Going Native – Essaouira, Morocco

Essaouria – Morocco

Bought the hat from a herder somewhere between Marrakesh and Essaouira – check out the tassel hanging down the back. As far as hats go Moroccans take the prize. How could you compare a John Deere baseball cap or a jays cap – I defy you with a fez; attire of extroverts like Oscar Wilde and any number of barons, princes, knights and eccentric English gentlemen.

You’d never recognize me without the beard. I’m just chillin at a cafe somewhere along the shoreline. There is some association between this place with its medieval appearance, city wall and defenses and Jimmy Hendix’s song “Castles in the sand”.

Though it seemed a quiet and somewhat unassuming backwater, a place where Moroccans come for honeymoon, Essaouria has quite a feisty history.

Mohammad III chose Essaouria as his port city, like many before him for its sheltered anchorage, but also because he wanted to cut off trade from Agadir, a rival city to the south. This was also the closest spot between Marrakesh and the sea.

In the past the waters offshore were harvested for Murex shells. It was from these thatpurple dye was extracted to mark the line in Roman senator’s togas. Today the Canaries Current makes the water off-shore particularly well suited to the swarming of large schools of sardines and super-size Conger Eels.

As I later learned, It’s not considered good manners to go shirtless in public. Normal attire was flip-flops and shorts and a hat of some unusual variety.

Read Full Post »

Amazing Tattoo – time is warped as a checkerboard disintergrates under some kind of Psychadelic Elephant

Incredible tattoo, amazing tattoo – Walton 2010

Amazing tattoo.

What kind of mythical creature is this?

I was especially curious as to the meaning of this piece of artwork. Looks like there is some kind of clock that is melting like its made of wax. An elephant whose legs are stretched way out to stringy tendrils and a checkerboard that is crumbling in the background.

I took this picture at the Walton 2010 – Monster Energy CMRC Nationals, where tattoos are the norm – but this one was spectacular.

Any thoughts as to the symbolism?

Check out this tattoo of a schooner.

Read Full Post »

Malagan Mask – for the dead

 

New Ireland – Papua New Guniea – Malagan mask  by Anne Gordon

This picture was taken by Anne Gordon (The well known travel writer) see her blog in the travel section of my links (Travels with Anne). The carver wears his mask and the tongue comes separate – she was kind enough to bring this back for me (both the tongue and mask) .

The malagans are distinctive to the tribes that make them and they along with the various other adornments and implements are all part of a funerary right and are collectively known as “malagan”.

It is common for one side of the mask to differ from another and they are sometimes worn to attack the property of the dead person several years after their death to clear the world of their influence. Interesting how this stuff develops. I suppose it helps people forget if sad memories keep hanging on. my mask was specifically made by the carver (Fabian P.) for sale to foreigners. Fabian is an apprentice under a master mask carver in Papua New Guinea (PNG) Most specifically an island called “New Ireland”.

While on the subject of New Guinea, The Underground Atlas” talks of its cave potential as amongst the most exciting in the world – enormous underground rivers and depth potential that can exceed a thousand meters. Very little has been explored, but there is a growing local caving scene. New Ireland – where the picture of the malagan was taken apparently has extensive karst formation – like Jamaica,  cone karst and extensive dolines.

I suppose you can guess where I am hoping to take a holiday some day. Check out Anne’s blog for further New Guniea stuff (travel link to the lower right).

Read Full Post »

Pushing Dead Mouse – A new Ontario caving area south of Hamilton

A disapponting conclusion – I’m to fat to go much further

 

IMG_7898, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

Just a quick post as promised – a conclusion to the newly discovered cave – “Dead Mouse”. In one sense, you did not miss out to much here Greg. The cave soon changed to something less explorable, but it was the exploration earlier in the day at another spot found by Jeff that really made the journey worthwhile.

I am again supposed to be studying for a health and safety exam. This is the last of the delay tactics that I can employ – a quick update that I will build upon in a following few posts later this evening.

As we have discovered over the weeks since our last visit, the Onondaga Escarpment (south of Hamilton) is a rich caving ground if you know what to look for. The escarpment winds all wriggly and convoluted across the top of Lake Erie – interspersed with layers of chert and some fabulous fossils.

More to come soon.

Read Full Post »

Under the Broadview

Ghost

P1020576, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

Led by our flapper guide we filed down a stairway into a forgotten segment of the 1920′s. We saw a tunnel (filled in at its mouth), and numerous rooms and abandoned bits of this and that. This picture is of the old boiler; an impressive old machine with doors that hung open like gaping eye-sockets.

Much of our trip beneath the hotel centered either around various stories to do with Al Capone or Clarence the ghost. As the story goes, Clarence who had been working at the hotel – or was it visiting, I cant remember, discovered his wife having an affair with one of the other guests. He is said to have shot her and then thrown himself off a balcony to his death.

As for traces of Clarence – my room (301) sure sounded haunted, the windows shook and rattled all night with a vicious Kansas wind. I got up around 01:00am to try and do something about the window, but for whatever reason, I could not locate the exact source of the noise. As for cold, I was wandering around in the dark, bumping into things and by the time I got back to bed, I was totally numb and nursing a toe that I stubbed up against the bar fridge.

As for sight of Clarence, I cant say that there was anything in there that really suggested a paranormal presence. The following morning I overheard Tony, telling the front desk something of an unusual phone call story – it sounded like the sort of thing that Clarence was known to do; just simple stuff, no chains rattling or headless apparitions.

Read Full Post »

You Gotta be Authorative!

Broadview hotel – Wichita – Kansas (who is in control?)

P1020556, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

If you are dealing with demons “you gotta be authorative”, or thats what Jim said on that day up in the Muskokas. Patrick Cross, Jim, Bev and I had gone up to Cooper’s Falls to exorcise a house of whatever was living there. I was just a spectator – observer for reasons that I am not willing to divulge at this time.

As far as authority goes, this lady had it all – no messing with her. Most of the people on the tour were a little tipsy by now – they needed discipline. This fellow standing next to the guide was told he was now called Al, last man in the group, his job to ensure that the tour stayed together. We were issued maps so that nobody got lost in the rooms beneath the floor.

Apparenttly Al Capone had a favorite drinking spot, “Al’s Room” and the speak -easy that operated down there was joined to other areas of the city by tunnels. Six hundred at a time packed the space beneath the Broadview Hotel. And of course Clarence was sometimes seen down there (the ghost). “Keep snapping away, someone always finds orbs on their camera”.

Though Patrick and Jim say they now refuse to have anything to do with demons, “Way to dangerous”, I felt safe going down there with this lady. I am sure she would quickly whip a malevolent presence into line.

Read Full Post »

Ghost at the Broadview – Wichita

BTK spent some time here – Broadview Hotel

Well now! Staying at the Broadview would be a hollow experience if one made no attempt to follow up on the Ghost story. Clarence as an entity is well known around there.

By all descriptions Clarence seems harmless enough, but as with any place thats haunted, it seems that a one-off paranormal situation is the exception not the norm. Some have felt cold patches in their rooms, others shaking at the doors. A disembodied voice – a small child, is sometimes heard in the halls at night. Apparently Clarence likes messing with the phone – endless dialing down to the front desk from such and such a room, but when the staff go up to investigate, there is nobody there. The lady who ran the tour told us that sometimes orbs appear on people’s pictures.

I wonder if some places are more conducive to paranormal activity than others? I have long been interested in the lay-line theory. I know from a few examinations in Ontario where I have accompanied the highly acclaimed paranormal investigator – Patrick Cross that paranormal entities seldom occur in ones. In Burlington – Patrick’s place of residence, the very streets are oozing spirits – here a poltergeist, there a moving statue and of course the infamous tree – posessed of an evil energy – I myself almost came “acropper” at that dismal spot, but thats another story.

Lay lines, you have to wonder, they supposedly stretch between places of cultural and religious significance – threads quite plainly seen by some, only felt by others. Witchita is dead-smack center of the continent, a veritable power house of culture and religious worship. Odd though it might seem, BTK was some kind of church elder at Wichita’s Christ Luthern Church and he is known to have spent time in the Broadview Hotel. Not being an expert in lay line divination, I wonder what a dowser would find in the plains around the city.

This picture above is the bar in the Broadview Hotel – a beautiful tin ceiling’d space with stained glass and plenty of pints of my new favorite beer – “Amber Bok”. The Flapper tour that takes residents down to the basement starts in the bar – led by the lady on the left in the red dress.

Read Full Post »

Checking out the Caves in Winter

Ontario in the Winter – Canadian caving trips

 

Got to watch for polar bears and sasquatch – I heard a caver just got eaten.

Here I am in one of my favorite Ontario caving spots looking for more tunnels. Winter is often a good time to look for caves as you can see the breathing holes and with few leaves and brambles – holes can be more visible.

This particular spot is at the edge of a resurging valley somewhere near the Crowe River. I am climbing up a slippery embankment that is one of several ridges that soon progress to an escarpment that I am absolutely sure is underlain by caves. In this area there are 3 distinctive joint directions and I can see a length of straight-line collapse beneath the soil in one spot on the nearby escarpment. There are undoubtably tunnels under there – its just gonna take some digging.

Sometimes its esy to get depressed about Ontario’s caving possibilities, but the caves are there, they just need digging and as cavers we just need to get together and do some serious work. We lack unity thats our problem!

Read Full Post »

Unbelievable! A cave of Dahlias

Lake of the Dahlias somewhere beyond

P1010079, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

Here it is – over the hump. I pressed through this low slot and on to the passage beyond – an elliptical tunnel that wound off into gloom. Its hard to imagine but somewhere further on the helictites become so dense and interwoven that it is impossible to go onwards without damaging them. I did not get much further than this, but I was shown a map that indicated the most fantastic formations were isolated beneath a military zone. After my little private jaunt I saw a 3D movie that the curators were making of what was deep within – unbelievable!

One General Frederico F. Gavada wrote in 1870 in Harper’s New Monthly Magazine of his experience in the Cuevas de Bellamar saying that he eventually reached an underground lake, 18 feet deep and 180 feet long. He called it the “Lake of Dahlias” for the crystals that looked like petaled flowers.

As the general wrote …

“These dahlias are formed by triangular, concave crystals, starting from a common centre, in layers one above the other, precisely as the petals of dahlias are arranged. They vary from three to five inches in diameter. Their greatest beauty consists in the exquisite manner in which they are tinted with veins of violet and blue and delicate yellow and pale crimson. These colors are probably due to the presence of mineral salts which filter down with the water from the overlying strata.

Here, then, we have an enchanted lake in which the most fastidious of naiads would not refuse to dwell. A lake with its surrounding landscape of fantastic, sparry forms and its beds of wondrous flowers, and with its own sky bending above it full of sparkling constellations – a lake on which the sun has never shone, and whose smooth and silver surface the light wings of the breeze have never rippled, nor the rage of the tempest ever maddened into foam”.

Read Full Post »

The Hump in Front

Cuevas de Bellamar

P1010076, originally uploaded by Mic2006.

Shortly after leaving the tourist section of the Cuevas de Bellamar there was this reddish hump in front – it was a rippled flowstone ramp, over which I wriggled and there in front was …..

Read Full Post »