Not The Home Of The Braves

From Montreal it was due south to New York, my last stop, not just in America, but of the entire trip. It was strange for me to be thinking about being back home after so long on the road, so I decided not to think about it and instead concentrate on exploring New York. For many New York is America. Its dominance, both economical and cultural, is unparallelled. Its locales made famous from innumerable Hollywood films: Times Square, Wall Street, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Statue of Liberty, Fifth Avenue, the brownstones of Greenwich Village, the Empire State Building, and Central Park are as well known to people from Panama to Peshawar as much as they are to the populace of Pensacola. I had, actually, been there before, way back in 2001, as a young student on my summer holidays (ah, how innocence fades) and was interested to see how I would see it with more jaded eyes.

Manhattan's exclusive 5th Avenue looking uncharacteristically empty on a Sunday morning.

Paradoxysms

Countries often have deep, internal divisions that cleave the society in two. Often the divide is between a poor, religiously conservative rural population, and an urban, middle-class, educated, liberal one. I found this particularly apparent in countries such as Iran, Turkey and China, which are still undergoing transitions towards more industrial economies. In America the transition has occurred but the division still exists to a large degree, and somehow the rural poor have been duped into voting for rich corporate interests. But taking pot-shots at American political dysfunctionality and woeful health provision is too easy and instead I want to look at the quirkier paradoxes and polarisations that exist within the US.

For poorer Americans access to fresh fruit and vegetables is not only severely restricted, but food education is of a very low standard. Whilst wandering the African-American museum in Chicago I stumbled across this educational play aimed at younger children about the benefits of fresh fruit and veg using hip-hop and gospel music. Here the hero (a broccoli) is being led astray by a couple of rashers of bacon. (Though it seemed to me that the bad foods had the best tunes.)

Straight Up The Middle

From Texas the logical and reasonable thing for me to do would have been to hug the southern states up until the coast before heading north to New York, so as to stay in a band of temperate weather for as long as possible. Logic is not my strong suit and so instead I headed, more or less, straight north cutting through the much-neglected Midwest. This large, flat expanse, right in the middle of America, is oft-overlooked by visitors to the country who tend to gravitate to the coasts. for me that was reason enough to visit as I was curious to uncover (if only a small part of) the hidden heart of America.

For many towns around the world 4pm on a Saturday afternoon might be considered the busiest time of the week, but not so in Lufkin, Texas, which resembled a ghost town. In the 2 hours that I walked its streets I literally saw less than a dozen other people walking.

I Heard It Through The Grapevine

Getting information about where to go whilst travelling is always an interesting process. The first port of call for many (including myself) is some sort of guidebook. These are useful places to start, with a lot of info in a single place. A mistake many people make though is to view guidebooks as some sort of Bible, as the sole, unquestionable, infallible source of facts. Mistakes can, and often do, arise and should be expected. Not only that, but in limiting yourself to a single, popular source of data you end up following a well-worn path taken by many other travellers (an entity known as the Gringo Trail here in Latin America, and the Banana Pancake Trail in Southeast Asia), staying in the same guesthouses and hostels, and perhaps only interacting only with other tourists. Instead you should spread your net wide in your search for travel tips: trawl the net, talk to friends, other travellers, locals, read books and articles and generally keep your eyes and ears open.

Sometimes more than one source of information is required.

Tererism

Paraguay is something of a black hole as far as Latin America is concerned. Despite being in the centre of the continent and part of the Mercosur block, not only do we hear little about it, but even within South America it's something of an unknown. Furthermore it lacks any major tourist draws and so it gets bypassed by most visitors to the continent even when they're doing a so-called "Grand Tour".What actually is there in Paraguay? what are its people like (because I had never met a Paraguayan before)? how do they differ and how are they similar to their South American neighbours? These were all questions that were impatiently straining at the bit in my head; desperate to see what all the lack of fuss is about.

The spillway of the Itaipu dam, used on the rare occasions when the water level is too high. The main dam with its 20 turbines can be seen in the background.

Exotic Souvenir

On the ferry to Surabaya from Makassar I started to feel a little unwell. I thought it was due to the kretek smoke that was permeating the cabin and thought that some sleep and fresh air once on terra firma would be all I need to feel better. Unfortunately that wasn't the case and the first day back in Surabaya the dull, throbbing headache that had developed aboard was joined by a vice-like sensation behind my eyes and pain in my joints and muscles. I had a sneaking sensation and after looking into the symptoms online and getting a second opinion I was certain that I had picked up an unwanted souvenir in the Moluccas: dengue.

An Aedes aegypti mosquito, the vector of the dengue virus, biting an unsuspecting victim (actually, given the a photo was being taken of it the perhaps the victim was suspecting after all). [Photo from Wikipedia.]

Historical Turning Points, And Crayfish

The road from Almaty was initially a railway. The town of Kopa is a forgotten stop on the edge of the steppe on the line heading west out of Almaty. Only one train a day stops there and on that particular day I was the only person to get off. It is, however, the nearest town with any sort of public transport to Tambaly, where there are the greatest collection of petroglyphs in Central Asia. OK, perhaps not one to get the hearts racing, but interesting nevertheless. I sat myself down on the road out of town hoping to get a ride the 30km out to the site. At least the tumbleweeds kept me company. My wait wasn't as long as expected and the very first car that passed took me all the way there (hitching is not only reasonably common in Kazakhstan, but I also don't feel uncomfortable asking for a free ride here where the standard of living is significantly higher than the rest of Central Asia). And in a textbook example of things generally working out in the end, as I was wrapping up my visit of the site, and beginning to wonder how the hell I would get out of there, I spied a group of visitors (the only ones to visit that day apart from me) who had obviously come by car. So I went over to see if I could bum a lift, at least to the main highway. They turned out to be a group of 3 Mexicans living in China, a Kazakh girl (girlfriend of one of the Mexicans) and her father. Certainly not people you would expect to meet in the middle of Kazakhstan. Nevertheless they said, sure, they could take me to the highway as they were going back to Almaty that evening anyway. And so once they had finished visiting the site themselves we set off. I was happy as I got to practice my Spanish which was encased in a sizeable coating of rust, but at least I was still able to conjugate the verb chingar in several different levels of impoliteness, which impressed the Mexicans considerably. As we approached the highway Aina (the girl) suggested I come crayfishing with them. It was getting late, it was in my general direction and I had never been crayfishing before (hell, I hadn't even ever seen a live crayfish before) so I heartily agreed.

Monster from the deep comes face to face with a crayfish.

Hitch To The Unknown

My trip planning is a rather ad-hoc affair. I have a (very) rough idea of the entire route that I bashed out in a basic spreadsheet in 20 mins one bored afternoon, which takes in countries, a couple of stops in each and an estimated length of stay. As I get closer to places the view necessarily clarifies into something more distinct and detailed, and I have a more-or-less set plan 7-10 days in advance. So there I was on Friday in the early afternoon, standing by the beginning of the highway leading south, planning to visit the historical seaside town of Nessebar, some 90km away. A pretty straightforward proposition. After an hour I was getting rather annoyed, especially as the spot I had chosed was really quite good and there was plenty of traffic. But eventually a white family car pulls up with a young couple and labrador. Deni and Kamen were heading to the Rhodope mountains in the south of the country for the weekend and their route passed close by Nessebar, which was perfect for me.

The Rhodope mountains were definitely worth the 700km detour.

Hiking And Chance Meetings

The Poles, living in a land that is mostly flat (Poland, essentially, means "Land of Fields"), appreciate mountains. The highest (reaching 2500m) and most popular, are the Tatras. In the far southeast corner of the country, poking into Ukraine like a cheeky finger, lie the Bieszczady mountains which hold a special place in the affections of the Poles for being the wildest, most inaccessible part of the country, home to bears, wolves, bison, deer and lynx among others. The sparsely-populated area is now a favoured retreat of artists and artisans, but up until the end of WW II it was the home of the Boyks and Lemks, two Ukrainian-speaking minorities that were forcibly removed by the Polish authorities at the end of the war following a Ukrainian-separatist struggle in the area.

The bare ridges (poloniny) of the Bieszczady mountains.

Journeyman

Whilst travelling I usually find accommodation via Couchsurfing or through people I already know. When that doesn't work or when I am out in the countryside then I freecamp. Such as on Thursday night when I arrived at Cape Kolka, which separates the Baltic Sea from the Gulf of Riga, at 9pm. I had enough time to take some sunset pics but not enough to get any further. I didn't see this as a problem as the cape forms part of the longest stretch of beach in Europe (which is also, thankfully, supremely underdeveloped) and so I just walked along it for a few kilometres until I came to a suitably isolated spot, spread out my mat and sleeping bag, and went to sleep (the cape is part of a national park where it is forbidden to camp in a tent, but nobody said anything about just going to sleep). I have, however, come to the conclusion that sleeping on a beach is vastly overrated. Sure, the wide open beach and constant sea breeze are pleasant and keep the mozzies at bay, but I woke up playing host to a business of flies and with enough sand inhabiting my various nooks and crannies to stuff an obese gopher. The next day was spent walking among the fishing villages of the cape, which are home to the Livs, an obscure minority related to the Finns and Estonians desperately clinging onto their identity. Their language is already almost a lost cause with only a dozen or so native speakers.

A boat in a traditional Livonian boat graveyard. Livs neither burn nor break up their old boats, instead they bring them onland and leave them in the forest so that they return to where they came from.

Line Dancing In Norway

From Oslo it was due west (when I say that I mean geographically, because due to the country's steep topography, there's no such thing as a straight road in Norway) to Bergen, Norway's second city, erstwhile capital and important Hanseatic trading town (those Hansa guys again). Bergen is renowned for the Bryggen, a neighbourhood of wooden wharfside buildings that date from the Middle Ages, although much more of the downtown area is made of quaint, wooden houses stacked up on the city's steep hillsides.

View of Bergen's Bryggen from across the harbour.

Timing

When going on holiday it's always nice to plan stays to coincide with local festivals and celebrations. With this trip, however, I am where I am when I am and there's little I can do to alter that, as I move inexorably onwards towards my final goal (wherever that may be). I therefore often just miss out on various events that I would dearly love to experience but just can't reach in time. For example here in Norway I missed out on the National Day festivities on the 17th of May, which is supposedly the biggest celebration of the year, where people go a little bit crazy, wrap themselves up in their flags, and get horribly drunk in the streets (the latter is a common theme in Scandinavia). I was also wanting to do a fair amount of hiking whilst here (the landscapes of Denmark and the Netherlands don't really lend themselves to mountaineering), especially in the Jotunheimen national park, which is said to contain some of Norway's most spectacular mountain scenery and highest peaks. Since I would be doing this alone it is imperative to get properly informed, so I made my way to the DNT office (Det Norske Turistforening - Norwegian tourist association specialising in trekking) here in Oslo to enquire about conditions and about getting a map. The guy at the office said that this would be difficult for two reasons: firstly there is still a decent amount of snow from about 1000m and above (i.e. pretty much the entire park) - he even showed me a real-time webcam to prove his point; and secondly that the temporary bridges that are removed over winter have not been replaced, and so all rivers, which are now high with meltwater, need to be forded. Needless to say I will be revising my plans in light of this and will have to opt for lower altitude hiking.

Oslo's funky new opera house, whose roof has become a favourite public space.

Desperately Seeking Spring In Sweden

From Copenhagen I crossed the Øresund, over the mighty Øresund bridge, to Sweden. Unfortunately my hitching exploits didn't get me far and I got stuck in Malmo and had to continue by train (the Swedes are notoriously reticent in picking up hitchers). The difference in landscape is immediately visible as so far the countryside had been dominated by flat farmland with the odd hill here and there, but now forests were holding their own against the agricultural hegemony and brick and cement houses have given way to brightly painted (mainly red or yellow) timber. And although the scenery might have changed a bit one thing that has remained constant during my trip has been the weather. I have been making my way steadily northeastwards and so have remained one step ahead of spring. Wherever I have been the signs of its imminent arrival have abounded: pre-spring flowers like daffodils, snowdrops and forest anemones are everywhere; the buds on the trees are awaiting to explode into leaf; and the weather's more changeable than a teenage girl deciding what clothes to wear to a party. The one constant has been the cold weather, with it barely ever exceeding 10 C so that my one jumper and thermal long-johns have become a permanent fixture of my daily wardrobe.

I headed quickly to the east coast towns of Karlskrona and Kalmar, which are interesting as they chart two tumultuous phases of Swedish history. Kalmar, the older of the two, used to mark the border between Denmark and Sweden and is famous for the treaty that was signed there which united the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. It was never really popular in Sweden though as they felt they were getting a raw deal from the Danes (with whom they have fought numerous times over the years and have a love-hate relationship) and it only lasted for 125 years. During that time Kalmar was at the centre of the Union, afterwards it withered away to a provincial backwater, albeit one with some nice old bits. As Sweden rose as a regional power (to the detriment of Denmark), with possessions on both sides of the Baltic, it decided to build a super-duper new naval base from scratch on a deserted archipelago on the south coast which became Karlskrona. Built in the latest baroque style the main town was off limits to civilians well into the Cold War era, but with the decreasing importance of the military it is now diversifying into a student and IT town.

Kalmar castle, at one time the capital of the short-lived union of Sweden, Denmark and Norway.