Vampires in New Orleans

Vampires are everywhere in New Orleans.

Long before anyone ever sank their teeth into an Ann Rice novel about the vampire Lestat and his undead posse, New Orleans has had strange happenings. I mean walking the streets of New Orleans you can feel the undercurrent of the occult and the supernatural. This is a city where the living and the dead co-exist on the same plane. This is a city where you can imagine pirates, voodoo priestesses and vampires all having a sazrac together in a dark alley bar.

With that in mind, I went on the New Orleans vampire tour. We met at the assigned time in front of Jackson Square. The night was dark, chilly with that damp Winter-in-New-Orleans rain that is constantly there, leaving you perpetually damp. In short, the perfect weather for a vampire tour. Our guide showed up - all 6'4" of him in full goth regalia - black coat, cape, long ponytail and big black umbrella. This was going to be a fun evening.

Our guide, Jonathan. Looking very Gothic. How does he know so much? Could he be one of the undead?

The stories were great, as was the storyteller. Stories of suspense and crime, like the one about John and Wayne Carter, two working brothers who worked all day at the shipyards. Coming home to their third floor apartment in the French Quarter. Being very quiet (arent they always the quiet ones?) One day a girl ran down to the police, saying she had escaped the Carters' apartment. She had cuts on her wrists. The police came to their apartment and found 4 others tied to chairs with their wrists sliced in the same fashion also. Some had been there for many days. The story was that both of these brothers had abducted each of them and would drink their blood at the end of every day when they came home from work. They also found about 14 other dead bodies. The cops waited that night for the return of the brothers and when they did, it took 7 to 8 of them to hold down these two averaged size men who had been doing manual labor all day. The brothers were executed and buried. A year later their graves revealed empty vaults. To this day, the brothers are sighted flying off the balcony on their third floor apartment.

Or the stories of the old Urseline convent where, of all things, french prostitutes lived. The convent was supposed to shelter these women sent to New Orleans to have sex with the dock workers, but there were too little of them and were sent to live in the convent. But if these girls were the only ones in the convent? Why are there steel bolts on all the windows? Still? To this day? And why were two innocent girls filming a documentary on the convent found dead on the convent steps drained of all blood with their cameras smashed to pieces?

Two girls were found dead and drained of blood - are these orbs their spirits?

The tour also includes some great New Orleans legends about pirates, ghosts, the plague and general gruesomeness. It stops at John LeFette's blacksmith shop (now a haunted bar with no electric lights) for a cocktail before a tour of some sites of the filming of Interview with the Vampire and a suggestion from Jonathan our guide - want to make sure a vampire doesn't follow you home tonight? Tip him!

The Florida Everglades - Tamiami Trail Edition

I love to go away to see different eco systems and wildlife, but let's not forget the wildlife on our own backyard - the Florida Everglades.

Everglades National Park Everglades National Park, the largest subtropical wilderness in the United States, boasts rare and endangered species. It has been designated a World Heritage Site, International Biosphere Reserve, and Wetland of International Importance. In a nutshell, it totally rocks - where else can you hike around and be about two feet from an alligator with nothing between the two of you but a sign that is a man feeding a gator with a big red slash across it? Gotta love it!

Admission to Everglades National Park is about $10 but an annual pass is a great deal at $25. I especially like Shark Valley - about a 45 minute drive from Miami Beach - just head west on Tamiami Trail. Shark Valley has a 15 mile paved loop to bike or walk with an observation deck at the halfway point. Bring a camera, because alligators, frigates, hawks, egrets and other species of birds are commonly found. Shark Valley also has an interpretive guide program, a small gift shop, bicycle rentals and a tram tour that will take you through the loop with a guide.

Just across from the Shark Valley entrance is the Miccosukee Restaurant where you can get breakfast or lunch, including a totally rich pumpkin bread served warm that's more like a giant pumpkin pancake.

Still in the everglades, but not in the national parklands are the roadside attractions and airboat rides. I prefer the ones run by Miccosukees but any airboat is worth a try - loud and crazy a pure Everglades tradition.

Further up Tamiami Trail lies the Big Cypress preserve, start of the Florida Trail, which offers miles of hiking. We've spotted wild turkeys, deer and many panther tracks (alas no panthers yet). The hiking is non-technical, but can be wet during rainy season. Remember to watch your footing, keep an isle on the trail blazes, bring water and wear insect repellent.

All in all, The Florida Everglades offers a wild experience without the plane ticket.

Trying to Describe Kenya

Breathtaking sunset, Nanyuki, Kenya

The other day I tried to describe Kenya to someone and I was kind of at a loss. How do you describe living a dream, a fantasy to someone? I've travelled to a lot of major cities and to a lot of places in this world, but I have never been in jaw-dropping awe of someplace every moment I was there before.

I always dreamed of Kenya. Born Free was on the television - perhaps the Wide World of Disney on Sunday? I had to have been no more than three or four. What I saw made me obsessed with lions and Kenya for decades after. I can't tell you why I never took a job travelling or just backpacked for a few years. I took the responsible job route and have lived to regret it.

But I had the opportunity to travel to Kenya last year on my honeymoon. For most women the wedding was the high point - to be honest I wanted to get that over with so we could be on a plane for our short (NOT) 2 day trip to Kenya.

Arriving in Kenya was easy. We waited on line for really less than an hour to get entry into the country. We got our Visas right at the airport. I remember having our passport stamped with Kenya on it - such excitement!

We had a driver waiting for us since we had just missed the flight to Amboselli and had to take a minivan the four hour trip. Directly out of the airport - right in Nairobi - we saw our first giraffe. A giraffe! In the wild! After about 2 hours driving we stopped to get a soda and some gas and then took our turn off the main road and into Masailand. We passed the local Maasai market where everything from cloth to fruit to goats were traded. And then the land opened up. It just literally opened up to the biggest sky I've ever seen. The air was dry and thin. The sky was bigger, bluer, more three dimensional than I've ever seen it. It was like when Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz lands in Oz and black and white turns to technicolor. The land and the air smelled too - a good smell of dryness, dirt and faint animal smells. What I remember noting is that everything was so dry. Kenya isn't a jungle - it's a savanna and the colors are green and gold and red and brown.

Young elephant in Amboselli

As we drove to our first camp, our driver picked up and dropped off various people - Maasai tribesmen getting a lift in their day. I remember looking at us in our khakhis and our beige clothing with our beige skin and looking at them - with their dark brown skin nd their red robes and tons of beadwork bracelets, belts, necklaces, earrings that would make any woman jealous. Every safari book admonished us to get a wardrobe of beige and khaki. This helps camouflage you to the animals. What a crock - our guides were as colorful as peacocks! And far more beautiful. I look at our pictures and compare their color to our blandness and I laugh!

On safari

We stayed at Porini Ecocamps - totally solar powered, they sit on conservancies. We went to a Maasai village and I remember the people - how we as Americans would think of them as "poor" or "in need of help". These people need nothing from us. They are rich in culture, in family, in beauty, in livestock and in land. They have natural remedies for everything from coughs to bug bites to animal scratches. They are far wiser than us. And they do go to school. In fact a lot of the people we met go to university in Nairobi and come back to live in their villages. Culture and tradition is important to them and they strive to not lose that. The only thing they would like from us is for us to come to Kenya so that they can earn an honest wage as a cook or a driver or a guide.

Beautiful Maasai Girl

But I haven't spoken about the animals. The only thing I can say is that to see these animals that we've all seen in pictures and in zoos here...in person...living, running, playing, having babies and even dying is a gift that I will cherish forever. Now more than ever I feel the need to protect nature and wildlife.

In our travels throughout the country, we saw elephants nurturing and protecting the smallest possibly newborn elephant I've ever seen. We saw a pride of lions on a hunt at night - their calls so deep that the ground shakes. We saw two male lions - brothers - one healthy and robust, the other bony and sickly. The healthy one will stay with the sick brother, making sure he is fed, making sure he is not attacked. He will stay with this brother until the brother is well or dies. He will stay even if it means his death.

small lion, big world

We saw Mt. Kenya's snow capped peak and the Abadare mountain range. We saw lions nursing their cubs. We saw warthog families runnin, teeny babies in tow with their tails straight in the air, like flags waving. We saw a cheetah mother teach her cubs to hunt and a zebra separated from her herd - limping, knowing she probably wouldn't make it through the night.

And we saw death. We saw an elephant that died stuck in a mudhole. We saw the carcass of a wildebeest that had died while still running - the body eternally in a run position. We saw an antelope carcass in a tree, it's horns hooked onto a branch. Placed there by a leopard so she could come back and finish her meal.

Eat or be eaten - first rule.

But we mostly saw life. Life in every form. The struggle to say alive, be it hunter or prey. The life in Kenya's people - full of pride and laughter.

They say Kenya and the Great Rift Valley is the origin of mankind, perhaps the origin of all living beings. Being there that's easy to believe. The land, the very air is alive and she sings a song. It's a song of freedom. It's a song of coming home. And that's the only way I can describe Africa - for all her strangeness and differentness to the United States - it's like coming home.

SoBe Tourist for a Day

Once in a while I decide to be a tourist in my town. I live in South Beach, Florida, but not only do I live there, I live in THE touristy part of South Beach. My condo is actually the only residential building in the neighborhood. In fact, I can't purchase a parking pass to park on the street because our building is in a non-residential zone.

When I walk my dogs in the morning and the evening, I feel like the local concierge. I guess that someone with dogs is a dead giveaway for someone that is a local and since I'm walking said pups smack dab across the street from The Shore Club and the Setai Hotels. So I make restaurant recommendations, suggest activities and provide directions (Lincoln Road is three blocks this way. The beach is right behind you).

So when I woke up this morning I decided my husband and I would be tourists for a day. We would do everything that the tourists get to enjoy and us locals never get around to doing. We started out by walking to Lincoln Road and stopping by Pasha's to have a little breakfast. I had the Mediterranean Breakfast and lemonade and Jack had an eggsellent wrap with spicy harissa sauce. The food was light but satisfying. Fortified, we walked to the beach for a nice beach walk. We then went back to our hotel (the lovely ocean view chez Doss better known as our apartment) and changed for the rest of the day. We then walked over to the Holocaust Memorial which was very disturbing and powerful. We then lightened up and reflected on nature's beauty at the next door Miami Beach Botanical Gardens.


Lizard rests in statue's crotch at Miami Beach Botanical Garden

Walking back toward Lincoln Road, we decided to go on a Duck Tour. The Duck Tour is a truck and boat in one. It's about a 90 minute tour that takes you to places like where Scarface was filmed, Gloria Estefan's house and tell some good stories about Miami.

We then shared a pizza at Spris during their Beat The Clock time - between 5:30 and 7:00 you have a choice of three pizzas where the price you pay is what time the order goes to the kitchen - so we paid $5.45 for a Pizza. We also shared the most fabulous spinch salad with corn and shaved Parmesan cheese.

We decided to take in a mov-ay and went to the Lincoln Center Regal Cinemas where we bought tickets for "The September Issue". With some time to spare, we did some shopping at The Gap, Macy's and Pottery Barn and took advantage of Doraku Sushi's Happy Hour (Lychee Martinis are delicious).

We then saw the movie which was great. We walked back on Lincoln Road and stopped at Zeke's Roadhouse for a cold beer at the bar ($4 for any of over 400 international brands. I had a Tusker from Kenya).

Finishing the night by people watching on the way home, we were reminded of what a great city South Beach is for tourists - even if the tourists live here.

Hunting for Hauntings

Ghost Orb photographed in Churchyard in Key West

I believe in ghosts. My apartment in Jersey City was haunted and I worked in a haunted bar in Ft. Lauderdale a million years back (on Commercial Blvd, it was a haunted country-western, lesbian sports bar named Our Playhouse to be exact).

I believe in ghosts because I've seen or heard them or have had people I know see or hear them. First person encounters tend to make you believe. And I believe in the most tourist-trappy of all tours - the Ghost Tour!

For those of you that don't believe in ghosts - how about a good story? I think believers and non-believers alike can all agree on liking a good story that's well told. Let's up the ante. How about a good ghost story? I'll see your ghost story and raise you.....what about if there are actually ghosts present? Jackpot!

One of my favorite ghost towns is Key West. You just feel the place is haunted. I mean ya got a small island that has a history of Indians, Bahamians, Pirates, Artists, Drunks, Eccentrics all in a lucious simmering stew of hurricanes, malaria, murders, drownings and shipwrecks.

Ghost Tour Guide Giving the Rules - You might be touched.....Be open...

The tours are chock filled with stories like the story of Robert the Doll, an enchanted doll made for a little boy by his nanny. Cute story? Not so cute when said nanny alledgedly had an affair with the little boy's dad, had a child by him who mysteriously died and was fired by the wife. the doll has a "soul stone" sewn into it, thus making the lifesized doll enchanted with a voodoo spell...The legend of Robert the Doll is still alive and well. You can visit Robert the Doll at the East Mortello Museum (itseld kinda haunted). Ask his permission before you snap a pic because the walls of the museum are filled with letters to Robert from visitors who didn't ask his permission and lived to regret it.

Robert the Doll messed up my camera and wouldn't let me buy a Pepsi.

Another good haunt is the church turned theatre turned abandoned building where a group of children and their Sunday School teacher were burned alive by the Church's Pastor. The Pastor also happened to be the Schoolmarm's husband and he thought she was cheating on him. So he burned her and the kids alive. If you put your ear to the glass doors you can hear tapping back from little hands. And the scent in the air? That sweet smell of roasting? That's the flesh of the children burning. I myself was pushed by phantom hands there and my husband (a skeptic) said aloud "If your're in there show me". At that point lights went on in the abandoned theatre. He's not so skeptical now.

Haunted Theatre where children died. Do you see a ghost?

Churchyard where the children were buried.

My favorite ghost that I search for is of course, Pappa Hemingway. It's said that Ernest Hemingway roams Key West on his birthday. I've yet to see him, but I would love to. I do have a drink (or two or three or five) in his honor for his birthday every year. Hey - it's my birthday too!

And of course, there's the cemetery in Key West. Located in "dead" center of town on Passover Lane, the cemetery is not open at night, but still a great place to go in the daytime. This is the place where the dead have a sense of humor - like in the gravestone that says "I told you I was sick". Gotta love it.

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Key West Cemetery on "Passover" Lane. Anyone home?

Some may think that touring cemeteries and looking for ghosts is morbid. I beg to differ. I'm the first to tell you that I am scared to death of death. I think we all are to some degree - the ultimate unknown has to bring fear to everyone. Looking for ghosts can maybe give us some answers to the questions we all have, possibly some comfort in knowing that this life is not all there is in the universe and at the very least....some really good stories.

Boo-Yah!

Finding Nature in New York City

I was born and bred in NYC. It pretty much defines me as a person - if I have to describe myself I would say New Yorker, animal lover, runner and everything else (all the way down to procrastinator and possible slacker)....I remember the New York of my childhood not being very green. Yes there was central Park abd Prospect Park but I don't think they were very safe in the 70's - or at least that's the impression I got growing up (and I think that was the time of NY's lowest period when it was actually unsafe to go to a park)...

I remember my parents driving me to see trees and forests - day trips out to the Island, upstate NY (Sterling Forest, Bear Mountain), and New Jersey come to mind. Hours spent driving well worth the drive to catch sight of a bird, a few bees or maybe a deer - I cdidn't care - I lived in Brooklyn where the only wildlife were the stray cats that I fed each day.

So it was with a new fascination that this weekend trip to NY to run the NYC half marathon turned into a micro safari of NYC green spaces - and oh what a difference a few decades make!

My friend Tobey and I woke up bright and early on saturday to grab a bagel and head up to the NYRRC, located on 89th and Fifth. Afterward, we decided to walk through Central Park, grab tickets for Shakespeare in the Park that evening and head onward for lunch. We stopped at the Shakespeare Garden - mostly because we were drawn in by the smell of flowers. Bees were getting drunk off of pollen - their little fat bodies full of the yellow grit. Pinks, oranges, purples - all the colors of the rainbow were there in a blaze of hues. We then walked to the Belvedere castle and turtle pond where we were greeted by - turtles! Strolling off the beaten path we encountered, dragonflies, squirrels, robins and waterfalls - was this Central Park? Beautiful!

Then next day after the half marathon we strolled over to the Highline. The Highline is about 10 blocks of old elvevated train tracks that were rusting and overgrown. A partnership was formed to turn this into yet another greenspace for the city and again we relished the warm air and the wildness of the daisies and vines that appeared wild and free amongst the brand new concrete paths still being laid and perfected.

I rounded out my experience at The Cloisters up in Ft. Tryon Park at the northern tip of Manhattan. Can I tell you that I had never been there - if I had I would have remembered it. The Cloisters are medieveal cloisters that the Rockefellers had shipped stone by stone to New York and reassembeled on the cliffs of upper Manhattan - such hubris! Such a blatant display of uber-wealth! Such genius! I have to say I'm not a museum person - I feel constrained - don't touch, don't speak...but walking through the gardens with little monk music piped in while I watched the bees and the trees and the gentle breezes was intoxicating!

Then as if this weren't enough, my friend Tobey and I topped my last evening in NY with a picnic in Central Park that evening along with a summer outdoor showing of the Sex and the City movie. Again - nature stepped in - well, more like pounced. She unleashed a microburst storm that actually demolished over 200 trees within that 30 minute freak storm. We certainly were intimately aware of nature that evening.

I love NYC - and what I love best is that even in the largest city in the world you can still find green (and I don't mean the Wall Street variety).

Latte Oasis

Jack and I had spent the last five days in the Kenyan Bush. Sleeping in tents, walking with Maasai, following cheetah tracks. This was the adventure I had always dreamed of – everything was perfect – a dream come true. Good simple food made with love, a gin and tonic at sunset, watching elephant families turn to tiny dark specks on the horizon, the sharing of two different cultures over a good fire. Abundant game to watch over the endless Kenyan savannah. Perfect, and yet…..my addiction started kicking in…Even though there was good strong Kenyan coffee every morning and afternoon tea, british style with cream and sugar, I couldn’t help jonesing for a latte. Damn you, Starbucks – your siren song encroaches even in the middle of my Out of Africa fantasy. I mentioned this nagging sensation for frothy milk to Jack- he looks at me like I’m a complete and total nutbag and says “no Starbucks here, my love” with a hint of glee in his eyes. Sometimes I think he would rather be married to a raging herion addict than the starbucks beast that he just legally attached himself to (hey a girl has her flaws – at least I use deodorant and shave my legs)…
I try to quell this latte fever by drinking lots of coffee. We are getting ready to fly to the Masai Mara this morning – it’s a two hour drive to the airstrip where we will get the prop plane to the Mara. We get to the airstrip and are told that our plane is having some mechanical difficulties and we have to wait for the afternoon flight…would we like to wait at the café? Café? Café? Did I hear….cafe?
Well shut my mouth – at this particular airstrip in Nanyuki, Kenya on the Equator there is a coffee bar and café named Barnie’s – respendent reggae music wafting from speakers and an entire menu of coffee drinks. Turns out that the British Royal Airforce has a location on the other side of the airstrip so this little Nanyuki airport is quite a busy hub. I order a latte and savor each rich frothy delictible sip. Ahhh….sometimes the Oasis comes to you….