DEAR READERS

I started this blog about six months ago and have written 36 articles, most of them accompanied by lots of photographs. So far, the site has received more than 400 hits and I want to express my deepest gratitude for the interest that you have shown.

But...who are you?  I don't really have a way to know.  So, this is what I'd like you to do.

Everytime that you read any of my posts, please click at the bottom of it where it says "O Comments".  A box will appear and on it you can write anything that you want (criticize my article, correct my grammar or ask any questions) and write your name (and e-mail if you wish).  This way I can add your name to my Last Will and Testament. That's how much I'll appreciate it.  THANKS.

TRIP TO PANAMA

PANAMA or, better said, the REPUBLIC OF PANAMA, is the southernmost country of Central America and, in turn, North America.  It borders Costa Rica to the northwest, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the north and the Pacific Ocean to the south.  The capital is Panama City.  The official currency is the Balboa, which now consists only of coins with the same size and value of the American coins.  All the bills are US dollars.
The Spaniard Vasco Núñez de Balboa was the first one to arrive at the Atlantic side of the isthmus and walk the 50 miles to the south and see, for the first time, the Pacific Ocean. 
Panama was part of the Spanish Empire for 300 years (1538/1821).  The first settlement in Panama was totally burned and destroyed by the pirate Francis  Drake.  The site was then moved to another location less vulnerable to the constant attacks from the pirates.  The first settlement is now known as Panama Vieja, the second as Casco Antiguo and the modern site is called Panama City.
In the first eighty years following independence from Spain, The Panama Canal is, of course, the main tourist attraction in the country.  This astonishing engineering feat, recently named one of the seven wonders of the modern world, is really something that has to be seen to admire its magical attraction.
Bruni and I spent a fabulous week in Panama, from July 17 to the 27th. of July of 2010.  The first thing that attracts your attention on the ride from the airport is the amount of modern tall buildings and so many others (more than a hundred) now under construction. 
After breakfast on Sunday, they took us to Panama Viejo.  Only a few scattered ruins remain of what was once a beautiful town.  We visited the ruins of the cathedral and the four-story tower, where a new spiral stairway was built to allow visitors to climb to the top and enjoy the fantastic view.
We then visited the Miraflores Locks and the Canal Museum.  This was our first sight of the astonishing canal and the view of it leaves anyone perplexed in awe with this incredible engineering marvel.  Monday morning we visited the towns of Portobello and Colón.  Portobello is the oldest on the Caribbean side and it is a pity that it is not well kept, for it has some interesting sites.  First, it is the cathedral which boasts an image of "the Black Christ", a statue with a singular story.  The fort by the bay is big but also in need of better maintenance. 
Colón is the biggest disappointing town.  It is the second largest Free Trade Zone in the world, with hundreds of storage buildings.  It houses 1,750 merchants and receives more than 250,000 visitors a year from all over the world.  But the crime rate is the biggest in all of Panama. Hotels, nice neighborhoods and the Trade Zone itself are surrounded by tall walls or barbed wire.   After lunch there, we were treated to a fashion show by some local beauties.
Our hotel for tonight, the Radisson, is in the middle of a rain forest.  This hotel opened just a few months ago and it was the most beautiful of all of them.  After dinner, we again enjoyed a fantastic dancing group. 
The third day, Tuesday, we experienced the best adventure.  We embarked on a small vessel that took us from the Gatun Lake in Gamboa, through the Pedro Miguel and Miraflores locks.  We also crossed the Continental Divide.  At one point, while the chamber was at the lowest level of water, we were able to touch the concrete wall of the canal.  This fascinating journey took about four hours and was an exciting and unforgettable event.  Definitely the highlight of the whole trip.
Early morning on Wednesday, we  crossed the Chagres River to visit an indigenous village.  We were welcomed by the Embera Indians with a typical musical group.  The men dress with "taparrabos", a small strip of fabric covering their essentials; the girls are usually naked from the waist up but cover their breasts with a beautiful embroidered chest cover adorned with silver coins, in order to entertain us with their dances.  There were about 10 children that skipped school that day to meet us...and make some money. They were also dressed in their skimpy attires, very clean and extrremely courteous, offering hibiscus flowers to all the ladies present. 
After this unforgettable experience, we headed for a two day stay at the all-inclusive Playa Blanca Resort to relax and enjoy the beach, the pools and the splendid buffets.  We found out that a plastic bag in our closet was to collect the humidity from the room.  It was full with about a cup of water that had been extracted in just one day.  All in all, Panama is the most humid place that we have ever visited. 
On Thursday morning, we visited picturesque El Valle, a town situated in the crater of a dormant volcano.  The small zoo there, called "Níspero", was started with the wild animals that used to belong to dictator Manuel Noriega.
On Friday, we left our beach resort and drove on the famous Pan-American Road, which starts here in Panama and goes all the way to Canada, crossing the Bridge of the Americas on our way to Panama City. We stopped at Amador Island, where we had a very appetizing seafood lunch at an elegant restaurant overlooking the bay and the skyline of Panama City.
Saturday morning, our last day in Panama, we visited a Bird Sanctuary and another Zoo which was located inside a vast Botanical Garden that was very interesting.  The biggest attraction there was a Harp Eagle, the national bird of Panama.
The farewell dinner was full of surprises.  First, it was at the private room in the Miraflores Lock observatory building.  The food was exquisite and then Gerardo, our tour director, startled us with a fantastic show, the best of them all: a dancing group of four Panamanian girls dressed in "polleras", the typical attire, and four men that were masters of the "zapateo".   The group was accompanied by a troupe of five musicians.  A really spectacular way to finish our Panama Adventure!

COPPER CANYON, MEXICO

Mexico is a land of colorful contrasts. From golden sand beaches to snow peak volcanoes, from blue lakes to dark green mountains.  There are many modern cities and poor little towns; extremely rich people living in lush mansions and Indian tribes barely subsisting in the countryside. Its traditions, music,  culture, art and craftmaship have fascinated tourists for centuries. 

Barrancas del Cobre (Copper Canyon) is a unique area, located in the Tarahumara Mountains of Northwest Mexico.  It takes two and a half days from Brownsville, TX, to arrive at the famous canyon, but it is worth the effort.

Alison, our 10-year-old granddaughter, accompanied us. We booked the trip with GO WITH JO, a travel agency from Harlingen.  The road passes through very interesting landscapes, starting with the Chihuahua desert, the largest in North America, with approximately 145,000 square miles.  For many years this was a typical desert, very dry and almost barren of any kind of vegetation; but in the last couple of years it has received a lot of rain and now you can see big areas covered with recent rain water and heavy brush, such as agave, creosote bush, lechugilla, mesquite, prickly pear, yuccca and sotol.  This last plant is used by the natives to produce a light beer.  The fauna has also improved dramatically and now you can find, besides snakes and mice, rabbits, frogs, road runners, deer and other animals.

Our first stop was in Chihuahua, where we visited the Government Palace, which occupies a whole block. It has beautiful murals, one of them depicting the firing by squad of father Hidalgo, the founder of the Mexican revolution, an event that happened right there in the city of Chihuahua.

The colobnial cathedral has very intricate stone walls outside.  The huge wooden doors show the passage of time and make them unique.

The next morning we boarded El Chepe, the famous train that goes from Chihuahua to El Mochis, near the Pacific coast.  This train, labeled "the world's most scenic railroad", is indeed a spectacular ride.  This engineering marvel took 90 years and 90 million dollars to complete.  It is over 390 miles long and crosses 39 bridges and 86 tunnels. We took it for just half of the length, to the town of Divisadero, our destination.

It was raining heavily when we arrived there and we had to run to our hotel, a charming example of rustic architecture.  The entrance door is carved with the figure of a Tarahumara woman.  Our room is located in a two-story building, right at the edge of the canyon. We inmediately opened the patio door but were disappointed because we just could see the heavy fog that had developed after the rain.  

The area known as the Copper Canyon is actually a series of 20 canyons, formed over the years by six rivers.  It is at least seven times the size of Arizona's Gran Canyon!

Right outside the main entrance door of the hotel there is a small Indian market, attended only by women.  These Tarahumara women are fantastic basket weavers and their merchandise is very inexpensive.  Most of them are working while carrying their babies wrapped in a blanket in their backs.  They talk very little and usually don't like to negotiate the prices.  I felt ashamed when one of our travel companions complained about this custom.  Considering the low price and fact that these poor people need a couple of dollars much more than we do, I never haggled with  them about the price.

In the afternoon, the view of the canyon from our appartment was astonishing.

After a delicious breakfast the following morning, we walked about one mile to see a Tarahumara dwelling, which consisted of a cave with a rudimentary stone wall.  There was a spring nearby and the water looked pretty dirty.  Our guide explained to us that the natives drink it without a problem but if any of us dared to taste it we would probably get sick.  There is a great mortality rate among the Tarahumara children.  The adults also live a short spam of years and when a husband dies, their house is destroyed and his wife and children have to move to another place.  Another curious custom is that after a person dies, he is never referred to by his name, but by a reference, like "the one with brown eyes" or "the one that had a fat belly", etc.

Most of the Indian women and children that we encountered spoke fluent Spanish, besides their own dialect.  They are courteous and talk very low, and they don't like to be photographed without their permission, unless you buy something from them.

After lunch, we visited a little Indian town with its own  Catholic church.  There was another market there and I bought a beautiful face mask made  out of different stones.  We also bought a delicate basket that was double-walled, so the inside is different from the outside.  We also watched a show in open air of some Tarahumara men singing, dancing and playing a guitar and a home-made violin. They also performed a race, running and kicking a wooden ball.

Then we walked a short distance to the most visited spot of the area, the balancing rock.  It is a big rock (about six by ten feet) that rocks with your movements when you stand on top .  After our guide stepped on it and started to balance it, nobody wanted to climb it, since it is a fall of more than 2,000 feet to the bottom.  I  had to prove my Cuban macho way -over the objection of my wife- and then Alison said that she wanted to do it also.  She did it with the help of our guide, never showing any sign of fear, very proud to be an Alvarez.  After that, she was nicknamed "la chiva" (the goat).

Alison was dying to ride a horse and we went with a guide to the highest peak in the area, about 7,800 feet high, from where we could see our hotel below us and the bottom of the canyon way, way down.

It started to rain and we could hear some thunder in the distance.  I was afraid that the horses could startle and throw Alison out of her mount, but she proved to be an expert rider, even though it was her first time.

On our return trip we stopped at the little town of Creel, named after the engineer that started the construction of the railroad.  We arrived back in Chihuahua in the early afternoon and visited the Museum of Pancho Villa.  Born Doroteo Arango Arámbula in San Juan del Río, Durango, in the year 1877, Villa is remembered as both a bandit and a revolutionary hero.  He is memorialized with pride along the northern states.  The museum is located in the house were he lived with his latest wife.  It also exhibits the bullet riddled car where he was riding when he was assassinated on his way to his house in Parral, Coahuila, on July 23, 1923.

We stopped at a rustic Mennonite restaurant where we had the most delicious meal of the whole trip and also made a stop at a cheese factory near the city of Cuauhtemoc, also run by the Mennonites.

After that, we visited Casa Madero Winery in Parra, Coahuila, the oldest winery in the northern hemisphere.  Because of this last stop, which was not in the itinerary, we arrived four hours late to our designated hotel, which was probably the most interesting of them all.  Rincón del Montero is a hotel that consists of several buildings in about 200 acres of land. Ali and I were looking forward to this place so we could ride horses again, but by the time we arrived there the stables were already closed.

We stopped in Parra again next morning to visit the Nuestra Señora del Madero church, which is located at the top of a hill.

Our next obligatory stop was at Saltillo to buy pan de pulque, a sweet bread that is spiced with pulque, the poor people's Mexican beer.

We arrived at the border under very heavy rain.  The streets were flooded and the line of cars to cross the bridge was long and slow.  Nevertheless, we were ordered to take all our belongings from the bus and walk under the rain until we entered the building where an Immigration officer asked just a couple of questions and we were then able to board the bus at the other side of the building.

I think that Alison will never forget this adventure as long as she lives and Bruni and I really enjoyed her company and her innocent way of doing things.  She made friends with a big dog that was always roaming around along the Divisadero hotel and when we boarded the bus there the dog accompanied her to the last minute.  It they had let her, she would have taken him with her.

This was our bonding trip with our beautiful granddaughter.

TEXAS WILDFLOWERS

After an unusually long and cold winter, the heavy rains came down in record-breaking abundance.  So, spring showed its glorious beauty in a profusion of color along the Texas roads.  By clicking on the photo section above, you can enjoy some views of this extravagant demonstration of Nature's magic.  These photographs were taken during April and June of 2010 along a few expressways, mainly 77, 35 and 37.  The best spot was on the northbound lane of Highway 37, between Natalia and Devine, just 30 miles south of San Antonio.

Every spring the roadside of most of Texas highways display a variety of different wildflowers. First come the Indian paintbrush, then the bluebonnets (the national flower of Texas) then dozens of different flowers in all sizes and colors, with just one common denominator, the exuberant abundance of them.  It is a show that have to be seen to believe it.

It all started with the ambition of a dedicated woman, Lady Bird Johnson, wife of  President Lyndon Johnson.  After his term was over and they moved back to Texas, she commenced with the beautification of Austin, the capital.  All the parks and gardens received a long-needed restoration, and thousands of flowers were planted to achieve her purpose.  In 1969 Mrs. Johnson founded the Texas Highway Beautification Awards, and millions of wildflowers seeds were scattered along the roadsides.  For the next twenty years, she hosted the annual awards ceremonies and presented her personal checks to the winners.

As the flowers die and the seeds are spread around by the winds, the increment for the next spring is guaranteed.  Because of the heavy rains, this year spring manifestation was spectacular. 

Maybe next year it will be even better.

CHIAPAS, MEXICO

CHIAPAS is Mexico's southernmost state.  It borders the Pacific Ocean in the south and Guatemala in the east.   The vegetation varies from tropical savanna to rain forest.  Most of the state's inhabitants are mestizos, but one third are pure Indians.  There are more than thirty Indian tribes, all speaking a different dialect, but they use Spanish to communicate between themselves.

Chiapas has little industry but is second only to Veracruz among Mexican states in value of agricultural output, producing more coffee, cacao and bananas than any other state.  The river Grijalva, flowing across the center of the state, generates more electricity at several huge dams than any other river in Mexico.  One third of this electricity is exported to Guatemala, Honduras and Belize.  It is inconceivable that in this electricity and water rich state, half the homes have neither electricity nor running water.  Rates of illiteracy and infant mortality are the highest in Mexico as well.

HISTORY: Chiapas has always been intimately connected with Guatemala. Pre-Hispanic civilizations flourished in what is now the Chiapas-Guatemala border, and for most of the Spanish colonial era Chiapas was governed from Guatemala.

During the classic Maya era (approximately 250 to 900 AD) the jungle-covered Chiapas gave rise to splendid Maya city-states, such as Palenque, Yaxchilán, Bonampak and Toniná.

Central Chiapas was brought under Spanish control by the 1528 expedition of Diego de Mazariegos, who defeated the dominant, warlike Chiapa people. The Spaniards, though, could never gain control over the scattered inhabitants of the Lacandón Jungle.

In 1821, newly independent Mexico annexed Spain's former Central American provinces (including Chiapas) but the United Provinces of Central America declared their independence when Mexican emperor Agustín de Iturbide was overthrown in 1823.

Since then, a succession of governors appointed by Mexico City, along with local landowners, have maintained an almost feudal control over the state.  Periodic uprisings and protests bore witness to bad government, but the world took little notice until January 1, 1994, when a group calling itself Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) briefly occupied San Cristóbal de las Casas and nearby towns by military force.  The Zapatistas, fighting for a fairer deal for indigenous peoples, won widespread support around and beyond Mexico, but no real concessions.  Nowadays, due to a tight Mexican army noose around their areas of strongest support in Chiapas, lack of Indian assistance and other harassments, they maintain a mainly political campaign for democratic change.  The truth is that, same as Che Guevara's revolutionary efforts in Africa and South America, Comandante Marco's upheaval has proved to be a total failure.

THE TRIP: Our son Allen and his girlfriend Aixa were working at a hospital in Tuxtla Gutierrez, the capital, about 32 miles from their house in San Cristóbal, but it takes more than an hour driving on this ever-climbing dangerous road which has 487 curves and many speed bumps.

San Cristóbal de las Casas is a typical colonial town, with adobe and red tile one-story houses.  Its 100,000 inhabitants enjoy a year-long mild climate at an elevation of 7,000 feet.

The tourists rewards come from rambling the narrow, stone streets, discovering its many fascinating and pretty nooks and corners, visiting the unusual nearby villages and absorbing the unique atmosphere and the romantic sound of marimbas always permeating the air. 

Most of the tourists come from France and Germany.  The hotel infrastructure in Chiapas may disappoint the American taste.  There are dozens of hotels in San Cristóbal, but none of the category of a Ramada or Holiday Inn, not even close to a Motel 6.  Dinner at any "good" restaurant may cost about $4.00.  We found only one excellent brand new steak house during our ten days there.

Shopping for hand-made embroidered blouses and dresses is very enticing.  Around the Santo Domingo Church there is a daily indigenous market, where they offer their merchandise at very reasonable prices.  These are all Tzotzil Indians that make a living with their artistic abilities.  The most sought out merchandise in San Cristóbal is the jewelry made of amber which was discovered just a few years ago in the mountains of Chiapas and now is an enormous business.  Prices are half of the Balkans amber that you can purchase in the States.

The most prominent of the small hills over which San Cristóbal undulates are the tree-covered Cerro de San Cristóbal, at the soutwest border of town, and the Cerro de Guadalupe, seven blocks east of the main plaza.  Both are reached by steps from Calle Allende, and they are crowned by churches.  The panoramic views from both points are fascinating.

It seems that wherever you go in San Cristobal (indeed in the whole state) you encounter more Indians than in any other place in Mexico. They are usually dressed on their typical multicolored garments and are very nice to you, although highly sensitive about letting you taking their photograph.  The old ladies, especially, cover their heads with their shawls as soon as they see a camera.  Young children even shoot their finger at you!

We took a side trip to the Cascadas de Montebello region, where there are about 40 lakes, although only a few are easily accessible.  The Laguna Esmeralda had the most beautiful green color and we took a ride on a raft made out of cork tree trunks.

The Carretera Fronteriza passes near San Cristóbal and goes along the Mexico-Guatemala border.  It was built just a few years ago with several purposes in mind.  First, to be able to move Army troops and control the Zapatistas; second, to guard against the drug contraband and illegal immigration; and third, to make the attractive Mayan temples more accessible to tourists. 
Another side trip was to the village of San Juan Chamula, just 6 miles from San Cristóbal. It has a population of a little over 2,000, all of them Tzotzil Indians. This tribe is the largest of the Maya descendants -about 80,000 strong.  The village is the center of some unique religious practices.  A big sign at the entrance to town strictly forbids photography inside the village catholic church.   Chamulans revere St. John the Baptist above Christ, and his image occupies a more important place in the church.  Inside, the rows and rows of burning candles have caused the altar and ceiling to turn black with the smoke.  Curanderos (spiritual healers) may be rubbing patients' bodies with eggs.  The floor is totally covered with pine needles for this reason: if an evil spirit is exorcised by a curandero, anybody that is not standing over the pine-needle carpet might get the bad spirit.  Coca-Cola also occupies an important place in the Chamulan cosmography -it facilitates burping in church, which is considered to expel evil spirits and is encouraged by the priests.  The worshipers also drink posh, a hard liquor made from sugar cane (very similar to Bacardi rum).

After visiting Allen and Aixa's hospital in Tuxtla Gutierrez, we took a minibus to Chiapa de Corzo, about 15 minutes away.  This is the town where the famous and colorful Chiapaneca dresses are made, and there is a statue at the entrance of town advertising this fact.

The town has a charming big plaza with an elaborate castle-like brick fountain in Mudéjar-Gothic style, known as La Pila, said to resemble the crown of the Spanish monarch.

Two blocks from the plaza is the embarcadero (dock) where we took a motor boat to see the Cañón del Sumidero, a high canyon on the river Grijalva.  It looks very much like a Norweian fjord, with  almost vertical mountains left and right.  We also saw the highest peak on the left side of the river (about 3,000 feet high) from which the Indians hurled themselves by the hundreds -men, women and children- rather than to surrender to the Spanish conquerors and become slaves.

The road from San Cristobal to Palenque is, of course, along mountains.  Curves and speed bumpers galore.  It took us three hours to get to this, the most important and largest of the Mayan cities.

The 500 buildings are spread over 15 square kilometers, but only a relatively few, in a fairly compact central area, have been excavated.  You have to close your eyes and try to picture the gray moldy stone edifices as they would have been at the peak of Palenque power, painted bright red.  The forest around is home to toucans, ocelots and monkeys.  The most interesting building is the Palacio de las Inscripciones, which doesn't advertise its best secret.  Only a few people that know about it get a permit from the museum (about two km. away) to see the tomb of king Pakal.  Only recently it was discovered that the triangle-shape stone at the end of the hall was the door to the tomb.  The sarcophagus has a huge rock on top with an intricate relief design depicting the figure of the king and other members of his family.

Palenque is an unforgettable experience.  The admirable architecture of the many buildings in the middle of the jungle (where the vast majority of edifices are still buried) makes you wonder how these people could have built such an amazing community.  Nobody can explain how this powerful, intelligent, hard working race came to disappear all of a sudden.  All we can do now is watch in awe at the marvel that once was the Maya empire.

Bonampak, famous for its frescoes, is settled in the dense Lacandón rain forest, which hid from the outside world until 1946.  Bonampak (which means painted walls in Yucatecan Maya) is not as big as Palenque but holds something unique among the Mayan communities. One of the temples has three walls covered all around with murals of portraits of Indians, in full color.  Some of the frescoes are almost unintelligible now.  It is a crime indeed that these frescoes are not been taken care of (with A/C or plastic sheeting or any other method of preservation) for it won't be long before this remarkable expression of antique unique art completely disappears forever.

About one hour from Bonampak, we arrived at the town of Frontera Corozal, where we boarded a boat to take us through the Usumacinta River to the ruins of Yaxchilán.  The ride takes about one hour and you can see the country of Guatemala just a few meters away on the right side of the river.  Yaxchilán is settled in the middle of a delta in the river. It is also very impressive and the steps to get to the top of the main temple are high and arduous.  It is only recently that this Maya city has been open to the tourists as it was far away and the only way to get to it was by boat or hiking. 

On the road home we stopped at Agua Clara, a river that has the most appealing water color.  It boasts a high and long hanging bridge, which also looks very dangerous, as many of the wood planks are missing or broken.  From there, it was to another famous Chiapas spot, about half an hour away.  The magnificent waterfalls of Agua Azul.  The water is also blue-turquoise.

I hope that you enjoyed this journey to what is, probably, the most beautiful state of Mexico.

WEDDING IN RINCON

The first reaction of almost all the bride's and groom's relatives, when we heard about the plans for their wedding in Rincon, Puerto Rico, was "Why in Rincon?"  They live in Washington, DC, and the rest of us live in various cities of the United States, far from Puerto Rico.  We all had to fly to San Juan and rent a car there to take us to Rincon, just 93 miles away (but it takes more than three hours to get there because of the traffic jams and so many lights crossing the little towns).  After finally arriving at our destination and examining the premises, we all agreed to the answer to "why in Rincon?  And it was a unanimous "WHY NOT?"

If Rincon is not paradise, it sure is very close to it. I'm sure that Adam and Eve didn't have it any better.  The Rincon Ocean Villa, the big mansion where we stayed, is a marvelous edifice with all the amenities of a five star hotel.  The colonial style villa underwent a luxurious remodeling in 2008 and it is now an amazing building.  The ample bedrooms with 10-ft ceilings are very comfortable, all with their own patios or balconies; the bathroom floors and walls are tiled with marble; the grand staircase in the front is a photographer's delight and the square open courtyard in the center of the building, with its beautiful fountain, is just the perfect spot for a romantic wedding.  There is a tall tower that can be reached by a spiral stairway where you can enjoy a fascinating 360 degree panorama, with the blue ocean to the west and the green mountains to the east. On top of that, the building is maintained by the friendliest staff you could ever meet.  The 65-ft pool with Jacuzzi is located between the back side of the building and the beach.  And what can we say about the beach with its golden sand, smooth waves and all shaded with coconut and almond trees?
The town of Rincon is located at the most western point of Puerto Rico and it was founded in 1771 by Don Luis Añasco. Although it has a population of just 17,000 people, it is the third richest municipality on the island, after Carolina and San Juan.  The tiny village was not on the map until the 1968 World Surfing Championship, which was held at the Domes Beach, just north of town.  Since then, surfers from all over the world have been visiting Rincon in search of that perfect wave.  In 2007, another competition took place there and a local surfer by the name of Juan Ashton won first place in the masters division.  Dubbed as "the Caribbean Pipeline", winter waves can reach up to 25 feet in height, equaling those at Oahu's North Shore.
This little town is known as "Puerto Rico's best beach town" and also as "la ciudad de los bellos atardeceres" (the city of beautiful sunsets) a title that we could testify to.  Like most of the towns in Puerto Rico, it is very clean and the buildings are kept well painted and maintained.  A little farther north we found a lighthouse, called "Faro de Punta Higüero", which was built in 1892.  It was destroyed by a hurricane in 1918 and rebuilt three years latter.  It has been in continued operation since then.
The wedding of Sal Velazquez and Julia Bright was an inspiring ceremony, officiated by Pastor Kirk Ballin, from the church that Julia and her family used to attend in Roanoke, Va.  It was witnessed by 35 relatives and friends.  Some couldn't hold the tears, including the groom.  But it was a very thrilling occasion and I, for one, felt much honored to have attended it.  After the idyllic ceremony, a succulent dinner was served around the pool and afterward we all danced to the rhythm of a lively local salsa group.

We wish Sal and Julia eternal happiness and that God continue to shed his blessings upon them...and their many future children.

A wedding in Rincon?...WHY NOT!

 

SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO

The state of New Mexico is located in the Southwestern region of the United Sates.  It has been inhabited by Native Americans for many centuries.  It has the highest percentage of Hispanics (45%) and is also the third state with the highest Native American population.

The capital of New Mexico is Santa Fe, which was established at the foot of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains around 1608.  The largest city is Albuquerque.  One of the largest rivers is Rio Grande, which flows into the Gulf of Mexico, near South Padre Island.

During the World War II, the first atomic bombs were designed and manufactured in Los Alamos, near Santa Fe.  The estate population grew rapidly after WWII, going from around 530,000 in 1940 to almost two million today.  The major employment areas are in microelectronics, call centers and Indian casinos.  It is also a leading crude oil and natural gas producer.

My good friend and Masonic brother Tom Ball invited me to visit Santa Fe and I gladly accepted.   Santa Fe is a unique town and there are several determinant facts that confirm this reality.  First of all, the architecture is different.  The original buildings in Santa Fe were made of adobe, an earth color material composed of clay and straw, with round edges and buttresses at the base.  Nowadays, the majority of the buildings have that appearance, although now they are made of concrete but keeping a similar exterior appearance and painted with the same brownish color.  Secondly, there are no high-rises allowed inside the city, and the streets are usually narrow and curved, making the town very picturesque.  And third, the art is just indescribably good, with more than two hundred galleries testifying to that effect.
I have visited many galleries and museums before, but I found that the fine paintings and sculptures in this area surpass any other that I have seen.  It was a feast for the eyes and an uplifting experience that inspired me to try to create better paintings in the future.
We parked our rental car at a shopping area where most of the buildings are galleries. The first one had a colored bronze statue of an Indian girl with a cape that welcomes the visitors outside the entrance.  The delicate design of the beaded moccasins, the intricate folds of the cloth cape and the exact details of the whole sculpture defies description.  It is simply amazing.  After this, my first impression of the quality of art in Santa Fe, the obligatory next step was to walk along Canyon Road, a few blocks filled with art galleries.  I had assumed that the first galleries were the best that I was going to see, but I was in for a big surprise.  It looked that every new gallery surpassed the last one in quality.  I could have spent the whole week visiting all the galleries in Canyon Road, but time was limited.  You need at least one month to really appreciate the magnitude of the exceptional art in Santa Fe.
There is a diversity of fine restaurants in Santa Fe and I found the cuisine distinctively exquisite.
One intriguing visit was to the Loretto Church, which is now closed for worshipping but open for tourists.  The two-floor building holds one of the most puzzling mysteries ever told.  The story goes that the nuns of the church were having difficulties in climbing by ladder to the choir stand, high across the room, facing the altar.  They advertised for a carpenter, but every one that came told them that there was not enough room to build a staircase.  One fateful morning, an old carpenter showed up and explained to them that he could build a spiral stairway.  And so he did.  He made a perfectly symmetrical circular stairway that defies all engineering techniques. I doesn't have a supporting column in the center!  It really looks like a miracle that this tall structure doesn't fall.  The story ends with the disappearance of the carpenter, who never charged the nuns for his marvelous work.
The St. Francis Cathedral which, contrary to Spanish tradition, is not across the central park, was commissioned in the year 1869, but it took more than 15 years to complete.  It is built in the French Romanesque style but it has some inexplicable Moorish windows which makes it more attractive.
The Palace of the Governors, built in 1610, is an adobe structure across the Plaza of Santa Fe, which served as the seat of government in New Mexico for centuries.  It is the oldest continuously occupied public building in the United Sates. 
The tallest building in the city is the Hotel La Fonda, which occupies a whole city block and resembles an Indian pueblo. 
After a couple of days in Santa Fe, we went to visit the little town of Taos, but this merits another posting.  We also drove out of town to see the Rio Grande Gorge and the bridge across it. This bridge is a cantilever truss structure. At 650 feet above the river and with a span of 1,280 feet, it is the fifth highest bridge in the United States.  The view of the river down below is breathtaking.  The bridge has appeared in several films including, Natural Born Killers, Twins, Wild Hogs and others.  It has also been the site of several suicides.  We also visited the Moreno Valley, with its placid lake and surrounded by snow-capped mountains.  A narrow, twisting road along the Cimarron River, took us to the very impressive Palisades, with is part of the Cimarron Canyon State Park.
Back in Santa fe, we visited what I concluded was the finest of all the art galleries.  Some galleries have patios with some sculptures, but this one was more than a patio, it was like a park, with a big pond full of fish, turtles and ducks, including a couple of waterfalls.  And with more than forty sculptures of different subjects and sizes. It was really out of this world!
No trip to Santa Fe is complete without eating at the Coyote Cafe.  I found the lunch superb, with generous portions and a reasonable price.  The local amber beer was fine too.  The restaurant is just half a block from the plaza and another typical restaurant, Pascual's, famous for its delicious breakfasts.
All in all, it was a fantastic trip.  The company couldn't be better, the food was extraordinaire, the views were overwhelming and  the accommodations were first class.  But the art was, definitely, the highlight of the four-day trip.  Now I understand why my good friend Tom keeps going back.

You can clip on NEW MEXICO PHOTOS by J. Alvarez to enjoy the views.

PAINTINGS

I have a few talents.  In order to prevent the accusation of being a bragger, I must first analyze and explain the word to you.  According to Mr. Webster, talent is "a special natural ability."  He also describes the meaning of natural as "the inherent ability of a person in a certain area."  In other words, I was born with certain abilities to do something special.  I am going to expose today one of these talents of which I am very proud. 

I learned the first lessons in painting when I was a child from my father, who used to draw with pencils and was good at it.  But it was the Almighty who bestowed this talent on me, and for that I thank him every day.

My very first serious attempt at this art happened when I was about 18 years old.  I drew a charcoal portrait of my 92 year old grandfather, with all his deep wrinkles, and exposed it at the local annual Community Fair.  The following day, everybody in my small town was congratulating him for the fine piece of art and myself for the realistic composition.  When I learned to paint with oils, my favorite medium, I created the same portrait, this time in color.

It was in the year 1960, when I moved to Miami, that I started to experiment with oil.  One of my first jobs was in a dog trimming salon and a beautiful gray poodle was my first model.  I regret so much loosing that painting.

Then I moved to New Jersey and the first year there I visited the Greenwhich Village Art Show, in New York city, which attracted over 800 artists from all over the world to this important outdoor exhibit, which was opened for two weekends in the Spring and in the Fall.  I brought my first paintings the following year and, although I was designated to a far away corner, I managed to sell four paintings.

I noticed that eighty percent of the artists there concentrated on landscapes and still lifes, so I created a "different" style, sort of impressionistic-surrealistic type of paintings.  The next exhibit I almost sold out.  I realized that I had to do something so this wouldn't happen again.  I converted one of my rooms into a permanent studio and worked almost every night to be ready for the next show.  I worked hard and very long hours and, when the time came, I was ready.  I only created six or eight paintings...but about ten of each. The attractive, colorful paintings sold like hot potatoes.  It was really mass production and, you might say, the prostitution of the art for the sake of the pocket.  It wasn't really art, it was a business. But I was poor then and I needed the money. After nine years of doing it (and finally hating it) I moved to Texas and didn't paint for ten years.

I was wondering one day if I still had the ability, so I painted a close-up of a flower from one of my color slides.  "Now I can paint whatever I like," I thought, "and I don't care if it sells or not."  At last I wasn't so desperate for money.

I have created, in the last twenty years, dozens of art pieces based on the hundreds of transparencies that I have taken, and I'm very proud of my work.

 

MIAMI BEACH

Ah... Miami Beach! The principal destination of the tourists from the North who are looking for the pleasant climate of its golden beaches. It is safe to say that Miami Beach was created from nothing.  Before the 1900's, two thirds of what it is today a fascinating metropolis, were only mangroves and almost all the little islands disappeared with the tide.  Big canals were then made through intensive drainage and the sand from these canals were utilized to raise the level of the land.  Soon they started building houses, roads and bridges to the main land.  The fame about the place where "the sun shines 360 days a year" reached the rest of the nation and the immigration from the cold areas was fast and contagious.

In 1960, when I arrived at the Florida shores, Miami Beach was still a quiet, unimpressive town, full of old Jewish people.  You couldn't see anybody after ten o'clock at night.  Today, at three in the morning there are still cars full of young people arriving to enjoy the innumerable amount of restaurants and night clubs.
Working as a bus boy at the Deauville hotel, I finally could save enough money to buy my first small car, a 52' Ford that couldn't run faster than 50 miles an hour.
One day, returning from my job, I was driving through Collins Avenue and when I stopped at the red light I noticed that next to me was a brand-new red Cadillac convertible and I couldn't control my jaw drooping with envy.  When I looked at the driver, then my jaw hit the floor.  The Cadillac was driven by a gorgeous blonde with an angelic face; really the most beautiful woman I had seen in mny life.  I suspected, immediately, that it was probably a movie star or a famous singer that was staying at the Fontainebleau.
I noticed that the light had changed when the Cadillac sped from the corner and I stayed there static, watching the long dazzling blonde hair waving in the air like a magic flame.  I was in shock!
I stepped on the gas pedal of my little Ford, who forgot his limitations, and sped in pursuit of the irresistible mirage.
When it reached the next light it had turned green and the Cadillac took advantage again; but my Ford had gathered momentum and soon reached the red colossus.  The blonde model turned instinctively toward me and I could have sworn that she had smiled a little.  We reached the next light side by side.
Now the most incredible thing happened.  The stunning model looked straight at me and gave me a coquettish smile and then said "My name is Jill, what's yours?"  In spite that my name is very short, I stuttered it in three syllables, which made her flash another wide, happy smile.
We kept driving slowly and close to each other and, before the next light, the Cadillac and the Ford seemed like old friends.  She stretched to the right side of her car and offered me a little card, which I promptly grabbed.  "Call me when you have time..." she told me.  She also gave me some instructions in that strange language that was so difficult for me at that time and I didn't understand a bit...but I answered "yes" to each question.
I called her early next morning and a very sleepy voice answered.  I was ready to hang up when she said "Eres tú, Jay?"  She spoke Spanish!  With just two words in my own tongue, the blonde monument was automatically elevated to a pedestal!
We agreed that I was going to pick her up at her house in Coral Gables at eight o'clock and then we would decide where to go.  That was a very long day for me and the waiting seem interminable, perhaps because of the intense heat of Miami.
I took a bath, shaved and put talc and perfume all over my body, just in case.  And, also just in case, I took with me a couple of Trojan parachutes.
I rang the bell and a humongous, ugly, hairy man, without a shirt, opened the door.  His voice sounded like a derailed thunder, and he used it to ask what the heck I wanted.  I didn't know if I should tell him that I had the wrong address or if I should start running.  Then I heard Jill's voice: "It's for me, daddy."
I started to breathe again and my face recuperated its normal color, which was red like a tomato.  What happened next make me blush again.  Luckily, the porch was dark and nobody could notice it.
Jill came out of her room and reached the door...sitting on a wheel chair!  Before I could mutter any silly expression, Thundervoice  shouted again: "If you're going to take my little girl out, I want her back before ten...And take very good care of her, because she's my only treasure."
What else could I do but to push the wheel chair to my car and put it in the trunk?  I helped Jill to the front seat.
I must confess that my sexual impetus suffered an abrupt slide and the illusion that I had been fomenting all day long was instantly torn apart.   But I was, at that time in my life, a decent boy and was not going to insult her with a snubbing rejection.  She had, after all, too many problems already.
She started to talk about her miserable life, because her mother had abandoned her after birth but, luckily, her father was like a saint to her.  She didn't mention, however, her physical condition.  Hypnotized by her very romantic smile I also gave that predicament little importance.
She asked me to take her to the beach, but not to Miami Beach but to a another secluded one called Matheson-Hammock.  When we arrived, the place was desolated.  Then she begged me to carry her to one of the trees there, that was a few feet inside the water.  With a lot of effort I could deposit her lovely body on top of a thick branch.  The sky was densely freckled with stars and the full moon was trying to peek behind a curtain of clouds, like a nosy gossiper.
Then Jill startled me with the biggest surprise: "I want you to make love to me now."  "Let's lay down on the sand," I suggested.  "No," she sort of ordered, "it has to be here."
When we finished, we sat down on my car and she lit a cigarette and, like an explanation, she made an impressive observation. "I have to do it where "normal" women won't."
We talked for a while about Cuba, Miami Beach and other inconsequential things.  About everything except her physical problem.  After all, that had not prevented her to act like a very passionate woman.  When she finished the third cigarette, she looked at her watch and exclaimed: "Oh, mother!  It´s eleven thirty!"
"¿Your mother?," I thought, "what I'm afraid of is your father!"
We returned to her house in silence, so not to awake the ogre.  But that was not my lucky day.  The gargantuan beast opened the door and stayed there staring at me, but didn't say a word.  Like waiting to hear my excuse before dropping his bulky hands on my head.
But I couldn't talk.  My mind was occupied revising all the events of my short life up to that moment.  His words put my feet back on the ground. "Thanks for bringing her back," he said in an inconceivable tender voice, "last time I had to go myself and lift her from the branch!"

This is a translated article from my book PARA MATAR EL TIEMPO.  To inquire about my books, contact me at alvarcorp@msn.com. Thanks.

G R E E C E

GRECE is a small country located in the southern part of the Balkan Peninsula,  between the Ionian Sea in the West and the Aegean Sea in the east.  It borders with Albania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria in the north and with Turkey in the northeast. 
Of the eleven million inhabitants, eight million live in Athens, the capital, which has seen an enormous growth in population since World War II when it was a small village of only 18,000 people. 
Textiles, food, processing (olive oil, wine, cheese) and chemicals are the major industries, although nowadays tourism seems to be the greatest source of income.  We visited only a portion of the tourist attractions and everywhere the sites were full to the maximum, and it was not the peak of the season yet.  Most of the foreign tourists travel in very modern buses (some double-decked) through well maintained roads.
Only one third of the land is arable; but in the Peloponnese Peninsula, for instance, where we traveled for five days, we saw vast lands cultivated with olive trees (they are counted by the millions in all of Greece) vineyards, corn, wheat, citrus, vegetables and even tobacco, to name just a few.  About one third of the oil is exported to Italy, who mixes it with its own production and sells it world-wide as "Italian" oil.
Drachma is the money used in Greece.  At the time of our trip, in June of 2007, the rate of exchange was a bout 396 Drachmas to the US Dollar.
Athens is a big, fascinating, sparkling city.  In spite of the hectic heavy traffic, there is not much air pollution due to the abundance of trees and a few colossal parks inside the city.
Men lived in these parts of the world at least 100,000 years ago, and perhaps long before that.  In the last 8,000 years, however, the pace of culture accelerated, and the remains of villages, sanctuaries and temples, often discovered one on top of the other, challenge both archaeologist and historian.
Ancient Greece produced the greatest body of literature in the world.  Few other literatures can produce one or two authors in the class of Homer, Sophocles, Euripides, Aristophanes, Plato and Aristotle.  They generated not only masterpieces, but provided the models for later ages to imitate in almost every type of composition, including poetry, tragedy, comedy, philosophical dialogues, oration, biography and prose romance.  Greek literature is, thus, the foundation of western culture.
Art in all forms was unsurpassed in ancient Greece, as you can testify by the enormous amount of paintings of vases and plates and the marble statues now kept in different museums throughout Greece.  Most notable of all was the work of Phidias, who sculpted the colossal marble and ivory statue of Zeus of Olympia and also the figures in the pediments of the Parthenon of the Acropolis in Athens as well as the statue of Athena there.
Here are some of the magical places that we visited:
EPIDAURUS. It is the largest and best preserved ancient theater in Greece.  It has a capacity of 12,000 seats and is renowned for its captivating architecture and perfect acoustics.  When there is total silence, you can drop a piece of paper in the center of the arena and it would be heard from any part of the amphitheater.  Epidaurus was also the sanctuary of Asclepius, the major Greek god of healing. People from all over came to this place to be treated for their illnesses.  The museum contains reconstructions of parts of the temple of Asclepius and of Hygeia, another god of healing.
OLYMPIA.  Ancient Olympia rests at the heart of a peaceful green valley. It is considered one of the most important archaeological sites, not only within Greece but world-wide, since the spirit of the Olympic Games was born here in 776 BC.  Nowadays, every four years, the flame of the Olympic Games is still lit here, starting its journey to he modern games site.  There are several building here: the temple of Hera (wife of Zeus) the Hippodrome, the Parliament, the Guess House, the semicircular pond that held the spring water for the inhabitants, the Palaestra, the Kripte (the arch entrance to the stadium) the Gymnasium, the stadium and the sculptor Phidias workshop.  And in the center of it all, the colossal temple of Seuz, one of the seven wonders of the world.  The temple was being built at the same time as Phidias was sculpting the statue of Seuz, out of marble and ivory and with gold trimmings.  When he finished, they had to put extensions to the columns to raise the roof to accommodate the statue, who showed the god sitting on his throne.  If he were to stand up, he would have destroyed the roof; such was the enormity of its size.  The statue, of course, is all gone now, and only scattered broken columns and the foundation of this incredible temple can be seen today.
DELPHI.  Legend tell us that the god Seuz sent two eagles flying, one towards east and the other one west, to find the center of the earth.  They met at Delphi.  That is why this place was considered the NAVEL OF THE EARTH -the omphalus, as they called it- the point where the earthly touches the divine.  A city was started there, which became one of the most important religious centers of ancient Greece.  Delphi is located on the slopes of Mount Parnassus, the site of the Seven Muses.  It was called an oracle because of the virgin priestess PHYTHIA, famous for her magical powers of foreseeing the future.  Kings and citizens from all over Greece came to see her on personal or community matters.  As she gave her oracles only three days a month, the wealthy who came with the best gold offerings had priority over the poor ones.  It is in doubt today if she had such supernatural powers; but it has been proven that the governor and priests of Delphi were very smart.  When the time for the oracles came, a priest would throw cold water into a goat; if the goat shook the water, it meant that it was healthy and the gates would open.  If it didn't, it meant that it was sick and this was considered a bad omen from the gods not to let anybody in.  The crowd outside had to decide then between going back to their cities and return next month or stay there.  Since the distances were far and the traveling slow, they usually decided to stay.  That's why there were plenty of hotels and restaurants outside the gates!  The priestess answers were always ambiguous and left the inquirers with more desire to come back.  For example: One king wanted to know if he would win a war against a powerful enemy.  The answer was: "After you cross the river in battle, a mighty army will fall."  She failed to explain which army was going to fall.  Another: a man wanted to know if his wife was going to have a boy or a girl.  The answer: "Boy not girl", leaving the comma at the option of the man.
METEORA.  It's very hard to describe this place (better take a look at the photographs).  It is truly a wonder of the world, a natural monument of incomparable beauty, with its rare formation of mighty rocks, bare, smooth, perpendicular, straight up to the sky. At the peaks of some of these rocks, the most significant state of Orthodoxy developed: monasteries that were built between 1100 and 1799 to escape religious persecution.  They are remarkable monuments of Byzantine architecture, housing rare manuscripts and relics of priceless archaeological and historical value.
THE ACROPOLIS. Several important buildings comprise this antique complex in Athens.  On the left side, the PROPYLAEA was the main entrance to the Acropolis.  It had six superb marble Doric columns on the façade of the central building and six Ionic columns on the side, three of them pointing towards the temple of ATHENA NIKE.  This temple was built during the Mycenaean period, and it was a fortified and sturdy tower from where the Athenians often repelled their enemies.  The Greeks worshipped a special goddess, NIKE, who had large wings and flew from one place to another and represented victory.  Here, however, it was Athena who was worshipped as the goddess of victory,  The ERECHTHEUM is another beautiful temple where some of the columns are in the shape of a woman.  An then is the PARTHENON.  Parthenon means virgin, so this is the temple of the virgin goddess Athena.   It is the symbol of the creative and artistic power that distinguished Athens in the fifth century BC.  It is an immortal work of the mature years of the Classical period.  Construction began in 447 BC, and it was completed nine years later.  The columns are 34 feet high; there are eight and and seventeen on the short and long sides, respectively.  All the lines and vertical surfaces are curved and the columns and walls are tilted inwards 7 cm.  The temple was further enhanced by outside sculptures.  There were 92 metopes or rectangular plaques around the top side of the building, depicting mythological scenes inspired by the victories of the gods, the battles against the Giants, the Centaurs, the Amazons and the Trojan War. The impressive compositions of figures on the east pediment portrayed the birth of Athena as she sprang from the head of Seuz, while those on the west showed the competition between Athena and Poseidon for the dominion over the city of Athens.  These 52 figures were, undoubtedly, the fruit of Phidias' genius.  Notwithstanding the changes and losses suffered through centuries, the Parthenon still fascinates and exerts a powerful effect.  It has maintained its musicality, artistic eloquence and esthetic harmony and it is now a sublime embodiment of the classical Greek spirit and ideals.
 

THE TRIUMPH OF TRUTH OVER LIES

In the early 60's, when there were rumors of Fidel Casstro being a liar, he issued a postage stamp with his image and a portion of one of his speeches: "They married us to lies and forced us to live with them.  As if it wouldn't be better than the world collapsed than to live with lies."  And that, my friends, is the biggest lie he's ever told.
Some people, like me, discovered them soon.  It took a long time for others to realize the fraud.  On January of 1959, Castro had 99% of the population with him.  He stayed very popular for many years.  I bet you that today he cannot count on even 10% of the population.  But, sadly, most of the people that had changed lately have not done so for political reasons but for hunger.
Sooner or later, Castro's stympathizers started to desert his ranks, tired of his lies.  He had to suspend his annual interminable speeches at the Plaza de la Revolución because very few people were attending them.  Nobody does "voluntary" work anymore.  The more they believed and defended him, the more they hate him now.
When a person dies in Cuba, it has always been customary to erect a cross, the symbol of Christianity, at the head of the tomb.  Would you believe that when these communists are buried they still put that cross in their graves?  Are they really atheists?  No, they have never been true communists, but Fidelistas.  And when Castro dies, their unwavering devotion to the system will also die.
On August 15 of 1994, something incredible happened in Havana, but was unknown to the rest of the world.  Some Havana residents finally became fed up and started to assemble along the Avenida del Puerto, in the Habana Vieja district.  This was not organized by anybody or group.  It was an unpremeditated, unplanned outburst of people that were disgusted with the system.  In a few hours, thousands of protesters filled the streets and started to march along the Malecón, with yells of "Libertad! Libertad!"  As the mass of dissidents progressed along the wide boulevard, more and more  spectators joined them, all united in one sole purpose: to dispose of communism once and for all.  The policemen watching the huge horde didn't know what to do, afraid for their lives.
It was estimated that more than 100,000 people participated in the spontaneous march.  Finally, Fidel gave the order to disperse the march and the hated Brigadas de Respuesta Rápida (Brigades of Fast Response, which is nothing else but military men dressed as civilians) together with the police, attacked the unarmed and peaceful crowd and, in a few hours, it disintegrated.
The attempt for freedom failed for two reasons: First, it was not organized and didn't have a single, strong leader; secondly, since the radio and TV stations (all controlled by the government) did not relate the event at all, the rest of the city and the country did not find out about it until it was too late.
But it proved a point: that the Cuban people were tired of the system and were not afraid anymore.  They have completely lost their faith in Fidel and are now more open and daring.  They don't have anything else to lose and, therefore, don't even care about a jail sentence.  There wouldn't be room for so many dissidents anyway.
Too bad that there is nobody capable right now to organize a national strike.  It would probably cost some lives but, like the one in Romania, would finally succed in getting rid of the tyrant.
The Cuban nightmare has served, if nothing else, to prove the failure and obsolescence of the communist doctrine.  Castro's intransigent stance has cost not only an enormous loss of money, but also of human lives.
But I think that the most appalling and miserable effect of the Cuban revolution is the separation of the families.  The suffering and anguish that Castro's obstinate ego inflicted on the families defies explanation.  This is the crime for which he will never be able to pay, not even if we hang him from his genitals.
I suffered on my own flesh the consequences of exile from my country.  First, my wife had to wait eight months to join me. I had to wait nineteen long years to finally be allowed to go back and visit my family.  I saw my mother, on that occasion, for only a couple of days and my father for just two hous. Others had it much worse.  Innocent children that left their homeland never to see their parents again.  Men that drowned in the Gulf of Mexico leaving the rest of their families behind.  Whole families that have been shot down by Cuban patrol boats trying to escape.  Each case is a denouncing testimonial to my homeland's agony.
We Cubans, primarily the ones back home, have suffered through five decades of misery and grief.  At last, a brighter and happier future is on the horizon.  I just pray to God that I can see it before I die.

These are excerpts from my book "PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE. A personal reflection on the Island of Cuba."  E-mail me at alvarcorp@msn.com for details.

WILD WEST, USA

During this trip, in June of 2006, we visited six states: Colorado, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Utah.  The scenery in every road, although it changes so much, never stopped amazing us.  From the dessert-like plains of Wyoming to the Black Hills of South Dakota, from the potato fields of Idaho to the canyons of Route 70 of Colorado.  We enjoyed ten different events, several picturesque little towns, high mountains, strange rock formations and grandiose huge monuments.  The highlight of the trip was, of course, the Yellowstone National Park, with its hundreds of geysers, steam vents, water falls, canyons and exotic animals.

First stop was in Colorado, where the airport is the largest in the nation, covering 53 square miles, large enough to hold Dallas and Chicago airports combined.

Manitou Springs got its name from the more than a dozen mineral water springs that permeate the area. Waters rising from the aquifers deep below the ground absorb minerals in high concentrations, including the carbonic acid, which gives its bubbles.  The naturally carbonated water was a perfect tonic for the digestive ailments of the Ute, Arapaho, Cheyenne and Kiowa Indians that visited this picturesque valley for centuries.

Many  famous personalities enjoyed the charm and curative effects of the place, like Presidents McKinley, Roosevelt and Grant.

By the 1870's, a bottling company began producing bottled mineral water for the public benefit. Two decades later, half a million estimated gallons of spring water were being bottled.

Besides being one of the most picturesque towns that we have visited, Manitou Springs is also the base of Pike's Peak, part of the Rocky Mountains that form the Continental Divide.  It takes about one hour to reach the summit by cog railway.  When we reached the end of the ascent, at an altitude of 14,210 feet, we felt in awe with the 360º view. It is at this point that Katharine Lee Bates found the inspiration to write "America the Beautiful" in 1893.

Other attractions very close to town are the Cliff Dwellings, an exact replica of an ancient Anasazi Indian town, and the Garden of the Gods, Colorado's oldest and largest park, full of strange red rock formations.

The Badlands National Park of South Dakota makes you feel that you are in a different planet. The multicolored canyons are sometimes deep beneath the road with a small river at the bottom and other times you are driving between these strange looking mountains.

In the morning, we drove to see our next destination. This is one of the most beautiful roads we have ever seen, with the deep-green small mountains that comprise the Black Hills of South Dakota.  When the clouds cover them they really look almost black.

In the middle of this lush scenery is Mount Rushmore.  At the very sight of it, we had to stop and wonder at the immensity of this monument .   It took sculptor Gutzon Borglum 14 years to carve these four head figures from the granite mountains.  It depicts the faces of Presidents George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt and Abraham Lincoln. The faces measure approximately 60 feet from the bottom of the chin to the top of the head; the eyes ere eleven feet across and the mouths are eighteen.  The full sculpture is 185 feet across and 150 feet high.  It was made at a cost of almost one million dollars.

About twenty miles from Mt. Rushmore is Crazy Horse Memorial, another monument, now in progress.  Crazy Horse was a great Lakota chief who suffered the mistreatment of the American Government.  He never signed a treaty or lived in a reservation. His left arm extending and pointing with his finger is the answer to the derisive question asked by a white man: "Where are your lands now?"  He replied: "My lands are where my dead are buried."

Deadwood, SD, claims to be the town where the West was born...and where it will never die.  It was the home of Wild  Bill Hickok and Calamity Jane, just two of the infamous characters that lived there.  Gamblers, gunslingers, prostitutes and bank robbers frequented the many saloons in the 1870's, making Deadwood a dangerous place to live.

Only twenty years ago, the entire town seemed about ready to be joining Hickok and Jane in the graveyard.  What was left of it looked more like a ghost town than the booming Black Hills capital it was one.  But Deadwood's people wouldn't have it.  They bonded together to bring gaming to the town and fuel life back into the city.  Historic hotels, saloons and landmarks were restored.  And Deadwood once again became the center of excitement of the Black Hills. 

On the way to Wyoming, we had to make a small detour to visit Devil's Tower, a solid rock mountain that rises 867 feet from its base and 5,112 feet above sea level.  In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt proclaimed Devil's Tower the first national monument.  Approximately 5,000 climbers come here every year from all over the world to climb on the massive columns.

Cody, Wyoming, was founded in 1895 by a very famous western man, Col. William F. Cody (February 26, 1846 - January 10, 1917) universally known as Buffalo Bill. He was a Pony Express rider, a stage coach driver and a buffalo hunter for the railroad company, a scout for the U.S. Calvary, an actor on the New York stage with his friend Wild Bill Hickok, a member of the Nebraska Legislature and many more accomplishments that made him one of the most respected Westerners of the American history.

But it was his "Wild Show" that put him on the pedestal of immortals.  The show traveled around the United States and foreign countries for 30 years!  At some time it had 1,200 performers, Chief Sitting Bull among them.

There was an Indian Powwow during that weekend and we enjoyed it very much.  It was the annual reunion were more than one hundred American Natives (most of them looked 100% pure race) from different tribes, dressed in their best attires, compete in dancing and singing. It is held  next to the Buffalo Bill Historical Museum, a compound of five buildings depicting the history of Buffalo Bill and his Wild Shows.

Early next morning, we drove the fifty miles to the East entrance of the Yellowstone National Park.  It took another hour after entering it to encounter the first amusing sight of the park.  The first display was four bison walking in the middle of the road, like saying "this is our park".  One of them felt so at home that he wanted to mate right there, in front of all the cars full of tourists.  Soon more buffalos came to sight, now in bigger numbers.  Whenever you see some cars parked on the side of the road, it is because there are some animals around.  We stopped at the first spot and saw a big black bear eating on a carcass while a wolf was waiting for him to retire to feed himself.  Later on there was a crowd of buffalos and later another black bear very close to the road (it is forbidden to stray away from your car) and a grizzly bear taking a mud bath.

The sulphur caldron and mud volcano made us believe, again, that we were in another planet.  Then we arrived at the awe inspiring vista of the Grand Canyon of Yellowstone.  The multicolored rocks, the river at the bottom, the pine trees and the high waterfalls here make this place a real paradise on earth. The Mammoth Hot Spring is a big rock with flowing scalding water coming down through several terraces.

After spending the whole day enjoying so many steam vents and geysers and wild animals, it was time to exit the park and go to our motel, which is in the town of West Yellowstone, Montana, just two blocks away from the West entrance. Right before the exit, there was a zone lined with red traffic cones and a sign prohibiting parking or stopping there, as it is a bald eagle's area.  I parked after the zone and walked back to it and took a photograph of a huge eagle's nest.  Then I noticed another sign prohibiting walking there, so I jumped to a wooded area where I saw a couple of people with binoculars and they informed me of two bald eagles posing at the other side of the river.

After entering the park the next morning, we saw about 100 bison roaming about 100 yards from the road.  Then we arrived at the highlight of the park, the "Old Faithful", the only geyser that is, more or less, punctual in its outbursts.  We sat down in the area around it which soon was crowded with about 2,000 people.  After about one hour waiting, the show started.  A strong burst of water is thrown up in the air like coming from a big fireman's hose.  The eruption lasts about 5 minutes, expels 3,700 gallons of boiling water and reaches a height of 105-184 feet.  It is an incredible sight, very hard to describe.  Suffice is to say that everybody stared in awe, including us, at this spectacular Nature's extravaganza.

We walked through a wooden path to see several other geysers, steam vents and ponds.  Some geysers erupt every hour, others once a year an others are constantly throwing boiling water but not too high.  There are several pools of scalding crystalline water, with hues of green, blue, orange and other colors.  Our favorite one is called "the Morning Glory".  The water is so clear that you can see the tube through which the water flows to the surface.

We had to cross the park again next day to drive south and I was lamenting that the only animal that we had not seen was a moose.  We saw again a bunch of cars stopped at a lookout and they informed us that a couple of moose cows had been right there in the open, but had entered the woods.  I couldn't miss the opportunity and went after them, even though it is prohibited.  I spotted them and went as close as I dared and took their photograph.  When I was returning, about a dozen people had followed my steps.  We then crossed the Continental Divide, marked by a sign proclaiming that it was at an elevation of 8,262 feet.

Jackson Hole, Wyoming, is a beautiful little town.  The four corners of the park have big arches formed by hundreds of antlers.

We drove a few miles back to the Gran Teton area, a mountain range whose tops are perennially covered with snow.

We arrived at Salt Lake City, Utah, at night and couldn't see much of the town. 

The next stop was at the Arches National Park, Utah.  The park is located 27 miles from the main road.  At the other side of the road is the Canyonlands Park, which is where the Gran Canyon of Colorado starts.

The strange red rock formations at this park look like huge sculptures, sometimes resembling elephants or teddy bears. Bruni baptized one of the sculptures "The Three Magi". The most spectacular views are, of course, the immense natural arches.  There are about two dozen of them, but we had time to see only three.

The road from here to Denver was, without any doubt, the most beautiful one of the whole trip with more than 300 miles of canyon-like mountains left and right.  The Colorado River runs along the road for many miles, making it more unusual.

We couldn't miss Vail, Colorado, which is one of the most famous ski resorts in United States.  Vail looks like a charming European little town.  Prices here are outrageous and they told us that in Winter was double.

We arrived late at night in Denver.  We had been on the road for 14 hours!  We drove for a total of 2,782 miles!  This was one of the most fascinating, historical and informative trips that we have ever taken and we felt very happy at our return home.