Seeking Beauty on Roads Less Traveled

  1. A short story:  “I used to love to just pick those and eat them right from the tree”, our friend Miselle says as we are driving by a tree with beautiful orange fruit with a slight protrusion hanging from them.    "What is that fruit?”, Mom and I ask practically in unison.   "Cashew fruit”. “Turn around. Go back. You are kidding…that fruit is what cashew comes from? Who knew?”. Standing under the cashew tree, I suppose us three are making quite a spectacle of ourselves along the side of a country road somewhere 90 miles west of Panama City.. We are on our way to El Valle and a botanical garden called El Nispero but who can resist the lure of the cashew tree? I love cashews but I never knew that it is the seed of a larger fruit that is brilliantly orange when ripe…and looks a bit like a sweet bell pepper….and the fruit is edible too. Such is the joy of travel….the finds along the way and the education to be had long before one reache...

“Hi Baby Estelle….Hi Mama Estelle. Good morning…” Terencia says from one of the decks of the South Seas Schooner that sits right across from our room terrace. The schooner is a restaurant now and Terencia is one of the servers there…but she is also one of the reasons I love Yap so much…the spirit of the people. “Good morning Terencia,” Mom and I chime in unison as we are sitting on the terrace having our morning coffee as we overlook the harbor and revel in the beauty of sunny skies meeting crystal clear waters. Mornings are not usually my favorite time of day but if they could start with sipping coffee overlooking idyllic scenery …well, maybe I would become a morning person…but since the closest thing I have to a terrace in Brooklyn is a fire escape …. “What are you going to do today?” Terencia asks us. “We are going to tour the island with Richard and Helen … “, we tell her. Mom is determined that before we leave Yap we must also see one of the outer islands ca...

It's Canoe Festival Weekend in Yap. Who knew? Mom and I decide we definitely have to check out the festivities because all roads seems to lead to the festivities...actually, there is only one road in Yap so let me rephrase that prior statement.   One road leads to the festivities. “Everyone seems to really be enjoying this.   Everybody is so…happy.”   Even with a light midst of rain in the air, it does not dampen the collective spirit of everyone in attendance.   Old people, youngsters, everyone in between are out in full force cheering for their teams that are running canoe relay races and obstacle course racing…I can see that there are two distinct teams…ones wearing red shirts, the other wearing blue…I think one is called Tamil but please do not quote me.   I notice a lot of cheering for both teams so the team loyalty seems to extend to everyone who is canoeing. “Hello.   Welcome.   How are you?”, a local gentlemen says to Mom and I. ...

It is well after midnight, closer to 1a.m., as our plane is on its final approach to land at Yap International Airport. I can not remember the last time I landed some place where everything I see out of the window is pitch-black...no exaggeration... no lights in the distance, no full moon showing glistening sea below us...nothing...just darkness. Finally, some airport employee must have remembered to trip a switch and at the very least, there are now runway lights. Everyone did not go home after all. “Welcome to Yap”, a lovely bare breasted woman with gorgeous hand-woven leis draped over her shoulders and breasts wearing a beautiful tiara of flowers on her head and a multi-colored grass skirt said to me as she places one of the hand-woven floral and palm leaf leis around me.... “Oh, wow..thank you. This is beautiful. You are beautiful. Thank you”...I guess everyone did not go home. It feels like the entire town of Colonia (the main town in Yap) has turned out for this flight...

I have often wished for a place where I could just drop off the grid for a moment in time. Often times, I feel as if I was born in the wrong century. Case in point, I am a person who still has a rotary dial phone in my house. By choice. I do not fight the invasion of modern technology but I do not exactly embrace it with open arms either. More often than not, I feel people and their seemingly unnatural relationships with their iPads, laptops and cellular telephones takes away from the opportunities to interact in the present moment with a fellow human being. How am I ever going to meet Prince Charming if he is too busy interacting with his iPad to even see that I walked into the room? :) I miss the days when one could stop for a coffee at a cafe and actually have the chance to strike up a spontaneous conversation with the person seated at the next table. Now more often than not, that very same person is already engaged in a conversation with someone on their cell phone. ...

“I am not leaving Ireland until we see puffins”, declares my mother before we even hit the shores of the Emerald Isle. The internet has given this mother of mine way too much power if it is to be believed that knowledge is power. She has learned (or more to the point, I think she just always knew this) that puffins can be found on islands off the coast of Ireland this time of year. This time of year being May. Never mind that the Atlantic Ocean is rather chilly...and the winds can be brisk. A boat must be found that can navigate us to Skellig Michael where the illusive puffins can be found in one of their natural habitats. A boat and its captain are hired but the details seem a bit vague. “Just head into Port Magee and look for a blue boat”. That's it. So we do just that at 10a.m. on a very clear weather for Ireland kind of day. Driving into town with our no-bigger-than-a-bread-box rental car with stick shift on opposite side of where I am used to finding it, we...

"Look, here's an old map of the NYC subway system, " I say as I pick up a framed map that is leaning against a chained linked fence in a massive football field size parking lot in California. I did not expect to see this 3,000 miles from home. There's a sign that reads "Todo para $1.00...Everything for a dollar" but of course, that does not apply to the map. I still do not know how much that map would have been. I could not tell if it was an original or a print made last week in China. And I have a $2.00 rule. I am not paying more than $2.00 for anything today. "Next time, you have to dress grungier, Estelle. You look like you can pay more than a dollar." Come on, I did not don a ballgown and tiara for this outing; wearing blue jeans (that's as dressed-down as I get), a turtleneck sweater and a fleecy over- the- turtleneck sweater...did not even bring a designer purse. I tried to dress down. I really did. My friend Dario is a devotee of this sw...