Harare, Zimbabwewe

The Last Rales of Surreal Mugabué


Above everything and everyone
Detail of Heroes Acre, the mausoleum of the heroes of the insurgency war against the white supremacist minority that ruled Zimbabwe's predecessor Rhodesia Mugabe appears at the top.
mandatory queue
Loaded passersby stroll along a busy street in Harare, dominated by a large store with a still semi-colonial look.
Harare from afar
The houses of Harare seen from a higher point on the outskirts of the city adorned with euphorbia bush and controlled by the army.
To the Unknown Insurgent
Golden figures - two men and a woman - from the monument to unknown insurgents from the Bush War to the liberation war against Rhodesian white minority;
business extension
Street "hairdresser" adjusts extensions to a lady. Extensions are prolific props in Zimbabwe, as in several neighboring countries.
self-locomotion
In the absence of a beast of burden, a fruit seller pushes his own cart loaded with oranges.
Mugabe vs Jesus
"Mugabe is an Angel" on the cover of Newsday Weekender
Black Market
Changers with chairs brought from home hold large bunches of musty notes. Businesses in US dollars, euros, rand support these opportunistic businesswomen.
old african concrete
Street in the capital of Zimbabwe, Harare, with its worn and mixed architecture: with something Soviet, African and British colonial.
street hypermarket
Street vendors right in the center of Harare. With the country's unemployment rate, not even the despotic Robert Mugabe has the courage to expel them.
In 2015, Zimbabwe's first lady Grace Mugabe said the 91-year-old president would rule until the age of 100 in a special wheelchair. Shortly thereafter, it began to insinuate itself into his succession. But in recent days, the generals have finally precipitated the removal of Robert Mugabe, who has replaced him with former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa.

We landed from an hour and a half flight from the far north of Zimbabwe. The plane stops. Gellys escorts us to the area where the bags would be delivered.

We didn't talk during the flight. We simply enjoyed the privilege of gazing at the incredible landscape of Zimbabwe from a low altitude. Gellys kept busy with the aircraft's controls and buttons.

There, detained by the delay in baggage, the pilot showed a pleasant British courtesy and an informality that only many years in those parts of Africa mold in His Majesty's subjects or descendants. We take advantage of your predisposition.

The Private Drama of White Lives of Zimbabwe

"So what about being a pilot started how?" we ask you. “Well, as a hobby and while we kept the farm, that's just it. Then…they took everything. Now, it's what allows me to survive here.” As dramatic as they sounded, his words didn't surprise us.

We were aware of events. "But in your case, was there violence?" we add. “Not physical violence, but it was pressure we couldn't resist. A mob with guns would appear and say that we had to leave until that day. Then they came back more seriously.

We didn't see an alternative. We left the house and property. Most white Zimbabweans have lost everything. We, those who stayed here in other conditions, continue to subject ourselves to Mugabe's madness and a lot of discrimination.”

The bags arrive. Gellys had her return to Mana Pools to fulfill. We say goodbye with the hope of a better future for him and for Zimbabwe. By that time, both we and Gellys were aware that it all depended on Robert Mugabe's resilience in the first place.

The War of Independence and the Blazing Rise of Robert Mugabe

Mugabe was the most prominent leader of the Liberation war waged against the white minority of the Republic of Rhodesia, self-proclaimed independent from the United Kingdom, in 1965. Throughout his life, Robert Mugabe abhorred the supremacy of the white minority in which he grew up. This hatred would, in fact, condition his future governance of Zimbabwe.

Between prison terms and meetings with Marxist leaders, Mugabe led militant and guerrilla forces that barely Mozambique obtained the independence of Portugal, operated from the extensive border area with present-day Zimbabwe.

In 1979-80, except for the South Africa Apartheid, its obvious ally, the supremacist and largely racist regime of Rhodesia was isolated. On the other hand, Mugabe found himself pressured by Samora Machel and other leaders to end the conflict. Very upset, he agreed.

As a result, he resisted several assassination attempts by the ZAPU and ZANLA factions, which began to fight for power with his ZANU. The ZANU party won the elections. In April 1980, Mugabe was sworn in as Prime Minister no longer of Rhodesia but of a Zimbabwe recognized by most of the world.

His early years in office hinted at stability, but Mugabe turned out to be a resentful, short-sighted despot, vulnerable to snooping and paranoia.

Dollars, bonds and long-standing Surreal Inflation

We didn't even leave the airport. The damage caused by his nearly four decades in power was successive. Due to excessive relaxation, we had only arrived with euros. ATMs had neither US dollars nor Zimbabwean bonds created when the national dollar devalued so much that not even half a line of a notebook was enough to record how much was worth 1 USD or 1 Euro.

After some investigation, we got a mix of the American currency and bonds as change for the purchase of a sunscreen, at the pharmacy of Chegadas. Once the solution was learned, we continued to obtain them, all over the country, in the supermarkets of the largest chains. Sometimes, even though we knew that outside Zimbabwe, the bonds would be worth zero, we didn't even stick around to guarantee change in US dollars.

A local tourism driver welcomes us and takes us to the hotel. We rest for a mere hour. We went out with him again, guided by a government guide, Salome, who follows instructions and takes us to National Heroes Acre, 7km from the center. Delivered to your mobile phone chats, Salome hardly calls us or directs the word.

The driver drives, as he's supposed to, but mostly talks to Salome. The national monument doesn't take long. At the top of a short staircase, initial and central, are the tomb and bronze statue in honor of the unknown insurgents who lost their lives in the war of liberation.

Heroes Acre and the “Eternal flame” from Zimbabwe

The statue is composed of three armed guerrillas in haughty poses: a woman and two men. The two ends of the monument are delimited by murals that narrate the history of Zimbabwe.

At the top of the hill, on a 40 meter tower so high to be seen from Harare, stands out the “Eternal flame”. It was lit during the 1982 Independence celebrations of Zimbabwe.

Heroes Acre Monument, Zimbabwe

Detail of Heroes Acre, the mausoleum of the heroes of the insurgency war against the white supremacist minority that ruled Zimbabwe's predecessor Rhodesia Mugabe appears at the top.

True to his Marxist leanings, Mugabe awarded the construction of Heroes Acre to a North Korean firm. It did not surprise us, therefore, to find that the mausoleum mimicked the Revolutionary Martyrs Cemetery at Taesong-guyok, on the outskirts of Pyongyang.

Heroes Acre serves as the last ceremonial abode of Zimbabwean insurgents. That same afternoon, a strong contingent of military and civilian workers prepares, there, the funeral of one of these heroes, Commander Naison Ndlovu, who had died days before, aged 86 years.

Ndlovu was esteemed not only for his role in Zimbabwe's independence, but also for the integrity he maintained throughout his life against regionalism and tribalism. This, in a country that still suffers from the sometimes irrational polarization between its predominant ethnic groups, axona, by Robert Mugabe and the Ndebele, both from the Bantu branch.

At certain stages of his long dictatorship, Mugabe led this opposition xona vs Ndebele to bloody extremes.

Harare: the Capital of All Misconceptions

We return to the center. Harare remains tranquil within what its controlled chaos of countless pedestrians and street vendors and shoppers grants, of course.

With Mugabe himself admitting that unemployment was between 60 and 90%, only the countless private initiatives of a little bit sustain the families – usually numerous – and keep the moribund local economy connected to the machine.

Harare street vendors, Zimbabwe

Street vendors right in the center of Harare. With the country's unemployment rate, not even the despotic Robert Mugabe has the courage to expel them.

As we walk, we pass successive makeshift stalls outside stores that are often forced to admit the competition.

As far as things have gone, Mugabe may even complain in the press that Harare will never have tourism again as long as it's full of rubbish (largely that left by street vendors at the end of the day). But he also knows that forcing the sellers to remove could be the beginning of his end.

Streets of Harare, capital of Zimbabwe

ua in the capital of Zimbabwe, Harare, with its worn and mixed architecture: with something Soviet, African and British colonial.

As such, in the midst of a fascinating urban forest of buildings where Soviet architecture from the 70s is mixed with African and other British colonial influences, Harare's heavy fate continues in the shade and sun of better and worse days. One lady composes showy hair extensions to another.

Seated on chairs brought from home, money changers hold huge musty bundles of bills. Lacking a load crossbow, a fruit seller pushes his own cart full of oranges. They are merely examples of a myriad of survival modes.

Orange seller in Harare, Zimbabwe

In the absence of a beast of burden, a fruit seller pushes his own cart loaded with oranges.

Harare and Zimbabwe Long Delivered to Their Destinations

Neither white Zimbabweans nor tourists. We don't see a single white person in town. In fact, we started to feel that at that time we were the only ones. But statistics guarantee that there are still several thousand of them there, of English-speaking culture and – they could not miss – many hundreds of Portuguese, more than a thousand in Zimbabwe, owners of restaurants, rural companies, tourism and whatever else they might have liked. in life.

But, let's get back to the decay of Zimbabwe. Until 1987, Mugabe kept himself occupied with a bloody and deranged fight against factions that had engaged in a banditry opposition in the country's most remote provinces.

To control them, Mugabe did not look to the means and would have caused the death of around 20.000 civilians. In the 37 years of his yoke, he would kill rivals and subjects relatively often, sometimes for the most preposterous reasons.

Newspaper cover in Harare, Zimbabwe

“Mugabe is an Angel” on the cover of Newsday Weekender

In 1987, Mugabe not only managed to merge the two main rival parties, but also to change the constitution. Declared himself executive president. Plenipotentiary, he hastened to abolish the twenty-seat parliamentary seats reserved for whites. The expulsion did not stop with the assembly.

Mugabe's Expropriations, Other Caprices and Follies

The black population continued to increase. To allegedly house them, Mugabe decreed that he would expropriate, without appeal, vast farms, some of which had been exploited by white families since the beginning of colonial times. Much of this land was, however, handed over to ministers and senior officers, several of whom were former combatants in the War of Liberation.

Upon learning of this, the United Kingdom suspended its support program (until then it had allocated 44 million pounds) to the compensation of the expropriated whites.

As if that wasn't enough, in 1997, former Revolutionary War fighters intensified their requests for pensions for their military services. Mugabe could not refuse. It ignored all economic and financial sense and limited itself to printing hundreds of millions of Zimbabwean dollars.

This free influx of bills contributed to the anecdotal figures of inflation that followed: 100.000 percent in 2008 when a loaf of bread cost a third of a monthly salary. The price of the national currency, that one, no longer had a qualifying adjective.

Overview of Harare, Zimbabwe

The houses of Harare seen from a higher point on the outskirts of the city adorned with euphorbia bush and controlled by the army.

Mugabe blamed the catastrophe on the resistant white minority who claimed to continue to control agriculture, mines and industrial production. He demonized whites and his own black opponents.

He also took the opportunity to divert attention from the damage of his policies with the growing concern of homosexuality which he explained as an import from Europe, with gays being "worse than dogs and pigs... guilty of sub-human behavior."

From Zimbabwean Granary of Sub-Saharan Africa to Generalized Famine

From 2000 onwards, land occupations have worsened, carried out by armed gangs who have not shied away from rape and murder. Everything turned out to be orchestrated by Mugabe, who thus avenged the role that whites would have allegedly played in their poor results in that year's elections.

Whoever they were, the new beneficiaries lacked the knowledge or technical and even financial means to maintain productive lands.

Until then, known as the breadbasket of sub-Saharan Africa and a strong exporter, as more whites and businesses fled the country, Zimbabwe's economy deteriorated to the point where 75% of the population depended on foreign aid for food.

None of this seemed to bother the old dictator. Mugabe continued throughout the 2000s to encourage the semi-war state in which the country lived for the sole purpose of perpetuating its tyranny.

On another day in June 2017, we visited the cave paintings of Domboshava, some 30 km from Harare. On the way, we passed the block of the presidential mansion. Half alerted, Salome forbids us to photograph there. Ten kilometers later, suddenly, motorized scouts order us to pull over to the edge.

Zimbabwe's Times of Imminent Change

An endless convoy of hyper-luxury military vehicles that followed Mugabe on their way to the funeral of Commander Naison Ndlovu in Heroes Acre. And Mugabe didn't play games. In addition to a battalion of soldiers and special forces in other cars and vans, a vehicle protected him with anti-aircraft-style machine guns.

But at age 93, the antibodies in his body were weakening. Those of Zimbabwean politics, these, felt the urgency of extracting it from the country as never before.

A month or so later, the National Army realized that Mugabe had gotten rid of former Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa to, despite the expressed will of the people, impose his wife Grace – Gucci Grace, as they call her on the streets – to his succession .

With nothing left to fear, the generals finally stepped in and placed Mugabe under house arrest. Feeling the support of the military, on the 19th, in an atmosphere of great celebration, the delegates dismissed him from the presidency of the ZANU-PF party and appointed Emmerson Mnangagwa as the new leader.

Hours later, Mugabe spoke on TV, in the somewhat disturbing presence of members of the armed forces, other officers and a priest.

To the Unknown Insurgent

Golden figures - two men and a woman - from the monument to unknown insurgents from the Bush War to the liberation war against the white minority of Rhodesia

He wiped out everything that had happened. He declared that, within weeks, he would preside over the party congress. He did not consider his departure from ZANU-PF, let alone from the presidency of the country. A day later Robert Gabriel Mugabe, the dean of Africa's tyrants, finally resigned as the country's presidency.

Thus ended almost four decades of arrogance, madness, use and abuse in Zimbabwe. Its vice president Emmerson Mnangagwa follows. After 37 years of frustration, people's expectations couldn't be higher.

Big Zimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe, Endless Mystery

Between the 1500th and XNUMXth centuries, Bantu peoples built what became the largest medieval city in sub-Saharan Africa. From XNUMX onwards, with the passage of the first Portuguese explorers arriving from Mozambique, the city was already in decline. Its ruins, which inspired the name of the present-day Zimbabwean nation, have many unanswered questions.  
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.
Great ZimbabweZimbabwe

Great Zimbabwe, Little Bira Dance

Karanga natives of the KwaNemamwa village display traditional Bira dances to privileged visitors to the ruins of Great Zimbabwe. the most iconic place in Zimbabwe, the one who, after the decree of colonial Rhodesia's independence, inspired the name of the new and problematic nation.  
Thingvellir National Park, Iceland

The Origins of the Remote Viking Democracy

The foundations of popular government that come to mind are the Hellenic ones. But what is believed to have been the world's first parliament was inaugurated in the middle of the XNUMXth century, in Iceland's icy interior.
Inari, Finland

The Babel Parliament of the Sami Nation

The Sami Nation comprises four countries, which ingest into the lives of their peoples. In the parliament of Inari, in various dialects, the Sami govern themselves as they can.
Solovetsky Islands, Russia

The Mother Island of the Gulag Archipelago

It hosted one of Russia's most powerful Orthodox religious domains, but Lenin and Stalin turned it into a gulag. With the fall of the USSR, Solovestky regains his peace and spirituality.
DMZ, Dora - South Korea

The Line of No Return

A nation and thousands of families were divided by the armistice in the Korean War. Today, as curious tourists visit the DMZ, many of the escapes of the oppressed North Koreans end in tragedy.
Victoria Falls, Zimbabwee

Livingstone's Thundering Gift

The explorer was looking for a route to the Indian Ocean when natives led him to a jump of the Zambezi River. The falls he found were so majestic that he decided to name them in honor of his queen
Beijing, China

The Heart of the Great Dragon

It is the incoherent historic center of Maoist-Communist ideology and almost all Chinese aspire to visit it, but Tianamen Square will always be remembered as a macabre epitaph of the nation's aspirations.
Ouvéa, New Caledonia

Between Loyalty and Freedom

New Caledonia has always questioned integration into faraway France. On the island of Ouvéa, Loyalty Archipelago, we find an history of resistance but also natives who prefer French-speaking citizenship and privileges.
Kanga Pan, Mana Pools NP, Zimbabwe

A Perennial Source of Wildlife

A depression located 15km southeast of the Zambezi River retains water and minerals throughout Zimbabwe's dry season. Kanga Pan, as it is known, nurtures one of the most prolific ecosystems in the immense and stunning Mana Pools National Park.
PN Mana Pools, Zimbabwe

The Zambezi at the Top of Zimbabwe

After the rainy season, the dwindling of the great river on the border with Zambia leaves behind a series of lagoons that provide water for the fauna during the dry season. The Mana Pools National Park is the name given to a vast, lush river-lake region that is disputed by countless wild species.
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.
Skipper of one of the bangkas at Raymen Beach Resort during a break from sailing
Beach
Islands Guimaras  e  Ave Maria, Philippines

Towards Ave Maria Island, in a Philippines full of Grace

Discovering the Western Visayas archipelago, we set aside a day to travel from Iloilo along the northwest coast of Guimaras. The beach tour along one of the Philippines’ countless pristine coastlines ends on the stunning Ave Maria Island.
Rhinoceros, PN Kaziranga, Assam, India
safari
PN Kaziranga, India

The Indian Monoceros Stronghold

Situated in the state of Assam, south of the great Brahmaputra river, PN Kaziranga occupies a vast area of ​​alluvial swamp. Two-thirds of the rhinocerus unicornis around the world, there are around 100 tigers, 1200 elephants and many other animals. Pressured by human proximity and the inevitable poaching, this precious park has not been able to protect itself from the hyperbolic floods of the monsoons and from some controversies.
Hikers on the Ice Lake Trail, Annapurna Circuit, Nepal
Annapurna (circuit)
Annapurna Circuit: 7th - Braga - Ice Lake, Nepal

Annapurna Circuit – The Painful Acclimatization of the Ice Lake

On the way up to the Ghyaru village, we had a first and unexpected show of how ecstatic the Annapurna Circuit can be tasted. Nine kilometers later, in Braga, due to the need to acclimatize, we climbed from 3.470m from Braga to 4.600m from Lake Kicho Tal. We only felt some expected tiredness and the increase in the wonder of the Annapurna Mountains.
A Lost and Found City
Architecture & Design
Machu Picchu, Peru

The City Lost in the Mystery of the Incas

As we wander around Machu Picchu, we find meaning in the most accepted explanations for its foundation and abandonment. But whenever the complex is closed, the ruins are left to their enigmas.
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
Big Freedia and bouncer, Fried Chicken Festival, New Orleans
Ceremonies and Festivities
New Orleans, Louisiana, United States

Big Freedia: in Bounce Mode

New Orleans is the birthplace of jazz and jazz sounds and resonates in its streets. As expected, in such a creative city, new styles and irreverent acts emerge. Visiting the Big Easy, we ventured out to discover Bounce hip hop.
Oulu Finland, Passage of Time
Cities
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.
Fogón de Lola, great food, Costa Rica, Guápiles
Lunch time
Fogón de Lola Costa Rica

The Costa Rica Flavour of El Fogón de Lola

As the name suggests, the Fogón de Lola de Guapiles serves dishes prepared on the stove and in the oven, according to Costa Rican family tradition. In particular, Tia Lola's.
Culture
Cemeteries

the last address

From the grandiose tombs of Novodevichy, in Moscow, to the boxed Mayan bones of Pomuch, in the Mexican province of Campeche, each people flaunts its own way of life. Even in death.
Bungee jumping, Queenstown, New Zealand
Sport
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.
Traveling
Inle Lake, Myanmar

A Pleasant Forced Stop

In the second of the holes that we have during a tour around Lake Inlé, we hope that they will bring us the bicycle with the patched tyre. At the roadside shop that welcomes and helps us, everyday life doesn't stop.
Miniature houses, Chã das Caldeiras, Fogo Volcano, Cape Verde
Ethnic
Chã das Caldeiras, Fogo Island Cape Verde

A "French" Clan at the Mercy of Fogo

In 1870, a Count born in Grenoble on his way to Brazilian exile, made a stopover in Cape Verde where native beauties tied him to the island of Fogo. Two of his children settled in the middle of the volcano's crater and continued to raise offspring there. Not even the destruction caused by the recent eruptions deters the prolific Montrond from the “county” they founded in Chã das Caldeiras.    
ice tunnel, black gold route, Valdez, Alaska, USA
Got2Globe Photo Portfolio
Got2Globe Portfolio

Sensations vs Impressions

Sheki, Autumn in the Caucasus, Azerbaijan, Autumn Homes
History
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.
Mirador de La Peña, El Hierro, Canary Islands, Spain
Islands
El Hierro, Canary Islands

The Volcanic Rim of the Canaries and the Old World

Until Columbus arrived in the Americas, El Hierro was seen as the threshold of the known world and, for a time, the Meridian that delimited it. Half a millennium later, the last western island of the Canaries is teeming with exuberant volcanism.
Correspondence verification
Winter White
Rovaniemi, Finland

From the Finnish Lapland to the Arctic. A Visit to the Land of Santa

Fed up with waiting for the bearded old man to descend down the chimney, we reverse the story. We took advantage of a trip to Finnish Lapland and passed through its furtive home.
Lake Manyara, National Park, Ernest Hemingway, Giraffes
Literature
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".
Soufrière and Pitons, Saint Luci
Nature
Soufriere, Saint Lucia

The Great Pyramids of the Antilles

Perched above a lush coastline, the twin peaks Pitons are the hallmark of Saint Lucia. They have become so iconic that they have a place in the highest notes of East Caribbean Dollars. Right next door, residents of the former capital Soufrière know how precious their sight is.
Girl plays with leaves on the shore of the Great Lake at Catherine Palace
Autumn
Saint Petersburg, Russia

Golden Days Before the Storm

Aside from the political and military events precipitated by Russia, from mid-September onwards, autumn takes over the country. In previous years, when visiting Saint Petersburg, we witnessed how the cultural and northern capital was covered in a resplendent yellow-orange. A dazzling light that hardly matches the political and military gloom that had spread in the meantime.
Dunes of Bazaruto Island, Mozambique
Natural Parks
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.
Miyajima Island, Shinto and Buddhism, Japan, Gateway to a Holy Island
UNESCO World Heritage
Miyajima, Japan

Shintoism and Buddhism with the Tide

Visitors to the Tori of Itsukushima admire one of the three most revered scenery in Japan. On the island of Miyajima, Japanese religiosity blends with Nature and is renewed with the flow of the Seto Inland Sea.
Couple visiting Mikhaylovskoe, village where writer Alexander Pushkin had a home
Characters
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.
Cabo Ledo Angola, moxixeiros
Beaches
Cape Ledo, Angola

Cape Ledo and its Bay of Joy

Just 120km south of Luanda, capricious waves of the Atlantic and cliffs crowned with moxixeiros compete for the land of musseque. The large cove is shared by foreigners surrendered to the scene and Angolan residents who have long been supported by the generous sea.
Composition on Nine Arches Bridge, Ella, Sri Lanka
Religion
Yala NPElla-Candia, Sri Lanka

Journey Through Sri Lanka's Tea Core

We leave the seafront of PN Yala towards Ella. On the way to Nanu Oya, we wind on rails through the jungle, among plantations in the famous Ceylon. Three hours later, again by car, we enter Kandy, the Buddhist capital that the Portuguese never managed to dominate.
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.
aggie gray, Samoa, South Pacific, Marlon Brando Fale
Society
Apia, Western Samoa

The Host of the South Pacific

She sold burguês to GI's in World War II and opened a hotel that hosted Marlon Brando and Gary Cooper. Aggie Gray passed away in 2. Her legacy lives on in the South Pacific.
Women with long hair from Huang Luo, Guangxi, China
Daily life
Longsheng, China

Huang Luo: the Chinese Village of the Longest Hairs

In a multi-ethnic region covered with terraced rice paddies, the women of Huang Luo have surrendered to the same hairy obsession. They let the longest hair in the world grow, years on end, to an average length of 170 to 200 cm. Oddly enough, to keep them beautiful and shiny, they only use water and rice.
Bather rescue in Boucan Canot, Reunion Island
Wildlife
Reunion Island

The Bathing Melodrama of Reunion

Not all tropical coastlines are pleasurable and refreshing retreats. Beaten by violent surf, undermined by treacherous currents and, worse, the scene of the most frequent shark attacks on the face of the Earth, that of the Reunion Island he fails to grant his bathers the peace and delight they crave from him.
Passengers, scenic flights-Southern Alps, New Zealand
Scenic Flights
Aoraki / Mount Cook, New Zealand

The Aeronautical Conquest of the Southern Alps

In 1955, pilot Harry Wigley created a system for taking off and landing on asphalt or snow. Since then, his company has unveiled, from the air, some of the greatest scenery in Oceania.