Two travelgasms and a tragedy. Hasankeyf Part 2.

Either ancient cave houses don't fascinate Turkish tourists as much as they do me, or they were seriously lacking in endurance, because I quickly left all the other visitors behind as I walked up into the canyon.

That was fine with me though, as I enjoyed some of the first deep silence I'd heard since...Iceland?

I was walking up a narrow slot canyon under overcast skies on a day that I'd already witnessed heavy rainfall. Not particularly smart, but oh-so-beautiful. Striated stone made me want to study geology, bright blossoms urged botany, and the final vista was a strong argument for theology.

Sheer mountainsides warrant a soundtrack. Trevor Jones and Hans Zimmer are gods among men, and soon my steps fell in the universe's own rhythm, my breath understood the seasons, and my blood made love with the stars.

Travelgasmic, if you don't mind the term.

Like my grandpa taught me, I hoped to make a loop of it, but at the top I reached the Edge of the World, a sheer cliff that fell to a winding strip of empty pavement far below. I billy-goated around until I realized just how steep the surface was and how far the drop. At the top were two man-made caves, one for the sheep and one for the shepherds, though I choose to believe the latter is for spiritual quests. Cuz I'm hippie like that.

I would have happily sat there to watch the stars in their courses, but I was out of water, so I started back.

Turkey, as seemingly every developing nation (though Turkey is borderline in that regard), is covered in garbage. Bags, plastic bottles, and cigarette butts seem to blanket the nation. I know I can't clean up the whole thing, but to me, a place that beautiful is church. Would you pass by garbage in your church/mosque/synagogue/temple/circle of standing stones?

On the way up I gathered a bag full of plastic bottles. On the way down I added a second. Then a third. I had just filled the fourth when I ran into a half dozen Kurdish youth, visiting from various cities. I have yet to meet a Kurd who is less than friendly, but these folks took it to new heights. I enjoyed talking to them, but assumed they were headed up, while I was headed down, and we said goodbye.

Twenty seconds later, through the sounds of Maximus's Strength and Honor, I heard “Hey! Guy! Hey...guy!”

They caught up to me. “We want to share social media with you. Do you have facebook?” So on a gorgeous day in Kurdish May I was using my grubby fingers to type my name into someone's phone.

Traveltastic.

They took some pictures of me, which was kind of awkward but adorable, and we started down together. A minute later I looked ahead to see one of the guys had picked up a bag and filled it with garbage. Love.

A minute after that I looked again to see everyone was doing it! I have no made up word to describe it, but my heart beat faster. I felt like I had found my tribe. I wanted to hug each and every one of them and invite them to my birthday party.

We descended the valley, passing other young'uns, each invariably perplexed as we tromped by in high spirits and up to our armpits in trash. We can't clean the whole country, but I have to say, we did a pretty good job on that holy canyon.

And they all lived happily after.
Except I promised you a tragedy.

As we walked, one of the guys, the best English speaker of the group and a lad whose enthusiasm and likability shine through his eyes, fell in to talk to me.

“Do you know...dam?” I was wondering if he meant “damn”, “dam”, or something else.

“You mean, to hold water?” I asked.

“Yes, yes! They want to make dam here.”

My brain tried not to understand.

“In one year, maybe two, this is all water.”

Akkadian, Roman, Byzantine, Arab, Artuqid, and Ottoman. That's just the last 4,000 years of the 10,000 that Hasankeyf has existed. It has one or two left before the Ilisu Dam wipes it off the map.

The Turkish government claims the dam will help develop the region, but many point to the decades-old conflict with Kurdish nationalists, and say that the destruction of the town is part of a campaign to destroy Kurdish culture.

You can sign a UNESCO Petition to Save World Heritage on the Tigris Riverin Mesopotamia if you are so inclined. Maybe even tell your friends?

And either way, go to Hasankeyf. Soon.

It wasn't the Northern Lights that made me catty

Where am I? Am I on a bus? Why is someone on a PA system telling me stuff about the Northern Lights?

Maybe a midnight Northern Lights tour was not the best choice after a sleepless red-eye flight to Iceland from Toronto, but I only had one chance. Apparently aurora borealis goes in 12 year cycles, and this year was the peak, albeit the weakest one since record-keeping began.

I woke up more completely when we reached Thingvellir, which the guide informed us was were Iceland's Parliament was formed in 930. Called the “Althing” (which yes, means “all-thing”) it is the oldest parliamentary body in the world. It looked like a parking lot in the middle of nowhere to me, but then again, I was asleep and it was pitch black, so what do I know?

A 1,083 year-old governing body? Impressive. A house that makes it to 100 in my hometown becomes an official historical landmark. (Though 1,083 is middle age for a redwood tree. Nothing tops my redwoods. No arboreal pun intended.)

10 busloads of us shuffled straight into a cafeteria where we stood elbow to kidney, DSLRs clacking against one another, wondering if we'd see anything. The trip had been canceled every night for the last week on account of weather, but the Travel Gods were smiling and the night was clear, though there's still no guarantee. The guides said to wait inside and they'd tell us if something started happening.

What would aurora borealis look like. How fast does it actually move? I had the idea that all the clips I'd ever seen were time-lapse, but wasn't sure. Would we be able to run outside and see anything? Would it be a mad stampede of screaming and swearing in a dozen languages? That might be as fun to watch as the Lights...

How do you say “Get out of my way you camera-toting jackass” in Icelandic?

Then the cork was pulled and well-wrapped bodies were surging for the door. We stumbled out onto the unlit plain and looked up into the starry sky, eyes pinched shut against the cold, but ready for brilliance.

There was some confusion. I heard “um...is that it over there?” in Japanese and German.

There was a pale milky streak like a wimpy cloud hanging over the hillside to the north. But if you watched it long enough you'd notice that it was in fact slowly shifting and changing. I huddled next to my new Taiwanese buddy Jin, taking pictures between moderately successful efforts to keep blood flowing in my fingers.

They looked like this.

It was a rare case where the camera's perspective is better than the eye's, the milky blur showing up as emerald variation. But even a milky smear is gorgeous when you're sitting in an Icelandic field with a few gajillion stars overhead. I love this planet.

After an hour and a half we ran into our Australian roommates, who told us there were two posts with buckets on top where you could rest your camera. That sounded promising.

We headed back out but found the buckets occupied by some dedicated non-sharers. The first was an Englishman taking black pictures, unable to set the shutter speed on his expensive Nikon that was well beyond his ability. He was a skilled at muttering swear words though.

The second was a tiny Japanese lass who was taking dozens of identical pictures with her point-and-click. In my family we call this “Shamu-ing” after my brother used an entire roll of film at SeaWorld taking identical pictures of the famous killer whale as a black speck way in the distance.

I got lucky here, that's a meteorite entering on the left

I'd already burned off the day's body heat, and we were running out of long frozen minutes. I stood politely, waiting, freezing in the glacier's breath, and my patience leaked out and formed icicles from my cold-clawed fingertips. Then I started to lose my cool in the cold of the Icelandic countryside.

I would never push someone out of my way, but...good god, enough! The icicles cracked and I got catty.

“Would you mind sharing the post?” I asked. Politely enough.

“Ah, hmm, ah, just a minute.” One more. Then one more. Another.

“No problem, take another fifty or sixty if you like.” Crack. Meow.

The Englishman picked his expensive paperweight up and wandered off into the darkness, presumably intent on Nikonicide. Several of us pounced, and eventually I took a few, but most were ruined by the Japanese lass futzing with her flashlight, which doesn't go well with 30 second exposures and a fencepost in the foreground.

I had a chance to try again though, and got this nice fuzzy one by zooming out over the course of the 30 second exposure. I really should get a tripod so I can experiment and figure this stuff out.

That chick never did let anyone else go (and she had the better bucket, without the post) but it wasn't too hard to focus on the aurora in front of me, boreal breath of the gods, and I returned to Reykjavik with a happy heart in a frozen body.

Three hours of sleep, then a flight to Amsterdam.

Riding on top of the world

Hostel Izhcayluma, nice place to wake up.

 It turns out that the quarter-century old impressions of a six year old are not necessarily accurate.

Because that was the last time I rode a horse, and I remembered the feel of a large warm animal between my legs but it being a pretty easy, relaxed experience. So relaxed in fact that when asked in Vilcabamba what level of experience I had in riding horses, I answered "intermediate."

Seems so clearly foolish in hindsight, but I figured "hey, I rode camels down sand dunes in the Sahara, horses have to be easier than that, right?"

When we met our guide, Holger, that morning, he asked "are you loco (crazy), super loco, or ultra-loco? I brought two horses for you guys (K and I, we were joined by a German lass named J), one is water, one is rocket-gasolina."

When we saw the horses I was immediately drawn to one, which turned out to be my rocket-gasolina steed, named Lucero. I mounted and felt fine. Then we started trotting and I was highly embarrassed at the prospect of dying that way. Holger looked at me and said "don't hold the saddle horn, that's very dangerous. Both hands in the air like this...and it's good for the abs."

I thought back to everything I knew about riding horses...Maximus in Gladiator saying "I tell my son to keep his heels down when he's riding his horse." Okay Maximus, let's go!

We started up a rocky ravine, Lucero repeatedly falling behind then at my insistence trotting over the sharp stones, but by the time we reached the panoramic views I was feeling much more self-assured, which was good because the views were stunning.

Holger: "Later we'll try to find some lassos."
Me: "Nah, I've already got a girlfriend."
Holger: (looks thoughtful) "Do you want a backup?"
Me: (also looking thoughtful) "Nah, one already feels like too much sometimes."
Needless to say, this conversation was in Spanish, though K understands the language far too well now...





We tied the horses at Holger's family holding, high in the epic hills, and climbed to the top on foot, along meandering cow trails through clouds of bright ladybugs and butterflies.

Someone's clearing land for farming way off in the distance. Hard place to earn a living.

 Up here the horses decided to gallop. It was one of the best feelings I can remember (especially once I managed to put the camera securely away.)

It's an interesting and exhilarating sensation to gallop towards a cliff...trusting that it's all going to be okay.

I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere.

Helluva place for a date, no?






 

This is one of my favorite pictures I've taken in awhile. Raining in the Andes, with rider... I want to go back!

The Valley of Eden

The German who told us about Vilcabamba was not young. Nor would she be considered old anywhere but a college campus or youth hostel, but we were in the latter. In a youth hostel I'm positively paternal, so in her mid-40s, she was verging on grandmotherly.

It's a weird world, that of the backpacker.

But it's also a serendipitous and miraculous one, and here we were, a few hours into our months in Ecuador, and a lady who looked like she had the experience to know what she was talking about was telling us about the semi-mystical land of Vilcabamba.

"It's the Valley of Eternal Life, people there live to be 140 years old, and that's the average."

"Well...my visa doesn't last that long...but tell me more."

"I stayed at this place" grabbing one of the flyers for Hostel Izhcayluma that would prove ubiquitous in Ecuador "it is beautiful, with great views, friendly people, and delicious food."

Ears perk up. "Food?"

"Yes. Very good food. And cheap. I had a whole dorm to myself for $10, and when I came back the dorm was full, but they gave me a private for that price, just because they're nice."

She waxed on, teutonic poetic, and K and I were both convinced by the time we stood up from the dingy common room couches. We finally made it after five months, and found Vilcabamba and the hilltop Izhcayluma to be even better than she'd said.

The view of the valley was incredible, the fruit salad fresh, and the granola homemade. The overheard language was German, but hey, you can't win 'em all. Just kidding mein freund. (The Izhcayluma is German-owned.)

The town is the perfect size and tourist exposure. They have restaurants but no chains, enough streets to wander but not nearly enough to get lost, and the locals neither stared at us as aliens nor despised us as invaders.

Fine lines to tread, one and all, and I fear all lines are crossed eventually, often tragically quickly.

Already Vilcabamba is edging towards becoming a retirement community for Americans. From the heights we would have a burgeoning town pointed out, described as "puro American, todos...todos. They're building a shopping center."

The central plaza with its chipped fountain, shady benches, and sonorous church bells (god I love Latin America!) was host to ancient locals in cowboy hats, giggling schoolkids in uniforms, and gringo hippies saying namaste to each other and selling handmade soap (which they apparently don't use).

After the beloved almuerzo lunch special, we went looking for the book exchange. Books are a necessary luxury for us, but their weight was proving problematic, and we'd somehow built up a positively expansive backpacker library of four books. Four! What are we, the Library of Congress?

There was the epic thunder one only finds in the mountains as we started off, and halfway there the promise was fulfilled as rain started, a deluge from the start. The streets ran with rivers, and our sandaled feet were rasped with gravel grit under the straps, under the increased friction of wet rubber.

But we found the exchange, dripping on the carpet as we traded three Pulitzer books and a Tom Robbins for old Paolo Coehlo and Zora Neale Hurston. Quite the celebrity transaction, and we dropped a few pounds.

The torrent was unrepentant and determined when we were ready to go, so we nestled our books in my mostly-waterproof bag and run-hobbled downhill, hoping for a taxi. One of the yellow pickup trucks finally pulled up, but the driver took one look at us and said "but you're wet."

I looked back. "Yes."

He grimaced. "The back?"

"Okay."

We climbed in back, arms held tightly to sides and faces squinting in endurance. He took off through town and up the hill to our hostel, the rain like needles on any exposed skin, and our grimaces gave ground to grins as we watched ourselves flying through town in the back of a pickup truck, utterly drenched, in an Andean mountain valley, with a beautiful room and a hot shower waiting for us.

After the wonderfully hot shower I sat above the clearing valley and emerging stars with a big plate of exquisite stroganoff with homemade spaetzle dumplings and a cold beer.

Thank you, German lady. You were right.

A Home for Everyone. Part 2.

After my lack of success at feeding little Mateo, I wasn't sure what to do next...until the door slapped open with an explosive expulsion of tiny people, arms immediately going around K's and my waists, faces peering up at us with smiles and questions.

"Hello hello, what is your name?" They cried. "I am Luis."

I am Michi. I am Leonela. I am Antonio. I am Anita.

My name does not translate easily into Spanish, so somehow they took to calling me "Javier Loco." Crazy Javier. I can live with that.

The self-conscious awkwardness of our first hour was over, swept away by enthusiasm and exuberance. They hung from my arms, rode on my shoulders, and clung like giant shoes to my feet. I called them sacks of apples, threw them over my shoulder, and delivered them to each other. We giggled for the next eight hours...then looked at the clock to find it was actually about 2 hours.

How do people do this? Having 3 children on my shoulders was fun, and that giggling in your ears is a sublime soundtrack, but (as K has inexplicably started saying) we were knackered!

We took a break in town, ate tamales in someone's garage-restaurant and drank "tree tomato" smoothies. In the chaotic market, where indigena women in bowler hats sold exotic fruit and stern men parcelled out bleeding hunks of animals, we bought three dozen tangerines and a pair of plastic soccer balls, one yellow, one red.

Back at the orphanage a couple hands went for the fruit in my left hand, but every eye went to the ball in my right. An hour later it came back, split in half, while the other ball miraculously survived the day, though I doubted it'd see a second sunset. I tried not to think of the proper ball we'd lost in transit...

The balls were a big hit, but these kids don't need much to have fun. A sheet of imitation lego broken into three pieces served as cell phone, steering wheel, and plane ticket when we "flew" to France. Handfulls of grass bought the tickets, and everyone looked out the window at the giant birds, hoping as I did that they didn't eat planes for lunch.

Throughout the afternoon they took turns disappearing for their baths, returning in pajamas with wet hair to play in the dirt some more before dinner.

There was A, whose behavior problems are occassionally a threat to the harmony of the orphanage. B was addicted to pinching and pulling my leg hair with a mischevious grin (I can't blame her, she has probably never seen a monkey like me) and C who had a penchant for climbing as high as he could on the furniture and jumping off. D got attention by crying, and E took great care of him.

We called F "cookie monster" after she spent the afternoon chewing on the corner of the plastic bag holding her mashed-up cookies, most of which spilled out the open top. We had to give the little imp a nickname as we narrated for each other her capricious swings from sweet-faced innocence to flying-fisted devilry. "Did you see what cookie monster just did?"

Little girls ranging from 4 to 6ish, G, H, I, and J were absolute angels.

G's mouth shows the marks of major reconstructive surgery, probably a cleft palate, but her smile is pure exuberance, a gift no less precious for its frequency.

J rode around for a solid hour on my shoulders, giggling and participating in whatever game I suggested, and at one point chewing on my hair with a placid expression on her face while she grazed that made K laugh out loud, while I entreated her not to go back for seconds.

We slept that night under a Looney Tunes blanket, my head on a Tweetie Bird pillow, and woke to the sound of clamoring little voices and running feet downstairs...

A home for everyone.

Azogues is not in the guide book for Ecuador. A fifty-cent bus ride north of Cuenca, it's a pretty nice place, judging by my minimal exposure, but I don't think UNESCO is knocking on the door.

The ones who were knocking were K and I, on the door of an orphanage named "Un hogar para todos" which translates to "A home for everyone." Through the metal bars of the gate we could see a trampoline, a cracked plastic tricycle with purple pedals, and a few mismatched segments of doll bodies.

An orphanage is a rough place to be a doll.

Our knocks brought a stout woman, hair pulled back in a sensible bun, stains the size of children's streaking fingers all over the bottom foot of her red-striped shirt. She looked at us with polite caution, standing a few feet back from the gate.

"Good afternoon. Yes?"

"Good afternoon. We're...um...here to visit? We're the family of L----? We called yesterday? Is Nancy here?"

K's aunt and uncle adopted two children from this orphanage years ago, and was our connection to it. We were there to deliver some support, see the changes to the place over the last few years, and visit with good people.

Caution gave way to friendliness. As she showed us to our room, there didn't seem to be anyone else around. Just lots of doll crime scenes. She went back to the kitchen to continue making food, but for whom?

In one sunny room we found two severely developmentally disabled children laying on the mat, gazing up at the windows. They had soft smiles and seemed content, except one's face would occassionally contort and emit a blood-curdling scream before fading back into vague happiness.

K and I looked at each other, both with blank faces, rattled, both hoping the other would somehow make it all understandable.

In a small room next to the kitchen we found half a dozen small children, the 5 year olds helping to feed the younger. A row of 4 high chairs against the wall held four tiny boys who peered at K and I with the instinctive interest of the 1 year old, great big brown eyes.

We asked to help, and soon I was trying to spoon rice and small pieces of fish into Mateo, a cherub who preferred standing on the seat to sitting in it, and who was unenthusiastic about lunch. He preferred handing me an anonymous plastic piece of a broken toy, then asking for it back, at which point he'd wave it around before throwing it at me.

I managed to coax two bites in over the course of five minutes, and was feeling pretty good about myself when the blast came, lips blurbling and pieces of soggy rice and fish spraying all over the chair, floor, and me.

I am not a parent. This was a new experience for me.

I persevered, getting another bite in. Airplane noises and swooping spoons were useless, but I snuck a second one in when he yelled. Then, perhaps predictably, came the second blast. Sticky moist rice on my cheek. He was an unfamiliar contraption, and I wanted to beg "how do these things work?"

I did finally get one and a half mini-spoonfuls in before giving up, and letting one of the 5 year olds carry him off into the playground. I set the metal bowl of uneaten food on the table, not sure what to do next.

I didn't have long to wait before finding out...

Happy rebirthday, it's going to change your life.

When I turned 32 a couple weeks ago it wasn't a big deal, I was happy with a good navratan korma. But K's birthday yesterday...now that was a big deal. She turned....dumdumDUM...27!

Warning: my opinion to follow is a simplification/mis-statement of the "Saturn Return" in astrology, and/or the "sade sati" in Hindu Astrology, and/or probably other things, but you can please forgive me, and/or google those, and/or marvel at the transcultural unity of human experience. (I recommend all three.)

You're born. Your stars are perfectly aligned. As a child you just are yourself, and that's sublimely enough. You play with everyone, you eat what you want, cry when you want, and do what you want (within the bounds of parenting and circumstance of course). You just sort of wander around, learning every second (unless you're watching TV) and growing in every way.

13.5ish you hit puberty. My apologies. You pick a social archetype and cram yourself into it. Skater, Student, Artist, Stoner, Athlete, Hippy, Comedian, Beauty, Goth, whatever, choose your label and try to fit it, you poor tragic bastard. You play with those who chose compatible labels, eat what your archetype eats, and have whatever attitudes came in your prepackaged personality starter kit.

Personally, at 12-13 I started paying attention in school instead of entertaining my classmates, started running, and (hopefully) started treating people better. (I still owe a massive karmic debt to Blaine G, the kid I used to beat up in elementary school. I'm sorry Blaine!)

27ish (i.e. 13.5ish years later) you get This Thing. There's no arrival of acne, menses, facial hair, or any of that overt stuff, so it's harder to notice, but it's puberty 2.0, baby. Except with one major difference. Puberty sucks. This Thing is awesome.

If you're over 27, at that age did you start/end a relationship, get married, go back to school, have kids, start/quit a job? It's not everyone's path, and would be an oversimplification to assert otherwise, but there does seem to be a certain something...

For my part, I was a bit of a late bloomer, taking 27 to prepare, but quitting my job, dumping most of my possessions and heading to Europe on a one-way ticket early in 28 to discover this whole Traveling thing. Other cultures, places, and experiences. Homelessness by choice. The vulnerability and invincibility of the vagrant. (But that's another topic.)

Late 20's you STOP clinging to any vestiges of an archetype that no longer fit you. Peer Pressure doesn't influence your decisions very much (advertising and stupidity-on-a-societywide-scale are more topics for another day). You focus in and realize what you want to do, who you want to be. You can play with whoever you want, dammit, eat whatever you choose (significant difference from "want"), cry whenever you find it merited, etc.

Refreshing, isn't it? Let's go play football with the Nerds, smoke pot with the Students, and apply for graduate school with the Stoners.

But wait, there's more. Much better would be to divide each of those phases in the middle, and make it ~7 year cycles.

At 7ish I got a proper bicycle and began exploring the world around me with some degree of independence (this was the Good Old Days when we weren't as afraid of each other). At 20 I had fully left my childhood home and set up one of my own, entering into my first mature romantic relationship.

Increments of 7 do a better job of explaining the "27 Club" of musicians who die at that age; maybe they experienced that last phase so deeply and addictively that the tacit/subconscious feeling of its ending was unacceptable, or maybe unnecessary.

The Saturn Return of Astrology is about this, tying in to Saturn's orbit, though that takes 29.4 years (so yay! We're overachievers!) The Hindu sati sade on the other hand is structured around a circuit of 7.5 years. Darn those Indians, first yoga, now this? They think of all the answers. (Then forget them, but that too is another topic.)


To Sum Up.

Phase 1 (0-7ish): Childhood. You're a child, learning and just being one of those. Toys, cake, and swimming pools!
Phase 1.5 (7-14ish): Advanced Childhood. Your personality is emerging more strongly, in rough draft form, fits and starts.

Phase 2 (14-20ish): Adolescence: You diferentiate from everyone else...well, a large percentage of everyone else, anyway. Fun, horrible, exciting, terrifying, boring, exhilarating, and of course: confusing.
Phase 2.5 (2-27ish): Young adulthood. You have calmed down from the vicissitudes of puberty. Your perceptions, conversations, and relationships improve and clarify. Golden Years.

Phase 3 (27ish-?): Adulthood: You have figured out who you are and can make your own choices. The bullshit habits fall away. Your plumage is bright and beautiful. Congratulations, the music is for you. (Kinda makes me wonder what happens at 40ish. Gives more validity to the often-maligned Midlife Crisis, no? Maybe all those red convertibles aren't just about declining libidos and bald spots...)

So I propose a great Cosmic Toast to K, and to all the 27ish year olds (+/- 7.5 year increments). Happy rebirthday!

Good morning, can I interest you in a transcendent moment?

I guess in love with it is a good way to start a day.

Turns out breakfast on the Andiamo was whatever you could rummage up by yourself, and I wrapped the sublime joy of waking up in a place like that around myself  like a protective blanket during my breakfast of a white (white!) bread sandwich filled with 2 individually wrapped slices of that petroleum-product “American cheese.”

“Andiamo” means “let’s go!” in Italian, but we had redubbed her the Spettiamo (“we wait”) or the Princessa Sedentaria, and again, if I started to feel impatient with the lack of movement, I just had to remind myself of the color of the water, the shape of the palm trees, and the smiles of my shipmates.

I was playing cards with those shipmates when Jessica pointed over my shoulder and exclaimed “dolphins!”

2.6 seconds later I was in the water, swimming that way as quickly and softly as I could, although there is nothing like a dolphin to remind you of how clumsy humans really are in water. I had seen some dolphin fins outside the reef the day before, but didn’t think they’d come inside the lagoon. The water in there was surprisingly murky, and as I peered into the gloom, my mind saw all sorts of shapes about to emerge from the silt, but none of them quite did.

Then I heard it, the clicking sound of dolphin sonar.

Then I saw it, a shape of unimaginable grace and power, swimming straight towards me before curving and twisting downwards in a corkscrew to pursue a fish.

Good morning. I’m swimming with wild dolphins.