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Animal Encounters Of Various Kinds
The poor dog looks so forlorn that I fear he might be dying. He lies in a shallow pit on the beach, which he’s presumably dug himself, wilting in the sun but too exhausted to seek shade, his eyes heavy with sadness. “He looks like he’s on his last legs”, I say, not sure if I should pet him or not. “I think he’s just desperate for a drink”, responds Michaela, who knows a lot more about dogs than I do. I put her theory to the test, grab a discarded coconut shell and fill it from our water bottle. The pooch is unbelievably grateful, laps his way through the…
- Africa, Asia, Independent travel, North America, Photography, South America, Travel Blog, USA, Vietnam
Crossing The Line
We’ll be crossing the equator on Monday night this week as we head out for our first ever visit to South America, arriving in Rio de Janeiro on Tuesday morning. Perhaps surprisingly this will be only our second ever foray across the equator, our one previous destination south of the line was our honeymoon trip to Tanzania and Zanzibar back in 2013. Given that Rio will be the furthest point south we have so far visited, our thoughts have turned inevitably to the extremities of our previous adventures. The furthest point north so far is St Petersburg, a beautiful and majestic city which we visited in the depths of its…
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Tales From Tanzania #3: Hamadi
“Wait”, he said, “I come with you, till you have tickets”. And so Hamadi walked with us into the ferry terminal, acted as interpreter as we bought return tickets to Zanzibar, and only bid farewell when he’d seen us safely through the ticket barrier. Such actions were completely in character. Over our eight days together, Hamadi had become so much more than our driver and guide, and by now we felt a real warmth and friendship as we said our last goodbyes. He was also probably one of the most handsome men either of us had ever seen! Hamadi scribbled his phone number on a scrap of paper. “Call me…
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Travel Stories #1: Bush Routes
“Are you Phil?”. He’d appeared from nowhere in the darkness but his friendly smile was a big relief at such a late hour. The airport at Dar-Es-Salaam is not your standard terminal, with half of the seating area positioned outside of the building and surrounded by concrete, plastic and glass, only a handful of features recognisable as a Terminal. It was somewhere around 2am, we’d disembarked our flight from Istanbul and all other passengers had scattered quickly. Within minutes it was just the two of us milling around the concrete areas, shrouded in deep darkness, the night as silent as the airport itself. I looked at Michaela, the worry in…
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From the mountains to the desert: 3 days in Wadi Rum
3 Days living the life of a Bedouin in Wadi Rum
