Four hundred years ago it would have been the smell of grilled heretics rather than croissants wafting to my nostrils in Toledo’s Zocodover Plaza. The spirit of the Inquisition has never completely left. ]]> Take away the tourists and souvenir shops and you could easily be back in the glory days of Felipe II, whose haughty features sneer down from innumerable Velasquez canvases, surrounded by bejeweled Infantas, priests and court dwarfs. Nestled in an oxbow of the river Tagros, the town clusters about its cathedral with its back to the modern world.
Entering through the great Nueva de Bisagra gate, whose double-headed eagle looks like a prop from an old Hammer film, you’re immediately thrown into a maze of narrow streets. The medieval
buildings have that unique blend of heavy gothic softened with Arabic elegance from Moorish times that is found across Spain. All streets lead to the cathedral. The poet Garcilaso de la Vega described Toledo as “a clear and illustrious nightmare,” and this building is at the heart of the uneasy dream, a distillation of many disturbed nights. Its darkly glittering interior made me think of Francis Bacon’s screaming Popes. It is all gold and jewels, ancient ironwork, enraptured faces in stone and paintings of saints flickering in the candlelight.
The crowded main street, the Calle del Angel, with its trinket shops and tapas bars, leads you to the Monasterio de San Juan de Los Reyes on the western edge of the city.
Here there is a spectacular view across a parched landscape, and a welcome cool breeze. The walls of the 15th century Franciscan monastery are decorated (if that’s the right word) with the fetters of Christian prisoners of the Moors. Most modern cities have such relics hidden away in museums or vaults, sanitising their past into guidebook versions of history.
But I think Toledo would agree with William Faulkner: “The past is never dead, it’s not even past.” Once a stalwart defender of the faith, Toledo in its old age refuses to let go of the old ghosts. Stakes and leg irons define the city more than trinket shops.
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Barred Owls, Great Blue Herons, Peregrine Falcon, Wild Turkeys, Tundra Swans, Golden Eagles, and many, many more.
appear in the nest -- a bit startling if you’re not expecting them. 
from balconies and the lamps hanging in the portico of Liston, a popular outdoor terrace, are dimmed with a purple glow. 
the ground below... woe to the cleanup crews who must come later! Immediately after, the crowd surges en masse to the parade route to hear the triumphant music of praise. 
away from home. Built for the Hydrometeorology Institute in Murmansk, Russia, and painted blue, it measures a shade over 71 meters long. 
socks and hats sporting “79 degrees north”, and to get that important stamp proving we’d set foot here. There is a rubber stamp in the post office lobby, where you can ruin a passport page yourself, and the one facing it, with too much ink.
ridges, leaping from floe to floe. We watched, mesmerised, as the cub miscalculated the jumps, plunging its plump rump into the freezing water off the starboard side. It remained unfazed -- the thick insulation of blubber means that the polar bear can endure down to -40ºC without increasing its metabolic rate. 
My chilled glass of Pinot Grigio carefully set on the starboard rail of the S.V. Shawmanee barely shimmied as the 65-foot ketch silently sliced through Washington’s coastal waters in Bellingham Bay. Designated the “office photographer” for the August outing, I’d skittered fore and aft capturing each of the 42 mates onboard, and now a large harbor seal bobbed its nose playfully in front of my camera.]]>
Shawmanee Charters, based out of Squalicum Harbor Marina, Bellingham, Washington, is owned and operated by Capt. Don Beattie and his First Mate and wife, Kathy. They offer chartered sailings ranging from 3-hour tours to multi-day vacations and are available for weddings, reunions, corporate retreats, employee appreciation days, graduations, and church or social gatherings. Passengers have the option of providing their own food and beverages or arranging catering 
services.
The islands are sheltered from the Pacific Ocean by the rugged Olympic peninsula and pristine Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Shawmanee’s deck offered a 360-degree unobstructed view of nature’s breathtaking splendor. 
A Perentie lizard moves ponderously across the riverbed, its forked tongue flicking in and out, tasting the air, looking for food. The quiet whir and click of digital camera shutters is the only sound on a breathlessly hot afternoon as tourists capture memories of a day out in the Australian bush. Ormiston Gorge is Central Australia at its unbeatable best.
cloudless sky; the odd nosy wallaby daring to approach in search of discarded tidbits of food. The flora is both tenacious and delicate, sending roots deep down into the soil to reach water while displaying exquisite flowers after a fall of rain. 
In Ecuador, Most travelers hop on the 40-minute commuter jet from Quito to the coastal city of Manta, but we chose the more adventurous 7-hour overland route. Through the Andes mountains. In a taxi. After all, why come this far and take the easy way out?
Rounding a sharp hairpin turn we found a carving of the menacing face of El Diablo chiseled into a 20-foot-high slab of rock by an anonymous sculptor, miles from any town. 
Mayans, who believed that the cave was an entry to the underworld.
coated in white calcium carbonate. The cave gets its name from her, for her skeleton is now more stone than bone. Nearby lays a child's skull, grossly distorted now by its mineral encrustation. Were these the final desperate sacrifices?
A few years ago, my colleague returned from her business trip to Bogota, the capital city of Colombia, and mentioned that she was accompanied by at least one bodyguard whenever she ventured out of the hotel. My recent visit was unplanned, and in place of a bodyguard, I spent a day touring the city with a personal guide and a driver recommended by the hotel. Bogota turned out to be such a delightful stop that it has since become one of my favorite destinations on Earth.
Family” and the inflated “Mona Lisa,” and remarkable pieces by other artists from his treasured collection. The museum’s courtyard is quite enchanting as well. 
improvised from the circular bases of unused flag stands. Their older brothers toss caps, and sometimes their smaller siblings, in the air.
were members of an ancient society dedicated to protecting the final resting place of the Holy Grail. 
out of the rock. Taking your life in your hands, you must negotiate the crumbling—and frequently missing—steps and centuries of accumulated rubble in pitch darkness. 
start your downhill walk toward Berghotel Schwarenbach. Even on the wanderweg you may be passed by families sledding down this trail to go to Lake Daubensee or Berghotel Schwarenbach. 
Kandersteg. As you descend, you will cross the ski slopes of the Sunnbuel ski area. Look out for skiers coming down the hill. 
restaurants you pass. Every on-street parking spot is taken, cars with their hazard lights blinking are double-parked everywhere, and valets are busy whisking even more cars away.
encountered nothing larger than a lizard, but this time, the escort’s purpose had become clear… we were in the animal’s domain.
guide, spotted a group of lions in a thicket, and we pulled up for a closer look, careful not to make sudden movements. One by one, the lions emerged and gathered just feet from our vehicle, undisturbed by our presence.
On that day’s game drive we were graced with photogenic groups of giraffe, elephant, impala and baboons until a radio report of a lion sighting led us to a male and female enjoying a siesta. Our guide explained that lions rest most of the time when they aren’t hunting, digesting their latest kill and conserving energy. As he was speaking, the male mounted the female, shuddered once and dismounted as she let out a cry. It all took perhaps five seconds. Apparently foreplay is not part of the lion’s mating ritual. We sighted several cheetahs later in the drive as we headed back to camp.
During dinner, a group of Maasai employees entered the room in a procession of drumming and singing. They are a very welcoming culture.