Tag: Recollections
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LOST IN THE SOUK
I used to have a recurring dream of being lost forever while driving in the labyrinth of narrow streets which is the old quarter of Aleppo, Syria. It was one of those dreams where nothing would go right, and you’d wake up sweaty and in a panic. One day my worst nightmare came true. As […]
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HANS AND THE SELVA LACANDONA
Yesterday was an exciting day as I became reacquainted with an old travel companion. Thirty two years ago I was trying to sort out some train schedules at the Ciudad Juarez station in northern Mexico as I wanted to travel to the southernmost state of Chiapas. I was 23 and had a couple of months […]
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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 […]
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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 […]
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ON! ON!
When I think of happier days in Syria, nothing brings a bigger smile to my face than memories of the Halab Hash House Harriers. I first ran a Hash House Harrier event on the east coast of Malaysia in 1978. I was in a little village and saw signs with HHH so I followed them […]
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CARPETS BUT NO ARK
In June 1991, my mates Heiko Schnell and Ben and Sharon Timmerman and I drove from Aleppo, Syria to the NE corner of Turkey where it borders Armenia and Iran. Our destination was Mt Ararat. We didn’t find the ark but found this carpet/kilim/soumak vendor along some quiet road with a view to Ararat. I […]
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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 […]
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ALONE ON THE ICE AGE TRAIL
I took a walk through time recently. Matter of fact, I walked thru a period of the Earth’s history that occurred 10,000 to one million years ago. And I witnessed the remnants of a tremendous battle that occurred against a frozen invader. I walked a portion of the Ice Age Trail. I arrived at the […]
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