Joe Yogerst's Blog, page 2

Craig and Joe’s Excellent Road Trips. Podcast One: Nearly Died Trying

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Pantanal — The Movie

[image error]Better late than never . . . you can now view a short video version of my trip to Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands at this link — Pantanal – The Movie

On par with Africa as a wildlife destination — and far better than the Amazon — the Pantanal is one of the world’s largest and richest wetlands. Located in the Mato Grosso region of southwest Brazil, the Pantanal is the best place on the planet to see (and photograph) jaguars in the wild.

Read my CNN Travel article about the trip — and browse some of my photos of Pantanal residents and wildlife — at Brazil’s Other Wild Place – The Pantanal

“Pantanal — The Movie”

Produced and edited by Shannon Yogerst

Music: “Olhar adiante” by A Minha Embala (Aline Frazão e César Herranz)

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Joe Yogerst Talks Lakes on NPR’s “Here & Now”

[image error]If you didn’t catch my interview on NPR live on Monday (July 10th), here the link to the segment on the “Here & Now” website. 

Host Robin Young and myself talked about summer lake vacations and the impact that lakes have had on our respective lives. And I got a chance to plug my Nat Geo “50 States” book — a bestseller in the US and Canada for going on six months since its February publication.

Favorite Lake Vacations

During our chats before the interview, Robin asked me to compile a list of my favorite American lakes in several categories. And these were my thoughts:

Best Lake for Swimming: Lake Mead on the Nevada-Arizona border. Love that warm water. And it’s the only lake I know where you can float on your back and gaze up at the walls of the Grand Canyon.

Most Beautiful Lake: Lake Tahoe in winter. Deep blue sky and even deeper blue lake separated by a mantel of fresh white powder.

[image error]Gary Ladd, National Park Service

Favorite Lake for History: Lake Champlain, which is shared between Vermont, New York and Quebec province. During both the American Revolution and the War of 1812, battles were fought on and around Champlain that determined the future course of the United States, and by extension, the entire world. It’s also got dessert history — the birthplace of Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream (Burlington VT).

Best Lake for Wildlife: A lot of places in Alaska would probably qualify. But my current favorite is Lake Martin in south-central Louisiana where I recently had very close encounters of the gator kind. As well as yellow-bellied slider turtles, feral cats and various waterfowl.

Best Wilderness Lake: Hands down it’s gotta be Lake Superior. Remote, wild, edgy, untamed and often dangerous. Great national parks in Isle Royale, Apostle Islands and Pictured Rocks. And that haunting song by Gordon Lightfoot about the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Favorite Small Lakes: Treasure Lake in Oklahoma’s Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge and the Trout Glen Pool in Missouri’s Ha Ha Tonka State Park.

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Sipping Commandaria in Cyprus — The World’s First Branded Wine

[image error] I swirl the amber nectar around in my mouth and let it slide down my gullet. A bit on the sweet side, with a slight taste of raisin. Actually quite pleasant. Especially when served ice cold on a sweltering afternoon. Which describes almost every day on Cyprus, the Mediterranean island where I’m sipping the wine.

A blend of red and white, Commandaria wine is considered the world’s oldest continuous appellation. It was originally bottled on the island during the crusades by the Knights Templar. As a result, the name derives from the fiefdom (“commandaria”) around Kolossi Castle where the grapes were grown.

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The Templar may have been super-secretive about the real-life Holy Grail (and the fictional Da Vinci Code). But when it came to selling their own brand of wine, the medieval mercenaries figured the more, the merrier. As in merrier drinkers and more profits flowing back into their coffers.

Commandaria, the world’s oldest branded wine

Word of mouth made it the drink of choice among their fellow crusaders as well as European royals and aristocrats. They quaffed copious amounts of Commandaria at the wedding of Richard the Lion Hearted and Berengaria. King Philippe Augustus of France dubbed it the “Apostle of Wines.”

 

“It was basically the same wine they’d been making in Cyprus for thousands of years,” says Pambos Papadopoulos, curator of the Cyprus Wine Museum in Eremi. “The Knights just decided to give it a name and export it.”

There’s even scientific proof. Italian researchers tested the residue at the bottom 5,500-year-old amphora at the museum. They discovered a high level of tartaric acid, indicating they must have held wine.

“That was probably very similar to Commandaria,” Pambos adds. Bacchanalian mosaics in the Roman-era ruins at Kato Pafos further indicate wine’s importance in Cypriot culture.

Fifty Plus Wineries on Cyprus

Commandaria may be the most famous of Cypriot wines, but as I discover during my stay on the island, it’s far from being the only one.

 

[image error]More than 50 wineries produce a wide variety of reds and whites, almost all of them on the southern slopes of the Troodos Mountains. Many eagerly welcome visitors. However, the experience is a world away from swank Napa Valley cellars.

 

Orthodox monks, it seems, make the island’s best wine. Monasteries known as much for their grapes as their golden icons. And that’s where I head first, navigating a winding highway high into the Troodos. I’m the sole visitor at Panagia Chrysorroyiatissa, founded by a hermit in 1152 AD on a ridge nearly 3,000 feet above the sea.

 

A black-bearded monk in the dusty old monastery shop points me in the direction of sagging wooden shelves heaped with bottles of red, white and rose. Without much fanfare, he recommends a dry red wine called Ayios Elias, made from black grapes grown on the hillsides above the monastery.[image error]

 

Modern Wine Production

The following day I discover the modern side of Cypriot wine at KEO Ktima Mallia winery, where mechanization replaces ancient ways and means.

“One of these,” says winery manager Savvas Constantinou, slapping the side of a huge blue harvesting machine, “can pick as many grapes in one hour as 15 women and their donkeys working eight hours.”

Savvos snatches a bunch of dark-blue Mavro grapes (used to make Commandaria) straight from the vine. He pops one in his mouth, passes the rest to me. They are deliciously sweet. [image error]

Sipping the Commandaria back home, swirling it around in a glass and savoring the unusual flavor, it feels like I’m preserving an ancient tradition. And unlike Prof Langdon in those Da Vinci movies, I didn’t have to solve murders or follow cryptic clues.

 

Travel Tip:

Plan your visit for fall (Sept-Oct) when the bulk of Cypriot grape harvest takes place.

 

 

 

 

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The Vietnam War and My Own Travels

[image error][image error]Had another book drop this week — The Vietnam War: The Definitive Illustrated History by DK. Quite a departure from the travel-related books that I’ve worked on over the past year. But certainly not my first work on Vietnam.

Published jointly with the Smithsonian, the book chronicles America’s military and political involvement in Southeast Asia during the 1960s and 1970s as it explores the people, politics, events and lasting impact of the Vietnam War. Filled with more than 500 photographs and broken down by year, Vietnam War tells the story through powerful words and images.

Vietnam War Pivotal Year 1968

My contribution to the book was the chapter on 1968, a year that changed the course of the war and American politics. Among the pivotal events that year were the Tet Offensive, anti-war protests back home, the U.S. presidential election, and Richard Nixon’s secret sabotage of the Paris Peace Talks. To quote the DK publicity blurb, “The Vietnam War is a stirring visual record of the suffering, sacrifice, and heroism in America’s longest and bloodiest conflict of the 20th century.”

I wasn’t old enough to get drafted and didn’t set foot in Vietnam until 1988 to undertake a cover story for Discovery magazine. The communist regime didn’t allow solo travel back then, so my wife Julia and I had to join a small group tour with a government guide. Among our travel companions was a Vietnamese refugee going back to visit her family and an American vet making an emotional return to the place that changed his life. Crammed into a minibus, we journeyed from Ho Chi Minh City to Dalat in the Central Highlands and Nha Trang on the coast. Conditions were rough, little in the way of tourism infrastructure. We ate in street stalls rather than restaurants and stayed in rundown French colonial-era hotels.

Land of Nine Dragons

But the country sparked my interest and book ideas that I pitched to publishers in New York. Out of that came two more trips to Indochina and Land of Nine Dragons – Vietnam Today — which won a Lowell Thomas Award as the nation’s best travel book that year. Photographer Nevada Wier was my sidekick on both visits. The first was a month-long drive down Highway One between Hanoi and the Mekong Delta. The second trip a journey into the northern highlands to visit Dien Bien Phu and the hilltribes.

One of our strangest encounters was with another American, a fellow clad in a starched white long-sleeve shirt sitting at the next able over in a restaurant. He invited us to join him, and a lively conversation ensued. It wasn’t until the very end of the meal that we realized we’d been dining with Jay Pritzker, the American billionaire and founder of the Hyatt Hotel chain. 

Groundwork for Vietnam War Book

It also was during those trips for Nine Dragons that I got to know many of the places I would write about in The Vietnam War. The royal Citadel in Hue. The remains of the U.S. Marine combat base at Khe Sanh and U.S. Army Special Forces base at Lang Vei. The U.S. Embassy compound and Tan Son Nhut Air Base in the city called Saigon prior to communist victory. So in writing the DK chapter on 1968, I dipped into memories of my own footsteps through the places that turned the tide of war and American history.

 
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Is Chris Pratt Really the Nicest Guy in Hollywood?

[image error]With the latest Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 sailing into cinemas next week, I’m reminded of the time that I had lunch with Chris Pratt. The venue was a tiny bakery café called La Conversation — right across the street from the unassuming bungalow where Chris lived when he first came to Hollywood.

 

Guardians of the Galaxy Interview

I had just interviewed him about the first Guardians of the Galaxy for Prestige magazine — mainly if he was freaked out about having to carry a $200-million “tent pole” movie for the first time in his career. And after, rather than rush off to some other appointment like so many Hollywood types, he asked me if I wanted to have lunch with him. Who’s going to say no, right?

 

Tables Turned During Lunch

So our conversation continued for another hour or so. And the most amazing thing about it was how Chris turned the tables — started asking me about my life, the writing profession, did I have a daily routine, did I ever get writer’s block, that sort of thing. Genuinely interested. With all the interviews I’ve done with celebrities over the years, I’d never had that happen before. And I came away from the lunch thinking that, like everyone says, Chris really is the nicest guy in Hollywood. Here’s the article.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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