Clines Corners is a travel center on I- 40 east of Moriarty, New Mexico.
It opened in 1934 at the intersection of what was then Route 66 and highway 85 going north to Santa Fe or highway 85 south to Roswell.
1934 was long ago, at the end of the Great American Depression, written up in history books, documented in stark black and white photos of dust whipped people with belongings piled into pickup trucks heading for California’s Garden of Eden. Some say those days are coming again, with great billowing clouds of mid west dust and stockbrokers jumping off big city balconies.
As you draw closer to the Corners, their billboards promote cheap coffee, clean restrooms, authentic Indian moccasins, salt water taffy, cheaper gas. Inside the center are trinkets, enough to buy five Manhattan’s. The postcards are catchy, the candy tempting, the restrooms clean. I don’t buy anything but linger at a rack of postcards that reminds me of Scotttreks, my digital postcard rack.
1934 is an eternity ago in a century of exponential change.
How do young feel when confronted with a generation of elders who grew up with black and white tv, rotary phones, Phillip Morris cigarettes, Schlitz beer, the Little Rascals and Post Toasties cereal? How will the young be looked upon by their children who will ride in cars that are driver less, have their moves documented by security cameras and do school on computers with a virtual teacher who never gets mad, always is prepared, and doesn’t have to deal with bad behavior or inappropriate clothes?
Even though we look amused at the past, we too are going to be in someone else’s rear view mirror.
Panama hats have oddly enough always been made in Ecuador.
From the 1600’s, the weaving of hats out of the leaves of the toquilla palm has been done, at it’s finest level ,on the western coast of Ecuador.
These best hats are called Montecristo’s and are from the village of the same name in the province of Manabi. These hats are light colored, lightweight, breathable and have long been popular in hot climates where protection from the sun is essential . The price for Montecristos varies from hundreds of dollars to thousands.
It can take a skilled Ecuadorian craftsman up to six months to make one of these Panama hats. When you pick up a fine hat, it is light. You can roll it up in your suitcase and it returns to its shape when you take it out. The finer the weave the more expensive the hat.
President Theodore Roosevelt popularized the Panama hat when he wore one at the Panama Canal. A grandiose man, he was a President with an ego too large for whatever hat he was wearing.
It is said that a fine Panama hat will hold water and pass through a wedding ring when rolled up.
Machine made and cheap is the mantra of our times.
Turning men into machines and making machines do the work of men are themes of our day.
Walking through the Museum, and the grounds below, gives footnotes of the past.
All that is left of the past here are rock walls of homes and stone walls built to terrace land so crops could be grown on hillsides. The soil is deep, dark, rich, and, with light and rain, it is not impossible to see it feeding an Empire.
Standing on this hill, clouds seem like you can touch them.
It is hard to reconcile this peaceful place with human sacrifices but blood has always been how you pay Gods back for transgressions.
The Incan Empire grew through conquest and peaceful assimilation. They built roads, like the Romans, and developed infrastructure and capabilities to organize large numbers of people.
When you climb over hills, look out, stomp in the dirt and see water, flowers, birds, animals, you can understand the Inca civilization that grew out of nature.
The Incan Code was do not steal, do not lie, and do not be lazy.
We sacrifice humans today, but we do it in slower, more treacherous ways.
The Incan’s, very slowly, are starting to look less savage than I have been taught to see them.
From the street, this exposition seems promising.
There is a huge dinosaur on a flatbed in Parque Calderone. There is also, nearby, a tall movie poster featuring a reptile with big teeth, the word Dinosaurs in big letters, and an offer to children to get in to this exhibit absolutely free if with their parents.
Dinosaurs are still one of the first topics in grade school science and movies like Jurassic Park have kept interest fanned in the large creatures who, by their fossils, we know to have existed.
These modern man made show beasts are fabricated from steel, plastic, with rubber like skin. They are brightly painted and dwarf us little humans, hardly sand grains between their toes.
I don’t see any animal here I would want to take home and have to feed but any one of them would keep riff raff out of my back yard.
Dentists, I have no doubts, would love to get one of these guys or girls in their biggest chair but doing a root canal would not be easy because peering into this Rex’s mouth, and going in with the biggest drill you have, would take nerves of steel and several drums of anesthesia.
I bet their dinosaur breath would be the kiss of death.
The domes of the New Cathedral can be seen from most high ground in Cuenca.
The New Cathedral was built in the last hundred years but still qualifies to be called new. The Old Cathedral, on the other side of Parque Calderone, is smaller, less ambitious, and is used now for events, occasional ceremonies, and as a museum.
The New Cathedral is simple on the outside but grandiose inside.
Standing inside, on marble floors, with enormous space above and around me, I am humbled. Modern man is not accustomed to being humble until events spiral out of control and they are looking at their homes destroyed in a flood, earthquake,hurricane, or fire.
In older days, there weren’t as many screens shielding us from reality or ideologues trying to shape the way we see the world around us.
People died young, the fact that some are rich and most are poor was accepted as normal, and armies marched across borders with fire and brimstone. These days no one on television tells you problems are insurmountable and the only thing you can do is pray.
This morning, people kneel in prayer, some light candles, some quietly sit in the pews, touch their beads or read catechisms on I phones. There is no official ceremony today and Christ is eclipsed by gold trim. Flat screen televisions ,mounted on stanchions ,help those in the back of the church see services when church is in session.. There is one confession box open and a sole lady waits to go inside and confess her small sins that aren’t likely to sink our boat.
Outside,city life continues without repose, or reflection.
Vendors are selling candles, rosaries, beads as you reach the Cathedral’s front steps. On another side of the church are stalls selling Christmas stockings, cards, and tree ornaments. A man selling lottery tickets does a brisk business and cops ensure that thieves know there are earthly punishments to add to spiritual ones.
Knowing what I know about the Spanish conquest of South America, and the part the church played, I find it hard to stay here and be respectful.
Cuenca is a World Heritage City.
World Heritage cities possess geographical, cultural, artistic, archeological, and architectural wonders which UNESCO believes are worth protecting.
In Parque Calderone, these photographs were taken between 1890-1930. They are of indigenous Ecuadorian peoples in the Amazon.
Most show the native peoples in their Amazonian lifestyle and Spanish Catholic priests going about the business of conversion. Progress, it seems, moves people away from land and into cities, away from many God’s to one God, puts shoes on their feet, clothes on their back, and time into their consciousness.
The faces are startling. They are stern, piercing, resisting, fierce.
Descendants of these people still live in the jungle. Some drive ATV’s, have cell phones, and check e-mails. They also remember stories of old ways and, at dark, around a fire, gather in ceremonies to celebrate nature and spirits priests hide from.
How do you tell people their Gods are not Gods, without resistance?
Humans wear clothes. Some wear more, some less. Some are expensive, glamorous with designer touches straight from the runway, some are little better than rags.
This morning, in the Rio Tomebamba River, a family washes their clothes and bedding.
Two women, wearing yellow rubber boots, stand in the river, soak fabric in water, pound clothes on rocks to remove dirt like ancient Inca people. They have detergent in plastic buckets that they work into the material and suds run into the river and are taken away downstream.
This wash will take most of the day to complete with the longest time needed for the sun to dry blankets before they can be folded, carefully placed in hand woven cloth bags, and carried home.
This family started early and already has washed clothes and draped blankets over a concrete wall that separates the river from the road.
We are not as distant from poverty as we want to believe.
There are many in this world who don’t have a washing machine, or the electricity to power it, and come down to the river early when the birds shake themselves awake and try out a few of their sweetest melodies with sunbeams as musical staffs.
What I should have done was read about the ruins before I got here.
Lamanai, which means submerged crocodile, is a Mayan city in the Orange District of Belize. It dates to the sixteenth century B.C. and was occupied into the seventeen hundreds A.D. It was a city of forty thousand and combined farming and fishing and large trade networks for success.
The three main structures, excavated in the 1970’s by David Pendergast, are the Jaguar temple, the Mask, the High Temple. The Mask Temple is the tombs of successive rulers who built their burial place atop that of their predecessor. The High Temple is in a natural amphitheater and was the site of public spectacles, religious ceremonies, and political grandstanding.
Standing in this hot humid jungle looking at tourists climbing to the top of huge stone structures, I weigh the manpower and skills needed to build them and the spiritual and political reasons for completing them.
Longevity speaks of doing things right for a long time in the time and place you find yourself.
What would they have thought of our world if they could have imagined it?
Would they choose, if they had the choice, our world over theirs?
For most of our school days we rode big lumbering yellow school buses to big lumbering schoolhouses.
We walked to a designated bus stop and waited, in all weather, for a driver to swing open narrow doors, and then saw faces of other kids who were just as thrilled as we were to go to school, take notes, write papers, give oral book reports, and deal with cretins.
This tour to Lamanai, I get to visit school days again.
Our bus isn’t yellow but it is the same Bluebird series that we rode in with Puritan seats, windows that move up and down on metal tracks, an emergency exit in the back that meant sure death if you were caught opening it by a bus driver who meant business and had power to make you walk to school instead of ride. This bus has religious modifications but the driver is attentive and we drive north from Belize City on a roadway that is part of the Pan American Highway.
On this bus ride I don’t have Rasta music or Reggae or salsa or even Garifuna drums as traveling music. There is no radio. Wind coming through open windows cools us on a sunny morning.
Field trips were always the funnest part of school, but we didn’t have many.
School was never as fun as it should have been and riding that bus was like a prisoner going to the electric chair.
The resort and casino are on the north side of Ambergris Caye and you get there in a taxi by the new road, or a water taxi with Coastal Express, or catch one of the resort’s own shuttles that bring guests to and from their accommodations.
This time of year the resort is not bustling. Saturday’s guests are off doing tours or sleeping from too much sun, too much party, too much jet lag, too much culture shock.
Captain Morgan was, by most accounts, successful. He was a privateer rather than a pirate. He was authorized by the Queen to steal Spanish gold, sink Spanish ships, kill Spanish seaman and citizens. Pirates steal from everyone, have no allegiances, and are enemies of the state.
Captain Morgan was a clever fighting man and retired in Jamaica where he amassed land, riches, and died in his own bed. There is a rum named after him and on the walls of this resorts guest houses are wood planks with names of fellow privateers that prowled the Caribbean.
Captain Morgan’s spirit is still lurking in these islands and who knows when he will swoop in to the casino, draw his broadsword, load guest valuables into his large brimmed hat and finish a bottle of spiced rum before disappearing into the seas on a full moon night with the prettiest girl under his arm.
The biggest news is the casino doesn’t open till six in the evening.
If he had it to do over, Captain Morgan would run a casino instead of pirating
With gambling you don’t kill your customers.
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