Several months before a Celebrity Infinity cruise that would stop in the Falkland Islands, I wrote to the Falkland Islands Tourist Board (www.falklandislands.com) asking for a recommendation of a tour guide who was knowledgeable about birds. They recommended Brian Summers (summerwalks@horizon.co.fk), a local bird expert.
My wife, Marcia, and I finally made it to Victoria Falls in March 2017, and we weren’t disappointed. In fact, our visit there was downright spectacular. A major contributor to our enjoyment was the Zimbabwean guide Moses Ndhlovu (phone +263 777 835 960 or email mosndhlovu@yahoo.com).
Our hotel, the Bayete Guest Lodge (Stand 584, Manyika Rd., Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe), put us in touch with Moses, and he came by the day before our tour to finalize arrangements. The next morning, he showed up right on time driving a spotless van, and off we went.
My husband and I were in China for 2½ weeks, Oct. 10-28, 2016. We visited Shanghai, Beijing, Xi’an and Lhasa and went on a Yangtze River cruise.
Upon the recommendation of an ITN reader, I used China Travel Service (San Francisco, CA; 800/899-8618, www.chinatravelservice.com) to help plan and arrange the trip. I began working with them about 10 months before our trip.
Kip Sturdevan of Encinitas, California, wrote, “Several of our friends have taken walking tours on which the organizing companies have arranged accommodations and made sure the luggage was moved every day to the next night’s lodging, thus allowing the walkers to carry only day packs. Each day’s hike tended to vary from 7 to 14 miles.
As ITN went to press, the State Department had travel warnings on 41 destinations: Afghanistan, Algeria, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Colombia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, El Salvador, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Haiti, Honduras, Iran, Iraq, Israel/West Bank/Gaza, Jordan, Kenya, North Korea, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Mauritania, Mexico, Niger, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Republic of South Sudan, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, Venezuela and Yemen.
Heavy rains continued in Colombia into April, causing further flooding and more landslides. On April 19, at least 17 people were killed in the city of Manizales, in western-central Colombia, when a landslide destroyed homes built on the side of a steep hill. The city had received the monthly average of rainfall in a single night.
