Batteries for my torch:

I love abandoned places. My palms break-out into a little sweat at the thought of silently exploring empty industrial facilities, grain elevators, sewer tunnels, catacombs etc... Here are my top three infiltration fantasies:

Number 3 is the abandoned hospital near the apartment we lived in while attending language school in Tarragona. The sprawling complex sat on a bluff overlooking the sea. Missionaries believed it use to be an insane asylum (bunch of chickens...)



It is surrounded by tall, rusty fencing and is inhabited by goats and guard dogs. I never slid under the barricades because I didn't want to get arrested having been in Spain for just a couple of months.



However I could see blue tile on some of the walls which made me think of surgical rooms, and all of the iron gates had stylized crosses welded on them. Weirdest thing was the cut-rock staircase access to the rocky beach-cove below. Maybe I'll go back.

Number 2 is the ghost city of Varosha in Cyprus. Back in the early '70s it was quite the happening place...



Once a tourist destination rivalling Spain's Marbella and Majorca, this southern part of the ancient port city of Famagusta has been a ghost resort since 1974.



According to sources "15,000 largely Greek Cypriot inhabitants fled after Turkish troops invaded the island - an attack launched in response to a coup attempt by Greek nationalists aiming to adjoin the island to Greece." Turkish forces occupied Varosha, but then withdrew, putting up a ring of barbed wire and barricades around it. For 32 years, it has stood empty.



Number 1 without a doubt is the Ryugyong Hotel in Pyonyang, North Korea. No way people can infiltrate here without risking an international incident... Here is a satellite photo that gives you a sense of the enormity of this death-star like structure.



The Ryugyong's 3,000 rooms and 7 revolving restaurants were to open in June 1989 for the "World Festival of Youth and Students" but problems with building methods and materials delayed it. Japanese newspapers estimated the cost of construction was $750 million. Sources say construction stopped indefinitely in 1992 due to famines and power shortages.



Official pictures of Pyongyang often show the building illuminated at night, but this is due to airbrushing. The basic structure has no windows or fixtures of any kind. Sub-standard concrete used in this monumental skeleton ensure that the buckling elevator shafts will never be used. Reports say that crumbling chunks of it sometimes drop onto the deserted pavilions 105 floors below...



There are many dead places like this throughout the world. I remember exploring the deserted neighborhood in Merriam before they built the Hen-House, Home Depot, Cinemark complex. Roamer and I had the whole place to ourselves. It was exhilerating to pick any house on any block and walk right in to peer into the closets (some of which still had clothes in them!) That muggy afternoon was the first time I had a Hershey's "Mint" chocolate bar.

Check out the "Infiltrate!" link on the bottom of my blog listings if you love this stuff like I do... There are great first-hand stories and pics (even the Queen Mary!) And lets not forget Chernobyl, that nuclear reactor meltdown that happened 20 years ago in Russia. Can't live there no more, but nobody has told the packs of wolves that are moving in...







(Chernobyl pics courtesy of www.kiddofspeed.com)

Soy un picaro...

I have been absent. It is hot here and I have been in a malaise. Today I thought I would give a brief description of my morning. Draw what you will. There has always been too much to tell.

Roamer and I met Sylvia at the Alcala police station to renew our ID cards. I've only had my ID card in hand for two months but it has expired. It takes many months to start the process again. Our appointment was for 9am. I can best describe the scene as standing in a rank alleyway off The Plaza in KCMO with 180 people all trying to cut in line to stay out of hell. Roamer caught bird poop on her head. I tried my best to get it out with a napkin. It made me sad. She tries really hard. Many people cut the line and tried not to show how clever they were. Mothers were sitting on curbs. Sleeping children layed across their fathers' shoulders. Once inside the police station, I read many signs warning me to be quiet and to respect the workers. This is Individual serving The State. No numbers to draw. No chairs to sit on. No protection from the sun.

Don Quixote de la Mancha is a novel by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes, born here in Alcala. It was first published in 1605. It is one of the earliest written novels in a modern European language and some say it is the most influential and emblematic work in Spanish literature. Quixote was an old, poor dude who thought he was a knight and he fought windmills which he thought were dragons.



The adjective "quixotic", at present meaning "idealistic and impractical", derives from the protagonist's name, and the expressions "fighting windmills" come from this story.

I will admit here that I am struggling with depression. Somewhere I have spent my reserves and am leaning on the conviction that I am getting tougher. I've started to withdraw and hide from the sun and the people around me. It is hot here. I went for a walk and chased a reptile through a dusty ditch with only dead dry weeds to hide it. It tried to hide anyway. I never saw anything but its huge tail. It moved fast. Only the tops of the dead shivering weeds told me how close I was to it.

Cervantes explains the Don’s desire to leave his village and take up the profession of knighthood: “he was spurred on by the conviction that the world needed his immediate presence…” (Book 1, Part 2).



Continuing, he explains how God will provide for them: “…God, Who provides for all, will not desert us; especially being engaged, as we are, in His service” (Book 1, Part 11).

After trying to renew our ID and getting our next "appointment" for Sept. 6, we stopped by the bank to ask why our Bank Cards were not ready. We have been waiting for three months. We even have a connection at the bank - the term is "enchufe" we are "plugged in" to the system with a friend. Our friend apologized and explained that our last bank account was "on our passports." Our new account was "on our Spanish IDs." We didn't have the cards yet because we were being investigated as fugitives who might be trying to open two accounts. It was a little unusual, but our cards were now in Madrid and getting closer to us by the week. Oh.

Quixote, after rejecting his stories of chivalry, tells his family, shamefully, “My judgement is now clear and unfettered, and that dark cloud of ignorance has disappeared, which the continual reading of those detestable books of knight-errantry had cast over my understanding” (Book 2, Part 16).

Walking out of the bank to our car I made myself look up and see the beauty of the morning. It was beautiful. We passed by the statue of Don Quixote with his broken lance. Now I understand.



(A print of this painting hung in my boyhood home in Wyandotte)