#15 At Sea & Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain 3/27-29

Pictures:

1. You can see a bus down on the dancing road in the distance.  You can also see the road below right and on the left side.

2. In this picture you can see the road running across the center of the picture, on the right, below in the middle and in the middle and at the bottom on the left.  It's the same road winding all over the map.

3. This is the fishing village of Pedro Alvarez.  The terraces are to provide some level land for farming.

4. The lone surfer wiping out.

5. Taranga Village at the base of the valley and some agricultural land in the foreground.

6. My purchase at the La Laguna marked, a rosco Lagunero.

7. The altar in the La Laguna Church of Christ. 

 

All but #4, 6 & 7 were taken through the tinted window of a moving bus.  They're not particularly good but they are representative.

 

March 27 – At Sea.  Great day to rest up.  Pretty much my normal day at sea and you've heard plenty about those already.  Tonight's entertainment was Black Tie and again they had a great performance. .  I should add that Constantine, the older brother, plays Dickie Smothers to Uri's Tommy.  They're really quite funny in addition to their quality voices and wonderful style.

 

This evening was the Ebony and Ivory Ball.  It's fun to watch the junior ship's officers hide at the back of the ballroom so they can avoid dancing with the older unaccompanied ladies.  The more determined ones head back, cut one out of the herd and drag him to the dance floor.  It's nice to see everyone dressed up and since there are only 9 formal nights in 62 days it isn't a big chore.  The best sight I saw all night was a little old man, probably at least 90, dancing with one of the Amazon ship's cast dancers.  Let's just say he had a very comfortable place to rest his head.

 

March 28 – At Sea.  Another day of rest, no pun intended.  Well since it's Sunday I guess the pun actually was intended.  Again a very typical day for me.  Nothing exciting or out of the ordinary.  I spent some time shrinking pictures to send with my email. 

 

Photographer's Note:  I shoot as large and with the least compression possible in jpeg.  I don't use tiff or raw because the files are way too big for any purpose I'll ever use.  As it is I can crop out a very small part of my pictures and still have plenty of data left to print an 8x10.  If the picture just needs a little cropping I can do poster sized with these settings.  I use it to compensate for not carrying a long telephoto lens.  In this day of digital photography and Photoshop CS there's no real reason for long telephotos.  You just crop to the size you want and print from there.  I have an 11x16 picture of a lion I shot a few years ago and in the original photo he's just a small image in the center of the frame.  In the blowup he's surrounded by about an inch of headspace and the image is perfect.  If I had tried that shot in the light that was available and the speed required to keep shake from a long telephoto lens I'm sure I'd have missed the shot.  If I were more inclined to do that sort of work I'd shoot raw and just deal with the super large files that result.

 

The screened Black Swan today in the theater.  Let's just say that for the over 80 crowd this movie was not well received.  I thought it was a quality move but not necessarily enjoyable.  It deserved all the Academy nominations and wins that it got.  But for people who have trouble hearing, seeing and remembering it would be impossible to follow.  It took a some thought for me to sort it all out when I saw it and I can't be at all dogmatic that I have it 'properly sorted' as the Brits would say.

 

The show this evening was a combo of Ballroom Rush, the quick-change ballroom dancers and Jackie Clure a singer.  I didn't see Jackie's first show because they billed her as a West End singer and I didn't want to hear any A. L. Weber.  Turns out she didn't sing any and she has a very good voice.  Ballroom Rush was great again.  The costume changes are spectacular and the dancing is really great.  Jackie Clure has a Karen Carpenter quality to her voice and tonight she did sing a medley of Carpenter's tunes.  Outstanding!  She also sang some Petula Clark (Downtown) and Bobby McFerrin's 'Don't Worry, Be Happy".  Her voice is smooth and totally under control.  No sliding into notes in her style.  It was another great night.  Tomorrow's a port day and we have four ports in a row.  Odds are I'm going to fall behind in my writing over the next few days.

 

March 29 – Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain.  We're staying here overnight and not leaving until 5pm tomorrow.  Very unusual for such a small place.  Overnight stays are usually Sidney, Australia, or Beijing, China, some much larger place.

 

Tenerife is the largest of the seven-island Canary group.  It's about 800 square miles but can lay claim to the highest mountain in Spain, Mount Tiede (Tie'-da).  At 12,950 feet it's an impressive peak, especially in a place so small.  It's a dormant volcano and the residents of the East Coast of the USA better hope it stays that way.  Apparently the western slope of the mountain is very unstable and if it ever blows again that whole area will fall into the sea.  One of the specials I saw on these islands postulated that the tsunami created by that event would wash over almost 40% of Florida and hit all along the East Coast and it would only take 5 hours for it to get there.  Double yikes!!  I guess that evens things up for all the east coaster's jokes about California falling into the Pacific Ocean.

 

I can't remember when I learned this but it was a long time ago and apparently it was also incorrect.  It used to be thought that the islands are named for dogs not birds.  When the first explorers reached these islands they supposedly found wild dogs, Canes in Latin, populated them.  This ostensibly led to the name Canary Islands, as in 'Islas Canarias' (Spanish).  Winds up that all that's not true at all.  I do remember that it was alleged in a documentary about the islands.  (Maybe it was produced by that docufictionalist, Michael Moore.)  Turns out that they have found a map made by Italian cartographer Tolomea, in the 1400s that shows the islands with the notation 'Cannar E' which is a local native word 'cannar' meaning association or group of people and the Latin notation 'E' which designates 'island', hence the Cannar E islands.  Of course when the English get their hands on anything they can't pronounce or don't care for they change it; Beijing becomes Peking, Chennai becomes Madras.  Mumbai become Bombay, you get the idea.  So Cannar E become Canary and there you have it.  I must say it's the most satisfying answer to this question I've ever heard and I think finally the correct one.

 

Somewhat Cynical Note:  So much of what passes for research and science today is just so much guessing.  When I was taking science classes I was told that the scientific method deals in facts and that until you can reliably reproduce the same results using the same methods you really don't know what's going on.  The junk, pop, pseudo-science we hear so much about today has never met an assumption it couldn't adopt, will leap to a conclusion on the weakest (or worse yet no) data.  Consequently they very often have to backtrack in a huge way when confronted with the truth.  Examples abound, Light's a wave, no it's a particle, Pluto's a planet, no it's not, etc.  I don't really care what the pinheads do with their time but when we start making cultural, political and financial decisions based on this garbage some has to say that the emperor has no clothes.  Unfortunately most research is done by publicly funded entities like universities and most of them have long since abandoned any real impartial analysis of data.  The pressure to conform to the latest junk science pronouncements is worse that peer pressure was in our teens.  Get out of step with the current theory and you will find yourself shouted down, ridiculed and held in scorn by those with their hands on the pocketbook and therefore your academic life.  Consequently those who disagree with the current fashion just keep quiet and go about their work depriving the rest of us from their point of view.  I thought looking at competing points of view was what universities were supposed to be about.  How stupid am I?

 

Another way of saying that first it was canaries, then it was dogs, now it's a local language word that gave these islands their name.  If we can't reliably figure out how some islands were named in the 1400s, the very recent past in geologic terms when people were actually here to observe and record events, what makes us so sure we know how the universe was formed or how man came to be a sentient being?  Pretty arrogant and prideful in my opinion.

 

Oh well, back to travel.  We are visiting the Anaga Mountains right outside Santa Cruz.  Geologically these islands are all volcanic in nature like the Hawaiian Islands.  The costal area is made up of the oldest lava and the island's interior is the youngest.  As Mt. Tiede ascended it pushed the older lava flows outward.

 

Getting out of the port was a little challenge.  When cruise ships come into the port they add extra security and unfortunately they forget to man the exit gates.  We sat at the gate for a while until our driver, Isobel, started blowing the horn.  Someone came to see what was up and opened the gate for us.

 

Our driver and guide are both Isobel so we can't get into too much trouble there.  Driver Isobel is an attractive young Hispanic lady with short frosted hair.  She's a substantial person, not at all a lightweight but she does not look heavy.  You might expect her to be a flamenco dancer, usually substantial ladies, but I don't think anyone would guess she drives a bus.  Guide Isobel may be the best-informed guide we've ever had in local geology and botany that was not a professional scientist.  She has a degree in fine arts but has taken it on herself to get the islands geology and flora down pat.  The ship's escort on our bus is Jackie Clure one of the entertainers on board.

 

After driving along the seacoast to make a stop to see the only white sand beach on the island (once again Great Sahara sand) in the little fishing village of San Andres, we turned into the mountains to start up what the locals call the 'dancing road.'  The derivation of this name soon became obvious; the road twists and turns with switchbacks so tight that after the turn if you drove off the road you'd land on the road just before the turn only down 50 feet.  Isobel handled that bus like it was a subcompact car.  It was great to watch her face; I had a view of it in the center rear view mirror she could use to watch the passengers.  She'd dive the bus into a turn and grin when she wound up exactly where she should be at the end of the sweeping curve.  She was clearly enjoying her work and taking satisfaction in doing it very well.

 

If you've ever seen the houses on the hillsides in Griffith Park in Los Angeles or the buildings on the Amalfi Coast or Santorini you have some idea of the arrangement of most housing on this island.  Because it's essentially a mountaintop sticking out of the sea there's very little flat land.  Housing seems to be built mostly on hillsides.  If the building is on the seaside of the road the parking is on the building's roof and an elevator, or in a single home a stairway, takes you down to the floor you live on.  This system provides a great view of the ocean from every floor and is very popular on the seaside of roads next to the ocean.  If they are building on the landside of the road they are often built on a pad cut into the hillside with a normal first floor entry and garage.

 

After we arrived at Taganana, another small fishing village, this time on a black sand beach.  It's at the foot of a long steep valley that the dancing road crosses about 6 times on the way to the ocean.  A novice surfer was out there in about 4 feet of surf trying his best to get up on a fairly good-looking board.  I caught one wipeout at jus the right moment.  His board is headed skyward and he appears to be sitting on a lounge chair, feet up, as he hits the wave

 

The views from the road back down to the ocean were spectacular.  The road is so narrow that the bus can't stop for pictures so I'm shooting through the tinted windows of a moving bus.  I'll have to see if Photoshop can save any of these for me.  In some places you could see the little village of Taganana at the foot of a long valley and our road winding over all sides of the picture. 

 

We stopped for a snack in a small café and, since this area is noted for goat's milk and vineyards we sample cheese and wine.  The wine was a semi-dry blush and was very drinkable.  It was served loose corked in unlabeled bottles so it's pretty clear that the owner has a large vat of this somewhere.  He did claim that it was his own product as was the goat cheese.  The cheese was pale yellow and mild flavored.  It had been aged some as the edges were hard and dry but very tasty.  The center was creamy and firm.  The green olives served with it were a good match.  Each table had a large basket of crusty large baguettes.  How do Europeans bake such consistently great bread?  Just a normal white bread is a treat.  Don't get me started on the special breads.  There's only one place I know of that produces bread this consistently good that serves it every day without fanfare to accompany their meals, the Champaign French Bakery Café's in SoCal.  It's not a boutique bread shop, just a Euro-style café that bakes their own baguettes and they are very good.  But even they fall just a little short of the average table bread over here.  (Are you getting the idea I'm way too hung up on bread?  You'd be right.) 

 

From our snack stop we headed to the city of La Laguna.  The old town here is a World Heritage Site because of the large number of surviving colonial era buildings.  We visited the city market.  The varieties of fish available were amazing, everything from fresh eel to salted cod.  The meat was that rich red color that tells you it's something special.  The assortment of baked goods was also large.  Some of them bore a fair resemblance to the breads and pastries I know from Mexican stores. 

 

Since I love to mix it up with the locals and also new and different pastries, I used my totally inadequate Spanish attempt to communicate to a shopkeeper that I wanted to try the specialty of the area or the bakery.  When I can get this idea across I've had some amazing treats and some colossal flops.  It just depends on how well my taste matches the locals.  Unfortunately I said, (phonetically) 'May gustaria sue especial de la casa.'  Attempting to say, 'I would like your specialty of the house.'  She was nodding encouragingly until I said 'casa'.  The encouragement was quickly replaced with bewilderment.  (I found out later that the locals don't ever refer to anything as being 'of the house' as we do in American English.  She probably thought I wanted to take a bite out of the wall of her home.)  So I started over this time with full hand gestures and facial expressions and definitely left out any reference to an abode.  Finally she smiled, nodded and said, 'Si, si!' while turning to her shelves and coming back with a 3.5 inch in diameter, snail shell curled pastry with a thin glaze over the top.  I have to admit it was not the most visually exciting thing I've ever gotten in response to this query but, hey, I asked for it.  It looked somewhat doughnut like but was actually a lot like some Mexican sweet bread that I've had.  The difference was that this item was flaky and had air pockets in it.  The flavor was delicate and sweet but not overpoweringly so.  More in the nature of a Japanese sweet roll.  It was chewy and delicious.  I had a hard time saving half of it for Diana.  I only offer her half of my successes the failures I keep to myself.  In the final analysis both the shopkeeper and I had a good time and she made some money.  I found out later what I bought was a rosco lagunero.     

 

This square is also the location of a colonial church and fort.  The San Francisco Real Santuario del Santismo Cristo de La Laguna (The La Laguna Church of Christ for short) a Gothic-Baroque structure from colonial times.  The interior of the smallish church has only one nave and is very simple in décor.  The Stations of the Cross are oil paintings that appear to be very old.  Their coatings have darkened and the paint is cracking on many of them.  It was difficult in the low light to judge their style and artistic quality.  The altar on the other hand was impossible to miss.  The altar and reredo are completely covered in silver, as are the table and low sacristy rail.  The center of the reredo and the crucifix that stands in it are completely covered in gold as is the angel standing on top.  There are 26 candles attached to the reredo's perimeter that provide most of the light in the apse.  To say that the exposure for the photo I took was long would be to understate the issue.  I'm pretty sure the picture will be ok.

 

From La Laguna we drove back to the port.  Diana and I decided to see a little of downtown Santa Cruz so we walked to the Plaza de España to see the tower and the fountain and then walked down to the Church of the Conception which was firmly locked.  Failing to gain entry to that church we gave up on churches and walked back to the main shopping street, Calle de Castillo.  Unfortunately for Diana's shopping hopes the town is in full siesta mode and the shops are almost all closed.  Those that aren't, are upscale clothing and jewelry stores you can find almost anywhere, Beneton, Cartier, etc.

 

We're here overnight so it was back to the ship where there was a deck BBQ for dinner this evening.  These are very popular and for a good reason, the food is great!  It was very good once again.  They had ribs, paella, salmon, steaks, corn-on-the-cob, salads, BBQ ribs and baked potatoes.  I like the outdoor BBQs every once in a while.

#14 More Pics, Senegal

1. The African Renaissance Monument.  That small spot of pink in the front of the monument is Diana's hat.  She's only about half way from me to the monument so that will give you some sense of scale.

2. One of the village livestock markets, mostly goats but some long horned cattle.  The cart in the foreground is typical transportation in the villages.

3. Pink Lake salt processing.  You can see the small boats on the lake scooping the muck from the bottom.  There are three ladies carrying tubs on their heads in the picture.  That muck must weigh a ton, probably about the same as wet sand or a little heavier.  As you can also see the men on the shore are mostly just standing around.  The men in the boats have to shovel the muck off the bottom.  If you've ever dug in wet clay soil you know how that goes.  Then they have to shovel it into the tubs.  I don't think I'd want to arm wrestle either the boatmen or the women.

4. One of the tour trucks on the beach.

5. Diana in front of one of the resort's rooms.

#14 Dakar, Senegal 3-26

Pictures:

1. Dakar sunrise.

2. The Royal Palace gate

3. The Dakar Cathedral Dome

4. One of the sand paintings

5. The sand painter and his tools.  The white bowl on the right is the glue, the other bowls are sand.  You can see the piles of color on the painting.  Certainly doesn't look like much.  When he picks it up and bangs it on the table, the painting appears as if by magic.

 

March 26 – Dakar, Senegal.  It's also our second time in Dakar and I'm hoping for a better experience this time.  Aggressive salesmanship has been perfected to a high art form here.  Apparently the underlying assumption is that if you really irritate someone he'll buy something just to make you go away.

 

Dakar is located on the Cape Verde Peninsula and is the westernmost African city.  It's actually a commune, one of 67 communes in Senegal created by the French in 1887 during the colonial period.  The surrounding area was settled by the 15^th century and the Portuguese had already settled Gorée Island and began to use it as a base for the exportation of slaves.  Gorée was captured by the Netherlands in 1588 and the island went back and forth between the two several times before finally falling to the British in 1664 and then the French in 1677.  Although infamous for the volume of the slave trade through the island, the French tried to abolish slavery in 1794 only to have it re-established by Napoleon in 1802.  It remained in place until 1815 when it was permanently abolished.  Despite the prohibition, the illegal slave trade continued until 1848.

 

Today Dakar is a financial center for West Africa.  It's a very busy port and the city is a 'demented ant's nest' as Frank the port lecturer is fond of saying.  The place is a riot of sounds, smells and sights.  Crowds of people on the streets and very busy traffic insure that you know you are in a major city.

 

90% of the population is Muslim, 6% Christian and 4% Animists.  Ethnically they are 43% Wolof, whose language is used as the commercial language, 24% Fula and the rest smaller tribes.  42% of the population of the country is under 14 years of age.  The average life expectancy is only in the middle 50s and that's why they are so young as a whole.

 

This is a dirty, tumultuous, busy, crowded and noisy city.  Reminds me in some ways of India but I didn't see anything like the huge slums that surround most Indian cities.

 

Sometimes I awake early while traveling and am so rested that I decide to get up.  This happen this morning and when I went out on the veranda to take a peak about I was greeted by a very nice sunrise.  The common wisdom is that the more polluted the sky you are looking through the more color there will be in the sunrises and sunsets.  Sunsets and rises are somewhat problematical for pictures, somewhat easier to adjust for if they are bright not so easy if they are dim.  This sunrise was pretty dim but the colors were interesting, blue ocean and lower sky, changing upward to violet, red and orange in order.

 

Our tour is in a regular bus here so it's not nearly as interesting as the open Gambian truck, but it will be smoother at least a small compensation.

 

Our first stop was the Royal Palace.  There was a single ceremonial guard at the front gate.  He was, however, armed with a later model USA M-16, a very useful and fairly modern rifle, especially when compared to the arms carried by the Royal Palace guards in Casablanca.  His red tunic and hat, blue pants with yellow intertwined stripe (much like the snakes on a medical caduceus) down each leg and black boots presented a very businesslike demeanor.  Combined with his size he was an imposing presence.  Last time we were here you could cross the street and pose for picture with the guard but not anymore.  Across the street was as close as you could get.

 

Just as we were leaving an NCO and replacement guard staged a small changing of the guard ceremony just for me as everyone else had left for the bus.  I'm significantly faster than 95% of my bus mates so I can lag behind and still be on the bus before they are.  This really helps with the photography since I usually sit at the back of the bus and by the time I get off there's a mob scene in front of the great photograph, all photographing something else not nearly as interesting.

 

Our next stop was the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Dakar.  It's a fairly nondescript building from the outside.  The front façade has one entrance at the center and is flanked by two fairly short, plain towers on each end.  Inside it's very elegant but still simple.  Only two colors were used on the interior walls and columns, white and gray.  It's laid out in the traditional three-aisle format with the Latin cross footprint.  The central aisle's ceiling is twice as high as the side aisles' because they have balconies above them and the nave goes all the way up. 

 

There's a large dome at the crossing where the transepts intersect with the nave.  It has a most unusual painting.  Circling the base of the dome are people representing the history of Christianity.  The theme of the piece seems to be the resurrection or the return of Christ for the church.  This is represented by a pyramid shape of people ascending to meet a lone figure waiting for them.  The top person on the pyramid is at the center of the dome.  Interestingly, while all the figures around the base are very dark skinned, apparently Africans or Berbers, the people that make up the pyramid of those ascending are of many colors including fair skinned, light haired European types.  So the earthly story is told in figures that the locals can relate to but the multitude gathering for the ascent to heaven includes all peoples.

 

To the left of the pyramid you see Moses holding the tablets of the ten commandments facing one of the Apostles and between them is the pillar of cloud that led the Israelites by day in their wilderness sojourn; a wonderful homage to the transition from the Law to the Gospel.  Bravo to the artist for his portrayal of the Scriptures.

 

During out morning drive from place to place around the city the vendors were actually following our bus from stop to stop usually arriving there by taxi before the bus even pulled up.  I got a chance to tell the same people I didn't want anything in four different locations.  I should add quickly that the lady vendors were not really a problem, but the behavior of the men is intolerable.

 

We took a driving tour around several sections of the city and wound up at a local craft center.  There was a 2-man ensemble, with one man playing the wooden xylophone they have here and another man playing a stringed instrument called a Kora.  It has a half sphere shaped sounding board at the bottom made from a calabash.  It has at least 20 strings in two banks of 10 that run from the head of the neck to the calabash bottom, about 5 feet.  The musician places the calabash on his knees in the seated position with the flat side and strings facing him and the neck straight up in the air.  He uses a dowel like stick in between the two ranks of strings like the slide on a steel guitar.  There may be more than one technique for playing this instrument.  I'm not sure.  The music was lively and easy on the ears, very melodic.

 

There was a sand artist demonstrating the local art of sand painting.  Essentially he paints the shapes he wants in a sticky substance wherever he wants the sand to stick to the board he's using as a canvas.  Then he takes the colored sand he wants from a bowl and sprinkles or pours it onto the sticky surface.  When he's done applying the sand it looks like a mess.  He takes the board in both hands and bangs the edge of it onto the table and the painting appears.  It was pretty cool.  The sand is all natural colored rock from the area ground very fine.  There were yellows, red, tan, brown, white, pink, gray and black sands in wooden bowls on the table around him.

 

Next was at a craft village and this was no a fun experience last time we were here.  I guess if you don't mind being constantly followed, pestered and grabbed by strangers it wouldn't be so bad.  If I had been there by myself it would not have been a problem but Diana was with me and I didn't like some of what I saw.  We stopped at exactly the same craft village this time.  Forewarned is forearmed and that old adage was absolutely true here.  We did go in but when the vendors approached us I just looked at them and shook my head slowly.  Diana was able to look around a little bit without being accosted.  The key is you can't speak to anyone.  If you answer any of the questions they throw at you (ex. Where are you from?  How are you?) it's permission to engage you in an intensive and aggressive sales pitch.  If you don't speak to them at all they eventually move to a more inviting target.  It's such an uncomfortable place it's a wonder they ever sell anything.

 

After leaving the market the bus took us on a scenic drive along the seacoast.  In 2008 the Harmattan winds were blowing.  These winds are like the Santa Ana winds of SoCal or the Sirocco in North Africa.  The wind blows so hard across the Great Sahara that it carries fine sand for thousands of miles.  These are the same winds that carry the sand to Cape Verde.  The visibility was awful.  Today it's wonderful and the coastline is very pretty with mile after mile of nice looking beaches.

 

We're stopping at the African Renaissance Monument along the coast.  It's a 160-foot tall statue that's made of 190 tons of bronze and copper.  It was dedicated in 2010 to the joy of some and the distain of others.  It commemorates Senegal's 50 years of independence from the French.  The $27 million cost was funded by South Korea.  It shows a man and woman standing on a rock outcropping.  The man in holding a child at shoulder level in his left arm and the child is pointing into the distance.  The heads of the three figures are aligned at about a 45 degree angle upward ending with the child's head being a little above the line but his extended arm completes the line.  It's a striking statue.

 

Since we are heading out of town to the Pink Lake we have acquired a police motorcycle escort.  About half the bus panicked because they thought he was there for security and murmurs started going around in waves as each tried to spread the fear to everyone else.  Our guide caught the undercurrent and announced over the PA system that the escort was to clear traffic for us so the trip would not take two days.

 

Traffic here is a mess.  They work on the 'make your own lane' method all the while honking their horns apparently indiscriminately.  I should probably say that I was unable to discern a pattern to why and when they decide to honk.  Maybe it's like SONAR and they get an echo back from impending targets.  I'll say up front that the escort probably saved us and hour or two of driving time.  Many drivers gave way but a small stubborn minority, mostly buses and trucks would not pull over until he got aside of them and yelled in the window.  Maybe their vehicles were so noisy that they couldn't hear him, but that's doubtful.  Whenever we passed through a village or highway intersection traffic was severely backed up and there was not way for him to clear it.  If the intersection was under police control the officer would stop the traffic on the other side of the street and we'd cross over to drive through the intersection on the wrong side of the road.  That saved us a lot of time.

 

Nevertheless it took about an hour and thirty minutes to drive the 50 miles to the lake.  On the drive we passed through several villages with markets of all types, livestock, food and general merchandise.  In some place the traffic is always so slow that foot vendors walk on both sides of the street and between cars.  Our passage creates some amount of chaos for these vendors as traffic had to scatter to let us pass through.

 

When we arrived at the lake we stopped at a very nice resort to use the facilities and then boarded, my favorite, open air trucks, for the trip around the lake.  We are going to do a complete lap of the lake, which is not huge but is sizeable.  Like the Dead Sea this lake is extremely salty.  The minerals and its depth combine to give the lake a color that can range from copper to pale pink.  Today it's a coppery orange.  As it evaporates a sediment forms at the bottom that has created a local industry, 'salt gathering'.

 

We drove to the area where people work in small boats gathering the muck at the bottom of the shallow lake.  They pole the boat to shore where women are waiting with laundry sized plastic tubs.  The men shovel the muck into the tubs that the women then put on their heads and walk up the beach to dump the muck in large piles.  These piles are left to dry.  Once a pile dries two men, one with a shovel and one with a pick break up and load the resulting 'salt' into 25 kilo bags for shipment to places in Europe to use on the roads.  I call it 'salt' because it's mostly made up of some sort of chemical salts but I'm sure that only part of it is sodium chloride.  There has to be a large percentage of heavy metal salts included that would make using it in cooking very hazardous.  So it winds up coating the bottoms of cars in snowy parts of Europe eating through the floorboards.  Our guide wasn't sure about the content but he did know it is not used as table salt.  As little as a liter of Dead Sea water has enough heavy metals in it to kill you.  I doubt that this product is any safer.

 

As we continued around the lake we came to an area where there were crops growing.  I recognized some pepper plants and some corn and beans of some sort.  A little farther on we drove through a small traditional village that probably does the farming.  There are no paved roads here and most of the vehicles we've seen in this area are donkey or horse carts. 

 

A little way from the village we entered a large area of sand dunes.  When the driver stopped and let some air out of the tires I figured we were going to head out into them for a ride.  At this point he changed from his previous very sedate and careful persona into one of the Carrington Daredevil drivers.  We went up and down huge dunes making sweeping, sliding turns and occasionally experiencing zero g humps at the tops.  It was great fun but I could tell some of my fellow riders were not all that pleased by the dune buggy experience.

 

Eventually we crossed the dunes and were out on the beach.  Our driver seemed to take a great deal of pleasure in zipping through the water with one of the pairs of tires.  Since I was on the ocean side I had to put my camera under my shirt to prevent water and sand from possibly getting into the moving parts.  Not a good result.

 

We returned to the resort in about an hour and settled in to lunch.  The seating was on the second floor of the building and open on one side overlooking the resort's gardens and some of the rooms.  The resorts rooms are on the perimeter of the gardens and each is in a round concrete building with a thatched room designed to look like the local traditional housing.  The exterior walls are stucco and painted a pale yellow ocher to mimic the local building bricks.  They are decorated with unique paintings of local scenes or traditional items such as ceremonial masks.

 

Lunch was table service and consisted of a salad, entrée (in my case fish kabobs) and watermelon for desert.  I can't eat watermelon but those who had it said it was very sweet.  The fish was unidentified, the waitress only knew its local name and that wasn't anything familiar, and since it was already cut into small cubes I had no chance to identify it.  It was pale, firm and very tasty.

 

After that it was onto the bus and back into Dakar.  Since we are going straight to the port it was possible to do about half the trip on the main highway and that cut the drive time to a little less than an hour.

 

Our entertainment for the evening was the Prinsendam Singers and Dancers.  This is the first time we've seen the full ensemble and I was somewhat surprised to find that both of the dancers are women.  I expected one of each gender but was not at all disappointed by being incorrect.

 

Their show was 'Broadway Melodies & Memories' and they were great.  They sang music from Broadway's Golden Age, the '40s and '50s to the 'Rent'.  There are six singers, very strong tenor and baritone male and soprano and alto female voices.  The other two singers are also excellent but are more style than voice.  One is the singer/dancer, sort of Gene Kelley type, and good at both, the other is the comic Zero Mostel type and also very good.  The two dancers are Amazons, taller than all but two of the men and both of the female singers.  The space on this ship's stage is somewhat limited but they managed to get enough space to work in some great dancing.  The singer/dancer and the baritone can fill in when a male is needed for a dance number but it's pretty obvious their job is mainly to present the women.

 

I wasn't sure how I would like the transition from production shows to cabaret style but on this ship with its restrictions I think the change is for the best.  The mix is usually two singers, two singer/dancers and six dancers split evenly among the genders.  That's a lot of folks for this small stage.  It's deep but very narrow.  Plus, all six of the singers in this company are better than all but the best singer in the previous style and have much more experience.  I don't suppose it's a very tough gig to do two shows once ever 9-10 days and travel the world the rest of the time.  Probably easier to get experienced people for that that the repetitive one week cruises where they work two days a week minimum.

 

I'm looking forward to two days at sea to rest up.  We don't have any 8-hour tours scheduled for then next few weeks.

#13 More Pics

Sorry but sometimes 6 just isn't enough

 

1. 4th Grade class at the Wellingara Lower Basic School.  The kids are singing and clapping.

2. in general they are happy, friendly and love any attention you give them.  When I showed these two the picture I had taken they both giggled and smiled, then the boy ran in circles shreeking with joy.

3. Well dressed ladies heading to the market.  The adults are generally happy people also.

4. Our beach lunch.  With the skin removed the barracuda was a very white, firm, flaky and delecately flavored fish.  It wa prepared to perfection.

#13 Banjul, The Gambia

Pictures:

1. The Banjul fishing fleet across the bay in the early morning.

2. Typical Gambian family fishing boat.

3. No MacDonald's but lots of these snack bars.

4. Our Gambian Limo.  4-wheel drive is not optional it's a necessity.

5. The Banjul market, a chaotic, colorful cacophony.

6. What size did you say you wanted? 

 

March 25 – Banjul, The Gambia.  We were here once before 3 years ago and enjoyed it very much.  I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

 

It's the smallest country in Africa, less than twice the size of the state of Delaware, and in many ways a lot like Ancient Egypt.  Just like Egypt's borders did not go too far from the Nile, The Gambia does not stay to far from the Gambia River.  In fact the only country that The Gambia borders is Senegal.  The Gambia is a narrow country running east to west on both banks of the Gambia River totally inside Senegal with its western border on the Atlantic Ocean.  Because it is within a stone's throw of the river at all times, The Gambia is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa, with almost 120 people per square mile.

 

Evidence suggests that the first residents here were farming starting about 6,000BC.  This was before the Saharan Plane became a desert.  After a mysterious ecological event, (Al Gore would have you believe it was caused by human kind's greenhouse gasses.  Most of the gas around old Ozone Al comes from inside him.) changed the area to the Great Sahara the people had to migrate or die.  The same event formed the Sahel (suh hale) a semi-arid region across the hump of West Africa.  This area is plagued with long droughts even though it often has grazing land.

 

From the 5^th to the 15^th centuries the Kingdoms of Ghana and Mali extended their influence over this area.  In 1456 the Portuguese landed on James Island and quickly dominated the trade on the West African coast exchanging salt, iron, pots & pans, gunpowder and firearms for ivory, ebony, beeswax gold and slaves.

 

Germans built the first fort on James Island in 1651 but were displaced by the British in 1661.  The French ships, African Kings and pirates were constantly harassing them so they built another fort at the site of Banjul.  The British, being seafarers, extended their influence up the river until 1820 when the area was declared a British Protectorate and was governed from Sierra Leone.  In 1888 it became a Crown Colony by which time Senegal had fallen into French custody.

 

Gambia became self-governing in 1963 and independent 2 years later.  Gambia was renamed The Gambia, about the most subtle name change I've ever heard of, and the Fort of Bathurst became Banjul.  Since then there have been periods of political unrest, several coups, an attempt at unification with Senegal and a dictatorship ending in proclamation of a new republic.  There is still a lot of corruption in the system but it has been stable since 1996.

 

As we sailed into the port I could see the small fishing boats coming and going across the bay.  Gambian fishing is a family affair and often the whole family goes out on the boat.

 

Our tour will be an 8-hour trip in the back of a 4-wheel drive, open-air truck, built much like a US Army duce and a half from the Vietnam War.  The main difference is that there are chairs facing forward in pairs on either side of a center aisle.  The back of the truck will accommodate 22 people and we only have 19 and there's plenty of room for everyone.

 

We boarded our truck right next to the gangway so no one had to walk too far, but the steel drop down ladder had some of my fellow travelers bamboozled at first.  Apparently they've managed to live their whole lives (and for some that's a very long time) without ever using a ladder.  Thankfully this one only had six rungs and a top step.  The truck has a drop down tailgate with a ladder attached to that.  Everyone had the right idea going up but some wanted to use it like a staircase and face away from the truck going down.  It was at a fairly acute angle and therefore your heel really couldn't get very far into the rung before the back of your leg hit the rung above making for a very precarious perch.  I told one very sweet little elderly lady that ladders are very dangerous and to show them proper respect one always faces them when going up or down.  If you turn you back on one of the treacherous little buggers they may dump you on the ground.  She thought that was funny but did see the wisdom of being able to get your whole foot on the rung. 

 

I'm always concerned about the truly elderly among the ship's company.  I admire their spunk and vigor to travel with their infirmities.  And I can't help being amused at some of their antics.  But I just can't shake the feeling that many of them are just one good fall from compromising their mobility completely.  I'd hate for that to happen at any time but especially this far from home.  More power to them.

 

Our drive out of the port was interesting.  The road we were on was a dike across a mangrove swamp.  The mangroves appeared to go for miles on either side.  Last time we drove across this area they were expanding the dike by making the edges into a garbage dump.  All that is now covered with hard packed soil but it's still full of gullies, holes, ridges and ditches.  The mangrove swamp is fairly dry right now because the tide is out.

 

When we got across the dike onto solid ground the road was two-lane and paved.  We drove into the city of Banjul and through the local market.  This is a fairly large city and the market place was packed with people, cars, taxis, trucks and busses.  Women dressed in very colorful clothing were both selling and buying.  The art of carrying things on their heads is perfected here.  Everything from huge baskets of washing to tubs of vegetables were being carried along the streets on the ladies heads.  Clothing, shoes, luggage, furniture, fruits, vegetables, tires, auto parts, electronics, cameras, cell phones and every other type of consumer goods were for sale.  The number of travel agencies was the most surprising thing to me.  I don't remember them from three years ago. 

 

I can personally attest that every motor vehicle in The Gambia is equipped with a horn.  I think I heard every one of them going through town

 

After riding through town we crossed the Gambia River (remember it runs east and west for the entire length of the country) and then turned east onto the main road.  It was paved and smooth but our joy was short lived as we soon turned north off the main road and were back on compacted dirt, with all its accompanying ups and downs.  We drove through little village after little village as we jostled about in our seats.

 

Here in the countryside the children have appointed themselves as the goodwill ambassadors and greeters.  They stand in little bunches waving, smiling and shouting to us as we drive past.  When we pass a school the chorus is almost deafening.  These kids have some lungpower.

 

We saw more women walking here in the villages, some very dressed up, others in more ordinary clothes.  The women in more normal daily wear are often carrying something balanced on their heads.  The dressy ladies usually had on very ornate headgear that would totally preclude them from carrying anything on their heads.  Most of the men I saw were sitting in small groups talking. 

 

There were small herds of goats wondering the streets looking for something to eat.  The guide said that, although the goats roam free, no one would bother them.  Theft is dealt with on the spot.  In fact, he said it was ok to beat a thief to death if you could catch him.  When the cry of 'Thief, thief' goes up, the suspect will run as fast as he can to the police station for protection.  Better to go to jail than to be beaten to death.  I can say that I am in total agreement with that sentiment.

 

We stopped at the main square of a small village at about 10am or so.  In the center of the square was a round cement patio about 20 feet in diameter with a 2-3 foot wall around it with an open space to enter.  In the center of this area there were two consecutively smaller 8 inch high circular tiers the highest one about 10 feet in diameter centered on the larger one.  The Pennsylvania Dutch would have called this highest tier the 'pump floor'.  Directly in the center were two manual, one-armed pumps just like we used in the USA.  This one was not cast iron like ours but the principle was the same.  Theirs looked more like welded tubular and square steel.  Directly under the faucet of the pump was a cement trough that quickly necked down to a long open channel and ran out about 25 feet from the largest circle with the wall.  This channel ended in a watering trough for animals.  The water pumping for the day must have been over as the only occupants of the square were children.

 

The road we are on winds across the countryside passing through the center of every little village along the way.  We are really getting a feel for the real The Gambia and life here.  Some people wave at us, others ignore us completely and a small minority gives us looks of complete distain.  Oh well, at least they're not throwing anything at us.  Most seem happy to greet us if we wave at them and a lot smile and wave first.  You can't expect everyone to be pleased.

 

In one open area of countryside there were hundreds of termite mounds.  These large usually pointed, generally pyramid shaped, steep sided hills were everywhere.  Some were heavily eroded and more lump shaped but most were still very sharply defined.  This must be termite Florida, lots of retirement high-rises grouped closely together.

 

This is the one place in the world where I have not seen a single USA fast food chain, no McDonalds, no Burger King, no Pizza Hut, no KFC, nothing.  They do have Coke signs around.  In fact, many of the small mom and pop snack stands have tables with Coca-Cola umbrellas, but no fast food chains of any kind.  I haven't seen a gas station of any kind since we left Banjul.  I'm sure there are some spaced out on the only paved road that runs along the river to the other end of the country but out here, away from that road, nothing.

 

After we drove for about another 45 minutes we arrived at the Wellingara Lower Basic School compound.  Where we were introduced to the headmaster, Mr. Malamin Badjie.  We spent some time greeting the children and then went into a classroom where the teacher joined us.  She gave us a short presentation on the school and it's operations and plans for future expansion.

 

The school covers grades 1-9 and has kids from 7 to 16.  There are several buildings, two have classrooms, one is a cookhouse and one is for administration.  The Gambia's schools are modeled after the British system with terms like 'O-Level' (10^th grade graduate), '6^th Form' (13^th grade graduate) and 'A-Level' (14^th grade graduate-roughly equivalent to our Associate of Arts degree from a 2-year college).  Up to grade 9 the school is free but the parents must purchase uniforms and school supplies.  After grade 9 there is tuition to pay in addition to that.

 

The instruction is all in English and so are the materials on the walls around the classroom.  We were in a third grade classroom and they had the water cycle, the food chain (simplified), types of fruit, the multiplication table and classroom rules prominently displayed on the walls.  Rule #2 was 'Speak only English in class."  Rule #3 was "No fighting in class."

 

She had the children sing s a few songs for us and some of them broke into spontaneous dance while they sang.  We were in with what appeared to be 8-9 year old girls and boys.  They were a happy lot, smiles all around.  As we were leaving the classroom they rushed to the front to shake hands with each of us as we left.  I took Diana's picture with several of them.  They squeal with delight when you show them the picture you took.  I wish there was some easy way to give them a copy.

 

After the performance was over we were invited to go through the school buildings.  Lessons from the previous day were still on the blackboards.  Then we toured the kitchen; basically four large, covered pots built into brick fireplaces that burn wood for heat.  There were large mixing bowls holding what looked like corn porridge.  We'd been told by out guide that their staple food is corn cooked with some type of meat.  Apparently that goes for school lunch as well.

 

We are in a four-truck caravan.  After leaving the school we split into two two-truck groups and each group stopped in the village nearest the school to visit a different Gambian home compound.  Our guide explained that people did not borrow money for housing.  The built as they went.  What they do is buy the land first, then save enough money to build a house.  When that is done they save enough money to buy block, sand and concrete to build a wall around the property.  After that they buy more block, sand and concrete to build a kitchen building, animal housing and whatever buildings they may want to have.  The average compound seemed to be one-third to one-half acre with some much bigger if they were farmers.  The large ones use woven stick fences for the agricultural area and only use block around the living part of the compound.  So it is not at all uncommon to see a plot of land at any of these stages with piles of sand or block waiting for the other ingredients to be purchased before construction.

 

The compound we are visiting is agricultural.  A stick fence surrounds his land with occasional block wall interspersed.  Once inside the fence you found yourself in a large courtyard facing the house.  The house had a recessed porch across the center half of the front.  You entered directly into a sparsely furnished living room.  In one corner there was a table with what appeared to be a CD player on it and a few chairs.  Except for that there was no other furniture in evidence.  There were some photos on the walls and printed cloths hanging like curtains against solid wall, but not much else. 

 

Just off the living room at one end was a utility room.  A large plastic tub on the floor held the family's fresh water.  Just outside the outer door of this room was the compound's well.  It had a pulley and rope system for lowering the scoop for water.  It appeared to be about 30 feet to the water level and the owner told us the total depth was 50 feet.  A twenty-foot high, 4 foot in diameter cylinder of water is quite a few gallons but unless you know the seep rate you don't know how often it refills itself.  The sole electric light, just a bare bulb (a CFL bulb by the way) in a socket that hung loosely from the ceiling, was the only light source in the room.  There was a flashlight in the utility room as well.  There were three bedrooms that we could look into.  Each contained only one bed and was sparsely furnished.

 

The owner is Muslim and has 4 wives.  According to the guide he spends 2 nights with each in turn.  The wife he's sleeping with becomes the inside wife and takes care of the meals and the home.  The other three wives go off to work in the fields.  He has 13 children with the four wives and they appeared to range in age from about 4 to 16.  The kids had a pet plover in addition to the chickens and goats running around the family compound.  We never could figure out where the children sleep.  Maybe they sleep communally or with the wives that are not with the husband.

 

Next to the house was a separate building for cooking.  The Pennsylvania Dutch farm had the equivalent; it was called a 'Summer Kitchen' and they used it so the wood stove they used in the regular kitchen would not be lit to heat up the house when the weather was hot.  My maternal grandmother used a wood-burning stove until 1956.  The woman of the house was out there peeling vegetables and washing them in a bowl of water.  Later I saw her on the front porch cleaning rice in a large bowl.  I didn't see any evidence of running water in the house or the kitchen.

 

On the side of the house opposite the kitchen there was a long building running perpendicular to the house with a large extension of the metal roof shading the area in front of it.  It looked like a row of rooms with doors.  This could have been a work area or laundry area.  There was laundry hanging on ropes suspended under the eaves.

 

In the center of the courtyard there was a group of three trees shading a long wooden bench for sitting in the shade.  Everything looked clean and well cared for, the people and the things. 

 

During the morning we had crossed the paved road a few times but not driven on it since we left town.  Now we headed out to the paved road again and turned east to go further inland.  After driving about a quarter of a mile we turned north and were on dirt roads again.  Our destination is a winery that produces coconut palm wine and 'Firewater'.  They gather the sap of the coconut palm by cutting off a group of fronds, tying them together and putting a bottle at the end for the sap to drip into.  We saw this process in the South Pacific but there they just leave the bottle hanging there for 6-8 weeks and the sap ferments itself in the sun.  Here they gather the sap and go through the regular wine making process to produce a milky colored very wine that, is about like a Port or Madeira, a little sweet and fortified.  The smell was faintly coconut but not very strong. 

 

If they want to make the 'Firewater' they take this wine and run it through a still to produce a whiskey like product, very clear, because it is not aged in wooden barrels, and has about 40% alcohol by volume.  This is typical strength for hard liquor.  Just from the smell I could tell that the Firewater was much like vodka with probably very little flavor.

 

After a presentation on coconut palm wine we gathered around a palm tree to watch one of the workers climb one to show how they get the juice collection bottles in place.  They have and oval shaped belt made from wood and vines that they fasten around the trunk of the tree and shimmy up the trunk using this belt like a lineman's harness.  It's a very efficient system but our guide says many of them are hurt because they don't maintain the belt as they should and it breaks while they are climbing.

 

Our next destination was lunch on the beach.  It was about a half hour drive to the lunch spot, the Laybato Sunrise Beach Bar.  I know the name conjures up some pretty romantic pictures but since it faces west over the Atlantic Ocean the odds of seeing a sunrise are pretty slim indeed.  It was however on the beach and a bar.  The beach was very nice and they had small patios covered by thatched roofs set up with tables and chairs.  We all sat down to enjoy the breeze and look at the ocean.  Soon a waiter approached to ask about drinks, Diana had a Coke and, since they didn't have any Diet Coke, I ordered a local beer, JulBrew.  The picture on the label was a white kingfisher and it reminded me that the first white one I'd ever seen was on my last visit here three years ago.  The beer was a light lager and had a nice beery taste and a little bitter aftertaste.  Not bad at all.

 

The lunch was served buffet style and the bar's owner was behind the serving table.  They had rice, vegetable curry, chicken and barracuda.  The rice was rice and the chicken was chicken, nothing special but good.  The vegetable curry was great and the barracuda was outstanding.  The meat and potatoes people among us really missed out on this lunch.  Some of them tried the curry and complained that it was 'too hot'.  Yikes, it was barely even warm; just a little tingle to let you know it was Indian style yellow curry.

 

After lunch Diana and I searched the inter-tidal zone for shells and found a few shells.  The tide was going out and it was obvious that there are some animals, probably shellfish, living under the sand here.  Their breathing holes were evident sometimes in impressive clusters.  It was nice to just walk up and down the beach to let lunch settle.

 

Our next stop was at a cultural museum and park.  They had a recreation of a traditional native Gambian village compound.  All the elements of the modern compound were there but the men, women and children all had separate huts.

 

They had traditional weaving and metal work demonstrations.  Both were very interesting.  Rather than have the weft on a roll at the back of the loom they stretch it out from the loom and tie it to piece of wood with some heavy rocks on it that slides toward the loom as he weaves.  This keeps tension on the stings as he passes the shuttle through them.

 

After the cultural park we started back to the ship.  In about 20 minutes we transitioned from dirt road back to the two lane black top road that runs the length of the country.  We turned west and drove all the way to the port on fairly smooth surface.  On the way we went through one of only two intersections to have traffic signals.  Of course it was red so we had to stop.  On the way we went through some larger towns and saw some bigger stores.  Still didn't see any USA chain stores, food or otherwise.  On the outskirts of Banjul we went through a very prosperous looking area.  Large neat, almost western style homes with nicely manicured yards and some swimming pools.  The guide says these are the homes of people who have family members that work in the USA or Europe.

 

Our guide had warned us not to photograph police stations, government installations or roadside security checkpoints.  As we approached one of these checkpoints we noticed one of our trucks pulled over to the side.  Our guide stopped and talked to their driver and he said that one of the passengers had taken a picture of the checkpoint and they had been stopped

 

Now we have two days at sea and I'm ready for them.