To get the most from any vacation, it definitely bodes well to plan, read and research — start with getting directions from AAA’s TripTik — as most tourists know, often it is those previously unknown, chance encounters and discoveries that leave the longest lasting of impressions. Perhaps it is because if you’ve planned a visit to, say, Boston, then you will have some idea of what Boston Common, the Charles River and Fenway Park look like. When they do appear in your sight, already there is a sense of familiarity. Hopefully that will not lessen the excitement of being there, but it is possible that it could. On the other hand, suddenly discovering a gem is akin to going to a place that you’ve always wanted to visit but previously had never heard of. As examples, here are three (one for drivers, the next for adventure travelers, the last for those just off the plane) that I came across.

Margaret’s Grocery, aka The Home of the Double-Headed Eagle, Old U.S. 61, Vicksburg, Mississippi
My best chance find in the United States was close to the Mississippi River. I had driven down from Clarksdale, where I was following the trail of famed blues guitarist Robert Johnson. That trip took me down to small towns such as Itta Bena, Quito (where Johnson is buried), Morgan City (where it is also claimed he is buried), Belzoni (“Catfish Capital of the World”) and Port Gibson, where a huge golden hand with a pointed index finger is stuck to the top of a church spire.

I was driving only on back roads, but due to the layout of the road network, I was forced to do a little main-road driving. I was determined to get off at the first exit. In hindsight, I was very happy that I did, for a mile along the road I halted suddenly by the side of a yellow, white, pink and red marvel. Stretching at least 400 feet alongside Old U.S. 61 (yes, Bob Dylan’s Highway 61, which goes from New Orleans, La., to the Canadian border at Grand Portage, Minn., in the Nasal One’s home state), this was the Home of the Double-Headed Eagle, a shrine to God built by a currently 91-year-old preacher called Reverend H.D. Dennis. (The H stands for Hermon, but he refused to tell me what the D stands for.) It is a feast for the eyes, with colorful paint, wooden creations, towers, scriptures and paintings.

The story of how it got there is just as interesting. Dennis married Margaret Rogers in 1979 and told her that he would transform her simple grocery into a shrine. The materials for the conversion came from anywhere he could find them and comprised of anything he could find—steel sheeting, cinder blocks, donated paint, abandoned pieces of wood. Dennis, who being born in 1916 was nearing retirement age, did all the work himself, having learned carpentry from German prisoners of war incarcerated in Georgia during World War II. This sounded incredulous to me, but my research has shown that there were POW camps in Georgia during the 1940s, most notably Camp Stewart in Hinesville and Camp Wheeler in Macon.

Dennis also is a freemason, and the double-headed eagle perched atop the grocery is a reference to his attainment of the 32nd grade in his order. There are also dotted around other Masonic symbols, such as the architect’s compass. Boards on which are written scripture, usually in a shaky hand, are everywhere, and to one side is a battered school bus. This was donated to Dennis with the intent that he take his message on the road, but it has never been roadworthy.

His voice also is shaky, and it was hard for me to fully understand him. He welcomed me indoors (the grocery benefits from this). Inside is equally colorful. Long strands of bright beads hang from everywhere, photos of family abound and rich fabrics dot the walls. He hastened me towards his “treasures.” The first was an ornate chest of about three feet in width and four in depth. This, he told me, is the “original” Ark of the Covenant. You know the one, the one in which supposedly the Israelites carried the Ten Commandments. Then he opened the ark and showed me the “original” Ten Commandments themselves. At this stage, I was going to ask him why the commandments were written in English and not Hebrew, but I suddenly realized that this question would be a stupid one. Why not just listen to him and enjoy this wonderful find? What did it matter if they were genuine or not?

Outside are other cultural finds—the “original” helmet David wore when he slew Goliath and one of the “original” columns that Samson pushed over to avenge the murder of his wife and father at the hands of the Philistines. Or at least that is what I think he told me, in between, I seem to remember, being reprimanded for any misdeed or wickedness that I might have committed in the past or might commit in the future. This was easy to take, as throughout my tour Dennis laughed, smiled and patted me on the back. Margaret shrugged her shoulders, enjoying her husband’s eccentricities.

Old U.S. 61, near Vicksburg, Miss. Entrance to the Home of the Double-Headed Eagle is free, although a purchase or two at the store (if you can find it buried somewhere in the building) is a polite gesture.

Wekso, along the River Teribe, Northwestern Panama
The Bocas del Toro Islands off the northwestern coast of Panama are an increasingly popular tourism destination, and a foreign community is firmly established in Bocas Town, on its principal island of Isla Colón. Numerous small guesthouses cater to those wishing to kick back for a few days or to laze on golden beaches (Red Frog Beach on Isla Bastimientos, a 45-minute walk after a 10-minute water-taxi ride, was the nicest one I went to).

Back in Bocas Town, I was having a coffee at the wonderful Starfish Coffee Bar (sitting on an outdoor deck over the water, watching locals skim around in boats and hummingbirds flitting around feeders), when I saw advertised on its bulletin board a notice for a new tourism venture: Odesen (www.bocas.com/odesen.htm), an endeavor run by the Naso Indians, an indigenous people who live in northwestern Panama. The notice was written in hand, but there was an e-mail address, which I contacted.

“Come tomorrow to Changuinola,” I was told in Spanish, “then get a bus to El Silencio,” a name that I am sure does not need to be translated as “The Silent Place.” “We’ll pick you up by boat from there.”

“Okay,” I replied. “At what time?”

“10.”

As my Spanish tends to suffer when talking across a phone line, I asked no more questions, and that was that. There is, luckily, a water taxi called Bocas Marine & Tours (www.bocasmarinetours.com) that goes from Bocas Town to Changuinola, the last 15 minutes being along a canal bordered by mangrove. The one-hour trip costs the princely sum of $6, and many travelers take it after arriving from nearby Costa Rica (at the lonely border town of Sixaola-Guabito) to travel onward to Bocas Town.

Changuinola essentially is a one-crop town: Bananas. (Bananas and the United Fruit Company were responsible for the canal I entered the town along.) Changuinola is not pretty, and I took the first bus out, and probably I was not the first person there to look stupid standing in the street shouting “El Silencio, El Silencio.” The bus stopped along the rough six-mile road twice to wait for conveyor belts laden with green bananas to pass by. This gives you no doubt as to what is important here. Watching bunches of bananas pass by for two 15-minute periods framed in a van’s windscreen is surreal.

I had to admit further amazement, and some satisfaction, when, 10 minutes after arriving at El Silencio (there is one small shack of a shop—no customers—and a sleeping dog, so the place does live up to its name), I saw a small motorized canoe coming down the river Teribe, the river along which the Naso live. In the boat were two Naso Indians dressed in jeans and T-shirts.

Their motorized boat took an hour to go upriver. Once in a while a stout pole was used to pole us off sandy islands in the river, which became more and more narrow, its forested sides steeper and steeper. Occasionally, young children were seen sitting on large rocks or on the thin, pebbly beaches that were to both sides of the 200-foot-wide river. Green and turquoise-blue kingfishers darted off perches. I felt far off the beaten path.

The first stop, and Odesen’s base, is Wekso, and this is where I made my second chance find. I realized that I would be staying in a former paramilitary camp. The first words I saw after jumping off the boat, wading up to the shore and climbing 30 or so muddy steps, which I would have totally missed had I been under my own steam and guidance, was a slogan painted on a wall: El Dios y Jungla Nos Protega. I could translate it: God and the Jungle Protect Us. Camouflage paint was splattered behind these words and over broken-down walls, and more than once did I kick empty gun casements.

I had chanced upon a former camp set up by ex-Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, the dictator U.S. troops hounded out of the Vatican Embassy in Panama City by playing music by The Doors at a terrifying volume. There also is little sign that this was once a headquarters for Panama’s elite soldiers; today, things are far more peaceful, with hawks soaring above and a long-tailed tyrant, a small bird with a seemingly never-ending tail, surveying the camp from the top of a tree stump. Three Naso Indians sat beneath Wekso’s one light bulb. One of them offered me a whole, fresh pineapple.

This is the land of the Naso, an indigenous people of Panama (they claim also a slither of land across the border in Costa Rica) now beginning to flex their muscles for land rights, tribal rights and recognition, denizens of a relatively undiscovered slice of this varied country. So undiscovered that Noriega decided it would be a perfect spot in which to train those he was correct to believe might one day be needed to shore up his wobbly dictatorship. At the time, the Naso preferred not to witness Wekso’s drill movements and mysterious helicopter arrivals, when the settlement was called Panajungla, but now they have returned, determined that this time they will not be pushed out. Tourism—under the name Odesen and, albeit now, on a very basic level—is how they plan to go about staying.

Naso girl in Seiyllik, Panama, the capital of the Naso. Note the king’s crest on the wall. (photo by Terence Baker)

Wekso is along the River Teribe at the edge of the Naso’s land within the La Amistad National Park. This park is a section of the Mesoamerican Biologic Corridor, which supposedly allows—or will do so if ever finally strung all together—animals the freedom to wander from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego.

For those who wince at seeing another group of native-Panamanians, the Embara Indians, close to Panama City, change out of Western clothes in order to prepare for a “cultural show,” the Naso are a refreshing change. Living in 27 small communities close to the river, they have chosen Wekso—which the soldiers abandoned very, very suddenly in 1990, thus leaving a fairly decent infrastructure—to be their base for trips into their unique world. Things here are in their infancy, but a conservation group helped fund six huts containing 30 beds with mosquito nets. Lush hillsides of green drop down to the water’s edge, and both the scenery and breezes here are gorgeous. Best of all, this rarely visited spot allows for a singular Panamanian adventure without the very real dangers associated with visiting the wilds at the other end of this country, the infamous and roadless Darién Gap on the border with Colombia.

There are other Naso villages farther upriver, some of which now are abandoned (a 2001 census numbered the Naso at approximately 3,000 individuals), as well as deep in the hills toward the center of far-western Panama. Few tourists ever get to these abandoned sites; the Nasos living in the Wekso area rarely do either.

Another 20 minutes upriver is the principal Naso village of Seiyllik. It is here that the king of the Naso lives. Known as the pru, his office is hereditary. He can be voted out of office, I was told, although if that were to be the case, the monarchy would have to be handed down to a male member of the king’s family. His main duty is to continue the Naso’s campaign to get itself an official homeland (in local parlance, a comarca), which already is enjoyed by more-numerous Panamanian peoples such as the Embara, Kuna and Ngobe-Bugle. Apparently, the pru is the only recognized monarch in all of the Americas, if one excuses Caribbean islands that still recognize European monarchs. His symbol, 11 stars arched over a crown of feathers, is painted on a small, yellowish concrete building, Seiyllik’s only government edifice.

I had lunch at one of the village’s wooden dwellings, which are all up on perches. A whole pod of guava fruit was dessert. Around every house were small piles of plastic boots, and the muddiness of the steep paths of this hilltop place bears testament to their usefulness. I then was entertained by a recital of Naso dances. One small boy wore an ocelot skin. On the backs of their shirts were written the words Tjër Di, which is what the Naso call their river. It means, roughly, the “grandmother of rivers,” and from Tjër Di derives the modern name of Teribe.
 
Naso children in Seiyllik (photo by Terence Baker)

One morning, I walked up a hill at the back of the Wekso camp. As I did so, I caught sight of a strange creature, which sort of looked like a large ferret. It was in fact a Greater grison (Galictis vittata), which seldom is seen and has a white stripe running from the forehead, over the ears and as far back as the shoulders. The Naso I mentioned this to were very excited. By the river, amazingly colored Golden-hooded tanagers flew around.

(A warning when traveling internally in Panama: Domestic planes in the Panama are small, so if you can, store the extra pair of shoes and limit yourself to a small backpack. I did not, and my bag was not put onto the plane I was put on. They promised it would be sent on the next flight. It wasn’t, and when it showed up four days later, it was a little lighter than I remembered. My complaints were ignored, and follow-up calls went unanswered.)

For more information, call Odesen at 011/507-6569-3869 (a Panamanian phone number) or e-mail: turismonaso_odesen@hotmail.com.

Minka/Casa de Japón, Buenos Aires, Argentina
At the end of 2006, I was in northwestern Argentina, in the town of Tilcara, when my girlfriend, Francesca, and I started chatting to an Anglo-Japanese couple that lived in the San Isidro neighborhood of Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital. When we finished our travels and were back in Buenos Aires, we were to visit them, they kindly offered. In Buenos Aires, the woman in the couple told us that she was doing public-relations work for a new museum in San Isidro. Did we want to see it? We jumped at the opportunity when we realized that the museum was not to open for another two weeks. In other words, we were to be honored with a pre-opening tour. We were going to visit the Casa de Japón, aka Minka, or Japanese farmhouse.

The history of the museum and the 20 years of its planning and preparation are as equally enthralling as are its contents. San Isidro is a relatively uninteresting suburb of Buenos Aires, but the Casa de Japón definitely is worth the journey. The museum does have a off-the-beaten-path feel to it, especially as there really is no Japanese population to speak of in Argentina, unlike those in its South American neighbors of Brazil and Peru.

Having lived and worked in Japan for 32 years, Guillermo Bierregaard, who made his fortune in shipping and advertising, and his wife Patricia Palacios Hardy de Bierregaard, a banker and descendent of English novelist Thomas Hardy, returned to their native Argentina, bringing with them their extensive collection of modern Japanese sculpture, baskets, furniture and abstract art. That was not all, though. Also shipped over and now rebuilt in all its glory was another unique piece, their 200-plus-year-old Japanese house made from gassho-zukuri wood, which having been reassembled piece by piece is just as much a museum piece as the collection inside, which dates from 1868 to the present.

Guillermo Bierregaard’s personal mission is to showcase a timeline of recent Japanese art. “Japanese art has never properly been explained or represented in South America,” he says, “and we could think of no better way of displaying it than to also bring the house over.”

The collection is both inside and outside the house, which the Bierregaards purchased in 1979 from members of the 33rd generation of a noble Japanese family living in the mountains of Fukui Prefecture, some 200 miles west of Tokyo. In 1984, they decided to dismantle the house and rebuild it in the prefecture of Gifu, near the city of Nagoya, under the eye of Frank Lloyd Wright disciple Junzo Yoshimura, whose seamless join between airy house and leafy garden exudes a peace perfect for the art collection. (Yoshimura also designed the Residence at Pocantico Hills, just north of Tarrytown, N.Y., for Nelson Rockefeller in the late 1970s, which, as does the Casa de Japón, displays furniture by George Nakashima.) “After the house arrived, we came to Buenos Aires with Japanese carpenters, who rebuilt the structure together with Argentine workers,” explains Bierregaard.
 
A sculpture outside the Casa de Japón in Buenos Aires (photo by Terence Baker)

Among other pieces on display are sculpture by Hayami Shiro and Suzuki Osamu, ceramics by Nakamura Kimpe and Koie Ryoji, glass by Masuda Masanori and bamboo basketry, the intricacy of which is simply stunning, by Shono Shounsai and Iizuka Shokansai. Celebrated Japanese-American artist Isamu Noguchi is represented, and many of those with work on display remain alive in Japan, where they are considered “living treasures.” Bierregaard has chosen not to collect paintings on canvas, but visitors should definitely check out the house’s huge structural beams, works of art in their own right.

And the Casa de Japón remains very much a living museum, with the Bierregaard’s resident on its third and fourth floors.

For more information, contact Minka/La Casa de Japón at Capitán Juan de San Martín 1596, San Isidro, Buenos Aires; phone: 011/54-11-4737-9293; e-mail: minka_en@yahoo.com.ar (entrance, ARG$15 (£3)).