Common Sense and Whiskey

Grasshoppers and Spiders and Africa, Oh My

Working on a new e-book about the African safari experience has got me poking around into my photos from Africa. Here's one I reprocessed yesterday. It's a huge, finger-sized grasshopper from South Africa. Click it to make it bigger.

And while we're in safari mode, here's a random, short bit from the upcoming e-book. It's from a walking safari in Zambia:

Rains from November to April flood the Luangwa river system, and from then until November it's perfectly dry. The water will dry and recede and force the animals into greater and greater concentrations, with more and more conflict and danger from predators, but for now, there is peace, there are lagoons for crocs to eat catfish and places for hippos to eat and live apart from the river. The grass is still green and tall and thick, and Aubrey shows us how hippos change the landscape as they come and go from the river, creating an indentation on the water's edge that grows when it rains, collapsing the soil into gullies and washing it into the river.

Other animals use the trampled paths, that extend far up onto land, and sometimes hippo trails even evolve into rivers. We set out away from the river on a hippo path old and wide enough that there's a sandy bottom maybe half a meter wide with the grass on either side. Can't see ahead of us or to either side beyond the grass and Isaac pushes on toward a stand of mopane trees.

Azawad Doesn't Sound as Fun as Timbuktu

Whether you're one of Robert D. Kaplan's critics or admirers, his piece yesterday was a useful primer on the lay of the land, and the feel of things in the Sahara.

Those of us who are reluctant to vacation in a place they might be killed are crossing Timbuktu off our lists, at least for now. As a substitute, I recommend Angry Wind, by Jeffrey Tayler. It's on my list of ten great adventure travel books.

This'll Be Fun. No Really....

I could have killed an entire group of feeble old people. I mean, grabbed them, walkers and canes and all, and tossed them one by one over the side. It was on the Norwegian coastal steamer, the Hurtigruten, and all I wanted was a  cup of morning coffee before we left the ship.

No big deal. I'll take that in a paper cup. Don't need a stirrer. I don't need a top or one of those insulating grips for the side. Just a single bloody cup of black coffee.

But I was queued behind 39 elderly group tourists who, God bless 'em, had SAVED ALL THEIR LIVES FOR THIS, and who, for some reason, because they weren't in Toledo, or Wichita, or wherever it was they came from, but on their TRIP OF A LIFETIME in A FOREIGN LAND, were way beyond their abilities in a cafeteria line.

They had the same keen grasp of logistics and situational awareness as the guy in front of you in the grocery checkout who doesn't help bag the groceries, so the poor old bent over clerk does that while he stands there and stares out into space all entitled and bored-looking, and then once it's all done and the clerk says it's $73.19, only then does he think to get out his checkbook.

At the checkout end of the cafeteria line it was like all these people saw these FOREIGN COINS in their hands for the first time and they WEREN'T NICKELS DIMES AND QUARTERS. And one by one, all 39 froze. What were they possibly to do?

Common Sense and Whiskey, the Book - Paraguay, Chapter Twelve

Here is Chapter Twelve of Common Sense and Whiskey, the book. We're publishing each chapter here on the blog (Track down previous chapters here). You can order the entire book at Amazon.com, at BN.com, or direct from EarthPhotos Publishing. Here's the Kindle version (just $6.99). Click these photos to make them bigger. More photos and additional commentary are available at A Common Sense and Whiskey Companion. And here's the Paraguay Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

12 PARAGUAY


The farthest back water washes to a national capital must be Asuncion, Paraguay. It’s as if its residents didn’t ask for the honor, but the capital had to be somewhere so they amiably accommodated.

Maybe parts of Africa are less vital. Think Ouagadougou, maybe, or Bangui. Even somnambulant Vientiane, which is in Laos, shows more vitality than here, smack in the middle of South America.

They’d rolled up the streets by the time we installed ourselves in the Sabe Hotel. The front desk spoke not so much as “hello.” No English. Here in the national capital.

The TV wouldn’t work until tomorrow because it was New Years Day and they couldn’t get anybody out to fix it, but it was a nice enough place. A picture hung partly over the window in the hallway. That was a little strange.

I was out early in the morning, through the business district and down to the Paraguay River. It wasn’t very big, downtown Asuncion, and it wasn’t very busy.

There was the main Plaza de los Heroes, down a few blocks, and Asuncion had a building modeled after the Pantheon. Sales ladies’ tables along Avenue Palma offered up the usual languid market fare: watches and underwear and (allegedly) Nike clothes and plastic toys. Birds were loud and it was hot hot hot by 8:45.

Down at the river, General Francisco Solana Lopez’s white-washed mansion, started in 1860, stood shuttered. Beyond it, children pumped water at a clutter of squatter shacks. A sand spit stretched out to two rusting shipwrecks, resting over on their sides, just on the edge of the water. Here in the national capital.

The breathtaking Asuncion waterfront.

But let’s start at the beginning, which was a few days earlier.

Winter in Finland - 6

 

My wife Mirja and I traveled to Finland last month. Here's the last in a series.

And so we’ve come to Saariselkä, Finnish Lapland, and we see that it’s possible to live inside the Arctic Circle. It takes a little more work, bundling up and all, and you need a plan before you go outside. There’s no idle standing around out there.

But there are even a few advantages. Dragging your groceries behind you over the ice on a little plastic sled called a pulkka is easier than carrying them. There’s a word for the way you walk: köpöttää. It means to walk with tiny steps, like you do to keep your balance on the icy sidewalk.

Plus, other humans live here, too, and they seem to get along just fine. Infrastructure’s good, all the transport is in big, heavy, late model SUVs. There isn’t the choice of goods you might like, but we have that problem in our little town of 600 in Appalachia, too.

Once I would have thought “selling time shares in Lapland” was a punch line, but now we have a friend who does just that. And much to my surprise, a completely full 757 flew us back down to Helsinki (and a full Airbus flew us up) and they were doing three planes from Saariselkä to Helsinki the day we flew back.

In fact, the local folk of Finnish Lapland are entirely swallowed up by the tourist onslaught they’ve created. There are 13,500 hotel, lodge, igloo and rental apartment beds around Saariselkä. And the goal is 4.5 times the number of visitors by 2020.

Kuukkeli was the only grocery in walking distance. It’s part of a chain, and a bit of a dry goods and souvenir store, too. You could buy the usual Finnish dark breads and sausages and ready to eat heat-and-serve paistos, casseroles made of beets or mushrooms or potatoes and ham. And tins of moose, bear, elk and reindeer.

A word of advice: Just capitulate on the reindeer thing. Do not try to resist.

Winter in Finland - 5

 My wife Mirja and I traveled to Finland last month. We continue our series.

 Hyvä asiakkaamme,
Ethän käytä huoneiston takkaa.
Se on tällä hetkellä epäkunnossa
Ja savuttaa sisään.

Dear customer,
Please don’t use the fireplace. It is for the moment out of order and the smoke comes into the apartment.

Ärade kund,
Vängligeninte sätta eld på spisen.
Der är ur function och skall röka in I huset.

Now wait a minute! We might need the fireplace. It’s LAPLAND and it’s -16C outside.

But the nice lady explained that they only manage these little apartments, they don’t own them, and fixing the fireplace involves a capital expenditure. That will require a meeting to authorize funds, and we’ll be gone by then.

Well, everything turned out just fine. The apartment was mightily insulated with a double door entryway and a great heater and sauna.

And I had fun with the translations. I took “Ärade kund” as a plea in Swedish to be kind and understanding, and in the Finnish, Ethän käytä huoneiston takkaa, I imagined they’d decided to confide to the natives that stupid Ethan had messed up the damned fireplace again.

Winter in Finland - 4

 My wife Mirja and I traveled to Finland last month. We continue our series.

4

A rainy, snowy mix Monday morning. We set out at 6:00 a.m. for Helsinki for an 11:15 flight to Lapland. This weather would shut down Atlanta for a week. Here, we just got in the car and drove.

Through town and onto the highway. Slushy and slippery. We sped along in the dark and I swore we’d slide off the road sooner or later, at a hundred kilometers per hour, with one lane good, the other ice.

Finnish law requires winter tires for winter. Winter tires wear out the roads, though, so Finnish law requires that they be changed back in summer. And the winter tires did the trick, and we didn’t slide off the road.

•••••

At the floating market in Can Tho, Vietnam, sellers hoist a bamboo pole from their boats and attach one of each of their fruits, to advertise that today, they’re selling pomilons or star fruit or coconuts. In the same way, totems rise at exits along the highway in Finland, lighting the fog that swirls around them in the perma-dusk.

Brilliant neon signs climb the poles: Pizza! Market! Gas! ABC! 24H! Credit Cards!

(When I thought ABC was the Finnish Alcohol Beverage Control, I was hugely amused that their logo is a hand flashing a thumbs-up. Alas, ABC is an ordinary store, and the government toddy dispensary is called Alko.)

Teboil! Neste! Those are both gas stations, often credit card only, with no attendant in sight. Teboil is part of the Russian Lukoil group.

Then we were back in the dark, and the big trucks (including those extended tandem jobs) threw slush, and I was pretty sure we’d perish on the way to the airport. But gradually it got warmer, motoring south, and all we needed were a couple of degrees to melt the ice on the road.

See photos in EarthPhotos.com's Finland and Lapland galleries.

And see previous posts in this series: 1, 2, 3

 

Winter in Finland - 3

 My wife Mirja and I have a cabin on her family's land in the Northern Savonia region of Eastern Finland. We visited for Christmas. We continue our series.

3

Tonight it’s grown colder. Not by much but you can tell. We’ve spent the afternoon in Finnish tradition, lighting candles at ancestors’ graves. We visited four cemeteries, in Leppävirta, Saahkarlahti, Luttila and near here, at Koönönpelta. We’ve seen the patriarchs, men who fought in the war of independence, fathers and grandfathers and great uncles.

Shops were locked tight, so the cemeteries were the most populated places in Finland. So many candles at so many graves that it made you think Finns born around here stay around here.

Such a majority of graves were lit that 1. There must be an entire industry supplying the candles (They look like they all come from the same factory. They’re sheltered by a particular casing to keep snow from putting them out), and 2. Peer pressure must turn people out so that Uncle Hari’s isn’t the only unlit grave.

Winter in Finland - 2

My wife Mirja and I have a cabin on her family's land in the Northern Savonia region of Eastern Finland. We visited for Christmas. Here's a little about our trip, part 2.

2

Oh my, are we full. We hit our little town of Varkaus at 5:30 in the afternoon, not so fresh from the U.S. and firmly in darkness. Up at the farmhouse there were plates and plates of Christmas food, rossoli, ham and sinappi, Finnish mustard.

Pirrika (a kind of potato bread staple) and egg butter. Karelian stew (the pan gravy is just outstanding). Sieni salatti, which is a salty mushroom salad picked in the late fall, pickled in a brine with onion, finely chopped and mixed with a touch of cream. Pickles homegrown and homemade by Risto. Potato and bacon casserole.

Risto has taken a cooking class and much of the food is his, wielded with flourishes of the chef, like whole peppercorns. Tomorrow holds the promise of pancakes (whole milk, not 2%) and homegrown berries. And it’s not even Christmas.

•••••

The ride up from the airport at Helsinki can be done in 3-1/2 hours in summer in the sunshine, but it took over four this time. Mirja’s brother Markku did us the honors, whisking us away from the arrivals hall.

Down at the very south of Finland there was snow in the (dark) fields, but not much. The top of the grass poked through. Roads were dry and clear and it was effectively dark at 3:45, so it was hard to feel like it was mid-afternoon.

Markku was patient with Radio Suomi (Sumoi is Finnish for Finland), but a song with the lyrics, literally, “dee dee dum” in call and response, finally did it. On another channel YLE, the Finnish government broadcaster, has an English newscast now and then. When they say it, it sounds like “Wily English news.”

Road signs indicated things like “beware of moose, next 14 kilometers.” The particular type of halogen they use on roadsides combined with the low clouds to cast orange patches of light just off the highway, just far enough away so you couldn’t see why they were there. The orange color somehow felt warming.

We stopped halfway so Markku could have coffee and a pastry. I didn’t envy him. It was dark and he’d already driven all the way down earlier in the day. And I’m afraid I wasn’t the champion companion, either. Mirja did that duty. They sat up front and caught up in Finnish, and I lay down in the back (as much as you can in a Kia) and slept.

Finns have a well-developed roadhouse culture. Maybe it’s because the highways are monotonous tunnels of darkness. At intervals, oases of services perch by the exit, all together in one complex. There will be fast food and sit-down cafeteria-style grills, newsstands, groceries and ABC stores, toilets and gasoline.

This rest stop had a grocery called Ako, so we went to get odds and ends, things like the licorice flavored candy called salmiakki that Mirja loves. It was disorienting here under halogen in the dark in the snow in the middle of nowhere, seeing everybody so busy - people of all ages, the parking lot and the store and the restaurant all full, families with children sharing a meal, young men smoking and hurrying by, people coming and going. It seemed like the middle of the night, but it was the middle of the afternoon.

See photos in EarthPhotos.com's Finland and Lapland galleries.

And see previous posts in this series: 1

Winter in Finland - 1

My wife Mirja and I have a cabin on her family's land in the Northern Savonia region of Eastern Finland. We visited for Christmas. Here are a few thoughts, in six parts.

1

There’s an expansive view across the lake from the cabin, and more lights on the far shore every time we visit. It’s just about the ideal temperature for winter, hovering a little below zero Celsius, with just an ankle-high cover of snow.

Mirja’s father Risto is a tree farmer. He has outfitted the old farmhouse up on the road with a particular Siberian variety of Christmas tree. There’s a Finnish pine from here on the farm in the cabin.

Mirja is deep into something she does every first night in Finland. She builds a big birchwood fire, parks by the fireplace and immerses herself in Finnish TV.  It doesn’t really matter what’s on. Tonight being the 23rd of December, it’s mostly about Joulopukki (Santa Claus – literally the “Christmas goat”). Well-loved Finnish entertainers are sitting for interviews and performing for Christmas. And Mirja’s enjoying her native language.

There’s a half hour of news: Pictures of destruction in Syria. Extended coverage of tributes to Vaclav Havel, Czech audio with Finnish subtitles. Dispensation not to worry about calories over the holiday and quick lists of ingredients for traditional holiday dishes. And not a single report from a mall.

I sit outside to survey the lake. It’s much less frozen than last time. The ice is only firm very near the shore.  On our last December visit we rode horses and a sleigh across the lake. This time you wouldn’t even walk along the edge.

Northern people will know this, but it’s novel to me. Here near the shore, where unfrozen water runs by the ice, there’s a constant chatter, like maybe mice rooting around inside a wall, except sharper. When a big wind blows from one side of the lake to the other the semi-frozen surface farther out sends up a big, more profound rustle.

See photos in EarthPhotos.com's Finland and Lapland galleries.

The Allure of the Far Away and Exotic

Here's a ruse we hadn't seen: The local boys use signs with people's names to get access inside the pass control gates, then they make like officials who are going to open up another pass control lane for you, grab your passports and expedite you through the lines, with the acquiescence of the real pass control clerks, for tips.

They're on you like a glove until you tip them, at which point they're joined by the baggage cart cadres just outside the pass control desk. These guys artfully monopolize all the available baggage carts and attach themselves to each arrival.

The pass control expediter got a dollar though he demanded ten. At least his scam was novel. Plus, we kind of needed our passports.

But we'd been through the baggage cart game quite enough on this trip to Africa, thank you, and we simply told the little round fellow who appointed us his (thank goodness we knew enough French), "We don't want your help, we will not pay you, go away," and he smiled and laughed and thought it was all a big joke and didn't begin to move until I rested my hand on his shoulder and repeated the same words slowly and more gravely. Finally he shook his head at the terrible wrong to which he'd fallen miserable victim and slowly walked away, but he was back at the curb for one last try.

Welcome to Abidjan.

- Tuesday, 21 March, 1995, from the collected dairies.

Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire

Fun for Frogs in Fiji

The first we heard of a cyclone was Monday afternoon in Port Vila, Vanuatu. We sat, pouring sweat, at a terrace on the only proper street, trying to lunch on burger and beer, but ultimately deconstructing a thing on a bun that started with the kitchen sink and then added beets, onions, carrots, eggs, bacon, cucumber, cheese, tomatoes, lettuce, salt, pepper, chillies, ketchup - and maybe a tiny little speck of free-range, no insecticide Vanuatu beef. In there somewhere.

Next table over a bright pink, corpulent fellow told his ni-Vanuatu lunch mate "Bluh bluh rain, bluh bluh cyclone bluh Fiji."

I leaned out from behind my mound of discarded non-burger and inquired.

"Yeah," he said, "It's southeast of here toward Fiji. We just had a look at it on the internet and it's a big mean thing. It's what's been causing all the rain."

Since we were bound for Fiji in 18 hours this was notable, although just then it was sunny, hot and about 600 per cent humid in Vila. We were just in from Espiratu Santo, another island in the Vanuatu archipelago where we'd passed endless sunny days in relentless, blistering sun.

But in the taxi home we heard the cyclone warnings in three languages on Vanuatu's only AM radio station, with a particular warning for the southeast island group centered around the cult-and-volcano island of Tanna. By now the cyclone had a name. May I introduce you to Jo.

Pretty Far Off the Map in the South Pacific

This week, a couple of quick little impressions about flying in and around the Vanuatu archipelago - Here's one, another in a day or so. Pictured here is an outrigger off Espiritu Santo Island, Vanuatu, and there are a few more photos in the Vanuatu Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

The Vanuatu domestic flight terminal is like the one in Nepal, and probably a dozen others we haven't seen yet. If you're a desperately underperforming, poor country in the first place, your inclination is to spend your tiny wad on the international terminal for transits and arrivals, your countrymen and the hardy few who venture by plane beyond the gateway be damned.

It's just the way it is.

Our flight from the capital to Espiritu Santo island this morning would stop at Craig's Cove, Ambrym Island. I broke out my map of Vanuatu and found two airport symbols on Ambyrm Island. Which would it be, I asked at the check-in desk.

Blank looks. Much consultation. Studying the maps. Asking the boy in the back, the baggage boy.

No one knew, but eventually I found it, a light blue marking of a physical landmark, not a town, and that brought grateful smiles from the check-in boy.

The door to domestic departures spoke three languages - English, French and Bislama. Respectively, it read: Passengers Only, Reservées aux Passagers, Pasensa No Mo. We filed in.

Common Sense and Whiskey, the Book - Sri Lanka, Chapter Nine

Here is Chapter Nine of Common Sense and Whiskey, the book. We'll publish each chapter over the course of the year (Track down previous chapters here). You can order the entire book direct from EarthPhotos Publishing, or at Amazon.com. Photos and additional commentary are available at A Common Sense and Whiskey Companion. And here's the Sri Lanka Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

9 SRI LANKA


There are certain things a guidebook ought to level with you about right up front, before gushing about the exotic culture, pristine sandy beaches and friendly people. Number one, page one, straight flat out:

YOU ARE FLYING INTO A COUNTRY THAT CAN’T KEEP THE ROAD TO ITS ONE INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT PAVED, AND LINES THE ROAD IN AND OUT WITH BOYS WITH NO FACIAL HAIR HOLDING MACHINE GUNS.

Lurching into and out of potholes on the road from the airport to the beach, dim yellow headlights illuminated scrawny street dogs sneering from the road, teeth in road kill. Mirja and I took the diplomatic approach and decided, let’s see what it looks like in the morning.

Common Sense and Whiskey, the Book - Guangxi Province, China, Chapter Eight

Here is Chapter Eight of Common Sense and Whiskey, the book. We'll publish each chapter over the course of the year (Track down previous chapters here). You can order the entire book direct from EarthPhotos Publishing, or at Amazon.com. Photos and additional commentary are available at A Common Sense and Whiskey Companion. And here's the China Gallery at EarthPhotos.com.

Kiosk keepers huddled under strings of bare bulbs. An ancient pagoda perched high up on the hill across the river. Fruit and vegetable vendors and a magazine stand stood open at nine o’clock at night. Around a bend in the road, storefronts set sample dishes on the sidewalk, just out of the rain.

A wet old man beckoned me in. We didn't speak a word in common except “OK” and “bye bye.” I drank a couple of big tall green bottles of beer I couldn't read and I bought a bottle of something he thought I should buy. It was some clear elixir he kept pouring and we kept toasting. Mostly we sat in his store and stared into the fog.

•••••

One side of Guilin was shiny, the other just rubble. Five years before, Guilin tore down the buildings on the whole west side of Zhongshan Road and rebuilt them all. Now they were doing the same thing on the east side.

A bed careened by, balanced on a bicycle. Pointy-nosed little three-wheeled machines sputtered along, almost but not quite trucks. Water buffalo halted traffic and chewed the roadside, right in town. Guilin, somehow, was dusty even in the rain.

Weekend Reading. Pretty Pictures, too

I commend to you my friend, author and traveler Laurence Mitchell's blog, East of Elveden, for weekend enjoyment. As he puts it, he's in, "Petersburg. No, not that one...."

Common Sense and Whiskey in Award-Winning Company

Exciting, delightful news: Common Sense and Whiskey has been chosen as an Iglu Travel Awards 2011 winner. It's our second year in a row to be so honored. The category is Travel Stories. Here's how they put it:

"Our dedication to sharing experiences makes this award one of the most important. Here at Iglu, we're absolutely committed to using detailed first-hand reports. However, we've also got to ensure that the experiences are relevant, accurate, up-to-date and interesting, not to mention well-written and well-presented.

There is never a story told that was not worth hearing, especially if it is relevant and might impact on your travelling plans. The last thing you want to do is fall victim of scams or miss out on a possible bargain. You might acquire knowledge from the first hand experiences that will give you the confidence you need to barter, negotiate, and properly explore a culture. First hand experiences allow you to escape the tourist rut.

Our travel stories blogs are detailed enough to capture you're interest, but not littered with arcane factoids like some of the many blogs which didn't make the cut. The Iglu team realises that when it comes to travel stories, some of them are warnings more than recommendations. We've made sure you get the truth about hundreds of destinations worldwide."

Many thanks to Elizabeth and her fine crew at IgluCruise.com.

New Book Review on Amateur Traveler Blog

Thanks to Chris Christensen and Josh Allen for this review, just up last night on the fine blog Amateur Traveler.

-A blunt, dare I say: “Guide Book” into the reality of “Adventure Travel”.

If you love stories about tropical beaches, amusement parks or milky white sandy beaches; then this isn’t the book for you.

Bill Murray takes a collection of his fifteen most memorable trips and opens your eyes to the frequently good, bad, and of course, ugly parts. You’ll find stories which make you ask “Why the heck did he go there?” Only to find out he might have asked himself that once he was there as well. From a hacking woman in a broken down “guide vehicle” in Tibet to an arduous train ride through endless birch forests along the Trans-Siberian Railway, this book is a wonderful insight into the world of “Traveling off the Beaten Path, Road, Waterway, or Train Track”.

I would recommend this to anyone, especially if you’ve never been to these places. It will certainly spark your interest and for most, will add to the places on your list of “places to see.”

Josh Allen

Common Sense and Whiskey on the Radio

Here's excerpts from today's radio interview about Common Sense and Whiskey, the book, on WUTC Chattanooga. Many thanks to the interviewer, Michael Edward Miller. Click to play the mp3.

Common Sense And Whiskey Radio Interview     

 

Vignettes from Africa V - Around Victoria Falls

We're not in Africa. We're actually en route to Panama City, Pamana today. We'll talk with you from there shortly. Meantime, here's part five of a series of short vignettes from some of our past trips to Africa.

The Zambesi is the fourth largest African river after the Nile, Niger and Congo, at 2700 kilometers. It's the longest to empty into the Indian Ocean. It's mouth in Mozambique comprises a 120 kilometer wide delta.

Its source is in northwest Zambia. Above the falls it’s navigable by bigger boats to only ten kilometers upstream, at Kandahar island. It's a calm river with sandbars and islands. 84 species of fish, 415 of birds, Ebony, Fig, Mahogany, Waterberry and what they call the "Raintree" and the "Sausage Tree" as well as Ilala and Wild Date Palms.

A woman named Precious arranged us a Zambesi cruise. We climbed aboard a two-deck blue and white cruiser and found a seat with some agreeable gin-swilling Germans.

Upstream, hippos yawned, a croc lurked here or there, boats like ours chugged by. The sun ground us into the sundeck.