Articles
Peru’s jungle treehouse The Guardian
I was not quite sure what I expected from the Amazon. It’s become such a romanticised ecological symbol – a flagship of all we stand to lose – that it’s hard to see the trees for the wood.
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Hunting with hawks in Oxfordshire Financial Times (subscription only)
There’s something mesmeric about the way a bird of prey alights on your arm. It’s to do with both the tremendous speed of approach and the stalling when it lands, an almost filmic effect of fast and slow motion.
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Adventure ride will put some zip into the Lake District The Times (subscription only)
For many of my younger years I took part in the fell-running “manhunts” held in the west of the Lake District, in which a few runners are chased down by the rest of the pack. One early morning, I stood on the top of Fleetwith Pike. Below me, coming up the Honister Pass and fanning out, were the hunters. I stood deliberately on the very top of the peak so that they could see me silhouetted. Then I blew the horn.
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Stonehenge is vital to the nation. It should be spared the cuts. The Times (subscription only)
Stonehenge was given to the nation in 1918. So far, almost a century later, the nation has done a remarkably bad job of looking after it. The situation at the site is, in the words of one leading archaeologist, “an embarrassing, abominable, inexcusable mess”. For decades, plans have been put forward to improve the site and then postponed.
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Around the world in 80 years. Hugh Thomson, a contender for the Dolman Travel Book Award, discusses the art of travel writing with Dervla Murphy Daily Telegraph
Dervla Murphy rarely gives interviews. She is one of our most senior and prolific travel writers – more than 20 books in a half-a-century career – but she is extremely publicity-shy, from an age before blog and spin were part of a writer’s toolkit. She’s not a J D Salinger – there’s the odd public sighting or visit to an Irish bar – but this was her first interview for many years.
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Our overcrowded trains are a disgrace: It’s no wonder MPs want to travel first class The Times
My journeys from hell? Waiting days for a series of cancelled boats in Ziguinchor, Senegal, at 100F in the shade, 6 out of 10. A bus trip across the Peruvian desert that lasted 24 hours, 8 out of 10. The train from Birmingham to Edinburgh, 10 out of 10. And not just because it was the last I did. Or because it cost hundreds of pounds. But because it could so easily have been better.
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Win hearts and minds in Afghanistan to win the war The Times
Troop numbers are not the top priority. We must build schools, wells and factories
if ordinary people are to back us.
Moctezuma, the Aztec dictator. The Times
Cortés’s regime change was good for Mexico. Moctezuma was a brutal and bloodthirsty dictator. It’s no wonder neighbouring tribes helped the Spanish to overthrow him.
There’s a whole wide world out there still waiting to be explored The Times
Are there still unknown corners of this world to be discovered? Is there any purpose to sending out large-scale expeditions to explore far-flung places?
Mexico City Dreams The Traveller Magazine
It may seem strange, in a tough, fast city that is so large and has such extremes of wealth and poverty, but I think of Mexico City as a place for dreamers.
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Tequila tales Financial Times
Tequila used to be a real man’s drink, straight up and raw; the only accompaniments allowed were a pinch of lime and salt. One of PG Wodehouse’s pre-war characters ordered “a shot of that Mexican drink that they call – no, I’ve forgotten the name, but it lifts the top of your head off”.
Reins in Spain The Guardian
Bertrand Cauchy is a well-known figure in northern Spain: dubbed the “horse-whisperer of the Pyrenees”, he is celebrated for his ability to placate even the most difficult of steeds. But it was his reputation for placating even the most difficult of horsemen that led me to Cauchy’s home in Aragon….
Revolution road The Guardian
on the legacy of Pancho Villa in the Chihuahua deserts:
It was the start of the Mexican national holidays, and we were celebrating in a small Latino bar in El Paso, Texas, before heading “south of the border”, as Frank Sinatra used to sing: “Down Mexico way … where the stars above came out to play.” A few more banderas and we’d be seeing stars before we even got there.
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Little treasures The Guardian
on Belize and sailing down the cayes.
The yellow boat was called Ragga Gal and was small and shallow-keeled, not much more than 30ft in length. “We’re sailing later today, at 10. There’s still a berth left. Three days to sail down south to Placencia.”
Festive spirits The Guardian
Peru: Qoyllurit’i, “the festival of the snows”. Three days and nights of intense celebration with music and dancing culminate in a night-time ceremony on Andean glaciers 17,000ft high.
The Island of the Sun The Sunday Times
I was on the shores of the Island of the Sun, on Lake Titicaca, at 12,500 feet. The Island of the Sun is so called because the Incas believed it to be the sun’s birthplace. Nothing can compare to the quality of light over Titicaca; the clear air at high altitude combines with the fast-moving clouds and weather systems to create a constantly shifting theatrical display of such a deep blue that the resulting photos often look as if artificial filters have been used.
all photographs above (c) Hugh Thomson unless credited otherwise