Welcome to Phoenix’s world-changing Salon
A portmanteau. A treasure trove. A time capsule. A poetry book. A diary. A photo album. Memories. Dreams. Wishes. Hopes. An open letter to an unsuspecting public. An intimate confession to close friends. A declaration of intent. A whisper of love. A personal record. An experiment in introspection. A performance space. A political rant. A wild yawp. Why do any of us publish our words and images online? Come, dream with me.
Re-entry blues
The last couple of days have been crazy. Intense and sad and scary.We were exhausted when Doug’s lovely sister picked us up at the airport: we hadn’t slept much in the last 48 hours. And we were beginning to show the signs of some food poisoning or traveler’s…
The only way to travel
Our last day in Cuzco was the day of the national census. To our astonishment, everything was closed. We had planned to get a bus to Maras, a taxi to Moray and then a bus back to Chinchero for the Sunday market. With no buses running, we ended up convincing a lovely…
Machu Picchu
Everything they say is true. Aguas Calientes is a tacky tourist town; the entire train trip there and prices in town are outrageous with discriminatory pricing for tourists and it’s all worth it.On the first day, we got onto the bus and clutched each other throughout…
Oh-yan-tay-tam-bo
We ended up treating the name of this town like a tongue-twister: Ollantaytambo, ollantaytambo. It’s the “y” of the “olla”, you see. Very hard to get around.But we made it to Ollantaytambo on the morning bus out of Pisac and found Hostal Ollanta without a problem.…
If this is Wednesday, it must be Pisac
Pisac was lovely. A tiny town of only 2000 souls, the main square was entirely taken up by a colorful market selling everything from jewelry to backpacks and more. It started to pour so we bought some raingear from the nearby gear shop and I bought an alpaca wool…
Pisac
Back to paying for Internet. Ah well. At least this place has a computer advanced enough to cope with the thumb drive containing the images but I don’t have time to arrange prettily. You’ll just have to go see for yourself.We spent a lovely day yesterday wandering…
Navel of the universe
Thanks to the amazingly dry air of Cuzco, my lovely Mnemosyne has dried out and is functioning again. However I cannot yet show you photos because the hostel’s PC is running Windows 98 and it refuses to recognise the thumb drive. Bah.Cuzco is delightful and reminds me…
He kissed her… ar-dent-ly
One of the first Australian films I ever showed Doug was The Old Man who Read Love Stories, Rolf de Heer’s divine piece about the Amazon jungle with Richard Dreyfus as an old man learning to read. He has this beautiful latino accent as he reads these trashy love…
Deepest, darkest Peru
I can understand why Paddington Bear needed a duffle coat in England if he was used to the heat of the Amazon. We stepped off the plane and instantly felt the muggy love.The boat ride to Explorer’s inn was already amazing. We saw turtles on the Tambopata river bank…
Las ruinas
Finally got to Pachacamac, the Inca ruins south of Lima. Quite incredible. We wandered around for a while wondering why they had built their huge temples and city here when we went up inside the Templo del Sol and over it and suddenly could see the entire Pacific…
Day 4
Doug says he´s found the world´s best sport: bus surfing in Peru. We hopped on a mini-bus tonight on the way back from dinner (omigod, ceviche mixto – amazing marinated raw fish and seafood in lime and chillis) and I can´t count the number of times it almost crashed.…
Day 1
Our flights were delayed, we almost missed our connection so that a three-hour layover in Houston turned into a five-minute sprint between terminals only to find the second flight had also been delayed. Doug kept saying, “any day in which I don’t have to sprint down…
Next phase!
Advice to the wise: do not attempt to move house, start a honeymoon, finish an article, do your taxes, organize a wedding in a different country and pack for moving to that country all during the same week while you’re pre-menstrual. If you insist on doing so, please…
The one with the cake
Yep, it’s the post you’ve been waiting for.I’ve written up the ceremony and stuck a whole lot of photos of the reception and stuff over at Mordwen’s Lounge. I really need to update the style that’s using because I’m not at all impressed with how it has laid this out.…
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Phoenix Emberstone
passionate political poet
These are poems and meanderings that made their way to the page. I’d love to hear what you think of them. Want to get in touch? Drop me a line!
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I am also known as Ro Bersten, a communications specialist with more than 20 years’ experience. See my CV and professional projects.
