Lichtenstein

We have had good luck with small countries over the years--the Vatican is amazing, and our visit to San Marino was one of the highlights of our 2023 trip to Europe. So we were excited to take the chance to spend a day in Lichtenstein on a day trip from Innsbruck. So we got up early, hopped on a train for two hours to Feldkirch, Austria, then took a bus for 45 minutes down to Vaduz.

Immediately we ran into an issue. It was hot. Not outrageously hot, but hot enough to be uncomfortable in the sun amidst all the stone buildings. The town itself is rather picturesque, spread out on a foothill near the headwaters of the Rhine. The prince still lives in the castle above town. The place appears quite prosperous, given the high prices in Swiss Francs.

We were hungry, so we popped into a restaurant for lunch. Afterward, we walked over to the road train, which seems to be the main activity for tourists. It drove us around town for 40 minutes and described the castle, the form of government, the football stadium, and the assembly building, then dropped us back at the start.

Lunch in Vaduz.

Road train around town!

The state Assembly.

After the road train, we decided to try a couple of museums. There is a well-regarded modern art museum in town, but we were interested in the history of the place so we skipped that. Instead, we popped into the Treasury, which holds the valuables of the state. Unfortunately, those weren't much--a replica of the prince's crown, a large Faberge egg (which is maybe exciting for people into that kind of thing), and various other trinkets and jewels. 

Next up was the national museum, which we hoped would have a lot of history and explain the uniqueness of the country (San Marino had an excellent museum explaining its history). And Lichtenstein HAS an interesting history--after picking the right side during a Habsburg political dispute in the 1600s, the area was raised to a principality and ruled directly from the emperor, with no feudal lords in between. After the Napoleonic wars triggered the dissolution of the empire, Lichtenstein had no one to report up to. They quickly made nice with the Swiss, made good decisions to stay out of the mess of the world wars, and remain a principality to the present day.

But we learned none of this in the museum. First, it was a national museum, and included animals, clothing, and archaeology as well as history. Second, the exhibits were all in German, without an English translation. You can get by translating a few blurbs using Google Translate, but this quickly becomes tedious when you don't know exactly what you are looking for. We ran through the whole museum, and the special exhibition on the Nazi era (and how Lichtenstein avoided annexation or invasion) was quite interesting, but we learned much less than we hoped.

After the museum failures, we decided to do something fun to fill the time before our 7 PM return train, so we wandered over to a mini golf course that was free with our day pass. It was fun, still very hot, but helped pass the time pleasantly. One last funny moment happened when we got on the train back to Innsbruck and found an old train with no air conditioning--so we headed off at 90 kph with windows open and hair blowing in the wind.

The day wasn't a failure, we saw what is there, it was fine, but it was not the highlight of our trip the way that we'd hoped. On to Salzburg and Vienna next!

A few Days in South Tyrol

South Tyrol, in Italy, is one of those places in Europe with a quirky history and a fascinating present. Detached from the Austrian Empire as part of the "carrot" that pulled Italy in on the side of the Allies in World War I, it remained part of Italy after World War II on condition that it be granted a significant amount of autonomy. So, today, we have the semi-autonomous province of South Tyrol, full of Italian citizens mostly speaking German, flying Tyrolean flags everywhere we have gone.

Geographically, the place is also amazing, nestled in the Dolomite Alps with cities in the valleys and villages dotting the higher elevations. There is a network of white-knuckle roads, cable cars, and alpine trains that let tourists and locals move from one area to another, and there appear to be a large number of working farms still in the region. It is the wealthiest province in Italy and it shows--the towns are spotless, charming, and expensive.

Heading up the mountain above Bolzano in a cable car.

We considered doing a hut-to-hut hike with the kids, where you basically choose a valley or two and stay for a few days in the highlands, hiking from one "refugio" to the next, spending the night and eating and drinking there. But it was hard to plan with the kids, even harder to plan with the weather, and in the end we decided to stay in an apartment in Bolzano and take day trips to various valleys and mountains. That has worked well.

The weather has been tricky. Before we left home, the weather in this region was fairly cold and rainy, with highs in the valleys in the 50s and periodic rain showers. So we brought sweatshirts, raincoats, and hiking shoes. Those reports were misleading, though--we arrived in Bolzano on Jun 18 to 80F temperatures and no rain. Even at the highest elevations we haven't needed sweatshirts, and, while a few dark clouds pass by in the afternoons, we have not been rained on.

Over the four nights we stayed in Bolzano we went "up the hill" all four days, beginning with the cable car in the middle of town, up the mountain, onto a train across to the next little village, where we struggled to find dinner while watching the mountains changing color in the sunset. It was spectacular, a little disappointing (we ended up with a fast-food type pizza for food), but a good introduction to the possibilities.

On day two, we attempted to take a bus to the village beneath the Val Gardena, but after 45 minutes with no bus we gave up and took a different bus to Castelroto. Thenice tourist lady gave us a map and suggested a hike up the mountain. It was a tough hike, rising 400m to about 1800m elevation, but with pleasant weather and mostly through the trees. At the top was a refugio where she assured us we could get food, but when we arrived we found several hundred Germans (or at least German speakers) drinking beer, singing along to a Bavarian band, and taking up every seat in the place. It was quite a surprise, but it turned out that they had all taken the cable car up (presumably along with the hundred kegs of beer). We decided to hike down the other side of the mountain to a separate town, where we caught the bus back to Bolzano.

On day three, we tried to use our passes to take a free cable car near Muhlbach, only to arrive and find that it was no longer running. So again, we improvised (and spent a lot of cash) to go up a separate cable car near Valles, where we found, at the top, a well-maintained path and some spectacular views of the Austrian Alps, still glaciated. Because of the elevation and cloud cover (about 2000m up) this was the lowest temperature we experienced on the trip (and we still were in t-shirts most of the time).

The view toward Austria.

But day four was something special. We finally got the bus to Ortisei, and then spent a ton (almost EUR200) to take two cable cars up the mountain. The Val Gardena is a UNESCO site, and what an amazing place. The Seceda cable car takes you up to 2500m elevation, and it feels like the whole world is laid out at your feet, with bare rock sticking up all around you. We spent the whole day hiking around, slowly, along with hundreds of other people scattered around the mountain. It would be incredible to sleep up there and see the stars, but we'll have to save that for the next trip.

View to the east, from the valley just below the Seceda cable car station.

View to the west, from the cable car terminal.

A Prelude to a Trip, July 24

     Our flight is delayed by almost three hours; these "found hours" feel like cement blocks  -  I have spent too much time preparing to leave already - trying to make sure that everything anyone might need is packed (while keeping each bag light enough for its owner to transport), that the house is in order, that we have touched base with all the great folks helping with the house while we are gone (do our cat foster parents have the right cat food in the shipping queue?, etc.) - I do not need three more hours to fret about consider other tasks I should undertake!

    Miraculously, my mental toughness kicks in and while I am aimlessly wandering the house, I take  a few minutes to think about the actual trip instead of just the logistics leading up to departing.  I ponder the values and purpose of the adventure.  Why are we going on this trip? What do we wish/anticipate/fear will happen?  What do we hope we will be like and feel like when we return?  Will it all be worth leaving my job and taking the kids out of school and away from their hobbies and friends? 

    As background and for posterity: I left my job with the City of San Francisco in May, Scott has reduced his work hours, and we've taken our three kids out of school for the 2023-24 school year (4th and 7th grade) to spend time a lot of uninterrupted time together, to tutor the kids, and to travel. Our general itinerary for the first ~5 months is UK, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Spain, and Portugal, but we want to be flexible and open to deciding to stay in one place for a longer or shorter period, so I will not be surprised if this outline does not exactly hold.  The 'plan' for the subsequent 6 months is even less sketched out. 

Sketch Travel Plan, July - Dec 2023
(fly UK-Italy, Turkey-Spain)

    On the way to the airport on the exciting Bart train (umm, when you are 9, trying to do pullups on those bars that are definitely not for exercise does NOT get old even an hour into the ride!), I consider asking my traveling party these questions, to have a record of our hopes and dreams that we can look back on in a year.  Once we are settled at the gate, we talk generally about our predictions for the trip (which I think is a good prelude to talking about hopes and dreams) and that conversation quickly degenerates into light ribbing, "How many times during the trip will Daddy say, 'we overpacked guys, we've OVERpacked' and How many times will Katie say,  'Let's stay here, I want to LIVE here!' I dutifully recorded our predictions (between 1 and 40 on the first and 3 and 6 on the second, among others).  

    Our overnight flight to London was just fine. The looonggg tube to our hotel, which is about 45 minutes northeast of Central London, in Stratford was a bit rough on so little sleep. After some walking, park play time, and sunlight, we all mercifully were able to lie flat in beds. Scott and I of course woke up in the wee hours of the morning and tried to keep pretending to sleep to allow those wonderfully-flexible kids to keep slumbering as though we hadn't just been on CA time 36 hours ago (oh to get over jet lag like a 12 year old!). As we fake-slept, Katie talked in her sleep. Luke lightly snored. Alex - having awoke cold and discovering that the blankets were fully under and over his bed-partner - sat up in bed and, after tugging on the blankets a bit and meeting resistance, urgently and seriously whispered, "I have.... nothing!" 

I lay in bed thinking.  I don't know the answers to my deeper questions about the whys and the hows of this trip..  But I sorta know that mornings like this - having the luxury of time to listen to your kids sleep-bicker, without any anxiety about wasting time, is some important part of my answer. 

Kicking it on the Left Bank.

 

Where am I? What am I doing?

I used my phone's GPS to locate the school where I am working. My hotel is in Bolgatanga, so I've been spending a lot of time commuting.

I'm working on setting up a basic website for the school, and it's slowly coming together. So, if I've done my job, the site will tell the story better than I can: GIOF Website.

Here's a Google map of the school site. Zoom out to see something. Those "roads" are really just dirt tracks, though they are maintained and have some solid bases.

Bolga Walking

There is a peculiar consequence of being a short-term aid worker in Africa. When you have been picked up and dropped off at various places along the way (Accra airport to hotel, hotel to airport, airport to Tamale airport, airport to Bolga office, Bolga office to hotel, Bolga hotel to Sirigu, etc) you really have no idea where you are. You don't know which was the town is, where the market is (if there is a market), if/where there are banks or restaurants or whatever.

If I may say so, I have a highly developed sense of direction, but when I arose on Saturday with no plans in place for someone to take me somewhere, I was in a bit of a bind. I wasn't even sure what to ask the hotel staff. Where is the Barclay's? Is there a supermarket? Where is the MTN store? And the real challenge is that I would have to understand the answer and tell a taxi driver as he slowly rolled past looking for fares.
So I walked to town. I knew, approximately, which way the center of Bolga was from my hotel. It's the rainy season here, but it is still dreadfully hot and humid for a Bay Area resident like me. And I think I must have walked three or four miles, because it was about an hour when I reached an intersection and recognized the ACDI/VOCA office that I had been chauffeured to and from on Tuesday afternoon.

So I bought a few things (cookies, some water), asked the name of the junction ("SSNIT Junction", pronounced "snit"), and hopped in a taxi back to the hotel.

Taxi ridin'

Sunday, I took a taxi to "snit" and then continued the process. I walked another hour, this time along the Tamale road, then circled back through town to "snit" again.

As a result, I'm finally getting a feel for the place where I'm living. The place where I'm working is another story.

Tamale-Navrongo Road

Typical street in Bolga town (though empty for Sunday)

First, Bolga is pretty large. It's a junction town on the main road from central Ghana to Ougadougou, so the main road is quite large (four lanes divided, in most places). There are several large banks, all the main roads are paved, there's a supermarket (no food, they sell tvs and beds and blenders) and at least a half-dozen large mobile phone stores. It's hard to get a feel for the relative prosperity of the place--on the one hand there are lots of stores and business being conducted. But on the other I still haven't seen the prevalence of food that is apparent in Cameroon, for example.

I did finally find some bananas. Five small bananas for one cedi, which is about 50 cents. So, here is a picture of my ten cent banana. It tastes good, sweeter than our Panama bananas (Cavendish?), but pretty dainty. No worries, I'll have a giant plate of rice at the hotel for dinner.

Ten-cent banana

Send-off

After the chaos of Thursday, I had the very good fortune to be invited to the sendoff in Sirigu for the local Peace Corps Volunteer, Sonia. She's spent two years in the village working with farmers and local community groups, and by all appearances has just completed the quintessential Peace Corps experience--small rural village, no running water, tightly integrated with the community, hot and uncomfortable, et cetera, et cetera.

I never had a proper send-off of my own, so it was a treat to get to live the experience through hers. I was rather hesitant to go, but her counterpart is also mine, and once invited there was really no polite way for me to decline, and from Peter's perspective it was probably unthinkable that I not be there. But a send-off after two years in the community is a special event and I was worried about detracting from Sonia's moment, as it were. So, I went, and in the end tried to make myself useful by taking lots of photos and videos to pass on to her as keepsakes.

I had to sort of arrange my own transport out there and ended up arriving two hours late. That turned out to be fine because the event began three hours late. And the chief arrived almost four hours late. But there were about twenty-five people attending, everyone Sonia had worked with over the last two years, mostly farmers. And most people said a few words, usually either that they hoped she would not forget them, or that they were thankful she had been so friendly ("not like most whites" one guy said), or that she would travel safely home. The event ended with them presenting her with a series of gifts including some very nice clothing and a beautiful bowl. Then we ate the goat that they had butchered that afternoon.

Sonia's send-off party

Inevitably, I was asked to say a few words. There is quite a lot of pressure to speak at an event where you've known noone more than three days, and almost noone more than fifteen minutes. And in the wrong language. And a strange country. But I did my best, said that I had been a Peace Corps volunteer as well, and that you never forget your village or the people you worked with, and that I am sure when Sonia is in Ghana she is an American but when she is in America she will be a Ghanaian.

I had to ride back to Bolga in a minivan after dark, which is a big no-no (though, strangely, less of a no-no when you are traveling on rural dirt roads, as I was, because the speeds are so much slower). But it was fairly clear so I finally got my view of the Southern Cross, which is a requirement of any trip to the tropics.

First Impressions

I arrived in Accra after the usual painful flight. Delta has the only flight to Accra from New York, so they charge a ton and provide poor service. We were two hours late leaving JFK, the A/C vent for my seatmate was missing (and "patched," literally, with duct tape). But we arrived alright, no problems at immigration or customs and I'm in.

First impression, Accra seems like a pretty nice place. I've only seen the "rich" quarter, really, and the airport, but it seems to be missing both the hyperactivity of Dar and the in-your-face aggressiveness of Douala.

View from my hotel window in Accra

Richard met me at the airport and brought me to the ACDI/VOCA office. I asked the usual questions about prices and greetings, and promptly forgot all the answers through my fatigue. But so far so good. It is a different experience to be on the aid-worker side of the equation, and to have guys in big cars drive you everywhere you want to go. But once they drop me at my post I'll be abandoned, and then I should get some time to get out and wander about.

The hotel was very nice, wifi and satellite tv and a hot shower. I ate at the restaurant, beans with cow-meat and plantains for $9 and a small beer for $2. Too much, but it was soooo good. With the smell of wood smoke in the air, sitting by the fancy ex-pat pool, life doesn't get much better.

I was up early the next day for a flight to Tamale, then another land-cruiser drive to Bolgatanga, in the Upper East. I expected the north to be something like the north of Cameroon, but it appears to be quite a bit less arid (much more green, that is) with the associated humidity and hazy sky. And while the north of both countries has the most Muslims, I haven't seen the predominance of Muslim dress and mosques here that I used to see in Cameroon.

Nor have I seen as much food as I did in Cameroon. Perhaps that is cultural and it is only found in markets, perhaps it is because we are in the middle of Ramadan, but I haven't seen a banana yet, whereas in Cameroon they available at every stall along the roadside. You never know with first impressions, as the sample size is small, but these are the things I've noticed thus far.

Tomorrow I am off to post to see the school and spend some time discussion the project with the host.