Caminobleu

Birthday Reflections: May 29, 2020

It’ s my birthday morning. Seventy-six years, twenty years into the 21^st Century, and more than two months into the coronavirus lockdown. Grandson Zia just turned three, and when he is my age, it will be 2093. I won’t be here for sure, and most likely his parents won’t be either.

I haven’t been able to write during this pandemic. The days and weeks seem to slip one past another with no clear boundaries. Every two weeks we have irrigation water. The cleaning ladies come on the weeks we don’t water, and the trash must go out every Wednesday evening. St. Michael and All Angels has morning prayer via Facebook or Zoom at eight on Monday through Friday, and Sunday service each week at nine. We have not met in person since early March.

A large multicolored cat just walked along the top of the wall under the grape arbor and crept down into the Catmint around the fountain. What is it doing here? Lured perhaps by the birds, the lizards and the water? It has vanished as stealthily and silently as it came. I’ve not seen this cat before, or at least not for a very long time. How often does it visit us without our knowledge?

Ten years ago today I celebrated my birthday by inviting friends; some for breakfast and others for dinner, as they couldn’t all come at the same time. I cooked early in the morning and again in the afternoon with some quiet time in between. It was one of my favorite birthdays. It was good to create my own celebration and do things for my friends rather than have them do something for me, as I knew no one else would plan anything. I had returned from the first half of my first Camino from Le-Puy-en-Velay, France to Pamplona, Spain just a week before.

Birthday dinner 2010 with friends and my son Jesse in the patio.

It had been three years since Ed’s 81^st and our last birthdays and wedding anniversary together. He put a bit of birthday cake to his lips and tasted a sip of champagne, but he was no longer eating. Four days later he was gone. This is a poignant time of year for me.

Better, perhaps, to remember our joyous wedding thirty years before that, with its wedding cake plus two birthday cakes, and friends and families gathered around in State College, Pennsylvania.

Giddy with happiness we set out in Ed’s venerable Volvo wagon, the wedding bouquet of peonies from our friends’ garden wedged between the seats. We were off to Shenandoah National Park where we camped and walked among the Mountain Laurel and Rhododendrons.

May 29, 1977: a wedding cake and two birthday cakes.

For thirty years we celebrated our birthdays and our wedding

anniversary together on this same day. We had no regrets.

So, here I sit this morning at the old oak table we bought together, where we shared so many meals with family and friends. It was at this table that Jesse, Psyche and I wrote farewell notes to Ed, to be slipped in with him along with red roses from the garden when we accompanied his body to the crematorium.

I woke early this morning, seeing the pink light of dawn through the unshaded bedroom window. I cuddled with the sleeping Kent. My mind was full of thoughts of the significance of this day, and I could not go back to sleep. When rose-gold light hit the upper branches of the towering cottonwood that had been little more than a sapling when we moved here twenty-nine years ago, I got up and wandered out into the garden, thinking how fortunate I am to occupy this beautiful piece of earth. A few finches flew from tree to tree and hummingbirds flitted from shrubs to the feeders. The fountain was silent. A passenger jet crossed the southern sky, heading west. We haven’t seen too many of them these days.

There is a faint hum of traffic from the freeway, and now another plane flies over. The world is waking up, and the coronavirus pandemic is becoming the new normal.

I am up early enough to catch the morning prayers at St Michael’s. I’d never gone when I would have had to dress and drive to attend. It is quite lovely to be able to do this from home.

Our hair is growing long. It has been six months since I had my last haircut just before baby Rumi was born in November. We are not unhappy with this quiet life. We are editing Kent’s memoirs of his years living on sail boats. I am working on photos and trying to organize my computer files. I still have so many projects to do, I need at least another year or two of self-quarantine to make significant progress.

Yet, I long to travel again. Will I ever walk another Camino? Will my body keep going? Will my mind? I already find myself unable to remember things it seemed I could once recall with ease, and I forget things I thought I’d never forget.

I go outside to look for the cat. Did it climb another wall, go through the heart-cut-out in the bottom of the gate, or run around the house to the front? I’ll never know.

The fruit trees have finished blooming, most of the fruit killed by a sudden frost. There will be only a few sweet cherries this year, and no plums, peaches, or apricots. There may be a very few apples. But the pomegranate is blooming now, and the roses. Life is good. Happy birthday to me.

Note: the news of the tragic murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis policemen on Monday, May 25, had not yet reached me as I wrote this. Since then, everything has changed again, and I would not be able to write now what I wrote then. The sadness I felt on May 29, seems self-indulgent in light of what has happened in the past week. More later.

Trip to Sweden 1939

28 April 2020

While cleaning up computer files during this time of sheltering in place, I stumbled upon a Powerpoint I had made 13 years ago, and completely forgotten. The subject was my mother’s trip to Sweden in 1939, on the eve of World War II. The PowerPoint was based on her diary and photos from her old photo album, black pages with photos fastened in with corners.

At one point she writes to her father, “39 of the 40 pictures turned out,” calling to mind how very different photography was then then now. She visited Helsinki (Helsingfors) where the 1940 Olympic Games were to be held. Those games were cancelled because of the war, not to be held in that Olympic stadium until 1952. Her diary and photos depict a vanished world that was about to be turned upside down.

Her passport has a notice that travel to Spain was not allowed. Spain was in the midst of its brutal civil war. She traveled in a suit, as did her father. Women wore hats. She would never return to Sweden, although I made trips there and visited some of these same relatives in 1979 and 1991. The powerpoint contained pictures of my visit in 1991 with my husband Ed and our two children, who were eight and twelve years old at the time.

I visited again in 2008. Those pictures and the original scans from the 1939 photo album are posted on Flickr.

1939

2008

I converted the PowerPoint to iMovie, and added music. Enjoy!

Life, Death, Taxes, Birthdays and Iguanas: April 15-20, 2020

April 15, 9:30 am

The birthday cake is in the oven. I have twenty minutes to write.

Today is grandson Zia’s third birthday. We will be celebrating soon via Zoom, with his family at home and his aunties in Dubai and Bangladesh. This is not how we thought our lives would be today.

Three years ago, I was participating in a Good Friday pilgrimage in downtown Albuquerque, stopping at stations of the cross that represented the suffering of Jesus in our modern world: among them a women’s shelter, the county jail, and the courthouse where volunteers accompanied asylum-seekers to their hearings. I was anxiously awaiting the birth of my first grandchild, who should have arrived the previous week. During the readings at the women’s shelter my phone issued a silent flash. I took a quick peek. The long-awaited baby was on the way! Suddenly this solemn Good Friday was filled with joy and anticipation. Life and death on the same day.

I thought of Zia’s Grandpa Ed, whom he has never known, and how he would have been thrilled with this tax-day dividend, a gift from his youngest daughter. And I thought of the second Grampy Kent at home, not yet aware of the news. He would share grandparenting with me (the only biological grandparent).

Today I received an email from dear friend Jenny. She lives in Australia, which has suffered the double whammy of devastating fires and now coronavirus. She wrote that today is her mother’s 90^th birthday. She, her husband and her Mum celebrated at home with cake and several festive meals, shared with family and friends via Zoom. Jenny and Jim were family to us during our year in Melbourne thirty years ago. Her Mum and Dad invited us to share the Christmas festivities with their extended family at their lovely cottage near the beach. None of us could have predicted we would be celebrating the birthdays of a 90-year-old and a three-year-old via Zoom on this day in 2020. In 1988 we had a computer, on which we typed letters, printed them, and then mailed from the post office.

I have been thinking of Noah and the Ark. Like Noah, we do not know when our quarantine will end, nor do we know what the world will be like when we return to it. Just as when we experience the death of a loved one, we wait for life to return to normal, eventually realizing that there will be no return to normal. Life has forever changed; and we must painstakingly create a new normal.

For Noah and his family, the isolation on the ark was a chance for a fresh start. The sinful world of quarreling people had been washed away, drowned in the flood. I suspect, sadly, that Noah’s new normal very quickly became the same-old-same-old, with all the faults and flaws of human nature all too soon returning. How glad they must have been to exit the ark after forty days and forty nights, despite the challenges that lay ahead.

[Buzzer went off: cake done. Here is a very short video of the birthday celebration.]

April 18, morning

I look at the April calendar, marked with events we won’t be doing in places we won’t be going. My heart is heavy this morning. I can’t believe that I mis-wrote Amazon (the river, not the gigantic online company that has become part of our everyday life) as Amazoon when I sent a link to my photos from the Amazon. What kind of Freudian slip was this? Amazoon – a zoo? Are we all creatures in a zoo or museum as Brenda Shaughnessy imagines in “Gift Planet,” featured this morning on Knopf’s April “Poem a Day” imagines. We live in a world shaped by humans, for better and for worse. We are married to our planet Earth, and there is no divorce but death. Or, perhaps it was Amazoom slipping into my fingers as I typed, reflecting our new life with Zoom – a virtual reality—is that an oxymoron?

Meanwhile our president, our leader, sows rebellion and dissent. Divide and conquer is one of the oldest tricks in the book. Wild dogs are on the loose, and we poor sheep shelter in place, trembling, under the care of an unreliable shepherd. Have you ever seen an angry sheep – perhaps a ram?

April 15 has come and gone. For the first time ever, I have not submitted my tax return. I am sure the government needs the extra money (which we always owe) and will use it wisely when it is finally received.

April 20, 2020, afternoon

Today is the five-month birthday of the second grandson. It has been three months since I last held baby Rumi (named for the poet and mystic). Even though I was present at your birth, we do not know each other the way I knew Zia, whom I visited for several days each month during his first year. I long to hold this sweet baby body. Smiling and waving and sending baby-talk through Facetime is not the same.

Five days have passed since I began writing these reflections. Every day is like another. The sky is bluer than I’ve ever seen it. I’m editing pictures from the Galápagos, now, and I find the inscrutable faces of the iguanas particularly fascinating. They eye me with a sideways stare, their mouths are shaped like enigmatic smiles. They are living descendants of the dinosaurs – of powerful, terrifying dragons and serpents – who in European tradition represent monstrous enemies to be tamed or slain, but who, especially in Chinese tradition, also represent wisdom. What might you say to us, iguanas, in this time of coronavirus? I am fascinated by your seemingly irreconcilable combination of beauty, ugliness, and mystery. What can we learn from you?

Smiling iguana: What can we learn from you?

Catching up in the Time of Coronavirus: April 16

Long walks in nearby open space provide exercise and respite.

It is now a full month that we have been sheltering in place, separated from the hugs of friends and family. We have been ordering groceries online, cooking at home, taking walks, attending meetings and church services via Zoom and streaming, and worrying about what the future holds. It has also been a time to catch up.

I’ve been organizing computer files and photos. I finally have edited and organized several albums from our January and February 2019 adventures traveling around Colombia by bus. I had earlier edited pictures from the first week of that trip, fom Bogotá to Bucaramanga, but now I’ve continued with Mompox (inspiration for Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Year of Solitude)

2019-01-18-27 Colombia Mompox-Cartagena_2

https://www.flickr.com/photos/manga_mom/albums/72157713879027781

Cartagena https://www.flickr.com/photos/manga_mom/albums/72157713879100956

2019-01-18-27 Colombia Mompox-Cartagena_105

Medellin

and many more, concluding with a lovely Valentine’s Day back in Bogotá

We celebrated our three-year-old grandson’s birthday yesterday, via an international Zoom party:

https://onedrive.live.com/embed?cid=DCDA5E0763AD7BD4&resid=DCDA5E0763AD7BD4%21700&authkey=AOc7J7cy1VIBkyQ

Zia’s Third Birthday

Coninuing our stay-at-home traveling, we have been editing Kent and Pam’s accounts of their years living on board sailboats, with a working title We Ran Away to Sea.

Escaping Underwater While Sheltering in Place

April 2, 2020

It has been over two weeks now since we returned from what will probably be our last trip for a very long time. While we have been sheltering in place, my feelings have alternated between gratitude for my safe, comfortable life at home with time to work on projects and freedom from many responsibilities, and deep sadness over the suffering the COVID-19 is causing everywhere. To escape, I returned to the glorious underwater world of the Galapagos, editing the beautiful footage shot by our guide, Paola Sangolqui and putting it to muic. I invite you to escape with Paola and the turtles, rays, sharks and many other wonderful creatures of the sea in the pristine water of the Galapagos Islands.

Under the Sea in the Galapagos Islands

Grief, Pilgrimage, and Saint Patrick’s Day

17 March 2020

Grief: For the world transformed by the coronavirus pandemic, grief for the world we didn’t think we’d lose so suddenly, and perhaps irretrievably. I grieve for the loss of my freedom to travel, to visit friends and family, to live as I please. I grieve for the people of the world who are much more impacted than I have been so far: for those who are ill, those who have lost their incomes, and their loved ones. For Those who cannot, as our president admonishes us, “enjoy your living room.”

Yet, as I walked the ditch banks this afternoon, I thought of my life as a pilgrim, and how the pilgrim learns to accept whatever happens – learns that there are things that can be controlled and those that cannot. The hardy group of American Pilgrims on the Camino who gathered last weekend on the shores of spectacular Lake Tahoe, adapted to ever-changing circumstances as news of the pandemic and subsequent regulations assailed us. Travel to Europe was suspended, the Spanish Camino de Santiago closed and all pilgrims ordered to return to their homes, while a series of ever-bigger snowstorms caused many, including me, to depart from Lake Tahoe before the end of the Gathering, when a break in the snowfall presented an opportunity to cross the mountain passes.

So, here I sit, home now for twenty-four hours, thinking of all this as I listen to a recording of the great John McCormack singing Irish songs I’ve known and loved since my youth. They are melancholy, as the lovers are parted by distance and death. I’ve put on my shamrock necklace, even though I am not Irish, despite a hint of Celtic in my DNA. But I have children who are one quarter Irish, and my first husband Ed had an Irish twinkle in his eye and a lilt in his voice that perhaps came from his mother, Ellen Mildred Courtney.

My intention for this Saint Patrick’s Day was to celebrate with my daughter Psyche, her husband Saad, and my two adorable grandchildren, ages almost three and almost four months. But, alas, San Franciscans are “sheltering in place,” and to visit seemed foolhardy, if not impossible. I long to be with them, because despite my lack of Irish heritage, the days surrounding Saint Patrick’s Day are important ones that are associated with momentous turning points in my life.

In 1973, in Tucson, Arizona, I celebrated completing my comprehensive exams for a master’s degree in English literature by throwing a party for which my mother made Cornish pasties and I baked a cake which I decorated with a picture of Saint Patrick driving the snakes from Ireland. A reference librarian searched at length for details or an image of this legend, which we never found. I begged her to stop looking; and was embarrassed to tell her it was only to decorate a cake – not for some serious research project. Only after I became a reference librarian myself did I understand how librarians love the thrill and challenge of such searches and don’t want to to quit even when their patrons say, “Enough.”

Just four years later, on March 16, 1997, I first laid eyes on Ed Philips during my very first meeting of a Unitarian singles group in State College, Pennsylvania. We had a brief conversation, but there was something about him that caused me to write in my diary that very evening, “If God wants me to marry Ed Philips, so be it.” We were married on May 29 that same year, which was both of our birthdays, eighteen year apart.

In my kitchen hangs a beautifully framed group of photos. An inscriptions reads: Paquimé, near Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, Mexico, visited by Linnea Hendrickson, Helen Williamson, Jeanne Howard, and Ross Burkhardt, March 17, 1999.

The day before we departed on this trip, we found a puddle of oil under my car in Jeanne’s driveway. Helen and I stayed an extra night in Las Cruces, so the car could be repaired. We had had a celebratory traditional Saint Patrick’s Day dinner with Jeanne and Ross and assorted family the previous day, topped off with Irish coffee. Now, as Helen and I drove alone across the remote, windswept roads of northern Chihuahua, we sang lustily along with John McCormack, a poignant memory, now that Jeanne (friend, adventurer, and trip and party organizer like me) is gone, and Helen (the first person I called upon Ed’s death) speaks to me no more.

Almost three years after Ed’s passing in June 2007, it was time to fulfill the vow I’d made while he was dying, to walk the Camino de Santiago de Compostela. I was planning to walk in September, starting somewhere in Spain, depending how far I thought I could walk in three or four weeks. But in February 2010, I began reading Conrad Rudolph’s Pilgrimage to the End of the World, which filled me with a burning desire to walk from Le-Puy-en-Velay, in France, a distance more than twice as far as I’d intended to walk.

At a Christmas Eve party in 2009 – another event organized by Jeanne – I had met Kent, the “typewriter man.” In February, he had driven all the way from Las Cruces to Albuquerque, and I’d guided him to the junk stores and antique shops to look for typewriters. We had continued to correspond via email. Then in March, I decided it was time I hosted, as I often had with Ed, a Saint Patrick’s Day dinner, with corned beef, cabbage, Irish songs I had printed so everyone could sing, and even a Saint Patrick’s Day trivia quiz. As I assembled my guest list the ratio of men and women was unbalanced. Why not invite Kent? He could always say no. I sweetened the invitation by suggesting he spend the night and we go hiking the following day. I was still pondering whether I could possibly fit in a walk starting in France in April and May, before I had to be home for events in June and July.

Kent came, and that evening everyone had to leave the dinner party early, leaving the two of us alone by eight p.m. What to do with an evening stretching before us? We visited, then went to bed in our separate rooms, to be ready to arise early to hike. We took two cars, leaving one at the Embudo trailhead and another at Three-Gun-Spring. It was a fairly strenuous hike up over the pass that connected the two trails. I was testing myself, my new boots, pack, and hiking poles. Could I really take off to walk in France? That hike decided it – three weeks later I was walking alone in France, and writing to Kent (on computers with French keyboards that had z’s where the a’s should be).

That afternoon after our walk, we sat in my backyard eating leftover plum cobbler before he headed back to Las Cruces. He looked around the large yard and said, “I really l like your place.” It was so comfortable and companionable having him there, my heart gave a little leap, and I felt, “I think he belongs here.”

It would be another year before he came to stay, but that Saint Patrick’s Day was a turning point, and the beginning of a new beginning.

So now, after our ditch walk, and be-decked with shamrock necklaces, we are about to sit down, not to corned beef and cabbage and cobbler, alas, and without the company of friends, but to bacon-lettuce-and-tomato sandwiches, still happy to have each other in this broken world.

Galapagos Snorkeling: February 2020

How I love snorkeling! The snorkeling, sometimes twice a day, has been quite marvelous along rocky ledges and over sandy bottoms. Sturdy ladders on the dinghies have made it fairly easy to climb out of the water.

The water is warm, and sometimes crystal clear. Today was the best, and a dive I had rather feared. We would be swimming with sharks! The destination was Kicker Rock off San Cristobal, a monolith jutting straight out of the water, perhaps 200 feet high. We swam through a crack in the rock, along straight walls. thick with corals and barnacles and other growths, colorful in the sunshine. Parrot fish and others nibbled along the wall. In the center of the channel the water was deep blue, with no visible bottom. There we saw a green Pacific turtle, swimming in a relaxed manner, just like us, and then suddenly far below, we saw the distinctively shaped hammerhead sharks. They paid us no attention, which helped me stay calm.

We saw white-tipped reef sharks and turtles on the darker shady side of the rock, and several other quite large sharks as well. There were also puffer fish and beautiful eagle spotted rays, at one point two swimming in a dance together.

Once Kent and I looked down into the deep and to see perhaps three Galapagos and three Hammerheads circling below us.

Later, just before we got into the dinghy, dozens of sharks circled below us.

I don’t know why I didn’t think about an underwater camera! Paola used a go-pro in a plastic case on a wand, and got some wonderful videos.

Thursday: today we snorkeled in deep water around some rocks off Floreana. The water felt cold. I swam above a shark or two, and then a huge form approached on my left—it was a sea lion! . In shallower and warmer water I was delighted to see many brilliant blue starfish on the bottom as well as some unusual large mounded gray-colored shapes with many sides— perhaps also starfish? (I think chocolate chip sea stars with five sides).

This is where I also saw a long thin fish, like a trumpet fish, but almost transparent—ill look it up.

Friday: Our last snorkel. There were only Kent, me and Margaret, and one of the crew members— the captain of the ship! Again, we snorkeled along a rocky shore. Paola was in the dinghy, but didn’t snorkel with us. We saw nothing new, but as we entered the water, sea lions leaped and dived beside us, almost close enough to touch—i tried, but could not quite reach one that almost swam into me.

I was the last out of the water: I didn’t want to leave.

Farewell to the underwater world.

Galapagos Islands Map: Kicker Rock off
San Cristobal on Lower Right

Into a Lava Tube: Isla Floreana, Galapagos Islands

After visiting the famous post office box, where we left a postcard addressed to ourselves, and picked up several addressed to Albuquerque residents, some of us visited a lava tube. Larry and Margaret backed out after the first two ladders down, but Linda, Ed, Kent, and I continued with Paola and Juan Carlo to the end of the tube, where we waded in darkness in cold salt water that came above our knees.

I’ll admit, I found it a bit scary. I don’t really like dark holes in the ground. But it was an interesting experience, and climbing out was easier than going down when my Teva sandals slipped on the gravel.

I was surprised and happy to see the bright light of day pouring down from the opening, sooner than I’d expected it.

We also had the opportunity to swim at the beach near the “post office,” but the water over the brown sand was murky, and as I was about to wade in I spied numerous sting-rays swimming in clusters along the water’s edge. I decided to wait for a better opportunity to swim!

We also saw Numerous turtle tracks on the beach.

Galapagos!

February 2, 2020

Written after our first day in the Galapagos.

I’m lying on the bed in our air-conditioned room, taking a few minutes to write. We have been here less than 24 hours, and already I am loving these islands.

We have just returned from a walk over lava at Sullivan’s Bay, which, as our guide Paola said, was mostly about landscape, but we also saw penguins: the first a juvénile perched alone in a rocky cove, and later many swimming near the rocks where we landed and the sandy beach from which we returned.

The lava was varied, with some organic-looking curving swirls and balls, and rope-like twisted forms.

Other bits were jagged and sharp, and cracked with sometimes deep fissures, oxidized red. Large and small red cinder cones from older eruptions loomed in the background.

We were transported between boat and shore via Zodiacs.

The water is crystal clear and turquoise blue.

I awoke before 6 this morning to see a glowing sky behind mountains. I grabbed the camera, and dashed out in my Mexican dress. In just minutes the sky had faded.

Some of us sat on the sun deck as the sun rose. A frigate bird perched on the roof, and sharks circled in the water with surgeon fish. I tried doing some yoga stretches, and realized how stiff and out of shape I am.

We will meet shortly to learn about the Galapagos finches. There are other boats anchored here. An Xploration catamaran and a much larger Silver Sea cruise ship. Kent tells me that several others have since come. We are still quite close to the main island of Santa Cruz, which our guide Paola’s home.

Yesterday

I snapped pictures of a few islands as we flew over them, including the airport and Mosquera Island — a interesting spit Of sand and black rock, where we were to walk later.

After Paola met us at the airport, we took a bus to a pier, then Zodiac to our ship Galaxy, where we were given our cabins, and served lunch.

After a bit of rest, the first expedition was a snorkel trip. I think we were all a bit nervous. I know it has been several years since Kent and I have snorkeled. We first had to find masks and fins that fit, and I had to struggle to get into my bathing suit.

But once in the water, it all comeback to me. There was a bit of swell as we swam along a rocky edge. I saw surgeon fish, parrot fish, and a Moorish Idol. And many others. Kent spied a shark, and others a spotted eagle ray. I relaxed among the beauty of the fish, but eventually., as the sunlight came at lower angles and clouds also loomed, I was ready to get out, and managed to navigate the ladder into the boat without too much difficulty after removing my fins in the water.

We were greeted in the Zodiacs with outdoor towels, and back on the ship, with hot sweet tea.

Our first challenge successfully completed!

A bit later, dressed in dry clothes, we walked on Mosquera Island, after a wet landing in surging waves that made it even later than we’d expected. I had a plastic bag over camera with big lens.

We saw many sea lions, pelicans, and black iguanas, all of which seemed quite unafraid.

The sun was dipping low as we braved rough seas again, back to the boat. I was so tired at dinner, I could hardly stay awake.

I slept long and soundly, rocked in the cradle of the sea.

Adventuring in Quito

February 1, 2020

February 1, 2020

On our free day in Quito, we decided to walk from the hotel to the Mercado Artisanal and the Basilica. With help of a map and saved images from Google maps, we made it just fine.

We had fun at the market, chatting with vendors, and buying more than we had anticipated. We were especially captivated by a flute player, and ended up meeting another fan — an Ecuadoran woman who lives in Florida.

The Basilica is a gothic-styled structure, much more recent than the more prevalent 16th-century churches in Spanish Mission style. The draw here was to climb the bell tower via a series of metal ladders high above the roof. At the half-way point I hesitated, especially as the wind picked up, but as two guys with full-sized backpacks headed up, I decided I could be brave, so I followed them up, reaching the platform at the top, panting and shaking. Best not to look down!

The views were spectacular. Getting back down the same way, including descending a ladder beneath the pitched roof and crossing a wooden catwalk that stretched over the inner vault, was almost as challenging.

Next we climbed another series of steps and tiny circular metal stairs to the top of one of the two main towers.

Once back on terrafirma, we walked steeply up, then down—a long steep street to the Old Town, where we had a light lunch in a charming old dining room upstairs in what had once been a colonial house (La Colonial). There was a party going on in an adjacent room, with very loud music. I kept hoping they would soon be done. We could see that the guests had finished eating, and were now dancing around the table. I peeked in as we were leaving, and they waved for me to join in the merriment, so I danced a couple of rounds about the table with them. Kent snapped a picture.

We are now boarding the flight to the Galapagos, via Guayaquil, and can expect to have no internet for the next 7 days, so you will be reading this perhaps a week from today. yes!