Reports and Opinions By Larry Joseph Calloway
The word can be masculine or feminine depending on the individual being called a tourist. I love La Turista in my life. Since we met on a desert trail long ago, Patricia and I have been everywhere together: Mexico, The Dominican Republic, Belize, Chile, and Tierra del Fuego in Latin America. Baffin Island in the Arctic and Cape Horn near the antarctic. Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Malaya, Singapore, Bali and Borneo in Southeast Asia. Ireland with a choral group. Scotland by longboat. The Grand Canyon by raft and by foot. Backpacking in the Escalante canyons. And then we got married! (We took the honeymoon first.) I also have driven twice as a tourist through the American South, six weeks with Pat and a week with my daughter Maia. Here is a digest of my travelogs.
As an old journalist, I could not resist the customary year in review, particularly this year. The world is so full of a number things — east, west, north and south.
The Canadian North is a separate land with a frontier past and a brilliant future. The Polar Bear its symbol, as is the penguin of the Antarctic. Big difference, as we found out.
The video in which Chinese riflemen fire on escaping Tibetan refugees on Nangpa Pass took me back to April 2002 in the Nepali Khumbu village of Thame and asked a question.
As the tour guide struggled through the life of the Buddha I watched a depressed monk smoke a cigarette and stare out toward a pile of skulls pressed against glass. I wondered what he was thinking.
On the eve of a return trip to Southeast Asia, I recalled a village scene 40 years ago that to me defines the difference in practice between the two “vehicles” of Buddhism. Theravada is not as lonely as Mahayana.
My report on the political crisis in the tiny Carribean nation that happens to be located in Central America. Nobody could phone out the story as it happened because the phones were all sabotaged.
With every trip to the San Luis Valley and back to Santa Fe, I grew fonder of the place. Christopher Columbus liked it too, if my translation is right.
Before you get taken in and taken over by the political delusions about wilderness, go out and take a look for yourself. There are hikers and rangers who really love it out there, and they are not wackoes.
