century and later) made rather elaborate cave churches. Most of the towns have taken existing cave dwellings and enlarged upon them with stone cut from the same sort of rock, creating really charming small hotels with low doorways and roof terraces and carved stone details around doors and windows and arched gates. Goreme is perhaps the best of the lot since it is a small town and half the place has turned itself over to the tourist business such that you can find great little restaurants, pensions, guides, motor bike rentals, craft and rug shops everywhere. You have to walk up steep hills to get anywhere from the bus station, and mixed in with the tourist infrastructure are the locals, living in their own modified cave houses, with tractors parked out front and a load of squash just harvested from fields outside of town, which the women are cutting and pulling seeds from. Squash are grown by the million in this area--all the same variety, and apparently all grown for their seeds! In the neighborhood there were also vats of grape juice simmering on open fires, for all over the area are vines, sprawled on the ground, and loaded with purple and green grapes. Some are picked to dry for raisins--wouldn’t that be a seedy mouthful?--and others are pressed for juice, but we don’t think for wine--just a concentrated juice. There are even still a few pony carts around. One day we were hiking and a toothless old man pulled up and offered us a ride. “Rose valley taxi,” he exclaimed. We got in, but he turned out to be a stinker, agreeing to take people someplace, then dropping them much short of the goal and asking for his fare. We didn’t mind though. He was a lark. He and Geo had a dispute about the bill, and he pulled out a very fat wad of bills to show Geo he had no change.

But I got off track. I was to talk about Riza, a 30 something man who works for a small, local company. He was our guide for part of one day, and he took to George right away, as often happens. He wanted to talk to us, and on the 60 km minibus ride back from our outing, we chatted about a variety of topics. What is the average monthly salary in Turkey these days? About 1500 Lira, or $1,000. This is what most teachers make, he says. What about the headscarf issue? He had some clear and thoughtful comments: that it’s a freedom issue. He doesn’t think women should have to wear them, but he thinks they should be allowed to if they want. It is so complicated in Turkey, for the progressive government of the past banned the wearing of headscarves in public buildings and schools. But the majority of women in Turkey wear headscarves. So they wear them to the school or the court house, then take them off, then put them back on when they leave.. This is not a religious issue, Riza says, but a cultural one. It’s tradition. Most women wearing headscarves are not necessarily religious. It’s just what they’ve always done. He actually thinks religion is on the wane in Turkey. The mosques are empty, he says. Young people are not religious.

We liked Riza very much, and that night at dinner we thought of inviting him to have dinner with us, our treat, the next evening. We thought it would be nice to continue the conversation. We went to his workplace in the morning to ask him, and he was flabbergasted. He thought we were joking, and did not answer, but went off on his tour--leaving us puzzled. That night we went back to the office to find him, but he was late. So we left him a note and walked off to a small sidewalk restaurant. A few minutes later he saunters up--how he found us, we do not know. He sat with us for awhile, but he had to catch a bus to the town where he lives. We invited him again for the following night. He said he’d come, but he did not. We were sure he would come, but as we’ve puzzled about the fact that he did not, we think perhaps he was embarrassed, somehow, by the attention. So curious, and so difficult, these levels of ambiguity across cultures. One thing he said to us that stays with me. I asked if he had children, and he said he was not married, and that it was too late for him. He did not have a house or a car, so he had nothing to offer. He would never have a family. This surprised me, for in so many developing countries being a tourist guide is a prestigious position, and better paid than a lot of other work. Maybe not here, but we didn’t get to ask. At the time we just encouraged him not to give up, and I told him about a pretty and smart English speaking young woman I’d met in his town at the tourist office. Geo counseled him not to let rejection get him down. We tried hard.

In contrast, there’s a guy we met at a cave church. He was the caretaker, selling tickets, unlocking the door, giving explanations of the frescoes (there’s Jesus; there’s Mary; there are the magi). We’d met a couple on the hike up to the 12th century ruin who said they did not go in as it cost 2 Lira each. So we are thinking we’ll probably cough up 2 Lira--$1.25--and we approach the ticket man who comes out of his shady nook. Nice looking, short, grey hair and moustache. Eight Lira, he says. What, we say?! This is close to $5 and way more than the cost of a cold beer. Too expensive, we tell him, and start to walk off. He follows. Okay, he says, eight Lira for two. But we’ve got his number. He’s a rat, charging what he thinks the traffic will bear. Nope, we say, too much, and keep walking. He is desperate. Okay he says, free, and he grabs my arm and starts up the stairs. Okay, I say, we’ll make a donation. I assume he just likes talking about his church, but there’s more to it than that I guess. As we walk about the tiny, dim and cool interior, George is taking photos, and I am peering up at the chipped paint of the domed ceiling frescos, our man steering me about with a hand on my shoulder. This is a little unusual. Look, look, he says, kind of agitated. Here is the angel telling Mary. And here, more tugs, here is the baby Jesus. Suddenly I realize his hand is sliding down my right breast. Oh, no, I think, and take evasive action. I want to leave, and hustle George out the door. Now, thinking back, I can’t believe I actually gave him a 5 Lira donation as we left. I should have asked Geo to give him a punch in the nose. I’m 69, I rant to George as we walk away. Wouldn’t you think I’d be past having to worry about gropers?

We stayed in Kapadokya a surprisingly long time--ten days. But it’s like Paul Theroux says in his book Ghost Train that I just finished. Travelers, every once in awhile, just grind down to a halt, and can’t make any more forward progress. Here we could read, write, think, plan, walk, rest, sleep, and enjoy breakfast each morning in the crispy cool air on our roof terrace, balloons hissing overhead (it’s apparently a “must do” in K, to take a $150 balloon ride over the fairy chimneys), while we sipped tea, and chose our fare from a never varying spread: cucumbers, tomatoes, olives, fresh bread, cheese, salami, dried figs, yogurt, honey, jam, hard boiled eggs, watermelon, honey dew, tea or Nescafe.

Now we are restless in Konya. I’m getting tired of the monotony of the restaurant food. Almost every place you go in the whole country has the exact same offerings, and it’s very concentrated on meat. They only seem to know how to make about two kinds of soup (lentil, tomato), and we are served heaps and piles of bread at every meal. It is absolutely the core of their diet. Salads exist, but are not imaginative and consist mostly of tomatoes, parsley, red cabbage, rather bitter lettuce and sometimes shredded carrots. No lovely Greek salads! There’s great produce in the stores, so I am looking forward to a week in Istanbul when we will have an apartment and can cook.

In Konya, a good sized city of 762,000, we saw something we’d also seen earlier in Ankara. The vast majority of women are covered: headscarves and a sort of raincoat of varying lengths, usually in a rather drab color. In the clothing market areas, along side the drab raincoats and headscarves on display, were an array of brilliantly colored, ruffled, flounced, sequined, fussy, strapless, long gowns. Prom dresses a la Turkey. The contrast was arresting. We had enough contact with Ali Ulusan, our hotel owner/host, to ask about this. Where, why, who, we wanted to know. Turns out, for certain special occasions, the women really dress up. Weddings, circumcisions, graduations. And, Ali says, these dresses cost hundreds of lira--he had just bought his wife such a dress for almost $1,000 US dollars. He’d been telling us he didn’t make much money at his little hotel. Wow, we said, how can you afford that? You must do it, he says, even if you have to hock your watch. So when these covered women emerge, they do so with gusto. We also see filmy and brief underwear on display in the markets. Women are women everywhere, it seems.

A week later. We are having a rainy day in Istanbul--good for staying in, having tea and writing. It HAS been wonderful to have a kitchen, not to mention a tasteful and spacious apartment owned by an English woman who is seldom here. We’ve been sharing it with Ramah friends Mike and Chris, and we’ve taken turns cooking. Mike looks up Turkish recipes on line and we experiment. It’s been really nice. There’s wifi in the apartment, and both couples have laptops, so we’ve also been doing a lot of further trip planning. Travel has been made infinitely more manageable with the internet. They are looking at Greek ferry schedules. We’ve initiated a correspondence to discuss a boat trip off southern Turkey with the company owner based in Australia. The four of us will meet again for three nights in an apartment in Barcelona prior to our departure for Galveston on a mega ship.

Here in Istanbul we’ve been able to walk or take a trolley south across the Galata bridge over the Golden Horn into the old city and see all the major sights as desired. Even in October there are lots of visitors to the three biggest attractions (Aya Sophia, the Blue Mosque, and Topkapi Palace), but Chris and Mike managed to avoid the crowds at Aya Sophia by going during lunch time. Aya Sophia is one of those world renowned places it’s a joy to get to see: a huge interior dome/space that has stood since it was completed in, can you believe, 527. It was first built as a Christian church, and happily still has some of the intricate mosaics that were created during its first 1,000 years. After the Ottomans took over here, it was converted to a mosque. Ataturk sensibly said it should simply be an historic site in the early 20th century.

Shopping is part of the fun in Istanbul. One day on the scarf street (every shop up a narrow, steep, cobbled way had scarves flying like flags at its entrance) a woman in one wearing an “escarp” or headscarf, asked me where I was from. Her very next question was, “What religion are you?” In a real cop out, I told her I was Christian. Our Lonely Planet had warned us that this would be a frequent question, and that to tell a Muslim you are an atheist would be so incomprehensible to them, you would be sorry you had said such a thing. “What kind of Christian?” was her next question. “Oh, um, Methodist, Presbyterian--there are lots of Protestant denominations,” I fumbled. “Well, she told me, sounding professorial, “Muslims believe that Jesus was not God, but was one of the prophets, and a messenger from God.” “Oh,” I said, “that’s actually what I believe too”--thinking about the not-a-god part, but that he was a remarkably thoughtful human being. “Then,” she said, “you are a Muslim!” and she gave me a big grin. I asked where she had learned such good English. Turned out she was a retired biologist, and had taught herself English. “Peace be on you,” was the farewell she offered as I left, scarf in hand.

And, peace be with you.

Budapest

Budapest
September 11, 2010

We attended an opera in Budapest this evening--the extra silly Barber of Seville--and it was a brain shocker to be there after spending much of the afternoon in the Holocaust Museum near a temple where the remnants of Budapest’s once thriving Jewish population congregate. I thought about how many of those accomplished, educated and successful citizens, fully integrated into Hungarian society in the early 20th century, must have attended operas in this gorgeous, opulent, gold leaf encrusted building, enjoying interesting lives in a cosmopolitan city. And I kept seeing in mind’s eye film footage someone had taken, now displayed over and over at the museum, of thousands of the city’s Jews walking toward the train station and their transportation to Auschwitz, dressed so nicely--the women in stockings, good shoes, dresses, and coats, the men in overcoats and hats, all with their hands slightly raised at their sides, a star of David sewn to their lapels. The state had managed to protect them until a big political change in late 1944. Suddenly they were doomed, and just as suddenly, annihilated.

Hungary’s history is complicated and convoluted, and I have only slightly more grasp of it all than I did before, but being in a place does help one to focus a bit. Another museum that puts some things in perspective is the oddly popular House of Terror. On the loveliest Boulevard in Budapest, Andrassy Utca #60 was the headquarters of various police state organizations: first the Arrow Cross from the Hungarian Nazi period during the late part of WW II, and later the headquarters of the Soviet/Hungarian police who terrorized the country for years, imprisoning and killing anyone considered an enemy of the communist party and its aims. It’s good that so many people go to this museum. Many of the deaths were caused by Hungarian spies, turning in their fellow citizens for “suspicious” behavior, and we all need to be reminded about how these things happen and how terrible they are. The current Hungarians in power are very clear about how glad they are to be rid of the Soviet domination, and what a terrible time it was for Hungary. It’s only been since 1991 that they have been free. The city is springing back to life, and they have made great strides in restoring old buildings and sprucing up the city.

One wonderful surviving institution is the city central market, which was just a few blocks from our apartment. Since we had a kitchen, we could actually purchase things from the produce vendors, or the strudel makers, or the cheese stalls--just enough for a meal or two of the freshest, most lovely food--all very reasonable, especially compared to Switzerland and Denmark. I bought a beautiful head of broccoli, for example, for 25 cents. And Geo thought the $4 Hungarian wine was not bad at all. We might have stayed longer, but we only had the apartment for six nights, and we were sick of cold, damp and rainy weather. We booked a flight to Turkey.

We had mostly rainy weather, so museums were a refuge. We liked very much the Ethnographic Museum in yet another grand 18th century building where Hungary’s rural history is presented in rich detail. There are reconstructed house interiors, clothing, farm implements, household tools, photos, and lots of English text to help us out. We both suppose we have ancestors centuries ago among the hard working surfs of this area, so it is interesting to think about what their lives were like. In spite of really primitive living, with lots of mud and grime to contend with, they managed to dress ceremonially in the most colorful and exquisitely wrought clothing. The museum has done a great job in presenting this aspect of the country’s past.

Because of the weather we missed out on Danube cruising and outdoor bathing in thermal pools, nor did we make “Memento Park” where a collection of imposing communist era statuary has been dumped and which has become a big draw. We did get proficient at riding the underground, and were amazed at the speed of the escalators. The first time you hop on you think “Whoa, this is fast!” and then you worry about getting off without stumbling or having someone crash into you. They must move at two or three times the speed of “normal” ones.

The city is easy to get around in, with the metro and many buses and trolleys, and they run until late at night. It’s lovely in the evening when the bridges and major buildings are lit, and you can walk along the Danube and take it all in. It’s a sidewalk café town, and when the weather is good, tables are full.

One disconcerting thing is the amount of graffiti. It is actually bad in much of Europe--freight cars in Denmark, concrete walls even in Switzerland. But in Budapest even lovely historic buildings do not escape the spray can. We saw someone using a power abrasive brush on the windows of a stately bank in an effort to remove the stuff. Geo noticed that the windows on the trolleys and the metro were scarred with scratched graffiti--a new low. I’m reading Paul Theroux’s terrific book Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, and he traveled a night train to Budapest as we did. He remarked about the graffiti in Budapest as an outpouring of a long-oppressed people not able to express their protests for years, but it seems more complicated and more widespread in Europe for that to be the explanation. Seems to me it’s one of those issues that comes back to respect. The taggers are just plain disrespectful, and ought to know better, and behave better. It’s a modern day plague.

We were stymied by the weather in our photographic efforts. It would have been nice to show the opera, the dear trolleys that run by the river, the pedestrian streets lined with shops and cafes. Instead we have interiors of churches--which are gaudy in the extreme. The contrast with the austere Swiss and German churches we saw was so interesting, and reflective of cultural differences. Exteriors also can be colorful and fancy. The bright tile roof on the St. Matthias Church in Buda, is an example, and a technological museum that is bizarre in its design--both are pictured.

We’re now almost two weeks in Turkey, with wonderful summer weather. We’ll be posting.

Switzerland

Bruno and Judith's house, Panoramic viewing train

Jungfrau, Trail to Brumlisalphutte, Gimmelwald valley,
Tidy wood pile in Murren

Foggy descent

Glaciers below Brunlisalphutte

SWITZERLAND

August 31, 2010 Gimmelwald Gimmelwald must be an example of the iconic Swiss mountain village. I wonder if there could be a girl named Heidi here, for the place looks exactly like I thought it should when I read the book at 10, or however old I was. Even getting here is like something in a storybook. A train to Interlaken, then a smaller train that climbed to Lauterbrunnen, then a post bus up the valley to Stechelberg, finally a cable car to Gimmelwald. Then we walked a short way among the chalet style houses to one called Mountain Hostel, and that was to be home for a time. We’d found it in an online story about this area of the alps, and the author mentioned that it was popular with Americans because of a story by Rick Steves. Sure enough, Americans outnumbered everyone else at the hostel. Partly I suspect that was because the hostel was the only reasonably priced place to stay in the whole area and the dollar does not go far in Switzerland, and partly also because the village is so darn cute and there’s nowhere else much to stay. Nearby is the resort town of Murren, also difficult to access, but full of Swiss style but new and big hotels. Gimmelwald feels like a real village still. A calf was born this morning just before we walked past its pasture on our way to hike. Belled cows graze the steep slopes. There are steeply pitched vegetable gardens behind every house, and firewood is stacked tidily against buildings for winter. Geraniums fill window boxes--that’s a given--and old hollowed out log water troughs are filled from running springs. Paths climb up and up toward scenic snowy peaks, or you can hike to Murren for groceries, an hour’s walk away.

We’ve enjoyed our time here, but we left the hostel after two nights because the very loud bar scene there goes on until midnight, and we are too old and cranky to appreciate that.. So we moved to Walter’s Mittagshorn Hotel just up the path. We don’t know the story, but 86 year old Walter shuffles about and runs the seven room place with a woman helper, and we think it will be quiet. It’s more expensive, but it will be worth it. There probably won’t be any English spoken at dinner tonight, which we’ll miss. The Swiss German speaking guests can usually speak English, but get them together, and German is what they much prefer, of course. At the hostel everyone spoke English, even the German speakers, because we outnumbered them.

We’ve been in Switzerland since August 4, staying part of the time with Bruno and Judith, El Morro Ranches property owners and our friends. They have a country house an hour northeast of Zurich, and they are there weekends. They live in their Zurich apartment during the week. We spent a nice weekend with them, then set off for a hike in the mountains that Bruno had researched for us. We took trains to Kandersteg, a pretty alpine town, then hiked up to a gorgeous lake called Oeschinensee. I could never say it right. There we’d booked a room at a chalet hotel, and it was a sunny, warm day. We were pretty sure that was a lucky break. The next morning we began an almost five hour climb to Brumlisalphutte--an impressive stone mountain hut set well above timberline on an exposed ridge at 2840 meters. There we stayed the night: $144 for dorm beds, dinner and breakfast. There were many dorm rooms, and ours could hold 22 people in two rows of double decker beds, 11 each row, and one exactly next to the other. Cosy. You had to rent a sheet, and down comforters were furnished. From the hut it was a short walk to venture out onto a glacier, if you had crampons, which we did not. Many climbers were at the hut, planning to ascend a peak the next day. Also there were guests dressed in odd wool pants with suspenders. Turns out we were there on the 150th anniversary of the construction of this hut by the Swiss Alpine Club. Some celebrants re-created the climbing attire of 1860. Our plan was, in the morning, to drop down into the next valley and then climb up again to another pass and another hut. Alas, it was not to be, which was probably a good thing. We awoke to a totally fogged in hut, and blindly hiked down the other side of the pass toward the town of Griesalp. The descent was as steep a drop as anything we’ve ever hiked. There were chains and ropes to hold on to, and there were sturdy steps made of logs and cross boards. It went unrelentingly down for 4,000 feet. I worried that my thighs would get really sore. In fact, the next day I could hardly walk. About 2/3 of the way down it began to rain. Before we could get our rain pants on, we were soaked. And it seemed to be getting colder. We soon concluded we were not going to climb over another pass that day. We made our way to a guest house where we and other hikers peeled off wet clothes, put on dry ones, and went inside for hot drinks. It was heated in there, and we could hardly bear to leave, go back out into the rain, and hike the last hour down to the village where we could get a post bus to the nearest town with a train station. We were calling it quits for a day or two. By late afternoon we were back in the comfort of Bruno and Judith’s place, grateful for the retreat.

A couple of days later we decided the forecast looked promising enough that we’d make another go at walking among scenic snowy peaks. At 6:30 am we set out for Gimmelwald. But we did it in a round about way. We wanted to see as much mountain scenery as we could with our Eurail pass. By the time we’d reached Interlaken, we’d been on nine trains. A feat like this could only be pulled off in Switzerland. It is well known that Swiss trains are a marvel and it’s a cliché to say that the system runs like a fine Swiss watch. But if you experience it you’ll believe it. There are trains departing once every hour all over the country. Each time you get off one train, there is another either waiting for you to board, or only minutes away. We barely had time to poke our heads out of a station and look around. We had only one surprise, when for two trains we could not use our Eurail pass but had to buy tickets. “These are private trains,” the conductor told us. They looked the same to us, but the difference was they were traveling over particularly challenging and scenic stretches, so they could call them things like The Matterhorn Express, and charge more. But some of the regular trains were even nicer, with huge curved windows giving great viewing up to the peaks. The Golden Pass was one, from Lucerne to Interlaken. A Swiss rail pass is worth having, for the rail system is so fabulous. Part of the reason it all works is that there are 7 million people traveling about in a country about the size of two counties in New Mexico. And even though most of them own cars, they use their trains a lot.

September 4, 2010. We are back with Bruno and Judith after four nights in Gimmelwald and two days of spectacular weather there. I could finally walk again without pain when we did an eight hour hike up to Rotstockhutte, another pretty stone hut above timberline at 2,000 meters where six inches of fresh snow had just melted. There we had our lunch on the sunny patio, enjoying beer brought up by a self propelled hauling device on a cable. No wonder it cost $6.00 a mug. There were flowers, deep blue skies, fresh snow on the peaks, and the Eiger, Monck and Jungfrau summits in full view to exclaim upon. It could not have been more perfect, and we walked another route back to Walter’s, marveling over the multiple trails, all clearly signed, to choose from. We didn’t even mind the cows along the paths. With their big bells, it seemed somehow they belonged.

Walter’s hotel is also popular with Americans, but an older set, so indeed it was quiet and comfortable. By Swiss standards it is a great value. For $43 per person you get a private room, private shower (in a stall in your room), shared toilet down the hall, and breakfast. The heat is on from 10:30 pm to 8 am, and we needed it as it got down to freezing one night after the skies cleared. For another $15 each you can order dinner, but you must do so by 10 am. With dinner, Walter provides Italian wine. The dinners were simple, but ample and good. One set of guests from Hawaii was on their third or fourth visit to Gmmelwald and Walter’s hotel.

From the trains you can see a lot of the Swiss character revealed. Community gardens, for example. They are called Schrebergartens after a 19th century German physician who thought people should eat more fresh vegetables, With people crowding into factory towns, there were fewer gsrdens, and so the idea of publicly owned garden plots rented out to local citizens was born. Since they can have it as long as they like, and usually it’s about forever, they build small garden sheds or greenhouses on their plots, and some even heat them with wood stoves or fireplaces. But you are not allowed to stay overnight! Most have flowers as well as vegetables--dahlias were in bloom this season. The plots are, naturally, totally tidy. Acres and acres of these little gardens---not a hair out of place. Trains aren’t late, and weeds aren’t allowed to grow.

I wonder if we’d study the way a county handles its trash we’d be able to make some interesting generalizations about the place. Here the trash is handled as you might expect. There is none lingering along roadways. Litter is unthinkable. On trash days, it’s all bundled, tied, wrapped and covered. Highly mechanized trucks move it here and there, and then it’s gone. There are no landfills. Glass is sorted by color, and some is ground and put in asphalt. Plastic is bundled by color: we saw bales of it waiting to be shipped somewhere. Some is composted, some incinerated, the ash put to use. It’s a lesson in what is possible, with determination.

Yesterday we took a morning to explore Zurich on foot. A helpful tourist info center at the train station offers maps with a walking tour--stops described in English. A good sized river runs through the middle of town, emptying into a huge lake that Zurich spills out around. The tour goes along one side of the river, then back up the other, and there’s charm and pedestrian friendly streets in abundance. Church towers, all with huge clocks, dominate the skyline. Two of the churches are particularly interesting. One, the Fraumunster, contains five stained glass windows by Marc Chagall. They are as colorful and interesting as any he has done. The other, the medieval Grossmunster (begun in 1045 or so), also has some modern stained glass--these windows made of thinly sliced, colorful agate rounds leaded together. Stunning! We were not supposed to take photos, but being rebellious Americans, we snapped off one. That church was the seat of some of the major reformation action in the 1500’s, and the building itself felt the consequences of the purging of suddenly unacceptable ornamentation, losing statues and frescos and more.
Halfway along we stopped for a picnic by the lake: grilled wurst and bread, with swans and ducks trolling for crumbs below.

Tomorrow we take a train to Budapest. We have rented a small apartment, and “Thomas” will meet us at the train station with a sign saying “George.” Chapter Three: Hungary. It will be hard to leave Bruno and Judith who have been so generous and kind. Judith is a gifted cook, and enjoys presenting beautifully constructed as well as fabulous tasting meals. One night she made a lasagna that was so good we wanted to eat it all. I apprenticed at helping with the risotto our last evening, and got the task of layering the prosciutto on veal for saltimbocca. Bruno produced lovely wines from his cellar, and we often talked late over cheese, fruit, and a dessert wine. You can see why we hate to leave.

September 5, Munich. We planned a stop of a few hours in Munich, which seemed like a good idea at the time. We did enjoy the afternoon: beer at the noisy Hofbrauhus, a visit to the towering brick cathedral, a walk through the modern art museum (five wonderful Emil Noldes and three interesting early Picassos) and a hearty German supper at Augustiners. But then it was 7:00 and our sleeper train isn’t leaving until 11:40. Starbucks had wireless and offered a home for an hour, but now, very sleepy and weary, we wait on track 12.