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While living in Morocco last year, we made a trip to the Sahara Desert. The last town before the desert was a scruffy little outpost called M’Hamid. Because we’re self-employed, we needed to check our email. Happily, even M’Hamid had a (small, grungy) internet cafe:

Farflung travelers know that, wherever you are on the globe, there always seems to be an internet cafe nearby. I remember admiring one cafe owner in the small South African town of Hermanus. His lazy life of surfing and occasional tech support for young, hot Australians looked pretty appealing.

I got to wondering about where some of the most distant and remote internet cafes around the globe. Off I go to the Flickr.

To begin, here’s one from the other side of the Sahara, from Siwa Oasis in Egypt (photo by Jeff Werner):

A worrying backup power suppy in Manali, India (photo by alles-schlumpf):

A diversified business in Johannesburg, South Africa (photo by Esther Dyson–yes, that Esther Dyson):

There are more after the jump.

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At the moment, Julie and I are shacked up in a little casita on Isla Carenero, a tiny island opposite Bocas Town, the largest town (with all of about 3500 citizens) in this far flung province of Panama. This is our third night here. We’ve been settling in, exploring and we’ve begun making deposits in our overdrawn sleep debt account.

Our place is on the water, surrounded by the shacks and tin houses of the local community. The setup provides a great view into how the locals live–they outnumber the tourists by at least twenty to one. Young couples chastely walk by, long motorized canoes deliver wood and kids play soccer, all outside our front door.

In terms of tourism, this region is relatively under-developed. I was talking to the house manager, and he said the region was like “Costa Rica, 25 years ago”. That’s the feeling you get when you walk down the main drag of Bocas Town. There’s a few rickety hotels, a bunch of open-air restaurants over the water, and a handful of eco-tourism services and surf shops. There’s also one nightclub–the only downside we’ve spotted thus far. The club’s rumbling bass carries across the strait all too well.

There’s a Subway restaurant in town–the only franchise I recognized. It feels like the advance guard of a wave of international money that’s likely to visit the region in the coming years. Hopefully they can retain as much of the local character and charm as possible.

An Ethnic Stew

This region has a fascinating ethnic mix. The Spanish never consolidated their hold on this part of Central America, so while there are plenty of ethnically Spanish Panamanians here, there are also many descendants of Afro-Caribbean immigrants. Combine those with the (sadly declining) people of several indigenous tribes and a smattering of grizzled gringos, and you’ve got a interesting ethnic stew. As you might expect from a Caribbean town in the middle of nowhere, everybody’s extremely laid back. I don’t think race relations are an issue.

The Latest End of the Earth

We are apparently attracted to places that feel like the end of the world. I know I said that about Gozo, but where we’re headed tomorrow might top that. Check out this Google Map:

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That’s Punta Laurel, a little group of buildings built on pilings about 1500 feet off the coast of Isla Popa. A mostly unpopulated island in the southern most part of the Bocas archipelago. Our guidebook gives the island a single sentence:

Isla Popa is crawling with fer-de-lance and other poisonous snakes. It should be visited only with a good forest guide.

We’ll stay out on the water, thanks. We’ll be there for about two weeks, off and on, and plan to do a whole lot of nothing (besides, you know, writing a book). To my shock, they usually have satellite Internet access on Punta Laurel. I was pleased to hear that it was out of commission at the moment–I’m trying to disconnect for a while.

I’d upload more photos, but we’re using a pretty dubious web connection at the moment. I’ll just post one for now, and save the rest for a fatter Internet pipe.

• When you live on a tiny speck of land in the middle of the Mediterranean.
• When you live on an island off the coast of an island.
• When you take some visiting friends down to see a local tourist attraction.

The last person you expect to see is an international rock sensation.

Julie and I are with our friends Rob and Suze, and we’re wading around in the shadow of the spectacular azure window. We’re just on our way out when we pass a group on their way in. Suze points out that we’ve just walked past none other than Anthony Kiedis, lead singer of the Red Hot Chili Peppers and occasional nudist.

Rob snapped a surreptitious photo while I resisted the temptation to go over and ask him if Catholic school girls do, in fact, rule. It was a bit surreal, as it’s kind of the last place you expect to meet the guy who wrote, say, “Sexy Mexican Maid” or “Fight Like A Brave”.

I happened to see Mr. Kiedis and his girlfriend again today as they were riding a scooter down Republic Street in the island’s main town of Victoria. That dude has a lot of tattoos.

I saw over on Malta Forums that somebody scored an autograph.

In related photographic news, check out how I managed to ruin this perfectly lovely shot. That’s me with the snorkel. I did manage to compensate for it, though, by snapping this nice photo with Rob’s camera.

Three weeks after vacating our Yaletown apartment, we’re have a home again. We’ve settled on Gharb, a tiny village on Gozo, the smaller of the two islands in the Malta archipelago.

It feels like the end of the world.

We’ve really lucked out with the villa we chose. It’s a three bedroom, three and a half bathroom stone house just down a tiny (too small for cars) lane from the centre of of the village. The building is over 150 years old, and has walls that are at least three feet thick. It’s been 25 to 28 degrees in the middle of day, but our house has remained remarkably cool. We’ll see how things feel when it’s 35 to 38 Celsius outside, but so far so good.

There’s a pool out back, and beyond that some fields, another little town and the azure Mediterrenean. If you sit in the pool and look east, you can see the Basilica of Ta’Pinu, a huge church that the pope visited in 1990.

It’ll take some getting used to this place. As I write this, the only sounds I hear are the tiny, chirping birds in the olive tree outside, and the occasional bleating of the two goats from down the street.

Once the cable guy comes on Monday, we’ll be all set up. I’m really impressed by that speed, by the way. Here I am on a tiny scrap of land in the middle of the Med, and we can get Internet access in less than a week.

Check my Flickr stream for photos of our villa and Valetta. Web access is tight this week, so I’ll organize, tag and all that crap next week.

With Pandora’s help, I recently discovered the band Hem (MySpace for sample songs). I quite like them, and in particular I dig their lazy cover of REM’s “South Central Rain”. That got me thinking about the REM covers I owned:

The Good

Hem - South Central Rem (MP3) - A sleepy cover that makes the tune more of a torch song. Kind of Cowboy Junkies-esque, actually.

No Doubt - It’s the End of the World… (live, MP3) - Back when Gwen Stefani didn’t have delusions of grandeur, she was in a ska band called No Doubt. This version is manic, punky and, while it features some dubious vocal work, I like its energy.

The Bad

10,000 Maniacs - Don’t Go Back to Rockville (MP3) - I like the Maniacs, but what’s with this cover? It’s extremely loyal, and I think when you cover a song, you should really make it your own (see No Doubt, above). This version’s a bit soulless.

Cry Cry Cry - Fall on Me (MP3) - From Cry, Cry, Cry, the ‘folk supergroup’ Richard Shindell, Lucy Kaplansky, and Dar Williams. This one isn’t that bad, as I like Dar Williams’s voice, but it’s unremarkable.  The next song on the album, “Cold Missouri Waters”, is way better.

Tori Amos - Losing My Religion (live, MP3) - Ms. Amos does a lot of covers. Some are great (”Rattlesnakes”), some are awful (”Heart of Gold”) and some, like this one, are mediocre. It has the typically Amos dreamy quality, but it’s a bit too shapeless compared to the original.

The Ugly

Corrs - Everybody Hurts (MP3) - The Corrs ruin every song they cover. Don’t get me started on their astonishingly awful cover of ‘Little Wing’.

Great Big Sea - It’s the End of the World… (YouTube) - These mofos are happy bastards and their cover is unacceptably chipper. They’ve, uh, made it their own, but it’s terribly wrong. Plus, the lead singer desperately needs a haircut.

Do you have any REM covers? Are they good, bad or ugly?

UPDATE: Tim sends along this Tori Amos-esque cover of “It’s the end of the world…” by Julie Moffitt. I’m not sure if I like it, but she certainly made it her own:

I’m in the middle of reading an interesting profile in The New Yorker. It’s concerned with Stephen James Joyce (he always insists, apparently, that his middle name be included), and his manic protectionism of the Joyce literary estate:

More than a dozen Joyce scholars told me that what was once an area of exploration and discovery now resembles an embattled outpost of copyright law. Robert Spoo, who used to edit the James Joyce Quarterly, which is published by the University of Tulsa, quit the job to become a copyright lawyer. “New biographies, digital representations of Joyce’s work, analyses of Joyce’s manuscripts, and, to a lesser extent, criticism—they hardly exist,” he said. “People either despaired of doing them . . . or the demands were so high that they just didn’t feel it was worth continuing the discussions.”

That’s kind of tragic. Not end of the world tragic, because literary analysis isn’t likely to feature in armageddon, but it’s still pretty wrong. The Beckett estate is also notoriously protective of Sam’s legacy. Is it something do with being Irish?

REM is a studio band. It’s notable that, in 24 years of recording, they’ve never released a live album. How many other long-lived rock bands can you say that about? I’ve seen REM live twice now, and watched plenty of live footage on television. They just don’t put on a very good show.

When I see a band live, I expect a transformative experience. I want them to build upon what I hear on their albums. They should reinvent and reinterpret old songs, showcase new ones, cover other people’s work and generally demonstrate some innovation and musicality. Back in August I was disappointed by Aimee Mann’s show for her rote performances of studio cuts. REM wasn’t quite that guilty, but they failed to add much to their studio recordings.
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A while back, everyone was talking about a nifty, amusing Flash movie called The End of the World. I just watched it again, and googled around a little, but was unable to determine who created it.

Regardless, I was searching for a particular Nike ad (the remarkable-looking ‘Warm Up’–let me know if you find it), and happened upon this page on their site. Clearly it’s created by the same strangley-accented people. Did Nike find the original guy and hire him to make their piece (they’re very clever if they did)? Are both pieces just smart work by some advertising agency? It’s a mystery.

UPDATE: Ah, a little more googling reveals that apparently Nike found the 18-year-old kid who made “The End of the World” and hired him. That’s some strong work.