Travel Confessions

Anneli at wordsfromanneli has tagged me in her blog post, Travel Confessions.

Visit her blog at: http://wordsfromanneli.wordpress.com She posts interesting pictures and stories.

The rules in the Travel Confessions series:

• Post a photo (or photos) and description(s) of your confession(s) in a new post.
• Tweet your post with hashtag #TravelConfession and follow/tweet @Traveling9to5
• Tag 3 other travelers you’d love to see

My travel confessions?

#1 My mother always said to put all the clothes you think you’ll need for the trip on your bed. Then put half of them back in the closet and pack the rest. I’m pretty good at following that rule, but I invariably take one or two pieces that are not appropriate for my destination.

#2 I’m going to have to stop travelling because my souvenirs have gotten to be too expensive. I used to buy t-shirts and trinkets. On the last three trips (Egypt, Hong Kong, Australia) I bought diamonds and on safari I managed to find a tanzanite. Go figure.

See also – http://emandyves.wordpress.com/2011/10/09/pink-diamond-of-mine/

#3 My mother also said to take twice as much money as you think you’ll need and I do, but no matter how much money I take, I’m down to my last few pesos, lira, pesatas, euros, or dollars on the last day of my trip. And that’s after visiting the ATM. This puts me into embarrassing situations. I’m sometimes reduced to begging for loans from travel companions just to tip the taxi driver. More than once, I’ve been appreciative of the airline food as I fly home.

For the last part of my Travel Confession “duties,” I’d like to tag three other bloggers and invite them to participate in this fun and easy blog exercise.

Yvonne at http://ytaba36.wordpress.com/

Aggy at http://www.DreamExploreWander.com

Emma at http://www.emmacalin.blogspot.co.uk

The Sad Side of Semana Santa – Mexico, beyond the resort areas

There’s a sad and sobering side to the joy and excitement of Semana Santa that makes us realize just how lucky we are to have been born in and to live in Canada.

Holidayers descend from a one ton moving truck or a farm truck with their bundles of pillows, and blankets, and clothing to camp in the dirt of an empty lot.

Little boys string a hammock under the trailer of a semi in which to sleep.

Bus drivers sleep in the cargo holds of their buses and set upa little plastic tables in the rubble by the roadside to prepare their meals.

Unfinished buildings become shelter for many.

And perhaps saddest of all, on your early morning run you will see the musicians who walk the beach playing for tips, sleeping on the sidewalk by their bus with their instruments wedged between them.

And no, I don’t have any pictures. To take some would have been too much of an invasion.

Semana Santa (Easter) – Mexico – beyond the resort areas

During Semana Santa – Easter Week – little beach towns in Mexico are inundated with tourists. A town of 3,000 can suddenly swell to 40,000. If 200 bus loads of tourists arrive for Christmas, expect 400 for Easter.

Here are a few pictures to show the changes in Guayabitos from “normal” times to Semana Santa.

The kids walk to the corner for tacos de birria.

The same street during Semana Santa.

Buenos Dias. Uno jugo de naranja, por favor.

Can you still see our juice man? He is back there, honest.

Vendors squeeze into every nook and cranny, and into every spare centimeter of  sidewalk or curb  selling trinkets, fried plantain, pastries, beach essentials, and pretty much anything else you can imagine. In the driveway behind the first stand, the young entrepreneur has set up tables with colorful cloths.

Empty lots are perfect for parking, camping, or setting up make-shift stores.

Musicians gather. I leave it to you to imagine the cacophony of music, buses, cars, loudspeakers, etc.

Traffic jams arise. Yes, the garbage smells foul.

And the beach goes from this …

to this …

and this!!!!

The Mali I love – as it was then

Many years ago I lived and worked in Mali as a CUSO volunteer. I shared a house with another volunteer, who subsequently married a Malian and still lives in Bamako. For now, she says they are okay, but of course I worry.

The experience for a young Canadian was eye-opening to say the least. We were fortunate enough to be able to travel extensively. Segou, Mopti, Tombouctou, Gao … We enjoyed the hospitality of Malians and had great respect for their ability to cope in impoverished conditions. Wide warm smiles greeted us wherever we went.

I cannot and do not want to picture the devastation and destruction northern Mali is now enduring.

Here are a few pictures of Mali as it was then.

See also:          http://emandyves.wordpress.com/2011/06/26/kamsack/

http://emandyves.wordpress.com/2012/12/22/the-cowboys-christmas-in-mali/

http://emandyves.wordpress.com/2011/10/23/teaching-in-bamako/

The Cowboy’s Christmas in Mali

The cowboy has been to Paris and Bamako. http://emandyves.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/the-cowboy/

Now, it’s off to the village of Faladye to spend Christmas Day with their friend Raymond’s family. It’s an eight hour trek in the old VW Beetle over non-existent trails. They arrive hot and dusty and are immediately offered a pail of heated water.  They bathe behind the mud wall that partitions the corner of the compound for that purpose. They hang their towels over the wall and find tiny rock projections to hold the soap and shampoo. Never has a bath felt so good.

The children are enamored with the cowboy. The adults too, but they watch him with more discretion  During the long hot hours of Christmas Day the cowboy entertains the children showing off his roping skills. He uses the huge mortar and pestle sitting in the center of the compound for their target.

The cowboy demonstrates and the children take turns trying to rope the mortar. When the boys tire of the practice the girl shyly indicates that she wants to try. She’s obviously been watching closely for she coils the rope exactly as the cowboy did and lassos the mortar on her first try.

Not satisfied with a non-moving object the boys want to lasso each other. The cowboy is afraid they’ll give each other rope burns so he plays the role of the bull, holding his fingers up by his head indicating horns, pawing the ground with one of his booted feet and bellowing like a bull.

The kids roll on the ground laughing. The cowboy continues his charade. Soon the compound fills with children, and then women from other families arrive followed by the men. They all believe the village chief has bought a new bull.

Two months later, Raymond is again visiting his family. The talk of the village is all about the “red bull.” And so the Canadian cowboy goes down in African oral history.

 

Leftovers

At the end of our safari, we’re at the airport in Arusha, Tanzania, waiting for our flight back to Nairobi.

Box lunches have been provided by one of the hotels. We’ve got a couple of pieces of roasted chicken,                                                               a hard-boiled egg,                                                                                    a bun, 

a couple of pieces of fruit,   

and a dessert  

—much more than each of us can eat.

Our group leader comes around as we’re finishing our meal and asks for contributions. She heads to the Air Kenya counter with a full box of our leftovers.

A few minutes later she comes back to report that the two airline employees were thrilled with the food and asks if we have more. We do. Off she goes once more to the check-in counter.

This time, when she returns, she tells us eight employees were waiting to share our donation.

A young girl employed in one of the little souvenir kiosks watches us and shyly asks, “Can I have some too?”

We scrounge the last bits for her.

Later we learn that in Kenya, it is illegal to throw away food.

Well Endowed a la French Lesson

Six Canadian Anglophones in a French tourist spot on Lac d’Annecy. It’s a sort of Club Med on the cheap, and we’re delighted to be immersed in the French language and culture. After all that’s what we came for.

Each of us speak some French and can get by in most conversations. We’ve come here for a few weeks to improve our linguistic skills. Our instructor is a French woman who lives in Canada, but has family in the area; she’s a perfect guide. Our mornings are spent in a classroom setting; but it’s our afternoons that are the most fun. We visit local points of interest—there are many, from Chamonix to Mont Blanc to Annecy. We interact with locals and enjoy the food and the wine.

This is a working holiday? I don’t think so. But work we do. The most interesting aspect of our learning is the vocabulary not found in dictionaries. One fine day we’re out on the terrace of our classroom learning body parts. We want to know how to say things like beer belly, love handles, and well endowed. Our instructor is about to answer this last when we hear a cackle from the 92 year-old French woman on the terrace next to ours.

“In my day,” she says, “we said, ‘il y a du monde sur le balcon.” Translaltion – the balcony is full.

The Trip I’d Love to Relive

Of all the places I’ve visited where would I most like to return to?

An easy question this time!

I’d go back to Kenya and safari on the Masai Mara.

I’ve traveled extensively in West Africa, Central America, and Europe. I’ve been to Hong Kong, Australia, and Bali. I live in Canada, have been from one end of the country to the other, have traveled some in the US, and spend winters on the Pacific coast of Mexico.

But my dream trip had always been to go on a safari. That trip lived up to every expectation and I’d go back anytime. It’s almost impossible to describe the intensity of emotion when on a safari.

Picture yourself in the vehicle, the top raised so you can stand and look out around you – all 360 degrees of country side with no buildings, no telephone lines, no signs of humans at all. The driver turns off the motor and complete silence engulfs you. “Look,” someone whispers. There, just a few feet away from the vehicle, you see a lioness nursing her cubs. She flips over and the cubs, firmly attached, flip with her.

Or imagine yourself sitting at the bonfire in front of your tent camp. The earth trembles as a herd of elephants lumbers past somewhere in the darkness. Lions grumble behind you. You turn and see only the lanterns hanging on the posts in front of each tent. Thirty some miles away you see the fire of another tent camp. No one speaks. To do so would almost be a sacrilege.

And you? What trip would you like to live again?

West Africa Tour – part 6 – Culture Shock Slap

From Porto-Novo, Benin, we take a bus through Lome to Accra. At the border to Ghana, culture shock slaps us in the face.

We’ve lived in Mali, travelled in countries colonized by France, and have become accustomed to hearing French from everyone. French with an accent, to be sure, but no slang. We’re also used to the courtesies of Bambara that demand a series of hello, how are you, how is your health, your mother, your father, etc,, etc., always preceded with a handshake. From the post office to the market to the border crossings, this ritual never changes.

Crossing the border into Ghana is a tad different.

“Hello,” we say. The English word sounds strange after a couple of years of French and Bambara.

“Open it!” The border guard snaps the words with a flick of her hand in the direction of our suitcases. A quick check of our luggage and she waves us on our way. We zip our cases closed and climb back on the bus still reeling from the abrupt encounter.

In Accra, we exit the bus station and search for a taxi. A Brit takes us in hand and negotiates for us. We don’t understand a word he says. He seems to be speaking a bastardized version of English. He must notice our confounded stares for he says, “These Africans can’t learn English. So we taught them pigeon English.” He translates a couple of sentences for us.

“Can we please go back to Mali?” I say under my breath. “Now.”

From Accra, I fly to Freetown, Sierra Leone. Upon arrival at a fellow CUSO volunteer’s home, I learn that my father has just died and I fly home for his funeral. Many years later I will go back to Mali, but that’s another story.

All I remember of Freetown is the Cotton Tree. We’re told slave markets were held under its shady branches.

For more information about the famous Cotton Tree of Sierra Leone follow this link.

http://www.sierraleonephotos.com/#/cotton-tree/4542679083

West Africa Tour – part 5 – Strawberry Pudding Powder

The next morning, we bid the nuns farewell and follow their advice to take the train to the capital, Cotonou (now Porto-Novo).

At the station we have the good fortune to meet a Peace Corps volunteer also headed to the capital. He proves to be an excellent guide. The train is slightly more comfortable than the taxi brousse as it slumbers along.

Each stop brings a swarm of men, women, and children, some as young as three or four, with wares to sell. “Madame, Madame,” they call. On the advice of our guide we don’t get off the train, but barter through the window.

Some children have handfuls of peanuts wrapped in scraps of plastic. These we buy. Others have fruit. We buy what can be peeled—bananas, oranges … The saddest of all are the children who have taken a square of plastic, filled it with water, and tied it to form a little ball. This we buy, with no intention of drinking, but our few coins will surely help a bit.

A couple of women have green bundles on straw trays that they carry on their heads.

“Oh, these are good,” says our guide. “They’re small birds about the size of a pigeon roasted in banana leaves. Want some?”

“Um … er … no thanks.” Suddenly we’re vegetarians.

“We wanted to go to Nigeria, too,” we say.

“Ah, that’s a no-go. The war you know.”

We do know. The Biafran war has raged for some time now.

Our guide laughs mirthlessly. “You won’t believe this. Aid groups back home sent over food. Stuff like strawberry pudding powder. What’s a starving African supposed to do with that? I ask you. I got a bunch of it on the black market. Figured maybe my money could help somehow. Then another group sent over a boat load of dried fish.”

“That makes much more sense,” we said.

“Sure, but they didn’t get clearance to enter the country so the fish rotted on the boat and had to be dumped into the ocean.”

A long silence follows, for what could one say?

Recommended reading: I Do Not Come to You by Chance – by Adaobi Tricia Nwaubani

To be continued