Sins of the Fathers: Lessons in Perspective from an Israeli

May 16, 2016May 17, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

My biggest failing when traveling is overestimating my staying power. I’ll always give myself just a few hours, days or, on occasion, weeks more than I really need. Call it arrogance or a mistaken belief in my own capabilities – or perhaps, sheer idiocy – but it’s the one mistake I never fail to repeat, beating underpacking, undereating and underbudgeting to the top spot. I’ve been at this traveling game for a while now, honing my skills in Spain this year, and in all honesty, it’s a mistake I don’t intend to amend anytime soon.

Why? Because every second counts. Especially the last.

I remember backing out of my last week whilst crossing Spain in the trek of ’13, partly out of fatigue (I’d slept rough in the hills for several nights and lost a shaming amount of weight) and partly out of a harrowing loneliness, the kind of loneliness that really begins to gnaw at you after three weeks alone on the road with only yourself for company (you can only run through the script of your favourite musical with you playing every character twice, apparently…)

I was younger then; quieter, inexperienced, even more shy than I am now. I saw a shot at an early exit and I took it. But those last two days, trying though they might have been, served up some of the most memorable moments: swimming in the crystal waters of the Mediterranean with an entire cove to myself, being chased along the beach at night by men with torches, falling asleep to the sound of the sea and the eerie silence of the lighthouse doing its rounds on the cliffs. Pure Almería. Pure Spain. Pure living.

The same thing happened in Uganda. The last week felt like an eternity when all we really wanted was to be home in time for Christmas, but when the last night rolled around I realized what a fool I’d been to ever want to leave. And my own mother had phoned just days before telling me to make the most of the time I had left. I’ve been kicking myself ever since.

Even in Jordan – dear Jordan – I met my match in our last week. The veil was lifted a little; Amman was no longer the inhuman monster it had first appeared. It was friendly, warm and oh-so-very human. But just as it was starting to bloom, we were on the plane and out of there. Oh, I look back and laugh now; it’s so very easy to do. And trying though it was, I don’t half appreciate it all the more. We all need challenging experiences like that in our lives. And since I don’t go in for drink, drugs, sex or sports, where else am I to find experience but in the open road?

Jordan’s twilight was like a sunset over a battlefield – if you’ll forgive the expression. Suddenly, just for a moment, what was once so terrifying became beautiful. It made sense. The final hours can make all the difference.

Today it was just a couple of hours’ difference: a choice between the 11:25 or the 14:20. As usual I decided on the later bus, assuming I’d find something to do that would fill the hours. That something was looking very much like the first season of Doctor Who at eight o’clock this morning, when my limbs were still recovering from being scratched, scraped and strained in yesterday’s gorse-navigating adventure. A tempting offer.

That is, until I met Roy.

Roy was the only other guest in the hostel this morning. He was bound for Monfragüe for no particular reason beyond that it was a recommended spot, so I told him what he might expect to find and pointed him in the right direction. We’d got talking indirectly – as is so often the case when I’m involved – through a two-way conversation with the friendly hostelier about the impossibility of Spanish accents (a subject on which I consider myself reasonably well-versed). Roy, a native Israeli, had taught himself Spanish through the genius of Michel Tomas during his military service and, after reading Coelho’s The Alchemist, had decided to visit Spain, eschewing the post-military course for India, Australia and the Americas.

Naturally, Israel came up in conversation. I don’t remember how exactly. I think it was because I mentioned that I’d been nearby last year, when I saw the Golan Heights from the Jordanian side. He told me a little about his home, and let me tell you, it was refreshing to hear a little of the other side of the argument for once – or at least, an Israeli approach, as Roy’s was hardly the mainline view. Despite living in the Western World, the last three years have shown me nothing but anti-Israel sentiment. For obvious reasons, Jordan isn’t the best place in the world to go looking for a balanced view on the Israel question, but neither is my own Arabic class. Perhaps the study of Arabic makes us more sympathetic to the plight of Palestine?

I’m not entirely sure what it is, but I was brought up to idolize hooked noses and Jewish perseverance by a mother who spent a very long time searching for her own faith, so I’m not naturally predisposed to see Israel as the enemy it’s often made out to be. Nation and religion should never be mixed, and Israel is the example, but there is something more to a country that still values its faith. I could have visited last year… if I’d been ready. But I wasn’t. For me, Israel is more than just a nation. It’s more than an idea. It’s more than an Instagram on the West Bank. It’s a dream, and when I saw the sun setting over those mountains and went weak at the knees I knew I wasn’t ready. Israel could very easily destroy me… because I fell in love with it. And my track record for destructive love affairs would back me up.

Roy, however, gave me exactly the answer I was looking for. One of hope, understanding, of looking forward rather than back. That, he claimed, was the problem in Israel: there is too much emphasis on the past. The old Holocaust clause; bring it up and you’ve lost the argument. Does Israel deserve the entire landmass? You might ask, does Mexico belong to the Aztecs, or does Britain deserve its former empire? Hardly. Israel has as much right to the West Bank as the Asturian knights did to Granada. These things are gone. History is to be studied and learned from, not brandished as a weapon in court. And speaking of courts, there’s a good deal of finger-pointing going on all over the world, but what good does it ever serve – especially when the culprits are two generations dead and buried and it’s their descendants taking the flak? What is done is done. What is important is to dream and to push on towards a better future… or whatever idealistic tripe should fill this gap.

My apologies. An earthworm could have phrased that better. Personally, I’ve never believed in Utopia, nor would I ever want it. I only believe in hope and the good that it can do. As for the present, I take the Doctor’s approach; the world is perfect the way it is: that is, imperfect. The balance of good and evil, right and wrong. It’s that imperfection that makes us struggle to create a better world, and it’s that struggle that makes us so very human. I see that as perfection. Things could be so much worse than they are now.

Roy’s was a balanced opinion. Here was a man who’d gone through the Israeli military service telling me not of his blind hatred for the Arabs – as a couple of Palestinian cabbies would have had me believe – but of his desire to see the country where The Alchemist began. What is that if not human? There is no “us” and “them”. There never was. There never will be. There is only the future. And it is by looking ahead that we move ahead. Ever tried running backwards?

This is why I travel. This is why I give myself those few extra hours: for conversations like these. For Roy, for Simone and all the other brief and wonderful encounters on the road. It restores my faith in humanity. Trump, you should really give backpacking a try someday. It might just change your world.

I hate to end on a quote, as it seems so abominably unoriginal, but I’ll break my golden rule just this once because a certain Allan Quatermain spiel is simply crying out for this post. BB x

“It is the change, the danger, the hope always of finding something great and new, that attracted and still attracts me.”

Henry Rider Haggard, Child of Storm

Volver

May 5, 2016May 5, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

‘What is he saying?’
‘It’s closed.’
‘Wakha. Fermé. No ferry.’
‘Closed? Why?’
‘I think he said there’s a strike… Huelga? Uh… grève? Est-ce qu’ils ne travaillent pas aujourd-hui?’
‘Ah! No lanchan ferry! Wakha, sadiqii, wakha!’
‘Pero, en serio Ben, tu te has enterado?’
‘A mí me gustaría mucho enterarme…’

You know what I was saying a couple of posts back about loving the multilingual melange that is Tangier? Well, I guess I got my comeuppance this afternoon. After a long shopping trip in the medina, loaded down with suitcases and food for the return journey, we hailed down a grand taxi for the harbour. But for the photography hiccup in Chaouen (and Booking.com refusing to refund me for a bungled payment), our four-day trip to Morocco had gone without a hitch.

So it’s only natural that the taxi driver would leave it until we got to the harbour to tell us that, due to exceptionally strong winds, the port was closed. This was swiftly backed up by both the police and the FRS office, as if we weren’t already doing a bad job of playing the trust card. If we wanted to get home, there was only really one viable option: we’d have to catch the big FRS ferry from Tanger Med near Ksar Es-Seghir, some forty kilometres up the coast.

We should have seen this coming just looking out from the hotel, really…

That’s how I found myself still in the same taxi some twenty minutes later, rounding the bends of the twisting coast road for the port and trying to make one intelligible sentence out of the five-language jumble of our taxi driver. His Classical Arabic, French, Spanish and English were all perfectly reasonable, but his mixing-up of all four of them mid-sentence with his native Dārija made it nigh-on impossible to understand a word of what he was saying. Speaking four languages is one thing, but trying to make sense of them all at once is a step too far for me.

So green – but how much longer will it last?

By some streak of luck we made it to the docks in time, and for a fair price, too; 180MAD for the car from Tangier, for the record, and not quite the 2500MAD that was his first offer (trumping even the villainous Oulad Berhil cabbie in greed). Predictably enough, we weren’t the only ones caught with our pants down by the closure of the Tangier port: at least two other boatloads turned up for the 14.00h, which was necessarily shunted back to 15.00h, and then 16.00h. Passport control was, for the once, the least of our concerns; a succession of connecting buses came and went, none of them bound for the FRS service. I don’t suppose I minded too much. I spent the last hour playing Peep-O and making silly faces at a little girl who seemed only too pleased at the diversion. By the time the FRS shuttle pulled in it was coming on to five minutes to four and tempers were running short. Mufasa would have been all too familiar with the stampede that followed.

God, I’m so evil

Despite repeated warnings from the bridge, I spent almost the entire journey out on deck in the hopes of seeing a shearwater (I’d seen a few dusky shapes in the gloom on the way out, but I needed to be sure). The Strait is also a very good place to look for whales and dolphins, so I had an eye out for them, too… whenever it wasn’t shut tight in a wince in the game-force winds, that is. The sea was choppier than I’ve ever seen it, making whale-watching a no-go and rendering photography difficult. At its worst, the ferry was tilting at a twenty-five degree angle from side to side, giving spectacular views down the deck into the ocean or the open sky at any given moment.

Not the healthiest angle for a ferry

A sensible mind would have given up the ghost and retreated. But I’m not all that sensible, and I was rewarded for my obstinacy just short of the bay of Gibraltar by a single, chocolate-coloured seabird gliding effortlessly between the waves and a far-off but recognisable vertical jet of steam. Stubbornness has its rewards.

The Bay of Gibraltar (plus very distant shearwaters)

Let’s just take a step back for a moment. This is now the third extracurricular adventure I’ve had with my colleagues, following Andorra and the Romanian exchange. Before Meléndez Valdés I’d never imagined life as a teacher to be anything like this. I’m completely and utterly sold on this way of life. This is my life, opening up before me: traveling Extremadura as a qualified English teacher until I have enough experience under my belt to settle for good. The oposiciones sound tough, but my colleagues here are encouraging me to come back and go for it, which makes it all the more worthwhile. Spain, you just keep winning me over. How I love you with all of my heart and more…

It’s coming up to ten o’clock, Spanish time. The sun set an hour or so ago. Eight o’clock start tomorrow morning. Ive had worse. On the whole it’s been a very good weekend, and my appetite for the summer is more than whetted. Only next time, I think I’ll catch the plane. BB x

Chaouen and the Petra Effect

May 4, 2016May 3, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / 2 Comments

There are some places that you come across that feature on almost everybody’s wish list. The pyramids of Giza, the lost city of Machu Picchu and the Great Wall of China, the name a few of the standout examples. Ask for more and you might encounter a few more classics, like New York’s Central Park and the bustling canals of Venice. Extend the list a little further and you’ll probably find a small Moroccan town nestled deep in the Rif mountains of some forty thousand inhabitants. Why? Because a large part of the old town is painted powder blue. Introducing Chefchaouen, the blue pearl of Morocco.

I should point out, it’s currently under scaffolding in anticipation of its upcoming designation as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Just like the Fes tanneries last year, that’s another visit hamstrung by the UNESCO beetles. Fortunately, I’ll be a mere hour away all summer, so I’ll be back when they’re done. It promises to be spectacular.

It’s a strange experience, wandering along an entirely blue street. The whole medina looks like something out of a picture book. You can almost hear the suspicious mutterings of the locals when the first travelers stumbled upon the town a century or so ago; a four hundred-year old refuge from the zealous rage of Castile. There are some doorways and passages that are instantly recognizable from the travel guides and Instagram accounts, and with good reason: they practically scream out for a photo.

And that’s where the trouble begins.

Chefchaouen is, at the same time, a photographer’s dream and nightmare. Not only have you got some of the most beautiful colours to play around with that architecture can provide, but the villagers themselves are extremely photogenic and set off any street scene like saffron – if you feel like risking it.

Chaouen has been in the mainstream tourist trade for some five years now and it’s inhabitants have had plenty of time to develop their own opinions about being posted all over the global social media on a daily basis. Being the cautious type, I’d rather avoid trouble and settle for those unoriginal empty street shots, taking proper dioramas only when all backs are turned. But even that, it seems, is sometimes a little too much to ask.

‘No photos! No photos!’ cries an old woman, rounding a corner just as I press down the shutter on what was mere seconds previously an empty street. I hastily stow away my camera as she grumbles to herself in Arabic about the likelihood of it cropping up on Facebook tomorrow morning. True to self, I’m left feeling so guilty for taking that snap one second too late that I end up doing the rest of Chaouen sans apareil. Thanks for that, jaddatii.

A common joke bandied about by Moroccans – aimed almost exclusively at people like me, I shouldn’t doubt – is the ‘no paranoia’ jibe, reserved for all those travelers who assume indifference when hailed in the street. I had this two or three times after my run-in with the camera-shy abuela, when I bemused a few stallholders by passing by a gorgeous Chaoueni door without reaching for my camera.

I tried my luck again the following morning, having recovered from that little stumble, only to run into exactly the same problem when I was quite innocently photographing a lantern. ‘No! No!’ says a villager, climbing the stairs towards me. ‘No photos!’. Jesus, Chaouen, what am I allowed to photograph?

The result? I spent the entire day sketching instead.

Sketching appears to be harmless. I’m not entirely sure what the difference is between a sketch and a photograph – a true craftsman puts just as much work into both – but people don’t seem to mind you standing on a street corner and scribbling away for twenty minutes or so. You’d think after a couple of minutes that it’s fairly obvious that you’re the subject of a doodle when the artist in question keeps stealing a casual glance over your shoulder to the mountains behind, and that that might bother some folks… but apparently not. It even has curious passers-by stop and talk to you.

Perhaps that easily-offended old Chaoueni did me a good turn after all. It’s all too easy to become lost behind a camera.

I have mixed feelings about Chaouen. On the one hand I do admit that it is rather gorgeous, as Moroccan towns go. For me it’s not a scratch on the more authentic Taroudant or Imoulas, but that has more to do with the thriving tourist traffic than the town itself. My main problem with it, it must be said, is what I term the Petra effect: when something receives so much hype that the reality can’t help but disappoint. It’s unfair to say that you shouldn’t rave about an especially beautiful place, but sometimes I’d rather make my own discovery than find the path trodden down before me by the world entire and the locals already soured by thousands of camera-toting holiday-makers. One almost misses the hippies.

Like Petra before it, I’d heard so very many enticing anecdotes and seen so many beautiful photos of Chaouen that I wasn’t as bowled over as I probably should have been. I will, however, be back. There’s more to the town than I had time to see… and I have all summer. BB x

Four Days without Reggaeton

May 3, 2016May 3, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

‘You want taxi, my friend? No? What, you no want talk to me? Why you travel if you no want talk to people? You all the same, you think you are better than us, but you are wrong. We are better than you.’

Welcome back to Morocco, I suppose.

Goodbye Tarifa!

There’s something endlessly enchanting about waking up in a new country. It breaks up the monotony of the everyday. It sends gears spinning that had until recently been lying dormant. It also comes with a change in breakfast too, which is never a bad thing.

Bang in the centre of the medina and all you can eat for 10 euros a night…

On one of those fantastically last-minute whim decisions which I have been known to make , I decided to take up the offer of two of my English department colleagues to spend the puente de Mayo in Morocco. Four days isn’t nearly enough to enjoy Morocco – each town deserves a full day and night’s exploration to even begin to get a taste of the area – but when it’s so close that you can see the cars from the other side of the sea, it’s impossible not to feel the tug of the south. I’m not very good at saying no to anything, but when it comes to adventure, I find it exceedingly difficult to say no. So here I am, on the 12 o’clock bus to Chefchouen, saying yes – and loving every second of it.

Getting Bourne Ultimatum vibes…

The last time I was in an Arab country was Jordan. Let’s not go over that again. Jordan’s going to be a bug-bear of mine for a very long time. It’s a name which carries greater fear for me than Syria, Korea and the Democratic Republic of Congo ever could. It wasn’t so much the country as it was the fact that I simply didn’t want to be there. Backed into a corner as I was with my commitments to the British Council, I wasn’t given a choice. And in that frame of mind, as always, I was defeated before ever I got on the plane. It wasn’t in my interest… And as my parents will know only too well, if something is not in my interest, the chance of me doing well is next to zero.

The Rif: b-e-a-utiful

Not so Morocco. Maybe it’s the green hills and the icy rivers flowing down from the mountains and into the sea. Maybe it’s the jaw-dropping kasbahs of the desert south or the quiet, homely feel of the melting-pot medinas of the north. Maybe it’s even the simple fact that this is Africa. But I think that the real reason I have so much love for this country is because I want to be here. It’s a minor difference, but it changes everything.

Waking up with the dawn chorus in the middle of a city sounds ridiculous, especially when there’s a complimentary alarm service courtesy of the mosques at four in the morning, but in Tangier it’s easily done, and the soundscape is just as fantastic a mix as the city itself. There’s the warbling calls of flocks of roving bulbuls, that ever-present feature of Arab towns; on top of that you’ve got a chorus of roosters crowing at the dawn, interspersed with the occasional bubbling note of a laughing dove, two quintessentially African sounds; and then there’s the aggressive cackle of the gulls, which smacks more of Europe than anywhere else. Even the repetitive wi-tu wii-twii-tu wii-twii-tu of the house buntings echoes the sales pitch of the taxi driver, yelling the name of his destination over and over as though it were an object to be bought or sold.

Spot the six species of bird in this picture (better still, imagine them)

And that’s just the naturalist in me. The linguist side of me is in his element: this is a place where I could be using all four of my languages – English, French, Spanish and Arabic – at any given moment. Across Morocco, but especially in Tangier. It’s like something out of a dream, and we haven’t even got to Chefchaouen yet.

Tangier’s Kasbah is actually a lot more impressive than it is made out to be

But for a less-than-welcoming start thanks to a jilted taxi tout lying in wait at the dock entrance, it’s been so good to be back. And as I’m the only Arabist in tow, this time it’s up to me alone to do the talking – and that’s a huge plus right off the bat. I hope there may soon come a time when it’s safe enough to study Arabic anywhere, from Western Sahara to the Sudan, from Yemen to Iraq; to excel, I need to be on my own. And that’s what this year has been all about. I’ve learned from my mistakes in Jordan. Moroccan Arabic won’t be any easier than Jordanian, if not harder, but I’m going to tackle it head-on and alone – and better still, in a willing state of mind. I can’t wait. BB x

Polo’s Bastards

April 20, 2016April 21, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

With my summer plans in a near-constant state of flux, I thought it about time to set a few things straight. This time last year I still wasn’t sure what I’d be doing for the summer of 2016. By all rights, I figured I was still lumped with another two months in Jordan. Since then, it’s bottled about through three weeks in South Africa, chilling out at Olvera’s August feria, hiking the Sultan’s trail from Bucharest to Istanbul, crossing the Pyrenees from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean, ten days in Romania, another ten in Egypt and, somewhere, completing my four month minimum in Tetouan, Morocco.

Understandably, my brain is a bit of a clusterfuck at the moment. It’s partly because of that that I accidentally booked a hotel for the wrong night in Chefchaouen and had to pay an obscene 95€ just to cancel, it being less than fifteen days until our visit now. (This is why I prefer to stay in cheap-o hostels, people…) And it’s unnecessary expenses like that that make me reconsider.

So this is me, reconsidering. Let this exploration of yours truly’s very own version of Polo’s Bastards stand testament to any further meanderings. The following ten countries, in ascending order, are the top ten on my hit-list. And they aren’t exactly the easiest. (Spain, for various reasons, is not included – call me easily pleased, but it’d invariably take the top spot).

Southern Morocco

Tafraoute, Morocco

This one’s on the list despite the fact that I’ve already been because I was only there for five days or so, and it’s worth an adventure in its own right. Morocco’s south is famous for the Sahara, for Erg Chebbi and the reasonably easily-accessible camel treks that set out into the dunes from Merzouga. Morocco is such a diverse country, and merits proper exploration of each of its three zones – the Rif, the High Atlas and the Anti-Atlas – independently. It’s the south that bowled me over, not least of all Taroudant, by far the most charming city I encountered when I trekked from Agadir to Fes. It’s also the home of Abderraman Rajji, the kind old Berber who offered his house to Archie and I. Tafraoute in particular has been calling out to me ever since. The way things are going, I might even consider exploring the south some more in September…

Yemen

Jebel Shugruf, Yemen

You’re mad. No, seriously, you’re insane. But Yemen has been my top Arabic destination since the very get-go, being one of the contenders for both Sheba and the most beautiful country in the world in my books (it may or may not have something to do with having so much in common with the country in the top spot on my list). Since it’s been a war-zone for so very long and many parts are still tribal – the two may or may not go hand in hand – much of the country has been spared the glass-and-cement arm that has scarred so much of the Gulf. Not to mention the gorgeous, Ali Baba-esque mountaintop towns. Wallahi.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Mount Nyiragongo, Democratic Republic of Congo

I’ve been within a stone’s throw of the DRC twice. On both occasions I had this mad urge to throw caution to the wind and cross the border. Fortunately, a crocodile-infested river stopped me the first time and a hundred miles of unchecked jungle stopped me the second. Needless to say, my appetite is whetted. This is the true African stereotype, Conrad’s dark zone, peppered with active volcanoes glowing red in the night – and at the risk of further destroying any faith you had in my sanity, it’s the danger of the place that attracts me so. Doesn’t the name alone sound so powerful?

Argentina

Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

A curiously mainstream addition to the list, I’ve had just about enough of seeing the same mountain range on the front of Lonely Planet, National Geographic and Wanderlust magazine – and have therefore decided that it must feature on this list. Patagonia looks so very crumpled and torn apart that it’s almost unnatural. I’ve been in love with mountains my whole life, and Argentina’ Tierra del Fuego represents possibly one of the most perfect mountain ranges in the world, picture-perfect in every way. And hey – they speak Spanish!

Egypt

Abu Simbel, Egypt

Let’s face it, who doesn’t want to see the Pyramids? Or the Sphinx? Or the Valley of the Kings? Egypt was my fall-back for Arabic until the Arab Spring ruined everything… now it’s been relegated to the dust of lost dreams, which is rather fitting, though it’s resurfaced from the sand of late in light of the summer flux. My only issue with Egypt is the package-y nature of it. If I could go, I’d rather backpack it – and that is the first leg of Cairo to Cape Town. That really would be an adventure and a half!

India

Mehrangarh Fort, Rajasthan

One word: Rajasthan. Land of desert forts, of rose sunsets, of dark-eyed mysteries. It’s the realm of the Far Pavilions‘ Bhithor (I think) and of Valmik Thapar’s Desert Kingdoms episode of Land of the Tiger. Southeast Asia may be the flavour of the month for most backpackers, but I’d eschew the Thailand-Cambodia-Vietnam trail for a month in Rajasthan alone anyday. India’s so massive and so diverse that you’d need more than three months to fully appreciate the place. And some day, I intend to do just that.

Ireland

Murder Hole, Donegal

I have absolutely no idea why or how County Donegal made it onto this list. One day it simply seized my brain and became the country of origin of my princess. I guess it all spun out from there; that, and that damned gorgeous accent they have up there in Ulster. Ireland’s a damned sight closer than any of the countries on this list (and is also, consequentially, the only European entry), but the only thing holding me back is the expense of traveling around; a fair hike compared to the others. Even so, I doubt it’ll be long before I’m drawn out to the Emerald Isle.

Cameroon

Rhumsiki, Cameroon

As well as my madcap desires concerning Cairo to Cape Town, I have this less ambitious but no less adventurous urge to visit each of Africa’s four corners: North, South, East and West. Having seen central Africa already, I’m chomping at the bit to see the rest of it. It’s first on the list of countries I’d consider volunteering in, since I reckon it would really merit getting to know on a more human basis than backpacking could ever provide. It also has a serious bushmeat trade problem that I feel strongly about. On top of that, Cameroon has all that I love about Africa: fantastic food, spectacular countryside, great apes and a dark history. It’s also a necessary stopping point since one of my novels takes place here. Let’s just call it ‘essential research’.

South Africa

The Drakensberg, Kwa-Zulu Natal

Words cannot describe my love for this country that I’ve never been to. I’ve waxed lyrical enough about the land of Quatermain, of P.K., my ex-girlfriend and the Zulus before, so I won’t go on about it. What I will say is that I came with a hair’s breadth of going this year, barred only because my bank wouldn’t let me pay for both my flights and my brother’s in one go. Taking it as a message from above, I backed down. But only for a run-up. I’m not even close to the door yet.

Ethiopia

Gelada Baboon in the Simien Mountains, Ethiopia

Truly, Ethopia must be the King of Africa. It’s Africa with castles, with Gods-in-the-flesh and sulphur fields. The people are – in my humble opinion – probably the most beautiful in the whole world, being a striking blend of Arab and African. I had a three-hour layover in Addis en route to Uganda four years ago and I guess it started there – there, or a few hours before, when our plane came down out of the clouds and I saw Africa for the very first time, a paradise of rolling plains that gave way to spectacular waterfalls and blood-red cliffs. The Simien Mountains also top the list for me in terms of beautiful mountain ranges… and I haven’t even got onto Harar’s hyena-men. Then there’s Erta Ale, Gondar, Addis Ababa herself, the Omo Valley… Ethiopia simply has everything – and less tourists than the other African giants. Perfection. All I’m waiting for here is another like-minded adventurer to join me and I’m there. Just you wait, Ethiopia. Just you wait.

There. When you’re struggling for an idea as to where to go next in a couple of weeks, or months, or a year, return here. These are my top ten. And one day, come Hell or high water, I’ll have seen them all. BB x

Griffonheart

April 9, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Sometimes, when a bird flies low over your head, you can hear the rush of wind through its wings. Swifts do that, from time to time. Swifts and pigeons. It’s a quiet, singing sound like a sudden release of breath, over and gone by the time you’ve worked out where it came from. Now try to picture the same scenario with a nine-foot wingspan. The result sounds something like a gale, a genuine roar of wind, every bit as impressive as those giant wings. This is Monfragüe and this is a griffon, truly one of the most spectacular creatures on the planet.

I don’t really know what it is that attracts me to vultures so much. They’re not the most attractive creatures on the planet. Their heads are snake-like and feather-bare, their eyes are cold and sinister and they spend their entire lives feeding on dead things. If birds are supposed to sing, vultures sound like they have a bellyful of iron filings when they make a sound – and that isn’t often. But for some reason, I’m obsessed with the damned things, and always have been.

Extremadura is a very special part of the world, but doubly so if you’re as much of a bird nut as I am. The immense blue skies are almost always dotted somewhere in the middle with a black speck wheeling round and round on the thermals: kite, eagle or vulture. I grew up in the south of England where the largest soaring bird you’re likely to see is a rook, and I still remember the sheer thrill of seeing my very first vulture when I was about nine years old. For me they represented Valmik Thapir’s India, of cliff-forts and desert kingdoms. To see them wheeling lazily about the Spanish sky was like something out of a dream. And so the love affair with the griffons began.

Since then, they’ve got me stranded in the mountains, terrified my little brother, warned me of thunderstorms and – in quite possibly my favourite travel anecdote to date – they even got me arrested by the Spanish military police. I kid you not. Apparently photographing vultures isn’t a believable excuse for wandering about the countryside alone at fifteen without one’s passport…

(Not even for results like this…?)

If I’d had any idea what kind of scrapes my passion for vultures would get me into, I wonder whether I’d have had second thoughts. Somehow I doubt it. Something tells me I’d have found my way to the same spot sooner or later.

There are four kinds of vultures in Europe, and all four of them can be found in Spain – if you know where to look. The griffons are the most obvious and by far the most numerous, nesting in colonies that can number as many as a thousand strong. The other resident is the far rarer black vulture, recognisable by its sheer size alone; fully-grown adults measure three metres from wingtip to wingtip, making them one of the largest birds in the world. The Egyptian vulture is a smaller summer visitor from Africa, where they eat ostrich eggs by smashing them open with stones. But it is the fourth and final that is the most famous: the lammergeyer, a golden-bodied, diamond-tailed king of the skies that feeds almost entirely on bones. I’ve only ever seen one once, at an incredible distance, whilst in the French Pyrenees some seven years ago. It remains one of my greatest dreams to go chasing after the legendary quebrantahuesos, ‘the one that breaks bones’.

Like I said, I’m hooked on the creatures.

I have to admit, they do have some seriously menacing eyes…

Dad was in a grouchy mood and didn’t let us stay very long. Must be something to do with the distance from Villafranca to Monfragüe (which, I should point out, is as beautifully in the middle of absolutely nowhere as are all of my favourite destinations). I could happily have spent five hours and more just stood atop the castle with the vultures wheeling about all around me, or sitting under the cliff and watching them plummeting out of the sky and onto the rock in a fierce rush of thunder.

Needless to say I will be back. Everyone has their vice. Some like their drink, some like their fast cars, others have difficulty sitting still. I have this peculiar fascination with vultures and I’m not even close to understanding them. Yet. BB x

Holy Gridlock, Batman!

April 6, 2016April 6, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

I remember saying a couple of days ago that I was going to take it easy and travel less this year, beginning with Semana Santa. Predictably, that failed almost as soon as the words left my mouth. I’m now sitting at ease on the balcony of a cute little hostel in Córdoba, having spent the last four days traveling in a large triangle around Andalucía, from Matalascañas to the Great Mosque. It’s the Easter equivalent of last term’s ‘square puente’ to Lisbon, Aveiro and Salamanca. Only this time, I’m not alone, and it’s been a barrel of laughs from start to finish.

I’ve told you about El Rocío. Let’s start with Seville. Seville is one of those cities that I’ve always thought rather overrated. It’s the Spanish equivalent of Frozen; people come back from it raving about what they’ve seen to such an extent that by the time you get around to going to see it yourself, it’s difficult not to be disappointed. Unlike Frozen, however, it’s worth digging in and opening your eyes a little.

No, I’m not the biggest fan of Frozen. Something to do with Elsa’s dumbstruck ‘of course, love!’ remark, as though love were entirely alien to a Disney film and its target audience… and let’s not forget that ubiquitous Let it Go.

I’m sidetracking. As usual. I’ve been very blasé about Seville all year, using it largely as a transit between Villafranca and other southern destinations – mainly Olvera – and never visiting the city for its own sake. Mistake. If you can find a place to stay for the night in Seville, do. Especially in Semana Santa. Having the freedom to see the city by night as well as by day is a treat not to be overlooked.

In my current adventures I’m joined once again by fellow traveler/blogger Brocklesby, spending half of her Easter holidays down south. Traveling with a companion can be infinitely more entertaining than going solo, especially when you’re both new to the place, but it’s been super-helpful acting as a kind of lemming-guide. I’m something of an old hand with Sevilla and Córdoba, having spent about a month apiece in each of them when you add up the days, so – with the fifty-fifty assistance of the Arch Deceiver aka HERE Maps – I’ve been acting as a guide. It’s a lot of fun to introduce somebody to all of your favourite spots, as well as the main sights, but best of all you get to try things out that you never quite found the gumption to do alone, like this museum or that ice cream parlour. It’s a blast and I should travel in twos or threes more often.

Travelers to Seville in Semana Santa should be warned: bring a compass, a map and/or plenty of patience. Navigation is made almost impossible by the processions. In most of the smaller towns, these are usually nocturnal affairs of some eighty metres in length that take five or six minutes to pass, and good seats can be had by simply racing ahead by several streets and waiting by the side of the street.

Not in Seville. Not only is everyone in town in on the secret, so is the tourist population, both of which are immense. On top that, the processions themselves are enormous, trailing as many as three streets at a time and taking all of an hour and more to pass – and there can be as many as six happening simultaneously across town.

Understandably, this turns something as simple as crossing a street into a labour of Heracles. It’s a circumstance where shortcuts really do make long delays, and itinerant penitants and busy streets make the heart sink. I distinctly remember saying that ‘if you see Jesus, you’re screwed’; blasphemous, perhaps, but in accurate reference to the fact that the float bearing Jesus is almost always followed by the Virgin Mary some thirty minutes later, meaning that Jesus marks the very epicentre of the gridlock. Thanks Jesus.

That being said, it’s something you have to watch at least once. And whilst it may not be all that much fun to watch the tips of the penitents’ colored hoods sailing by over the heads of a pushy multitude, if you can get yourself to the front, it’s surely one of the human wonders of the world to behold.

I’m not a pushy person. I think I’m too English. So it would take a miracle to get me to the front of the queue. But God, or Fate – or an unusually benevolent Murphy – had other plans tonight. Having said that it would be ironic if we ended up walking down a street and coming face to face with a procession headed in our direction, that is exactly what happened, and with the grand finale, no less. We tried to duck out of the way through a gap in the multitude, but the Guardia closed it off and shoved us unceremoniously back into the crowd – which put us, quite by accident, right at the front. It suited us just fine, but it must have bothered those who’d been there long before us something awful.

It might not have been as soul-stirring as the Olvera madrugada procession – which goes on all through the night and involves no small amount of mountain-climbing – but it was a genuine privilege to behold from such a premier position.

I’ll be back next year. Most certainly. A lot of Spaniards claim to be rather impassive on the subject of Semana Santa, but their dogged adherence to an age-old tradition far more authentic than any search for chocolate eggs says otherwise. I, like Hemingway and Irving before me, am yet another foreigner hopelessly entranced by the magic of it all; only, I’ve at least a quarter of Spanish blood in me, so I’m not a total stranger. I’d like to think that counts for something. BB x

Paradise Lost and Found

March 26, 2016March 29, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

I wish I could tell you I’d read Milton’s poems, from which I’ve shamelessly adopted the title of this post. I haven’t. But even if I had, I doubt a throwaway quote here or there would be necessary. I’m in a place that fills me right up to the top with pure and simple happiness, gives an edge to my writing hand and recharges my well-worn batteries. Paradise has a name and though this one may sound like a cross between a stud and an aviary and smell like a sweet mixture of manure and marshwater, it’s perfection for a country boy like me.

El Rocío. More correctly known as Aldea del Rocío, as that is exactly what it is: a village. It may be the size of a small town, but looks can be deceiving: over half of the townhouses are empty for the larger part of the year. Once a year in May, El Rocío plays host to one of the largest, loudest and more colourful celebrations of the Iberian peninsula, the Romería deal Rocío. As many as a million Spaniards, dressed to the nines in rustic splendour, descend upon the village from all over the country to pay homage to the Madre de las Marismas, El Rocío’s very own Virgin Mary.

This is a very big deal. Accommodation in that week is normally booked out months in advance, if not years. To give you some kind of idea, have a look at the price hike in this particular hostel below:

My mental maths isn’t brilliant, but I’d say that’s at least ten times the price I’m paying per night, if not twenty. That gives you an idea as to just how popular the festival is.

Semana Santa, on the other hand, is a minimal affair. A couple of special Masses and a single daytime procession on Holy Friday. So what on earth am I doing here now?

The answer is all around me. El Rocío is drop-dead gorgeous, but better still is the countryside that surrounds it: the skirts of Doñana National Park, one of Europe’s most beautiful remaining wildernesses. Sandy forests of stone-pines stretching into the infinite. Scrubby heaths awash with colourful spring flowers of yellow and white and powder blue. Shimmering lakes and marshes teeming with flocks of noisy flamingoes and an eternally blue sky that almost always has at least one kite whirling about in the distance, whistling a beautiful trill into the mix of carriage bells, chattering swallows, whirrupping bee-eaters and the incessant oop-oop-oop of a hoopoe. This place is as close to paradise as this world allows. It’s also a place where absolutely everyone wears a cap or riding boots or both, so it suits me down to a T. Especially now, when my hair is a triple-crown disaster of a birds’ nest and in bad need of a cut – and therefore hidden under my very own flat ‘at.

I won’t bore you to death with five hundred words about my birdwatching adventures. It’s not a passion that everybody understands. What I will say about it is that it is deeply rewarding, endlessly unpredictable and that Doñana National Park is the very embodiment of that unpredictability. I swear that it’s different every single year, and I’ve been coming here for the best part of a decade now. In some years it’s half-drowned in rainwater, in others mild after a dry winter. I’ve seen boar, deer and mongooses in one year and never again since. The same goes for the gallinules, herons, pratincoles, harriers and marsh terns; each of them in one good year apiece, but never together. This year’s treasure is the glossy ibis, a Doñana regular that I’ve never been able to get that close to… until now.

Doñana is one of those places where I can sit and do nothing and watch the world go by without feeling in the least bit guilty. Time just seems to stand still here. That the entire populace of El Rocío seems to prefer the saddle to the driving seat goes a long way to entrenching that romanticism, naturally, but there’s a similarly timeless feeling to be found in sitting in the shade of a stone-pine on the Raya Real and listening to the wind. Every once in a while the blue-winged magpies cease their chattering, the hoopoe calls it a day and all that you can hear is the dry whisper of the wind. It’s spellbinding. Like Merlin to Morgana, I’m ensnared. But it is a very beautiful enchantment.

At some point I’m going to have to turn my feet back in the direction of town and head for the bus stop (this town’s not big enough for a bus station, especially since they diverted the main road). This morning I was almost keen to move on, in that snug-in-bed-with-a-good-book way – this one’s Shadow of the Moon by my favourite author, M.M. Kaye – but three steps outside and I was entranced once again. Oh, to live here and to spend my days in the saddle! I get romantic notions of owning an Andalusian stallion called Suleiman and riding about the stone-pine woods with the One, whoever and wherever she may be.

That’s quite enough of that. I’ll see you in Seville. BB x

Too Old for Hide-and-Seek

March 17, 2016March 17, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / 1 Comment

Murchison Falls NP, 19/09/12

Veils and Cartwheels

March 7, 2016March 8, 2016 / Benjamin Barnabas / 1 Comment

Another weekend, another adventure gone by. My weekend travel budget is capped at 90€ wherever I go, for which I’ve managed Cantabria, Lisbon and now Granada. Not bad from Extremadura. I’d like to say I’m entering economy-mode after this, for the end-of-year adventure’s sake, but that’s unlikely what with Semana Santa around the corner. So let’s just say I’m going to be even more budget-savvy than usual from now on. But that’s hardly going to stop me from going searching for more adventures.

I made a promise to a few friends from Durham to pay a visit whilst they were lodged in the gorgeous Moorish stronghold of Granada. That promise was, however, dependent on the arrival of the first snows in the high peaks of the Sierra Nevada. That little proviso caught me out, as it only began snowing in earnest around Carnaval weekend, by which point most of the Durham crew had long since left Granada for their next destination. Still, a promise is a promise and I’m a man of my word, so off I went. It just so happens that I have a couple of Spanish friends based there anyway, so I wasn’t heading for another solo weekend.

I’m now a total convert to BlaBlaCar; if not for the drastically lower price tag and journey time (16€ for a four-hour ride from Zafra to Granada is pretty fantastic) then for the conversation practice. In a funny, roundabout kind of way, I remember complaining that it was exactly this kind of taxi-practice that bothered me in Jordan. I suppose that was because it felt like the only window of opportunity at the time. Here, it’s just one of many, and I’ve made some really interesting acquaintances through the system. One day, if just for the ease of going wherever I want, I really should learn to drive.

The real boon of BlaBla’ing it to Granada was getting there in time for sunset. It was gone half past six o’clock when we got there and the sky was already a gorgeous yellowy-pink, so I had a bit of a run to the Mirador de San Nicolas to get what I – and the rest of Granada – was after: that unforgettable view of the Alhambra, surely one of the world’s most beautiful buildings, set against the backdrop of the salmon-pink snows of the Sierra Nevada. I’ve never seen the Mirador so busy, and the views explain it all.

To the outsider, the presence of a gypsy troupe breaking into song and the chatter of Arabic in the crowd might seem too good to be true. There’s often flamenco up here, according to my local sources, but the Arabic is new to me – perhaps because this is the first time I’ve been in Granada since I started learning Arabic, and therefore I’m tuned to listen out for it.

Flamenquin

The trouble with working a British Council assistantship on your year abroad is that it royally screws over your second language. Had I more brain than heart, I would have prioritised Arabic over Spanish, being nearly fluent in the latter before I set out anyway. But it’s never that simple with yours truly, and the prospect of spending eight months and more in my grandfather’s country was just too good to turn down. That I could have gone for a similar placement in Chile, in Argentina or Ecuador but didn’t is testament to just how much I adore this country.

As a result, I’m none too confident with my Arabic right now. Oh, it’s probably still all up there, buried deep beneath my Amman angst, but I haven’t really given it much thought since I packed my bags and left Jordan last summer. Seeing the Alhambra reminded me why I chose to study it in the first place. The sad truth of the matter is that it’s not the Middle East that interests me (at least, not the contemporary one), but North Africa. The Moors. Al-Andalus. This is what drove me to study Arabic; so that I might understand this ancient world a little better. That’s why I have so much love for Morocco and why I was in such high dudgeon about being sent to Jordan last year. My heart is here, in this part of the world, and I always follow my heart.

Take one look at that view and tell me I’m a fool for falling in love.

It was quite a fiddly weekend on the outset. The group gathering I’d planned on fell through straight away because one of the girls went to Seville for her best friend’s birthday, after which the others pulled out, leaving me high and dry with my hostel and ride already booked. It only dawned on me then that most of the other Durham students had already left Granada, and when my only remaining card said she’d probably be busy all weekend with a project anyway, I thought I’d have a rather lonely city break on my hands. Because, Granada being Granada, you can’t just stroll up to the Alhambra. It’s usually fully booked at least two months in advance at the weekends and on public holidays, so by the time the girls let me know they weren’t going to be there, it was far too late for a flying visit.

Understandably, I was feeling pretty let down.

Nevertheless, Fate is a most unpredictable woman, and as it turned out she dealt me a very fair hand indeed. The weather was impeccable, and I spent a gorgeous sunny morning with the albayzin – Granada’s labyrinthine Moorish quarter – pretty much to myself. I was mainly in town for inspiration and I found buckets of it. My sketchbook came back at least five or six pages more full than before, so I call that a success.

I must have spent at least two hours just sitting and sketching at Washington Irving’s feet on the garden walk up to the Alhambra, where six or seven costumed students asked me to photograph them beside the Son of the Alhambra. I think there was a treasure hunt or competition of some kind going on. I’m still not entirely sure. Saturday, I’m told, is when all the bachelor nights and hen nights take place, and these usually start in sunlight hours – visible, and often audible, at quite a distance. It could have been one of those… minus the phallic straws, of course.

My luck turned whilst I was people-watching atop the Alcazaba and a message came pinging through, telling me that the one Durham student left in Granada had not gone to Cordoba as planned due to a heavy night on her flatmate’s account and was game for some exploration. Hallelujah for you, Violet! It was getting infuriating sitting by the Alhambra and watching the hundreds pouring in and out in the knowledge that I couldn’t get in if I tried, so it did me a world of good to be called down from the heights and back into town.

There was a loud, booming sound as I wandered back down the path which I put down to construction work, but the closer I got, the more rhythmic it sounded, until it sounded much too upbeat to be a pneumatic drill. The Plaza Nueva was packed and, at the centre, I was met with something I really hadn’t expected to find: a samba band.

Accompanying the band was a veil-dancer, not unlike the one I saw in Caceres back in November, only this one had more of a gypsy’s flair to her style than the lithe Arabic movements of her predecessor.

The veils this dancer wielded streamed off the blades of the twin red fans in her hands. Needless to say it was something beautiful to watch and I was mesmerized, for how long I don’t know. When you see a thing of beauty, you really have to look.

That wasn’t the only attraction in town. Barely five minutes after the samba band had packed their things and left, another street artist took their place.

What looked quite commonplace to begin with quickly turned out to be anything but.

Was it acrobatics? Was it dance? Was it mime? Something of a mixture of all three, I think. The girl turned wheel after wheel about the square, casually stepping out of the hoop every so often to wiggle about for a bit before stepping in for another spin.

Violet’s still new to the place, but she did a fine job showing me about the place nonetheless. All I ask is good conversation and she delivered, and how. She even led us straight into a free-for-all tango, which may or may not have consisted of no staff or professionals whatsoever. It’s so hard to tell in this country, where almost everybody can dance when it comes to the crunch.

It’s really quite something to see the oldies really going for it, and practically flooring the youngsters whilst they’re at it.

If the technique is all in the feet, then the passion is all in the face. Oh, to be able to dance with the passionate restraint of these deities!

We found a decent place to tapear outside the touristic district where I made a beeline for my Achilles’ heel – croquetas – which were of a very high quality, I must say, and further story-swapping, which was of an even higher quality. I could hardly ask for more. Thanks Violet!

Now, somebody up there must have been smiling on me, because Ana, my Olvereñan friend, managed to wrap up her project for the afternoon and turned up to pick me up from lunch. Ana’s a gaditana through and through but she’s been in Granada for some time now, so she knows the place better than I ever could. She took me to a gorgeous café under the Mirador de San Nicolas with a killer view of the Alhambra. They didn’t have Arabic tea, but they did have Pakistani tea, which was a damned good substitute. And what better could I ask for: two fascinating, challenging conversations in two languages with such good company all afternoon! I’m truly spoilt.

There was better to come. This is where knowing a local really comes in handy. Ana found her cousin up at the mirador and after we’d been chatting with them for a while, they left and we got their space on the wall. It’s a fiercely contested wall, for obvious reasons, and Ana and I got all of an hour with that unbeaten view as the sun set and the lights were turned on. The Alhambra looks spectacular at any time of day, but by night the snows on the mountaintop are a deep blue and the castle walls seem to glow golden in the torchlight. It’s overdone, it’s clichéd and some might say it’s even cringe-worthy, but for me, it’s nothing more and nothing less than the most beautiful building in the world.

I’ll finish off the tale in another post tomorrow. Y’all need breathing space, I think. As do I – I’ve a private class in twenty minutes and I can’t be dilly-dallying around! BB x