(Spain)...Finally, there is a two-day pause in the ups and downs of the World Cup. The contest is down to the last eight countries, and I am very happy England is one of them. In the English press, the England team can either be heroes or villians, with no shades of grey inbetween, and when in years past they have been branded villians, the fact that the team consistently under-achieves is wheelbarrowed out again. But also is the following fact: that however bad we are, the Spanish are worse. In the narrow view of the English press, this constitutes some type of victory. Over what I don't know? Paella, extreme temperatures, that we still administer Gibraltar?
I am a real fan of Spain. I love going there, I love its literature, I love its food. Spain was defeated yesterday by a suddenly reconstituted France, although the lead-up to the second French goal was highly dubious. I visited Spain only last August, driving from Madrid (which I still not have been to yet) across the Alcarria, a dry, seldom-visited area that was famously chronicled in the Camilo José Cela travelogue Journey to the Alcarria (Viaje a la Alcarria) published in 1948.
Some very ugly houses are being built on hillsides with no thought as to sightlines and aesthetics, but the area still remains distant and evocative, what some people would no doubt term the Real Spain or Old Spain. Cela won the Nobel Prize in 1989 (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1989/cela-bio.htm), although many Spaniards think Miguel Delibes (http://servicios.nortecastilla.es/delibes) deserved it more.
Pastrana was the town we stopped in, and its water fountain looks no different in 2005 than it did in one of Cela's photographs inside the book. It is about 40 miles east of Madrid. It was hot there. We noticed that at junctions (and the streets are narrow hereabouts), the openings to the streets were blocked off by green steel grates that a human could just about squeeze through. After seeing several, I realised that on that day there was to be an encierro de los toros, a running of the bulls.
That this took place, despite all the books on Spain I have enjoyed, anywhere other than at the San Fermin festival in Pamplona had never occurred to me. We were thrilled. An hour later, sitting on the top of a temporary wooden barricade, crammed in amongst the Pastranese, we awaited the cannon roars that firstly announced there would be ten minutes to go, then, that there would be two minutes, and, lastly, that the bulls were on their way. The young men of the town sprinted down the street with the black, glistening bulls hot on their step.
The bulls smashed through a stone portal leading to the main square and charged up main street to where 40 minutes before we had been eating pastries. I seem to remember that there were eight bulls. A little later, they reversed their route, but after the fourth or fifth sally, they appeared to be becoming tired of the chase, although no doubt still deadly. I can only imagine that the bulls they choose for the San Fermin are among the superstars of bull meanness and athleticism, while the bulls smaller towns are able to procure are of relative worth. I had a great time nonetheless.
The oldest encierro, I later discovered, was in a town called Cuéllar, 120 miles north of Madrid. My friend Jaime had to go there to help some friends run a bar during that town's medieval festival, and he asked if I wanted to go along. So, that was how we drove from his home in Valencia back up through Spain, past Madrid, and on.
Cuéllar also is fairly forgotten, the nearest people usually get to it being Segovia, but it is a fine place. I attended the fair, hacked pieces of the famous jamón ibérico de bellotas, Iberian pigs fed solely on acorns, off a specially constructed stand only used for balancing pigs' legs, listened to a travelling flamenco band (see the photo above) and drove to such isolated places as Coca, Fuenterrebolla, Peñafiel, Turégano, Sepúlveda and Burgmillodo, near to which is a large population of Griffon vultures.
In August — traditionally the month one is told to miss Europe, but a month in which I found travelling excellent — things do not start up in small towns until late, when the residents have recovered from the excesses of the night before. Wandering at around 10 or 11 in the morning makes you feel that you have the whole place to yourself. With wonderful traditions and scenery such as this, one cannot bemoan the lack of Spanish football success too much, although that argument might not be too sound if one tried to make it to me about England.

(Peru/Colombia)...It very much looks as though this year's holiday plans will be to go to South American. I like it there very much. Two small settlements in South America I enjoyed tremendously. The first is in Peru and is called Lampa. I went there as I made what is not the world’s worst travel mistake, but still one that incapacitated me somewhat: Flying directly from the sea level of Lima to the approximate height of 13,000 feet of Juliaca, an hour by bus from Lake Titicaca. Breathing was a problem, and a slight headache did not leave me for all my first day there.
The flight was on Aero Continente, via Arequipa, and I swear the craft was equipped with car sea belts. The other passengers all appeared to be the stoic Andean of cliché, all bowler hats and a lack of emotion. Walking down the steps at Juliaca’s Aeropuerto Internacional Inca Manco Cápac, named after the founder of the Incan dynasty and with the longest runway, apparently, in Peru (probably something to do with the thin air), llamas nudged up. I wanted to visit one of the islands in Lake Titicaca, but I was told there were 600 steps from the boat dock to the island’s village, and that was too much, I felt.
So, I went back to Juliaca and then took a bus to Lampa, named the La Ciudad Rosa, the rose-coloured city. The rickety bus left when full, and the tarmac ran out after one kilometer. Dust storms turned out to be buses coming in the opposite direction; two buses had broken down. Lampa appeared thin and wide on the horizon between a range of dun-coloured hills. Nothing looked red. A central square featured a dry garden, a church and a shop selling stationery, while narrow streets went off in all directions, one leading to a barbershop with no door but only a window for entry. Looking for a bus back to Juliaca, I saw only buses going to a festival. It was full of school children and parents, and the roofs were cluttered with furniture, cooking utensils and boxes of food.
I found out that the festival was in a place called Tucini. I asked where it was and received shrugs. Enough people seemed eager for me to go, so in I went. My bus rattled along a road that I did not see when I entered the town, and we slowly drove over rivulets and up hills. After 40 minutes, we reached Tucini, high on the Altiplano. It consists only of a large stone barn and some livestock pens, and a thin river between two steep slopes on which sat hundreds and hundreds of Incan people, those same bowler hats and stern gazes. It was wonderful. I took photos and smelled the smells of cooking.
Young children were the first to smile. I could not speak Spanish in 1998, so my conversation was returned in smiles, but I felt — hopefully not arrogantly — that I was somewhere where Westerners had not trod. I have since looked for Tucini, and the name was written down for me on a piece of paper, on several maps and have not found it. The second town is in Colombia and called Villa de Leyva. It remains little known due to Colombia’s sad recent history (improving now, though), but if this nation was less dangerous to travel in, it would be on every single itinerary. It is the perfect colonial town, with the country's largest square, and enough wealthy Bogatanos to keep things interesting and well kept.
The square’s only feature is a small fountain in the middle, while around its edges are two- and three-storey houses and a church past which children automatically cross themselves, even when running. I stayed in a cottage I rented about a kilometre along another dusty lane. The cottage overlooked rolling farmland and the occasional cow, as well as a house called La Casa del Alemán, the House of the German. I could not find out why, but my active imagination decided it was because it had to have been a former residence of Carlos Lehder, a ruthless member of Pablo Escobar’s Medellín cartel, who was of German origin.
Supposedly, the grander of Villa de Leyva’s homes were owned by narcoterrorists, but they had long gone, replaced by the richer residents of Bogotá, Colombia’s capital, 150 kilometres to the southwest.
The only odd episode I saw there was on the way in, at around 9 p.m., when an army unit stopped me. Before they had time to talk, a car in the distance stopped, turned its lights off and started reversing at speed. The soldiers, all very young, instantly forgot about me and sped off in pursuit. I went to hear Mass one morning for the novelty value, and when it had finished — the hidden, chanting, singing nuns proved magnificently atmospheric — a line of horses were railed outside for rent. I am not a horseman, but I took one to see a site called El Infiernito, which contains a series of monoliths shaped like phalluses. The ticket collector seemed very surprised to see a visitor.

(Kaua'i, USA)...I, like the vast majority of the members of the planet, am watching avidly the World Cup finals from Germany. Being English, mostly of my interest is in how England perform. (Not so well at the moment, with one game down, but it is early days, and the players complained of nerves and not being used to the heat, so I am not worrying yet; indeed, we won our first match, against Paraguay.) Paraguay is supposedly weird. Two pieces of writing I have read about that landlocked South American country. The first was one chapter in Pico Iyer's Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of The World, in which he writes of places that are for differing reasons "strange," such as Paraguay, North Korea, Argentina and Bhutan.
This chapter, like all the book, is based on his own experiences. The second book, John Gimlette's wonderful At the Tomb of the Inflatable Pig: Travels through Paraguay, uses first-hand knowledge, too, but also a great deal of history, and it is an odd history. Despotic leaders, crazed dictators, wild Irish first ladies, incredibly badly thought out wars against huge and powerful foes, wild spending sprees, economic disasters, remote Mennonite settlers and hunted Nazis on the run, just to name a few of the settlers and problems that have decided to visit this unknown nation.
The stranger countries, at least to my thinking, in the World Cup include Togo, Angola and Switzerland (I watched this team play France today, and for some reason I find it odd that Swiss people play the game. I do not know why?). I would like Togo to do well, but I do not think they will. Its population is less than six million, and life expectancy is less than 60. I have probably mentioned before that I like countries and islands that are hard to get to. I imagine Togo is like that.
I do not for a moment think I am alone in this desire, and I am no longer ever surprised if I see a tourist/traveller in a place that supposedly no one is supposed to go to. (I will write in another post about Lampa in Peru, the one place where I did feel that I on behalf of Westerners was treading new steps .) Several months ago I was in the Hawaii'an Islands for work. The organisers of the trip offered the six or seven journalists in attendance a choice of island to visit after we had all been to O'ahu. This choice had to be selected before we flew to the islands. By chance, everyone chose Big Island. Except me. I chose Kaua'i. I chose it simply because it was the farthest away.
I did not even need to research all the island possibilities, this Aladdin's Cave of selections. It was just the farthest one away. When I landed, I picked up a car and drove west. It is not a large island. After 25 or so miles, I turned right and headed up the beautiful Waimea Canyon, which is just as staggering to see as is Arizona's Grand Canyon. Long, thin waterfalls cascade down red, green and yellow mountain sides; rain can be seen falling far from where you stand in the dry, and the road climbs and winds and occasionally leads to a lookout. Also beautiful is the spectacular Na Pali coastline to the north of the island.
The two-mile walk to the beach at Hanakapi'ai takes about two hours, the path narrow and steep. The currents here are treacherous (see the photo above, and the warning on the trail's official Web site (http://www.hawaii.gov/dlnr/dsp/NaPali/na_pali.htm); on my hike there I saw a man dive out of the thickets with a severed goat's head tied to his rucksack across a bow and arrow. People live out there, probably, seemingly, disillusioned middle-class white Americans. Back to the canyon, as I drove up the Koke'e Road, I noticed something in my mirror, a long, thin, grey island with a hill to one side. It lay out in the Pacific Ocean, across the Kaulakahi Channel from Kaua'i. All alone. This is Ni'ihau, one of the strangest places of all.
This is a private island, and we cannot go there, unless one is invited, which is less likely to happen than is Togo likely to win the World Cup. It is owned by the Robinson Family, which has interests in sugar cane. The two remaining Robinson brothers offer helicopter trips over the island, with perhaps a touchdown in a remote spot, well away from the one village, Pu'uwai, which sits on the island's west, therefore impossible to see from Kaua'i. At today's prices, a half-day excursion there costs $375; groups of four can hunt boar, wild sheep and some form of ibex for something in the region of $5,000. The 72 acres of island supposedly retain the only pure-bred Hawaii'ans on the planet, some 200 of them. Not really enough people quite yet to form a football team able to threaten Brazil, Germany, Italy or England.

(Chile)...The editor of one of the magazines within the publishing company I work for just returned from a few days in Argentina and Uruguay. I mentioned to him before he left that perhaps a day trip from Buenos Aires to the UNESCO World Heritage site of Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay would be fun and worthwhile, and, indeed, he received the same recommendation from two Argentines he met while down there. It is like Buenos Aires used to be, they told him.
So, my editor friend went, but he was not so impressed. He said the colonial district comprised only shops, with handicrafts so basic as to be amusing, such as ordinary notebooks decorated with pictures cut out from magazines. The beaches are gorgeous there, he added. He also said that he was happy he now can tick off Uruguay from his list of places-to-go. I still want to go to Colonia, and, indeed, if one comes there from Argentina, Colonia cannot be avoided. Still, perhaps the idea is to plan to travel farther in land after Colonia.
All the travelogues I have seen written on Uruguay have the writer invariably travelling along the coast road to the towns of Carmelo, Dolores, Mercedes, Fray Bentos (of canned-meat fame; I think I remember the Fray Bentos company of the same name almost disappearing following a salmonela outbreak that no one could definitely prove started at its factory, in the 1970s) and Paysandú, before crossing back to Argentine soil. There must be another way, one that would also avoid Punta del Este. One town I keep hearing about is Tacuarembo, which hosts an annual gaucho festival, but who knows what is to be seen there outside the festival month of March. The editor in question brought me a wonderful gift, a disc of plastic that on one side says Islas Malvinas, with a picture of the Falkland Islands coloured blue, white and blue after the Argentine flag, and on the other, the words Para Siempre Argentinas, or Forever Argentine.
It is fantastic, but in order not to tempt fate I will keep it to one side during the World Cup Finals, which begin this Friday in Germany. The Falkland Islands — okay, the Islas Malvinas — must seem like the end of the world. I think the father of a friend of mine has been there. I have not, but I have been to Puntas Arenas in Chile, which must have a similar feel. I can report that at this Patagonian outpost, almost as far south as you can go on mainland South America, certainly the last spot of any size, the End of the World is marked by a broken-down roundabout of the children's-playground variety that sits on a stony beach looking out at a grey stretch of the Magellan Strait beneath a darker grey sky and pointing towards the wilderness of Tierra del Fuego.
I recently read about the "savage" Tierra del Fuegians in a wonderful travel adventure called Sailing Alone Around the World by Captain Joshua Slocum that I saw a few days ago was one book always recommended by Arthur Ransome, the writer of the wonderful Swallow and Amazons (http://www.humboldt1.com/ar) series of books that I devoured as a child. Ransome once said, "Boys who do not like this book ought to be drowned at once." Quite right. Swallows and Amazons, as well as the Coot Club series by Ransome, was my introduction to reading, and I remain forever grateful. Slocum had several adventures with the Tierra del Fuegans; I just saw many postcard displaying ancient photos of costumed members of a now-extinct race.
Punta del Arenas is a delightful place. A central square with a small cathedral to one side leads to a wonderful eerie museum, the Braun-Menéndez Mansion, that once was the house of local entrepreneurs. Grim-faced ancestors dot the dark-wood walls, and around and down the back of the house is a wonderful café that should be more frequented. I walked up and out of town, to its suburbs, and bumped into my guide, Yerko Vera Mella, who invited me to his house and then to his mother's house where I met said mother and his sister, who was looking after his newborn baby. Everyone welcomed me. When I was young in northwest Kent we played a game on the roundabout at the Erith Rec, a local park.
It was called "London." The game would start by everyone chanting L O N D O N spells London, and then the person who was the "catcher' would try and tag the other players who were standing around in different spots on the roundabout, which, unlike the one photographed above, had open metal sides that joined to a point above our heads. Keeping this frame intact were three levels of horizontal metal tubes, and these were the ones players could stand and manoeuvre around on, doing so as the roundabout span around rapidly. Altogether a very dangerous game, it seems to be now. Back in Punta Arenas, a steep, nontarmacked road led farther out of town and ended at a halfbuilt boat that when finished — if ever finished — will take days and days to be dragged to reach the sea. It looked like an arc, and who is to say it wasn't.
The path — actually I was making me own paths by this time — ran through a small wood and down through some narrow streets lined with bungalows and untidy gardens. A small army garrison protected the area from the threat of Argentina, and occasionally I would see a scraggle of camouflaged youngsters stumble down the steep roads towards town and to the spot where I have no doubt the world comes to a halt.

(Morocco)...I have only been to Africa on two occasions, both times to Tangiers in Morocco, which is rather like saying one has been to and knows of Mexico by only having ever gone to Tijuana, which is close to the truth, as I have been to Cancún and the Yucatan Peninsula, and only there, twice. Tangiers (Tanger, Tangier) is a maze of alleys. The first time I was there was in 1990, and two memories stand out. The first was when some masonry fell off a building and landed by my feet. The locals showed great concern, one leading me by the arm to a shop, which surprisingly did not belong to an uncle, relative-in-law or childhood friend. It was around the time of Bush War One, and Morocco had dipped its oar in with the Friends of the Coalition, or whatever spurious title at that time had been given to the U.S.-backed alliance. "It's Saddam," one person joked, as to the cause of the falling stucco or wall remnant.
The second vivid recollection was the smell of the souk following a five-minute rain storm. The humidity literally bounced back with vengeance, and the pungency of rotting herbs, spices, fruits and vegetables was what I imagine Victorian chroniclers would refer to along the lines of a "rude affront to one's delicate sensibilities." The smell filled my lungs, not just my nose, but I think I was still enjoying myself immensely.
My return was in 2004, and this time I was part of a press trip, not travelling under my own steam. Our guides were adept at getting us from the ferry to the "safety" of a restaurant, where I refused to wear a Berber hat while being photographed with the very nice members of the house band (the photo someone did take of me shows me appearing to be speaking Arabic to my new best friend, sharing some hugely witty repartee, which was definitely not the case, unfortunately. He spoke English, which depressed me; not his ability to do so, but my ability not to be able to speak Arabic back to him).
From the restaurant our handlers adeptly moved us without incident (a lucky escape, I think they called it) to a carpet warehouse. I took one spin around and moved towards the door. "Do not leave," a sentry uttered, "it's dangerous out there." "No, it's not," I replied. I left and was immediately surrounded by hawkers, but they tend to become bored with me, although that is still a 15-minute process, as I do not become rattled. I began talking to a shop owner who did not seem at all interested in my potential custom, and we chatted in Spanish while watching a television- and radio-repair man stare through a magnifying glass squashed into the round of his eye in a shop that he — a thin man — must have daily dificulty getting into and seated. I had a fabulous time, depite the whole day being billed as the "Two Lands, Two Worlds, One Day" Tour.
Anyone who has read the literature of Spain or especially heard its music knows that tag line is bosh. I managed to even get out of the city itself that time to head to the other Pillar of Hercules, the Cap Spartel, which contains the Grottes d'Hercules, the Caves of Hercules, as opposed to the Rock of Gibraltar, which is a curious place worthy someday of another letter on this blog.
I made the stupid error of pointing my camera towards an army building, albeit a building standing alone with no soldiers nearby and nothing else apart from a sign saying "Army" to distinguish it from any other building in the area.
A policeman whistled, I raised my hand as though to say sorry and pointed my camera to take the photo above. It is one of my favourites, although it is on a small digital camera and has a resolution more minuscule than the IQ of a gnat. I would like to know how to make a 72-dots-per-inch digital photo larger in scale, without reducing quality, but I suspect that this is not possible to do. The photo reminds me of Paul Bowles' wonderful novel The Spider's House (http://www.paulbowles.org), from scenes in which members of Morocco's independence movement skulked around his pages.
I expect the woman in the photo was concealing some item or mission, don't you? I wonder what the Arabic on the wall says? Probably something very trivial that would spoil the current riot of my imagination. I saw Paul Bowles once, in New York City. He was here for surgery, and someone persuaded him to speak at the New School. I had to sign up as though taking a semester-long class in order to purchase my ticket, rather than just immediately hand over some cash. He looked ill and was brought out in a wheelchair. He read from one of his novels, and then answered questions from a mediator. It was interesting.
There was no signing of books, and I winced when I saw one fan come to the event wearing a djellaba, or jellaba, the heavy winter type, not the thin summer one, and in July. I expect she was hoping he'd see her across the audience and make some sort of connection. (There's a book store in New Orleans, on Pirate's Alley, that had in 1995 a whole series of signed Bowles books, which I later realised had all been signed when Bowles was in the States for the penultimate time and also for surgery. That time he, obviously, had signed some books, perhaps stunned by post-surgery medicines and across his hospital bed. One can only guess at what these books are passing hands for now?) Talk has been of another trip to Africa, this time to Mali. I hope this happens, although it would be easier to do this from my original home of London. Perhaps not that much easier. From Paris, yes.

(Panama)...In April in Panama, I left for a walk away from the very pleasant hotel in which I was lodged during a hotel’s grand-opening celebrations (musician and actor Ruben Blades was there, as was the country’s president, Martin Torrijos, son of former president Omar, who brokered the deal with U.S. president Jimmy Carter to get Panamanian control over the Panama Canal; by the way, that’s two Martins in as many blog entries). I turned left up a path called the Sendero del Bosque (“Path of the Woods’) that rises quickly and stops first at the hotel’s water tank. The scenery got better. Up and down the path went, and I saw wonderful creations such as Geoffroy’s tamarin (a monkey) and Snowy-bellied hummingbird (quite obviously a bird). After 30 minutes, including one very steep ascent that someone had tried to make easier by placing concrete slabs as steps, although the ones at the top have long since tumbled down to dusty deaths, the path reaches a right angle next to some leftover U.S. army ordinance to become more and more inconclusive. Ants ran rampant. Just as it exited to a road, I saw one of the most amazing, if not the most amazing, birds in all my travels, a Lance-tailed manakin, with a black body, powder-blue back, scarlet head and two small, sticklike (well, lancelike) tail feathers.
The Long-tailed manakin is exactly the same, but with a much longer tail, so perhaps it is more spectacular than my find, but I was impressed nonetheless with the way nature rarely gets it wrong.

The hotel's website— the inn I stayed at being the InterContinental Playa Bonita — is this: http://www.playabonitapanama.com. The road the path fell out onto is a busy one, with cars, buses and lorries spouting carbon monoxide as they make their way from Veracruz to Panama City. I walked to Veracruz, about four miles in distance.
The road travels through a treed area before dropping down to an attractive beach lined with tourist-season restaurants with outdoor eating areas. An island to my left could be reached at low tide. The Restaurante El Darién seemed interesting, as I have always wanted to go to the Darién Gap bordering Colombia. I tried to organise a visit on this trip, but the dates of excursions there did not gel with my schedule, and warnings of the dangers of travelling there alone — ne’er-do-wells, Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia guerrillas, deadly poisonous snakes, etc. — have I think not been consistently documented just to waste time and ink. After 30 more minutes I met Eduardo, a dentist who spoke English and worked for many years in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He warned me of the delights in store in Veracruz.
According to his conversation — he accompanied me on his morning, swimming-costumed walk along the beach before driving to Panama City where now he teaches dentistry at a university — Veracruz is not too far behind Darién in its general nastiness. When the United States bombed Panama in 1989 (Operation Just Cause was its wonderful name), he continued, it decided to concentrate its mighty arsenal on the very poor neighbourhood of El Chorrillo, hardly a place any of then-Panamanian president Manuel Noriega’s henchmen would be languishing. Many people were made homeless, and in the confusion, many people suddenly found themselves sprung from jail. Eduardo claimed that this fringe-living mix of life’s unfortunates was packed off to live where no one could see them and presumably the Panamanians could keep an eye on them, that is, Veracruz.
Eduardo also warned that it was the main portal of drugs entering the country. It seemed perfectly pleasant to me, but I was there at 10 a.m. Two Kuna indian women, from the Panamanian-Caribbean islands collectively called the San Blas, walked along the street, children played and an Irish woman who grew up in Tanzania warned me about the snobs now buying property in Boquete, in the west of the country, who were hated by the über-snobs who moved there 10 years before, who were hated by...All seemed to me to be excellent.
I stopped for an espresso and two empanadas at a dirty, roadside stop within which the El Salvadorean flag fluttered. Who could guess at all the myriad tales of all of these refugees? I walked up a side street and took a photo of an old, toothless man wearing orange who patted down his hair and shifted to the side of his door when I asked him if I could photograph him. (When I had the photo developed, I noticed the man’s address in the top lefthand corner of his door, so I sent him a copy; perhaps he got it.) He’s from England, this man told a passer-by, who shrugged his shoulders, not at all interested, which is just the way it should be.