Word of the day: syzygy
February 18th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
This is the only word in the English language with three occurrences of the letter ‘y’.
The word means an alignment of three celestial bodies. You can learn more here.
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The BAFTA awards: the winners and my reviews of them
February 17th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Last night, Vee and I enjoyed a couple of hours in front of the television watching the 2014 BAFTA Film Awards. You can see all the shortlisted nominations and actual winners here.
- “Gravity” won six awards – my review here.
- “American Hustle” won three awards – my review here.
- “12 Years A Slave” won two awards – my review here.
- “The Great Gatsby” won two awards – my review here.
- “Blue Jasmine” won one award – my review here.
- “Rush” won one award – my review here.
- “Captain Phillips” won one award – my review here.
- “Philomena” won one award – my review here.
- “Frozen” won one award – my review here.
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A review of the novel “NW”
February 16th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
On holiday in Central America, I read the latest – fourth – novel by British mixed race author Zadie Smith. I have reviewed “NW” here.
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Our Central America tour (25): postscript
February 16th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
How long can a person sleep?
Three weeks touring round Central America + two long flights + jet lad
= I have just slept for over 15 hours
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Our Central America tour (24): conclusion
February 15th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Our return home on Friday started with the alam going at 5 am in our hotel room in Guatemala City. As with our outward journey, both flights were with American Airways. The first leg – the flight to Dallas/Fort Worth in a Boeing 737-800 – went smoothly with a flight of just over three hours. The second leg was not as straightforward because our aircraft for London – a Boeing 777-200 – had “a mechanical fault” and then we were stacked above Heathrow, so we arrived two hours late after a flight of eight and half hours.
The basic facts of our grand tour of of the isthmus of Central America are that, in three weeks, we visited five countries and, in the process, took five flights and stayed in no less than 14 hotels (a record for us, exceeding even last year’s round the world trip). According to our second guide Sandra, our whole trip had taken us across some 3,000 kms (or almost 2,000 miles).
This tour takes Roger’s total of countries visited to 65 – one for each year of his life. How long can he keep this up (as the actress said to the bishop)? In fact, our group was full of exceedingly seasoned travellers and two had been to around 120 countries.
Central America is still very much a developing region so our accommodation was often fairly basic and toilet paper usually had to be deposited in a bin rather than the toilet bowl. The food was good but somewhat repetitious and desserts were in short supply. Service was always very friendly and always very slow.
Little use of credit cards or local currency was necessary because we were able to use American dollars everywhere. This was immensely convenient, but it meant that – especially at the beginning of the trip – we were carrying lots of cash.
In spite of the reputation of the region, none of us had any problems of security and we always felt safe but, of course, we were on an organised tour and we were only in tourist locations. If these countries can improve their image, then there is a lot of scope for much more tourism. The one problem that many of us did have was an upset stomach from time to time which is more or less inevitable when travelling in developing countries. Roger was one of the victims (Imodium was a quick relief) but, as usual, Vee’s cast iron constitution spared her any such experience.
It was a wonderfully varied holiday with colourful birds and indigenous peoples, dramatic volcanoes and lakes, old colonial cities and even older Maya ruins. Not to mention, beans and rice, rice and beans. So it is difficult to pick out highlights of such an exciting holiday, but major candidates would be the zip wire experience in Costa Rica, the island of Ometepe in Nicaragua, the civil war museum in El Salvador, the Maya ruins of Copan in Honduras, and the Maya temples of Tikal in Guatemala. Yet each day was so different that it was almost an assault on the senses and sensibilities. We have lots of wonderful memories and some 700 photographs to give them colour.
We were very fortunate with the weather which was generally glorious. By dramatic contrast, the rainfall in January across southern England – where we live – was unprecedented in records stretching back to 1766. So, as well as having a terrific holiday, we missed a miserable deluge at home.
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Our Central America tour (23): Chichicastenango
February 14th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
It was our last day in Central America (Thursday), but there was still one more adventure to be experienced: a visit to a major market. Leaving Panajachel at 8.30 am, we climbed our way out of the caldera, stopping briefly at a mirador to look back at Lago de Atitlan and its volcanoes, and headed north for the wonderfully-named town of Cihichicastenango.
On the journey, Sandra gave us a gift from the Guatemalan tourist authorities: a tiny version of a worry doll. According to Guatemalan legend, when you have a problem, you tell it to the worry doll. Then you put it under the pillow. Next morning, the problem has gone. As the leaflet puts it: “Life smiles again”.
Chichicastenango – known locally as simply Chichi – means ‘surrounded by poison ivy’ and it is located at a height of some 7,000 feet. It has a population of around 70,000 and is known for its inhabitants’ pre-Christian religious beliefs and ceremonies. The town’s narrow cobbled streets and red-tiled roofs make this a magical place at any time. Maya traders come from outlying villages for the twice-weekly market held on Thursdays and Sundays and, of course, today was Thursday.
We reached Cichi towards 10 am and, at this elevation, the temperature was much cooler. Our ‘headquarters’ for our time in the town was the Hotel Santo Tomas, named after the local patron saint.
Sandra took us on a short walking tour which included the church, the covered fruit & vegetable market, and the extensive main market in the streets. The place was heaving with people but, since the locals are particularly short even by Guatemalan standards, we were able to make our way. The number of hawkers here was the most we had experienced on our tour, but they could be shaken off by pretending you did not notice them.
The overwhelming sense was the riot of colour. Whether selling or simply buying, the women especially wore brightly-coloured tops and skirts. Most of the women carried purchased goods or babies on their back in a kind of cloth called locally ‘tzute’ and one mother carried her baby in her ‘tzute’ breastfeeding as she walked. Some of the hawkers balanced coloured cloths, shawls and even jewellry on their heads.
Then there were the stalls themselves that lined both sides of narrow street after narrow street, the spaces in between thronging with locals and tourists. These stalls sold everything you could imagine, but cloth and handicraft predominated and both represented every hue in nature.
Sandra left us to explore the market on our own and purchase last-minute gifts (Roger & Vee bought nothing) before we returned to the hotel to have some lunch.
After four hours at Chichicastenango, we left about 2 pm to travel to Guatemala City from where we would catch our flights home. Travelling south and then east, we made a comfort stop at Chichoy and reached Guatemala City at 6.40 pm. We were staying at the Holiday Inn which was our 14th hotel of the tour.
Guatemala City – universally known as Guat – is a sprawling metropolitan area set in a vast valley. It has a population of 3 million and a reputation as dirty and dangerous, but it serves as the capital of the country with many of its best museums (although we saw none of this).
The Guatemalan six – Roger & Vee, Brian & Cally, Christine & Charmian – stayed at the hotel for the final meal of the trip.
Tomorrow first thing, we fly home ……
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Our Central America tour (22): Lake Atitlan and the living Maya
February 13th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
This is such a varied holiday and today (Wednesday) we spent our time on or around a lake, leaving the hotel at 8 am and returning at 3.30 pm.
Located about 1,500 metres (5,000 feet) above sea level, Lago de Atitlan – the name means ‘by the water’ – was formed in a caldera or collapsed volcano and is overlooked by three Fuji-like volcanoes (all dormant): San Pedro, Toliman and Atitlan. It is a large stretch of water measuring around 18 km across and encompassing some 130 sq kms.
All around the lake are villages inhabited largely by people of Maya descent dubbed the living Maya. They are mostly dressed traditional Maya garb which, especially in the case of the women, is gloriously colourful. For the last couple of decades, the most popular colour has been a deep blue set off with other blues and purples.
The group filled a glass fibre motor boat and set off from Panajachel in calm waters and sunny weather to visit three of the lake-side villages.
The first was San Antonio Palopo, which is on the east shore, and we spent an hour there. As we docked, a Maya woman was on her knees at the quayside hand-washing clothes in the lake. Behind her, steep hills were dotted with little homes. We walked up to the the local church and then descended to have coffee in a café overlooking the lake.
The second village was on the opposite side of the lake: San Juan La Laguna on the west shore. We spent an hour an a quarter there. There are coloured and hand-painted murals on many of the side walls of buildings depicting scenes of the lake or illustrations of legends. We called in on the Tejedoras Mayas Weaving Cooperative which brings together 22 women weavers who all work independently from home and return finished goods to the store to be sold. Vee& Roger spent $60 on gifts, mainly for children in the family. We made briefer visits to an association of medicinal plants and a small covered market.
The third and last village on our day trip was Santiago Atitlan which is located on a spur projecting from the south west of the main lake.. This is the largest (population 20,000) and most visited village around the lake and absolutely bustling with people in traditional dress, endless lines of stalls, and noisy tuk-tuks. Here we saw two phenomena which illustrate how local people have integrated Catholicism Into the pre-Columbian beliefs and iconography.
The strange character known as San Simeon to the Spanish, Maximon to those of mixed indigenous and European race, and Rilaj Mam to the Maya is an effigy revered throughout the Guatemalan highlands. The effigy is usually housed on an annual basis by a cofradia or Maya religious brotherhood and worshippers are invited to visit him and pay respects and some money (Roger had to lay to photograph him). This year in this village, it is the turn of the St John the Baptist brotherhood to host the effigy and we visited the home – no more than a room – where he is housed.
He is an odd-looking man: a wooden seated figure with a macabre face, wearing a wide-rimmed hat, and draped with bright coloured silks including a striped tie. He smokes a cigarette which is constantly attended to by one of the brotherhood members in attendance. Flowers, candles and incense add to the atmosphere. This is an odd god who appreciates particularly gifts of cigarets and liquor.
The other religious place we visited was the church called Iglesia Parroquial Santiago Apostol. Although this is a Catholic Church, it has many features reflecting local Maya beliefs and customs, including figures of corn (from which humans were formed according to Maya religion) and God the Father (whom we rarely ‘see’ in traditional churches) plus wooden figures of saints draped in clothes of bizarre colours such as chequered patterns or garish pink. This fusion of old and new religions is a notable feature of the region.
We had some lunch at a place called “El Pescador” to complete two and a quarter hours at the village, before returning across a much choppier lake than the morning now at the wind was up.
We had some time in the afternoon to chill and then, in the evening, six of us went out for dinner together: Roger & Vee, Brian & Cally, and Christine & Charmian. We ate at a restaurant called “Casablanca” where the food and wine were really good, but the production of the bills left a lot to be desired. The waiter allocated dishes to the wrong couple and made a series of basic arithmetical errors, so it took a while to sortt out who should pay what and find the necessary mixture of local currency and dollars.
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Our Central America tour (21): Antigua
February 12th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
On Tuesday, we had a late start of 9.30 am (oh, joy) for a tour of Antigua or, to use its full name, La Antigua Guatemala. Our guide Sandra lives here so, she was on home territory.
This was Spain’s capital for all of the middle Americas until an epic earthquake of 1773 led to an official decision to abandon the city and create a new capital at Guatemala City. It is one of the oldest and loveliest cities in the Americas, characterised by cobbled stone streets, arched colonnades, and so many pretty doorways, windows, arches and courtyards that the place is a photographer’s dream. Vee & Roger fell in live with this colonial city.
Sandra took us first to the Merced Church which is built in a style of architecture called “seismic Baroque”. The adjoining covent has a large fountain surrounded by cloisters and an upper floor which provides fabulous views of this picturesque city overlooked by Volcan Agua. In the church itself, a recording of sacred music was playing quietly which made it very atmospheric.
Then we strolled round to 5 Avenida which is a million miles away culturally and architecturally from New York’s Fifth Avenue. It is a narrow cobbled street with shops and cafés all along and Maya street vendors selling small quantities of fruits, vegetables or craftwork. At one point, a white arch joins the two sides of the street.
Next we went round to the old cathedral, virtually obliterated by earthquakes but preserved for visitors. In the grounds, we saw a newly-wed couple about to be photographed in the grounds and were excited to find that the photographer was an American called Marie whom Roger had befriended on the aircraft from Flores to Guatemala City. Finally we were taken round to see a jade factory and showroom. Vee fancied a lilac jade necklace but changed her mind when she found that it cost £240.
About 12.15 pm, Sandra left us to spend a couple of hours on our own, looking around and having lunch. Roger & Vee returned to 5 Avenida and found a wonderful Mexican cafe cum restaurant called “Fridas”. It was themed around the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo with pictures of or by her on the menu and all the walls and even in the toilets. The food was good too.
All too soon, it was time to leave Antigua to drive to our next hotel. So at 2.40 pm, we headed west and climbed up to the highlands with their terraced farming, stopping for a break at Tecpan, driving through boisterous Solala, and finally arriving at our destination at 6 pm. Our arrival point was the town of Panajachel (named after a local fruit called ajachel) on the north-east shore of Lago de Atitlan. Here we stayed at the Regis Hotel, another example of chalet-type accommodation. For the second time on this holiday, we were staying in a fifth different hotel in five consecutive nights. In fact, Roger & Vee ate at the hotel with delightful members of our group, Christine & Charmian.
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Our Central America tour (20): the wonders of Tikal
February 11th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
If yesterday was something of a washout (literally), then today (Monday) was a spectacular contrast because the weather was great (for most of the time anyway) and we were visiting the Maya masterpiece that is Tikal. We left our hotel in Santa Elena at the usual start time of 8.30 am in a locally-supplied coach, drove along the south of Lago Peten Itza, and then up north to the national park enclosing Tikal – a journey of around a hour and a quarter.
Set on a low hill and first settled in about 700 BC, a complex of buildings was in place by around 200 BC and the civilisation was at its height from 250-900 AD with a heyday in 7th century when the population was an estimated 50,000-100,000 people. The territory was ruled over by a succession of kings with exotic names, including ones called by archaeologists Lord Water and Lord Chocolate. This most resplendent of all Mayan cities was believed to be mysteriously abandoned around 900 AD.
Tikal was properly rediscovered in 1848 and became a World Heritage Site in 1979. Today It is Guatemala’s most famous and impressive Mayan ruin and what makes It different from other great Maya sites is that it is located in the jungle.
The weather was very warm, yet not too hot, but humid because we were in a tropical rain forest. Walking along the trails underneath the tall tree canopies, we inevitably spotted animals, including the guan bird, the trojan bird, the spider monkey, brightly coloured oscillated turkeys, and (a rare sighting) an ant eater. But, of course, we were here to see the monuments.
Tikal is a huge site covering 222 square miles and containing over 4,000 structures, so we could only view a small portion of the place. We started by studying a large-scale model of the main site so that we had a sense of the scale and layout. Then we visited the small Ceramics Museum which contains the burial goods of Jasaw Chan K’awiil I (K’awiil that clears the sky).
The Grand Plaza is flanked on either side by tall temples. You used to be able to climb Temple I but this was stopped after a couple of people fell to their deaths. At the rear of Temple II is a wooden staircase enabling visitors to obtain a safe, panoramic view of the whole plaza and surrounding buildings. Next we walked through the Acropolis area, a maze of courtyards, little rooms and small temples, and around the location of Temple III (55 metres) which is still totally covered in vegetation.
The highest structure in Tikal is Temple IV, standing at 64 metres (212 feet). It was competed about 741 in the reign of Jasaw Chan K’awiiI I’s son, Yik’in Chan K’awiil (K’awiil that darkens the sky). A series of steep wooden steps and ladders provide access to a very high but not very wide stone ledge with no fencing or protective rails but a jaw-dropping view. At this height, you are above the jungle canopy and can see for miles and miles. A little to the right, the top of Temple III protrudes above the canopy and straight ahead but further away are the tops of Temples II and I respectively. Roger made the climb but Vee stayed on terra firma. “Star Wars” enthusiasts will want to know that the view is used briefly in the 1983 movie “Return Of The Jedi”.
After four and a half hours looking round the site, there was time for some lunch before our coach took us back, not to the hotel but to Flores airport since, for the final leg of our time in Guatemala, we were taking an internal flight to the south of the country. At the airport, we had to pay $3 a person to use the airport but, once through security, there were absolutely no facilities – not a single cafe or shop or machine. So Roger managed to negotiate a return to the public area of the airport where, at the only facility in the establishment, he bought 10 coffees and four muffins for the group.
On the road trip to the airport, there had been some heavy rain and, while we waited for our flight, there was a downpour of monsoon proportions, but our aircraft still left on time. It was a small turbo-prop plane called the SAAB 340A and took just three quarters of an hour to reach the capital Guatemala City.
Here we were met by the same coach and driver who had left us at Santa Elena before driving down to Guatemala City and we were driven to Antigua where we arrived at 9 pm – twelve and a half hours after we left our last hotel – to receive a pleasant surprise. Throughout this holiday, we have been staying in what is classed in Central America as three-star hotels but, because of lack of accommodation in the hotel intended for us in Antigua, we found that we had been allocated to a five-star hotel: Camino Real.
The advantage was, of course, that the facilities were wonderful: huge rooms around courtyards and everything you could want in the rooms. The restaurant had the best selection of desserts that we had encountered in Central America and Roger had a delicious desert called Banana Heaven (banana, rum, almonds, berries, whipped cream, and ice cream). The disadvantage of this hotel was that they charged a fortune for everything, so WiFi – which had been free almost everywhere else – was $10 for Roger’s iPad and a further $5 for Vee’s iPad mini for only 24 hours.
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Our Central America tour (19): the wettest journey of our lives
February 10th, 2014 by Roger Darlington
Sunday and already time to leave Livingston. At least with only an overnight bag, packing was no problem. Now there is only one way to leave Livingston – and that’s the same way as you entered it: down the Rio Dulce. Our boat was scheduled to depart at 8.30 am, but the heavens had opened and our captain decided to give it half an hour and see if the weather improved. Miraculously the rained stopped but, minutes after we embarked, it started again – first spitting, then very soon the heavy stuff.
The grey mist descended to meet the grey water and it was sometimes difficult to discern an horizon, especially when your eyes are smarting with driving wind and sharp rain. When one is powering and bouncing forwards through a wide river, the effect of the rain is intense, so we were issued with heavy black plastic covers to pull over our legs. Combined with the orange and yellow life belts and the various coloured kagools, we we did not exactly represent a picture of sartorial elegance.
Any such concerns rapidly gave way to a desperate, and ultimately futile, attempt to stay dry at least somewhere. You would be surprised at how cutting on the face rain can be at such speed and how penetrating down through every layer of your clothes water can be, when you are storming through a downpour. The din of the motor, the splashing of the spray, and the flapping of clothes and covers added to the sense of us being at the mercy of the elements, as we huddled forwards to minimise our body profile.
But, heh, the river trip back only lasted one and a half hours since we did not stop to look at birds and gave up any idea of visiting the fort at Frontieras. All of us had experienced the wettest journey of our lives. One of the group called it “horrendous”; Vee confessed that she didn’t enjoy it at all; Roger found it strangely exhilarating.
We left the boat at the little town of Puente Rio Dulce on the opposite side of the river to Fronteras and had a welcome coffee at a ramshackle place called “Backpackers Hotel”. Sandra was keen to get us to this evening’s hotel so that we could be reunited with our luggage and change into dry clothes. So at 11.25 am we headed north and, except for a quarter of an hour comfort stop, we did not halt until we arrived at our hotel four hours later. Some of us had to sit in our wet clothes and it rained much of the way, so it was not the most enjoyable of journeys.
Guatemala consists of two huge chunks of territory: an oblong section in the south, comprising about two-thirds of the territory where almost everyone lives, and a square section in the north, constituting about a third of the land mass where perhaps a a mere seventh of the population lives. This northern province is called Peten and the provincial capital is the town of Flores which is right in the middle.
Flores – a place of only 30.000 – is noted as the stopping off point for the mother of all Maya ruins, Tikal. It is spectacularly located on an island in the Lago de Peten Itza but connected to the nearby mainland by a 500 metre causeway linking to the twin town of Santa Elena. Our accommodation – the Hotel Peten Esplendido – was in Santa Elena.
For Roger & Vee, dinner was at the usual time (7.30 pm) with the usual friends (Brian & Cally) but not at the hotel this time. Instead we took a couple of tuk-tuks across the causeway into Flores and had excellent fillet mignon at a place called “El Jardin Maya”. We walked back and felt safe.
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