Over the Hill and Far Away: Backpacking South America at 40-something
SOUTH AMERICA: South America had been on our bucket list since before we were married. Pushing 50, we finally got around to it – a three-and-a-half-month flashback to our salad days, backpacking through Asia and the Middle East in the 1990s. (Publication: ‘Intrepid Explorer’)
Amazon Adventure
SOUTH AMERICA | PERU | AMAZON RIVER: Sluggish ceiling fans stir the sticky heat. A picture of Jesus jostles for wall space with tortoise heads and turtle shells, a caiman skin, a puma’s pelt and mounted head. River turtle and alligator are on the menu. (Publication: ‘Intrepid Explorer’)
Captivating, Confounding Cuba
SOUTH AMERICA | CUBA: I’m not sure what I expected of one of the world’s last five self-styled communist countries. What I got was a whiff of fragrant Cuban leaf as the plane’s doors opened, adverts for booze and cigarettes in the arrivals hall, trolleys loaded with teetering towers of shrink-wrapped aircon units, TVs and stereos, and buxom, mini-skirted officials in khaki, sporting epaulettes and fishnet stockings. (Publication: ‘Intrepid Explorer’)
Outsider Art: A Globetrotter’s Guide
SOUTH AFRICA | NIEU-BETHESDA: The dusty road bends into a blue bowl of hills. Suddenly, in a hollow lined in yellowing poplar trees and willows, the geese have the right of way. Complete with white roses in the churchyard, Nieu Bethesda is a little piece of England hewn from the badlands of the Karoo. This once-obscure backwater is home to the Owl House, South Africa’s premier example of Outsider Art – art created by driven individuals, outside of the mainstream, untrained and untainted by cultural expectations who are compelled to express their intense personal vision with whatever comes to hand. Miss Helen chose crushed glass and concrete. (Unpublished)