On Leaving Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal

On Leaving Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal

The time has come again to leave behind yet another beautiful place. Today, when I get on the bus, I will leave Vila Nova de Milfontes heavy-hearted. I will look back over my shoulder and watch this town slowly fade from view. I do not want to leave. I am comfortable here, as is Mira. We have made many memories: dancing on the beach in the middle of the night, drinking absinth under a full moon while watching the waves crash violently into the shore, making silly videos, and just talking to each other all night long. This has been another stop on our collective journey, and one we surely will not forget. Mira (Wanderjahr Jill) and I have taken refuge here in Milfontes for the past month, and have enjoyed the mid-day walks to the sweet Atlantic, as well as the quietude of having nothing other than writing to do all day long. Rui, the owner of the Casa Amarela, has also been an extremely accommodating host.

The plan when Mira and I entered Vila Nova de Milfontes was to find a nice beach and do nothing but sit on it and watch the waves come rolling in. We had no idea that we would be sitting on that same beach for an entire month. But this just happens in travel. Any plan that you make on the road is just made to be broken. One month ago, Mira and I were riding to France on our bikes; today, we sold our bikes and are taking a bus back to Lisbon. We found a comfortable place to stay in Milfontes, so we settled in. The great joy of traveling is that you do not have to have any destinations. Directions and routes, yes, but not destinations.

To go is the great affair. This is all you just have to do- GO! I cannot help but feel that destinations have very little to do with traveling. The path is the destination.

So I wander around the world, forever planning smooth, nice-looking paths across maps to travel. But I find that I actually travel in jagged, criss-crossing, ugly looking, unplanned routes that make no sense. Sometimes I leave places with the plan of never returning, just to find myself back there within a week; sometimes I plan to return and never do. Travel is an odd process. I have yet to figure it out.

After nearly a month and a half in Portugal, I have really begun to fall for this country, and this is due, in no small part, to the people.

They leave me alone.

I like countries where the local people either embrace me as a friend (who wouldn’t) or leave me completely alone. I do not like countries where people just want my money; countries where it is difficult to walk down the streets without some hawker or hustler hanging off of you like a barnacle.

I suppose every country in the world can be put into these three categories:

Leave me alone countries
Make me a friend countries
and
Hang off me like a barnacle countries

China is a Make Me a Friend country- you can go out at night in China and, within a few minutes, you are sitting at a crowded table with twenty new friends. It really happens.

Japan is both a Leave Me Alone and a Make Me a Friend country- it just depends upon circumstance. Japanese society is very unique . . . I would feel better to leave it at this.

India is a Hang Off Me country- There are many beautiful, wonderful things in India, but it is really difficult to experience them because there are always a dozen people in your face trying to get something from you.

Morocco is a Hang Off Me country- I just feel like a big target walking down the streets there. Why? Because in many places, I am. Moroccans can be very crafty though, and it is sometimes very interesting to run with a tout just to find out how far he will go. It is a good experiment to plumb the depths of human deception.

Ecuador, Peru, and Chile are Make Me a Friend countries- There are also a whole lot of hustlers here, but, on the whole, you really can make friends with people that you meet without them trying to railroad you. It is a hit and miss venture though, as I remember one time in the jungles of Peru, a person that I thought was a friend tried to use our friendship as a crow-bar to hustle money out of me. So I quickly de-friended her, walked out of her house, and did not shed a dime. But I have also made many, many good and solid friendships with people all through these countries. In some cases, I am still in touch with these friends. These are some of the people that have made traveling for so long worth while. I am going to visit a couple of long time friends from Chile in France in a week.

Argentina is a Leave Me Alone country- Or so I found it (maybe I am wrong?).

Central America seems to be an all of the above region- It just really depends on where you are. Lots of foreigners in a relatively small land mass sometimes makes the local people aloof. While great economic disparities and an encroaching tourism industry can sometimes turn people into barnacles. But, oftentimes, I have found that you can still befriend a stranger here. As ever, it all depends on cirvumstance.

Thailand seems to be another all of the above country.

Vietnam I found to be full of Barnacles

Nepal I think is a Friend country.

Western Europe is both a Leave Me Alone and a Friend region. I think this depends on the traveler.

It is silly to write such generalizations, I know. I just write them for fun. I am not trying to prove anything. I simply took my experience, skimmed the cream off of the top, simplified it, and then exaggerated the simplification. Experience is as variable as the wind. It is always changing, always different according to place and time, but, for the most part, follows certain patterns. Maybe I am wrong. Oh well, my one goal, my only objective, is to share my experience of traveling the world with other people: my family, my friends, and anyone else who reads this. These are only my impressions, take them or leave them. My experience is my only point, and is the only thing that I set out to share.

(But I, of course, am also trying to solicit some hate mail that I did not write to myself. Haha.)

I am going back to Lisbon in a couple of hours. I have a magazine article that I have to have in to CafÉ Abroad in two days time and I have not yet done the central interview. I suppose I am keeping this task off by writing such silly words.

I suppose this is the end of the great bicycle journey. Traveling is full of unexpected turns.

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal
November 29, 2007

Back to Latin America- Time to Dance- Again

Back to Latin America- Time to Dance- Again

I met Mira outside of the San Jose, Costa Rica airport in May of 2006. She had a big flower that she quickly stuck over my ear as she gave me a kiss on the cheek. I thought she was pretty.

I had just came over from a long stay in China to meet my brother, Erik the Pilot, and I had heard stories about this crazy gal named Mira that he was friends with. “Is Mira a piece of work?” I tentatively asked him one fine day.

“Mira is such a piece of work,” was his reply.

I thought then that I was going to like this Mira girl. As it turned out, I did. From the day that she put the big, pink flower over my ear until now we have not been able to shake each other. Sure, we have been take the occasional month or two off here and there- but that is just the way things are in the traveling world.

Going back to Latin America.

When I first began traveling, back in that fateful autumn of ‘99, Latin America was my primero destination. For the first year I did not make it farther south than Florida though, and South America was not had until the summer of 2000 when I went to Ecuador and learned the craft of the field archaeologist.

I returned to South America again in 2001 and then in 2002. Those high high Andes mountains from the north of Ecuador to the bottom depths of Patagonia became my surrogate home. I learned how to travel, how to rely on my self, and, most importantly perhaps, how to be alone. These were my formative years. This was the time that I learned that I could make a life out of traveling.

I soon set my sights east in the spring of 2003 and went to Europe for the first time. I was scrapping the bottom of the barrel then, as far as money goes, so I took a job for a lesbian couple in the back-country of County Cork as a gardener. I did not then, nor do I now, know anything about gardening. I would just walked around their beautiful estate all day long, and sometimes I would break their lawn-mower. Needless to say, I did not last long in this position of employment, but I did make enough money to get myself to the European mainland.

After a little while of bumming about, I eventually made my way to Asia. To Japan! The glory land of my new found dreams of misty mountains and the ol’ Buddha Dharma. I enrolled here in some classes through the Friends World Program of Long Island University, and quickly realized that clashes with the school’s East Asia director were eminent and unavoidable. Though I did some decent work there, and I am only now publishing some of the research that I compiled on Japanese tattooing (in Glimpse Magazine's Spring 2008 edition).

Now that I whet my whistle a little on Asia, I stayed there off and on for the next two years. I wandered down through China and Southeast Asia to India and then returned to the old Middle Kingdom to study some Mandarin.

In the summer of ‘o6 I got the call from Erik the Pilot to meet him down in Costa Rica, and this I did. Here I met Mira, and we have now arrived back at the beginning of this story.

So it is looking like we are going back into the depths of Latin America. At first, I was not too excited about this prospect- Mira was at the reigns for this one. But now, I think that I am actually looking forward to it. There will be singing, dancing, beer, lots of beer, archaeology, and a population of people who are not hesitant about interacting with me.

Why not?

So we bought $140 flights to San Jose, Costa Rica from JFK and signed on to an archaeology project in Nicaragua. Things are now moving fast. We only have another month in Europe and then it is back to Morocco and then 10 days in the good ol’ USA before taking off to Central America for what is looking like a year of travel.

I want to go to Columbia.

I think there are holes to be dug there?

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal
November 28, 2007

The Hobo and the Swiss Army Fairy Video

The Hobo and the Swiss Army Fairy

Swiss Army Knife Revisited

. . . and a playful rebuttal to Ubertramp.com 's article Swiss Army Knives: Just Another Travel Rip-Off

I love my Swiss Army knife. It is a real one too, and has Victorinox etched into the blade and the Swiss flag stamped proudly on its handle. I paid a pretty penny for it, but I use this tool a dozen times a day, and it has not let me down yet. Never afraid of being cliche, I will state with assurance that my Swiss Army knife has every tool that I normally use daily in one ]package: Read the full Swiss Army Knife Debate here

A good blade to cut stuff
A can opener to eat stuff
A bottle opener (no, I cannot open a beer with a phone book, Ubertramp)
A corkscrew
A usable flat-head screw driver
A saw that I have actually used on a few odd occasions
Tweezers for picking out toe gunk
A tooth pick for tooth gunk
and . . .
A punch that I am still trying to find a real use for

This knife is simple. It has everything I need, and nothing that I do not, in a single, concise package. The steel is of high quality and does not rust when I get it wet while opening cans of food in the bush. In all, my Swiss Army knife removes the need of having to clumsily cart around a dozen separate implements, which will just toss about, and probably get lost in, the innards of my rucksack. I asked a Swiss girl the other day how she feels about the knives of her army. She gave me an astonished look, seemingly taken aback that I would even ask such a blasphemous question, and responded very seriously and bluntly with, “They are indispensable.”

Apologies, Ubertramp, but I side with the Swiss army on this one. But I do admire your bravery for challenging the sacred ground upon which the Swiss Army knife traditionally sits for nearly every traveler on this planet. Wade from Song of the Open Road sends you a big high five for treading such an unblazed path. My only regret is that I must astutely defend one of my most trusted sidekicks- the Swiss Army Knife. (Hmm, what is Andy’s take on this? Traveling Chris, are you out there? Byron? I know you are out there; Loren? I don’t think he wastes his time reading this; Erik the Pilot? I know you carry your Swiss Army knife next to your shotgun).

So here is a little video that I put together to back up my defense (with humor ever in mind, of course):




Wade from VagabondJourney.com
Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal
November 26, 2007

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com is a Cheater

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com is a Cheater

Dear Sirs,

I regret to inform you of the fact that Wade from VagabondJourney.com is a cheater. It really pangs my heart to disclose this uncomfortable information in such a callous, impersonal way; but, it is true, the above mentioned cheated in your 2007 travel writing contest.

In September of 2007 Traveling-Stories-Magazine.com put out a call for all travelers with a pen and a gang of goons to contribute stories in an effort to drive as much traffic as they possibly could to the Traveling-Stories-Magazine.com website. In order to be competitive in this competition, contributors were directed to tell all of their family and friends to vote for their stories. So, from the beginning, this was clearly not a competition to discover who could pen the best in travel literature, but who could coerce the most goons into visiting Traveling-Stories-Magazine.com to vote for them.

So, in lieu of this fact, a dire competition arose between the goons of the BPO call centers of Southern India and the gang of goons that Wade from VagabondJourney.com assembled for the purpose of winning $125 and all of the fame and glory that this competition offered. As it all washed out, it quickly became apparent to the goons of both sides that a vote against the competition was essentially a vote for their own, unrighteous cause. To these ends, Wade from VagabondJourney.com conscripted the assistance of the Lesbian goonas of Western New York State to coldly bear their attack down upon his Hindu foe.

I heartily believe that it goes without saying that the rectitude of women can not be topped, even by the masses of BPO employees fortified in the florescent lit cubicles of Bangalore, and this proved to be true as Wade from VagabondJourney.com’s story quickly rose to the top of the chart in the final days of the competition. I must break confidence here and state that I have even heard Wade from VagabondJourney.com say on a number of occasions that the Traveling-Stories-Magazine.com competition was nothing other than, “a battle to find out what writer has the most goons,” and then laugh as if he were funny. He also assured me that he would go to the ends of the earth, by bicycle if necessary, in his dire effort to conscript the most heinous, ill-hearted goons this planet has to offer (lesbian or otherwise).

I think that this behavior needs to be routed out of your otherwise good natured competition and such ilk as Wade from VagabondJourney.com should forever be banished from the global community of travel writers. If you continue to allow such low life hobos into your contests, then you can only expect to receive the wrath of their dishonest, cheating ways.

Forever Yours,

Disgruntled TSM Reader,
Mr. Harry Parts

Late Night Thanksgiving Day Visit to the Sea

Late Night Thanksgiving Day Visit to the Sea

With a flask of Absinth in one hand and Mira’s hand in the other, we walked out for a late night visit to the sea. A full moon night- the Tail of the Scorpion. The most unlucky day of the year topped off with a black cat crossing our path. A good sign. It began to rain.

Mira and I stopped in the sprinkles and looked at each other. “Do you want to go back, it is raining?” No. We did not want to go back to our room at the Casa Amarela that we converted into a deep, dark writing dungeon, so we walked on through the rain to the sea. The night sky seemed to wink down upon us and cleared completely, leaving only a big staring eye moon behind, ever voyeuring down upon our romance.

We soon arrived at the edge of a cliff that looks out to sea and stopped with a start: the waves were crashing into the shore with a vengeance that we have not observed before. The cyclic blasts of the powerful ocean were grinding shear rock into sand, and the sound was deafening. The night was bright, the tail of the scorpion shone brighter, and I kissed my love amidst the waves of absinth.

Cultural Questions

Cultural Questions at the Casa Amarela Guesthouse

I want to go to Germany, because I do not understand the German people.

I believe that it is safe to say that there is such a phenomenon know as cultural tendencies; that various people from different cultures and corners of the globe evince shades of character that have been derived and influenced from their socialization. Cultures are self-perpetuating patterns, tendencies, and nothing more. Thus being, I have observed that people from various cultures tend to follow certain prescribed ways of behavior.

This is not a new idea, but one that I feel provoked to deliver a disclaimer before stating, as there are many folks out there (particularly in the USA) who seem to think that it is shameful to refer to someone as possessing any tendency that would indicate their cultural identity. It is considered rude in the USA to ask a person where they come from, when it is obvious that they are from another country. I find it pitiful that I upset people in the USA by referring to as Mexicans because they are from Mexico, or when I ask someone with a Chinese name if they are from China. “I am an American,” the Mexican immigrant tells me with scorn. How dare I speak Spanish to a native Spanish speaker? How dare I remind someone that they are not white? How dare I notice that someone is from another place in the world?

Political correctness is the most racist trend to ever show its ugly face in the USA. Political correctness creates and solidifies a standard of what “people” are, and it seems as if this is the standard of the white “American.” To refer to someone as being anything other than this, when it is clear that they are, is taken as an insult. Political correctness makes words like “Mexican,” Vietnamese,” “Chinese,” “Asian,” “Oriental,” “African,” “Turkish,”“Indian,” “Filipino,”"Arab" etc . . . profanities- titles to be shameful of. It also makes discussions of cultural contrasts taboo.

To say that it is impolite to speak of someone’s cultural background is to say that this background is something to cover up, something to be ashamed of.

Political correctness is racist.

I am a traveler, I like to talk about cultures, cultural tendencies, and I appreciate diversity. When I call a Mexican a Mexican it is because I appreciate his cultural background. I feel that to ignore someone’s national identity is to truly insult them. So I speak Spanish to Latinos, Chinese to Chinese people, and I ask people about the countries that they come from. I want to find out about the world more than I want to be polite.

So back to my discussion of Germans:

I have difficulty understanding the ways of Germans. I am honest, I can admit when I am faced with a challenge that confuses me. So a couple of Germans walk into the guesthouse that I am staying at. There are two computers here that guests can use: a stationary one and a laptop. Mira is on the big computer and I am on my own laptop. The Germans think that we are using both of the guesthouse's computers, and they were hardly inside of the door before they got really upset.

“So you two are using both of the computers?” one of them asks with biting passive aggressiveness.

I look up at them and answered with a cold, “I am using my own computer,” and then got back to my work.

They proceeded to kick Mira off of the computer that she was buying a plane ticket on so that they could check their email.

I thought this was rude. But I also think that a good part of the perception of rudeness is culturally derived. Granting this, I pondered for a while about why they thought that we should have gotten off of the computer so that they could use it. Were they being rude, or were they just being German?

Can I consider ‘being German’ rude?

This is not an isolated incident either, as I have experienced similar ways of acting from many other Germans all over the world. I would almost have to say that this behavior is a German cultural tendency. It almost seems that they expect everyone to abide by the politeness standards of their own culture as they recklessly stomp on those of others.

Or am I projecting my own gingerly cultivated sense of politeness upon them?

I have a question, I am confused, I think I need to go to Germany to straighten this out. Do Germans treat people in Germany the same way they treat people in other countries? If so, how does this work? How would a German person respond to being kicked off of a computer by another German? I believe that all cultures are worked out perfectly. I believe that all cultures, when they are isolated, run like a smoothly ticking clock.

In China, if someone is disrespected, they have to fight the person who insulted them. They have to, or they loose face and the social hierarchy is reset. It is just the way that it is, everybody knows this, and the culture runs smoothly because of it.

I am curious about Germany. I must find out a little of how their society ticks, so that I know how to react to a German the next time they try kicking me off of a computer.

Not understanding something is one of the greatest impetuses to travel.

While understanding is one of the traveler's greatest joys.

I don't think I understand anything. So I have to keep traveling.

Wade from Vagabond Journey Travel Information Guide
Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal
November 23, 2007

The Siesta in Portugal

The Siesta in Portugal

The Portuguese, and the Spanish for that matter, have found a key to relieving stress, building solid family ties, and ensuring that they get enough sleep. This key is the siesta. That is right, everything in Portugal shuts down between the hours of noon and three, as everybody returns home to eat, sleep, and spend time with their families. Entire cities are rendered ghost towns during these hours and the streets are completely empty and every shop has its doors closed and lights off.

From WikiPedia:

“The siesta is the traditional daily sleep of the Iberia peninsula and through Spanish influence, of Latin American countries. Afternoon sleep is also a common habit in China, India, Italy ( riposo in Italian), Greece, Croatia, Malta, The Middle East and North Africa. In these countries, the heat can be unbearable in the early afternoon, making a midday break in the comfort of one's home ideal. However, in some countries where naps are taken, such as Northern Spain, Southern Argentina, and Chile, the climate is similar to that of Canada and Northern Europe. Besides the climate, in many countries with this habit it is common to have the largest meal of the day in the afternoon, in contrast with other countries where only a lighter lunch is taken.”

This explanation sounds good to me, and I think that the siesta is a great custom. In fact, cultures that practice the siesta also tend to be far more community centric and family oriented than ones that do not. I remember being awed in Latin America by just how solid family structures are, and I am quickly getting a similar impression of Portugal and Spain. Families eat together here, they talk to each other, they really communicate. I feel a little lost here without a family of my own. When I watch the owner of the guesthouse that I am staying at walk across the street to eat at his mother’s house three times a day, I could not feel more like an outsider. Portuguese families and communities are tight, perhaps the siesta has something to do with this.

More from Wikipedia:

“The original concept of a siesta was not merely that of a midday break. This break was intended to allow people time to be spent with their friends and family.”

But I am told that the custom is beginning to fade out away. Apart from the small villages on the coast and in the countryside, the siesta is quickly becoming a habit for those who are privileged enough to live a life that is compatible with it. Now many people in Portugal are far too busy to take this rash break in the middle of the day. I am told that people are now have work, business, school, and personal obligations to adhere to this ages old custom. Like so many other traditions, the siesta is going the way of the wind.

Dreams of the old world.

Where people once knew their bodies, knew their families, nature, and the tidings of the world they lived in.

Wanderjahr Jill likes the siesta custom

Wade from Vagabond Journey Travel Resource

Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal
November 23, 2007

Thanksgiving on the Road

Thanksgiving on the Road

I am an American. I celebrate Thanksgiving; it has been culturally breed into me. A harvest festival, a hark back to the days when men listened to the gentile hums of nature; the days when the Farmer’s Almanac was an oracle to believe in- I cannot think of anything worth celebrating more.

I awoke this day in Portugal; I have been here for the past month and a half. Time moves by quickly when there is nothing to stop it. I rode a bicycle down the coast with my lovely, Mira, and ran aground where the Rio Mira runs into the big blue Atlantic. This is the Costa Azul, and it is named so for a reason: Everything is blue. The sky is deep blue, the sea borrows this hue with reverence, and the windows and doorways of all of the buildings of the town are trimmed with bright blue paint. Milfontes is a quaint town beyond anything that white white New England could dream up. But they do not celebrate Thanksgiving here.

So Mira and I went about this day with a shear attempt to make it special, like good and proper Americans. So we made a date of it, and went out for a good dinner at a Chinese restaurant. We then returned and made Skype calls to our families in the USA.

Travel makes, breaks, and changes a person, but I feel as if the traveler should not shed their own cultural upbringing in exchange for the rapid fire and quickly relished ways of other peoples. To do so will leave you in a bottomless hole of political correct, falsely culturally relative nothingness. I am an American, and I will always be an American. Socialization is not something that can be shook very easily- hidden and covered up, yes, but not shook. I act as an American and I talk as an American. Travel has not lessened my sense of nationality in the least, rather, it has strengthened it. There is no better way to view one’s own culture than to contrast it with another. I feel as if traveling to vastly different countries should be a part of the culture training of any body in this world. Travel makes better Americans. Travel makes better Englishmen . . . To view your culture from the outside is to be able to see its building blocks and basic structures. I know of no other way that you could do this other than by traveling to far off corners of the globe.

I liken this effect to stepping out of a box. When you are in the box, you know nothing other than its cramped quarters, and bitch about the fact that the top-flaps never stay closed all the way. Once you get out of the box though, you are able to inspect it from the outside and contrast it with all the other boxes which are scattered all around. As you look at the other boxes, you begin to realize that they too are cramped and also have top-flaps that will not stay closed. Knowing the imperfections of the other boxes, you begin to realize that the box that you came out of is not as bad as you once imagined it to be. In fact, you realize that your box is pretty darn good, and you can now even understand why the top-flaps do not stay closed. But too get back inside of your own box now is simply not possible, as you know far too much of the riches of all the other boxes. Though, because you have experienced these riches, you can travel on with a renewed appreciation of the box that you came from. Learning about your own culture is one of the most precious jewels of traveling.

But these jewels come with a harsh price. The information, understanding, and experience that traveling provides is harshly counteracted by the fact that you are not able to spend much time with your family and old friends. Travel and deep, meaningful, long-tern human relations seem to be mutually exclusive. My family does not travel too often, and I am seldom with them in the USA. Sometimes I feel as if I am cheating them, sometimes I feel as if I am cheating myself. We carry on a continuous dialogue through email and Skype calls, but this is not usually enough. I want to have a daily relationship with them, I want to help raise my little Chinese sister and my Godson, but I walk a path that does not allow for it. Though I do try to make it back to my family once a year, and I should be returning to them for a couple of weeks in January. When I get back to them, I will have a few stories saved up for the kids, and a bag full of gifts. This is just what I do.

I miss my family nearly constantly, but I know that I can not go back now. Too many steps towards the horizon has created a knotted path that cannot be back-tracked. I have discovered what was on the other side of the box, and I don’t think I could fit myself back into it even if I tried.

“Different strokes for different folks,” as my father says.

Though I do think of home on Thanksgiving.

Wade from Vagabond Journey
Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal
November 23, 2007

Vagabond Journey.com in Internet Explorer

Vagabond Journey.com in Internet Explorer

I just realized that the index page of the Vagabond Journey site sometimes is scrambled a little bit in Internet Explorer. It seems as if some of the photos overlap each other. I have not noticed this problem in Mozilla Firefox.

So I dug down into the page and realized that there was a lot of junk in the source code from the page editor that I am using (Nvu and now Kompozer). This morning I completely rebuilt this page, and it should be alright now.

Please let me know if it is not (or any other errors that any of you internet travelers may come across).

Thanks,

Wade from Vagabond Journey Budget Travel Database
Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal
November 22, 2007

First 100 Visitor Day

First 100 Visitor Day

Yesterday, was the first day that I received 100 visitors to my websites. Apart for the Song of the Open Road Travel Blog, which I have been writing off and on since 2004, I’ve only been riding this travel website train for around three months. I now work on four separate sites- Song of the Open Road, Photographs from the Open Road, Vagabond Fieldnotes Travel Guide, and the Vagabond Journey Travel Information Database- that I link all together to form one big website. I do not really know how many pages I have out there, but I am guessing that it is around 350.

Looking at the number of pages that I have alone, I do not regard my first 100 visitor day with much exuberance. But I still celebrate.

This website venture has been a journey, to say the least, that has been filled with trials and errors, dead-ends and detours at every step of the way. But now I think that I have a system down. And although I am not a very systematic individual, I view my system as an accomplishment.

I must say that I am satisfied with my progress so far:

• I learned how to construct a website.

• I learned all about search engines and how to get my pages into them.

• Since putting ads on my pages last May, I made $429 (only $29 from Adsense).

• I made a couple really good friends who also write travel websites.

At this point, I do not think that I have done well, but I have definently built a couple bridges over some turbulent rivers.

I am learning.

My grandmother use to say that you can do anything if you set your mind to it.

I believe her.

Wade from Vagabond Journey- Travel Information Database
Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal
November 21, 2007

Isabelle Eberhardt

Isabelle Eberhardt: The Personification of Romance

“Africa ingests and assimilates everything that is hostile to it. Perhaps it is the Predestined Land from which the light that will regenerate the world will one day emerge!”
-Isabelle Eberhardt

“One very graceful impression is that of sunset over the port and the terraces of the upper town, and the gay Algerian women; a whole playful world in pink and green on the slightly blue-tinted white of the uneven and disorderly terraces. It's from the little lattice window of Madame Ben Aben that you discover all this.”
-Isabelle Eberhardt, Excerpts from Her Journals


Described by some as a desert queen in men’s clothing, by others as “too lazy to live,” the life and writings of Isabelle Eberhardt has captivated the imaginations of dreamers throughout the past century. Eberhardt was a female writer who penetrated deep into the heart of Algerian culture and society at the peak of French colonization, and left behind a legacy that has lived on in multiple biographies, movies, and the continual reproductions of her own writings. This is the legacy of a liberated women who lived a life outside of the constraints of both Arabic and Western values, and seemed to touched that far flung notion of unabashed freedom. From the pages of her diaries, one can discerned that Eberhardt was truly a romantic heroin cast adrift in a divine tragedy upon the seas of the great Sahara, as well as a ground breaking character who walked a path without predecessor.

A Photograph of Isabelle Eberhardt

Isabelle Eberhardt was born in Geneva in 1877, and had a very unconventional upbringing. Her father, Alexandre Trophimowsky, was an Armenian anarchist, one time priest, and convert to Islam, who sought to live along the communitarian model set forth by Tolstoy; while her mother was an aristocratic Lutheran German/ Russian. Together, they raised a family that was far outside of the conventional realm, as their approach towards parenting was extremely open and lacked many of the restrictions of 19th century society. In this setting, Isabelle was free to ride horses, get dirty, and dig deep into the substance of life. She was also provided with ample inspiration to cultivate the furthest stretches of her imagination and free-will.

Accompanied by her mother, Eberhardt’s first trip into North Africa was when she was twenty years old in May of 1897. Soon after landing in Algiers, both women quickly converted to the Wahabi sect of Islam, “fulfilling a long standing interest.” Her mother soon died, and her father followed two years afterwards in Geneva. Now, without parents, Isabelle Eberhardt’s only kin were a couple of despondent siblings residing in Europe. Henceforth, Isabelle found herself a cast away in the ebb and flow of the Arab world.

Eberhardt, now without family ties in Europe, plunged into the sands of the Algerian culture with her entire being. Dressed as a man, she called herself Si Mahmoud Essadi, and joined the Qadiriyya: a radical Sufi brotherhood intent on opposing colonial rule. With pen in hand and vehemence in her heart, she threw herself into the fray of the Arab liberation struggle. Eberhardt almost fanatically claimed that this new identity and way of life was her true calling, and declared that she felt much more a Muslim than she ever did an anarchist (or European for that matter). In opposition to the influences of Europe, she wrote articles which denounced the rule of the French in Algeria, and romantic prose pieces about the beauty of traditional Arab culture. This defiance of the colonizing mission is no better exemplified than when Eberhardt wrote in one of her journals that, “In spite of the crowds brought here by a prostituted and prostituting "civilization," Algiers is still a lovely city . . .” By this point in her life, Isabelle Eberhardt was thoroughly removed from the ideological influence of western culture.

One of Eberhardt’s post-humus translators, Robert Bononno, describes her as “. . . an artist and a rebel, [who] eschewed the conventions of bourgeois society (French, Swiss, and Russian), despised city life, sympathized with the Algerian people's plight during the height of French colonialism, dressed as a man, drank to excess, smoked kif, and was an outstanding equestrian. She spoke Arabic, studied Islam, became a Muslim, married a native spahi, and was initiated into the religious confraternity of the Qadiriya.”

Though completely dedicated to the Arabic way of life and the musings of the Quadiriya, Eberhardt’s stance as an ardent Muslim was simultaneously counteracted by her overbearing desire for free-will and self-determination. At the same time that she was deep into her Islamic studies, she would occasionally get intoxicated off of alcohol and marijuana, and indulge in promiscuous endeavors. Perhaps these personal excesses were a result of her anarchist roots, or perhaps it was just the natural tidings of her purely uncontainable character. What ever was the case, Isabelle walked a line that was perilously kept in balance by contradictory extremes.

Isabelle Eberhardt’s journals present us with a de-facto display of these contradictions; as, on one hand, she boasts of her complete devotion to Islam and berates herself for occasional bouts of unseemly behavior, and, on the other hand, she writes with exuberance about the romantic aspects of life that conflicted with a strict view of Islam. In point, Eberhardt was truly a multi-faceted individual forever deep in the perils of solidifying her own self identity. As she writes in her journal: “The farther behind I leave the past, the closer I am to forging my own character.”

During her lifetime, Eberhardt focused her literary attention on the European populous, and wrote many articles about Arabic culture and the colonization struggle for French newspapers, as well as a couple of novels. These writings where heavily romanticized by the European press, and Eberhardt became a personification of the exotic. The idea of a rebellious women setting out alone on horseback through the desert, disguised as a man, and befriending the mysterious Bedouin tribes was just what Europe wanted in those colonial times. Isabelle unwittingly became a poster-child for the exoticism of the Arab world, and her writings were read with great enthusiasm. Apart from literary pieces which added to the romantic notions that Europe held towards North Africa, Eberhardt also filled an important role as a reporter for the French press. She mainly wrote newspaper articles for the Algerian News, In the Hot Shade of Islam, and The Day Laborers, while also serving a stint as a war reporter in the south of Oran.

In 1901, tragedy struck as Eberhart was hacked with a sabre while praying at a mosque by a local Algerian hired to kill her. Isabelle’s left arm was nearly severed, but this did not impede her empathy for the would-be assassin. Eberhart stoutly defended this man in court, and successfully pleaded for his life. This is another example of the dept of her character, as she not only took pity on her assassin, but forgave him as well.

Isabelle Eberhardt was a woman who felt life and her emotions very deeply, and this was never more evident than in her highly romanticized courtships with various men in North Africa. After a few bouts of lustful obsessions with a handful of men, Isabelle eventually married Slimane Ehumi, an Algerian soldier, later on in 1901. Her journals show the continual up and down nature of this relationship; and the impact that both extremes had on Isabelle were written about with shear romance, if not outright extravagance. Eberhardt had a tendency to be taken over and driven by her emotions, and the extreme tidings of her love life were given impetus by this depth of feeling.

Eberhardt live a life that hung perilously in the crux of contradictory extremes- within religion, within love, and in literature- and the nature of her death was consistent with a life full of contrasts. On October 21, 1904, Isabelle Eberhardt died in a flash flood in the ordinarily parched Algerian Sahara. She was 27 years old. A death by drowning in the middle of a desert could not have been more consistent with the extreme tidings of Eberhart’s own character. She died as she lived: close to the edge of perilous contradiction, within an unshakable shroud of mystery.

A groundbreaking writer of Arabic culture and creative stories in her own time, Isabelle Eberhardt’s image has sprouted coats of exoticism in the intervening years since her untimely death. She left behind a small lexicon of literary work, and with it an unconquerable legacy. But who was this undaunting woman who left behind the “civilized” world and forged an identity for herself upon the harsh sands of the Sahara? This is the unsatiable question that has tantalized the imaginations of anyone who has pondered the life and writings of Isabelle Eberhardt.

More information on Isabelle Eberhardt can be found on Vagabond Journey's Old Time Travelers page.

Wade from Vagabond Journey Travel Guide
Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal
November 20, 2007

Isabelle Eberhardt: An Interview with the Kathleen Modrowski

Isabelle Eberhardt: An Interview with the anthropologist, Kathleen Modrowski

The following is an interview with the anthropologist, Kathleen Modrowski about the life, times, writings, and character of Isabelle Eberhardt. Kathleen conducted the bulk of her anthropological research in North Africa, and found records of Eberhardt while going through old economic archives in Algiers. This discovery sparked an interest in the life of this captivating desert wanderer, and Kathleen subsequently engaged herself in a deep study of the literature surrounding Eberhardt. It was my honor to have had the chance to interview Kathleen Modrowski in person when I passed through Brooklyn last summer.

The interview:

What do you think was Isabelle Eberhardt’s attraction to the desert?

From what she has written, her first attraction was the space, the beauty of the place, her attraction to Islam, and especially the Sufi Islamic cult.

How deep was Eberhardt’s practice of Islam? Was she really into it?

Yeah, I think she was very much. I think she was into the practice of, again, the Sufi cult. In the beginning [of her time in Algeria], she was not an Islamic scholar so she was very attracted to it as a religion. Eberhardt was very attracted to the chanting of the services. You can join a Sufi group and there will be the chanting, the incense, and the singing without much teaching.

I know that she was certainly into a lot of hashish, as well, as part of her religious practice. But I think that there was something about the beauty of the desert, the simplicity of the life, the coherence of the community that she found there [that attracted her to Islam]. I don’t think she appreciated the poverty that she found, but that is going away from your question . . .

Do you think that because Eberhardt was not a scholar, that she was not trained as a professor, she was able to immerse herself into the Arabic culture to a degree that was more personal?

I think it was very personal, of course. While she was not a scholar, she was really trying to be a writer. She was trying to report, because she worked as a journalist as well, certain things that she found in the society; yet [some of these things] often went against the grain of what was the colonial principles and the colonial impression at the time. Remember that this was the big period of colonial expansion in North Africa.

Now Eberhardt also had a very interesting background. Her father was fascinated with Tolstoy, and tried to create a community (he was sort of a nutty guy too) that was base on his writings. So she [Eberhardt] was raised in a natural freedom that was very coarse for a woman; she could ride a horse and often dress in men’s clothing. And when she moved to Marseille, in France, she became kind of like a little star.

When she was seventeen or eighteen she first visited Algeria, and her writings say that when she saw Algiers for the first time from the boat, the city looked like a collection of doves on a hillside. So you can see that she was very taken by the picturesque beauty of the place.

But I want to go back to something else here, that Eberhardt was also influenced by, as I am sure everybody else was at this time, by what they were seeing. Because this was the beginning of the use of photography, which started to tell people what they were seeing, and about what was out there in the colonial empire. On one hand there was this very romantic vision of the exotic, as only the exotic was being presented. On the other hand, there was a presentation of the civilizing influence. Now the French had this sense that the indigenous people in their colonies could become little Frenchmen.

Eberhardt was [also] influenced by the writing of the people who have come and gone in these colonial communities, and there was a lot of talk of the exotic. [In this setting] she had created quite a personage, a persona, for herself, and I think this was very important.

Did Eberhardt rebel against the French idea that the indigenous people in the colonies could become “little Frenchmen”?

I think that she didn’t see the civilizing mission, the bringing of French civilization to the colonies, as very important. Instead she immersed herself in the culture as something very pure, very beautiful. So although she did not rebel, as such, I think her rebellion was looking at the way the people really were, and living with them.

There were very few women who took on the life of moving with the caravans and living the very simple life, and Eberhardt’s knowledge of the local people became very valuable when the French saw that there ws opposition to their colonial rule. [So although] Eberhardt was not going to be the Joan of Arch of the Arabs, she certainly did look at them from the inside view.

Do you think that part of Isabelle Eberhardt’s lifestyle was trying to live out the anarchist dreams of her father?

I think she was influenced by her father’s idealism, but I do not think that she had a philosophical view of anarchy. Eberhardt would spend hours in the souqs and markets just drawing and moving with the people.

What topics did she usually write about?

Sketches, little romantic stories, love stories and despair.

Did Eberhardt’s writings have an impact on Western Civilization?

Yes, she certainly captured the imagination of western writers, and she was well published.
I have found that much of what she wrote was, in fact, romanticized by her publishers and the French public. But that was what they wanted at the time: a vision of the exotic, a vision of a woman riding alone on horseback through the desert.

Her diaries are certainly interesting from an ethnographic point of view, as well. You get a sense of the poverty of the villages in North Africa, of the mortality, the daily diet. I am sure this was not fascinating to the people of France at the time, who were only looking for the exotic.

What is your personal attraction to Isabelle Eberhardt?

First of all, she was a woman, and there were not many women doing what she was doing at the time. She kind of became a symbol of women’s rights and women’s empowerment as well, for better or worse.

I was doing economic anthropology in Algeria at the time (70's and early 80's) that I discovered records of Eberhardt in local governmental archives. I found studying her life to be a refreshing escape from going through all of the statistics that were representative of a man’s world: Men writing about how many kettles of wheat, barely, and dates they produced.

I found her personality very attractive. In a very sad way too.


Interview with Kathleen Modrowski on Isabelle Eberhardt
September 5, 2007
Brooklyn, New York

Wade from Vagabond Journey Travel Guide
Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal
November 19, 2007

Sex on the Beach and a Haircut

Sex on the Beach and a Haircut

Mira and I walked down to where Portugal meets the Atlantic today, with scissors in hand. It was early evening and everything gets really blue on the coast at this time of day. The sky is deep blue, the river is even deeper, and the ocean is bluer yet. It was time for me to get a haircut. I’ve never liked haircuts, but Mira kept telling me that I was starting to look creepy with my hair flaring out around the sides of a rapidly balding crown. So I grudgingly obeyed her orders. I think that haircuts always make me look like a fool (but perhaps this is because I always choose fool hairstyles: like mohawks and mullets with rattails dangling off the back). But, there was no way out of this haircut, so we found a pleasant little place on the beach, sat down, and Mira set in to work.

Then I noticed something:

“Are those people naked over there?,” I asked Mira. Naked people on Portuguese beaches are not an uncommon sight, but this couple seemed to be going at it sexually. I have not noticed this in Portugal before.

A guy was walking by playing fetch with his dog, an old couple were enjoying the waves, I was about to get my hair chopped, and a couple of naked people were having sex in the middle of it all. “Hmm,” thought I, “this is odd. I’d better video tape it.”

So I video taped away. The couple seemed notice me recording their beach-time frolic, and went into ultra mode (if someone is going to have sex in public, then I am going to video tape it because I think sex is funny- I don’t think that privacy has any bearing here). Mira started in on my hair. I could not stop watching the naked people going at it. Mira told me to turn my head away so she could cut some stray strand of hair; I keep looking at the naked people; Mira destroys my haircut and blames the naked people for it.

I now have a screwed up haircut, but I got to laugh while watching naked people do it on the beach. I don’t really mind screwed up haircuts.

Getting my hair cut (well, I am getting the sides of my hair cut)

Video still of the couple having sex on the beach. What? Did you not believe me? Did you not think that I would have the audacity to video tape a couple copulating right in front of everyone? What this photo does not show is that when the guy finished, he stood up and did naked cartwheels out into the sea, and the girl walked a couple of paces away, squatted, and peed.

I am supposing that they think they are progressive. At any rate, I found it to be a humorous routine. But Mira, and probably everyone else on the beach, thought the naked cartwheel was a little over the top.

They did not seem to be Portuguese.

Wade from Vagabond Journey Budget Travel Guide
Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal
November 18, 2007

Vagabond Journey.com Website is Up

Vagabond Journey.com Website is Up

Well, until I break it again . . .

But I heartily thank my friends (Andy, Ubertramp, Byron, and Stephanie) who provided me with with little snippets of advice and encouragement as I was going through the daunting task of figuring out how to publish a website. I think I have a few of the basics down now.

You can visit the site now at Vagabond Journey.com if you would like. There is not too much on it at this point, and there are still a few minor errors through it, but the main structure of the site is up.

Check it out!

Thank you and, as ever, walk slow,

Wade

Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal

Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal

“These are the enjoyments which set riches at scorn, and make even a poor man independent.”
-Buckthorn, Tales of a Traveller, Washington Irving

I hopped off of my bicycle and landed my feet upon the good earth at Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal. I have been here for the past two and a half weeks, and I am beginning to think that my feet are stuck. The jagged Atlantic coastline calls to me each morning, and, of course, I must oblige it with a stroll down to the beach. The Rio Mira guides my walk through the old city and out to the ocean with the gently rolling current.

Abandoned ship on the beach of Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal

It is here that I rest on the shore. Sometimes I run. Sometimes I talk to Mira, Sometimes I look at all the naked people on the beach. And sometimes I just do nothing.

This town is beautiful. . .. and empty. In August, the city can boast a population of over fifteen thousand; in the winter this number goes down two thirds. So I walk the empty streets and thoroughly enjoy being in a place with a crisp sea breeze, fresh air untainted by any city, and miles of coastline to walk in perfect solitude.

Odd looking soil pattern on beach during low tide.

I think I like Vila Nova de Milfontes. I think I really like Portugal.

I live on under fifteen dollars a day here, and I eat really well and sleep comfortably. I also have a 24 hour free internet connection at the Casa Amarela guesthouse.

What could be better?

Photograph of fishermen's port in Vila Nova de Milfonte, Portugal

Photo of typical house in rural Portugal

Empty streets of Milfontes during afternoon siesta

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal
November 16, 2007

More photos of Portugal at Photographs from the Open Road

On Climbing a Cliff

On Climbing a Cliff

I went for a walk with Mira down to the sea near Milfontes, Portugal. Only my body moved towards the rolling waves, as my mind was still tangled in a web of thoughts about computers, writing, and irate university professors. When I looked up from my confusion to find Mira tenderly, yet very nimbly, scaling a cliff that rose one hundred feet above the jagged rocks of the coastal surf, I realized that my invitation was sent; that I too would have to scale that cliff.

The Cliff

I did not feel like climbing on this day. I would have been more prepared to just run down the coast to a deserted little beach and build a stick hut to live in, where nobody would bother me and I could just get old without all the world- this could be possible on the Atlantic coast of Portugal. But the challenge was set, and I could not box my manly pride up long enough to not take it.

Mira was already at the top of the towering rock outcrop picking up crystals or bird shit or whatever it is she picks up off the ground these days. I knew that I had to take my heavy head up their to join her, no matter what. My own spurious sense of pride and athleticism rested upon me doing so. Though I really did not want to. But I have not yet turned down a climbing challenge to this day, and I was not prepared to set a new precedent.

So in hiking boots I softly made my way out over the edge. A matter of an inch and a half of fragile shale separated me from the being impaled by rigid rocks one hundred feet below, though all I could think about was how my website still does not work and how I have to somehow appease a stubborn university professor. I could not even concentrate on the tenuous handholds and footholds which preserved my very life. I was too deep in to my frustration come out this easily. But as I climbed, I knew that I had to snap through or potentially slip away off into the sea. To tell the truth, my heavy head was not absolutely oppose to this notion, I say now with a slight chuckle.

You cannot climb with a heavy head. To get up a cliff or a mountain or whatever, you can not even think of the climb itself. Your mind must be blank, and full trust has to be put into your body instinctively making it to the top on its own volition. Somehow. But I could not get into this state of no-mind. I was weighed down with the frivolous problems of the world that are usually foreign to me.

But I made it to the top of the rock spire. And back down. I did this is a slow, uncoordinated, and sloppy fashion. It was not pretty. Mira joked about the shaky way that I climbed: “I thought that you were not going to make it. I was scared.”

Her analysis, which I took for insult, just made me angry. But she was right.

Wanderjahr Jill climbing the cliff

You cannot climb with a heavy head. But my heavy head would not go away, so I trudged back to town to my computer and faced the world that I could not escape once again. An hour passes, and another. I make no progress, am frustrated, and still stuck in a cloud of burden.

Mira calls to me from across the room to come and watch a video on a website. With a huff and a puff I leave my own computer damnation and grudgingly oblige her. I think to myself: “No matter how good this is I will not think it is funny right now.” For perhaps the first time in my life, I realized that I had no humor.

The video took a long time to load. I get frustrated that I am kept from my precious work for so long.

The video loads.

I burst out laughing and I cannot stop.

My heavy head vanishes. I am free again. I keep laughing.

This is what she showed me:



This is from the Where the Hell is Matt website. I have not had a good chance to really dig into his site, but it seems really good and his shtick is hilarious enough to make me forget my technical difficulties. Check it out!


The risk of death is not enough to untangle the nets of a mind, but simple laughter is a fool proof way to ease the knots and clear a path.

If you cannot laugh at anything, at anytime, there is no hope for you.

“That’s sick shit."

Wade from VagabondJourney.com
Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal
November 16, 2007

More Photos of Portugal on Photographs from the Open Road

Ryan Air or The Penny Flight that Wasn't

Ryan Air, or The Penny Flight that Wasn’t

“I found a penny flight from Porto to Marseilles” Mira exclaimed.

Our bike journey needs to be fast forwarded a little bit. I want to visit my dear friends in the south of France and Ubertramp and the Pogues in England. Mira wants to get back to Latin America as soon as possible (she is tired of following me around the haunts of the old world and wants to get back to having fun . . . Latino style).

I know that I have to back down this time. Mira is getting feisty and her bites are landing a little too close to the heart for comfort. So it is looking like she is going to drag me to Columbia (or Nicaragua or Costa Rica or wherever) with her.

I am suppose to be going back to NYC to finish up the University degree with Global College that I have been working towards off and on for the past eight years, but the costs of living in Brooklyn are far beyond what I have. I just looked at the average price for a cheap apartment, and I simply cannot not afford it. Oh well, I have been well off without a degree for this long, why not carry out this epic journey for another year.

It is a matter of simple mathematics. I do not have $6,000 to live like a pauper in a city that I hate for a mere three months. Six thousand dollars is more money than I make in an entire year. So it is looking like I will not yet be finishing school. I will write more about my Global College woes in a further post. There are many.

So Ryan Air advertises a penny flight from Porto to Marseilles, and Mira and I hurry to scoop up a couple of tickets. But there is a catch to this fabulous seeming penny flight deal- A whole host of unmentioned fees. As follows:

Taxes and fees: $15
Check in fee: $5
Euro Web Baggage fee: $9
Web sports and music fee: $34
Credit card fee: $10
Flight: $.01

Total: $73.01 for a penny flight.

Not a bad price, I must say, but why advertise it as costing only a penny? It doesn’t. I am a traveller of the old school that believes that the process of checking in to a flight should be part of the flight charge itself. To charge someone a price implies that they have a choice to pay for it or not. If I have to pay extra for the special service of checking in, then I prefer not to do it. I don’t want to check in; it is a boring process that only consists of waiting in line to be scrutinized by a stone faced, tightly pony tailed robot. I don’t want to check in, let alone pay $5 for it. A “Euro Web Baggage Fee?” What the hell is this? I don’t know even know what a Euro Web is, let alone one that is checking my bag. Another $9 gone. The web sports fee is for my bicycle, but I do not think that $34 is a fair price to charge for this. Finally, a $10 charge to use my credit card on the Ryan Air website is a final insult. How else could I pay for this ticket? Smush my money through the computer screen? I do not think that this will work.

There you have it: $73.01 for a penny flight. This would have been around $40 if I did not have my bike. I would gladly pay $40 to get from Portugal to France, as this is a good price.

But why advertise it as costing a penny?

-The musings of a grump old traveler.

Wade from Vagabond Journey.com
Vila Nova de Milfontes, Portugal
November 15, 2007