In the Early Sixties

I visited Ecuador I the early 60s.
I remember:
eating good food with construction workers near Esmeraldas,
Colorados wearing red clay,
center of Quito looking like a pleasant city in medieval Europe,
Quito having the best public baths I had visited until that time. plenty of hot water too,
multi-storied buildings built on a framework of bamboo in Guayaquil,
good people everywhere.

Pausanias' Guide to Greece

I've been thinking of visits in foreign places lately. My imagination has been working on places I have some knowledge of. Top on my visit list right now is Ecuador. I should look for a novel which is set there. I'm reading one set in Chile now. When I get closer to the planning stage I'll look at some good travel guides.

Great travel literature enlivens me to a destination. Learning about the area, getting to know the cultures of people associated with them personally and by the way of written works gives me joy.

The more I learn the greater my pleasure. I follow my bliss. I follow my nose.

Travel literature has been around for a long time. You have hear of Marco Polos work. Before the Polos was Pausanias, and honest re-counter of his travels and wide interests. He was a novas antiquarian, an armature naturalist, a dabbler in mysteries. He was interested in history, Mythology, geography, and culture. He was attracted by the obscure, the unusual and the exquisite. He was also a bit of a scholar and an adventurer. I think of him as my kind of traveler.
The wealthy citizens of ancient Rome carried his works when they visit Greece.

Sacred Places

Now that I have foreign visits on my mind my enthusiasm for the sacred places of this nation have weakened. However, my enthusiasm is strong enough for me to name a couple of dozen right here and right now:

• Ka Ule O Nanahoa fertility shrine, on hill overlooking Kalauapapa penninsula, Molokai
• Umi Heiau Hualalai Mountain, Hawaii
• Pu'ukohola Heiau, National Historic site, Hawaii; Hill of the Whale
• Cheif Mountain in Montana: sacred for hundreds of years; Mt. Ninaistakis, sacred to Blackfeet
• Hesperus Mountain (Big Mountain Sheep) in Colorado
• The Grotto at the University of Notre Dame at the U. of Notre Dame, Indiana
• Abalone Shell Mountain in the San Francisco Peaks near Flagstaff, Arizona
• Unity Temple, Chicago
• Trinity Church, Boston
• Trinity Church, NYC
• Salt Lake Temple, Utah
• Baha'i House of Worship, Chicago
• Aztalan State Park, Lake Mills, WI, Mid-Mississippi people thrived there 1000 years ago
• Our Lady of America Marian shrine, Fostoria, Ohio
• Power Mound, Fort Ancient, Ohio
• Judaculla Rock, near Cullowhee, North Carolina
• Town Creek Indian mound, North Carolina.
• Emerald mound, Tupelo, Mississippi
• Wickliffe mounds, southwest Kentucky
• Our Lady of Consolation Shrine; Carey, Ohio
• Newark Earth Works, Ohio
• Norton mounds Michigan
• Grapevine Canyon, Laughlin, Nevada; Yuman sacred place; Avikwa'ame, Spirit Mountain
• Mt. Barboquivari, Arizona
• Meteor Crater, Arizona.
• Sandia Crest; Tewa sacred mountain knon as Oku pin
• Giant Springs, Montana
• Sweetgrass Hills, Montana
• Mt. Newberry, Arizona; Yuman sacred mountain
• Mount Taylor, known as Blue Bead or Turquoise Mountain in New Mexico.
• San Jacinto, Calif.
• Mt Diablo Calif. near San Francisco
• Mt Capitan,New Mexio; Mescalero Apache sacred mountain
• Moundville, Alabama
• Our Lady of Prompt Succour, Marian shrine, New Orleans

Visit Destinations

I am tentivily eliminateing a number of destinations. I won't mention the ones I am eliminating, but I will start keeping track of my top ten contenders for places worth a longer visit. The top ten contenders of the day are:
#1. Ecuador
#2 Uruguay
#3 India
#4. Argentina
#5. Honduras
#6. Turkey
#7. Colombia
#9. Malaysia
#10. Nicaragua

I hope to write a few words about Ecuador and what has attracted me to it in the near future.

Affirm Your Life : Affirm Your Life by using the power of positive affirmations to reprogram your mind

Affirm Your Life : Affirm Your Life by using the power of positive affirmations to reprogram your mind

BC

I started a review of some of the goings on beginning about 10,000 years ago and am just now working up to 6500 BC. Between about 6500 BC and 6100 BC there was a glacial advance in North America. Natural those were years of cooler temperatures.

If we had lived in northeastern Mexico during those same years, agave leaf tissue, nopal pencas, mesquite beans, and various kinds of meat may well have been an important part of our diet.

By 6000 BC there were settlements on Crete and the Chaldeans were keeping a library in the temple of Nippur in Mesopotamia. That is we have evidence of a specific library being in existence at least, 8000 years ago! And that means that we had already developed the custom of keeping a part of our culture outside of our minds. It also seems that we revered that stored knowledge enough to keep it in a temple.

By 5300 BC important records were kept on stone tablets in Kish in Mesopotamia. I guess that there are Americans killing 'foreigners ' around Kish and Nippur today. Think I read about a library being blown up near there.

By 5000 BC there were many cities between the Tigris and the Euphrates. When there are people who read and write and talk together daily in cities a lot of creativity results.

Possible Destinations

I've listed about 70 countries as tentative destination for a long visit.
It seems that I have been using the following to choose among them:
Inexpensive,
Comfortable,
Interesting,
air quality,
expat living.

I don't feel motivated to type out all seventy. I will type out some. The following made the list, but seem least likely to be a destination in the near future: Yemen, UK, So. Africa, Samoa, Russia, Malawi, Moldova, Lebanon, Jamaica, Haiti, Australia, Luxembourg, Chile, Dominica, Estonia, Finland, Fiji, France. All of the above are still on the list.

At the top of today's list are:
Honduras,
Argentina,
India,
Uruguay,
Ecuador.
So far, Ecuador is my most likely destination!
Looks like I have a bias for Latin America.
However, my bias may be for air quality.
Still, low cost of living is vary important.
Have you suggestions for countries to ad to the list?
Have you conmments or information about the countries mentioned?
Have you any questions?