Palacio de Carondelet, Quito, Ecuador; February 22, 2014
Where in the World Wednesday
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Street Art in Cuenca
Cuenca is a university town, and it shows on the streets, which are covered in bright, beautiful murals and spray-painted political slogans and anarchy tags. Every 100 yards or so, I’d come across another cool painting or intriguing phrase, and out came my camera. Here are some paintings I enjoyed:
The Magnificent Churches of Quito
I haven’t spent much time in Spain, so I haven’t seen the churches that inspired those built in Latin American countries. The churches I saw in Quito were very different from the English, French, and North American ones I’m familiar with; much more elaborate decoration, the Virgin Mary featured more prominently, less emphasis on stonework and more on paintwork. I love the cathedrals of Chartres and Salisbury, but La Compañia and San Francisco were magnificent in their own right.
Iglesia de San Francisco
The bell tower of the cathedral
My guidebook described the Iglesia de la Compañia de Jesus as gaudy, but I loved it. Every square inch was covered in gleaming gold–the ceiling, the walls, the giant columns lining the aisles, the baroque columns framing the paintings. Some other colors crept in here and there, in the paintings and altar pieces, and okay, the pews were made of wood and the floors were a mix of stone and wood, but everything else was gold. It was stunning. They were really strict about not taking photos, but I snuck a couple.
La Compañia
The golden doors of the golden church
I wonder how bright it was in here before the age of electric light. I bet it’s actually more brilliant now.
Crystal on the sides? I’m not sure
Detailed ceiling
Loved it
The San Franciscan order of monks was the first to settle in the area, and the church and monastery they built here is now the largest religious complex in South America. The church is elaborately decorated, with paintings and an interlocking pattern on the ceiling. Saints form a semicircle around the altar, and the ceiling above is a deep blue and gold. The choir is made up of intricate wood carvings, and it affords a good view over the nave.
The ceiling of Iglesia de San Francisco
Interior of Iglesia de San Francisco
The altar of San Francisco
The ceiling of the choir at San Francisco
A shoddy, secret shot of the choir at San Francisco
Birds in flight
The attached museum contains sculptures and paintings done in the Quito style (one of the four main schools of art in the colonial period in South America). One of the halls was filled with figures carried during religious parades, like Carnaval and Holy Week, including a wooden bed for carrying statues. I tagged along on an English-speaking tour of the museum, learning about how the position of the statue on El Panecillo is a specific form that is found in statues elsewhere (like a couple in the museum), and how Santo Domingo is always depicted with a devoted dog at his feet.
In the courtyard of the convent at San Francisco
The specific pose for the Virgin of the Apocalypse (she has wings, and vanquishes a snake) — also found in the statue of El Panecillo
For religious processions
The cathedral that forms one side of the main plaza has a stark exterior and a lovely interior, sky blue patterned with gold and pink, transporting you into the heavens as soon as you walk inside. They were starting a service when I ducked in there, so I didn’t spend much time.
The austere exterior of the cathedral
Walking into heaven
Sky blue
A postcard of the Compañia
Another postcard (to get at least one good shot since the no-photos-please people were hawk-eyed)
Sunrise, Sunset
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Sunset, Cuenca, Ecuador
Where in the World Wednesday
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Las Tunas, Ecuador; March 10, 2014
Modern Cardiff: A Revitalized Waterfront and Plans Gone Awry
My friend Liz and I didn’t have much time in Cardiff, so we knew we could only do a couple things. I wanted to see the castle and the Doctor Who exhibit. We saw the castle, but we had laughably bad luck with the exhibit. At least we saw a lot of Cardiff on our way to the Tardis that wouldn’t let us in.
Another ace landing by The Doctor
We walked from downtown, with its pedestrian-only streets, covered arcades, and huge department stores, along the main road to the harbor. The waterfront underwent a transformation in the last 15 years, following the same pattern as so many formerly working-class neighborhoods, going from underfunded zone to respectable tourist destination with the backing of a lot of government and private money. I didn’t find it to be all that interesting a space, except for a few structures: the Millennium Centre, the towers of Roald Dahl Plass (which I know from Torchwood), and the small Norwegian church that Dahl attended as a child.
Norwegian church
The Millennium Centre houses the Welsh Opera, and the words on the front reflect this; the English words are “In these stones horizons sing,” and the Welsh words, “Creu Gwir fel gwydr o ffwrnais awen,” translate to “Creating truth like glass from the furnace of inspiration.” Roald Dahl Plass itself wasn’t terrible interesting–it’s a large, empty oval, with nothing of the imagination of the man it’s named for, which is disappointing. But there are enough things around there–the Welsh government building, a carousel, the shops of Mermaid Quay–to keep you occupied.
I think both phrases are lovely, especially for an opera house
We actually hadn’t intended to go all the way to the waterfront. Our guidebook said the Doctor Who exhibit was in a shopping center a little bit inland, but when we went in there, we found nothing but shops and a few between-meals restaurants. We wandered around for awhile, almost as if we’d hear that wheezing brakes sound and the Tardis would reveal itself to us. Since this was reality and not a BBC program, this did not happen, and we asked some waiters on a cigarette break where it was. They explained that the exhibit hadn’t been in this location in years, and we’d have to walk along the waterfront to just about as far as it goes. So we found all these sights along the way, and then finally we saw the big “Doctor Who Experience” sign looming in the distance, hurrah!
One of the churches in the town center
Walking downtown
Oh but it wasn’t going to happen, as it turned out. I was not going to battle a Dalek and zip across space and time with a wacky Time Lord. We arrived at a little after 4pm, to find that only the gift shop was open. Apparently tours are only 10am til 3pm, and you have to reserve them ahead of time. Okay, can we reserve for tomorrow morning, before we leave town? No, tomorrow is Tuesday, the only day the exhibit is closed. I mean, if ever there were signs that something was not meant to be, these were those signs.
Wreaths for fallen soldiers
By that point, we’d walked miles and I was more than ready to take the bus back to the hostel. We waited for 20 minutes, optimistically believing the screen giving us updates on when the next bus would arrive–5 minutes, 2 minutes, arriving–until it became clear it was a system of lies. It was almost as bad as waiting for a Chicago bus. Though maybe not as cold.
The Water Tower, ready to take you down to Torchwood HQ
Back at the hostel, we consoled ourselves on our ill-fated journey with a local Brains beer, and we marveled at the fact that we hadn’t even thought to check the internet to confirm what our guidebook (only a few years old) was saying. We concluded that actually it hadn’t been so bad. We hadn’t spent any money (tickets are £15, or about $25), and we’d seen a lot of Cardiff along the way. A budget traveler’s happy mistake!
Brains Brewery
Our view along the river for our last drink in Cardiff
Cardiff Castle: Fortress and Children’s Playground
I was already inclined to like Cardiff Castle when Liz and I walked across the large courtyard; the guy handing out the audio guides was incredibly cute and taught us how to say “thank you” in Welsh (a phrase which has nearly double the amount of vowels found in most Welsh words). But then we found falcons, and centuries-old graffiti, and a group of schoolchildren dressed in paper crowns, and we really liked it.
What’s left of the keep of Cardiff Castle in Wales
Surveying my domain
The castle was built by Norman invaders, on the site of an old Roman fort. So it was never a site owned by the native Celts. Cardiff Castle was part of the Marcher territory, a strip of land that acted as sort of a buffer between England and Wales from the 12th to the early 16th centuries. Marcher lords had almost total autonomy, though they were tasked by the English king with keeping the border secure for England, and they used a lot of Welsh laws in administering justice. A fascinating in-between kind of place, the kind of place where each motte-and-bailey castle matters immensely.
The first thing you see when you enter the castle walls
Bell tower on the left and main range on the right
Once England firmly and finally took hold of Wales, the Marcher lords lost their far-reaching powers, and the castles lost their importance as defensive bastions. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Marquesses of Bute changed the castle grounds to be more of a residence and less of a fortress. They employed the marvelously named Capability Brown to make the changes, which mostly involved knocking a lot of stuff down and updating the main range (main house) to be fashionable for 1776.
Inside the keep
Graffiti
The Arab Room in the main range was easily my favorite (the name, I know). The geometric shapes and deep colors were mesmerizing. It even had a crystal in the stained-glass window, the better to refract light even more. The dining hall was impressive, as was the long library and its massive fireplace. Apparently one of the family was fond of monkeys, and they can be found as little flourishes throughout the house; one is the bell-pull next to a fireplace in a corner room.
The ceiling of the Arab Room
Monkey bell-pull
Nice little library
In a little hut next to the main house, falcons and an owl fluttered and swiveled on their perches. Outside the hut, peacocks stalked the grass, secure in the knowledge that they owned this place. A group of about 30 schoolchildren dressed in paper crowns and too-long tunics giggled on the green, and some of them got close to the peacocks before shrieking and running away again. From fortress to children’s playground in just under 1000 years.
Hedwig of Harry Potter, is that you?
Mid-ruffle
The peacocks were surprisingly undisturbed by masses of costumed children chasing after them
Sunrise, Sunset
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Sunset, Las Tunas, Ecuador
Where in the World Wednesday
Las Tunas, Ecuador; March 12, 2014
“Live Your Dreams” is Bullshit, If That’s Where It Ends
People tend to get annoyed when the subject of living your dreams comes up and I say that it’s bullshit. Clearly, I believe in dreaming big and going for it—as the last year and a half of my own life shows—but I don’t think that anything’s possible. There are always limitations, some of them changeable and some of them not. Like maybe you want to be an opera singer but you’re always slightly off-pitch no matter how much you practice—I’m going to go out on a limb and say you’re not going to achieve that particular dream. Which isn’t to say you can’t sing every day of your life and love it, but opera isn’t in your future. (Pop songs, maybe; I hear this Bob Dylan guy does well for himself.) Wanting something badly enough isn’t going to erase certain obstacles.
So there are inherent obstacles and then there are situational ones. These are the ones that make me angry, when travel blogs say, “You can do this, too! Drop everything and travel the world, it’s only your fear holding you back!” Sometimes, sure, it’s fear of the unknown and with a little push, you could really get out there and do it. But far more often, it’s a whole host of factors. If you have young kids, if you make $8 an hour, if you’re a care giver for an ill parent, if you’re paying off loads of student debt; these are perfectly legitimate reasons for saying, “I wish I could travel for a year, but I don’t think I can.” I know I’ve touched on this theme before, so pardon me for grinding this ax again, but it makes me so angry when privileged people act like people with no money just don’t want something enough to make it happen, be it travel or a secure job or a college education. It can be done, but it takes a tremendous amount of effort, assistance, and luck.
This is what I mean when I say “live your dreams” is a bullshit philosophy. I do not mean you shouldn’t dream and scheme and do things, and I do not mean we should all accept an outdated belief in sticking to one’s station in life, I just mean don’t devalue what you have while pining for some vague future event, and don’t act like dreams come for free. When it comes to encouraging other people to dream big, do what you can to offer practical support too. Don’t simply say to kids, “you can do whatever you want, just stay in school”; help them with their homework, vote for politicians who put money into public schools and free lunches, support after-school programs, help kids navigate the nightmare that is a FAFSA application when they’re applying to colleges, etc. So maybe I can get behind a philosophy of, “let’s help each other live our dreams.”
When it comes to long-term travel, if you start at a certain socioeconomic level, you can get started pretty easily and keep going for a decent amount of time. Still, money does run out eventually, so you have to either limit what you do/budget yourself or find alternatives. For myself, I’ve mostly stuck to a budget and accepted that this means I’ll see certain things and not others; recently, I realized that I could shell out $1200 for a bare-bones visit to the Galapagos Islands, or I could use that same money to get down to Iguazu Falls and the wine country of Argentina for three weeks. It was a tough decision, but I chose the falls over the islands, and I hope I’ll be back someday to see the islands. In the meantime, I’m going to try some alternatives as well, like volunteer gigs on workaway.com, in order to stretch the money more.
I’m living my dream and I still need to make adjustments. Of course I’d love to have unlimited funds and do whatever I like, but just because that’s not the case doesn’t mean I’m not having a wonderful time. It’s just that even dreams have realities.
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