Adventure Travel for the Mildly Adventuresome

A Tarahumara woman in the Copper Canyon — Mexico. Photos by Wayne Wirtanen
A trip by bus and rail to Mexico’s Copper Canyon

(Third of three parts on The Gambia and the Cape Verde Islands, jump to part 1, part 2, part 3)

Volcanoes, salt and slavery

When I opened the Bradt Travel Guide “Cape Verde Islands” (Globe Pequot Press; www.bradtguides. com), which I bought for an October ’07 trip, I was fascinated with one of the opening comments: “When we commissioned the first edition of this guide in 1997 it seemed an almost impossibly obscure destination.”

Even though 10 years had gone by since...

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by Wayne Wirtanen (Part 2 of 3 on The Gambia and the Cape Verde Islands, jump to part 1, part 2, part 3)

Mudskippers

You’ve heard the expression “like a fish out of water.” Well, I was astonished to see hundreds of examples of “fish out of water” — mudskippers — on the muddy banks of a tributary of the Gambia River last year.

Would you believe that this fish (a goby) lives on land, would drown if held under water, is the only fish with movable eyelids, walks and hops...

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(Part 1 of 3 on The Gambia and the Cape Verde Islands, jump to part 1, part 2, part 3)

Having never recovered from my addiction to Saturday matinee double features in the 1930s, I still am fascinated by the making of movies and, specifically, the actual filming locations, visiting them (or their representations) whenever possible. If a story has important historical and social value, as the book and the TV miniseries “Roots” had, then it’s all the more interesting.

On a trip I...

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(Third of three parts, jump to part 1, part 2, part 3)

Great white sharks!

From the safety of a small “shark watching” boat, our small group of mildly adventuresome travelers was watching a group of “young and reckless” travelers on a nearby “shark diving” excursion boat in Walker Bay, South Africa, southeast of Cape Town, in March ’05.

If you have seen documentaries of the great whites, some of the filming was likely done here at one of the world’s premier whale and...

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(Second of three parts, jump to part 1, part 2, part 3)

The luxury train

Of the world’s few “luxury trains,” two are in South Africa and they follow similar itineraries. The Blue Train promises the pleasures of a modern 5-star hotel. In contrast, Rovos Rail claims to run the “most luxurious train in the world,” with restored pre-war antique engines and passenger cars and more leisurely itineraries. This report is on a Rovos Rail trip I took in March 2005.

Rovos Rail’...

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(First of three parts, jump to part 1, part 2, part 3)

South African game reserves

Everything you ever wanted to know about South African game reserves but didn’t know what to ask!

Imagine that your very large, fenced-in backyard had wild animals in it. You could keep track of the animals, and you could increase their numbers or variety. You could also “cull” them or move them to other backyards. (Culling is currently a very controversial topic. At the beginning of...

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(Part 3 of 3 on Morocco)

Kasbahs

“Come wiz me to zee casbah,” Charles Boyer supposedly said to Hedy Lamarr in the movie “Algiers.” This legendary romantic line never was used in that classic 1938 film, but the myth lives on.

What is a casbah, anyway? A casbah (kasbah) is a walled, fortified residential/commercial center, originally an extended-family compound or a mini-village. Casbahs eventually evolved into large compounds housing large populations. (Quite a few...

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