Corner View - Bliss

CAYOS ZAPATILLO

PULAU KAPAS

PRAIA LOPES MENDES

Apart from the obvious bliss we share at certain moments with loved ones, there is a special kind of bliss that I feel when I am in paradise. For me paradise involves a voyage in a sailing boat to a deserted tropical island, where I can then snorkel in crystal clear waters with the rich marine life there. This has happened to me several times during my life. The first time was when I lived in a wooden house on stilts at the edge of the South China Sea. Opposite my house, a few miles offshore, was an idyllic desert island, called Pulau Kapas (Cotton Wool Island), which I could visit in a local fishing boat. This was my first time snorkeling in clear, warm, tropical waters, and the coral and marine life were stunningly beautiful. Island hopping in the Seychelles was another blissful experience, but, for me, Ilha Grande off the coast of Brazil is even more beautiful. There, you can be dropped off by a schooner and walk through the rainforest to what I consider to be the best beach in the world, Praia Lopes Mendes. I have had some wonderful times in the Caribbean, but the most idyllic desert island I have visited there is, without doubt, in Cayos Zapatillo off the coast of Panama. It is a picture perfect paradise. The most blissful experience I have ever had snorkeling, however, was on the reef near Caye Caulker in Belize, where after a beautiful trip in a schooner, I was able to swim with and touch sharks, stingrays and turtles, which was incredibly exciting and sheer bliss!

The Stark Beauty of Bolivia

In March 2008, I travelled along the shores of Lake Titicaca, and entered Bolivia. Perched high up in the middle of South America, it has a wild, rugged beauty. You can drive for hundreds of miles across it, past weird twisted rock formations, steaming geysers, sparkling salt flats, smoking volcanoes and strange coloured lakes full of flamingoes, without seeing a single house or even another person.

Art Deco v Art Nouveau - What's the difference? Part One

EDIFICIO KAVANAGH

PALACIO SALVO

UNION HOTEL

When I travel, I usually take a guide book with me, and often come across references to Art Deco and Art Nouveau buildings, but to be quite honest I never really tried to find out what the difference was. I just knew that they both usually dated from the early twentieth century. However, after a recent trip to Riga, which has some of the finest examples of Art Nouveau architecture in the world, I finally started to get a grasp of what that was. It is quite a common style in big European cities. Art Deco, on the other hand, tends to be more prevalent in North and South America, with some of the finest examples being in New York.

PART ONE - ART DECO

Art Deco was a common style of design from the mid-1920s to the mid-1940s. It was intended to be elegant, sleek and modern. It took its name from the Internationales des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes held in Paris in 1925, but the term Art Deco was not widely used until it was popularized by art historian Bevis Hillier's 1968 book Art Deco of the 20s and 30s. So, how can you recognize it? Well, if you see a pre-war building with a streamlined look, then it's probably Art Deco. It is strongly influenced by the architecture of Ancient Egypt., with its pyramids and obelisks. If I tell you that the Empire State Building and Chrysler Building are Art Deco, then you'll start to form an image of what it looks like: tall and sleek, with geometric patterns and curves, sometimes with a sinister touch: think Superman and Gotham City. But, be warned, if it's got flowery designs and faces on the front, then it's more likely Art Nouveau.

In my opinion, Art Deco buildings can often be quite brutal and ugly, but here are three I've seen that I liked (photos from top to bottom):

1/ Edificio Kavanagh , Buenos Aires. When it was completed in 1936, Edificio Kavanagh was, with a height of 120 m, the tallest building in Latin America and the tallest reinforced concrete building in the world. it was designed in a style which is a mixture of Art Deco and Modernism (that's another story), by architects Gregorio Sánchez, Ernesto Lagos and Luis Maria de la Torre. There is a funny story attached to this building: it was planned as an act of revenge by the developer, Corina Kavanagh. One of Corina's daughters had fallen in love with the son of the aristocratic Anchorena family, who lived in a palace and had built a church next to the site of the Kavanagh Building. The Anchorenas stopped the marriage to a member of a nouveau riche family, whom they perceived as being below their social status. So, to teach them a lesson they'd never be able to forget, Corina Kavanagh decided to build a skyscraper that would block the view of the church from their palace. It took all of her inheritance to complete it, and she spent the rest of her life living in an apartment on the 14th floor of Edificio Kavanagh. It is, nevertheless, a beautiful building, and it certainly has a 'wow' factor, because that's what I said when I first saw it.

2/ Palacio Salvo, Montevideo. This 26-storey skyscraper, which dominates the skyline of Montevideo, was designed by the architect Mario Palanti, and constructed between 1925 and 1928. It is 95 metres high, but 100 metres with the antenna., and until the Edifico Kavanagh was completed eight years later, it was the tallest building in South America. Palacio Salvo may no longer be the tallest building in South America, but it is still the most popular image on postcards of Montevideo and remains a national icon for Uruguayans. I personally think it's one of the great pre-war skyscrapers, on a par with New York's Chrysler Building.

3/ Union Hotel, Bucharest. Eastern European cities have many impressive Art Deco buildings from the 20s and 30s. One of the most spectacular is Bucharest's Union Hotel, which was built between 1929 and 1931 by local architect Arghir Culina. It used to be a hotel, but is now used as an office block.
 
PART TWO - ART NOUVEAU

Corner View - Miniature Worlds

The theme of this week's Corner View is Miniature Worlds., and it made me think of small animals and insects, like the coatis and butterflies, especially the 88 Butterfly, Diaethria eluina, which I saw by the majestic Iguazu Falls on the border of Argentina and Brazil. In so many ways, the insect world going on beneath our feet seems to mirror our own. As a boy, I was fascinated by the lives of ants, and used to spend hours in the back garden watching them. They cultivate miniature crops, keep greenflies as domestic animals, fight orgainized wars, carry their dead home and so much more, and numerically there are more of them in an acre than there are humans in the whole world.

Corner View - Holiday

The theme for this week's Corner View is Holiday.


jane, ian, bonnie, esti, sophie, cele, modsquad,

caitlin, joyce, ani, kim, natsumi, epe, kaylovesvintage, trinsch, c.t., jeannette, outi, ritva, francesca, state of bliss, jennifer, dana, denise, cabrizette, bohemia girl, isabelle, amber, a girl in the yellow shoes, mister e, janis, kari, jgy, skymring, elizabeth, allison, lise, cate, crescent moon, erin, otli, ida, caroline, lisa, dorte, kimmie, nicola, vanessa, britta, april, b, kyndale samantha, kristina, goldensunfamily, sophie, janet, mcgillicutty, aimee, sunnymama, jenell, britta, juanita, pamela, inna, daan, myrtille, cris, ibb, jodi, gillian, travelingmama,athena, pienduzz, latisha, clairette, kelleyn, iris, demara, mus, ninja, guusje, di, sammi, theresa, cherry b, victoria, kathryn , lisa, liza, juliette, braja, mulot, anne, lucy, leonor, elizabeth, helene, dominique, shokoofeh, cole, jenna, podane, grey-lemon, line, nihal, urbaNiche, inner toddler, puna, lucylaine, adrienne, emily, lynn, skywriting, eliane, the wanderer´s daughter, carole, anna, dorit, kenza, sherry, conny, susan, l´atelier, elis, kamana, anne, rosamaría, marinik, elisabelle, victoria, malo

Corner View - Water

The theme of this week's Corner View is Water. Last year, on my six-month journey around Latin America, I saw one of the most spectacular natural displays of water on the planet: Iguazu Falls.

Please visit the other Corner view bloggers for their watery views.

Penguins

I'd always wanted to see penguins in the wild and last year, for the first time in my life, I did. They were Humboldt Penguins on the rocky Islas Ballestas off the coast of Peru and it was such a thrill to see them. To be honest, they are not the most attractive of penguins, certainly not in the same class as Emperor Penguins, perhaps because they spend their lives covered in guano, which is, as you know, basically sh*t.

Humboldt Penguins breed on rocky islets off the coast of Peru and Chile, where in order to lay their eggs, they burrow into guano left by other birds. Because of man's over exploitation of the local fishing grounds and the guano for use as fertilizer, they are an endangered species, and there are now only 10,000 pairs left in the world.

The Locals Turn Out to Greet Me

I was given a warm reception in Peru when my bus was hijacked by angry demonstrators, who surrounded it with rocks and burning tyres. How did they know I was coming?

You might also like: The Country with the Highest Murder Rate in the World.

Lake Titicaca

Lake Titicaca is a place I'd always dreamed of going to - it seemed so unimaginably exotic- and last year on my six-month odysssey around Latin America I finally made it. It is the largest lake in South America and at an altitude of more than 3,800 m above sea level, one of the highest lakes in the world. But what I found most interesting were the islands and the people who live on them. The first photo is one of the forty-two Uros islands made of floating reeds tied together in bundles. The second photo is of two of the three hundred Taquile people who live on Isla Taquile in the middle of the lake. The third photo is of the kitchen in the Blanca family farmhouse I stayed in on Isla Amantani. The food was very simple: boiled potatoes, and served by candlelight as there was no electricity. Finally, Lake Titicaca is a great place to watch birds, including the Puna Ibis, which is on the Red List of Threatened Species.

Caimans

One of the things I enjoy on my travels is getting close to wildlife. In Africa, I learned not to get too close to the crocodiles as they can come shooting out of the water like a rocket and drag you in, but in South America I was able to get really close to some members of the crocodile family, caimans, which although they are up to three metres long and have teeth like razors, eat capybaras and fish, not people (well, at least that's what I thought at the time).

I took the first two photos of Yacare Caimans, last year, in one of the largest swamplands in the world, the Pantanal. I was sleeping in a hammock in a hut in the middle of the swamp, was soaked in sweat, got bitten to death by mosquitoes and chiggers (small insects which burrow into your legs) and couldn't sleep so I walked out at dawn and there were hundreds of caimans all around me. The one in the first photo was standing on the path right in front of me. After a while he slipped back into the water and carried on fishing.

The Pantanal teems with wildlife. As well as hundreds of caimans, I saw Capybaras, Swamp Bush Deer, Black Howler Monkeys, Green Iguanas, and a fantastic variety of colourful birds, including Hyacinth and Red and Green Macaws, Toco Toucans, Greater Rheas and Jabirou Storks. I went fishing for piranhas, which although they don't have a great deal of meat on them are delicious. They also have razor-sharp teeth, a bit like the caiman's.

Whoops! I just did some online research: although caiman attacks on humans are rare, they do occasionally bite humans. "The force of the bite itself produces crush injuries, fractures and soft tissue injuries. Bite force is proportional to animal size and complicated by head thrashing. The teeth often leave puncture wounds, and the animals tend to thrash once they have bitten down, leading to skin tears and further injury. The location of caiman habitat and attacks could lead to drowning." Whoops again. You can read more about caiman attacks here: Wilderness Medical Society. Perhaps if I'd read that before, I wouldn't have got quite so close to that caiman. He was a big one and from what I saw of him in the water, liked thrashing too. That reminds me of the time I went swimming with sharks.

Related Posts:

Counting Birds

My Journey through Latin America

Machu Picchu & the Sacred Valley of the Incas

Machu Picchu & the Sacred Valley of the Incas

I wanted to start the story of my six-month overland journey around Latin America, but ran out of time. So, to whet your appetite here are two photos from Peru. The first is of Machu Picchu, which is possibly the most wonderful place I have ever seen. The second is of the Inca fortress of Ollantaytambo in the Sacred Valley of the Incas. These are magnificent, but melancholy places as they represent the last stand of the Incas as they were driven towards extinction in the rain forest by the invading Spanish conquistadores.

Now might be a good time to click the links in My Favourite Films list, which you'll find down on the left: you might discover a hidden gem. Because tommorow there is going to be a lot more for you to read.

City of Passion

I took these photos when I was in Buenos Aires, probably the most passionate city in the world, exactly one year ago today.

My Journey through Latin America

When I was a student at London University, my best friend, Tim was the son of the British Consul in Santiago. Tim spoke excellent Spanish. This fascinated me. Latin America was so far away and for a village boy from Hampshire, so exotic.

We made a plan that after we graduated we would spend a year travelling from Alaska to Cape Horn, hitchhiking. As Tim's Spanish was good, I concentrated on learning Portuguese. In the end Tim got cold feet or maybe he just had better things to do. He went to do research in Ethiopia, became one of the world's leading experts on the history of that country, and then died tragically young. I gave up on the idea. I met a girl and we went to live in Spain, where we had a little whitewashed house in a gypsy barrio and no money.

Well, last year, I decided to do the Latin American part of the trip (I'd seen quite a bit of Canada and the USA already.) I travelled overland, mostly using local buses, through twenty countries, from Mexico to Chile, in six months, and many times I felt that my best friend Tim was with me, and that I was doing it for both of us.

I wonder if you would like me to tell you the story of my journey?