Bo-Kaap provides a colourful contrast to Cape Town’s black and white nature – in more ways than one. Its buildings are painted every colour under the bright African sun, seducing photographers with its rainbow palette. And its Cape Malay residents are a blend of yet more ethnicities, a culture as colourful as its streets.
It’s appropriate that reaching the Himba involves such an arduous journey across Namibia. Arriving at the settlement, I realised life here was as far removed from my own as I could imagine, and the punishing journey was first test at leaving my comfortable, western lifestyle to enter another, more primal world, where human movements are dictated by nature, and not the other way around.
“We have a leopard situation.”
These words, spoken in the southern African savannah, far from the safety of the safari vehicle, were not exactly what I wanted to hear. But the beeping of the tracker’s aerial, picking up the leopard’s radio collar, was telling us that the creature was close. What’s more, the grass around me was waist-high – and leopards are the kings of camouflage.
Fidel, strutting around in a broad cowboy hat, greets me as if I am an old friend. We have, in fact, just met – but he is to be my new “dad” for the week, as I will be staying in his immaculate little bungalow in western Cuba. Here, donkeys and oxen are as ubiquitous as the 1950s cars, and the swaying tips of banana plants peek above the colourfully painted houses.
Some shots are a result of being in the right place at the right time – and this was one of them. But in getting to “the right place” required rather a lot of time, patience and knowledge. This is a desert-adapted elephant found in the bleak expanse of northwestern Namibia, and we had spent the morning tracking them, following footprints and droppings up and down dried-up riverbeds. Continue reading
But unlike the routine travel we do back home – the daily commute, the weekend trips to visit family – “travelling” can provide some truly memorable means of reaching a destination, and as the Chinese proverb says, the journey becomes the reward. Here’s a round up of my five most memorable travel experiences – some because they were terrifying, others because they were unexpected. And many were both. Continue reading
La Nomadita has a “Lord of the Flies” moment with the boy hunters of the Choco rainforest, Ecuador Continue reading
The landscape was perpetually transforming. I had never seen so many shades of green, such vibrant vegetation, such enormous leaves emerging from the ground, hanging off the trees, sprouting from the cliffs. Storms swirled around. If I wasn´t under a tempest, I was entering one, or driving out of one. The atmosphere was intense, nature was tangible, I was charged with energy. Continue reading
This woman belongs to the Himba tribe of the Kunene, an arid, rocky wasteland in northwestern Namibia. Her temporary hut is simple, hastily constructed from poles of wood and plastered earth, as red on the inside as the woman herself. Aside from her plentiful jewellery, crafted from leather and metal, she wears only a goatskin skirt, smeared ochre over time. Continue reading
Clinging to life between sea and storms on the splintered coast of southern Chile, the remote archipelago of Chiloé is drenched in fairytale and legend. This soggy Patagonian wilderness is both protected and threatened by the many mythical creatures who govern this part of the world: the evil witch who spews her intestines out every night; the hideous dwarf who impregnates young virgins; the kings, keepers and bloodthirsty villains of the sea. Continue reading
Three days in a rickety jeep. Three sleepless, aching nights; three icy dawns with the wonder of the sun rising over the widest horizons I’d ever see, watching as my own skinny shadow stretched to the distant mountains. A world composed of salt and volcanoes and boiling water and dust, that made me ache for the sight of a green leaf, a blade of grass, a drop of rain. Life. Continue reading
The Afroecuadorians of Esmeraldas are descendants of West African slaves brought here five centuries ago. Some of their ancestors escaped slavery, some were freed from the mines. Others dodged slavery altogether when their ship was wrecked in the rough Pacific watersc, and they managed to swim to shore to create a new life for themselves in the South American jungle. Continue reading
Juan hand-rolled the fat cigar in front of us in the little wooden hut. The leaves had been fermented for four months with honey, vanilla and just a little rum, and smelled delicious enough to eat. Juan took a small bundle of leaves, rolled them and held them in place with paper. Dark brown leaves from the inside of the plant were then rolled diagonally around it, and the classic form of the Cuban cigar appeared before my eyes. Continue reading
After three days in Florence, I’d visited none of the museums and ventured into just one small church. I’d done no shopping and seen none of the world-class galleries. I’d stepped inside the cathedral, but not made it up the famed Duomo. Yet as the high-speed train pulled out of Santa Maria Novella station, I felt content, knowing that I had, truly, experienced Florence. Continue reading
La Nomadita's Travels 