Grizzly's Tales

MY FIRST GALLERY SHOW

2010-10-17T09:34:00.000-07:00

From April 10 to May 9, 2011, I will be hanging several of my photos at the World Cup Cafe at 1740 NW Glisan here in Portland. There will be a reception that week, featuring a slide show of my best photos, and I'm also planning a few other programs of various combinations of stories, poems, and photos during that period. I welcome suggestions of photos to print and frame and feature in my programs and the photo books I want to produce. If you want to browse through my blog and website (grizzlygrover dot 8k dot com), you can leave a comment at the end of any of my blog posts or e-mail me at grizzlygrover dot yahoo dot com.

I earned the honor of hanging my photos by winning a weekly photo contest run by a volleyball friend of mine, Ken "Lenny" Howell, a manager at World Cup. My two winning photos: above, the northwest Portland railroad yard from the Kittridge Street bridge, and below, the Marquam Bridge reflected in the windows of OMSI. Both photos were taken early in the morning.

ONE MAN'S JORDAN

2009-11-13T18:11:00.000-08:00

the Wadi Rum Desert

Jerash

sunset from the Citadel in downtown Amman

and of course… Petra

2:20 am, Jordan time, Monday, November 9, Amman Airport. After sitting in the crowded airplane for three hours at a miserable time of night waiting for a “minor” engine problem to be fixed, the captain finally announced the flight was “cancelled.” I knew my dreaded long trip home just got longer. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say we were then held prisoner in the nearest hotel to the airport, mediocre even by Jordanian standards, because airport security was holding our passports and we were confined to the hotel grounds. I at least found a literal ray of sunshine when I discovered an open door to the rooftop. I’m sure I wasn’t supposed to be there, but since nobody was communicating anything to us I felt entitled. After finally learning our flight was going to leave at 11 pm, 23 hours behind schedule, I watched the sun set over the flat dry landscape from my secret rooftop refuge.

One of my concerns was that I was losing the nice window seats I’d carefully arranged for months before on the subsequent flights home, but fortunately I was able to get good window seats despite the late booking.

This is a big deal for me because watching the world go by while flying over it is one of the great pleasures I get from travelling (as an example, on the flight over I had spectacular views of almost the entire west coast of Italy). I got back to work a day late but there was so little to do my first day back that I can’t imagine we lost much business.

Unfortunately the extended flight home was nowhere near the first disappointment or annoyance during my trip to Jordan. For me the biggest was the air, terribly hazy in the north and not much better in the south. A lot of people seemed to think it was mostly dust from the desert, but it looked to me like a lot of smog was mixed in - I’ve never seen such a haze persist in the deserts of the western U.S. Another disappointment was the lack of scenic drives, another great travelling pleasure for me. Even though the tour brochure clearly showed us taking the scenic Kings Highway from Petra to Madaba, one of the reasons I signed up for this particular tour, we instead took the same boring Desert Highway we’d travelled south on. And there was a lot of poor communication, both from the tour company and the tour leader. But enough of the negative…

Petra is MAGNIFICENT!!! From the Siq

the gorgeous narrow red sandstone canyon that leads to the historic rock-hewn architecture, to the dazzling “Monastery”

and the nearby viewpoints that look over the (hazy) Israeli-Palestinian desert,

it clearly deserves its new status as one of the seven wonders of the world, based on a recent world-wide internet survey (despite the claim that Jordanians stuffed the ballots – one report said they cast 14% of all ballots despite having about 1/10 of 1% of the world’s population). The “Treasury”

was a mild disappointment because we were too late in the morning to see the sun shining on it and the less-than-football-field-sized opening in the canyon in front of it was filled with hundreds of tourists. Later I was able to find some trails behind the main “street”

so I got a little bit of the desert solitare that was lacking most of the trip.

The desert of Wadi Rum is also very special. Similar in a lot of ways to the Utah I love, but with different arrangements and shapes of redrock.

Other highlights: the ancient Roman city of Jerash,

the views from the crusader castle at Karak,

snorkeling in the Red Sea, floating effortlessly in the Dead Sea, and the late afternoon views from the hill of the Citadel in downtown Amman on (I thought) my last day in Jordan.

Then there were the people.

The Jordanians were often quite friendly, even to an American. Perhaps if I’d gone around shouting “More power to Israel” (which is not something I would truthfully say anyway) they wouldn’t have been so friendly, but I still don’t think anyone would have acted in a dangerous manner. I felt very safe walking alone everywhere we went.

And I had a good group of people to travel with. Despite the frequent annoyances, we all kept a positive attitude. There was a couple from Poland now living in Amsterdam, three women from Hong Kong, a group of four from England, and five singles including me, three from England and another American, a woman from the Bronx now working as a nurse in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (yes, the stories of the suppression of women there are quite accurate). My roommate Mark, a Londoner now living in Belgium, is married to one of the leads in the longest-running television show in Belgian history (I also travelled with the spouse of a somewhat famous perfomer on my trip to Peru, described near the end of my blog on that trip below).

My decision to take this trip resulted in my decisions to not get a car and remain in my current apartment for a while. So not only did it affect more than half my vacation time for the year, but other important aspects of my life. Based on that I could easily say that it wasn’t worth it. But it feels like it was, and I’m more pleased than I thought I would be when I finally got to look at my photos on the big screen (monitor). I especially enjoyed photographing the various textures of Jordan.

the ancient Roman columns of Jerash

the flowers at the crummy airport hotel

downtown Amman

and the beautiful sandstone of Petra

SOUTHERN CARIBBEAN

2009-02-21T13:09:00.000-08:00

NOTE: IN PREPARATION FOR MY UPCOMING TRIP TO JORDAN AND THE SUBSEQUENT BLOG, I AM REDUCING THE CONTENT OF MY PREVIOUS BLOGS

The Itinerary
February 7: midnight flight to Houston, then to Panama City early afternoon.
Feb. 8: taxis and bus to cruise ship terminal in Colon, Panama
Feb. 9: Cartagena, Colombia
Feb. 10: Santa Marta, Colombia
Feb. 11: Aruba

Feb. 12: Curacao
Feb. 13: Bonaire
Feb. 14: at sea
Feb. 15: return to Colon, taxi to Panama City
Feb. 16: afternoon flight to Houston, then to Portland at midnight

Panama City

Cartagena

Willemstad, Curacao

Bonaire

Sunsets from the deck of the ship

flight from Panama City back to Houston

SUBARU SUMMERS

2008-11-08T10:44:00.000-08:00

Early in 2005 I bought a ’92 Subaru wagon so that I could go on car camping trips, after living without a car for about three years. Late summer that year I bought a digital camera. Now that I’m getting rid of my decrepit but reliable campmobile before it spontaneously falls into a million pieces on a rocky road in the middle of nowhere, a favorite habitat of mine, it’s time to relive some of the highlights of our three-plus years together.

The weekend of the full moon in October 2005 I visited the Painted Hills of John Day National Monument.

On the way there I took 127 photos in one day

Thanksgiving weekend I went to the Oregon coast, mostly hanging out around Brookings and Bandon

April 2006 I went to Utah (Grosvenor Arch below)

Joshua Trees in the California Mojave Desert

Fairyland Trail, Bryce Canyon

sunrise over Capitol Reef with the full moon in the background

A four-day Labor Day weekend trip to a variety of places in southern Oregon

and northern California

Two vacation days in early August gave me another long weekend to visit North Cascades National Park

(smoke from a huge fire along the Washington-Canada border)
visiting Mt. Rainier

and Mt. St. Helens on the way home

Labor Day weekend I went to eastern Oregon, camping out in the Ochoco Mountains.

Memorial Day 2007 I went to Hells Canyon (see blog “To Hell and Back” below) and Labor Day that year another random exploration of eastern Oregon.
For the four-day Independence Day weekend of 2008 I explored the Idaho side of Hell's Canyon

I got off early Friday for Labor Day weekend and went south to Crater Lake,

then east to Idaho,

The last weekend of September I explored more of the John Day country of central Oregon

My final camping trip, planned with the full moon in mind, was spent exploring the Bend area, camping at the base of a small lava butte with a great view in most directions, a good spot for watching the sunset and sunrise. After dark I walked along some dirt tracks in the glowing moonlight and deafening silence. A lovely end to my car camping adventures in my Subaru.

One of my favorite photographic subjects are the wind farms

of the upper Columbia River gorge.

Although some people say they are an eyesore, I find them to be majestic in their own way.

And they certainly are a better source of electricity than a lot of the other options.

A favorite viewpoint of mine, also up the gorge, is Rowena Overlook

on the old highway between Hood River and The Dalles – I stopped there about ten times during the time I had my Subaru.

A few favorites. An early morning walk on the metallic boardwalk in the Painted Hills unit of JohnDay National Monument.

A blustery morning on a beach just south of Bandon

Sunrise over Capitol Reef.

From Slate Peak on the summit divide of the North Cascades in Washington

Morning mist from Multnomah Falls in the Columbia River Gorge

And my favorite, the sunrise over Crater Lake the Saturday before Labor Day 2008

South Africa / Namibia

2008-04-11T10:28:00.000-07:00

African sunsets alone made my first journey to the southeastern continent worthwhile despite difficulties, disappointments, sadnesses, and long, long, long flights. I spent eight days on my own in South Africa, then twelve, mostly in Namibia, with a G.A.P. – Great Adventure (/Party) People – tour group.

The tour was the smoother and more consistently enjoyable part of my time, but I did have a couple of great days on my own, one in the Drakensberg and one in Cape Town,

despite some major annoyances. My credit union’s unannounced new security measures combined with no access to public telephones or faster-than-snail-paced internet access kept me from accessing any money for several days, the unexpected four-day Easter holiday weekend messed up accommodation and transportation bookings, and a bad toothache worried me for several days. Regular doses of ibuprofen and a lowered intake of sugar kept the toothache from being a major problem. A missed communication and fully booked Easter Monday bus forced me to fly to Cape Town

instead of taking a bus I’d paid for. And the manager of Amphitheater Backpackers in the semi-wilderness of the northern Drakensberg forced me to stay and pay later on trust as I tried to tell her to call the bus back because I wasn’t sure I’d be able to get any money until after the long weekend. Despite my worries, I went on an incredible hike to the top of the Amphitheater Escarpment,

including the brink of Tugela Falls,

claimed by South Africans to be the second highest in the world.

During my longer than planned stay in Cape Town, I took a lovely but rushed tour of the Cape Peninsula on the first day

and on the last rode the cable car to the world-famous view from the top of Table Mountain.

But the middle day was the best, a late-morning hike sans camera over Kloof Nek (Pass), above Clifton and Bantry Bays, and around Green Point, followed by an evening hike up Signal Hill, ending up watching the sunset

from back near Kloof Nek. I spent four nights with a great view of Table Mountain in a single room on the 8th floor of the Tulip Inn (this is a view I never saw being in a corner room with no windows on one wall, I had to hold my camera out the window and around the corner of the building),

where on the final evening I met the eighteen people with whom I’d be sharing the next twelve days of my life. As usual on recent tours I was the only American. There were several Canadians and the rest were from Europe and Australia-New Zealand.

Highlights of our time together included a lovely camp on the Namibian side of the Orange River,

views of Fish River Canyon – claimed by Namibians to be the second largest in the world,

the red sand dunes of the Namib Desert – claimed by most everybody to be the highest in the world,

bonding in the rain at Solitaire watching a beautiful sunset in one direction and an incredible unbroken 180-degree double rainbow in the other,

the Utah-like red rock around Twyfelfontein,

and the animal parade at Etosha.

We never did see the biggest, wondering how elephants can hide so well, but got bored with zebra,

and giraffe (seen here giving new meaning to the concept of “necking”).

We saw several types of antelope, wildebeest, warthogs, jackals,

hyenas,

two lions,

and finally a few rhino

during the last evening. The highlight was three cheetahs, equaling the number our guide Tracy had previously seen in twelve years of leading tours.

As a large group, or in smaller groups, we went for hikes in the desert,

lunched in the middle of nowhere,

searched for wildlife,

shopped,

watched sunsets

and rainbows,

climbed rocks,

ran down sand dunes,

and posed for pictures.

All these things led me to take about 1,800 pictures, mostly in a 16-day period (I had only once in my life taken a hundred in a day), including 259 on a 2-hour flight over the sand dunes and along the coast.

Perhaps this could lead to an even more worthwhile aspect of the trip – adding to my previous adventures and photos, putting together a new storytelling slideshow that could become a new career a few years down the line. I’ve done it before on a limited basis using my experiences in Alaska.

The end of the trip was the strangest part. I finally developed stomach issues during our last day on the road, leading to a miserable night in the hostel at Windhoek, during which I even fainted briefly when I couldn’t escape the stale air of the bathroom quick enough. But at least I didn’t go through that during a night I was in a tent or on an airplane. My stomach was better during the flights home, despite efforts by others to upset it again. I was checked in as the wrong person at the Windhoek airport and had to go back through security and passport control and had to wait in several unnecessary lines and for over an hour to board the plane in Johannesburg. Things got worse in D.C. Already an hour late, I had to wait until all the luggage had been unloaded onto the carousel before discovering my bag had been sitting on the floor for an undetermined length of time. By then it was almost time for my next flight, so I nervously went up to customs. They sent me to the side for a baggage inspection. After another several minutes they finally let me through without making me unpack, but by then my flight had left. I got on standby for the next, but had to give up the window seat I’d carefully arranged months before. Everyone around me had their windows closed, so I had to cross the country without seeing a thing (those who were on tour with me know how much I like to look at things when travelling – even more so on planes). And since I’d only have a few minutes in L.A. to catch my next flight and my bag was only checked to there, I figured I’d meet the same fate on the next flight. But when we got to there, things finally went right. My gate wasn’t too far away, I heard my name on the intercom as I rushed toward it, and they let me on, saying they’d get my bag on the next flight. So I had my window seat with nice views of places I’d explored growing up around L.A. and Fresno, including a great view of Yosemite Valley, and didn’t even have to carry my heavy backpack home from the airport (they delivered it to my house in the evening).

The strangest thing that happened on the flight home was a few hours before landing in D.C. The teenage girl sitting next to me suddenly jabbed me in the middle of the night. I looked over and saw she was unconscious and having a seizure. I had to hold on to both of her arms while trying to get someone's attention to call an attendant. I guess she was okay, but had to spend the rest of the flight lying down in the back of the plane.

One of the measures of how good a trip was is how mundane everything seems after you get back home. My trip must have been really good. I'm back in Portland, toothache worse than ever, a painful blister between two of my toes, still not caught up on sleep even after spending thirteen hours in bed one night, having had to work two long days of overtime. I miss both the wonderful group of people, most of whom are still together in Botswana, and the beautiful countries of South Africa and Namibia.

In conclusion… why don't I just let my camera speak.

To Hell and Back

2007-06-01T17:59:00.000-07:00

Peru & Bolivia

2007-05-19T07:32:00.000-07:00

(written Fri., May 18)
A week ago I was spending the last of four nights in LaPaz, Bolivia, having spent that day mountain biking “the most dangerous road in the world,” and packing for the next day’s journey to the world’s highest ski area and the long set of flights back to Oregon. My 5th floor hotel room looked up at the city

climbing the walls of a thousand-foot deep ravine, down at a street bustling with sewer construction, dozens of street vendors,

and an endless parade of honking taxis and minibuses, and far away to the triple peaks of 21,125-foot Mt. Illimani.

“The most dangerous road in the world” is no longer so, since a new highway opened last November to remove virtually all the

traffic. The ride remains spectacular, however, dropping 11,000 feet from a dry treeless mountain pass to a humid wooded

jungle. The ride was slightly disappointing, mostly because I was with a group of high-speed Israelis and I could only make a few brief stops to photograph the passing landscapes. A 20-second stop would put me nearly a quarter mile behind. Ironically the most dangerous part of the journey was the drive back up. After it had been established that Bolivian drivers assume there are no cars coming the other way around blind curves until they are actually visible, we drove for miles through thick pea-soup fog above cliffs of undeterminable height on both sides.

The highest ski area in the world was not a disappointment in any way. The view of the peaks of the Cordillera Real de LaPaz was breathtaking, especially nearby 19,975-foot Huayna Potosi, even

after clouds started overtaking some of the summits, including ours. My altitude record of 14,495 feet had fallen the day before at the 15,230-foot summit of La Cumbre Pass, shortly before pulling off to prepare for the bike ride. The hike to the higher peak of Chacaltaya took me to 17,850 feet. I would have been content with the 130-foot lower first peak, but that Marta, a pretty and

charming woman from the north coast of Spain, decided to go on to the next peak. She spoke English well enough that we could converse, even as we shared a taxi to the airport that evening and chatted while I waited in line in the terminal. Alas, she was flying to the jungle to stay with her boy friend and we didn’t get to say a proper farewell, as we unexpectedly had to go through separate security checks to get to our respective gates.

Airports were the most common place for things to go wrong for me. I was ripped off by a taxi-seller from the Lima airport who used my inability to think clearly at 5 am after a night of not sleeping on an airplane to convince me that I had only exchanged $3 worth of currency rather than $30. Outside of airports, everything went far smoother than you'd expect visiting developing countries. The nights before and after visiting Machu

Picchu were extremely uncomfortable due to digestive tract difficulties, probably mostly due to abruptly arriving at an altitude over 11,000 feet. Or perhaps it was a family curse - my mom wasn't able to visit M.P. the one time she went to South America because of altitude sickness. I wasn’t at my best during those couple of days, but it only slowed me down marginally. Otherwise the trip was trouble-free and full of fantastic sights and adventures.

Lima was nothing special, but after a couple of good naps, I found my way to the main square and the wide gravel pit that contained a small river, a narrow railroad, and a busy freeway. Though not beautiful, parts of Lima are very colorful. Like most tourists, I was glad to move on. Our flight to the jungle gave us a preview of the beautiful setting of Cuzco, which made the

departure from the idyllic jungle setting two days later easier to take. Our jungle home was the Eco-Amazonia Lodge, over fifteen miles down the Rio Madre de Dios from Puerto Maldonado.

Usually when you see wildlife, they are napping, grazing, or walking slowly. Not so the monkeys of the lodge’s private Monkey Island. Fighting, swinging, shouting, jumping on tourists, only slowing down to eat the bananas our guide, Heren, brings every late afternoon. It was the only good wildlife show of the entire trip but it was fun and memorable. The next day we hiked and

canoed to watch birds and turtles, then unsuccessfully fished in the tiny Rio Briolo. I went for the opportunity to swim in a river with piranhas and watch the moonrise and sunset over the main

river. That night I tried unsuccessfully to take pictures of the full moon shining on some of the jungle vegetation. I also walked a little ways into the jungle and turned off my flashlight for a while. At 2 am, I was too wired up to go back to sleep, so I laid in the hammock in the back room of my bungalow listening to the birds and insects and within a few minutes was relaxed enough to fall right back to sleep. I was woken up a few hours later by what sounded like very loud faulty plumbing but I soon realized it was a howler monkey calling to another howler monkey I could hear in the distance.

There have been plans off and on to make Cuzco home to Peru’s major international airport. This would make sense because Cuzco is far more inviting and popular than Lima. Nestled in a valley 11,140 above sea level, it is designed to remain an attractive city even as it sprawls down the valley and up those hillsides where water is available. New and rebuilt buildings must retain a certain basic architectural style. It is a lovely city surrounded by green slopes. The sunrise I watched the morning we left the city was

one of best I’ve ever experienced. I watched the sunlight creep down the hillsides while giving the mist amongst the trees on

the hilltops a spiritual glow. The Plaza de Armas (Main Square) is a lovely place to watch people and sunsets, surrounded by a cathedral, an impressive church, and balconied restaurants and shops, and adorned by a variety of flowers, including golden poppies.

As lovely as Cuzco is, it is still mostly used as a base for explorations into the Quechua and Aymara historic sites (Inca actually only refers to the king of these ancient native peoples). The most famous is of course Big Mountain (Machu Picchu). As is often the case the most highly touted destination was nowhere near my favorite place of the trip. I won’t say I was disappointed but I will say the somewhat flat mid-day lighting, the occasional crowded areas, my often grumbling stomach, and my mistrust of anything over-hyped, prevented it from making my list as an all-time favorite location. I was mostly impressed by the setting. Although we were about a thousand feet straight up from

the river, you could look in every direction and see even higher mountains rising straight up out of deep canyons. I enjoyed the previous day’s journey through the Valle Sagrado more. The walls

of Sacsayhuaman (it’s okay to call it sexy woman) just above Cuzco were more impressive, the cliffs and valley views of Pisac

more lovely, and the late afternoon lighting of Ollantaytambo more photogenic. We returned to Cuzco after visiting Machu

Picchu, riding in a van in the dark with views of clouds beautifully lit by the rising full moon and the town of Urubamba as we switchbacked above it.

Most people seem to look at flights and bus rides as merely a way to get from point A to point B. In most cases, I see them as a way to see more scenery. Such was the case with the bus trip from Cusco to Puno, then three days later on to LaPaz. Upon leaving Cusco, we briefly descended along Rio Huatanay, then ascended a tributary through canyons and valleys scattered with

towns and ever-decreasing dwellings to a 14,150-foot pass, Abra La Roya. Then we descended through a surprisingly wide valley to the shores of 12,500-foot Lake Titicaca. We ascended to a

rocky pass, then entered Puno, tied for the highest port town in the world, descending through the hilly north part of town in a magnificent thunderstorm. Several bright flashes were followed closely by loud thunder. Then a flash was accompanied at the exact moment by a strange metallic cracking sound, followed by the more customary thunder. I surmise the lightning hit a building just as we were passing it.

As in the jungle, boats became our principle mode of transportation for a couple of days. We visited the floating (yes,

really) Uros Islands, then slowly motored to Amantani Island, where we were assigned a host family. Adrian, a rock climber from near Manchester, England, and I followed our “sister” (the “mother” apparently was busy with other things) to our home for the night. We had a lovely simple lunch, walked and rested a bit, then got involved in what will unexpectedly remain one of my fondest memories of the trip, a soccer game at nearly 13,000 feet elevation. I played goalie, but with the raised audience of 30-40 people and European teammates and native Peruvian opponents giving it a feel of a real “football” game, I was inspired to aggressively go after balls and dive on the cement. I was often winded, wondering how my teammates could do that much more running around. Despite their definite homefield advantage, we gave the Peruvians a good fight until a rebound shot over my prone body gave them a 4-3 win. We then hiked up to the 13,500-foot summit of the island for a cloudy sunset with distant lightning and in the evening danced to native music in costumes provided by our "families." (photo courtesy of Kate & Guillaume)

As the trip progressed I made more and more a point of seeking sunsets and sunrises. A beautiful sunrise from the window of my room on Amantani, followed by a dramatic sunset from the

condor, 600 steps above our hotel in Puno (I had my camera but my batteries were dutifully charging in my hotel room), then a nice sunrise from 300 steps below the condor (enough uphill

walking already). Another nice bus trip, an easy though slow border crossing into Bolivia, the bus running out of gas because of a leak on the outskirts of El Alto, LaPaz’s plateau-top suburb, around a freeway cloverleaf and suddenly the plateau tumbles over a cliff and the city follows it down the cliffsides. Such is the first view of LaPaz.

By all rights, I should’ve hated LaPaz. Crowded, noisy, sometimes smelly, often hazy, narrow streets and sidewalks, disorganized chaos ruling all motor and pedestrian transportation. But in fact I loved it. It was the elements of Cusco and Lima brought to their extremes. I would call it the antithesis of America’s Walmart monopoly society. On many streets, vendor after vendor, often selling almost the exact same things: food, drink, jewelry, wallets, sweaters, pirated cd’s and dvd’s, statuettes to ward off evil spirits. Incredibly inexpensive. A bottle of water or a candy bar, one boliviano (12½ cents). A filling meal in a café, six bolivianos. A nice alpaca sweater, 57 bolivianos ($7). When I returned home, my car broke down and I had to get it fixed for what it would cost to eat well at restaurants for a year in LaPaz. Perhaps it is where I will retire.

As my time in LaPaz progressed, I became aware of the unique traffic laws. Right of way goes to the vehicle that honks first. A red traffic light is merely a suggestion that you might consider stopping. If you're walking in the street because the sidewalk is too crowded and someone honks at you, assume that the driver feels he has absolved himself of all responsibility. In the midst of all the chaos, I watched an old woman start to walk slowly across a busy street. A policeman left the island from where he was directing traffic and walked her all the way across the street. Then he returned to the island and turned a switch and the traffic light changed. Apparently he had set the light to stay as it was. So there is some order amongst the chaos.

My traveling companions were many and varied. Most were British. Most came and went within a few days or hours, including the guides. The only people with me for the majority of the trip were Guillaume and Kate, a lovely couple from central London (far end of boat in picture). We met on the way to the airport in Lima for the flight to the jungle and finally separated the second night in LaPaz, two days before they were to attend a wedding back in London. Jo, another Brit, was our unofficial guide to Cuzco, then Carla (hidden behind Adrian), a Peruvian, our official guide, took us to LaPaz. Others who were around for more than a day were a Belgian couple, two Norwegian men, Londoners (originally Australian, near end of boat) Dale and Melanie, and three rock

climbing friends (middle of boat) including Maria, wife of a member of the Australian Pink Floyd project. Apparently the fact that I haven’t heard of them is more a reflection of my ignorance of current popular music than their lack of notoriety. Besides not traveling with any, I rarely even met any Americans. Tourists were often hard to find in Lima and LaPaz and usually when I saw someone who looked American, they'd open their mouths and out came French or a thick accent. Apparently Americans prefer the shorter trip to Central America while for Europeans the distance is about the same and South America more appealing.

The long hours on planes were helped by generally clear skies. I saw lots of familiar sights in eastern Oregon, Idaho, Utah, and

Colorado going both ways. I saw lights from Cuba, Jamaica, Brazil, and probably Colombia, Venezuela, and Ecuador. Usually these lights would end at the end of the villages or cities and then all would be black (unlike America).

As time passes, it’s hard to say how this will rate compared to my other favorite trips. I can’t imagine it will overtake my first trip to Europe (mostly Switzerland and Austria) as my all-time favorite, but it should rate very high.

These last three taken by Carlos, guide on mountain bike trip.

introduction

2006-07-15T23:17:00.000-07:00

I’m a photographer, storyist*, and poet, but it’s what I’m not that keeps from making a living at any or all of these talents. I’m not a businessperson. Otherwise I would probably be spending most of my time traveling across the country as a performer.
Not that I’m complaining about my current job. As an employee of a private company, I have it pretty good. I don’t have anyone watching over my shoulder and I’m doing what I dreamed of doing when I was a kid. When I was five, we traveled to Oregon to sightsee and visit relatives. I followed our routes on road and street maps and became so enthralled with the concept of maps that I started making my own, of places real and imaginary. Now I work as the lone cartographer for a company specializing in road and street maps of Oregon. But now there are so many other ways for people to find their way from point A to point B that selling maps is getting harder all the time, so the cartographer’s job is as insecure as the slide rule manufacturer’s job was thirty years ago. So I have to keep my options open.
I put together a program of slides, stories, and poems about my experiences spending summers at Alaska’s Denali National Park. I performed this program for environmental groups, retirement homes, classrooms, and in other settings in nearly twenty states across the country. This program was always well-received and I usually made a fair amount from sales and stipends, but I could never market it in a way that I could make a living at it. I have ideas for other programs combining my talents and at some point would like to once again hit the road as a performer.

* - the term story-teller can refer to someone who tells stories written by others. I prefer the term storyist as someone who tells self-written stories.