ITQ

I started in Cape Town. New friends took me south to see the penguins. Then, I rented a car and drove east stopping all along the coast. One day I started on the coastal rocks and walked into twisted forest and up around a small mountain. I came out of the trees into the fynbos and looked out for miles. Around and across I walked. And when the day was getting long, I turned downward and came out at last onto a sandy beach. With barely anyone around, I stripped down to my skivvies and jumped into the southern ocean. South Africa, among all of the many things it may be, is magical.

These pics speak for themselves. Plants are amazing. Flowers are beautiful. That’s all.

Photos here are mostly from two areas - the Boulders Beach penguin colony south of Cape Town and Addo Elephant National Park. Both places are drive up or in Addo’s case drive through. My camera is not well zoomed, so the close ups here are honest in that the animals were quite close - to get the dung beetles for example, I was nearly laying on the road mere inches away. There are two series here - one of a penguin mom and her two wee ones, another of a very young elephant grabbing a bushsnack. Weirdly, the photo I was most excited about taking was the dung beetles. I hoped I would see them, and to find two fighting in a fresh pile of elephant dung was amazing!

While we hiked in Khao Yai, we spotted a male Asian elephant on the trail ahead of us. We very carefully crept closer to have a look. He charged us. Running and screaming ensued.

(Only minor injuries to a friend who turned and ran smack into a tree.)

We went to Chiang Mai for Songkran. We rented bikes and rode through town visiting temples, arriving dripping with water blessings. That night 30 of us shared a meal, and at some point my friend rode a bicycle for the very first time in her life, while friends and strangers cheered her on.

For almost a year, I scoured Bangkok’s Sois looking for the perfect bowl of ramen. I also stopped at 100s of street-food stalls, and made dear friends along the way. Bangkok’s food culture is unrivaled, and, besides my friends, it’s what I miss most. I leave food photos to others, though.

These few snaps barely scratch the surface of the vibrant teeming city I called home for a short while.

The story of the highlands revolves around sheep. This used to be a forest landscape, where bogs were few. Then sheep grazing. And more grazing. And fewer trees. Fewer and fewer, until there weren’t but a spattering. The bogs grew making new trees less and less likely. With the bogs came the midges.

It’s a quiet landscape. Birds are few. Mammals are few. People are few. And the sheep are gone, like the trees.

But, honestly, the hiking is amazing. And the views...

I had dreamed of going to Angkor Wat for years. I was drawn to the magic and the mystery of all those faces in the rock. The entangling tree roots. The long weathering of stone. The solemn quiet. And, like me, thousands of others are drawn there everyday. The magic is harder to see beneath the thick veneer of tourism. Harder to hear under the caw caws of creative entrepreneurialism. I had to take a few minutes of pause. Acknowledge that I am purposefully cropping out the lines of others in front and behind me with cameras face ready, just like mine. Breathe and remember that there was bustle here too when this place was alive with original purpose. Remember that the struggle and the hustle existed then, perhaps more-so than now. Remember that humans are always dancing the edges of the sacred and the profane.

We planned for a few days wandering around the Valley. And when we stepped off the bus, it was warm and sunny. We stopped in at a cafe and had lunch and Vietnamese coffee. They bring the coffee with the food because it takes about as long to drip through the filter onto the ice and sweetened condensed milk as it does to share a meal with good friends. That evening it began to rain. It rained hard and steady for the next three days. A couple sections of mountain roads washed away, taking fields with them. We carefully skirted around the edges in our mud-caked boots. Later, we peeled off our defeated rain gear, loosened our laces, and took over a restaurant with a view. And then, just like that, the patter on the roof tin stopped and the clouds lifted…

I used to dream about trekking in the Dolomites. And then one auspicious June, a friend and I found ourselves in Italy with a couple weeks to spare.

Not four hours in, I thought we might be in trouble when deep dark clouds rolled in and began to dump rain and hail on us. We spotted a lone shed and headed for the meager shelter under its eave. And we weren’t the only ones with that idea. A cow came hustling over, paused when it saw us, but huddled under nonetheless. The three of us looked at the dark sky and the frozen rain sharing a hope that this was not a portentous moment. The storm passed. We three struck out on our way. Not ten minutes later our first mountain lodge came into view above us. Day 1 in the books. We set down our packs and wandered along the ridge seeking a view of our route. We were greeted with a stunning expanse of mountains in the distance, towering clouds, and this rainbow bridge to limitless blue.

We met snow, blinding fog, and clear sun on our days, and stars, wind, and rain in the night. We crested snow covered passes, and waded through fields of new green dotted with the first yellows and purples of spring in the mountains.

Old Hanoi is a treasure trove for wanderers. Find yourself a nice easy gait. Head out into the streets hungry and curious. Get some Vietnamese coffee. If you have days to spend, get a routine, a place you stop for eggs or porridge. A mid morning cafe. Match faces with names. Sit back at lunch and have long conversations. Look around again and again.

Discover and rediscover.

We sat on the late afternoon train to Pisa. In our four square of seats an older man traveled alone. He turned to us and asked the normal questions: Where are you from? What have you seen so far? He smiled throughout, a light in his eyes as we told him of Tuscany, of discovering what olive oil could taste like, of the colors of the Duomo. He nodded sagely. Then told us of his wife. She had died not long ago. He was going to visit his daughter and his grandchildren. His smile never left his face. We asked how he was doing with the loss. He leaned in toward us and said I'll tell you a secret. 

You can go ahead and fuck up everything, but if you do love right you'll be happy. Make a mess of your career. Don't fuck up with love.

And he winked at us. His English broke here and there, but he cussed like a native. When we stood to get off at Pisa, we shook hands warmly, his smile never faltering.

These woods are all majesty and hushed awe. Wild redwood groves are sacred spaces. Maybe that is why not many people visit. I don't know. I can't speak for them. I go, in part, for the solitude and I find it in abundance. My mind settles as I walk. What are my measly decades compared to the many centuries towering about me? The dogs of woe and tribulation calm their barking. I need not think. Just look, listen, feel and breathe. And walk. 

I planned my trip for February, when Death Valley was near its coldest temperatures. It was 90 at midnight at my campsite. I wandered around this glorious park and found solitude wrapped in rough beauty at every turn. 

He said, "Look there, on the rock in the sun!" We turned toward where he pointed and saw a coiled snake. "Is that...is that a..."

"Yes, it's an anaconda. It's maybe 7 meters long...Do you want me to bring the boat closer?" 

"No. No no no. I mean. The view from here is perfect."

"Hah. When it lays out in the sun like that it is not hungry. Usually if we can see it, we are safe."

"Oh well that makes sense...So how many of these Anaconda would you say are in this part of the jungle?"

"There are probably many, maybe 100 around that size."

"And so...how often do you see one?"

"Oh, very rarely."

"Right...right," I said, looking around at the jungle surrounding me with fresh eyes.

The days were mostly spent packed in an old trusty 4x4 rolling through a bright, vast seemingly lifeless colored landscape. The sun is deceptive at 12,000 feet. Miss a spot with the spf and you'll burn, quick and easy. The nights were cold. I layered up to creep away from the bunks and out into the black. Turned my back to the light of the camp and walked a hundred, two hundred paces, then laid down on the rough salt to stare heavenward at the milky way striped across a glittering infinity.

There's a stop where they let us out for exploring. It's an intricate maze of red orange stone. The rock is dry and rough and grabs onto the soles of shoes. The narrow gullies like hallways are perfect for climbing. There is a kind of rabbit-like chinchilla, the vizcacha, that lives throughout this rugged land. For some unknown reason, I get it into my head to play a game of chase. Whooping with the excitement, I match it bound for bound, running up, down, leaping across. The joy of it flushes through me, as hands and feet grip and push. There it is, not two steps ahead of me, and my eyes widen trying to see every step the instant before I commit.

Xelaju, they said, is the old name of this city, many hundreds of years older than any of your own. The mountains rose on all sides, framing clear blue, sending cold air down to dance with the hot sun. I had coffee in the mornings. A jar of instant sat in the middle of the table. Where was the famed Guate coffee I've heard so much about? Yeah, my host mother told me, all of that is exported. It's so expensive here. This, she said, shaking the jar filled with brown lumps, is what everyone here drinks.

I traveled North past Huehue to Nebaj, an entryway to the Ixil people. From there I walked into mountainous countryside. These communities, this people, were caught in the charnal house between both armies during the Guatemalan Civil War and suffered greatly. I walked past a silent hillside cemetery with identical concrete markers. We don't know how many disappeared or what their names were, but here is where some from this village rest.

Butter tea takes some getting used to. First off it's salty. Second, if you're a guest in someone's home, sitting at their table not having any words but thank you and shared smiles, then the tea is about half rancid yak butter. And your mug is bottomless. But, if you were, like I was, at a cafe, then it was about a third rancid yak butter. If you were sitting at breakfast with the children at the orphanage, it was less than a quarter. It is delicious regardless. The day is cold unless the sun is on the streets. So, I sat for a while, sipping my tea, nibbling on white steamed buns, looking out the cafe window waiting for the day to brighten. I would start walking at the Jokhang. I always started my walks at the Jokhang. Round after round I would walk, exploring side streets, spinning wheels casually, wandering, but always, eventually, drifting back. Eyes exploring every corner, every exposed roof beam. I returned every smile, every wave, every furtive look. I would pause, struck by something, perhaps my shutter would click or perhaps not, and I would walk on, around and around, spinning slowly like prayer wheels, like time, like planets and moons, suns and galaxies, around the Jokhang.

The students' days start early. Mornings were for tsampa and butter tea. Tsampa is a traditional Tibetan food, a mainstay, the staple of the plateau. Grab a bowl and a mug from the pile, and move along the line behind the kids. Call out your greeting to the kitchen crew. Receive your roasted barley flour and mug of tea. Sit down wherever there's space. I always sat with the kids. Dribble some of your tea into the flour and mix with your fingers. Look to the kids at your right and left for guidance. You'll want a consistency that feels dry, but still holds together. Show them your bowl, and hopefully you'll get a smile and a nod, if you get a frown, they'll probably help out, often their own fingers would land in my bowl mixing magic. Roll the dough into small bite-sized balls. Pop those one at a time mind you, into your mouth and chew. I never got to like Tsampa like I did the butter tea. But, once, and then several times afterwards, one of the kids ran up to me at breakfast wearing a slightly worried look. He held his hand over my bowl. He opened it and out rained another small miracle...sugar. My eyes widened. I looked into his face again, and it grew into a great big glorious smile.

Some afternoons, I would sit on the low wall while the students did their day. I remember when one of the younger girls came to sit next to me. I never heard her speak, not to me, not to anyone. But, that day she sat there and we watched the bustle of the afternoon pass us by. After a minute, she reached over and slid her hand in mine. On some of my harder days, I go back to that afternoon and check in on the goings-on at Jatson. Gratefully, we are sitting on that low wall still, hand in hand.

Tibet is mostly wide open, rocky, mountainous landscape. Prayer flags at the mountain passes were often the only evidence, besides the winding dirt road, of humanity. Then the towns and villages would appear in the distance, like oases in the desert. These were inevitably quiet places. Wind, I remember the wind. And the vastness. I remember how slow things seemed. I remember feeling that I could get lost in that calm. The hundreds of thoughts and dreams and hopes and fears, the crowded rush hour press, the busy, the stress, the due, the deadline, the shoulds and shouldn'ts all flapping around my mind like a murder of crows. I climbed out of the truck at 16,000 feet and walked over to the mass of prayer flags, and in a moment I understood what those flags meant. I reached inside my brain, inside my heart, felt for the thread and pulled, and pulled. Crow after crow came forth, endlessly. With gratitude, with tears, with joy and sorrow, I tied my colorful flags to the post, adding my stream flapping in the ceaseless wind.

Spring in the Swiss Alps was a quiet affair during my wanderings. Mountain towns were half empty. The days were perfect blue with lofty white clouds. I wore sturdy boots and remembered to pack my gaiters. Trails were easy to find, but hard to follow. At times, I sank waist deep into snow, and looked for animal tracks to guide me along mountain routes past still boarded-up cabins. In the mornings before my treks, I would stop at the market in town and buy fresh baked bread and soft cheese. At lunch, I would slice into the crust with my pocket knife, spread the cheese, sit back and eat in the new grass with the breeze trickling down with the snow melt, taking in mountain views no photo could capture.

I headed west along China's Inner Mongolia. My course also paralleled the Great Wall of China. Built sporadically over more than 2000 years, the Great Wall remains a symbol, an idea, that inspires those bent on division, separation, a fictional us and an envious them. The vastness of the undertaking didn't really hit me until I had traveled 1000s of kilometers to its final end in Jiayuguan. This marks the edge of the empire that the Ming sought to protect. Beyond this wall was the unknown. Wide-open, dry, magnificent places. Sometimes frightening in their bleakness, the landscapes shifted from desert to seeming wasteland, from ancient crumbling ruin to nomad rest stops. In the far northwest, the Kanas Lake region, bordering Kazakhstan, Russia and Mongolia, is oft likened to the Swiss Alps with its tall pines and snow capped peaks. The Karakorum Mountains in the far west are steep, dark and mysterious, and beyond them lay the Pamirs and to the south, the Himalaya await. This place is the very definition of hardship. Yet I found so much beauty within it and the people who call it home.

The silk road split when it entered modern day China, into an area long inhabited by a Turkic people called the Uyghur, to skirt the barren, shifting and often cold sand dunes of the Taklamakan desert. Today, there is still a diversity of peoples in this region. I spent my time with the Hui, Uyghur, Tajiks, Kazakhs, and Kyrgyz. The northern route of the silk road, the summer route, can be traveled by train today, so its difficult to see the cities in their historical light - as oases, as symbols of hope and relief from the hardship and grit of the vast expanse of red sand. And yet still they remain symbols, as they hold onto a culture under siege. China has held this land as long as they have Tibet, but the Uyghur do not have a spokesperson like the Dalai Lama, and they are Muslim. Maybe that is the reason their plight is mostly ignored by the west. Regardless, I found nothing but warmth, kindness, and welcome on my journey. In my noodle bowls, I would often receive chunks of sheep fat, a coveted favorite. Come, a Tajik woman said as she waved me to her yurt, I am making tea.

The material world, this our physical world, is full of things, options, ideas and expressions of those ideas. Buddhism calls these distractions. The Tao labels them the 10000 things. The hours of the day are ensnared by one or many of the 10000, and we perhaps barely notice. China can feel full. Of people, of activity, of change. I crammed myself into rush hour trains in Shanghai. I joined the throngs surging through downtowns. Soon, I became drawn to the quieter moments. The soft. The still. In Beijing, I stayed in one of the city's few remaining hutongs, old quarters with winding maze-like narrow streets. I spent 5 days visiting the city-park tea houses in Chengdu, sitting for hours sipping tea, eating sunflower seeds and letting time slip gently by. I strolled. And I looked for the side of China that was unconcerned with the bustle. Here and there, patiently amidst the 10000 drummers, a cicada sang, a donkey brayed on a hillside, old friends clasped hands. I rode my bike on the gridded paths of rice fields and stopped at the Restaurant at the End of the Universe. During the Moon Festival, I joined a gathering of family and friends in the countryside. The young ran around the yard, delighting in sparklers while the adults ate slowly, with many stories told across the table in the lamplight.

Walk around La Paz for a few minutes, fresh off the plane, and maybe you'll start getting some messages from your body. I got my first call from my lungs. The second from my brain. I half stumbled into a cafe near gasping, exhausted, and with my brain in a juicer. Coca tea, I remembered reading. Chocolate, I remembered too, or dreamed I remembered; sometimes its hard to tell the difference. I sat at a table against a far wall, tea pot brimming with boiled water and green. I nibbled and drank. When my pot was empty, I lifted the lid, remembering my lessons from Chinatown, wondering how things might work over here. Smoothly, without the need for words, my pot was filled, fresh water, fresh leaves, and sugar. She must have noticed that I neglected the sweet that, I quickly learned, is custom here. I smiled, feeling right at home. 

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I went to the Dominican Republic in 2009 as a translator for a friend and photojournalist investigating HIV/AIDS in Haitian migrant communities. For decades, Haitian migrant workers were brought in to work the cane fields. However, when the companies abandoned or moved their operations they also abandoned these workers and their families. These communities remained, unclaimed and unwanted by both nations.

We hiked up in the early morning dark, to get the best chance of a good view. The snow, the rain came on us as we ascended. The snow at Fitz Roy kept us huddled together as we sat leaning against a probably giant imposing rock pillar of which we could feel but barely see. The rain at the Torres chased away my friends and nearly all others who stumbled out of their tents at 4am. I sat next to a man who, when he arrived, promptly climbed into his sleeping bag and fell asleep. He said, "kick me if it looks like it might clear." At 8:30, three wet hours later, I kicked him. And as we hiked down Fitz, disappointed and cold, the sun came out and melted all the snow on our hats and jackets, we turned and declared, "Oh! Wouldya look at that."

The Iguazú River flows over a plateau on its way to meet the Paraná River in northern Argentina and southern Brazil, creating Iguazú Falls. The falls are spread over 2.7 km, making this not one, but a collection of nearly 300 waterfalls (depending on the season). The roar is impressive. Standing at the top of the Garganta del Diablo, where the river pours in on three sides, with wind and mist rushing up from the crush, is exhilarating. The pathways get close enough to look down into the throat and imagine the violence going on under the white. There is a native myth of forbidden love associated with the falls, where a scorned god split the river while the lovers Tairoba and Naipi tried to cross, dooming the pair to an eternal fall. 

I drove through Yoho National Park on my way to Banff. Yoho is one of British Columbia's finest National Parks. However, the road that cut through this once stunning mountain forest passed through a graveyard. The mountain pine beetle. Native to the North American west. This beetle has been ravaging forests up and down the Rockies for the last 2 decades or more. When I say ravaging, I mean that pine forests are dead or dying across 10 US states and 2 Canadian provinces; I mean millions of trees are kaput. All because it got a little bit warmer and a little bit drier. This is what climate change looks like. Without the trees, the ecosystems that they are an integral part of are going to change. There'll be a new normal. When I went to the ranger station to fill out my camping permits, I asked about the forests I would see on my trip. Many areas in the parks, she told me, are dying or dead. We're doing everything we can to slow them down. The beetle is also moving east, she said. It's finding new species to breed in. Take a good long look, she said, because this place might not be the same when you come back.