travel writing Archives

Swimming in the Dead Sea in Summer

August 24, 2020

Yesterday was my 70th birthday. Rather a big one, I think, and worthy of a big celebration. I don’t mean a big party or big money spent. I prefer to celebrate a significant transition with some kind of adventure, big or small or in-between.

I had hoped, if all went well, to be swimming in the Dead Sea this month as part of an expedition to Jordan to visit the ruins at Petra. It would be exhilarating to hike for a couple days in and around the ruins, then camp under the stars in the desert near Wadi Rum.

The same company that handled my return to Morocco to walk with Berber Nomads in 2017 and last summer’s 22-day Uncharted Expedition to Kazakhstan, Siberia, and Mongolia offers a “Women’s Expedition” to Jordan.

At first I ignored it because I thought in terms of the specialized women’s activities that one sees here and there. I surely didn’t want a frou-frou trip with shopping, make-up demos, and wine tasting. Definitely NOT my thing!

It turns out that their Woman’s Expedition involves hiking around Petra and Wadi Rum for a couple of days, camping under the stars (Love!) and, as they say in their materials “the best opportunity possible for developing a deeper understanding of Middle Eastern women – with full respect for their traditional cultural values.”

That’s what I want. Meeting Jordanian women in their homes for Middle Eastern cooking lessons, tea, the kohl experience, talking and socializing.

Of course, COVID put an end to all that. I’ve spent my days hiking familiar trails, gardening, harvesting vegetables, berry-picking, baking, installing 300+ feet of drip irrigation, bird watching, and—boring—repairing my dishwasher.

As the individual days of COVID blurred together, I decided to, at least, try one new-to-me adventure: stand-up paddleboarding.

This is what I emailed to my sons:

“It was great fun and a super workout. 100% positive experience. I loved it. I fell off three times. Lost my center of gravity, and the board shot forward out from under me. Then, Bang! Hit the water feet first and WHOOSH, rocket down Deep Deep Deep, followed by Glub Glub Glub, returning to the surface. LOL
Getting back on the board isn’t too difficult, but I wouldn’t want to be 50 lb heavier.
Quartermaster Air temp was 61 F and water temp 65 F (10 degrees warmer than Puget Sound). I wore my long-sleeve performance shirt under my sunblock shirt, with quick-dry river pants. Was perfectly comfortable even when wet. Actually quite refreshing.
Basic skills: Knees slightly bent. Don’t grab the board with your toes or you’ll get cramps. Most important: Keep your core tight to control board wobble.
I knew I’d certainly be falling in. Brought a change of clothes.”

I perhaps should have been writing about my COVID experience these months. That’s what “everyone” says we should be doing—for the sake of documenting these days. But I haven’t.

I’m just trying to keep my head above water. I’ll continue to listen to the trees rustle in the breeze with the occasional scream of a gull in the distance.

A Comedy of Errors

January 7, 2019

Back story: I’ve been coming to Belize from time to time for 30 years. In 1989, there was no electric power cable under the sea from the mainland to this island. Electricity was supplied by a humongous generator in town that hummed like a sleeping giant. It shook itself awake periodically, knocking out the power, bringing darkness and an ominous quiet. Eventually the purr of the ceiling fan’s return to slow revolutions followed the hum returning to the background. We slept in a thatched hut at the water’s edge. No window glass. Louvered hardwood window slats.

An elusive boa constrictor resided in the bar at the center of the semi-circle of huts, and my young sons hoped to see him in the rafters as they took turns getting drinking water for the hut.

The streets (Front, Middle, Back Sts.) were still unpaved—silky, hard-packed sand. My 9-year-old son Chris wore a machete in a leather sheath as he climbed the Mayan ruins at Altun Ha. We danced energetic Soca on Friday nights on the patio of the Sun Breeze Hotel.

One Sunday morning, we walked by a man lying in the middle of the street. Flies buzzed around his closed eyes.

“Is that man dead, Daddy?” my 7-year-old asked.

“No, Zack, he’s just sleeping,” my husband said as we walked around the body.

Those were good times. The tiny resort was called Paradise and it was torn down when a concrete resort—The Phoenix—rose up in its place. True.

____________________________________________________________________

January 2019. Day 1. An island off the coast of Belize.

After a successful morning of writing, I took a brief walk around the resort to see what was new. Not many people around for high season.

I decided to walk south under the clouds for two miles on the beach and then inland to The Truck Stop, and a rare place that sells ice cream cones. Sea Salt Caramel. Set out north again, on the road this time, through brief showers that fell between the patches of tropical sun. Being Sunday, it turned out to be very busy with local families ripping by on golf carts overflowing with babies and children, mamas at the wheel. (There are few cars here.) I returned to the beach via the path to El Pescador after stopping at a groceria for orange juice, pita bread, a couple of Belikin Lites—and some frozen bacon to keep the beer cold on the return trip.

Remember Jeff Goldblum traveling with his dehydrated food to Ecuador in Vibes? That’s me, filling up my suitcase to 49 lb (50 lb allowed) with granola, coffee, canned clams, flour, Himalayan pink salt, spices, probiotics, vitamins and more. It’s always worth it. As a woman traveling alone, I prefer to cook in my unit most of the time with fresh seafood and bring what I can from home to supplement. It’s a continuation of the frugality that was so necessary in my childhood.

After unpacking my grocery bag and cracking open a beer, I had a successful session of writing and editing, and granted myself the guilty pleasure of reading a culinary mystery after dinner. Fell asleep around 8 or 9 PM. Re-awakened at 1 or 2 AM, wrote for an hour or two, then tried to get back to sleep with no luck.

I have a lot on my mind. Even meditation methods didn’t work. I kept tearing off my sleep mask to take notes on the thoughts that kept popping up. I know from experience that middle-of-the-night messages will be forgotten if I don’t write them down.

Took an antihistamine and when that also failed to send me to sleep, I decided to catch up with news online. Nevermind Trump. I’m leaving him to Nancy Pelosi. I just wanted to know if Green Book won at Golden Globes. It did! And Mershahala Ali won best Supporting Actor. Yay.

At 5 AM, I put out the “Do Not Disturb” sign and went back to sleep pretty much instantly.

At 9:30 AM, I was awakened from a deep sleep (…and a nightmare: Christopher Walken approaching my home, leading a Pitchfork Brigade, all carrying flaming torches.). There was a persistent banging on my door. I tried to ignore it. No luck. It was the housekeeper saying that my door sign had blown off during the night. Which way had I hung the sign? Did I want “Do Not Disturb” or “Please Make Up Room”?

“Do Not Disturb”, I said.

American Writers Museum

May 16, 2017

Today is opening day at The American Writers Museum in Chicago IL.

Actually I didn’t even know that it was being assembled until page A13 in this morning’s Wall Street Journal.

According to the review by Edward Rothstein (Critic At Large), the AWM has been created at a “sensible” cost of under $10 million: its 11,000 sq. ft. are housed on the second floor of an office building at 180 N. Michigan Avenue, Chicago, IL 60601.

Since I haven’t visited, I can’t very well make this a review within a review, but I do think the concept of a writers museum sounds pretty admirable. Of course, as a writer myself, I found myself questioning the punctuation of its name. Should it be American Writers’ (possessive apostrophe) Museum?

No, I guess not. It’s not owned by writers, they don’t possess it, so it can hardly be possessive. It’s not even for writers, as one doesn’t go there to learn writing. It’s best described as a museum for readers (Rothstein says that “an earlier era’s powerful American writers’ museums were called libraries.”)

Mr. Rothstein, for the record, says “I wanted to like the result much more than I actually do.” The fact that his review is entitled “A Cliffs Notes Approach to Literature” hints at his opinion so I dug in. The accompanying WSJ image shows The American Voices exhibit of 100 (dead) writers. Rothstein finds a lot to critique/criticize.

Again, I’ll not quote his lukewarm response to the finished result. It seems to me that his review hints at his personal dilemma. He weighs the better and lesser points of the museum. I could picture him walking around saying “…hmm.” On the plus side, Rothstein does say that the AWM was “put together with care and designed with panache by Andrew Anway”. And FYI, The American Writer Museum is “the brainchild of Malcolm O’Hagan, a retired engineer who, after seeing the Dublin Writers Museum, was determined to build one like it here.”

I could say something about Americans not revering their writers quite as much as the Irish. However, that might be debatable.

After reading the Rothstein review, I sought out the AWM website. They have a lot to share at the museum, and a lot of it is interactive. There are a many events lined up, including writer readings and signings. Ha! I guess we all know what the newest writer coup will be.

My favorite page is their Affiliates list: The Museums/Writer Homes officially affiliated with them. A long list is it. A bucket list, to be sure.

My second favorite is the home page because my favorite deceased author, Herman Melville, is featured dead center—I mean, “front and center”.

Checking out some other reviews online:

Amy Diegelman for BookRiot calls it “Chicago’s New Literary Paradise”.

The Chicago Tribune’s reporter Steve Johnson calls it “far-reaching, dramatic”.

The Washington Independent Review of Books tells the story of the museum’s inception in this 2012 article.

It’ll be a while before I get to Chicago. In the meantime, if you visit The American Writers Museum, we’d love to have you share your impression here.

american writer museum I’d love it if you’ll follow me on Facebook.