Loo Iko Wapi?

So, it has been two months since our return from Tanzania. Hesitation concerning this post had plagued the now legally bonded team. The concept of documenting the honeymoon on the internet promotes a mildly clammy feeling in the palms of even this blog-friendly pair as they cross yet another marker on the path toward cringe-inducing self-exhibition and irrertrievable internet geekdom. To make ourselves feel better, we'll chock it up to popular demand. At least a few peeps have asked for it.

"JFK to DBX...

...You know we connect". So says the Guru. The team highly reccomends Emirates for all future trans-atlantic flights. The food, embracing Indian and Middle Eastern spices and preparations, far surpasses the insipid dreck or cost-cutting vapor that is served on U.S. carriers. The drinks are free. The entertainment system offers hundreds of video games (OG Pong and multiplayer backgammon included), and a wide variety of world cinema and music on demand. We saw this 1978 Hindi gangster movie, Don, that was certainly one of the highlights of our moviegoing career. Ben recognized its lush, Issac Hayes-meets-Asha Bhosle soundtrack as a major sample source for a Dan the Automator project.

12 hours later, we landed in Dubai, UAE, but not before being subjected to multiple government-sponsored, entertainment-overriding PR blitzes extolling the city's modernity, luxury and hygiene. Of Dubai, George Saunders has written:


"By 2010, if all goes according to plan, Dubai will have: the world's tallest skyscraper; largest mall; biggest theme park; longest indoor ski run; most luxurious underwater hotel (accessible by submarine train); a huge (two-thousand-acre sixty-thousand-resident) development called International City, divided into nation-neighborhoods (England, China, France, Greece, etc.) within which all homes will be required to reflect the national architectural style; not to mention four artificially constructed island mega-archipeligoes (three shaped like giant palm trees, the fourth like a map of the world) built using a specially designed boat that dredges up tons of ocean-bottom sand each day and sprays it into place."

There was a sandstorm when our flight arrived obscuring all views of this splendor, so we can't really comment. The temperature reached 45C that day (113F). During the 3-hour layover we remained in the airport, which did have a multi-level Prada, Cohiba, and Johnnie Walker-laden duty-free mall that would shame all others, and seemed befitting of the Dubai depicted by Mr. Saunders and the Dubai Tourism Ministry alike. However, you can't sit in the toilets there; its just a hole in the floor with designated foot holds and a shower head.

Karibu

Upon arrival from a 5 hour flight to coastal Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania's largest city, we quickly exchanged some money and boarded another plane to Arusha. This was a Cessna. Before too long, we saw urban sprawl give way to farms and open grassland, and eventually, kopjes and modest mountains. We saw the shoulders of Mt. Kilaminjaro, but its famously leveled summit was shrouded in clouds. Upon touching down, we met Alphayo, the driver and guide whom we spent a good deal of the next week with. The initial meeting left us a little concerned for his English (and in turn, our Swahili) but we soon realized this wouldn't be an issue after tacitly agreeing on some simplified syntax to ensure communication went smoothly. We later would discover that when discussing animal or plant life Alphayo's English vocabulary probably bested ours.

The brief time spent in Arusha probably gave us our best (although severly limited) understanding of what life is like for most Tanzanians. An overgrown rural town of two million, Arusha's development roughly approximates the pattern for several East African cities as we understand it: a planned and/or European colonial center surrounded by cocentric miles of makeshift aluminum and tin shanties, interspersed with tiny pens for malnourished livestock. Many African travellers can relate horrible tales of brazen crime with datelines in Nairobi or Dar. I read of tourists witnessing a suspected thief being beaten to death in broad daylight by vigilantes in Arusha. We missed out on such delights. We drove through the city center in the evening and slept in a lodge on the edge of town. We awoke at 2 AM and stayed up for a few hours, a theme for the next several days. No matter, we had arrived.

We had expressed interest in regional food, and Alphayo reccomended his favorite dish of machalari, a stew of beef and local plaintain . He said that if we wanted to try it, we would have to buy some bananas in Arusha because they wouldn't be available in the bush. At an outdoor market, not only did we buy an entire branch of bananas for the equivalent of 30 cents, but also saw several goats being butchered while hanging on the exterior walls of huts, a vivid experience. He said we could get roasted goat there, but would have to wait the better part of an hour, so we decided against it, eager to see some animals alive. After taking a look at the Rwanda Genocide Tribunal and doing a couple errands, we headed off to Tarangire National Park.

We saw our first game on the outskirts of Arusha, an ostrich moving gingerly away from the 2 lane "major highway". Alphayo said this was a good omen, carrying with it the promise of rich game viewing. I am sure other tourists have heard nothing of the sort.

We had thought the animals would be widely dispered throughout the park, requiring many hours of driving through barren savannah between sporadic sightings. Not so. Within a half hour of entering the park we saw most animals we could imagine, save a few. Examples:




Tarangire is an undervisited park, but it is popular with nomadic herbivores in winter's dry season, since the eponymous river remains reliably full. The bush is thicker and greener than in the more famous parks to the northwest. We saw a pair of giraffes fighting. Hannah was struck by the civility of the combat, the two males could have been engaged in a greeting exercise and we wouldn't have known the better. Between each nonchalant, telegraphed swing of their heads, culminating in lackluster collisions at mid-neck, the two gladiators took several moments and simply stared past one another and remained touching, more like lazy lovers than exhausted prizefighters.


Toward dusk, we spotted the silhouette of the tree-going lion, a relative rarity, again portending good fortunes in future sightseeing.


We arrived at Mawe Ninga camp for sunset, which we saw aside a campfire surveying two lakes.

Here we became accustomed to the "luxury camp" experience at these French-owned, Tanzanian-run outposts. Dinner was taken communally, and was usually soup, stewed beef, and sauteed vegetables served with a reduced brown sauce that seemed designed to fortify a Frenchman far from home. We did sample the machalari one night, and it left us a little "meh". We also had ugali, the fundamental starch of the East African diet, pasty globs of boiled maize flour that was bland alone but good for absorbing meat sauce. Better than the food were the usual accommodations, a full bed inside a canvas tent, in this case overlooking the scrubland atop a platform perched on a kopje.

That night we met a well-mannered young couple from England that had been married the same day as us. After hiking up a nearby hill the next morning, we joined the Brits for a trek in the bush in the afternoon. While we were out, Alphayo and another guide were forced to flee from a black mamba that stalked them outside their land cruisers. Walking is forbidden in the parks, so our path was in the hinterlands aside a lake just outside the boundary. We had to be accompanied by both an armed park ranger, Linus, and a Masaai named Siepi at this time, and when it started to get dark, they became visibly concerned of the lions drawing nearer, hoping to catch something drinking in the night. We really appreciated the time on foot, especially in retrospect after many hours on rutted roads. Linus, himself a skeptic, asked me if I believed in dinosaurs, and I said yes. I found a fossil site listed in Lonely Planet not too far from his post, and he seemed very open to checking it out. The rangers seemed curious to learn about the national parks where we came from. After explaining that we lived next to three national parks, they would ask:
"what kind of animals do you see?"
"Uh...squirrels, crows, groundhogs. Oh, and bears,"
"What is bear...is it like a lion?"
"Uhhhhhhh....."




The Hunt in Ngorongoro

We left the woodlands of Tarangire for the highlands of Ngorongoro, an onomatopoeia for the sound of the cowbell according to our guide (or, the name of a Maasai cattle-bell maker who lived there, according to the Jehovah's Witnesses). The heart of the Maasai community is here, and the chief vocation of Masaai men is tending cattle, usually while wrapped in brightly colored plaid robes thought to provoke hesitation in the big cats. The government struck some bargain which permits the Maasai to live around and even inside Ngorongoro Crater, which is a conservation area but not a national park. The confluence of nomadic man, domestic beasts, and large predatory game is an interesting alternative to the sequestered stewardship of the national parks in the U.S.

Ngorongoro Crater, frequently the subject of nature documentaries, probably sounds vaguely familiar to some of you. This is the remainder of some prehistoric eruption, which essentially created a giant terrarium enclosed by the former volcano's walls. James Earl Jones didn't lie when he told us, during his narration on the IMAX, that this place is amazing. The animals find everything they need to remain year round, and many of them never bother to ascend to the crater's rim. This makes for easy game viewing, and in turn, mass tourism. A surprising number of people are ready to pay the exorbitant fee to use the crater entrance road.

This is the only place in Tanzania where one can see the severely endangered black rhino. For some reason people in China want the horn for tonics, and Yemenis desire to make a knife handle out of it. It can fetch $50,000 on the black market; the average Tanzanian makes about $340 per year.

For Hannah, who has a raging rhino fetish, the prospect of seeing one was especially exciting. Back in the crater, we spent all day looking for it, each whispered hint of its presence furtively exchanged amongst guides sending us off on another a different high speed drive. During this time we saw the tough-to-like Hyena, the perpetual Animal Planet victim the Thomson's Gazelle, the Hungry Hungry Hippos, the yellow-crested crane, shrimp-deprived white flamingos, a solitary jackal, a partly hidden leopard, and the tragically named Cory Bustard, not to mention the now relatively banal zebras, elephants, giraffes, wildebeest, and other assorted ungulates.



Perhaps the highlight of our whole safari time was seeing a pride of lionesses hunting a trio of warthogs. The lions fanned out across the road, stalking low to the ground to remain blind in the dry grass....







Our show was fit for family audiences: the hog got away this time. Late in the day, and not before Ben's desperately tactless promises of wengi bakshishi ("much tip"), Hannah finally saw her rhino. It is hard to see him in the picture (click to enlarge), as the afternoon wind irritates the rhino's ears and causes him to lie low (and probably he has learned by now to avoid the moving biped carriers):

During the two hour drive to Olduvai Gorge, there was a rare dry season shower. After miles on established dirt roads, Alphayo suddenly pulled sharply to the left, seemingly forging a new track of his own. We later arrived at the camp, nestled in amongst some kopjes. The rain was heavy now, and it was cold. We enjoyed a hot camp shower, the water smelling of the wood fire that had heated it. The weather lent itself to relaxing with South African wine and absorbing the fact of being in the cradle of our species. Ancestral human fossils in this area date back 2.5 million years. But, to both of us, it was more than factual. Underlying the faint, eerie sound that emerges from the gorge, we both experienced a feeling of inexplicable comfort and serene familiarity, as if we were visiting a street from suburban childhood after decades away, a return.

It was until the next morning that we climbed a kopje and saw how far we had come.



Cruisin' the Serengeti

From the outset, Alphayo strove to teach us Swahili. Anyone who has seen The Lion King knows a few words, as the principal characters' names are simply the Swahili word for the animal (e.g. simba = lion), and the catchy tune hakuna matata is "no problem". Ben's broken but functional Swahili was his proudest achievement of the stay. He studied the Lonely Planet intently, and with his tutor's help, learned some basic informal greetings (Habari gani, bwana? = "what's up, man?"), useful inquires (nina weza punguza bei, tafadhali? = "please sir, can you lower the price"?), and pithy observations (tembo...kingamimba kubwa = "elephant...big contraceptive"). Hannah learned alot of animal names and foods.

We discovered that driver-guides use alternate words when discussing the wherabouts of especially charismatic fauna so their muzungu clients won't know if the truth is that they are in the wind (e.g. lion = simba = sharubu). After repeatedly surprising Alphayo's comrades by using the "driver words" in their presence, he warned us not to do it anymore, fearing reprisal for disclosing the tricks of the trade, and even having to "file a statement".

In sharp contrast to the relative confines of Ngorongoro, the sprawling Serengeti is roughly the size of N. Ireland. Here, it is easy to get away from other trucks and roam alone on the grassland, enabling the traveller to imagine what is was like when it was true wilderness. We went perhaps an hour or so without seeing other tourists, which is saying alot considering this is perhaps Africa's most famous park. Cruising along an empty Serengeti plain studded with baobob, scrub, and occasional kopjes, standing through the sunroof with flocks of irridescent birds weaving ahead of the vehicle was a distinct highlight. More sights...with educational Swahili names!

Wadyu, with its kill, swala granti (Grant's gazelle):


Kiboko:


Tembo:


Hannah especially enjoyed the clash of two male dik-diks squaring off and butting heads. This little ungulate measures about 1 foot at the shoulder. Unlike many animals that seem oblivious to the presence of land cruisers, these guys were very self-conscious, frequently interrupting their territorial showdown to allow for baboons to pass through.



This day we learned that the mobile "fly camp" where we were to stay had burned to the ground in a grass fire deliberately set by the park rangers for wildfire control that had itself gone wild. Apparently there was some disconnect with the camp staff. Anyways, we ended up at Lobo Lodge, which offers a different kind of safari lodging experience: massive buffet lines, "traditional dance" performance, drunken kiwis watching rugby on satellite TV, hotel style rooms with a capacity for 250 persons. The place did have a well-situated pool on a ledge with a miles-long view.

The next day we awoke early and witnessed sunrise followed by the occasion of two different lion prides encountering one another. Simba:


Those that have seen the IMAX may recall that the Serengeti is home to about a million wildebeest, who make an annual trek from the breeding grounds in the south, reaching the Masai Mara in Kenya during the height of the dry season. We were fortunate in that it was a wetter than average winter, so the herds were still remaining inside Tanzania and making their way north when we neared the Kenyan border.


Back to school. Punda milia near kopje:


We asked Alphayo at some point if he had eaten a zebra, and he sheepishly said he had. It seemed that he didn't want to discuss it further.

We made it to the relocated fly camp around sunset, and it was still being assembled. The accomodations seemed fine to us, but were severely lacking for one Parisian family, who were clearly afraid of When Animals Attack and demanded relocation to no avail. In their defense, we were really out there in the bush. That night, several people told us the next morning, lions and heyenas had walked through the camp. But we heard nothing, finally adjusted to the time change and tired from the early rise.


The next day we searched in vain for the duma (cheetah) before saying goodbye to Alphayo at the dirt runway near Seronera, and he earnestly thanked us for our "cooperation and collaboration". One of the several legs of the ensuing Cessna flight was the most turbulent we had experienced, and it really seemed gravity was going to get the best of us and we would fall from the sky. After three intervening stops, including touching down in what was literally a grass field called Klein's Camp, we left the mainland and saw the island of Zanzibar surrounded by turquoise and coral.

Zanzibar

Zanzibar's coastlines are beautiful, but otherwise it is perhaps not an obvious choice for a honeymoon or beach bacchanal. The island is densely populated, and over 95% Muslim- recent efforts to celebrate the 60th birthday of the late native son Freddie Mercury (b. Farrokh Bulsara) were stifled by activists opposed to his sexual predilections. We took a taxi from the airport through the heart of the island, passing numerous cinder block apartments and ramshackle industrial sites. Many women wear birkas, and all are modestly dressed. Turning off the main road, we arrived at Matemwe, a lovely stretch of sand in the northeast where traditional existence finds an awkward balance with a nascent tourism industry, in no small part due to the irreconcilable differences between the tenets of Islam and those of European holiday. Due to a "big mistake", we ended up being assigned a room with separate single bunks. Ben appealed to the manager, pointing to his wedding ring as compelling physical evidence. We were upgraded to a suite, open to tropical air with a thatched roof and swinging bed overlooking the Indian Ocean, which is as perfectly temperate a sea as we have experienced.

The next few days were lazy. Snorkling along an atoll. Playing cards with fruity drinks while the wailing call to prayer issued from the local mosque's bullhorn. Marking time only by the arc of the sun, and the incense coils that smoldered away. Watching as women waded into the water at its lowest ebb in full dress to harvest seaweed, while the men were out fishing in carved wooden dhows, a division of labor set by tradition and the eternal tides.

Although we could have probably stayed on this beach forever, before experiencing the shock of reality we wanted to check out Stone Town, the largest settlement on the island. It is a town of stinking alleys, sulky layabouts, and Arab and Indian merchants putting the hard sell on backpackers, but it maintains distinct charm nonetheless and has World Heritage Site status. Architecturally, it is best known for the elaborately carved wooden doors studded with brass spikes which guard former sultan's palaces turned government buildings or banks, and also the 18th century fort left behind by the Portuguese that dominates the harbor front.


The cuisine on Zanzibar was a bright and welcome change from the mainland, reflecting the island's centuries as a trading point and spice plantation, where flavors from Persians, Arabs, Indians, Portuguese, British, and the mainland have long intermingled. During a plantation tour, which the Englishwoman who had booked our safari had warned us against as "a bit cheesy" (she was right) we became familiar with the natural state of many spices that before were only recognizable in dried form inside Spice Islands jars, like nutmeg and vanilla:

The best meals were decidedly local and heavily Indian-influenced. On the beach, we enjoyed seafood curries, fresh chappatis, and fantastic samosas, served with freshly grated garlic, tumeric, coconuts, and ginger. The breakfasts offered wonderfully sweet yet firm-textured mango varieties that aren't available in the US (it seems here the stringy, pine-scented alphonse is the only type that can be readily obtained), along with papaya, pineapple, small donuts with cloves inside, passion fruit juice, sausage and eggs with fiery pili pili. We also loved barracuda "carpaccio", grilled fish kebabs, seafood fritters, and the highly addictive batata bhanjis, fried mashed potato balls with fresh chili and subtle citrus flavors. Desserts included dates and various Arabesque seed and nut based sweets.

In Stone Town we had lunch at Monsoon Restaurant, with a menu that proclaimed it was "ultimately swahili". We dined comfortably on the floor upon pillows and removed our shoes as in a traditional or kitschy Japanese place. The best dish was pwezaa, octopus cooked with coconut milk, served with collard greens, sweet spiced chickpeas, sweet potatoes with ginger, and chapattis. At night, the Forodhani Gardens stalls come alive with hawkers selling all manner of local delectables. We tried lobster, shark and snapper mishikaki, skewered octupus and calamari, and baseball sized falafel, all grilled up over wood-fired braziers. The massive crab claws were the sweetest we've had. Dessert was "zanzibar pizza", chappatti dough brushed with oil and wrapped around chocolate and bananas, fried with ghee in a wok, and then drizzled with more ghee. This might have been high in calories.

If it is not already obvious, we have a culinary bent, so the next morning we set out to the bazaar-style food market. Slabs of halal cow hanging from iron hooks over disorganized organs displayed on cement slab tables provided the firmest reminder that this was not Whole Foods. During a fish auction, the procedures of which were unclear to us, a man unceremoniously slapped down a raggedly butchered fin on the street, splattering shark blood on Ben's feet, and then collected a bundle of smaller fish from another man in exchange.

Later, we expended the last of our Tanzanian shillings on souvenirs, with Ben's haggling Swahili finding its limits: he could ask for a lower price, but since the only numbers he knows are 1, 2, and 7, he had no idea what the responding offer was. Still, we were able to arrange for two seperate merchants to collab on a mirror, fusing the wooden carved frame of one peddler with the cut glass from another. Nails only-glue costs extra.

We checked out and headed for the plane for a long journey back to New York. Once there, we decided the best way to reacclimate would be to visit a tranquil place, like the Shore, or even a quotidian Queens suburb pervaded by "normalcy". How about Coney Island! We met Hannah's parents (and Ben's now in-laws) rode the Cyclone, witnessed a man insert an electric drill into his nose in the freak show, had a pie at Totonno's, and got back on the plane and headed to work the next morning in Seattle. Welcome to America.

Thanks for checking it out. We wish you all the best. Love, Mr. and Mrs. Justus.

It's the American Way

To all our peoples, greetings. We have just recently arrived here in the Great Northwest (so says Ben- Hannah will simply say Washington State, as "Washington" still means D.C. to her), in time to experience the Pineapple Express, a jet of hot air and water that arrives from Hawaii bringing with it torrential rains. Ben keeps telling Hannah this is abnormal, and it really does occur perhaps once per decade. Ben's grandmother's bedroom was flooded as a result.

Be ye warned: we have a lot of free time on our hands, and the length and depth of this article might turn out to reflect that. If you want the short-and-sweet, just look at the pictures, National Geographic style. However, we recommend a full reading if you really want to capture the true flavor of our journey across the United States: the polychromatic brilliance of the sun's rays setting upon the cliffs of Capitol Reef, the endless dotted plains and infinite horizon of the agricultural heart of Illinois, the spectacular winding chasms of the Virgin River narrows, and the faintly fetid odors circling near the largely defunct stockyards of Omaha.


Jersey City to the Windy City

Map expert Carmalt, charged with all logistical planning, had set forth a significant but realistic goal for the first day on the road: Columbus, Ohio by nightfall. She also suggested a more extensive challenge: completing the entire trip without patronizing a national chain restaurant. To assist us, she bought "Roadfood", a popular guidebook with hundreds of regional dining suggestions that met the non-chain criteria. We soon discovered that Roadfood, though sporadically on the mark, was often outdated, and curiously, fixated on hot dogs. For example, though New Jersey offers a broad array of restaurants to match the diversity of its population, Roadfood suggested 4 different tube steak purveyors, including multiple "Texas weiner" spots in Passaic county. This held true for every state we visited.

Before we figured out the weiner bias, Ben was drawn into the idea of eating in Pittsburgh, PA. We parked on Penn Ave., a/k/a, the strip, which comprises the Pitt version of post-industrial urban renewal. Ben felt they did a pretty good job of working in the requisite cosmo vibe while
preserving the blue-collar ambiance of the city (The book told us that the air here was once so dirty, a white collar gent would have to bring a second shirt and change halfway through the workday). Actually, it was still quite industrial. We visited Primanti Bros., which served a variety of meal-in-a-sandwiches: choice of meat, fistful of melted cheese, fistful of fries, vinegar coleslaw, all in one. It was filling but left a lot to be desired. Hannah, still full from lunch, had "Pittsburgh-style" chili.

We made it to Columbus around ten, where Hannah's uncle Bill and aunt Nan were our first host family. Bill works as a wine specialist, and though he was already in his robe when we showed up, he was kind enough to stay up and share some of his picks with Ben. The next morning, we had a tributary breakfast at Jean Carmalt's former employer, Waffle House. The food sucked, but we saw our first real cowboy there, as well as a couple that had just come from a medieval fair.

The next day was mostly spent driving through western Ohio and Indiana. Ben had never been to the Midwest before (unless you count a wedding in Dallas). He was shocked by the boundless fields and farmhouses, and even got mildly agoraphobic-I mean, there's just so much corn!

We arrived in Chicago very hungry, and went to the house where we were to stay with a family friend in the Beverly neighborhood. We came inside to a large, multi-story home creatively decorated with several half-naked manikins, fully set oddly placed tables, ominous dolls, and countless other mildly disturbing artifacts. However, it turned out the resident artist Carolyn was a gracious host that even bought us breakfast and asked us to call her Mom.

The following day, Hannah, through an earlier express agreement, fully indulged Ben's food geek zeal. Culling extensive on-the-job "legal research", he arranged for a full day of eating our way through Chicago. We started in the impressive Mexican enclave of Little Village, and located Taquerias Atotonilco, featuring al pastor on the rotating vertical spit-a sight for sore eyes, indeed. The tacos were made with this and a orange-ish salsa, very nice. Next up, we hit Al's #1 Italian Beef, where the local specialty is a beef sandwich wholly dipped in meat gravy and topped with sweet peppers-Hannah found this surprisingly delicious. The third stop was Jim's Original, where you cop a Polish w/everything (mustard, onions, hot peppers), including a side of fries for $2.50. Hannah voted this best sausage ever, and oddly enough, this place wasn't in Roadfood.

We walked off the food coma in Millennium Park. Have you seen that bean? Whoa.

That night we pricelined a hotel in the Loop, and had dinner in the Wrigleyville area at Sticky Rice, a place specializing in Northern Thai cuisine, and offering ant eggs, fried worms, and baby quails. We ordered from the "secret menu", and had a curry with pickled vegetables, ginger and bamboo shoots, and also a wonderfully hot and oily pork and intestine dish with fried shallot, cilantro and mint. The best was the homemade sausage appetizer with chunks of galangal and lemongrass that provided an otherworldly flavor. We highly recommend this place to any Thai food fan that visits the area. After dinner we went to the Vic theater for a performance by DJ Shadow, whom we had last seen while we were in New Orleans about four years ago, and a mutual favorite. Those who have seen Shadow's live sets know that they feature crazy videos that are synched with his beats and evocative of the music's themes.

Stuck in the Middle

The next day we abandoned modern urban civilization, and drove through perhaps the two worst states in America, Iowa and Nebraska. It was very flat.

Still, we tried to make the best of it.

It was in this vicinity that an amazingly jingoistic ballad was broadcast on the radio, probably on the only station that a full scan of the dial could pick up. The singer mentioned how he felt the events of 9/11 were analogous to a "suhcker punch that come flyin' in from somewhurr in thuh back". Recalling that his father had lost an eye in battle, but nonetheless made a habit of flying the red, white and blue, the man threatened the terrorists. "We'll light up your whurld like the forth of Jew-lye...We'll put a boot in yer ass, it's the American way", he promised. Ben was deeply impressed by this song; he couldn't get certain lyrics out of his head. Only days later did we learn that Toby Keith had sung it, and had gotten into a spat with the Dixie Chicks over it. You can hear the song, right now, if you like, here.

We did have a memorable meal in Omaha at Johnny's Cafe. This place is something of a local institution, and was featured in the opening sequences of About Schmidt. The front doors are made of heavy steel with three-dimensional bull motifs, and there is dark wood throughout. The dining room is also very dark, lit only by small, with the exception of a 25 foot high floor-to-ceiling backlit photo-mural depicting a pastoral scene of cows grazing under some trees. Hannah ordered the filet mignon, which was superb, and Ben had Johnny's strip steak, which the menu and the waitress both told us was "better than a New York strip". Each of these cost about half of what we had paid in New York, so we couldn't really disagree.

Boulderdash

Emerging from the land of the Cornhuskers, we crossed into Colorado, which is actually not so different in its far eastern portions than the Big Red. We arrived to the Rockies at nightfall, just in time to experience the Rocky Mountain High with Hannah's friends Meredith and Lee, who were kind enough to be our third host family. The next morning we enjoyed our first hike of the trip, leaving from a trailhead near a meteorological observatory, and so the beginning included information about Boulder's weather patterns. Boulder's city park system probably exceeds many national parks, and the terrain was a welcome relief from the great plains. The payoff of the hike was to explore Mallory Cave at the apex, but once we arrived biologist Carmalt observed that spelunking could disturb the mating rituals of the endangered Townsend's Big Eared Bat, so we were not permitted to enter, despite uncertainty about the end date of the breeding season. The view at the top afforded us our last chance to look far toward the east and wave goodbye.

When we returned from the Cave, we caught a glimpse of Boulder's downtown areas. Hannah remembered visiting here when her sis was in college, and thinking that Boulder was "the ultimate". Ben saw a lot of people with high-end Arc'teryx and Mountain Hard Wear fleece and wraparound shades, which reminded him of home, except the air was thin and sunny. We must admit we enjoyed our dose of the fruits of Yippie labor, and we had a "mayan" lunch that consisted of pupusas and tamales and other things that forced Hannah into a four-hour food coma while Ben watched the telly. Our friends brought us to dinner at the Dushanbe Tea House, which was a remarkably constructed place, with elaborate carvings from Tajikistan. High five!

We drove west along I-70, which provided a swell view for an interstate, especially the Glenwood Canyon. We stopped off in Vail for lunch at the Lyon Rouge, a place formerly haunted by our friend Laynie. Although we heard that A-Basin had opened that day, Vail's lifts weren't runnin'. Riding off into the sunset, we left the Rockies and headed for the desert region of Moab.

Arches

At a condo in Moab we met the Matson fam: Kai, Summer, and Rory. It had been years since all of us had hung out, so young Kai had grown a lot, and gained many words. Over the weekend, Ben became known as "Funny Guy". Rory and Summer had margaritas waiting when we showed up and cooked us a fine Mexican dinner of tamales and several salsas. Ben and Rory stayed up until four catching up and looking for the troll that had been menacing Kai as of late. This continued over the next two days in Arches National Park, famous for, you guessed it, arches. But we were also impressed by the whalefin sliprock formations and angular stone towers, quite Egyptian in some ways.


Highway 12

A guide book told us that Utah's Highway 12 was one of the most scenic roads in the land, and it did not lie. We left the Matsons to head further west making our first camp in Capitol Reef National Park. We arrived just in time for sunset, and were stunned by what the Navajo called "land of the sleeping rainbow". Roy G. Biv, if I'm not mistaken:

We got a taste of precisely how cold an October night in the Utah desert can be, catching a chill while we practiced amateur astronomy laying in the road adjacent to the campground, ferreting out Ursa Minor, Draco and Cassiopeia.

The next day, mainly spent on scenic Highway 12, which also passes through Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, we encountered a temporary delay:


We stopped for burgers in Hannah's favorite town of Boulder, Utah, were life is slow, crunchy and full of outdoor adventure. We drove on to spend the afternoon in Bryce Canyon. The park ranger we consulted upon arrival, a straight-shooting gent with an extra row of teeth in his lower jaw, a la tiburon, suggested that we not waste our time camping in the disappointing backcountry forest, which doesn't involve the canyon, especially since snow was in the cards that night. As for that canyon, we'll let the pictures speak for themselves:













Sharkey's forecast was correct, and we returned the next morning to catch a glimpse of the amphitheater under a blanket of snow.

We continued on Highway 12 and drove through Red Canyon National Forest, also covered in a light layer of snow, a lovely contrast to the deep red rock of the canyon. It was here where the team decided to take advantage of the fact that half of their personal items were in the car and go snowboarding in the canyon. Of course, there were no lifts, and the snow cover was a bit thin, resulting in some red stains and concerns of rock damage to the board and damage to the desert vegetation. We tried our best to stay on the trail:

Iron, Lion, Zion

What is Zion, besides a frequent subject matter for reggae music? Well, this team was about to investigate. Arriving from the eastern entrance, and continuing on the Mt. Carmel-Zion Highway, we discovered that Zion is, at least, an inspiration for Dr. Seuss.

Unfortunately, this region of the park has only one hiking trail, and that was closed for construction at the time of the visit. Considering the views from the road, the team would urge Mighty Warlord Bush to build some new trails there.

The trails we did hike, however, were nothing short of amazing. We went several miles into the backcountry of the Kolob Canyons area, which is perhaps the least visited, most remote area of the park. That night, it snowed somewhat, and hurricane force winds bored into the canyon. We slept making maximum use of the layers principle, including gloves and hats. The next day, we went a bit further in to view Kolob Arch, the highest arch...ever. The team, suffering from its cold night and sedentary urban lifestyle, was thoroughly taxed by the 7 mile hike out, and internal communication ceased until a refueling at the Bit and Spur in Springdale, near the main entrance to Zion. The butternut squash taquitos were very nice, and Ben really liked the chile verde.

The next day, we boarded the shuttle bus along with several of our fellow American park visitors, whom we realized, were mostly of retirement age. In fact, the only people under sixty-five we saw were Western Europeans and home-schooled Mormons. This struck us as a sad commentary on our economy's dismissive attitude towards vacation time: only slackers and quitters take it.

Leaving the retirement community on the shuttle, we decided to do the Angel's Landing trail, "one of the most famous and thrilling hikes in the national park system" according to the Zion National Park website. There is a portion where the climb involves traversing a spine with an 800 foot drop on one side and 1300 on the other, but there are chains to grab on to (one side). Hannah's summary of the hike was that it was absolutely crazy- but worth the challenge, more mental than physical. The second picture shows the path you must take to make the final ascent; if you look closely you will see a few hikers in the lower right- and yes, you hike straight up, no room for zig zagging here. The last of these photos shows the immensely rewarding view of Zion Canyon from the top:






The following day, we geared up with special hip wader style pants to hike the Virgin River Narrows. October is the rainiest month in Southern Utah, and the river was much higher and colder than it might be in summer, when it is most visited.

Alas, we had to return our rubbers and depart Zion, perhaps the Best National Park...ever.

Grand Canyon and Ole Route 66. Click, Click.

We drove to the Heart of America to watch the eagle fly. That's what Hannah said to write just now. (Editor's Note: Ms. Carmalt, touched by the beauty and integrity of her nation and its citizens, showed waxing patriotism during the composition of this document). What really happened was that we went to the Grand Canyon. We were impressed by how many layers of canyon there were, the multiplicity of it all. Like other world famous natural features, the zillions of pictures that have been taken don't really do it justice. So here's a few more (you may notice a slight cringe in Hannah's face; for some inexplicable reason she was suffering from severe back pain that limited her ability to take a single step, let alone hike to Ooo-ahh Point, where the team is sitting):
One last comment: If you have not seen the canyon and wish to go, be ye warned: protect thee from the copious burro scat littering the trails.

We drove away from the Grand Canyon, leaving Hannah's purse on top of the car. We realized this in Tusayan, AZ, where a bout of frustration, an unsuccessful backtrack search, and poor timing forced us, shamefully, to deviate from our solemn vow and eat at a Wendy's. Luckily, "Ranger Monitor" called Hannah's father using her cell phone to alert us that it was found, and we were able to arrange a pickup a couple days later. [Note: this marked the fifth occasion that Hannah's Incan-blessed "lucky wallet" has been lost and returned to her since its acquisition in Quito in 2002].

Before we located the purse but after we canceled the credit cards, we met up with Hannah's friend LaLa and her boyfriend Stewart in Flagstaff, where Stewart had attended Northern Arizona Uni. He gave us a grand ole tour including a taqueria with first rate avocado salsa, and a hotel bar catering to hippie chicks with long dreds dancing to a jam band, which was a lot of fun. We were also able to see his college house conveniently located next to the train tracks. Sadly, although the team rated Flagstaff Best College Town of the Trip, we did not get any pics. Doh!

We left our friends and made our way east through the Navajo Nation. Our journey took us right to the Four Corners, which we had been told makes a great "click, click" by a camper from LA that Ben met at Capitol Reef who seemed to specialise in campsite amenities and photo opportunities. Amazingly, this site was surrounded by fence and was actually closed when we arrived. Needless to say, we asked a gang of retirees, coincidentally present there at 10PM as well, to do a little click, click before we got back in the ride.


After spending a night in Cortez, CO, we reached Mesa Verde National Park, the eastern-most point along the Grand Circle of parks. Vegetation was still showing damage from
a fire that had occurred in July 2002, but the featured attractions here are the remnants of numerous complex dwellings built by the ancestral Pueblans before they were abandoned circa 1300. We visited Spruce Tree House and Cliff Palace, the latter with a requisite guided tour with about fifty visitors. The park ranger who led the tour was quite taken with the genius and wisdom of the people who had inhabited the structure, and especially what the anthropological record had deduced of their cosmology.

Much of this she was able to impart with both objectivity and intriguing detail, recommending further readings to those interested. She did begin to swerve into some new age-ish advocacy when, for example, she stated that "the Pueblan people communicate on the heart level, while Western cultures communicate from the gut level". She explained that this society did not have a concept of good and evil; instead, they conceived of balance and imbalance-a point which the team rather enjoyed. However, this was too much for the bedrock beliefs of one guest, who challenged this notion, blurting "But what about evil? It's out there". The new age ranger, composing herself, said that this could be clarified through a three-hour discussion after the tour, but chided the skeptic for interrupting.

Canyonlands

We had always wondered where they filmed the Roadrunner cartoons! We found it at Canyonlands, an underutilized park with amazing rock spires and mounds and slickrock to climb, which, the guidebook stated "would make your feet happy". This park has two main areas, The Needles and Island in the Sky (we called it Pie in The Sky, with no pejorative intended; we were just confused). In The Needles we hiked through a creekbed which seemed relatively dull, until we reached an amazing amphitheater, crawled up, and saw the pointed forms that the area is named for. In Pie in The Sky, we camped, and took in a lecture on the geology of the massive canyons from the edge of the "poor man's grand canyon".











The Race to the Finish

We completed the Grand Tour and started the final stretch to Seattle via Salt Lake City, home of our former trip companions, the Matson Family, who took us in for a night. At this point (actually since Arches) there was something dragging from the undercarriage of the car, National Lampoon-style. We spent a morning in SLC touring the Mormon holy sites, including the big temple and the Latter Day Saints administrative building, the height of which no building in town is permitted to surpass. The temple is in high demand for nuptials, and there were three weddings being performed at 11:00 AM on a Thursday.

We continued on, spending an evening in Boise, Idaho, which has a Basque community it turns out, and we ate in a pub called Gernika that served us a good tortilla espanola and some croquetas.

Our last day of driving was spent driving through Eastern Oregon and Washington, which reminded Hannah of moon and tundra. We stopped off for a little wine tasting in the newly designated Rattlesnake Hills viticultural area near Yakima, nothing remarkable to report, except for some white port which we shared with a tipsy man that ultimately offered Hannah a lead on a job. Maybe. Cheers to everyone! Please keep in touch. It helps the team cope with Hannah's homesickness.

Oh yeah- we couldn't have had a real American cross country trip with eagles flying and so on without the following pic taken outside of Zion National Park: