I’ve posted some photos of the Laurentians on flickr.  I caught all 4 seasons in 7 months.

The experience was fantastic, and very intense. I was waking up at 4am most days. The people I met there (other staff, students and guests) made the experience unforgettable.

Catching up on sleep at the moment and preparing for my next steps, which will see me setting up relaxation retreats around Toronto, and in Costa Rica and Spain.

Stay tuned.

Calle Verdi, the winning street at this year’s Festa Major de Gracia.

Every town or village in Spain has a Fiesta Mayor (Festa Major in Catalan). Its usually a week-long affair with parties and shows and cultural events depending on the region.  Barcelona’s is in late September and called La Merce. But within Barcelona every district also has its own Fiesta Mayor, and the most famous of these is in Gracia, an atmospheric neighbourhood with narrow streets, lots of plazas, and a vibrant nightlife. It takes place in mid-August. What makes their event so special is that on about 15 streets the neighbours get together and decorate the street and organise music and a bar. There is a contest for the best decorations, and as the photos I posted on Flickr show, the originality and flair with which they do this is stunning. By night the streets are packed until 4am or later, although they have started shutting down the music earlier. It must be a tough neighbourhood to get a good nights sleep in the summertime.

Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias, Valencia

I’ve posted a few more photos of Valencia on flickr.

Pavilhão de Portugal, Parque das Nações, Lisboa

I posted some photos of Lisbon on Flickr. Its a beautiful city, with an interesting mix of of architecture, including some very cool modern buildings, like the one pictured above, which is the Lisbon Pavilion in the Park of Nations, the site of the 1998 Expo. At this angle it reminds me of a giant cling-film dispenser. On the form-to-function spectrum this structure designed by Alvaro Siza Vieira  leans well to the form end.  When you see something as extreme (and in my view beautiful) as this, you realize function isn’t the be all and end all to urban design.  This apparently useless building (the fair is over) gives back  something however, a sense of wonder.

The Open Road - Salinas Grandes, Salta, Argentina

A good traveler has no fixed plans and is not intent on arriving.
-Lao-Tzu

“It is good to have an end to journey toward, but it is the journey that matters in the end.”
-Ursula K. LeGuin

Furthermore, we have not even to risk the journey alone; for the heroes of all time have gone before us; the labyrinth is thoroughly known; we have only to follow the thread of the hero-path. And where we had thought to find an abomination, we shall find a god; where we had thought to slay another, we shall slay ourselves; where we had thought to travel outward, we shall come to the center of our own existence; where we had thought to be alone, we shall be with all the world.
-Joseph Campbell

The real thing is not the goal, the real thing is the beauty of the movement. The real thing is not reaching, the real thing is the journey. Remember, the real thing is the journey, the very traveling. It is so beautiful, why bother about the goal? And if you are too bothered about the goal, you will miss the journey, and the journey is life – the goal can only be death.
-Osho

“Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting. So… get on your way.”
-Dr. Seuss

Life is a journey up a spiral staircase; as we grow older we cover the ground covered we have covered before, only higher up; as we look down the winding stair below us we measure our progress by the number of places where we were but no longer are. The journey is both repetitious and progressive; we go both round and upward.
-William Butler Yeats

I put up some photos from my Ashram Days on flickr.

I left India on Sunday. I passed through London. There was an amazing exhibition on there in a tunnel under Waterloo Station. Stencil art and graffiti. Banksy organized it and did a lot of the works, but it was open to anyone to add their stuff. Best exhibition I’ve seen in a while.

Photos of The Cans Festival

At first Gangotri was a bit of a shock. I was expecting a town in the mountains. But it turns out Gangotri only becomes a town for 6 months of the year– the rest of the time it hibernates. I’ve arrived just as it’s shrugging off its deep slumber, before the season has begun. 95% of the shops, restaurants, ashrams, hotels, even the cellphone towers are still closed. There doesnt seem to be a school here, or any of the things you would find in a town. I dont think anyone lives here year-round. Probably there is no access when it snows.

The timing of the season depends entirely on the temple. Gangotri is one of the four Char Dham pilgrimage sites. Pilgrims come from all over India and the world to visit each of the temples, high in the mountains.

Gangotri is considered the source of the Ganga, or Ganges – that holiest of rivers. And the river actually looks clean here!

At first sight the place looks empty but actually there are quite a few people working to get things ready. It feels a bit like being backstage when they are building the sets. People cleaning and scraping, hammering and painting — trying to make a presentable appearance out of the most basic materials. Corrugated iron, stone, paint. And they have a deadline to meet, the date set by the main priest of the temple for the show to begin. A lot of labourers have come here for work, some of them children, carrying 60kg loads of rock and cement powder on their backs.

Whats surprising to me is that before the big opening there is no electricity in the whole town, no landline phone connections, no cell service. Even the water supply is sporadic. My hotel stinks of fresh paint, it has no cold or hot water, no heating, but has one hour of electricity by diesel generator each night. I dont know which is worse, the dark or the diesel fumes.

Yes, my first night I was a bit shocked by it all. For one, it was cold, maybe 3 degrees by night. Luckily I’d just come from the mountains where it seemed even colder in the tent. The bed felt so warm by comparison, under 2 duvets and 2 blankets.

But by the second night I started to see a real charm to the whole place. I was walking by one hotel (not the one I was staying at) and there were all the staff out front huddled around a fire in a flat pan filled with wood shavings. One guy insisted on showing me some local tourist attraction nearby. Then I sat with them all around this fire and drank tea chatting in broken English.

I ate dinner later in a dark shack crammed with workers drinking tea after their 12-hour day and before going off to their presumably freezing accommodation. In the shack no electricity, but some amazingly tasty dal and chapattis.

Back at my own hotel I sat outside with the staff who were huddled around a fire in a large tin can, in the dark and drinking more tea. The people working in the town didnt speak much English, but were a welcoming and friendly bunch.

Today I went on a trek towards Gaumuk which is the glacier that is the real source of the Ganges. Its around a 20km walk from Gangotri through the stunning valley with impressive sharp peaks. Conditions were such that I decided to turn back after 13km. The trail goes up to 3800m. There were rockslides, a strong wind and falling rocks. It started snowing too. Doable probably, but I didnt want to chance it. I got some great photos which I’ll post later.

I walked back through the snow. In all I walked over 28km today. Will sleep well tonight no matter how cold it is.

Went on a three-day trek to the Kuari Pass- part of what used to be called Curzon’s Trail. It’s been a popular trek going back all the way to the Raj era. Looking at the peaks was breathtaking. At the highest point we climbed to 3700m and camped at 3300m. It got very cold at night, about 3 degrees – a sharp swing from the 40 degree heat of Rishikesh. The panoramic view from the campsite was stunning, mountains all around. Nandi Devi was the biggest. At 7816m its the highest mountain completely within India. (The other more famous ones share boundaries with Nepal, Pakistan, China).

I had planned to join a group trek, but as there were no tourists around I organized one through an agency going alone, with at guide, a cook and a porter. The porter and cook slogged a lot of equipment up to the campsite: tents, sleeping bags, stove, fuel, food. They prepared all the meals and served tea and biscuits after we set up camp. (They set up actually, I just sat around). I felt like the lord of the manor. Not like any camping I’ve ever done! Wasn’t that expensive either.

The way the cook and porter interacted with me really was like servants. They did their duties but didnt really engage the way most people you meet in the street would do. Certainly not the way a similar cook in Canada would behave. There was a language issue, but that was only part of it. I’ve never really dealt with servants, it was a bit weird. The guide was more interactive.

The food was really good. Quite elaborate given the location. The cook spent hours in his makeshift kitchen- a space on the side of a rock covered with a big blue tarp and filled with pots and pans, stove and fresh ingredients: vegetables, eggs, rice, tea. We had tea by the bucketful. Dinner was soup, followed by rice and dal, sabji (vegetable dish), plus a sweet and more chai.

The first night it was so cold and windy I had to eat in my tent. All that warm food stopped the shivering long enough to fall asleep. The second night we had a campfire. But I expected we would all eat together around it. Being India that wasn’t the case. I ate alone first, them serving me. It wasn’t only the “servant” thing. When you visit someone’s home, its customary to feed the guest first. I wasn’t used to that when I visited people at home. Them hovering over me while I eat, making sure I have everything I need. Of course in Canada you would all eat together, that would be the event.

I had a couple of problems with the guide. He seemed to want to do what he wanted rather than what the guy in the agency had sold me. On the first day he told me we wouldn’t go to Kuari Pass because there was “too much snow for my shoes”. I was confused, since the guy who sold me the trip said there wasn’t much snow, and someone had just come back from there. Plus they said they were going to outfit me with all I needed. On day two, I had to insist we try to see the pass, and in fact there was only a tiny amount of snow to cross. Even still the guide didnt take me all the way. But I saw the peaks, and that was the main thing.

On the last day, after we left camp the 3 guys charged down the mountain to the final destination. I realized at their pace the trek would be over at noon. Hardly a full day. I told them I wanted to spend more time on the mountain, but they looked quite surly and just continued on ahead of me. We finished way too early and when we got back I complained to the man running the agency but he just brushed it off. The agency has a good reputation, but in the end there is no real place to complain for a tourist, nothing seems regulated it would seem.

I saw some amazing scenery, got some great shots and had a truly memorable experience.

I’ve come to Joshimath to organize a short trek and get a closer look at the mountain peaks. Joshimath appears a bleak town despite a few colourful buildings. Its spread out along one main street with an improbable number of grimy general stores, barbershops, sweet shops, shops that sell sweaters and blankets plus a couple of banks and even an ATM. Its setting is impressive, at 1845m on the side of a deep valley where two rivers converge. The white Himalayan peaks shine in the distance.

I’ve come here out of season it turns out. Two weeks before all the pilgrims and trekkers will fill the now-closed hotels. The town becomes a base to visit some important Sikh and Hindu pilgrimage sites and for some famous treks, including the Valley of Flowers and Kuari Pass.

It took 11 hours to get here from Rishikesh. Four buses, two flat tires. Right now I think there are six tourists in entire town.

The people here live in a different colour pallete compared to the other places I have travelled in India. Murkier, darker hues, browns, burnt oranges, rich reds, greys, blues and blacks. The faces too look darker – wind-worn, sun-ravaged. Their sweaters and trousers dusty and grimy. Its a workers town, and a lot of people look like they just rolled out from under a truck, or out of a quarry. Its not a prosperous place, but its lively. The streets always full of people. And they seem a fairly cheerful if exhausted bunch.

They are building a big hydro project here, not a dam but diverting the river or something. I didnt meet anyone who could explain it. Its also a big army town.

The place is teeming with kids and adolescents. At 7 in the morning hundreds of school children in uniform walking to their schools. Some were ferried in gigantic green army personnel carriers. So funny to see two stern soldiers in dark green combat gear in the cab, and between them a gleaming 7-year-old schoolboy in red school uniform. In the back of the truck 3 or 4 more bright-eyed boys and girls.

By early evening the adolescents take to the street, again in the hundreds, hanging out chatting, walking around. The power goes out a fair bit. (I guess they haven’t finished that hydro project yet.) Even with power its a dimly lit place. Each store with one or two bulbs. All the people out, no-one buying much in the stores, or eating much in the many restaurants but the gurgle of town life goes on. Just 15 minutes walk out of town and its complete mountain silence.