Jordan, Day 3 (part 2)

Tuesday, November 18 (cont)

The Deir Monastery

Musa

Abdullah and I meet up with Musa, whom we promised could take us up to the pièce de résistance, The Deir (the Monastery), with his donkeys.  My donkey’s name is Jack and he proves partial to walking up these 870 steps and slippery slopes on the ultimate edge of any precipice encountered.  I know he knows what he’s doing, and that he’s sure-footed, but...  Abdullah asks over his shoulder if I’m scared and I admit I am a bit, but Musa tries to stay between Jack and the void, although he doesn’t always succeed.  Once we safely reach the top - well, almost the top - Musa praises me for being a good rider - all those lessons at summer camp finally paid off. No one notices my white knuckles.  Musa did the climb on foot, then hopped on Jack and rode back down.  We’ll be walking back down, thank God!
       A few more dozen steps and we’ve reached the sky.  The trip up was well worth it.  The Deir is similar to the Khazneh in its facade and its urn feature, but much bigger.  Plus it’s not recessed into the stone like the Khazneh, but rather juts out from the surrounding rock face.  In fact a huge part of the mountain was simply chiseled off, piece by piece and by hand, and carted away.  That left a courtyard that was probably enclosed by a sort of covered colonnade.  Every monastery needs a courtyard for its rituals.

       It was also worth it to come up here for the view.  Looking out to the west over range after range of mountains - granite and sandstone - I see a heat haze hanging over the desert sands beyond, punctuated only by the dark green of a palm grove.
       Again, someone has carted water all the way up here.  This time it’s a young man with long black curls who serves us mint tea under a Bedouin tent. Both provide refreshing coolness in the noon-day sun.
       Sand on stone is slippery but I make it back down - this time on foot - availing myself gratefully of Abdullah’s hand offered when needed.  He’s assessed my skill level by now, and seems happy with my stamina, but perhaps mildly chagrined by being slowed down by my picture-taking.  We pass the Welsh lady in the pink blouse whom we passed as we started up the hill.  It’s taken her a long while to get to the top; her friend’s knees are not doing well.  My own ache by the time we reach the bottom.

Abdullah

After a light buffet lunch on the terrace of the restaurant, in the shadow of some welcome trees, Abdullah surprises me by announcing he’s cutting me loose and heading off.  By then, it’s past 2 o’clock and we’ve been together, through thick and thin, up down and around, for almost seven hours, so he’s put in his full day, although I’m sad to lose his company.  He gives me his e-mail address, to stay in touch, which I will.
       He sets me on the road back along the colonnade, and I look over my shoulder a few times to wave good-bye until he disappears behind a hill.  I happen upon Pink Welsh Lady for the third time and we walk and talk until her friend’s legs give out and they take a break.  I continue on...  past the children selling postcards, past the amphitheater, truly on my own in Petra for the first time, to the Khazneh where horsecart Number 5 (groan) will carry me back up the Siq to the entrance.

Temenos Gate with Royal Tombs in background

       My time in Petra is over.  Back to the hotel for a beautiful sunset from the rooftop terrace, then dinner and sleep.  Fakhrey will be back to collect what’s left of me tomorrow morning.

Jordan, Day 3 (part 1)

Tuesday, Nov. 18

Up early to meet Abdullah for the full day that I talked him into yesterday. Otherwise he wouldn’t be working today.  He’s had his turn for the week, but he’s such a good guide and we get along so well that he’ll trade with the colleague next in line.  Work is scarce for everyone, he says, and more so the French-speaking guides than the English-speaking ones.  Before me, he hadn’t worked in ten days.  The situation in Syria and Iraq, and especially the beheadings, has scared off the hordes of tourists that Jordan’s economy relies on.*
       We’re almost the first ones through the gate, and Abdullah opts to fast-track us to the Khazneh by horsecart (groan!) so we can have more time for things we didn’t see yesterday.  After that point, we have the place totally to ourselves.  No one else in sight as we scramble up some barely visible - or even non-existent - stairs to the Royal Tombs.  The rock colors are amazing, especially with the sun out today.  Abdullah pulls the same trick as yesterday, a trick I’ve used myself at Mont Saint Michel in France:  attracting attention to one thing and then saying, “Now turn around.”  This time the “turn around” is to see the amphitheater from above.  Yesterday I was a bit disappointed because it didn’t look like much from below, but from here it’s magnificent!  Row after row of seats waiting for the spectators, the stage just needing a good dusting off before the actors start their play. Somehow the gaping holes of the tombs high above look as if they’re meant for some projectors to light the whole set.

The amphitheater, from above

Silk Tomb

  Abdullah escorts me from tomb to tomb, each with different decorations but the same majesty.  All are empty.  At least up here you can go inside them. In one, the stone is ribboned with different shades of red, pink, yellow and even blue, so much so that they call it The Silk Tomb.  In another, we play the game of spotting animals or faces in the natural rock colors.  I find a whale, a frog and a goat; Abdullah finds a pretty woman.
  As we pass, we’re constantly called out to by Bedouin women with souvenir stands.  They trudge all the way up here each morning carrying bags of souvenirs to sell.  Plus water to make mint tea.  One woman offers us a cup and we accept.  I end up buying something - which was her plan from the start, but I knew that.  She tells me of a “friend” she has in France and to prove it proudly shows me the friend’s business card.  She allows me to have my photo taken with her but asks several times not to post it on the Internet.  I promise I won’t.  She makes me think of my friend Kari back home who is a ophthalmology O.R. nurse and travels to places like Haiti and Peru to operate on people.  She and her team could easily correct the extreme extropia of this smiling woman’s left eye, which looks almost behind her as the other stares into my soul.  But that recourse lies beyond her Bedouin universe.  When asked later, Abdullah says that feature doesn’t make her a poor choice for marriage in their culture, and I’m glad.

  The next stop is the Byzantine Church down another road.  Covered by a white tent to protect all the mosaics - many intact - being studied jointly with North American archeologists, it looks like just another Bedouin home from the cliffs above.  But when we get inside, past the deep well that once supplied water for baptisms, a multitude of tessera animals greet us, and faces staring up at us... all things the Iconoclasts would have ripped up and scattered to the winds if the sand hadn’t covered them and kept them safe.**
  Then it’s past a palace and the Temple of the Winged Lions down below, and finally the blockhouse Qasr el Bint with its barrel arch still standing in spite of repeated earthquakes over the millennia.  Once thought, because of its grandiose silhouette, to be the palace of the Pharaoh’s daughter, and thus the name, it’s really a temple to Dushara, the supreme god of the Nabataeans.

Temple and palace

Corinthian Tomb

*Note:  This was written in mid-November, well before the Jordanian pilot was shot down and executed, and before the Jordanian Air Force flew reprisal raids. Things can only have gotten worse since then.

**Note: Since I wrote this, several Assyrian ruins in Iraq have been demolished, including Nimrod and Nineveh, which makes me fear even more for the mosaics of this church, now that their existence is no longer a secret.

Jordan, Day 2 (part 2)

Monday, November 17 (cont)

Abdullah and I head down the road, past horse carts, under grey skies and the menace of rain.  I tell him I’ve requested no rain.  “Inch Allah,” he replies.  I tell him I’ve been very good and perhaps will merit His mercy, which makes him smile... luckily.  Must keep a close rein on my flippant, liberal comments.  But he’s young and I’m old enough to be his mother.

       Petra starts off slow, with a few troglodyte caves and then the “djinn cubes”, really huge stone blocks several stories high with no doors.  Later generations thought only djinns - spirits - could get inside them.  But people were buried from above, their bodies lowered into a cavity.  It makes me think of the Zoroastrian Towers of Silence, but I see no vultures or even eagles in the Jordanian skies during my entire stay.

       Then it’s the Siq (the shaft), a long, narrow, winding gorge Abdullah says was created by an earthquake and then carved out more by water and wind erosion.  All different colors of stone, with only touches of green - fig trees hanging from crevices, caper bushes and castor oil plants.  The Siq twists and turns for 1.2 kilometers (3/4 of a mile), sometimes so narrow that two horsecarts can’t cross.  At the sound of hoofbeats on the sand or on some of the Roman paving stones not torn up to build other structures over the centuries, one cart has to stop and wait for the other to pass.  The sky is something far away, high above, sometimes the equivalent of 70 stories up, the undulating walls smoothed over the millennia to perfection.

Khazneh

       Suddenly this gorge empties us into the square of the Khazneh, one of the highlights of this immense ancient Nabataean city which once had a population of up to 37,000.  Here again, later generations ignored what it had once been and, thinking such an amazing building must hide a treasure, they tore it apart, even breaking into its characteristic urn high up on the facade.  But it’s just another mausoleum.  A glorious one of arresting beauty.
       Picking our way among the camels and donkeys all saddled to promenade tourists (who have not come this season), it’s a slow, admiring walk past tomb after tomb, each decorated differently but displaying some common elements, such as the Nabataean step design on top of the facades.  Every statue decorating these tombs has been defaced by what Abdullah calls the Iconoclasts. The name comes up again and again, lending credence to my worry that someday some religious faction could come and destroy all these wonders, as the Taliban did when it blew up the 5th century Buddha statues of Bamiyan.  And then I would have missed the beauty, forever.  So I have come now, Daesh/ISIL be damned.*
       We finally arrive at the amphitheater, originally built much smaller but expanded by the conquering Romans to seat 8,000!  We’ll get a better view tomorrow, from above, promises Abdulllah.  For now it’s back to the hotel, via a bumpy horsecart ride which I do not recommend for those with bad backs.

Amphitheater

After dinner, buffet-style (and not alone), it’s “Petra by Night”.  A long slog down the Siq and back, all lit by paper lanterns set on the ground on either side.  A nice, simple light-and-sound show in between, with mint tea served as we sit on Bedouin rugs.  First, by candlelight, a musician, hidden by the dark, plays a shepherd’s flute.  Then a string instrument accompanied by a long song in Arabic.  And finally muted red and white lighting alternately illuminates the Khazneh’s facade, to the overpowering strains of O Fortuna from Carmina Burana, music befitting the grandiose and ultimately doomed city of Petra, once so mighty and now deserted, except for tourists.  Ozymandias.  Quite magical.
       Standing in line, I’d met Bruce and Lisa from Arlington, and their guide.  That makes for interesting conversation during the long walk down and back up the canyon.  This is part of their Bucket List too, the comment overheard that started our discussion.  They’ll be touring Petra tomorrow so maybe we’ll meet again.  But for now, it’s a shower and bed.

Petra at dusk

*On the date of my posting this (Feb. 27, 2015), a video has just been released by Daesh, showing their henchmen taking sledgehammers to the ancient artifacts in the Mosul Museum.  Destroying millennia of irreplaceable masterpieces that taught us so much about ancient cultures.  It made me cry.  It also showed me how right I was to visit Petra before such things happen here, again.  Not that Jordan is a target... yet.  But if it ever is, Daesh will just finish what the Iconoclasts started centuries ago, but with power tools.  I hope and pray that never happens.

Jordan, Day 2 (part 1)

St. George's Greek Orthodox Church, and Fakhrey

Breakfast is not a strong point of the Mosaic Hotel, but I ate enough mixed grill last night to hold me for a while.
 

Mosaic map of Jerusalem, 6th c.

       Fakhrey is right on time and we head off at 8:30 for Petra.  But first a quick look at St. George’s Greek Orthodox Church (fee:  1 JD, “for services”, which may mean candles... or upkeep).  It has ancient mosaics all over inside, including, on the floor, a 6th century map of the region, and especially of Byzantine Jerusalem, the earliest mosaic of it that has survived.  There are many mosaic icons on the walls, but I think it’s the crown of candles that wins my heart.

The desert road is boring but fast - only three hours instead of five.  We stop halfway at the MidWay Castle, mostly as a break for Fakhrey and a rest stop for both of us.  Inside is a souk of gigantic proportions - I’m presuming they never take inventory - plus a restaurant.  The toilet stalls come equipped with showerheads which must be a blessing on hot, dusty summer days There are no towels but a man outside the doors offers me three kleenex so I can wipe my hands... and give him a tip.  This place provides employment for dozens. Unfortunately for those dozens, we were almost the only visitors there, either because of the hour or more probably because of the regional unrest among Jordan’s neighbors.  As the woman at the Jordan Tourist Board in Paris put it:  “Some of our neighbors are rather raucous.”  ISIL (or Daesh as it’s called here) has created problems for the entire region.*
       On the road again we pass Bedouins with tents, Bedouins with sheep, Bedouins with camels.  I see several UNHCR-emblazoned tents along the way, perhaps provided to Syrian or Iraqi refugees who opted to distance themselves from the border (see above).  And of course there are many, many semis on their way to the port of Aqaba, either to pick up or deliver goods for import/export.  Plus numerous police cars parked, just waiting for speeders on this long, straight stretch of asphalt.
       Finally we pull off the desert highway and onto a road that winds back and forth, up and down.  The landscape grows greener and the air cooler.  We’re in the hills now and suddenly we enter a town named... Showbak!  Fakrey is amused when I tell him that’s my name (at least phonetically and with his accent.  “These are my people!” I tell him, spreading my arms in an all- embracing gesture... and we both laugh.  Showbak turns out to be a lot tidier than Madaba.
       A few minutes down the road, Fakhrey points... and there’s Petra.  He drops me at the Petra Moon Hotel and says good-bye for 44 hours.  He’ll be back for the return trip.  He’s adopted me.  Maybe because of Showbak.

Petra in the distance

I drop my things in the room and don’t even bother to eat.  Petra, the archeological wonder I’ve read about ever since I was a child, Petra, a place I’ve dreamed about visiting for decades, Petra is right there - across the street. I take the cookie and water Fakhrey brought for me for the road trip... and I’m off.
       Once I’ve bought my ticket, a man walks me over to the guides.  “What language you want?” he asks.  “English or French,” I answer.  And what an excellent answer that was.  For an English-speaking guide, I’d have to wait a bit, but this man’s brother Abdullah lived in France.  (Turns out later Abdullah admits he only spent two weeks there and picked up his excellent French right here at home.)  Abdullah it is then.  His Bedouin family is from Petra, lived in the cave houses until 1980.  He tells me stories his grandfather told him about the days of Ottoman rule, how they had to pay tribute in money or in goods or services, the hardship that was.  He also tells me about the history and architecture of all the buildings, and it’s exactly what’s in the books; nothing made up, just to please.  Abdullah really knows his stuff.

*Note:  This was written in mid-November, well before the Jordanian pilot was shot down and executed, and before the Jordanian Air Force flew reprisal raids.  Things can only have gotten worse since then.


(Take a look at this dizzy-inducing video to get a feeling for the MidWay Palace, although there was no music playing when we were there, almost no lights on, practically no one except us... and I didn’t see the bobble-head camel, which I regret!  I do remember being told, “Buy two, get one free”, but I didn’t.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o--BOiTzak0)

Jordan - Day 1

Sunday, Nov. 16

And so it begins.  The adventure.  My first trip to the Asian continent, to an Arab country, to a place that doesn’t write in characters that I can read even if I don’t know the language.  And only two words of Arabic.  One is walou, which means “nothing”, at least in North African Arabic, but is more like the “whatever” that my daughter used to hand me, complete with an eye roll; I don’t think I’ll be using that very much.  The second I’ll use a lot: shukran (thank you).
       The taxi is on time - a huge van, just for me and my one carry-on.  No handbag this time; just a coin purse around my neck, barely large enough for my passport, a few credit cards and
some money.  No computer, no phone; just a camera.  For those National Geographic moments, of which there will be many.  Because...
       I’m going to Petra!

The Royal Jordanian flight to Amman (half the cost of Air France) takes four hours and 20 minutes.  My daughter would approve of the safety instructions projected because they’re in cartoon form, albeit not nearly as much fun as those on the LAN flights we took in South America.  There is also an ad using stick figures for reporting child abuse, which is interesting; I’ve never seen that on any other airline.
       I set the screen to the “map” function so I can follow our progress.
       This is obviously not an American flight.  Peanuts are served with the drinks - the fear of anaphylactic shock has obviously not overtaken Jordan yet.  The next surprise is the meal choice:  no pasta, but rather a choice of chicken, “white fish” or... beef!  To be eaten with silverware!  (Well, maybe not silver, but metalware, not plasticware.)  And after-dinner tea comes with an optional lemon slice. How civilized.
       We take off and head east - the opposite direction than I’m used to.  The sky remains cloudy all the way, except over the Mediterranean, which shines golden to starboard.  According to the digital map, we fly over Trieste, Sarajevo - now peaceful - Greece and then in over Israel.  The clouds warm to an iridescent rose as the sun sets and we arrive in Amman in the dark.

     The brand-new airport - open only a year and a half now - is spacious, clean and all marble.  Queen Alia, for whom it’s named, would be proud, had she not died in a helicopter crash years ago.
       At the airport, I change euros to Jordanian dinars - which the young clerk calls piastres.  (I thought that was an archaic currency but the word is on one of the coins; it turns out to be our equivalent of “cents”.)  With my new money, I buy my visa (40 Jordanian dinars), then have my photo taken and my passport stamped... and that’s it.  I’m officially in Jordan.
       With only carry-on, baggage claim is one less hurdle to clear, and Fakhrey is waiting for me with a sign as I exit, as the hotel promised.  He will become my driver for my entire stay, but I don’t know that yet.
       Traffic is sparse on the backroad into Madaba, but a bit lawless.  Fakhrey uses the shoulder to pass a truck, I think is probably not allowed, but I say nothing.  What do I know about Jordanian driving etiquette?  Then he points at a truck driving along merrily on the wrong side of the divided highway.  Lucky there are no on-coming cars!
       In spite of all that, Fakhrey brings me safely to the Mosaic Hotel (which has no mosaics, but the town’s churches do).  Here I dine alone in the cavernous dining room, and I do mean alone.  I’m the only one there.  They either eat later than 7:00 or maybe there’s no service this Sunday, because that shy girl behind the desk (whom the reservations people have left all alone) says the chef isn’t there but I can have a mixed grill.  It comes with pita bread, a roasted whole tomato and onion... and enough meat for a family of four (chicken, lamb and kefta).  They’ve gone to some trouble to make me this, so I finish it off, every last bite, and waddle up to my room.  (An hour later I go back down and the restaurant is dark again. So yes, they opened up the kitchen and cooked some food just for me.)
       I make an early night of it because Fakhrey will come for me at 8:30 tomorrow morning and drive me to Petra.  Provided we meet no trucks on-coming.

Madaba skyline (left to right):  belfry of Greek Orthodox Basilica of St. George,
minarets of Muslim King Hussein Mosque
& steeple of Roman Catholic Church of St. John the Baptist

Days 13 & 14 - The long way home

A wind-blown landscape worthy of the most remote inhabited island in the world - Easter Island aka Rapa Nui

Day 13 - Rapa Nui / Santiago / Miami

Hotel Manavai courtyard

In the night I woke and couldn’t get back to sleep so I packed.  I’ll be glad to be back among my own closets and cupboards and Stuff, but I’m sad to leave all this behind.  Especially my new friends Kim and Hugo.
       In addition to the Michigan Theater hoodie that I gave Kim for her son, I’m leaving behind my two pairs of Levi’s, which are now too big for me, thanks to all this exercise - and I hope that will be a condition that lasts.  I’m also leaving behind my Nikes - I have another pair at home - and the two pair of socks that went with them.  Unfortunately there was no way to wash them in time, but Kim tells me people won’t mind and that they’ll make someone very happy.  Which is only fair. They all made me happy here.
       I sit at my table on the terrace after breakfast and finish my book.  I trade it for one I found in the TV room, a TV I didn’t watch because reception here is so bad. Of course, you’re 6 hours off the coast of Chile with no relay points in between except for satellites which may not circle often this far south (27°S).  A chance to say good-bye to Kim, and we’re both choked up and in tears.  Hugo is on a half-day tour, so I ask her to say good-bye to him for me.

       The van comes and we guests are given a moai necklace that will travel the world with me as of this point - France, Jordan, Cuba...  We're dropped off at Mataveri Airport the requisite 2½ hours early, which is ridiculous for an airport so tiny.  To register, I have to put my suitcase through the x-ray machine and I’m pulled to one side.  It’s the Andean sea salt, which I had totally forgotten.  Boy, customs in the States is going to have a field day with that!  The officer takes a look at it, squishes it around and puts it back, satisfied it’s not cocaine.  I palaver with the desk clerk - my suitcase is pretty empty but weighs 12 kilos instead of the requisite 8.  I explain about the tight turn-around time in Santiago and the mishap on the flight in. She may have suffered the same problem because she lets me keep it as carry-on.
       The flight from Chile will arrive at 1, refuel and turn around to leave at 2.  I’m going to be cooped up in a tin can for many, many hours in the immediate future so I decide to go read outside the airport, in the shade and cooled by a South Pacific breeze.

       Which is a good thing because suddenly Hugo appears.  He’s there to greet newcomers to the hotel - something I missed out on, thanks to being a supposed “no-show” - and he came early so he could say good-bye in person.  I’m very touched.
       After that, it’s just the flight back over the waters, and a change of plane for an even longer flight.  It’s been a long day and it’s going to be an even longer night.

Day 14 - Miami / Charlotte / Detroit

Upon arrival in Miami, I have to go through customs.  No problem with the Andean salt here.  That happens when I try to check in for my “final flight” to Detroit.  The woman officer pulls me to one side and I tell her where the offending package is and what it is and she totally believes me with one look at it.  She’s either very experienced or very naive.  Maybe I missed my calling as a drug mule.
       There’s an undocumented change of planes on what was supposed to be the last leg of my homeward trip. This plane is headed to Charlotte, not Detroit.  First I’m told we’ll stay on the plane.  Then that I have to change planes but that the gate is nearby.  Finally it ends up being at the totally opposite end of the airport, and the cart they said would be waiting doesn’t appear because there aren’t enough of them.
       My final “final” plane arrives in Detroit at 4 p.m.  It’s a domestic flight, so no customs this time.  I head straight for the taxi stand and the driver delivers me to my door.  First thing is to order some Chinese from the restaurant just down the street, pick it up and eat it.  Then a quick shower to wash off my day’s travels and then to bed.  The return has required four planes and 30 hours in all.  I don’t remember my head hitting the pillow.
       I will end up sleeping 14 straight hours. 

Day 12 - Rapa Nui

A hare paenga, a typical original home... with a yellow dog who may just be mine

My last full day on the island.  No tours today.  So no wake-up call.  After the past three days, it seems restful.
       But something magic has happened overnight.  Having heard tales about how beautiful and bright the Milky Way is here, I once again try to see it, as I did in Ollantaytambo.  But the moon is too bright and there are too many trees blocking the horizon, which is crazy for a place I had been told didn’t have a single tree left.  I could walk down to the ocean, but I’m naked under my robe and don’t feel like getting all dressed... or heading out alone.  Which I think I am.  But suddenly I see a shadow moving out of the corner of my eye and swing around.  It’s a yellow dog, appeared out of nowhere.  He doesn’t belong to the hotel.  Tail wagging, he decides to adopt me and when I head back to my room, he rushes inside.  I manage to get him out, but he curls up in front of my door and guards it through the rest of the dark night.  When I wake up, he’s gone.  But it wasn’t a dream.  I choose to believe he was my Spirit Dog sent to watch over me.

       I take up my station on the terrace.  Over breakfast, a German woman also visiting the island on her own tells me about her pre-dawn ride to the eastern end of the island to see the sun rise.  I would have loved to go - if the dog would have let me - but there was no more room in the car.  She promises to send me photos.  (And ends up coming to visit me in Paris a few months later.)  After she heads off, I pull out my book, to finish it so I can leave it for Kim.  After the fiasco in Santiago on the way out, I intend to travel light on the way home so I can keep my suitcase with me as carry-on.

Hugo and his ancestor

       Then Hugo appears.  No tours this morning, I guess.  He’s been answering questions from the Canadian philosophy professor, whose interest is also in the history of the island and what nearly destroyed it.  The questions and answers are interesting and make it hard to concentrate on my book, so I ask if I can join them “if I promise to shut up”. (Because Hugo always welcomed questions during the tours and I had a lot, but this morning is the Professor’s gig.)  Hugo laughs and the professor says “sure”, maybe because I went along to the hospital yesterday and then checked in on him later.  It’s a very pleasant way to spend some down-time and I learn a lot. I’m surprised when we stop and I see it’s already 1 p.m.

Graffiti with rooster, in Hanga Roa

       At which time Hugo leaves, the professor and his team head out on a film shoot at the other end of the island in spite of yesterday’s gash on his head, and food becomes an issue.  
Kim suggests going next door to the restaurant and decides to walk me over there and introduce me to her friend, the owner. Which she does.  I order “to go”, which Kim has already announced, but somehow the message doesn’t get through and after a while, cutlery is set out on the terrace table where he told me to wait.  O.K.  I can go with that.  Maybe he just found my curiosity appealing, as I’ve been chatting with his boyfriend.  The two people at other table leave and the friend’s attention turns to me, by default. He compliments me on wearing a skirt.  Says women don’t wear skirts any more.  Little does he know that it’s the only thing in my suitcase that I haven’t worn yet on the trip and that’s why I’ve got it on.  I leave him to his illusions.  Then he finds out I just had a birthday... and he orders drinks for both of us. (Maybe merely an excuse to have another one himself, but who cares?)  The drink is followed by a huge kiss on both cheeks.  I return to the hotel with a full stomach and a lot merrier.

The cemetery, lit by a golden sunset

       That evening I decide to walk out to the edge of town, in spite of my night semi-blindness.  Kim told me it was a great place to watch the sun set, setting both on Easter Island / Rapa Nui and on my adventuresome trip.  This is where Hugo dropped everyone off while we went to the hospital, so I want to see what I missed.  No problem walking out, but so many interesting things to photograph on the way - including the cemetery - that I almost miss sunset and have to scurry the rest of the way.  Of course the clouds decide to amass on the horizon in spite of an otherwise cloudless sky.  I’m not the only person here, which is good because after the photo shoot I pick a couple and follow them through the darkness.  There are way too many rocks to stumble over here, and they’re all sharp black basalt.  I saw yesterday what that can do.  Walking at night in the pitch black (no streetlights, no moon) down streets one doesn’t know, just headed in the right general direction... well, that’s enough adventure for me.  Lunch was late and copious.  I’m tired. Headed for bed.