La Paz cable car commute
The world's biggest urban cable car network is public transport, not a ride. We commuted across the city over rooftops for the price of a bus fare.
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La Paz, Bolivia · The Americas
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Titicaca reed island
The ground moves under your feet like a mattress. They add fresh reeds every fortnight and the whole island is rebuilt from underneath over about thirty years.
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Lake Titicaca, Peru · The Americas
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Ceviche at eleven
The best cevicherias close in the afternoon because the fish is from that morning. Anyone serving ceviche at eight in the evening, our host said, is telling you something.
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Lima, Peru · The Americas
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Rainbow Mountain crowd
Five thousand metres, three hundred people and a queue for the summit photograph. Twenty minutes along the ridge there was nobody at all and the same view.
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Vinicunca, Peru · The Americas
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Galapagos indifference
Nothing runs away. A sea lion slept on a bench, a bird walked over my boot, and a marine iguana sneezed salt at me without moving.
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Galapagos, Ecuador · The Americas
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Market day in Otavalo
The animal market starts at six and finishes by nine. Everything else is for tourists and the sellers say so themselves, cheerfully.
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Otavalo, Ecuador · The Americas
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The night bus and the puncture
We stopped on a mountain road at two in the morning. The driver, the conductor and six passengers changed the wheel by phone torch in eleven minutes.
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Ecuador · The Americas
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Havana at eight in the evening
Somebody was playing dominoes on the pavement, somebody was fixing a car, somebody was singing. All three had been doing it since before we arrived and continued after.
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Havana, Cuba · The Americas
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The Cuban mechanic
He had made a part for a 1955 Chevrolet out of a Russian tractor component. He showed it to us the way other people show photographs of their children.
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Havana, Cuba · The Americas
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Jamaican bus music
The volume was not negotiable. A grandmother two rows up conducted with one hand and the driver adjusted the bass on her instruction.
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Jamaica · The Americas
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Hurricane shutters in July
Every house had them and nobody used them that week. The shop owner said you fit them in May and forget them, and that forgetting is the whole point.
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Caribbean · The Americas
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Snorkelling the blue hole
From the boat it is a dark circle in turquoise. From the water it is a wall going down into nothing and your brain refuses to process the scale.
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Belize · The Americas
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Bioluminescent paddle
No moon, no lights, no cameras allowed. Every paddle stroke lit up and fish left trails like sparks under the kayak.
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Vieques, Puerto Rico · The Americas
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The wrong island
We took the wrong ferry and spent a day on an island with one road, one bar and eleven residents who found the whole thing very funny.
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Bahamas · The Americas
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Waiting out the storm at altitude
Afternoon thunderstorms arrive almost daily in summer. A ranger said the rule is simple: summit by noon, and if you cannot, do not summit.
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Rockies, USA · The Americas
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Trail magic
A stranger had left a cooler of cold drinks at a road crossing with a note. Nobody took more than one, and somebody had refilled the ice that morning.
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Appalachian Trail, USA · The Americas
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The desert night sky
We drove twenty minutes from the town and the difference was absurd. A ranger explained dark sky certification and then turned off her own torch to prove the point.
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Utah, USA · The Americas
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Slot canyon rain rule
The guide checks the forecast for the whole watershed, not just the canyon. A storm eighty kilometres away can fill a slot canyon in minutes and there is nowhere to go.
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Arizona, USA · The Americas
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A hostel kitchen in winter
Nine nationalities, one pot of soup, minus twenty-eight outside. Somebody's grandmother's recipe was reconstructed by committee and it was excellent.
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Quebec, Canada · The Americas
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The overnight train that ran late
Freight has priority, so passenger trains wait on sidings. We were eleven hours late and the dining car simply kept serving as if it were a hotel with wheels.
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Canada · The Americas
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