Camilo, Uruguay

Today I was talked into buying a package to come here from Buenos Aires. susanna had done it and recommended it to me. So, I did. 858 peso for five nights hotel, round trip boat trip, transfers and breakfast. This all at the Hotel Casino, pool, view of the river and casino. I didn't fo further along the coast to the hostel in Piriopilis which looked good, w blocks from the sea etc. No, I was going to a, I thought, swanky hotel casino combo. My little bit of luxury before the my tour which would be a bit rough. In my mind I was to have that and some the of exciting energy that is found inside of casinos. Even though I don't play, I feel others excitement. After all, I had lived with a gambler in my mother in law, Ma ma Jo. Nice catamaran boat ride, nice clean van pick-up. I began to get a bit suspicious when I got inside the lobgby, looking a bit shabby, OK, don't prejudge. Up in the elevator I go with Miss Sourpuss. Down a long dark hall, she apparently can see in the dark, now enter my roo, oh, my God. Like the cheapest motel ever, small, smelly, dark. No, there was no other room with one larger bed, this I had paid extra for singel supplement. OK, fine. I unpack, have a shower as it is 34 c. Time for dinner in the restaurant. I order pasta with, what I think will be a delightful cream souce with mushrooms and parsley and ham. I happen to look at the window sill next to me and it is so diusty-even a token dead fly. My room is also crumbling and no way to keep shutters open except for shoving the drapes into the corners. Back to the dinner. Now I look around, as a former silver service waitress, I do notice things. The table cloths are inside out on some tables as the name of the place is woven on the edge. Mine has a bit of some other customers dinner. I got some bread with a bit of spread, I ask what it is and guess it is mayonaise, it tastes like Miracle Whip with chives. Not bad since I am really hungry. Now, I cannot stop laughing. Can't wait for my dinner. It is a joke on me. my fancy time before the grass roots tour. Here is my dinner, I especially got a style of pasta I did not know to try something different. They were circles of dough-heavy and white. The sauce was about the consistency of Mrs. Whites white sauce straight from the can. I put lots of cheese and salt, had to ask for pepper, not so popular here. It was like glue. I managed to eat the center where the circles were covered with sauce. This cost 30 Uruguyan dollars. On to the casino. Walked from the lobby thru an ante-room that smelled really mildew and lots of spot on the carpet. Into the Casino, which in the guide book said, huge. It was a room with two rows of slot machines, maybe 60 total and that was that. This is a casino people come from BA for the day. I have been laughing ever since I sat down and saw the dead fly. The topping is that I am told that Uruguay is dependent on tourism. Apparently on a different level, one can stay at the Four Seasons, I think the hostel may have been better. I went for a walk to see the sights on the first morning. After the breakfast, the fruit salad was divine. The rest was different sweets and really heavy bread bits. I tried, the best was the fruit cake. I ate a lot of that. On the walk, it got so hot, but I perservered to see the sights in the brochure. The fancy theatre was closed for reparation and the museum was closed, only open on weekends. That proved not to be true either. I made it back and had a swim. Then the storms came. If I thought I would go out, storm, if I thought I would go look at the magnificent sunset, clouds. I found an AA meeting I could go to on Sunday morning and be back in time for the van to return to BA. NOT, as soon as I was leaving, storm. The last joke on me was on the boat, I put my bag down on the floor by my seat and when I picked it up to put on my sweater cause the airconditioner was set on 'freeze', the bag was so wet it could be wrung out. No sweater for me, it was soaked, I had my scarf, that was it. It helped to put a map in front of me to deflect the blast of cold air.
All in all, it was not a place for me. My higher power told me all day every day.
A really good laugh that one.

Roman holiday 2007

The upside of my mini-few hours-Roman Holiday.

I had a long meandering walk around the Piazza Navona.
A look at the countryside from the airport train into town.

The downside

Misplaced my itinerary, was hopelessly lost,my right got to be my left etc.
The airport signs were missing a lot of the time, my friend Mary Jo and I are always finding fault with them.

Dubrovnik 2006

Arrival Dubrovnik: Was sunset as the bus carried me along the edge of the cliff overlooking the sea and then there was Dubrovnik, all pink and gold. My pick up person, Sergieo, told me might take me much longer to climb the hill to the room than he, and, he called for a car as he thought I was not comfortable on a motorbike. Ah, the prejudices of youth. He then said that I would have a good view. GOOD VIEW! On my balcony to my left was the full moon rising and below me, the old city all lit up. I could not stop gazing, I wanted to stay forever. Next morning my tour was to leave at 7:25, so I manifested a ride down the mountain,no bus that time of the day. At 8 AM the office opened and I had been given the wrong time. i am so glad that it was not the other way around as the next day is the tour of Montenegro that I missed last year for the wrong information. The ship captain cancelled today from rain on top of the wrong time. He would not make it on lake Superior. No what to do, I finished the book, no "TV and there is that mountain to climb back to my room. Look for restaurant, many i tried were not open, well, I spotted the Imperial Hilton Hotel and there was warm, dry, inviting, service and a breakfast brunch. I tried to eat it all and stay there a long time to be out of the rain.

There was a playground in the moat around the old walled city.

The grocery store is called "Konzum" .
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Montenegro 2007

Income about 200 euro per month

There are caves for the submarines to hide , they are in the shear wall of the fjord.

Most silver tomas in the world are in Perast, Montenegro

the men have 10 commandments
man is born tired
lives to rest
love bed
rest by day to sleep by night
stay away from people working
go to people that are eating and drinking
forgot the rest

Slovakia 2007

Sitting in front of the spa hotel waiting for a children's dance company from Riga to perform. It is past performance time, and now just setting out the chairs. Tried for the internet, my hotel does not even know it has a big sign for it, sent me to the next hotel, that was "kaput" . there ya go. the set up people are playing a medley of US country western music, good old Johnny Cash. I can loose my serenity when things are not organized. I have gone round and round with the spa, some of it is communication, I don't understand anything, and some is that Soviet feeling of the old times. In middle of dance workers threw rocks into a back hoe bucket and a man leaned his bike against the stage. Can buy 1/2 pack of Marlboro reds. Very pretty valley i am in Rajecke-Teplice. so green, lots of water . Now at a restaurant on an island in middle of a pond, has underwater space to see the fish. www.spa.sk is the spa aphrodite.
Dinner , what I thought was pasta with mushrooms was spaetzel with saurkraut. Yummy and desert is a soft apple.

Panama 2005

Tidbits of Panama

Place: Kuna Yala Territory-Rio Sidra, and indiginous community


Took a flight on a small plane to a landing strip that came out of the jungle to the edge of the Carribean Sea. My ride was a dugout canoe and off we were, wearing yellow slickers, I was till soaked. the ride was about 45 minutes to the island paradise of the travel magazines, name of Kuanidup. My island home for a few days. It is the size of a football field, some coconut trees and wight huts plus an eating hut. There about 400 islands in this part of Panama. i mean small like the one I am on. some a bit bigger with lots of coconuts.
When flying in I saw what looked like the walled cities in Europe covering whole areas, it was the typical huts covering the islands, wall to wall. They are thatched huts of small bamboo with no windows and about a foot apart. The huts at the sea edge were open to the sea with the toilet built over the water on stilts. The great flush.
Most of the islands are solid coconuts as this is the GNP of the Kuna Indians. their biggest buyer is Colombia as Panama used to be part of Colombia.
There is no electricity or fresh water. The water is brought in by 50 gallon drums in the canoe. wondered how that was unloaded until I watched the process. Just wade out with two 5 gallon buckets, fill them from the canoe and wade into the island, climb a ladder with them and dump them into the storage drums on tip of the shower area. For most of one day and night I was the only guest. What a joke that clod pulled on me this time, there I was in my evening hammock watching the full moon over my island paradise when the young men that were my attendants took their shower, dumping water over themselves with a bowl, wearing bikinis, picture that. Young, strong, athletic, laughing, frolicking in the full moon. Ma ma mia. island paradise?

Puerto Rico 2005

The people here are just full of smiles. the mixture is not Carribean like other islands, rather a blend of Spanish, indiginous, African, and lots more for spice. I am reading James Mitchners-"Carribbean". It is interesting to be in places that I have just read about. The sugar cane/rum business and all the horrible mess around it and then tour a mansion that was home of one of the sugar cane/rum families. So much bloodshed in these islands from the Europeans and more.
I have had a cold since i got here and only wanted to fly back, but had no energy to do so. Now have been to the Dr. and got some drugs and more rest. Now the sun has gone, now that I have a lovely pool in the hotel in Ponce, and the thunderstorms have moved in. they are really something, like they are right over my head and so loud. I went to a Beethhoven concert last night where all the beautiful people were including me. The hotel owner told me I looked very elegant in my black with my white skin and freckles. I put that one in my book on compliments. No one ever told me when I was young and trying to get rid of the freckles that they would be attractive to some.
I saw that the biggest Finnish colony outside of finland is in Florida. Imagine that, what a contrast. Usually, people gravitate to similar country. Like that of northern Minnesota, where my father lived was lots of finns, called, Menagha. I think it means butterfly.

India

So far India has been tiring. I was so tired when i got here, no rest in bangkok. Ulriki my friend that I met there, walked my feet off, up and down so many stairs to cross the roads and the metro also. My knee didn't like the abuse it got moving the heavy things, so, it got really sore and a bit tricky. she actually took me shopping, what torture. We went from the night markets to a mid range immense shopping center that was such a chaotic consumer extravaganza to the most elite place, where you could eat in front of really big fish tanks, the outside at night was a light/water show. Really something, all of them in their won way.
I have had an auryvedic massage which was told that after I should rest. OK. It was not like any I ever had. LOts of hot oil and nude except for a bit of a loin cloth and that was taken off for the back side. She even washed me in the shower after. Like a mom. I rested and was ready for the welcome group.
If I don't get too hot, it is OK here. If i get too hot or not enough water, it is too noisy and smelly. the traffic on the small streets, well on the big ones too, is a challenge to walk or drive on. All honk to let you know to move or attention. All honk, all the tine. I have seen the plastic bag scrap gatherers down the street from me. there is an ad on the TV for high street handbags made from the scrap plastic bags and no