Starting From the Ground Up

 Anthropology is Confusing

So I decided we'd start this series with a blog on caves, grottes, rocs, abri etc.  All of these were home to pre-historic denizens of the Dordogne.  We had visited many of these on previous trips but the Dordogne is just rife with them so off we went to explore some more.  I decided I should learn more about the inhabitants so consulted the internet to expand my knowledge and impart it to all of you.  But it's really confusing so I will indulge in the Cliff Notes version.  First fact:  The Dordogne has been inhabited for about 400,000 years.  They loved it there because of its many rivers, abundant game and fish, temperate climate and, of course, the caves, grottes, rocs & abris.  Pretty much why we like it -- except maybe for the caves.

I'm going to skip over everything prior to 400,000 years because it is very complicated and the hominoids weren't too interesting. Interesting or not, they migrated out of Africa and spread out both to Europe and Asia.  What happened between that migration and the Neanderthal period I couldn't quite get -- seemingly they wandered around evolving.  So, now we come to the Neanderthals who were the first tenants of the various ground-based dwellings.  They had fire and simple tools and created very simple crafts and jewelry.  They had large brains (bigger than ours) but they weren't very efficient or complex like you would see in the Cro-Magnon people.  So the Neanderthals flourished from 400,000 years ago until about 40,000 years ago whereupon they became extinct.

Now we get to the Cro-Magnon group.  Their name is derived from the site at which the first Cro-Magnon remains were discovered.  So guess where that was...in the Dordogne at the town of the same name which is very close to Les Eyzies which is the home of the famous cave paintings.  They arrived on the scene about 35,000-40,000 years ago.  This means, since all these years are approximate, there were thousands of years of overlap when Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon were co-existing and, it is believed, interbreeding to some extent.  While Neanderthals are not considered direct ancestors to homo sapiens (yes us) many of us may have a smidge of Neanderthal in us.  So don't look so shocked when that Ancestry.com result shows up.

The Cro-Magnons were similar in size and shape to the Neanderthals but the brains were very different in capabilities. The Cro-Magnon people made more sophisticated weapons, crafts, jewelry and had more of a sense of community.  They had distinct roles in their group and they cared for their disabled.  They buried their dead but it was unclear if they thought about an afterlife or gods.  And, of course, there were the marvelous cave paintings along with ceramics.    They did not generally live in the caves that they painted.  These spaces were ceremonial and, often times, far into a cave where hauling in game or firewood would be impractical.  So, there is my very quick summary of the folk who either inhabited or frequented the caves etc. that we would visit.

We had already seen the famous caves at Lascaux with our sons years ago and on recent trips had seen many more similar, if a little less spectacular, sites.  If you are interested you can refer to https://www.sites-les-eyzies.fr/decouvrir/grotte-de-font-de-gaume/la-grotte-de-font-de-gaume for Grotte de Font de Gaume, where only 95 people are allowed in per day (so advance ticket purchases are advised). For Abri Cap Blanc you can go to https://www.sites-les-eyzies.fr/decouvrir/abri-du-cap-blanc/l-abri-du-cap-blanc to see the animals sculpted into the rock face. Since those earlier days of adventure we have aged (am I dwelling on that?) which meant that I had a series of questions for the tourist bureaus at the various towns at the sites we wanted to visit.  For those underground I would ask:  1) Are they very dark or is there light; 2) are there a lot of stairs; and 3) is it wet and slippery? Routinely the tourist board member would reassure me that there was light, perhaps a few steps and very little water.  Invariably it was quite dark, there were many steps of worn and non-uniform shape and these were often glazed with water to increase the fun.  I don't think they meant to lie outright but viewed the world through the eyes of 30 somethings.

Each visit to a different site filled me with the hope that this visit would be well lit, level and dry.  After four experiences of groping my way along and grabbing Michael's arm in a death grip we decided to skip the last two planned sites.  While Michael's photos are magnificent we unfortunately have none of the Grotte de Villars (which prohibited any photography). They said this was prohibited in all of the Grottes in France, but we found this was not true. We also do not have any of Font de Gaume which boasts rare colored renderings of animals, nor the Abri Cap Blanc which features animals sculpted into the rock face. The links to both of these are in the paragraph above. Michael had photos of these last two, which got lost somehow.

Michael did get pictures of the Grotte de Maxange with its incredible stactities, stalagmites, fistulous formations, magnificent panels of aragonites, but also and especially the tremendous geological formations called eccentric natural and and extremely rare phenomenon. 

The rock face at the entrance to the "Grotte" (cave) shows the different rock formations from the light brown to the black.

This European Smoketree caught my attention for its unusual color as we were waiting to enter the cave.

This column with it's sign on the front directed us to the entrance.

The entrance to the Cave of Maxange. It was only discovered on August 15, 2000 in a building stone quarry run by Angel Caballero when this cavity appeared, which is now filled with stones from the quarry and a doorway to the cave was added.

The site was opened to visitors in 2003 and since then the cave has been extended with new galleries. These various stalagmites were the first thing we saw on entering the cave.

These fistulous formations were seen throughout the cave. These are tubular, single-crystal concretions of calcite that elongate and within which water circulates. 

When these are white they are pure white calcite with no metallic salts. The various metallic salts color the calcite, creating the different colors depending on the metallic salt. 

These next two photos show stalactites with fistulous around them.

Fistulous attached to a stalactite.

Flowstones like these are composed of sheetlike deposits of calcite and are formed where water flows down the walls (as in this case) or along the floors of a cave.

These are stalactites with some fistulous and "eccentric" formations.

Another eccentric formation...

and a close up, which shows the unusual shape which is formed attached to a stalactite.

Another eccentric formation and fistulous formations.

Stalagmites which have different colors due to the various metal salts dissolved in the water.

Now that you know what to look for, I will let you view more of the unusual formations in the cave.

This photo, which is a close up of the photo above, looks like some alien creature.

A broken off section of a stalagmite. 

The next two photos show eccentric formations which have sections of pure white indicating there were no dissolved metal salts in the water that flowed to create them.

While this approach of creating blogs based on topic seems to be working we'll just throw in a few uncategorizable (is that a word?) photos for fun.  Take care. 

Some places we visited had art work of various kinds.

The artist of this piece labeled it "Galactica Mantra".

Limeuil Garden had some magnificent Iris in bloom, like this one and the ones below.

It is rare that we can get a picture of both of us, but this garden had a large mirror allowing this photo.

When we were going to lunch in one village we came across this tree,...

which judging from the down fall was quite a significant section of the tree. This eliminated the outdoor dining at this restaurant. We assume this occurred when no patrons were present, because there was no sign on blood or bodies.

Occasionally we would encounter a "pack" of classic cars, such as these two MGA Roadsters, which were in production from 1955 to 1962.

And this MGB Roadster which was in production from 1962 to 1980.

Is That Slow Travel or Old Travel?

Growing Old With Travel

Faithful readers may remember our ill fated trip to Scandinavia and the Baltics which included eleven flights,  13 separate lodgings and four cases of pneumonia (2 each).  Upon reflection, we decided that perhaps we should modify our travel modalities before we killed ourselves.  We consoled ourselves that this wasn't really "old" travel but rather the more worldly "slow" travel so often touted by travel sages.  Our introduction into "slow" travel was the adoption of wheel chairs in airports.  Years ago when Michael's knee went he got a wheel chair.  The chair pusher would race through the airport (they work for tips a lot) and I would jog after them panting and pleading with them to slow down to no avail.  I gave up and got a chair too.  It wasn't just that we were getting old and creaky but every major airport has felt obligated to drop the equivalent of a suburban mall in the center of their airports thus doubling (at least) the distance to any gate.  So, that was the first concession.

We decided that flitting from city to city with little to no control over our schedule really wasn't doing it for us.  You're sick?  Too bad.  You're tired? Too bad.  Your travel mates are hideous?  Too bad. So, our next decision was that we would find a location that we liked with lots to do within a couple of hours, rent a house, lease a car and stay put (at least house wise, for a number of weeks).  Our third decision was that we had to minimize the number of flights due to the horrendous experience air flight has become.   So one stop over max.

Armed with our new set of resolutions we began our journey to the Dordogne region of France.  We flew to Dallas and visited with Michael's sister and her husband for a couple of days and then took a direct flight to Paris (see one stop rule).  We picked up our lease car (not a rental and a great deal) and headed to Tours where we'd spend the night and then off to the house that was to be our base for five weeks.

We've been to the Dordogne (also known as the Perigord) several times of varying duration and think it is probably the most pretty and interesting region of France.  So we decided to play it safe on our first "long stay" in a place we knew we'd enjoy.

The house was wonderful -- which is important if you're going to be there for weeks.  Michael's pictures will tell the tale.  Our neighbors were the best.  Sheep are really underrated as neighbors.  They are quiet, provide ambience and show you copious love if you come to their fence with a stale, rock hard baguette.  Our other neighbors were Sigrid and Jean-Paul who own the house we rented and live next door. Other than that nothing but quiet and stunning views.

Two views of the house and covered back terrace with dining table and the heated pool (usually covered because of the cool weather).

The sheep would come running when they saw us, and were initially wary about approaching us.

Even mama and her two little lambs came running as well.

In the beginning we would have to throw the bread over the fence to the sheep...

and after a period of time they would take the bread from our hand.

In keeping with the theme of global warming our stay featured totally bizarre weather.  Normally in May and early June temps are 70 degrees to 80 degrees fahrenheit and usually not that much rain.  In our five weeks we had: 1) four really nice days; 2) twenty-seven days that were in the low to mid 60s with clouds and or rain and; 3) a stretch of four days with temps in the highest 90s approaching 100.  We still had a good time but even the heated pool wasn't too tempting.  Our hostess was funny.  She said: "Oh, you're not using the pool.  Oh, you're from Mexico.  The Irish will swim in anything.  Brits too."

This Eurasian Magpie is eyeing the remains of a flower blossom on the pool cover...

and decides it will make a tasty morsel after all.

At the end or our  five weeks (we decided that was a little long because it ended up more like 6-7 weeks if we stop to visit folks), we retraced our steps to Paris and grabbed a non stop flight from Paris to Los Angles to spend a few days with our sons.  We had fun and caught up and then faced the final challenge of returning to Guadalajara in the midst of the World Cup occurring both in LA and Guadalajara.  Luckily our flight schedules avoided the worst of it.

Normally we construct our blogs in a chronological manner but this time we think we will do it in"chunks" based on subject -- bastide towns, chateaus, etc.  This may not work out perfectly but we'll just throw in the stray uncategorizable photos and you can figure it out.  It will be fun.

The area is known for its vineyards, but we also saw many fields of spring wheat.

And yes there were more vineyards than we could count with all the vines in nice neat rows...

sometimes seeming to stretch all the way to the horizon.

The Dordogne is also known for its walnuts. In the lower left is a walnut grove and in the center a vineyard.