Where next? From the Caribbean to the Amazon!

November 19, 2019, West Newbury, MA — I’m still home. I don’t leave again until next month, but it’s time to update the Passepartout HOME page with fresh images. In the past when I’ve published a new ‘edition’ of the blog, I’ve filled the header with photos from my most recent trip — because I don’t have any images from the upcoming trip, do I? This first post of Part 5 is a mix of old and purloined.

To fit with the verdant Caribe & Amazon theme, here’s a photo I took last April at the Casela Nature Park on Mauritius, off the east coast of Africa. There are mountains on some Caribbean islands — even if there aren’t any along the Amazon.

So, the story behind the three images in the new header, at the top of the HOME page:

Vizcaya is a spectacular estate in Miami that was included on my very first Viking ‘excursion,’ when I had an extra day there before my first World Cruise began. As you may remember, if you’ve been traveling with me for nearly two years, the inaugural Viking World Cruise was also my inaugural cruise, since I’d never been on any cruise before — let alone one that lasted 5 months. Honestly, I’ll never relive the excitement I felt that first day in Miami. So I thought starting off with a World Cruise #1–Day #1 photo was appropriate.

The center image is obviously an old passport. I’ve had several — I think I’m on my sixth. Last time I paid a bit more for a jumbo 52-pager that would hold more passport stamps, so I wouldn’t have to renew so soon. I was economizing. Okay, that’s a joke.

The top right photo was taken at the Castillo San Cristóbal in Puerto Rico, last January. That was on my first excursion on my second world cruise, a walking tour of Old San Juan. On my upcoming trip I embark in mid-December and disembark in mid-January in San Juan. This time, my first shore excursion will be a walk through the El Yunque Rainforest, after which I will ‘savor the taste of local fritters while relaxing in the shade of palm trees.’

Here’s an award-winning photo I lifted from the web — taken in the Peruvian Amazon. To see more stunning travel images, visit https://www.afar.com/magazine/photo-awards-winners

Up till now, Passepartout hasn’t published any of her old photos, but I came across this one. It’s from Cuba in 2010, on my first concert tour with the Yale Alumni Chorus. I’m a member of the chorus, affectionately called YAC, though I’m not an alum — I’m a friend of a friend of a Whiffenpoof.

I took it with a ... wait for it ... a camera: a Nikon Cool-Pix auto-focus. Now, as most of you know, I use only my iPhone 8-Plus.

I won’t go to Cuba on this upcoming trip, but this is a Caribe shot:

Havana is full of once-elegant buildings that are victims of the tropical climate and the neglect of Communist and Soviet rule since 1959. Some are only facades with nothing behind them. Back in its Frank Sinatra/Meyer Lansky pre-revolution heyday, the city must have been gorgeous.

There’ll be lots of equatorial architecture, people, landscape and wildlife (piranhas, anyone?) to see on my upcoming voyage. I’m happy to have you along with me on this new Passepartout adventure! #

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