I don’t know what I expected when I showed up in Mississippi. I had some vague aspirations about getting out into the legendary Delta to see pieces of the Blues Trail, but I wasn’t sure how realistic it was to cover all of that ground in the short time I had. I thought it would be cool to visit the Crossroads, but everybody I know that has been there told me it’s literally just an intersection in the middle of nowhere. So I wasn’t sure it was worth the drive. This probably doesn’t sound like the beginning of a great article. I really thought of the Blues mostly in the past tense so I wasn’t expecting to find anything in Mississippi but some history. But OHHHHH MAMA! I have never been more wrong in my LIFE!
Today we're going to be doing a double-header: Cherchell and Tipaza. These places are not quite on the level of Timgad, but they are still going to be interesting and gorgeous. So buckle in kids! It's time to drive out into rural Algeria for some adventuring!
So, if you've been following this series on Algeria, you know that I was traveling with my mother. One little-known fact about my mom is that she's secretly a bad-ass and had actually lived in Algeria briefly in 1980. So this was a long-awaited return trip for her. During that time, although she did spend some time in Oran and Algiers, the majority of her stay was spent in a tiny town called Cherchell (pronounced "share-shell")...
Of all the amazing pieces of civilization subsisting out here in the Westfjords, none sparked my interest like these tiny Icelandic churches. These little structures were often the only sign of human life for miles in any direction. Each time we caught a glimpse of the small pointy steeple from our place on the road, we would come to a screeching halt and dive off down the nearest dirt road to explore. No two of these churches were the same. Each was completely unique, and a few of them had even been left unlocked!
This quest brought us to the edge of the world, literally, to the bone-chillingly massive cliffs of Látrabjarg. Here’s a spoiler alert for you: it was mind-blowingly gorgeous. A friend of mine recently pointed out that I’ve said similar things about a great many of the places I have visited, so let me up the ante a bit: this was one of the top 5 most beautiful places I’ve seen, EVER.
The Westfjords (or, in Icelandic, Vestfirðir), is the name given to the enormous peninsula jutting out from Iceland to the northwest, towards Greenland. In these fjords are some of the most remote places and unforgiving terrain that Iceland has to offer. Only Iceland's interior is more difficult to travel through. After having driven the long road through Sprengisandur, I can personally attest to this. The views we saw from these roads in the Westfjords were absolutely stunning—beautiful enough that I felt that they merited their own article, so here is some of what we saw...
In Asian markets, there is always a huge diversity of marine life packed in ice, frozen in suspended animation, or floundering/wriggling/writhing, being kept alive in 2 inches of water. Some of these specimens are small, but others are freaking sea monsters! It looks like the cast list for one of National Geographic's "deep sea" segments all got caught in the same net. You’ll find the same smorgasbord of marine animals in cities inland as you will in coastal ones, and whenever I bear witness to it, I always find myself wondering the same thing: how did these fish get here? You'd never see fish like that in American supermarkets, so I’ve always been curious. In Mumbai, I finally got the chance to see some of the supply chain, and it did not disappoint.
Komodo National Park opened at 7:30am and the dragons were said to be most active during the early morning. We were told to be up by 7am in order to have breakfast and get ready to venture into the park, so naturally everybody woke up at 5:45am. On our agenda that day were Komodo Island and Rinca Island. Those are 2 of the 4 main islands that compose Komodo National Park and they are the only 2 islands that are open to the public.
The rest of us, strangers to one another at this point, looked at each other, and then with an uneasy shrug climbed down onto the deck of this tiny boat. It bobbled precariously with every passing wave. One thing was certain: this was going to be interesting. So let’s fast-forward a little bit, shall we?
