Golan Heights

Posted on January 19, 2021 by paul eschenfelder

While “captaincruising.net” is hard aground, run onto the rocks of the covid19, travel from the files is still possible:

The small lion patrolled the Ashdod pier, awaiting his prey. We were a bit late departing our Viking cruiser and he was anxious to roll. He had a lot of ground to cover.

As usual on our trips to Israel we engaged Jeff Abel as our guide. Knowledgeable to a fault and eager to share his knowledge, he was a font of historical, cultural and political information. Now we packed our overnight bags into the Jeffmobile and piled in. I was looking for crusaders, Jeff had bigger game in mind. We shot up the freeway coming from the port, heading north. Wait – weren’t the crusader castles to the east? Yes, they are. We are going to Golan.

A land with 4-5,000 years of history is hard to define, certainly not in only a few days. Just a glimpse – but what a view.

As a sop to my disappointment at missing the crusaders, Jeff waved a hand at a hillside as we zoomed along the valley highway below. “Over there is Hattin”, he said dismissively.

Hattin, the site of the ill-fated, poorly-led army of the crusaders’ massacre. Saladin’s army had strung them along out into the open, maddened them with thirst and closed in for the kill. Literally. Beginning of the end of the crusader era.

Later, at one of the many national parks, he waived again at a hillside.

“There’s another crusader castle”, he mentioned casually, as if they are everywhere. They had been built on the eastern frontier of the holdings of the ‘Franks’, as the locals called the crusaders. The crusader castles and keeps anchored a defensive line along an ill-defined border, hoping to hold back the people to the east who wanted their lands back. Didn’t work. On we drove.

The national highway system of Israel is quite good. We were enjoying our journey through the hills as Jeff turned off Highway 90, the Jordan Rift Valley road, onto Highway 91, the road to Damascus, which is situated about 50 miles and a few hundred light years away. Up a bald hill in the dry terrain he careened and pulled into a parking lot: ‘Tel Hazor’ read the sign.

**Bronze Age sentinel keeps watch on the caravan routes**

Israel is the perfect argument that history repeats itself. Tel Hazor is the largest dig in Israel because Hazor had been one of the largest cities during the Bronze Age, the Canaanite Period, the Israelite period. Almost 15,000 people crammed into the walls here. Why? Stroll to the top of the hill for the explanation. Highway 91 lies atop the 5,000-year-old road for travelers coming from the south, the Great Trunk Road, headed north to Damascus and Syria. All the traffic of centuries funnels by Hazor, whose rulers were free to charge tolls or stop traffic all together. A powerful position, a rich position. And, judging by the rubble and ruins, not one always in consonance with its neighbors. Even Joshua is said to have burned the place once.

Most of the Tel has yet to be excavated, but its commanding position on the trade routes of then and the highways of now is unmistakable. It did feel a bit odd, on our way back to the Jeffmobile, to stroll down alleyways constructed and used by people 4,000 years ago. Eerie.

Back in the Jeffmobile we crossed the Jordan River, little more than a stream, a creek, at this point and began our climb into the Golan Heights. Jeff’s goal was one of the many Israeli war memorials on the Golan. It was easy to see why it was untenable to leave the Syrian troops in the Golan, looking down on the Israeli settlements below. From their cement, reinforced, bunkers the Syrians could, and did, fire down on anyone who moved on the Jordan plain below – soldier, fisherman, farmer, no matter. Beside the monument lies the required plaque reciting the names of the Israeli soldiers who fell here during that 1967 battle. The blue and white Star of David flag snaps in the wind in continual salute.

Israeli war memorial
First Mate examines Syrian bunker

But our real destination on the Golan Heights was the Mt. Bental lookout. Complete with coffee shop. Jeff had bragged about the coffee here but we arrived too late in the day for coffee. But not for the view. From its perch 1,165 meters above sea level the lookout scans northern Israel, Lebanon and Syria seemingly all the way to Damascus today. Cloudless and clear. This was the seat of bloody conflict to rival anything in the crusades. Still is. Two days before our arrival there had been gunfire all along the border fence below us. No, no attack on Israel. Just the Syrian civil war continuing to play out in its murderous fashion as the sides shot it out.

As we walked up to the lookout from the parking lot, Jeff murmured: “Don’t get off the path”, an understatement accentuated by the yellow and red signs hanging on the rusting barbed wire: ‘danger – mines’.

The lookout is no longer used by the military but is principally just as the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) had left it when they moved out. The trenches, lined with concrete, still lead to the bunkers. The bunkers still have beds inside. Metallic sentries still scan the plains thousands of feet below, plains now almost entirely green with row crops and vineyards – growing right up to the border fence. Jewish farmers waste no space. Except for one area, still brown like it was 40 years ago. Still complete with destroyed Syrian tanks and equipment: the Valley of Tears.

In 1973 the Syrians surprised the IDF with an attack on the Jews’ most holy day: Yom Kippur. The Syrians attacked across the plains below in Soviet tanks and equipment using Soviet style massed attack. The Jews were outnumbered almost 10 to 1. The skeletal IDF forces in position had to hold until the reserves could be mobilized and arrive, a full two days. They fought it out against overwhelming odds. The Syrians were nothing if not brave, perhaps too brave. Their losses against the dug-in IDF were staggering. But the IDF regular forces holding back the tidal wave of Syrian armor was almost completely destroyed. In the end the IDF denied the Syrians a crossing of the Jordan and destruction of Israel. They even advanced into Syria, but paid a terrible price for their victory. The Israelis have left the battlefield remnants to remind visitors of the massive force overcome and the price paid that day.

Our inspection of the area complete, we departed for our kibbutz.

**The Small Lion & the First Mate arrive at Kibbutz**

Our kibbutz was complete with all one needs. If not elegant it was at least adequate including a small motel room complete with patio, large recreation area and a communal dining room for our meals. We even had our own bomb shelter. “Oh, number 22 there is ours, but we rarely have rocket attacks anymore”, Jeff assured us. He waved toward a small concrete structure which looked like the entrance to a subway station.

Number 22

The only problem with the dining room and its communal style buffet was that there was no wine. Easily fixed. We had driven through miles of vineyards on our sojourn around the Golan Heights. Now we walked across the road to a winery, slipping in the back door by following our nose into a vast room filled with steel barrels and the smell of fermenting wine. Although it was closing time the owners cheerfully gave us a tasting of several of their varietals, all good. Picking a couple of dry whites, we parted ways with our hosts on the best of terms.

Back at the buffet we circled the groaning board of grub with a wary eye. Some dishes looked familiar and delicious, some strange and uncertain. Jeff translated for us but the choices were too many for even veteran samplers. We settled for the known, washed down with the local wine. Delicious. Fortunately, I saved the embarrassment for breakfast.

Sure enough, the breakfast buffet was the same extravaganza of choices. Not having had enough coffee, I allowed my tongue to overload my brain. Poking at my Moroccan eggs I casually asked Jeff why there was such a variety of foods at the kibbutz. He smiled and replied as if answering a child: “You do know we Jews here in Israel come from all over?” Oh. Yeah, that’s right. Not satisfied with the cultural damage, I gazed around the dining room, filled with families. There obviously were several Arab families in the room. Reaching for more coffee I expressed surprise at this fact. Father Jeff, once more, instructed his child: “Israel has citizens of all races. Many Arabs are Israeli citizens”. Oh. Yeah. Of course. I made no further cultural comments.

We now departed for the far north, north through Druze villages, north to the foot of Mt. Hermon and Tel Dan. The tribe of Dan and the city of Dan were in the most northern reaches of the Kingdom of Israel. The base of Mt. Hermon provided an outcropping and gushing source of water, filtered down from the snows high on the mountains. The various springs and their disparate streams would join further south to form the Jordan River. But here they formed their own prolific oasis of gardens and fields, an area rich in farming since antiquity, an area fought over by competing cultures for thousands of years.

The headwaters of one of the springs also housed the Temple of Pan. Yes, the shepherd god, the god of the dancing goats. A cult developed here around the time of Christ. Being farmers, they were naturally interested in investing in something, anything, which would enhance fertility, hence Pan and the rite of the dancing goats. But, not interested in excluding any gods, or displeasing any rulers, they likewise erected a temple to the Roman Augustus as a god, another to Zeus and yet another to appease Nemesis. And here lies the ruins of it all. A godless place filled with gods, the Christians would say.

We whizzed around the corner and into the parking lot at the Tel Dan Nature Preserve, a sort of EPCOT of nature and history. Here one can stroll for miles on shaded walks lined with lush vegetation along diverse streams of cold, rushing waters. But our goal was antiquity: the old city of Dan.

The city of Dan was old when the book of Judges was being written. Written about many of the acts and actors here at Dan: Moab, Ruth, Jeroboam. It was the time of the great bifurcation – the nation broke apart into Judah and Israel. Jeroboam was king in the north and erected a holy place in Dan. In it he placed a golden calf for the people to worship. He feared any who traveled down to Jerusalem to worship at the temple would not return. The city of Dan grew, became wealthy and a place of great trade. It’s high stone walls kept out invaders and its city gates became famous as the place to do business or seek justice from the king. The king sat, beneath his shady canopy, at the gates and heard the supplications of his subjects. He also collected tolls from all who would enter the gates. Clever.

A modern ruler sits upon an ancient throne at the Gates of Dan.

We strolled over to Jeroboam’s temple area which was under excavation. The outlines of the altar where the sacrifices had been made were clearly visible. But something else was visible, something strange, just beyond the stone walls.

On the slope below the city, overlooking the dry plains below, were a series of overgrown holes, line with corrugated tin. When I pointed to them Jeff just laughed and shook his head: “Those were our bunkers”. The Israeli Defense Forces had dug in on the side of the hill and lined their bunkers and trenches with tin to try to keep the earth in place. In other places tin had been placed over the trench and earth piled upon it, starkly different from the concrete reinforced bunkers of the Syrians. “We were poor then”, he said with a shake of his head, a bemused smile on his face. He seemed in wonder that they had survived at all. He among them. The dry, scrubby land below turned into a modern field of battle, a desperate battle.

So there it was – 3,000 years of history and conflict overlapping in the same spot, overlapping for the same reason. We have it, they want it.

We viewed the sun and our watch. Jeff waived his hand, it was time to go, a long way to Haifa. Our ship waits for no man. Our cruise continues.

**The walls of Dan – still standing after 3,000 years**

Santiago, Cuba – San Juan Hills

Posted on August 31, 2020 by paul eschenfelder

It was a bit eerie, standing in history’s footprints. It felt the same as that early morning in July, 1898. The sea was deep blue and calm. The wind, nothing. Today the smoke from the electric generating plant in Santiago went straight up, spread like a cloud. Then, it was the smoke from the warships of the Spanish squadron, getting up steam, preparing to come out. Every American sailor waiting in the warm Caribbean outside of Santiago Harbor could see the smoke. It was a bright red warning flag, granting the American sailors’ wish: the Spanish were coming out to fight. Led by the bravest man in Cuba. But we run ahead of ourselves.

Today the pilot boat gently bumps our Viking cruiser, the pilot leaping through the hatch. We are fortunate to have him on board. While the Moro fort guarding the entrance to the bay is no longer a threat, the winding channel into the harbor is. The pilot apologizes – you see some of the channel markers are missing. The embargo, you know. We shall follow the pilot boat up the channel to ensure no mistakes. Indeed, some of the channel markers are missing, a lot of them.

**The narrow and winding channel, sometimes marked**

Santiago is the second city of Cuba, second only to Havana in population or economic importance. But a city which seems in a different country than the hustling Havana. If Havana is all about tourism, vintage cars, government offices, then Santiago is all about how mellow can you be? The pace is slower, the streets less congested, everyone working on island time.

Except our guide, who apologizes for having to drive us in his cousin’s taxi today. His Mercedes is in the shop, awaiting parts. It is three times cheaper for him to buy parts in Amsterdam and fly them in on KLM than to purchase them locally. The embargo, you see. The taxi is fine, its air conditioner blows cold.

We have waited for the customers to vacate the ship which they do in rapid style. On the pier the locals seem genuinely happy to see us, to offer goods or services. Not only a chance for capitalistic gain for them today, but also a treat to be visited by a cruise ship. The Cuban government looks the other way, never noticing these small pockets of capitalistic enterprise amidst its communist dogma.

Our first stop is to visit the dead. Cementerio de Santa Ifigenia is the resting place of many Cubans – but two are still larger than life.

**Changing of the Guard at Jose Marti’s tomb**

Jose Marti was a poet, professor and dreamer of liberty. Cuba had only freed its slaves in 1886 and some of the common people lived little better than the farm animals they tended. Marti wrote about, advocated for and finally led a bid for freedom from the Spanish yoke for the Cuban people. He was at the forefront for the Cuban fight for independence in 1895. Unfortunately, he wore a bright white outfit at the battle forefront. Mounted on a charger he was too great a target for Spanish troops to resist. He was gunned down. Martyred for freedom. The Cubans never forgot him. His rather impressive tomb is continually guarded by Cuban troops with fixed bayonets. The changing of the guard, goose stepping in the finest Prussian tradition, is part of the cemetery’s ceremony.

Nearby, and with much less acclaim, is another crypt. No guards, no towering monument. Just a huge granite boulder atop the crypt accompanied by a couple of benches for resting. On the granite is inscribed just one name: “Fidel”. His final resting place, a simple grave for a purported simple man.

Back through town we whiz, traffic delightfully light. We pass all the obvious sights: the university, the theater, the baseball stadium (yes, baseball), the medical center.

**Bullet holes remain from Fidel’s attack**

Finally, the towering bronze statue of General Antonio Maceo, freedom fighter. Maceo was called the “bronze titan” by his men for all the wounds he had survived in the struggle with Spain. He would not survive his final betrayal.

We then headed across town toward the low hills on the outskirts of Santiago. The fight for the San Juan hills was the stuff of legend and lore, some true. American troops had staggered ashore down the coast from Santiago at the village of Daquiri. Poor planning awarded them a marginal harbor with one rickety pier. It was a miracle all had gotten ashore safely. It was the Spanish army’s greatest opportunity to destroy the invaders, but no Spanish appeared.

**San Juan Hills National Park** **entrance**

The American troops inched their way through the jungle to the outskirts of Santiago. If they captured Santiago the Spanish fleet would be forced to surrender, the war would be over. But they had to take the hills south of the city first. General Shafter’s carefully laid plan of attack fell apart as soon as the sides engaged. The Spanish were tougher than thought, the terrain steeper than thought, the trails more narrow than thought. It took half the day for troops to move into position.

Popular lore has Teddy Roosevelt and his Rough Riders, the First Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, storming the San Juan hills almost single handedly. But, actually, they attacked Kettle Hill. From the neatly maintained and scrupulously preserved park at the top of the hills one has to wonder at how anyone made it up the hills at all. The hills were incredibly steep at this point and the Spanish were dug in on top, complete with artillery and a blockhouse. The ‘blockhouse’ still stands today, or a recompletion of the original. Charging into the face of this fire would have required incredible courage and perseverance. It also was very costly.

**View** **from the blockhouse of the steep hill below**

The San Juan hills park is very dear to the Cubans. Although Americans celebrate the battle as a great victory over a European power, the Cubans claim it for their own, also. Among the relics and recreations at the park is a bronze plaque, erected in 1945, which recites that due to the “…decisive support given to the US Army…” by the Cuban liberation army the war should not be called the Spanish-American War, but rather the Spanish-Cuban-American War.

The Cubans are a proud people. Roosevelt would write differently about the rebels he encountered, calling them “sad” and “rag-tag”. Indeed, they were: poorly armed, poorly supplied, poorly trained, it was little wonder they did not want to take on the Spanish in direct attack. Yet their guerilla war had fought the Spanish to a standstill for 5 years.

Roosevelt and the Rough Riders had been on the far right of the line when the order trickled down to attack. Teddy and his men literally charged through the regular troops to begin their assault. They picked up the support of the 9^th and 10^th Cavalry troops, so called “colored” troops as the US military was not yet integrated. The hill was so steep Roosevelt had to abandon his horse. Their attack was on Kettle Hill, named for the huge iron kettle on the top of the hill used for boiling sugar cane. When they finally clawed their way to the top of the hill, they noted the regulars were having a difficult time getting up San Juan Hill. The Rough Riders charged across the 500 yards separating the hills and took the Spanish in the flank at the same time the regulars made the top. The Spanish fled to their second line of defense, closer to the city. The Americans occupied the outer hills.

Trenches dug by the Rough Riders – preserved today

The manicured lawns of the park today are cut by the stone-lined trenches that the American troops dug to hold the hilltop. The well-preserved trenches are obviously a labor of love for the Cubans, as are the old artillery pieces and the blockhouse, complete with bronze maps showing the direction and nature of the advance onto the hilltop.

Various US state governments have erected monuments or plaques to the ‘boys’ from their state who fell here. Not far from the bronze statue typifying the American soldiers who fought here is another statue, saluting the Mambis. The flop-hatted figure with the baggy pants was a Mambi, Cuban freedom fighter. He was poor, he was a farmer not a soldier, but he is portrayed with his weapon on guard and advancing to the attack. The Cubans have not forgotten their own.

General Shafter had not forgotten his loses in the attack. He had gotten a very bloody nose and now faced the task of assaulting the inner hills above Santiago. He hesitated. Fortunately, he was not the only commander with a conundrum.

**Admiral Cervera, the bravest man in Cuba**

In the harbor the commander of the Spanish fleet, Admiral Cervera, also hesitated. He did not want to be there. When the war had broken out the Spanish government ordered his squadron to Cuba. He protested vigorously and often: the crews were not trained, their ammunition was old and incomplete, his ships were old and there were not enough of them. He was sent anyway – Spanish honor demanded it. Now he was trapped.

Immediately outside the harbor the American fleet waited. Their ships were newer, larger, faster and the guns bigger. The only thing that prevented them from entering the harbor and sinking the Spanish was the winding channel and the fort on the headland. But if the American army took the San Juan hills, they could bring up their artillery and sink him at his moorings. If he tried to go out the fight would be so uneven it was hardly worth considering. Of course, he could surrender without a fight. He called a meeting of his captains. And telegraphed Havana for instructions.

His captains all starred at Cervera as he read the reply from Havana: the commander-in-chief was ‘leaving it in your hands to decide’. He was taking no responsibility for what was about to happen. But Cervera’s captains would. They agreed when their admiral told them it was impossible to remain and face the humiliation of being sunk by army artillery. The idea of surrendering without a fight merited no comment – Spanish honor would never tolerate it. So, they would go out. At first light. Race through the American blockade, split up and make a run for it. The Americans couldn’t sink them all, the survivors would meet down island somewhere and plan new strategy. It was agreed by all.

Before the next dawn the Spanish ships were stoking their boilers, getting up steam. The black smoke from the six ships went straight up, then mushroomed like a tree canopy. As the hills to the east began to lighten up the smoke cloud was a telegram to the American fleet, advertising Spanish intent. The American ships swarmed the mouth of the channel, almost colliding with each other in their zeal. Down the channel the Spanish came – with only enough light to steer by.

**The Spanish Squadron attempts escape**

The narrow channel demanded that they come in a single column, each ship exposed to the fire of the blockading ships as it emerged. Then the race was on.

It was a wild melee of ships and fort firing, ships maneuvering, signals crossed, smoke and shells flying. But the Spanish were wrong. The American Navy could sink them all. The Spanish vessels were all overtaken by the larger and more powerful American warships. The Spanish were either blown apart and sunk or turned into conflagrations. Several Spanish captains beached their flaming ships, allowing surviving crew to escape.

**The Spanish ships entirely destroyed**

The Americans picked Admiral Cervera out of the ocean, his uniform in tatters where it had been shredded by explosions on his flagship. The war in Cuba was over.

We raced across town and out to the scene of the action: the Morro Fort on the headland, entrance to the Bay of Santiago. It had been erected early in the Spanish conquest of the New World. Santiago was then the capital of Cuba and its most prosperous city. So prosperous that it was routinely visited by pirates – French pirates, Dutch pirates, English pirates, freelance pirates. The fort and its cannon put a stop to these routine visits, it even stopped the American fleet 300 years later.

**The Moro Fort guarded Santiago for centuries**

And, sadly, it had served as a prison for Cuban freedom fighters. Now a modest tourist village has grown up along the walk to the fort. In the fort rooms of museums tell the history of the fort and the Cuban people – the heroic and the debased. Sometimes the history does not match with the same stories told in other lands. Sometimes the history celebrates different heroes. Always it points to the past with pride. Our guide and the First Mate drag me from the lower dungeon – we must get back to the port. Our Viking cruiser must sail – not with the tide but with the sun. We must be clear of the winding channel well before sunset. Not only are some of the channel markers missing, but the lights on the channel markers do not work. The embargo, you know.

Our cruise continues.

Vanuatu- New Hebrides

Posted on December 5, 2019 by paul eschenfelder

Seventy-five years on after the Great Pacific War of 1941-45 had swept over Vanuatu (then known as New Hebrides), the war is not yet over. For Vanuatu relics remain relevant, everywhere.

Luganville Pipes & Drum welcome committee

Charlie was a large Melanesian man who had never seen a dentist. His bright red aloha shirt advertised his services just outside the cruise ship terminal at Luganville. As it was late in the morning and pickings were slow, he was happy to drive us around Luganville to see the ‘sites’. His van had obviously done so many, many times. The front windshield was cracked, the seat benches covered with towels and, fortunately, the windows propped open to admit the sea breeze. As we slowly trolled out of the limestone parking lot Charlie was still in hopes of additional fares and flagged down 3 other potential passengers. One woman stuck her head through the open window and inquired if the van had air conditioning. When I replied it barely had 4 tires they elected to retire to the ship.

Charlie was definitely working on island time as he barely managed to shift out of third gear motoring down the two-lane blacktop road heading for Million Dollar Point. The jungle was close on both sides of the road and occasionally we passed a local acquaintance of Charlie’s. In a gesture of friendliness, he tried to honk and wave at each friend, but the horn didn’t work. After a couple of miles we turned off the hard top onto a well worn limestone road with huge holes in it. Charlie slowed. The ‘gate’ to Million Dollar Point was guarded by two young Melanesian lads in lounge chairs set in the shade. One lad ambled over from his respite with a smile and allowed as the entrance fee to the beach was five dollars. US. Each. As his clan owned the beachfront here, he and his cousin were on admission duty while the cruise ship was in. Fee paid, Charlie parked the van on the grass in a shady spot, waved his hand and strolled off. We observed the bleak scene.

Million Dollar Point gained its fame, or ignominy, during one of those acts of craziness only a great war can foster. Our island, Esprito Santo, had been a very large allied base. It had a deep-water harbor, several airfields, headquarters offices, hospitals, warehouses, everything. It was a staging area as troops moved through to engage the enemy, first at Guadalcanal and then northward in the island-hopping campaign. When the war ended everyone wanted to go home and go home now. But transport was in short supply. And shipping equipment was expensive.

Before the war Esprito Santo and the New Hebrides had been a French possession, principally of coconut plantations. Outside of the main towns the infrastructure was minimal. The French administrative view had been that colonies provided to the mother country, not the other way around. The allies found it necessary to construct great infrastructure works: electrical plants, power lines, water works, sewage works, all weather roads, runways, docks, etc. At the end of the war the decision was made that the infrastructure would remain, turned over intact to the French administration. The troops would go home on the earliest boat. But the rolling stock? There were hundreds of vehicles: trucks of every description – haul trucks, dump trucks, transport trucks; road graders, bulldozers, jeeps, sedans, you name it – the allies had it. It would be expensive to ship all this equipment home. Besides, jump starting the civilian post-war economy would be difficult enough without dumping a huge amount of military surplus gear on the market. The rolling stock was offered to the French island administration at the cost of six cents on the dollar. A bargain.

The French refused.

The allied commanders were stunned. The French were receiving millions in infrastructure improvements for their island for free, now it seemed they wanted the rolling stock at the same price. Figuring the allies would simply abandon the rolling stock when they left the island the French administration remained obdurate. Obstinate. Immovable. Non.

In a fit of pique, the allied command decided if they couldn’t ship the equipment home and if the French didn’t want to buy it then they would just dump it into the ocean. And that’s what they did. For two days a constant stream of vehicles chugged slowly down the road to the point where a jury-rigged pier had been constructed. The vehicles were driven off into the ocean or, if unable to drive into the water, were pushed by bulldozers. Dozens then hundreds of vehicles. All gone. In Europe after the war, billions of dollars were spent on the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe. In Esprito Santo millions were dumped into the ocean. Crazy.

Detroit had built them well, though. All along the beach were rusting, coral encrusted hulks of metal which had survived three-quarters of a century of immersion in salt water. Here an axle, there a metal frame of God knows what, there an entire coral colony growing in some weird fashion, fixed to a remnant of the material of victory. Didn’t seem like a victory here. This beach is touted as a great diving destination, to swim among the sunken remnants of the war and observe the new homes for the brightly colored tropical fish. This spot and one slightly closer to Luganville, where the ‘President Coolidge’ had sunk. The Coolidge was a troop transport which had the misfortune of striking an allied mine as it approached the harbor. It capsized and sank but not before most the troops had made a swim for it to the nearby beach.

As we walked along the beach the wind continued rising and a local fisherman tried to secure his boat beyond the surf line. Another local boat filled with people tried to run up on the sand through the surf break and only succeeded in dunking all those who tried to get ashore. As if the beach were angry, lonely. The beach park was quiet, practically deserted. We waved to Charlie, who ambled over to the van, slammed the doors and we fled the scene, slowly.

Charlie drove us by the ‘Pekoa International Airport Santo’ and bragged about how they now had two non-stop flights a week to Brisbane. The terminal was clean, airy, with a handful of people wandering about. No strict airport security here. The airport was an improvement set upon an old allied bomber field.

We continued down the hot hardtop road into Luganville. The lack of an economic engine in the area was instantly apparently. The French had left in the 1980s and Vanuatu had been independent since. But its economy still seemed wrapped around the war. On the wharf at the harbor stood Quonset huts, apparently erected by the allies during the war and still in use. In town, next to the main park, was a small building advertising the proposed “South Pacific WWII Museum” and “visit us while you are in town to learn of our plans”. Unfortunately, it was Saturday and the office was closed.

Big hopes for Luganville’s historical future

The next day in Port Vila we had another glimpse of the past. As it was Sunday the entire town was closed. The ‘Amsterdam’ was berthed in the main harbor of this capital city. Just behind her were a number of working boats from the local area. The ‘LCT Ocean Chief’ was beached just behind us. LCT was Navy jargon for ‘Landing Craft Tank’. The vessel was designed to hold a half dozen vehicles in its well and drive right up on a beach, drop it bow ramp and have the vehicles charge right out onto the beach. Here the ‘Ocean Chief’ was carrying a pickup truck and containers but, sure enough, it was beached with the ramp down. A utilitarian vessel for sure and one that still plied the seas of Vanuatu, making due for the lack of harbor facilities by making her own landing ground wherever she dropped her ramp. Behind her were parked two other LCTs which had obviously seen hard and long service.

The next day we anchored off Mystery Island in southern Vanuatu. A sand spit of an island it is ringed by coral and lies 2 miles off the main island. Deserted, the locals commute over to the island anytime a ship is in. A modest market is set up and a couple of 3 seat beach bars open.

The beach is sandy in many places, divine for walk out snorkeling on the adjacent coral heads and rocky shore. But Mystery Island has a past. Right down the center of this small island the Navy’s Seabees had cut a 4,000-foot coral runway during the war. Just a runway. No other infrastructure. It must have been an emergency strip and pilots, seeking an alternative to the sea or Vanuatu’s steep, jungle covered hillsides, must have thought it looked pretty darn good. Interestingly it is still in use. The runway surface appears level, no holes, the jungle is cut back from the sides of the runway and the grass growing on top of the coral surface is cut down to ground level. The locals say occasionally a small plane will land here for a day at the beach.

Or just a beach picnic. Odd, the remnants we leave behind. Our cruise continues.

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Fiji – cannibal isles?

Posted on November 26, 2019 by paul eschenfelder

It’s called a brain picker, but not in the way you think. Melanesian tribes and their chiefs had fought for power, land, status for hundreds of years. For a stone-age people, their weapons were fearsome. Long, heavy clubs made of iron wood had a devastating effect on rivals. Throwing clubs, barbed spears, broad double-bladed clubs, all wrecked carnage on the foes. The fallen were dragged off to the ovens, inadvertent guests for dinner. After all, eating your foes was the ultimate insult and proof positive of power over the fallen. The brain picker was used as a dining implement as, after killing his foe, it was forbidden for the chief to then touch them, even to eat them. Even cannibals had rules. The brain picker was particularly well suited for removing, well, use your imagination.

Fiji cannibals contemplate their next meal

We were receiving a crash course in warfare and cannibalism after wandering into Island Fashion Handicrafts & Souvenirs on Main Street in Savusavu. Vikesh Kumar and his brother ran the shop, Vikesh doing most of the carving. Iron wood is now rare and expensive, a permit being needed to work with it. The craftmanship was very fine, some of the best we had seen. Vikesh swore he did his own work so he must be very busy. But the product was nice. Vikesh did not appear to be Melanesian so I asked if he was Fijian. “Oh, yes”, he replied, “Fourth generation”. Four generations? The Fiji peoples had been here thousands of years. Four generations ago another wave of immigrants appeared in Fiji: the Indians. It was called the Girmit – Indians brought from British India to work under indenture on plantations in British Fiji. Many remained in Fiji after their indenture expired as India held no hope for them with its poverty and masses. So now they, too, were Fijians. But not cannibals.

Cannibalism died a hard death in Melanesia. Early in the 19^th century William Bligh, after his crew mutinied, was set adrift in a small boat with a handful of loyal sailors. He stopped in Fiji for water and was attacked by locals. He lost one man before they could get away, but it was the only man he lost in a remarkable 3,000-mile open boat voyage. Fiji was a dangerous place. Later in the century Christian missionaries arrived, preaching a different way of life. Priests of the old gods and many chiefs pushed back. Some hard. But the manna of the God of the new westerners was clearly greater than that of the old gods. After all, look at their tools, their weapons, their ships. Much greater than anything delivered by the old gods.

Chiefs began adopting the new ways. Once the chief was converted the masses were sure to follow. But even the converted chiefs were known to backslide occasionally into a dinner of rivals. One Christian chief sent a tabua, a precious and rare whale’s tooth, to a pagan chief. The pagan chief now owed a debt. The price was the death of a missionary and his 6 disciples whom the Christian chief felt had slighted him. The debt was paid: the missionary and his party were killed and eaten. Jack London would construct a fictional account of the tragedy in his book on the south Pacific. Traditions died hard and a number of missionaries with them.

Today the Christian religion is celebrated widely throughout Fiji. At the village of Viseisei the Methodist Church, a large monument to the coming of Christianity and the village chief’s traditional grass house all share the village center, all equally revered by the locals.

We could not resist a finely finished brain picker as a fashion statement for our home. The Kumar boys were very pleased, feeling we had made an excellent choice.

Back on Main Street we noticed how the town of Savusavu was compressed upon its harbor, Main Street being the only road along the harbor. The steep volcanic hills which had been thrust up in the turmoil of plate tectonics – plate collision, vulcanism, subduction, land building and erosion – had left the expanding town having to claw its way up the hill, creating level terraces as they went. Diggers were at work leveling building sites although roads to the new sites would be a challenge. But vulcanism isn’t finished with Fiji.

Behind the grocery store we turned up the hill. Two blocks along we passed a spa offering “therapeutic hot mud baths”. A block further we turned into a small park – the hot springs of Savusavu. Two small springs were bubbling, boiling, steaming from their stone enclosures. It was a natural phenomenon being offered to the tourists. Two locals even offered to boil eggs for us in the springs. I questioned if the eggs wouldn’t taste a little sulphuric and they just smiled and nodded.

The magma from the great Fiji volcano is still so close to the surface that it is heating the rock layers above it. In turn that rock is so hot that when the shallow ground waters flow through it they are superheated to boiling and bubble up to the surface. One of the gases produced by volcanoes is sulfur dioxide, that rotten egg smell. The larger spring was bubbling over and draining into a small creek next to the park. Upstream of the spring the creek was green with algae and alive with tadpoles. After the hot spring water entered the creek the creek bottom was completely brown and lifeless. Sulfur.

But, no matter, next to the park a group of young people were engaged in a pick-up game of rugby, celebrating their national team’s successes. There were more important things on their minds than the past, cannibals or volcanoes.

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Samoa

Posted on November 24, 2019 by paul eschenfelder

“Talofa”, he said, thrusting a big, beefy hand at me. Mona was all smiles as he completed hoisting our suitcases into his taxi. I started to say thanks but he corrected me in advance: “fa’afetai is Samoan for thank you”. Stumble through that a couple of times.

We pushed open the windows in the cab as Mona’s taxi roared up the hill next to the terminal. It had felt like Honolulu went we walked out from the terminal, but looked more like Papeete with the close, steep green hills compressing the road and terminal area. A fortunate but stiff onshore breeze mitigated the direct sun, Samoa being only 13 degrees south of the equator. Paradise.

“That’s my family”, Moan said, a beefy arm pointed out the driver’s window as the horn sounded, “our fales”. The fales were roof and cement slab only, all walls, doors and windows missing, the better for the breeze to sweep through. The trim homes which bordered the two lane ‘sealed’ road all seemed touched by the hand of the same gardener with ti plants, pandamus and bougainvillea running wild. The volcanic hills behind the houses were overgrown in greenery, lush.

I asked Mona the fare to our hotel as the taxi had no meter. He frowned, almost apologized and said, “it’s 80 fala, but it’s a very long way”. It was a fixed rate as the airport was located about 45 minutes from Apia. But then it was the only piece of land between the shallow green ocean and the steep green hills which would accommodate a modern airport on Upolu, the lesser of the two main islands of Samoa.

But if it’s 45 minutes to town, why are we turning off the main road onto a one lane road which degraded into a rock road? “That’s my house”, Mona proudly announced with a wave of his hand. We stopped in front of a modest home. In the fale immediately next to the home two teenagers stirred languidly from their couches as Mona carried on a loud, animated conversation with them. A young girl approached the taxi carrying Mona’s tennis shoes and we were properly introduced to his daughter and his dogs, in Samoan, of course. We roared off toward the main road, Mona mentioning over his shoulder that he was thirsty for some coconut water. Well, er, ok.

We passed church after church along the road, every denomination seeming to be represented in the local community, some more so than others from their size. Coming into a small village Mona moved to the shoulder near a small convenience store and began a conversation with the woman sitting in front of the store with a large, red cooler. The woman reached into the cooler and pulled out a dripping cold coconut as she reached for a machete. With three strokes of the knife she had the top of the coconut off and thrust a straw inside. She handed the coconut to Mona who, in turn, handed it to the First Mate. Oh, ok. The second coconut went to me and Mona took the third as we roared off down the road. “Good, eh?”, Mona said into the rear-view mirror. The coconut water was cold and pure with a hint of flavor. Tasty, interesting. Friendly.

We skimmed the outskirts of Apia with Mona pointing out the highlights as he drove, waving a beefy arm at people or locations, followed by the endorsement: “That’s my family”. As predicted, we arrived at our hotel, Taumasena Resort, in 45 minutes. Mona graciously accepted payment for his labors, no tipping in Samoa – it’s rude, and loitered nearby, chatting with the hotel staff. As the major international flight into the airport had arrived, he was in no rush to hustle another fare. Island time.

The next morning, we contemplated the hotel’s beach as snorkeling entered our mind. Upolu is a high, volcanic island surrounded by a ring of coral. The coral heads would be where the exotic and colorful fish would hide. But when we queried the hotel’s beach boy, he shuffled his feet and deferred his comments. Not encouraging. He pointed out the tidal tables and that it was low water at the beach just now, only a foot or so over the coral. Could be we could get cut up out there if we weren’t careful. Maybe come back this afternoon at high tide?

Suggestion accepted we jumped onto the hotel’s bikes for a trip into town. Warm and sunny weather meant we were ready for an iced tea break by the time we arrived at the front of the fashionable Aggie Grey Hotel in downtown Apia. Now a Sheraton brand hotel, this grand old dame hotel took its name from a real grand old dame: Aggie Grey. Aggie’s story was remarkable enough without being embellished by James A. Michener. It was said that Michener modeled his character Bloody Mary, in ‘Tales of the South Pacific’, after Aggie. Both denied it but neither tired of denying it. It was great publicity for both. But Aggie had her own story in the south Pacific. Born in Samoa of a British father and local woman, Aggie saw the highs and lows of life, several times. She married young but lost her husband and child to the great flu epidemic which swept the Pacific. Her second husband went bust in the Great Depression and they moved to a fale in a pasture and lived off the land. She opened a social club in Pago Pago but the locals thought she was too social and escorted her out of town. Back in Apia she took over a shuttered British club and began selling ‘medicinal spirits’ to the ill. As Prohibition was in effect at the time the number of ill around town skyrocketed. But she came into her own as the tsunami of American GIs swamped Samoa at the start of World War II. Ever the entrepreneur she added a line of American styled hamburgers to her menu and her place was constantly filled with hungry and bored GIs. Her cooking staff was said to include one of the American generals, a staff addition which certainly greased the way for an unending source of supplies. She expanded her building to include a rooming house and later the belle epoch of Apia, Aggie Grey’s Hotel. It was here that Michener sat upon a bar stool and heard the stories of the people of the south Pacific, straight from Aggie who had known them all. Today Aggie’s entrepreneurial grand children have business interests stretching all the way to Tahiti. And the Apia hotel? No longer the center of life in Apia but still a classic and luxurious hotel. By the way, if you stop here for iced tea, be sure to take your wallet. Aggie didn’t get rich giving anything away.

We pedaled down the street to another looming edifice: the Catholic Cathedral. The new building is only five years old and dazzling. The pews and the ceiling are both a dark, rich-looking wood. The dome in the center of the sanctuary shows the effortless blending of religion with local customs. Just as the dome of the great cathedral in Florence is festooned with stories from the Bible, here the local traditions hold sway. The inside of the dome depicts tattooed Samoan chiefs, complete with boar’s tusk necklaces, sitting in counsel in a circle, palm trees and ocean visible behind them. Standing behind them appear to be men in robes with halos, probably saints. And the cherubs floating in the sky above? Definitely Polynesian cherubs. The doors stand open and the breeze gusts through, it must be an awesome place on Sunday.

Back on the bikes we arrive at the hotel just in time to hear that it is happy hour by the pool. The wind gusts in off the ocean, the hills to the west are shrouded in rain showers, the afternoon sun here is mellow in its warmth. High tide and snorkeling can wait. Tomorrow we head to sea. Our cruise continues.

Antigua & Barbuda, West Indies

Posted on March 21, 2019April 18, 2019 by paul eschenfelder

Sam-be was black as ebony, evincing his west African roots. But his heart must have made his Sunday school teacher swell with pride: modest, self-effacing, his mellow demeanor demonstrated his West Indian upbringing.

He had snagged us on the pier as we strolled onto Heritage Quay in St. John’s. There was only one ship in and it had been a slow period. We had departed the ship a bit late to miss the stampede into town. Sambe had been offering tours to little avail, but now he had come to the conclusion that 2 customers were better than no customers, off we went to the van. He had looked at us a bit strangely when we said we wanted to visit Betty’s Hope, a site not on the usual tourist itinerary.

Betty’s Hope was the long decaying remnant of vast wealth in the islands: a sugar cane plantation. Sugar had come to Antigua about 400 years ago, purloined from the Portuguese in Brazil by some sharp Dutch traders. The sugar produced by the cane became known as ‘white gold’ for the riches it conveyed to the plantation owners. Its potential was readily grasp by the British land owners, who cleared away the native vegetation and bought up all the small farms. More sugar cane was planted, more sugar was produced as the wealth flowed back to England. Plantation owners, who never visited the islands, set up huge manor houses and lived in opulent style in Britain on the profits of the islands.

The two-lane road out of town twisted through and over the low green hills, transitioning from Factory Road to Sir Sidney Walling Highway. Sambe lit up as we passed Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, named for the local cricket player who became one of the greatest batsmen in the history of cricket. The countryside was bucolic, peaceful, untroubled by traffic or any sign of frenetic energy in any of the small crossroad towns we traversed. A small sign indicated the entrance to Betty’s Hope.

The huge twin windmills, atop the high point of the estate, are the hallmark of the place. A modest amount of renovation and preservation has been done at Betty’s Hope. The sails of one windmill have been replaced, waiting only clothe covering to start turning again in the constant ocean breeze. Sambe parks in the shade and indicates we are free to roam all over the plantation as long as we like. There is only one other vehicle here and we have no crowding for our wanderings.

We stroll over to the windmill to inspect the grinder. The freshly cut cane was stuffed into the grinder’s mouth which was turned by reduction gears hooked to the turning windmill. The juice from the sugar cane flowed out of the bottom of the grinder through a series of pipes to the boiling house next door. Here the juice was boiled down to form sugar and molasses. Next to the grinder, leaning on the wall, was an ax. Perhaps nothing represented what work was like on an island sugar plantation better than the ax.

A colonial sugar plantation was a killing machine. The plantation owners had quickly learned that sugar production was a labor-intensive crop. They began importing slaves from west Africa in huge quantities, setting up another industry: slave trading. Sailing ships packed as many slaves on board as humanly possible, but not humanely possible. Conditions on board were horrid. On arrival in the islands the ships unloaded part of their cargo for sale at each island’s slave market. In St. John’s in Antigua it was right on the pier, Heritage Quay, where we so blithely strolled this morning. A constant supply of slaves was necessary for the sugar plantations as up to a third of the new arrivals would die in their first 3 years on the plantations, dead from overwork, poor food, disease, heartbreak. The first three years were called “seasoning” by the slave owners. Slaves probably had another word for it. Slave trading was as profitable for the ship owners as sugar production was for the plantation owners.

Women worked in the fields, planting and harvesting sugar cane, just like the men, only more so. As the men were trained to operate the grinder and windmill, the boiling house and other skilled labor the women were left to do much of the heavy lifting, literally. Not only the planting and cutting of the cane were carried out mostly by women, but also the carrying of huge bundles of cane to the windmill for grinding. It was man-killing work for women. Little wonder the birth rate among the slaves was astonishingly low.

And the ax? The ax was kept next to the grinder in case a slave got a limb caught in the grinder. There was no stopping the grinder as there was no stopping the turning of the windmill. It was judged better to lose a limb than the whole slave.

Nearby, between the windmill and the small museum house, is an irregular concrete slab. It is all that remains, or has been found, of the original plantation house of the owners. Slavery was abolished in the early 19^th century but work went on at the sugar plantations. It was the coming of the sugar beet which did in the sugar cane plantations. Early in the 20^th century the house was abandoned, then mysteriously destroyed. None of the locals seemed to miss it. Strangely there is little concern for the past locally. When asked what he recalled his forefathers saying of the past, Sambe thoughtfully reflected, then said: “…nothing. They didn’t talk about it much.”

Sambe did have an excellent suggestion for us, though. He said we should visit English Harbor and Nelson’s Dockyard on the other side of the island. Off we went through Mt. Joy, Freeman’s, All Saints, and Liberta until we were looking down into Falmouth Harbor. The houses were colorful, overflowing with tropical vegetation, but there was no hiding the large, black cisterns at the side of each house. With little ground water available in Antigua the population is heavily dependent on rain water collected from their own roofs, just as their forefathers did.

**Nelson’s Dockyard – a UNESCO World Heritage Site**

The Caribbean islands have been famously important to the British since antiquity. To protect their interests against other states, particularly the French, the government sent the Royal Navy out to protect the islands, also to enforce the Navigation Act. Essentially the Act prohibited the local citizens from trading with anyone but a British merchant in a British ship, horribly expensive for the locals. Many of the Royal Navy’s commanders in the islands were not dedicated to strict enforcement of these onerous laws. Then Captain Horatio Nelson arrived to command the Leeward Islands Station. Nelson was ambitious, zealous, active and unpopular. He would become, during the Napoleonic Wars, Britain’s most famous sailor. But for now, he was the islands’ most hated man. The sugar planters disliked him so much they even sued him for damages, damages they incurred because he strictly enforced the Navigation Act. Unable to sell their sugar directly to the American colonies the planters felt they lost a fortune due to Nelson. But Nelson was also a good seaman, recognizing that Falmouth Harbor, located on the Caribbean side of the island and away from the Atlantic rollers, as an excellent harbor for the Royal Navy and good ‘hurricane hole’ where ships could ride out the seasonal storms. Forts were erected to control the entrances to the harbor and construction started on ship repair and resupply facilities. For a century it was the locus of Royal Navy activity in the islands, only succumbing to the modernization of the navy late in the 19^th century. Late in the 20^th century Antigua picked up the pieces in splendid fashion. Today the dockyard is a national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site. And it is quite the sight.

Sambe dropped us at the entrance to the park and we strolled down the main street, past the Georgian brick former naval warehouses and dockyard facilities, now cleverly turned into restaurants and two small but swanky hotels. And in the harbor sailing vessels were tied up along the quay. Nelson would recognize the masts, rigging and wooden hulls of these vessels, but little else. These are ‘high dollar’ yachts, some racing yachts, some just private vehicles. All fancy, sleek, beautiful. Behind us, though, lurks the past.

**Yachts in Nelson’s Dockyard – English Harbor**

On the driveway in front of a wooden building housing A&F Sails, two local men ply their trade as sailmakers. They laugh and talk as they spread the fabric across the drive and work with awl and palm, repairing the sails for sea. It could be the 18^th century on that drive.

**Sailmakers ply their trade at A&F Sails**

Sambe wants to make one last impression on us as he guns the van up the road climbing the hill overlooking the harbor. We are enroute to Shirley Heights. Here the British lookout could scan the seas for dozens of miles, observe every movement in English Harbor and use artillery to rain destruction on any interloper.

Sambe points across the channel to the vague blue shape on the horizon: Montserrat. Monserrat’s volcano, Soufriere Hills, erupted violently in 1997, devastating Montserrat with ash and pyroclastic flows, but gently coating Antigua with volcanic ash. The ash was just deep enough on Antigua to serve as an excellent fertilizer, revitalizing all of the tropical vegetation across the island. Strange, disaster on one island, blooms on the other.

**Kasambe Christopher explains the sights in Antigua**

Antigua is a playground now replete with beaches, fancy yachts, luxury hotels. Tourism is the main business. But locals like Sambe are the link between the casual tourist of today and the islanders who built the island, black and white, and are justifiably proud of their heritage. Our cruise continues.

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Mumbai Rug Dance

Posted on April 7, 2018April 7, 2018 by paul eschenfelder

For Mumbai, ‘Good Bay’ in Portuguese, the air was shockingly clear. Everything was visible from our berth: jack-up drilling rigs, parked down the Bay to the south, to the skyscrapers of the financial district to the northwest. The sky, still smazy, was struggling to be blue and a nice sea breeze cooled us, fresh from the Indian Ocean. Warm and humid, for Mumbai the weather was pleasant.

We stepped down from the intra-port bus, no walking allowed in the port nor would one dare to, across the street from the ‘Green Gate’ and fished into our pockets for our ID cards and shore pass. It would be the third time we displayed them, Indian customs and immigration services being a bit overstaffed. We braced for the onslaught as we stepped through the gate. Not disappointed.
White shirted taxi drivers, touts, tour promoters, beggars, all descended upon us with a crescendo of offers, questions, pleas. We simply wanted a ride the mile or so to the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel but that was not one of the offers. All were going for the prize: the tour of Mumbai – ‘I make you best price!’. The word ‘no’ was not in the lexicon of any. We continued down the sidewalk hoping to outdistance them but, instead, the volume increased and the distance from our ears decreased. The First Mate suddenly stopped, threw up her arms and yelled: “Get away from me!”. It had the salubritory effect she sought. The vendors slunk away like kicked dogs.

Down the block a short, bearded taxi driver quietly approached us and asked if we needed a cab. Minor negotiation later we launched off into the infamous Mumbai traffic. Today traffic seemed to move more smoothly than usual, at places we accelerated to almost 15 mph. As four lanes of traffic compressed itself into three lanes of road, the horn protocol prevailed. One beep – I’m passing on your right. Two beeps – passing on your left. Everyone was passing so everyone beeped. Welcome back to Mumbai.

Alighting at the Taj we decided, since the light was right, to get a few photos of the Gateway of India Arch immediately adjacent. The Arch was erected on the landing point of most European passengers from their ship from Europe. The immigrants walked up the stone steps, crossed the hundred yards or so of park and entered back into Europe at one of Mumbai’s most opulent and famous hotels: the Taj Mahal Palace. Old, exquisitely maintained, formal, courtly, wealthy, a throwback to a different century.

Gateway of India Arch, Taj Palace in background

The Gateway Arch had been erected to commemorate the state visit of the King and Queen of England. Today it is a symbol of Mumbai, photographed endlessly and basically serving as shelter for stray mongrels. Mobs of people course around it headed for their luxury ferry boats taking them everywhere in the district. The waterfront is constantly in action and crowded. But all of India is crowded. Never mind, the populace is, by and large, docile and polite, minding their own business. We contemplate the condition of the Bay’s waters and step back, making sure none of it gets on us. Too many people, too little refuse disposal.

Back at the entrance of the Taj we are greeted by smiling and polite door men, bell men, greeters and service staff. The marble lobby floor is covered with a thick oriental carpet upon which a large table of cut flowers, arranged in bowling balls, grabs the eye. All very understated, all very posh. In the older part of the hotel we pass a staircase, fit for an empress: carpeted, wrought iron railings, crystal chandeliers, inlaid ceilings, we can only wonder how many of the quality have made their entrance down those steps. We now get to work.

Our task is to parse the shops in the Taj seeking a new rug for our flood ravaged floors at home. But. As opulent as the Taj is as a hotel, it surpasses itself in its shops. Bangles and bobbles as big as baseballs dangle from displays along the shop corridors. An emerald the size of a small rock is offset by diamonds, gilding the lily. Clothing shops, men’s and women’s, offer the latest of fashion.

None of the shop offerings have price tags attached, leading us to naturally conclude we can’t afford anything. A stern faced, dark suited security guard obviously agrees as he watches us intently, keen to stifle the least act of impropriety on our part. We depart for the other, cheaper, wing of the hotel where we torture a rug merchant in a tiny shop. We ask a minimum of questions while he insists on pulling out rug after rug to display. All are too small for our needs, his shop is too small, and are silk from Kashmir, with prices which suck the air from our lungs. Reconnaissance completed we head back out into the real world.
Behind the Taj a major avenue courses: the Colaba Causeway. Crowded, dug up, congested with every bus and taxi in town, it is also a major shopping area. But not today. Today Mumbai is relatively quiet, at least among the shops. We eye the various shops, all of which offer ‘rugs’ among other wares, shrug and plunge in. The young tout in front of our selected shop is startled from his slumber and his chair by our actual agreement to enter his shop. He stumbles up the steps flipping on lights and yelling, in Hindi, for salesmen. We are not disappointed.

As veterans of Turkish carpet wars for years, we have an idea what to expect. Sure enough, rug merchants world wide are cut from the same cloth. We rest on a large divan on the side of the room while the salesman directs his minions to unroll carpet after carpet on the floor in front of us. Soon so many carpets cover the floor that we have lost track of what we have seen. Reds are dismissed to the right and blues are dismissed to the left. The concept of ‘earth tones’ does not completely translate but by process of trial and error the picture begins to clear for the salesman. Naturally we see the silk rugs first, the finest of Kashmir, until we inquire about wool rugs as silk will be beyond our budget. So we think.
Oh, yes, of course – double knotted! Look here! Look here! This medallion carpet is more beautiful than the square but the square pattern is tradition, you will love it! The patter goes on, each rug is a unique masterpiece we absolutely need. We consult with each other by gaze. It’s time to get serious and talk price or walk down the street to the next shop. I turn the floor over to the First Mate, the family negotiator and heartless nemesis of rug merchants everywhere.
‘Yes, yes, I must eat but I make you a fantastic price as business is slow today’. Out comes the calculator and a price is tapped in, handed to the FM. She studies it quietly. Shaking her head, she taps ‘erase’ and types her own number. We both are biting our tongues to keep a straight face. The rug of interest is a double knotted silk and wool Kashmir prize, hand knotted. The price proposed is incredibly cheaper than those thieves in Turkey would demand, and it is of excellent pile and workmanship. She hands the calculator back to the salesman who blanches and pleads that his children must eat. How can they eat at that price? Please! So sincere.

Back and forth we go – does that price include shipping? Look, look, I charge you no GST on this purchase! No, no, I must talk with the boss, you saw her earlier. He confers with a young woman in the next room, probably about the dinner menu, comes back shaking his head. Impossible! But if you will give just a little more, anything, just a little more! He hands the calculator to the FM, who adds a dollar, taking him at his word. He finally realizes he is up against a hard case. He switches to the ‘surrender and double up’ strategy: ‘OK, OK, I am not making any money but you can have that price. Now, you mentioned another room – which carpet do you want for that room?’

The First Mate is having none of it, she has her prize. We step to the back room and discover the real boss, the Chief, holding the credit card machine. He smiles graciously while another of his minions swipes our card. We are all friends now, we have the rug – they have the money. Tahir, our salesman, insists on walking us to the door, reminding us that should we need more rugs we can always shop online with them at http://www.mahadjoo.com. He sends one of his retainers to rustle up a taxi for us and negotiate the price. Interestingly, the price to the port negotiated by a local is 50 rupees versus the initial offer we had at the Green Gate of $10. So, 85 cents versus ten dollars for the same fare shows the negotiating spread in Mumbai. Bargain or die in Mumbai, what a sport.
Still, we are well pleased with our purchase and the concomitant dance with the rug merchants. Nothing like travel to hone one’s negotiating skills. Our cruise continues.

Singapore

Posted on April 1, 2018April 1, 2018 by paul eschenfelder

The immigration landing form the flight attendant handed us said “Welcome to Singapore”. In the next panel, in large, bold red letters it said: “DRUG DEALING IN SINGAPORE IS PUNISHABLE BY DEATH”. Welcome to Singapore, island of contrasts.
We flew down the multi-laned East Coast Parkway from Changi Airport in a sparkling clean Mercedes cab, which only proved that taxi service could be first class without being pressured by Uber. The canopy of green which provided us with a shady tunnel was accentuated by a riot of tropical flowers attended by professional gardeners clipping and sweeping their charges all along the way. We were headed into downtown Singapore to the Fairmont Hotel, a relatively new hotel already building a historic reputation. Of course, it didn’t hurt that the Fairmont was directly across from the iconic Raffles Hotel, now clothed in contractor’s canvas and occupied only by workmen as it receives face lift that drags on through its sixth month. But the top-hatted door man with the big smile made us forget about antiquity, our baggage and 16 hours in the air.

Seeking a late luncheon, we strolled across the street to Chijmes for relaxation and refreshment. Chijmes is now a collection of eclectic restaurants, from sea food to New Zealand fare, built around a shady park filled with hammocks and bean bag chairs.

The First Mate tests bean bag chairs at Chijmes

But it was not always so. Originally constructed early in the 19th century by a French priest, it was designed to be both a nunnery and orphanage for the poor of Singapore. It was well supported by the community and had grown into half a city block of buildings with its own chapel. Enterprising entrepreneurs took over when the sister’s order collapsed, turning the chapel into a wedding venue and the orphanage into an upscale restaurant/boutique area. It is a typical story of this island of a mere six million which has turned itself into one of the wealthiest countries is Asia. Singapore is a ‘fine’ place.

The pun is intentional, even expressing itself on tee-shirts. While all manner of business is encouraged and nurtured by the government, the same government sets some very strict standards: no littering, no spitting on the sidewalk, no chewing gum, etc. Each offense can and will be punished with a hefty fine, stinging both local and tourist alike. Best to walk the line in Singapore.
And in walking around the downtown area the First Mate continually marveled at the cleanliness of the streets and modern architecture. While Raffles might be getting a face lift to return it to its glory of the 19th century, many of the office structures surrounding us are flying into the 21st century. The MRT, light rail, station at Esplanade, which adjoins the Marriott, is covered by a wave, or at least a roof which undulates a like a huge wave canopy over the station, impacting the Marriott with sufficient force to cause multiple floors of the hotel to curve like a serpent. Interesting. The nearby amphitheaters, Theaters on the Bay, are sharp sided like a giant external acoustic chamber. Across from them the ArtScience Museum opens like a huge lotus flower only to be upstaged by the tri-towers of the Convention Center and hotel. A marvel, and marvelous.

Reality asserts itself with a jolt, though. Singapore is not forgetting its past. Across from the modern Marriott with its fancy style is a simplistic monument reaching to the sky, competing with the surrounding skyscrapers. The base of this monument, occupying a square block, reads “Memorial to the civilian victims of the Japanese occupation 1942-1945”. It was a cruel and brutal time, the great Pacific War. Singapore was never to fall, ever. It was, after all, ‘the Gibraltar of the Pacific’. Britain’s war plan in case of emergency in the Pacific was: ‘main fleet to Singapore’. Britannia was going to throw the whole weight of the Royal Navy into the defense of her colony in Singapore. Didn’t happen. The old ships and second-class aircraft Britain did send were quickly outclassed by the Japanese aggressors. When the Royal Navy did send two of its most modern ships into the fray, Repulse and Prince of Wales, they were sunk on the first day of battle by clouds of Japanese aircraft. All of Europe was stunned when the Singapore garrison surrendered to an inferior but enterprising Japanese force. The conquerors turned Singapore island into a nightmare, a nightmare the locals won’t forget.

We descend into a pedestrian tunnel to cross under two busy roads at this nexus of style and memory, only to confront another memory to Empire: ‘Our Glorious Dead 1914-1918’. Each step up to the monument is dedicated to the sacrifice of that year. So many lives thrown onto the altar of Empire.

Still, the stroll is shady and manicured, orchids growing in tree trunks, ivies covering the lawns, blooming flowers of unknown nature causing us to pause.

Also causing a pause is the sense of humor of the park planners – here is art. We know it is art as it can be nothing else. It is a small pasture of cow statues, the cows made entirely of milk bottles. Some artist is inventive, also with a wicked sense of humor.

Almost as wild as the bronze statues of the “Paparazzi dogs” near the hotel. One wonders.

We take the foot bridge over the Singapore River near the Fullerton Hotel, the old post office. It is here that Sir Stamford Raffles landed, declaring to the locals: “I come for trade, not conquest”. Today trade, business, is everywhere in the island, from the downtown finance centers to the giant container loading cranes of the harbor. Nothing stands still.

We round the corner of the harbor front walk and merge with a steady stream of tourists and amateur photographers all headed to the same destination: the Merlion. This statue, which represent Singapore, must be the most photographed statue in Asia. Its lion’s head, supported by its fish body, spouts a steady stream of water into the harbor as tour boats gaggle and tourists jockey for the best selfie.
Tomorrow we will head to sea, out through the crowded port where every anchorage seems occupied, into the Malacca Straight – a narrow area joining the Indian and Pacific Oceans, where trade has been fast and furious for a thousand years. Singapore is a worthy successor to that industry.

Six-toed cats: Key West, Fla.

Posted on February 24, 2018February 24, 2018 by paul eschenfelder

Six-toed cats. Sunken treasure. Presidents and pirates. Bars that don’t close and legal marijuana (sorta). Endless sunshine. Key West – last city in the U.S. and last of its kind. End of the road on US Highway A1A but the beginning of endless stories. The last occupied island in the string of Florida Keys, Key West shares its space with a shrinking presence of the US Navy but a burgeoning presence of tourists – those who swarm from cruise ships, step daintily off small airliners or make the long drive over the causeways from south Florida.

Fishing is said to have brought a prominent journalist and budding author named Ernest Hemingway to Key West. Always in search for adventure Hemingway took his friend John Dos Pasos’ advice to try the deep-sea fishing in Key West. When he arrived, his newly purchased car was missing so the auto dealership put he and his wife, Pauline, up in an apartment above the dealership. Hemingway wrote in the mornings and fished in the afternoons. The seclusion and rhythm of the place made him imminently productive, completing A Farewell to Arms, his romance/war memoir, which was a huge hit. Pauline induced her wealthy Uncle Gus to purchase an abandoned two-story house for their permanent residence. The results of their remodeling, the tourist spot “Hemingway House”, contains hidden secrets. Forever projecting a macho image Hemingway had a weak spot in his heart for cats. He would say later that they brought out the ‘soft’ side of him, something he was loath to publicly admit. He was gifted a six-toed cat by one of the local captains and began breeding, inadvertently at first, generations of these genetic experiments. The results stroll the grounds in regal style today, masters of their domain and much admired by the tourists. But they are not the only secret. In the backyard lays another.

Pauline began to suspect that Ernest’s extended absences from Key West were more than just journalistic trysts. She would be correct. To get back at him Pauline had the back yard – his boxing rink – dug up and a swimming pool constructed. It was the only pool for 100 miles, the island is surrounded by ocean, and it took two years to complete. The cost was astronomical – more than twice the price of the house. When Hemingway returned and learned the price he blew up and shouted at her: “Why don’t you just take my last penny” as he threw the coin at her feet. She had the penny cemented onto the bottom of the pool. Hemingway left shortly thereafter for Cuba, by himself, where his house outside of Havana is strangely reminiscent of the Key West place.

The infamous swimming pool

Hemingway’s typewriter

But Hemingway was not the only semi-permanent resident of Key West. American presidents, starting with Taft and continuing through Clinton, loved the place. Harry Truman appropriated a number of Navy buildings and termed it the “Little White House”, residing here during many of the summers of his administration. Those days are long gone – many of the buildings are historical centers now while the rest have become white washed condos of plantation shutters, red brick and tropical flora growing in riot. B&Bs have claimed other of the old navy officer quarters, built right up to the edge of the harbor but with their modern utilities carefully supported more than a meter above ground level. Hurricanes, you see.

Hurricanes would make Mel Fisher’s fortune. A first-class modern treasure hunter, Fisher relentlessly promoted the pursuit of the holy grail of treasure hunters: the wreck of the ‘Atocha’. In the 16th and 17th centuries Spain had grown fat and lazy on the unfathomable riches it looted from the New World: gold, silver, precious gems. The endless stream of fortune arriving annually propped up a spendthrift crown with endless ambition and little discipline. Over time the stream of good fortune had become an addiction of unearned wealth. Each treasure fleet was eagerly awaited, eagerly craved, eagerly needed.

Spanish silver coins – ‘pieces of eight’

Havana was the rendezvous for treasure ships from throughout the Spanish Main: the Manila galleons offloaded their treasure at Puerto Vallarta which transferred by mule to Vera Cruz, thence to Havana. The mountain of silver in Potosi was sailed to Panama City and transported over the Camino Real, a semi-paved mule track, to the Caribbean side and on to Havana. Cartagena’s riches came sailing up the Caribbean to the safety of Havana’s harbor. The rendezvous aggregated the treasure ships into a fleet of fortune escorted by the finest Spanish warships. The Atocha herself was almost new having made the Atlantic crossing only twice. Armed with the most modern brass cannon she was huge for her time: 112 feet long and weighing 550 tons – the finest design of Spanish shipyards.

In Havana treasure administrators tallied the fortune and carefully divided it between the available ships, noting in detail each bar of silver, each silver coin, each emerald ring, each ingot of gold. No modern CPA could have kept better records. Passengers and crew were carefully detailed to their quarters for the two-month journey home to Spain. The captains of the fleet were confident. Their 28-ship fleet was more powerful than any foreign navy and could overwhelm any foolhardy pirate.

Gold chains were taxed less than gold bars – so much gold traveled as chains

The weather was, and had been, most mild, even if it was the middle of the hurricane season. The seas were calm, the skies were quiet. The decision was unanimous that the fleet should sail for Spain.
Atocha was weighed down not only with stores for her two-month crossing, but also overloaded with a literal king’s ransom: 1,038 silver ingots at 70 pounds each; 125 gold ingots (and various undeclared contraband); 100 chests filled with 2,000 silver coins each; 582 copper ingots weighing over 30,000 pounds. The silver coins were carried in rosewood chests, nailed shut to prohibit tampering. The copper ingots, meant for the King’s smelters in Spain from the King’s mines in Cuba, had two purposes. They would form the basis for new bronze cannons to strengthen the King’s army. And they would be melted into the King’s silver coins to displace some of the silver, a de facto devaluation of the coins, although not an announced one. Some of the gold ingots had no tax mark stamped on them, proving that evading the tax man was an age-old practice.

More cargo arrived: casks of indigo and bails of tobacco, both valuable merchandise. There was no room to store them. Ballast stones from the depths of the ship’s hold were removed and replaced with the lighter weight cargo. Atocha would now be top heavy, unbalanced.
On September 4, 1622, the fleet sailed down the throat of the Havana harbor, saluted by the cannons of Fort Moro at the harbor’s entrance. Spreading out across a calm sea the 28 vessels enjoyed the light airs and brilliant sunshine. It would not last. By morning the wind had risen to gale force and was continuing to rise. Bands of low clouds dumped torrential rains on the fleet. The sea was building until it become frothy and white with spray filling the air. Hurricane.

The *Atocha* foundered in the Keyes during a hurricane

Contrary to plan the fleet bifurcated. Some of the captains attempted to head back to Cuba. Others sought the open sea hoping to ride out the storm. The Atocha, and others, ran before the storm – driven north to where they knew the Keys waited for them, small islands and coral reefs which would rip the bottom out of the ships.
As the sea shallowed the Atocha’s captain knew the reefs were near and ordered the ship’s five anchors cast loose, hoping to hold the ship off the reef against the wild wind and monster seas. It was a vain hope. One of the anchors, since recovered, attested to the violence of the day: the one-ton anchor’s shaft had parted in shear, pulled apart by the fight between straining ship and relentless seas. Atocha foundered and sank in 55 feet of water. Of the 260 souls on board only 5 survived.

Atocha was one of seven ships lost in the hurricane. The Spanish governor in Havana immediately began a rescue and salvage attempt, hoping to save the fortune now in Neptune’s care. In this uneven contest Neptune would win. Although Atocha was found, sitting on the bottom, intact, she was too deep for divers to salvage her. As plans continued for salvage another hurricane struck, dragging her across the bottom, splitting her open and scattering her fortune across the bottom. Here it would lay for centuries, inflaming men’s dreams, defying men’s efforts.
Enter Mel Fisher. Fisher’s family had long been in the dive business and he was obsessed with treasure hunting. The Atocha treasure was truly the one which had ‘gotten away’ from everyone. No one was even sure exactly where she lay. Fisher was determined to find her and her lost treasure. Employing a researcher as well as divers, Fisher finally determined he was looking in the wrong place – the Lower Keys were her grave while hunters such as Fisher had been scouring the Middle Keys. Carefully searching the bottom of the new area Fisher’s divers found a bit of treasure, then a bit more and then the mother lode – cannons, gold, silver bars, coins untold. Their euphoria at discovery was short lived. Impressed by the immense wealth of the discovery, some $300 million, state and federal governments suddenly stepped in to claim the treasure. Fisher fought them for years in court until his tenacity paid off – the Court awarded the treasure to Fisher and his investors. The whole story plays out in Mel Fisher’s Maritime Museum, located only two blocks from the main docks and two blocks from the bars of Duval Street.

Of all the bars in Key West, and there are plenty, the aggregate centers on Duval Street. Bars, understand, do not, in Key West, represent fern bars where deletants sip chardonnay. Bars, in Key West, are for drinking. They come in all sizes: small bars where if one falls from his bar stool he will be on the sidewalk. Large bars with room for musicians and pool players. Dueling bars such as Sloppy Joe’s Bar and its nearby nemesis Captain Tony’s Saloon. Captain Tony’s claims to be the ‘original Sloppy Joe’s’. Both seek the mantle of ‘where Hemingway used to drink’ but if truth be told virtually any bar in Key West at the time could claim the prize. Tourists don’t seem to care as they flow into these open-air establishments like the sea breeze.

A local man pedals his bike past both establishments, puffing the huge torpedo dangling from his mouth – a reminder to both places that the times they are a-changing. Nobody seems to even notice the art car, decorated in sea shells and pink conch shells from fender to fender, that chugs past. Perhaps the tourists are a bit too overwhelmed to take it all in, certainly the locals don’t care. Nothing is too strange in Key West, last city in the U.S. and certainly the last of its kind.

Art car in the Conch Republic of Key West, Florida

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Jerusalem, Jerusalem

Posted on August 17, 2017August 17, 2017 by paul eschenfelder

We stood quietly when the sirens began to blow. Even though we were in the first Protestant church built in Jerusalem, we could feel the reverence of the moment: Israel was honoring her dead. The dead from the wars of independence, the dead from the wars on terror, still ongoing. Tomorrow would be Independence Day for Israel, but today was the day to memorialize all of those who had made it possible. Two minutes of our time seemed little enough to give.

Christ Church, the first Protestant church in Jerusalem

Jeff Abel had met us on the pier at Ashdod to guide us on our return to Palestine, Israel, the Holy Land, land of many conflicts, many faces. As we dove into the Jeffmobile and headed for the highway Jeff explained that, due to Memorial and Independence Day celebrations, it may be crowded traveling into town. He was a master of understatement. Everyone was on the road and only a skilled, fearless and undaunted driver should attempt a passage. Boy, there was no mercy on those highways and no bluffing either. We elbowed our way into the new city of Jerusalem, parked underground and meandered up the Jaffa Road through the Jaffa Gate into the Old City. We had to pause at the gate in chagrin. Built by the Turkish sultan Suleiman the Magnificent over 500 years ago, the Jaffa Gate was the portal through which the British conqueror General Allenby had entered the city.

The First Mate & Jeff Able confer at the Jaffa Gate

On foot and with only a modest entourage Allenby strolled through the Jaffa Gate. He sought to dignify his victory over the Turks in World War I with typical British understatement. It contrasted, of course, with the German Kaiser’s entry a dozen years earlier. For the Kaiser the Turks had pulled down an entire section of wall so that he and his army of entourage could enter the holy city seated comfortably in their carriages. A fitting anecdote about a small desert city, Jerusalem, which is of such little strategic value but of such huge religious value.

Here we find where the Jewish religion solidified into monotheism. Where Christianity was literally born and almost died. Where the Prophet leaped into heaven to negotiate with God, three times. Little wonder the eyes of the world are upon Jerusalem.

Jeff led us out of Christ Church and through its coffee shop back into the street of the Armenian Quarter, on to the Tower of David. An interesting edifice, it has served everyone from the time of David, no exceptions: a palace for Herod, a fort for crusaders, now a museum for all of the curious. Here the curators have done an excellent job by photo, illustration, diorama and narrative, encapsulating 5,000 years of human history and deadly conflict.

Climbing to the top of the Tower we garner a bird’s eye view of the Old City, the walls and the Mount of Olives across the Kidron Valley. The Old City, content within its walls, looks surprisingly small. Little wonder, with so many viewpoints crammed into such a small area, that there is friction: the Armenian Quarter butts against the Jewish Quarter and the Christian Quarter; the Muslim Quarter takes the other half of the Old City. The golden Dome of the Rock out dazzles all other edifices, crying out for attention. By comparison the dome of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre is a mute gray.

The Old City with the Mount of Olives in the background

Jeff led us down the steps and across the courtyard of the Tower. Here he found other steps which led us up to the walls of the Old City. A symbol of contention through the centuries the walls and been pulled down by the mighty repeatedly, yet rebuilt each time. The latest, and sturdiest, rebuilding was by Suleiman the Magnificent. His builders could spare no expense nor cut any corners. Yet they did – leaving the Tomb of David outside the walls. We strolled along the narrow pathway peering through various gun embrasures at the modern scene to our west – expensive hotels, pricey condos, cypress trees, landscaping, all making the modern scene a world removed from Jerusalem of a hundred years ago, a hard scrabble, tumbled down place.

The sun was warm and Jeff warned that it was a long way around the walls. After a kilometer or so we scramble down the narrow steps to the street and head for lunch near our next stop: the Western Wall.

During lunch we had time to gaze down upon the Western Wall and its plaza before it. The area is crowded with people, locals, tourists, Orthodox Jews.

Muslims do not come here as they may enter the Temple Mount to access the Dome of the Rock or the Al-Aqsa Mosque through their own entrance, forbidden to all but Muslims. The crowd before the Western Wall, Christians and Jews, waxes and wanes. The Western Wall is all that is left of the Temple, either the first or the second one. Solomon built the first temple above the city of his father, the City of David. It became sacred to the Jews when Solomon dedicated the temple to God, for God responded, I Kings 9, that “…his eyes and heart will be there forever.” Many interpret this passage to mean that this location is just a bit closer to God than other places. Hence it has become a pilgrimage spot, sacred to Christians and Jews.

We descend the steps into the plaza, having first passed through the metal detectors of security. Security is everywhere on the outside of the plaza. As we stroll across the plaza Jeff points out the First Mate’s entrance to the Western Wall. Women, who have little standing in traditional Jewish culture, are not allowed entry into the main prayer area – men only. But, traditions aside, a smaller area for women to enter and pray has been set aside. We part as she clutches the written supplications that the ladies of her bible study group have given her to deposit in the Wall.

Women’s area of the Western Wall – note cracks stuffed with supplications

The stones which constitute the foundation of the Wall area are massive, huge. Therefore the cracks between the stones are large enough for a hand to reach in. Here thousands of supplications to God have been deposited by pilgrims. Every few months the rabbi in charge of the Wall removes the papers and buries them on the Mount of Olives.

Jeff and I stroll into the men’s area. There is no need for me to don a kippah as Jeff informs me that my ball cap will do nicely – covering the head is all that is required. Jeff is a secular Jew who explains many of the traditions of the area with his tongue firmly in his cheek. As he rattles on about walls, temples, digs and other matters I only half listen, gazing at the Wall and all it represents. He then leaves me to place my own supplications within a large crack in the Wall. The men’s side of the wall is fairly quiet, the women’s side crowded and noisy. Having been here before I am amazed that there are so few men. Jeff suggests we enter the tunnel.

The tunnel has been dug northward along the Wall and is a huge edifice. Apparently it has gone too far as geologists have detected instability in some of the buildings in the tunnel area, caused by the digging. But for now it is an almost exclusive enclave of the Orthodox Jews. Jeff, hardly orthodox, strolls in like a lion. A small lion. Inside the tunnel are more chairs, prayer tables and prayer books. The Orthodox pray against the Wall, some rocking back and forth. Jeff points out the large cabinets which store both the prayer books and the scrolls which are read during worship by the Orthodox. We step to a back room and here are huge book shelves of research material on all matters of religion and Judaism. During his explanation of this material Jeff receives a sharp admonition in Yiddish from a nearby Orthodox. No translator is needed to decode Jeff’s reply. Silence ensues and Jeff continues his lecture. Interesting.

The tunnel is a fascinating area but it is time to meet the First Mate, who, being female, cannot desecrate this area. She is patiently awaiting us in the plaza area and falls in behind Jeff as we head for the Dung Gate. We are headed for David’s first prize: the City of David.

The City of David – Sidron spring is in the foreground

Excavations are underway at this ancient Canaanite village, er, city, which was old when David arrived on the scene. Relatively small, it was a walled city with little going for it. The climate was arid; it was far from trade routes or the coast. It sat on a small hilltop protected on three sides by modest valleys, its most valuable asset being the spring which outcropped from the hill just below the city. It was the only reliable source of water for some distance and a resource worth protecting. A wall had been built to protect the path down to the spring.

The spring has a long patrimony and that history is in much dispute today. The archeological record is not clear but, for sure, it was the locus of much activity. Hezekiah had the spring walled off to exclude invaders. Then he had a tunnel cut through solid rock which would divert all the water from the spring into the tunnel flowing below the city. Besieging armies would benefit nothing. Modern historians dispute this account, pointing to shafts and tunnels previously constructed by ancient Canaanites. But whoever built it, the deed was prodigious. The chisel marks can still be seen in the solid rock lining the tunnel. Imagine – working by torchlight far underground with only a hammer and chisel to remove solid rock. Working from both ends the tunneling teams eventually met in the middle, but not until after several mistaken attempts.

Jeff leads us down into the tunnel, which now sports electric lighting and steel mesh steps. The route down is steep, even with steps and handrails. For the ancients it must have been an exciting descent and challenging return. As usual in life we come to a cross roads. The tunnel forks and Jeff asks us: “Do you want the wet route or the dry route?” Continuing in Hezekiah’s tunnel means wading thigh deep in the running, chilly, spring water until its exit at the Pool of Siloam. We opt for the dry foot route: through the old Canaanite system to the street outside. Once in the street we stroll down to the Pool of Siloam and reconnect with the small but swiftly running stream, just before it disappears into the rock down the slope.

Back out on the street we realize just how hilly the Jerusalem area is. The hike back up to the Dung Gate will be uphill all the way. In a show of neighborly ecumenicalism Jeff steps into a small Arab coffee shop and speaks with the owner. Seconds later the owner’s cousin appears in his taxi, ready to carry a secular Jew and two Christians back to the city walls. As we roar up the steep hill the driver is busy on his cell phone, face timing with his daughters who insist on saying ‘hello’ in English to his customers. Cute kids, we say ‘good bye’ also and pay their father the best five bucks we have spent that day.

It is now early evening and we notice, as we enter the Dung Gate, that the foot traffic is all outbound from the Old City. Shops and kiosks are closing but Jeff is not done. We will walk across the city to the Jaffa Gate but travel on the Via Dolorosa, the way of Christ. Condemned by Pilate, probably at the Antonia Fortress, Jesus was given his heavy wooden cross by the Roman soldiers and compelled to drag it to his place of execution, Golgotha. It is uphill all the way; the struggle must have been fierce. Churches dot the way where legend says he suffered. The Emperor Constantine’s mother would command the building of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre over the spot of execution.

Along our uphill hike Jeff makes a detour into the Muristan. Here we view the stone monument to the Knights Hospitallers, the Knights of St. John. Under the leadership of the monk the blessed Gerard, they established a hospital on this site in the 11^th century to care for pilgrims visiting the Holy Land. Their Order would morph over the centuries to more than hospital keepers – they would become fierce guardians of pilgrim caravans, the spear tip of Christian armies during the Crusader Era. Expelled from the Levant by Muslim forces they would become Knights of the sea. We will see them again in Acre; again in Rhodes as the Knights of Rhodes; again in Malta as the Knights of Malta. Remnants of the Order linger today as philanthropists or humanitarians in medical aid around the globe.

Memorial to the Knights of St. John (Knights of Rhodes/Malta)

Back in the new city the Jeffmobile drops us at our hotel off Ben Yehuda Street, the main pedestrian mall. Our hotel overlooks the street, now filled with pedestrians. Under normal circumstances this would be a lovely spot, but tonight it’s guaranteed to be a lively spot. The eve of Independence Day is filled with fireworks, loud crowds, rock bands in the plazas. Lively. We slip out for a fish dinner at an outdoor bistro, watching the crowds continue to build. Back at the hotel we agree, yeah, its loud out there. But also, yeah, we’re tired. The Jeffmobile will appear at the door first thing in the morning. Good night.

Free travel advice, particularly for cruisers, at: http://www.captaincruising.net

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