The Atacama Desert is a land of extremes. Located along Chile’s Pacific Coast, the 600 mile stretch of land is one of the driest places on the planet. It is so dry in fact, that much of the region has not seen rain of any kind in hundreds of years of recorded history. And the places that do see rain, average just 1 millimeter of precipitation per year.
This remote, seldom visited region, is found west of the Andes Mountains, and in recent years it has become a popular destination for adventure travelers who are drawn to the extreme conditions. The desert is located at high altitude, and there are very few permanent settlements there, which adds to the solitude of the setting. Some of the surrounding mountains actually reach above 20,000 feet, but because of the lack of moisture, they remain free of snow and glaciers.
The solitude and silence of the Atacama is exactly what impressed travel writer Sankha Guha, of the U.K.’s Independent, the most on a recent visit to the desert. While touring the Atacama, Guha found that it was a place that continually challenged your notions of what you know about it. For instance, upon arriving there, it immediately began to rain, which was completely unexpected in a place often described as the “driest desert on Earth.” But even more surprising to Guha was the silence found there, something that is compared to a sensory deprivation chamber, as the place is empty and still. There is little life to be found in this Atacama, but the writer did find plenty of beauty in the bold colors and rock formations that cover the area.
If you’re an adventurous traveler looking for an off the beaten path destination, then perhaps the Atacama should be on your list. If you do go, you’ll find a land of stark beauty and quiet calm, that will stay with you long after you have returned home.
It’s easy to be attracted to news about North Korea- for travel writers and every other type of journalist. So little comes out that even the appearance of information makes it noteworthy. This is why those of us interested in covering the most unusual place on Earth will run with press releases or other announcements that would make us groan if they came from anywhere else (I hope this answers an earlier commenter’s question). But, we have to be careful. So much of what is reported on North Korea comes with a clear bias that it’s impossible to get at the truth – even if you go there.
The issue of blogger and journalistic ethics regarding North Korea has been on my mind for a while, but a recent story I wrote for Gadling – which included a U.S State Department-supplied laundry list of human rights abuses – made me stop and think: can any of this be verified? I then thought back to a remark made in Bradley K. Martin’s Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader – the author explained that he was unable to publish some of the fruits of his labor because he couldn’t get corroboration.Now, State Department reports are probably tops for reliability, but an interview that U.S. defector Charles Robert Jenkins gave after he escaped from North Korea indicates that he supplied the feds with “immeasurable” intelligence. Yet, Jenkins doesn’t have unassailable credibility. A defector from the U.S. Army, he’d been a deserter for close to 40 years and was facing prison time (ultimately serving 25 days of a 30-day sentence). Was it clemency for an old and sick man who had been punished enough already? Or, did the sentence reflect a reward for the information he provided?
In the documentary Crossing the Line, James Joseph Dresnock, the last known U.S. defector still living in North Korea, notes Jenkins’ tendency to abuse alcohol, which existed prior to his defection. And, he admits to having hit Jenkins (though not to the extent that Jenkins claimed). Yet, Dresnock doesn’t come across as a genius either, and he’s still in North Korea. Yet again, there’s a credibility problem.
Finally, we have the claims of defectors. Chol-hwan Kang wrote The Aquariums of Pyongyang, Soon Ok Lee wrote Eyes of the Tailless Animals, and Hyun Hee Kim, a former spy involved in the 1987 bombing of Korean Air Flight 858, wrote Tears of My Soul. All three adopted forms of extreme religious worship upon defecting (or, in Hyun Hee Kim’s case, being apprehended). The wild swing can leave room for questions of credibility without assuming a bigoted stance on more intensive faiths.
Other defectors have voiced their views in a variety of settings, the most famous of which, perhaps, is Ahn Myong Chol (not his real name). He used to be a prison guard at Hoeryong Prison No. 22 and defected after he had become a truck driver for the prison and had better access to the means of escape. Now a freelance journalist, he dashes secretly across the border and shoots footage that would be impossible to secure otherwise. His most prominent clip is of an open market in North Korea in which human flesh was alleged to have been sold.
Yet, do you believe a guy who has been a part of the system? Maybe he’s legitimate … or he’s trying to justify any of his actions in the camp. It’s impossible to say without the sort of close look that simply will not happen. I have no reason to doubt Ahn Chol and the other guards who have defected, but there are too many ways their views may have been influenced, whether they realize it or not.
I can only speak for myself, but I suspect I’m not alone: we do what we can. North Korea provides interesting subject matter for bloggers and journalists, but there are limits to what he can do. I, for one, encourage a bit more skepticism – in general – regardless of the sources used. It’s the historians, not the journalists, who will sort out the details of live and struggle above the 38 Parallel.
We hear a lot about peace and friendship over the holidays, but the reality is that different religions and peoples are constantly fighting. It seems we can never get along.
Or at least that’s what the history books would have you believe.
History focuses on change, and change usually means conflict, but there have been many times in the past when different religions and ethnic groups have lived in harmony. Here are two UNESCO World Heritage Sites you can visit that are testimony to the idea that people can achieve great things by working together.
Toledo, Spain
For most of the Middle Ages Spain was not a country; it was a patchwork of different states fighting amongst themselves and staving off invasions by the Muslim Moors from North Africa. There was a centuries-long war between Islam and Christianity, with the Jews being stuck in the middle as second-class citizens in both societies. But under the Caliphate of Córdoba, which ruled much of the Iberian Peninsula in the tenth and eleventh centuries, the three cultures lived and learned together. Córdoba and Toledo were the two main cultural centers. Many books from ancient Greece and Rome, lost in Europe during the Dark Ages but preserved in Arabic translations in the Middle East, were translated into Latin and Hebrew and helped start a rediscovery of Europe’s Classical heritage. The Christian kingdoms were slowly pushing out the Muslims, however, and in 1085 King Alfonso VI captured Toledo. He realized the relationship among the three cultures, called La Convivencia (“The Coexistence”) was a good thing and kept it going. He even established a translation center to copy books from each culture into Latin, Spanish, Arabic, and Hebrew, so everyone could benefit from each other’s learning. Philosophy, astronomy, architecture, mathematics, and a dozen other arts and sciences flourished.
%Gallery-80891%It didn’t last. In 1492, when the last Moors were kicked out of Spain, the Jews were kicked out too, and any non-Christian who wanted to stay had to at least pretend to convert. But La Convivencia left an enduring intellectual an artistic legacy for all three cultures and some impressive monuments that can still be seen today.
Gonder, Ethiopia
On a different continent in different century, people came to the same conclusions that the people of Toledo did. In the northwest of what is now Ethiopia is the city of Gonder. It was founded by the Emperor Fasilides around the year 1635. Ethiopian emperors traditionally moved from place to place to watch over their people, but Fasilides saw an advantage to having a capital city for his empire. Soon a large urban center had sprung up, with palaces and castles and places of worship. Gonder became the center of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, but it was also home to Muslims and the Beta Israel, the Ethiopian Jews. Artisans and thinkers from all three religions flocked to Gonder to work in the market or palace. The Beta Israel were often craftsmen. Because only a Christian could sit on the throne, the Jews often served as trusted advisers and bodyguards to the emperor. The Muslims, with their connections to the Red Sea and other parts of Africa, set themselves up as merchants. All three cultures worked together to make Gonder a center of art and learning, just like in Toledo. The ruins of some of the castles and palaces are still visible today and many people call Gonder “Africa’s Camelot”. The most famous monument is Fasilides’ castle, shown here. Check out the gallery for more attractions in Toledo and Gonder.
Let’s not romanticize these civilizations. Neither of them were progressive democracies. They were authoritarian kingdoms where the common people had almost no rights, and both ended up being replaced by less tolerant cultures. Yet they managed to figure out something–it’s not your background that’s important, it’s what you can contribute to society. The people of Toledo and Gonder discovered they could do more together than they could separately. It’s something many societies have realized. In fact, despite all the bad news on TV, religious and ethnic violence is the exception rather than the rule. Most streets aren’t erupting in gunfire. Most people live in towns made up of a number of religious and ethnic groups. They may not be best friends, but they’re not killing each other either. Maybe Toledo and Gonder have given us more than pair of interesting tourist attractions.
Standing at a height of 3212 feet, Angel Falls is the tallest waterfall in the world. Located in southern Venezuela’s Canaima National Park, the falls are a UNESCO World Heritage site and are named for Jimmie Angel, an American pilot who first spotted them from the air back in 1933. He would later bring photos to the world of that astounding sight, making the falls famous across the globe. Now, however, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is looking to rename the falls, restoring their indigenous name.
Amongst the local Pemon people, Angel Falls is known as Kerepakupai-Meru, which means “waterfall of the deepest place” in their tribal language. On his weekly television show, Chavez, who has a contentious relationship with the United States, asked his countrymen how they felt about the falls being named after the American aviator, and then proposed the change after fumbling with the pronunciation a few times. The Venezuelan President went on to say that the landmark, which is one of his country’s biggest tourist attractions, had been seen by many indigenous people before Angel ever arrived on the scene. He concluded his declaration by saying “No-one should refer to Angel Falls any more.”The falls are fed by the Kerep River, which plunges over the side of the Auyan-tepui. The drop is so massive, that strong mountain winds actually atomize the water before it reaches the ground, turning into a fine mist. That mist does reform at the bottom however and continues the flow of the Kerep, which eventually empties into the Churun River further down stream.
Despite the fact that the falls are a major draw for tourists, there are few resources available to make it an easy place to visit. Going to the falls requires a flight to Canaima camp, where visitors can board small wooden boats during the rainy season, and approach the falls from below. Those that make the trip, are treated to quite the natural wonder.
The current name for that natural wonder is now open to debate.
A new exhibition at the Marat Guelman gallery in Moscow features a series of drawings of male nude models that the Soviet leader defaced with rude comments.
The comments include such philosophical gems as “Don’t sit with a bare ass on stones.” and “One thinking fool is worse than 10 enemies.”
Other images bear chatty, mocking comments to ex-comrades of the Communist Party. One drawing of a slim, older man says, “Why are you so thin, Mikhail Ivanovich? Do some work. Masturbation is not work. Try Marxisim!”
This may have been a reference to Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, a member of Stalin’s inner circle who had died in 1946 and who actually looks a bit like the guy in the drawing.
The prints come from a series issued in the late 1940s, when Stalin was aged about 70. They were preserved by members of the KGB who worked with Stalin and the handwriting has been authenticated by the Russian Interior Ministry. Many of the images bear Stalin’s signature.
Just why Stalin felt compelled to write these sayings and chat with his dead comrades on pictures of nude men is a but of a mystery. Perhaps it was his way of relieving the strain after helping to defeat Hitler and killing millions of his own people.
The exhibition is only on for one week, so if you’re not passing through Moscow at the moment check out this series of photos.
