By Robin Graham

I bet Washington Irving didn’t have to put up with any of this.

Getting a ticket to visit that great treasure of Islamic art and culture, the Alhambra — made famous by Irving himself, among others — is no easy task. It isn’t that it’s hard to find; there’s a website for that — as easily navigated as was, I imagine, the 19th-century Spain that Irving, the great American essayist and historian, had to contend with.

No, it’s the decisions. It turns out that visiting the great Moorish citadel in Granada, one of Spain’s southernmost cities, is not as straightforward as you might think (or like). The choices are a little dizzying to the uninitiated. There are morning tickets and there are afternoon tickets, and within each, specific time slots for access to the complex of Nasrid palaces. There are three zones that make up the massive site — the palaces, the Alcazaba (the ramparts), and the Generalife (the summer palace). Seeing all three will easily take up the six hours your ticket is valid for. But where to start? And if you make the wrong decision here and miss your time slot at the palaces, will you be indulged as silly tourists are the world over and have your slot rearranged? No, you will not. You are a silly tourist and you will not be going to the palaces. (more…)

You may or may not remember the landscape and the architecture, but you will never forget a face — even if they are only in pictures.

Last month’s photo theme, “Faces in Places,” has left an impression. There is something fascinating about a picture of a face. It makes the viewer curious about the story behind the character. If we don’t know the story, we are compelled to make one up.

Once we had the finalists, trying to determine a winner was difficult. Each submission had an insightful back story, proving there is always a story behind a face.

Although we came to a consensus about the “Wise Man,” we hummed and hawed over the following pictures as well:

The first mention, titled “Femme peul,” goes out to DorisBA who took this stunning photograph while visiting a Fula village in Senegal. This is a face of the oldest woman in the village who is considered “a Healer, a Teacher, a Guide.” DorisBA had this to say about the experience: (more…)

A night out on the town in Granada, Nicaragua, with a Canadian, a Rastafarian painter, and an ex-revolutionary. Does it get any better than this?

By Luke Armstrong

España was beautiful, young, Argentinean, and when she came up to talk to me on a bus heading towards the Costa Rican-Nicaraguan border to ask if I knew of any cheap lodging places in Granada, her destination as well as mine, I tore out my Lonely Planet “Central America on a Shoestring,” and together we looked at the budget hostel listings. According to guide, Hostel Oasis had a pool, free Internet and a lush courtyard. At $6 a night, the cockroaches that would later accost me in my sleep were tolerable. España and her travel companion María checked in with me the next day into one of the hostel’s spacious dorm rooms.

So I arrived in Granada, Nicaragua, like I’d been arriving everyplace since my starting point of Valparaiso, Chile: hitchhiking and haphazardly hopping northbound buses. Each day involved a new unknown with new people.

I envisioned that this intrepid trekking from city to city, country to country, and culture to culture coincided with some bohemian ideal of ruthless adventure. But mostly, I am just lazy when it comes to advance planning, and whimsically making my way north across South and Central America was just easier.

Tired? Hungover? Sick? Diarrhea? No problem, just camp out in this hostel bed for three days reading. So you’ve made a drunken fool out of yourself last night? No problem, just move on to the next city where you are a tabula rosa. Someone looked at you funny? Fine, leave the country and never come back. (more…)