Wildlife
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Breakfast With Peacocks, Coca-Cola Burps & Drinking Pox: Tales From San Cristobal
Emerging somewhat bleary eyed from the overnight bus journey – although we both slept better than we thought we would – and blinking in the morning sun, the crisp freshness of the mountain air strikes us immediately. After several stays in humid locations over the last few weeks, culminating in the cloying air of Palenque, it feels like a completely different climate here. We are some 2,100 metres higher above sea level than we were in Palenque and it is instantly noticeably different. This is San Cristobal de las Casas, where evenings will be chilly and, if all goes according to plan, virtually the last point at which we feel…
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Rocks, Trees & Fault Lines: Back Into California
When you imagine temperatures of over 110F (43C), you picture blistering sunshine and the need to find shade, yet for a good part of our drive across the desert from the Grand Canyon to Joshua Tree, the temperature gauge is up there above that number yet the skies are consistently overcast. It even rains a couple of times. When we step out of the car for a break, we are hit by a wall of heat incompatible with the cloudy skies above. Leaving the Interstate 140, we drive south west through some extraordinarily barren country, miles of dead straight road through open land. Once past the salt flats at Amboy…
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The Grandest Of Canyons
It’s only ten days since we crossed off a bucket list item with the seaplane flight over San Francisco, and now here we are boarding our first ever helicopter with pen metaphorically poised to cross off another. Is there conceivably a better place to do this than here at the Grand Canyon? A brief walk to the Bright Angel trailhead on the day of our arrival has given us our first glimpses of this wonder of the world, so our excitement levels as we receive our safety briefings are absolutely off the scale. There’s a short delay to check the craft – a bird has hit the windshield on its…
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This Is Yosemite
So many people had told us that Yosemite was fabulous long before we came here, and just about everyone whose advice we sought before planning our California adventure checked that we’d included Yosemite on our itinerary. Then, the guy in the Santana T-shirt at Downtown Joe’s in Napa said that we will never forget seeing Half Dome for the first time. None of this was a case of over selling; in fact, no amount of pre-warning can really prepare you for the unbridled joy of Yosemite. Even before we enter the Park, the drive from our base at “the Bug” to the Park gates is absolutely stunning, following the River…
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Going Large: From Monterey to San Francisco
A few miles south of Monterey across the peninsula lies the celebrated, Clint Eastwood-famed town of Carmel-by-the-Sea, nestling amongst the tall pines and cypress trees and looking out across the Pacific. There’s no mistaking, even at first glance, that this is one seriously wealthy town, as exquisite and well presented as it is possible to imagine. Almost too perfect. The pristine, gleaming main street slopes downhill through the trees to an immaculate white sand beach where the Pacific rollers roar and rumble; on its leafy streets Carmel must surely set a world record for the number of art galleries per square mile. Every garden seems manicured and well stocked, every…
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The Pacific Coast: 3 Days In Morro Bay
“My name is Claudia, I live here”, says the elderly, stooping lady, “I’ll show you to your room”, and leads us into a room which looks rather like an attempt to recreate an English country house, with deep pile carpet, fussy wooden furniture and a bed which needs a step ladder to climb into. Michaela says she’s back in Auntie Marjorie’s house. All I can think of is an English comedy show, The League Of Gentlemen – “this is a local hotel for local people”. It’s clean and it’s very welcoming but we’re in 1950s England rather than the thrust of modern America: we have to stifle our laughter as…
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Before The Road Trip Begins: Early Days In California
With a four week full on tour of California ahead of us, our first few days here feel something like a warm up exercise before the green light goes on and we’re away on the tour. Shorter but varied walks, some steep climbs and a measure of acclimatisation have been in order, though not without some surprises along the way – never mind the whole of California, there is plenty of variety in LA County, it seems. Our first base before we commence our road trip is my daughter Lindsay’s home in Acton, some 47 miles north of Los Angeles – although in truth we are a couple of miles…
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Last Days In Egypt: Exploring The Reef
It’s Good Friday at home in England. Here it’s mid Ramadan, though in Camp Sunshine both Easter and Ramadan have become somewhat abstract concepts, for us at least, although we are having chats with staff over the effects of fasting. It looks like it’s changeover time too: new faces are appearing and wandering around learning the ropes and some of our old favourites seem to have gone back home to ordinary life. Dave Angel (eco warrior) is still here with his heavily tattooed entourage, but Tracey Emin is out of the picture and Wolfgang & Son seem to have gone back to wherever their normal food levels exist and left…
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Cape Cornwall
Monday March 14th, and suddenly it’s Spring. As we descend the stony path alongside the cascading brook, warm sunshine kisses our faces and the air hangs heavy with the pungent scent of wild garlic. The blooms of gorse, celandine and wild daffodils paint yellow splashes amongst the green foliage as flocks of goldfinches scatter across the clifftop, maybe just arriving for the summer. Rabbits scurry beneath hedgerows and, across the field, a pheasant squawks and races away like a sprinter with his hands in his pockets. Majestic cliffs tower over the deep blue Atlantic, birds carry twigs towards nesting sites, the colours are impossibly sumptuous and if it is remotely…
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Cartago: In The Shadow Of Irazu
Our arrangements for the journey from Tortuguero to our next base are a bit on the sketchy side. The instructions are to be down at the riverside at 8.30am and ask for Kendall, who will take us in his boat to the nearest point where the road meets the river, at La Pavona one hour’s ride away, where we are to ask for a man named Robert, who will drive us to San Jose. After that we have to find the bus to Cartago. At precisely 8.30 a man in a blue polo shirt approaches us saying “La Pavona?”. He isn’t Kendall but he knows which is our boat. Later,…
