Jun

26

2022

BEST OF BOTSWANA – a pangolin photo tour

CHOBE- OKAVANGO DELTA- KALAHARI

and meerkats and a helicopter

PART 1: THE CHOBE RIVER

ATTEMPTS TO TURN ME INTO A BIRDER

Around noon the plane lands in Kasane on Botswana’s northern border, Zim & Zam are mere miles away. As we approach the land below us is very green, great rivers and lots of flooded land, they must have had lots of rain here. As there are only about 30 people on the plane the arrival procedure is fast. On we go to the Pangolin Chobe Hotel, which is a famous photo hotel. Great photo pro’s there to assist and guide us, and big lenses for us to try out. Our trip is called the Best of Botswana Photo Safari, check it out here: https://www.pangolinphoto.com/safaris/11-day-best-of-botswana-safari

The Pangolin Chobe Hotel

Mar

16

2022

CHASING AURORAS AND SUNNY MOMENTS

Landscape / Nature / Photo tour / Travel Posted by Astrid Bluemel / 1 comments

The ultimate Lofoten experience

A photo tour with Christian Hoiberg

Auroras or northern lights are hard to find. You preferably need to be way up north, better even to be above the polar circle, in a dark night without much light pollution, (meaning far away from everybody and everything). Then an aurora of 5+ on a scale of 10. Plus you need clear skies, which is probably the biggest problem.

Our first night here, and already an aurora

So we went to the Lofoten, way up in the north of Norway, in February. The trip was postponed twice because of covid, but when Norway opened up on Feb 12th 2022 and we were offered the option to go on very short notice we said: yes please ! If this trip was meant to be, the good Lord could have given us a bit nicer weather though. We counted it all together, the sunny and not totally clouded times and we came to about 2 hrs in a whole week. We were told later that is pretty much the normal thing here, we were lucky. To be honest I’ve never had such lousy weather and in spite of that, such a fabulous time !

Red cabins and cloudy skies, as always

Oct

27

2021

UGANDA: Bananas, Boda Boda and BIG apes

Landscape / Nature / Travel / Wildlife Posted by Astrid Bluemel / 0 comments

UGANDA: Part 2

From tree climbing lions to gorillas and gorgeous lakes

TO THE QUEEN

We leave Kibale Forest for the Queen Elisabeth N.P. Soon we turn off the main road and take a mildly bumpy dirt road along crater lakes and through banana plantations. The scenery is simply the best.

Bananas, bananas, bananas

We started with bomasa palms, woodlands, rainforests, followed by maize fields, high grasses, swamps, then the tea and coffee plantations and now the bananas. To be honest so far I like this part the very best. The landscape is very hilly and we keep seeing slopes full of banana trees, interspaced with little houses where colorful laundry is drying outside, kids run towards the road to wave at us. The weather is sunny and not too hot yet, it’s just perfect. All to soon we reach the main road again and are back on the highway 70 south from Fort Portal (at 1480m) to Kasese. From Fort Portal away, the Rwenzori mountains are dominantly present in the west. No snow capped peaks to be seen at the time, at over 5000m they are almost always in the clouds.

From dense forest in Kibale to papyrus and candelabra in Queen

Soon after Kasese we reach our lodge on the shores of Lake George. Lots of British royalty represented here in the lakes, starting with Lake Victoria, then we passed Albert, now George and soon we will do a boat trip on the Kazinga Channel joining George and Edward. Only Charles is missing, ha ha, he probably has to die before he gets his lake.

Oct

16

2021

UGANDA: the green pearl of Africa

Landscape / Nature / People / Travel / Wildlife Posted by Astrid Bluemel / 1 comments

PART 1 : From the source of the river Nile to the chimpanzees in Budongo and Kibale

Where exactly is Uganda again ? It is smack in the middle of Africa. Right on the equator, flanked on the right by Kenya, on the left by the Democratic Republic of Congo. The experienced traveller will say there are better places to go for an „average“ wildlife safari. That may be true, but Uganda is sensational for gorilla and chimpanzee tracking, has great national parks, and on top of that it is the most beautiful country I’ve visited in all of southern and eastern Africa.

This is a matoke country

If I get the driver to stop to take „just landscape“ photos, something is seriously wrong ! I do people and wildlife photography ! But here I just had to stop over and over again, it is so lush and green, so spectacular and ever changing, I am so glad we booked a road trip and didn’t do the fly in&out. Beside that, it is also a very safe country to visit, with incredibly friendly people.

This is not really a „Banana Republic“, but boy they do have lots of bananas here. Call them matoke, which is also the name of our tour company: MATOKE TOURS. Lets hit the road, we’re here for a three week trip, in which we will cover almost 3000km, in an old Toyota Land cruiser with Anatoli our driver.

The trip

Anatoli, our driver

Sep

01

2020

HIKING CINQUE TERRE

Landscape / Nature / Travel Posted by Astrid Bluemel / 0 comments

Hike, but remember, the only way is up….baby !

The Cinque Terre in Italy, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Five little coastal towns, spread out over 20km or so on the north-west coast of Italy, about 1 hour east of Genova by car. I had wanted to go there for ages but was put off by the horrendous tourist numbers, but now seems to be the right time. Because of corona their tourist numbers have dropped to one third of their normal, still more than enough if you ask me.

There are 5 towns from left to right:

Monterosso, Vernazza, Corniglia, Manarole and Riomaggiore.

Monterosso, for beach lovers

Vernazza, the pretty one

Corniglia, on the clifftop

Manarola, surrounded by vineyards

Riomaggiore, the tiny photogenic one

No matter where you stay, they all have their charms and the next town is always close. You get to the next town in minutes by taking the train, the longest you’ll be on the train is 16min from Monterosso to Riomaggiore, or take it easy and hike, as we did.

we love to travel …

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