(El Salvador)...This Central American country does not have the range of natural wonders as does Costa Rica, but as the southernmost extremity of the Mayan world, there are several archaeological sites of interest. The most important, Joya de Ceren, was a pre-Hispanic village that like its more famous sisters, Herculaneum and Pompeii in Italy, was buried under volcanic ash. The disaster has been dated to around 600 A.D.; soon after its re-discovery in 1985, Joya de Ceren became a UNESCO site. Many artifacts still are on display, a sauna was uncovered and more than one perfectly preserved skeleton was unearthed. The site was interesting but overall left me cold, and what interest I did have was eroded by the very nice tour guide feeling she had to explain every single artifact and faded poster, and in depth. I sneaked away from her several times to ostensibly look at the Blue-crowned motmots that were flying around and perching on the wires surrounding the artifacts. 
I was more excited to go to Santa Ana, which since I first read of it in a travel book by Paul Theroux, seemed to me one of the places I should one day visit. Its cathedral dominates the town, but the town in turn is dominated by the 2,365-metre Volcán de Santa Ana (the country's highest), my best view of which was from the banks of the country’s largest lake, the Lago de Coatepeque. Back in Santa Ana, I gravitated towards the city's wonderful theatre, which was being repaired. Its creaky floors, heavy door and wooden paneling evoke the ghosts of turn-of-the-century playwrights and actors. It was opened on February 27, 1910.
The city also is home to a spectacular coffee called Aida's Grand Reserve Peaberry, although I highly suspect that this is the name written only on bags intended for export. How much is exported at $25 per 340 grammes, I do not know. It is available in the United States (I just did a search) now, and, equally wonderful, it is produced at a Santa Ana farm called Finca Mauretania, which gave me an excuse to dream about travelling to that West African nation, even though the spelling is slightly different. We drove by the farm — at the time I did not know of its coffee — and I remember being happy at seeing the word Muaretania in El Salvador. Perhaps "Mauretania" does mean "Land of the Moors, a throwback to Arabic influence in Spain, El Salvador's former motherland. Aida has nothing to do with the chain of coffee shops of the same name in Austria, by the way; also, by the way, Aida is finca owner Aida Batlle, a surname also shared by a recent but ex-president of Uruguay, Jorge Batlle Ibáñez, which is the only reason I know how to pronounce it. Actually, four Uruguayn president have been Batlles. That's a lot of Batlles in such a small country. The photo above was taken as I drove back from Santa Ana towards the capital, San Salvador. 
The nearby town of San Juan Opico is noisy and covered with political graffiti, and from its small square several other volcanoes can be seen. One thing El Salvador does not lack for is volcanoes, the last serious eruption being on January 13, 2001; also in October that year, the coasts were battered by Hurricane Iris (three years after Hurricane Mitch), so the people slowly are being haunted from all directions, not least from the scars of the country’s civil war 10 years or so ago. I so hope that the country develops its tourism, but of all the countries in the region it seems to me that this one will have the hardest time achieving it. El Salvador, like Nicaragua, has a rule on its books deeming it illegal to cover over political graffiti that was produced during its years of struggle and civil war. This seems to be especially enlightened, the authorities quite rightly believing that these "documents" are a part of their cultural history and just as relevant and important, and therefore worth saving, as any piece of art or the insides of a church. 
When I arrived back in the capital San Salvador, I went for a walk. I was in the tourism district, where the hotels are, but after 30 minutes or so I found, 800 metres along a tall, white wall, what was literally a hole in the wall. I entered and found myself in an unpaved barrio of narrow alleys, patched-together cars and the inevitable parade of skinny dogs, colourful roosters and smiling children. A huge USA flag was painted on one car, which was parked outside a Seventh Day Adventist church. The priest invited me into the service, which basically was comprised solely of him singing hymns into a microphone. Everyone seemed very happy.
I looked for another way out of the community, but if there was a second door, or perhaps even a road, I did not find it. I did find myself later on walking up a dead-end path that led to a bottom of a cliff, a few ramshackle houses and a half-destroyed gazebo where a little boy kicked a football and shouted out what sounded like "Beckham, Beckham," after the English player David Beckham. In order to get back to my hotel, I had to walk all the way down a hill until the cliff disappeared, but in that way I did find a really cute café with Santa Ana coffee, although I am pretty sure it was not from Finca Mauretania.

(Hungary)...From page 508 of the 1973 Penguin edition of Jaroslav Hašek’s The Good Soldier Švejk and his Fortunes in the World War (in Czech: Osudy Dobrého Vojáka Švejka za svě Tové Války), translated by Cecil Parrott, come the lines... 


"…At the same time he got the order that out of these six crowns every man should deposit in the office here two crowns for the war loan….According to reliable information your brigadier has got paralysis.” “Sir,” said Captain Ságner, turning to the station commander, “according to regimental orders and our schedule we’re going to Gödöllö. The men have to get fifteen dekas of Emmentaler cheese here. At the last station they should have got fifteen dekas of Hungarian salami, but they didn’t get anything.” “I’m afraid they’ll get nothing here either,” the major replied, continuing to smile pleasantly. “I know nothing about any order of the kind for the regiments from Bohemia. Anyhow, that’s not my affair. Apply to supply command.” “When are we leaving, sir?” “There’s a train in front of you with heavy artillery bound for Galicia. We shall send it off in an hour, captain. On the third track there’s a hospital train. It’s leaving twenty-five minutes after the artillery. On the twelfth track we’ve a munitions train. That’s leaving ten minutes after the hospital train. Twenty minutes after that your train will be going.” “That’s to say, if there are no changes,” he added, continuing to smile so that Captain Ságner found him utterly revolting. “Excuse me, sir,” asked Ságner, “will you be so good as to explain to me how it comes about that you know nothing of any order of the kind for the issue of fifteen dekas of Emmentaler cheese for the regiments from Bohemia?” “That’s secret,” the station commander at Budapest replied, continuing to smile." 


I have just finished reading this wonderful anti-war book about the trials and tribulations — and above all good nature — of the soldier Josef Švejk. I, like him, albeit in more pleasant circumstances, walked through the Hungarian village of Gödöllö, 35 kilometres or so east of Hungary’s capital, Budapest.
Its main sight is the Lázár Lovaspark (www.lazarteam.hu), an equestrian and horse-breeding stable and lands for champion teams of show horses. I have a postcard of it on my work desk, a team of eight horses in three rows — two, three and three, respectively, away from the rider — bridled together and ridden by a man, dressed in a black hat and flowing blue garments, standing with one foot perched on each of the backs of the first two horses. From what is written on the front of the postcard it seems the park is actually in a smaller place near Gödöllö called Domonyvölgy, which gives me an excuse to write on line that wonderful name.
I went there one sunny morning in a May. The owner, Vilmos Lázár, was there. He won a World Championship gold medal in 1989, so the literature available told me, as a member of a Hungarian team that included, apparently, Mihály Fehér and Gábor Szegedi. He also came in third in the pair-driving World Championship held in the Hungarian town of Balatonfenyves, which I also visited to sample some wine. Undulating green fields contained strange-looking oxen with huge curving horns, and several thoroughbred horses charged around. A horse and cart delivered hay and was driven by two young men. I was brought a very good cup of coffee in a darkly paneled room covered in prizes, rosettes and photographs of past riders and horses. Nearby is the Grassalkovich Palace, also called the Gödöllõ Royal Palace, which seemed half way through some renovations. It is ornate, with touches of pink paint, a cupola and a large arch leading to a beautiful brick path and neat gardens.
At the back were two buildings yet to be restored that still showed vandalism — bullet holes, knife marks, general decay — left by Russian troops who were stationed here in the 1950s and 60s (see photograph above). Also on site was an exhibition on the Austro-Hungarian Empire’s Queen Elizabeth, better known as Sisi or Sissi, depending on one’s preferred spelling. Everywhere I have been in this region seems to have an exhibition on her, although this palace was more than entitled to one, considering she and her husband, Franz Josef, Emperor of Austria, spent their summers here. The guides even now haltingly admit that she suffered from what we now call either anorexia or bulimia. I am sure there is a difference between these two conditions, but I do not know what it is, and I cannot now remember which one they said she suffered from.
In addition, quite elatedly I discovered that Gödöllö was the site for the fourth World Scout Jamboree, held in 1933. The official badge of the event, with a gold border on a brown background, is of a jumping white stag. Lord Baden-Powell was welcomed to the event by Count Teleki, the Scout Movement’s Hungarian ambassador, and Admiral Horthy, Hungary’s Prince Regent. (Twelve years later all signs of aristocracy would have disappeared in Hungary.) Almost 30,000 scouts attended the jamboree, including six from Siam and 23 from Syria. One post soon I will tell of my interest in early English scouting movements, especially the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift set up by the Scout Movement’s original force John Hargrave.

(Mississippi, USA/Hungary)... The tourist brochures state that Robert Johnson, the King of the Delta Blues Guitarists, is “buried” in two places. After driving several kilometres west of Greenwood, Mississippi, I reached a small road that passes through the tiny town of Itta Bena. Long lines of fields ploughed in parallel lines permit the imagination to picture gangly, stooped cotton pickers; after another eight kilometres the road crosses a flat concrete bridge spanning an algae-covered pond full of snapping turtles.
A dirt track to the right leads to the Payne Baptist Chapel, behind which is a large patch of grass with 30 or so graves. After some searching, a flat tombstone marking Robert Johnson's final resting place was found beneath wind-blown straw. A simple epitaph reads: “Resting in the Blues.” Deserted, remote, poor, magical — some adjectives that could well describe Quito, Mississippi, a hamlet so small that on most maps it is not marked.
On the other side of the bridge is a run-down shack, and from this a motley family emerged, the young children wearing nothing from the waist down. This shack was formerly the Three Forks general store, where a jealous husband poisoned Johnson for supposedly cheating with his wife. That was in August 1938, when Johnson was 27 years old. Since that murderous day, the store has been physically moved to the main road — such as it is, dust and all, some three kilometres from its original spot. The original store sign is now in the Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale, 150 kilometres to the north, which also changed location some five years ago.
There is some dispute amongst Blues historians as to whether Quito or the Mt. Zion Baptist Church in Morgan City, five kilometres farther south on the same road, is the actual burial site of Robert Johnson. This church, though in better condition than the chapel, is equally remote. Commissioned by Robert Johnson's record company — which, with other labels, must have made millions of dollars from the record sales of numerous Blues legends, without, in most cases, paying their estates much in the way of recompense — the memorial lists his complete discography, which was recorded in only three sessions. Romantics will prefer Robert Johnson buried at Quito, I feel, but both sites give a fair impression of his resting at the edge of the world. I was listening to Robert Johnson as I travelled through Hungary two years ago.
I had no Hungarian music with me, save for an album by Musikas, featuring the voice of Marta Sebestyen, performing interpretations of Béla Bartók compositions. I'd played that one several times, so I went back to Johnson as I drove along the Danube Bend, where a certain something reminded me of the Mississippi. Communities along these two great rivers almost appear as though they do not fully exist. The rivers dominate, the villages and towns beg permission daily to be there. The castle at Visegrád overlooks a broad sweep of the river, but more than that I enjoyed the huge forests behind that dwarfed this imposing edifice. Built in the 13th century, the castle reached its height during the reign of Hungary's King Matthias Corvinus, and a pleasant museum — the papier-mâché peasants were very tacky — exists in its central tower. For a hundred years in the 15th and 16th centuries, the castle was in Turkish hands, but I think I would have preferred my luck with them, rather than the spa attendants I met at the nearby Hotel Silvanus.
It is interesting to note that Visegrád lent its name to a political movement set up to foster improved relationships between Central European countries. Formed in 1991, the Visegrád Group involved the leaders of Hungary, József Antall; the Czech Republic, Václav Havel, and of Poland, Lech Walesa. The ceremony marking this friendship was conducted at the castle and mirrored a similar pact held in 1335 that was attended by Antall, Václav and Walesa's predecessors, Charles Robert, King of Hungary; John of Luxembourg, King of Bohemia, and Casimir III, King of Poland.

(Alaska, USA)...The most beautiful camping spot I have ever seen was 60 kilometres along the Dinali Highway in Alaska. The Denali Highway goes west-east across Alaska from the main south-north highway that also to its left (that is, east-west) and a few miles farther north leads to Denali National Park and Mount McKinley, also known as Denali, just to confuse the issue.
Along the highway I did not see another car for 12 hours, and the only traffic seen were the swans, megansers and divers that swam silently across the lake; a ptarmigan that flitted through the brush, and on the other side of the dust road, which leads for 216 kilometres etween Cantwell and Paxson, beavers, scaup and Semipalmated plovers.
Alaska in June is glorious. From the tent, I could see the sun go from east to west and back again but never disappear from view. Snowy mountains stand resplendent among the purple hills and blue lakes. Built in 1957, the road itself is full of potholes and makes for slow going — I should not have been on it with a rented car (40 kilometres per hour proved my top speed), but I had seen so many recreational vehicles heading towards the national Park, the attraction of instead taking this lonely road was too much. Halfway along is the only place to eat and sleep, the Maclaren River Lodge.
They will also tow your broken-down car or fix your puncture, but anything of that nature in Alaska proves very expensive. Someone told me that $2,000 was the minimum fee, but he probably said this to impress me. It did not scare me off. Later on, I also went up the Dalton Highway, which leads from just above Fairbanks to the Arctic Sea at Deadhorse, 663 kilometres to the north (I stopped at the Arctic Circle, which is at 204 kilometres). Another wonderful spot in Alaska is the island of Kodiak, the United States’ largest island. The ferry takes about 12 hours from Seward on the mainland, and it is really the only way to get there apart from expensive, small jets.
There is a Russian Orthodox church there, and in the town, I saw people of Russian descent who live remote lives, come to town only perhaps once a month and speak only an old Russian. The first of these people came to the island in 1784, in a group led by fur trader Gregory Shelikhov. Now, elsewhere in Alaska, there are small communities of Russian Old Believers, who escaped persecution in Russia by coming here in the 1960s. These villages, with names such as Kachemak-Selo, Nikolaevsk, Razdolna and Voznesenka, are hard to reach and do not encourage visitors. I stayed at a campsite in Fort Abercrombie State Park, about six kilometers northeast of Kodiak. It is idyllic. A carpet of soft moss grows between the tall, widely separated pine trees. A beach borders one side of a small lake, and a group of friendly people shared with me their recently caught salmon. The site does have a military history, the U.S. Army constructing fortifications and armaments in 1939 against a possible Japanese attack.
The area was silent, and at the edges of the woodland are lush meadows with orchids and chocolate lilies. Looking over the cliff in the morning, I saw sea otters bobbing on their backs and breaking open seafood. Also, Harlequin ducks; Bald eagles flew overhead. A nearby walk is to Termination Point, which begins at the end of Monashka Bay Road, one of only a few roads on the island. Here, too, is a meadow, and in the distance one can see the island of Ouzinkie, which was home to St. Herman, the first canonized Russian Orthodox saint in North America.

(Italy/Portugal)...I have never felt much moved to adopt religion, but I have always enjoyed visiting religious sites. Not churches, cathedrals, temples, etc. per se (in fact, I’ve become a little immune to such sights now, in the same way that I rarely want to visit large city museums) but more rather ruined monasteries and castles established by strange religious orders. Luckily, there are many of these, be they established by the Saracens, the Knights Templar, the Rosicrucians, the Jesuits, even the Christadelphians, a group that believes the literal word of the Bible.
There was a small church of theirs, nothing less than someone’s house, around the road from where I grew up in northwest Kent, and I always considered it slightly scary. This most probably was because it was not normal, in that it was not the “normal” church, not the “normal” thing people did and not the “normal “ thing people believed in or would talk about. Tomar is a large town on the banks of the small River Nabão in central Portugal. Here there is a large, impressive Knights Templar castle based on the Temple of the Dome of the Rock of Jerusalem. Perched high on the hill overlooking the whole plain, the castle was constructed in 1160 by Gualdim Pais, grand master of the Order of the Knights Templar.
When Philip the Fair of France sponsored a papal bull outlawing the Templars, many of the order hastily fled to the extremities of Europe, including the British Isles and Portugal. The Tomar castle served as one of their retreats, although this branch was dissolved seven years later following another bull from Pope Clement V. Then, as now, the real reason for such a move was money. In Portugal, the Ordo de Cristo replaced the order.
The Portuguese king Dom Dinis championed the new group, and Henry the Navigator was for some time the head of it. The sails of the Portuguese ships of discovery that reached India and the Far East displayed a red cross against a white background — the emblem of both the Knights Templar and, perhaps not coincidentally, the flag of England. The Ordo de Cristo declined in the 16th century and was abolished altogether in 1834.
It was a well-kept ruin when I visited and enjoyed its main cloister, which hosted the 1581 coronation of Philip II of Spain, who succeeded to the Portuguese throne following the death of the Portuguese king Sebastiano I. The walk that leads around the hill to the castle gives an impressive sense of the castle's isolation and power, its courtyard displaying pale raked sand, artistically arranged flowerbeds and wonderfully designed metal contraptions for tying horses to. Immediately inside the main door is a high 16-sided altar, where it was alleged the Templars celebrated mass on horseback. A short car journey from Tomar is the famous pilgrimage site of Fátima, where three children, Lucia dos Santos and her cousins Francisco and Jacinta Marco, saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary on May 13, 1917, whilst tending sheep. The area is actually named after a 12th-century Moorish princess and was sacred to the Islamic people who at one time inhabited this area. Now all the site is concrete and tacky souvenir stands.
Tomar and Fátima could not be any different if they tried. I also enjoyed Assisi in Italy. I had stayed in Perugia overnight and caught a very early train after walking downhill from Perugia’s centre to its lonely station. Assisi also has a station a long way from town. Famous for being the home of St. Francis, the town retains a feeling of tranquility, most visitors staying on the bottom level that leads to the cathedral rather than walking up its steep slopes.
My favourite religious site there — and it is merely a church, not ruined in any way — was the quiet church of San Stefano, a 13th century gem on a zigzag lane just off Via San Paolo. Apparently, when St. Francis died on October 3, 1226, its bells rang out despite the absence of bell-ringers. On any day one visits, the place will always nearly be empty of people. The old man in the photograph operated a very colourful street organ. People dropped pennies in a basket for him.

(Argentina)...“That’s unusual,” our Swiss host said, “usually, this is the last place in Argentina that people come to, not the first.” We were in the glorious wetlands of the Esteros de Iberá in the province of Corrientes. On studying guide books before I went, it was the one place that I knew I wanted to see, not just because of my interest in birdwatching, but perhaps because it was difficult to reach and seldom visited, although that is changing, with more and more people visiting with every year. We stayed at the wonderful Irupé Lodge in the village of Colonía Carlos Pellegrini (http://www.irupelodge.com.ar)
The bus dropped us off in the small town of Mercedes, 600 kilometres and 10 hours north of Buenos Aires. It was cold in early September, the country beginning to ready itself for the austral spring. A local called Sergio picked us up in his truck and began, after getting more hot water for his maté tea, the 114-kilometre drive to the lodge, nearly all of it a rough, stony surface, like the majority of roads we travelled on in this country. It still was cold when we reached the lodge, but it warmed up later that day and stayed warm.
The lodge’s burro gave us unwelcomed attention, until we learnt that the way to get rid of him was to slap the side of his face firmly. The rest of the animals in the vicinity were astounding, though, ranging in size from the Glittering-bellied emerald (Chlorostilbon aureoventrisa; a type of hummingbird) to the Carpincho (Hydrochoerus hydrochaeris; also known as the Capybara), the largest rodent on earth, which I also saw in April in Gamboa, Panama, apparently the farthest spot north in which they dwell.
We went on several boat trips on the Laguna de Iberá, the biggest lake of this region that makes up approximately one-third of all the size of Corrientes province and is twice the size of the Everglades in Florida in the United States of America. Iberá means “shining water” in the Guarani language, which is spoken by the few in this area and nearly all in neighbouring Paraguay, where, with Spanish, it is the official language. And, indeed, the light does seem to sit on the water, rather than beam through it. This is a poor description, I know. Delicate reeds poke out of the water and add to the beauty. Most of the islands dotted here and there are floating, although any movement is impossible to see.
What one can see are the Yacaré (Caiman crocodilus yacare), a species of alligator, the occasional Marsh deer (Blastoceros dichotomus), which is getting rare, and many, many species of birds, among them Black-capped donacobius (Donacobius atricapillus), furtive among the reeds, Sooty tyrannulet (Sepophaga nagricans), Long-winged harrier (Circus buffoni), the magnificent Streamer-tailed tyrant (Gubernetes yetapa; see photograph above) and the noisy Southern screamer (Chauna torquata), which is of the size of a turkey, although not quite as fat, has a black neck band and sits sentry on the tops of palm trees.
In Spanish, these are called Chajá, and I just came across reference to it and its mournful cry (I imagine it was placed in the text as a metaphor for the soulless, anguished wanderings of the Argentina gaucho cowboy) in the epic Argentine poem El Gaucho Martín Fierro by José Hernández Pueyrredón (http://www.coopvgg.com.ar/selva/martinfierro/biografia.htm). On another day, we were driven approximately 40 kilometres to the home of some gauchos. The road went in the direction of Mercedes, and it is really the only road here; in the other direction it goes to near the small city of Posadas at the border of Corrientes and Misiones provinces. On the way we saw perhaps the best bird of our trip, the aptly named Strange-tailed tyrant (Alectrurus risora; http://www.oiseaux.net/photos/jean-michel.fenerole/moucherolle.a.queue.large.2.html).
Its odd tail has a small stretch of bare feather shaft and looks as though it once belonged to an eagle but has somehow been grafted onto a sparrow-sized backside. It somehow uses this tail, which lies flat and perpendicular to the body, to propel itself around, the whole endeavour having more in common with a butterfly than a bird. The red patch I saw under its throat only becomes red during the mating season, which I think must have begun for this bird days before we saw it. After all this excitement, we reached the gaucho settlement, which is poor.
The lodge owners wanted to involve them in its tourism efforts and at the same time provide them with some extra income and the traveller with a unique experience. They have succeeded, and no doubt I will later in this forum try to convey the glorious day we had there.

(Argentina)...I have just spent three wonderful weeks in Argentina, meeting some of the most gracious people I have encountered while travelling. I will no doubt write several posts on this trip, so I will not here pencil down a day-by-day account, but rather snippets of what I remember. The hottest place I visited was Paso de a Patría, which stands on the banks of the Río Paraná, opposite the mysterious nation of Paraguay, in the provinces of Corrientes. It was from here that the Triple Alliance, comprising the forces of the countries of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay, sent out their gunboats and troops to defeat bankrupt Paraguay, who for some strange reason thought it could defeat little Uruguay when that country decided to align itself with two other counties that make up at least four-fifths of the land mass of the whole continent. The beach here is small and unimposing, hardly the place from which to launch a major assault.
 The town specialises in a type of fish called pejerrey, as well as the huge dorado, but September is in the wrong time of year in which to consume these fish fresh, so I had to make do eating them in premade empanadas, small fried savories that seem to be the lunchtime staple of much of Argentina. The city of Corrientes, the province's capital, is a beautiful town, also on the banks of the same river but farther into Argentina. Graham Greene (http://members.tripod.com/~greeneland/) set his novel The Honorary Consul here, one of the reasons I wanted to stop off on the way to the Argentine northwest here rather than in the nearby city of Resistencia in the neighbouring provinve of Chaco. The noun Chaco also refers to a type of arid plain that extends into most of western Paraguay and is apparently home to insular Germanic people and farmer Mennonites.
The novel centers around a character called Eduardo, who is Paraguayan on his mother's side, English on his father's. He has sympathies with Paraguayan rebels trying to overthrow the Paraguayan dictactor Alberto Stroessner, who in the text is holidaying in Argentina, playing golf, but who in real life had just died a few weeks before my travels, in exile in Brazil. The rebels hatch a plan to kidnap the American ambassador to Argentina, thinking that Stroessner would not want a diplomatic crisis involving both his own people and his main foreign backer, but they mistakenly kidnap the British Honourary Consul instead, who has a posting with almost no power or influence attached to it.
Roaming the bright streets of Corrientes, I could imagine the story come to live. Very few people were out on the streets on this Sunday morning. The photograph above of a political candidate looking weary and peeling off the wall appealed to me in the contact of my musings. I must read the biography of Graham Greene, although I seem to remember there being some criticism of later parts of this multi-volume work, as some said that most of those later works seem to be about the biographer, not the biographee.
In the evening, I took a bus — these buses, sleek affairs with seats that recline almost to beds, are the main way Argentines get around, certainly as plane travel is expensive and requires nearly always having to make a connection in Buenos Aires; bands of luggage porters work each bus terminal, and one must tip them a peso or two to insure your bags make it to the same place you do; El Veloz del Norte was the best of the bus companies in the humble opinion — to Salta, that is, from sea level in Corrientes to 2,300 metres above.
It became dark as soon as we passed Resistencia, but I do remember waking up as we stopped in a Chaco town called Pampa del Infierno, or, translated into English, Grasslands of Hell. Make you want to stop for a couple of weeks to soak in the atmosphere. My first search for information about this no-dount wonderful stop-off revealed the someone was searching for news about an uncle called Harald Gastel, who was born in Munich, Germany, in 1906, according to the post, but who was last heard of in Pampa del Infierno. His journey from one to the other must make a story every bit as entertaining as the fiction of Greene.

(Mexico)...I was in the Cabo San Lucas area of Baja California, Mexico, last week. I was staying at a property called the Pueblo Bonito Pacifica Holistic Resort & Spa, which specializes in health and — that new, hideous word — wellness, which is just as well, for I think anyone under the influence of anything would not be able to pronounce its name correctly, or at all, to taxi drivers. It is beautiful spot and well away from the Los Cabos development.
Indeed, to all sides is wilderness, either the beach and Pacific Ocean, quite rough hereabouts, or scrub land of cacti, dunes and desert plants. Popping over the top of the dunes I found myself alone in a haven of wildlife. I doubt if few guests left the delights of the hotel’s gardens, pools, meditation labyrinth, fire pits and cool public spaces (and why should they), but anyone enjoying nature will be pleasantly surprised. I saw three types of woodpecker — Gila, Ladder-backed and Gilded flicker — California gnatcatcher, California quail, Verdin, Grey thrasher (a Bajan endemic), Western scrub-jay, a stunning Vermilion flycatcher and White-winged dove. I also saw several hares, many lizards and even a coyote lopping over into the bush.
Early every morning I went for a walk along the dusty roads that I imagine eventually led to the lighthouse that I could see on the hill. Trucks crammed with workers were the only things to share my path, It was fun to drop down into dry stream beds, with a look at the heavens first to make sure it was not going to rain, and on occasion, a house would come into view. One was owned by Californians — if a car registration was a clue — with a stable and someone getting ready to mop down the stallions after first having a cigarette.
On the Wednesday, the hotel (http://www.pueblobonitopacifica.com) group I was with supposedly was to go on a boat trip to see a colony of sea lions and El Arco, the tourist spot’s famous natural stone arch, but with a tropical storm brewing somewhere off to sea (it did not hit land while I was there, but as I write the far more serious Hurricane John is off the coast of Acapulco and threatening to bear down on Baja) the excursion was cancelled. I did see the arch, albeit extremely distantly, as I headed to the airport on my long way home. So, no sea lions and no arch.
We were asked what we might like to do with our spare afternoon, and I mentioned the possibility of visiting Todos Santos, a small town up the Pacific coast. Most others elected shopping, but after a few minutes I was handed a set of keys and started driving up the narrow highway, slowing down at a clearly signed Curva Peligroso to pass an accident and a waving policeman. Very quickly any urbanisation is left behind, and the desert starts again.
Todos Santos is about 75 kilometres to the north. I parked by the church and wandered around. There are some pleasant art galleries and shops, as well as the Hotel California, reputedly the inspiration for an Eagles song that I have never liked. Things are dusty here, too, and it does not take long to feel you are in Mexico, a feeling that is rarely experienced in Cabos San Lucas (I did walk over the hill from the Pacifica to enter the local’s area of Cabos, but there is little there, other than lazy dogs lying in roads, cars swerving around them, minute stores calling themselves supermercados and houses in various states of being).
Back in Todos Santos (http://www.todossantosinn.com), I visited the majestic, eight-room Inn at Todos Santos and walked around its tranquil courtyards. I also bought some postcards, and it was then that I saw one of a beautiful beach. I asked where it was and was given directions, which on my second attempt I found. On a dusty road leading to La Chacorra, I drove slowly around large stones and through a tunnel of bamboo that brushed the car above and to both sides. I had to double back, thus driving through the bamboo again (which I liked), before taking a left turn that ended at two small lodgings.
 From there I walked along a sandy path between two fences and uncovered a scene rather like the moment in the film Y Tu Mama También, when the three travellers wake up in the morning to find their perfect beach. I have no idea what the branches in the above photograph would be used for, possibly to thatch a house or to build one. The beach was not as perfect as the one in the film, but not too far behind. To the left was a small lake that almost reached the sea but did not brooch the last small dune. As I walked towards a flock of Brown pelicans, I saw a solitary rowing boat beach itself.

(Denmark)...I felt like I had rather stolen my visit to Tisvildeleje in Denmark. On occasion, I have visited places because I had some time to spare but not so much time to go any farther. Inevitably, I have ended up thoroughly enjoying these trips, almost to the extent where I convince myself that this destination was my initial and only choice of place to visit. I had an afternoon and evening off before I had to get the very efficient train from the Danish capital of Copenhagen to the Swedish city of Malmö, now a 23-minute trip, since the 2001 opening of the Öresund Bridge that links the Danish island of Sjælland to the Swedish province of Skåne. So, the day before I took a slower train north of Copenhagen to Hillerod.
Here I had an hour to wait for a transfer so headed into town, around a grey road, past some bus stops and into the pedestrian-only area that ends with a view of a castle, the dramatic Fredericksborg, which seems to float on the other side of the town's small lake. Green turrets and red brick. It was built between 1560 and 1620 by Frederick II and his son Christian I. From Hillerod, I took a wonderful local train that went through areas of less and less habitation, picking up some schoolchildren and ending on a single track at the North Sea, in the town of Tisvildeleje. The wind came off the water and made things chilly. The town is delightful and drops down to the sea, with thatched cottages to either side.
At the sea is a long line of colourful beach changing huts, thin with pointed gables. I walked to the national park that starts almost immediately following the tussocks of windswept yellow grass and before the miles upon miles of low, white sand dunes. It was warmer in the woods, and with some notion that I could just make my planned walk before dark (it was November), I set off for Tisvilde Hegn (hegn means fence in Danish), which is one of the country's largest forests and known for its twisted trees, burial tumuli and Saint-John's-wort.
The wood also is known as Troldeskoven. The light was wonderful, and a few other hikers were negotiating the maze of paths. After an hour's fast walking I reached the ruin of Asserbo, a small castle — or slott — built by Bishop Absalon in the 12th century but then covered over by the sands and lost to memory and history. In the mid-18th century, some workers uncovered the site, although it took to 1972 before the Danish National Museum finished the clean-up. A minute bridge leads across a moat.
All was still, dusk was coming, and I saw a bullfinch, first a startlingly red male, then the female, for the first time for many years. I sat on a wall and silently thanked that the organisers of my trip flew me in from the United States a day earlier than the other writers, who almost all came from Italy. A menhir covered in runes stands to one side. I needed to walk quickly to get back to Tisvildeleje before things were all pitch black. The only shop open was a cake shop that sold macaroons, someone else I had not experienced for years. The quietest moment of the whole day was the solitary wait for the last transfer back to Copenhagen. Nothing moved until I saw the train creep towards its terminus. The transfer at Hillerod on the return was immediate.
Years before I entered Denmark by taking the short ferry trip across the Baltic Sea from Puttgarden to Rødbyhavn. The weather was bracing on that day, too, and after the journey was compete and I started driving, I saw how very flat Denmark is. I drove towards the first slight gradient I saw and stopped at the nearest sizeable town, Nævsted. Elaborate carvings were etched into the support beams of a house in the old section of town, but the rest of the town was bleak, comprising small pedestrian shopping squares of equally bland shops.
On the other hand, some of the best pizza I have eaten was in this town — indeed, pizza seemed to very good throughout Scandinavia. A fellow diner in Nævsted was very interested that I had been to Solvang, the Danish community in California (it looks like Denmark, the citizens there speak Danish and Danish newspapers are imported daily) and chuckled at the thought of his countrymen being so far away. Viking influences abound, most notably museums of Norse longboats. \
Back in Copenhagen, I walked to the famous statue of the Little Mermaid (which was stolen this year, I seem to remember). It is impossible to get lost; just follow the inevitable line of sightseers, who, after reaching it, queue up to be photographed in front of Hans Christian Anderson's creation. The mermaid's location is the perfect spot for her. The sadness in her eyes as she stares out to the wider sea and ponders her thoughts of returning to her home are made more forceful by the bland industrial landscape beyond.

(Mali)...I have written in previous entries only of places that I have been to, but a few days ago I went to a concert by Malian couple Amadou and Mariam (http://www.amadou-mariam.com), who both come from the Mali's capital Bamako, and that had me thinking again of at last visiting that sub-Saharan nation.
The show was wonderful, and they sounded themselves, rather than sounding similar to world music star Manu Chao (http://www.manuchao.net), who produced their last record and filled it with his trademark sound affects and jaunty chord changes. I have read several books about the place. The best by far is Mungo Park’s Travels in the Interior Districts of Africa: Performed in the Years 1795, 1796, and 1797, printed in 1816, which chronicles his trip to the fabled, out-of-bounds city of Timbuktu, which, of course, even today remains a Holy Grail for travellers. Park, who was born in Selkirkshire (now part of the Scottish county of The Borders, in 1771, was one of several explorers who went to Mali but never came back, usually the result of being murdered, or in Park’s case, drowned as he tried to escape would-be murderers.
Ali Farka Touré, the musician who died earlier this year, also comes from Mali, from the town of Niafounke, which is approximately 150 kilometres southeast of Timbuktu on the River Niger.
I might have to go there. I do not suppose my Malian plans would differ from anyone else’s. As there is a definite gringo trail in, for example, Peru, I do not see why there is not the same in Mali. I would start in Bamako (indeed, would have to, from the country’s only international airport) and make my way up to Ségou. I believe it is here that the boats — or in drier seasons, the pirogues — start for trips along the mighty Niger.
Mopti is the first major stop, and from there it is possible to double back along a Niger tributary called the Bani to the city of Djenne, famous for its fortified mud mosques. After reaching Mopti again, I would, I think, continue to Naifounke and lastly Timbukto, where travellers today are afforded a much warmer welcome.
The other side trip would be to the Dogon people along the Bandiagara Escarpment, a highly evolved community with amazing architecture carved from cliff faces. Much is made — and quite rightly so — of their worship of an almost imperceptible dwarf star that remained unknown to Western astronomers for centuries. It is called Po Tolo in the local tongue, Sirius B to Westerners, and it travels around the much, much brighter Sirius A; supposedly, aliens brought it to them. Every 60 years they hold a festival to mark its orbital return to the sky above them.
Travel to this region never is straight forward and is hardly just a question of merely floating down the Niger; I am sure that delays and problems are the norm. The other “path” is the rail line from Bamako to Kayes and on to Dakar in Senegal. Kayes is the home town of another Malian musician, Boubacar Traore (http://www.concertedefforts.com/artists_boub.html), who was featured in the 2005 documentary I’ll Sing for You, which I remember highlighted a photo of Traore in 1963 looking like a cross between Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry (who, incidentally, I once saw sitting in the lobby of the Convent of the Sacred Heart School on East 91st Street in New York City, where, I believe, his daughter schooled and, I know, where my running club used to get changed before Tuesday night work outs).
Traore's big hit at the time was a song called Mall Twist, although the idea of Mali having malls today, not alone 40 years ago, is difficult to fathom. My friend Michele from Milan travels to Mali often. He has the advantage of being fluent in France; his father lived in Bamako for several years and started up an impressive collection of tribal artifacts, which Michele is continuing. Another dream trip would be to carry on from Mali and go into Niger. For years I have seen photographs of the Wodaabe people from Niger, who paint their faces in bright colours and put kohl or some other such substance around their eyes so as to exaggerate the eyes’ whiteness.
This is done to become more attractive to the watching eyes of potential wives. Sinewy and tall, the young Wodaabe jump up and down in courtship rituals when all brought together during the annual salt-selling market. I believe this all happens around the town of In Gall in northwestern Niger, but evidently I shall have to be better informed. Travelling around this region of the world obviously demands great attention and respect. The sun pounded down on the outdoor stage where I watched Amadou and Mariam, a foretaste of what one might expect when actually in Africa. July in New York City gets very warm and extremely humid, especially if you decide to dance for three hours away from the shade.
Second on the bill was Daby Toure (http://realworldrecords.com/dabytoure; no relation; it appears a common surname of West African musicians; indeed, he was in a duo called Toure-Toure), whose ancestors come from Kayes but who was born in Mauritania and grew up in Senegal; before him played French DJ quartet Birdy Nam Nam (http://www.birdynamnam.com), who I liked for the first 25 minutes but then wanted to stop after it became obvious to all what it was they did, that was, reproducing the instruments of a band with the manipulations of records on turntables.

(Costa Rica)...Two friends of mine were going to go to Costa Rica in August but decided instead on going to Kaua’i. I have written about the latter destination, so here I go with the former, a gorgeous country that I have been fortunate enough to visit on two occasions. I headed north to the Caribbean coast and was honoured to be among a group who were the first people in 10 years to ride a passenger train in the country, the system having been destroyed in 1991 by an earthquake. The start of the Caribbean Jungle Train trip was in Moín, its length progressing 65 kilometres inland to Siquirres, along the Caribbean coast and then through banana plantations and the foothills of the Cordillera Central. The three carriages, built in England in 1890, retain many of their original fittings, with small, curved wooden planks lining the interiors; Chicago’s Pyle Company built the engine many decades before. From my perch on the outside edge of a carriage, I watched the beautiful scenery unfold and felt myself literally moving through history.
This, as I write, seems overly melodramatic, but I was very aware that that journey was a notable moment for Costa Rica, one that it was not my place to be experiencing. The hot, dusty land unfurled slowly, the line curling around fields of bamboo and grazing land of gaunt cattle; the train did not move fast, which was good. The first 15 kilometres (perhaps still the service exists?) hugged the Caribbean Sea. To the other side, the Tortuguero Canal began its 80-kilometre journey to the turtle-breeding grounds of the Parque Nacional Tortuguero, and on to Nicaragua. Luxuriant – and, more importantly, alive – jungle comes down to the many rivers that the railway crosses.
The train driver stopped at several of the bridges so we could gaze at the scenery and watch the lazy vultures await their moments on the river banks. At the village of Boca del Pantano (Swamp’s Mouth), the line takes an ninety-degree turn inland, with the best halts being over the broad Río Matina and the Río de la Madre de Dios. Lunch was eaten 20 metres above the Río Pacuare. The chances of another train coming up behind were extremely remote; young children leapt off the bridge into the crocodile-less water below.
Next to Moín is Puerto Limón, the capital of Limón Province and the main port of Costa Rica; it was built by American produce concerns to ship out the Costa Rica's main exports: coffee and bananas. The city, which dates from 1871, sits on the site of the Indian settlement of Cariari, which Christopher Columbus visited in 1502. It was he who named the new land Costa Rica, although it turned out to be a little less rich than he had hoped. Just east along the coast is a thin strip of coastal land that eventually ends at the neighbouring country of Panama (I have since travelled along this corridor on the Panamanian side, almost to the border of Costa Rica).
The first sizeable town is La Cahuita, which has a national park, a thin ribbon of jungle and beach that contains Howler and Capuchin monkeys. The park was also the site of a rebellion of sorts, the towns-people occupying the park so as to force the central government to give them more say in how the park was run and how any benefits were distributed. I took a flat-bottomed boat out across the corals and spotted needlefish and rays, while next morning, at about 5 a.m., I walked along the pristine beach (some of which is composed of black volcanic sand) for a couple of kilometres.
Another worthwhile trip in Costa Rica is to Cartago, which for more than 300 years until 1823 was Costa Rica’s capital. It is not really any more impressive than San José, the capital now, but I did visit the Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles, which contains a tiny black figurine, La Negrita, which legend has it kept returning to the church despite a little girl’s attempt to make it her toy. Finally, someone persuaded her not to take it home again, and today it is crowned in gold and honored every August 2 with a mass and pilgrimage. From Cartago, I took a bus to the coffee-producing valley and city of Orosí. This is a beautiful part of the country.
Orosí contains the oldest Catholic church in Costa Rica, built in 1743. Called Nuestra Señora de Ujarrás, it has an adjoining museum of artifacts and sits on one side of a square, which in turns leads to a pedestrian suspension bridge that crosses the Río Reventazón. This was the river I followed up to reach the Tapanti Parque Nacional, which has the largest amount of rain fall and cloud forest in the country.
The Talamanca Mountains start their journey here and rise up between 1,200 and 2,540 metres above sea level. Huge, bright butterflies, toucans and frogs are evident. A Dutch couple, recently moved to Costa Rica, gave me a lift back to town. The young girl playing the drums was part of a workshop that I attended in Puerto Viejo, in the north. A man gave an overview of tourism in the area, but he was forced to abandon his speech several times when others in attendance complained that he had mentioned his own hotel far too often for their liking.

(England)...Some of the remotest places in England lie very close to the huge sprawl of London. The marshes that skirt the north and southeast of the shire of Kent — known as the Garden of England — are windswept, cold and lonely but offer much in return to those who walk and fish them. Derek Jarman, the film director, who died in 1994, used to own and live at wonderful Prospect Cottage, which faces the grey and often hostile English Channel at Dungeness. His pebble garden consists of statues and art made from the debris he found on nearby beaches. This small community lines the shore and consists of small homes, an old lighthouse and a nuclear-power plant whose warm outflow attracts sea birds. Dungeness often feels like it is the end of the world. Shingle beaches and vast stretches of inland shingle make it possible for lonely, wonderful walks. I was born in this county and particularly like its marshes, both around Cliffe (the subject of the photograph above) and Romney. I visited Jarman’s house in 1991, and just when I walked past, he came up to the window.
Kent is historically divided. Those born to the east of the River Medway, which near or less divides the shire, are known as Men of Kent, whilst those to the west, such as I, are referred to as Kentishmen. This wonderful tradition actually goes farther back in history — in Anglo-Saxon times the population was divided between those of the East and West centings. Kent has, on occasion, stood out on a limb. The nearest shire to the European mainland, it has received its share of invaders, most notably the warrior kings Hengist and Horsa and has been in its time a separate kingdom, as was the Isle of Skye in Scotland.
Dungeness is part of the great marsh at Romney, famous for its sheep and smugglers and the curious, landlocked Isle of Oxney. The church of Stone-in-Oxney contains a very rare example of a Mithraen altar. The marsh is as desolate place as one could look for. Irrigation ditches crisscross flat fields, fences and villages appear weathered, boats left ashore on the shingle creek and lonely Martello towers, which defended the population from French and Dutch invaders, peer through the mist as ghostly sentinels.
I would recommend the excellent and sometimes sinister Disney film The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh for future insights into this enchanting area. Every year, the Kentish town of Rochester, which is near to Cliffe, holds a Dickens Festival to commemorate the writer, who after becoming internationally famous bought a house, Gads Hill Place, up the road in Higham.
The townsfolk dress up in Victorian garb, cricket matches take place on the green behind the vicarage, exhibitions of ancient English craftwork and traditional dancing are held and rumours fly around that one pub — somewhere in town — is selling beer at 19th-century prices. Morris dancing, often ridiculed, takes place. The word Morris comes from the Greek Moira, the Goddess of Fate, supposedly, the dance being an interpretation of a Greek celebration. Two millennia of changes and adaptations have made Morris Dancing quintessentially English, and numerous troupés — or “sides”, as they are more correctly known — gather in Rochester during the Sweeps Festival in May to do battle.
Intricate dance steps are choreographed, the air echoes with the smashing of tree bough against tree bough and vast quantities of ale are consumed. Women can only join in by being an accompanying musician. The dances have a decidedly pagan spirit running through them, most notably in the opening ritual to greet Jack in the Green, a recent metamorphosis of a woodland spirits that have been celebrated since the days when all this energy was exerted to honour the ancient festival of Beltane. Rochester is also well known for its castle and cathedral. The former, dating back to the 11th century and the reign of William the Conqueror, is, at 40 metres, the highest Norman keep in the land.
Built by Bishop Gundulf, the castle was laid siege to for two months in 1215 following an uprising against King John. Kent has been an independent kingdom, peopled by the Celtic Cantii, where both the names Kent and Canterbury both stem. The cathedral, the second oldest in the country, dates back farther, to 604. Gundulf is often depicted in Morris dances — normally in a very bad light. Taking this time-progression back another step, the city of Rochester (cities in the United Kingdom can only be called such if they possess a cathedral or royal seal) was established during the Roman occupation as an important stopping place on the way to London (Londinium or, before that, Londinos).

(Portugal)...It was to no real surprise when England went out of the World Cup on penalty kicks. We simply cannot take them; I imagine the psychological weight of all those previous penalty-kick hiccups is forward in the English strikers' minds when they step up to shoot. When the game against Portugal went to its dreaded and unsatisfying conclusion, we England supporters knew our time was up, despite Portugal doing its best to miss two of its own spot kicks. Four days later, and Portugal are out, too, which is the first time in World Cup history in which the team that defeated England did not go all the way to the winners' podium. Italy is the team we are supporting now. It is just coincidence that I started reading José Saramago's Journey to Portugal (Viagem a Portugal) this week. It is excellent. I have been to Portugal twice, and as I read I am eagerly awaiting Saramago (http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1998/) to go to some of the places that I have been to in that beautiful country.
I travelled there first in 1990, the year Viagem a Portugal was published in Portugal, so I am assuming that the Nobel Laureate went on his own trek around the country in 1988 or 1989. I was following in his footsteps, which I feel quite warm about. Here is a passage from the book's English translation published in 2000: "In front of [Saramago] lies Mire de Tibães, an old Benedictine monastery, and an imposing edifice dwarfing the surrounding countryside, visible from many miles away. Only monks are capable of such excesses. The monastery is an utterly dejected ruin. When the traveller went into the first cloister, he assumed that restoration might be in progress. Disappointment swiftly set in: building there was, but only that connected with the families living in the monastery's dependencies and, going from bad to worse, it always seemed to rain everywhere but in their improvised homes. As far as he can tell, he does the rounds of the cold and labyrinthine corridors, where blackened portraits still hang on the walls, coated with wood-dust, the whole also covered with the smell of mould, an irrecoverable death. The traveller entered the church in low spirits: it's a giant ship, its vault a block of segmented stone. The scale is abundantly ample and rich, as ever."
I found Mire de Tibães in the same manner Saramago did, after visiting the impressive, huge church of Bom Jesus in Braga, where the night before camped hill on a hill I had a perfect view of Braga, the local football team lose 3-4 to fellow Portuguese side Setúbal. Bom Jesus' most impressive attribute was its grand outdoor staircase in which the many individual staircases that make up the whole criss-cross each other in a mathematical conundrum that repeatedly tricks the eye.
Back to Mire de Tibães, I also found it in much the state Saramago did, but I also found it wonderful. There was no entrance fee, and the floorboards everywhere creaked under one's feet. A heavy wooden door, scuffed and punctured with heavy metal studs, led to an inner courtyard with tatty art left open to the elements. I could hear voices everywhere, but I could not see anyone, a mystery that I thoroughly enjoyed.
At the end of the first side of the cloister I walked along was a stairway that led down to a small chapel in which I sat hearing those same voices, but still not seeing anyone. A door on the other side of the stairway that contained the inner door that led to the chapel had a large keyhole that espied the monastery's gardens. I looked through and there was my first sighting of a person all morning, a monk hoeing an allotment. Altogether a majestic place, and it was with some alarm that I read shortly afterwards that the Portuguese government was considering turning the building into a pousada, upscale accommodations in historic properties similar to the Spanish chain of posadas.
I have no photographs of the monastery, so instead I post a shot of equally decrepit masonry taken in the central Portuguese town of Montemor-o-Novo on the road to the majestic town of Evora. The architect in charge of putting the drainage pipes in obviously cared not one hoot about staying true to the doorway's original architecture. Looking on the Internet, I see that the gardens surrounding the monastery won a prestigious award, the International Carlo Scarpa Prize for Gardens (http://www.fbsr.it/eng/pagine.php?s=&pg=104), in 1998, so improvements must have taken place, although not as many as would have resulted in an unfortunate hotel; indeed, photos taken this year show an admirable sprucing-up without the loss of the site's obvious character.
The award-giving jury mentioned in its address that the monastery contained a "vast estate with woods, orchards, vegetable and flower gardens, lakes and canals, buildings and stone sculptures, created by Benedictine monks on the slopes of the São Gens mountain towards the town of Mire de Tibães and the River Cávado, near the city of Braga in the region of Minho in the far north of Portugal."
As I left the monastery, I turned up a steep road, which soon ended. I got out of my car (at the time, a 1978 Austin Princess) and pushed open a dusty door that felt as though it had not been opened for centuries. On the other side was a site as equally as mysterious as my monastery, an almost indistinct path leading past fruit trees to a damaged series of steps by a whitewashed house and on which sat three children, who all stared at me before coming over to say hello. A mother appeared, but I could not speak a word of Portuguese, so the conversation was comprised of smiles and many instances of saying "sorry."

(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.