2024 – the Next Iteration

January 1, 2024chrisgoja Leave a comment

S.m.a.r.t. goals:

10k of walking per day.

Sauna/pond dip minimum twice per week.

52 non-fiction books.

No sugar.

Weight training every day when at home.

One weekend trip per month.

Swim 20 minutes per day when temperature allows.

20 minutes of French, German, Dutch, and Danish per day.

Ditto piano.

Starting to think it will take a miracle to manage all these lofty goals. Well. So be it. It’s a year that sounds like it belongs in a Science Fiction novel, after all. Nothing is impossible in sci-fi. Engage warp speed (and discipline)!

Istanbul – A Wild Turkey Chase

October 15, 2023chrisgoja Leave a comment

I went to Ölüdenitz on the south coast of Turkey in order to paraglide. It’s known as a mecka for gliders, with five different take-off sites, perpetually perfect weather, and a long beach on which to land; what could go wrong? Well, everything…

I arrived at midnight with my backpack and nowhere to stay, after two flights and two bus rides, thoroughly worn out. The place looked as I had feared – nothing but bars and night clubs and faux English pubs, plus loads of lodgings. I didn’t look around, but went for the second hotel I saw – nothing fancy, but there was a pile of paragliding equipment as high as I was, which I thought boded well.

The next morning the place was full of what looked like frequent flyers, but no-one seemed to be going anywhere. Turns out there was a big bike race on, so flying was forbidden. Not obvious why? They had multiple helicopters covering the race, and Mr Chopper is not a paraglider’s friend. I was kind of ok with that, because that would give me the day to find an instructor that could take me on. Or so I thought. Not a single one was interested. All they do is tandem flights – taking tourists for a quick top to bottom and then selling them photos and videos of the ride is a lot more profitable than actually teaching someone how to fly. So in spite of there being paragliders everywhere I was grounded (I don’t have a licence to fly on my own – hence the need for an instructor…).

My backup plan was to hike the Lycean Way – a relatively new path that follows the coast of the peninsula – but it was simply too hot; 27 degrees in the shade and muggy as anything was more than I could take. So there I was, stuck in a tourist hellhole, with no prospect of doing any of the things I wanted. I went for a swim in the Mediterranean at sunset and pondered my options: stay here for the week and hope something materialized, or change my plans entirely.

The next morning, as paragliders started to appear in the sky, I went for another swim, and then got a flight to Istanbul for that evening. No sense in prolonging the misery.

Arriving in Istanbul late in the evening I got a taxi to the hotel I had found, got fooled by the driver into paying 20% extra (“bank fees”), and arrived only to be informed the room was double-booked, and would I mind staying somewhere else? Not an auspicious start. Turns out “somewhere else” was a huge apartment right next to Galata Tower (which, in competition with the bridge across the Bosphorus, is THE symbol of Istanbul), so that was ok. The prayer tower four meters from my bedroom window that called believers to prayer at dawn the next morning? A little unexpected, but a very efficient wakeup call. 😅

And so I set out exploring Istanbul. I have been once before on a work trip, some 25 years ago, so had seen Hagia Sofia and the Top Kapi, which I was happy about, because the lines to those attractions were such that I could have spent the rest of the week standing in them. Instead I went for long, meandering walks through the Old Town, taking in the sights and sounds and smells of the city. Impressions: dirty, chaotic, crumbling, hilly – oh, so hilly! – and cat-infested. There are cats everywhere, but they are looked after – people feed and water them, construct special houses for them, and there is even a system that lets you collect trash and get cat food in exchange – because one saved Baby Mohammed from a snake once; not a bad deal for the three million (!) felines that currently inhabit the city.

The smell of roasted chestnuts and cobs of corn fills the air of the bazaars and the maze of streets, where – in Arabic style – the vendors and their wares spill out into the streets. The olden way of business prevails here: all shops specialize in one thing, and they all congregate with their brethren (very few sistren to be seen), so that one street sells nothing but tools, another plastic toys, a third music instruments, and so on. How they make it work I don’t know: Imagine being an umbrella salesman in a street of umbrella salesmen – in a city where it doesn’t rain for at least six months per year… They don’t seem bothered tho. Mostly the men sit around and drink tea out of tulip-shaped glasses, and smoke acrid cigarettes. Quite possibly this has the effect of curing them (not of illnesses, but in the mummifying sense), because they all look to be about seventy, regardless of actual age. Wiry porters carry immense loads on their backs or on little carts, blocking the roads even more than the rest of the throng.

What’s surprising to me is how many of the old houses are actually gorgeous – a wonderful Turkish take on Art Noveau. It’s sad to see how many of them are in disrepair and/or hidden by shabby constructions of later date, but a hundred years ago this must have been an amazingly beautiful city.

There’s plenty of architecture of greater age that is even more impressive, of course. I had an amazing experience last time I was here, descending into a subterranean roman cistern, where I was suddenly alone in what looked like a half submerged cathedral, with nothing but ambient light and Pavarotti for company, making it more of a religious experience than I have ever had in an actual church. And so I foolishly set out trying to repeat that. It wasn’t to be. I saw three cisterns, one without water, one tiny, like a flooded basement, and one that was something like my original, only this one was filled to the brim – with tourists. Nothing like queueing behind selfie-takers to get you to commune with the divine, eh? After this photographic wankery I decided to steer well clear of any other major tourist attraction.

Roman reservoir. Still quite impressive.

Instead I saw several of the less touted mosques, and found them all beautiful. Who knew ostrich eggs were used to fight cob webs on the immense candelabra, or that the acoustics of the domed ceilings were improved by incorporating water vessels into the construction at angles that offset the bouncing sounds? An added bonus: the relative calm of the mosques’ grounds means that cats favour them – in one I’m suddenly ambushed by six kittens, who quickly turn me into a fairground for their play. Allah akbar, indeed.

I see the Swedish General Consulate behind barbed wire and armed guards – a reminder that my country isn’t popular in this part of the world right now; a far cry from when Swedish varjag warriors were seen as an elite, and were made into a special bodyguard unit for the Caliph. Luckily my hotel is owned by Kurds, so we bond over the shared experience of being outcasts.

I drink amazingly good coffee in swanky cafes, and marvel at the patience of the poor (?) fishermen on Galata bridge, who stand in the heat all day for a bucketful of sardines. There are other marvels: the sight of women’s clothes, ranging from full body burquas to, frankly, astonishingly vulgar, as seen in the nightlife outside my hotel, which happens to be next door to both night clubs and what on medieval maps would have been called Gropeacunt Alley. There is also the many patients of cosmetic surgary to gawk at: nose reduction and lip expansion jobs for ladies, hair redistribution for gentlemen. Istanbul can really be a transformative experience…

The food is predictably good: Anatolian breakfast is a sumptious affair with twenty-odd accoutrements, accompanied by endless cups of tea, and fresh pomegranate juice. Sumptuous! Cheap and cheerful canteen-like restaurants serve healthy Turkish cuisine, like filled peppers, grilled aubergine and lamb shanks, and if one is thus inclined there is baklava on offer on every corner.

Turkish delight. And Anatolian breakfast.

And so I spend my days roaming the city, haggling over tulip bulbs and pashmina shawls in the bazaars for the fun of it, taking a boat ride around the Bosphorus, trying to imagine all the people and ships that have crossed through here since time immemorial (the cataclysmic earthquake that opened the strait between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean is what supposedly gave rise to the Noah mythos, after all, and the Illiad played out at the opposite end of the channel). I even cross over into Asia, just to be able to say my holidays spanned two continents.

Asia to the left, Europe to the right, just to confuse you.

It is not what I had hoped, but it’s a good trip nonetheless. My initial plan – to experience the Turkish wilderness in the air, on land and in the sea – came to nothing, and Istanbul/Constantinople/Miklagård might be an acquired taste, but it’s many incarnations and contrasts and history make it endlessly fascinating, and a wild experience. Mashallah!

Solitude, sorrow and solace – a journey in the Dolomites

September 27, 2023chrisgoja Leave a comment

I came to the mountains without much of a plan. I was on my own, so could do exactly as I wanted. All I knew was that I yearned for beauty, hiking, and solace. The alps usually deliver, and the Dolomites (roughly the Italian part of the mountain range) are particularly well known for their beauty, so I was fairly certain I’d get the first two.

Solace might be a different story, as for me it’s a part of the world I associate with the end of my marriage, so I was prepared for a few bad memories to resurface. What I hadn’t realized was just how commonplace bad memories are in the region. It was the scene of intense fighting during the Great War, when Austro-Hungarians and Italians wrestled over dominion of the Südtyrol region in valleys and on mountains all over the Dolomites. The former lost to the latter, and Südtyrol passed into Italian hands, but not before battle upon battle had been fought here, with intense suffering as a result.

Even now the scars are there, and the language you use will greatly affect the reaction you get, depending on the mother tongue of your conversation partner. As a local woman in her seventies confided to me (in German): the older generation doesn’t want to learn Italian, because of what happened.

She said it as if it (the first world war) had happened only last year, not over a century ago, but then the very land here still bears the marks to remind people. A case in point: the victorious Italians set about changing all the place names, but the old names still linger, in minds and on maps. And so it is that I set out from Dreizinnenblick/Vista Panoramico Tre Cime to hike up a long, picturesque valley to what is arguably the most recognizable of all features in the alps: Drei Zinnen, or Tre Cime, a constellation of three enormous rocks, that are the poster children of the Dolomites. To me they don’t look like crenellations (German) or chimneys (Italian) so much as three crooked old grave stones, leaning drunkenly on one another.

In a way they are, too, because many a man has perished in their shadows, either trying to climb one of the various routes up the rocks themselves, or in the aforementioned pitched fights. I felt as if I were about to join the ranks of the victims; my heart rate oscillated somewhere between ER and morgue when I finally made it up to the rifugio that sits across from the three giants. I was quite surprised therefore when I saw a lot of people strolling about up there – all the more so because I had set out early, and had hardly seen a single human all the way up the valley. It turns out that on the other side of the Big Three a paved road takes you all the up to the foot of the rocks, and so day trippers come up by coach or car and have a wee bit of a walk around. To me – fainting and damn near going into cardiac arrest – it felt like they were cheating: that’s not how you commune with the mountains!

Thankfully, not many of those visitors elected to stay the night, which was a stroke of luck for me, as even as it was I only just managed to get one of the very last bunk beds in the rifugio/Hütte (although late in the season, reservations (and cash!) are of the essence, it seems.). After six hours’ hiking, 21km and 2,000 vertical meters, I ate everything in sight, and then promptly fell asleep around eight, still wearing my clothes.

The next day I set out earlier still, traversing the sella (saddle, i.e. mountain pass) that sits behind Rifugio Lavaredo in order to descend back down to Dobbiaco via Val Campi di Dentro. Up there was where I first encountered the remnants of real fortifications. I had seen a couple of man-made caves the day before, but here I stumbled upon a fortress hewn out of the bare rock – trenches, underground storage space, machine gun nests, walls, and perhaps most poignantly of all, a lonely little cairn. It was nought but a small pile of rocks with a cross made from a couple of sticks bound by rusty barbed wire, sitting across from the Tre Cime as a forelorn monument over some long gone nameless poor bastard who died here. It seemed so futile, somehow, to lay down your life in order to prevent someone you don’t know from crossing an imaginary line drawn on a map, only to be forgotten by all, a lonely rock pile being the only memorial to your anonymous existence. Was he Italian or Austro-Hungarian? No way of knowing.

I mentioned where I was to a friend, and it turned out that her great grandfather had been a Kaiserjäger, a member of an elite company who fought in these very parts. Even if you survived, how could such an experience not scar a man for life? And who can tell what this meant for future generations? I find it fascinating and depressing in equal measure. And so I was in a pensive mood as I passed across the pass, past several similar gunners’ nests, where once your efforts for climbing this far would have been rewarded by having your neighbours lying in wait to shoot you in the face. Today however, the only blood on the ground was Alpen-Bärenträube (lit. Alpine Bear grapes), a low growing and intensely red plant that brought a bit of colour to the rockiest stretches.

Then, as I descended further down into the valley, the trees grew higher, the undergrowth more verdant, and I followed a dainty brook all the way to the valley floor. In the middle of the forest I came upon the spooky old ruin of a former spa hotel, where once the upper echelons of society came to ”take the waters”. This they did from the five springs in the vicinity that (in spite of being very close together) were once – according to helpful signs – thought to cure a variety of vastly different ailments. I choose to fill my CamelBak with natural mineral water from two of them, the combination of which may well cure me of liver diseases, ulcers, chronic (!) gastritis, skin ailments and a variety of gynecological disorders, if the signs were to be believed. Pas mal! Thus fortified, I made it back to “my” hotel, where I again ate like a champ, then passed out like a chump.

Day 3 the weather had taken a turn for the worse. Where previously there had been clear blue skies, there were now ominous-looking clouds, but as the forecast said there would be very little rain, if any, and I had my magic potion from the day before to ward off most ailments, I still set off, this time going from Cimebanche/Im Gemärk up another valley to an area optimistically called Prato Piazza (Flat Space). From there it was onwards and upwards, skirting a massive peak coloured red by iron oxide, called Croda Rossa (Red Cross), or “the bleeding heart of the Dolomites”. I noted with surprise and great satisfaction that my own heart was neither bleeding nor fluttering like a kolibri any more. The trail was long and hard though, the massif looking like a giant dragon lying on top of the mountain, so it was with some trepidation I continued. The dragon didn’t wake, but the path did lead past areas of massive rockfall, where such immense quantities of stones had fallen from the heights as to create whole fields of red boulders (I later learned that the rockfalls can be sufficiently powerful to register as earth quakes!). Moving across one of those and hearing rocks starting to bounce down from high above you in the clouds is an experience that will make you feel very small and vulnerable, for sure.

The same goes for passages where you turn a corner to find that the path takes you on the outside of sheer cliffs, where a chain bolted into the rock is the only thing to hold on to, and one misstep means certain death. The payoff is of course the immense vistas and god-like viewpoints you experience far away above the valleys, but I’m weirdly glad I was alone – for the simple reason that I’m not sure I could bear to watch someone I care for scrambling across those abysses. I remember my father forever calling us back from precipices when we were in the alps when I was a kid – I understand him now.

Eventually I make it back down again, all the way to “the most beautiful lake in the alps”, Lago di Braies, which is truly gorgeous, but by this point the rain was hanging in the air, I’d been out for seven hours, I was exhausted, and my annoyance at the sightseeing day trippers was such that I just got on the first bus and went back “home”.

(Incidentally, the people of “my” hotel must think me mad, because I check out every morning and come back (nearly) every evening; it’s because my guidebook (Walking the Dolomites) keeps insisting that my itineraries are 2-3 day affairs, which means I’m carrying everything I need for a week on my back wherever I go. In spite of this I manage to cover enough ground to be back down again every evening except the first one, hence my strange behaviour. Had I known I could have left 85% of my kit in the hotel, which would have saved me quite a few calories…)

The next day it is pouring down. The thing is, when it’s raining in the mountains you are literally in the clouds, so there is little chance it will let up. I grind my teeth and put on all my rain kit, and make my way to the start of a trail up to something called Val de Fanes (the Valley of the Fanes people – local fairy folk). Unfortunately, my local map doesn’t cover this area, and the guidebook is quite sketchy, so I’m in terra incognita. There are two sights on the way up into the land of the faeries that I know I want to see, however: Cascate di Fanes, the highest waterfall in the Dolomites, and Ponte Ulto (Ladin for High Bridge), crossing a chasm of similar magnitude to that of the waterfall – 70 meters. I hiked up to the edge of the canyon to see the waterfall crashing down on the other side. I then made it down to the bottom only to realize that the path back up again on the other side was a via ferrata, which really requires proper climbing gear. I made an attempt of it, but as it was pouring with rain and everything was slick and slippery I reluctantly decided I had no choice but to turn around.

So back down the canyon I went, and then all the way back up again on the other side, back to the same waterfall, reached by another via ferrata (this one slightly less murderous, but still intimidating in the rain). So I saw the waterfall every which way you could, and the bridge as well (less impressive), but after the lengthy detour I had already used up about half the day, and since I didn’t know how far it was to the Valley of the Fairies, I eventually gave up. I had hiked for hours in the rain through the sodden pine forest, ever upwards, and in spite of my rain gear I was soaked through (condensation being just as efficient as actual precipitation in that regard), my muscles were stiff and cold, and I didn’t want to continue into the unknown. I was done.

By the time I made it back to the valley it’s late afternoon, and the hotel owner informs me that they haven’t turned on the heating yet, so there is no way to dry my clothes. It’s the mountain gods’ way of telling me this is it. The next morning I get on a train and leave the mountains behind. I make it to Milan and spend the next 36 hours soaking up the atmosphere and madness of the Milano Fashion Week instead – as contrasts go it couldn’t be any further from the solitude, sorrows and solace of the mountains.

The invasions of Normandy

August 1, 2023chrisgoja Leave a comment

I rolled up in Bayeux after a long time on the road, which seems apt, since Bayeux’s most treasured possession, the tapestry that bears its name, is a long, rolled up tome.

Much like its birthplace, the Bayeux tapestry spent most of its existence hidden away. And yet survived damage of all kinds. It’s a wonder it still exits. It’s also a wonder it ever existed in the first place, since it is unique in this world: 70 meters’ worth of interconnected, stitched tableaus, depicting William the soon-to-be Conquerer in his trials and tribulations in the preparations for, and execution of, said Conquest, both of England and of Harold, the man whose job he took.

Why was it made? We cannot be entirely sure, but whoever made it, and for whichever purpose, it was a stroke of genius. It is, amongst many other things, the world’s first comic book. Like the adage has it: the winners get to write history, but if it’s a history book for an illiterate audience, you need something more easily accessible, so what better way to tell a story then to stitch one scene after another in your story unto something akin to a giant toilet roll?

In fact it works exceedingly well. The main characters are easily distinguishable, and as you proceed along the rolled out roll (it isn’t really a tapestry in the more classical sense) you’re sucked into a tale of derring-do and action that doesn’t end before Harold catches an arrow in one eye on the Hastings battlefield and is consequently hacked to pieces (pension plans for deposed medieval kings being even worse than that of contemporary Americans), and England is Norman ever after.

Some speculate that Odo, bishop of Bayeux and cousin of William, had it made not only to support his relative’s claims to the throne but also to strengthen his own standing, as he is featured prominently throughout the saga, but we simply don’t know. It is well worth the trip at any rate.

After having enjoyed the retelling of how Britain became Britain, I went up the road for the retelling of another invasion, which explains amongst other things how Britain remained Britain: this one much more recent and – crucially – going in the opposite direction. It seems that half of Normandy is about the D-day experience and the consequent reconquest of Europe towards the end of the second world war, but few places describe it better that the war museum in Bayeux.

It’s not a big museum but it follows the same principle as the tapestry – describing the events preceding and during the invasion in harrowing detail, with plenty of imagery to help the visitors understand what it was like. Unlike the much vaunted, recently opened “D Day Experience” with its flashy 3D movies and experiences immersives, not to mention the innovative (?!) idea to tell the story through the clothes (!) of various soldiers (« I am Private Jones’s bullet-riddled jacket », « I am Sergeant Smith’s soiled tighty whities »), this museum gets the job done without being weird about it – much like the soldiers themselves, I imagine.

And so the first day of my one man invasion of Normandy comes to an end. I rest my weary feet and can’t think of anything better than to enjoy a good galette and a hearty cidre – much the same way I imagine G.I.’s have felt down the ages, from 1066 to 1944. Glory and fame may be eternal, but an army marches on its stomach, after all.

5 top ways to get hurt traveling

July 12, 2023chrisgoja 2 Comments

People like reading lists, they say. The problem is they (the lists) tend to get a bit same-y after a while (people do, too, arguably), so the trick as a writer is to come up with something new and exciting. Here is one you likely never saw before: 5 top ways to get hurt traveling!

Traveling gives me a great deal of joy, it is true, but it’s fair to say that ain’t always the case. So in ascending order of pain and hurt and general discomfort, here are the five worst experiences connected with my travels over the years:

5. Went kayaking off the wild east coast of Sardinia, wearing lots of sunblock but no good sunglasses. Fierce sun, wind and reflections on the water combined with intense heat to create a witches’ brew of salt and chemicals that got into my eyes, rendering me effectively blind, as I was utterly unable to keep my baby blues open – something of a problem when one has to navigate dangerously bad mountain roads to get back to base. In the end I drove at a snail’s pace, stopping over and over to pry my peepers open enough to rinse them with water. It took a night in absolute darkness before I could see normally again.

4. Went diving in the Andaman Sea on a live-aboard boat. That’s a small ship that is out in tropical heat for a week, with everyone living in close quarters. Long story short, I caught something that developed into high fever right as we were disembarking; flying home from Thailand via London with 39+ degrees’ temperature in cattle class was literally a nightmare – I was hallucinating, and so weak they had to get me a wheelchair to go from one plane to the next. Once home I slept more or less straight for 48 hours before finally recovering.

3. First time paragliding in Spain. One of the first attempts to get airborne properly, running down a gentle hill, I managed to rip a muscle in my groin just as I was lifted into the air. The pain was excruciating, but the forward movement and physics kicked in and I continued upwards, which meant I had to fly and land for the very first time while trying not to black out from the agony. To this day I don’t know how I managed. It took months of grueling exercise to regain something like normal function in my leg.

2. Another diving excursion, this time to the Seychelles. Made the rookie mistake of having local food that was probably washed in local water. Within a few hours our stomachs were rumbling, and before long we were two people writhing in gut-wrenching pain, before embarking on a night of horrors, as our bodies went into overdrive trying to purge themselves of the foreign germs; trust me, there is no feeling quite like switching back and forth between projectile vomiting and having your intestines go full fecal Jackson Pollock on the one shared toilet, whilst your friend is knocking on the door to be let in to have their turn, NOW.

1. A romantic trip to Granada and Alhambra might not seem like an obvious winner of this list, but my companion on this sojourn was someone I was very much in love with, and she had agreed to go only as a way to end our relationship on a high note, as she felt we weren’t right for each other. So while it was a lovely experience, and the sights of Alhambra a wonder to behold, it was still with very mixed feelings I went on it. And at the end she did what she had said she would, and ended things between us. She broke my heart, and it took years to mend.

So there you are. A Top 5 List like no other. Honorable mentions go to Barcelona and Amsterdam, where I broke my PBs for marathons – painful experiences in and of themselves, but disqualified because they also gave me a lot of masochistic joy. Hope you enjoyed. If you think you have my travel horror stories beaten, let me know in the comments!

Under the Volcano – Naples and the Amalfi coast

April 9, 2023chrisgoja 1 Comment

It’s Easter 2023, and Naples is in the throes of twin religious ecstasies; not only is the re-birthday of Jesus coming up – in the Catholic heartland this is obviously a big deal – but even more importantly, the resurrection of Saint Maradona is all but assured, with local soccer team SSC Napoli poised to win the National Football League for the first time in 30 years. It’s not overstating it if I say that the Neapolitanos have painted their town red in the advent of this event – or rather blue and white, the colors of their heroes.

Every street is hung with banners, plastic stripes, flags, and sheets; entire buildings and assorted infrastructure have been repainted to manifest the locals’ worship; effigies of the players are as numerous and as venerated as the many shrines to more traditional saints that can be found on every street corner.

(It’s strange (to me) to see how such copious sums of money are expended on these two religions when the population is clearly utterly impoverished, but I guess the explanation is the same as the rationale behind why poor people play the lottery: they are in dire need of hope.)

The abject poverty of the city is accentuated by the faded grandeur of bygone days; most buildings are centuries old, from an era when the city and its denizens were obviously very well off, but now they are dilapidated and crumbling, covered in grime, filth and graffiti. At least the latter is quite creative at times.

All this to say that, with the addition of the many people out and about for the holiday, plus the habitual madness that is Neapolitan traffic, Naples is quite the cacophonic assault on the senses – it has to be experienced to be believed. As a result of that experience we avoid the city for the most part, using it as a base from which to see Pompeii and Herculaneum.

Pompeii is the larger site, more famous and as a consequence it’s overrun with tourists. It’s a complaint as old as the site itself – apparently Goethe was shocked to find it crowded when he was on his Grand Tour (the all but mandatory trip of Europe that young noblemen were supposed to take back in the day to better themselves (and/or avoid scandal at home)). I doubt he had to contend with hordes of school children, pensioners and Chinese, however… Add to that that many of the houses are – perhaps understandably – closed for maintenance (in spite of what the audioguide claims) and it is a wee bit disappointing, however evocative a stroll through the old streets may be.

A couple of interesting side notes: the local Amphitheater was closed down for years because the citizens rioted after a particularly intense gladiator bout. Clearly the mad infatuation with sports is a long-lived local tradition (and I will not speculate as to whether the same holds true for the penchant Pompeiians had for frescoes of Pygmy al fresco fornication, often in boats and watched over by hippos and crocodiles – you can count on the Romans to be pervier than most!)

And secondly: years prior to the eruption that buried Pompeii, the city suffered a severe earthquake that caused a great deal of death and destruction. Why is that relevant? Well, 30-some years ago, Naples was subjected to the same treatment, leaving 2,500 people dead, so if that’s a harbinger we might be in for another eruption. Worse still, some experts speculate that the shape of it indicates that the entire Bay of Naples is in fact a caldera, or super volcano, compared to which Vesuvius would be akin to a matchstick next to a log fire…

But be that as it may: Herculaneum proves to be the opposite of Pompeii’s pomp; smaller and closer to the volcano, it was submerged under ash and pumice rather than lava, which meant that the buildings were better preserved, so the site is more intact. It also benefits from its relative anonymity, so there are but a handful of other people around. Bliss! I lose myself in the labyrinth, stumbling into temples, brothels and pizza parlors (where the Romans presumably awaited the Coming of the Tomato, brought by Columbus 1500 years later, to complete the recipe). Combined with a visit to the local Museo Archeologico (where all the finds from the two sites are kept), this in itself would be enough to justify the trip, but there’s more:

We leave the Bay of Naples behind and set out for the Amalfi coast, on the other side of the isthmus that forms the lower part of the bay. It’s a mountainous coastline along which lie various fishing villages where the houses climb each other and the steep cliffs like swallows’ nests. It’s an improbably difficult terrain to navigate, where every flat surface is constructed by erecting stone terraces, but once there was a road connecting them, the villages all turned into chi-chi tourist destinations.

Much like Pompeii, the more popular ones are considered a “must”, meaning that the main arteries in Positano, Amalfi and Ravello are clogged with tourists, and stores selling rubbish bric-à-brac, like so much cardiac arrest-inducing plaque. Thankfully, as soon as you get off those streets the situation becomes infinitely more bearable. Better yet, stick to hiking in the mountains above it all, where breathtaking views and vertigo pull you along.

The best experiences in this area are undoubtedly two: the first is the Sentiero Degli Dei (Path of the Gods), a footpath that connects the hamlets of Nocelle and Bomerano. So-called because it was supposedly used by the gods when they wanted to head down to the ocean for a bit of sub-aquatic how’s-your-father with the Sirens (of Ulyssean fame) that inhabited the little islands off the coast, the winding path certainly makes you bucolic: wandering it you feel like Pan in Arcadia – terraced orchards and espaliered vines showing off the fertility of the volcanic soil; wild myrtle, rosmary and thyme filling the air with their scents, and the bees and butterflies that do their bidding; the meandering coastline laid out below your feet all the way to Capri, and the enormity that is the ever-changing seascape of the Mediterranean glittering and rippling to the horizon and beyond. Who wouldn’t want to roam here in an endless spring?

The second highlight is Villa Cimbrone, on top of the precipice at the end of the hilltop village of Ravello, perched high above the sea, where a young English lordling decided he would create a modern version of a Roman emperor’s country vila (think Tiberius’s Villa Jovis on Capri but minus the slave-throwing contests). It’s safe to say he succeeded. The villa is now a fancy hotel, but the gardens are open to the public, and since they were laid out by Vita Sackville-West they are a wonder to behold in their own right. However, the prize for most breathtaking view goes to the terrazza dell’Infinito, or belvedere, a hidden gem at the end of the garden, 300 meters above the water, which Gore Vidal (who lived in town for twenty years) claimed was the best in the world. And I’m not about to argue with that.

And so the trip comes to an end, as trips do. Extra mention must be made of La Lepre B&B for going above and beyond in Naples – special Easter breakfast, local delicacies brought in because they happened to come up in conversation with our hostess, complimentary wine, impeccable servicemindedness, the list is long – and the most unmissable restaurant in town, A Figlia d’o Marenaro, whose Zuppe di Cozze is now and forever more the gold standard against which all sea food will be measured – and found wanting. Mamma mia!

An Arctic Adventure

January 22, 2023chrisgoja Leave a comment

I went to a summit at the start of the Swedish EU presidency. It was a different kind of trip, because naturally the Swedes wanted to show off their wild and wonderful homeland, so off we all went in a chartered plane, to Sweden’s northernmost town Kiruna, way above of the Arctic circle, whence to discuss the presidency agenda and priorities.

It’s different there because this far north the nights are long in the winter (20 hours plus) and the only hope for natural light rests with the magical – but fickle – aurora borealis, or Northern lights. So when we arrived at four in the afternoon, to be greeted by the chairman of the Sameting (parliament of the indigenous Same people) and other local dignitaries, all decked out in impressively serious and furry winter gear, it was in pitch darkness. The Commissioners were whisked off to the Ice Hotel in Jukkasjärvi, while the skeleton crew of foot soldiers (myself included) was shipped to a rather more mundane hotel inside the security parameter of the conference centre.

Not that I’m complaining. We had a minder assigned to us, and actual hotel rooms waiting when we arrived – unlike some of the security detail (there were hundreds of policemen flown in for the occasion), who rumor had it were lodged all over, in old military barracks and even bunk beds in local garages; not a pleasant place to sleep when it’s -10C, but still preferable to standing watch outside the premises in the snow throughout the night, as some did.

It’s easy to forget how quiet it gets when a place is covered in snow. All noises are dampened by it, and so as we took a ride through town it was eerily silent. It wasn’t just due to that, tho. Kiruna is a mining town, situated literally on top of the world’s biggest iron ore mine, and because the latter is expanding, the former has to move; the old part of town is being evacuated so that mining operations can be carried out right underneath it, and that means most of the houses are vacant, staring emptily at us as we drove around. It’s effectively a ghost town.

That feeling of otherworldliness is further enhanced by the sight of Iron Mountain (Malmberget) across the valley, covered in lights and smoke in the darkness, like a vision of Mordor (mining goes on 24/7, as there is little point to adhere to a normal working day when you’re miles below ground). Add to that the fabulous wooden church that looks more like a temple to Norse gods than to their middle-eastern counterpart, and you get the feeling you’re in some Tolkien/post-apocalyptic/Viking/snow zombie crossover story.

The next day couldn’t be more different: while the Commissioners have a chance to hob-nob with the King of Sweden, open a satellite launch site, and other media-friendly events, those of us who weren’t allowed near the Ice Hotel last night are now given a guided tour of the venue, and it doesn’t disappoint: it’s like a very different kind of fairy tale, one where you are transported to a world of ice – the rooms, the furniture, even things like chandeliers and glasses are made out of ice, and the designs and decorations are incredible; the hotel is rebuilt every year, but they save the best rooms, so over 30 years they have accumulated an incredible array of weird and wonderful rooms (not all of them conducive to a good night’s sleep, it has to be said!). The overall impression is one of a winter wonderland (in the Elsa-from-Frozen-meets-C.S.-Lewisian sense) and the setting – all forests and snow covered vistas plus the frozen river (from which the building blocks of the hotel are taken) – doesn’t do anything to diminish this.

It’s easy to see why it’s popular, but since the sun barely makes it over the horizon (at noon it is fully visible for less than an hour) it is soon dark again, and the politicians get down to business. They spend the afternoon hammering out a work program and looking at various high tech business displays, and then there’s just enough time for a joint press conference of the Swedish PM and the Commission’s President before we all hurry back to the plane and travel back south.

Our 24h adventure is at an end. As we rise into the velvety darkness I peer out for a last chance to see the aurora, but there’s nothing there. Reason enough to come back? Maybe. I find myself next to one of the Commissioners, and discuss the possibility of bookending the presidency with another meeting at the height of summer; he is keen to see the midnight sun but less so about experiencing midge-infested marshes. I tell him how the indigenous people spend a night in early summer sleeping naked in the marshes, getting stung enough to aquire immunity, yet he seems unconvinced by my implied solution. My one attempt at direct lobbying is apparently a failure – but who knows? We’ll see in July.

The pain of rain in Spain…

March 19, 2022chrisgoja Leave a comment

For the second time in a row, my efforts to go paragliding in Spain have been twarted by unexpected rain storms.

Having returned to Algodonales where I first learnt about flying, I was hoping to be airborn every day for a week, and instead I found myself in a cold apartment staring out at a mountain ridge shrouded in unrelenting rain clouds. I don’t know if I should take heart from locals saying this is such a rare occurance as to be unheard of, or whether I should try to appease some local weather gods that I have somehow upset?

Luckily I had packed a bunch of books, so even if I was forced to stay grounded for the most part I still didn’t waste my time. And after a few days cooped up inside, my fellow would-be pilots and I did do some nice excursions in the area, enjoying the lushness of spring (at least the downpour helped with that!). First we ventured to the nearby mountaintop village of Zahara (It takes its name from the Arabic word for either crag or orange blossom – both highly applicable – but it has nothing to do with the desert), which looks like something out of Ferdinand the bull, and whose cobbled, winding streets have been hugging the hillside since times immemorial.

There is also a local nature reserve centered around a steep ravine that is favoured by large scavenger birds, so instead of following vultures in the air I sought them out in their lair. We saw at least three nesting pairs up close, their large dragon-like silhouettes sailing out of the mist in complete silence, sometimes as little as five meters away. I’m not easily impressed by birds, but these are as graceful as they are intimidating, forever sailing on thermals whilst watching every move in the world below. Thankfully they didn’t take after the Belgian blitz-buzzards, so we didn’t get attacked, but we all kept a mutually weary eye on one another.

The bottom of the gorge was sadly (and predictably) swollen with water, so we couldn’t traverse its entire length – possibly just as well, as my heart was racing like a hummingbird’s by the time I made it down. Instead we opted for an excursion in the opposite direction the next day, hiking up through an abandoned quarry to the summit of an isolated hillock, on top of which was an ancient Arabic watch tower. Even with a low cloudbase the surrounding landscape was visible for miles and miles, so it was not difficult to see why the Moors chose this site – any advancing army would have been spotted days away. Unfortunately, we could perceive equally clearly that the rain in Spain was not mainly on the plain, but everywhere, again and again, as far as the eye could see.

So with all hope of flying having been dashed I repaired to Seville for the last couple of days. It is a splendid town, epitomizing quintessential Spanishness, wearing its Moorish inheritance on its sleeve whilst showing off the incredible wealth that flowed into the kingdom with the discovery and exploitation of the New World. Everywhere you go the architecture displays both those influences, and nowhere more so than in Real Alcazar, the royal palace, and its splendid gardens. It is easy to see why Game of Thrones filmed many of the scenes from Sunspear here – the sensuous beauty of formal gardens filled with ubiquitous Seville orange trees and interlocking fountains, against the backdrop of a palace of Arabic ideals tempered by Iberian terracotta colours, with peacocks strutting like catwalk models through the landscape – it is quite difficult to surpass in elegance and sophistication.

Not that later generations haven’t tried. Right across the palace sits the vast creamy sandstone opulence that is Seville’s cathedral – large as a football field, cavernous on the inside and decorated like a wedding cake on the outside, its bell tower (once a muezzin’s prayer tower) unabashedly adorned in arabesque forms, even as its bells toll (loudly and repeatedly) to reawaken the Catholic faith.

The old town that surrounds the castle grounds is minute, but so maze-like that it is quite easy to get lost in its jumble of entangled alleyways, that occasionally spit you out onto unsuspected, intimate little plazas. Most of the old houses are built in the Medina style on the inside, with an open courtyard centered around a spring, whilst the outside is resoundingly Spanish – heavy gates, wrought-iron balconies and whimsical turrets with only the occasional tulip-bulb window hinting at the interior – and all of them have been painted in warm colours, so the overall impression is like a Spanish version of Chania, in Crete.

Also in the middle of town there is the Plaza de España, an enormous open space encircled on one side by an opulent bow-shaped castle structure – more theatrical backdrop than real building – and surrounded by a moat, whose arched bridges bring to mind Venice; it sits at one end of the immense Maria Luisa park, filled with temples and water features, formal fountains and informal paths, all hidden away in the lushness of palms, jaquarandas and the ever-present orange trees.

The last day of my week, wouldn’t you know it? The skies are blue, the sun is back, and Seville is awash with tourists even this early in the year, hinting at how busy it will get in high season; even now the horse-drawn carriages and tapas bars are doing brisk business. I take in the old bullfighting ring (now thankfully a museum), the weird mushroom structure (akin to Les Halles in Paris in its modernist madness), and the Golden Tower on the Guadalquivir river, below which is moored a full scale replica of the Nao Victoria, the first ship to circumnavigate the world. It looks ever so small and unimpressive, and yet on such flimsy foundations were built the first truly global empire, which in turn made all these riches possible.

All in all Seville is an interesting spectacle, quite splendid, and would have made for the perfect romantic weekend. But although I’m glad I’ve seen it all, much like was the case in Barcelona, I’d rather have been flying. The only flight for me this week will be the Ryanair one home. Third time will be the charm!

Putinian winter, Parisian spring

February 28, 2022chrisgoja Leave a comment

I went to Paris the day after Putin/Russia invaded the Ukraine. It felt almost perverse to go off to enjoy spring in the City of Light when the forces of darkness wreaked havoc in another part of Europe, but it was planned and paid for, so off I went.

It was a perfect weekend for strolling around, and boy did we walk, my Parisian friend and I. But try as I might to shake it off, the spectre of destruction seemed to follow me everywhere. On the other hand there were also signs of human ingenuity and the indomitable spirit that turns bad things into good.

We went to see Notre Dame, still a building site with no access for the public after the devastating fire three years ago. And yet hundreds of craftsmen are working to catalogue, repair and restore every last bit of debris and rubble, aided in no small part – and I love this! – by the fact that a team of computer game developers had mapped every inch of the church prior to the fire, in order to recreate Paris anno 1789.

Across the water from Notre Dame I drag my friend into Shakespeare and c:o, the most Harry Potter-y store I know outside of Diagon Alley. The bookstore has been run by the same proprietor for five decades, and now his daughter has taken over. Come hell or high water, Covid-19 or Amazon.com, this L-space-bending Mecca remains open and enchanting, books door to ceiling. Heck, books form walls and pillars and caves in here, creating snug reading corners where you can enjoy a book inside a fort made of books.

We explored the Pletzl (or small place) area of Le Marais, which is the Jewish quarter in the Old Town. Everywhere you go there are searing reminders of the thousands of people who were brutally expelled and transported to death camps because it was a crime to be born into that faith, and yet while Nazi Germany is an ugly memory this is now once again a bustling, colourful part of the city where people queue up outside of minuscule restaurants and bakeries to enjoy their falafels and poppy cakes. I partake of both specialities and can vouch for their scrumptiousness!

As I bask in the sun, wolfing down my falafel, three young women stop by to bum a cigarette off another man seated on the same bench as I. He doesn’t have one, so the one who asked the question turns, looks at me for the briefest of moments, only to say ever so politely: « ça n’a pas la peine de vous demander: vous n’avez pas la tête d’un fumeur; vous mangez des pommes et faites du vélo, vous » . (No point in asking you: you don’t look like a smoker; you eat apples and ride bikes, you.) My friend collapses with laughter. So much for me being mysterious and interesting…!

Then we venture outside of the center to see some other lovely examples of how the old and ugly can be recast as things of beauty: the Belleville area with its Lilliputian garden city, and the Buttes-Chaumont park in the 19th arrondissement that used to be an open air quarry, a nasty gash in the landscape. It has since been turned into a green park with the most dramatic garden design imaginable, centered around a lake at the bottom, surrounding a rocky outcrop of an island, on top of which sits the Temple of the Sibyl. It’s like something out of a painting of Arcadia, risen quite literally from the bottom of a pit pf despair.

The same can (almost) be said for La Petite Ceinture (the little belt), which is an old railroad that used to connect the city’s main train stations. When the advent of the Metro made it obsolete the railway fell into disrepair, but it was later turned into a pedestrian zone from the elevated viewpoint of which walkers could take in the city high above the congested roads. It was so popular that other cities like Brussels and New York copied the concept, but alas, it proved popular with les sans abris (homeless people) too, and now parts of it is once again closed to the general public. The current mayor has big plans, however: she intends to ban cars in the city centre altogether, so hopefully this remnant of a coal-powered era will soon be an integral part of pedestrian Paris.

Be that as it may, as news of Ukrainian résilience et resistance is cabled across the world I find reassurance in these examples of how good triumphs in the end. It may not be as pithy as ”Russian warship: go f**k yourself.”, but rebuilding and recovering is what humankind does best. If Paris can survive fires and Nazis and unfettered capitalism, and bounce back greener, wiser and more beautiful, then the same can be true for Kyiv and Moscow. Hope springs eternal.

Côte d’opale, France

February 8, 2022chrisgoja Leave a comment

We went to the French coast this weekend, friend F and I. He needed to blow the cobwebs away, and I needed a change of scenery, so this was a perfect mini adventure.

We drove to the city of Boulogne-sur-Mer, half an hour southwest of Calais, which we would use as a base camp for our excursions. This turned out not to be a very original idea, as the oldest part of town is built on the grid the Romans established for their army camp, as they set out to invade Britain!

Not much remains of that endeavour, but the city wall still stands intact, high on a hill, reinforced over the millennia, making Old Boulogne an imposing citadel. The rest of the town seems to have gone downhill quite literally, as the further down toward the coast you get, the shabbier the buildings, right down to the waterfront, where ghastly high-rises from the 50’s and 60’s bring to mind Kaliningrad-sur-Mer.

Be that as it may, it is a good starting point for our hike up the Opal coast (the stretch between Boulogne and Calais), and the coast itself is lovely. The tide is out, the sky is high, a pale winter sun is shining, and there is a hint of spring in the air and in our steps. There aren’t many people about, just a few joggers and dog walkers. What there is a lot of, however, is wind. 40km/h wind with gusts reaching almost twice that. At times it feels as if you could just fly away, and I am thankful that I wasn’t tempted to bring my paraglider along – the gulls are clearly enjoying themselves, but I would be no match for the elements.

We hike up the coast, the sea and the heavens competing to see who is the most blue, past twee seaside villages nestled in the dunes. I did expect it to be pretty, and I’m not disappointed. What I wasn’t prepared for was the abundance of World War Two bunkers still in existence. Every kilometer or so we pass these sunken concrete monstrosities, some of which are still accessible. We break for coffee at one and I venture inside. Cramped, cold rooms with a lot of debris give an idea of what life here might have been like for German soldiers; low ceilings and an absence of light give me my first World War Two wound, as I crack my head on a low piece of concrete.

Of course, guarding against perfidious Albion goes back a lot longer than Nazi Germany; the emperor Claudius erected a lighthouse/garrison on a rocky islet just off the coast here, and Calais was the last British outpost on the continent – both lighthouse and British possessions were still around well into the Middle Ages, so maybe the bunkers have the tacit approval of the local populace?

We make good progress at any rate, but the wind keeps getting stronger, and F’s feet are not happy, so we cut our hike short once we reach the one village where the one bus of the day can take us back to whence we came. Instead of trudging more kilometers through the sand there’s an opulent lunch in a local fish restaurant, followed by hot showers, siesta and an even more opulent dinner. Hiking in style, as it were.

The next day the weather gods seem to have a score to settle with the whole continent, so we explore the vaults of the ancient basilica and then the medieval fortress, both of which now hold eclectic museums. In both cases, the buildings themselves prove to be the most interesting bits. We stroll around the city walls, and try to imagine the citadel in its heyday, when Charles Dickens bumped into Napoleon III and Prince Albert having a chinwag here, in what must have been the most Victorian moment of the whole Victorian era. Today, however, the rain drives everyone away, including us, so we get in the car and drive to Calais.

In Calais one last memento of the strained relations between the continent and their island neighbors awaits us, in the shape of a monumental statue by Rodin. During the Hundred Years’ War the city fell after an eleven-month-long siege by the English. Edward III was annoyed with the citizens for their “obstinate” resistance, and was going to kill everyone who had survived. In the end, his wife – who apparently tagged along on her husband’s mini adventures – managed to get him to change his mind, but not before the city’s noblemen had been forced to walk barefoot through the city with nooses around their necks. The statue in front of the Hotel de ville shows half a dozen of them, in their moment of despair.

With a history such as theirs, it is perhaps easy to see why France and the UK seem to have difficulties getting along after Brexit. Maybe Macron’s attempts to mediate in the Ukraine is brought about by a fear that Londongrad will otherwise take the opportunity to stage an attack on the mainland Eurostar station, thus to preempt any further migrant invasions, in the ultimate effort by BJ to make people forget about Partygate? Or maybe I just need to find a new mini adventure to go on? Watch this space.

The road to France

November 20, 2021chrisgoja 12 Comments

This is supposed to be a travel blog, but over the last two years there hasn’t been a lot of traveling, as you might have noticed.

I wanted to remedy that, but in the light of ever changing rules and regulations I didn’t want to hop on a plane to somewhere whence I might not be allowed to return, or forced to quarantine if I did, so instead I packed my car full of all the things I could think of that might come in handy (I’m more of a Thelma than a Louise) and set off with the vaguest of ideas about doing my own Tour de France, as I have seen embarrassingly little of the country.

At this point I wasn’t sure where I’d be allowed to go, or if the Covid pass would work, so first I went to the Belgian Ardennes (it’s on the way, after all). I repeated one of my favorite walks around the conflux of the two rivers Ourthes, at the Barrage de Nisramont, gloriously autumnal and devoid of people, and pretty on a scale that normally doesn’t apply to Belgium.

Then I went to Bastogne, and took in their excellent museum on World War II and the Battle of the Bulge, which raged through this area. It’s particularly poignant because it describes first hand what civilians had to live through – not only the immediate terror of war being waged quite literally in one’s backyard, but also the long lasting implications for societies where some chose to side with the invaders, and others with the resistance. Even long after the war, people still settled scores.

Not wanting to get caught in the crossfire, I drove on to Luxembourg, to hike their excellent trails. The joke was on me, because when I got there there was hunting underway everywhere. I still managed to get a couple of really nice day hikes in, through the lush sandstone ravines, where colossal cliffs form veritable mazes, around and through which the paths wind. The fact that the rugged rocks sometimes look like petrified trolls made me feel as if I was in a Tolkien story.

And speaking of children’s stories: After Luxembourg I set off for France, driving through Germany for a bit to get there. My next stop was to be Colmar, south of Strasbourg in the Alsace/Elsaß region, another of those bits of Europe that seemed to be forever changing hands whenever wars were waged – it’s stayed French after WW2, of course (thank you, EU), but it retains a very German look and feel. In fact it was like stepping onto the set of a Grimm fairytale movie, or would have been, if my arrival hadn’t coincided with an incongruous anti-vaxxer demonstration(!).

(It’s odd to me that people behave this way, don’t you think? No one writing horror stories – from Grimm to present day zombie apocalypses – ever imagined people fighting for their right NOT to protect themselves from the Big Bad Wolf/Virus. But I digress…)

Anyway, the demonstration/mass spreader event was soon over, and I spent the rest of the day happily marveling at the oddly organic, right angle-escewing architecture of the city, where every house leans on the next, like a bunch of oversized, 500-year-old, drunken revelers. No modern architect would build like this, and more’s the pity. Streets run hither and thither, little courtyards and alleys reveal their secrets gradually, so that the third time I passed a spot a tight passage appeared out of nowhere between two sagging facades, drawing me in to a small square with a wishing well. It felt truly magical.

Next day I visit the local art museum, Unter den Linden (set in a former nunnery), and then venture up into the Vosges, to Keysersberg (or “-beri“, as the French spell it, unable as they are to pronounce the German “G” sound!), a village high on an outcrop that has served as a lookout for barbarians ever since Roman times (they called it Mons Caesaria), with more of the same Disney-esquely twee houses; if Hansel and Gretel came skipping down the street arm in arm with Pinocchio and Cinderella it wouldn’t look out of place. I don’t think anything can top this around here, so I get back in the car and drive on – to the Jura massif.

It’s another three hours before I get there, and it’s beginning to dawn on me that I will never be able to do a full tour of France. But I’m driving through a beautiful landscape, as dramatic as it is bucolic, so maybe that doesn’t matter. Dusk will soon be falling, however, so it’s a relief to arrive at the b&b I’ll be staying at, only… the owners are not home. I have to try to find something else, and quick. These roads aren’t easy to navigate even when it’s light out, so it’s with some trepidation I set out again through a large forest, but as luck would have it, those pesky Romans got here before me, too: the 2,000-year old road is ramrod straight – it even has the original milestones left (pillars, more accurately), marking their, and my, swift progress.

I finally pull up next to a very old farm building – the kind where the animals are kept underneath the living quarters of the farmers. Luckily there are horses in there, or I would have thought the place abandoned. There are no people around tho, but I wait and eventually they show up, and invite me to warm myself by an enormous hearth, while the lady of the house rustles up a three course meal in no time and sits down to share a glass of red or two with me. Hands down the best living quarters of the trip, and only because the other place dropped the ball.

The next day I hike two gorges in Jura – one famous for its enormous cave system, the other for its many beautiful waterfalls. The cave is unfortunately closed for winter; I would have been fully prepared to bribe my way in, or even go in on my own, like Tom Sawyer, but there is no-one around, and the entrance is ten meters up a sheer cliff face with the stairs pulled up, drawbridge-style, so that will have to wait for another time. The waterfalls in the other gorge are as pretty as can be, however, and I have them virtually to myself, so my Jurassic experience is still a good one (even without so much as a hint of dinosaurs!).

On I go, further south still, always chasing the elusive sun, of which I see nothing but the merest glimpses. I go through Switzerland and finally arrive in Annecy, another gorgeous city with a beautiful Old Town. Here I stay longer, having given up on my initial idea of a full circular route around France, but more importantly because Annecy is a paragliding Mecca!

A friend of my sister has tipped me off about a paragliding school, where I roll up first thing in the morning, not particularly hopeful about my chances – it’s late in the season after all, and the clouds over Annecy as persistent as everywhere else – but within an hour I’m in the air, testing my dormant skills at take-off, navigating and landing! I spend three very happy days here, gradually getting back into the swing of things, and on the last day I clock up four good flights in the morning, flying out over Annecy and the lake and mountains, soaring like an eagle. How I have missed this!!

But all good things must come to an end, and so I reluctantly get back in my car. I do want to come home to see my kids, and not have to live out of a knapsack, but it’s a long way home. I drive as far as Dijon in one go, then decide it’s probably dangerous to continue (I have five hours’ driving left, it’s raining and darkness is falling). So I book a room online – rather too quickly – and find myself being invited into a semi-derelict building next to the motorway where junkies and homeless people probably shack up. Now, I’m ok with jumping off mountains, but this is too much. There’s a Holiday Inn up the road, and even though I normally abhor such establishments, there are times when a bland room with a bland breakfast seem quite heavenly. I check in, shower for a loooong time, then sleep like a baby – and I don’t have to share hypodermic needles with anyone!

Next day there is time for a visit to the impressive art museum of Dijon, housed in the palace of the dukes of Burgundy, and some quirky stores in the town centre, but my heart isn’t really in it any more. I drive on to Champagne where a couple of tips from friend Florian enables me to stock up the car with quality bubbly from small, local producers that never find their way outside to the rest of the world, and then I press on, eager to finally get home!

So. I was on the road for just shy of ten days, drove 1,200km, saw more things and had more experiences (nearly all outstanding) than I could have hoped for, and managed everything from paragliding school to discussing champagne vintages and vaccine policies and expressing my thoughts on proprietors of opium shacks who want to pass them off as romantic gîtes – all in French! I’d say that qualifies as a successful road trip. And even though I didn’t complete a Tour de France, I still feel that I was on my way to discover the country – c’est pas mal non plus.

River rafting the Wermland wilderness

July 20, 2020chrisgoja 1 Comment

I had left it until late in the day to plan any activities with the kids for the summer hols, so when my sister suggested we come along on a four-day river raft in Wermland, I jumped at the opportunity. It didn’t start well.

We had driven deep into the forests the previous day and late afternoon we found the rafting outfit. We got our equipment in large, no-nonsense wooden chests, and pitched our tents by the shore in a meadow. Then we got the debriefing: a rundown of the logging history of the region (long and winding), the nature of the Klarälven river (ditto), the potential obstacles we might encounter (submerged sand banks, low-hanging trees, backwater maelstroms – all fun-sounding…) and a quick walkthrough of the knots we’d be using to tie logs together (Did we learn them well enough? We did knot.).

Then a harsh surprise: roll-call tomorrow at 0700 and a 0715 departure to the place up-river where we would build our rafts. That seemed uncalled for, until they finally divulged the reason why; constructing the rafts would take between six and nine hours! The web page made it sound like it was something you could do in an hour, tops…

Given that the seven of us were going to share a whopping three rafts, latched together into one mega-structure, there were no prices for guessing how long it would take us. The forecast for the next day? Nothing. But. Rain.

We woke to a steady drizzle, and drove for about an hour under incontinent skies before we arrived at the construction site, where piles of logs awaited us.

So there we are. It’s an intimidating sight. The stacks are as tall as I am, and the logs range in size from solid to massive, every one of them slick with rain. One 3x3m raft weighs about 1.5 tonnes, so we’ll be shifting the equivalent of three cars’ worth of timber into the river. Bonus: the heftier logs go into the bottom layer (of three), but the piles are a jumble of sizes, a real logjam, so getting them out is akin to a giant game of plockepinn, where every movement can make the logs shift and crush your hands.

We start lugging logs as best we can, dividing them into different sizes, rolling the heaviest ones into the water so we can latch them together. The rain keeps falling, and the kids are questioning our sanity. Did we really volunteer to do this? And pay money for the privilege? I am inclined to side with them, but we are committed to this now, so on we trudge.

The water temperature is a decidedly chilly 15 degrees, numbing our hands and feet; the current is just strong enough to make holding the logs together even more difficult. The clay of the river bottom retains an iron grip on our sandals, but the same clay makes the shore incredibly slippery, so once you wrench your foot free of the water you are likely to slip back down again – all while juggling 600-pound logs. Such fun.

No-one remembers any knots, but after half a raft we at least figure out that we can use the thinner logs to create impromptu rails, which makes getting the heavier ones into the water quite doable – the kids join in and roll tree trunks ten times their weight into the river, which they enjoy.

By lunchtime we have finished one raft, and the food dries our dampend spirits, but we’ve got two more to go, so into the river we slosh once again. Other, smaller groups finish their rafts. They load up their kit under the tarpaulin tents and get on board, only to find that the weight of the vessels is now so great that they are instantly stuck. So there they are, stood atop their beached whales, trying to push off with the help of barge poles, effectively trying to lift themselves. Our dreams of Huckleberrying it down a Swedish Mississippi seem shattered, replaced by a robinsonade – we are clearly doomed to be marooned on this beach!

It’s a measure of the general exhaustion level that it takes quite a while for anyone to figure out that the way to get afloat is to get off the raft and lever it free by wedging the barge poles underneath it. Once that is done it is child’s play to set it adrift, but the ordeal isn’t over; several rafts only make it fifty yards or so before settling on a submerged sand bank – we’d been warned about those, true, but so soon? It didn’t seem fair, somehow…

By the time all other groups had pushed off and sailed down the river at what seemed an impossibly slow speed, we were still building our last raft. All in all it took us just under nine hours of backbreaking work, and no-one felt like getting on it when we were done. Instead we pitched our tents and crawled into our sleeping bags, wrung out and cold to the core.

After a fitful night (I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired, or slept so badly), we woke to another dark grey sky, had breakfast in the rain, and finally set off, making sure we steered clear of the first sand bank. Behind us, a timber truck was already offloading the next stacks of logs.

The tempo takes some getting used to. It takes us three quarters of an hour to drift around the first bend in the river. Klarälven is wide and stately, and moves at a decidedly measured pace – rafting here is not for speed demons!

The meandering course is caused by silt deposits that build up on the inside of the main water flow, where the slower speed causes particles to sink to the bottom, which in turn reinforces outward pressure on the water, causing it to press even more against the outside of the next curve. If that all seems a bit technical, all you have to remember is that there is a reason why real estate is cheaper on the outside of any river bend – sooner or later the waters will take it.

This also means that the main flow of the water will always be tending towards the outside of any given curve, and you want your raft to steer clear of the inside, where silt deposits will make sand banks all but a certainty. That’s the general rule, but it ain’t always the case, as we soon discover.

Because there has been a lot of rain lately the risk of running aground on sand banks isn’t great, they told us. Well, two hours into our river run we beat the odds and get firmly stuck. The water is shallow enough that we can stand on the bottom and lever the raft off, but then because we haven’t really gotten used to the (lack of) speed with which we are traveling we make a mistake – ahead of us is an island, and we had been warned not to try and get past an island on the inside, as that would see us marooned, so we pushed on into a narrow canal on the outside.

Of course, it turns out that this wasn’t the island in question (that one we will pass just fine – much, much later), and we have just forced 27 unwieldy square meters of timber plus a canoe into a very tight backwater squeeze. It takes us the better part of an hour to round this islet, using nothing but our stakes, and after that we paid better attention to the map and the flow of the current.

After this, things run a lot more smoothly. The rain stays with us, and we hide out under the tarps as best we can for the most part, only venturing out to push away from the shore line when we get too close, or when a fallen tree juts out into our path. There’s a learning curve to this, too, but gradually we pick up how, when and how hard to push to achieve the desired result. You want to angle the pole right or you won’t be able to push at all, and you want to time it so that there is no risk of the raft catching up with the pole, in which case it might very well snap it in two, something that my sister discovered first hand (mass and momentum are powerful things even at low speeds). Finally you don’t want to push too hard, because that will make the whole raft pivot, and cause the aft end to get raked by the very obstacle the front just managed to avoid. We don’t always get it right, and a couple of times we plow through trees that whip the length of the raft, but we come away more or less unscathed.

My nephew has brought fly fishing equipment and keeps casting in the rain, but to no avail. Luckily we have stocked up on lots of food, because there is not a fish to be seen. The guy at the base camp spoke of all manner of species that could be caught, but although we cover nearly 60km of the river in total there is not the slightest indication that there is anything fishy going on – apart from selling us fishing permits in the first place.

Thankfully the landscape is very pretty. The river runs (well, saunters) through deep forests, and it’s easy to imagine them full of moose, bears and lynx (all of which do exist here, even though they don’t show up on our radar). We spot a couple of beaver huts along the way, but otherwise there is little going on, possibly because the riverbanks are very steep, and there are virtually no spots where you could land, let alone pitch a couple of tents, so it’s a good thing we didn’t try to move out on the first evening.

As it is, it isn’t until late afternoon that we find a suitable meadow on a promontory, but as we realise it quite late, my brother-in-law and I have to jump in the canoe and pull the raft inwards. What we should have done, of course, was to paddle ashore with a long tethering rope that we could latch to a tree and let the raft be pulled to shore by the current, like a pendulum, but instead we paddle like mad and fight the stream all the way, scramble up and secure the taunt line to a grassy knoll; it’s touch and go – as we touch land we see the raft go past us – but in the end we manage: a near impossible task that ensures that our muscles ache just as much the following night.

The next morning couldn’t be more different. The sun is out and it’s warm. It feels luxurious. Even the kids thaw a little. We lounge on deck, reading, snacking, snapping pictures and doing small excursions in the canoe – sandbar islands being a favorite, not least in order to avoid having to use the toilet bucket. We’ve learnt to anticipate the movements of the river and the raft, and there are no incidents to speak of. I feel like all that is missing is a straw hat and a corncob pipe and I would’ve achieved rafting level: Huckleberry.

We even catch something while fishing: a tree. The lure snaps off when caught in a branch, but we have a bit of luck; in what must be said to be an act of desperation, the fisherman had used an enormous, neon-yellow fish lookalike – it’s easily visible in the shallows, so I manage to retrieve it with a quick rescue operation in the canoe.

The last day we feel like old hands, regular log jockeys. The weather is still lovely, if a tad too windy, but we raise our tarpaulins and manage to move on unperturbed. We pass several moored rafts, amongst them one with five nubile Danish women skinny-dipping next to it, and for a fleeting moment I feel like Ulysses when he encountered the sirens.

Alas, that kinship is reinforced a mere hour before we are to arrive at our destination, when we run the gauntlet of another homeric challenge; a long stretch of open water provides the headwind with enough run-up to push us into a bend where a backwater maelstrom awaits us. We push back like mad, but the waters are deep and the barge poles make little difference – except when mine gets stuck at the wrong moment and vaults me into the river! Even paddling with the canoe is futile – but at least it enables us to make land. In the end we have to resort to pulling the raft along the shore using ropes to get out of the ordeal, but at least the Scyllic breath doesn’t blow us into the Charybdis-like whirlpool, like it does another raft that’s right behind us. When we finally do get out, they are still turning helplessly in the backdraft.

Confident smiles all around, five minutes before Scylla and Charybdis.

With this Odyssey-like rite of passage finally behind us, we are quite relieved when we come upon the disassembly area. It’s hard work, too, of course, taking apart the whole craft, but it seems like nothing compared to putting it together. And it’s quite fitting – logs have always been sent down the river this way. Once freed of their shackles they will be collected downriver and used anew. If that’s not sustainable tourism, I don’t know what is.

Barcelona revisited

November 28, 2019chrisgoja 1 Comment

I was supposed to be flying. Paragliding in the foothills of the Pyrenees. But the weather isn’t cooperating, and so it is that I find myself in Barcelona, capital of Catalonia, with four days on my hands and no plans whatsoever. I’ve been here once before, but only to run the marathon, and I didn’t see much of the city – I must be one of the few people to have passed the Sagrada Família on foot without even noticing it was there! So now I will make up for my previous lack of attention. And there are worse places to be grounded…!

Like Rome, Barcelona is a city spanning millennia, but with the exception of the bullfighting ring (which is a direct descendant of the gladiatorial games of yore) Barna (not Barca – that’s the football club) doesn’t wear this fact on its sleeve. Instead there are hints everywhere; a colonnade incorporated in a building, supporting arches laid bare in basements, a stretch of aqueduct suddenly appearing like a ribcage of a long dead animal revealed by the ebb and flow of the desert sands. Some can be seen in archeological digs, others are felt rather than perceived by the naked eye – the rambling roads of the old town still snaking their way to the sea along buried waterways, place-names lingering where the features themselves are long gone.

And these are just the things you can perceive above ground level – there is a whole sub urban cityscape, too. I’m reading Underland at the moment, and I’m dying to find someone that can give me a more comprehensive tour of the hidden layers of the city’s past, but alas, I don’t find any such cicerone. Instead I wander the streets aimlessly, getting creatively lost and finding a seemingly endless array of interesting stores and quaint bars and restaurants. There’s the café that serves nothing but cereals, the street vendor that specializes in what must be diplomatically circumscribed as anatomically-looking plants, the store filled with nothing but huge sacks filled with all kinds of flour, nuts and seeds, one establishment that sells only glass jellyfish, another that’s full of leather masks (for carnival, or other special occasions), the list goes on and on.

It is a city ripe with contradictions: the second largest in the country, and a centre for the independence movement; a city thriving on tourism, with a strong opposition to that very phenomenon; a city that is clearly very well to do, yet possesses a large population of dispossessed people. These aren’t your ordinary homeless people, either; much like the independence movement, these poor people are organized; they live in tribe-like groups that squat in empty buildings and form an entire shadow economy, siphoning electricity from the grid illegally, much like their ancestors would have done to get water from the aqueducts without paying.

Due to all this and more, Barcelona has a unique quality to it. An American I meet that has previously lived in New York City and San Fransisco says it combines the best qualities of the two – and I see no reason to contradict her. The famous grid-shaped city planning of the newer parts of town combined with the labyrinth of the old town, the proximity of both sea and mountain, and of course the marvelous architecture (so much more than the Gaudi showcases – but yes, this time I do get to see his little church project!) all make for a wonderful cityscape. Add to that the many authentic restaurants and food markets, the international blend of people from all over and the likable nature of every inhabitant I encounter, and you have a pretty ideal mixture. If I had to live in a city, this would be high on my list.

A Balkan birthday: Montenegrin mountains

October 22, 2019chrisgoja 3 Comments

Montenegro’s nature is truly grandiose. Traveling inland from Budva we stop at Lake Skadar and take a boat journey into the National Park. According to the guide books it offers a sanctuary to a great many species of birds, but since birds cannot read they seem unaware of this offer – there aren’t hardly any around. Still, it’s a pleasant break from driving, it’s sunny and warm and we’re alone on the boat with a great big platter of fried dough balls served with local med, honey, for lunch; life could be worse.

The journey into the interior skirts Podgorica, the capital, but we make straight for the mountains. The road snakes its way along the Moraća river, and mid afternoon we arrive at the mouth of the Mrtvica canyon, where we’ll do our first proper hike. The road leading inside it is so narrow that we miss it at first, and the drive along the side of the canyon to the trailhead is a harrowing experience, better suited for a 4×4 or perhaps a mountain goat.

The only reason we finally find the trailhead is because an old local man flags us down and points it out. He also says there’s a risk our car will be broken into as we have Croatian plates – clearly Montenegrins don’t love their neighbours neither!

Miss A is a little shook by this statement – she is a keen photographer and doesn’t want her equipment stolen, so subsequently takes everything with her in her backpack. I don’t own any fancy kit, so leave everything in the car*. And then we’re off, racing dusk up a most wonderfully overgrown ravine, where the trees aren’t just bearded but positively shaggy, and the waterfalls bounce and bound over boulders the size of buildings in the chasm below.

The next day, fortified by local shepherd fare, we venture even longer and higher into the mountains. Biogradska Gora is another National Park of stunning beauty – reminiscent of New Hampshire, with trees in every shade of russet, caramel, bronze and amber. Possibly because she is literally from that neck of the woods, or because she has picked up my cold, or because the map we’re using is sketchy in the extreme and doesn’t allow for proper navigation, Miss A is less than impressed with our quest to find the Mountain Eyes (the local name for glacial lakes that dot the region), and keeps up a litany of “Are we there yets” and “This is the worst trail evers” throughout the hike. It reminds me of my children, which I guess is good, and even I have to admit that the lake we eventually discover is underwhelming as a reward for four solid hours of walking. Still, it is a very pleasant park.

There are lovely cabins on offer near the visitor’s centre, but we want something better, so we use TripAdvisor to find alternative lodgings. The joke is on us; bad internet and too much haste sees us pick a place that’s called Riverside Lodge, or somesuch. I guess it’s a better name than Motorwayside Shack, but the latter would have been more correct. Suffice to say we leave as early as we can the next morning.

We drive into the morning mist and follow the lovely Tara river into the heart of the mountains. Autumn makes the deciduous trees glitter like jewels, and black pine trees cling to the serrated edges of the canyon, making it feel like a Japanese watercolor come alive.

The best way to experience its beauty is from the river itself, however, so that’s what we do. Rafting companies offer everything from two hour trips to two full days, the latter of which will take you all the way to the Bosnian border. Given time constraints and what we’ve seen so far of border crossings in the region we opt for the former, and spend a blissful morning being ferried down river by the currents (and never mind that the company fleeced us, charging for entrance tickets to the national park that turned out to be a week old…).

The last area we explore is Durmitor, another National Park of outstanding beauty. It’s of a different kind to what we’ve seen so far. Above the tree line entirely, the mountains here are clad in nought but pale golden grass. It’s a stark landscape, deserted and unforgiving, but very appealing nonetheless, not least when we stumble upon a herd of semi-wild horses. Whether it’s luck or what little I have gleaned of horsemanship, it’s a good feeling when two of them finally approach me and sniff me out under the watchful eye of the herd lookout.

And that marks the end of our journey, almost. There’s a long drive back to Dubrovnik, via orthodox cloisters nestled like swallows’ nests on rocky outcrops**, and through a somber Bosnia – we don’t stop here, but somehow the mood of the country is still clearly different – and back into Croatia under cover of darkness.

I already want to go back. There are secret canyons to be explored, trails to be walked, ridges to be soared, and all of it as yet unspoiled. It comes with my highest recommendations.

——

*I do start compiling a list of all the things I wish I had – GoPro, drone, iPhone X et cetera – in case the car does get broken into. My birthday is coming up, after all, and if Montenegro is about anything it’s about playing the system to your advantage!

**Montenegrins are very devout – there are long lines to kiss the remains of the local saint, and the cloister courtyard is full of pilgrims who stay here for days in the sweltering sun in the hope of benefitting fully from the presence of Divinity. Whether it’s present or not I wouldn’t like to say, but the presence (and smell) of humanity is quite overwhelming.

A Balkan birthday: Kotor, Lovćen and Budva

October 20, 2019chrisgoja Leave a comment

Driving into Montenegro you are immediately struck by the sheer amount of geography that has been crammed into such a small country: the coast is very dramatic, with steep, forest-clad mountains erupting directly from the impossibly blue Adriatic. The other thing that is immediately apparent is the recent history between Croatia and Montenegro; nowhere else in Europe are there border controls with a no man’s land between them, but in the Balkans they take borders seriously.

Bay of Kotor (not featuring Kotor)

We drive along the coast to the first of several geological features that have shaped the nation: the Bay of Kotor. It is an enormous fjord, and nestled in its safe haven is the city of Kotor, that once was a wealthy commercial hub and an important part of the Venetian empire.

Much like Dubrovnik it is remarkably intact, but it has a very different feel to it – less polished, more chaotic, and a lot more charming for it! We stroll around its narrow streets, enjoy gelato and the many, many cats that call the city home, and then climb up its half-ruined fortifications that clamber up the cliff face against which the city is cradled. Only half of it is still accessible to the public, as the other half is too crumbled to be safe, but its state of disrepair only adds to its considerable charms, and since its much too steep for the cruise ship crowds we have it largely to ourselves.

Venetians – famous for blinds AND walls.

Further along the bay is Perast, a one street cluster of old Venetian palazzos where wealthy merchants once summered. Several of them have been restored and turned into B&B’s or hotels, and we spend the night in one of them, enthralled by the surrounding beauty. It’s a testament to the many wars that have ravished this region that the room has gun slits in the walls, but no one mounts an attack during the night, and we even manage to avoid the onslaught of tourists the next morning as we negotiate the hair-raising switchback road that takes us up into Lovćen.

Lovćen is the heartland of Montenegro; it is a National Park centered around Crna Gora, which means black mountain, the name deriving from the way the mountain looked clad in dense forests. Lovćen is also the only place where the Slavs managed to hold off the Ottoman Empire – like an East European real life version of Asterix and his fellow Gauls, the tribes of this area were simply too much for the Turks to conquer, and eventually the latter sued for peace – the only time the Ottomans ever did, something which is a source of pride to all Montenegrins.

Drop dead gorgeous…

Today, this national pride is manifest at the very summit of the mountain, where a mausoleum to Peter II, Prince bishop and the spiritual founding father of modern Montenegro is hewn out of the rock. Many of his countrymen make the pilgrimage here, and even if it is a bizarre thing to find on top of a mountain, it does nothing to detach from the beauty of the National Park. We spend a glorious autumn day hiking up and down the mountain, enjoying the solitude and quiet beauty of it all, before getting back in the car and heading back down to the coast, and the city of Budva, which we reach after dark.

In many ways Budva is a manifestation of Montenegrin society at its worst: corruption is rampant in the country, and organised crime is at least as prevalent here as it ever was in Italy. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in Budva, another old trading town that has reinvented itself as the favorite marina of Russian oligarchs and their super yachts. The once pleasant town is overrun with developers building anything and everything they can think of to lure the rich and the rubberneckers to their shores, and they ride roughshod over any civic or aesthetic considerations in the process. The one part that has remained (outwardly) untouched is the miniature island known as the scene of the poker tournament in the James Bond movie Casino Royal – it is now fully owned by a hotel conglomerate catering to the super rich, who are lining up for the chance to emulate 007 (and never mind that the rest of the movie was filmed in Czechia…).

Casino Royale – or How To Market Your Hotel.

The only reason I wanted to come here was that there is supposed to be good paragliding off the mountain ridge behind it, but the outfit I contacted to go flying didn’t react in time, and besides, having seen the state of the beach that they proposed to use as a landing area I don’t feel comfortable flying here anyway. It is an experience best left to a different clientele, and so after breakfast we head on to what really makes Montenegro worthwhile: its wild nature.

A Balkan birthday: Dubrovnik

October 20, 2019chrisgoja Leave a comment

In a manner of speaking, every age brings with it a journey into a foreign land, so what better way to celebrate the annual turning of the counter than by going on an expedition to… a foreign land?

Dubrovnik by drone.

I meet up with my good friend Miss Adventure in Dubrovnik, famously pretty old town on the shores of the Adriatic. I was in Split earlier this year, so strictly speaking it isn’t my first time in Croatia, but Dubrovnik is situated in the strange appendix that is separated from the main landmass of Croatia by a Bosnian land bridge, which makes it a Croat enclave in a foreign land.

This mapping oddity is a result of the war that followed Yugoslavia’s collapse, when Bosnia and Montenegro shelled the UNESCO-protected town from the mountain ridge up above in an attempt to conquer it. Judging from the number of roofs that had to be replaced, and the many plaques commemorating the atrocity in the old town, it would seem UNESCO doesn’t provide any actual protection, at least not against invading armies…

Nowadays, a different kind of army invades the city on a daily basis. Hordes of tourists come to gape at its wonders, but such ancient history as the civil war doesn’t interest them. Instead it is another civil war – that in Game of Thrones – and the many locations used in filming scenes in King’s Landing that draw the crowds. Most popular of these are apparently the stairs where Queen Cersei began her naked walk of shame…! Why you would want to see a staircase on the basis of the fact that a naked woman once stood on them, I don’t know. What kind of third degree voyeurism is that? In any event, my own brief attempt at reenactment is promptly ended by my companion, ironically with the words “Have you no shame?”.

Not actually the author.

GoT or no, tourism is simultaneously a blessing and a curse for Dubrovnik – it is virtually its only source of income, but the success is such that it is becoming unbearable, even now in the off season. The city is also famous for its astonishingly well-preserved fortifications, its walls still intact, and most of the turrets, forts, bastions and casemates equally untouched by time. Never breached by a foreign army, the defenses of the city are now – somewhat ironically – overrun with foreigners. The price of walking around the top of the city walls is steeper than the walls themselves at 27€ per person, and even without the presence of one of the gargantuan cruise ships in the harbour you have to be among the very first up those stairs, or it is one long Escheresque queue of instagrammers, obese Americans, lemming-like Chinese and GoT geeks.

What can you do when you’re up against such a defense?

The same is true for every alley inside the walls. The main shopping street is called Stradun, and it’s a case in point. It’s surprisingly broad and straight for a medieval city street. It used to be a narrow, marshy straight that separated the island part of town (Ragusa) from the shore side (Dubrava), but as it became ever more clogged with debris and waste from the two cities, the decision was taken to pave it over, thus creating Dubrovnik as we know it, and something of a medieval esplanade – alas, it’s still clogged up, only now it’s with throngs of people.

Early morning on the Stradun…

It is a shame (no pun intended) because Dubrovnik could be so lovely, with its cream-coloured limestones and medieval Mediterranean vibe, but as it is it feels like a movie backdrop rather than a real town, and the crowds make it unbearable for long; one day and one night is plenty, and we are happy to get a rental car and make a run for the Montenegrin border.

A Split first

April 30, 2019chrisgoja Leave a comment

We went to Split on a whim. It was a decision taken more or less at random, as I needed a destination for my Easter week with the kids, and knew they wanted sun and warmth. I was so overwrought at the time tho that I only checked Momondo for reasonable flights to anywhere in Croatia, and then promptly forgot about it – to the point where I thought we were going to Zadar until mere days before departure…!

Split proved to be fabulous, however. It’s an old town, built up around Diocletian’s retirement home; one of the few Roman Emperors ever to step down voluntarily, the guy was clearly a bit of a planner, since he spent the last ten years of his emperature(?!) organising the building of this vast palace on the Adriatic coast.

When he wasn’t doing that, the Big D was busy making a name for himself as the last emperor to prosecute the Christians, which was kind of lucky, because after his death, Christianity was made the state religion, and what with old Dio being out of vogue, the Christians pillaged the palace and tossed his remains in the sea. Why lucky then? Because the palace was too good to tear down, the pillagers moved in, and turned into villagers. The palace is better preserved today than any other similar construction precisely because it has been continuously inhabited ever since. Sure, you have to look a bit to see it under the Venetian influences and the mishmash of buildings that have been torn down, erected, repurposed and re-erected over the centuries, but it’s still a wonderful edifice, and massive at 30,000 square meters.

We explore its nooks and crannies, alleyways and hidden squares, and delight in finding new, hitherto unseen gems, like a perfectly preserved temple to Jupiter, the Letmepass Street (all five meters of it) where we stop to watch American tourists get stuck (it’s not a meter wide), and the cellars of the palace, where Daenerys kept her dragons. (Lots of scenes from GoT were filmed here…), glimpse inside the cathedral (which is housed in Diocletian’s mausoleum – how’s that for revenge?!) and stroll along the promenade feasting on gelato (Italy being but a stone’s-throw away).

The region of Dalmatia has more to offer than just Split, too: we take a ferry out to the island of Brač and have this year’s first dip in the Mediterranean, then go up into the mountains to take on white water rafting down the Cetina river; we’re in an inflated canoe rather than a raft proper, and it’s exhilarating and exhausting in equal measure, as I’m the only one paddling most of the time, and steering us through the eddies is hard work indeed. The kids are very good though, and not the least bit scared, save for when a spider boards our craft…

Then there’s the impenetrable fortress high above the city that has served as its main defense since times immemorial: Kliš. When the Turks came the battles fought beneath its walls were so fierce that the village that later grew up there was called Savaś Alanì (Battlefield in Turkish). The Turks took the Citadel, but never the city, and the locals (who knew the land) would scale the battlements under cover of darkness and assassinate them on a regular basis until the invaders finally exvaded.

More recently, Split was spared during the civil war that tore the region asunder, but Kliš has a renewed claim to atrocity fame, for it was here that the Khaleesi had hundreds of Meereen slave owners crucified. (My daughter has recently discovered that she looks quite a bit like Emilia Clarke, who plays the Mother of Dragons, hence the interest in what the character gets up to…)

Meereen/Kliš, minus the executed people.

Finally, we go on an excursion to Plitvice National Park, to see Croatia’s most famous landmark, the thousand waterfalls of this river land. It’s a long journey by bus (it’s easier to get to from Zagreb), but it is worth it. The park isn’t huge, and it is obviously full of people (although the guide informs us this is nothing), but it is nicely done, with wooden walkways leading across the delta and natural paths along the river and lakesides.

The waterfalls are absolutely everywhere, from small brook-like ones where ponds overflow one into the other, to great cascades up to seventy meters high where tributaries come crashing down into the ravine – if like me you like water features, this is a wet dream (in a manner of speaking) come true.

For scale, note people on gangway to the left…

All in all we spend a very pleasant week in Split, not least due to the fantastic hotel we find right on the edge of the old town. In Aspalathos Residence, rooms are spacious and stylish, the food is wonderful, and Tatjana reigns supreme.

Will we be back for a Split second? Who knows. I certainly want to see more of Croatia – Dubrovnik and Zadar, specifically – and the island of Brač is a kite surfers’ paradise, so chances are.

Hvala lipa!

Gorgeous gorges of Crete: Marmara

April 28, 2019chrisgoja Leave a comment

Leaving Chora Sfakion by car, going past Anopoli, you come to the old abandoned village of Aradena where the road crosses the Marmara gorge on a rickety bridge. It is incredibly scenic, especially if you have a soft spot for ruins. The gorge is deep, deeper than any other I have hiked, and it’s also the one that I have felt most dubious about taking on. The guidebook describes it as difficult, poorly maintained and absolutely off limits in times of rain because of the risk of rock falls. It hasn’t rained lately, but given that nearby Samaria is still closed for that very reason, I’m hesitating, but as I’ve run out of options I figure I’ll give it a go.

It starts well enough, with a well-kept path leading through the ruins and into the gorge, and once on the bottom of the gorge it’s easy going at first. It’s early, and I’m being serenaded by a morning chorus of birds that make their nests in the walls. This gorge has walls much steeper than the others, too, which reflects in the fauna: it’s quite sparse, the red rock mostly bare save for stunted shrubs, and – surprisingly – big spruces on the bottom in the wider areas. It looks like what I imagine Grand Canyon does.

It’s also different in that this gorge drops in steps rather than a continuous descent, so at first the path is almost flat, and very pleasant walking, but when I reach the first fall I quickly realize this won’t be easy: the blazons are hard to find, the path overgrown and difficult to distinguish from goat tracks, and I repeatedly find myself losing my way.

The second drop is described as the most difficult. I take a wrong turn and find myself facing a long slope of gravel and loose rock that ends in a sheer drop down to a boulder. I know I have to reach that boulder, as there is an iron ladder bolted to it, so I gather I have to slide on my bum, gripping whatever outcrops I can to slow my descent. Far above me a kid bleats forlornly. If I were the least bit superstitious I’d be inclined to think it was trying to warn me off. Once I’ve committed there will be no turning back, but I can’t see any alternative, so down I go, surfing on this wave of pebbles. I manage to steer to the side in time to avoid the cliffhanger ending, but I would be lying if I didn’t say so was shaking afterwards. The ladders, although ten meters long, bent and unstable, are a piece of cake in comparison.

Not pictured: shaky author.

The next drop is little better. I find myself unable to trace the trail, and end up navigating as best I can over the enormous boulders – the only way is down, right? – something which goes reasonably well until I end up having to climb down as far as I can between two of them, and then drop a good meter onto unknown ground. As my backpack has a tendency to get stuck in places I consider throwing it down first, so as to avoid an unorthodox hanging, but in the end I decide against it, figuring it will cushion any hit I might take to my back. I do my best Spider-Man impression, and come away clean, adrenaline gushing, only to see the actual trail come into view again.

After this it gets easier, and since there is a distinctly Western feel to this place I begin to amuse myself by naming the different areas in the best tradition of dime novels. So I managed Calamity Falls and Drop Dead Drop only to come onto Droopy Pine Flats (where the trees on the slopes, having seemingly realised their mistake, grow first down the slope, and then straight up as they join their more fortunate brethren), and so on.

One memorable encounter is the reason why Crocodile Canyon got its name, for there, right in the middle of the dry river bed lies a prehistoric monster. Goodness knows who has assembled it, but it’s an impressing piece of artwork, a full six meters long, all made out of interestingly shaped pieces of wood and rocks. My eyes fall on a likely-looking stone, and I add my own final touch to the masterpiece: the skull at the beast’s snout. Pleased with myself, I stroll on.

The expanding and contracting nature of the gorge makes it feel like a birth canal, every contraction painful, followed by an intermission of relative ease. Finally I am reborn, as both the gorge and I spill out into the ocean.

I’ve been carrying food supplies and water as there was no indication that either would be on offer, but here, perched on a hillock next to the small pebble beach is a cafeteria, and so I sit there and have second breakfast on the terrace, their only guest. It is beautiful.

The way back is infinitely easier, if not easy. The sun has risen and is beating down on me for most of the return journey, but at least now I can find the way. Time and again I see where I should have walked on the way down, and I don’t stray from the path even once, even though I am tempted to do so when I see a cave on high that I missed coming down.

The ancient Minoans buried their dead in caves such as these – there’s even a “gorge of the dead” at the easternmost tip of the island – and I am dying to climb up there to explore, but given what the terrain looks like, and the fact that I’ve just heard the gun crack report of rocks tumbling down the steep incline, I reluctantly decide against it. Regardless of what might be inside the cave I don’t want to give anyone a reason to rename this gorge, and so with heavy heart I let my tomb raiding dreams remain just that: dreams.

Funnily, I don’t see the croc on the way back. I assume it has slithered back into its lair, and waste no time chasing after it. Instead I head back up the ravine, dusty and thirsty, but ever so pleased with my adventures. There are some other hikers coming down the gorge now; I marvel at how ill equipped they are, and wonder how they will fare. And then suddenly I hear thunder up ahead, and realize I’m passing underneath the bridge at the same time as a car is crossing it. I climb back out, and that was it. The only thing that remains is to have my lunch of yogurt and honey and a slab of sheep cheese in the shade of one of the ruined old houses overlooking the canyon, before starting back on the road to Chania, and finally fly home. I didn’t get to do Samaria gorge, but all the other hikes were spectacular, too. The friendliness of the people, the beauty of Crete in spring and the grandeur of the gorges all leave me feeling very happy. This truly is the good life.

Gorgeous gorges of Crete: Chora Sfakion, Loutro, Anopoli

April 28, 2019chrisgoja Leave a comment

I leave Chora Sfakion on the road headed west, hiking along the coast. The road soon veers off inland and upwards, leaving me and the trail to hug the contours of the coastline. It’s much more arid here than on the western side of the mountains, with nothing but browbeaten shrubs clinging to the rocks, and in several places the path has all but disappeared due to rock falls into the turquoise sea far below, so it’s a perilous hike. My thoughts go to my friend M, who fell on a solo hike much like this and sustained severe brain injuries – not a cheery prospect.

The reward comes after a little less than an hour: Sweet Water Beach, which a colleague tipped me off about prior to the trip as “a hidden gem, mostly nudist”, lies splayed out in front of me. She was partially correct. It is undoubtedly beautiful, but as I have it entirely to myself I make it exclusively so.

Not featured: nude author.

The waters are cold, however, and since there is no Naussica to greet my Ulysses I soon set out again, following the coast past a deserted little chapel of that most archetypical Greek kind – a one bedroom affair with a bonsai bell tower next to it. Again, there is no one there apart from me and the goats, and I reflect that the difference between this place and yesterday’s cairns is just one of scale.

Even the Notre Dame (which burnt last week), whilst infinitely more elaborate, is still just an expression of humankind’s most fundamental trait: to change the landscape and imbue it with symbolism. The first ape to place one rock upon another for no other reason than to say “I was here, this has a meaning” was the first human. We give praise to the spirits of the gorges or the Greek Orthodox god of this chapel or the Catholic one in Paris for the same reasons: not because we believe in them, but because we know we are but passing through, and we want there to be a point to this, or, failing that, we want to leave something behind to mark our passage, at least. The goats – agnostics every last one – don’t care. And with that thought I move on.

I reach the tiny cluster of houses that is Lotho Bay after another half hour, and drink nearly a litre of freshly squeezed orange juice before setting out again, because I have realised that I have made an error: the trail from Lotho to Anopoli (literally “the high city”) doesn’t lead through a gorge, but serpentines its way up the rock face, all five hundred meters’ ascent of it. Midday is approaching, and the dust cloud from yesterday is gone, so the heat is relentless.

I gasp my way up the mountain, stopping to catch my breath and sip from my bottle every ten minutes. At three hundred meters’ elevation a buzzard vulture swoops by mere meters away. Given my usual luck with birds of pray I fear it’s coming for me, but it just sails on. At four hundred meters I become aware of another flying hazard: a drone hovers high above, its engine like that of a persistent bluebottle fly. When I finally reach the crest and the little church that is perched there, the owners of the drone – an overweight Brit and his Greek companion – greet me with disbelief. “You hiked all the way?” “Yep. Came from Chora.” “What, on foot?!” It’s enlightening to get a different perspective on your own normality sometimes. 😄

We part our ways and I hike the last part of the road into Anopoli, where I hope to hitch a ride back with a bus. Turns out there are none, but trail magic comes to the rescue: the drone guys show up at the same taverna I’ve chosen, and are so taken with my exploits (or possibly the foolishness thereof) that they not only ply me with beer but offer to drive me back down.

I gladly accept, and after a feast of a lunch we pile inside their car. Here again I quietly notice a difference in philosophy: the drone guys have a very Cretan approach to road safety – no seat belts, at least two beers each, we hurtle down the road, goats and gravel flying. It’s stomach-curdling. Add to that the fact that there is a whole cottage industry around making little mailbox-sized Greek churches to mark the spots where people have perished (all with faded photos of the diseased inside) and you can see just how lethal a stretch of road is… I count more than a dozen on the way back to Sfakion, and feel a distinct urge to build a cairn once I’ve waved the gentlemen goodbye.

Epheristopoli, kyrie!

Gorgeous gorges of Crete: Lissos and Imbros

April 28, 2019chrisgoja Leave a comment

After breakfast on the pebble beach in Sougia I set out up the gorge that lies right outside the village. It’s not very big compared to yesterday’s Irini, but it takes you up on to a plateau which I intend to traverse to get to the next bay, where the ruins of the Ancient Greek port town of Lissos lie.

The gorge is full of oleander, which is poisonous, so I keep my trousers on, in spite of the heat. Once up on the plateau it’s a different story – the large shrubs are replaced by low brush of thyme and wild rosemary and other ethereal herbs, and the polished rocks of the gorge (more of a dry gulch, really) give way to volcanic rock, serrated and cruel. The trail is nothing more than a goat track, so my ankles get what’s coming to ’em as I stumble along, but it’s pretty as can be, the red earth, the undergrowth in every hue of blue matching the Libyan sea to the south and the White mountains in the north providing a grandiose backdrop to it all.

Part of the reason why I keep stumbling is that there’s a new type of plant here, too. A kind of enormous lily that is quite frankly astonishing, and can only be described as deeply erotic. The phrase “to bee or not to bee” takes on a whole new meaning. Consider the lilies, indeed!

Bee that as it may. When I reach the ruins of the city there is not a living soul in sight, so me and the kri-kris have it all to ourselves. I spend a happy hour climbing up and down two-thousand-year-old walls and foundations, in and out of bath houses and watchtowers (or what’s left of them), marveling at the excavated Temple to Zeus with its mosaics laid bare – it was destroyed in an earthquake, so the archeologists were able to retrieve a number of exquisite votive statues when they dug it out. Goodness knows what else lays buried here…!

That excursion only lasts me the better part of the morning though, so after a last lunch on the beach I hop back in my car and drive off to Imbros Gorge.

Imbros is the second most famous gorge on the island, and it’s with some hesitation I decide to hike it, because guides often bring their groups here when Samaria is closed, and I don’t want to share my experience with hoards of Brits, Aussies and Kiwis. Why those nationalities? Because apparently forces sent to strengthen Crete’s defenses during WWII were evacuated through the gorge after the German invasion, and hiking it has become an act of pilgrimage for their descendants.

As it turns out I arrive so late in the afternoon that there is virtually no other people here. With a few exceptions I have it all to myself, and what a hike it is! Here, Mediterranean pine dominates, and the goats are out in force in the lush forest undergrowth and – more often – perched improbably on the cliff-sides.

A couple of times Imbros narrows to the point where you can just about touch both sides at the same time, the walls swaying crazily upwards where the waters have dug down over millennia, and in one place visitors have gone collectively mad, producing cairns in untold quantities.

It is quite impossible to resist the urge to add your own rock, the sheer magnitude of the combined effort drawing you into its own logic. There’s a Nobel prize in economics waiting for the person who explains the practical applications of that particular aspect of the human psyche…

You can see why Imbros is popular: it’s easy walking, the path gentle and forgiving, it’s not too long at just shy of two hours, and very pretty throughout. A giant arch marks the finishing stretch, and at the end there’s a scattering of houses where everyone is offering taxi services back to the top for 20€. That’s theft tho, so I walk another kilometre or so and hitch a ride with a young local fisherman instead. His driving is as erratic and engaging as his English, but it makes for an interesting ride, as I learn about his family history while hanging on for dear life through every deadly curve and every massacred sentence.

Once back at the car it’s already past seven in the evening, and dusk is settling on the land. Along with the daze from the Saharan dust cloud that has engulfed the island all day it makes for a dreamlike decent into the nearby fishing village of Chora Sfakion. I find lodgings for the night by asking in the taverna where I have my dinner, and am soon sound asleep.

Kalispera!

Gorgeous gorges of Crete: Agia Irini

April 27, 2019chrisgoja 2 Comments

The original reason why I wanted to go to Crete was to hike, and specifically its gorges, that are supposed to be gorge-ous (Sorry. I’ve got it out of my system now.)

Imagine my dismay then when my hotel receptionist in Chania informed me that the most famous gorge of them all, Samaria, was closed! Apparently the bad winter rains had wreaked such havoc that it wouldn’t open for weeks yet.

Luckily there are others, so after some research I set out for Agia Irini instead, just on the other side of the White mountains that run along the middle of the island.

Everyone had warned me about the roads, but as I meandered up the lowlands through endless orange groves they didn’t strike me as particularly bad. How wrong I was! The moment the land began to rise up more steeply, the scars of landslides became visible on the wooded slopes, and driving turned into never-ending zig-zagging between enormous piles of dirt and debris that would often cover half the road, thus forcing you (or oncoming traffic) into the other lane. And this on roads that are nothing but hairpin bends!

Several times the road had simply disappeared, as if a giant had taken a bite out of it, and I passed a massive ancient stone bridge that had half collapsed – one of the foundations had been Kobra Kai’d by the deluge, sweeping the colossus off its feet. The cretans didn’t seemed too fussed about it all tho: I saw one guy in a digger working to clear the roads. Given no additional precipitation I’d say he’ll have the job done in two to three centuries!

Suffice to say that I was happy to arrive safely at the entrance to Agia Irini after a 35 kilometer long drive that took over an hour. The gorge itself was a delight, with the stream that crafted it very much a presence, burbling its way down the mountain for the first two thirds, then inexplicably disappearing without a trace. The fauna was very rich – I was to discover that every gorge is a microcosm unto itself, and Irini was dominated by stately cedar trees, the kind that once covered much of the island but which are now largely gone. There were enormous bushes of wild sage and rue, giving off clouds of heady perfume, and most of all there were platanos – plane trees. Normally you associate them with tall, straight trunks creating shade on city squares in an orderly fashion, but here, mangled and mauled by the onrush of water, they looked more like mighty maples, managing to thrive in the most unlikely of places, clinging to rocks, submerged in the brook or both. I was entranced.

The trail was by no means easy, but the sun was shining, there weren’t many hikers around, and I thoroughly enjoyed skipping back and forth over the stream and the waterfalls, so I hiked it all the way to the end, grabbed a coffee at the one café, and hiked back up again to my car in little under five hours. That was quite enough for my first day though, so after that I slalomed my way down the rest of the southern slopes to the isolated coastal hamlet of Sougia, where I hoped to find a room for the night.

Apart from the odd sighting of kri-kri, the wild mountain goats that are endemic to the island, I was virtually alone on the road, and I began to worry that Sougia would be deserted. It wasn’t. And virtually everyone had rooms to let, so I got one quite quickly; it was a monk’s cell, but the proprietress was so friendly and energetic (despite being 76 years old) that I began to wonder if my new-found monk status would come under siege! Thankfully that didn’t happen; instead, I had dinner on the beach (sadly under an overcast sky, so no stars), and went to bed thoroughly exhausted.

Kalispera!

They sell, Dubai…

March 4, 2019chrisgoja 1 Comment

The kids wanted sun and warmth for their spring break, so I got us tickets to and a hotel in Dubai. Then I spent a month getting more and more anxious about my decision. The only thing I knew about the place was that it was awash with oil dollars, famous for the world’s tallest building and – critically – the capital of a country of hard-core Islamic belief.

We spent last year’s spring break in Egypt, which isn’t exactly western-minded either – shock-full of Russian tourists enjoying a holiday in the sun in another military-run country – and I visited Morocco as well, but the United Arab Emirates was a different kettle of camels, I reckoned: what few women we had seen in Egypt weren’t all clad in tents, at least, and poor as they might have been, the Egyptians seemed to be self-reliant (- the Moroccans as well – to the point of trying to rob us! -) whereas the UAE is infamous for employing gastarbeiter in conditions not far removed from slavery.

Be that as it may, the dice were thrown. We would have to make it work. I packed a shawl for my daughter, and explained about cultural differences as gently as I could (I put it to her in veiled terms, you might say…). She took it well, then insisted on painting my nails the night before we were leaving. Coincidence? I don’t know, but I felt oddly proud, even as I contemplated being gang raped in a prison that would make the Midnight Express seem like a Holiday Inn. The gold glitter really suited me.

On the day of travel my son added his own bit of fuel to the fire of anxiety, when his backpack tested positive for explosives in three out of four detectors at Zaventem. The Belgian security personnel were remarkably relaxed about it, but in my mind’s eye we were already being detained by bedouins for questioning, my western terrorist son and blond, beautiful, burqua-less daughter and I; my snazzy nails and her general gender probably on par with his presumed explosive device in terms of how disruptive we’d be deemed to be to Emirati society.

In the end, none of that materialised (or I wouldn’t have been writing this story). We arrived in the wee hours of morning and made it through customs relatively quickly (a colleague had scared me with tales of having had to spend three hours in immigration), and then took a taxi to the resort. What was remarkable was that even though it was now two o’ clock in the morning there was no sense of the city being asleep. Quite the contrary: there was plenty of traffic on the one enormous motorway that leads through Dubai (seven lanes in each direction) and there were oodles of building sites along the road where apparently work was under way.

And so we reached our destination, after a drive that took us through downtown Dubai (think Manhattan goes Muslim), followed (in order) by endless shopping districts, truck depots and indescribably dull apartment blocks for the aforementioned guest workers, and finally into a flat, featureless desert, until we hit the coast, where the hotel complex was situated next to a combined yacht marina and aquaplane airport.

The holiday itself was fine, no different from a thousand other package tours. Dubai’s been branded a Disneyland for adults, and it’s true that if you have money you can do most anything you like. There are some super rich people here – my son made a game of counting the Lamborghinis he saw – but what really did stand out were the brushes we had with Emirati culture, such as it is.

Dubai is one of seven emirates and the most tolerant one (it says on Wikipedia. Tolerant of what, specifically, I don’t know. Glittery male fingertips, perhaps). However, like all the emirates it is still very much run by the traditional tribal leaders, so society is feudal and clan-based. That’s weird in itself, but it gets worse: It has some 10 million inhabitants, of which 1.5 million are Emirati citizens and the rest are guest workers. Because of this the gender ratio is completely skewered, with three quarters of all people here being men. And of course their laws are largely based on Sharia, so what women there are remain mostly invisible – if women in Egypt wore their tents with the zipper down and the inhabitants peaking out, here the tents were firmly closed.

At the same time prostitution is ripe; a quick and unscientific search on Tinder makes me estimate that nine tenths of all women there are either professional working girls or gold diggers – the latter category presumably trying to catch the eye of one of the outrageously rich family members of the ruling class.

In a country with ten million inhabitants it seems that the sheer amount of building works in Dubai city is utterly disproportionate, too. Turns out this is correct. They are extending DC like crazy, with the ultimate aim of reaching a capacity of 11 million people. Why? I don’t know. Maybe they want every single desert-dweller to live there. For now, many of the skyscrapers are empty, however. But then Dubai is synonymous with over-the-top constructions: the worlds tallest building is here, as I mentioned, but they are already working on another one that will be even higher than the Burj Khalifa, with its 828 meters.

Then there are the artificial city areas in the shape of palm trees (two with a third on the way) that protrude into the sea, and the artificial archipelago in the shape of a world map where tourists are invited to buy a property on one one the fronds, or – why not? – invest in an entire country/islan, and invite your neighbors to a friendly game of Risk.

The Palms were branded as the ultimate luxury resorts until the developer had to add hundereds of properties to the limited space (they had miscalculated the cost of production), which lead to furious investors suing them as the tree houses went from hyper-exclusive hideouts for the ultra rich to ghettofied Florida ‘burbs. And then the waters surrounding the fronds turned stagnant and putrid as the tide breaker that enclosed them proved altogether too efficient at keeping the waters calm.

On the other hand, “the World” ran into trouble as the financial crisis hit the world (the real one, not the islands) in 2008, and so remains largely undevelopped. On top of that the islands are slowly eroding, and are thus literally sinking into the sea – the owners of the amusement park and hotel complex Atlantis on one of the Palms are presumably following this development with particularly keen interest…

The world according to Al Shor-Ziteed.

If constructing big and sumptuous buildings is one particular trait of the Emirates, then luxury consumption is the other defining characteristic. With so much money around this is perhaps not entirely surprising, but the sheer devotion to spending is still staggering. The main attractions in Dubai are shopping malls!

We visit the Dubai Mall with its 3,000 shops. It has a giant indoor aquarium, home to tiger sharks and huge mantas, a three story waterfall indoors, a fountain display that is more than a rival to the ones in Vegas, and many other wonders besides, but really it is just a temple to Mammon and consumerism. It makes me feel trapped in a Housewives of Hollywood-type nightmare – if it weren’t for the many men wearing sheik-y attire and women sporting black drapes and curtains I could be in Beverly Hills.

So the glitterati Emirati have all the accoutrements of the nouveau riche, and all their inherent sense of insecurity, too; Numerous times we come upon displays of Arabic accomplishments, often dating back to the 13th century, like the replica of a water clock in the shape of an elephant (scale 1:1), that we come across in the Ibn Battuta Mall. It must have been enormously impressive back then. Today, on display in a shopping centre, not so much.

Swatch it!

These showcases are always accompanied by a comment along the lines of the one we find next to an ancient astrolabe. I don’t remember it verbatim, but the gist was something like “When Al Bundi met western astrologists in 1269 he was amazed at how piddly their puny equipment was compared to his mighty tower of star gazing, El Schalong.”

With a chip on their shoulder the size of a boulder, it’s small wonder the Emirates are going all-in to wow the world during their World Expo in 2020, but at what cost? Lives are cheap in Dubai. The Indian taxi driver that takes us back to the airport at the end of the week sums it up quite neatly. He works 12-hour shifts, seven days a week, but it is much better than working in construction, he says.

We pass the foundations of the world’s next tallest building. It’s five o’clock in the morning, and the work is in full swing on what is already the size of a small city. And maybe that is a good metaphor for this strange place: A society built on medieval values, with too much money and a deeply seated minority complex, trying to make its mark in the contemporary world. What could possibly go wrong?

On balance

February 1, 2019chrisgoja Leave a comment

January is at an end, and as always when things are ending there is a bit of apprehension: did I do everything I could? In my case, the first month of the year is always a bit of an indication of how I will fare over the rest of the year in my intentions and ambitions, so how did I do?

I’m still vegetarian, but my attempt to continue to stay off sugar floundered almost instantly in Italy with the discovery of the world’s greatest tiramisu, and it hasn’t improved since. Time to start afresh in February.

I am still plagued by injuries, but indoor biking has worked remarkably well, as has core exercises and stretching, which I hope will eventually see me back on my feet. In total I biked some 250 kilometres in January, which is a good start. I have to ease off on the weights for the time being, so having the bike is a bit of a life line, honestly.

I learnt a new piece of music on the piano (Bohemian Rhapsody), and I read two non-fiction books (one guide to Stockholm’s culture and history, and another on the failed polar expedition of Andre – the former so-so, the latter spectacular -) but I didn’t study enough French.

I was in Sweden twice and Italy once, and I kept my diary going, so all in all I’m doing well as far as my new year’s resolutions are concerned. Thus far, at any rate. How are you doing?

Roaming Rome: Phalluses and fallacies

January 6, 2019chrisgoja Leave a comment

One thing that struck me with Rome is the sheer number of phalluses on display. The Italians clearly like dicking around, as anything from pasta to limoncello bottles come in the shape of erect penises.

Interesting ancient dick fact #1: To Ancient Romans, “penis” was not the clinical term for the male appendix, but a dirty word.

Interesting ancient dick fact #2: Erections were seen as amulets of good fortune, and used to adorn buildings.

I’m not sure if this explains their prolific presence today, but there you go. Most popular of all is David’s member, which features on everything from buttons to aprons. If you’re not impressed by his size (the supposed correlation between big hands and other big things certainly doesn’t prove true in his case), there are surgically enhanced versions on offer, too. Strangely, David himself isn’t here – the actual statue is in Florence, much to the chagrin of my co-traveller.

My, what big… hands.

In the Vatican and elsewhere, most statues have had their willies chopped off and/or fig leaves added to them, as later Christians found the nakedness an effrontery. There are other, more symbolic phalluses on display however that were more difficult to do away with. Nothing is new under the sun; Much like latter-day developers, the Ancient Romans liked their erections… erect. They went to the trouble of bringing back obelisks from Egypt and put them in prominent places, for instance.

One of my favourite remnants of that time is Trajan’s Column. It gets feminist flak for falling in the same category, but nothing could be further from the truth: ingenious construction, propaganda and grave monument rolled into one, calling the pillar a cock-up would be a phallus-y fallacy.

It depicts emperor Trajan’s two wars against Dacia (present-day Rumania) in a long series of panels circling the pillar, and since it does so in chronological order it is arguably one of the first comic book stories in the world. The panels and lettering get slightly bigger towards the top, thus making it easier to follow the story all the way to the top of the behemoth (it’s nearly 30 meters high). What’s more, the story significantly downplays the bloodshed and violence of war, as it’s primary audience (the civilian citizens of Rome) were wary of the army – nothing new under the sun there, either.

But there’s even more! When Trajan died his ashes were laid to rest at the base of the spire, and at the top was a statue of him in his heyday, so its thought to have symbolised his leaving behind his mortal coil to ascend into heaven (deification being a matter of course for emperors back then), while his greatest achievement symbolically marks the way. Add to that that the circumambulatory movement that is required of the “reader” mimics that of Roman funeral rites, and you have a monument that is as thought through and interactive as any you care to mention.

Oh, and bonus interesting ancient dick fact no. 3: it looks like a giant schlong, if you’re that way inclined.

Roaming Rome: St Peter, poop and pop art

January 6, 2019chrisgoja 1 Comment

Not content with having had a semi-personal audience with the Pope the previous day, my companion is hell-bent on seeing St Peter. So back to the Vatican we trek, and since we’re there bright and early we get in without having to face the massive queues that form later on.

The Basílica is erected on top of earlier churches, on top of the burial place of Peter, Jesus’s main man and preferred apostle, the first Pope, and gatekeeper to Heaven if you believe the marketing hype (hence the papal insignia is a pair of crossed keys – one main and one spare, presumably…). Interestingly, basilicas where court buildings in Ancient Rome, and all cities had one. I guess the reasoning is that when you’re visiting his grave you’re also being given a once-over ahead of Judgment Day. If people knew that they might not be as keen to get inside… but inside they go, and so do we, taking in mosaics and statuary and relics and gold filigree and marble and whatnot.

The Pope’s not home, but there’s no denying his work place is impressive. Especially if you climb the cupola, which we did. It’s some 500 steps of ever narrower, claustrophobia- and cardiac arrest-inducing stairs before you reach the viewing platform at the top (presumably unique in that you can really see the whole country from it). Once there it wasn’t the view that captured my imagination, however, but the candle holders on the outside of the curving roof. Whose job did it use to be to climb around on the outside of the dome to change and light candles, and how hard do you have to believe in God before you’re willing to take it?

See the candle-holders? No rest for the wick-ed…

Leaving the lofty heights behind, we venture on to the Vatican museum, which houses two millennia’s worth of art. This one time only we give in to temptation and buy tickets that allow us to jump the queue that snakes around the wall of the Papal state (Note to Trump: when your wall is built, headhunt the Indian gentlemen who offer these golden tickets outside Pope’s Place – they will earn you (another) fortune!).

Inside it’s equally crowded, but here the orderly lines are abandoned in favour of tour groups that move like solid masses of flesh, their guides herding them like human-sized ducklings trained to follow a brightly-coloured piece of cloth on a stick. It’s tiresome, but the art is fabulous, there’s no denying that.

When we finally reach the Sixtine Chapel, the guards and signposts have the audacity to claim it’s a holy place and that photos aren’t allowed. I figure they lost the right to claim that when they started charging approximately a gazillion visitors per day close to 40€ per pop to see the place, so I took plenty – more than I would have done otherwise.

I’m going to assume you knew Michelangelo painted the ceiling, but what you possibly didn’t know (and they still don’t tell you there now) is that he painted the shroud that God is flying around on when he imbues Adam with life (see centre of the pic above) so that its outline is precisely that of a human brain! This fact was only brought to light by a neurosurgeon relatively recently, when he noticed its undeniable similarities. Imagine that! What a gutsy move: 400 years ago, in the very heart of Christendom, this man dared defy dogma and pointed out (albeit very subtly) that the brain, rather than any deity, is what make humans unique! It’s like The Da Vinci Code, only real, and better.

Damning evidence?

Once we’d dreamed of Heaven, we land in the gutter. Or at least we try. More specifically, I want to see the Cloaca Maxima, the sewage system created by the Romans and still in use today. The Atlas Obscura mentions it, but glosses over two things: it’s damned difficult to find (we try in several places, and the only thing to come of it is a very specific joke (Why did the chicken cross the road? There might be a cloaca!)) and when we finally do find it we discover it is very decidedly closed to the public. Shit.

One room apt. Airy. Large bath.

At least we got to see even more of the town this way. Interestingly, the tradition of painting walls and ceilings lives on today. There are stencils hidden here and there – some funny, some vulgar, many surprising. Apparently youngsters make them and/or collect them – something I thought was a useless fact picked up in the latest Spider-man movie; and yet here I am, Marvel-ling at them.

There’s street art of other kinds, too. Not graffiti, thankfully, but more talented offerings. Any city that has thousand-year old statues in Renaissance settings is doing something right; my favourite is the statue of Marcus Aurelius a-horse in a square designed by our old friend Michelangelo, but there is other stuff on display, as well.

But that’s a story for another day.

Roaming Rome: Palazzi, popes and pasta

January 5, 2019chrisgoja Leave a comment

I came to Rome to celebrate New Year. We didn’t coordinate it, but by pure coincidence, so did lots of other people. And here I was thinking winter would be off-season. Silly me…

Having spent the strike of midnight on the field of Circus Maximus (together with 30,000 others) and bought a bottle of spomante from an enterprising vendor at Colosseum after that, my travel companion and I slept in on January 1st, but then vended our way slowly towards the Vatican.

The best thing about Rome is that it is shock-full of beauty. Roaming its streets is a delight. Every corner you turn, every alleyway you head down on a whim, there is more architectural grandeur and dizzying history on display than you can find anywhere else. Villas, palazzi, churches and roman ruins are everywhere. The Jewish quarter and Trastevere stand out, but it really doesn’t matter where you go, it’s all a feast for your eyes.

One of my absolute favourites was Palazzo Spada – sumptuous home of a cardinal who clearly was a man of the world, as the house is decorated with friezes depicting lusty fauns and nymphs. Not content with a giant house with adjoining gardens, the good cardinal also used mathematics and other tricks to create optical illusions to further improve the grandeur of his home. The distance from the woman to the statue at the other end of this colonnade?

Considerably less than ten meters. Really. It is. Tricky bugger.

When we finally got to the Catholic centre of the universe it seemed most of the city was gathered in the piazza. We had planned to see St Peter, but instead we got to hang with his present replacement, Franciscus, who spoke to the crowds from his balcony.

I have no idea what he was on about (bad sound and Italian conspiring against me), but the devout roared its approval, and he insisted on being in a selfie with me, so I guess he is a likable guy.

Second window from the right, top level: Pope.

The various other popes have certainly left their mark on the rest of the city as well over the centuries: every other edifice seems to have been adorned with their names, more often than not combined with the medieval equivalent of a papal graffiti tag – who knew their collective rap name was P-Max?!

The only institution that is possibly more venerable in Rome than the Pope (at least according to foodies) is Alfredo, the birthplace of fettuccine Alfredo, so that’s where we headed next. The walls are filled with portraits of famous patrons, and the atmosphere of religious raptness that falls over the dining room whenever the head waiter rolls out his little trolley to perform the mixing of the fettuccine and the Parmesan is no less magical (sorry, wonderous) than the miracle priests perform when turning bread and wine into the body of Christ.

Is it good? Yes. Undoubtedly. The pasta is done to perfection, the Parmesan (aged two years) is powerful yet subtle, and since carbs don’t count when on holiday we have a large portion each. And yet I can’t help but feel that it is really nothing more than really fancy mac ‘n’ cheese.

Be that as it may, others have noted before me that the strength of the Italian kitchen lies not in the complexity of its dishes, but the superior quality of its ingredients and the masterful way in which they are combined; that is certainly true at Alfredo’s, but also in virtually every other eatery we encounter. We have delicious melanzane parmigiana in modest neighbourhoods, we find the best tiramisu in the world in a hole-in-the-wall called Pompi (the queue runs into the street at all times during the day) – if it hadn’t been for one evening when we had what can only be described as a Fawlty Towers experience (where the serving staff would appear at random intervals with orders that no one recognized as theirs, thus putting the wait in waiter), it would have been a perfect score. As it was, we hiked over 20 kilometers per day and I’m still convinced we racked up a calorific surplus…!

2019 according to Socrates, Aristotle and… Hugh Grant.

January 1, 2019chrisgoja Leave a comment

We’re in for a new year again, and I feel I have found a model that works for me (no, not Claudia Schiffer): Keep your ambitions S.M.A.R.T. and make sure to make the most of time,.

So I’ll stick with the familiar format – develop as a human (intellectually and physically), travel, have new experiences, and set myself new challenges – one trip or challenge per month on average, for a total of twelve.

Trips: I have nothing planned (beyond the fact that I am in Rome celebrating New Year as I’m writing this), but hiking somewhere with my brother, taking the kids on several trips (the first one in February), and paragliding in either Spain or Switzerland (back allowing) are definitely happening.

Challenges: As last year was plagued with injuries, I don’t dare set any fitness goals at the moment. I do hope to improve my fitness, but in what way remains uncertain as of yet. The ideal is a workout per day, of some sort.

In the workplace things are equally up in the air, with my job as a roving reporter having come to an end, and nothing concrete to replace it. I want to keep writing and working with communication one way or another, tho, and I have a few ideas – let’s see what happens.

I already know I want to stay vegetarian for the coming year (having stuck with it for two months I see no reason to change back to a carnivorous diet), and I want to continue to stay off refined sugar, so that’s two. I really want to learn how to paraglide properly, which makes three. Also, limit time spent on social media (more difficult than it sounds?) – four. Keep a diary – five. Read (at least) one non-fictional book per month – six. Improve my piano and French skills, for a total of eight. And linked to all this: use my time more efficiently and wisely.

There is a funny passage from the book About a boy (later filmed with Hugh Grant in the lead) that has stuck with me:

His way of coping with the days was to think of activities as units of time, each unit consisting of about thirty minutes. Whole hours, he found, were more intimidating, and most things one could do in a day took half an hour. Reading the paper, having a bath, tidying the flat, watching Home and Away and Countdown, doing a quick crossword on the toilet, eating breakfast and lunch, going to the local shops… That was nine units of a twenty-unit day (the evenings didn’t count) filled by just the basic necessities. In fact, he had reached a stage where he wondered how his friends could juggle life and a job. Life took up so much time, so how could one work and, say, take a bath on the same day? He suspected that one or two people he knew were making some pretty unsavoury short cuts.

The protagonist of the book is a time waster, but the concept works: divide your day into time slots, and make sure to use them. That will be another challenge.

Why do this? Well, first of all, because, as the poet Herrick wrote in To Virgins, to make much of time:

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,

Old Time is still a-flying

and this same flower that smiles today

tomorrow will be dying.

The glorious lamp of heaven, the sun,

the higher he is getting,

the sooner will his race be run,

and nearer he is to setting.

In other words: Our time is limited, and every breath takes us closer to death. That’s grim, as realizations go, but if that doesn’t light a fire under your ass to get things done, nothing will. Also, to quote Aristotle: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.”

Let’s make this a year of excellence.

2018 – S.M.A.R.T. or not?

December 16, 2018chrisgoja Leave a comment

At the outset of every year I pause and think about what I want to achieve. This year was different.

Or rather, I wanted to make sure that I would be more likely to achieve my goals, so I resolved to be smart and make ’em S.M.A.R.T. – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound.

Did I succeed? Yes and no.

Chess: ✅ I played every day for a month and got the rating I had set my mind on. (Then promptly lost it.)

Reading: ✅ One non-fictional book per month. Done.

Piano: ❎ I did play, but didn’t learn as many pieces as I had hoped. The temptation is to stick with the ones you know…

French: ❎ I didn’t learn anywhere near as much as I had planned, mainly because I had to focus on Danish.

Travel: ✅ I went to Morocco, Egypt, the Seychelles, Norway, Italy (thrice), and Denmark (plus Sweden), which is less than usual, but still acceptable, especially since Egypt, Italy and Norway was with the kids.

Fitness: ✅ The year was marred with injuries – first recovering after the paragliding incident, then a wonky neck, a messed up Achilles’ tendon, a tennis elbow, and finally a slipped disk – so running and biking and swimming suffered. I did manage the Paris marathon, and a runstreak of 100 days, but I’m nowhere near the distance goals I set myself for runs and biking. Nor did I learn to crawl, but I’ve racked up some 100 gym sessions, including an ironstreak of 40 days or so, which has meant three or four extra kilos’ worth of muscles.

Challenges: ✅ Apart from the aforementioned run- and ironstreaks I’ve successfully given up coffee, tried intermittent fasting for a month, I’ve become vegetarian, and I’m currently on a no sugar diet, so that’s gone well. Less well went my attempt at keeping a diary – I kept it up until Denmark, but then fell out of habit, unfortunately.

Work: ✅ I added Danish to my language combination, and continued working in Communications. In addition to that I MC’d a couple of conferences using participatory leadership, which was fun, too.

Blog: ✅ I increased my readership quite spectacularly this year (from just shy of 3,000 readers to 5,500, and from 5,000 views to nearly 10,000), which is really gratifying.

So. What worked and what didn’t? Some goals turned out to be insufficiently specific, such as “learn a piece of music”; others were unattainable due to factors beyond my control (the fitness targets) or had to be downgraded in terms of priority (French, when I was paid to go learn Danish), but overall it’s a sound principle, and one I will continue to use in 2019.

Now all I have to do is decide what those goals should be…

Diary of a Hesitant Herbivore, part 2

November 5, 2018chrisgoja Leave a comment

A sea of greens, see?

The second week of my vegetative state was spent in the most vegetarian-friendly of states: Italy.

I was travelling with my son, who is of that age when nothing beats pasta and pizza, so we were both enjoying the food on offer (something that wasn’t the case during the first week…!). Here’s how it went:

Their breakfasts aren’t very healthy, but cornetto alla crema (pastries filled with vanilla) and cappuccino are both veggie-approved, so that’s what we had, more often than not. (Hey, I didn’t make the rules…!)

Then there’s the fact that every unassuming restaurant consistently serves really good food; everywhere we went, plates were filled with gourmet-level cooking. And thanks to the abundance of locally grown quality veg this was equally true for us salad-munchers: every tomato sauce is nectar of the gods, every mozzarella di buffala ambrosia, every antipasta and primo is a deceptively simple dish made to perfection.

So simple, so perfect.

They really have no excuse with their markets looking like they do, I know, but still, other countries have those, too, and they don’t manage to pull this off. In short: if I had to pick anywhere in the world where I could live happily as a herbivore, this would be It.

It-aly may have its drawbacks and weak points (such as rarely holding on to a government for longer than a few months and collapsing infrastructure), but you can’t beat the boot in culinary matters. India might have more to offer due to its sheer size, but since all Indian food could also double as rocket fuel I’m going to give Italy pride of place in this man’s vegetarian food pantheon.

If you are a reasonably well-travelled veggie you may already know all this, of course – a case of “bean there, done that”, as it were – but if not: what are you waiting for?! Avanti!

Travels in Tuscany with a ten-year-old

November 4, 2018chrisgoja Leave a comment

I got L for fall break this year. The children’s mom and I decided to split the kidlets for the first time. And now I was nervous.

You see, we were going to Italy, and now I watched in dismay as the weather turned from bad to worse to Noah’s Ark. Parts of the country were under water as we set out, with more to come. The west coast was one big thunderstorm. It didn’t look good.

Upon arrival at Milano airport there was a queue for taxis that stretched around the block, with only the occasional car coming in. As we finally got one ourselves it became apparent why: the trip into town was plighted by long detours, as necessitated by storm-felled trees and inundated stretches of street.

The streets of Milano…

Having settled in in our apartment I surveyed our options. The east coast was out: the water levels in Venice were 1.5 metres higher than usual, with gondolas all but entering the duomo; the alps were downright dangerous, with mud slides and torrential rain; the west coast looked like our best option – hiking Cinque Terre it would be.

We took the train southwards next morning. There was no rain, but nor were the skies particularly promising-looking. News reports were alarming: 20 dead and counting. L took it all in his stride, the way only a ten-year-old with a good book and a smartphone can.

Una di Cinque Terre.

We managed to arrive in the port town of La Spezia without any incident, and the next day we set out for the five coastal villages that form Cinque Terre. Alas, all the hiking paths were closed, so we had to go by train again, but given just how mountainous the region is, and how tired L got from strolling around the labyrinthine alleys and stair-cases of the ones we visited, and the number of gelatos that entailed, it was probably for the best.

The villages are beautiful, for the record, and this time of the year (and again, due to the weather-scare) the number of tourists was not too horrible, but there was no way they would be able to live up to my expectations, so having done three out of five, we left it at that.

Instead we headed for Lucca next day, a medieval town with a completely intact ring wall, something which I thought might intrigue a ten-year-old boy.

Well, the fates smiled upon us. Unawares to us, the city is home to one of the biggest comic-cons of the world – the whole town essentially transforms into a games and comics-themed amusement park for five days, and this happened to be day one of that extravaganza, so the medieval setting was full to bursting with cosplayers of all kinds. L was mightily pleased.

Lucca-like contest?

We essentially did la passergata on top of the ring wall, oohing and aahing at all the weird and wonderful critters we encountered, and on top of that there was zombie face painting and manga drawing lessons, whole tents devoted to computer games and a cordoned-off area where people could fight apocalyptic paint-ball wars. It was boyhood heaven.

And so passed our last day in Tuscany proper. The next day we set out for Milano again, and had time both for some quick shopping and several hours worth of browsing the fantastic museum devoted to all things Leonardo Da Vinci that is housed in the Vittorio Emanuele II-galleria.

It was the renaissance equivalent of Lucca: models galore, all the well-known gunships and flying machines and robots, and all of them with virtual displays showing how they had figured them out based on his drawings; some you could assemble yourself using building blocks, with explanations as to what would work and what wouldn’t.

Lisa does Technicolor

All his most famous paintings were equally disassembled, explained and restored digitally: you could view Mona Lisa in the colours in which she was painted (instead of the yellow fever’d version), the Last Supper the way it was meant to be seen (before it was bombed and “restored” with equally ghastly results), and the Vitruvian man came to life and walked out of his painting. It was another childhood dream come true.

All in all, travels in Tuscany with my ten-year-old wildly surpassed my expectations. We managed to work around the weather (literally) and had a grand old time. Not setting a rigid itinerary payed off in spades, and with a bit of luck we had more fun together than I think either of us dared hope for. Da capo!

I due coppe grande…

Danish and the Danish 5: XXX2 (extremely excellent expletives)

August 18, 2018chrisgoja Leave a comment

Totally irrelevant football fans.

Everyone likes a nice ass, and no one likes a smart ass, the saying goes. The Danes don’t care. They have a thing for arses. All kinds.

The list of Danish idioms involving your rear end goes on and on. My favourite may be their expression for a job that is particularly badly done, which is then said to move up and down like King Volmar’s arse (gå op og ned som kong Volmers røv). Quite the epitaph.* But then Danes have always had a troubled relationship with their royals (and vice versa).

Getting an arse-full isn’t a quaint pre-metric measure of the kind Americans and Brits are so found of. No, få røven fuld means being taken for a fool. If you are instructed to seal your arse (lokke røven) you are told to be be quiet in the most direct way possible.

But Danes don’t just focus on the behind. They also have a healthy interest in fully frontal parts. This isn’t expressed in idioms so much as a very liberal approach to information about people’s (no longer) private parts. As we have seen, some individuals market their goods in public, but this is just an expression of a more widespread (!) phenomenon: even Danish public television has a series of programmes called “me and my pussy/dick” (“Jag og min fisse/pik“) where you are treated to close-ups of different… er… bits, while the unseen owners regale you with cautionary tales from the netherlands.

So that’s Mor Danmark for you. Unlike John Bull and Uncle Sam (both rather creepy characters that seem hell-bent on molesting you, one way or another), the Danish national character is down to Earth in the extreme, an old lady with a naughty streak, face probably like that of a happy prune, telling you the truth whether you want to or not.

[Tried to find a suitable illustration for this imaginary woman on the Internet. Take my word for it: don’t.]

—–

*I really hope he was one of those early Viking kings that invaded England, so that he can feature in that famous pamphlet, World’s Greatest British Lovers.

Danish and the Danish 4: fabulous food and where to find it.

August 12, 2018chrisgoja Leave a comment

From word porn to proper pleasures of the flesh: eating.

Copenhagen is home to NOMA, voted the world’s greatest restaurant several years in a row, but what about other Nordic food?*

I’m very happy to report that I have found some real gems while here, and they are both wonderfully traditional and nydannet – a word that means contemporary, newly created, whilst happily incorporating the Danes themselves – coincidence? I think not.

So, without further ado, here’s the ultimate guide to eating like a Dane:

For breakfast, you cannot do better than pay a visit to a recent addition to the culinary landscape of the capital, Grød. It’s a splendid example of how you don’t need a complicated concept to succeed, as long as you do what you do to perfection. Grød means porridge, and that’s what they serve, with as many as a dozen toppings. The porridge itself is very satisfying, creamy and fresh, and the extravaganza on top ensures that you never get bored. Oh, and you will be full for a looong time afterwards!

It’s porridge, Jim, but not as we know it!

For lunch, foodies and workmen alike have smørrebrød – open sandwiches with a plethora of different toppings, often incorporating traditional components such as herring or roast beef, but with interesting twists. My favorite place is a non-assuming place on Nytorv square, Mät, where you can have as many of these little delights as you like for a fixed price. Buyers beware, however: Danes are environmentally conscious, and the menu specifies that customers will be charged 15 kroner extra for each smørrebrød left unfinished!

Let’s just say I didn’t have to pay the forfeit…

No culinary expedition to Copenhagen should leave out JaDa Café. The name means “Oh, yes”, and I dare say that’s what most people whisper under their breath as they enter the establishment: JaDa makes the most gorgeous, custom-tailored ice cream I have ever seen. A perfect spot for an afternoon indulgence, and one likely to be as pleasing to your palate as your eye.

It even comes with the proverbial cherry on top.

It’s a good thing you’re biking around, because by now you have probably gained about 10lbs. However, dinner still beckons. I’ll give you two options:

Just down the street from Grød lies another interesting trendsetter: Manfred’s. Awarded by Michelin, this basement establishment is very relaxed and cozy, but what makes it stand out is that it’s vegetarian, and everything on their menu sourced from the restaurant’s own local farm. I had a seven course meal, and every single dish was surprising and good, from the cold cucumber/buttermilk soup starter to the red beet/blackcurrant/algae dessert.

If instead you want less food, and perhaps some animal protein, I would suggest a visit to Blaaregn, a local eatery where, if you have guts enough, you can find yourself face to face with a cod head on a platter.

Sink your teeth into this cod piece if you dare!

Baked to perfection, this fish – the only one that can compete with the herring for most traditional Danish food – was quite possibly the best seafood I’ve ever had. Baked to perfection with capers and nothing else, its meat was tender, succulent, and somehow a marvellous metaphor: if you dare to go back to your roots (and can face the prospect of putting someone else’s tongue in your mouth) there is no end to the gourmet experiences you can have here!

—–

*NOMA is an abbreviation for NOrdisk MAd, meaning Nordic food.

Danish and the Danish 3: XXX (extra exciting expressions)

August 12, 2018chrisgoja Leave a comment

Sex sells. You’re reading this, aren’t you? So this post will be about porn.

Not the fleshy kind that elicits one-handed browsing tho (unless you are very particular in your tastes), but word porn. Specifically, some words and expressions that have amazed me in my efforts to decipher Danish and the Danish*.

First of all there’s swearing. There are two kinds of swearing, of course. The first is utilising curse words to emphasise things. Like all non-catholic countries there’s fewer curse words involving deities (beyond Gud and Satan), and more emphasis on bodily functions. So Danes utilise skidt and pisse (shit and piss) a lot – my favourite being pissegodt (literally tasty as piss) – but have also adopted that most prolific of American curses, the f word; only they pronounce it as fåkk.

The other type of swearing takes place when a mere promise isn’t enough. The Danish language has a peculiar expression here: Amager halshugg. Turns out Amager was the place of execution in Copenhagen; halshugg means decapitation. Interestingly, this expression is apparently very popular with recent middle eastern additions to the population, coming as they do from a culture where swearing of this kind is more prevalent. A Syrian refugee using a turn of phrase that’s shorthand for “may I be taken to the Danish capital’s executioner for capital punishment” – now that’s integration for you!

Overall there are quite a few historical references in Danish expressions, and few are flattering to a Swede: when something går ad Pommern til (lit. “goes to Pomerania” – an area in the Baltic that used to be Swedish), it means it’s going straight to Hell. If someone is being beaten up really badly they are slået til lirekassemænd – beaten until they become organ grinders – a profession associated with war invalids in the 19th century after – you guessed it! – wars with Sweden and others.

Who is to say Danes aren’t longing for revenge still? They might not say it out loud, but there are clues: if you compare, say, a Swedish matchbox – which features an innocent, naked child on the cover – with its Danish equivalent, you will find an old man there instead. Innocent enough, until you realise he is maritime war hero Tordenskiold, responsible for burning the Swedish enemy fleet.

Come on baby, light my fire...

So it all comes back to their history. It may be that the Danish sentiment is best summed up by the undying phrase of former prime minister Uffe Elleman-Jensen, who, after the Danes had voted against joining deeper cooperation with the rest of the EU, and then won their only European Football Championship to date, said: If you can’t join them, beat them.

——

*For more word porn, you can read these posts from Germany and Slovenia, you pervs.

Danish and the Danish 2: bikes, boats and babes (of all kinds)

August 10, 2018chrisgoja Leave a comment

The first thing you notice in Copenhagen are the bikes. They are everywhere. Everyone bikes, young and old alike, and if you’re too young or too frail, chances are you’re still being whisked around on a bike, but of the rickshaw kind.

Alternative bikes and an air bag alternative to bike helmets, Hövding.

The bike as a mode of transport is very well looked after: bike lanes in virtually every street, even separate bike bridges to take you across the harbour, and bicycle shops and repairmen on every corner, almost. What’s more, there’s a well functioning system of hand signals to help biker communicate their intentions, and, most importantly, all drivers respect bikers.

And so it is that I spend a good deal of my day biking around the capital. I got a rental bike from the NGO Baisikeli (Swahili for, yep, bicycle) which sends part of their profits (and old bikes) to Africa, so that felt good – although at less than 100€ for three weeks I’m not sure how much of a profit they’re making. It’s hyggelig, at any rate.

All I wanna do is… baisikeli?

The other mode of transport that is immediately noticeable in Copenhagen is the boat. Friendships and other party boats turn the harbour into a movable feast when the sun is out. Everything from dinghies and kayaks to tankers and cruise ships can be seen from the docks. It’s hardly unique for the capital either, as nearly all Danes have a close affinity with the sea:

Denmark is a small place and you are never more than 50 kilometres from the shore. The coastline is over 7,000 kilometres*, which means that shipping and fisheries have always played a great part in the economy, and their fleet (both navy and merchant) has always been strong.

You can even ride a black or white swan. What’s that all a-boat?

These circumstances also explain how they could found (and subsequently lose) an empire. Empire? Yes. Denmark used to rule Norway, southern Sweden, the Dutchies of Schleswig and Holstein, AND had colonies in India and the West Indies. Losing all that (but keeping Greenland and the Faroes islands still) must have contributed to forming the national psyche into what it is today.

So what is that character? I’ve already mentioned that the Danes are fairly liberal, and I don’t know whether it’s all the biking and the boating, but all Danes look great. Rarely have I seen so many babes (of both sexes) in on place.

Possibly this is a reflection of their society in general, because Danes are apparently the world’s happiest people, and we all know we look our best when we feel good. (All that happiness seems to work in other ways, too; I cannot remember when I last saw so many pregnant women and babes (of the newborn variety) out and about.)

So… happy on the inside, and pretty on the outside. But as a nation it seems Denmark is still marked by their 19th century losses and the occupation during World War Two. They were always enthusiastic members of NATO, but have had a troubled relationship with the EU. And they’re not very keen on foreigners coming to live in Denmark, even (or perhaps especially) when it’s refugees from far away. So there is a sense of “Oi, back off, this is ours, and you can’t come and take (even more of) it!”. Which is fair enough, I guess. Two weeks into my sojourn I feel a little like Oliver Twist, tho. “Please, sir, can I have some more?”

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* To put it differently: if it were a straight line it would stretch from Copenhagen to the Caribbean.

Danish and the Danish: beer, burqas and bikinis (or lack thereof)

August 5, 2018chrisgoja Leave a comment

I’m in Copenhagen for three weeks to learn Danish, and about the Danish.

The language is famously difficult to grasp, not because its grammar is particularly complex or its vocab full of anomalies, but because the Danes can’t be bothered to pronounce their own tongue. Think I exaggerate? It’s so bad, Danish babies have been shown to understand their parents significantly later in life than all other children worldwide. So people whose mother tongue it is struggle with Danish, and this is the language I’m supposed to pick up in three weeks?!

Of course, as a Swede you’d think I’d be helped by the similarities between our respective languages; after all, for much of history the two countries were either one or in various unions with one other. Surely this is reflected in the two languages?

Helped might be the wrong word. You see, for the rest of history we’ve been at war. Linguistically it’s nearly always the case that if two synonyms exist in both languages, then one is anachronistic in one language and simultaneously the contemporary word in the other.

This is probably due to a conscious effort on both sides to distance themselves from and be less like the arch enemy (in between the Liza Minelli-like reoccurring reunions of various kinds). That phenomenon makes me very self-conscious when speaking to the natives, aware as I am that I’m likely sounding weirdly archaic by instinctively picking the wrong word. Imagine if someone came up to you in an English-speaking country and addressed you with “Salutations, swain, what giveth?”. That’s how I feel.

It could just be that Swedes are more self conscious altogether than Danes, of course. Certainly Danes are much more liberal, sybaritic and individualistic than Swedes.

In my first week here I have been constantly taken aback by people’s drinking habits, for instance. The settings for lunch restaurants include shot glasses, something which hasn’t been the case in Sweden for fifty years. Beer is everywhere, but there are few truly drunk people. Little grannies will have a beer whilst chatting on a garden bench, labourers walk along chugging from a bottle whilst working, and people of all ages rent special party boats (essentially floating tables) to go around the harbour whilst drinking.

That company name, tho!

The harbour area is also home to sunbathers throughout central Copenhagen. Not all of them think bathing attire essential. And no one bats an eyelid as these impromptu nudists stroll around the docks, with latter-day Zorn tableaux ensuing – you got to love a country like that!

And if you want further proof you needn’t look further than Christiania, of course. The hippie collective in the middle of town is famous for its street vendors that openly sell drugs, but beyond the sweet and heavy haze of Pusher Street (as it is called) where people are puffing away there is a rather endearing and enduring sentiment that it is every individual’s freedom to live how they want.

As seen through a green haze.

There are, famously, those who don’t think these freedoms should apply to all, however; the second day I was here a law was adopted that makes it illegal to wear masks in public. The government isn’t targeting halloweeners, it’s after Muslim women wearing the burqa or niqab.

Whilst I’m not in favour of a religion or culture that imposes that kind of clothing on a gender, fining them or confining them in their homes for dressing the way they do isn’t going to achieve real change, to my mind.

But here again, liberals are fighting back, and so it was that I witnessed first hand the demonstration where hundreds of masked Danes went out in solidarity with Muslim women on the first day of the ban. That, more than anything, endeared them to me. After all, where else can you see a topless niqab-wearer and a Stormtroopette join forces?

Days and Deities in the Dolomites, part 1

July 7, 2018chrisgoja Leave a comment

”Closer, God, to Thee”, I mumble to myself through gritted teeth. It’s the song the orchestra played as the Titanic went down, and I share their sentiment – and yet I couldn’t be further from their ordeal. Nor is it the Christian God I have in mind, when now I stand to meet my maker, but Thor, or Jupiter, gods of thunder.

I’m in the Dolomites, the UNESCO-protected Italian-Austrian outlier of the alps, and it’s the first of four days of hiking. Only now I’m beginning to wonder if it will be my last. And yet it started out so well.

I arrived in Val Gardena last night and took the funicular first thing in the morning. True, there had been an almighty thunder storm in the night, but now the skies were blue, the air imbued with that particular cool freshness that follows a summer rain. And to start with the hike was as bucolic as can be: through the pine forests lining the sides of the garden valley, where intensely pink alpine roses covered the forest floor, to pastures with an astonishingly rich flora, where mountain cows of the Milka variety grazed happily, quite unconcerned with the lone wanderer in their midst.

My plan was to hike la Curona de Gherdëina – the crown of Gardena, a circular route taking me all around the valley in question, staying at different rifugios, mountain huts, along the way.

All together now: 🎶The hills are ahlaaahhiiivvvveee…!

The first rifugio I came upon was a working farm, in a setting so picture perfect that you’d expect a von Trapp to come dancing past at any moment. The meadows were all aflower, an old woman was churning butter in the morning sun, and a smiling serving girl got me my Aplfelshorle – apple juice and sparkling water. It was wonderful. To the right loomed one of the sharp, jagged mountain ridges that are emblematic to the Dolomites, like the broken teeth of some buried giant with a serious dentist aversion, but I wasn’t overly concerned, since I felt sure the path would skirt around it. How wrong I was!

As I set out again it became alarmingly clear that the path wasn’t going to swerve – instead it went straight up towards the escarpment and then continued in the shape of a via ferrata (literally “iron road”), with crampons and steel wires hammered into the rockface for the intrepid hiker/climber to hang on to. Like a very small and inefficient dental floss I struggled onwards and upwards between the serrated teeth, acutely aware that mistakes were not an option, only to suddenly reach the crest, and the astonishing view of a gently sloping valley filled with restaurants and scores of elderly day-trippers.

This is where I came up. Still can’t quite believe it.

I felt quite annoyed at this sight: having worked so hard, surely I deserved better than to have groups of selfie-taking pensioners blocking my path? (It turned out that this was the result of a Seilbahn nearby, making for easy access to all and sundry.) I pressed on, and soon entered another valley, this one gorgeously empty apart from a dry river bed made up of the white sandstone that abounds here. It was like having a pristine, meandering road to myself, leading into the interior and away from the unwashed masses. I was overjoyed.

Alas, the only way out of a valley if you move away from its mouth is by climbing, and this is where my troubles began. By now it was close to 30 degrees in the shade – and no shade – and my legs were fair shaking after four hours of hard hiking when the climb up the escarpment began in earnest. Looking behind me I was also aware that dark clouds were beginning to form, so I didn’t want to linger, even though my muscles were protesting loudly.

Sweaty beyond belief I made my way higher and higher, over gravel of the kind I learnt to loathe in France, past the first patches of perma-snow – somewhat surprisingly a pretty pink colour, which is apparently caused by bacteria. I might have been a pretty pink colour by this stage as well for all I know, climbing up sheer rock walls in the midday sun. When I finally reached the crest high above it was to find an illustration from Tolkien immediately in front of me: the darkest, most evil-looking clouds I’ve ever seen were hanging around the next broken-toothed ridge, itself an ominous sight. All that was missing was a fiery eye in the sky, and I would have been staring at the gates of Mordor.

We ain’t in the Shire no more, master Frodo…!

As it was, the very real danger was that the thunder clouds would catch up with me and I would find myself stuck on this ridge. Quite apart from the downpour rendering the sheer rock dangerously slippery to traverse, the combination of me swinging on iron crampons near the summit and lightning from on high was one I didn’t particularly care to contemplate. I also knew that I had precious little to protect myself in the event of a real downpour – only a very light rain jacket and an emergency blanket – so I didn’t fancy my chances much if I had to try to bivouac, but what choice did I have?

Only one. On shaky legs – exhaustion and fear and adrenaline being a potent brew – I half walked, half ran the last three quarters of an hour to the refugio where I was to spend the night, caught up in the cold front that precedes proper storms, shorts and tshirt soaked through with icy sweat, but I made it.

Not half an hour after I dash through the door to the refugio, the world outside was lost to clouds and lightning and torrential rain, but by that time I was bedded down in my bunk, utterly exhausted and trying to regain some warmth, dry and pleased with having outrun Jupiter.

The rest of the day was spent acclimatising to life in a refugio; the dormitories have a dozen bunk beds each, piled three high, with the commotion this brings. Showers are four euros and five minutes each, and only available after six, dinner is served between seven and eight. Thankfully, in this regimented microcosm I’m seated with a lovely New York couple and an equally charming English ditto for dinner, which makes it a very pleasant affair, but I am spent and back in bed by nine.

Sleep comes hard, however, as I mull over the possibility that I have bitten off more than I can chew. The second day promises even more kilometres and height difference – will I really manage that, with my body already one big, dull ache, and more thunder storms a distinct possibility?

2018 and the art of being S.M.A.R.T.

December 29, 2017chrisgoja 3 Comments

I was thinking about what I want to try to achieve in 2018 when I came across some good advice that really resonated with me. If I have failed to reach my goals in the past, it’s nearly always been because I haven’t made sure they were S.M.A.R.T. – Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant and Time-bound. So that shall be my credo for 2018: be smart about what tasks I set myself.

The fundamentals haven’t changed: I want to develop as a person, intellectually and physically, by testing my limits, working diligently and hard towards certain goals, and I want to travel to see the world and broaden my horizons, ensuring that by the end of the year I can look back and see progress and time well spent.

So: smart intellectual challenges – the ones I’ve worked on for a couple of years now still remain the same: I want to read more non-fiction, get better at piano, French, and chess. That’s not very specific, tho, so measuring progress will be key; I need targets I can quantify. One book per month. One new piece of music learnt every two months. One hundred French words per month. And as for chess… well, getting a rating of 1400 before the end of the year would be an easily measurable goal, if not necessarily that easily attainable. (I’m hovering around the 1300-mark as I’m writing this…). Plus I will note down every half hour spent on each activity, thus keeping a tally for accountability purposes.

So I’ve got all of those down to an A.R.T. Physical challenges are a little different, mainly because of the uncertainty I’m living with at the moment, so for 2018, I have decided to change tack a little. For my first challenge in January I will do a runstreak. Running every day will hopefully allow me to rebuild what was damaged in the accident in November. If that goes to plan, Paris marathon in April will be another milestone on the road to recovery, and if that goes well I’ll sign up for either another ultra marathon, or a full length Ironman. Or both.

Alas, there are too many unknowns at this stage for me to know if I will be able to run such distances again, but if I can, then a total of 1500k each of running and biking seem attainable goals overall. At least I know I can bike, so if running is out then I’m doubling that number for biking (and only watching Netflix while on the stationary bike will kill two birds with one stone – limiting my Netflix binging AND encouraging more time in the saddle!).

Weights have never been anything but a complement to my other workouts – now more so than ever as I try to strengthen my weak leg – but again, if I find I don’t recover my running capacity, I will focus more on getting strong/building muscle. Having always been skinny it would be interesting to see if I could actually muscle up.

As for swimming, I want to learn how to crawl properly! At present I can hardly do one length in the pool, and even though I managed the Ironman 70.3 anyway it would be nice to shave off five or ten minutes from that time, so learning how to crawl at least a kilometre is another challenge.

I will be working more in 2018 than I have for a decade, which will hopefully have the dual effect of giving me the opportunity to take on more interesting work on the job, and allowing me a bigger travel budget, as, happily, my children have said they want to travel more with me, so that will affect what trips I take this year.

2018 promises an Arab spring once more, as I’m going back to Morocco in January and have another trip to Egypt in February (with the kids). I have a week of holidays in March that I don’t know what to do with yet – downhill skiing would be nice, but again it’s dependent on me making a complete recovery. I want to go back to Spain and get a fully-fledged paragliding pilot’s licence. Hiking in Iceland would be lovely, the last part of Bergslagsleden still beckons, and I want to do at least one journey further afield – maybe watching the great sardine run in South Africa? Or taking the kids to the US? There’s no shortage of possibilities.

Other challenges: I wouldn’t mind doing more for the environment. This could involve installing geothermal heating in the house, keeping hens for eggs, joining a wind power collective or other changes. One thing I do know I want to try is becoming a vegetarian. At least for a month.

Not eating any sugar in any shape or form may be another challenge, and limiting my social media intake to half an hour per day wouldn’t be a bad idea either.

And of course I want to continue building my blog, writing about my experiences for the joy of writing, but also as a living testament to what I do with my life when I don’t have my kids. Hopefully my readership will continue to grow, but that is less important. If I can inspire only two people, that is more than enough for me.

Here’s to a S.M.A.R.T.er future!

P.S. All this goes out the window if I were to get my dream job, of course… 😄

Swedish Yuletide

December 22, 2017chrisgoja Leave a comment

I’m headed back to Ultima Thule to celebrate the holidays. Of course, Christmas in Sweden has very little to do with celebrating mass, or Christ. Sweden is to all intents and purposes as heathen as it was before it was christened, and Yule (the Swedish word for the holiday is Jul) was always about appeasing the gods and assorted spirits and sprites that influence life in the cold darkness of winter – something which still goes on, regardless of what the church dictates.

The examples are legion: So for instance the tomte, a gnome that embodied the spirit of the homestead, had to be fed and given gifts, to ensure that the animals lived and stores weren’t depleted. Later on, of course, the tomte was mixed up with St Nicklaus, and Coca-cola added its own taint to the figure, thus ensuring Santa was born, but Swedish kids still leave out porridge or cakes and milk for the tomte the night before Christmas, in what is essentially a last ditch attempt at bribery.

We have also, famously, incorporated St Lucia in our traditional celebrations. Why an Italian saint who was burned alive would become part of heathen feasts might seem less than obvious, but when you consider that we have been sacrificing people and animals around the time of the winter solstice to bring back the light since before the Viking era, and lighting fires and singing to scare away the darkness, it’s perhaps easier to see the allure of this sacrificial lamb and her demise. Traditions tend to get lost in the mist of time, however, so the gruesome fact that children dress up in white shrouds and have lit candles in their hands and hair as a token funeral pyre is utterly lost on most modern Swedes in any event.

Speaking of lambs: the aforementioned tomte wasn’t traditionally the one who brought gifts (beyond the gift of not getting pissed off and ruining the farmstead) – that was the role of the Yule billy goat. To what extent this benevolent critter has common ancestry with Krampus, the black horned satyr/devil spawn that probably begat the Belgian Black Pete, who is the antithesis of St Nicklaus, I wouldn’t like to say, but in Sweden at least the goat was always warmly welcomed – probably because trolls were the ones in charge of abducting little children.

The word Yule itself is of unknown origins, but if I were to engage in guesswork, it’s probably no coincidence that the old Norse “jul” is very similar to the Swedish word “hjul”, wheel. The wheel of time always turns, and at no time is that more keenly felt, than in the midst of Nordic winter, when the longing for a new cycle of life is most desperate.

So as you can see, celebrating Yule may have a thin veneer of Christianity to it, but when we heap portion after portion of the sacrificed pig unto our plates – always mindful of it being lagom (literally “enough for everyone”) – and drink each others’ health by crying “Skål!” – a word that derives from “skull”, as the craniums of slain enemies were used as drinking vessels – we honour a heritage that goes back much, much further than any Christmas.

Good Yule, everyone!

Spanish Fly

November 17, 2017chrisgoja Leave a comment

I’m about to throw myself off a mountain.

It’s at times like this you question your life choices. It’s a beautiful day, and I’ve got everything to live for. Why would I do this?

Leonardo da Vinci knew. “Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” Astonishingly ahead of his time as always, he wrote that 300 years before man actually “tasted flight”. As for me personally, it was as recently as three months ago in a tandem flight in the alps of Bavaria, and so for my November challenge I have signed up for an Elementary Pilot paragliding course.

There’s eight of us on the course: four firemen from Wales, two ex-army Englishmen, a somewhat elderly Scottish academic and myself under the tutelage of two laid-back but incredibly professional para-bums: Ross and Jack from FlySpain.

We’re ferried from Malaga to a quaint mountain-side village in Andalusia. This is archetypical Spanish countryside: weatherworn men and women in black knitwear in front of whitewashed houses, rolling fields, olive groves and oak trees under which Ferdinand the bull and his friends still graze. Algodonales looks much the same as it probably has since the time of the Moors (the neighbouring village of Zahara still lies beneath the ruins of a Moorish castle), but the main draw here is the hilly landscape, clear blue skies and warm sun, which provides paragliders with ideal flying conditions.

Ross and Jack have us starting off learning to handle our equipment on a dried-out lake, as flat as can be, and then we move on to a little hill (60 metres or so) in the middle of plowed fields, where we progress to mini-flights, practicing take-off and landing under relatively safe conditions.

I say relatively, because before you get the hang of it, the wing is an unruly thing, and almost every one of us fails to take off at some point, with either canopies collapsing on top of their pilots, or people being dragged off across the field by the force of the breeze, or tumbling over when landing. (I’m lucky in that all my take-offs and landings are successful, but on the other hand I tear a muscle in my butt during one launch, which just about incapacitated me…!) We make really good progress though, working as a team, so the basic course is finished after a mere two and a half days*.

Which brings us to this moment.

We’ve driven up the mountain for the better part of an hour, and now I’m stood here, at the edge of a launch site a good 700 metres above Algodonales, looking down at a ravine full of craggy rocks and thorny shrubs. Time to nut up or shut up. Get the take-off wrong here and you’re in a world of pain, or worse.

Ross lays the canopy out behind me, and I try to focus on the various stances: Gay Crucified Jesus (hands out to your sides in a relaxed manner, allowing you to hold the brakes and the A-lines, letting the latter slide out as you move on to) Funky Chicken (long strides forward doubled over with your arms straight back to allow the canopy to rise above you in order to achieve lift-off, when you can happily move to) French Shrug (hands up by your ears, holding the reigns lightly, ready to steer your wing.).

Radio check. “You’ll only hear me say ‘runrunrun’ or ‘stopstopstop'”, Ross says. Hardly reassuring. Legs shaking with adrenaline. Stomach a tight knot of fear and excitement. Last equipment check, glance at the wind sock, and I’m off! I go from starting position to striding forward as best I can with my tenderised rump, only to find my left hand entangled in the lines. Fuck! I pull it out and continue – too far gone now to stop.

I’m up in the air before I know it, sitting back in the harness as the ground falls away underneath me. The village is far, far below, the air and the sun in my face, the landscape never ending. I round the mountain, check my bearings and fly, fly, fly.

It feels like an eternity, but it only lasts ten minutes before the radio crackles and Jack, who has already landed, comes over the airwaves to guide me. I descend, landing neatly next to a dilapidated farm house, but in my mind I’m still up there. The adrenaline wears off, but the endorphins remain. I have tasted flight.

We do a couple of more flights like that, gaining confidence with each one (in spite of zero wind on the very last flight, which sees me botching my perfect track record with a treetop-mowing start and ignominiously toppled landing) and then the week is over. As we return to Algodonales for the last time, a solo paraglider is riding a thermal high in the sky above the village, circling it together with a lone vulture, both of them rising effortlessly through the air. The next level beckons.

——

* It’s hard work. We’re on a conveyor belt system, so once you’ve landed and bunched up your shute, you have to trundle back up the hill on foot, slipping in the furrows, making it back on top in time only for a quick drink before it’s time to suit up again. The heat, physical excercise and adrenaline all take their toll, so I’m stumbling to bed before ten most nights, after a quick trip to the local tapas bar.

Amsterdamned marathon!

October 16, 2017chrisgoja Leave a comment

So far this year, I’ve been smashing personal bests (PBs) running. I am training hard, and it shows. One kilometre, five, ten, half marathon, all those distances have been crushed. But the Big One remained. The marathon. And so I signed up for Amsterdam marathon, knowing that it was flat and that I’d have a good chance of improving my PB of 3:46 from Barcelona.

42k is a long distance tho. Anything can happen that will throw a spanner in the works. And it seemed everything that could, would.

The railway decided this weekend would be a good time to do maintenance, meaning I wasn’t even sure I’d get to Amsterdam. In the end I managed to puzzle together a route that is best called scenic, as it took in most of the Low Lands, criss-crossing this corner of Europe the way Moses “led” his people through the desert – it shouldn’t be possible to take so long to cover such a short distance, but six hours later I finally stepped off a train in A’dam.

As for lodgings, the Airbnb host I had picked out cancelled with less than a week to go, leaving me homeless. I had a couple of panicky days – even considering online dating to find a place to stay – but in the end a colleague came through for me; he had a friend who lives in A’dam who was likely going to run the marathon as well, and if I were willing to sleep on a mattress I’d probably be more than welcome. Yay!

I wrote the guy, Tobias, and he offered to take me on. It turns out we have another friend in common, namely my sister’s running coach, the reigning 100k world champion runner. This made me pause, and after a little digging it turns out my host-to-be was fresh back from having run his third spartathlon (that’s 268k under the Greek sun), so he “wasn’t expecting to win the Amsterdam marathon this year either”. Yeah, you and me both, brother…!

So when we finally met up for dinner the night before, it was a great dollop of humble pie for me with a side dish of sushi, but he was just as pleasant as can be, and we got on fine, with me trying to (politely) pick his brain on how on earth he manages to do those races. Another mate of Tobias was visiting from Spain, and it turned out Johan and I had a more similar level of ambition; I figured anything between 3:30 and 3:45 is possible, and he wanted to beat his wife, who had done 3:37, so we decided to go together.

The race day starts out well enough: we bike through the deserted streets to the Olympic stadium, where the start and finish will be. A nice surprise is that Tobias works for TCS, the company sponsoring the marathon, so we get into the VIP tent in the middle of the stadium rather than having to stand in line for toilets and clothes storage with the hoi polloi. The weather is beautiful, too. Crisp autumnal air, not a cloud in sight, perfect temperature. 3:30 here I come! Or so I thought.

And so at 0930 we set off, with me leading through the outskirts of the city centre, sticking to between 04:50 and 05:05 per k – easy as anything. Right? Wrong. It worked well enough for the first 26 kilometres, running along the canals and then out along the Amstel river and back for a tour of the affluent countryside, with barges being used as floating DJ booths, and hoverboarders cheering us on from on high above the water. I even knocked a minute off my PB on the half marathon distance. But by then it’s getting warm, and the decision not to bring any water doesn’t seem so great any more.

Best made plans of mice, men and marathoners… Before long, calves and quads are protesting, and threatening to cramp up. By thirty k I can no longer keep my 5min/k speed up. Johan has long since disappeared. Around me, more and more people stop and grimace as muscles seize up. The only thing preventing me from suffering the same fate is the little baggie of salt my ultra marathon-running sister has taught me to bring along on longer runs. Dipping a finger tip in the bag and licking it off is all that’s required, and it works fine, but it’s not a miracle cure – it can’t do anything to prevent armpits and nipples and even more private parts from being rubbed raw against sodden, sweat-drenched clothes.

And so I trudge on. I try to do maths in my head, to see what it will take to get me to the finish in this or that time, but it’s no good. The kilometres take longer and longer, and it’s only bloody mindedness and sullen determination that enable me to continue. The crowds are good, quite supportive and enthusiastic, or at least I think they are; I hardly notice them beyond one point where the smell of ganja is particularly heavy in the air.

It’s funny, though. When the stadium finally comes into view. I straighten up and find untapped resources, enough to overtake quite a few runners and finish strong. That’s how long it lasts though. I hobble into the VIP tent and get a massage – the only thing standing between me and a full body cramp – or so it feels.

Tobias ran the marathon in 2:58 – two weeks after Spartathlon! – Johan fell prey to the heat (in spite of living in southern Spain!) and couldn’t beat his wife, and I, well, I didn’t get anywhere near 3:30, but I still improved upon my old PB with five minutes. It certainly felt good after the DNF at the X-trail! And of course, once reunited, we immediately said we’d do it all again next year. I’ll be Amsterdamned!

Autumn in Paris

September 25, 2017chrisgoja 2 Comments

I seem to have reached an age where my friends are turning fifty. This is why I found myself in Paris this weekend, to celebrate this momentous occasion in the life of my very good friend L.

There’s no denying it is a milepost. A person is no longer young at fifty, the potential of the younger self has been squandered or put to good use, and the resulting life has evolved accordingly. One must face mortality, and consider how best to spend the remainder of this all-too-brief existence before all is irrevocably lost to death and decay.

Perhaps fittingly then, we spend the first day in Paris visiting the dead. First the untold millions of mortal remains of millennia of Parisians bundled together in the catacombs:

The medevial municipal graveyards were literally overflowing at the end of the 18th century. At the same time the limestone quarries that had once been well outside of city boundaries were being subjected to urbanisation, which resulted in several spectacular collapses; houses and entire streets were swallowed up by sinkholes as the poorly shored-up, long-forgotten mine shafts caved in under the weight of the expanding city. Such an exciting time to be a Parisian – your house might spontaneously drop thirty metres into the ground, or your basement might get flooded with partly decomposed bodies!

Ingeniously, the authorities decided to solve both problems in one go: the mines were mapped and their walls reinforced, part of the many miles of underground corridors were consecrated, the churchyards dug up and their dead deposited in the mine shafts-turned-catacombs, instead. Anything between two and six million skeletons were transferred to the catacombs, and today they make for a gruesome reminder of our brief toil on this mortal coil: the narrow corridors are filled floor to ceiling with row upon row of skulls – nothing for the faint of heart.

The Pantheon is a different proposition altogether: a Greek-Roman temple constructed “to house the great men of the Fatherland” (feminists might have a thing or two to say about that), it is the final resting place for the bodies of Voltaire, Rousseau, Hugo, Marie Curie – maybe she was granted a dispensation? – and others worthy of veneration.

The building is famous for housing Foucault’s pendulum, which proves that the Earth moves – and I think we can agree THAT’s a relief to know! – but more importantly it moves the human spirit, because it is one of the most impressive buildings you will ever see, and the views from the roof of its dome is nothing short of spectacular.

Sticking with the theme of mortality, there is an adage that says that a person should plant a tree, sire an heir and write a book. All that speaks of a desire to leave behind something more lasting, and so the second day was devoted to visiting monuments:

The Louvre, the world’s greatest museum, filled to the brim with painting and sculptures, all wishing to immortalise their subjects and/or the artists behind them. It’s interesting to see, but also sobering to realise how little we know of even the most famous ones: Mona Lisa’s identity is uncertain, there is no proof Venus from Milo depicts Venus (or more accurately Aphrodite), and no one knows what Victory from Samotrace looked like.

Another good example of the phallacy of immortality is the Arc du Triomph: ordered by Napoleon as a lasting monument over his soldiers’ bravery (and, one suspects, his own greatness), it wasn’t completed until long after the Emperor had been forced to abdicate and end his days on a forsaken island far, far away. It still makes for a good outlook point, however.

A better, living monument, still thriving in the age of e-publishing, situated right across from Notre Dame, is the wonderful bookshop Shakespeare & C:o. Today’s proprietor is the daughter of the founder, who ran it for fifty years, and it’s a wonderful shop, just the way bookstores should be but rarely are: books spill out of every nook and cranny (of which there are legion), and cover every available surface from floor to ceiling, so that you think you have alighted upon an Escher painting made up of books. If books have the ability to transport you through time and space, this bookstore is a wormhole of black star proportions, and I hope it will outlast all other monuments in Paris.

So, death being inevitable and immortality (even by monumental works) being near impossible, what remains? Eating, drinking and making merry. And so we stroll the streets of Paris, taking in its many wonders – the galettes and cider from Normandy, the macaroons at Ladurée on Champs Elysée (where a Saudi prince and his wife are subjected to the worst service of their lives), the opulent pleasures of brasserie Chez Julien (where Edit Piaf would still feel at home), cheese platters straight from the fromagerie, gateaux from thriving patisseries and incredible breakfasts courtesy of Jozseph and Frédéric, who run the best bed and breakfast in the world. The champagne and absinthe flow, there is laughter and silliness, but a moment of poignant silence marks the end of the weekend, as we happen upon a mass in the monastery church of St Pierre, literally in the shadow of Sacrecoeur on Montmartre.

There, before a congregation of believers, and in a moment of divine light, the Lord’s Prayer is read, and for the first time it strikes me: underneath the religion and ceremony lies a very simple message. Accept that you can’t control anything much, accept the finite nature of things, be accepting of others’ struggles and treat them kindly regardless, and be grateful for the little things. It’s not a bad credo.

Bogged down by Belgium

August 23, 2017chrisgoja Leave a comment

Home from the hills. Après les alps, le deluge. Or so it feels. Coming-home blues is a real thing, as hard a come-down as anything ever sung of in the Mississippi river delta.

To alleviate my ills, I turn to friend Florian, a man so well-travelled he makes Magellan look like a kid playing with his toy boat in a tub. His journeys are so many and far-reaching it’s as if Marco Polo popped out for a quart of milk at the corner shop by comparison. He suggests the Haute Fagne, or High Moor, as a best place in Belgium for a day trip, and who am to disagree?

Located in the easternmost part of Belgium, straddling the border to Germany, it’s a peculiar highland, more akin to the Scottish peat bogs than anything else. A big bog to take my mind off things? Well, I’ll give it a try. Maybe seeking out the antithesis to what you miss is the way to go? And so off I, well, go. I don’t pack hiking gear, figuring I can run the 30k trail F suggests. Famous last words…

When I get there, looking out across the moor, the landscape looks like something out of a post-apocalyptic dystopia: nothing but a few stunted shrubs and dead trees. The nuclear heat of the day does nothing to detract from this illusion. Once out there, running along the duckboards, it’s a different matter. The marshland is home to hundreds of plants, mainly grasses and flowers, and it’s quite pretty in a low key way.

There isn’t much time to look out across the landscape, however. The duckboards prove to be quite difficult to run on, in spite of being perfectly dry. The bog swallows everything eventually, but since it isn’t happening equally fast everywhere, this means one part may be perfectly stable, and the next one might tip to the side as you step on it, bounce, or simply break. It makes for a rollercoaster run.

This feature of the bog landscape is of course the main reason it has been a borderland for as long as can be remembered. The oldest border markers found here date back to the 7th century, and several imposing stone markers still show where the borderline between Prussia and Belgium once ran. Much like marshlands elsewhere, they were simply too difficult to traverse, and of too little economic interest for countries to fight for.

Unfortunately, Belgian budgetary authorities share this view. Many paths through the moors are being abandoned, and only a few kept open – the others are allowed to sink into the boggy ground and disappear. I run along the main route towards Germany, and after only four kilometres I am suddenly off the beaten path. No longer able to run, I walk along a brook. It’s hard going, but very pretty, reminiscent of Swedish forests, with ferns and firs growing high, and not a living soul around. Pieces of abandoned duckboards appear intermittently, but it’s clear that not many people come here any more.

Like a Zorn painting. Only one thing missing…

I have long since left Florian’s suggested route behind, and decide to turn around before I walk back into Germany, and there, suddenly, I’m no longer alone. A photographer and his two nude models are hard at work under a tree!

It’s difficult to know what to do in certain situations. Do you say “hi”? Stop and admire an artist’s work? I briefly consider asking if they need another model, but I figure this blog has seen enough of me in a state of undress recently, and besides, the couple are twenty years and twenty kilos each past attractive. I get back to running instead.

I run back through ferns and grasses and dead trees, the ground muddy and slippery and mostly hidden by the undergrowth. It’s a hard slog, the ground either sucking at my shoes or sliding away and a couple of times I come close to wiping out. After a painful misstep and a near face plant, I slow down to a walk again, but once back on the duckboards I force myself to run once more – mainly to get out of the sun.

After two hours I’m back where I started, at the one inn on the one road leading across the moors. The Baraque Michel (or the Obama Inn, as I like to think of it) has been a beacon to weary wanderers for well over two hundred years, and it’s easy to see why the family-run establishment is doing brisk business: my feet are wet and hurt, my shins and calves will require at least two showers to just be dirty again, my clothes are soaked through with sweat – I can’t bring myself to leave.

I’ve done about half the suggested route, but I’m quite done. Properly bogged down by Belgium.

Alpine Adrenaline II

August 21, 2017chrisgoja 2 Comments

The Bavarian Alps. The most German setting imaginable. Marvellous mountains, nestling green valleys with villages taken straight out of Grimm fairy tales. Birthplace of the grimmest of ideologies.

I’ve come here for a week of peaceful hiking with my friends Florian and Iris. It doesn’t quite turn out that way.

We come by train from Munich (where a local beer hall made our layover as enjoyable as can be), through pleasant rolling hills, and arrive in Oberstdorf (lit. “The highest village”) in sunny, warm weather. That’s a nice surprise in itself, since the forecast is promising thunderstorms and rain for most of the week.

Florian suggests a “light” hike for the first day, climbing the nearest alp, Rubihorn. Coming in at 1,950m high, it’s no more than a 500-metre climb from the first lift station, but the sun is out in force, and by the time I reach the summit I’m wobbly-legged and woozy from the effort. That’s nothing compared to F and I, however. They arrive wheezing and gasping for air. But once heart rates have come down to something resembling normal we have a splendid 360 degree view for our efforts. We are at the edge of the alps, so to one side are the lowlands, and on the other there are hundreds of peaks as far as the eye can see.

What draws the eye more than anything, however, is the incredibly blue waters of the lake hidden right underneath us, shimmering in the heat like a Fata Morgana. Declining the kind offer of summit schnapps from a friendly local, we begin to make our way down a slippery slope towards it. When we finally reach its shores I’m so hot that the lure of the cristalline water takes over, and I join the friendly local and his buddies going in for the coldest dip of my life.

Afterwards I will read up on it and learn that the lake is source-fed from below and therefore maintains a steady – low – temperature all year around (never glazing over in winter), but getting out of the water Iris sums up the experience rather succinctly: “I see it was this cold”, she says, grinning, showing a most unflattering distance between thumb and index finger. Suffice to say when the offer was made anew, I gratefully accepted the (plummet) schnapps this time around.

Playa del Rubihorn

The next day we make for Fellhorngrad and a ridge walk that would have been ideal as a first day introduction to the area. Straddling the border between Germany and Austria, it’s a pleasant enough hike, but too crowded and pedestrianised for my taste. The best that can be said for it is that it offers splendid views into the Austrian valley where we will be exploring next day.

The vale is effectively an Austrian enclave in Germany, because there is only one real road into the valley and it arrives there from Bavaria, which must have made everyday life for the inhabitants rather cumbersome back in the day of border controls. More importantly (to us) it’s also home to one of the more impressive gorges in Europe, the Breitachklamm. And so our third day sees us going to Austria.

Getting off the bus well above the Klamm (“pinch”) itself, we follow the Breitach downriver in glorious sunshine along a very pretty road that would have been a joy to run. I say as much to my hiking friends, forgetting the adage that you should be careful what you wish for. You see, after an hour or so of hiking Florian discovers that he has left his outrageously expensive camera hanging on a bench where we took a break. It’s a good kilometre back up the road, so I offer to run and get it before someone else does.

Unfortunately someone else already has, and so I continue running back to the last lodge we passed, yet another kilometre upriver. When I finally arrive I’m drenched in sweat, but the camera is there, handed in by the finder (hikers are nice people!), and so all that remains is for me to race back to my friends. By the time I get back after this unexpected detour I’m once more so over-heated that I just tear my clothes off and let the river cool me down, with unexpectedly homoerotic / rubberducky results, as captured by my gleeful friends.

When I post a pic of me on FB/when I’m tagged in one.

The Klamm itself is gorge-eous. The valley narrows, steep walls looming above us, waterfalls forcing their way ever deeper into the rock beneath us, as we clamber along walkways hewn into the cliff-face or precariously hanging on to the outside of the bare rock. Like a cut into the flesh of Mother Earth, the gorge is so deep that some of it hasn’t seen the sun for two million years. The debris left behind by winter floods bear witness to the brute force of the water: entire trees are lodged between the walls in places, and markers show the water levels sometimes reached, metres above our heads. It’s awe-inspiring.

Since Florian is leaving in the afternoon to visit a friend, Iris and I decide to try something both of us have been itching to do for a long time: tandem paragliding. We’ve signed up to do their longest flight, using the thermals to stay up in the air for up to forty minutes. Unfortunately, the flight school is incredibly badly organised, with numerous reschedulings and one pilot not showing up until an hour and a half too late, by which time it’s so late in the afternoon that the thermals are gone. This in turn means our flight is less than half the length promised, but for all that it’s an incredible experience!

We run off the top of the Nebelhorn and take flight as easy as anything, then go down the valley close to the forest-clad sides, gliding effortlessly and smoothly through the air. It’s such a high I’m just grinning and laughing the whole time. Iris, meanwhile, is screaming at the top of her lungs – something she has forewarned both me and her pilot is a sign of joy. She soon has cause to scream for other reasons, though, because then they start showing off their skills, making us swing around our axes, spinning around in half loops in the best roller-coaster tradition. It’s fantastically good fun, if quite disorienting.

Iris earning her new nickname, with me in the background.

Before we land I’m given the reigns and told to steer towards the village church, which I do as best I can, before finally we come down soft as can be on a field, grinning from ear to ear from the adrenaline high, and me at least more convinced than ever that this is something so want to learn for myself! The rest of the evening is spent in a Biergarten, mulling over the minutest of details, riding the air waves over and over again.

Next day Florian is back, but the worse for wear from last night’s birthday do, so Iris and I ride the Bergbahn to the top of the Nebelhorn on our own. We set out along the ridge together before parting ways, with me attempting the Entchenkopf alone.

It’s sits across from the Rubihorn, but is 300 metres higher, and significantly more difficult going, with several passages being senkrecht climbing. I had been wanting to try the via ferrata, the climbing paths that you traverse with guides and equipment, but nae more. This is worse by far. With no back-up or climbing gear, the ground slippery from last night’s rain, and drops of anything between ten and fifty metres onto sheer rock, any mistake would be my last. It’s no coincidence Todesangst is a German word, I think.

What do we say to Death? Not today.

When I finally reach the summit, my legs are shaking from fear-induced adrenaline, and I don’t dare stand up for quite some time. But fear is good. Fear – if harnessed – makes you more alive, more focused. As I sit there, taking in the never-ending views, the air as clean as can be, I feel like a million bucks.

And then the moment is over, and I slide down the other side of the mountain towards the Hütte where Iris awaits my return, and the best Kaiserschmarren pancakes known to man.

That was Iris’s last day, so next day Florian and I set out on our own to do the Sonnenköpfe, three lower peaks that form the continuation of the Entchenkopf. They looked more like rolling hills from the summit the day before, but as we hike them they turn out to be quite formidable, too, and it’s only the knowledge that there will be even more of the same Kaiserschmarren that spurs us on til the end.

Next we want to try the stony Gottesacker plateau (lit. “God’s plowing field”), but when we get there the lift is under repair, and faced with the prospect of an additional 1,000 vertical metres in full sun – the weather forecast having turned out to be quite wrong yet again – we opt for an alternative route through a Naturschutzgebiet up to another lodge, seated on the Austrian-German border, and down the other side. It turns out to be Florian’s favourite walk of the entire week, but I can’t help feeling a bit wistful about having missed the plateau, especially since it looks just like a sleeping dragon from below…

Climb every mountain!

The very last day the weather forecast is finally correct, and the rain is pouring down. F can’t be bothered to leave the Gasthaus, but I go for a quick run and then a solo hike in the southernmost valley in all of Germany. It’s wet and misty and moist and slippery, but I don’t mind. The low-hanging mist lends the nature here a mystical aura of veiled beauty, and besides it’s reminiscent of the hikes of my youth, when – as I remember it – the alps were always clad in clouds.

And so my travels with Sonnenkopf and Nebelhorn (lit. “Sunny head” and “Fog horn”) are at an end. The lovely Martin and Andrea, who run the Gasthaus Birkenhof where we have been staying, hug and kiss us goodbye and drive us to the railway station, and then all that remains is one more visit to a beer hall in Munich (with succulent Schweinshaxe and Augustiner beer), before finally flying home.

The alps, however, are already calling me back.

Geneva, Switzerland

August 8, 2017chrisgoja Leave a comment

I came to Geneva early one morning with the sole intention of leaving it as soon as possible, but a fatal error when booking my rental car (not changing 7 PM to 7 AM) combined with a healthy dose of inflexibility on the side of the car rental company left me unexpectedly with an entire day here.

Truth be told, I didn’t mind (much). I had only ever been once before when I was here to work for the UN (as you do), and hadn’t had the time to see any other part of this most quintessentially Swiss town.

The first thing that struck me is how hushed it all was. Granted, as I had flown in on a red eye, the city was probably even quieter than normal as I made my way on foot towards the old town, but still… the famous water sprout on the lake seemed to be the only thing moving, sending cascades of water 140 metres in the air. It was already hot however, and being dressed top to toe in black didn’t help – it might make you look cool, but I was anything but.

And so I slunk through the alleys of the old town, lurching from shade to shade like Frankenstein’s monster, who was “born” here when Mary Shelley outdid her friends in a literary contest, Decameron-style.

Geneva is famously the birthplace of another monstrosity, too (in the eyes of the Catholic church, at least!). 2017 marks the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, and having been at the centre of that revolution the city celebrates with numerous plaques and statues, none more impressive than the stalinesque monument at the foot of the old town, where the four founders stand in vigil, looking like a cross between dour dwarves from Tolkien and Usama Bin Ladin. Given that their ideas directly contributed to wars, civil wars, famine and the deaths of millions one has to wonder what great thinkers will be venerated five hundred years from now…

John Locke, Gimli, Grumpy, Usama

Back in the here and now, modern Geneva proves to be exactly as stereotypically Swiss as can be hoped for: banks line the streets (presumably with impressive vaults hidden underneath them), and luxury items are on sale everywhere – foremost amongst them watches, ranging in price from small car to McMansion – and the army’s favourite deterrent makes regular apparances.

So far, so Swiss. Less famous is perhaps the fact that Swiss society is incredibly liberal – it’s here people can go to take their own lives in special death clinics, after all – and so it shouldn’t perhaps come as a surprise that there are stores selling cannabis and prostitutes plying their services quite openly, as if it were nothing more special than, say, cheese fondue (I’m not saying cheese fondue can’t play a part, too, but you would probably have to pay extra…).

I have my sights on a different Swiss speciality, however, of a most particular kind: CERN.

The European Centre for Nuclear Research is arguably the most successful example of humankind coming together for the greater good and advancement of the race. It’s here, or rather one hundred metres below the ground, that the Large Hadron Collider is – well, at this point I admit defeat; there is no way I can explain how the particle accelerator is used. They crash particles into each other at near the speed of light and sift through the debris to infer the existence of various infinitesimally small building blocks of the universe. That’s the best I can do.

But it’s here, all 27 kilometres of it, running circles around everything else in terms of coolness (quite literally, as the magnets used to speed the particles on their way are cooled to just a couple of degrees above absolute zero in order to create superconductivity), and I spend a couple of very happy hours taking in the exhibitions and enhancing my ignorance.

And so it was that I left Switzerland with an even better impression than I had before. It’s easy to see how the combination of the lake and the surrounding mountains lures people here – unfortunately that is also why the market has seen fit to ensure that it that it’s out of reach of most mortals. As I left I tested this using the Big Mac index: roughly twice the price of all other European nations. Wanna live in Geneva? Win the lottery, or – at least – bring a packed lunch.

Man vs. Mountain

August 6, 2017chrisgoja Leave a comment

So today I participated in Courchevel X-trail, a particularly cunning name for an extreme trail run in the Courchevel region (of the French alps). An orgie of gruelling ascents and descents – 54km, to be exact, and nary a flat surface in sight.

It started at four in the morning, so in fairness there was no way to see the wall-like mountain towering immediately in front us either, but as soon as we were off you could tell just how murderously steep and long it was from the headlamps of runners ahead and behind you, like a string of pearls in the night.

It took me two hours to reach the first aid station, 10k into the race. Normally I would have covered more than twice that distance in that time, so it wasn’t running so much as climbing. By this time the sun had climbed into the sky as well, and revealed that this first mountain wasn’t anywhere near done with us yet: we were only halfway up it, in fact.

And so on we climbed. The sun stayed resolutely hidden behind clouds and mist, but even so I was pouring with sweat, in spite of it being only six or so in the morning. When I finally crested the first mountain, realisation dawned: descending is almost as bad as ascending! The first descent of the day was relatively doable, but as the day wore on, gravel and treacherous stones in combination with deadened legs meant it was just a different kind if torture.

If I had seen a contour map of the route I dont think I would’ve ever signed up: the second mountain was even higher than the first, 600 metres straight up in the air (over something like four kilometres) to the second aid station, along its ridge for another handful of kilometres (where the fog thankfully hid the abysses we were tightroping along!) and then down impossibly steep roads into a rather wonderful valley. Here a number of fast flowing rivers with water the colour of blue clay, conspired with stone chalets and grazing cows straight out of a Milka commercial to make a rather enchanted place, the enclosing mountain ridges adding to the feeling of a lost paradise.

Unfortunately that paradise was quickly lost again, as a third ascent began at the valley’s end, this one leading up across alp meadows with incredible numbers of flowers and then into a seemingly never-ending field of boulders, where one false move would have meant instant reenactment of the pivotal scene from “128 hours”.

By this time I had given up running apart from a slow jog on the downhill sections, but the boulders provided the straw that broke the camel’s back. There was no way I could walk fast enough to make the next rope time, and running across them (either up- or downhill) wasn’t an option, so after seven hours and 30k I had to resign myself to the fact that today would earn me my first ever DNF (Did Not Finish).

It’s obviously not an accolade I was hoping for, but at the same time I can’t be unhappy. A number of factors combined to make today a bad day: I slept atrociously bad the night before the race – two days of stressful travelling to get here plus sleeping in a tent after a day of 34 degrees heat and no shower saw to that – and I’m obviously not good enough at running in this kind of terrain (hardly surprising as I’ve never done it!).

So my spirit wasn’t in it, and I stepped off while still feeling ok physically, rather than push myself to the absolute limit, knowing that this way I’d be able to come back to enjoy the alps in a week’s time – this time for less strenuous hiking, hopefully – and that’s a choice I’m happy with.

—–

A final note on race organisation: while overall it was a very smooth operation, there are some points that might be of interest to potential runners. First of all, Courchevel isn’t one place. There are at least three villages called Courchevel, and having had more information about the actual location of the point of departure would have saved me an hour or so of admittedly scenic but very stressful driving as the closing time for registration drew ever neigher.

The goodie bag deserves a special mention: apart from the usual array of vouchers and marketing material for other races it contained a plastic gobelet (useful?), a local beer (very drinkable, I’m happy to report), and a condom! That’s a first. Whether it was there to serve as a sort of talisman, to keep and preserve you in the mountains (condom in French is “preservatif”, after all), or whether its presence had anything to do with the imminent proximity of Pussy (a French hamlet nearby) I don’t know.

There were no medals and t-shirts on offer for finishers. Instead you got a mug and a pin – full marks for novelty here as well, but I’m not sure I would have been very happy with that offering upon completion.

Finally a word on safety. The race organisers had done what they could: the trail was well blazoned throughout, and there were even a handful of volounteers scattered about the mountains in the iffier spots, but there’s no denying that rescue operations would have been very difficult. In the darkness and the fog there was no way a helicopter could have got to the site of an accident, even if there was someone to report where it happened (and the potential for accidents was unlimited). In the same vein, I was incredulous to discover that the only way of getting down from the aid station where my race came to an end was to hike twelve kilometres unsupported “mostly downhill”. It was only luck that saw me being able to hitch a ride with a ranger, otherwise I’d still be out there now…

Half a lap around the sun…

July 1, 2017chrisgoja Leave a comment

…and it’s time to summarise what’s happened this far 2017. As has been the case these last couple of years, I set myself certain tasks in January, to be completed over the next twelve months, and at the halfway mark it makes sense to take stock, to see what has gone according to plan, and what hasn’t.

Have I managed to go on an adventure/set myself a new challenge/have a new experience every month? Happily, yes. January I ran a marathon with a difference, February I went to see Alhambra, Grenada (the text about which seems to have been deleted, sadly!), March I dived the incredible reefs of Pemba, April saw me join a monastery of sorts in Mallorca, then came hiking in Madeira and in the troll-infested forests of Sweden (whilst also trying out the benefits of a paleo diet), before finally taking on my first triathlon last month.

Looking back, it’s quite a lot crammed into six months, so I’m pleased with that.

I’ve managed to work out quite a lot (unsurprisingly, what with the races) but not as much as I had set out to do in total – weeks of hiking and skiing and diving have prevented me from reaching the goal of a marathon run and biked every week, and I haven’t done much yoga either. But then there’s still six months left to remedy that.

Have I developed my French, my piano and chess playing, and done more non-fiction reading? I certainly got off to a good start, doing thirty minutes per day of each, but a good friend giving me a Netflix password threw a big spanner in that particular structure. I haven’t completely derailed, but there have been leafs on the tracks, shall we say.

As for taking on new tasks at work, I have, happily. And not least because of this very blog, in fact. Turns out people at work read it and thought I might do good in Internal Communications, so from now on I will spend one day per week as a roving reporter, highlighting goings-on in my work place. Very happy about that.

So what’s next? I will try to make up for lost time in those areas where I haven’t quite managed to reach my targets, obviously.

I’ve still got the mountain ultra X-trail coming up in the beginning of August, and ten days of hiking the Bavarian alps hot on the heels of that. After those ten days I don’t really have any plans for the rest of the year. An acquaintance has invited me to Bilbao, and another to Nepal, so those things might happen. Or not. Readers should feel free to make suggestions.

I still want to try and beat my marathon record before the end of the year – I’ve improved significantly on my personal best for shorter distances, but whether that will translate into a new marathon PB remains to be seen. Time to start looking for a fast race, in any event.

At work I have made a promise to attempt to add Danish to my official language combination, so that should keep me busy for quite some time (maybe there are Danish movies on Netflix?!), and the new job will hopefully continue to present new challenges, as well.

All in all I feel quietly confident that the second half of this journey will be as filled to the brim as the first half was. Come fly with me!

Diary of a cave man (2/2)

June 1, 2017chrisgoja Leave a comment

Howling at the moon…

The second half of my month of eating paleo looked like it might be considerably harder than the first. Eating nothing but what our most distant ancestors might have eaten works fine when not exerting oneself utterly, but as my triathlon draws closer that’s not an option. Plus I would be going hiking for five days with my brother, and goodness knows how my body would react to that, paleo or no. This is what happened:

Day 16: 10k bike / 2k swim brick-session (i.e. one follows immediately upon the other). No problem.

Day 17: 18k bike, 8k run, 6k run, all with hour-long pauses in between, and 28C temperatures. By the end of the day I’m exhausted, but somehow I don’t think the diet is to blame. I cheat a little afterwards, drinking half a litre of pure apple juice – it tastes like the nectar of gods!

Day 19: I discover that smoked trout and boiled eggs make a good breakfast, but leaves your mouth smelling like fart. Learn something new every day.

Day 20: New PB on 5k. Wonky reading on the Garmin tho, so won’t count it, but still: clearly paleo isn’t hurting more explosive efforts either.

Day 21: Prepared massive batch of protein cakes to bring on next week’s hike. Tweaked the recipe to include maple syrup and chocolate. All caveman kosher. Biggest problem will be not eating them before actually on the trail…!

Day 23: Hiking all day. 18k in hard terrain in Tiveden. Protein cakes yummy. Freeze-dried food better than expected. Energy levels stable and high.

Day 24: Hiked 20k. Ate big plate of macaroni and cheese in the evening and literally passed out for half an hour afterwards. Just laid down on the ground and fell asleep. Felt hung over on carbs the rest of the evening. Disgusted.

Day 25: Hiked 23k. In the evening an old friend met up with us, and served us cold beers and Brie sandwiches. Couldn’t say no out of politeness. Didn’t want to, either. Paleo regime officially toppled, then. Will mount a counterattack. Tomorrow.

Day 26: Got up at 0400. Hiked 32k over ten hours. Gratefully accepted a beer in the evening from kind strangers, but otherwise toed the line.

Day 27: Last day of hiking. Family reunion. Lots and lots of food. Decided to forgo paleo for the evening.

Day 28: Back in Belgium. Rest day.

Day 29: Rest day.

Day 30: Went running for the first time in over a week; shaved another sec off my PB on 5k. Celebrated daughter’s birthday with huge, distinctly non-paleo cake.

Day 31: 10k bike (PB), 8k run, 7k run. Weighed in: 77.2kg.

So, strictly speaking I stuck with the diet 100% for three weeks. After that circumstances conspired to make things more difficult, as I had predicted. That’s never an excuse tho; I chose to give it up for the sake of convenience.

But that doesn’t change the fact that I was able to work out as hard as I ever have in my life during those three weeks, and it felt great. I lost five kilos during May, without losing any muscle, so it seems the theory holds water – your body will switch to burning body fat if carb intake is significantly reduced, and do so without lowering your performance levels, over either short or long distances.

It will be interesting to see what happens at the Ironman triathlon in three weeks – that will be the real litmus test. I will be writing about that experience too, of course. One thing’s for sure: I’ll be continuing on this prehistoric path.

Majestic Madeira

April 19, 2017chrisgoja Leave a comment

After Pemba and Mallorca, my island-hopping circumnavigation of Africa has taken me to Madeira, off the northwestern coast of the continent. Unlike no man, Madeira is an island, but also the name of the entire archipelago, somewhat confusingly.

Known as the Isles of the Blessed to the Ancient Romans (although no one knows who the blessed in question were), Madeira has been part of Portugal for most of the last 500 years, but geographically speaking it is a part of Africa – and geographically this is probably the most dramatic landscape I’ve ever seen; the volcanic mountains rise up steeply everywhere, and verdantly lush jungle covers every square metre not claimed by man. This is Sardinia on steroids, a place where Kong might feel at home.

Funchal, the main city, is my base. It rises up the mountainsides in a natural amphitheatre facing out towards the sea. This means the whole town is terraced, with houses literally being built on top of one another – a car parked on the roof of a house, or a house where the entrance is on the topmost floor because it’s perched on an outcrop far below; these are common sights – and traversing it is calf-killing business.

On my first day I want to see the Monte palace gardens, which lie at the top of the town. There’s a funicular that takes people up there, but the asking price is staggeringly high (much like the gardens) so I make my way on foot from downtown. Three kilometres of hiking and over half a vertical kilometre later, I arrive at the gates, legs shaking and dripping with perspiration, questioning my sanity.

The gardens – first created by a British consul – were beautiful and well worth it, however, with bulbous clouds of bougainvilleas spilling out over the paths, palm trees and jacarandas and tulip trees and African lilies and Austin roses and bottlebrush flowers and endless arrays of other plants. Azaleas the size of trees, ferns taller than I am, and water features everywhere. It was a sight to behold, once my breathing and heartbeat were back to normal.

There is a lovely little church next to the gardens, where the last Austro-Hungarian emperor rests (having lived the last few months of his life in exile here after he lost his empire), and his grave was filled with ribbons bearing greetings like “our last emperor” in German and Czech. Some people never learn.

The only other claim to fame for the church (beyond having the best views and the sweatiest congregation of all time) ought to be its altarpiece, which consisted of a printed picture of a painting of Jesus with the words “Jesus, eu confio em Vós” printed in Times New Roman (italics) on it. Why anyone thought this a good idea, I don’t know. It looked like the religious equivalent of the first Christmas card you ever DIY’d online. A far cry from the faux perspective cupola in Gozo, it was.

Pro-empire statements to the left, pro-EU statements to the right…

Below the church are the famous wicker toboggans that tourists are ferried down the mountain in by surprisingly beer-bellied Portugeezers wearing white outfits and jaunty straw hats, nattering away while the tourists shriek with delight. The asphalt is worn silky smooth by their passage. It looks fun, but the prices are as steep as the roads, so having recovered somewhat, I walked back down again.

This was a fitting overture to the main reason for my coming to Madeira. I want to hike the levadas. Levadas are ingenious works of engineering that the Portuguese set about creating immediately upon discovering the island (It was known to the Romans but subsequently lost to history, before Portuguese seafarers “rediscovered” it in 1419, and never mind that it was inhabited by runaway slaves and others when they did.). For five hundred years they have expanded this network of aqueducts hewn out of the cliff-face to channel fresh water from natural sources in the centre of the island out towards more habitable areas.

Today, they make for perfect hiking trails, taking wanderers straight into the laurissilva forests that cover much of the centre of the island – it is literally a walk in prehistoric environs, as this type of laurel trees (many of them a thousand years old) covered large swathes of Europe tens of thousands of years ago, but only continue to exist here nowadays due to the island’s unique climate.

And so I find a company that takes small groups of people into the mountains to hike the most scenic routes. I had initially planned on bringing my tent and thru-hiking the island from one end to the other, but that didn’t seem possible, so here I am, doing the light version, coming home to a bed and breakfast every night instead of camping out.

First off is Levada do Rei, the king’s levada, or the king of levadas, I’m not sure which – my Portuguese being somewhat nonexistent. The hiking is easy as can be, but it’s not for the faint of heart. More often than not there is a ledge no more than fifty centimetres wide between the levadas and a drop-off of dizzying height. Fifty or even a hundred metres below, the roar of the river can be heard, and one false move will send you tumbling. It’s a puckering thought, and the last to go through the mind of many a slave (before the rest of them did) – as they were often forced to work on these projects (a fact that guidebooks find convenient to gloss over).

Trail with built-in shower.

The levada goes six kilometres inland, through the most dramatically inhospitable terrain imaginable – once even inside a waterfall – to finally end in a gully where every leaf and frond is dripping water into the stream. Having left the group far, far behind, I explore the area, have my lunch in a spot that looks like it’s straight out of the Jurassic, and a bit of a rest before setting out again. I finally reencounter them ten minutes away from the gully. Possibly this group hiking thing isn’t for me…

On the way back, the guide drops me five hundred metres from my hotel. Whether it’s punishment for having strayed from the group, or just bad service, I don’t know.

The next day, the pickup is fifty minutes late due to no-shows, and the guide (another one) is in an understandably foul mood. I try to not let it affect me, but he is frankly rude, repeating “I’m sorry but it’s not my fault”, when no one has claimed as much. The drive across the island is breathtaking, climbing up these alp-like jungle-clad mountains that dwarf everything humans can ever hope to create.

We reach today’s levada, and I go on ahead again, leaving the group behind, enjoying the solitude and the different fauna of these higher altitudes. Here, it’s tree heathers and laurels forming a roof over the path, ferns are back to normal size, but blueberry bushes tower above me, and the odd wild geranium brightens the shade, while little trout swim in the levada by my side. It’s lovely.

I reach the halfway point of the “four hour” trail in under an hour, and spend a pleasant while by a beautiful waterfall and rock pool reminiscent of the ones I plunged into in Switzerland when canyoning, sharing my lunch with a chaffinch that happily takes pieces of cheese from my fingers.

Who do you finch took the picture…?

By the time I’m done, the others have arrived, but trundling back the same way doesn’t appeal to me, and after some talking to the guide he grudgingly gives me leave to take a circular path. This is proper hiking – all roots and rocks, not strolling along a concrete sidewalk – and I nearly slip a couple of times, but in the end I’m back by the minibus well before the rest of the group.

By this time the guide’s temperament and the false marketing combined have most of the hikers grumbling, so he takes us on an extra loop of a kilometre through an area destroyed by forest fire last year. It’s difficult to know how to react: on the one hand he is trying to make good on the company’s overblown promise, on the other hand it’s not like we’re just looking to walk any old where just for the sake of it. And he’s clearly pissed off, so that even if he is genuinely looking to do something for us, no one feels inclined to take him up on his offer.

In the end we call it a day, and I say nothing, but a couple of exchanged e-mails later I’m looking at a third day at a third of the original asking price. Seems fair.

Next day couldn’t have been more different: the pickup is on the dot, the guide Duarte is a real Mensch who has me pegged in seconds. “You go on your own, you fast”. And so I do. We go into the mountains proper, to hike between the two highest peaks on the island, Pico do Areeiro and Pico Ruivo, both over 1,800 metres. The path used to take in a third peak, but it’s been closed to hikers since a rockslide obliterated a stretch of it – a stark reminder that geological time is now.

It’s an old path that locals on the north side of the island used to ferry their wares to the south side market place, however unlikely that sounds. Nowadays at least it’s paved, and a good thing too, as the ever-present tufa pebbles make for easy slipping.

It’s hard going but incredibly beautiful: the path snakes its way up and down the sides of mountains, balancing on razor edge crests and burrowing through sheer rock. The fauna here consists of heather trees and broom, and the ground is covered by alpines such as indigenous orchids, buttercups, saxifrage and sedums, with oversized bumblebees brumming about. It’s overwhelming in its splendour.

What’s more, it is all to be a part of the Madeira Island Ultra Trail tomorrow, so every so often there are waymarkers attached to the scant protective wires. I doff my sweaty cap in the direction of the runners: the race is 115 kilometres across the island, and I would not want to try to run many of the metres I cover here today…! (I did 15k today, with 1k elevation loss and 1k ditto gain. The X-trail is four times as much. Lord knows what the MIUT equivalent is!)

I predictably arrive long before the rest of our party, so when they do show, Duarte simply tells me to go on for another hour and then meet them back at the Pico. I happily do, taking in the utter isolation that is the Village of the Nuns way below in the next valley. It’s hard to imagine a more secluded place, and it looks quite magical, nested in between the mountains, but alas, the clouds come in and cover the nuns (and everything else) from my prying eyes, which I take as a signal to turn around and go find my posse, incredibly pleased with my day.

I spoke more to Duarte on the way back, as he was understandably interested in the previous day’s debacle, but he also tipped me off about a longer trek that he recommended I do, even going so far as to find me the right bus to take, so my last day will be spent hiking properly on my own, just as I had originally envisaged.

And so my last morning sees me boarding a local bus that will take me up the Ribeira Brava valley (the same one that blew me away two days ago). It takes its time getting there, but I enjoy every minute of the two hour drive, moving at a stately place down the coast, the driver navigating hairpin bends while I gaze in amazement at the landscape and all the gardens.

The bus stops twice for ten-minute breaks – once to give passengers a chance to take a look at Cabo Girão, a glass-bottomed walkway over a cliff that drops 580m straight down into the ocean, and once, at eleven o’clock sharp, for coffee. My father would have approved – of the latter.

When the driver drops me off, it’s in a place that almost defies description. At 1,500m, its high above the valley floor, offering breathtaking views, but unlike previous hikes, I move along this path in glorious solitude. For the first hour I encounter no one at all. Lizards rustling in the undergrowth, birdsong and the burbling brooks are the only sounds I hear as I walk through the dappled shade of a eucalyptus forest, the warm aroma of the trees’ esoteric oils filling my every breath. Truly, this is forest bathing at its finest.

Jump in at the deep end!

By noon, just as the trail starts ascending, I come upon my first runner. He seems in good shape, considering he’s been running for twelve hours by now, but he’s only done some 50 kilometres, and yesterday’s trail is still ahead of him. We talk a little, and I encourage him in his efforts, offering a few choice tips – I am the author of Seven Tips for a Painful Marathon and a successful ultra marathon runner myself, after all! ?

After that, I overtake more and more runners as I make my way up to Pico Grande, and then steeply down the next valley to the village of Curral das Freiras.

See the people on the trail?

I make it to the village and down two cold beers in quick succession at the local bar (at the very fair price of 1€ per bottle), thankful that I haven’t traversed 65km, nor have 45 left to go. There’s only one problem: the only bus back to Funchal isn’t leaving for another two hours.

I arrived just before the halfway break-off point of the race – any runner who hasn’t made it there by 15:30 isn’t allowed to continue – and this proves to be a stroke of luck for me, as the volunteers begin to pack up and get ready to leave. I start talking to a group of five women all in MIUT sweaters, and they offer me a lift back to Funchal.

I would have been super happy with any ride, but the women turn out to be sweet, chatty and very interesting (children of emigrants to South Africa and Venezuela who have returned to their “homeland”). I simply couldn’t have asked for a better end to my holiday here.

Now if only I could go to S:ta Helena next week…

Monastic Mallorca

April 15, 2017chrisgoja Leave a comment

I’m in a cloister on the east coast of Mallorca, having taken vows and joined an order. At least that’s what it feels like.

Joining the Celestial Order of the Brethren and Sistren of the All Inclusive Resort is a strange experience. Much like its religious counterparts, life for the inhabitants of this enclave is strictly regulated, and therein lies its attractiveness to the many seekers of enlightenment who come knocking on its doors. Pilgrims looking to lay down their worldly worries and lead a life of contemplation find their way here, much like real monks and nuns joining monasteries and nunneries, albeit for rather different reasons.

The grounds of this cloister are littered with cold water pools, where the penitent are encouraged to immerse themselves as much as possible, to purge their carnal sins from their earthly vessels. To ease our way, there is a plethora of contraptions aimed at luring us to stay in longer than is strictly good for you – the favourites being a bouncy hill and a slide of quite breathtaking steepness and height. The kids love it, and only give up their watery self-flagellation when their lips are blue and their bodies shaking. Then we retreat to loungers and allow the sun’s rays to beat us into submission until the cycle is repeated anew.

Penetenziagite…!

Of course there are certain differences from a normal cloister. Our cells are more adorned than I’m led to understand is usually the case, and the refectory where we take our two daily meals isn’t exactly an oasis of silence, nor does it feature divine choirs whose hymns allow the spirit to soar – it’s more like a high school cafeteria into which has been let loose a battery of beastly bairns of all sizes. It’s the main attraction for families with bawling baboo– small children, after all, the fact that in this microcosm no normal chores have to be carried out. No cooking, no cleaning, no leaving the premises for any reason at all unless you really want to. Add to that the anestesia provided in liquid form at all meals, and you begin to understand the appeal.

Watching this antropological experiment unfold is certainly an eye opener. The tired look on the faces of so many parents, the way they barely grunt at each other beyond what is necessary to ensure their offspring is fed and dressed and slathered in sun lotion, makes me feel alot better about my own parenting (and previous marital) efforts. The singles I encounter here are universally in agreement that ours is the happier solution.

Overall it makes for a radically different holiday from my last experience of Mallorca, when it was just my brother and I, and we stayed in a hermit’s quarters, walked in the mountains all day, often not encountering another soul for hours – but to my surprise I find this existence does offer me a kind of solace. In spite of the abundance of obese, tattooed and over-cooked humanity surrounding us, and the constant sound of squealing kids, it’s summertime (at a time when my family in Sweden is dealing with seven inches of snow) and the living here is easy. It’s not the kind of holiday I would choose, but it is the holiday the children wanted – bathing, sun and ice cream being their top criteria for what constitutes a good trip – and so I’m happy to enjoy this for what it is, a brief break from my mortal toil, knowing as I do – much like a real monk – that the end is neigh.

Who knows, I might even resort to resorts again in the future.

Perfect Pemba

March 27, 2017chrisgoja 2 Comments

Just off the coast of East Africa, a thirty minute flight north of Zanzibar, lies the tropical volcano island of Pemba. And if that sounds like the first sentence of an adventure story, it is precisely because it is.

It takes an effort to get here; from Brussels to Istanbul, from Istanbul to Zanzibar (via Kilimanjaro), and then one last tiny plane to Pemba domestic airport, an airstrip with a shed made of corrugated metal for a terminal. And even then the journey isn’t over. We’re picked up by a driver and taken on a bumpy ride to the northernmost tip of the island, where we finally arrive at one of the two resorts in existence here, the Gecko Nature Lodge.

You see, unlike its more famous neighbour to the south, Pemba is largely devoid of tourism, and all the better for it. This is also the reason why we have come here; its relative obscurity is one of the factors explaining why the surrounding waters are home to some of the best dive sites in the world. Corals are dying everywhere because of global warming and over-exposure, but here they are still perfectly healthy, and there is an abundance of them, too.

After last year’s less than impressive diving adventures in the Andaman Sea and on Gozo, my friend Lesli (of Sardinian and Appalachian fame) and I have high hopes for this place, and it doesn’t disappoint. The place is right on the coast, next to a local village, and surrounded on all sides by encroaching jungle of the kind you’d expect Tarzan to feel at ease in.

Our hosts, Russian Ekaterina and French Lucas, have only been here for two months, but make us feel at home right away. The fact that there is only one more diver here at first makes it feel almost as if we are their personal guests rather than paying customers, which is lovely.

We’re exhausted from our travels, and hide out from the midday heat in the guest huts that lie hidden in amongst the mango trees and banana palms and other vegetation. It’s a shock to the system, suddenly being subjected to heat and humidity on a tropical scale, but as the afternoon wears on, we acclimatise ourselves, and when the sun sets over the African continent we are seated on the water’s edge, sundowners at hand, ready for the spectacle to begin in every sense of the word.

The next day we start with an early breakfast of eggs and freshly baked bread out in the open (but under a roof made of bamboo and fronds to hide us from the elements), then we gather our gear and head out in the rim boat to the dive sites.

I feel the usual excitement rise within as we follow the coast and take in the sapphire waters and emerald forests. Dara, our fellow diver from Ireland, has been here several days already, and Lesli is three times more experienced than I, but I’m always a little apprehensive when diving; it can be dangerous.

We kit up, buddy up, and prepare to go in. Lucas warns us that the visibility is so good that it can actually be a problem; divers used to less impressive conditions might mistakenly think they are in shallower waters than is actually the case, simply because they’re not used to seeing so well. That doesn’t sound so terrible, but can be a real issue, as going too deep causes the body to accumulate more nitrogen than it can take, effectively poisoning your blood in a way that can kill you.

One last security check, and we roll backwards into the water. On the divemaster’s command, we decend into the blue, and like that, we arrive in a different world.

There’s a lagoon formed by the main island and two smaller ones, Njau and Fundu, and the best diving is found right on the edge of the islands and in the two gaps that lead into the lagoon, where the tide has furrowed underwater channels that are lined with an astonishing plethora of corals.

There are fire corals, so red they look like glowing lava, cream-coloured porcelain corals, orange staghorn corals, sky-blue corals shaped like trees and pink fans and black chimneys and yellow bubble baths and sponges and a hundred other different shapes and sizes and hues, and nearly every one of them is favoured by one or more different species of fish: Tiny multicoloured nudiebranks and fiercely territorial clown fish hide in amongst anemones, parrot fish munch on their favourite calcified snacks, shoals of golden glass fish crowd swim-throughs, giant moray eels and lobsters and mantis shrimp are backed into crevices, poised to attack if you get too close, camouflaged scorpion fish lie motionless amongst the corals, deadly to touch and all but invisible. The list goes on and on. Add to this that you are floating as if suspended in the air, and it’s an experience so different as to be almost impossible to explain to someone who has not had it.

Dara (who dives every week) and Lesli (with her daily yoga exercises) stay down like a couple of mermaids. Me, I’m using up air like I’m trying to corner the market. The excitement and adrenaline doesn’t help, but it’s all good. Never have I dived in such pristine waters, in such a rich flora and fauna. I surface with an enormous grin on my face.

The build-up of nitrogen from our first dive necessitates a surface interval of an hour or so, so the captain – a local fisherman who finds all the dive spots with eerie accuracy – lands us on a secluded beach where we bask in the sun, have water melon and pancakes and tea before heading out for a second dive. After that, it gets too hot, so we make for home and a well deserved lunch.

In the meantime a family trio from Argentina (a father and his adult son – Juan Carlos II and III – and daughter Jennie) have arrived, and over the next four days we will be the only guests at the lodge. Father and son joins us diving, and Jennie, who turns out to be a TV star back home in Argentina, takes lessons in the afternoons to get her certificate.

It’s a simple routine, but a very pleasant one. In the mornings we go diving, after lunch (and a siesta to hide from the worst heat) we go exploring. We rent bikes and kayaks to see more of the island. We traverse the jungle with a guide and see silk monkeys and crested hornbills (think Rowan Atkinson in The Lion King) and flying foxes (a type of giant fruit bat), we paddle along the coast and into the lagoon and its mangrove forests – the trees look like giant spiders with their hundreds of air roots holding them in place on the edge of the tides, and the volcanic rock walls are alive with hundreds of crabs, clambering along the razor-edged overhangs as if it were the easiest thing in the world.

Almost as exotic is the experience of interacting with the locals here. When I went running through the village I had a chorus of children calling me. For some strange reason they shout “bye bye” by way of greeting, and they laugh and smile and stare at me, obviously thinking it a very strange sight. If I stopped and tried to talk to them they grew very shy, and were likely to run away, but sometimes they ran after me instead. Once, when biking, we passed a group of serious-looking young girls in beautiful scarves and dresses all lined up and waving at us, and I blew them a kiss. The fact that children often marry very young and that polygamy is allowed is difficult to comprehend for a westerner, so for a moment I was wary of having committed a serious faux-pas, but much to my relief it resulted in an explosion of giggles. Even the adults seemed genuinely pleased, much like I expect they would have if a monkey had performed a particularly good trick. It’s a strange feeling to be find yourself part of a tiny minority, and quite the eye-opener.

And so the days go by. The place lives up to its name, as I discover when I find a gecko inside the toilet bowl one morning. At least it wasn’t a poisonous centipede, or a cloud of winged termites, or a bushbaby – all of which have found their way inside huts in the past.

A couple of the dives are scary, because the currents are unpredictable, and toss and turn us every which way, making you feel as if inside a washing machine during the spin cycle. When that happens there is little to be done apart from hiding from it as best you can, but sometimes even that isn’t possible, and you get taken for a ride.

The very last day on Pemba is a case in point. By now the Argentinians and Dara are gone, replaced by a Danish father and son. One of them has difficulty decending, and before he manages the current has taken us to another spot than the one we meant to dive. Before we realise this we are down to 28 metres instead of the fifteen we thought we would bottom out at. And the second dive that day, the very last dive of the week, is a wall dive that sees us drift so fast that the group becomes separated. It’s not unlike a rollercoaster, in fact, with the current pushing us up and down as we rush by the corals.

Eventually I get low on air and find a rock to hold on to for dear life while I do my safety stop, and when I finally come up I find that the two Danes are already back in the boat, having abandoned the dive earlier, while L&L are a hundred metres away, dragged there by the current. It’s a humbling experience, and one I will always remember as The Floomride. Even so, it was The. Best. Diving. Ever.

We spend one last day on Zanzibar, in Stonetown, a place that will forever live in infamy as the biggest slave market in the world.

The slavery museum is a moving memorial to the untold millions of victims of this heinous crime against humanity. Raiding parties would find their way far inland, so that by the time they came here, slaves would have been marched for many months already, shackled together like animals day and night, and subjected to all manner of atrocities along the way.

Having been taken across the sound to Zanzibar the traders would cull their stock, throwing the ones that didn’t seem worth it off the ships to drown rather than having to pay duties for them. The cargo would then be incarcerated in tiny, overcrowded cellars underground for a couple of days to weed out all but the strongest, who would finally be taken to the market to be inspected, bought and sold like so much cattle (or worse, since I gather cattle rarely get used for sexual purposes by their owners), before being taken by their new masters to all the corners of the world, for – lest we forget – this was a global commercial endeavour. It beggars belief. Hitler, Stalin and King Leopold are all amateurs by comparison.

And with that sobering reentry into civilisation, plus a parting gift of torrential rain and ditto diarrhoea, Zanzibar speeds us on our long, separate ways home.
??????

All photos curtesy of Lesli Woodruff.

20-20 hindsight

December 9, 2016chrisgoja

2016 is coming to an end. It seems not long ago that I sat down to set out the goals I had for the year, and now the time has come to summarise what I have accomplished, and what targets I failed to reach.

I wanted to challenge myself, have new experiences, travel, go on adventures and develop as a person. Overall, I think it’s fair to say I have.

I overcame my fear of diving, and went not only to Nemo33, but also on two marvellous diving trips, to Thailand and Malta. On top of that I travelled to Mallorca, Luxembourg, Barcelona, London, Leeds, Edinburgh, Sweden, Rome, Switzerland, and Sardinia, so I certainly fulfilled my ambition to go on adventures.

I challenged myself in other ways than diving: bungee jumping and canyoning demanded overcoming myself mentally; and taking on not one, but two new roles at work has certainly brought new intellectual challenges and opportunities into my life, for which I’m very grateful.

I tried abstaining from caffeine and alcohol for a month, and lived to tell the tale; I tasked myself with reading more non fiction as a way of contributing to the fight against the dumbing-down of our society; I try to be more mindful of what I eat.

The main challenge of 2016 however was gearing up for the immense task of running an ultra marathon. It took two marathons to prepare for that adventure, along with untold hours of physical exercise, but I did it, and couldn’t be happier with the result.

Not everything went according to plan, however: my grand design to develop as a piano player looked set to succeed until too much travel meant having to give up on regular lessons, which in turn left me disinclined to practice.

The same is true for my ambitions to improve my French – I started out well, but a lack of structure meant I let it slip by the wayside, almost without noticing, and I didn’t read as many books as I planned, either.

I didn’t bike as much as I had planned – the lofty goal of 2000 kilometres turned out to be more than twice the distance I actually covered, and I didn’t participate in any kind of Ironman. I did run the 1500 kilometres I had set out to do, however.

Oh, and I did write about it all here – no mean feat in itself, either.

So, what to learn from all this? First of all the importance of setting goals. I set out to do something every month, and on average I did, even though some months by necessity were more intensive than others.

Secondly, the need to have clear-cut, measurable targets if you want to achieve something; having UltraVasan as a goal allowed me to plan what I needed to do to reach that level of fitness, week for week.

Third, to push beyond your comfort zone. If I don’t, I tend to not get anything useful done, but by forcing myself to face up to my fears I have had a much more rewarding year than would otherwise been the case.

What I take with me most of all going into 2017, then, is that excellence is a habit. No goal is achieved in one great leap, or overnight, but by chipping away at it, you can do wonders.

Here’s to making next year a Year of Wonders!

Gozo, the Isle of Calypso

November 3, 2016chrisgoja

I arrive at Malta airport late at night. I’m here to dive off the northern island of Gozo. Having learnt my lesson from Sardinia, I agreed with the dive centre to have someone pick me up and deliver me to my B&B. This turns out to have been a good idea, as I would have had to navigate badly signposted back roads* across both Malta and Gozo to get there. Also, people’s driving here is atrocious**. My taxi driver – a professional chauffeur – is a case in point; he has grasped all the fundamentals of driving apart from steering. He oscillates hither and thither, with no apparent notion of where he belongs on the road. Not even oncoming traffic alters his erratic approach, and I thank the stars it’s close to midnight and not many people about.

I make it to the B&B at one in the morning, only to be greeted as enthusiastically as I’ve ever been – by a white cat, who purrs her heart out as I pet her – and rather less enthusiastically by the owner, who doesn’t purr (and whom I don’t attempt to pet).

The next day the dive instructor picks me up and drives me to the north coast. The landscape of Gozo is like the Holy land, arid, stony, terraced, poor. People look remarkably similar, whether beggars or burghers. Someone told me there are twelve family names that are predominant on the islands since the time of the Knights of the Order of St John, and it’s easy to believe when you see how alike people look. It’s also quite eerie, being watched by an unsmiling man on one street corner only to have him (or a close copy) appear at the table next to you, then in a field as you drive past, then in a shop…

And so we go diving. The dives here are all walk-ins, meaning you start from the coast rather than from a boat. The coast is steep rock, however, often dropping five to ten metres straight down into the water, so after traversing salt pans and razor-sharp rock formations you have to clamber down metal ladders to get into the Mediterranean. The first dive goes well, but at the second site local fishermen – who don’t like divers – have sawn off the ladder, making decent difficult and ascent absolutely impossible.

So we change plans and drive on to another place where we dive into an underwater cave. A million years of stormy weather has carved out a dome inside the rock above the waterline, so you can ascend inside it and breathe the salt-laden air of this secret chamber. It’s even light inside, because the entrance is situated near the surface, which means light is reflected on the sand of the ocean floor of the cave and up into the dome. It’s rather good – just a shame no pirate has had the good sense to hide their treasure in there for us to discover.

Le grand bleu.

The third and last dive of the day is a wreck dive on the south coast. Poor visibility after the storm last weekend means we swim out and descend into a featureless blue space, only to have the wreck materialise underneath us, like a ghost, which I guess it is.

It’s all nice, and the people at the dive centre perfectly lovely, but it is rather underwhelming after the Andaman sea. I might have to change my plans for tomorrow, but that’s for later, now all I want is a scoldingly hot shower and All. The. Food.

Old villages are situated on hilltops here, the better to defend against invaders. Xaghra, where I’m staying, is no exception. Houses are huddled together, limestone and sandstone, all of them coloured in nuances ranging from dirty cream to creamy dirt, nearly all of them with sturdy stone balconies, often enclosed so as to create little extensions to the room, enabling its inhabitants to sit and watch village life from the comfort of their living rooms.

Having had my shower and a change of clothes, night has fallen, and I imagine unseen eyes (belonging to yet more Maltese clones) following my progress through winding alleys as I make my way to the city square for dinner. It’s easily visible from afar, because that is where the church is, literally mitten im Dorf, as the Germans would have it.

Mitten im Dorf.

The church is enormous, towering over the village. The vaulted dome is lit, and it reflects off the roofs of the surrounding houses, mere shades in its divine light, further enhancing the impression of dominance. The boom of the bells rings out over the landscape, as insistent, sharp and domineering as the call of mujaheddin in Marrakesh.

Once inside, the church’s interiors could match the finest in Rome in its gilded gaudiness, its opulence in stark contrast to the surroundings. And it’s well attended this Tuesday evening, too. None of this should come as a surprise in a country where 80% of inhabitants are practicing Catholics, but I am a little taken aback, even so. Small wonder divorce and abortion are (mostly unwelcome) novelties in this insular world.

My hunger is more of the body than of the spirit, however, so I set off in search of a pastizi shop. Pastizi are local savoury delicacies, and it’s been impressed upon me by several Maltese colleagues that I must try them. Seeing them is a bit of a shock. Oval pastries tapering to a point at each end, filled with cheese or peas to overflowing, they look like to me like mummified mounds, withered vaginas, brown and brittle to the touch, but the cheesy inside is surprisingly warm, moist and creamy, and I devour them with gusto.

Erm…….

I break my self-imposed drought of alcohol on the town square, enjoying a draft pint of local lager together with a sampling of other dishes of Maltese cuisine, topped off with home made fig ice cream. It’s sweet, but not too sweet, crumbly but richer than you might have thought, with a note of something that I can’t quite identify juxtaposed against the sugar and cream. Rather like Gozo, I think, the beer having clearly gone to my head. Then I have another one.

I stagger home, full and content, give the pussy cat a good cuddle, and pass out on my bed well before ten.

I wake at 0430, and can’t get back to sleep, so instead I go running. One of the two reasons I wanted to stay in Xaghra is that Calypso, the nymph that seduced Ulysses, is said to have lived in a cave right next to Ramla l-Hamra, the red beach below the village***. This is where I’m headed. Before six in the morning there is only me, birdsong and the report of rifles, as the happy hunters of Gozo do their damnedest to reduce the birdsong to zero.

Alas, once I reach the site of the cave, there is a sign informing me that it’s “temporarily closed due to geological movement”. In my experience, when a sign is rusted and the inevitable cafés have turned to ruins, there is nothing temporary about things, and this proves to be the case. Try as I might, I cannot reach the cave. Possibly disheartened by previous experiences, Calypso is not seeing visitors.

There’s nothing for it. I turn and trot back up the hill, just in time for breakfast before the second day of diving begins. I do two dives, and they couldn’t have been more different. The first one marred by incidents, and abandoned before it really begins due to one of the participants having a blackout at fifteen metres, it’s as bad as the second one is good. The sun shines high in the sky, and visibility and colours are therefore very good, and since it’s just me and another diver we explore a long stretch of the coastline, teeming with fishy things.

I decide to end my diving on a high note, so head back to the village for a quick change of clothes, lunch in the town square and the other reason I picked Xaghra: the Ggantija temples, or Temples of the Giants. There are two of them, and they are right here in this village. Older than Stonehenge and the Pyramids, some of the megaliths erected here exceed five metres in length and weigh over fifty tons.

How people did this 5,500 years ago no one knows, but it is somehow reassuring that people were as ingenious then as they are now. People being people even back then, one can safely assume that Neolithic Monolith Works Ltd. came in over budget and a couple of months late, but that’s another story.

Neolithic Lego!

The temples are a sight to behold. As so often is the case, all that is known about them is guesswork, but even five and a half millennia after the fact, it’s clear they were built to impress. Standing pairs of stone slabs mark the doorways between chambers, and the way they use perspective and height differences between apses serve to increase the monumentality of the innermost sanctums in quite a sophisticated manner.

My last excursion for the day takes me to Rabat, the island’s capital that the British impetuously renamed Victoria in honour of the queen during her jubilee, something which the inhabitants never bothered to pay any attention to. Perched high above it is the Citadella, a seemingly impenetrable fortress. And yet it was taken by Turkish corsairs in 1551, and the entire population of the island – all the 5,000 who had fled inside its walls – were hauled off to slavery.

Here I also find an example of ingenious indigenous architecture. The centrepiece of the citadel is a church, and the centrepiece of the church is a vaulted dome. Or would have been, had the construction not cost so much money that they couldn’t afford it. What to do? Every self-respecting church here has one, after all. The church fathers came upon a brilliant solution: they had a painter do a canvas depicting a faux perspective of the interior of an opulent dome, and placed it in the ceiling! If you didn’t know, you would never guess it wasn’t real. A bit like religion, then.

Fake it ’til you make it.

I decide to walk home, having just missed the bus. Hiking along the road at dusk I couldn’t help but feel like an even bigger target than I had that morning. But I made it home alright, and since that evening was customer night at Bubbles, the dive centre, and I was placed next to Danish Eva, instructor-to-be, incandescently beautiful and a latter-day Calypso, I feel it’s safe to say the day ended very well.

—-

And so my brief sojourn here is at an end. I’m sorry to report that it ends not with a bang, but with a whimper. Two chilli pizzas and far too much red wine meant little sleep, in spite of the lack of company, and so it’s with weak legs, rumbling tummy and bleary eyes that this Ulysses waves goodbye to the Isle of Calypso from the ferry deck.

As it recedes behind me, it’s easy to see why people have sought to possess this speck in the middle of the sea for millennia – unprepossessing, low key and rural, it is nonetheless a little emerald and gold gem set in azure waters, a treasure.

*****

*Or poorly signposted in Maltese, which amounts to much the same thing. The language is a bastard mixture of Arabic, Italian and English, with letters and letter combinations unheard of in any other part of Europe. Here they don’t dot the i’s and bar the t’s but rather dot the g’s and bar the h’s.

**I have this confirmed the day after by one of the instructors: “Driving is mayhem. All rules are regarded as the slightest of suggestions, right of way an unknown entity, giving way is a sign of weakness, and might makes right.” So that’s nice.

*** I have a special place in my heart for this story, as I once fell in love with a Maltese girl, but elected not to pursue it any further since I was married with children. More the fool me.

Waving Calypso goodbye.

Halfway, 2016

July 13, 2016chrisgoja

Remember New Year’s Eve? And the resolutions you made way back then? It’s hard to believe, but the year is more than halfway over already, so it’s high time to have a look at how you’re fairing in regard to these promises – most likely they have fallen by the wayside already, long forgotten – but since I made a commitment to myself (and you) to report back occasionally on how I’m fairing, I will do so, even though – or perhaps precisely because – the results are less than fantastic.

I set out to improve intellectually and physically, and to go on adventures and challenge myself. To ensure that I did so I set myself clear, measurable targets, so how am I doing in relation to those?

In a word: poorly. At least on the intellectual side of things. I haven’t read more than very few books, my attempts at taking piano lessons were foiled by too much travelling, my efforts learning French came to a halt after two months (during which I did learn rather more words and phrases than I had thought possible, but still).

Improving my general fitness level is an area where I have been a lot more successful. Even though I have cycled nothing like as much as I thought I would do, and swum less, I have managed to work out a lot (as evidenced by a nice lady doctor asking spontaneously if I was an athlete of some sort only yesterday(!)). I’ve logged 160 workouts in the first six months of the year, or slightly below one workout per day nine days out of ten. I’ve run two marathons, both well below four hours, and I’m hopeful I will manage Ultravasan and its 90 kilometres come August. Who knows? I might even be reduced to swimming and biking afterwards instead of running, as a result…

On the other hand, my diet hasn’t been anywhere near as strict as I had planned – perhaps precisely because I had no concrete target in mind there. If anything I have been too indulgent, especially in allowing myself too much alcohol, so that’s something to improve upon in the second half of the year, as well.

So far, so-so impressive. Travels, adventures and challenges, then? Well, I did go for a refresher dive at Nemo33 in January, then went skiing in Sweden in February, and to Thailand to dive in March. April I got a new job part time, which wasn’t planned but must count as a new adventure, and May saw me hike Mallorca with my brother, which was quite the challenge – not because of him, I hasten to add! Then in June I explored Luxembourg, and this month I’ve taken the kids kayaking in the Ardennes, and gone to Edinburgh for a quick visit, so overall my track record isn’t too bad, even though I feel it lacks in challenges.

So what to make of all this? Reinforced efforts in terms of reading, playing the piano and learning French; more diverse workout schedule; better food and drink habits; more adventurous adventures and challenging challenges (and trippy trips? No.).

Lined up next: London with the kids, then two weeks without them (good time to improve diet and spend time playing piano/reading/studying, putting good habits in place) before going to Sweden and making final preparations for Ultravasan. After that I’ve got nothing planned apart from a few days in Lugano, as a post-race (re)treat, and then school starts and the rat race recommences. If experience shows anything, it’s that it’s time to start planning autumn now. Maybe that Ironman? Or a climbing course? Or something else entirely…?

Luxembourg deluxe

June 19, 2016chrisgoja

So there is this country that I’ve been to dozens of times for work, and never really saw, even though it’s tiny, and right next door. Or rather, I never bothered, because it was tiny and right next door. And I associate it with work. How interesting could it be?

Luxembourg was one of the founding countries of the E.C., and as a thank you for that – and for being small and inoffensive and neither Germany nor France – it was rewarded the seat of several institutions, amongst them the Council of Ministers, so I’ve been here more times than I care to remember, but this weekend I finally decided to make a visit memorable, so after two days of the usual minstrel show, I drove away from the wind-swept Kirschberg plateau, to Esch-sur-Sûre.

It’s a tiny town in the Luxembourgian part of the Ardennes, situated on a bend of the river Sûre, snugly nestled against a mighty outcrop of sheer rock on which the oldest castle in the country still stands, eleven hundred years after it was built. The town is surrounded by lush forests on all sides, and it’s easy to see why people would have chosen to settle here – the river teeming with fish, the forest full of game, plus it’s a natural fortress to begin with, and with the streets spiralling upwards and houses built with massive walls of local rock, the whole village becomes part of the ramparts, easily defensible from Viking marauders and rival knights and robber barons down the ages. The inhabitants must have felt very Sûre of themselves. In this regard as in many others, Eche is a microcosm of the microcosm that is Luxembourg (a nanocosm then, perhaps?).

The landscape around the town, up and down the meandering river, is exceedingly pretty, wealthy and clean. This is what southern Belgium would look like if it were run by the Swiss. My one gripe is with the (more modern) houses, which look like a Belgian imitation of Swiss architecture. But there’s not too many of them – mostly it’s small-scale farms and forests, and perfect, undulating roads that attract swarms of bikers.

Unlike Mallorca, however, it’s motorbikes only, which means that when I rent a mountain bike I have the wooden paths and back roads entirely to myself. I spend several happy hours pedalling upriver, through a nature reserve that also holds the main water reservoir of the country, and then run downriver for another hour, past fly fishers and through a valley so steep and narrow that there is only room for one row of cottages in the village therein. It’s like stepping onto the stage of a Grimm fairytale.

After that, it’s back to the hotel for the long awaited spa visit, and – after goodness knows how many visits to different saunas, plus a hearty dinner (Luxembourgers pride themselves on having a French kitchen with German-sized portions) – to bed, jolly well pleased with my discovery.

Sunday is spent driving around the countryside. It’s not unlike Mosel, in that there are fertile plateaus above the river valleys, and just like Mosel there are castles by every strategic bend in the rivers. I visit two. The first one is something of a disappointment, as it has been turned into a renaissance chateau, and is closed to visitors – the only redeeming factor being the Sorceresses’ Tower, a remnant of the older burg, and last residence of medieval women suspected of whichcraft.

Apparently they were allowed only one window, which showed them the place of their execution-to-be. Today, modern wrought-iron art depicting dancing flames marks the spot where the women met their fate. It’s creepy.

Oppressive? Me? Never…

The second castle is the real deal. Vianden, located just on the border with Germany, has been a stronghold since the days of the Romans, and the counts of Vianden didn’t mince about – the castle is an impenetrable fortress that was never taken, but fell into disrepair after the last Count moved elsewhere – the family sprouted several branches, two of which form today’s Grand Dutchy and the also grand Dutch royal family, so it’s not as if they didn’t have other places to hang out. It’s been lovingly restored, but I can’t help but think it would have been even more grandiose as a ruin.

I spend a couple of hours pottering about the castle and the walled town, and then finish off the weekend by having an enormous Angus entrecôte in nearby Diekirsch – cooked on a sizzling stone at the table – before finally turning the car back to Belgium once more. This is the way to experience Luxembourg properly, I think.

Norrköping, Sweden

June 6, 2016chrisgoja

I’ve long thought I should try to write a travel entry on the topic of Sweden; I’ve lived abroad long enough that it’s a different country from the one I grew up in, after all, and for most readers it will be just as exotic as any other place I experience on my journeys.

This week offered the perfect opportunity: I went to a town I’ve never visited before, in a part of the country that is oft overlooked – Norrköping, Östergötland. The name means Northern chipping (or market town) in the Eastern part of the Land of the Gotae – one of the three original tribes that populated what is now Sweden- and in some respects I suspect it has remained essentially the same since this was Viking heartland.

This feeling is enhanced upon arrival. Even flying into Stockholm, the capital, the impression is one of forests and smallholdings right up to the edge of the city, and going by train to Norrköping showcases more of the same – an infinite number of lakes (the result of the perma ice having retreated from these lands relatively recently, thus not allowing the land to rise up just yet), all of them dotted with little red wooden cottages along the shores, and often with woods growing right up to the water’s edge.

Norrköping itself has been a city proper almost since the time of the Vikings, but the town has been razed and burnt several times over, so today the oldest buildings are no more than two hundred years old. This, together with the grid layout of the city blocks, it’s eclectic mixture of new and old, scruffy and chi, and the well-to-do hipster look sported by just about everyone makes it reminiscent of Brooklyn.

I am instantly smitten. Of course it helps that the Swedish summer is in full swing, meaning blue skies and glorious sun during the day, and white nights on top of that. I wake at four thirty every morning, simply because it’s light outside already. There’s also the fact that nearly everyone looks good and healthy – the Lamp hotel breakfast is a wonder to behold, easily beating the finest hotels I’ve ever been to, and no one smokes, or is obese – and when I go to the gym in the evening this is borne out by the fact that people from all walks of life have found their way there – old and young, men and women, immigrants and Viking descendants, they are all here.

I’m dead serious about the latter, by the way. At the board of Transportation, the authority hosting us for the week, there is a immensely large man called Thorbjörn Kämpe (Thor bear fighter) – it doesn’t get more authentically Norse than that. In fact, replace the cardigans and stupid trousers, give them an ax and shield and most every one of these muscular, bearded, tattoo-sporting hip folk look much like their infamous forefathers.

You can accuse me of sugar coating it of course, my head soggy with nostalgia, but for the life of me, this kind of town – a Nordic Brooklyn in the wilderness, with bars and coffee shops littered generously throughout, with a sex shop facing the town church, with the minister of the latter going to work on his mountain bike, with Valkyrie-look-alikes and spry octogenarians out and about with equal grace, and immigrants being seen as normal rather than a matter of controversy – is my idea of the ideal place to live.

Marvellous Mallorca

May 7, 2016chrisgoja

I’ve come to Mallorca on holiday with my brother. It’s with some reluctance I admit this: The place has always been a byword for package holidays of the kind up with which I will not put. Back in the days of socialist Sweden this was where people escaped the state monopoly on booze and sunshine to pig out on an abundance of both – but there is more to the island than its bad reputation would have you believe.

For me, this marks my second visit to Spain in as many months. It’s a country I hadn’t hitherto considered as very interesting, but I’m very pleased to admit I was wrong.

I know of course that I should tread carefully here, in every sense of the word; only non-Spanish people talk of Spain as a unified country – to a Catalan their homeland is Catalonia, and a Basque or a Mallorquin are equally fiercely proud of their respective regions. Without commenting on the respective merits of various other separatist movements, I think it’s fair to say that the Mallorquins’ case has more merit than most; like all islanders, their history is the result of all manner of foreign influences. Long before the British invasion of binge-drinkers or the colonies of German nudists, indeed long before Spain was an entity, the Balears were part of the Califate. The name of the isle itself is a bastardisation of Al Malorq, which in turn is an approximation of the Latin Isola Major (the big island), and before the Romans there were the Phoenicians, and so on. But I digress.

We’ve come to hike the Tremontana region that spans the entire northwest coast of the island. We did a hiking holiday together a year and a half ago in Slovenia, and we’ve been looking to find something that could match that experience. This certainly fits the bill: the Tremontana is home to the GR221, Ruta de Pedra en sec, or drystone route, all 161km of it, and it traverses some of the most impressive landscapes I’ve seen in Europe.

It’s still a work in progress tho, with some landowners contesting the right of the hoi polloi to cross their lands, so I’ve reluctantly decided against using the refugios, for fear of having the itinerary thrown into disarray by some trigger-happy estancia-owner with a hatred of hikers*. Instead we found an agretourisme, Finca d’Olivar, near Estellencs, which became our base. Formerly the home of a hermit, it’s a cluster of little stone houses built into the cliff side, nestled above orange groves, hidden away from sight but still offering wide-reaching views; small wonder stray cats like it!

Our finca is nothing out of the ordinary, however. The whole coast is littered with beautiful honey-coloured villages, houses huddled together on cliffs and outcrops like swallows’ nests, built one on top of another in a jumble with not a right angle in sight**. The dramatic road serpentines its way between them like a never ending snake, never straight, never horizontal, imbued with a steady stream of bikers swooping down the slopes or sweating their way up the mountain side.

The GR221 is a different proposition altogether: just as vertiginous, but almost completely devoid of people, we stroll for hours without meeting a single hiker. The first day sees us scale the heights of the nearest mountain, which we have all to ourselves with the exception of some wild goats, and from whence we can see the entire island. The second day we set out along the coast, and hike for seven hours straight through fishing villages and almond groves, past vineyards and poppy fields and watchtower ruins, before taking the bus back from Bayalbufar, a very bijoux bayou. The third day, we drive high into the mountains north of Sóller for a final excursion in the remotest part of the Tremontana. Everywhere we go the landscape is stunning, the sky and sea deepest azure blue, the air so crisp that individual leaves on trees hundreds of metres away are clearly visible, and the stillness such that the slightest sound carries for kilometres. Flowers are in bloom everywhere, birdsong and fluttering butterflies fill the air. It really is paradisiacal.

In fact, the term paradise is particularly apt here, since pairi daiza in Persian originally meant “walled garden”, and the most distinguishing feature of the island is the abundance of terraced walls. They are literally everywhere, even in the remotest areas, and I am reminded of a comment by a forester friend (who said apropos the Blue forest): “If you think the woods are beautiful, thank the foresters.” This is brought home to us again and again: all this is cultivated land, used for millennia. Olives were a source of wealth to the islanders even before Carthage lost it to the Romans, and the trees are still there today, their centuries-old trunks contorted like souls tormented in a Dante-esque inferno, impossibly alive in spite of looking like they should have died a dozen deaths. Intricate systems for water collection – aljab cisterns – help funnel the winter rains down to the fertile soil down in the valleys, often using canals built into roads and walls to get to the staircase gardens below. Even higher up, where nothing but pine and holly grow, there’s still evidence of charcoal burning sites, and as you reach the crest of a mountain, more often than not you will find a drystone wall, erected to avoid flocks of goats escaping.

It really is a walk through a pastoral idyll, and it’s easy to imagine fauns and nymphs cavorting in the valleys, where rosemary and sage grow wild in the dappled shade. In reality, any attempt at cavorting would result in sprained ankles or worse, as the ground is extremely unforgiving – think rock, rock, rock around the clock – but we manage to make it unscathed, which is more than can probably be said for the passengers of the helicopter wreck we come upon the last hour of our last day. There’s no telling how long it’s been there, but discovering it changes our mood. Even the skies begin to darken, and it seems right to end our adventures here.

I spend one more day in Mallorca, getting lost in the labyrinth of Palma’s old town, dodging raindrops and dodgy tourist traps, meeting interesting people and finding hidden gems. The island still has more to offer though. There’s canyoning, rock climbing, diving, even biking – if I can overcome my dislike for spandex. I leave thinking I should come back for more – and what better way is there?
——

*At one refugio we find ourselves seated next to a Swedish woman and her ten-year-old daughter, who have elected to do a through-hike of the kind I originally envisaged, – as a birthday gift for the girl. Food for thought, that.

**The result of hundreds of generations of husbands succumbing to their wives’ pleas for “just one more room”, perhaps?

Paradise lost?

March 28, 2016chrisgoja

Last week I went to Thailand to go diving, somthing I have long wanted to do. So I signed up to go on a live aboard boat – an old Chinese junk, and a movie star, no less!* – and off we went into the choppy, tepid waters of the Andaman Sea. We were a motley crew of sixteen divers from all over the world – the U.S., the UK, the Philippines, Argentina, India, Finland, France and Sweden – but we got on splendidly, and this would have been just another travelogue – you know, blah blah Richelieu Rock blah blah leopard shark – had it not been for one last news feed via radio before we entered waters where no communications were possible.

There was talk of explosions in Brussels. No details, just a headline. It was agonising, not knowing, not having any way of finding out what had happened. As it turned out, of course, the explosions were the worst terrorist attacks Belgium have ever experienced. Over thirty dead and three hundred injured, and – even more devastating – the perpetrators men born and bred in Belgium who hate their fellow humans so much, have so little regard for the sanctity of life – their own as well as that of others – as to feel that this atrocity was the right thing to do with their existence.

Fishy pearl of wisdom #1: Know thine anemones, as well as thine enemies. Don’t destroy the former to conquer the latter.

Society must have failed these men on numerous occasions for that kind of rage and hatred to grow in their minds. Where do these values come from, and who instilled them in the suicide bombers? Where have we gone wrong as a collective when members of our society lash out to destroy it? When people born and raised in western civilisations pledge their lives to a death cult with medical ideas of justice? These are questions I hope are being asked in ernest, but I doubt it.

In fact, I think mankind is doomed. We lack the collective will to protect what is dear to us and do the right thing. Global warming and pollution is killing off species at a rate last seen when the dinosaurs went extinct. We know this, yet doing anything much to stop it seems beyond us. We continue to use more resources than the world produces, year after year, as if we had an Earth 2.0 in reserve somewhere, which – I’m sorry to tell you – we don’t.

Fishy pearl of wisdom #2: Judge actions, not looks. Most – however scary-looking – just want to be left alone to lead their lives as best they can.

Diving in Thailand is a case in point: the corals are dying due to bleaching, something which occurs when the water gets too warm (as global warming continues, this becomes inevitable), but also due to overexposure to humans. However, instead of protecting the reefs, Thai authorities let anyone who pays in, leaving the sites lousy with divers – and lousy divers! – bumping into corals that have formed for decades and breaking them, and what’s worse: the national marine parks aren’t even protected from commercial fishermen, as guards are bribed to look the other way. Short-sighted greed scores another victory.

Another example: if the entire world became vegetarian, it would help reduce greenhouse emissions by 60-70%, and would save millions of lives annually, not to mention giving fish stocks a chance to recover from constant over-fishing. But will that happen? No. We can’t even instill in our own citizens a sense of it being wrong to kill your fellow men and women – what hope can there be for a species that cannot even master that?

We evolved to be scavengers, hunter-gatherers with a built-in evolutionary advantage for natural horders, since resources were – by definition – scant. But then humans stopped being hunter-gatherers and started dividing up the land into yours and mine, and that same advantage became greed – the urge to own more, ever more – and since agriculture meant resources were plentiful in this new word order we grew to dominate the entire planet.

Well, we’ve come full circle, with resources being scant again due to overpopulation, and we have to go against our instincts to resolve that problem. To add insult to injury, with modern society now having removed us completely from our link to nature, there’s not even a sense of it being wrong to deplete resources. But: appreciating nature’s beauty, however fleeting, can instill in us a sense of urgency, a sense of what we’ve lost and stand yet to lose, on this paradisiacal planet we call home. It’s as close to a religious experience as I have ever had, and with good reason.

Fishy pearl of wisdom #3: Be cool, little dude. And if faced with suicide bombers, BYOB – bring your own blast protection

We felt it, all of us aboard that ship, irregardless of nationality, religion, gender, age. And that gives me a little hope. That reverence for nature is perhaps the only thing standing between us as a race and extinction. So I leave the Andaman Sea behind, hoping that humans will do the right thing – it’s no longer a case of preserving nature for future generations, but preserving it so there will be future generations. I know I will try my best, whenever I can. I may have been cast out of Eden, but I won’t be hiding behind a fig leaf.

——

*James Bond’s nemesis operated off of this ship in The Man With The Golden Gun.

Photo credits (apart from Little Dude): L. Woodruff

Seven Tips For A Painful Marathon

March 14, 2016chrisgoja

Yesterday I ran the Barcelona Marathon. The goal was to improve my personal best by over half an hour, from 4h33 to anything sub-four hours. A tall order at best, as preparations didn’t exactly go according to plan.

It occurred to me that with three marathons and one ultra marathon under my belt – all of them marred by difficulties, injuries and insufficient planning and experience – I could probably write something on the topic of how NOT to go about training for them and running them in the best manner possible. After all, every runners’ magazine, web page and blog is already filled with that stuff. Instead, I figured I could provide you with

Seven Tips For A Painful Marathon

1. Overtrain
The importance of this cannot be overstated. There’s nothing quite like showing up at the starting line with a wonky knee, a smarting hip or a stiff back to ensure a painful experience. Acquired through Zealous Adherence to a Plan no matter what (you can follow in my footsteps and go running in primordial goop for two hours on a given day because the Plan decreed it should be so – causing an inflammation to the hip three weeks before D-day) or simply by training too much – nothing like preparing for a marathon by running one, right? – they all but guarantee a torturous outing.

2. Don’t sleep/eat enough before the race
During my last marathon I burnt 3,600 calories, or the equivalent of almost one and a half days worth of calories, so carb loading is essential. Overdoing this might have adverse effects on your sleep, however: having duly inhaled a couple of pounds of pasta and some jolly good Spanish cervezas the night before, I found myself tossing and turning between two and five in the morning, as the sheer quantities of food left me feeling like a beached whale; again something that begets a less than enjoyable run.

Another essential part of preparations if you want things to run smoothly – quite literally in this case – is the application of

3. Vaseline and/or Glide
Imagine you were to suggest to someone that they take a piece of cloth, soak it in briny water and rub it back and forth over their nipple, oh, say, 50,000 times without stopping. All but the most ardent masochists would surely balk at the suggestion, as no other method is more fool-proof in terms of dropping you into the seventh circle of runners’ Hell. To avoid this, apply Vaseline or Glide to all your intimate areas – nipples, crothes and ass (every crack, fold and crevasse), you name it, a liberal dollop of the gooey stuff is the only thing – again, quite literally – between you and utter, agonising, blistery chafing pain.

I’ve been told that those of a female persuasion would do well to look after the seems of their sports bras the same way, but regardless of gender, a top tip is coating your eyebrows with it (preferably before you go to work on other, more delicate areas), as this prevents sweat from reaching your eyes and stinging them like acid rain. Or not, you know, depending on your preferences.

4. Footwear and headgear
In a good story, the beginning and the end are the most important bits. Get these right and the stuff in between will fall into place. And so it is with the body during a race; make sure your feet and head are doing ok, and the rest will follow (it has no choice, really, does it?).

Feet need proper, well-fitting shoes, but since feet swell during a race, and shoes generally do not, you must either run with shoes that are initially too big or wear compression socks that help fight the swelling. Having ignored this in the past (with consequences that are outlawed in the Geneva convention if inflicted upon others), I opted for the latter solution yesterday, and it seemed to work. Having said that, as I’m writing this one of my toes has a pustule that is to normal blisters what Krakatoa is to a pimple, so it’s clearly not a perfect method.

As for the head, wear a baseball cap. It’s going to protect you come rain or sun. Pour water on it if you get too hot, but keep it on. If you do not, you will get sunburn/rivulets of sweat/rain in your eyes/headaches from squinting in the sun, all of which is dispiriting and painful.

5. Don’t study the map beforehand
Almost all serious organisers provide runners with a good map of the race course, and – even more importantly – a topographic outline of it. Ignore this at your peril. In Berlin and Barcelona you can get away with it as the courses are quite flat, but nothing brings your spirits down quite like suddenly facing a seemingly never-ending ascent that you didn’t even know was coming. Also, studying the map will help you avoid social embarrassment, like when I managed to run right past La Sagrada Familia yesterday without noticing, an involuntary faut-pas my proud and architecturally-minded hosts were understandably quite upset about.

6. Run with your heart, not your head
And so you’re finally ready to step up to the starting line. You’ve done your homework and are well prepared, physically and mentally, and know what pace you want to be going at, but once the speakers start blasting music (“Barcelona” with Freddy Mercury and Montserrat Caballé yesterday) and the crowd cries out, you charge ahead, blood boiling, adrenaline flowing, and you find yourself running fast, too fast. Much too fast.

I did exactly that yesterday. I had set my Garmin to alert me if I ran too fast or too slow, the better to ensure that I kept the speed I had decided on beforehand, which would take me to the goal in just under four hours. Due to my inadequate programming skills, however, it only beeped when I ran too slowly. Before I had noticed this I was five kilometres into the race and going almost a minute faster per k than foreseen – a recipe for disaster. I tried to slow down but couldn’t. By ten kilometres I was panicking, by the halfway mark I was becoming fatalistic – it was do or die.

Another thing to avoid is straying from the path; the bigger marathons nearly always draw a line on the ground that demarcates the official length of the race, so professional athletes actually run the distance. Stay on this, and you will, too. The problem is that you are crowded by people, some of whom you will overtake, so walking the line (or more accurately running it) becomes impossible, and inevitably you run longer as you zig-zag through the throng. By the end of the race I had done a kilometre and a half more than 42,195 metres, which is quite frustrating but seemingly inevitable. You can counter this at least in part by running in as straight a line as possible and under no circumstances interact with the audience, but where would be the fun in that?

In fact, I counsel you to do the latter as much as possible, and if you pay for it in sweat and additional steps then what you get in return is certainly worth the price; having whole swathes of the crowd clasp your hand and shout your name as you go past merely because you were the only one of all the runners who gave back something by smiling and thanking them for their support is priceless, and I promise that the pain you felt a moment ago will melt away under the adulation of las zorras.

7. Don’t take pride in your results
What’s a marathon, after all? Anyone could do it, right? Well, maybe they could, but they sure as heck don’t. Less than 1% of all people do. It’s going to hurt, it’s never going to be not painful, and you will walk like a stop-motion John Wayne puppet afterwards, whatever all those articles tell you, but if you embrace it (and maybe heed a piece of advice or two along the way) and enjoy it, there is every reason in the world to be proud and rejoice; after all, you just ran an effing marathon!

P.S. Did I make it in the end? Did I beat my personal best? Did I do a sub-four hour marathon? You betcha. I improved my PB by over three quarters of an hour and it wasn’t even (that) painful. Which only goes to show, I guess, but what, I’m not sure about.

Antibes, France

November 8, 2015chrisgoja

One year ago today I found myself in Antibes, on the French Riviera. I was there to run the Nice-Cannes marathon. Instead of the sunny, lovely experience I was expecting, however, the race turned into a harrowing trial when a freak rain storm hit the coast, turning the marathon into a 26.2 mile gruelling gauntlet. In short, the race turned into an allegory of my life.

Crucified in Cannes.

You see, six months earlier the woman I thought I had partnered with for life came home one day and announced she wanted to separate. The mother of my children had fallen in love with another man and that, apparently, was that. We had been together for eighteen years, and not all of them were good, but to my mind we had made the ultimate commitment to each other – having brought new lives into the world that we were now responsible for together – and I thought it would be us ’til the end.

I was wrong.

And so it was that my life was instantaneously changed from the long slog I was counting on – not always great, perhaps, sometimes a downright struggle, but always enjoyable – to a hellish fight for survival, the downpour threatening to drown me at any moment. This wasn’t the cold, quiet rain lamenting a summer coming to its end, it was torrential torture, a vivid, livid, thrashing cat o’ nine tails trying to wear me down to the bone by sheer force, and I raged against it, hating it for doing this to me, for ruining everything I had envisioned. It was by far the most horrific thing ever to happen to me, a sense of falling only to realise that the floor underneath my feet was gone, and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.

And yet here I am today, back in Antibes. I’ve gone down here on a whim. I briefly considered enrolling in this year’s edition of the marathon (under way even as I write these words), but I’ve realised you cannot rerun a race. What’s past is past. Instead I enjoy a weekend sampling of what the Riviera has to offer: hiking the sentier littoral, eating astonishingly good sea food at the fishmonger’s, getting lost in Old Antibes’s labyrinthine alleys, going to piano bars, drinking absinthe in vaulted cellars and flirting with yachties – the always young and beautiful crews of the billionaires’ boats that are moored in the harbour.

“So this is absinthe? I don’t feel a frglgnphprrrt…”

It’s sunny and warm, the Alps clearly visible in the background, the sky and sea competing for bluest hue, and I thoroughly enjoy my time here. Is it still an allegory of my life? I’d like to think so.

It’s been an interesting year. I’ve launched this web site, gone on well over a dozen trips abroad, and I’ve met and befriended some wonderful people.

I’ve tried surfing and kiteboarding for the first time, I’ve gone rock climbing and diving again for the first time in ages, I’ve run an ultra; at 44 I am probably in better shape than ever before.

So far, so good – at hiding the fact that half the time I cannot be with my children, the two people that mean more to me than life itself. I sit in my house, staring at nothing, doing nothing, waiting for Sunday evening to finally arrive so that I can welcome them through the door and have a sense of purpose once more.

There is nothing I can do to change that. All I can do is run the race as best I can, accept the freak storms of life and hope for sun again further down the path. So as the runners go by the marina, sweating in the heat, I applaud them without envy. All races are different, but all must come to an end.

There’ll be other races.

Autumnal addiction

October 30, 2015chrisgoja Leave a comment

I have a confession to make. I am a anthocyanin addict.

Like any addict I can go to great lengths to get my kick. Why, only recently it took me all the way to the northeast of the U.S., but I have spent quite a lot of money on it here at home as well.

It’s a seasonal thing, and this time of year is when my addiction really surfaces. You see, anthocyanin is the agent in some deciduous trees and bushes that turn their foliage a bright red once the temperature drops below a certain level, and I’m a complete sucker for it.

A fix for the aficionado…

Whereas yellow fall colours are simply the result of chlorophyll draining away from the leaf, anthocyanin has to be produced by the tree, and the reason I have to travel to other continents and/or import exotic plants to get my fix is that anthocyanin doesn’t occur naturally in plants in Europe.

The explanation for this is that it’s quite taxing for plants to produce anthocyanin, and that at a time when they would be well adviced to store their energy for the long cold period ahead. So why do these American and Asian trees do it? The answer is to be found 35 million years ago.

After the Appalachian mountains (along with the rest of the North American continent) were torn away from Scandinavia*, the Ice ages affected the evolution of deciduous trees differently. Europe’s mountain chains being mainly west-easterly oriented, they stopped insects from migrating away from the warm south (where they are more abundant), unlike in North America, where mountain chains tend to follow a south-north axis, creating corridors where insects could travel freely.

Trees in North America therefore evolved throughout the years to protect themselves from many of the species that never spread in Europe. Their answer to this challenge? Anthocyanin, a substance that helps ward off insects and protects them against sudden cold spells (which is also happily why red leafs last longer on trees before they fall in the fall).

But can you smoke it…?

So next time you take in the stunning colours of an autumnal garden (be it mine or the entire New England wilderness), you can enjoy your fix – like I do – knowing that it’s an addiction that does both you and the trees a world of good.

—–

*It’s all part of the Greater Swedish Empire, really.

The Mosel Valley, Germany

October 25, 2015chrisgoja

October 21st, 2015. To some people this was the day Marty McFly arrived in the future, but I find myself celebrating an event fifty years in the past, namely one of my dearest friend’s birthday. Instead of opting for a more traditional party, he has gathered a group of friends in the Mosel valley to walk the Moselsteig with him. This party of friends fluctuates in size and composition, but the core group is made up of myself, the birthday boy, and four German female friends of his.

Thus I’m immersed in German from sunrise until sundown, and I become painfully aware how poor my active German is. Looking at it from the bright side, I provide my new acquaintances with some good laughs, as when I refer to Thor as the Donnerwettergott instead of Donnergott (the “Goddammit” rather than the God of Thunder), or accidentally reduce a complete stranger to giggles when he overhears me referring to the breakfast müsli as Vögelfutter rather than Vogelfutter (that one umlaut being the difference between bird feed and f**k feed).

On the other hand the five Germans aren’t spared either. Every five minutes or so they find a word that has at least as many regional variations as there are native speakers present. It is a very telling indication of just how recently Germany was created from a mishmash of little fiefdoms, and how rich and diverse their language remains as a result of all those centuries of relative regional independence.

In fact, hiking along the Mosel you’d be excused for thinking you were transported back in time to The Middle Ages. The river itself is used for transportation the way it has been since times immemorial, Fachwerk houses still huddle together in labyrinthine villages close to the riverside, always with a church in the middle and a castle or ruin typically perched on a rocky outcrop above. Legions of vineyards, brought here by the Romans, march up the mountainsides in straight lines only to meet fierce resistance from the unruly, wild Teutonic forests that still hold sway on higher ground.

Our merry band, too, march up and down the steep slopes. The paths wind their way along the sides of the valley, and it’s hard going, something which the less experienced hikers among us discover to their chagrin. For thirty million years the Mosel has been carving its way into the slate (which itself consists of sediment deposited here at a time before the dinosaurs, when all this was the bottom of a primordial ocean), and the valley runs deep, which means the slopes are very unforgiving indeed, and a fall would oftentimes be fatal.

The fall flora on the other hand is beautiful; beyond the vines are wild cherries, mountain ashes, red oaks, French maples and other trees and shrubs that compete with the river itself for attention. According to our host there’s even something called “Kruppel-leichen” out there (It seems even native speakers can’t always cope with the German language’s propensity for combining words into new words, as one “L” too many here changes the word “dwarf oaks” into “crippled corpses” – not an easy mistake to make in most languages!).

Luckily we don’t see any of those, and avoid adding to their numbers, too, in spite of the treacherous terrain*. Possibly this is due to the fortifying sustenance we are able to avail ourselves of. This being Germany there is plenty of hearty food to be had: schmaltz (rendered fat), blutwurst (blood sausage) and bratkartoffeln (fried potatoes) being a favourite for lunch, especially when washed down with plenty of Federweizen (still fermenting grape juice) – a delicacy often only found in the vineyards, as it doesn’t travel well. But then to be fair, nor does the drinker after a few glasses.

Speaking of that particular lunch menu, one German word that I had never encountered before this trip is Bratkartoffelnverhältnis (fried potatoes relationship). After the Second World War as men were returning home from the front there were a great many widows around that might need the help of a man with this or that, and who in return for this and other services rendered might offer the hungry ex soldier a warm meal. Well, it seems that often enough the men and women found this arrangement to their liking, and prolonged it indefinitely (if unofficially), and this type of relationship became known under that particular moniker.

I should point out that no such relationship was formed during our brief sojourn together (none that I know of, at least!), but one of the women did ask if I was perhaps in love with our host. This after I had opted to serenade him rather than give a speech at the official birthday dinner – she couldn’t know it of course, but the song I had elected to sing was Helan Går, a Swedish drinking song that most Swedes know better than their national anthem. This proved more useful than real serenades, as the wine flowed freely during our nights together. Our demi-centarian is a lover of fine wines, so Bacchus was properly worshipped every evening, with the local Rieslings proving to be mostly excellent choices for our libations**, always accompanied by calls of “Prost!”, the most German of toasts***.

So there you have it. A celebration that included wine, (wo)men and song. Oh, and some wandering. I’ll drink to that. Prost! Whenever you want to do it again, Alter Freund, I’ll be back. To your future!

—–

* Although one late addition to the troupe barely makes it here before a shot back had him limping to the nearest train station, poor soul.

**Even more fittingly, one of the local villages we hiked through was called Pommern, a bastardised version of the Latin name Pomona, goddess of fruit. Not too difficult to imagine which fruit they had in mind.

***Prost itself is a germanised form of the Latin Prosit (“may it be good”).

New England, U.S.

October 15, 2015chrisgoja Leave a comment

Oktober 2015

Ever since I read Last of the Mohicans as a boy I have wanted to experience New England’s wilderness. This is where Hawkeye Leatherstockings fought the sly fox Magua to the death, and Uncas and Cora Munro were the first believably star-crossed lovers I ever encountered in literature, so this was clearly a happening place, my ten-year-old self reckoned.

Fast forward 25 years and I’m still inspired by literature, only now it’s Bill Bryson and A Walk In the Woods that have me pining for the Appalachian Trail, that runs along the Eastern seaboard for 3,500km from Georgia to Maine. His story about hiking along the AT – and in particular his description of the White mountains in New Hampshire and the 100-mile-wilderness in Maine – was what got me interested in hiking in the first place, so there are several reasons I’m giddy as a schoolboy as my native guide (gotta have a native guide when exploring the unknown) guns the car down Kankamagus Highway into the Pemegawasset Wilderness, where the White Mountains are.

We’ve come not only for to hike, but to leaf peep as well. This is an actual thing, as the autumnal colours of these forests are so spectacular that tourists come to just marvel at the russet reds and fiery oranges of the sugar maples and moosewoods and beeches and birches and rowans and other deciduous trees. Even though I know what to expect I run out of synonyms for “gorgeous” long before we’ve even reached our base camp, a friend’s skiing lodge. The colours are those of a Japanese garden lit up by fire.
There’s a natural order of things, however. Down on the valley floor the deciduous trees reign supreme, but as you set off up the mountain on ever more bouldery paths, conifers begin to appear and grow in number until the leafy trees give up altogether, and you are left with something best described as an army of undead Christmas trees, the tortured, gnarled branches of which reach for you, wanting to snag your clothes. Then these, too, give up the ghost and you enter truly alpine heights, where nothing but bonsai shrubs cling to what little topsoil remains.

Having read Bryson’s accounts I’m a little apprehensive about the difficulty level of some of these trails – New Hampshire styles itself “the Granite State”, and the paths certainly bear witness to this; they are essentially just boulders that you have to hop, skip and clamber over and around, up and down. My faith in my own Pochahontas is absolute however, or rather it was until about an hour or so into the first day’s hiking when she suddenly stopped and swore. I naturally asked what was the matter, and got the undying answer “my foot is stuck underneath my other foot”.*

The undead Christnas trees are closing in…

Yet in spite of this we manage admirably. The first three days follow the same pattern. We set out at ungodly hours (at least jet lag helps you Get Up Very Early), hike from different trailheads up ravines and past waterfalls unto ledges and crests where we eat our packed lunches and marvel at the panoramas unfolding before us.

Visibility is nothing short of incredible; from atop Franconia ridge (which saw us bag three 4,000-footers in an afternoon) and Frankenstein cliffs (sadly not named after the Doctor and his monster but after a local painter) you can see over one hundred miles, and what you see is nature putting on a spectacle to rival any I have ever seen. And in spite of it being peak season we encounter no more than a handful of other hikers every day, one or two birds of prey high in the sky, and the ever present silver grey and red squirrels, whose territorial challenges follow us along the paths.

Make no mistake, however: the wildlife of these deep woods is impressive. Black bears roam the land, as do coyotes, bobcats and possibly even wolves. Less deadly animals abound as well, such as deer, jackrabbits and wild turkeys, which we would see peacefully pecking their way along the roadside. On one hike we set off on a trail that passed several beaver ponds, where moose sometimes come to eat and drink. The guidebook says to listen out for frogs at these ponds, the sounds of which are “remarkably like someone plunking the strings of a banjo”.

“Dadadumdimdum”, Frog.

We didn’t hear any frogs, but that passage got me thinking about the movie Deliverance, and the decidedly backward (and banjo-plunking) people the city-dwelling protagonists encounter. This place, too, has its share of colourful locals who go by hillbilly names such as Zeke, Cletus and Bubba, and they certainly do live off of tourists, but only strictly financially speaking – cannibalism no longer being in vogue.

Outdoor tourism is huge here all year around, so it’s not surprising that the locals are keen to reap the rewards. For our day of rock climbing we engage a specialist guide named Zebulon Jakub, who takes people rock climbing in summer, ice climbing in winter and kite boarding and para-gliding all year around. He is clearly a latter-day incarnation of Hawkeye. Add to that the fact that he looked like a young Zeb Macahan, and you see how the border between fiction and reality blurs up here.

The climbing itself is brilliant: just hard enough to be a real challenge without completely crushing you. We hike up to Square Ledge, facing Mount Washington, and as the sun climbs in the sky so we climb up the sheer cliff, thirty vertical, vertigo-ous metres straight up to the summit, from which we then rappel down to do other routes, including a chimney-like crack that sported a long dead bird as a special treat near the top. I surprise myself by how strong I feel – clearly all the workouts are starting to pay off – and lunch has rarely tasted as good; adrenaline and vistas make for excellent condiments, it seems.

“Can I have some more view on my sandwich, please?”

It’s a perfect holiday, in short, if only too short. Luckily, on our last day the weather changes completely, and as we set off for Maine and its lobster shacks and outlet malls, the rain is pouring down, turning bouldery trails into babbling brooks and crests and ledges into slippery death traps, so it seems ordained that this adventure should be at an end. I have ticked off two or three more items on my bucket list in a matter of days – it simply doesn’t get much better than that.

——–

*Credit where credit is due, however. She personally diverted a hurricane that was threatening to cancel the whole endeavour, sped up the leaf ageing process by sheer willpower, and held torrential downpours at bay that would otherwise have made hiking utterly impossible. On top of that she also introduced me to the marvels of local cuisine, to wit: cider donuts, hoagies, dark chocolate peanut buttercups, pumpkin bread, blueberry syrup and republican pasta(!) – made with no taxes whatsoever.

Paris II

October 15, 2015chrisgoja Leave a comment

September 2015

I’m back in Paris, and for a very specific reason. It’s their Car Free Day Sunday, and I’ve come to test run the Paris marathon, or at least parts thereof, to see if it might be my cup of tea (or verre de vin, as the case might be).

I get there early to soak up the atmosphere and enjoy that particular joie de vivre that is so uniquely Parisian. A freelance colleague has kindly offered me the use of a pied à terre in her possession; it’s in an old Hausmann building, made up of two chambres de bonne – maid’s rooms – where the wall has been opened up to create a bigger space. Bigger is a relative term, of course, as it is still minute, but it feels very authentic and even has the obligatory view of the Eiffel Tower that all rooms in Paris must have (according to movie laws, at least).

We make the most of the sunny weather on the Saturday and take the train out to Giverney, where Monet lived and painted his famous impressionist works (including the water lilies that adorned every other dorm room I ever set foot in as a student). I’m cautiously pessimistic, thinking that September might be the worst of time to visit, but I am soon proven wrong; the garden is overflowing with flowers, different Dahlias in their hundreds foremost amongst them, and the adjacent pond park (actually not a part of the gardens proper) is magical, all bluish-green hues, dappled sunlight, and of course the Japanese bridges (plural – I always thought it was just the one) serving as focal points. It’s only a shame Monet was too short-sighted to do it all justice in his paintings… 😉

Sunday is carefree if not exactly car free; Parisians don’t like to be without their cars much, it seems, so the car free zone is limited in space and time to the centre of town and is enacted only as of 11 AM. It’s a glorious day, however, and once we get out (using the claustrophobically closet-sized elevator) we make good use of the Promenade Plantée – a disused elevated railway that predates its New York cousin by a decade – to get downtown, where we continue running up and down Champs Élysées, along the Seine, through the Louvre and the royal gardens all the way to the Eiffel Tower and back. People are out and about everywhere, strolling, long boarding, skating, biking and generally enjoying the novelty of not being subjected to the bull run-like conditions that normally rule the streets of Paris.

For three hours we run at a leisurely pace, and even though we don’t quite manage to recreate the marathon it’s still a very special feeling to run here. My colleague, who is more Fighter than Lover (of running) does show real fighting spirit, and actually runs her first half marathon that day, before sending me off back home again (presumably with a sigh of relief and a groan of pain).

As for me, chances are I’ll be back for the real thing next spring, car Paris (car free or no) l’oblige.

New York, New York

October 13, 2015chrisgoja Leave a comment

July 2015

Just reading that name twice probably made you hum a certain tune. Writing it made me realise how difficult it will be to do a travel piece about the most famous city on earth. How do you avoid cliches when you’re dealing with a place everyone has seen a million times, in movies, television, a place literally famous from songs and sagas?

Maybe by going the road less travelled?

If you decide against one of the horribly boxy hotels around Times’ Square and opt for a rent-controlled apartment in an art deco-building on Westside Avenue?

If instead of the glitz and glitter of Broadway you have a picnic at an impromptu outdoor concert in Riverside Park in the evening, where belly dancers and fireflies provide more restrained but no less attractive variations on that theme as the sun sets the water on fire?

When other tourists stampede into Harlem to have a “genuine gospel experience” (as genuine as a Disneyfication of black culture can be), why not trek still further north on Manhattan, and seek out the thoroughly fake and marvellous Cloisters, a faux monastery built by Rockefeller to house his collection of medieval art and architecture, stunningly situated on an outcrop above the Hudson River?

Shun the shopping in TriBeCa and the bars in SoHo, and take the High Line* through the meat packing district instead, before developers have turned that area, too, into a chic yuppie-version of its former self. In fact, don’t do Chinatown and Little Italy and Wall Street and the rest of those places at all – even if you haven’t been (and chances are that you have), you’ve seen them anyway. You know them intimately. Go rather to the Upper West with its Woody Allen-characters and Ivy League campus (replete with ivy-covered professors), or to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, whose local tribe people sport massive beards and numerous tattoos (regardless of gender). Go to the Metropolitan, not to look at the art but to have cocktails on the rooftop; don’t eat burgers, have Ethiopian or Tibetan cuisine (because when else can you?); head to New Jersey (yes, there, I said it!) and watch as the moon rises over that most familiar of cityscapes (that you never actually see if you stay in Manhattan).** Then you will have bitten to the core of the Big Apple, and not just admired its shiny surface.
*The High Line is a disused elevated railway that has been turned into a park – it’s gimmicky but enjoyable.

**And if you must – although I advise against it – get a severe cold and pop into a pharmacy for remedies, only to realise that you’ve strayed into yet another ethnic enclave, this one Polish, and that all the products on sale are Russian, of all things. I couldn’t understand a word on any of them, but they were clearly industrial strength, and I’m grateful, even though I haven’t slept for three days now…

The Dominican Republic

October 13, 2015chrisgoja 1 Comment

May 2015

I’ve come here ill prepared. I realise this very quickly after having sat down behind the steering wheel of my rental car.

There’s just one road leading across the island from the south coast to Las Terrenas in the north, a fine toll road that will take me straight where I need to go. Should be easy, right? Only the motorway from the airport to Santo Domingo doesn’t connect with the toll road. Between the two lies the old road, and between that and the motorway are concrete walls, preventing me from getting where I want to go.

After an exasperating hour of trying in vain to reach it via back roads I return to where I started (guided by a car full of giggly, drunken, grotesquely overweight young women), and resort to reversing off the motorway via an entrance ramp to get onto the old road. I only execute this desperate manoeuvre because I’m now safe in the knowledge that my fellow road users would approve, as they all seem to be treating basic driving rules as laughably restrictive.

The ride across the island is beautiful, over lush green hills and through verdant fields, but the Department of Transport has another surprise for me; there are no less than four tolls to be paid along the way. Now, just as there seemingly was no way to get on it, there is really no way to get off the road either, so why they feel they have to get you to pay in incremental steps I don’t know, but pay I do, thanking the stars that I got enough pesos to get me all the way.

Once off the toll road I again get immediately, frustratingly lost as tropical darkness descends upon me (and what precious few signposts there may have been), and it’s only with the help of a local woman – who actually gets in the car and guides me the last seven kilometres through labyrinthine village roads – that I finally arrive at my destination.

Buenas noches.
Day 1

The first thing that strikes you here is how familiar the scenery is. I’ve seen this beach in a hundred movies and a thousand pictures, the palm trees hanging out over white sand in the water’s edge, the waves rolling in to lap at your feet. I half expect Captain Sparrow to careen around the corner at any moment, cannibals in hot pursuit.

The second thing that hits you is the technicolor quality of the landscape; the turquoise sea and azure sky, the crystalline salty white beaches, the cascades of colour exploding from the rampant vegetation – fleshly purple hibiscuses, translucently pink grasses, ripe red mangoes.

Not to be outdone, the Dominicans adorn their houses with colours seldom found outside of Italian ice cream vendors’ counters: electric blue, acid yellow, poison green and countless other outlandish nuances jostle for position, making me feel as if I’m the last spot of white on a child’s painting, waiting to be coloured in.

It’s an odd sensation, expectant and abandoned in equal measure, and yet it sums up my first day here perfectly.

Day 2

Remember how I said I didn’t feel well prepared coming here? Well, I’ve been swatting – as well as sweating – and now I know that I’ve landed on the great island of Hispaniola, so named by my namesake C Columbus, who did likewise in 1492, bringing the local Tainó people the traditional gifts of trinkets, baubles and measles, and changed the world forever.

Christopher’s brother Bartholemew went on to found Santo Domingo, the oldest colonial settlement still in existence, but after that the Spanish pretty much forgot about Hispaniola as they went on to conquer the Incas and the Aztecs. The French were thus able to promptly snatch it up and turned it into Haiti (after a Tainò word meaning “land of many hills”). Some time later people in the east of the island rebelled against their French masters’ rule and formed the Dominican Republic.

The name means something like the Sunday Republic, and if it conjures up images of amateurism (e.g. Sunday drivers) you aren’t far wrong, since the fledgling republic has had a long and onerous journey to democracy. It holds the distinction of being the only country in the Caribbean that voluntarily returned to its colonial masters once the yoke had been cast off, it was occupied by the US in the 1920’s, then run as a dictatorship for thirty years (the original banana republic) and was torn by civil war as late as in the 60’s(!).

On top of that, the relationship with their co-habitants the Haitians has always been fraught – in the 30’s they even engaged in a spot of genocide of ethnic Haitians, which I feel is a bit short-sighted when you consider that more than half the island’s population is made up of the brethren of their victims. Suffice to say that even today locally produced maps of the DR depict it as being an island unto itself, completely ignoring the existence of their neighbours.

Trouble in Paradise? You betcha.

Day 3 and 4

I’m finally getting acclimatised. The jet lag has eased, the heat is becoming bearable (though still oppressive) and I’m beginning to come to grips with this alien society.

Houses here are small, mostly one or two rooms, rickety things constructed of wood or concrete, shockingly colourful, with a covered veranda in front if the owners can afford it – always protected with wrought iron bars, because shade is a valuable commodity here.

Mostly though, life is lived outdoors, in the cornucopia the jungle provides; mango, avocado, guava, papaya, cocoa, coconuts all grow in abundance. The climate is such that if a Dominican wants to make a fence she simply sticks branches in the ground, which take root, turning it from fence into hedge in a season. It works both ways though: the jungle will reclaim anything, and fast.

The car isn’t the mode of transport of choice – the moped is, and it will have 2,5 people on it on average (sometimes literally, as the aforementioned cavalier approach to road safety takes its toll). In the mountains mopeds face stiff competition from horses – all of them steeped in the same mould as Rosinante (of Quixotic fame) and ridden in vaquero style – and for longer journeys there are hua huas, the 50’s Jetsons buses that my friend Laura claims you can “flag down and ride for a peso, often seated next to a rooster”.

The police aren’t much trusted – a memory of the bad old days – so instead there are people who provide private security for homeowners, banks, gas stations et cetera by means of a sawed off pump-action shotgun. That, combined with the odd guy sauntering through the streets with a machete in his hand, makes it a bit unnerving to move
about, but at the same time I have never encountered a more laid-back society. They even measure time in Dominican minutes, which of course are slightly longer than ours.

It’s life, Jim, but not as we know it.

Days 5 to 7

Tourism is by far the largest sector of the local economy here, and it’s easy to see why: the Dominicans are blessed with a climate that rivals just about anything I’ve experienced, and tourists are coming here in great herds, like wildebeest crossing the savannah (and often with the same delicate approach). How tempting it must be for the locals then to make a quick buck – especially when domestic monthly salaries are a fraction of what an average tourist is happy to dispense with over a week.

Unfortunately, this means that you’re constantly running the risk of getting ripped off, if not worse. 3,000 police and military personnel were recently dismissed as they had all been involved in armed robberies. That’s coppers and grunts threatening to kill you if you don’t hand over your money! To continue the metaphor, it’s as if zebras and giraffes suddenly turned out to be lions and crocodiles in disguise. Not a happy thought, that.

Even legit operations seem to be geared towards extracting the maximum amount of dollars with a minimum of effort, so every excursion I’ve made has turned into a gauntlet, negotiating with or just plain dodging locals who are hawking their trinkets and services, often making completely bogus claims in the process. “Wanna see famous waterfall, señor? You need horse and guide, esta impossibile otherwise. Forty dollars US.” No horse required, nor guide. Entrance fee? One hundred pesos, or about two dollars. And on it goes.

On a larger scale, money speaks even louder. Anything is for sale, without regard for the public good. So for instance the village I’m staying in is effectively divided into two valleys because a local politico owns the land in between and won’t allow a road to cross his dominion. Foreigners are buying more and more properties along the coast, making it impossible to access the sea for locals and tourists alike. And with the new toll road, the time it takes to get here from the capital has been reduced by two thirds, which I fear will only exacerbate the situation.

For now, woodpeckers are the only ones enjoying high rise condos, as they make their nests in the coconut palms, but give it another five years and I am convinced that las Terrenas will be another Punta Cana or Costa del Sol – a concrete tourist ghetto with not a hint of authenticity.

Paradise Found equals Paradise Lost, seems to be the inevitable conclusion.

Outro

They say travel writing is the most self-indulgent form of writing bar autobiography, and so in self-defence I stay away from what I think of as “and then I did this”-writing if I don’t feel it has some general interest.

However, someone pointed out that this has the effect of making it sound as if I don’t do anything much at all on my holidays sometimes, and so to debunk that, here are some of my top experiences in the Dominican Republic, big and small:

– Hiking through the jungle to a 50 metre high waterfall and swimming in the water right underneath it,

– Watching a gazillion stars at night uninhibited by electric lights during one of several black-outs,

– Having a humpback cow and calf surface right next to our speedboat and watching them splash about for half an hour,

– Having another whale appear just as I was about to go scuba diving for the first time in well over a decade (even though it made me hyperventilate),

– Learning how to surf, and feeling on top of the world when I rode my first wave (and my second, and my third…),

– Exploring Tainò cave paintings deep in the mangrove labyrinth of Los Haitises,

– Watching the setting sun set the ocean on fire, calming the waves and turning them into something akin to molten mercury every evening.

Not too shoddy. But now the trip is at an end, and as the flight takes me across the Caribbean (named after an extinguished tribe) and the Atlantic (home of the fabled lost continent) I can’t help but ponder the inevitable demise of everything. In the end all you can do is keep on travelling, keep on moving forward.

After all, what’s past is prologue.

Berlin II

October 13, 2015chrisgoja Leave a comment

April 2015

Berlin has lured me back. My last visit left me frustrated, with a sense of having left important tasks undone, and so I’ve returned with a mind to fulfilling an obligation. The practicalities of my stay couldn’t be more different from last time – then I lodged in a swanky expensive hotel, now – thanks to the wonder of airbnb – I am sleeping on someone’s couch for the price of box of Belgian pralines. The posh breakfast room of the Hilton is replaced by a rickety chair in the kitchen of my host, but the fair is just as good, and the conversation much better.

My host* is an avid traveller and has friends in Syria, and as I have just read of Ibn Battutah’s travels there we compare notes – her facts vs my fiction, admittedly – but as she moves on to Korea I am left behind.

I do learn a few surprising things about this people, though; their written language is an amalgamation of pictograms and letters, and the South Koreans are the world’s greatest consumers of plastic surgery, with eyes and noses being primary targets for improvement. Alas, only one type of nose job seems to be available, so all recipients end up looking the same, she says. I suppress the impulse to observe that they already did to my untrained eye, and instead bring up the similarities of Korea and Germany, and so on it goes until my host has to leave for a seminar (the topic of which she mysteriously declines to divulge).

I set out to see the memorial to the holocaust victims, which eluded me last time. It’s located underneath the cenotaphs I visited last time, and as the texts and photographs calmly leads me on a path of slowly evolving, deliberate and cold repression, persecution and extermination, the walls crowd me and claustrophobia sets in, as if I was entombed with all these victims of nazism.

Worst of all is the room with scraps of letters written by parents separated from their children, knowing that they are going to their death, without hope of ever seeing their families again. I read until I can no longer see for tears, stay down there until I can no longer breathe, until the horror is racking my body.

I leave with the words of Primo Levi echoing in my head: “it could happen here, and so it can happen again”. It’s not a happy thought.

I continue my pilgrimage by visiting another memorial to those who have died here, this time under the other totalitarian regime to curse Berlin with its presence. The Wall museum at Checkpoint Charlie tells the story of the Cold War in the same unrelentingly factual manner, the story of a failed state resorting to killing and imprisoning its own citizens rather than accept its shortcomings. Personal tragedies aside, it’s hard to comprehend how this absurd situation could continue for decades, with the world in the balance, and the realisation that we may be returning to that state of play (for what is Syria if not a new Vietnam, with the US and Russia facing off by proxy?) is even harder to fathom.

I leave feeling gloomier than the Berlin sky, and head straight across the road into the former US sector and that most American of bastions, McDonalds. Rarely has a Big Mac tasted better.
________
*A lady of a certain age who asked to remain anonymous, as couch-surfing – like most good things – isn’t strictly legal in Germany.

Day 2

Heading into town on a Sunday morning you get the feeling Berlin has been deserted. Walking through the largely empty streets it reminds me of a carcass, the many building sites bringing to mind open wounds, the prolific and brightly coloured pipelines thence emerging viscera slithering out of the gashes in the cityscape.

In fact the latter are a necessity in the building industry in order to pump ground water away from the construction sites*. Berlin takes it’s name from the Slavic word “brl”, meaning marsh or swamp, and – like a very slow but persistently vengeful god of the Old Testament – nature is continuously trying to reclaim its own.

In fact I find myself thinking of the city in terms of deadly sins. The pride and hochmut of the German Reich under the Kaisers, expressed in the many classical temple facades and pantheons still dominating the city centre, the greed and wroth of the Nazis, striking out from here for Lebensraum and murderous hearts with their efficient war machine – the bones of which is still visible in autobahns and the Tempelhof airport – and the sloth (and implicit envy) that was the East German reality after the war, in glaring contrast with the lustful, gluttonously hedonistic lifestyle of the inhabitants in West Berlin.

A city, in short, where fascism and fetishism are facing off, and sado-masochists spar with Stalinist-Marxists. What’s not to like?
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*And not for piping beer to the builders, as the jokers would have it.

Massachusetts, U.S.

October 13, 2015chrisgoja Leave a comment

Massachusetts, day 1

Moving across time zones is a strange experience. You effectively displace yourself so fast as to end up time travelling. This I did yesterday, setting out at ten am from Brussels and landing in Boston at three pm, eleven hours later.

Of course, the price you pay for this sci-fi experience is jet lag. In an attempt to fight it I stayed up until 0430 in the morning my time, which is a decidedly less impressive 2230 local time – as evidenced by the cocktail waitress’s look of disbelief when I was going cross eyed after half a beer – and then slept like a log jam until dawn.

Now, traditionally, Easter is the time when witches are abroad, so where better to spend my first day in Massachusetts than in Salem, scene of the most famous witch trials in history?

I didn’t see any witches (maybe the competitions were held elsewhere?), but the city certainly capitalises on the old madness. Wiccan shops, haunted houses and the like abound, and tourists come from afar to revel in the gruesome history of the place.

Me? I was blown away. Literally. The gale force winds forced me inside at regular intervals, even though the sun did lure me back out, time after time. And I shouldn’t complain – turns out they had seven feet or snow here until only a couple of weeks ago!

Eventually though, my body had had enough. Several hours’ worth of siesta was required to bring me back on my feet just long enough to enjoy my first Maine lobster, but now midnight (the local one) is approaching, and I’m about to leave the state of Massachusetts for the state of unconsciousness once more…
Massachusetts, day 2

The US is a land of extreme contrasts; the unsightly hangar-like superstores along the roads on the one hand, the beautiful New England clapboard houses on the other, the ever-present Dunkin Donuts drivethrus next door to organic eco-eateries/yoga centres, colonial historic sites encroached upon by modern skyscrapers and so on.

Similarly, people are diametrically different; I visited Trinity church in downtown Boston which was packed to the rafters for the Easter sermon, and went outside only to find several women cosplayers climbing on the church building in an attempt to look more like the Assassin’s Creed characters they were dressed up as*.

And yet this is what makes it such a wonderful place, I think. There’s room here for all kinds. So when a bold eagle appears high in the sky above the highway on the way home, it feels symbolically quite fitting.

Land of the free, home of the brave indeed.

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*One creed is as good as the next, I guess…
Massachusetts, day 3

There are places in the world that seem to act as magnets to forces other than normal natural forces (gravity and whatnot). So for instance Jerusalem is a black hole to religions and New York exudes a force field of capital.

In Boston, there is a higher than usual background radiation of learning, and I spent the day trying to expose myself to as much of it as possible (in the vague hope of turning into the intellectual equivalent of the Incredible Hulk). So the morning saw me visiting Walden, the pond in the forest where Henry Thoreau spent two years in splendid isolation contemplating the beauty of nature and a simpler life (except for when he went over to mum’s for pancakes and a change of clothes on Sundays), and in the afternoon I went to Harvard and MIT – not many people have done both, and certainly not in the course of a day, so maybe I was turning into a green intellectual giant after all?

Regardless of colour, it is certainly easy to grow too large here, but in the evening I threw caution to the wind and fulfilled a life-long dream by eating in a Worcester diner, a wonderfully retro institution with table jukeboxes, busty waitresses calling you “honey”, a menu (made) out of Grease and a clientele that between them must have weighed like a whale. My arteries contracted as soon as I stepped inside, and I didn’t give in until I had gulped down a load of blueberry pancakes with maple syrup and a wedge of lemon merengue pie (that could have held the door open), the effects of which had me eying the walls for a defilibrator. Bliss!
Massachusetts, days 4 and 5

I’ve spent much of my time here roaming up and down the coast, exploring capes and coves, taking in the quaint little fishing villages and their typical New England architecture.

I freely admit I am in love with the colonial style, which seems to consist of taking Edwardian houses as your starting point and making sure that the architect has the blueprints confused with a recipe for wedding cakes. All of them have an abundance of turrets, pilasters, ornate gables, Roman pillars, covered porches, outside staircases, nooks and crannies, which gives them a stately but very organic look.

The nicest ones are old sea captains’ houses, built by wealthy skippers and traders gone ashore, but not willing to give up the sea – built along the coastline, often right on the water’s edge, with balconies and lookout points where their original owners could spy their ships come in from the Caribbean, where their cargo of slaves had been offloaded, and molasses taken onboard, to be processed to rum in New England and sold on to slave traders back in Africa. (This last detail is oft overlooked by Ralph Lauren and others selling the New England lifestyle for some reason…).

White dominates, but a whole spectrum of muted greys, blues, and beiges exist, mirroring the colour of the weather-beaten landscape and the ever-changing ocean in a way not dissimilar to the buildings in the Dominican Republic, although diametrically opposite its palette.

As always I leave taking something with me. This time, it’s an irrepressible urge to add a covered colonnade to my house…

On skiing

October 13, 2015chrisgoja Leave a comment

March 2015

Skiing is a strange pastime. You drive endless hours to get to a mountain somewhere, dress up in outfits that make you look like the Michelin man in a space cadet’s armour, only to let yourself get literally dragged into an environment that is as harsh as any you’re likely to find; an ascent into hell.

It’s the Greek version, an icy inferno, featureless save for the stunted, gnarled trees that the relentless winds whip into submission, like howling demons tormenting the shadows of dead people. You assume the foetal position, curled up in the lift, questioning your sanity for submitting yourself to this torture, your extremities going blue in the whiteout, and then suddenly you’ve reached the summit, and it all makes sense as you enter a powdery paradise.

It’s Fifty Shades of White*, and you might as well be blindfolded as you hurl yourself down the slope, your body moving instinctively, hard steel against sinuous curves, skis caressing the snow, nothing existing but the sounds and the feeling of your body against the land itself.

It’s elemental, exhilarating and exhausting, and it’s over in a matter of minutes, only for the process to begin again. Insane? Maybe, but they say being in love is temporary insanity, and I’m in love with skiing.
——–
* Like all good SM-relationships, you get as much out of it as you’re prepared to put into it, but this mistress doesn’t take any crap; one false move and you wipe out. Or so I’m told.

Paris I

October 13, 2015chrisgoja Leave a comment

February 2015

I came to Paris to meet a friend I hadn’t seen for twenty years. The owners of the B&B are intrigued by the notion, and essentially allow me my short stay only when I tell them about our reunion. And yet where else could such an impossibly romantic folly come true but in the city of lights?

The B&B is quintessentially Parisian, on the outskirts of the Marais – the old town – under the rooftops of a typical townhouse, previously the maids’ quarters, now an ultra-stylish pied-a-terre for two gentlemen who take me in like a long-lost friend and ply me with wine and nibbles and interrogate me until my own long-lost friend appears on the doorstep, and there’s a moment of readjustment for my hosts when they realise he is in fact a she.
They recover magnificently however, and we are sent off into the cold night with their blessings and directions to an Occitan wine bar, thence to start catching up on whatever goings on we might have accidentally glossed over in the last two decades. It’s only in the wee hours of the morning we part, with me exhausted and her bright-eyed and going strong with jet lag in her corner.

The next two days are spent revelling in the exotic world that is Paris. It’s so familiar-looking, its landmarks and facades so unmistakable, its denizens so Gaulishly stylish, its blend of elegance and bizarrerie uniquely Parisian. We pass a reptile merchant followed by a sex shop (doing brisk trade in 50 Shades of Merchandising) next to a rat catcher (whose window display is full of 100-year old rats in various traps) followed by an elegant tea salon and so on and on.

The crêperies and brasseries provide welcome refuge from the biting cold, but we do manage a few proper tourist attractions, among them Notre Dame and Place de la Republique, where we marvel at the many e-wheelers zipping about on their futuristic contraptions (e-wheels are paired down segways, essentially self-propelled unicycles without a saddle).

All to quickly the weekend comes to an end, and we part with the sad realisation that it may well be years before we meet again, even though we both swear it will not be thus.

Whatever happens, we will always have Paris.

Berlin I

October 13, 2015chrisgoja Leave a comment

January 2015

Day 1

I cannot imagine there is any city so emblematic to, and shaped by, the history of last century as Berlin.

As I leave my hotel I have only to turn a corner to happen upon the building where the faithful press conference took place that marked the beginning of the end of the Iron Curtain. It’s 9 November 1989, and after weeks of protests the DDR regime has to ease restrictions on travel permits (mainly to other Soviet Block countries). Now they’re holding a meeting with western media to announce as much when the flustered person responsible gets a question about when the Wall is going to open. Unprepared and overwhelmed, he rereads his instructions before uttering the undying words “As far as I understand, immediately”, and history is made.

I was in high school when this happened, and remember vividly how our German teacher, a stately old matron called Frau Ekebjörns – a woman who could have out-ironed the iron chancellor Angela Merkel – came into the classroom teary-eyed the next day. Watching the documentaries, hearing about the plight of the people, both those who stayed and the hundreds who died trying to escape, it’s easy to understand why she did, and yet a couple of blocks further on, this suffering is dwarfed to insignificance by the memorial to the Jewish holocaust.

It’s deceptively simple, with 2,410 massive slabs of concrete resembling traditional Jewish graves, all uniform in size but varying in height from 0 to 4 metres, laid out in orderly rows (although some are deliberately slightly askew). Surrounded as they are by public buildings and pizza parlours, it’s not very impressive at first sight, but when you pass in between those rows, with the concrete weight of 6,000,000 murdered people crowding you, towering over you, it’s impossible not to feel grief and disgust at humanity’s incapacity to prevent such horrors and her capacity to organise them in cold blood.

Berlin is a marked city, forever associated with these events, and yet, ironically, World War 2 and the Cold War are the main reasons for why Berlin has changed more in the last sixty years than any normal city will ever do. The bombings of the former and the no man’s land of the latter have both meant that – once bombs stopped falling and the Wall was torn down – developers could run amok on an unprecedented scale, and so they did. 30% of all buildings in Berlin have been built after 1989. I would imagine that the percentage was even greater after the war.

Being a Berliner* of a certain age (and who wouldn’t want to be an old jelly donut?) must be akin to being a Londoner after the Great Fire or a Parisian after the not-so-great Hausmann came to town; It’s life, Jochen, but not as we knew it.

And all the better for it.

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*But then the typical Berliner isn’t. 100,000 people leave the city every year and 150,000 move in to take their place, so the population is mostly from somewhere else.

Day 2

I said yesterday that Berlin was emblematic, but just as we use capitals as shorthand for governments or regimes, so iconic buildings act as symbols for nations. Big Ben is the UK, the Eiffel Tower France, et cetera*.

Germany’s symbol has always been the Brandenburger Tor. It was established enough as such that Napoleon knew to enter the city through this gate – he was hailed as victor by the crowds**, and then promptly nicked the quadriga that adorns its apex.

The city gate got its statue back once Napoleon’s star waned, and ever since it has formed the backdrop to all important events in Berlin, from the operatic posturing of the Nazis to the tearing down of the Wall, hidden lights making sure that the peace goddess and her four horses were always in focus, day or night.

Last night it was dark, however. The city decided to shut down the lighting in order to avoid having the Pegida-movement*** use it for their purposes. In the end the counter-demonstration brought together a lot more people than the anti-Islamists, but I was still pleasantly surprised at this simple, yet symbolically potent move; you have the right to express your opinions, however baroque, it seemed to say, but don’t think that you can make it look as if this country stands behind you in your xenophobia.

Seems some people do learn from history, after all.
______
*Sweden is symbolised by a rather less permanent erection, namely the garlanded phallus we impregnate Mother Earth with at Midsummer.

**I can imagine what it must have been like, having done the same two years ago in the Berlin marathon. I didn’t win, though.

***Patriotische Europäer gegen die Islamisierung des Abendlandes. Nincompoops.

Berlin, day 3

Maybe it’s the weather, but I am starting to feel maudlin. It’s cold, damp and grey here, which doesn’t help, but on reflection I think it has less to do with the whims of the weather gods and more to do with the climate of oppression, which seems ever present; set in the pavement in the form of gilded cobble stones marking the names and horrific ends of individual Jews who lived there*, in the air – stories of how Stasi kept scent records of all those interrogated in case they would need to track them down with bloodhounds later – yes, even in the ground itself. Only last night we were told that today’s itinerary would have to be changed due to an unearthed WW2 air bomb that needed detonating.

None of these occurrences are normally associated with the everyday hustle and bustle of a western capital, and yet seem normal here. And when we finally reach the Reichstag, the writing is literally on the wall – in the shape of graffiti left by Russian soldiers on what little remained of the building when they were done with it.

100,000 Russians died conquering Berlin, while the allied forces shamefully hung back to let the Red Army slaughter and be slaughtered. There’s a large memorial down the road from the Reichstag to these fallen comrades, which must feel a bit odd to Germans who know their history, considering that Russian soldiers did a lot more than just write the Cyrillic equivalent of Kilroy Was Here on convenient walls – but then that too is the madness of war, I guess.

All in all, these dreary thoughts turn my mood from maudlin to ennui, and I’m reminded of the rather more contemporary graffiti that adorned the student lodgings I once inhabited in Göttingen: “Es ist Deutsch in Kaltland.”

But then I’m struck by a different thought: here we are, a group of people from all over Europe, invited by citizens of Berlin from all walks of life to learn about their work, hopes (and shortcomings) for a better world – from the chairman of the Special Senate Committee in charge of Berlin’s new airport Schönenfeld** to the German-Turkish woman volunteering to help integrate people like herself in society, working door to door to bring immigrant Muslim women out of isolation – and suddenly there is a metaphorical (if not a real) ray of light in the skies above Berlin. To (mis)quote Goethe’s undying dying words:

“Licht… Mehr Licht!”
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*A laudable initiative by an artist who has done the same in many cities both in Germany and abroad. He was turned down by Munich, however: ostensibly because they felt that it would be to dishonour the dead to tread on their names, but for once the well-to-do burgers were probably more interested in avoiding having their streets being quite literally paved with gold.

**A spectacular failure of almost comical proportions.
Day 5

The last two days here in Berlin have seen us tossed from one extreme to another, from the Stasi-untersuchungsgefängnis (investigation prison), where one of the former inmates* described the various interrogation (read: torture) methods in use and their respective merits, to Die Komische Oper two kilometres down the road, where the same regime offered subsidised culture to the masses; from the Holocaust Museum (an experience so overwhelmingly terrifying that I will not even try to put words to it) to the mixed sauna in the hotel where a stark naked woman offered to teach me Tantric massage within an hour of meeting me (All the elderly gentlemen eves-dropping on our conversation seemed very disappointed in my decision to decline the proposition. I wonder if they thought the class would take place there and then – and for all I know that might have been the case!).

Everywhere you go in Berlin there is this paradoxical juxtaposition of a lovely people and the hideousness of their past. If you ask me, that’s the thing about the Germans: there is an immense capacity for Verlustigung (the word means entertainment, but it’s literally “lusty behaviour”) which – paired with the incredibly efficient manner in which they go about everything – somehow enables them to move effortlessly from a real appreciation of both highbrow culture and hedonistic sex to societal bloodlust. To paraphrase Faust**:

Das ist der Kern des Pudels.

_______
* He was 84, of which he had spent 10 in prison, first at the hands of the Soviets and then the East Germans. With a twinkle in his eyes he explained that his interrogators still lived in the area, but that none of “die Kollegen” had volunteered to work as guides there.

**An operatic German intellectual who unknowingly strikes a deal with the devil and then finally realises who he’s dealing with.

Södermanland, Sweden

October 12, 2015chrisgoja Leave a comment

December 2014

Part 1

I’ve travelled back north, to the land of my ancestors. Here, winter has come with a vengeance*. As you rise in the morning, the darkness is Absolut: 100% proof and able to knock you out. Dawn has evidently chosen to have a sleep-in. The quicksilver in my mother’s thermometer has shrunk back to a decidedly frosty -18 Celsius. Then, slowly, almost imperceptibly, the landscape is transformed, snow crystals rendering every surface diamond, like an enormous treasure trove, every encrusted tree sparkling, every pale golden clump of grass glittering in the hesitant morning sun.

There are no Northern lights in the sky, but Northern light is quite singular in its own right. The sun barely makes it above the horizon before it’s gone again, but it makes up for the brevity of its presence with a light show of spectacular proportions; the palette runs from apricot orange in the morning, through pinkish hues of every nuance, to a purple haze before dusk that would have made Jimi Hendrix give up drugs and take up ice skating instead.

Ah, ice skating. It’s one of those inventions that can barely be improved upon. Vikings skated these forest lakes on ice skates made out of moose antlers 1,000 years ago, and there is every likelihood that the Bronze Age people buried in the pine-clad premonitory on the water’s edge did the same 4,000 years before them. How miraculous it must have been for them to walk on water – as indeed it still is for us today.

The ease with which you can traverse a frozen lake, its surface like a ballroom floor, is unlike any other means of self-propulsion I know of; the speed, the silence – broken only by the deep singing of the ice itself – the sensation of going where no man has gone before, however fictitious – it all comes together to create an experience at once exhilarating and meditative.

In spite of the unforgiving cold we keep at it for hours out of sheer joy, reaching parts of the lake it would take ages to get to in summer. Finally, hoar frost in my beard, be-icicled eye brows, buttocks burning and wobbly-ankle’d I struggle back indoors, thence to thaw in front of a roaring fire**. By four in the afternoon the Stygian darkness outside is total once more, and hibernation seems the only option, at least until tomorrow, when we will begin anew…

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* George RR Martin would feel at home, even if white walkers haven’t been sighted… yet.

**Generations come and go, kingdoms and civilisations pass into oblivion, but this is a scene that has remained virtually unchanged down the millennia. It is a comforting thought, somehow.

Part 2

I wrote previously of the tremendous, primeval joy of ice skating, but these last two days we have indulged in even more ancient pastimes. The children and I have engaged in wintery traditions older still than that most time-honoured ritual of enticing the sun to return (the original rationale behind Yule), namely snowman building and snowball fighting.

Anyone who has studied philosophy (Calvin and Hobbes, to be precise) knows that deeply satisfactory feeling that comes from making effigies to appease the snow demons – surely something humans have done since opposable thumbs first encountered snow?

As for snowball fights, there is no archeological evidence (for rather obvious reasons), but it’s impossible to imagine that those first humans who came here to live in the shadow of the inland glacier did not enjoy a good snowball fight. Why else come here, after all?!

The one activity that has them all beaten in terms of its unchanged connection to the past is running through a frozen forest. There is something peculiarly primordial about entering that darkness in midwinter on foot, running in absolute stillness through the trees; permafrost provides a hard easel upon which is stretched an infinite canvas of white snow, where innumerable tracks show just how full of life the wilderness is – from the smallest mice, rabbits and hares via foxes, roe deer and badgers to the red deer and majestic moose, every one of those tracks (but the wild boar) is an open invitation to leave the invisible path and enter the snow-clad sentinel pine on a hunt – with so many mammals, and me the only MAMIL* for leagues around, it’s easy to channel that inner cave man.

Palaeolithic lifestyle be danged, though. After an hour or so outside I’m convinced that there is nothing better than a hot shower, a glass of red wine and some cheese, and I’m not likely to cave in any time soon.

________

*Middle-Aged Man In Lycra.

Marrakech, Morocco

October 12, 2015chrisgoja Leave a comment

December 2014

Intro

Flying into Marrakech, the Atlas Mountains loom on the horizon, and it’s easy to see why the ancient Greeks imagined this imposing presence at the edge of their world as a giant carrying the weight of Everything on his shoulders.

Me, I’m leaving the weight of the world behind me for a few days, and I’m doing it at the edge of the Atlas in more ways than one. Like the Greeks of old I haven’t gone beyond the straits of Hercules (Gibraltar) before, and riding into the bustle of the Medina I quickly realise that I have indeed entered a very different world.

My young driver Mohammed enthusiastically extols the virtues of his good Muslim wife and cousin who is never allowed to leave his house, and only breaks off his monologue when he suddenly clips the rear wheel of one of the many mopeds that swarm in front if us.

The car sends the moped and its hapless rider tottering right into the arms of two armed policemen. They witnessed the whole thing, and I fear the worst, but a rapid fire exchange in Arabic is apparently the only consequence this mishap will have, and so on we go through ever tighter alleys, weaving in and out between people, dogs, food stalls, donkeys, mopeds, often missing them by nothing but a hair’s breadth.

When we finally reach the riad I have already come to the conclusion that Mohammed’s wife has got the situation sussed, and that my only hope of surviving this sojourn is to stay resolutely indoors. Luckily my hostess, the lovely Maria, soon convinces me otherwise.

She shows me the beautiful inner court yard with its ornamental pool and sky light, and my opulent bed, which looks like something Scheherezade could have been telling her tales in – the sight of which only strengthens my resolve – but then she takes me to the roof terrace, serves me dates and mint tea, and as we look over the rooftops of this medieval labyrinth and the last call to prayer of the day sounds in the velvety darkness as it has for a thousand and one years, I feel as if the call is for me, and me alone.

Suddenly I cannot wait to go exploring tomorrow, and Maria – who clearly has seen this reaction before – grins as if to say I told you so…

Jalla, jalla!
Marrakech, day 1

After a breakfast for sheiks that included snake pancake (thankfully named after its shape rather than its ingredients), Maria insisted on taking me to the main square of the old town. I thought her care for me rather endearing but a little overprotective. How wrong I was.

The onslaught to the senses as you enter the Medina is difficult to describe. Donkeys bray, music (like bagpipers on speed) plays, mopeds bleat, the perfume of sandalwood and strange spices mix with car fumes and the wood smoke from the hammams, and everywhere you look there are sights to behold, spilling out of the little shops like so many cornucopias; multicoloured earthenware and cloth, even more colourful merchants, wrought ironwork, food (one store apparently sold nothing but lamb stomachs, another had two sets of cow’s hoofs neatly placed in the street, making me wonder if they had sold off the animal piece by piece from the top down), you name it, it was there.

Without Maria I would have got lost immediately. With her assistance we got through the maze without difficulty, in spite of me gawping at everything and putting questions to her every ten seconds like an over-excited five-year-old.

She showed me a donkey parking, caravanserais, shops where they kept live fowl (enabling me to engage in a bit of impromptu presidential turkey-pardoning by not buying one), a man transporting 3,000 eggs on the back of his moped at high speed, a snake charmer and a monkey trainer having a violent argument (or possibly nothing but an engaging conversation, there really was no telling) while their respective wards faced off with an air of inscrutable patience. She taught me the importance of choosing honey patisserie-makers on the basis of how many wasps their wares attracted, and fishmongers on the basis of how few stray cats they attracted. It was all rather marvellous.

Once Maria left me on Jmaa el Fna I wasted no time in getting gloriously, impossibly lost in the souk, where I spent hours wandering about, happily haggling, admiring the architecture, dodging donkey carts, drinking it all in. Souking it up, as it were.

As the sun set, setting the ochre walls of the old city on fire, making it redder still, I found myself back at square one in a manner of speaking, on one of the rooftop terraces overlooking El Fna, watching the space below fill up with people, acrobats, jugglers, storytellers, soothsayers.

Eating my lamb and prunes, listening to the drums and the distinctly Arabic hubbub of the crowd it felt as if Ali Baba and the forty thieves were about to enter the stage, but the real wonder of this scene is of course that – no matter how exotic it is to me – it is real, and not a fairytale.

The sun finally fell below the horizon, and the instant this happened the music and the crowds fell silent as the many minarets called out the believers to evening prayer; a fitting ending to a day that really began last night with that very same call. Allah Akbar, indeed.
Marrakech, day 2

It is amazing how quickly we adapt to new environments; only two days ago the traffic had me petrified, and now here I am in the midst of the hustle and bustle, nimbly side-stepping oncoming vehicles like a lone bull fighter up against a never-ending supply of bovines (the one exception to my keeping my newfound cool was when I unwittingly came within four feet of a couple of rattle snakes and a cobra. I lost it then, and quite possibly a drop of urine, too.)

Of course, some things don’t change. My sense of direction is one of them. Map in hand I think myself on the right track through the contorted bowels of the city only to find myself – infuriatingly – at the exact opposite end of town to what I had planned.

How little the walled city itself has changed was brought home to me upon entering the photographic museum, showing pictures of the town and its citizens from 150 years ago. Apart from the advent of cars and electricity it remains strikingly similar to today.

One picture stood out. Taken in 1912(!), it showed a young Sudanese slave (whether male or female I couldn’t tell) with an expression like that of a beaten dog. It haunted me, and as I had my lunch in the Café des Epices, overlooking the spice market (which also happened to be the slave market), it wasn’t at all difficult to imagine a trader in humans hawking his wares in between the basket weavers and hat makers, and prospective customers lining up to inspect the goods.* Mind you, after two days on foot through the souk a couple of bearers wouldn’t go amiss…
________
*Perhaps surprisingly, unlike the prohibition on alcohol for instance, the Quran has nothing to say on the abolition of slavery (in fairness, nor does the Bible). A sobering thought indeed, and a reminder of just how recent our notion of human rights is.
Marrakech, day 3

When you start daydreaming about bearers, you know the time has come to put your feet up somewhere. This I did yesterday.

My winding road ended at what had been described to me as a hidden gem, the Blue Hammam, and it truly was a diamond in the dust. Inside, serenity reigns supreme. A far cry from the muezzin, bathers lead you from one room to the next along a preordained path, bathing, massaging, lathering and ferociously scraping you all over until you emerge on the other side, weak and soft and pink as a new-born.

When at last I left, night had fallen, and I stumbled back towards El Fna to join the locals taking their evening meals at the many temporary restaurants that are set up there every night. These restaurants are really nothing but an open fire and a circle of tables around which families gather, and all the more wonderful for it.

I had minced spleen, lamb’s tongue and cheek, and little sausages – the contents of which I didn’t inquire about (I figured if they listed the previous things on the menu, I didn’t want to know what might remain to make sausages of). You eat with your right hand and a bread and wash it all down with mint tea (“Berber whiskey”). For dessert I had the best avocado milkshake I’ve ever drunk, which admittedly isn’t saying much, and then I staggered back home to the riad, very, very content.

Bismillah!

——–

Today I spent the morning shopping with intent. Now, I like negotiating as much as the next man, but even though I enjoy the transactions it makes for exhausting work; Feigning outrage at the initial price, displaying disinterest, allowing them to exhort a counteroffer as ludicrous as their starting bid, then walking away only to be pulled back and have that offer be accepted amidst grumbles of “Ali Baba” – a thinly veiled insult meaning thief, and hopefully a sign that you haven’t done too badly – takes more energy than your average shop visit.

Seeking a reprieve I set out for the Badiā palace, having read accounts of how “in Marrakech did El Mansour a pleasure dome erect”. This particular erection was an immense undertaking that took most of El Mansour’s reign to complete, but it was evidently hugely impressive at the time – a showcase of the Great Ruler’s wealth, refinement and power.

When I arrive there though, it’s Ozymandias rather than Kubla Khan that comes to mind. Long gone are the intricate fountains, lush rose pavilions, and the famous harem that used to enthral foreign dignitaries, and in their place are ruins that barely hint at the long-lost grandeur. Storks make their homes on top of the crumbling ramparts, unperturbed by the noise of the kasbah, and the ever-present mangy cats hunt in the rubbish heaps that fill some of the courtyards. How the mighty have fallen!

Hidden away behind an unassuming gate a mere two blocks away, beyond an orange grove alive with the sound of a hundred unseen songbirds, the Bahia (Arabic for “beautiful”) palace is an altogether different proposition. Here, the zelliq (ceramic tiles) and painted latticework remain intact, giving a hint of the opulence and splendour the vizier’s family lived in.

I find myself lingering, not quite able to muster the will to leave this oasis just yet. Haggle fatigue? Post Arabic stress syndrome? I don’t know, but suddenly I feel more than ready to go home tomorrow.
Marrakech, day 4

A storm is coming. I spoke of human rights before, but the great many human wrongs here (to coin a phrase) are casting dark shadows over Marrakech.

It’s a human wrong that the mosque in my quarter is known as the mosque of the blind men, but they have nowhere else to go, and blindness is an endemic problem in a country where everyone has a sweet tooth and no one has guaranteed health care, condemning many poor diabetics to a world of eternal darkness.

It’s a human wrong that there are so many beggars in the street, particularly old women, who – if widowed without children – have no other way of making money than asking for the charity of strangers, since they are not allowed work.

It’s a human wrong that a country that is – ostensibly at least – a democracy should have a level of illiteracy so high that voting is conducted by way of allocating symbols to candidates – more than half the electorate couldn’t participate in elections otherwise.

Perhaps none of this should come as a shock considering the lack of national cohesion in Morocco:

40% of the population are of more or less diluted indigenous Berber stock (the hill tribes and desert clans are known collectively under this name, which is derived from the same Greek roots as the word barbarian (literally “one who speaks gibberish”)), but in spite of their numbers they are being discriminated against. It’s only a few years ago that a journalist was imprisoned for suggesting Berbers were here before the Arabs.

Another 10% of the population (the black part) is known as Harratine (literally “freed slave” or “second rate freeman”), the descendants of black slaves enrolled as mercenaries in the 16th century,* and they are even further down the rungs of the ladder of Moroccan society.

Perhaps surprisingly in a country where 50% of the population is derided as barbarians or darkies, race isn’t the main divide. Privilege is. Once outside of the medina, this becomes glaringly obvious. The new town, built by the French, is much like a western city, and as such completely out of bounds to the poor, who have about as great a chance of making it there as making it to the moon.

The two cities literally rubbing up against each other, it seems inevitable that friction will sooner or later cause the situation to ignite. So as Mohammed the driver prattles away on the way to the airport (with me calmly looking on as he slaloms through the crowds) and the first drops of the winter rains start to fall, I can’t help but wonder how long it will be before the Arab spring has sprung here too, in sha Allah.

_______

*It’s as if the English were to de-pict Scots as troublemakers, difficult to understand, and give the Welsh a name that denounced them as foreign and all swarthy and… Oh, wait.
Marrakech, outro

Leaving Marrakech I feel as if I have barely scratched the surface of this foreign land and outlandish culture, and yet, like Marco Polo on his deathbed, I am compelled to say I haven’t told you half of what I saw.

I didn’t mention the kindness and openness of the people – the three tent-clad women on a local bus who encouraged, nay, pushed their three-year-old boy into the lap of the infidel suddenly in their midst (imagine the opposite happening in your respective home lands – it is unthinkable!) – nor the unlikely spectacles that awaited you round every corner – the man coolly walking down the street, his dozen cocks swinging almost all the way to the cobblestones, contentedly squawking on their way to the butcher’s, or the Berber herbalist who cured me of sinusitis for life with one of his remedies and showed me a root that would give me an erection to rival that of Al Mansour’s (I politely declined, still staggering from the knock-out blow my nose had just taken) – nor the finely chiseled metalwork of the lamps I so desperately wanted to buy – each one of of them casting a thousand lights – nor the Palmerie, where caravans would leave their camels to graze upon reaching the Medina, nor the shrine to Yves Saint Laurent, or any of a hundred other things that would have made good stories.

So my story comes to an end, but like the tales of Sheherazade, I hope it has left you wanting more. Alighting on cold, sodden Belgian soil again, I know I yearn for another yarn.

The Julian Alps of Slovenia

October 12, 2015chrisgoja Leave a comment

October 2014

Preface

Arrived at Ljubljana airport only to find that Visa apparently has no love for Slovenia. Not only was my card denied when trying to pay for my rental car, but the ATM told me I had “insufficient funds” (somewhat oxymoronically, since it was a CREDIT card, but never mind.), so there I was, stranded with 50€ to my name, but the lovely Anja at the rental car company didn’t only find me a bus that could take me to my final destination, but actually drove me herself the 12 kilometres to the village from which the bus left. Gob? Smacked.

So I got to Karjanska Gora in the end, but of course I still had virtually no money, and was unsure how hotel management would react. I needn’t have worried. The receptionist didn’t even let me finish before insisting that I get myself to the restaurant and have a hot meal, and not concern myself with such trivialities as payment.

At first glance, not the best of experiences, but on the other hand my faith in people has been given a real boost, and that can’t be bad, right?
Day 1

Travelling up through the country yesterday I had the impression of immense natural beauty paired with a run-down, slightly decrepit society, as if Austria had its own East German equivalent in Slovenia, which I guess is essentially the case. Waking this morning in picturesque Karjanska Gora, that picture was reinforced by the low hanging clouds that shrouded the already muted colour palette in their grey mist, and the eerie stillness of the place, with not a movement to be seen. It was as if I had stepped onto the scene in a horror movie.

As I fiddled with my Garmin to at least let some anonymous satellites know where I were (ok, I know that’s not how it works, but that’s how it felt), a low voice right next to me mumbled something guttural, and I looked up and straight into the face of a gaunt being that shuffled towards me. I fair jumped out of my skin, and it wasn’t at all fair on the poor mailman who only wished me a good morning.

I hurried out of the village and up the valley floor, muttering at the clouds that the forecast for today had read sunny, and didn’t they have places to go? My bad mood (and the clouds) soon dispersed, however, as I walked through a landscape so still and pretty that it felt like moving through a series of post cards.

I had set myself two goals for this first day of hiking. First, following in the footsteps of all intrepid explorers, I would seek to find the source of a great body of water. Here I was in luck, because the great Slovene river Sava – which forms the geography of more that half the country, and is itself a contributory to the Danube, greatest of European rivers – has its source right up the valley, in the shape of a series of natural springs known locally as “toomphs”*.

I made my discovery quite easily by following the many signposts (all intrepid explorers know that the fact that locals have known about the existence of something for millennia doesn’t count), and found myself in the most enchanted setting imaginable. Rainwater flows down the mountains and seeps into the ground only to be forced upwards here, making the bottom of the pools resemble a landscape of miniature volcanos, easily visible through the impossibly clear water. Also, since the water comes from deep underground it remains a steady five degrees all year around, and so the ponds never freeze, but remain azure blue (and full of trout) even in the dead of winter. I lingered here, all alone, pondering how prehistoric man must have marvelled at this natural phenomenon. It was all rather splendid.

Wanting to contribute to this great marvel of nature’s complexity somehow, I added my own little natural contributory before moving on.

My second goal for the day took me past the last village in the valley, which due to the microclimate there is known as the Siberia of Corinthia. Needless to say I didn’t linger, but started my ascent towards Tromeja (“three-borders”), where, you might have guessed, the borders of Italy, Austria and Slovenia as well as the linguistic borders of the three main language blocs – Germanic, Romance and Slavic – all meet. And here my leisurely stroll ended.

The ascent was gruelling. I ran a half marathon three days ago. Clearly the training that went into that was good for nothing here. The trail and I staggered on drunkenly, stubbornly for a solid hour, ever upwards. My legs leaden, my vision foggy, I was close to giving up when finally the summit revealed itself, only…

Every cloud in existence had apparently decided today was a good day to hang out at Tromeja! Possibly vexed by my rumblings that morning, the clouds had beaten me there and lay in ambush on the other side of the mountain. Italy and Austria were probably there somewhere, but of the fabulous view I could see nothing. I was heart-broken, despondent.

What to do? Having this unique opportunity, I went for a game of International Twister with myself. It ended badly. With a solid foothold in Italy I made a grab for Slovenia only to fall flat on my face in Austria. Having thus performed a haiku reenactment of every war in the region from Roman times to World War II, I sat down with my meagre lunch to ponder the invisible and ultimately futile nature of borders. They move like amoebas across maps, crushing people with their impact, and yet up here, they are as nothing.

Looking around me I found a monument with a rather nice inscription, summing up my thoughts: “Finding one’s inner peace is man’s greatest need. Peace does not only mean no war, peace means the rule of harmony, love, satisfaction and unity.”

Yet something was lacking. I thought for a moment, and then got out a magic marker, adding “…and a functioning Visa card!”

And on that somber note, I began my descent.

—–

*This is a fine example of the Slovene language’s propensity to include words that resemble sound effects from the Marvel universe. The Toomphs are located between the villages of Kablowie and Pow…
Day 2

I sorted out my visa troubles and finally got my rental car yesterday afternoon, so it was with a sense of satisfaction I sat down to have the hotel’s speciality for dinner, a huge plate of assorted grilled animals. The Miklič family and their oft-returning English guests, the self-proclaimed redhead Helen, a cycling champion, her son and mum, really took me to their hearts, and as the conversation and the pils flowed, I let myself sink into the warm glow of heir embrace.

So it was with some reluctance I left this morning, weak-kneed and wobbly-legged, but the sun was out, the air was crisp, and… my personal weather-affront was back again, lurking further down the valley. I had foreseen such an eventuality however, and had planned two alternative (escape) routes for the day. The first would take me up an adjacent valley to the fifty hairpin bends constituting the Vilcič pass road built by Russian POWs at a cost of on average two dead Russians per bend. (This was some time before Slovenia ratified the Workers’ Health and Safety directive). There was a very real risk of the cloud catching up with me that way, though, and I didn’t feel like adding to the statistics by bing mown down unseen by a lorry, so elected instead to move down the valley, flanking the fluffy f****r and hopefully circumventing it altogether in an attempt to reach the double waterfalls (known as Slap* in Slovene) in the gorge near the next village.

It worked like a charm. I strolled through sunlit pastures and forests, watching the cloud bank move slowly in the other direction. So pleased was I with having outsmarted the weather that it wasn’t until I heard what sounded like a calypso-orchestra in disarray up ahead that I recalled the many warning signs I had passed (they had all been in Slovene, so naturally I had assumed that they didn’t concern me). Up ahead on the road were a thirty-head heard of steers, the Milka gel’s grumpy uncles, and they weren’t happy to see me. As the last Glocken came to a clonking end not dissimilar to the “Duelling Banjos” song, they stared in sullen, sour-eyed silence at me, and it was clear that I risked being gorged in a manner quite different from what I had planned. In the end they didn’t gore me to death, taking pity on the two weak calves to suddenly appear in their midst (Bulls having an acute – if underrated – appreciation of puns.).

And so it was that I reached the ravine after all. It was simply marvellous. Entering the canyon the sheer rock rose high above a narrow passage through which flowed not only a lively brook, but the air was filled with water particles from the falls higher up, and as they caught the sunlight they turned to pixie dust, turning the landscape into a golden, enchanted forest. Alas, the same fine mist rendered every root, leaf and stone in the cleft slick with moisture, slippery to the touch, and turned my progress into a series of involuntary tap-dancing solos, as I fought for traction and lost. It also soon became clear that the Russians had been sent here first to weed out the weaker builders, as the rickety structures placed along the way to help visitors did nothing but add to the danger.

The first Slap marked the end of my progress through the gorge. From there it was a mad scramble up the cliffs and into the surrounding aspen forest. How different it was! From the pale golden birches and moss-green firn trees of the ravine to this shadowy realm of Mithril-grey trees like a thousand-pillared great hall, all having shed their russet leaves in a thick carpet on the ground, rendering the path all but invisible. The only way to go was up, of course, but the copper carpet effectively hid all manner of roots and milky-white stones, so the tap dancing continued unabated.

At last the path returned to the gully to find the upper Slap, all 130 metres of it, and finally there were steel wires and the odd crampon to help the weary traveller. They were dearly needed, too, as the final ascent was up a crevice that went straight up, parallel to the waterfall itself. At this height the metal was bitter cold, however, and I began to fear my numbed hands would lose their grip. Icicles adorned the cliff face. Falling here would be fatal. The best I could hope for would be landing in the water – not that I would survive that either, but at least I might be rediscovered in a few millennia as a latter-day Ötzi, and archeologists could make amusingly incorrect assumptions about my life in pre-historic times.

Well, I won’t keep you in suspense any longer. I did make it, and rarely has tea and strudel tasted as good as it did just now.
*See previous attempt at etymological explanation.
Day 3

So last night I went across the border to pick up my brother who, unbeknownst to me while I was planning this trip, had got himself a job as an apprentice carpenter a stone’s throw from where I was, thus allowing me to use the term “serendipitous”, a word – and indeed a concept – which doesn’t get enough mileage.

We then set off into the night for the village of Bled*, and arrived at the gingerbread cottage of Dom Berc in absolute darkness. The only thing that could be seen was the medieval castle, perched high above the village on an enormous crag and lit up by hidden lights. The door was opened by a hunched man of very Slavic stock who got us inside briskly, showed us our room and left with the words “the master vill vant to visit you… later.” It was time to take stock of the garlic stores!

The night passed without incident, however, and today we learnt just how pretty Slovenia can be. The area of Lake Bled has attracted tourists for hundreds of years, and it was here that all the apparatchiks – who presumably enjoyed a nice holiday as much as the next comrade – would come as well, so the village wasn’t subjected to the standard communist treatment, but remained pristine throughout the Soviet era.

We toured the lake in the morning, taking endless pictures of the little fairy tale island with its perfect little composition of houses and an onion-spired church, and the wooden swan-boats being rowed around it. It was idyllic. Even the castle lost its menacing Hammer-film-prop air in broad daylight.

In the afternoon we drove to a gorge and hiked down its troubled waters on wooden walkways. It was very impressive, but lacked the intensity of yesterday’s adventures. We even had to pay admission, which made it feel more like a amusement park ride than anything else. The whole of Bled, in fact, is a little too cutesy, too boutique, so tomorrow we’re off further into the wilderness in search for the true spirit of Triglav.
*Another peculiarity of the Slovene language is its affinity for words that also exist in English, albeit with a completely different meaning. So for instance “pot” is everywhere to be found, and lake Bled lies in the five o’clock shadow of mount Razor. It’s uncanny.
Day 4

After breakfast we took the car up the curvaceous little road that led into the heartland of the park. We past Lake Bohinj and continued straight up through the beech forest until we reached the Dom Savica, gateway to the most famous waterfalls in Slovenia.

The path wound its way up stairs hewn into the rock, and I was struck by the difference the choice of materials made. Instead of the amusement park feeling of yesterday’s gangways, ascending this stairway felt like entering the kingdom of Rivendell, with wood elves hidden just put of sight. The falls themselves were predictably impressive even without Elrond and his posse, and like the Fellowship we lingered there (if not for three hundred pages), unwilling to face the decent into Orkanc, the suitably orcish-sounding hamlet* where we would stay the rest of the week.

Quite apart from the intricacies of Slovene, I have realised that I came unprepared for mountaineering in a linguistic sense, as there are so many terms I am unfamiliar with. This is of course wholly my own fault**.

So for instance a gorge is a narrow valley between hills or mountains, typically with steep rocky walls and a stream running through it, but a gully is a ravine formed by the action of water – not the same thing. Also, Urban Dictionary adds to he confusion by asserting that the latter term is slang for “gangsta”, as in “I’m so gully”, which only a criminal mountain troll by the name of Scarpface*** could possibly hope to get away with.

But I digress. We eventually made it down to Orkanc, past a hidden farm where the neo-liberal farmer had obviously taken GMO into his heart, and – more importantly – into the hearts of his herd, since the cattle looked more like bear-pigs than anything bovine, and thence to the ski lift of Vogel.

The ski lift took us 1,000 metres straight up, and to the second hike of the day. We arrived at two in the afternoon, and since the last lift down was at six we figured we could go two hours in one direction before having to turn around, which would give us enough time to reach the first of two summits.

Up here the same beech trees dominated the steep slopes, only every single one of them was J-shaped. Brother Carpenter pointed out that the trees looked that way since they were bent down by snow until reaching a certain age, and only then could they begin to grow as they were meant to. I think we can all relate to that. It seems life is a beech, after all.

The beech soon gave way to scree and bonsai and what little soil there had been was replaced by rubble, but we were making good time – or so we thought until we turned around to admire the view and realised that the sun was rapidly disappearing. Only now did it dawn on us that dusk effectively happens around five in the afternoon! The thought of having to get back in pitch blackness didn’t appeal, so down the rubble slope we went like Fred and Ginger, playing catchup with the speed of light.

It was two very tired but relieved wanderers who stepped onto the ski lift back down to Bohinj at a quarter to five.
* It’s not just me saying it, either. Tolkien was first and foremost a linguist and found inspiration in the Slavic languages when creating the Dark tongue of Mordor.

** Fault, n., a crack in the earth’s crust resulting from the displacement of one side with respect to the other.

*** Scarp face, n., the surface of a steep slope just below an escarpment or mountain ridge. Also, a given character in the next Pratchett novel.
Day 5

The day started well enough. Our cottage is built on a scale and in a style that makes me feel like Snow White at the seven dwarves’, and as I went down the stairs to our miniature kitchen / living room and peered out into the fog, what did I see? Three roe deer came galloping out of the mist (possibly chased by the bear-pigs from yesterday). They stopped in front of me, almost posing, but when I tried to get my camera out to take pictures of them they slipped away into the wisps.

This set the tone for the day. We went to the village of Stara Fuzina at the other end of the lake – as beautiful a hamlet as you can hope to find in Slovenia – and from there set out to explore yet another vale. We followed the path upwards, marvelling at how the frothing waterfalls of the gorge cut deep, deep into the bedrock – as much as thirty metres in places – and at the emerald green pools further upstream, so lucid that you sometimes had to look twice to believe there was water there at all. And yet there was a mood of melancholy in the crisp autumnal air, a sense of having but a little time to appreciate all this beauty before it was too late (the fact that we got lost and spent an hour and a half following the wrong arm of the stream might have contributed, too…).

I guess it is inevitable towards the end of a holiday, knowing you will have to get back to the daily grind, but here, with accumulated fatigue combined with the swiftly disappearing sun rendering the beech bronze and the larch a russet gold, it was all I could do not to cry.

To distract myself – and you – from this sorry state of affairs, I thought of one last peculiarity of the Slovene language: They seem to have disavowed vowels. You know how certain letters have to seek refuge in particular countries, like the “X” in Spain, where it still finds employment, or the “Z”, which is found roaming free in great herds in Poland? Well, the Slovenes have decided vowels have no place in their society, at least not in shorter words. So Pr is a cottage, Vrh means summit, and so on. I have no idea how these words sound, but I find it quite innovative, dnt u thnk?
Day 6

And so we entered the kingdom of Zlatorog for the last time. According to the legends Zlatorog, the golden-horned chamois, lived high up in the mountains with the White Women (the Fates) and their white mountain goats on pastures like Paradise, but when a greedy hunter shot Zlatorog in order to obtain his horns, Zlatorog in his fury hurled the hunter into the abyss and destroyed the pastures until nothing but bare rock remained.

I like this story, as it is clearly an ancient tale of caution not to use the natural resources of the region in an unsustainable manner, or suffer the consequences. It seems particularly poignant when hiking up ski slopes, where man has raked the mountain sides clean of all that stands in his way. This we did now, as we were going to make a second attempt on Vogel. So far we hadn’t really made it up the alps proper, but that was about to change.

Up we went, and bonsai and scree gave way to wilted grass, the incline went from unfriendly to murderous to downright psychotic, patches of snow began appearing on the ground, and oxygen started to feel like a distinctly rare commodity. At last there was nothing but the ever-present rubble left on the ground – causing us to take one step forward and two steps back – and the ravens in the sky above us (the Vogel flipping us the bird?), when we reached a cop in the crest, and suddenly it was all worth it! Ahead of us were ridge upon ridge of forest-clad mountains, swept in blueish mist as far as the eye could see.

Swollen feet and howling tendons seemed small and insignificant, indeed, everything was dwarfed in the presence of such grandeur. You could take the great pyramids at Gize and plonk them into the smallest of these vales and they would disappear from sight. It is an awe-inspiring sight if ever there was one. We lunched on top of the world today.

From there it was another three quarters of stomach-curdling climbing up to the top of mount Vogel, along a crest where one false step in one direction would send you down one valley, and a step in the other into another. It was a suitable finale to the week, with views all the way to the Adriatic, 100 km away and 1,922m underneath us. It felt right to end on a high, but just as we congratulated ourselves on our prowess we noticed sheep pellets on the ground, as if Zlatorog himself had left a calling card, saying, in essence: you’re visitors in my world, and while you pride yourself with making it up here I come down to these puny heights to take a dump. Your achievement is my toilet.

After having thus been suitably humbled, all that remained was the three-hour hike back down, negotiating the perennial conundrum of wanting to admire the scenery while avoiding becoming part of it.

It was time to go home.

The South West Coast Path, England

October 12, 2015chrisgoja Leave a comment

First day of hiking. Getting out of Falmouth proved more difficult than expected, as gale force winds meant ferries didn’t run as scheduled (and made the ride all that more interesting once on board, with coast guard helicopters suspended in the air above us).

The path, once we got on it at Place (the place is actually called Place, and I’ll leave it with you to imagine how bored a city planner has to be before naming a place Place), wounds its way along the coast, hugging that thin strip of land between the fields and the rocks below. The vegetation is surprisingly lush, with brambles, ferns, nettles, sloe and strangle weed forming a dense thicket on both sides, scrambling over each other and intertwining, sometimes closing over the path. Thorns snag you, nettles sting you and brambles trip you up, and you feel resentful towards the vegetation – the National Trust would be well advised to rename the path Sleeping Beauty’s Castle Gardens, I muttered – but then suddenly you come upon a clearing, and you realise that you’ve been walking next to a sheer drop of fifty metres or more, and that yon vegetation has been the only thing between you and becoming as one with nature. 27 kilometres of that today. More tomorrow.

Day 2

Set off from Portcoe into a sun-kissed and decidedly surreal landscape. Normal rules don’t apply: Gulls sailing on the thermals quite some distance beneath you, long abandoned mines right on the water’s edge (They mined for tin here, and the seams apparently often ran out underneath the seaboard. I can all too easily imagine the strange and above all short-lived moments when a gallery suddenly turned into a giant lobster tine.), and sometimes when you round a bend a whole stretch of the path will suddenly be gone, replaced by nothing but vertigo.

They say it’s due to flood damage and erosion, but sometimes the trail cuts so deep into the top soil as to create a virtual fault line (Nature gently reminding us it’s important to deviate from the norm on occasion, since if you just follow the beaten path and perish it will be your own fault…).
Add to that the soundtrack to my journey, as belted out by the Teutonic Titan trailing behind me (a medley of Sarah Bernardt and Meatloaf), and you will understand why I started to look for Alice in every rabbit hole we passed. Or maybe it’s just dehydration. Well, that’s nothing the publicans around here can’t rectify.

More ramblings anon.

Day 3

Someone pointed out to me that I was a tad harsh when describing the landscape yesterday. I still maintain that the downs are deceptive – it’s easy to think that those gently undulating hills are gentle, but all that means is that you are constantly ascending or descending. Add to that a never-ending supply of stiles (in a nearly endless variety of styles) and you have the mother of all obstacle courses.

But I’m happy to concede that the climate is heavenly. It is surely no coincidence that Project Eden is located in Cornwall – we missed it by a mere four kilometres today – but there is also the rather older endeavour of a similar ilk, which we passed yesterday, namely Caerhay, the 150-year old Williams family estate that harbours one of the greatest magnolia collections in the world (we missed the display by a mere four months).

You can understand why the Williamses got hooked. Magnolias – flowering trees so old they were around in the Jurassic – thrive here, and it’s easy to see why. When you descend into one of the hidden vales, wedged in between steep rocks, as I have just done, the air is thick with chlorophyll, dappled sun light makes the mist rise and palm trees and outsized bracken make it even more primeval, to the point where you might even believe that those rather large chicken are in fact velociraaaaAAARRGHH—–

Day 4

Ok, so I fibbed yesterday. I wasn’t devoured by dinosaurs, but I had a close encounter with a chicken Tikka Masala (ancient Hindi for Innards Wrenching) that Spielberg wouldn’t have managed a PG-13 rating on. Interestingly though, apart from that most British of institutions, the Indian curry, there is very little sense of Cornwall feeling British. The Cornish are a proud old people who had their own kings long before the Normans and the Saxons came along, and the Cornish flag (silver cross on a black field, since you ask) is prominently displayed most everywhere. The Union Jack is conspicuous only by its absence.
The Cornish have their own culture, as evidenced by their cooking – we live on Cornish pasties (not a derogatory term for sunbathers but a kind of meat pie) and Cornish ice cream – and their own language, which makes place names utterly incomprehensible, and which is spoken by the locals. “I speak it well enough when I’m drunk and mad” as one meaty fellow put it.
Against this background you’d be excused if you suspected the authorities of being a tad nervous. In fact, from Henry VIII’s buttered fortresses to the contemporary artillery firing range which we will pass through in a day or so, the subtle message may well be, look, we’re good guys, protecting you from the Roman Catholics/Romanian plumbers, but these cannons pivot, see, we can turn them around too, nifty, eh?
So far it seems to have worked, but if the Scottish secede, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Cornish were hot on their heels.

Day 5

Today we were going to hike through the Cornwall Army Range, Propelled Artillery and Rocketry, Cornwall. Those who have been following my slog log will understand that this held no fears for me; at least British officers and gentlemen will signal before trying to blow you away so as not to inconvenience you unduly.

The same cannot be said for the weather, which is notoriously fickle. I have an uncanny ability to get it wrong, too. Once I suggested we sit down and enjoy the sun only to have to make a mad dash through the brambles to seek cover from a thunderstorm under a rocky outcrop (which we then promptly discovered had been split asunder by lightning at some point), another time I hadn’t finished the sentence “I think it’s going to rain all afteno—” before it was sunny again. But I digress.

The reason I was keen to see the C.A.R.P.A.R.C. was that oftentimes no man’s lands of this kind become a haven for wildlife, and I was looking forward to seeing an abundant – if slightly shell-shocked – fauna. Imagine my disappointment when it turned out to look remarkably like the many golf courses we have passed on the way. (“Look, links!” I would cry each time, to which my German companion would reply “…und Rechts!” Oh, how we laughed. Entertainment is scant on the trail.)

It is to be hoped the armed forces perform better than the golfers we have seen, though. A thousand years from now marine archaeologists trying to piece together clues from our long-lost civilisation will gather that these golf courses were cult places where Nimby, the god of denial, and Exxon, the vengeful god of greenhouse gasses were appeased with gifts of small, white spherical objects placed in sand pits in their hundreds.

Day 6

We arrived in Plymouth last night, and after the idyllic scenery of the last five days it’s vast urban sprawl was a shock to the system (although the gin helped), so we couldn’t wait to get out of there. Even so, it took us the whole morning to traverse the harbours and docks – the best thing to be said for it is that it’s easier on the feet than on the eyes.

Plymouth is otherwise best known for another group of people keen to leave it; the Pilgrims set off from Plymouth on the Mayflower over 350 years ago. Their importance is vastly overrated – in fact they only became known to the general public through the publication of a poem that got most of the facts wrong – but whatever else they were, they were comically inept. They didn’t pack a single plough but several tea cosies, and between them they had neither a doctor nor a carpenter. (The one important – but oft overlooked – thing the Founding Fathers did right was to bring along Founding Mothers… At least they realised women would be necessary to found a colony!) They would have been well advised to take a leaf from the book of Francis Drake, who was not only a privateer and swashbuckler extraordinaire, but also mayor of Plymouth. It was from here he set out to vanquish the Spanish Armada, but when he got knighted for services to the crown (the aforementioned armada and – allegedly – buckling the royal swash) he got out double-quick, headed for balmy Devon. And so do we.

Day 7

Two features of the coastal landscape strike me as almost magical; rivers around here are all tidal, meaning that twice a day they simply disappear, leaving a natural causeway that extends for kilometres inland. If you arrive at one, as we did today, you have only to wait, watching the water drain away as if someone had pulled the plug on the world’s greatest (and grimiest) bath tub before you can ford it. Or you plough through the stream long before it’s safe (why yes, we ARE quite gung-ho, thank you for noticing!).

Islands on the other hand are easy to imagine as little paradisiacal microcosms, untouched by the rest of the world. Of course estuary islands are sometimes reachable by foot at low tide, such as Burgh island at the end of today’s hike, which is also a.k.a. Agatha Christie’s inspiration for the setting of And Then There Were None (formerly Ten Little Niggers), her best murder mystery.

Mewstone island, just off the coast of Devon, which we passed yesterday, is much more inaccessible, in spite of being just off the coast. In 1744, a peasant convicted of a petty crime was sentenced to deportation to the island for seven years(!). One imagines the local magistrates may have favoured another bestseller, namely Daniel Defoe, whose eponymic hero’s exploits had been published in 1719 to huge popular acclaim.
So much for islands being idyllic!

Outro

And so my journey’s at an end. Instead of lacing op my boots and setting out on the trail, I find myself on a train bound for London.

Having never tried sustained hiking before, I didn’t know what to expect, but I’m glad to say that it has been a great and very meditative experience. In total we did 200 km this week, and climbed up 8,800 m and down again, or the equivalent of 25 Empire State Buildings. Now, the South West Coast path is 1,050 km altogether, so I haven’t done more than a fraction of it, but – to paraphrase the ebullient Bill Bryson – I hiked it in rain and sun, I hiked it on the beaches and on the cliffs, I hiked it laughing, I hiked it crying, I HIKED the SWC.

The lasting impression of the coastal path is one of great natural beauty, and it’s surprising to me that there were so few hikers on it. (Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy we were alone most of the time, as the experience wouldn’t have been the same otherwise!)

The one person I couldn’t have done it without, whose adventure this really is, who was on the trail two weeks before I arrived and still will be for two more after I’ve gone, is my staunch hiking companion Florian. You set me on the path and pointed me in the right direction and for that I owe you. Happy trails!

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