History
- Africa, Cape Verde, History, Independent travel, Outdoor Activities, Photography, Travel Blog, Walking, Wildlife
Hikes And Histories: More Of Tarrafal
It’s a few minutes before 9am and our guide Seeto is already waiting in the square, chatting and joking with friends. He meets us with the warmest of smiles but is continually interrupted by greetings, handshakes and fist pumps – you get the distinct feeling that everybody knows everyone else in Tarrafal. Seeto introduces us to our companions on today’s expedition, Alejo and Gabriella, on holiday here from near Albacete in Spain. Today’s hike is a downhill challenge, we will be starting high up in the mountains of Serra Malagueta and dropping way, way down to arrive at the natural lake in the bottom of the canyon some three hours…
-
From Boa Vista To Santiago: A Praia Arrangement
There’s an endearing simplicity about the names of places on the Cape Verde islands, a simplicity which somehow reflects the unhurried, uncomplicated way of life here. The island with salt pans is called, simply, Salt; the island with hills is called Good View and a town with a sandy shore is named Beach. Perhaps even more amusing, the two islands with active volcanoes are named Fire and Angry. In the native tongue, these five are, respectively, Sal, Boa Vista, Praia, Fogo and Brava: translated into English they sound hilariously basic. You can’t get much more straightforward than names like those! Thursday morning sees the hazy cloud lift and the humidity…
-
Buried Ships & Blessed Fish
There I was, all poised to do a post about how miserable it is to return to England, heading home from Heathrow through the rain, checking the dates of the next rail strikes, reading depressing news items, waking up to dull grey skies and drizzle, when from nowhere England unexpectedly throws open its arms and says, welcome home you guys….this is what’s great about where you live… The history of Sutton Hoo is so rich that they made a film about it, but really, the absorbing part of the story is all condensed into the last 85 years or so. Edith Pretty and her son, recently bereaved of husband and…
-
The Lefkosa Half Of Nicosia
A small sign saying “Pacific Car Rental return point” is all there is to guide us at Ercan/Lefkosa airport, and with no office presence, it’s soon clear that we have to phone Pacific for them to come and collect the car. “I have no drivers just now”, she says when we call, “send me photographs of the car and leave the key under the driver’s mat, we will pick up the car later”. This means that we leave an unmanned rental car parked on double yellow lines immediately outside the airport terminal where it will probably stay untouched for at least a couple of hours – just imagine the consequences…
-
Escaping Cyprusgrad: The Better Parts Of The East Coast
There’s a palpable air of relief in the car as we drive past the little harbour at Bogaz, knowing now that the horrors of Cyprusgrad are behind us, at least for a few hours. The land opens up to olive groves, fruit trees and even vineyards, then ploughed fields and vegetable crops, and at last there isn’t a high rise or a construction site to be seen. Turning east into the start of the island’s guitar neck, we are, somewhat ominously, suddenly on a brand new roadway of pristine black tarmac. Ominous because, why build a new road to nowhere unless you have development plans? We decide not to dwell…
-
Dubious Saints, Mutant Sheep & Castles In The Air: Cyprus Unfolds
The downpour is so intense that we don’t really want to leave the boat, but we have to get back to the apartment somehow so it’s heads down and off into the onslaught. “Goodbye”, shouts Captain Bayram as we head off, adding, “remember, tomorrow there is worse rain, very bad”. He isn’t kidding either. By the time we return next day from a rather fruitless trip on the dolmus out to Lapta village, the streets of Girne are rivers, floodwater several inches deep racing down every slope and finding every shortcut through town. It’s an outrageous deluge which lasts for hours and has locals laughing and scurrying for cover in…
-
Into The Northern Half Of Cyprus
So here we are in the northern half of this partitioned country, in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, a self-declared independent nation recognised as such only by Turkey itself. The region is accepted by the UN as not being under the control of the Cypriot Government; Cyprus is the only EU country with a section not governed by that organisation’s laws. Despite loosening of controls on the partition line, there are still restrictions in place, which is how we come to be in our current situation. You see, we had the very good idea that it would be interesting to travel through the two separate halves of Cyprus, to…
-
Back North To Fes, Then West To Casablanca
Our farewells with Mohammed and the other guys at Merzouga are heartfelt; we feel like we’re leaving friends behind while Mohammed says they will miss us and implores us to return some day. We say we may do, but of course inside we know it’s not going to happen, there’s still a whole world out there. The need to take the Duster back to Fes means retracing our steps through the Ziz valley, past and over the Middle Atlas mountains, but with an overnight call in a different town – not Errachidia this time, but the unassuming town of Midelt. This is basically a dormitory stop for food and sleep,…
-
Meknes & Volubilis: Ancient Sights And Building Sites
According to the screen at the end of the carriage, we’ve just hit 313 kilometres per hour, a whacking 194mph, as we speed southwards through the changing terrain. Morocco’s new high speed railway, the first of its kind on the African continent, is comfortable, efficient and very impressive, and we arrive at our change point at Kenitra in the blink of an eye. From Kenitra to Meknes it’s much older rolling stock, the compartment-and-corridor combo reminding me of British Rail circa 1970. We have high hopes for Meknes, high hopes which are all but dashed before we’ve even settled in. Virtually everything we were intending to visit is closed for…
-
Back Across The North: Chefchaouen-Tetouan-Tangier
When your driver introduces himself by saying “you can relax, I am good driver”, it’s a fair chance you’re going to be in for a buttock-clenching white-knuckle ride for the next chunk of your life, which is just how it is for our journey from Chefchaouen to Tetouan. With no rental car and no public transport between the two towns we have no option but to negotiate a fee with a “grand taxi” driver. Michaela can’t even bear to look forwards at times, this guy has what you might call an interesting overtaking technique, one which involves passing within half an inch of the vehicle he’s rounding, at great speed.…
