ZECO TRAVEL TALK

I just returned home after leading two fantastic Circumnavigation of the Black Sea voyages aboard Le Levant. The Black Sea explorations are ever-changing and each year it seems there are new opportunities. On these recent voyages, for the first time, we were able to visit the famous Odessa Opera House.

Our tour agent in the Ukraine, Janna Belousova, and Zegrahm staff member, Olga Stone, worked together to obtain special permission from the director for an insiders tour of this incredible venue which has been closed and under renovation for the past seven years.

After our private Operetta Performance in a salon at Gagarin’s Palace, we strolled up the boulevard to the Opera House. Viewed from outside, the Viennese Baroque edifice is ornate and a work of art in itself, topped with a sculpture depicting Melpomene (The Muse of Tragedy) in her chariot pulled by four snarling panthers. Inside, the splendor of striking white stucco, gilded sculptures and ornaments, and sherbet-tinted hues of the marble pillars of the great hall and central staircase immediately transported us back to the grandeur of centuries past. This entrance resembled what one guest proclaimed “an amazing wedding cake!”

In the theater itself the bold décor commanded a certain speechless reverence. Over a half ton of brilliant gold leaf relief detailed the friezes, moldings, and columns, complementing and highlighting the opulent “Russian Red” of the velvet covered seats and private boxes.

On our late September voyage, as we listened to performers warm up for the night’s surprise performance of Verdi’s La Traviata backstage, a few of our guests, staff, and crew chose to forego dinner aboard and instead purchased tickets for the performance that evening. They returned to Le Levant with stories of a night of music and beauty that was to be the personal highlight of their voyage!

Odessa is a beautiful city noted for its music, art, and incredible history, yet the Ukraine is just one of the many countries we visit on our cultural explorations in the Black Sea, the Adriatic, or the Baltic (to name just a few of our destinations). On each journey we seek to introduce the music, cuisine, history, art, and the incredible natural landscapes to our intrepid travelers. From year to year each voyage evolves to offer new options, inviting new discussion and enabling us to seize a front row seat in the dynamic “theater” of history in action. I hope you’ll join us for further discoveries and once in a lifetime opportunities.

I am flush with three scintillating Interesting Finds this week, all in my favorite category: newly-identified species—courtesy of National Geographic’s Online News. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

For those of us who have been to Northern Australia, on Zegrahm’s Kimberley expeditions, not being able to get in the water is par for the course. This is due to the presence of saltwater crocodiles, murky opaque water, and shockingly powerful twice-daily tides. Add to this 113 newly identified (and bizarre looking) sharks and rays—among them not one but two fresh water river sharks. As the photos in the article attest, these are not small home aquarium Amazonian fresh water sharks but rather big, toothy sharks. Read the full story and view images at these links: 113 New Sharks and Rays Announced in Australia & Photos

The second newly-identified animal is a fish that glows red using fluorescence. It belongs to a larger group of glow-in-the-dark fish that live below a depth of 33 feet. Previously scientists believed that red was an “irrelevant” color to fish. The nerve! Read the full story which includes photos of some additional red-glowing sea creatures at this link: Glowing Red Fish Discovered.

This installment of Interesting Finds concludes with a terrestrial animal newly-identified and named in Fiji. Ladies and gentlemen, I alert you to Brachylophus bulabula, a gorgeous new iguana named after a Fijian greeting. Enjoy: Iguana Found in Fiji.

Andrew

Our action-packed itinerary took us from northern Mongolia at the Onon River to the far south in the Gobi, encompassing many of the country’s unique highlights.

In comfortable land cruisers we left Ulaanbaatar (UB) behind and set off through dramatic landscapes, and enjoyed our first views of graceful demoiselle cranes through the spotting scope. The crescent moon ger camp at Jalman Meadows was Mongolian camping at its best—in simple comfort and in a superb setting. Our two nights here were truly wonderful, since it allowed us to explore this beautiful region on foot, on horseback, and to visit a horse-herding family and their ger.

Combining the ancient and modern, Central Mongolian Air helicopters whisked us northeast on a short journey over the hills to the Onon River, giving us views of the first snows of the autumn on the peaks to the north. By mid-morning we had traded helicopter for rafts and were afloat in style on the Onon. Highlights along the way included an excellent riverside picnic, and both whooper swans and white-naped cranes.

Having enjoyed the north of the country and the cultural highlights of UB, we commenced the second half of our journey by flying to the southern wilds—the Gobi. We made our way along dusty tracks towards Bulgan Sum, stopping along the way to watch a small, nervous herd of white-tailed gazelle sprint at great speed away from us, and flocks of arid-land Pallas’s sandgrouse that flew up from beside the track. At the Saxaul Forest, or Bayanzag, which we tracked down by GPS, we were introduced to the first of our southern Gobi “picnics.” From our picnic table we could see the famous Flaming Cliffs, where Roy Chapman Andrews was successful in finding significant dinosaur remains (despite being on a hunt for mammalian bones!). Finally we climbed off the dusty plains towards the foothills of the mountains to reach our remote camp, with another warm welcome, at Dungenee.

The Dungenee valley and both the Dungenee and Yol gorges in the Gurvansaikan National Park provided us with some of the most beautiful and dramatic scenery of our Mongolian journey. This was a day of raptors, with fantastic bearded vultures, steppe eagles, Eurasian kestrels, and saker falcons, and also a day of mammals with long-tailed souslik, dozens of pika posing for us to photograph them outside their burrows, and distant Siberian ibex, which we were able to enjoy through the telescope. The Yol Gorge provided another avian highlight in the form of not one, but at least four wallcreepers. This grey and crimson bird, reminiscent of a giant butterfly in its flight pattern gave us point blank views in the narrowest section of the gorge.

Our final destination was the wonderful hills and grasslands of Hustai National Park and further good weather greeted us as we set off to seek out the rare, reintroduced Przewalski’s horses. Our morning views of several horse groups were enhanced by the scope, as were those of red deer and Amur (Olga’s!) falcon. Further explorations of the park later in the morning and in the late afternoon gave us views of several Siberian marmots and brought our total of horse sightings to over 80.

Our opportunities to visit local families in their gers and to learn about their customs were especially memorable aspects of the trip. The telescope and tripod brought distant wildlife into view, and almost throughout the trip we were fortunate both with weather and with bird and animal life. Mongolia and its people were wonderful and exceeded all expectations.

Mark also recently wrote an article about the wild horses of Mongolia’s Hustai National Park. The article was published in the Japan Times and is available at this link: Przewalski’s Horses running free in Mongolia

Excerpts from the Welcome Home Letter written by Expedition Leader Mark Brazil for our August 2008 Mongolia: Land of Chinggis Khaan program.

Last July travelers on our Fire & Ice: Kamchatka to Alaska voyage had the unexpected opportunity to witness a remarkable event in a subsistence community on the eastern edge of the Asian continent. Zegrahm naturalist, Mark Brazil, was on this trip, and reminds us that these spontaneous “expedition moments” are what true travel experiences are made of. He wrote about the scene at Lorino Village in his regular Japan Times column, and offered us the story for excerpts.

“…I am writing from the Clipper Odyssey as we cross Russia’s Gulf of Anadyr. Along the way we have been treated to extraordinary concentrations of wildlife including viewing 17 brown bears in one day.

Visitors to the outlying Bering Sea communities are rare, and the welcome is warm. Walking around, you never quite know what to expect. One constant, though, is the presence of animal bones. These are largely subsistence communities, and with agriculture quite impossible in this Arctic area, survival means hunting.

The intensity of our experience at Lorino Village was extreme, and in some ways I am still processing what I witnessed, although it was over in less than three hours. From our Zodiacs, we noticed something in the water tethered to the shore and quickly realized that the village had had a successful whale hunt—part of their annual 47-animal quota allowed under International Whaling Commission agreements.

Few of us strayed from the spectacle on the beach as a tractor was hitched to a hawser and the whale was hauled ashore, the aqua-dynamic shape revealed in a way impossible to appreciate at sea. A brief ceremony was performed, symbolically feeding the whale tundra plants, bread and chocolate, and even proffering a cigarette.

The whale was measured and officially recorded, and flensing began—on a scale I had never previously imagined. First the blubber, then the meat, then the internal organs were all stripped away by two skilled men with long-handled flensing knives, a team of pullers with hooks to maintain tension, and ultimately dozens of locals each armed with an ulu knife and a bucket or bag to take away their portion.

A huge trailer was loaded with the larger pieces to be hauled off for freezing. Some adults were chewing slivers of muktuk (blubber or skin), while children savored pieces of baleen. I watched one man excavate the ossicles (ear bones) for later carving. It would be easy to call it a grisly process, but only because the preparation of meat in our own diets has become so remote.

What impressed me was how little was left on the beach at the end of it all: blood stains on the gravel, the skull, some scraps of innards and blubber… and the whale was gone.”

To read the full column go to: Lives and a Death

At dawn the next morning, a pale moon was heading west, the sun broke through a patchwork of clouds and a rainbow shot out from behind Pitcairn as if to welcome us with open arms. The mood was jubilant—even at 5:30 in the morning as people came up on deck realizing we could not only go ashore, but that Mother Nature herself was in sunny spirits.

Two longboats came out to the starboard side of the Odyssey and we climbed down, about 35 at a time, and sat cross-legged on the broad deck. The vertical cliffs of the island seemed to loom larger as we approached, and we stepped onto a concrete pier next to a large “Welcome to Pitcairn” sign, surrounded by dazzling Bounty Bay. A long uphill walk brought us first to the resting place of the Acadia anchor which now had tangible meaning for us, then to the small town square bordered by Pitcairn’s Post Office, Public Hall, and Seventh Day Adventist church. Everyone was out, hosting folding tables of carvings, stamps, T-shirts, guidebooks, local honey, and handmade soap. We met just about everyone who lives here—including Tom Christian, the oldest surviving member of the Christian family—during our daylong visit, and we were all charmed and delighted by the friendliness, openness and eager exchanges.

We split into small groups to walk and hike this superb natural wonderland covered with lush vegetation, a profusion of flowers, pandanus, banyan, papaya, mango, and guava trees… and just about all of us saw the endemic Pitcairn reed warbler. Sheer cliffs, Christian’s Cave, St. Paul’s Pool, Highest Point, the Pulau School, and Eco Trail were a few of the treks we made during the day. For lunch, all the residents (including the mayor, postmaster, and minister) pitched in at the town square to cook us up a delicious lunch of fried fresh-caught fish and potatoes, salads, and huge wedges of fresh papaya for dessert. Miralda, a singer and guitarist, coaxed three children to stand in front of the Bounty anchor in the square to serenade us with local songs in the Pitkern language.

Before we set off for afternoon walks, we were invited into the church for an island slide presentation and brief singsong with about 12 of the locals who quickly pulled off their aprons to come inside from the square and sing for us. The striking words, the earnest strength of the voices, and the beauty of these rugged faces were a powerful combination and we spilled out into the afternoon sunshine feeling the spirit of community.

When we returned to the Odyssey, some of us headed out for a short dive and snorkel to view the Bounty wreck, its large wooden skeletal frame perfectly laid out in the sand—a fitting look into Pitcairn’s past and an perfect ending to a day none of us will ever forget.

Huge anticipation preceded our day on Pitcairn—the easternmost island group in Polynesia—and the place many of us on board this voyage had specifically come to visit. With no natural harbor or surrounding reef to offer guaranteed landing protection, this isolated speck on the map is more often than not inaccessible. But as the moon peeked out from among the patchwork of clouds we dropped anchor on the western, leeward, side of the island, and a longboat came out to greet us with a half-dozen guests—resident Pitcairners—who honored us aboard with their company for dinner and regaled us with history, lore, and their hopes for the future. Excitement for our landing the next morning reached a level of near frenzy!

Earlier in the day, Zegrahm Cofounder, Jack Grove, presented an onboard lecture describing his long association with Pitcairn, which reaches back nearly 25 years. In 1989, on a return visit, when he and fellow staff were scouting landing and dive sites just off the rocky shores, Jack spotted a rusted windlass and, free-diving to take a closer look, he quickly realized he was looking at an uncharted shipwreck… the Acadia, which ran aground on June 5, 1881.

The details of the astonishing story, and of how the Acadia’s anchor was eventually raised, had us all on the edge of our seats in the Odyssey lounge. When Jack found the dead-eye (used on old sailing ships and freighters to hoist lines and/or secure the mast), he brought it up from its sandy resting place to present in person to Millie Flora Christian–the 90-year-old daughter of Phillip Coffin (a surviving crew member on the Acadia) and Mary Jane Warren. In 1943 Millie married Warren Clive Christian, descendant of Fletcher, of Bounty fame.

When the anchor was hoisted onto the hill overlooking Bounty Bay in 1990—on Pitcairn’s bicentenary—Millie Christian came to stand beside Jack at the ceremony and whispered to him: “My father’s ship has finally come home.”

Among our island guests on board the Odyssey this evening was Jacqui Christian, the granddaughter of Millie. Joining Jack and Paulina at dinner she shared her own experiences of life on the island, how she had moved to Australia to become a pharmacist, and of her recent return to Pitcairn with the plans to create a comprehensive Web site to be able to give the outside world accurate information on the nature, history, culture, and lifestyle of her beloved island. When Jack brought out his laptop computer and showed Jacqui his photos from the wreck of the Acadia and the commemoration of the anchor, he was also able to tell her, at long last in person, the words her grandmother had spoken to him 18 years ago. To say she was moved doesn’t dignify the occasion… It was, simply, one of those rare instances when time, place, and distance distill into the present moment… and when personal history can begin its journey through future generations.

NEXT TIME: We all go ashore for the day and discover an amazing world of natural beauty and a welcome that will long be remembered…

Lanky palms, ultramarine waters, soaring peaks, a rich cultural heritage, a celebrated list of visitors-turned-residents–and all of it blended with that French je ne sais quoi…makes Tahiti the perfect beginning and end point for an adventure that will take us counter-clockwise around Polynesia.

We began our first full day driving the island’s outer ring road that follows the dazzling coast and offers incredible inland views of verdant valleys and rugged peaks. Our amicable Tahitian guide studied in New Zealand and returned “home” to share his love for his island with visitors. As we drove he pointed out papaya, breadfruit, banana, and mango trees… truly the fruits of paradise. Papeete, he told us, means “water basket” from the natural spring that the town was built around and to which islanders came with large baskets to carry water home. At the wonderful Museum of Tahiti and her Islands, the exhibits presented a comprehensive look into the five archipelagos of Polynesia whose culture reaches back thousands of years. And the Gauguin Museum displays prints of the prolific painter who lived on Tahiti from 1891-93. We boarded the Clipper Odyssey in the late afternoon and set sail as a spectacular sunset silhouetted the neighboring island of Moorea.

As we approached the Tuamotus, it wasn’t hard to understand how early explorers might have missed them— the tiny coral atolls barely break the surface of the water. We dropped anchor off Fakarava, boarded Zodiacs to shore and were greeted by four lovely young girls whose arms were draped in flower leis… as we bent down to accept the gift around our necks, they kissed our cheek! Dances, drumming, a feast of fresh coconut, fish ceviche, and fresh oysters delighted us. A birding contingent set off to spot numerous species, including both blue and white Pacific egret, and captured both the sounds and sight of the endemic Tuamotu reed warbler, on video—a real coup! Divers did a good test run, and many of us went snorkeling over small corals—spotting football-size spider conch and trocas shells. Read more

With its combination of spectacular but elusive forest wildlife, challenging logistics and the uncertain future of its ecotourism establishments, it remains to be seen whether “Africa’s Eden” ever reaches its much-vaunted objective of becoming the continent’s “Rainforest Mecca”. What is certain is that we experienced, first-hand, the best of this remote, largely unspoilt and truly unique travel destination.

Traversing the extensive coastal savannas and waterways of Loango National Park, criss-crossing (slowly) the mosaic of gallery forest and savannah in Lope National Park, and even reaching the remote bai in the heart of Ivindo National Park’s virgin rain forest, our expedition was designed to explore the scenic and wildlife highlights of this little-known corner of the continent.

In the coastal lagoons and termite mound-studded grassland of Loango, our explorations revealed everything from noisy flocks of screeching African grey parrots to quiet rain forest waterways frequented by basking, slender-snouted crocodiles, from distant forest elephants to intimate encounters with spy-hopping and breaching humpback whales.

Just getting to Langoue bai in Ivindo National Park proved to be an expedition in itself, from the flight over endless miles of unbroken rainforest, to the bumpy, four-wheel drive track overgrown with thickets of wild ginger and the final, humid hike into camp. Langoue bai provided most of us the very rare opportunity to witness the behaviour of western gorillas in the wild.

Mandrills are aberrant baboons restricted to rain forest flanking the coasts of the Gulf of Guinea, and Lope is the only place on Earth where one stands a reasonable chance of glimpsing these elusive forest sprites. We all managed (with varying degrees of difficulty!) to witness these peculiar primates in their natural environment. Lope also provided the opportunity of stalking, on foot, a variety of smaller primates, such as the noisy grey-cheeked mangabey and scruffy-looking black colobus; duikers; forest buffalo and even forest elephant.

Along the way we experienced the full spectrum of Gabon’s rich diversity of habitats and encountered a varied pageant of birds and beasts, some of widespread occurrence, others known only in this corner of the globe.

Excerpts from the Welcome Home Letter written by Expedition Leader Jonathan Rossouw for our July - August 2008 Gabon: Africa’s Forest Eden