Ana’s Road Goes Ever On

Well, it’s that time again: I’m off on vacation! I’m doing something slightly different this year, a two-stage holiday, a voyage into pasts separated by time and distance. On Monday I’m flying of to Peru to search for the Incas. I’ve been so keen to see Machu Picchu in particular for such a long time. I’ll be away for just over two weeks, possibly, if time allows, visiting Cartagena in Colombia as a side trip. I have friends at university who live there.

Then comes October and the new term, a brief punctuation because in November I’m off again for another two weeks, this time to Egypt and the pharaohs. I already have a detailed itinerary worked out, which will take us from Cairo to Aswan and Luxor, into the hot valley of the Nile and the even hotter valleys of the kings and queens of ancient Egypt. Like Harriet Pringle in Olivia Manning’s Fortunes of War series of novels I intend to view the whole scene from the top of a pyramid if I can!

So, bye, bye for now; see you later. :-)

Roads go ever ever on
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where never sun has shone,
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Castle in the Mist

I had a really smashing long weekend in Scotland, taking some good friends to a place my family have in Easter Ross in the far north, a place surrounded by the most wonderful rugged country, a place where as often as not one is likely to be greeted in the morning by a wonderful many-pointed stag staring over the garden wall. I've been many times before, especially when I was growing up, though it's a while since I have been back. Not much has changed, though; this is a part of the country where things remain remarkably the same, remote from the pressures of modern life.

The people in my party had never been so far north before, so I had the role of guide and Sherpa thrust upon me. We managed to pack quite a lot in over the few days, anything from watching dolphins dance in the Moray Firth to a spot of hill walking. We even went as far as Fort William, dining in the wonderful Crannog Seafood Restaurant there, overlooking Loch Linnhe. But by far the best part of the weekend was some early morning sailing down Loch Ness.

It's a wonderful place, with the surrounding hills falling into the dark peaty waters of the long narrow lake, one of the deepest in the British Isles, deeper even than all the Great Lakes of North America, one laid upon the other! The whole setting is just impossibly romantic, so dominated by nature, by the power of nature.

I can just imagine what Casper David Friedrich, that magician of nature painting, would have made of the scene, looking down on the waters from the hills above. That’s what I was looking for, beauty and romance, not monsters! By far the best bit was sailing past the ruins of Urquhart Castle, poised in the edge of the waters, a place that seems to represent the enduring pointlessness of all human endeavour.

Anastasia in Africa

I was in Morocco over last New Year although that was not my first time in Africa , oh no. The New Year before that I went with my boyfriend of the time on a safari to East Africa, black Africa . We had hoped to spend some time in Kenya but the political situation was too tense just after the parliamentary elections, so we moved on to Uganda .

I had a really great time there, and met some fabulous people. What I always do is to get away as much as I can from the tourist ghettos, to met local people, people who can tell me what life is really like, to take me where no one else goes. It always works. I met some super friends, guys mostly, but also some girls. The prostitutes, yes, the prostitutes, in one of the bars I found myself in were just so sweet; I learned so much from them, and I still keep in touch with a few by email. Most of them are actually lesbian, which is, I suppose, no great surprise.

I think I was everywhere. I have great memories of eating fish and drinking beer by the banks of Lake Victoria . I was lucky enough also, after visiting the source of the Nile, to go and consult, well, I would have used the term ‘witch doctor’, but that is used only for the practitioners of the blacker arts; and when it comes to magic and witchcraft nowhere is blacker than Africa. Possibly shaman, though I do not think this term strictly accurate either. A wise elder, I suppose, an old man in ragged, traditional costume. It was right in the heart of the bush, in a village, a mud hut. We sat round a smoky fire, as I was told things about me and my future; not vague, in the usual way of these things, but specific…and accurate, mostly accurate, as it turned out.

On going back to Kampala we decided we wanted to fly on to Rwanda , to see the mountain gorillas, spending a few days in Kigali first. My Ugandan friends got really anxious, not assumed anxiety, but genuine apprehension. I should not go, they said. Why? I asked. Because there are too many witches there, they answered. I said nothing. :))