Month: November 2018

Next up, Madrid. We enjoyed a week in the capital of Spain. Our AirBnB was just down the street from a lovely park surrounded by coffee shops and tapas bars.

When you’re walking along and see the Museo del Jamón, a stop is mandatory. And delicious.

The Plaza Mayor had a ton of work being done in preparation for the holidays.

Some impressive government buildings.

A stop for chocolate and churros at San Ginés, established in 1894.

The “center” of Spain is called kilometer 0. All road mileages (kilometerages?) in Spain start here.

A few shots from a beautiful urban park with lovely fall colors.

We took a train to the outskirts of Madrid and hiked through a park to a vantage point of the city.

A couple of evening shots.

Our last day trip in Morocco took us to Chefchaouen. On the drive out, we stopped at a vantage point over Sidi Chahed, a reservoir formed by a dam built in the 1990s.

Our first look at Chefchaoen.

The city is famous for it’s blue painted buildings and walls. We wandered through alleys.

We hiked to a vantage point above the city.

We headed back to the city and wandered through endless alleys full of shops. I may have become addicted to finding the perfect encapsulation in picture form of the beautiful city with my endless photos of the blue buildings. A sampling:

We took a day trip from Fez to see the Berber/Roman ruins at Volubilis. The city dates from the 3rd century BC and became part of the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD. It peaked in the 2nd century AD and was essentially the southwest corner of the Roman Empire. The city fell to local tribes around 285 AD and was never retaken. It remained inhabited for another 700 years.

It’s remarkable to me what can survive for nearly 2000 years.

We continued on to the city of Meknes in the afternoon. It had a huge market, but the goods seemed really cheap with endless redundancy. We’d seen much better in Marrekech.

We took a quick flight from Marrakech to Fez to spend a few days there. Fez was surprisingly large, at least to me, and we drove through a modern cityscape on the way from the airport to the Médina (old city).

The gate near the area of the Médina in which we stayed.

On our way to dinner the first night, we had a little trouble finding the restaurant. Amid the concrete buildings and high walls the GPS on the phone can be pretty flakey. A local guy offered to help. And while we were probably less than 100 meters from the restaurant, he took us on a 15-minute walk through the winding alleys of the Médina. I was watching our progress on the phone GPS and could see he was just taking us in a big loop to make it seem like he’d had to take us a long way to find the restaurant. I gave him a little bit of money (I think about a dollar’s worth) and he was insulted and demanded more. Sorry, but we were right around the corner 15 minutes ago. Fortunately, we didn’t see him again.

The restaurant had stunning tile work (and delicious food).

The royal palace:

Though the gate near where we’re staying is also blue, this is Blue Gate.

A colorful street in the Médina:

Fez is famous for its leatherworks and tanneries.

A look out over the many different vats for dyeing the leather different colors.

We took a day trip from Marrekech to the Atlas Mountains. We first stopped for a 45-minute camel ride. The camels kneel for you to get on and stand up once you’re on. The back legs go up first so you’re pitched all the way forward. Hang on! Here’s Leena just after the camel finished standing up.

I had to grab a selfie a few minutes in.

The guides took our cameras for pictures during a stop. Of course, everyone’s checking their own phones/photos. Ha!

Some villages inhabited by Berbers along the road.

After driving for a couple of hours we spied the stunning Atlas Mountains.

We embarked on a waterfall hike.

This is the second-highest peak in Africa. You know the highest, right? (Kilimanjaro.)

OK, the waterfall was a bit underwhelming, but the hike was lovely.

Bonus waterfall tumbling across the dirt road we took down.

We stopped for a late lunch in this Berber village before driving back to Marrakech.

We’d talked about getting to Morocco on this leg and we found a cheap flight from Seville to Marrakech a few weeks back so we booked it.

Marrakech, the “red city”, is amazing. It’s a lot like cities in Asia with its narrow streets, endless markets, and crowds of people walking, riding motorbikes, pushing carts of goods, and sometimes even walking donkeys who are towing even larger carts of goods. Many of the streets are covered with tarps or trellises. Some are elaborate; some are makeshift. It provides shade to keep things cooler in the summer heat. It often feels like you’re walking through a tunnel.

The vibe is more relaxed that some of the Asian markets I’ve been through. Perhaps I’m just getting used to it. Shop owners are rarely aggressive with their pitches and almost always smile and let you move on after a simple “no thank you.” The markets have really wonderful and high-quality artisan goods. The leather work is great:  bags, wallets, belts, “poufs” (ottomans and/or small stools), and so on. The tin work that goes into lamps is beautiful. There are colorful and fragrant spice shops. There are areas with fruit stands and juices, plenty of street grills, sections with endless olives. There are lots and lots of clothes, most of them traditional Moroccan styles. Sure, there are a few with obvious brand counterfeits and T-shirts with silly sayings, but they’re not nearly as common as I’ve seen elsewhere.

The central area of Marrakech is the Medina, and it opens to a large square. You learn to avoid the men with snakes (the snakes are defanged). They charge money if you engage. You also need to avoid the men with monkeys. They’ve trained the monkeys to jump on your shoulder and not get off until you give them money. Many of the restaurants have upper-floor terraces to let you take in the view; very few buildings in Marrakech are more than three stories high.

Our flight from Seville arrived, and the flight crew announced the arrival as 22:20. Then they “corrected” themselves and said it was 21:20. The clocks in the airport, however, agreed with 22:20. Our phones updated to 21:20. A bit confusing! We found our ride after a two-hour line through immigration. We stayed in a Riad near the Medina. It’s a family home arranged around a small central courtyard and fountain. Breakfast was included each day between 9 and 11. We went down the next morning at 9:45 and learned that it was really 10:45. At least we didn’t miss breakfast! What’s going on with the time? Apparently, daylight savings time had started a few days earlier, but the government decided at the last minute (or perhaps after a few days of it) NOT to make the change. Software updates to our phones over the next couple of days gave us the “correct” time.

OK, how about some pictures? Spices:

Olives! We bought a medium jar for about two dollars. Green olives with harissa.

About to enjoy freshly squeezed pomegranate juice.

We toured the Secret Garden, a restored Islamic Garden hidden behind the walls of the Medina. The pictures of the restoration process were incredible. The mature palms are the only plants left from when the restoration started in 2011. The garden’s original water system was fully restored, including the fabrication of sections of terra cotta pipe. The garden opened after the restoration in 2016.

Wood carving.

The ceiling of the central gazebo.

We toured El Badi Palace, built in the 16th century by a Sultan.

Oh, check out Leena in the dress she bought at a shop in the Medina. It was a bit long, but lucky us, a tailor’s shop was right outside the door of our Riad. We’d been exchanging smiles and waves as we came and went with the owner. He happily hemmed the dress for just a few dollars and said that it was nice quality.

The Palace opens to a large courtyard with several main water features and gardens sunk in each corner.

A view from the Palace terrace.

We took another day trip, this time up/over/through the Atlas Mountains to the edge of the Sahara desert. Some views from the drive.

Our first town was Ouarzazate, the “Door to the Desert” and home to the largest movie studios in Morocco. We toured Atlas Studios. Everything is fake! Here’s Leena, driving a “chariot.”

They even have animals on the lot. Sadly, and not unexpectedly, they don’t seem very happy.

Our second stop was the Berber village of Ait Ben Haddou.

We could have taken a road with a bridge into town, but our guide thought crossing the river on a series of makeshift steps was a good idea. It wasn’t. After a bit of unexpected wading, we made it across soaked from the waist down. Oh well, at least the phones survived.

We toured a house in the village and climbed our way to the top.

It’s Election Day back in the US and I want to get a bunch of jumbled thoughts out and see if I can make some semblance of sense from them.

The US is a very flawed democracy.

This isn’t a statement on current affairs. But the present state of things has exacerbated the flaws. I want to talk about these and float some of the ideas I’ve read about to address them. I may even have a few ideas of my own. I find it therapeutic to think about tangible ways to make things better.

Anyone who knows me knows my politics run very left. Call me a liberal or a progressive if you need a label. But I don’t think any of this is a partisan argument per se, though the proposed remedies would undoubtedly benefit the Democrats. But when a minority party controls all three branches of government, I’m left wondering, well, how did we get here?

FLAWS

1. The Electoral College. In a true democracy, the popular vote winner would win the presidency.

2. The Senate. States do not have equal populations, yet are represented equally in the Senate. This is, frankly, one of the least democratic institutions in any democracy.

3. The House of Representatives. While much more representative of the population than the Senate, there are still problems.

• Every state gets a representative for each senator, so while it’s not nearly the skew of the senate, it’s not truly representative of the population.
• We have US citizens without voting representation in the House.
• The process for drawing districts can be controlled by partisan legislatures who can intentionally gerrymander districts. And though both parties do this, the right has been, uh, better at it. Put it all together and there’s currently about a 5% advantage for Republicans. That’s a VERY significant advantage. (This is on top of a natural gerrymander effect stemming from the reality that urban centers with concentrated populations are highly liberal. Splitting these areas up leads to very unnatural districts.)

4. Voter Registration and Election Day. So many problems!

• Inconsistent and incomplete voter registrations
• Voter registration targeted purges
• Unequal distribution of Election Day resources (e.g. long lines at polling places, difficult travel to polling places, etc.)
• Voting held on a traditional work day
• Lack of an comprehensive and auditable paper trail for ballots (e.g. electronic voting)
• Potential for electoral voting system hacking

5. The Supreme Court. To me, the current process is too far abstracted from the democratic will of the people.

FIXES

What can be done? Well, I’d like to focus on processes and not outcomes. If we come up with more democratic processes, we should get more democratic outcomes.

1. Either eliminate the Electoral College or render it obsolete. I like the National Popular Vote initiative. It bothers me that in Oregon, currently a pretty solid blue state, my vote doesn’t matter. Why not? Well, if Oregon were a toss-up state, the election would already by lost. We’d be having a Republican landslide election.

2. Reduce the role of the Senate. I’ve read a few articles about the Senate recently, including one with the provocative headline about abolishing it (see below). But it’s enshrined in the Constitution in a way that would make it nearly impossible to actually abolish. I like the idea of reducing its role.

Further reading:

The Senate represents states, not people. That’s the problem.

Abolish the Senate

The Case for Abolishing the Senate

3. We should:

• Make the House of Representatives strictly related to population. Take away the “+2” electoral votes each state gets which again skews things towards smaller, rural (and red) states.
• Use non-partisan commissions to draw districts.
• Make Puerto Rico and Washington DC states. Make representatives of territories voting members of Congress.

4. Let’s make the process of voting EASY. The outcome should be MUCH higher participation in our democracy, which makes for a stronger democracy.

(I realize that HOW all of the following are done could be complex, but it’s worth finding workable solutions and making adjustments as needed to reach these goals.)

• Automatic voter registration when you turn 18. Allow registration on Election Day. National standards for registration and election roll updates (e.g. name changes, moves, etc.). National standards for voting rights of convicted criminals. (I think specific crimes may make you ineligible to vote, but I don’t think we should take away rights from everyone, and everyone should have rights restored at the end of the sentence.)
• Make Election Day a national holiday. How about voting on Veterans Day?
• National ballot standards. Auditable paper trails, standardized election forms (i.e. no “butterfly ballots”), etc.
• Non-partisan Secretaries of States. (What’s happening in Georgia is unconscionable. You shouldn’t have the Secretary of State running for the highest office on the ticket. It’s such a blatant conflict of interest.) Equitable distribution of polling centers and Election Day resources. Let’s not have long lines to vote.
• Implement vote by mail nationally.

There’s a lot in this area. I’m sure there’s more to be done. I am convinced that voter SUPPRESSION is a huge story of recent elections. And fraudulent voting is currently a complete non-issue (the volume of documented cases is so low as to be completely insignificant). We need to swing the pendulum in the other direction, and if fraudulent voting actually becomes an issue, we can come up with remedies for that as well.

5. One idea I’ve heard for the Supreme Court is for the Democrats to expand it to 11 seats. And though I’ve wanted to focus on process and stay non-partisan, I like this idea as a way to unskew the current undemocratic nature of the Court.

I don’t like the lifetime appointments; I don’t like that justices are incentivized to “hang on” as they age to have their preferred party in the Presidency to fill their seat. Do you put in a 10-year (or 11-year?) term limit? Outside of impeachments and deaths, you’d then be selecting a new justice each year. Now, coupled with a four-year presidency, you could have a party naming all justices for four (or eight, or twelve, etc.) straight years. Perhaps you return to a 60-vote threshold for confirmation in the Senate to ensure at least some level of bi-partisan approval. I suppose a party could obstruct all nominations until they held the presidency, so you could look to overcome this with a ranked-choice voting system. I’m just thinking out loud here! Maybe you move the confirmation process to the House – a more democratic institution. This might not be easy or even feasible since the current process is embedded in the Constitution, but I’d like to at least see the idea explored.

OK. I’m sure I have a ton of the details wrong. I’m sure I’ve missed lots and lots of other flaws and potential fixes. But I’d sure like to see some candidates start to campaign on a platform of improving/restoring/fixing our democracy. What do you think?

The last stop on our Andulisan road trip is Córdoba. We had noticed many similarities between the cities on our tour, and then Leena found this comic.

This pretty much nails it! So, much of the same sights in Córdoba. Some Roman-era ruins.

The cathedral, viewed along the lovely bridge across the river.

We went up a tower (of course) and had a view of a horse ring.

We liked this topiary made to look like a turret.

We toured Medina Azahara, a city set in the hill just west of Córdoba. It dates to the 10th century. They had a great 20-minute film presentation of the city that included renderings of what the ruins looked like in their day.

The arches of the main entrance to the city.

We drove about an hour north from Málaga to hike the Caminito del Rey trail. I linked to the Wiki page if you’re interested in the details behind the trail. In brief, it was a trail built as a shortcut for workers between two hydroelectric power plants. The river runs through two narrow slot canyons and the trail was built with steel beams bolted to the canyon walls and topped with concrete. The path was built between 1901 and 1905.

After nearly a century, the trail had fallen into disrepair, and after several people died in accidents in 1999 and 2000, the trail was officially closed. Intrepid hikers would still dare to hike “the most dangerous path in the world” leading to additional deaths. In 2011, regional governments agreed to rebuild the trail. This was a 3-year effort. Don’t worry, our walk was quite safe!

The region had heavy rains in the weeks before our scheduled hike (you have to purchase a pass ahead of time) and we lucked out: it opened on the day of our hike for the first time in two weeks. The river was so high that it was spilling over the hydroelectric dam.

As we looked down the trail, we could see the first slot canyon.

The river rushes into the canyon. Trust me, it was thunderous.

I may need some tips on how to wear the helmet. Helmets were provided to all hikers to protect us from any falling rocks.

A look back at the first slot canyon.

A look downstream as we exited the first canyon.

Another look back at the first slot canyon.

Even as we walked between the slot canyons, portions of the trail were bolted to a steep face.

A look down. The trail is about 100m above the river.

The valley between the canyons. The gap in the horizon is the second slot canyon.

A railroad line runs down the far side of the canyon. Note the green rail bridge in the center of the picture.

The entrance to the second slot canyon. The far canyon wall has “three roofs” carved out by the wind.

Here’s a look back up the river across the valley between the canyons.

The new trail is the top track, built above the original trail.

A look across at the rail line that’s mostly tunneled through the cliff on the other side of the river.

The bridge for the old path is in the (relative) foreground. The new path has a suspension bridge (which hikers are on).

Some views in the second slot canyon.

Leena takes a look down past her feet.

A view back. Another rail bridge is in the foreground, and you can see the path along the wall in the right hand side of the frame. Where it disappears is the exit of the second slot canyon. It’s so narrow it’s hard to see!