A World of Ceremony and Ritual

     An amazing aspect of Third Word travel is the variety of rituals and ceremonies one comes across, especially in areas where tribal peoples aggregate. The most dramatic of these we encountered in our travels was the time we stumbled onto a curing ceremony being conducted to help a young child recover from a high fever. We came upon a group of middle aged women assembled in a field somewhere in the most rural section of the state of Orissa in India. We learned that the participants belonged to the Kondh tribal group and that they had come together to magically disburse the child's disease. We secured their tacit permission to watch them at work as well as to take photos. It was as if we were invisible insofar as they were concerned. The sequence of events included the leader of the group (the head medicine doctor of the village) imbibing something which helped her reach an altered stage of consciousness, the slow and painful disembowelment and sacrifice of a pigeon and a chicken, the appearance of the sick child and his mother from the nearby woods, the smearing of the birds' blood and innards on the child after the birds were sated with rice and totally content, the child's father making an appearance with a small bow and arrow to scatter the disease away from his son, the bathing of the boy with bottles of water and the eventual return of the family to the wooded home whence they came. There are more details but you probably would not believe me anyhow. I could hardly believe my own eyes.

     On another trip to India, my favorite destination, we encountered an almost equally incredible event. We visited the Meenakshi Temple in the southern city of Madurai. In the evening, the Brahmans take the symbol of Shiva, the god of destruction, and carry it all the way from one side of the temple to the other to place it within the shrine of his wife, Meenakshi, so that the two gods may bed down for the evening. In the morning, the ceremony is reversed. The shrine is carried in a palanquin by a cadre of Brahmans accompanied by a group of musicians and followed by a few faithful devotees who chant along the way. We had no idea that this went on every single night of the year but we were surely thrilled that we had come across it.

     Throughout the African continent there are countless ceremonies which mark religious or family occasions. In Benin, I attended a couple of voodoo gatherings in villages along our travel paths. I remember one that was especially dramatic. The drum-accompanied dancing was a common background for such events and there was almost always an elder who led the way. In this particular one, an older woman priestess started the dancing after coming out of the village fetish house and drinking some undefined liquid at the same time. It was not long before she floated away in a deep trance and had to be carried back and laid down in the fetish house to recover. The entire village reverberated with the music and the participants included some as young as two years old who entered the dance circle and performed admirably. Some of the little ones on the periphery played with traditional toys that kept them busy including pet birds with a string on one of their legs. The entire scene was surreal. In other such ceremonies we saw men and women drink and dance themselves into another world, drink blood from sacrificed animals and carry a goat's head in their mouth as they circled a fire. The whole region is filled with such happenings.  Voodoo variations exist in the new world also, especially in Brazil where Candomble and other forms are practiced. The ceremonies there are a bit milder but drink, dance and spirit figures are major parts of the religion.

     Special rituals mark developmental moments in the lives of many traditional peoples although these are not always accessible to the tourist. A comprehensive funeral with unlimited guests, animal sacrifices, wooden effigies of the deceased and other such artifacts is common in Indonesia; such ceremonies are especially colorful among the tribes of Central Sulawesi. In the jungles of New Guinea, young men are introduced into the tribe with tattoos resembling alligator scales carved into their back with a long sharpened bone of a flightless bird. Young men in Cote d'Ivoire go to live in the jungle with elders for months to learn about their way of life of their people as do Dogon youth on the escarpments of their tribal areas in Mali. Kathakali dancers spend hours making up their faces before performing on the West coast of India. Longhouse dwellers in Borneo take in their ladders at night so their enemies don't come looking for cannibal subjects. The world is filled with such incredible and fascinating events from end to end. Just exploring the colorful rituals available to visit would make a wonderful and informative trip through the traditional world.

Chicken Eating Rice from Boy's Neck

Kondh Curing Ceremony, Orissa, India

An Experience Worth Working For

     Some things come naturally while others take a much greater degree of investment in time and discipline and energy. Although I have put a lot of work into planning my world travel, that was relatively easy. What was far harder was learning a few languages that I could communicate with in addition to English. Many Americans assume that they can get by speaking English wherever they travel and English probably is closest of all to a universal tongue. But they must evaluate what "get by" means. If you want to know how to find a particular hotel or restaurant, the fact is that sign language and a written card with the name of the place may do the job. If you want to interact at any level deeper with people you meet in foreign lands, it takes a bit more work. The important rewards of studying a language to a level of proficiency are benefits that are difficult to imagine beforehand. I  took four years of Latin in high school. In retrospect, that was a great mistake. Although there is secondary gain from such an undertaking (you know the general belief about how Latin helps one learn Spanish or any of the other Latin based tongues or get into medical school), but the fact is that studying any living tongue directly is a more certain way to learn how to make yourself understood in Paris or Portugal in the 21st century than in Rome two thousand years ago.

     To become really conversant, I found the need to immerse myself in a setting where the language was required for communication. After four years of Spanish in my college days, I found that I could barely understand what was said to me or express myself very coherently until I spent a summer at a boarding house for locals in Mexico City. A friend of mine and I were the only English speakers staying there so there was no question about what the language of the house was. By the time I left Mexico City, about six weeks after I arrived, I could actually follow conversations and even flirt with the women who were staying in the boarding house. That was a special status in language usage, one which produced a level of satisfaction that no amount of in school study even approximated. I was a Spanish speaker (though not yet a fluent one), a bi-lingual. Forget the Latin. I did. (Well, actually, I never even learned it.)

     I enjoyed my Spanish proficiency so much that, several years later in 1957, when I went to work in Germany, I did so with a Berlitz book on German tucked under my arm on the plane. I spent most of the flight trying to learn every word I could. Most importantly there were many, many English speakers in Germany at that time. My greatest impediment to learning that language was the inclination of Germans to respond in English to my broken German. I dealt with that by not answering in English anything that was said to me. Of course, that was a bit inconvenient since my German vocabulary was so limited and my grammar so broken, but it did give me the practice and the corrections I needed. The Germans I spoke with were enthusiastic about my desire to learn their tongue and were more than patient with my mistakes. My German continued to improve enough so that, after two years in the country, I was fluent enough to pass for German in limited conversations. (That did not include two philosophy courses I attempted at a nearby, venerable university which required a level I never reached in that language.) I loved being able to converse fluently in another foreign language. My addiction to language learning continued later in Italy where I taught for a year and learned another language and one I actually loved the sound of. Unlike the guttural sounds one had to endure to speak German, Italian flowed like a song. No wonder it gave birth to so much of the operatic music we listen to today. Learning these languages as well as some Hebrew along the way has resulted in very special and enjoyable experiences. There is something exciting in mastering and using other languages for needed communication.

      Additionally there is a special psychological component to learning even a bit of a language as well as a practical one. Of course, it is convenient and enjoyable to communicate with others in their language, but it is also a respectful thing to do. Not everyone can reproduce the sounds of another language well nor does every traveler have the capacity or motivation to actually study another language to the level of useful proficiency, but we can all make an effort. It is that effort that conveys respect for another culture. Germans practically applauded when I struggled with their language in a serious way as did the Italians. I eventually made an effort to learn a few words of conversation in the local tongue everywhere I went. When I was in a tribal area in New Guinea or rural India and greeted people with their words for hello or thanked them in their native tongue, it brought smiles of appreciation to their faces and immediately bridged some of the natural distance between us. It may not be necessary to take several years of college French or Russian to enhance one's travel. Learning a few key phrases and listening carefully to how people say everyday things so you can learn those expressions is a wonderful way to make new friends. A single "pleased to meet you" can be a big deal.

New Afghan Friends near the Khyber Pass, Pakistan

No Luggage! So What!

     One aspect of Third World travel that I have mentioned before is serendipity, the willingness and even joyful acceptance of new and surprising events which happen to the traveler. The requirement to be flexible in the face of the unknown is an an absolute necessity if the voyage is to be successful. One of the great hazards on any trip is the failure of luggage to arrive at the same place as its owner. Although this is a great inconvenience wherever the traveler may be, it is especially aggravating when it happens in a place where access to substitute clothing and trip items is limited. At the same time, even a happening such as this can be a memorable and actually productive event if it is dealt with in good spirit. A good example of making lemonade out of lemon was a recent trip my wife and I took from Cairo to Nairobi.

      We flew out of Cairo on an Air Ethiopia flight that was trouble from the very beginning. We spent hours in the transit area of the airport because we were on our way from Tel Aviv to Nairobi. The hot, poorly maintained section of the building  was uninviting and uncomfortable and all the announcements were in Arabic which we spoke not a single word of. Fortunately, we met a young man who spoke English as well as Arabic so we were able to discern the various rationales announced to account for the stops and starts we made from transit to the plane itself (and of course back again.)  It must have been 100 degrees on the tarmac and the excuse for why we did not get underway included an airport strike in Khartoum (our only stop along the way), mechanical problems, and a decision about whether or not the Khartoum bound passengers were supposed to board. After all the uncertainty, we experienced a one hour stay on the plane with no air conditioning, and a decision that we would be heading directly to Addis Abbaba, Ethiopia and passing over Khartoum, we finally boarded for the flight.

      That was another adventure still. The young man who translated for us in the transit area came on board only a few minutes after us. While I was happy to see that he was making his flight, he was supposed to be on his way to Khartoum. The problem was that we were told the plane was not stopping in Khartoum. Oh, well, another change or, perhaps, a misunderstanding. When we finally took off now headed for the Sudan instead of Ethiopia, we were all quite exhausted. My wife fell asleep immediately. I probably would have also had I not noticed that there was a crack in the window right next to our seat. That did keep me up a while and I knew we would not be landing for repair. We  stopped in Khartoum, discharged the passengers who were getting off there and headed for Addis. It was there we discovered that we were changing planes there for the rest of our flight to Nairobi. My wife was very worried that our luggage would not get onto the second plane. We gazed intently out of our window from the new plane trying to discern whether or not the luggage actually transferred but could not tell for certain. I was almost certain I saw it being loaded onto our new flight. My wife was fairly sure it did not make the transfer. She was right.

     The empty, helpless feeling we experienced as the luggage pile disappeared from under our nose in Nairobi is rather indescribable. Ours never showed up. We were scheduled to go by van to Tanzania in just a couple of hours. No problem! After an hour or so of negotiations, Air Ethiopia presented us with about $20.00
 each to buy clothing to wear for the two and a half week duration of our trip. We were surely not used to shopping in East Africa but we did find a place with incredibly inexpensive and frail clothing so we were able to garner a few pairs of shoddy underclothes and socks and a couple of other indispensable items for the upcoming safaris. With those additions we knew we would hardly be the fanciest ones in our group but at least we did have something to change into after each evening's wash. We learned along the way that Tanzania and Kenya did not have friendly relations at that time, so we did not recover our luggage until we returned later to Nairobi. Off to Tanzania we went. We just made the bus.

      This was to be a true learning experience. First of all, we discovered that we only needed about $20.00 worth of clothing each for the next couple of weeks and that it was quite liberating to be carrying nothing with us. We learned also that we were the objects of the other people in the group's sympathy and generosity. They managed to assemble a modest assortment of t-shirts, shorts, and paraphernalia to round out the required items. We made new friends, carried less with us than anyone else on the safari and never sent luggage through again. We travel light and fancy free now. And we do generally have more clothing than the people we visit on our trips.

We Usually Have More Clothes Than

The People We Visit. Damazulu, South Africa

Collecting Memories

     In an earlier blog or two I have mentioned bringing back things of interest from Third World travels. I wrote earlier about my collection of masks, about artifacts which I use for programs about my travels and folk necklaces which my wife loves. These, as well as miscellaneous, meaningful other artifacts and the knowledge I have gained on these journeys, have been important to me, but the most important collectibles of travel are the many memories that one has of events, places, and especially, people one meets along the way. These are precious as well as rather permanent and they are what makes the travel so worthwhile.

     As I search my many recollections of experiences, there are certain ones which stand out strongly, either because they were so memorable or moving, or because they were so surprising or scary or pleasant. Any of those characteristics tends to cement a moment in one's mind and it is a possession that just never goes away. I have mentioned a few of these earlier but here is a list of some of the most important ones. I leave it to the reader to attach the justifying adjective to the event.

     There was the boy I met in a small restaurant in Djenne, Mali, who was born unable to walk or even stand upright who had been taken to the States by a generous family that passed through his town invited him to live with them for over a year while he underwent a series of operations that enabled him to propel himself without crawling along the floor. The story he told me of his eternal gratitude and the generosity and self-sacrifice that the family from Texas provided him provided one of the most unforgettable personal interactions I ever had in my travels. There was the old peasant in My Lai, Vietnam who guided us through the little rice growing village remaining at that location while he told us the story of the bombing and cruelty which took place there during the war. His forgiveness and his commitment to the memories he carried with him were overwhelming.  I remember well the restaurant owner in Portugal who adopted me when I was younger and traveling alone and took me to the Fada cellar to hear his favorite music and to listen to him join the singers in one of the most authentic folk scenes I have ever experienced.  I can picture the young man who worked on the boat we took on the Niger River to explore villages in West Africa. After we had a conversation about the voodoo necklace that he wore, he saw himself as my protector and voluntarily walked next to me to keep village kids from "bothering me" as we hiked along.  I can picture so vividly the ovens in the Dachau Concentration Camp and the shard and bone laden paths in the Killing Fields of Cambodia as I trod through both of these sites of terror and torture.

     One can even retain niceties and courtesies from travels like the boatman on the Mahakam River in Borneo who ascertained my interest in maskmaking and stopped the boat along the river to take me to one that he knew who was in the process of designing a mask for an upcoming ceremony in his village.  One that same boat a day later, we ran into a storm, had to close the protective tarpaulin and suffered a long night of heat and insects. I guess things do balance themselves in the long run. The young woman I met in the slums of Acapulco introduced me to the kind of poverty I needed to experience for my own growth and the German tourist I met in Toledo, Spain challenged my newly acquired German skills by having me translate the words of the Spanish youngster who took us around to explain what the buildings were that surrounded us in that beautiful city. There were moments of pure frivolity like the evening I spent many years ago trading clothing for vodka and caviar for hours in what was then Leningrad. There was the discovery we made traveling with our young kids of a disney-like park which we all enjoyed for days in rural Guatemala for a quarter of the price of the original one and which we had pretty much to ourselves.


     But these were not all. There was also the sunset over the Taj Mahal and evening ceremonies in the Meenakshi Temple of Madurai. There was the boat ride on the Ganges alongside the crematoria
and the turtle release on a trip with our kids on the Pacific coast of Nicaragua. There were the temple filled plains of Bagan in Myanmar, the distant Himalayan mountains viewed from the hills of Nepal and the heights of Darjeeling as well as from the Karakorum Highway in Pakistan. My eyes fill with such scenes when I close them and my brain stretches to contain the many reflections and memories I have accumulated. Those are the intangible, unforgettable moments which flood my mind as I write these words. The Third World beckons forever.

My Protector, Mopti, Mali

My Top Travel Sites

     I am often asked what my favorite place to visit is. That is not an easy choice to make but I find it harder to answer than listing a group of top places because a singular impression is so conditioned by the circumstances of one's experience. A variation in weather condition, who else is with you, the time of day can all affect the quality of any visit. So let me offer several places at the top of any list for extreme pleasure and delight.  As I wrote in an earlier blog, my first choice, a place that occupies such a clear and indelible place in my memory, is Varanasi on the Ganges in India. At dawn the empty steps or Ghats which lead to the river begin to fill with pilgrims who have come to make their oblations in the "holy" river, small rowboats head out into the water with memorial candles which are then floated out from their hulls and countless crematory fires are lit for the sacred disposition of dead relatives who have been brought from all over India to their final resting place. There is no place I have ever visited which touched my spirit so intensely and movingly as this ancient center of culture. But on to the next several.

     It is a long trip to site number two, all the way across the Pacific Ocean and still farther, namely to the abandoned city of Machu Picchu in the Peruvian Andes. The rolling terraces, empty stone houses and buildings, and ghosts of farmers and warriors past envelop the stranger as does the fog that descends in the afternoon after morning visitors have reboarded their buses and returned to the hotels from which they came. It is easy to imagine life in this hidden and mysterious Inca stronghold. Just add a little of your own imagination to the surroundings and let yourself drift into another world.

     For my next thrill, I have to choose from several of the very primitive areas where traditional people make their lives in ways so different from ours that one is figuratively transported to a much earlier time in the development of civilization. It is the contrast that captures the visitor's attention, the incredible variations in the way mankind has learned to meet challenges to keep alive and enrich whatever form that life has taken. On such visits we come to understand that our way of being is only one possibility out of countless options that exist. My choice for this adventure takes me back across the ocean to the island of  New Guinea where a plethora of traditional groups speaking some 400 languages have created a seemingly countless array of religious practices, dress, customs and use of their environment. They have adapted there to life on the rivers, in the jungles and on high mountains. There is a conglomeration of such tribal practices in a number of areas of the world. I found distinctive tribal life in the Orissa region and other rural areas of India and in parts of West Africa which were almost equally fascinating. Ethiopia, villages in Vietnam and other sites in Southeast Asia also qualify but I will stay with New Guinea for choice number three.

     It gets hard to pick another place because I am torn between sites where the buildings are so spectacular or beautiful and places where my experience was so penetrating. I would travel next to Myanmar (Burma) which only recently became a reasonable place to visit because of the evolving politics. There are a number of sites there; my favorite is probably Yangon, the recent capital. It is there that one can wander through the Schwedagon Pagoda, a highly revered, Disney-like array of varied and artfully carved temples and other buildings. There are other fascinating pagodas in Myanmar but I find the walk around the Schwedagon to be my favorite due to its incredible architectural variety.

      One more recommendation for Third World thrills is the Zocalo in Mexico City, one of the largest squares in the world. I love to go there because it is such a wonderful place to explore the art and history of that country without having to wander far. A short walk from the center of the square leads to the magnificent National Palace, a beautiful Colonial building decorated by the great murals of Diego Rivera which depict the entire historic span of the country. Nearby is the stately cathedral, perhaps the most interesting in the New World. Another couple of steps brings the tourist to a dig and museum of the city which once existed right under the Zocalo. These are the ruins of the Templo Mayor, the remains of the ancient Aztec city of Tenochtitlan which existed there before the conquistadors arrived and conquered the land. Not only is the content of the museum interesting but, like most Mexican museums, it is exhibited artistically and tastefully. We are also not too many steps from the shrine of Our Lady of Guadalupe, the pilgrimage site for devotees of Meso-America's most famous saint. You won't wear out much shoe leather in this fascinating place. I'll be back to you with another set of favorites sometime in the near future but these are a great start.

Cathedral, Zocalo, Mexico City, Mexico

Let the Fun Begin

     When does a trip start? I would consider the beginning of any travel to be the moment a vague intention to journey somewhere turns to action and the potentiality of the trip becomes a reality in my mind. For me that can even be way ahead of time- the discovery of an article about some place I have not visited that looks alluring or the casual mention in a conversation with a fellow traveler of some exotic location I had never thought about before. More specifically, however, the start of a trip for me occurs when I start to look for information about a place that has been in the back of my mind as a destination. That is what I call early intention and the planning is truly the beginning of any voyage.

      Once I have begun to research a place, either in books or on the Internet, my voyage is underway. Each new fact I discover usually makes me more eager for that upcoming trip and each finding begins to fashion the itinerary. The more I learn, the more I look until I have mapped out the journey to ensure that I stop at all the places of interest along the way. I search for out of the way, uncommonly visited sites, crafts that coincide with my interests, unusual places to stay along the routes, etc. One activity in my planning is a book store stop or online session to find authors who live in and know intimately about the places I intend to go. They are the masters of focusing on the cultural highlights and revealing the mysteries I am likely to encounter. So these folks and the many specialists who live in or specialize in the areas I am traveling to are my next source of delight. I may read a novel or two by one of the local authors and I will unquestionably get into an exciting dialogue with some tourist agent or other. So I keep on learning.

     Of course, one can even mark the beginning of a trip with making the definitive choice about where to go, how much time to spend in each place and even where to stay. That requires either an individual search for the required information from a direct source or from some third party agency which makes such reservations. A commitment to go somewhere for a given period of time means you have locked in the trip. You are on your way. The trip has actually begun. In real-life terms, the first financial payment for the trip is the concrete beginning. The final payment to complete the arrangement is the penultimate step in the series of actions that makes the trip a reality rather than just one's idea or intention. Needless to say, once all that has occurred, the actual physical passage to the desired place can mark the beginning of a trip. The drive to the airport is the final passage that can be considered a beginning. A book or two about the place tucked into your carry on and a few vouchers in your fanny pack depending on how much structure you prefer and you are definitely on your way.

       So the fun can begin very early and can and should continue through the trip and well afterward in the memories and the collectibles you return with. It begins with any of the first steps enunciated above. It should continue, not only with the actual experience of the voyage, but all of the wonderful events that follow. When you share it with your friends, when you read something more about the place you have gone, when you look at the trinkets on the shelf that you have returned with, the trip continues. It is part of you forever.

Village Dancing, Cote D'Ivoire

Believer or Not- God is Good for the Traveler

     The abundance of books by atheists in the last several years has surely enlivened the intellectual debate about the existence of god. Whatever position one takes on this matter, however, it is hard for the traveler to overlook the inspiration of a belief in god or gods that has motivated the creation of some of the loveliest buildings in the world, as well as some wonderful dance, rituals and music. Add to that the vast variety of interesting ceremonies that communities share for prayer and tradition and you have a enormous array of fascinating sites and scenes that contribute to the traveler's pleasure. I find that atheist authors, however serious and accurate their reasoning and arguments may be, often overlook the contribution that religion has made to enrich the diversity of customs awaiting the traveler's viewing.

     One can begin almost anywhere to find the many great examples of architecture that were inspired by a culture's belief in god(s). In the Western Hemisphere alone there are the amazing monuments to the perceived god figures of the Mayans and the Inca, as well as the Teotihuacanos and others who preceded them. Their worship of snakes or birds or other representations of the supernatural are permanently represented by the remains of glorious temples and pyramids that have withstood the ages since their creators built them. One needs only to view the vast Pyramid of the Sun bequeathed to history by the Teotihuacanos whose culture has long since vanished or the elegant temples left for our pleasure by other residents of Meso-America.

     It is in Asia and Europe, however, where the most significant sites stand in testimony to the importance that notions of god played in the cultures where such buildings now paint the landscape. In some cases, these great edifices remain in use by contemporary religions. Examples of overwhelming religious centers exist in every corner of our largest continent. In India alone, one can visit the amazing ancient temple of Konark or the currently active Meenakshi Temple in Madurai. The erotic temples at Khujaraho, the extraordinary caves of Aurangabad, and the Buddhist temples of the North are all more than worth an intense visit. In nearby Myanmar there is the sumptuous Schwedagon Pagoda, Buddhism's answer to Disney world, as well as an assortment of deserted pagodas on the plains of Bagan. China's fantastic pagodas include the Yellow Crane Tower on the banks of the Yangze River and the Temple of Heaven near the Imperial Palace. In neighboring Indonesia the powerful structure of Borobudur which claims to be one of the seven wonders of the world and has more than 500 enclosed statues of the Buddha looks out over the plain to the glory of Buddhism while the ancient Prambanan Temples mark the earlier Hindu settlements that were founded nearby.

     In Nepal, Bhutan, Cambodia, Tibet and other places in Asia, there is a plethora of great buildings erected to testify to the religious devotion of the people who created them over the centuries. While much of the dancing and art and music have disappeared over the years, one cannot imagine the great structures of Asia being lost in history. I need not mention the very familiar sites in Europe which stand in memory to Greek and Roman worship as well as Christianity or the many beautiful mosques in Turkey and the Middle East which depict the glory of Islam. Whatever flaws or doubts one associates with religious belief, it is impossible to dismiss the beauty that devotees of one or other of the great faiths, past or present have created for our everlasting pleasure. 

The Sphinx and the Pyramids, Egypt

A Little Imagination

     Lots of places we Third World travelers visit seem to be just heaps of stones from buildings or dwellings that no longer exist, or ancient caves or holes in the ground or age old ceremonies whose true nature and meaning have been transformed over the years and are now lost in the mist of time or perhaps significant monuments that once stood at the center of great civilizations which died and vanished long before our visit. What we need to bring with us to such places is whatever imagination we can summon. We need to reconstruct in our minds what may have appeared in such places when they were at their cultural apex. That is not always easy to do. We sometimes can find clues in the stories we hear or in the writing on stones and stellae that describe what once existed there.

     Macchu Pichu, for example, is merely a set of terraces with what may appear to be occasionally random stones aggregated in some organized fashion at the edge of each parcel of farm land. It takes a little time and a modicum of meditation before half clad Inca warriors appear in full regalia and workers fill the land, furrowing, planting, harvesting and tending domesticated animals. There may well be llamas treading the trails through the site (there are actually a couple who roam the grounds). The clouds that once rolled in to cover the mysterious city still appear in the early afternoon and lend an aura of mystery to the scene below. The quiet that surrounds the site when the morning tourist groups return to their original destination comes once again to open the gates to our imagination. The more we know about life at the ruins and the purpose of the city atop the mountain, the more we can conceive of the once brightly colored housing and busy buildings and hills that fill the landscape. If we can even begin to reconstruct what we are seeing in line with our understanding of life there when the city was alive, we have entered an ancient and beautiful world. It takes a bit of effort, but that is what the tourist who visits the impressive ruins of the past must offer to make his visit meaningful.

     At now deserted places like Tikal and Copan, Borobudur and Khujaraho, Xian and Giza, Angkor Wat and Djenne, we must add for ourselves the colors and the decor that have faded over the ages. We must supply the parade of workers and the array of soldier-guards, the shoppers and sellers, the artists and strolling citizenry. We must remove the winding tree trunks that have grown in cracks in the stone facades or have twisted themselves around structures and engulfed them in the jungle habitat.We can do that if we prepare ourselves and if we concentrate on what we actually know about the niche in man's history that the site occupies. When we do so, ruins come alive; shopfronts fill with flowers and goods; activities spring from doorways and fill walking paths. It is then that we have visited the past and made our visit a travel through time to gain a glimpse of some past civilization.

     All of us have some ability to picture the past. I remember many years ago walking through the ruins of the Forum in Rome and the marble floors of the temples at Paestum or Santorini. It was my responsibility to paint the bricks and complete the columns so that the sites could come alive for me. Visiting the remains of ancient cultures requires preparation and knowledge. The more we know, the more we see. Grab that guidebook and study it as you go. It is truly an amazing experience to have a long disappeared place come to life before your eyes. Many travelers tend to drift aimlessly and unfocused through the aisles of the world's museums or the piles of stones left to us by long gone ancestors and, if that is your predilection, sobeit. Yet you can add a great deal to the depth and value of a journey by learning about where you are headed beforehand and adding your own dreams and cultural memories to the places you traverse.

Palace of the Magicians, Uxmal, Yucutan, Mexico

The Joys of Central America

     I wonder why Central America isn't flooded with tourists from the States. Of course there are quite a few Americans in Panama where we were the builders and managers of the Canal for close to a century and a location many families who worked there have chosen for their retirement. In Costa Rica and Guatemala one is likely to bump into gringos as well but there are more European and Latin American tourists than from the U.S. I assume the situation is due to a knowledge gap as well as the general timidity of American travelers to explore new places.

     Costa Rica and parts of Panama feature filtered water as well as most of the comforts of the area of the industrialized world we are more familiar with and are easy to travel in even for the fussiest vacationist. Costa Rica even features self contained resorts so one need not venture into the "dangerous" unknown nor encounter too many surprises. Both countries also feature great traveler delights. Costa Rica is replete with wonderful water and jungle experiences. There are smoking volcanoes, zip lines, and endless hiking paths. The bird life is a as rich or richer than anywhere in the world. Panama not only houses the fascinating Canal but also jungles and islands where indigenous, traditional Indian tribes still maintain enough of their traditional cultures to make a visit educational and interesting.

     It is the rest of Central America where few Americans are encountered. They are outnumbered by Europeans and Latin Americans who visit Guatemala abundantly and are also much more likely to wander through the neighboring countries in that area. Of course there is still a problem with crime in Guatemala, a sure cause for American avoidance, but the country features some of the most interesting colonial architecture in Latin America. The Peten jungle in the North contains one of the spectacular deserted Mayan sites, Tikal. The most colorful market in our hemisphere, Chichicastenango, sits in the rolling hills in the center of the country. And beautiful Lake Atitlan with its smoking volcanoes is not far away. What more could a tourist hope for? Belize is also rather easy to travel about in and parts of the country are rather well developed. The Caribbean area, however, is a place where there is an abundance of poverty with many folks housed in simple huts not dissimilar from places in Africa. Yet the country is worth a visit for its several Mayan sites and its fascinating caves, some of which one can tube through on a lazy afternoon. The beautiful island of Ambergris Caye is but one of the comfortable and attractive islands the country features and offers the visitor just about as much as anyone needs on vacation.

     Then there are Nicaragua and Honduras. The former is the more interesting destination for tourists who are willing to brave the challenges of the Third World. Earlier political struggles have kept tourism quite low though things have settled down.  In Nicaragua there are interesting islands, lovely colonial villages like Granada and a coastline that equals Costa Rica's yet is far less developed and quite a bit less expensive. Some Americans have been purchasing land along the Pacific coast in the expectation that tourism will increase considerably. Honduras, a former outpost of the United Fruit Company, is also a bit challenging. There is less for the tourist to visit there than in Nicaragua but there are wonderful Mayan stellae in Copan, the southernmost of the important Mayan sites; there are white sandy beaches and great snorkeling on the Caribbean side, and the island of Roatan has become a common port for the cruise ships that ply that part of the world.

     In short, for Americans who prefer a short plane trip (no more than five hours to just about any site), a touch of Third World adventure, some fine natural sites in jungles, lakes and mountains, and friendly people, Central America should be a consideration. From extensive rain forests to volcanic lakes, from some of the finer beaches in the world to impressive variations in animal and plant life, there is much to do and see. With no wide oceans to cross, the nearness of the area makes it a good choice for week long trips. As the memories of recent wars fade and the popularization of some great travel destinations increases, I anticipate that our close by neighbors will be seeing more gringos in their midst. In the meantime, you can take advantage of inexpensive, interesting locales without tripping over too many folks from your neighborhood.

Coastline, San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua

Israel Surprise

     It is a long time since I first visited Israel- December, 1967 to be exact. If that year doesn't strike a bell, I will remind you that it was the year of the Six Day War in which Israel won control of what was then the "Occupied Territories." That territory has since become part of what is expected to be the independent nation of Palestine or, alternatively, Judaea and Samaria by the religious settlers who hope to maintain control of the land. Whatever the case may be, another part of the conquest was the occupation of Gaza, a piece of land nobody seemed to want very much. When I arrived on vacation from teaching in Rome the year of my visit, I rented a car and my family and I began to travel through the war-torn countryside past disabled tanks, pitted roadways and bombed out military sites. The Arabs were subdued so visitors could go just about anywhere they wanted. It was post-victory, pre-political antagonism time. Except for the occasional but brief interruptions of roadblocks (brief unless one was Arab that is) it was possible to drive into parts of what was once Jordanian or Syrian or Egyptian controlled locales. We got to visit Hebron and Jericho, for example, inadvisable places for Americans to visit today. We got to explore the remains of East Jerusalem after the long Arab occupation. We even drove into the former Syrian hills where so many shells had been fired from its gun emplacements.

      What would happen next, we wondered. I remember well a conversation I had with a group of folks in a kibbutz. They were full of victory and proud they had been able to fend off so many forces of course. Their answer to the conquered land issue: We will just sit on the land for a while, make a deal toward permanent peace and get rid of it after a couple of years. How far off target that prediction turned out to be! But spirits were high at the time and anything seemed possible. I wonder what the people who participated in those conversations might think some 45 years later were they still here and able to ponder the aftermath of the conquest.

      I guess we shared some of that delusion as my wife, my infant daughter and my young son explored the country. There were Israeli troops just about everywhere so there was an aura of stability and safety most of the places we went. That is except for Gaza. We roamed around independently to all corners of the little nation and even decided to drive into the sliver of land recently taken from Egypt. We motored into Gaza City, parked our car, took out the stroller for our infant daughter and started our leisurely walk down the main street. We did have to fend off a plethora of youngsters with rags who offered to wipe down our car. As we strolled along, we became increasingly aware of how distant and hostile the inhabitants seemed to be toward us. Slowly we felt people encroaching on our space and eventually we felt threatened. That was one of the few times in my travels that I sensed imminent danger. My wife and I decided to return to the car which we did quite hurriedly, keeping our children close and shutting out distractions. We got in, revved up, and moved out as quickly as possible.

     It is amazing to me as I recount this experience that I could have been so politically naive and foolhardy in my travels, especially with my children at my side. I tend to discount risks and travel without very much worry but Gaza was simply not the place to be. Residents there were angry, humiliated and hopeless. And we were visiting. I learned a good bit from that incident and have never again intruded into desperate places where people wanted to and deserved to be left alone and where I might be perceived as the enemy. When I am in areas laden with political anger and resentment against government, I disappear into the setting or I simply avoid it altogether. I have since had many opportunities to melt into the background of scenes that unfolded around me. Memories of my Israel experience sometimes lead me toward more caution than I might exercise otherwise. The Gaza visit was 1967 but it occurred only yesterday in my mind.

West Bank, 1967, Occupied Territories, Israel