The specter of something dark and frightening runs through this week’s Camino a Ítaca. Progressive politicians afraid of their own shadow look on with terror as real-life Bogeymen and women ride the wave of their indecisiveness and inaction. At least I learned a great new word out of it, sacamantecas. Click over to read the…
COVID has created our own Siberias. My next installement on the Camino de Ítaca travels from Vladivostok all the way to Extremadura. Click over to the original Spanish version or the English one below. We were somewhere around Chita on the blurry edges of Mongolia and China when the vodka really started flowing. I remember,…
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. Long before moving to Caceres, I spent some time teaching and traveling around the ex-Soviet republics that straddle the Caucasus Mountains. Cowboy capitalism was rampant in the area…
After being being designated a sensitive Military Area and therefore off limits for many years, the true end of the Trans-Siberian is once again open to visitors. Contrary to what you might think, Vladivostok (a mere 9,289 kms away from Moscow) in the summer is actually quite nice. True, there is a train that runs…
Ride the rails to the end of the line to a place that feels like a Japanese island invaded by Russians. For the Russians indeed are coming…to buy cars. Twice a week, thousands of cars are ferried across the sea of Japan over to Vladivostok from this sleepy port city to sate the growing eastern…