Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

David E. Scherer has literally sailed the Seven Seas (recently upgraded to eight). On the rare occasions when David and Martha have dry land under their feet, they live in Gainesville, Florida. Their three children and four grandchildren are grown. In fact, they occasionally deny any relationship with their rambling forbearers.

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Ramblers in Paradise

iUniverse, Inc.

Contents

Pre-Ramble The Courtship of Dave Scherer.........................................................................xiiiChapter 1 Up, Up, and Astray Two near catastrophes in Kenya.......................................................1Chapter 2 I Think I Can ... I Think I Can Bound east by train for Krakow..........................................8Chapter 3 Never Judge a Gift by Its Odor Appraising Jackie's Jewel................................................17Chapter 4 Flashing the Snobs A handful of stories from typical English and Scottish hotels........................20Chapter 5 Loss of Innocence in West Africa Kidnapped by a klutz on the Ivory Coast................................26Chapter 6 Twisting with the Samba Goddess Behind the scenes at Rio's Carnival.....................................31Chapter 7 Having a Beer mitt der Fuhrer Down Germany's Romantic Road..............................................36Chapter 8 A View from the Depths The world according to Mary Manatee..............................................40Chapter 9 The Authentic Bogus Breitling Bargaining for watches and hippos near Bom Bom Island.....................44Chapter 10 Bounty from the Christian Clan Easter Isle and Pitcairne...............................................48Chapter 11 It's All Greek to Me At the pulpit of St. Paul.........................................................56Chapter 12 The Gateway to Hell On the road to Marrakech...........................................................60Chapter 13 Identity Theft for the Fairies Victoria's anonymous "little" penguins..................................65Chapter 14 Ramblin' in Paradise Some bits of the Blarney..........................................................68Chapter 15 The Emperor of Offal and Gore On safari in the Krueger Preserve........................................76Chapter 16 Homecoming on the Danube From Donauschingen to Belgrade by riverboat...................................82Chapter 17 This Boot Was Made for Sloshing The inundation of Piazza San Marco.....................................90Chapter 18 Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken Meditations along the Via Delorossa.................................93Chapter 19 Contemporary Legends and Relics Glastonbury and Chester................................................96Chapter 20 Meanwhile, Back on the Ranch A jamboree in Uruguay.....................................................99Chapter 21 From Newton to the Moon and Back A potpourri of urban myths............................................102Chapter 22 Those Old Romanza Blues High spirits and nudity on the high seas.......................................107Acknowledgements..................................................................................................113Appendix I Witchetty Grubs from the Australian Outback............................................................149Appendix II Critters on Noah's Boat (a historical note)...........................................................151

Chapter One

Two near catastrophes in Kenya

It was 6:00 am on March 27, 1997, somewhere near the Taita Hills Game Sanctuary in eastern Kenya. It was surprisingly cool and comfortable for Africa, and a shy little wallflower of a moon sat and waited high over the blue plain as Captain Chuck's "guys"-a dozen supple black men, lean as panthers and resplendent in navy blue Bermuda shorts and crimson vests-swung into their well-oiled routine rousing the sleeping balloon. Their movements had all the sensuous energy of a circus high-wire troupe as they readied the hot-air craft for drifting or soaring or whatever it was to do up there in a perfect morning sky.

There were eight of us in the gathering dawn, all passengers on the Crystal Symphony but temporarily off on a photo safari. Jose was a gynecologist from Buenos Aires who was convalescing after surgery, which he was reluctant to discuss. Suzy, an attractive, middle-age divorcee who had been scouting him during the cruise, accompanied him. Tom and Toni, young newlyweds from Boston, stuck mostly to themselves. The last couple, Vivian and George, had a more complicated relationship. Vivian, despite his name, was actually cut from the same bolt of material as Stan Laurel, while the huge, hysterical George was a dead ringer for Oliver Hardy. Fortunately, Vivian and the three ladies were all diminutive, and we made the weight limit with ounces to spare.

We watched Captain Chuck's guys for a minute, shuffling our feet, curious and mildly apprehensive-well, after all, we'd never done this before-as the flaccid bag stirred to life. In minutes, it grew big, then huge and potent in the early-morning light, and out from behind it stepped world-renown aeronaut Captain Chuck.

He was of average height and years, lean and tan with a three- or four-day growth of beard. He surveyed us cadets for a moment from behind mirrored sunglasses and nodded as if he just now understood something that had needed clarification about us. His garb was barnstormer-casual: blue-zippered jumpsuit, Nikes, and a Florida State baseball cap. A logo giving the name and slogan of some ballooning organization was sewn above his left breast pocket. There was an awkward silence and, trying to put everyone at ease, I called out, "Go Gators." The silence congealed. I had missed another golden opportunity to keep my mouth shut.

Captain Chuck stared at me for a long moment, then emotionally uttered the single word, "Right," and launched into an explanation of the scientific principles that would keep the balloon aloft. This was followed by the ground rules, well, more accurately, the "thin-air rules." Get on and off only when he decreed. In case of an "unusual occurrence," he would warn us to get down, and we would squat, grasp the rope handles on the wicker compartment, brace ourselves, and prepare for impact. All this was said with that mildly ironic offhandedness that all pilots use to inspire supreme confidence. He'd have us believe that we were safer invading the domain of thin air in some incomprehensible, but obviously flimsy, machine than we were back in the mundane confines of our cabin, rolling about fitfully in our sweaty bedclothes while visions of whining insects did a slow fox-trot in our heads. By now, the balloon seemed to blot out the sky itself, so obviously there was no turning back.

We boarded when we were commanded, eight midshipmen of the air climbing awkwardly into the basket, two to each wicker corner, while Captain Chuck stood like some mythical charioteer in the center, astride the twin dragons whose fiery breath snorted up the maw of the balloon that would carry us aloft to await the whims of the wind. And suddenly, the dragons did roar, and up, up, and away we went just as promised in that funky old ballad.

The takeoff must have been unremarkable, since no one remarked on it, and magically the ground receded a distance sufficient to bring the whole of the scrubby plain this side of the mountains into view. Macho words were exchanged by the men, contrived on our part to suggest we were nonplussed by the experience of having the earth suspended below in such a fashion.

"So I guess you can't see the `Big Mountain' from here. Can you?" I rashly queried to demonstrate my profound knowledge of African geography, missing instead another golden opportunity to keep my mouth shut. Captain Chuck glanced to his left, gestured, and we turned to glimpse a shadow in the clouds.

"If you would like to see her better, I'll take it up above this low layer of cloud." And in a moment, there she was-Kilimanjaro, the biggest mountain in the world in terms of total land mass-observed from an unfamiliar and actually indecent vantage point since we were, to all intents and purposes, looking up The Sleeping Maiden's snowy nightgown from the north rather than viewing her in virginal profile from the proper, postcard perspectives of east and west.

"Check the summit out," Captain Chuck commanded, and I observed that fresh snow had fallen on her upper slopes, and in truth, her bosom did seem clad in purest lace. For some reason, George giggled.

An hour or so of snooping on a few solitary critters scavenging in the sanctuary below ensued. We had already seen large numbers of animals-chiefly giraffe, but an unusually large dazzle of zebra, two elephants, and a variety of antelope-and Martha had already taken the requisite number of photos, so we were not particularly disappointed. How could you be? The spectacle was awesome, and we gazed in reverential silence interrupted only by the occasional snort from one of the flamethrowers.

The time allotted for the flight expired, and Captain Chuck frowned slightly as he studied the landscape looking for the ideal spot to set the balloon down. An errant wind had carried us much farther to the south than anticipated, and now, to complicate matters, we unexpectedly found ourselves in some low clouds. "I'm going to put her down in a little valley along the ridge if this wind will let us," he reported before radioing some commands to his entourage following in Range Rovers below. And at that moment, we later learned, the chase vehicles lost us in the clouds.

To the silence was now added the white blindness of the clouds. We felt estranged from reality, cut off from a world that could not be apprehended by touch, taste, and smell alone.

"That ridge is somewhere around here," the captain murmured as he gave the burner a long whoosh. A second blast followed for good measure. Why not? Upward offered the safety of nothing to collide with.

"I've never gone over this ridge," Captain Chuck mused in not entirely reassuring tones. "Always vowed I wouldn't-"

And suddenly, there it was-the forbidden ridgeline he referred to-materializing just below us, and we skimmed safely over. The clouds were momentarily brushed aside, and we could see the backside of the hill, which should have been sloping away, but strangely enough seemed to be rushing up at us at an alarming rate.

"We've hit a rotor!" Captain Chuck shouted. "Look out!"

We grasped the rope handles on the compartment wall and crouched. The basket hit the ground with a bone-jarring thump and skidded down the incline like some awkward ski jumper sprawling at the end of his leap.

The basket came to rest, still upright, in some low bushes. "You can come up now," Captain Chuck announced hopefully, not entirely confident that we were in any condition to do so. But actually, except for George, who was clutching Vivian for reassurance, the rest of us were more startled than anything else, and so we rose as bidden to discover that the clouds had closed once more over the hill. A few little branches on either side were all I could see. While we checked each other for injuries, the captain tried in vain to raise his chase crew on the radio. There was no response, even to calls directed to anyone else who might be listening. Wisps of cloud brushed by, and it began to clear above.

"What happened?" Jose asked.

The captain gazed upward. "We hit a rotor," he explained. "Freak wind sheer can produce a downdraft in terrain like this." We nodded as if that made sense. We did come down. That much was clear. But what now?

"Can't stay here," Captain Chuck announced, as if he could read our collective minds. "They'd never get us out, even if they found us up here. We've got a little window right now, and I'm going to take her up." The dragons belched their fire and up we zoomed again.

A huge plain covered with scrubby vegetation now revealed itself to us with some low mountains and what might be a town ten or fifteen miles away. But there were no signs of a road the chase crew could follow us on, even if they had the faintest notion where we were. We were still floating in a southward direction.

"Are we still in the sanctuary?" Toni asked, leaning over the railing to check the ground below.

"How are they going to know where we are if the radio won't work?" Suzy chimed in with a little frown on her usually controlled features.

"Are there any lions down there?" Martha asked, not entirely out of curiosity.

"Just stay calm, everyone," Captain Chuck commanded, ignoring our whining. "There is no reason for concern, so just cool it."

During this interlude, I had been silently studying several large clumps of what even my inexperienced eyes could recognize as elephant dung (or is it manure?) and speculating on what that might signify. El Capitano must have known something we didn't, but the ring of authority in his voice silenced us, and we took his word for it.

"Now, I'm going to have to find some place to set her down again," he said. "We left the park when we crossed the ridge, and we're getting farther away from my guys every minute. So be ready when I tell you." He appeared to have everything under control as he surveyed the terrain below-all of which appeared uniformly unsuitable for any kind of happy landing.

I grasped the rope handles, crouched a little, just to be ready, and waited. The captain made some hurried adjustments to the lines.

"Get down and brace yourself!" he shouted. "We're going to hit!" Then he added, "Hard!"

Suddenly, there seemed to be branches everywhere and then a blinding impact. The basket was still moving, dragged by the wind, and I sensed the frantic efforts of the captain to bring it under control. Then, after what seemed an eternity, but was probably closer to ten seconds, we came to a halt. Amazingly-and temporarily, it turned out-the gondola was upright. I took a few moments to cross myself and recited the survivor's rosary while checking for my spectacles, testicles, wallet, comb, compound fractures, ruptures, and the like. Finding no injuries, I attempt to arise and survey the surroundings, as everyone was in the process of doing except Vivian, who was straightening George's safari vest, which had somehow become tangled about his neck.

Well, we were down. We were down, indisputably, though the balloon still billowed above us, and the captain gave it a short blast, apparently to keep it from collapsing. Beyond the big, red balloon and a sea of low, scruffy trees, there was nothing in sight.

Captain Chuck made another series of unsuccessful attempts to reach his crew by radio and was rewarded only by the interception of a message from an airplane going about its business somewhere overhead. It was in our vicinity, all right, but unconcerned with the plight of ants so far below. "I've got to keep the bag up so my guys can see where we are," he explained, giving it another burst of flame.

I wondered how his guys would know where to begin looking and, even if they saw us, whether they could get back in here. I wondered how long it would take us to circle the ridge on foot and reach civilization. I wondered about the enormous clumps of elephant dung scattered about our little hot-air oasis. And I began to sense the first, gray, uncertain gnawing of fear. If elephants wandered about in this desolate area, so at their ease, might not other animals wander here as well? How curious were lions, for example, about big, red balloons? Did they have a fondness for tasty morsels of well-aged human tenderloin? Could they climb into a basket such as the one from which we now peeped so perilously? We were all suddenly very attentive to our surroundings, on watch for ...

"Captain, if the flight is over, I believe George and I ought to be getting back to the hotel," Vivian announced politely.

I tried to process what I thought I just heard. Captain Chuck had apparently not heard the statement. Instead, he was making some adjustments to his fuel tanks and keeping an anxious watch over the bag of air above. The wind was coming up as well, and the basket was making a few tentative attempts to move off under its own volition. "The fuel's gone. I've got to deflate it," he warned in an ominous tone. "Everyone get down again."

I knew the drill by now, and I did as I was told, but the gondola was moving and tipping, and just as I went over onto my back and thought I was about to be dragged into the trees-bellowing in a panic for sure this time-the captain's voice rang out. "They're here!"

And just like in the movies, the cavalry arrived to save the day-clad not in military uniforms, but in the resplendent red vests of those amazing guys of Chuck's-somehow grabbing the lines and securing the rebellious beast which had been about to bear us off to our certain destruction. Wow!

We were saved.

When commanded by the captain, Martha and I somersaulted out onto the ground-right into a thorn bush-then helped Jose and Suzy, perched in the compartment above us in the overturned gondola, do the same. In less time than it took to tell, all the hot-air cadets had safely alighted, and after picking the thorns out of our battered bodies, we stood and watched the last death throes of our beautiful balloon. Captain Chuck stood off a little way to himself, watching thoughtfully as well-a single finger stuffed in his mouth for some reason, the nail gnawed down to the knuckle, perhaps.

What followed was an incongruous anticlimax: a fabulous breakfast served on linen with china plates and crystal glasses to hold the South African champagne. There were roasted chicken, bacon with coleslaw in French baguettes, passion fruit, a variety of sausages, pastries, eggs, and other such exotic delicacies. (Exotic considering the locale and especially the circumstances.)

The explanation for the miraculous appearance of the rescuers was forthcoming as second and third glasses of champagne took the chill of fear off our bones. When we disappeared into the clouds, Joseph, the captain's second-in-command, noted our location on the map, calculated the course and wind speed, estimated the fuel that could be expended before having to ditch, and stirred in some local-folk hocus-pocus to predict where we might be found. The Range Rovers were able to cope with trails blazed by the wildlife-but invisible to mortal beings-which brought the guys close enough to hear our cries. The rest of the way was covered on foot, and just in the nick of time.

At the time, the events of that morning seemed clad in the trappings of high romance. After all, that's why we came to Africa. You could play bingo in safety at the benevolent order of Moose Hall. But looking back now, they seem cloaked in far more sinister garb, and that is the more rational view. All kinds of normal people are killed or maimed in less harrowing circumstances, and without even trying. Nature and fate have strewn our paths with enough pitfalls already. No need to create more. There is no obligation to climb every beanstalk you encounter. Nor leap on every rope you find hanging from the sky.

Oh Lord, Thy sea is so great And my boat is so small Save us from red balloons.

Excerpted from Ramblers in Paradiseby David E. Scherer Copyright © 2009 by David E. Scherer. Excerpted by permission.
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