Before September 11th - New York

September 11^th. What can be said a decade later that hasn’t been said already? What can I say that hasn’t been said before?

Do I remember when I heard the news? Of course. I was a final year medical student, ducking into the doctors’ mess to grab a cup of tea in Bath. I saw faces staring at the television as smoke billowed from a Hollywood set and thought how unusual it was for that kind of film to be shown at that time of day.

I pushed the lever forward to pour scalding water into my polystyrene cup and thought how unusual it was for so many people to be in here watching the television.

I scooped the teabag out and then I can’t remember what happened next.

Bath is a small, beautiful town in the west of England, with sweeping Georgian architecture, rolling hills and Roman ruins. It is quiet and green and until that day, it expressed its dates as 11^th September, not September 11^th.

That was one small thing to change.

I can’t remember what I was supposed to be doing that afternoon. Helping the house officer take blood for convoluted endocrine tests. Taking a history for the next day’s ward round. Revising for finals, not all that far away.

What I do remember was what I did.

Nothing.

I watched and there was nothing I could do. Smoke billowed. Cameras covered the silhouettes of bodies spinning downwards through the sky. Dust fell and firemen marched forth.

Then the buildings fell.

Despite being surrounded by the fields of rural England, I had family in that grey smoke. People I loved. People I couldn’t reach. People I couldn’t help. And, of course, I wasn’t the only one.

The UK’s National Health Service, in fact most of the UK, is a cosmopolitan place. People know people. Everywhere.

One of our medical students was there. Friends had colleagues there. Colleagues had friends there.

That attack was an attack against the world.

I don’t think that I have ever been as afraid as I was that day, albeit 4000 miles from what would come to be Ground Zero and, as it turns out, protected from the worst of the grief.

I knew New York well. I sensed the threat to London.

So, ten years on, what more is there to say, do think or feel?

No doubt, you’ll have read article after article in the run up to this “anniversary.”

But my mind jumps back to a comment someone left on an article I wrote about Hiroshima.

Sadly, 911 is not unique. It is not the first time that scores of lives have been lost, that the evil actions of a few have devastated the lives of many, and that many of us have ended up feeling frightened and seeking revenge.

Years later, the cost of revenge becomes easier to see.

Some places have war crime museums, independence statues of hatred, markers of bloody uprisings and celebrations of death. Some cultures seek to right wrongs that are 800, or even 1000, years old and cling to these events to justify murder, theft and torture.

Other places have different approaches.

Hiroshima has a Memorial to Peace. A flame burns constantly to remind people about the danger of conflict. It invites the citizens of the world to grieve over the lives lost here and to hope for a better future, regardless of race, colour or creed.

Hiroshima has recovered well.

Some places say that it is right to seek justice, but dangerous to seek revenge. Revenge, like resentment, they say, is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die (Nelson Mandela.)

So how does that relate to September 11^th?

It is, and should be, a sad day, even though the artificial ten year mark changes nothing. It should also be a chance to express sorrow, to value the strength of the international community, and to reassure frightened people today that we are capable of differentiating between Islam and terrorism, despite what the headlines may say.

That’s what I would like to add on this ten year anniversary.

And, yes.  I very much hope that you’ve heard it all before.

Rainbow Origami Cranes - Symbols of Hope & Peace

What do you think?

September 11th – What Do You Think? first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Dolphin leap at the Dolphin Research Center

Swimming with Dolphins

As a child, I always wanted to swim with dolphins. And, if I’m honest, as an adult as well.

Swimming with dolphins has become a cliché in the repertoire of half-formed dreams, wishes and wonderings of those who realise that their time on this earth has limits. Yet it wasn’t until I sat down to write this post that it occurred to me to question why.

Dolphins in the Wild

I’ve been lucky, catching sight of dolphins in the wild off the shores of Oman, Tenerife and even Dingle in Ireland (although, to be fair, it was dolphin singular in that last case.) Each time, even in Ireland, sunbeams sparkled across the waves, almost daring onlookers with their brilliance.

“Are you sure?” they seem to say. “You’re sure you want to see dolphins? Look closely, then, and prepare yourself for staring into the light of the sun itself.”

Wet dolphins reflect light like diamonds. They’re also fast: blazing through the water, throwing crescents above the sea while they race besides the boat.

The Dolphin Research Centre, Florida

Yet today there wasn’t going to be a boat. I was standing in the Dolphin Research Center in Florida - and training, instead of chasing, was the name of the game.

To the sound of whooping and hollering, we lazed through the Florida Keys sunshine to meet the team, led by aficionado Mary Stella.

“Y’know,” she says to us in a sunshine state drawl. “If I were a dolphin, I’d want to be born here.”

There’s a tricky moment, I think, when talking to anyone who deals with animals in captivity. For a start, you have to remember to avoid the word captivity, a task that inexplicably becomes impossible as soon as you have to remember to do it.

Research centres, sanctuaries and programmes like these are clearly gallons of water away from cramped zoos and performing circuses. And there’s no doubt in my mind that Mary, and the other members of the team, show far more devotion towards the animals in their care than I do.

I’ve written before about my unease and unanswered questions about aquariums – and my eyes and mind have been opened by the replies in the comments sections.

Yet still, as someone besides me murmurs under his breath about wanting to live free in the oceans, questions arise and I just wish we could talk more openly about one or two things.

Perhaps burned by the press in the past, the staff remain cautious today.

The Dolphin Research Center lives, no soaks, in the Florida sunshine. The trainers wear splash vests and swim suits and the dolphins really do seem to wear smiles.

Nets and fences carve up the ocean into spaces for the dolphins, who roam freely in between.

A Male Dolphin Lets Off Steam

Dolphin Psychology

“During Hurricane Wilma,” says Mary, “the water covered the walkways and the dolphins could have left. But they didn’t.”

This is exactly the kind of thing I wish they’d talk more about. They’re a specialised research centre, performing robust tests into dolphin counting, object permanence (remembering where you left the car keys,) foetal echocardiography and more.

They should know, then, psychologically speaking, that just because an animal doesn’t try to escape, doesn’t mean it wants to stay. There’s the phenomenon of learned helplessness, whereby animals realise that no matter what they do, they cannot break through a certain barrier. Eventually, when that barrier is removed, they no longer try. It leads animals to starve themselves when food is plenty; it’s thought to explain why abducted children stay with the adults who molest them. After enough failed attempts, animals simply learn that it’s too dangerous to keep on trying.

Of course, this may have nothing to do with the dolphins here. The science geek inside me would just have liked to explore it as a possibility.

Everyone seems happy...

Training Mice, Men & Dolphins

As it is, just a short afternoon here opens up all kinds of questions about animal training (and yes, that includes husbands who won’t pick up their socks, children who won’t tidy their rooms, women who won’t stop nagging and writers who won’t stop using clichés.)

In each pen, we see different stages of training. In the main one, the adult males leap into the air, turning somersaults, twisting and shimmering beneath the sun to the whoops of encouragement from the team.

“We use positive reinforcement here,” Mary explains, as the males munch their way through a coolbox load of fish and good cheer. “We don’t punish.”

A dolphin trainer with fish

Behind me, I see what happens when something goes wrong.

Two small platforms bob into the water, where children take turns at touching or training the young dolphins. With a deft, quiet signal, everyone walks away.

“What happened?” I ask.

“Someone did something they’re not supposed to,” replies one of the trainers, leaving me to wonder whether we’re talking about child or dolphin.

“Dolphins are just like you,” says Mary, when I try to find out what happened. “They get grumpy. They have mood swings, too.”

A scurrilous accusation.

“Dolphins are just like you,” says Mary. “They have mood swings, too.”

Across the way, a baby dolphin takes its baby flips through the training routine. It wins a fish each time it correctly touches the target pole. The next stage involves correctly identifying its name as a symbol – a cross or a crescent or a circle, say, – next to the target pole.

“Dolphins pick out the symbols with echolocation,” explains Jennifer, a Senior Education Officer. “They can only see for about 10 metres – and they can’t see well ahead.”

Babies watching babies

Besides the merry baby in training, baby humans are at play.

At the Dolphin Research Center, you can pay to swim with dolphins. You can also, as I saw, learn to paint with them as well.

This is dolphin training at its most subtle. The trainer before us, sporting a hat and a trademark suntan, merely touches his fingers and thumbs together in the slightest of moves to exact the most intuitive of responses.

“You want a photo?” he says. “You don’t need to ask me. Look.”

At a quiver of his fingers, the mother dolphin pauses from painting to swim by and pose.

It’s impressive. Even breathtakingly, cliché-ridden, awesomely so.

The boy’s face fills with delight as he braces the T-shirt against the dolphin’s paintbrush, while I still can’t explain why dolphins, rather than tarantulas, pigeons or rats, hold such appeal.

Perhaps it comes down to this worldly-wise quote from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

“Man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much — the wheel, New York, wars and so on — whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man — for precisely the same reasons.”

 

Or perhaps, it comes from another:

• The last ever dolphin message was misinterpreted as a surprisingly sophisticated attempt to do a double-backwards-somersault through a hoop whilst whistling the ‘Star Spangled Banner’, but in fact the message was this: So long and thanks for all the fish

As for me, I still have more questions and, in spite of that, I’d still love to swim with dolphins.

In the meantime: So long and thanks for all the tweets.

Small gestures are enough...

Swimming with Dolphins -Disclosure

I visited Florida as a guest of Virgin Holidays as part of a Florida Photo Safari both at the Dolphin Research Center and elsewhere. The usual, exciting, disclosure policy applies…Find more photo adventures in the Florida Keys here

Swimming with Dolphins in Florida

PS – You can swim with dolphins at the Dolphin Research Center

Not Quite Swimming With Dolphins first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Sunset in Mallory Square, Key West

The sun that sets in Key West is not subtle. It flames across the sky, capturing clouds in a blaze of amber, scarlet and peach, drawing their lilac-grey sighs into a resplendent performance, before bowing to rapturous applause from the crowds.

For all the colourful language, it’s true.

Key West, Florida

Crowds do gather every evening in Key West to watch the sun perform and nowhere more than Mallory Square. Despite the Enid Blyton name (an author of restrained children’s books, oh ye cyber-generation,) there’s nothing prim and proper here.
Men wearing make-up shuffle tarot guards and conjure up ghosts. Artists build model aeroplanes from leftover beer cans, while ink-smudged fingers paint powder-blue signs that spell out words like “paradise.”

The sun warms up for its final act and a deep-throated song fills the air.

It comes from a bona fide conch shell, a phrase that reminds me of another childhood book, albeit a more sinister one. Until this moment, my only knowledge of conch shells came from Lord of the Flies. No, not a spoof on the Lord of the Rings, but a chilling examination of how civilisation and society can so easily break down.

But back to the conch…

Mike is American. He wears a baseball hat and runs a portable stall that sells Key Lime Pie, conch fritters and Key Lime iced tea.
His large, tanned hands wrap around the shell, a speckled treacly-brown affair.

He purses his lips, takes a deep breath, and breathes…

It’s slow and melodious. A few notes hang on the apricot-coloured air for a whisper or two before they disappear.

“Hey there,” he asks. “You wanna go?”

Yes – and no. Yes because I love trying new things. No because whatever the outcome, it’s going to break the spell. Either I can do it easily and the magic is lost.

Or, and this is more likely, I’m going to sound like a flatulent farmyard animal and the world of Facebook, Twitter et al will have yet more ammunition against me.

The roughness of the conch shell grazes my hands. In this dying, copper-tinged light, I take a deep breath…

The second, of course, of the two scenarios takes place. A stuttering, stammering, spittoon-fest of abomination and noise. And worse is yet to follow…

“Have you tried the conch?” I ask, trying at least to share, if not deflect, my ineptitude with those around me.

“It’s conch, as in CONK,” comes the reply. “Not conch as in conSH.”

Excellent.

I do the American thing and slip a few dollar bills into the tip jar. Then I slip away.

Sunset in Key West

The sun moves towards its finale, spreading crimson streaks across the sky. Yachts glide past, candy-floss sweetness hangs in the air and Key Lime zest somersaults across my tongue. I’m just in time to catch the last of tonight’s performers.
Silhouettes against the sun, they joke, jive, juggle and jest to raise cheer after cheer from the crowd. One man throws flames, while another defeats gravity through the drama of the tight-tope.

Both entice, both entertain.

In fact, by dividing my attention between the two, I’ve missed the setting of the sun and the sky now grieves in shades of violet dusk. The crowds slowly disperse.

I wait for a moment before joining the others.

For most of the world, the United States mirrors the rising and setting of the sun. Always there, almost familiar, frighteningly powerful.
Yet the sun – and sunset – wear different colours depending on where you are when you watch them.

In Key West, sunset is ferocious and flamboyant. The American Dream displayed in the sky.

In the darkness that remains, I laugh to myself and leave to join the others. They’re waiting for me, just beyond the waterfront, in a lively Cuban bar.

Sunset in Mallory Square, Key West – Info

It’s free to watch the performers – and the sunset – in Mallory Square, Key West.

I, however, visited as a guest of Virgin Holidays as part of a Florida Photo Safari both here and elsewhere. The usual, exciting, disclosure policy applies…Find more photo adventures in the Florida Keys here…

Key West: Painting Sunset

The Sun Never Sets in Key West first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Recording Memories

This is a terrible photo. It’s taken with a point-and-shoot about as old as shoulder pads and legwarmers. It has splashes from water and glare from the sun (just in case you hadn’t noticed.) It’s also one of my favourite photos of all time.

Why? Well, for all the reasons that photographs mean something to us. Really mean something to us. We can (and I do) work on improving composition and balancing exposure. We can play around with aperture, shutter speed and ISO and we can definitely, steadily, professionally work on improving what our images manage to say to complete strangers.

But as for what our photos mean to us? It’s almost irrelevant what others think.

The splashes in this image remind me how the spray from that snarling, raging waterfall blasted my skin that day.  The glare brings back the sunshine, the squinting and the heat, despite the fact that we were only an hour from dawn. The blurred colours and clouds reflect the disorientation from sleeplessness and soundlessness as I surrounded myself in the sensations of Iguazu Falls.

Above all, this photo reminds me of how I spent my time feeling truly alive, snapping at the chance to capture a memory rather than crafting a product for others to enjoy….Breathless, hair sticking to my face, hope and youth spiralling into the drops of water that formed white breaths in that tropical sky.

Looking back, I’m so glad that my photography has improved over the years. But I hope I never forget how to enjoy what is real while I’m there.

Iguazu Falls – Brazil & Argentina

Iguazu Falls Argentina & Brazil

Rainbow over Iguazu

Iguazu Falls Up Close

Walkway into Iguazu Falls - Where I Stood to Take the First Photo

This Is Not A Good Photo – Iguazu Falls first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Street Performer in Mallory Square, Key West at Sunset

I’m travelling through the Floriday Keys this week and, as an experiment, I’ll bring you a photo each day to give you a flavour of the place.

Words to follow…

The Old Man & The Sea first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Whale Watching in Alaska

Water. In the space called Frederick Sound, the water waits silently. There’s a grey – or even silver – hue to the air and the frosted breath of everyone on board seems to add to the tension, frozen puffs of cloud suspended in the sky.

We hear it again. From somewhere beyond the stillness comes a soft moan, a slow-motion splash and a spray of white foam.

A humpback whale. Then another. Further away to begin with, but then gliding closer and closer. They move with slowness, as though their prehistoric appearance allows them to play with the boundaries of time. Slowly, slowly, slowly, rising into that languid curve, that hump that gives them their name, then slowly, slowly, I can’t hold my breath any more, they slowly submerge. There’s a missing heartbeat before the moment I’ve been watching for arrives…

The tail, that majestic symbol of all the monsters of the deep, rises, pauses, holds, waits, lingers above the water before plunging down again, throwing up a signature of spray.

It’s hard to explain why this moves me so much: one animal, moving as normal. The sight of an earthworm, for example, sliding through mud, wouldn’t fill me with anywhere near this much joy.

Yet sometimes there’s a place for suspending questions and forgetting analysis. And I think that place is Frederick Sound.

Which whale watching photo do you like best?

How to Go Whale Watching in Alaska

Disclosure: I went whale watching in Frederick Sound as a guest of American Safaric Cruises and Inner Sea Discoveries. The trip also involved kayaking, hiking, walking on glaciers, flightseeing and more. I’m completely free to write bad things about them if I want to – but in this case, there’s nothing to say. I’d highly recommend either cruise for whale watching and more in Alaska.

Whale Watching in Alaska first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Perito Moreno, Patagonia

Seville has started its annual swelter for summer and it looks like the rest of Europe’s not far behind. So, for a quick chill out on this Friday afternoon, I thought I’d delve into the archives and bring you plenty of ice, ice baby, in the form of the Perito Moreno glacier in Patagonia.

It’s one of the few glaciers in the world that’s actually growing and, on a glacial celebrity scale, it’s right up there with George Clooney and Angelina Jolie.

Behemoths, never mind chunks, of ice thunder into the sea on a reasonably predictable basis, providing plenty of juicy images for all those global warming videos. So, the chances are that even if you’ve never travelled to this cobalt corner of Argentina, you already know Perito Moreno well.

Enjoy!

Perito Moreno Glacier: As Famous as George Clooney. Guy in the photo: Not so well known.

The Perito Moreno Glacier: Rather Large

Snow & Ice: A Refreshing Break From Summer

The Perito Moreno Glacier: So Cool, It’s…Cool first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Seattle’s Pike Place Market has pulled off an outrageously flamboyant version of the American Dream: it’s made selling fish sexy.

Making Selling Fish Sexy

Beneath cherry-red letters illuminated on stalks, and just a few feet behind a celebrity pig, crowds gather to watch – that’s right – people sell fish.

Pike Place Market: Seattle's Icon

Trotprints - Another Icon

Fame, Babe

But these guys don’t just sell fish, they sing at the fish, they juggle with the fish, they play games with the fish. It’s an oddly uplifting experience.

So, for a slice of Seattle that has nothing to do with feeling “Sleepless,” head to Seattle’s Pike Place Market and delight in throwing fish.

Pike Place Market: Where Throwing Fish is Fun

Eat lunch overlooking Seattle's vast waterways

Not Just About the Fish

The City of Seattle

Pike Place Market, Seattle first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Tlingit Culture in Alaska

It’s a narrow wooden bridge, so when a girl runs past, the reverberations affect us all. She’s a teenager, or maybe older, in classic blue jeans and US sneakers, with flowing blonde hair. A few minutes later I see her again, wrapped in a traditional Tlingit cloak and chanting with her ancestors.

We’ve crossed the bridge to the space outside Chief Shakes’ House, some 1000 miles north of Seattle. Totem poles teeter above our heads and the women close their eyes as they sing. In the fresh, wet grass, the girl’s sneakers peek out from beneath her robe.

That’s the paradox here in Wrangell: all-American freshness trying to revive a damaged past.

“When they took our language,” says a woman with hair the colour of the clouds on the harbour, “they took more than that. They took our history and they took our stories.”

She’s talking about the successive colonial powers who arrived here and who, through religion, industry, deliberate oppression or imported disease, decimated the Tlingit culture that had survived 5000 years. For once, with my British passport I’m not made to feel like the bad guy. Well, not entirely.

Wrangell, Alaska

The Russians arrived first in 1811 and set up an energetic fur trade. Then came the British, in the form of the Hudson’s Bay Company, before the US bought the land from them in 1867. Uncle Sam set up a military post here that somehow attracted a flurry of gold rushes with dance halls, bars and other, ahem, adventures, to suit.

A painted wooden street in the large port of Ketchikan relives the “good old days,” where candy-pink signs still advertise brothels and the hidden paths towards them still have street signs that read “Married Man’s Lane.”

Here in Wrangell, though, it’s all white Presbyterian churches and totem poles. Boats unload salmon in the harbour and a lone truck swings through wide streets flanked with sidewalks. People use “Liquor Stores” instead of off-licenses, and mail boxes perch on stilts instead of being letterboxes on doors.

It’s like walking through a living slideshow of my childhood, when I watched American kids cycle through suburbia in E.T. and studied Red Indians at school. Back in my time of innocence, before the term “Red Indian” developed racist undertones.

As a child, I read about totem poles and I practised sewing beads onto tribal capes. To stand here now, with my fingertips on sweet, soft cedarwood, thousands of miles from England, is a quietly thrilling experience. Inside the replica Chief Shakes’ building, the light levels are low, the glow from the canoe intense.

I run my hand along the imperfections in the wood.

It’s easy to get swept away by the romance of history, whichever way you look at it, when facing a culture that almost disappeared. What they didn’t teach me at school, and what is uncomfortable to point out, is that the Tlingit people also fought territorial wars, forbade democracy and encouraged ritual slavery. Seventeenth century Tlingit life would have been cold, harsh and cruel – a lifestyle that most 21^st century Americans would never choose to live.

Overall, it’s a difficult dance: reviving a culture, recognising oppression and judging how best to pay for the past.

I’m lucky. I know that I’ll get to speak to Tlingit Elders and others championing the cause about what they hope to achieve in the future and how we should weigh up the past.

Yet perhaps the next generation has already decided the future -  in the shape of white sneakers beneath a ceremonial gown.

The Tlingit Culture – To be continued…Disclosure: I visited Chief Shakes’ House as a guest of InnerSea Discoveries and American Safari Cruises.

Read more about Alaska

Whale Watching in Alaska

Flightseeing in Alaska

Kayaking in Alaska

Icebergs in Alaska

Aurora Borealis – Seeing the Northern Lights in Alaska

Gold Dust & Magic Mud – A Glacier Tour in Alaska

Beneath the Totem Pole first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...

Revolutionary mother and child in Cuba

In Cuba, I spent most of my time on the streets. It’s a Caribbean country with a laid-back vibe, whatever its international stereotype and ongoing political conflicts.

As you may know, I love street art. It captures my imagination because of its tendency to represent an undercurrent of rebellion. A symbol of authentic expression rather than corporate strategy or political manoeuvring.

That’s a naive point of view, of course, and I didn’t need to go to Cuba to find that out.

Yet I did go, years back in 2005, and these images have stayed with me ever since. Perhaps because I missed the chance to learn more about what they really meant. Perhaps because images of a mother, a baby and a weapon still surprise me.

Do they represent propaganda and state control? Or the passioned paintbrushes of someone who believed in their principles, with a fervent desire to share their vision with the world.

I never found out – and I regret that. But I still find them interesting – and I hope you do too.

Por la victoria - Cuba

Mentiras = Lies

Street Art in Cuba first appeared on Inside the Travel Lab. Head over there for more juicy fresh travel goodness. Or, you know, something you might like to read...