Come with me to the Kasbah

Tunis by night

Well, I’m back!

I came, I saw, I was captivated.  There really is so much to captivate one in Tunisia, a marvellous place with some marvellous sights and even more marvellous people.  It’s certainly true that the country has not quite recovered from the Jasmine Revolution which saw the overthrow last year of the Ben Ali dictatorship, but overall I thought the place more relaxed and less tense than Egypt. 

There was no evidence at all of the recent fuss over The Innocence of Muslims, apart from the fact that in the whole time I was there I came across not a single American, something quite unique in my experience. 

I did go to Carthage, virtually the first place we made for soon after settling in to Tunis.  I wasn’t completely disappointed, having been forewarned by others that it was all a bit of an anti-climax.  The sites are scattered and there is really not that much to see anymore of a city consumed by a city consumed by a city.  The best part, in the sense of being most complete, was the remains of baths dating to the reign of Antoninus Pius. 

But the most compelling part, for me anyway, was on Byrsa Hill, the heart of Punic Carthage.  Here it was possible to see the fragments left after the systematic destruction of 146BC, an act of vindictive savagery on the part of Rome.  I thought of Hannibal as I saw the scorch marks on walls from all those centuries ago.  Traces in time; I suppose in the end that’s what it all comes down to. 

Carthage is poignant enough but there are far better survivals from the past.  Later we visited the wonderful amphitheatre at El Jem, just as impressive as the Coliseum in Rome.  It’s a testament in stone to the vanished wealth, prestige and power of the Roman province of Africa. 

Equally impressive – much more so than Carthage – are the remains at Sbeitla, a town to the south-west of the city of Kairouan.  This was the ancient settlement of Sufetula, were history is layered upon history, from pagan Rome to Christian Byzantium.  The forum is a joy to behold, with temples side by side to Juno, Jupiter and Minerva, the trinity of the ancient world. 

As usual I’m rushing ahead, carried away by my enthusiasm, mindful that I cannot possibly include all I saw and did in a manageable blog.  It wasn’t all the past, believe me: there were plenty of excursions into the present for swimming and shopping and generally lazing about.  The seaside town of Hammamet on the Cape Bon Peninsula has a gorgeous beach.  Here we lunched on olives, cheese, dates and figs, all washed down with some delightful Tunisian rosé wine.  Rosé is not normally my wine of choice but it’s highly favoured among the locals, so we were assured by Kemel, our ever dependable guide.  Well, when in Tunisia do as the Tunisians do! 

Oh, I almost forgot to mention my encounter in the city of Sousse.  Here most of the people in my party went off to visit the souk in the heart of the old Medina.  Not in the mood for endless bargaining, I wandered off to have a look at the Kasbah, the early medieval fortress, from the outside.  It was really a measure of how safe I felt.  The men, although solicitous, were not quite as bothersome as those in Egypt.  However, as I was standing and staring, one came up and asked if I would like a tour of the Kasbah.  “Come with me to ze Kasbah” – now my life is complete! 

That same day Kemel took us not to the Kasbah but to the city of Monastir, the birthplace of Habib Bourguiba, the first president and founding father of modern Tunisia.  His memory continues to be revered; Kemel certainly revered a man he described as the George Washington or Mahatma Gandhi of Tunisia. 

It’s certainly true, up to a point, though I did not think it politic to challenge our guide’s enthusiasm or question Bourguiba’s more dubious legacy.  The simple fact is that he was a decent and modernising leader who created a bad system.  Presidents for life are just not a very good idea; for the Bourguibas of this Arab world have a tendency to turn into Ben Alis. 

Incidentally, the golden statue of the founding father as a schoolboy, located right in the centre of Monastir, is positively the tackiest memorial I think I have ever seen, all the more distasteful in that the school he attended was demolished to make way for its presence. 

Where to now?  Oh, yes, come with me to the oasis of Tozeur, from there to the great salt lake at Chott el Jerid, with mirages dancing on the horizon, and ever onwards to the Atlas mountains and the sweeping sand dunes of the Sahara.  We did it all, on journeys that took us within an inch of the Algerian border, well, several hundred meters anyway, as close to this dangerous outpost as I ever want to get. 

On the way south we also passed through the city of Kairouan, the first capital of Islamic Tunisia and the location of the historic Great Mosque.  The city, so I was told, is the third holiest place in the Islamic world, after Mecca and Medina. 

One of my more memorable excursions in the south was on the Red Lizard Train from Metlaoui and Redeyef, a journey over a section the Atlas Mountains through some breathtaking gorges.

But this trip was memorable for another reason altogether. In the ticket office I happened to see two men lying prostrate on thin mats, as if waiting in terminal boredom for the next train.  I really only glanced at them from the side of my eye, paying them no mind.  I only found out later from our guide that they were on hunger strike.

This was the beginning of the second week in October.  They had started their particular protest at the end of September, sustaining themselves with a mixture of water and sugar.  What was the reason for their action?  Simply that their fathers had worked for the railway company and this somehow bestowed on them a similar right.  They wanted jobs where no jobs exist.  Apparently their action was reported with some sympathy in the press, though it’s really no more than a kind of moral blackmail.  I can imagine how popular hunger strikes would become if somehow jobs were found. 

I have no wish to sound unsympathetic.  Unemployment is personal tragedy and a moral evil, all the more tragic in Tunisia where there is no system of public welfare.  But I see this as a kind of metaphor, a living example of the country’s dilemma, the reason why the Arab Revolution was always foredoomed to failure, at least in its wilder expectations.  Hopes, sad to say, have a tendency to fall faster than rain. 

I’m straying too far into politics in what I intended chiefly as a travel report.  So back to travel it is, back to one of the highlights of my whole safari – surfing on the dunes of the desert!  The whole thing was such fun, a convoy of 4x4s, driving sometimes at crazy angles or up and down the biggest sand hills I have ever seen. 

Have you ever seen Ice Cold in Alex, the old war film starring John Mills?  If so you may remember the scene where in the process of trying to get the ambulance up the side of the Qattara Depression in Egypt there was a moment when it slipped back down to the bottom.  The jeep just in front of ours made it almost to the top of a particularly large dune, only to reverse back down to take the whole thing again.  Ice Cold in Alex, I thought! 

We made it to the top alright but one of the people in our group went into a complete panic when she saw the descent before us.  She had to be walked down while I urged the driver on.  “We will do it”, I said, “We will get to the bottom, Inshallah.”  We did, well, obviously!  God willed it. 

For me the most romantic part of this adventure was the stop at Onk Jemal – the Camel Head Rock.  It was here, in a desert camp, that Count Almásy (Ralph Fiennes) met Katherine Clifton (Kirsten Scott Thomas) for the first time in the 1996 film The English Patient.  A depiction of doomed love, it really broke my heart when I was saw it in my teens.  It was super to stand there and dream.  For the boys another movie location, Star Wars, was not too far away! 

Romance and dreams and dates and deserts and wine and Kasbahs in the sun, this was my time in timeless Tunisia.  

To Carthage I go

I take the Golden Road

Dear readers, this will be the last article for a bit.  I leave for Tunisia this coming Sunday and will be away for just over three weeks.  I’m so looking forward to it, my third trip to North Africa, following Egypt last year and Morocco a few years before.

I simply love to travel; it’s in my blood.  We had some wonderful vacations when I was a child, visiting quite a few unusual places.  I’ve continued this family tradition. The more unusual the destination the better I like it.  I’m not a travel snob, though; I’m as capable as most other people of doing touristy things and visiting touristy places.  I like to be pampered and I’m most assuredly not into any form of asceticism or personal hardship.  I go for pleasure, not for penance! 

Having said that, I do sometimes feel that I was born too late, at a time when the world gets smaller by the day; a time when all the great adventures are past; when all the trails are blazed and all the paths found.  I would simply loved to have been alive in the great age of exploration, which for me is the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a time when the maps were being filled out. 

Have you heard of Gertrude Bell?  She is a particular heroine of mine: the first woman down from Oxford with a degree in Modern History; an independent scholar, an archaeologist, and expert in several Middle Eastern languages, a writer, a political specialist, a traveller; a friend of sheiks and kings - the female Lawrence of Arabia!

In 1900 she dressed herself as a Bedouin man, riding alone into the dangerous Hauran Plain, still under the control of the Ottomans, in search of the Druze, a militant Muslim sect, which had been fighting the Turks for two hundred years. She made contact with Yahya Beg, king of the Druze, and conversed with him in his own language. Some weeks after he was to ask another visitor to his domain 'Have you seen a queen travelling?'

I’m no queen; I’m just a footloose English girl, going where the fancy takes me, hoping to understand other people and other cultures just a little better; hoping at the same time to understand myself a little better, my mind deeper, my horizons broader.

Why Tunisia, you may wonder?  In part because I have a fascination with past cultures, with the history of a country that once contained Carthage, the realm of Queen Dido, more completely lost than mere time would suggest.  I will be there, among the fragments and those later left by Rome, fragments upon fragments, traces upon traces.  Perhaps I shall find Dido, with Aeneas by her side. (I saw Anna Karenina this afternoon.  My present mood is fey and romantic!)

But my African adventure is deeper.  It will take me from Tunis and Carthage in the north to the oasis of Tozeur in the far south-west.  From there I’m off into the Sahara and also to see the great salt lake of Chott el Jerid, with mirages dancing in the sun! 

OK, there is a slight concern going to a Muslim country at this time, a time when things are so unsettled, a time when Tunisia itself is unsettled.  But I was in Cairo last November, leaving just before the latest round of trouble started on Tahrir Square.  If one worried about danger one would never travel at all.  Besides life is all risk and I am a fatalist, a jolly one at that.  I shall, in my own way, spread as much peace and light as I can…and keep my golden locks well tucked under a headscarf.

So, that’s it.  My next piece shall be a postcard from Tunisia.  

IL Magnifico

If you come to Florence for the first time, a city you may have visited previously in art and imagination, there is one supreme moment of epiphany.  It is not a place that surrenders easily, unlike Rome and Venice.  But there you are, right in the centre, walking along narrow streets unknown to you.  

It's the evening of your first day.  You have not long arrived, driving up from Rome.  You are tired.  But life is short; you want to explore before going to bed, using every drop squeezed from the fruit of time.  You turn into a narrow and rising alley for pedestrians only.  On both sides are goldsmiths’ shops, so close together that you almost feel that you could reach out and touch both sides.  You reach the top of the incline.  There are no more shops.  The vista is free.  There is the River Arno.  You are at the top of the Ponte Vecchio - the Old Bridge.  This is your A Room With A View moment!  

This is the city of Dante, of the Medici, of Botticelli, of Donatello, of Machiavelli, of Savonarola, of Michelangelo and so many others.  It's a city of poets and painters, of soldiers and bankers, of prophets and outcasts.  It's where the Renaissance was born, in a place still suffused with its traces.  There is a romance to Florence, sensual, yes, but something else, something divine.  Here Dante saw Beatrice (say it in Italian: bet-reach-eeh.  It's so much more beautiful than the English pronunciation) He fell in love with perfection, and perfection was what she remained, near yet distant, adored yet unattainable.  It was by the banks of the Arno that they met for the last time, the briefest of brief encounters.  She died eight years later, aged only twenty-four.  She was his salvation, destined to live forever in one of the greatest poetic epics ever penned.

Florence is an impossible place, impossible to absorb in a few days.  I think perhaps it would take a lifetime to experience and understand all it has to offer!  I can only give you a small sampler.  Once again I visited the two Davids, Donatello's in bronze at the Bargello Museum, and Michelangelo’s marble giant in the Academia Gallery.  The later is an expression of power and virtue, a political statement, a symbol of the Florentine Republic after the Medici were temporarily cast aside.  I love it but it has an intimidating quality.  I far prefer Donatello's much more intimate creation.  Yes, I know the two are not comparable in terms of size, technique or purpose, but the bronze David, free of politics, is just so sensual, so beautiful, so superbly and simply erotic!  

To the Uffizi now, principally to see the work of Botticelli, my favourite Renaissance painter.  You've probably seen illustrations of Primavera and The Birth of Venus, but how marvellous it is to stand before them, captivating, sublime and mysterious.  I'm not presumptuous enough to hazard an interpretation of Primavera; I leave that to others.  It just thrills me.  I think the figure of Flora, off to the right, is another dimension of perfection and sensual beauty, this time in a female form.  

We had a room with a view, a view of the Duomo, the central cathedral, topped by the magnificent dome designed and built in the fifteenth century by Filippo Brunelleschi.  It was a reflection of his talent and of the grandeur of Florence.  There is another view, right at the top, a God's eye view of the city, all laid out before you.   Be warned though: the ascent from the inside of the dome is not for the feint of heart!  From the gallery I looked down to the interior far below, the place where Savonarola once preached to a congregation of thousands at the height of his power.

Not far from here is the Baptistery, the oldest building in the city, dating back to the sixth century.  Enter through the wonderful east doors, by long tradition known as The Gates of Paradise, only to be confronted, looking up to the ceiling, by the Gates of Hell!  It's breathtaking mosaic in a medieval Byzantine style, dominated by the central figure of Christ.  This is the Last Judgement, with a fearsome demon consuming the damned.  The place is busy but try, if you can, to lie on your back looking up, even only for a moment or two.

Of course it wasn’t all art and culture.  We picnicked in the park.  We dined by starlight.  There is a wonderful restaurant not far from the Ponte Vecchio where I had wild boar served with polenta, soft and succulent, complemented by some local wine.  Alas, all dreams end.  We flew back this afternoon from Pisa, back to grey old London making ready for an Olympic party.  I feel, though, that I have just descended from Mount Olympus!  

Come to Berlin

A question on Blog Catalogue about things to do in Berlin brought back my memories of the city. I’ve only been there once and it was a few years ago now. The Wall was gone, communism vanished and the city reunited. The old centre around the Reichstag seemed to be one huge building site. I shall have to go back soon – I have friends there – just to see how things are turning out, to see if the Bear has fully risen from the ashes like the Phoenix.

I enjoyed the time I spent; we seemed to pack in so much in just under a week. Even before I went I had visited the place in my imagination, helped along by the Berlin novels of Christopher Isherwood, the paintings of George Grosz and the theatrical collaborations of Kurt Weil and Bertholt Brecht. Cabaret, based on Isherwood’s stories, is one of my favourite films. I could just see myself as Sally Bowles!

Speaking of Sally, one of the evening spots we went to was the Bar Jeder Vernunft, where life is still a cabaret! This Art Nouveau mirror tent is really quite charming, all in wood and velvet, an imaginative recreation of the Kit Kat Club. We had a great evening sipping cocktails, listening to music and comedy, being divinely decadent and generally laid back.

Ah, but decadence has moved on since the days of Sally Bowles. If you want to know just how far it’s moved on try visiting a night club by the name of Insomnia. This does not come with any personal recommendation on my part. Let me just say that I’m no prude and I’m not easily shocked, but it was a case of a quick in out because there was too much in out, if you take my meaning. If you are a girl do not go on your own.

Soberly, in the day, one of the first places we made for was Museum Island, specifically to see the Pergamon Altar in the museum of the same name. This originally formed part of the temple of Zeus in the Greek city of Pergamon. It really is quite something, the throne of Satan himself, at least according to some of those who take their cue from the Book of Revelations. I pass no comment on that. What I will say is that it inspired Albert Speer, who used it as a basis for the design of the Zeppelintribüne at Nuremberg, another satanic throne altogether.

Incidentally, the Altar was brought to Berlin from the then Ottoman Empire, where it was reconstructed at the beginning of the twentieth century. Given the dark history that was to ensue it could very well be seen as a harbinger of ill-omen, becoming a kind of gateway to hell.

And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write; These things saith he which hath the sharp sword with two edges; I know thy works, and where thou dwellest, even where Satan’s seat is: and thou holdest fast my name, and hast not denied my faith, even in those days wherein Antipas was my faithful martyr, who was slain among you, where Satan dwelleth.

On a slightly lighter note I discovered that the Altar impressed not only Speer and Hitler but also – guess who? – Barack Obama! He visited the city in the summer of 2008, the year after me, and, in the hapless and ill-advised style that was to become typical of his ensuing presidency, used the design of the Alter as a backdrop to his Democratic acceptance speech.

Now the last thing this man needs is any more conspiracy theories but that is exactly what he engendered with the Lucifer-endorsed ‘Barapolis’ There are some on the outer fringes of American life, it has to be said, who now believe him to be Antichrist in person, poised in this portentous year to destroy the country. This is something he may very well do if he wins in November, but because he is stunningly incompetent chief executive, not because of any satanic power!

Never mind that; let me get back to Berlin. It’s not a particularly handsome city; it bears no comparison with Paris or Rome, and there still signs of its wartime trauma and subsequent long-term divorce into East and West. Ironically the one building to survive the war completely unscathed was Herman Goring’s Luftministerium, still standing in all its functional ugliness while older and nobler structures were consumed.

The other edifice that survived is the Siegessäule – Victory Column -, the triumphal phallus that celebrates the Prussian victories which led to the unification of Germany in the nineteenth century. It’s possible to climb to the top on the stairs inside the column. I did, and it’s a nice view over the city skyline.

There is another Obama reference here. Sorry, I simply can’t help myself. This man must have some really poor advisers, people with no sense of history or place, because it was used as the location for his Berlin speech, notwithstanding its militaristic and Nazi associations. Hmm, the Pergamon Altar and the Siegessäule; is he really trying to say something, trying to convey a subliminal message? Heil Obama! Expect to see him in Triumph of the Will before the end of the year.

There is more I could say about the places I went to and the things I saw, as well as the people I met. But one thing stands out, the night I dined in the Hotel Adlon. This was one of the places high on my ‘to do’ list. Situated on the Unter den Linden, it has a fascinating history. Sadly the original hotel, one of the most fashionable in Europe, was largely destroyed in May, 1945, set alight by drunken Soviet soldiers. In its inter-war glory days it saw the likes of Marlene Dietrich and Charlie Chaplin among its guests. Greta Garbo’s movie Grand Hotel was inspired by the Adlon. After the fall of the Wall construction of the new Adlon was begun in the late 1990s. The food was splendid and the ambience magical, as we sat and talked and dreamed of old, happy, far off things and glamour long ago.

One Martini

Hotel standards vary hugely across the world and five stars does not always mean five stars. I’ve stayed in some wonderful places, formerly with my parents and latterly with lovers, friends and other travelling companions. I’ve been fortunate enough to tick off some of life’s ‘must does’ including relaxing in the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, the old wing that was blown up by Irgun in July, 1946, and enjoying a gin sling in Raffles Hotel in Singapore, the place where this famous cocktail was born.

I love cocktails; I love the tradition of the cocktail hour. My favourite is a champagne cocktail closely followed by a Pimm’s number one cup, though there are others I like when I’m in the mood, particularly a simple, or not so simple, dry martini. That’s the classic, that’s the drink by which all hotels should be measured, by their ability to mix a martini, not by stars.

The hotels I stayed in when I was in Egypt were all five stars by local assessment. They were generally good and the staff were highly obliging, always mindful of the prospect of baksheesh to make good the gap in their dreadful salaries, but my, oh, my, their martini standards were poor or non-existent!

Now, this is Egypt, a Muslim country, a country with a Muslim majority. Alcohol, while available, does not play a big part in the national consciousness. In future it may play no part at all, if the Islamist advance continues and the stricter forms of sharia law adopted. As it was I flew there and back with Egypt Air, which does not serve alcohol. My, all those hours without a snifter; how frustrating!

So, yes, alcohol is not that important. But one still expects a certain standard in international hotels, particularly those with a cocktail menu. There it was on the menu in Luxor, clearly stated - a dry martini. So, on this particular evening, having had enough of the gin fizz, I decided to have one. There was just one problem: I had to explain to the barman how it was done. Surely to goodness I’m not the first person even to have asked for this drink!

Perhaps the particular barman was a greenhorn? No, for none of his colleagues was any more knowledgeable. Basically I ended up mixing the drink myself, to the amusement of the other guests. It was done and it was good (I mix a fabulous martini!) There is just one problem; I like an olive in my drink, another essential the bar was without. “Just one moment, madam, and I’ll fetch some.”

Fine; off he goes and then he comes back, with a little dish of olives, green and black. One was pierced with a cocktail stick and added to my drink. For me it’s a little bonus at the end, eating my alcohol-saturated olive. I did, popped it in my mouth. But there were no hints of gin and vermouth; no, just a strong taste of vinegar. It was pickled. Definitely a one martini establishment.

Tale of a Sphinx

I’m sure that you will agree that we all visit certain places in our imagination, places we may never see in reality, whether it be Memphis or the Moon. There is something more, though: the power of imagination is often greater than mundane realities; but sometimes the power is just too petty.

I’ve been lucky; I’ve seen some wonderful places in my life, places that mostly met with the impression formed in the eye of my mind. Egypt was different; Egypt exceeded all. My imagination is too little. The traces left by the past are too great. Shelly was wrong. The mementos of Ozymandias are everywhere. I looked on his works and was filled with awe.

I’m in danger of exhausting my stock of superlatives, so I’m going to let someone else speak for me. She is Amelia Edwards, an English artist and writer who visited Egypt in the nineteenth century. It was standing in the great hypostyle hall in the temple of Karnak in Luxor that some words by her put everything into proper perspective, some words I read to my companions;

It is a place that has been much written about and often painted; but of which no writing and no art can convey more than a dwarfed and pallid impression…The scale is too vast; the effect too tremendous; the sense of one’s own dumbness, and littleness and incapacity, too complete and crushing.

It’s true, believe me, it’s true.

Egypt is such a contrast, a magnificent past and a not so magnificent present. Still, I met some wonderful people, including a highly knowledgeable local Egyptologist, full of hope for the future, hope that the promise of the February Revolution will be met. My natural disposition is one of caution to the point of cool reserve, but I could not fail to be impressed by their enthusiasm. I have things I have to say, though, things about the possible future of the country. I think it best if I to hold off on this for a day or so, a subject, possibly, for a Broowaha article.

My journey began as most journeys to Egypt begin, in the mad metropolis of Cairo! Incidentally – and thanks for all the emails and texts of concern – I missed the recent trouble in Tahrir Square, flying to Aswan a few days beforehand. I really only spent enough time in the city to visit the Museum, the Mosque of Mohammed Ali and the Pyramids to the south. More would have been excessive; more would have damaged my lungs and my temperament; for Cairo is the most congested city I’ve ever visited; the traffic is simply impossible.

Aswan, in Egyptian Nubia, is such a contrast, more relaxed, less demanding. Here one can really appreciate the beauty of the Nile, blue and utterly captivating. This was our base for a few days, on an island hotel. From here we set out across the Sahara to the great temple or Ramesses II at Abu Simbel. It was on a convoy, I might add, all complete with a police escort!

I’m looking out from the window of the bus at the passing Sahara, mile upon mile of sand and strange looking rocky outcrops, livened up by a growing number of watery mirages. I saw the beginnings of this great desert the day we visited the pyramids at Giza. It wasn’t at all what I expected, a sad disappointment of dirty, grey-looking sand, with shards of stone scattered around. But this is the wilderness as I imagined it, yellow and pure, vanishing into an impossible horizon. Day does not gradually evolve into night here; the division is sharp, first one condition and then the other.

Here, at Abu Simbel, I’m almost as far south as I can go in Egypt; not much further lies the Sudan. Here the ancient pharaoh still stares out in majesty, carved from the bare rock thirteen centuries before the birth of Christ. The temple is supposedly dedicated to the gods Amun, Ra-Horakhty and Ptah but the more obvious dedication is to Ramesses himself, a silent guardian over Upper Egypt, a statement about naked power, a warning to the Nubian raiders who dared venture north. This is Ozymandius, king of kings.

Others have been here before me, some of whom have left their own mark, elaborate and painstaking graffiti that go right back to the early nineteenth century, modern cartouches that must have taken days to carve. It’s possible to see this elsewhere, on other monuments, this pathetic and pointless plea for immortality, a tradition that seems to have been started by the soldiers of Bonaparte at the end of the eighteenth century. Gustave Flaubert, on his own sojourn some fifty years after, remarked on the sad emptiness of it all;

In the temples we read the travellers’ names; they strike us as petty and futile. We never write ours; there are some that must have taken three days to carve, so deeply are they cut in the stone. There are some that you keep meeting everywhere – sublime persistence of stupidity.

Now back in Aswan, I had dinner in the Old Cataract Hotel. Yes, I was hungry but there was another reason for eating here. You see, I’m a complete literary groupie; I followed Hemingway to Havana, Somerset Maugham to Singapore and now Agatha Christie to Aswan! She stayed in the Cataract Hotel and it features in Death on the Nile, the crime thriller I started to read before leaving Cairo.

The place itself is wonderful, the staff attentive, the food marvellous. There was only one thing: it was draped in a tomb-like silence. We were the only guests. It was the same everywhere: people seemed to have been frightened away. The numbers are absent, good for us, bad for Egyptians trying to make a living from tourism. “There is no business”, we kept being told.

So, yes, I started Death on the Nile in Cairo but I finished it in true style sailing on the Nile! We journeyed north from Aswan to Luxor, two nights on the river. At Kom Ombo, where the ship moored briefly before sailing on into the night, there was time to visit the wonderful double temple, dedicated to Sobek, the crocodile-headed god, and Horus, the falcon-headed god of the sky, the avatar and progenitor of all of the pharaohs. We have passed through centuries since leaving Abu Simbel; for Kom Ombo was built in the time of the Ptolemys, the Greek interlopers who were to be the last dynasts of pharonic Egypt.

I’m running out of wind, not short of impressions, of further wonders to tell, but in danger of exhausting your patience. It’s all so much to take in, Karnak, Philae, Luxor and Dendera, temples, monuments, museums and tombs, treasures of all kinds. The Valley of the Kings and Queens defy words, with figures of gods, goddesses and earthly rulers as vivid in colour as they were when first painted some three thousand years ago. If you ever go do be sure not to miss the tomb of Ramesses VI. The great tomb of Nefertari, the favourite wife of Ramesses II, a wonder among wonders, unfortunately can only be visited by special permission and at eye-watering expense.

My final days in the country were spent relaxing, swimming, reading and dreaming in a hotel in Luxor, just trying to absorb the whole experience. Oh, and not forgetting a wonderful evening in a café, the only woman in the place, smoking a sheesa with some friends. :-)

Uprose the merry Sphinx,
And crouched no more in stone;
She melted into purple cloud,
She silvered in the moon;
She spired into a yellow flame;
She flowered in blossoms red;
She flowed into a foaming wave:
She stood Monadnoc's head.

Thorough a thousand voices
Spoke the universal dame;
"Who telleth one of my meanings
Is master of all I am."

Traveller to an Antique Land

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

Friends, Romans, countrymen, as some of you clearly know, Ana is off on another adventure! I leave for Egypt on Saturday morning and will be away until close to the end of the month; so this is my last post for a bit. I've still got a huge amount to do, the usual last minute panic. Have I got this, have I got that, is my sun screen strong enough, should I take my shorts and risk another Egyptian revolution? My, my, the perils of travel. :-))

This is another important goal for me, planned now for an age. I have it all worked out, the best laid scheme of mouse and woman, which I really hope will not go askew! The political situation in Egypt earlier this year was a bit of a worry (how dare they plan a revolution around my travel plans?), but things seem to have settled down.

So, it’s off to Cairo initially, a few days there, first to say hello to Tutankhamen, thus avoiding the mummy’s curse, as well as having a peek at the Great Pyramid at Giza. Oh, how much I would love to shuffle my way to the top, just like Harriet Pringle in the televised adaptation of Olivia Manning’s Fortunes of War! Will I be allowed? Possibly not, but interdicts and barriers are there to be overcome…in one way or another.

After Cairo we fly south to Aswan, our base for some further explorations: to the temples of Karnak and Luxor; to the great temple of Ramses II at Abu Simbel; to the temple of Horus, the falcon god of the pharaohs, at Edfu; to the Valley of the Kings and the Valley of the Queens; to Thebes, the ancient religious capital of Egypt, and the city of the dead; to here and to there and to everywhere. Can I get there by candle-light? Yes, there and back again, because my heels are nimble and light.


That’s it, then, for another few weeks. Look for me again, when the candle burns low.

Islands of my Dreams

My head and heart are still full of Peru…and Bolivia. Yes, we went to Bolivia as part of our Inca quest, our search for the sun and the sister moon. I’m getting too far ahead, though, because I want to say a word or two about the lovely white city of Arequipa and the misty mountain beyond, the lair of a fire god!

After Machu Picchu I was more physically, and spiritually, exhausted than I had anticipated. I’m fit, we both are, but the altitudes, the distance and the exertions, coupled with impression building on impression, really meant that we had to spend a couple of extra days in Cuzco in recovery. Since Lake Titicaca was the next big objective we almost decided to leave out Arequipa altogether. I’m so glad we did not. The recovery was quick and the flight short.

Arequipa is a super place, the second city of Peru, right in the bosom of the Andes. And there really is a Misty Mountain – El Misti, the volcano in the distance. This is not my first volcano – I’ve bagged several – but it is the one closest to my Platonic ideal, to what I imagine is everyone’s idea of what a volcano should look like, a snow-capped perfect cone. Arequipa’s colonial-era buildings were constructed using volcanic sillar, pearly-white in appearance, giving it the nickname of White City. The churches, the mansions and the Plaza de Armas all shine with this material.

We lunched there, in the arcades of the Plaza de Armas, looking out on to the huge cathedral, which takes up the whole of one side. The Basilica Cathedral, much knocked about by earthquakes through time, the most recent ten years ago, is impressive but to my mind not nearly as impressive as the Santa Catalina Convent, so long isolated from the outside world. It’s almost like a citadel, a city within a city, one which has completely altered my image of the austerity of cloistered life! We were fortunate to be there on a Tuesday evening, one of the two in the week when the place is illuminated by torches and candles, a magical effect.

So, back to Cuzco and on to Puno by the shores of Lake Titicaca, another magical sight, with water as blue and as deep as the sky. Puno itself is not massively interesting but the lake was attraction enough. We went sailing though I decided to avoid the floating reed islands of Los Uros, too horribly spoiled by tourism. That’s the paradox, is it not; people like me come to these places in wonder only all too often destroying the wonder in the process. At least I hope I come with a sense of reverence, not doing too much damage to local customs and mores, eating what local people eat and respecting what local people respect.

Now I know you have probably heard this heaps of times but Titicaca is the highest navigable lake in the world. There we were, floating along at almost three times the height of Ben Nevis, the highest mountain in Britain. Thrilling, yes it was, but cold, oh, so cold, especially at night.

I would have liked also to have visited the funeral towers of Sillustani but time was beginning to bite at our heels; so on to the bus, on to Copacabana and on to Bolivia. This was an alteration to our original plan (by now Cartagena was totally out of the question) but Titicaca is the sacred heart of the Incan civilization and the sacred heart of the sacred heart can only properly be visited from the Bolivian side, with easy access to Isla del Sol and Isla de la Luna – the Island of the Sun and the Island of the Moon.

Isla Del Sol is not just the largest island on Lake Titicaca it was also the most revered holy site in the Incan Empire, the legendary birthplace of their civilization. It was here that Inti, the Sun God, was born. It was also where Manco Capac and Mama Ocllo, the Inca Adam and Eve, came to life. Manco Capac and his sister-wife then travelled to Cusco, building a temple dedicated to their father, Inti, and founding the Inca civilization – the Sun in splendour.

We decided to avoid the normal tour boats, which only allow one an hour or two at most on the island, instead hiring our own craft, spending overnight at Yumani on the southern side of the island. I particularly appreciated the welcome from the Inca at Yumani harbour!

So on up the Inca Steps on our way to the ruins at Chincana on the north of the island by way of Titicaca – the Rock of the Puma – after which the Lake is named. There is just so much to see across the islands, impossible to take in, really, in the few days we spent in Bolivia. Having been to the Sun I also went to the Moon, the nearby island, which has the remains on an Incan nunnery, an absolute must see for me!

Anyway, having done most of the things I wanted to do we journeyed on to La Paz, the capital of Bolivia, for an overnight stay. Alas there was no proper time to explore this mountain city, for in the morning we flew back to Lima for the onward connection to Heathrow, England, home and beauty. Goodnight Peru, goodnight Bolivia, goodnight to the Sun and the Moon and the islands of my dreams. Good morning Egypt. :-)

On the Trail of the Sun

Up along the hostile mountains,
where the hair-poised snowslide shivers --
Down and through the big fat marshes
that the virgin ore-bed stains,
Till I heard the mild-wide mutterings
of unimagined rivers,
And beyond the nameless timber
saw illimitable plains!



Well, here I am. I’ve been there and now I’m back again. We flew in from Lima earlier this afternoon. I’m so tired, not having slept at all to ward off the effects of the dreaded jet lag. But before going to bed I simply have to record my impressions – and publish some of my pictures - while it’s all fresh in my mind; while the after-image of the Sacred Trail, the crossing of Dead Woman’s Pass, my first sight of Machu Picchu, the citadel of the gods, a greater Olympus, is still at its most vivid.

At the risk of sounding silly I really have to say that I’m finding it most awfully difficult to find the right words. Perhaps I should have left this until the morning, or to a time when I’m less tired and emotional, but I can’t. All I can say is that some of the things that I’m getting ready to write about really can’t be described; they have to be experienced. If you can go go, make it one of the objectives of your life, one of the things you simply have to do before eternity closes the gates forever. See, I told you – tired and emotional!

I’m rushing too far ahead. After arriving in Peru, just over two weeks ago, though it seems much longer, we spent several days exploring Lima, the capital founded by Francisco Pizarro, the bastard who overthrew the Inca Empire. No, I’m not being judgemental; he really was a bastard in the proper sense of the word! There is some really super Spanish colonial architecture in the old centre of the city, including the Cathedral of Saint John. We stayed in the Miraflores district, which reminded me slightly of the Zona Rosa in Mexico City, with the same concentration of bars, clubs and restaurants. Ah, that night, those stars and all those pisco sours!

On the subject of restaurants I’ve absolutely fallen in love with Peruvian cuisine. We had a variety of meat and fish dishes but my favourite by far was the ceviche of sea bass and prawns. I was told by some of the locals that we made friends with that not only is ceviche the national dish of Peru but the government even declared an official holiday in its honour! Ours came with a variety of accompaniments, including a hot sauce, (potentially lethal in large helpings!), corn on the cob, sweet potatoes and fried corn crenels. And then there is guinea pig, yes, guinea pig, all replete with the little claws and snout. I had a bit of a struggle with this, remembering the class pet in my junior school. But we had had a long day; I was hungry, it looked great and smelled wonderful. What did it taste like? Chicken, that’s what. Doesn’t every white meat taste like chicken in the end? Well, we have no other basis for comparison.

I have to discipline myself or this is going to become too horribly long. There were so many things I did, visiting wonderful museums and nature reserves; I was even able to test my skills as a hunter using a traditional blowpipe. I was on target, not too bad for a beginner. In the Lunahuana valley to the south of the capital we did a spot of canoeing and white water rafting. But the heart of the matter came with Cusco and beyond. There my serious hunt for the Incas began.

Cusco itself is a wonderful place, well worth exploring, this one-time capital of the Inca Empire. Again there is some impressive colonial architecture but it was impossible for the Spanish to wipe out all trace of the past and of the Incas, who have left their mark everywhere, structures so well-built that they even withstood the assaults of earthquakes. The Street of Twelve Sides is a marvel; that’s all I can say.

Beyond there were deeper truths to be told, footsteps to follow, places unseen and unspoiled by Pizarro and the Conquistadors. It’s now a hundred years since Hiram Bingham, an American archaeologist very much in the Indian Jones mould (actually I think most of the pathfinders were), discovered Machu Picchu, the lost city of the Incas, high in the Andes and the clouds. Actually he wasn’t the first; others had been before him. What he did do, though, was to bring this marvel to the attention of the world.

Most people now visit this unique site come by the train named after Bingham but we took the route on foot, pass and package obtained well in advance. My boyfriend and I joined a small party of fifteen, people from all across the world, accompanied by a truly knowledgeable guide and some hardy and perpetually cheerful porters, who advanced rapidly ahead, loaded as they were, to prepare camp sites and food; and my, oh, my, how welcome this was, how glad I was to see them.

The Trail is not long, only twenty-five miles or so; I’ve walked further in a single day. No, it’s not long; it’s just up and up and up! One really needs to be reasonably fit. The ascents are quite difficult at points. Frequent rest stops are needed to allow time for acclimatisation in the thin air of the mountains.

What mountains they are, what heights and what drops, what a variety of terrain. At Warmiwañusca, or Dead Woman’s Pass, so called because the terrain resembles a woman lying on her back, I felt a bit like a dead woman myself! Hardly surprising, given that this is the highest point on the path at almost fourteen thousand feet above sea level, the highest I’ve ever been without wings. Not only high but really wet, because here the rain was unrelenting. It was chilly, too, partly because of the height and partly because September is still the Peruvian winter.

There were two more passes to come, so up we all were at dawn the following morning for a march downwards into the valley of the Pacymayu River. On and on, past increasingly splendid Inca remains and through the most breathtaking cloud forest, trees overgrown with moss and behind mountains topped with snow.

How can I not feel such huge respect for the vanished Inca civilization, for people who laid out roads and constructed staircases at such altitudes? With the stairways, storehouses and tunnels increasing as we drew ever nearer Machu Picchu I was reminded of one of the earliest Anglo-Saxon verses, written by a poet marveling at the ruins of Roman Bath, reflecting that it must have been built by some unearthly power, a race of giants.

To be able to get to Machu Picchu by sun rise meant getting up at five in the morning, not easy when one has not fully recovered from the previous day’s exertions. Walking in the dark and the mist, we made for the Sun Gate of Intipunku. The dawn came, the dark went but the mist did not, at least not initially. I was prepared to be disappointed but my solemn prayer to the great Sun God was delightfully answered.

The wind scattered the clouds; the sun broke through in triumph. There it was, between two mountains, the lost and found city of the Incas. Since the days of Bingham thousands upon thousands of people have seen this marvel. But we are each, in a way, a first, a pathfinder, an explorer; I saw this with these eyes, my eyes; I absorbed it with this mind, my mind. For almost half and hour I did not want to talk, I did not want to take pictures; I just wanted to look.

I must go to bed now and I haven’t even told you about the rest of our trip, about visiting the beautiful city of Arequipa or sailing on Lake Titicaca, so far as Bolivia. I did not make it to Colombia, though; there was simply too much to see and not enough time to see it.

I will just finish by saying that we made some new friends in Cusco, Peruvian people who told us about Inti Raymi, the Festival of the Sun, celebrated in the city each year around the summer solstice. It’s an ancient ceremony in honour of the sun god Inti, one of the most venerated in the Inca pantheon, one who bears a strong resemblance to the Roman Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun. Suppressed by the Spanish in 1572 as a pagan celebration opposed to the Catholic faith, the Inti Raymi was revived in 1944 and is now an annual event, days of music and dance honouring the god and marking the origins of the Inca in the bowers of the sun. With the intention of returning I post this brief anthem.

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.