Yucatan

On the main Plaza in Valladolid.

While in Valladolid I went with a couple others to Cenotes Xkeken and Samula. We paid at the gate where a young boy took it upon himself to guide us to the cenotes, or underground springs. He didn't ask us to hire him but just led us along, telling us when to turn, which way to go. Other than that, he barely spoke to us and even seemed surprised when I gave him pesos where we stopped to rent snorkels.

Just before the entrance to the spring, I gave him a magnet and he immediately set about trying to find something it would stick to. The man at the ticket booth, his father, I think, asked what I gave him and seemed displeased when the boy showed it to him. He didn't tell about the money and neither did I.

These roots reach a long way for the water in the cenote below.

Cenote Xkeken, or Dzitnup

Cenote Samula

Peru

Peru has got to be one of the big WOW spots on this earth. I went and will never regret it even though it was a little touristy for my taste. During my stay I visited these sites:

Macchu Picchu

Cane island on Lake Titicaca



McCaw clay lick on Rio Tambopata.

This lady resting by a bridge in beside the river that ran below the Salinas salt pans was the first to receive a magnet, a frog, a symbol of luck in some South American countries.

 

This little girl made my acquaintance while I was buying ice cream in Puerto Maldanado's main square before running back to her brother for protection.

 

 

Josephina was out hostess for a homestay on Isla Amantani in Lake Titicaca. She mde the best soup and the tea she served was brewed with plants she picked on her way home.

 

 





Bosnia

On a flight from Paris to Istanbul I found myself sitting next to a girl who lives in the United States but travels to the family homeplace in Bosnia. Her parents moved them to the US to escape the ethnic difficulties and war brewing in Serbia. She was born in Doboj, Serbia but her grandparents an uncles now live in Stanic Rijeka, Bosnia. Both towns were seriously affected by the recent flood.

It is sad, the devastation caused by the flood and landslides. The family homes were surrounded by the water but it did not get inside. Those living below were not so fortunate. A huge herd of cattle was wiped out raising cocerns about health and disease. Another serious problem is that landmines from the war, once marked and barricaded, are now scattered. If there could be anything positive from such an event, it would be that ethnic identity is forgotten as people join in the efforts of recovery. 

After an internship teaching English in Turkey, my seatmate traveled to Bosnia where she left a magnet with her grandmother. Once again, the rain was falling and water rising. So far there is not the devastation of the prior floods but surely people are getting worried. 

Canals overflowing and the rain still coming.

Albania

When I first stepped off my bus in Gjirokastra, Albania, no map in hand, I was immediately assisted by a girl who said she'd been watching me. She spoke English! First she showed me where to exchange money, then pointed out which bus I should get on across the street to get to my hotel. I reached into my pack to get her a magnet and she saw money, actually Turkish lyras. She got upset because she thought I was going to pay her and actually started running away. There I was, holding the magnet up as high as my arm would reach shouting 'wait!' at the top of my lungs. She turned, saw it wasn't cash, and came back. When  I left the bank and crossed the street, my bus was gone, but she came back to put me on the right one, tell the driver where to put me out, and off I went. All I know about her is that she works in radio.

The next magnet also stayed in Gjirokastra with this girl who runs a shop in what is called 'the Neck' of the old market area. The market is long gone. This girl willingly gives directions to anyone coming by and asking, a self-appointed tour guide. When she found me drawing a street scene near her shop, she went inside, then brought out a folder of her own drawings. What a coincidence.

The last went to a vendor of odd things at the street market in the city of Korce. I found one small, square saucer, an old piece with a lily pattern on it. He had sets of other designs but I only wanted that one. When I asked how many lek he wanted for it, he asked me if I was German. When I told him I was American, he put his hand over his heart and told me it was a gift. So I gave him a gift, too. A magnet.

Thessaloniki, Greece

I visited Thessaloniki in late May and, at the hostel they recommended that I eat at "The Prythaneion" in old town if I wanted traditional food. I went in, was seated, my order taken and placed with the wife who cooked down below, then the food arrived in a little dumbwaiter type of lift, hot and tasty. My first dinner was a stuffed chicken breast with a cheese and mushroom sauce, decadent and delicious. The next night I ordered appetizers and drew the street scene outside while I waited. The third night I had grilled sardines with all manner of salads. I began to suspect I was getting special treatment when I got two pieces of cream cake for dessert and was presented with a glass of white wine to go with my fish. I gave a magnet to the owner and his wife, not only because of the great food, but because I liked them.

View from my table.

Mexico, Germany, Argentina

At Alcatraz Hostel in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, I met some interesting people from different places and different walks of life.

Alberta is a young accountant from Morela whose who was taking in the sights of her own country. She was working on her English and I am forever struggling with Spanish so we spent some time practicing on each other. She is more fluent than I by a long shot.



Alberta and I were people watching in the plazq when I took this photo.

Henrik is from Achen, a university town in Germany. He is in Mexico helping to measure the toxicity and its effects in a mining area. I was introduced to him by the woman running our hostel because he had just come from Xilitla, a small town I was planning to visit.

Imelda and her husband own a tiny café in the Mexican town of Xilitla. When I first went to eat there, she met me at the door then seated me at a table with a man I'd never met before. In this café, one doesn't wait for an available table as there are only three and they are very small. Imelda and I had a language problem so she called Soloman, possibly the only American in town, and he came to interpret. I ate breakfast at Imelda's every morning and called Soloman to join me on my last day. I really like the town of Xilitla and think I could easily live there were it not so humid.

Inside Imelda's Café.

Pedro is the owner of the big motorcycle with the sheepskin draped over the seat that was parked in the courtyard of Alcatraz Hostel in San Miguel. He is from Argentina, young, friendly, touring Mexico on his bike. He told me he plays classical guitar in restaurants and bars for tips and does well at it. I didn't see a guitar strapped to his bike so I take it that he does this for a living rather than to finance his trip.

 

 

Belgium

In San Augustin, Columbia, I met two girls from Belgium who were traveling South America together. They told me they were not from Brussels, but a much smaller town. Later I wanted to ask the name of that town but they had already left the hostel to continue their journey and took a magnet along with them.

Nepal...again

Two North Carolina women, both super-hikers, joined a Groupon tour to Nepal. Their first stop was Katmandu where there was a Hindu celebration going on and marigolds were everywhere in the forms of small offerings, even decorating monuments. There they met with a student at the university who is the girlfriend of the son of someone back home...or something like that. One of the three magnets taken to Nepal was left with her. I don't know about the others.





This man is showing off his sarangi, a traditional instrument of Nepal.

Finally, the trek they all came for...up, up, up. The group hiked several hours a day past small settlements where houses were made of stacked stone, across rickety bridges over rushing waters, through lush greenery, to heights that surely must be right next door to heaven.

 

I don't know what it is about the food in other countries that makes one want to take photos of it. This dish is unusual in that it was served on the trek days away from any restaurant or commercial kitchen yet each day there were garnishes of beautifully carved vegetables.

 



Phillipines

Cedar and Ben took their two daughters to the Island of Negras Oriental to visit his father and wife and attend a family reunion. There they met an aunt and cousin who survived the big typhoon last autumn. I believe the aunt is still living under a tarp after her roof blew off. Three magnets were given to some favorable aunts at the gathering. One in particular is a midwife in Manila. Her husband is really into cock fighting and bought a couple of roosters to take home with him. Ben attended a fight but Cedar stayed home because women at cock fights are considered very bad luck.

Cedar is an artist who paints silk beautifully but she and Ben also have a pretty impressive organic gardening operation back in the United States. Naturally they noticed things that grew in the Philipines. And grow they did. Cedar's observation was that "people were doing permaculture naturally and stuff was growing everywhere."

Columbia, South America

It is never a good thing to be told by a traveling friend that he is in a particular country and "you'd love it here". It gets me every time. So I hopped a plane to Columbia which has everything from beaches and rainforest to high mountains. I opted for two weeks down the middle of the country. No beaches.

Bogota from the Candelaria section.

Villa de leyva, a Colonial village.

So green! Between Popayan and San Augustin.

On my flight I sat next to a young man name of Camilo who is a journalist. He had been in the South Carolina city of Columbia with a group that had somehow won a trip to see Justin Beiber who my new friend does not speak too highly of. He did like the outlet stores and stocked up on Armani brand clothing while in the U.S. Camilo is from Cali and is well aware that he is lucky to have been raised in circumstances that allowed him a college education. His is really not an unusual family because even he has a sister who he says is a drama queen. Camilo is exceptional in that he can talk to anybody, and he does. Three plus hours passed quickly in his company. Clearly he had to have a magnet.

A sneak shot of Camilo waiting for luggage at the Bogota airport.

One strong piece of advise Camilo had for me other than to be smart on the streets of Bogota was not to go to the market in Sylvia by myself. Not to worry because I tagged on with a hostelmate, a fellow by the  name of Niko who is as easy with people as Camilo. Every Tuesday the indigenous Guambiano people come into the small mountain town of Sylvia to buy and sell their wares. Many of them still dress in their traditional blue capes, bowler hats and skirts, even the men. They are camera shy, I am told, but Niko made friends first and had no problem getting them to smile for the camera as well as for his teasing conversation. He made fast friends with Maria del Carmen and her mother who sell fruit at the market. We both sat on the steps by their table for quite a while and she sent us on further adventures to an agricultural school and the small village of Casique. Maria has one of my magents in Sylvia.

Maria del Carmen has the magnet.

Guambiano people in traditional dress.

While in Columbia I gave a magnet to a girl from Belgium who was staying at my hostel, Casa de Nelly, in San Augustin. Niko also has one he ways he will drop off somewhere in Equador.

Nepal

A friend sent a magnet with her friend who passed it to yet another friend who took it to Nepal. This is the response, once again passed from friend to friend to friend:

"We have been having another great adventure in both Bhutan and Nepal.  I gave one magnet to a Nepalese naturalist in the Chitwan national park.  He was very kind and helpful.  I took his picture and explained the project to him.  Yesterday We got into the river after our daybreak elephant ride and washed and got on the elephant in the water.  The elephant soaked us."

Cambodia and Vietnam

This post is a continuation of Tom and Brenda's trip to southeast Asia. See the previous post.

Cambodia is a country that has been devastated by wars. Brenda described it as being like a sick person still recovering but not yet up to full strength. So many of those who would now be considered the older generation were killed leaving few to go back to raising food, teaching, doctoring, and so the younger generation have to figure it out on their own. I've heard similar comments from others who visited that country.

 

An American who was working there as an economic developer and other investors bought an old pepper plantation with the idea that it could be a model for growth to rehabilitate the plantations. He also built a resort and this is where the magnet was left. What's interesting is that the brother of this developer left a magnet there a couple years earlier. Such a small world.

I think she got the magnet. One of them did.

On their first day in Vietnam, Brenda and Tom took a tour of the Mekong River. There they saw a floating market, all in the water. Vendors advertised their wares by hanging samples on poles and the people wore conical hats. They say vendors in Vietnam are very aggressive.

Traffic is very heavy in Saigon and when drivers get frustrated the aren't above going onto the sidewalks. It can be dangerous being a pedestrian. Another site visited was the Presidential Palace where there is on display a helicopter captured when they were landing on the roof, loading up and taking away as many people as possible at the end of the war as Saigon was lost, or gained, depending on viewpoint. In Vietnam they people don't talk about politics. At all. None.

The Imperial Palace

A magnet was left with the manager of the hotel where they stayed in Hue.