History
- Central America, History, Independent travel, Photography, Transport, Travel Blog, Walking, Wildlife
Tortuguero: Beyond Roads
Two of Cahuita’s most colourful characters are downtown on our last night in the village, firstly the “Latin Hendrix” who is again strumming his guitar and wisecracking in Luisa restaurant, seemingly amusing himself as much as anyone else, like all good performers. Our other new friend Boa, meanwhile, is in Coco’s Bar and has obviously had more than enough booze already, his normally darting eyes unfocussed and his walk decidedly unsteady. We chat for a while, kind of, until a waiter tells Boa that it’s time for him to go home, and by his actions it’s clear that Boa is intending to ride his motor bike home despite being too…
- Central America, History, Independent travel, Photography, Travel Blog, Walking, Wildlife, World food
Spiders, Snakes & Reggae: Tales Of The Caribbean
Cahuita village sits neatly on a small rounded headland jutting out into the Caribbean from the lush green jungle, with two very different beaches either side of its centre, Playa Negra and Playa Blanca. As the names would suggest, one consists of black volcanic sand, the other the pristine white sand of tropical paradise, the latter inside the national park. In between the two, rocky deposits of dead coral form a natural barrier. After a couple of false starts we find some properly tasty Caribbean food, our enjoyment of which is enhanced by the live music of a local character nicknamed the “Latin Hendrix”. We’d actually read about this guy…
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Vilnius: Knights, Russians…And Frank Zappa
Tuesday’s snow melts away quickly as a rise in the mercury brings heavy grey skies and occasional drizzle, the ice patches on the uneven pavements are once again just harmless puddles. A 17-mile train ride out of the capital brings us to Trakai, a lakeside town which in summer is a popular destination for city dwellers and tourists alike. Trakai is a town surrounded by water, built on both lakeside flatlands and grassy peninsulas, and is a ramshackle mix of timber clad houses and characterless rectangular apartment blocks, but its popularity is down not just to its watery location but also to its stunning castle structures. One of the castles…
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Vilnius: Stories And Histories
Imagine walking across a bridge in the middle of a capital city and being met with a sign on a shop wall reading “border control”, passing entry instructions to the Republic which include a smile icon, multiple flags with an open palm as the centrepiece, and then finding yourself alongside a wall with the Republic’s constitution detailed in over 40 languages, including such clauses as… “Everyone has the right to die, but this is not an obligation” “Everyone has the right to be happy” “Everyone has the right to be unhappy” “Everyone has the right to have no rights” And concludes with the Republic’s motto… “Do not defeat…do not fight…
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Wintry Days In Vilnius
The temperature touches minus 7 as we head back to the hotel after our evening meal, frost forming fern patterns on car windscreens and turning pavement puddles into treacherous mini skating rinks. But the air is clean and crisp, the moon is bright and we breathe in the tastes of proper winter for the first time in a long time. By first light next morning the snow is falling and the cobbled streets have a covering of pure white as workers shuffle to offices and factories, huddled inside heavy overcoats and hidden behind hats and scarves. For us this is a bonus: we hadn’t expected to see snow this early…
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London: Simply The Best
We live only about 65 miles from central London, we’ve literally made hundreds of visits between us, we’ve travelled to many cities in many countries, but London still stands out as one of the great destinations of the world, somewhere where it’s impossible not to have a good time. And this week, we certainly had a good time…. Tina Turner in her heyday was a magnificent performer, the shows I was lucky enough to witness back then were just plain brilliant, and we still both enjoy giving Tina a spin on nights in: so it was with some considerable excitement that we entered the Aldwych Theatre in Drury Lane to…
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Gytheio: Final Call
And now, with just days remaining, we head to the very last destination of this 12-week tour, down to the coastal town of Gytheio, which neither of us had ever heard of until we started researching where to spend these last few days. Likewise, we knew nothing of Mystras until we take a diversion about an hour short of Gytheio, and discover a gem of a place – one last terrific historic site before we end this trip. The new Mystras is a lovely little mountain village where, it turns out, we would have been content to see out the rest of our stay. Way above this delightful village, on…
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Olympia: Stories Of Past And Present
It’s with a sense of anticipation that we collect our final hire car – our eleventh of the trip – and leave Kalamata behind after our very brief stay. It may be the last few days of this long adventure but we have some exciting places lined up before we are done. Throughout the 90-minute drive it is very plain that we are in different territory now; this area experiences much more autumn and winter rainfall than most of Greece, making for the kind of lush greenery which we haven’t seen for many weeks. There are deciduous trees, giant bamboos and even a combine harvester as hard evidence of change,…
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Athens & Kalamata: Tales From Two Cities
After eleven weeks in Greece and its islands we are into the last week of our journey through this sun soaked land, leaving the wonderful island of Milos and taking the short prop plane flight over the Aegean to Athens. Amusingly the bus ride from Athens airport to Syntagma Square takes considerably longer than the flight. It’s only two years since we were last here in the Greek capital so this visit is one of expedience and we are here just for a single night, in an 8th floor hotel room with magnificent views of the Acropolis. After so many weeks in an assortment of apartments and houses, a hotel…
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Last Of The Islands: Marvellous Milos
We have mixed emotions when we discover that our last ferry journey of this long Greek sojourn is a hulking great catamaran named Champion Jet 2. On the one hand, it’s disappointing that our final crossing won’t be on a quaint island ferry; on the other, there’s a gale blowing and the seas are extremely rough. The powerful craft ploughs through the heaving waves with barely a roll. And so on to Milos which, if we hadn’t been forced to change our plans back in the first week of August, would have been our third island call rather than our last. After Milos we will take six days touring a new…
