Wild West

I sit now in a one-horse town (two since I arrived with my dusty steed), the name of which escapes me. It's likely to be Dry Wash or Cactus Creek. I have yet to decide what to have for dinner. Will it be Buffalo Burger at the diner across the road where the neon lights are calling to me, albeit with only half the letters glowing, or 24 ounces of prime rib at the steakhouse with the swinging saloon doors? Either way it'll be meaty.
As to the day's adventures, there are an unbelievable number of national parks that showcase rocks in Utah. Capitol Reef was first on my list today. This is a lesser visited park. It is a geological fold or more poetically "a warp in the earth's crust" which apparently caused some problems to the pioneers as the reef is rather hard to cross. There are a couple of thin gorges through it which reminded me a lot of Picaninny Gorge in the Bungle Bungles, WA (for those of you who have not had the pleasure, it is the gorge used in the scene of Australia when the cattle stampede). As yesterday, the rocks (and there are a lot of them) range from white to red with the odd purple and black seams thrown in for good measure.

The Fremont River runs through the park and creates a lush green oasis in the otherwise arid landscape. I now know why Cottonwoods are thus named - they spew forth irritating cotton-like fluff but also provide much sought shade in the hot desert.

The afternoon saw me and my trusty steed heading further west over Boulder Mountain and through Escalante State Park. A stunning ride if ever you are passing by.

My destination was Bryce Canyon NP. Bryce is home to hundreds of thousands of Hoodoos. A pretty cool name for funny, pointed rock formations created by years of erosion. Bryce is difficult to describe so just check out the picture below.

Oh and I chose the prime rib - a plate o' meat with nothing green in sight - very wild west!

Canyonlands

From Colorado to Utah: from green to red. I have left behind colossal mountains and replaced them with colossal canyons.

My first Utah night was spent at Canyonlands NP. The Colorado and Green rivers confluence in the park, dividing it into 3 sections. I was in a section called The Needles, an expanse of spectacular tall, pointed rock formations, like needles (who'd have thought!)

I woke before the sun to do an 8 mile hike through these formations before the day got too hot. It was incredible watching the sun rise over the desert and change the geological colours around me from grey-blues to brown-reds. I arrived back at the car as others in the campsite were awakening and headed north to another national park called Arches. Guess what??? There are lots of rock arches here! They come in all shapes and sizes - though mostly really big. It's sandstone or eroded sandstone, ie. sand, as far as the eye can see. The formations - SPECTACULAR!!!

I finished the day with a return to Canyonlands but this time the northern section, which I am sure is where the park derives its name. There is a lookout point above the river confluence where canyons stretch for a 359 degree view. It is most certainly a land of canyons!

PS. I wonder who the imaginative genius is who comes up with the names?

Mesa Verde

I have moved into slightly more arid climes today with a visit to Mesa Verde NP. Its claim to fame is a series of cliff dwellings from C11th. The inhabitants, Ancient Puebloans, spent a lot of effort establishing these communities on precarious ledges and then lived in them only 80-odd years. No-one knows why they left but the dwellings have been well-preserved and take some hair-raising crawling and climbing to get into and out of - and nowdays we have the help of ladders and stairs!

In the afternoon I crossed into Utah for more canyon adventures!

Black Canyon

Well today was filled with yet more stunning mountain views. I drove for a few hours heading west to reach Black Canyon of the Gunnison National Park (what a name!) This was reminiscent of the Grand Canyon except darker rock and not as wide although still pretty deep and vast!

In the afternoon I continued my journey west and a little south to Ouray and then on to Silverton. This is a roadtrip that all budding travellers should make. The road is narrow and wedged between towering mountains and sheer drops into deep canyons. It has a rich mining history so there are old mine shafts dotting the mountainside. It was by one of these that I camped the night.

Pikes Peak

I had an early start this morning to board the cog rail car that goes to the top of Pikes Peak, standing at a mere 14110 feet. The rail car takes about an hour and a half to reach the top and passes through various levels of vegetation, finishing way above the tree line. I was a bit woozy at the top but not enough to spoil the magnificent views.

On my return to normal altitudes I jumped in the car and took a back road heading west. The snap below is one of the scenes from this road. The drive took me through Cripple Creek - a ghostly looking mining town and past Florissant Park - a fossil and petrified wood site.

Afternoon storms seem to be the thing here with plenty of lightning to add to the spectacular views!

Back in the USA

It took longer than I expected but I have arrived in the mountains - you know the Rocky ones. My flight to Denver from Miami was overbooked so American Airlines offered any passengers willing to take a later flight, a free night and meals at the Sofitel Miami and a $500 travel voucher. I thought that sounded a decent deal so here I am a day late!

I have a very shiny Hyundai SantaFe, about the colour of Evonne (my ruby subaru back home) and we are going to spend the next 3 weeks in an intimate relationship. As a random piece of language trivia, in American English 'Hyundai' is pronounced without the 'y'.

My first sightseeing mission in the mountains was Garden of the Gods. This is a park in Colorado Springs with sharp, pointy, red rocks looming out of the ground. It's a small park but very pretty with the taller, slightly snow-capped mountain range as a scenic backdrop. A rock-climbers paradise.

Tobago Part 2

My Carribean time is almost at an end. For the past week I have been back in Tobago and staying with a German chap I met diving weeks ago. He is living here and involved in making a German movie called Dream Hotel (but obviously in German). It is a cheesy fairytale-type story designed to be shown in Germany and Austria when the weather is cold and dark and people need some tropical island fantasy to bring them back to life. I have spent 2 days as an extra, one scene as a foreign dignitary at the opening of a new tourist development and the other at a party complete with carnival dancers and fireworks. It has been interesting to see how a film is made but I have to say not really my cup of tea. I'll stick to watching them from the other side of the screen.

The next post will be from somewhere in the centre of the USA after a short stop in Miami on the way there.

Sailing

About a week ago I made a snap decision to join Marie on a sailing trip with a couple of Swedish people she had met on the internet. Ingela and Mats were on thier yacht, the ElinAlida, in St Vincent and the Grenadines and were to sail it south to Grenada for the approaching hurricane season.

Marie and I flew to St Vincent and then caught the ferry to Bequia, the most northerly of the Grenadine chain of islands, where we met Ingela and Mats.

I have written a guest blog on the ElinAlida site so to learn about the trip you will have to divert to http://www.elinalida.se/

My blog is in English (my Swedish is not quite up to the challenge) but if you are interested, there is a translator so you can read Mats' entries also.

Tobago Part 1

Tobago is Trinidad's less populated, though more popular, smaller sister. I started my jaunt on the island in the north-east corner in a little sea-side village called Charlotteville. In this village I met a Swedish girl called Marie who arrived just before me to spend 6 weeks writing a report on Responsible Tourism in the area. Over the next few weeks she and I bumped into each other several times as you will discover by reading on. We also met an American chap who intends to make a feature film on the hunting of loggerhead turtles in the area, which seems an interesting, though a little dangerous, venture.

Charlotteville, is a sleepy village with not a lot going on so after a couple of days I headed just over the hill to Speyside, which is a town known for it's diving prospects. I did a few dives and was lucky enough to see a Manta Ray for which the area is renowned but which are not very common.

This northern end of the island is not very touristy and so after a week I headed south so a village called Buccoowhere I spent a relaxing week wandering the beaches, reading books and scratching mozzie bites, followed by a week in nearby Crown Point, Tobago's tourist hub where Marie joined me for a couple of days. During this time the wet season arrived with a vengeance and practically overnight the island went from dry, brown and smoky with bush fires to green, lush and infested with mosquitos.

Three weeks in Tobago is long enough to become known to basically all the locals who are very friendly, often too much so and my Trinibagonian accent is coming along nicely!

Grenada

The Carribean Islands are not very big, so after 3 weeks in Tobago, I felt it was time to move on with a very short flight to Grenada. This is a country of 3 islands; Grenada, the largest, Carriacou, considerably smaller and Petit Martinique, where you can throw a stone from one side to the other!

Grenada is much more touristy than T&T and therefore a white person such as myself does not stand out quite as much. I stayed in a little bungalo with a view of the harbour of St George, the capital. This is a quaint town with colonial buildings on a steep hillside, overlooked by an old fort. The place was gutted a couple of years ago by a hurricane and there is still a lot of rebuilding going on but there is a charming central market and with the combination of ripe tropical fruit, fresh fish and too many spices to count, the scent in the air is remarkable. The streets are almost inconceivable steep and narow but on a hot and humid day you can save yourself a climb by crossing from one side of town to the other via a skinny tunnel under the fort.

The main beach on the island is Grand Anse, facing west so with its azure waters and white sand it has perfect sunset vantages.

I went a bit silly with my scuba diving in Grenada as the water was so clear, the reefs numerous and loaded with fish and crustaceans, and a little further out to sea, many shipwrecks which are home to the bigger marine life of which I enjoyed seeing sharks, eagle rays, turtles, giant barracuda and some very large schools of fish. The most interesting of the shipwrecks in Bianca C. This was an Italian cruise ship before WWII which sank for some reason. With the start of the war it was hauled up, rebuilt and used as a warship but was torpedoed and sank again. After the war it was hauled up and rerebuilt as a cruise ship before sailing to Grenada where the engine caught fire and it sank a 3rd time. This time they let it rest in peace and it is now known as the Titanic of the Carribean. It is a deep dive site with the base of the sip at 50m, so my deepest adventure to date.

One morning I decided to hop on the ferry across to Carriacou, a 3 hour journey. I spent an afternoon walking across the island and discovered a beautiful, secluded beach covered in turtle tracks as well as a nice little hike through the jungle. I also popped over to Petit Martinique, which is about as laid-back and quiet a place as you can get.

Back on Grenada I rented a car for a couple of days and braved the precariously steep, windy roads and the rather scary driving habits of Grenadians to explore the inland and northern areas of the island. There are a couple of perfectly round volcanic lakes set in the jungle and some stunning waterfalls which require muddy hikes to be reached. The north of the island is more local than the south but has nice beaches and a number of spice plantations and rum distilleries. Grenada is the world's largest producer of nutmeg, which I think is a pretty good achievement for a rather small island!