While the white-sand beaches of Fiji’s islands take up most of the attention, there’s a little secret lurking in the middle of the main island.
The Upper Navua River is one of the more remarkable river journeys in the world, with rapids propelling you through winding gorges and past a cascade of waterfalls along the way. The rapids aren’t too testing, but they’re not the main reason to be here; it’s the ever-changing landscape through the gorges that keeps your eyes wide open.
It is an overnight journey and you camp on the banks of the river. Drink kava with the locals and sleep soundly to the sound of the running Navua.
Traditional villages, an abundance of waterfalls and the exuberant guides from Rivers Fiji all make this trip an absolute must. And, best of all, at the end of the day you’ve earned a Fiji Bitter much more than the beach junkies.
Mix a killer line-up of electronic music with 600 party-loving punters. Shake until frothing with excitement and pour onto a Fijian island. Garnish with ivory sand, blazing sunsets and top with Polynesian fire dancers. The result is a serve of Oceania’s freshest island event: Your Paradise festival.
Taking over the shores of Malolo Lailai, a short boat ride away from the city of Nadi on the main island, the boutique festival is gaining momentum year after year.
As well as sets on beaches and boats cruising the islands, decks grace a sandbank that rises above the azure water for just a few hours a day before it’s swallowed by the swell. Go surfing and snorkelling and refuel between acts with barbecue and beer. Drink deeply when the kava bowl is passed around and let that warm buzz carry you through the night.
Shake your thang at this dance institution in Cali, Colombia’s capital of salsa. Surrounded by retro decor, you’d be forgiven for thinking you’ve shimmied back in time a decade or two, but what Tin Tin Deo lacks in gloss and glamour it makes up for with a sizzling dance floor.
Even if you have two left feet, it’s well worth stopping by to watch the unspoken competition of twisting hips and fancy footwork, but it’s even better to give it a go yourself. Rustle up a partner and show off your skills, or grab a drink and play wallflower beneath pictures of salsa supremos. The establishment is popular with locals and travellers alike, so arrive before 11pm to claim some space. But remember, this is South America, so play it cool and stay scarce until at least 10pm.
Huangshan, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, was a major inspiration for the fantasy world of Avatar, and no wonder. When shrouded with clouds, the jagged granite peaks look positively dreamlike floating in midair. And this happens pretty often – clouds sink down upon Huangshan roughly 200 days of the year. Hike your way up, stay a night or two on the mountain and feel the scenic bliss descend upon you as you look out over the majestic peaks.
An early wake-up in the Russian holiday hotspot of Nha Trang isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Beat the heat and the tourists by rising at 5am and wandering down to the beach to experience exercise time in full swing. Swim with the locals flocking down for a pre-sun dip, dance in one of the many rotundas with your choice of salsa or techno music, or show off your muscles on one of the many exercise machines. Morning time is exercise time – so flex, bounce, bend and stretch your way around as you watch the sunrise!
Flames flare across a pit of boiling mud in the heart of Turkmenistan’s Karakum Desert. Derweze, or the ‘door to hell’ as locals know it, is a glowing 70-metre-wide sinkhole and a sinister legacy to gas mining.
The crater formed when the ground beneath a rig collapsed as Soviet geologists drilled for resources in one of the largest natural gas reserves in the world. The pit devoured the machinery and methane gushed into the air, threatening a nearby village. To truncate the flow, geologists set the deposit alight, assuming it would burn off in several days. Fed by rich natural gas, the fire continues to burn decades later.
Close encounters of the thick-skinned kind are frequent on this 163-kilometre paddle down the mighty Zambezi. It’s not uncommon to manoeuvre around partially submerged hippos, glide past elephants bathing in the shallows or observe crocodiles sunning themselves on the banks during this six-day aquatic adventure with River Horse Safaris.
There’s no other tour that takes visitors into this part of Zambia, traversing the entire floodplains of the Lower Zambezi and journeying through isolated Mupata Gorge before ending where the Zambezi meets the Luangwa River. Each day, the camp is packed up before dawn, everyone climbs into twin canoes and the journey begins before the heat kicks in. Wildlife abounds here, where humans are few and the landscape is vivid and unexpected. Vast walls of volcanic rock rise from the water in the Great Rift Valley, and estuaries running off the main river feel as though they’re completely unexplored.
At night, tents are set up on the sandy banks of the river and everyone helps out by preparing dinner or cleaning up. There’s also the chance to go on game drives and walks, looking out for animals that make their home further away from the river’s edge. With a maximum of 12 guests on any given adventure, this is an intimate way to observe the vast African wilderness.
There’s definitely an advantage to appearing as though you’re an animal while trying to get up close to another. At the Ant Collection, the horses used for riding safaris graze and wander the bush with the wildlife you’re hoping to see – including rhinos, giraffes and zebras – so none of them feel threatened by the presence of ponies.
Ant’s has about 90 horses (most of them thoroughbreds or Arab-Boerperd crosses), so there’s one to suit any level of rider, including those who’ve never saddled up before. Two guides accompany each safari through the private game reserve: one to canter along ridges and sandy tracks with the experienced equestrians, the other to hang back with the novices.
When you’ve had enough time atop your mount, head back to Ant’s Hill lodge, built on the edge of a cliff, with a pool and deck overlooking Waterberg National Park. Meals, including high tea before the afternoon ride, are a highlight, and each of the rooms and cottages is decked out with African fabrics, daybeds and touches of luxury. After dark you can enjoy a wine tasting, head out on a night drive or learn about the stars.
All along the main road that leads down to Boston Bay, sturdy home-made grills sit in front of brightly painted shacks, deep grey smoke billowing from the hot coals. It carries with it the smell of spiced, blackened meat and fish, for this is the birthplace of the Jamaican specialty ‘jerk’. Jerk chicken, jerk pork, jerk fish – it’s all served up here, with generous helpings of dumplings, plantains and vegetables best washed down with a cold Red Stripe.
But the tasty grub is not the only reason to venture this far east – well beyond the traditional tourist hot-spots of the west and north. Boston Beach itself is a pretty and undeveloped stretch of sand with a fraction of the tourists who spread out their towels at Negril. It’s pretty popular with locals though, with tunes pumping and vans parked nearby serving snacks and drinks. It’s also something of a surf hot-spot. Here, Jamaicans and travellers wade into the turquoise waves with their boards from the shore, or jump off from a rocky outcrop further out.
When cruising the Black River in Jamaica’s southern parish of St Elizabeth, there’s a chance your guide will tell you that the river’s famous crocodiles are tame. They lie stretched out on the river banks, sunning themselves, or hovering just beneath the water’s surface under the cover of mangroves, steely eyes just visible. They look fearsome, but most have names, which many of them actually seem to recognise.
Tame or not, the crocodiles here are certainly abundant. As you make your way along the murky river, you’re guaranteed to get your money’s worth. And you won’t just see crocodiles – you’ll come across egrets, herons and other creatures flitting through the lush vegetation.
Whether they consider the crocs to be tame is another matter that you can ponder as you cruise. The river is the longest in Jamaica, named for the mossy layer on its bed which turns the water black, although you may actually find it more of a sludgy shade of brown.
(
