(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."