Madrid Nu. Tres: Super Tourist

I woke up EARLY this morning to get to the Museo del Prado before it even opened, to avoid a long line that would eat up valuable tourist time. Having almost all of your museums closed on Monday really cramps one´s schedule. I wasn´t about to wait for two hours just to get in, like we almost had to do at the Uffizi in Florence. I made it down there about 8:40, which turned out to be an awesome decision (by the time I left around noon, there was a line around the block that didn´t seem to be moving). The Prado is like the Louvre, however, it´s completely pointless to try to see everything. Whereas I had all the time in the world last spring to take in the Louvre section by section, I really had to prioritize at the Prado. I stuck to Medieval and early Renaissance artwork during the first half (since I love medieval history so much, plus it was interesting to see how much Italian and Flemish influence made it into Spain during the Renaissance). The second half of the morning, however, I toured around looking exclusively at the Spanish masters: Velasquez, Goya, and Murillo. Between those three, there was a good balance of secular stuff, religious stuff, court paintings, and - in the case of Goya´s later years - freaky dark demented subject matter. But, even though there was plenty more to see, after three hours I needed a break from art and needed to get out of there. I can´t do art hour after hour like I could history, so I called it quits after a ¨brief¨ three hour stint there.

I wasn´t hungry yet, and no one eats lunch at noon in Spain anyways, so I made for the Museo de America up north within the Madrid University campus. Not a whole lot was in English, but they had some really interesting stuff there from Native American tribes (I would certainly hope so, since they helped wipe out two continents worth of natives). They had some Peruvian mummies, some crazy big collection of Incan gold statuettes, the Maya and Aztec codices (like the one that predict the world will end in 2012), and some other really great pieces. I was only slightly disappointed in the sense that, like the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, a bunch of the pieces didn´t have much labeling on them at all. For all I know, that spear could have been Olmec, Apache, or Eskimo. It was too bad that we weren´t allowed to take photos because I was having a pretty good time looking at everything; especially the evolution of maps from the 1400s onwards! I love maps, so I could´ve stayed in that room all day if they weren´t ushering me out (what museum closes at 3pm anyway?? Lazy Spaniards).

Since I had such a good time relaxing in Plaza Mayor yesterday, I went back there for a lunch and wine/reading time. I had to be diligent and pay attention to time, though, because the Convert that I wanted to go to, the Descales Reales, was only open from 4-5 during the week. So, I plan my whole afternoon around this monastery, and I show up at 3:50, only for them to let about 30 people in come 4 before announcing that the place was full. I´d never seen so many disgruntled tourists before in my life. I was only about number 50 in line but never stood a chance at getting in, apparently. Too bad, because it is supposedly a crazy-rich art depository, since back in the day a lot of rich women entered the convert and brought dowries (since they were becoming the ¨bride of Christ¨) and the place got pretty darn wealthy in art and sculpture. Oh well.

Instead of the convent, I walked down the Gran Via to Paseo del Recoletas and walked up to the Museo Arqueologico Nacional (the place that I tried on Sunday and was already closed for the day). This time, it all worked out. It was a really small museum, and they had a couple of good pieces but I was overall disappointed in the size. It´s my feeling that, if you´re going to have a history museum, DON´T put in a section unless you can really fill that section. They had a ¨Egypt and the Middle East¨ section for THREE pieces. I mean...donate those pieces to Iraq or something. Stick to what you´re good at. Speaking of that, their Visigothic and Moorish-era pieces were quite interesting, just small in number. They had a selection of Visigothic crowns from before the Moorish invasion in 712 that were really striking, however. I´d seen some of their counterparts in the Cluny Medieval Museum in Paris last spring. I only spent about 30-45 minutes in the Museo, however, because of how small it was.

Flamenco was too expensive to do for a second night in a row, even though there were a number of other places that I could have tried. Therefore, after getting a shower, I decided to head straight back to Plaza Mayor and go back to my book. I wasn´t all that hungry, so I just got some more wine and olives and continued reading about Ferdinand and Isabella expelling the Moors in 1492. I made it back to the hostel early, around 10:30, since I was planning on waking up around 6:30 the next morning for my morning train to Seville.

Madrid Nu. Dos: Flamenco y Sangria

Today I woke up and had breakfast at the hostel at a leisurely hour, since nothing in Madrid is really open on Mondays save a few places. Therefore, I used the morning to be a cautious traveler and go to the train station to get a legit ticket to Sevilla for Wednesday. I bought the Eurail flexible pass, which gives me 5 days of travel in any given 2 months, but you´re never guaranteed a spot on any of the trains unless you pay an extra couple of Euros for a real reservation. Since I´m trying to fit five destinations in, I don´t have THAT much wiggle room, so I was completely willing to pay extra to make sure my schedule goes off without a hitch. Luckily, after an hour of waiting for my number at the RENFE office at the main Atocha station, I had a nice English-speaking lady who got me a seat on the Wednesday 8:30am train. That will get me into Sevilla with plenty of time to get settled at my hostel and also have a productive afternoon seeing places.

After coming back from the train station on the East side of town, I was all ready to go on a walking tour and get some local stories and fables about the city - similar to what we did in Amsterdam, Prague, and Berlin. However, for no apparent reason they cancelled it and I was left to my own devices again, so I metroed over to the Palacio Real and got in line for the tour of the royal palaces. It took me about 40 minutes to get in, but for middle of the day I wasn´t surprised given it was one of two major attractions open on Mondays. Like Versaille, the Palacio has a huge open courtyard in front of it where, nowadays, all its used for is annual Christmas inspections of the armed forces in their full regalia by the royal family. Most of the time, though, the place is just thronged with tourists. I first made for the Royal Armory, which was started when Phillip II bought the armory of his father, Charles V. Phillip´s things were then added and over time, it has grown to an impressive collection. I was especially impressed by the Moorish artifacts, spoils of war taken in victories against the Ottomans. I got in minor trouble for taking some pictures of weapons and flags presented to the Spanish court after the allied naval victory at Lepanto, which I´ve studied many many times. After the armory, I went through the entirety of the palace and, though very intricate and beautiful, it didn´t quite hold up to Versaille. It was more lavishly decorated than the Palazzio Medici in Florence, but it still fell short as the Bourbon´s attempt at outdoing the other European monarchs homes.

After the palace and looking out onto the royal hunting grounds, Casa de Campo (miles and miles of untouched land just west of the palace), I went across the courtyard to the Catedral de la Almuhada. It was a mixture of an old Gothic cathedral and modern art inside, for example the frescoes of the cupola and a lot of the stained glass were modern. I trekked up to the top for a closer look at the dome, and then snapped some pictures from the rooftop. From a Frommer´s recommendation, I walked into the middle of town to Plaza de Santa Ana, right south of Puerta del Sol (Madrid´s ¨Time´s Square,¨ according to Frommer´s, even though I didn´t see it). I had a tapas lunch there and then took a lengthy, lengthy break. Having had such a productive morning, I needed some time off my feet and just walked back West to Plaza Mayor for some sangria and reading. Overall, I spent about three hours at a cafe there munching on olives and drinking sangria that, while not worth the price, was worth just giving my feet a rest and relaxing. What kind of vacation would this be without some of that?

Eventually, I mustered up the energy and liquid courage to go see some modern art. Reina Sofia, one of Madrid´s ¨Big 3¨ museums, was the only one open on Mondays. I was willing to give it a chance, but for the most part I hate modern art... and I absolutely detested the Centre Pompidou in Paris. Anything that can take a less-than-average-talented artist about 30 minutes to complete should not be in a musuem. However, there ARE a few notable Picassos and others in there, so I figured I would go since nothing else was open. I figured I´d had enough sangria to appreciate contemporary art more, but that was not the case. I think I would have needed a pitcher or two more (or hard drugs) to see a canvas PAINTED SOLID BLUE is considered art. I did like Picasso´s painting on the Spanish civil war (Guerrera, or something similiar?), and a handle of other cubists´ work, but a lot of stuff in there I thought was pure garbage. Like this Joan Milo character. I think that I should be in a museum before he is.

I went back to get cleaned up before heading to Casa Patas for a flamenco show. I was too cheap to buy dinner there, so I just stopped at a kebob stand on the way over to that neighborhood. I was put on the waiting list since I hadn´t made a reservation, but when you´re a party of one, getting squeezed in isn´t usually a problem. Travel tip: if you fail to plan ahead, traveling alone can have it´s benefits (but don´t take that sentence lightly). The flamenco show was pretty intense - but not as much so as the bullfight - and I really enjoyed it. There were 3 dancers, two women and a man, but they only performed all at the same time at the end. The band consisted of four guitarist-singers that were playing crazy fast Spanish classical guitar rhythms. The performance was really passionate and occasionallly evocative; at one point the dancer spun so fast her hairpiece sailed five rows deep into the audience and then, a few moves later, a bunch of bobby pins did too. One hit a guy´s beer glass as he was drinking from it, which got a laugh out of the crowd. The show didn´t start until 10:30, so by the time it ended it was back to the hostal and straight to bed so that I could wake up early for the Prado on Tuesday, now that museums would be back to being open again!

Madrid Nu. Uno: La Corrida de Toros

I left the States yesterday (Saturday) on the evening flight to Madrid, and I arrived this morning at Aeropuerto Madrid-Barajas. After clearing customs, getting my bag from luggage claim, and withdrawing some Euro notes, I made for the metro into downtown. Since I wasn't able to buy online tickets for the Sunday night bullfight, I stopped at La Plaza Monumental before even checking in at my hostel. The arena is massive and reminds me of the splendor that the Roman coliseum must have once had. The exterior is brick adorned with all sorts of colorful tiles and the Spanish architecture is just marvelous, the Moorish / Mozarabic influences are instantly apparent. I got in line for tickets and, to my luck, there were some cheap seats left. The guy looked at me like I was crazy when I requested the sun portion of the stadium, but I told him that I was used to heat way worse. I need to conserve the money anyways. But for €16 I got a ticket in the front section of the 'sol' part of the arena.

After that I made it back to my hostel by about 1:30. I got checked into a room and took a shower, all ready to go out and be a good tourist. However, I realized when I got to the National Archaeological Museum that Spain has weird hours. Not only is everything museum-wise closed on Mondays, but they all close super early on Sundays as well. Thus, without a palace or museum to go to I just wandered the big avenue Paseo de Recoletos for a good tapas place for some food and sangria. I stalled there for a couple hours with my book, and then around 5 o´clock headed back up toward the Plaza Monumental to get into the arena in time.

As I made my way into the stadium, I took a lot of pictures of the architecture. The Moorish arches and colorful, leaf-pattern tiles were some of the non-Spanish elements that modern Spanish buildings frequently exhibit. Furthermore, every major city in Spain is represented by a crest over an archway on the second-level that is surrounded by blue and green patterns typical of the Arab style. I wandered around taking pictures for awhile, and then drifted inside the interior halls of the arena. As I moved along the perimeter, I noticed that in the back they were warming up the horses used in the games, and that some of the matadors were already out of their dressing rooms and mingling with the horse trainers. I watched them for awhile and then went and took my seat for the actual spectacle.




A bullfight is divided into three rounds per bull. In the first, lower matadors get the bull riled up by twirling the pink and yellow capes to their side. There´s usually five or six of them in the ring at any given time and they basically serve to bounce the animal across the arena a few times to get it agitated. After this round, however, these matadors take a backseat and have more a role similar to a rodeo clown. In the second round, there come the picadores - matadors mounted on horseback with long, sharp lances - and banderilleros - matadors equipped with two bright, colorful spears. The lower matadors get the bull to charge them a few times, and then diverts the bull´s attention to one of the two picadores. The bull usually charges the mounted picadore, whose horse is wearing a lot of padded material to absorb the blow, and while the bull is unsuccessfully attempting to gore the horse the picadore thrusts his lance into the bulls shoulders. After a few rounds with the picadores, the mounted matadors leave and the banderilleros take over. After the lower matadors force the bull to charge them, the banderillero raises his two colorful spears and himself charges the bull. Right as the bull is about to blow back into him, he launches the spears into the bull´s shoulders and then slips to the side harmlessly. All this is done to weaken the bull and lower its head for the third round. In the third round, the main matador - the stud athlete - takes over.
He uses a low-hanging, blood-red cape (what we normally think of when we think bull fighting) to entice the bull to charge him over and over and wear itself out. At some point, when the crowd is sufficiently ready for the kill, the matador buries a sword through the bull´s shoulders when it charges him. Sometimes this would take a few times, but often it´d happen once and be done. The bull would slowly weaken and fade become collapsing, and then the lower matadors would mercy-kill it quickly.

Typical fights are 3 bulls, but today for some reason lasted for 8. The day was complete with matadors doing very well - even one taking a victory lap around the arena at the insistence of the crowd - and some doing extremely poorly - the first matador missed with his sword-plunge seven times in a row and was booed heavily. Old Spanish men were standing up and yelling and talking trash like they were drunken Red Sox fans. The whole thing reminded me immensely of baseball mixed with the movie Gladiator. The pomp and circumstance of everything especially, including the opening procession that included the participants bowing to the minor royalty there. Additionally, trumpets and drums were sounded to signify the end or beginning of various phases; and finally because the crowd definitely had a say in when the kill was made. If the matador was taking too long, the whole audience would erupt into anger and three claps in quick succession. It was certainly a most unique experience.

The whole bullfight itself took about 2 1/2 hours. I got back to the center of the city on the subway and unloaded my bag at my hotel. By this time it was already 9:30, so I headed almost straight back out the door to search out a dinner location. I wandered the streets for awhile, going from my hostel to Puerta del Sol to the Teatro Real. Then, I just so happpened to see a crowd, hear drums, and instinctively headed over toward the rabble to stumble into a Palm Sunday procession. Travel lesson: even for a simple task of searching out paella, never ever forget your camera. I watched helplessly as an entire parade went past, complete with military personnel and the priest hierarchy that wear the masks that look like KKK hoods, and wasn´t able to document it. The highlight of the parade, right after a slew of priests wearing the pointed Inquisition-era hood, was a massive float with a statue of the Virgin. She was illuminated by countless candles around her that had to be continuously re-lit by priests standing by. It was certainly not the first time that I´d seen those priests in the hoods before, but never in person, and it was an additional culturally unique experience to add to the bullfight hours before. Take away some of the surroundings and the procession looked like something that Tomas de Torquemada, Ferdinand y Isabella´s head inquisitor, might have lead in the 1490s.

Finally, outside the Palacio Real, I found a place I could get seafood paella at a reasonable price. Thus I spent the last few hours of my first night sitting on a terrazza with paella and the house red wine, listening to some old men playing two violins (quite well, too) as street performers, and watching people wander the gardens of the Palacio Real in front of me. Tomorrow (Monday), since a lot of places are closed, I´m going to go on a walking tour the hostel offers and then check out the Palazzio Real and the Catedral inside the palace grounds, the two things that I´ve found that are actually up and running tomorrow. Stay tuned!

Weekend in Port Elizabeth

As usual, Kwantu took us into town on Saturday morning. This time, we were bound for Port Elizabeth, which was especially convenient for me because of my Monday morning flight out of P.E. Kwantu's bus dropped us off at a hostel near the water, within walking distance of the boardwalk area with bars, restaurants, and an internet cafe. First thing, though, we went en masse to the mall, for people to load up on whatever they needed. A few people that were leaving P.E. to go on the Garden Route (P.E. to Cape Town) were buying groceries to last them for the week. Most of us, however, just bought a few beers at the liquor store to take back to the hostel. After the mall, we unloaded our stuff at the hostel and headed to the boardwalk to grab lunch and use the internet cafe. Due to the slow connection I was once again thwarted in uploading any pictures, but was at least able to validate my flights home and such.

We spent an hour or so at the internet cafe before heading back to the hostel to shower, get ready to go out, and have happy hour by the pool. After a few hours of that, we walked back to the boardwalk to have dinner at a restaurant called News Cafe that a bunch of kids had tried on a previous weekend there. We had drinks and food at News Cafe and then headed to Barney's Tavern for beers afterward before retiring back to the hostel for the night.

Unlike the majority of people, I wasn't returning to Kwantu the following day, so I hung out by the pool of the hostel with four others. One of which was flying directly out of P.E. the next day like myself, and three were leaving together to go on the Garden Route. So we laid out, swam a little bit, and watched some of the cricket World Cup. Eventually, myself and the girl flying to Namibia got a shuttle to a bed and breakfast owned by Kwantu that would be our home for the night. There was absolutely nothing to do there other than watch TV (once again...no internet!) and so I just sat in the common room with a cup of tea reading my book for several hours. Myself and Naomi, the other girl, had a very quiet evening in and the next morning were picked up to go to Port Elizabeth's airport. My 33-hour commute back home via Port Elizabeth, Johannesburg, and Atlanta had begun!

Last day at Kwantu

This Friday we managed to completely avoid work altogether, for the most part, and to really concentrate on interacting with our favorite animals. We went to the elephant sanctuary again, spending the morning gathering wild grass for the four rescues' beds. We would go and rake up this thick, wild bushy material into giant piles for tractors to later come pick up and take to the elephant barn. While we were out in the field, we took a fair amount of pictures with our hilly background.


After gathering enough wild hay for a few days' worth, we headed back to the barns to get their beds ready (with the hay remaining) and make their evening meals. We mixed these pellets, made mostly of grass, with this other dirt-like substance, made up of molasses and sugars, and also water to get their food. All of this took only twenty or so minutes, so then we sat down to have our lunch before going to find the elephants on the reserve.


After lunch and a nap on the barn floor, we walked back out onto the reserve to find the elephants. As usual, they were skirting the edge of the prickly pear forest, eating away. We took a bunch more pictures (I was glad to have my own camera, this time!) and fed them for awhile.



Afterward, we hurried back to Kwantu so that we could see off a few of our friends who were leaving that afternoon. Some people, like the Scottish guy Bruce, were off to other exotic locales and weren't bothering to stick around for a weekend in Port Elizabeth. So once we got back to Kwantu, we said our goodbyes, and then spent our evening playing with the cubs and lounging around the lodge. Once the sun went down, I packed my bags for the weekend in Port Elizabeth and my impending departure from South Africa.

Thursday: Morning Drive & Game Capture

Thursday started bright and early at 4:30am. Moses picked us up at our quarters at 5 o'clock prompt, and we headed out onto the reserve for our early morning drive. It was pretty chilly out at the time, and when we started off it was still pitch black (other than the stars) and we had to use the spotlight. The morning drives, however, are supposedly amazing for seeing game, so I was pretty excited. I was not to be disappointed! Right off the bat we saw Xhulu and Shiesta near the front water hole. My camera didn't do a fantastic job in pitch black, but I gave it my best show. In addition to all of the plains game, we saw a black-backed jackal, the herd of cape buffalo, nine elephants (including two of the babies), and - my favorite - a pair of rhinos.




After the drive, the whole group went back onto the reserve for another game capture. We figured that it would be another productive capture day, because the skies were overcast and the temperatures were way down compared to the days before; William can't push the herds very long distances when it's that hot out. However, it was a pretty quiet day as the majority of the big herds were on distant plains on other parts of the reserve. The first run we had, four blesbok came through, but two of them wriggled and jumped their way out of the nets and escaped. I was hiding with two others in a central patch of bushes in the middle of the trap, as to be one of the first to the animals once they came through. Myself and Bruce, a middle-aged Scottish guy, were the first ones of one of these two blesbok. I ripped the blesbok's back to legs to the ground while Bruce went for the horns. However, he didn't get a good enough grip and the animal bucked, sending one of its horns through Bruce's pant leg! Luckily for him, it just barely broke the skin and produced a massive bruise more than anything else.

During our late morning shift after breakfast, we went back out to see if our game capture could get any more successful. It didn't really, with only one more group of animals coming our way. This time, it was a group of four springbok. Two of them saw the nets ahead of time, though, and leapt clear over our nets. The other two were wrestled to the ground and given their anti-tick booster. William got a herd of zebra to come close but they kept swinging wide, so we eventually gave up. I was a little bit antsy for zebra just because they don't have a vulnerable point like horns from which it's easy to grab them and pull them down. William says that with a zebra you just have to go for the legs, hope you don't get stomped on, and pull it down that way.

After lunch we did more weeding around the cheetah pen, while the hungry lionnesses that hadn't been fed in a couple days walked back and forth along the fenceline surveying us. It started raining, so Pelile our coordinator let us quit and go play with the lion and tiger cubs. We went in their enclosure and they were all riled up; we played with them by letting them chase us around (play for us but kind of instinctual hunting for them) or by holding our hats out for them to jump and attack. They are certainly cute now, but for how ferocious they already are I would never play those games with a bigger one.

It rained until dinner, which was perfect weather for sitting on the patio with a book. I happened to have my camera ready and snapped a picture of one of the vervet monkeys that hang around the camp. After dinner we just hung around and played Twister for lack of anything else to do.

Uneventful Wednesday

Today was pretty low-key, mainly due to the fact that it felt like it was a million degrees outside. In the morning, we went out into the reserve to cut down a patch of alien blackwattle trees. This invasive species of tree takes up an abnormal amount of water every day, serving to kill the plant life around it from thirst. It is also a very hard wood (the reason for its introduction to South Africa) and thus the bigger trees can be used in construction efforts around camp.


During the late morning, we went on a splendidly hot game drive. We saw the majority of the plains game but nothing else that was particularly interesting. After lunch, while the majority of the people (mostly the girls) stayed on the porch and napped or watched TV, the boys and a few girls went into the predator encampment to weed around the cheetah fence. It was miserably hot, but since we were willing to work when no one else would, Moses - one of the game coordinators and people in charge of us volunteers - told us he would take us on an early-morning drive the next day. It would by far make up for the heat of Wednesday afternoon.



Later we went inside with the cubs, as usual after our afternoon work is done, and took some photos with them. I would take off my hat and shake it in the grass to attract the tigers attention, then move it around while they prowled around it. Right when they'd get ready to lunge, I'll pull the hat up and they'd have to jump to grab it. More than once, though, they were able to rip the hat clear out of my hands - strong little guys!