A BONE TO PICK – PART III

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Before dawn the next morning we drove the short distance to the Egyptian border. Relations were temporarily good so we didn’t expect any problems. We filed off the bus and were inspected, screened, stamped and transferred to an Egyptian bus. Then we sat waiting. Forty-five minutes later the last passenger climbed on. It was our cowboy, who was looking a bit paler than usual. Silently he headed for the back of the bus, his usual position.
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A BONE TO PICK PART II

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We had been surprised when our guide, Rivka, launched into a vigorous tirade about the ultra Orthodox as soon as the tour started. She claimed their women did nothing but have babies while the men lived on State handouts while they studied the Talmud in a yeshiva. The most radical denied the existence of the State and were exempt from serving in the army she told us with disgust. It was apparent that even among those of her religion there was plenty of tension.
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A Bone to Pick – Part I

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The weather at home was cold and damp. We wanted to go someplace warm and dry. On my lunch hour I contemplated the travel brochures displayed in the window of a travel agency next door to my office. Mexico, the Caribbean…or where? Lured inside by the thought of sunshine, I spotted the agent who looked like a pixie with her gamin haircut. She wore a tunic and brown hose with little green suede shoes that curled up at the toes.
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Stomach Troubles

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Wilson Airport in Nairobi was busy though it was barely dawn. Single-engine planes lined up for takeoff, one after the other. “Where are they going?” I asked. The answer: “To Somalia, to deliver khat.” Bags and bundles of the narcotic herb were being loaded into other small planes while I waited along with several United Nations staff to fly to Lokichokio.

After an hour’s flight near the Rift Valley, we landed on a runway where some of the parked planes had bullet holes to show for their efforts to provide aid in the protracted conflict in southern Sudan.

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An Easter Holiday

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One Easter I went on a voyage to bring a friend’s boat, the Virginia, to Corfu, Greece from Bodrum, Turkey where she had been resting in dry storage for the winter. Not being much of a sailor, I needed encouragement before agreeing to serve as third mate. A tour of Cappadocia and the chance to check out carpets were the enticements. I helped pack up food stores and a new rubber life raft. My husband and I flew with the owners to Athens and on to the island of Kos where we had booked a hotel unfortunately populated with drunken and naked Finns desperate for sun.
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The Samurai Legacy of Chiran

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We were enveloped in a soft silky rain as if we were in a Japanese watercolor. The moisture lent a dull sheen to the blue tile roofs and the stone lanterns along the roadside leading to the Peace Museum.

We were out for a day in Chiran, about an hour away from Kagoshima a city located on a narrow bay of the same name on Japan’s southernmost major island, Kyushu. The countryside with small towns and farms was peaceful but our first stop, the interestingly named Peace Museum, was a shock.

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Dinner with the Captain

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I should say captains; for reasons I cannot fathom my husband and I have ended up at the captain’s table more times than is warranted. Especially since we always have a cabin much closer to the oilers and wipers than to the Lido Deck.

There must be some reason: perhaps there is a lottery or perhaps there is a need to keep an even keel by making a selection from both the upper and lower classes since even steerage passengers have the run of the ship in these modern times.
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Oracles & Sibyls

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Oracles & sibyls, those fascinating forecasters, were popular with ancient Greeks and Romans who wanted to learn their fates. I’m never quite clear on the difference between the two but my classical dictionary says that an oracle transmits the response of a god to a question asked by a worshipper. A sibyl was a female prophet who  didn’t need a god to get involved in the process.

One of the most memorable days I ever spent immersed in the ancient world was a visit to Delphi, dedicated to Apollo and home of the Delphic Oracle, called Pythia, by tradition a local woman over age 50.
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Good food & Wine and Not Much Exercise

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On our first trip to Oregon’s Willamette Valley wine country some years ago we floated in a balloon high above the vineyards early on a sunny summer morning. This time around we were greeted by a watery winter sun when we arrived in Newberg for wine tasting with friends. In the morning we drove through the peaceful countryside with its rolling hills covered with sleeping vines and filbert orchards where each tree was hung with hundreds of chartreuse colored catkins, presaging spring. In

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How Do I Pick a Hotel?

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Margo and Briana from The Travel Belles have asked how their readers pick a hotel. The question is for this week’s edition of  Across the Cafe Table. My answer required some thought when I realize that I have stayed in about every type of hotel found in a zillion sorts of ways. A few highlights and lowlights come rapidly to mind:

The “B&B” in Bodrum reserved for us by a “friend.” Slavering Doberman tied up by the door and toilet in the yard.… Read more