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Diani Time: Mishaps & Monkey Business
Sometimes you know you’ve just had a stroke of luck. Our apartment in Diani is small but has a lovely outdoor space, in fact the “outdoor lounge” is as big as the interior. Today is boat trip day, Amos the boat trip man (who by the way calls himself Amos The Great) is picking us up at 7:30 so we’re awake early and just getting our stuff together. I’m at one end of the apartment with my back to the door, Michaela is tidying up the bed when I turn around to talk to her and come face to face with, right behind me in the doorway and about to…
- Brazil, Independent travel, Outdoor Activities, Photography, South America, Travel Blog, Walking, Wildlife
Hello Again Brazil: Discovering Paraty
Exotic bird calls boom or squawk through the trees, now and again the undergrowth rustles with the movement of an unseen creature. We are drenched in sweat, dripping wet from head to toe; the baking sun casts searing heat into the occasional clearing but for the most part the lofty canopy traps intense humidity in the spaces below. Official signs warn of poisonous spiders, scorpions and snakes. The heavy air is full of the scents of foliage and damp earth. This is the Atlantic Forest, its million shades of green scaling every mountainside and sweeping with sumptuous colour to the very edge of the shore. The climb has been testing,…
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Paradise Lost: Time To Move On
Michaela’s coming together with the floating log necessitates hiring a golf buggy to explore the island rather than going everywhere on foot, primarily because her oh-so-slow walk gives her a gait which brings both John Cleese and Jake The Peg to mind at the same time. She climbs steps as a toddler would, carefully assessing next move before lifting the first leg and then placing both feet on each step. Golf buggies are slightly odd too: at first the combination of a top heavy centre of gravity and uneven road surfaces with an ever changing camber makes us feel as if the thing will topple at any moment and we’re…
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Drug Barons, Michaela’s Knee And An Island Named Accountant: Days In Paradise
We have to admit that we’ve been a bit self-indulgent for the next seven days – well, it is Christmas after all. From now until 28th we’re on the ridiculously picturesque island of Contadora, out in the Pacific about 90 minutes on the little ferry boat from Panama City – a ferry boat which, with echoes of how Greek ferries used to be, crams as much goods and produce into its limited space as it does passengers. An early departure time means we’re down at Flamenco Marina before daylight and disembarked and checked in to our room-with-an-incredible-view on the island shortly after 10am. Before coming here we’d read that the…
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Southwards To Treasure Beach Where The Pace Of Life Is……
If you picture yourself visiting the West Indies, what does that picture entail? Do you see yourself in an all-inclusive resort where everything is catered for and you are safe and comfortable? Or maybe on a cruise ship sampling the feel of different islands? Or do you imagine a tranquil hideaway where life is slowed down, where calm and peace rule, where you sip rum cocktails watching the sunset, where there’s hardly anyone on the beach, where you fall asleep to the sound of the waves and wake to the gentle sound of the surf and the smells of the village bakery? Our Jamaica tour continues…. For our last day…
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Street Food, Food Wars & This Unfair World: Port Antonio To Falmouth
We always think there’s something exciting about it when foods with unfamiliar names appear on the menu, and for reasons we can’t quite grasp, it’s even more exciting when it’s breakfast. So to discover that the traditional Jamaican breakfast is ackee and saltfish with johnny cakes and bammy is just irresistible. A side dish of callaloo? Even better! Jamaican food is tasty, often hot and spicy and full of unusual ingredients – though they do like to surround the tasty dishes with a large amount of rather weighty, carb-heavy accompaniments. And by the way the stories are true, there’s certainly no scrimping on the amount of alcohol in the cocktails…
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To The North Coast: Lime Tree To Port Antonio
Driving Jamaica is very heavy on concentration levels, mainly because the roads are in such appalling condition. Giant potholes, boulders in the road, piles of builders’ rubble, sudden narrowing of road to single line traffic…main roads which suddenly hit an unmade stretch without warning. It’s all here. You have to keep your eyes on the road surface as well as the other vehicles for every inch of every journey. Consequently it’s a long slow drive from Mavis Bank to our next destination at Port Antonio on the north coast, a drive which involves climbing right over the top of the mountain range before descending through sumptuous green valleys alongside the…
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Looking Back And Planning Forward
Our garden looks strange as we take our first look at it after 12 weeks away. So much has died in the unusually hot and dry summer, but the heavy rain which has now fallen in the last few days has turned all the dead stuff into an untidy grey. Green patches try their best, but there is precious little colour and the whole garden looks a kind of damp monochrome with splashes of green paint. Within minutes of our arrival home, we are alerted to the drama unfolding at Balmoral and, around four hours later, the Queen’s death is confirmed. As the BBC plays the national anthem Michaela and…
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Tales Of Smut, Keys & Turtles: Last Days In Mexico
We described Tulum in our last post as being too over developed, too touristy and very much too over priced for our liking, with an enormous amount of further development in the midst of construction, but, you know, everywhere has redeeming features – it’s just that in places like Tulum you have to look a bit deeper to find them. The music in some of the bars in the main street is simply too loud to hold a conversation, so loud in fact that I’m reminded of what my Dad used to say. “I do detest pubs which are so loud that I can’t hear myself drink”. But as we…
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To The Last Place…On To Djerba Island
“Can I ask you something personal?”, he says from behind his camel dinner, in that way that only an American would just five minutes after introductions, “Do you think the guy who runs our hotel is kinda rude?” Well no, actually, he’s been fine, but, as far as Dennis and his cousin Bonnie are concerned, our maitre d’ seems to have failed to have made a connection. As it turns out, Dennis and Bonnie had spotted something that we hadn’t. In the way that Americans do. Because let’s fast forward now to our departure date, when immediately after breakfast a maid bursts into our room without knocking on the door,…
