Unhinged at Stonehenge

The Stones

Our cruise ended in Southampton early in the morning, so my inner tourist ramped into overdrive at the thought of what we could squeeze into the day ahead.  Thanks to Captain Ulrich's daily time changes, we had transitioned from America to England with no jet lag. With only 34 miles between the port and Stonehenge, I simply couldn't resist the chance to join the pilgrimage made by 800,000 annual visitors to one of the UK's most iconic sites.  It seemed a fitting way to return to my country of birth and crank a little ancient British history into the kids' brains.  

"England's green and pleasant land" 

William Blake

After 14 days of blue ocean vistas, the brilliant green of the English countryside, bathed in sunshine, was a welcoming sight.  We wound ever deeper into the New Forest National Park.  The name is misleading considering the forest is actually quite old. After conquering England in 1066, William I evicted the peasants from the farmsteads in the area and designated the woodland for royal hunting.  

New Forest Cottages

The commoners have made a comeback over the last few centuries and the real estate is both cute and coveted.  You're never quite sure who you might see talking a stroll alongside the farmers' fields, both Madonna and Sting have homes here.

"There'll always be an England While there's a country lane, Wherever there's a cottage small Beside a field of grain." 

Ross and Charles

But it's the New Forest ponies that are the real locals in the area, as one of the indigenous horse breeds of the British Isles, thousands run loose in the park.  

We, of course, only found the ones blocking the road and ended up in a traffic jam with a few of their long eared cousins. Although we were pretty sure that the next animals we spied were completely introduced. 

" I heard someone say that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than a rich man to get into heaven.  I decided to sculpt camels in a needle." 

Willard Wigan

Lady Chichester's camel, Therese, enjoys the run of the large estate except when she makes her annual appearance in the local nativity play alongside the donkey.  Luckily, we had our own wise man, Chris, to guide us in the direction of Stonehenge.  Only we were channelling a very different divinity using copper rods.  

"The Avenue" near Stonehenge.

We were all a little suspicious of dowsing, which finds the location of 'ley' or energy lines crisscrossing the planet.  Perhaps neolithic man was much more in tune with the mystical power of the universe and sited their ceremonial and ritualistic sites along these energy lines. 

“You can't convince a believer of anything; for their belief is not based on evidence, it's based on a deep seated need to believe”

 Dr. Carl Sagan

It was difficult to understand why the copper rods crossed when we walked across the Avenue, which was the ancient ceremonial pathway from the river to Stonehenge. The kids changed from doubtful sideways glances to fighting over taking their turn. I was starting to remember the questions I had mulled over last time I had visited this area 25 years earlier.  Building of the  Stones began over 5000 years ago and many theories abound about this prehistoric monument and the people that built it.  A visit to Stonehenge always creates more questions than answers.  Enough with the theorizing, my inner tourist needed some photos.  We eagerly joined the long line of cars winding their way towards the site. 

"Upon the fields of barley...As we walk in fields of gold" 

Sting

With cosmic contradiction, the Stones had stayed the same for millennium yet the original visitor centre from the 1960's had been torn down.  The new reception building had been sited several miles from the site so we would need to pay to ride in a tourist train.

Of course, to board the landrover pulled wheelie carriage I needed a ticket.  To buy the ticket I had to join a line, a long line.  Its always hard to convince the kids that they aren't hungry when lurking next to an overpriced cafe.  I tried to distract them and utilize our wait time by taking turns to visit the bathroom, where we encountered yet another long line.  I began to ponder the merits of evolution and the planning consideration of ladies toilets by male architects.  Luckily, a stall came free before I squatted down Neolithic style in the potted plants.

Almost unhinged by the commercialization of it all, I tried to tune into the information echoing out of my 'press 1 for English' tour guide headset.  Crawling slowly along the public road which was closed off to anyone without a ticket, I saw hikers walking on the public bridleway just the other side of the barbed wire fence.  They were making their way to Stonehenge without a ticket, without a map and without a crackling headset.  Was the wire keeping me in or them out?

Stonehenge, Wiltshire, UK

The wire got me thinking about the all the different groups that have become involved in the modern day melee over protection and access.  Over the last several centuries, archeological digs and restoration projects have excavated and unearthed some of the secrets of Stonehenge.  Some of the blue stones may have come as far away as Wales many miles away.  One idea suggests Durrington Walls may have been the centre for the living, with the River Avon connecting  it to Stonehenge - the centre for the dead. 

Stonehenge is indeed the centre of a concentrated network of burial mounds.  The disinterment of these graves have helped unshroud the mystery of Neolithic and Iron Age humans.  I was starting to grasp the Druid reverence of nature and ancestors.  

"it was a great, and potentially uncomfortable, irony that modern Druids had arrived at Stonehenge just as archaeologists were evicting the ancient Druids from it."

Ronald Hutton

As I approached the stones, I pushed back the headset and allowed the silent shadows of the past to haunt my ears.  I was walking the path of my forefathers, although my own DNA probably holds an ancestral story of a few thousand years of invasion from all manner of Europeans.

And now here I was surrounded by the full spectrum of humanity, tourists from all four corners of the world lined up to take photos and document their own private pilgrimages. The stones had witnessed eons of visitors just as they had seen the passage of time wrinkle its way onto my face.  The voices of the present pulled me from my contemplation, the kids were ready to move on.   

There was just time to listen to the headset explanation of the heel stone.  Standing in the circle, at sunrise, on the summer solstice the sun rises exactly over the heel stone.  A celestial calendar still drawing the faithful every 21st of June, the longest day of the year.  But today was just another day for the tourist mecca and the only souls allowed in the centre were the crows.  They perched high on the plinths ready to swoop down on any loose tourist crumbs.  Just like my last visit I left with a sense of awed wonderment at the tenacity of man and how the enigma of Stonehenge continues to pull us back along the path of our mortality. 

These are a few of my favorite things

"To the question, "When were your spirits at the lowest ebb?" the obvious answer seemed to be, "When the gin gave out."


Sir Francis Chichester

The last two days on board the boat were filled with melancholy moments of conclusion.  From Miami, 25 degrees North and 80 degrees West, after a fornight at sea we finally reached our journey's end, 50 degrees North and 1 degree West - Southampton.  A grand total of 4815 miles.  But the journey was better measured in the countless friends we met along the way. 

Our nightly dining companions at Vivaldi Restaurant 

Never having cruised before we had conquered the Atlantic effortlessly and created wonderful memories along the way.  There were so many favorite things to remember from the last two weeks.  I am eternally grateful for the endless food that I didn't have to cook, for kindly waiters clearing my plates and never having to wash up.

Tiered formal dining room

It was fun to see the kids rise to the occasion when they joined me for the formal dining option and figure out the heirarchy of cruising.  They endlessly discussed the points needed for a platinum membership and debated the value of a 'Royal Replenish' drinks package.  It was even more amusing to see them hop out of the hot tub, free feed at the frozen yogurt stand then jump back into the steaming swirling water.

Main Deck

The countless activities were an added bonus to our homeschooling program from the watercolor painting class to climbing rock walls and mini golf.  We watched ice skating shows on a rink the size of a postage stamp and viewed theatrical shows almost worthy of Broadway.  On the colder days playing shuffle board conjured up titanic moments of windswept recreation.  

I loved shopping on the promenade deck during the 50% off sale, where even half price is still ridiculously overpriced.  Yet there was a high sea camaraderie in being shoulder to shoulder with other boutique predators starving for retail therapy. 

Towel Art

The towel apes downsized into donkeys and our finale cotton creation was a dove.  Perhaps it represented our impending freedom from the ship or maybe just a lack of time on the last night?  

We had lasted 2 weeks with no internet or phone communication.  A rare opportunity to leave my world of responsibilites behind and for the kids and I to concentrate on each other and the things that are important.  I had contemplated my small existence on this big planet and learned to embrace my tiny place in the universe.  Captain Ulrich had brought us safely across the ocean, the crossing had been calm, but the cruise had still lived up to its name and been a grand "Adventure of the Seas."  

Adores Azores

Land ho

We eagerly stepped out onto the deck to see our first land in five days.  I shivered as I watched the tiny islands of the Azores grow bigger on the horizon.  Over the last few days the temperature had gradually dropped and in the grey early morning light the cold dampness sucked away at my body heat.  We would need to don scarves and jackets to explore these remote Portuguese Islands. 

Ponta Delgada, Sao Miguel Island, Azores 

Our destination today was Sao Miguel, one of nine volcanic islands that make up the archipelago of the Azores.  Sao Miguel is around the size of Singapore, but we were 900 miles of the coast of Portugal and way more remote.  We docked in the capital Ponta Delgada which means thin point in Portuguese.  This wasn't the first time I had visited this tiny resupply depot for ships and planes.  The last time I had been here was so long ago I couldn't even remember where I was on route to or from.  I had barely stayed an hour peering blurry eyed through an aircraft window as we refueled in the dead of night.  

Portas da Cidada (Town Gates)

This time, arriving by boat, provided a much more majestic welcome.  The rays of light filtered through the mist creating a monochrome sepia which accentuated the low level antique buildings.  We walked back in time from the new concrete port side structures to the historic centre.  The cobble stone streets were of a vintage I had never seen and the black and white decor threw me into a Shakespearean time warp. 

"God gave the Portuguese a small country as a cradle 

but all the world as their grave." 

Antonio Vieira 

The kids were more interested in the horse carriages than the architecture.  Settled by the Portuguese in the early 1400's the Azores became a strategic axis for navigation and the islands have been fiercely contested over the centuries.  The Coat of Arms on the clock tower read "Antes morrer livres que em paz sujeitos", it means "rather die free than in peace be subjugated".  I began to ponder the Portuguese, a tiny nation with a long history of conquering the oceans and exploring distant shores.  What kind of spirit did it take for a culture to survive on these far flung islands?

Wandering aimlessly through the old streets gave us a chance to smell the hydrangeas, the national flower of this island.  When the first settlers arrived here there was little else other than flowers and birds.  Luckily for us things had developed since then and as the rain began pelting down there were plenty of tourist shops to duck into for cover.

One curious little shop held a mix of kitsch souvenirs (mostly made from lava) and dusty antiquities.  Killing time until the downpour abated I wandered deeper into the store's dusty depths.  There on the wall, probably more as decoration than inventory, I discovered an old map of Africa.  In truth it was more an outline of Sub-Saharan Africa with a blank interior.  Perhaps this was the kind of rough chart David Livingstone used in his explorations for the source of the Nile.  The  intrigue and the setting compelled me to investigate the story behind this treasure.  I wished a "bom dia" to the heavyset Señora and gestured in the direction of the map.  She referred me to her elderly gnarled husband who sat quietly at a worn desk in the rear.  Converting my poor Spanish into even worse  Portuguese, with a few "Abrigados" and a bright smile I managed to ascertain he had bought the map in London.  I pushed my communication skills to breaking point to uncover his relationship with the turn of the century framed cartography.  As a young man he had been conscripted into the Army and sent to Angola, then a colony of Portugal.  Our affinity for Africa was the real connective tissue of the conversation.  He was keen to sell the piece after decades on the wall and I desperately wanted to buy the map and take it back to England.  But this was a cumbersome souvenir, the rain had abated and the kids were fractious and anxious to move over to the cafe.  I muttered a reluctant half hearted promise to think about it and come back later.  Perhaps the antique African map from the old curiosity shop was best left in my imagination rather than appearing on my credit card bill.

With no authentication it could have been a 400 euro fake.  I realized I didn't have to actually own the map or a wall to put it on. I already had the story and the memory attached to it and that was way easier to package and carry.  But suddenly I now had 400 euros burning a hole in my pocket so I bought a heavy woven silver ring from a jeweler who let us shelter in his store during yet another brief downpour.  By the time we had shopped and sheltered our way back to the port the clouds had cleared and the warm sunshine had us stripping down to t-shirts and looking for shade.

Boy, Portside, Ponta Delgada 

In a fit of irony Josh bought a hat that he hoped would clear up any confusion about his long hair.  It came in handy in the late afternoon sunshine.

“Man cannot discover new oceans 

unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.”

Andre Gide

By the time we were back on board the kids were having chlorine withdrawals and bolted straight for the hot tub.  As our day in the Azores drew to a close I sipped on a beer and squinted out to the blue horizon as it turned indigo.  After 3 straight days at sea the next 2 without land would be plain sailing.  Miami seemed so far behind us and my thoughts were of conclusion and reaching England.