Tag: Recollections
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HITCHHIKING TO THE MORRAINES
FIVE-DAY BLACK & WHITE PHOTO CHALLENGE – DAY 5Kettle Morraine State Park, Wisconsin – 1978Scanned from Kodak Plus-X negative film To conclude this B/W photo challenge, I’m going to go back to one of the first rolls of black and white film I ever shot. You may think that I’ve got an incredible memory to recount these stories from long ago. The truth is I often have travel journals to consult and that was the case of this trip in 1978. Or so I thought. I pulled out the notes and…
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VUELTA DE NICARAGUA
Managua, Nicaragua – 1987 Scanned from Kodak Tri-X negative film In the early 1980s, US President Ronald Reagan seemed determined to deny the Nicaraguan people the right to self-determination. He authorised Oliver North to organise a band of misfits called the Contras and attempt to oust the popular Sandinista government from power. On the other hand I felt that the Sandinista-led people’s revolution which overthrew the oppressive regime of Anastasio Somoza was glorious and helped provide hope for the downtrodden and I couldn’t wait to be a part of it. The…
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ALEPPO’S COPPER SOUK
You will hear Aleppo’s copper souk long before you arrive. BANG BANG BANG PING PING PING BANG BANG BANG. On a narrow street in Aleppo’s old quarters, copper craftsmen in the Souq Khan al-Nahhaseen congregate as they have for hundreds of years and pound out copper products. It is a drab and filthy area where dust, ash and grit hang in the air and after visiting it you will certainly feel the need to shower. But like all of Aleppo’s old quarters if you look beyond the dirt you will find a…
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THE BRIDGE OVER THE AFRIN
About 70 kilometres northwest of Aleppo, and just a stone’s throw from the Turkish border, a Roman bridge crosses the Afrin River. I came across it one day while a mate and I were trying to find the Greek – and later Roman – city of Cyrrhus. We came to the bridge and stopped the car and said ‘Whoa – can we drive over that?’ It looked solid enough and sure enough it was. In fact for nearly 2000 years it had stood up to continued traffic. I liked to imagine…
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TRAVELS WITH JOHN
Facebook today has reacquainted me with a long lost friend and travelling companion. In 1978, I stumbled into a losmen (guestroom) on Samosir Island in northern Sumatra. I saw this seasoned traveller there – a skinny, long haired bearded man wearing Coke bottle bottom glasses and eating porridge and bananas. John Ducedre was a Canadian and we hit it off perfectly and explored the island together. Eight months later, John showed up at my house in northern Wisconsin driving a beat up van and offered me a ride to Banff. I…
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THANKS FOR THE RIDE
I was going through some old stuff and found my old hitchhiking card, designed and printed by my brother-in-law Duane Miller, which brought back a rush of memories of simpler, safer and more carefree days. I started hitchhiking in 1976 to get home from college and in the late ’70s used my thumb to get everywhere. I saw myself as the Jack Kerouac of the ’70s, travelling the country, meeting folks, experiencing their lives and writing about it. I crossed America several times, hitched south to New Orleans and the southern…
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BAJA’S RED CARPET
Just say the word. Baja. Think of towering cordon cacti, grotesque elephant trees and winding boojum trees. Baja. Imagine long-tailed man of war birds, sailing pelicans and plummeting brown footed boobies. Baja. Dream about a remote wilderness peninsula 1280 kilometers long where the footprints of man are as scarce as rainfall. Baja. The very name rings with adventure. And the name rang so loudly in my mind that I was compelled to experience it on my own. PROLOGUE Mexican Highway Number One chalked up another victim: a second class bus on…
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