Jon Bowermaster: Dispatches from St. John – Day 4

by Jon Bowermaster on

Arthur Jones came to St. John from Fayetteville, Arkansas, to be a Caribbean kayak guide. He thought it would last a season, maybe two. Seventeen years later he’s still here and helping me explore the island’s rugged coast. “I never thought I would stay this long but … look around.” The island national park of St. John rises behind and St. Thomas – capital of the USVI — is just three miles to the west. The low hills of Tortola and the rest of the British Virgin Islands spread to the north and east, silhouetted in the morning light, appearing to go on forever. “Why would I leave?”

Pushing kayaks off Maho Beach we head out and around Whistling Cay. Winds are calm today; they can often blow 10 to 20 knots, making for challenging kayaking. Tiny, silvery baitfish jump in packs of hundreds, suggesting predators are nearby. Sure enough, just below the surface swim a dozen 30-pound tarpon and above circles a gang of pelicans.

I ask Arthur if he can explain a mystery of nature I’ve long wondered about: Why don’t pelicans break their necks when they slam beak-first onto the hard surface of the water? “Surprisingly, they do, but not for the reasons you might think. A scientist once explained that all those years of impacting eventually affect their eyes, which go bad. And then they die misjudging the water because they can’t see so well anymore. They hit a rock or hit the water too early or too late, and snap their necks. Hard to believe, but true.”

As we paddle we hear the green turtle break the surface before we see it. “There are lots of turtles out here, both in and out of the national park boundaries, but especially inside the park. Somehow I think they’ve figured out it’s a good place not to get hunted.”

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On Whistling Cay the hills are steep, spiked with cactus. A solitary beach is accessible through the breaking surf, perfect for resting the kayaks and snorkeling among the coral. On the far side of the island is the shell of an old Danish custom’s house; a similar one is on Great Thatch Island, in the BVI, just a couple miles away. “Apparently the guys manning the signal fires used to get bored and just signal each other,” says Arthur.

It’s changing though. “See those houses there, on the hill?” he asks, pointing back towards the main land of St. John. “None of those was here when I came.” Fortunately the natural world here is less changed.

The next day with a rented 4×4, necessary due to the steep hills and muddy paths that take over when the roads run out, I visit all of the island that is accessible by road. From East End to Saltpond Bay and on to Great Lameshur Bay, all surrounding the big Coral Bay; this is the less populated, more rugged, wilder side of the wild island.

Where the main town of Cruz Bay’s streets are narrow and tightly packed with restaurants and souvenir shops, the road that winds through the island’s only other town of any substance — Coral Bay — is pocked with a couple small commercial developments and a handful of roadside shacks selling fish and vegetables.

My research into what makes this end of the island tick begins – and ends, much later in the day — at the bar at Skinny Legs, just past the Emmaus Moravian Church and on the road to the village of Palestina. The bar on weekday afternoon is amazingly packed. Named for the identifying mark of its two Boston-based founders, the open-air room boasts a half-dozen TV’s turned to sports and tables for 50 burger munchers and beer swillers. Jimmy Buffet is on the stereo; this is clearly the stop for both expats who’ve already made their escape to the island and visitors desirous of doing exactly the same one-day. Lots of big-sunburned guys with ponytails who long ago opted for the easier pace of island life. One weak coffee, a club soda and one very good Kamikaze later, I’m back on the road, promising to return for the baseball playoffs (available only in Spanish) later that night.

Following the bartender’s recommendation, I hike the Drunk Bay Trail to the Salt Pond at the island’s eastern end. During dry season its floor of muddy red algae creates a thick layer of sea salt and locals come daily to collect it for their home tables. At Lameshur Bay the road ends and a long, winding foot trail leads to and joins Reef Bay Trail, where evidence of the early Taino Indians exists in petroglyphs carved into the stone. As I hike, island cats are everywhere and a pair of mongoose sprint across the road on the trail of big lizards that have gone ahead, trundling through big muddy puddles. Land crabs idle along the road.

Back in the car I veer off the road at a sign announcing Concordia Estates. Concordia is the sister resort to Maho Bay Camps, boasting slightly more sophisticated tents with views out over Rams Head Point. The point, formed by tectonic plates grinding together beneath the ocean surface where the Atlantic Ocean and Caribbean Sea adjoin, looking out over Flanagan’s Passage towards Tortola. To the east, Nanny Point juts into the sea, covered with soon-to-flower barrel cactus, big red buds popping out of the thick-necked cacti. Geologically this is the oldest rock on St. John. “St. John’s gets a tremor each day,” says manager Jennifer Pierce, who left Maine and an organic farming business a decade ago for the ability to swim in a warm ocean every day. “I’ve had the earth move significantly enough that my furniture has been dancing in my room.” Probably not a selling point these days, given the tremblers that seem to be rocking the world corner by corner.

Food & Wine Classic in Aspen offers day passes to debauchery

by Laurel Miller on

It’s almost time for the 28th annual Food & Wine Classic in Aspen, and day passes are back by popular demand. The June 18-20 festival features seminars, cooking demos, grand tastings, and book signings by featured chefs like Thomas Keller, Mario Batali, and Giada De Laurentiis. All of this goodness in an alpine wonderland doesn’t come cheap, which is why the $295 Grand Tasting pass is such a steal.

The price includes attendance at two Grand Tastings in a single day, on Friday, June 18 or Saturday, June 19. Highlights include tastings from over 200 vineyards, breweries, and distilleries, as well as food samplings of meats, cheeses, olive oils, and chocolate. There’s also a Spanish pavilion dedicated to wines, spirits and foods of Spain.

Full consumer passes are $1,185, which include access to all Grand Tastings, wine seminars, and cooking demonstrations. If you really want to splurge (read: schedule follow-up appointment with your cardiologist), spring for some of the special events, such as the Food & Wine magazine Best New Chefs 2010 Dinner, or Reserve Wine Tastings. New this year is the Grand Cochon finale, featuring ten chefs, ten heritage breed pigs, and ten wines. Sounds like food porn just got really kinky.

Erotic bathhouse art in Pompeii

by Sean McLachlan on

Visitors to the ancient Roman city of Pompeii are already familiar with the eye-popping art in the brothel, but most miss another naughty site–Pompeii’s suburban baths.

The changing room in these baths had cubbyholes for storing clothing. Each one was decorated with lively scenes of straight sex, group sex, oral sex, and just plain acrobatic sex. The example to the right, with two men and one woman enjoying each other’s company, is a typical example.

While many Roman baths segregated men and women, this suburban bath was a mixed one, so perhaps it served as a place for amorous trysts. Another theory is that the pictures were advertisements for prostitutes. Both men and women in ancient Rome uses prostitutes, although of course the majority of customers were men. A third theory holds that the pictures were a way to make the customers remember where they left their clothes.

“Where’s my toga? Ah yes, in the cubbyhole with the bisexual orgy.”

A large amount of erotic art has been found in Pompeii, from explicit graffiti to phallic dinnerware, and the city had a reputation for looseness before Mt. Vesuvius erupted and covered it with ash in 79 AD. The ash preserved many artifacts and buildings, making Pompeii and her sister city Herculaneum two of the archaeological treasures of the world.

The baths were closed for decades after their discovery, first out of prudishness and then for conservation work. Only small groups with special permission may enter, so you’ll need to book through a tour. You can check out all the images here, and if you want to wander through the city check out Pompeii on Google Street View.

Win a travel documentary scholarship to the Amazon

by Kraig Becker on

Gap Adventures and National Geographic are teaming up to give one aspiring filmmaker the chance of a lifetime. The two organizations are giving away a film scholarship that will allow the recipient to work with veteran film producer Trent O’Donnell, who will mentor the budding documentarian in the art of making a film, while exploring the depths of the Amazon Rainforest. And once the project is finished, the film may make its debut on the Nat. Geo Adventure Channel, an opportunity filmmakers often wait years to get.

This scholarship is open to anyone, whether you’re a film student or not, with the only requirements being that you must be at least 18 years of age, and hold a current passport. You should also have a healthy sense of adventure, a love of films, and be reasonably fit, as there will be some jungle trekking involved.

All applicants are required to make a 3-minute video, in English, based around the theme “Local Encounters”. The video should demonstrate your love of adventure, and show how your “encounter” changed your perspective on the world. A panel of judges will review the entries, looking for originality, the ability to tell an engaging story, and a passion for filmmaking. Once your film is complete, upload it to YouTube and head over to WorldNomads.com to fill out the scholarship application. From there, you’ll complete the process by embedding your film and telling the judges about it in 200 words or less. The deadline for entry is August 1st.

The winner won’t just get the opportunity to make a film with Trent O’Donnell. They’ll also receive a flight to Quito, Ecuador sometime in the last two weeks of September, where they’ll have the chance to explore the Amazon with O’Donnell and Bruce Poon Tip, the founder of Gap Adventures. They’ll actually stay in the rainforest with the local Quichua tribes, learning about their way of life, and creating a film on sustainable tourism.

To find out more about this great opportunity, click here. Then go blow the dust off your video camera and get filming. Who knows, you might be on your way to the Amazon in just a few short months.

Laas Geel: Somaliland’s ancient treasure

by Sean McLachlan on

Before becoming a writer I worked as an archaeologist, and one of the things that inspired me to choose that profession was the beautiful cave art of Europe–places like Lascaux, Altamira, Chauvet, and so many others.

One of the things that inspired me to go to Somaliland was the recently discovered painted caves of Laas Geel. The paintings are being studied by Sada Mire, Somaliland’s head archaeologist. She dates these paintings to the Neolithic period, when pastoral peoples tended their herds in a landscape that was greener than the dry, stony plain that makes up much of Somaliland nowadays.

The art seems to have been made over time, with some figures painted over earlier ones. Dr. Mire estimates they could be anywhere from 5,000 to 11,000 years old. Dating rock art is extremely difficult, especially since so little has been studied in this region. Dr. Mire is the first ever Somali archaeologist, and one of the first to seriously study the Somali region.

Laas Geel is a little more than an hour drive northeast of the Somaliland capital Hargeisa. Foreigners venturing outside the capital are asked to hire a soldier or policeman to protect them. While this is a mostly peaceful country, the government doesn’t want any bad press, and a couple of foreigners have been killed in recent years. So one fine morning I head out with a hired car, our driver, a Kalashnikov-toting bodyguard, Swedish photojournalist Leo Stolpe, and Ali, Dr. Mire’s assistant from the Department of Antiquities.

A short drive along a well-paved road and we make our first stop to see some other relics of Somaliland’s past. Right next to the road is a rusting old Soviet-made tank, destroyed during the war of independence. There used to be many more of them scattered around the country but most have been hauled away for scrap. This one remains and has become a local landmark.

Ali is more interested in a rocky hill nearby. He leads us up the slope under a strong mid-morning sun and shows us two heaps of small stones. To the untrained eye they look like nothing, but I can see they aren’t natural.

%Gallery-93102%”What are these? Cairns?” I ask.

“Yes,” Ali replies. “Graves from the pre-Islamic times.”

One of them is about ten feet in diameter and consists of thousands of fist-sized stones. I wonder who is buried here, and what they did to deserve such an expense of labor.

Soon we’re speeding along the highway again. It’s not long before we turn off onto a dirt track. The Landcruiser jolts and crashes across deep pits and humps. Through the scrub we can see a herd of camels and the low dome of a nomad’s hut. It’s taken less than a minute to leave the twenty-first century behind. After a short ride we make it to a gate. Beyond is a small concrete building and behind that is a rocky hill. We’re here.

The Department of Antiquities doesn’t have much money, so one of the most impressive rock art sites in the world has no grandiose museum, no visitor’s center, not even a guy selling tickets. Well, we do have to pay to get enter, but we don’t get a ticket. Considering the precarious situation this unrecognized nation is in and the long list of important projects it needs to fund, it’s a small miracle there’s a Department of Antiquities at all.

The painted caves of Laas Geel are actually rock shelters. Nine of them dot the hill on all sides, and while their depth provides them with ample protection from the sun and the occasional rainfall, they offer sweeping views of the surrounding countryside. These aren’t hidden, secret places like the painted caves of Paleolithic Europe.

That makes them no less mysterious. Ali leads us up the hill while the guard and driver go off to enjoy a local swimming hole. As we enter the first of the rock shelters we’re all stopped dead with wonder. Somaliland’s past, which to me had only been some flint tools and half a dozen dry academic articles, suddenly explodes into full color. The entire interior of the shelter is covered with figures. There are hundreds of them, mostly cows of various sizes. Some are schematic outlines, others are drawn in elaborate detail. Humans stand in between with their arms upraised as if in worship. A few tiny hunters run amidst the herds.

There are other animals too, antelope and dogs and a giraffe, but the cows predominate. This is the art of a pastoral people, as many Somalis still are. The nomads we passed just a mile back would probably draw the same images if they could pluck up the courage to enter the shelter. Somali folklore teaches that spirits hide within these shelters and possess whoever enter, although that wasn’t enough to stop a group of fighters during the civil war from burying one of their comrades in a niche at one side of the cave.

Ali leads us scrambling over the hillside to find more shelters. Each one is covered in artwork. Some of the stones have been painted completely red. The pigment is made from mineral sources and brewed into a paste that sticks to the rock better than plaster. This, and the dry climate, is the reason the paintings have lasted so long. But now that they’ve been discovered, armed guards have been posted to keep the art from being chipped off and sold on the international antiquities market.

The animals are beautiful and seem to fall within three main types: simple red figures, small and cruder white figures, and more elaborate drawings of cows that show decoration on the neck that reminds me of the personal marks the dealers at a Somali camel market put on their animals.

But the human figures attract me the most. Were these real people? Ancestors? Generalized drawings of the whole clan? It’s hard to tell, but it’s obvious they’re worshiping the most important thing in their lives–their cattle. A German archaeologist I worked with who was fortunate enough to visit Lascaux caves in France once told me, “It’s so different from Mayan art. With Mayan art you’re not sure what’s going on, but with Lascaux you look at the drawings and say ‘they were like us'”.

Exactly. Although I can’t understand the deeper meanings behind the paintings or truly know the world out of which they came, that was my reaction. The ancient Somalis were like us. Their lifestyle was totally different, of course, but they thought enough like us that they could communicate what they believed in a fashion that someone can appreciate and (kind of) understand thousands of years later.

Dr. Mire and her team have already discovered several other rock art sites in Somaliland. Who knows what they’ll find in the next few years? Even though Somaliland isn’t on most political maps, the efforts of a few dedicated scholars are putting it on the archaeological map.

Don’t miss the rest of my series on travel in Somaliland.

Next time: Khat, the drug of a nation.