There is a solidity to this church; it seems rooted in the soil from which it was built. Its thick walls with their jutting buttresses look more like a fortification than a place of worship, and its massive bulk seems completely out of proportion to the small community it was built to serve.
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Early morning, and the sun has just climbed above the volcanoes that encircle the lake. A fisherman in a rowing boat drifts slowly, checking the net that he hopes will have captured some fish overnight.
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The landscape here is a series of horizontal stripes in blue, green, beige and brown. It creates a calm backdrop for the flamingos as they feed, their pale pink feathers reflected in the still pools of water.
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Fog hangs low over the outlying islets, and huge tree trunks almost block our path to the beach, but it is worth the scramble for the wonderful photo opportunities that we find there.
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The small boys who meet the boats arriving in Santiago on the shores of Lake Atitlàn know that the visiting tourists are here to see one thing above all others. They want to meet Maximón. It’s a good idea to accept the children’s offer as this intriguing Mayan idol (part saint, part devil) doesn’t have a permanent home in the town. Instead he is hosted by a local family, moving to a new house every few years.
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For many of us the colours red and green trigger memories of Christmas. Glossy holly leaves and berries, a beautifully decorated tree, Santa in his red suit, a pile of wrapped presents. But a questionably ugly reptile? Probably not – and yet ...
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The trail across Española Island to the cliffs of Puerto Egas requires a little effort. In places it is almost like walking on stepping stones, moving from one lava boulder to the next along the route. But the reward at the end of the path is enormous – and I use that word advisedly.
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Because the moai of Rapa Nui represent real people, each has a different expression, something that becomes obvious the more you study them. But they were all ‘born’ of the same place, carved from the rock of the volcano, Rano Raraku. Its compressed volcanic ash, tuft, is soft and easy to carve – essential, as the natives had no metal to carve with, only stone tools.
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The Hoh rainforest is an ancient, almost enchanted place, green and mysterious. Some of its trees have stood here for over a thousand years, long before European explorers came to this continent. Draped with mosses and ferns they seem to stand outside time; a haven of stillness in an ever-shifting world.
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If you call a place ‘Paradise’ it had better be somewhere special! Luckily this area of Mount Rainier National Park really does live up to the name bestowed on it by Virinda Longmire in 1885. When she first saw this spot, carpeted with wildflowers, she is said to have exclaimed, ‘Oh, what a paradise!’
