Everywhere: People: seanie blue

On the Beach of the Drowned Men uploaded on 23 November 2007

Zipolite is a long beach, [erhaps two miles from end to end. At the northern part, there is a tiny scallop of sand between sharp rocks, and to this small scoop come the foreigners for the sunshine and ambiance. There are at least three hotels perched up on the rocks, with a room going for around $35 a night. More importantly, there is a calm sense of time coming derailed here, so your schedule evaporates and your priorities are to choose between mango and coconut for breakfast. (Mango is easy on the belly; coconut cools you in the afternoon.)

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Zipolite: Bathing Before Breakfast uploaded on 23 November 2007

It is July, and baking hot even next to the ocean. And we sleep not twenty meters from the lap of the waves. I should say roar, because this part of the beach is called "Beach of the Drowned Men." In a small scallop between rocks, the foreigners come to swim and sunbathe nude. The military and young boys would come to gawk, but the money has spoken, and Zipolite is now much more polite and calm compared to ten years ago. A bungalow on the water's edge is $40, fruit shake $2, fresh whole fish $10. Still.

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Rose for Thomas uploaded on 23 November 2007

The Memorial is best at night. There aren't the tourists and the schoolkids, and the constant conversations about mortgages and pop stars. You can be here alone with the odd messages and crinkled flowers, without the traffic roaring by. The names won't apeak to you of course, but they do make their suggestion, particularly about this war the granite commemorates: what a useless loss of energy and potential, how many names lost for causes nobody will ever celebrate? This rose was left for Thomas, a few days before, but it is a gift for every visitor.

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Pigeon Rock, Beirut uploaded on 23 November 2007

On the cliff immediately opposite, women who jumped to their deaths because of marital woe or other stress left their bras tied to the barbed wire fences running along the cliff edge. "It doesn't happen often, and not as much as it used to," says Parine, "But when it did the whole city was shocked for a week, whispering, frightened, and nobody would touch the bra because of bad luck." It is hard to believe somebody in despair would come here to end it all, but if a blaze of beauty makes the going easier, why not?

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Future of Beirut uploaded on 23 November 2007

The logos are everywhere. Starbucks, Applebees, TGIF, KFC, but nothing of a home-grown or Middle Eastern chain. I suppose all the souvlaki and shawarma shops from Copenhagen to Chicago are the Lebanese answers to the littering of the country with international corporations. the irony is that beirut is the world's best place to eat, full of fresh and healthy dishes, cheap, so who powers the spurt of fast food garbage? Where does the urge to eat a hamburger come from? Late at night, pelted with beer, maybe. But surely the Lebanese are above this fare?

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Beirut Fishermen uploaded on 23 November 2007

On the Corniche, these guys do what they have been doing since they were children. there are no fish, or the fish come up with festering spots. "The bombings of the refinery have mad the fish sick, and full of spots," says one of the fishermen. "So we come here and talk politics and discuss what will be bombed next." the other fisherman laughs: "Yes, and not just what, but when." They are both here for two hours, perhaps twice or three times a week. They are a sort of defiance to the bombing from the south.

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Rose Garden Test Worker uploaded on 12 November 2007

What does he think of me looming over him, blocking the view? He flies right past as he leaves, but lets me follow him to the next store, to the next load. So well orchestrated he never runs into a colleague.

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Lake Bowman, Glacier NP uploaded on 12 November 2007

The lake is always pretty, but in the winter it is serene, silent, secretive. No yapping boaters, no shrill financial analysis, none of the noise Montanans regard as the worst of all the imported pollutions. The larch trees shimmer yellow, the sky is massive,a nd everything is chill. There are loons and grizzlies, peaks and timber cracked by lightning on the water's edge. You can stand anywhere on the shore in November and hear the motors whirring in your brain, the blood pulsing in your veins. Silence is a seductive sound.

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Calakmul at Noon uploaded on 12 November 2007

You drive for hours and see only trucks with lumber pulled out of the Peten, the jungle nearby. And in the middle of the jungle, without a hill in sight, is Calakmul, sixty four clicks off the highway with nary a cold drink on the way. They've just dug this Mayan ruin out of the dust and debris of a thousand years, so the place feels wet and fresh, newborn. We headed for the top of this temple, where gruesome violence and sacrifice were practiced to mollify the gods of Sun and rain. Didn't work: Calakmul was abandoned.

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Calakmul High Point uploaded on 12 November 2007

The distance is all jungle. It stretches as far as the eye can see, 360 degrees. On the clearest day, the local workers excavating the ruin say you can see all the way to Guatemala's Tikal. But none of the workers have seen Tikal. The workers cannot understand why the foreigners come here to climb the steep steps. It's hot, it's hot. And what is so special about this place, they shrug. plenty more ruins in the jungle. Where? They wave without conviction: In the ground, en la selva. Too much work to get them out.

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