Monthly Archives: November 2014

Dadès Gorges Mountain Pass, Morocco

 Winding through Morocco’s Dadès Valley between the Atlas Mountains and the Anti-Atlas mountain range, the Dadès Gorges road runs 100 miles east from Ouarzazate with a wild landscape of snow on one side, desert on … Continue reading →

1. Sani Pass, South Africa

/Lesotho You need a 4×4 to traverse South Africa’s notorious Sani Pass – and only if border authorities think your vehicle’s up to the challenge. Along the road, you’ll see debris from cars that weren’t so … Continue reading →

HISTORY. Beginnings. The first humanoids (Homo erectus) lived in Central Java 500,000 years ago having reached Indonesia across land bridges from Africa, before either dying out or being wiped out by the arrival of Homo sapiens. This idea was challenged … Continue reading →

Palau (sometimes spelled Belau or Pelew), officially the Republic of Palau (Palauan: Beluu er a Belau), is an island country and a United States Associated State located in the western Pacific Ocean, south west of the Philippines. It is geographically … Continue reading →

Gabon is a wildlife Eden in West Africa, with 13 national parks covering 11 percent of its landmass, including megafauna such as gorillas, chimpanzees, forest elephants, and surfing hippos. Very little was known about Gabon’s underwater life before the October … Continue reading →

JIANGXI (pop 43 million) Jiangxi is just east of Hunan and north of Guangdong and Hong Kong. It is an interconnected web of rivers, lakes and rice paddies. At the edges are low-lying hills and more substantial mountains, shrouded in perpetual … Continue reading →

Hunan (pop. 66 million) The birthplace of Mao Zedong, Hunan is important historically. Communist Party enthusiasts can visit Shaoshan to join the masses paying homage to him. But the dramatic scenery is the real draw. An astonishing landscape of massive, … Continue reading →

Karst topography is a landscape formed from the dissolution of soluble rocks such as limestone, dolomite, and gypsum. It is characterized by underground drainage systems with sinkholes, dolines (subsurface collapse of limestone causes shakeholes or when larger are called dolines), … Continue reading →

By Ezekiel J Emanuel – He is director of the Clinical Bioethic Department at the U.S. National Institutes of Health and heads the Department of Medical Ethics & Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. His Brother is the Mayor … Continue reading →

Guangxi (pop. 50 million) Guangxi is in the far south of China bordering on Vietnam and the South China Sea. The star attraction here is the karst scenery in Guilin and Yangshuo in the far north-east of the province. Some … Continue reading →