Monday, December 17, 2012

Adiós to the Valley - part two



Christmas and New Year in the Valley. The tree is in the 19th Century plaza of Roma, Texas, on the Rio Grande. It once was a thriving place with steamboats anchoring just below Nestor Saenz' store.


Nowadays, Roma's little more than a dusty border bus stop on the way to somewhere else. 


No shopping for travellers at the vacant, weedy Ramirez Variety Store ...


... and long since the Guerra apartments had tenants.



A heavily armed U.S. patrol boat passes a lone angler on the Mexican side of the Rio Grande. 


The cartel plagued Mexican town of Ciudad Miguel Alemán is on the far bank.


Mexican frontier towns - grimly anticipating the next, inevitable outrage - have been brutalized. Most casualties are from drug gangs fighting each other, but many have been those opposed to the gangs or who simply tell the truth about the gangs, and about the security forces and politicians. A recent report suggested more than 20,000 'disappeared' in the past six years. That's in addition to an estimated 70,000 deaths linked to drugs.

In shops along the border, statues of Santa Muerte ('Saint Death') - patron of the narcos and disavowed by the Catholic Church - stare grimly out. The cult figure is said to bless the most hideous crimes. 


Any sense of menace is not imaginary. This sun bleached street is a few blocks from the United States. 


The new president, Enrique Peña Nieto, campaigned on  changes in army and police tactics. Mexicans are desperate for anything that will reduce the toll.


For now, Peña Nieto's countrymen in the worst affected areas - or at least those who can afford it - Christmas shop on the U.S. side of the river. This car is from Tamaulipas, one of the most violent states.


Feliz Navidad.
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Tuesday, January 29, 2013



More than a month after the post above, but it seems appropriate to tack on an out-of-sequence entry on much the same subject.

The picture above shows the last hand pulled ferry in the States. It runs between the cactus patch Texas town of Los Ebanos and an equally unprepossessing border entry point on the Mexican side. Local flavour is suggested by a dog sunning himself on an empty Los Ebanos street.


The closest Mexican town - Gustavo Diaz Ordaz - is reputedly controlled by the Gulf drug cartel and few gringos go. However, my good friend, Don, and I venture across. I wonder how many times this old boy, the ferry fare collector, has made the couple of minutes crossing?




The Mexican frontier post is guarded by a small army detachment. This soldier is looking across the river into the States.



The sign - despite unintended humour - conveys something of the corruption so prevalent on both sides of the border.


Nearby is a young lady with a taco stand.


After an excellent breakfast, we decide not to push our luck and return to the States.


Before I came to the Valley, wintering Canadians and Americans regularly crossed into northern Mexico. Now, along the roughly 1,200 miles of border between Texas and Mexico, just one Mexican town is considered relatively safe for turistas. And even in Nuevo Progreso, this is what you see.


Little wonder the colourful stalls that once enticed tourists have been abandoned.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Adiós to the Valley - part one



I'm back in the Rio Grande Valley three days and the local media has a front page story that will run for months, if not years. The police officer sons of the man above and of a Valley chief of police are being investigated for corruption allegedly linked to drug shipments. 

If there are charges and they are proven, this could be another case of Mexican cartels subverting the legal system on the U.S. side of the border. 

There's no suggestion the sheriff - re-elected last month - or the chief of police are involved, but they, and the institutions they represent, are in danger of being collateral damage. It's not just Mexico where the legal system is the target of narcos with obscene amounts of money. 

(April 14, 2014 - former Sheriff 'Lupe' Treviño, the man on the billboard, pleads guilty to money laundering, eleven months after his son also pled guilty in the separate case mentioned above.)

Wednesday, September 26, 2012

In Napoleon's wake - part seventeen



Back in Cape Town - here the pilot boat is arriving -  and a last task before leaving. 

On St. Helena, the British supplied Napoleon's food and drink. These are some of the original accounts.


Napoleon was partial to wine from the the 17th Century Groot Constantia estate near Cape Town. On his deathbed, he had a sip saying, it's claimed, ‘A drop can't hurt me.' 

I visit the historic vineyard on the slopes of Table Mountain. As so often on this trip, I'm fortunate to be largely on my own.




The honeyed Grand Constance wine Napoleon appreciated is late-harvested from Muscat de Frontignac grapes. Wine Enthusiast Magazine describes it as a 'sweet, nutty dessert wine.' Apparently, Jane Austin recommended it for a broken heart and Baudelaire, in Fleurs du Mal, said only a lover's kiss exceeded it in heavenly sweetness. 

I don't particularly enjoy sweet wines, but the scent is delightful.


I - with reservations - remember the great tyrant, but more important, toast the fantastical island of St. Helena.

Salut! Cheers!


______________________


Bruce takes me to dinner and airport. How often do we find a person, let alone three at once, with whom we immediately have a bond? And then, even as it begins, regret that the relationship will be difficult to maintain.

Megan, Brenda and Bruce, we may not meet again, but I treasure your friendship. Beetroot to you all (and, dear reader, you had to be there)!

Thursday, September 20, 2012

In Napoleon's wake - part sixteen



The RMS is back. A notice outside the shipping agency downplays the seas she faced while returning.


Luggage has already been transferred to the ship, so an easy stroll past the mule yard to the water.



Sadly, no mules or donkeys. I wonder how my friend Big Headed Barger is doing?

I stop to chat with St. Helena's Chief of Police Peter Coll, Keith, Cilia and Simon.


The tender waits.


Luggage is handed aboard.


Bruce (on the left) hopes to periodically return and continue management training on the island. 


Shortly after boarding - only fifty-four passengers - the RMS signals departure with a long, mournful sounding of the ship's horn. 'My St. Helena Island,' in the country style so popular with Saints, plays on the speakers. 

I succumb to another picture as Jamestown slips to stern.


The western coastline is dappled with elusive spring sunshine. I can see where I had some of my most memorable walks.


St. Helena is a place where things always happened slowly. Now, disquiet as Saints await the assault and its uncertain consequences. Many are skeptical about an airport. If it comes, there may be modest improvement in a tiny economy. For medical emergencies, undoubtedly a lifesaver. However, this means abrupt change, societal upheaval that elsewhere happens over decades, even centuries. 

Currently, the few visitors make a real effort to get here. That’s much of the appeal. Solitude, lack of commercialism and a genuine interest in travellers makes St. Helena very special. With an airport, it becomes another place on a mass tourism ‘bucket list.’ I will not be on an airplane to Jamestown. 

For a little over three hours, I watch with the effort for a sight one will never see again. The island becomes less and less distinct, obscured by mist and distance, dipping beneath the swell.


A sudden toss of the ship; I regain balance, look back and St. Helena has merged with sea and cloud and has gone. We are alone in the South Atlantic. 

Wednesday, September 19, 2012

In Napoleon's wake - part fifteen


Early morning. Philip Yon stands at the Wellington House front door. Today, he may go fishing.


On Main Street, our neighbour's dog and cat wait for something to happen.


Okay, so I like cats!

In first light, the church and nearby trees are haunt to delightful Fairy Terns, which swoop and hover. On the island, they’re called Fairy Tarns.



Now's my chance to climb Jacob's Ladder.

Bar isolation and history, Jamestown's most famous attraction is Jacob's Ladder (which you may have noticed in my September 13 posting). It was built in the 19th Century to supply the fort at the top of Ladder Hill. The 183 metre or 600 foot stairway is a 699 step climb. The record is five minutes and eleven seconds.

Yesterday, skipping DOWN the Ladder was a schoolboy.


Ensuring no one's around to laugh or, worse, sympathize, and pausing only, of course, for 'photo opportunities,’ I ascend. When praying that, surely, I'm at least three-quarters there, I'm appalled to find it's only halfway. 


Halfway and this is the view looking down.



Halfway and the incline is becoming steeper. 


To be honest - perhaps it's the thin air - I lose track of time. I think I'm at the top in about sixteen  minutes (with stops!).

Coming down is an assault on the knees. Later, a Saint demonstrates the traditional method, first used by British soldiers to quickly get to town. Not for me.


There's an old island proverb: “You break your heart going up and your neck coming down.”
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The RMS will soon return and I haven't tasted St. Helena coffee. Secluded in these hills is said to be some of the finest - and certainly among the most expensive - coffee in the world. When I checked before the trip, the price was $89 (U.S.) a pound or 0.45 kg.



The bean, medium roasted, has - say those who know - 'a high lively acidity, with good balance and body. The coffee has a superb fragrant bouquet with no off flavours and pleasant floral fruity hints of citrus and caramel strongly hinting of its Yemeni origins.'

Bizarrely, about to leave, I still haven’t sipped it. No place in Jamestown currently offers a cup of St. Helena coffee. Subject to Canadian customs, I will report to you on my return home.



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Late afternoon. Bruce and Brenda carouse outside the pub next to the shoe shop, part of the Solomon empire.




I virtuously take a walk on the cliffs just outside town. This is looking past the rockfall netting to the wharf steps where I - and roughly Napoleon - landed.



The stretch of coast Napoleon would have seen as his ship anchored.


Hikers return to town. You can see the Ladder on the opposite side of the valley.


A view with castle and church that, but for cars, hasn't changed all that much.


Beyond the evening fisherman, nothing but water until South America.