Salon Wanderlust | Death on Ios

[Salon Wanderlust: Travel with a passion]

T A B L E_T A L K
How useful are travel guides? Share your misadventures and miraculous finds in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk

R E C E N T L Y
This week in travel Wanderlust's selective guide to travel-related news
(10/30/98)
Naked and in hot water
By Simon Firth
A proper Brit ventures to a clothing-optional resort and discovers that nudity offers more than meets the eye
(10/29/98)
Man bites dog
By Rolf Potts
Koreans and Americans both love dogs -- they just have different ways of showing it
(10/28/98)
A tipsy tasting in Burgundy
By The Surreal Gourmet
It's not easy sipping 200 to 300 great wines a day, but someone's got to do it
(10/27/98)
Dancing with the dead
By Gina Hyams
Life lessons from Mexico's Day of the Dead
(10/25/98)

Browse the
Wanderlust Feature archives

Wanderlust's Official
Travel Book Partner

S A L O N
E M P O R I U M
FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.

IOS ODYSSEY | PAGE 1, 2
- - - - - - - - - -
Aeolus puffed up his cheeks and blew and blew. The next morning the notias was gone and the meltemi, or wind from the north, was tearing through Khora: Teal plastic garden furniture flew from balconies, empty plastic water bottles swirled by, alley whirlwinds battled each other like vicious dogs, plastic baggies raced over the beach like panic-stricken rodents. Serge and I sat up in the hotel garden and watched the molten-red ball of the sun slither into the sea and illuminate a fairyland of islands hitherto hidden in the bluish haze of the horizon. A fellow Methuselah -- he must have been 38 or 39 -- got up from his beer, patted his belly and gave us a companionable nod. I wanted to retch.
I was thinking of Violetta.
Serge took a drag on his cigarette and looked at the sea, then stood up.
"Come on, let's go into town. You're not really moping over that 17-year-old, are you? She looked like Ginger Spice."
"I just can't believe she's so young."
"You're an old-timer now. Get used to it."
"It just seems so unfair. I don't want to get used to it."
"Does that mean you'll be chasing a 17-year-old girl around this bloody island?"
"That would be a pathetic sight, wouldn't it?"
"Yes, and I'd like to see it. So let's go into town."

Serge and I started off at another bar we had heard about -- Sweet Irish Dreams. On the way there I decided to stop moping and cheer up. Age was all in my head. Why, I was even able to fit into the same bathing suit I had worn when I was on this island in 1985! Nothing had really changed. Tonight would be the night.
Irish Dreams turned out to have a spill-your-cookies, get-outta-my-face-mate! air. It was messy and dark and filled with teeny-boppers on table tops and stumble-drunk blokes. Everyone was in T-shirts and bathing suits and sandals. The crowd was too much. I went to the men's room. Two teens followed me inside and took up positions at the toilets.
I splashed water on my face.
Teen No. 1 (had hair, wore wraparound sunglasses, spoke with an American accent): "So, like, we were all totally drunk in this hotel and couldn't make it to the bathroom, so, like, we just pissed in the drawers of this dresser. I mean we just took drawer after drawer out and just pissed in them all night when we needed to."
Teen No. 2 (shaking off the last drops): "You're kidding."
Teen No. 1 (clanking his buckles into order): "Naw, man, I mean, like, then Bart got to feeling sick. He just took this dresser drawer and blew chow in it."
Teen No. 2: "That's incredible."
Teen No. 1: "Yeah, Amsterdam was great. But you know what drinking beer does to your bowels, man. I mean, I felt this rumble in my gut so I took a drawer and --"
I hurried out. This place was not for us. As we were leaving, a tipsy, very cute Irish girl raised her hands and gave us a double thumbs-up -- "Glad to see you, Uncle!" I fancied her to be saying. I couldn't help smiling back at her, but ... I wanted to retch.
We circled back to the Square and ended up in a club decorated in 1970s-grotto style. Four or five young women danced gracefully by themselves in the center of the floor. Within minutes, however, the door flew open and a threesome of young lads, their black hair crew-cut and their necks draped in gold chains, sailed past us and threw themselves into the midst of the females. One of the fellows, gyrating like an animated boneless chicken, rubber-necked and bandy-legged, set out after a brunette. He and his buddies were like cheetahs on the loose in a flock of gazelles.
The brunette, escaping from him, bumped into me and apologized. She said her name was Sarah, she was 19 years old and from Belfast and she worked for the bar as a dancer.
"Oh, these Israelis! I just can't stand them," she panted. Her hair was cut bowl-style, monklike and goofy; her thighs were white sugar, her ankles and wrists were wispy-thin. She wore a short, black, backless dress and no brassiere; her breasts were heavy torpedoes but they stood erect under the thin cotton.
"Why can't you stand them?"
"Well, the other night one of them kidney-punched me for no reason. Anyway, I came down here on holiday but my money ran out so I got this job ..." Sarah's girlfriends came up and said hello, all Ivory-fresh-faced. They chirped and twittered: Life was a blast, the bar cool, the beach great. I couldn't accurately judge their ages until their male contemporaries, also from Belfast, sauntered over: Goateed, blue-and-yellow-haired, wearing baggy shorts, they were dorky-looking. But I censured myself: Why shouldn't they dress and style themselves this way? They hadn't a boss to impress, a living to make, a care on this earth.
There was one other man my age in the bar: the manager. He stood in the doorway counting a fistful of drachmas. He was all in black and he wore a bulky silver bracelet. He was not simply grim about the mouth; he was positively ferocious.
"Get back to work!" he growled as he passed Sarah. She turned gazelle again and sprang back onto the floor. He went back to counting his money, and Serge and I left.
Shooters. Herb was nowhere to be seen. Violetta and Fiona were there, though, dancing on the tabletops and miming Spice Girls tunes. They were escorted by two apes, two crew-cut monsters in Hawaiian shirts and Birkenstocks. I tried to wave hello to Violetta, but one of the Frankensteins tore her from the table and carried her cave-man style to the bar. There he tipped her to a martini glass, the bartender set the liquid within it aflame and she sucked it down through a straw. Frankenstein burped her, then grabbed a beer and poured it down her throat. In fact, he and his buddy had lined up a score of beers and cocktails on the bar; the rest of the evening was a medley of Spice Girls tunes, piggyback rides to the booze and piggyback rides back to the tabletops, accompanied by Neanderthal grunts and ape scratches and girlish squeals. I followed all this dejectedly, struggling to poke a recalcitrant slice of lemon down into my Corona.
"This is bull," said Serge. "Let's get out of here."
Later I saw Violetta riding down the main street drunk as a spring lark on her ape's shoulders, holding her hands to the breeze, shrieking with schoolgirl glee. Fiona, walking with her arms crossed, looked pained and tried to keep up.

The next afternoon Serge and I sat on the beach watching the water-skiing and Frisbeeing. A fat teen with a pumpkin-size shaved head and a tiny goatee flathandled a sub sandwich. Topless German girls, so young that their breasts had barely budded, rubbed coconut oil into their tummies. An image from Sweet Irish Dreams came to mind: It was of a Swedish blonde, 18 or so, dancing on a tabletop to the M People. She wore flowers in her hair, a yellow halter, a white sash around her tanned midriff; she was barefoot and her toes were brown. Her eyes radiated joy -- she was so happy to be on Ios, on that tabletop; she was beautiful and she knew it and she was flying high on the crowd's adoration. The world was hers and everything would be wonderful.
I suddenly felt robbed -- I could only think these thoughts on behalf of others now. When I was first on Ios I simply took and took from the world without thinking; now I cogitated myself into a funk and concluded that I had lost the urge to grab.
Serge poked my arm and nodded. Violetta. She was taking small steps toward the surf, gripping herself in her arms as though she were the sole survivor of a catastrophe. Her eyes were red, her hair flat, her face white. She dipped her feet in the water, shivered and tread slowly back up to the pool.

Sunday was our last evening in Ios. We spent the first hours watching "True Romance" at the Fun Pub. Serge was tired, I was disillusioned. I told him how sad I felt at perceiving -- for the first time, really -- how quickly time was passing. Then I paused and suggested -- sagely I thought -- that maybe I was exaggerating my plight.
Serge sat back. "Don't live in dreams, Jeff." He walked to the door and looked at the crowds passing by the pub. "Hey, we should take one last walk around the Square."
Shooters was nearly empty when we arrived. Except for Violetta and Fiona.
"We're not drinking tonight," Violetta told me. "See, we just stopped drinking today at 1 in the afternoon." Giggles. "Well, actually, we could maybe have a Flaming Lamborghini."
Serge ordered four Flaming Lamborghinis. The bartender poured liqueur after liqueur into the bulbous glasses. Violetta's eyes lit up and she squirmed.
Ladies first. They dipped in their straws, their faces as cheery as those of children about to get their first glimpse of a department-store Santa Claus. The bartender set the stuff alight, and as they were sucking it down, he dolloped in still more alcohol from another bottle. He then presented them with chaser bottles of Amstel.
We drank next. Their pupils dilated and so did ours. An easy mirth crept over us all; I felt a rising gusto, an inflation of ego -- my cause was not yet lost! They said they were from London. I told them we lived in Moscow. I talked at length about life there, about the boulevards streaming with Mercedes and mobsters and beautiful molls. But they responded with giddy laughs and uncomprehending stares; I might as well have said we had just flown in from Saturn. Despite the Flaming Lamborghinis, a trenchant unease began rolling in, washing away the mirth.
Serge took imperious drags on his cigarette; I did my damnedest to act relaxed and glib.
"What, by the way, is your favorite music?" I asked.
Violetta's eyes lit up: "The Spice Girls! The Spice Girls! We like to dance on the tabletop to the Spice Girls!"
I cleared beer bottles off a nearby table. Serge hung back, shaking his head. Violetta requested "Human Touch" from the DJ, then, grabbing Fiona's hand, pulled her aloft.
"Stop right here" -- the two raised their arms -- "thank you very much" -- choreographed hip swivels -- "I need somebody with a human touch" -- a forced smile stretched my cheeks apart, a thousand thoughts of tender pity and alienation and estrangement rattled through my mind -- "get outta my face" -- here they slapped an invisible man's cheek.
I was the only Spice fan, and I felt their enthusiasm for their dance melt away. Another "human touch," a lackluster hip swivel, a final, flailing slap in the face of that imagined brute, and I helped them back to earth. I couldn't wipe the putty smile off my face; it masked an unbridgable gulf yawning wider and wider between us. Our conversation foundered -- none of us had anything left to say. The desire I had felt for her waned under a crushing alienation that derived from -- yes -- the difference in our ages. She belonged to another world, to Sarah's world, to a world of youth that now, I finally understood, was closed to me.
"Well, ahh, we have to meet these blokes in a bit," Violetta said. "It's their last night, you see. We'll be back in half an hour. So wait for us here, OK?" She grabbed Fiona's hand and they were off.
Serge smirked.
"They won't be back. That's their routine -- get the old guys to buy them drinks, then take off."
They did not return.

The meltemi persisted, forcing the cancellation of the Flying Dolphin the day of our departure from Ios. We would take the slow boat out.
I once thought of aging as a beast that could be held at bay by exercise, a proper diet, the right hair gel, a practiced tailor. It was something that happened to careless people, to other people. Before my return to Ios, I believed my options were open: Life was a revolving smorgasbord and I had the power to choose my dish. I thought I would always have that power, at least until I achieved true seniority -- the age of 80, say -- when a pleasant dash of dotage would set in, an endearing shuffle would ensue, my features would mature into a mien of sublime gravitas, and I would be, well, regal. Feel free to laugh at my misguidedness because I am laughing at it myself.
Youth, I now see, was a gift that Life bestowed then yanked away before I knew it, with unexpected results. Like some reincarnation of Odysseus brandishing not a sword but a trendy wristwatch and shades, I returned to my Ithaca and found I had outgrown my Penelope -- but it hurt that she would not have had me, anyway. She showed me that there were walls in my life that I could not breach.
Now, waiting for the boat out of Ios, I resolved to recognize the imprint that the years had left on me. I still cherished my youthful romps on the islands, but in a flush of insight, I saw that time, like a river, flows in one direction only, and I must ride the current and accept its gifts. There is no choice, anyway.
Our ferry, the gold-trimmed Maria Pa, honked and rounded the cape on its way into Ios harbor, fighting the meltemi, hissing as it sliced the waves, honking again as it backed up to the dock, churning the glaucous water into foam. Serge and I joined the crowd in pushing our way aboard. With another honk we pulled away, our bow swinging round until it pointed north.
With a roar of engines we lurched ahead and steamed seaward. I didn't look back.
SALON | Nov. 1, 1998
Jeffrey Tayler is a journalist based in Moscow. He has previously written for Salon Wanderlust about Nigeria, the Congo, the Sahara and Moscow.


	T A B L E_T A L K How useful are travel guides? Share your misadventures and miraculous finds in the Wanderlust area of Table Talk R E C E N T L Y This week in travel Wanderlust's selective guide to travel-related news (10/30/98) Naked and in hot water By Simon Firth A proper Brit ventures to a clothing-optional resort and discovers that nudity offers more than meets the eye (10/29/98) Man bites dog By Rolf Potts Koreans and Americans both love dogs -- they just have different ways of showing it (10/28/98) A tipsy tasting in Burgundy By The Surreal Gourmet It's not easy sipping 200 to 300 great wines a day, but someone's got to do it (10/27/98) Dancing with the dead By Gina Hyams Life lessons from Mexico's Day of the Dead (10/25/98) Browse the Wanderlust Feature archives Wanderlust's Official Travel Book Partner S A L O N E M P O R I U M FREE! 12-ounce bag of Salon Blend with a purchase of $30 or more. While supplies last.		IOS ODYSSEY \| PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - Aeolus puffed up his cheeks and blew and blew. The next morning the notias was gone and the meltemi, or wind from the north, was tearing through Khora: Teal plastic garden furniture flew from balconies, empty plastic water bottles swirled by, alley whirlwinds battled each other like vicious dogs, plastic baggies raced over the beach like panic-stricken rodents. Serge and I sat up in the hotel garden and watched the molten-red ball of the sun slither into the sea and illuminate a fairyland of islands hitherto hidden in the bluish haze of the horizon. A fellow Methuselah -- he must have been 38 or 39 -- got up from his beer, patted his belly and gave us a companionable nod. I wanted to retch. I was thinking of Violetta. Serge took a drag on his cigarette and looked at the sea, then stood up. "Come on, let's go into town. You're not really moping over that 17-year-old, are you? She looked like Ginger Spice." "I just can't believe she's so young." "You're an old-timer now. Get used to it." "It just seems so unfair. I don't want to get used to it." "Does that mean you'll be chasing a 17-year-old girl around this bloody island?" "That would be a pathetic sight, wouldn't it?" "Yes, and I'd like to see it. So let's go into town." Serge and I started off at another bar we had heard about -- Sweet Irish Dreams. On the way there I decided to stop moping and cheer up. Age was all in my head. Why, I was even able to fit into the same bathing suit I had worn when I was on this island in 1985! Nothing had really changed. Tonight would be the night. Irish Dreams turned out to have a spill-your-cookies, get-outta-my-face-mate! air. It was messy and dark and filled with teeny-boppers on table tops and stumble-drunk blokes. Everyone was in T-shirts and bathing suits and sandals. The crowd was too much. I went to the men's room. Two teens followed me inside and took up positions at the toilets. I splashed water on my face. Teen No. 1 (had hair, wore wraparound sunglasses, spoke with an American accent): "So, like, we were all totally drunk in this hotel and couldn't make it to the bathroom, so, like, we just pissed in the drawers of this dresser. I mean we just took drawer after drawer out and just pissed in them all night when we needed to." Teen No. 2 (shaking off the last drops): "You're kidding." Teen No. 1 (clanking his buckles into order): "Naw, man, I mean, like, then Bart got to feeling sick. He just took this dresser drawer and blew chow in it." Teen No. 2: "That's incredible." Teen No. 1: "Yeah, Amsterdam was great. But you know what drinking beer does to your bowels, man. I mean, I felt this rumble in my gut so I took a drawer and --" I hurried out. This place was not for us. As we were leaving, a tipsy, very cute Irish girl raised her hands and gave us a double thumbs-up -- "Glad to see you, Uncle!" I fancied her to be saying. I couldn't help smiling back at her, but ... I wanted to retch. We circled back to the Square and ended up in a club decorated in 1970s-grotto style. Four or five young women danced gracefully by themselves in the center of the floor. Within minutes, however, the door flew open and a threesome of young lads, their black hair crew-cut and their necks draped in gold chains, sailed past us and threw themselves into the midst of the females. One of the fellows, gyrating like an animated boneless chicken, rubber-necked and bandy-legged, set out after a brunette. He and his buddies were like cheetahs on the loose in a flock of gazelles. The brunette, escaping from him, bumped into me and apologized. She said her name was Sarah, she was 19 years old and from Belfast and she worked for the bar as a dancer. "Oh, these Israelis! I just can't stand them," she panted. Her hair was cut bowl-style, monklike and goofy; her thighs were white sugar, her ankles and wrists were wispy-thin. She wore a short, black, backless dress and no brassiere; her breasts were heavy torpedoes but they stood erect under the thin cotton. "Why can't you stand them?" "Well, the other night one of them kidney-punched me for no reason. Anyway, I came down here on holiday but my money ran out so I got this job ..." Sarah's girlfriends came up and said hello, all Ivory-fresh-faced. They chirped and twittered: Life was a blast, the bar cool, the beach great. I couldn't accurately judge their ages until their male contemporaries, also from Belfast, sauntered over: Goateed, blue-and-yellow-haired, wearing baggy shorts, they were dorky-looking. But I censured myself: Why shouldn't they dress and style themselves this way? They hadn't a boss to impress, a living to make, a care on this earth. There was one other man my age in the bar: the manager. He stood in the doorway counting a fistful of drachmas. He was all in black and he wore a bulky silver bracelet. He was not simply grim about the mouth; he was positively ferocious. "Get back to work!" he growled as he passed Sarah. She turned gazelle again and sprang back onto the floor. He went back to counting his money, and Serge and I left. Shooters. Herb was nowhere to be seen. Violetta and Fiona were there, though, dancing on the tabletops and miming Spice Girls tunes. They were escorted by two apes, two crew-cut monsters in Hawaiian shirts and Birkenstocks. I tried to wave hello to Violetta, but one of the Frankensteins tore her from the table and carried her cave-man style to the bar. There he tipped her to a martini glass, the bartender set the liquid within it aflame and she sucked it down through a straw. Frankenstein burped her, then grabbed a beer and poured it down her throat. In fact, he and his buddy had lined up a score of beers and cocktails on the bar; the rest of the evening was a medley of Spice Girls tunes, piggyback rides to the booze and piggyback rides back to the tabletops, accompanied by Neanderthal grunts and ape scratches and girlish squeals. I followed all this dejectedly, struggling to poke a recalcitrant slice of lemon down into my Corona. "This is bull," said Serge. "Let's get out of here." Later I saw Violetta riding down the main street drunk as a spring lark on her ape's shoulders, holding her hands to the breeze, shrieking with schoolgirl glee. Fiona, walking with her arms crossed, looked pained and tried to keep up. The next afternoon Serge and I sat on the beach watching the water-skiing and Frisbeeing. A fat teen with a pumpkin-size shaved head and a tiny goatee flathandled a sub sandwich. Topless German girls, so young that their breasts had barely budded, rubbed coconut oil into their tummies. An image from Sweet Irish Dreams came to mind: It was of a Swedish blonde, 18 or so, dancing on a tabletop to the M People. She wore flowers in her hair, a yellow halter, a white sash around her tanned midriff; she was barefoot and her toes were brown. Her eyes radiated joy -- she was so happy to be on Ios, on that tabletop; she was beautiful and she knew it and she was flying high on the crowd's adoration. The world was hers and everything would be wonderful. I suddenly felt robbed -- I could only think these thoughts on behalf of others now. When I was first on Ios I simply took and took from the world without thinking; now I cogitated myself into a funk and concluded that I had lost the urge to grab. Serge poked my arm and nodded. Violetta. She was taking small steps toward the surf, gripping herself in her arms as though she were the sole survivor of a catastrophe. Her eyes were red, her hair flat, her face white. She dipped her feet in the water, shivered and tread slowly back up to the pool. Sunday was our last evening in Ios. We spent the first hours watching "True Romance" at the Fun Pub. Serge was tired, I was disillusioned. I told him how sad I felt at perceiving -- for the first time, really -- how quickly time was passing. Then I paused and suggested -- sagely I thought -- that maybe I was exaggerating my plight. Serge sat back. "Don't live in dreams, Jeff." He walked to the door and looked at the crowds passing by the pub. "Hey, we should take one last walk around the Square." Shooters was nearly empty when we arrived. Except for Violetta and Fiona. "We're not drinking tonight," Violetta told me. "See, we just stopped drinking today at 1 in the afternoon." Giggles. "Well, actually, we could maybe have a Flaming Lamborghini." Serge ordered four Flaming Lamborghinis. The bartender poured liqueur after liqueur into the bulbous glasses. Violetta's eyes lit up and she squirmed. Ladies first. They dipped in their straws, their faces as cheery as those of children about to get their first glimpse of a department-store Santa Claus. The bartender set the stuff alight, and as they were sucking it down, he dolloped in still more alcohol from another bottle. He then presented them with chaser bottles of Amstel. We drank next. Their pupils dilated and so did ours. An easy mirth crept over us all; I felt a rising gusto, an inflation of ego -- my cause was not yet lost! They said they were from London. I told them we lived in Moscow. I talked at length about life there, about the boulevards streaming with Mercedes and mobsters and beautiful molls. But they responded with giddy laughs and uncomprehending stares; I might as well have said we had just flown in from Saturn. Despite the Flaming Lamborghinis, a trenchant unease began rolling in, washing away the mirth. Serge took imperious drags on his cigarette; I did my damnedest to act relaxed and glib. "What, by the way, is your favorite music?" I asked. Violetta's eyes lit up: "The Spice Girls! The Spice Girls! We like to dance on the tabletop to the Spice Girls!" I cleared beer bottles off a nearby table. Serge hung back, shaking his head. Violetta requested "Human Touch" from the DJ, then, grabbing Fiona's hand, pulled her aloft. "Stop right here" -- the two raised their arms -- "thank you very much" -- choreographed hip swivels -- "I need somebody with a human touch" -- a forced smile stretched my cheeks apart, a thousand thoughts of tender pity and alienation and estrangement rattled through my mind -- "get outta my face" -- here they slapped an invisible man's cheek. I was the only Spice fan, and I felt their enthusiasm for their dance melt away. Another "human touch," a lackluster hip swivel, a final, flailing slap in the face of that imagined brute, and I helped them back to earth. I couldn't wipe the putty smile off my face; it masked an unbridgable gulf yawning wider and wider between us. Our conversation foundered -- none of us had anything left to say. The desire I had felt for her waned under a crushing alienation that derived from -- yes -- the difference in our ages. She belonged to another world, to Sarah's world, to a world of youth that now, I finally understood, was closed to me. "Well, ahh, we have to meet these blokes in a bit," Violetta said. "It's their last night, you see. We'll be back in half an hour. So wait for us here, OK?" She grabbed Fiona's hand and they were off. Serge smirked. "They won't be back. That's their routine -- get the old guys to buy them drinks, then take off." They did not return. The meltemi persisted, forcing the cancellation of the Flying Dolphin the day of our departure from Ios. We would take the slow boat out. I once thought of aging as a beast that could be held at bay by exercise, a proper diet, the right hair gel, a practiced tailor. It was something that happened to careless people, to other people. Before my return to Ios, I believed my options were open: Life was a revolving smorgasbord and I had the power to choose my dish. I thought I would always have that power, at least until I achieved true seniority -- the age of 80, say -- when a pleasant dash of dotage would set in, an endearing shuffle would ensue, my features would mature into a mien of sublime gravitas, and I would be, well, regal. Feel free to laugh at my misguidedness because I am laughing at it myself. Youth, I now see, was a gift that Life bestowed then yanked away before I knew it, with unexpected results. Like some reincarnation of Odysseus brandishing not a sword but a trendy wristwatch and shades, I returned to my Ithaca and found I had outgrown my Penelope -- but it hurt that she would not have had me, anyway. She showed me that there were walls in my life that I could not breach. Now, waiting for the boat out of Ios, I resolved to recognize the imprint that the years had left on me. I still cherished my youthful romps on the islands, but in a flush of insight, I saw that time, like a river, flows in one direction only, and I must ride the current and accept its gifts. There is no choice, anyway. Our ferry, the gold-trimmed Maria Pa, honked and rounded the cape on its way into Ios harbor, fighting the meltemi, hissing as it sliced the waves, honking again as it backed up to the dock, churning the glaucous water into foam. Serge and I joined the crowd in pushing our way aboard. With another honk we pulled away, our bow swinging round until it pointed north. With a roar of engines we lurched ahead and steamed seaward. I didn't look back. SALON \| Nov. 1, 1998 Jeffrey Tayler is a journalist based in Moscow. He has previously written for Salon Wanderlust about Nigeria, the Congo, the Sahara and Moscow.