In the summer of 1980, a maverick young doctor gave it all up, to hitchhike around the world. The first part of his odyssey took him through South America and up through Africa, accompanied by his mythical hunter companion, Orion. Between the Cartwheels is the sequel to that cartwheel, his vision quest continuing now, on the European Grand Tour adventure of a lifetime.

1. Between the Cartwheels
Sam and Millie were sitting on
the picnic table under the Otama
night sky.
Clouds rolled across the full
moon, platinum floodlight
patchdancing on the wide
expanse of ocean below.
Orion hung upside down above
them.
“Were you the constellation or
the myth, Uncle Wink?” Sam
asked.
“The myth.” he said.
“What were you in the myth,
Uncle Wink?” asked Millie.
“The hero.” he said.

2. If I Forget Thee O Jerusalem
The shopkeepers had awakened.
The rolling thunder of metal
accordion doors resonated
through the stone bowels of the
old city. I watched the sunrise on
the Western Wall, trying to burn
off the tribal memory of a
thousand distant atrocities. But
the heat and light was unable to
penetrate the closed eyelids of
the bearded Haredim, bobbing
and swaying in front of the giant
Jerusalem stone blocks. After all
the random twists of fate over
the previous three millennia, they
were still hooked through their
trout gills, spiraling along the
remnants of Herod’s temple.

3. If I Forget Thee O Jerusalem
There was the occasional
desiccated shrub, camped
in the interstices of a rock
wall, or cobble path, but
most of what held the
limestone spaces of the city
together was an unstable
amalgam of blood and dust.
Jerusalem was built with
blood and dust. It flowed on
the lips of the Crusader, the
‘Next Year’ of every Jew, the
Moslem flight path to
paradise, and in the spinal
arteries of every invader-

4. Travels with the Anointed
Steve and I made our way
slowly up the scorching
steep narrow ‘snake path’
to the summit. The
sunlight was too bright to
look up. It was eerily
quiet and lonely, except
for the wolf-whistles of
the black and orange
Tristram’s starling that
followed us through the
ruins.

5. Travels with the Anointed
Music arrived at the
crossroads of guitars, the
friends who could play
them, and the
reappearance of Steve
and the Albertans, on the
Lemon Tree rooftop in the
late afternoon. We played
until hunger and thirst
drove us back out into the
cobble streets, searching
for less ethereal forms of
sustenance.

6. Travels with the Anointed
Steve and I hitchhiked on,
and into the oldest
permanently inhabited city
on Earth. The dark green
lobby of the Arab hotel we
checked into still had the
original cobwebs. Nothing
gets old in the Middle East
without turmoil. The
bedding in our room was
that ancient. No one else
seemed to live in Jericho, if
that’s what you wanted to
call it...

7. Travels with the Anointed
The next morning Steve and I
visited David’s Tower, climbed
the walls of the old city, and
ended up dressing up as
Bedouins in an Arab Bazaar
down Al-Mujahadin Street. I’m
sure they’ve since changed the
name. The fragment of an old
terracotta oil lamp, with an
embossed menorah, caught
my eye. For more than I
should have paid, I bought the
fragment, and the owner’s
guarantee of authenticity.

8. Travels with the Anointed
The ground began to shake. Almost
imperceptibly at first, it rapidly became a
converging earthquake. Up and over the
rise of our little dune depression, roared
two Israeli halftracks, loaded to their
teeth. The tremors stopped when they
did, but the shouting had only begun.
They worked they way through the
languages of Babel, from Arabic to
Hebrew, and finally, to English.
“What are you doing here?” The biggest
soldier on the bigger vehicle demanded.
“Camping.” Said Steve. I could barely look.
“Camping?” Asked the Israeli captain, not
sure he heard it right the first time.
“Yeah, camping.” Said Steve, again. They
were two continents and an Exodus apart.

9. Travels with the Anointed
Acco had been captured in the
First Crusade and, for almost
two hundred years, provided
the Crusaders with more
income than the total
revenues of the King of
England. It was the final
defense of the Kingdom of
Jerusalem, falling in a bloody
siege to the Egyptians, in 1291
AD. We paid a visit to the
Jezzar Pasha Mosque, named
after the Mamluk who walked
around with a portable
gallows, in case anyone
displeased him.

10. In the Middle of the Wine-Dark Sea
We traveled out, to see the
results of Arthur’s carnage at
Knossus. The site was strangely
evocative, and Steve and I had it
all to ourselves, in the early
March sunshine. We each played
Hercules for our cameras,
pretending to push apart the
strange bloodred painted wooden
columns, flanged with black and
yellow stripes at their thicker
tops, and planted upside down to
prevent tree growth. The pillars
held up the remnant palace
overhangs that protected the
bright colours of the frescoes
underneath.

11. In the Middle of the Wine-Dark Sea
Lord Acton was once
quoted as saying that,
‘Save for the wild force of
Nature, nothing moves in
this world that is not
Greek in its origin.’ Lord
Acton never saw Steve of
the Jacuzzi, moon-walking
with three Australian
girls, on a spring night in a
small town in southern
Crete.

12. The Air Between the Columns
A local bus got us to
Argos, and another to
the cemetery at the
ruins, where we hid our
backpacks. Diana took a
picture of Steve and I,
leaning into the same
heraldic pose as the
paired stretching
felines, on the Lion Gate
above us.

13. The Air Between the Columns
Stannis took us past
breathtakingly beautiful
snowcapped mountains,
and roadside memorials
for those that didn’t make
it, to a Greek coffee
interlude, on the
windswept terrace of an
empty seaside café.
Poseidon thoughtfully
sent us whitecaps, to
match the thick froth on
our frappés.

14. The Air Between the Columns
It was a halcyon day, in the
true classical Greek
mythological sense of the
word. Zeus was subdued, a
bright interval of blue sky
calm prevailed, and birds
were nesting, in the air
between the columns.
Alexander the Great asked
me if there was anything I
lacked. I gave him Diogenes.
“Yes, that I do: that you
stand out of my sun a little.”

15. Songs of the Sirens
I had come to Kos the
same way Kos had come
to me. Deliberate and
studied, past the
imposing Neratzia
fortress of the Knights of
St. John. Its most famous
son was a bearded
physician, born seven
hundred years after the
cult of Asclepius had
arrived on the island,
from Epidavros.

16. Songs of the Sirens
Steve and I borrowed bikes
from our small pension, and
rode the uphill trail through
cypresses, long grass and
buttercups, to the four
terraces of the Asklepion.
Between the remaining
upright pillars of the most
famous medical school in
history, I demonstrated the
correct technique of
examination for Steve’s liver
and spleen, on an elevated
section of the stone
foundation.

17. Songs of the Sirens
Einstein’s contribution of
Special Relativity
accompanied our journey,
back to the old city. As
time dilated, the space in
the back seat widened,
and length contracted in
the front. When we met
them that evening at the
Taverna Kolossus, for
martinis and moussaka...

18. Songs of the Sirens
I was entranced with the
Delphic panorama on
Mount Parnassus, and its
Athenian Treasury, the
hearth of the Temple of
Apollo, the Stadium and
the Theatre, the quilt-
patched columns of the
Tholos, and, in the
museum, the glass eyes
of the bronze Charioteer.
Outside, we brewed some
coffee on my stove...

19. Michelin Star
Under a natural tree cave on
Plage de Salins, I waited out the
afternoon, drawing portraits of
the pines. You get better at
staring into space in the South of
France. It grew overcast. My
stove made soup, to ward off the
chill. The rain that came later,
forced itself into the Gold Kazoo,
now breathing deeply after so
many nights on the road. I slept
fitfully, and in my near narcosis,
heard a screeching cat. I looked
up into the face of dog, foaming
at the mouth. When I awoke at
dawn, their pawprints were still
there, in the sand.

20. Damascenery
The Plaza Mayor baroque
belltower in Salamanca was
illuminated red, masonry
mortared with chivalry. University
students promenaded, around
the shops and restaurants and
carnival ice cream parlours, lining
the old Iberian public square.
Young girls waved to me from
balconies. Christopher Columbus
had lectured here. Hernando
Cortes had taken his courses.
Sleep pulled me inside the
wrought-iron grills, and simplicity,
of the Fonda Las Vegas.

21. Atlas Shrugged
The views through the mountains
were exquisite. We squeezed into
a ten-person taxi, for the rest of
our journey to the base camp hill
town of Imlil, and were extruded
into a dense fog, rolling between
rectangular orange stone houses,
with white painted window
frames. Orchards of cherries,
walnuts, and apples, lay just
beyond. We found a room in the
Café Soleil, and the owner, Hajj
Mohamed, welcomed us warmly,
with mint tea and extra cushions.
The falling water roar of the river
carried us off to sleep, after our
candlelight ran out.

22. Atlas Shrugged
I made coffee, and woke the
others at five. After muesli and
oranges, we abandoned the
shack, and turned left towards
the summit. I held Astrid’s
hand until we were almost
there. Then What-else Bruce
and I raced, across the
curvature of the Earth, to the
strange pyramidal metal frame
at the top. We became elated
with the terrain gained, and
the oxygen lost. The views
were unsurpassed. From the
summit, we saw the curvature
of our kismet.

23. Atlas Shrugged
...my close shave from
a Berber barber,
possessed of a straight
razor and curled toe
camel shoes.

24. Atlas Shrugged
We ate grilled sardines on
the limestone wharf.
Rogue waves crashed
over us. We didn’t care.
Beyond the seagulls
hovering over long rows
of canon along the
seawall, we met some
French travelers, who
gave us the pouch
containing the key to the
Portuguese fortress.

25. Shelter from the Storm
Room 17 was Spartan
modern, with a bed,
desk, bookcase, and
private bath. My view
included a dormant
tree, power lines, and a
traffic sign. The Danes
have a word ‘hyggelig,’
which means cozy, in a
Danish way. This wasn’t
it.

26. Shelter from the Storm
Outside the hospital, the
weather began to
improve, out of
proportion to Astrid’s
theory of prophetic
fallacy. The ice melted,
the trees budded, and the
spring began to unwind,
into warmth and light,
and the promise of
motion. Molecular
activity accelerated.

27. Gammel Dansk
I ...took him out to the
Louisiana Museum of
Modern Art in
Humlebæk, impressive for
its Chagall collection, and
the large bronze thumb
that seemed be be
waiting just for me. The
museum had been named
after the owner’s three
wives, every one called
Louise.

28. Gammel Dansk
My Anaesthesia colleagues held a
more formal farewell feast at Café
Denmark, with a groaning board
of herring, shrimp, lax, frikadella,
cutlets, rødkol, cheese, and
everflowing Tuborg and
schnapps. Odo told Norse sagas,
Mads tetanized diaphragms with
a Swedish U-boat story, and Thor
delivered a two-edged
testimonial that attempted to
connect Eric the Rød with my
own odyssey. They gave me a
bottle of Gammel Dansk, and a
Danish-Russian dictionary. I
looked inside at the verbs- Past
imperfect, Present indicative,
Future conditional.

29. Balkanized
In late afternoon, we returned via
the market, and found legumes
and lemons and wine, and freshly
caught sardines, for our dinner.
On the next street over from our
shelter, was the reason I had
come. It was a stone house
similar to others in the maze,
under a red-tiled terra cotta roof,
with a small Venetian column,
above a stone arch. A small sign
said ‘Koca Marka Pola,’ the house
of Marco Polo. According to local
tradition, Marco was born here in
1254 AD, to an established family
of merchants.

30. Beyond the Pudding Shop
The Imperial Harem Imperial
Harem contained more than 400
rooms, home to the sultan's
mother and her forty rooms, his
wives, children and their
servants, his fenced bath, and the
staircase, the ‘Forty Steps,’ that
led to the dormitory of his
concubines. Black eunuchs stood
guard with their ‘beating sticks,’
along the staircase. The door to
the right lead through the Golden
Corridor to the sultan's quarters,
where, once a year, the sultan
showered his 400 concubines
with gold and silver coins.

31. Beyond the Pudding Shop
Uncle Albert took a photo
of me having my first
salaamic shave since
Essouira. Along the
caliphate trail, they were
infrequent but wonderful
small indulgences. Others
were closer than some. It
was worth the price of
admission for the series
of scents alone.

32. Beyond the Pudding Shop
We passed under the gate of
Troy VI, the layer that Heinrich
Schliemann identified as Ilios,
the fabled city for which the
Iliad had been named.
The lightning streaks across
the ruins added to the
atmosphere, but the
atmosphere crackled ever
more frightening flickering
images from the Trojan War,
before the rest of the sky
opened up everything it had
been holding in reserve.

33. Beyond the Pudding Shop
The lightning streaks across the ruins
added to the atmosphere, but the
atmosphere crackled ever more
frightening flickering images from the
Trojan War, before the rest of the sky
opened up everything it had been holding
in reserve. Albert and I plodded through
the downpour and the mud, until a
dolmus pulled alongside. The driver
seemed to be studying Uncle Albert. He
rolled down his window.
“J.R?” He queried.
“Huh?” Replied Albert.
“J.R. Yuwing?” The driver asked again. I
turned to Uncle Albert.
“He thinks you’re ‘J. R. Eweing,’ from
Dallas.” I said. “No matter who else you
want to be, right this moment, you’re
Larry Hagman.” Albert ran with it.