4 posts tagged with "Travel"

This was originally written for SAILING Magazine, and is published here with the consent of the Schanen family (owners of the J/145 MAIN STREET on Lake Michigan- http://sailingmagazine.net).

Once every 24 hours, for a scant 15 minutes or so, waves break on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal. The break is less than 200 yards from the moorings.  I was easily visible when I paddled out to seek solace, and perhaps a wave, at the change of the tides. Every night somebody would approach me at the Balboa Yacht Club bar wondering if I was the man who had been surfing those little waves, laughing, falling and standing up in the chest-deep water. I would say “yes,” and wait for the inevitable next question:

"Are you the guy on the J/22 ?"

"Yes." "Where did you sail from?' "San Diego.” And, off we'd go into conversations about small boats and big storms, keels caught in fishing nets, homemade boats pitch-poling in the Bering Strait and that love of the ocean that pervades every time sailors' speech. I would tell my story of how I got into sailing, how long it had taken to reach Panama, who I had for crew, if I had running water, what fish I was catching-- answering the questions all sailors ask each other.

I grew up on the East Coast; then moved to Indiana when I was in high school. Later, I enlisted in the Navy.  I got out of the Navy in September 2000, and bumped around Australia with a friend for two months before flying back to San Diego and deciding to sail to Virginia in a small boat. I had been on a sailboat a few times with my aunt and uncle in England and a few times with friends of mine on San Diego Bay.

Originally, I wanted to do the trip in my Lehman 12. I was talked out of it by friends, most of them professional sailors. I settled on a J/22 and bought “Synchronicity” eight days after I returned from Australia. I renamed the boat “Apocalypso” and 14 days later set sail with Jason Bell, a man who would end up being one of my closest friends.

The two weeks between the purchase of the boat and casting off from the dock of the Coronado Yacht Club were a maelstrom of organizing, buying and attaching various instruments to the boat.  I bought a Siemens 75 solar panel to supply the boat with power and a 12-volt marine battery. I installed a Garmin 162 GPS that never failed and a tiller autopilot that failed constantly. For comms I ran a Standard Horizon VHF that kept me in contact with other boats at anchorage and intermittently provided me with garbled voices at sea; and for glorious music we put in an Alpine CD player with Bose 151 outdoor speakers to keep morale high.

I had another reef put in the main (for a total of two) and had a used genoa re-cut to fit the J/22 .  I took one main, two kites, a genoa, a racing jib and a working jib. The main, working jib and spinnaker saw me through to the Panama Canal.  After that I used only the main and jib for the slog north.

Jason and I left Coronado on December 27, 2000.  We slipped away from the dock and our families and friend, headed out of San Diego Bay and pointed south, Panama bound!  As soon as we got out of the bay, we put up the chute and took off doing 7 knots down the waves enjoying our newfound freedom. That first night was amazing. It was the first time I'd been night sailing on the ocean and I was aboard the smallest sailboat I'd ever been on this far offshore. There was a northeast wind blowing 12 to 14 knots, the chute was full and pulling us along with that indescribable swaying power a big sail out front has  Scattered clouds passed over the moon and I had the first watch. What a life!

We cruised down the coast, harbor hopping along the way. We did a few hundred miles at a crack, occasionally doing more, with a longest distance of 500 miles that took us five days. We got caught on kelp, watched the big Baja sea lions playing in our wake and saw in those days all things to satisfy a soul.

I watched dolphins playing in the bow wake, felt the colors of sunsets on my face and the whip of the wind as it cracked my lips. I grew tan as only sailors can and built muscle from working the boat. I grew lean and strong on fresh fish, fruits, nuts and vegetables and learned to live and breathe with the wind in the sail.  I connected with the ocean on a level I have felt at no other time, a bond that will always pull me back to the freedom of the sea.

Eleven days after we left, we coasted into Cabo San Lucas. Mexico, spotting an orca in the harbor on the way in.  Two nights later, the stench of packed humanity too much for us in Cabo, we raised anchor and headed south and east.  A north-northwest wind blowing 15 to 20 knots dared us to throw up the chute, and the Vendée Cortez began. We screamed across the Sea of Cortez in 52 hours, chute up the whole way, the roar of water racing by the hull putting us to sleep every three hours. 

When it got bad, Jason would come up and switch with me if I was on watch. I would open food packets and feed him while we talked. When I accidentally jibed in the dark and tangled the chute around the forestay, I had to wake him up to untangle it.  He freed it so fast and easily I felt foolish.  As he crawled back into the small and musty cabin, cackling in his Scottish accent, I realized he must have done it a hundred times while teaching at work.  By the time he left me, I felt comfortable do everything by myself, but until I understood the basics, Jason worked overtime with me.

We stopped in El Salvador and northern Nicaragua for emergency anchoring, ignoring what the guidebooks said about the dangers of Central America. We explored an almost untouched world, where pleasure boats are seldom seen and where beer and stories flow freely. It was an awakening of sorts for me, to realize that most people still have hope and joy. I was still building an identity, and while the Navy had given me many good things I had overloaded on suspicion and aggression. This trip helped me drop some of that.

Two months in, I lost Jason as crew when we pulled into southern Nicaragua and he was offered a job as skipper of the Farr 63 “Northern Winds.” While the friendship we had forged could not be broken, the lure of a steady paycheck took him away.  It took me a month to get the boat back together. We had taken a fearsome beating between Puerto Madero and San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.  Once I had gotten all my parts shipped to Ricardo's Bar in San Juan del Sur and installed them on Apocalypso, I soloed to Playa del Coco, Costa Rica. It was my first solo sail, and the steady wind combined with never-ending tasks brought me the discovery of joy in a day’s loneliness at sea.

In Playa del Coco, an adventurous blonde named Laura signed on as crew. I didn't tell Laura until we were well on our way that I had only been sailing for three months. Although Laura did not know how to sail, she was willing to learn and showed a great interest in boats that fueled my love of the ocean and sailing.  Laura stayed with the boat through the Panama Canal and as far as Key West. Florida.  She listened to my fluent Navy cursing when our four-horse engine died and showed me how to cut the cheek meat out of the fish we caught; her father had worked as a fisherman in Alaska.

We shared the life of bon vivants, swimming with pilot whales and exploring hidden anchorages.  In one anchorage, on the east side of the Golfo de Chirique, we met the hermit of Bahia Honda and stumbled on an island town where the locals whispered about Laura's naturally white-blond hair and gave us dried fish and beer.

We left Bahia Honda with the cockpit full of coconuts that we picked by climbing high palm trees. As we sailed south down the Peninsula de Azeuro with the fading sun to starboard, the gentle clunks of loose-rolling coconuts brought us back from daydreams of reaching the Panama Canal.

The night before our arrival at the Panama Canal shook my faith in my ability to sail and navigate. We kept getting tangled in fishing nets in the light and variable winds, and the compass was difficult to read in the hazy light of the moon. I was tired from three days of little sleep and going over the side to cut the boat free of those dismal nets that stretched down into green-gray depths.  After getting out of the cold Humboldt Current the last time, I told Laura I was going to bed and didn't want to be woken until the sun was shining and we were making 4 knots directly toward the canal.

I woke up to the sound of the engine and hazy pale sunlight on my face.  I looked out of the cabin at the clean, glassy water of the northern stretch of the Golfo de Panama and knew the peaceful relief found at the end of a nightmare. Arriving at the canal was a victory for me.  It meant I was more than halfway through my journey, it meant that I had gotten across Tehuantepec and past the Papagallos, and it meant I could skipper a boat!

After staying on the Pacific side for two weeks, we finally got all our paperwork together and shot through the locks in a day. From Cristobal we headed north, stopping at Isla Providencia where we experienced true Caribbean hospitality and the friendliest port captain I have ever met along with townspeople that could not have welcomed us more warmly.

From Providencia we flew on fast reach to Roatan, stopping only long enough to resupply before heading north for Isla Mujeres off the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. The draw of returning home became more powerful the closer we got to Key West, erasing from my mind the life I would have to lead upon return to the States and a “normal” job. We took a six-day beating from Isla Mujeres to Key West rather than sit in the anchorage scaring ourselves with weather reports, and only now do I realize the luxury of being concerned merely with physical survival.

We pulled into Key West on May 14, 5 1/2 months after leaving San Diego. Those 150-odd days were some of the richest of my life and I looked for a way to squeeze in one more journey before selling the boat to the right buyer.

I found my buyer on the Internet, but I would have to deliver the boat to Kingston, Jamaica!  After enlisting the help of a fellow I met in a Publix grocery store, I hoisted sail and again surrendered myself to the sea.  Frank was from Berlin, Germany and between his heavily accented English and my high school German, we laughed our way through muddled conversations about girls, beer, toxic chlorinated American water and sailing. We stopped in Nassau, Bahamas, then swept down the Exuma chain to Georgetown.

From Georgetown, we headed southeast to the tip of Little Exuma where we ran aground on crystal white sand.  Far from our finest moment, it ended after bumping over six sandbars and grinding into the seventh.  With no other course than to turn up the music, jump over the side and take a long saltwater bath, we waited for the tide. When it finally rose late in the evening, we dried off and headed on port tack for Cuba, the Windward Passage, and my final port of call.

We made landfall in Jamaica at 7 am, June 28, seeing the lighthouse at Point Moran. We drifted along the shore, smelling land in the smoke of hearth-fires and waiting for the huge convection machine of Kingston Harbor to start cranking. We were sucked west along the southern coast until we turned into the harbor where we had to beat upwind to the yacht club.  That was the worst part of the trip.  It wasn’t from the feeling of ending a journey, but because the wind really pumps down the harbor! I recorded at least 30 knots on my anemometer. 

As I pulled up to the gasoline dock at the Royal Jamaica Yacht Club, I saw four men sauntering towards me down cracked concrete stairs.  They eased up next to my boat as a group, and their questions broke the silence of a voyage completed. 

"Are you the guy on the J/22 ?"

Once every 24 hours, for a scant 15 minutes or so, waves break on the Pacific side of the Panama Canal. The break is less than 200 yards from the moorings and I was easily visible as I paddled out to seek solace and perhaps a wave at the change of the tides. Every night somebody would approach me at the Balboa Yacht Club bar wondering if I was the man who had been surfing those little waves, laughing, falling and standing up in the chest-deep water. I would say “yes,” and wait for the inevitable next question: "Are you the guy on the J/22?" "Yes." "Where did you sail from?' "San Diego.” And off we'd go into conversations about small boats and big waves, keels caught in fishing nets, homemade boats pitch-poling in the Bering Strait and that love of the ocean that pervades every true sailors' speech. I would tell my story of how I got into sailing, how long it had taken to reach Panama, who I had for crew, if I had running water, what fish I was catching-- asking and answering the questions all sailors ask each other. I grew up on the East Coast then moved to Indiana when I was in high school. Later, I enlisted in the Navy thinking I'd be in for 20 years.  5 years later, in September 2000, I got out of the Navy and bumped around Australia with a friend for two months before flying back to San Diego and deciding to sail to Virginia in a small boat. I had been on a sailboat a few times with my aunt and uncle in England and a few times with friends of mine on San Diego Bay, but had no real experience beyond that. Originally, I wanted to do the trip in a Lehman 12, but was talked out of it by friends, most of them professional sailors. I settled on a J/22 and bought “Synchronicity” eight days after I returned from Australia. I renamed the boat “Apocalypso” and 14 days later set sail with Jason Bell, a San Diego J-World instructor and a man who would end up being one of my closest friends. The two weeks between the purchase of the boat and casting off from the dock of the Coronado Yacht Club were a maelstrom of organizing, buying and attaching various instruments to the boat.  I bought a Siemens 75 solar panel to supply the boat with power and a 12-volt marine battery. I purchased a Garmin 162 GPS that never failed, an autopilot tiller that failed constantly, a Standard Horizon VHF that kept me in contact with other boats at anchorage and intermittently provided me with garbled voices at sea, and an Alpine CD player with Bose 151 outdoor speakers to keep morale high. I had another reef put in the main (for a total of two) and had a used genoa re-cut to fit the J/22.  I took one main, two kites, a genoa, a racing jib and a working jib. The main, working jib and spinnaker saw me through to the Panama Canal.  After that I used only the main and jib for the slog north. Jason and I left Coronado on December 27, 2000.  We slipped away from the dock, families, and friends and headed out of San Diego Bay to point south, Panama bound!  As soon as we got out of the bay,we put up the chute and took off doing 7 knots down the waves and enjoying our newfound freedom. The first night was amazing.  It was the first time I'd been night sailing on the ocean and I was aboard the smallest sailboat I'd ever been on this far offshore. There was a northeast wind blowing 12 to 14 knots, the chute was up and happily pulling us along.  Scattered clouds passed over the moon and I had the first watch. What a life! We cruised down the coast, harbor hopping along the way. We usually did 300 miles at a crack, occasionally doing more, with a longest distance of 500 miles that took us five days. We got caught on kelp, watched the big Baja sea lions playing in our wake and saw all things in those days to satisfy a soul. I watched dolphins surfing the bow wake, felt the colors of sunset on my face and the whip of the wind as it cracked my lips. I grew tan as only sailors can and built muscle from working the boat. I grew lean and strong on fresh fish, fruits, nuts and vegetables and learned to live and breathe with the wind in the sail.  I connected with the ocean on a level I have felt at no other time, a bond that will always pull me back to the freedom of the sea. Eleven days after we left San Diego we coasted into Cabo San Lucas, spotting an orca in the harbor on the way in.  Two nights later we raised anchor and headed south and east- the stench of packed humanity too much for us in Cabo.  A north-northwest wind blowing 15 to 20 knots dared us to throw up the chute and the fun began. We screamed across the Sea of Cortez in 52 hours, chute up the whole way, the roar of water racing by the hull putting us to sleep every three hours.  When it got bad, Jason would come up and switch with me if I was on watch and I would open food packets and feed him while we talked. When I accidentally jibed in the dark and tangled the chute around the forestay I had to wake him up to untangle it.  He freed it so fast and easily I felt foolish.  As he crawled back into the musty cabin cracking jokes in his Scottish accent I realized he must have done it a hundred times while teaching at work.  By the time we eventually parted ways I felt comfortable doing everything by myself, but until I understood the basics Jason worked overtime. We stopped in El Salvador and northern Nicaragua for emergency anchoring, ignoring what the guidebooks said about the dangers of Central America. We explored an almost untouched world, where pleasure boats are seldom seen and where beer and stories flow freely. It was an awakening of sorts for me, to realize that even in poverty so many still have hope and joy. Two months into the trip, I lost Jason as crew when we pulled into southern Nicaragua and he was offered a job as skipper of the Farr 63 “Northern Winds.” While the friendship we had forged could not be broken, the lure of a steady paycheck took him away.  It took me a month to get the boat together—we had taken a fearsome beating between Puerto Madero and San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.  After I had gotten all my parts shipped to Ricardo's Bar in San Juan del Sur and installed them on Apocalypso, I soloed to Playa del Coco, Costa Rica. It was my first solo sail, and the steady wind and never-ending tasks brought me the discovery of joy in a day’s loneliness at sea. In Playa del Coco an adventurous blonde named Laura signed on as crew. I didn't tell Laura until we were well on our way that I had only been sailing for three months— it just didn't seem to be the best thing to say.  Although Laura didn’t know how to sail she was willing to learn and showed an interest in boats that fueled further my love of the ocean and sailing.  Laura stayed with the boat through the Panama Canal and as far as Key West. Florida, listening to my fluent Navy cursing when our four-horse engine died and sharing the life of bon vivants as we swam with pilot whales and explored hidden anchorages.  In one anchorage on the east side of the Golfo de Chiriqui we met the hermit of Bahia Honda and rediscovered an island town where the natives whispered about Laura's naturally white-blond hair and gave us dried fish and beer. We left Bahia Honda with the boat full of coconuts picked from climbing high palm trees on a deserted beach.  As we sailed south down the Peninsula de Azuero with the fading sun to starboard, the gentle clunks of loose-rolling coconuts brought us out of our daydreams of reaching the Panama Canal. The night before our arrival at the Panama Canal shook my faith in my ability to sail and navigate. We kept getting tangled in fishing nets in the light and variable winds and the compass was difficult to read in the hazy light of the moon. To top it off, I was tired from three days of little sleep as I went over the side on three separate occasions to cut the boat free of fishing nets stretching down into green-gray depths, surrounded by shadows thrown by my tiny underwater light.  After getting out of the cold Humboldt Current the last time, I told Laura I was going to bed and didn't want to be woken until the sun was shining and we were making 4 knots directly toward the canal. I woke to the sound of the engine and hazy pale sunlight on my face.  I looked out of the cabin at the clean, glassy water of the northern stretch of the Golfo de Panama and knew the peaceful relief found at the end of a nightmare. Arriving at the canal was a victory for me.  It meant I was more than halfway through my journey, it meant that I had gotten across Tehuantepec and past the Papagallos, and it meant I could skipper a boat! After staying on the Pacific side for two weeks and battling a barely comprehensible system of bureacracy, we finally got all our paperwork together and shot through the locks in a day. From Cristobal we headed north, stopping at Isla Providencia where we experienced true Caribbean hospitality and the friendliest port captain I have ever met along with townspeople who could not have welcomed us more warmly. From Providencia we sailed hard on a fast reach to Roatan, stopping only long enough to resupply before heading north for Isla Mujeres off the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. The draw of returning home became more powerful the closer we got to Key West, erasing from my mind the life I would have to lead upon return to the States and a “normal” job. We took a six-day beating from Isla Mujeres to Key West rather than sit in the anchorage scaring ourselves with weather reports, and only now do I realize the luxury of being concerned merely with physical survival. We pulled into Key West on May 14, 2001, 5 1/2 months after leaving San Diego. Those 150-odd days were the richest of my life and I looked for a way to squeeze in one more journey before selling the boat. After posting countless flyers to sell the boat throughout Ft. Lauderdale, I finally found a buyer in Kingston, Jamaica through the internet.  the only requirement was that the boat be delivered in advertised condition.  After enlisting the help of a fellow I met in a Publix grocery store, I hoisted sail and again surrendered myself to the sea.  Frank was from Berlin, Germany and between his heavily accented English and my high school German, we laughed our way through muddled conversations about girls, beer, toxic chlorinated American water and sailing. We stopped in Nassau, Bahamas, then swept down the Exuma chain to Georgetown. From Georgetown, we headed southeast to the tip of Little Exuma where we ran aground on crystal white sand.  Far from our finest moment, it ended after bumping over six sandbars and grinding into the seventh.  With no other course than to turn up the music, jump over the side and take a long saltwater bath, we waited for the tide. When it finally rose late in the evening, we dried off and headed on port tack for Cuba, the Windward Passage, and my final port of call. We made landfall in Jamaica at 7 a.m. on June 28 of 2001, seeing the lighthouse at Point Moran. We drifted along the shore, smelling land in the smoke of hearth-fires and waiting for the huge convection machine of Kingston Harbor to start cranking. We were sucked west along the southern coast until we turned into the harbor where we had to beat upwind to the yacht club.  The final sail was the hardest part of the trip.  It wasn’t from the feeling of ending a journey, but because the wind really pumps down that harbor; I recorded at least 30 knots on my anemometer!  As we pulled up to the gasoline dock at the Royal Jamaica Yacht Club, I saw four men sauntering towards us down cracked concrete stairs.  They eased up next to my boat as a group, their question broke the silence of a voyage completed.  "Are you the guy on the J/22?"

Ok, back from a 2 night 3 day trek into the deserts of Egypt. This odyssey began on the car ride to Adel's house from the airport, when he asked me what I'd like to do and I told him "camel trek". Having worked with camels a very little time in the US I didn't have much experience to go on, but from what I did have I was stoked to go. The first day we started moving around noon, taking a mini-bus (the preferred method of travel in Cairo for locals, these mini-buses run up and down the main drags with sliding doors open. You clamber in, pass your fare through the other passengers up to the driver, witness a few Arab-style yelling matches during your voyage as various parties disagree with each other, and pop off wherever you'd like) to Adel's friend Moussad, who owns 2 camels and a donkey. Moussad had the animals ready to go, so I hopped on and rode it up about 8 feet. The first day Moussad kept my camel tied to the back of his; they weren't sure how experienced of a rider I was and it ended up being a good intro to riding. There are three seated positions for riding. First was straddling the camel, as on a horse. Second was the usual Egyptian style of riding, where you cross your legs at the ankle in front of the horn of the saddle and rest your feet on the camel's neck. A welcome relief from the straddle method. Third, once on open/flat ground, was to sit side saddle, an enjoyable way to travel as you talked with another rider. This first day I found the ride to be jerky and lurching, but by day three I had begun to feel the rhythm and settle in to the gently swaying glory of the "ship of the desert". By the time we had walked through a warren of dirt roads and back alleys and past the pyramids it was already 4 o'clock, so we rode about another hour into the desert through what looked like a huge sandbox where bulldozers and earth moving equipment come to gather the majority of Cairo's building material before we stopped and set up camp in a windbreak. The camels were cushed (down position) and tied to a saddle, then A&M pulled off the saddles and laid out the camel blankets making them into the floor of an open air living space. The first order of business when making camp is to feed the camels, then to start a fire and make tea. Tea is a spartan and deliberate affair consisting of mixing, heating, tasting, adding sugar and then delicately pouring out a hot, strong, and very sweet tea into large shot glasses. Delicious. They had honored me with a huge stack of very thin burgers for the first dinner, brought out under the (correct) assumption that I would enjoy them. They cooked these over an open fire (wood was also carried in) and along with an incredibly stinky salty cheese (at first smell I thought, "Fuck it, I ain't gonna like it but I am going to eat it", ended up being well suited to the occasion) and a mixture of chopped tomatoes, cucumbers, and spicy peppers all eaten with pieces of fresh pita bread we feasted under the stars. By 6:30 the sun had set, dinner was over and I had a good handle on how the tea ceremony was run (slow, hot, and without end), so with the temp dropping and after a envious eye to Adel's thick abaya (a tightly knit and well crafted heavy wool robe) I made for the sleeping bags. I was the first to go bed, and as I drifted off to sleep under the stars did not realize that I would be the only one to sleep that night. Through their own culture and sensibility, they believed that 4 eyes were needed to stand a watch, and they were damned if they'd wake me up. So they didn't go to sleep. Upon rising in the morning I saw both of them by the fire and asked how the slept. They said they didn't. I asked why not. Adel said, "We didn't come here to sleep." Wasn't sure what to make of that, but it sounded pretty tough. Having gone without sleep before in my life due to various commitments, I fully appreciate the value of a good night's rest, but if they had made it to 37 and 48 years old and had decided to hold with a different philosophy then my own I was happy to let them. Adel is a devout Muslim, and prayed the requisite 5 times a day. I hazily recall his first prayer at 0430, the phrase "Allah hu Akbhar" being repeated over and over brought me out of a light sleep. Experiencing this devotion is impressive. As a non-believer, however, I'm just as glad I haven't dedicated my life to the Muslim method. After I awoke and had the "no-sleep" talk with the two of them, Adel decided that he would sleep after all, and laid down for an hour. I was hungry as I walked blearily eyed over to the still burning fire and Moussad. I knew we wouldn't eat until after Adel had woken up, so I was happily surprised when Moussad rummaged through one of the many bags they brought and came up with a plastic sack full of what looked like small red chili peppers but were actually dates. He proceeded to roast them on the coals, and they made an agreeable appetizer for the breakfast which followed. Once Adel woke up he made preparations for breakfast, which was a small wheel of pre-wrapped in tin-foil wedges of cheese, honey in a shallow bowl, a delicious concoction called Halavah (can be bought in the States under the name Halvah) and pitta bread to scoop it all up in, all finished up with 3 cups of tea. The first cup is sweet yet still carries the heavy astringent quality of the "dust" tea they make. The second cup is sweeter still, and the third cup, mixed with mint, is a superb finish to this ancient desert ceremony. The trash from our travels so far was thrown about the camp at random. Incomprehensible to me but seemed to be SOP for them. Indeed, all of Egypt (and the Middle East that I've seen) is blanketed to a more or less degree with the detritus of the modern age; plastic bottles, tin foil, old sandals, and anything no longer useful. When I made an attempt to pick up some litter they went along with it, putting it all into a small garbage bag which Adel then carefully carried to the other side of the windbreak and deposited on the side of the path. Rather than do the ecologically appropriate thing and insist on them conforming to my ways, I figured, fuck it, it's their country and if they want to trash it they can. This is the problem of the modern and pampered traveler like myself; do we impose upon other cultures what we "know" to be right, or do we allow them to make a mess of their own property and trust that in time they will come to the same conclusions we have? Is it even appropriate to think that a civilization older than ours (America being only a few hundred years old and the Muslim world having universities dating back 1,200 years) knows less than we do? With the food and drink settled until dinner (they only eat twice a day), we packed, saddled the camels and were off. The second day they decided to let me ride free rein, which increased both my participation and enjoyment tremendously. We walked in that slow and languorous mile-eating way camels have through the rest of the rough sandbox we had stopped in the night before, skirted the Cairo dump (a harbinger of the journey ahead) and spilled out onto a wide plain with a view of the ancient burial ground of Saqarrah and the famous Step pyramid in the distance. This day we would cover about 30 miles, and aside from a small saddle sore I would be none the worse for it. This was the best part of the trip; wide open desert, great long views and few signs of civilization around. There were the power lines far off to the West that carry energy from Aswan dam up to Cairo, and the fringe of civilization that exists on the edge of the Nile to the east, but other than that we were out of touch with the modern world. All that would change on the return journey, but for now I was totally happy with being in the desert with Bedouin and camels, carrying everything we needed with us. It was glorious. After about 3 hours of riding south we turned back to the north and began to re-trace our steps. With only a few days to be in the desert due to my frequently changing work schedule they had decided on an out-and-back trek. We re-entered the rough sand-hill area and began weaving our way through small wadis and roads that criss-crossed the whole area, evidence of human activity in the recent past. Incomprehensibly to me, the two men decided that a view of the pyramids from a different angle was worth a trip through (NOT on the outskirts off) the Cairo dump. It started off innocently enough, and in reality I think they just took a wrong turn and didn't want to admit it, but we began to wend our way around a huge canyon system toward the heaped up and steaming piles of refuse that mark civilizations everywhere. Gradually the piles of trash became bigger and bigger, the stench stronger, and the sounds of large equipment grew from distant groans and sirens to the close up high pitched beeping and deep growling of huge chunks of machinery as they plowed their way through, around, and on the trash of a city. Having not eaten since morning and having been in the saddle for 5 hours by the time we started at the dump I was not in the best of moods, and the change from tranquil and clean desert to the fucking dump began to arouse in me a righteous anger. I had to remind myself that, A: maybe we were lost and they just didn't want to admit it, which I could understand, B: I should have had more to do with planning, and C: This was, if I stepped back and looked at it, pretty goddamned funny. In any event I got much better at directing a camel through uneven terrain. We picked our way through the dump emerging after a full hour to a view of the pyramids from the east, a fact triumphantly expressed to me by a beaming Adel. I let him know in the most courteous of ways that I would rather not ride through a dump again, even to be graced with the most glorious of views, which this side of the pyramids were definitely not. Due to the nature of their construction, pyramids look remarkably similar from every side. He apologized, first blaming it on himself thinking I would enjoy it, and later on that day blaming it on Moussad's opinion that I must see the pyramids from every angle. While only a little over an hour long, this detour changed the dynamic of the trip enough that I decided that further camel (or any treks) with Adel would be discussed in much greater detail prior to departure. It was something I should have known and planned for and didn't, so I could really only be upset with myself. After breaking free of the foul stench and sight of the dump we emerged again into sandy hills, and climbed up them in search of a campsite for the night. Along the way we picked up bits of discarded wood for the night's fire, having used up all we had carried in the night before. As Moussad led us from potential campsite to potential campsite I determined to take a more active role in the expedition, and indicated that one windbreak was much the same as another after 7 hours in the saddle, so we settled down in one that hid civilization and the pyramids from our view and made camp again, following the same procedures as before. The difference came after night fell. Moussad had decided to take a two hour nap, and it was in the middle of this that two youths approached the camp out of the darkness. One had his face hidden with a black cloth, and as soon as Adel discerned they were coming to us he woke Moussad. Adel walked toward young men with the usual greeting of Salaam wah Aleikum, which was returned in kind. Hands were shaken all around with that peculiar limp grip common to the Middle East, and the four talked for a minute, with voices gradually growing louder. This being a common occurrence in Egypt I took no notice of it, but stayed behind Adel & Moussad ready to jump in and lend a hand in whipping the shit out of these two punks, as it became quickly apparent that they had nothing positive to offer our experience. This clarification occurred when Adel asked the one whose face was covered to uncover so we could look upon him, and the youth declined to be identified. With a quick hand, Adel reached up to grab away the covering, but the young man held it up. After a brief struggle Adel ripped the obscurement away and looked upon the now lit face. Soon after this, both men disappeared back into the night, and Adel proudly let me know they were bad men and he had sent them away. I stayed awake long enough to participate in the first of what I assumed to be many night tea ceremonies, and then, after offering my services as a watchmen and being roundly denied, again went off to bed to leave the two of them to stay up as long as they wanted. As before, neither of them slept until the next morning when I woke up. The monstrous wailing that is the sign of the call to prayer arose from the distant city, seeming to signify the awakening of the hordes. This is perhaps an over statement, but to one unaccustomed to an entire culture loudly proclaiming their faith at the same time it had all the sound of an impending battle. I stayed in bed through Adel's morning prayers, then we followed the same procedure of breakfast, tea, and saddling the camels for our return to the city. As we rode back I saw in the experience how my time in the saddle had increased my riding skill, and felt comfortable as we walked back through the dirt roads and alleys that before I had been led through, ending up at Moussad's door. Unsaddling and feeding the camels took all of half and hour, then Adel and I caught a tuk-tuk (3 wheeled covered scooter) back to his house, and I headed to my quarters for a shower and reconnection with the electronic world.

Got in yesterday from an overnight trip up to the hill country of Sri Lanka, an interesting and educational experience as well as being almost completely enjoyable. 23Jan. Kandy, Sri Lanka Dogs howling at midnight woke me, the experience of regaining consciousness under the gentle haze of a mosquito net was both pleasant and new. A small breakfast of eggs & tea and I was off for the day with Shaun, my guide for the day. We planned to do a 3 temple trek in the morning, then lunch, then a visit to Pinnewala elephant sanctuary followed by a train ride home. Although Shaun was a young dude and "hiking guide", he didn't seem to be in shape, and appearances were not deceiving: instead of the 3 planned temples we only managed 2. We drove to the first temple via tuk tuk (3 wheeled scooter), getting off for a look 'round and taking the first of what could have been interminable lectures on Buddhist temples & their gods, which are all mixed up with the Hindu gods. Oh well, nice to see the religions getting along. Shaun's English was weak, so there wasn't much for conversation. Hiked from that first temple through a bit of jungle, where S pointed out cacao, cinammon, breadfruit, jackfruit, clove, black pepper, tea, "long bean", mangosteen, papaya, durian, avocado, guava, and coconut trees! Sri Lanka has a wealth of spices and fruits growing wild throughout. We broke out into the open and wended our way along the dikes on the sides of extraordinarily green rice paddies for 40 minutes or so on our way to temple number 2, our final temple for the day. Lots of birds, apparently this is a bird watching paradise. Along the way we stopped for a drink of coconut water, freshly served in a cut-to-order coconut at a tiny roadside stand. We hiked up into a tea plantation, tea being grown on the hills and rice in the flat bottom land. Up in the heights you can see the ruggedness of this place and understand why the kingdom of Kandy was the last of the island's kingdoms to fall to European powers (the British in 1815.) Shaun propositioned me for a little bang-bang on the hillside after admiring the size of my cock as I was taking a piss break. Flattering, but I politely declined. Arrived at the second temple at the top of a long flight of stairs carved out of rock. Carved into the stone grounds of these temples are the provenance & patrons of each building and construction. After 6-700 years it becomes fairly weathered, but still interesting to look at. By this time we had apparently run out of morning, for it was into the tuk-tuk and off to lunch at a fairly manky roadside stand. Rice, curry, dhal, and potatoes all gently resting under the assault of flies feebly fended off with barely fitting lids and folded up newspaper graced my plate. Spicy and lukewarm, it filled my gut. From there we drove to the Pinnewala Elephant Orphanage, where around 100 elephants are cared for and displayed to the public. Shaun had not been there before, so was not sure of where the entrance was or really the best ways to enjoy the place. Aside from pointing out many of the plants along the way, and knowing how to get from one temple to another, he was not much of a guide, really. First we went to a milk feeding of two babies, a crowded and uninspiring affair (jostled by impatient Indians to watch elephant calves suck down huge bottles of milk in less than 10 seconds, which some tourists paid for the privilege to have their hands on the bottle whilst the handlers actually held it. Another example of the tourist industry's pastime of providing the least service for the most money), and then things took a turn for the better. Hiking up small rise we came upon the herd separated from us by only a thin line of scattered boulders imitating a fence. As we tourists stood gawking on one side the elephant handlers would come up and with a flicking gesture of their wrist indicate we should cross the line and come have our picture taken with the elephants, followed by the inevitable request for a tip. Really cool to be so close to the great beasts. Makes me want to work with them for a while, maybe at a sanctuary somewhere? From there I ambled over to a huge tusked bull, again taking a photo while standing next to him, tipping the handler after my 10 seconds of "glory." Knowing from the guidebooks that the herd would be led down to the river across the street, we hurried down to get the last seat with a good view, and from there, with a cold beer, I enjoyed an excellent scene of about 50 elephants trotting down into the water and then just enjoying themselves. The babies in particular offered many moments of gentle amusement as they rambunctiously played, holding each other underwater, bumping heads, play-mounting, and generally enjoying their childhood as kids do anywhere. What I had thought would be a 45 minute drive to the train station turned out to be around 5, so I was left with an extra hour and half before the train for Colombo arrived, in which time I managed to have a short religious convo with an Islamic fellow and took a picture of my "bench companions." Nearly a 3 hour train ride later in the 3rd class and I was back in Colombo just as dark set in. An enjoyable 2 days, much better than if I had stayed in the hotel, and I learned a ton about what not to do and how to get around easily and very cheaply in Sri Lanka. Useful for when L** & I return.