Oh, the places I’ve gone, part 2

As promised yesterday, more moments from Dr Essai’s travels. If you missed part 1, you will find it here.

I once met an old woman in a wildlife refuge who was firm in her belief that female eagles wash food for the males.

In the San Blas Islands, now Guna Yala, near Panama, my wife and I needed to relieve ourselves. We were directed to a shed with a “toilet” that turned out to be little more than a seat over the water. Marian went first, then chatted with someone while I took my turn. When I came out, she said, “The word is that flying fish can be a problem.”

At the Giza pyramids in the early 1980s, tourists were accosted by swarms of Egyptian kids who could negotiate a transaction in any of 20 languages. (I wouldn’t be surprised if this is still the case.) No sooner had my wife and I stepped out of a taxi than one approached with a big smile.

“Buy camel ride?”

“No, thank you.”

“Buy horse ride?”

“Thanks, but no.”

“Buy a drink?” (Pulls half-full Pepsi bottle out of his garments.)

“Nope.”

“Buy a watch?”

“No, no, no.”

Extended pause.

“Sell me your watch?”

In only one country could I not find a respectable beer: the Soviet Union. In only one country have I heard “Yankee, go home!”: Canada. (Québec City, 1979, long before our current distressing situation.) In only one country did the main airport feature an enormous pile of rotting produce in the center of the terminal: Antigua. In only one country have I had a taxi driver offer me a girl, and when I declined, offer me a boy: Thailand. In only one country have I snuck onto the roof of a hotel skyscraper to photograph the urban skyline at dawn: Singapore. You might think I’d have only one entry in the category “country in which we were accompanied by people who carried rifles to ward off polar bears,” but I have three: Canada, Greenland, Svalbard (technically part of Norway, as Greenland is technically part of Denmark).

Before heading off for a hike in Montana, I reached for my camera, then paused. I was so sick of carrying it that I decided to leave it in my room. I told myself that today I would hike light and simply enjoy the scenery without feeling the imperative to frame everything in a viewfinder. Hours later, in an open expanse of backcountry, a rare wolverine sauntered out and passed within a few dozen yards. You’ll just have to believe me, because my camera was back in the goddam hotel room.

Conveyances I have experienced on my various travels: car, bus, train, cog railway, high-speed train, small plane, big plane, the Concorde supersonic transport, helicopter, tundra buggy, dogsled, horse, camel, cruise ship, tall ship, ocean ferry, kayak, Zodiac, river barge, hot-air balloon, tuk-tuk (very loud motorized street cart in Bangkok), bicycle, electric bicycle, moped, mountain gondola, and parachute. (The latter was parasailing, in Mexico.) 

One of the bus conveyances was Tel Aviv to Cairo, around 1983. That’s a long ride under ideal conditions. At some point in the Sinai, we came to a stop: the road had been closed. Word passed that an army general had wanted the road, and this was Egypt, so the general got the road. After considerable delay, we were allowed to resume and arrived at the Suez Canal crossing at Kantara. There was no bridge in those days, and thanks to the general, we had missed the designated time when the ferry could cross. We waited hours for a pause in ship traffic long enough for the ferry, which was on the opposite bank, to make a quick run. While we waited an ambulance threaded its way to the front of the queue, lights flashing and siren wailing as it fruitlessly tried to get the attention of the ferry pilot. More than a few of us on the bus hoped the unfortunate patient in that ambulance was that fucking Egyptian general.

Finally, a list, because who doesn’t love a list:

• City with the greatest concentration of lovely coffee shops: Oslo.
• Country with the nicest mountain cafés: Austria.
• Only country where I’ve encountered a roadside volcanic eruption: Iceland. (See Keflavik image above.)
• Place with most confounding liquor laws: Utah.
• Country with the politest people: Japan.
• Country with the politest customs officials: Canada.
• Country with the surliest airport security: Chile.
• Most cats in an airport: Cairo.
• Most rabbits on the grounds of a hotel: Puerto Natales, Chile.
• Most bald eagles just hanging around like pigeons: Sitka, Alaska.
• Only place I’ve ever been attacked by a turkey: Grand Manan Island, New Brunswick. Don’t laugh—the toms are big birds. This was a 10-minute battle. I had to repeatedly swat him with my camera bag as I retreated to the car.
• Most remarkable urban shantytown: the many thousands of squatters’ shacks in the hills around Caracas, Venezuela.
• Best street food: Do I look that reckless? Okay, okay, the falafel at the Tel Aviv bus station.
• Best gas station food: lobster taquitos at the Whoa Nellie Deli, in the Tioga Gas Mart near Mono Lake, California. (Honorable mention to the burgers available at any gas station in rural Iceland.)
• Best subway: Moscow. (Oh my god, the stations!) Worst subway: Baltimore. (Do not get me started.)
• Most impressive urban transit system: the trams of Prague.
• Last place I thought I’d find a Chinatown: Montréal.
• Most underrated destination, of all that I’ve been to: the Cascade Mountains, Washington State.
• Most overrated destination, of all that I’ve been to: Charleston, South Carolina. Or Las Vegas. It’s a toss-up. And there’s not much to recommend the Alamo.
• Most amazing sight ever: the view out a jetliner window on the approach to Mexico City at night. Close second: eye contact with a polar bear on the tundra outside Churchill, Manitoba. Close third: icebergs in the twilight off the coast of East Greenland.
• Sight I wish I could get out of my mind: dozens of corpulent naked Germans sunbathing on a riverbank in Munich. It’s been decades, yet when I close my eyes, I still see them, like sprawled sausages, fleshy, pink…