Plane buffs advised to book summer Martin Mars Bomber tours now

by Rob Howatson

The award for most creative contribution to VANOC’s Paint the Town Red campaign goes to the marketing wizards for the City of Richmond. For two days in the midst of this Frebruary’s Winter Olympics, Richmond’s Lulu Islanders invited one of the world’s largest flying boats to moor its red-and-white hulk off the shore of Steveston’s Garry Point Park. The media was then invited to tour the Martin Mars bomber, while the public got to see this behemoth demonstrate its awesome wildfire fighting abilities as it dropped 27,000 litres of Fraser River froth into the delta – just a scant 50 metres away from the cheering crowds jostling for camera angles on the rocky beach.

Thirty years from now, I may not be able to tell you who won the Norway-Slovakia game at the 2010 Games, or what colour Jill Barber’s furry winter hat was when she sang at the Richmond O-Zone, but I will never forget the throaty growl of the Mars bomber’s four 2500-horsepower, Wright Cyclone engines as the plane drew a curtain of water that momentarily blotted out the sky.

Built for the U.S. Navy in 1945, the Martin Mars was originally conceived as long-range bomber bit was quickly reassigned for general transport when the prototype wowed Navy brass with its incredible heavy-lift capabilities.

Five Martin Mars aircraft were built for the U.S. Navy in 1945. The planes were originally conceived as long-range bombers, but were quickly reassigned for general transport when the prototype wowed Navy brass with its incredible heavy-lift capabilities. In 1959, Richmond volunteer firefighter, senior pilot and Burkeville resident Dan McIvor then envisioned converting these cargo cruisers to water tankers to fight wildfires. A consortium of B.C. forest companies subsequently purchased four of the Mars planes and the fleet went on to battle some 4,000 B.C. forest blazes.

Today, only two Mars bombers remain operational: both are stationed at Coulson Aircrane’s base on Sproat Lake, near Port Alberni. The Coulson Flying Tankers visitors centre is open to the public in the summer and plane tours are available for $10, assuming that the birds aren’t away on assignment. (Though with the word out thanks to this year’s Winter Games, early reservations may well be the way to go.) Check for  hours of operation.

>>Share your favourite sighting of these B.C. aviation icons

Lead photo courtesy City of Richmond

by James Glave

“If you’re extra lucky, you’ll get yourselves invited to a kitchen party,” Terri Shea told Elle and me in the days leading up to our Newfoundland vacation. “Friends and neighbours get together and play instruments and sing and tell stories and drink. That’s the real deal out there.”

Shea, a close friend who hails from “the Rock” but now lives just down the street from our home on Bowen Island, B.C., had just “Screeched in” the two of us in her living room. As per Newfoundland custom, the wife and I had each downed a shot of cheap rum and kissed a frozen salmon. The coho was a West Coast stand-in for the cod that Newfoundlanders traditionally pull out of the fridge for the ceremony that awards honourary citizenship to those who, like us, “come from aways.”

So we’d necked with a fish. We’d been made titular locals and had the certificates to prove it – direct from the Internet via inkjet printer. But we both knew we were Newfoundlanders on paper only. We wanted the real deal.

Little did we know that on the last night of our future trip, we’d not only track down a bona fide kitchen party – complete with an old guy crooning fishermen’s ballads out of a ragged coil-bound notebook – we’d do ourselves even better. We’d actually host it. But then, we had a little help from Ken Sooley.

[Newfoundland Kitchen Party]

Porch party at the Mouland house / courtesy James Glave

“We’re providing a brand-new concept in experiential travel,” the 48-year-old president of CapeRace Cultural Adventures had said of his new venture, which was just wrapping up its first full season. “We’ve designed a way for people to become integrated into three local communities, and each has a different take on the Newfoundland lifestyle.” In other words, Sooley’s company could offer what Shea’s gag certificates could not – admission to the inner circle of a variety of small outport communities up and down Newfoundland’s eastern shores, complete with meaningful and spontaneous interactions between visitors and locals. Indeed, the CapeRace experience remains unique in North America, delivering an uncanned and authentic sense of place and its people. So much so, in fact, that National Geographic Traveler magazine last year declared it “one of the Top 50 tours of a lifetime.”

The appeal? Sooley connects his clients with “fixers,” the kind of on-the-ground contacts a journalist might hire to establish local sources and get the inside scoop while on assignment in a far-off country. Want to try squid jigging in a working fishboat? Just call Jerry or Elizabeth. They’ll pop over, introduce you to the neighbours – here’s hoping you can understand a word they are saying – and suggest whom you might call and what you might offer to pay.

Hi-fi at E.J. Sooley house / courtesy James Glave

And so, for 10 days in mid-July, Sooley’s company would “embed” Elle and me in a couple of remote fishing villages, some of which look much as they did in the 19th century when the salted cod trade was at its peak. We’d bunk down in heritage homes that Sooley had purchased and restored over a period of several years, one in the historic Battery neighbourhood in St. John’s, the others in the village of Heart’s Delight and the town of Bonavista – houses as authentic as the communities they stand in.

The E.J. Sooley house in Heart’s Delight, for example, belongs to Sooley’s grandfather. It still contains the original enamel appliances and fixtures, right down to the squeaky cast-iron beds and bare-bulb kitchen light we’d switch on and off via a dangling string. Meanwhile, up in Bonavista, the marvellously quirky Thomas Mouland house once belonged to a man involved in the great sealing disaster of 1914 – a dark chapter of the province’s history in which 78 sealers were inadvertently abandoned on the ice floes to perish in a blizzard.

The cold North Atlantic is just a stone’s throw from the front porch of the Thomas Mouland house, but the closest we’ve come to it so far is the “bergy bit” that Sooley has stashed in the freezer. He recovered the microwave-oven-sized piece of ice off the beach some months prior. On our first of three nights in Bonavista, it has become my routine to chip a few chunks off the salvaged berg and drop them in my tumbler of “Screech” rum, which I’m enjoying on the porch this evening with Lloyd – our designated local contact and Sooley’s sole contractor.

“You know, when we was fixing this place up,” says Lloyd, “there were 13 layers of linoleum on the kitchen floor. When one piece wore out, the old guy just laid himself a fresh piece right on top. It took two weeks to get it all up.” Lloyd decided to pay homage to the Mouland’s century-long chronicle of renovations. And so, each step of the building’s narrow staircase now showcases a different pattern of flooring, one for each decade it lay hidden underfoot.

After a few minutes, Lloyd and I are joined by Dorman,* a neighbour from across the street who owns a nearby convenience store. As the three of us shoot the breeze, a grey whale follows suit in the background, blowing plumes of salt spray into the sky a quarter-mile offshore.

Dorman, 57, explains how it used to be around here. “With the winter starms we get these days, you can har the floor of the ocean rumbling and groaning-like.” He wears dress slacks with a starched shirt the colour of Dijon mustard, his hair Brylcreemed back. “It’s like the whole bottom of the sea is roaring and heavin’. Mam said you never used to har that. It’s changin’.”

Bonavista's Thomas Mouland house / courtesy James Glave

The sea isn’t the only thing in flux here on the brink of the North Atlantic. Lloyd and Dorman and I look out across the fields of swaying long grass, past the “flakes” – spindly replica cod drying racks the local historic society has installed for the benefit of tourists – and toward the houses scattered here and there along the gravel waterfront road that passes in front of us.

“This whole field used to be full of houses, see?” says Dorman, waving his arm at the emptiness.

“What happened to them all?” I ask.

“The people died or moved. Thar houses all either fell down or was knocked down.”

About 3,700 hardy souls call Bonavista home today, but like many other towns across Newfoundland, its population has been shrinking since 1992. That was the year the federal government placed a moratorium on cod fishing in an effort to protect those few fish that remained. With the stroke of a pen, a resource and an industry already beyond the point of exhaustion was legally pronounced dead. Tens of thousands lost their jobs. The province’s economy had become so dependent on the sea that many were forced to pack up and leave, an out-migration that continues to this day. Some 5,000 Newfoundlanders still move “aways” each year, including many of the younger generation, like our neighbour back home, Terri Shea. The remaining population is greying quickly; children represent only 15 per cent of the island’s overall head count.

“It was so different when I was nine or 10,” says Dorman. “This here main road was jammed with people, all of them takin’ in the catch, splittin’ it, houses and stores and sheds all over. And this road here back of us was a railroad track. They’d bring in coal on the ships and load it up on rail cars and deliver it around the neighbourhood, see?”

I almost can, though the tracks are long gone. The lane in question – well above the level of the surrounding fields – is more roadbed than road.

“And that old wharf?” The crumbling pier is just over the fence beyond the front yard. “My brother’s best friend drowned right thar,” says Dorman. “Mam says he was eatin’ a molasses sandwich and jumping ’tween the dories. Went right in. And he was gan. Just like ’dat.”

“He couldn’t swim?” I ask, incredulous.

“None of us could,” he replies, then reflects. “There’s a lot of history thar.”

Indeed there is. And without Ken Sooley and Lloyd making the introductions, I wouldn’t have heard the half of it.

CapeRace appeals to a fairly specific kind of traveller, the sort who doesn’t mind venturing outside his or her comfort zone once in awhile. (The folks who were across the street from us in Heart’s Delight, for example, have a habit of setting up lawn chairs to watch the new arrivals. Evidently, there’s not a lot else to do.) But then, the public’s appetite for such raw experiences is on the rise.

“Ever since 9/11, people have been searching for something deeper,” says Patty Morgan, executive director of the Travel and Tourism Research Association, an industry trade group based in Boise, Idaho. “They don’t want the Holiday Inn with the pool and the continental breakfast.” And though he has not heard of anything else quite like CapeRace in North America, says Peter Yesawich, whose firm Ypartnership tracks emerging travel trends, “the appeal of this kind of deep authenticity has certainly grown. And I only see it increasing,” he adds, “particularly among the Millenniums – sub-boomer travellers in their late twenties and early thirties.”

The key to Sooley’s operation is his self-published Traveller’s Diary guidebook, available only to CapeRace clients. It’s a compilation of local lore and essential info specific to the towns on the CapeRace loop – such as the rules of the classic Newfoundland card game 120s – plus the home numbers of Sooley’s local contacts. “The neighbours are an interesting bunch and may drop by,” he notes in one chapter. “Tell Harv I sent you and ask him about the unusual bingo games he hosts on Monday nights.” (Apparently, with help from Sooley, the wiley pub owner came up with an ingenious scheme to bring in the town’s women, many of whom have husbands working aways in the Alberta oil patch: he doles out adult novelties as prizes.)

Sooley has certainly picked the right place to launch his new-era travel experiment. This trip is my first foray into Newfoundland, and I’ve never felt so much a foreigner inside my own country. Our youngest province is a region apart – a time warp to a more innocent age, largely untouched by the soul-draining crush of mass tourism. It’s a place where the culture has evolved in isolation from the rest of Canada, the result of small outport communities that for centuries were effectively cut off from one another by fierce winters.

As for the Newfoundland dialect, it can be as impenetrable as the province’s harsh interior landscape: the thousands of kilometres of scrub and ponds known simply as the Barrens. Then there are the mannerisms. Newfoundland men greet each other with a quick left-to-right sideways nod, and I know I’m starting to fit in when I experience the tradition first-hand outside the Bonavista Foodland grocery. Considering Newfoundland’s relative accessibility today, it remains one of the most unpackaged and unpretentious places on the continent. Yet for all its distinctive charms, it is refreshingly open to outsiders. That reality was only underscored on 9/11, when the small town of Gander opened its doors to the 6,500 unscheduled guests who found themselves stranded here when U.S.-bound flights were diverted by the closure of American airspace.

Catered "Light House" picnic / courtesy James Glave

We caught our first taste of this legendary hospitality in Heart’s Delight – almost halfway through our 10-day sojourn, after three days traipsing the cathedrals, back streets and hilltop cannon batteries of St. John’s. Elizabeth and Jerry, our designated local contacts, were still travelling back from Nova Scotia when we arrived at the charming oceanfront E.J. Sooley cottage. We’d feared we’d be on our own in this blip-sized outport, with no TV, radio or board games, not even a pub or coffee shop to show up at, and rain in the forecast to boot. The only available source of diversion: a pre-stereo record player tucked away in a cabinet and a copy of Reels and Jigs of Newfoundland – one of a clutch of profoundly scratched-up old LPs, the novelty of which wore thin after just a few cacophonous minutes. But then Donna Reid knocked on the door and introduced herself as Sooley’s cousin.

“Say, you know, the capelin are supposed to star’ rollin’ any day now. Would you like to go out tammara morning to see if we can see ’em?”

The capelin are a needle-thin fish, relatives of the freshwater smelt. For much of its life, the species lives in deep water, but in June and July its numbers “roll” up on Newfoundland’s beaches to spawn by the tens of thousands. The locals show up to watch and pull them out of the surf in buckets, either to smoke and eat or dig into their gardens as fertilizer. The roll is apparently quite a spectacle – a frenzied oceanic orgy attended by hungry gulls, seals and sometimes whales – and certainly one of the highlights of the year for the people of Heart’s Delight, population 663. And, said Reid, as luck would have it, the procreation party might well kick off tomorrow morning.

The dawn was just breaking as Reid drove us down a rutted, unmarked dirt road to a bluff overlooking a quiet cove. We peered out through the wet windshield.

Though Reid assured us that conditions were perfect for getting it on capelin-style – it’s raining, she said, and a frigid north wind was blowing down from Labrador – evidently the fish weren’t feeling particularly frisky that morning.

A neighbour pulled up alongside and rolled down the window. “Hey, Donna,” he said, “see anyting out thar?”

“I think I can see ’em offshore, the water looks dark, but they’re not comin’ in,” our host replied.

“Funny that, you’d think they would.”

“Yeash, we’ve got the narth wind,” she noted.

“Yeash,” the friend answered with a chuckle. “The wind we don’t wont don’t even bring the capelin in.”

The following morning, we were about to motor out of the driveway for the long haul up the Bonavista Peninsula when Jerry and Elizabeth – who is another of Sooley’s cousins – stopped by. They’d just returned from their vacation and were hoping to catch us to say hello before we left. We chatted for a bit, and though we’d had a great time in their village, doing not much of anything except wandering the bluffs, picking wild strawberries and taking the odd day trip, they felt bad for mostly missing us. They wanted to send us off properly.

“Can we talk you into taking some moose sausages with you?” Jerry offered. “They’re really, really good ones.”

If there were such a thing as an official protein census of Newfoundland freezers, moose would doubtless come out in the count way ahead of hamburger. The beasts have thrived here since the first pair was introduced from Nova Scotia more than a century back, and hunting them is for many a way of life. The population is now so healthy that the province’s long-haul truckers weld heavy steel-tube grills – called “moose cages” – to the business end of their rigs to minimize the damage of inevitable collisions.

“That would be lovely,” I told Jerry. “If you can spare one or two links, we can probably tuck ’em into the top of the cooler.”

“Great, I’ll just run over and get ’em.”

Days later, having consumed over the preceding 72 hours somewhere between eight and 10 pounds of moose sausage, moose steak and moose burgers, I am sitting out on the porch in Bonavista watching the light fade. I sip on my Screech and listen to the wind blow through the tall grass that surrounds our tiny house and the pop and crack of the ice in my glass that was last liquid around 11,000 years back.

My cellphone breaks the peace. It’s Lloyd on the line: “How you gettin’ on over thar this evenin’?” he asks.

“Very well, thanks.”

“Good. Say, a group of us boys was thinkin’ of comin’ by tammara night to play a little music thar. D’y think that’d be alright?”

“I think that would be just fine with us, Lloyd,” I say. “Just fine.”

Author James Glave

In addition to being a “titular Newfie,” James Glave is also a former Outside magazine senior editor and the author of Almost Green: How I Built an Eco-Shed, Ditched My SUV, Alienated the Inlaws, and Changed My Life (Greystone Books, 2008; $22).

An interview with author James Glave and an excerpt from his recent book can be enjoyed at MyWestworld.com/jamesglave

Listen in on more “embedded vacation” Maritimes hilarity (a little lobster fishing, “tonging” for oysters or moonshine making, anyone?). MyWestworld.com/podcasts.

the rock-onnoitre experts

CapeRace Cultural Adventures offers 10-day, nine-night packages, including rental car, exclusive use of three coastal homes and a custom guidebook. Circuits begin in St. John’s and conclude in Bonavista, departing every four days between April and October. U.S. $1,495 per person based on four-person occupancy; U.S. $2,600 based on two-person occupancy. Kids under 16 travel free. mail@caperace.com

See also: Bowen Island: One Man’s Eco Quest.

Lead photo courtesy Ken Sooley

Boa Vista: One of the lesser-developed isles in the volcanic Cape Verde chain, Boa Vista is mainly suited to those whose interests lie in water sports and sun worship. With pristine sand dunes, magnificent, bone-white beaches, emerald-green seas and relaxed atmosphere, you can lounge all day in complete peace, absorbing the sunshine and spectacular panoramas. Or choose from a readily available range of activities, such as snorkelling, scuba diving, windsurfing, kayaking, game fishing, horse-riding, quad bikes and jeep treks. Boa Vista is the third most important loggerhead turtle nesting site in the world. See them nesting from June to September. At night, you can sample the traditional seafood restaurants and lively music bars in the capital of Sal Rei and its unique blend of African, Portuguese and Brazilian cultures.

courtesy flickr.com

Fakarava: Enveloped by a coral reef and blue lagoon waters, this gorgeous Polynesian atoll is so remote it is not found on most  maps. Fakarava’s environment is so pure that the isle has been designated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve for the preservation of rare species. Rich in natural fauna, it offers pink-sand beaches and is rife with rare aquatic life that includes loach, meru, and barracuda–not to mention hammerheads and tiger sharks. Not surprisingly, scuba diving is the island’s top draw, but other attractions include the ancient village of Tetamanu, where there is a Catholic church made of coral that dates back to 1874, and pearl farms, where rare black pearls are shelled.

Terre-de-Haut: Les Saintes, a spectacular cluster of eight islands situated just off the coast of Guadeloupe and accessible only by ferry or private yacht, is the very essence of French West Indies life-–without the crowds. Terre-de-Haut is the most appealing of all, with its attractive beaches, delicious Creole cuisine and laid-back French-speaking locals. It’s also the only Les Saintes island with overnight accommodations. Beachcombers will love the powdery white sands of the palm-lined Plage de Pompierre, while the spectacular underwater world of colourful reefs and exotic fish makes scuba diving and snorkelling another huge draw. Rent a golf cart to get around and visit a different beach at dawn, midday and dusk. Outside the village centre, a steep trail leads to 18th century Fort Napoleon, a fortress with barracks and prison cells, model ships and a botanical garden. There is also a nearby beach that attracts divers and nude sunbathers.

Lamu: The oldest living town in Kenya, Lamu was one of the original Swahili settlements along coastal East Africa. The port has existed for at least a thousand years. Lamu was on the main Arabian trading routes, and as a result, the population is largely Muslim. Due to the narrowness of the streets, automobiles are not allowed–the city is easily explored by foot, bicycle, or, as many locals favour, donkey. The island boasts golden sands fronting the Indian Ocean, tiny villages and a breezy, slow-moving pace of life. The rich atmosphere and history alone makes Lamu worth the trek, but so do its beaches and waters: Shela Beach offers the best swimming, while excursions to ruins and coral reefs could have you snorkelling alongside frolicking dolphins.

courtesy drewmeyerinsights.com

Cat Ba Island: The largest islet in Vietnam’s Cat Ba Archipelago, a series of 350 craggy limestone outcrops adjacent to scenic Halong Bay, Cat Ba Island is an undiscovered oasis. Starting from the Halong Bay Wharf, it takes four hours to reach the island by boat, with stopovers for swimming and eating fresh seafood. With an area of 356 square kilometres, Cat Ba encompasses forested zones, coastal mangroves, freshwater swamps, beaches, caves and cascading waterfalls. In 1986, the northeast side of the island was designated a National Park and includes a protected marine zone. The best way to see it is by motorbike. Cat Ba Island supports a population of over 20,000 inhabitants most of whom live off fishing or farming in and around Cat Ba Town. The town is small and ancient, with clusters of fishing boats. It’s a short hike from the through a tunnel to Cat Co Beach where mountains form a throne-like frame around a stunning sandy coast.

Vis: Aside from intrepid travellers, wealthy yachties and Croatians in the know, Vis remains relatively undiscovered by tourists. While the Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Slavs, Venetians, Austrians, French and British have all taken turns occupying the strategically positioned island, Vis has now reverted back to something of a Mediterranean hidden gem. With its secluded beaches, crystal-blue waters strewn with sunken shipwrecks, vineyard-covered mountains, historic ruins and some of the best fish restaurants in the Adriatic, it’s no wonder Conde Nast Traveller has billed Vis as “Capri before the tourists.” The island also offers some great hiking opportunities and from the top of Mount Hum (587 metres) it is possible to see Italy.

Lead image courtesy fabuloussavers.com

The price of admission includes an optional tour with a guide. It’s highly advisable, as Dali’s work is complicated. Our guide, Tom, is an enthusiastic fellow who produces an alarming amount of saliva when he talks. Originally from Virginia, he has a thick southern accent, and it takes some time to adjust to the sound of his honeysuckle drawl as he discusses Dali’s fascination with Sigmund Freud’s theories of the unconscious. But the effort is worth it. A far more complex impression of Dali emerges during our tour than I remember from the 1960s, when the wild-eyed Spaniard was regarded as another wigged-out pop star, roaming the globe in a purple cape with a black ivory cane and his twitching Count of Monte Cristo moustache.

courtesy gravitando.wordpress.com

Out tour begins with a painting entitled Daddy Longlegs of the Evening–Hope! In addition to the obligatory spider, there is a limp airplane oozing out of a cannon and a desiccated body draped over a tree, its head flattened into a fish-eye silhouette. The figure is holding a violin while ants dine on its skull. According to Tom, this 1940 piece predicts the key role that air power would play in the Second World War. The work is also significant because its history explains the museum’s creation.

The painting was purchased at an auction in 1943 by a Cleveland plastics engineeer named Reynolds Morse, and his wife Eleanor, for $600. The Morses met Dali to complete the transaction over cocktails at the St. Regis Hotel in New York City. Dali, demonstrating his business acumen, regretfully informed them he could not sell the painting without its original frame. The cost of the frame was $700.

Rather than being soured by the experience, the Morses continued to buy Dali’s work. The conservative couple’s infatuation with the flamboyant artist puzzled their friends, but they persevered, braving the insults tossed at them by Dali’s domineering wife, Gala, and paying for expensive dinners that Dali presided over in chic Manhattan restaurants. Eventually, the two couples developed a friendship that included taking vacations together and collaborating on lectures and exhibitions.

courtesy worldgallery.co.uk

In 1971, Morse began to exhibit his Dali pieces in a wing of his company’s headquarters in suburban Cleveland. The collection soon outgrew its surroundings and in 1980 he began to search for a permanent home. St. Petersburg won the bid for collection under the condition that it be kept intact and accessible to the public. The Florida legislature raised $2 million to convert a vacant warehouse into a museum and establish foundations to maintain and display the collection, which is now valued at more than $350 million.

Those who only associate Dali with his surrealist canvasses will be surprised by the museum’s examples of the more conventional paintings that he did in his youth. One, in particular, the 1926 still life Basket of Bread, glows with the translucent warmth of the great Dutch masters. Eighty-three years after its creation, the bread still looks like it just emerged fresh from the oven. There are also a number of rarely exhibited items, including a drawing for a movie entitled Giraffes on Horseback Salad that Dali intended to make with the Marx Brothers. Sadly, Dali’s script was rejected by MGM as too weird.

Thankfully, the museum has plenty of examples of Dali’s stunning hallucinatory visions, the ones populated with melting watches, bleeding eggs, lobster telephones, insect-legged elephants and tilting crutches that caused many to conclude that the artist was either insane or on drugs. Dali denied the latter charge, declaring, “I don’t do drugs. I am drugs.”

courtesy artknowledgenews.com

These powerful and macabre 1930s paintings, pulsing with sex and paranoia, established Dali as the most famous of the surrealists, an art movement from which he was expelled in 1934 because of his right-wing political views. But the Catalonian’s photographic realism clearly stamped him as a modernist. As writer J.G. Ballard observed: “Fitted with a disquieting light that is more electric than solar, his paintings are like stills from some elegant but unsentimental newsreel filmed inside our heads.”
Dali had a mischievous wit, evident in some of his titles: The Pharmacist of Ampurdan Seeking Absolutely Nothing, Eggs on a Plate without the Plate, and Aphrodisiac Dinner Jacket. The latter is a sculpture composed of dozens of shot glasses filled with creme de menthe that are attached like monstrous sequins to a jacket from under which a white brassiere peeps out. As the Spaniard noted, “It is not necessary for the public to know whether I am joking or I am serious, just as it is not necessary for me to know it myself.”

Out tour culminates in a long, tall gallery devoted to six of what Dali immodestly called his “masterworks”: massive, religiously inspired paintings, crowded with mind-boggling detail and double images, all produced between 1948 and 1970. In order to paint these behemoths, he had part of his studio floor removed so that a canvas could be raised and lowered by ropes, keeping the part he was working on at eye level. The most famous of these epics, The Hallucinogenic Toreador, took almost four years to complete.

courtesy fotos.org

Head buzzing, I exit the gallery wondering what Dali would have thought of all this. He planned to attend the museum’s opening in 1982, but cancelled when Gala fell ill. After her death that year, his own health went into decline and he made no more trans-Atlantic trips before his own death in 1989. One suspects that Dali would have been pleased by the museum, especially its fabulous gift shop, whose assorted temptations artfully empty the pockets of visitors.

The shop’s array of books, T-shirts, posters, calendars and fridge magnets is supplemented by baseball caps, umbrellas, jewellery and silk ties imprinted with Daliesque grasshoppers, ants and rippling birds. There are Dali-designed tarot cards, functional melting clocks, martini glasses, jigsaw puzzles, finger puppets, and bumper stickers and coffee mugs emblazoned wth one of Dali’s most enduring and revealing statements: “The only difference between myself and a madman is that I am not mad.”

Lead image courtesy iatwm.com

Although Virgin is not the only company vying to gain a foothold in the space tourism industry, at this point it appears to be in the lead. Virgin Galactic will offer space flights for $200,000, and says it has already received more than 200 firm reservations and collected more than $17 million in deposits. To date, some 45,000 people have expressed an interest in the trips, a remarkable number considering that customers will linger only 15 minutes in space, including five minutes of weightlessness. That is considerably less time in the inky void and far less money than was spent by American billionaire Dennis Tito, who became the world’s first paying space tourist in 2001, when he forked over $20 million for an eight-day holiday aboard the International Space Station.

According to Virgin Galactic’s website www.virgingalactic.com, its customers will prepare for their flights with three days of training. Launches will first occur at the Mojave Spaceport in California, and will then be moved to the permanent spaceport (Spaceport America) in New Mexico, near the town of Truth or Consequences. Another launch site is being built for European customers in Kiruna, Sweden. Its spaceships will blast up to 109 kilometres (68 miles) high; beyond the height of 100 kilometres, which is the internationally defined boundary between Earth and space. Flights will last 2.5 hours and reach a speed of Mach 3. SpaceShipTwo will not require a heat shield for atmospheric re-entry as it will not experience the extreme aerodynamic heating experienced during re-entry with orbital velocities. The glider will employ a “feathering” technique to reduce drag during the unpowered descent and landing. Branson notes that safety is of paramount importance to the venture. “We have to launch this on the basis that we’re giving people a return ticket. We have the best safety record in transportation of any group of companies in the world.”

One of Virgin’s main competitors in this new space race is Space Adventures, a U.S.-based company that has already sent several space tourists on a Russian Soyuz rocket to the International Space Station for $20 million each. Space Adventures says it plans to “fly tens of thousands of people into space over the next 10 to 15 years and beyond, both orbital and suborbital, around the moon, and back, from spaceports both on Earth and in space, to and from private space stations, and aboard dozens of different vehicles.” Space Adventures intends to build a ring-shaped, rotating “commercial space infrastructure” that will resemble the Discovery spacecraft in the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, and place it 644 kilometres above Earth. The space city will rotate once per minute to create a gravitational pull one-third as strong as Earth’s. The company envisions having 20,000 people on its “space island” by 2020, with the number of people doubling for each decade.

Eccentric Las Vegas zillionaire Robert T. Bigelow, who made his fortune in the real estate industry, has already successfully launched two inflatable habitats into space, Genesis I and Genesis II. As early as 2010, Bigelow Aerospace plans to launch the Sundancer, a crew-capable inflatable module. If tests prove successful, the company will launch the first of what will be its standard, six-person module. This will link up with Sundancer to form the nucleus of the first space complex. Subsequent modules can be ganged together; the idea ultimately is to have multiple stations that can hold anywhere from six people to several dozen. These space habitats will be more comfortable than the International Space Station, with private sleeping quarters, plenty of windows and better food. The price for staying in the floating complex? About $12 million for transportation, training and four weeks of “hang time.” Lower rates will be available for longer bookings. Bigelow is offering a $50 million prize to the first company that creates a reusable spacecraft capable of carrying passengers to his space station.

Two other companies heavily invested in the spacecraft field are SpaceX and Excalibur Almaz. SpaceX is a private space company that has developed its own rocket family called Falcon and a capsule named Dragon, capable of sending up to seven people to any space station. The Falcon 1 made its first successful flight on September 28, 2008, and the large EELV class Falcon 9 is scheduled to have its initial launch in 2009. The Dragon capsule is set to enter service in 2009.

Excalibur Almaz, a private company headquartered on the Isle of Man, plans to use modernized TKS space capsules and Almaz space stations, derived from the formerly secret Soviet space program. Their space capsules resemble American Gemini capsules, but unlike the two-person Gemini, they are reusable, and can carry three passengers or operate autonomously. They can launch atop any of several rockets of various spacefaring countries, and they use parachutes and retrorockets to return to Earth, touching down on land or on water.

Meanwhile, Richard Branson says he expects Virgin Galactic to eventually make space travel accessible to millions of people. Virgin hopes to transport 50,000 travellers into space in its first 10 years of operation, and Branson insists that as technology progresses and competition increases, space flights will become much more affordable. Will his prediction pan out? The commercial viability of the enterprise has yet to be proven, but there is no denying that concept has long since left the hazy realm of science fiction and edged tantalizingly close to reality.

Photo Credits:

#1: osmoothie.com

#2: theregister.co.uk

#3: newscientist.com

It was a surprise therefore to discover that there are really two Cooperstowns, each possessing its own distinct air of unreality. One is a sleepy hamlet of tree-lined streets and beautifully preserved clapboard and red brick Victorian homes on the south shore of Otsego Lake. This Cooperstown appears little changed since the late 1800s, when it served as a resort for wealthy city dwellers. The other Cooperstown, devoted to all things baseball and packed into a three-block stretch of Main Street, is a far newer and more artificial creation, designed for the express purpose of sucking as many dollars as possible out of the pockets of tourists. Here, amid a daunting array of memorabilia shops, everything is a potential souvenir. This point became abundantly clear to us, when, after downing several bottles of Old Slugger Pale Ale in Shoeless Joe’s Café, we were approached by our waitress, who asked, “Do you gentleman want to take those empty bottles with you?” Was this a common practice among her customers? “You’d be surprised,” she said, grinning. “Some of these baseball people are crazy.”

My brother and I qualify as “baseball people.” We both played the game as kids, on dusty diamonds, in organized leagues and out in our backyard with a plastic whiffle ball. We collected and traded baseball cards, we wore baseball caps and we played baseball board games. And in our adult years we continued to keep close ties with the game through our participation in baseball fantasy leagues.

However, we do not consider ourselves crazy, which is why we went to Cooperstown in late June. You would have to be crazy to venture into the place after July 1, when the bulk of the 400,000 annual visitors begin pouring into this village of 2,500 residents. The invasion reaches its peak in late July with the annual Hall of Fame ceremonies, when new members are inducted and an exhibition game between two major league teams is staged at Doubleday Field, a tiny stadium erected upon the very spot where baseball was supposedly invented in the summer of 1839.

This myth was foisted upon the American public by Albert Spalding, owner of the Chicago White Stockings and sporting goods magnate. In 1895, he appointed a council to “research” the claim that baseball had evolved from the English games of cricket and rounders. Spalding wanted baseball to be seen as “all American,” and indeed, his council reported that the sport had been invented by a deceased Civil War hero named Abner Doubleday in Cooperstown. Historians now agree that not only did Doubleday have no connection to baseball, he wasn’t even in Cooperstown in 1839. Instead of springing from pastoral roots, the game actually developed in New York City in the 1840s. On June 19, 1846, the first baseball game with set rules was played in Hoboken, New Jersey, at Elysian Fields, a park named after the paradise of ancient Greek myth, where those who are favoured by the gods go when they die. All in all, a much more prosaic site for baseball’s birth.

However, the Doubleday myth still held sway in the 1930s, when some Cooperstown businessmen decided to build a baseball museum in an effort to boost the area’s Depression-ravaged economy. The Hall of Fame opened with much fanfare on June 12, 1939, as part of a celebration to mark the centennial of Doubleday’s alleged invention of the game. Eleven baseball luminaries, including Babe Ruth, Ty Cobb, Tris Speaker, Walter Johnson and Connie Mack attended the event. Since then, Cooperstown has never looked back.

And why should it? Baseball has made many of Cooperstown’s resident’s wealthy and continues to provide the town’s prime source of income. The Hall itself has grown from an unimposing two-room structure into a three-storey complex filled with a mind-bending assemblage of baseball artifacts, including such items as fingerless gloves from the 1880s, Ty Cobb’s sliding pads, Lou Gehrig’s locker, the bat that Babe Ruth used to hit his 60th homer of the 1927 season, plus exhibits of uniforms, trading cards, World Series rings and various trophies.

The Hall of Fame gallery, where a couple of hundred baseball’s immortals are commemorated by bronze plaques and brief bios, is probably the major draw for visitors, but it is also surprisingly small. The display’s modest dimensions suggest just how difficult it is to gain entry into the Hall. Only one percent of all the men who have played in the majors have been deemed to possess the necessary credentials and there has never been a unanimous selection.

The museum also houses a library and photo archive containing more than 300,000 images. In addition to retrieving research materials from the vaults, the staff also fields queries on baseball-related topics. The day we visited, there were inquiries about the colour of Babe Ruth’s eyes, Mickey Mantle’s precise height and weight in his rookie year, and which player had hit home runs in the greatest number of major-league ballparks. A Brooklyn couple wanted to discuss the veracity of the depiction of Jimmy Foxx’s character in the movie A League of Their Own, which they claimed to have seen 17 times. A pastor from Seattle was seeking newspaper clippings about the Hall’s opening ceremony in 1939, at which his father had delivered the benediction.

People come to Cooperstown searching for all manner of things. At the end of our two-day stay, I found myself both elated and a tad regretful. My elation was inspired by the discovery that a couple of the baseball trivia books I had written were on sale in the Hall of Fame’s bookstore. My regret was that I had not visited Cooperstown as a child. Seen through a haze of innocence no longer available to me, the trip would, I am quite certain, have become etched into my memory as one of the highlights of my life. But, then again, seeing the place with my brother was a special treat, and the nostalgia I felt for the game and my youth came back in a rush. In the end, it didn’t really matter that the Hall of Fame was built on lies, because going to Cooperstown is all about surrendering to fantasy.

Photo Credits:

#1:baseballhalloffame.org

#2: seecny.com

#3: the700level.com

#4: freewebs.com

I was saddened to learn recently that Gordon passed away in November 2007, at age 74. Fittingly, he died on the job–out on the road, attending tourism conventions. Gordon will be unreplaceable, but his four children: George, Carol, Melody and Rene, together with his wife Ethel, are continuing to run the business as they always have–as a family unit, which is just the way Gordon intended.

In memory of Gordon, I’m including the story that I wrote about him and the construction of his lifelong dream.

Some people collect stamps, others collect coins. Gordon Bell collects history. The size and scope of his treasure trove is mind-boggling. Over a five-decade span, this eccentric entrepreneur has amassed everything from early gramophones and telephones to old pianos and arrowheads, from vintage roadsters and steam locomotives to historic buildings. The individual collections are the working parts of his dream creation-–the Three Valley Gap Heritage Ghost Town, situated just west of Revelstoke behind his hotel, the Three Valley Lake Chateau.

The hotel’s setting, rimmed by towering mountains and mist-draped canyons overlooking the shore of Three Valley Lake, is not only visually stunning, it is also historically significant. It was here in 1865 that surveyor Walter Moberly discovered a pass through the mountains while searching for a route to build a wagon road connecting the Shuswap to the Columbia River. Eagle Pass, as Moberly named it, would be used by the Canadian Pacific Railway for years before a highway was built. Later, a section house and a large sawmill were erected on the site by the Mundy Lumber Company, as well as an office building with rooms for employees that was known, ironically, as the “Bell Hotel.” Today, Gordon Bell’s sprawling red-roofed hotel, a local landmark since 1960, uniquely celebrates that pioneering legacy. Its metamorphosis from seven-room motel to 200-room chateau, its sculpted fairy-light-lit grounds and the roundhouse and ghost town have been Bell’s life’s work, an amazing accomplishment that he typically underplays. “All I wanted to do was to build a place where my family could work and live together,” says the gregarious 73-year-old, whose four children and 12 grandchildren have all, at one time or another, been involved in the operation.

As eagles ride the thermals over Mount Moody and the rushing water of Eagle River gurgles in the background, I follow Bell on a tour of his tribute to B.C. history. The ghost town contains more than 30 buildings from the late 1800s and early 1900s, all saved from the wrecking ball, then dismantled piece by piece, and each board and log numbered for transport and reassembly at the Three Valley Gap site. Today, the village includes the three-storey Hotel Bellvue, a general store, barber shop, smithy, laundry, tobacconist, furniture repair shop, trapper’s cabin, Finnish sauna, church, jail, saloon, and a 300-seat theatre at which Sky Floyd Drew and his wife, Dana, stage nightly presentations of their Canadian Cowboy Show. Not only are these original buildings, they are outfitted with authentic decor and furniture. The Hotel Bellvue’s dining room, for example, contains the original bar, curtains, tables and chairs, dishes and breakfast menus from 1898, the year the hotel was built in Sicamous. “When I began collecting these buildings, people thought I was out of my mind,” Bell admits. “But today a lot of people appreciate what we’re doing.”

Equally impressive is Bell’s Antique Auto Museum, featuring beautifully restored cars from the early 1900s acquired because of their pivotal role in early automotive history. Bell points out a 1902 Curved Dash Olds, the first mass-produced car in North America, and a gleaming black 1914 Model-T Ford. “It was actually the first version of the Model T to be painted black. Before 1914, they came in four colours,” he says. “They went to black because it was the only shade that would dry fast enough to keep up with production. In 1914, Ford was turning out a million cars a year.”

Another building on the site houses a large railway museum, which boasts an array of locomotives and private coaches from the steam era, including a rare Pullman business car built for Sir John Eaton in 1916. The historic coach was used to transport doctors, nurses and relief supplies to the Halifax explosion in 1917. After Eaton’s death in 1922, it was sold to the CNR, where it served as the coach for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth on their 1939 Canadian tour and later as a meeting place for Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill during the Second World War. One recent addition of which Bell is quite pleased is the railroad coach from which Prime Minster Pierre Trudeau flashed the folks of Salmon Arm his infamous one-finger salute in 1982.

Bell’s knowledge of automotive and railway lore and B.C. history is exceeded only by his boundless energy. He typically sleeps only four hours a night and arises at 3:30 a.m., and regularly helps carry his guests’ luggage out to the parking lot at dawn, always in the same attire–blue pants and white shirt. He owns 20 sets of the ensemble. As one might surmise, being stylish is not a concern.

Bell was born in Calgary during the Great Depression and says the experience instilled in him a keen desire for independence and self-sufficiency, which helps explain why he decided to build his own hydroelectric plant in 1980 after BC Hydro wanted him to pony up $450,000 to bring electricity to the isolated site. The fact that he knew nothing about generating hydroelectricity didn’t dissuade him. Eventually, after the construction of a dam and turbines, the installation of 2,400 metres of submarine cable under Three Valley Lake and 56 kilometres of overhead power lines, the hotel had its own independent source of electricity, and for half the price quoted by BC Hydro.

Bell’s drive and ambition were evident at an early age, a boy in a hurry to be a man. He landed his first full-time summer job at 11, working for a farmer. While finishing high school, he put in stints as a dishwasher, clothing salesman, logger and carpenter’s helper. He built his first house at 16; six years later he was running a house-building company in Regina with 100 employees and was married with children. He bought the Three Valley Gap lakeshore property in 1956.

“Lakeshore property” may sound romantic, but the reality was somewhat different. “It was all swamp back then,” says Bell, who solved the problem with 25,000 truckloads of rock and fill, a landfill operation he supervised, along with the construction of the hotel, while continuing to build homes in Regina. After quitting work on Friday, he and his wife, Ethel, would pack their kids in the car and make the 13-hour drive to Three Valley Gap, hammer away on the hotel, then drive home on Sunday. “We must have made 50 trips like that,” he recalls. “In winter we’d take the train out.” In 1960, the Bells opened a seven-room motel with a coffee shop and a small museum. In March 1963, they left Regina for good and moved to B.C.

The hotel has been enlarged and remodelled several times since then. Its 200 rooms now include novelty digs such as the Eagle’s Nest, a two-level suite with windows facing all points of the compass, and the Cave, a one-of-a-kind hideaway made entirely of rock; others are gradually being refitted with antiques and curios from Bell’s vast assemblage of memorabilia. The hotel’s major clients are foreign tourists, who overnight here in the midst of weeklong bus trips across B.C. and Alberta. Roadtrippers find the hotel makes a strategic base for touring the Victorian heritage homes, art galleries and Saturday farmer’s market in Revelstoke; historic Craigellachie, where the CPR drove the last spike in 1885; Halcyon Hot Springs resort, just a short ferry ride across Upper Arrow Lake; and the most accessible alpine meadows in B.C., on Mount Revelstoke, whose summit can be reached by car. Tourism in this corner of the Rockies is also fuelled by an increasing stream of heli-skiers and outdoor buffs, an influx that will mushroom if the $20-million development of a major ski resort on Mount Revelstoke proceeds as planned.

Meanwhile, Bell is constructing the only covered railroad turntable and roundhouse in Canada. The huge complex, which encompasses 8,300 square metres, is topped by a roof 100 metres in diameter. Completion is slated for September 2006, to mark the 50th anniversary of the year they “bought the swamp.” He is also creating a new museum to house a replica of a mine with a rock-faced mining shaft, “all wheelchair accessible,” he notes. Then there is the challenge of what to do with his most recent purchase. “When we were in Toronto last year we saw this sawmill, and I just had to buy it,” says Bell. With so many projects on the go, one wonders if he ever foresees a day when the vision will be complete. Bell chuckles at the notion. “There is no such thing as saying, ‘finished.’ I just want to get as much under roof as possible, and then my kids can finish it off.” 

As I approach, the tribesmen start shouting out prices. I hand over some rupiahs and choose a white pony. His owner, a broad-faced youth with a floppy, wide-brimmed hat, steadies the animal as I swing up into the saddle. It will take about 30 minutes to reach the base of the volcano. I tighten my grip on the reins as we descend into the darkness. The track flattens as we complete our passage down the cliff road and turn onto the crater floor. My guide sets a brisk pace, leading the pony with a rope and using a flashlight to prevent us from falling into a fissure. He clucks to the horse periodically, snapping a reed switch whenever the pony shows signs of skittishness.

The object of this early morning trek lies directly ahead—Mt. Bromo, a 2,392 metre-high volcano, located in the rugged highlands of East Java. Although it has not produced a major eruption in modern times, Mt. Bromo is still active, venting prodigious amounts of steam and ash and the occasional rumbling boom. On June 8, 2004, two people were killed and several others were injured when an explosion of gas and magma burst from the crater’s mouth. Mt. Bromo, whose scarred and eroded contours resemble the hollowed-out shell of a decayed molar, is one of five volcanoes that rise from within one huge and extinct crater–the Bromo-Semeru massif. These weathered peaks lie within a vast lava desert, a “sand sea” enclosed by 300-metre-high cliffs. By day, the sweeping vista, illuminated by shafts of celestial light and enveloped in swirling mist, stirs no sense of deja vu. You know you have never been here before.

As one might surmise, getting to Mt. Bromo is not easy. It took us eight gruelling hours and five different modes of transportation (plane, taxi, bus, van and jeep) to reach the site from the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta. Improbably enough, someone has built a hotel here atop one of the cliffs. All of the hotel’s guests come to this remote outpost for the same reason—to cross the sand sea by horseback and climb to the top of Mt. Bromo to watch the sunrise.

Our guides for the trip, the Tenggerese, are the last surviving descendants of the Hindu Majapahit Empire, which ruled East Java from 1292 until its overthrow in by rebellious Muslim princes in 1520. Their population of 40,000 is centred in villages scattered throughout the isolated Tengger mountains. These Tibetan-featured folk follow a blend of Hindu, Buddhist and animist beliefs and survive by the cultivation of vegetables and by providing horses for the daily tourist pilgrimages to Bromo.

The first streaks of pink are appearing in the eastern sky as we complete our dusty ride to the volcano. I dismount at its base and begin climbing the “stairway to heaven,” a steep succession of 256 stone steps leading to the peak. A sign has been posted near the top, informing visitors how to behave. As is often the case in Indonesia, something has been lost in the translation. This one reads, “Do Not Leave Letter.” Puffing with exertion, I clamber up the last steps to the summit. It is now light enough to appreciate the haunting desolation of the landscape. A blistered, iron-grey moonscape stretches to the horizon. Immediately to the west rises Mt. Batok, its towering walls furrowed like a giant lemon squeezer. To the south lies a plateau dotted with valleys and lakes that extend to the foot of Mr. Semeru, Indonesia’s highest peak. To the east and west are sheer ridges separated by wooden ravines, their verdant contours smooth as the baize of a billiard table in the soft morning light.

Far below, plumes of steam belch from Bromo’s monstrous circular shaft. Sulphurous fumes billow around me in a noxious, choking mist. A shift in the wind exposes a greenish patch pulsating eerily near the crater’s cracked and pitted cone. As I gaze into the hissing abyss, the Tenggerese legends of fire gods and giant ogres suddenly assume a new resonance. A ledge encircles the volcano’s rim, making it possible to walk around the peak. The trip, however, is not for the faint of heart; the path narrows to a metre in spots and the footing is treacherous. A misstep could be fatal, as there is nothing to stop one falling into the gaping cauldron, where as the Tenggerese know, departed souls take the swift underground route to Mahameru, “the highest temple.”

And too, there is another hazard, fellow tourists, now arriving in droves–boisterous Germans wearing fluorescent windbreakers and tight, black stretch pants and Japanese clad in ski masks and down vests. The Indonesians, giddy with excitement, are the noisiest of all. One of them has brought along a police siren, which he sets off at regular intervals. Some of the more adventurous begin to scale the steep ridge angling up Bromo’s eastern rim. I watch them rising higher on the horizon, a row of tiny stick figures silhouetted against the salmon-coloured sky.

Almost everyone has a camera and there is considerable jockeying to get the best vantage point to photograph the coming dawn. As the moment nears, the exuberance of the crowd dissipates; people lapse into silence, lost in their own thoughts. The sun, when it finally appears, rises suddenly like a blood-red explosion, saturating the surrounding hills with luminous colour. The Indonesians call the sun “mata hari”–the Eye of God. Witnessed in this supernatural setting, suspended midway between heaven and hell, it is a description that none of us would dispute. Our lack of sleep and the morning chill are instantly forgotten as the assembled throng breaks into spontaneous applause.

The location is Dolphin Discovery on Isla Mujeres, near Cancun, Mexico. We have come to the island to swim with bottlenose dolphins, although considering the size of the lifejackets we have been given, swimming could prove to be a tough chore. After the lecture concludes and we start to troop down to the dock, I ask one of the young employees if any famous people have come to the facility. “Bruce Willis,” she says. “Oh yeah, and some Saudi prince. But he didn’t want anyone else around when he was having his dolphin encounter, so he rented the entire place for an hour. It was just him, the dolphins and his six bodyguards.”

There no celebrities visible today, and thankfully no swarthy bodyguards. Our group consists of my wife, my teenage daughter and I, and two young Brits, who appear pretty excited about their upcoming dolphin encounter. I’m not nearly so keen, especially since Antonio Banderas warned us that when we were out in the water and we couldn’t see the dolphins that we should hold our arms and legs tight to our bodies until the trainer gave us the all-clear. I was left with the unsettling impression that the dolphins might want to take a chunk out of us. They have about a hundred teeth, arranged in two sharply pointed rows. But my daughter is fired up to meet and greet the smiling cetaceans, so I’m taking the plunge.

There are dozens of these dolphin encounter sites scattered around the world today. The company that owns this place in Isla Jujeres has three other operations in Mexico–at Puerto Aventuras, Cozumel and Nuevo Vallarta. Outside of Mexico, it has three more locations: Hawaii, Tortola and Anguilla. There are three types of environments where people can swim with dolphins: ponds, natural demarcated areas and in the wild. The facility at Isla Mujeres has both ponds and large sea pens to house its 20 or so captive dolphins.
 
Adding to the popularity of the activity are the claims of some researchers who insist that swimming with dolphins boosts the human immune system and help psychological well-being by inducing states of expanded consciousness such as those found during meditation or transcendental states of being. However, these claims, it should be pointed out, are not backed by any reliable scientific evidence.

Although swimming with dolphins has become a runaway hit with tourists, it remains controversial. Animal rights activists argue that it is inhumane to capture and confine these highly intelligent and gregarious creatures, which sell for more than $100,000 but are usually “rented,” sometimes with an option to buy. They contend that dolphinariums, no matter how idyllic looking, support a cruel and poorly regulated international trade in the captive mammals. All told, they estimate that there are some 3,000 captive dolphins worldwide, with some 400 in the United States alone.

However, water-park operators maintain that their dolphins are happy in the natural-looking facilities, well fed and receive regular medical checkups. They also insist that their star attractions have a much easier life than they would have in the wild. I’m not sure what the dolphins feel about the situation, but the entire concept verges on the surreal.

Dolphin Discovery offers several interactive options for visitors, depending on how much you want to spend and how ambitious you want to get. We have signed up for the “Dolphin Royal Swim,” an experience which the company’s brochure says can be summarized in two words: “Action and Speed!” Not only will we get to cavort with a pair of bottlenose dolphins, we will also have our actions captured on video and in still photos. It’s the deluxe package.

To reach the staging area we have to walk a couple of hundred metres down a sizzling hot wooden dock. At the end of it we clamber out on a plank above the water, while clinging to a mesh fence. Following the trainers’ instructions we jump into the salt water and proceed through a series of interactive exercises. We watch as the dolphins swim in concentric circles around us, we kiss the dolphins, hold a pole in the air and have the dolphins leap over it, listen to them sing, and grab on to their dorsal fins as they tow us through the water. It’s a thrill touching them and hearing them vocalize. They are sleek, powerful creatures with bodies that appear to be pure muscle and skin with the texture of smooth rubber. The skin, which a dolphin sheds every two hours, is extremely delicate and easily injured by rough surfaces, much like our own.

For our big finale with these aquatic acrobats, we are told to pose in the water, arms stretched forward and legs extended back in “the Superman position.” As we wait, the two dolphins come surging up from beneath us. They get under our feet and accelerate forward, lifting us upward. It’s like riding a pair of living water skis. The dolphins head straight for the dock, then suddenly veer off in different directions, propelling us through the air. When my daughter, who has a tiny frame, took her ride, the dolphins sent her flying like she had been shot from a cannon.

That image was captured perfectly in the home video that we bought in the Dolphin Discovery gift shop at the end of our visit. The video, set to the soothing accompaniment of James Taylor’s tune “Mexico,” was artfully and professionally done, as were the colour photographs of us interacting with the dolphins that we also purchased in the shop. The entire experience set us back a couple of hundred dollars. But the memory of that incredible day, I must admit, was priceless. 

Only two North American cities can truly boast rock and roll museums that are major tourist attractions: Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Seattle’s Experience Music Project (EMP). The latter, which opened in 2000, has become a city landmark due in large part to its unique and controversial architecture, which is meant to symbolize the energy and fluidity of music. The wildy undulating, rainbow-hued, steel-swathed building was designed by Toronto-born architect Frank Gehry, whose other noted works include the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and the Dancing House in Prague.
Gehry claims he drew his inspiration for the design from a pile of guitar parts he had acquired from a Seattle guitar-maker, and that the entire shape pays tribute to the Fender Stratocaster, the guitar of choice of Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, Jeff Beck, Mark Knopfler, Stevie Ray Vaughan and host of other famous axemen. Even the colours of the building’s exterior derive from classic electric guitars–pastel blue, brilliant red, silver, gold, and a shimmering violet dubbed “purple haze” in reference to Hendrix’s famous song.

The opening of this museum of music was greeted by Seattle residents with a mixture of acclaim and derision. Its detractors pulled no punches. New York Times architecture critic Herbert Muschamp described it as “something that crawled out of the sea, rolled over, and died.” Forbes magazine called it one of the world’s 10 ugliest buildings. Others suggested that it resembled “open-heart surgery gone awry.” Gehry answered his critics by stating, “This building is supposed to be a lot of fun. That’s what Paul Allen wanted. Fun. It’s supposed to be unusual. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland wanted a straight-forward corporate look. Paul didn’t want that. He wanted what he called “a swoopy building.’ Nobody has seen this before or will see it again. Nobody will build another one.”

Paul Allen, is of course, the billionaire co-founder of Microsoft, who commissioned and paid for the flamboyant $240-million structure. Allen, who is a guitarist with his own rock band, called Grown Men, had originally conceived the idea of a museum dedicated to his favourite musician, Seattle’s own Jimi Hendrix, who had no shrine in the city, save for a commemorative rock at the Woodland Park Zoo. In 1992, in anticipation of constructing a Hendrix museum at the Seattle Center, Allen began buying Hendrix memorabilia including shards of the guitar that Hendrix destroyed during his incendiary performance at the ‘67 Monterey Pop Festival and the guitar on which he played “The Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock. Al Hendrix, the guitarist’s father, initially supported the idea, but Allen and the Hendrix family later had a falling out and the museum evolved into the far larger, costlier and more innovative EMP.

EMP’s mission is to celebrate “creativity and innovation in American popular music.” To do that, it combines concert halls, exhibits–even a ride–with a myriad of hands-on activities. The celestial “Sky Church” room in the building’s interior pays homage to Hendrix’s vision of a Sky Church where all kinds of people–regardless of age, background or interests–could come together to appreciate music. This dramatic reception/performance area features a stunning 12-metre-high, 21-metre-wide video screen and an 18-panel montage of images.

The permanent exhibits include the Northwest Passage which is a hall containing exhibits on the history of popular music in the Pacific Northwest. There is also the Guitar Gallery, dedicated to the history of the guitar; the Sound Lab, in which museum-goers can take virtual music lessons on the guitar drums, and keyboard; On Stage, where one can play in front of a virtual audience of 10,000 screaming fans in a simulated rock concert experience; and Costumes from the Vault, a collection of performers’ costumes.

There is also a collection of thousands of artifacts from the history of popular music, including the signed contract for Nirvana’s original recording deal; Bob Dylan’s 1960 harmonica; Grandmaster Flash’s original turntable; the mixing board from Hendrix’s Electric Lady Studios; Elvis Presley’s black leather jacket; R. Crumb’s original cover art for Big Brother and the Holding Company’s 1968 album “Cheap Thrills”; and the files from the FBI’s two-year investigation into the Kingsmen’s song “Louie Louie,” which was prompted in 1964 by complaints from parents and the governor of Indiana about the tune’s supposedly obscene lyrics.

The EMP is currently hosting a new exhibit devoted entirely to Hendrix. Through film footage, instruments, memorabilia, and electronic equipment–Jimi Hendrix: An Evolution of Sound–traces the evolution of the guitar god’s music, from his upbringing in Seattle through his stint in the military; his years working on the chitlin’ circuit; his experiences in New York and London; and his meteoric career as a rock superstar, before his sudden death in 1970. The hands-on exhibit invites visitors to manipulate recording-studio equipment just as Hendrix did in his own studio, as well as the effects-pedals he used to produce his psychedelic guitar sounds. The show runs until February 7, 2010.

Roswell continues to search for answers by staging an annual UFO festival at which authors and researchers dissect the infamous incident. Last year’s lecture topics included “Body Snatchers in the Desert,” “UFO Secrecy and the Death of Marilyn Monroe,” “Were Early Contactees Ritual Magicians?” and “UFOs and the Occult: Reptilian Overlords, Abductions, Mind Control and the New World Order.” The July shindig also features an alien parade, an alien costume contest, an alien motorcycle rally, an alien disc golf tournament and alien hot-air balloon rides. Some 40,000 conspiracy buffs and extraterrestrial enthusiasts attended in 2007, the equivalent of Roswell’s entire population.

Phuket Vegetarian Festival, Thailand
Every year on the first day of the ninth lunar month (usually in late September or early October), one of Thailand’s most popular beach resorts hosts the strange festival of Ngan Kin Jeh–otherwise known as the Phuket Vegetarian Festival. The festival celebrates the beginning of Taoist Lent, when devout Chinese prepare themselves by abstaining from eating meat for several days. As well they must avoid sexual intercourse, killing, quarrelling, telling lies and residing in hotels during the previous three weeks. As the nine-day festival progresses it becomes increasingly gruesome. Men and women enter trance states and walk on hot coals, climb ladders with rungs of sharpened blades and puncture their cheeks and tongues with knives, skewers and other household items. These devotees partake in daily processions through town where they stop at store front altars, drink one of nine cups of tea, and offer blessings to the merchants. The self-torture is done to shift evil from individuals to the mediums and bring the community good luck. The processions are accompanied by a parade of lion dancers, while onlookers throw firecrackers, making the entire atmosphere one of religious frenzy. The roots of the festival date back to the mid-19th century when a travelling Chinese opera company fell gravely ill. Fearing that they had let down their gods, the actors performed self-mutilation rites in an effort to cure themselves.

Mt. Hagen Festival, Papua New Guinea
Tribal warfare was a way of life in the western highlands of Papua New Guinea until the 1950s, when missionaries began to encourage different clans to reconcile their animosities by more peaceful means. The first Mt. Hagen Cultural Festival was staged in 1964. The event, which lasted about a week, brought together enemy tribes in a sort of “time out” where they could compete in competitions that involved elaborate costumes and aggressive singing and dancing. That first festival worked nicely, and the Australians decided to sponsor it as an annual event alternating years with Goroka in the eastern highlands. Over the years, word got out about the colour and exuberance of what had been intended to be a strictly a regional event, and a small trickle of out-of-area and overseas visitors began showing up. Today, it has become a major tourist draw. During two days in mid-August, more than 50 different tribal groups dressed in traditional attire come together to perform their respective songs and dances in front of roaring audiences numbering over 50,000. Drawing from an ornamental inventory developed over thousands of years, tribesmen combine feathers, grass, flowers, natural dyes, bones, shells, shiny metals to make spectacular costumes. Can you say photo-op?

Burning Man Festival, Black Rock Desert, Nevada
What began a modest beach party outside San Francisco in 1986, has since grown into an annual gathering of some 50,000 bohemians, avant-garde crazies and New Age types who swarm to a stark, arid, Nevada lakebed to dress up in outlandish costumes, share artworks, listen to music and burn a 12-metre tall effigy of a man. This “experimental community” is dedicated to self-expression, leaving all creature comforts behind and “learning self-reliance.” The “Burners” get creative, constructing their own themed camps, wacky vehicles and mind-bending art installations. The whole spectacle looks like a cross between an apocalyptic carnival and Mad Max. Attending Burning Man is a unique experience. There is no commerce at the site–no one buys anything and no-one sells anything. You must bring camping supplies, your own food and water, but toilets are provided. The temperature by day can soar to over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, and it can drop to freezing at night, so sometimes surviving takes a real effort. 

The Baby-Jumping Festival, Castrillo de Murcia, Spain
Look! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s a flying Elvis! Each May, the Spanish village of Castillo de Murcia celebrates the Catholic festival of Corpus Christi with a bizarre event that sees men clad in gaudy Elvis-like costumes and wielding whips and truncheons, leaping over rows of helpless babies. By doing so, these devil impersonators hope to cleanse the infants of evil. The tots, all born in the proceeding year, are dressed in their finest outfits for the occasion and are lined up on a mattress for the cleansing, which is watched by crowds of revellers, and no doubt some rather anxious parents. If the babies emerge unscathed, it is supposed to signify good luck and protection from illness. The town has observed the strange ritual (called El Colacho) since 1620, and any onlookers who seem to be in need of a quick exorcism are pulled into the event–so look normal, for godsakes! And leave your babies at home with the sitter.

The Kanamara Matsuri (Festival of the Iron Phallus), Kawasaki, Japan
This annual ode to the penis would be slapped with an XXX rating in North America, but in Japan, a country many perceive as formal and uptight, it’s a family affair. Held in the town of Kawasaki, in early April, the festival unashamedly celebrates the penis by having people carry huge pink models of the erect organ through the streets. Images of the male member are everywhere–in illustrations, candy, carved radishes, decorations and in a parade. The event takes place at Wakamiya Hachiman-gu shrine, where prostitutes used to pray for protection from disease and business success. Today, worshippers pray for childbirth, healthy offspring, easy delivery and marital harmony. Although it may appear incompatible with religion, the underlying message of the festival–that sex is natural, beautiful, and part of life–is more about celebration than titillation. These days, the festival raises money for AIDS education and prevention, and is popular with Japanese of all ages and sexual orientations.

During the week leading up to the grand event, parades, fireworks, music, dancing and a paella cook-off contest amuse visitors. When the day of the tomato war dawns, local shopkeepers cover their shop fronts with sheets of plastic and local folk and tourists take to the streets, as trucks loaded with around 125,000 kilos of ripe ammo roll into the Plaza del Pueblo. Between 11 a.m. and 1 p.m., the sidewalks are awash with juice, pavements are spattered with pulp, and all the participants are transformed into redheads.

Mike the Headless Chicken Days, Fruita, Colorado
On September 10, 1945, a Colorado farmer named farmer Lloyd Olsen went to the barn to fetch dinner. He spied Mike the Chicken and decided that he would do nicely. He raised his axe, swung it and lopped off Mike’s head. Alas, Olsen’s aim was off–he accidentally left one ear and the brain stem intact, meaning Mike didn’t die. The family decided to care for the decapitated chicken, feeding him a mixture of milk and water via an eyedropper and small grains of corn. Mike was still able to balance on a perch and walk clumsily; he even attempted to preen and crow.

Remarkably, the rooster lived for 18 months and became a celebrity, barnstorming side shows from Atlantic City to San Diego and even making the pages of Time and Life magazines. At the height of his popularity he earned $4,500 per month (US$50,000 in 2008 dollars) and was valued at $10,000. Olsen’s success resulted in a wave of copycat chicken beheadings, but no other chicken survived for more than a day or two. A pickled chicken head was also put on display with Mike, but this was not Mike’s original head, as a cat had already eaten it. Mike finally died while on tour in a Phoenix, Arizona motel room like some burnt-out rock star.

Today the town of Fruita, Colorado, honours the brainless bird’s legend with an annual festival held on the third weekend of May. Events include the “5-K Run Like a Headless Chicken Race,” a Chicken Dance Contest, a Chicken Recipe Contest, “Pin the Head on the Chicken,” a “Chicken Cluck-Off” and “Chicken Bingo,” in which chicken droppings on a numbered grid choose the numbers.

Cooper Hill Cheese Rolling Festival, England
The English boast several eccentric celebrations, but the annual May 28 cheese-rolling festival near Gloucester stands out for its lunacy. Some have suggested that the event derives from a pagan ritual; the modern-day version is definitely primitive. Although cheese-rolling may sound like an innocent pastime, it is actually downright dangerous. Charging full-tilt down an extremely steep hill in pursuit of a madly spinning eight-pound wheel of cheese can be well-nigh lethal. In fact, police have attempted to outlaw the event, but participants have refused to observe the ban. So what happens during a cheese roll? It’s quite simple. At the count of three, someone starts the cheese rolling, and at the count of four all mayhem breaks lose as the contestants zoom down the incline after it. Most racers lose their footing and somersault, cartwheel, and careen wildly down the slope like rag dolls. Broken bones are a given, and sprains and bruises are numerous. Inevitably, the chunk of Gloucester wins, but the fastest person gets to take home the cheese. Four races are held on the day, including an event for the ladies.

Thaipusam, Malaysia
“Tuning out the pain” appears to be the operative phrase here. Thaipusam is an annual celebration in honour of the Hindu god Subramanian. It began in 1892, started by Tamils who migrated to colonial Malaysia. In order to win favour with the god and ensure their good fortune, worshippers take elaborate sacrificial measures, ranging from simple offerings of milk and flowers, to impaling themselves with long metal skewers–often a metre long–and piercing their chests and backs with hook-like needles. Because they are in a trance state, they claim not to feel any discomfort. This festival of masochism is highlighted by a procession of several thousand people that leaves the Sri Mahamariaman temple in downtown Kuala Lumpur, carrying a five-ton silver-chariot and other giant metal constructions on a 15-kilometre trek to the Batu Caves, where they climb the 272 stairs into the caves. It’s a huge event, with thousands of participants and close to two million onlookers.

The Testicle Festival, Clinton, Montana
Rock Creek Lodge just outside of Clinton, Montana throws the world’s largest testicle festival (yes, there are others) each August, attracting more than 15,000 fans annually to its five-day event. There is no dress code, but attendees must be 21 years and over (sorry, no kids allowed). Major activities include drinking a lot of beer and munching on Rocky Mountain Oysters, more commonly known as bull’s testicles–which are usually served deep-fired. Yum-mee. While you’re there, you’ll no doubt want to engage in the bull-chip throwing contest, the wet T-shirt or hairy chest competitions, and B.S. Bingo, in which the crowd bets on when a bull will poop. There is live music, with as many as six different bands playing, and a copious flow of alcohol, especially Bull Snort Brew, made especially for the festival by Big Sky Brewing Company of Missoula, Montana. If you go, make sure you pick up a souvenir T-shirt bearing the cojones carnival’s snappy logo: “I had a ball at the Testicle Festival.”

Up-Helly-Aa, Lerwick, Shetland Islands, Scotland
The Shetland Islands, and their southerly neighbours the Orkneys, were part of Norway until 1472 when they were ceded to Scotland in lieu of a royal marriage dowry. The most spectacular example of their Norse heritage is displayed each year with the Up-Helly-Aa festival, which ranks as a pyromaniac’s pipe dream. Descended from the ancient festival of Yule, which the Vikings held to celebrate the rebirth of the sun, this northern Mardi Gras lasts just one day (and night) and is staged on the last Tuesday in January. Only men can take an active part in the event, which ranks as the largest festival of its kind in the world. After a torch-light procession through the streets of Lerwick, up to a thousand “guizers” (many decked out in ferocious berserker regalia), proceed to gleefully burn a full-size replica Viking longship to a crisp. The “guizers” and onlookers then repair to local halls for a night of revelry, dancing and partying. If you want to join in, be forewarned—it is considered a sign of weakness to slink off to bed before 8:00 a.m.

(To be continued …)
 

Built over a period of time beginning around 2,700 BC, the Avebury henge is composed of a huge ditch and bank. The ditch alone is 21 metres wide and 11 metres deep. Within the henge is a large stone circle, with a diameter of 335 metres. The ring is composed of sarsen stones which were originally scattered widely over this part of Wiltshire. Within the main circle are two inner henges made up of about 30 stones each. Four entrances in the ditched bank lead to the monument. A twin line of standing stones, known as Kennet Avenue, runs from the southern entrance southwards. Another avenue known as Beckhampton Avenue, of which only two stones still remain, leads away to the west.

The main circle was built about 500 years after the earthworks. It originally contained 98 stones, some weighing in excess of 40 tonnes and standing between three and four metres. Now there are only 27 in place. Many of the original stones were destroyed from the early 14th century onwards to provide local building materials and to make room for agriculture. Others were buried due to a fear of the pagan rituals that were associated with the site. A wealthy marmalade businessman named Alexander Keiller uncovered the stones in the 1930s and re-erected them.

Constructing the henge required enormous effort. Archaeologists estimate that it would have taken Avebury’s Neolithic builders 1.5 million working hours to move the 100,000 tonnes of chalk that make up the ditch and bank. The massive sarsen stones were dragged to the site from three kilometres away using wooden sledges by men, teams of oxen and horses. The heavy stones would have then been hoisted upright into pre-dug holes with wooden levers and ropes. Considering that this entire process was conducted using simple tools, it is possible that it may have taken up to a year to erect just one of the larger stones.

Avebury was finally finished in the Early Bronze Age. At completion, there would have been a total of 600 stones in the stone circles, avenues and sanctuary. In its heyday it would have stood out for miles as a brilliant, gleaming white mound, whereas today grass has invaded the chalky soil and now covers the site.

Despite Avebury’s mystical grandeur, it attracts relatively little public attention, which makes it a godsend for tourists. At Stonehenge, which is situated right next to a noisy highway and whose parking lot is always full of tour buses, you have to pay a fee to skirt the monument on paved paths, and fences prevent you from getting too close to the magic circle. At Avebury, there is no traffic noise, no admission fees, no fences, no T-shirt shops and few tourists. When I visited he site a few years ago, I had the place virtually to myself, aside from a few grazing sheep. You can roam the site freely, taking your time, choosing your viewpoint and touching the stones at will. You can also tour the village of Avebury, population 300, which contains a few houses and shops. There is a pub, a small museum, and a 15th century church and 16th century manor.

Impressive in its own right, Avebury is surrounded by other remarkable Neolithic monuments, all located within a few kilometres distance. These include Europe’s largest artificial earthen mound at Silbury Hill, the megalithic tombs of West and East Kennet Long Barrows, a causewayed camp at Windmill Hill, and the ‘Sanctuary’ on Overton Hill.

As is the case with Stonehenge there are several theories about why Avebury was built, but no widespread agreement. Some have pointed out that area looks like a snake from the air, suggesting it was the sacred site of a serpent cult. Others talk about mysterious ley lines that interfere with local electricity and astronomical alignments. Numerous people have identified what they claim are carvings of faces on the stones’ surfaces. Others point out that many of the stones conform to two shapes–slim and long, and short and wide–suggesting an arrangement according to gender. 

Researchers are certain that Avebury was of extreme importance as a gathering place. Archaeological evidence indicates that it was an uninhabited area, as very little ancient rubbish has been found. It is likely then that the site would have been used solely for rituals and possibly as a temple. The seasons and fertility were probably the main focus of the ceremonies practised. Even so, very little of the area has been investigated and the surrounding fields may hold secrets yet to be uncovered. For now, however, Avebury remains a puzzling enigma.

The museum’s macabre collection of human cadavers, all of them frozen in various states of decay, packs a visual jolt. Mummies are posed behind glass cases, either standing upright or lying flat on velvet pillows. Small plaques announce their names, when they were buried and when they were exhumed. In an unsettling touch, their biographies are presented in the first person. Some of the mummies are fully clothed, others are clad only in shoes and stockings, some have head and body hair still intact, some have a limb or a head missing, and many have their mouths stretched open as if screaming. One of these is a woman who was reportedly buried alive; her expression of terror, her crossed arms and the scratches on her forehead, support the theory.

All of the mummies were discovered between 1896 and 1958, after a new burial tax went into effect. Anyone wishing to bury a deceased relative in one of the tiered nooks in the municipal cemetery had two options: they could buy the nook outright (for 170 pesos) or rent it (for 20 pesos per year). If the nook was rented, the family had to keep their payments current. If the tax was not paid for three successive years, then the remains would be exhumed and the bodies cremated after five years. During these exhumations, a number of corpses were found, mysteriously preserved by a combination of the high altitude, dry climate and chemicals in the soil. The mummies were initially put in storage, but later began to be exhibited as a tourist attraction. No one is certain how many mummified bodies were removed from the crypts, but 119 are presently on display in the museum. It is quite possible that many more natural mummies are lying in the cemetery.

Beyond the mummies’ ghoulish appearance, many foreign visitors will be offended by this offhand treatment of the dead. It is a feeling clearly not shared by Mexicans, who have a very different attitude to death. “The word death is not pronounced in New York, in Paris, in London, because it burns the lips,” wrote Mexico’s Nobel-prize winning poet Octavio Paz. “The Mexican, in contrast, is familiar with death, jokes about it, caresses it, sleeps with it, celebrates it; it is one of his favourite toys and his most steadfast love.”

Mexican culture’s fascination with death has its most vivid expression during the festivities of Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). The holiday, which is celebrated on November 1st and 2nd, is a time at which Mexican families honour their deceased love ones. People will go to cemeteries to communicate with the souls of the departed, and will build beautiful private altars containing the favorite foods and beverages, photos and memorabilia of the departed. The intent is to encourage visits by the souls, so that the souls will hear the prayers and the comments of the living directed to them.

Scholars trace the origins of the modern holiday to indigenous observances dating back thousands of years, and to an Aztec festival dedicated to a goddess called Mictecacihuatl (The Lady of the Dead). According to Aztec culture, the soul lived after death and, 40 days after death, then returned to earth for one day of remembrance each year. These lost souls were seeking nourishment and community, finding their way back home by the scent of their favourite foods.

The major symbol of the Day of the Dead is the calavera or skull, represented in masks and foods such as sugar skulls, inscribed with the name of the recipient on their foreheads. Other holiday foods include pan de muerto, a rich coffee cake decorated with meringues made to look like twisted bones. As well, Mexicans exchange costumed calaveras in much the same way that Canadians exchange Valentines in February.

The most popular of these calaveras, La Catrina, an elegant lady with a feathered hat and formal clothing, is based on the etchings of Mexican artist José Guadalupe Posada, who in the late 1880s began to use the skeleton image to comment on the social inequities of his time. The skeleton in a general’s uniform or in the elaborate flowered hat of a grande dame showed the rich and powerful as nothing more than cloth and bone.

Cloth and bone, of course, is what all of us come to in the end, as the mummies of Guanajuato so dramatically attest. Perhaps the most disturbing of all the museum’s specimens are the babies–two infants, and what is believed to be the youngest human mummy ever recorded–a 24-week-old fetus, removed from its mother during a botched Caesarian section. While the rest of the corpses were naturally preserved, scientists recently determined that these three mummies underwent basic embalming, having some of their organs removed and replaced with packing material.

It is believed that this was done as part of a regular practice that still takes place in rural Mexico. Catholic infants who die are often dressed as angelitas, or little angels, for girls, and as santitos, or little saints, for boys. The girls are clad in lacy dresses, sometimes including angel wings, while the boys are outfitted in colours corresponding to the saint representing the month in which they died. They are then photographed alone or with their families, as if they were still alive.

Located in the Horn of Africa, just north of Ethiopia, Eritrea was colonized by Italy, which controlled the territory from 1889 to 1941. The Italians governed with the same sense of racist superiority that characterized other colonial regimes in Africa, but their legacy would be far-reaching. In the 1920s and 1930s, a daring new architectural movement called “rationalism” emerged in Italy, and Eritrea became an architectural laboratory. Bent on constructing a new Roman Empire, Benito Mussolini gave his architects free rein to indulge their creativity in Asmara, designating it as a showcase for his fascist regime. In just six years, the population of this modest village exploded from 4,000 to 45,000, and Asmara was transformed into a stunning metropolis with more traffic lights than Rome possessed at the time.

The fascists approved of Modernism because it celebrated the machine age and technology. As a result, many of the architects’ designs employed swooping homages to trains, planes and ocean liners, and cutting-edge technology: a cinema with a retractable roof, the world’s longest cable-car route. Others flourishes were simply artistic: curved facades, Art Deco awnings and plastered porticos–all rendered in the colours of Neapolitan ice cream.

Take, for example, the aforementioned Cinema Impero. Painted in a rich earthy red, its Art Deco façade sports 45 porthole lamps, each looking like huge radio knobs. In the 1930s, filmgoers must have felt they were not only entering a palace of entertainment, but an actual entertainment machine. Movies are still shown in its 1,800-seat auditorium today and the marble, chrome and glass features in the lobby are all original.

Another giddy creation extolling speed, motion and urgency is the airplane-shaped Fiat Tagliero garage, built by the architect Giuseppe Pettazzi in 1938. It consists of a central tower and glass cockpit window which incorporates office space and a shop. On either side of the main tower are a pair of 30-metre gravity-defying wings of re-enforced concrete. Pettazzi was forced by planning laws to include pillar supports for the wings. Legend has it that during the inauguration he demanded the wooden props removed, and when the builders refused, Pettazzi settled the argument by climbing to the tip of one of the wings and, holding a revolver to the foreman’s head, threatened to kill him if they did not remove the supports. In the end the supports were removed and the wings held, just as they do today.

Other of Asmara’s architectural gemas include the cubist Africa Pension, the eclectic Orthodox Cathedral and the neoclassical Governor’s Palace, the gigantic Romanesque-style Catholic cathedral and the Renaissance-inspired Asmara Theatre.

Contrary to what one might guess, the Mediterranean influence is still very much alive in Asmara. There are numerous pizzerias and coffee bars, where hissing Gaggia machines pour out cappuccinos and lattes, as well as ice cream parlours and several restored Italian colonial villas and mansions. Cycling remains a popular sport and schoolchildren still wear the same coloured aprons that were once so ubiquitous in Italian playgrounds.

The endurance of this cultural leagacy is all the more remarkable considering that Italian rule ended in 1941, when Allied Forces liberated Eritrea in the first victory against fascism in World War II. After the war, the United Nations combined Ethiopia and Eritrea into a federation. Emperor Haile Selassie then began the brutal process of remaking Eritrea as a province of Ethiopia, and the Eritreans began their fierce battle for independence. The struggle lasted 30 years. On the Eritrean side alone, some 100,000 died. But in 1991, guerrilla leader Isiais Afewerki and his plastic sandal-wearing Eritrean Peoples Liberation Front marched into the capital. Two years later, Eritrea’s independence was formalized in a referendum.

Ironically, Asmara’s isolation from the outside world due to the long years of conflict has helped preserve its unique urban heritage. While developers with more money than sense have ripped the heart out of other African colonial cities, Eritrea’s economic stagnation has left Asmara suspended in a time warp. No major construction has taken place here since the 1940s.

Yet because of Eritrea’s poverty, it’s also true that little restoration work has been done, causing many to worry about Asmara’s future. More than 400 buildings remain from the colonial period, but almost all are now in danger from development and decay. Fortunately, the city centre is now, effectively, a protected zone where new buildings will only rarely be allowed, and in 1999, the Government of Eritrea established the Cultural Assets Rehabilitation Project (CARP). Financed with a $5 million World Bank grant, the project aims to preserve and promote the city’s architectural heritage. As well, efforts are now underway to have Asmara’s historic district classified as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Hopefully, they will prove succesful.

Buffeted by the wind and bucking in our seats, we hang on tight as the speedboat pounds across the glittering, blue water. Our Fijian pilot, Joseph, decked out in a crimson baseball cap and black wraparound sunglasses, only slightly darker than his skin, turns and smiles and gestures toward the horizon. “Malolo,” he says. The dreamy contours of the green island, fringed with palm trees and white sand, lies dead ahead, smouldering in the tropical heat. It is Sunday morning and we are going to church.

It has been awhile since I last attended a house of worship, but this visit is not inspired by guilt or a sudden spiritual urge, but rather by curiosity. I’d heard that religious services in Fiji were often remarkable experiences. The setting was certainly different. Malolo is the largest of the Mamanuca Group, a chain of volcanic islands that rise lke a strand of pearls from the sea west of the main Fijian island of Viti Levu, and only a short trip from our resort on nearby Castaway Island. Our destination was Solevu, one of two villages on Malolo.

As a gesture of respect, I’ve donned a dress shirt and pressed trousers, while my wife is wearing a blouse and a sarong. Our choice of apparel proves impractical, however, when our pilot, unable to steer his massive outboard into the shallows, forces us to hop over the side into the thigh-deep water and wade ashore. Several smiling villagers call out “Bula!” as we make our way to land. The greeting, which literally means life, is one of the best words in any language, full of cheer and sunshine. As Fijians like to say, the more you say “Bula” the longer you live. Soaked in salt water and holding aloft our sandals and cameras, we respond in kind.

Considering the serenity of the scene, it is difficult to imagine that here in 1840, an American expeditionary force led by Commodore Charles Wilkes, massacred 87 Fijians and laid waste to Solevu after two of his crew members were killed while trying to bargain for food. Despite the placid popular image of the South Seas, much of Fiji’s history was marked by bloodshed. Until the early 1800s, when the discovery of sandalwood brought waves of traders and missionaries to its shores, it was avoided by sailors, who knew it as a dangerous place, inhabited by fierce and unpredictable cannibals. Cannibalism was practised throughout the South Seas, but in Fiji the taste for “long pig” was highly developed, where it was prized both for its flavour and its aphrodisiac qualities. Fiji’s most notorious cannibal king, Ratu Udreudre, is alleged to have consumed 872 corpses.

Today, the cannibals have all become Christians. Fiji is home to 20 different denominations, including Methodists, Anglicans, Catholics, Seventh-Day Adventists, Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Assemblies of God, a Pentecostal sect, whose most famous member is Jimmy Swaggart, the popular televangelist, whose career imploded after his dalliances with prostitutes became public. The residents of Solevu belong to this latter group, whose practises include talking in tongues and faith healing.

After making introductions and snapping photos of the children in their Sunday finery, we enter the church: a wooden bungalow with a thatched roof, its shuttered windows open to catch the breeze. The parishioners sit cross-legged on the straw-matted floor, lazily waving hand fans, while a dog sleeps with his head propped on the top step of the doorway. The altar area is simply adorned with flowers and white paper crosses affixed to purple cloth, and a bank of amplifiers and musical instruments.
 
As we wait in the stifling heat, a band files in and takes the stage. It’s composed of a barefoot, teenaged drummer, a balding, blind organist, a grey-haired guitarist in a snappy suit jacket, and four tall, regal-looking female vocalists. They promptly launch into an electrified cross of gospel and South Seas soul, delivered with a professional snap. After several rousing numbers that get the congregation swaying and clapping, the pastor makes his appearance. His frizzy hair is modelled in the style of a 1950s rocker with long sideburns, and he wears a grey jacket, a tie, a grey sulu (a skirt extending to mid-calf) and sandals. Holding the microphone in his right hand and the cord stylishly curled around his left, he paces back and forth, eyes closed, murmuring scripture in Fijian and shouting “Praise the Lord!” or “Halluejah!,” phrases that are repeated by the assembly. He continues his trance-like preaching for 20 minutes, and then, as the music swells to a crescendo, he takes a seat, leaving the stage to the singers.

The service, part revival meeting and part nightclub floorshow, lasts 90 mesmerizing minutes. Although we are unable to understand the sermon’s message, our spirits feel thoroughly uplifted. After shaking hands and exchanging goodbyes with the villagers, we stroll out into the dazzling daylight and down the beach to rendezvous with our waiting speedboat. As the big motors thrum to life and we chug away, I can still hear the heavenly gospel rhythms echoing in my ears.

A number of famous cultural sites, such as England’s Stonehenge, Florence’s Uffizi Gallery and Cambodia’s Angkor Wat, did not even make the list, while India’s Taj Mahal barely squeezed in at No. 50.

Instead, it is somewhat disappointing to discover that amusement and theme parks constitute the world’s dominant attractions, with 16 of them rated in the top 35, including all five Disney theme parks (Orlando, Paris, Los Angeles, Tokyo and Hong Kong) and the three Universal studios (Orlando, Osaka and Los Angeles).

Thirteen different countries are represented on the Forbes Traveler list, with the U.S. home to 20 of the locations, followed by France and Britain with seven each. Paris boasted seven major tourist draws, the most from any one city.

It’s worth noting that Forbes excluded religious pilgrimage sites, such as Mecca, from its list. However, some religious sites, such as Notre Dame Cathedral and the Vatican, were included for their cultural significance. The survey also ignored shopping malls. The notion that a shopping mall might even rank in the top 50 is pretty astounding. But, in fact, if the list had included them, then the Mall of America in Bloomington, Minnesota, would rank No. 1. This monstrous shrine to consumerism attracted 40 million goggle-eyed visitors in 2006.

Here’s the top 10 and the number of annual visitors:

1. Times Square, New York (35 million)
2. National Mall and Monuments, Washington, D.C. (25 million)
3. Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, Lake Buena Vista, Fla. (16.6 million)
4. Trafalgar Square, London (15 million)
5. Disneyland, Los Angeles (14.7 million)
6. Niagara Falls, Canada/U.S. (14 million)
7. Fisherman’s Wharf/Golden Gate National Recreation Area, San Francisco (13 million)
8. Disneyland Resort, Tokyo (12.9 million)
9. Notre Dame, Paris (12 million)
10. Disneyland Park, Paris (9.2 million)

Given the dominance of American attractions in the top 10, one might question the accuracy of the rankings. Still, it’s true that Americans have the cash to travel and love to gawk at their own landmarks. Considering it’s meagre range of attractions, the placing of Times Square at No. 1 puzzles me. But, then again, I went there several years ago when it was basically a sleaze pit.

For those who are curious, here are the popularity scores for some other prominent world icons. The Great Wall of China was 11th with about 10 million annual visitors; the Musee du Louvre in Paris was 15th with 7.5 miilion visitors; The Eiffel Tower was 18th with 6.7 million visitors; The Grand Canyon was 31st with 4.4 million visitors; The Vatican was 37th with 4.2 million visitors; the Sydney Opera House was 38th with 4 million visitors; while Egypt’s Pyramids of Giza was 47th with 3 million visitors.

The complete list can be viewed at Forbes Travel