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The rain got into everything, seeping into our bones after having done so to our boots and clothes, wearing plastic bags on our feet, trying to stay warm in hotels without heating, dark, damp rooms facing onto open-to-the-sky courtyards.

There’s snow in the air, the indigo blue washed walls of the medina is like being in a wave, but it’s Antarctic, every second man sells hashish or so he says and it must be true, that everyone smokes it, all the cafes outdoor settings, as if it was forever summer, like the people are

insulated from the cold, most likely from the hashish, even elderly shopkeepers show me their pipes.

When the rain clears, after five days in Chefchaouen, a week in Tangier, the sun appears on the twin goat horn mountains beyond the Chaouen, grey rock, green pine wedged into the rugged slopes. Wandering between the two, climbs steeply to 1800 metres, the pass covered in snowfalls, splattered across the understorey of tall pines. The view is into a green valley of tiny villages of the Rif Mountains, to the north the Mediterranean almost visible through the haze.

Six hours on a muddy track gets us to Azilane where Abdel invites us into his gite, blue-wash walls, white tipped rock mountains through the window, his dogs the only thing breaking the silence of the starlit night. There’s a a hot stove to sit around, Abdel with his pipe, smiles, eyes twinkling, brings tea and French toast, one of his 8 children calls, he floats off again in his jellaba.

Wandering around the back of the mountains to Afeska, savage dogs come at us, we get disorientated on a wet track, a gully scramble before going over a ridge and descending into a steep valley of red rock cliff faces, birds soaring in the uplift, terrestrial Barbary apes scurry across rocks and are gone. The kif terraces recently harvested, the town of Ouaslaf emanating a constant beat as if machinery, but it is people beating large drums with sticks, compressing kif in what is said to be the region of the highest production in the world.

We come out the other end, toes hammered on the downhill loose rocks, temporarlily lost in potato fields, the sun shining again, snow clouds lifting, getting a ride from Ackchour back to Chefchaouen, around the foot of the Jebel el-Kelai, the low sun shining, the moon out, it’s peaceful, like the people,

procession-like in Plaza El Utal Hamman, beside the kasbah, strolling as if in a thousand years nothing has changed, thawed out from last weeks rain, people emerged from their caves, an North African lilt humming across the airwaves.

Going into the Fes medina is like descending into an ant’s nest, down underground where there’s no connection to the outside world. It’s a place of its own, another world, one where what goes on is only apparent within the immediate vicinity, that anything elsewhere is irrelevant, only the proximate fully relevant. There is no where else in existence, when you are in the belly of Fes el Bali.

Over 1200 years old, the medina of Fes is said to be one of the largest living mediaeval cities still in existence. It’s full of hangovers from an era long gone elsewhere in the world. Narrow streets twist down from its numerous gates, descending deeper into dead ends or weaving, tunnel like, into other tiny laneways that thread across the walled market. Mules, donkeys, men, women and children wind through the labyrinth with walls too high to know what colour the sky is, dogs and cats run overhead; a concoction of sellers, jewellery makers, leather craftsmen, tannery workers, butchers, dried frutists, herbal medicine men, brass artisans, blacksmiths, sandal sellers, guides, beggars, chanters, dancers, singers, con-men, blend among one another, working side by side often with tools from other centuries. There are plenty of tourists too now, in hordes, by the bus load, following their guides who hold up red umbrellas or some obvious object for their group to follow. They appear as if invaders of the nest, but everyone in the medina knows how important they are to its survival. We’re constantly reminded that without a guide our discount is larger, just for today a two for one, amazing deals to be had, if we only step across the line, into a shop. It’s a ruthless world, everything has its price, all is up for grabs, nothing will be spared, including us.

We dodge the mules. Loaded with enormous weight they are the kings of the road here, giving way to no one, plodding their way through the narrow lanes while people buzz around, scurrying this way and that, if they’re not just hanging on a corner, minding everybody else’s’ business, waiting for a chance to get some lucky break, to lure someone somewhere, into a carpet shop, or a tannery, where there’s money to be had.

We head for light, climbing our way out of the nest, after sitting sipping coffee, eating cakes, while bees swarm the sweet meats. We follow the flow, one wrong corner and we could end up anywhere; there has to be a Queen ant somewhere, a forbidden sector. We come to a gate, take a bearing, coming up for air, then plunge back in again, into the incomparable medieval world.

It was beginning to look like independent travel in Morocco was just a plain bad idea. You can’t ask a simple question about direction without somebody wanting to take you there (for an overblown fee). You’re bait for hungry swooping fake guides. The two tourist offices we’d been in were completely disinterested, had nothing to say, nothing to show us, the man in Marrakesh annoyed we’d interrupted him reading his magazine. But it isn’t like Morocco doesn’t have tourism. Tourists are everywhere. They pour out of four wheel drives, guides in tow, ushering them every step of the way, herding them away, like a school of sardines, from the circling sharks.

We had a guide book that we needed to read round and round in circles, flicking back and forward to try and work out what it meant, wishing they’d cut the verbosity for more detail. It’s a guide book for driving tours, at best, but with its big reputation doesn’t need to let on it’s changed, that it’s aimed now at vacationers with wads of cash. We didn’t have a car. Nor that much cash.

Our venture along the Draa Valley had already gone sour, stuck in Agdz all day waiting for a bus, getting ten different stories at the same time. Knowledge is power. It costs. I guess that’s why people go on tours. You might as well. It was as if we were the only independent travellers in Morocco, we’d missed some vital information, like needing to have a larger budget.

The country took some getting used to, the aggressiveness and incessant money grabbing tiring. A German we met said he thought it was because it was a Muslim country, basing his idea on the fact he’d had the same experience in Java twenty five years ago. But it wasn’t that. Not a religious thing. We’d been in Syria and Jordan recently and it was nothing like that. The opposite. Sometimes locals wouldn’t let us pay. I thought it was to do with Morocco being so close to Europe. Like the west owes them, and maybe we do. At Tangier the continent of Africa and the Iberian Peninsula kiss. It’s a brush on the wet lips across the Straits of Gibraltar, but Moroccans must want to slip the tongue in.

We made it out of Agdz back to Ouarzazate, a nice town with good restaurants and an impressively restored kasbah. Sixty five kilometres had taken us most of a day so from there we tried the CTM bus, reputed to be the best, the one foreigners use, and arrived in Boumalne du Dades to the hustle of guides and restaurant staff. We’d looked at the menu before we had a tea and an omelette, knew the price would come to 50 Dirhams. The owner came out of the kitchen, said it was 100 – they just can’t help themselves, everything has to be worth a try.

A trekking guide insisted we go to his office. We were interested in going up into the M’Goun Massif. Our book had indicated treks start from Boumalne, but the one they described was on the other side of the Atlas, a five day hike away. It was as if the book set out to trick you, giving you a little Moroccan experience before you left home. Only we hadn’t read it before we arrived, expecting it to be full of facts, not a flowery overview to tempt you in a bookshop. We asked the price. The guide ummed and aahed, like he’d never thought about it before.

You want a cheaper or more expensive one? he asked.

Cheaper, I said. The cheapest you have.

Okay, he tapped his fingers on a table, poised with a pen, thinking.

Okay, 2000, he finally said. For everything.

I nodded, pretending it sounded reasonable. For both of us?

Each.

It was harder to pretend then. That’s the basic, the cheapest?

Yes.

Okay, we’ll think about it, I said, turning to leave.

How much you want to pay then? he shot back.

I thought it was supposed to be his best price. Let you know when we come back from the Dades Gorge, I replied.

You need a hotel, how much you want to pay?

Cheap, I said again, interested to know what he’d come up with.

One hundred and twenty.

Seventy would be cheaper.

Eighty?

Seventy would be better.

Okay, Seventy then.

Everything was a haggle. Nothing realistic.

We went to the plaza opposite the mosque to catch a mini businto the Gorge. A man came up to us.

It’s not Afghanistan, he said. You talk to people in Morocco.

We talk to people all the time, I replied.

Your wife, he said, indicating P, she’s reading a book.

She was looking for the name of the stop we needed. I decided to use a suggestion from the book.

Please respect our time and don’t disrespect my partner, I said to him.

It worked. He apologised, backed away sheepishly. They love an argument. But respect is a word they, well, respect.

The guide book wasn’t totally useless.

It was a one moment good, one moment bad kind of thing. A mix up of confusion between fact and fiction, reality and astronomy (astronomical prices – at least as in value for money). Knowledge is powerful and worth cash. A guide would be an advantage. I could see that.

When squeezed into the minivan on our way up the Gorge, the woman next to me smiled and chatted, the man behind pointing out sights. French would be an advantage, more so than Arabic, the Berbers speaking their own language, or French.

We clambered off at kilometre 18, a collection of crazy rocks lying across one side of the gorge, weathered into long smooth shapes and symmetrical patterns, rising out of the ground like monolithic mushrooms, a bizarre location.

We bartered our way into a room on the top floor of a Hotel, our room a little turret overlooking what the locals called the Monkey Fingers. The sunset manipulates the colours of the rocks, switching them, chocolate, cacao, red, burnt orange, long shadows casting across the weird Daliesque landscape.

The next day we avoided a guide, which would have cost us as much as our daily budget, and sneaked off on our own into the Agouni Gorge. Besides, we wanted to go at our own pace. We had all day. We didn’t need to be brought back for lunch in the restaurant.

Walking behind the first layer of rocks and up into one of many gorges within the 27km long Dades, the going was easy for a while though we had to keep taking off our shoes to wade through pools to continue going up, squeezing through crevices. Twice we thought about turning back, but kept climbing, figuring it couldn’t be too much further. The narrow gorge was spectacular, smooth red cliffs, tumbled down boulders we had to wriggle under, crystal clear rock pools, some deep enough to swim in.

Eventually we made it to a near dead end. I wedged myself up against a fig tree, climbed high to a vantage point. I could see we could get out of the gorge, it wasn’t quite as clear how to get back down to the river. But then people emerged over a hill, revealing the track, and we climbed out, had a lunch of cheese and bread and sat in the quiet air, inhaling a magical atmosphere.

The next day we caught a mini van up to kilometre 28 where the Dades Gorge narrows and the walls rise vertically a hundred metres or more. A road snakes out to the north, a sharp series of hairpin bends. We walked back down along the river, under fig trees, through oleander patches, walnuts, peaches, the locals smiling, friendly, welcoming, until we reached the straw mud kasbah of Ait Arbi, in good condition near the river, the ruins of other kasbahs on the nearby hills. Excited Berber kids offered to be our guides, but were polite, non insistent, and just tagged along for a while. We crossed the river on a rickety bridge, three days in the Gorge had changed everything. Morocco was cast in another light.

]]> http://timaxelsen.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/in-the-light-of-the-dades-gorge/feed/ 0 Drifting, Rambling pa162689 pa162691 pa162693 pa1527062 pa162694 http://timaxelsen.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/toubkal-impressions/ http://timaxelsen.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/toubkal-impressions/#comments Thu, 30 Oct 2008 15:35:09 +0000 Drifting, Rambling http://timaxelsen.wordpress.com/?p=263 ]]>

Sprinkled in autumn snow falls, the blue sky contrasts the reds, browns and greys of rock, sparsely populated by stunted trees. Goats meander casually up the valley, following either side of the gushing river, though among these imposing landforms, it’s appears more like a trickle. The vastness, stretches skyward, into wispy clouds, bitter coldness waiting to pounce in the deathly silence of the timeless mountain range. It’s not death though, nor timelessness, just seems that way in the scale, the crawling sculpting of valleys and streams over tens of thousands of years, human existence so insignificant.

But there’s been people here for thousands of years and the Berbers still ride their mules as they have done for centuries despite ski pole and alpine clothing trekkers dotting the landscape, reminding us how close Europe is.

Sixty kilometres south of Marrakesh lies Imlil, a Berber village that serves tajines if you order early enough. We leave early one morning, buying hot bread in the bakery, walking through walnut trees, past the Kasbah, the setting for Scorcese’s Kundun, to the nearby town of Aroumd, then hobbling across a rock strewn river bed, a wide flood plain, locals greeting us with a “Bonjour, ca va?” and us replying in Arabic “Labas, shukran”, not having yet learnt any Berber words but our Arabic better than our French, which isn’t saying much.

We drink mint tea in the occasional tea house, watching mules stacked high and wide with trekkers’ food, packs and tents trudging by, not yet feeling envious, still content to be going it alone. At least we know there’s a refuge and we’re happy to have left our tent in Imlil.

But Toubkal seems aloof, we can’t see it, or think we can’t. There’s no obvious tallest peak, the valley sides steep and full of rocky crevices, sharp and unforgiving. We wind around the ridges, hugging the slopes, following the river while different mountains come into view, until suddenly we see the refuge, nestled between the river and a sheer and threatening scree slope.

The Berber staff are super friendly, will cook you dinner, give you tea or let you use the kitchen if you prefer to cater for yourself. It’s a hive of activity as more mules and trekkers arrive and the lights come on, the fire is lit, dinner is served.

Early next day we start up the scree over massive boulders littered with thistles and tough grasses, going over a ridge only to find another, then another, then another. The going is tough, the path not obvious and at 4000 metres, every step burns, inching toward the summit, at times on hands and knees, We block out the thought of the descent, it’s moment by moment existence.

On the snowy summit the landscape unfolds as far as the eye can see, the Sahara to the east, the Barbary Coast to the west. We’re on Jebel Toubkal, at 4167 metres, Africa’s 3rd highest mountain after Kilimanjaro and Mt Kenya. We soak in it, look down to Aroumd, a speck in the distance, the air thin, silent, breathtaking. There’s something powerful here.

We intend to walk back to Imlil the same day but after sliding back down on treacherous scree, or trying not to, we arrive late and exhausted back at the refuge and in no mood to rush. We stay another night in the gite, sit around the fire, knowing we have an easy walk out to Imlil the following day, a much better option.

And when we look back to see snow covered Toubkal, from down once again at the river in Aroumd, two Berbers singing as they harvest apples, autumn clouds rolling in as the sun gets low, we feel an affinity with Toubkal, as if to climb it is to acknowledge it, respect it, pay homage to it, the walking affecting us in days, like the sun, moon, weather and season alters the impression of the mountain, though its core changes need millennia. We feel impermanent, time-wise insignificant, indelibly linked to nature.

I’d walked one and a half million steps to Vigo, in the Spanish region of Galicia, along the Camino de Santiago, some 800 kilometres from Roncevalles near the French border to Santiago de Compostela. The route was an old Christian pilgrimage, but I wasn’t walking for any religious reason. I didn’t have a reason. But I knew Bob Dylan was touring Spain and would be playing on the 27th June in Vigo on the coast, just north of the border with Portugal.

I got the feeling not much happened in Vigo. People knew Dylan was in town. The guy in the tourist office told us how to get tickets, had a black and white photo of him in the 60’s behind the counter. We made our way out near the airport, got tickets and checked into a hotel. A bar across the road had a sign up – Bob Dylan Bar. We had a drink, walked to the small auditorium holding about 5,000 people.

Dylan comes out right on time, in a black suit, green shirt and white broad brimmed hat, on keyboards, right side of the stage, facing across the drums to bass and lead guitar, rhythm and mandolin to the side and behind him, opening with Leopard Skin Pillbox Hat, pumping out rock and roll blues, slipping into a super melodic Lay Lady Lay, his voice strong, a new phrasing as ever, before he jumps into a powerful Sad and Lonesome Day Blues, rocking the hall, not super loud but solid, thick, like a heavy thud moving through us.

Girl from the North Country has Tony Garnier using a bow on his double bass, an addictive descending bass line, to me Dylan’s signature, churning out a better version than the original 40 years back down the road, and you have to wonder, who else can do that?

The harmonica sharp and clear as his voice, blowing sweet melodies as he skips into Levee’s Gonna Break then a Stuck Inside of Mobile, “smoked my eyeball” repeated twice in case we think he’s fluffed the line. Then he takes us on a Charles Aznavour-like ride with Moonlight Below, and on into banjo-backed but still rocking hard, It’s Alright Ma, I’m Only Bleeeding.

We slide on into more territory with Spirit on the Water, his voice holding firm, the best I’ve heard it in years. After Things Have Changed, Dylan’s smiling at the crowd, posing for photos, Handy Dandy coming off and he lets it show how pleased he is before banging out Highway 61, acknowledging the crowd with every song then. He takes us Beyond the Horizon and into a jazzy Summer Days before the lights go dim and he paints us a medieval masterpiece, Ain’t Talkin’, in the mystic garden where the gardener is gone, where I know he’s talking to me, but aware I´m not the only one in the crowd feeling that.

The band walks off briefly, then storms back into Thunder on the Mountain before Like a Rolling Stone, Bob letting the crowd sing an entire chorus on their own, while he beams out at them.

The usual vibe of the audience on the edge of a sphere where Dylan and his band reside, where the wild cat growls, a convex viscosity as the band look to each other and we get to watch, a circus audience wondering what the slinking hyena thinks, flies buzzing around his eyes; is lifted, Bob peeking out, piercing a hole in the sphere, smiling as if to tell us he’s watching, that we’re all in it together.

Something’s happening and he wants us to know what it is, maybe the chameleon changing again, and he bows with the band, holds his hand out, pale as a ghost holding a blossom on a stem.  And then he’s gone.

]]> http://timaxelsen.wordpress.com/2008/09/25/one-and-half-million-steps-to-dylan/feed/ 0 Drifting, Rambling p6282122 http://timaxelsen.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/the-conjuror-of-doubt-chapter-3-from-she-knew-not-where/ http://timaxelsen.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/the-conjuror-of-doubt-chapter-3-from-she-knew-not-where/#comments Sun, 14 Sep 2008 17:53:40 +0000 Drifting, Rambling http://timaxelsen.wordpress.com/?p=201 ]]>

The little plane swirled over the dusty town. It circled in long motions, swooping the foothills to the west, going in low over the flat land and swinging around and disappearing over another hill. It reappeared minutes later, far in the distant sky, a speck of metal above the hills and steeper mountains beyond. Maria la Dulce watched, perspiration trickling down her spine, with other thoughts in mind. The unpredictability of the man with whom she’d spent a decade traipsing the globe was never more evident. He had left her plenty of times before when he had things to do and she was happy enough to amuse herself, to stand apart from his charades. He claimed his solo side trips were simply to fund their travels. But Maria knew well enough that since he had come from nowhere he could just as easily return.

They were in South America, as they had been on and off over the years. Maria had become absorbed in the ancient cultures and mysteries of the Andean lands. As if, finally, the link he had been hinting at for longer than she could remember was beginning to emerge. Yet something troubled her. A doubt rose within her at the same time. The initial spirituality that held them for so long, appeared to be wearing off. They needed some kind of replenishment. The plane was coming back into view. Maria could make out a four or five seater lowering toward the end of the airstrip. Finally it touched down, spewing up dust on the basic runway. The plateau, known as the pampa, above the green valley of the village of Nazca, was almost entirely bare of vegetation. Maria was there for one thing only. To see from the air the view of the infamous Nazca lines in the stony pebble desert. She knew how important they were in her mentor’s scheme of thinking. He had, in fact, visited them many times. But she had to find out for herself what was so fascinating.

The plane had taxied around to where Maria stood, the oppressive heat scorching. The door opened and three passengers climbed out. The man who had collected the money from Maria ushered her onto the plane. Another man refuelled, and the pilot kicked the engine into life again. Suddenly, from a dusty cloud, the sound of a car horn squeezed above the spluttering plane. A taxi slid onto the runway and the driver waved a white handkerchief at the pilot. The money collector went to the door of the taxi where Archie Arack, a tall, wiry Australian with once new-boot-leather skin dragged himself out of the car and casually handed over cash. Without the least bit of hurry he made his way to the plane and climbed aboard. Within minutes they were above the Nazca pampa, the pilot talking rapidly to Maria la Dulce sitting next to him, Archie Arack, the gringo, in the seat behind.

The first thing that struck Maria was the colourlessness of the plateau. Even when the plane went over the first deep ridges and valleys between the foothills of the Andes, the greyness was startling. The bleak landscape was like black and white photography. Then, without warning, large figure drawings appeared on the earth below. A gigantic spider, a hummingbird, a monkey with a spiral tail. The figures were so monumental, they could not possibly be viewed from the ground. The pilot surmised that since most were about 2000 years old, the construction of them was perplexing. He mentioned the spaceship theory, a counter to the idea the Nazca people had hot air balloons which they used to see the drawings. Another part of the great mystery was how the lines had remained for so long without the incessant wind blasting them into oblivion. Archie Arack, quiet until then, coughed in the back seat.

“Hombre,” he said. “Qué es las lineas muchas?”

Maria heard his strong accent, his Spanish not perfect, but getting the question across. He wanted to know what the mass of lines, straight and long, marked on the pampa like a faded sheet of grid paper, were. The pilot offered the easy explanation which was no explanation at all.

“Estas son muy misteriosas.”

Maria turned and smiled at Archie. “It is the calendar theory,” she said in English.

“What’s the calendar theory?”

“Certain lines point to the solstice. Others are predicting when the rains are coming; when to harvest, when to plant.”

Archie nodded. There was not much scope for conversation. The little plane whined away and shook in the sky like a scrap of paper in a steady breeze. Maria turned back to peer out the side window.

They flew around for about three quarters of an hour, the pilot continuing to offer information such as the fact that the animals are defined by two parallel lines. This led to ideas they were pathways for walking as they can be entered one end and exited the other without crossing a single line. Radiating centres, where some grid lines began, often had scattered broken pottery, indicating possible offerings to gods. What amazed Maria though, was not the powerful mystery of the giant animal figures or the geometrically perfect straight lines, but how much she actually knew about it herself. When the pilot spoke of how the rain couldn’t wash away the lines, she knew rainfall was minimal on the pampa. And when he said the wind couldn’t cover them, she knew that a woman who arrived in the 1940’s, and had spent a lifetime studying the area, cleaned many lines with a broom, so as they could be more easily seen. Maria had read so much she couldn’t even recall what she knew until it came up in context. Yet the mystery of the fascinating lines and highly impressive animal figures was far beyond anything she knew then.

When they landed, the ticket seller was waiting to take them back to town.

“For twenty Intis I can take you to some very good aquaducts,” he said.

“Okay,” Maria replied.

“But only if two of you.”

Maria turned to Archie. “Twenty Intis to go to the aquaduct. Are you interested?”

“If we get to see the mummified bodies too.”

Maria turned to the Peruvian.

“Las momias,” the Peruvian nodded before Maria could say a word. “Trenta Intis cada persona.”

“No more than twenty five,” Archie stood firm.

“Solamente veinte cinco?” the driver appealed.

“Sí.”

“Okay, vamos.”

They were driven in a station wagon into town, where they changed drivers, before heading out the other side of the valley across a dusty road, eventually stopping in a village of white-walled, rectangular, flat-roofed buildings. The new guide was very friendly and enthusiastic on the subject of the ingenious irrigation system, and what it meant to the valley. He showed Maria and Archie a large hole not far from the buildings. It was surrounded by massive stone terraces leading into a pit.

“This is where two underground canals meet. There is a system of canals all over this valley to bring water in November for cotton and corn.”

“Who built them?” Archie asked.

“It is not known. Many people say because we are in Nazca, Nazcan culture built the canals, and made the lines. But this is not sure. The Nazca period finished almost one thousand years before the Spanish arrived.”

They contemplated that before the guide continued.

“You know, the canals are engineering feats not explained. They are trenches with stone roofs under topsoil. This conserved moisture and reduced evaporation. And because the aqueducts are large enough to walk in, some say they can cross the Nazca valley underground.”

“The Nazca lines may represent where the canals were dug,” Maria said.

“And the paths could lead farmers to where they may help neighbours.”

“But not animal shaped canals?” Archie asked.

“Saben que,” the guide began with a sigh that came not from boredom, but the sheer weight of the discussion. “The animals can be shapes of stars and the straight lines crossing them point to constellations at times when rain would come and rivers would run.”

Archie Arack was not content. “So the straight lines have nothing to do with the animal figures?” he asked.

The guide nodded his head knowingly, a smile creasing his weathered face. “Maybe the lines are hundreds of years after the Nazca animals,” he said. “And they knew nothing of them because they cannot see them from the ground.”

“So many theories,” Maria joined in. “But nothing is complementing the other. Can there not be a common thread between them?”

Archie Arack and the guide looked at Maria like they were expecting more. She had asked a question to which they wanted to hear an answer. She stood motionless wondering why they expected it of her. Yet she felt at ease. Tranquil. The guide was so genuine and passionate in his information. And the gringo had a comfortable way about him, a magnetism of sorts. Maria liked his style. His look. She guessed him a few years younger than her, and still younger now than her man was a decade ago when she met him. His skin was not wrinkled but sunbaked and tinged; his hair not unlike hers in colour; dark eyebrows punctuating inquisitiveness. As she surveyed his essence he gazed at her, full in the face, jolting her back to Nazca. And then she came out with something that seemed not to be her speaking, for the thoughts came from she knew not where.

“These ideas link the cultures of the Chimu, Moche, Nazcans and the Incas,” she said.

“Incas!” Archie interrupted. “What of the Incas?”

He looked at Maria, obviously expecting more information, but for then she felt she had none. After a pause, the guide spoke.

“You know, the Inca culture was much later. But Inca was the name only of the rulers. There was only one Inca at any one time. Only since the Spanish came have the entire peoples been called Inca,” he paused, as if contemplating much, before continuing. “Some theories suggest the people who built the stone canals are those the Incas conquered, for the Inca dominion was responsible for many majestic stone constructions.”

“And the Incas were in this area?”

“Sí. The Inca culture spread over much of Peru, from the south to the north.”

They walked back to the car and drove on, crossing a series of hills into another valley. Small villages were scattered around the poor farming area. They stopped in one and the guide repeatedly blew the car horn. He got out to speak with the locals who had come out of their homes. Maria and Archie stayed in the car. Archie put his long arm over the front of the seat.

“My name’s Archie.”

She shook his hand. “I am Maria.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“And you too.”

“Where are you from?”

“Spain. And you?

“Australia.”

“Australia?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you have anything like the Nazca lines in Australia?” Maria asked.

“The lines are in the landscape,” Archie replied.

“Yes?”

Archie nodded silently. Maria waited for him to speak but, when it seemed like he wasn’t going to, she began herself. They both started at the same time, then stopped, laughed gently, smiled.

“Sorry, go on,” Archie said.

“No, you go,” Maria told him. She was firm.

He smiled. She liked that.

“I just wondered if you’re on holidays?”

Maria contemplated that. “Not really. I am studying,” she surprised herself.

“Studying what?”

She paused. “Dimensions.”

“What do you mean?”

“It is not a holiday if it is what you do all the time. No?”

Maria was normally someone who kept her distance, an aloofness, with people she met. She was not used to being asked many questions. She was studying, she supposed. But it was more of a life than a learning. It was a search for the dimensions that would unlock what she had been promised a decade earlier. She was aware how vulnerable she was then – she would have been willing to try anything. But once she had gone the way she had, she was devoted; even if she didn’t quite understand to what.

Archie Arack was a backpacker, there was little doubt about that. It had come to mean more than the way someone carries their belongings when travelling. It was a mode of travel; cheap, light, freewheeling. A way of life. But it was different to what Maria was doing.

What do you mean, dimensions?” Archie asked, stepping over a boundary Maria thought was there all along but, for the first time, wondered if it was only her confines, as if he couldn’t see it.

“My travel partner is chasing his dreams.”

“And what are you doing? Chasing him?”

“How do you know it is a him?”

“Fair enough.”

She paused briefly. “I am looking beyond the ordinary experience.”

“Maybe I can help you,” Archie said with uncanny balance between allurement and authenticity.

Maria watched the timely return of the guide to the car with two local Indians who got in the back seat with Archie. They drove out of the village to an area where a small group of trees grew in dry, grey soil. The man and woman from the village led them beyond the trees and over a small rise. They pointed them toward something twenty metres ahead but didn’t move themselves. The guide indicated Maria and Archie should continue. As they got nearer it became obvious what the shapes were. Sitting on the sand in the sun were five bodies that may have been mummified at some point in time, but were by then skeletons partly covered in skin and clothes. Only two of the five figures had toothy grimaces of skulls. Maria, Archie, and the guide stared at the mummies in silence until Maria began to feel uncomfortable.

“What age are they?” she asked.

“They are from the Nazca period,” the guide replied.

“Why are there only two skulls?”

“The heads have been taken by their enemies. This is why the others would come no closer.”

“So the heads are not here?” Archie asked.

The guide looked uneasy, as if he hadn’t pondered that before. “No,” he said. “They have been taken at the time of death.”

Maria was contemplating another time, another place.

“In Ecuador, the Jívaro tribe were renowned for shrinking heads,” she said. “They seek contact with their ancestors souls, who give them protection against violent death. The souls would come to them in a dream after contact at a waterfall. To satisfy the soul and to maintain protection they had to kill an enemy. But the head must be removed and shrunk in hot sand, to avoid the avenging soul from travelling where it likes to seek revenge.”

Maria suddenly realised the two men were watching her, trance-like, hanging on every breath. She wanted to try and clarify what she was saying. “The shrinking traps the avenging soul in the head so it cannot take revenge,” she said.

There was no reply.

“Normally they only take heads from other tribes.”

Still they stood, opened mouthed.

“Perhaps the Nazcans were somehow linked to the Jívaro,” Maria told them.

“Like there was some thread woven through the Andean culture.”

And it was then Maria realised they were not looking at her, but beyond her, to the sky. A whirring, humming sound began, like helicopter blades slicing through the air. But there was no sound of an engine, just the rhythmical chopping of the wind growing faster. The guide ran to the car but Maria and Archie stood transfixed while around them the sky and the earth began to spin. The hum grew louder, the entire valley spun faster until it was all a blur, as if watching a passing scene from a bullet-like train. And then suddenly, the whirring faded to the distance and the sky blackened as if night had descended on them, or they had descended into darkness. But the spinning had stopped and an orange light shined on the intrigue of their faces. Quietly they looked for clues, the sky alight not with stars but tiny fires. And then the fires went out and the whirring hum gently began again. And it was daylight. As if nothing had happened.

“What was that?” Maria asked.

They both stood there a long moment before Archie was able to move his feet.

“We’d better get back before the guide pisses off,” he said.

Back at the car, the guide and locals waited silently for them. No-one spoke a word as they headed back into Nazca where the guide stopped in the main square, the sun getting low on the horizon. Despite being very informative and obviously having more than an economic interest in showing tourists the local sites, it took him a great deal of effort to bring himself to speak.

“I hope you enjoyed your afternoon.”

“Yeah, very interesting,” Archie answered.

“And very cheap too,” the guide replied.

Maria and Archie stood watching him speed away. Archie rubbed his lips with the back of his hand.

“Do you want a beer?”

“Sí,” was all Maria could say.

They went to an outdoor table setting and ordered cervezas.

“What happened there?” Maria asked.

“I don’t know,” Archie paused, waiting for his beer. When it arrived he drank near to half of it in one swoop. “How do you know all that stuff about that tribe in Ecuador?”

“My travelling partner talks a lot about that sort of thing,” she lied.

“What! Decapitations? Shrinking heads in hot sand!” Archie finished his beer. “And where is your travelling partner today?”

“Doing some business.”

“In Nazca?”

“In Cuzco.”

“Well, how about dinner?” Archie smiled, a cheekiness in him, a suggestiveness Maria liked.

“But the plane leaves in the morning. I must catch the bus in half an hour to Arequipa.”

“Oh,” he tried to hide his disappointment, knowing Arequipa was ten hours away. “Time for another beer?”

“No. But I enjoyed to meet you.”

“Then I’ll see you again, I hope.”

“I hope so too,” Maria said and stood up.

She stretched out her hand and Archie took it, without standing, and smiled at her as she took it back, turned and walked toward the hotel, somehow knowing he watched her body swaying in the pale blue dress, all the way.

What if your waking world was an illusion and your dream world real? Who would the other people in your dreams be?

From South America’s Amazon jungle, the Andean ruins of Machu Picchu and the mysterious Nazca lines, this story infiltrates the minds of four Australians, whose travels get tangled between delusions and reality, woven with an Infinite Thread by a chameleonic persona who travels in dreams conjuring doubts.

The Conjuror of Doubt – A novel on the effects of travel, the challenge of identity.

An adventure into the uncertainty of runaway imaginations.

You are now able to purchase or download this book from lulu.com

http://stores.lulu.com/timaxelsen

]]> http://timaxelsen.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/the-conjuror-of-doubt-chapter-3-from-she-knew-not-where/feed/ 0 Drifting, Rambling p9052220 http://timaxelsen.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/oceans-apart-chapter-2-caye-caulker-belize/ http://timaxelsen.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/oceans-apart-chapter-2-caye-caulker-belize/#comments Sun, 14 Sep 2008 16:00:08 +0000 Drifting, Rambling http://timaxelsen.wordpress.com/?p=190 ]]>

]]> http://timaxelsen.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/oceans-apart-chapter-2-caye-caulker-belize/feed/ 2 Drifting, Rambling p8292214 http://timaxelsen.wordpress.com/2008/07/08/from-astorga-to-santiago/ http://timaxelsen.wordpress.com/2008/07/08/from-astorga-to-santiago/#comments Tue, 08 Jul 2008 11:49:40 +0000 Drifting, Rambling http://timaxelsen.wordpress.com/?p=146 ]]>

We’d walked over 500 kilometres by the time we could see Astorga, a town of 13,000 from the 1st century AD, on a hill, the spires of the Cathedral visible from several kilometres to the east. The Camino de Santiago took on a new phase after that. What it was for sure, I don’t know.

Astorga was a modern town, with a history of cocoa and a chocolate museum. A towering cathedral stood next to the Antonio Gaudí designed bishop’s palace, a unique place, bizarre by all but Gaudí standards, medieval, magicial. We’d arrived late in the day, 30 plus kilometres in the sun, so spent a morning relaxing, setting off in the afternoon.

The walking seemed easier, we weren’t dog tired when we arrived at each destination. We left later in the mornings, deliberately getting out of step with the other pilgrims. It was far more relaxing, and there was plenty of daylight.

The landscape improved too, mountains appearing on the horizon. We started to see trees again, and knew we were finally off the meseta, the Montes of León visible, two patches of snow spread across a mountain still 2 days away.

We talked to a farmer herding sheep, his massive dogs rushing up to us as the sheep crossed the path. The mastiffs slept with the sheep, traditionally keeping them safe from wolves and still doing so, he told us, when they took the sheep into the Montes for the summer. Another farmer told me he was growing his small plantation of poplars despite other people in the area thinking he was poco loco. He explained they used to be used for house building and firewood. He figured there would be a use for them in another 9 years or so. I didn’t doubt him, and found it impressive that the local farmers were interested to talk to the pilgrims coming through when there were as many as 50,000 a year and four times that in a Holy Year. It didn’t seem to be reciprocal, many pilgrims like tourists blustering their way through, oblivious to the Spanish way of life. A buenos dias was often met with a bonjour or a guten morgen, a Spanish hello completely foreign to them.

The pilgrim in general was a curious thing. I couldn’t work out what they were there for. Not that I tried too hard, I wasn’t sure why I was. But the get-up-at-pre-dawn-rush to the next albergue and sleep for the afternoon, only to get up for a meal and go back to bed by 10pm, didn’t seem like much fun. And although the Catholic church apparently says you can sin as much as you like and walk the Camino in a Holy Year to obliterate the indiscretions, it didn’t seem the reason too many people were doing it either. It was curious alright. Fitness hardly the thing. The average age must have been sixty plus, overweight a prerequisite. It certainly wasn’t a classic hike. And any stroll in the Himalayas or the Andes, maybe a dip in the Ganges, was going to leave the mysticism of the Camino way back in the distance, as far as I could tell. But it had something. Yellow arrows lead the way to the next café con leche; there was no need to carry food or water, or not much; aldeas or hamlets lay, sometimes strewn, along the way every half hour; imposing architecture, intriguing history evident.

There were a few Spanish people walking but most pilgrims were Europeans on holidays, a primarily older crowd, perhaps looking for meaning as they aged.

People had decided that the Camino had something – someone had just forgotten to tell the Spanish locals.

Once we climbed the pass at O Cebrieiro at 1330 metres, encountering some day trippers singing down the path to where their bus waited for them and took them on to the next town in no doubt 5 star luxury, we went into Galicia, had 150 odd kilometres to go and the fields rolled green with brown Galician dairy cattle, like lush mushrooms on a bed of green salad, occassionally salt and peppered with large Fresians.

Galicia, a sparsely populated state of Spain, in the far northwest, had the lowest figures for tourism in the country that gets more tourists than anywhere else in Europe. So the lack of facilities should hardly have been surprising. We could stay however in municipal albergues, brand spanking new for €3 with disposable sheets and pillow cases, expansive ktichens, though no-one in charge realised that kitchens really need saucepans, fry pans, cutlery and plates. And maybe a nearby tienda that sold food.

But that of course was part of the charm. Maybe all the charm. Galicia was way back in the past, didn’t seem like Europe at all, had it’s own language, Celt based.

The weather had improved out of sight. We’d expected the faimed Galician weather to rain all over us, but it had been the worst rain in northern Spain in 37 years that got us in Navarro and Castilla-León. In Galicia we were luckier.

While we were walking in the afternoon, trying to avoid the crowds, I think it was a collectiveness vibe that people were into, looking for goals, solutions, hoping that others who were doing the same might rub off some magic. For us, that wasn’t it. I just wanted to go for a walk, the idea of walking for weeks the appealing thing. A bit of solitude. And you can do that lots of places in the world and not have a pilgrim wake you from a doze in cow field to take a photo of him and his wife. There was something we clearly didn’t get. But one thing was for sure, I wasn’t going to be doing it again. I met people who’d done it 5 times in 5 years. I told others that. They shook their heads. I wasn’t that alone in my thoughts.

And then suddenly we were in the low figures to Santiago. Suddenly we realised we didn’t know what we were going to do when we didn’t have to walk from dusk to dawn. Suddenly it all seemed about to end before I knew what I was doing.

We walked into Santiago. Seven hundred and seventy seven kilometres later, 34 days. Did I feel good? Yes. Different? Fitter. Worth it? If you have nothing better to do. Do it again? Not the same route. But walking around one and a half million steps in five weeks can change you.

Santiago de Compostela is an impressive city. The cathedral has a Baroque facade, faces onto the Praza de Obradoiro, a grand square, where people mingle noticabley placidly. Inside, the apparent bones of Saint James the Apostle lie in a crypt below an ornate altar.

We’d walked there from practically the French border, saw faces we’d seen along the way, people we’d talked to, others we’d just smiled a hello. There was a camaraderie that gathered around the cathedral. It made me feel like an imposter, but we went to mass, watched the Botafumiero, a 50kg silver-plated incense burner, get swung through the immese building, originally to mask the smell of the pilgrims. I saw people we knew taking communion. Maybe many were more religous than we’d known. Then I talked to someone who’d gone from religious to agnostic to atheist in the space of 30 days. The camino was about people finding themselves, the process of walking promoting thought, awareness of self, consciousness, the pounding footsteps a form of meditation.

We walked on, another 90 kilometres to Finisterre, where pilgrims believed the earth ended beyond the sunset over the Atlantic. We spent one last night in an albergue. We’d stayed in churches, a monastery and even an horreo, the stone Galician grain stores common throughout the region.

Some people burnt their clothes on the beach before they watched the sunset, the next day all about a new beginning.

It was a hike for us, and an achievement for sure. But I’d always associated hiking with solitude, nature, individualism. Not the Camino de Santiago. There were just too many peopIe. Possibly that’s what a pilgrimmage was; a quest from within the throng, despite the crowd, oblivious to the masses. Maybe I had at least discovered that.

June 2008