Europe, USA and the Caribbean

           
              © F.Arfin 2005 

Tobago: Rain Forest Lite

On most maps of Tobago, its satellite Little Tobago hovers above the Northeast coast like a sea bird coming in for a landing. This is probably just fanciful map making --  the uninhabited islet is a sea bird sanctuary -- but as we approached it in a glass bottomed boat, the dozen people all a-twitter around me seemed very taken with the idea. Wildlife books emerged from backpacks, binoculars were dusted off, expensive cameras assembled, and I realized that I was only person on this boat who hadn’t come to Tobago for the birds...
© Ferne Arfin 2003, Available rights negotiable 

 England: Sampling the South Downs Way

  © F.Arfin 2005                    

     
 © F.Arfin 2005                           

The guide book clutched in my hand was probably a dead giveaway, but I was still surprised when the bus driver who picked us up outside Horsham Station said, “South Downs Way? Where would you like to be let off?”

Friendly bus drivers offering unscheduled stops? This was a good sign. My friend and I were heading out for a day’s hard walking in the West Sussex Downs. We were on a recce, tackling a short stretch to see if we had the stamina to take on a bigger chunk of one of Britain’s most accessible long distance paths next time. 

Already, the day had started well...
© Ferne Arfin 2003, Available rights negotiable

 France: Bullish in Beaucaire

© F.Arfin 2005

Last July, in the Provencal town of Beaucaire, I watched a man fly. The temperature in the South of France had soared off the charts and into the record books. At five o’clock in the evening, heat mirages still shimmered across the floor of the Beaucaire arena. So, when this young man, dressed all in white, ran vertically up a wall, launched himself off the top and flew safely across five or six feet of open space to a railing above, I could have been forgiven for thinking that this too was a mirage. The fact that he was being chased by a bull didn’t detract one whit from the feat.  After all, it was only a small bull....
© Ferne Arfin 2003, Available rights negotiable