Traversing Rugged Mountains and Sheltered, Bountiful Valleys continue… October 10, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Air Tickets, Cape Town, Destination, Europe, Hotels, Museum, South Africa, Tour, Trails, Trip, Victoria Falls , 2commentsDale of Citrus Groves
Although farms near Citrusdal have been worked for well over two centuries, the town dates only from 1916. The main road north reaches it through Piekenierskloof (pikemen’s gorge) — a name dating from 1675 when the Dutch East India Company at the Cape stationed soldiers near here to protect one of their Khoikhoi allies from attack by a rival chieftain, Gonnema. Encumbered by heavy pikes and breastplates, the Dutch soldiers pursued their foes through the mountains in vain. (more…)
A Thundering Waterfall in a dry, Desert Landscape continue… September 30, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Cape Town, South Africa, Tour, Trails, Travel Insurance, Trip, Victoria Falls, Zambia , 2commentsWalks and drives
From here there are a number of walks and drives that you can take to outlying viewpoints. One of the most popular walks is along the 2,5 km path leading to the Arrow Head viewsite. From here you can look out over the rapids that career along the bottom of the gorge far below. For the more energetic there is the Klipspringer Hiking Trail which runs for 26km along the southern bank of the river. This is a three-day hike and walkers stay overnight in huts along the route. The trail passes Ararat, a granite rock that offers a magnificent view along the gorge, and also Moon Rock, which provides panoramic views over the whole park. (more…)
Boating in Eire Dolmens and Blarney, feeling of plunging Water, eXhilaration Adventure continue… July 25, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Air Tickets, Airlines, Asia, Cairo, Cars, China, Round The World, Sightseeing, Thailand, The Nile, Tokyo, Tour, Travel Gear, Travelling Bag, Trip, Victoria Falls , 3commentsLooking nervously over his shoulder in case the priest should hear, he scratched his head and rolled his eyes, all the time muttering that terrible word. Then suddenly he clicked his fingers and spat the word out.
“Pagans! Dere’s an old Protestant graveyard, overgrown now, you understand, up dere, by de old crossroads, as used to be dere.”
I waited patiently while he told me forty different ways to get there. Then, thanking him, I beat a hasty retreat to the sacristy door and knocked. (more…)
Passing on Victoria Water Falls, Shooting the Zambezi, Escape into Africa July 10, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Botswana, Hotels, Lodges, Passport, South Africa, Tour, USA, United Kingdom, Victoria Falls, Zambia , 4commentsA white line still bisected the bridge, but its meaning had gone and the menace with it. Now the only sentry was a baboon sitting on a fence barking at a warthog on the other side of the road.
Early morning, sun up but cool, just two of us on the bridge at Victoria Falls, between Zimbabwe and Zambia. We looked down at the pale green Zambesi 300 feet below. Cecil Rhodes had wanted the bridge built close enough to the Falls to catch the spray. Usually it does. However, this was September and the “Falls” in front of us were just a curtain of rock. The rains had been good; not good enough, though, to make up for years of drought.
Only on the Zimbabwean side did the river reach over and plunge in. Its noise was like distant motorway traffic.
We were about to go down the river on a rubber raft. We were to start at the bottom of the Falls and travel six miles down the Zambesi through zigzagging gorges . . . and over nine rapids. Why on earth had we agreed to it? Sarah didn’t even like putting her head under water in the bath. As for me, the wake of a passing launch under a scull on the Thames was the nearest I’d ever got to white water. (more…)
Hole in this sand continue… June 25, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Africa, Cairo, Cape Town, Egypt, Flight Schedule, Hotels, Round The World, The Nile, Victoria Falls , add a commentThe portion of sea deemed “safe” for bathing and surfing is marked by blue flags and an umpire’s chair. Does the immaculately-whiteclad, handsome-but-unintelligent umpire decide whether each death by drowning was fair play? He watches black frogmen emerge from the sea; soon they will haul in their golden treasure chests, spraying the worm-bubbling sand with ingots and ducats. Ah! It’s only surfboards they’re groping for. They are just the unchic relatives of those lemon, turquoise and sugar pink rubber-clad surfing super-heroes; those men who crouch, crest, lurch, then swirl in with the spent breakers and scrabble ignominiously at your feet. (more…)
My Perugia Travel Diary June 19, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Accommodation, Air Tickets, China, Egypt, Flight Schedule, Hotels, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, London, Malaysia, Morocco, Nepal, Round The World, Singapore, South Korea, The Nile, Victoria Falls , add a commentThe Brufani Hotel brings back memories of dinners with the Buitoni (pasta) and the Perugina (chocolate) tycoons, not here but in their homes. To judge by the absence of any renovation in the Brufani in the intervening third of a century, we assume that hotels in the smaller Umbrian towns are also not likely to have been upgraded since Smollett and Hazlitt griped about them.
The huge basilica of Santa Maria degli Angeli in the Tiber valley below Assisi was built to enclose the tiny church of the Porziuncola, whose walls are traditionally reputed to contain a stone from the tomb of the Virgin. Saint Francis died here in 1226, after, but not as a result of, throwing himself naked into the rose garden outside his small cell. His blood is supposed to have left a perpetual scarlet stain, but the roses bloom every spring, and the thorns have disappeared (miraculously). (more…)
