Tag: war
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This is after all, with all its failings and wonder – Africa.
Just twenty minutes out of the city in any direction, you’ll see some more traditional communities strewn throughout the landscape. Huts and villages filled with underdeveloped African nostalgia. It’s easy to romanticise, but these are the blood cells that keep the African continent pumping; poverty and hardship meets grit and survival. It’s extremely easy to…
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Oh Germany, some road rage, and a schooch
From the south west section of Namibia and Fish River Canyon, in one sentence I’m jumping north east to the Caprivi Strip. This 280 mile-long pan handle, sticks neatly-east out of the side of Namibia and borders at its most easterly end with Zambia. It was created in a way, by some naive Germans in…
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Liquid Insobriety, a Deserted Spa, and a little History
Located in the south of Namibia, close to the border of South Africa, Fish River Canyon is the largest gash in the African continent, and second only in the world to North America’s Grand. During the colonial era, there was much oppression, genocide and marginalisation in Namibia. The colonial authorities (mainly German) in the south…
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We Play God
North of Johannesburg is an area famous for a few hot springs. It’s a local tourism hot-spot and nearby is a group of game reserves, holiday accommodations and “wilderness” areas for the creature-comfort-loving nature viewer. It is commercial – with dozens of guides and rangers in each reserve all driving around in well-used vehicles, showing…
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Mobile cash machines in a war zone
Life isn’t all covert operations, investigations into convolutions or apprehending unfortunate forest folk. In truth, as much as I enjoy and appreciate the experiences to understand what “protected wilderness” is, making the much required military-style efforts part of my adventurous lifestyle isn’t MY desired calling. It is however, why these parks are called PROTECTED. It…
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Whittier: Cold War Weirdo
The American outback, the boondocks, nestled in the sticks, appears barely operational. There’s evidence of gigantic agricultural farms operating in the lower 48, but prominent cities and towns built on a boom are now ghosts, stowed away in fields or mountains, at the end of a track, normally with a rickety disused railroad running to…
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If the Kenai Peninsular was a box of chocolates…
If the Kenai Peninsular was a box of chocolates, it would probably be one of those industrial sized boxes of Quality Street that you get at Christmas, to fatten grandma up so she doesn’t steal all the goose. A pretty big box and full of variety. Picking through them, choosing what you fancy is a…
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