Category: Travels for Fun
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VUELTA DE NICARAGUA
Managua, Nicaragua – 1987 Scanned from Kodak Tri-X negative film In the early 1980s, US President Ronald Reagan seemed determined to deny the Nicaraguan people the right to self-determination. He authorised Oliver North to organise a band of misfits called the Contras and attempt to oust the popular Sandinista government from power. On the other […]
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EXPLORING RUINS OF SYRIA
Every schoolchild has heard of the Sphinx, the Parthenon and the Coliseum but who has heard of Palmyra, Ebla, Ain Dara or even Crak de Chevalier? Syria has never gained the international recognition it deserves for its archaeological wonders and as a result has never benefited from the mighty tourist dollar which has allowed Egypt, […]
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TORTUGUERO
Recollections from travels in Costa Rica – 1981-1986. Many images are scanned from duplicates (hence the poor quality) as the original Kodachromes remained in Costa Rica In the far north-east corner of Costa Rica, lies Tortuguero National Park – a park bursting with biological diversity and an important nesting area of four species of sea […]
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CHECKING OUT CORCOVADO
Upon arriving to their host country, Peace Corps Volunteers go through a very intensive three-month training course. About a month after arriving in Costa Rica, my fellow volunteers and I finally learned who we would be working for and where. Three of us were assigned to Mario Boza, of the Environmental Education program of the […]
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TWO ASCENTS OF CHIRRIPO
At 3,280 metres Cerro Chirripó is Costa Rica’s highest peak, the second highest in Central America and the 37th highest in the world. The peak is the centrepiece of the 50,000 hectare Chirripó National Park which was established in 1975. I climbed Chirripó twice –alone in January 1982 and with a couple of mates in […]
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BRAULIO CARRILLO
Recollections from travels in Costa Rica – 1981-1986 Just north of San José, looms Braulio Carrillo National Park, a rugged park of almost 500 square kilometres. Braulio has an elevation variation of almost 3000 metres so you’ve got seven life zones from cloud forest to lowland tropical forest. Yet despite its proximity to San José […]
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SANTA ROSA
After viewing the photos I’ve presented so far you might start to visualise Costa Rica as lush and verdant with raging rivers running through every valley. While that’s certainly the case in the Talamanca mountain range, if you travel less than 300 kilometres as the crow flies to the country’s northwest, to Santa Rosa, Costa […]
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ALEPPO’S COPPER SOUK
You will hear Aleppo’s copper souk long before you arrive. BANG BANG BANG PING PING PING BANG BANG BANG. On a narrow street in Aleppo’s old quarters, copper craftsmen in the Souq Khan al-Nahhaseen congregate as they have for hundreds of years and pound out copper products. It is a drab and filthy area where dust, […]
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THE BRIDGE OVER THE AFRIN
About 70 kilometres northwest of Aleppo, and just a stone’s throw from the Turkish border, a Roman bridge crosses the Afrin River. I came across it one day while a mate and I were trying to find the Greek – and later Roman – city of Cyrrhus. We came to the bridge and stopped the […]
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