Sam-I-Am

Uncle Sam in Britain: The Long-Awaited Return

sstolper — Wed, 25 Jun 2008 22:16:00 GMT

I spent the last week literally walking across Scotland.

At some point during the hiking trip I decided we could officially get away with saying we were walking across Scotland. It's a bigger country than a week's worth of walking, but we started on the West coast, and finished on the Northeast coast. We traversed the entire Great Glen, or valley, a huge v-shaped crevice 73 miles long and marked the whole way by lakes and rivers and canals.

There were four members of our crack team of hikers: Alex from Bath, England; Stuart from Sussex, England; Peter from Omagh, Northern Ireland; and myself. An epic reunion from my six month dream existence studying abroad in London three years ago. Each member contributed to the gloriousity (that should be a word) of the adventure - chief wood gatherers for consistently successful bonfires, head chefs overseeing very un-camping-like feasts on the open fire, navigators ensuring that we saw a most varied and awe-inspiring terrain.

We walked by Scotland's largest, Ben Nevis and it's partners in snowy domination of the landscape. We climbed directly up mountains holding onto Scottish heather to keep from falling. We slid directly down mountains, mostly on our butts. We fought through 4-foot high forests of fern, making me feel like a giant from Gulliver's Travels amidst an endless pygmy jungle.

We wandered through one forest after another, pine, birch, ash, oak, foxgloves and gorse bushes and rhododendrons galore along the paths. We swam in frigid-pure waters of forest streams, we walked the entire length of the great Loch Ness, wondering what lay in its freezing cold 600 foot depths. We aimed every day for the sparsely placed Scottish pubs that would give us a moment's reprieve from the rains, a pint of Guinness to dull the joint pain, and a table to lay out the survey map and plan our attack.

And on the last night of camping, we found a pleasant, if official, campsite situated in a bog on the high ground above Loch Ness. The fire was already going when we arrived at 11 pm, and so we set out to make a dent in our ample food supplies. We drank soup from semi-clean plastic mugs, and Peter made tea, as usual. Stuart fried sausage, bacon, and black pudding in an enclave within the bonfire, and then passed the pan to me to cook up some eggs for our 1 AM classic english fry-up. Baked beans and bread rolls filled up whatever space left on our plates; a true feast. And then, not for the first time, the whiskey and Robert Burns poetry came out of the bags simultaneously, and we read and listened and drank until our wee-hours bedtime, in tents arranged over thickly lain moss to even out the ground.

The next day saw our triumphant completion of a 6-day journey from Fort William to Inverness, across the Scottish Highlands.

And so, I'm back at headquarters here in Surrey Quays, London, home of my intrepid explorer-mates. Being in London, yammering away with my old friends, drinking tea all the time, arguing about international politics, afternoon trips to the pub, it's all so very nostalgic. I realize, I love nostalgia.

Wikipedia says: "Nostalgia describes a longing for the past, often idealized." Well, that fits; read any of my blog entries for examples of me idealizing my experiences in the world.

I wanted to look this word up before I used it improperly. No matter; I think it applies perfectly to what I'm feeling about home right now: Idealized longing for Great America; idealized longing for family; idealized longing for the basement LEGO room of my parent's home; idealized longing for a slice of Papa Gino's pizza.

Because, America may be my boring old self-involved English-speaking home, I may feel a lack of independence around my family sometimes, the LEGO room might be a filthy labyrinth of broken pieces and spider webs, and my first slice of Papa Gino's pizza might have way too much dried tomato sauce lining the crust, but I am not going to be taking anything for granted for quite a while. Shortly after leaving the U.S., I realized that this was a good thing, and a major reason why I travel - I marvel at the things that I don't have, the wonders of the rest of the world, and I remember what it is that I do have, and what is so amazing. Traveling isn't just a self-contained break from routine; I want it to affect me everywhere, all the time. I want to realize how amazing everything in the world is, halfway around the world, and in my very own home. That's the challenge.

Sardine Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

sstolper — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 21:57:00 GMT

It has been a while since I got off on my own for more than a day. A month on a homestead, and another week with my parents. I can't convey how exciting it is to walk down a quiet hilly streamer-crossed Lisboa street not knowing if I'm going to go left or right at the end of the block.

I wrote the other day in my little notebook, "Lisboa is is a small city, and a big city, it's a clean city, it's a dirty city, it's a colonial plaza, it's a sketchy park, it's a picturesque alleyway of balconies, it's a wall of graffiti." The quirky combination of character traits is wonderful. Quotes of its size that I read on the internet are all over the place; nobody seems to know how big or small it actually is. It's hilly, very hilly, so it feels larger and more maze-like. But none of the buildings are too tall, none of bars too contemporary, none of the sights too renowned. It's a little bit exotic, a little bit forgotten, Lisboa is. People seem pretty content with that though. "The people that come here, great, and the people that don't know how cool Portugal is, well, who needs 'em, because we know how cool we are." That's not a direct quote, that's how Portuguese porject themselves outwardly to me.

Talk about cool ethnic stews; Lisboa is populated by Afro-Brazilian-Moorish Europeans. The language looks like Spanish but sounds like Russian. The nightlife is a hip jazzy dim-lit gathering spilling out onto the alleys of the Bairro Alto. Further alleys give hints to family life, front doorways opening straight into cramped kitchens, and hints of heritage, Portuguese flags hung everywhere to support the national team in the current European soccer tournament and Indian-prayer flag look-a-likes bridging the space above you to celebrate their patron Sant Antoni this week.

One night my vetern Lisboan friends allowed me to follow them to the local social club for a blindingly smoky late night dinner. Obviously my eyes lit up at the mention of a traditional soup. It was caldo verde, a top-notch cabbage soup. We also got shrimp and potato croquettes, a plate of snails, thick chorizo, and some high-density bread. I had already satisfied the grilled sardines requirement earlier in my visit, though it was surely the most popular item on the menu, and the smoke from the grill, which was outside the front door on the actual street, wafted in in volumes.

I saw a Coca Cola commercial a couple days ago that proved the ubiquitousness of sardines in Portugal. The plot centered around three sardines fawning over a bottle of Coca Cola, fanning it down, offering it food, trying to get the best seat next to the bottle while in the jacuzzi.

Lest I surprise you, my trip is almost over. I only have one more stop: London, my home, my love.

9 UNESCO Sites in 8 Days: A week with my parents

sstolper — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 11:14:00 GMT

Day 1. Wait for my parents by the side of a downtown Barcelona road, reading in the daily newspaper 'El Pais' about the heroics of Catalan great Pau Gasol, during the Lakers' run to the NBA finals. Barcelona continues to not be a real city. It is by far the most 'liveable' city I've ever seen, and for the same reasons, it lacks grittiness, reality. I didn't see any homeless people at all among its 1.6 million citizens. I didn't see a financial district. All I saw was tourists, plazas, and funny architecture. It certainly has its own character, and is very interesting, but it all feels a little like a meticulously cleaned playground. A fun playground, though.

Dinner is incredibly tender chicken and hake cooked on a fire in the dining room of an intimate restaurant in the next town over from Les Piles. Nominee best meal of the trip.

Day 2. My parents sleep late in their first casa rural 2 minutes down the road from my farm. The privilege is mine, to show them around my home for the last three weeks, take them to the fields in which I toiled, wander through a small Catalan village. It is so awesome to say, 'Here, try it', and pick some fava beans or pluck some onions stems from the rows to offer to my parents.

So I say goodbye to Joan, the rest of the family, and El Sombra my argentinian neighbor and sporting companion, and we drive on to Cuenca. Dinner in that city is non-descript except that my pizza has a fried egg in/on it.

Day 3. Cuenca's hilltop old city built on the edge of a gorge is rather dramatic. I guess there is technically only one actual casa colgada, for which it is famous, but the whole cliffside is lined with three storey buildings perched precariously and fixed with a red viaduct spanning the gorge beautifully.

The better part of the day is spent in Segovia, which is every bit the fairy-tale I imagined some Spanish cities to be. The old city occupies an almost-round hill surrounded by a river valley on three sides so it rises fast, protected by its ancient walls and viewing from all points the expansive green plains surrounding the city for miles. At one extremity lay the Alcazar, the palace/fortress which was apparently the inspiration for Cinderella's castle at Disneyland. At first it looks pretty dull, but gradually it dawns on me how much this place looks like a part of childhood dreams.

Dinner is gazpacho and hamburgwaysas, as my mom pronounced them (she has sinced improved impressively). On the road out we are greeted by a sign in Hebrew for the Jewish cemetery we are hoping to find, and it is hidden inconspicuously but beautifully across the river valley in the woods just before the great plains begin.

Day 4. The image of my father biking through the streets of Madrid is a good one. Meanwhile, my mother and I have some quality time with Albrecht Durer and Francisco Goya and company at the Prado Museum of Art. Big time art museums, you know, the really big time ones - they really excite me. Goya's painting of Saturn devouring his children stands out.

My attempts to start sampling the regional cuisines of Spain are thwarted when the cider depot/Asturian restaurant is closed. The backup dinner spot is across the street in a romantic alley venue and satisfies an apparent craving for steak on the part of my parents.

Day 5. Toledo greets us with a statue and quote in three languages. Not Spanish, French, and English. Spanish, Hebrew, and Arabic. The more well-preserved of the two Toledan synagogues is an uplifting lesson, a Jewish place of worship, with not only Hebrew but also Arabic adorning the walls, and built in the beautiful and highly-skilled Mudejar style of the Muslims in Spain. Arabic language in a Jewish synagogue! Stop the presses!

Lunch in Toledo begins my successful run with regional cuisine. I eat partridge soup and a traditional Toledan pork dish. Dinner, though, is another nominee best meal. We are in Cordoba, it is past midnight, and I am eating rabo de toro, Cordoban oxtail stew. Dad gets four pounds of Spanish potato omelette and mom gets elegant lettuce wraps and smoked salmon.

Day 6. Cordoba is famous for its Mezquita (mosque), and rightfully so. It is really too bad that the fundamentalists have gotten to it though. Not even fundamentalist muslims, its the christians who've gotten to this one, since they made the mosque into a cathedral the minute they took over Cordoba. The flyer for the mosque/cathedral attempts to poke not-so-subtle holes in the architectural integrity and liberal rule of the Moorish reign. Thankfully the hauntingly enormous and empty Mezquita is also hauntingly beautiful. Don't get me wrong, I love the cathedrals too, but it's nice to see a holy place that isn't carved all up and down with imagery designed to force a certain idea into your head.

Dinner is in Sevilla, Andalusian gazpacho is dad's favorite because it's the most familiar tasting (it's great that my two grandmothers have somehow overtaken the nation of Spain as the real originators of gazpacho).

Day 7. Sevilla is hard not to like. The drive to the hotel through the tiny old city streets, following behind a friendly Sevillan biker who knows the way, is memorable. The flamenco show is way more epic than I previously had expected, credit to mom insisting we go. I need a 500 year old traditional music form that deeply expresses emotion through singing and instruments and dancing. At least I played the violin on the rooftop balcony of our hotel during twilight.

Lunch is my long-awaited sampling of gallego food (from Galicia). For those not in the know, my new favorite region of Spain is Galicia in the northwest corner, though its somewhat arbitrary. The reasons are basically octopus, shipwrecks, and nature. I have an avocado filled with shrimp and apple and russian dressing, and pulpo a la gallega, in which the octopus is waaaay more tender and non-rubbery than I've ever experienced.

And another paragraph for dinner, which is in Marbella on the Costa del Sol, at a Basque restaurant that does tapas by having the waiters walk around with plates of bite-sized creations on offer at that moment. I wanted to try all of them. Apparently the Basques are widely-accepted as having the best food in Spain. It was good.

Day 8. The stars align and, despite not having advance tickets for the Alhambra and also missing the alarm and oversleeping two hours, we are admitted to the Moorish palatial grounds in Granada at about 10 am. A poor attempt at audioguide narration by an immitation Washington Irving fails to sully the beauty of the place. Man I need to learn how to actually read Arabic calligraphy. Talk about time-consuming, talk about wondrous, the artwork of the palaces here are just so beautiful.

Dinner is quick in downtown Granada but we end well with chocolate con churros for the road. I hold molten chocolate in a plastic cup over my dad's lap so he can dip his churros while focusing on the highway in front of him.

Gallery: Organic Farming in Catalunya

sstolper — Sun, 8 Jun 2008 19:50:00 GMT

The title speaks for itself

Gallery: Sketches of Spain

sstolper — Sun, 8 Jun 2008 19:48:00 GMT

Overnight from Malaga to Barcelona, with Miles Davis painting a picture

Gallery: Rif Mountains Paradise

sstolper — Sun, 8 Jun 2008 19:14:00 GMT

Chefchaouen, northern Maroc

Gallery: Starring Harold Stolper

sstolper — Sun, 8 Jun 2008 18:43:00 GMT

An Urban Man Goes to the Desert

The Slow Life in Catalunya (Part Deux)

sstolper — Tue, 27 May 2008 23:17:00 GMT

I think my parents eat faster than me, but at the dinner table it never seems to be an issue. Here, though, I am consistently the only person left at the dinner table for 25 minutes on average. More on the food front: I am referred to as 'El Rey de la Ensalada', and expected to make the salad every day at lunchtime. Also I got plans to bring some Jewish cuisine into a Catalan household via potato latkes this week, my last one on the farm.

(It's not really a farm, but a home with four planting fields oddly spaced in the surrounding area).

It has rained for parts of almost every day since I've been here, which I suppose is a little disappointing because I don't get to do as much of the farming 'ideal' as I hoped. Though I consider myself slightly lucky also, because on one recent sunny day, I did two shifts of pulling 'hierba' manually with a weeding tool, and it is absolutely backbreaking. I think I knew this before, but I've never set to weeding in an Olympic-size field of crops. Perhaps you get used to it, because, predictably, Joan light-heartedly told me during one break that 'hombre, this is the warmup.' Even Grandma was, I estimate, three times faster than me when she came out in the late afternoon for a spell of weeding. I am intimidated to speak to her because I am scared she will not have patience for my Spanish, but we spoke a little as we walked back after rain prematurely ended our work, and she says her husband, Joan's father, also worked these fields, and Joan's grandfather as well.

Wow I could go take this entry in so many directions right now. Family history, Catalan culture, pesticides, daily work regimen. Actually, I think I will cover them all, breifly as I can:

1) Family history. It's amazing that Joan's family has been in this area, and farming the same fields, for so many years. It must really bind you to the land, and must also make for a different relationship to one's country. I keep meeting Europeans and I keep asking them how long their families have been in this country or that country. And almost always, the answer is, "forever." And that is crazy. The U.S. isn't like that, and though I think you learn about it early on in history class, I didn't really get it until I met all these Irish and Italian and Catalan folk who have always been in Ireland, Italy, and Catalunya.

2) Catalan culture. Analagous to the way I feel about having chosen Brown University, I feel that, though I did choose to work on a farm in Catalunya, and even got excited about it, I did not really understand why it was going to be such a good choice. Catalunya has its own language, its own cuisine, its own soccer team, its own television station. It is not just one of the many regions of Spain. I love geography, I love history, I love languages. And I didn't know anything about this place before I got here. It's pretty awesome, and I can't believe how much of it I am not going to get to see.

3) When Joan and I were taking that break (lying in wild-growing barley on the edge of his field) from weeding, he casually gesticulated the action of pouring pesticide on the crops and said, "well, we could do it like this, and save ourselves a lot of work." Once again, first-hand experience leads me to a new level of understanding, in this case why pesticide dominates aggriculture and is so difficult to dislodge.

and 4) Daily work regimen. Aside from pulling weeds (manually and with a lawnmower-type machine as well), I have broken pounds of pounds of walnut and almond shells, and I am rather adept at taking apart and putting back together tractors and other farming equipment. I've planted onions and lettuce, and picking peapods and broad beans is in the cards, which I believe means that by the end of this stint I will have both reaped and sowed.

See you soon Mom and Dad.

The Slow Life in Spain

sstolper — Sun, 18 May 2008 05:45:00 GMT

I live in a village with an estimated 50-70 residents. It's called Les Piles de Gaia. My host does not seem to know where it comes from. That is neither here nor there. I am living with a family in rural Catalunya, an hour and a half outside of Barcelona, Spain, and earning my dinner through hard labor.

It is an organic farm, though it has rained for parts of almost every day since I've arrived and the ground is too wet to be stomping all over the fields of garlic and onions and lentils and melons and tomatoes and peppers. So, I have mostly been apprenticing as a mechanic, taking apart and putting together farming equipment with Joan, who is the father of this family. This type of work is exposing my inadequacies as a true engineer while simultaneously building those skills up. Also my hands are getting real dirty and collecting cuts and bruises. Nothing like roughed up hands to make you feel like you are getting something done with your life.

The days are very similar. It is a weird feeling of timelessness, because of the pattern, and because of the isolated environment. I wake up at 745am, I eat an unhealthy breakfast which often includes rice milk (which I suppose is, in fact, healthy) and cookies. I get to work with Joan. I prepare lunch with him and we two and Marinella, his wife, eat a late lunch which includes a huge salad. Then its siesta time, and I read (I have now finished all my English language books and am going to start reading a Gabriel Garcia Marquez book from the stairway bookshelf) or try to lessen the mountain of unreplied-to emails that I have accumulated. There is an afternoon of work, and once the kids get home (Pol, Melissa, and Didac), I frolic with them until dinner time. The kids are 8, 7, and 4 years old, and very excited about my presence here. Today there were footraces, hide and seek, fishing in the artificial pond (for watering the backyard plants), and football on the menu of activities. After dinner, I drink tea and hang out watching TV (nightly Catalan-language gameshow) with Joan and Marinella until bedtime.

I am so content.

Each individual aspect of this experience, I can mutter it to myself and smile with wonder that it is happening. I am living, for a short time, in Catalunya (lest you not know, they speak a different language here (though they also know Castilian Spanish)). I am working for a man who values simple, sustainable food (how did I get so lucky to pick Joan and his family). I sleep in a cabin in the backyard. I have been welcomed into a beautiful family. I am concocting footraces with a 7-year-old amongst the stone houses of a small village. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Gallery: Anubis, Jackal-God of Egypt

sstolper — Fri, 16 May 2008 05:46:00 GMT

Ancient Egypt

Deserts of the World, Unite!

sstolper — Fri, 9 May 2008 03:10:00 GMT

Harold exposed my lack of travel experience amongst the mountains of the world. True, but I can take solace in my coverage of some of the great deserts of the world. I can count experiences in 5 sprawling expanses of nothingness. The character of each desert is different; but each time I go, I remember how amazing and ridiculous it is that these places exist in the world.

What follows is a breakdown:

The Negev Desert. Pale, greyer than you'd like, and too much barbed wire and power lines because of the significant activity of the Israeli super-military down here in the South of Israel. I don't think the Negev is special because of its physical beauty. It's special because its holy holy holy. Now I know that you see what you want to see, and that I can be over-romantic about the places I visit. But sitting in this desert after night falls, I have no problem conceiving of prophets jaunting through it. Also, it snowed here, and I ate the snow as I hiked down into a gigantic geological anomaly of a crater, the Makhtesh Ramon.

Wadi Rum. Great big crags plopped themselves in the desert and loom above tourist-fed village of Rum. I filled my shoes laboring up sand dunes the epitome of orange, and ran out of control down the dunes, smiling uncontrollably like a little kid. From the remote and picturesque camp, I casually walked off into the distance a bit to scramble on jutting outcrops seemingly made for impulsive climbing. The freshly slaughetered goat was saved for the bedouin nobility in the next tent, but at least they cooked the chicken in a pit covered with sand. This place is other worldly.

The Sinai Desert. Like I said before; who knows what this place looks like beyond its ominous mountain ranges lining the shores. All I know is that sitting on a silent beach under an umbrella, or lifting your head above water to take a break from snorkeling, you get a seriously incredible backdrop of desert peaks. Voyaging through the hills and valleys of this place, to be finally rewarded with the pristine red sea coast here, that is special.

The Eastern Desert. Egypt is even more barren than anyone could possibly think. Its the Nile Valley, and then its the desert. Lots of them. Surely-beautiful oases dot the expanses, but in between, I can't think of anything that fits the word desolate more perfectly. Between the Suez Canal and Cairo, there lies a dusty train, and there lies a collonade of trash from careless Egyptians over the decades of bumpy travails across this waste. And let me say. It's really, unbelievably hot. There is no respite from it. The gust of wind coming in from the train is intoxicating.

The Sahara Desert. I don't even know if I actually went here. Is the whole gigantic swath across Northern Africa called the Sahara? All Harold and I did was go a kilometer or so in from southern Morocco. You could still see the lights of Zagora on the horizon. And still. You could kind of tell that this desert was the real desert. This desert had gentle dunes bobbing up and down as far as you could see into the heart of the sandscape. It had the wind-carved patterns on those dunes. It had the sand swirling incessantly across the dunes, so you couldn't look straight on in that direction. You had to keep your back turned back towards civilization. No, you are not welcome here, turn back and go to your cities. I slept outside, on a mattress I dragged out of the tent, with a blanket and a pillow and my hoodie for protection from the sand. That's like the Mamluks showing up to a battle against the Ottoman Army with swords. I didn't stand a chance. At some point the wind started. It never stopped once. Any chink in your blanket-armor meant sand in your eyes. I struggled to get up in the middle of the night to survey the scene and consider moving inside (I did not). I had to burst out of a sand tomb first. You could not see the mattress when you stood up - overcome by the sand. I think this was probably the weakest sandstorm one could possibly experience, and it was pushing the limits of human comfort for us city folk.

But in the dead of night. Near nothingness. Can you hear the sound of nothing?

Gallery: Engineering an Empire

sstolper — Wed, 7 May 2008 07:58:00 GMT

Buildings of Cairo

Gallery: Three Countries and a Gulf of Aqaba

sstolper — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 02:11:00 GMT

Beach Tour

On the Cusp of Africa

sstolper — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:41:00 GMT

Chalk up the 3rd missed flight of my life. Not too good a record here, and that's not including all the trains and buses I've missed. But sitting on this balcony of the Hilton Hotel overlooking the Nile, I remember still how lucky I am to be here.

Not that I'm staying at the Hilton or anything - my brother and I are merely using the hotel as an oasis for rehabilitation from Cairo, a city with too much pollution, too much of the same questionable food, and too many squatting holes. The Hilton's got luxurious bathrooms, an Internet business center, and comfortable sofas where I can handwrite this here blog entry because I'm too cheap to pay for said business center.

Cairo, though, is quite bigtime. It just takes some effort and some knowledge to negotiate its masses. I could live here. Of course I say that about a lot of places. But its huge and begging to be explored. Its history is ridiculous, and you can see it in the early 20th century once-majestic now-crumbling architecture, and the 15th century once-majestic still-majestic mosques. This city has been the capital of so many empires - Fatimids, Ayyubids, Mamluks, Modern Egypt - that it surely has a place on the list of truly historically special cities; you know, the list with London, Paris, Istanbul, Delhi, etc. on it (though who am I kidding, I don't know what I'm talking about, I just like thinking about cities}.

Incidentally Harold and I are in the midst of a worldwide city draft, divided up into regions.

So. Seriously, Egypt's cuisine could use some improvement. I didn't realize this fact truly until my ever-opinionated brother arrived on the scene. But really, even in Jordan and the West Bank, which are nearby Arab places, the standard fare of falafel, ful, shawarma, and chicken is both better, and augmented with other more interesting options. I can't recall having one memorable meal in Egypt, except for when I had a pair of stuffed pigeons and Harold had rabbit for dinner, but that wasn't even that good, just novel.

In the face of this I still want to come back to Egypt. The fascination of Luxor's defunct Ancient Egypt and living ancient villages whet my appetite. Next time: Aswan and further south towards Sudan, to see the capital of Nubian Egypt and more of Ancient Egypt and Ramesses II's ridiculously epic Temple on the Nile at desolate Abu Simbel. Also a well-planned voyage to the Sinai for mosquito-less straw bungalows on the Red Sea, pristine and quiet snorkeling spots, and climbing Mount Sinai. The Sinai Hills rise precipitously from the coast into foreboding desert peaks, hiding the mysterious interior. Who knows what lay deep in its heart?

Of course I didn't even see any of Egypt's famed desert oases (and I don't mean the Nile Hilton Hotel}. But I saw a lot. Harold and I went to Alexandria and saw its modern re-incarnation of the Great Library, which was so extensive and magnificent as to re-inspire my faith in the power of education. I went myself to Port Said on the Mediterranean, dragged my feet along its shores in solitude before happening on a group of Egyptian fishermen hauling in a gigantic net with the daily catch. I watched giant cargo ships from London, Panama, Singapore ply the Suez Canal. I took a third class train back to Cairo and sat in the open door of the dusty car, legs hanging out of the train, looking out on the Eastern Desert passing me by. I saw the Pyramids, and the Sphinx, with my brother, and climbed into its cramped and humid interior, which was constructed, say, 4500 years ago. I did some things.

So tomorrow, Morocco, unless we miss our flight again.

Gallery: Frisbee in the Desert

sstolper — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 01:14:00 GMT

Wadi Rum

The House of Bondage

sstolper — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 05:43:00 GMT

Let me see if I can paint this extraordinary picture properly.

Just yesterday, I rode a train down the Nile Valley to Luxor, which was once known as Thebes, the legendary capital of Ancient Egypt's New Kingdom (think Ramesses and Tutankhamun). Now, Luxor is not just a big trashy tourist trap, as I had once dismissed it. It's a fascinating city split in half by the great Nile, with a populous semi-modern city on one bank, and two throwback Egyptian villages on the other bank. Its symmetrical swaths of fertility on either bank end abruptly in a sharp line parallel to the Nile, so you can see where the desert wilderness begins oh so clearly; this is normal for the Nile Valley. What's not normal is that the people of Luxor live in the shadows of some of Ancient Egypt's most epic monuments. Names like "Valley of the Kings", "Temple of Karnak", and "Colossi of Memnon".

At Karnak, there is a sign in the entryway to the main hall that reads: "You will not find a hall of this type equal in size, anywhere in the world." The columns dwarf you, and the heiroglyphs adorning every last cranny of the carved behemoth mesmerize you.

At the Valley of the Kings, you descend long hallways deep into the depths of the desert mountains towards tombs of the great, the godly, pharaohs of Egypt. In the best tombs, yellows and blues and clay reds paint a heiroglyphic picture even more ridiculous and beautiful than at Karnak Temple. And you think, this underground wonder was built, maybe 3000 years ago. Maybe a little more.

And I remember that it is Passover time, when we Jews like to celebrate leaving Egypt. Well. I have entered Egypt. And to think, I am treading the same ground that my enslaved forefathers trod, maybe building things like these tombs, these temples. I mean, if the Exodus happened at all, then it happened here, in Luxor.

And so I return that night to the modern capital of Egypt, having already located the Jewish Synagogue in the heart of downtown Cairo, and having met an Egyptian Jew named "Dvash" ("honey" in Hebrew), thus connecting me to the Cairene Jewish Community, ever small and struggling amongst a city of 20 million. The only article I read about Cairene Jews is that they are hiding. That their synagogue is more or less boarded up. That everyone had left by the 70s.

And now I know. Because I gave my passport to the army contingent in front of the Great Synagogue. And I spent the 1st night of Passover in Cairo, in the back of the Great Synagogue, with a motley crew of 75 odd Jews from all over the world and from all kinds of insane histories. An Israeli man happened to be in town this week and led the Seder. Of course you know who was the first to answer his call for help. I stood up and read once, and then again, and then again, a portion of the story of Passover. In Hebrew of course, because just like in early 20th century Palestine, tonight Hebrew was the unifying language among speakers of English, Arabic, French, Italian.

In the far corner of the room sat the eternally mighty Jewish Community of Cairo: five or six odd Egyptian Jewish women, married to Muslim men, kids grown and gone, and in their seventies or later, all of them. During the Seder, they were the ones making the most noise, needing to be shushed. During the song 'Dayenu', at every chorus they issued shrill cat calls before bursting out laughing amongst themselves.

I interview curiously the woman across from me, Magda, a surprisingly younger mother at the table. Her niece was with her. Magda's family came originally from Syria, Iraq, Iran, but has been in Egypt for a hundred years. Her father was a staunch socialist, but after 1948, and then 1956, and then 1967, the family disapproved of Israel's actions. As everybody else left to escape the fear and compromise of living as Jews in Egypt, her family stayed. To this day they have not been to Israel, by choice, and by principle. Magda's father was never big on faith and prayer. But the sense of identity was strong. And so the struggle to instill Jewish identity in her kids continues, in the face of an Egypt that isn't really ready to fully, uniformly accept Jews. Her niece must be close to my age. And I would guess she is the only young Egyptian Jew in the entirety of Cairo's masses. 1 in 20 million maybe.

Perhaps this, yet again, is why I travel.

Gallery: The Real World, Petra Basin

sstolper — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 20:33:00 GMT

Southern Jordan

Roses and the Bedouin Mafia

sstolper — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:43:00 GMT

I think I will add both Petra and Wadi Rum to the short list of Wonders of the World that I've seen. Of course Petra already had official status as such in the latest vote on such Wonders. But it's every bit as incredible as one might think. When a fellow traveler says to you, "It's great, you'll love it", he doesn't even begin to paint the picture.

By all accounts, it's not possible to get to Petra too early, because so many tourists come that it can hamper the experience. But I got there too ealy. Like, before it was light enough to traverse the Siq, or narrow canyon entryway, into the ancient Nabatean site. I waited alone in the desert until the sky got light enough at 5 AM. And then i walked, and walked, and the Siq never ends, until finally you see the huge colums down at the end of the alley, a sneak preview of the epicness to come. The Treasury, which is the building from Indiana Jones, greets you as the first and most ridiculous of the old tombs. I had the Rose City, this Wonder of the World, to myself for an hour. Pretty unbelievable.

The rest of the day I spent climbing up and down and through paths and non-paths among inscriptions and cisterns and more tombs and the orange rocky mountains of the area, meeting bedouins, ones with tea and goats, ones with cell phones, ones who sleep in the desert and race donkeys. I didn't know that the entirety of the Petra Basin is a world to explore, its not just the old buildings that are amazing. You could spend days here.

And the next morning, I was on my way to another incredible exhibit of Mother Nature, though marred by a network of Arabian thieves the length of Jordan. The supposedly public bus was in act private, and by the end of the journey to Wadi Rum, the bus attendant had extracted five dinars from us for a two dinar busride, and everyone on the bus had been signed up for the same Bedouin tour guide at our destination. Arrival at the entrance to Wadi Rum was a glimpse at moneyed Muslim mafioso joking around and drinking tea in their long white robes. Our guide was clearly anything but sincere. We (me and my new friends) held out from paying until the end, but I was quite scared that our guide was going to put a shiv in my back in the darkness of the tent that night, or else the village shiekh was going to take us hostage and extract further large sums of money.

No matter. I am in one piece and glad to have seen the great Valley of Rum. People in Israel like to talk up the Negev desert; I guess it's holy, I'll give them that. But I have not seen a desertscape as hauntingly beautiful as this Rum, ever. HUGE formations, shapes never to be repeated even once over the expanse of the region, things to climb for miles. Aaron, who needs to climb trees when you have gigantic pock-marked rocks looking off into the desert nothingness. Everything fascinated me: shimmering beetles crawling by their lonesome; footprints in the sand of prowling pumas; gigantic sand dunes that challenge you to climb, sliding back downwards with every step. The Bedouin financial tactics were frustrating, but desert's silence and dominance erases your memory of yesterday, and even today.

So it was nice. And so we journey down to Aqaba, and then the next day I left the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, hopefully not for ever. The Hebrew signage and casually-dressed man with a machine gun were in fact an incredibly good feeling for me when I got to the Israeli border - I felt like I was coming home again. Arabia really is a foreign place.

The home feeling is a short-lived one. I'm off to Egypt momentarily. Wish me luck.

Fresh Carrot Juice in the Hashemite Kingdom

sstolper — Fri, 4 Apr 2008 04:44:00 GMT

Now starting at center midfielder for Real Jordan Rift Valley...

Right. I'm in a new country for the first time since I left America. It's different. They don't speak English in Jordan like they do in Israel. It's for the best. My Arabic is still in a sorry state but getting better fast.

Jordan's tourist sites, with the exception of Petra, appear to be rather understated, but in many cases turn out to be totally epic. The Romans romped around here for a while I guess, and a lot of their work is still around. Anyways it's not the Romans I came to meet in Jordan, it's the Jordanians, or, as it turns out, the Palestinians, because everyone here is Palestinian except for one traffic policeman I met.

There aren't very many non-Arabs in Jordan. I may have looked generally Semitic with a buzzed head, but it's pretty clear I'm a foreigner now, and probably Jewish. No matter; I've only lied once about my religion, and was rewarded with a Free Palestine-Boycott Israel sticker. And, though I feel conspicuous when I first set foot in each new town or city, I quickly become comfortable, to the point where I can confidently stroll instead of timidly tip-toe with my head down.

As advertised, the Jordanian people are very helpful and welcoming. I've gotten free meals, invitations to homes, and escorts to the bus station. As in the West Bank, Arabs seem to do a lot of chilling. My American walking partner suggested that that's just because there's a lot of unemployment. But I don't think that explains it fully. The Middle East is not as saturated with "things", and additionally I think a choice is made to spend more time sitting and talking. It means that they have a lot more time for the rest of the world than Americans sometimes do. I can easily be merged into a late afternoon loitering session by the Mosque. So when I return home, I intend to personally begin a new representation of American hospitality.

The talking I've done has really shone some new light on the Arab, and Muslim perspective. Much like the Judaism at the Ultra-Orthodox Yeshiva, I find myself exposed to rather convincing arguments about Islam's beauty and the Palestinians' struggle. I begin to see exactly how America is viewed by this part of the world. Really, I think anybody who is going to make a bold judgment about America's democratic or imperialist agenda, or Israel's struggle for survival or occupation, they ought to just talk to one Arab living in the Middle East. Once again, I realize that I can theorize all I want, but until I experience something first-hand, until I actually walk around a city in Jordan, read a newspaper there, meet a person there, I don't really know what's going on.

I've been to Irbid, Jerash, Ajloun, and Amman, and been fascinated by them all, but it's, perhaps predictably, the way of life that is most interesting.

And also the hillside villages that I can't stop immortalizing with my camera.

Gallery: His Majesty Abdullah II

sstolper — Fri, 4 Apr 2008 04:11:00 GMT

Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan