Wild Alcatraz
Like the child whose name gets written on the board, Alcatraz sits in the foggy bay of San Francisco, an ever present warning of what happens to you if you truly break the rules. Once home to Indian tribes and later inmates of the high-security prision, the rocky crags of the island now welcome tourists by the hordes.
A wonderfully narrated audio tour is the best way to experience the island, allowing you to move at your own pace from the cell blocks with their automatic doors to the kitchen with it’s knife silhouettes still painted on the walls, lets a tourist revolt. My favorite part of the tour was the brief history of famous inmates, including the Birdman, and the spooky stories that accompanied the historical background provided. To this day, however, I have a deep respect for the punishment that is solitary confinement. “The Hole,” which is now open for visitors to walk in and out of, could not tempt me to cross it’s threshold on the sunniest of days. I just couldn’t do it- claustrophobia previously unknown to me reared it’s head and had me scurrying from the vicinity as fast as I could.
Despite the huge number of tourists and the dozens of boats that come and go from the island daily, there is something wild about the place. Walking around the yard, waiting for the return ferry, you get the sense that were the daily influx of humans to cease, the ocean, birds and seals would quickly make themselves at home and retake what was once only theirs. Of all the desolate places I’ve visited in my life, this is the only one where the sense of desolation and isolation were still able to overcome thousands of people a day.
