“This eclectic community with over 200 art galleries and shops combine with those breathtaking views has always had an almost magnetic draw.  An astonishing list of top-notch lodging choices, highly touted restaurants and a cornucopia of intriguing activities abound. . . . “

To see the article in all its splendor, download the article PDF here: don-ann-jackson_sausalito.

Wrangell/St. Elias National Park, Alaska (photo © Nancy Hoyt Belcher)

“After years of feeling jealous when friends raved about their bear sightings in Alaska, I finally had my turn. And what a turn—not just a chance sighting where the bear is a speck on the horizon but frequent close-up encounters.

“When I reached the Anan Wildlife Observatory viewing shelter, a mother black bear was rubbing her shoulder against the trunk of a Sitka spruce less than 10 feet from the stairs to the platform while her cub peered down from an overhead branch.

“I waited until mom ambled away before I went up the stairs to the platform then peered straight down at the cascading falls of Anan Creek where three bears perching on boulders watched salmon leap up the river. Every so often, a paw would sweep swiftly into the water and bring up a meal.

“From early July to September, Anan Creek, an ancient Tlingit fishing site located on the northern shore of the Cleveland Peninsula, hosts the largest pink salmon run in southeast Alaska. The fish, in turn, host (so to speak) large concentrations of black bears and bald eagles, as well as some grizzlies. . .”

To read all of her tale where “it’s easy to get off the radar on Wrangell Island. Take the ferry–with your RV–and make port in a place where bears outnumber people,” click on Highways here.

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The Trans-Siberia Railroad still sports an old-school red star. (photos © Bill Fink)

Aboard the Trans-Siberian Railroad — The Chechnya war veteran barged into my rail car cabin, flashing an evil grin.

The old tractor driver followed him, cradling a brown paper bag and a stained metal cup. They pulled a bottle of vodka from the bag. The cap came off, and it wouldn’t go back on again. I knew the drill.

It was just before noon, somewhere in the Ural Mountains, my sixth day aboard Russia’s Trans-Siberian Railroad.

Ninety years ago to the week, the last czar, Nicholas II, traveled on my same path from St. Petersburg to Siberia. He and his family ended up shot, burned, doused in acid and dumped in a mine shaft. I was hoping for a better outcome on my trip to explore the new Russia on this old route.

At my group’s meeting point in St. Petersburg station, Lenin’s bust was long gone, replaced by one of Peter the Great. Only blocks away, Nicholas II had been snatched from his palace during the 1917 revolution and sent away under guard by train. The “guard” for my trip was waiting by the statue.

Maria was literally an Intrepid guide (from the Australian company of the same name), a far cry from the propaganda-spouting old Soviet Intourist handlers. She was a young local who shared our rail cabins, vodka and surprises as we traced the path of the last czar to the literal end of his line in Siberia.

About 100 people cram into a 2-foot-wide hallway, sitting, lying and standing in one of the train's cars.

We departed on the night train to Moscow, where we would connect with the Tran-Siberian. I entered the rail car a bit before midnight and felt like I was on a prison train to summer camp. There were 100 people crammed into a 2-foot-wide hallway, tossing bedclothes, linens and provisions all over beds, tables and each other.

Each rail car had 15 doorless alcoves, each with two sets of bunk beds that left everyone’s feet hanging in the hallway. Two more beds folded out from the hallway wall, which meant every six people shared a space 10 feet long and 5 feet wide.

I entered my alcove to stumble upon the Three Stooges of Siberia. Three thick men in their 50s sat jammed together on one bunk, their reddened eyes and raised voices indicating a pretrain tailgate. They smelled like a combination of cheap vodka, sausage and sweat. Maria took one look at them, turned to me and said “Welcome to genuine Russia experience. Good luck.” And she left.

The first Russian shouted at me jovially, then waved his hand in disgust like Curly when I didn’t understand him. I unfurled a map of the United States to show them where I was from. Curly jammed his finger in the middle of the map and shouted “Baikul! Baikul!” The man next to him with the gold teeth and bad haircut (Moe) whacked him upside the head, saying (presumably): “That’s Lake Michigan, you idiot!” The third, more scholarly, man with bifocals (Larry) peeked at the map until Curly roughly grabbed the glasses off his head to look for himself.

When we ran out of phrase-book discussion topics (“Beer is good. I like soccer”) I stepped briefly into the hallway and was blinded by sight of a 250-pound, middle-aged woman stripping nearly naked to change into her PJs. I returned to the alcove, made my bed and hid under the covers. The steady “ca-chunk ca-chunk ca-chunk” of the tracks drowned out the ongoing stooge-fest and lulled me to sleep.

Endless birch and pine trees

Passengers get off the Trans-Siberian Railroad train to shop for snacks from vendors.

After a 6 a.m. change of trains in Moscow, I watched blurred birch and pine trees whiz by outside for hours. For two days it was the same view, as if I were on a treadmill instead of a train. It reminded me of an ill-advised college bus trip I once took from Michigan to Wyoming. We kept drinking, passing out and waking up shocked to find we were still in Nebraska, convinced the bus driver was punishing us by driving in circles.

I walked the halls until I bumped into a wiry looking tough staring out at the trees with that “thousand-yard stare” they talk about in war movies. He was an ex-paratrooper who had spent the ’70s in Vietnam, the ’80s in Afghanistan and the ’90s in prison. “But he went to prison for a story some other people made up, so don’t worry,” said my guide, who was translating. The man lifted up his shirt to display a topographical map of scars covering most of his torso, then asked me why I wasn’t afraid to travel in Russia.

The violent past of Russia was evident in our stop in Yekaterinburg, the site of the execution of the czar and his family during the Russian Revolution. Two thousand miles from St. Petersburg, it was truly the end of the line for the Romanov dynasty, but only the beginning of insights for us visitors.

On the execution site of the czar there now stands a hulking Russian Orthodox cathedral that our guide said cost more than $200 million to build. Inside the ornate church, golden icons celebrate each Romanov family member, and even decorate a holy relic of one of the children’s teeth. In a bizarre turn of events, Czar Nicholas II, the last of the oppressive monarchs who drove his people to revolution, has been declared a saint by the Russian Orthodox Church, along with his entire family. I imagined Lenin’s embalmed body was spinning so rapidly in his grave that he has launched into a Sputnik-like orbit.

Travelers buy their fixings - the dining car wasn't popular.

Pilgrims filled the cathedral grounds in commemoration of the 90th anniversary of the execution. We arrived just as a convoy of Mercedes limos unloaded the bearded and robed hierarchy of the Orthodox Church into a mob of ring-kissing babushkas. Some ultranationalists gathered on the church steps wearing T-shirts that said “I am a True Russian! Glory to Russia!” They waved the old imperial flag and chanted slogans in support of the Romanovs.

Our guide said dismissively, “People should not wear such shirts. All of this,” she waved at the church, the priests and the pilgrims, “is just about money and power, like everything.”

The czar’s final stop

We traveled farther into Siberia to reach Tobolsk, the town where the czar and his family spent their last months under house arrest. We visited the home where caretakers had re-created the scene as it was in 1918. I asked the host what she thought of the czar and his execution. She said, carefully, “As a human, I feel sad for his family being killed. But if the czar did crimes, then I believe he should have been punished.”

From there we took a bus for hours into rural Russia. We were 2,500 miles from St. Petersburg, but still only halfway across the nation. The land opened into Montana-like big sky country. Cumulus clouds gathered like endless schools of fish, and purple bursts of wildflowers colored wide-open fields. We spotted herds of cattle, wandering goats and sheep tended by gnarled old shepherds.

The bus stopped to spit us out into an expanse of blank farmland. Like exiles, we unloaded our bags in the middle of nowhere, with only the smell of manure to keep us company. I half-expected KGB guards to appear, hand me a shovel and tell me to get to work.

But it was the place for a pre-arranged rendezvous. A friendly couple eventually drove up in a Lada to take us to our final destination, the village of Pokrovskoye. It is infamous as the birthplace of Rasputin, the “mad monk” who with alleged mystical powers helped to corrupt and destroy the government of Czar Nicholas II.

There wasn’t anything particularly magical about the village, a no-stoplight outpost of a couple thousand hardy souls who endure 100-degree heat all summer and months of darkness and 40-below temperatures in winter. Gardens surrounded wooded houses alternately painted up pretty, or sagging from neglect, depending on the farming families’ fortunes.

We stayed with a family who had no running water, a house buzzing with flies and a 15-year-old daughter who spent the day texting her friends on her cell phone.

Unlike exiles, we were able to “quickly” return from Siberia to Moscow via a three-hour bus ride and 38 straight hours on the train.

On my sixth overall day on the train, I met the Chechnyan war vet and his friend. We finished two bottles of vodka with military precision: Pour shot. Bite pickle. Chug vodka. Chew black bread. Slam down cup for refill. Repeat.

Shooting gun out window

After we polished off the first bottle, the vet pantomimed shooting his gun out the window, then snatched a gulp out of his stained metal cup. He pointed at the cup and held up eight fingers to show how many years he had kept it at his side since he carried it into battle in Chechnya.

The vodka and the train’s bouncing made me morose. It seemed that there was no “end of the line.” The train was just tracing a back-and-forth path over hundreds of years of conflict. The Romanovs had been reborn as right-wing nationalist saints, and the wars of the past were returning in new places with new names.

But as we approached Moscow, the vet drank the last vodka in his cup and held it in front of himself, reflecting. Then he put his hand on his heart and gave the cup to me. He pointed to the scenery outside, his friend and our cabin, then to the cup to imply it should hold better memories for me than it did for him.

The now shiny cup sits on my desk at home, one small piece of the past that has finally reached the end of the line.

Five cool things about the Trans-Siberian Railroad

1. A Movable Feast: Buy local specialties at every train stop (at least during summer). Vendors will offer a smorgasbord of fresh produce including: berries, gingerbread cookies, veggies, fish, meat pies, chilled beer and sodas. Between some stops, merchandise vendors will hop on board, hawking shawls, lace, and other handmade products.

2. The route spans 5,771 miles from Moscow to Vladivostok.It would take you 170 hours – a little over a week – to ride it directly from end to end, so bring a book. In comparison, the longest U.S. train ride, from New York to Los Angeles, via New Orleans, is 3,420 miles.

3. The train covers eight time zones, but the train itself and the official schedule stays on Moscow time, which can be quite confusing when you leave the train and look at station clocks.

4. The railway took 26 years to build and was finished in 1916. It cost 1.4 billion rubles (equivalent to Russia’s cost of World War I) and the lives of uncounted thousands of slave laborers.

5. Temperatures along the route can range from 60 below zero in winter to well above 100 degrees in the summer.

If you go:

TOURS

I’m not usually one for group tours, but in Russia it can be helpful to have a translator and a company to deal with visa hassles and travel arrangements. Intrepid Travel offers a number of train-based Russia trips, including the one I went on (“Footsteps of the Czars,” 18 days, $3,600; two departures a month between April and October) which combined the rail trip with city visits, with all internal transport and lodging and some food covered. Intrepid’s more basic Trans-Siberian Railroad trip covers the entire country over 21 days for $2,435.

INDEPENDENT TRAVEL

It’s certainly a possibility, although you need an official letter of invitation to get a visa to Russia. Many hotels can provide this letter, but travelers are officially required to register their visa in every town they visit. Finding people who speak English is pretty easy in big cities, tougher in the country. The Russian Cyrillic script on signs, schedules and tickets can also make independent travel tough, but you’ll decipher it over time.

FOOD

Trains have a dining car, with generally nasty food. Most Russians bring aboard vittles bought at markets or at train stops from vendors at the stations. Bread is always cheap, and beer can be had for the equivalent of a dollar at kiosks. But at a decent restaurant beers can run $10, entrees $30. I dropped $45 for lunch in a mall food court one day.

LODGING

Four to a compartment on trains, with bedrolls, fresh linen and rough wool blanket included. Hotels aren’t cheap in most cities (maybe $150 a night for a two-star Soviet-era dump) with Moscow recently ranking as the world’s most expensive city: Check out the Moscow Sheraton for $650 a night.

-- Bill Fink

“Why go now: Get a dollop of small-town nostalgia—and some of the best vintage shopping in southern Arizona to boot.
Vibe: Old West meets artsy.
Heyday: In the early 1900s, this mile-high copper town was one of the largest cities between St. Louis and San Francisco.
Second life: When the mines closed in the ’70s, it became an artists’ community. . . . “

Download the PDF to get all the info:
jennie-nunn_sunset_bisbee

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Welcome to the city Gourmet Ghetto, where the California food movement got its start. Decades later, it’s still an epicurean’s Eden. Nosh on some of the neighborhood’s best on Lisa Rogovin’s walking tour.

Even if I don’t eat Velveeta, you couldn’t call me a dedicated foodie; I just like eating good food. So, every so often, I treat myself to a little culinary tour to sample special treats .

“Food makes sense to everyone,” says “epicurean concierge” Lisa Rogovin, “even if you’re not a foodie.

It makes more sense after spending three hours with her in January as she led a walking tour of Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto, the place where the California food movement got its start. Some may argue that Berkeley is also the end-all of the movement, but it’s certainly not the be-all.

Up and down the Golden State, visitors are flocking to culinary tours. “I didn’t invent the wheel,” Rogovin says. Paying homage to California’s culinary creativity and its dominance as an agricultural state, they’re sampling chocolate in Sonoma, authentic Italian gelato in Old Pasadena and tortillas in San Diego.

Some say Peet’s Coffee & Tea started the movement in 1966, along with the Cheese Board, to shape Berkeley’s taste for sustainably sourced, organic and fresh ingredients. This mini-explosion happened five years before Alice Waters opened Chez Panisse Restaurant, known to locals as a neighborhood bistro, in the north Berkeley area.

Food, glorious food, is mostly what the Gourmet Ghetto is all about.

It’s an enjoyable area to walk. Its main thoroughfare, Shattuck Avenue, with sidewalk tables and chairs sheltered by trees, gives it a small-town feel.

It’s even better as a stroll with a gourmet guide. Rogovin has offered her weekly three-hour tasting tour since 2007. She had worked for Gourmet magazine and started culinary tours for Ritz-Carlton. After selling her house and doing the “eat-pray-love routine” in 2005 and 2006 — 14 countries in 10 months — she returned and expanded her tours.

A group of us — eight women and one guy — assemble in front of the Cheese Board Collective, which Rogovin calls “the cornerstone of the Gourmet Ghetto.” We introduce ourselves and discover that we share a love of food, but not all the participants consider themselves serious about it.

Rogovin brings out two small wheels of Cowgirl Creamery cheese, the Mt. Tam and the Red Hawk, and spreads them on crusty bread while she explains the collective movement. All the people who work at the Cheese Board Collective are members; there is no boss or manager, and all collect the same salary. They are experts in their business — the more than 300 kinds of cheese the store stocks. They also make bread and sell olives, coffee and pastries.

Two doors down, patrons at the Cheese Board Pizza Collective have spilled outside to sit at small tables and eat pizzas while live music floats out of the open windows.

We head down Shattuck, some of us still nibbling our bread and cheese, to Saul’s Restaurant & Delicatessen. This time, we sit at a table and sample locally made full- and half-sour pickles. Peter Levitt, Saul’s co-owner, hands us small pastramis on rye. He says Los Angeles claims to be No. 1 in the state for pastrami, but he thinks his is just as good. In fact, he thinks his is better because it’s served on a dark Acme bread (another locally made product). “L.A. bread sticks to the roof of your mouth,” Levitt says.

We walk one block to the original Peet’s at Walnut and Vine streets. Dutch immigrant Alfred Peet opened it in 1966 because he thought Americans were consuming poor-quality coffee. The store looks similar to just about every other Peet’s in the world, and it smells scrumptious.

Its general manager, java connoisseur Scott Soohoo, tells us all about coffee in general and Peet’s in particular. His spiel is a bit too long, but I learn that it’s better to use a gold cone, not paper filters, and to freeze, not refrigerate, my coffee beans (but subsequently, I couldn’t tell any difference).

After I buy my half-pound package of whole bean Sumatra Blue Batak coffee, the group walks back down Vine Street to the Juice Bar Collective, a hole-in-the wall that sells organic food and juices. It’s not big enough to hold us all, so Rogovin brings us a sample from the fresh everyday menu: a large wedge of black bean polenta and Cheddar cheese casserole. We stand on the sidewalk and approve.

We wash it down with a glass of Merlot from Vintage Berkeley, across the street, where about 125 bottles of limited-production wines are for sale from small importers, local wineries and independent distributors around the world. None costs more than $25.

Then it’s on to Love at First Bite, hidden upstairs at the back of a small group of stores on Walnut. The aroma of freshly baked goodies elicits gasps and proves that we’re all lovers of the sweet stuff.

Owner Pat Powell makes everything from scratch, using the finest ingredients — Mexican vanillas, Callebaut and Schokinag chocolates, real butter, milk and eggs from local dairies. Her most popular cupcake is the Red Velvet, made with cocoa and buttermilk and topped with cream cheese frosting; it’s smooth, moist and dark, and you’ll want a second one. What’s not to love?

We head downstairs, back to Shattuck Avenue and the Epicurious Garden and its eight fine food businesses. The building, which dates to 1916, when it was a movie theater, has been remodeled with benches and a garden; it’s a nice place to relax and eat your purchases.

Our first stop inside is Soop, where co-owner Marc Kelley hands us cups Thai red lentil with coconut soup. It’s flavorful and only mildly hot. The soups, chowders and chilies here are all homemade and based on traditional recipes. The weekly menu changes depending on whatever farm-fresh produce is in season.

Our last stop is Alegio Chocolate, also in the Epicurious Garden. Alegio chocolates are a work of art. The elegant truffles ($29.50 for its signature box of nine) are made by hand with no preservatives or artificial ingredients.

Co-owner Panos Panagos cuts small pieces from bars of chocolate for us to taste — 100% chocolate (bitter but edible), 80% (“The purest made today,” he says), 75% with ginger, 75% with orange peel, 73.5% with cacao nibs.

We’re overwhelmed. “It’s one thing for me to talk,” Panagos says. “It’s another for you to taste.”

– Nancy Hoyt Belcher

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While back in the states the day before Easter they were soaking eggs in pastel pink, yellow, green and blue baths, we were rolling into the small Sicilian town of Partanna to see the Crucifixion up close. We found parking on a street with the enticing name Via Circeo – that powerful witch – and walked the curving roadway past a bakery, a tobacconist, a grocery. Drifting through the green plastic strands which shielded a doorway floated the distinct presence of cheese – maybe bel paese or taleggio – pungent, clean and salty.

“I love this, Maia,” I enthused to my cousin once removed. “At home, everything comes sealed in plastic.” Here foods were properly worshipped, displayed on marble stands, their holy essences sifting through the air. Here, the cheese stood alone.

A sign read Macelleria – butcher store. Oh-oh. We were eyeball to glazed eyeball, face to muzzle with twelve furry baby goats, killed and hung in a row along the outside wall, their abdomens split open, intestines stolen away.

“I capretti,” Maia informed me. “Eaten at Easter time.”

“We don’t see this at home,” I stammered. They were hanging by their necks, for Christ’s sake. Their delicate hoofs dangled, purplish-grey, little feet of Pan. And their heads, with tiny budding horns.

“It makes the meat more tender. We eat them only once a year.” Maia kept up her steady clip along the street. “Ehh, cara mia, one way or another, animals are killed so that we can eat. It’s just that way.”

“I know, but…”

We’d turned into a crowded piazza where an outdoor stage had been erected. Loudspeakers blasted a warped recording of a Handel oratorio to get us in a melodramatic mood. Two palm fronds like green parentheses framed the Doric-columned facade at stage rear. Whitewashed walls reflected brilliant morning light. The sound grew more and more distorted each time the piece played, three, four, five times on a loop. Everyone milled around and chattered, the adults and the kids using hand gestures. I laughed aloud at a three-year-old looking up at her parents and protesting something with both her hands flying.

“The play we will see derives from secular theater originally performed in the street: the annunciation, the birth of Gesu, or in this case, the tribunal,” explained Maia.

“Mm-hmm. I’m grateful that you are such a historian.”

“Historian, boh. I have lived my whole life here, naturally I take an interest in the past.”

Eventually Il Spettacolo began. The cast of dozens, young men, mimed the action while a booming, disembodied voice narrated. Jeering Hebrews in floor-length woven robes, headdresses and sandals; glowering Roman guards wearing metal breastplates and helmets; the Jerusalemites straining to listen, brows wrinkled, then loudly protesting; the Apostles huddling to one side. Pontius Pilate delivered his speech, stabbing the stage with his spear, gold robes glistening in the sun. Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana pounded from the speakers.

Jesus appeared, manacled, dressed in a white robe, long blond hair, head lowered. They condemned him. The stage crowd showed no mercy, shrieking, hurling styrofoam rocks which bounced off his chest. Some spectators cried out, “Traitors, traitors!” Kids ran around playing tag. The guards stripped off Christ’s robe to reveal him pasty and naked except for a demure white loincloth. They tied his wrists to the wall,and two henchmen came forward to whip him. His body snapped with each lash. During one spasm the blond wig flew off, exposing the actor’s close-cropped black hair. Oh Christ. The audience guffawed. Maia shot me a bemused look. Jesus continued to recoil with each blow, enduring this new humiliation. A pre-recorded rooster crowed three times. An extra in a red costume climbed down off the stage, retrieved the wig from outstretched hands and rushed over to fit it back on him.

They pushed the Crown of Thorns onto his head, which began dripping stage blood. ECCE HOMO. He groaned, heaved the full weight of the cross on his shoulder and began to drag it, haltingly, out of the square. Mary Magdalene followed close behind, nearly horizontal with grief. The stage crowd formed a line after him. Electronic cymbals crashed.

“He carries the Cross and Life. He carries the Cross and Suffering. He carries the Cross and Humanity,” intoned the tremulous narrator.

We filed after the procession out the piazza down a long path, which truly seemed dispirited, the powdery earth having no color to it. We ended up on a broad field, littered everywhere with trash. At a distance we could see the action continuing on a hillside. Halfway up the slope two crosses had already been erected, two figures pre-crucified – not statues, but men – and between them, blond Jesus was being nailed to the cross. The hammering went on and on.

“They’re not using real spikes, are they?”

“No, we would never actually crucify anyone. What a notion!” Maia gaped at me.

“They do in the Phillippines,” I countered. “I read it somewhere.”

“Well, maybe there, but here, it is an honor to simply share in the pain, to relive the agony of the Savior,” she whispered, “in a metaphorical sense.”

For long, excruciating minutes Gesu Cristo leaned at forty-five degrees while his tormentors struggled to keep the cross from tipping over. Next to me a mother unwrapped a prosciutto sandwich and handed it to her child. He grabbed it and, never taking his eyes off the Passion, sank his teeth in. Finally they hoisted the crucifix vertically. The crowd murmured, the music swelled. Maia motioned to another part of the hill where Judas hung by his neck from a tree. Shrubs hid his feet. The loudspeaker droned on. Picnics were produced all around, salami sliced with pocket knives, olives chewed and pits spit out, the lazy hiss as Arancina bottletops were unstoppered.

Maia shifted from one foot to the other. “Would you like to stay a little longer?” She shielded her eyes from the sun.

“What happens next?”

“He doesn’t die till three. They will remain crucified on the hillside all afternoon, until a certain time tonight when the body will be taken down, and placed in a secret cave in the mountain.”

“Let’s go then, shall we?”

“Oh-kay.” She enjoyed using the popular American expression.

While returning to the square, two actors in Hebrew costumes passed us, nonchalantly carrying a huge cross back to the stage. To props? They didn’t struggle at all with its weight, for it was made of balsa wood. They passed so close that a splinter snagged a wool thread in Maia’s jacket and I carefully unhooked her while the Hebrews held still, apologizing to the signora, chatting in Sicilian. A Roman guard on a motorcycle buzzed by with his skirts flapping, spraying us with dust from the road. We returned down Circe’s street of the goats. I kept my eyes fixed on the sidewalk when we passed the butcher’s.

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Two days later, Pasquetta, Little Easter, dawned delicate pink, dainty as the inside of a seashell. Our final day of itinerary had us heading west for the hills to a festivity at a monastery, San Martino delle Scale. The outskirts of Palermo fell away; stone buildings here and there dotted the road. So when I spotted way up near a rocky summit a zigzag of new buildings – chunky boxes – teetering, I pointed.

“What’s that?”

Maia shook her head. “A government housing development. No one lives there. They haven’t completed it and they won’t.”

“Why’s that?”

She hesitated. “Mafia.”

“They look strange, wrong.”

“Oh yes. They are.”

“They don’t fit.”

“No.”

“They’re out of scale. Weird.”

“Yes.”

“Why would anyone want to live in such a place? So hard to get to up there.”

“No one would.”

“But then why build it?”

She rubbed her thumb and fingers together, a muscle in her jaw pulsing. Maybe I’d get the hang of not asking upsetting questions one of these days. The twisting road dipped into a pine forest. Wisps of bluish smoke floated through the trees.

“Look. Do you see?”

“A forest fire?”

“Not at all. It’s picnickers stoking fires to roast artichokes, another of our traditions. Hours are required to prepare the coals, to heat them red hot, to let them cool to white before burying the carcioffi.”

Wow, getting up in the dark to do a choke justice, now that’s devotion. “I’ve tasted them cooked so many different ways, but never from underground.”

“Then you shall, today.”

“Primo dug a pit?”

“Primo has the day off. We’ll be eating out today.”

“Ah.”

Maia left the car next to a cream-colored stone wall which enclosed the monastery. We followed a path alongside, her walking shoes clacking against the caked earth. As if someone had suddenly turned on the volume, we rounded a bend and came upon a slew of folkdancers, singers, musicians in a clearing. Accordions bellowed, tambourines shimmied, mouth harps twanged. Someone kept spinning a painted vase high into the air and catching it, again and again.

“What does the vase signify?”

Maia gave it some thought. “Happiness,” she finally replied.

Compared to the somberness of the previous celebrations, this was all gaiety and frolic. The resurrection had occurred, the weight lifted, Lent ended, and vases flew. We heard a song about a donkey –Lu me’ Sciccareddu– each time the singer heehawed the audience went wild. I had a little donkey, very dear, and then they killed him, my poor donkey. What a beautiful voice he had, like a great tenor, donkey of my heart, how can I ever forget you?

The dancers cavorted along the road we’d followed, beckoning us onlookers toward a piazza where a brass band and blastula-like bunches of red and yellow balloons bobbed in the breeze. Antique wooden horse carts painted in every bright color – the famous carretti siciliani that my grandmother of course had a two-inch version of on her windowsill – stood in a circle. The workhorses, all gussied up in magenta and green plumes, mirrored cloth, tassels and fringes, stamped and shook their heads, ringing little bells, raring to go. We moved in closer. Scenes of fierce battles and angelic visitations, dragons and steeds, paisleys and dots and portraits of saints, crowded every inch.

“Look underneath, Natalia, at Hell.” Carved devils, monsters with dangling tongues, winged beasts clung below.

“Fantastic.” I bent down to see the detail up close. Hell had no vacancy. Creatures crowded into every possible spot.

The drivers, wearing black caps and red pompons at their throats, cracked their whips and the wheels began to creak. Children in day-glo parkas, pinned in next to their grandfathers, peered over the sides. One cart, festooned with wildflowers and shafts of rye, carried a cage of songbirds and a wooden wine cask. A man following behind turned the spigot to dispense white wine into plastic cups a little bigger than thimbles, which he offered to everyone. “Made at home,” he smiled. “Good for the stomach. Don’t refuse it.”

Maia licked her lips. “Buono, no?”

And powerful as all get out, especially at 11:30 in the morning. The cart circled around again. We each accepted another thimbleful. This one went straight to the brain. All daytime wine drinking had to stop tomorrow, I affirmed. The circle being of modest size and the cask being full, we had a few more refills.

A priest wearing black-rimmed glasses clambered onto the cart, blessed the birdcage, reached inside and grabbed a few frantic, petite birds. He released them to the sky. They chirped deliriously and fluttered above our heads. He clutched another wriggling handful, and more birds swirled up into the sunshine. The crowd let out a cheer.

“I want to show you the Benedictine Abbey,” Maia announced. I followed her lethargically, heated up from five tablespoons of super-concentrate. Mass was in progress. Maia motioned that we squeeze in along the back wall onto the dark wooden benches. The congregation, mostly women, mumbled in response to the hypnotic Latin. Then a Gregorian chant, which fell and rose like a tide, reverberated from wall to wall. I sat marinating in the Gregorian scale, trying to decide whether it was more major key with a minor overlay, or minor with major. Or neither. Could there be such a key, neither major nor minor? “Only Gregory knows for sure,” I may have mentioned to the vibrating atmosphere.

Maia nodded along, hands folded, but then suddenly turned to me. “Time to eat.”

The smell of something baked had swung out into the piazza like secular incense. Good thing we nabbed the last empty table at the trattoria.

“Cameriere,” Maia raised her hand to a waiter squeezing by with three steaming plates of pasta balanced on each forearm. “A half liter of red wine, please.”

“Right away.”

“I’ve already had enough vino, Maia. Really, I’m kind of drunkish.”

“Don’t worry about it. Drink what you wish, if you wish, when you wish.”

Pasquetta frolickers and all their relatives jammed three dozen tables which the waiter worked alone. After forty days of Lent, they were starving and clamoring for his attention. Feed us. Feed us now.

Even my stoic cousin sighed relief when he finally showed up with the carafe and wineglass stems laced upside-down between his fingers, and leaned down to be heard over the din. “We offer holiday specialties today. Capretto. Carcioffo. Pasta al Forno San Martino. “

“Baby goat for each of us, Renata and an artichoke to share?”

I shook my head, trying to prevent the sight in front of the butcher store two days ago from returning.

“It’s traditional today, ” she lobbied, “you’ll like it.”

No goat. Never goat! I nearly hollered into the din. “I’m sure it’s delicious, but an artichoke is what I’ll have. The kind roasted underground, right?”

“Certainly. My brother in law and I stayed up last night making the pit. As a matter of fact, he’s still out there overseeing the operation. No first plates to begin with for you ladies? No pastas?”

No, but Maia pleaded for some bread before he raced off. We were grateful, desperate really, when he slid a plate of rounded rolls onto the table. My cousin grabbed one, tore it open. The crust cracked defiantly, curls of steam exhaled.

“Crunchy,” I broke open a roll. Its dough, stretchy, gave way, smooth and moist, flecked with bran.

“Perhaps you didn’t know that Sicily played breadbasket to the Roman Empire.”

“That’s amazing. I did not.” Two thousand years later the basket hadn’t emptied, Sicily kept giving of herself. Two thousand years later the bread kept breathing, body and soul.

Here,” Maia urged, “have a little to wet your throat while we wait. Salute.”

“Cin-cin.” I took a sip against better judgment, then bit into the crust. Golden durum semolina grown on the broad breast of the island’s interior, flung into last summer’s air to separate out the chaff, and ground between meter-wide stones; bubbly yeast kept teeming since Roman times; sea salt in sacks hauled by painted carts from the Tyrrhenian shore; water caught in a ceramic jug from the always splashing monastery spring – I tasted these immediate ingredients. How could a dough kneaded from them not effortlessly grow? Punched down – large and little gasps of air imprisoned inside – would it not triple in volume? Beaten down again, yea vanquished, would it not rise a second, a third time? Brushed with oil of olives from sacred groves, would it not meet its mysterious destiny – raw to cooked, matter to spirit – sealed inside the fiery oven, the rock rolled into place? Snatched at the right instant from that infernal heat, would it not thrust forth, to be borne triumphant on platters by monks (who had just completed their morning prayers, thus imparting a heightened spiritual zest to the loaves) through gardens respiring with spiky rosemary under the morning sun, and be delivered unto the trattoria’s back door in wrapped in cloth? And here kept warm next to the oven, guarded near Vesta’s sacred flame. This much you could – I did – taste in one mouthful. Everything alive. If a bite could bind a person to a place – to ensure becoming a part of it – this one bound me to the island. I was here for the duration. The reverse of Persephone, committed to hell because of the six pomegranate seeds she chewed, we bit into morsels of paradise.

“My carcioffo is probably still in the ground, down the mountain, miles away,” I yawned behind my hand.

Maia, was lost in studying the noisy room around us, consummate observer, anthropologist, cultural attache` to her own paesani. Every table had ordered before we did, and seated a full clan. Generations were crammed together, parents force-feeding toddlers, teenagers wolfing down pasta by the spoon and forkful, sleeping babies cradled by grandparents, everyone gabbing, laughing, eating, swallowing. The waiter oiled around the floor, delivering plates and platters, more bottles of water and wine. More bread and beer, bowls and bills.

So if artichokes took hours to roast, the brother in law, equipped with walkie-talkie, was probably just loading the baskets with the last of the blessed thistles onto a sciccareddu’s back right now. I relaxed into my chair with more vino. Treat the donkey well, give him a handful of hay and a drink from a trough, sing him the donkey song, and take your time because, man, those tenors were tiny beasts of burden. I could wait – we had Bread and Wine. An excellent sacramental appetizer. An old favorite. A meal really. A religion. I refilled Maia’s glass and added a few centimeters to my own.

The waiter was nowhere in the dining room. I took another roll, broke through the crackly crust stratas, pulled at the elastic, steamy dough, probed and pinched the warm mass. There must be a technical name for the meeting of crust and dough, brown and white, a baking term for the realm between exterior and interior… the body and spirit… the dead to the living.

“You know, both my sisters have an allergy to wheat. Can you imagine life without bread?” I asked, my mouth full.

“Why? What happens to them?”

“Oh, they get sleepy, lethargic, yawn I lot. I’m so lucky to have escaped it.”

“I should say.” She drained the carafe.

“They even get disoriented,” I kept chewing.

The waiter stood over us with plates, trying to remember who ordered what: sacrificial kid goat and the huge vegetable, like a baked green crown, The capretto smelled sort of barbecued.

“Buon appetito, ladies.”

I loosened the first outer charred leaf off the subterranean globe – rounded like a basilica dome – and nibbled its meatiness, bittersweet and mineral. Though seared in a mini-inferno, it hadn’t given up any moist ghost. I plucked my way through complexity, spiralling in, the marinade of lemon and olive oil, mint, crushed garlic yielding up.

“Fabulous! So delicious I can’t tell you.”

“Would you care to taste the meat?”

“No, no. I’ve got this.”

We savored without conversing, the best way to manage in such a loud room. A person achieves something engaging with an artichoke, Does any other vegetable in the world have a built-in goal? Leaf, leaf, leaf, leaf, leaf, leaf, leaf, thicker to thinner, exterior to interior, then the prize of the huge heart. All those roasting hours made this apotheosis. At the end I was just sated, full of Sicily’s generous fruits. When the waiter set our bill down I grabbed it, but my cousin fixed me with a no-nonsense look and demanded the slip.

“Maia, you must stop treating me as a guest, or for sure I’ll get on your nerves very quickly.”

“We have to eat.”

“Exactly, and here’s my contribution to that effort.”

“I don’t want to hear another word about it,” she stood, brushed the crumbs off

her lap and firmly pulled the slip from my fingers. The woman was not to be messed with.

We crossed the empty piazza, strewn with plastic winecups, peanut shells, shreds of burst balloons and horse manure, and circled the cream-colored monastery walls to her Fiat. We were well on our way down to Palermo, past the Mafia-Nightmare architecture up on the crest when a herd of goats – leaping, stumbling, tripping and glorious – filled the road. The unruly carpet of fur and horns that maaa-ed insisted upon right of way. Maia turned off the motor and nodded. She knew the score.

– Natalie Galli

Chang, who worked in hospitality, found the industry wasteful. This realization and his growing consciousness of the environment got him dreaming of a hotel that used the best practices and technology for sustainability. Gaia is that dream come true. The word Gaia means “mother nature.”

The hotel is the first in the world to receive Gold LEED certification. (LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. There are four levels—basic, silver, gold and platinum. I don’t know if any place has achieved platinum.)

I found this description of LEED Certification on the U.S. Green Building Council:

LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across all the metrics that matter most: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.

What’s cool are three monitors in Gaia’s lobby that track the hotel’s minute by minute consumption of water and electricity, and its emission of CO2.

Ben Bingman, the director of marketing, took us on a tour of Gaia’s sustainable practices. First off, the swans in the courtyard lagoon (in front of the pool) were hiding, apparently nesting and expecting little swans but not receiving visitors. The lagoon is its own ecosystem, using recycled water. Birds come and go; one troublesome heron actually gobbles up a fish now and then.

As we rambled along behind Ben, he told us Gaia’s long list of sustainable practices. Here are a couple I found interesting.

The sealants, adhesives and paints they use have low VOC. So here’s another Internet explanation for you, this time from RemodelQA:

VOCs stands for Volatile Organic Compounds. These photo-chemical compounds react in the air we breathe, creating ground level ozone (smog). VOCs may continue to react in the air we breathe for days, months and even years. These harmful gases are emitted by conventional paints, stains, solvents, and many more toxic substances. VOC related air pollution causes eye, nose, throat and skin irritations, leading to respiratory problems, headaches and/or nausea. Prolonged contact with VOCs can lead to liver and kidney cancers, as well as damage to the central nervous system (brain).

All bathrooms use recycled tiles and granite and the toilets offer up a one-gallon flush, but Ben showed us it’s a hearty flush; solar panels provide energy, and the lumber used is part of an international management of forests program. There are even grates at all building entrances that suck up dust particulates, keeping them from getting inside. These amazing Solatube Tubular skylights, which magnify the sun’s rays, light up the lobby, the conference rooms and most of the interior building during the day.

And the list goes on and on. But we chuckled when we saw the book Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore sitting like a Bible in every room. They appeared well read. Maybe Mr. Chang is gaining converts to his sustainable mission.

One great perk to Gaia is it the cost. Yes, it is 11 miles to downtown Napa, but its also miles cheaper to stay here, and the rooms are lovely. Typical rates off-season are $109 a night and on season $149. But then there are AAA and senior discounts as well as packages. Wine tours come to the hotel for pick up and, of course, there’s more.

– Sandy Sims
BATW Program Chair

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Pozos, Mexico (all photos © Lee Daley)

While spending a week in San Miguel de Allende, a city in the Mexican highlands that I love, I heard stories of a nearby ghost town that has gained new footing as a haven for artists.  My curiosity was piqued by local expats around town, mostly retired Americans now living in San Miguel, who  told me that the former mining colony of Mineral de Pozos was being repopulated by a small number of Mexicans, Europeans and Americans drawn to the city’s austere beauty, reasonable housing prices and serene, small town atmosphere.  I was intrigued.

Some quick research revealed that this newly minted mini hot spot was once a rollicking melting pot of some 50,000 inhabitants, all involved in silver mining and smelting, an industry fueled initially by Jesuit ingenuity and Indian labor and later by European miners. When the minerals eventually played out — several gold and silver bonanzas occurred from roughly 1576 through the Mexican Revolution of 1910 —  the population dwindled, leaving behind abandoned houses, mine workings and a good-sized unfinished church. Today’s population fluctuates between 1,000 and 4,000 people.  I soon booked two nights at one of Pozos’ three inns and arranged a car hire.  Pozos was only a thirty-five-mile drive away.

Clean mountain air accompanied the drive.  At 7,500 feet above sea level the town sits in the opening of a mountainous ridge. En route we passed clumps of huge old mesquite trees tucked into gently rolling hills.  The sight of ruins draped in vines, along with long neglected centuries old haciendas, in such a primal desert landscape evoked a sense of time and place reminiscent of Tuscany colored by a Mexican paintbrush.  Georgia O’Keefe would have loved it.

Upon arrival in town, I wondered what to expect in the way of lodging at the recommended Posada de Las Minas.  Would I be spending the night in a ruin or a modern upstart out of place with Pozos’ almost mystical persona?  The posada sat at the top of a slight rise.  Below it, the dome of the historic San Pedro Church rose above the town plaza and my first wish was for a room with a view of the dome.

Upon entering the front door of the posada, I did a double take.  Built in the courtyard style, a grand upper level veranda, draped in bougainvillea and open to the sky above, looked down upon a large al fresco dining area.  Overhead a retractable roof provided shelter in case of inclement weather.  Innkeeper Julie Winslow, looking like a contessa in a long skirt and white lace ballerina blouse, greeted me warmly.  The inn was quiet that afternoon and I had my choice of several rooms.  Naturally I chose the one with a view of tiled roofs and the glorious pink colonnaded dome of Iglesia de San Pedro.

Julie told me that she and her husband, David, are Texas natives.  Seven years ago they sold their home in San Miguel to relocate to Pozos.  When they bought the property here, it was a stark ruin.  All that stood on the land were some walls and a few old arches.  In three years, David’s civil engineering background and Julie’s self-taught architectural design skills have transformed the site into an inviting inn.  On the lower level they have opened a bar cantina with a wood burning fireplace.  One wall displays a hand painted mural of the imagined town as a mining mecca.  As I later discovered, the cantina has become a late night gathering spot for the nexus of artists who are creating new lives in this old ghost town.

David turned out to be an enthusiastic guide to Pozos’ mining history.  At dawn the next day we set out in his truck and drove through fields of cactus and mesquite to the area’s oldest mine called Santa Brigida.  At the entrance to the complex, three stone pyramids rose up.  These hornos, or ovens, built in the 16th century by Jesuit priests, once smelted the mine’s ore.  In the early morning mist, they stood like sentries, guarding the spirits and dreams of those who toiled here.

In a field opposite the hornos, an abandoned hacienda, white with rust colored cornices, dominated the skyline. We wandered among the fields, climbing over crumbling stone walls past a watch tower fitted with rifle slits. Obviously security was a concern during the area’s heyday but now the stillness only enhanced the beauty of the ruins.  David repeatedly warned me to keep an eye out for open mine shafts.  This is the one serious danger in the area.  One must not explore the unprotected mines without a guide.

Heading back to the inn, I speculated on the morning’s activity.  I had just explored 400 years of history surrounded by otherworldly serenity with a complete absence of tourists.  I had done this on foot after driving a few miles from a welcoming waystation in a tiny city permeated with authenticity.  Few places in the world offer visitors such luxury.

I spent the afternoon exploring the inn’s beautiful gardens filled with native cactus plantings and striking sculptures done by local artists.  That evening an adventure of a different sort occurred when, during dinner at the posada, I met some of the local residents responsible for Pozos’ reincarnation.

Entering the cantina I noticed a small group who had pulled several tables together.  They were so friendly that, within minutes of sitting down, I was invited to join them.  They turned out to be mostly locals, full and part time residents.  Sitting next to me was the artist, Janice Freeman.  She told me that she and her husband, renowned photographer Geoff Winningham, a professor at Rice University, live part of each year in Pozos where they have built a home equipped with a darkroom and art studio.  Some of the group exchanged comments about their horseback riding treks in the surrounding mountains. Others talked about an upcoming weekend art walk.

The Pozos Artwalk weekend event benefits the Pozos Children’s Project, an outreach program where eight students from Rice University under the direction of Winningham and Freeman mentor school kids.  This year they worked with 20 village children and guided them in the creation of 39 large scale black and white photographs and 20 color monotypes.  Their work was presented as part of the annual “Open Studios” weekend.

Ten art galleries — typically open on weekends — cluster around Pozos’ main square.  Shopping is naturally limited in Pozos but unusual finds exist.  The city has a strong tradition of indigenous music and the craftsmanship of handmade instruments.  A few shops display and sell hand carved pre-Hispanic style musical instruments and it’s even possible to serendipitously hear an impromptu concert.  This ancient tradition is memorialized each July in the annual Toltequidad Festival in town.

Two shops in town specialize in mineral specimens and geodes.  After admiring an especially enticing crystal in one shop, I asked, “Quanto es, por favor?”  Mistakenly translating the figure from pesos to dollars, I came up with a $15 asking price which seemed fair. Only after stepping outside the tienda did I realize that I had actually paid about $5 for a treasure that would have easily garnered ten times as much at home.

When I left Pozos the next morning, I knew I wanted to return.  I had discovered much but felt I’d barely scratched the surface.  Gold and silver once attracted thousands.  The ruins left behind deep in the Sierra Gorda Mountains still draw seekers looking for a richer life story.

Where to Stay:

Posada de las Minas, At the corner of Manuel Doblado and Leandro Valle.  One block west of the Plaza in the center of town.  Telephone from the USA   011-52-442-293-0213. E-mail: info@posadadelasminas.com.

Lodging can also be booked through Mexico Boutique Hotels which offers reliable recommendations to small, luxury hotels in Mexico.  Telephone from USA and Canada: 1-800-728-9098.

Where To Eat:

Besides the full service restaurant at Posada de las Minas, two or three restaurants in town serve local and continental cuisine.  One, Los Famosos, at Hidalgo, #10B, boasts roof top service.

When To Go:

Weather in Pozos is temperate due to the elevation.  Summers are sunny but never hot, winters are cool to cold.   An Art Walk/Open Studios Weekend is planned for sometime in January or February, 2009.

How to Get There:

Pozos is part of the municipality of San Luis de la Paz, some 8 kilometers to the north.  From Mexico City, Pozos is a 4-hour drive on Highway 57.
Pozos is less than an hour’s drive from San Miguel de Allende which can be reached via the international airport at Leon, Guanajuato.  Mexicana, United, and American Airlines fly direct to Leon from Oakland, San Francisco and Los Angeles, California. Continental Airlines flies non-stop from Houston.
From San Miguel, a car and driver cost approximately $40 USD.  One can also arrange direct transportation from the Leon airport to Pozos.

– Lee Daley

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If you’re going to Hawaii, someone might ask you to bring back macadamia nuts. Go to Belgium, they’ll ask for chocolates. Tell them you’re visiting Colombia, and people will just snicker and wink and pretend to snort something through their nostrils.

As far as many Americans are concerned, Colombian cities are named after cocaine cartels, the streets are regularly crowded with shoot-outs, and the only regular visitor is the drug-addled Al Pacino from Scarface, commuting down to throw someone out of a helicopter.

I pondered the threats around me while I sipped a mojito at the Café Del Mar perched on the old city wall in Cartagena, Colombia. There might be too much mint in my drink. I might not have the best angle to see the sunset over the Caribbean. If I attended the classical music performance in the plaza, I might miss the party at the sugar baron’s mansion.

Waves rolled onto the shore beneath the setting sun. A pickup game of soccer unfurled in the park below me. A guitarist strummed local vallenato tunes while couples strolled the walls hand-in-hand, stopping to kiss in the old gun turrets. The smell of sizzling plantains wafted from the grill behind the bar. Truly, my life was fraught with danger. I ordered another mojito.

I began to think of the city as a version of the mythical Shangri-La, but this hidden paradise was separated from the world not by physical barriers, but psychological ones. Instead of vertical cliffs or raging rapids, the borders of Colombia are guarded by a jagged fence of fear, a scent of seediness and the dark cloud of recent history.

I explored the city of Cartagena and its surrounding areas to see if a casual traveler could bridge these barriers and discover a sense of safety, culture and the beauty of a South American Shangri-La.

Epcot-safe

The national tourist board, showing they have a sense of humor, has come up with the slogan “Colombia: The only risk is wanting to stay.” The reality is, walking the streets of the historical center of Cartagena felt Epcot-safe. Tourists and locals walked at all hours without concern. Refurbished Spanish colonial homes with balconies covered in latticework and hanging bougainvillea flowers gave a feeling of the streets of New Orleans, but without the sloppy drunks. Towering cathedral spires and bright pastel homes recalled the villages of southern Spain.

As a reassurance, armed guards stood at nearly every corner, but they were so bored with the lack of action, they spent the bulk of their time text messaging, flirting with girls or practicing their salsa steps. Far outside of the walls of the historic district, the scene was much different, with impoverished barrios coating the hills like a grimy bathtub ring. But faulting Cartagena for its bad areas would be like skipping a visit to San Francisco to avoid the Tenderloin.

Even during the height of the Colombian drug wars and civil unrest of the ’80s and ’90s, Cartagena was an oasis of calm. Some joked that it was because both the criminals and the police needed a peaceful place to vacation. But the end result is that now even a petite American violinist visiting for a music festival told me she thought the city was “fantastically safe.”

Cartagena’s thick city walls were built as protection against pirates and privateers during the height of the Spanish colonial era in the 1600s, when anyone with a cannon wanted a piece of the gold reserves stored in town. The looming stone fortress of Castillo de San Felipe de Barajas and undersea walls complete a historical sense of security.

Purely for research purposes, one night I had a few Aguila beers in the bars and stumbled alone across town to my hotel at 3:30 a.m. The streets were silent aside from the clop of my shoes on the cobblestone, and the faint sound of an accordion and singing coming from a hidden house party. The few people still out on the streets either nodded to me, or walked past murmuring softly to each other. I saw a hammock swinging slowly on the balcony of an old colonial home, a lazy foot dangling in the cool evening breeze. I returned to sleep to the soothing sound of the surf echoing through my hotel window.

Highbrow culture and lowbrow fun

Once comfortable with the safety of the place, I ventured out to explore Cartagena’s culture. I was worried the city might have transformed into an antiseptic tourist bubble, far removed from its regional or national soul.

My visit coincided with the third annual Cartagena International Music Festival, a collection of local and foreign performers including the London Chamber Orchestra, and the Colombian folk ensemble Sinsonte. Performances were sold out months ahead of time, with the elite of Colombia and international visitors gathering for gala events in refurbished theaters, repurposed chapels and city plazas. Outreach concerts took Mozart to the poor of the barrios, while master classes provided a forum for fellowship through music.

Heredia Theater in Cartagena, Colombia (photos © Bill Fink)

Schubert and carriages

At an evening performance, the tones of Schubert resonated through five balconies filled with decked-out patrons sitting in the opulent box seats of the old Heredia Theater. I imagined I would walk outside to meet women in hoop dresses and parasols, waiting to board horse-drawn carriages. When I exited, the parasols were just a dream, but the carriages stood ready, as real as the marble theater steps.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Nobel Prize-winning novelist and part-time Cartagena resident, evokes this dreamy quality of the city in his magic realism style of writing. In Love in the Time of Cholera, he writes that Cartagena’s “silence was diaphanous in the four o’clock heat, and through the bedroom window one could see the outline of the old city with the afternoon sun at its back, its golden domes, its sea in flames all the way to Jamaica.”

Given the heat, it wasn’t until near midnight that the outdoor concerts began. A huge crowd gathered in front of the church in Plaza San Pedro to hear both classical cellists and the llanera music of the high plains. Despite the timing, performers noted the crowd’s attentiveness. Scott St. John of the Stanford University-based St. Lawrence String Quartet joked; “If we set up in Golden Gate Park, maybe a dozen people might walk by. Here they were lined up two hours before show time. Try doing an outdoor concert in San Francisco at 11 p.m. and at best you’d have a circus atmosphere. Here it was like people were going to church, they were so reverent.”

Only blocks away from the cellists, the crowded Santo Domingo square hosted a more raucous nightly scene. Tables of diners burst into choruses of Guantanamera, accompanied by strolling guitarists and the odd accordion player. Vendors sold sliced fruit, shots of coffee and chopped coconuts. Waiters rushed to and fro with rice and bean platters topped with roasted red snapper and grilled chicken. Romantic couples took in the scene from their tables on balconies above the square.

Dance groups performed for tips, their swirling costumes and lithe bodies contrasting with the ponderous Botero statue behind them. The variety of performers highlighted the three-part foundation of Cartegena culture: the Spanish influence with the flamenco dancers, the native traditions in bambuco music and the imported African rhythms in the frantic gyrations and drumming of Cumbia.

Passion on the dance floor

To complete my musical journey, I went to the Quiebra Canto dance club, where speakers cranked out the latest salsa tunes. The Colombians spun to the music like national celebrity Shakira. A patient local tapped out time on her hand as she tried to teach me some basic dance steps. Giving up, I leaned against the wall with the other gringos, and toasted to a night of fun as couples swirled around the dance floor in synchronized passion.

Thatched roof docks decorate a beach resort on the Rosario Islands, off the coast of Cartagena

The next morning I hopped aboard a high-speed boat for a teeth-rattling 45-minute trip to the Rosario Islands, so named because on sea maps the chain of 30 islets dangle like rosary beads. We bounced past fishing villages, upscale resorts on white sand beaches, and private islands topped with posh vacation villas.

Despite the serene beauty, I still envisioned the islands as the refuge of cocaine lords, buzzing with secret seaplane landings, and maybe Harrison Ford on his way to battle the Colombian narco-terrorists like he did in A Clear and Present Danger. But then, the Swedish ladies started singing.

Pasty white, wearing a goofy ensemble of parrot-colored swim wear, the festive group of older Swedes was sharing my boat for a snorkeling trip. One woman was celebrating her 60th birthday with her sister and a dozen friends. After visiting the islands, the group was going to her vacation home outside of the mountain city of Cali. “Safe as a holiday in the Swedish countryside,” she said, “but don’t tell anyone or it might get too crowded here.”

My dive into the reefs of Rosario was blissfully peaceful, with schools of bright fish darting between cathedrals of coral as I drifted through the warm waters. On shore, I reclined in a lounge chair on a white sand beach, sampling a fruit cup while I shaded my eyes against the bright blue waters.

Returning, we passed Cartagena’s upscale Bocagrande peninsula with its shining white high-rise apartments and yacht-filled marinas, resembling Miami Beach more than a remote South American outpost. And as in Miami Beach, many of the locals have undergone their own restorations, with very prominent personal enhancements suggesting Colombia may be a new world leader in cosmetic surgery.

Like the mythical Shangri-La, the paradise embodied by Cartagena is a little bit of a dream. Nationally, poverty is endemic. The distribution of wealth creates a grossly affluent ruling class with the masses fighting for daily survival in poor neighborhoods. Battles with cocaine traffickers and various rebels continue in the distant Amazon jungles.

But around the city of Cartagena, and really for much of the nation of Colombia, the dreamy tales of Gabriel Garcia Marquez are becoming daily life. The fashion capital of Medellin, the cultural center of Bogota, and the mountain gateway of Cali all exemplify the pride of new Colombia. None more so than Cartagena, continuing in its ideal of a peaceful paradise hidden from the outside world. As Stephen Prutsman, the artistic director of the Cartagena Music Festival told me, “What we’re doing here is making magical realism a reality.”

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If you go

Going: Cartegena is on the Caribbean coast of northern Colombia. Continental and Delta airlines offer regular service that flies via Houston/Miami, and then through Bogota. The journey took me about 12 hours from San Francisco. Latest prices are around $1,000 round-trip.

Lodging: For luxury lodging in the heart of the historical district try the Sofitel or the Hotel Charleston, both beautifully converted convents. Prices begin at $250-$300 per night.

A variety of good quality three- and four-star hotels can be found a 10-minute drive away in the modern Bocagrande peninsula for about $150 a night. And backpackers can still find grungy hostels in Getsemani area for $20 a night in semi-sketchy areas.

Food: The historical district has a plethora of fine local and international dining options, with entrees often starting at $20, or you can grab rice and chicken and beer at a corner shop outside the walls for maybe five bucks.

I enjoyed Cuban food at La Bodeguita del Medio, Italian at Santa Lucia overlooking Santo Domingo square and fine Colombian cuisine at El Santisimo.

For more info: www.turismocartagenadeindias.com, www.colombia.travel/en.

– Bill Fink