Author Archives: Ursula As we parked our car and followed the stone and concrete walkway into Wadi Bani Khalid, I had Maria Muldaur’s Midnight at the Oasis dancing through my head. Walking towards the green date palms after two days in the magical Sharqiya Sands Desert (see: Sand Songs and Desert Dreams and Life in the Desert), it […]  The United Kingdom takes great pride in its naval history. Separated by water from the rest of Europe since around 6500 BC., what are now the British Isles have always had a relationship with the sea for their livelihood and for trade. The Phoenicians in Iron Age Europe mention the trade route to England for […]  It’s an incredible landscape. Red, flat, and empty as far as the eye can see, except for two remarkable – and remarkably different – ancient rock formations: Uluru, the 348 m (1,142 ft) high sandstone monolith, and Kata Tjuta, the 36 domes of conglomerated sand, pebbles, and cobbles. This is a living, culturally-rich topography, home […]  The crush of humanity heading to and from the Ganges through the streets of Haridwar seems unimaginable now. Haridwar, in Uttarakhand in North India, flanks the holy River Ganges as it flows south and east out of the Western Himalaya. The city has a population of just over 310,000 (2011), but when I was there […]  Singapore Zoo ranks consistently (after San Diego Zoo) as one of the best in the world. I’ve talked before about some of the concerns around keeping animals in captivity (see: A Tale of Two Tarongas), but when it comes to transparently ethical practices, the Wild Reserves Singapore group -four animal parks of which the Singapore […] |
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