A lot of people don’t know this but Rose Alcantara is a shy person. You wouldn’t think it if you ever took one of her pilates or yoga classes.
But that shyness extends to her photography, too.
Whereas I take lots of pictures and post them willy-nilly to the blog, my wife sits down with her iPhone and hits delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. Continue reading
They came pouring down Calle Nemesio Diez from the direction of the tony Rosewood Hotel. Skeletal faces, gloriously made up and draped in period-piece finery.
These were the traditional — and many untraditional — Catrinas and Catrines of Dia de Muertos.
They walked slowly, awkwardly — the effect being of spirits who’d just crossed over the void and had not yet accustomed their spindly bone legs to cobblestone streets. Continue reading
Walking around San Miguel de Allende — or probably most anywhere in Mexico — is a bit surreal today. And magical. And joyful. And curious. And beautiful. And heartwarming.
¡Feliz Dia de Muertos!
Catrinas and Catrines are everywhere. Not in the eye-popping costuming they’ll wear tonight as they parade about town. No, this afternoon the town was filled with skeletons walking around in shorts and t-shirts, school uniforms — you know extraordinary faces in ordinary clothes. Continue reading
View from the deck of our bungalow in the jungle canopy at Anse Chastanet on St Lucia, our home for two weeks in 2011, exactly eight years ago this week. Rose is teaching yoga at Jade Resort, up the mountain from us and at Anse Chastanet, right on the beach. My first visit to the Caribbean and it is off to a fantastic start. (Rose taught here five years ago.) The peaks in the distance are the Pitons, also the name of the local beer, a light lager, perfect for the tropics.
Here’s the situation:
You know that you are going to get married on February 12, 2012. In Los Barriles, Mexico, a quiet little fishing village just 40 kilometers up the coast from the craziness of Cabo San Lucas.
The invitations have already been sent out.
It was a photograph with the inscription, “If you can make it, you’re invited.” More than 40 family and friends took us up on that offer. But that is another story. (See the invite at the bottom of this page!) Continue reading
Make no bones about it, The Day of the Dead — days, actually — are nearly upon us. The signs are all around us.
Just as pumpkins proliferate in the States, here it is the explosion of Catrina figures, skeletons, and marigolds that clue us to the season.
The skeletons and skulls are everywhere: on T-shirts, on handbags, made of sugar, as objects de art, on fabrics, in miniature, in bigger than life papier mache. Continue reading
Overlooking some of the beach that extends west from the village of Finisterre.
Santiago de Compostela to Porto (160 km – felt like being in a sci-fi movie and life is playing out in reverse. Not recommended!)
There are so many ways to return to Porto at the end of your Camino walk. You can fly, take a train, take a bus, car pool (there’s an app for that) …
My advice is, whichever way you choose, put a bag over your head.
Sensory deprivation will be your friend.
Here’s why. Continue reading
Of all the incredible, awe-inspiring art and architecture in Santiago, this sculpture spoke loudest to me. It is a powerful reflection of how our soggy feet felt at this moment. The translation is something like “Walk straight, walk upright,” as if we need that advice now.
A Coruña to Santiago de Compostela (7 km — felt wet and like it would take forever but, suddenly, it is over)
We have reached the end of our journey. We have arrived in Santiago de Compostela after walking more than 150 miles over 13 days through Portugal and Spain.
Words fail me.
No they don’t. Just kidding. Continue reading
This is me, as we wait for our auberge to open at the end of a lovely day hiking from Padron. Two hours of absolutely nothing. I kept track of the cloud formations and listened to my clothes dry in the warm sun.
Padron to A Coruña (20 km, felt like a constant climb)
I’m flat on my back. I can’t move.
Or, maybe I don’t want to move.
My boots are off. Yes, my boots are off. I can see the tips of my socks. I can smell them. So, I must have taken my boots off. Yes? That is a specific act. Not an accident.
My backpack is not where it is most often during the day: on my back. So, that too, is a clue. Continue reading
The land and sea, the animals, fishes, and birds, the sky of heaven and the orbs, the forests, mountains, and rivers, are not small themes … but folks expect of the poet to indicate more than the beauty and dignity which always attach to dumb real objects … they expect him to indicate the path between reality and their souls.
— From Walt Whitman’s original introduction to “Leaves of Grass”
Today is the day I found the path between reality and the soul.
To say that the path we walked was simply the most beautiful in all of the Portuguese Camino is difficult. There have been many remarkable sights. None, however, affected me quite like this one. Continue reading
An element of a plaza water fountain in Pontevedra, in which the shape of the spouting water is constantly changing to some hidden rhythm. The statue of the little boy always seems to get his mouthful, however.
Pontevedra to Caldas de Reis (22.2 kilometers, felt like 22.2 except for a very flat stretch of open and empty road after the sun came out)
We awake to a different Pontevedra this morning. Last night, we walked through gray granite and stone canyons, brightened only by the logos and signage of commerce and colorful storefront pitches for their wares, and the occasional art installation. And graffiti, ambitious graffiti murals in fluorescent colors.
But otherwise, a gray city fostering teeming waves of pedestrian life along traffic-free streets.
Now, in the morning gloom, the rain and the streetlamps have washed everything with a shimmering amber sheen. A neon art project sings like an aria to the skies above. The pulsing cherry-sherbert lighting on a plaza fountain vibrates with a force unfelt in daytime. Continue reading
Musings, Magic, San Miguel and More 