Join my journey to the corners of this world
“I think I see Purple there is that a Purple?” Asks my brother Guy as we both stare at must be of the most staggering sunsets, ever. “Neah, I think it’s Violet,” I think to myself. Gosh, the sunsets in this land contain almost all shades and colors – from deep Red Scarlet to Bright Cyan. Though the term “land” could be a bit of an overstatement as no part of this tiny sandy atoll is over 0.5 meters high.
It’s a bike! No. It’s a car! No. It’s…errr, what the hell is this thing?
Had a Martian landed in the middle of Orange County, he probably would have garnered less attention. Seriously, the US capital of Botox, Silicon, and nail jobs just south of LA had seen everything, but nothing like this.
Some would call it an obscene phallic symbol on wheels. Polaris calls it Slingshot.
A dusty dirt road. Windows all rolled down. Gotta keep on driving, or it’s a cloud of beige dust in your face, not to mention the dash, the Nikon camera, and the rucksack in the back. But sometimes you just have to stop. In this case, it was this semi-expressionist scene, as if taken by a 19thcentury Provencal painter, only this one is half-a-world away.
When I was a kid in the 70s, my father, who frequently traveled to Brazil for 
business, told me of a famous local saying that went something like this:
“Brazilians will start working only when the Jesus statue on top of the Corcovado rock will clap his hands”. Looking at Rio’s bright white landmark, the answer was obvious – never!
But, as I later found out for myself, they were wrong. Here’s why:
It’s 15 degrees below zero, we have a full set of high-durability thermal wear, half a pack of energy bars, It’s dark, and we’re wearing goggles. Let’s hit it!
Parched land. Few giant Baobabs dot the endless plains. 4 meter-long dried snake’s skin nailed to one of these giant trees. White sculls – chimps probably – pegged on sticks.
Welcome to Bushville.
It’s another hot and humid day in the Northern Philippines, and we’re all sweating profusely. No big surprise, having spent the previous two hours
trekking up our way through the thick bush. But it was worth it. A beautiful Emerald lake – clear, cool and inviting, is lying straight below us. It didn’t take long for us to leave our sticky clothes behind, and take a plunge into the chilly, slightly acidic water.
But this is no ordinary lake.
This is Northern Laos, a mountainous, remote and hard to reach place. A land of few visitors, and even fewer roads. The mighty Mekong snakes its way through the deep-cut empty gorges, almost defining the term “remoteness”. All you can see are few remote enclaves populated by colorful hill tribes, few tiny fishing boats and a couple of water taxis commuting up and down the murky river. Is this the real heart of darkness?
It sure looks the part. You can almost hear US Army helicopters playing “Flight of the Valkyries”. Apocalypse? Perhaps later.
Remember that famous scene from Trainspotting? The one in which Ewan McGregor dives into the worst toilette in Scotland only to be transported to an aquatic paradise? This is what diving a Cenote is.
I have been diving for 30 years and have more than 300 scuba diving in my logbook, but diving the Chak-Mool and Kukulcan Cenotes in Yucatan, Mexico, is like nothing I’ve ever done. It’s so radical, so different and so delirious it almost unreal. But it is real, and it’s better than drugs.
This is why:
Continue reading “6 reasons diving a Cenote is better than drugs”
