tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36261851179167770732024-02-18T21:58:16.039-08:00looking around a bitLooking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.comBlogger80125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-36226489249531509292009-12-05T13:12:00.003-08:002009-12-24T17:36:27.153-08:00New World Symphony, Bike Paths and Other Pleasant Surprises : Bogotá, Colombia. December 2009.My husband and I were standing on Montserrate, which overlooks Bogotá, when the music surprised us. "New World Symphony" by the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak (DVOR-zhak). David and I had gone up for a sunset drink on our last night in Colombia, stopping at the restaurant shown to the left. We had no idea that the Orquesta Filarmónica de Bogotá would be playing its holiday concert inside theLooking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-70693833558590729722009-12-05T13:12:00.001-08:002011-10-13T07:36:14.646-07:00Pink Floyd in Bourgeois-tá, Protest Slogans on Churches: Graffiti in the Colombian Capital. December 2009.Try to imagine who recently picked up a spray can of paint and wrote this line from a 30-year-old Pink Floyd songOur writer made his mark in a comfortable neighborhood in Bogotá. This wall is around the corner from a gym that occupies several floors of a building. Although the gym is dedicated largely to spinning classes, my husband and I saw folks doing what looked like capoiera moves in a big Looking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-39789820952965588812009-12-05T13:10:00.000-08:002010-08-02T12:39:51.588-07:00Chocolate With Cheese, Exotic Fruits and Braised Goat in Ant Sauce : Eating in Colombia. November-December 2009.The waiter told us the trick for enjoying a traditional Bogotá breakfast of chocolate santafereno style. You rip the block of mild rich cheese served with your breakfast into little pieces and sink them into the cup of rich chocolate. Then, with the spoon, eat the curd that forms. It may sound weird, but it was a good combination of sweet and rich and chewy. We had this breakfast, shown to the Looking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-56503484105901311692009-12-05T13:09:00.000-08:002009-12-22T09:00:52.205-08:00Black-and-White Cows, Green Fields and a Salt Cathedral: Sáchica to Zipquirá, Colombia. November 2009.The journey sometimes is better than the destination. My husband and I set out on a Sunday morning from the tourist spot of Villa de Leyva for one of Colombia's big attractions, the salt cathedral at Zipaquirá. Luckily for us, we missed the direct bus connection between the two cities.Instead, we got a taxi from Villa de Leyva to a spot on the highway and then flagged down the local blue Reina Looking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-9797398206584243222009-12-05T13:07:00.000-08:002009-12-22T06:32:41.797-08:00Police and Tourists in the Street (Oh Yeah): Villa de Leyva, Colombia. November 2009.It's hard to tell from this photo, but the guy in the green shirt and cowboy hat is holding a puppy. He's having a long chatty talk on a Sunday morning with the two young helmeted policemen on the minibike. I saw this friendly encounter in downtown Villa de Leyva. This quaint colonial city is a weekend retreat for Colombians with enough money for things like weekend retreats.This is a pretty goodLooking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-20468803346397290882009-12-05T13:06:00.000-08:002009-12-22T06:27:34.226-08:00The Hike Not Taken: Barichara, Colombia. November 2009Once I saw the landscape around Barichara, I wished we had time to do the hike that descends to the nearby village of Guane. The streets of Barichara slope upward, with a beautiful little park with palms and cactus at the top of the town. From this park, you can look into a tranquil green valley below. Around sunset, the mountains in the distance look like blue waves flash frozen in place.We Looking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-43781512098268510742009-12-05T13:05:00.000-08:002009-12-22T06:23:12.631-08:00Thanksgiving at a Glorious Beach : Parque Nacional Tayrona, Colombia. November 2009. My husband David and I had a lot to be grateful for when we woke up on the top floor of the building shown here. It's kind of a supersized wooden hut. Backpackers can rent hammocks on the first floor, while there are two private rooms, or cabanas up top. David and I got one of the cabanas and had this view from our roomParque Nacional Tayrona on Colombia's Caribbean coast has some of the most Looking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-64955655023099359222009-12-05T13:04:00.000-08:002009-12-22T06:20:20.949-08:00Creole Highlight, Crippling Heat : Cartagena, Colombia. November 2009. One of the grandest hotels in Cartagena boasts some very colorful permanent guests, toucans. There are at least three of them at the Sofitel Santa Clara, which is a converted17th century convent. The toucans perch on wicker chairs around the main patio, and play with the guests at breakfast. In their travels around the Santa Clara, these New World birds with their bright bright beaks pass overLooking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-54096240783572583252009-09-09T21:08:00.000-07:002009-09-18T21:04:02.475-07:00Guiding Star, Lost and Found : Judith Leyster Show at the National Gallery, Washington. September 2009. It's a bit of museum lore that reads like a novel, and not a very believable one. A Dutch woman living in the 1600s does something extraordinary and learns to paint. She becomes one of only two female members allowed into the painters' guild in her native Haarlem. To mark her works, she devises an elegant and bold signature that is a play on her maiden name. It's her initials ..J for Judith andLooking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-43542870864777241102009-08-18T19:08:00.000-07:002009-09-17T21:51:06.942-07:00Poised Near the Edge : Still Life Paintings of Luis Meléndez. Washington, August, 2009.For more than two hundred years, the fruit in these two paintings has been ready to roll. It would take only the slightest tap to drop that orange from the table to the right. To the left, a single blow-out-the-candles breath would get that pear in motion.While the artist surely didn't intend this, the fruit seen poised at the edge of the tables reminds me of the history of its creator. Spanish Looking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-27185246361943255482009-05-09T15:07:00.001-07:002009-09-15T21:36:11.791-07:00Shooting Around San Juan: Puerto Rico. April 2009. Johnny Depp delayed our dinner on our last night in Puerto Rico. Well, not the actor as much as a night shoot for his ""Rum Diary"" movie in old San Juan. It's based on a book that Hunter S. Thompson wrote about his time working for a small paper in San Juan in the late 1950s. For the shoot, the streets were lined with old cars, gorgeous things. Steering clear of the roped off section of street,Looking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-51063516226279473182009-05-09T14:55:00.000-07:002009-09-17T18:44:41.838-07:00Beautiful Beaches And Not Much Else: Culebra, Puerto Rico. April 2009.The umbrella in this picture would have had its due on any beach from New York's Rockaway to Delaware's Rehoboth. Some folks passing by it would have smiled at its tropical scenes. In California, the umbrella would have reminded them of warmer clearer water than local waves, which are chilled by Alaska.But, this umbrella was planted on one of the world's most beautiful tropical beaches. The Looking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-23131175285432582812009-02-11T12:24:00.001-08:002016-03-21T07:36:18.513-07:00'Wit' Cilantro and Pickled Vegetables : Eating in Philadelphia. April 2009.
A few words on the Philadelphia cheesesteak. While waiting in line at famed cheesesteak shops like Pat's, tourists read the posted rules very carefully. They want to get their orders right. Asking for `wiz wit’ gets you a sandwich of white bread topped with steak, Cheez Whiz and grilled onions. Cheesesteak is an indulgence permitted by setting. It’s like happily eating pommes frites at a BelgianLooking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-68744823490129440582009-01-03T13:19:00.001-08:002015-11-29T06:53:40.956-08:00St. Joseph Revived, Armed Archangels and Christ as Triplets: Cuzco School of Painting. Nov.-Dec. 2008.
St. Joseph has a far better deal in the paintings of colonial Peru than he does in much of European art.
Look to the left to see how Italian Renaissance artist Botticelli depicted Joseph in a painting done around 1476. Stooped and aged, Joseph stands off to the side of the action.
Joseph fares even worse in the 1528 painting below by another Italian artist, Andrea del Sarto, seen below. Looking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-25178942002849121742008-12-15T19:49:00.001-08:002010-02-27T10:12:55.935-08:00Joggers by the Sea, Tragedy Recalled Elsewhere : Lima, Peru. December 2008.Our day in Lima started with some of the beautiful sights in the Peruvian capital. We took an early morning walk in the seaside suburb of Miraflores. This part of Lima has geography like California and neat modern apartment towers like Miami.People jogged past us on the path, enjoying the great views of the sea. They wore the same hi-tech sneakers and headphones that you'd see on runners in SantaLooking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-35794994597991656072008-12-15T19:48:00.001-08:002009-01-31T13:01:29.925-08:00Don Quixote, Bill Gates and Searchers for Centuries : Yanahuara, Peru. December 2008. This is the place in Peru my late father most would have loved to see, the library at the Monasterio de Recoleta.Not Machu Picchu or the remains of the cities in the Sacred Valley, not the walk by the sea in posh Miraflores. He would have best liked this old room filled with old books. The monasterio is in Yanahuara, a neighborhood across a small river from one of Peru's most conservative citiesLooking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-42635954143143824162008-12-15T19:47:00.004-08:002009-01-29T21:41:12.768-08:00Peru's Best Spot for a Sunset Drink ? : Arequipa, Peru. December 2008. Is this the best place in Peru for a sunset drink? The little rooftop hotel bar on the square? If you know of a better one, please let us know. My husband and I went here on each of our three nights in Arequipa, and liked it better each time.This rooftop overlooks the square seen in these pictures, one shot just as dusk started and the other as dusk gave way to true evening.This is the square Looking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-76101996842793917282008-12-15T19:47:00.003-08:002009-01-29T21:11:06.083-08:00Trains of the Past, Cars of the Future and Hotels Made of Salt : Uyuni, Bolivia. December 2008. This cemetery for abandoned trains stands near the edge of the Bolivian salt flats, which someday might help lead the world away from massive oil consumption. Carmakers are paying close attention to Bolivia, whose salt flats are home to the world's largest reserves of lithium. Batteries for electric cars use lithium.It's been a tricky business in decades past for foreigners to bring investment Looking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-56943260638878980692008-12-15T19:47:00.001-08:002009-01-25T21:44:41.838-08:00Unexpectedly Pretty, Oddly Peaceful : La Paz, Bolivia. November 2008. Bowler hats, big full skirts. Yes, indeed, the women of the Andes have got their own look, as you can see in this Associated Press picture to the left. This is called cholita style, and it plays out best in La Paz.I did see one group of women decked out this spectacularly during my day in La Paz. They wore big full skirts made of brightly colored silks, layered over petticoats. Small snappy Looking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-47688840309801085242008-12-15T19:46:00.001-08:002010-01-03T15:51:59.942-08:00Evo and the Mermaids : Around Lake Titicaca, Bolivia and Peru. November 2008.Guitar-playing mermaids smile out from the front of the cathedral at Puno, the Peruvian gateway city to Lake Titicaca. They're a nice little shock for many visitors. How often do you see flirting encouraged in a Catholic church?Catholic art tends show desire in two ways; a virgin mystic like St. Theresa writhing in untouched ecstasy, or the bedraggled Mary Magdalene atoning for her past. TheLooking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-74117389467433475772008-12-15T19:31:00.000-08:002009-01-10T13:40:43.666-08:00City of Marchers and the Inca Historian Who Fought the Moors : Cuzco, Peru. November 2008. The procession shown here passed by during my first hour in Cuzco. My husband and I were having a quick lunch on a balcony overlooking the main square when we heard music and spotted the crowd. David encouraged me to run down to the square, where I took this picture and video.Cuzco's main square is one of the prettiest I've seen, and I try to spend a good part of my travels hanging around plazasLooking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-19261507102659692472008-11-24T18:55:00.001-08:002009-08-26T05:35:21.519-07:00Why Build A City on a Mountain Top? Because They Could : Machu Picchu, Peru. November, 2008.It's hard to imagine how much tribute the Inca rulers needed to build Machu Picchu. It was a city standing atop a mountain, which juts more than 1,000 feet into the air from a riverbed.How many farmers in what's now Peru worked extra hours in their fields to support to make the indulgences of the Incas? Their crops were needed to feed entire classes of weavers who made the gorgeous textiles that Looking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-2899706736075981952008-11-24T18:50:00.000-08:002009-01-03T16:12:44.140-08:00Back Alleys and Quiet Hikes : Sacred Valley, Peru. November 2008.It's hard to imagine how much commotion there was just a few blocks from the quiet streets shown in these two pictures. Squadrons of visitors climbed over the temple-and-terrace complex that attracts so many people to Ollantaytambo, an otherwise sleepy town in Peru's Sacred Valley. Tour buses lined Ollantaytambo's main square.Ollantaytambo is part of what's now called the Sacred Valley, which wasLooking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-12089463093742626222008-11-24T18:49:00.000-08:002010-02-13T18:34:12.137-08:00Alpaca, Trout, Pork Adobo and ..Something Odd: Eating in Peru, Nov.-Dec. 2008.My husband and I found alpaca meat to be a case of strong affection, if not love, at first bite. Before getting to Peru, David and I imagined alpaca meat would be kind of tough. Instead, it was tender. Something like good steak or lamb, but richer.The picture on the left is from our first meal with alpaca. We went to the Chez Maggy chain restaurant in Aguas Calientes, the town where you stay whenLooking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3626185117916777073.post-16052168909972683172008-08-16T20:38:00.000-07:002008-10-13T12:28:53.695-07:00Claude Monet ...the Big Lebowski-Style 'Dude' of His Time?: September. 2008"Sometimes there's a man, well, he's the man for his time and place. He fits right in there.. "--lines introducing the Dude, the hero -- of sorts--in the movie, "The Big Lebowski". Look at the painting shown to the right. A guide at the National Gallery of Art pointed it out on a recent tour of the highlights of the museum. How well Monet captured the motion of the clouds, the grass, the wind in Looking With Side-Curved Headhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11423041598213972412noreply@blogger.com0