Ooty, India

In Bollywood's Nearly Ideal Setting


heartthrob look
Protagonist Upendra - or Uppi - enacts looks of astonishment but, at the same time, seductive taken by camera operators for a lightning sequence of zoom in and zoom out.
Stretched
A classic Ambassador, a cow and other elements await their turn to enter the scene.
Facade Action
Visual of the filming of "H2O" taking place outside the old palace of the Maharaja of Mysore.
Lunch break
Filming team responsible for shooting "H2O" prepares for lunch.
I work seriously
Auxiliaries carry sacks to a cart during H2O filming.
england in indian fashion
Wing of British-built cottages in what was their favorite southern Indian mountain resort.
heartthrob look II
Protagonist Upendra - or Uppi - acts in the same determined way that made him one of the idols of Kannada and Indian cinema.
cinephile expectation
Film crew awaits closing some close shots with Upendra to enjoy lunchtime.
Human and animal extras
Pastor controls a small flock that would enter the scene next to the Maharaja's palace, after lunch time.
British colonial heritage
Wing of the Regency Villas hotel - today the Fernhills Palace Hotel and Regency Villas - one of the classic Ooty hotels used to hosting Indian cinema filming.
plan a plan
An iron frame frames the action taking place around Uppi, the famous Bangalore actor and director.
Backstage II
Extras roam the front of the palace of the Maharaja of Mysore, in the vicinity of a technical sight.
actor and do everything
The film crew focuses on the performance of the protagonist, writer, screenwriter, director, singer and lyricist Upendra, protected from the sun by an equestrian umbrella.
The conflict with Pakistan and the threat of terrorism made filming in Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh a drama. In Ooty, we see how this former British colonial station took the lead.

We didn't need much to intuit the origin of the decadent Welcome Heritage Royale Regency Villa in which we had settled.

We thought of the white and freckled skin, the fair or red hair of the British settlers in India and even their

u famous combative lip of stiff upper lip. As a result, there was an urgent need to take refuge from the oppressive heat that lashed the Crown Jewel for most of the year.

Organized and pragmatic, the sahibs Newly installed ones have wasted no time in providing a climatic retreat worthy of their supremacy and superb. They found Udhagamandalam at 2.240 meters above sea level, at the top of the Nilgiri Hills.

These are the highest lands in the south of the subcontinent, dominated, from 1789 until independence, by the East India Company, after great dedication by a governor of Coimbatore, John Sullivan, who had fallen in love with the place to the point of telling in a letter addressed to a counterpart that "resembled Switzerland more than any country in Europe."

When we discover it, we have difficulty identifying Udhagamandalam with anything from Helvetia. And only by effort we were able to visualize similarities with the south of England or Australia, as suggested by several travel books.

This, despite the chalets, now red, surrounded by flower gardens, the hippodrome, avenues flanked by large eucalyptus trees and stone churches.

england in indian fashion

Wing of British-built cottages in what was their favorite southern Indian mountain resort.

These elements and, above all, the architecture of the buildings spiced up the old Anglophilia of the mountain station.

They weren't enough to make up for the current reality around them, dotted with rubble, disorganized and, here and there, also dirty, starting with the city's large lake that housed the sewage of almost 90.000 inhabitants but where the Tourist Cafe's entrepreneur rented, with success, dozens of boats for rides on rowing or pedals.

The less dignified aspects of the village did little to shake the postcolonial confidence of the Indian manager of the Regency Villa. “It seems to me that you gentlemen will be ready for the visit, right?” he asks us with pomp, circumstance and the mouth-full intonation typical of the English aristocracy.

No sooner had we checked into the scarlet hotel-palace from far away Varkalla (on the coast of Kerala state) when the official forced a tour of the premises for us. Even exhausted by the troubled journey and upset, we ended up saying yes. O karma de Nilgiri was soon to reward us for our open-mindedness.

The host begins by revealing to us rooms, parlors and salons that a recent restoration had restored to Victorian elegance. When the objects of the visit are repeated and to our surprise, he suggests an extension to the former palace of the Maharaja of Mysore.

We didn't know that a Maharaja had also lodged in those parts, but we were already everywhere. We climb a staircase, cross the new hall, and look out onto a half-opened porch.

From there, we notice a chromatic and creative riot taking place in the courtyard below.

Ooty, Tamil Nadu, Bollywood Scenery, Cinematic Expectation

Film crew awaits closing some close shots with Upendra to enjoy lunchtime.

We questioned the manager. "It's footage." advances us. “They come here often and it's not just Bombay producers. They arrive from all over the country. Forgive my failure, I should have given you this information."

The attraction of Indians for alpine landscapes, in particular those of Switzerland, is well known. For several decades, the relative similarity of the Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh mountain backdrops have made them the preferred filming locations for Bollywood and competing Indian “studios”.

Until the dispute with neighboring Pakistan over Kashmir escalated and military skirmishes and threats of terrorism forced them to look elsewhere.

Since then, Ooty – so the British settlers abbreviated the intractable official name of the village – has proven to be the main alternative and has illustrated hundreds of feature films.

Ooty, Tamil Nadu, Bollywood Scenery, Plan of a Plan

An iron frame frames the action taking place around Uppi, the famous Bangalore actor and director.

From the moment you give us permission to be on our own, we forgive you anything and everything. We say goodbye with a thank you and see you soon diplomatic and descend to the level of action.

We cross a dark corridor that leads to rooms adapted to dressing rooms and backstage.

Once outside, we come across assistants who carry heavy sacks into an ox cart, positioned over a crosshair marked on the ground with colored powder.

Ooty, Tamil Nadu, Bollywood Scenery, Working for real

Auxiliaries carry sacks to a cart during H2O filming.

We admire the patience of a Muslim shepherd who controls a flock of sheep and we follow the movements of a number of other workers and extras distributed over the ocher soil.

They all depend on the representation of Upendra, the densely capillary-looking protagonist, a national idol who became famous for his appearances in several of the approximately one hundred Kannada or Sandalwood films – as Karnataka state cinema is called – produced every year, in a context quite different from Hollywood and European cinema.

After a career hiatus of nearly two years, Uppi, as the Indian people fondly treat him, had a cross-functional role in H2O, a bilingual feature film released in Tamil and Kannada that set the trend for Indian films named after molecular compounds .

Uppi developed the argument based on a famous secular dispute over the water of the Kaveri River between the Indian states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. He also created the dialogues and lyrics for all the songs. He also sang two of them "Log out Ilde Love"and "bid bede bida Different".

We saw him, above all, performing, under the sun protection of an equestrian umbrella that some assistant held above the plane.

We took advantage of the team's distraction, played tricks and placed ourselves behind the cameras. When we realize that no one repels us, we frame and record images of the main actor with as much or more zeal than the accredited operators.

These created the lightning plans of zoom in, zoom out with which they illustrated a certain astonishment of Karnataka (the character of Upendra).

The heartthrob's ego rises with the adulation of Western outsiders. Okay, try to adorn the tight plane of her furry face with a look as magical and seductive as possible.

Ooty, Tamil Nadu, Bollywood Scenery, Heartthrob's Eye

Protagonist Upendra – or Uppi – enacts looks of astonishment but, at the same time, seductive taken by camera operators for a lightning sequence of zoom in and zoom out.

Determined to enhance the effect, the characterizer had given him deep blue contact lenses. But through our telephoto lenses, we can see that the ornament is irritating her eyes, which are almost redder than blue.

Enter the ox cart, the shepherd and the sheep and even a white Ambassador. The planned scene is successfully completed and the vast team takes a lunch break without ever leaving the filming location.

Right there, in the front garden, they are organized in two opposite rows – one for men, the other for women – each of the guests with their silver tray on the grass, ready to be served.

Ooty, Tamil Nadu, Bollywood Scenery, Lunch Break

Filming team responsible for shooting “H2O” prepares for lunch.

We don't want to appear rude to them, and we avoid photographing them eating. At that point, someone from the team takes us aside and surprises us:

“We've been watching you and your ethnic and figure contrast would serve wonderfully for a film we're going to shoot in two weeks' time, in Bangalore. Can we count on you?”

We don't have that much time to stay in India.

With airline tickets already purchased and no way to change dates, we are forced to reject the hypothesis of a lifetime of joining the fascinating world of Indian cinema, who knows, also a fruitful Asian stardom.

Stretched

A classic Ambassador, a cow and other elements await their turn to enter the scene.

To compensate, in the last days spent in the state of Tamil Nadu. we continued to ask for posters in the movie theaters we were passing through.

After giving several dozen to family and friends, we still keep many, including four or five of the most exuberant ones on the walls and doors of the house.

Jaisalmer, India

There's a Feast in the Thar Desert

As soon as the short winter breaks, Jaisalmer indulges in parades, camel races, and turban and mustache competitions. Its walls, alleys and surrounding dunes take on more color than ever. During the three days of the event, natives and outsiders watch, dazzled, as the vast and inhospitable Thar finally shines through.
Guwahati, India

The City that Worships Kamakhya and the Fertility

Guwahati is the largest city in the state of Assam and in North East India. It is also one of the fastest growing in the world. For Hindus and devout believers in Tantra, it will be no coincidence that Kamakhya, the mother goddess of creation, is worshiped there.
Dooars India

At the Gates of the Himalayas

We arrived at the northern threshold of West Bengal. The subcontinent gives way to a vast alluvial plain filled with tea plantations, jungle, rivers that the monsoon overflows over endless rice fields and villages bursting at the seams. On the verge of the greatest of the mountain ranges and the mountainous kingdom of Bhutan, for obvious British colonial influence, India treats this stunning region by Dooars.
Gangtok, India

An Hillside Life

Gangtok it is the capital of Sikkim, an ancient kingdom in the Himalayas section of the Silk Road, which became an Indian province in 1975. The city is balanced on a slope, facing Kanchenjunga, the third highest elevation in the world that many natives believe shelters a paradise valley of Immortality. Their steep and strenuous Buddhist existence aims, there, or elsewhere, to achieve it.
Meghalaya, India

The Bridges of the Peoples that Create Roots

The unpredictability of rivers in the wettest region on Earth never deterred the Khasi and the Jaintia. Faced with the abundance of trees elastic fig tree in their valleys, these ethnic groups got used to molding their branches and strains. From their time-lost tradition, they have bequeathed hundreds of dazzling root bridges to future generations.
Look-alikes, Actors and Extras

Make-believe stars

They are the protagonists of events or are street entrepreneurs. They embody unavoidable characters, represent social classes or epochs. Even miles from Hollywood, without them, the world would be more dull.
Shows

The World on Stage

All over the world, each nation, region or town and even neighborhood has its own culture. When traveling, nothing is more rewarding than admiring, live and in loco, which makes them unique.
Goa, India

To Goa, Quickly and in Strength

A sudden longing for Indo-Portuguese tropical heritage makes us travel in various transports but almost non-stop, from Lisbon to the famous Anjuna beach. Only there, at great cost, were we able to rest.
Goa, India

To Goa, Quickly and in Strength

A sudden longing for Indo-Portuguese tropical heritage makes us travel in various transports but almost non-stop, from Lisbon to the famous Anjuna beach. Only there, at great cost, were we able to rest.
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.
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.
Las Vegas, USA

Where sin is always forgiven

Projected from the Mojave Desert like a neon mirage, the North American capital of gaming and entertainment is experienced as a gamble in the dark. Lush and addictive, Vegas neither learns nor regrets.
Goa, India

The Last Gasp of the Goan Portugality

The prominent city of Goa already justified the title of “rome of the east” when, in the middle of the XNUMXth century, epidemics of malaria and cholera led to its abandonment. The New Goa (Pangim) for which it was exchanged became the administrative seat of Portuguese India but was annexed by the Indian Union of post-independence. In both, time and neglect are ailments that now make the Portuguese colonial legacy wither.
Tawang, India

The Mystic Valley of Deep Discord

On the northern edge of the Indian province of Arunachal Pradesh, Tawang is home to dramatic mountain scenery, ethnic Mompa villages and majestic Buddhist monasteries. Even if Chinese rivals have not passed him since 1962, Beijing look at this domain as part of your Tibet. Accordingly, religiosity and spiritualism there have long shared with a strong militarism.

Hampi, India

Voyage to the Ancient Kingdom of Bisnaga

In 1565, the Hindu empire of Vijayanagar succumbed to enemy attacks. 45 years before, he had already been the victim of the Portugueseization of his name by two Portuguese adventurers who revealed him to the West.

Dawki, India

Dawki, Dawki, Bangladesh on sight

We descended from the high and mountainous lands of Meghalaya to the flats to the south and below. There, the translucent and green stream of the Dawki forms the border between India and Bangladesh. In a damp heat that we haven't felt for a long time, the river also attracts hundreds of Indians and Bangladeshis in a picturesque escape.
Shillong, India

A Christmas Selfiestan at an India Christian Stronghold

December arrives. With a largely Christian population, the state of Meghalaya synchronizes its Nativity with that of the West and clashes with the overcrowded Hindu and Muslim subcontinent. Shillong, the capital, shines with faith, happiness, jingle bells and bright lighting. To dazzle Indian holidaymakers from other parts and creeds.
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.
Maguri Bill, India

A Wetland in the Far East of India

The Maguri Bill occupies an amphibious area in the Assamese vicinity of the river Brahmaputra. It is praised as an incredible habitat especially for birds. When we navigate it in gondola mode, we are faced with much (but much) more life than just the asada.
Jaisalmer, India

The Life Withstanding in the Golden Fort of Jaisalmer

The Jaisalmer fortress was erected from 1156 onwards by order of Rawal Jaisal, ruler of a powerful clan from the now Indian reaches of the Thar Desert. More than eight centuries later, despite continued pressure from tourism, they share the vast and intricate interior of the last of India's inhabited forts, almost four thousand descendants of the original inhabitants.
Believers greet each other in the Bukhara region.
City
Bukhara, Uzbequistan

Among the Minarets of Old Turkestan

Situated on the ancient Silk Road, Bukhara has developed for at least two thousand years as an essential commercial, cultural and religious hub in Central Asia. It was Buddhist and then Muslim. It was part of the great Arab empire and that of Genghis Khan, the Turko-Mongol kingdoms and the Soviet Union, until it settled in the still young and peculiar Uzbekistan.
Host Wezi points out something in the distance
Beach
Cobue; Nkwichi Lodge, Mozambique

The Hidden Mozambique of the Creaking Sands

During a tour from the bottom to the top of Lake Malawi, we find ourselves on the island of Likoma, an hour by boat from Nkwichi Lodge, the solitary base of this inland coast of Mozambique. On the Mozambican side, the lake is known as Niassa. Whatever its name, there we discover some of the most stunning and unspoilt scenery in south-east Africa.
Okavango Delta, Not all rivers reach the sea, Mokoros
safari
Okavango Delta, Botswana

Not all rivers reach the sea

Third longest river in southern Africa, the Okavango rises in the Angolan Bié plateau and runs 1600km to the southeast. It gets lost in the Kalahari Desert where it irrigates a dazzling wetland teeming with wildlife.
Thorong La, Annapurna Circuit, Nepal, photo for posterity
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 13th - High camp a Thorong La to Muktinath, Nepal

At the height of the Annapurnas Circuit

At 5416m of altitude, the Thorong La Gorge is the great challenge and the main cause of anxiety on the itinerary. After having killed 2014 climbers in October 29, crossing it safely generates a relief worthy of double celebration.
hacienda mucuyche, Yucatan, Mexico, canal
Architecture & Design
Yucatan, Mexico

Among Haciendas and Cenotes, through the History of Yucatan

Around the capital Merida, for every old hacienda henequenera there's at least one cenote. As happened with the semi-recovered Hacienda Mucuyché, together, they form some of the most sublime places in southeastern Mexico.

Salto Angel, Rio that falls from the sky, Angel Falls, PN Canaima, Venezuela
Aventura
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
Dragon Dance, Moon Festival, Chinatown-San Francisco-United States of America
Ceremonies and Festivities
San Francisco, USA

with the head on the moon

September comes and Chinese people around the world celebrate harvests, abundance and unity. San Francisco's enormous Sino-Community gives itself body and soul to California's biggest Moon Festival.
Sydney, Australia's exemplary criminal city, Harbor Bridge
Cities
Sydney, Australia

From the Exile of Criminals to an Exemplary City

The first of the Australian colonies was built by exiled inmates. Today, Sydney's Aussies boast former convicts of their family tree and pride themselves on the cosmopolitan prosperity of the megalopolis they inhabit.
young saleswoman, nation, bread, uzbekistan
Lunch time
Fergana Valley, Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan, The Nation That Does Not Lack Bread

Few countries employ cereals like Uzbekistan. In this republic of Central Asia, bread plays a vital and social role. The Uzbeks produce it and consume it with devotion and in abundance.
Busy intersection of Tokyo, Japan
Culture
Tokyo, Japan

The Endless Night of the Rising Sun Capital

Say that Tokyo do not sleep is an understatement. In one of the largest and most sophisticated cities on the face of the Earth, twilight marks only the renewal of the frenetic daily life. And there are millions of souls that either find no place in the sun, or make more sense in the “dark” and obscure turns that follow.
combat arbiter, cockfighting, philippines
Sport
Philippines

When Only Cock Fights Wake Up the Philippines

Banned in much of the First World, cockfighting thrives in the Philippines where they move millions of people and pesos. Despite its eternal problems, it is the sabong that most stimulates the nation.
Creel, Chihuahua, Carlos Venzor, collector, museum
Traveling
Chihuahua a Creel, Chihuahua, Mexico

On Creel's Way

With Chihuahua behind, we point to the southwest and to even higher lands in the north of Mexico. Next to Ciudad Cuauhtémoc, we visited a Mennonite elder. Around Creel, we lived for the first time with the Rarámuri indigenous community of the Serra de Tarahumara.
Fort São Filipe, Cidade Velha, Santiago Island, Cape Verde
Ethnic
Cidade Velha, Cape Verde

Cidade Velha: the Ancient of the Tropico-Colonial Cities

It was the first settlement founded by Europeans below the Tropic of Cancer. In crucial times for Portuguese expansion to Africa and South America and for the slave trade that accompanied it, Cidade Velha became a poignant but unavoidable legacy of Cape Verdean origins.

portfolio, Got2Globe, Travel photography, images, best photographs, travel photos, world, Earth
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Portfolio Got2globe

The Best in the World – Got2Globe Portfolio

António do Remanso, Quilombola Marimbus Community, Lençóis, Chapada Diamantina
History
Sheets of Bahia, Brazil

The Swampy Freedom of Quilombo do Remanso

Runaway slaves have survived for centuries around a wetland in Chapada Diamantina. Today, the quilombo of Remanso is a symbol of their union and resistance, but also of the exclusion to which they were voted.
Efate, Vanuatu, transshipment to "Congoola/Lady of the Seas"
Islands
Efate, Vanuatu

The Island that Survived “Survivor”

Much of Vanuatu lives in a blessed post-savage state. Maybe for this, reality shows in which aspirants compete Robinson Crusoes they settled one after the other on their most accessible and notorious island. Already somewhat stunned by the phenomenon of conventional tourism, Efate also had to resist them.
Oulu Finland, Passage of Time
Winter White
Oulu, Finland

Oulu: an Ode to Winter

Located high in the northeast of the Gulf of Bothnia, Oulu is one of Finland's oldest cities and its northern capital. A mere 220km from the Arctic Circle, even in the coldest months it offers a prodigious outdoor life.
silhouette and poem, Cora coralina, Goias Velho, Brazil
Literature
Goiás Velho, Brazil

The Life and Work of a Marginal Writer

Born in Goiás, Ana Lins Bretas spent most of her life far from her castrating family and the city. Returning to its origins, it continued to portray the prejudiced mentality of the Brazilian countryside
Levada do Caldeirão Verde, Madeira, Portugal, highlands
Nature
Levada do Caldeirão Verde, Madeira, Portugal

Upstream, Downstream

It is just one of over a hundred prodigious canal systems that Madeirans built to irrigate crops. Its verdant, steep and dramatic scenery makes visitors to the island flow continuously along the Levada of Caldeirão Verde.
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.
Kukenam reward
Natural Parks
Mount Roraima, Venezuela

Time Travel to the Lost World of Mount Roraima

At the top of Mount Roraima, there are extraterrestrial scenarios that have resisted millions of years of erosion. Conan Doyle created, in "The Lost World", a fiction inspired by the place but never got to step on it.
Cilaos, Reunion Island, Casario Piton des Neiges
UNESCO World Heritage
Cilaos, Reunion Island

Refuge under the roof of the Indian Ocean

Cilaos appears in one of the old green boilers on the island of Réunion. It was initially inhabited by outlaw slaves who believed they were safe at that end of the world. Once made accessible, nor did the remote location of the crater prevent the shelter of a village that is now peculiar and flattered.
Visitors to Ernest Hemingway's Home, Key West, Florida, United States
Characters
Key West, United States

Hemingway's Caribbean Playground

Effusive as ever, Ernest Hemingway called Key West "the best place I've ever been...". In the tropical depths of the contiguous US, he found evasion and crazy, drunken fun. And the inspiration to write with intensity to match.
Mahé Ilhas das Seychelles, friends of the beach
Beaches
Mahé, Seychelles

The Big Island of the Small Seychelles

Mahé is the largest of the islands of the smallest country in Africa. It's home to the nation's capital and most of the Seychellois. But not only. In its relative smallness, it hides a stunning tropical world, made of mountainous jungle that merges with the Indian Ocean in coves of all sea tones.
Aurora lights up the Pisang Valley, Nepal.
Religion
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.
Chepe Express, Chihuahua Al Pacifico Railway
On Rails
Creel to Los Mochis, Mexico

The Barrancas del Cobre & the CHEPE Iron Horse

The Sierra Madre Occidental's relief turned the dream into a construction nightmare that lasted six decades. In 1961, at last, the prodigious Chihuahua al Pacifico Railroad was opened. Its 643km cross some of the most dramatic scenery in Mexico.
Military Religious, Wailing Wall, IDF Flag Oath, Jerusalem, Israel
Society
Jerusalem, Israel

A Festive Wailing Wall

The holiest place in Judaism is not only attended by prayers and prayers. Its ancient stones have witnessed the oath of new IDF recruits for decades and echo the euphoric screams that follow.
Young twin women, weavers
Daily life

Margilan, Uzbequistan

A Tour of Uzbekistan's Handicraft Fabrics

Located in the far east of Uzbekistan, in the Fergana Valley, Margilan was one of the essential stops on the Silk Road. Since the 10th century, the silk products produced there have made it stand out on maps; today, haute couture brands compete for its fabrics. More than just a prodigious center of artisanal creation, Margilan values ​​and cherishes an ancient Uzbek way of life.
Boat and helmsman, Cayo Los Pájaros, Los Haitises, Dominican Republic
Wildlife
Samaná PeninsulaLos Haitises National Park Dominican Republic

From the Samaná Peninsula to the Dominican Haitises

In the northeast corner of the Dominican Republic, where Caribbean nature still triumphs, we face an Atlantic much more vigorous than expected in these parts. There we ride on a communal basis to the famous Limón waterfall, cross the bay of Samaná and penetrate the remote and exuberant “land of the mountains” that encloses it.
Napali Coast and Waimea Canyon, Kauai, Hawaii Wrinkles
Scenic Flights
napali coast, Hawaii

Hawaii's Dazzling Wrinkles

Kauai is the greenest and rainiest island in the Hawaiian archipelago. It is also the oldest. As we explore its Napalo Coast by land, sea and air, we are amazed to see how the passage of millennia has only favored it.