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Transplanted Englishman Paul Rogers writes about music and lifestyle for LAWeekly, and reports for us from the Characters of Egypt Festival:

"Does he have to keep using that bright pink cell phone?" groaned the lady atop the camel in front of mine as she pointed her camera down at the little lad leading the lanky beast. My fellow tourist was lamenting the otherwise exotic, trapped-in-time image in her viewfinder--the boy's hungry eyes and tousled hair emerging from a traditional earth-toned robe--being tainted by a disappointingly familiar, decidedly 21st-century fuchsia Motorola.

That happened in Tunisia a few years back, but I was reminded of it while perusing the Characters of Egypt Festival in that country's Eastern Desert last weekend. The event returned for its second year to a sandy valley within sight of the Red Sea, about 30 miles south of the rapidly developing resort town of Marsa Alam. An enthralling coming-together of numerous tribal "teams" representing indigenous peoples from all over Egypt, it was a chance to witness their poetry, dancing, jewelry, music, and racing (camel/running/hopping) in and around an array of outsized tents. Organized by the Wadi Environmental Science Centre (WESC) and the Egyptian Desert Pioneers Society (EDPS), Characters of Egypt gathered around 160 of the country's estimated 300,000 tribespeople.

With fewer than 500 tourists attending on each of its three days and a charmingly loose "desert time" schedule (and despite the presence of sponsors like Infiniti and EgyptAir), Characters of Egypt offered illuminating peeps into numerous threatened cultures in an unusually informal setting. But it was also a place where I found myself, like the lady in Tunisia, trying to influence (rather than truly experience) my surroundings.

Two weeks ago, Budapest's Winter Festival--a massive four-month event--kicked off.  The festival includes a variety of activities, but its five-week Christmas Festival is by far the most popular. This year, the 10th annual Christmas Festival takes place today through December 29th. Attended by 600,000 people annually, it is considered one of the largest Christmas fairs in Europe.

But this isn't your average tourist trap full of kitschy trinkets. Every one of the baskets, leather goods, hand-blown glass, and other crafts sold at the over 100 craft pavilions must be judged and approved by the Association of Hungarian Folk Artists. Such high standards have given Budapest's Christmas Festival a reputation of being one of the most authentic Christmas festivals in the world. Some highlights of the festival include:

Daily Advent Presentation
As a child, I loved hanging a new advent ornament on the tree every day leading up to Christmas, but Budapest's Christmas festival has a tradition that would have blown my 6-year-old mind. Every evening at 5 p.m. from December 1st through the 24th, a different piece of contemporary art is revealed from behind a massive window of the Gerbeaud Confectionery (left). The event is accompanied by a light show and music.

Handmade Gifts
Because the gifts are so authentic and beautiful, the Christmas Festival is a popular shopping destination for locals and visitors alike. Peruse the selection of hand-made jewelry, leather goods, and traditional wooden toys.

I arrived in Madrid a few weeks ago with only a handful of hours on a Saturday to show my fiancé around town, so I wanted a way to pack in as much culture as we could, and if possible, do it on the cheap. Enter my colleague Meg Weaver's excellent Free City Guide to Madrid, where I found a slew of cost-efficient ways to wander the city. With her list and a few of our own discoveries along the way, we were able to make our limited stay a memorable one, and save a few euros in the process.

Our first stop was the CaixaForum Madrid gallery, a former electric power station that's now a funky art space situated along the Paseo del Prado, tucked among some of the city's best museums. We wandered the current exhibit, took a break at the thoroughly modern cafe upstairs, then marveled at the living wall of plant life that's overtaken the exterior of the building next door. The admission is always free, so it should certainly join the must-see list for those visiting the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia and Museo del Prado, which is where we were headed next.

Admission is free for visitors to the Reina Sofia after 2:30 p.m. on Saturdays and until 2:30 p.m. on Sundays, so we ducked in there first, taking the very-cool elevators up to see Picasso's Guérnica, which is always captivating. We spent awhile wandering the halls of modern art before heading over to the historic stuff at the Prado, whose immense galleries filled with works by Goya, Reubens, and Velásques constituted an entire semester's worth of study for one of my college roommates when she studied abroad in the city. But we only had two hours, as the Prado offers free admission from 6 p.m to 8 p.m. on Tuesday through Saturday (and from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. on Sunday). Thankfully, that was more than enough time to take in some of the museum's more famous works like Las Meninas and The 3rd of May 1808 in Madrid.

Austen fans rejoice! Last week, The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City opened a new exhibit featuring more than 100 of Austen's works. One of the most exceptional pieces is the Lady Susan manuscript - the only surviving complete manuscript of Austen's. Other pieces include personal letters - including the ones she wrote "cross-hatched" (across the horizontal lines of text at right angles in order to save paper) - and selected drawings and prints depicting people, places and events important to Austen's life. The exhibit also features illustrated editions of Austen's novels and an unfinished copy of The Watsons - the "only surviving manuscript of Austen's novels showing her work in progress and under revision".

The exhibit explores the legacy Jane Austen left after her early death at the age of 41. It features later writers' responses to her work - opening with a diary entry by her peer Sir Walter Scott and followed by comments from 20th-century writers such as Yeats and Kipling. Austen's influence is further examined through a film (below) - "The Divine Jane: Reflections on Austen" - by Italian director Francesco Carrozzini at the conclusion of the exhibition that features interviews with artists and scholars. One highlight of the film is when the interviewees describe the kind of dinner party they would have if Jane Austen were a guest.

Traveler writer Jeanine Barone is just back from Turkey, where she found an alternative way to explore this land that she heard was magical. Instead of going by van from one town to the next to get a glimpse of the magic, or signing up with a big name hiking company so she could trudge on the trails while everyone else chattered away, she opted for a one-man operation. Below, she discovers the magic of Turkey's Middle Earth.

I'll admit up front that I have two somewhat geeky obsessions: the Lord of the Rings trilogy and Surrealist art. Aragorn is my screensaver and my cell phone ring tone is from the soundtrack. I collect books on Salvador Dali, and I'll wait in any museum line to view his bizarre, ingenious creations. Strangely enough, both of these passions came to mind in Turkey's Cappadocia's region, a UNESCO World Heritage Site that's renowned for its elaborate labyrinthine cave dwellings, and cave chapels and monasteries that once sheltered early Christians. As I trekked with my guide, Mehmet Gungor, this land, with its multi-story rock hewn portals, sometimes seemed straight out of Middle Earth. At other moments, I felt like Dali had a hand in the rainbow-hued landscape tinged with yellows, pinks and reds that's riddled with curious, conical shapes, some blatantly phallic, and others balancing boulders shaped like top hats. (They're appropriately called fairy chimneys.) I half expected to see a melting timepiece. As it turned out, watches (real or imaginary) had no place in my journey. Mehmet, who bears a Zen-like mindfulness, doesn't wear a watch. "Visitors ask me how many hours to this or how far to that, but you can't count or think about time. Just enjoy the experience," he declared at the start of our full day hike.

A 2006 National Geographic-Roper Survey of Geographic Literacy found that only half of 18-24 year olds in the United States could correctly identify India or Japan on a map.  Things didn't look any better when it came to domestic locations, either--only 50 percent could correctly identify the state of New York and a mere 43 percent could pinpoint Ohio on a map. This November 15-21, National Geographic will attempt to combat young Americans' lack of geographic knowledge by sponsoring Geography Awareness Week.  Launched in 1987 by a presidential proclamation, Geography Awareness Week takes place annually during the third week of November. 

There are many ways to get involved in this year's event.  Teachers can take advantage of programs and tools from National Geographic's Geography Action! program--such as downloadable wall-sized maps to hang in their classrooms and support material geared toward specific age groups, from Kindergarteners through high school seniors.

Easton, Maryland--located just inland from the Chesapeake Bay--is hosting its 39th annual Waterfowl Festival this weekend. From Friday, November 13th to Sunday, November 15th, visitors can attend the festival, which pays tribute to the annual migrating of Canada geese over the area. This small-town festival is surprisingly full of things to do, here are a few:

View wildlife paintings, sculptures, carvings, and photographs produced by local artisans in locations around the town and in the main festival area. Don't miss the demonstrations where the craftsmen show the techniques they use to create their art. On the Thursday before the festival starts, you can take a master's class in painting, carving, or photography from experienced professionals. Classes are either three or six hours and cost an additional fee.

Outdoorsmen and -women should check out the Sportsman's Pavilion at the Elk's Lodge. Visitors can peruse vendors hawking everything from hunting gear to boats and "exotic" hunting trips. Then head over to Easton High School where you can haggle for some new duck calls and other hunting or fishing memorabilia. Have a knack for goose calling? Well, it's time to unveil it at the "one and only" World Championship Goose Calling Contest. Amateurs and experts alike are welcome to enter one of the six contests and compete for prizes ranging from $250 - $10,000.  Preliminaries begin Friday, so you had better start practicing.

Managing Editor Scott Stuckey has just returned from Turkey and got an insider's look at Istanbul's famous Whirling Dervishes.


I first heard the term "Whirling Dervishes" as a young child and, reasonably enough, surmised that they were dervishes who loved to whirl. What a dervish was, exactly, remained a mystery to me until last Friday, when I stepped into a 500-year-old Turkish bathhouse (repurposed as the Hodjapasha Culture Center) in the Sirkeci area of old Istanbul. Here, monks of a mystical Sufi order of Muslims--known traditionally for their spirituality, self denial, and tolerance--perform a centuries-old dance ritual for the admission price of 40 Turkish lira, beverage included.

My tour group streamed into the circular brick room, and we took our seats just a few feet from the Plexiglas stage, lit from beneath with colored lights, where the dervishes would spin. A worry crossed my mind: What if a dervish got dizzy and landed in my lap? We were that close.

Soon, musicians took their place in an alcove and began playing and chanting classical Turkish music, using traditional drums and stringed instruments. In time, five dervishes appeared, walking around the perimeter of the stage. Their every movement--crossing their arms, laying a sheepskin on the floor opposite the door, bowing, saluting one another--followed established traditions lost on most of us in the audience, though we sensed there was meaning to it all.

Last week, National Geographic Traveler assistant editor Janelle Nanos got to chat with legendary actor and World War II enthusiast Tom Hanks, who has "perhaps done more than anyone in Hollywood today to help tell the stories of the war with the film Saving Private Ryan and HBO series Band of Brothers" and who just helped produce the interactive film Beyond All Boundaries for the World War II Museum in New Orleans. Hanks's goal of the film--which premiers on November 8--was to make an impression: to give the viewer a chance to look beyond the familiar black-and-white portrayal of WWII and see that these were real people, living their lives in a period that would change them forever.

A trailer of the movie can be seen here. For the complete interview and insiders look at the film, click here.

Brian Jungen is the first living Native American artist to have a solo show at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian, and his exhibit, "Strange Comfort" opened this past weekend. Jungen creates art out of recognizable everyday objects, including sports paraphernalia: a suit of armor made of catcher mitts, a skull made from baseball skins, blankets woven from jerseys, and totem poles of stacked golf bags (above). According to this interview on NPR's All Things Considered, Jungen deliberately chooses to make art "from materials belonging to an industry that has claimed names such as The Chiefs, Indians, Redskins and Braves."

"I felt that if these professional sports teams felt that they had every right to use this terminology, then I had every right to exploit their materials for my artwork," Jungen says.

Jungen also draws inspiration from the ritual aspect of American sports.

"Professional sports play a role in society that serves like a ritual and ceremony," he says. "Having experienced that within my own family -- the dancing and drumming that I participate in -- I know how important that is. So I wanted to use that -- use things that people would recognize in their everyday world."

Former Traveler staffer Christina Stockamore gets the inside scoop on One & Other, an imaginative art installation in London's Trafalgar Square.

If you've visited London in the last few months, chances are that you've stumbled across the unique art installation on display in Trafalgar Square. The project, called One & Other, was created by the British artist Antony Gormley, who was commissioned by the Mayor of London to create a sculpture atop the vacant fourth plinth in the northwest corner of London's Trafalgar Square. Instead of sculpting a statue out of bronze or marble, Gormley was moved by the idea to place real people on the plinth. The idea was to feature one performer or "Plinther" every hour for 100 days straight, and the last day of the project is October 19.

My aunt, Adrianne Foglia, was one of the 2,400 artists selected out of 34,224 applicants to perform on the plinth. At midnight one night late last month, she climbed up to the top and unfurled a huge banner that said "In Your Life, Who Do You Remember? Who Would You Thank?" I watched online as she began to recount in personal detail the long list of people who had touched her life. As she spoke, she scribbled their names on a canvas in colored markers to create an abstract mosaic next to the words: "People are the colors of our lives. Each one of us is a canvas." After she took to the plinth, I asked her to share her experience. Check our Q&A after the jump.

Contributing editor James Conaway is also our resident art buff, so we've asked him to review some of the best exhibits he visits in his travels. Today he contrasts two exhibits currently on display at the Corcoran Gallery in D.C.

Washington, D.C.'s prestigious Corcoran Gallery of Art currently has two oddly complementary exhibits of special interest to visitors and residents alike. The first is Oil, by the Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, which opened this past weekend. It's a heroic display of wall-size photographs taken over a decade that document the influence of the world's most ubiquitous, dwindling resource upon our environment and upon ourselves. The second, Sargent and the Sea, is an antiphonal, painterly alternative to this reality by the 19th-century artist, John Singer Sargent, whose early drawings and paintings depict a still pristine, unhydro-carbonated, impossibly naive world.

Burtynsky's odyssey to some of the least lovely assemblages of post-industrial detritus can best be described as dreadfully gorgeous. "Industrial sublime" is the phrase used by the curators, and that works, although the word sublime was intended for natural phenomena of such grandeur and power that the beholder is transported to a nether space somewhere between fear and ecstasy. Well, when you're confronted with the derriere-end products and landscapes of a century of unbridled internal combustion, you too will be both afraid and aesthetically moved.

We recently received a letter from a reader asking for help finding a cruise across the southern Mediterranean along the coast of North Africa. She hopes to visit cities founded during the Roman Empire rich with remnants of the past. Here are three travel companies with excellent cruising options for exploring the region. All trips are education-oriented and feature prominent speakers and guest lecturers on relevant topics from archaeology to classical culture and language. One of the highlights of all of the tours is the magnificent Leptis Magna Theater on the coast of Libya, pictured here, and featured as one of our "50 Places of a Lifetime" in our current issue.

Food writer and Modern Spice cookbook author Monica Bhide recently returned from visiting her family in India, and we asked her to share some glimpses of contemporary life she noticed while there. You can read her first post here.

For centuries India, particularly North India, has been a country of tea drinkers, while steaming cups of coffee were loved by the folks in South India. And then something happened. Since 2000, coffeehouses like Barista and Café Coffee Day have begun to spring up in major cities by the hundreds. They offer different types of coffees, smoothies, and snacks very much like Starbucks does. The initial reaction was interesting to watch. "The affluent young Indians will love it," the media claimed, as they noted all the youngsters gathering at the coffeehouses. There was an outcry from lovers of Indian culture and tea--it was blasphemous for them to even think that coffee culture could be percolating here in India, sacrilegious that a tea-drinking nation could love drinking coffee. Culture watchers were quick to point out that people drinking in these fancy coffeehouses weren't any better than the ones who drank tea off the street stalls.  

My view is a bit different.

Silbo Gomero is a whistling language that developed on the island of La Gomera, one of Spain's Canary Islands off the northwest coast of Africa. The island is difficult to traverse due to its very steep hills and deep ravines. La Gomera's inhabitants, tired of yelling at each other, long ago invented a phonetic language based on whistling, and for centuries this form of communication worked very well. Then came telephones, and the whistling language fell into disuse.

Saving Silbo Gomera became the goal of busuu.com, an online community for learning languages, which produced this video as part of a worldwide campaign. Their efforts were successful. Yesterday UNESCO declared the language to be an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. 

Also making UNESCO's list was the sultry music and moves of the Tango. This is thanks to a bit of cooperation between Uruguay and Argentina, who have long bickered over who laid claim to its origins. The two countries put their arguments aside in order to petition UNESCO for the special status, and they now stand to receive funding to safeguard the cultural tradition. There were 76 designations made this year, and include the Chinese Dragon Boat festival, Aubusson tapestry-making in France, and the traditional Nigerian harvest festival know as the Ijele masquerade. The entire list is fascinating, be sure to take a look.

Thanks to French blogger Kirsten Winkler for the whistling tip!

No, that's not Desmond in another Lost flashback. But Henry Ian Cusick, one of our favorite actors from that crazy island family, has been cast as Charles Darwin in National Geographic Television's first scripted film, which will air next week on PBS. Darwin's Darkest Hour celebrates the famous scientist's discoveries and trials, and shines light on his personal life. The two-hour drama, presented in conjunction with NOVA, airs Tuesday, October 6 (check local listings).

If you'd prefer to see the show on the big screen, plan to attend the premiere of the film at National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C. on October 5. The film will be followed by a discussion with director John Bradshaw, scriptwriter John Goldsmith, and executive producer John Bredar. Watch the trailer here, and learn more about the National Geographic Live! premiere events by clicking here.

Contributing editor James Conaway is also our resident art buff, so and we always appreciate his willingness to offer us a tour of some of the new exhibits he finds during his travels.

National Gallery of Art in Washington: so-called "modern" art has ingeniously been made not just accessible, but practically participatory. We're not talking about amateurs here, but the likes of Mark Rothko, Frank Stella, Claes Oldenburg, and Jasper Johns up close and personal, at least as far as inspiration and technique are concerned.

For the gallery's latest exhibit, The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection: Selected Works, curators dipped into the permanent Meyerhoff trove, came up with 126 exemplary works from the late '50s to the present, and then radically grouped them according to theme, i.e. "Scrape," "Line," "Drip," even "Stripe to Zip," as well as more conceptual categories like figure, frame, and "concentrity." The result's a riveting meander through half a century of fine painting, sculpture, drawings, and prints categorized not by year or artist, but according to the ways in which the artists themselves made the leap from idea to creation.

The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh, like its namesake, has attitude. Its shows often offer sly, wry comments on the links between culture and media. In an exhibit mounted as the G-20 economic summit meets in the city, 20 outspoken cartoonists from the member nations have contributed their takes on global warming, unemployment, Carla Bruni, and the size of President Obama's ears. "Drawn to the Summit" will be on display through October 18. Closed today as G-20 spouses visit, the museum will reopen tomorrow. Click here for a slideshow of images.

--Chris O'Toole

I've already discussed how Maurice Sendak's classic children's story, Where the Wild Things Are, inspired me to travel as a kid, so I openly admit to counting down the days until the upcoming film comes out. But in the meantime, I've been entertaining myself by looking at the images submitted to director Spike Jonze's website, in a contest called "Where the Wild Things Ought to Be." Artists have placed the Wild Things in classic paintings, movie stills, Where's Waldo? drawings, and even on Fox News. One of my favorites is Max on the The Great Wave, by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusai. He really looks like he's a natural fit in the wilds of the ocean. You can see more of the submissions here.

[via Neatorama]