A to G here now

In an almost last-ditch attempt to save October, blog-wise, I am shamelessly going to copy the format of a story published recently written by a travel-mate. It's an A-Z of what Brett's currently missing, and I only read as far as C before I got both envious (he's gone to so many places I haven't) (though, also, a bit, vice versa) and inspired to do my own travel alphabet. I stopped reading then (I'll finish it later) to keep from being unduly influenced. Here's the first section:

A: I nearly went with Brett's choice, of airports. He contrasted big and small, and I could compare Dubai's vast distances with, say, dinky Atiu in the Cook Islands. But even more memorable are Airstrips like the one in Zambia, which we had to buzz before landing to scare away a bull elephant. That was exciting - and a very suitable introduction to Royal Zambezi Lodge, which we had to wait patiently to get to until a handful of eles chose to move on from the road they were blocking. I've bounced along quite a few grassy landing strips, and they've always led to fun, and often actual adventure.

B: Bircher muesli, which I first tasted in 1977 on the Indian Pacific train in Australia, at the start of my big OE. It's been a very minor, but personally satisfying thread that's run through all my travels since, turning up on breakfast buffets in hotels and lodges all over the place, a literal taste of familiarity. It's also a suitable symbol for my travel experiences generally because it's always different and, though it's very occasionally, to be brutally honest, not quite as good as I hoped it would have been, I never regret choosing it. 

C: Cameras have been an essential part of my travel equipment from the start. I've never been more than amateur, which has been very obvious on the trips I've shared with professionals but - economics being what they are - newspapers and magazines these days will not/cannot pay for their superior images, so we writers just have to do our best. That meant hauling around a cumbersome body and lenses, making sure batteries were charged each day and memory cards had room, and tedious downloading each night. It was certainly a thrill to get (more by luck than skill) a good shot, and to see it on a magazine cover - but I'm ok with swapping that for the sheer convenience of using my iPhone instead these days (and not having to helplessly watch my Olympus fly out of my bag as it tumbled downhill on Skye, to crash fatally onto some rocks). 

D: Diving - that's proper diving, not including snorkelling, during which some people are able to dive, but not me, purely because of my natural buoyancy (and not vast quantities of subcutaneous fat). No, I mean scuba, which I did on the Great Barrier Reef after a surface-skimming (ha) introduction on the boat trip out there from Cairns. We put on all the proper gear and were escorted down under, super-conscious the whole time of every single breath, but still enjoying the novelty of being so far below the water, watching fish swimming all around us. The other time I did something similar was in Moorea, Tahiti where, instead of strapping into tanks and a mouthpiece, we took turns at wearing an unwieldy-looking diving helmet that actually worked very well. I walked about in slo-mo on the bottom of the lagoon, able to wear my glasses and thus see perfectly all the fish - which included reef sharks and stingrays, plus prettier ones - flitting around me. It was fun.

E: Enthusiasts are standard for me, but never taken for granted. My work trips are always very organised and usually involve a host and guides. These people are invariably, and by definition, full of pride and praise for the places they are showing me, and it's usually so clearly genuine that it really is a joy. Positive people are always a delight, and to spend hours - days - in their company, learning about their bit of the country, being shown places and customs, and given often literal tastes of what their life is like there is hugely enjoyable and inspiring. I remember the best ones for years afterwards - especially you, Suri.

F: Flying which most people consider a necessary evil, and is especially unavoidable if you live way down the bottom of the planet (or nearly at the top - there's no actual rule that north has to be up, you know). But I do like the thrill of boarding a plane at the start of a trip, especially if I get to turn left or, even better, take a different airbridge to go upstairs. Even when crammed into economy, though, and even when heading back home, I still love getting into my zone, comfy noise-cancellers on, plugged into the entertainment, with nothing to do but watch TV, eat and sleep for hours and hours. (I have fortunately, it must be said, never had An Event happen during a flight.)

G: Has to be Galapagos, where I've been lucky enough to go twice. Of course it's the birds and animals draped, uncaring, everywhere that make the biggest impression - you literally have to step over iguanas and around seals - and it was a real thrill to see bait balls of fish swooping and dividing beneath me as I snorkelled (the nearest, so far, I've got to my dream of a murmuration of starlings). Sitting in a small boat looking down at the silvery belly of a huge humpback lolling beneath us was amazing, too - but actually my strongest memory of that first trip was of what came soon after that. Back on the ship, I was sharing the excitement of the whale-watch with Brett and a previous editor of the paper that ran Brett's A-Z story, who had been in the boat with me. I blurted out how, when the captain delivered the early morning message about the whale, and the chance to go see it, I leaped out of bed, flung on literally just a fleece and shorts, and headed straight to the Zodiac. The identical look on both their faces when I said that was as hilarious as it was unexpected. Still makes me smile.

All hail the travel agent

I hate this woman. Or, rather, I hate the TV ad that this actress appears in so much that I can't grab the remote fast enough to mute her whiny voice. What is even more alienating than that though, is what she's saying, which is dissing travel agents for being lazy, ignorant and incompetent, unable to access flight information that this clever woman can use WebJet to discover instantly.

I think travel agents are wonderful. To be able, as they do, to bring together so much disparate knowledge about places literally all over the world, from nuts and bolts to aspiration/inspiration, tailor it to the client, organise it all into a simple format, and then be there as back-up in case of unpredictable hiccups or even out-and-out disasters - well, that's so very admirable. I've worked with both high-end operations, like World Journeys, World Expeditions and Adventure World, as well as your literal high-street outlet like House of Travel, and have been impressed every time.

This year, for example, it was Marlene at Adventure World who put me in a place and at a time to experience the entire year's most unforgettable moment: standing just metres away from a wild elephant which was straddling the path between the restaurant and the bar at Royal Zambezi lodge in Zambia - a country I'd never even thought of visiting, until she slipped it into my South Africa itinerary.

Travel agents have in the recent past taken me effortlessly to Galapagos, Easter Island, Kakadu, Iguassu Falls, Machu Picchu: the travel so enjoyable because it was so stress-free. I knew I was in the hands of experts, and that everything would go smoothly. And it did.

Compare that with the trips I did this year that were DIY. They were only around NZ and to Tahiti and Hawaii, but the time and effort it took to piece them together, coupled with my perpetual mistrust in the value and workability of the final itinerary really did suck away a lot of the enjoyment of the trips. Instead of being proud of having done it all ourselves, I was suspicious of how much better - and, yes, more cheaply - it all might have been, if done with more inside knowledge and expertise.

So, out of this year's trips - horse-riding the Coromandel Peninsula, self-driving around New Zealand, ditto with exponentially higher stress levels in Louisiana, attending a conference in New Orleans, swanning through South Africa (and Zambia), sunning myself in Tahiti, swimming in Hawaii - it was the ones that were sorted by travel agents that were by far the most satisfying and the most fun. Suck on that, WebJet.

Wai the heke not?

I've swapped green for blue: it's been a distinctly watery year. Mostly, it's been the sea, as I've trailed back and forth across the Hauraki Gulf here to Waiheke Island, and cruised various coasts in the Pacific and Indian Oceans and the Mediterranean and Timor Seas; but I've also pootled along the Seine, various headwaters of the Amazon, and the Grand Union Canal. It's a bit of a puzzle how I've done so much cruising this year, since it's not something I've sought out; but as it's such a huge part of the tourism industry these days, I suppose it's not to be wondered at - or complained about, certainly. It's hardly a penance.

First this year there was the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition in Perth, where the warm blue Indian Ocean was the backdrop for some spectacular works of art, and hissed up onto the sandy beaches of Rottnest Island, notable for its cute and grinning quokkas.

Two weeks later, I was back in Western Australia again for a Kimberley cruise along the north-west tip: blue sea, green bush, orange rocks. There were Aboriginal paintings, waterfalls (two of them Horizontal), a swimming hole, reefs, fishing and a 6-hour lightning spectacular, all of it underpinned by comfort and excellent food on the Kimberley Quest. And not one crocodile!

Next came Turkey, and the Anzac Day centenary commemorations at Gallipoli, where the literally dark Aegean lapped onto the pebbled beach of Anzac Cove, a sound amplified during quiet moments throughout the night before the Dawn Service, and forever after inescapably evocative. There was Istanbul too, many trips up and down Istiklal Caddesi, muezzin calling, a forest of fishing rods on Galata Bridge, cheerful touts in the Grand Bazaar... And the ruins of Troy, cats draped over the marble at Ephesus, a hundred hot-air balloons at dawn and sunset over the outcrops of Cappadocia, twirling Dervishes, Ataturk everywhere, and Barcin throughout, telling the stories.

Then there was an elegant and eminently civilised cruise along the Seine into Normandy, notable for cheese, cream and cider, another 6-hour effort (a rice pudding this time), comfort and luxury aboard Avalon's Tapestry II, and good company throughout. Also the inexhaustible Quan, and the Pet Cemetery which was, in its way, more memorable even than Versailles, which I finally got to visit just the 37 years after first trying.

After that I learned how to steer a 16m narrowboat through a single lock gate and hold it steady as the water rushed in, and how to shrug off bumps and scrapes as part of the canal-boater's lot. England was green and gold and lovely, fringed with poppies and full of birds. And pubs. With old friends, it was a rare holiday rather than work.

That came next, busily hopping through Peru and Ecuador, revisiting landmarks like Machu Picchu and Galapagos but with the diversions (heaven forbid these places should become ho-hum) of passport fraud at Huayna Picchu, catching piranhas, spotting pink dolphins and patting manatees in the Amazon, Cotopaxi spitting clouds of grey ash, and seeing water-walking seabirds and military-style gannet diving displays in Galapagos.

Then there was Istanbul again, departure port for a Silversea cruise that started dull but got good (ports, that is - onboard was just lovely, as always) especially at Rhodes and Mykonos - but even they were trounced by Santorini's blue domes. Even so, the most memorable meal was in unpretentious Piraeus: a Greek salad and prawns at a back-street family restaurant - a reminder that, despite all the imaginatively-presented, visually stunning and delicious feasts I was served everywhere, simplicity is hard to beat.

Finally, the shortest and most momentous journey of them all: 35 minutes across Auckland harbour to a new home, where the sea is always present, always different, always a plus. I could have stayed at the old place, home for 21 years - but when Conde Nast's world's fourth-best island and Lonely Planet's global fifth-best destination is so close, well, Wai the heke not move there?

Bye bye boobies

It was our last morning today, and it started early. Up on deck before 6am, we saw the sun rise behind the rocks across a glossy, calm sea into a clear sky. No more snorkelling for us: this morning’s expedition was a panga ride into the mangroves growing around Black Turtle Lagoon where pelicans and blue-footed boobies were preening themselves endlessly on the rocks and in the bushes.

Then, excitement! A huge flock of the boobies – which are a type of gannet – were feeding on schools of fish. That meant aeronautics in the air as they massed and swirled, and then at some invisible signal, dived. One moment they were in the sky, next nano-second arrowing towards the water, all together, then the surface was covered in little explosions, then it was empty, then they were there again, sitting on the water swallowing their fish. It was all so fast, so precise, so exciting! And also, so hard to capture the moment, despite our being able to watch several manoeuvres before moving on.

There were sea lions, a hawksbill turtle, brown noddies, frigate birds – all familiar to us now; and then there was the Ocean Spray again, for our last breakfast before leaving the other four couples who were staying on for a complete week, lucky things, and heading off to the airport at Baltra (where there were sea lions and marine iguanas almost right to the end).

Back in Quito, Cotopaxi has been steadily belching out increasing amounts of ash – very visible from the plane - and the vulcanologists are expecting some real drama within the next 20 days, with mandatory evacuations from the nearest settlements already in force. Selfishly, my main concern is that it holds off for at least another 12 hours so that I can get well clear on my way home tomorrow (just the three flights and 27 hours) to a Pan's pipes-free zone.

Super snorkelling

If you’re travelling solo and fancy a cruise on the Ocean Spray, here’s a tip: if you go for the one single cabin that’s available at less cost, bring ear-plugs. It’s right next to the bridge and it’s noisy. It’s also dark and poky. Of course, you’re only in there to sleep, so that’s not so important – but it’s definitely a shame that you can hear the captain on his radio, the loud hum of some sort of equipment, talking and doors opening and closing in the middle of the night. After two nights of this I suggested that it might be sensible to give me the sort of experience that everyone else has been getting, so I am now ensconced in a big, airy stateroom with a generous bathroom and it’s just lovely. If you come, and you should, don’t stint on the accommodation if you can.

Enough complaining: today has been classic Galapagos. Before breakfast, agile little Elliot’s petrels were walking on the glossy water behind the boat; then, on a cruise around the bay before landing, we got photos of a stately great blue heron, playful sea lion and multiple Sally Lightfoot crabs in the one shot, and then saw red and black iguanas basking in the sun on the black basalt. I got a bit excited at catching a turtle’s head out of the water – but soon realised I could do much better once we were in the water with our snorkels.

Turtles? Everywhere! Resting on the bottom, grazing on algae growing on the rocks, and cruising up to the surface to breathe: green turtles, hanging around waiting till nightfall to come ashore to lay their eggs under the full moon, and totally unmoved by our presence, no matter how close we got to them. All this, plus a ray and playful sea lions.

Also wasps, alas. They were everywhere on the beach when we went to leave our postcards in the wine barrel letter box that’s been the Floreana Post Office since 1792 when the whalers set it up. We took the ones addressed to our own countries to post back home, and hope that our own will also be posted, eventually, by kind compatriots. We’ll see…

After lunch, we got kitted out again for our first deep-sea snorkel, at Devil’s Crown, a broken circle of jagged basalt rocks that are all that remains of a volcanic crater. The snorkelling was brilliant! There were so many varieties of fish, in big schools or single, grazing the rocks or swirling through the water – big, small, colourful, sombre. Plus starfish, all sorts, a white-tipped reef shark, a jauntily-striped moray eel sliding over the rocks, and more sea lions swooping and twisting around us – all in clear, turquoise water. 

It was a touch chilly, so after an hour of circling the rocks and investigating the reef in the middle, we were ready for a wallow in the hot Jacuzzi on the top deck back on the boat. Then it was out again, this time to walk across Floreana to a beach where the low sun spotlit the birds, crabs and distant islands, and we found the nest of a turtle, freshly dug last night and surrounded by tractor-track marks where she had dragged herself back to the water after laying her 100 or so eggs. Finally, there was a lagoon with half-a-dozen bright pink flamingos standing on one leg busily preening – the default activity for all birds here, vain things.

After a showing a video of the last few days that he’d filmed, naturalist/guide Morris summarised for us everything that we’d seen and done, and though it had been less than three days, it was an impressive list. Those staying on board for the full week – or better still, two like Reuben and his mother – will have a truly comprehensive resumé by the time they finish. We ended the day with a barbecue dinner on the open deck, fish and squid and shrimp from local waters, already sorry that tomorrow we would be leaving.

All sorts of sights

It was a remarkably bouncy night on the Ocean Spray, considering that there were no real white-caps on the sea as we sailed up the coast of San Cristobal Island. I lay in bed marvelling – and thankful - that I felt fine, but was still glad when we moored at about 6am off Pitt Point, where after breakfast we landed on a beach that is claimed to be green. Well, perhaps there was a bit of a tinge, but you’d need a microscope to see the olivine crystals.

Never mind, though: there were red and blue Sally Lightfoot crabs all over the rocks, and pelicans, and sea lion cubs powering through the water, showing off, and a weary-looking marine iguana on the sand. Morris, the guide/naturalist, gave us a geography and geology lesson, scratching maps and diagrams in the sand with a stick: all about currents and tectonics, plus a bit of history; and then we set off on our climb.

It was pretty easy (especially for those of us who’d recently been in the Andes) and there were lots of stops to look at lizards and vegetation and of course birds. The boobies are nesting, and we saw eggs on the bare ground in the middle of a circle of sprayed guano; a bird with a newly-hatched chick all bare and spiky by its mother’s bright blue webbed feet; another regurgitating an absurdly large fish for its small fluffy chick before thinking better of it and swallowing it again; and another resisting the nagging of its larger chick and continuing, single-minded, with its preening.

Then there were red-footed boobies, which were a novelty; and a half a dozen goats, which were both unexpected and unwelcome, since they’re meant to have been eradicated. Oh, and half a snake, which is always better than one.

Then, as lunch came to an end, the captain announced that there were dolphins, causing an immediate desertion of the dining room, chairs awry, serviettes dropped, desserts left unfinished. Always fun to see, they were riding the bows of the catamaran to the delight of everyone, even those of us frustrated at being caught out with lenses too long on our cameras (I’m finding that’s a frequent problem in Galapagos).

The afternoon snorkel didn’t happen, since the water was too rough, but we had a spin through the hole in the rock at Witch Hill, and then there were plenty of sea lions on the beach, an obliging pelican and various birds to keep us happy for a while. Then some of us got a bit restive, spoilt now by the riches, so it was as well that Reuben was so obliging when Mel wanted some shots for her PBS travel show. There was Charles Atlas posing, there were flips and handstands, and classic running-out-of-the-waves action, all done with the unselfconscious ease you would expect of someone with experience of the fashion and exercise world. 

At dinner, though – always an eye-opener on trips like this – we heard about his career as a bio-medical engineer, and his six languages (“Oh, but they’re all Latin languages,” he said dismissively). The conversation around the table ranged over Texan good manners, the rout of the Scottish Labour party, the unsuitability of Antwerp as a bachelor party location, the low priority of privacy for young people, and penguin-pelican co-operation, amongst other entertaining topics. All this, and excellent food, too!

Volcano to volcanoes

Three-thirty is pretty early, by anyone’s estimate, to begin the day – or so I thought, but on our painfully slow progress along the bumpy cobbled road away from Cotopaxi National Park and Hacienda El Porvenir to Machachi, there was a remarkable amount of traffic. Dairy workers, ok, understand that – but there were also street sweepers at work, whole buses of people bouncing along, even children standing by the street. They start early, here in Ecuador – school begins at 7am with a free breakfast. Anyway, it was worth the early start because the destination today was that collection of marine volcanoes we know as Galapagos: an hour’s flight to Guayaquil; then less than another two to San Cristóbal.

We were scooped up and taken straight out to the boat: the Ocean Spray, a three year-old catamaran that takes just 16 passengers, 34 metres of elegant luxury. Or so I thought. My accommodation is the one single cabin – and by cabin, I don’t mean suite, or stateroom. It’s definitely a cabin. It’s right next to the bridge, so it’s also noisy, unfortunately, even when moored – there’s some humming going on that I will have to make an effort to ignore.

But otherwise, it’s lovely - spacious, elegant and welcoming, and everyone on board is nice: there are Americans, two honeymooning English couples, a Spanish mother and son, a Swiss couple, and an adventurous Scottish/English duo who are just beginning a year’s post-children travel.

After an encouragingly delicious lunch, we began by snorkelling off a beach on Isla Lobos, the water a bracing 19 degrees, but still full of fish – and, it turned out, playful sea lions interacting with everyone else in the water except me. Next time!

One warming shower later, we were in the pangas again on our way to what the brochure called a hike, but was simply a stroll of little more than 40 metres. Eventful metres though: pelicans and sea lions on the jetty, sparring male sea lions and suckling cubs on the shore, blue-footed boobies preening against a backdrop of spectacular Kicker Island blushing in the low sun, frigate birds circling overhead, smaller birds flitting about… classic Galapagos. And then the sun set, red and rapid. And then the full moon rose as we drank a beer back on board before a dinner so tasty that for once I actually cleared my plate. Great start!