Version three

With a beautiful sunset as his backdrop, the taxi driver pulled up to the Creggans Inn on the shores of Loch Fyne. He was early, so he sat and chatted while we finished our drinks.

With the parked taxi’s window wound down we could hear the sounds of the radio drifting out, playing that traditional sort of Scottish music: pipes, accordions, drums. If you guess the band playing, he said, I’ll give you a free lift home.

I know less about the traditional music of Scotland than I do about the politics of the Yucatán peninsula, so I took a guess. Is it your band? I asked.

He looked crestfallen. His face sagged. It was his band.

The night had been too much fun — the food too tasty, the atmosphere too good, the scenery to fantastic — to steal his fare. So we paid him anyway.

Another blog

As you’ll have noticed, I’m blogging again. In 2005 I wrote from the United States, Peru, Chile, and Easter Island; in 2007 I wrote from Argentina and, occasionally, Edinburgh. Now I’m writing from Glasgow. It’ll probably be far more prosaic: Python and Django instead of a traveller’s thoughts and dreams of contentment.

We’ll see how it goes.