Spain

Spain isn't necessarily famous for wildlife, but in case you missed seeing animals from our Africa blogs, we thought we put in a picture of some ducks that were in the grounds of the "Cathedral" in central Barcelona.

Spain is known for its tasty cuisine, and did not let us down! Spain is popularly known for its tapas, which is variety meal of sampler sized dishes. However, the Spanish are also the most voracious fish eaters in the Mediterranean. We loved the fish dinner pictured above! We were a little worried if we were paying $12 for each the enormous and delicious salad, drink and desert that accompanied the gormet fish dish, but our sketchy understanding that it was all included in the fabulous lunch special turned out to be correct. Phew! And Wow!!! One of our best meals on the whole trip - including a reasonable price and all.

Barcelona also had an amazing market. After getting addicted to the fruits and fresh fruit juices of EVERY assortment, we wandered around, staring at the grotesque (our oppinion of course) animal parts for sale. It's hard to imagine the delicious Spanish foods originating from such strange origins!

Please note in the picture of the heads, there are brains for sale in the plastic containers. In case it's hard to tell right off, the following picture has tongue and tripe (stomach lining). We tried tripe soup in Bali and Rusty may like it... Kelsi does not.

Barcelona is blessed with a plethora of street performers . This twiggy guy was superlative with his crystal ball magic. We also enjoyed the many art displays and flower shops with blue roses and lots of beautiful to see and smell selections.

Spain is also renowned for its artists (Picasso) and architectural masterpieces. Foremost among the elite architects is Gaudi. A rather bizarre person himself, his modernist architecture adorns Barcelona in many places and ranks among the top attractions. Pictured below is the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's masterpiece church. Construction was initiated well over 100 years ago, and might take still another hundred years to complete. When finished, it will be addorned with 12 towers dedicated to the Apostles, four to the evangelists, one to The Virgin Mary, and a 560 foot tower in the center dedicated to Jesus.

We also took time to visit several residences constructed by Gaudi. All of them have unique contours and interesting adornments of metal work.

Below are picture's of Gaudi's Park Guell, which Kelsi likes to think of as something out of a Dr. Seuss book. We enjoyed several hours strolling around the various lanes and arcades of the park.

After Barcelona we headed down south to the Andalucian city of Granada. The bus ride down south is worth a brief mention. It was particularly eventful due to one young mother and her children. She fed her little 5 year old boy and baby girl a lunch of Doritos and chocolate milk. The baby girl loved the food, but it wasn't long before it came back up all over her mother in a torrent of nastiness. The mother asked the driver to stop and wait while she fished out a new outfit from her luggage under the bus. The driver was a bit impatient, which worried the mother and upset the little boy. When the mother and children climbed back into the bus after changing clothes, the boy was so angry that he walked straight up to the driver and began screaming and waving his hand to lecturing the bus driver on patience. His mother could only laugh and pull him back to his seat. However, the boy hadn't quite hadn't quite had his fill of yelling, though, so as soon as him mother released him, he rushed back up to the bus drive for round two of his cussing out! The other passengers couldn't keep from laughing at the audacity of this little boy...

It is hard to capture the enormity and beauty of Granada's Alhambra, built in the 14th Century by Spains Muslim conquerors, the Moores. In any case, but here are a few pictures attempting to show some of what we enjoyed.

Our final stop in Spain was the sweltering city of Seville, the provincial capital of Andalucia, and home of the famous Real Alcazar (royal palace.) Seville has had several rulers, so the Real Alacazare was a hodgepodge of styles. The overall effect was quite nice, though.

The Royal gardens were particularly nice, and we enjoyed getting lost in the Royal maze, created from various bushes and hedges.

Seville is the center of Spain's passionate dance and music style known as Flamenco. Flamenco music and dancing features incredible percussion, including tap dancing, clapping, and guitar. The male dancer in the performance we attended tapped so vigorously that he sounded like a drum roll at times.  It was a dramatic and passionate production to say the least.

We stayed near the beautiful Cathedral in Seville's historic jewish quarter.

And now, a short history on the Spanish Lisp. We had heard rumor that the lisp was a result of the popular emulation of a speech impediment of a popular King, Pedro of Castile. However, Pedro lived in the 1500's, and the lisp didn't widely appear until the 1700's, two hundred years later. More likely, the lisp developed as a result of other regional linguistic forces, although the impact of one popular man on the development of a language can be enormous. In the English language, Chaucer and Shakespeare come to mind! Like the Spain lisp or not, it is addictive. We're doing all we can to avoid catching it ourselves. We're now off to the final leg of our trip, Portugal! Looking forward to seeing you all then!

Books: Updated List

Here's a follow up list of what we have been reading since we last posted our books list:

Novels:

1. White Tiger - Aravind Adiga (Both)
2. The Flood - David Maine (Both)
3. King of Torts - John Grisham (Rusty)
4. The Bretheren - John Grisham (Rusty)
5. Palm Sunday - Kurt Vonnegut (Both)
6. Revolutionary Road - Richard Yates (Both)
7. 'Tis - Frank McCourt (Both)
8. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini (Rusty - Kelsi read back home)
9. Beloved - Toni Morrison (Both)
10. Confessions of a Shopaholic - Sophie Kinsella (Both)
    

Travel:

1. Getting Stoned with Savages : A Trip Through the Islands of Fiji and Vanuatu - J. Maarten Troost (Both)

Science/Social Science:

1. The State of Africa - Martin Meredith (Rusty)
2. Chaos - James Gleick (Rusty)
3. The Lexus and the Olive Tree - Thomas Friedman (Both)
4. When Elephants Weep - Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson & Susan McCarthy (Kelsi catching up - Rusty had already read)
5. A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson (Kelsi catching up - Rusty had already read)

Spiritual/Philosophical:

1. A New Earth - Eckhart Tolle (Kelsi-second time)
2. The Road Less Travelled - M. Scott Peck (Both)
3. Life Ahead - J. Krishnamurti (Kelsi catching up - Rusty had already read)
4. The Art of Happiness - Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler (Kelsi catching up - Rusty had already read)

Our Favorites:

1. A New Earth - Eckhart Tolle
2. White Tiger - Aravind Adiga
3. 'Tis - Frank McCourt
4. A Thousand Splendid Suns - Khaled Hosseini
5. A Short History of Nearly Everything - Bill Bryson
6. The Road Less Travelled - M. Scott Peck

Not sure if The Flood was quite on the favorites list, but it was a very engaging historical fiction about Noah's Flood (for a more complete review: http://www.textpublishing.com.au/books-and-authors/book/the-flood/).

We happened across Confessions of a Shopaholic at a hostel and found it to be quite a fun read, actually. Rusty read it in one day - like a long movie. We'd have to say it was better than Twighlight! :) Just had to comment on it since it was our least intellectual book of the list . . .

Morocco

Morocco is a colorful, hot, deserty, African, former colony of the French. It was a total delight, but seriously hot. It hit 125 degrees one day, but we were lucky to find the local water guy in the crazy hat above. He was happy to dump cool water on the head of anyone willing to pay

Morocco grows oranges like Utah grows weeds. They even plant them as shade trees along the streets of Marrakech. The main square had dozens of orange juice stands, and we tried them all in our attempts to stay cool. We drank at least 4 glasses per day. One night that's all we had for dinner along with the dish pictured with Rusty below . . .

Kelsi accidently got a tatoo. Since Kelsi doesn't remember her high school French, we resorted to communicating with the French/Arabic speaking Moroccans by Rusty using Franco-English words in a heavy, mock-French accent. It only worked 50% of the time. The tatoo artist just didn't under stand Rusty's request for "non-permanent." It's a good thing the design is neutral and Rusty talked Kelsi out of doing the tatoo on her face like the local Berber women customarily do.

Rusty's first time trying escargot (snails). They are quite common in Morocco due to the strong French connection, and they served it up by the bowlfuls for 75 cents. However, we only shared one small bowl, which was more than enough for us!

Rusty atttempted to take a lovely picture of the old trading fort in Essaouira Morroco, but Kelsi wanted to make sure that you knew she was really there.


We enjoyed winding our way through the shops and locals in the narrow streets of Essaouira's medina (old town). The town came noisily to life with locals catching up on gab and shopping each evening just about the time we were trying to lay down to sleep!


We enjoyed several meals of fresh fish from the catch of the day. Mmmm! Kelsi's dad will be happy to hear that we have had a few amazing meals along the year journey - not always only super cheap eats. Although $20 for a meal is quite a splurge for us, that included so much seafood (shrimp, calamari, sol, sea bass, fresh sardines - only had canned before, but fresh isn't much better . . . ) plus salad, bread and a drink for both of us! We also tried sea urchin, but can't say either of us became a fan.


Essaouira is blessed with tons of wind. While not ideal for the sun bathing crowd (which we are decidedly not a part of due to our fluorescent white skin), it is excellent for windsurfing and kite surfing. Rusty decided to take kite surfing lessons for a few days.

Mastering control of the enormously powerful kite proved to be the most difficult task involved. If you are considering this sport, don't have a friend teach you! Kites can be well over $2000, and before you gain good control of it, you will definitely slam it into the ground several times, risking a totally ruinous blow-out of your friend's kite a number of times. Not to mention the fact that these kites are powerful enough to lift you up 50 feet in the air and slam you into a nearby building. Definitely a sport where it's better to be taugh by a professional while abusing their gear. Rusty researched these facts online before deciding he was definitely interested in taking lessons rather than asking his friend to teach him.

Once Rusty got adequately in control of the kite, his wake boarding experience took over, and he had no problem standing up on the board and riding around. With Rusty's newly acquired skill, Kelsi had a hard time trying to convince him not to attempt to board across the ocean to Spain. She ultimately succeeded in talking him into taking the ferry across... as you will see in our next blog.

Tracking African Primates

Africa is full of primates. Included among them are several close relatives to human kind, known as the great apes. We couldn't visit Africa without saying hello to our cousins. Although many primates are seen in abundant numbers in Africa, it was necessary to visit Uganda's famous Bwindi Impenetrable Forest to spot the prize of all primates; the elusive mountain gorilla. When we first heard the name of the park, we didn't really get the "impenetrable park." After machete hacking our way through the dense jungle and clambering down near verticle precipes for 7 sweaty hours, we better understood the meaning.


In addition to rough terrain, finding gorillas requires tracking. Tracking primates requires that you look for footprints, nests, and feces from the animals. Even finding signs is no guarantee you will find the animals. In Uganda's Queen Elizabeth park, we were foiled from finding chimpanzees by a band of foraging elephants. Luckily, our guide was well armed with a rifle and was able to scare them off, but the encounter ruined our opportunity to see the chimps.

Below, a chimpanzee nest in the tree; no one home, though!

Kelsi pointing out some gorilla poop... she smelled it out without trouble!


As we scanned the jungle floor for signs of gorillas, we became aware of life that we might have previously overlooked, including ant colonies. Safari ants, also called army ants, swarm in huge numbers in militaristic, agressive food gathering campaigns, and have been known to devour animals and even people who are unlucky enough to get caught in their way. At several times during our hike for the jungle, we had to pry them off of our skin as they bit into our skin. Interestingly, this also allows use of these ants as stitches for closing up wounds. The Masai tribes (depicted in our earlier safari blog), have also found a beneficial relationship with Safari ants. The Masai leave them alone in exchange for the ants performing something akin to biological pest control on Masai lands.


Fortunately, for the gorilla treking, we hired a knowlegable guide to accompany us, and he helped us to find the animals. Our reward upon finding the animals was being immediately charged by a 500 pound gorilla Silverback. The noise alone was terrifying, not to mention the chest beating and snarling.


Adult male mountain gorillas are called silverbacks because a saddle of silver-colored hair develops on their backs with age. Mountain gorilla groups are dominated by one dominant silverback, which can reach 5-6 feet in height, with an arm span over 7 feet, and weigh in at a massive 450–500 lbs. In addition to the gorillas, we also saw several other varieties of primates. Following are a few snapshots of them.

Baboon females love little baboon babies with bright crimson butts and black fur so much that they try to steal them from eachother. A baboon mother must very carefully watch over her baby.

The black and white colobus monkey is shy, and rightfully so. He is often the prey of choice for not only tree climbing leopards, but also for meat hungry chipmanzees.


Below is a male blue monkey. See if you can figure out why he is called "blue"...


In addition to primates, we enjoyed simply being in Africa and watching the women carrying home the loads on their heads. All of Africa is a rich collage of cultures, including many indigenous tribes.

Africa Safaris & Culture

Although we had already ventured into Northern Africa while in Egypt, we weren't content with covering so little of this huge continent. Sub-Saharan Africa was calling us. We would have come here straight from Egypt, except that we had made the sailing commitment in Greece that didn't allow us to order our time to fit in the Middle East and safari Africa together. Not to worry, though, because the delay gave time for the rains to calm down, making wildlife viewing much better.

From Rome we caught a flight to Nairobi, Kenya where we landed at four in the morning without any plans at all. Luckily, the airport was swarming with budget safari operators. Although it was difficult to sort through the various offerings, we eventually picked a safari operator and found ourselves on the way to Kenya's Masai Mara Park just a few short hours after landing. The Masai Mara is famous for the huge amounts of wildlife it hosts, including the dangerous "Big Five," coveted trophy animals for hunters and photographers alike. They include: Lion, Leopard, Buffalo, Elephant, and Rhino. We were fortunate to see all of them! (We spotted Rhino in a nearby national park, Lake Nakuru, not in the Masai Mara).

Although this male lion is passively lazing around during daytime, they are quite active at night. We saw several lion kills during our time in Africa and even saw them in the process of stalking and chasing water buck and zebra at one point, but the lions did not make the kill. They didn't look like they were trying very hard for the last charge, but they must be doing their work at night.


We were lucky to snap this shot of the elusive leopard.


The main reason we were able to find this animal is because the leopard had deposited the remains of last night's hunting in a tree overhead.


These aggressive buffalo are close relatives of the cow, but infinitely more dangerous. Although lions occasionally attack them, they are fearless fighters, and will even defend other buffalo against lion attacks.


Elephants are the largest land animals on earth, with bulls sometimes weighing as much as 26,000 pounds! Big as the bulls are, it's the women who run things in a matriarchal order. Elephants are also rarely, if ever, prey for other animals. Even though they are herbivores, they are one of the most dangerous animals in the wild due to their sheer size!


We had to be careful around the elephants, as they can easily flip over our vehicle if we disturbed them. It was fun how close we got to them as well as to all the animals - as you can get an idea of below. Mothers, who go through 22 long months of gestation are particularly irritable and protective of their young.


The Rhino is a highly endangered animal due to demand for it's horn and other body parts, some of which are believed to be powerful aphrodesiacs or medicinal. We were fortunate to take a close-up look at these animals in Lake Nakuru Park in Kenya.


Kenyan Lake Nakuru's salty waters also hosts millions of pink flamingos.


There were so many birds that the lake appeared to have a floating, pink doughnut ringing it's fringe. It was so beautiful!


Giraffes begin life with a 6 foot drop out of mother, and it gets even higher from there. These gentle herbivores grow up 17-20 feet high and bulls can weigh in at 2,600 pounds, comfortably eating tree leaves that elude lesser creatures. Interestingly, they're difficult prey for lions, as they have a powerful kick. One way a lion may catch them, though, is by grabbing them by the neck when the giraffe holds his head down to munch on grass rather than leafy trees. Giraffes have a difficult time managing the blood pressure build-up that occurs in their head if forced to stay low for too long due to their long neck and high-up heart, so the giraffe quickly succumbs to the lion.


The zebra's black stripes confuse would be predators when they're in a group. These smart creatures have done well and were very abundant across Africa. They are the leaders of the path for the annual migrations to food sources.


Wildebeast, or Gnu, are incredible because of their sheer numbers . It is the annual migration of 3.5 million Gnu that makes visiting Masai Mara particularly inspiring! We also enjoyed our guide's comment that this was his favorite animal because they are so "dumb." He finds them entertaining because they are frequent meals for lions as they never learn better to stay away! They'll graze right up next to a lion.


We loved the hairdoo on this pumba (warthog.) He's got sweet meat for the lion, but is rarely bothered due to his nasty tusks. However, when he is being chased, he has been known to have a terrible memory, forgetting that he's being chased, and resume feeding. In this event, he becomes a tasty snack for the predator.


The Hyena has an undeserved bad reputation after the movie Lion King. These sucessful predators have jaws strong enough to chew up the teeth of other animals. They not only hunt well, but can even take on male lions in groups. That said, this guy is about to fill his belly on a buffalo killed by a group of nearby lions the night before. Be careful walking in the African bush, as hyenas have the potential to bite off human hands swinging in stride.


Tanzania's Ngorogoro crater is an amazing microcosm of African wildlife. It was very cold due to the high elevation. We didn't expect Africa to be cold, but it rarely got above 70 in the day anywhere, and dipped into the high 30's several times! But we can't complain as it's easier to put on a jacket than burn up; it was mostly just pleasantly surprising to enjoy such nice weather.


Kenya's Masai Mara National Park is the Kenyan section of the Serengetti, which is shared between Kenya and Tanzania. It is full of all types of wildlife, and full of the Masai People. The increasing populations of the Masai settlements, along with other increasing uses of the national park lands has lead to some land conflict and conservation challenges.


The Masai are famed warriors and display their prowess by jumping, singing, and dancing. We took some time to jump along with the best of them. Rusty tried his hardest to prove that he was a capable jumper but he failed to gain the full approval of the warriors.
















No trip would be complete to Nairobi without stopping by "The Carnivore." This restaurant serves up skewers of African meats and domestic meats. They no longer serve wildebeast and zebra, but crocodile and ostrich are still on the menu.




We enjoyed meeting some new friends who accompanied us to "The Carnivore."


We found the people of Kenya delightful. In one instance, we were humored when a young man exchanging our money asked "are you on amazing race?!" We also enjoyed some of the "God" advertising we noticed. "God's Grace Driving School" and "God's Will Beauty Salon" struck us as particularly fine examples.

Travelling during and after the 2008 presidential elections has also been a very interesting experience. In Brazil, during the lead-up to the US election, we learned that would-be politicians were changing their name to Obama. Nowhere was Obama fever more prominent than in Kenya. Obama is 1/2 Kenya, with roots in the Luo tribe. According to local sources, his paternal grandmother still lives there. During the election, a lot of people in Obama's home region took time off work to attend voting polls which were set up for the locals to cast their votes in relation to the US election. No need to say who won the Kenyan vote. When telling people where we are from, we always heard the exuberant response "Obama! We share Obama with America." In one conversation, a guy asked where we were from and when we told him, he responded "Oh, Obamaland!"

In another funny yet kind of disturbing experience, Rusty suggested that an employee turn off an idling bus, spewing out lung choking fumes, since the departure time was still 3 hours away. After numerous requests, it was exasperating to hear him repeatedly respond "yes, one must not waste," but he still failed to switch it off. Eventually, Rusty asked "you are just saying that aren't you? You don't really intend to do anything?" The young man responded with a smug "yeah." Finally, Rusty got a different person to turn it off.

As we mention frequently, we are reading loads of literature while traveling. Africa was no exception, and Rusty read an intriquing book about the rise of modern Africa from its colonialist roots, "The State of Africa" by Martin Meredith. Needless to say, Africa has seen more than its share of autrocities, autocracies, and corruption of epic proportions. From  leaders siphoning off 100's of millions of dollars to their personal private bank accounts to dictators dining on the hacked up bodies of their rivals, this continent has seen it all.  We leave hoping that the beautiful people of Africa will one day find peace and prosperity.