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Los Glaciares

Michael Novins United States - 07-Jan-22

Los Glaciares

I visited El Calafate in December 2021, where it was easy to arrange a day trip to Los Glaciares National Park.  The trips seem to follow a similar itinerary -- boat tour to get up close to Perito Moreno Glacier, and then a couple of hours to visit the viewing platforms near the park's headquarters.  El Calafate is a much more charming Patagonian town than Bariloche, where I spent a couple of days later in the same trip.  

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Socotra Archipelago

Michael Novins United States - 29-Nov-21

Socotra Archipelago

I visited Socotra in November 2021.  At the time of my visit, Air Arabia provided Monday-only charter flights between Abu Dhabi and Socotra, so visitors were required to spend a week on Socotra.  Given that all tourists arrive and depart at the same time, tour operators seem to follow the same general itinerary, although they apparently coordinate so that sites are not inundated with tourists on the same days.  I went with Untamed Borders.

During the course of my week, we visited:

Day 1 (arrival): Delisha beach, not far from Hadibu, so seems like many visit this beach and sand dunes on the day of arrival

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Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve

Michael Novins United States - 23-Feb-20

Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve

In February 2020, I made my second visit to the small cloud forest reserves, about two hours northwest of Mexico City, where each year hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies from southeastern Canada and the northeastern United States spend the period between mid-November and mid-March.  I took a bus from Terminal Observatorio in Mexico City to Zitacuaro, and then a taxi to JM Butterfly B&B in nearby Macheros (both the bus and the taxi cost MXN300, around US$15).  JM Butterfly B&B arranged trips to Cerro Pelon (not very crowded and just a few minutes from the hotel) and El Rosario, the largest sanctuary, about 90 minutes from the hotel, but very crowded with visitors, although the most monarchs.

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Trade Pilgrimage Routes of North-Western Ghana (T)

Michael Novins United States - 08-Jan-20

Trade Pilgrimage Routes of North-Western Ghana (T)

While returning from Mole National Park to Tamale, I stopped briefly in Larabanga in northern Ghana to visit its whitewashed mud-plaster and wooden-beam mosque, which will celebrate its six hundredth anniversary in two years, making it the oldest mosque in the country and one of the oldest in West Africa and earning it the nickname the Mecca of West Africa.

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Mole National Park (T)

Michael Novins United States - 08-Jan-20

Mole National Park (T)

I visited northern Ghana in November 2019. I flew from Accra to Tamale in northern Ghana, about two hours by road from Mole National Park, the country’s largest protected area. Although the national park doesn’t have many animals, it is one of the best places in West Africa to see elephants and is one of few parks that allows visitors to approach the world’s largest land animal on foot. I was able to walk within ten meters of a large, broken-tusked, indifferent male, who was destroying small trees about fifty meters from Zaina Lodge, where I spent a few days.

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Michael Novins
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