Luke Skywalker may have been a little short for a Stormtrooper but I have always been a little tall (and much too short-sighted) for an astronaut. Yet here I am, floating and tumbling midair in the very plane NASA uses to train men and women destined for outer space. I snap at a bubble of water floating in front of me and marvel at the sensation of utter weightlessness.
Although there are both rocket scientists and billionaire space tourists on board, I am neither. I’m just a boy with stars in his eyes, grown into a man who still occasionally dreams of diamonds set in a pitch-black void and the moon rising behind a curving Earth.
Space agencies have long used zero-g flights to simulate the microgravity of orbit without the danger and expense of a rocket launch. A jet flies steeply upwards, rising three kilometres in 30 seconds. The pilot then carefully steers the plane into an arc – or parabola – like that of a thrown ball. If they get it just right, everyone and everything inside the plane becomes completely weightless for 30 seconds, before the pilot pulls the nose up again.
On our specially modified Boeing 727 flying high above Seattle, Captain John Benisch II gets it right time after time. All but the rear 40 seats have been stripped out of the commercial jet, leaving a long, empty tube padded on every surface. My heart has been racing ever since I signed up – for less than the cost of flying business class from Sydney to LA. I’ve watched videos, read books and even signed a waiver absolving the Zero Gravity Corporation of any responsibility for “injury or illness caused by physical contact with floating objects”. But as I lie on the floor awaiting our first parabola, I realise nothing on earth can truly prepare me for the absence of something I’ve felt unnoticed for every second of my life: gravity.
“Prepare for zero-one,” says Captain Benisch, and suddenly, miraculously, I’m up and floating. It’s like scuba diving without the gear, hang-gliding without any fear of impact or, for this rapidly regressing flier, the realisation of a thousand childhood fantasies. The first parabola is over almost before I even realise it – my weight returning with a vengeance, the plane pushing me to the floor with twice the force of gravity as we line up for another.
On the zero-two and zero-three parabolas, I experiment with slow-motion somersaults. All of my fellow passengers are wearing the same flight suit and the same moonrise-wide grin. Two words fill the air: “sorry” as we inevitably tumble into one another and “awesome” as each parabola ends (yes, the majority are American).
As we fly parabola after parabola, my confidence rises. I dart after flying M&Ms, hover in a suspended raincloud of water droplets and spin through the air like Superman. As this isn’t an extreme NASA ‘vomit comet’ training mission, with 50 parabolas in roller-coaster succession, we level out after 12 and start our descent. Even so, by the time we touch down, ecstatic, exhausted and exhilarated, my stomach is roiling. My boyhood dreams have come true but my adult self realises that perhaps I never really had what it takes to be a spaceman.
Serendipitous. That’s the word that best describes my present predicament: standing face to face with a six-foot female grizzly. She’s so close I can smell the salmon on her breath and see the leftover chunks of meat between her teeth.
We stand, eyeballing one another for a moment longer – me marvelling at her beautiful face, its fur dripping with mountain meltwater; her eyes are so endearing I find myself anthropomorphising her. She is, quite surely, the most majestic ‘woman’ I have ever seen.
“Hey bear,” says my guide Blakeley, calmly reassuring the behemoth mum and her yearling cub, standing slightly off to the side, that all is well in her wilderness, the pristine Great Bear Rainforest (GBR) on the remote west coast of Canada.
Serendipitous. Six months earlier in Sydney I stood face to face with another extraordinary woman who also calls the GBR home: Australian Marg Leehane. She runs Great Bear Lodge, located 80 kilometres by air from Port Hardy in British Columbia. She lives and breathes bears here, and while a guest in her floating lodge, you do too.
Up at dawn, guests – only 16 at any one time – head out in boats to watch the bears feeding on spring sedges (flowering rushes) and visit viewing blinds from where they can see grizzlies fish for salmon.
Which brings us, serendipitously, to the exquisite lady standing before me. Her cub has grown restless of our encounter and is mewing, like a lamb, for more food. Mum turns and, within a moment, is body deep in rushing water. Salmon splash by – flipping flashes of green, yellow and burgundy. Mother bear lunges, swipes and comes up trumps, a 50-centimetre fish impaled on her claws.
She moves to the other side of the river, drops the salmon and tears at the flesh with her teeth. The cub noses in for a feed. Nearby, a bald eagle lands then hops closer, hoping for scraps.
I watch all this mesmerised. Upstream, at a bend in the river, another grizzly appears, then one, two, three more. Mother bear turns her head, sniffs the air, and decides to move on. But just before she disappears into the forest, she looks back.
“Hey bear,” I say, bidding her farewell and reassuring her once again that all is well in her Great Bear Rainforest.
Teresa Cristina de Brito Pinheiro dos Anjos is sitting on her kitchen step sharing some local knowledge while watching me tie up my hammock. I have the feeling she spends a lot of time chatting like this and, at the moment, she’s particularly enjoying clueing me in on unexpected risks of camping on Ilha Grande. “It’s lucky that hammock has a sturdy mosquito net,” she says.
I hazard a guess in broken Portuguese. “Lots of mosquitoes here, then?”
“No, no, the sea breeze keeps them away. It’s the vampire bats you have to worry about.”
I’m halfway through a trek around Brazil’s so-called Big Island – about 150 kilometres southwest of Rio de Janeiro – and apparently I’m now deep inside bat country. It strikes me as somewhat surprising that nobody bothered to warn me earlier about the danger of death by vampire bat.
“My cousin was bitten a couple of weeks ago,” my new advisor continues. “The course of rabies jabs afterwards was worse than the bite.”
I can tell she is doing her best to reassure me, but I wonder if I will ever feel the same about myself after I’ve been sucked by vampires. Will I be forced to see myself as vampire-bitten ever after? It’s a form of virginity that I’m reluctant to lose.
But there have been many more sinister things than vampires during the history of what was once called the Island of the Damned. The dark period of Ilha Grande’s history began with the arrival of British and Dutch pirates who slaughtered the original inhabitants – Tupí people, whom the Europeans claimed to be cannibals – and used the island as a lair from which to attack Portuguese galleons. Later, Ilha Grande became even more notorious as a slave-trading centre, a quarantine island for sick immigrants and a penal colony.
The main town Abraão dates back to the time when it was the lair of the pirate Captain Abraham. Private vehicles are not allowed on Ilha Grande and Abraão has only a police beach buggy, a fire engine and a garbage truck. The morning rush hour is frantic though, with motor-schooners shuttling new arrivals to and from the mainland, and dive boats heading out to reefs and wrecks around the coastline.
Few people have ever walked all the way around Big Island and reliable information is hard to come by. We set out from Abraão, loaded with camping equipment and enough provisions to last a week in the jungle. Luckily I had the help of trekking guide Raf Kiss and Brazilian adventuress Laura Nedel, recently returned from a round-the-world tour with a renewed hunger to explore more of her own immense country.
The map of Ilha Grande is studded with names that seem familiar, probably from the scripts of films such as Pirates of the Caribbean. Our path will take us past Black Beach, Blue Lagoon, Savage Beach, Adventurer Beach and Sack of Heaven Bay. At times the trail snakes along pristine Robinson Crusoe beaches, unmarked by footprints. During other sections it climbs steeply into dense, humid forests where howler monkeys bellow, giant jungle rats called agouti scamper and hummingbirds buzz between the towering bamboo plants.
Three days into our trek, we’re joined by two new travelling companions. Black Dog and the Rasta – a scraggy white mutt who becomes more dreadlocked with every mile – resolutely refuse to abandon us. They are extremely contented strays, happy to remain with us purely for companionship. Although we are unable to feed them, they never bother to beg when we eat. It’s harder to see wildlife with dogs charging off in attack whenever an iguana breaks cover from the brush or they catch the scent of an agouti, but they’re good company and their panting ‘doggedness’ motivates us during the long, hard slogs over the hills to the south coast.
Provetá is the second largest town on Ilha Grande and the only one with any remaining indigenous population. Few outsiders ever come to this most southwesterly point of the island and when we arrive the beach is occupied only by fishing boats, vultures and a few local kids splashing in the waves. We follow directions to a sandy homestead where a makeshift sign emphasises the laid-back, ‘labour-saving’ attitude of the Provetenses: “CMPNG” it reads. Who can be bothered with vowels?
We fall asleep to the sound of the waves – and raucous chanting from the Assembly of God church – and are woken at dawn by Black Dog stretching under our hammocks. When we break camp both dogs romp out of the compound lashing their tails, happy to be on the road for another day. We have a hard morning’s climb ahead of us before Praia do Aventureiro – Adventurer Beach. Here on the blustery southern shore, the Atlantic trade winds have stunted the trees so shade is scarce. We are soon sweating and the Rasta is cooling her matted locks in every meagre stream she can find.
It’s a humbling experience to bump into 77-year-old Dona Cida on her way up the opposite side of the hill. It’s a Sunday and the old lady tells us she is on her way to church in Provetá.
“I could take the boat from Aventureiro,” she admits, patting the dogs. “But I do this every Sunday. It’s my little pilgrimage.”
Our own little pilgrimage is now more than halfway through and we’re coming to a sad point. At Aventureiro beach we’ll have to take a boat for a short trip around the Praia do Sul Biological Reserve. Special permits are needed to cross this protected area and, although it is apparently possible to sneak across the park, we decide to respect the rules – and, more importantly, the habitat – and take a boat a few miles around to the next beach. This means we will have to say goodbye to our new travelling companions.
Dona Cida knows the dogs and we have spoken to two other people who had seen them walking with other trekkers. Black Dog and the Rasta probably know the trails of Ilha Grande better than any creature on two legs and it is sad to see them watching from the jetty as our boat putters out into Adventurer Bay.
After a long walk through almost impenetrable jungle – eyes intent on every waver of our GPS – we arrive at the old ruined political prison at Dois Rios. It was primarily because of this sinister institution that Ilha Grande was traditionally known as A Ilha da Maldição or the Island of the Damned. Some of the country’s most famous writers, journalists and activists were locked up here until as recently as 1994, when the prison was finally dynamited (half-heartedly it seems).
After a long day on the trail we arrive at pretty little Caxadaço bay just as the sun is beginning to sink, and find a perfect spot in the jungle to tie our hammocks. A cool, clear river has created a natural jacuzzi among the rocks and Laura and I spend an hour soaking away the aches and strains of the trail and listening to the roar of the howler monkeys. There’s a wistful hint to Laura’s voice as she points out that by this time tomorrow evening we’ll be back in ‘civilisation’ and dining on moqueca fish stew in Abraão.
As darkness descends under the canopy, fireflies of all different sizes and colours flash around our camp like phalanxes of fairies. Lying under the vampire net, enjoying the sound-and-light show of the jungle, I am sorry to think that we will soon be sailing away from the Island of the Damned.
The taxi driver is grinning mischievously. Short, stocky and besuited, with a bald head, cherubic face and pencil-thin moustache, he reminds me a little of a Bond henchman. A Latino Oddjob perhaps. As he puts my luggage in his boot, I’m thinking, I hope I don’t end up in there later. Bogotá is much safer than it used to be – I’ve spent a fortnight in the huge Colombian capital without any bother – but the word peligroso (dangerous) is still bandied around enough to ensure you don’t let your guard down completely.
My driver, Luis, like so many of his compatriots, is a friendly soul. Full of chit-chat, he is keen to hear about my Colombian travels and is particularly interested in how I found the women on the steamy Caribbean coast. Our conversation is a bit stop-start, thanks to his mum, who keeps calling his mobile. Each time, after a frenetic burst of unintelligible, slang-riddled Colombian Spanish, Luis signs off with: “Okay mama, mi amor. Besos (kisses).”
The next day, when I find myself looking at a bizarre, ancient statue of a sex-crazed monkey, shrouded in tropical Andean forest 520 kilometres south of Bogotá, I think of Luis. He would probably love this. In my mind, I can hear him laughing with delight.
The monkey statue is one of a number of peculiar, pre-Hispanic archaeological sights scattered across the gorgeous green hills and valleys around San Agustin, a small, tranquil town that was, not so long ago, out of bounds for travellers. This region was once a danger hotspot, a casualty of Colombia’s ongoing civil war, which began in the 1960s and has caused about 250,000 deaths, as well as the displacement of millions of people.
As with much of Colombia, San Agustin’s security situation has improved recently, and travellers can now explore some of South America’s most bewitching countryside and hospitable hamlets in peace.
Its languid air is exactly what I need after my overnight journey from the capital, which had earlier disgorged me, groggy and disoriented, onto a street lined with hole-in-the-wall grocery stores, bakeries and tour agencies.
I dodged children playing on the footpaths and elderly men – with cowboy hats and tanned, weather-beaten faces, leaning against walls – to score a couple of caffeine hits before feeling awake enough to go exploring. (The Zona Cafeteria, west of Bogotá, is renowned for its coffee, but Colombia’s south yields some of the country’s most sought-after beans. Japanese exporters pay top whack for the best stuff, apparently.)
The lush, rolling landscapes surrounding San Agustin are dotted with the relics of civilisations that flourished between the first and fourteenth centuries along the fertile, mineral-rich banks of the Magdalena River, which courses 1500 kilometres through Colombia, originating in the country’s southern Andes and eventually spilling into the Caribbean Sea.
Unlike Bogotá, San Agustin – population 9000 – is utterly laidback, with a vibe that swings between comatose and sleepy.
You can mini-bus it to the main cluster of ruins at Parque Arqueológico, three kilometres west of San Agustin’s centre, or opt, as I do, to amble the gently ascending roadside route, where I pass half a dozen young soldiers in army fatigues with rifles slung across their backs. Firmly back in government control, this area was once a stronghold of the FARC, the notorious left-wing guerrilla group high on the United States’ terrorist and drug-trafficking hit list.
The park, a UNESCO World Heritage-listed site, is strewn with hundreds of stone statues, tombs and burial mounds. The elaborately carved monoliths have anthropomorphic and zoomorphic features. Some have been likened to the moai on Easter Island, but the sex-crazed monkey and his sidekicks, which include serpent-headed humans and a cheeky-looking owl with a snake in its beak, are much odder.
There are signposts around the site carrying information about these mysterious ruins, but I glean more by eavesdropping on a German couple’s tour with an English-speaking guide. It’s believed the sculptures were built to honour the dead, the guide tells the Germans, and one theory is that their architects were under the influence of the San Isidro mushroom, a powerful hallucinogenic fungus found around here.
The tribes, who first settled here around 3000BC, had dispersed by the time of the Spanish invasion in the early 1500s, and the ruins remained hidden for centuries until they were discovered by a Catholic priest in the eighteenth century. Unimpressed by the sight of sex-crazed monkeys, he regarded the sculptures as works of the devil. Today, a group of more open-minded Colombian teenagers on a school field trip is posing for silly photographs beside them.
With my inner Indiana Jones sated for a while, I head west to Popayan, a place that captured my imagination in 2009 when I was last in Colombia.
While the route from Bogotá to San Agustin is paved and smooth, the road onward isn’t so much a road as a series of bumpy, winding dirt tracks that skirt precipitous cliff edges. It takes us six hours to travel the 135 kilometres to Popayan. At one point, out in the sticks, a raven-haired young beauty in high heels gets on the bus. The driver and his assistant don’t know where to look – a problem Luis would never have had. She sits next to me and spends the whole journey texting her boyfriend.
Popayan is every bit as splendid as I remember. Once a key outpost of the Spanish Empire – an important stop-off between Bogotá and Quito (now capital of Ecuador) – Popayan is arguably Colombia’s prettiest colonial city after Cartagena. But where Cartagena is a blaze of colour and vibrancy, Popayan is more sober and conservative. Its grid of cobblestone streets and large central plaza are decorated with elegant, whitewashed mansions, monasteries and churches.
On 31 March 1983, the so-called White City was flattened by a 5.5-magnitude earthquake. The British writer Charles Nicholl, travelling through Colombia investigating the country’s cocaine trade, was here when it struck. In his compelling book, The Fruit Palace, he describes the carnage of the earthquake, which killed around 300 people and demolished the historic town centre.
Lovingly pieced back together, with older baroque buildings given some sterling twentieth-century touches, Popayan is a joy to saunter around. There are some intriguing diversions, including colonial and pre-Hispanic history museums, art galleries, lavish church interiors and hilltop panoramas. I browse frantic food and clothes markets, witness one of the city’s Catholic-inspired street parades, and mingle with students in bars that pump out everything from salsa and tango to reggaetón and David Guetta.
A fine place for cafe hopping, Popayan is a UNESCO City of Gastronomy. Its restaurants serve both international fare and local Spanish and indigenous cuisine, with recipes that have been passed down through generations. You can try offbeat dishes such as chunchullo (fried cows’ intestines), but I instead stick to the more traditional soup, corn and rice-based affairs, washed down with glasses of tropical fruit juices, one of Colombia’s fortes.
Popayan’s charms can keep you entranced for days, but it’s surrounded by fascinating side-trip options too, including Silvia, a predominantly indigenous town where traders sell handwoven garments and beaded necklaces, and the Purace National Park, an Andean wonderland of volcanoes, snow-dusted peaks, hot springs and mountain lakes.
Penetrating deeper into remote Colombia, I gawp at sublime Andean scenery from my window seat. There’s one place, though, that I’m keeping my eyes peeled for. Travelling from Ecuador into Colombia in 2009, I didn’t know Las Lajas existed. When I saw a photo of it later in my trip, I couldn’t believe I’d missed it.
About seven kilometres east of the fairly nondescript Colombian border town of Ipiales lies the church and sanctuary of Las Lajas, built in dramatic neo-Gothic style, incongruous in its sheer scale and sharp manmade angles amid all the freeform fecundity of the verdant valley in which it lies. Spanning a river gorge, surrounded by mountainous greenery, it marks the spot where a lightning-illuminated silhouette of the Virgin Mary apparently appeared during a heavy storm in 1754.
After admiring the church interior – flush with stained-glass windows – I rub shoulders with pilgrims, miracle seekers and vendors selling souvenirs, snacks and terrible instant coffee, before scaling a lofty vantage point lording it over Las Lajas. When I reach the top, slightly breathless, I see a man taking photographs. Glancing up, he says in a strong Liverpudlian accent what I’ve been thinking.
“Bloody amazing, isn’t it? It’s almost made a believer out of me.” He’s not wrong.
Sex-crazed monkeys aside, it’s one of the most extraordinary things I’ve ever seen.
If there were anywhere on earth to indulge a drug lord fantasy, it’s where I’m standing: poolside with a coconut mojito at Envy Roof Top bar, 18 floors above the streets of Medellín, Colombia’s former cocaine capital. And she’s definitely looking the part.
It’s dusk and hundreds of pastel pink skyscrapers are lighting up the sub-tropical Aburrá Valley like the bejewelled décolletage of a gangster’s mistress. Picture Rio de Janeiro’s urban tropicana, but cram it into the Andes and scoop the waters of Ipanema onto private rooftops and you have this view.
This is where the most notorious drug smuggler of all time built an empire on alkaloids. At the height of his reign, Pablo Escobar spent $3000 dollars a month on the rubber bands he needed to stack US hundred-dollar bills in his warehouses. In 1989 Forbes estimated his personal net worth at US$3.5 billion dollars – at the time his cartel controlled more than 80 per cent of the global cocaine market.
As Envy completes a transition from Saturday pool party to chic evening bar, I imagine I can see vestiges of this intoxicating era of criminal wealth. Designer labels, diamonds, gold chains and silicon reflect in cocktail glasses directly across from the bar’s key feature: a clear Perspex wall that transforms the neon-lit pool into a human fish tank. It’s exactly how I imagine a drug lord would roll and reminds me that Escobar built his own private zoo, complete with hippos in a lake, at his hacienda. But like the hippos (according to headlines they’ve since escaped and are causing havoc) Escobar’s business proved impossible to keep clean and controlled. It fuelled a decades-long civil conflict, earning Colombia the mantle of the world’s murder capital by 1992. By 1993 Escobar was dead – killed in a 15-month, $100 million special operation that distinguished the bloody high-water mark of Colombia’s dark years.
Fortunately, the red tide has long since receded and Medellín is in the midst of reclaiming the narrative. At the foot of the building a booming restaurant and nightlife scene is more typical of the new Medellín. In the words of the former mayor Sergio Fajardo, the city is moving “from fear to hope” and building a reputation on festivals and tango rather than its criminal past.
But with two Hollywood features on Escobar in the making, Medellín won’t be able to shake the King of Cocaine’s shadow anytime soon. And for tonight, with Envy’s 270-degree panorama urging me to order another mojito, it’s a safe place to indulge a dangerous fantasy, even if it’s only in my imagination.
Hanging above a deep and seemingly endless black hole, the window cleaner’s basket in which I am standing jerks to life and begins to drop. After a nailbiting couple of minutes descending in the dark, we touch down. I am now inside a volcano.
Iceland is an incredible world of fire and ice, topped with creaking glaciers, bubbling mud pools, geysers and an astonishing country-length crack in the ground that marks the continental divide between Europe and the Americas.
But there is nothing more spectacular than this.
After clattering down a narrow chute, past sharp, spiked rock walls and a deep, red blowhole that mimics the jaws of hell, we have a gentle landing at the bottom of Thrihnukagigur volcano’s cavernous magma chamber, the only accessible one of its kind in the world.
Stepping out across the boulder-strewn floor, it is hard to stay upright as I stumble my way around, taking in a roof blotched with volcanic deposits that look like a modern art version of the Sistine Chapel, painted by a rather disturbed and angry artist.
The silence is eerie, the only noise comes from the continuous plop of water drops seeping through the earth, hitting the ground and echoing through the damp air. Coupled with the psychedelic views, the experience is mesmerising.
All too soon, it’s time to return to the surface. “You can stay down here if you want,” offers my guide, Bjorn, with a cheeky smile. “Take my radio and we’ll come back down and pick you up in 15 minutes or so. It’ll be fine.”
The chance to experience complete isolation from the world in this incredible place is tempting. But then I remember that we’re sitting right on top of the lava hotbed that caused Eyjafjallajökull to violently rumble to life in 2010 without warning, just 100 kilometres away. Erm, maybe next time…
I’m standing at the side of a gently sloping, snow-covered cobblestone street in the old centre of Zell am See in the Austrian Alps, along with several thousand of the town’s inhabitants.
Strings of fairy lights illuminate the quaint buildings, festooned with Christmas decorations. Families and friends chat and laugh, digging gloved hands deep into coat pockets to stay warm. It’s a cheery scene until silence suddenly sweeps over the crowd as the white snow at the top of the hill darkens and scores of terrifying-looking, fur-covered horned beasts brandishing whips and chains appear and descend en masse toward us. Fear replaces the smiles on the children’s faces.
An easy train ride from Vienna, Austria’s laid-back lakeside resort town of Zell am See is usually a sedate hamlet best known to foreign visitors as an affordable winter sports destination, thanks to its reliable early-season snow and great value accommodation. A ski lift in the centre of town whizzes people up to Schmittenhöhe Mountain in minutes and a low-key après-ski scene, offering little more than cosy bars and a delightful Christmas market, ensures most people focus their energy on the snow during daylight hours and chilling out in the evenings. Except for one evening of the season. My snowboarding husband and I have come to see what it’s all about.
Stroll around Zell am See most nights in early winter and things are quiet. Soon after the snow-sports enthusiasts have alighted from the last lifts and trudged back to their chalets and hotels with skies on their shoulders and snowboards under their arms, shopkeepers start to lock up and head to their local bar for something warming before heading home. Travellers like us, here for the early snow, head to the supermarket to pick up wine and cheese or to a pizzeria for an early dinner, while families take a stroll around the traffic-free streets, little ones on their shoulders, to admire the decorations.
Once the Christmas market opens groups of friends, families and couples, locals and tourists alike, do a lap of the dozen or so craft stalls in wooden cabins, browsing lavender sachets, wooden toys and woollen beanies, scarves and socks knitted by little old ladies. Afterwards, they line up for soothing cups of glühwein (mulled wine) and sizzling sausages served in soft rolls, taking their mittens off to warm their icy hands over open gas stoves in between sips and bites. It’s yuletide gaiety. Enter the demons.
It all begins fairly quietly on 5 December, the Eve of St Nicholas Day in Austria and other European alpine countries, where, it turns out, Saint Nic has a devilish sidekick called Krampus. It’s his night, Krampusnacht, and he’s about to appear and terrorise the town in a Krampus ‘run’ called Krampuslauf.
Krampus, I soon learn, means ‘claw’, and while Saint Nic’s beast-like mate appears in many incarnations he usually sports long, sharp claws, hooves, goat horns, a hairy brown or black coat and a long, lolling tongue that I’d rather he kept in his mouth. Unfortunately, there is more than one. While the Krampus characters traditionally represented different wild pagan spirits from Germanic folklore, these days they look more like guys from one of those Nordic heavy metal bands having a bad hair day. And while the Krampus creatures traditionally carried birch branches, nowadays they’re replaced with more menacing whips and more painful chains.
Either way, Krampus in no way resembles the rotund, rosy-cheeked, white-haired, sack-of-presents-carrying Father Christmas I wanted to cuddle and whose beard I dreamed of tugging as a child. Krampus is the anti-Santa, the devil incarnate, and when I see him – multiplied – for the first time, like a child I just want to get as far away as I can. Which is exactly what it seems the poor little kids of Zell am See want to do when, at 7pm at the top of that snow-dusted street, the terrifying monsters appear and commence their procession of terror through the town.
You see, in this part of Europe, if children have been nice during the year they’re destined to receive lovely presents from Saint Nicholas on 6 December. But if they’ve been naughty they instead get a nightmare-inducing scare if they’re little, a spanking if they’re a bit older, and if they’re a teenager they’re probably up for a beating from the demonic Krampus. It’s during the previous day the poor things figure out if they’ve been naughty or nice.
If the kids are lucky or have kind parents, mum or dad will conceal them, allowing them to watch from between their legs or beneath their coats. But if they’re not and a child is singled out by the Krampus, at best they can expect a swat with a birch branch, at worst a thorough whipping.
Energised by a morning on the snow and fuelled by an afternoon drinking the bitter herbal alcoholic spirit Jägermeister, I get the impression the sadistic monsters are enjoying their night of fancy dress a little too much. Nobody is safe. When my husband and I, legs and arms stinging despite our layers of winter woollies, agree we’ve had enough pain for a while – after all, the procession continues for two hours – we decide to temporarily escape the madness.
We retreat to a bar, rubbing the welts that are no doubt appearing on our legs and arms beneath our coats, and find the bartender shaking her head as the screams of terrified children follow us inside. “They’re idiots,” she says of the Krampus beasts, pouring us glasses of steaming mulled wine. “They run riot. They’re usually drunk by now and their sweaty suits stink,” she says, crinkling up her nose.
When we emerge 10 minutes later, a teenage boy is on the ground, obviously having been knocked out in the cold after a hiding and having slipped over on the ice. The ugly ogres continue to stream down the street, chasing teenage girls, flogging boys and hauling small children over their shoulders and running off with them down the street. We decide to stick to the back row for the rest of the show.
As the last of the Krampus monsters disappears in the direction of the main square, toward the towering Christmas tree glittering with glass baubles and shiny gifts, we make our way to an outdoor bar for some more glühwein.
Turn up the music, add another layer or three, grab a whip and fill your pockets with tiny bottles of Jägermeister, and it’s probably an interesting night out. But it sure as hell isn’t a very nice thing to do with little kids.
It’s the beating heart of Canada’s French-speaking Quebec region. More diverse, modern and vibrant than the capital Quebec City, it's big enough to have all the arts, music and culture you could want, but is still small enough to feel accessible. And we haven't even mentioned what happens in Montreal at night. The influence of immigrant communities from Europe and other parts of the world has helped create one of North America’s most progressive, easygoing and up-for-it cities, famous for food, festivals and creative talent, from Cirque du Soleil to Arcade Fire.
5.00pm
Start, as the French settlers did, at Pointe-à-Callière on the banks of St Lawrence River. Gallic explorers landed here in 1642 and spread across the region. With the towers of Notre-Dame Basilica on your left, walk along the waterfront, accompanied by local rollerbladers and cyclists, to the Old Port. Stop at Place Jacques-Cartier for a coffee at one of the cafes’ outdoor terraces, although you should be warned they’re touristy, pricey and often crowded. Another option worth exploring is the collection of small art galleries along Rue Saint-Paul and Rue Saint-Amable.
5.30pm
Past the statue of Nelson and a short walk down Rue Notre-Dame is Saint-Laurent’s BIXI bike station. Quebec’s bike-sharing project, which Melbourne’s MBS system is based on, is a popular way to get quickly from A to B, and visitors armed with a credit card can use it. Time for a drink? Crescent Street, in the heart of Downtown, is a lively area of bars and restaurants and one of the few places you’re likely to hear more English than French spoken. For something more bohemian and Franco-flavoured, head to the Latin Quarter. You can ditch the bike at the BIXI spot on the corner of Rue Sanguinet.
6.00pm
It’s just one block to Le Sainte-Élisabeth. This buzzing pub’s booths and dark leather sofas are filled with students, workers and travellers quaffing the local tap beers, but it’s the outdoor terrace and beer garden, surrounded by vine-covered walls and packed during summer, that makes this pub one of Montreal’s most famous. For something more rockin’, go around the corner to Les Foufounes Électriques, an industrial beer hall with pool tables, foosball and a band room downstairs. A fixture on the scene since 1983, it plays host to a heavily tattooed crowd, with punk and rock turned up to 11.
7.00pm
Move from the Quartier Latin to the Quartier des Spectacles. Notice the red lights on the street? Until recently this area was Montreal’s red-light district, and the arts and music venues display rose-coloured globes along the footpaths in a playful tribute to the past. Join an arty crowd on the top floor of the SAT (Society for Arts and Technology) building. Choose from the large bar and dining area bedecked with fairy lights, the outdoor roof terrace or a domed chill-out room with long, comfy cushions. All the senses are catered to, with DJ sets, live music, art, visuals and food. Chefs Michelle Marek and Seth Gabrielse change the menu at SAT’s Foodlab every two weeks, showcasing local ingredients in cuisines from around the world.
8.00pm
Stroll through the Quartier des Spectacles and past Place des Artes, home to the city’s opera hall. Take a moment to watch the colourfully lit water fountains or, if visiting in summer, join the crowds at one of the free events that make up Montreal’s hundred or so festivals every year. In the huge open-air plaza of Place des Festivals, there may be a little jazz being played or a comedian getting some laughs.
8.30pm
Also known as the Main, Saint Lawrence Boulevard (or Boulevard Saint-Laurent in French) is the major commercial and cultural street that once divided the poorer French districts of the city’s east from the more affluent Anglo side. Its southern section, featuring impressive wall-covering murals that are part of the regeneration of this slightly worn-down area, arrives at the city’s flat borough known as the Plateau. Montrealers have a reputation for liking beer as much as the Brits and Aussies. Stop for a cold one at Reservoir, popular with artists and film-industry folk. Laid-back beats play and, in the summer, the large front window is opened to the street. Through the glass behind the bar, you can see metal tanks of the beer made on site, travelling all of five metres from tank to table.
9.00pm
There’s far more to Montreal’s music scene than Céline Dion. The city has produced Leonard Cohen, Rufus Wainwright, Grimes and world-class jazz musicians. You’ll pass by the home of Montreal’s most famous son, Monsieur Cohen, as you wander through Little Portugal and into the hipster Mile End district. In recent times, this area has become populated by musos, artists, filmmakers and photographers, partly inspired by the presence of Arcade Fire. Stop at Casa Del Popolo, one of two music venues (along with Centro Social Español across the street) owned and run by Efrim Menuck of Montreal noisemakers Godspeed You! Black Emperor. A veggie cafe by day, by night it transforms into a cool bar with bands in the back room bashing out the sounds of the underground, from garage rock and punk to indie and experimental.
10.30pm
Just a short walk away is Buvette Chez Simone. Honestly, this is a restaurant – it only feels like a club. A female DJ is at the decks behind the bar, dancing with the staff and revving up the night’s drinkers and diners with house music and 80s classics. Find a quiet(ish) spot at the back and order delicious plates of charcuterie and cheese. The menu changes often, but if fried balls of mackerel are available, you’re onto a winner.
12.00am
By 1am, Salon Daomé is pumping, so unless you want to wait in line it’s best to arrive soon after midnight. It’s a local hotspot for good reason: the atmosphere’s friendly, laid-back and unpretentious, with an intimate lounge feel, mirror balls, arresting visuals, and – most importantly – energetic electronic music that will keep you on the floor till the early hours. Hands down one of the best things to do in Montreal at night.
3.00am
There’s only one way to soak up the booze: with the Québécois ‘delicacy’ poutine. La Banquise serves classic poutine – a heaped portion of French fries, cheese curd and gravy – as well as more novel versions like La Elvis, with added beef mince, capsicum and mushrooms. A lighter, classier post-club option is to stop by landmark St-Viateur Bagel, here since 1957 and open 24 hours. If your get-up-and-go hasn’t gone by now, take your late-night feast to the top of Mont Royal (taxi recommended) to watch the sun come up over this never-disappointing city.
Wild-eyed Kent lurched towards the cliff edge and yelled: “I’ll jump for ya!”
I must have given him a look that screamed CRAZY CANUCK because he quickly qualified his offer: “I’ve done it plenty of times. I grew up around here.”
And then he leapt, arms flapping like rotor blades, off the 20-metre cliff and into the foaming sea below. It seemed an eternity before his head popped, cork-like, out of the brine, and the breath I’d been holding was finally granted its exit.
Cape Breton Highlands National Park, on the northern tip of Canada’s island province of Nova Scotia, is no place for the faint-hearted. It’s a wild concoction of spectacular scenery – vertigo-inducing highlands, Tolkien-esque river canyons and craggy cliffs that plunge (like Kent) into the icy sea. I’d come halfway around the world to explore this earth’s-end landscape, on trails that snake along exposed mountain tops, through peat bogs and into coastal fishing villages, complete with centuries-old lighthouses that, it seems, time has mislaid.
And then there’s the wildlife. Moose roam free here, and spotting them can be nigh on impossible or ridiculously easy – I saw two ‘hiding’ in a sapling forest a stone’s throw from a perfectly groomed golf course (Highland Links – yep, there’s sophistication amid the wilderness). I’d spent the two days before that trekking up hill and down dale, and mired in peat bogs following moose tracks that afforded me not even a glimpse of an antler. Still, hiking boots covered in muck and legs stinging from the unrelenting exertion, it was worth every step.
Access to the park is via the Cabot Trail, without doubt one of the world’s most scenic drives and a favourite with motorcyclists. It’s 300 kilometres of smooth, bitumen road that hugs the rugged coastline and skirts a seemingly endless azure sea (the Gulf of St Lawrence on the north-western edge of the island, and the Atlantic Ocean in the east). Heading inland, it wends through spectacular Canadian maple forests that morph from lime green in summer to waves of red, orange and brilliant yellow come autumn.
When Kent finally made it back to the top of the cliff he was deliriously pumped. “Did you see that? Cool, wasn’t it? Buddy, I can do it again if you want… You wanna jump too?”
Despite the voice in my head screaming “Do it! Do it!” I declined. I had somewhere else to be, I explained. The Skyline Trail. Kent nodded his approval. “That’s cool. It’s a brilliant walk. Look for moose! The big guys hang out around there.”
The 9.2-kilometre Skyline Trail is one of the most popular tracks in the park, and loops atop an impressive coastal headland. I followed a grassy path through fir trees and over roots and rocks to a bog surrounded by sweetly scented pines and earthy peat moss. There were moose tracks everywhere. Promising, Kent, promising.
As I walked west towards the coast, the forest thinned to reveal expansive views of the sea. It was spectacular; the frothing waves of the Gulf of St Lawrence – the world’s largest estuary and the outlet of the Great Lakes of North America – lapped at the horizon.
Roughly halfway along the track I joined a boardwalk that traced the spine of the mountain. The panorama was sublime: to my left, row upon row of pine-clad peaks, and to my right, nothing but deep blue sea. At the boardwalk’s end – a viewing platform at the edge of the cliff – I pulled off my pack and sat, watching the waves roll and roll and roll. Amazingly, I spotted a pod of long-finned pilot whales not too far offshore, flukes slapping on the surface (a practice known as lobtailing).
Difficult as it was to drag myself away from such beauty, back on the Skyline loop I became immersed in the plant life – the pines were stunted from years of being lashed by wind and the peat bogs were a drawcard for all manner of animals, from the snowshoe hare and white-tailed deer to the black bear. I’d stopped to check out a golden dragonfly hovering over a pitcher plant when I heard the press of heavy hooves on soil and looked up to see a moose. It was a male, with antlers as wide as he was long. He took one look at me and ambled away. Breathtaking.
The park is littered with walking tracks like this – scenically stunning and not too hard on the heart. But if you’re looking for one that really gets the blood pumping, try Franey, a steep 7.4-kilometre loop to the 425-metre peak of craggy Franey Mountain. From here the 360-degree view takes in the impressive Clyburn River Canyon, which cuts a path eastward to the Atlantic Ocean. For moose spotters, the three-kilometre Benjie’s Lake trail is most likely to deliver the goods, while beaver lovers should tackle the 1.7-kilometre Freshwater Lake trail, on the southeast edge of the park.
In total, Cape Breton Highlands National Park has 26 designated hiking and mountain-biking trails, as well as eight campgrounds. It’s a wildlife haven, and tucked up in my tent at night I’d hear the forest rustle with movement. A moose? A bear? A cheeky lynx trying to sniff out treats from my dillybag, which was hidden away in a nearby bear-proof food locker?
There are also sleepy coastal villages in which you can rest your weary bones (away from the wildlife) and soak up the island’s rich maritime and Scottish heritage.
Scots first came to the island in the 1770s, and today it’s home to the largest Gaelic community outside Scotland, which continues many fine traditions from the homeland, including Celtic fiddling, step-dancing and producing the best melt-in-your-mouth shortbread I’ve ever eaten. Drizzled with the ubiquitous Canadian maple syrup, it’s fuel for all-day adventuring.
The towns of Inverness on the west coast and Baddeck on the east both brim with Gaelic-inspired food and culture, and in homes, restaurants, pubs and community halls, céilidhs raise the roof pretty much every weekend. Informal social gatherings featuring Scottish dancing, music and storytelling, they’re as much a part of the fabric of the island as the word ‘eh’ is to Canada as a whole.
After a week in the wilderness I stopped in Baddeck to sample a local delicacy pulled straight from the sea. “So what is planked salmon?” I asked of my host at Baddeck Lobster Suppers. While my friends dug into steaming bowls of seafood chowder then a bucket of freshly steamed mussels followed by lobster (a steal at roughly $22 per kilogram, compared to $65 in Australia), I watched as my thick fillet of salmon was laid on a plank of timber in an outdoor cooking hut 15 metres away and drizzled in maple syrup over and over again, before being skilfully squeezed between two grill plates and sizzled over hardwood coals. It was well worth the wait; the sweet and fishy flavours danced a delicious jig in my mouth.
Later that night, in the jovial embrace of the Thistledown Pub, I listened to the lilting voice of a local Scot who reeled off song after song in praise of Nova Scotia and, more specifically, Cape Breton. “Music is central to our lives,” he said. “You’ll find most families play the fiddle or the bagpipes or sing or step-dance. It’s just who we are.”
Renowned for its music, Baddeck is equally celebrated as the beloved home of inventor extraordinaire Alexander Graham Bell. Born and raised in Edinburgh and most famous for inventing the telephone, Bell moved to Baddeck with his family in 1885, looking for “a place of salt water, mountains and valleys” where he and his wife Mabel could “put [our] little girls in trousers and live a simple, free and unconventional life”.
Located in Baddeck, the Alexander Graham Bell Museum, a national historic site, is an intriguing place. Bell was a prolific inventor (according to one of his biographers his work ranged “unfettered across the scientific landscape”), and his countless creations are on show here, from a metal jacket used to assist in breathing (a precursor to the iron lung) to a device for locating icebergs. There are also composting toilets, air-conditioning units and the biplane Silver Dart, which, in 1909, made the first powered flight in the British Empire. It took off from the ice-covered waters of Bras d’Or Lake, over which the museum presides.
His ever-enquiring mind and appreciation for the raw beauty of nature allowed Bell to see the value in a geographic journal of record, and in 1888 he became one of the founding members of the National Geographic Society.
A small plaque in the museum sums up Bell’s thoughts on the society and, I suspect, his move to wild and untamed Cape Breton. It reads:
“We should not keep forever on the public road going only where others have gone; we should leave the beaten track occasionally and enter the woods.”
As the sun sets over the ocean in front of Bali’s chic Potato Head Beach Club, Leo Boys and Anya Montague place the finishing touches on their creations. A pink beach umbrella, whipped cream, a slice of orange and some ‘edible sand’ – actually crushed biscuits – accompany the bright-blue Hi Life rum cocktails. The couple, who call themselves the Travelling Bartenders, believe the name of the cocktail perfectly sums up what their life has become.
Both from England, they have spent the past couple of years working in bars around the world and helping set up new venues. Twenty-two-year-old Boys began bartending in clubs four years ago and met Montague, now 21, when he hired her to work in a small cocktail bar in his home town of Brighton while she was doing her teaching degree there.
Montague had travelled extensively with her family as a child, even living in a yoga ashram in India for a few months when she was eight years old. On a trip to Borneo, she’d tried her hand at making cocktails for guests at a small resort, but it was Boys’s passion for concocting new mixes that really drew her to a career that is about as far away from blackboards as you can get. “Seeing someone so passionate about making drinks is magnetic,” she says. “It awoke a fire in me to be the best I could be.”
Boys started altering the roster each week to ensure they had the same shifts, giving him time to work his charms and teach her the tricks of the trade. During the coming months love blossomed. Boys, however, had already committed to a job in Hawaii, helping set up Tiki Iniki on the north shore of the island of Kauai for musician Todd Rundgren and his wife Michele. “I was heartbroken when I had to leave Anya at the airport,” he says. “I was meant to open the bar with two friends of mine from London, but they had a mix-up with their visas and couldn’t come so I went it alone at first.
“Anya always planned to come out, so in the end I asked the owner if I could hire her again and she said yes. She flew out a week a later. Somewhere down the line we decided to just stay on the road – we haven’t looked back since.”
The couple started a blog on Tumblr (www.travellingbartenderslog.tumblr.com) to document their travels. Originally about them, it now features bartenders from all the corners of the globe, the amazing places they work and the incredible creations they concoct.
As well as the bar in Hawaii, Boys travelled to Puerto Rico with Don Q Rum last year for a distillery tour and the couple spent a few months travelling around Thailand – doing “research and development” in a lot of Bangkok bars – before arriving in Bali last October. Montague clearly remembers the first time she entered the doors at Potato Head: “You walk through this huge colosseum made from vintage Balinese shutters into an incredible metropolis of bars, restaurants, beds, an infinity pool, the beach and the most incredible pink, purple and red sunsets.”
They then helped Potato Head owners Ronald Akili and Jason Gunawan set up a new concept in Jakarta, doing a few guest shifts at the Potato Head brasserie there, before heading to Singapore for another new project with the same people and the occasional night behind the bar at 28 Hongkong Street.
Employers have come to see them as a package deal and are attracted to their energy and creativity. “We like using interesting flavours, fresh ingredients and quality spirits and we don’t like using stuff that’s not necessary,” Boys says. “It’s all about using what’s local – the drinks are always inspired by where we are. Anya made this unreal caramelised banana puree in Bali and we used it to make a bourbon milkshake.”
Sometimes it’s not just the drinks attracting attention, with the couple admitting the clientele will often sit at the bar intently watching them work together. “Leo will be pouring rum into my tin while I put straws into the drink he’s just made,” Montague says. “Sometimes I hear him call my name and without thinking I know to step back and suddenly there’s dragon fire blowing past my nose!”
While there are certainly times when the duo misses home, Boys admits he loves being able to live in warmer climates and experience amazing countries. “You get a lot of inside knowledge from staff about places, and bartenders in Asia are so grateful for giving them new skill sets and helping them improve,” he says. “It’s really satisfying seeing them grow.”
On the research trip to Thailand, the couple also spent a few days relaxing on an island in the north called Koh Mak. “We saw maybe five other tourists the whole time we were there,” Montague says. “It was how you imagine the Thai islands back in the early 90s. But don’t tell anyone.”
It hasn’t all been smooth sailing during their travels. They ran out of cash in Hawaii and had to go for around a month with little money for food. “We literally lived off the land,” Boys says. “I learned to bake bread and Anya picked kale and fruit – basically whatever we could find. At the time it sucked, but now, looking back on it, it was so much fun. I have fond memories of foraging on the Garden Island.”
Also not entirely idyllic was the very un-touristy market Boys found himself in at the end of the train line in Bangkok. Nobody spoke English and there were animals being slaughtered everywhere. “The poor guy spent the day dodging puddles of blood and overly keen lady boys,” Montague says.
Taking an easy-going approach to money and plans, Boys and Montague nevertheless can’t see themselves returning to the UK any time soon. “We could end up working for Potato Head at one of their new ventures, or setting up a gin bar in the Himalayas,” Montague says. “Who knows?”
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