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Some porn starlets need a lot of time and training to overcome their nervousness and become talented performers, but Dakota Skye was not one of them. This exotic cutie with the innocent looks and the devilish smile was a total natural from her first day on set. Dakota already had lots of experience being naked on camera--she began webcamming as soon as she turned 18--so showing her mouthwatering small boobs and fat pussy in front of an audience didn't faze her. In fact, this blonde spinner's inner pornstar was panting at the chance to come out! "I kinda go in a trance as soon as I hear the words action and something comes over me," Dakota explains when you ask her about how she delivers her trademark passionate and wild performances. Although appearing in adult films came easily to her, her rapid rise to porn stardom took a bit more adjusting! Dakota went from an unknown to having thousands of devoted fans nearly overnight. Even now, she's still often surprised when she gets recognized on the street, but her fans agree, after one look at Dakota, you'll never forget her.
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text: 21 Apr 2013 08:30 Etihad Airways, the national airline of the United Arab Emirates, has taken delivery of its first aircraft to be financed by a local UAE bank since 2008. Abu Dhabi-based First Gulf Bank has provided the finance for two Boeing 777-300ER aircraft, to be delivered to Etihad Airways in 2013, through a Sharia-compliant Ijara Muntahia Bittamleek structure.The first of these two Boeing aircraft arrived recently at Abu Dhabi airport from Seattle and the second is expected to be delivered to Etihad Airways in May 2013.James Hogan, Etihad Airways' President and Chief Executive Officer, said: "The strong financial structure and performance of Etihad Airways ensures that the airline regularly attracts funding from banks and institutions from around the world, as well as from across the Gulf region."The financing of these two aircraft is an important development as it shows First Gulf Bank's support of Etihad Airways' fleet expansion as well as our commitment to working as much as possible with local UAE and Middle East-based banks."The total facility value offered by First Gulf Bank is approximately US$359 million and it has a financing structure term of 12 years. Within the agreement, First Gulf Bank participates as the Initial Lead Arranger, the Underwriter, the Facility Agent and the Security Trustee.Andre' Sayegh, First Gulf Bank's Chief Executive Officer, said: "As one of the leading banks in the United Arab Emirates, we continuously demonstrate our commitment to the nation's economy. Through our strong financial position; we are proud to support Etihad Airways as they expand their international reach and contribute to the UAE's economic progress."We will continue to support businesses across the country and the region in our efforts to support development that maintains and bolsters the region's growing role in the global economy." Etihad Airways issued a request for proposal (RFP) in September 2012 for the financing of nine aircraft scheduled for delivery in 2013. The RFP received a positive response from a large number of international banks, financial institutions and operating lessors.About First Gulf BankAs a major leading bank in the UAE, First Gulf Bank (FGB) had Shareholder Equity of AED 29.9 billion as of December 31st, 2012 making it one of the largest equity based banks in the UAE. Established in 1979 and headquartered in the UAE capital, Abu Dhabi, the bank offers a full range of financial services to business and consumer sectors throughout an extensive network of branches across the UAE. Internationally FGB has branches in Singapore and Qatar, representative offices in India and Hong Kong and a subsidiary in Libya.Today, FGB is recognised as a world-class organisation committed to maximising value for shareholders, customers and employees as it focuses on delivering banking products and services that meet client needs and support the UAE's dynamic economy. In line with its commitment to excellence the bank continues to invest significantly in people and technology to provide superior service standards. First Gulf Bank was awarded the 'Best Bank in the United Arab Emirates for 2012' by Euromoney. Επικοινωνήστε μαζί μας Ως πραγματικά διεθνής αεροπορική εταιρία, η Etihad Airways διαθέτει παγκόσμια παρουσία. Μάθετε πώς μπορείτε να επικοινωνήσετε με το πλησιέστερο σε σας γραφείο της Etihad Airways. Προβολή στοιχείων επικοινωνίας Παρατηρήσεις Αν θέλετε να μας στείλετε κάποιο θετικό ή αρνητικό σχόλιο να διατυπώσετε κάποιο παράπονο ή να κάνετε μια ερώτηση, παρακαλούμε κάντε κλικ εδώ Κάντε μας like Επισκεφθείτε τη σελίδα μας στο Facebook! Δείτε μας Επισκεφθείτε το κανάλι μας στο YouTube! Ακολουθήστε μας Etihad Airways | Προσφορές Etihad | Βοήθεια με την Etihad | Επιβραβεύσεις Etihad

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Uncommon Descent Contest Question 21: What if Darwin's theory only works 6 percent of the time?
Here's an interesting article in New Scientist by Bob Holmes on a new approach to how animals become separate species ("Accidental origins: Where species come from", March 10, 2010):
Everywhere you look in nature, you can see evidence of natural selection at work in the adaptation of species to their environment. Surprisingly though, natural selection may have little role to play in one of the key steps of evolution - the origin of new species. Instead it would appear that speciation is merely an accident of fate.Then Darwin's theory just barely makes it to statistical significance, conventionally given as 4 per cent.
So, at least, says Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading, UK. If his controversial claim proves correct, then the broad canvas of life - the profusion of beetles and rodents, the dearth of primates, and so on - may have less to do with the guiding hand of natural selection and more to do with evolutionary accident-proneness.
[ ... ]
"When it works, it works remarkably well," he says. "But it only works in about 6 per cent of cases. It doesn't seem to be a general way that groups of species fill out their niches."
The otherwise most informative article is marred by the constant need to claim that Darwin was not wrong - but obviously, if Pagels is right, Darwin was indeed wrong, and so are all the people fronting his cause. Natural selection acting on random mutation was, precisely, Darwin's proposed mechanism.
No one supposes that natural selection doesn't occur. But is it the main driver of new species, as Darwin thought, and Pagels doubts?
Pagels dances very nervously indeed around that point (presumably from fear of joining the Expelled, given that his genome research has failed to back Darwin up.
So, for a free copy of Expelled, which details what happened to a variety of people who questioned establishment Darwinism, based on its failures of evidence, read the article and provide the best answer to this question: What do you think of Pagels' evidence? Is it critical? Is he just blowing smoke? Will he be forced to recant?
Here's where you enter, which you do by posting a comment, 400 words or less. If you are new to Uncommon Descent, you will need to sign up.
Here are the contest rules, not many or difficult. The main thing is 400 words or less. Winners receive a certificate verifying their win as well as the prize. Winners must provide me with a valid postal address, though it need not be theirs. A winner's name is never added to a mailing list. There is no mailing list. Have fun!
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Introducing NanoDays: Visualized
Institutions reporting as of April 23, 2009: 50
Beck Tench, here, your friendly NISE Net Online Community Manager. I'll be blogging NanoDays report results as they come in over the next couple of months and visualizing that data so that we can better understand how NanoDays played out across the country. (By the way, don't forget to submit your report by May 1st to be entered into a drawing for a free ASTC registration and travel stipend.)
Some visualizations will be image-based graphs, some will be interactive, all are fair game for questions, comments and further exploration. If a visualization is interactive, it'll clearly say so. Also, each post will begin, as this one does, with how many institutions are reporting so that you can get an idea of what the data represents and how it's changed.
The first visualization answers the question: What activities were the most popular during NanoDays 2009? With 50 institutions reporting, the top three activities are:
- Table top demonstrations/activities (from the kit) - 46 institutions
- Table top demonstrations/activities (not from the kit) - 33 institutions
- Nano-themed videos - 23 institutions
Click image below to visit a larger, interactive version of the graph (opens in a new window) and then come back here and answer the questions I've asked below.
Questions for those who held kit activities:
- Which kit activities will you do again next year?
- Which kit demos/activities won't you do again next year? How come?
p/s. Bookmark or subscribe to this blog - www.nisenet.org/blogs/nanodays - as I'll be updating several times a week.


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Arkansas couple Todd and Julia Grovenburg found out that they were having a baby and then discovered they were having two bundles of joy — but the babies aren't twins. An ultrasound revealed that a male fetus was conceived a full two-and-a-half weeks after the woman became pregnant with a baby girl, according to reports from local media. The Grovenburgs' obstetrician confirmed the case to Arkansas television station KFSM-TV.
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Rates of women who are opting for preventive mastectomies, such as Angeline Jolie, have increased by an estimated 50 percent in recent years, experts say. But many doctors are puzzled because the operation doesn't carry a 100 percent guarantee, it's major surgery -- and women have other options, from a once-a-day pill to careful monitoring.
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The pregnancy is believed to be a case of a rare condition known as superfetation, or conceiving while pregnant.
The pregnancy may sound weird, but it is possible, according to NBC's Dr. Nancy Snyderman.
"Here's how it happens — egg and sperm, implant. Of course, that's your first pregnancy. But if you ovulate more than one time a month — and women do — and a sperm happens to meet that egg and they, too, implant, guess what, you get a second fetus," Snyderman said during MSNBC's "Dr. Nancy" Thursday. "You just have to hope it happens within that early window."
Due dates for the babies are the end of 2009 and early 2010, reports say.
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It was clear, this weekend, that the major West Coast newspapers didn't expect the controversial (yes, I used that word deliberately) artist Thomas Kinkade to die at 54 years of age. Thus, the newsrooms did not have pre-written obituaries about the self-proclaimed "painter of light" ready to update and publish. The key at this stage of the journalism game is the pending autopsy. While his family stated that he died of natural causes, Kinkade also has struggled with a variety of issues -- some quite bizarre -- linked to alcohol abuse.
The early obituaries where short and usually shallow, which is rare for a public figure as loved and loathed as Kinkade. Here is a chunk of the offering from The Mercury News, which was deeper than the average. Readers learn that:
His paintings are hanging in an estimated one of every 20 homes in the United States. Fans cite the warm, familiar feeling of his mass-produced works of art, while it has become fashionable for art critics to dismiss his pieces as tacky. In any event, his prints of idyllic cottages and bucolic garden gates helped establish a brand -- famed for their painted highlights -- not commonly seen in the art world.
"I'm a warrior for light," Kinkade told the Mercury News in 2002, alluding not just to his technical skill at creating light on canvas but to the medieval practice of using light to symbolize the divine. "With whatever talent and resources I have, I'm trying to bring light to penetrate the darkness many people feel."
His Media Arts Group company surged to success, taking in $32 million per quarter from 4,500 dealers across the country 10 years ago, before it went private in the middle of the past decade. The cost of his paintings range from hundreds of dollars to more than $10,000.
The Placerville native, who also leaves behind a brother and sister, was known to dress up like Santa Claus on Christmas, ride a Harley-Davidson and go on painting trips around the world. He would visit studio executives but also got to know all the homeless people in Los Gatos. He read classic books but also enjoyed shooting and blowing up things on his ranch.
The father of four girls and a devoted Christian, his artistic philosophy was not to express himself through his paintings like many artists, but rather to give the masses what they wanted: warm, positive images. ... In the 25 years since graduating from UC Berkeley, his official biography says he has printed 1,000 paintings of "cabin and nature scenes, beautiful gardens, classic cottages, sports, inspirational content, lighthouses and powerful seascapes, impressionists, and classic Americana."
This story, as it should, mentions Kinkade's recent history of financial insecurity -- including a Chapter 11 filing on behalf of his company's Pacific Metro branch. Then, months later, there was a suspicion of DUI arrest. The Los Angeles Times reported that the FBI was investigating some of his investment practices.
For me, the key questions linked to serious news coverage of Kinkade are hidden in that vague, meaningless phrase "devoted Christian." It is also important to realize that the "tacky" label was tossed at Kinkade by serious Christian artists and thinkers on left and right (a must-read by Joe Carter here). Kinkade was found guilty of cranking out safe, predictable, sticky-sweet art -- opium for the semi-spiritual Masses.
Thus, at his "God and the Machine" blog at Patheos.com, Thomas McDonald writes:
Kinkade was a Christian, and his Christianity was just one of the many things that rankled his critics.
Let's be very clear here right at the outset. Thomas Kinkade was not a bad artist. Thomas Kinkade was an exceptionally talented artist with excruciatingly bad taste. He was a hack, and a tremendously successful one. A hack is someone who sells his talent to the highest bidder, with little concern for niceties like artistic integrity.
Wait, there's more. McDonald quotes this devastating verdict from Simcha Fisher, writing at The National Catholic Register:
Kinkade isn't content with shying away from ugliness: He sees nothing beautiful in the world the way it is. He thinks it needs polishing. He loves the world in the same way that a pageant mom thinks her child is just adorable -- or will be, after she loses ten pounds, dyes and curls her hair, gets implants, and makes herself almost unrecognizable with a thick layer of make-up. Normal people recoil from such extreme artifice -- not because they hate beauty, but because they love it.
Kinkade-style light doesn't show an affection for natural beauty -- it shows his disdain for it. His light doesn't reveal, it distorts. His paintings aren't merely trivial, they're a statement of contempt for the world. His vision of the world isn't just tacky, it's anti-Incarnational.
Ouch. It would be hard to imagine a more brutal sentence about the work of a Christian artist.
This brings me to my main point about the Kinkade coverage -- which I expect to continue. At some point, journalists need to interview the critics and defenders of Kinkade and allow them to offer their viewpoints about the faith content, if there was any, of his art. Also, if Kinkade was a "devoted Christian," what kind of Christianity drove the work of this Berkeley-trained professional? Why did he do what he chose to do his paint and brushes (and his empire)?
I have my own opinions and they are based, in part, from my one encounter with Kinkade, which was not in a journalistic context. I was not able to ask him pointed questions and record the answers. I will simply say this, speaking as an Orthodox Christian who grew up Southern Baptist (it would be hard to name two traditions with more radically different approaches to art): Kinkade was, simply stated, not very interested in religious art. He was, however, interested in selling his products to a certain kind of vaguely religious set of clients. He knew what worked. He knew what these consumers said inspired them. Thus, that's what he wanted to create -- period.
This slice of the Associated Press report on his death points toward some interesting subjects for discussion.
Bridges are a frequent subject, as are steps or grassy inclines leading through gate images. Some of his paintings are visual depictions of Bible verses, such as "A Light in the Storm," taken from John 8:12: "I am the light of the world."
A biography on the website said Kinkade rejected "the intellectual isolation of the artist" and instead, made "each of his works an intimate statement that resonates in the personal lives of his viewers."
"I share something in common with Norman Rockwell and, for that matter, with Walt Disney, in that I really like to make people happy," he said.
Bridges. Gates. Streams. Cottages. Lighthouses. I think that it will help if readers cruise around a bit in the following simple Google search and focus on the subjects and images that are missing from Kinkade's work (as opposed to this collection by another troubled artist who was a Christian).
It will take serious journalism to get any of these subjects into the framework of daily journalism. Journalists who attempt to do so should brace themselves for lots of angry telephone calls and emails.


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It is currently 17 Aug 2019, 19:18
LL's Gardening DiaryMembers adventures in the Vegetable Patch all year round
Re: LL's Gardening Diary
That's looking really good LL, very impressed! You are obviously very handy (as am I) which comes in very useful for being frugal! You just have to remember to sit & enjoy your hard labour sometimes, something that we are terrible at doing! Well done again!
Autumn Equinox
thanks Manda and wildlifemad - have to confess I still can't help thinking to myself, did I really build that? LOL
Actually, not a lot to report about the pond or garden. The weather has been up and down, always with a shower or longer spells of rain thrown in, but this morning there was low lying mist in the garden with heavy dew (from yesterdays heavy downpour), a real autumn nip in the air and glorious warm sunshine in a clear blue sky. It had a feeling of autumn about it ... until I realised today IS the Autumn Equinox, when the sun rise and sun set is exactly 12 hours apart and thereafter the nights will draw in earlier and sunrise will be later. Summer is now over.
Last weekend I tried to finish off the planter on the pond and make a start on boxing in the biofilter with a frame and feather board, but apart from cutting some wood to length and painting an undercoat the rest was thwarted by ... you guessed it, rain. The good news is that today is pay day - so I can comfortably go and spend a little money this weekend on building materials for the patio which still needs to be finished off, preferably before winter arrives! However, now that I am back at work and the university is gearing up for freshers week, how much I can accomplish at home will be affected.
Meanwhile, the goldfish are a lovely splash of colour in the pond and a delight to see every time I open my back door - I'm so glad I had sited the pond in the middle of the patio. The fish are now much more confident swimming out in the open too. They all rush to the corner of the pond where I feed them as soon as I open the back door ... I keep trying to count them and although it is easy to pick out the 4 golden goldfish and the 4 Shubunkins, the Sarasa and common goldfish are so similar in colour and they move so quickly that I can't be sure if 2 are missing or not. I haven't seen any dead fish on the bottom but I suppose it's easy to miss them. One of my weekly tasks is using the skimmer net to oik out any clumps of algae and blanketweed, using it like a sieve through the water as well as lift up and thin out the duckweed (duckweed is an excellent oxygenator and provides good surface cover, but the growth rate is amazing - I think it doubles the surface coverage on a daily basis) In the end I think the best thing to do is to just take a photo and then do a count from the image.
Re: LL's Gardening Diary
Sounds like you are enjoying your pond LL. Don't forget more photo's when your patio is complete (love looking at your photo's).
Autumn on the way + New pump for the pond
Trees all around are gradually changing colour and losing their leaves now - though to be fair it is still surprisingly mild for this time of year (it doesn't always feel like it, but we should be having frosts about now) Although I've put net over the pond, leaves falling from the neighbour's ash tree have a habit of landing stem down and not always easy to stretch across the pond to pick them off. So I decided to use the scaffold netting I'd cut to size when I first filled the pond with water - draped over, it is a lot easy to flick off leaves than unhook the pond net. I decided to put some canes across the pond to take the weight and make it easier to drag the green net off. There's another purpose too - to support the heavy overflow pipe from my new filter box.
Last month I received an unexpected bonus from work in my pay packet - any other sensible person would have banked it away but I decided to put some of it towards a new pump and filter box. I hate to admit it but the water clarity has deteriorated but I'm not quite sure why. After testing the water, everything is fine (the pH is down to 6.8 but still in the okay range), with the nitrates and nitrates down to practically zero which is perfect. The current pump and biofilter are running 24 hours a day but clearly not coping too well. If I lean over closely and peer into the water, I can still see the gravel but compare this photo taken yesterday:
to this one taken on the 3rd September ... a big difference in water quality:
The current pump has an output of about 750 L up to 1000 L water per hour - the pond is about 3000 L. A lot of sites recommend a turnover of the entire pond water in an hour .... so perhaps this is the case. The new pump has an outflow of 3000 L/hour, but the biofilter would never be able to cope with that volume of water, so I also purchased a new filter box that can cope up to 6000 L / hour (both on special offer) I had to buy some nozzles to fit the filter box and also new tubing to fit the nozzle diameter. I decided to go to The Japanese Water Garden in Nottingham where they had all the necessary fittings. It was also opportunity to have a look at their indoor fancy goldfish .... I would like a couple for my fish tank in the living room as it looks so empty now the others are in the pond. I have an idea of what I'd like to get but I really must set the tank up properly - it was one thing having the tank as a temporary quarantine, quite another as a permanent home. Meanwhile, an update of the pond with the planter finished and the filter box sited on top of the biofilter (the only logical place to put it ... which has messed up my "boxing in" plans to hide the biofilter)
As you can see the outflow is quite considerable - the sound of water splashing into the filter box and into the pond is quite loud .... I wasn't bothered about the sound from biofilter overflow but this could be quite annoying if you were hoping for a quiet sit down in your back garden.
Fortunately I'm not 100% confident of leaving the new pump running 24 hours a day - I still need to fasten the hoses properly to the filter box so that it doesn't accidentally get pulled off - if that should happen, the pump would continue to pump out water .... doesn't take a genius to work out that it could easily pump out the entire pond contents in less than a couple of hours! So in the meantime the old pump is still running 24 hours a day but the new one only when I'm at home. Besides, there is the cost of electricity - the old pump is only 8 watts/hour, whereas the new one is 85 watts/hour .... which could add up in the course of a year!
And has the new pump made any difference to the water quality? Well, only marginally - it isn't any worse. It's hard to describe the water clarity - if I scooped up water in a glass it would look clear (that is, no particles floating around) but in the pond it is murky and a light brown colour like weak tea. So I put some activated carbon in the new filter box and hopefully that might help to clear the water. One thing about the outflow - landing in the water like a waterfall means it helps to oxygenate the pond water, but the other is that all the goldfish have to swim a little harder to avoid being washed away by the current. It has certainly perked them up and made them swim around a lot more LOL All the goldfish seem well - I'd say most have grown and between 3.5 - 4 inch in length from nose to tail now. I managed to do a head count and all 18 are still with us - I'm able to pick out some of the Sarasas - the one with the long flowing tail (I couldn't pick him out from the others for ages - I think he has grown a lot making it easier to find now), and one with the orange tail (unusual) still makes me smile. So that's an update of the pond.
Re: LL's Gardening Diary
Looking very good LL. I am sure you are just having some teething problems with water clarity etc. and that it will all settle down soon. Have to say it again, it's a marvellous feature in your garden and a project very well done.
Re: LL's Gardening Diary
thank you - yes, I think it is a combination of teething problems and time of year (though, when is a good time to set up a pond and not have problems LOL) Just when the bacteria should be keeping on top of the ammonia, temperatures dropped (mid August - early September had some chilly days - October on the other hand is an Indian Summer!) so the bacteria would not be growing and working at full capacity.
Anyway, an update - the new filter system is quite powerful and I'm happy with it, but the results were not that great. The water clarity was still turbid so I've been doing a lot of research on the subject. It could be the particles are so fine they are passing right through the filters so not getting trapped. Some of the chemicals used in water treatment include using calcium carbonate, calcium sulphite and aluminium sulphate among a few - however, some can be toxic to fish especially aluminium. Barley straw came up and I read up about how it breaks down and in the process hydrogen peroxide is formed which acts like an algaecide. Some keen koi keepers miss out the barley stage and use hydrogen peroxide direct but, it must be very diluted otherwise it can not only injure the fish but kill off the friendly bacteria in the biofilter too. Horticultural lime is made from crushed limestone / chalk - it is used to raise soil pH and helps to break down clay (by binding fine particles in a process called flocculation into clumps which makes it easier to dig through) The same process is used to bind the fine particles in water so they sink or more readily captured by filter systems. Calcium sulphite (aka Gypsum) is a neutral salt and seems to be safe, as is calcium carbonate which dissolves in acidic water and helps to neutralise (recommended in marine aquariums to also supply calcium for corals and shellfish) Calcium carbonate is also found in .... crush oyster shell. I have yet to test some, but in the meantime, I forgot to mention I had purchased some "Pond rescue anti-sludge treatment" (also on special offer at the time) when I was buying the new filter and pump. Sludge seemed too strong a word to describe my water issue - I think of sludge as being a thick silty layer on the pond floor which is disturbed when you poke at it, which in my case was not the same. However, it did say it cleared water so I thought I'd give it go last weekend.
Well, nothing happened but then 4 days later I noticed the water did indeed start to look much cleaner. Yesterday the water was looking so much better as you can see here:
I'd love to find out what the magic ingredient is in the solution, but nearly all of the products for sale that boast clearing water do not mention what the active component is. That's why they can charge a lot of money for something that may only be pennies to make, but because you don't want to poison your pond, you are more likely to keep buying it because of the "wow" end result.
Re: LL's Gardening Diary
Well that water is definetly an improvement. Not only do I love reading your posts, LL I think you could make the rules of cricket interesting and I HATE cricket with a passion, but my Auntie's pond has just emptied It is a stone construction so it has been difficult to see what the problem is.
The Pink Ladies…Dottie,Audrey, Veronica, Blue, Charlie, Delta & Echo. and Lottie at Chickenopoulis
The Peds…Suranne,Miriam,Jennifer,Nancy,
,Ivy,Bjork & Vorky
Sunny Clucker was ere July 12-21 2012
Sunny Clucker was ere July 6 2016 to Sept 9th 2017
Sunny Clucker is here , rehomed Aug 18th 2018/
Remembering my girls in the Elysian Fields, Diary Section
First frost!
sounds like a crack - hope it can be solved
I've never liked cricket either ... can't understand how anyone can watch it (seems to be more about standing about for ages, polishing the cricket ball, then about 5 seconds of action)
Well, we had our first frost of the autumn this morning. To be honest, I didn't think it was that cold outside when I went to sort the chickens (top up their feeder and water) and feed the fish. It was a bit nippy but hardly frosty. That is, until I went to the car at the front of the house to go to work and there was ice on the windscreen I can only think the large body of water (the pond) on the patio had kept the temperatures at the back of the house raised like a sort of "hot water bottle".
Which makes a lot of sense. I remember reading up about using big tanks of water (such as under racking/shelving) in greenhouses to keep the temperature inside from dropping too low and damaging plants - the larger the body of water, the less likely it will freeze as quickly.
As it happens I had spent yesterday preparing the pond for autumn weather and my initial thought was how to prevent ice from forming on top. I know it will eventually happen in winter if and when we get really cold weather, so I am expecting it and am prepared. When ice forms on top, it prevents oxygen from entering the water surface, and toxins like carbon dioxide from escaping into atmosphere. From what I've learned (and also seen in on the news recently), goldfish survive by turning their body reserves into alcohol like a sort of anti-freeze and sink to the bottom of the pond where the water is not likely to freeze. It is advised not to try and smash the ice on top as the shock wave through the water can frighten / injure the fish.
One of the preventative measures against ice is disturbing the water surface with a waterfall or similar - in my case, the overflow from the biofilter / pond filter. Another is to have some floating things on top like plastic balls or floating baskets with plants in. Of course, it helps if the walls of the pond are thick enough to act as insulation, and the pond is deep (as in, also below ground level) and increase the volume of water. If we get really cold weather, I could put some plastic sheet over the top to try and keep the heat of the water in the pond but I'll see how it goes.
Meanwhile my biggest problem seems to be ... autumn leaves. The trees are gradually turning golden colours (a little late this year after such a mild start to autumn) and already dropping. I had put some debris netting (scaffold netting) on top to stop the smaller ones from working their way through the pond netting (see post written 9th October) but it was only partly successful - most of the leaves swept up in the strong wind blew against the planter and ended up behind and underneath the netting. And of course, the plants in the planter had also managed to capture a load of leaves. So after a big clear out, the scaffold netting is now stretched right over the top of the new filter box on top of the biofilter, and a couple of canes on the other side of the planter. Now leaves that land on the netting should fall off as it is set at an angle. That's the theory.
I also had to sort out the biofilter - when I put the new filter box on top, I had a little bit of leakage from the pipe fittings so I took the bit of pond liner off the top of the biofilter so that the water could land inside. Unfortunately, so did a lot of autumn leaves (how so many landed through the small gap is phenomenal) So time to give the biofilter a bit of a clean and sort out - I took the top filter mesh out (remnants of the tent liner) and rinsed it, then re-organised the netting inside the water butt, replaced the tent liner and weight it down with a rock (limestone .... part of my calcium carbonate solution to help with raising the water pH in the pond), then on top of that a large sheet of foam (THIS from ebay) and on top of that a layer of polyester wadding (THIS, again from ebay) Finally, a piece of debris netting on top of the water butt (that is, the rim) to prevent leaves from dropping inside but porous enough for the water. So all I should need to do is remove the polyester wadding and sponge whenever they start to need a squeeze clean and rinse.
However, re-starting up the biofilter pump had a few problems. For some reason, when the pump is switched off somehow it manages to blow the fuse when switched on again at the mains. I could understand it if it was a heavy duty oil pump but this is just a small magnetic type (the propeller freely spins on a magnetic weight sitting inside an electrical current - primary school electrics) I've checked the pump itself and it is completely water-tight so very mysterious. After replacing the fuse, the pump seemed to be working (I could feel it vibrate in my hand) but no water was getting into the biofilter ... okay, maybe a blockage (?) so I blew the water out of the pipe (yep, yuk yuk rinsed my mouth out afterwards) but still no water. Meanwhile the sun had gone down and dusk was rapidly turning into evening and I just had to get the pump working!
I brought the pump indoors and got the screwdriver out. The propeller looked fine and after working out how to remove the grill, I noticed a tuft of strand algae wrapped round the tip ... hardly looked like it would stop the propeller from working but there was nothing else. So I unravelled the tuft and put the pump back together and tried again - well something was happening as water was forced out in all directions from the pump but still none going to the biofilter Once more I oiked the pump out of the pond and back indoors. After a lot of cursing I realised I'd forgotten to put the grill back over the propeller (it basically held it in place when spinning) Fingers crossed, I tried again and , water was pouring into the biofilter.
After about a couple of hours I went outside with the torch to make sure all was well only to find the water level had risen higher than usual in the water butt and was also pouring out of the upper overflow (a piece of tubing about 6 inches above the main one) The new sponge and polyester wadding shouldn't be causing a blockage but I do remember rearranging all the netting inside the drum so I could have knocked the tubing at the bottom and blocked it. A quick wiggle with the tubing and instantly water poured out and slowly the water dribbling out of the upper overflow stopped. Phew. What a palaver - what should have been a 10 minute job turned into a 2 hour nightmare but hopefully I'll know what to do if it happened again.
Re: LL's Gardening Diary
OH and I had a saying 'there is no such thing as a 5 minute job'
Glad it's sorted now.
Dance caller. http://mo-dance-caller.blogspot.co.uk/p/what-i-do.html
Sunny Clucker enjoyed Folk music and song in mid-Cheshire
Another frosty morning
Now that the trees are in full autumn leaf and dropping fast, the scaffold netting over the pond is working a treat I didn't bother brushing them off this weekend (there were still plenty of gaps for natural light to get through so the fish are fine) as we were forecast a sharp frost ... the leaves and netting would act like a blanket and keep some of the heat in the pond water from escaping. When we had the first frost, it didn't seem that cold out the back but this morning was very different - water on most surfaces like the feed bin lids and the chicken run roofs were iced over though their drinkers still hanging up overnight were fine. The car on the other hand was completely covered and I had to look for the can of de-icer (after accidentally scratching the windows on my old car using scrapers, I've gone for spray this time)
I was expecting the goldfish to stop feeding now that it is cold but they were all there waiting this morning as I came out with the food. There was no ice on the pond but the temperature of the water must have dropped. This is also partly due to the pump / filter system - water is pulled up from the bottom of the pond where it is warmest then brought up and delivered to the top of biofilter where it slowly filters down and then overflows back into the pond on the surface where it is cold. Perhaps the water temperature needs to be a lot lower before the fish stop feeding? All I care about at the moment is that the fish have built up enough food reserve to survive their first winter in the pond.
Re: LL's Gardening Diary
It sounds as if it is all going well LL. I am sure the pond fish will be fine over the winter - they seem to be in the perfect environment (thanks to all your research and planning).
Oops - Potatoes & Garlic
I can't help myself - free p&p offers from seed and plant suppliers and there I am having a peek even though I don't have an allotment. For a while I had been considering planting some garlic in big pots on the patio to overwinter so thought I'd try out a variety I'd been successful with on the plot - called Red Duke - unfortunately the ones I'd have preferred were no longer available. Garlic are said to do well in container growing so seemed worth trying out.
But then at this time of year, my attention turns to selecting potatoes (and take advantage of the free p&p offer) for spring planting. I've been buying supermarket potatoes but as always, I shop carefully so price rather than flavour comes into the choice. Shame, as different varieties can be very tasty or have cooking qualities that I like. So I thought about using the polytunnels in the garden to grow some. The soil in my garden is heavy clay and compacted, worse the roots of the fruit trees and privet hedge make it difficult to dig down so anything I grow will have to be in raised beds. I've been considering building raised beds in the polytunnel so growing potatoes in them seemed like a good idea.
And that's where the "oops" in the subject title comes in. Somewhere between thinking about using the polytunnel and growing some nice tasty potatoes, I went into my usual selection mode. As per usual, I love Vivaldi so no hesitation there - and they are supposed to be lower in carbohydrates which is a plus. I also like salad potatoes - they are waxy and do well in soups and stews too. I've never grown Maris Bard but so many people say they are really nice - these are an extra early variety and if grown in a polytunnel could be harvested by June (spring weather permitting) Then my attention turned to Elf - I'd bought the seed potatoes for growing this year but with giving up the plot, they never got planted. I was still keen to try them out. So in the shopping basket they went and then I paid for everything. Only then did it occur to me that I had forgot I didn't have an allotment plot size polytunnel .... oops So I might have to do some creative thinking about where to put them all.
First step - building raised beds. The pond project has given me some ideas - the thick polythene I used to line the pond before putting the pond liner down could be used much like a growbag. I'll still need to have raised sides and consider what to use to fill the beds up with, plus set up a watering system - I've got a few ideas which hopefully won't cost the earth. So it looks like I've got a new project for 2018 ....
Autumn 2017
The scaffold netting on the pond has done a great job of keeping the autumn leaves out. We've had a couple of frosts recently which has hastened even more leaf fall - I've had to clear some leaves off the netting twice so the fish have a little daylight. The neighbour's ash tree is still dropping leaves so the netting will be on a little while longer but overall the light levels on the patio have definitely increased:
I'll have to clear the leaves off the chicken run roofs - they have steadily been getting a little darker with all the autumn leaves landing on them LOL And all the leaves on the fruit trees have dropped too. It's such a lovely bright cold crisp morning, I think I know what my job will be today ...
Winter maintenance of pond + polytunnels
This past week, temperatures really plunged .... as a result, the goldfish stopped feeding. It was strange - one day they are all waiting for their breakfast, the next day the pond looked scarily empty with not a fish in sight (bar one golden goldfish that had died ... it wasn't that unexpected) I'm hoping the others decided to shelter under the patch of dwindling duckweed so I couldn't see them. At first I put a small pinch of food on top thinking the water might warm up later during the day or the food would sink where they'd have access, but as I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to do I thought I'd better read up on it.
Hmmm, okay - this is what I learned. When the temperature drops below 10oC, the goldfish will sink to the bottom of the pond where the water is warmer. As goldfish are cold water fish, their digestion also becomes sluggish - any food they eat will simply rot in their gut and cause problems. So feeding over winter is a no-no. This is not usually a problem if they have had access to a higher protein diet over the summer months (I suppose that will be like mosquito larvae and other insects which land in the water) which helps to prepare for the winter months. I was conscious of this when I got them in September and made sure they got as many smaller feeds per day as I could (a lot of smaller feeds per day are better than one big meal) while it was mild and light levels good so I'm hoping that should be enough.
Another thing I was concerned about was the pump - should I switch it off or leave it running? On the one hand, the overflow from the biofilter would disturb the water so the surface would not freeze as readily as undisturbed water during an overnight frost. On the other hand, the pump sits at the bottom of the pond so it pulls the warmer water below the surface up and out into the biofilter drum where it slowly filters down to the siphon tube and then overflows back into the pond .... the biofilter / water butt is a smaller body of water so will get colder than the pond, so basically my filtration system will in effect chill the water faster.
Well, there's a bit of a debate with various sites online - some recommend shutting the pump down (as a cost factor - to prevent damage to expensive pumps sited outside the pond during very cold weather) to others recommending keeping them going for the same reason I had about disturbing the surface water from freezing. The biofilter stops working when temperatures drop because the bacteria need warmth to grow so ammonia levels in the pond water could start to climb especially if you have a lot of fish. Algae also stop multiplying when the water temperature drops, but mechanical filters (the layer of sponges and matts) will keep on removing particle matter from the water. One site was insistent that if keeping a pump running, it is better to have one where water is drawn up from the bottom of the pond and land on the surface than one that takes cold surface water and pumps it to the bottom of the pond.
Keeping the surface from freezing is important because it allows toxic gases such as ammonia to escape. Of course, at some point the weather may get so extremely cold that it becomes inevitable but is still suggested that some of it is kept ice free. Apparently trying to smash the ice will cause vibrations in the water which can shock and kill the fish but to use other methods such as putting some warm water on it to melt the ice.
As for the deceased golden goldfish - I had noticed a black mark on its body a couple of weeks prior to the weather getting cold. I had kept a close eye on it when they were feeding and the fish seemed normal in every way (it swam normally, it ate with the others, they didn't chase it away) I'd read that some goldfish do change colour to black and that this was not unusual. So I left it. Now I feel a little sad that I didn't do anything and maybe isolate it in the quarantine tank until I was sure it was nothing more than a colour change. I suppose the more worrying thing, is that I haven't seen most of the others now for more than a week (although the big Shubunkin I bought in the last batch does appear now and again) so fingers crossed.
This weekend the weather was a little milder and dry. Yesterday (Sunday) was chicken coop clean out but my compost bin for the soiled bedding is now full to the top .... the disadvantage of giving up the allotment is that I'm going to have to find another way to dispose of it. I don't have any beds (flower or veg) in my garden but have one long big bed the entire length of the back garden fence where the fruit trees are planted. The trees are 15 years old now so well established - I'm sure a bit of bird poo and straw should be alright, and with putting it down now on the soil surface, any wet weather and worms will help to rot it down. I do have a plan for the stuff already in the dalek compost bin.
With having a brain f*rt when ordering seed potatoes for next year (forgetting that I don't have anywhere near the same cultivation space as I had at the allotment), I intend to make raised beds in the polytunnel where I might be able to squeeze them in and harvest them earlier (I might even be able to get a second crop of something else in the same beds for the summer / autumn months after lifting up the potatoes - I'm toying with the idea of some sweetcorn, maybe also beans and peas, carrots, maybe winter veg like salad stuff? I might have to play "bee" for flowering plants but that comes naturally with greenhouse / polytunnel growing) I will need a lot of compost and soil for the raised beds, so that's where the soiled coop bedding comes in to improve the soil fertility especially for the potatoes and crops afterwards.
So yesterday, the first task was to rescue one of the polytunnels - because I did not grow anything in them this year, one of the covers had managed to dip deep enough at the top to fill up with water over summer and then got so heavy it actually pulled the bottom skirt from under the weights and then the velcro straps came apart pulling the cover off half the frame and creating a suspended swimming pool in the other. I tried to push the cover up over the top frame to empty it but the water was just too heavy .... I abandoned the whole thing until I could think of something. Well, nothing like the present so I gave it another go. Instead of tackling from inside the polytunnel, I pulled on the cover from the side which helped a lot. There was a lot of tugging and cursing going on in the back garden, and I wasn't particularly happy when stinky sour smelling water (where leaves had collected and started to rot) landed on my head ) The cover is now 4 years old and has frayed quite a lot with holes and stitching coming apart so I'll have to replace it anyway but in the meantime, it might still keep most of the inside fairly dry over winter. Meanwhile, I put some rods along the centre of the frame to hopefully stop it happening again.
Considering I didn't actually do an awful lot this weekend, I do seem capable of incredible waffle
Re: LL's Gardening Diary
It's surprising how long 'not an awful lot' takes.
Dance caller. http://mo-dance-caller.blogspot.co.uk/p/what-i-do.html
Sunny Clucker enjoyed Folk music and song in mid-Cheshire
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text:
Luigi Cocktail
1 Teaspoonful Grenadine. (1 tsp. Fee's American Beauty Grenadine)
1 Dash Cointreau. (1/3 tsp. Cointreau)
The Juice of 1/2 Tangerine. (Scant juice 1/2 small orange)
1/2 Dry Gin. (1/2 oz Plymouth Gin)
1/2 French Vermouth. (1/2 oz Dolin Dry Vermouth)
Shake well and strain into cocktail glass.
According to Robert Vermeire, in his book "Cocktails: How to Mix Them":
This cocktail was invented by Mr. Luigi Naintre, the proprietor of the Embassy Club, who became famous at Romano's, Ciro's, and the Criterion. He is one of the best known restauranteurs in the world and has an enormous and faithful following wherever he goes. This cocktail is one of the most popular in London.
Unfortunately, it is just the wrong season for Tangerines or Mandarins. None to be found anywhere 'round these parts. I suppose they might be in season somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere?
Anyway, this certainly is a red cocktail when made with the Fee's Grenadine. Almost worryingly pink.
I can see how it would be better with Tangerine or Mandarin juice, as is almost any cocktail you care to name, not to mention homemade grenadine, but still… It's a fine, refreshing cocktail, just not fantastic, at least to me.
This post is one in a series documenting my ongoing effort to make all of the cocktails in the Savoy Cocktail Book, starting at the first, Abbey, and ending at the last, Zed.


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he soft velvet rug that carpets the staircase that leads to the office of the president has felt the tread of many feetfamous feet and humble feet; the feet of eager workers and the feet of those in need; and tired feet, like my own, these days. I walk through our headquarters, beautifully furnished by friends who caught our vision, free from debt! I walk through the lovely reception room where the great crystal chandelier reflects the colors of the international flags massed behind itthe flags of the world! I go into the paneled library with its conference table, around which so many great minds have met to work at the problems of the past years. I feel a sense of peace. Women united around The National Council of Negro Women, have made purposeful strides in the march toward democratic living. They have moved mountains. Our headquarters is symbolic of the direction of their going, and of the quality of their leadership in the world of today and tomorrow.1
Mary McLeod Bethune wrote these moving words upon her retirement as president of the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) in 1949. Bethune had founded the organization in 1935 to give African American women a collective national voice at a time when they were typically shunned or ignored. As NCNW grew and gained respect, Bethune spearheaded the effort to establish a national headquarters in Washington, D.C. When a red brick townhouse in the Logan Circle area became available, Bethune quickly moved to purchase it. As the first headquarters of the National Council of Negro Women, this house played a prominent role in advancing the causes of African American women around the country. From 1943 until 1966, it provided the setting for countless meetings in which NCNW members discussed pivotal national events such as the integration of the military and public schools. Here also they created and implemented programs to combat discrimination in housing, healthcare, and employment.
Bethune and the members of NCNW faced challenges of race and gender with a tireless spirit and determination. Bethune helped give a voice to African Americans and created an organization that continues to fulfill her vision more than 50 years after her death. Today the former headquarters is administered by the National Park Service as the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site.1As quoted in Audrey Thomas McCluskey and Elaine M. Smith, eds., Mary McLeod Bethune: Building a Better World: Essays and Selected Documents (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1999), 193.
About This Lesson
Getting Started: Inquiry Question
Setting the Stage: Historical Context
Locating the Site: Maps
Determining the Facts: Readings
Visual Evidence: Images
Putting It All Together: Activities
How the National Register
Mary McLeod Bethune Council House
The lesson is based on the Mary McLeod Bethune Council House National Historic Site, one of the thousands of properties listed in the National Register of Historic Places.


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It's almost that time of year when all the really cool stuff around happens. At the Top of my list for anyone coming into town on a nice day is a sail aboard the Thomas E Lannon. Bottom line if a tourist had one thing to do and only one thing I'd tell them on a nice day to take a cruise aboard what I consider to be the most beautiful ship in the harbor.
Not only is the ship beautiful, but you also get to experience the warm genuine hospitality of some of the finest representatives our city has to offer The Ellis family. Captain Tom, his wife and sons are just the nicest most sincere, fun loving people you'd ever want to meet.
There is hospitality that is, you know, kinda forced, which in my book is fine because in the absence of the warm fuzzy true genuine friendliness I'll take a forced friendliness over bad or rude service any day. But from the minute you enter the booking office and you meet Kay you realize there is nothing phony about the Schooner Lannon's operation. They just happen to be really good at what they do, they love it and they provide a great experience genuinely and naturally- the best of all worlds!
This is not to say there aren't a bunch of other very cool things to do around town like whale watches, deep sea fishing, Visiting The cape Ann Museum or The Heritage Center, coffee at one of our great coffee shops, breakfast at our many awesome breakfast joints, ect, ect. I'm just saying, you give me a sunny 70 degree day and I have folks in from out of town, A guaranteed great time is to be had aboard The Thomas E Lannon.
Here are some early morning photos I took of her on the blocks at rose's Marine where she is being sanded down and getting freshened up for the fun season ahead!
We will be having our GMG Folly Cove Rum and Old Cuban Cigar Co cruise this summer, as soon as Kay and I lock down the dates I'll let y'all know.


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Directions: Facing the side of Tawes with the fountain on it, take a right through the brick gate-type structure. There is a white door on your left which leads to a staircase. Take those stairs up to the 3rd floor and through the door. The bathroom will be on your left.
Cleanliness: A+
Spotless. As if I was the only person in there all day.
Odor: A+
Sure you can believe it's good, but A+ good? There was a Glade® PlugIns®.
Solitude: A+
The 3rd floor of Tawes is more or less a maze of offices. Navigate your way to this bathroom and you won't see anyone.
Lighting: A+
A few heavenly squares on the ceiling and plenty of bright and shiny new tile to surround you with just the right amount of light at all times.
Stalls: 3, manual flush
Urinals: 2, manual flush
Sinks: 2 manual flush
Notes: Hard to beat this one. If you think you can make it up the stairs without losing control, it's totally worth the trip. A model restroom.


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Not Alone — an international project of Make Art/Stop Aids — is an exhibition featuring artists from Brazil, United States, India and South Africa. Already on view at the Durban Art Gallery, the concept originated with the show Make Art/Stop Aids which premiered at the Fowler Museum at UCLA in Los Angeles in 2008. The core exhibition and organization remain largely the same as in Los Angeles, however certain works that were included in the original show are not represented whilst new ones from South Africa have been added. This flexible itinerant format is intended to focus on the country of exhibition while offering a view of the wider picture. The South African version of the show has been curated by Carol Brown (Independent curator) and David Gere (Professor of World Arts and Cultures in UCLA).
Featuring examples from the United States, South Africa, India and Brazil — four disparate nations whose distinct experiences with and responses to the epidemic make insightful studies —Make Art/Stop AIDS presents more than sixty contemporary works including paintings, sculptures, photographs, performance videos, posters, animated shorts, digital media, and installations that engage these questions: What is AIDS? Who lives, who dies? Why are condoms controversial? Are you afraid to touch? When was the last time you cried? Why a red ribbon? Are you ready to act? The overall message of the show focuses on issues of treatment. One of the signature pieces is called Medicine Man and is made up of over 300 medicine bottles and syringes used by the two American artists, Daniel Goldstein and John Kapellas, who have lived HIV- Positive for over twenty years.
The iconic Keiskamma Altarpiece also celebrates the life given to the community of Hamburg in the Eastern Cape, after being given access to ARVs. This spectacular artwork has been embroidered, beaded and appliquéd by 120 women in the district and is inspired by a fifteenth century work by German artist, Grunewald who created a painted altarpiece — the Issenheim Altarpiece. The scale is enormous — 13 feet high and 24 feet wide and this will be its first showing in Durban. It has recently traveled to cathedrals in the U.S. and Britain. The exhibition also features works by Indian folk artists who use scrolls to tell the community about HIV/AIDS and a pair of young artists, Thukral and Tagra whose paintings refer to Bollywood movies and romantic notions of love whilst endorsing condom use.South African artists include Clive Van den Berg, William Kentridge, Churchill Madikida, Langa Magwa, Penelope Siopis, Gideon Mendel and others.After Johannesburg, Not Alone travels to Iziko Museums of Cape Town. Castle of Good Hope, Cape Town, (021) 464-1263 in mid-November.


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Driving the Interoceanic Highway Through Peru
Ten days of hairpin turns, Inca cities, horseback rides and high-altitude villages along South America's Route 66.
JUST SEEING IT on a map made my heart race.
The Interoceanic Highway: more than 1,500 miles of blacktop running from the coast of Peru, through the high Andes at the heart of the former Incan empire, to the depths of the Brazilian Amazon. Completed in July 2011, the road is the 21st century's Route 66, a highway that connects regions and realizes hundreds of years of frontier ambitions.
Even the Incas, who paved roads all the way from Colombia to central Chile, could not clear a path into the Brazilian Amazon. Few of the 16th-century Spanish conquistadors who descended into the jungle from the Peruvian Andes in search of El Dorado survived the trip. For decades, South American politicians have talked about linking Brazil's industrial Atlantic coast and resource-laden inland with the Pacific ports of Peru.
Work on the Interoceanic Highway, the missing link between the two nations' road systems, finally began in 2006. The highway is abhorred by anti-logging activists and lauded by pro-development economists (roadside signs show before-and-after photos of villages apparently revitalized by the thoroughfare). The road seems to have made the lives of many Peruvians easier; it has done the same for drug traffickers, illegal gold miners and unscrupulous developers.
The Interoceanic Highway was also a way of fulfilling my long-cherished travel dreams. When I was a boy, I yearned to see the Brazilian Amazon. As a young man, I wanted to experience the wild inspiration of Jack Kerouac 's road adventures. Following the road across Peru to Pôrto Velho in Brazil, I felt, would be my equivalent.
So last summer, two friends and I spent 10 days driving more than 2,000 miles from Lima to Brazil and back. Along the way, we visited villages where the ancient Incan tongue of Quechua is still spoken, stayed in a converted monastery, partied in the jungle, slept in our car near Machu Picchu and swam at a deserted Pacific beach.
Pan and Milton met me before dawn at the Lima airport with our car, a squat Kia Rio we quickly nicknamed "La Gorda" (Fatty). We immediately headed south for the city of Nazca, where we would pick up the northern of the two Interoceanic Highway branches that run from the coast eastward, meeting high in the Andes, around the Incan and Spanish colonial capital of Cusco.
At first it felt as though we were driving through a giant beach, with sand dunes on both sides and the Pacific Ocean sometimes audible through the fog. Peru's coastal desert has almost no vegetation, and its dunes are so high that we mistook some of them for mountains. At Nazca, which was Texas-drought hot, we turned left onto the Interoceanic Highway and started inland.
We didn't know then that the Nazca-to-Cusco route is notorious for drug traffickers, avalanches and ill repair. Nor did we suspect, as we began climbing the round, smooth foothills, that it would take 10 hours to cover the 350 miles to Cusco.
" Milton watched for obstacles, shouting: 'Cow!' 'Llama!' or 'Giant rock!' "
Hairpin turns wound almost all the way; as we went around bends, our tires squealed and kicked pebbles off precipices. Pan and I took turns at the wheel while Milton watched for obstacles, shouting: "Cow!" "Llama!" or "Giant rock!" whenever one emerged from the darkness or the fog. A few times, the road disintegrated into rubble for miles. Once, it disappeared completely—I had to swerve to avoid the crevasse where a chunk of highway had fallen down the mountainside.
Before dark, we stopped in a mountain village to pick up some mate de coca, a tea brewed from the leaf that's the raw material for cocaine. It has none of the effects of the drug; we wanted it simply to stave off altitude sickness—at the highest point of our journey, we were 15,000 feet above sea level. The air tasted thin, and I got out of the car jelly-legged. The views took what little breath I had away: It looked as if jagged Swiss snow caps were rising above the green range of the west of Ireland. Mist rose from a nearby glacial lake.
Many cities are said to be set in a bowl, but as we crested the final hill to Cusco, we saw lights shining up at us from the sides of a startlingly steep valley. It seemed like a place frozen in the 1500s. The narrow streets and many buildings were made from the same gray stone. Some of the roads we drove along were elevated stone tracks that must have been laid for conquistadors' carriages. But the hotels and restaurants around Cusco's central squares had interiors, menus and clientele as hip and modern as any in Brooklyn or Berlin. Our hotel, Marqueses, had an exterior from the Middle Ages and digital-era rooms.
The next morning, we rode horses around the ruins of Sacsayhuaman, the fortress overlooking Cusco where the Incas took their last stand against the Spanish. Then we drove for nine hours, mostly winding slowly downhill through misty mountain forests. At nightfall, we reached sea level and could finally go full throttle—until La Gorda vaulted over a speed bump and landed in such a way that her hood would not close again. Around 11 p.m., we reached the jungle city of Puerto Maldonado, 300 miles east of Cusco.
Most of Puerto Maldonado felt like a country town in Mexico, with street after street of identical-looking pharmacies, hardware shops and chicken restaurants. Swarms of motorcycle rickshaws and motorbikes buzzed all around—we saw motorcycles bearing couples with infants, dragging construction trailers and carrying livestock. Locals, it turns out, love to dance—and the humid jungle air carries the sound of cumbia accordions and salsa horns in a way that makes moving to their rhythms hard to resist. The palm-fringed central square, Plaza de Armas, has several bars and clubs where we danced until the wee hours.
Apart from the square, Puerto Maldonado's main attractions are the vantage points that look out over the Madre de Dios river (an Amazonian tributary) and the dense jungle beyond. That river was where Peru's paved roads ended until the highway arrived in 2011, in the form of a half-mile-long reddish-orange suspension bridge. From the veranda of our hotel, the Don Carlos, it looked like someone had Photoshopped the Golden Gate Bridge onto the jungle.
We took a boat downriver for a daylong outdoor adventure organized by a local travel agency. We trekked through the jungle, zip-lined between trees and kayaked. In the forest we encountered haunting bird hoots, hand-size tarantulas, quicksand and so many insects I had to wipe them from my eyes. My favorite part was not the adventure but creaking to and fro in a hammock at a lodge, watching the river ooze by like melting chocolate.
The next day, we drove 140 miles to Brazil on a deserted stretch of road that was practically paved with tiny black butterflies. The Peruvian border town of Iñapari is so small that we didn't realize we were entering Brazil until the road signs changed to Portuguese. A lone Brazilian border guard sat under the shade of the checkpoint arch, not even bothering to look up as we approached.
I will never know why I stopped to consult him—I knew we were not authorized to take the rental car into Brazil, and it turned out that one of my companions lacked a visa. Crushed, we drove three hours back to Hotel Don Carlos.
To cheer ourselves up, we decided to investigate the commotion in the hotel's function room. A local family had rented the place out for a baptism, and soon we were salsa dancing with the baby's great-aunts. Before we knew it, we were seated at a table of honor, eating legs of lamb served with a tasty concoction of spaghetti, egg and peppers.
Several aunts engaged us in a drinking contest, filling glass after glass with beer and chanting the local equivalent of "Drink! Drink!" ("Seko! Seko!" or literally, "Dry it, Dry it!") I have never felt more welcome in a strange land than I did at that table, as the aunts shooed crickets from our plates and scolded us for drinking too slowly.
Seeing less of Brazil also meant getting to experience more of Peru. Returning to Cusco, we visited Machu Picchu, sleeping in La Gorda the night before so we wouldn't miss the dawn train to the ruins. We took the southern spur of the Interoceanic Highway on the return trip to Lima, which made the journey twice as long but only took slightly more time. Not only is that road paved all the way, but much of it runs across the Altiplano, a plateau more than 12,000 feet high whose gentle undulations and picturesque lakes resemble those of Lancashire or Michigan.
On the last night, we stayed in Arequipa. With its vibrant bars, eclectic cuisine and mix of colonial and modern architecture, the city could be a regional Spanish capital, were it not for the snow-capped mountains nearby.
Before speeding to the airport, we paused at a beach between Arequipa and Nazca. The seafront was empty for miles. Pan and I got out of the car and ran into the roaring surf. Someday, I decided, we would come back and finish the trip.
Corrections & Amplifications
A photograph shows a girl tending alpacas. In an earleir version of this article, the caption incorrectly identified the animals as llamas.
The Lowdown: Interoceanic Highway, Peru
Getting There: Direct flights are available from several U.S. cities to Jorge Chávez International Airport in Lima. Budget rents vehicles with unlimited mileage—a rarity in South America.
When to Go: The dry season (May to September) is the best time to visit Peru's jungle areas.
Staying There:Marqueses Boutique Hotel in Cusco is a former monastery, dating to the 16th century, whose carved doors and fountain are beautifully preserved. It's also a very affordable luxury hotel (from $70 per night, Garcilaso 256, hotelmarqueses.com). At Hotel Don Carlos in Puerto Maldonado, the pool, friendly management and river view compensate for basic rooms and breakfasts (from about $30 per person, Avenida Leon Velarde 1271, 51-82-571029).
Eating There: In Cusco, try guinea pig, alpaca and other local delicacies at the buffet-style Don Antonio (Santa Teresa 356, 51-84-221318). The restaurant's raucous burlesque ends with the masked actors dragging diners onstage to join in the dancing. Puerto Amazonico in Puerto Maldonado serves sublime river fish—fried, baked and in stews (Leon Velarde 1080, hotelpuertoamazonico.com).
What to Do: Trains leave daily from near Cusco for Machu Picchu, about 50 miles away. Book at least a few days in advance at PeruRail's office on Plaza de Armas or at perurail.com. Entrance tickets may be purchased on arrival, but passes for the hike between the peaks are limited; to get access to all areas, buy tickets at the Instituto Nacional de Cultura offices on Calle San Bernardo. The Tarantula agency in Puerto Maldonado can arrange a day of jungle adventure, including a riverboat ride to a lodge, kayaking, a canopy walk, zip-lining and lunch (from about $35 per person, 51-82-632334).
Write to Rob Curran at firstname.lastname@example.com
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