Ali's Adventures in Africa: In Pursuit of a Bear

Greetings to all following the Covid pandemic that is now history to most of us. For me, it was a turning point and I find myself moving in another direction and onto new adventures. When Covid reared its head, I was working for a humanitarian organisation based in Iraq but with programmes in North East Syria that we could visit only sporadically. I tried to get back to Cyprus but airports and airlines were closing rapidly and the prospect of a 48 hour transit in Cairo seemed pretty dire. Instead, I asked a good friend in Beverley, East Yorks if I could stay for a couple of weeks or so until Covid was over.

Needless to say, Liz and Keith made me so welcome I stayed. After my humanitarian contract ended I split my time between the NHS and dog walking. This was two years ago. Since then I have met Steve, who shares a love of travelling and we have just embarked on a 6 month tour.

We visited Split in Croatia where we found a lovely Airbnb in a grand old house, on the third floor with no lift but a great view that you could pretend to admire whilst catching your breath.

I had never been to Croatia before so I was blown away by the ancient architecture and lovely quiet beaches which we had virtually to ourselves

We were sailing in a flotilla around the Croatian Islands including the wildlife national parks. The sailing was great with loads of islands and enough unmarked rocks to keep you on your toes. Three boats hit rocks whilst we were there, but no photos of sinking ships just our lead boat flying past us at 7.5 knots.

I took the opportunity to scale a random pole left in the middle of Kornati Island and look out for any marauding pirates but they were all hiding.

Another challenge for the uninitiated was squeezing under the bridge. Not everyone makes it. The week previous, a professional skipper demasted his boat after being distracted by the boat selling oysters and mussels at the side of the bridge.

On our way round the various harbours and quaysides, you see a variety of 'projects' and doer uppers. This is a beauty, currently in Zaton if anyone fancies the challenge, pm me for tel number 😀

After a week of sailing, we had a couple of days in Zadar, another ancient Croatian city with beautiful old buildings, churches and museums. For some reason, we spent quite a long time watching the many teams of young, nubile, half dressed majorettes throwing their sticks around. It was a European competition apparently. In the harbour, there were hundreds of divers who were spending their weekend diving for plastic dropped by irresponsible yachties during the sailing season. It didn't seem appropriate to admit to having just sailed in the area for a week and that Steve had thrown his glasses in the sea.

You will be delighted to know that we did partake of some culture and went to a Picasso ceramic exhibition which was interesting in that who ever knew Picasso had done ceramics. Great posters anyway as shown below.

After the strenuous time in Croatia, we treated ourselves to some time in Cyprus. Andrew, Pagon and Steve's beautiful grandaughter Roni came to visit and she developed a taste for building sandcastles.

Famagusta (Gazi Magusa) is the ghost town in Cyprus between the Northern Turkish Cyprus and Southern Greek Cyprus. It has been a no go zone since 1974 and has been looted of everything of value. The Turks have decided to open it up and you can now hire the most uncomfortable bikes in the world for 75p and cycle round what was a fabulous tourist resort.

There were 150,000 hotel beds available and numerous bars and restaurants which have all fallen into decay and ruin. See below Smokey Joe's. Where is he now? Everyone was told to leave temporarily in case of invasion and they never went back, leaving everything they owned. Really sad and quite ghoullish to go round.

Kate came to visit, so we took her for a four hour boat trip to experience the best of the Mediterranean. We caught fish, which wiggled as seen below, we swam in the beautiful warm seas and we saw the infamous wreck Xenobia as the seas were so clear. We finished with lunch and the well known 'energy drink' - Zivania.