Camino Primitivo; a pilgrimage from Oviedo to Santiago de Compostela (Spain) late summer 2024; by Anton van Zutphen and Biya Han

The Camino Primitivo, Northern Spain, a pilgrimage by Anton van Zutphen and Biya Han, late summer 2024. (20 August - 15 September 2024). We counted 318 km.

Beautiful image / painting of Saint James / San Thiago / Apostel Jakob in Church in Boente village

 According to history and documented legends this Camino is considered the original one; it stretches over 310km plus from Oviedo (Asturias) via the towns of Lugo and Melide to Santiago de Compostela (Galicia). It took us 18 walking and 2 resting days to accomplish our measured 318 km. 

Start in Oviedo at the Cathedral San Salvador

Were we Peregrinos or Caminantes? I guess a bit of both. We cannot be considered hardcore pilgrims such as those who undertook this route before the 2nd World War, or before the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), which for Spain was a historical watershed. After that terrible period the secularization process accelerated all over Europe. And ever since the various Caminos (there are over 25 now / for details see the app Buen Camino) have been declared a cultural heritage/event by the E.U. and as such sponsored with subsidies, the walkers continue to increase with a short interval during the Corona period (2020-2022). 

I expect this year that the number of those who accomplish one of the Caminos and receive a certificate will be around 425.000, not counting the thousands of short holiday and weekend walkers/pilgrims that only do parts of a Camino. Those that walk to the grave of San Thiago for religious reasons have become the vast minority. Pilgrims that pursue a spiritual or perhaps even a Roman Catholic objective have become rare. Perhaps a few percent of the total? Regrettably we noted that many churches and most chapels (capillas) were closed during the day or even abandoned and left to rot without regular maintenance. 

On the Los Hospitales stretch of 28 km
'El Camino te ensena tu camino' =
The Camino teaches you your own camino

Perhaps this is more so along the Camino Primitivo because villages are very small with many farms we found also locked up. 

I developed the habit to talk to farmers as often I walked a bit ahead of Biya. We met this lady farmer in her sixties at her modest farmstead in the hamlet of Buron. She mentioned that her life was a good one, quiet, but often she felt lonely. 'Tengo una buena vida pero estoy solitaria'. 

As in France and Italy, farming families lack children that wish to continue tilling the land and rearing cattle.

Feeding happy cows with green apples in Leboreira

And we saw no primary schools anywhere. How will this Camino landscape look around 2035? Then we rested one day in Fonsagrada and went to evening mass. To my big surprise we were the only pilgrims/walkers that attended mass although we knew that at least 70 pilgrims were overnighting in the town. How wonderful it was when after mass the Father asked Biya and me to come forward in front of the 25 church goers while he prayed for us and blessed our pilgrimage. Never to forget and a big encouragement. 

And true to the bone: I believe that only with Biya, I would be able to accomplish such a trip/pilgrimage. Obviously we both suffered (she because of her knees and I because the walking was slow). Then after each day's walk we were profoundly 'feliz' and ready to rest and eat together. Do not forget a lot of the camino is like this:  walk, rest, eat, walk, eat, rest, sleep....and repeat. It proved to be a great daily rythm in a changing landscape while meeting people from all over the world.

From the estimated 425.000 pilgrims that arrive this year in Santiago only 5% take the Camino Primitivo route: some 20.000 divided over about 230 days (the winter months are quite cold and very few pilgrims dare to walk for days in the cold and snow). And we counted definitely not more than 70 pilgrims on our daily marches. Once we joined the Camino Frances in Melide on day 17, this daily number jumped to over 500! Many blogs and info sheets warn that this Camino Primitivo is quite difficult with a lot of steep, long walks and heavy descents. For a trained walker this should not be an issue. True that between Campiello and Berduscedo there is a stretch of some 28 km to cross the Cantabrian mountains that rise up to 1215 meters. 

Biya walking the 'Los Hospitales' mountain road

When the weather is bad (fog, cold, winds, rains) this can be indeed a serious challenge; and it is better to stay put for a day in Campiello village, in Casa Ricardo or Casa Herminiana where you can sleep, eat and drink like a king; and stock up food and incidentals in their shops.

Then from Berduscedo to the dam across the Salime river is mostly a going-down hike of some 20 km. I found this more difficult from Buspal village (especially for the knees). But also doable. Then there are no places to hide...when it rains the cattle paths become streams and slippery. Poles to lean on are definitely useful. This is the socalled Ruta Los Hospitales as one passes the ruins of three simple albergues: Hospital de Pardiella, Hospital de Fanfaraon, and Hospital de Valparaiso on the crest of the mountain range. Easy to imagine that these Hospitales (Rest and Recuperation pensions/shelters) or 'pit-stops'  during the Middle Ages (from 12th century onwards) were necessary in this hostile environment where the weather is unpredictable. It can be an eerie environment when the weather is bad. One is only accompanied by hundreds of cows and horses freely grazing around. We were fortunate throughout: weather was clement with only one day that we had to use our ponchos, arriving in As-Seixas Merlan on day 15. 

The only poncho day, just for an hour or so 

Interestingly we saw lots of young people walking this Camino, in particular Spanish and Polish. Biya and I stood out as an elderly exotic couple and were nicely treated throughout. In the 'pueblo' of Porcelis (10 houses) we met Sara and Flora from Milano (18-19 years) who had started in Irun and had switched to the Camino Primitivo because of the cold weather along the coastline. Very nice ladies, eager to listen to the advise from Biya. 

With Sara and Flora in the Streets of Santiago de Compostela

But let me not forget Pedro, the Spanish emigrant to Toulon in France. Clocking up his 8th Camino and counting 81 years he hopped around like a mountain goat. 

With Pedro in front of the Oviedo Cathedral

Pedro was one of the hundreds of thousands whose families left Spain because of the Civil War and the aftermath when General Franco ran the country as a dictator until his death in 1975. On our previous travels we have met such Spanish emigrants from Cuba to Paraguay and many indeed left for France. Pedro liked talking to us and we met him three times in one day in Oviedo. He mentioned he came walking from Leon to Oviedo after finishing the 'Camino Invierno' that pilgrims used to take because of the accessibility during the winter. At 81 he really shuffled like a young man. 

Sadly and as a sign of progress?...quite a lot of young people walk with earplugs and remain in their own digital bubble. And then increasingly there are the cyclists, not always warning the walkers when passing by, and organised groups of travellers that clog up the albergues with their booking.com approach. Indeed times have changed Anton! 

With Biya I had to endure, well a better verb is to accept, more planning than last year when I walked solo from Lourdes to Muxia (see a previous blog from 2023). Biya's knees remained intact with a lot of cooling gel and bandages for support. Thanks to her high level of pain tolerance we were able to continue. On average some 3 kms max. per hour.....So we walked at times around 10 hours a day with many rests. I taught myself evermore patience and was impressed with her commitment and perseverance. 

Yes babe, it is a long road to A Cadavo village! 

Perhaps she did not walk like a 'springbok', but she advanced like a Mercedes Benz diesel! On average we walked 17.5 km a day during the 18 days walk. Not at all bad for a 66 years young lady having some knee trouble. 

Taking care of my lady's knees and feet

Nevertheless we decided to use the 'donkey service' that took care of Biya's luggage. We started using this luggage transport service as of Campiello to Lavacolla for 12 days. Therefore my luggage went down from 11 to 7,5 kg. and Biya only carried the foodies bag. 

Ahhh food: surely one of the reasons why Spain remains a top location. Whether you eat the Pilgrim's Special or the 'Comida del Dia' these cheap three course meals, usually come with a bottle of red, and vary in price from some 11 euros to about 15 euros in the village restaurants. What a treat! I miss this in the NL. Here is a nice example from Tineo village: 

- primero: white beans soup with sausages/bacon (the local 'fabada'), 

- segundo: beefsteak with fries and

- postres / as desert a home made yoghurt.

 A full bottle of vino rosado included at the price of 15 euros. And meat of excellent quality because all cattle grazes outside in evergreen pastures for nine months a year! In a typical Spanish family run restaurant called 'Tineu', with professional and smiling waitresses. 

Then often we had 'Fabada soup', an Asturian traditional and specialty: big white beans, chorizo sausage, black pudding (blood sausage) and pork lard. Yummy/delicioso!

Fabada soup: a must eat!

When I walked solo I only had a baguette and a piece of chorizo with me / and water. Now together with my lady we included fruit like bananas and apples, and peanuts, and protein bars. And we had trouble eating it because on the way there is always coffee and tortilla awaiting us. So my advice remains: plenty of food along the camino to be bought (except along the Ruta Los Hospitales), and the tapwater is everywhere drinkable/safe. 

The long trail downhill from Buspal...Anton is in it somewhere..

Every pilgrim has stories to tell and here are two of ours: 

1. On day 8 we arrived in Grandas de Salime after a 20 km walk, of which some 8 km downhill, quite tiring. 

We had booked a room in the excellent La Barra Hotel and before checking in, we ordered beers (Estrella Galicia of course!). When we sought a seating place on the terrace a lady waved at me and gestured to come and sit down. I was a bit surprised; then did what she asked and she explained that her friends suddenly had to leave and had left her with a huge platter of local dried meats and cheeses which she, as a pilgrim wanted to share with us. I had not remarked her during the walk previously but she and Biya had said hello to each other: 'Buen Camino'. So we talked and it turned out that she, Lorena Rotella lived in Liege, Belgium (100km South from our village Leende) and was a daughter of a miner from Asturias who had emigrated to Belgium in the early fifties where her father had met her mother, daughter of a miner hailing from Italy. We had a long chat and Lorena mentioned she worked for the Red Cross in Liege (asylum section). 

with Lorena in Grandas de Salime

We left it at that (after I basically finished the platter of meat/cheese specialties washed down with another round of beers). 

There was that evening a piano concert in the church facing our hotel and Lorena said she would go and hoped to see us there. We were too tired for that and rolled into bed early. 

The following day we planned to walk to Fonsagrada, a distance of 25 km so we needed our rest. After some 10 km in a small place called Penafonte we rested and digged into our foodies bag in the bus abri. Suddenly a small white Kia rocked up and a young man stepped out who showed us a wallet with Lorena's picture. 'Por favor Senhor, sabes este Senhora Peregrina'? Whether we knew this lady, and yes we explained that we had met and talked with her and that we had become Camino-trail friends. He then said that he was Javier, the recital pianist performing at the church concert the evening before and that, this early morning while he collected his instruments, he found this wallet with Lorena's I.D. / bank cards on one of the church benches. He gave the wallet to us after I mentioned that I was definitely going to find her today somewhere on the trail. I asked Javier's tel.nr and he left looking for her in the next cafetaria in a village called Acabo some 6km up the road. 

Later it turned out he never found her as Lorena had decided to leave very early that morning and was more than two hours ahead of us. 

Biya and I simply assumed that Lorena would also stay overnight in Fonsagrada, a town with all possible services. Pondering over how to connect with Lorena I decided to call her office in Liege and got through to the asylum section where I explained the situation and told a surprised staffer that Lorena could pick up her wallet at the Portico hotel in Fonsagrada after 6pm, where we had booked. Upon arrival we found a note from Lorena to meet with her in the restaurant where she was sipping a beer and eagerly waiting for us. Wow, she and us could not believe this had happened the way it did. God's intervention was the only way we could explain it. We were so happy and kept wondering about this 'miracle'. We then all agreed that an intervention from 'Above' made it happen. Then in the end Lorena confessed that she was puzzled that her boss called her from Liege and when he said that a Dutch/Korean couple had her wallet.....she had not even noticed that it had gone missing!!! A story to remember and a friendship to be continued. 

2. Snoring in Spanish means 'roncar' and a man/woman that snores is called a 'roncador/roncadora'. It is written that snoring is the music during the Camino. And all pilgrims sooner or later use the dormitories in the albergues as one cannot always find a private room. Biya and I managed to have a private room during 13 of the 20 days we were on the trail. And fortunately the snorers/roncadores were not a problem until we hit the dormitory of albergue Ponte de Ferreiros in the village of Calle. 

A group of Spanish middle aged men and women had not only been loud but also drank plenty of wine that eve. I already feared a lot of noise during the night. 

Then two of the guys competed who snored loudest. One of them was world class: he produced a sound as if someone was killing a pig with a blunt knife (and Biya agreed!). My earplugs were useless as the snorers were close to me. I decided to use toiletpaper instead and filled up my ears to the brim; it worked. Nevertheless the whole night these 2 guys carried on their snoring competition. I pity their wives! 

Obviously one hears other unpleasant sounds during the night such as coughing, farting, and throat scraping, but I won't go into details about these. My advise is to avoid large dormitories if you want to have a good night's sleep. Then we found the dormitories generally clean, but still too many bunk beds are crammed into one sleeping hall, and quite often too few showers and toilets. 

The one donativo albergue in Porcelis we stayed in, and managed by an eccentric individual called Nico, only had one shower/toilet for a total of 15 pilgrims. Although there was a decrepit toilet outside the house as well, but who wants to go there during the night? 

And here are some small things we shall never forget. 

When we arrived in Grado (day 2) we checked into the AutoBar hotel and experienced the smallest shower basin in my life. I measured the size: 40x40 cm. I could not manage to pick up the soap that had landed on the floor without stepping out of the shower. We should have taken a picture of it. 

Then we had an evening walk through Grado and met a Spanish couple talking with two young people. We were asked to translate and it turned out the young couple was looking for a place to stay and had already found the municipal albergue completely full. We mentioned our hotel for 40euros a night with breakfast but they were not interested. After they had gone the Spanish couple told us that these two young people were from Eastern Europe and had bluntly asked them if they could stay in their home...which they obviously declined. Biya and I with the Spanish couple were so surprised about such idiotic behaviour...this did not fit the image of a pilgrim at all. 

In Oviedo the local cider (fermented apple juice) is famous and we tasted it of course ( a full bottle). Next day both Biya and I had the runs. Haha, no cider for me anymore!

Traditional pouring of cider in Northern Spain

I prefer cerveza and vino! Then we bought a bottle of Aquarius, a soft drink which mentions on the label that it helps against indigestion (based on a salt-sugar mix). And it did immediately. 

Usually Biya wanted to book a room a day ahead and we had been paying around 40 euros (or less!) for a room an about 12 euros on average for a bunkbed in a dormitory. When she called the Posada hotel in Tineo she asked for the price and when the lady mentioned 60 euros with breakfast Biya was so shocked that she simply 'hung up the phone' / broke the connection. The poor lady on the other end of the line must have been puzzled (name of Paloma who later turned out a super sweet woman). I managed to convince Biya that this was a good price so she finally called again and agreed to Paloma on the price. 

Sometimes my wife can be so stingy in spending money on her own travel. At that moment though she was not mentally prepared to pay 60 euros. It turned out to be a fine room with a beautiful vista.

This Camino was Biya's first, and for me the second. We plan to do together the Camino Portugues (260km) from Porto to Santiago in 2025. And I will try to start end of April 2024 in Cadiz to walk the Camino Augusta/de la Plata, via Sevilla, Caceres, Salamanca and Ourense to Santiago (1130 km). We shall see but the plan is already there! 

These boots were made for walking to the Cathedral in Santiago de C. 

20 August : Travel from Leende house-home via Schiphol/AMS to Oviedo airport and Oviedo city / Albergue La Peregrina, dormitory / overpriced. 

21 August : Sightseeing in Oviedo / Albergue El Salvador in old seminary, dormitory, good. 

22 August : My 73th birthday Oviedo to Escamplero (15km) Albergue Municipal /cheap but dirty.

23 August : Escamplero to Grado (15km) Hotel AutoBar (Esther) / good. 

24 August : Grado to Cornellana (13km) Albergue Municipal/Monasterio (Gloria) / dormitory very good. 

25 August : Cornellana to Porcelis (16.5 km) Albergue donativo / room / quality so so (Nico). 

26 August : Porcelis to Tinao (14.5km) Hotel La Posada (Paloma) very good. 

27 August : Tinao to Campiello (13.5km) Casa Ricardo (Gaita) room / very good.

28 August : Campiello to Berduscedo - Ruta Los Hospitales - (27.5 km) / Casa Marques (Frank) dormitory / good enough. 

29 August : Berduscedo to Grandas de Salime (20.5km) Hotel La Barra (Ruben) very good. 

30 August : Grandas de Salime to Fonsagrada (25.5km) Hotel Portico (Nuria) / room and very good.

31 August : Resting day in Fonsagrada in Hotel Portico.

1 Sept. :      Fonsagrada to A Cadavo (25km) / Albergue San Mateo (MarieCarmen) / room good. 

2 Sept. :      A Cadavo to Vilar de Cas (16.5 km) / Albergue 'A Pocina de Muniz' (Ruben and 'Captain') excellent facility.

3 Sept. :     Vilar de Cas to Lugo (16.5km) Hotel Espana (Loly) good room. 

In Lugo: only 100 km to go

The town of Lugo is known worldwide to have the only Roman wall intact = all around the centre of this pretyy town / 15 meters high.. We walked its full length of 2.25 km. An impressive work of art by the Romans finished some eighteen hundred years ago. It beats the wall in Dyarbakir, Turkiye.

4 Sept. : Lugo to San Roman de Retorta (19.5km) Albergue O Candida (Nito/Nitro and Noelia); very good. 

5 Sept. : Resting day in San Roman de Retorta in Albergue O Candida. 

6 Sept. : San Roman de Retorta to As-Seixas Merlan (13.5 km) -only rainy day- / Albergue A Toqueira (Lucia) room good. 

7 Sept. : As-Seixas Merlan to Boente (20.5km), Pension Boente (Margarita) very good. 

8 Sept. : Boente to Calle (16km) Albergue A Ponte de Ferreiros (Nancy) dormitory good but heavy snoring. 

9 Sept.   : Calle to Lavacolla (20km) Albergue Labacolla (Ana) room good. 

10 Sept. : Lavacolla to Santiago de Compostela (10km) Albergue Sixtos (Lola) / dormitory room for us alone; good enough. 

11 Sept. : Travel by bus from Santiago to Lugo; hotel Espana again / good. 

12 Sept. : Travel by bus from Lugo via Ponferada to Oviedo; Green Hostel (Ana) room ok. 

13 Sept. : Stay in Oviedo (wild strike at Charleroi airport / we changed flights to AMS) / in Albergue El Salvador again. 

14 Sept. : To Oviedo airport and late flight to Amsterdam. Overnight at Schiphol airport in front of Burger King (2 Whoppers after midnight for 20 euros; for that price we nearly had to full Comidas dle Dia on the Camino trail). Biya nearly went into a fit! 

15 Sept. : Early Sunday morning arrival in Leende by train and bus. 

Two relevant songs that I sang quietly during this camino: 

 1. I am a pilgrim from The Byrds (1968) and 

 2. How can we keep on moving? from Ry Cooder (1972) / the original is from Sis Cunningham (1932); ( musicfromthedepression.com ). Well worth listening to. 

 We met the following nationalities / pilgrims from NL, Korea, Germany, UK, USA, Columbia, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Poland, Italy, France, Spain, Hungary, Belgium, Portugal, Ireland and... Ukraina. 

WINDMILLS all over the place and we saw and felt the impact at the village of A Mesa (3km from Berduscedo). From a distance of more than 750 meters one could hear the noise clearly: poor villagers. Visually it poisons the environment, and because of the noise birdlife has disappeared...and for maintenance reasons a complete new road usually has to be built. Better to build these windmills on the sea like we do in the NL. 

We had planned this walking event with a budget of 120 euros per day for the two of us including all travel/flights. We actually spent over the 27 days (to Santiago de Compostela and back home in Leende) 2.625 euros which equals 48.6 euros per person per day. And we lived like a King and a Queen. 

Leende, 21st September 2024

Camino Primitivo Certificates, from Oviedo to Santiago 318 km

Trip to South America / Desert, Chaco, Pampa, Mountains and Glaciers through the Andes cordillera and Patagonia / by Ton van Zutphen.

December 2023 – February 2024. Round trip Chile, Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina, Chile. Main stopovers included: Santiago de Chile, San Pedro de Atacama, Uyuni, Sucre, Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Asuncion, Filadelfia, Puerto de Iguazu, Buenos Aires, San Carlos de Bariloche, El Chalten, El Calafate, Puerto Natales, Santiago de Chile / by Biya Han and Anton van Zutphen

Biya flew into Santiago de Chile from Seoul via New York, and I traveled from Amsterdam via Madrid. We more or less arrived at the same time morning of 20th December; perfectly coordinated! Then we took the ‘blue line’ airport bus to ‘Los Heroes’ metro station and walked, backpacks shouldered, to our B&B. 

A few comments on traveling through this vast region: the buses are luxurious by any known standard to me: spacious, aircon, and often with full reclining and wide seats ‘full-cama’. Not always cheap but worthwhile. 

We had three trips of more than 20 hours; the longest from Bariloche to El Chalten in Argentina, driving 28 hours with a quasi-permanent view of the Andes; though we did a lot of resting, looking and sleeping. No sweat! Then we took two flights: from Santiago to Calama and from Puerto Natales back to Santiago in Chile….with a company called SKY. Interestingly the cost of the one luggage item we checked in was much  higher, almost double, than the price of my flight. Will we ever understand how airlines justify such anomalies? Then last but not least, if one travels overland into Chile, one has to use a QR code/app and fill out a form on a smartphone and send it to immigration dept. What if one does not have a phone? All very customer-unfriendly new regulations. 

Anyway, what I did not know as a European is that many countries visited on this trip have waged wars against each other and still bear the scars of these in their (unfriendly governmental) relationships…haha Chileans do not like Bolivians nor Argentinians; Brazilians and Argentinians do not like each other (certainly not when one talks about soccer), and nobody seems to appreciate the Bolivians. We talked to a lot of Paraguayans but none of them ever traveled to neighboring Bolivia.

The picture above at the Bolivian General Consulate in Santiago was taken by a staff member who courteously let us in and explained that there were no 'scellos'/ stamps available to issue a visa. These two neighbors do not until now maintain relations at Ambassador level.

Essential wars that led to borders that are now kind of definite include:

1. The Pacific War (1879-1884) between Bolivia and Peru on one side and Chile on the other. Bolivia started the war over a tax issue for Chilean mining companies and was supported by Peru. But in the end, Chile won and took large swaths of Peruvian and Bolivian territory…cutting off Bolivia’s direct access to the sea. This very bloody war, fought in part in the hostile Atacama desert (now 150 years ago on horseback and mules as pack animals!) remains still in the memory of the people living in Northern Chile (many of them of Bolivian origin).

2. The Chaco war (1932-1935) between Bolivia and Paraguay; also started by Bolivia that wanted a piece of a potentially oil-rich region in the North West of Paraguay and finally access to the Atlantic Ocean by river. Again in the end Paraguay, against all odds, won this ‘war of thirst’ in the harsh and dry Chaco region. The Bolivian army advanced as far as the town of Filadelfia where the Mennonites just before had settled from Canada and Russia. 

3. Argentina and Chile had many disputes over their Andes border in Patagonia and nearly went to war in 1978 over the ‘Beagle Canal’. Then Argentina invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982 and got a serious drubbing from Lady Thatcher. Nevertheless in the constitution of Argentina these Islas Malvinas are firmly enshrined as part of the country (although the British established themselves on the Falkland Islands from 1833). 

The road to independence for all these countries from Spain was a long process taking three centuries during which the Spanish conquistadors and their off-spring decimated the native population. Over the years, slowly a new class of mestizo / mixed race and an educated citizen cohort developed that stood up against the Spanish regime. Hundreds of nationalists, both indigenous and in part with Spanish blood in them fought local wars like Tupac Amaru II, Simon Bolivar, Antonio de Sucre, to name a few of them. And all countries gained independence around 1825, or a bit later in 1852 in the case of Paraguay. Also the vast open spaces invited immigrants from Europe; many of these adventurers and mercenaries immediately after independence, with later more regulated immigration by laborers and farmers mostly from Europe (foremost Italians, Germans, and Spanish).

Tupac Amaru II; libertador in Bolivia and Peru
(1742-1781, killed by the Spanish)

Simon Bolivar, general and libertador from Venezuela
(1783-1830)

Antonio Jose de Sucre
First President of Bolivia from 1826 to 1828

No wonder that disputes between countries remained active for more than 100 years with some serious wars. In 1936 the famous and effective US President FD Roosevelt traveled by steamer to Brazil and Argentina, and in Buenos Aires he signed an ‘Inter-American’ document during a peace-conference that stipulated that from now on all over the Americas a pact of non-intervention was to be adhered to. It meant that any third country would not intervene when two countries went to war……including the USA. It was indeed a visionary document. And this, only one year after the Chaco war had ended and the Argentinian diplomat/mediator Carlos Saveedra Lamas was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to this peace in 1936. And indeed as far as I know wars between two American countries have not been openly/officially supported by the military of a third country. Slightly different but the USA did come close to waging wars on South American regimes openly such as with….Noriega in Panama, Castro in Cuba, Allende in Chile, Ortega in Nicaragua, others? Then, the US administration has never admitted its official role for example in the case of the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba (1961) or the overthrow of elected President Allende in Chile (1973).

Enough history; now travel highlights such as

The Atacama desert in Northern Chile with a visit to the Valley of the Moon and a bike ride to the Laguna Cejar. This desert resembles the Algerian desert with its hills and rocky mountain peaks. Extremely dry with areas not having a drop of rain in a year. Touristic, yes, with young travelers from around the globe. San Pedro de Atacama is kind of a hippie place with many shops selling locally made and ‘quasi native’ knick-knacks. Small restaurants, many hostals and competing travel agencies. And with a nice atmosphere.  Our Christmas service was in the cozy village church but there were surprisingly few attendees. In addition the priest celebrated the mass as if it was just a normal weekday morning mass. Biya and I utterly failed to understand this. Then we did notice that churches in Chile were not particulalrly inviting...doors locked during the day, not well maintained, some kind of a near desolate atmosphere around them; certainly around the cathedral in Santiago.

Nativity scene with lamas in San Pedro church

San Pedro gets its water supply from far away Andes mountains and it remains scarce. A hot hot place around Christmas. We dared rent a bike and plowed through the gravel, a 20 plus kilometers stretch to Lake Cejar. And dipped into the salty water just like in the Dead Sea. Then a shower prepared us for the 20 km back.  Hot, dusty, difficult and tiresome riding on the washboard gravel road. We did it and Biya surprised me with her riding skills. I was a bit scared of getting a flat tire as we would not have been able to repair it. In that case hitchhiking would have been the only option. For me it was a good exercise because the bus rides really make your body stiff as a plank.  Most bike riders only went one way and took a pick-up taxi back and loaded their bikes onto it. Back at the bike shop we both felt that such activities create comradeship and are the secret of a successful day!

Biya on the dusty gravel road at 40 degrees C / Atacama desert

After waiting overnight outside of the bus station in the company of many friendly street dogs, we caught the bus from San Pedro to Uyuni in Bolivia. Biya had to fork out 130 USD cash for her visa at the border. The Bolivians appear to have split up the world into those who support socialist countries and freedom movements, and those who do not. South Koreans and US citizens pay high visa costs and for Dutch the entry is (still) free. Impossible to get a visa in Korea or even at the Bolivian General Consulate in Santiago. Reason was that they had no stamps! The border crossing is in a God forsaken place along the railway line that takes out the silver ore and other minerals from the Potosi/Uyuni area to Antofagasta on the Chilean coast about 1.000 kilometers away…..grrhhhr, to think about the railroad men who built this track through the desert 150 years ago. In Uyuni we visited the famous locomotive cemetery as it was cheaper to import a new locomotive all the way from England/France than the repair costs so far away in the desert. 

The salt flats around Uyuni should be on your bucket list. We took an organized day trip and zoomed in a wide bodied, new (and expensive) Nissan Patrol V6 four wheel drive across these flats at high speed and with much comfort. Lunch and a wine apero were provided by the driver/photographer Mariscal and we spent an hour walking in the extraordinary oasis ‘Isla de Incahuasi’ amidst giant, meters high, cactus. What an experience! 

Having fun during the raid

Finally I had Biya in the palm of my hand

These salt flats cover an area as large as the Netherlands. Hundreds of tourists participate in these raids, every day. And all that for just 30 bucks per person/day. I do not understand the business model here. I estimate we drove some 250 kilometers that day, six tourists, …how can they make money? Bolivians working with foreigners complain a lot about their socialist government and about the manner in which they let foreigners pay for their stay in-country. But for a pensionado/jubilado like me Bolivia is bottom cheap; with top nice people. Perhaps some ‘coca’ related money seeps into the tourist industry here. I saw small farm coca plantations all along the road from Uyuni, to Potosi, to Sucre. And was offered some on the bus; I chewed on it, it tasted not bad. A bit bitter and I understand that a good chew shall get you soon in a wonderful modus of blissful happiness. Later on in Paraguay (be careful at the border town of Mariscal Estigarribia, named after the famous general from the Chaco war) our bus was routinely checked on ‘coca/cocaine’ by sniffer dogs. What in Bolivia is openly accepted will get you many years in prison in Paraguay! 

Bolivia in 1988 legalised coca cultivation under certain conditions
but cultivation is now quasi nation-wide and over 50% of the production
escapes government control

Bolivia has a lot of charm and the towns we stayed in like Sucre and Santa Cruz de la Sierra gave us this nice ‘colonial’ atmosphere like many towns in Mexico with a central Plaza de Armas. 

We trucked on, crossed the endless Chaco in Paraguay, drove into Asuncion and were welcomed by Monica Kneup-Villa Alba, the online Spanish teacher that Biya twice weekly skypes with. We had planned to do 10 lessons to improve our Spanish with Monica and were invited to stay in the cozy villa of her darling  mother Esther who is a former music professor with her dog Callomera. 

'We love Asuncion' on the boulevard of the Paraguay river
Esther and Biya

The whole family looked very well after us, took us to church and town, to Fernando, her husband and his anniversary party and even to a Burger King resto! How fortunate Biya and I always are! By the way I was upgraded for my Spanish to level B!! Then we met Monica’s friends in the settler’s town of Filadelfia another 550 kilometers westwards in ‘Mennonite country’ in the central Chaco area. The Mennonite family Friedbert and Regina Loewen took us to their farm….a pasture of some 400 hectares with 400 cattle. Wow, there is still land in the Chaco and cattle roam around free without serious predators and sicknesses. Now and then a puma, but no animal related epidemics like we have in Europe with our (labor) intensive animal farming. A picnic overseeing the pastures in the Chaco while the sun goes down, that is what we enjoyed! A pity the Mennonites do not drink beer! Menno Simons (1496-1561), a Catholic priest from Friesland, NL turned into a fervent Protestant and created his own peace-oriented form of Protestantism and he/his followers had to flee all over the world until the end of World War II. Mennonites are serious workers, love the land they till, keep traditions and large families and refuse to bear arms. Many of them emigrated to Canada and the USA and even to Siberia. Under Stalin they were prosecuted and a few hundred of them reached Paraguay from Russia via Harbin, Shanghai, Marseilles, Le Havre and Buenos Aires in the 1930s…then settled in hostile Chaco-land and built up the still German-speaking towns/villages of Filadelfia, Neuburg, Fernheim and Orloff to name a few. I spoke German with them and hope to meet with the Loewen’s family again in Europe. We were offered a family dinner with a focus on grilled buffalo Chaco meat….and potato salad: home cooking and charcoal roasting. Yummy!

from left to right: Biya, Anton, Monica, Esther (daughter and mother)
Friedbert, Regina (husband and wife)

‘Einmalig’: the Iguazu Falls. Possibly the Spanish conquistador Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca (cowhead) stumbled as the first European on these marvelous horseshoe-shaped falls in 1541. He may have thought he had discovered a kind of ‘Eden’. Indeed, these falls are the most beautiful falls I have seen in my life. Colors, gurgling water masses, rocks, the wild vegetation: fascinating that nature can be so overwhelming. You can visit the falls from three countries: Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina. Dead easy, just ride a bus, pay some entrance fee into the national parks and walk around for hours getting as close to the falls as 50 meters. A ‘Mecca’ for photographers as one can take pictures from all angles and from tens of specially built ‘miradors’. I reckon the Argentine side offers more variety. There is a serious  risk of bad weather, so bring a raincoat. Biya and I wandered for some eight hours over two days along the routes bordering these falls. And never got tired of admiring this wonder!

Iguazu Falls, Brazilian side

Here is a list of arguably the 7 most beautiful/impressive water falls in the world:

1. Plitvice Falls in Croatia / visited in 2023

2 Niagara Falls in USA/Canada / visited in 2005

3. Iguazu Falls in Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay / visited in 2024

4. Dudhsagar Falls in Goa, India

5. Yosemite Falls in USA

6. Gullfoss in Iceland

7. Victoria Falls in Zambia, Zimbabwe / visited in 1976

We arrived in Buenos Aires after a long bus ride from Puerto Iguazu. And settled in a small apartment, in the center of town. I immediately felt comfortable in this city. Looks very European, lots of small shops and restaurants, hustling and bustling, and plenty of monuments and sights to see. And steaks for a nickel and a dime! Plus nice people. Definitely the place to visit as nr. 1 capital on this trip. So what did we do for four days in Buenos Aires apart from eating large quantities of beef in a restaurant called ‘Parrilla Lo de Tuca’? 

Everything Anton likes is on the menu!

Here are some of the sights not to miss:

Cemetery la Recoleta, Plaza de Mayo, Florida street / hawkers-hustlers-money changers, Museum Bellas Artes, mass at Iglesia del Pinar, Catedral Metropolitana (where Archbishop Jorge Bergoglio celebrated before becoming the Pope), the Museum General next to the Casa Rosada (interestingly without information about the period of the Dictators Galtieri and Videla!), a walk along the boulevard bordering the swamp-like Rio de la Plata, and sipping good beers like Quilmes and Schneider!

A Buenos Aires hair cut done professionally for 3 US dollars

Here is a list of famous Argentinians:

Carlos Saveedra Lamas      / Diplomat, Nobel Peace Prize 1936

Juan Manual Fangio           / 5 times World Champion formula 1 car racer in the 1950ies  

Jorge Luis Borges              / Poet, writer (1899-1986)

Juan Peron                         / President (1946-55 and 1973-74)

Eva Peron Duarte (Evita)   / Wife of Juan Peron; died of cancer in 1952 age 39   

Che Guevarra                    / Professional Revolutionary; killed in Bolivia by the police in 1967 

Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi / soccer players and national heroes for ALL Argentinians

Francisco                           / Current Roman Catholic Pope

Messi #10, Biya #1
I guess 1 million Argentinians walk around even today in this Messi-shirt.
Hit the ball girl!

Juan Peron was an exceptionally talented populist leader who could not get Argentina out of the economic morass in the 1950ies. He developed into a Dictator and ‘lover of young girls’ later in his life. His 2nd wife was Eva Duarte, a nightclub dancer whom he fell in love with. She won the hearts of the masses because of her empathy and work for the poor.

Juan-Eva official portrait. And Eva's grave memorial at La Recoleta cemetary which is the most visited one; still people crying at her grave when we were there.

Juan Peron himself was notorious for protecting and employing Nazis that sought refuge in Argentina after World War II.

The Dutch soccer team had two most serious encounters with ‘archrival’ Argentina: in 1978 the Dutch lost the final against  host Argentina in Buenos Aires; we should have won…but could we have won against 80.000 shrieking Argentinian fans? And in 2023 we lost the semi-finals against Argentina after a penalty shoot-out.

I have always been interested in German history and read many books about the World Wars it started and fought, including the horrible holocaust it caused. Until today some Paraguayans believe that Adolf Hitler escaped and was sighted in a hotel close to the railway station in Asuncion. Then as of late 1945, he disappeared to never be seen again. Too weird a story to believe. Then it is true that hundreds of Nazi officers, many of them members of the SS and Gestapo escaped via Italy to Buenos Aires and found some sort of organized welcome in Argentina and Paraguay. Presidents Peron and Stroessner actually enlisted some of them as advisors…all of this was known to the Allies and Israel.  Incredible that Nazis like Mengele, Eichmann, Priebke, Kutschmann, and the Croatian ‘Ustase’ leader Pavelic were not extradited. Mengele finally died in a swimming accident in Brazil and Eichmann (who worked for Volkswagen in a factory in B. Aires!) was kidnapped by the Mossad out of Buenos Aires and hanged for war crimes in the Ayalon prison, Ramla, Israel. Only when Carlos Menem became President of Argentina in 1989, Nazis like Priebke were extradited to Germany or Italy. Priebke lived under his own name for over 40 years in the pretty town of ‘Bavarian/Swiss-like’ Bariloche.

Anyway this kind of chapter can be definitely closed! The war is now nearly 80 years behind us and I reckon none of these infamous characters are still alive.

We spent a few days in San Carlos de Bariloche, a bigger town than I had expected. We needed a good rest before moving to El Chalten another 600 plus kms further South. There is a famous hotel at the end of bus line 20 called Llao Llao and from there several hiking paths start. We just had an expensive cup of coffee (Vienna style with a glass of water and small sized chocolates), and enjoyed the view over the lake. 

A long bus ride took us to El Chalten where we hit the first bad weather…cold rain  and heavy winds. Lots of tourists come here to walk the FitzRoy trail but for us the weather was too bad. The hostal manager of Complejo Don Joel advised us definitely not to go because of the adverse weather circumstances that had turned the paths into muddy and slippery trails. We walked just to the close-by falls and the next day Biya went up a bit further and spent a day in the rain walking whilst I read an old science fiction classic ‘Stranger in a Strange Land’ by Robert Heinlein. We stayed in a dormitory of four and Biya cooked her first ever chorizo steak. Nice with some good red Malbec! I think the dormitory wasn’t that clean because the following days Biya got skin rash all over her body from bites we could hardly locate. She suffered from itching day and night. Fortunately, it was over after a week. It is always Biya that gets bitten, never me. Anyway, ‘dorms’ are the usual place where mites, fleas, lice and other bugs do well! 

Our final destination in Argentina, a country we had started to like more and more, was the town of El Calafate close to glacier ‘Perito Moreno’ and its lake. We walked and even took a boat that brought us as close as 40 meters to the blue ice wall of this glacier. Impressive and stunningly beautiful. Now and then a couple of tons of ice broke off and created some waves; it being summer and warm in Argentina this was a normal sight.

End of glacier Perito Moreno;beginning of the lake/river

We had checked into an apartment that had a surface of more than 130 square meters with two large bedrooms, an open kitchen/bar and enough space to invite a football team. I had found an excellent butcher and knew what kind of part of the cow was best: either chorizo or quadril. We had not known it was that large a lodging and immediately thought of inviting ‘Heymook Sunim’, a Korean lady monk we had run into at the bus station. She, Heymook (65 years young and surprisingly well preserved!) had recognized Biya and they had engaged already in a long conversation. These situations occur regularly and I am ok with such. I just back down and let the waterfall of words go on for a while. Heymook understands some English and I found out that she entered the monastery when she was 20 and spent more than 40 years meditating/working. I called her a ‘zen-monk’ as she behaved so cool and balanced. No wonder of course when you are used to getting up at 3am every morning then pray/meditate 8 hours during the day, work another 6 and study the rest of the remaining time. For 40 years. She walked like a young lady and acted very sure of herself….not speaking any Spanish and having little money. She just radiated confidence and humility. Wow! I had cooked a lot of meat (by order of Biya who by now devoured the Argentine beef!) and we shared a bottle of red…it was only the second time in her life Heymook drank alcohol. Then I filled up her glass at least three times and it seemed to have no effect on her. She also enjoyed the meat and ate all that was served. She appreciated this once-in-a-lifetime privilege to leave the monastery to see the outside world and its crisp and unspoiled nature. Then we had a wonderful photo session; all laughing and acting funny! I hope we can visit her sometime in the future at her monastery in Kuang-ju in Southeast Korea. 

Heymook Sunim and Anton

Then into the bus again and cross into Chile on our way to Puerto Natales. We had booked a one-day trip only to the Torres del Paine park as we were running out of time. I had not planned to stay for over one week in Bolivia nor had we planned a long trip into the Chaco in Paraguay. Now we had to make ends meet and cut short our stay in Southern Patagonia. After all, our total trip was going to be 49 days out and back together, in Seoul. If ever I, or Biya, and preferably together will get another chance to visit Torres del Paine again we shall do the three or four-day walk and stay overnight in the refuges (pre-booking essential!).

Classic picture of Torres del Paine massif in Chile

Then Patagonia must offer many extraordinary sights. It was 30-40 years before ‘discovered’ by the wealthy so-called ‘eco-barons’ like Ted Turner, Luciano Benetton, George Soros who  bought vast tracts of lands and fenced it off (to protect against overgrazing…) True or not. Even the leisure clothing company ‘Patagonia’ did many years ago acquire an area as large as Switzerland and was later accused of moving people out of its new property. Then handed it over to the Argentine government which turned it into a new national park with an environmentally friendly program. Depending on the location a hectare of Patagonia was as cheap as 10 USD (some 15 years ago). 

From Puerto Natales which has little to offer we flew back to Santiago de Chile. Unfortunately, this capital also has few sights worthwhile for tourists so we spent the last day in colorful and bustling Valparaiso, a town I could live in for a few months. We got caught by a severe forest fire, then the bus driver decided to drive through it. This fire was indeed a biggie. World news. We were surprised that the fire departments did not close off the main roads. In the end, nothing happened to us but thousands of homes and shops were destroyed and perhaps as many as 500 people died around Vina del Mar.  We still feel very sorry for the Chileans.

Rich-Poor: the case of Argentina.

Argentina from about 1880 onwards throughout 1940 benefitted from huge and qualified immigration and cheap production costs of its export products mainly meat and grain. It was considered a rich country in 1940 even by European standards. Then…huge borrowing for dubious investments, subsidies, and increasing labor-related costs turned the country into a debt-ridden client of the International Monetary Fund. Near bankruptcy and many tough devaluations caused a poverty increase that can be seen in the streets of Buenos Aires: ramshackle apartments, old cars, many bagmen, beggars and addicts in the streets. We learned what to say to the numerous beggars ‘no tenemos plata’. A sad story that has been ongoing for more than 50 years now. The recently elected President Javier Milei wants a hefty change: fewer subsidies, a change to a stable USD economy and privatization of numerous public budget guzzling state corporations. Example….a (subsidized) metro ticket in Buenos Aires today costs 20 euro cents…in Amsterdam it is about 3 euros (15 times more!). For starters he devalued the peso with 50% around New Year. When we arrived in Argentina a week later we did not notice any serious manifestations. Probably tough on the majority of the working class but hardly to avoid; and that is what many Argentinians may believe now as well. The story goes that if all Argentinians took out their hidden US bucks away from under their mattresses and put these into the system the crisis could be over soon. We shall know more and perhaps better by the end of 2024! Success Milei; he may be an unusual and sometimes crazy politician but maybe that is what is needed now for Argentina! Give it a try! Biya and I changed our ‘blue dollars’ into pesos in the street which is openly done by all foreigners and Argentinians who have access to foreign currencies. So the country turned out to be as cheap as Bolivia with the best meat money can buy in the world. Far better than Zimbabwe or South Africa! 

What did we miss…..Visit Uruguay, Walk up to the FitzRoy track, Peek into the Potosi silver mine in Bolivia, Ushuaia town, the Beagle Canal, Puerto Arenas in Chile, Salta town in Argentina, Tango in Buenos Aires, 

Relevant music:

‘Roosevelt in Trinidad’, a calypso song performed by Attila the Hun in 1937 and covered later by Ry Cooder (1970) and in an extravagant way by Van Dyke Parks (1972). Roosevelt was a calypso fan (a ‘calypsonian’) and visited Trinidad on his return from Argentina in 1936.

‘Don’t cry for me Argentina’, sung by Madonna

Relevant books:

The Motorcycle Diaries/trip through South America by Che Guevarra (1953) with a movie based on the book in 2004 

Pablo Escobar; a biography by Nico Verbeek, in Dutch only (2015)

A Quiet Flame / a  well researched detective novel about Nazis in Argentina in the 1950ies by Philip Kerr (2008)

Relevant movies:

‘Missing’ by Costa Gavras about the overthrow of the Allende regime in Chile (1982)

‘The Mission’ by Roland Joffe about the Jesuit missions in South America (1986)

‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid’ by George R. Hill about two American bank/train robbers with other outlaws ‘the wild bunch’ (1969). They fled the USA by steamer from New York to Buenos Aires in 1905. And remained for years in the Chubut region of Patagonia in Argentina where they bought a large farm close to Cholila of over 6.000 hectares but continued also  their criminal work. We passed the hotel where they once stayed when they planned to cross into Chile. The hotel 'Parador la Leona'' is on the Ruta 40 which runs from the south of Argentina all the way up to Bolivia.

Possibly Butch and the 'Kid'  were shot in Bolivia but their bodies were never identified. More recently DNA checks have been done on bones in assumed graves around Potosi but all results have remained negative. Increasingly, experts now believe they returned incognito to the USA to live happily ever after….

Hotel Parador la Leona, border Argentina-Chile

‘Evita’ film-musical by Alan Parker about the life of Eva Peron (1996)

‘The Settlers’ by Felipe Galvez-Haberle about the genocide on the Indian population (in particular the Selknam) in Southern Patagonia, Chile (2023)

Museums to be visited:

Sucre: Casa de Libertad offers a beautiful collection of paintings depicting the history that led to the signing of the independence of Bolivia. As a matter of fact Sucre remains the constitutional capital of Bolivia until today.

Filadelfia: the Mennonites community built its own museum in the center of town with artifacts elaborating the identity of this religious community, historical documents and a volunteer who explains it all in detail. Impressive! 

Filadelfia: a few kilometers outside the town we visited the exposition/museum created by the government that focuses on life in the Chaco region, its native people and history.  

Buenos Aires:  Cemetery La Recoleta, which offers a detailed insight into how the rich and famous buried their families. Incredible architecture.

Museum Bellas Artes  offers paintings, many from European masters including Goya, van Gogh, Picasso, Cezanne, all collected during the period Argentina was still wealthy

Museum General offers the history of Argentina but focuses mostly on its leaders and their paraphernalia.

Puerto Natales has a beautiful intimate museum that is managed by a local association; it tells the history of the settlers from Europe and the sad disappearance of the local Indian cultures.

Animals spotted on the road were fox, hummingbird, nandu (ostrich), lama, vicuna, owl, vulture, rose flamingo, green parakeet, plenty of predators like falcon/hawk but we saw no condor.

PS. Biya and I were together for 49 days; practically each day 24 hours. This went very well. Haha and true to the bone, we did have arguments that we realize are part of our character and culture and way of doing things like planning. Biya wants detailed planning including the seating in the bus (a window seat in bus and restaurant please, a room with a view). I am more easy going. Things will not fall apart once the general picture is clear. Then I am very security conscious and she is not…really. Now, writing this blog in Seoul 12th March I realize and acknowledge this/we/us/she and I are a fine couple! 

Baltic states travel in summer 2022 by Anton and Biya

Finally the Baltic States: a summer trip by Anton van Zutphen and Biya Han in 2022. Observations and a personal historic perspective.

The countries Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia had a short period of semi/full independence following World War 1. Then in the run-up to World War 2 these were assimilated again briefly by Germany and later fully by the USSR. This, until 1991  when the USSR under the leadership of President Mikhail Gorbatchev broke up in many independent countries leaving 'Mother Russia' as a shrunken withered old lady with its new President Boris Yeltsin to manage it. 

Right now, with the war in Ukraine and the problems Russia has at its borders with Moldova and Georgia, the impact can still be felt and is worrying many Europeans seriously.

Another border Westwards, which offers an interesting example of an 'En-Clave area' is Kaliningrad (Koenigsberg in German) a port-area that remains ice-free in winter on the coasts of Lithuania/Poland which officially belongs to Russia. One million people, mostly Russians live here and the area is connected with Russia (through Lithuania) by a railway which ferries goods and people from and to Russia. I looked out very carefully for this special railway when travelling through Lithuania but never saw it. Obviously it is shielded from views from the general public and protected by security forces in a discrete manner.

I had never been to this part of the world but read about it when I was at secondary school. My father had stamps from the Free Trade Zone of Danzig in his collection and as a boy of six I looked up in the Dutch 'Bos atlas' where this 'country' was situated.

Unfortunately Kaliningrad was now out of the question for Biya and me to visit. So we decided to start at the famous Hansa-Stadt harbour of Gdansk, or Danzig (in German). We flew 23rd July from Eindhoven airport where we had to line up some four hours before departure. All airports in the NL during Corona-time lacked staff (mainly bagage handling, security, handluggage checks); incredible but true. Staff had been let go a year earlier during the full blown Covid epidemic when travel had slowed down, and workers had not been replaced in time. Shame to the NL! In the past my country was known for its efficiency. Forget it. These days we cannot even run our railways properly.

Hansa World / Hansa Stadt / Treaty: an important concept focussing on the sea and river trade between the 13th and end of 16th century. The professional associations of traders and other 'guilds' in over 150 cities/small towns throughout North-Western Europe worked together on free trade, protection of their goods and priviliges for their members. It was a huge semi-liberal trade treaty with towns such as Luebeck, Gdansk, Tallinn, Riga, Bergen in Norway, Bremen, Hamburg, Cologne, Bruges, Antwerp, and Zwolle and Zutphen in the NL amongst others.

Gdansk, historic vessel Hanseatic trade 

YES, indeed the town from which my family must have come originally although I have never been able to justify this. Our traceable family tree goes back only to around 1740...and no mention of the town 'Zutphen', but only of the area around 'Veghel', some 100 kms south of Zutphen town, and 40 kms North of Leende. 

Biya and I enormously enjoyed visiting the trader's houses/offices and warehouses in the Baltic states / Riga is tops! Beautifully painted and enriched with many statues. Inside, all wooden panelling and high, decorated ceilings.

Gdansk mainstreet with Hansa trading houses

This important trade in grain, wood, amber, cloth, to name a few commodities, provided employment and stabilized the whole area along Europe's North-Western coast economically, and such for four centuries. I had not expected that the centre of Gdansk had been kept in style so well (and repaired with E. U. monies). We arrived in the middle of a festival and streets were crowded with people having fun. Good streetfood like big sandwiches with lard,  minced meat topped up with tomato and cornichon. Loved it! In particular with a pint of 'Tyskie Lager'.

Gdansk streetfood / yummy!

Actually the port of Gdansk is smack dab in the middle of town. And the weather: sunny with a soft breeze. Aghhhh, the weather in the summer in the Baltic states with warm winds from continental Russia is something to remember. We did not have any rain; just sun and not too hot. Evenings, all cools down but still pleasant. Swimming in the Baltic sea or better walking and sitting in it was a nice thing to do. And quiet man! Compared with the Dutch and German isles like Texel and Sylt, the Baltic shores are 'empty', and clean, and also with nude beaches and dunes to relax in. Haha, even Biya zipped down and out; and tried out the women's-only nude beach and talked with the ladies there; in Paernu, Estonia.  

Nicely called Ladies' Beach / nudist beach in Paernu, Estonia

As Kaliningrad in Russia was forbidden terrain, we took a slow train through the wetlands of isolated 'Masurenland' to the towns of Olsztyn and Elk in North-Eastern Poland, where we found a nice room, right at the lake. We had by now already agreed that if we like it somewhere, we stay at least two nights; and in the larger cities often three nights. Clearly, moving around like a grasshopper and change hotelbeds every night; NO, that is too fast and factually you won't remember anymore where you actually have been! Thus we travelled all around the Kaliningrad area into Lithuania and ended up in Klaipeda. There used to be a ferry between Gdansk in Poland and Klaipeda in Lithuania but because of the troubles with Russia and the warships going in and out of Kaliningrad it was suspended. 

So we arrived from the East and visited one of the most beautiful sites in Lithuania: the 60 metres high dunes of Nida, a sandy strip on a landtongue some 20 kms long, and preciously kept intact. Ultra-famous German writer Thomas Mann (Nobel Prize winner in 1929 and author of 'Death in Venice'), had his summer cottage on the Nida strip. His works were later, in the 'Third Reich', banned by Hitler.

The famous dunes at Nida, Lithuania

This area is protected by signs (Do not go here or, Forbidden to enter here!) though, when we wandered through the dunes close to the sea, Biya (who else?) decided to stroll a bit too far and I had to call and summon! her back because she was nearly stepping onto Russian territory. Because of the vast sandbanks and dunes the Russians could have had an easy enough shot at her from a mile upshore. We saw the bunkers Russia side, but never a clear border. And I was afraid of mines as well. 

Dune landscape Nida / the green strip is where Russia starts

Anyway, we were the only walkers that came so close; the locals knew better! From Nida there is an old road, submerged during storms, that connects with Kaliningrad and that was in existence for centuries (now closed obviously). The weekly mail-coaches drawn by four if not six horses, from St. Petersburg to Gdansk and onto Hamburg, Amsterdam, Brussels and Paris used to pass through here. That is how the mail went end of 18th century when the elite of St. Petersburg felt part of the high class and nobility of Western Europe. 'Noblesse oblige'. 

Because the Baltic shores seem endless, and well connected, we visited a few pretty beach locations like Palanga in Lithuania, Dubulti on the outskirts of Riga in Latvia, and the best one: Paernu in Estonia. We 'hotelled' twice in Paernu. Why? The weather was gorgeous, the beach idem dito, the town spacious, leafy and quiet. Our 'youth hostel' top of the pops with mouthwatering mussles. This town was the preferred holiday resort for the well to-do Russians from St. Petersburg. And many of these families still own houses / big houses! The beach has a ladies' nude section close to the dunes and men are warned that they approach an unusual location with undressed ladies. And I guess I was the only man that I saw near it. Then I walked by this section through the undeep sea and had my sight firmly onto the Northwest, direction Sweden! Honest to God!

Biya in Paernu, Baltic Sea

Like in Moldova, quite a few established Russians (from the times of the USSR) rent out their properties to tourists. Must be uneasy for the Russians these days. The independent Baltic states regularly 'upgrade' the requirements for all kinds of services and employment. True or not true but Latvia now requires people employed by government to speak, read and write the national Latvian language, the now elderly Russians never learnt. Visas for Russians are now a must. So imagine, your typical rich Russian family has had property for more than 75 years in Paernu; now because the world has changed they may not be allowed to visit it anymore, and there could be a time soon that holders of a Russian passport are not be allowed in at all. I would not be surprised if that happens in the coming two years as confrontation between Russia and NATO states deepens. Russia channels illegal immigrants into Finland, and possibly will start doing this into the Baltic states as well soon. And how do mostly young parents who have a Russian father/mother and a Latvian spouse feel now? This story is just unfolding...

Then how different from Western Europe: no diversity as to how people look. We hardly saw any Africans or Asians at all. Biya ran into some Uzbeks in Palanga beach market who thought she was a sister from their tribe. Certainly in a big country like Poland we did not see 'non Europeans'. Clearly their (illegal) immigrants blockage system works. Then the moment you cross from the Czech Republic into Germany wow...it is migrants all over in the trains and buses. And because we benefitted from the 9 euros one month Covid related cheap transport fee, I  thought during the trainride from Schwandorf to Nuremburg to Aachen that I/me, Anton is the exception in Germany. My looks were in the vast minority!

We travelled at the end of the summer season and met mostly Germans, a few like Joerg and Christiane on their bikes; a handfull of  Americans visiting their ancestor's places and hardly any young travellers. We saw some Israeli tourgroups in Riga, Vilnius and Prague that visited the Jewish ghettos, which are all clearly marked. The Baltic states and Poland housed large populations of Ashkenaze Jews before World War 2. The Vilnius ghetto was the largest and had more than 40.000 Jews packed in large blocks of houses and apartments with their infrastructure of schools, hospital, clinics, synagogues, and shops. When Adolf Eichmann, in charge of Hitler's holocaust programme closed the ghetto in September 1943, zero people were left. Biya and I wandered through it for hours. It is a rabbit warren of narrow streets, surrounded by a few wide avenues. It was easy for the Nazi regime to control these large areas by simply blocking off the streets with guarded walls and barbed wire. When walking through Vilnius, ghetto scenes out of the movie 'The Pianist' by Roman Polanski (2002) automatically popped up in my head. I saw the terrible places around me. Incredible that people were and are capable of doing this. One genocide after the other against ...Armenians some 100 years ago in Turkiya; Krim-Tatars, Ingushetians and Chechens during the Stalin regime as of 1944; and Tutsi's in Rwanda in 1994, amongst others. We met by chance Zydrone the sympathic travel guide-lady in the ghetto; she lived there in a refurbished backstreet apartment. The three of us spoke Spanish and English with each other and she explained how after WW2 the ghetto itself 'survived' for some 40 years before the newly established Lithuanian government started to re-arrange it. But the old hospital the Jews were managing is still there; with bullet holes all over it! 

I grew up during the Cold War with the Iron Curtain firmly closed, and having visited East Berlin quite often I was very disappointed by the looks of that place, compared to West Berlin. And of course, Berlin had been destroyed in 1944-45 and the Russians had no means to rebuild it, whereas the Americans and West Germans pumped billions of Deutschmarks into West Berlin. Then places like Gdansk, Kaunas, Riga, Tallin and Vilnius had kept their old cobbled streets and Hansa houses and 'done them up'. So colourful with the churches in perfect shape and open all the time. The squares neatly arranged with trees around them and old fashioned music kiosks for Sunday afternoon live music. 

What did strike us with the young people especially in Lithuania and Poland was....tatoos galore. And the ugly ones with deadheads, skulls, skeletons, dragons, snakes, naked ladies, abusive and negative language and so on. Men and women. Over lunch in Vilnius we were served by this pretty young lady with some horrible tatoos. Biya was frank and wanted to know 'Please tell me, what do you like about them tatoos', and she responsed sadly 'I was on holidays in Turkiya, got drunk and then had it done'. I sincerely believe that in Poland, one out of every four people between 15 and 50 years has this kind of tatoos.  In the old days; 1960...? only sailors and criminals did this in the Netherlands. Grrr, so 'filthy'. Biya and I fail to understand the message, if there is one at all. 

We had one quite long trip from Vilnius to Warsaw, onto Krakow (colourful!) and onto Prague in the Czech republic. Then entering Poland we got stuck in Bialystok railway station and spent the night on a bench outside. Biya slept nicely, covered with her sleeping bag,  while I spied on the alcoholics that hung around the station and kept an eye on our stuff haha: I did and they did! It was safe but then we were not the only ones sleeping outside; also some young girls by themselves. I guess they were used to it; and also used to the harmless alcoholics. And the railway police walking by every hour found everything in order too.  

Prague, its Castle and bridges and the Moldau river. We stayed in the Continental hotel / 5 stars for the price of 1 star / with a sumptuous breakfast outside, overlooking the Golden Domes of the city; thanks to Biya's booking.com skills. Of course we took a romantic afternoon cruise on the Moldau river. 

Garden of our landlady in Kaunas, Lithuania

OK Anton, you are in the Czech Republic; the time to drink Pilsner Urquell has started now!

Then a day and night in Karlovy Vary with its spa's / healthy mineral water all over town which people kept drinking from faucets/fountains while strolling around with a glass. What a town too: simply beautiful. I had been here in 1974 but forgotten most of it. 'Karlsbad' it was called 100 years ago. The rich, famous and free men and women  during the liberal decadent days between the two World Wars partied overhere in exuberance, fully confident of themselevs. Something like it can be viewed in the cult movie 'Cabaret' (1972), directed by Bob Fosse with Liza Minelli starring. This 'Greek or Roman grandeur' can still  be seen everywhere, reflected in the buildings. 

I had secretly planned it well before starting this Baltic trip: end up in Pilsen, Czech Republic and down a few beers with Biya at the Urquell Pilsner brewery during my birthday 22nd August. And it worked out! We arrived by train and saw the brewery from the station. Here is the place! The foremost brewery in the world where the type of beer called 'Pilsner' was brewed first; and it was here in Bohemia in 1842. And this Pilsner was developed further to a distinctful taste that no other Pilsner in the world can match. Biya, myself and our friend Gerard all agree. We had a two hours explanation tour and went through the cellars and saw the red copper, and iron/metal brewing kettles and tasted beer that had just been finished and tested for quality, and was ready to be rolled out and sold. All the Urquell Pilsner beer, wherever you buy a bottle or a can in the world, comes from this one brewery (only from red copper kettles). And the Gambrinus Pilsner (only from iron/metal kettles).

Urquell Pilsner brewery, a place to remember 

We bought Pilsner glasses and use them regularly: one in Seoul and one in Leende. Just imagine Biya and I sitting outside the brewery savouring Pilsner Urquell freshly brewed and draught, while looking into each other's eyes on a wooden bench and toasting to each other. Mutual love, Cheers and Prost!

Two days in Pilsen and then by train to Aachen in Germany. A very long day and because of the 9 euros deal and the limitation that we could only use regional trains we had to spend the night at Aachen Bahnhof (haha in Wezlar we saw the train leaving just 25 meters away from our noses; we could not make it). Aiaiai/Schade! The French would say 'Merde'.

A night in the railway station and again 'clochards', alcoholics and drugboys around. Quite a few of them. More than 20 I counted. Also other passengers that had missed the last train into the Netherlands or Belgium; two  nice Chilean ladies that loved talking Spanish with Biya.

One of the bagmen we made  happy by offering him a cup of coffee at the crack of dawn. He looked into my eyes possibly hoping for a fag. 'No way mate, I am afraid there are no smokes coming from this man'.

final trainride home from Aachen station / early morning

Then crossing into the Netherlands onto Heerlen by train and to Maarheeze by train and bus nr. 11 to Leende. Home at 11am on August 24. 

Trip finished. Baltic states off the bucket list.  

Thank you Biya dear. It was a most wonderful travel experience. All positive! I felt hunky dory.  Would like going back to Paernu beach, Estonia in the coming five years with YOU!

 By the way...and off our track...we did visit Finland for a day and took the early sunrise ferry from Tallinn to Helsinki. And strolled through rich and modern downtown Helsinki. Because we had left soooo early we slept outside a church for more than an hour on a bench after devouring our packed lunch. With arms close to each other and our stuff. I liked the looks of Helsinki. But no place for me in autumn and winter with its short days. Now, mid-August the days were still long; and we took the 9pm ferry in full daylight back to Tallinn, Estonia. Day well spent! 

Remarkable or not: I only saw one Fiat Polski but still a few Trabants. And of course Lada Niva's all over.

Remarkable:  Biya met one Korean couple who recognised her...I never heard any Dutch spoken at all. 

Remarkable and definitely true: 'Hansa Pilsener' from Dortmund in Germany is THE favourite beer from Germany for Biya. This cheapy student's beer is also a Pilsner @ 4.8% alcohol, light and fresh that I love drinking! In 2023...less than 10 euros a crate of 20 bottles of each half a liter. In 2021 the price used to be less than 9 euros!