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As I fly over the Indian Ocean, from the sky, I see granite boulders rising like standing stones out of a pristine tropical jungle. Below me, the alluring turquoise Indian ocean and shades of unknown creatures.
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On the edge of North Africa’s desert, I watch nomads shelter from the sun in a camel-hair tent. A man herds his camels with curved daggers hanging down his back, and a long colorful scarf wraps around his head and neck. Mules swing their heads and stare. In the distance, the great stone and snowy caps fold of the Atlas Mountains behind the man, the animals, the tent.
It’s the first morning of our expedition in Papua New Guinea. We trek through a dense jungle punctuated with waterfalls and scored by deep gorges, which in turn are crisscrossed by thickly knotted vine bridges. In the distance, the music of rare species of birds, and that feeling of life being as close to perfect as it could ever possibly be. We hike up alongside dozens of types of wildflowers until Thomas, our local fixer in the Highlands, Max – a photographer -and I reach the first tribal village. “This is a fortune-teller tribe,” says Thomas, “The men here use their ancestor’s skulls as instruments to foretell the future.” I look around and find a bunch of red and yellow-painted skulls lined up in a hut. There is nothing more bizarre.
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I’m hooked as I lay my eyes on the beautiful Aeolian archipelago rising out of the cobalt-blue waters of the Tyrrhenian Sea on the north of Sicily and west of mainland Italy. Locals call them the “shape-shifting” or “floating” islands as they have been continuously sculpted by volcanic activity over millions of years. As a result, its exotic black-sand beaches, craters, and splintered, rocky coastlines are something utterly unique in the Mediterranean. No wonder it was designated a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2000.
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In the small village of El Rocio, in the province of Huelva, deep Andalusia, Spain, I hear the girl next to me say: “Today is a big day.” I have just arrived from Finca la Donaira – in the highlands of Sierra de Grazalema – on time for Saca de las Yeguas, an ancient ritual among Spain’s most significant horse events.
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We rise up in a Cessna over the Wetlands of Australia’s largest National Park. My stomach lurches as I look down on an incredible variety of landscapes – coastal swamps, floodplains, lowland hills, escarpment, monsoon rain forest, and ancient plateau. Beneath me, crocodiles scuttle into the East Alligator River, and a fabulously diverse range of birds navigate over the plains. I look in every direction and see nothing on the horizon. From the sky, I have a glimpse of the immensity of Kakadu’s wilderness: it’s half the size of Switzerland – the whole Park is a protected area of nearly 20.000 Km2.
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It’s a sunshiny morning in late April 2018 when we land in Tambolaka airport, after a 55-minute charter flight east from Bali. We are in Sumba. On a map of Indonesia, to its northwest, is Sumbawa, to its northeast, is Flores, to its east, is Timor, and to its south, across part of the Indian Ocean, is Australia.
Over eleven days – in late August 2017 – we crossed the wild outback of The Kimberley, in Western Australia. At first, I’m convinced the journey is all about the road, the savannah, the red earth. Then, I am overwhelmed by the diversity of Kimberley’s landscape.
There is something about Flores that is rather unearthly. This diverse island in Eastern Indonesia with its savannah landscape, pristine oceans, impressive volcanoes and lakes resemble a wilderness that seems to belong to another place and time. Though it is just an hour flight from the internationally-acclaimed Bali, Flores is an island still covered in relative obscurity.
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When living in Brazil, the mere mention of Bali evoked me thoughts of a far away paradise. I dreamt about a tropical island with white sands and clear blue water populated by surfers and tanned people.
