Random Rambles

Our plan is to fly back to Tashkent and take an overnight train to Termez, far to the south. Economy seats are sold out, so we’re forced to fly Business Class.

The last time we had to fly Business Class out of necessity was with Royal Brunei Airlines. <Sigh> On both occasions, they are short hops on the airlines of Islamic countries, so no free champagne.

We book an overnight train to Termez.

We now have most of a day back in Tashkent. In our first entry for Uzbekistan, we mention the Islamic Centre. It’s now open, so we spend a few hours there. It’s very popular – we have to wait several hours for entry.

I complained when we were in Shakhrisabz that there was so little left of Timur’s summer palace. I’m happy to see at least an imaginative model of the place.

Also exhibited are a showcase of letters purported to have been written by the prophet Mohammed (PBUH). Sorry, I have to call BS on this one.

It’s back to the Southern Station for the night train.

Because of our late booking date, only top bunks are available. These require the skills of an Olympic gymnast to get into or out of. But they’re comfortable enough, and clean.

Our cabinmates are at first a mother and daughter. They get off in Samarkand and we are joined by a pair of ladies who treat us very well. They kindly share their breakfast with us.

In the morning, the landscape is much greener than it has been up in Karapakstan.

On arrival, we soon learn that Termez seems to have the most aggressive taxi drivers we’ve experienced so far. And not just taxi drivers – anyone with a car slams on the brakes, rolls down the window, and tries to inveigle us into hopping in, for a price. Sheesh.

Termez is on the border of Afghanistan. We hear about a free trade zone where Afghanis can buy and sell stuff. We hire a driver to take us there.

There isn’t much here for the souvenir-seeking tourist. It’s mostly cheap wholesale goods. A small rug in a window catches our eye, a sort of roughly-made, folk-art-y kind of thing.

The proprietor is puzzled why we would want such a trifle and tries to interest us in real (not very nice) carpets. We convince him to part with it.

Here we seal the deal, Afghan style: I place the payment cash vertically between my hands and the seller places my hands between his.

Here is our prize on display. The Afghanis find us just as exotic as we find them.

On the way back to town, we stop at the Archeological Museum. It contains finds from the places we want to visit.

For the next two days, we hire Mahsud as a driver and guide. He has a white Chevrolet, of course, as did our driver of the previous day.

We climb to the top, which is fun crawling up the dark, narrow staircase.

On the agenda is the Sultan Saodat mausoleum complex.

We are let into the structure by the guardian and clamber up to the rooftop.

The Kyrk Kyz fortress has quite a story behind it involving forty girls holding off a siege by Ghengis Khan.

Mahsud goes into great detail about this story and believes it implicitly. (The idea that the army of Ghengis Khan – slayer of millions – could be fended off by a handful of girls is, um, highly unlikely.)

Earthquakes are common here. Cities in the region seem to get destroyed either by earthquakes or marauding invaders. Supports are needed to keep things together.

It’s a short drive to Fayoz Tepe. In the early days of Buddhism, the faith spread throughout Asia, including around here. Fayoz Tepe contains the ruins of a Buddhist monastery. Its prominent feature is a restored stupa.

Inside the stupa is a much-eroded smaller stupa. Japanese visitors still leave small offerings.

Nearby is Kara Tepe. This is a series of Buddhist caves. You can still see the remains of ancient wall paintings. (Mahsud peels some away to show us before we convince him to stop.)

The caves were also visited by many bored Russian soldiers during the 1979-1989 Soviet-Afghan war. They left behind many inscriptions carved into the soft limestone.

They also seemed to have let off steam by firing hundreds of rounds of ammunition. The ground is littered with old bullets.

We take a break. In the background is the Amu Darya river – known as the Oxus River in classical times. On the other side is Afghanistan.

Another day, we visit Kampir Tepe. It has been identified (but not conclusively) with a city founded by Alexander the Great.

Mahsud regales us with tales of Alexander, and points out a nondescript square as being ‘Alexander’s bedroom’ with complete certainty.

The last few hours of our tour, we are hit by a violent sandstorm, with heavy winds and limited visibility.

On the outskirts of a small village, we visit the remains of Talitogora, an off-the-beaten-path site. It’s a small mound, mysterious and virtually unexplored.

Personally, I’m fascinated by these not-yet-unearthed sites around the world. The only info I could find is here. There must be thousands of these sites, waiting patiently for the archeologist’s trowel.

Lastly, we visit the Zurmala stupa. This is another Buddhist ruin, made up of 1.2 million bricks (according to Lonely Planet). These bricks now need iron bands around the structure to keep it from falling to bits.

One word in Russian I remember from my teenage reading of A Clockwork Orange: ‘Moloko’. that is, ‘milk’. In the novel, ‘Moloko Plus‘ was imbibed in preparation for a night of mayhem.

Plain old moloko is available everywhere for less than two bucks a litre. We drink a lot of it.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Hey! I’ve created my first-ever AI image! Now it really feels as though I’ve joined the modern age.

Where the heck is Karakalpakstan, you ask? We had the same question. It’s a theoretically autonomous region of Uzbekistan. As usual, the history of the region is kind of complicated. (Come to think of it, most history everywhere is kind of complicated.)

We hire a car and driver to take us from Khiva to Nukus, a distance of about 270 KMs. We make four stops to visit some archaeological sites.

Our first stop, by special request is the Koi Krylgan Kala.

From the first time we see it in Uzbek tourist material, we wanted to visit. Mainly because of the dramatic aerial views taken when the foundations were first exposed.

It sort of resembles the Millenium Falcon.

It’s also featured on the 20,000 sum banknote.

It no longer looks like this. It appears to have been filled in again. Or the locals have pilfered the material to be re-used in modern buildings.

That’s OK. It leaves a lot of scope for the imagination, as Anne of Green Gables would say.

There are many fortresses in this region, known as Elliq Kala, meaning ‘fifty forts’. We also visit Jampik Kala.

Our driver – with a white Chevrolet, of course – takes us down some barely-there desert tracks to get to these places.

Next is Gyaur Kala

‘Tell me what you’ve seen, in faraway forgotten lands, where empires have turned back to sand.’ – The Moody Blues, Lovely To See You

Last place is Chilpik Kala, which is in fact an old ‘tower of silence‘, that is, a place where Zoroastrians would expose their dead so that the bodies could be picked clean by vultures.

The bones would then be placed in ossuaries. Zoroastrians were at one time dominant in this part of the world over two thousand years ago. Difficult to imagine, considering the overwhelming presence of Islam since that time.

The forts are the ‘ancient’. Now for the ‘modern’. We arrive in Nukus. The chief attraction for us here is the Savitsky Museum.

The story of Igor Savitsky and his efforts to preserve endangered art from the Soviet times is fascinating and inspiring. It’s been made into a documentary, ‘The Desert of Forbidden Art‘, available on several platforms, including Dailymotion.

This is my personal favourite. I like that neither the canvas nor the frame are square.

Many paintings showcase local industries, past and present.

Besides being a collector and archivist, Savitsky himself was an accomplished painter.

Nukus has a reputation as being a dull town in the middle of nowhere, but we have a good time here.

While strolling the streets, we come across some ladies whipping up a batch of sumalak, an activity with a lot of folklore attached. Maria is invited to stir the pot while making a wish. As is tradition.

People dress well here. And are well groomed. Everybody seems to have someplace to go, as opposed to the sidewalk-dwelling inertia of many places elsewhere in the world.

There’s a lively market.

(Incidentally, our hotel has a film crew in temporary residence. They’re filming a segment of The Amazing Race here. We speak with a hopeful Dutch participant.)

You can find just about anything here. Except sunscreen.

Many people do their regular shopping in markets like this. There aren’t many supermarkets around.

A pair of local girls want to have their photo taken with Maria. This happens regularly.

One activity that we do NOT pursue: usually if visitors come this far, they book a multiday expedition across the desert to view the last sad remnants of the Aral Sea. Yeah, no – we’re not interested in an expensive and uncomfortable excursion simply to witness the brutal fallout of yet another man-made catastrophe.

Speaking of man-made catastrophes…

Sight or Insight of the Day

One good thing about traveling where we are: we hear very little news about Donald Trump’s continuing lurch into global Dystopia. As Trump and his minions drag the rest of the world down into a swirling vortex of imbecility, people here are simply going about their lives. So are we.

Sometimes I almost – operative word being ‘almost‘ – feel sorry for the president’s inner circle. I imagine being cooped up in the Oval Office with Donald Trump must feel like being locked in an enclosed space with an agitated chimp wielding a fully-loaded assault rifle.

I’m not the first to think of this analogy. I remember hearing it on a late-night comedy show. (Probably Stephen Colbert.)

As we’ve said in previous entries – May God have mercy on our souls.

We take a slow train – six hours – from Bukhara to Khiva.

Two things we can say about this part of Uzbekistan. It’s very flat, and it has a lot of canals.

Kind of like the Netherlands? Not quite. Minus the canals, it looks more like Australia.

Khiva was at one time a major centre for the slave trade in Central Asia. Much like Oman, which until very recently ruled a trading empire based on the commerce of human flesh, it’s not really mentioned in the present day.

On arrival, we find a broad avenue leading 1.5 KM down to the Old Town. This is a not-uncommon feature of Central Asian cities: gargantuan roads flanked by brand new (largely empty) buildings.

We haven’t really described our positive impressions of Uzbekistan so far. So let’s talk about what we like about the place.

Besides the many interesting historical places, the human element contributes a lot to our visit. We’re really enjoying our time in Uzbekistan. People have been very kind and generous to us.

It’s extremely safe here. A high-trust society. People often leave valuables and merchandise unattended without fear of it being swiped.

And they’re scrupulously honest. They make a point of counting out exact change when they see how puzzled we are by the multiple zeros of prices in Uzbek sum.

It’s very clean, for the most part. Marble-tiled public bathrooms, spotless and free. No graffiti. None of the casual vandalism that is so common at home, people no longer notice it.

Tourism from Europe is increasingly common. Lots of Russian visitors, too. Very few North Americans.

Uzbeks seem delighted and surprised when we tell them we’re from Canada. On at least three occasions, when we tell them, they’ve responded, unprompted by us, ‘Ah, Canada. Ottawa!’ So Uzbeks are more aware than probably 90% of Americans which city is the nation’s capital.

If we have one gripe, it’s this: both Uzbekistan Railways and Uzbekistan Airways have English-language sites that let you purchase tickets, reserve seats, and so on. But after half an hour or so of filling out info, when it comes to payment, the site WILL NOT accept foreign credit cards, even though they claim they do.

Uzbekistan is a muslim-majority country. People seem observant, but not fanatical. Women and girls don’t seem to be overly oppressed, free to be as covered or uncovered as they like.

All in all, the niceness of Uzbekistan comes as a pleasant surprise. In books as recent as ten years ago, the place is described as a somewhat paranoid, xenophobic police state. It’s certainly not like that now (as far as we can tell).

We hope the other places we plan to visit have progressed as much.

Sight or Insight of the Day

You’ve got to hand it to Big Chip. They really cater to the tastes of their international customers.

Of course, I have to try a bag. They actually taste like shish kabob.

One rainy morning, we take another high-speed train to Bukhara. These trains are Talgo models, from Spain. We like the platypus-esque snout on the engine.

Bukhara is another Silk Road city, bristling with mosques and madrassas and bazaars.

There’s usually a cat around that likes attention. Sometimes tourists from China take videos, as if they’ve never seen anyone pet a stray cat before.

We visit the house of Fayzulla Khojaev. Actually, the house of his his father, a wealthy merchant. It’s a popular place for photo shoots and wedding pictures.

Poor comrade Khojaev ended up being liquidated by Stalin, along with a few million of his fellow Soviet citizens.

Magok-i-Attari, one of the oldest buildings in the city. Before the Arab conquest, it was a Zoroastrian fire temple, acted as a synagogue, and was eventually a mosque. Ancient-looking outside, the interior is now a modern exhibition space.

One interesting activity in Bukhara is simply wandering the many backstreets of town.

Believe it or not, motorists here (including our Yandex drivers) think nothing of venturing down these incredibly narrow alleyways. .

We come across a bakery hard at work producing loaves of non – cognate with ‘naan‘ – bread.

Maria, of course, has to sample some.

A main feature of the town is the Ark, a fortress and former residence of the emirs of Bukhara, including the unfortunate last one.

A morbid tale often told about the Ark is how the emir at the time tossed a pair of British emissaries, Charles Stoddart and Arthur Conolly, into a bug-infested pit for three years before making them dig their own graves and beheading them. Not very diplomatic.

The fortress has footpaths around the archaeological work being done in the area.

Linguistic fun fact: the Russian word for train station is ‘вокзал’, pronounced ‘voksal’. I wonder if this is related to the well-known Vauxhall station in London. According to Wikipedia, my surmise may be correct:

‘The name Vauxhall is phonetically similar to the Russian word for a railway station, вокзал (vokzal). One theory for this similarity is that Tsar Nicholas I visited Britain in the mid-19th century to study the railway network. At the time, every train on the South Western Railway called at Vauxhall as a ticket stop. From this, the Tsar concluded that Vauxhall was a major transport interchange, and the word was introduced as the generic term in Russian.‘

Sight or Insight of the Day

While strolling the back alleys of Bukhara, we come across this on the lintel of an abandoned house.

It’s a mezuzah. A cheap plastic one, but still a ghostly reminder of a departed population.

According to Lonely Planet, ‘Jews made up 7% of Bukhara’s population at the time of the Soviet Union’s collapse. Only about 100 remain.‘

After acclimatizing for a few days in Tashkent, we take the high-speed train to Samarkand.

I remember rainy afternoons in the fourth grade learning about Marco Polo and his travels to places with magical names like ‘Bokhara’ and ‘Samarkand’. Our teacher made it come alive in the telling. (Thanks, Miss Legault!)

Samarkand is closely connected to the deeds of Amir Timur, known in English as Tamburlaine. That still won’t ring any bells for most people besides those interested in Asian history and fans of Elizabethan theatre. (‘Tamburlaine the Great‘ was a big hit for Christopher Marlowe.)

Tamburlaine ruled over a vast empire from Egypt to India, ‘spacious in the possession of dirt’, as Shakespeare says. Lots of bloodshed involved. Samarkand was his capital.

This is the Bibi-Khanym mosque. Bibi was one of Timur’s 18 wives. You can judge the size of the place by the pedestrians walking in the square.

In the the courtyard is a giant Koran.

If you’re wondering why Maria looks so bundled up, it’s because we have a few days of bone-chilling cold.

Everyone else in town is also trying to stay warm.

This is another view from afar. On the left is the Bibi Khanym mausoleum.

Taken from the balcony of the Hazrat Khizr mosque. This is where the remains of Islam Karimov, Uzbekistan’s first president, slumber in eternity.

In the vicinity is the Shah-i-Zinda, a necropolis of brightly-coloured mausolea for highly-placed people, including several of Timur’s relatives.

In search of more Timur sites, we hire a car and driver for a day trip to Shahrisabz, Timur’s birthplace. We drive over the snow-clad Tahtakaracha Pass.

The top of the pass has many restaurants specializing in tandori BBQ. The small sample we tried was delicious.

Shahrisabz is a bit of a disappointment. This is all that remains of Timur’s once-extensive summer palace after being destroyed in the 16th century, along with the entire town, by the forces of Abdullah Khan II, a fellow autocrat.

Still, the drive is scenic, and it’s interesting to see Uzbek life out in the countryside.

Mulberry trees line the road everywhere. Later, their leaves will feed the silkworms that supply Uzbekistan’s silk industry.

Back in town, we visit a carpet factory. Some attractive carpets, but no gotta-haves.

Lastly, we visit Gur-e-Amir, Timur’s final resting place.

Samarkand may be a household name – sort of – but we’d never heard of Afrasiyob before coming here. We see the name on hotels and businesses. Even the high-speed train that whisks us here is named the ‘Afrasiyob’.

Afrasiyob was a Sogdian precursor of Samarkand. Alexander the Great dropped in for a visit.

This recently-discovered mural dates from pre-Islam Afrasyob.

So there you have it – a populous, vibrant city until the arrival of the Mongols, who razed it to the ground. (I’ve always thought it’s ironic that ‘razed‘ has the meaning of ‘utterly flattened‘.)

Reminds us of our visit to Enkomi in Cyprus. Another bustling city-of-the-world, now just ruined foundations in a field of grazing sheep.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Normally, we don’t make a big deal out of being Canadian. However, in this day and age, we feel it’s a good idea to make plain that we are not Trumplandians.

So our luggage is now prominently labeled with maple leaf luggage tags.

It’s been a while since we returned from our South American trip last year. Spring, summer, fall, and most of winter have gone by. President Trump continues to spread peace and prosperity throughout the globe. Uncharacteristically for us, we spent the winter at home, enjoying time with family and friends.

But inevitably, it was time to dig the travelling shoes out from the back of the closet. First stop on this trip is Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan and the largest city in Central Asia.

This unassuming little building is the home of one of the world’s oldest Korans.

Tashkent contains a mix of Imperial Russian, Soviet-era, and post independence buildings. People are very friendly and relaxed.

Coming soon: the Center for Islamic Civilization. It is enormous. It’s scheduled to open later this month.

Our accommodation is near the Chorsu Bazaar. Run by a nice family. Close to a Metro station, but on a quiet side street.

Lots of the usual commercial hubbub in the market. We track down the Consumer Electronics sector, because somebody forgot to pack a power bar.

Typical of people in Muslim countries, Uzbeks are keen on sweet things.

They also eat a lot of meat here.

True story: on our flight from Warsaw to Tashkent, the flight attendant passes out sandwiches, which she says contain ‘meat’. ‘What kind of meat’, someone asks. ‘I don’t know. Not pork.’

Uzbekistan produces excellent ceramics. Too bad they’re bulky, heavy, and fragile.

Besides traditional designs, people also come up with unique pieces. I would buy this in a heartbeat if I had a way to get it home.

Like markets everywhere, there is always merchandise being freighted by unconventional means. This vintage Lada is delivering its weight in wood furniture.

On our first day, I make a new cat friend. We were just taking a rest when this kitty decides to climb into my lap for a snooze.

There are very few stray dogs around. People are generally nice to cats. We pass this cat hotel in the swanky embassy district.

In the same diplomatic ‘hood, we visit the Museum of Applied Arts.

Nice house. It used to belong to a Russian diplomat.

A Yandex (local Uber-type app) ride takes us across town, where we begin a self-guided walking tour at the State Art Museum. Cost of a 20-minute ride: less that $3.00 CAD.

The Romanov Palace was the home of exiled bad-boy Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolayevich. Not coincidentally, he provided the original collection of paintings for the nearby Art Museum.

Many men here like to wear black clothing – like, A LOT of men. Maybe it’s some kind of Johnny Cash/ Steve Jobs thing. We ask a local if he can tell us why. He says ‘Really? I’ve never noticed. And I have no idea.’

On our last day in Tashkent we get a dump of snow. The previous day, we were lounging in a sunny park in our shirtsleeves.

Note the Soviet-era network of gas pipes in the background. Just like the Caucasus, as noted in earlier entries.

Sight or Insight of the Day

Tashkent is well known for its elegant Metro stations.

It’s the best way to get around town. Tashkent is mostly made up of long, wide, grandiose boulevards, a Soviet city-planning habit. Not very good for walking, though.

Each station has a theme.

The price for a ticket anywhere on the extensive system? A princely 19 cents Canadian. Just flash a Visa card at the turnstile and go. Beats the pants off the O Train in Ottawa.

This is a pet peeve of Colombians – people mispelling the name of their country. It’s as if people insisted on spelling ‘Canada’ as ‘Canida’.

We take a bus from Quito to the Colombian border, after overnighting in Otavalo, a town famous for its extensive market.

One uneventful border crossing later, our first town in Colombia is Ipiales. From there, we take an all-day bus ride to the city of Popayán.

You’re never far from a mountain range in Colombia. It’s very scenic.

Popayán is a pleasant small city with the usual colonial district.

We are surprised at how economical accomodation costs in this part of the world. In Popayán, for instance, we pay 26 dollars – Canadian! – per night for a private room with an ensuite bathroom. (Mind you, our standards are not very high.)

There are lots of churches. This one is the Basilica of Our Lady of the Assumption.

This church, among others, was severely damaged in a 1983 earthquake, an event depicted in a Fernando Botero painting. (Spoiler alert – we see this painting in the the excellent Botero museum in Bogotá.)

The Parque Caldas is the ever-popular centre of town. We have a great lunch, and people-watching from the balcony.

This is a Latin-America-wide custom: going for a leisurely paseo around the town square. Even the smallest village has one.

We are not surprised that Colombians are just as appreciative of Donald Trump’s comedic genius as everone else in the world. These posters feature The Donald and his henchmen.

Popayán is one of the oldest towns in Colombia. It was founded in 1537.

When we depart, we head for San Agustín, via a twisty, potholed mountain road. Lots of thick jungle, and few people. It’s easy to see how this used to be a hangout for FARC rebels in the not-so-long past. It’s only 130-odd kilometres, but takes five or six hours to get there in a minivan.

There is still lots of political violence in Colombia. (Much less than there used to be, but much more than Canada, which has essentially zero.) You have to pick your destinations carefully.

On arrival in San Agustín, we stay at the Finca El Maco. It’s run by Swiss people, so it’s very nice.

Colombia has these colourful buses known as chivas. They are for service in the more rural parts of the country.

We are near the source of the Magdalena River, the major river in Colombia. From here it flows over 1,500 kilometres into the Caribbean Sea.

The main draw here is the presence of relics from the San Agustín culture, mainly large stone statues and tombs.

We go by horseback on one day, escorted by a guide.

It’s a good way to visit the various sites, which are rather spread out.

Colombia, like Peru, has many interesting pre-Columbian cultures. Until fairly recently, it was unsafe to travel in many parts of the country, especially the remote parts where most archaeological sites are found.

Many of the statues are over 2,000 years old.

Some statues still have traces of the original paint. Almost all of the statues have what look like fangs. Apparently this is not due to an outbreak of vampirism in ancient Colombia – it’s meant to give the figures jaguar-like attributes. Jaguars were revered everywhere on the continent.

There are interesting similarities between many early South America cultures, even when they are thousands of kilometres apart. This tomb guardian shares characteristics that we found so amusing about the Decapitator in Tiahuanaco.

This statue is known as el partero, or ‘the birth-giver’ (but with a male ending, strangely).

We are fortunate to find a small stone replica of this one to bring home.

Next day, we visit the nearby small museum. Attached to it is a trail with statues brought from elsewhere in the region.

There are many tombs in the area. The San Agustín people (nobody knows what they called themselves, or what language they spoke*) were buried in stone sarcophagi, under large flat stones, and covered with earth. That is, eminent persons got this treatment.

* I’ve complained before about ancient cultures that didn’t have the foresight to come up with a written language, thus leaving we moderns in the dark about their motives for doing things one way and not another.

Probably the most beautiful butterfly I’ll ever see in my life. A bit of research tells us it’s a Periander Metalmark.

Here’s an unusually jolly-looking example.

We mentioned that guinea pig is a popular meal throughtout the Andean countries. This restaurant is named ‘the Little Oven’. I guess you don’t need a big oven – guinea pigs are pretty small.

Our next stop on the way to Bogotá is the Tatacoa Desert. Have we mentioned that we like deserts?

It’s a challenge getting out here. We have to take a tuktuk (!) from the nearby town of Villavieja to get here because the roads are impassible for non-4X4 vehicles. Our accommodation is basic.

It’s comfortable enough inside, with a fan and mosquito net.

It has one of these outdoor bathrooms that Maria really likes.

A guided hike is included.

Like many deserts, there is good clear sky for astronomical observations. We go to a session after dark and see things like the planet Jupiter and the Pleiades through a telescope..

Besides the ochre-coloured desert, there is a grey desert.

Our last stop on this trip: Bogotá. Bogotá may not be the most attractive capital city in Latin America. But we’re staying in the La Candelaria neighbourhood – everything we’re interested in seeing is within walking distance.

One misty afternoon, we take the cable car to Monserrate, a mountain overlooking the city. It’s over three thousand metres high.

There are also univerities and libraries nearby, so there are lots of cafes and restaurants around.

A must-see is the Museo de Oro. It contains hundreds – maybe thousands – of amazing pieces in gold that escaped being melted down by the Spaniards.

This exhibit really caught my eye. It’s a stylized jaguar, with emerald eyes and spots made up of dozens of individually-dangling gold bits.

Another must-see is the Botero Museum.

Besides Botero’s impressive personal collection of art by other people, the galleries are lined with his signature plump images. Even the vegetation and animals are plus-sized.

Because we are in Colombia, we have to take advantage of the coffee culture. In the fancy-schmancy Café San Alberto, we have a personal barista come to our table and make suggestions.

We visit the newly-renovated National Museum. The building itself is interesting – it’s a panopticon. This is a type of old prison design where a minimum number of guards can watch a large number of prisoners.

We have seen these before in a couple of places. One was in the notorious Port Arthur prison in Tasmania. Another was in Port Blair, in the Andaman Islands.

I finally satisfy my craving for a spicy chorizo from a street vendor. The proprietor insisted I sit down. I must’ve looked old and frail.

Speaking of meat – for our last dinner in Bogotá, we splurge on a rib fest at the La Siembra restaurant.

Sight or Insight of the Day

All journeys come to an end. We depart from Bogotá and fly home via Newark. Because of a severe storm, New York air traffic is stacked up. We have to land someplace in Connecticut to refuel. Finally, a short flight later, we arrive in Newark, where we’re told that our flight to Ottawa has been cancelled.

We spend the night in the airport Marriot Hotel (at our own expense).

We arrive home the next afternoon after five months away. It’s been a wonderful trip. But it’s great to be back in Canada – safe, clean, quiet Canada.

“Home is where one starts from.” — T.S. Eliot

The only disadvatange is that now we feel the full force of the threat from the Orange Menace, the madman across the border. As we said in an earlier entry, may God have mercy on our souls.

When I was younger, I never imagined in my wildest dreams that I’d visit the Galápagos Islands. They just seemed so remote and expensive for an impecunious backpacker. Just goes to show you that you never know where you’ll end up in this life.

But wait – we had to first fly from Lima to Quito, Ecuador. Our hotel in Quito is another heritage colonial building.

Ecuador seems very tidy in comparison to Peru. It doesn’t have the post-nuclear-war look of crumbling concrete, deserted buildings, and decaying, uncollected rubbish that Peru shares with so many countries of the global south.

Quito has a newly-minted subway that is – for the moment – at a Singaporean level of neatness and orderliness.

The old centre has many squares and churches, including the Jesuit church.

Our mission in Quito is to book some kind of tour for the Galápagos Islands. Our time in South America is nearing an end, so we don’t have time to simply wing it. We settle on an 8-day land-based tour, in deference to Maria’s pathologic motion-sickness.

The last day is cloudy and grey.

There is a gigantic basilica in Quito that looks out of place in a tropical Catholic country. Seems like it would look more at home in the north of France. Especially in rainy weather.

A lot of people don’t know this (see our mocking of Donald Trump’s favourite phrase a few entries back), but Panama hats actually originate in Ecuador. We visit the EBD Carmal hat shop.

Anyway, we’re off to the Galápagos Islands. After a couple of hours, we get our first look at our destination.

We arrive on San Cristóbal Island. It’s delightfully hot after weeks in the Andes.

On arrival, we are picked up by our guide of the day, Jorge, and driven to the highlands. This lagoon is one of the only permanent bodies of fresh water on the island.

Jorge is one of our good guides. In the half-dozen or so we meet over the next 8 days, some are less than helpful. (Our main complaint is that some just seem to be reciting from a script, using lame jokes, and not really having much passion for the job.)

One of the first creatures we see is the humble Darwin’s finch. It was his study of Galápagos finches that first got the wheels turning in his brain about the whole evolution business.

Way back at the beginning of this trip, we mentioned that Fernando de Noronha (in Brazil) had beautiful beaches. The beaches here are nothing to sneeze at, either. Powdery white sand, no trash, few people, bathwater temperatures, and clear visibility. When we go snorkeling among the rocks in the shallows, we are able to follow half a dozen sea turtles gliding around.

Probably the most representative beast on the islands is the giant Galápagos tortoise. Indeed, the name ‘Galápagos’ means ‘tortoise’ in an obscure Spanish dialect.

In one reserve that we visit, they have empty shells that you can crawl into for a unique photo opportunity. I consider this beneath my dignity. Maria has no such qualms.

Despite being on the Equator, a large part of the islands are arid rather than ‘tropical’. Cactus forests thrive.

Another creature seen everywhere on and around the islands are sea lions.

Besides being found on beaches and rocks, they take over waterfront benches like homeless derelicts.

We are booked on a snorkeling/scuba expedition to Kicker Rock. There are lots of hammerhead sharks here – an attraction for the scuba set.

In fact, there are lots of sharks everywhere here. Luckily, they are for the most part either small or non-threatening.

Most of our fellow passengers – a young crowd – go scuba diving. We and a few others simply snorkel and watch the blue-footed bobbies on the cliff.

These birds have gone up in my estimation. I used to think of them as glorified seagulls, but now we find them endearing. And not because they have the most snicker-inducing name – inevitably, souvenir shops everywhere on the islands feature t-shirts stating ‘I love boobies’.

And wherever there are rocks, there are crabs.

Another day, another island. We are on an excursion to North Seymour Island. Even though we opted for an ‘8-day land-based tour’, we still have boat trips between islands and on excursions. Maria copes very well.

In the harbour from which we leave, we spy strange, buoy-like devices belonging to the Unites States Navy. According to our guide, they are ‘ocean drones’ here for ‘maintenance’. It’s hard to say if this is true or not, as in our experience, guides seldom say ‘I have no idea’.

North Seymour island is uninhabited, but has lots of wildlife that ignores the presence of humans, like most wildlife in the Galápagos.

Dinosaur-like land iguanas roam the island.

A creature featured in every documentary ever made about the Galápagos: the frigate bird.

By happy accident, it’s breeding season, so the island is full of throat-inflating, wing-flapping, hooting frigate birds.

Many of the birds nest on the ground and, as mentioned, don’t pay much attention to human visitors.

Most of these excursions involve a snorkeling session. No surprise, the snorkeling is great. We see seahorses, sharks, different kinds of ray, and sea turtles galore. Sorry, no Go-Pro.

Another place we visit are Los Tuneles (the tunnels). This is a labyrinth of collapsed lava tubes through which channels of crystal-clear water serve as a highway for sea life to roam around in – sea turtles, sharks, and more.

This sea turtle glides gracefully past.

The tunnels are even more picturesque when they have cactus growing over them.

Yet another iconic species here are marine iguanas. Like the sea lions, they are as likely to be found in town as on a beach.

It’s also breeding season for the iguanas, so we see many digging holes in the sand.

Our final three days are spent on Isabela Island. Even though it’s the largest island in the archipelago, it’s sparsely populated. The main town, Puerto Villamil, is a sleepy, laid-back village. We enjoy great sunsets from the beach.

Our package includes bike rental for a couple of days.

There are sand roads that lead to other beaches.

We’ve enjoyed our Galapagos trip. Of the animals you expect to see, you see many. And so far, they seem to be doing a good job of combining conservation with being a tourist destination for the entire world.

The day we depart, we take a speedboat back to Santa Cruz Island, then north to Baltra Island for our flight back to Quito.

Interesting fact – the Americans had a base here on Baltra Island during WWII. (Which is probably why there’s an airport on this island in the first place.}

Sight or Insight of the Day

Charles Darwin really put the Galápagos on the map. That’s a lot of influence for a visit of only five weeks.

We have been to several places that Darwin visited on the Beagle voyage – the Blue Mountains in Australia, and the Chilean city of Iquique, for instance. But you really feel his influence here – there are statues of Darwin, streets named after Darwin, schools named after Darwin, even pubs named after Darwin. Since the 1960s, there has been a Charles Darwin Foundation Research Centre.

I heard someone describe Arequipa as ‘the prettiest city in Peru’. That isn’t exactly how we’d describe it. Like most cities in Peru (in Latin America, for that matter), there is a picturesque colonial centre surrounded by ugly rings of auto parts shops, junkyards, clogged roads and slums.

Still, it’s the second largest city in the country, so we stop in for a few days.

Many of the building are built of distinctive whitish stone called sillar.

Our hotel has a tortoise in the garden named Lolo. He is surprisingly entertaining.

In the background here is the El Misti volcano. The linked article gives way more information than any normal person would want to know, but what we find interesting are the Inca mummies they have found on the top. Human sacrifices, experts reckon, of children to the mountain. The Gods everywhere and in all times demand blood.

Of literary interest is the birthplace of Mario Vargas Llosa, a Nobel Prize-winning Peruvian novelist. The museum contains very well-done multimedia presentations of different epochs of the writer’s career. (All in Spanish.)

I remember in about, oh, 1980 I was in New Zealand and met a well-read South American. I asked if he could recommend a few Latin American authors. He provided the names Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia), Jorge Amado (Brazil), and Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru).

We do a day trip to the Colca Canyon. There are some really high mountains along the way.

This area is popular with climbers and hikers. This time, we opt for the one-day bus tour.

A brief stop in the village of Maca.

There are the usual ladies trying to thrust their baby alpacas into your arms. They don’t seem to have a problem if you simply take a photo of them holding the alpaca.

We stop in a place called the Mirador del Condor, where you might catch a glimpse of a condor, if you’re lucky.

It’s a long day trip that begins in the middle of the night. We are happy to be heading back to town.

Next stop is Nazca. Our go-to bus line in Peru is Cruz del Sur. They are super-safe and comfortable.

It takes about ten hours to get to Nazca, on the Pan-American Highway. There’s a lot of magnificent scenery along the way.

Much of the trip features the Pacific Ocean on one side and sheer, rocky outcrops on the other.

The photos are blurry because they were taken through a bus window. Sorry.

It’s a great shame that this marvelous scenery is marred by truly staggering amounts of garbage on the side of the road.

Late that evening, we arrive in Nazca. Nazca is the home of the famous Nazca Lines.

The only way to appreciate these is to fly over them in a small plane.

One of the more, um, original people on our flight is Peter, from the Czech Republic. He doesn’t speak a word of Spanish or English, but we manage to communicate using a combination of mime skills and Google Translate.

And so we take off. At least half of the clients suffer from air sickness.

Everybody manages to suffer without any actual vomiting, so that’s OK. The problem is, the aircraft has to do a lot of maneuvering so that both sides get to see the lines. (Or ‘geoglyphs‘, as they are known in Institutes of Higher Larnin’.)

I’ve been fascinated by these even from the ridiculous Erich von Däniken days.

They are unique and quite incredible. Who came up with the idea of making these creations, and why?

The truth is, nobody knows, although I’m sure many academic careers have been founded on theories and speculation.

To quote Wikipedia: ‘Determining how they were made has been easier than determining why they were made.’

There are over 700: we manage to see 23. No wonder for some people, studying these is their life’s work.

Pretty amazing stuff. We hope they can survive the – seemingly impossible-to-stop – onslaught of overpopulation that is beginning to encroach on the area of the lines

An overnight bus takes us to Lima.

Our accommodation is in the Miraflores neighbourhood of Lima. Both visitors and inhabitants flock to Miraflores rather than risk their lives in the increasingly run down, dangerous and impoverished historical centro.

There is civilized life in abundance here. In a park, people from all walks of life pair up and dance, just for fun.

Now this is the very height of civilization: Miraflores has a parque de gatos.

Scores of kitties are well looked after by volunteers.

We have our own resident cat in the hotel.

One day, we visit the Museo de Oro. Less famous than its namesake in Bogotá, it still has nifty stuff.

Besides its admirable collection of pre-Columbian artifacts, it also has thousands of weapons, armour, and military uniforms, unfortunately in a state of neglect and decay. That’s what happens when you bequeath your collection to the Peruvian government. (In comparison, see the magnificent Larco Museum below. We’re certain that the dead hand of government has no part in its excellence.)

Another day, we venture into the centro.

It’s safer in the daytime, with lots of people around.

There is some kind of fiesta going on, with groups representing, we guess, different barrios in town on parade.

We come across a Casa de la Literatura Peruana in a transformed train station. Very impressive. We should have one of these in Canada.

Another museum we visit is the Museo de Arte de Lima (MALI for short). It is unexpectedly well-curated, popular, and well-run, unlike the dysfunctional snake pit that is the National Gallery of Canada.

Sight or Insight of the Day

In Lima, we visit the incomparable Larco Museum. This museum is, at the very least, on par with the one in Santiago. Descriptions are given in half a dozen languages. The English is perfect. It’s obvious that there are powers beyond the Government of Peru at work here.

By far the largest number of exhibits are pre-Inca. Maybe it’s something in the water, but Peru had many cultures that had cities, surplus produce, and highly skilled specialists centuries – even millennia – before the Incas. Especially in ceramics and textiles, we’re talking about ancient Egyptian levels of perfection here.

For instance, the wrinkly guy portrayed here even has a nose that’s slightly askew for verisimilitude.

These ceramics are thought to be authentic portraits of the subjects.

Most of the items were found intact in graves. Fortunate that the Spanish never found them, otherwise it’s probable they would not have survived.

Other material goods are just as impressive. In comparison, the products of the indigenous people in North America often resemble the output of a pre-school art project. Maybe it’s the rarified atmosphere up here.

The Cusco area is home to one of the great wonders of the world: the fabled citadel of Machu Picchu.

Yeah, no – we didn’t go there.

In this day and age, you have to plan your visit to Machu Picchu weeks – if not months – in advance, such is its popularity. The only way to make an impromptu visit (we are told) is to wake up in the middle of the night, take a bus to a train to a bus and try to finely coordinate this with a pre-purchased visit timeslot. We don’t make plans that far in advance because our rambles are – Ta-dah! – random rambles.

Anyway, it doesn’t matter much for a couple of reasons. There is now a Machu Picchu Museum in Cusco itself. When Hiram Bingham first brought the world’s attention to Machu Picchu in 1911, he hauled a lot of artifacts back to Yale University. A century later, they have been returned to Peru.

Secondly, we have both been to Machu Picchu before, 40 years ago. (Separately, but who knows, we might have crossed paths at that time.) If a visit here is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, we’ve had ours.

There is plenty to see in Cusco itself.

Our hotel is in a colonial-era building. It supports a charity that benefits street children in Cusco.

There are lots of cobblestone lanes to wander around in.

We marvel at the ingenious Inca stonework that we see throughout the centro. You can’t slip a piece of paper between the joints.

Being such a tourist town, this means someone is always shoving a restaurant menu or a tour brochure in your face. And they don’t stop after you politely say ‘No, thanks.’

It’s a small price to pay for access to people-watching opportunities in town.

The Convent of Santo Domingo is built on the ruins of the Inca treasury temple of Coriconcha.

The Incas didn’t get to enjoy their empire for very long. From its founding to the Spanish conquest (1438 to 1533), they had less than a century of lording it over subject peoples before becoming subjects of conquerors even more empire-hungry than themselves.

The weather is coolish. For a change, we wear the heavier items in our limited wardrobe.

A common sight is the Inca Kola delivery truck.

Almost every street corner has women offering to let you have your photo taken with their pompom-bedecked alpacas. It’s hard to resist.

Cusco Cathedral is the most prominent edifice on the main square. It’s built atop the ruins of an Inca temple, like most churches in Cusco.

The Convent of Santa Catalina is now a museum of the monastic life. A few nuns still live here.

Not surprisingly, we see a lot of religious stuff in heavily-catholic Peru. This symbol appears above many doors. According to some, ‘IHS’ stands for ‘Iesus Hominum Salvator’, that is, ‘Jesus, saviour of mankind’ in Latin. According to others, the name Jesus, spelt ΙΗΣΟΥΣ in Greek capitals, has the abbreviations IHS (also written JHS, IHC, or ΙΗΣ).

Por qué no los dos?

Some kind of hubbub agitates a crowd of indigenous women in town.

A coffee break turns into indulgence in a fancy dessert, complete with edible flowers.

One day, we join a full-day tour of the Sacred Valley. It looks a bit like Austria from afar.

An instant improvement is to include ourselves in the photo.

The first stop is Pisac.

Pisac, like many Inca towns, is built on top of a mountain, surrounded by intensely-cultivated terraces.

You still see traces of these terraces all over the Andean region (that is, the former Inca empire.) Most of them are no longer used.

There was an extensive cemetery here that was looted by the Spanish. No great surprise there.

After lunch, we visit Ollantaytambo. It’s another steep climb. Our guide incentivizes us by telling us part of a story, then promising to reveal the result at the next level. It works.

When I was here last, we joined the Inca Trail here. I vaguely remember hiking up these steps with a full backpack.

These enormous slabs are said to be a ‘temple of the sun’. Our guide tells us that this is in doubt. That’s the problem with pre-literate cultures: without a written language to record things, all history is legend, old wive’s tales, and ‘oral tradition’ usually involving talking animals – nothing is concrete.

We read somewhere that each of these slabs weighs 50 tons.

Next stop is Chinchero, which like many places in Peru still has an active textile-weaving culture.

I’m personally fascinated by the Tom Mix hats that so many local ladies wear.

We get a demo on the production of textiles in the area. For more information on what looks like a dollhouse in the background, see the ‘Sight or Insight of the Day’.

There are also Inca ruins in Chinchero. As usual, a church has been built on top of the demolished Inca structure.

This method of stone construction proved to be good protection against earthquakes, which this part of the world has a lot of.

Sight or Insight of the Day

A lot of people don’t know this*, but in Peru, Guinea pigs are food, not pets.

*I’m borrowing this phrase favoured by Donald Trump. He uses it whenever he learns something new that he assumes nobody else knows either, even if it’s commonly known or obvious. There are many, many things that Donald Trump doesn’t know. Because he’s an idiot. Or should I say ‘A lot of people don’t know this, but Donald Trump is an idiot’?

This is true throughout the Andean region. Guinea pig, or cuy, is served up piping hot in cuyerias everywhere. We can’t help but see them as cuddly pets. Such is the strength of food prejudices the world over.

At one time, when much younger, if someone dared me to sample this, I would say ‘Here, hold my beer’. Being much older and a little wiser, that’s now a hard ‘nope’.