Magellan and his Sailors

 In Seville we went to the perfect reproduction of the only ship (other than the mutinied one) that returned to Spain from  Ferdinand Magellan's attempt to get to the Spice Islands by sailing West rather than East around the Horn of Africa. 

He is now celebrated as the man that first circumnavigated the globe. 

The ship we walked about was the "Nao Victoria" Magellan's flagship of which he was Captain. 

But alas Magellan was not aboard when the ship 'victoriously returned'. Magellan had left some three years earlier with 5 ships and 247 men. 

The conditions of sailing ships at the time were horrid. There was very little food for a mission of such an 'exploration': a few pigs, three cows, some chickens, a bunch of flour and a great deal of wine and sherry (no one drank water in the 1500s as it was so foul), then they had dried beans, walnuts and a lot of cheese. 

All of the foodstuff rotted quite quickly and the crossing of the Atlantic was marked by terrible storms. Magellan finally made it around Tiera del Fuego, which I would be nervous to cross today on a modern ship, and there, he lost another ship and more men. Mutiny followed though some of it was thwarted. Then other ships were lost. 

In and on the great Pacific the captain and crew were horrified to find that the Spice Islands weren't even  anywhere close. Magellan had taken charts from his friend who had written from the Spice Islands. He had gone East and had guessed that you could get to Spice World pretty fast if you had the gumption, maybe tried to go West. 

The poor ships drifted months and months with almost no supplies and what they had and had taken on was still rotting. 

Given the food situation, rats were at a premium and could command one ducat per dead rat for a man to eat. All the flour to make hard tack biscuits was so foul from rat urine and rife with worms the men could not eat it and could barely choke down the water left in a barrel, as it smelled so badly, it having turned green and poisonous. Scurvy was rampant and the men fell like flies. 

I still don't understand why the ships full of sailors didn't think of fishing in order to get food. In the Pacific during WWII, US sailors who had escaped sinking boats or planes would find be adrift for weeks, but they managed to snag sea turtles, large fish and often sea birds to sustain themselves. 

Maybe it's because medieval men were never open to new ideas; it took years for any of them to try a tomato or potato thinking them to be deadly. Perhaps the thought of eating some strange Pesca da Pacifica was considered a fate worse than consuming rat urine cake. 

So the seaman continued to starve. In those times sailors slept on raw mats on the deck open to wind, rain, hot sun and waves. They all took turns doing 4 hour shifts on the treacherous rigging. 

 Magellan finally stumbled upon land, he, having thrown his wrong maps into the sea (to the rage of his crew) then trusted in the stars and sun and sailed forth and found the Philippines. Soon after arrival, he decided to make war against the Philippine inhabitants who didn't agree with the Catholic conversion insistence thing he was into. Some of the inhabitants he met were 'on board' but most were not. 

Convinced of the power of his superior weapons such as swords and guns, he and an allied tribe, attacked a massive force of warriors who had set a trap! Magellan was shot through his leg by a poisoned spear but rallied until he was surrounded and hacked to death by no end of warriors. 

The remaining sailors and crew fled. 

The ship did eventually find the Spice Islands that the Europeans, including his friend, had set up as a base. What happened after that I don't know; only that 3 years after Magellan's grand 5 ships set off, one the "Noa Victoria", limped back to Spain. Only 18 out of the 247 men who sailed away years earlier returned to port, but they were so debilitated they could barely walk or talk and trembled incessantly.

I can't understand why after that, men would continue to sail seeing the condition of the returned of Magellan's crew. 

I have read some not very good explanations about this question, much generated by AI. What the hell was with the tenacity of these men? Why suffer such misery and likely death for what reward?

I think some of it might have to do with the obsessive belief in God and the strange resolute faith of Spain and Portugal. 

However, I also think most of it was because of gossip: none of the men could read or had any education. All they had to go on was the vouch safe of other sailors telling them that countless riches and gold and rewards would meet them at the end of their voyage. But like so many who sailed across giant oceans, those who went forth either perished or found it was too late for them to return home, as they had no means or money to try and make it back and no way to tell others to just stay put. 

Here we are.  

Gulbenkian

 We visited the museum Calouste Gulbenkian today in Lisbon.  He was a wealthy Armenian/British and Portugese citizen who amassed a personal collection of priceless art. For those who watched Star Trek: The Next Generation, I imagine him as akin to the evil Saul Rubinek character who collected beautiful things or things others couldn't have. 

When he passed on he created a foundation and all his art was donated to a private museum trust. The stuff was, quite frankly, spectacular: C didn't expect much and I guess I was a half a heart but as soon as we arrived I was speechless: Egyptian antiquities in perfect condition; a Goddess Bastet cat nursing kittens cast in Bronze; heads of torsos of brilliant colours from the early dynasties. 

Then a winged guardian from Mesopotamia. 

When we get to Europe there are a few  perfect Turners featuring the obsessions painters of that time had with ship wrecks and stormy seas. In the very late 1700s and into the 1800s wealthy Europeans were terrified of the ocean but developed an almost, I would say, "horror movie" like fascination, about sea scenes. People would go to the sea and then faint because it was so scary and overwhelmingly romantic. 

I finally did get an explanation for the weird number of European paintings featuring the following: i) an ancient ruin ii) some nature and huge trees in the background iii) some peasants in hats either tending goats or fishing the in foreground. 

Apparently these were called "fantasies" and painters of that time all created these weird scenes as they were quite popular and sold well but did not represent anything they had seen. They were all created in their imagination. 

We then get to the impressionists, naturalists and realists: painting after painting, collected with the greatest of taste by Gulbenkian, and most represent the winners of the Paris salons in the late 1800s. 

This art was remarkable. 

I later went to the front desk to tell the staff about how excellent the museum was and find out how to get to the other buildings with current exhibitions. The young lad selling tickets told me that the founder had gathered all this art through corruption and nefarious mean. Gulbenkian was an Armenian, but well connected at Oxford and later made his fortune profiting from Turkish influence in Arab countries, despite the Turkish eradication of Armenians post WWI. He arranged to own the oil fields of Iraq and at least one other Middle Eastern petrol producing area. He made himself a good deal by selling all this oil to Western powers at a base commission on every deal of 5%. In fact he garnered a nickname of 5% Gulbenkian. 

The enormous painting of a cock and peacock in a fight while his hen and two frightened chicks, foolishly flapping tiny wings looked on, was one of the most intriguing canvasses I saw today. 

The museum had a beautiful impression of the chick scene printed on cotton place-mats for sale in the gift shop. However at 15 Euro per mat, ($30 Canadian these days) it was tres caro...

Things I Learned Today on the Bus

 Being bored on a bus can be brought to great use. These things I learned today:

1) the round giant pines that grow all along the route from the Algarve to Lisbon are where we get pine nuts. They are a very valuable crop and only a few people are authorized, during a specific season, to pick the pine cones which are then thrown down to women who catch them and then shake out the pine nuts which I love as they are used in pesto and cooking; 

2) the large weird stick nests hanging on many hydro towers are the nests of storks who used to migrate to Africa during the winter but now seem to stay all year due to abundant food. However they can interrupt power supplies so artificial nests are built and some other nests are removed. 

3) The Chega party is a neo-fascist right wing Portugal political party that did not win the last election. There are still many, many giant posters of their leader at roundabouts, who has his eyes looking to heaven and sports 5 o'clock shadow while gazing at the Almighty. In the Algarve there were a number of graffito which said: "F%^K Chega".

4) Magellan left port with 5 ships and 247 sailors. Only one ship returned 3 years later with no Magellan and 18 men who were so ill and destroyed they could barely walk or talk and trembled incessantly. 

5) The reason graffiti is so omnipresent in Portugal is a) part of a history of street protest against fascism which was in power until 1974; b) the economic crisis of 2008 which left many projects half built and then were tagged c) cities don't have the money or manpower to deal with graffiti and tagging. It is an urban issue which local councils are trying to address by covering large spaces with murals and art that guys will not tag out of respect. 

6) Olives are usually harvested as a community effort where people shake the trees at particular times of the year and the women catch them. It can be a festive occasion. 

7) Hemingway committed suicide. It is now thought that he, like his father and siblings, suffered from a rare disease where the body puts all blood iron into the brain causing hallucinations and ultimately madness. For a man of Hemingway's generation and gender to admit to mental illness was unthinkable. 

And this is all you can learn on a 6 hour bus trip plus a lot about pay toilets and how to cover up bus accidents...

Now that's What I call a Bus!

 We left Seville at an ungodly hour (8 am during some weird time change where the sun did not rise until 9 am which means it was probably 5 am?). Many time altering hours later we arrived in Faro where they at least had a clean 1 euro pay toilet where the mega double deck Alsa bus was to stay for 5 minutes. Some 30 minutes later we leave and as we had spent 4 days in Faro, right by the bus station, we were familiar with the small medieval streets and side walks; put it this way, the roads were so tiny I was afraid to actually walk on the road and the side walk was well, not there. Hey it's Europe.

Now comes our mega bus who tries to do a tight, tight corner on a street where we did our laundry a few days earlier. I had spent time during the laundry helping a very drunk elderly disabled man who was inside the local bar/coffee place, get onto his scooter where with chattering teeth (due in part to the tininess of the street) I saw him off to his abode. 

Now picture me on top of the mega bus and C right at the front of said mega bus as we watch the driver try and execute the impossible corner...wait wait wait: "Crash! Crunch! Smash!" was the sound. The entire bus shook and bounced back. 

The young hippie American in front of me with his gf said: "Wow that dude really smoked it!"

And indeed he did. "shite" I thought they will need to get another bus. However the driver just backed up gingerly and tried the corner again as I watched in horror at: i) the entirely busted upper facade of the Faro apartment: the stucco and paint punched right through by two concrete busting holes; then the maneuver while the bus dude inched his way past a Peugeot which was about a foot off the sidewalk: "Man he's totaled the building and now the pricey car" I thought (many people here are wealthy touristas so that was a guess) 

To everyone's amazement he made it. Car intact and no further tanking of the building.

And on we went. What I didn't see, that C later told me about, was that one whole half of the windshield (passenger side double decker) was entirely wrecked and cracked.

C 10 rows ahead had the thought the same thing as I: we'll have to get a new bus. 

The driver however stopped about 5 minutes mid way along a major road past a roundabout and went out to inspect the damage. After some time taking pictures, C told me, he then sent a few 3 Chinese tourists which were situated at the front on the cracked side and had not moved, to the back and off we went on our merry way. 

Made in His Image

 This is going to be a blasphemous entry. God made man in his image. OK. I get that. However what is it about males that they seem to have no thoughts about their toenails and good hygiene nor proper nail care?

It is very hot in Portugal and Spain and all these guys in their 70s are wearing sandals and, their feet, because I am short and have to look at the ground, have the grossest nails I've ever seen. Do their wives not suggest a small clip...some attention? Fungus care on a bath level? Jublia?

All the Renaissance sculptures from the Italian tradition had good feet. In fact the Italians, as I have learned today, were specialists in feet and legs and hands: Let's look at the masterpiece of Saint Jerome in Museo de Belles Artes as a perfect example of this: He is being tortured in some way and doing penance but the guy had a good pedicurist. 

Then onto to the painter Zubiran: He painted God the Father of the Ages and the World. It's a massive painting about 10 metres high: God has his foot on the globe of the earth and because I am so short I'm right at foot level: what do you know? Worst grotty toenails I've seen since the Irish guy shared the birding boat trip with a few days ago...

Kick Ass Day and Pool

  Met with our friend Ron a former CAF fighter pilot in the 80s. 

He was stationed in Germany where he and the other pilots used to fly to Paris for lunch sometimes. He then began to fly for Air Canada . He and his wife Christine are retired now and live in the Algarve near Tavira for half the year. 

Ron biked down from his village to meet us for brunch. After that, we walked about the town, across the Roman bridge, looking at the restaurants and small squares, getting ice cream then a glass of wine at the Forte of Ginjinghis (sp), a restaurant that features the fabulous cherry liquor from Obidos in Portugal.

The liquor is like Black Forest Cake in a glass. 

After our libation Ron biked back home and I walked up the very long and high hill to our lodgings while C went looking for the small toy tourist train. 

The hotel we are at, is a former farm renovated some 40-50 years ago by the grandfather of the two sisters who run the establishment. 

Beautiful koi ponds, fruit and citrus trees and the highlight: a large flowering ancient tree with an aviary built about it with some 50 budgies flying around chatting happily and coming to see you. 

There is also the resident dog Cookie who takes her job seriously fending off the street cats of Tavira who are cared for by the local humane society. They are all picked up by volunteers, spayed and neutered and vaccinated and then released, to live a relaxed life wandering in and out of stores and restaurants and being fed at stations placed around the town. 

Blasted by the heat today and sun and after walking 20 minutes up the big hill I got the to hotel and decided that today was the day for the plunge. 

The grandparents' farm had an old giant tank, in which the owners' grandmother used to hand wash the laundry. It had slanted slats to beat and rinse the clothes. When it turned hotel it was refurbished as a pool, kind of "Petticoat Junction" style. I put on my bathing suit and braved the unheated water: after a screech or two I was relishing it. The cold was exactly what I needed to defog my brain. 

Apparently in the Algarve despite many places having pools, they are not heated so it's not for the faint of heart. 

Luckily we lived in Sault Ste. Marie for six years and some and swam in Superior in some very, very cold places and loved every minute. 

After my swim and dressing I headed back down the hill, not before passing by the 'tank' pool and watching a brave dad and his son splashing in the icy water. 

Tattoo of the Tattoo

 We had noticed the past few years the practice of very young people getting just meaningless tattoos all over their arms. Soon it spread to legs. My tattoo artist and I discussed this when I was getting more work done after my cancer recovery. 

When I got tribal Irish tattoos in the 90s they meant something very important: they were about the death of my mother; the idea of lives being intertwined and the old Irish spirals signifying return and reincarnation. 

"Kids today" said "Beth" Grampaa Simpson just get tatts of garbage all over their selves. My genius tattoo artist, Daemon Rowanchild, agreed with me. The tattoos young people were getting had no meaning or spiritual significance, and often were strange comic book drawings and insignificant symbols that seemed just some random "oh that looks cool" doodling on a page: like I did when I was 12. Do I want that marked on me for my entire life? 12 year girl doodles?

In Portugal the tattoo thing has gone beyond the pale, so to speak, but only on young English people. 

They tattoo their arms, legs, shoulders and now all over their faces with wall to wall tatts with god knows what: random designs from India divorced from spiritual meaning; lions of Africa all over white girls and then non-stop cartoons of Scooby Doo characters and strange gruesome imaginary of hanging bodies chock' a block. 

Catherine who is not tattooed is profoundly disturbed by this and keeps saying over and over that the fad will be gone and then there will be all these old sagging people who will be dealing with faded tattoos.

My concern isn't the sagging, it's what is on their body that can't be removed except at great pain and cost and what memories will just hang there and linger.

Getting older my tattoos have faded some and my arm flesh does now sag a bit: but "what the hell" I tell myself. I have survived breast cancer and I am 61 and I am still here. 

O' tempores O' mores!

 I guess in 30 years today's kids will reckon with their own sagging arm flesh and their own legacy, whatever that may be. 

Lisbon 1755

 Back in about 2007 my brother bought the VCR copy of "Earthquake" and brought it to our annual family Christmas where we all watched bad films and laughed at them. The actors were over the top: the stars of the mid-70s with terrible dialogue written and scenery chewing acting: Charlton Heston; the father from Bonanza, a Canadian who used to do the CBC radio news during the Second World War and was jokingly called the 'voice of doom'.  The movie was sold as being in "sensorsound" which would reproduce the terror of a real earthquake.

While it was laughable I did get some sense of what one should do in a quake. I've only experienced two, but they were light: Greece sometime in 2008 or so where a big one hit Turkey and everyone ran out of the cafes. Then before that in Toronto back in the 80s where an out of nowhere quake shook Toronto briefly. I was sitting on the couch watching the 6 pm news when I felt like I was on the back of a giant writhing snake. The chandelier on the ceiling in the ground floor apartment was swaying like crazy and I thought: 'what the hell was that?' About 5 minutes later the news people on tv laughing and feeling very frightened said 'if you thought you felt an earthquake well that was one!'

Back to Lisbon where in 1755, one of the largest natural disasters in written history occurred. 

On November 1st in the morning of All Saints Day, when the church had people light candles to remember the souls of the dead, a 7.9 quake hit the city. 

At that time Portugal was at a pinnacle of power: it controlled a vast empire of ships, slaves, gold and goodies from the New World. 

Fervently Catholic, many of the people were nuns or poor monks, whose orders, not able to feed so many supplicants, sent them out to beg.

Suddenly a terrible shaking occurred lasting from some 3.5 to over 6 minutes. Walls and roofs fell; bricks and mortar toppled and people were thrown all around, not able to walk the quaking was so severe. 

We went to the "Quake" museum which tried to reproduce the cataclysm physically. C loved it. Me, not so much, as the first smack and crack sent me flying into the back of a wooden pew banging my already, tender back. 

The staff person warned everyone not to leave the "simulation" or try and keep falling 3d objects from hitting you. As much as the quake was awful, the thing I found the worst was the simulated fire. 

Lisbon was holding such an important religious event, that it meant that everyone had a candle burning in their window in the memory of the souls; fires were also lit in the morning for food for the feast at lunch. So went the buildings and then went the candles and so came spreading fires. 

An enormous firestorm was created which turned the city into a living hell which burnt for days. 

People terrified of after shocks and fire ran to the long sand beach riverbanks. Then some 40 minutes after the quake subsided, a giant Tsunami hit the city from the river, waves ranging from 3 to 15 metres destroyed the sea front and remaining buildings. 

Surely God was punishing Lisbon for its sins...

Only 15 % of all buildings and houses still stood after it was over; perhaps 70,000 or more died. The fires lasted for days. Bodies everywhere, disease, no civil order or authority or rescue and no water or food. 

Out of the horror a man was appointed to immediately save the situation: he was a man of science. New in those days and he sent out orders about preventing disease, disposing of the dead, feeding the hungry and putting roofs over people. Apparently after that day the King was heard to say he would never sleep under a roof again and slept only in his carriage. 

The man of reason issued orders to maintain civil society and calm and prevent looting and injury.

The city was ordered to be rebuilt under rules about the idea of dealing with shaking and earthquake stress.

 Finally he ordered that a survey be sent out to all the churches (those still standing) to ask people simple questions about i) when did the earthquake start ii) what direction did the walls sway iii) did the buildings rise or fall etc... This was one of the first scientific studies of earthquakes. Our wise man did not believe in punishment for sins, but as a man of the Enlightenment, thought such calamities were natural and not punishments of God and he thought it was important to prepare to prevent great loss of life in future. 

This led to a long line of discussion between Kant, Voltaire and Rousseau about nature and whether bad things were divine punishment or whether the actions of nature are separate from God's will.

Knowledge is one benefaction.

Terror Taxi

 At first I thought the trip from the airport was a one off, however after two days in Lisbon I can tell it's a standing issue. When we came from the airport at the last horrific roundabout a rage of horns and hands and swearing out the window. Suddenly a huge flat bed truck stopped in the lane next to the cab mid roundabout and the driver jumped out and ran to the taxi window screaming. The driver quickly rolled up his window. Flatbed driver was raging, screaming. The word translates to blinking...which means signalling. 

The trucker finally went back to his flat bed. The taxi man said: "this is why i got rid of my gun...because the last time this happened I shot a man"

C and I were perplexed and jet lagged. Did he really shoot someone? Why was he not in jail?

The driver explained he had been in the army a long time and had to be careful about his guns. 

A one off. 

Then last night in a taxi going from Rossario to the hotel a Ben Hur like chase occurred with the taxi outrunning a raging driving. Again fists and swearing with our driver full window down head turned backwards as the car was speeding at 80-90 km yelling back at the car who was trying to ram into him or cut him off. 

Finally to our peaceful day at the Lisbon Aquarium: Oceanario de Lisboa. Small sharks, rescued sea otters, giant sun fish. Although there were squealing toddlers I said to C at least parents are bringing kids to see actual animals and to wonder at them, not just playing "baby shark" songs and videos ad nauseam. 

We grabbed a taxi from the Nation of Planets area and whizzed along the avenue along the seafront and river docks. The air was fresh, humid and clean. 

Out of nowhere a dust up about some light and then a BMW owner starts screaming and honking. Then races ahead at 140 km weaving where there is no traffic. The taxi driver slows to a crawl to avoid being near him. 

BMW races away. 

Finally just by the Fado museum another clash and the taxi man speeds up to well over 100 km to get to the stop lights so he could lose the rager. All this time he kept looking in the rear view mirror. 

We asked our driver to let us off at the Centre Commercial. He parked just beside the policia. 

When we arrived at the hotel yesterday morning and I told the woman at the desk about the "this is why I don't carry a gun anymore" comment, she replied: "driving in Lisbon is insane...I think everyone went a little crazy during COVID and now it's stuck"

Roma: The Eternal City - Terror and Terrorism

After a lovely repast we ambled (meaning got lost) until i found the street where Catherine and I had stayed many years ago on our first journey to Rome. The weird high up steps, the view to the Palatine which I always assumed would lead to the Colliesio (sp). Just like 20 years ago Catherine got it right which is to turn left and there you see her: enormous and breathtaking. On the way, a true Roman watched her walk by, checked out her ass and then whistled and kissed the air. She didn't believe me as she thinks she is too old, but no beautiful woman is old in Roma. 

We got to the Palatine and went to grab last admission to the living museo and ruins. The dude at the desk demanded ID before accepting payment. You need ID to buy tickets i asked? Yes and he was irritated. Where can I go where I don't need ID? Reply: nowhere. 

so terrorism is the rule of the day and everyone must be identified which well ok, i leave my 70s the state is everywhere ethos behind but they might warn you after trekking an hour. 

now onto real terror, given that we could only walk around and above the collesium (sp) and look at the Arch of Constantine and then Titus from afar i explained to Catherine the stories of the first roman emperors. The fact that most of them were just nuts and horrible. 

My favourite is Nero who, like most Roman Leaders had a really weird relationship with their mother(s or sisters). Nero's mother spent all of her time scheming to kill her husband Claudius and get Nero on the throne. She succeeded so the story goes by feeding Claudius poisoned mushrooms. he was mad for mushrooms and was too greedy to wait for the food taster and thus dies Claudius. 

After Nero ascended to the throne he continued the weird mommy-son relationship even having them both appear on Imperial coins together. Soon however he wanted to be free of her apron and began a campaign to get rid of her. 

After a few attempts at poisoning which were not successful he arranged to have her visit him in his Imperial Villa across at lake/sea at Capri if i am right. she showed up all in formal Roman wear, had a lovely dinner with her son and company and then called her boat to row to her mother imperial villa across the way.

However Nero, nasty bit of work that he was, had arranged to have the boat sabotaged and it sank in mid voyage. Most of the crew and slaves drowned but mother was not of faint stuff.

She swam all the way, a km or so to the shore and walked back into her villa soaking wet in her finery. 

Nero sent word to see how the sinking went about to let out some poem about the death of his dear mother. When he found that she was safely back in her villa and alive he decided enough was enough and sent his fearsome Praetorian guard across the Bay to get rid of her once and for all.

When the soldiers entered, knowing what lay in store, she ripped open her robes shaming them by bearing her Patrician breasts and body naked, and yelled that they should stab her in her belly where she had grown and then borne such a monster. 

and so they did 

Leiniegan Versus the Ants

As a child, I watched a TV Sunday matinee, I think on channel 11. I saw "Amazon" with Chalton Heston. He is a fearless colonizing man who, when he learns a horde of army ants are coming to devour his cacao plantation deep in the Brazilian rainforest, he will not yield. All the other planters flee but he believes man's knowledge will outwit the ants! He will build moats! Fire breaks, all sorts of other clever Charlton Heston kind of "Home Alone" gadgets but much more macho and sweaty. 

These ants, are actually a real thing and terrify many species and humans in Centro America. The scene where the careless drunk guard wakes up to find himself being devoured by ants scares me to this day (it's pretty gruesome - good special effects for the time)

A few days ago at dusk I  sat happily at a table adjacent to the pool and jungle when my feet caught fire. All my toes were being bitten. Out of nowhere army ants had invaded the area. While not as bad as soldier ants these things turned the entire surface of the patios black with ant massings. I have never seen anything like it. Trails of the ants marched 5 by 5 swarming the place, coming from every direction in multiple groups.

Apparently they are blind and only march following scent and raid and kill all other insects or small mammals in their path. The Ticos call them 'limpiores' (likely improper spelling) which means 'cleaners' as they rid houses of everything from mice to cockroaches entirely.

I ran to the front office trying to avoid any of the massing of ants and eventually the German owner showed up with a few cans of insecticide sort of rolling his eyes. He said 'it's the season, they just come for food'

'I don't know' I said, 'I understand ants but these are a helluva a lot of ants.'

He walked up and then began to shake his head repeating : 'ooff! offfoo! oofff!' as if he couldn't believe it. 'See' I said, 'that is a lot of ants'.

Many spray cans later paired with multiple hoses only one very large mass of ants were left marching down the pathway to some other destination.

They were gone the next day but the Tico staff had to spend a lot of time sweeping away ant remains.

And by the way, in "Amazon" Heston's moat was useless. The ants figured out how to use leaves as boats and invaded the plantation nonetheless. Heston covered himself in petrol and blew up some dam somwhere. The plantation was saved. 

But not Heston the actor. So the story goes he didn't want to cover himself in gross thick oil filming in the deep tropical jungle so they decided instead to cover him in molasses which looks like oil.  

Guess how that turned out.

Samara Again

 We came here about 17 years ago. A small somewhat remote coast town reported by guide books (before real internet) to have great seas and a calm beach. It had one small surf school and a newly minted ATM way down from our treehouse lodge guarded by soldatos. Walking there felt like an indescribible trek in the heat.

Today it has expanded to 8 times its size though in small patches. Gringos here gringos there, gringos, gringos, gringos everywhere. The properties are being bought up fast for a piece in paradise. 

C says, "you know you are a gringo too?" "Of course I do. Do you think I would think otherwise?"

You still hear the howlers at night though they seem farther away than when we were here so long ago. 

The Tico wait staff in town grow increasingly irritated by the hordes of very young gringos taking non-stop selfies: bikinis, posing, pouting, more pouting and then their food plate.

Retired hippie gringos are here too, but interestingly more quiet and respectful than I would have expected. This older generation I believe remember what it was like before hotels: when you pitched a tent.

It's still a small town nonetheless.  You know everyone, see everyone you've seen before and run into everyone you saw earlier that day. The sun is a hammer and the ocean, a repetitive light crest sound onto the strand. The town dogs wander and a gorgeous grey horse walks lazy like down a large street. 'Where is she going? For a walk?'

We met Greg and his wife here. From Maine originally they have been all over the world. They planned to retire in Samara and buy, but Greg said after his usual two months here he begins to think more and more: "Everyone is buying here, building and I keep thinking more land gone, more howlers pushed away by more houses. More jungle gone."

One of the best dramas I have seen was "Tsunami: the Aftermath" a BBC and HBO production done some four years after the actual events - there are many great actors in it: Chiwetel Ejiofer, Toni Collette and Samrit Michaelson. Michaelson's character plays a Thai waiter whose fishing village is destroyed by the wave. Thai hotel chains plan for new development in the wake of this destructive opportunity. 

His character sits on the ruined beach saying: "This place is ours always, I see beauty, I see it but others see it too".

Tonight while the usual beach band at a restaurant played old Beatles staples and a sampling of grunge we paid our bill and got ready to leave. Then the power in town went out. 

We had to touch the walls to find the way out onto the street but there I saw the best stars I've seen since the Sault. A retired American woman was using her phone to light the street to find where to go. As I was shouting to C ahead: "Look at the stars!" the American said the same thing to her husband. People stood in amazement looking at the sky. At some bar many yards away we heard cheering then motorcycles started driving all around the town some blinking flashlights and a few with fire crackers.

I kept staring into the sky. A young Italian was standing by his girlfriend in front of a hotel bar, they both had a glass of wine looking straight up. "Excuse me." he says, " I heard you earlier talking about the moon and stars and you know about this. This sky doesn't look real, can you tell me what this is?' 

"This is what the sky really looks like, if you don't have all the lights on." 

He asked me to tell him what the star patterns were and I pointed out Orion, other constellations,  low down, but now rising and then we looked up at the Milky Way. He asked why star positions looked different in different places on earth and I talked about the rotation of the planet and our trek around the sun. 

"Thank you, now I must buy a book!".  We saluted, I went on my way, the power returned a few minutes later. 

Samara works its magic for all worried hearts. 

The Cheese Shop

On Saturday we walked all around Samara, which is a very small town, looking for an ATM that had cash. We needed cash (which I prefer) as many places don't take credit cards. In this case I had really screwed up my left leg snorkelling and was having trouble walking. I thus booked a cash only massage for my leg.

The temperature here mid-day is posted as 95 degrees, it may be hotter. In that heat my cognition feels as impaired as it did way up on a volcano in Colombia where I was mountain sick and barely able to figure out what was going on (for more on mountain sickness, just read Jon Krakauer's "Into Thin Air".

I went to one ATM to wait 20 minutes in a line in the sun. The Ticos in line were equally as annoyed, frustrated and hot as the minutes ticked by. Here no one goes out in mid-day. 

A woman finally emerged using colourful language to explain to all that the machina had no dollores or colones and kept asking her to try again. She told us the only other ATM in town was at the supermercado. I then sat down on a local corner bar to get either a soda water or a wine - they had neither, while trying to figure out how far away the supermercado was. I can't emphasise how hot it was and my leg was killing me and no massage in the cards without cash.

Catherine looking for a pedicure, found out that the mercado was just around a corner. We trudged there, me almost at my limit. She was close to hers but her leg wasn't in spasm so she would carry on. 

She then suggested I should sit somewhere and she would try the Scotiabank at the mercado. I saw a large scarlet red sign next to the market that said: "Rosa. Resto - Bar - Lounge" and it looked reasonably lounge like. 

I walked in and collapsed at the nearest table in the shade, the next table occupied by a sole young American who was face timing on her computer. I was dripping with sweat, soaked through my tank top and kept gasping for breath given the heat. She giggled sympathetically. I asked for the wifi password and signed in to "Rosa Bar"

A punkish-hippie waitress in her late 20s walked up and asked what I would like. 

"Ola. Por favore una agua con gas con hielo e' limon". (club soda with ice and lime) "Oh...I don't think we have agua con gas, let me check" I think she was German and thus fluent in English. But she did know her Spanish. She wandered away and came back a minute later. "Sorry we have no agua con gas just tap water."

Dying in the withering temperature puzzled, I turned to white wine. "Do you have any cold white wine and if so what kind?" i hated this awful italian and spanish plonk they sell in all the bars and restaurants. I couldn't understand why they didn't just stock solid Chilean wines.

"Umm i don't think so...maybe we have a glass of red somewhere but I will check" She wandered away and a few minutes later came back. "Sorry, we have no wine'. "No wine? Really?" She brightened up. "We have shots!!!" "No, I don't want shots." The heat was unbelievable. "What about beer? A cold beer?" "I will check, I think we have maybe one beer that starts with an "S""

"Stella Artois?" I was hopeful. She went away again and came back. "No, I am sorry, no beer".

By this time I was astounded. I burst out laughing and smiling, "what kind of bar are you really??? It says 'Bar, Lounge. Restaurant' and you have nothing! it's like the cheese shop". She looked at me:"Maybe you go there to that bar, there behind". 

"What do you mean, aren't you the Rosa?" "No, we are the ice cream stand"...I crooked my neck around the corner to see a stand with a small Baskin Robbins set up with maybe six windows of possible gelato. All the front tables were smushed together between the gelato stand and the bar. 

I asked the waitress as I stumbled into the Rosa Bar to get a cold soda water: "Have you seen Monty Python the cheese shop?" She wheeled around laughing: "Yes , I have!"

I am still puzzled about the shots, but then again this is Costa Rica: Pura Vida!

OG Dog

 Interesting Tulum morning. OG the smallish pit bull who looked and seemed like a Winnie the Pooh wandered around our legs. Catherine asked the Grunge-esque Mexican hippie woman (thus our age) "where did you get OG?" She replies: " In Mexico City". "From who?" Woman replies: "I traded her for hash" then a small shoulder shrug, "You know how Mexico is" then a brief laugh.

Petrals and Gulls

 When the fishers come in at the end of the day, they throw all their small fish bait to the sand and petrals and gulls swarm to get the small fish. Watched a lucky petral fly amongst her flock with a large silver fish in her beak as all the other birds tried to snatch it from her. She was a very clever bird and while swooping and diving managed to hang on to it until she dove right down straight into the sea, I assume to swallow it unbothered by her brethren.

Like

Comment

Share

Vespa Smash

 In a taxi to the beach today I imagined a new video game: "Vespa Smash!"

You the driver of the taxi race at 100 km an hour, on a one lane path (speed limit 20), interspersed between cars cheek to jowl parked on both sides of the road while lines of turistas on vespas drive slowly in front of your cab. You either overtake them or have to get rid of them. They wear ear buds or stare at their phones so honking won't work!

For bonus points you can take out the many, many turistas who have not been on a bicycle for 20 years and steer their bike like Jan Brady.

Extra points if you take out the barely dressed blonds in the smallest thongs really getting down on cycling on old bike seats that likely carry gonnorrhea.

Nothing between them and the seats but sunscreen.

Cartel

 A few days ago we were wandering looking for a shoe store for C as her sandals caused her nothing but misery. After going from store to store we gave up and C resigned herself to going to the local version of Wal-Mart. I declined the adventure and sat down in a cool bar on a side street to have a glass of wine and view the comings and goings. It was only after about 20 minutes that I realized the roped off establishment across from me was where the cartel cross fire shootings had happened on October 25th, killing a German woman and a young "social influencer" from California. 3 other turistas were shot. 

The cartels, formerly absent from the region, when we were here 7 years ago, have taken hold, When COVID shut everything down the only place you could go, if American, was Yucatan, and they held raves and dance parties unfettered.

With raves etc...come drugs and then the cartels. 

A few nights ago in a small restaurant a group of American turistas looking as nervous as mice waited drinking Coronas until the Mexican woman with the bunch introduced them to some guy, very hyper, with a back pack. Lite talk and small introduction. 

I knew what was going down.

Behind them 7 NYC undercover drug detectives ate 3 courses of food each while telling 'on the beat' war stories from the different detachments they had been assigned to. I assume they were here to do American-Mexican drug enforcement training. 

National guard soldiers in white camoflauge, bullet proof vests and significant guns patrol the street in armoured carriers the way the Brits did in Northen Ireland during "The Troubles". 

The beach resort area swells with rich white girls suffering from extreme eating disorders and their more plump muscle bound boyfriends. 

In a state where the poverty rate is 49 percent, remember a Mexcian poverty rate valuation, half the population lives in dismal shanty towns, cheek to jowl with huge new timeshare condos. One might see the attraction of cartel life. 

Kyle Rittenhouse acquitted today; guns brought down from the States and the only music played here in bars is the worst of gangster rap.

Falling Deities

We went on a great Mexican gubernero tour yesterday at the famous Tulum ruins. By the time the Spanish cast their eye on Mexico the Maya were gone. 

Only Tulum lived on as a Mayan city. In 1511 a Spanish ship accidentally crashed off the reef of Tulum leaving only two Spanish survivors: A Catholic Priest and a Soldier. They came to live in Tulum. 

At that time the Royalty situated in the main city, open only to the upper crust, treasured obsidian glass so they could watch the solar eclipses. The astronomers measured, like the Irish and ancient Britains, the precise time of the solstices and equinoxes to the very day and time so the edifices show first light through small windows or temple gates, of the regressing or returning beam of sun. 

9 years later, after the ship wreck, the Spanish came again. This time intentionally. The soldier wanted to return to Spain. The priest however had married Mayan royalty and had a large family. He had no interest in regresso and thus in Mexico the first Meztizos were born. 

The buildings of Tulum sport fabulous carvings of deities, each corner a massive head and face: the Maya practiced head and eye binding to replicate the deformities brought forth from interrelational marriage: like the royalty of England, Russia and Egypt: if the family tree doesn't fork, with it can come some physical problems. 

The Maya had 13 sky deities and 9 down below. On the carvings the sky deities are all upside down.

They are shown falling from the skies.  In fact they look they have just rocketed down from heaven. Precisely what the Maya intended and it reminds me of  "The Man Who Fell to Earth" a disturbing movie with David Bowie about an alien who came to earth to find water for his dying world but just got interested in drinking and watching TV and gave up. 

If you watch "War of the Worlds" by Stephen Spielberg, the aliens rocket down from the sky on lightning bolts. The carvings kind of look like that. 

No wonder that weird Swiss guy in the 1970s era posited a theory that all of the Maya culture was a result of Alien intervention. From "Chariots of the Gods" to " Ancient Aliens" there is his  assumption that all of us, from Egyptians to Irish to Maya, were too stupid or too primitive to figure out how to build stuff on our own. 

Humans 10,000 years ago were just as smart as we are all today. And we, over this time, have created agriculture, enormous temples, strange paintings, head binding, mascara, computer chips, math, linen,  glass and space flight.

 And that is just to name a few. 

The "Luvahs" and Covid

I am now 56 and a sound world traveller. All the people who travel now are either boomers in their 70s or rich "jungvolk" in their early 20s. So nosotras are a bit out of place. People our age usually have children and teens and university to pay for. 

By the small pool the rain soaked everything. 6 rooms and Dutch, English and Americans kids would check in sporadically.  I greeted them and tried to ask questions to get them to relax and enjoy the hotel. I realized suddenly I may sound like the infamous "Luvahs" from SNL. Did I really come across like some creepy weirdo?  (sans the 'lovah' stuff)  "Let me introduce myself: we are the Professors Catherine and Beth Klarvins...are you here with a 'lovah?"

I started to get depressed at aging but then realized when I was a 21 year old back packing around India alone everyone there thought I was weird. 

I remember in Goa walking near a cool beach market when a French heroin hippie, likely 35, came out of nowhere and started dancing around me with a tambourine, cigarette dangling from her leather tanned mouth: "You are magical" she said dancing and dancing: "too bad you're going to die so young"

That strange prophecy has haunted me to this day. Have I dodged it?

I wonder what "young" is. 

Everywhere in Tulum there are countless very young Americans, Dutch, English and a few Canadians. No one wears masks, it seems, unless you are Canadian. 

I don't think most Mexicans are vaccinated. Our hotel guy today told me he didn't believe in vaccination: "I feel fine." "Yes" I replied "until you get really sick with COVID"

He looked down and then looked worried. Then he said "I think we need to reduce the population so earth can heal from global warming. So it can breathe again. 

This Malthusian viewpoint is quite popular amongst the many New Age hippies who frequent the vegan cafes and yoga huts, spaced out among half built edifices and small shanty huts the where poor labourers hang hamocks and squat. Their families in tow setting up poor shop and living on the unlit streets. 

Tonight the young Gringo women nearby, all Barbie doll legs and and sarongs sing and chant and egg on homeless Mexicans who walk on the rain soaked road to play some drumming. 

It's authentic.  

A Point of Contention

"Four Points by Sheraton". A premium hotel at a premium price by the airport. I didn't expect chocolates on the pillow but the really large and spry cockroach standing on the bed busily waving her (very long) antenae at me was not a welcome sight. When I complained to the front desk the response was "Eww I will change your room" and then the hotel clerk promptly put us in the room right next door. 

"Do you not know cockroaches go through walls, plumbing etc...and putting us in the room next won't change anything?" I thought, but it's one night so I gave up. C on the other hand couldn't sleep at all, the thought of crawly roaches on her face tormented her. 

Like me, she is an old school Torontonian who lived in some of the most disgusting of roach infested apartments, from which we still have PTRT: Post Traumatic Roach Terror. 

Somehow it doesn't bother me as much if, for example, we are in Latin America. Christ...it's the tropics after all. But Mississauga in November bleh. There's something quite unsettling about it. 

Not to mention the "premium" price.