Donny

After the little France holiday I expected to be doing a bit of engineering work in Yorkshire for a while. However, two days after arriving back from Paris I was on the way to Azerbaijan for some more gold mine work. This wasn’t quite as unexpected as it sounds, I had already been offered the Azerbaijan work and I’d already gone through the rigmarole of acquiring the visa, I just didn’t expect to be going so soon - excessive rains leading to the postponement of a lot of construction work in the UK this summer. Similar to the Mexico blog a few blogs ago (which was another construction project on a gold mine), I don’t want to go into what I was doing too much – construction of a heap leach pad, a tailings dam and ... read more

I was soon out of town, through the tunnel under the flood protecting dam, “The Great Wall of Arinsal” as it’s known, and up into sweet-smelling pine forest. The air was cool and crisp but I soon had a sweat on climbing up towards the peaks. Despite being red-faced and out of breath a big grin formed on my face as I realized how much I had missed being in the mountains. There was no one else around and only the sound of the coursing stream far below me and flittering birds. I felt thoroughly content. When I first had the idea of going to Andorra I started to wonder if I was being guilty of country counting. Internet blogs and forums suggested that the little principality was only worth visiting for winter-sports or cheap duty-free ... read more

At least eight out of every ten people who I knew had been to Malta hadn’t recommended it. They told how it was dry and barren, there were no good beaches, it was very built up, and it’s baking hot. True, if you go in July or August, it will be baking hot, dry and barren. True, you can barely get a razor blade between the hotels at the resorts. And true, it mostly has a rocky shoreline with only a few, albeit stony, beaches. I think those eight out of ten people were after a beach holiday of the type you get on other Mediterranean islands such as the Balearics or the Greek Islands and, for them, Malta doesn’t match up. Fair enough, I can see their point, but that’s not the type of holiday ... read more

I’m not trying to be rude; the title of this blog is my advice for anyone visiting Cappadocia. The open air museum at Goreme is good, but much more fun is to be had while exploring the surrounding valleys devoid of signboards, protective handrails, coach parties and entrance fees. We decided to stay in Goreme. Much literature tells how Goreme has now lost all of its charm, giving itself over completely to tourism. Whatever. We liked it. Yes there are lots of carpet shops, balloon flight agencies and endless guesthouses, but it is also right in the centre of some of the most spectacular scenery I’ve ever seen. Every day we set off in a different direction armed with a tiny hand-drawn map and lots of water. Red Valley, Pigeon Valley, Swords Valley, Rose Valley, Penis ... read more

It had been a tough walk. In fact it had been one of the most difficult one-day walks of my life. It began inauspiciously when our 5am taxi ran out of fuel halfway up the extinct volcano. For some reason he tried to chug the ancient Lada – the only car to be seen in in Armenia – up the rest of the steep winding road using the fumes in the carburettor. Finally we drew to a standstill, although it was hard to tell as we had been progressing at less than walking speed anyway, as a potentially lift giving minibus crawled up the road behind us. We paid our driver anyway; out of sympathy because I had no idea how he would get back to civilization. However, I didn’t have that much sympathy as he ... read more