A UNIQUE PAINTING

 SITTING ON THE STAIRS

Costa Rica’s National Theater or Opera House is a neoclassical building with a baroque interior. We were told in 1828-30 the president encouraged culture. By 1860 a budget was proposed for a theater, but there actually was no money available until 1890. Built in 1891-1897, all the materials came from Europe.

Earthquakes in 1904 and 1910 caused major damage to the building, and frequent tremors still make repair a major job. We walked up the wide staircase to view the original seats in the theater boxes. All the woods grown in Costa Rica are represented in the beautiful floors.

          Sitting on the stairs so we could look at the fresco on the hallway ceiling, our guide explained, “This picture is on the back of the old five cent bill.  An Italian artist painted this mural in 1897. He was given specific instructions of size and content. However, because he had never been in the tropics he made several errors in the painting.

    “The first thing one notices is the coffee plants, which do not grow at sea level. Coffee only grows above an elevation of 800 feet. The fellow in the foreground is holding the bananas upside down. That is how bananas grow, but if you carried a stalk of bananas that way, they would all fall off. Ships came to the Caribbean coast not the Pacific Coast, and palm trees do not grow on the Pacific Coast. The women are all dressed European style, not in Costa Rican dress. There is no yoke on the oxen, so I wonder how they pulled a cart. But the painting was done and so it was hung.” 

    It is an interesting mural and it was fun to be able to view it without getting dizzy while standing and looking up. The five cent bill is no longer used but our guide managed to get one for each of us which I framed and hung in my back bedroom.

     

THE ELUSIVE JACARANDA TREE

JAMBO, JAMBO

          We heard this Kenyan greeting for hello often. I have many stories while on safari in Kenya but this is a non-safari story.

            As we traveled in and out of Nairobi, Kenya’s capitol, we noticed the gorgeous blooms of a jacaranda tree. Late one afternoon when we were free until dinner, my son announced, “I’m going to walk over to find that jacaranda tree we’ve seen so often riding around. I want to photograph it.”

“Wait a second and I’ll go with you to help with your gear.” No way was I sitting in this hotel room while you wandered the streets!

            It didn’t take us long to walk out of ‘tourist Nairobi’ and find ourselves the only white people around. With tripod over his shoulder and his camera equipment in a special harness, his mirror sunglasses did not reveal what he was looking at. We were quite a sight, but although people looked strangely at us no one bothered us.

I had to two-step to keep pace with my son’s long stride. We walked and walked. The tree was visible, we just couldn’t get to it. When I spotted an askari (policeman) at a corner petrol station, I approached him for directions. We were nearly there. Taking a left at the gas station, and then another left led us down a narrow path into a native area.

            I knew we did not belong in this village of sorts. We retreated back to the corner and then continued straight ahead. Eventually we found the tree! The orchid flowers of the tree were beautiful against the cloudless deep blue sky. We were actually at the Railroad Museum.

While my son set up his tripod, a native appeared telling us, “You have to pay to take pictures.”

“Oh, how much?” my son asked.

We paid the fee and continued on our quest. As the fellow left he told us, “This train here is the one they used to film Out of Africa.”

A few minutes later he reappeared trying to sell me a book about the museum. It was a lovely book, but I stated I was not interested and he left.

Before we were finished he reappeared again saying the museum was now closed but we could stay until we were done and we would pay his bus fare home.

            “Oh, and how much is that.”

“Whatever you want to give me.”

Well, we stayed until finished. A bonus was the picture of the train. We gave the fellow a few shillings and headed back to the hotel.

It had been an interesting jaunt!

JUST BEING KIDS

DUNN'S RIVER FALLS

The lush north coast port of Ocho Rios, Jamaica, once a small banana and fishing port, is a tourist stop for the some cruise ships. Many feel the city’s quaint charm has disappeared under the weight of heavy tourism. We visited Shaw Botanical Park and wandered down the many meandering walkways enjoying the lovely flowers in bloom. I was quite taken with the concrete light poles made to look like a palm tree trunk.

Of course we had to visit Dunn River Falls. Climbing up the falls is a favorite past time, and naturally we had to indulge! We wore sneakers to protect our feet from the sharp rocks or anything else we might step on in the water. We climbed all the way to the top taking time to stop and sit in some of the pools. The water of these famous falls cascades down 600 feet to the beach.  It was great fun.

Ocho Rios was the location for the first James Bond movie, Dr. No. Dunn's River Falls and the Bauxite plant were featured in the film.

             

WONDERFUL EXPERIENCE

WIELICZKA SALT MINE

The famous Wieliczka salt mine is not far from Krakow, Poland. Claustrophobic me has sucked it up a couple times to go underground, but for some reason I was really looking forward to this adventure.

            We descended three levels by elevator, then we were left with 420 steps to walk down. The steps were wide, rather shallow, had hand rails and were really very easy to navigate. Eventually we reached 1100 feet, nine levels below ground. The mine is huge so I really didn’t feel closed in.

After the steps there were many pathways with small rooms holding  sculptures and carvings along the way—all carved from salt. All the sculptures were carved by miners over many years.

Rock salt was discovered here at the end of the 13^th century, and the mine is 800 years old.          I understand mining stopped sometime in the first decade of 2000. There are 200 miles of tunnel in the mine.

It took us a good while to reach the Chapel of the Blessed Kings. Along the way we were like a bunch of kids oohing and ahhing at the sights along the way. But nothing prepared me for the highlight of the  fair sized church measuring 1755 X 55 feet with a ceiling 39 feet high! 

Everything in the room, chandeliers, altarpieces, showcases, and sculptures are carved from salt. The showcases even contained all the articles one would find in any china cabinet. Over a 30-year period, (1895-1927), 20,000 tons of salt were removed from that room! When this masterpiece was completed in 1964, 70 years had lapsed from start to finish. Even the floor looked like flagstone, but it’s made of salt too.

 In a back alcove stands a life-size salt statue of Pope John Paul. It is a very good likeness of the Polish son who became pope.  

          This was an amazing visit to a subterranean museum. Nearly a decade later I happened onto a TV program showcasing the mine. Unfortunately I did not get the beginning of it, and keep hoping for a rerun. This is one place definitely on a revisit list.

NEAT IDEA

THE FAIRY TREE

Melbourne is one of my favorite cities. Known as the Garden City it is the capitol of Australia’s smallest state, Victoria. One out of every seven acres in the city is a park and nearly one quarter of the inner city is set aside for recreational purposes. This added to the multitude of flowers and trees creates an atmosphere of rural tranquility in a busy city. It was nice seeing so many working people spend their lunch hour in the parks.

Fitzroy Park was a delight. I visited it on my first trip down under and made sure to get back there on my second trip. The gardens were named after Sir Charles Fitzroy, Governor of New South Wales in the mid 1840s. The gardens are over 150 years old. Jan and I walked through the park several times on the way back to our boutique hotel, but I wanted to make sure she saw the fairy tree.

A miniature fairy village is in the park there. Across the pathway, a large tree needed to be cut down several years ago which left a large barren stump. But instead of digging the stump out of the ground, a lady requested it be left and sought permission to carve the stump. The very talented lady carved fairies all around the trunk. What a wonderful scene she carved! Children are not the only people who enjoy this most unique display and I hope will last for years.

ONE FAMOUS DISTRICT

AMSTERDAM’S RED LIGHT DISTRICT

         Before I left home on my first European trip my son-in-law suggested I see the red light district in Amsterdam. After dinner our first night in the city I asked to be left off the bus at the district. My guide was shocked that an old lady would be interested in such a place explaining, “The streets are too narrow for the bus. I will make an announcement and we can let you off near by and point you in the right direction. I can show you how to get back to the hotel.”

        Nine of us hardly souls got off the bus and walked the street and canal bridges covered with red lights. Walking along the narrow street on each side of the canal we viewed scantily clad girls parading around or sitting mannequin-like in large picture windows that were also outlined in red lights. We wandered down one side of the canal and back up the other side. None of us was quite prepared for the most incredible and unbelievable sight.

        We learned the girls are licensed, legal prostitutes. The lack of pimps eliminates violence such girls often put up with. Frequent medical exams make the world’s oldest profession relatively safe for the girls.

       Earlier in the day, while my traveling partner slept off a headache, I had wandered the streets around the hotel and made note of a couple landmarks. I do NOT have a good since of direction. Now, in the dark, eight people were relying on me to get them safely back to the hotel—the hotel name that none of us had taken note of! As soon as I saw the train station I knew how to proceed. However, the ally where I had shopped and eaten lunch looked very different at night when everything was dark and closed up! We all walked into the hotel lobby just as it started to rain.

         On another trip to Amsterdam I wanted Jan to see the district. Again it was arrival day and by dark we were pretty tired, but it was a case of now or never. Our guide walked a group of us to the area. This time I noted the cobblestone walks along the canal were rather uneven in many places. I hadn’t noticed before all the small alleys that run off the main canal.

        It was not totally dark, but many, many prostitutes were lounging in their windows in all degrees of undress. Most were young, white, and nearly all were smoking. We all felt it was a sad way to make a living. From the numbers it looked like competition might be very tough---but then again I’m a female. We even saw an occasional sign stating that a window was for rent. Many of us felt uncomfortable and as if we were intruding. 

A Surprise

COCA TEA

When getting ready to go to Peru for a four day hike into Machu Picchu I read that coca tea was helpful in combating altitude sickness. Walking my neighborhood one day I ran into a neighbor who asked me where I was going next.

“I have a trip to Peru planned, “I told him.

Alarmed he replied, “My sister-in-law went there and got so sick she had to be evacuated to lower ground. What are you going to do if that happens to you?”

Flippantly I said, “I’ll just drink coca tea like the natives do.”  He was too stunned to continue the conversation, and I really didn’t give it much more thought.

You can imagine my surprise when entering the hotel lobby and found a huge thermos full of hot coca tea. We found it listed on every restaurant menu. I did drink a lot of it while in country and never had any problem with altitude sickness---even at the 13,350-foot high pass.

It tasted very much like any herbal tea. I found a commercially packaged box of coca tea bags to bring home to share with friends. After reassuring them that they were not going to get high, sick or anything else, most enjoyed the novelty of drinking something different---maybe forbidden. I did not chew any coca leaves as many natives do, using it as a digestive aid, and I certainly did not try to bring home loose coca leaves. I prefer to respect our custom laws!

AN ARTIST'S PARK

FROGNER PARK

I’ve visited several sculpture gardens but never one like Frogner Park in Oslo, Norway. The park is much loved and respected with no fences, police or graffiti. The park is large requiring a good while to wander and to see the Vigeland sculpture collection. Steps lined with voluptuous stone figures, is a popular place to sit, congregate and contemplate.

There was a light rain on arrival when we disembarked our ferry, but fortunately it stopped mid morning and remained clear the rest of the day. The 75-acre park holds the life works of Gustav Vigeland (1869-1943). In 1921 he made a deal with the city that in exchange for a studio and support he would beautify the city with a sculpture garden. He worked on site from 1924-1943. Each of the bronze or granite figures is unique. There are 600 figures in all. He also designed the landscaping.

Gustav Vigeland first visited Oslo in 1899.  He drafted plans for a fountain and presented them to the city in 1905, but the project was rejected. However, in 1914 he was asked to do the fountain, but by then his plans had expanded. WW II interrupted the completion of the park, but it was finished in 1960.

            

There is only one Vigeland sculpture outside Norway and that is in a Norwegian community in Fargo, North Dakota. There are an additional twenty sculptures in Norway outside of Oslo. Otherwise his life’s work is in the park. He married twice and had children by his first wife. After that divorce he lost contact with his children. He said they distracted him and interrupted his creative process. When he died he left everything to the city which was fine with his children who felt they never had a father. Vigeland took that name after his grandfather’s farm

          

  A 100-yard-long bridge over the river has four columns, one on each corner. Three depict man fighting a lizard, but in the fourth one a woman  succumbs to the lizard’s embrace. The theme of the entire collection is the relationship between people. In addition there are 59 sculptures along the bridge rails. Off to one side of the bridge is a circle with nine children who represent the nine months of pregnancy.

        

    A symmetrical rose garden, located half way between the beginning of the bridge and the monolith, represents eternal life. Then comes the fountain of life—his water fountain. Six figures hold up the fountain, the burden of life. The fountain is surrounded by twenty trees of life. The figures on the trees depict life from birth to death, the seasons of life: childhood, young love, adulthood, and the winter of life. Sixty bronze reliefs around the basin develop the theme further. The large patio surrounding the fountain contain 150,000 pieces of black and white granite forming a mosaic with many twists and turns representing the labyrinth of life.

           

The world’s largest monolith is the centerpiece of the park. Thirty-six large monoliths surround it, each carved from a solid piece of granite, again representing the cycle of life. The monolith and its 121 single figures is cut out of a single piece of granite. It took three stonecutters fourteen years working daily to complete the 180-ton, 50-foot tall erection. Vigeland lived to see the monolith raised.

         

   The entire park is a masterpiece and it was a delightful visit that took several hours. There was so much to see and absorb.

INTERESTING TID BITS

STORY POLES

You may be more familiar with the term totem pole, and if you haven’t been to Canada for several years you may not have heard the term story poles. The word totem is actually an American Indian word, but it seems early explorers thought native peoples worshiped totem poles. This is not at all true as the poles tell a family history. The history of totem poles is long and interesting so long story short for several years now Canadians have referred to totem poles as story poles.

Along this line the terminology of Indian, Eskimo and any other ‘old fashion’ term for the native peoples has been replaced with First Nation’s People or peoples. Personally I like this descriptive name absent of any kind of connotation. Both of these terms have been incoperated into Canadian English and are widely used.

ONION vs HELMET DOMES

Like most people, I thought an onion dome was an onion dome. It was not until I was in Russia that the difference of an onion dome and a helmet dome was pointed out to me, and if I recall correctly it was in the Kremlin.

Onion domes definitely look like onions and are probably the most popular and widely used dome. They abound on churches and are a common sight in many Eastern European cities. When one knows the difference it is easy to spot a helmet dome. They do look like a soldier’s helmet of old. These domes are seen  less often and are pretty rare in the United States.

My home town does have both domes in its city’s square that can be  seen and easily compared from a vantage point in the county court house.

TIBET and the YAK

TACHI DE LAY (hello)

Getting to and from Llasa,Tibet is not always an easy thing to do. Sand storms and wind often delay or cancel flights as getting though the cut in the Himalayas can be tricky. We had a very early wakeup call as we were scheduled on a 7:20 AM flight from Chengdu, China to Llasa. Boarding passes, airport tax, tickets and other necessary documents were taken care of for us by our guide.  Then we learned that people going to
Lhasa the day before got sand-stormed out and were rebooked on our flight. We were off to the airport hotel for the morning until our noon flight.

I’ll spare you details of the once lovely hotel that catered to the wealthy. It definitely had seen better days!  The majority of our luggage was left in Chengdu, so we  left with only what we would need for four days. The plane was a large modern one and there were no complaints about it or any of the other three domestic flights we took while in China---all on different airlines.

Because of the hour,we were served a very good lunch. Most of the flight was well above the cloud cover, and the Himalayas did not appear until shortly before landing. The plane traveled through a narrow opening in the mountains down into the Yellow Valley. I swear I could have touched the side of the mountains if I’d been sitting on the wing tip!

Few people were able to visit Lhasa, Tibet’s capitol, before tourism opened 1980. Lhasa has been the heart and soul as well as the political and economic center of Tibet for 350 years.

Our sweet guide told us, “Use the bathroom on the plane before landing because the one at the Lhasa airport  is terrible.You don’t want to use it.”     We did as suggested, but on arrival we found ourselves in a brand new airport that had opened in late December 2003. The restrooms were clean with one western toilet. (We’ll talk about eastern and western toilets another day.)

It was riding over the rough paved road that I saw my first yak. Our van driver stopped so he could tell us about them as we watched two yoked yaks plowing a field. Bells were attached to the yoke and the animals wore red ribbons in their hair. An irresistible photo op!

Our local Tibitean guide told us, “The yak is locally referred to as the boat of the highlands because it is a great pack animal. The long-black-hair animal provides milk, cheese, butter and meat. Its dung  mixed with hay and sun dried provides fuel for heat. A yak head placed over the front door of a home is believed to protect the family.

“Not long ago nearly a million wild yak roamed freely on the plains, but due to increased demand for yak meat that herd  is estimated to be only 15,000 now. An adult yak stands nearly six feet tall at the shoulder, weighs about a ton, and has sharp three four-foot long horns. One yak of a certain color in a herd is considered bad luck, but two of the same color is considered good luck.

“Yak crowd tightly together. If they move to lower altitudes they become susceptible to disease and parasites and experience upset reproductive systems. Used to temperatures that range around 40 degrees below zero they have course shaggy black hair that covers a layer of fine undercoat, thus creating a natural all-weather coat. About 80% of the yak live in the highlands.

“Important to a Tibetan family the yak is well cared for. The number of yak owned by a family indicates the family’s wealth.”  

CHOCO INDIAN VILLAGE

CHOCO INDIAN  VILLAGE

and the

DARIEN JUNGLE

 One day at daybreak in Panama, we boarded small cayucas (kai u coo) which were waiting for us alongside the ship. A cayuca  is a dug out canoe. Since we were anchored two miles away from the mouth of the Sambu River we were glad the cayucas were fitted with outboard motors.

            

Why the early wakeup call? The tides---it was necessary to go up river on the tide and out on the ebb because at low tide there is only about 6 inches of water in the river verses 22 feet at high tide. Timing a  visit to the village is absolutely determined by the tides.

Chunga means black palm, and very few visitors get to Chunga, the Choco village.  There is one other shallow draft small ship that can make it, but the water is not deep enough for cruise ships. Besides the river and village could not accommodate huge crowds.

We traveled an hour and a half up the Sambu for 10-12 miles through the Darien jungle.  Bugs were not a problem on the 200-yard wide river. Bird life was abundant. We saw pelicans, ibis, egrets, kingfishers, herons, and many birds we could not identify. Some of us had hoped to see the colorful toucans and parrots, but it was not to be.

Choco is the name of a province in Columbia and the Indians do not like the name. They prefer to be called Embera-waanan.  As we arrived several darling children met us to accompany us over the level half-mile trail to the village. My little 13-year-old girl held my hand all the way. This tribe does speak Spanish, but at this time understood very little English. The village has only received visitors since the early 1990s. The people are very individualistic and totally apolitical. You deal with them one on one. The Choco use a flute and drum to keep beat for their simple dances. The children were happy to demonstrate for us.

Small in stature, the men wear a loin cloth and wear their hair in a Prince Valiant cut. The women wear a waist to knee sarong and paint their bodies all over in various designs with a black paint obtained from the fruit of the black palm tree. The paint fades in 6-7 days. Multi strands of seed beads are worn around the female neck and  their dark hair is waist long. Their skin color is a pretty bronze.

These Indians live separately in the jungle in houses built 6-10 feet off the ground on wooden pilings. There is nothing in the house except a floor and a small cooking sandbox on 6” legs in the center. They sleep on the floor. The tribe farms and both men and women work in the fields. Women carry corn and grain, but the men carry the firewood.

       
Women weave baskets from leaf strands of the black palm. Some of the tightly woven baskets are watertight.  The men do some rather good wood carvings from rosewood, also known as cocobolo. They also carve small figures and animals from the vegetable ivory nut known as tagua. Until 1936, 95% of all buttons were made from this nut. The nut is about the size of a small plum, hard, and rather difficult to carve. When polished they certainly do look like ivory.

The noon return trip down river through the jungle was hot, hot, hot as the only shade was what  our hats provided. We were grateful not to have to be fighting bugs. Occasionally a little water spay over the gunnels of the cayuca cooled us off.

THE GUM DEPARTMENT STORE

                     THE GUM DEPARTMENT STORE

The famous GUM department store is located almost directly across Red Square from the Kremlin. GUM, built in 1895, is Russia’s largest department store. Pronounced goom the initials stand for  State Department Store in Russian. Completely rebuilt in 1950 the store accommodates a half-million customers a day. Three stories of shops line three main passageways. A maze of side hallways house 200 trading stalls that include designer boutiques, foreign shops, and souvenir stands. The ornate interior includes walking bridges, fountains, and a glass-paneled roof.

Svetlana, our city guide, had done a very quick walk through the GUM, which wasn’t enough for Jan or me. So on a beautiful warm sunny day we returned for a more in depth look. The shops were certainly upscale and we wondered who could afford to shop in them. Not being shoppers, neither of us bought anything and did little more than window-shop. The GUM was just one of those must-see places we needed to visit. The decor was delightful.  The sun was warm shining through the glass roof.

We walked all the floors and crossed the bridges before ending up in a third floor café for an ice cream cone. We sat and enjoyed a respite while people-watching before walking back to the bus stop to catch the # 44 bus back to our hotel.