National Park Signs.

Compared to the photographs of restrooms I showed yesterday, these photos of National Park signs make for perhaps a more normal series on the mundane side of travel and tourism. Sometimes I liked the signs for how they added a layer of visual meaning through which to interpret the site, like at the Grand Canyon; sometimes I liked the unusual iconography, like at the Bayon at Angkor; other times I was just struck by an odd phrase, like at the Valley of the Kings, or at Mlilwane Park in Swaziland.

Pictured (from top): ‘Grand Canyon Vista’ at Grand Canyon NP, Arizona, US; ‘No sitting on Balustrade’ at the Bayon at Angkor, Cambodia; ‘Look at the Glory of the Ancient’ at Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt; ‘Fish Poaching is Stricly Prohibited/ Keep Away from Waters Edge, Crocodiles!’ at Mlilwane, Swaziland; ‘No Visitors Beyond this Point’ at Great Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe.

Roadtrip Diptych.

Clean plate at a waffle house; National Forest style.

The Top 7 Locales of 2007.

2007 has been an incredible year. It was a year of multiple residences, and a year of long travels in strange lands, both familiar and exotic. It was a year in which I was exposed to the wonders of Southeast Asia, and in which I came to grasp the beauty of my own dessert home. This list doesn't represent everywhere I visited this year, or even everywhere that touched me- notably absent are Cambodia, Cape Town, Taos, and a number of spots around Thailand. This list is simply a collection of the places that affected me the most, and have lingered in my mind the longest.

7. Gauteng. The placement of Gauteng at the bottom of my list represents, to a degree, my ambivalence about the place. The social character among many people is of fear: they've built up massive shopping malls and walled-in squares, where they can safely avoid having ever to go outdoors. In 2007 I spent a little time exploring Johannesburg on my own, and for the first time visited Pretoria. The architecture of the two cities cannot easily be described as beautiful, but has an odd ironic appeal. They're an uncomfortable mix of styles that represents so much about the contradicting values in South African culture: from the conservative monuments and boulevards of Pretoria, to burgeoning Urban redevelopment in a downtown Joburg reborn. Yet Gauteng is perhaps the most African of South African landscapes: a rapidly developing center that represents- both symbolically and literally- the financial aims of the continent. Perhaps as a result, one can see a distinctively African modern style in Gauteng, perhaps more easily than in Cape Town. For this reason, Egoli keeps me intrigued, and hopefully I will return to see more.

6. Southern Colorado. I visited Southern Colorado often as a child. Just several hours north of my home in New Mexico, it was an easy destination for weekends away or short family trips. But never before this visit have I been so astounded by what a place it is. Perhaps it was seeing through the lens of my foreign traveling companion, or a filter gained from years abroad; either way, Colorado seemed to me a distillation of all the classic images of America, free and glorious. There were horses running in wild overgrown fields, tremendous storms, and ice capped mountains crashing over the horizon of pine trees.

5. Ho Chi Minh City. The home that almost was. For a week I struggled in Ho Chi Minh, worrying about finding work and a place to live. It wasn't until just before I left to return to Bangkok that I was able to see what a truly beautiful, graceful city it is. Where Bangkok is tropical in its steamy, swampy overgrowth, Ho Chi Minh has refined its tropical heat into an elegant style, with pale painted walls, and ornately shuttered windows. The frantic pace of the city is visible in the motorbikes that swarm the street, and yet relaxation is offered in discretely hidden cafes, and in leafy courtyard restaurants. And though I had to choose not to live there in the end, it was undoubtedly one of the most intriguing cities I was lucky enough to visit in 2007.

4. The Deserts of Southwestern USA. On our way from Los Angeles to New Mexico, Bordeaux and I passed through the great deserts of the American Southwest. While it was in many ways a home-coming for me, I was struck for the first time what a bizarre and unusual landscape it was. I revisited some places, like Las Vegas and the Grand Canyon, but I also searched out new places I had never been to: Salton Sea, the mission at San Xavier, Sonoma, Organ Pipe National Park. I explored abandoned motels, drove through thunder storms, and slept under the gaze of kitt fox and kangaroo rats. From the neon wasteland of Las Vegas, to the austere grace of Spanish mission cathedrals, to wonderland cactus gardens, I came to see how the desert Southwest is undoubtedly one of the most exotic landscapes in the world.

3. The Mekong River. The exotic pleasures of Southeast Asia are given form in the meandering brown river called the Mekong. For almost a month we followed the river, from the overgrown hills of Northern Thailand, through the Oriental splendor of Laos, into the wild, dusty landscapes of Cambodia. The river is home to such incredible places as the elegant village of Louang Phrabang, the stylishly mod capital of Vientiane, and the frontier town of Kompong Cham. It was for me a river of untamed jungles, golden temples, and painted blue shutters. And traveling for two days on a slowboat, through tall lush forest and tiny bamboo-and-thatch villages, is unquestionably an experience that will stay with me long after 2007 has passed.

2. Los Angeles. It may seem odd to make a city where I lived from 2001 to 2005 my #2 spot for 2007, but I have reason. I spent most of 2006 in Cape Town; and though I love the Cape, I thought often of LA. I remembered places I missed, thought of neighborhoods I never got to explore, and lamented the fact that I had taken no photographs of the city. I had lived in LA while going to college, but I had never really gotten to know the city, never became a local. So when I returned to the US in late December, I took it as my second chance to get to know Los Angeles. I arrived in California on New Year's Eve, ready to start 2007 in LA. I got to know the city in ways I never had, discovering the styles of midtown, the charms of Little Ethiopia, and the grungy pleasures of Echo Park. I shopped at farmer's markets, used public transport, become a local at several cafes. I came to really enjoy the way that life existed somehow between asphalt reality and a fantasy vision that Hollywood had created of itself. In 2007, Los Angeles emerged for me as a place not just where I went to college, but as a city that I really know; a city from which I draw inspiration; and a city that I now think of as a distant, beckoning home.

1. Bangkok. The number one place for 2007 was, without question, Thailand's capital city. With it's addictive flavors, hip urban culture, and lush concrete landscapes, Bangkok grabbed me in a way no other city has. I arrived in Bangkok unsure of what to expect, prepared to hate the city. I had been told for years that the best strategy when traveling in Thailand was to fly into Bangkok, and quickly get out to anywhere else. But the moment my airplane lowered below the clouds and I took in the towering sky-scrapers, piercing wats, and python-curves of the Chao Phraya river, I was entranced, and I've only grown more fascinated since.

The Incident at Organ Pipe.

On our roadtrip through the American West, Bordeaux and I spent one night in Organ Pipe National Park. It's in a desolate corner of southern Arizona, almost to the border with Mexico. After looking around, we set up camp, and prepared dinner as the sun rapidly disappeared. Once the light had receded over the surrounding hills, darkness enveloped us, and the air quickly grew cold. During the day, every inch of Organ Pipe had felt alive. But in the total darkness of night, with just the sound of kangaroo rats scratching over the sand, we could truly feel our isolation.

I've always found deserts to be beautiful. Part of what makes them so intriguing, however, is that they have an aura of the forbidding. Their barren appearance suggests loneliness, the landscape of the abandoned and forsaken. At night, they only get more eerie. Surrounded by the towering shadows of saguaro, it seemed the proper theatre for some old-fashioned spiritualist photography. We created our own ghosts, the camera becoming the instrument for a desert séance.

Motel.

The new title banner comes from the above photograph, taken of a beautiful old motel in Northern Arizona. In searching for a new banner for Primitive Culture, I was tempted at first to use an image from Southeast Asia to reflect my current locale, or of Africa to reflect my favorite continent. But there was something about this old motel sign that I loved, so in the end I went with something a little closer to my origins. On my last big American roadtrip, I collected photographs of desert motels from all over California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico. Here are some of my favorites.

Gila, Arizona

The two on the left are from Las Vegas, NV, the other is from Hollywood, CA

Amboy, Mojave Desert, CA

Albuquerque, NM

Albuquerque, NM

Monuments of the Four-Corners.

Roadtrip, Part 3
From the quiet, unusual beauty of the desert, Bordeaux and I traveled to the monumental wonders of the Four Corners.
The sky became dark as we approached Sedona, and it was raining by the time we found a place to have lunch. Outside, the red cliffs and pinnacles were alternately drowned in shade and caught in pools of light as the storm moved overhead. When the rain cleared we walked around town, which, as it turns out, is extremely tacky. Bordeaux and I wandered around town, and wondered what the correlation is between New Age culture and a lack of taste.
Bordeaux and I arrived at the Grand Canyon that evening, escaping a second storm. We set up camp, made dinner, and went to sleep without seeing the canyon. The next morning, we took the shuttle to the ridge. The Grand Canyon is always an odd sight to visit, since it's image is so common in books and magazines. It's still an incredible sight, but it's hard for it to be really outstanding, since it always has an element of familiarity. Still, I like the Grand Canyon- especially since the place has kind of a '50s family vacation feel.
I'd seen the Grand Canyon from the rim several times, but on this visit Bordeaux and I decided to hike down into it. We had hoped to sleep in the canyon for one night, setting up camp at Indian Garden, but found that they had given out all the backcountry camping passes already. We settled instead on simply taking a morning hike down Bright Angel Trail- about 3 miles down and back. On the way to Bright Angel Trail we passed the mule pen. I hadn't realized how many people came to the Grand Canyon to ride mules- the appeal of which is lost on me. I was fairly fascinated by the crowds of middle-aged men and women, dressed in cowboy hats and bandanas, that waited for their turn for a mule ride. We passed the mules throughout our hike. Aside from the mess they made of the trail, the mule trains were fun to watch- giant obese men in cowboy hats, and dozing off old ladies propped up on the sadly plodding animals.
Bordeaux and I camped, but we still found time to check out the Grand Canyon Lodges. I think my favorite is the Bright Angel Lodge- it's not as dramatic and grandiose as the El Tovar (which was modeled on European hunting lodges), but it has a funny 1930s Western theming that makes it much more charming. It has a soda fountain, a log-cabin giftshop, and a dark bar with smoke-stained murals of a Native American Pueblo. On our last night Bordeaux and I had drinks on the patio at El Tovar, and watched the sun set over the canyon.
Just outside of the park, we stopped at Chief Yellow Horse, an over the top souvenir stand. The exterior, with massive signs, and a giant boat-car (painted in the same yellow house paint as the signs), was far more interesting than the interior, which was filled with dusty turquoise and postcards. Leaving Chief Yellow Horse without purchase (which would have been hard if we ahd wanted anything, since the place seemed deserted), we continued on our way to Utah. As Bordeaux and I had noticed throughout our trip, if you drive for 30 minutes in the Southwest, the landscape will change dramatically. From the dry woody Grand Canyon, we passed into scrubby grassland, punctuated by strange mesas and multi-colored rock formations.
Just past the Utah border, Bordeaux and I entered Monument Valley. Compared to the Grand Canyon, Monument Valley has a strange sense of remoteness. It's not an unfamiliar place, as its dramatic buttes are featured in all sorts of adverts and movies. However, despite its use in the media as an icon for the West, not many people think to visit Monument Valley. There are no hotels nearby, and not many restaurants, making it seem like a distant outpost, even with the Dutch and French tourists milling around.
When I last visited Monument Valley, the scene was of a rugged desert landscape. Red buttes rising out of dusty red earth. But due to the recent rains, Monument Valley was in bloom this time. Green shrubs, purple flowers, and white yucca blossoms sprouted from the soil, giving the area the softer, less barren look of a grassland. Bordeaux and I made the driving circuit of the park- through a herd of skittish goats, under massive red clay walls, and to a windswept stand selling dream catchers. Completing the circuit, Bordeaux and I decided not to camp at Monument Valley- we'd seen the park, and the constant film of red dust was getting annoying. Instead, we continued to Southern Colorardo.
I have been to Southern Colorado many times, but I never realized how beautiful it is. There was still a fair amount of snow on the mountains, which contrasted with the lush green fields that skirted the highway around us. With the rolling forested hills, dramatic snowy purple peaks, and rushing frosty rivers, the scene looked perfectly American, like an ad for a pickup truck or a domestic beer.In the morning we backtracked a little to Mesa Verde, which sits almost right on the four corners. The park offices were designed in a pueblo-modern style, and contained such novelties as a taxidermy cougar and a practice-tunnel to prepare visitors for exploring the ruins. Bordeaux and I bought tickets to tour Cliff Palace, which is the biggest ruin site, and does not contain any tunnels. We drove out through burned forest to the site, and waited for the tour to start. Our tour guide was a scholar on Native American history, who seemed somewhat resigned to the jokey tour he recited.
We spent two nights at a cabin in Pagosa, Co, though we spent more time out in Durango, where New-Age devotees mixed with drunken college students. We passed through Pagosa proper as we left town, and decided to stop at the Malt Shoppe. The place was crowded, the orange formica booths full, so we got our malts to go and continued on the road.
Once again the landscape changed, flattening out into grassland. We had our second large wildlife setting an hour outside of Pagosa- a herd of bison. They were farmed bison, but beautiful none the less. As we approached Great Sand Dunes, we realized that we were heading into a storm. Caught in a sliver of light from between the dark clouds, the sand dunes themselves looked particularly strange: peaked golden hills, glowing in front of the dark, distant mountains.
I had expected the Great Sand Dunes to look something more like Namibia, but the setting was far stranger. The sand dunes were high but fairly sloping, rising from beyond a shallow stream. Just beyond them were a crest of snowy mountains, preventing any sense of being in a Saharan desert. We walked along the stream, our shoes making shallow grooves in the wet earth that filled up with water as soon as we raised our feet.

In the Living Desert.

Roadtrip, Part 2
One of my goals in this trip was to catch a glimpse of some American wildlife. However, since Yellowstone and the Everglades were too far out of the way, I had to research some places in the Southwest where it would be possible to see some animals.
Our first night camping in the desert was spent in Joshua Tree. We got to the park offices after closing, put grabbed one of the maps of campsites left beside the locked door. Outside of the park offices a family of quails was running around the parking lot, terrified of us. The father bravely tried to lead us away, leaving his wife and a small flock of tiny quail chicks chirping fearfully. The mother managed to jump into a planter, but the chicks were too small- they hopped and leaped, but only managed to knock their bodies against the planter's concrete side. After terrorizing them with our cameras, we headed into the park. We got to the campsite just as the sun was setting, the mountainous boulder landscape fading to blue. We set up our tent in a hidden spot between rocks, and gathered kindling for a fire before the sun set. While heating the coals, Bordeaux looked over my shoulder, and saw a silhouette on the rock behind me. A kitfox was watching us, its thin body arched as it looked down at us.
The next morning, after walking through a carefully mapped out cholla garden, we drove south out of the park. We took minor roads, through rocky valleys and quiet desert passes. Somewhat abruptly, scrub desert was replaced with manicured green fields as we approached the town of Mecca. Beyond the fields of green, seeming a mirage, spread the Salton Sea. As we approached it, we found quiet seafront towns, where mobile homes far outnumbered permanent structures. The shoreline was littered with crumbling yacht clubs and boarded up motels, the perfect setting for enacting a post-apocalyptic fantasy. Bordeaux and I parked outside of a desolate motel, home now to abandoned appliances and a commune of pigeons.
The situation was not much different in Gila Bend, AZ, where we found the deserted Desert Gem Motel. A mod '60s motel, fenced up and emptied out (aside from a few squatter residents).
From Gila Bend we curved south, on the lonely highway to Organ Pipe. We passed through quiet towns, whose main source of income seemed to be selling insurance for travelers going to Mexico. We drove far south, nearly to the border of Mexico. Border Patrol trucks lumbered past us, in search of illegal crossings. Bordeaux spotted a coyote (not the kind the Border Patrol was looking for), standing at the side of the road. After a lonely drive through bizarre cactus forest, we finally reached quiet Organ Pipe, sanctuary for peccary Sonoran Pronghorn.
In contrast to the abandoned motels and past-primes towns that Bordeaux and I had seen, every inch of the desert seemed to be alive. Cacti and scrub brush grew from every inch of soil, in strange shapes and surprising colors. While we didn't see any larger mammals (no pronghorn of peccary, sadly), I was amazed by the amount of life we saw in the desert. I've never seen Disney's documentary The Living Desert, but it reminded me of that. While looking at a massive organ pipe cactus, we saw a mouse slipping into his nest, a woodpecker searching for a meal, and bees and wrens feeding at the blossoms. At night we were visited by a skittish kangaroo rat, and a fat surly toad.
From Organ Pipe we drove north, through the town of Why (along a highway sponsored by the group 'Why Senior Citizens'). The side of the highway was dotted by altars and crosses, colorful graves marked with portraits and memorabilia from the life of the dead. Skirting the southern border of Arizona, we eventually arrived in Tucson, where our car radio picked up an NPR affiliate, begging for donations in terms that its listeners would understand ("Just give up that one chai latte a week!"). Turning south, we entered the San Xavier reservation. Though the mission church at San Xavier was under restoration, it was still an impressive sight- a cool white adobe structure, decorate with terra cotta saints and carved wooden trim. Outside the garden was filled with strange purple prickly pear, and beautifully manicured cholla. Inside the chapel, we found an elaborate altar, populated by a town of Catholic kitsch: ceramic Jesuses and luridly painted Marys, lit by dozens of tiny candles.
Finally, the next day, I got my large mammal sighting. Under dark clouds and shuddering thunder, we drove north to the Grand Canyon. Just past Flagstaff, where pine forests gave way to flat grassland, Bordeaux spotted two animals galloping across a distant ridge. Realizing what they were, I hastily pulled the civic to the side of the road. A thin pronghorn antelope, the fastest North American mammal, was posing at some distance from us. It's silhouette, svelte form and stubby horns, stood out against the blue mountains beyond. Of course, as I got out my camera, the pronghorn went in front of some bushes and laid down to rest, and I was able in the end to produce only this sad, blurry photo of it tucked between wildflowers and pinon shrubs.