Yearly Archives: 2022

The guide books will tell you it takes 45 minutes to walk down from Machu Picchu into the town of Aguas Calientes. They don’t tell you how long it takes to walk up, because trekkers normally come down through the Sun Gate and non-trekkers normal bus up the winding hill. Unfortunately, the year we walked […]

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It’s hard to believe it is only just over 18 months since I last posted about Panboola (see: The Ephemeral Festival) – a precious and cherished wetland reserve in my neighbourhood. It feels much longer: probably because, like the rest of the world, we’ve been doing it tough in our corner. Much of that period, […]

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Crete, in the Mediterranean Sea, is Greece’s southern-most administrative region and the country’s largest and most populous island. The landscape has given up artifacts that are evidence of human settlement as early as 130,000 years ago. Even today, there are ruins and buildings dating across several civilizations. The island’s long (1,046 km (650 mi)) and […]

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When I spend time in the crush of Indian streets, rubbing shoulders with holy men and drinking masala chai with the locals, I always come away with some new realisation about myself, or the world. My first visit to Varanasi was not my first trip to India, but it was revelatory. Most of my time […]

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There is something ineffably sad about an abandoned city or town. Ibra is one of the oldest cities in Oman, and home to some of the biggest tribes in the country. It grew rich because of its location on the major trade route between Muscat, Sur and Zanzibar, becoming a centre of trade, religion, education, […]

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