Louisiana is such a place.

The Mississippi Coast had been beautifully built-up, with stately, sophisticated mansions poised along the coastal road. We crossed into Louisiana at the Pearl River Wildlife Management Area, and, after driving past hand-painted signs advertising swamp tours (guaranteed alligator sightings!) along the bumpy back country road, we emerged onto a series of bridges connecting tufts of land so small and flat and moist that I wasn’t sure they wouldn’t sink if I stepped my two feet out onto them.

Along these bayous, each ramshackle, brightly-colored home sat atop high pillars to elevate it from the flood waters that passed with assured regularity. Instead of address numbers, the homes, too, boasted hand-painted signs of equal brightness with the most creative, funky, and downright crude names. There was a definite holiday feel here and, between the sea views and the home names, our eyes and spirits were thoroughly entertained. 

Louisiana continued to unfold its scenery for our visual pleasure.  Pure-white ibises fishing alongside local fishermen on the side of the road; moss and vines growing on every inch of free space the trees could spare; and throughout, water, water everywhere.

Houses on stilts all along the Gulf of Mexico.

Moss grows on everything in Louisiana.

A swamp walk!

It was clear we were in a unique place, and, US-visa-almost-running-out be damned, we were going to visit!

Our first stop was a plantation tour. We’d been driving along the Mississippi River road, trying fruitlessly to catch glimpses of its milk-chocolate water. This entire stretch of river, from Baton Rouge to New Orleans, had at one time been sugarcane plantations parcelled off into long, narrow strips, each plantation with a small tract of river access for ease of goods transport. It was incongruous to drive along this seemingly-innocent byway and imagine all the cruelty that had taken place here. We felt it was necessary to learn more – to viscerally grasp it, if but for a moment – so we forked out the $50 to visit one of the many plantation tours available.

We chose the Laura Plantation because our guide book said it was the only tour that didn’t skimp on details of the slave population. We opted for the French-speaking tour for Bruno’s sake (though I was secretly hoping to hear some Creole or Cajun French – it was just a young Parisian, hmpf!).

We were led to the main house, which was surrounded by those quintessentially southern live oak trees (which might be my new favorite tree!), and told that this was one of the few Creole plantations, meaning that its house was smaller, less ostentatious, and much more brightly-colored than the stereotypical plantation home.

Visiting the Laura Plantation near New Orleans.

The main house of the Laura Plantation, with its beautiful live oak trees.

Throughout most of the tour, we learned about the four generations of the proudly Creole Duparc family that lived in this home and ran the plantation in the early 19^th century. Though it was interesting to gain some historical insight into Louisiana life two hundred years ago, I felt that the slaves were only mentioned as incidental parts of the white family’s narrative. Near the end of the tour, we were led to a few remaining slave homes, where we were told about the financial worth of slaves (determined by their age, health, and how much of a “flight risk” they were) as well as what happened post slavery (the slaves often continued working for their previous masters, earning a pittance, which, after paying for room and board, often left them indebted to their employers). While we learned about the personal details of the Duparc family in gossip-like detail, we learned about slaves merely in the abstract. The tour felt like an opportunity lost to make amends.

A view out onto the slave quarters of the Laura Plantation.

Listening to our guide tell us about the Duparc family.

We traveled on toward Lafayette – the heart of Cajun country. My family home is located in the heart of Acadia in Canada, so I was interested in learning more about the branch of Acadians that ended up in Louisiana. In particular, I wanted to hear their music and listen to their French. My research led me to La Poussière, an authentic Cajun dance hall in the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it town of Breaux Bridge. Not only is Breaux an Acadian name I hear all the time in New Brunswick (though with a different spelling), but the Sunday afternoon music was perfect timing for our early-to-bed baby.

Alas, la Poussière was not to be. As a dance hall serving alcohol, they enforce a strict 18+ policy. We were already parked for the night at the municipal park in the nearby town of Parks. It turns out we had arrived on the night of Trunk or Treat, a new spin on Halloween where locals congregate with decorated car trunks and pass out candy to dressed-up children. Phoenix and I wandered around looking at the costumes and decorations as the entire town came together to celebrate. We were chatted up by quite a few locals (having a baby is a great ice-breaker!) and even met the mayor. The best part was to see the black and white population (which I’d put at about a 50/50 split) integrating so jovially. After the history we’d come face-to-face with at the Laura Plantation, that seemed like a miracle.

Trunk or Treat in Parks, Louisiana.

Anyway, while chatting with a few Parks locals, I was told about the nearby Vermilionville Historic Village (Vermilionville was the original name for Lafayette). They, too, offered Cajun music on Sunday afternoons, with a bonus of getting to visit a Cajun historic village. Perfect!

Alas, the Cajun music there was not really to be, either. First of all, it wasn’t Cajun music – it was Zydeco (I actually only learned this after the performance!), and secondly, it was way – way! – too loud for us to enter the dance hall with a baby. Bruno and I took turns peeking our heads in and observing the scene while the other stayed outside with Phoenix. What I saw were some serious cowboys doing some serious dancing! I mean, the whole shebang – cowboy hats, boots, and belts. We could have been in Texas. And there was no shyness to the dancing at all. The floor was packed, men twirling smiling women, and the whole body of dancers spinning counter-clockwise.

Zydeco Sunday afternoon music and dancing!

The crowd is having a mighty good time!

A whole lotta cowboy!

Again, I was impressed with the jovial mix of races. I’d expected only white people – Cajuns, as American Acadians, would logically be white. But, first of all, this was a zydeco band – explained to me as a slower, more bluesy Americana music – and secondly, race and culture in Louisiana is a thoroughly confused, muddled affair.

At the Laura Plantation, we’d learned about the term creole. During the time of the Duparc family, a Louisiana Creole person had to be three things – French-speaking, locally-born, and Catholic. Originally, the term was used casually in Louisiana, but by the time of the Laura Plantation, being creole was a rather bold political statement, an important distinction from the newly-arriving Americans. Créolité wasn’t determined along racial lines, and still isn’t, as it now loosely encompasses the descendents of those early creoles along with the Native Americans, Africans, and Cajuns that got thrown into the cultural mix.

Identifying Cajun-ness is equally muddled. While the term originally identified Acadians living in Louisiana, it’s now a broad cultural term that references both relatives of the Acadians and basically anyone else who wants to use the term.

The cultural melting pot of Louisiana is so melted it’s basically just a big, yummy, pureed soup. Even though I am Aristotelian in my love of categorization, I find that fact mostly beautiful. Except when it came to finding an actual Cajun person who could speak to me some Cajun French. I so badly wanted to hear Cajun French – probably because of my love of Chiac, the Acadian French.

We wandered around the Cajun village, visiting old homes that had been restored and transplanted here, and learning a little bit about the history and lifestyle of the first few generations of Cajuns. Though not nearly as well done, the historic village was reminiscent of Le Village Historique Acadien, and it was interesting to compare the lives of the Acadians and Cajun people. Many elements were similar – both peoples reaped their livelihoods from the earth, were deeply religious, were persecuted by the majority English population, and engaged in hobbies like hand-knitting, dying and sewing clothing. But it seemed to me that the Cajuns had fared better than the Acadians. They seemed less poor, with lives less bleak. Perhaps it was the weather, the wealth of the soil, or the economic opportunities available in Louisiana.

Learning about Cajun life at Vermillionville.

Judging from this house, I think the Cajuns fared better than the Acadians.

Phoenix actually fell asleep during a tourist visit… it’s a miracle!

Steve, the only French-speaker I found.

This photo is mainly to please Bruno’s mom, so she sees that he, too, came to Louisiana. But for reals, look at Phoenix!

But perhaps that is also why their French culture was so diluted. In the entire village, I found only one old gentleman – Steve – who could speak a barely-passing French. I’d expected to struggle to understand the Cajun accent, but I hadn’t expected it to be because he spoke it with such an Anglophone tongue. For better or worse, it seemed the Cajuns had been swept up into the Louisiana world of the Creole.

A few quintessential Louisiana elements were notably missing from our visit. First of all, we didn’t see any alligators, though we did come face-to-face with plenty of giant mosquitoes. Secondly, we didn’t taste any Cajun food (anyone who has seen Phoenix eat understands why we don’t feel like venturing to a restaurant at the moment!).

The only alligator we came across in Louisiana!

Would YOU go to a restaurant with this guy?!?

More importantly, we didn’t visit New Orleans. (WHAT?!?) We were actually camped only about 40km from the French Quarter, and I’d been contemplating a visit. Truth be told, I was conflicted. RVs aren’t conducive to city visits, and I wasn’t sure how we would do justice to New Orleans on a day trip with a baby. (I’ve been known to turn down short trips to epic places – like Amsterdam – before in favor of doing it right at a later time).

In the end, my health decided things for me. I developed such a nasty flu that I was bedridden for two full days. I hadn’t been sick in over a year, so I took it as a sign – New Orleans wanted me to do it right.

So, mark my words, friends: I will be back to Louisiana one day. Maybe with a few girlfriends, or on a romantic adults’ only trip with Bruno. It will involve much late-night dancing in New Orleans, an alligator-filled swamp tour, and as much sampling of Cajun/Creole food (what’s the difference, anyway?) as a vegan can taste. Louisiana has been so confounding and confusing that my curiosity is officially peeked. Oh, Louisiana!

Tous les acadiens, toutes les acadienne

Sont américains, elles sont américaines 

La faute à qui donc? La faute à Napoléon.*

After that song, I obviously didn’t have the heart to tell him I didn’t share any Acadian lineage.  But maybe I also wanted it to be true, just a little bit.

See, my family comes from one of the hearts of Acadia, south-eastern New Brunswick.  As much as the scent off the airplane, seeing the Acadian flag and hearing their vernacular, chiac, signals to my brain and my heart that I was home.

It’s funny that I would associate such profound love and longing for a group of people I knew so little about.  Despite being partly raised around Acadians, I knew embarrassingly little about their history and culture.  All that changed this summer when Bruno and I visited the Village Historique Acadien near Caraquet.

Welcome to the Village Historique Acadien, with the three colours of the Acadian (And French) flag.

40+ buildings at the Village Historique Acadien make their history and culture come alive!

My favourite shot of the day.

Our visit began in a home built in 1770.  A bearded man dressed in simple linen clothing was sat near the fire building a broom out of a tree branch.  As he related to us the history of the home, he repeatedly mentioned 1755 and “le grand dérangement”.  Everyone around me nodded with understanding, but, though I knew 1755 was a popular Acadian rock group, it took me a while to piece together this all-important moment in Acadian history.

The French had been in the New World for only a few decades before the English arrived and conflicts over resources and land broke out.  Over the next sixty years, France and England took turns controlling Acadia, until finally, after the turn of the century, England took decisive control.  The Acadians spent decades refusing to sign an oath of allegiance, and eventually English patience was spent.  Between 1755 and 1764 they deported almost 12,000 Acadians to the various colonies.  Over 6,000 homes were burnt, livestock was killed, families were separated.

Once the Acadians got wind of the deportation campaigns, many fled into the forests and hills, re-emerging once the campaigns ceased almost a decade later.  Others were allowed to return if they signed oaths of allegiance to the British.  By that point, their land had been redistributed to the English settlers, and the British dispersed the Acadians in poor, isolated communities often populated principally by English-speaking people.

This was the case with the owners of the first home at the Village Acadien.  The owners had lived among English people in the Fredericton area, and had struggled, like so many, to maintain their language and religion in this Anglophone community.

The first home we visited, with an interpreter building a broom out of a branch.

I was impressed that this home wasn’t a replica, but an actual home.  It turned out that each of the 40+ buildings at the Village Acadien had been lived in and used by Acadians, and each had been disassembled, transported, and reassembled here in Caraquet!

The village took on an even more lifelike nature in the next home, which dated back to the early 19^th century.  Two women, in modest dresses, head scarves, and aprons, were busy putting loaves of bread in the giant wood-fired outdoor oven.  As Acadian women had always done, these two had awoken at 5am that morning to begin preparing the bread, which would be for sale to guests a few hours later.  (it was unfortunately sold out when we tried to buy it – we had spent too many hours visiting the village!)

The homemade bread has been rising for a few hours.

Now it’s time to bring it to the outdoor wood fire oven.

It would also be eaten by the staff that day at lunch.  It turned out that in each building were interpreters dressed in period garb, and that every day, they lunched together in the old homes.  The daily food was prepared by the women employees, who used only traditional ingredients to prepare traditional Acadian dishes.

That morning, as we walked from home to home, the smell of lunch cooking was intoxicating.  The ingredients were mostly potatoes, dried herbs, and chicken or meat cooked in slightly different ways to create a small variety of soups and stews (the most famous being a fricot).  This shouldn’t have been appealing to a health-food vegan, but boy, did I feel like trying a spoonful!  Each home smelled delicious – perhaps because the cooking was being done in old cast iron pots over fires.  Yummy!  (For those that do want to sample traditional Acadian food, there is an old-fashioned restaurant on in the village.)

The female interpreters preparing lunch for the staff.

A traditional Acadian chicken stew being slowly brewed in cast iron over a wood fire. Yum!

Even the most basic foods taste good in cast iron over a fire.

The simple Acadian food was just one indication of how difficult life was for these people.  Because of the Great Deportation, Acadians constantly lived in survival mode.  They practiced subsistence agriculture on their infertile land in the few months where weather allowed them to.  They were small-time fishermen, lumberjacks and hunters.  They had no access to imported goods, instead growing flax to make linen clothing, building their homes, boats, furniture, and even their clogs (shoes) from the plentiful wood, and weaving their fishing nets by hand.

One of the most fascinating parts of the Village Historique was getting to watch the interpreters practice various crafts.  I watched a shoe-maker, barrel-maker, and woodworker; two interpreters ground grain into flour in a mill; a black-smith mould metal; and an editor make newspaper copies with an old-fashion printer.

Fishermen hand-weaving nets.

This is where we learned how linen in made. The flax field was just outside this home.

The village flour mill, 20th century.

My favourite craft to watch was the making of wool fabric.  We’d just wandered around a little farm filled with animals – cows, chickens, goats, pigs, even a newborn miniature horse! – before stepping into another 19^th century home.  Inside, a woman was seated at a spinning wheel.  After watching her awhile, I asked her to explain in more detail the work she was doing.

“You saw the sheep outside?” she asked.  I replied that I had.  “Well, that blanket over on the bed came from that sheep.”

Day in and day out, she laboured at the task.  From the sheep, she collected the wool.  Then she separated its clumps and brushed it smooth.  She fed it through the spinning wheel in front of her to make spools of thread.  That thread was  hand-dyed the fabric using herbs and flowers available to her in her local environment and then weaved into household necessities.  That simple blanket over on the bed had represented a couple of months of work!

De-clumping and smoothing the wool with a brush.

Feeding it to the spinning wheel to make thread.

Dyes made from locally-available plants.

Weaving fabric.

At the Village Historique Acadien, not only were the interpreters cooking their own meals using ingredients grown in their gardens and herbs harvested in the woods, but they were weaving their own fabrics to sew their own clothes; building wood furniture from brute trees; and even fashioning iron nails for any repairs that needed to be done to the buildings in their village!

Wood-working to help with home repairs in the community.

The black-smiths demonstrated how to make a simple nail.

Flax fields to make linen clothing.

As we traveled further into the Village, the quality of life did somewhat improve for the Acadians.  Families who didn’t require the help of their children in the home could send them to the local school, housed in a single-room church.  The teacher, often herself educated only until middle-school, would teach the entire village’s children at once, no matter their age.

There was a simple general store where villagers could purchase pots, flour, candles, and luxuries such as rice.  The general store looked extremely basic to me, but in fact was almost entirely patronized by those that actually had money.  Those that didn’t – which was most – milled their own flour, and definitely didn’t eat rice.

The local school, where all ages were taught in the same classroom.

The general store.

Men who had made a bit of money from fishing or hunting were often compelled to visit the local bar rather than the general store.  Women were not allowed here, and men drank nasty-tasting high-proof alcohol.  I’m not sure, actually, whether they drank because they’d lifted themselves above survival mode, or because they hadn’t.

As we took the horse-drawn carriage across the covered bridge into the 20^th century, life, once again, took a leap forward.  There was a caisse populaire, a lovely hotel (where you can actually spend the night!), and even an Irving gas station!  Life for the Acadians was slowly thrusting itself into the modern era.

The local bar, for men only.

The villagers now had access to a newspaper!

Horse-drawn carriage to help people get around.

Today, Acadians live much like the rest of Canadians.  Yet, now that I know more about their history and culture, I see how it is still integrated into their modern identities.  The Acadians I know tend to have simple, small-town values.  They like to be outdoors, by the sea, around a campfire, having kitchen parties.  They are family-oriented and religiously conservative.  They’re the meat-and-potatoes sort.

Most importantly, they’ve held onto their French language with a fierce pride that I now understand.  Sure, their French has integrated many English words and phrases, but the unique dialect that it has become makes them speak it with that much more pride.

So it is that every summer, on August 15^th, Acadians all across the region emerge onto the streets and beat kitchen utensils and household objects together with as much noise as possible.  The purpose of their tintamarre is to tell us Anglophones that, despite our best efforts, the Acadians are still around, alive and very, very well.

*This song, called “Les Acadiens” is written by Michel Fugain.  The lyrics quoted above translate as “All the Acadians are Americans.  Whose fault is it?  It’s Napoleon’s fault!”

We had just arrived in Cartagena, Spain, and were settling into our campsite for the evening.  It was grey and cold, we were far from town, and we were surrounded, as usual, by retirees.  We figured we’d spend the night and head on the following morning.

But then: “You’ve arrived just in time,” gushed the Spanish owner when we approached her office to check in.  “Tomorrow starts la Semana Santa!”

I had no idea what that was, but I learned pretty quickly.  And what I learned had me convinced I should – no, needed – to go into town the following day instead of driving on.  I silently thanked myself to traveling with the freedom and flexibility to reinvent our plans as we please.

La Semana Santa translates as Holy Week, and refers to the week or so leading up to Easter Sunday.  It’s a once-a-year festival that is celebrated all over the country – in fact, it’s one of Spain’s most famous events and rather surprising that I hadn’t heard of it.

Basically, the festival is a series of religious processions (like parades) that sort of re-enact the Passion of the Christ while serving as penance for participants.  Most processions involve carrying extremely heavy floats on one’s back, and some routes are as long as 14 hours, so penance here is taken quite seriously.

Lucky for me, Cartagena hosts one of the best and most unique series of events, including the first procession in the entire country – the following morning at 3am.  I didn’t expect to attend that one, but decided to attend the two other processions happening at more human in the day.

And so, just after lunch that penultimate Friday before Easter, Bruno and I hopped on a bus into the historical district of town.  What struck me immediately was the palpable anticipation in the air.  Crowds of families were in the streets, eating their notoriously late lunch.  Vendors peddled bright plastic toys and balloons – there were even a few carnival rides in one of the main squares.

This could have been a typical Sunday in Cartagena, but a few clues gave things away.  Flags and posters with religious insignia were draped over residential balconies, and heaps of plastic chairs were strung along the sides of the pedestrian-only streets.

It was clear that Cartagena was awaiting something big.

Balloons, carnival rides, and plastic toys for sale in the historical part of Cartagena.

Plastic chairs lined up for the day’s Semana Santa processions.

Religious banners hung from balconies and businesses.

Flags with religious insignia hung from balconies, and residents loitering, clearly waiting for something big to happen.

I’d learned a bit about the Semana Santa processions the previous afternoon from the very gracious and loquacious campsite owner.  The processions are organized by the city’s four religious brotherhoods, the oldest of which dates back to the 17^th century.  Despite a bit of friendly rivalry between the city’s two main brotherhoods (the Marrajos and the Californios, the groups work together, dividing amongst themselves the days leading up to Easter to re-enact the Passion bit by bit.

I would witness a traditional Cartagenan Semana Santa procession that evening, but first up was a unique procession – the floral offering to the patron saint of the city, the Virgen de la Caridad (Our Lady of Charity), in honour of her yearly Feast Day.  In this procession, women and children (and a few men), dressed in traditional clothing and carrying elaborate bouquets of flowers, parade through the streets of historical Cartagena with the goal of depositing their bouquets in front of la Iglesia de la Caridad.

Bruno and I were parked at a café when the participants began to arrive and converge in front of a beautiful baroque building.  It was pure chaos with loads of women, from barely-able-to-walk to surprised-they-still-could-walk, and I was doubtful that any procession would emerge out of this crowd.  You could tell this event was a big deal, especially for the many little girls, who were totally dolled-up and posing for the many cameras.

Participants of the floral procession converging in front of this lovely building.

Dolled-up little girls posing for a proud mama’s camera.

From the youngest to the oldest, all marched in this procession.

The goal of this procession is to offer flowers to Our Lady of Charity. This is her church.

This is her offering.

Yet the procession itself was quite casual.  Women pushed strollers, chatted with their friends, and talked on phones.  Their kids munched on snacks.  One pushed her own baby doll on a stroller.  Each group was led by a banner which announced their organization or congregation.  The groups proudly showcased traditional costumes from different regions – some were dressed like peasants, others like sailors, and a few looked like they were ready to dance the flamenco.  Most dresses featured lace shawls, lots of satin and sparkles, and flowers in their hair.  These bright and shiny costumes, worn only once a year, seemed to celebrate femininity.

It was fun to watch the conviviality of the women and families walking in the procession, but it was even more fun to watch the musicians march by.  There were loads of marching, and in each of them were an impressive amount of children!  There was also a group of bagpipers (I thought, of course, of my mom, who loves bagpipe music!), a few groups with castanets, and even a group of dancers with skirts that flared out when they spun!  It was the cheery music that contributed most to the feeling of celebration.

The procession itself.

And the musicians.

Even a dancing group of spinning tops!

And that’s why it was such a shock to witness that evening’s procession.  The procession of the Most Holy Christ of Mercy and Most Holy Mary of the Rosary was the complete antithesis of that day’s jovial flower parade.  Here, the participants (called “penitents”) were totally serious – they gazed forward, walked in union, and halted in unison, all to the beat of drums.  The whole thing was solemn and downright creepy.

It was probably the outfits that got me the most.  Almost every penitent was wearing a capirote, a tunic with a pointy hood with slits for the eyes that is so reminiscent of the Ku Klux Klan that it’s impossible not to shudder.  Though most were carrying candles, many held rods, guns, axes, and other weapons.  With their slow, unison step, I felt like I was witnessing a procession of ghosts arising from the dead.

The evening’s procession with KKK-like outfits.

The Semana Santa procession are very serious and very creepy.

Weapons were even being paraded around.

The truth, however, is far less eerie.  The conical hoods date back to the Middle Ages (long before the KKK) and were created so that those demonstrating their penance could mask their identities.  The items the penitents carried in their arms simply denote the hierarchy within the brotherhood.  And, anyway, the nazarenes, the mostly-young participants who look like Little Red Riding Hoods and prance around distributing sweets and postcards with religious images on them, definitely lightened the mood.

Indeed, red was the most popular color of the evening, for it is the color of the Californios brotherhood.  About half of the capirotes were dressed in red, and all the Nazarenes.  Whether wearing red or not, however, all penitents displayed religious insignia on their banners or sashes.  Some burned frankincense, others carried pure gold crosses.  All stopped intermittently to do the sign of the cross.

Red is the color of the Californios brotherhood.

We forgot to photograph the young Nazarenes because we were too busy getting sweets and postcards from them!

Banners with religious insignia.

Gigantic gold crosses.

Beautiful gold-stitched banners displaying religious insignia.

The purpose of the processions is to re-enact parts of the Passion of the Christ by showcasing a series of gigantic – and extremely old – floats, or paseos.  One unique aspect of Cartagena’s Semana Santa is the strict order of the processions.  First come the capirotes in certain formations and carrying certain tools, then the drummer and the band (a very important part of the procession as they keep the time of the march), and then the float itself.  Some paseos are pushed along on wheels, but the most impressive ones are carried.

I don’t know how much the paseos weigh, but it’s enough to warrant five rows of twenty or more bodies, squeezed together under thick wooden beams.  If there was one example of penance, it was here (though the soldiers walking for hours with high kicks comes a close second!).

This amazing float is being transported by at least 100 women. Talk about penance!

Look how squished together they are!

Men marching with incredibly high leg kicks. Also a good example of penance.

I was utterly entranced by the procession – by the entire day, in fact – so it was only later, as we caught the late-night bus back to the campsite, that I remembered how lucky I had been to be in Cartagena during its Semana Santa.  Witnessing the festivities was a fascinating treat and gave me a glimpse into an age-old tradition that is still alive and well in Spain.  It’s for these moments that I travel!

Two days later, as we drove through a little town north of Cartagena, I caught a glimpse of bright satin robes glimmering in the midday sun.  I smiled inwardly.  A few days before, I’d have had no idea what these outfits represented.  But, thanks to my serendipitous arrival in Cartagena, I now knew that the colourful robes were evidence that, here in Spain, religion is far from dead.

Driving through a random town a couple days later, I recognized these outfits instantly.

Penitents hanging out at a tapas bar post- (or pre-)procession.

Religion is alive and well in Cartagena – and, indeed, all of Spain!

I often wish for this.  And, for a couple of November days in Northern Spain, I got my wish.

We’re with Josu and Ana in Castro Urdiales, a small town at the edge of Cantabria province.  We’re parked on green hills along the coast just in front of the town’s old cemetery.  A muddy path leads to the center of Castro, with its long city beach, striking Gothic church, and alleyways jam-packed with weekenders from Bilbao munching on pinchos and sipping on sunny afternoon glasses of cider.

Castro’s lovely church over its equally lovely port.

The back alleys of Castro are simply bustling today!

Not bad for a free campsite, eh?

Yay, it’s Josu and Ana! (Gotta have some food to accompany our conversation!)

We’re catching up with our overlander friends.  Since we last saw them (at the beginning of the year in Sudan), Josu and Ana have been busy.  They drove through Saudi Arabia, visited Jordan and Israel, took a boat to Italy, left their vehicle in Spain, backpacked on the Trans-Siberian railroad, and cycled over 3,000km in South Korea and Japan.  There’s obviously a lot of news to exchange.

Before meeting Josu and Ana last year, Bruno had told me a lot of stories about them.  One of the first and most frequent ones goes like this: Josu and Ana are Basque.  They are so Basque that when they cross an international border and the immigration official asks them their nationality, they say Basque.  The immigration official looks at their passport and replies, You’re Spanish, and Josu returns, No, we’re Basque.

Well, we spent a few days visiting Spain’s Basque Country before walking the Camino de Santiago, and I have a lot of questions about my experiences.  Josu and Ana are the perfect private tour guides to unlock for me the complex and mysterious world of the Basques.

I first started noticing signs of Basque presence in Pamplona, the capital of Spain’s Navarra province.  Street signs were written in Spanish and Basque – a language filled with uncommon English letters like X and Z.  Tapas wasn’t tapas (or even pinchos) here – it was pintxos.  And, when I listened carefully to the chatter around me, I could decipher sounds that are definitely not part of the Spanish language.  It turns out I was hearing Euskara, one of the oldest languages in the world, and not part of the Roman language system.  I don’t even know how to begin pronouncing the sound “tx.”

We’re in Pamplona, yippee!

Signs are in Spanish AND Basque in Pamplona.

Locals munching away at pintxos, the Basque version of tapas.

Try THIS Basque mouthful!

It turns out that Basque country extends far outside the Spanish limits of the province named Basque Country.  For Basques, Basque Country – or Euskal Herria – is composed of seven provinces – the three officially recognized by Spain, three in France, and Navarra.

The reasons the world doesn’t recognize Basque Country in the same way Basque people do are complex, and their root causes date back centuries.  They are mostly beyond the scope of my understanding, so let’s just say that, as in many other regions of the world, history is a lot messier than the clear-cut nature of borders implies.  It should be no surprise that I’m experiencing my first traces of Basqueness outside official Basque Country.

It was a surprise, though, that when we arrived in Bilbao, Basque Country’s largest city, I heard more Spanish than Euskara.  Bruno and I spent a morning walking around Bilbao’s shopping district – wide boulevards with elegant top brand-name shops – before crossing over a wide river into the city’s historical district.  I came expecting to find Basqueness all over the place, but all I saw were shops selling full body-parts of jamón and the same pintxos bars I experienced in Pamplona.

Jamón is all over Spain.

A tiny alley in historical Bilbao.

It’s no shock to Josu and Ana that I heard so much Spanish in their unofficial capital (the official capital is Vitoria-Gasteiz, Gasteiz being the Basque name for the city).  Basque Country is a great place to live, and many Spaniards want to make their home here.  At first I assumed this was typical Basque pride talking, but then I learned that it actually comes down to politics: Basque Country is actually an autonomous community of Spain, something that was agreed upon in the 1970s.

Basically, unlike the other provinces of Spain, Basque Country manages their own public finances and has their own police corps.  In practice, this means that Basque Country gets to use their tax money as needed before sending their leftovers to Madrid.  (Other provinces must do the reverse – send their tax money to Madrid and wait for the capital to redistribute the funds across the country as they see fit.)  This means that Basque Country’s services and infrastructure are better than a lot of the rest of Spain, drawing many Spaniards to the province.

We go out for pintxos with Josu and Ana one afternoon in Castro.  As we sit at the bar sipping our cider, the bartender tells Josu in Spanish about his desire to move to Bilbao.  Yet another Spanish-speaker in Bilbao, perhaps?  At least they immigrate freely now, says Josu.  In the Franco years, the influx of Spaniards in Basque Country (officially there as manpower for a growing industrialist economy) often served to spy on the Basque Nationalists and dilute Basque culture.

On our way to pinchos in Castro with Josu and Ana.

At the pinchos bar. The guy pouring the cider is the one who wants to live in Bilbao.

Indeed, the Franco years were a difficult time for the Basques.  Among other things, Franco forbade them from speaking their language.  An entire generation of Basques were raised unable to learn Euskara.  Ana learned as an adult – in fact, it was through a Basque-only group trip that she met Josu! – but it wasn’t an easy language to learn, and she admits to not speaking as well as the generations older and younger than her.  Javi, Phil and Angie’s friend that we had met a few weeks before, is also Basque, but he doesn’t much speak Euskara at all because he had felt forced into learning it after Franco, so rebelled.

It seems the newer generations – people my age and younger – are embracing, rather than rebelling against, their Basque heritage.  On our drive to Bilbao I noticed a town called Durango on the map.  “Durango” is the family name of my brother’s long-time Ecuadorian girlfriend, Ara.  I wanted to stop there – just for a minute – to tell Ara I’d been to her family’s Spanish town.

Without knowing it, we’d party-crashed on Durango’s yearly patron saint celebration, and we found ourselves in the middle of a Basque celebration like no other.  An all-men choir sand traditional Basque songs.  Little kids dressed in traditional clothing, old men wore Basque berets, and young adults sported t-shirts displaying the True Basque Country map – all seven provinces of it.  Best of all, there was a big strength and endurance competition underway, the infamous Basque Herri Kirolak.

Little girls in traditional outfits.

The True map of Basque Country, according to Basques.

Basques sports are rooted in their old rural lifestyle.  They involve things like chopping and sawing wood, or dragging, lifting and tossing heavy things (bales of hay, sacks of vegetables, stones, hoes).  The name of each game is indecipherable to a non-Basque, as the amount of “tx” and “tz” sounds is astounding.

In Durango, we witnessed the lifting of various weights, the carrying of heavy sacks, and the throwing of bales of hay over very high poles.  My favorite games involved wood.  In one, a man climbed a makeshift tree by cutting V-shapes into the trunk then placing wooden poles up the sides so that he could chop the top tip off the tree.  In another, two teams of two cutters chopped series of tree trunks arranged on the ground.  They had to stand on the trunk and hack down in V-shapes from both sides.   This game went on for over twenty minutes, and had the crowd watching enrapt throughout.

I didn’t understand the exact purpose of each game, and the MC’s play-by-play in Euskara didn’t help.  Still, I couldn’t believe my good fortune.  In the little town of Durango, we’d inadvertently stumbled into the heart of Basque Country and saw that Basqueness is, indeed, alive and well.

The big games in Durango.

That’s a bale of hay up there.

My favorite game.

My other favorite.

I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised.  The Basques have been around for a very long time, and they’ve always managed to bounce back after hard times.  According to the book I’m reading now, The Basque History of the World (lent to me by none other than Josu and Ana):

When Basques first began appearing on the stage of recorded history, even before there was a name for them, they were observed acting like Basques, playing out the same roles that they have been playing ever since: defending their land and culture, making complex choices about the degree of independence that was needed to preserve their way of life, while looking to the rest of the world for commercial opportunities to ensure their prosperity.

I’m only 80 pages into the book, but, so far, the author, Mark Kurlansky, credits the Basque people with a lot of things – the best boat-makers, the first and most prolific whalers, the first to salt (and therefore preserve) cod, and the first to arrive in the Americas (Newfoundland, to be exact).

It seems the Basques weren’t only farmers, but fishermen too.  In Lekeitio, a small fishing village near Bilbao that we visited on Javi and Jasmine’s recommendation (it’s where they met), Bruno and I saw this firsthand.  Lekeitio has a long history of whaling – the town’s seal even includes an image of a whale.  We were there only briefly (rainy, cold weather), but we spent an afternoon along the charming port.

Lequeitio, or Lekeitio in Basque.

Lekeitio’s lovely port.

At a café in Lekeitio, we befriended some French-speakers who turned out to be from the French Pays Basque.  When we told them about our worldwide travels, they asked if we’d been to Bayonne, the capital of their Basque region.  You wouldn’t believe the shock on their faces when we replied that we hadn’t been there yet.  But it’s the best place in the world, they cried.

At dawn at our campsite near Castro Urdiales, Bruno and I watch the sun rise over breakfast with Josu and Ana.  From our viewpoint, we can see the port of Bilbao and the big hill behind which is their beloved Basque city.  The sun rises just beyond that hill.

“Hey look,” we say to Josu and Ana, “the sun is rising over Bilbao!”

“Of course,” they shrug, not at all surprised.  “Bilbao is the center of the world!”  The statement is a joke, of course, but the pride associated with that statement is not.  Josu and Ana, Javi, and the French Basques in Lekeitio all share two things – they are Basque, and they are proud of it.  If Mr. Kurlansky is correct, they have good reason to be.

Breakfast with Josu and Ana.

When the sun rose a few hours ago, it rose over Bilbao, off in the distance.

In recent years, the Basques have made international headlines for the negative, rather than the good, however.  Sabino Arana, the creator of Basque Nationalism, was xenophobic and violent, and some of that violence has lasted until today, in the armed separatist group, ETA.  The group wants independence from Spain and France, and, though they are currently negotiating peace, they’ve been known to break cease-fires in the past.

Josu and Ana don’t want independence, necessarily.  They just want to be recognized as separate from the Spanish.  They feel Basque first, and they want Spain to recognize that they are a distinct ethnic group within the whole.  Josu’s declarations at border controls illustrate that, but so do his wishes for us to visit him in his country one day, as though us camping with him on the beaches of Castro Urdiales doesn’t count.

The tide is beginning to shift in Spain in ways that may have deep implications for the Basques.  For the first time, Basque interests are at the head in Navarra province because the small Basque factions finally united and carried the election.  In the Spanish constitution is a clause whereby if Navarra wants to become part of Basque Country, it can (though Josu thinks Madrid will try to change that constitutional clause now).  And, with Catalonia gaining so much sway in their bid for independence, the Basques are watching carefully.  Whatever Europe determines regarding the Catalonia question will impact the direction the Basque government takes with its own independence quest.

Whatever happens, I have a feeling that Josu, Ana, and their fellow Basques will continue to be as smart as they have for centuries – defending their land and culture while making complex choices about the degree of independence that is needed to preserve their way of life, a way of life I’ve come just a little closer to understanding after a few days with my own private tour guides.

Thank you for being such great tour guides (and friends), Josu and Ana.

“Sarajevo changed my mind.”

  – Lyrics from the song “Bosnia” by the Cranberries

I’d heard of the war in Bosnia before I could even locate the country on a world map. I remember listening to the Cranberries’ newest album “To the Faithful Departed” with my ear glued to the boom box in my bedroom as a twelve-year-old. My mom didn’t approve of my musical choice so I couldn’t exactly ask her what had happened in Sarajevo that made the singer cry with such intense agony.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina nineteen years later, Bruno and I drove through tunnels that cut through mountains, a turquoise river running parallel to our route. We visited the town of Jajce, where we wandered around Roman ruins and catacombs, compared Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian architecture, viewed the fortified town from the top of a medieval castle, and cooled-off in the spray of a waterfall.

This photo doesn’t do justice to the beauty of the landscape, but it does capture the river and tunnel I mentioned.

Jajce, with its blend of architecture.

Apparently it’s unique to Jajce to have a waterfall right in the center of town.

Camped at the Youth Hostel, with the fortified town of Jajce just behind.

But for me, our six days in Bosnia and Herzegovina were all about Sarajevo.

As soon as we hopped onto the old tram that took us on a very rickety ride into the center of town, I knew Sarajevo wasn’t like other European capitals. As many women were covered in head scarves here as in Turkey. The tram had to stop at least once so that loitering men could vacate the tracks. And when we pushed our way off the tram in the center of town, there were no discernable sites. A muddy river and some graffiti and bullet-holes on the façade of a dull brown building were what greeted us.

We had come downtown to take part in a free walking tour I’d read about. For some reason – probably that Cranberries’ song, and maybe as a result of our lack of preparation in Serbia – I felt an urge to learn as much as possible about what had gone on in Sarajevo during the Bosnian War, and a walking tour felt like the best way to start.

The tram ride into Sarajevo.

A lot of women in Sarajevo dress conservatively and cover their heads.

The river that runs through Sarajevo.

Graffiti and bullet holes.

It was. Our guide, Merima, was knowledgeable and demonstrated a clear passion for her city’s history, culture, and architecture. She took us past several of Sarajevo’s important sites and explained different periods of the city’s history that helped me make sense of some of the things I’d been reading.

Bosnia, like elsewhere in the region, was long part of the Ottoman Empire; unlike the surrounding countries, however, Bosnians wholeheartedly adopted Islam. Sarajevo has hundreds of mosques competing for the sky to prove it. When the Turks left, the Austro-Hungarians took over, and left their architectural mark – grand symmetrical, multi-windowed buildings and towering churches.

Bosnia is a sort of crossroads between East and West. There’s even a street you can stand on where, if you look one way, you think you’re in Western Europe, and if you look the other, you’d swear you were in the Middle East. And because Bosnia has always been a crossroads, it has always been a melting pot of ethnicities.

Sarajevo’s skyline is of another sort…

The Austro-Hungarians didn’t stay long, but they sure left their mark.

The crossroads between East…

… and West.

For a long time, these groups lived together in peace. The primarily Muslim Bosniaks, the Orthodox Serbs, and the Catholic Croats shared the land as brothers – they were all Slavs, after all, and lived in a country now called Yugoslavia. The Eternal Flame Monument was erected on the main street of Sarajevo as a testimonial of this unity and peace.

It was when Yugoslavia began to break down with the death of Tito and the rise of Nationalism that that ever-fragile balance of peace was tilted. Power was concentrating in Belgrade in the hands of the Serbs, and with such a vastly scattered Serbian population, the idea of having separate countries like Croatia and Bosnia ruled by non-Serbs was intolerable. If Bosniaks wanted to rule themselves, then war it was.

As war rained down on Bosnia, the Eternal Flame was extinguished. It wasn’t done to snub the Serbs – it was that Sarajevo was under siege and had no gas with which to keep the flame lit. The siege of Sarajevo lasted over 1,400 days (from 1992 – 95) and was the longest siege in history.

So that’s what the Cranberries were singing about when they cried Sarajevo over and over like a mantra.

Sarajevo’s main street, with the Eternal Flame Monument at the end.

The Eternal Flame Monument, relit but still rippled with bullet holes.

Merima hadn’t been living in Sarajevo at the time of the siege, but in a nearby town that had been also been under siege due to its location at the bottom of a valley. She was seven when she heard the first shells explode; henceforth, they exploded every day from 10am – 2am for four years. She spent most of her youth hiding in the basement of a neighbour, along with seven other families. They ate US-donated canned food that had been created in the Second World War. They went to school every morning, running – always running – to a “safe” location in the early morning and returning home before the first bombs. School was what kept Merima sane, connected to life outdoors and outside of her tiny, besieged world.

As Merima walked us through the town and recounted her experiences and the history of her country, she’d often say it is what it is. When she showed us the corner from which Franz Ferdinand was assassinated, starting WWI, she said it is what it is. When she talked about the irony of the Eternal Flame being a symbol of the unity of Slavs only fifty years before they tore one another apart, she said it is what it is. When she talked about the famous bombing at the Pijaca Market, where sixty-six civilians were killed, and how the next day the market opened as usual, she said it is what it is.

It is what it is, says Merima (the one in black facing us).

The bridge that kickstarted WWI.

The Pijaca Market today. In the back is a memorial wall with the names of the casualties, and on the ground is still the hole that the bomb made.

It seemed to me that Merima’s attitude showed resignation, but also resilience. She, like the people who turned up the next morning at the Pijaca Market, had accepted their reality, and continued to live on, even in the face of death. I saw more evidence of this quality the next day at Sarajevo’s Historical Museum. The museum wasn’t much, but it did have advertisements and news clippings of art exhibits, music festivals, beauty pageants, and theater performances that occurred between 1992-5, in the midst of a siege. If we’re going to be under siege, the posters seemed to say, we may as well enjoy it.

Perhaps the best example of this resilience, though, was at the Tunnel Museum. Because most of the arms had been concentrated in Belgrade, Yugoslavia’s capital, the Bosniaks had very little with which to defend their city during the siege of Sarajevo. They managed to dig an 800m tunnel under the airport (occupied by the UN) that linked besieged Sarajevo to free land. Through that tunnel, food and weapons (mostly weapons) were smuggled into the city. At the museum you can walk – bent down – through a symbolic twenty-five meters that most locals believe to be their city’s saving-grace. Bosniaks call it the Tunnel of Life.

Old advertisements of festivals and concerts in Sarajevo during the siege.

The house that connected the “free world” to besieged Sarajevo via an underground tunnel.

Walking the Tunnel of Life.

After our walking tour, Bruno and I wandered through the Turkish Quarter, Bascarsija, with its cobbled streets, mosques, and Turkish tea houses. We sat at cafés, sampled syrupy sweets, and watched colorfully-dressed, well-covered people go by. I sat and marvelled at the normal things the locals were doing – shopping, going to the mosque, drinking coffee, smoking nargile, playing lifesize chess in town squares, gossiping and laughing. It almost seemed as though a war had never touched these streets.

I couldn’t shake the feeling, though, that there were ghosts around every corner. It was eerie. On almost every building there were bullet holes. We’d turn a corner and run into another Sarajevo Rose, a red splotch on the ground symbolising a bomb explosion. I couldn’t even shake the eerie feeling when Bruno and I went mountain biking in the green hills overlooking Sarajevo. I just kept thinking that it was from here that the Serbs mounted their siege.

Tufahija, a baked apple stuffed with walnuts, and Turkish bahklava. Yummy!

A leisurely afternoon in Sarajevo.

A Sarajevo Rose.  Dozens are scattered throughout the city.

The hills we biked up and from where Sarajevo was besieged.

Bosnia is really still recovering from its war. Merima said it best when she spat off Bosnia’s unemployment statistics – 45% of the general population, and 65% of young people. Only one out of each three of her friends has a job. Most of those jobs aren’t even in the field in which they studied, but after a year or so of looking for a “good” job, they’d accepted the waitress gig, or the tour guide job.

Yet, even those that couldn’t find work could find one CM (Convertible Mark) a day for a cup of coffee. Because for that Mark, they got so much more than that – they got a chance to gossip with friends, a ticket to loiter at a café table for endless hours, and the opportunity to play the who’s got it worse game. Bosniaks love to complain about their lives, and do it nonstop, adding just the right amount of humor and sarcasm so as not to be a real downer. I don’t know what people have to complain about twenty years after the end of the siege, but maybe that was the true scar of war.

Coffee time in Sarajevo.

Coffee time in Sarajevo, Turkish-style.

The Bosnian War ended in 1995 when the world finally woke up. In eastern Bosnia, the town of Srebrenica, which had been declared a safe zone for Muslim refugees, was attacked by the Bosnian Serbs. In a matter of a few days, thousands of Muslims were captured, executed, and buried in the hills surrounding the town. After four years of ethnic cleansing, massacres, rape and violence, it took a genocide to end the war.

It is only in recent years that the invisible wounds of war are starting to heal. The wonderful Galerija 11/07/95 in Sarajevo highlights the mass uncovering of graves in the hills of Srebrenica, the proper burials being given, and the DNA tests being conducted so family members can locate their deceased loved-ones. The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) captured its last suspects a couple of years ago, and is winding down all its cases. The perpetrators are seeing justice, and the victims are getting closure. At least in Bosnia.

A photo exhibit of the Srebrenica Genocide and the work being done in the past few years to put demons to rest.

Because the Balkan Wars aren’t really over. In Bosnia, 49% of the country is a semi-independent republic ruled by Serbs. Bosniaks are still surrounded by people who want nothing to do with them. In nearby Kosovo, the ethnic Albanians are still struggling to convince the world that they, too, deserve independence. And tension continues to rise in Macedonia, a sign from the Albanian minority that they’re still not happy with their representation in government.

The Balkan region is a ticking time bomb. The question is, will the bomb explode or will it, like all the land mines still being found in the Bosnian countryside, be deactivated before anyone else gets hurt?

I’d done my research the day before. I’d read up on the history of Ephesus, and picked out the sites I expected to be the most popular – the amphitheater, the Library of Celsus, the Temple of Hadrian. I’d studied the map and plotted my course: I’d go through the back entrance, wander briefly through Lower Ephesus, then head for the top three sites. I was going to make the most of the early-morning calm before the storm.

Ephesus’ grand amphitheater, with seating for 25,000.

Ephesus’ Temple of Hadrian.

By the time I found myself in Selcuk village studying my Ephesus map and guide, I’d visited over a dozen ancient ruins throughout Turkey. This number, though astounding, was significantly less than it could have been if I’d popped in on all the ruins we’d passed nearby on roads or in villages. I’d learned early on that I needed to pick and choose my sites – not only did we lack the time needed to visit them all, but both Bruno and I would be seriously ruined out.

How, though, to choose among the plethora of ancient ruins listed in guide books and identified on brown roadside signs? How to decipher between the ones worth visiting and the ones worth skipping? How best to enhance one’s understanding of the Ancient Greeks and Romans without taking away from other worthy experiences in Turkey? Where is the fine line between seeing enough ruins and seeing too many?

The Roman bridge of Hasankeyf.

Adamkayalor, the statues on the cliffside.

Lycian sarcophagi at Kalekӧy.

These were questions I asked myself each time we drove past another village or brown sign boasting yet more ruins. There were always many reasons to visit – because the guide book called it a regional highlight, to be able to say I’d been there, the fear of missing out on a great site (it’s called FOMO, and it’s actually a thing!), curiosity, or just because it’s there and, well, why not?

And so, often, we went. For all of these reasons, I dragged Bruno to a lot of ancient ruins. I dragged him through a snowstorm because I wanted to see the Greek ruins of Nemrut Dağı and to the bustling town (two words Bruno hates) of Diyarbakır so I could walk on the ancient city walls. I’d made him bush-camp next to a cemetery to visit the Lycian ruins of Kalekӧy, and sleep in a field filled with roosters beside a disco and a mosque so I could see the ancient Lycian capital of Patara. I even dragged Bruno up a 5km hill to the hilltop ruins of Pergamon after a full day’s drive.

Pergamon’s hilltop amphitheater.

The Patara Ruins, being overcome by the marshes.

Poor Bruno. It’s no wonder he sent me to see Ephesus on my own.

I didn’t expect Ephesus to live up to its name. Especially after having had the seaside ruins of Anemurium to ourselves and having shared the picturesque Lycian ruins of Phaselis with Phil and Angie. I expected that sharing my experience of an ancient site with so many people would feel lackluster.

Anemurium.

At the Phaselis amphitheater with Phil and Angie.

But when I walked through the back gate and strolled down the shaded main street toward the biggest amphitheater I’ve ever seen, I couldn’t help but be impressed. Doubly so because I had Ephesus to myself. For a full forty minutes I wandered past a crumbled city of sparkling white marble and found myself continuously amazed at its scale and obvious grandeur. The decorated tops of columns were scattered all over the ground. Images recreating the massive fountains and temples helped me picture their former scale. Decrees written in Ancient Greek were still deeply carved into rock.

Ancient Greek is pretty, no?

Notice the cat sleeping on top of the decorated column top?

The Library of Celsus, with its intricate detail and elegant columns hiding a modest room behind, was the most beautiful ancient building I’ve seen in all of Turkey. But I knew I only had a few more magical moments to myself – I could see the hordes of people marching down Curetes Way, Ephesus’ main street, straight toward me. And so, I sat down in front of the library that had housed 12,000 scrolls in a climate-controlled environment almost 2,000 years ago and marvelled at the civilization that had created this beautiful building.

The Library of Celsus, without anybody in my photo!

One of four statues on the façade of the Library of Celsus – “Episteme”, or knowledge (I remembered this from my Philosophy B.A.!)

Tour groups arriving down Curetes Way means the calm is over!

Admittedly, after Ephesus, no other site in Turkey could compare. Pergamon’s Acropolis, a comparable ancient city that some prefer due to lack of crowds, failed to impress me. Its marble was dull grey, its amphitheater felt small, and its ruins were a little too ruined. Only the temple of Trajan wowed me – and probably because its gigantic white marble columns reminded me of Ephesus.

When we drove on to Troy – yes, the Troy – to visit the ruined layers of its eight ancient cities, we felt so unimpressed that we decided not even to enter the site. I simply took a photo of the reconstructed Trojan Horse – my “I was there” photo – and left.

Pergamon’s lovely Temple of Trajan.

My only photo of Troy.

It appeared that Ephesus had ruined me (pardon the pun!). I didn’t want to visit any more ancient sites in Turkey. I’d seen many ruins: I’d seen them without crowds; I’d seen unknown ones on the side of the road and ones that would soon disappear under water; I’d hiked down cliffs and over hills to see them; I’d uncovered them among jungly-tall grasses, spiders and snakes; I’d seen them in the hills and by the sea, in the beating sun and the freezing rain.

And now I’d seen ruins that sparkled white – after thousands of years – from head to toe.

***

I’ve learned a thing or two about visiting the ancient ruins of Turkey (which can, I think, be applied to any other country with a multitude of sites to see):

1. Don’t try and visit every site. Don’t travel too far off your route for a site unless it’s something you really want to see. Don’t let FOMO get the best of you!
2. Do visit whatever is literally right next to you – sometimes you can be surprised by sites you’d never even heard about.
3. See a mixture of types of sites – a few big “must-see” sites, a Lycian ruin or two, and a few lesser-known sites to have the experience of a ruin to yourself.   (My personal top-five recommendations are Ephesus and Hasankeyf for must-see sites, Phaselis Lycian ruins, and Adamkayalor and Anemurium, lesser-known sites worth the trip.)
4. Leave Ephesus for last, if you can. Working your way up from tiny, less-impressive sites, to larger and more important sites is a great way to be continually impressed.

Even the smallest of detail at the smallest of ruin is special.

Taking in the Mamure Castle by the sea, since we were camped right next door!

Lastly, here are a few Ephesus-specific tips for beating the crowds and making the most of your visit:

1. Be there for 8:00am on the dot if you value having a peaceful, solitary visit (which I highly recommend).
2. Visit the most important sites first (if you’ve arrived early). The Library of Celsus and the Temple of Hadrian are the two most-visited sites. Save the side-streets, harbour, and little ruins scattered along the main streets for when you need to duck away from the crowds marching down the Curetes Way.
3. Consider entering via the Lower Gate because all the groups start their tours from the Upper Gate. The only problem with this tactic is that eventually you’ll run directly into the onslaught.
4. Finish your visit with the Terraced Houses (they are well-worth the extra $7!). Not only do they show a fascinating glimpse of home life in the city (complete with excellent mosaics and frescoes), but because they are covered, you’ll be able to get out of the hot sun!
5. Visit the Ephesus Museum in Selcuk after your visit to Ephesus. All its objects come directly from Ephesus, so it’s a great way to fill in the gaps of some of the artistic elements missing at the actual site.

A mosaic floor inside Ephesus’ Terraced Houses. Well-worth the visit.

Admiring the Beautiful Artemis marble statue, the highlight of the Ephesus Museum.

Actually, we’d arrived in Turkey’s Cappadocia, but this place was about as otherworldly as it gets.

What the heck is a Fairy Chimney, anyway?

Fairy chimneys are much more scientific than they sound. They are geological rock formations that grow out of valley floors. Erosion wears away at the soft rock, leaving only thin spires that are protected by a harder layer of rock overhead. Fairy chimneys exist in arid regions of North America, France and Spain, Serbia, New Zealand, and even Taiwan.

These… are fairy chimneys.

This is what they look like from a distance.

Totally weird, right?

Scientific or not, these rock spires inspire such imagination that they are sometimes called things like “mushroom caps,” “tent rocks,” “ladies with hairdos,” and “earth pyramids.” As I wandered around Devrent Valley, I came up with names like “witch houses” and “elf hats.” The locals of Cappadocia simply call them “castles.”

There might be a reason for their local name: the fairy chimneys of Cappadocia doubled long ago as homes, churches, and hideaways. Unlike the fairy chimneys scattered around the world, Cappadocia isn’t simply interesting topographically – it has a fascinating history to match.

The region of Cappadocia, like much of Turkey, has been inhabited for thousands of years and has a complex story of flip-flopping allegiances, rulers, and empires. (Come to think of it, Turkey is sort of the like original Game of Thrones, really.) The most interesting part, for me, is that Cappadocia has long been the center of Christianity in a largely Muslim region. The local Christians carved not just homes, but churches inside the fairy chimneys. More interesting still, they built entire cities underground to use as hiding places against invading Muslim armies.

Yep, they look like mushrooms.

And elf hats, right?

Oh, and hey, they have doors and windows!

And, well, sometimes you can climb into the cave chambers via little hidden cave doors.

It wasn’t that difficult to do. The rock in this region is soft tuff – consolidated volcanic ash – and the locals could dig tunnels and chambers several floors deep with relative ease. Their underground cities (several hundred in the region, apparently, though most of them unexcavated for now) could house several thousand individuals and all the food and water needed to keep them alive for several months. There were churches, stables for the animals, and defense methods like large round stones designed to block strategic tunnels and holes carved into walls, ceilings and floors of chambers for throwing spears or hot liquids onto their trapped enemies.

Experiencing Cappadocia’s History

Bruno and I visited one such example: Kaymaklı Underground City. We wandered down the ever-narrowing hallway through a complex maze of tunnels and rooms. It was cold and dark, and I couldn’t imagine ever wanting to be stuck down here for a few months over mere spiritual technicalities. But this was the height of the spread of Islam, and the Persians and Arabs were fierce and merciless. It’s a good thing the message of an arriving army could travel from Jerusalem to Cappadocia by lit mountaintop beacons in only a few hours.

Inside the ever-narrowing passage of Kaymaklı Underground City.

The big stone passage blockers, or whatever their technical term is…

It’s also a good thing the Seljuks and Turks of later times tolerated the Cappadocian Christians, for this allowed for a flourishing of cave churches cut into the fairy chimneys of the region. We visited an agglomeration of such churches in the Gӧreme Open-Air Museum. Here, a dozen or so churches and monasteries were carved into the tuff between the 10^th and 13^th century. As we wandered inside them and experienced their damp darkness, their faded frescoes, their Maltese crosses engraved into the rock, I couldn’t help but be reminded of our visit to the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela in Ethiopia, some five months earlier.

The rock-hewn churches of Cappadocia aren’t as impressive as those in Lalibela. They are smaller and less varied in style. More importantly, they are carved horizontally into the rock, like caves, rather than down into the rock, which is architecturally a more impressive feat. Most importantly of all, the churches of Cappadocia fell long ago into disuse, whereas those in Lalibela are still very much alive, tangibly surrounded by ritual and legend.

But, from the outside, Cappadocia’s churches cannot fail to impress. Even after eight days of wandering around the region, I couldn’t help but sigh each time I saw a pointed fairy chimney, an interestingly shaped mushroom cap, or a perfectly scraggly witch house. It was all so wonderfully whimsical, and I couldn’t help but fall for the fairy tale.

Some of the most impressive frescoes inside Gӧreme’s cave churches.

St. George slaying the dragon – a story also heavily featured at Lalibela’s rock-hewn churches.

A view of Rahibeler Monastery at the Gӧreme Open-Air Museum.

Can you spot me among the fairy chimneys and rock-hewn cave churches?

Experiencing Cappadocia’s Culture

Bruno and I spend a lot of time wandering around Cappadocia’s villages. There are a lot of them, and they all have that storybook charm that is particular to the regions. Their homes seem to grow out of the hills, and it’s difficult to determine where the natural shelter ends and the artificial extensions begin. Each village had its particular appeal. In Avanos and Ürgüp, it was the ruins of Greek homes overlooking fertile countryside. In Uçhisar, it was the cave castle sitting grandly on top of the city; in Çavuşin it was the cave church hanging off its side. And in Gӧreme, it was the luxurious hotels built into and around the hills and fairy chimneys with sprawling courtyards that we could stare down into.

As we wandered up and down the alleys of Cappadocia’s cave villages, I marvelled at the fact that these people had so long used their natural environment to create shelter. I could think of a fair few cultures that used their surrounding natural materials to create their homes, notably the ingenious huts scattered across the African continent (I especially love those constructed out of plastic UN tarps and other rummaged garbage); I could certainly think of cultures (cough) that razed the land and placed upon it totally incongruous materials to create homes that stood out from the landscape like sore thumbs. But I had rarely, if ever, seen a place whose homes and villages so harmoniously blended in with the natural environment. At the risk of overusing the term, it was charming.

Ürgüp

Uçhisar Castle, the rectangular cave at the top of the hill.

Gӧreme

In fact, I was so charmed by the cave homes that I convinced Bruno to take me to a fancy cave restaurant for dinner. (It was either that or pretend to be looking for a cave hotel room in order to catch an inside glimpse of the cave hotels – Bruno, smart guy, went for the food). We chose Topdeck Cave Restaurant, a small family-owned restaurant run out of one of the cave-rooms of their Gӧreme home. The food was delicious and varied (I’ll soon devote a blog to Turkish cuisine), but it was the atmosphere that won the night. Eating inside a cave was just plain cool.

The restaurant was packed. In fact, the first night we tried to eat there, there was no table for us. We were advised to book a reservation, which Bruno declined (“How can we know what we’ll feel like doing and eating tomorrow?”) until I looked at him with sad puppy eyes. I didn’t care that we had to battle against the swarms of tourists wanting to sample Topdeck’s mezze platters – I’d been battling them all week.

Don’t you totally want to stay in a cave hotel? Or at least pretend to be looking for a room so you can catch a glimpse inside?

… or at least dine in a cave restaurant?

This is a REAL “cave à vin”!!!

Experiencing Cappadocia’s Mass Tourism

Yes, up until now I’ve painted Cappadocia as a geological oddity, a land straight out of a fairy tale, and a place of significant historical and cultural interest. It’s little wonder, then, that Cappadocia is one of Turkey’s biggest tourist destinations. Even in April’s off-season, we’d had to contend with the massive white tour busses since that first morning in Devrent Valley.  It was probably the most touristy place Bruno and I had ever been to together.

While we made it through Gӧreme’s Open-Air Museum just as the tour busses were pulling in, Kaymaklı Underground City became a claustrophobic prison as we stood at a standstill in narrow passages, blocked by bodies, or struggled to make it back into the cue anytime we veered off the main path. Random tourists were often captured in our photos of a nice fairy chimney, an interesting fresco, or a panoramic image. And every morning, we were awoken by the deafening inflating sound of hot air balloons.

The reality of Kaymaklı Underground City.

The arranged photo benches at Gӧreme Open-Air Museum for all the tour busses passing through. I found this hilarious.

If you can’t beat them, join them – Bruno embracing being a tourist, wandering around with his Lonely Planet guidebook in hand!

Experiencing the landscape of Cappadocia with a dawn hot-air balloon ride is the most popular activity in Cappadocia. Every morning, over one hundred hot-air balloons take off into the Cappadocian sky, and each morning, we took an early breakfast as they floated into the air all around us. At over $200 a pop, with twenty people (or more?) inside each basket, I gazed in awe at the fortune literally floating into thin air. It was akin to experiencing America’s Fourth of July fireworks every morning.

Falling in Love with Cappadocia

And that’s the thing about Cappadocia. It’s a mass tourism destination if ever there was one – and yet, it was still charming (yep, there’s that word again!). I found it exciting to wake to the sound of hot-air balloons every morning (ok, if I’m being honest, it was only Bruno – who was wearing ear plugs – who heard the sound and proceeded to shake me awake). I loved drinking my tea while staring into the pink sky, the fairy chimneys mere meters away and the kaleidoscope of balloons drifting overhead.

Breakfast with balloons.

This is a mere fraction of them. And yes mom, I thought of you every morning.

No comment.

Enough with the balloons, Bruno. We get it, they’re pretty.

Cappadocia is special because it can reveal itself to everyone. My budget didn’t allow me to board a hot-air balloon (and anyway, once I saw how many there were, it no longer appealed to me), but I was able to catch my own birds’ eye view of the otherworldly landscape from the top of Uçhisar castle. I wasn’t interested in approaching villages from the back of a big white bus, so Bruno and I hiked through Rose Valley and reached Çavuşin’s old church from the hills. I wasn’t bowled over by the churches in Gӧreme’s Open Air Museum, but I was certainly impressed by those Bruno and I discovered in the middle of nowhere on our two day-hikes through the surrounding hills. I couldn’t enjoy the sunset from the private veranda of my cave hotel, so we watched it instead from Gӧreme’s Sunset Hill (where we had the pleasant surprise of catching yet more hot-air balloons take off, the only time they did so in the evening the entire time we were there!).

Yep. I’m not ashamed to say it. Cappadocia is one of Turkey’s most popular tourist destinations, and I absolutely loved it!

Birds’ eye view of Cappadocia from the top of Uçhisar Castle.

Approaching Çavuşin from Rose Valley.

One of the many fantastic cave churches we came across in the middle of nowhere during our hikes.

Sunset and hot-air balloons in Cappadocia. Pretty well near perfect, no?

I love fairy chimneys! I love Cappadocia!!

Before visiting Oman, I didn’t know a thing about its history. I’d been drawn to its exotic location and intrigued by Bruno’s photos from his time here a decade ago – photos of turquoise water, rocky crags, and lush oases in the middle of red desert dunes.

I knew that Oman was photogenic. I didn’t know that it had so many photogenic forts. Thanks to Vasco da Gama, Oman is filled with them.

Bruno and I are biking through Old Muscat and Muttrah, the two historic centers of Oman’s capital. A corniche links the two, and we ride leisurely along it, stopping frequently for photos of the stunningly rugged coastline.

Al-Jalali Fort suddenly comes into view, its tan façade built out of the rocky outcrop. It is almost indistinguishable from its surroundings, but for the geometric turret rising out of the rock. Our eyes, now knowing what to look for, make out another fort at the other end of this tiny inlet – that of Al-Mirani. Later on our bike ride, we will spot Muttrah Fort, built even more impressively into its rock foundation.

Our first view of the Portuguese forts of Muscat.

The corniche, with Muttrah Fort in the background

It’s difficult to decide which building I like better – Al Jabani Fort or one of many little mosques that dot Muscat…

These three forts are officially the only remnants of the Portuguese occupation in Oman. The Portuguese weren’t interested in Oman’s resources and didn’t venture into its interior. But they defended their strategic coastline position fiercely, building in the 1580s these three forts.

Unofficially, however, the Portuguese influenced future architecture and defense throughout Oman. Almost every town in the country sports a fort; though some date back to the 12^th century, most were constructed after Oman regained its independence and use the design of its occupiers. We had already visited two such medieval examples – Nakhal Fort and Rustaq Fort – and had marvelled at the similarities they shared with forts and castles we have visited in Europe.

The views beyond the tower windows, however, bore little resemblance to forts in Europe. From the towers of Rustaq and Nakhal Forts, we could see the barren Hajar Mountains surrounding bright green date palm oases. The palms partially obscured white-washed homes all featuring the crenelated roofs, turrets pointing upwards, and low parapet walls of their famous medieval forts.

Even in Muscat, a view from the top of Muttrah Fort showed us the same low, crenelated, turreted skyline. In the Arab Gulf, where cities like Dubai, Doha, and Damman build skyscrapers like we grow fingernails, Muscat’s architecture is surprising. The Portuguese left quite a legacy indeed, it seemed to me.

Nakhal Fort.

The view out the window of Rustaq Fort.

A view of Muttrah from the corniche.

My reading tells me that Sultan Qaboos has made a concerted effort to keep his country connected to tradition. Even though he is almost singlehandedly responsible for the speedy modernization of his country – which was a backwater state less than fifty years ago – Sultan Qaboos has made it unofficial law that new buildings to be built in the traditional style, including pointy-tipped windows covered with ornate mashrabiyyas, and, of course, crenellation, turreted roofs, and parapets.

There is no Burj Khalifa in Muscat. Even the city’s Grand Mosque looks rather plain from the outside. After having experienced the breathtaking exterior of Abu Dhabi’s Grand Mosque – which included pure gold and unblemished white marble – I was a tad underwhelmed by Muscat’s seemingly uninspired interpretation.

That’s probably why my jaw dropped when I entered the prayer hall. I hadn’t expected the simple exterior to be hiding such an ornate ceiling. The semi-spherical dome sparkled with jewels of every color in miniscule, intricate designs. I had never seen a chandelier so large, and Bruno couldn’t get far enough away from the domed ceiling to photograph the entire thing. Maybe there was something to Sultan Qaboos’ architectural vision, after all.

The exterior of Muscat’s Grand Mosque

This photo does not NEARLY do the prayer room’s dome justice.

The outer corridors of the Grand Mosque.

Our bike ride along the corniche takes us to Muttrah Souq, one of the oldest markets in the country. In many ways, it is a typical Arab souq. For sale are dishdashas and prayer caps for men, kohl and henna for women. For the tourists there are pashmina scarves, kitsch khanjars (Omani tribal curved hand daggars), and sheesha water pipes.

It is not an especially large market, and not particularly impressive after having visited the Omdurman Souq in Khartoum, but there is something about this place that makes my imagination run wild. Perhaps it is the earthy scent of frankincense, burned on coals outside most of the stalls, wafting into my nostrils and intoxicating my senses. I think of the Three Kings, one of whom brought frankincense as a gift for baby Jesus, and wonder if that king had come from Oman, or if perhaps his gift had arrived on one of the legendary camel caravans that originated in Oman and traveled to Europe, Persia, and beyond.

Oman certainly is mystical, I ponder as I stop in the center of Muttrah Souq. Men actually wrap their heads in proper turbans here. They have an actual sultan – heck, the country is called the Sultanate of Oman! The legend of Aladdin must have been set here. I picture Aladdin stealing a loaf of bread from the bakery down the alleyway ahead, and imagine him hopping up to the roof of a nearby home, singing “One Jump” as he swings himself from rooftop to rooftop. It’s a good thing the Portuguese came to Oman, I decide. If they hadn’t, Aladdin would have had to climb a lot higher to reach that first rooftop!

A kitsch tourist shop in Muttrah Souq

A few less kitsch items for sale.

My imagination runs wild in the center of the souq.

As Bruno and I ride our bikes back toward our campsite on the outskirts of Muscat, I think about my educational introduction to Oman. Between the surprise welcome at the border, the bush camping in the mountains and along the coast, the medieval forts, and the sightseeing in Muscat, I know now that Oman is more than just a photogenic country. I can’t wait to head down the coast tomorrow and see what more is in store for us here. My educated guess posits a few turtles, a wadi or two, and yes, more forts!

In Ethiopia, one of the first Christian nations in the world, the faithful must wait another two weeks to celebrate the birth of Jesus.

That’s fine by them. Ethiopian Christians have always done things a little bit differently than in the rest of the world. Here, in the highland town of Lalibela, is living, breathing proof of that.

A woman, draped in a white netela, removes her sandals and kisses the limestone doorway before entering the church. We follow her. Inside, a priest, draped also in white, chants from an ancient holy book made from animal hide. He faces a wall filled with brightly painted depictions of Christ and the Virgin Mary – or “Maryam” as they call her in Ethiopia. The woman enters the chanting room, contemplates an image, bows her head and kisses the artwork, and then moves on to the next painting. All the while, the priest’s ancient Ge’ez song echoes ethereally against the stone walls of this ancient church.

I am in Bet Gabriel-Raphael , the main entrance of the southeastern cluster of Lalibela churches. It is Saturday morning, and Lalibela is alive with worshippers. This is the heart of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church.

As with all things, Ethiopians have a unique brand of religion. The Ethiopian Orthodox Church dates back to the 4^th century, a strange amalgamation of Judaism and various forms of Christianity, including Greek Orthodoxy and Coptic Christianity. This was in the days of the great Axum empire, one of the four great kingdoms of the time (the others being Persia, China, and Rome!).

What made Ethiopian Orthodoxy different from other forms of Christianity, exactly, I did not know. Yet I was drawn to this mysterious religion from the outset. I captured photos of its churches all over the country, their ornate crosses reaching high above the trees, building, and hills that encircled them. I visited the Ethnological Museum in Addis Ababa, where I studied the caricature-like religious paintings and learned about the development in styles of hand crosses. I read the guide book, where I learned that Ethiopians particularly revered the Virgin Mary, and that they had a large collection of saints and stories unfamiliar to the rest of Christianity.

Churches from around Ethiopia.

You have to look closely to see this one.

A priest on the side of the highway collecting alms.

But I still didn’t feel I had a grasp of Ethiopian Orthodoxy. A piece of the puzzle was eluding me.

I am standing on a hill overlooking Bet Giyorgis, the most famous of all of Lalibela’s churches. Saint George Church stands alone, carved down into its own rocky mountain in the form of a Greek cross. The sun is rising to my left, illuminating the highlands of Ethiopia that roll out onto the land as far as the eye can see. Below me, two priests, clad in colourful gold-bordered vestments, are reading from the Bible under the shade of an equally colourful umbrella. Around them are dozens of white-clad believers prostrating themselves before the priest, the cross-shaped church, and the holy hills. I am witnessing Sunday Mass as it has been played out here for almost a millennium.

Sunday morning mass in Lalibela.

Bet Giyorgis, the most photographed of Lalibela’s churches.

Ethiopians claim deep roots between their land and their religion. They say that Ethiopia was settled by Ethiopic, the great-grandson of Noah. They assert that there are at least thirty references to Ethiopia (or “Abyssinia,” the old name of the country) in the Old Testament. And most of all, they believe that the holy Ark of the Covenant (the tablet of law given to Moses by God on Mt. Sinai) has rested safely in Ethiopia for more than a thousand years.

This story goes all the way back to the Queen of Sheba (who may or may not have existed). This Ethiopian Queen supposedly went to Jerusalem and had a child with King Soloman. Menelik (“son of the king”) became the first great Solomonic king of Ethiopia, a line that is claimed to have ruled almost unbroken until the 1970s (an impossibility). When Menelik went to Jerusalem, he returned to Ethiopia with the son of a high priest of the temple of Jerusalem, who carried with him the Ark of the Covenant.

No one has seen the Ark inside Ethiopia, and history lost track of it over a thousand years ago. But Ethiopians believe it is resting in the inner sanctuary of the Church of Saint Mary in Axum. And as with all things religion, their faith is enough.

Faith is what propelled the creation of the churches of Lalibela in the 12^th century. In a dream, King Lalibela was inspired to recreate Jerusalem in his own country. In twenty three years, and with the help of angels, King Lalibela had eleven churches carved down into three separate mountains. Four of the churches were completely freed from the mountain rock around them, one was carved out of a cave (made for Queen Lalibela in a single night with the help of angels), and several underground passageways connected the churches.

Bet Amanuel, a monolithic, or free-standing, church.

The courtyard around Bet Giyorgis.

Posing at the entrance of Bet Uraiel.

We are walking down the longest passageway. It is pitch-black. I have my left hand on our guide’s shoulder as my right hand glides along the wall of the tunnel. My hair skims the ceiling. All I can do is walk forward and wait for the light.

That is the point of the tunnel. This particular passage, between Bet Gabriel-Raphael and Bet Merkorios, represents Hell. The light at the end of the tunnel represents Heaven. It certainly feels heavenly to emerge into the bright courtyard of Bet Merkorios.

Emerging from one of the many tunnels connecting the churches of Lalibela.

I enter the church. It’s not nearly as large as it looks from the outside. This church is typical of the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela – arched ceilings, a few faded paintings displayed haphazardly, a wearied priest leaning on a prayer stick. The walls and entranceways have been smoothed and darkened by the hands and socked feet of centuries of believers. A smell of incense that I recognize from my Catholic days sits in the still air.

The inside of the church is divided into three sections – the holy room, the chanting area, and the sanctuary. The sanctuary is the private area of the priest, and is always hidden by a bright satin curtain. Behind the curtain lie the treasures – scriptures, crosses, and most importantly, the tabot. This is the sacred part of the church for Ethiopians – in fact, the church itself isn’t sacred. The tabot is a wooden representation of the Ark of the Covenant, and every church in Ethiopia has one.

The area of offerings to the Virgin Mary.

The interior of Bet Medhane Alem.

With the exception of Bet Maryan – dedicated to the much-beloved Virgin Mary – the interior of Lalibela’s churches aren’t spectacular. There are very few [remaining?] frescoes, the ceilings are undecorated, and the walls – which still display the carving marks from tools – seem almost unfinished.

We have to drive two hours away from Lalibela to witness a church with an intricately designed interior. Yemrehanna Kristos was created by an earlier king of the Zagwe Dynasty in the hills where that dynasty had ruled for hundreds of years. Several remote churches and monasteries dot the hills of Northern Ethiopia, but this church is a particularly well-preserved example of the Axumite style. Since we weren’t going to Axum, we decide to visit.

Despite being built less than a hundred years before the rock-hewn churches of Lalibela, Yemrehanna Kristos couldn’t feel more different. For one thing, it’s not rock hewn – it is built into the mouth of a cave hidden in forested hills. The exterior walls are made of alternating wood and stone layers. And, of course, almost every inch of the interior is decorated.

Yemrehanna Kristos.

The cave (with an ugly wall recently built for security) that contains Yemrehanna Kristos.

The ceiling of Yemrehanna Kristos.

The grounds around the church are dark. We feel our way to the back of the cave, where bats coexist with a mound of bones of those who asked to be buried here. Inside the church, the wooden walls and ceiling display a variety of geometric patterns, each of them integrating a different type of cross. The windows display different styles of crosses, too.

I hadn’t known that there were so many different types of crosses. In Lalibela, our guide, Abay, had pointed out Greek crosses (four equal sides), Roman crosses (a longer tail), Scottish and Maltese crosses, and even a swastika (reportedly used during the rise of Islam so that Christians could hide their religion from the Muslims while still wearing the symbol of Jesus). To this day, many Amharic women tattoo crosses onto their foreheads, temples, and wrists as a form of protection, and on Sunday morning, ash crosses are drawn onto foreheads of believers.

A tiny bit of ceiling of Yemrehanna Kristos.

I didn’t capture the cross tattoes, but I did snap a photo of these young girls coming back from Sunday mass in Lalibela.

The faithful buried at Yemrehanna Kristos.

The priest at Yemrehanna Kristos shows off his Axumite cross for a photo. It’s large and detailed, with circular patterns. A few days before, I’d seen an example of a Lalibela-style cross, the Gold Cross, by chance in Bet Medhane Alem. The Gold Cross is 7kg of pure gold, which is probably why it was stolen in 1997. It was later located, repurchased, and returned to Lalibela, whereby the priest of Bet Medhane Alem decided only to display it on special occasions.

My visit to Lalibela is evidently such an occasion, because as I walk into the church, the priest pulls the cross out and allows believers to kiss the cross and receive its blessing, giving me the opportunity to look at its symbolism. The twelve apostles stand in an arch along the top, dove wings flap along the sides, and the center cross is formed by four sets of angel wings.

The priest at Yemrehanna Kristos showing me his Axumite-style cross.

The Gold Cross of Bed Medhane Alem.

Crosses are far from the only symbolism I see that day in Lalibela. A series of ten arches outside one curch represent God’s Ten Commandments. The four sets of three pillars in a courtyard represent the holy trinity and the twelve apostles. There is the tomb of Adam, and those of the apostles. The River Jordan runs between the two church clusters. An entire church represents Mt. Sinai!

In the end, though, it isn’t the symbolism that makes me finally grasp the essence of Ethiopian Orthodoxy. It is experiencing ancient rituals alive today. The insides of the church feels like they are breathing, so vibrating are they with chanting and the slow rhythm of the drums. Priests and monks contemplate the same walls as a thousand years ago, and believers still wear the rock smooth and thin with their prayers and prostrations. Faith is everywhere – in the kissing of walls and hand-crosses, in the reading-aloud from mini prayer books, in the ancient stories Abay tells us with conviction, and in the white netelas, wrapped tightly around devoted bodies.

Sunday morning chanting in the courtyard outside Bet Maryam.

A monk admiring the ornate ceilings of Bet Maryam.

Christmas may be another two weeks away in Ethiopia, but their faith is as alive as if it were Christmas in Ethiopia today, too.