workshyandshameless

David Attenborough writes of his very first experience setting foot in the tropics.......... Stepping out into the heat and humidity of a West African afternoon was like entering a heated sauna. The hedge beside the ramshackle airport was bright with the scarlet trumpets of hibiscus. Sunbirds whizzed from one to another, hovering in front of each to sip nectar, their chests flashing iridescent colours, green, purple and red. Among them I suddenly spotted, clinging to the branch but rigidly immobile, a bright green chameleon. As I took a step towards it to get a closer look, my foot trod on the grassy verge and the leaves, to my astonishment, suddenly hinged back to lie alongside the main stems. It was sensitive mimosa. All in all that little strip of ordinary hedge was a revelation of ... read more

The last time we were here in the South African winelands was at the very beginning of this trip back in December. Before we arrived then I hadn't known anything about the winelands, or the town of Stellenbosch other than it was close to Cape Town international airport, we like wine, it seemed like a good place to begin in South Africa. Back then we went on a mini-bus tour of the winelands run by the backpackers we were staying at 'The Banghoek Place'. After this little taster at the vineyards and seeing some of the scenery we realised we should have given ourselves more time to explore the area. So now having a nearly a month free before we meet up with a friend in Cape town we thought we'd come back to Stellenbosch and ... read more

Aside from Belize with its strong Caribbean influence not a whole lot changes travelling from one Central American country to another. The attractive public spaces and town squares I couldn't stop photographing when we first got to San Cristobal in Mexico with their pastel coloured colonial churches and buildings are to be found somewhere in every Central American country. As you cross borders the jungle scenery and what lives in their doesn't change much from one country to the next. Basically Cental America is hot, and green. You could say the same about South East Asia, but in South East Asia cultures do change markedly from one country to the next. For example Thailand and Cambodia share a land border yet the Thai people and Khmer people of Cambodia look totally different and their cultures are ... read more

**The photos here are courtesy of big Carl who we spent time with on the Rio San Juan, and who was kind enough to let me upload some of his photos since I left my camera up a volcano a few weeks back. One of the countries high up the list of places I've always wanted to see is Costa Rica. Like the name Borneo is evocative of primeval forest so dense and remote you might never find your way out again, so Costa Rica to me is synomynous with verdant green rain forest home to lots of unlikely looking creatures like sloths and toucans. Spider monkeys and tiny luminous green tree frogs with bulging red eyes and comedy suckers on the tips of whatever it is that frogs have instead of hands and feet. But ... read more

We took a mini-bus from San Cristobal to Panajachel by Lake Atitlan in neighbouring Guatemala. It took over nine hours, which is close to the limit of time you can spend inside a vehicle and still remain in good humor. I had expected we'd be doing the trip in an over-crowded mini-bus in the South East Asian style but that didn't turn out to be so. In Central America they don't seem to operate using the Asian 'shoe horn system'. The system where the object for the bus company is to sell as many bus tickets as possible regardless of minor logistics like seating, and just hope that things work themselves out on the day. Its the rainy season now in Guatemala as it is all over Central America and as we got closer to Lake ... read more