My goal is to become the modern equivalent of an ancient traveler. That does, perhaps make me as mad as Cervantes's famous Don.
The traveler's of the ancient world played an important part in history. They went places that other people did not go to and made notes that would, in some cases survive into the future. It is a duty of the "true" traveler, to say things that the future can use in these "postcards (or sticki-notes if you would) from the past".
I should have written something like "Orlando remained vibrant with a huge circle of commercial-industrial enterprises, hidden far off from the highways to amusement parks, that feed the needs of the tourist businesses in terms of all the raw materials of food, drink and entertainment. The road down to Orlando remains agricultural with increasing retirement communities that are embarrassingly aggressive in attempt to attract people with advertisements that show older men with younger women in embarrassingly familiar billboard scenes." Or "New Orleans remains both vibrant and empty, a crumbling historically accurate original that is copied in numerous other places that continues to attract people and artists looking for something real, the real surrounded by (free pizza online? pjmvp) a veneer of poverty. My notes on the condition of the roads during the great freeze (earlier post on this subject) cover some of these types of things, the barren nature of much of the 200 miles of icy roads, often one lane in a both direction over frozen stretches of bridge and even that one lane coated with black ice, long stops with nothing more notable than trees and the lonely outpost home where a modern hermit lives so close to the world, but off a by-way that exists only for disasters like this one that closed the main highway that bring so much traffic, reminding me of the hermit island where for so long a hermit lived in the bay near mobile till he was run over by a car on a rare visit to the belt of land a friend of mine's ancestor named stewart built over a hundred years ago, cold seeping through the doors, no where to stop, except the one story, 10 to 20 room country hotels from the past ever 50 miles or more.
So what does this have to do with travelling 2500 years ago? In 1331 the city of Nisea fell (cities were always failing back then). The Moroccan Traveler Iban Batuta came through the city shortly afterwards and was able to report on the condition, which report survives today (The city was in mouldering condition and uninhabited except a few men in the Sultan's service). This is a snapshot of the Ottoman empire in decline or in rebellion or just the sad state in which so many had to live in ancient times. Many examples of travelers leaving reports behind survive today to tell us something of how things were when the travelers passed through, making their notes; just as my notes reflect the crumbling of western society to Chinese manufacturing, stay tuned for a link to the article saying those wanting to be scientists must learn chinease.
The odd thing is that 2500 years ago thing is a double the size of the block of time to Nisea's conquest. However, things were not so different in either time, although there is much to say about the coming importance of gun powder. Time hasn't destroyed the role of the traveling writer just as there may still be a place for the night errant.
One side note, the traveler to be real must understand something of the history and language of things which I may yet lack. The Gazi's were a named group for those who are engaged in Gaza which is a "war of the (Muslim) faith" making the name "Gaza Strip" much more meaningful, which is something that travelers should know so they can put things into perspective.
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