NP Gorongosa, Mozambique

The Wild Heart of Mozambique shows Signs of Life


fun at sunset
Young lions enjoy themselves on the grassy edge of Lake Urema.
Palapa
Palanca negra, as it is better known in Angola, crosses the mist and one of the PN Gorongosa's trails.
Pivas out of sight
Pivas, by far the most visible species in Gorongosa.
Mistrust
Elephant tries to notice what is coming and then reacts angrily and withdraws.
Twilight Hunt
Young lions roam a shore of the golden lake Urema at sunset.
Passing through the lions
PN Gorongosa's jeep returns to Chitengo after a good time watching some of the park's lions.
eyeing the lake
Fishing eagle attentive to movements in the water of a small lake below.
impala arrangement
Herd of impala watching the passage of human visitors from Gorongosa.
the great Gorongosa
The slope of the Gorongosa mountain range shrouded in fog, a common scene in the mornings of this interior region of Mozambique.
Palapa II
A male sable (little) concealed in the Gorongosa vegetation.
vulture stuff
Greg Kaltenecker's team of ornithologists obtain data on a white-headed vulture, a species that he studies and tracks in Gorongosa.
general stampede
Geese leave a lake full of amphibious vegetation.
a new sunset
Impala scrutinizes the Gorongosa tando on sunset.
Black Loin Storks
A duo of the so-called African tuiuius.
Fogo
Gorongosa National Park guides observe a fire in Gorongosa National Park.
Gorongosa palm trees
One of Gorongosa's trademarks: its palm trees.
Evening Colors
Large tree cuts through the lush sunset around Gorongosa.
flight of the black loin stork
Black-backed stork in flight.
Near-night socializing
Mainly American visitors to PN Gorongosa live outside Chitengo.
national park-gorongosa-mozambique-wild-life-road
One of the many roads that ply PN Gorongosa.
Gorongosa was home to one of the most exuberant ecosystems in Africa, but from 1980 to 1992 it succumbed to the Civil War waged between FRELIMO and RENAMO. Greg Carr, Voice Mail's millionaire inventor received a message from the Mozambican ambassador to the UN challenging him to support Mozambique. For the good of the country and humanity, Carr pledged to resurrect the stunning national park that the Portuguese colonial government had created there.

The guide born in Zimbabwe Test takes us on one of the classic game drive jeeps.

After an introductory journey through the arboreal vegetation of PN Gorongosa, we arrive at an open savannah, filled with almost shallow dry grass, by areas of thick and dense tufts, mid-height.

It was sprinkled with exotic palm trees, some dwarf, others, not really, fans, ilalas or the like.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, palm trees

One of Gorongosa's trademarks: its palm trees.

“Well, they were hanging around here this morning. Let's see if they're still walking…”

The encounter is not immediate. As we comb through the windblown golden labyrinth, Test comes to doubt the quest's success. And getting impatient.

For a short time.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, safari

PN Gorongosa's jeep returns to Chitengo after a good time watching some of the park's lions.

“Oh done! There they are. See them?” Of course we were.

Two young lions had appeared out of nowhere. They panted. They gave us the idea of ​​being bothered by the heat that was still only ten in the morning. “They ate with the rest of the pack during the night. Now, they took time off for them.” adds Test.

In fact, we saw many more herbivores around: impala, bauala, piva and others.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, imbabalas

Imbabalas on a narrow road in PN Gorongosa.

What interested the lions, however, was the more ventilated shade around.

They chased her to and fro in such a way, they appeared and disappeared in the middle of the tufted undergrowth that we seemed to be playing hide and seek.

It was our first lion sighting in Gorongosa.

Several would follow. As easy as that.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, lions

Young lions enjoy themselves on the grassy edge of Lake Urema.

Gorongosa's Amazing Rivers and Ecosystems

His search allowed us, at the same time, to begin to appreciate the unique beauty of Gorongosa.

It forms a patchwork of ecosystems spread from the foothills of the homonymous mountain range to the Cheringoma Plateau, traversed by a series of rivers that have irrigated Lake Urema for centuries and sustain the incredible biodiversity of these places:

the Vunduzi that rises on the slopes of the Serra da Gorongosa, the Nhandugue, the namesake Urema, the Muaredzi.

And smaller ones that, as a rule, disappear during the dry season.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, Black Loin Storks

A duo of the so-called African tuiuius.

Test takes us towards the edge of Urema, the lake. In June, with the rains already a few months past, this edge is a vast area lined with very green and succulent grass.

It appears teeming with herbivores, in particular with countless wildebeests, in an abundance that we have not found anywhere else in the world.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, Pivas

Pivas, by far the most visible species in Gorongosa.

We see for the first time how much the fauna of Gorongosa had recovered from its darkest years.

In conversation with Vasco Galante, the park's Communication Director, he shows us a video of a promotional film from 1961, directed by Miguel Spiguel and narrated by the unmistakable Fernando Pessa.

Vasco tells us that, in his Abrantina youth, that same film, with the imagery of the jungle and safari, had dazzled him and aroused the dream of getting to know the place.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, Chitengo gate guard

Chitengo official in charge of entrances and exits to the field.

From Hunting Reserve to Lush Colonial National Park

By that time, Gorongosa was glowing. From 1920 to 1959, it was a hunting reserve that the Mozambique Company determined with 1000 km2.

By 1940, it had become famous.

Incautiously, the authorities endowed her with a tourist camp in the alluvial plain next to the Mussicadzi River.

As many feared, in 1942 floods damaged infrastructure. Vasco shows us another movie. In it we see how packs led by lions with huge soot-colored manes took over the buildings.

How they climbed the spiral stairs to reach the terrace where they rested and scrutinized their domains and passed their eyes over the countless specimens that roamed there: wildebeest (3500), wildebeest (5500), impala (2000), zebra (3000), buffalo (14500), elephants (2200), hippos (3500), hundreds of elandes, sables and gondongas, all species later inventoried by South African ecologist Kenneth Tinley.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, Impalas

Small herd of impala watching the passage of human visitors from Gorongosa.

In 1951, a new administration of the colonial government took into account that Gorongosa was already visited every year by more than 6000 tourists.

It dictated the construction of accommodation infrastructure, a restaurant and a bar, all in Chitengo.

Four years later, Gorongosa was declared a national park. Chitengo received new roads and other infrastructure.

In the late 60s, it also had a post office, a fuel station, an emergency clinic, a craft shop, two swimming pools and even a nightclub.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, Chitengo Building

PN Gorongosa workers in front of one of the buildings in Chitengo.

The Harmless Years of the War of Independence

From 1964 to 1975, the war for independence generated by the Mozambique Liberation Front (FRELIMO) hardly affected the park.

In 1972, a Portuguese Company supported by several members of such a Provincial Volunteer Organization parked in the area to protect it.

In 1976, a new count confirmed several thousand animals and far more than the 200 lions previously verified, the highest number to date.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, twilight lions

Young lions roam a shore of the golden lake Urema at sunset.

Its ecosystem proved to be as healthy as ever.

Until, financed and armed by the South Africa and by the “white” government of Southern Rhodesia, the National Resistance of Mozambique (RENAMO), in opposition to FRELIMO, entered the scene.

1981-1992: The Traumatic Destruction of PN Gorongosa

It was 1981. The Civil War took over the country and, for Gorongosa, the worst possible scenario was confirmed: that RENAMO would soon use it as its headquarters.

That same year, RENAMO attacked Chitengo. He kidnapped several of his workers and two foreign scientists.

In 1983, the park was closed. From then onwards, violence and destruction increased. Ground battles and aerial bombardments destroyed the buildings.

Soldiers on both sides of the conflict slaughtered hundreds of elephants to sell ivory and obtain new weapons.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, Lioness

Lioness rests warmed by the soft late afternoon sun.

Hungry soldiers killed thousands of distinct herbivores and the lions themselves – now protected and monitored with location collars – and other predators were decimated for sheer fun or starved to death for lack of their prey.

The civil war ended in 1992 but the park's fauna continued to be poached. By the end of the atrocities, nearly all large animals had been reduced by 90% or more.

Obviously, in 2017, there was still a lot to be done.

Infrastructure and fauna recovered and how.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, Baboons and Pivas

Baboons pass in front of a curious herd of piva.

Back to the Discovery of Gorongosa BP

The next morning, we left early, in a new game drive mode led by Moutinho, a young native guide. A dense fog envelops Gorongosa.

Along the way, spooky silhouettes of animals appear at intervals on the narrow dirt road that the tropical vegetation struggled to invade: imbabalas, inhacosos and sables – the Mozambican name for Angola's emblematic black sables.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, Pala-Pala

Palanca negra, as it is better known in Angola, crosses the mist and one of the PN Gorongosa's trails.

We have a look at lakes bequeathed by the rainy months (January to April), full of birds:

egypt geese, ibises, marabouts, yellow-billed and black-backed storks, pelicans and many others.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, Pelicans

despite the distance to the ocean
Indian Ocean, pelicans abound in PN Gorongosa.

The more we traveled through the park, the more we were enchanted by its fifty-odd ecosystems:

the endless tando, the yellow wattle forest and the savannah dotted with exotic palm trees, the grassy and swampy shores of the Urema, the lake itself shared by hippos and crocodiles.

The tropical forest on the slopes of the mountains and many other environments.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, fog in the great Gorongosa

The slope of the Gorongosa mountain range shrouded in fog, a common scene in the mornings of this interior region of Mozambique.

In Search of the Park's Elusive Elephants

After intense search, we found a lone elephant male there, later another. It is not by chance that the memory of these pachyderms is as famous as it is.

In Gorongosa, barely detecting jeeps, elephants remember past traumas during and after the Civil War.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, elephant

Elephant tries to notice what is coming and then reacts angrily and withdraws.

They react with immediate suspicion and even chase vehicles. Unlike the lions – which we easily find again on the edge of the Urema – they are elusive.

But with time, everything heals.

This is how the Mozambican government considered that, in 1994, with the support of the African Development Bank and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, it sought to recover infrastructure, open trails and roads.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, road.

One of the many roads that ply PN Gorongosa.

Demining the region and fighting poaching with the support of eighty newly hired employees, some former park workers and even ex-combatants.

Greg Carr: From the Mozambican Ambassador's Message to the UN to Action

After the turn of the century, Greg Carr, the American who invented Voicemail and prospered with it, entered the equation.

The Idaho multimillionaire welcomed a suggestion by the Mozambican ambassador to the UN during a meeting promoted by the Kennedy family to support Mozambique's recovery from the war.

Shortly thereafter, he visited Gorongosa. He was surrendered and convinced that the park could function as a strong tourist mobile for the development of central Mozambique.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, Drª de Turno

Chitengo doctor on duty for workers and visitors to PN Gorongosa.

In 2004, Joaquim Chissano validated a partnership between the Mozambican Ministry of Tourism and the Carr Foundation, which Greg had created in 1999 for a thirty-year tenure of Gorongosa. This partnership foresaw an investment of almost 25 million euros.

In infrastructure, reintroduction of animals – as happened with the 54 elephants he bought from South African neighbor Kruger Park – integration of Gorongosa communities and their benefit from the project's estimated profits.

Vasco Galante: The Right Arm and the Man Always on the Ground by Greg Carr

By this time, Vasco Galante became Carr's right-hand man. Fed up with the business life he led in Portugal, he had already decided to change his life and Mozambique had stayed in his heart.

When he found out that Greg Carr was looking for someone responsible for the Gorongosa team, the delicious film by Miguel Spiguel with voiceover by Fernando Pessa flashed through his mind.

Vasco became an unavoidable part of the park's family. how is it Matthew Mutemba, the administrator we are equally privileged to live with, recently awarded by National Geographic as one of their “Emerging Explorers”From 2017.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, ducks

Geese leave a lake full of amphibious vegetation.

American Interest in Gorongosa vs Donald Trump's Isolationist Policy

On the days he welcomes us, Chitengo is in a frenzy.

Dozens of Americans from Idaho, most of them connected to Greg Carr or his family, were visiting.

The presence of these Yankees does not prevent the successive sieges and incursions of baboons into the restaurant's kitchen. Nor the nutritional walks of the warthog bands all over the complex.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, Warthog, Warthog

A warthog lurks from within its den.

We join one of the jeeps they follow. We realized that, in most cases, they were the first safaris in which they participated and how they lived with enthusiasm and redoubled interest all the biological learning of Gorongosa:

a team of ornithologists that captured, weighed and identified vultures for further study;

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, Vulture

Greg Kaltenecker's team of ornithologists obtain data on a white-headed vulture, a species that he studies and tracks in Gorongosa.

the amazement of its ever-changing ecosystems and the exuberant sunset, melting towards the sides of the mountain.

When the dark sets in, we help them and the guide Moutinho – Monty as they preferred to call him – with a bright spotlight, to find nocturnal species: horse riders, civets and shrill jagras.

On our way back to Chitengo, we passed one of the fires that the authorities used to keep vegetation under control during the dry season.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, Fire

Gorongosa National Park guides observe a fire in Gorongosa National Park.

At the farewell barbecue that followed, one of the representatives of the American group thanked the park for the opportunity.

He took the opportunity to snipe Donald Trump's international relations policies, which cut back on support from USAID and other US programs. USA to the countries most in need.

"We save on the programs that we make friends in the world, we will see ourselves spending on weapons to fight new enemies."

PN Gorongosa is about to receive a land extension to the banks of the Zambezi River.

Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique, Wildlife, sunset

Impala scrutinizes the Gorongosa tando on sunset.

These days, it is just as crucial for Gorongosa that foreign aid is for Mozambique to remain at peace.

Ibo Island, Mozambique

Island of a Gone Mozambique

It was fortified in 1791 by the Portuguese who expelled the Arabs from the Quirimbas and seized their trade routes. It became the 2nd Portuguese outpost on the east coast of Africa and later the capital of the province of Cabo Delgado, Mozambique. With the end of the slave trade at the turn of the XNUMXth century and the passage from the capital to Porto Amélia, Ibo Island found itself in the fascinating backwater in which it is located.
bazaruto, Mozambique

The Inverted Mirage of Mozambique

Just 30km off the East African coast, an unlikely but imposing erg rises out of the translucent sea. Bazaruto it houses landscapes and people who have lived apart for a long time. Whoever lands on this lush, sandy island soon finds himself in a storm of awe.
Ilha de Mozambique, Mozambique  

The Island of Ali Musa Bin Bique. Pardon... of Mozambique

With the arrival of Vasco da Gama in the extreme south-east of Africa, the Portuguese took over an island that had previously been ruled by an Arab emir, who ended up misrepresenting the name. The emir lost his territory and office. Mozambique - the molded name - remains on the resplendent island where it all began and also baptized the nation that Portuguese colonization ended up forming.
Cape Cross, Namíbia

The Most Turbulent of the African Colonies

Diogo Cão landed in this cape of Africa in 1486, installed a pattern and turned around. The immediate coastline to the north and south was German, South African, and finally Namibian. Indifferent to successive transfers of nationality, one of the largest seal colonies in the world has maintained its hold there and animates it with deafening marine barks and endless tantrums.
PN Hwange, Zimbabwe

The Legacy of the Late Cecil Lion

On July 1, 2015, Walter Palmer, a dentist and trophy hunter from Minnesota killed Cecil, Zimbabwe's most famous lion. The slaughter generated a viral wave of outrage. As we saw in PN Hwange, nearly two years later, Cecil's descendants thrive.
Enxame Mozambique

Mozambican Fashion Service Area

It is repeated at almost all stops in towns of Mozambique worthy of appearing on maps. The machimbombo (bus) stops and is surrounded by a crowd of eager "businessmen". The products offered can be universal such as water or biscuits or typical of the area. In this region, a few kilometers from Nampula, fruit sales suceeded, in each and every case, quite intense.
Miranda, Brazil

Maria dos Jacarés: the Pantanal shelters such Creatures

Eurides Fátima de Barros was born in the interior of the Miranda region. 38 years ago, he settled in a small business on the side of BR262 that crosses the Pantanal and gained an affinity with the alligators that lived on his doorstep. Disgusted that once upon a time the creatures were being slaughtered there, she began to take care of them. Now known as Maria dos Jacarés, she named each of the animals after a soccer player or coach. It also makes sure they recognize your calls.
Saint Lucia, South Africa

An Africa as Wild as Zulu

On the eminence of the coast of Mozambique, the province of KwaZulu-Natal is home to an unexpected South Africa. Deserted beaches full of dunes, vast estuarine swamps and hills covered with fog fill this wild land also bathed by the Indian Ocean. It is shared by the subjects of the always proud Zulu nation and one of the most prolific and diverse fauna on the African continent.
Lake Manyara NP, Tanzania

Hemingway's Favorite Africa

Situated on the western edge of the Rift Valley, Lake Manyara National Park is one of the smallest but charming and richest in Europe. wild life of Tanzania. In 1933, between hunting and literary discussions, Ernest Hemingway dedicated a month of his troubled life to him. He narrated those adventurous safari days in “The Green Hills of Africa".
Amboseli National Park, Kenya

A Gift from the Kilimanjaro

The first European to venture into these Masai haunts was stunned by what he found. And even today, large herds of elephants and other herbivores roam the pastures irrigated by the snow of Africa's biggest mountain.
Iberá Wetlands, Argentina

The Pantanal of the Pampas

On the world map, south of the famous brazilian wetland, a little-known flooded region appears, but almost as vast and rich in biodiversity. the Guarani expression Y bera defines it as “shining waters”. The adjective fits more than its strong luminance.
Serengeti NP, Tanzania

The Great Migration of the Endless Savanna

In these prairies that the Masai people say syringet (run forever), millions of wildebeests and other herbivores chase the rains. For predators, their arrival and that of the monsoon are the same salvation.
Ibo Island a Quirimba IslandMozambique

Ibo to Quirimba with the Tide

For centuries, the natives have traveled in and out of the mangrove between the island of Ibo and Quirimba, in the time that the overwhelming return trip from the Indian Ocean grants them. Discovering the region, intrigued by the eccentricity of the route, we follow its amphibious steps.
Pemba, Mozambique

From Porto Amélia to the Shelter Port of Mozambique

In July 2017, we visited Pemba. Two months later, the first attack took place on Mocímboa da Praia. Nor then do we dare to imagine that the tropical and sunny capital of Cabo Delgado would become the salvation of thousands of Mozambicans fleeing a terrifying jihadism.
Goa island, Ilha de Mozambique, Mozambique

The Island that Illuminates the Island of Mozambique

Located at the entrance to the Mossuril Bay, the small island of Goa is home to a centuries-old lighthouse. Its listed tower signals the first stop of a stunning dhow tour around the old Ilha de Mozambique.

Machangulo, Mozambique

The Golden Peninsula of Machangulo

At a certain point, an ocean inlet divides the long sandy strip full of hyperbolic dunes that delimits Maputo Bay. Machangulo, as the lower section is called, is home to one of the most magnificent coastlines in Mozambique.
savuti, botswana, elephant-eating lions
Safari
Savuti, Botswana

Savuti's Elephant-Eating Lions

A patch of the Kalahari Desert dries up or is irrigated depending on the region's tectonic whims. In Savuti, lions have become used to depending on themselves and prey on the largest animals in the savannah.
Aurora lights up the Pisang Valley, Nepal.
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 3rd- Upper Banana, Nepal

An Unexpected Snowy Aurora

At the first glimmers of light, the sight of the white mantle that had covered the village during the night dazzles us. With one of the toughest walks on the Annapurna Circuit ahead of us, we postponed the match as much as possible. Annoyed, we left Upper Pisang towards Escort when the last snow faded.
Engravings, Karnak Temple, Luxor, Egypt
Architecture & Design
luxor, Egypt

From Luxor to Thebes: Journey to Ancient Egypt

Thebes was raised as the new supreme capital of the Egyptian Empire, the seat of Amon, the God of Gods. Modern Luxor inherited the Temple of Karnak and its sumptuousness. Between one and the other flow the sacred Nile and millennia of dazzling history.
Salto Angel, Rio that falls from the sky, Angel Falls, PN Canaima, Venezuela
Adventure
PN Canaima, Venezuela

Kerepakupai, Salto Angel: The River that Falls from Heaven

In 1937, Jimmy Angel landed a light aircraft on a plateau lost in the Venezuelan jungle. The American adventurer did not find gold but he conquered the baptism of the longest waterfall on the face of the Earth
Native Americans Parade, Pow Pow, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States
Ceremonies and Festivities
Albuquerque, USA

When the Drums Sound, the Indians Resist

With more than 500 tribes present, the pow wow "Gathering of the Nations" celebrates the sacred remnants of Native American cultures. But it also reveals the damage inflicted by colonizing civilization.
Lawless City, Transit of Hanoi, Under the Order of Chaos, Vietnam
Cities
Hanoi, Vietnam

Under the Order of Chaos

Hanoi has long ignored scant traffic lights, other traffic signs and decorative traffic lights. It lives in its own rhythm and in an order of chaos unattainable by the West.
Meal
Margilan, Uzbekistan

An Uzbekistan's Breadwinner

In one of the many bakeries in Margilan, worn out by the intense heat of the tandyr oven, the baker Maruf'Jon works half-baked like the distinctive traditional breads sold throughout Uzbekistan
Parade and Pomp
Culture
Saint Petersburg, Russia

When the Russian Navy Stations in Saint Petersburg

Russia dedicates the last Sunday of July to its naval forces. On that day, a crowd visits large boats moored on the Neva River as alcohol-drenched sailors seize the city.
Sport
Competitions

Man: an Ever Tested Species

It's in our genes. For the pleasure of participating, for titles, honor or money, competitions give meaning to the world. Some are more eccentric than others.
The Toy Train story
Traveling
Siliguri a Darjeeling, India

The Himalayan Toy Train Still Running

Neither the steep slope of some stretches nor the modernity stop it. From Siliguri, in the tropical foothills of the great Asian mountain range, the Darjeeling, with its peaks in sight, the most famous of the Indian Toy Trains has ensured for 117 years, day after day, an arduous dream journey. Traveling through the area, we climb aboard and let ourselves be enchanted.
Impressions Lijiang Show, Yangshuo, China, Red Enthusiasm
Ethnic
Lijiang e Yangshuo, China

An Impressive China

One of the most respected Asian filmmakers, Zhang Yimou dedicated himself to large outdoor productions and co-authored the media ceremonies of the Beijing OG. But Yimou is also responsible for “Impressions”, a series of no less controversial stagings with stages in emblematic places.
Sunset, Avenue of Baobabs, Madagascar
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio

days like so many others

Maori Haka, Waitangi Treaty Grounds, New Zealand
History
bay of islands, New Zealand

New Zealand's Civilization Core

Waitangi is the key place for independence and the long-standing coexistence of native Maori and British settlers. In the surrounding Bay of Islands, the idyllic marine beauty of the New Zealand antipodes is celebrated, but also the complex and fascinating kiwi nation.
São Miguel Island, Dazzling Colors by Nature
Islands
São Miguel (Azores), Azores

São Miguel Island: Stunning Azores, By Nature

An immaculate biosphere that the Earth's entrails mold and soften is displayed, in São Miguel, in a panoramic format. São Miguel is the largest of the Portuguese islands. And it is a work of art of Nature and Man in the middle of the North Atlantic planted.
Northern Lights, Laponia, Rovaniemi, Finland, Fire Fox
Winter White
Lapland, Finland

In Search of the Fire Fox

Unique to the heights of the Earth are the northern or southern auroras, light phenomena generated by solar explosions. You Sami natives from Lapland they believed it to be a fiery fox that spread sparkles in the sky. Whatever they are, not even the nearly 30 degrees below zero that were felt in the far north of Finland could deter us from admiring them.
Couple visiting Mikhaylovskoe, village where writer Alexander Pushkin had a home
Literature
Saint Petersburg e Mikhaylovkoe, Russia

The Writer Who Succumbed to His Own Plot

Alexander Pushkin is hailed by many as the greatest Russian poet and the founder of modern Russian literature. But Pushkin also dictated an almost tragicomic epilogue to his prolific life.
Mendenhall Glacier, Alaska, Juneau
Nature
Mendenhall Glacier, Juneau, Alaska

The Glacier Behind Juneau

The Tlingit natives named this one of more than 140 glaciers on the Juneau Icefield. Best known for Mendenhall, over the past three centuries, global warming has seen its distance to Alaska's diminutive capital increase by more than four kilometers.
Sheki, Autumn in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Autumn Homes
Autumn
Sheki, Azerbaijan

autumn in the caucasus

Lost among the snowy mountains that separate Europe from Asia, Sheki is one of Azerbaijan's most iconic towns. Its largely silky history includes periods of great harshness. When we visited it, autumn pastels added color to a peculiar post-Soviet and Muslim life.
Young people walk the main street in Chame, Nepal
Natural Parks
Annapurna Circuit: 1th - Pokhara a ChameNepal

Finally, on the way

After several days of preparation in Pokhara, we left towards the Himalayas. The walking route only starts in Chame, at 2670 meters of altitude, with the snowy peaks of the Annapurna mountain range already in sight. Until then, we complete a painful but necessary road preamble to its subtropical base.
Puerto Rico, San Juan, walled city, panoramic
UNESCO World Heritage
San Juan, Puerto Rico

The Highly Walled Puerto Rico of San Juan Bautista

San Juan is the second oldest colonial city in the Americas, after the Dominican neighbor of Santo Domingo. A pioneering emporium and stop over on the route that took gold and silver from the New World to Spain, it was attacked again and again. Its incredible fortifications still protect one of the most lively and prodigious capitals in the Caribbean.
Zorro's mask on display at a dinner at the Pousada Hacienda del Hidalgo, El Fuerte, Sinaloa, Mexico
Characters
El Fuerte, Sinaloa, Mexico

Zorro's Cradle

El Fuerte is a colonial city in the Mexican state of Sinaloa. In its history, the birth of Don Diego de La Vega will be recorded, it is said that in a mansion in the town. In his fight against the injustices of the Spanish yoke, Don Diego transformed himself into an elusive masked man. In El Fuerte, the legendary “El Zorro” will always take place.
View of Casa Iguana, Corn islands, pure caribbean, nicaragua
Beaches
Corn Islands - Islas del Maíz , Nicaragua

pure caribbean

Perfect tropical settings and genuine local life are the only luxuries available in the so-called Corn Islands or Corn Islands, an archipelago lost in the Central American confines of the Caribbean Sea.
gaudy courtship
Religion
Suzdal, Russia

Thousand Years of Old Fashioned Russia

It was a lavish capital when Moscow was just a rural hamlet. Along the way, it lost political relevance but accumulated the largest concentration of churches, monasteries and convents in the country of the tsars. Today, beneath its countless domes, Suzdal is as orthodox as it is monumental.
Train Kuranda train, Cairns, Queensland, Australia
On Rails
Cairns-Kuranda, Australia

Train to the Middle of the Jungle

Built out of Cairns to save miners isolated in the rainforest from starvation by flooding, the Kuranda Railway eventually became the livelihood of hundreds of alternative Aussies.
Tabatô, Guinea Bissau, tabanca Mandingo musicians. Baidi
Society
Tabato, Guinea Bissau

The Tabanca of Mandinga Poets Musicians

In 1870, a community of traveling Mandingo musicians settled next to the current city of Bafatá. From the Tabatô they founded, their culture and, in particular, their prodigious balaphonists, dazzle the world.
the projectionist
Daily life
Sainte-Luce, Martinique

The Nostalgic Projectionist

From 1954 to 1983, Gérard Pierre screened many of the famous films arriving in Martinique. 30 years after the closing of the room in which he worked, it was still difficult for this nostalgic native to change his reel.
São João Farm, Pantanal, Miranda, Mato Grosso do Sul, sunset
Wildlife
Fazenda São João, Miranda, Brazil

Pantanal with Paraguay in Sight

When the Fazenda Passo do Lontra decided to expand its ecotourism, it recruited the other family farm, the São João. Further away from the Miranda River, this second property reveals a remote Pantanal, on the verge of Paraguay. The country and the homonymous river.
Bungee jumping, Queenstown, New Zealand
Scenic Flights
Queenstown, New Zealand

Queenstown, the Queen of Extreme Sports

In the century. XVIII, the Kiwi government proclaimed a mining village on the South Island "fit for a queen".Today's extreme scenery and activities reinforce the majestic status of ever-challenging Queenstown.