Life is a story, waiting to be told
I was interviewed recently by Adam Atkinson at North Country Now. He wrote a beautiful article. Click on the link to read about one of the most remote and serene places I’ve ever spent time in.
Source: Story collection featuring Cranberry Lake wins award
This is my last post of South African meals, because I’ve run out of photos…. If this subject thread hasn’t made you want to climb on a plane and head to restaurants in South Africa, you either eat at McDonald’s on a regular basis or had your taste buds excised.
For everyone else, the cooking in South Africa is beyond delicious! Uwe and I are still raving about the meals we ate every single night we were there!
NOTES: ©2023 Jadi Campbell. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. More of Uwe’s pictures from South Africa and his photography may be viewed at viewpics.de.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books. 
Ah yes, more photos of our meals in South Africa last November.
“I intend that my last work shall be a cookbook composed of memories and desires.” ~ Alexander Dumas *
They all tasted as great as they look. Sigh.
NOTES: ©2023 Jadi Campbell. All photos ©Uwe Hartmann. More photos of our trip to South Africa and Uwe’s photography may be viewed at viewpics.de.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
I wasn’t kidding. Here are more photos to prove my point. As the Japanese say: “The eyes eat too.” This idea of beautiful food presentation is known as moritsuke.
No words needed!
And I’ve got more pictures where these came from … hungry yet?
NOTES: ©2023 Jadi Campbell. All photos ©Uwe Hartmann. More of Uwe’s pictures from our trip to South Africa and his photography may be viewed at viewpics.de.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
Miles Davis was born on May 26, 1926 in Alton, Illinois. Mr. Davis was and remains one of the most important and influential figures in music. He was a trumpet player, bandleader, and composer. I saw him perform twice, once in a huge stadium, the second time from the third row in a small theater. Some concert experiences change the viewer/listener. Miles Davis sure changed me. In his honor and in reverent reference to his Sketches of Spain, I give you the post I wrote after we visited the Mezquita in Córdoba. – Jadi
We began our trip to southern Spain in Granada. When I stood inside Granada’s Cathedral, I suddenly – and very vividly – remembered what and how I’d seen it 40 years earlier. At the Alhambra, my memories were blurry remembrances of running water.
A few days later in Córdoba, I had a further experience with spatial imprinting. We spent a half day in the Mezquita, a UNESCO World Heritage site.
The Mezquita was first built in the mid-6th century as a Visogoth church, built up in the 780s as The Great Mosque of Córdoba, and finally re-dedicated as the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Assumption (Catedral de Nuestra Señora de la Asunción) in 1236. The Mezquita’s altar incorporates and blends Catholic iconography and design into the original Moorish structure.
The early Muslim prayer hall is filled with rows of arches in colored bands of stone. They seem to stretch into Eternity.
This hypostyle hall (meaning that the roof rests on pillars) contains a grand 856 columns of finest jasper, marble, onyx and granite. These columns are topped with the arches, which are futher topped with more arches.
If Granada’s Cathedral is all soaring heights, the Mezquita in Córdoba is an endless repetition of forms. Gaze in any direction and turn your body in a slow circle. The repeating arches always bring the viewer back to the beginning again.
The repeating patterns are beautiful. They’re haunting, too; it’s no accident that what I recall best from my first trip to Andalusia are deeply buried memories of graceful forms in plaster, stone and tiles.
What would I say if you were to ask me to select one thing I remember most after my first visit to the Mezquita as a teenager, all those years ago? I’d say: A sense of wonder.
Islamic architects and artists are masters of geometric decoration. Their patterns’ deeper purpose is to bring visitors and viewers to a sense of another, underlying reality. Maybe it’s just the beauty in the world. Perhaps it’s the presence of God. I’m perfectly fine with either explanation.
I rediscovered the whimsical and the wondrous as I gazed at repeating, interlocking, intertwined squares, circles, triangles, flowers, tessellations and stars.
Artwork both secular and sacred is woven into every stroke of calligraphy that embellishes gorgeous walls and doorways and niches at both the Alhambra and in Córdoba. The effect is one of standing in a house of mirrors or an echo chamber with lights and patterns extending on and out into Forever.
No single detail stayed. Just… a fleeting glimpse of the Divine.
In memory of Miles Davis, May 26, 1926 – September 28, 1991. And how could I highlight this post in any color other than Kind of Blue?
NOTES: Sacred Geometry; Crystalinks; Islamic geometric patterns. © Jadi Campbell 2017. Previously published as Andalusia Memories 3: Cordoba and the Arches of Infinity All photos © Uwe Hartmann. Uwe’s photography may be viewed at viewpics.de. Go to my earlier posts to read more about our visit to Andalusia.
My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, The Trail Back Out and Grounded.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
I don’t know about anyone else, but food is a big part of why I like to travel. Why do you think we go to France so often? Paris is 2 1/2 hours away by fast train, and yes, we go for the culture and history. But we plan big parts of our visits there around meals. It’s probably been our favorite food destiny, with Italy and Spain as close runners-up.
And then we went to South Africa last November…. Oh. my. God.
Not to mention the wines and craft beers. My last food post was a naughty Valentine’s Day heart. But in some of the next posts I’ll give you pictures of food to feast your eyes on.
Without bread, without wine, love is nothing ~ French proverb
NOTES: © Jadi Campbell 2023. All photos © Uwe Hartmann. More of Uwe’s pictures from South Africa and his photography may be viewed at viewpics.de.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
Actress Elizabeth Taylor was born on February 27, 1932 in London, England. She was talented, beautiful and wildly glamorous. My favorite role of hers is Martha in the electrifying Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, but Elizabeth Taylor is perhaps most identified with her role as Cleopatra. In her honor, here is a post I wrote after visiting Egypt and the Nile River. —Jadi
***
This is Part 2 to my post about our brief trip to Luxor, Egypt. As I look through Uwe’s photographs from that week I’m struck by his images of the Nile.
Cleopatra: He’s speaking now, Or murmuring ‘Where’s my serpent of old Nile?’ — Shakespeare Antony and Cleopatra, Act I, Scene 4
There is something sensuous about this river… One of my very favorite Shakespeare plays is Antony and Cleopatra. Here is the description of Cleopatra floating down the Nile:
Enobarbus: The barge she sat in, like a burnished throne,
Burned on the water; the poop was beaten gold,
Purple the sails, and so perfumed, that
The winds were love-sick with them, the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes.
…From the barge
A strange invisible perfume hits the sense
Of the adjacent wharfs. The city cast
Her people out upon her, and Antony,
Enthroned i’ the market-place, did sit alone,
Whistling to the air; which, but for vacancy,
Had gone to gaze on Cleopatra too
And made a gap in nature.
Agrippa: Rare Egyptian! (Act II, Scene 2)
The Nile is iconic. It’s the longest river in the world, around 4,160 miles or 6,670 kilometers The Nile originates at Lake Victoria and Lake Tana, and ends at the Mediterranean. It flows northward through Tanzania, Rwanda, Kenya, Uganda, Burundi, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, South Sudan, and Egypt.
It is the largest oasis on the planet. When we visited in May 2013 tourism had declined so far that there were no longer any direct flights to Luxor. Instead, we flew to Hurghada on the Red Sea and a van met us. We drove for four hours across the barest desert landscape imaginable. No nomads, no towns, no vegetation or animal life to be seen. When we reached the Nile, visible signs of life appeared again.
All of the great ancient cities we visited are on the river’s banks. Karnak, Luxor/Thebes. Dendera, Edfu. From our hotel balcony we gazed directly across the river to the Valley of the Kings. The Valleys of the Kings, the Queens and the Nobles are on the west bank of the Nile River as you must be buried on that side in order to enter the afterlife.
We sailed downriver to Dendera, enjoying the scenery that flowed slowly past.
The fertile Nile was the original source of Egypt’s wealth and today 40 million Egyptians (50% of the population) live near its banks. There was life on the shores and in the water everywhere we looked.
Cleopatra: …we’ll to th’ river: there, My music playing far off, I will betray Tawny-finned fishes. (Act II, Scene 5)
Antony: The higher Nilus swells, The more it promises; as it ebbs, the seedsman Upon the slime and ooze scatters his grain, And shortly comes to harvest. (Act II, Scene 7)
The Egyptian calendar was based on the Nile’s three flood cycles. According to Wikipedia, “[t]hese seasons, each consisting of four months of thirty days each, were called Akhet, Peret, and Shemu. Akhet, which means inundation, was the time of the year when the Nile flooded, leaving several layers of fertile soil behind, aiding in agricultural growth. Peret was the growing season, and Shemu, the last season, was the harvest season when there were no rains.” [1]
As I looked out at the river and thought about my mother, I sensed the rhythms of life and death more clearly than ever before.
To the ancients, the Nile was the River Ar meaning “black” because of the rich, fertile sediment left on the banks from the Nile’s flooding. When the Aswan Dam was built in 1970, the annual flooding ended. But by the time we left I knew why Shakespeare’s hero confessed,
Antony: Egypt, thou knew’st too well My heart was to thy rudder tied by th’ strings, And thou shouldst tow me after. (Act III, Scene 9)
In memory of Elizabeth Taylor, February 27, 1932 – March 23, 2011
NOTES:[1] Season of the Harvest, Nile-River-Facts, Ancient Egypt Online, www.sciencekids. Copyright © 2015 Jadi Campbell. Previously published as Egypt 2: Along the Nile. More of Uwe’s pictures from Egypt and his photography may be viewed at viewpics.de.
My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys, The Trail Back Out and Grounded.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
Some twenty years ago I was having a bad visit with my dad. Bad. My thoughts were dark, and my mood was gloomy. I was filled with the kind of despair that only a fight with a family member can give you. Like, stabbing-knives kind of misery. To escape for a few hours Barb and I took our nephew and the canoe out to an island on the lake. We camped on it every summer as children.
We discovered that someone, now decamped and nowhere in sight, had built a magical sandcastle and town. Suddenly the black clouds lifted and I felt as filled with wonder as my nephew Niko.
The paths of the sandcastle town were lined with wild mushroom caps, still fresh and unblemished. Someone made the sandcastle just hours before we got to the island.
My photographs are decades old and pretty grainy. But you can see the sandcastle is truly in the middle of the Adirondacks wilderness (i.e. the middle of nowhere)… Only the shores of Cranberry Lake are all around.
Who built it? What whimsy inspired the person or persons to erect a fairy town on the waterfront of an island that few people ever visit?
The memory of that discovery and its gift of magic in the middle of a very hard place have remained as detailed as every bit of love and care that someone spent building it for us to find.
For those who want to know what happened next: Dad and I resolved our differences and grew closer again. I never found out who built that fairy town. But I still wonder why it appeared in my life at just that point and I remain grateful and filled with wonder that it did.
HAPPY NEW YEAR, WITH MY DEEPEST THANKS TO MY READERS AND FOLLOWERS. MAY THE COMING YEAR BRING ALL OF YOU DISCOVERIES OF SANDCASTLES WHERE YOU EXPECT THEM LEAST AND WHEN YOU NEED THEM MOST.
NOTES: Text and Photos ©2022 Jadi Campbell. The township of Cranberry Lake has a whopping total of 126 inhabitants. Finding a fairy castle and town built on the island there was nothing short of a miracle.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
Joni Mitchell was born November 7, 1943 in Fort Macleod, Canada. Singer, song writer, painter, Mitchell’s intensely personal songs reflect her thoughts on the inner and outer worlds. In her long career she has explored folk music, pop, rock and roll, classical, and jazz. I have read articles that describe Joni Mitchell as the major female artist of all time. I say this: She is one of the most important and influential recording artists of any age, period.
An amazing voice and unique guitar playing frame her writing…. Here are a few lines from A Strange Boy.
We had arranged in Sittwe for a guide, a boat and a special day visa in order to travel on to the semiautonomous Chin State. As we headed up the river the small boat traveled slowly. It was the last day of the year, a calm morning with no winds.
Sky and water reflected one another like twin mirrors.
We sailed on for several hours, and I was overtaken by a sense of displacement that was complete. It was preternaturally still, so quiet and without movement that it seemed we had sailed to a place located somewhere between firmament and earth. It wasn’t quite attached to either.
Finally the boat came to a stop and we debarked and began our walk up into the first Chin village. The villages are extremely remote and what makes them extraordinary is the Chin art of tattooing. The tradition had been strongly discouraged by the government since the 60’s, and was believed to have almost died out.
In the villages we sailed to by boat, only the old women were reputed to still have the facial tattoos. The men had gone out into the jungle and gathered the materials necessary for the tattooing process. Several days of painstaking tattoo work ensued; only faces of young teenaged girls were transformed.
We walked through the village with our guide talking to the locals.
Pigs and puppies tumbled on the path as people worked. The tamped dirt was cleared and clean.
After perhaps 20 minutes of walking through the village and watching and being watched, the female elders suddenly appeared to meet us.
NOTES: [1] Source: LyricFind, A Strange Boy lyrics © Crazy Crow Music / Siquomb Music Publishing, Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC.
©2022 Jadi Campbell. Previously published as Chugging Slowly Upriver in Northwest Burma, Part Two. All photos © Uwe Hartmann.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.
Lena Kathren Headey was born on October 3, 1973 in Hamilton, Bermuda. She is, of course, the superb actress who portrayed Cersei from Game of Thrones. Cersei’s beauty and willingness to plot and then ruthlessly destroy her enemies are balanced by her deep love for her children and her inner insecurities. She is absolutely magnificent and I will never forgive the producers of the show for leaving her gazing pointlessly over the ramparts of King’s Landing for most of the final season. What a betrayal of her character’s intelligence, and what a waste of her talents!
In her honor I am reprinting the post I wrote after my visit to King’s Landing, aka Dubrovnik. – Jadi
I’d wanted to see Dubrovnik for years. It’s a UNESCO World Heritage site. Dubrovnik is one of the most intact – and surely one of the most beautiful – walled cities on the planet. It was strategically built on the Adriatic coast, has spectacular scenery, and provides settings for one of my favorite shows, Game of Thrones. It had to be perfect!
Note to Self: In the future, question any place that sounds too good to be true. It usually is.
Aw, come on. King’s Landing! Cercei’s Walk of Shame! Tyrion sightings!
This trip was going to be awesome!
I frequently meet a friend on her way back through Europe as she travels around the world. We travel well together, enjoy exploring new spots, and always have great luck with our plans. We’ve never booked a bad hotel.
Note to Self: Always and never are adjectives doomed to fail at some point.
I flew to Dubrovnik a day early and went hunting for the hotel. I dragged a suitcase up the stone stairs of narrow alleys. And down the stone stairs of narrow alleys. And then back up the stone stairs of narrow alleys. No sign over the doorway, no answer when I repeatedly knocked. Not one person who could give me any information.
It was really hot, humid and sticky, and overcrowded with tourists now heading to the outdoor restaurants for supper. I sat beside my suitcase on the hard stone steps, trying to stay calm (forget about cool or collected – at that point I was drenched in sweat). I dug out the phone number for the hotel contact.
Note to Self: Never, ever leave home without your cell phone fully charged and that list of phone numbers close at hand.
“You’re here?” a male voice exclaimed. “Someone will be there with a key in ten minutes.” I was still waiting over half an hour later. A pleasant young man finally arrived. Why hadn’t I called when I arrived at the airport to let someone know to come meet me?
Note to Self: They never suggested that we do this. Regardless, it was their guests’ fault.
He let me into the hotel… a home converted into apartments. We’d requested separate beds; the room only contained one. I didn’t mind sharing, but the hotel room furnishings were neither as advertised nor promised. The air conditioner had been installed so that it blew directly into the head of the bed.
Note to Self: Check carefully when booking rooms. Sometimes Southern and East Europeans have loose definitions for things, including accommodations and measurements of time.
What about the included breakfast? I asked. No worries, I just needed to head down the steep stairs a few streets, turn into the main road, and find the café the hotel apartment rooms had made arrangements with to feed guests.
Relieved to finally be in my hotel lodging I showered, changed clothes, and went out to find dinner. No time left for sightseeing.
The next morning, I eventually found the café after going in the wrong direction and hungrily gazing at a half-dozen other breakfast spots. “Where’s your voucher?” the waiter asked. “Uhh, I wasn’t told I needed one,” I stuttered, and retrieved the hotel booking invoice I luckily had with me. The waiter vanished with it and consulted a colleague. He returned with a different menu with fewer choices. I ate a passable breakfast and headed off to walk the city walls.
Now, this was more like it! Not a bad view in any direction and it was early enough not to feel the oppressive heat already settling on the city. What a shame there were so many other people crowding the ramparts.
Back at the room I waited for my friend to arrive. One of the young men showed up and insisted, “No, you don’t need a voucher for breakfast, regardless of what the café says. And you should have waited and walked the city walls late in the afternoon when the cruise ships have left again.” So why didn’t he tell me this yesterday? But, I thought, it would have meant traversing the walls for two hours in 90-degree peak afternoon heat, so I didn’t speak up.
He wouldn’t let me pay with a credit card. Cash only. We’d have to wait until his associate came the next day as my friend hadn’t arrived yet. When we paid, he couldn’t make change. He promised to bring it by later; if we weren’t there, he’d put the money they owed us under the room door.
The man and the money never showed up.
The last morning, I tried to get out of bed and thought I was going to throw up. I had developed benign paroxysmal positional vertigo (BPPV) from the extreme heat, not enough fluids, and cold air blowing on my face all night.
Just before we checked out I wrote a curt note indicating where to have the money deposited that they still owed us. As we were leaving we ran into a cleaning woman. “Oh! The boys couldn’t make it over yesterday. They asked me to give it to you.” We then headed off to the airport with money we no longer had any time to use.
Note to Self: Make sure to carry lots of small bills to make change next time you go back. If you ever go back. 2nd Follow-up Note to Self: Cash-only vacation options are a really bad idea. 3rd Follow-up Note to Self: Do Not Sleep Directly Under an Air-Conditioner. Ever.
I remind myself Dubrovnik is all romantic corners and silly tourists taking selfies.
and the European Cup soccer matches!
I’ll tell you another time about how I almost didn’t make it on our plane going home. Or why my friend was late getting to the hotel room. She’d been charged $600 for her rental car, dinged when a gang tried to scam her with a staged accident.
I shall be forever grateful that we were there together. We even laugh about parts of the trip to Dubrovnik, and figure those few days used up more combined residual bad travel karma (and available cash) than any trip we’ve ever gone on.
Note to Self: Re-read this post before planning the next trip!
NOTES: Text and Photos Copyright ©2016 Jadi Campbell. Previously published as The H(ot)ell in Dubrovnik. Uwe’s photography may be viewed at viewpics.de.
Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.