One is so used to the American tendency to big everything up, that occasionally the reality underwhelms. When everything is hyperbolically billed in grandiose terms – 'The tallest building...', 'The largest grossing movie ever...' one tends to expect an ever increasing stream of adrenaline rushes. As I flew in from Phoenix to the isolated cluster…
The climb up through the steaming tropical forest had already taken forty five minutes of scrambling through - and under - the roots of enormous Pandanu trees in the body-hugging heat, with still no sign of sunlight ahead; and this was meant to be the short-cut. Half an hour to the top, the painted sign…
There are some places in the world which seem to have appeared in your recurrent dreams since childhood, so that actually going there gives you a strong sense of deja vue. Everybody has such a place, I reckon, probably first glimpsed in a big cardboard picture book in the days when the printed word still…