Wanderlust, Issue 233 Sampler, (June/July 2024)

Utah, USA

Wanderlust’s Lyn Hughes took a road trip around Utah in search of epic landscapes, red rocks, sagebrush plains and ancient sites

Words Lyn Hughes Photographs Simon Chubb

Utah’s natural wonders had been ingrained on my consciousness since I first visited over 30 years ago. Then, it seemed barely known and little visited, and I had places like Arches National Park to myself. Given the opportunity to return, I arrived with the hope that it would have retained its spine-tingling scenery without having been overrun by crowds.

For this visit, I took a round trip from Salt Lake City, taking in Heber Valley, Moab, Canyonlands National Park, Arches National Park, Bears Ears National Monument, Bluff, Bryce Canyon National Park, Kanab and Zion National Park, before heading back via a brief visit to Sundance Resort.

HIGHLIGHTS

First created in 2016, Bears Ears National Monument is a huge yet little-seen area measuring 5,500 sq km. It is managed

in tandem with several Native American Tribes who have ancestral claims to the land. Scattered around it are roughly 100,000 sites of archaeological interest, with highlights including the petroglyphs of Newspaper Rock and the cliff dwellings of Butler Wash Ruins. Of geological interest is Natural Bridges for its arches, as well as the unforgettable Valley of the Gods.

I came across the Valley of the Gods by accident, having taken the dramatic and slightly hair-raising Moki Dugway (UT-261), a dirt road cut into a cliffside that has a number of switchbacks leading down into the valley. Once at the bottom, a gravel road takes you through a smaller version of Monument Valley, complete with spectacular buttes and pinnacles but with comparatively few visitors for company. I was jealous of the handful of campers who had set up there for the night.

To learn more about the area, visit the excellent Edge of the Cedars State Park

Museum, which has its own Ancestral Puebloan archaeological site, then book a guided walk with the Indigenous-owned Ancient Wayves (tourancientwayves.com). Seeing the landscape through Indigenous eyes added a more meaningful dimension to my trip.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS

Salt Lake City has a unique history, and it was fascinating to find out more about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The central Temple is undergoing a major renovation and was covered when I saw it, but I enjoyed visiting the Tabernacle for a free recital (held daily at noon) on one of the world’s biggest organs. Its world-famous choir holds a public rehearsal on Thursday evenings and Sunday mornings. The Natural History Museum is worth a visit too, and I also took a fun city tour on a trolley bus.

Exploring caves on horseback was a first for me. I’d taken a late-afternoon trail ⊲

Green light

Exploring Valencia by bike, boat and foot reveals the outdoor ethos and sustainable ideals that won it the European Green Capital 2024 accolade – from forward-thinking urban planning to biodiversity conservation and slow food

Words Laura Field

My least favourite way of exploring a city? Until January, I’d have told you it was cycling. Calling for impeccable balance and a hawk-like sense of direction – neither of which I have –there’s plenty about navigating a bike, especially in urban areas, that always made me wary.Then I visitedValencia.When I found myself pedalling through the centre and not actively disliking it, I knew there had to be something special about this city.

“The Turia Garden is now the green artery of Valencia, where everyone congregates”

The best way to see Valencia is by bike, I’d been told. With over 200km of cycle lanes lacing the city, getting out into the fresh air – reducing carbon and other polluting emissions at the same time – is easy and enjoyable. That’s just one of the many reasons whyValencia has been awarded the status of European Green Capital 2024. But what exactly does it mean to be a ‘Green Capital’?

On my arrival, a kind and softly spoken local, José Miguel, said something that I found frankly baffling. He told me that the course of the Turia River, the major waterway snaking through the centre, had been diverted around the city to provide irrigation for surrounding farms.The green credentials of this seemed questionable: yes, water is vital for farms, but why change its course so dramatically? The sheer scale, cost and effort of redirecting such a large waterway seemed daunting, not to mention the opposite of an eco-friendly urban ideal.

Yet as my cheerful cycling tour guide, Ali Dib, explained, that episode marked the moment when the roots of Valencia’s green flourishing were planted. The Turia

had been prone to periodic flooding, with devastating impacts. After a catastrophic 1957 inundation that killed dozens and caused large-scale destruction, the Spanish government and Valencia’s mayor drew up the Plan Sur (South Plan) to reroute the Turia’s course around and south of the city. That left a bare swathe running through the centre. Proposals were mooted to construct a new highway along the dry riverbed. Citizens had other ideas. Fervently opposed to such a busy new thoroughfare, Valencia’s residents protested, demanding instead that the space be turned into a park.The city’s leadership was convinced to change tack, and drafted in architect Ricardo Bofill to create what is today theTuria Garden.This verdant public space meandering over 9km through the centre is now the green artery of the city, where everyone congregates.

Valencia highlights

City cycle tour

As well as cycle hire, Do You Bike offers relaxed, slow-paced tours with informative guides. Excursions, which last three hours and run daily, start at 10am or 10.30am depending on meeting point; £21. doyoubikerental.com

Albufera Natural Park boat tour

Visit the park’s freshwater lagoon and learn about its history, biodiversity and importance for Valencia today; tours from £5. visitalbufera.com

Ana Serratosa Gallery

This contemporary art gallery showcases works by international artists, focusing particularly on pieces inspired by the natural world, and stages al-fresco exhibitions around the city. anaserratosa.com

Ensedarte Silk Atelier

Eva Escamilla’s boutique sells hand-painted silk garments. Visitors can also enjoy a ‘paint your own scarf’ Mocador experience, learning about all-natural techniques and Valencia’s Silk Road history; £80. ensedarte.com

Life cycle (left page) The broad Plaza de la Virgen, dominated by the Turia Fountain – with Neptune representing the river that formerly flowed through the centre – and overlooked by the mighty cathedral, is one of several car-free squares that make exploring the city on two wheels a pleasure for residents and visitors alike; (this page) the leafy, 9km-long Turia Garden, inaugurated in 1986, follows the course of the namesake waterway, and is now a vast public park studded with cafés, performance spaces, areas for sports and recreation, and – of course – ample traffic-free routes enabling cyclists to pedal right across Valencia

The kingdoms of

CENTRAL JAVA

A barrage of cultural influences have helped shape Indonesia, and nowhere more so than in Central Java, where untangling these dense threads reveals myriad hidden stories

Words and photographs George Kipouros

On reaching the top of the Stairway to Nirvana, I came face to face with a smiling Buddha statue. Breathless from the walk up, a feeling of euphoria overtook me as I drank in the paradisiacal views of Central Java, intoxicated by the heat and the effort.Then, just as swiftly, my reverie was broken by an unexpected sound: the adhan – Islamic call to prayer – was blasting from the loudspeakers of mosques camouflaged by the jungle below, the muezzin’s sonorous invitation rippling through the canopies.

From my viewpoint atop Borobudur – the so-called ‘largest Buddhist temple in the world’ – the interruption was a reminder that Indonesia is also home to the planet’s biggest Muslim population too. At that moment my guide, Naroni, also pointed to a gloriously ornate series of reliefs depicting scenes from Hindu mythology. My head was spinning

not just from the climb and the noise, but the cultural overload.Yet, as I’d soon learn, the mixing of influences is a key part of life in a region that is Indonesia’s spiritual heart.

My journey through Central Java took me from polytheistic kingdoms to batik villages, but there was only one place to begin: Borobudur, one of the ancient world’s most spectacular architectural achievements, albeit one that is often misunderstood.

“You need to stop calling it a temple,” Naroni corrected me. “It is not, as it lacks a hall of prayer.” Instead, he informed me, it is classified as a monumental shrine to the Buddha – though I preferred his more figurative description: “A Buddhist bible in stone.”

nirvana, a state of transcendence, symbolised here by a terraced mountain. It is the perfect embodiment of the universe according to Buddhist cosmology, and as I looked down on the ninth-century edifice below, its cosmic proportions – all 2,500 sqm –seemed fittingly vast.

“Borobudur’s design is a representation of the Buddhist stages for attaining nirvana”

The design of Borobudur is a physical representation of the stages for attaining

Most visitors tend to focus on Borobudur’s top terraces and the photogenic bell-shaped stupas where meditative Buddha statues are framed by breathtaking views of the surrounding Kedu valley. Yet I found these were eclipsed by the circular pilgrim trek to the summit. Meant to recreate an ascending path to nirvana, it snakes through long, relief-adorned corridors spanning the monument’s multiple tiers. Some 1,500 elaborately carved panels extend for more than a kilometre, forming the largest

Wild at heart

Explore the Republic of the Congo’s remote reserves to meet some of Central Africa’s rarest and most charismatic wildlife, including lowland gorillas and forest elephants

Words Andy Skillen

My blinking became ever more intense. A bead of perspiration had somehow bypassed the brim of my cap and cunningly navigated a barrier of DEET and sunscreen to reach my left eye. Despite repeated attempts to wipe it away, my similarly sweat-soaked sleeve did little to relieve the stinging. And if there was one moment when I really, really needed my vision to work perfectly, it was then, deep in the Ndezhi Forest at the edge of Odzala-Kokoua National Park, in the remote north-western reaches of the Republic of the Congo. Gazing briefly skywards through sweatinduced tears, I could make out tessellated treetops slotted tightly together in a secret game of arborealTetris, allowing just enough light to reach the jungle floor for me to see where I was putting my feet.

Ahead of me strode Zeferein, my tracker, a quiet man in wellies who for the previ-

ous two hours had been hacking a path through dense undergrowth, following a trail of invisible signs that – we hoped –would betray the movements of our quarry. Nonchalantly negotiating every fallen tree, twisted vine and snagging branch, he had pushed on relentlessly through the tangling vegetation, occasionally pausing to listen for clues amid the symphony of cicadas – and giving me just enough time to catch up.

Then he came to a definitive halt. Signalling that I should don my facemask, he pointed to the trunk of a nearby tree. Peering up, I could make out a dark shape descending rapidly, limbs akimbo. As it slid into the foliage below, it grunted to as-yet invisible (to me, at least) others.

us, he grabbed my shoulders and pointed through the verdant frame he’d just crafted. Lifting the camera, pausing only to scoop out a drowsy bee that had been exploring my viewfinder, I adjusted the focus – and locked onto a mesmerising pair of deep brown eyes. I was gazing into the shining black face of a gentle, critically endangered western lowland gorilla.

“Locked onto a pair of deep brown eyes, I was gazing into the shining black face of a lowland gorilla”

Zeferein swiftly switched modes from super-sensed ape-seeker to arboriculturalist. Pulling out secateurs to make rapid yet precise adjustments to the foliage around

Over the course of the next hour, Zeferein effortlessly anticipated the movements of the gorilla group I had been allocated to follow that morning. Through a combination of nimble pruning and enthusiastic pointing, he ensured that my viewfinder was filled with a succession of fig-devouring high-rise climbers, vinewalking silverbacks, tumbling newborns and root-mining juveniles.We continued to sweep through the forest until I had accumulated a treasure-trove of images and

Living history

Stories of early American colonies and revolution are being retold anew in Virginia’s Historic Triangle – importantly, including tales told by Native American and Black voices

Words Jacqui Agate

Winter held Colonial Williamsburg in an iron grip. It had flayed the leaves from the old Compton Oak on Nicholas Street, and chilled the visitors strolling its streets, their collars turned up against the icy wind. Still, the sky was milky blue over the world’s largest living history museum – a neat matrix of buildings that whisks visitors back to the second half of the 18th century, when the air was thick with revolution.

I was striding along Duke of Gloucester Street, the site’s main artery, to meet Trish Thomas of Williamsburg Walking Tours in front of Bruton Parish Church.That prim, red-brick structure with a whitewashed bell tower loomed over us as we chatted.

“This church is 309 years old,” saidTrish, who has spent some 30 years guiding history tours in south-eastVirginia. “If you hear the church bell ring, it’s the same one thatWashington, Jefferson, Rochambeau and Lafayette all heard when they were in town.”

Williamsburg was the capital of the Virginia Colony from 1699 until 1779 – and its bones still creak with history.The first permanent colonial English settlement in the Americas was established in Jamestown, less than 10km away, in 1607 – but a series of devastating fires drove colonial leaders to look for a new seat of government.Williamsburg, then known as the Middle Plantation, was their chosen site – not least because

it was home to the renowned College of William and Mary, founded in 1693, whose students would include future presidents Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe.

“In the late 17th century, a lot of rich and powerful people had moved to Middle Plantation,” explainedTrish. “And when the rich and powerful want something, they get it.”

Later, in the 18th century, the city became a hotbed for revolution. In 1781, the home of lawyer George Wythe became thenGeneral GeorgeWashington’s headquarters before the Siege of Yorktown. This pivotal battle, fought under 20km to the east, effectively ended the Revolutionary War and won the former colonies’ independence from Britain.

Today, 89 original structures from the 18th and early 19th centuries are preserved across Colonial Williamsburg’s 121 hectares, alongside more than 500 faithful recreations built on original foundations. The ambitious plan to revive the colonial city was hatched in the 1920s by Reverend Dr WAR Goodwin, then rector of Bruton Parish Church. He enlisted the help and financial might of American philanthropist John D Rockefeller Jr and his wife, Abby, who contributed large sums of money to the project. Over the course of a decade, Boston architecture firm Perry, Shaw & Hepburn then painstakingly resurrected the past in wood, bricks and mortar.

Over the decades that followed, the recreated colonial capital became one of southeastVirginia’s premier tourist attractions. By the 21st century, though, visitor numbers were in decline, and the downturn was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

But my visit caught Williamsburg and its gargantuan living history museum – plus Virginia’s wider ‘HistoricTriangle’, includingYorktown and Jamestown – in the throes of a renaissance. America’s fast-approaching semiquincentennial is reviving interest in the historic site, and a renewed commitment to inclusive storytelling is enticing a new demographic.Trish is optimistic: “With the 250th anniversary of the nation coming up in 2026, it could get very busy again.”

Together we wandered through the site, past porticoed taverns and a stout brick courthouse. I ducked into a recreated milliner’s shop, where a bonneted woman sewed a mantua – a kind of 18th-century dress –surrounded by hats like French pastries. Back on the street, a throng of red-faced runners fromWilliam and Mary huffed past us – a reminder that modern life continues lurching forwards outside the time capsule of ColonialWilliamsburg.

Eventually we came to a stop before the recreated Capitol building, a formidable structure with a pair of conical towers and a flag-bearing clock tower that pierces the sky like a stake. In front billowed the Grand Union Flag – the predecessor of the modern Star-Spangled Banner, featuring the Union Jack in the canton.

“When Rockefeller came to town there was no building – just a plaque that said: the Capitol used to be here,”Trish said. “He wanted to bring the building back to this RevolutionaryWar city.”

“Over the course of a decade, the past was painstakingly resurrected in wood, bricks and mortar”

There’s something uncanny but hugely enticing about the recreated town – the way it’s dropped into the back alleys of time, suspended somewhere between the past and the present. It’s like a working movie set for a perpetually unfinished film.

Over the years, Colonial Williamsburg has been criticised for painting a rose-tinted view of the American Revolution, and for telling a very whitecentric version of history. Certainly, exploring the trim, recreated buildings and watching Revolutionary leaders walk the streets like spectres, the monstrous brutality of colonialism feels sometimes diminished. However, though George Washington and co still currently dominate the narrative, Trish assured me that efforts to share

Picture perfect

Following in the footsteps of Caspar David Friedrich, born 250 years ago, reveals the dramatic landscapes and cultural touchstones that inspired Germany’s greatest Romantic painter

Words Andrew Eames

When I was a young undergraduate, way back in the mists of time, my cohort included one friend whom we all admired. His name was Mudd. He was witty and idiosyncratic, and he thought deeply about both literature and the wider universe, while the rest of us were still pondering how to boil an egg. He was different, too, in his choice of pictures to hang on his wall. Most us tacked

up typically immature stuff – it was the era of that infamous poster of the lithe tennis player’s rear – but his rear-view image was rather different. It depicted a frock-coated figure standing atop a mountain outcrop, gazing out over a fantastical carpet of mist pierced by rocky pinnacles, trees and distant mountains. It looked like an album cover, and for us it came to symbolise the point we were at in our lives: looking forward into an uncertain future, still mostly obscured, having climbed one big peak – egg-boiling notwithstanding – but with many more ahead.

Fast-forward some 45 years to this past winter, when I found myself standing statuesque on a rocky outcrop in those self-same mountains, looking out over that self-same mist pierced by pinnacles, trees and distant mountains. It seemed that little had changed since Mudd’s favourite Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog supposedly stood there, contemplating… we know not what. For me, all those decades on, re-enacting that moment of still contemplation was the culmination of a personal pilgrimage.

A pilgrimage in the footsteps of an artist I’d not heard of back then, but of whom I know a great deal more now.

ORIGIN STORY

“A frock-coated figure atop an outcrop gazed out over a fantastical carpet of fog”

Caspar David Friedrich was born on 5 September 1774 in the small town of Greifswald, on the coast of the Baltic. His origin in what’s now eastern Germany (and, therefore, behind the Iron Curtain for nearly half a century), together with the dubious distinction of having been lauded by the Nazis for his celebration of the nation’s landscapes, has hindered the spread of his reputation. But that is being remedied this year with huge shows in Hamburg, Berlin and Dresden, with events and exhibitions in Greifswald, and with a massively increased number of hikers setting out into the Elbe Sandstone Mountains south-east of Dresden to search out places that he most famously recreated in paint.

I know Germany pretty well, but I had never heard of Greifswald. Arriving there from Berlin after a long jogtrot of a

Scene stealer (this spread, clockwise from top left) Caspar David Friedrich sketched this self-portrait in 1800, when he was about 25 and living in Dresden; the artist’s best-known painting, Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, incorporates disparate geographical elements in the Elbe Sandstone Mountains south-east of Dresden; the distinctive Baroque spire of St Nikolai looms over the well-preserved old centre of Greifswald, Friedrich’s birthplace; (previous spread) the dramatic, wooded jumble of rock outcrops known as the Bastei inspired not only Friedrich but countless other artists including JMW Turner

Peak beauty Sunrise, before the crowds arrive, is one of the best times to see Moraine Lake in Banff National Park

TRIP PLANNER:

Alberta, Canada

Beyond the peaks and glaciers of the Rockies, discover rich Indigenous culture, dinosaur fossils, vast prairies, forests and deserts on your ideal journey through this multifaceted province

Words Jennifer Malloy

Sacred south

Explore historic Indigenous monuments and scenic valleys in Alberta’s southern reaches

Best for: UNESCO World Heritage sites, Indigenous culture, history and nature

Why go: Experience a side of Alberta that many travellers miss, from the spectacular hoodoos in the Milk River Valley to the quieter, less-tramped trails of Castle Provincial Park, immersing yourself in Blackfoot culture and tradition

Route: Diamond Valley; Crowsnest Pass; Waterton Lakes National Park; Áísínai’pi/Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park; HeadSmashed-In-Buffalo Jump; Okotoks; Calgary

For insights into the long history of Alberta’s First Nations peoples, trace a loop south from Calgary through dramatic landscapes that have been used, shaped and adorned by Blackfoot and other Indigenous communities over many millennia. And though road-tripping is the way to reach off-thebeaten-track destinations, be ready to lace up walking shoes or grab paddles to immerse yourself in the wilder reaches.

Hire a car at Calgary International Airport and head south down Highway 22 – officially named CowboyTrail – dawdling through Diamond Valley, a swathe of verdant farmland, microscopic towns and rolling foothills with the Kananaskis mountain range above the distant horizon.That road ends at the junction with Crowsnest Highway, leading west to its namesake pass, home to a collection of tiny hamlets.The road to Crowsnest Pass cuts through rubble ridges – the eerie remains of the Frank Slide, where Canada’s deadliest landslide buried dozens of people in 1903. En route, enjoy an experiential lesson in Albertan mining history at the Bellevue Underground Mine. Spend the night in a rustic cabin and learn about the pass’s murky and murderous Prohibition past. Return east along Highway 3 to embrace the wild by camping in Castle Provincial Park, paddling and fishing on Beaver

Mines Lake, hiking upTable Mountain or cooling down with a dip in Castle Falls.Then veer south on Highway 6 to reach Waterton Lakes National Park which, together with neighbouring Glacier National Park across the US border in Montana, is a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

Spend a few nights at the Prince ofWales Hotel on the hill and explore uncrowded hiking trails that lead to cerulean lakes, ochre-glazed canyons and rocky ridgelines. Don’t miss nearbyWaterton Park, where the restaurants and boutiques buzz in summer, and get out onto Waterton Lake on a canoe, kayak, stand-up paddleboard, or on a sightseeing trip withWaterton Shoreline Cruise Co. Drive east through rural Alberta on Highways 5 and 501 to reach Milk River, a put-in point for a multi-day canoe voyage along the chalky Milk River to Áísínai’pi, the World Heritage site also known as Writing-on-Stone Provincial Park, where beautifully preserved engravings and paintings made on the sandstone cliffs around 4,000 years ago offer glimpses into the sacred history of the Siksikáíítsitapi (Blackfoot Nation, also known as Niitsítapi).

Return north-west on Highways 4 then 3 to HeadSmashed-In-Buffalo Jump.The Interpretive Centre at thisWorld Heritage site reveals how, for some 6,000 years, the Blackfoot combined their knowledge of the environment and bison behaviour to stampede herds off the cliff, using the resulting carcasses to provide food, shelter and clothing. Sleep in traditional Native American fashion at the nearby Buffalo RockTipi Camp on the nearby Piikani Nation Reserve before heading back to Calgary.

spread: Alamy; this spread: Alamy; Shutterstock; Michael Olsen

Spirit of the lakes

Learn more about Blackfoot traditions at Waterton Lakes National Park

Coral conservation

Initiatives around the world are helping protect reefs hit by climate change and other threats

MOLINERE UNDERWATER SCULPTURE PARK

An internationally renowned exemplar of both art and conservation, the recently expanded Molinere Underwater Sculpture Park now features some 100 works scattered over an 800-square-metre swathe of the Caribbean seabed. Created by artist Jason deCaires Taylor in 2006, two years after Hurricane Ivan devastated the area, the park was augmented last year with the addition of around 30 new figures. Travellers can admire these pieces by scuba-diving among them, snorkelling above them or gazing down from a glass-bottomed boat. Gradually colonised by corals, the figures also draw divers and snorkellers away from fragile natural reefs nearby. A second submarine sculpture park is planned for the nearby island of Carriacou.

GRENADA ARTIFICIAL REEF PROJECT

Founded in 2013 by Grenada’s dive community, this

project installs pyramid-shaped artificial reefs made from breezeblocks on barren patches of the sea floor, aiming to counter the impacts of climate change, storm damage and overfishing.Around 80 pyramids were in place last year, hosting 14 species of coral. Lying just off Grand Anse Beath, they’re easy to reach by snorkelling from the shore.

Volunteers help out by counting species, cleaning and maintain the pyramids, and transplanting coral. Visitors – including children as young as 10 – can take part, either snorkelling or scuba-diving, with sessions typically running between May and December. grenadaartificialreef.com

GRENADA CORAL REEF FOUNDATION

This charity works with Grenadian communities, providing education for budding marine biologists as well as establishing and maintaining coral nurseries, undertaking restoration work and research projects, and offering courses on reef restoration and the use of artificial reef technologies. Both locals and scuba-qualified tourists are welcome to volunteer. grenadacoralreef.org

REEF CONSERVATION IN NORTH QUEENSLAND

The Forever Reef Project in north-east Australia is the world’s first living coral biobank, collecting a specimen of each of the planet’s coral species for a ‘coral ark’ that can be used to repopulate reefs in the future – an insurance policy in the face of rising ocean temperatures and coral bleaching events. So far, 179 of the Great Barrier Reef’s 415 hard coral species have been collected. foreverreef.org

Locally owned tour operator Dreamtime Dive & Snorkel offers Reef Recovery Days on which science-minded travellers help marine biologists attach coral fragments to Reef Stars, aiding regeneration. Cultural guides are on hand to give insights into the region’s 60,000 years of traditional ecological reef management. dreamtimedive.com/reef-recovery-day

Citizens of the Great Barrier Reef recruits armchair scientists across the world to identify corals in tens of thousands of images, informing the work of scientists and reef managers. greatreefcensus.org

CENTRAL CARIBBEAN MARINE INSTITUTE CAYMAN ISLANDS

The long-established Central Caribbean Marine Institute (CCMI) studies the reef system of Little Cayman to learn how corals can rebound from and become more resilient to stress. This research is possible because this reef remains relatively healthy, thanks to the island’s small human population, the absence of commercial fishing, and successful conservation efforts and government initiatives protecting key reef species such as Nassau grouper and the wider ecosystem.

CCMI is working to improve coral restoration techniques; better understand how depth, heat and disease affect coral reef resilience; and use DNA testing to identify the most resilient corals. Visitors can tour the institute, and qualified divers are welcome to help with data collection such as counting and photographing coral.

You can discover more from the comfort of your own home, too –underwater talks by CCMI scientists are live-streamed on YouTube. reefresearch. org/what-we-do/research/healthy-reefs

THE RED SEA SAUDI ARABIA

As part of the wider The Red Sea project, AI is being employed in the preservation and protection of one of the world’s largest coral reef systems. Using AI robotics, scientists are monitoring more than 300 coral sites – and analysing them 92% faster than would otherwise be possible. The discovery of new corals able to survive rising sea temperatures is paving the way for preservation and restoration locally, as well as in other regions around the globe.

CORAL GARDENERS FRENCH POLYNESIA

SUNLIFE CORAL RESTORATION MAURITIUS

Sunlife, a small group of five sustainably designed luxury resorts in Mauritius, has launched coral restoration projects at its Long Beach and La Pirogue properties, offering hands-on environmental education programming for kids and adults.

EMBRATUR BRAZIL

Not all sustainability efforts made by the tourism industry are visible to the public –so we want to showcase a policy introduced by Embratur, the national tourism board of Brazil, that we’d love to see embraced more widely – giving non-material gifts at international events. Instead of a swag bag containing, say, a pen, notepad or flash drive, visitors to Brazil’s trade-show booths are given certificates declaring the recipient a ‘coral reef tutor’, sponsoring the regrowth of a broken piece of coral. Fragments of reef are nurtured before being replanted onto the barrier reef on the Brazilian coast, part of a partnership with a local start-up, authorities, fisherfolk and their families. By the end of 2024, it’s anticipated that 800 corals will have been transplanted back into the reef off Porto de Galinhas, 60km south of Recife.

Perfect for encouraging kids of all ages to engage with conservation, Coral Gardeners’ Adopt-A-Coral programme allows you to sponsor the rehabilitation of a fragment of a species of climate-resilient coral.After naming your baby coral, you’ll receive a digital card and real-time email updates on its progress in the nursery before it’s transplanted out on a reef. Since its 2017 launch on Mo'orea, nearTahiti, more than 100,000 coral specimens have been planted on 11 reefs – 69,890 in 2023 alone – with a 82% survival rate. Also in 2023, Coral Gardeners opened its first international branch in Fiji, employing five Fijian gardeners – and has already planted more than 11,000 corals. Importantly, local tribal leaders have given their permission and blessing to the project. coralgardeners. org/products/adopt-a-coral

La Pirogue Marine Research Center uses a micro-fragmenting technique to encourage quicker growth of new coral in its land-based nursery for transplanting back onto the reef. The results show corals healing 25 to 40 times faster than they would naturally on the reef and more than 2,000 fragments have been replanted since 2020. Guests can also learn about coral and other marine life, and contribute to the reef through Sunlife’s ‘adopt a coral’ initiative.

CHEMICAL SUNSCREEN BANS VARIOUS, WORLDWIDE

Many sunscreens contain ingredients such as oxybenzone and octinoxate that are toxic to the corals, plants and fish we love to admire on snorkelling forays. Unfortunately, ‘reef safe’ labelling isn’t regulated, so it’s critical to read the ingredients list before buying your sunscreen. The sale (and, in some cases, use) of sunscreens containing such chemicals has been banned in destinations including Palau, Hawaii, Aruba, Bonaire, the US Virgin Islands and ecotourism reserves in Mexico. To choose reef-safe sunscreens, look for non-nano mineral-based products containing zinc oxide and titanium dioxide – they’re good for sensitive skin, too.

Caribbean nature secrets

The many different habitats of these sun-soaked islands and the pellucid, balmy waters that lap their shores host a kaleidoscopic array of natural wonders

Compiled by Mark Stratton

Powder-blue iguanas; huge manta rays pampered by peckish wrasse; macaws with the rainbow plumage of a pride flag: the Caribbean isn’t all beach resorts and sunloungers, reggae and rum. Nature flourishes amid myriad habitats across these diverse islands. Scuba divers have long finned Carib-

bean waters in search of spine-tingling shark encounters, while countless migrating birds pass through on an avian superhighway. As the following pages reveal, this is a hotspot of endemism, home to rare critters found nowhere else, such as the ‘mountain chicken’ – actually a frog – and it is a last refuge for many globally threatened species.

ST KITTS & NEVIS

Old Misery

Whoever coined the phrase ‘Mount Misery’ either wasn’t a fan of volcanic hikes or was a frustrated plantation owner unable to utilise the fertile soils of Mount Liamuiga to grow sugarcane because the terrain was too rugged. Regardless of how this 1156m stratovolcano, the highest peak on St Kitts, got its name, its inaccessibility has ensured its species-rich rainforest and cloud-forest have remained intact. Today, Liamuiga is a six- to seven-hour hike yielding exuberant tropical forests and giddying views from the 1km-wide crater rim. On the way up, stop to breathe and watch vervet monkeys, brightly-patterned butterflies slaloming between giant buttressed kapok trees, and among the island’s feathered friends, flycatchers and hummingbirds. Miserable, this special mountain is not.

And don’t miss … undersea Nevis

Nevis, the smaller cousin to Saint Kitts, is beautiful enough above water. Undersea it has wonderful diving with sites such as the Devil’s Caverns and Clyde’s Reef as well as volcanic vents and wrecks.The corals are effervescent and alive with turtles, moray eels, nurse sharks and rays.

TRINIDAD

Bat caves

However much you’re thirsty for a sundowner, hold off on the G&Ts –instead visit Mount Tamana and experience the spectacle of tens of thousands of bats streaming out of the peak’s vast cave systems like departing souls. Millions of animals of eleven different bat species

inhabit these caverns in Trinidad’s central mountain region.Two principal caves can be accessed with a guide during the day –but take care, and hold your nose: the floors beneath the bat roosts are slippery with guano. Pale spear-nosed and Trinidadian funnel-eared bats are among those roosting in the caves, a straightforward 30-minute walk from the nearest road.

And don’t miss...

Asa Wright Nature Centre

This much-lauded research station and lodge is run by a non-profit land trust established in 1967 in the Arima Valley. Thanks to long-term habitat protection, some 180 species have been recorded here, including white-bearded manakins and squirrelcuckoos. Day tours are available.

Tainan & Taipei, Taiwan

Explore the teahouses, temples and treasures of Taiwan’s current and former capitals, just in time to help historic Tainan celebrate its 400th anniversary

This year marks the 400th anniversary of the founding of Tainan, Taiwan’s former capital on the south-western coast. In 1624, the Dutch East India Company established their presence on Taiwan (then Dutch Formosa) with a base in Anping, a leafy suburb of the present-day city.Tainan remained the capital for more than 200 years while the Dutch, the Spanish, a Chinese-Japanese pirate king called Koxinga and the Chinese battled it out for control of the island.

The Qing emperor emerged victorious in 1683, and in the late 19th century moved

the capital to its present-day location in Taipei in an administrative shake-up; it was also prompted by the fact that the north had replaced the south in importance for trade.

When Japan ruledTaiwan from 1895 to 1945, it left enduring traces in the beautiful heritage architecture that was constructed as well as cultural norms such as high public trust and a low crime rate.

Tainan 400 is a city government-led yearlong party, with food fairs, cultural festivals and a special commemorative craft beer by local brewer Taiwind Beer.This focus on Taiwan’s Dutch origins is a reflection of how confident the country has become in embracing all of the cultures that have played a role in shapingTaiwanese identity.

Fundamental to this isTaiwan’s evolution into a thriving democracy and open society, following decades of autocratic rule under the Kuomintang (KMT), the losing side in the Chinese Civil War, who fled here in 1949.The first presidential elections were only held in 1996.

WhileTaipei is the top tourist destination, both cities deserve attention – their historical status has ensured that the streets and alleyways are rich with sites of religious and cultural importance. A convenient bullet train link also means they are easy to

22.9997° N, 120.2270°

Tainan lays claim to a number of Taiwanese dishes, but one of the more unusual of its culinary inventions is the macabrely named ‘coffin bread’ (guan cai ban). This hearty eastwest fusion is similar to a Western bread bowl. A thick slab of fried or toasted bread is hollowed out, filled with a creamy soup and a spoonful of vegetables, and covered back over, with the top of the slice making it look like a lidded coffin. You can still find it in the market where it was invented in the 1940s (No 180, Kangle Market).

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