The Legacy of Babel: Part Two

Lake Balaton’s morning breath condensed in heavy drapes on either side of the small road, replacing Hungarian countryside with a gauze landscape of soapy green and grey. Melinda’s father sat behind the wheel, his eyes scanning the slick road ahead while he kept the car at a polite pace – two acts that are atypical of the Magyar motorist stereotype.

Unfortunately, given my level of excitement, this break-nothing speed combined with the colours and textures of our surroundings so as to make me feel less like a traveller bound for an anticipated destination, and more like a slug ambling along a lettuce leaf.

There was good reason for my insect-inspired agitation. At the end of that dawn road lay the town of Sümig – a pretty little village built around a castle and church, supported by the summer stream of German tourists determined to be knocked off their horse in a pseudo-medieval jousting tourney.

It was also the home of my mother’s aunt and cousin.

We stopped the car on a quiet street, opposite the curved, yellow wall of an apartment block. The early mists had frayed and a pleasant autumn day welcomed us by warming the wet out of our jackets. There were no apparent signs to indicate whether or not this was the right place – presumably Sümig is small enough of a village that everyone knows exactly where they’re going, and little thought may be given for the likelihood of strangers travelling to anywhere that wasn’t the prominent hilltop castle.

We asked a passing woman if she knew where we could find my aunt’s address, but she just shook her head and passed beneath the arch towards the apartments. As she did so, we noticed the small plaque beside the archway that marked it out as our destination. Flanked by the honour guard of Melinda and her father, we slowly walked through the gateway and scanned for the number 4.

Awkwardly, the door to apartment number 4 was blocked by the figure of the passing woman. I made a mental note that she proved my theory about the small village – knowing exactly where she was going, despite not having the address – whilst giving her the faintest of “I know, let’s not mention it” smiles.

But at that moment my line of sight locked onto a shade of red much deeper than the blushing of the woman’s cheeks. A fire-headed vision, beaming and wool-wrapped, launched itself out from the apartment’s shadows and grappled me into a joyous embrace. Though she could only coo gently into my ear, I knew immediately that I stood face-to-shoulder with my mother’s cousin, Gabi.

Beyond the front door, Gabi’s apartment was a tight den filled with a mix of very old Hungarian heirlooms and stacks of books and random papers. Still pinching and stroking me, Gabi led the three of us into a sitting room where she immediately provided coffee and strange, cheese-encrusted pastries. From somewhere amidst the collected clutter, another voice emerged, speaking Hungarian with a voice that merged an aged strain with a youthful lightness.

Manyi neni, my mother’s aunt, shuffled into the sitting room. I recognised her broad forehead as the mark of my maternal family, and soon after shadows fell aside from crinkled eyes, a flat nose and a very large grin. She stood at only half my size, a beloved creature from another world, clapping her hands with a joy normally displayed by a child at Christmas time. That was all I could take. Mirroring her grin, I leapt out of my chair and embraced her. Every moment of the last few weeks burst up inside me and I tried to channel it all into this magical woman.

For years Mum had spoken of her aunt in a morbid past tense. Lack of contact meant that Manyi was, like Schrodinger’s cat, forever suspended between death and senility. On my first morning in Tapolca, before calling Australia, I’d vainly torn through the local cemetery with the dread that I would find her name carved into one of its stones. Now that she was in my arms, this stranger embodied a great victory. I had not just found a lost relative – I was bearing witness to a form of resurrection.

And she was sharp. Whether donning her headscarf to collect wood from outside (she would only let me help with a grudging “danke schön”), or preparing a meal, Manyi always absorbed her world with gleeful eyes. She and Gabi interrogated Melinda and Balazs, learning all about how I had landed as a guest in their house. Magyar and English soon bounced around the tiny room in a quick volley that sought to recreate the last twenty odd years within the space of an hour. My coffee was still cold and half full when Melinda turned to me and said, “Would you like to stay here?”

It was easy to translate the Hungarian gazes locked onto me. It was impossible for me to have said “No”.

There was, however, the question of how we would talk. Melinda’s deft ability to fill linguistic potholes had spoilt me, but Manyi caught the helplessness on my face and giggled, pointing up to the ceiling.

“She says that they have dictionaries,” Melinda reassured me.

One night, ten years earlier, I was a chubby boy hovering around my Mum in our kitchen. For all my life, no matter where we’d lived, a collection of ceramic plates had decorated this space, each one hand-painted with flowers, birds or vegetative patterns. Made by my mother’s other cousin – Tilda – these were a constant launching pad for discussion about her family.

“I’m not sure why I’m really learning German,” I said.

“Well,” Mum replied, gesturing to the plates, “it could come in handy if you ever visited Manyi neni.”

For the next four years I continued studying German, something seemingly useless except for the spare potential that maybe one day I would meet a lost woman thousands of kilometres away. Sadly, that little dream was extinguished by the laziness of later adolescence; I dropped German solely because I couldn’t be bothered completing homework at the last minute in another language.

The moment I was alone with my relatives, every German word stored in my brain gave a polite cough and left the premises. At best only five words remained in my vocabulary, which is as useful as a handful of flour in the middle of a gale.

“It is said,” Manyi told me early on, “that the English language was invented by people trying to speak German with a pipe in their mouth.”

One particular example of this haunted me throughout my attempts to drawl in pidgin Deutsch. Being a procrastinator, I’ve developed a long-term de facto relationship with the English verb ‘will’, delaying absolutely everything with that useful syllable. However, the German will means ‘want’, and what I really needed was that elusive bastard werde. The end result had me apparently demanding the most abstract objects from a bemused Manyi and Gabi.

However, as promised, Manyi summoned up two volumes of her Magyar/English dictionary that both remained grafted to our laps for the rest of my stay. Whenever we reached an impasse in our conversation – which, let’s face it, was already moving as smoothly as a baked baby’s behind – our fingers would flick through the dry pages, accompanied with as many sighs and hand gestures as we required. Discussions at the dinner table – weren’t.

During lunchtime on the day that I left, I recovered from a failed attempt at German by gesturing to Manyi that I had a pipe in my mouth. She laughed, but her eyes looked straight into mine with something sadder than her smile.

“When you say things like that, it is as if Irene were in the room with me.”

Since a very early age, I’ve always been compared with my maternal grandmother. We were inseparable for the first year of my life; she would bounce me on her lap while I played with a plastic telephone, she fed my toothless maw with peeled grapes and processed meats and, according to a photograph, let me wear her wig.

She died of breast cancer before my second birthday, and I have no actual memory of her.

But a faded image appears whenever I look in the mirror. We have the same eyes, the same forehead, the same lips and nose. Nowadays, when someone points out how similar we look, I laugh and say, “Yes, it must be because of the beard.”

Manyi told me of how much she missed her sister, of how Irene’s fiery soul carried her out of Hungary to Paris and of how, unwilling to return to the Soviet grip, she left for Australia. Married and a mother, Manyi remained in the old house where their grandparents had once run a butcher shop. Such was Irene’s dislike of Communist Hungary that the two may never have met again, were it not for the fact that my grandmother’s husband had an accident while visiting Hungary, and demanded that his wife and step-child fly over to see him.

“When Irene and Jackyka last visited us,” Manyi told me, “Irene had a dream that our mother was yelling at her. She’d shouted, ‘You are too fat!’ We laughed about it at the time but, later, when she was in hospital, Irene said to me, ‘If I wasn’t so fat, maybe they would have found this before it was too late.’”

It is hard to describe how I felt when I left Sümig after that meal. My last image of Manyi is of her standing at the front door to Number 4, her wispy hair reaching out to all corners of the universe. Those clear eyes of hers were misted like the Balaton morning and she raised her hand to her lips, kissing the distance between us goodbye.

My short time staying with Hungarians – both my family as well as Melinda’s – had shown me a part of a world that seems to be history without end. Hungary is heavy with the past, from its legendary founding by Arpad through to the Treaty of Trianon that many Magyars still consider an act of butchery. And within each household there are shelves and walls filled with private ghosts.

The single, unifying entity amongst all these people and stories is their language. I heard it while listening to Melinda sing out the lyrics to Hungary’s very first rock opera, and when I tackled wits with Manyi and her dictionary; there was something proud living within their words. It was something that made it worthwhile to learn a language spoken by only a few million people across the globe. Something distinctly Hungarian that could never have been expressed were it not for the jealous rage of a desert deity long ago.

The Legacy of Babel: Part One

Walking into the Pergamon Museum in Berlin is like having half of your body transported back into the Classic era. Within its temple-like dimensions are partially reconstructed statues, columns, towers, gates and various other pieces of civic memorabilia from the ancient world. Where stone ends it is met with a blank whiteness – the fuzzy point where you must use your imagination or at least admit that you’re not a fully accomplished time traveller.

I came here in my last hours of Berlin so as to see the special exhibition of “BABLYON: MYTH and TRUTH”. In a very nice touch, the museum had created two separate exhibitions: one that looked at the historical reality of Babylonian culture, while the other collected the artistic legacy drawn from the legends of biblical Babel.

To be blunt, the factual exhibition was interesting, but relied heavily on information cards to explain a library of cloned cuneiform tablets. There was also a wealth of corroded rings and spearhead slivers that, after the fiftieth identical cabinet display, made me think more of old plumbing than the birth of civilisation. This was especially disappointing after the start of the exhibition, where visitors enter through the azure Gate of Ishtar, constructed from the same stones that its ancient architects selected.

Sadly, the mythical section wasn’t much better, replacing cuneiform tablets with semen-crusted newspaper clippings of Saddam Hussein (I wish I were joking). Where it did deliver a spark of joy into my withered heart, though, was in its catalogue of famous myths about Babylon. There’s the image of a maddened Nebuchadnezzar, crawling naked through the wilderness, and of the sultry Whore of Babylon riding atop her seven-headed monster. But, most lingering for me, is the story of the Tower of Babel and how its height affronted God so much that he cursed everyone within to speak a different language.

He’s a cheeky devil, that God character.

A recurrent theme throughout my travels has been the language barrier. English, despite what television and the internet told me, isn’t widely spoken and monolingual travellers need to resort to new tactics in order to eat. Yes, sometimes it’s hard, especially when I’m tired or on the receiving end of too many pints, but some of my best experiences have stemmed from linguistic gymnastics. For this reason I don’t think that God actually cursed the Tower of Babel – he just gave us something new to talk about. And anyone who complains is being lazy.

One night in Krakow, the three Frenchmen and I joined with two Polish girls in a retro hair salon that became a fancy bar after the sun fled. For several hours we crammed into a tiny booth and the air turned soupy with Polish, French and the occasional English (for my benefit). Somehow I ended up in a very complex conversation with one of the French guys – the one who spoke the least amount of English – that employed the full array of communicative tools. I couldn’t demonstrate it for you now, but somehow I discovered a gesture that roughly translates to “I don’t agree with your particular theory about what constitutes a real artwork”. And – in a demonstration of how physically communicative humans truly are – he understood me perfectly.

I later realised that shaking my head would have also done the trick.

It took three times as long as a normal conversation. But I actually enjoyed it more, and I think the reason is that the language barrier forced us to pay deeper attention to what we were both saying, rather than instantly recognising a familiar linguistic pattern and firing off the appropriate retort.

This theory came back into my mind the other night, while standing in a crowded London pub. In the countries where an English sentence is prefaced with a grimace, I found every scrap of random conversation amazing. Two Hungarian girls giggling on the train are obviously talking about something of great intellect and importance because I can’t understand them. But, when hearing the same characters dubbed in English, it is instantly driven home how inane those exotic conversations probably are.

There is a third type of language barrier that I came across in my travels – neither talker speaking in their native tongue. But before I get to that, here’s an aside about Hungarian.

Hungarian, like a few other European languages, uses the same informal word for hello and goodbye. Confusingly, Hungarians say “see-ya”, which has the habit of putting newly arrived Australians in a state of panic. To make matters more odd, Hungarians have appropriated English words into their daily chatter. These tend to crop up like magic mushrooms, catching the unwary tourist and flipping his head into a world of smelly colours and noisy tastes.

Such as...

When leaving the house of my hosts in Tapolca (more on that shortly), the mother took me to the door. She smiled and spoke the only English word she knew – “Hello” – while waving a friendly goodbye. This wasn’t just an isolated slip of the tongue, either. Most Hungarians bade me goodbye with a polite “Hello” once they learned that I spoke English. It must’ve been their way of making me feel more at home.

I’d like to believe that overall politeness and hospitality is a cultural trait in Hungary (it’s not, unfortunately – just ask the Roma), because I came across it in a very big way whilst staying in Tapolca, a small town fed by the wines, springs and hills of the Lake Balaton region.

I arrived in Tapolca late on a Saturday night. Couchsurfing had kindly provided me with a host in this town – the last known residence of my mother’s aunt and cousins. I’d decided in a fit of whimsy to see if they were still around after thirty years of silence.

Explaining this to my hosts was a case of verbal acrobatics. My contact, Melinda, spoke some English while her father had developed a kaleidoscopic manner of switching English, French and German in the one sentence. Melinda later told me that her grandmother had been an interpreter, so her father learned these three languages through a haphazard osmosis.

The biggest sticking point was that I didn’t actually have my aunt’s address or her full name, just a few scattered memories from a conversation with Mum months earlier. Blessed with such a portfolio of genealogical facts, it would’ve been easier to prove that Nicolas Sarkozy was my long-lost half brother (he is, by the way).

So, early on the Sunday morning, I walked into the four-star Hotel Pelion. I needed to ring Australia and a large hotel seemed to be the best-equipped for the job. Most hotels have a strict policy not to allow shabby, hairy strangers to make international calls, no matter how dire their situation. But after some words and puppy dog eyes, I was able to convince them that the sun would disintegrate unless I was able to call my Mum in Australia. Moments later, I had the important address details in hand and, best of all, I’d charmed the desk clerks so much that they hadn’t charged me for the call.

Armed with the address, it was obvious what my next step would be. I made a beeline for Szenchenyi Istvan utca, a tiny harelip of a street between the main road and Tapolca’s graveyard. Throwing caution (and Hungarian) to the wind, I knocked on every door I could find, rousing families in an effort to find my own. Whether I mispronounced my great aunt’s name or not, no-one knew where my family could be found. But, not wanting to send me off empty-handed, a kind lady took me to a nearby pub, where she introduced me to a local man who balanced his greasy mullet with a handlebar moustache.

Called Ferenc, he’d been drinking since ten o’clock that morning and it had obviously given him a charitable bent, because after a single handshake we were back out into the cold and door-knocking again. Though he could only speak Hungarian, Ferenc assured me that we’d find my family. Like some proud ambassador, he took me from door to door – the same doors that I’d knocked on about half an hour earlier – and proclaimed me as the returned heir to the Hungarian throne. Unsurprisingly, no-one had a clue as to what either of us were talking about.

By this point Ferenc appeared to be on the point of hypothermia, so we returned to the pub where I thanked him with two shots of pálinka. As for myself, famished from the morning’s exertions, I planted myself down and stuffed my stomach into hibernation.

Local customs are something else that can be difficult to translate. This proved the case when I returned to my hosts shortly around 4pm, which happens to be the time that most Hungarian families have their biggest meal of the day. I had barely given Melinda’s father the discovered address before I was bolted to a table and served a week’s worth of food.

While the dark blur of food coma misted my eyes, Melinda’s father revealed that he’d surveyed my great aunt’s house ten years earlier to make sure that she was selling it for the right amount. Furthermore, he produced the phone number of Tapolca’s largest gossip who, after a long phone call, revealed the following details:
1) My great-aunt was still alive,
2) She was living with my Mum’s cousin in a town 20km away,
3) I was actually related to the gossip, because my great-grandfather’s mother’s sister was the mother of her second cousin’s hairdresser.

Despite all of this happy news, I became aware that Melinda’s mother had noticed my casual picking. So as not to embarrass myself, I asked Melinda to explain that I was just too excited to eat.

It wasn’t a complete lie either. The last 24 hours had seen my emotions wrenched in many directions, from the excitement of obtaining the address to the cold, disappointment of door-knocking with Ferenc. Now, here I was, at the threshold of completing my final major goal for 2008 and every hair on my body stood rigidly on end. I was in one of those films where the protagonist, having travelled far from home to find their kidnapped partner/lover/child, is assured in heavily accented English: “My father says that she is alive – we know where she is and will take you to her tomorrow.”

But first I had to sleep off the meat hangover.

TO BE CONTINUED....

Architecture

Five German men boarded my sleeper cabin on the eastern outskirts of Berlin. Clean-cut, efficiently German and very polite, they introduced themselves with the offer of a cold beer before asking if I could move to the top bunk. Seconds earlier, two of the men had argued with the train steward about whether or not they could turn the cabin into a mobile bar. Whether or not they understood his yelled Polish, my moving to the top bunk was enough to apparently license the cabin for an entire night's worth of drinking, card-playing, Germanic whooping and other forms of sleep-deprivation.

I only mention this so as to explain the reason why, ten hours later, I decided that it was perfectly sane to walk out of a train station in Krakow and head in a random direction sans map.

Obviously I had a homing beacon embedded in my chest - though I cannot determine whether it was implanted by a Soviet, industrialist or architectural historian - because the seven kilometre trek I ambled through that misty morning led me directly to the wonder that is Nowa Huta.

Back in the days of red flags marched down post-war avenues, Poland's soviet minders were embarrassed when the citizens of Krakow voted against communism. Due to the distressing proximity of WWII, the Soviets decided that a violent realignment of political opinions was not the way forward, so instead developed an idea that shares alarming similarities with the capitalist darling known as "franchising".

Villages to the east of Krakow were relocated, and a gigantic steel factory, double the size of Krakow's historic centre, was constructed. To feed this mill (Nowa Huta means "New Steel Mill"), the Soviets built a proletariat utopia between Krakow and the factory, filling it with the heroes of communist ideology: the working class.

Of course, the working class couldn't be trusted to uphold communism on their own, especially when they would be too busy toiling in the mills and bringing down bourgeois Krakow, so Soviet architects developed ways that could automate a grand, red community.

This is why Nowa Huta is arranged in a semi-circular pattern, formed by five districts that are intersected by wide avenues terminating at a glorious, central plaza. Each district is walled, with limited entrances built under the nicer apartments (home to the "more equal" citizens who policed the comings and goings of residents). Just in case anything went awry, such as an invasion, these entrances were wide enough to fit a defensive tank.

Within these walled districts could be found schools, shops and anything else required by a community. The logic was that by looking inwards, the residents would support/spy on each other, becoming a fiercely loyal unit of workers that could successfully outweigh the protests of middle-class Krakow.

Unfortunately, these grim, prison walls provided the opposite effect, and Nowa Huta became a stronghold for the anti-communist workers' solidarity union in the 1980s. To add insult to injury, the central square which once held a statue of Lenin, is now called Ronald Reagan Road.

The main gates of the factory proper stand a short tram ride away from the residential districts of Nowa Huta. Here social realist architects built imposing twin blocks for grim administration, sweeping out from the stone and steel workers' entrance like the burly arms of an overbearing mother-monster. Between their elbows, at the point where a screaming child could be suffocated, was once a glorious square with enough space to cram hundreds of thousands of workers as a demonstration of Soviet might. Though, the Soviets were not completely naive in their idealism; the floral crenelations above the administrative buildings served the dual purpose of evoking the Venetian doge's palace whilst also providing suitable cover for snipers.

And here I found myself thinking about another building, a train's journey behind me, designed by a logic that, technically, can be found on the opposite end of the political spectrum...

Spittle-lipped Minnesota Jim stood outside the former Luftwaffe headquarters in Berlin, gesticulating at the bare plaza surrounded on three sides by bullying blocks of straight, unadorned Nazi architecture.

"When a person stood here at the gate, they would find themselves being surrounded on all sides by the building, as if it were closing in to crush them. This was on purpose - it was Hitler's idea that at no time should any citizen feel equal to or, worse, above the Empire."

I wonder if the factory workers at Nowa Huta felt this when they were dwarfed by the buildings that supposedly celebrated their steel brotherhood? In hindsight, perhaps the blueprints of Nowa Huta prophesied Russia's evolution from united glory to grinding dictatorship.

Now, hopefully I won't slip a disk by twisting backwards in such an awkward way, but there is one striking example of Nazi architecture that did not opt for the gargantuan. Instead, this style sought to crush and consume its victims through its diminutive size - albeit, with many such small buildings working in concert like the villi of the intestine, thus digesting in catastrophic numbers.

I'd spoken to a lot of people about their experiences at Auschwitz-Birkenau - as tourists - before I hopped on the over-heated, 90 minute bus ride to see it for myself. Some found it appalling that fast food could be easily bought at its entrance, and there were even a few wry comments about how the shepherding of tourist hordes mimicked a more bestial practice of the past. I shared a dinner with three French boys the night before I went, and they spoke of how harrowing the experience had been - two were affected by the curated nature of the Auschwitz museum, while the third was most moved when given the freedom of imagination by the unadorned starkness of Birkenau.

For this reason, I'd already created a picture of the concentration camps in my mind, a map of my expected emotional journey. However, like my quixotic journey to Nowa Huta, I managed to stumble completely off track.

From the moment I stepped off the bus, there was a darkness stirring in my body. Each step unsettled more and more mud from the well of my stomach, pumping a noxious cloud of despair upwards where it billowed into my mind. By the time I'd reached the information desk I was unable to think properly - not out of the sadness that caused so many tourists to cry, but more from a claustrophobic buzzing in my ears. Disoriented by this, I was conveyed into the small, neat streets of barb-wired Auschwitz I.

Many of the buildings here hold exhibtions, containing pictures, documents and, what I found to be the most horrifying, piled heaps of Nazi souvenirs: smashed spectacles, shoes, clothing and hair. Every room I walked through spotted mold clusters of weeping tourists, some muttering amongst themselves or standing in painful silence around Holocaust art installations. The swarm behind my eyes made me anxious to keep moving, to stay away from their crowded corridors, and so I passed amongst them like a ghost.

I couldn't help but try and imagine what it must've been like to be incarcerated here. History has exposed the knowledge of mass murder, but back in those dark ages inmates would have had only the barest rumours to eulogise their vanished companions. It was so cold in that grey place, and I wore so many layers to quench my shivering - a deeper chill injected itself through my mind's vein when I saw the threadbare prison uniforms. Here was a place that had no other purpose but to kill anything it touched.

I walked three kilometres to the next museum, that of Auschwitz II-Birkenau. Unlike its smaller cousin, this site has no signs, no exhibtions: it shouts through the mere fact of standing as it was left. Here stood block after block of housing, once stables for 56 horses, but modified to hold upwards of 400 people apiece. Each building sported a chimney for a spine and the bulk of Birkenau, burnt by the SS, now stands as a forest of red brick obelisks as far as the bleary eye can bare to see.

From here I walked along train tracks, those infamous tributaries that terminated at the selection platforms. Along their left side were more detention blocks in a better state of repair. One of these slapped its doors at me, again and again in an effort to grab my dizzy attention. With no other signs apparent, I took this as my necessary direction and entered the forlorn building.

The floor was the first thing I noticed, buckled and torn by the earth's attempts to reject it. And then I saw the bunks, in tiers of three, for the purpose of stacking prisoners in amounts beyond what is humanely comfortable. This was too much for my head, besieged as it was by the black storm, and I spent the next hour walking aimlessly, unable to notice anything else with my eyes.

Some Footage Missing

The rules of etiquette suggest that you should never begin a letter with an apology. Maybe it has something to do with displacing the balance of power, immediately placing your reader at a step above you as the forgiver or, perhaps, because it raises the awkward social ghost of an outed faux pas.

Whatever the reason, I've never been one for etiquette beyond the words "please" and "thank you", so ... I'm sorry that it's been such a long time since I last wrote here. I've been a very busy boy and I promise never to do it again.

However, instead of picking up where I left off - on the shores of Greece - I've instead decided to leap ahead to the present day, but with a "lick and a promise" that I'll one day set back the clocks to describe my journey to Ancient Sparta as well as my brief flirtation with clowning in London.

I promise.

Lick.

And now, for something completely different: Berlin, the City of the Black Bear, and the largest city in Germany courtesy of its 3.4 million or so inhabitants. Laid like a tablecloth over flat swampland, Berlin certainly captures the essence of linen left after a very messy dinner party. Several messy dinner parties in fact, including ones that saw the partitioning of the table so as to prevent disgruntled relatives from stabbing one another with their butter knives.

In every direction you'll see grafittied walls slumping in exhausted decay against resolute Neo-classical museums, repatriated ex-Nazi megaliths, occupied Soviet apartments and electronic glass juggernauts. The streets are wide and uncrowded, moreso due to their size rather than lack of people, and are patrolled endlessly by cyclists, young parents, dogs and prostitutes wearing bumbags. Mitte, the central part of the city, is also home to swarming packs of anglophonic tourists beating their way from drink to drink on one of many different pub crawls.

It was on my third night in the city, alone and preparing for a night filled with kebabs and reading, that one such pub crawl swept me up for binge drowning, thanks to the particularly forceful rip tide known to scientists as Becky Wolfe.

After many attempts to meet up with my high school friend, Becky and I had come to the conclusion that we'd never cross paths in Europe. So, you can imagine my surprise when, kebab almost in hand, I heard the thundering boom of an "Oh my fucking god!" followed by the sudden disappearance of a small family as Becky struck through them to tackle me. My first night of solitude - the first in about a month - was quickly replaced with a tour of various bars, including a shisha cafe and an awful nightclub, and the familiar strains of an Australian accent. Thankfully, Becky's company made for a good night.

I ended up hiding out in Becky's hostel room, as my own bed was lost in the labyrinth of early morning Berlin. Unfortunately her tour demanded that they all be up and packed by 7am, regardless of hangover, so that they could bus up to Amsterdam in time for a sex show. That left me, disoriented and cold on the streets and, tragically, staring down the barrel of a day wasted in bed.

In fact, this was the fourth day in a row that I'd technically wasted in Berlin. Dumped by the lightning ICE train from Hamburg on the previous Saturday morning, I'd found a bed in a student flat on the east side of the inner city. Here I was a guest of Andy, a German, Carlos, an El Salvadorean and Shiri, an Israeli. Unlike the tourist-driven powerhouse of central Berlin, their neighbourhood of Friedrichshain was a lot more relaxed, formed out of grids of Soviet-era apartments framing ramshackle parks.

The moment I stepped through the door, I was sat down in a chair and remained almost in that exact position until I went to bed hours later.

On my second day here, Shiri and her homosexual Israeli entourage took me to a nearby flea market. Just like every other part of the city, this market physically demonstrated the patchwork nature of Berlin. Each stall was run by whichever local needed to clear out their garage that week, meaning that it was possible to find kitsch toys from the 80s alongside Nazi-stamped school books. In one corner of the market there was a stall dedicated entirely to selling traffic lights, the cause of, presumably, a series of pile-ups taking place in some other part of the city that day.

It was Shiri who first pointed out the peculiar nature of Berlin to me. Speaking from her usual spot, half buried inside the grandmother of a couch that became my bed each night, she gestured out the window with a weak wrist. "Here everything seems really heavy, not in a bad way, but it's just too easy to do nothing. Can you feel how slow time moves here? If I'm not careful, I'd never do anything at all."

Shiri came to Berlin after escaping her compulsory military service in Israel. After only a few months in the army, Shiri underwent psychological testing before being classified "Profile 21" by the Israeli government. This means that she was found to be emotionally and mentally unfit for active army service and, as in Catch-22, was the only non-fatal way she could legally leave before her appointed time.

"You can find tips on the internet," Shiri told me, "they teach you how to act like you have a certain problem, like bipolar disorder, for example. The trick is that you can't just say you're crazy - people will know that you're lying, and you can't just start throwing things around and shouting, because that's too obvious. You have to work on it for about a month, not eating as much, not being interested in anything at all, breaking down and crying whenever you can. That'll get you an interview with the counsellor, but if they ask you if you're thinking about suicide you have to say no. That's the one that a lot of people get caught out on - no one would really admit that unless they were just looking for attention."

While Shiri spent her days singing Hebrew folksongs with her friends, Andy spent a lot of his time either sleeping, drinking, chasing women or fishing for eels in the River Spree. He'd caught a massive haul the day I arrived, and proudly showed me the frozen tubes, headless and brown-grey, sitting in the freezer.

"They were alive for hours after I cut off their heads, man, just slapping away at me in the bag until I could freeze them."

Maybe it was for this reason that Shiri insisted we eat chicken for dinner that night.

But, when my second day ended with me watching the sky blemish to dark purple outside, I knew that it was time for me to leave before I too was dragged down into the mire of Berlin's timelessness.

I left it too late, because it wasn't until Tuesday night that I ventured out of my hostel to experience the fruits of Berlin's non-touristy nightlife. Somehow I'd managed to team up with a group of British kids who were intent on checking out a place called "Cookies", a very exclusive bar that only opens on Tuesday and Thursday nights. Apparently it was the place to be, because after having a polite chat with the bouncer (who proclaimed himself as "an evil German genius", while stroking an invisible, white cat), we sardined ourselves into a tight set of drab rooms filled with smoke, loud music, painfully fashionable Berliners and an assortment of hyper-testosteroned transvestites.

Property and the need to be seen was the only real draw card for this place, at least to my ears, as that loud music turned out to be nothing more than a grinding, unimaginative dirge of house beats. Even the DJ seemed to know that he was a sham, taking constant breaks so as to smoke cigarettes in the corner with his "lady" friends.

Given the disappointment of stale Cookies, I was able to wake up early the next morning and make my way to the district of Kreuzberg for a walking tour. Berlin is famous for these tours, with hundreds on offer at varying prices and tailored to match each tourist's specific desire. However, you can sometimes get exactly what you paid for, and this free walking tour turned out to be led by a hungover man whose day job involved organising stag parties for British lads in Berlin. Moreso, though the pamphlet had hinted at the word "historical", the tour descended into continuous lacklustre gesturing at trendy cafes and art galleries, followed by the words "zis place ist very popular mit locals".

So, that brings me to Thursday, finally a day - my sixth - when the clouds parted and I actually tucked into the historical, cultural wonder that is Berlin. My first port of call was a proper, paid walking tour that took me around to the various locations integral to the rise and fall of the Third Reich. Led by Jim, an easily excited history grad student from Minnesota, this tour weaved its way around the central part of Berlin, identifying the few remaining Reich buildings (such as what is now the Ministry of Finance, but in the past stood as the imposing Luftwaffe Headquarters) as well as the quiet, unadorned sites where the more notorious Nazi abodes stood. Hitler's bunker, for example, now lies beneath a car park, filled with dirt and concrete and, until the World Cup in 2006, completely unmarked so as to prevent the possibility of a Neo-nazi shrine.

Jim fed us his favourite subject with great vigour, but sometimes he became a little too zealous. A word for the wise - don't stand on the streets of Berlin, frothing at the mouth, as you continuously yell "Nazis" and "Hitler". The piercing stares of the bemused locals was enough to teach me that.

From here, I turned to the glorious wonders of the future (or at least the happier past), exploring the Reichstag's surrounding Tiergarten, the Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe and, for a taste of something different, a museum of German film and television ensconced inside the technophilic Sony Centre. Interesting irony: the museum's TV screens are all provided by Samsung.

After spending a night in the bombed department store-cum-artistic squat-cum-trendy drinking hole Tacheles, I joined Michael, an Australian, on a walk through the grounds of Berlin Zoo.

Here I was to learn that it's not only people who are drawn down by Berlin's bear hug.

Every animal enclosure seemed to be home to creatures who'd studied copious notes on Profile 21. There was the lion who sat on his haunches, staring into space despite the bloody hunk of meat screaming out beneath his nose (it was also warned that he occasionally urinates on visitors). Another sad sight came in the form of an elephant, desperately reaching out with its trunk to grab at leaves hanging on the other side of a ditch - just too far out of its reach, unfortunately.

But, saddest of all, was the tiny polar bear caught in the grip of "stereotypical behaviour" - a condition normally found amongst caged animals in naughty circuses. For about fifteen minutes, Michael and I watched in horror as the polar bear took three steps forward, paused, and then took those same three steps backwards to pause before beginning the cycle anew. Its neighbouring bears could do little more than to look at us, as if to say "Yeah, you should see what he's writing on the walls of his cave."

A day later, fearing that I was starting to walk backwards and forwards between my hostel and the suspicious kebab shop across the road, I decided it was time to leave Berlin and its Lotos atmosphere before all sense of my self had sunk into its stained pavements for good.

Lonely Monks and the Rise and Fall of Greek Cuisine

Before leaving the boat, everyone made sure that they were respectfully attired. This meant, despite the heat, wearing long trousers, shirts and closed shoes. It proved almost disastrous in the case of my feet, who still don’t forgive me for the Spanish tortures I put them through. But, there was a higher power commanding our dress code– we were to visit a 13th century monastery, and to this day, only the shoehorn of God can force my wild extremities into prisons of leather and rubber.

A half-mile across the water was the island of Stamfani, the larger of the two Strophades Islands. Almost abandoned by the mainland altogether, these two rocks are anchored in an isolated time warp at least a day’s journey from anywhere on a sane map. Both Stamfani and its smaller cousin, Arpia, have been all but reclaimed by low-lying forest; the type of dense pine that hits the ground like a screaming toddler and refuses to be picked up by parental sea winds.

Stamfani’s pockets of humanity constituted the monastery, a small farm, a chapel and, on the opposite side of the island, an automated lighthouse and abandoned shack. Long ago the monastery had housed a flourishing community of scholastic priests, a stout breed of Greek whose anti-Turkish stubbornness is commemorated by a monument on the island. Now, however, their numbers have dropped to one.

“The poor man,” Simone said, wrapping a towel around her bikinied body, “he must have been scandalised, watching all of us swimming in almost nothing.”

At first glance Simone was right. The monk, traumatised by the sinful sight of bare, female flesh, must have locked himself in a pit beneath the monastery, refusing to stop whipping his scarred back until the devil-worshippers had left his sight.

So, we took our time exploring the otherwise uninhabited island.

There was an eerie air over the land. It was enhanced by the large numbers of birds, squawking and pecking everywhere, as if they’d overthrown their human masters in a swift “chicken coup”. Dad and I split off from the group, making our way overland towards the distant lighthouse. Our passage was halted a few times by tree walls and sea cliffs, but finally we found a track through the forest. The heat and sounds of the island instantly vanished, inhaled and held by the tree lungs around us. We followed the twisting path for quite a way, falling deeper and deeper into the romance of this abandoned island.

Our efforts in finding it were to such a level that the lighthouse itself proved to be a disappointing reward. A derelict house sat at its base, and the lighthouse was boarded up: solar panels and light sensors now controlled its nocturnal duties.

My disappointment was further fuelled when, reuniting with the others, we learnt that the monk had made an appearance.

Long years of isolation had eroded his strict, Orthodox tenets and, more tragically, his mind. Rather than the pious hermit we’d expected, the monk of Stamfani was an old man, closing the gates on his nineties, and unable to symmetrically trim his beard.

He was also more naked than any of us had imagined, only wearing a pair of dirty underwear to protect his dignity.

Not really wanting to talk, the monk barked at Paolo “Italiano!”, before retreating into his shed behind the monastery.

Curses! I had traded away the sight of a senile, indiscreet monk in exchange for an old building in a forest. So much for Frost’s road less travelled.

That night we slept in shallow waters just off the shore of Arpia Island. Some strange creature, most likely a flesh-eating bird, tormented us from the darkness with a call that sounded like a helium-high child choking on coagulated phlegm. Though we found nothing the next day, I can assure you all that these monsters are the reason why the Strophades are uninhabited, save for an old man who probably thinks that he’s a bird anyway.

From the fierce shores of Strophades, we came to the mainland Peloponnese, and found ourselves under the stern watch of the “eyes of the Serene Republic”. Back in the 15th century, the twin ports of Methoni and Koroni were important stop over points for pilgrims and traders making their way to and from the Holy Lands. The Venetians, who’d provided a lot of the transport for Crusaders, had claimed a healthy chunk of the Eastern Mediterranean for their spoils, extending their republic and monopolising the lucrative Medieval tourist market. Situated as they are on either side of the first finger of the Peloponnese, the fortresses of both Methoni and Koroni were perfect sites from which the Venetians could keep track of all naval movement through their waters.

After saying goodbye to Simone in Methoni, we sailed around to Koroni, passing an isolated midway beach that, due to its large population of nudist tourists, probably has the Republic in a constant state of cross-eyed lechery.

That night in Koroni we talked about the flux in food quality on our travels. My experience of Greece so far has demonstrated that food does not change too much from region to region: you will find the same meals of Greek salad, tzatziki and mousaka no matter where you go. However, what does change is the quality and appearance of the food. For example, I’m a big fan of taramasalata, the fish roe dip, and I’ve now had it in varying shades from blood pink to cream and sometimes mixed with potato instead of yoghurt.

Such a concentrated education in Greek cuisine means that, after a short period of time, you become very sick of pedestrian food, and will only stomach that last piece of feta if it’s actually of decent quality. It’s a shame to become so picky, but the sad truth is that a lot of restaurants in this part of the world (to be fair, this happens all over the world, but I’m limiting my observations for this point) are catering more to the romance of the history and culture, rather than providing good quality meals.

So, when you’re in a tourist-rich town, such as Koroni, you have to be very careful where you go to eat. If you’re surrounded by Greek tourists, then you’re in a pretty safe spot, but if all you can hear is German and English, then you’re in trouble. The mousaka on your plate will be filled with overly rich béchamel sauce, the feta will be too dry, and the mussels will be from New Zealand.

The only place where this rule-of-thumb doesn’t hold sway is the Strophades. There’s a good chance that the last monk was eaten by the mad, naked imposter we met, and any culinary experience under those circumstances is going to be one filled with blood, terror and questionable cuts of meat.

No bad feta though – be thankful for small blessings.

Flash

“4...3...2...1...Let’s go!”

Rocket-propelled, our taxi shot onto the opposite side of the road, overtaking the ambling SUV ahead of us as houses and trees blurred into streaks. Simone and I had sold our souls to the devil in the hope of finding internet access at Laganas, the party capital of Zakynthos.

Free flesh, flashing lights, touts and drink coupons are all that this part of the world produces. The language of choice is English, followed closely by German, but everyone fits a standardised model of debauchery; bikinis worn at night, strip shows next to tour boat offices and drinking until your words slur and shift into someone else’s mouth. Don’t even think of going to a club before midnight, because it’s still asleep. The main strip is a nursery – screaming infants wail their dance beats and flash UV light, all the same except for name and the colour of the door girl’s hair.

Across the salty water floats Marathonisi Island. Serene and dark, its turtle shape matches the form of its inhabitants, the endangered loggerhead turtles that lay their eggs on its soft, white beach. Sixty days later hatchlings pop their heads out and follow the glowing mask of the full moon to plunge safely into sea waters.

And then Laganas awoke and exploded a constant stream of bright light from the opposite direction. In droves, baby turtles now follow the footsteps of British youth and party to death upon the shore.

“Yeah, it’s a shame, but the turtles are alright y’know, people are looking after them. Sometimes you gotta think, maybe people care more about the turtles than the rest of us,” Dave, a barman from Coventry, told me.

This is the literal line in the sand here in Laganas. Local tourism wants to claim the same level of party dollars as the other big, fat, Greek islands in the Aegean, but they’re facing stiff competition from the turtles, whose advocates are now taking the issue of their protection to the European Court of Justice.

My vote is for the turtles.

Laganas and its plastic atmosphere were a far cry from our previous anchorage in Porto Vromi. Hidden away in the rough heights of north-western Zakynthos, Vromi is a tiny bay packed with local tour boats. These boats are run by family enterprises that take tourists to see the Navagio shipwreck, as well as a few caves, before enticing customers back to their taverna for the evening meal.

While we had already seen the shipwreck, we were all famished, so Daniela waved down a passing boat to inquire about food options in the area. This whimsical moment brought two elements into our life. Firstly, we were introduced to Yiannis, a member of the extensive family associated with Alexandra’s Taverna. Second, and more importantly, we met Nikolas the Don of Porto Vromi.

Nikolas is a compact man, shorter than most, but with sinewy muscles and an impressively tanned chest that is always on display. His face is like a squashed cousin of Ian Holm’s, and his eyes constantly scan the waters around him – he appeared to be Porto Vromi’s lifeguard.

I say appear, because the folk of Porto Vromi were not isolated to single occupations. Yiannis, who drove tourists around the sights, also made olive oil and wine, while his nephew, Dionysus, operated a similar tour service when not working as a waiter in his parent’s taverna. Yiannis drove me up to his sister’s taverna on our first night in Vromi and we chatted in a halting fashion, neither really knowing anything in the other’s language. Even so, we quickly found common ground.

“You from Sydney? You know Mary Quill?” Yiannis asked.

“No, I don’t, sorry. Who is she?” I replied, confused.

“What? You don’t know? Mary Quill! Mary Quill! Big street!”

A gear ticked over.

“OOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH, you mean Marrickville, yes?” I asked.

“Yes! Yes! Marrickville, I was born twenty years when I visit there. My father’s brother, he lives there!”

I told Yiannis that it was a very small world, because Marrickville – the one thing he knew about Sydney – was the suburb where I’d lived until just recently. However, Yiannis didn’t understand what I meant by “small world”, and the conversation ended there.

So, let’s return to Nikolas. When not saving lives, Nikolas would ferry folk from boat to shore at Vromi. He did this completely for free, refusing tips and repaying gifts with shouted beers and food at the cantina on the beach. Over the two days we spent moored here, Nikolas became a surrogate part of Felicite and showed us around the amazing sea grottoes that honeycomb the cliffs of this island.

One cave in particular is a big favourite in these parts. Called Poseidon’s Face, it is a cave where a collection of eroded stalactites form the face of a man when viewed from a certain angle. Nikolas presented us with some snapshots of him staring at the face, which appeared to be wearing Oakley sunglasses. He was very proud of this piece of trick photography, and copies could be purchased at the cantina.

On our last day in Vromi, Simone and I took another physical challenge and walked seven kilometres from this cantina to Alexandra’s Taverna. Nikolas, having seen us trek off in nothing more than thongs (flip-flops for any Northern Hemisphere folk reading this), summoned a dark Mercedes to offer us a lift. We explained that we were actually enjoying the walk and the car drove off.

Further ahead, we stopped in at another taverna for a drink of water. The owner, who Dionysus would tell us was an enemy of his family, was equally bemused to hear about our intentions of walking, and offered us the use of his car. Again we refused, and continued along the steep, snaking roads through olive groves and goat paddocks.

Nikolas was our guest of honour that night. Earlier in the day, Dad had leant over to me and whispered, “I wonder what this guy’s angle is, being so helpful to us?” Daniela had insisted that we were all being too cynical and that this part of the world was just genuinely generous. For the record, Daniela is mostly correct.

Though he didn’t eat anything, Nikolas joined our table and communicated through his broken English/Italian that he wanted to share some photos with us. These, he explained, were a gift from some tourists. It became apparent quite quickly, however, that the tourists in the photos did not have Nikolas in mind when they took them; random photos of faces, places and events far removed from Vromi flashed across the computer screen. When pushed, Nikolas admitted that these photos were “left behind” more than they were “given”.

Changing the mood with a hand clap, Nikolas produced a new collection of photos, which he insisted were his. As he ordered and consumed more and more wine, Nikolas pointed to the slide show of artistic trees and sparkling coves, saying “Porto Vromi” to indicate where they were taken and then “Nikolas” to suggest that he was the photographer.

The slide show wound on, occasionally presenting an interesting photo, but our eyes started to glaze over.

And then we saw buttocks.

So began a parade of voyeuristic photos, capturing unaware Europeans in various states of undress , and all to the excited tune of “Porto Vromi! Nikolas!” Apparently, Nikolas felt that now was the perfect time to expose us to his very private collection.

By the end of the night, all fleshed out, we returned to Felicite. Along the way Nikolas pointed out what appeared to be a kid’s treehouse, built beside where the tour boats were moored. He tapped his chest and said, “Casa Nikolas”, before inviting Paolo up to spend the night with him. His generous offer was politely turned down.

Though Nikolas returned to say goodbye to us the next morning, I was downstairs, so my final sight of the Don of Porto Vromi was as a silhouette, sitting by his window with candle light and mournful Greek music drifting out across still waters toward our boat.

Someone should have told him that brighter lights may have attracted more flesh to Vromi. Or at least a pet turtle to keep him company.

Leaving Juba

JUBA, SUDAN - 1980
This was a heat not made for mortals.

Anco and Paolo wavered where they stood and lemming sweat leapt off them into the atmosphere. For Paolo, this felt like the end. Malaria had ignited a second inferno within him, and everything down to his bones was singeing into tissue-thin carbon. But at last he was leaving Juba.

The airport was little more than a box built around a few desks, and the hordes of sweaty commuters clambering over one another transformed it into a battery farm. Only one plane a day was scheduled to land in Juba – bound for Khartoum – and weeks had passed since the last one hit the tarmac. Without any money to pay for petrol, Sudan Air had effectively forsaken the people of Juba, no matter what their purpose or place.

A radio announcement from Khartoum had signalled the arrival of a plane that day. Hordes crashed upon the airport in the hope of a seat.

The flight plan was a haphazard itinerary. From Juba, it would fly to Nairobi in Kenya, at which point it would fly back to Juba. There were no landing lights at Juba airport, so if the plane did not arrive by 6pm when the sun set it would simply carry on to Khartoum. Passengers bound for Khartoum faced the gamble of either buying an extra ticket to Nairobi or waiting in the hope that Sudan Air’s pilots were more efficient than its accountants.

Paolo’s burning state left no room for chance, so he and Anco bought the extra ticket; a relatively cheap fee for the wallets of UN contractors. This fact did not escape the attention of the customs official – a brick wall draped in military garb, with a firearm but no shoes.

“You are Italian, yes?”

Anco and Paolo nodded.

“Then you should be heading north to Khartoum, not Nairobi – why have you each bought two tickets?”

Anco and Paolo explained that they were not gambling men.

“Fucking capitalists, you don’t care if you waste a cent. Get out of here and stop ruining this country.”

The official stamped their passports and gruffly ushered them through to the plane.

ITHACA, GREECE – 2008
Paolo calls them UFOs – useless floating objects. These giant motor yachts tear through the water, haemorrhaging expensive diesel at the rate of ten euros a minute. Their passengers lounge either on deck or below, but never behind the controls, as they prefer to hire crew in the usual white shorts and shirt uniform. For Paolo, who enjoys the challenge and sustainability of sailing, there does not seem to be any purpose to owning a motor boat at all.

“These people do not care about anything except looking like they have money to spend, and the money goes nowhere, nothing, out into the water. When the oil is gone, what will they have? A useless thing sitting in an expensive marina, and I will still be out sailing.”

We could already see the effects of rising fuel costs and recession out here in the Ionian islands. Two years earlier, the harbour side cafes had swarmed with tourists from dawn to dawn, but now there was only a few buzzing about.

This did not really trouble us too much, but on the other hand it could prove costly to Ithaca. Without much in the way of agriculture, Ithaca’s major income is drawn from its sharing a name with the fabled homeland of Homer’s Odysseus. Myths have calcified in the scant ruins and caves on the island, which locals mine using adventure-seekers and dreamy students in place of picks and shovels.

In exchange, the tourists carve Ithaca’s main port of Vathi, shaping it into carbon copy restaurants touting Italian and British food, while kitsch Greek restaurants are exiled a kilometre beyond the town.

NAIROBI, KENYA – 1980
“Yes, an Italian flight will leave here three days from now, but if I were you, I’d stay onboard and fly back to Khartoum. There is a flight to Italy early tomorrow morning.”

Anco and Paolo thanked the friendly pilot and returned to their seats. Outside, Nairobi fluttered green and welcoming. Still, taut muscles wracked Paolo’s body and the necessity for a quick return outweighed Kenyan comforts.

Soon the plane leapt back into the sky, arcing north towards Sudan and, eventually, Rome. Anco and Paolo drifted off into a relaxed sleep.

THE INLAND SEA, GREECE – 2008
Mornings are peaceful in this part of the world, especially for sailors, as there is no wind until after lunchtime.

The Inland Sea is that part of the Ionian lapping between the western islands and the mainland. Compared to the naked waves of the open sea, the Inland is a gentle place that holds numerous interesting anchorages.

The island of Atokos rises steeply from the water, eliminating any chance of flat land except for the scant square metres that support the island’s only house. Sailors drop anchor in this “One House Bay” to swim in the warm, invisible waters during the day.

A more comfortable swim can be found in the south-eastern, unnamed bay of Oxia. This island is similar to Atokos, in that it has been pinched up into steep, narrow ridges, but it has recently seen the development of fish farms within its protected waters. We dropped anchor beside one of these; a short distance away were a couple of shacks made from old caravans perched nervously above the water to provide shelter for the farm’s custodians.

To guarantee stability in Oxia’s waters, a long line must be swum to shore and attached to a rock. Simone and I used this to propel ourselves across the water, using a free hand to keep our shoes dry. Once ashore we clambered up fossilised rocks and ascended the steep, pine coated land in an ape-like manner. Our senses were so taxed in an effort to avoid loose handholds that we did not notice the creamy coating of goat poo mixing with the sweat of our hands.

Returning from the top required a different tactic. Making sure that my bottom avoided planting itself in spiky bushes, I used my feet and hands as skis and ploughed down through pine needles and rocks in a controlled fall. Along the way, Simone’s inner botanist caught sight of wild sage, which she collected and stored in the pantry of her bra.

JUBA, SUDAN – 1980
“All passengers must disembark this flight for customs control.”

It was the third time that this announcement had come across the speaker, but Anco and Paolo were still in their seats. The plane had just made it to Juba in time, landing at 5:55pm. At first, customs had allowed those passengers continuing to Khartoum to remain onboard. But now, something had changed.

“You two’d better get off, otherwise we’ll never be able to leave here,” said the friendly pilot.

The same shoeless customs official stood blocking their entry into the airport. Duty had apparently erased his memory, as he didn’t seem to recognise either of the Italians. With a nonchalant flick, he opened their passports and looked over the Arabic departure stamp he’d planted himself hours earlier.

“Your visas have expired,” he said, stone-faced, “give me your passports and wait here.”

Paolo had had enough. For days he’d been trying to escape Juba, to return to Italy and the promise of malaria-free health, and he was not going to let a disgruntled soldier ruin his plans.

He told the official this.

“Say one more word, and I’ll put you in jail,” replied the guard.

MESSOLONGI, GREECE – 2008
Though he didn’t know it, Lord Byron came to Messolongi to die.

We came to pick up Paolo’s wife, Daniela.

A university town, Messolongi is situated on the north side of the Gulf of Patras and was the first place I’d seen completely devoid of foreign tourism. The harbour is part of the Klisova Lagoon, the largest natural wetland in Greece, and entry from the sea was only achieved by motoring down a thin channel surrounded by treacherous shallows.

Small shacks sit on either side of the channel, and from afar they look as if they’re floating on the water. Passing them gives you the sense of being onboard a patrol boat in the Mekong Delta, with the occasional palm tree conspiring towards this illusion. Children use old, wooden piers to jump into the murky waters, and a trio of teenage girls in bikinis waved at us and posed suggestively before vanishing into the brine.

Walking through the dusty streets of Messolongi’s outskirts was like some bizarre shift into rural Australia. Gumtrees are common here, and the close ties between Greece and Australia have resulted in similar housing styles. People of all ages rode on bicycles or motorcycles, and at night crowds of locals bloomed out of the darkness.

In the morning, Simone ran down into the cabin to yell that a turtle was swimming around in the lagoon. We all climbed onto shore, and chased around, trying to catch a glimpse. However, the turtle was wily and would only peak out of the water every few minutes, using the submerged intervals to swim across to the opposite side of the harbour. This meant that we constantly ran back and forth, our cameras limp in our hands, catching nothing but ripples.

A local fisherman saw our plight and told us that there were two turtles who regularly visited the lagoon each morning. The reason for their continued patronage was the fisherman, who cleaned out his nets here, chucking tiny fish and crabs back into the water. Sure enough, the turtles were hovering around his boat, rising up like ancient mummies to groan oxygen before diving down to swallow a dead fish.
“Some mornings they’ll be so happy that they come up to the boat and we talk,” the fisherman said.

JUBA, SUDAN – 1980
That morning Anco and Paolo eavesdropped on radio chatter from Khartoum. A dignitary had died in the capital and a military aircraft was arriving in Juba that day to pick up his family. If Sudan Air wasn’t going to help them, maybe the army would – the two had certainly used military transport in the past.

Arriving just as the plane landed, Anco and Paolo boarded in order to speak to the captain. He was not around, but they struck up a conversation with the first mate.

“We are engineers, contractors working for the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation. He is very sick with malaria and we need to get to Khartoum to fly to Rome, please, can we fly with you?”

The first mate nodded and wrote their names down on a clipboard in Arabic.

“This will be fine. You can load your luggage, but you’ll have to wait before you can board.”

While Anco and Paolo waited, a small crowd gathered around the plane and each petitioner added their name to the clipboard.

When it finally came time for the plane to leave, the tarmac was hidden beneath a few hundred pairs of feet. The captain, cut from the same cloth as the customs official, stood at the door and barked out a list of names. Paolo’s fevered heart quivered when he realised that, despite having been first on the list, neither his nor Anco’s names had been called; the captain was reading from the bottom of the list.

“Enough!” the captain yelled, and moved to close the door.

“No!” Anco and Paolo screamed, “our bags are onboard, we were here first, you must let us on!”

“Enough!” was the harsh reply, and the captain slammed the door shut.

Like a sad puppy, the crowd slowly walked away from the plane, back towards the terminal. Paolo, who was lagging due to his weakened condition, turned around and saw the strangest sight. The plane door was open again. Now was his chance!

“Anco, quick!” Paolo called out, and ran up the stairs.

He had safely made it onto the plane, but Anco, who had been with the crowd ahead, was now running in a rushing wave of Sudanese commuters. The lot washed up the stairs, and Paolo clung to the doorframe, doing his best to push people away so that Anco could climb onboard.

Anco was only a few steps away from the door, when Paolo felt a tap on his shoulder. There, bristling with anger, was the captain. His fist hung in the air between him and Paolo for a fierce second, before it swung down and struck the Italian straight in his solar plexus.

Broken, Paolo fell backwards into the confused clutter of people and the door shut once again. There was nothing more to be done than watch as the plane, along with Anco and Paolo’s luggage, made its way back to Khartoum.

NAVAGIO, GREECE – 2008
“It’s funny, isn’t it – this is the most photographed place in Greece and we’re having trouble trying to recognise it.”

Dad sat in the cockpit of Felicite, musing as we passed the north-western shore of Zakynthos, one of the Ionian islands. In Antiquity, when the Olympian gods overthrew the Titans, these giants must have fallen here, their outstretched hands gouging mammoth furrows in the side of the island in an attempt to grab the land they were about to lose forever.

We were looking for Navagio, the famous Shipwreck Beach that has graced pamphlets and coffee table books all over the world. Here, sometime last century, a cargo vessel washed ashore, disembowelled and abandoned to rust. It could not have chosen a more picturesque grave, surrounded on all sides by steep, multi-coloured cliffs and turquoise waters.

After almost an hour of searching, we found our target, reclining like a Roman senator. Yet, there was concern on the deck.

“There are no tourists here,” Daniela said, “normally this place is filled with boats.”

It seemed that the ever-spreading murk of recession and credit crunch had struck even these crystal waters, though it hadn’t done a thing about cleaning the water – sparkling, transparent waters are beautiful, but they also reveal years of tourist abuse. Simone, Daniela and I swam to shore alongside cigarette butts and other, nondescript forms of jetsam.

The wreck itself was alluring, but not spectacular, and I was more interested in reading the scribbles of a thousand languages across its rotting hull. Mostly these were lovers strengthening their vows with graffiti.

We hauled anchor once everyone was back onboard, leaving Navagio and its ageing hype behind.

JUBA, SUDAN – 1980
In his effort to make a point about how much capitalists are willing to spend, the customs official had left Anco and Paolo to stew for a day, before returning their passports and granting a new visa. For a small fee, of course.

The time that this wasted, however, was far costlier, and Paolo now wondered if the only way he’d be able to return to Rome was in a coffin. It was a plausible danger; Anco and Paolo had earlier befriended a group of five British students when they’d first arrived. Two of them were now dead, swept into a grave by malaria.

All of this would never have happened if it weren’t for the simple fact that Captain Abdeen, FAO’s chartered pilot, hadn’t been busy on a mission in South Africa.

Friendly and accommodating, Abdeen treated his small plane as if he were giving lifts to his buddies. Quite often he’d let Paolo come up to the cockpit and plug in a Pink Floyd tape, or he’d swerve through the sky to give passengers a view of something interesting down below.

Thus, like a true deus ex machina, when Paolo was on the verge of a cooked demise, Abdeen and his plane flew down out of the heavens to whisk Anco and Paolo safely back to Khartoum. Along the way he made sure to switch course, just enough so that the two Italians caught a good view of the angry customs official shaking his fist at the fleeing capitalists from Juba’s tarmac. Someone plugged Dark Side of the Moon into the tape deck, and everyone cheered, reclining like true heroes as they flew off into the sunset.

Captain Abdeen would die when his plane crashed two years later.