Executive Summary (and moralizing)

For all you executives out there reading my blog - you know who you are - this one's for you.

You: who don't have time to read the whole blog. Here's the trip in a nutshell.

You'll also find the moral(s) to my story - the place where I sum up what I learned from this trip, why it was worth it all in the end, why I did it, and how I've grown as a person from it.

But keep in mind - those of you who are skipping all my finely considered prose and just reading this executive summary - I'm offering special prizes to all who claim to have read the whole blog and can answer three questions testing their knowledge of what is contained in these pages...

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
I spent a month canoeing through the Czech Republic, from roughly its centre to its western border with Germany, where I stopped paddling because I wasn't having much fun. The trip failed to live up to my expectations because: (1) almost no one spoke English, so I was by myself and lonely most of the time, and (2) paddling upstream for nearly 20 days (240 km) was a real pain.

Stats
Total km paddled/wheeled: 485
Total days paddled/wheeled: 24
Total days off: 5
Total paddle strokes (estimate): 288,000
Total beer consumed en route (estimate): 30 litres
Total rocks hit: 5,641

I decided on a whim to backtrack to Karlovy Vary for the International Film Festival there, where I watched 3 films a day for 9 days, while camping in a stadium with hordes of other film buffs. It was the best film fest I've ever been to. I had a great time. I managed through much effort to sell my canoe to a fellow in Prague at a great discount, and headed for Slovenia for no good reason.

The couchsurfer I stayed with in Slovenia got me into climbing that country's highest mountain, Triglav, which I did - and it was the best experience of the trip. I finished my week-long stay in Slovenia on the Adriatic coast.

On the way back to Amsterdam to catch my flight home, I stopped in to visit Vikki and her boyfriend Sergio (they had joined me for a few days of paddling earlier) in Bern . Loved it.

The End


Now for the moralizing:

"Why did I need to do this?" I often asked myself. I've been home for 3 weeks now, and the answer is still in progress. I've developed various theories (and they all hold some truth, I think): that I needed to suffer to make me appreciate how good my life was; that I needed to exorcise unfinished business from my 20s - like the idea for this trip - before I could grow up and move on. Now, I think I just needed to make a break with my life in Wakefield. I could have done anything. I just needed to halt the forward momentum (or was it kick me out of my inertia?) of my complacent, easy, contented, unchallenging, unambitious life. Throw a wrench in its works.

One of the personal realizations that grew out of this trip was that I have consciously set up all sorts of limitations on my life and what I can do, believing, perhaps, that I could find happiness by narrowing my options, shaving them down to fine point. But I painted myself into a corner here in Wakefield - made my world so small that I became desperate to break out. I still think Wakefield is a very nice place to live - and plan to continue making my home here - but it can no longer be my whole world.

It was silly, I suppose, to try to make it so. But it's the same old story with me: swinging from one extreme until I'm driven to the other; I live in Toronto, then flee to Wakefield.

The trip also raised the question for me: is there much value in travel anymore? Maybe 50 years ago, before globalization had really taken off, and tourism to boot, travel was a way to experience truly different cultures. But now, much of the world is different only in superficial details, and the parts of the world that are still quite different are usually also quite fucked up, and not places you'd want to go.

Now, I feel a much stronger desire to get to know this region better - I've never explored the Laurentians or the Eastern townships, for instance, or New England - than to travel to distant places.

Somehow, also, this crazy trip has made me more normal. I've seen how I've been afraid of "normal" my whole life (another self-imposed limitation), and how this trip was part of that. I couldn't simply behave like all the other tourists in Europe - I had to do something never done before. Yet when I quit my supposedly adventurous canoe trip and started seeing Europe in a way closer to other tourists (although, admittedly, couchsurfing is not exactly mainstream, at least not yet), I enjoyed myself much more. Next time, I may even buy a guide book.

Is Europe better than Canada? That was one question in the back of my brain as I left for this trip. I had chosen Europe for my destination because I didn't want to go to another oh-so-interesting-in-its-disfunctionality Third World country. I wanted to go somewhere where they seemed to have it a bit more together - socially and environmentally - than we in North America. It's a hard question to answer after so short a trip, but my impression is quite positive of Europe. It's not that it's significantly better, but in subtle ways, I prefered the cultures I found there to Canadian culture. Perhaps the most significant difference I noticed was that Europeans seemed generally less afraid of each other than Canadians. I think that our much vaunted politeness is actually a sign of our fear of each other; it stems not from graciousness but from a reluctance to get involved, to open up to strangers, to be intimate. Perhaps because we have the space here, we tend to take it (that and our largely British heritage, of course). But in Europe, they don't have the option of running away so much. They must engage each other.

I don't want to overstate my case, though. Canada is a wonderful place to live, and in some ways is better than Europe, such as with multiculturalism. Europeans, with their more rigid sense of national identies, have a harder time with immigrants than we do. Also, Europeans have lousy breakfasts - how I missed the greasy spoons of my birthplace.

Was the trip "worth it"? I suppose I got what I needed out of it - but I don't think it was particularly good value. I didn't need to blow all my savings to get what I needed, and I could have had a lot more fun doing it.

Anyway, believe it or not, I'm not sick of canoeing yet. In fact, I'm just killing time here, rambling on about my feelings, etc., while waiting for a friend to come over to take the canoe out on the Gatineau for a little afternoon spin.

Thanks for reading.

Wrapping up: a sea, and more mountains

Piran's rabbit warren of streets.




The town was full of little brown boys playing soccer.



Roofs of Piran. How about some rooftop gardens?



Piran, jutting out to sea.




Piran, with the Julian Alps in the background.

Vikki with her Guatamalan friend, Maura, in Bern, Switzerland.



The Reitschule squat in Bern.





After the emotional and altitudinal highs of climbing Triglav, a couple days of lazing on the beach was the perfect counterpoint. I don't usually enjoy beaches much, but I was tired enough after my climbing and hiking adventure that I didn't get bored of the beach until the second day. And the liberal Mediterranean attitude towards clothing helped too - though I did get a bit burnt in the nether regions.


I first arrived in Piran at around 8 in the evening. I located the hostel, but was determined to camp by the ocean, so set off, fully laden with gear, down the coast, in the direction someone told me there was a campground. The fact that it was back in the direction my bus had just come didn't help my moral. I walked for an hour and a half, the uncushioned straps of my malfunctioning hiking pack raising red marks on my shoulders, the tread of one of my shoes flapping half-off with every step - an incongruous sight shouldering through the relaxed, well-fed and tanned crowds strolling amongst the seaside touristic flotsam. But such was my determination to find a little piece of ocean breeze of which to breath deeply as I drifted into contented sleep, I carried on all the way to the campsite.


The first sight - and sound - that greeted me at the camp was of an accordion, and accompanying singing. A pleasant surprise. But it went steeply downhill from there. The campground was basically a long, thin strip of road and gravel, chain link fences on either side, packed with cars with doors open and radios blaring, and young, partying Slovenians, shouting and drinking. From nearby, the thumping of a dance club competed with the puttering and squealing of a go-kart track. A good time, no doubt, if one were in the mood. But I was not. Fortunately, some respite from the mayhem could be found on some none-too-level terraces of grass somewhat above the throng. I set up camp in the dark, content in the fact that at least this was a degree better than walking endlessly through a tourist wasteland, laden with absurd amounts of canoe camping gear - a portage without a boat.


The next day I checked out Piran. It doesn't take long - it's a small place: a rabbit warren of tiny streets all crowded together on a peninsula jutting out into the Adriatic, with a fortification protecting the old city from the inland side. The coast is an unbroken stretch of restaurants, with large boulders draped in sunbathing bodies, spilling into the calm, clear, warm water. After a few hours of soaking up this Mediterranean atmosphere, I felt more relaxed than I had in weeks. Something about the combination of perfect climate and a civilization that has had centuries to settle into its own rhythms, makes a perfect recipe for contentment.


Later that evening I went for a walk through the hilly suburbs, and passed many a yard from which I could hear the happy sounds of people dining outdoors.


My second day was spent much as the first, except that I considered it the official end of my trip, as tomorrow I would be starting to make my way back to Amsterdam and my flight home. I celebrated that evening with - what else - a plate of spaghetti carbonera, and a huge glass of wine (I found that here, on the Mediterranean coast, the central European fixation on beer gives way to wine, with correspondingly low prices).


A day of travel got me to Bern, the capital of Switzerland, where Vikki and Sergio had landed after they left me in Cheb. Vikki had a Guatemalan friend, named Maura, whom she was visiting there, and she was living in a squat (more on that later).


I tried to find Vikki at the squat, but it was all locked up, and the drug dealers and users outside were no help either, so I took a tram out to the suburbs and a campsite by the Aare river. I love public transit in Europe, and it's especially good in Bern. Electronic signs at stops countdown the minutes until the next tram (never more than 10 minutes), and LCD screens inside the tram display upcoming stops.


The next day I met up with Vikki and she showed me inside the squat. Outside it's covered with graffiti, but inside it has a courtyard covered in ivy, offices for non-profit groups, a gym space, a theatre, a cinema, a bar, and the apartments where Vikki and 13 others live, sharing common areas. It's like a community/cultural centre, where no one pays rent (although the city did recently get them to start paying for utilities). It even has a website (http://www.reitschule.ch/). Such well-organized, city council-recognized squats can be found throughout Europe.

Switzerland is known for its harm reduction programs and general tolerance for hard drug users, and it was in evidence outside the squat. The addicts actually had nothing to do with the squat, but were there because the city encouraged them to congregate in this area by operating a soup kitchen and giving out clean needles nearby. The coordinators of the squat weren't too happy about this, and had complained to city council, but understandably didn't have much leverage with which to bargain with.

So evenings outside the squat form an interesting tableau: over to one side, the junkies huddled over their tinfoil; centre stage, an outdoor bar; and on the other side, a game of ping-pong on an outdoor table. A graduated triptych of depravity. Not a bad place to bring a date.

That afternoon, we made a stab at the H.R. Giger museum (he's the amazing artist, best known for designing the aliens in the the movie, Aliens), in a nearby town. It wasn't quite nearby enough, though, as we failed to make it before closing time. But we did get as far as the town of Fribourg, a 20 minute train ride from Bern. We wandered around the town a bit before heading back; it was French speaking (while Bern is predominantly Swiss-German), and I discovered that, unlike Quebec French, I actually enjoy trying to speak European French. Je m'excuse to mes freres in Quebec, but French on the continent just sounds way nicer to me.

That night, back in Bern, I was treated to a walking tour of the old city - which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site - by Pan: a Swiss friend of Vikki's who used to live in Guatemala. I had an image of the Swiss as a reasonable, quite, unremarkable people, but that was altered significantly by Pan's tour. He showed me fountains topped with colourful statues of people eating live children, huge clocks with figures that become animated when the hour strikes, and Bern's famous bear pit, which has been around since the 16th century (the city is named after the German word for "bear"). But the pit was set to undergo a major transformation: after years of protests from people concerned about the welfare of the bears, a new enclosure is finally being build for them, where they will have access to the river and, presumably, an escape from the rain of debris that tourists and locals could inflict on them at will in the past.

Pan also showed me the Munster, a towering Gothic cathedral, with a scene carved over its main portal depicting the Last Judgement, with the righteous in heaven on the left and the damned in hell on the right. (If ever this scene is updated for modern times, I might suggest using the one outside the squat, with the ping-pong players in heaven, the addicts in hell, and the bar representing the real world.) The hell scene (obviously the one to which I gave most of my attention) was something straight out of Hieronymus Bosch. You can look straight up through the open mouth of one screaming sculpture to the sky above.

We ducked down for a quick look at the ornate dining room in the Kornhaus, a building that used to be a storehouse for wheat and wine and was now a cultural centre. The huge underground space looked like an expensive place to eat, but would probably be worth it for the ambiance alone: thick pillars and arches, dimly and warmly lit, gave a unique sort of bunker/cathedral feel to the space.

Bern is a natural fortress, built in a loop in the river, with high cliffs sealing it off. Looking down vertiginiously from one such cliff, I noticed a net maybe 50 feet below. "Is that to catch people who fall?" I asked Pan.

"There's signs over there," he pointed, "asking people to please not commit suicide here."

Too bad - it's a beautiful place to die.

Walking the streets with Pan, delicious local beers in hand (street drinking is allowed here - in fact, Pan couldn't even comprehend why it would be illegal), I had a hard time seeing why anyone who lived here would want to kill themselves. Indeed, I was struck by how happy and contented most of the people I saw appeared to be. The cost of living is high, but so are wages. Bern reminded me somewhat of Ottawa. And like Amsterdam, it manages to combine Germanic efficiency with a laid-back joi de vive - in other words, the best of both worlds. Also like Amsterdam, there are many bikes and mopeds instead of cars (although no where near the scale of Amsterdam). The city even lends bikes for free by the day.

I had expected a more rigid, conservative Switzerland, but instead found a cosmopolitan place full of strangers who actually talk to each other on the street. Little scenes in Bern - scenes you would never see in Canada - such as a grandfather riding on a push scooter with his grandson, or a family with backpacks departing for a camping trip at the train station, left me with a warm feeling for the place. Although my visit here was brief, I think that Switzerland was my favourite country I visited, and I'd like to go back to see much more of it.

And the surreal thing that happened on my way back to my campsite on my last night there did nothing to diminish my feelings for the place. Pan had ended his nighttime tour at the Rose Garden - a park high up on a hilltop, overlooking the old city and river below. The last tram had left at midnight, so I began the half hour walk along the river to the camp. The streets were deserted. On the second story of a building across the street, my eye caught an open, lighted window. Then I saw the huge black woman in it, cleavage everywhere, holding her breasts up in a clearly propositional manner, eyes imploring: come up. In true Canadian fashion, I smiled a half-smile meant to convey, thanks for the offer, but I'll pass tonight, and quickened my pace from the scene.

And that's pretty much it. Took the train to Amsterdam the next day, sat in a cafe and enjoyed the street life one last time, splurged on a 2-star hotel, and flew home the next day, bumping into a couple of people on the plane I know from Wakefield (one of which I couldn't quite place, until I asked where I knew her from and she said we met skinny dipping at Brown's Lake. Oh yeah...guess I didn't recognize her with her clothes on).

TRIGLAV - part 2

The day began with a bus ride from Ljubljana to the town of Moystrana, a little further north than I had been the previous day; Damjan had said that this was an easier spot to begin an ascent of Triglav from.

It involved a 4 hour hike up the Bistrica river valley to get to the base of the mountain. You could drive this route, but I'm glad I walked, because it was stunningly beautiful. I realized it had been many years since I'd walked among real mountains, and was struck with the feeling: how did I ever live without this?

The fast flowing river was an amazing aquamarine (I think because of all the limestone in the area), the mountains kept looming up higher and higher on either side the further upstream I progressed, and I passed a waterfall that sent me into ecstasies of joy. I'm not sure what it was about this waterfall, called the Pericnik, that made me fall in love with it. It wasn't huge (50 metres), but it was perfect. And you could walk behind it. I spent about an hour admiring it from all angles, dancing about its base like a giddy schoolgirl, before continuing up the valley.

At 4pm I reached the first of the mountain huts that conveniently dot the landscape in Triglav National Park, Slovenia's only national park. This hut (lodge would be a better term), being at the bottom of the mountain, is one of the few that can be reached, and supplied, by car. Most of the others can only be supplied by opposite ends of the technological spectrum: helicopter or mule. Consequentially, food is expensive, washing water is non-existent, and it's recommended you carry all your own drinking water in. Still, it's well worth the cost to not have to carry a tent or food up and down the craggy peaks that comprise the park.

Anyway, I mention the time, 4pm, because the sign at this lodge (altitude 1000 metres) said it was another 4 hours of hiking to get to the next lodge (2300 metres), nestled below the summit of Triglav (2800 metres). It would be cutting it a bit close to make it before nightfall, but I decided to go for it.

Judging from the fact that everyone and their dog climbs this mountain in Slovenia (I did pass someone climbing with their dog), I suppose I had imagined the ascent to simply be a long hike upwards. But as I started to really gain altitude, the reality quickly hit me that this was much more like rock climbing than I had anticipated. The path was basically straight up a thousand foot cliff face. Fortunately, there were many iron rods and handrails hammered into the rock face to assist climbers up the most difficult stretches. It occurred to me that such "defacement" of the wilderness would be a hard sell in Canada; here, we still believe in the preservation of a "pristine" wilderness. In Europe, conversely, people seem to have long ago given up on such notions, accepting that humans live here. It's not unusual to find a castle plunked defiantly atop peaks throughout Europe. To Canadian sensibilities, it might seem a defacement, but I kind of like it. I think that the idea that wilderness can only be "pure" if no trace of humanity can be found in it reinforces the myth that humans are separate from nature. Better, in my opinion, to strike a harmonious balance between nature and civilization. I doubt that there are any mountains in Canada both as high as Triglav and as accessible to novice climbers.

As I climbed, I sweated equal parts exertion and growing fear. A flatlander like me wasn't used to looking down and seeing such dizzying expanses of air beneath. One misstep could easily get you killed up here. Ironically, the higher I got, the more I felt like I was digging myself into a hole; I knew that getting down is usually even harder than getting up. I just tried to focus on the rocks in front of my face, and not looking down - although the view was thrilling. Another irony was that, to climb something so high, you spend most of your time looking down.

I felt I was in something of a race against the setting sun. I was in full sun for most of the climb, as the cliff was facing westward - the shadow cast by another mountain range across the valley slowly creeping up the cliff below me. For hours, the sun seemed to hang at the same height over the opposing mountains - me going up, it going down, the two movements balancing out. Finally, shortly before reaching the lodge, the shadow caught up with me, quickly plunging my sweating body into cool mountain air. I had a quick "bath" in a snowfield.

I reached the lodge just 15 minutes before its kitchen closed, and got a hot meal of sauerkraut and meat soup, and a cold beer. So civilized. The lodge was only about half full, so I got a whole dorm to myself. Man, I slept well.

I got an early start the next morning, wanting to summit early, due to reports of bad weather coming later in the day. It took me an hour and half to walk to the last lodge (2500 metres) before the summit. I paused here for a rest. Inside the cosy confines of the lodge's dining room, I watched a group of Germans getting suited up for the final ascent. They had helmets, poles, and self-belaying systems, for clipping onto the railings. They started me worrying that I was unprepared, gear-wise, for this challenge. I was still wearing the only footwear I'd brought to Europe: water shoes designed for boating.

I went outside to look at the path ahead. It lead straight up. I could see a tiny procession of ant-like climbers inching their way upward. Maybe this is high enough, I thought, trembling from more than the cold. Maybe I don't need to go all the way. But I banished such thoughts; I knew I would regret it if I didn't finish the job at this point, after all the struggle to make it this far. Only another hour to the summit, the signpost said - then I could hightail it back to solid, flat earth before the storm clouds rolled in. How I yearned to be back on ground where to trip would mean nothing worse than embarrassment.

As I climbed I realized that I was now above all the other peaks around me. I tried really hard to concentrate on nothing but the next foot or hand hold in front of my nose.

Then the clouds rolled in. While it was a shame to lose that mind-numbing view, it was also a relief, for I could no longer see just how high I was. I was especially grateful for the lack of a view when I had to walk along the top of a narrow ridge, dropping off into nothingness on either side.

Because there are two paths to the top of Triglav - one on each side of the mountain - I passed a number of people on their way down after climbing to the top from the other side. I stood aside for 5 minutes as a long procession of teenagers passed by - a mixed group of Argentinians and Canadians. They were dressed for a walk in the park: sweatshirts, track pants, sneakers. After seeing the uber-outfitted Germans, it reassured me to see that people less prepared than me had survived the summit. Germans, I have come to realize, are the yuppies of Europe - they're not likely to undertake anything unless they've spent a small fortune on it.

My first hint that I was almost there was the sound of singing: a group of low, male voices carrying through the fog from an indeterminate place slightly above me. When I arrived on the summit I was greeted by the sight of a group of about 20 French "pathfinders" - boy and girl scouts, dressed in brown uniforms of shorts and long-sleeve shirts, white scarves, and black toques. Their leader was backing up, camera in hand, trying to get a group shot, and nearly backed right off a cliff.

There was no great view to savour, due to the clouds - just mist and rock - though at least I had already seen the view in the film I saw earlier. But I did savour the victory for 20 minutes or so, then started heading down the other side of the mountain.

Suddenly the cloud blew away and I was treated to the sight of brilliant white clouds several hundred metres below, and above: the brightest blue sky you could imagine . It was like the view out an airplane window - that same crystal clear light. I was simultaneously treated to a sudden and alarming increase in the wind. I could see the clouds below running into the side of the mountain, then whipping up over the peak like frothing rapids. The weather up there was clearly changing fast. And I wanted to get down even faster.

I made it down to the lower cloud level, back in the bosom of the mist, out of the fierce winds. This path down turned out to be much more gradual than the one I had come up, which was a relief, since it would have been very difficult to descend the cliff I had come up. I even found myself on a (relatively) wide mule track for awhile, doing switchbacks down to the next lodge, at 2100 metres, where I had lunch and something warm to drink.

I spent the rest of the day walking through the park, a different way than I had come in, towards Bohinj lake. Slowly the landscape began to transform from the the weird, alien, rock-strewn world of the high peaks, back to the more familiar world of evergreens, lakes and meadows.

Whenever I passed other hikers, I had to decide how I would greet them. The little guide I received from the tourist office on climbing Triglav suggested saying "dober dan" to those I met - which means "good day" in Slovene. I did this at first, but got few responses in kind, and soon realized that almost all my fellow trekkers were foreign tourists like myself. I heard "hello" in many languages while in the park, and tried out the range of my repetoir. But never knowing the nationality of anyone until they opened their mouth (and often not even then) it was always a crap shoot. So I eventually just settled in to the international language of default, with an English "hi" to all I met.

I finished the day at another lodge that, being beside a lake, had water for a cold outdoor wash by the pump. I met a couple there - an Italian woman and a man from Montreal, both working in Holland. A question I often get is, "How are you able to get 2 months of holidays for travel when you live in Canada?" It seems Europeans are aware of the paucity of North Americans' holidays. I tell them I had to quit my job. I asked this couple how much holidays they get in Holland, 4 weeks maybe? They tell me, somewhat ashamed of their riches, that they get 8 weeks. It must be nice, I think, to work in Holland, and have 2 months a year to see all that Europe has to offer.

The Italian woman voiced the usual disdain for Germans, who were talking at the the next table, and whom she could understand, as she spoke German. "They're always complaining," she complained. Maybe if I could understand them, I would feel the same, but I feel like defending the Germans. All the time I've been in Europe, I've never heard a kind word for them. I suppose they are like the Americans of Europe - the people we love to hate, and are allowed to be prejudiced towards because they're on top. I can understand how being invaded and occupied twice in the last century might turn people against them. But I am impressed by their love of the outdoors, of travel, and of adventure travel in particular. Most people, including Canadians, if they travel at all, it's in their youth. As they get older, they usually just want to go to a beach and bake in the sun. But not Germans. They're out there climbing mountains, paddling rivers, hiking through the wilderness well into their "golden years". They're fit, organized, prepared. If anything, they're too good, and that's what makes people uncomfortable around them.

That night, I had to share my dorm, but still slept well - especially knowing that I was dry and safe from the storm that unleashed rain and lightning outside for much of the night. The next morning I hiked down one last mighty cliff, back down to the waterfall by Bohinj lake I had visited several days ago, and caught a bus back to Ljubljana.

From there I caught the last bus of the day to Piran, a heartbreakingly picturesque medieval town on the tiny stretch of Slovenian Adriadic coast. From the country's highest point, to its lowest, in a day and a half. I could still see Triglav to the north. Climbing it was the high point of my trip.

TRIGLAV - part 1

After the film fest, I blundered into the best experience of my whole trip. You remember that film I described, "The Sunny Side of the Alps"? I suppose it must have planted a seed in my mind, because when I later went to Slovenia, I climbed the same mountain that the father and son climb in that movie (sometimes life imitates art). It's called Triglav, and it's the highest peak in Slovenia, at 2864 metres (almost 10,000 feet), in the Julian Alps.

But I'll remain a slave to chronology, and fill you in on a few other interesting experiences I had before getting to the mountain.

I had a good last day of movies at the film fest, finding at least one romantic comedy to renew my faith in life: Un baiser, s'il vous plait, by "the French Woody Allan", one Emmanuel Mouret

Also saw a half-realized poetic doc called Peace with Seals, made by a Czech about the dying out of the Mediterranian harp seal (tourists are occupying all its beaches). It was ambitious but lacked any narrative arc. There was a scene in it where they're interviewing a white South African man who is a strong defender of the seals there. Then he suddenly breaks off from the interview and yells at someone offscreen, "We're trying to do something here, and you walk through like a bloody idiot!" The camera turns to reveal a black man, looking offended, his expression saying, "What's your fucking problem, jerk?" He wasn't interfering with the shot at all, and the seal defender just comes off looking like a prick. I have to wonder why the filmmaker put that in the film, because it harms the credibility of the save-the-seals message he's aiming at. Later on, the seal defender calls humans "the cancer of the world". It's too bad that most defenders of wildlife are so anti-human, although I understand where they're coming from - if you're a muslim living in Bosnia it's pretty hard not to be anti-Serb, for instance. But I think we have to rise above these group hatreds, whether they be based on ethnicity, or species, or even kayakers vrs. canoeists. I actually agree that taken together, humanity is the cancer of the world. I don't think you can look at the collective impact of us on the non-us world and come to any different conclusion; in almost every case we make life worse for other species (and the few exceptions - pidgeons, some viruses, blue-green algie - have usually succeeded despite our best efforts to control or eradicate them, not because of benevolence towards them). Climate change can easily be analogized to a planet fever, and we are the virus that the Earth is trying to rid itself of. I believe all this, but I still like most humans as individuals.

The final film of the fest was one of the best : Involuntary. It's a Swedish film about how people behave (badly) in groups (and as such has something to do with what I was just talking about). What's really interesting about it is how it was shot: each scene is done in one long take, the camera never moves, and it often doesn't even include everyone involved in the shot. For instance, the first shot of the film is just of people's feet as they arrive for a dinner party and are greeted by the hosts. The scenes switch back and forth between four seperate story lines, with completely separate characters (thankfully, none of the storylines or characters interweave - that's been done to death lately), each one illustrating in an almost clinical manner different examples of the mob mentality. Entertaining, and educational.

I can't wrap up my description of the film fest without mentioning one of the stars of the festival: the dude who came onstage at the end of the filmmakers' introductions before each film in the Grand Hall to lay the mic stands down on the floor so that they wouldn't block the screen. Every time he did so, the mostly young crowd, having recently discovered irony, gave him a rousing round of applause. But perhaps there was more to it than simple irony, because there was a certain decripid charisma to the man; his stooped walk, his wrinkled suit, his fraying hair. And he played his role well, drawing out his performance much longer than necessary, waiting for silence to fall, then murmuring a few well-chosen words into the mic and bowing to the crowd before shuffling offstage.

My favourite film of the fest was definately Tulpan; I noticed that it won a prize in its category. On the whole it was a very good fest. But I do have one beef: no popcorn. What a huge disappointment. When I brought this issue up with Eva, she had a strong reaction: thank god there's no popcorn. All that munching is distracting. Whatever. If your concentration is so compromised that you can't handle a little innocent mastication from the seat next to you, then wait for it to come out on DVD, when you can watch it at home, silent and friendless. Most cinema is not high art, and as such a perfect compliment to eating, drinking, whispering, snoozing, and/or making out.

The film fest over and the canoe mailed to its new owner, Christian, I set off for Prague to meet up with Christian and collect my money. We met up, he bought a couple of paddles and the wheels as well, then invited me to stay at his place just outside of Prague for the night. I had a train ticket to Slovenia leaving at 6 the next morning, and happily agreed to stay at his place. We spent the evening drinking Czech rum and talking about our lives and South American politics. He is Ecuadorian, and I spent 6 months teaching English there almost 10 years ago. He was one of the lucky ones to escape that country's grinding poverty, and had a job in Prague working for Monster.com. He had married and had a child with a Czech woman, but they had seperated, and now his son lives right across the Vlatava river from him - which is partly why he wanted a canoe, to make visits easier. He also wanted to take his son out canoeing.

Onward to Slovenia. I enjoyed this train trip much more than the one to Prague from Amsterdam, because it was only about half the length, and went through some beautiful hills in Austria. When I got to Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, I gave my coushsurfing host, Damjan, a call. "Are you the one with the canoe paddle?" he asked. As if he had to ask. He was already in the train station, looking for me.

I didn't really know what I wanted to do in Slovenia, but Damjan did. He quickly intuited my predilections and suggested I go to Bohinj lake, amidst the mountains 2 hours bus ride away, which I did the next day.

I hiked partly up one of the nearby mountains, lost my way on the poorly marked trails, and then walked to the Savica waterfall at the far end of the lake.

From the lake, I could see the Julian Alps to the north, topped by Triglav. The idea of climbing it first entered my mind as an idle fancy. I wanted to see Ljubjana, and the Mediterranian, and didn't have time for a mountain trek.

But pretty soon I started taking the idea seriously, and inquired at the tourist info about doing it. It sounded pretty doable; it's a Slovene national rite of passage to climb Triglav. Everyone here does it at least once in their life. The mountain is even on their flag. The more I thought about it, the more I liked the idea. So I decided to return the next day to climb Triglav.

Karlovy Vary Film Festival - Part II

The Grandhotel Pupp - home to the stars.

One of the theatres.

Sure is bright outside of the theatre.

The Prostitutes - a band a saw at the Rotes Berlin Club one night.

One of the grand prominades constructed around a mineral spring.

The Aeroport Club - a club set up just for the festival week in a derilict building.


I made it through another test of my stamina; it wasn't quite as gruelling as canoeing upriver for weeks, but 9 days of sitting on your ass does take a different sort of toll on the body. Fortunately there's easy access to spas for recouperation.

In all it's been great. I've really enjoyed my time here. Definately the best film fest I've been to. It seems to attract excellent people. But by the halfway point in the fest, my fortitude for films about harsh subjects was worn down to nothing. Wednesday was the day that broke my spirit: "Dead Hand Knocking" (child dies in motor scooter accident); "Karamozovi" (child dies after falling off bridge, then father shoots himself); and "Captive" (bond formed between opposing soldiers in Chechnya, but then Russian forced to suffocate Chechan prisoner to avoid being discovered by the enemy).

I think that the focus on tragedy I'm finding at this fest is not just that movies in general focus on it, nor just that I tend to gravitate towards tragidy in storytelling, but Eastern Europe in general - from which this fest draws a majority of its films - tends more towards the tragic in both storytelling and life. Many surveys on "subjective happiness" have found that Eastern Europeans are the least happy people on the planet, and they usually have the top suicide rates. Maybe it's a legacy of communism; but when I think about Russian literature that predates 1917, it seems similarly concerned with the dark side of the human spirit.

After that day, I decided to search out whatever light comedies I could find in the festival program. For the first time in my life, the words "romantic comedy" peaked my interest. I got off to a good start with "Tulpan", which is my favourite for the whole fest. It's set on the Kazakstani steppe - a perfectly flat moonscape of dust and scrub, where a few herders living in yurts make a bare-bones living. The protagonist returns from the navy and begins his search for a wife, for he needs a wife before the boss will give him a herd and allow him to fulfil his dream of creating a little rural paradise on the steppe, which in his eyes is the most beautiful place on earth. But, while there's thousands of sheep around, nubile women are few and far between. And the only one around has no interest in him, apparently because his ears stick out too much. It's a film of long, slow, wide shots, the camera left to roll while children scurry through the shot, playing games, livestock runs into the near distance, and dust devils spin across the plain. The director (who was in attendence) had the actors live together for a month in a yurt before beginning to shoot, so they come off authentically as a real family living in these conditions of no running water, no electricity - just a transitor radio that the son listens to, then recites the news to his father that evening as he straddles his back, picking blackheads off it. But the animals are the real stars of the film, in my opinion: donkeys comically mounting, a camel who chases her baby across the steppe, as it is strapped down in the motorcycle sidecar of the region's vet; a goat who licks the face of the protagonist after he bursts into her barn, thinking his love was in there. And thankfully the only death in it is a few stillborn lambs. It even has a fairly happy ending. A perfect film - everything a film should be. It certainly was no candy-coated version of reality, but it wasn't a total downer either. It just felt like real life, beautifully distilled.

The next film held great promise, based on its write up - playing frisbee on the beach in Goa, discussing philosophy - but took itself way too seriously. There was a ten-minute sequence, complete with "tragic" snyth music, of a woman crying, looking at photos of her dead husband, crying, splashing water on her face, crying - then finally writing her suicide note and heading off to Goa to walk into the ocean. Please. Who commits suicide like that? I should have walked out then, but stuck it out a bit longer, until a hippy on the beach drew a circle in the sand and started explaining how, if all the earth's history was in an hour, humanity would be the last millisecond - as if this was a huge revelation.

I'm glad I walked on that one because I was just in time to catch the last screening of "Be Kind, Rewind" - even though i didn't have a ticket. Though I love Michel Gondry's work, I'd missed this one when it played in N. America, so was glad to get in. It was a little more mainstream than his other films, but still very enjoyable. His characters are like innocent children. I've read that he directs with a very spontaneous, improvisational style, and it shows. This was just the antidote that i needed to the broodiness of many of the other films I've seen here.

This wasn't my first attempt to get into this film. I had gone to the Grand Hall - the premiere theatre here - at the appointed time, only to find no crowds waiting to get in. I waved my ticket at the guard, though, and he let me in. Pushed through the heavy doors; disoriented in the dark, i fumbled for an opening in the curtains. Finally I emerged near the front of the vast theatre, packed with people. I looked at the movie playing with confusion - judgingf from the faded colours, it seemed to be an older film. But maybe Gondry was just up to some of his tricks. No, this wasn't right: I fled the theatre. Back out in the light, I studied my ticket closely. Of course! I knew perfectly well that they use the 24 hour clock here. Why did I think that 11:30 meant 11:30pm? That would have been written as 23:30 here.

The next day's selection was a disappointment, unfortunately. They were all decent films - perhaps I've just reached that point of movie overload, where it takes a truly exceptional film for me to appreciate it. The film, "Mermaid", typified this day. It began well: the life story of a girl with supernatural powers. It was playful - sort of like "Amelie". But as the film went on (and it was on the long side, at 2 hours) is slowly deteriorated into a standard story of unrequited love, of the girl who tries to redeam the cynical older man. And then, just when things were moving towards a happy conclusion, the girl is run over and the guy chooses another woman. Maybe because it was a Russian film, it was as unable to finish happily as an American film is to finish unhappily.

Something else that this film did which really annoys me in movies: the build-up to an accident. I've seen many accidents - mostly involving cars - in these movies this week, and you can see almost all of them coming. Your fist tip off might be that, suddenly, the camera seems to suspiciously focuss a little too long on the simple act of driving. Why are we being shown all this driving, with no dialogue, you ask yourself. Because: something bad's about to happen. Then there's the cutting between the hero's car, and those unpleasant people in the red sports car, driving recklessly. Why do filmmakers feel it is necessary to warn viewers of an impending accident? Wouldn't it be better if on-screen accidents occured with the same unexpectedness as off-screen ones? Occasioanally I've seen a director confound this expectation - show all the lead-up to an accident, but then, at the last minute, it's avoided. But even this is just playing with the convention. I'd rather get rid of the convention all together.

I did see one good film that day, however - and it was the strangest film i've seen all festival. It's called "The Sunny Side of the Alps" and it's a Slovenian short film. It's a simple film with little dialogue, about a man who is jealous of his neighbour's new car, then takes his young son on a hike up to a nearby peak. The film ends with a song about the beauty of Slovenia, sung by a band in traditional dress in a bar, with a smiling, rocking back and forth crowd. So what's so wierd about that? All the characters are deepest Africa black. This is never explained - it's just taken to be normal. I loved it.

In non-film fest news, I've changed my return flight date to fast-approaching July 24. I alternate between thinking its too soon and too late - which i suppose means it's just about right. Based on a recommendation from Eva, I plan to do some couchsurfing in Slovenia for at least some of the remainder of my time here. And judging from that film, "The Sunny Side of the Alps", it is beautiful. And maybe they are all black there.

And I sold my canoe. 5000 Czech Crowns. I don't want to remind readers of how much I paid for it - it's in the archives somewhere. But I'm happy to get something for it, anyway. I said goodbye to Sarka yesterday, picked up by the courier, off to a town just outside Berlin. Sounds like she'll have a good home - father and son trips on the Vlatava. I have to meet him tomorrow in Prague to get the cash.

I went out again with Eva and her friends, this time to the Rotes Berlin Club, to see a band called the Prostitutes. There are apparently one of the most highly regarded bands in the Czech Republic. And I did really get into them. It's always nice to get a bit drunk and listen to ear-bleeding music once and a while. And a plus was that the lead singer was English, so I could understand most of the lyrics. Some memorable ones were, "Such a nice girl / Now she's dead!"

Another self-realization: My central dilema, or "why i love movies", is that I'm an introvert with a hunger for life. I don't know how to solve that one.

The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival - part 1

Halfway through the 9 day fest now, and it's been pretty good times. This is a laid-back, casual film fest, with a lot of good films to offer. Its relaxed nature doesn't mean, however, that you don't need to fight a bit to get into your first choices of films. Practically every sceening is packed solid; if the tickets didn't sell out beforehand, it quickly fills up with ticketless but pass-holding fans who are let in 5 minutes before each showing.

It works like this: each morning the box office opens at 8, when you can buy tickets for that day and the next. A festival pass entitles you to three free screenings a day. You can buy more tickets, if you like, or you can show up and hope there's still room. But personally, after overdoing it at some previous film festivals (a binge of something like 50 films in 12 days at the Vancouver film fest a decade ago comes to mind), i find that 3 a day is my limit anyway.

The first bus of the day from the stadium where i'm camped to the Thermal Hotel, where the box offices are located, is at 8am. So every morning - almost - i'm up in time to catch this bus, after usually staying up past midnight to catch some interesting late night film screening, to buy my tickets as early as possible. Even arriving at the box office that early, though, I'm still at the tail end of the morning rush. But, especially since the crowds diminished slightly after the weekend, I usually don't run into too many sold out shows. And there's so many films I'm interested in seeing, I've always got backup choices if my first ones aren't available.

So my days start early and end late - and my sleep is never great in a campground with hundreds of others, not all of whom are there to sleep - but my days leave plenty of time for eating, writing, cappaccino sipping, and people watching.

The eating is not great. By this time I'm sick (literally) of Czech food: greasy, meaty, bready. But there aren't a lot of other options. There's so-so pizza and pasta. There's questionable Chinese. There's expensive sandwiches. Last night I ate at a Lebonese place called Ali Baby's. In Canada, Lebonese food is synonymous with cheap fast food, so i was surprised by the prices (though it was fast). I paid twice what i'd normally pay for a meal, though it was twice as good, my first truly good restaurant meal in ages. And vegetarian! Despite the price, I think I'll have to go back.

The normally sleepy and geriatric town of Karlovy Vary is transformed this week into a youthful party town. Students from around the county who would never have anything to do with such a relaxing, boring place, descend on it for this one week a year. While the packed theatres and crowds of youth fighting - though ever so good-naturedly - for a free seat attest to the passion they have for the films, they are here equally for the partying. Czechs - in particular the youth - seem to have an almost insatiable appetite for partying. Beer is for sale, and consumed, everywhere. I read one British critic's comments, saying this was his favourite festival to come to, because of the enthusiasm of the crowds, the lack of pretentiousness - and i can say that's true from what i've seen. There's a bit of the high-class, ritzy thing going on - black audis chauffering people from the fancy hotels to the shiny clubs; security guards in black suits trying to look essential; crowds gathered around red carpets (only, they're green), waiting for a limo to disgorge some director they've never heard of - but for the most part this is a down-to-earth affair.

This fest has shown me a new side of the Czech people. Maybe spending so much time in the countryside, I saw mostly older people. Here, I'm seeing the younger generation, and I'm impressed. They seem of a different breed than their parents - understandably so, given the changes that have occurred here in the past 20 years. The older generation is great in its own way, but more impenitrable than the youth, at least for me (and not just because of the language barrier). I find the youth to be open, hopeful, happy, and fun-loving. A good balance between free-spirited and thoughtful. Always traveling in groups of college buddies. I don't want to overstate it, but you could say it's the first generation to grow up here in quite awhile free and prosperous, in an independent state. It shows. Much of the great atmosphere at the film fest owes itself to the youth who flock here once a year. I can say that this is best best film festival, on the whole, that i've been to.

Today I saw a film called "Rok 68", a poetic documentary about the time around the Prague Spring. I knew little of this history. The Czechs tried to take socialism in a different direction from the Warsaw Pact countries - put a "human face" on it, open it up to real democracy - and their "brother" states sent in the tanks. The Czechs have always lived on the edges of other great powers. As i know from permaculture, "edge" is where the action is. They receive multiple influences. They straddle the ethnic and cultural divide between eastern and western Europe. They've tried repeatedly to chart their own course, only to be thwarted, betrayed, time and again by the great powers in whose shadow they are forced to live. I see their position in the middle of Europe as the reason behind why they seem to have a particular talent for balance. During the Cold War, they were communist, but not part of the Warsaw Pact. They were inbetween. And they love peace. Maybe it was just that they saw that fighting was hopeless, when they were ruled by the Austro-Hungarian Empire, invaded by the Nazis, occupied by the Soviets and their allies, but I think they also genuinely hate violence. Many small nations, after all, have fought invaders to the last man - but the Czechs have taken a different course. It's not that they lack bravery: civilians risked their lives and died in the streets offering symbolic protest against the Soviet tanks; students immolated themselves in an effort to awaken their people to revolution. But they seem to have reached a common calculus that the costs of violent resistence were greater than a temporary aquiescence to the will of the powerful - even if that temporary retreat meant sacrificing another generation to the stagnacy of ideology. I respect this approach. I think that, in the end, it has paid off for the Czech people. They now have a culture that has passed through the worst horrors of the 20th century with its optimism, culture, and heritage intact.

But back to the film fest. A series of shorts are screened before each film. Each one depicts a past winner of the Crystal Globe, the KVIFF's award for contribution to world cinema - Milos Forman, Danny De Vito, Harvey Keitel - and what they're using their little statuette holding a crystal ball aloft for. Harvey Keitel, for instance, tells a bartender in a Brooklyn dive about how "some asshole" dropped the award on his foot, thus accounting for its bandaged condition; Milos Forman uses his to crush his pills; a slumbering De Vito to knock over a ringing bedside phone he doesn't want to answer. They're very well done. But they also show how this festival doesn't take itself too seriously. And the fans clearly support this sentiment, because they always appaud these shorts, even though they must have seen them many times by now.

A few years ago Prague tried to start up its own film festival, and essentially replace KV as the premiere award giving festival in the Czech Republic. But KV's fans rallied behind the older film fest (this is its 43rd year) and turned out in large numbers to show their preference for it. After a few years, the Prague fest folded.

I must have been here for awhile now, because I'm starting to run into people I've met on a regular basis. It began with small incidents back in Cheb, like seeing that same thick-eyeglassed fisherman who was fishing beside our campsite one morning, then fishing in the river in the middle of town the next. Or exchanging a few words with some German tourists sitting across from me in the internet cafe, then seeing them the next day biking on a path along the river, as I paddled downstream. Here in Karlovy Vary, i ran into a couple of girlfriends of Lucie's who I'd met when i was here before. Then a few minutes later, i bumped into a woman i'd last seen in Cheb, and hoped to never see again. With a sinking heart, she told me that she lived in KV. She comes off as a little insane. My first tip-off was when, after she'd struck up a conversation with Viktoria, Sergio and I, she didn't let me get off the bus at our stop with the others, because she was writing her address on a piece of paper on my lap. I told her this was my stop, that i had to get off, that my friends were getting off as i speak, but she just said, "you can get off at the next one," and i watched helplessly as the doors closed between my travel buddies and I, and the bus pulled away. They caught up with me at the next stop, me still in the clutches of this woman. She seemed very keen on speaking Spanish with us, and getting us to stay at her parents' pension. All the while her face was flushed with a gaping smile and wide eyes. When we finally escaped i said to Viktoria, "Now i know what's it's like to be a celebrity stalked by fans." That is what it had felt like.

On this second encounter, she dragged me downstairs to meet her friends. But they had already gone into the movie theatre, and I didn't have a ticket. Then she made a brief but unsuccessful attempt to persuade the usher to let me in anyway. Then she bent over and started rifling through her bag, looking for her ticket, and blocking the flow of incoming movie-watchers. The usher had to ask her to move aside. Then one of her friends did arrive, and looked at her like she was crazy for trying to arrange some sort of meeting with me minutes before they were supposed to go into the theatre. I finally escaped when she went into the theatre, me saying i'd call her tomorrow. i don't know which I'm more afraid of: calling her and getting together, or not calling her and running into her and facing - what reaction? Her smile is the sort that i worry can turn to rage on a dime. I haven't called her yet, nor run into her again. But chances are high I will run into her, KV being as intimate as it is.

A more welcome encounter was with Eva and several of her friends. As I mentioned, she's a couchsurfer from KV (though, like almost all young people, she goes to school somewhere else, and is moving soon to Prague). She's a language student (Spanish) and many of her friends are language teachers. So i got another opportunity to speak Spanish, while we ate some pretty good Mexican food. After lunch, we spent the rest of the afternoon on the patio of the Thermal Hotel, drinking beer and talking, while more of her friends (who were all crashing at her parents' house in the suburbs - there were about 6 of them there i think) dropped in. The fact that everyone has a cellphone - or "mobile", as they call them here - greatly facilitates the kind of spontaneous meeting up for drinks that is a staple of social life for young people here. Every time I've called someone here, they always say, "I'm at such-and-such a bar, with some friends, come join us," or "i'm at such-and-such place, waiting for some friends to meet me here, then we're going to the bar. come meet me." this goes on all day, it seems.

Eva had a really smart, interesting, funny group of friends - which didn't surprise me considering the high quality of people I've met so far through couchsurfing - and I enjoyed hanging out with them for an afternoon. I can get quite talkative when I've been deprived of conversation for awhile. I had to hold myself back so i didn't monopolize things, especially in a foreign language (though they all spoke English well). Later that night, I met up with several of them again at a screening of Nicholas Roeg's (for whom there is a retrospective here) "Two Deaths" (which, despite its dark theme of the triumph of sexual obsession over morality, set during the Romanian revolution of 1989, I greatly enjoyed), and could have gone out to a club after that, but choose sleep instead. (Which i didn't get much of, since at 5am a group of people right next to me seemed to be either taking down or setting up a tent, talking and laughing loudly all the while. "I hate people," I grumbled into my pillow.) But I will go to a club tonight, as Eva recommends the band (something about the "chorus of the prostitutes"?), and i should go clubbing at least once while i'm here. It's at a place called Propaganda, which is KV's only year-round club (though a number of other ad-hoc ones pop up for the festival).

And what about the films, you ask? They've all been good, except for a couple of duds, and several exceptional ones. The only one I had to walk out on, was a documentary called "Christopher Colombus: The Enigma", by renouned Portuegese director Manoel de Oliveira - who, i believe, recently turned 100. I had a vague recollection of seeing something else of his, and liking it. But this film was just a humourless guy in different stages of his life, dragging his wife around to every historical monument or ruin that had anything to do with Colombus - who, he was out to prove, was born in Portugal. They would walk up to some statue, and the guy would spout off for several minutes about the significance of it. I don't even find this form of tourism interesting to do, let alone watching someone else go through it. Manoel, what were you thinking?

The highlight of the fest so far for me was, to my surprise, a Canadian film. I don't usually like Canadian films, but Guy Maddin is definately a category to himself. Although I don't usually like his films that much either, i like what he seems to be trying to do. i like his style a lot, just not the execution. But this film, called "My Winnipeg" - a poetic rumination on his love/hate relationship with the city he's lived his whole life in - I liked better than his other work. It's got some moments that drag, but there are also some inspired sequences. I'm not sure the Czech audience liked it much, though. There were a number of walkouts, and it only received tepid applause afterwards. I don't blame them; Maddin doesn't make it easy for people to like his films - often blurry, black and white, badly acted. If you can see through the warts, though, there's treasure.

The first film I saw was "In the City of Sylvia". I was attracted to the screening because it was advertised as having little dialogue, and i often like films that emphasize their power as a visual medium over a literary one. It wasn't great - not enough happened for my tastes - but i did enjoy it because it so closely mirrored aspects of my own life right now. It featured a guy wandering around a city in France, travelling alone, sitting in cafes and looking intently at the people around him, all talking. The envelope of silence that he moved within, amidst the chattering of the world around him, felt very much like my reality of late.

There has also been a midnight series of English horror films from the 1930s - 1950s. I've seen a couple of these: "The Man Who Changed His Mind" about a brain surgeon who discoveres how to implant the mind of one in another's body; and "Peeping Tom", the controversial film about the maker of snuff films that apparently destroyed director Michael Powell's long and illustrious career.

One of the best, and the most brutal, films I've seen is the Russian tale "Gruz 200". It depicts a 1984 USSR so dark, evil, and corrupt as to be unimaginable to someone with my background. There are scenes in it i hope to soon forget, but never will. This film totally obliterated the feeling of tranquility I had been floating on after having a sauna that afternoon.

I don't know if it's just this festival, or that, since reading "Haunted" I'm noticing it more, but the great majority of the films here are dark. Drug addicts, war, rape, murder, adultery - you name it, it's dark subjects that seem to constitute most of the films. i used to have more tolerance for this fair, but find I'm growing more desperate for any films that offer light, joy, happiness. Why is it that people like to be told stories about all the worse stuff that can happen to people? I'm not looking for total cotton-candy fluff; i just like films that balance the light and the dark. Two perfect examples of films with this sort of balance are "Burnt by the Sun" and "Heavenly Creature" - both films on my top ten list. That's what I like. Show me the lows, but show me the heights too. And it doesn't have to end on a high either. Both those films i mentioned start high and end tragically. But i find that way too many films just concentrate on the darkness, to the almost total exclusion of the light. And i don't want to see that anymore.

I realized recently that my history is repeating itself in strange and incomprehensible ways. After the canoe trip 11 years ago that inspired the idea for this trip, I went to the Vancouver Film Festival and engaged in the legendary spree of cinematic gluttony mentioned before. Now i find myself at another film fest after another canoe trip. What can it all mean?

A Slight Change of Pace

Just another beautiful street in Cheb.

A typical riverside hospoda, or bar, where I stopped in for sausage and beer on both the way up and way down.

Sunset on the river Ohre - which I am no longer padlling into.

Cheb again.

The throngs gathered at the Karlovy Vary International Film Fest, waiting for someone - anyone - famous to walk down the green carpet.

The most ornate place I've seen a film in yet. I was way up in the highest balcony; first time I've had too look down to watch a film.

A selection of movie posters.

The coveted...naked...luminescent...beachball playing...award.
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Where I'm camped, with several hundred others.

More throngs gathered to watch the opening night fireworks. They were my Canada Day substitute.

Watching the movie from way, way up.



So it's official - I've called it quits on my European canoe adventure. I always intended to wrap it up if it was no longer fun - fun being the main purpose of this trip. Not: "Get 'er done", as I may have misled. I'm not into reaching goals just for the sake of reaching them - there has to be a point to it all. I suppose I might experience a sense of pride if I made it all the way to Amsterdam, but - screw that, i'd rather enjoy myself. I feel pride enough in myself for making it this far. Hell, I could have stopped after the experience of buying the canoe and still felt proud enough.

I regret ever characterizing this trip as being from point A to point B. i realized this towards the end of my planning process, and began telling people i was going to start to canoe in Amsterdam and head east, until I felt like stopping. But then, at the last minute, I did an about face in the direction of my trip (just to confuse the assassins), after which it made slightly more sense to begin referring to this as a Prague to Amsterdam trip, because, to benefit from going in this direction, I'd have to get through all the middle-Europe ups and downs before I could start on the long downriver stretch through western Europe. In a moment of imprudent exuberence, I even wrote in indelible marker "Praha" at the back of my canoe, and "Amsterdam" at the front, with corresponding arrows pointing in the appropriate directions...which, now that I'm trying to sell the canoe, I'm rubbing with gasoline, baking soda toothpaste, and any other substance that some website claims will remove permanent marker.

Actually, you know where I can find some pride in this situation? I take pride in the fact that I know when to quit. And that I'm good at finding pride in the most scarce of circumstances. And that I'm good at rationalizing.

So anyway, I was wandering around Cheb, not really making much progess with selling the kanoe, and wondering what to do. I was thinking i might wait one more day for answers to some emails, and then continue upriver into Germany. It would be another week until i was in another town large enough to offer any hope of selling the canoe. But I'd had a few days rest - enough time for partial amnesia to set in about the agony of upriver travel - and was getting little nudges from that 'ol, "I wonder what's around the next corner," feeling.

But then I saw a poster for the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival. I'd seen preparations for it when I was with Lucie in KV a couple of weeks ago, and she'd had good things to say about it. I returned to the internet cafe and checked it out. It actually looked pretty good: it had a reputation, at least, as the premiere film fest for eastern Europe; one of my favourite directors, Nikita Mikhalkov, was going to be there, presenting his new film; they'd also lured Robert De Niro in with an award for lifetime contribution, etc, and some screenings of his earlier films; all the films had English subtitles; and it was cheap - $70 for the full 9 day pass, and camping available in a stadium at the edge of town for less than $5 a night.

It didn't take me long to realize how much sense this made; i had to return to KV anyway at some point to pick up the GPS (if it was ever delivered), and the film fest would give me something fun to do while i figured out how to get my canoe sold. It would also give me time to prepare for the next leg of my trip: couchsurfing through the Mediterranian region. And, perhaps best of all, it was down river. I hopped in Sarka that afternoon and headed back down the Ohre towards Karlovy Vary. One last ride in my faithul companion!

I figure going downriver was about three times as fast for a third of the effort. It was 70km to KV; i did 20 of them the first day, and mopped up the remaining 50 the next day without too much trouble. It was a good way to end the trip - a little payback for all my effort. During the fastest stretch - the one Viktoria and Sergio and I had sweated and groaned and cursed our way up a week previous - i lay back and watched the trees glide by on either side and laughed.

My ill-advised directional markers in permanent ink on the side of the canoe at least earned me a free beer at one of the riverside bars i stopped at. After my first beer, I had my usual debate about ordering a second. One is never enough, but then two, I find, makes me sleepy midday, and is not very condusive to canoeing. I could always order a half beer, of course, but then it's not as good value, and i rarely seem to take this option. Nope, as usual, the second beer won out. As I was nearing the end of that one, however, another one suddenly appeared on the table in front of me; connected to it was the hand, arm, and body of a man smiling approvingly at me and saying, "Amsterdam." He must have seen my canoe pulled up on the shore - luckily, because i paddle it backwards when solo, the Praha and Amsterdam arrows were still pointing in the right directions. He didn't speak English, but his wife, miraculously, did. Actually, it was unfortunate, in this instance, that she did speak English, because it meant that, upon interrogation from her, i had to admit that i hadn't come all the way from Amsterdam. But they still seemed suitably impressed with what I had actually acheived. The man didn't take his beer back, anyway, and he even patted me on the back as he left.

Needless to say, I was excessively drunk when i got back onto the water for the last 15k to KV. I probably hit a few more rocks that I would sober, but otherwise came out okay. The rapids are easy enough that you can navigate them drunk - i don't think most Czechs would even consider doing them sober anyway.

I wasn't sure where in KV the stadium i could camp in was, but on my canoeing map there was on oval labeled "STAD" - near the river too - so i pulled over by that. It was a short but near vertical bank to get up - with a railing at the top - but somehow i got Sarka over it. The stadium, already with a few dozen tents in it, was right there, maybe 100 metres away. I couldn't have pulled over in a better place. I got my tent set up just in time for the rain that had been threatening all day to come thundering down.

The End.

But wait: there will be a lengthy postscript, in coming updates, to this trip. The first ones, of course, will be all about the film fest. After that, hopefully some adventures in the Mediterranian, until my planned return to Canada around the end of July. So stay tuned.