Flamenco!

Ha, flamenco! The passion, the rhythm, the sweat spray when the male lead spins whilst giving you your center-of-the-front-row flamenco lap dance. Oh yes, mom staked out the "intimate" seats, and it was truly special.

El fight del toro

We decided to witness a bullfight. As meat eaters we didn't feel a strong argument against the killing of the bull, and figured it's a cultural thing, so we bought a cheap seat and a large beer, and headed to the bull ring.

A bull fight is a strange spectacle, and we didn't enjoy it, and we met many an adult Spaniard who had never seen one, which makes us think it's a dying activity (small pun?).  To tell more about it would likely err into the beer-induced jokes we cracked at the activity's expense, at which point most would cringe and de-friend me.  It's dark humor invented whilst watching dark deeds...

The Moors and their amazing sense of style!

Southern Spain was once Moorish Spain, and the architecture in the region was largely preserved, which is good because the moors were awesome interior decorators! Their attention to detail, skill with patterns and symmetry, and fine craftsmanship set the alcazars of Granada and Seville apart from the cathedral norm.  Coming from Istanbul, the connection is easily made between the Islamic architectures. 

In Spain, the defeat of the Moors, who were mathematical and quite tolerant, by Ferdinand and Isabella, who were pretty much the opposite, lead to the unified Spain that discovered America and harboured (hehe) the world's most formidable naval fleet. Ferdinand and Isabella were abominable with their inquisition and religious dictatorship, and there is, for me, sadness in visiting such splendor that the culture behind it was so harshly treated.

The Alhambra in Granada is the most visited building in Spain, and boy do those tour guides usher you through at warp speed!  For this reason, the Seville alcazar shone, as our afternoon visit after the tour groups and in a light summer rain held an aura of enchantment that's hard to sense when surrounded by cameras snapping away.

Tapas y paseos, we must be in Espana!

The grand finale of my odyssey is a two-week stint in Spain with the fam!  We arrived on a Saturday just in time for a quick nap to rally for the late, legendary Spanish nights our guidebook promised.  Sure enough, we ventured out for dinner at 9:30 and visited 2 tapas bars over the next 3 hours.  We noted that, at midnight, the table next to us had multiple elementary-age children at it.  The paseo, spanish for walking around, seeing and being seen, was bustling and spanning a spectrum of age ranges as we strolled home on the streets until 1am, 2...whew, what time is it?!  I'm pretty convinced we tapped out before those children.

But wait, what's a tapa?! Well, in theory it's a snack you have with a drink, so if you drink enough and snack enough, your meal is entirely snacks. Tapas are often something of the pork and cheese or seafood variety on top of a slice of bread (pan), but can be fried stuff (croquettes), potato pancakes, beef with sauce, tuna and olives... I'm not convinced vegetarians or people looking to maintain their current pant size should visit Spain at all. :P

Mussels, antiquities, and tear gas: Istanbul (not Constantinople)!

The circuitous journey from SE Asia to the US begins, aptly, where Asia and Europe literally meet across the Bosphorus strait: Istanbul (not Constantinople)!  What an amazing mix of history and modern, conservative and liberal, late-night and early-riser.  Between days of sightseeing and evenings dancing, I loved Istanbul.

The Hagia Sophia in Istanbul is one of the oldest, and might be one of the coolest, buildings I've ever seen. Built as a cathedral in 537, the Hagia Sophia was later converted to a mosque via plastering over tile mosaics.  Thus, peeling a few layers of plaster reveals an entire different decor--it's like a Russian doll building!  This makes history accessible and dynamic, as the building's, and Istanbul's (was Constantinople's), timeline is laid bare in tile, plaster, and paint. 

While I was in Istanbul, protests were occurring due to a mining incident that left 100s of miners dead.  Many countries I've visited had political demonstrations, and while I usually learn about the issues, I steer clear of the activities for safety reasons. Case in point: in Phnom Penh, protesting garment-workers seeking higher wages were killed by police while I was there (and I'll likely remember this every time I see, 'Hecho in Cambodia').  However, the Istanbul protesters brought the fight straight to the tourist areas and thus, I have experienced tear gas...but I  blame the authorities for that.
   

But I've got a feeling, that tonight's gonna be a good night, because this town parties in a way that makes America feel like amateur hour!  After dancing on tightly-packed floors in rooftop bars under the moon, we'd walk home at 3am down streets full of performers, vendors, and lucid versus vomiting people.  This night culture invigorated me, so I stopped at a steamed mussel vendor, and I had to agree with the pub crawl host:  mussels from the seas surrounding Istanbul are the best.  They are steamed and savory, full of rice and the mussel--but, how does getting the rice inside work?  That's nobody's business but the Turks.

Indonesia Underwater

Southeast Asia has a reputation for good diving, and being that I once desired to be a marine biologist/dolphin trainer, I decided to take a lesson.  This 1-day lesson became 3 days, then became changing plane tickets and, later, entire itineraries to travel to dive destinations...oh boy, another expensive hobby.  It's addictive: once you know what amazing things hide below the water's surface, you thirst to see more!

I learned to dive on Gili Trawangan, where the reefs were mostly destroyed from local dynamite fishing techniques, but the turtles and nightly antics held the attention for 3 days.  Plus, I saw a cuttlefish, which might be the coolest animal in the entire ocean.  In amazing Pulau Weh, nightly ' family dinners' and singing with locals complimented amazing underwater fields of sea fans, octopi, barracuda, sharks, and so many schools of fish!  Ah, combined with the fact the I was hot for dive master and had a sea-front bungalow, this counted as the perfect dive destination!

But in the middle of these destinations, a place that caught me by surprise: Nusa Lembongan.  While not for beach lovers due to the thriving seaweed farming industry, Nusa Lembongan has a low-key vibe and the most amazing sunsets! Underwater, the main attraction is mantas, as the island has both a natural cleaning and feeding station, almost guaranteeing a manta sighting (almost=I saw one, but boy was he/she awe-inspiring).  

Being enamored with the ocean's bird since childhood, I attended a manta talk given by a local nonprofit.  I learned that mantas have distinguishing birth marks making them trackable via photo, and that photos of the same manta in Bali and the Kimodos were used as evidence, along with calculations valuing a living manta as worth $1 million to Indonesia's dive shops alone (excluding hotels, food, etc), to convince Indonesia to protect mantas along its coastline. Of course, enforcement is another matter, but in races for survival (in large part due to fishing for a cause too often associated with vulnerable species, Chinese medicine!), every step for protection seems a step in the right direction.

As for me, I (altruistically) do my part to support mantas by voting for them with my tourist dollars.  Saving the oceans one dive at a time!

Hello hairy cousin!

As soon as I began researching Indonesia, I became hooked on the idea of volunteering with or, at least, seeing wild orangutans.  Through online research, I learned that orangutans inhabit only 2 islands in the world, and that habitat loss on both the island of Sumatra (Indonesia) and Borneo (Malaysia/Indonesia), largely due to the palm oil industry, has led the Sumatran orangutan to be listed as critically endangered. 

Wondering how my consumer choices impact the orangutan, I found websites detailing products with palm oil, and I realized my favorite candy bars, tooth pastes, and shampoos topped the list.  Long story shorter, for the next 3 months as I traveled southeast Asia I searched in vain for a shampoo not containing some palm oil component--a search which included most major labels.  My fruitless search lasted until Australia, where I found a product in an organic grocery. Thus, early stages of orangutan fandom showed me the incredible uphill battle for habitat in the face of such an ubiquitous resource.

It became clear that any ' volunteering' with orangutans would likely be expensive, based on the popular model of raising funds via volunteer fees. Thus, I decided to simply go see the orangutan in the jungle, thus creating local monetary incentives for jungles filled with orangutans. 

My choice of jungle: Bukit Lewang!  On Sumatra's tourist trail, this is a small river town with a thriving jungle trekking industry.  Located near the town is an orangutan rehabilitation sanctuary, where orangutans are re-introduced into the wild from, often, illegal pet situations.  The center's model is that the orangutan can always get food at the center, but the diet is monotonous, thus encouraging the animals to search for variety.  This leads to a decline over time of dependence and visits to the sanctuary. 

The orangutans near Bukit Lewang are, thus, mostly 'semi-wild'.  As a friend of mine put it, an orangutan in the trees who will pose for photos is a pretty perfect orangutan.

Indeed, I saw not one, but several of my hairy cousins, and it was a humbling experience to see such a magnificent, large, inquisitive, and beautiful creature in its jungle environment. As the jungle was teeming with monkeys, toucans, and monitor lizards, the experience offered a glimpse of what many a jungle should be, once was, or could be again: such a bastion of life!  

However, the experience of researching and visiting the orangutan made me realize his dire situation, and I am convinced I saw an animal that may be extinct in my lifetime.  Thus, I am becoming a smarter consumer and figuring out what I can do to be part of a solution for the orangutan.  It's not too late...yet.