Kerry, Barbara Barcelona (but alas no Javier Bardem)

The next day the rain in Spain fell mainly in Barcelona. Despite the weather, we wandered under our umbrellas up the famous Rambla, a wide boulevard with a centre median made for strolling. There we saw the most creative buskers ever, people artfully made up and costumed to look like statues.(photo) They posed immobile for several minutes, then would move suddenly, bringing smiles and hopefully a few coins from passers by.
We also explored the old quarter of the city. Barcelona has existed since 230 BC, but enjoyed little prosperity until Charlemagne granted it independence in the ninth century. The first count, Wilfred the Hairy, (yes, really) consolidated the territory and began the House of Barcelona, which was to last for 500 Years. This ancient part of the city dates back to the middle ages, and its winding narrow streets are now packed with charming restaurants and wonderful old stone buildings.
Our apartment is in a more recent part of the city, Eixample. This area was built in the 1860-1910 era, the streets forming a grid system of wide boulevards lined with housing blocks of 3-5 stories. At each intersection there is a diamond-shaped widening of the street, which is replicated in the shape of the buildings. These chamfered intersections provide an airy, spacious feeling to the streetscape. They also provide the space and perspective to enjoy the design of the buildings across the intersection. Many of the buildings in this area are built in the style of the Moderniste movement, Barcelona's version of art nouveau. The Gaudi apartment buildings are here, but he is merely the best-known of many talented Moderniste architects such as Luis Domenech i Montaner and Josep Puig i Cadafalch.
The beautiful architechture makes the city a wonderful place to walk, a sort of outdoor art gallery. We walked everywhere, as our apartment was only six blocks from the Rambla.
It is also a wonderful place to eat, and we ate tapas several times, most notably at a place called Tapas 24. This restaurant offered delicious tapas including the McFoie Burger, that Alan and Kerry are seen holding, a burger made with foie gras, and patatas bravas, french fries with garlic mayonnaise and salsa brava (thick, spicy tomato sauce entirely unlike ketchup). Dessert was a dollop of dense chocolate mousse served with a dash of olive oil and kosher salt.
Staying in an apartment meant that we had to shop, which gave us an excuse to go to Barcelona's fabulous markets. The Market St. Josep is right downtown, just off the Rambla. It is an old covered market with iron gates, and cast iron pillars supporting the vast high roof. It is the size of a city block. Every kind of food that is locally available can be found here, fruits, nuts, olives, vegetables, meats, fish and seafood, and baked goods of all kinds. Iberian hams and chorizo sausage, and many cheeses including several versions of the famous Manchego, were on sale. As may be expected, the market was always crowded, both with tourists taking photos and Barcelonans buying dinner.
We cooked several memorable dinners in our apartment, all four of us making our own versions of tapas dishes. We bought a whole chicken one night, the neck and feet then went into a stock that in turn made a wonderfuil roasted tomato and garlic soup, which we ate with a tapas of breaded artichokes, fresh sardines, roasted asparagus, patatas bravas and dates stuffed with blue cheese and roasted almonds. The next night we roasted the chicken, and ate it with a delicious mushroom risotto and deep fried eggplant, lightly breaded and drizzled with honey.
Many of our daily iteineraries were planned around a chosen lunch destination, carefully selected by our friend Alan. One of these, Quimet i Quimet, is reputed to be the favourite haunt of a well-knowm Barcelona chef, and was recommended by two guide books. We arrived there after a long walk in Montjuic Park. We had passed up the Miro museum, due to an overlong line-up, and were looking forward to sitting down to an enjoyable lunch. Quimet i Quimet turned out to be a hole in the wall, with no chairs, so we stood to eat. We shared two plates of tapas, and had two glasses of wine and two beers among the four of us, for a bill of 49 Euros ($80 Cdn)! So much for the guide books.
We will definitely come back to this fabulous city. We were sorry to leave, but reluctantly climbed into our rented Seat Leon (it's a car) to drive to our next destination, a villa in a rural village in Languedoc

Cinc Sentit

It is said by some that Barcelona has surpassed Paris as the best place to eat in the world. One of the reasons for this observation is Cinc Sentit (meaning Five Senses in Catalan), a restaurant run by a Catalan-Canadian chef, his mother and his sister which has gained a trans-Atlantic reputation for fine food.

We ordered the tasting menu to get a survey of what the restaurant had to offer, and found the quality and creativity of their food to be of the first rank. Our meal started with a layered shot of rock salt, warm maple syrup, chilled cream, and cava sabayon, a whipped custard made with sparkling wine. The shot is warm and cold, salty and sweet, and rich and creamy, all at the same time (photo). It is accompanied by a tapas of dry-fried marcona almonds and pimento-stuffed gordal olives.

Next came marinated mussels on green asparagus cream, followed by foie gras in a crisp pastry crust, with glazed leeks and caramelized sugar. The fourth course consisted of a large perfectly sauteed scallop, on a Jerusalem artichoke puree that had been seasoned with onion sauce. The second fish course was a piece of turbot filet on a bed of fresh young peas and pureed garlic shoots (photo).

The Iberian suckling pig was crisp and succulent, and served with apples of two textures. Then we were served anise and fresh mint sorbet, to clear the palate. Of course, each course was accompanied by a glass of the appropriate Spanish wine, selected to perfectly compliment the flavours of each dish.

The first dessert was three variations on the orange; blood, navel and kumquat, served with "pop rocks" a childish and unexpected addition. The final course was chocolate olive oil ice cream with shattered bread and macadamias, a combination that sounds unlikely, but was delicious. The coffee came with five different kinds of sugar, presented in test tubes (photo).

This dinner was most memorable, truly a sublime pleasure for all of the cinc sentit. We don't yet know if Barcelona has indeed surpassed Paris as the food Mecca, but we will let you know our findings after we get there.

Barcelona and Barca

We landed in Barcelona and rushed downtown to meet our friends, Alan Tate and Kerry McCuaig, at the apartment we were to share for the week. We had to hurry because our plane landed at 6:00 pm and we had tickets to see the legendary Barcelona soccer team at 8:00 pm. We dropped off our bags and hopped on the subway, heading for Camp Nou stadium.

The Barcelona soccer team has a long and rich history. It was founded in 1899, by a Swiss, John Gamper, as a democratic organization, and is still actually a club, now with over 100,000 members, who directly elect the team president and board of directors. Over the years Barca (pronounced Barsa) came to be regarded as a potent symbol of Catalan nationalism. Catalonia was an ancient kingdom, with its own language and culture, and Barcelona was its capital city. For many years the Catalan language was suppressed, along with its nacent union movement and the left-wing parties. In 1923, a visiting orchestra playing prior to a Barca match struck up the Spanish national anthem and was roundly booed and jeered by the fans in attendance. The dictatorial regime, embarrassed, expelled Gamper from the country in retaliation.

During the Spanish civil war 1936-39, Barcelona was a centre of resistance by left-wing and republican forces to the attempted military coup by the Fascist Generalissimo Franco. After the Franco forces defeated the troops of the legitimate elected government, they repressed all dissent. They executed thousands of innocent people, including the President of the Barca team, who was also a left-wing member of parliament.

Throughout the Franco years, the club was regarded as a symbol of hope by Barcelonans. They especially cheered any victory over Real Madrid, a team that was closely identified with the regime. When the team needed a new stadium in the 1950's, team supporters flocked to the team's offices, and lined up to donate money and to buy the bonds the team issued to finance the project. This effort resulted in Camp Nou which can hold 98,000 fans.

Today, the Catalan language is in daily use in Barcelona, rivalling Spanish (Castillian). There are TV stations and newspapers in Catalan, and the culture now thrives in the theatre, songs, and its own literature as well as being spoken as the daily language of many thousands of people. They all still love their team. The Barca team has its own TV channel, broadcasting 12 hours per day in Catalan.

When we arrived at the stadium, we were treated to a league game against lightly regarded Recreativo de Huelba, which Barca won handily, 2-0. We had great seats at field level. After a very early first goal, they cruised through the rest of the first half, then turned it on in the second until they scored the insurance marker, despite a sometimes plucky defence and a couple of good scoring opportunities by the outmatched Recreativo.

It was an exciting beginning to our week in beautiful Barcelona.

Hangin' out in Valle Gran Rey

We docked in Valle Gran Rey (The Valley of the Great King), La Gomera last Friday, April 3. After the having seen the changes to Santa Cruz, I tried not to let my hopes get too high that it would be exactly as it was back in the day. It's not, of course, but it is still lovely, and the tourist development that has taken place is mostly small-scale, although there has been a lot of it. It hasn't ruined the beauty of the place, although the new roads, more cars, more hotels (low-rise, thankfully) and many more restaurants do encroach on it somewhat. There are many tourists, mostly German, but they are spread out enough so that the streets, shops, and restaurants are seldom crowded (except at nine pm one night, when we went out for a late dinner and had to go to three restaurants before we could find a table).

The great king's valley is about 2 kilometres wide at the sea shore, but narrows quickly further inland. There are three centres of houses, shops, and restaurants. Vueltas, at the extreme southern end, is the harbour where the ferry docks and a small fishing fleet moors its boats. A neighbourhood of houses, apartments, bars and shops sits immediately north of the docks at the base of the mountain (La Guerguenche) that defines the southern side of the valley. The sun doesn't rise over this mountain until after 10:30 am, so the mornings arrive very gently. Our apartment is in Vueltas.

At the other (northern) end of a kilometre-long stretch of black (volcanic) sand beach is La Playa, another area of shops, restaurants, bars and hotels, with some local Canarians living there as well. This is a more happening area at night. There is a third built-up area, La Calera, (photo) about a kilometre inland from the beach, that is built up the base of the mountain (La Merica) that comprises the northern side of the valley. In all three areas many of the apartments are for rent to tourists, and most businesses cater to the tourists. Menus are in Spanish, German, and English.

We were met at the ferry by Steve and Christine, the couple who own the apartment we are renting for the week. They walked us to the apartment, gave us a quick tour, then left us to explore this wonderful place on our own. The apartment has one bedroom and is of modest size, but it has glass patio doors comprising most of the west wall that open onto a balcony that has a fabulous view of the ocean, which is literally across the street. (photo)

We lost no time in starting to explore the valley, and have done a great deal of walking. Although there have been many changes and much construction since my last visit 39 years ago, some essential elements remain. The house I rented with friends 39 years ago is still there, in La Calera.(photo below) The lower floor is now a restaurant, where we had dinner one night. The food was good, home cooking. Barb had grilled tuna, I had grilled rabbit, done in the typical Canarian fashion, i.e with mojo verde (sauce made from hot green peppers, cumin, parsley and garlic pureed with olive oil and vinegar) and mojo colorado (sauce of hot red peppers, cumin, garlic, pimento, pureed with olive oil and vinegar), and wrinkly potatoes (new potatoes boiled in their skins in very salty water, then finished in the oven so the water leaves a slight salt crust on the potatoes when it dries). The waitress, like almost all the others we met, was a friendly German woman. She told us that one of the cooks now lives upstairs, in my former digs..

The bar on the beach where I used to go swimming, the Bar las Journadas, is still open and serving beer. Barb and I had lunch there. Maria, who is now over 80, owned it then and still owns it. She cooked our lunch, vegetable soup and fried tuna steak, just as she had 39 years ago. It's still delicious. Her son, who is 62, helps run the place these days. He came home to help out after spending many years in England. He owns a big red Harley with lots of chrome, and delights in blasting his way around the few streets that make up this small valley.

I walked to the Playa del Ingles, a beach at the extreme northern end of the valley that is somewhat secluded and cut off from the rest of the beaches. I had camped there for a few days when I first arrived years ago. I was a bit taken aback when I discovered that it is now a nude beach.

After all the activities of the previous seven weeks of touring, we were ready to relax, and this is the perfect spot to do just that. We walked, read novels, swam and ate good food. The sun shone every day, and the days were warm but the nights were cool. We even turned on the TV a couple of times, and found to our great amusement, a German sports channel that was broadcasting the men's world curling championships, live from Moncton. The week seemed to just slip by and before we knew it, it was time to get back on the ferry and return to Santa Cruz de Tenerife, on the way to our next stop, the fabulous city of Barcelona.

Athens to the Canary Islands

We arrived back in Athens after dropping off the rental car in Piraeus. We had a final dinner at our favourite taverna, and checked into our hotel. The next morning, we had breakfast and said goodbye to Nikos, who wasn't leaving until two days later.

We went to Syntagma square to catch the airport bus, only to find that the traffic was being blocked by a large group of textile workers from northern Greece. They had been demonstrating since the previous day, protesting layoffs and unpaid wages, and many of them had camped in the square overnight. They had placed thousands of large spools of thread in the square to symbolize the cloth not woven and the garments unmade because of the layoffs. There was a massive police presence, complete with riot gear and armoured buses, but this had not resulted in any violence by the time we had to leave. We were able to take the subway and catch a bus from the end of the subway line to the airport, in plenty of time to catch our flight.

We had an overnight stop near Barcelona prior to getting on our connecting flight to the Canary Islands. We stayed in a modern hotel near the airport in a small town called Castelldefels, right on the Mediterranean. Unfortunately it rained the whole time we were there, one of the very few times the weather gods have not smiled on us during our trip, so we couldn't take advantage of the sea. We made up for that by having a wonderful dinner in a nearby restaurant, a fabulous paella laden with clams, mussels, winkles, shrimp, squid, scallops and chicken all baked in rice and perfumed with saffron. We washed this down with a good local white wine, recommended by our server, and then returned to our hotel for a good night's sleep.

The next morning's flight to Santa Cruz de Tenerife was uneventful, although I was excited to be returning to a city where I had spent time 39 years ago. I wanted to sit in my sidewalk cafe on the square just as I had done then, drinking cafe con leche and reading the paper. Alas, this was not to be. They appear to have replaced my square with a shopping mall, and the downtown area has been remodelled and modernized. I'm sure they think this is an improvement, but it was done at the expense of a small piece of my soul.

Santa Cruz is now a modern and well-to-do city where tourists from all over Europe come to shop. The downtown is replete with stores selling electronic goods, fashion jewelry, and high end clothing. There is a very modern centre for the performing arts (photo). Many American retail and restaurant chains are represented, including McDonald's and Burger King. I'm sure Walmart is next.

We took a tram to the end of the line the next day, to what used to be the separate town of La Laguna. Here we saw streetscapes and businesses that are more in line with my memories of the Canary Islands. We went to a museum of Canary Island history and then had lunch at a little bodega around the corner. I had an entire octopus, deep-fried and deposited unceremoniously on a plate, along with a side of fresh-cut french fries. It was at least half a kilo of meat, good but a little chewy.

We were so full from our late lunch that we didn't feel much like dinner, so we wandered and window shopped in downtown Santa Cruz, stopping for a late-night tapas (rabbit in pepper sauce) and a glass of wine before turning in.

The next day we took the ferry from Santa Cruz to Valle Gran Rey on La Gomera, another of the Canary Islands where I had lived for almost two months those many years ago.

Nafplio

We said goodbye to Sarah and wished her good luck in her job-hunting, and headed off for Nafplio.

Nafplio is one of the prettiest towns we saw in Greece. It was the capital of Greece for a brief period following independence. Built on a narrow stip of land beneath (you guessed it) not one but two hillside fortresses, it has attractive narrow streets, elegant Venetian houses, and flower bedecked balconies. Athenians flock to this lively seaside town for weekend get-aways, thronging its quayside cafes and upscale boutiques and restaurants.

We were entirely unaware that there would be weekend crowds, but luckily we arrived on a Sunday at mid-day, when all the Athenians were getting ready to go home. We secured a room in a charming but excessively vertical stone hotel. Fortunately our room was on the ground floor, even though the office and restaurant could only be reached via four flights of stairs. We thought it best to get out of town while the crowds dissipated, so we set off to find the famous ancient Greek Theatre of Epidavros, reputed to be some 30 km distant.

We thought, quite reasonably it seemed, that the ancient Theatre of Epidavros would be found in or near the town of Ancient Epidavros. We dutifully followed the signs leading there, and in the town followed more signs directing us to the "ancient theatre". This theatre turned out to be indeed ancient, but it was a tiny amphitheatre that might seat 200, if they were all good friends. Barb was especially disappointed when we soon concluded that we were in the wrong place.

A couple hours of driving down various rural roads with precipitous mountain hairpin turns did not result in our getting any closer to the theatre so we finally turned, disgruntled, back towards Nafplio. We did find a small bridge that was built by the ancient Mycenians 3000 years ago. We convinced ourselves as a sort of consolation that the Spartan army must have marched over this very bridge on their way to attack Athens. After we left the bridge, Nikos was studying the road map in the back seat, and proposed that we try one more place before giving up on the theatre. It sounded improbable to me, but after a few kilometers and a wrong turn, we wound up in a large parking lot, mostly empty in the late afternoon except for a couple of tour buses and a few cars. We had finally found it!

The theatre is spectacular, and in very good condition. It is huge, capable of seating 14,000, and amazingly well-preserved. The acoustics are incredible. The acoustical centre of the stage is marked by a round flat stone about one metre in diameter. A person standing on that stone speaking, or a coin dropped on the stone, can be heard perfectly well in the highest row of seats. Additionally, some of the sound reflects back to the speaker, a sort of natural monitor. The theatre is still used today, with the annual Hellenic Festival offering both modern and ancient Greek dramas during the summer.

We were fortunate that when we arrived, a tour group of Russian women, some of whom were a choir, were moved to give an impromptu performance. They sang several songs in four-part harmony, filling the whole theatre with their beautiful voices. We left the theatre and drove back to Nafplios, still thrilled by the fabulous experience.

The next morning, we climbed the four flights of stairs for breakfast, and enjoyed a great view of the harbour and the small island fortress of Bourtzi. After breakfast, I climbed up to the small fortress at the top of the hill behind the hotel, while Nikos climbed the 999 steps to the large Palamidi fortress.(photo) We then drove back to Athens, as we had to return our rental car and prepare for the next leg of our journey

Lakonia Region

English speakers can thank the Lakonians for the word laconic (terse or concise; of few words), which many still are.

This region contains Sparta, which was rebuilt in the 19th century on the ruins of the ancient city. This causes complications for the modern citizens. Every home addition or excavation for a new water line is accompanied by prayers to any appropriate deity that ancient ruins will not be uncovered, because then work must stop immediately, and the site must be investigated and catalogued, which can take many months.

The ancient city of Mystras, a centre of culture of the Byzantine Empire, is 7 km west of here. The ruins of a Frankish fortress dominate the hillside, with the remains of many churches, libraries, strongholds, palaces and monasteries contained by the upper and lower walled towns descending below it.

Our host in Sparta was Stathis Stathopoulos, yet another old friend of Barb's (an activist she knew in Toronto) was more loquacious than most Lakonians. He took us for dinner, and we discussed the political and economic situation in Greece. His opinion is that the Greek economy is hanging by a thread. He is a part-time community college teacher, who, although he has been diligently teaching his courses, hasn't been paid since October. While we were at his house, we saw a demonstration of firefighters on the news, the same guys who were called heroes for fighting the forest fires in 2007, who also haven't been paid in months.

The next morning we went to the Museum of the Olive, which traced the roots (get it?) of the olive and olive oil from earliest times. We now know more about the history and production of olive oil and other products than any reasonable person should, but it was a lovely museum.

We then drove to Monemvasia, a perfect fortress town built on a tower of rock with sheer cliffs rising hundreds of feet from the sea. This town was the leading commercial centre for the region during the Byzantine era. It was famous throughout Europe for its highly-praised Malvasia-grape wine.

The only access is via a single causeway. We drove across it and followed the narrow road along the base of the rock. This road stopped abruptly at a massive fortified stone gate, where we had to park, as this town was built centuries before the automobile. The narrow passageway through the gate turned sharply to the right and then went straight ahead,, where we emerged into a fabulous stone town. The medieval town is mostly restored, and has stores and restaurants, as well as guest houses. Narrow cobbled streets lead ever upward, and the views of the Myrtoon Sea become more spectacular the higher one goes. These streets are soon stairways, then steep paths that lead to the ruins of the upper town and also those of a large fortress that crowns the hill. Much of the curtain wall at the top of the cliffs is intact, and the ruins are spectacular. We had a lovely lunch on a terrace overlooking the sea, and then Nikos and I climbed to the top of the highest peak. The view was stunning.

We then returned to Sparta where Stathis made us a wonderful avgolemono soup, and we talked for hours.

Kalamata

After driving through yet more mountains, we emerged in the sunny city of Kalamata, home of figs, olives, and Sarah and Nikos' relatives on their father's side. Kalamata is home port to many fishing vessels. Orange and olive groves surround the city, and many residents have orange and lemon trees right outside their back doors.

Sarah and Nikos stayed in their family home, a small old-style farm-house soon to be developed into a block of flats. The house stands on a piece of land between the downtown and the port which have now grown together to become one urban area. There are still about 40 orange and lemon trees on the property. It is a five minute walk to the sea. Apartments have been built on all of the adjacent land, and only the poor economic times have slowed the development of their family's remaining plot.

Kalamata celebrates its independence day two days early, because they declared independence and rose against the Turks two days before the rest of Greece in 1821. We went to the independence day celebrations, which were marked by many wordy speeches and a reenactment. The reenactment involved many Greeks dressed in traditional costumes, some shooting very loud blanks from antique firearms. Prior to the festivities getting started, the shock waves from their practice rounds set off several car alarms, much to the delight of the young men who fired them. After the speeches these young people walking in a procession led by Orthodox priests carrying a large cross. When they got to the main square, the crowd surged forward, going around the crowd control barriers and getting in front of us, while the police who were supposed to keep order shrugged and disappeared. We assume they reenacted driving out the Turks, but we saw no-one dressed as Turks. I guess it would be difficult to get someone to volunteer to play the side that were both the villains and the losers.

Some of our time in Kalamata was spent on family concerns. Sarah needed to get her taftotita (Greek identity card) so she could work, as she is looking for a job and wants to work here for six months. This took several trips to the municipal offices and the police station. Uncle Kostas took us all out for dinner one night to a taverna that had wonderful food and a bouzouki player who played traditional music. The bouzouki player had spent some time in Canada and, when told we were from Canada, came over and shook my hand.

Barb and I stayed with a friend of hers, Giorgos Kelarakos, and his partner Carol, a most hospitable woman from Baltimore. They both made us feel right at home. After a few days we continued our tour of the Peloponesse, starting with Sparta.

Olympia

We traveled on to the town of Olympia, where the ancient Olmypic games took place quadrennially for over 1100 years. These games were the ancient world's biggest sporting event. Warring states suspended hostilities in order to send their athletes. Wealthy sponsors vied to outdo each other, victorious athletes won great fame, and could parlay their feats of strength and speed into a considerable fortune. It sounds very familiar, except women (and slaves) were not allowed to participate. Any woman who even attempted to attend was hurled off a nearby rock if she was caught.

The festival lasted five days, and events included wrestling, chariot and horse racing, the pentathlon (wrestling, discus and javelin throwing, long jump, and running) and pankration, a vicious form of fisticuffs in which the only prohibited tactics were biting and eye-gouging (except in Sparta, were eye-gouging was allowed). Writers, poets and historians read their works to large audiences. The citizens of various city-states got together, drank wine, clinched business deals, and occasionally settled their differences without resorting to the battlefield. The ancient games were last held in 394 AD, when the emperor Theodosius I decreed their end as they were a "pagan" festival.

The site today is much visited by tourists, so we arrived early in the morning. We were rewarded by having the ruins of the ancient stadium to ourselves for the first 20 minutes.Within the stadium, the start and finish lines of the 120 metre sprint track still survive, as do the judges seats. The stadium could seat 45,000 spectators.

It was thrilling to walk the very path that the athletes took so long ago, and enter the olympic staduim through the arched tunnel, of which only one span remains. As an incentive for honest competition, the athletes had to walk by a row of statues of Zeus on their way to the tunnel. The cost of the statues had been paid from the heavy fines levied on athletes who had been caught cheating in previous games, an object lesson which subsequent athletes were supposed to find obvious.

The site also contains the ruins of many buildings that were important to the games. The stone remnants of a gymnasium where wrestlers and pentathletes trained is the first ruin encountered on entering the site. The most imposing ruin is that of the Temple of Zeus, which was destroyed by two earthquakes in the 6th century AD, after having stood for more than 1000 years. The huge round fluted pillars, made up of massive blocks of limestone perhaps two metres in diameter and well over a metre thick, were knocked over like stacks of dominoes, and remain where they fell 1500 years ago.

We spent the morning looking at the many ruins, and imagining the grandeur of the buildings in their heyday. We saw the spot where the Olympic flame is lit every four years, to be carried to the city hosting the games.

In the afternoon, we went to the archaeological museum, where the famous statue of Hermes carrying the infant Dionysis is kept. We saw many artifacts and sculptures that had been found at the olympic site, including the magnificent western pediment from the Temple of Zeus, showing the fight between the Centaurs and the Lapiths.

The modern town of Olympia is unabashedly a tourist town. The main streets are lined with stores selling souvenir t-shirts and trinkets of all kinds, bars, and restaurants. Fortunately for Barb, we did find a book store that sold English language novels, including some impenetrable and turgid Greek fiction translated into English. We also managed to find a taverna on a side street near our pension that served fine home cooking, Greek style.

We spent the night in a cheap and cheerful pension, and then set off for Kalamata.

Kalavryta

We entered the town of Kalavryta after a drive of several hours through the mountains. The roads had to be driven with caution, as they snaked their way up, down and around the steep slopes. We passed dozens of roadside memorials, mute evidence of the danger in taking the highway too lightly.

We felt that it was important to go there. Kalavryta was the site of a horrible massacre ordered by the Nazis during World War II. There had been partisan activity in the mountains around the town, a unit of 80 German soldiers had been captured by the partisans and some had been killed in that action. The partisans had started negotiations to exchange the prisoners On December 13, 1943, the Nazis took revenge for this on the civilian inhabitants of the town. Every man and boy over the age of 15 years was taken to a hillside outside the town and shot dead. The total number killed in the region was 1436. The women and children were locked in the local schoolhouse and it was set on fire, as was the rest of the town. The women and children managed to escape the fire, but they could do nothing after they escaped but bury the dead, digging with sticks and their bare hands in the frozen earth.

The school house has been rebuilt, and it has been turned into a museum that relays a history of these horrific events in a dignified and even understated manner. Video recordings of survivors tell their personal memories of this atrocity. Especially moving was a wall of the museum that is covered with hundreds of photos of the boys and men who died that day.

Kalavryta today is a lovely town set among snow-capped mountains. There is skiing in the area, so tourists and Greek skiers are in town all winter. But all Greeks live in the middle of their history, and this is certainly no truer anywhere than in Kalavryta. In many tavernas and shops, there are paintings that commemorate this massacre. The hands of the old cathedral clock in the main square are stopped at 2:34, the time that the shooting began. On the road out of town, a memorial and a large white cross stand on that fatal hillside, a stark and poignant reminder of the mass murder that was committed there. With white stones the following messages are spelled out in large letters at the base of the hill "OXI STOPOLEMO" (No to war) and "EIPINH" (Peace). We hope this message resonates with the thousands of people who pass the memorial, as it certainly did with us.

Dining and Wining in the Peloponnese

We stayed overnight in Piraeus.The next morning we rented a car to drive to Patras, where the fabulous Mavrodaphne de Patras, my favourite dessert wine, is made.

We drove through Corinth and along the coast highway. After a few hours, we decided we were hungry so we stopped in the small town of Derveni and found a taverna. It was unfortunately empty, never a good sign. The owner ushered us to a table, sat down with us, took out a pad of paper and explained to us what we would like for lunch as he wrote it on the pad.

We need not have worried. We started with a fabulous fish soup, then skordalia (potatoes mashed with a near lethal amount of garlic), grilled squid stuffed with feta, a whole cod perfectly fried in cornmeal batter, and horta, a green vegetable, cooked in olive oil. We declined to order wine as we were driving, but the taverna owner was convinced that his food could not be fully enjoyed without it, so he gave us each a small glass on the house. Then he brought us dessert, candied orange peel in honey syrup, the perfect ending to a wonderful meal.

Thus fortified, we continued along the coast to Patras, the sparkling Gulf of Corinth on our right and scenic mountains on our left. We stayed at a nice hotel in Patras, and headed out the next morning to visit the Achaia Claus Winery. This winery is older than Canada, having been founded in 1860 by a German winemaker, Gustav Claus. It sits atop a high hill, with grapes growing on the slopes below. The several stone buildings include large storehouses in which there are hundreds of barrels of Mavrodaphne de Patras, each holding 2500 litres. Some of these barrels date as far back as 1907. There are some barrels that are even older, but these are commemorative vintages and the wine is not for sale. There are two barrels from 1873, and we were told these are the second oldest barrels of wine in the world.

This is not the only production facility, as the winery produces 25 million litres of wine per year, mostly for export to Germany, the USA, and Canada. They make many different wines, including dry reds and whites, plus a very good sauterne-like dessert wine made with muscat grapes, as well as the Mavrodaphne. Mavrodaphne is the variety of dark red grape from which the wine is made. It is named for the dark-eyed fiancee of Gustav Claus, (Mavros means dark, and Daphne was her name) who died before they could be wed.

The winery has survived many challenges, including being occupied by the German Army during WWII. Apparently, the German founder had laid down commemorative barrels on the accession of Kaiser Wilhelm, and honouring Baron Otto Von Bismarck. When German officers came to these barrels during a winery tour, they immediately snapped to attention and saluted them. There were also members of the Greek resistance working at the winery, so the British never bombed it.

A group of school children, about ten or eleven years old, was about to take a tour of the winery when we arrived. The tour guide, Tonia, insisted that we join that tour because the next one wouldn't take place for another hour. She told us later that she immediately told the kids in Greek that foreigners had joined the tour, and the kids had to be on their best behaviour so the foreigners would not go back to their country and report that Greek school kids were badly behaved. It seemed to work, as the kids were quite attentive to her talks about the winery, and didn't even become restless when she switched to English at each stop on the tour for our benefit.


When we were passing the oldest barrels, we noticed that two of them had a slight leak, and a substance like dark molasses had collected where the wine had seeped out. I tasted this on my finger, it was sweet and sticky, tasting wonderfully of dried figs.

When the tour finished the school kids got back on their bus, and we went back to the tasting room to sample the wines we had seen being made. After the teachers from the school tour had finished buying their wine, we started to have an interesting conversation with Tonia about the wines she was giving us to taste. I told her of a dessert I made using dried figs poached in some Mavrodaphne de Patras. She responded by giving me a recipe book of dishes using the wine, some of which will undoubtedly be served in Yarker.

And then, all hell broke loose. Two busloads of senior citizens had turned up unannounced, on a day trip from Athens, and they all crowded up to the bar, pushing and jostling, for their free tasting glass of wine. They were lined up four deep, pressing us helplessly against the bar, as Tonia frantically filled plastic glasses and passed them out to the insatiable seniors, who seemed to come back several times for refills. There was a lot of muttering in Greek about foreigners taking up space at the bar, and having wine that they weren't being offered. One elderly gent, tired of waiting for a refill, grabbed one of the open tasting bottles from the end of the bar and started drinking from it. Then they started buying bottles of the cheapest wine, shouting out their orders over each other as they continued to jostle and elbow at the bar. While all this mayhem was going on in the tasting room, several of them slipped outside, got out their kitchen knives and began harvesting vegetables from the winery grounds into plastic bags.

After they finally cleared off, poor Tonia had to take a few minutes to collect herself, and we bought our wine, including a bottle of ten year old Mavrodaphne de Patras. We resisted buying the collector's special vintage blended from wines dating back to 1896, bottled in 2004 to commemorate the Athens Olympics. Only 108 bottles of this were made, they are all numbered, and they cost around 1400 euros.Only a few are left.

We left the winery in high spirits, promising to sent Tonia the picture we took of her. We continued on through the mountains to Kalavryta, for our next stop.

Splendid Syros

(March 14) A very early morning subway ride brought us to Piraeus (the port for Athens) where we boarded a large and quite comfortable ferry. Four hours later we arrived at the island of Syros where we disembarked, to spend a couple of days experiencing the sunny and relaxed atmosphere of a Greek Island.

The main town on Syros, Ermoupolis, was the commercial, naval, and cultural centre of Greece in the 19th century. It has declined economically since then, but still has a textile industry and some ship building, as well as being the legal, administrative and service centre of the Cyclades archipelago. Its current population is about 13,000.

Ermoupolis is very beautiful, curving around a natural harbour. As we arrived on the ferry we could see the town rising up the two hills before us, splendid in the bright clear Aegean sunlight. The buildings were painted in whites and pastel yellows and pinks, with the requisite red tile roofs. One of the main hills is topped by a Greek Orthodox church, the other boasts a Catholic church. The main street is paved with marble blocks the size and shape of patio stones, as are the sidewalks and many of the streets and walkways throughout the town. The main street follows the harbour, and is quite lively, lined with shops and outdoor cafes. The rest of the town is a constant delight, with beautiful streets, walkways and outdoor stairways that invite you to leave the harbour and wander uphill to explore. The main square, just two blocks from the harbour, is surprisingly grand, and also paved with marble. The entire north side of the square, a long city block, is occupied by a large three-story neoclassical building with a tile roof that houses the municipal offices and law courts. The opposite side is lined with palm trees and outdoor cafes. Children were playing and adults were walking and socializing whenever we walked through it.

We checked into an inexpensive but comfortable pension with a terrace overlooking the harbour and a small kitchen. After settling in we set off to walk along the harbour. Later on we visited some old friends of Barb's, Seraphim and Soula Kechayoglou, who came to pick us up and drove us to their beautiful house on the other side of the island, about 20 minutes away, in Poseidonia. Their house was quite beautiful and had a marvelous view of a bay dotted with several small islands. We returned to our pension and ate a late supper at a cafe on the west side of the main square that had the best gyros we had in Greece.

The next day Nikos and I went for a long walk past the shipyard at the southern end of the harbour, and around the peninsula that guarded the southern approach to the town. We passed the ruins of a large stone factory building, quite beautiful, which had been constructed during the 18th century by Venetians to make leather goods. Further out along the point was the ruin of a stone prison, also quite beautiful, which we explored. Nearby was the abandoned stone building of the Eastern Telegraph Company (picture), in quite good condition and right by the sea, that would make a splendid bed and breakfast, or even a tea room, should we get the urge to move to a Greek island.

That evening we were taken to a marvellous restaurant by Seraphim and Soula, which specialized in meats simmered in succulent sauces and flavoured with cinnamon. My veal was cooked in a very rich sauce of plums, onions and sundried tomatoes, all washed down with good taverna wine. The dessert was scoops of rich Greek yogurt, which is the consistency of cream cheese, mixed with halvah, a sublime combination.

The next day Barb and I explored the town, up and down the stairs, and discussed moving there, as we do in most of the fabulous places we visit. Later that afternoon it began to rain and as soon as the sun was gone the chilly winds of early spring reminded us reminded us that every silver lining has a cloud. We got back on the ferry to return to Piraeus, and the next phase of our journey.

Athens 1

After a brief flight over the Mediterranean, we arrived at the Athens airport early on March 11. We waited there until we were joined by Sarah and Nikos, Barb's daughter and son, who flew in from Israel and Toronto respectively to join us for a visit to Greece.
Athens is a beautiful place if a little down-at-the-heels. A concerned citizen who we met on the bus from the airport (and who had spent some time in Philadelphia, so spoke English with an American Greek accent), took great care to warn us about Greek drivers and that crossing the street is a dangerous and possibly life-threatening activity in Athens. Our experience is that Greek drivers are very like Egyptians when it comes to respecting the rules of the road.
We checked into our hotel in Plaka, a trendy district in downtown Athens, and were gratified to find that we could see the Acropolis from our hotel room window. That night we celebrated Nikos' birthday by having our first of many fine taverna meals. The roast lamb was excellent, cooked in clay pots.
The next day we went up to the Acropolis, despite intermittent rain. We were fortunate that the staff had returned to work, as they had been on strike for weeks. Apparently they have not been paid in months, a reflection of the perilous financial state of the Greek government, that is chronically short of funds, another reflection of the world economic crisis.
We did get to see the Temple of Athena Nike, the Parthenon, and the Erechtheion, with its most famous southern portico supported by the much-photographed statues of six maidens, the Caryatids (see photo). Nikos and I took a walk in the rain in the afternoon, and saw Hadrian's Gate, named for the Roman emperor, and the Olympic Stadium, built in 1896 entirely of marble, to house the first modern olympic games.
The next day was sunnier, and we saw the National Archeological museum, full of ancient statuary and fabulous gold and bronze artifacts and jewelry from the centuries that Greece was the cultural and intellectual leader of the ancient world.
We went to the Athens open air meat and fish market. There was every kind of fish imaginable including tuna, shark, as well as marlin, plus prawns, crab, squid and octopus, all displayed on crushed ice. There were also sides of beef, pork and lamb, hanging without benefit of refrigeration, and also all of the organ meats in large tubs. Rabbits were hung skinned, but their hind feet and tails were still attached, probably for good luck, but of course luck had run out for the rabbits. The butchers all smoked, and laughed and joked with each other and with their customers as they cut the meats, a perpetual cigarette butt dangling from the corners of their mouths. It was a sight that would reduce a Canadian health inspector to a quivering, stuttering mass of indignation.
After leaving the market we went across the street fot a late lunch. We ate delicious gyros from a busy stall, savouring the slightly smoky taste. We then walked back to the hotel via Monasteraki square. Later that evening we met Thanassis Samaras (formerly of Injured Workers Consultants in Toronto) and his partner Mina, who took us to a lovely local taverna for a late evening snack and some wine.
The next day we bummed around Athens and prepared to depart for Syros, an island in the Aegean.

Cruising up the Nile

We boarded our cruise boat around noon on Saturday March 7, to cruise upriver from Luxor to Aswan. This cruise had several planned stops along the way to see some of the many fascinating archaeological sites.

After settling in to our small but comfortable cabin (complete with television), we went for lunch and met our table-mates. These were a Canadian couple, Trish and Joe, from Edmonton but currently working in Doha, Qatar on the Persian Gulf, and Erica and Peter, from Sydney, Australia. They proved to be amiable companions.

We had a farewell tea on board with our friends the Pickerings and thanked them for their wonderful hospitality.

The next morning we were taken on a tour of the Valley of the Kings. This most famous site is the destination of seemingly every tourist in Egypt. Most of them seemed to arrive right after we did. The spectacular tombs were all very crowded, with line-ups at almost every one. Throughout the day, busses continually arrived and disgorged yet more people, who travelled from tomb to tomb in large groups, each led by a guide. The guides carried various coloured umbrellas, flags, and the like so that their groups could follow them through the crowds. The guides would herd their groups together at various points of interest, and deliver lectures in English, French, Italian, German or Japanese, as required.

Our guide spoke authoritatively on most historical subjects and explained a number of the carvings and freizes we saw, but some of his claims (like the ancient Egyptians inventing electric lighting) were perhaps a bit fanciful.

All of this was distracting, but nothing could take away from the grandeur, and the spectacular artistic and architectural wonders that were all around. It is impossible to do justice to the tombs and temples we saw without writing at great length about them, which I don’t have the expertise to carry off. They were however, magnificently constructed and decorated, with a precision and intricacy that immediately erased any notions about this being a society that was backward in every respect to our own.

A notable stop on our tour that morning was the Temple of Hatshetsut, perhaps the most famous female pharoh. This huge temple (picture) was partially cut from the limestone cliffs that tower above it, and then built outwards from the cliff face. The temple is decorated with wonderful and delicate reliefs, (second picture) but these have been vandalised many times over the centuries, first by her stepson, Tutmosis III, who removed her name wherever he could, and subsequently by later pharohs, the Romans, and also by early Christians, who decried the depiction of "pagan" gods, but were not deterred from using the temple as a monastery after defacing the carvings.

We saw vandalism at many of these ancient structures over the next few days. The carvings were sometimes vandalised by successor pharohs, and later by the Romans. Grave robbers stole from many of the sites. Some of them were used by local people as houses, or even stables. Adventurers from France and Britain carved their names into walls and pillars, stole statues, and chiselled off carvings as souvenirs. Their graffiti has become part of the history of these buildings. Other treasures were carted off to England, France, Germany and other countries (including Canada) in the name of science.

As we cruised up the Nile, we went ashore to see a number of wonderful sites, some of which can only be reached by boat and so are more or less intact. An inevitable part of every site was the crowd of souvenir hawkers and tourist stalls outside the gates. (Please come in, free to look, I give you good price). When our tour boat was waiting to go through some locks on the Nile, some of them even rowed out in small boats to try to sell necklaces and scarves. Of course, to the average Egyptian any tourist is fabulously rich, and and small amounts that they can persuade us to part with mean so little to us and so much to them.

The last temple we saw was the temple of Philae at Aswan. This temple was built quite late (started in 370 B.C.), and was used by both Egyptians and Romans to worship Isis, even after the Roman Empire converted to Christianity. The entire temple complex was moved from its original site, which was flooded by the High Aswan Dam. This huge undertaking took eight years to acccomplish, a task undertaken by UNESCO and the Egyptian Government.

We left the boat in Aswan, and flew to Cairo for a brief stop on our way the Athens. (Please note that this is being posted on March 30. We have been so busy doing things in Greece, I haven't had time to write about them. We are having a great time here, as you will see when I get caught up.)

Luxuriating in Luxor

After a poor night's sleep on the train, we arrived in Luxor very early in the morning and went straight to our hotel. It is on the west bank of the Nile, across the river from downtown, but on the same side as the Valley of the Kings, the Valley of the Nobles, and several other notable sites.

The hotel, El Fayrouz, is a charming place, with a restaurant in the enclosed back garden, under the banana trees, with tiled walkways and tables set among flowering shrubs. After settling in and having naps, we met up with our friends, David and Carolyn Pickering, and they took us across the Nile in a small boat (water-taxi) to wander around Luxor. We then went back to their place, a lovely apartment with a roof terrace that overlooks the Nile, for a drink while we watched the sun set. We all went for dinner at Abdul's camp, where we ate wonderful Bedouin-style meats, vegetables and rice that had been slow-cooked together in foil and were delicious.

The next day they took us to the Valley of the Nobles, to see several lesser-known tombs of nobles that were quite stunning, and not at all crowded with tourists. The tomb of Sennofer, overseer of the Garden of Amon, quite deep below the ground and only reachable by a steep and narrow tunnel staircase, had fabulous paintings of grapes and vines on the ceiling. The tomb of Rekhmire, governor under two pharohs, was quite dark inside, but the temple attendant/guard held a mirror to direct sunlight from the entrance to illuminate the carvings. The carvings and paintings showed the making of the tomb, smelting of gold ornaments, and carpenters making the sarcophagus. We also saw the ruins of the village of the workers, where the artisans, masons, and artists who built and decorated all of the tombs lived. The archeologists are still digging, and new discoveries are still being made at all of these sites.

There was an entire village that has existed in this area for a couple of centuries, that is now being torn down. The villagers supported themselves, at least in part, by trafficking in artifacts and gold that they dug up in their "basements". The government has been trying to relocate them since the 1930's. In 2007, houses were bulldozed one by one, as a part of the plan to make Luxor the biggest open-air museum in the world.

After a great lunch of chicken tagine in a local restaurant, we went to the Temple of Medinat Habu, built by Ramses III. All of the decorations, fabulously carved in monumental size, are meant to glorify Ramses III, and show what a powerful warrior he was. There are several carvings showing a giant Ramses smiting a number of his enemies, who are depicted as being much smaller than he, and kneeling, with their hands bound and and the ropes all leading to Ramses' other hand. There is also a grisly carving of a pile of the severed hands of his slain enemies, and also their severed genitals. This is meant to illustrate the complete vanquishing of these enemies, but also shows his utter brutality.

To get an idea of the scale of this temple, see the picture above of Barb and Carolyn sitting at the base of one of the columns.

Dinner that night was a treat. A friend of the Pickerings, a young Frenchman named Michel, owns a restaurant called The Three Jackals. There we ate succulent roast lamb stuffed with garlic, roasted potatoes, and zucchini baked in a fabulous Bechamel sauce.

Cairo

Cairo is wonderful, but has many of the problems you would expect in a city of 20 million people. The traffic is horrendous, and completely chaotic. There are 4 million cars in the city, and it seems that 3.5 million of them are on the road at any one time, all looking for a place to park. There is no parking anywhere, so people stop everywhere. Double parking is endemic, and triple parking is not uncommon. There is no rush hour per se, the traffic stays bad from 7 am to well after dark. Traffic jams can develop at random, (see triple parking, above) and may last for hours. Stop signs are treated with a mixture of disdain and contempt. Lane markings are considered as mere suggestions for the uninitiated. In a traffic jam I was stuck in for 30 minutes, there were five streams of traffic on a three lane road. Cars were inching forward with mere centimeters between them, horns blaring.

Pedestrians can expect no quarter, and seek none. Nonetheless, jaywalking is very common, with pedestrians having as little respect for the rules of the road as the drivers. Our guidebook advised that we find some Cairo natives, preferably with children, who are going in our direction and cross with them. This proved to be sound advice. The other way of crossing the street is to find a traffic jam and cross while the traffic is not moving.

We stayed in a hotel on an island in the Nile, in the somewhat upscale district known as Zamalek, where we could walk and explore without fear of getting lost. We also went to the famous National Museum, with its unparalleled collection of artifacts, statues, sarcophagi, and tomb ornaments from pharonic times. Right next door to our hotel was the Euro Deli, a cafe that had free internet and sold mango juice from fresh pureed mangoes (thicker than a milkshake) in large beer mugs, amd had free wireless.

Everbody smokes here. We went to a restaurant and had very good Egyptian shawarma (quite different from the Lebanese kind we get in Toronto), but it was so smoky we didn't go back. One further problem is that smoking shisha (flavoured tobacco in a hookah) after dinner is fashionable in restaurants and cafes. It is very common to see people drinking tea and smoking shisha at sidewalk cafes.

We also visited the mosque of Muhammed Ali (no, not the boxer, the guy the boxer named himself after, when he became a Moslem), very beautiful, and the fortress built by Saledin in the 12th century to protect Cairo from the crusaders. The crusaders, fortunately, never got this far.

The pyramids of Gizeh, guarded by the sphinx, are awe-inspiring. The sphinx has the head of a man and the body of a lion so it will have intelligence as well as strength and courage to guard the tombs. Gizeh was once in the middle of the desert but is now a suburb, the Scarborough of Cairo. There is a Pizza Hut and a KFC right across the street from the entrance to the pyramids, and a Hard Rock Cafe just down the block. There are also lots of guys trying with great persistence to sell postcards, camel rides, plastic pyramids and assorted other tacky dust-catchers "very cheap price for you, my friend".

We finished off the day with a stroll through the souk (open-air street market) of Khan al-Khalili, which for the first couple of blocks is all tourist souvenirs, and then becomes a market where Egyptians shop for clothing and household goods, all sold in small stalls.

That evening, we boarded the overnight train for Luxor, to visit our friends and see the Valley of the Kings.

Nairobi

We said an affectionate goodbye to most of our travelling companions who were leaving the tour to go directly to Zanzibar by bus. We stayed with the tour bus to go to Nairobi, accompanied by Sharon, Barb's cousin, and Barbara and Carole, the two Swiss women.

The trip was brutal. Most of the highway was under construction, with bone-shaking endless detours. We arrived exhausted. Fortunately, our hotel was comfortable, if a bit of an anachronism. The dining room decor was straight out of the sixties, quite well preserved. Moreover, they had decent food. Most of the two days we were there we spent relaxing, but we did go out for dinner at a fabulous restaurant. called Carnivore.

Their forte, needless to say, is barbecued meats. They do advertise that they have game meats (farmed, not hunted) but the onlty exotic meats we were offered were ostrich and crocodile.

Still, it's a great concept, and well exec uted. A waiter comes to the table with a rack of searing hot cast iron plates, and sets one in front of each diner.

Other waiters, wearing Zebra-striped aprons, are circulating around the dining room carrying flame-broiled meats on spits. They offer the meats at each table, and slice it by placing the end of the spit in the middle of the plate in front of you and carve until you tell them to stop. Many waiters come by during the course of the meal, one with a whole turkey on his spit, one with a leg of lamb, one with a whole roast of beef (rare and tender!), one with pork spare ribs, one with crocodile chunks, and one with ostrich, the liver and meatballs.

They place a carousel in the middle of the table with various sauces and fresh vegetables. There is a paper flag in the middle of the carousel. When no-one at the table could eat another bite, the diners lower the flag (in surrender). Then the meat waiters stop coming and the table is cleared. Then there is a decent selection of desserts with South African port.

We went back to the hotel to nap for a few hours because we had to get up in the middle of the night to get to the airport. Our flight to Cairo was to leave at 5:00 am. Apparently there are no night-time noise abatement bylaws to worry about in Kenya.

The cab ride to the airport was a memorable and spine-tingling race through the darkened streets of Nairobi.. Even though there was no reason to hurry, and the cab needed a new suspension and probably a brake job, our cab driver seemed determined to set a new land speed record. Fortunately, the traffic was sparse, but many of the vehiocles that were on the road were weaving erratically. The cab driver explained that the other drivers were likely drunk as he flashed by them. Mercifully, the lights on the instrument panel were burned out, so I couldn't see how fast we were going.

Our flight left ten minutes early. The aging EgyptAir A320 lumbered and shuddered as it wheezed its way skyward. This plane was so old it still had working ashtrays.

They did serve food, though the menu evoked gales of laughter from the cheap seats (ours). Maybe we were just giddy from fatigue. We were served a poached egg, a leaden pastry filled with dry cottage cheese and fenugreek, a hot dog, a potato puff, and two rolls with butter and fig jam. There was tapioca pudding for dessert.

We slept away the balance of our five-hour flight.

Lake Manyara and Back to Arusha

After a refreshing night's sleep in an actual bed, and a hearty breakfast of scrambled eggs, we drove to Lake Manyara Park for our last real opportunity to see wild game. We were becoming a bit blase by now (oh, not another giraffe ... and get those impalas out of there, they're spoiling the view). We gave our guide instructions (don't stop unless you see a lion sleepng in a tree, or actually eating something)

owever the day still had the potential to thrill. This was most evident when we made a rest stop at the park gates. We were all encouraged to use the facilities as there wouldn't be another opportunity for some time. I walked down the path toward the toilets only to hear delighted exclamations and excited conversations from the womens'. It sounded like a cocktail party after the second round of drinks. The reason for all the excitement, I learned later, was that they were shiny, new, clean and nicely tiled, (the washrooms, not the women) with flush toilets, toilet paper, spotless sinks, soap, and hot water. The relief among the women campers was palpable.

We took a group photo (above) then drove to Lake Manyara, stopping to see a family of black colobus monkeys with several cute and tiny babies. They were in a tree right beside the road, at the height of the bus windows, fascinating us with their antics.

We drove on to a hippo pool, where several hippos were actually moving about and getting out of the water, which they rarely do during the day. White flamingoes were feeding near them.

We got back on the bus and carried on toward Arusha, stopping at a small town to buy food for lunch at an open air market. We were immediatedly accosted by trinket sellers as soon as we got off the bus. They seemed to come from nowhere, as they couldn't have anticipated our arrival.

In the market there were many kangas (printed lengths of cloth worn as skirts, shawls, or head coverings) bearing the face of Barrack Obama. Many minibusses and trucks we passed had Obama bumper stickers or a picture of him in the front window. If he ran anywhere in East Africa, he would win in a landslide.

We arrived in Arusha, at a campground attached to a nice lodge, and pitched our tents for the last time. Wilson arranged for us to go to a good hotel restaurant for a buffet dinner. The prople on the bus had developed a real cameraderie, and the bonhomie carried on back at the campsite, where a number of us sat up drinking Kilimanjaros and Tuskers, good local beers, until quite late.

Serengeti Day Three

The day broke clear, although there had been violent thunderstorms overnight. I slept soundly, awakened only once by the thunder. In the next tent, however, Eveline and Liz were awakened by growling and animal sounds outside during the night. There were lion tracks in the wet sand beside their tent and throughout the campsite. Perhaps the lions we had seen early yesterday morning had paid us a nocturnal visit. As we were able to account for everyone, we had breakfast and started to break camp.

Our garbage can was nowhere to be found. Some of the garbage was found by Wilson, our guide, a few dozen meters from the campsite, but the rest of it, and the can itself did not turn up after further searching. He figured it had been taken by hyenas, who wanted the refuse from our fish dinner.

We drove back the way we came, as we were scheduled to tour the Ngorongoro crater in the afternoon. About a half-hour into our drive we saw a lioness and three cubs beside the road. We stopped and they walked along the road in front of us briefly, then turned off and disappeared into the long grass. A little later we stopped to watch 10 zebras drinking from the ditch beside the road, including a baby a few weeks of age. They were nervous and didn’t linger over their water. A little bit further along we saw a solitary male lion, lying in the grass less than ten meters from the road. He had scars on his face, at least one of which looked fresh. He looked at us with a somewhat mournful and weary expression, as if he had just lost a fight.(photo above)
We detoured off the road several kilometers for a look at the Olduvai Gorge, where the Leakey family made their groundbreaking archeological finds. We saw a casting of the famous bipedal walking tracks of an adult and child australopithecine dating back some 3.6 million years. It is the oldest evidence ever found of our ancestors.

We reached the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater after noon and had lunch. We transferred to 4x4 Land Rovers, as the bus would not be able to negotiate the steep and narrow road going down the inside of the crater wall. The roofs of these vehicles had removable sections, so we could stand up and get a clear view of the animals.

The crater was formed by collapsed volcano, and is many kilometers across. The floor of the crater is a flat plain with a shallow lake and is the home of much wildlife. We had to stop our car because a herd of more than 200 wildebeest and zebras was crossing the road. Almost every female wildebeest was accompanied by a calf which appeared to be a few weeks old.(photo above) The calves stayed very close to their mothers. Several hundred meters further along we saw several lions lying in the long grass, probably with designs on the wildebeest, or their calves. We were told that four thousand wildebeest are born each day during the month of February. 40% of them die before they reach 4 months of age.

Later we passed a small pool with about 8 hippos in it. Perched in the reeds around the pool, and also on the ground around it were over 100 white egrets and ibises.
A little further along a large stork stood near the road. It appeared to be about a meter and a half tall. It had a pink neck, black wings and a white body.
The lake had numerous hippos in it as well as a flock of hundreds of pink flamingoes, but they were too far away to see clearly.

The driver of our 4x4 had very keen eyesight and was practiced in spotting game. He pointed out two rhinos lying in the grass, quite far away. They were in the middle of a scattered herd of wildebeest, and we would never have noticed them ourselves. We waited there for some time, hoping they would get up, but they were not interested in moving. We drove further hoping to find more rhinos or maybe a cheetah, but we had no luck.

It had become quite late in the afternoon, so we headed off to meet the bus and have dinner at a new campsite. This was at a privately run campground in a small town, and it had showers and also the possibility to upgrade to a room instead of sleeping in a tent. We took a room, as Barb had not slept well in the tent, and was very tired.

Dinner that night was soup and barbecued steaks, somewhat tough but good nonetheless.

The wildlife in the room was somewhat exciting too. Large cicadas (like crickets) lived in the shower. A major spider, almost the size of a Toyota Echo, lived behind the toilet tank. It kept us up quite late, shaving its legs in the bathroom.