Museums

I like museums and I enjoy history and I like trying to figure places out. In a world of YouTube and social media influencers I am a dinosaur but I can’t change my nature to suit the generations and when I’m locked down in a retirement home in old age, which is just one of the possible outcomes of my old age lived in this uncertain manner, I shall enjoy looking back over these pages. I enjoyed very much having the photographic memories on my phone when I was in a hospital bed for months after my accident. 

So our journey takes us through cities and towns, on main roads,

…and we leave the dirt trails and misty mountain campsites to the youngsters and their big wheeled off road contraptions.  For me the magic of Colombia is the culture, the vast spacious views visible even from paved roads and the history locked away in museums.

Antonio Nariño died of tuberculosis in Villa de Leyva at the age of 58. He came to the town to try to restore his health but it didn’t work. He was born in Santa Fe de Bogotá in 1765 and died here in 1823. His life was that of a revolutionary whom we can admire today but at the time he was a damned nuisance to the Spanish rulers of New Granada.

He read widely and translated revolutionary tracts from the French Revolution and the successful revolt in North America so he was arrested and even sent into exile. Every time he was released he got into more trouble fomenting revolution in New Granada and ended up behind bars four times. 

Napoleon’s European wars took their toll on Spain and seeing the weakness of the oppressor at home revolution sprang up everywhere in Latin America in 1810. In Colombia Nariño is known as The Precursor owing to the fact that he laid the theoretical groundwork for the wars of independence led by the Liberator, Simón Bolivar. 

Bolivar made him Vice President in 1821 but he’s not remembered for that so much nowadays. Venezuela and Colombia were in ferment in the 1820s trying to figure out their future form of government, not so very different from the state versus Federal debate in the US.

And then he died in time to be remembered fondly for his early struggles against an easily identified enemy. Bolivar died nearly twenty years later friendless penniless and largely despised by his former colleagues. You can outlive your usefulness unfortunately. 

Times change and I find it odd when I read about the “old generation” who hold back the youngsters. They call the out of touch old folk “boomers” and aren’t I surprised to be numbered amongst them! My values forged in the years following World War Two seem to be losing relevance now in the era of piece work and government intrusion into citizens’ privacy. The European youngsters we meet are on sabbaticals and deadlines and their schedules are a reminder how free we are to travel suspended out of time and place. 

We had a grand time with the younger generation on the road and we’re looking forward to seeing them again. Interestingly this lot aren’t earning money as they go making YouTubes but they are doing it the old fashioned way, by living in savings and planning to return to work in their home countries. 

I heard one young woman telling her mother about us, “They’re your age,” she said into the phone “you could do it to!”  My Cold War politics may be sliding into history but my adult curiousity apparently still has some relevance! 

The other museum Layne wanted to check was all about art. 

Luis Alberto Acuña was born in 1904 and died 90 years later in Villa de Leyva. His home is a museum free to the public and filled with samples of his extremely eclectic art. 

We took turns, one to go in and one to stay outside with Rusty but the security guard laughed when he realized what we were doing…dogs are welcome here as almost everywhere in Colombia.

A self portrait: 

His house reminded me of Hearst Castle in as much as the art was wildly varied. Some I liked and some said nothing to me; all from the mind of the same man. 

Acuña was drawn to pre-Spanish art and the history of Colombia. 

He loved dinosaurs too. 

I liked the courtyard houses of Villa de Leyva which was a style brought by the Spanish who learned it from the Arabs who ruled southern Spain before the reconquest. 

I’ve never seen artistic representation of prehistoric humans like this. 

Back to the real world, as real as the world’s largest cobbled square can be. I am still mildly surprised to find myself wandering these ancient streets as though I belong here just like all the other tourists. 

Friends who came through town before us advised a visit to Layne Galleta Café for a slice of flaky pastry layered with cream and dulce de leche sauce. 

A cappuccino and civilized Colombia is at your fingertips. 

Back on the streets Rusty is learning to hold his own among packs of friendly dogs. 

We have left Villa de Leyva to escape excessive crowds which fill tourist destinations this week, called Semana Santa in honor of the run up to Easter. 

Layne wants to come back next month for another week. Who am I to argue? 

Kaibab National Forest

As I write this I’m sitting in my camp chair on a 60 degree morning at 8500 feet above sea level. GANNET2 is parked in an aspen grove less than half a mile from the paved state highway 67 that leads to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. 

National Forest Road 22 swings in an arc around our campsite between the trees and from time to time we hear the distinctive rattle of machinery on gravel as the quads, Jeeps, travel trailers and RVs pass by, unobtrusively to someplace else. It’s the only human sound we can hear. 

We are hardly intrepid explorers or by pioneers. I have just finished my first cup of tea. Rusty had his breakfast and a bowl of stale milk which I have discovered he loves and which to save waste I offer to him as it becomes available. 

The wind at this altitude makes the aspen leaves shiver and they reflect sunshine like glass, sparkles of light shake up the shadows as the sound of the rushing wind intensifies overhead. Layne is asleep. The internet is asleep too, as we have finally outpaced connectivity.

This place is full of birds. Their song fills the glade and in the distance the woodpeckers are hard at work hammering. Summers are short at this altitude and snow stops play at the North Rim around mid October I believe. I would look it up but I have no internet. 

The highway winds it’s way through pine forests, passing campgrounds, hotels, lodges and gas stations (nearly $7 for a gallon of regular for improvident virgins seeking oil) but no permanent settlements. The road signs warn that snowmobiles aren’t permitted on the paved highway and none of these roads are plowed in winter. 

There’s a long stretch leveled by a forest fire long enough ago to have allowed small aspen to start replacing the lost pine trees. The windy desolation doesn’t encourage stopping. 

My plan was to find dispersed camping a short way before the National Park boundary and Forest Service Road 22 bisects State Highway 67 at just the right spot, half an hour before the park entrance. 

If you can’t find a free camp spot on the Kaibab Plateau you might want to find a less stressful way to travel. This area is cross crossed by dirt roads and all you have to do is choose one and stop where you see tire tracks and most likely a (disused) fire ring.  Park and you are home. 

This isn’t the Mongolian Steppe and if you are seeking total isolation and apartness from humanity you will have to drive a long way into the absolute wilderness. This is camping territory, tents, vans, off-roaders, hikers all are welcome in one form or another. However we are alone in the silence as much as we need to be. There are no other campers within sight or sound of GANNET2’s anchorage:

Nighttime temperatures fall below 60 degrees and daytime highs may reach 75 so you might call this perfect. There are insects showing some sign of life happily but mosquitoes no-see-‘ums and flies are nowhere to be felt. 

The solar panels are generating  electricity despite our wooded parking spot and there is enough sunshine during the midday to keep us warm. It is idyllic. 

Rusty sleeps in the grass and wanders from spot to spot finding the sun as he goes. You can spot his head from time to time sniffing the air as something intrigued him. 

“Do you suppose we should have bear spray?” I asked the quartermaster at one point. 

“Probably,” she said. We went back to our books. Perhaps an expertly wielded fire extinguisher will fill the need if panic arises. 

Yes, I expect there are many fearsome things waiting to murder or maim us lurking among the tree trunks. Until they manifest themselves I plan to keep on enjoying some solitude until it’s time to pick up our reservation at the North Rim campground and stop among people and trash cans and water faucets, briefly, once again. 

Happy Fourth of July by the way. It’s places like these, not the corridors of power that spell true independence. I’m glad I’ve figured that out at last.