The Spirit and Spirits of Portugal

Judith Fein
Art and Culture, Historic Travel, Insider's Guide, Religion, Spotlight On Destination, travel essay

by Judith Fein

[more from our SPOTLIGHT ON PORTUGAL series this week... ]

photo by erin-thérèse via flickr (common license)Do you believe in miracles? How else can you account for what happened in a field in central Portugal on May 13, 1917, when three shepherd children saw a vision of the Virgin Mary? Purportedly, she told the awe-struck kids that she would appear at the same spot on the l3th of the five following consecutive months. According to believers, up to 70,000 witnesses beheld a miraculous apparition on the 13th day of the last month. Go to Fatima yourself to see if you are uplifted, transported, or merely interested. It’s about one and a half hours from Lisbon by train. The three children are buried in the sanctuary, and in one outdoor area the faithful light long beeswax candles that intertwine as they melt and carry prayers to heaven. Be sure to visit the museum, where Marians from around the world—including Pope John Paul—have left objects that are precious and significant to them.  The latter even donated the bullet that was used by the man who tried to assassinate him. He believed that the Virgin of Fatima saved him.

Perhaps, while you’re in Portugal, you’ll want to find out about the secret Jews in the mountains of central Portugal who were forcibly converted to Catholicism during the Inquisition.  After half a millennium of hiding their identity, they finally came out. In Belmonte, where a museum tells the story and shows the artifacts, you’ll be swept into a world where people clung to their religion in the face of great danger and, in the end, faith triumphed over oppression. There is also a synagogue, and you may be fortunate enough to meet some of the Belmonte Jews. When they decided to publicly claim their heritage and faith—about twenty years ago-- the story captivated people round the world, and now Belmonte is one of the top stops in the region for visitors of all religions.

Portuguese Royalty and My American Family

Michael L. Soares
Family Travel, Personal essay, Spotlight On Destination, cultural immersion

 

[more from our SPOTLIGHT ON PORTUGAL series this week... ]

When I was a little boy, stories were told around the fireplace about ancestors who were Barons to the monarchy in Portugal and high magistrates to the Tudor monarchy. I always found this exciting and special.  I was also a bit skeptical as there were no documents to this effect --only antique photos that could have been gathered at any antique store. Over the years, I made some cursory searches on the web and obtained information about my father and his parents' origin, but nothing was certain, and I had a fair amount of doubt because we are a family known for telling good yarns or, to put it more bluntly, having a proclivity for embellishment. 

Night in Porto

In September 2009, I decided to do further research on the Portuguese family story to determine where legend and fact intersected. I contacted the Portuguese diplomatic office in Providence, RI and was directed to the Portuguese Consulate in New York. After explaining my intent, I began to correspond with the most important contributor to this story, Miguel Carvalho. He was enthusiastic about my personal Portuguese project and we began to work with the scant information I had-- the surname Soares, the City of Porto and the legend of a family connection to the wine trade. Soon afterwards, I received an email from a history professor from Porto named Gaspar Pereira. He was generous with his research finding that, in 1780, there was a business concern called Soares & Irmao (brother) LLC, and that the business was comprised of two brothers-- Jacquin Manoel Soares and Jose Henrique Soares. Jose Henrique Soares was awarded peerage as the Baron of Ancede by Queen Maria II da Gloria in 1842.  

A Journey Through Hallowed Ground

Judith Fein
Historic Travel, U.S. History, road trip, travel essay

by Judith Fein

Photos and slideshow by Paul Ross


When I was a kid, studying American history was about as appealing as a trip to the dentist. In school, we had to memorize names and dates and to this day, I still have PTSD (post teacher stress disorder) when I rattle off monikers like Black Jack Pershing, Old Hickory, The Rail Splitter, The Rough Rider and Old Buck.

A few weeks ago, I went on the newly-established Journey Through Hallowed Ground-- that spans Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maryland, and extends roughly from Gettysburg to Monticello--and I learned more in 11 days and 180 miles than I did in all my schooling. Best of all, I have –for the first time in my life--retained what I learned. Ask me a question about Thomas Jefferson. Or James Madison. Or George C. Marshall. Go ahead. Ask me. (Disclosure: This is pretentious, authorial braggadocio.)

 

Photo Slide Show by Paul Ross

If you had told me that I, a pacifist, would be fascinated at Manassas (in the North, it’s known as Bull Run), where the first major battle of the Civil War took place, I would have keeled over in disbelief. But I was both horrified and fascinated.  It was everything that textbook learning wasn’t: alive, vital and real.  I learned that it took 6 horses to schlepp one canon onto the battlefield, and that the poor schleppers made inviting targets. Even more inviting were the soldiers themselves, who --in classic Napoleonic fashion-- lined up abreast in successive rows to advance, face-on, into close quarter cannon fire. Apparently, the guns weren’t very accurate, but still—marching towards the unforgiving maws of heavy artillery? There was a whole vocabulary around the weaponry—like “worm” (used for cleaning the bore and packing charges), “going into battery”(placing guns into firing position) and “sponge bucket” (which held water for wetting the sponge-rammer). 

The Gran Sabana of Venezuela

Katherine Braun Mankin
Eco Travel, adventure travel, exotic travel, travel writing
words + photos by Katherine Braun Mankin

 

IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE

I stared out into the empty plain of the Gran Sabana and thought about my husband, Don. I was glad that I wasn’t with him. He was at that moment climbing a tepui, a rocky, table top mountain.  I didn’t want to climb the tepui.  I don’t like walking uphill.  I don’t like cold or wet places, and I especially don’t like cold and wet together.  Sleeping on the ground hurts my back, and I prefer indoor plumbing to more rustic alternatives.  And I’m a wilderness wimp.  So, instead of hiking a tepui, I went to the middle of nowhere. 

Photo Slide Show by Katherine Braun Mankin

View in Photo Gallery 

The Gran Sabana in the southeastern corner of Venezuela, bordering Brazil, is a high plateau of wide savannah interrupted only by clumps of jungle, shadowy outlines of distant tepuis and many waterfalls. My husband and I were in Venezuela at the invitation of Venezuela Elite, a tour operator offering trekking, biking and cultural trips in the region and elsewhere (www.venezuelaelite.com). While my husband climbed the tepui, I spent a week in the Gran Sabana with a guide and a driver, staying at eco-camps or small hotels (indoor plumbing !), going on relatively easy hikes and visiting the indigenous people of this area. For a week I had the pleasure of looking out at landscapes that stretched endlessly into an uncluttered vista of land, sky and water. 

The Lost World of Venezuela

Don Mankin
Eco Travel, adventure travel, travel

words and photos by Don Mankin

CLIMBING AUYAN TEPUI

The wet, slanted face of the boulder looks treacherous. To make matters worse, the bottom edge hangs over a precipitous drop-off with nothing below but air. I’m not sure how I am going to work my way up its slippery surface. As Alejandro reaches his hand out to help me, my boots slip and I slide out of sight. For what seems like an eternity, I am in free fall, not sure how far I will fall or what I will land on when I hit bottom.

It was the third day of an 8-day trek up, on and down Auyan Tepui, the largest of the tabletop mountains of Venezuela (tepui means “house of the gods” in the language of the indigenous Pemon people). There are over 100 tepuis in SE Venezuela, ancient sandstone mesas that jut thousands of feet straight up from the jungle and savannahs below. The most famous tepui is Mt. Roraima, supposedly the inspiration for Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Lost World,” as well as for the hit animated movie, “Up.” Auyan Tepui is larger, more difficult to climb and receives far fewer visitors. It is also the source of Angel Falls (“Paradise Falls” in the movie, “Up”), the world’s highest waterfall at over 3000 feet. Since the tepuis are very old, the flora and fauna that have evolved on the tops of the tepuis are very different than those in the jungles and savannahs below. In fact, the tepuis are like islands in the sky, so each one has plants and animals unique to itself. One of the things they all have in common, though, is that there are no dinosaurs despite the fanciful speculations of Sir Arthur.

A Ghostly Adventure

K. Michael Crawford
Personal essay, road trip

story and artwork by K. Michael Crawford

 

The warning signs along the dusty and tumbleweed Arizona road should have been my first clue that I was going to stumble into something magical. Sometimes, fear can precede wonder. “NO STOPPING OR PARKING. ALL TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT!” screamed one of the signs. As always, I questioned what I was doing on that small country road where it would take searchers weeks, maybe years, to find my lifeless body, but I have never been one who roamed the well-traveled roads. I am always off on my own quirky adventures ––never with a group. So what if I get put into mildly sticky situations sometimes. They always allow me to see magical places and whimsical people to use in my art and books. Besides, my vehicle was not going to be deterred by warning signs and neither was I.

So I headed down that small bumpy road, not knowing where I was going to wind up or what I was going to see, but hopeful it would be something great. From the Sun’s position, I knew I still was heading in the right direction, West. So all was good and if I kept my car moving there was less chance being shot. Then it happened after the road turned a corner and head downed a small hill. I had driven smack dab into a magical place out in the middle of nowhere.

I couldn’t believe it as I pulled into the small town. I had driven back in time, early 1900’s to be exact. I didn’t know a road could create time travel to the Past. I only knew it could take you to your Future. But here I was back in a Wild West town full of creatures, chickens and lots of ghosts. My kind of mystical town. Signs along Main Street told you to yield to wild burros that roamed freely through the streets. To be sure that my car stayed clear of the wild beasts, I had to pause while a few decided to cross in front of me. I found a parking spot off Main Street and decided the rest of my journey would be on foot. I have learned that it’s a difficult to get the full flavor of places traveling past them in the car. Sometimes you just have to get out and walk.

My Wife is Married to the Military

Kenny Sutherland
Family Travel, Personal essay, life

by Kenny Sutherland

 

(Almost) Together at Last: 

Just over three years ago I told my girlfriend, a girl I had only met three times before—and over a two-year span—that I loved her. After she reciprocated, we only saw each other a half dozen times each year, at most. Our relationship was based on upgrading our cell phone plans to include unlimited texting, late night web-cam “dates,” and taping TV shows so we could watch them “together” over the phone.

When I proposed and we were engaged, she decided to move in with me, which required her to quite literally pick up her entire life and move cross-country from New Mexico to Georgia to be with me.  Shortly after she moved in with me though, she flew back to New Mexico to plan our wedding.  A few months later we were wed in front of our family and friends; we became husband and wife—no more his and hers—and promised to be with each other forever. Life was great.

Living with an awesome (and amazing and beautiful) woman puts your life on a whole new level. It was great having her there all the time. Together, we would cook breakfast and dinner and eat in our backyard under our canopy; we explored our new town and went out on real dates.  We would watch our favorite TV shows while lounging next to each other, instead of over long-distance phone lines. We were in a great groove, and spent our time building a life together. We had a pizza week (where we made pizza from scratch every day for an entire week); we welcomed a puppy into our family, built a garden, and then rebuilt the garden while teaching our pup that it's bad to eat our newly-planted veggies. Again, life was wonderful.

All of this bliss was, of course, short lived. We had spent just over two months together—the longest we’ve spent together in our entire relationship—before I got orders to deploy to Qatar. 

The Lesson of a Persistent Little Beggar

The Lesson of a Persistent Little Beggar

Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde
travel essay

by Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde

 

We were walking in the Japanese Garden in the Missouri Botanical Garden on this brisk February afternoon.  As we approached the wooden Flat Bridge -- which is a bridge over a narrow part of the lake where, in warmer weather, adults and children gather to feed the hungry koi who climb all over each other to catch the feed pellets – he ambled up to us.  Since it was quite chilly, there were very few visitors and no children at all; just the three of us. The little guy seemed determined. He made it very clear that he was hungry and wanted Michael to give him some food. He kept a respectable distance but stayed at Michael’s side until he was sure his needs would be met. 

photo by steffe via flickr (common license)His green cap shimmered in the late afternoon sun. His yellow beak never let out a squawk, but his body language and his movements were easy to decipher. The male mallard duck had waddled out of the lake with his mate and another pair of mallards, but, not finding food, they went right back into the water. The little guy was on a solo mission and he would not be deterred. He was serious about scoring food from his perceived benefactors, and he had no intention of sharing. He was in this all for himself! 

With a few insistent pecks at Michael’s shoe, the duck herded him to the feed dispensing machine where a quarter bought a handful of little brown pellets of fish food. The ducks usually hang around to scarf up whatever the fish miss during their feeding frenzy, so the pellets worked as duck food too. Today, because of the cold, the koi were sluggish and not very interested in food. But this hungry mallard sure was. 

Michael dropped the pellets on the path for our ravenous little friend, and even though they scattered, the duck found every little morsel and devoured them greedily.  Figuring the other ducks might be hungry too, Michael ventured to the other end of the bridge to throw them a few pellets.  Our friend wasn’t happy; he followed closely at Michael’s heels, impatiently waiting his turn for more pellets. 

Poetry is for sissies

By J. Eric Eckard
Personal essay

Poetry is for sissies.

Or so I thought.

If you had told me two years ago that I’d not only read a bit of poetry, but I’d write some, as well, I would have scoffed condescendingly. But take one English poet, add the allure of a French countryside and open an often closed American mind a little, and it’s possible to turn even a jaded and cynical hard news journalist into a believer.

photo by Guillermo Fdez via flickr (common license)
The setting was the French House Party located in the Languedoc region of Southwest France. Carcassonne, a 400-year-old medieval World Heritage site, sits nearby, adding to the appeal of the area. The French House Party “Experience” is an all-inclusive creative arts vacation retreat that offers a variety of courses in such topics as painting, movie-making, singing, cooking and creative writing.

As a longtime newspaperman, I knew how to write. Stringing sentences together in a coherent and concise manner is easy for me. What’s difficult as a crime reporter – my job in my previous life – is dealing with the horrors of society without letting them affect your psyche. Writing about rapes, robberies and racketeering were staples of my day. That was my life as a crime reporter. Dealing with death and destruction daily for nearly 20 years definitely hardened my view of the world. And I guess I took some of that cynicism with me when I turned my back on that era to write about less grim and solemn subjects.

So, just 18 months removed from my life as a newsman, I decided to venture out of my comfort zone, take a trip to Europe and check myself in to a creative writing retreat. I had no idea what to expect. Not only was it my first trip overseas, but it also was my first foray into creative writing. I figured character development, setting, dialogue and other novel-writing topics would be covered. And they were.

Joey and The Wrath of God

Joey and The Wrath of God

Jess Smith
Life Lessons, Personal essay, Travel Humor, cultural musings, travel essay

by Jess Smith

Dear friends allow me to invite you on another Gypsy memory from my years traveling the country roads and glens of bonny Scotland in a blue single decked bus. I was the tender age of seven.

Spring with its bouncing lambs, yellowed valleys of blooming gorse bush and bluebell woods had given way to a warm sun kissed summer. Early spring rains had brought the fruit fields a mighty yield of raspberries as big as a man’s fist. The farmer on seeing his annual droves of Gypsies arrive at his family friendly campsite was rubbing his hands with glee.

photo by fotologic via flickr (common license)My family of seven sisters, parents and our snappy terrier dog crowded down at the bottom of the field, signalling dad to reverse our bus home onto a nice flat piece of ground which was south-facing and secluded by a hedge of mayflower to meet a rising sun. I ran around laying marker sticks for our relatives who would soon join us. Aunt Maggie and Uncle Joe along with little Ed and his big brother Joey were the first to arrive. I swear to you, Joey was an all time excuse for a human being and I hated the ground he walked on. I had good reason to feel this way because he took a sadistic delight in torturing defenceless creatures like mice, birds and insects where as I gave them all the protection I could.

By late afternoon, Aunt Josephine and Uncle Sandy with their three kids arrived, followed by Aunt Jenny, uncle Toby and their brood of ten who erected a circus tent to accommodate them all for the duration of our fruit picking holiday. By sunset we were a big happy bunch of gypsy people circling a blazing campfire, sharing stories, singing songs and enjoying our cultural ties.

To complete the characters who make up this memory I must now introduce old bible Nell; the most formidable lady in the entire campsite. To the Gypsy people, Nell was a Priestess of high esteem. She wrote the rules on how everyone should behave and co-exist as gypsies. No drinking alcohol on the campsite, no flirting with another man’s wife or another woman’s husband. Dogs should not be allowed to run amok and babies should never be set out in the sun without a hat. Every child who didn’t want a slap from her bony hand or nurse a swollen backside after being caught by a flying wallop from her one-legged crutch stayed well away from her tent. Out of earshot, youngsters would call her a witch, older people with no respect said she was Lucifer reborn.

The Prius & American Flag Index: How to tell where you are

The Prius & American Flag Index: How to tell where you are

Eric Lucas
Travel Opinion, Uncensored Travel

The American flag is red, white and blue; but America itself has become a bicolor place. We have red states and blue states, and almost everyone knows what these terms mean after the hotly contested elections of the new millennium. If people go to the grocery store packing pistols and Bibles, for example, you’re in a red state like Nevada. If folks wear Tevas to go to the store packing canvas shopping bags with the one-world logo on the side, you’re in a blue state: Oregon, say.

But this red-state/blue-state inventory is unsophisticated, obliterating regional differences within states—even neighborhood differences within cities.

Coffee Rituals Around the World

Vera Marie Badertscher
Culinary Travel, cultural musings, travel essay

by Vera Marie Badertscher

 

Drop me down in a coffeehouse somewhere in the world, and if I have ever visited that country the native rituals will tell me where I am before I’ve heard a single “sucre”, “glyko”, “milchcafe”, or  “café negro.”

flickr photo by uteart via flickr (common license)In Europe and the Americas, coffee is the upstart, edging out the earlier communal drinks of hot chocolate and hot tea.  I have learned from impeccable sources that coffee was first discovered by goats. That legend somehow makes me feel better about the fact that although I love coffee houses and their ritual, I really can’t stand coffee. With a few slight exceptions, I drink tea—or hot chocolate.

In Greece, my husband and I acquired a taste for Greek coffee, in defense against the alternative to American coffee. The waiter inevitably served a small shiny packet of powdery brown stuff, which would perhaps dissolve if the water in the cup were hot enough.  From the prevalence of this powdery stuff throughout southern Europe, we figured that some Swiss Nescafé guy was one heck of a salesman.

To ease into drinking Greek coffee, served in a small cup that holds strong black liquid on top of a spoonful of black sludge, and makes you grateful it comes in a tiny cup, we took it sweet. This coffee, we decided, explains the hairy chests on Greek fishermen. It helps to drink it down after a glass (or between glasses) of ouzo, the licorice-flavored, clear firewater of Greece. While ouzo is getting you drunk, the strong coffee is sobering you up.  I could keep that routine going for quite a while.

I had first discovered that trick in Switzerland, where I found I could indeed tolerate a cup of coffee livened with a lot of plumkirsche or orange or pear-flavored liquer, or best of all, cheri-suise. Yum!

Airing Dirty Laundry on the Road

Laurie Gilberg Vander Velde
Travel Tips, travel essay

 

Why is it that the image of colorful clothes hanging on a line and fluttering in the breeze in a foreign country is so appealing and picturesque?  I often grab my camera to snap a photo when I see it, but, somehow, when I have to do my own laundry in the same country, I consider it a chore.  Dirty laundry. They say you shouldn’t air your dirty laundry, but when you’re traveling for more than a week or so, you have to get it clean somehow.

Maybe the ideal trip is 7-10 days.  It’s possible to bring enough clothes for that amount of time.  You come back with a suitcase full of dirty laundry and toss it in the washing machine.  That’s the ideal trip length for some folks, perhaps, but it’s way too short for me!  I prefer packing enough clothes for a few days in a small suitcase and taking my chances about getting them clean while on the road.

I’m always willing to have someone else do my laundry if the price is right.  Laundry by the kilo at a lavanderia in the Galapagos was so easy!  Drop off in the morning; pick up the same night.  It comes back all neatly folded and wrinkle-free.  It worked in the rest of Ecuador too.  When we stayed in a place for a couple of days, we managed to find a lavanderia in the neighborhood.  It was always much cheaper to schlep our clothes to the lavanderia instead of handing them over to the hotel desk.  So, for about $10 or $12, we had clean clothes for our travels.

Newfoundland: Three Lifetimes in Three Days

Newfoundland: Three Lifetimes in Three Days

Jules Older
Eco Travel, Insider's Guide, Nature, Travel Tips, Wildlife

by Jules Older

I'm a travel writer, which means I'm a hit-and-run artist — New Zealand’s North Island today, the southern Sierra tomorrow. I'm the man who rarely returns.

Except to Newfoundland. I've been five times to Canada's easternmost, poorest and most interesting province. That chunk of rock in the North Atlantic, closer to Ireland than to Vancouver, 1,600 miles east of New York, captured my heart an hour into my first visit.

On the latest visit, I experienced three lifetime thrills in three consecutive days. Where else on earth can you do that?

THRILL ONE: ICEBERGS

It began in the tiny town of Springdale, where we hooked up with ace pilot Rick Adams, owner-operator of Springdale Aviation Ltd.

I flew over and around massive icebergs making their way south from Greenland. Never before had I seen a berg, and now they were scant yards below the Cessna 185's wing.

But if iceberging from a low-flying plane is a thrill, berging from a sea kayak is a life event. Because sea kayaking has a very steep learning curve -- you can be moderately proficient in an hour or so -- and because icebergs have a tendency to get stuck just offshore in the province's protected harbors, the experience is open to the many rather than the fit few.

It's a stunning experience. I drove over a hill and down into an outport, Newfoundland for coastal village. My heart thumped a little louder as I spotted the gleaming white of half a dozen icebergs towering above the dark water like dollops of cream on a chocolate cake. I couldn't wait to haul the kayak off the roof of the van.

Echoes of Our Ancestors in Cape Coast Castle

Kathleen Koprowski
Historic Travel, cultural musings, travel essay

by Kathleen Koprowski

Photo by bdinphoenix via Flickr (Creative Commons)I stepped out of the flat, gray day and into the black depths of the tunnel that led to the Female Dungeon beneath the Cape Coast Castle. Sensing my way along the stone floor, I followed the footsteps of other visitors ahead as my eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness. Cool air in the tunnel provided no lasting respite from the thick humidity outside; any sense of relief was overshadowed by the heavy weight of souls in this place. We fell silent, immediately sensing the terrible truths housed within.

The castle guide led us down, down underground to the dungeon used to hold female slaves before they were taken from Africa’s Gold Coast (now Ghana) to be sold in the Americas at the height of the slave trade in the 1800’s.  He ushered our small group into a stone chamber and closed the heavy door behind us.  A single bare light bulb illuminated the room for just a moment before he flipped the switch, pitching us into blackness.  No one spoke.  

Fear and Longing in Scotlan

Fear and Longing in Scotlan

Rachel Dickinson
Life Lessons, Personal essay, cultural immersion, travel essay

by Rachel Dickinson

When I was twenty I got on a plane and went to Edinburgh, Scotland, to live for a year. It was 1978 and I had just graduated from college and was headed to Scotland because I had won a fellowship from a foundation that wrote me a check for $6,000 and said have a good time. I had to do a project outside the United States and I chose one in Scotland because it seemed more exotic than England and yet they still spoke English. Kind of.

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