‘The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls…’ Thus spake Paul Simon, in about 1964. Monumentally brilliant line. One of about 42,000 little snippets of genius and inspiration that the great man has written over his stellar career. Only perhaps eclipsed by the late, great Ian Dury’s sublime social commentary of: ‘my – Read More-
We’re here in San Andres. And its faulty. We’re only here for logistical reasons really. In that we need to fly home at some point, I’m afraid, and to do that you need to go to Bogota. They don’t fly there from Providencia cos the runway’s tiny and you can only fly turbo-props in and – Read More-
I read the news today, oh boy. Sorry: I read the news when I can. If the wifi is working properly, rather than its normal, Caribbean-meantime, ahriiit-mon style, like everything else, I can get the Times. If not I can struggle through some BBC pages. But its Christmas, hence news is in fairly short supply. – Read More-
They call them ‘mules’ round here. Motorised golf carts. They don’t even have windscreen wipers. Kawasaki 600 cc engines nicked off a motorbike and shoved under the seat of a buggy thing. 4-wheel drive, for the beaches, sounds like a lawn mower but isn’t quite as fast. But even at about 25mph (no speedo, no – Read More-
So from Cartagena we need to get to the island of Providencia, in the Western Caribbean. How hard can it be? When our days in Cartagena are spent looking at that very body of water. The problem is that bodies of water are big. Unlike, say, human bodies or glasses of water. And furthermore, access – Read More-
So we’re in Cartagena, still. Cos its lovely. Still. Or perhaps, ‘again’ now the cruise ships have left leaving behind a distinct lack of hats and hundreds of thousands of dollars for the local economy, so they’re not all bad. Part of the charm of Cartagena is that it was a Spanish fort. Which still – Read More-
I have friends who ‘cruise’. I admit it. People I know and consider ‘close’ are among those who like to spend two weeks a year trapped in an immense floating city with about 5000 like-mindeds. Though I’m not sure there is too much mind involvement at all. And whilst there they will be given 9 – Read More-
Its not easy being an intrepid international explorer, forging new frontiers, breaking new ground, creating new barriers and discovering places and peoples that no-one else knows about! Its like finding out that there is actually life in Leicester, but in even more exotic and surprising places. And the reality is, of course, that we arrive – Read More-
Buy a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day; show him a rock and he can spend a lifetime… doing stuff with it. Because that’s what you do with rocks the world over. You look at them, you film them, you watch them at sunrise, check them out at sunset, admire them at – Read More-
So its all been a bit quiet on the Columbia front, you may have noticed. Because my current lurghi has meant I have two distinct and exclusive modes at the moment. I’m either travelling or sleeping. Nothing else. I go see a city, or a coffee plantation or, yesterday, a cloud forest and then, I – Read More-