The beautiful Riviera Maya region of Mexico named a Top Destination in Mexico for four consecutive years by Travel Weekly (2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007), one of the hottest beach destinations by Orbitz in 2008, was also featured in the January 2006 issue of Travel + Leisure as “The Next Riviera” and received the 2008 Crystal Apple Award as “The Best Destination of the Year.” Stretching from just south of Cancun to Tulum, the Riviera Maya encompasses luxurious all inclusive resorts to thatched roof candlelit lodgings.

On our first evening on the Mexican Riviera, John Montgomery, my photographer husband and I, along with some friends, strolled along the Paseo in Playa del Carmen, past the many lively shops and restaurants, and enjoyed the excitement of a local Day of the Dead Festival in the town plaza.
Later accompanied by pumpkin soup and Maya tamales at Yaxche Restaurant, we watched the traditional Fire Dance performed to beating drums by exuberant dancers, bodies and faces painted and wearing enormous feathered headdresses. Since normally this dance is only performed every 52 years, we were fortunate to witness it.

When I last visited this area thirty years ago, Playa del Carmen and the surrounding villages were sleepy, little enclaves offering a beautiful coast, friendly people, and palapas with hammocks to rent. I am glad to see that the area is being developed carefully with concern for the natural environment and the local Maya people.

We planned our two week visit to coincide with the elaborate festivals of the Día de los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, which originated thousands of years ago in Olmec and Aztec festivals and later intertwined with the Catholic All Saints Day.

Xcaret, which translates as “small inlet,” is an eco-archaeological park, founded in 1984, celebrates the history of Mexico and Maya traditions. In addition attracting visitors and income to the area, the park offers employment to local people while encouraging them to continue their cultural traditions.

Open all year, the park’s many activities include floating down underground rivers, visiting a manatee lagoon, enjoying many performances such as the history of Mexico pageant complete with ancient ball games, musical instruments, and dancing, and charros on horseback. We munched on local foods while watching the four Birdmen soar high above us in a sun god worship ritual.

We were there for the third annual Xcaret Life and Death Traditions Festival, named as a Masterpiece of Oral and Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO. During Halan Pixan, or banquet of souls, families gather from more than thirty-nine Mayan communities to celebrate the dearly departed. Who would have thought that a visit to a cemetery at night would be fun and enlightening but so it was as we made our way past 365 illuminated tombs lining the hillside on seven levels. This is a joyful day when souls return to visit their loved ones. To encourage their visit, favorite foods and items are offered in the shrines, including books, beds, a glass of milk, bottles of beer, and even a beloved pair of shoes.

One day we hiked through the Biosphere of Sian Ka’an, or “Gift from the Sky,” which at 1.3 million acres, is the largest protected area on the Mexican Caribbean. It is the home to 23 known archaeological sites and at least 103 mammal and 336 bird species. Their overnight accommodations meet the highest environmental standards. While hiking, our guide pointed out the happy symbiosis of nature as he warned us not to touch the chichen tree which is deadly poisonous. But, not to worry, he said as he introduced us to a neighboring tree, the chaka, which provides an antidote to the poison of its neighbor.

The Yucatan has been a center of Maya culture for thousands of years. On-going excavations uncover new cities and sites on a regular basis. Although I’ve visited many Maya sites over the years, this was my first time at Coba, which is so enormous even though only five percent is currently excavated, that it’s recommended you rent a bicycle to get around. I was happy to rent a bicycle cab with my own driver so I traveled in ease along the tree shaded paths. Among the treasures of this site, which means “turbulent water” due its large lake, is Nohoch Mul, the highest pyramid on the northern Yucatan peninsula, and the opportunity to view original red, blue, and yellow paint on some of the interior walls.

On our visits to Maya villages, we learned that formerly their economy was based on harvesting chicle, the chewy sap from their indigenous trees, which were promoted as Chiclets. When synthetic materials for chewing gum replaced the natural sap, the local people lost their income source. An enterprising man from Mexico City organized a Maya village to host tourists and created Alltournative, an organization that employs local Mayans and empowers them to develop their own industries while nurturing their heritage and introducing their culture to visitors. For example, while there we ate delicious foods prepared by local Maya women, including tamarind and hibiscus seasoned, pit roasted pork that a shaman blessed with a ritual replete with chanting and smoke.

An elaborate network of underground rivers lace this entire area of the Yucatan. Many sink holes, or cenotes, lead down into these rivers, where divers can explore underground caverns. One explanation for the phenomenon is that it resulted from the impact of an asteroid more than 65 million years ago. Although we didn’t descend into a cenote ourselves, we watched a group of divers do so. Fossilized camels and mammoths as well as human skeletons and jewelry have been discovered down under.

For several days, we enjoyed the beauty and comfort of the Hotel Mandarin Oriental, which is Mexican owned and set in 18 acres of gardens. Its 128 beautiful designed rooms and suites are built on pillars so as not to have minimum impact of the flora and fauna. I enjoyed breakfast each morning in one of the restaurants overlooking the sea, as well as a delicious fresh grouper lunch. We visited the peaceful spa with its ice fountain and Mexican massage that is based on the Maya calendar and local herbs.

Another gorgeous boutique hotel that was on the verge of opening where we enjoyed a fabulous dinner is Tres Rios, built amidst a mangrove swamp where three rivers converge.

Wanting an off the beaten track experience, for several nights we rented a condominium at the Place of the Turtles, las Villas Akumal, where we enjoyed swinging in our hammocks overlooking the sea. Manager David Nelson went out of his way to make our visit perfect. While there, we learned about the turtle conservation project from environmentalists who visited the beach each evening at dusk to check on the turtle nesting and hatching. Seeing Cozumel just off shore, we recalled our excellent dives on the Great Maya Reef, the second largest coral reef in the world.

Archaeology, diving, culture, jazz festivals, beachcombing, ecotourism, excellent accommodations and restaurants, and knowing that we are nurturing Maya culture and economy-all good reasons John and I decided for planning a return visit to Riviera Maya. Of course, there’s also the magic, such as walking around the ancient city of Tulum at night, the only known Maya site set upon a cliff overlooking the sea, the full moon lighting our way.
If You Go:
Flights to Cancun from most major U.S. airports.
Information at www.rivieramaya.com
Alltournative. www.alltournative.com. (800) 507-1092
www.xcaret.com
Hotels:
Mandarin Oriental. www.mandarinoriental.com.
Las Villas Akumal. www.lasvillasakumal.com
www.haciendatresrios.com
A couple of my favorite restaurants:
Yaxche Maya Cuisine. www.mayacuisine.com.
El Oasis Mariscos, Playa del Carmen.

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When we were recently invited to attend the third—in the past 100 years—International Maya Conference at Copan, my husband, photographer John Montgomery, and I grabbed notebooks, cameras, and sunscreen, and headed for the cloud forests of Honduras.

Thirty years earlier, I had visited many of the great Maya sites of Central America and Mexico. At that time, Copan was in the early stages of excavation. To get there, I stuck out my thumb and hitched a ride with a Honduran military jeep deep into the rain forest on a rutted dirt road leading to Copan Ruinas. Many hours later, after pushing the jeep across numerous river fords, we arrived at Copan, what some now call “The Paris of Maya Culture,” or “The Athens of the New World.” …………..

(Contact Diane to read rest of article.)

My ideal travel is to learn something new, especially about ancient or unknown worlds, lose myself in nature and exercise, and be pampered in total relaxation—not necessarily all at the same time. Honduras offers all of this and more. According to Moon Handbooks, Honduras is “one of the most naturally beautiful and least explored areas of Central America.” The Mesoamerican Reef, just off its Caribbean coast, is the second largest coral reef in the world, offering some of the best diving and good values in the Caribbean.

Thirty years earlier, it was on Roatan that I learned to dive. On a rainy Christmas eve, I made the short hop from la Ceiba on the mainland, landing on the island’s dirt runway, sharing a tiny plane filled with missionaries, the door held shut with a wire hanger. Today we arrived at the RoatanInternational Airport and entered the air-conditioned terminal. (Contact Diane for rest of article)

…Even though I travel extensively, I was never in a war zone before. There were a few things to get used to. As we left the Kabul Airport, my driver said, “Don’t worry that there is no seat belt,” as he saw me searching along the side of the seat. “I drive slowly.” With that, he floored it, and we raced up the wrong side of the divided street against the oncoming traffic. There are no traffic rules or stop lights in Afghanistan. Traffic when it moves, like spilled milk, goes anywhere there is a space. My driver Nabil’s technique suits the general sense of lawlessness in the air.

(To purchase any of my articles or images, please contact me via my website contact link.)

“Love: the food of my life, and of my pen.” “Colette

On my way back to Paris after visiting friends in the Dordogne, someone mentioned to me that I’d be passing by Castel-Novel, the thirteenth-century castle where French writer Colette had lived with her second husband, the Baron Henri de Jouvenel des Ursins. Just east of Perigueux, near the town of Brive, I turned off the main highway, hoping to spend the night at Colette’s chateau.

This was the fourth of Colette’s homes I have visited over the years, including her birthplace in the small village of St. Saveure in Burgundy, where the excellent Colette Museum opened a few years ago. In Paris, I’ve stood outside her apartment at Palais Royal, and wandered through her home and gardens in the hills above St. Tropez. Colette’s passions for love, sensual pleasures, and writing make her one of my favorite authors–and role models. One of the most famous and honored French writers of the twentieth century, she was first female member of the prestigious Academie Goncourt, a holder of the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor, and the first woman in French history to be granted a state funeral. She published more than 73 books, including The Vagabond and Gigi. Perhaps better than anyone, Colette’s writing helps us to relish the temptations and intoxication of love.

A small sign announced the entrance to the chateau, and I turned my rented Citroen into the long tree-lined driveway, which wound through twenty-five acres of exquisite gardens. Just ahead, like something out of King Arthur and Guinevere’s lives, were the crenellated towers and steep walls of a medieval fortified castle. Once I was inside, the chateau’s current owner came out from behind a burnished wooden desk to welcome me….

“The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,”  T.S. Eliot

It was shark breeding season. On my first dive in the Red Sea off of the Sinai Peninsula near Sharm el Sheik, we watched fifteen 10-foot black-tip male sharks circle one black-tip female. She seemed to ignore them and go about her business, which appeared to be the shark equivalent of running errands–poking in and out of crevices. Being a single female from San Francisco, I was amazed at the sight of fifteen males devoting their total attention to one female.

I was giving myself this Christmas/winter solstice gift of two weeks’ rest and diving aboard the Lady Jenny IV, an English owned and operated dive boat. It was part of a month-long trip to Egypt, a break from an unusually icy winter in Paris where I was living the ex-patriot American life and teaching.

Relaxing on the deck between dives, I was lulled by the Sinai, the islands of the Red Sea, the sea itself. Most predominant was the simplicity of the colors. In the near and far distance was the land–barren, gradations of camel tan from the palest off-white cream to a darker caramel-colored cafe-au-lait. Yet this same land seen from a distance becomes layered with grey-blue haze. All resembles the straight and curved lines of Arabic script. One saying goes that Arabic is so difficult to interpret that out of three people, one will say its meaning is one thing, another person interprets the same serpentine scrawl differently, and a third will say it is only the picture of the humps on a camel’s back. ………

Homeric Hymn to Demeter:

I begin to sing of Demeter, the holy goddess with the beautiful hair. And her daughter, Persephone, too. The one with the delicate ankles, whom Hades seized. She was given away by Zeus, the loud-thunderer, the one who sees far and wide. Demeter did not take part in this, she of the golden double-axe, she who glories in the harvest. Persephone was having a good time, along with the daughters of Okeanos, who wear their girdles slung low. (Composed circa seventh century BCE)

On our first morning in Greece, my friend Gloria and I went down to breakfast on the outdoor terrace of the Athens Hilton. Facing my eggs Benedict, all I wanted to do was lie flat on the cool terrace floor. So I did.

Waiters in white coats discreetly stepped around me, perhaps interpreting this action as eccentric American behavior. The Greek fascist regime was in full force then, and people tended to mind their own business. Gloria and I attributed my wave of nausea to bad airplane food. We proceeded to plan the rest of our trip: first by bus to visit important sites, then by sea to Mykonos and Crete.

I had just broken up with the man for whom I had left my husband. Perhaps the anxiety of learning to live the single life was stressing my system. When Gloria, a colleague at the California college where I taught, suggested a trip to Greece, I thought what better way to mend a broken heart and move on with life.

Both of us were steeped in Greek literature and history. But in the fertile lands that spawned the beginnings of our civilization, our demokratia, and stories of randy gods and goddesses, I could not have guessed at the irony of my ongoing queasiness.

Our first stop was the famous amphitheater of Epidaurus, an easy day trip from Athens. We also visited Mycenae from where Agamemnon departed for the Trojan War, after he sacrificed his daughter, Iphigenia, so the gods would turn up the winds to fill his sails. His wife, Clytemnestra, was not pleased, took a lover during his ten-year absence, and murdered Agamemnon in the bath after he returned. Breaking up with my husband and now ex-boyfriend seemed much less dramatic from this perspective.

Epidaurus was both a healing center”where Asklepios, son of Apollo, cured the ill from all over Greece”and one of the world’s oldest theaters. I hoped a visit there would cure my continuing nausea. Following in the footsteps of millions, we climbed high up in the enormous amphitheater that once held 10,000 spectators and tested its legendary acoustics. Our tour guide, so far below on the stage that she seemed a tiny speck, dropped a drachma, and we heard its distinct ping as it hit the stone floor. Then she tore a Kleenex tissue, and, yes, we could hear that as well. We were sitting in what would have been, no doubt, the poor people’s seats. I thought about the challenge of getting acoustics right in contemporary theaters and wondered about the many mysteries we still can learn from the ancient Greeks. Beyond the stage and backdrop (the skene), mountains rose and clouds floated in a blue sky. These ancient theaters were built to remind us of the connections between our temporal world, nature, and the spheres of the gods.

The next day we took a bus fourteen miles east of Athens to Eleusis, site of the Mysteries, which date back to 2000 BC and earlier. Believed to have come from Egypt via Crete, the cult of Isis”the Earth goddess”later was worshiped as Demeter and finally the Virgin Mary. My low-grade sickness continued, as I stumbled up and down ancient stairs, soaked in the heat and odors of summer vegetation. Poppies dotted the surrounding slopes, and cicadas buzzed in the overgrown bushes.

I had read that this area was once the terminus of a biannual procession that began in Athens along what was called the Sacred Way. Anyone could participate, as long as he or she were not a barbarian (i.e., spoke Greek) and had not committed blood crimes. As they walked, people, especially prostitutes, called out dirty words and obscene jokes. The overall celebration marked Demeter’s reunion with her daughter, Persephone, when she returned from her six-month annual sojourn with Hades, god of the underworld. During her daughter’s months in the underworld, Demeter was too sad to tend to fertility, hence winter set in. The ancients also reported that Persephone was reborn from her mother in the midst of huge fire and brilliant lights seen for miles around. Bulls and phalli were part of these rituals, depicted in frescoes as far away as Pompeii.

Here amidst this ancient place of orgies and bloody sacrifice, the thought that I could I be pregnant flashed through my mind. If so, what would I do? I was on my own. I couldn’t afford to stop my work, both teaching college and training horses. No one was going to take care of me. I wondered if I would be able to get an early flight home.

After I’d vomited over some of the most fertile sites of Western culture”Delphi, Epidaurus, Mycenae”we decided to save money by taking the ferry over from Piraeus to Crete. The Meltemi, the hot winds of August, blew heavy on the Aegean. Because of these relentlessness winds, the ancient Greeks avoided open sea travel as much as possible during this time of year. We soon discovered why. What was typically a nine-hour overnight voyage took almost fifteen hours. I lay on the center of the top deck, watching Orion and the seven sisters rock back and forth overhead. After downing seasickness pills, which had little or no effect, I finally read the directions and noticed a bold-print warning: Do not take during pregnancy as may cause birth defects to fetus. I began to panic at the thought that I was carrying a deformed fetus.

When we reached the terra firma of Crete, we checked into our economy hotel. Just down the street was the Palace of Knossos, which we visited the next day, marveling at the flush toilet that the Minoan queen enjoyed four thousand years ago. I wondered what her life was like. Having a daughter to carry on a woman’s lineage was central in this matrilineal culture.

That evening Gloria announced she was leaving to tour with a professor from Germany she had met during our ferry crossing. There’s no point in my staying with you, she said. You’re sick and can’t do anything. I may as well have fun.

I felt abandoned but decided it was time to make some decisions. Changing my Pan Am return ticket home, I booked a flight from Herakleion to Athens, happily forfeiting my return ferry ticket.

Back in California, I was grateful that abortions had just become legal.

Song of the Sirens

Draw near . . . illustrious Odysseus, flower of the Achaean chivalry, and bring your ship to rest that you may hear our voices. No seaman ever sailed his black ship past this place without listening to the sweet voice that flow from our lips, and none that listened has not been delighted and gone on a wiser man. (Homer, The Odyssey)

Twenty years later I returned to the land of Homer, accompanied by my mother, the archetypal Siren.

My darling Aphrodite, I love you. Will you marry me? The handsome Greek restaurant owner on Santorini pleaded with my eighty-year-old mother as they line-danced to bouzouki music in a late-night bacchanal on a terrace overlooking the Aegean. My mother loved dancing, charming men, and living in general. After being widowed for the second time in her late seventies, she kicked up her heels and, in many ways, relished life to its fullest. During those years we traveled together frequently and had our own high-spirited odyssey around Greece.

My jaunt with my mother came years after my first inauspicious steps on to Greek soil. It was natural that we finally shared Athens and the Greek isles together. Greece lived in my imagination from my earliest memories thanks to her. An avid reader and elementary school teacher, she had read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and tales from Greek mythology to me as a child. I imagined sailing the Aegean with Odysseus, visiting the lands of the Lotus Eaters and Circe and the Cyclops for myself. As a college professor, I taught Greek literature. My mother named me Diane, the Roman counterpart of Artemis, the free-spirited huntress. Artemis frolicked in the woods, surrounded by animals, without a thought to marriage or children.

Like my mythological namesake, I enjoyed my adventurous approach to life and my work with animals, for many years as a professional horse trainer. Yet, sometimes I thought about what I was missing, having remained child-free. After all, my mother enjoyed having a daughter. I would have no daughter but would continue on my namesake’s path. Like Demeter and Persephone, my mother and I were accepting of where our lives had led us.

At our hotel in Delphi, my mother telephoned my room. Giorgos, our driver, is knocking at my hotel room door. What should I do? she said. She had been flirting with the poor man for several days as we toured around. How could he know that she was only kidding? Maybe you should let him in, I advised. You’ve been leading him on for days now. Meanwhile I was busy with our young tour guide who was licking my cheek and nibbling my shoulder.

Mom and I sailed to Santorini, this time on the calm seas of early June. The lost Atlantis, some believe, is under the waters of Santorini’s bay. We visited the archaeological excavations underway, and in the afternoon, hired a local man with a rowboat to take us to a beach I had heard about. A nudie beach, I told my mother, who hoped to add yet another act of daring to her repertoire. On the beach, my frisky mom stripped to her white cotton underpants and bra, and enjoyed splashing in the clear warm Aegean. When our oarsman and boat returned after the designated hour or two, he asked us to wade out to the boat. Seeing my mother, still in her underwear, having trouble negotiating the pebbled bottom, he jumped out, waded to shore, and, to her immense delight, scooped her up into his arms, both of them giggling their way back to the rowboat.

On our first night we had dinner at an open-air taverna, with the full moon illuminating the Aegean and the island’s chalk-white cliffs. We drank ouzo and retsina, ate souvlaki and tzatziki. Did you know, a fisherman at our table asked, that in the old days if a wife was rebellious and refused to have sex with her husband, he would be advised to rub her gently with olive oil for seven days? After that time, she would become sweet and compliant. He winked and passed me the olive oil for my salad. Winking back, I doused my tomato, feta, cucumber, and olives with the ancient golden remedy.

Musicians on the bouzouki, karamoudzes, baglama, and daouli drums began to play their irresistible music. Soon we were all line dancing. Several women said, We’ll teach you an ancient women’s dance. This used to be the only dance women were allowed. It was for widows who danced their way off the edge of a cliff. I looked skeptically at the drop at the end of the restaurant terrace. We won’t do that tonight though, they assured me.

I remembered twenty years earlier during the fascist regime when I first visited Greece. Gloria and I got up to dance at a taverna in the Plaka in Athens. We were the only ones on the floor, proudly showing off the steps we had recently learned at our lessons at a San Francisco Greek restaurant. We’d been told that we might have a problem if we danced in Greece. When a handsome man approached us, Gloria said to me, See, it’s okay for us to be dancing. He came so close that I could sniff the ouzo on his breath: Seet down, he snarled. Women don’t dance in Greece.

That same night Gloria and I did enjoy the plate-bashing party. Some people at the restaurant invited us to join a birthday celebration. Shades were pulled down on all the windows. It’s against the law these days to break plates, they whispered. Suddenly everyone jumped up, started dancing and dashing china to the floor until we were crunching broken pottery with every step.

Here on Santorini, although there was no plate-smashing, the chef appeared from the kitchen and began dancing alone in the middle of the floor. We all clapped, urging him to still-higher leaps and slaps of hand on heel. He did several backflips, then tore off one of his sleeves, placed it on his head like a chef’s hat. I hope he doesn’t sweat in our tzatziki, said my mom. Seeing her gyrating in her seat, the chef urged her on to the dance floor. He tore off his other sleeve and placed it on her head.

Meanwhile the charming Adonis of a jeweler, Thanassis, whom we had met earlier that day when we were looking at traditional Greek key design necklaces, joined our table. He and I had made a tentative date as we left his shop. I slipped away for a tryst at his apartment where I learned that it is not only thousands of years of philosophy that the Greeks are adept at. No wonder, I thought, that Lysistrata and her friends wanted their men back in their beds. As the rosy-fingered dawn broke over the white cliffs and blue waters of Santorini, Thanassis drove me back to my hotel where I caught a few hours sleep before my mom and I sailed off on the early-morning ferry to Páros for our next island adventure.

Both my mother and I disliked early mornings, but this one was special as the sun peeked over the blue Aegean and then rose up as we sailed into its path. What a magical trip this is, said my mom. I’m so lucky to have such a wonderful daughter.

Ditto, for me, I said. How many mothers would be the belle of the ball at a Greek taverna and then not mind when I run off with the most handsome Greek on the island?

I was only concerned that I didn’t have to take this ferry by myself if you didn’t show up. I’m not sure where we’re going next!

Five years later, I was back in Greece, this time accompanied by my mother’s ashes. My plan was to sprinkle them in the waters off Santorini, a place where we had both had such fun together. I lay awake in my hotel in Athens, thinking about my mother’s recent death. I was in the same hotel, not far from the Plaka with a view of the Acropolis, where my mother and I stayed as we began that last madcap voyage together. I thought about my mother reading Greek myths to me at my bedside so many years ago. Now I was returning to Greece to scatter her ashes in Homer’s wine dark sea.

So many memories here. Greece, ancient and modern, had intertwined itself throughout my life. My mother’s death marked the end of my family. Yes, I was alone but my life was a satisfying one”and there were lots of adventures still to come.

Suddenly my bed began to jump around the room. The hotel rocked, and when I looked out the window, it seemed that the Acropolis itself was undulating. In the morning, I learned that a major earthquake jolted Greece, the epicenter was near Sparta. Hotels had fallen over and hundreds of people had been killed. Having never felt earthquakes anywhere other than my home in San Francisco, I recalled both the fragility and continuity of our world.

Since my mother had loved her time in Greece and flirted shamelessly with every handsome young Greek who crossed her path, I felt she’d like being out there in that clear blue water where new generations of young Greeks would be frolicking. Some friends and I chanted a poem I had written for the occasion:

You danced music into my life:

I send you dancing on all the seas and beaches

of the world.

You gave me peace.

I wish you peace with the winds and the waves

and the seas

which are always and everywhere.

(Selection from Hymn to Audrey)

As I freed her ashes into the azure water, the calm bay suddenly sizzled and glittered with the sparkles of a million diamonds. Wow, what is happening? one of my companions gasped. This was the stuff of Greek myths, and we looked at each other wide-eyed. Very possibly by now my mother was playing the coquette with Charon, as he ferried her across the Styx, and was enticing Hades himself into a line dance.

That night I caught the midnight ferry from Santorini to continue my own odyssey on whatever island lay ahead.

©Diane LeBow 2006

Growing up in the fifties, I was well indoctrinated to believe that one was a very odd number and that I would never be o.k. until I met my better half, as they used to say. Everyone said traveling on your own as a woman was too difficult, scary, lonely, even dangerous. You would have no one to share your happy times with. You would feel like a stray bird on Noah’s Ark.

For some years I stayed home. Finally, I tried out my single flight wings at a Club Med in Mexico and on an organized rafting trip on the Colorado River. Once I went to Guatemala with a friend of a friend that I met at a party. She was the director of a major travel company, had lots of information on Guatemala, and made all our basic arrangements: flights, routing, hotels. She was another single woman with wanderlust. She had time and money. She was bright and seemed pleasant enough–i.e. not overtly prone to crying jags or screaming. We hated each other. Like a military commander, she would make a list each morning of exactly where we would go and what we would be doing each moment of the coming hours. At meals, she ordered always the least expensive items, although she actually earned a good deal more money than I did, and not only would not split the check but, using a calculator, she would divide tax and tip proportionately to her lesser bill. She hated that I spoke with strangers, making new friends easily. Perhaps worst of all, she was an early to bed early to rise type. I, on the other hand, love the music of the night and can do very nicely, thank you, without roosters and early bird tweets. In fact, I wear earplugs and a black face mask to protect me from such dawnlike hazards.

When I travel, I like to have some idea of itinerary and a program. But I open each day like a Christmas morning gift. Even though I know it is going to be a book or a bicycle or something to wear, I don’t know exactly which book or what kind of bike or how the sweater will feel and look on me. I may meet someone who says: “Hey, come home to my pueblo and have lunch with my 109 year old grandmother and me.” And I’ll cancel my plane or train reservation and go. Maybe a handsome Pakistani actor and I bump into each other underwater in a hotel swimming pool in Tel Aviv and end up making love intermittently for days, with breaks for his shoots and my writing and sightseeing. So I leave for Jericho a few days later; no walls come tumbling down. I can do whatever I want because I am traveling alone.

Alone: that has such a fallacious ring to it. Such a negative connotation. Like the “childless” versus “childfree” of the feminist seventies. If you are a traveler (not a tourist, but a traveler: that is, to experience as much of the world as possible in your four score years and ten or whatever is not a choice but a necessity like oxygen) and you are sufficiently blessed to have a soul mate, who is compatible in interests, personality, and resources, you are extremely fortunate.

But even then, you will probably not meet that fascinating gay Scottish retired millionaire farmer who invites you to sail with him from Cannes to Porto Fino for a month. Why not? Because you will be otherwise occupied, no doubt happily, with your soulmate. You will not be sitting alone in an off season St. Tropez restaurant on the harbor, enjoying a bucket of mussels in wine and garlic sauce accompanied by a nicely chilled Sancerre which the above mentioned retired farmer sends to your table because he also is eating alone that evening. So you end up learning about fox hunting in Scotland and the extreme joys of sailing the French and Italian Mediterranean in a yacht.

I am also not guaranteeing you may not be at risk or sometimes feel a bit odd and alone. When I was chloroformed and robbed on a midnight train in Ferrara, Italy, maybe it would have been easier to have been traveling with someone. But actually my wonderful and hospitable friends in southern Italy, my next port in the storm, soothed away most of my cares with some good pasta and wine, as well as loaning me some cash and helping me get replacement credit cards. Once at New Year’s in Guatemala City, an obnoxious small hotel owner gave away my room–in which I was already living–to a drunken, nasty friend of hers when there was not another hotel room to be found in the whole city, so I had to swallow my rage and pride and share my room with this chain-smoking harridan. Possibly if I had been with a man there in macho-land this experience would not have befallen me. On the other hand, maybe it would have and on top of finding ourselves homeless–because we wouldn’t have been able to share the room with another woman–I would possibly have had an enraged or whining male person on my hands.

What am I saying here? I’m not knocking the joys and security of home and hearth. My own nest in San Francisco is very important to me and I cocoon away a good part of every year there. Family, friends, true–even semi-true love–yes, wonderful. But we all pays our money and takes our choice. I’ll pay my single supplement, anytime.
© Diane LeBow

Published in Skirt Magazine, May 2005

Ridgewood Ranch
By Diane LeBow

If you missed Laura Hillenbrand’s Seabiscuit: An American Legend and the movie based on the book, you can still visit the final home of the racehorse who stood for hope to Americans during the Great Depression. Seabiscuit lived with his owner, Charles Howard, on Ridgewood Ranch near Willits, Calif., from 1940 until 1947.

“It was here that Seabiscuit trained during 1939 for his last hurrah the following year,” says Tracy Livingston, president of the Seabiscuit Heritage Foundation, which along with the Christ’s Church of the Golden Rule Association cares for the 5,000-acre ranch. Tours (private or group) take visitors inside the stud barn, where the knobby-kneed champion munched hay, and to the groom’s room, where old Glenn Miller tunes play on a vintage radio. In the dining hall of the restored arts-and-crafts home you can see period jockey silks, a racing saddle, 150 photographs, and a 1940 portrait of Seabiscuit. His unmarked grave lies outside amid old oaks. Information: (707) 459-5992, www.seabiscuitheritage.org.
Photography by Catharine Martin

©Diane LeBow

Published in Via (AAA) Magazine March 2005

This article was first published in March 2005. Some facts
may have aged gracelessly. Please call ahead to verify information.

I was not disappointed. First of all, in spite of what you might read in the American press, Libya is one of the safest countries to visit. Khadafi is eager to develop a vigorous tourist trade and urges his citizens to welcome all visitors, especially Americans. One of the benefits of a rigorous central authority is that streets are usually much safer than back home in the good old USA. There is very little crime and no visible poverty. Because of Libya’s oil wealth, the government gives each citizen a monthly stipend, as well as universal health care and free education through university for qualified students”including the opportunity to study abroad. Khadafi has actually been described as a feminist and, unlike most other Moslem leaders, maintains a society in which women share almost equal rights with men. They work, drive cars, walk around freely, attend schools and universities, and have protection under the law. Although most do wear scarves on their heads, they are not required to remain covered.

Before joining my group tour, I spent several days on my own in Tripoli and found the Libyans among the friendliest and most helpful people of anywhere I’ve visited. Individuals offered to guide me”not for any payment, but simply as my hosts”through the intricacies of the Old City. Men were polite everywhere I went, eager to meet an American and to show off their few English phrases.

There was so much to see”from Leptis Magna, one of the best-preserved Roman cities in the world, to Apollonia and Cyrene, which rivaled Athens in size and importance during the height of the Ancient Greece’s splendor. Sophocles and Aristotle visited frequently and spent time there.

As I wandered through Greek theatres and Roman baths, I was alone. Often there were barely a dozen other visitors as I walked through the Calderium, sat on Roman toilets for a photo op, and marveled at the sea coast locations of temples to Zeus and Athena. Walking along at Leptis Magna, I noticed a coin lying in the dust. When I picked it up and showed it to my guide, he said, “Oh, Roman coins are all over the place here. They don’t have much value.” I tossed it back into the soft dust, hoping other tourists would leave it for future visitors to enjoy.

A long day’s drive south took us to the ancient trading town of Ghadarmis, with its mysterious granaries carved into the rocky hillsides. Off we went then, with our four-wheel-drive vehicles out into the desert for several days, accompanied by Tuareg guides”gentle and hospitable nomads sometimes known as the Blue Men. They became my special friends who prepared meals and taught me how to wrap a turban properly. (Not just a fashion statement, that turban protected my entire face when the sand and locusts blew.) When my cranky camel objected to my leaning over to take a photo, he bucked me off and two of the camel drivers caught me in mid-air. I got my shot and didn’t drop my camera.

I am happy to report that the Libyan desert is perfect if you suffer, as I do, from arthritis. I rode my camel and hiked in the sand for hours with few or no aches. I was also delighted that our Libyan security guard, a handsome 30-year-old man, mooned over me during the entire trip. Nice to know some of my old stuff is still intact.

When it came time to leave, our Tuareg friends loaded us up with gifts”including the best gift of all, their email addresses! I am still in touch with them and look forward to a return visit.

Diane LeBow is San Francisco-based travel writer who has published stories in Salon.com, Via Magazine, numerous national newspapers, and several anthologies. A pioneer of college women’s studies programs, she received her Ph.D. from the University of California and is currently working on a book. Diane was not traveling with High Country Passage when she visited Libya.

©Diane LeBow, published in High Country Passage Travel