Remembering where we were

On this 10th anniversary of the September 11 attacks many of us will reflect on where we were as the horror of that day unfolded.

In this excerpt from my book, "Ribbons of Highway: A Mother-Child Journey Across America," I share how my family took that terrible day and transformed it into an enriching odyssey:


Although my kids and I didn't climb into the van and drive off until nine months later, our 12,000-mile American road odyssey began on September 11, 2001.

Where I was and what I was doing when the planes ripped through New York are part of my life's fabric. I was outside painting the fence brown, telling my neighbor Donna that I had plenty of time now to do the job my 13-year-old son was supposed to have finished because I'd just been laid off. We groused about the economy's sorry state and mused over whether things could get any worse.

In the next instant, they did. The kitchen phone rang. It was my husband calling from the car to tell me one of the Twin Towers had been hit. Mike was on the road, making sales calls, and hadn't seen any pictures yet. He'd only heard the radio reports.

The paintbrush hardened outside in the sun, pieces of cut grass sticking up like spikes in the brown mess.

When Adam and Dana came home from school we gathered around the table on the deck and began, as a family, to sort through facts and feelings and fears. The kids' teachers had done a good job dispensing comfort and assurance before sending them home. By the time they got to us, we'd decided we had three things to communicate: they were safe and loved; America was strong; the world's people were good.

To our family, this last point was as important as the others, because our kids have been traveling the world since they were babies. Respect for the world's people is part of their upbringing. This is a gift, and we'd allow no senseless act, however brutal, nor any retaliatory distrust or intolerance, to steal it.

My mind's eye called up images: two Turkish teenagers kicking a soccer ball with a five-year-old Adam on the grounds of Topkapi Palace; Adam joining a group of Bolivian boys in tabletop foosball during recess at Copacabana's school, Lake Titicaca shining at the end of the street; the kids building sand castles with Javier and Daniel, two Belizean brothers who'd pass our hotel each day on their way to class; Dana setting off for a bird walk, in the shadow of Kilimanjaro, with Mike and Masai chief Zapati. These experiences enrich life and must continue.

As the painful, numbing slowness of the weeks immediately following September 11 yielded to something approximating normalcy, I regained enough focus to give the future some thought. That future had us traveling again, but this time, we'd get to know our America.

www.LoriHein.com

Milkin' it

I know I've been milking this summer vacation thing. Gonna milk it a bit longer. Will be back with travel stories mid-September. The weather turned cool in New England the day the calendar turned to September 1, so I'll be blogging in long-sleeved, long-legged cold weather clothes. Damn. Hate the thought of it.

The North End: Where the streets wear crowns

I haven't posted in a while. I actually haven't written much of anything in a while. I keep staring at the four calls for submission for upcoming Chicken Soup for the Soul book titles that are sitting in my inbox, but as the submission deadlines creep closer, I continue to surrender to the lazy days of summer, procrastinate, and produce nothing worth sending. Good thing Mike makes a steady paycheck because I'm not even earning grocery money right now.

I guess this writing hiatus is my summer vacation. Any money we could have spent on travel went toward Dana's Peru experience. (She's back and had a brilliant time - except for her camera having been stolen. Thank goodness for Facebook, from which she pilfered friends' pics and patched together a terrific album of photographic memories.)

In lieu of travel to a foreign place this summer, Mike and I have developed a pleasing routine of traveling into Boston's North End every few weeks to soak up the Italian ambience and eat some of the best food on the planet. What I love about the North End is that it's simultaneously touristy and authentic. Daytrippers share the narrow streets, church gardens, pastry shops and restaurants with locals and with students from nearby Suffolk University, many of whom rent North End apartments.

The North End is a dense, bustling neighborhood where festive decorations arc over streets and alleys to announce the next in summer's lineup of saints' feast days and festivals (or harken back to last Christmas when they were put up and never taken down); where some of the wrought iron fire escapes climbing the red-brick sides of apartment buildings lead to killer roof decks; where Boston Harbor glistens at the end of tiny, downhill-sloping passageways; and where it's impossible to get a bad meal. The gastronomic bar is set high in the North End, and, with lots of outrageously competent competition, any establishment serving mediocre fare will be panned in the press and shuttered in short order. Many North End restaurants are decades-old institutions.

On our most recent North End excursion we lucked out and snagged two bar stools at the Cafe Florentine on Hanover Street at dinnertime. The bartenders were gracious and professional, the food flawless. Mike's chicken parm was as good as he's had, and my boneless duck breast in tomato sauce over fat, fluted-edge pappardelle was a succulent treat.

On our way back to the car, we cut through North Square. As we stood on a corner checking out the menus at the square's excellent restaurants, I commented to Mike that only in Boston can you enjoy a superb meal while looking out the window at Paul Revere's house.

"Paul Revere's house?!" exclaimed a woman walking by with her friend. "Where is it?"

"Right there," I said, pointing to the low, steep-roofed wooden structure tucked between brick buildings plenty old but centuries newer than the revolutionary silversmith's.

"Wow!" she exclaimed, "I'm so glad we heard you say that! We would have missed it!" as the friends darted off to take in the historical gem. I told her the house might be closed for the day and that I hoped they could at least get a peek into the side garden.

As they rushed off over North Square's cobbles, cameras already lifted to capture the old brown clapboard abode, I felt like calling out, "Have you seen the streets wearing crowns?"

www.LoriHein.com

Machu Picchu: Baksheesh works here, too

Today, a guest blogger: Dana, who just had an amazing four-day, off-the-grid expedition out of Cusco with about a dozen others from her group. The $100 trip involved some mountain biking on Day One, then hours-long mountain hikes on Days Two and Three. The end of Day Three put Dana's splinter group in Aguas Calientes, the town at the base of Machu Picchu, and the terminus for the Cusco to Machu Picchu train. On Day Four the entire group visited Machu Picchu -- but only an early-rising, adventurous subgroup got tickets to climb Huayna Picchu, which is the peak you see in most Machu Picchu photographs. The ruins sit on a flat area between two peaks, Machu, which is never photographed (you stand on it to photograph the famous gumdrop peak), and that gumdrop peak, Huayna, seen here.

Dana and I Facebook chatted for an hour today, and I'm just going to copy and paste her excited, uncapitalized, typo-ridden, run-on entries here. I could feel the wonder of her journey through the keyboard:

"hellllloooooooo. omg the past four days were amazing. o can't believe what i did mom. it was incredible and i cannot imagine not having done the trek and feeling the same way about the trip.

it was insane. very hard. but amazing.

and machu picchu was amazing.

and we climbed huayna picchu. we left our hotel at 330 am to do it. we bribed the guard with money to open the gate an hour early to hike up to machu picchu and get to the opening before everyone else. and we were the first one there. first 400 can do huayna.

and then when we got in to macchu picchu we were so lucky because it was deserted and really special, because we saw it empty for like 15 minutes before all the tourists came in. when i saw the first ruin on machu picchu i lost my breath and my eyes teared

and then three day trek before it was so crazy ahhhhhh

i wish you could have seen what we did

and the trail was crazy.

it made the whole trip worth it

i didnt shower for 5 days

It was amazing. And Machu Picchu was so perfect. I spent almost an hour just sitting on a ledge by myself and I watched Huayanapicchu go from dark to completely illuminated in the sunrise. It was magical. I'm currently gearing up to spend 11 hours through the night on a bus to go to Arequipa. SEE YOU SOON. I LOVE YOU."

www.LoriHein.com

Global Voices: Bookmark this

Dana's heading into the final weeks of her summer semester in Peru, and the group is scheduled to head to Puno for a few days of Lake Titicaca exploration. Whether they'll be able to go -- or get out if they get in -- is in doubt, as Aymara miners have been protesting a mining concession granted to a Canadian company. The protests, put on hold for a week to allow Puno residents to vote in Peru's June 5 presidential election, which placed socialist Ollanta Humala in power, were at times violent, and had effectively shut down and cut off Puno. Hundreds of tourists were stranded but did manage to get out. The road between Cusco and Puno, the road Dana's group will travel on, was blocked. Two days ago, the protesters resumed their demonstrations.

Dana's university isn't giving the students much information, so I've been trying to find current, reliable reports. A lot of what I've found are old stories reposted with new dates -- very confusing when you're trying to figure out what's happening right now. I've been reading Peruvian newspapers online, but my Spanish isn't honed enough to pick up tone and nuance, and nuance counts here, along with fact.

A few minutes ago I stumbled upon Global Voices, and I recommend that anyone with an interest in knowing what's going on in places large and small, known and obscure, all over the world, bookmark this site. I'll be visiting at least weekly.

Using a team of volunteer bloggers and translators, Global Voices aggregates news and blogs from citizen journalists worldwide. The number of countries covered is staggering, and the posts are translated into many languages, increasing the accessibility of the information. I spent an illuminating half-hour cruising the site and decided to use it as a trusted news source after I clicked on the "Sponsors" tab and saw the many respected organizations that help keep Global Voices going.

I sent Dana the Global Voices link to share with her trip leaders, as I think the site's Peruvian bloggers have their ears closer to the ground than Dana's college officials.

www.LoriHein.com

Fearless in Switzerland

A few days ago Dana and 15 of her friends had planned to jump off a cliff and paraglide over the Pacific Ocean in Miraflores, the upscale Lima suburb where she and fellow students are living for a few weeks of their six-week Peruvian edu-adventure, but Lima's crappy winter weather took the wind out of their sails. Which made momma happy.

But my relief was short-lived, as I've been informed via Facebook that the group has scouted a paragliding venue near Cusco, their next destination. Instead of jumping from a cliff and sailing over an angry, gunmetal ocean, Dana and company, when they can find a few hours off from language and culture classes, will be leaping off a mountain and sailing over Andean foothills and brown valleys dotted with Inca ruins made of really hard stone. Oh, I feel better now.

Dana's fearless. She's been a sassy ball of chutzpah since she was born and has often demonstrated this trait while traveling. Like the time she jumped off a bridge in Switzerland.

We were in Bern, a medieval idyll built astride the fast-moving, glacial-blue Aare River. The Bernese use the Aare as a natural waterpark and a big patch of grass near downtown as Mazili Beach.

People hike from Mazili up a trail to a bridge in the woods, jump off the bridge, then float down the Aare, grabbing onto metal bars at intermittent concrete exit ramps, where they pull themselves out.

The water was too swift-moving for my liking, and I told Mike and the kids I didn't think body-surfing it was a great idea. They looked at me, stripped down to their bathing suits, left me holding everybody's clothes, and followed the population of Bern up the trail to the bridge. I followed and planted myself a bit downstream from the bridge.

There were a few dozen people on the bridge when Mike, Adam and Dana marched onto it. Mike and Adam stood by the railing, looked over the edge, then backed away. Dana looked at them like they were wusses, climbed over the railing to the narrow ledge on the bridge's outer side, and jumped off. I screamed at Mike, "Get in there with her!" Mike and Adam duly ejected themselves from the bridge and were whisked away by the current. Happily, they were able to steer their bodies in Dana's direction, and I soon saw my family's bobbing heads rush by me.
I ran to the nearest exit station and jumped up and down, pointing to the grab-bar. I was petrified they'd miss it -- and succeeding off-ramps -- and get carried over the waterfall that lay downstream. When they saw me, they aimed for the ramp, joined hands, and Mike grabbed the bar. They emerged from the Aare dripping, laughing hysterically, and primed for more. Off they went up the trail and back to the bridge.

For the next hour, I sat on a rock on the riverbank and watched my family float repeatedly by. Sometimes it was hard for me to pick them out from the rest of the river-surfing crowd. Hundreds of people were in the water at any given time. Most used their bodies as their craft, but others whooshed by riding on tubes, boogy boards and rubber rafts. One family zoomed by atop a giant, inflatable plastic zebra-striped couch.

www.LoriHein.com

Chihuly: From Brockton to Boston

If you live in the Boston area or plan to visit this spring or summer, put the Museum of Fine Arts (MFA) on your don't-miss list. You'll see the soaring, new, half-billion dollar Art of the Americas Wing, and you can take in mindblowing glass sculpture by Dale Chihuly, a Living National Treasure. The MFA has mounted a major Chihuly exhibit, which runs through August 7, 2011.

Before she left her Boston campus for the semester, Dana flashed her college ID and got into the MFA and the Chihuly exhibition for free and texted me the photo above. We're Chihuly fans from way back.

Eleven years ago, when Adam was 11 and Dana 8, I took them to the Fuller, a small museum in Brockton, Massachusetts, to see some blown glass by a guy named Dale Chihuly. I'd read about him in magazines and thought it cool that his work was on display in the town next to ours. The kids brought Cheerios, Transformers and stuffed animals but didn't need them to stay occupied. They, and I, were totally entranced by Chihuly's exquisite, wildly colorful glass creations. (Chihuly actually has a staff who blow for him. He designs and directs, and he blows a bit, but others do lots of the big lung work.) We three wandered around a few darkened rooms at the Fuller, entranced by the magic of Chihuly's Seaforms collection, ocean life rendered powerfully in delicate glass.

Then, several years later on a family trip to Las Vegas, we marveled at the Chihuly ceiling in the lobby of the Bellagio. The suspended ceiling panel, a rich-hued rendering of flowers called Fiore di Como, runs the length of the lobby and makes it nearly impossible to look anywhere but up. Even if you're not staying at the Bellagio, if you're in Vegas, see the Chihuly.

I doubt our little neighborhood Fuller will be mounting any Chihuly shows in the future; he's too big now. But I'm glad the kids and I were introduced to his work on that Fuller visit so many years ago. I'm looking forward to sitting in the MFA this summer and taking in his latest work.

www.LoriHein.com

Phone home? LOL IDTS

Dana's heading to Peru soon for six weeks of intensive Spanish language study. I've been trying to zero in on the best ways for us to stay in touch while she's away and, after many hours of research, here's where I'm at: Facebook gets a like; cellphone gets an unlike. The phone stays home.

I've heard so many horror stories about people getting monstrous cell bills after using (or not using; more on that in a moment) their phones abroad that I wanted to find a foolproof usage method that, if Dana stuck to it, would guarantee that our bills would be merely high, but not heart-attack-inducingly high. I can't find one. With international calls and texts there are many potential layers of cost because multiple steps, carriers and middlemen are involved, and all of them add their charges to your bill.

Even if we disable the data capability on Dana's phone, and make a pact to text rather than call, I realized that just bringing the phone to Peru with international mode enabled invited big bill trouble. Even if you don't read the texts -- or emails, if you stay data-enabled, or listen to the messages in your voice mailbox -- you get charged for them being delivered to your handset. And turning your phone off is not the answer. If international-enabled, the phone still receives and stores emails, texts and voicemails, and you're charged for their transmission.

Dana's a typical 19-year-old with scores of contacts programmed into her phone, and texting is right up there with breathing. I told Dana to tell people not to call or text her while she's in Peru, but that isn't a secure enough plan: she will forget to tell some people; she will tell people by texting them as she's leaving, opening the door for dozens of "hav a gd trip" texts that she'll read in Peru; people who don't know she's gone will call or text her; people will call or text her a week before she comes home to ask when she's coming home; and on and on and on. The possibilities for hundreds of costly messages to make it to Dana's phone during its six weeks in Peru are endless. And the temptation to respond - expensively - is high.

So, no phone. It stays in a drawer in Boston until Dana gets home.

I've come up with a master communication plan that uses the Web and landlines in Peru. Here's how we'll stay in touch:

Dana can access the Web at her host families' homes, her school and at Internet cafes. We'll email, but we'll also do some real time text, audio and video chatting via iChat (we both have Macs), Skype and IM. Whenever we're online we'll set our computers to "available" in all those applications. Dana got an International Student Identity Card (ISIC) to take advantage of discounted airfare to Peru, and one of the bonuses is 60 free minutes of Skype voice credit, so in addition to Skyping online, she can spend up to an hour on talk time to my mobile or landline. In addition to her Mac, she has an iPod Touch, which she can keep in her purse all the time, even when she goes out at night, and if she happens to find herself in a hotspot, can get online to chat or send/read email. All free.

I'm also getting Dana an AT&T Virtual Prepaid Calling Card. You order online, AT&T sends access codes and dialing instructions immediately via email, and you're good to call. To enable Dana to speak with a US-based, English-speaking operator when she makes a call, I looked up AT&T's USADirect Peru access codes. From a local line in Peru, she dials that code and gets an operator who then takes her calling card info and puts the call through. She can use the AT&T approach from any landline, even her host families' home phones, and we pay the bill. (Before you buy, read the AT&T website carefully. The prepaid cards' minutes and costs are based on the cost for "state-to-state" calls; international calls ding the card at much higher rates, so delve into the details to understand how many calls/minutes you'll get when the cardholder is calling from a foreign country.)

To enable Dana to use the AT&T prepaid card from a Peruvian payphone, I'll give her money for a local, Peruvian phone card, available at shops and kiosks all over the country. Those cards "turn on" a payphone or a phone at a Telefonica del Peru outlet, then she punches in her AT&T info, the call goes through, and the card gets dinged.

Finally, we're gonna be Facebook friends. We're not Facebook friends on our existing accounts and don't want to be, but we're going to create second Facebook accounts under variants of our names, and we will be each others' only friend. We can chat freely, for free, and nobody except Facebook will know we're there. We can post and message and "talk," and we'll delete the accounts when Dana gets home. Mark Zuckerberg, I love you.

I shared my masterful, mostly free communication plan with Dana over sushi the other day. She was clearly impressed. "Wow," she said, "you've really been thinking about this."

Yup, AAMOF.

And kiddo, you can always send a postcard.

LoriHein.com

Drums and guns

This month marks the 150th anniversary of the start of America's Civil War, and the media is milking that for all it's worth: books, magazines, radio, TV and the Web chock-full of Civil War stories, analysis, photographs, biography, much of it content people started working on years ago knowing that 2011 would be the sesquicentennial of something really big, something that would sell, and the rest of it content from bandwagon jumpers who don't research anything in depth themselves but put a quick, shallow spin on trendy topics and spit them out to buyers and perusers of shallow content. I expect pieces on Civil War recipes, music and fashion to appear anytime now. I'm a cynic, being in the writing biz, and I know how this works. The Civil War is a product, one that has potential for brisk sales this year, so everyone with a keyboard, camera or microphone is manufacturing content.

America's overtly at war in three places right now, and we're hearing more about a 150-year-old conflict than we are about our daily death toll, about the number of American limbs blown off weekly. While Americans die and war rages today, the Civil War is all the rage. It sells; Afghanistan doesn't.

Both the lack of focus on our current dying and the hyperfocus on our past dying because a media-pretty anniversary date has rolled around bother me.

But I do know a bit about the heavy drape of the Civil War, the way the Civil War can feel, even after and through 150 years. An excerpt from my book, Ribbons of Highway: A Mother-Child Journey Across America:

As part of its “Hour of Classical Music,” Memphis public radio played the Kansas City Chorale singing “Johnny I Hardly Knew Ye,” an Irish war lament whose haunting melody echoes the Civil War song, “When Johnny Comes Marching Home.” The doleful notes, the chants of “drums and guns and drums and guns,” and the long, hushed “hurroos” hung in the air like spirits unable to sleep.

Since Tennessee, the war whose ghosts walked the landscape had changed. Farther north, we’d passed fieldstone taverns where the Continental Army had planned attacks on redcoats.

Now, we passed silent fields where hundreds or thousands of boys in gray and blue died. The weight of war felt heavier in the south than I feel it up north. Back home, buildings and monuments of the Revolution are the stuff of school field trips to clapboard places like Paul Revere’s house. Its fighters are valiant figures with rousing collective names- Sons of Liberty, Founding Fathers, Green Mountain Boys.

But those men were over two hundred years away from us, known through writings and artists’ renderings. I thought of them as icons, not as somebody’s son, brother, father or friend.

Here, it was closer, more intimate. The boys who lie under this grass were not so far in time from us. There were photographs to show who they really were. We could study their eyes and hands and the buttons on their shirts. They were men and boys somebody loved and cried for.

When we passed the sign for Shiloh, Adam and I exchanged a glance. Shiloh. The word had a powerful sadness. We had left behind places where Americans created the nation and now looked on places where they almost took it apart.

The hush of these southern knolls and grasses intensified the ability to imagine the death played out here. As if it happened yesterday. I’d never felt so palpably connected to war. www.LoriHein.com

Iguanarama

Mike and I were at the High Tide restaurant overlooking Cruz Bay on St. John enjoying a Virgin Islands Summer Ale (concocted by two University of Vermont grads and brewed in Portland, Maine) when a lizard lounging in the tree next to our table sprang to life and started scurrying up, down and across the tree's limbs and branches. I thought he might leap onto our table and topple our beers (and bite us). After much darting about and flashing of scary teeth, spikes, claws and whip-like tail, the two-foot-plus long iguana decided we were less interesting than the view over Cruz Bay. He turned his scaly back to us, and, in true island style, settled onto a limb with a view and chilled, watching boats bob in the bay and letting a cool Caribbean breeze waft over his dinosaur skin. We tipped our beers to him and sat back to enjoy the view. www.LoriHein.com

St. Barts field trip

We're back from our Sea Dream cruise and, despite my fear of water, I had an excellent time.

I did sleep with my life jacket on the floor next to the bed, and I'd reach down periodically during the night to touch it for reassurance. We had some stomach-churning bumps and rolls the second night, but otherwise the waters were calm. The gallons of champagne I consumed during the voyage helped dull my fear. I was beginning to grow sea legs by the fifth day, but by then it was time to go home, so I'll have to grow new ones if I ever go out on the ocean again.

Almost all of the cruise's optional activities involved water, so I participated in none. Instead, I'd go ashore for some terra firma exploration in one of the tenders that were always available to ferry Sea Dream's guests to and from the ship.

I bumped into a lot of schoolkids on my shoreside forays. In Cruz Bay on St. John I watched kids file out of the elementary school at day's end, the older kids in purple and black uniforms, younger ones in black shorts and yellow t-shirts. They walked home in orderly pairs, a big brother or sister sometimes holding a younger sibling's hand. Down at the Cruz Bay ferry dock, uniformed teenagers disembarked from the boat that brought them home from their high school on nearby St. Thomas.

On St. Barts, a department of France where the currency is the euro, the language French and the license plates the blue and gold of the European Union, I watched kids at the Ecole Maternelle de Gustavia at recess and marveled that their school's backyard was gorgeous Shell Beach, a powdery strand in a Caribbean cove sheltered by high headlands. No asphalt jungle gyms. Just sun, sand, shells and seaglass.

I climbed a path up the headlands and came upon a class from the Ecole Maternelle on a field trip. A docent from St. Barts' nature conservancy was explaining the richness of the island's flora. "There are so many plants here that are useful, that are like medicines," she said in French to her intent audience, some of whom leaned in to hear every word. "It is like a pharmacy. But today people don't know about these plants. The knowledge is lost. To learn about what is here, go to the library. Or ask your grandparents. They know."

(And a shout-out here to the Sea Dream staff and crew: You guys rock.)

www.LoriHein.com

Sea Dream: Paradise with a life preserver

(Warning: this post may make you jealous.)

This weekend Mike and I jet off to St. Thomas in the US Virgin Islands, where we'll board the Sea Dream I (photo, from Sea Dream promotional brochure), a 300-foot yacht Mike's company has chartered to celebrate a successful year. (Congrats to my Number One; Mike's hard work earned him the spot as top regional manager worldwide.)

We'll enjoy spa treatments, gourmet food, excellent wine, and visits to wonderful ports of call, most of which will be new destinations for me.

From St. Thomas we cruise to St. John, also in the US Virgin Islands, then to St. Barts in the French West Indies, then to the British Virgin Islands, where we'll anchor for a day each in Virgin Gorda and tiny Jost Van Dyke.

I'm sure I'll enjoy the trip, but I am a bit anxious. A near-drowning experience when I was 13 cured me of wanting to spend time in or on bodies of water larger than a swimming pool.

To keep my fear at bay while on the Sea Dream, I plan to self-medicate with liberal doses of the ship's fine wines and sleep with a life jacket as a pillow.

www.LoriHein.com

Orange world

"Ladies and gentlemen, please keep the limbs of your children out of the aisles." Flight attendants working Orlando-bound routes include this admonishment in their airplane safety talks because planes bound for the Magic Kingdom have lots of antsy kids aboard.

Dana and I are back from the Orlando-as-substitute-for-Egypt spring break trip. Because we should have been doing relatively exotic things like navigating Cairo's labyrinthine Khan el-Khalili souk, contemplating the Sphinx and sailing the Nile on the deck of a felucca, I sought out Orlando activities with at least a whiff of adventure. Orlando is theme parks, kitschy retail strips and the sidewalk-less freeways that connect them, but we did manage to find some fun stuff that had nothing to do with big-eared mice, princesses, movie studios, killer whale performances or shops selling citrus and seashells.

We drove about 45 minutes southeast of Orlando to Forever Florida, a 4,700-acre wildlife ranch and conservation area with a menu of EcoSafaris designed to get you out into the Florida wild. You can hike, ride on horseback, travel in a safari vehicle or take a two-hour zipline safari through a varied ecosystem, which we opted for. Advance reservations are essential, as spaces are limited and fill fast.

The zipline safari was exhausting and exhilarating. And scary. I wanted to quit several times, like when we were in the staging area learning how to put on and control our gear and were told "DO NOT TOUCH THE CABLE. YOU ARE MOVING AT 15-20 MILES PER HOUR AND IF YOU PUT YOUR HAND UP THERE THE CABLE WILL SLICE THROUGH YOUR SKIN, MUSCLE AND BONE," and when we climbed the first tower we had to jump from, a tower three times higher than the fire ranger tower atop a mountain near our New Hampshire place, a tower I gave up climbing years ago because each step on those metal stairs with the huge, see-through gaps between them made me want to faint or vomit. But, hey! I'm on vacation! Keep climbing, baby!

Had I not kept going I would have missed zipping over a 12-foot gator who'd been relegated to this isolated outpost in a muddy bog in the woods because, according to our guide, "he kept swimming over to the kids' camp where the kids go kayaking."

At Horse World Stables, 12 miles down a quiet road from my parents' rental condo in Kissimmee, Dana spent two afternoons communing with the horses and went on a trail ride specifically geared to her intermediate/advanced level. Horse World is a beautiful, peaceful, family-run place that rescues unwanted and abused horses and and treats them well. "All our horses die here," said the owner, and he meant that as a good thing. There's a horse cemetery on the property.

While Dana rode, I sat on a dock over a pond and watched a long-necked, black bird swallow a live snake whole. The process took 25 minutes and was almost as exciting as the zipline.

www.LoriHein.com

Machu Picchu: Just a pile of rocks

Dana's heading to Peru and Bolivia this summer for a semester of intensive Spanish language study. She and the other students from her college will live with Peruvian families in Lima and Cusco. The kids will spend four hours a day in class, but there will also be plenty of sightseeing. Machu Picchu, is, of course, on the list.

Most travelers set out for Machu Picchu from Cusco, a chocolate-brown city where Spanish colonial architecture sits atop ancient walls built by the Inca. Cusco is in the foothills of the Andes at about 11,000 feet, an altitude that creates oxygen deprivation problems for visitors who don't or can't take enough time to safely and gradually acclimate. I trust that the folks running Dana's university program will ensure that the students go slowly their first few days in Cusco and that their day trip to Machu Picchu is scheduled for the back rather than the front end of their Cusco stay.

Otherwise, somebody's bound to miss Machu Picchu. Somebody will be decked by altitude sickness, or soroche, and the excrutiatingly painful headache that is arguably its least pleasant and most frightening symptom. I've experienced brain-beating soroche in both Cusco and Lhasa, Tibet and a milder version in Quito, Ecuador. When your head feels like a crazed, invisible hand is attacking it with a hacksaw, sightseeing, even to one of the world's major wonders, is out of the question.

Mike and I went to Peru on a package tour that spent three days in Cusco. Luckily for me, the Machu Picchu excursion fell on the third day, by which time my soroche had passed. Each successive Cusco day brought a visit to increasingly spectacular Inca ruins. My Day One misery kept me in bed at the Holiday Inn while my tripmates visited Ollantaytambo, which I will always regret having missed, but by Day Two I felt human enough to join the tour of spectacular Sacsayhuaman, spread across a hillside overlooking the city. By Machu Picchu day, my head didn't hurt one bit -- although my stomach was nauseated and roiling from the juice of all the coca leaves I'd chewed to help dull my headache. Mike had bought me a giant plastic bag of coca leaves from a sidewalk vendor. Both natives and tourists chew the stuff all day.
One member of our tour group -- I think his name was Ed, so I'll call him Ed -- wasn't as lucky as me. Ed's soroche seized him on arrival in Cusco and didn't let go until the morning of our departure on Day Four. Ed missed Ollantaytambo, Sacsayhuaman, the rich sights of Cusco itself. And Ed missed Machu Picchu.

Early in the morning on Machu Picchu day, the day that was everyone's raison d'etre for traveling to Peru in the first place, we unafflicted tourists gathered in the Holiday Inn lobby bubbling with anticipation and excitement. The tour leader did a head count: one shy. Sadly, Ed was evidently still abed.

Then he appeared. Ed hobbled down the stairs, entered the lobby, sat in a straight-backed wooden chair, leaned his head against the wall, and began to cry. Some of us cried, too. Then we left without him.

Machu Picchu was spectacular beyond description. To see it, stand in it, revel in the knife-like, velvet-green peaks that surround it is a powerful, enduring experience.
But the glory of the experience was tempered by the knowledge that Ed, who, like us, had traveled a quarter of the globe expressly to stand in this remarkable place, wasn't there.

When we got back to the Holiday Inn, Ed was in the lobby, in the straight-backed chair, and his sad, expectant face knocked any residual joy out of us. An unspoken pact united everyone in the group. When Ed asked, "How was it?" we made our faces long and mumbled, "It was OK" and quickly dispersed to our respective rooms.

We didn't speak of Machu Picchu for the remainder of the trip.

www.LoriHein.com

Hipmunk: Sort by agony

We've been figuring out what to do with spring break week, the week for which I still hold four spots on Intrepid Travel's Egypt Adventure trip and four tickets on Delta's flight 84 to Cairo. Cancellation gymnastics to begin in earnest on that tomorrow; I'm waiting for Intrepid to cancel our departure. They've canceled all Egypt trips through the day before our departure and will decide on ours tomorrow, using the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade travel advisory status as a guide. As long as Egypt remains on the department's "Do Not Travel" list, Intrepid will cancel our departure (I hope). I'm waiting for Intrepid to cancel us because that will make it a little easier to recoup our money: Intrepid will give us a refund for the land portion, and I'll just have to battle the insurance company over the airline tickets.

Mike's decided to take the planned vacation week and stay home and work. Adam's going to head to our New Hampshire place for some snowboarding. Dana and I have invited ourselves to Orlando to my parents' rental condo in the Villas at Seven Dwarfs Lane. Talk about plans doing a 180: from revolution in the Middle East to sunning in a gated community named for Disney characters.

I've been bouncing around Kayak, Travelocity, Expedia and Orbitz trying to find the best flights to and from Orlando, and it's been a piece of work. I don't want to pay top dollar, but I want nonstops and convenient departure and arrival times on both ends. Trying to get these pieces to fit has been difficult. Until now.

I just found Hipmunk, a website that lets you sort flights by various categories, including "agony." This is just what I've been looking for. Hipmunk measures the agony factor of flights by considering price, duration and number of stops. And it displays search results on a spreadsheet that gives you an easy, intuitive view of how flights compare.

When you find flights with the degree of agony that's right for you, you can click through to Orbitz to buy your tickets. Hipmunk is genius and is my new go-to flight search site. Even if you're not going anywhere, Hipmunk's fun to play with.

www.LoriHein.com

Out of Egypt, again

I apologize for not posting in the past week or so. I've been glued to CNN and Al Jazeera. We have tickets to Egypt, and our intended departure date is February 25.

Obviously we're not going -- again. Those who follow this blog know I had to cancel our summer trip to Egypt because I broke my foot and also know I had a bear of a time collecting from Nationwide, the insurance company from which I bought trip cancellation insurance. Click on "Egypt" in the "Where Do You Want To Go?" sidebar on the right to read posts about our original non-trip to Egypt.

I'll soon get to work retrieving our money for this second non-trip to Egypt. I'm eating Wheaties to fortify myself for the task, which I expect will sap a ton of time and energy. But I will, eventually, get my money back, as I followed the advice I gave in my earlier Egypt posts: I bought travel insurance.

This time I opted for a policy from M.H. Ross, again purchased through the excellent online agency InsureMyTrip.com , and I paid a little extra for additional coverage for "cancellation for any reason." I must have felt something in my bones, because, had I not purchased this extra bit of protection, my trip cancellation coverage would not have covered us for this cancellation. Terrorism is covered; civil unrest is not. I'll invoke the "for any reason" clause when I submit my claim.

I'll also have to return the several hundred dollars' worth of Egyptian pounds that I bought from Travelex. I always get some paper currency before I land in a country so I'm self-sufficient upon landing, should banks, foreign exchanges and/or ATMs be closed or hard to find. Having a small stash of local cash gives me power and peace of mind.

I'll get to Egypt some day. It's just not in the cards right now. I'll watch the momentous, history-making developments from here in Boston, on my TV and computer screens, and I'll root for the Egyptian people.

My sister Lisa sent me an email last night:

Hi Lor,

Although the prospects for your trip to Egypt aren't looking too promising right now, isn't it just absolutely thrilling that for the first time ever, the Egyptian people are speaking out, having a voice and mobilizing towards democracy in a peaceful manner. Just incredible. When you do get there, it may very well be a happier people you will see.

Lisawww.LoriHein.com

Vagabond sunbirds

We in New England, like folks in many parts of the US, are having a rough winter. Snow that won't quit and brutal, sub-zero temps. ("These are good days to teach kids about negative numbers," said Joan, a yoga-mate and retired math teacher.) Meteorologists tell us we're looking down the barrel of our fourth major snowstorm in as many weeks.

Ever since we began traveling Mike and I have made mental notes of cities, towns or villages that would make nice havens in winter, knowing that at some point we'll want to flee Boston's cold for somewhere else's relative warmth. Every once in a while -- including recently, with cheap foreclosures flooding the market -- we've been tempted to buy a place in Florida. But we'd be tied to it, and that's not what we want.

Our plan is to spend the coldest months of our retirement years in various places, renting our way around the world. No mortgage, no furniture to buy, no taxes, no maintenance, no feelings of obligation to go or guilt if you don't. We'd rather find a beachfront cottage or apartment in some pretty place, pay a few months rent, and settle in for an extended stay, immersing ourselves in our temporary neighborhoods and living like the locals. Then, the next year, put down seasonal stakes in a new place.

The Mediterranean and Aegean will no doubt figure in our future sunbird plans. We've scouted beautiful, quiet places like Albufeira, Portugal; Menton, France; Italy's Ligurian coastline; Chania on the island of Crete; Nafplion in Greece's Peloponnese; history-rich Antalya, Turkey; and fishing villages like Spain's Calella de Palafrugell, pictured above.

It's February in Calella in these photos, yet warm and sunny enough for a stroll on the beach or a relaxing rest on a bench overlooking the harbor. It may not be sunbathing weather, but it sure beats shoveling.

www.LoriHein.com

Ten buck Chuck: He's so heavy

Meet Chuck. He lives on our living room floor but hails from Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula. Had his immigration to this country not been before airlines' strict enforcement of baggage weight limits and narrowing of the list of acceptable carry-ons, Chuck might still be in a restaurant in the rainforest. Chuck is made of cement and weighs a ton.

Mike and I were vacationing in Cancun. It was nice enough, but we can only take so many days of drinking beer and frying in the sun, so we rented a VW bug and took a road trip to the spectacular Mayan ruins of Chichen Itza.

The centerpiece of Chichen Itza is the great pyramid of Kukulkan, also called El Castillo. We climbed to Kukulkan's summit on a stone staircase so steep I felt like leaning in and hugging it for dear life. At the top we were greeted by a life-size statue of a reclining Chac-Mool, a pre-Columbian figure found at several ancient sites in Mesoamerica. Like other Chac-Mools, Chichen Itza's had an offering bowl resting across its belly. I sat in the bowl, and Mike took a picture of me with my arm draped around the neck of this big-eyed guy in a funny stone hat whom I'd dubbed Chuck. Chuck was cute.

On the way back to Cancun we stopped at a restaurant at the end of a short dirt road in the jungle. Next to our table sat a glass case filled with items for sale, including a statue of Chuck the Chichen Itza Cutie. He was about the size of a fat housecat, and I knew I had to have him. They wanted 15 bucks for him but accepted our offer of 10.

Our waiter unlocked the case, lifted Chuck out and sat him on the table next to our plates of grouper baked in banana leaves. I went to pick Chuck up and discovered he was made of solid, super-duper, crazy-heavy concrete. Mike and I guesstimated his weight at over 40 pounds.

As there was no bag durable enough to hold him, we carried Chuck around like an anvil for the rest of our vacation, switching off periodically to allow each carrier's upper body muscles to recover before the next shift. We carried Chuck, exposed and face turned out to the world, to and through the hotel; to and through the airport; onto and out of the plane; through our Boston airport; into and out of the cab that deposited us at home. Everyone smiled at his cuteness.

He lives on the floor now, and since he's so heavy, I usually vacuum around him.

www.LoriHein.com

Under the cloak: Creepy crawlies

Wood carvings might be the world's most ubiquitous souvenir. You can find "traditional local crafts" made of wood nearly anywhere with trees and tourists.

My collection of wooden geegaws from around the globe includes a Buddhist prayer wheel from Nepal, a foot-long manatee from Belize and infant-sized clogs from Brittany.

But the Masai woman from Kenya, pictured here, cured me of carvings and is the last one I will ever buy.

When we returned home from Africa I displayed the carving on the sideboard in our dining room alongside other souvenirs of our travels. One night while we were eating I glanced at the sideboard and noticed that the top of it seemed to be moving.

I got up to inspect and let out a scream that made Mike drop his fork. "Bugs! Bugs are crawling out of this carving!" The Masai woman was alive with tiny critters that were spilling from behind the piece of intact tree bark that had been shaped into a cloak that ran down her back. I picked her up and threw her into the kitchen sink while Mike ran a Pledge-dampened rag over the sideboard to collect the insects.

I ran hot water over the infested carving and watched scores of beasties fall out of it and disappear down the drain. Scalding and drowning the bugs was probably sufficient, but for good measure I ground them up in the garbage disposal. Then I took the piece outside and pried the bark cloak that housed the critters off with a butter knife.

I scrubbed the area that had been under the bark with a Brillo pad, then shot half a can of Raid ant killer all over the carving, steps I later repeated.

It took a few hours for the wet, Raid-infused carving to dry in the July sun, but I kept it outside on our concrete stoop for a few days, checking it often for signs of life.

When I was satisfied that my eradication methods had been successful I returned the cloak-less lady to her perch on the sideboard.

I do like her but admit to feeling a hint of the heebie jeebies when I look at her.

There's a world of wood carvings out there waiting for us tourists, suckers for traditional local crafts. You've been warned; some harbor stowaways.

Caveat emptor. And if you do buy, keep the Raid handy.

www.LoriHein.com

Prospero ano y felicidad

I'm a few days late, but 'tis still the season, and time once again for the annual Jose Feliciano Christmas post:

We were at the airport in Lisbon waiting to board our plane home from a Christmas-week family trip to Albufeira, a seafront town in the Algarve. The gate area was packed with travelers, and all seats were taken. Dana was two, Adam five, both seasoned travel vets. They sat in the plastic chairs we'd managed to snag, swinging their legs and sipping juice.

A group of tall men milled around, looking for a seat for a smaller, blind companion. Mike offered his chair, and the blind man sat down next to me.

We'd overheard the men, musicians, talking about the bad flights and lousy hotels they'd endured on their current tour. I leaned over and asked the quiet, blind man, "What kind of music do you play?" All the men looked worn and tired, a littled rumpled and disheveled. I figured they played low to middle-tier clubs and bars. The Zildjian cymbals they kept at closer than arm's length were the only hint of the possibility of something bigger.

"All kinds," he said. "Maybe you've heard me on the radio at this time of year singing a song I wrote..."

"!You're Jose Feliciano!?!" I launched into "Feliz Navidad" and called Adam over between notes. "Adam! This man wrote the Christmas song that mommy sings all the time!" I sang some more. Adam joined me on the "prospero ano y felicidad" and let loose on the "I wanna wish you a Merry Christmas." Jose was pleased.

We talked with Jose for a half hour. His big, serious, but very gracious manager hovered protectively. The band was on its way home from a sold-out New Year's Eve concert in Estoril, and Jose was eager to get home to Connecticut to his pregnant wife and two young children. A loving, involved dad, he talked about his kids. "I try not to spoil them," he said.

Although he couldn't see them, Jose was keenly aware of Adam and Dana. He sensed their movements. He used their names when he spoke to them. He told Adam to "enjoy being a kid, because it goes by so fast." He told Adam jokes: "Adam, why did the turtle cross the road? He wanted to get to a Shell station." And, "Why did the chicken cross the road, Adam? To get away from Colonel Sanders." Dana was cranky, and Jose gve me parenting tips: "Change her diaper before you get on the plane, and give her a lot to drink so her ears won't hurt from the change in cabin pressure."

We boarded. Jose crossed the Atlantic in first class, and we sat in steerage, narrowly escaping the flood of red wine that burst from the overhead bin when a Portuguese woman's straw-bound jug of homemade vinho de mesa popped its cork. A nearly eight-hour flight. Adam and Dana handled the marathon transit like pros. They played with Legos, colored, ate stuff, and scanned the headset stations. Henry the Navigator would have been proud of their endurance.

When we landed in Newark, I noticed Jose sitting alone on a windowsill in a corner, waiting for his men to pull the luggage from the carousel. I told Adam he could go over and say good-bye.

Thousands of miles, eight hours, two movies, two meals and one ocean had passed since we'd shared polite conversation with Jose Feliciano back in Lisbon, which seemed a lifetime away. As Adam walked toward the tired man, I realized Jose might not remember Adam. And Adam didn't know Jose was blind. We hadn't mentioned it, and Jose wasn't wearing dark glasses. Jose wouldn't see Adam coming. He wouldn't see Adam at all. He might not be able to put a name to this little person he'd never seen, only heard. Adam was a voice from another time zone, another continent, another reality. Would Adam's five-year-old feelings be hurt? Should I have left well enough alone?

I stood nearby and listened. "Bye, Jose," whispered Adam.

Jose looked up and smiled. "Take care, Adam."

LoriHein.com

Lori the red-nosed tourist

Whether or not you celebrate it, Germany is a wonderful place to spend Christmas. Every city and town in the country is decked out in lights and decorations, and the ambience alone is worth the trip.


We began our Christmastime visit in Wurzburg, where the city's outdoor Christmas market (Christkindlmart or Weihnachtsmarkt) was still operational on Christmas Day. Most cities' Christmas markets begin in late November and end before Christmas. There are exceptions, and you'll want to consult a Christmas market calendar when planning a holiday trip to Germany if an authentic Christmas market experience is on your travel wish list.

Wurzburg, the thousand-year-old capital of Germany's Lower Franconia region, is full of rich, Baroque architecture, a stunning hilltop fortress, and acres and acres of rolling vineyards.

But it wasn't the fine, oak-aged product of the region's wineries that we were sipping in Wurzburg. It was cheap red wine tarted up with spices like clove and cardamom and heated to a steamy temp that makes your insides glow. Indeed, the ubiquitous drink offered at every other stall in Wurzburg's Christmas market is called Gluhwein.


While the kids got cups of hot chocolate, Mike and I, like everyone else over the age of 15 or so, wandered around Wurzburg clutching Gluhwein in ceramic mugs painted with holiday motifs. You got to keep your mug, so we amassed quite a collection of these souvenirs of Wurzburg.
Christmas in Germany. It's not just the cold that gives your nose that Rudolph effect.

www.LoriHein.com

My beautiful, sad Varanasi mandala

Some places are more than places; they're experiences.

Varanasi, India, a city on the Ganges where Hindus come to die so they can be cremated and cast into the holy river, thereby being released from endless reincarnation, is such a place. (Read a 2004 post about our dawn boat ride on Mother Ganga.)

India is sensory overload, and Varanasi is India in 3D and surround sound, a swirl of things competing for space in your brain, the juxtapositions fantastic and overwhelming.

Holy white cows lumbering down the street and horrid black cockroaches scurrying across your hotel floor; corpses burning at one ghat and families bathing in the fetid Ganges two ghats down; sadhus under thatch umbrellas praying with paying pilgrims seeking spiritual enlightenment and refugees from Bangladesh carrying sand in baskets on their heads uphill from the riverbank to a construction site, earning starvation wages of a penny a load.

To escape the intensity, Mike and I decided to go silk shopping. Varanasi silk is world-renowned, and I wanted to bring some home.

We followed the rough directions in our Lonely Planet guidebook and set off up an alley purported to have silk shops. We hadn't been in the street for a minute when a young man in white cotton kurta pajama topped by a vest the color of scarlet betel nut juice sprang before us and said "Hello, and welcome. You wish to buy silk? All hand-made." Like a heat-seeking missile, Ashoka locked onto his targets -- backpacking gringos who turn up the alley broadcast in Lonely Planet -- and went in for the kill. But we did want to buy silk, so we followed Ashoka to his "showroom." I consider that word a euphemism for "place to get ripped off" and prepared for the worst.

The showroom was, like Varanasi, an experience, not a place, and, like Varanasi, I will never forget it.

Ashoka led us up the alley and opened the door to a tiny, hexagonal-shaped storefront on a corner where our alley intersected another. To enter the space we climbed a half-dozen wooden steps set into the street and literally tumbled into a tiny, tower-like room piled high with silk wall hangings. Following Ashoka's lead, we scrambled up the pile and came to rest atop the inventory. We three sat, some 10 feet above street level, cross-legged in a triangle in a round room, ready to do business.

We were sitting on the wares, so, to view a silk, we'd reach behind us or to one side and inspect the ends of it that our body weight wasn't on. If something caught our interest, we'd all shift our weight and Ashoka would miraculously extricate the fabric from the pile and, with a flourish, unfurl it on top. I began to feel guilty about all the work Ashoka was putting in and hoped we'd find something we loved soon, and sort of near the top of the pile. We did.

We both gasped at a five-foot long wall hanging of cobalt blue silk patterned with four exquisite mandalas sewn in gold and copper-colored thread. We paid $50 for the piece, a lot, I thought at the time, but, years later now, I'm sure worth ten times that.

Ashoka wrapped the mandala in tissue paper, we paid him, and we all climbed down out of the hexagonal room onto the street. Mike and I were ready to shake Ashoka's hand and say goodbye when he asked if we'd like to see where our mandala was made.

But it was handmade, no? "Yes," said Ashoka. "I will show you our workshop. It is not far."

We followed Ashoka up the alley to a small, nondescript concrete building with no markings or signage. Ashoka led us around back into a dirt yard and opened a door to a basement. We followed him down the steps into a space so dark I had to give my eyeballs time to adjust.

When they did, I saw rows of women and girls -- there must have been 30 in that small space -- bent over black, cast iron sewing machines, making silk hangings like the one we'd just bought. They didn't look up when we walked in, but kept sewing, in a hot, dank, windowless space lit by naked bulbs attached by bare wires to the ceiling.

Since we bought it, our mandala's hung in whatever living room we've rented or owned. When I look at it I consider its beauty, then wonder which pair of slave hands, working in that dark, dismal underground room, made it.

www.LoriHein.com

Kate and William's Westminster wedding: Sightseeing tips

Next year on April 29 Prince William and Kate Middleton will tie the knot in London's Westminster Abbey, site of British royal weddings, burials and coronations going back to the crowning of William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy, as King of England on Christmas Day 1066.

Those invited to the regal nuptials will experience not only the pageantry of the event but also the spectacular interior of this thousand-year-old Gothic masterpiece.

If your invitation gets lost in the mail and you have to visit Westminster Abbey on your own, not as an honored wedding guest but as a common tourist, a ticket will set you back 15 British pounds, about 25 bucks.

You'll face long queues, strict visiting times and prohibitions against photography and brass rubbing (head to St. Martin- in -the- Fields for that), but the soaring space and overpowering feeling that hundreds of the afterworld's most celebrated ghosts are walking or floating next to you render moot any administrative inconvenience.

One of my favorite rooms in the world is in Westminster: the Chapter House.

I visited back in the days when entry was free, there were no lines, you could buy paper inside the church and rub brass plaques and grave markers to your heart's content and shoot pictures until you ran out of film or flashbulbs. (Remember those?)

After I shot this photo of the Chapter House, an octagonal stone room rich with sculpture, stained glass, wall paintings and a medieval tile floor so smoothly polished that the sun paints a second set of colored glass windows across its entire expanse, I sat on one of the benches built along the room's perimeter and imagined the people who'd sat on these benches centuries before me.

The Chapter House was the business end of the abbey, so to speak. Monks gathered here to pray then discuss and plan their order's mission, tasks and daily work. In 1257 the King's Council, a precursor to Parliament, met in this room, and the early body of the House of Commons sat here, too, before moving to the great, gothic Parliament building just around the corner from Westminster. The abbey's great nave and lacy chapels hosted pomp, circumstance and services to feed the spirit, but the Chapter House was where the nuts and bolts of running an organization, and a nation, were hammered out.

If you get inside Westminster, whether on April 29 or some other date, don't miss sitting awhile and communing with the ghosts of the Chapter House.

www.LoriHein.com