Somehow managing a grimacing smile
After a gruelling day walking to the Col de Cou – 12.6 kms and 4 hr 20 – I decide an easier stroll is required. Ross, basing his choice on Tommy’s recommendation of last year, picks on the scenic Gorges du Dailley which looks fine according to the website. I’ll have words with him when I get home! Continue reading
Looking down from Les Mosettes beyond the Lac Vert towards Morgins. The GR 5 hut hut is in the foreground, just in front of the Lac Vert
The weather has turned glorious at last. We have been making the most of it and going on various favourite walks (more of those on another blog), but we decide to meet up with some old friends from Heinemann days (yes – that old) and to meet in our favourite ski rdv in France, Le Cremailleure. Continue reading
Lockdown life is different for everyone. I’m the first to admit that my cunning plan of going straight from the Maldives to Switzerland was a good one – no quarantine and a remarkably liberal attitude to social gatherings, restaurant, bar and shop openings up until Christmas, when the shutters come down on all but socialising privately with up to six people – and this is really a blessing. Continue reading
7 December 2020
Louise would have been 31 today. Almost ten years since she died. It is simultaneously like yesterday and an aeon ago. This morning – 3 am to be precise due to jetlag – I flipped though her Facebook photos and her joie de vivre, sense of naughtiness and good humour shone out to me. Of course she had her moments – we all do – and I remember when she was about 14 or 15 regularly waiting on the stairs listening for the late night bus to rumble past in the hope that she would be on it…and at some point she would tumble through the front door and I would pretend to be asleep. Continue reading
Last week it was announced that Brits had to quarantine on return from Switzerland. This quarantine business seems to be peretty arbitrary – for instance I discovered that Romania magically appeared on the list but has never been mentioned in despatches. I can’t help wondering if it’s got anything to do with the fact that the government consider Romanians who live in Britain as EU migrants rather than British holiday-makers, and don’t vote. Anyhow, to continue…here are some photos of the Dents du Midi in all their glory. Continue reading
Wax palms at Cocora
Tatacoa desert
The final stage of our four month trip takes us by air to Pereira capital of the coffee country. Just as I say, ‘we’re all aboard and taking off 5 minutes early’ we find ourselves being asked to disembark due to a technical issue. It doesn’t look good as we are given drinks and snacks but suddenly we are asked to board again and we leave only an hour or so late. Phew! Continue reading
Cartagena
Medellin from Comuna 13
So here we are almost at journey’s end. The last part of our trip takes us down the western side of Colombia and back to Bogota and then home! But it is so rich in experience that I’m splitting it into two blogs. We travel via a mix of plane and car, and see two extremes of this country – the very rich and the dirt poor and, in Medellin, some green shoots of transformation. Venezuelan refugees continue to be a major theme, always on the road – walking to who-knows-where, begging in the cities, sleeping rough. Depending who you talk to there are between two to three million of them. Some find work undercutting local labour, but most rely on generosity and handouts in this poorest of countries.
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In Villa de Leyva
The last leg of our world tour! Arrive here after a pretty poor flight on Avianca, the pride of Colombia – they don’t even serve tea. It’s a grey morning here but luckily our room is ready at 7 am and we manage a kip before venturing out to explore Candelaria, the colonial quarter of Bogota, a city of over 9 million people. Continue reading
The howling wind wakes me. It is midnight and we are in Aitutaki the second largest of the Cook Islands with a population of 2000; you can drive round it in under an hour. On our arrival in Rarotonga we were warned that they are expecting a humongous storm, just downgraded from a cyclone. They were battening down the hatches. Continue reading
The Aquatiki II at the Tetamanu Pass in Fakarava
Our round-the-world trip has two major unexplored dive areas in our itinerary – the first was the Solomons and second is French Polynesia. This area is famous for its passes – the channels between two atolls that separate the ocean from the lagoons, where hundreds of sharks hang desultorily in the blue while the tide washes over their gills for effortless breathing. The Tuamotu islands, where we are headed, has several lagoons with passes and probably has the most famous shark-diving in the world due to the vast volumes of water that swoosh in and out twice a day. We have decided to explore them on a live-aboard, an eight-berth catamaran, the Aquatiki II. Continue reading
