Archive for April, 2008
On Sunday it was gorgeous. The cold front had finally passed through, the rain was gone and we had a beautiful warm sunny day without any humidity.
My hostess is also a guide for the National Park System and Vinales is a nationally protected natural habitat. She had a tour planned through a side valley of Vinales (Valle del Ancon) with 3 participants, an older couple from Germany and me.
The tour was fabulous, we got picked up by a local in a taxi and went about 20 minutes outside of town and got dropped off at a local primary school, which had several communist slogans painted on the outside. Political graffiti, paintings and message boards are extremely common in Cuba. Although there is no western style advertising, there are plenty of political slogans (a collection of a few of which I will summarize at a later point).
This is a very strange experience when you come from a Western capitalist country like Canada, and then you see all these political slogans about Communism and defending the Revolution. Truly fascinating indeed, a completely different world.
On our 3 hour trip we walked through local fields, were told about local wildlife, special birds (the Cuban Tocororo, Turkey vultures and other birds. We also heard about local farming which still takes place with human labour, manual ploughs and oxen. We were introduced to crops such as Malanga (pureed and given to babies), Yucca, various types of sweet potatoes, corn and yams.
One of the highlights was a 20 minute walk through a limestone cave through one of the Mogote hills. We saw some interesting stone formations and even strange pale plants growing inside the pitch-dark cave. Our guide had illuminated the cave with a strong flashlight for the 4 of us and it was a pretty easy walk with no cave-dwelling animals in sight, only one political slogan spray-painted in the cave (apparently this was a hideout for the revolutionary army at some point..).
After exiting the cave, we ended up in an uninhabited small valley completely surrounded by mountains and we ran into a local farmer of 60 years, whose leathery face and slim body gave him the appearance of an 80 year old man, evidence of many decades of sun and hard work.
He had a flock of turkeys (with 61 young chicks), a dog and some fields of corn and beans. And he generally spends most of his days working manually in this little valley, completely isolated, sometimes staying overnight in a single hut made from the wood and leaves of the royal palm tree, Cuba
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April 30 2008 | travel-information-for.info | No Comments »
For the past several years I have been reviewing books for my own site, Bookpleasures.com, as well as many other sites. I am also a regular contributor to the Canadian Book Review Annual.
As editor of Bookpleasures.com, I would like to make a few comments about book reviewing and what to expect, particularly from Bookpleasures.com.
Today, with the advent of the Internet, there has been a proliferation of book reviewers, whom I shall classify as the good, the bad and the ugly.
Those falling into the last category are those that you have to be particularly on the look out for, as their only interest is to receive complimentary books without bothering to review them, or if they do review them, their reviews are very short and without substance.
On the other hand, there are many serious and excellent reviewers who devote a great deal of their time and energy in reading and writing a review.
Sometimes, I admit, the reviews are not exactly very complimentary. However, it is to be noted that it is not the objective of a reviewer to be a salesperson or a public relations representative for the author. If the criticism is constructive, a great deal can be learned from the review, particularly if the reviewer is also an author.
From the point of view of a reviewer, what I find most annoying is receiving a book without first asking me if I would accept to review it.
Bookpleasures receives on average about 10-15 email requests per week. Generally, I personally accept a few to review, others, I forward onto Bookpleasures’ international team of reviewers.
In all probability, there is a 20%-30% chance that a request to review will be accepted by a reviewer.
The reason why a book is not accepted is wide and varied. Many of our reviewers have a backlog that they would like to clear before accepting new assignments, or the subject matter is not one that interests any of them.
What I like to see in a request is not “hype” but rather a brief resum
Tags: book reviewer, book reviewers, bookpleasures, books, literary cri, Norm Goldman, sketchandtravel.combook reviewer, book reviewers, bookpleasures, books, literary cri, Norm Goldman, sketchandtravel.comShare This
April 29 2008 | travel-information-for.info | No Comments »
St. Patrick’s Day is known as a day of celebration and festivities, but very few people know the true story of St. Patrick and who he really is. By tradition, he is a patron saint of the Catholic religion because of the captivity that he went through, the time of solitude and his great faith, and eventually the number of people that were converted to know God through him. It is legend that he heard angels and they helped him in his decisions. All in all, he is known as the patron saint of good luck and blessings to the Catholics in that era up until the 21st century.
St. Patrick was a real live person born in the time around 400 AD in Roman Britian, when the British Isles were still under the domain of the Romans. He was born with the name Maewyn. His name wasn’t changed until he was in the monastery. His father was a soldier in the army, and Patrick also reports him to be a deacon, civil official, and a town councilor, who was a son of a Romano-British priest. The family was Christian, but they weren’t extremely religious, some historians even say Patrick was agnostic in his childhood.
According to his most famous work, the Confessio, Patrick was captured along with many others when his village was attacked, and he was taken to Ireland as a slave. Patrick was under the authority of a druid high priest and his family and here he learned the native Celtic language which he later used to communicate, and help those to be converted.
After 8 years in captivity, he escaped at the age of twenty-two, and legend has it that an angel directed him to spend twelve years in a monastery near Paris, France, where he adopted the name Patrick. It was during this time of captivity that Patrick found God and developed the habit of praying throughout the day to strengthen himself and to be closer to God. It is recorded in the Confessio that he would often pray up to 100 times a day. One night, while in the monastery, he said he heard many voices that were calling him back to Ireland to help the remaining slaves. At this time he was somewhere in his mid thirties and so he answered the callings. He became one of the first Christian missionaries in Ireland.
He was confident in the Lord, and he journeyed far and wide, baptizing and confirming with untiring zeal. Indeed, Patrick was successful at converting Ireland to christianity . And he even made important converts even among the royal families. For 20 years he had travelled throughout Ireland, establishing monasteries, schools and churches, which would aid him in his conversions. He died on March 17th.
You can see how originally this was a Catholic holy day, but today St. Patrick’s Day has evolved into more of a secular holiday. Or, rather, ‘be Irish Day ‘. Speculation as to why this holiday is so popular could be the coming of spring that occurs within just a few days.
Niall Cinneide loves entertaining and celebrating St Patrick’s Day. He publishes views, information and news about St Patricks Day at St Patricks Information.
This article may be reprinted in full so long as the resource box and the live links are included intact. All rights reserved. Copyright http://www.St-Patricks.info
Tags: belfast, dublin, holidays, ireland, st patricks day, st pats, travelbelfast, dublin, holidays, ireland, st patricks day, st pats, travelShare This
April 28 2008 | travel-information-for.info | No Comments »
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