Imagine the Caliph’s entire army hot on your tail and you with around a hundred guys on your side. Where would you want to hole up? The answer is here. High atop a mountain smack in the middle of one of Spain’s most productive wine regions lies the ruins of a castle where, back in…
Des(s)ert in Canada isn’t only Nanaimo bars and maple taffy at the cabane a sucre. Up here in the notoriously cold Great White North, the very tip of the long tongue of the Great Basin Desert sneakily licks up across the border from its birthplace down in the Sonoran Desert in Mexico. The town with…
Mention Marbella and what automatically comes to mind are gaudy images of Saudi princes, building-sized yachts, Ferraris, and the sweet smell of… corruption. This is the poster child of the infamous concrete Spanish coast where, according to who you believe, more than 30,000 buildings lack the proper permits. Golf courses grow where it rarely rains,…
Writing in the local paper. Local Issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs. I’ve lived through two referendums in my life. I may have been too young to fully realize what was happening during the first and it’s true that…
Just when you thought you were getting the hang of the way Spaniards lisp their Cs, they go and change the language on you. More discreet than their more famous Catalan, Basque, and Galician cousins, speakers of Mañego in this hidden green valley have been ‘falaing’ (falar=hablar=to speak) their curious mix of Spanish, Latin, Gallego,…
Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs. It was long after the British were forced out of their toehold in Arabia and about a decade before the Saudi bombs began to rain down indiscriminately among…
Somewhere in this “bride of Andalusian cities,” one of the greatest travel-story meeting of minds took place. A rendezvous that seven years and a different continent later would give fruit to one of the best travel books ever written, Rihla (also know as A Gift to Those Who Contemplate the Wonders of Cities and the Marvels…
Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs. My wife and I spent some time living on the banks of the Mekong in a country that is known to most Spaniards as Roldan’s…
Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs. (This time, markedly different endings.) “Usted obviamente no eres de aquí,” (You’re obviously not from around here) and while my linguistic pride may have been mortally injured, the…
Writing in the local paper. Local issues with a global take. I never translate literally and the editor trims at will to make it fit. Here’s my version, then theirs. I noticed the license plate as the local police slid the hoist under the car. Then when the tow truck roughly yanked the car to the right and…