A Postcard From

Picture Postcard: Public Art in Syracuse

2009-10-06T19:35:00.000-07:00

A Postcard from Syracuse

2009-10-06T19:23:00.001-07:00

After a few weeks in southern Italy, arriving in Syracuse is nothing less than finding an oasis amidst a desert of chaos and dirt. It is spotlessly clean, with hardly a piece of rubbish in sight – I cannot overemphasise how amazingly unexpected this is after coming to expect to see discarded whitegoods in every stream, as if they are some ubiquitous local aquatic plant – and the streets are dotted with flowerpots. There are no beggars, no African men with cardboard tables of sunglasses. Even the Italian penchant for graffiti seems to have been miraculously restrained.

The town is spacious and light, with the relaxed atmosphere of an exceptionally attractive Australian country town - excepting the Baroque architecture, of course. It’s oddly empty, too, just old men sitting in doorways, a few tourists, and police.

Hundreds of police. For there is method in the lack of madness: the G8 is in town and, as a result, Syracuse is currently the cleanest, safest town in Italy.

As a result of this, the proprietor of our pensione – this is like a bed and breakfast, and is the best kind of accommodation in Italy, especially outside the big cities – must procure for us some special passes for us so that we may walk down our street unassailed by newly vigilant carabinieri.

This is all mildly thrilling, but not as much as what awaits us the following day: with the summit over, townspeople and tourists alike are welcome to look around the Maniace castle where the meetings were held. Needless to say, it is mostly tourists who take up the opportunity, but for better reason than mere nosiness.

The castle is question, spectacularly located at the tip of Ortigia, the peninsula that houses Syracuse’s old town, is not normally open to the public, so the invitation to look inside is not only an opportunity to take a look inside the glamorously dull world of international diplomacy, but also to see inside a magnificently preserved thirteenth century castle.

Needless to say, it’s wonderful, from the incredible views and the beautiful castle, decorated in a kind of Arabic-inspired minimalist style, to the menus left over from last night’s dinner that we are not allowed to touch, and the special bread on the tables, baked to resemble turtles and fish (it was an environmental summit after all). It’s all rather surreal, with the special occasion atmosphere of a wedding reception where everyone’s one their best behaviour – rather like the town itself at the moment.

A Postcard from Mt Etna

2009-09-20T21:19:00.000-07:00

It is impossible to come to Catania and ignore the bulk of Mount Etna, namesake of the city’s main boulevard and touted as Europe’s biggest and one of the world’s most active volcanoes. It’s also remarkable for being one of the few volcanoes to have ever erupted smoke rings, like some enormous sleeping dragon.

Seemingly the best – and most spectacular – way to view the volcano up close is to join a guided tour. But our organisational skills and propensity to outlay money on these kinds of things being what they are, this option is ruled out for us and so we resolve to take the Circumetnea train around the mountain. It’s cheap, easy and, the promotional brochure self-assuredly informs us, is ‘not to be missed’.

Before we can catch the train, of course, we must find the station. Catanians seem generally unable to dispense straightforward directions, so when our map proves to be reliably useless, we are referred onwards in small increments ever closer to our destination. Even the people at the tourist bureau and the bloke manning the transport information booth cannot – or will not – be more forthcoming.

Finally, armed with cheerful red Circumetnea hats courtesy of the endlessly patient woman behind the information desk at the station, we board the train. It proceeds to spend over an hour swaying slowly through a series of depressingly bleak suburbs, dropping off schoolchildren dripping with gold chains and headphones along the way.

Eventually, this gives way to similarly bleak, grey countryside. Dark, twisted volcanic rock is studded with prickly pear plants and the occasional yellow flower, seemingly on a valiant – if doomed – mission to enliven the landscape. Abandoned houses stand alongside those obviously inhabited. Both kinds have an air of impermanence. The sense that the people who live here are only just surviving becomes more pronounced as we move around the volcano and the landscape becomes even more forbidding.

We alight at Randazzo. The helpful lady from the station had made it sound rather appealing and quaint, an expectation compounded by our guidebook’s description of the town as ‘dark’, ‘medieval’ and ‘gloomily authentic’. In reality, the romance implied in these statements is lacking and a better descriptor for the empty, cold town would be ‘a dump’.

An hour later, we’re back on the train and things have begun to look up as both the landscape and weather – dreary up to this point – begin to change. As the clouds gradually disperse, the ocean comes into view on our left and the blighted hillside gives way to a verdant, fertile landscape dominated by rows of fruit trees, olives and grape vines. We pass prosperous towns and comfortable homes nestled in stands of tall grass interspersed with the frizzy, soft leaves of wild fennel. The peak of the volcano even makes a fleeting appearance from behind its wreath of cloud.

The reason for the transformation is straightforward: the inviting northern slopes of the latter part of our journey have not seen an eruption for a relatively long time, while the volcano’s southern and eastern flanks have been regularly assaulted by lava flows for at least the last ten years. For the unlucky residents of the ill-fated sides of the mountain, it’s a tough life indeed, but I guess the prosperity of the favoured northern incline assures them that the risks of their existence will, eventually, pay off.

A Postcard from Catania

2009-09-19T21:35:00.001-07:00

With its writhing creatures, pungent smells and rather graphic on-the-street butchery (horses heads being cleaved in the gutter, that sort of thing), the Catania food market is no place for sensitive vegetarians or avowed pescophobes. Somehow though, despite a having previously been the former for a considerable stretch and harbouring as I do a lifelong aversion to seafood, I find it completely enthralling, a daily spectacle of Dickensian colour as the fishermen, farmers, bakers and grocers gather to hawk their wares.

We enter through a stone archway into the seafood section of the market, a sunken sweep of cobbles surrounded by a raised walkway where old men loiter, smoking and watching the show. Everywhere, beanie-clad fishermen with tough faces, lined deeply irrespective of their age, preside over stalls. Some are huge, encompassing vast spreads of whole fishes, swordfishes with the tail removed, still-twitching crayfish and watery trays of shellfish lazily squirting liquid into an unwary eye. Others are more modest: a few buckets filled with whitebait, or a couple of containers of snails and parsley, a kind of one-stop mollusc shop.

I watch one man deftly peeling raw prawns. He notices me and, hoping to make a sale, cries “dieci euro!” before popping one into his mouth to demonstrate its freshness. His voice is throaty and guttural, his Sicilian intonation quite different from what we have heard elsewhere in Italy. I move on, noticing a blue bucket in which an octopus is making a valiant last stand, staging a slow, slithering – and surely doomed – attempt to escape.

Elsewhere, the market sellers offer bread, groceries, meat, fruits and vegetables. There are piles of artichokes spilling from the boot of a tiny Fiat Cinquecento and picture-perfect butchers’ stands selling marbled slabs of meat, chickens with the heads and feet intact, and rabbits halved along the spine. I look away from the gore of a sheep’s head, stripped of skin and hair, its eyes and lashes remaining in a parody of a sweet-faced lamb, just in time to avoid walking into a sheet of tripe suspended from a hook.

We spent the afternoon looking around the rest of the town. It’s attractively run-down and the layers of the city’s particularly rich history are clearly evident, with ancient ruins crumbling alongside medieval castles and faded Baroque palaces. Sometimes this layering is quite literal, with the modern paving having seemingly been peeled back to reveal the corner of an ancient amphitheatre or the foundation of a Roman bathhouse.

Visiting these ruins, however, is an exercise in frustration, with all bar one of those that we’d hoped to see being either closed for restoration or simply, inexplicably, shut, the gates padlocked and the guard’s booth empty. Many are overrun with vegetation, making any attempts to peer through the fence entirely fruitless.

When it starts to drizzle and the canoli we buy turn out to be stale – and I can’t muster the Italian word for ‘stale’ in order to complain – it seems apparent that nothing is going to work out today. But, as we walk along the broad Via Etnea to our pensione, I think of the tenacious little octopus from the market, attempting a hopeless escape over the side of the blue bucket. If my day has been frustrating, it’s got nothing on his.

A Postcard from Amalfi

2009-08-15T09:51:00.000-07:00

We are staying in a surprisingly lively village called San Lazzaro, perched on the edge of the Agerola valley on the Amalfi coast. I’m naturally sceptical of our guidebook’s sloganeering description of the view over the coast – ‘between the sky and the sea’ – but as we walk up a gentle incline away from the main square and see the calm, flat ocean blending hazily into the sky, it seems the superlatives are justified.

Further up the hill, in the midst of a large public park, sits an imposing relic of the fascist era, a half-completed structure that Mussolini had intended to be a holiday camp for impoverished children. The single building is totally out of scale with the modest village, both in size and the grandiosity of details such as a towering carving of typically totalitarian images that adorns its side.

Elsewhere in Europe, such a site would be either preserved for history and equipped with informative plaques and helpful staff, or bulldozed entirely, being an unwanted reminder of an unpalatable past, but here it stands alien and eerie, showing signs of gradual reclamation by the surrounding park: vines gripping the rotting grey pillars, branches intruding into the unfinished interior.

The next day, we catch the bus down to the ocean, sledding along narrow roads, around sharp corners and alongside precipitously sheer cliffs. Amalfi itself is frantic, the presence of a hulking cruise ship offshore ensuring a high density of tourists despite the fact it’s still two weeks out of season. Germans wearing shorts and Velcro sandals stand outside gift shops, eating cornetti and taking photographs of a man shifting piles of dirt with the help of two overburdened donkeys.

A few hours later, further down the coast in Positano, amongst the luxury hotels and expensive restaurants, we see the entrance to Sophia Loren's villa. The house itself is hidden from view and can be reached only by a private funicular railway. It's all a far cry from Mussolini's disadvantaged holidaying kids, but, to be honest, movie stars and cruise liners are rather more suited to the drama of the landscape than utilitarian fascist architecture.

A Postcard from Pompeii

2009-08-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

Few cities are at their best from the train line, and the drab streets either side of the suburban Neopolitan train to Pompei – the modern commuter town has one ‘i’, the ancient ruins two – are no exception. We slide along the seafront, passing a series of crumbling buildings in shades of grey and beige, from which washing hangs limply in the warm air. It all has a certain down-at-heel attractiveness, although certainly not enough to tempt me from the relative comfort and safety of the train.

And, if nothing else, their cluttered facades, ridden with satellite dishes and air conditioning units, serves as an illustration as to why the strata company at my block of flats at home is justified in forbidding exterior ‘improvements’.

Seeing these dilapidated blocks of housing, I wonder why the Italians, so concerned with their personal appearances and fare la bella figura - and renowed for their style - are seemingly blind to the state of their environment. Graffiti is endemic, even the most prestigious areas are blighted by litter to some extent, and constructing buildings to about the half-way point before leaving them unfinished and rotting seems to be a national sport. Coming from the land of Clean Up Australia Day and Tidy Town awards, all of this neglect seems strangely lacking in civic-mindedness.

We eventually arrive in Pompei and find our way to the archaeological site. It’s spectacular, and I almost find myself envying the ancients their orderly town with its public baths and airy villas until I remember the horrific way most of their lives ended.

And besides, the faded Latin graffiti adorning the walls and the well-organised brothel, with its exterior sign warning against public urination, are all reminders that the ancient Romans were probably just as fond of littering and spitting in the street and flouting building codes as their modern counterparts.

A Postcard from Naples

2009-08-15T09:07:00.001-07:00

Naples’ reputation precedes it, and despite my vaguely positive memories of a previous visit to the city, conducted within the controlled confines of a high school trip, the damning stories almost succeed in putting us off before we even arrive. We manage to avoid the worst of it by staying in a rather wealthy beach-side suburb where the streets are lined with citrus trees and beggars are relatively scarce, but there’s no avoiding the dirt and sleaze entirely.

Following a day of exploring the claustrophobic streets of the old town, filled with shops selling elaborate nativity figurines and pizza restaurants all claiming to be the oldest in Naples, we ride the Metro home. It’s an uncomfortable ride; like every piece of public property south of Rome, the train is dirty and covered with graffiti, and very hot. It’s also absurdly slow, stopping and starting every few minutes, even though – or perhaps because – the train has four drivers.

Then, as we pull into a grubby station, an unkempt man carrying a large sack steps aboard. This immediately causes alarm: while Italians have a high level of tolerance for dirtiness in their surroundings, they are obsessive about personal appearance. Here, only mad people go about unwashed and sloppily dressed.

The train lumbers into the subway ahead, thus sealing all potential routes of escape, and the man begins his spiel. With little flourish but considerable clamour, he upends his sack, tipping its contents into a pile at his feet. Then, in rambling but rapid Italian, he endeavours to sell items from the pile for one euro apiece: a pair of scissors, or a cheese grater, perhaps? Maybe a football, or a spatula?

We all ignore him, of course, staring into space with a stoicism that would impress even Londoners on the tube, trying to pretend that this person is not standing here, bothering us, his spit landing on our arms and clothes as he attempts to catch our attention. One brave soul tries to halt the entrepreneurial frenzy by offering to pay the man one euro if he will shut up. No such luck, and our would-be saviour is forced to select an item from the pile (an umbrella) in exchange for his coin and affect a hasty withdrawal.

Finally, after much dithering, the party of train drivers decides to deposit us at a station. The man gathers his merchandise in the sack and leaves the train, presumably to harass another set of unsuspecting and uncomfortable commuters, and we all settle in, willing the journey to end quickly so we might escape back to our retreat amongst the lemon-scented avenues and wash off the grime – and spit – of the city.

Picture Postcard: Lucca

2009-08-06T15:40:00.000-07:00

A Postcard from Florence

2009-08-06T15:36:00.000-07:00

The piazza around the duomo is swarming with people – a scattering of locals, a few beggars brandishing stumps and wrinkled faces, and some African immigrants whose official status in the country is, judging by their reactions to the approach of a police car, just as uncertain as the provenance of the posters bearing reproductions of Renaissance art that they are selling. Mostly, though, there are tourists, taking photos, eating gelati, and getting in one another's way.

It seems like almost everyone in Florence is a foreigner, be they students learning Italian, sightseers passing through, or the apparently inexhaustible stream of Americans of varying ages who come to ‘find’ themselves. If the lifestyle pages of the local English-language newspaper are to be believed, this quest tends to follow a fairly predictable course: imbibing a large quantity of overpriced local food and wine and engaging in a passionate affair with a local who is intense yet refreshingly uncomplicated, emotionally speaking, before coming to some profound personal revelation and writing a book about the ‘journey’.

When I hear a passing Englishman remark to his wife that the cathedral is “too big” (this is, I think, akin to saying that the Colosseum is too old, or the Mona Lisa exceedingly coy), I head out of the square in search of relief from the heat, noise and – dare I sound like one of these holier-than-thou, I’m-a-traveller-not-a-tourist types – all the bloody foreigners.

The suburban streets are shady and almost deserted. Ahead of me, an impeccably dressed old man stands on the corner. There's an air of expectancy about him, although ostensibly all he's doing is watching a group of tiny brown birds hop about the pavement at his feet. He’s unlikely to inspire lustful thoughts in anyone aged under 70 and I feel fairly sure he's never even read an immoderately earnest memoir about how Chianti and tagliatelle taught a disenchanted thirty-something to love again, let alone considered writing one. And frankly, it's a relief.

Picture Postcard: Liguria

2009-08-06T15:35:00.000-07:00

A Postcard from a train

2009-07-31T19:50:00.000-07:00

We are catching a sleeper train from Paris to Genoa, which strikes me as rather a raffish mode of transportation likely to be favoured by moustachioed Belgian detectives, portly former Indian Army colonels with dark, romantic secrets and other Agatha Christie characters. Predictably, however, the reality is far less glamorous than I might have hoped: a small cabin capable of sleeping six in a rather inelegant state of forced intimacy.

Clearly, in this confined space, the nature of your cabin-mates is an all-important factor in determining whether your journey will be relatively pleasant or akin to real-life murder on the Orient Express. We are sharing with two Texan women in their early thirties, as friendly as you'd hope Southerners would be, and are pleased by our luck: this is immensely preferable to the company of, say, four large men in stained singlets with only a passing knowledge of English and even less acquaintance with a shower.

We secure the door against said imagined smelly thugs using a complex combination of locks and chains, and turn off the light. It’s late and before sunrise we’ll arrive in Milan to scurry up the platform for a connecting train to Genoa that, with a nice piece of synchronicity, the Texans are also catching.

But sleep is sporadic and every time we stop, the change in the movement of the train wakes me. I look out the window each time to see various small towns, all rendered identical and unfriendly by the cold and the time of night.

At one point, I unhook our makeshift security system and endeavour to slip quietly into the passageway to go to the toilet. A few cabins down, I see six beefy, hairy men, illuminated by a reading light. They haven’t folded down their beds and are sitting, motionless and blank-eyed. The door is closed so I don’t know what the smell is like in their compartment, but I have the distinct sensation of having dodged a metaphorical, malodorous bullet.

Picture by David Craddock

Picture Postcard: Montparnasse Cemetery, Paris

2009-07-24T13:48:00.001-07:00

A Postcard from Paris

2009-07-12T20:09:00.000-07:00

For a people renowned for their rudeness and chronic disposition towards haughty unfriendliness, Parisians are awfully fond of animals. Everyone seems to have a dog, as the poo-littered pavements testify. Even the homeless guys who beg outside the Metro stations have a little furry friend in tow: we spot one guy napping against a wall near the Notre Dame cradling a sweet-faced puppy under each arm. All three are audibly snoring, despite the busy passing parade.

Cats, while less ubiquitous, seem to be popular too. Late one afternoon we climb through the winding streets and steep flights of stone steps of Montmatre towards the Sacré Coeur. Ahead of us, a tiny black cat weaves between legs and balustrades, apparently leading the way. Drawing the gaze of cliche-hungry tourists – he does look rather like le chat noir depicted on the famous fin de siècle lithograph poster sold in every Parisian souvenir shop – the cat is soon attracting a small crowd. He knows how to work his audience and flirts with the bystanders, inasmuch as an animal can: cannily sniffing at an outstretched hand before retreating as it extends to stroke his fur, posing expertly for photographs that will be cooed over by envious folks at home, purring loudly as he rubs himself against a wall.

And then, just as the assembled group are beginning to really enjoy the spectacle, the cat abruptly ends the show and slinks off, his nose in the air. Confident to the point of arrogance and languidly gorgeous, he leaves them wanting more: the perfect Parisian.

A Postcard from Marchin

2009-07-12T19:39:00.001-07:00

Our Belgian friends are proud of their national culinary heritage. We’ve sampled everything from boulettes (tennis ball sized spheres of meat), to frites with mayonnaise, local chocolate and a broad selection of Belgian beer, but they’re particularly keen for us to try a local speciality called a ‘machine gun’. It’s as unsubtle a food as its name suggests; a length of baguette stuffed with low-grade meat and chips, all doused with one of the galaxy of sauces with which the Belgians are so enamoured. Unsurprisingly, it’s also said to be the preferred diet of the baraki, the Belgian bogan.

We drive to the dispensary of the machine gun, the neighbourhood friterie. It’s easily within walking distance, but apparently once we’ve obtained the food, time - and therefore a quick getaway - will be of the essence. Inside, a small woman with dark hair efficiently assembles the enormous sandwiches and dispenses portions of chips and hamburgers, known as Bicky burgers. Considerable discussion about possible blends of heavily processed meat and sauces ensues. My first few suggestions are politely rejected (clearly I have much to learn) before we finally settle on combinations of which our friends approve and that we think we will be able to stomach.

When our food is ready, we quickly bear the bulging parcels of butchers’ paper home. I ask why the woman from the friterie has pierced a hole in the top of each parcel. “To us, the chips, they live,” I am told seriously. At home, we eat the machine guns accompanied by a Juliper beer and watched by expectant Francophone faces. What to say? It’s a hot dog with chips, but a very good one at that.

A Postcard from Stavelot

2009-07-12T19:16:00.000-07:00

In the main street, the parade is already underway. Three thousand dancers and musicians are taking part; an impressive number, given that this village is no more than a speck on a Belgian map. The performances seem to fall into two, surprisingly well-defined, categories: soberly dressed marching bands playing standards of that genre, and heavily made-up dance troupes clothed in co-ordinated Lycra, jiggling their limbs in time to versions of pop songs that were cheesy enough before the Eurotrash remix.

The best – and by that, I obviously mean the worst – of these acts is a group of women of varying ages dancing to Beyonce’s most recent wannabe girl power anthem. They are elaborately, and somewhat bafflingly, costumed to resemble bewigged blonde Nordic warriors and each of them is equipped with two silver-painted sticks that they tap together as part of their routine. At the rear, seated majestically atop the float, is the matriarch of the group, an enormous woman whose double chins, swathed in orangey foundation and glitter, wobble as she taps her silvery sticks together intermittently with little regard for the rhythm of the song.

The dire, even depressing, atmosphere that pervades these performances only makes the finale seem even more spectacular in comparison. First, a procession of white-clad people wearing masks with long, orange noses run down the street, assaulting bystanders with pig stomach balloons and confetti. They are followed by the piece de resistance, a huge float spraying confetti from large funnels over the crowd. Discs of paper fall like multicoloured snow and, although I’ll be finding confetti in my knickers for weeks afterwards, it is truly, completely magical.

Photo by David Craddock

A Postcard from Amsterdam

2009-06-20T09:02:00.001-07:00

We walk from our hotel at the edge of the attractively modern Museumplein to the Jordaan district. According to the broken English of the visitors’ guide in our room, it’s one of Amsterdam’s most ‘sung about’ neighbourhoods and it does manage to appear particularly alluring in an already outstandingly beautiful city. Casual corner cafes are filled with relaxed locals drinking beer al fresco and the backstreets are dotted with bikes and flower-filled window boxes. Magnificent, chaotic junk shops abound and there’s even an American Apparel store, that certain signifier of hipness.

After a brief stop in a bakery, we head to the town centre. The atmosphere in the Dam, the central square, is quite different from the ambience of sleepy cool we’ve just left. Swarms of tourists circulate the space and shops hawk hot dogs and poorly made clogs rather than homemade sandwiches and tatty second-hand ephemera.

Beyond, in the Red Light District, the stereotypes associated with Amsterdam are present in abundance, from the distinctive smells emanating from the coffee shops to the tourists gawking at the sex theatres and the prostitutes posing, bored, in their windows. Even in the clear sunlight, it’s dirty and crowded, and while this is clearly what the stag weekends and tick-it-off-the-list tourists have come to see, is seems to me pretty unappealing.

Exiting the Red Light District via the rather diminished seeming Bloemenmarket – March is not the month for tulips, it seems – we return to the leafier, quirkier parts of town, passing a shop that exclusively sells products bearing cat motifs. It might be harder to come by a pair of crappy clogs, or some weed, or a novelty dildo, on this side of town, but it’s a sacrifice I’m willing to endure.

A Postcard from Copenhagen

2009-06-11T12:41:00.000-07:00

Our friend’s housemate is washing the toilet seat in the bathtub. A tall Dane with long blonde hair and a fuzz of facial hair, he is dressed for the task in white y-fronts and a brightly coloured Nordic jumper. ‘A special treat for the visitors!’ he offers brightly by way of explanation. The Danish are famed for their preoccupation with ‘hygge’, which very roughly translates to ‘cosiness’, and while I’m unsure if this is a demonstration of that obsession, I feel rather touched by the gesture.

Copenhagen is a bicycle friendly place – considering that new cars carry a registration tax of around 180 percent in Denmark, it had better be – and two stray bikes have been ‘acquired’ for our use. We pedal into the city centre before proceeding on foot, and I quickly learn to avoid wandering into the bicycle lane while walking lest I incur the (admittedly gentle) wrath of the locals.

We head across town, past scores of venerable copper-roofed buildings, to Christiana, the legendary hippy colony founded in 1971. It’s widely said to be past its best and certainly on the main drag – unimaginatively, although evocatively, known as Pusher Street – there is precious little peace and love to be found. Rather, the vibe is aggressive and unfriendly, dominated by the presence of gang warfare and drug peddlers who operate pretty openly despite the 2004 police crackdown.

Beyond, however, we quickly find ourselves in a semi-rural idyll of quirky houses clustered around a large, serene lake. This side of Christiana seems almost ordinary, with people walking their dogs and jogging as groups of children return home from school. The architecture is distinctly eccentric, though, and Scandinavian barns sit alongside Seventies-style glass constructions, old military buildings, and a particularly beguiling retro-futuristic spaceship suspended over the water’s edge.

Apparently looking lost, we encounter a resident pushing her baby in a pram and accept her offer to walk with her as she returns home. She’s open and eloquent, happy to answer our questions, and a far cry from the hippy dippy stereotype you might expect. She tells us how she came to live in Christiana when she became involved with her now-husband, who was born here, and about the community’s current legal troubles with the government. We even get a tour of her commune, where her young family occupy their own bedroom and living area, and share a spacious, orderly kitchen with ten other adults. Again, it’s not quite what you’d expect, but then shabby bohemian squalor would be unusual indeed in a country devoted to hygge, even in a commune.

A Postcard from Stockholm

2009-06-03T06:53:00.000-07:00

After grimy London, Stockholm's street seem especially clean and its residents particularly polite. They all seem to speak better English than most Londoners, too. The city is perhaps less cosy and charming than I had expected, but still a remarkably liveable capital city: you can buy bus tickets via text message, no one jostles on the underground, and a recorded welcome message from Annika Sorenstam plays when you arrive on the train from the airport. The respect for order and efficiency is such that, according to a Swedish friend, everyone in Stockholm knows which end of the underground platform leads to their desired exit and travels on the corresponding end of the train so as to avoid wasting time or energy by walking an unnecessary few metres.

The landscape is surprisingly flat and I’m later told the dramatic fjords and spectacular vistas that I had expected of Sweden are actually to be found in the country’s north or, better still, Norway. Parts of Stockholm – the old town, for example – are exceptionally beautiful, with neat rows of venerable buildings painted in politely muted tones of yellow and red, but overall the impression is of utility and understatement. This is very clearly the nation of Ikea.

We head to Skansen, an outdoor museum located on a hill overlooking the collection of islands that make up the city. There is a collection of Swedish animals: an elk, a gaggle of near-hysterical, squeaking otters, some wolves, a wolverine, and a few reindeer, which I can say, having eaten one of their cousins for dinner the night before, taste considerably more delicious than they look. An extensive collection of gratifyingly traditional buildings sates my thirst for cosy charm.

At this higher altitude, the air feels more crisp and the snow is fresher underfoot. The ugly, Soviet-style structures that cluster around the city centre are hidden, and the gentle colours of the buildings we can see contrast prettily with the backdrop of icy water and snow, throwing the cathedral spires and town hall tower into relief. Stockholm still looks orderly and neat, but the air of flat-packed utility has given way to something more beautiful and charming, a place where Vikings and Norse gods might live alongside my hopelessly romantic, old-fashioned notions of this thoroughly modern country.

A Postcard from London (Part Two)

2009-02-20T15:11:00.001-08:00

A customary glance out the window reveals something extraordinary: the view, overlooking the drab reclaimed council estate has been transformed by an overnight fall of ankle-deep snow surely in excess of even the hopeful BBC weatherman’s wildest dreams. The trees are coated with a scattering of white, the snow resting prettily in their boughs; even the utilitarian towers of flats are suddenly more appealing.

Down in the laneway, our housemates are building a snowman. One of them is an engineer on the underground; evidently if he’s not going to work today, none of us are.

On the television, reports of chaos reign. It’s the heaviest snowfalls in London for 18 years. Commuters are at a standstill, all buses have been pulled off the road, the trains are out. One of the presenters quips that, at this rate, they’ll have to stay on air all day if none of their colleagues can make it in. Her voice is intentionally light, but you can see the strain, verging on fear, in her eyes. Images of a panicked producer, screaming frantically an earpiece microphone in a green room somewhere, spring to mind: ‘This isn’t in the manual!’ In the end, they run endless montages of snow-related pictures that viewers have sent in to plug the gaps.

Outside, our feet sink into the shallow drift. I’ve experienced snow before – a tantalising, unsatisfactory encounter by a Scottish roadside as a 12 year-old – but this powdery carpet is a first for me. The extreme weather seems to unleashed a previously dormant reserve of goodwill amongst Londoners, and the sounds of giggling and the thwack of a snow ball meeting its target dominate the hushed atmosphere.

In the park, we build our own snowman, packing in the chalky, fine snow into firm balls. The pond – really a body of water too large to warrant that name – is partially frozen over, but the milky swans and loose groups of ducks show no sign of feeling the cold. In contrast, the squirrels, usually seen eagerly sniffing and twitching their way across the lawn, are in hiding.

I go to sleep hoping for more falls during the night so that we might have another snow day, but no such luck. Two days later the footpaths are treacherous with ice and the roads slushy with dirty snow. Soon all the snow has melted, save for a few sadly dripping mounds where snowmen once stood. The floppy haired Mayor of London is widely quoted in the media defending the weather-induced transportation meltdown and the mass skiving it inspired: ‘It was the right kind of snow, but in the wrong quantity.’

A Postcard from London

2009-02-13T13:48:00.001-08:00

It is cold and is going to get even colder. The weatherman is comically cheerful at the prospect. “Tomorrow we’ll have a maximum of two degrees, but remember, with the wind chill from the gale force winds, it will in fact feel more like minus six to minus two,” he chides, as though his viewers are recalcitrant children to his stern schoolmarm.

“We can expect snow and a maximum of one on Monday, followed by a maximum of two on Tuesday with sleet, rain and snow,” he continues gleefully, his tone suggesting how lucky we are to experience this pantheon of foul weather in only twenty-four hours.

Trite but true: the chill of the weather is matched by the coolly impersonal nature of the city. The crowds are overwhelming, with the unsmiling streams of people on the underground and the street defying anyone who needs – dares – to wade through their rapid flow. The traffic is loud and constant, in spite of the hated congestion charge, and the news is all credit crunch doom, knife crime horror, and dismal celebrity voyeurism.

There is, however, regulation in the crush of people and machines. Queues are orderly, personal space is treated with respect. Tempers are be frayed and tested by the monotony of routine, but everyday kindnesses are evident: a man stooping to help a mother carry a pram up a flight of stairs, the cheerful tube driver injecting a slice of humour and history into his intercom broadcasts. Each of these gestures – the directions given, the tight smile offered – is a small mercy amidst the distant crowd.

A Postcard from Port Arthur

2008-12-09T20:17:00.000-08:00

When we elected to go on a boating trip, I had envisaged a sizeable pleasure craft, or something akin to the sturdy ferries that traverse Sydney Harbour, so the small boat with which I was confronted came as something of a surprise. “It was designed for the navy,” helpfully volunteers the skipper, one of those bearded, salt-of-the-earth types. I should have read the brochure more carefully.

Still, sitting in my oversize, orange waterproof poncho in the idyllic sheltered bay, things appear positive. The sun is shining cheerfully, the sky is expansive and blue, and the bearded skipper has informed us it is a “ripper” day for the trip.

As we leave the safety of the bay, the bearded skipper’s assistant – who, we later discover, is a scientific expert on seals – hands around ginger pills to prevent seasickness. With a (slightly histrionic) sense of impending doom, I take three and feel them slide uncomfortably down the back of my throat.

We pass by a tranquil spot called Eaglehawke Neck. In colonial days, when Port Arthur was a convict prison, this narrow strip of land joining the Tasman Peninsula with mainland Tasmania represented the only escape route for the majority of inmates, who lacked the skills and nerve to brave the shark-filled waters. To counter this, the authorities indulged in a little theatrical flair, and installed a chain of large, hungry dogs across the isthmus.

Motoring into the open sea, we come to a cave where the soaring roof has partially collapsed, leaving a spectacular, natural stone bridge. To either side of us, white water rushes from the flat, rocky platforms that flank the cliffs and onto the long ropes of kelp that dangle into ocean. The bearded skipper takes us for “a spin”, riding the waves like a surfer. The icy sea sprays into my face, and I am immoderately relieved to be wearing the poncho.

We visit a succession of grandiose caves and imposing cliffs with an uncanny similarity to organ pipes in a cathedral, before coming to a thin sheet of water flowing down the rock face into the sea. Near to the waterfall, the bearded skipper points out a series of dark caves situated low to the waterline. It’s a spectacular dive in those caves, so he has been told, although a little tricky. “A diver loses their life in there every year,” he says. A pause, before he adds cheerfully, “We’re planning to give a go next year.”

A Postcard from Hobart

2008-12-02T22:14:00.000-08:00

The evening is so cold that my breath is cloudy against the crisp air. We drive along, streetlights reflecting on the slick road, passing junctions beckoning with evocative names: Rosny Park, Bridgewater, Seven Mile Beach.

Mounting a rise, the city is splayed before us. A blanket of lights twinkles; cool and clear white street lamps and the warmer glow of a bedroom window. As we descend, a bridge rises to meet us, serpentine and humpbacked. To the left, a crane looms over the foreshore, a prehistoric incursion on the low, ordered skyline.

We pass through the city centre, past the perversely uninviting Welcome Stranger Motel and the picturesque, yacht-filled harbour. The rows of graceful heritage buildings are incongruous against the modern highway, with its bossy signage and thrum of traffic, which flows past their doors.

Up another ridge, down, then up again and out of town. Tall trees crowd either side of the highway, the darkness demarcated by the reflectors that line the road ahead.

We arrive at the house, which is snugly warm against the startlingly cold spring night. The bedroom I am sleeping in is scrupulously neat, whether in my honour or out of habit I’m not sure. It usually belongs to my nephew and so the walls are decorated with Winnie the Pooh decals, while tiny polar fleece jackets adorn the back of the door.

The true inhabitant of the room, however, appears to be an extravagantly over sized tabby tomcat called Rosy. As I lie in bed, I hear him scratching at the door, outraged at having been excluded from his furry nest on the rocking chair in the corner.

I let him in and he reclines languidly on the rug, his vast, white belly exposed. His eyes are set a little too widely and he stares at me, challenging the intruder in his space, as I turn off the light. I lie awake until his feline snoring assures me he is asleep.

A Postcard from Perth

2008-11-16T23:25:00.000-08:00

“Apparently they’re going to play thirteen songs off the new album.” He’s a little, stocky man, wearing a brown shirt and a tie, haphazardly loosened in a vain attempt to disguise the fact he has come straight from work to a rock concert. Nervously, he shifts his weight from foot to foot, not quite meeting my eyes, but at the same time he’s confident in his presence here. He’s the kind of fan who visits the online forums, discussing recording rumours and track listings with men and women whose far-away faces are also lit by a computer screen. He’s a big fan, the biggest fan, the number one fan. He belongs here, if nowhere else.

Expectation fills the room like last night’s smells pervade the morning after. “They’re the kind of band that make you wait between drinks,” the little man says. He goes on, earnestly referencing shambolic, drunken performances, that time at that festival when the lead guitar idol punched the secondary star, arguments with the audience, the perfect shows that keep you coming back. He seems relieved to tell someone this, unburdening his fandom to someone more real than the composite of a screen name, playful profile picture, and a smattering of emoticons.

As the atmosphere approaches frenetic, the band walks out and strikes up their first chords. The little man begins to sway. I’m not tall, but I can see the very top of his head, the patch where the follicles have fallen away in concentration to reveal the pale skin beneath. He has not attempted to adapt the combed over style favoured by some balding men. I wonder if he is aware of this spot where his fur is rubbing away like a well-worn toy, if anyone has told him.

The music matches the crowd’s sense of expectation in intensity. The lead guitar idol is a modern day dandy, electric, unwashed hair lacking the careful pretension of lesser superstars who achieve the same look with product and backcombing. He has smeared a glittery gel across his cheeks. The drummer carries the grime less well, wearing sweat like a bib, his hair slick to his face, strands dripping across the bridge of his nose.

A pause in the set to exchange guitars, tighten strings. Behind me, someone yells a query to the secondary guitar star. When is the new album for his side project coming out? He glances up, shrugs, indifferent or distracted. They begin a new song.

The small man is dancing in front of the stage, swaying and waving his arms, thrusting in imitation of the glitter gelled guitar god. His bald patch glistens with perspiration. Like the men with snaking limbs on stage, he feels the waves of music pulse through his belly.

The set finished, the band performs the conceit of leaving the stage. Applause and pleading from the crowd ensues, and they return for one last song. The leader leans into the microphone, shirt damp to his chest: “This is from the new album.”

Photo by David Craddock

A Postcard from South Luangwa

2008-10-27T01:59:00.000-07:00

As we drive away from the airport, we pass thatched stalls selling produce and colourful piles of clothing. A slogan is painted on the road, ‘Vote MWA’. Churches of all denominations abound and there is even an outlet called ‘Praise the Lord Grocery Shop’.

There are numerous, small schools, outside of which clusters of children wave enthusiastically and call out unknown words. I dutifully return the gesture to each child, suspecting that the failure to acknowledge a small, brown hand raised in welcome would impart the false impression of snobbery. Despite our good intentions, the greeting seems uncomfortably regal from the high seats of the open air Land Cruiser.

The other passersby, the adults, regard us with an attitude somewhere between mild interest and utter indifference. Our driver sounds his horn if they fail to move aside as we approach, forcing them onto the dusty verge. It's a little embarrassing, and heightens our sense of alienation from the crowd.

After an hour or so we arrive at the gates of the South Luangwa National Park. We eat lunch at a lodge and embark on the two-hour drive to the bush camp where we are staying.

From the air, the landscape had appeared merely crisp, but closer up it is desperately arid and almost quintessentially Australian except for the occasional presence of a group of zebras or bushbucks. The riverbeds we pass are dry, with tiny pools the sole survivors in a vista of low bushes that are little more than twigs.

Nearer to the camp, our surroundings become more hospitable. We are closer to the slow-flowing brown waters of the Luangwa River now and the trees are taller, the bushes greener. A couple of gregarious young Americans chatter away in front of us, swatting away the tsetse flies that abound in the dry heat.

We arrive at a collection of trees and huts set alongside a water hole. Our host, a Zambian of British descent in his mid-twenties, greets us. He stammers, making him appear more reserved than I suspect he actually is. There are two other guests, a pair of agreeable, solidly wholesome newlyweds from England. The man of the pair, a thickset rugby player with a quick wit, will later tease our host for his easy lifestyle, poorly paid but almost devoid of exertion. I suspect he’s a little envious.

Later, after a siesta, we all head out on a drive. The Land Cruiser, back in familiar terrain, again seems practical, the high seats an ideal platform for spotting game rather than an exaggerated neo-colonial statement.

We drink sundowners alongside the dehydrated river. As the sun sets spectacularly over the western horizon, the moon begins to rise in the east against the icy blue sky. Back in Lusaka, someone told us that Zambia had the best sunsets in the world, and as a native of the sunset coast my patriotism spluttered with disbelief. Now, as the sky lights up, the sun a golden lantern spreading fire across a crystal backdrop before it slips below the horizon, I can concede that she had a point.

A Postcard from the Lower Zambezi (Part Two)

2008-10-27T01:49:00.000-07:00

We wake at six am for a walking safari. Our guide, an affable guy with a comically prominent belly, points out wildlife ranging from termites to elephants, as well as the plants and trees that we pass.

Until 1945 the region was home to a large group of people who were driven away by an outbreak of sleeping sickness, spread by a bacteria transmitted through painful tsetse fly bites, forcing them into the mountains or further down the river. The colonial government eradicated the sleeping sickness bacteria and established a hunting reserve, which finally became a national park in 1983.

We are accompanied on our walk by one of the rangers from the park authority, a rifle slung over his shoulder. A not-so-close encounter with a buffalo serves as a reminder as to why he and the rifle are present.

The area is extremely diverse. Open, dusty grassland gives way to stands of tall trees, while turning a corner or mounting a rise can just as easily put you in a forest of claustrophic, dead, head-height bushes as a picturesque patch of green that would not be out of place in the English countryside save for the two inch thorns adorning the trees.

Spring has recently arrived and the bush is speckled with flowers – cloudy white puffs, pretty baby pink sprays of jacaranda, extravagant splashes of yellow, an orange dusting of flame creeper, the deep red of the fleshy sausage tree flowers, and stroke of pristine white from the scented jasmine.

Back at camp, we chat to our personal butler, a cheerful, solicitous man of indeterminate age. His job is a strange concept for someone like me, habituated as I am to the fabled Australian egalitarian spirit of the ‘fair go’, but his easy manner overcomes any notions of liberal guilt on my part.

He tells us that his hometown is elsewhere along the border with Zimbabwe and he has cousins who live on the other side. Many of them day trip over the lake to buy what food they can afford in Zambia, because there is little to be had in Zimbabwe now, even for those who can afford it.

Zambians seem to have a sense of communal responsibility that is in stark contrast to our individualistic focus at home, and our kind butler supports his widowed mother and niece as his two brothers have died. He tells us that last term his niece could not attend school on account of some financial difficulties on his part, but has since been able to return to the classroom.

These realities of his life, coupled with the fact that he is so genuinely concerned for our comfort, means that in the subsequent weeks and months we will periodically ask ourselves how he is doing, if he is okay. He tells us about other guests he has looked after, recalling their names and the miscellany of their lives imparted in previous conversations, so I wonder if maybe he remembers us on occasion, too.

A Postcard from a Plane

2008-10-20T00:58:00.001-07:00

I have never flown in such a small aeroplane before. It has only six seats and the engines are loud in our ears as our pilot Danny, who is tall and rather dashing, settles into his position at the nose of the plane.

He impresses me by wearing aviator sunglasses, a novelty akin to seeing an Australian in a hat with corks around the brim or a Parisian wearing a striped top and carrying a breadstick under his arm.

Four days later, on the return flight, we will share the cabin with an extremely posh English couple, the male of the pair bearing a stick clasped in his gloved hand and the veiniest legs I’ve ever seen. But today we are the only passengers and we stretch out, resting our feet on the club seats in front.

The plane’s small size draws attention to the mechanisms of flight and, as we taxi along the runway, I can feel as each gradual depression of Danny’s foot on the accelerator incrementally increases our speed. We take off and there is a moment of doubt before we leave the ground completely, the air rushing audibly over the wings.

During the hour-long trip the landscape transforms from endless, dusty plains into banks of trees encircled by bluish mountains obscured by the haze. Appearing to our right is the broad sweep of the Zambezi River, and beyond that, Zimbabwe. As the plane is so small, it flies low to the ground, and the view is compensation for the lack of the standard-issue box of chips and biscuits usually handed out by a world-weary host on internal flights in Zambia.

We land on the floor of the plain, encircled by the ring of mountains, and pull up to an arrivals counter which is no more than a table under a tree. We’ve arrived in the wilderness.

A Postcard from Me

2008-10-19T02:41:00.001-07:00

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A Postcard from the Lower Zambezi

2008-10-19T02:24:00.000-07:00

We have become inexplicably fixated on seeing a leopard, mostly because everyone else in the camp has. Our guide says he has a good feeling that we will see one tonight. I wonder if he tells all the tourists that.

His instinct is correct and we chance upon a large male near the river. He is beautiful, his velvety coat sliding sinuously over his muscles, and unconcerned by our presence. Playing up to his audience, he squats to mark his territory and rubs in a feline fashion against trees and bushes.

We see three more leopards in little more than half an hour, dappled notches on our game-spotting belts. It’s almost unheard of to see this many in a night. Usually the first sighting of an animal is a thrill, after which it’s surprisingly easy to become blasé, unimpressed. The leopards, quietly padding along the track, tails swishing, are an exception.

Naturally, we forgot our cameras.

At dinner I sit across from an Englishman who arrived a few days earlier. Next to me is his wife, a woman with a pale, unlined face and the impression of long-suffering serenity. He speaks in slow, thickly accented sentences and moves with a sense of methodical carefulness, precisely placing his fork parallel to his plate.

He is one of those people who has Hobbies, the capital 'h' signifying their status as objects of fervent obsession. Mr Hobbies has a motorbike, enjoys clay shooting and talks endlessly of his dog, but his real passion is fishing. He orates at length on the subject.

To my left sits a chatty Englishman who arrived only today. He exhibits that genial pomposity that is so peculiarly British, his bluster punctuated with rapid blinking, floppy hair, and uneasy smiles.

Fuelled by successive beers and glasses of wine, Chatty Englishman is rising to the challenge of Mr Hobbies’ self-satisfied conversation. Their verbal sparring sends volleys back and forth:

“My dog is so well-trained, he fetches my slippers at night,” Mr Hobbies boasts.

“I’m more of a cat person, they’re so much more dignified,” Chatty Englishman retorts.

Across the table the Chatty Englishman’s wife is giving an encore performance of the act previously perfected by the American Pilates Lady at Livingstone: ignoring her neighbour. As the Mr Hobbies becomes increasingly drunk and self-important, so her interest in deciphering the calls of the nearby hippos deepens.

In the end, it’s a relief to go to bed.

A Postcard from Livingstone

2008-10-15T00:26:00.001-07:00

We wait for our baggage to be unloaded from the plane. It is a comically protracted process, loading and unloading the bags on and off three separate trolleys to cover a distance of no more than a hundred metres. The five staff involved approach the task with requisite seriousness.

As we drive from the airport, the landscape appears quintessentially Australian in its flat, brown aridity. The local proclivity for roadside advertising is in evidence as we approach the town, passing numerous small dwellings outside which washing flaps brightly, suspended above the dust.

Livingstone was originally the capital of Zambia before Lusaka stole that honour in 1939. It is speckled with attractive, colonial-era buildings amidst the long-slung shops and mass of humanity. We emerge out of the other side of town, past a dusty football pitch and a sign beseeching me, ‘Beware: Power Dogs’.

Entering the Mosi-O-Tunya National Park, we turn onto an unsealed road and arrive at our lodge. It is quietly luxurious and seems embarrassingly comfortable when recalling the sign designating a UN World Food Program office on our way in. I manage to restrain my conscience long enough to have a bath in the enormous, free standing tub.

Later, we go for a helicopter ride over Victoria Falls. As we wait, a man plays a roughly hewn xylophone, softly singing along. He entreats us to join in and instructs me to bang out a repetitive, two note chord. My attempts at improvisation are rebuffed and he demonstrates the chord again. I grin idiotically and feel like a stupid tourist. He segues into a few Christmas carols and the Happy Birthday tune.

I’m not a pop star or media mogul, so I’ve never been in a helicopter before, so I sit at the front next to the pilot and indulge my M*A*S*H fantasies as we fly over the falls, swooping into the canyons beyond, descending to only metres above the churning rapids. To the horizon stretch parched plains. We pass over the heads of elephants and buffalo, a hydroelectric power station built by the British when this area was Rhodesia, and a small village that our pilot informs us has access to neither running water nor electricity. Perhaps we’re supposed to be charmed by this slice of traditional life, or have a chuckle at the irony of living without water from a tap or power from a switch with the cascading torrent of the falls and the electricity generator next door. It must be very hot in those little huts and metal-roofed homes.

That evening at dinner we sit at a communal table with the manager, a genial Zimbabwean, and five other guests, all American. The two women are specimens of the Pilates-toned, carb-starved, upper middle class, while their husbands are bespecled and vaguely geeky. The fifth American is a lone Southerner who Pilates Lady One seems determined to ignore, despite her position at the table next to him. The manager regales us with tales of close encounters with lions and black mamba snakes, laughing good-naturedly at our exclamations of horror.

I fall asleep to the sound of a hippo, grumbling on the opposite bank.

A Postcard from Lusaka

2008-10-15T00:21:00.000-07:00

I pack my bags while watching a documentary about crab fisherman in Alaska, a scenario that seems about as far removed from life in the capital of land-locked Zambia as any I could imagine. After breakfast, we check out and await our transfer to the airport.

The mini bus, like all buses and vans in Lusaka, is a painted a cheerful turquoise blue with a white roof. On the drive I take the opportunity to observe the city; the only detail I noted on the drive in on Wednesday night were the trees, satisfyingly African-looking with their flat tops, and the driver’s penchant for hair-raising overtaking.

The buildings around our hotel, official ones including the Japanese embassy and the Ministry for Justice, are in the Soviet style: utilitarian, charmless, dirty. High walls abound, topped with barbed wire, electric fencing, particularly unfriendly-looking broken glass, or a combination of the three.

Advertising is everywhere, proof of Zambia’s place in the economic world order suspended from lamp poles, painted on walls, or adorning the proliferation of billboards that line the Great East Road. Their subject matter vacillates between the familiar – laundry detergent, insurance brokers, Coca Cola, mobile phone carriers – and the exotic – health campaigns about HIV/AIDS, and warnings comical in their sincerity: ‘Illegal waste removers: Don’t use them!’

Barclays dominates the ambient marketing. I think back to my visit to the bank yesterday, the mass of well-behaved people waiting in orderly queues. They must be making a fortune, I thought. Especially since most of the customers appeared to be opening new accounts.

It’s the sheer volume of people that’s most remarkable. There are few footpaths, but people walk alongside the road in all directions. Clothing is largely conservative. Women wear pants or long, form-fitting skirts in vivid shades, while many of the men look like middle-aged Englishmen in beige slacks and pale blue button-up shirts. Everyone appears conspicuously clean and fresh, despite the eddying dust and close heat. No one has acne.

Women wearing fluorescent yellow capes sweep leaves by the side of the road like municipal super heroes. They are fighting a perpetual battle with their arch nemesis, the hot, dry wind that jeopardises their efforts to corral the leaves.

A ute with a trayful of black passengers passes us and we observe each other, me in the nearly empty bus, them crowded into the open tray. I am acutely aware of being foreign and white, a sense of not fitting in, and feel unaccountably guilty.

The public buildings and shopping centres have given way to smaller structures. All of them – hospitals, homes, places of worship, the enigmatically named ‘Integrity Centre’ – are constructed in the same, long slung, brown-tiled style and are enclosed by the high walls seen in the city centre. Evidence of the nation’s religiosity passes by: a mosque, Christian churches of all denominations, a sign advertising a Messianic group who pray for peace in Jerusalem. Examples of pervasive poverty are also abundant, in the form of tiny, metal-roofed homes on small plots.

Bush begins to take over as we get further out, approaching the airport. It is crisply scorched and brown, punctuated with occasional splashes of green or the bright pink of a bougainvillea. A taste of the wilderness to come.