Barranca del Cobre.

It has nothing to do with cobras, it means Copper Canyon in Spanish. It is situated in Northern Mexico, just over the Arizona border. It is deeper than the Grand Canyon of Colorado (in Arizona), but it is not so famous because it is not in the United States. The climate at the top, well over two thousand metres above the sea level, is quite cool, a bit like England. The climate at the bottom, for example in the town called Urique (at the picture), almost at the sea level, is subtropical and very hot. And there are Apaches living there as well, they are called Tarahumara here. They don't drive Cadillacs as the Arizona Apaches do these days, instead they walk in sandals they make out of Cadillac rubber tyres. But more about them later, now a few pictures from the Canyon itself.

Puna de Atacama

Salar de Atacama in northern Chile is a huge salt flat where water from the mountains flows and dries out, leaving salt. There are some salt lakes there in which flamingos find some vermin to feed on. In the Altiplano higher parts (over 4000 metres above the sea level), some rain falls and there is some grass, on which vicunias (wild ancestors of llamas) feed. It is a national park so flamingos and vicunias are used to tourists and don't run away.

Ancient Maya painting

Here is an example of something that is ignored by the press and book publishers because it is not in fashion, even though it is no less interesting than something similar that is in fashion. Ancient Greece is famous for its ruins, sculpture and painting on pottery. Ancient Mayas are famous for their ruins, but their painting on pottery seems to be almost completely ignored even though it is no less interesting than the Greek painting. It is demonstrated in museum exhibitions where one can see the Maya painted pottery. However, any publication on the subject in either language (I mean English of Spanish) is hard to find and comments in the museums are also extremely limited. Examples here come from museums in Guatemala and Mexico.  

Ancient Greek painting in the British Museum

The Greek painting in the British Museum is easy to overlook. You will easily find the sculpture of Classical Greece, but painting? Who has ever hard of that? Well, perhaps not many people, but it is there and it is quite interesting, here are the examples. Seeing these examples one is tempted to thing that it is anything but primitive. However, you won't find big canvasses you might expect when you thing of great painting. Perhaps this is the very reason why not many people realise that it exists. These paintings are hidden in a few small glass cupboards in rooms upstairs, they are painted on clay vases. Greek vases are, of course well known, though few visitors to the Museum pays much attention. Even less realise that not all vases are decorated in black and ochre colours, that there exist also white vases with black paintings (or perhaps I should say drawings, or even sketches?) on them.

Marbles of Suzhou.

I wonder whether there is anyone who would be able to tell me what this is because I have no idea. I saw them in Suzhou in China in traditional pavilions in the famous gardens of the city. They are carefully framed and look as if they were pictures but they are not. It seems that these are cross-sections of marbles, framed and exhibited, sometimes next to a picture. I wander why. Is there a Chinese tradition of exhibiting marbles like that? I guess there must by, but where does it come from? Obviously there is no equivalent tradition in the Western world which is why I haven't found anything of the subject in a Western language.

Lingyin Zen temple in Hangzhou

Lingyin si is a Zen monastery in the hills around the West Lake in Hangzhou. It is amazing how quickly the monasteries have been restored after the orgy of destruction during the cultural revolution. In the hills around Hangzhou there are several monasteries and nunneries. Interestingly in one of them a nun gave me a book in English by Sheng Yen, a Taiwanese Zen master whom I met many years earlier in Taipei.

City God Temple in Shanghai

The City God Temple in Shanghai is a typical Chinese Taoist temple. Normally the centre of a Taoist temple is a yard with an incense burner. Next to the yard is a hall with giant figures. The Taoist saints usually have beards, unlike the Buddhist ones. Behind this hall there is another one with a nicely dressed figure of the City God. There people go to pray.